Dancing in the Moonlight (3 page)

‘Don’t be silly, lass.’ Enid fetched out a none-too-clean handkerchief and blew her nose loudly. ‘I think we both needed that. Now I’m going to make some tea and
we’ll have a quiet minute before they arrive. An’, lass’ – she cradled Lucy’s flushed cheeks in her big rough hands – ‘I’m only next door any time
you want me, all right? You know where to come, hinny.’

Lucy nodded, smiling shakily and, satisfied she had done what she could, Enid turned towards the range.

Lucy watched her mother’s friend making the tea, her thoughts clearer than they had been in days. Mrs Crawford was kind and she was grateful, but she wouldn’t be running to her every
two minutes with this and that. She had to stand on her own two feet and do what she’d promised. It was up to her to keep the family together and she would do it, no matter what. Her mother
had taught her how to make a penny stretch to two; well, now it would have to stretch to three or four, it was as simple as that. They had a roof over their heads and she would see to it that she
put food on the table. They’d manage.

Her small chin lifted and her shoulders straightened, and then, for an infinitesimal second, she thought she heard her mother whisper, ‘That’s it, hinny. That’s my
lass.’

It was so real that she turned quickly and looked about her, but of course there was no one there. Shaking her head at her foolishness, she told herself she was imagining things, but
nevertheless the brief moment brought balm to her bruised soul and eased her grief, and the day she had been dreading no longer seemed such an ordeal.

Tom Crawford stood leaning against the far wall of the kitchen, a glass of whisky in his hand and a faintly contemptuous expression on his ruggedly handsome face. The kitchen was full to
bursting with neighbours and friends and they were all eating their fill – like pigs at a trough, as he put it to himself. And the whisky and beer wouldn’t last long,
the way they were guzzling it down.

His father and two of his brothers were standing in front of him in a group that included Ernie and Donald Fallow, and he was half-listening to their conversation as his gaze wandered round the
throng. Tom had the advantage of being a head taller than any other man present and broad with it. Anyone looking at him would have added a good six or seven years to his nineteen years. From a
child he had been big and physically strong, and he had used the feeling of power this gave him to control and bully his peers, feeding on their fear.

His eyes rested on his father and Tom’s lip curled. His da was rabbiting on like he always did when he’d had a drink. As usual the subject was the injustices doled out to the working
class by their supposed betters as the slump worsened. Not that his father was wrong; any fool could see that with the strikes and threats of strikes in the docks, shipyards, railyards and mines,
things were going from bad to worse, but that was all his da ever did – talk. Like the rest of his cronies. None of them had taken on board that the country was changing. There were no
overseas markets for Britain’s old industrial output, especially iron and steel and coal, and shipbuilding was dying on its feet. The Depression was going to get worse, not better, and no
amount of strikes would change that. Not for the North. And the unions were worse than useless. It was every man for himself, that’s the way he saw it.

He shifted his weight slowly and took another sip of whisky. It was poor stuff. Not like the fine old malt he’d acquired recently from one of his contacts down at the docks. Patrick
McHaffie could get anything you wanted if you tipped him the wink along with a bob or two, but Pat’s petty pilfering was the tip of the iceberg. Like so many, Pat was gormless and would
forever be grubbing away and risking his neck for peanuts while the real money passed him by.

It was common knowledge among dock workers and the fishing community that the Kane brothers from Sunderland’s squalid East End controlled the criminal fraternity on the south side of the
river. The Kanes had built up a nice business for themselves and had their fingers in umpteen pies – smuggling, extortion, protection rackets and a wide web of brothels – and he
wouldn’t want to lock horns with them. Not unless he was prepared for a knife in the back one dark night.

Tom smiled grimly to himself.

But on the north side, stretching from Cornhill Dock and Wearmouth Drops round to Potato Garth and the North Dock near Roker, now that was a different story. There were lots of small rackets
going on, but without any real leadership by one person or family. He intended to change that. Why else had he spent time inveigling himself into favour with the McHaffies of this world? He’d
seen the way the wind was blowing, and the next step would be the shipyards laying men off permanently, he was sure of it. Others might be prepared to go cap in hand to the foremen begging for a
shift here and there, but he was damned if he was. He wanted to get into the real money, the sort of money that came by being cannier than the herd.

