A Kiss and a Promise (29 page)

But you didn’t try to explain
, a tiny voice said inside his head.
Oh, I know she talked like a schoolteacher, but that’s because she is one. You should have told her what happened in the African market … you should have remembered the promises you made
.

Michael felt the hair prickle erect on the nape of his neck. He had thought it was his conscience speaking but now he was beginning to think differently. From the start of his search, he had believed in his heart that Stella was with him, encouraging him to greater efforts, expecting him to find their daughter. Michael closed his eyes and immediately a picture of Stella as he had never seen her, smiling down at the babe in her arms, came into his head. He gasped, opening his eyes, and the picture of Stella fled. The little voice was still. But it had done its work.

Michael knew he must go back to the farm next day, but he would return to the city and if it meant bearding Miss Derbyshire in her den again, then he would do it. What was more, he would not hold back this time, but would prove to her that he wanted Ginny for her sake and not for his own. And next time, he would spend longer here, search harder. He closed his eyes once more and though the picture did not reform and the small voice stayed silent, he spoke to Stella as though he knew she were in the room, attending to every word he said. ‘Don’t worry, acushla, me darlin’ girl,’ he said softly. ‘I won’t give up and I won’t be beat. I’ve failed you all these years but now I’m keepin’ me promise, so I am. I’ll find our little girl and see her right if it’s the last thing I do on this mortal earth.’

When Michael arrived home to announce to his parents that he had not found Ginny, Maeve immediately began to plan a campaign whose goal was to discover her granddaughter and bring her back to Headland Farm.

‘It’s no use you sayin’ that the child probably never received your letters,’ she said crossly. ‘They’ve been getting the money all right or I’m pretty sure there would have been more than one letter once Granny Bennett knew she could write to the shipping office. She’s obviously made some arrangement to have her post delivered to wherever she’s living now. You give up too easily, son. You must write to the old lady and say you have to have Ginny’s new address, or you’ll stop sending her allowance. She’ll let you have it all right, and then you can write to the child direct an’ I’ll be bound you’ll get an answer just as soon as she can put pen to paper. Once you do, you can tell her all about the farm and suggest she comes to us for some of her summer holidays. No kid could resist an adventure like that. So just you sit down right now, young Michael, and write to your little girl.’

Michael agreed that this was a good idea and sat down to start the letter immediately, feeling a surge of hope and anticipation. His mam’s ideas always worked, and to his way of thinking this was her best yet.

His tongue protruding with effort, Michael began to write.

It was a mild, windy day in April, and the strong salt smell of the sea made Ginny feel lively and full of hope. As she came out of school, where she had spent another boring and useless day, she saw her cousins clustered around the school gates and remembered why she felt so cheerful; she was going to visit Aunt Mary in her canny house on the Scotland Road, taking the kids with her. Aunt Amy would be cleaning at the big insurance offices until eight or nine that evening. The Franklins might have wondered where she had gone, but she knew they were going to visit an aunt, straight after work, so she was safe enough from them.

She did not often visit Aunt Mary and Uncle George, for it was a long walk from Seaforth to the Scotland Road. But she had decided she really ought to try to have a word, on the quiet like, with her aunt.

Ginny knew that Aunt Mary would be delighted to see her nieces and would immediately produce her stock of shortbread biscuits and lemonade. She would sit the kids in her nice big kitchen, give them jigsaws and puzzles to play with and the biscuits and lemonade to eat and drink, and then she would turn her attention to Ginny and ask how the family in Schubert Street were getting along.

And what exactly should I say, Ginny thought, as she began to round up her small charges and head towards Crosby Road South. For recently, to her great dismay, she had discovered something which she was not supposed to know.

As they made their way towards the Scotland Road, she pondered on what had happened when Mrs Franklin had sent her on an errand on the previous Friday evening. Mrs Franklin was clever with her needle and did embroidery for a certain dressmaker in Crosby. She rather enjoyed the work since she was given all the materials necessary, and all the silks and cottons too. The dressmaker would send her a large parcel of collars and cuffs with a letter telling Mrs Franklin which designs and colours to use. Mrs Franklin would do the work and despatch the finished products back to Crosby, usually using Norma to fetch and carry. But on this occasion, Norma had had a nasty cold and refused point blank to go. ‘It ain’t fair to ask when I’m poorly,’ she whined. ‘Make Belle do it, or send Ginger – yes, why not? She never gets sent further than the end o’ the road … make her go, Mam.’

