That'll Be the Day (2007), page 12
part #3 of Champion Street Market Series
The sight of all this blaze of colour made Betty feel drab in her grey linsey-wool skirt and white blouse, although she’d never felt it right for a flower seller to compete with the glory of her precious chrysanthemums, her beautiful and proud daffs and tulips.
As the weeks and months had slipped by, Betty had become more and more depressed. Christmas came and went and apart from doing well on the stall selling dozens of holly wreaths and pots of cyclamen and hyacinths, there was little in her life to cheer her. The weather hadn’t helped, being the coldest foggiest winter in nearly a decade. Now, with spring coming even the familiar scents of the market, the enticing aroma of Poulson’s pies, the sharp tang of Barry Holmes’s stack of rosy apples and the sweetness of her flowers failed to lift her spirit.
Much of the time her heart was racing and she felt all shaky inside, really rather ill. Betty felt out of control, as if she were stuck on an express train that was heading straight for the edge of a cliff. She couldn’t concentrate on her work, the displays and bouquets she made up for her customers showing less flare and imagination than they had come to expect from a Betty Hemley arrangement.
‘Nay, what do you call this, a funeral wreath?’ her friend Winnie Holmes said to her one morning in that blunt way she had of saying exactly what she thought. She’d asked for a bunch of something cheerful for a sick friend and Betty had handed her six white lilies wrapped up in white tissue. ‘Is that the best you can do? She might not be feeling so grand but she’ll be at death’s door if she sees that lot.’
‘I’m doing my best.’
‘Well it’s not good enough. One look at that lot and she’ll expect the hearse along any minute.’
Betty looked at the ethereal waxy flowers and flushed with embarrassment. ‘Sorry, I wasn’t thinking. How do you feel about freesias? Lots of pretty colours there. I’ll put in a few chincherinchees an’ all. Expensive they are but I’ll give you a good price, and they last well. Known as Star of Bethlehem.’
‘Aye, well, at least the poor lass won’t want to cut her throat soon as she claps eyes on them. You don’t look much better yourself, chuck. Like a wet fortnight in Blackpool without a stick of rock in sight, and you’re as prickly as an hedgehog. It might be none of my business but you’re not yourself, Betty lass, that much is very plain.’
Betty made some excuse or other and sent Winnie on her way with an extra large bunch of her most colourful spring flowers but inside she did indeed feel bleak. She could see no way out. If only he’d never come back.
If only she’d moved the children miles away, down south, or emigrated to America. If she could’ve flown to the moon to avoid him, she would have done so. Betty blamed herself entirely for Ewan’s reappearance in their lives. If he weren’t so set on taking out his revenge on her he wouldn’t be bothering them at all.
Each morning when she woke, Betty would pray that this would be the day he’d grow tired of the game and be off on his travels again. Ewan Hemley never had been able to stay put for more than five minutes; his years in the Merchant Navy had increased his wanderlust rather than satisfied it, so surely he’d grow bored, go on his way and leave them in peace.
Or she’d pray that the kids might ask him to leave, though so far there was little evidence of that happening. They were too wrapped up in themselves as all youngsters were, Jake pestering her for a new van since the old one kept breaking down and Lynda out every night with young Terry.
But how much longer could she be expected to put up with Ewan’s presence in her house, listen to his criticisms, take his flaming orders, and daily witness the evidence of his vile manners. And Betty sensed that he was watching her just as closely. Some plan was being hatched in that evil little brain of his. She just wished she knew what it was.
Looking around this place that she loved, it seemed to Betty that people were relaxed and happy, taking their time as they strolled around the stalls, pausing to browse through dusty copies of Arthur Mee Encyclopedias, to examine a piece of cracked china, or gossip with friends. Betty envied them this freedom.
Gossip, of course, was the life blood of the market. Even Dena, loved as she was, remained a hot topic for speculation. She was still living with Winnie and Barry Holmes, still seeing Belle Garside’s boy and still causing outrage by refusing to marry him, even though she had one illegitimate daughter already.
Were people talking about her, Betty wondered? Did they imagine she’d happily welcomed her ex-husband into her home? At that opportune moment she spied Constable Nuttall on his walkabout and caught the young policeman’s attention by handing him a carnation.
‘What’s this?’ he laughed. ‘Bribery?’
‘It’s for later, when you go out on the town.’
‘A nice thought, Betty, but I’d never hear the last of it from my sergeant if I took to wearing flowers in my buttonhole. What is it you want? Is something wrong?’
‘Aye, you could say that. I’ve got a problem, Bill, and I thought you might be able to advise me on how best to deal with the matter.’ She told him then how Ewan Hemley, her ex-husband, had suddenly walked back into their lives and into her home.
‘Aye, I did notice you had a visitor.’
The constable listened patiently to Betty’s tale of woe, her plea for help, all about how he’d parked himself upon them and insisted on being waited on hand, foot and finger. ‘He’s been here for weeks – months - and shows no sign of leaving.’
‘Is your complaint that he refuses to contribute towards household expenses?’