Over the heads of the crowd he saw the door from the scullery open. Lucy and his youngest brother, Jacob, stepped into the kitchen, each holding one of the twins in their arms, with Ruby and
John at their heels.

Tom’s brown eyes narrowed. His brother had clearly gone next door with Lucy to fetch the bairns through for something to eat, but it wasn’t that which set his jaw clenching. It was
the way Jacob was shepherding them through the assembled company, his manner verging on proprietorial.

Tom watched his brother settle Lucy on a chair with a twin on each knee and John at her side, before he and Ruby pushed through to the kitchen table. They returned with heaped plates of food
and, as Jacob reached Lucy, he bent down and said something that brought a brief smile to her sad face.

The little pipsqueak.
Tom straightened away from the wall and swigged back the last of the whisky in his glass. After sniffing round Lucy, was he? He knew the two were friends, being
the same age and all, but a blind man could see the way Jacob’s mind was working. He’d have to have a little word in his brother’s shell-like when the opportunity arose.

His brother bent down to Lucy again and it was enough to cause Tom to shoulder his way through the crowd to where they were. He kept his gaze on Lucy, ignoring Jacob, as he said softly,
‘I’m sorry about your mam, lass, right sorry. You know you can call on us any time?’

‘Aye, yes, your mam’s already said.’ Lucy nodded at him, but she didn’t smile. This Crawford brother always made her heart pound, but not in a good way. There was
something in his eyes when he looked at her – she couldn’t describe it, even to herself, not having come up against unbridled lust before – something that made her flesh creep.
And yet he was handsome, and she’d heard Mrs Crawford tell her mother more than once that the lasses were shameless in the way they threw themselves at Tom. Jacob wasn’t half as
good-looking and neither were Ralph and Frank, but she liked them much more, especially Jacob. Jacob was special.

This thought brought a flush to her cheeks and she quickly lowered her eyes, busying herself with feeding more rice cake to Flora and Bess, who were messy eaters at the best of times.

Tom saw the pink in Lucy’s cheeks and smiled to himself. He was fully aware of the attraction he generated, even in girls as young as Lucy, and didn’t doubt this was the cause of her
confusion. He had been aware of his appeal since he was a lad of thirteen earning a few extra bob helping out with the hay-making at Garfield Farm. Farmer Garfield’s buxom sixteen-year-old
daughter had taken him into the hayloft and practically eaten him alive. He’d emerged an hour later feeling on top of the world and with an appetite for more forbidden pleasures, and since
then he’d indulged this appetite without restraint. He’d discovered he appealed to older women as much as the young lasses and he’d never had to pay for it, unlike half the men he
worked with.

He liked two types of females: the earthy kind whose husbands weren’t supplying their needs and who would allow any kind of liberties, and, at the other end of the spectrum, the young
innocent lasses he had to cajole and persuade to give up their virginity. But the latter were always worth the effort; there was something about being first, about going where no one else had been,
that excited him. Afterwards, when he wanted done with them, they were normally too frightened by what they’d permitted to cause him any trouble. There was the odd exception, like Amy Murray
from Southport way who’d threatened to set her brothers on him if he didn’t start walking out with her, but after he’d slapped her about a bit and told her what he’d do to
her if she opened her mouth, she’d got the message.

He turned his gaze from Lucy’s bent head to his brother and found Jacob was staring fixedly at him. For a strange moment Tom felt this young brother of his could read his mind, and this
feeling was strengthened when Jacob ground out, ‘Why don’t you go and get yourself another drink?’, his voice low, but weighted with a mixture of fury and dislike.

No, it was more than dislike, Tom corrected himself in the next instant. Jacob, the little nowt, was looking at him as though he was muck under his boots. The rage that had won Tom many a fight
in the school playground, and which had built him a reputation as being someone not to be messed with as he’d grown older, rose in a hot flood. Only the fact that he was at a wake prevented
him driving his fist into Jacob’s face. Glaring at his brother, he said, ‘What’s up with you?’

‘Nothin’.’ Jacob’s tone and body language belied his words. Small but broad-shouldered, with curly brown hair that sprang in an unruly tangle from double crowns on his
head, he gave the appearance of being top-heavy and had a very masculine shape. His skin was clear and ruddy, and his heavily lashed brown eyes seemed over-big for his face, a face that was always
smiling. But not today. ‘Just leave Lucy alone, all right? She’s upset.’