It had been a chilly evening, with a gale blowing off the sea, which made it impossible for Ginny to suggest that one of the younger children might run the message. Instead, she had looked hopefully at Mrs Franklin, whereupon that lady blew her nose vigorously, remarking thickly that she had caught Norma’s cold and didn’t mean to get pneumonia by going out after dark.

Aunt Amy, rolling out pastry for one of her famous meat and potato pies, had looked up. ‘You’ve gorra choice, chuck,’ she had said breezily. ‘You can tek me sister’s ’broidery to Crosby – I’ll give you a penny for the bus ’cos you can’t skip a lecky when you’ve a parcel of delicate stuff in your arms – or you can get me big marketing basket and take these pies up to Sample’s for bakin’. You’ll have to go back again an’ fetch ’em when they’re cooked, o’ course, so tek your choice.’

Listening to the howl of the gale outside, Ginny had decided to take the embroidery. It was not terribly heavy and it would mean a bus ride, which was infinitely preferable to slogging all the way to Sample’s and having to hang about in the windy street until her aunt’s pies were cooked. Of course she could return to Schubert Street and then go back to Sample’s, but that would double the journey.

‘I’ll tek the embroidery,’ she had said. ‘But who’s goin’ to tek the pies?’

‘I’ll give Totty Barnes, what lives down the road, a big piece o’ one of the pies when they’s baked an’ she’ll go like a shot,’ Aunt Amy had said. Ginny knew Totty, knew she would be glad of a piece of pie since her father was out of work and food was hard to come by. She reflected, rather smugly, that she, Ginny, would have a share of the pie wherever she went, but still looked hopefully at Mrs Franklin. Surely, if her aunt was prepared to pay Totty to take the pies to the baker, then Mrs Franklin should be prepared to shell out for her own errand?

Mrs Franklin had caught her eye and grinned suddenly. ‘You can have a penny for chips,’ she said gruffly. ‘Only you’ll have to go out again to get ’em ’cos I don’t want greasy fingers on me embroidery – understand?’

Ginny had understood. Mrs Franklin was well paid for her embroidery but the work – and the condition of the collars and cuffs – had to be immaculate or she would lose the dressmaker’s patronage. So she had taken the proffered penny and battled her way to the bus stop in the teeth of the gale, glad to board the first vehicle, Crosby bound. The bus had drawn to a halt in what she took to be Crosby town centre, where all the shops were firmly shut. She had asked directions from a friendly woman who told her that she was not far from her destination, and presently she saw a public house from whose doors light streamed. As she reached it, the doors opened and a man and woman came out. Ginny glanced at them casually, then turned hastily away. It was her Uncle Lewis and he had an arm round a plump, jolly-looking blonde, whose bright green dress showed in the opening of her dark coat.

Ginny had scarcely believed her eyes; it was Friday evening so Uncle Lewis ought to be miles away, possibly even in Ireland, doing his weekend job. She knew he had to stay away over the weekends because his work took him a great way from Seaforth … but Crosby wasn’t a great way from anywhere, so what on earth was he doing here, when he could have been cosily at home?

The couple had passed Ginny without seeing her, the woman remarking contentedly: ‘It’s been a grand evening, Lewis. I misremember when I’ve enjoyed meself more. Fridays is the high spot of me week – I just wish your work didn’t take you abroad once the weekend’s over.’

Uncle Lewis had chuckled. ‘Aye, you can’t have enough of a good thing, Dolly,’ he had said. ‘But we don’t have the sort of money to go out drinkin’ all weekend …’

His voice had been lost in the howl of the gale and Ginny realised they were heading in the direction which she herself would be taking, so she had followed them. The streets were not well lit and she found herself flitting from shadow to shadow listening to their upraised voices as they fought to be heard above the wind. They were passing down a street of small terraced houses and Ginny was just beginning to think the whole thing unimportant – she knew married men occasionally did have friends of the opposite sex, and Uncle Lewis was very attractive – when the couple climbed the steps of one particular house and Uncle Lewis produced a key with which he opened the front door. As he did so, a fair haired child had come running up the hallway and cast itself, ecstatically, at her uncle’s legs. ‘Daddy, Daddy, tell Stevie I’m allowed to play with the cat,’ the child had shouted. ‘He’s always bossin’ me about when you ain’t home. I loves the cat, I does.’