‘No, it’s not just about money, though I’m sure he would start dipping into my purse if I was stupid enough to leave it lying around. I don’t want him here, living in my house. I hate the bastard, pardon my French. I need you to give him his marching orders, to get him out of it and make him leave. That’s the point, d’you see, it’s my house, not his, and I don’t want him here. I don’t want him anywhere near my kids.’
Constable Nuttall looked troubled. ‘But they’re his kids too Betty and if he claims he wants to get to know them a bit better, then surely that’s a good thing. Really quite a worthy cause.’
Betty battled against an instinctive urge to shout that there was nothing worthy about a man who put his hand down his daughter’s knickers when she was only five years old. But there were some things that were too private, too dreadful, to bring out into the cold light of day and share with strangers, even if they were the law.
‘He wants to plague me, to take his revenge on me for the fact I took them away from him, and got him into trouble at the time with the police. He doesn’t give a toss about them really.’
The policeman instantly became alert. ‘What sort of trouble?’
‘Petty thieving, illegal gambling. He’s not bright enough to do anything really bad, or to get away with it, but the police searched our house and found our cellar stuffed with the gear he’d nicked, so he says I shopped him.’
‘And did you?’
‘Happen! What difference does it make now? I wanted him out of our lives. Now he claims he’s served his time, probably more than once since I last saw him, and he’s going straight. If you believe that, you’ll believe pigs can fly.’
Constable Nuttall chewed on his lip for a moment, then drew Betty into the shadows behind the dustbins, out of the mêlée of customers and the noise of stallholders calling their wares. The smell of rotting vegetables was sharp in her nostrils but Betty paid not the slightest attention, her gaze riveted on the policeman, anxious to hear his every word.
‘I can certainly keep an eye on him, bearing in mind what you’ve just told me, and if you hear anything further about any current activities he becomes involved with, I’d be interested in that too. It goes without saying that all confidences would be respected. Anything you tell me is perfectly safe. He’d never hear from me that you’d grassed on him. No one would.’
Betty had a struggle not to let her impatience show. ‘I appreciate all of that, but this isn’t about Ewan’s career as a small-time crook, it’s my children I’m concerned about.’
‘Course you are, but you could be doing him a disservice, Betty love. I have to say that divorce is a tricky area and not one I’m expert in, to be honest. It’s not like this is a question of custody, is it? If he really is going straight and they are still his children, after all, his renewed interest in them must be seen as a good thing, so unless he’s actually assaulted someone or hurt them . . .’
‘He’s far too cunning for that, not till he’s got his feet well under our table, but a leopard doesn’t change his spots, as they say. He certainly did hurt them in the past when we were all together. That’s one of the reasons I divorced him, and it could all start all over again if we don’t get rid of him.’
Constable Nuttall sucked in his breath. ‘Tricky! I mean until he actually does do something . . . and, as I say, it’s not really my field. Have you got a restraining order against him to make him keep away?’
‘No, could I get one, even though Jake and Lynda are adults now?’ Betty felt a kindle of hope, which the policeman swiftly quenched.
‘Probably not. The judge would say that since Lynda’s . . . how old . . . in her mid-twenties anyway, that she was mature to make up her own mind. As is Jake in theory, although I accept that’s a harder one to swallow. Have you tried asking Ewan to leave?’
‘Course I have,’ Betty snapped.
‘And he refuses?’
‘He won’t budge an inch, and he’s talked Lynda and Jake round into taking his side. He’s biding his time, I tell you. Once he feels secure he’ll show his true colours and how will we stop him then, when it’s too late? You have to help me Bill. You must. I’m desperate!’
‘I’m sorry, Betty, I can understand and sympathise with your distress but there’s nothing I can do. He isn’t breaking any laws, d’you see?’
Oh, she saw all right, because that’s where the problem lay, with the law. No policeman was interested in a ‘domestic’, not in Betty’s experience. Women might have been considered worthy of helping to win the war but a man still maintained all the rights, over them and their kids.
When had anybody ever helped her? Certainly not the first time when she’d been in even more desperate straits with her children distressed and abused, and herself more battered than a piece of fried haddock. All of them: doctors, solicitors, magistrates, social workers and the police might have made all the right noises, but where was the practical assistance that a desperate woman needed in such a situation? Where were the shelters for a battered wife to go in order to escape from a violent husband?
Why was the only solution for abused children to take them into care away from the mother too, just because she didn’t have a safe place to take them to or money to feed them, even when she was innocent of any crime against them? And how could she possibly have any money when her husband didn’t give it to her and the state didn’t give a toss?
That was the kind of predicament Betty knew only too well, the one she’d been in the first time and got out of by shopping her husband to the police. Ewan Hemley had gone to jail and she’d sold every stick of furniture she possessed then taken her children and run for it.
Now here she was, thirteen years after fondly believing she’d finally succeeded in getting rid of him, and still running. The whole frightening scenario was starting up all over again.
‘Bloody men!’ Betty shouted at the shocked policeman. ‘You all support each other. I hate the flaming lot of you!’ Whereupon she stormed off in a fury, only to hide up a back alley and sob her heart out into her clean hanky.