Holding on to his temper with some effort, Tom lowered his voice. ‘Aye, well that’s to be expected, but she’ll have to cope with folk giving their condolences, boy.’

Boy.
Jacob’s dark eyes became as hard as flint. Tom had said that to get him going, knowing how it annoyed him. ‘Well, you’ve given yours, so you can push
off.’

‘Now look here, you little runt—’

‘Please.’ Lucy’s voice was quiet, but of a quality that caused the brothers to become silent. ‘It – it’s my mam’s funeral.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Jacob’s hand reached out, only to drop away before it made contact with her shoulder. ‘Lucy, I’m sorry.’

She said nothing, continuing to break up the rice cake and put small chunks into Flora and Bess’s mouths, with Ruby and John stolidly working their way through a plate of food they had
between them at the side of her.

Tom stood looking at the little tableau, his jaw working. As Jacob’s gaze met his again, he muttered, ‘I’ll see you at home’ and there was a threat in the words. Jacob
did not answer, but stared at him, unblinking, and it was Tom who turned away with a growled curse.

‘You’ve made him angry.’

Jacob had been staring after his brother, but now his eyes focused on Lucy’s worried face. He smiled ruefully at her. ‘It’s not the first time and it won’t be the last.
We’ve never got on, as you know.’

She nodded. Jacob’s other brothers – Frank, who was seventeen, and Ralph, who was fifteen – always kept on the right side of Tom, but Jacob didn’t seem scared of him or
intimidated. ‘Be careful,’ she said softly.

‘Of Tom?’ Jacob grinned. ‘He’s mostly wind and water.’

No, he wasn’t. She didn’t know how she’d come by the knowledge that Tom Crawford could be dangerous, but she was sure of it. As her mam would have put it, she felt it in her
water. And maybe it was her mam who’d led her down that road, thinking about it. Her mam had never liked Tom; not that she’d said, but her face had changed when his name was mentioned.
She’d always been stiff with him, different from how she’d behaved with Jacob and the others. Her voice scarcely above a whisper, Lucy said again, ‘Be careful, Jacob. I mean it. I
don’t want him to hurt you and he would, you know.’

Oh aye, he knew all right. He’d had many a good hiding from Tom. But although he didn’t want Lucy to worry about him, not with everything she had on her plate now her mam was gone,
her concern gave him a warm feeling inside.

From the time he and Lucy had been two little bairns making mud pies in the back lane together, she’d been his world. They had begun school on the same day, faced the playground bullies
side by side, and helped each other with their homework. Or rather Lucy had helped him, Jacob admitted silently. But he hadn’t understood that the feeling he had for her was love, not until
the last year or so. But with the changes in his body that puberty was bringing had come the knowledge that he wanted her for his lass, and no one else would do. He didn’t want to mess around
with this girl or that, like lots of lads did, he just wanted Lucy. For keeps. As soon as she was old enough he’d ask her da if they could begin courting – that’s if she’d
have him. But she would. She was his Lucy.

Becoming aware she was still staring at him, he bent his head and said quietly, ‘Don’t let on I’ve said, but me mam’s got some bits for the bairns for Christmas that
she’s going to slip round nearer the time. She wanted it to be a surprise, but I thought it’d ease your mind, knowing that’s taken care of, what with your da and the lads being on
short time an’ all.’

‘Thank you.’ Her voice was soft, her eyes were soft, and for a moment their gaze held, conveying what they were as yet unable to express in words. But for the present it was
enough.

The relentless snow and blizzards which the beleaguered North had endured for the first three months of the year had given way to an April of driving rain and icy winds. Lucy
didn’t know which was worse. The rain probably. She glanced at the kitchen window, where the force of the rain rattled the glass now and again. It made the back lanes seas of thick glutinous
mud, which was tramped into the house no matter how often she told her father and brothers and Ruby to leave their mucky boots in the scullery. Wet clothes were draped all round the kitchen, and
Flora and Bess hadn’t been outside for weeks and were snotty-nosed and fractious. Worse, the menfolk’s shifts had become increasingly few and far between. This not only meant she was at
her wits’ end trying to juggle putting food on the table while still paying the rent, but it was a continual battle to keep the twins occupied and out from under her da’s feet. His
temper was short these days.