Ginny had felt stunned. Was it possible that Uncle Lewis was leading a double life, that he had a young, yellow-headed wife in Crosby and an older, dark-haired one – her Aunt Amy – in Seaforth? Clearly, Uncle Lewis had accepted the child’s greeting and he had gone into the house and shut the door behind him as though it was his own home. For a moment, Ginny had simply stood in the shadows, staring across at the house. Then she had given herself a shake and remembered her errand. She had made her way to the dressmaker’s establishment, handed over the parcel of completed embroidery at the door and had taken the bundle of work still to be done. ‘Got the money for your bus fare home?’ the dressmaker had asked. ‘But you ain’t one of Mrs Franklin’s girls so I s’ pose you’ve been well paid for this evening’s work already?’

‘She give me a penny for chips and me aunt give me me bus fare,’ Ginny had said, raising her voice to combat the howl of the wind. ‘But I ain’t to buy the chips till I’ve been home again so’s not to put greasy fingerprints on the stuff.’

The woman had tutted, and given Ginny a silver threepenny piece. ‘You can spend that tiddler on sweets, but not tonight, tomorrer,’ she had said kindly. She had looked curiously at her young visitor. ‘You reminds me of someone … it’s that hair. I knew a gal once …’ But the gale had whipped the words out of her mouth and she had stepped back into the shelter of the hallway.

Ginny had thanked her profusely for the money and told her that though she was not one of Mrs Franklin’s girls, her Aunt Amy and Mrs Franklin were sisters. She thought such magnificent generosity deserved an explanation for it was not often that so much money was paid for running a message. With Mrs Franklin’s penny, she now had fourpence, and could have splashed out on a great many sweets, had she desired to do so. Aunt Amy’s cooking, however, and the generous helpings she dished out, meant that Ginny was rarely hungry now so that sweets, though still a treat, could be bought a few at a time whenever the fancy took her.

For some time now, Ginny had begun to realise that despite the crowded house and her dislike of her new school, she was both better off and happier than she had been in Victoria Court. Because she was expected to look after the younger children, she was able to indulge in many of the games she had previously only been able to watch others playing, since in Victoria Court all the messages and household chores had fallen on her shoulders. Now, provided she kept an eye on the young ones, she was able to take a turn at skipping, hopscotch, cherry-wobs or cat’s cradle. This meant that she did not wish to upset the apple cart in any way, and if she began tale-clatting about Uncle Lew it would undoubtedly change the even tempo of life in Schubert Street. Yet to hold her tongue, when Aunt Amy worked so hard – apparently in order to support another woman and her children – seemed wrong too.

Presently, she had climbed aboard a bus and, no longer battling with the gale, had time in which to think about what she had seen and decide what best to do about it. All the way back to Seaforth, she had mulled over Uncle Lewis’s strange behaviour. She could not possibly say anything to Aunt Amy or Mrs Franklin, but she honestly felt it was her duty to tell someone. If her uncle was keeping two families, then of course it was important for Aunt Amy to have the money which Mrs Franklin and her daughters paid to her at the end of each week, and this answered a question which had been niggling at Ginny’s mind for some time: why Mrs Franklin and the girls stayed in Aunt Amy’s house when surely, by now, they could have rented a place of their own. But if Aunt Amy needed the money, Ginny guessed that family feeling would keep the Franklins in Schubert Street until times were easier.

By the end of the journey, Ginny had made up her mind that she would swear Aunt Mary to secrecy and then describe to her what she had seen. Her aunt was a sensible and kind-hearted woman; she would advise Ginny what she should do.

Having made her decision, it had occurred to Ginny to wonder how much of her uncle’s doings was known to Aunt Amy, for the older woman was not slow-witted, far from it. She must have a fair idea of what her husband earned, which meant she must realise that he brought home only a percentage of his wages. Would that fact alone not make her suspicious? Aunt Amy had said her husband had a really good job and, if she thought he earned at weekends, surely she must wonder where the rest of the money went.