When she was done crying and had mopped up her hot tears, Betty pushed back her shoulders and made a private vow. She’d battled and won against him the first time, and would do so again. She’d protect her precious kids, no matter what the cost.
Chapter Seventeen
Flowers were not much in evidence on Salford Docks where Leo was working. The canal was too slow a method of transport for anything which needed to be kept so fresh and sold before the tightly furled buds opened. But the business was not short of other products in need of shifting from place to place. These were boom times and Leo always felt stretched to the limit.
The docks were crowded with vessels and first thing every morning fleets of buses would arrive to unload hundreds of workers, not to mention a unending stream of men on bicycles, canvas bags strung across their backs carrying their sandwiches in a bait box. Unofficial visitors to the docks were strictly forbidden, because of the danger of overhead cranes and the unexpected movement of transport, or the operation of dangerous machinery.
All manner of businesses occupied the dockside, Leo’s own wasn’t involved in manufacturing but with distribution. He stood now beside dusty stacks of timber, the smell of seasoned wood mingling with that of the normal dockside smells of rope and warm tar as he examined the bill of lading on his foreman’s clipboard, checking the cargo, destination, order of loading, and weight.
‘Everything seems to be going smoothly.’
‘Aye, boss, it should reach Liverpool in time for the evening tide.’
‘Excellent!’
Leo loved his work and enjoyed good relations with his workforce. Oil, cotton, electrical goods and foodstuffs regularly appeared on their export lists. The other day they’d shipped out a large consignment of Austin Seven cars to the West Indies and Panama. But then he was responsible for importing and exporting goods to every corner of the world from Canada to New Zealand. Each day was different, and brought a new challenge.
Helen didn’t share his passion for the place. He never even brought her here, but then she’d never shown any inclination to come. She rarely asked him about his day, or took the slightest interest in his work.
There was little sign of a slowdown in trade which made Leo very content. He should be getting back to his office but he stood for a moment or two longer watching a tug progress unimpeded beneath the swing road bridge, going about its regular dredging duties. Ships couldn’t be too large in order to negotiate the locks on the Ship Canal.
His mother had always loved watching the ships, but then Dulcie was entirely different from his wife, working in the firm’s office beside his father throughout the war when most women of her age would be content to stay at home with their knitting. Leo wished Helen could see this other side to her personality, this puritan work ethic that had been in both his parents. Something he’d always admired and respected as a boy, and still did. He supposed it was all too evident in himself too.
Helen filled her life with other matters, largely social functions and committees. So long as she didn’t attempt to rope him in on these, or reorganise his life to suit her, Leo really didn’t mind in the least what she did with her time.
How he was ever going to get it through to her that these high-flown ambitions she held for him were a non-starter he really didn’t know. In the end, he would simply have to put his foot down and refuse to go along with it, though he dreaded the tantrum which would surely erupt as a result.
The thought reminded Leo that he should ring her to explain he might be late home tonight. He wanted to see this latest load of timber safely dispatched and then he had a great deal of paperwork to catch up on. He pushed open the office door, making a mental note to do something about the flaking paint and found the phone was ringing even before he reached it.
His secretary took the call and seconds later held the receiver out to him. ‘It’s your wife.’
Leo thanked her, feeling guilty over the familiar sinking feeling that came into his stomach as it always did these days whenever she rang him. Her voice came over loud and clear, resounding in the quiet office.
‘Darling, I’m so glad I caught you. I do hope you’ve remembered we’re having the Barfords over for supper this evening? Anyway, I didn’t have time to pick up the wine and champagne after my hair appointment, so could you do that for me, then dash over with it.’
Leo was instantly irritated. He’d quite forgotten about the Barfords, if indeed he’d ever known they were coming. Or maybe he simply hadn’t listened in the first place when Helen had told him. With so much work to do, he really didn’t have time for social chit-chat today. ‘Helen, I’ve told you a million times that I can’t simply drop everything I’m doing to run errands for you.’
‘But I need it now. The champagne has to be put on ice, and you know how small our refrigerator is. If you would only agree to buy me a decent large one, these sort of problems might not arise.’
He recognised this as an excuse to make another dig at him, a way to manipulate him into doing as she asked by accusing him of being an inadequate provider. However much money he lavished on Helen, or allowed her to spend on the house, she could always find fault and think of a way she could have managed better if only he’d been more generous.
‘Sorry, you’ll just have to pop out and get the wine yourself, I’m far too busy.’
Her voice rose several decibels. ‘Why do you hate me so much? I’m sure you run errands for her, for your mistress!’
Leo tried to move away from the desk but it was too late, his secretary must have heard Helen’s screeching voice down the phone as she was so obviously trying not to react to it. Other heads turned and stared at him in open curiosity, but then they were all familiar with his wife’s constant demands and always found them entertaining.
Leo sighed, raising his eyebrows in comic resignation for the sake of his embarrassed staff. ‘Would four o’clock suit you? I have an appointment with a new client around then and could possibly fit in a dash to the wine merchant.’
‘If that’s the best you can do, then I suppose it will have to.’
