Lonely Teardrops (2008) (15 page)

‘Right, yes, I understand. I’ll tell her. But I still need to know what
I
should do for the best. Go on.’

 
‘It’s not an exact science,’ Irma warned. ‘You may not get too precise an answer but I shall interpret what they say as well as I can, to help you decide.’

‘I’m listening.’

Irma turned over the next card. ‘The nine of spades. I’m afraid that seems to indicate a loss of health, or possibly money.’ She tapped one finger on the card. ‘It may simply mean too much worry, of course, imagined health problems, or a feeling of depression, so don’t start writing your will quite yet.’

Rose frowned. ‘I’ve done that already.’

‘The two of clubs next, which urges you to trust in your own intuition. That makes good sense. Now lets see what the two remaining cards have to say,’ Irma hurried on. It always troubled her when the run of cards was not good, and this wasn’t exactly a happy reading, not by anybody’s standards. As she turned up the penultimate card, she smiled with relief.

 
‘The six of diamonds. This gives us good news in that there may well be a successful outcome if help is given at the appropriate time. Ah, and this last card, the ace of hearts is one to treasure. This represents new love. Something or someone wonderful is to come into your life.’ Irma glanced up at Rose with a beaming smile. ‘Maybe you’ll find yourself a new fella who might solve all your problems.’

‘Don’t talk daft. I’m too old for all of that nonsense.’

‘No one is ever too old for love.’

Rose felt all hot and bothered by what she’d learned, and more confused than ever. ‘All this talk of choices, sorrow, partings and bad health. It don’t sound too good, do it? I’m not sure I’m any nearer solving my problem.’

‘It’s not easy to take everything in all at once. Give yourself time to think about it. I’m sure all will be revealed in the fullness of time.’ Irma began to collect up the cards, shuffled them, then put them back in their box.

‘Can’t we do it again?’ Rose asked, still looking troubled.
 

‘I’m afraid not. Take heart, Rose, that a good outcome was forecast so long as you remember what the cards said. You must use your intuition as the two of clubs recommends, of which you have plenty. That will help you make the right choices.’

‘But what about all this talk of partings, and a letter, and great sorrow. Is someone going to die?’ The old woman pressed one hand to her breast in sudden panic. ‘Not our Harriet?’

‘No, no, I’ve told you this isn’t about Harriet, it’s about you.’

Rose went white. ‘Then I’m going to die?’

‘No one’s going to die. The cards said nothing about death. It could be a loss of money, as I said, and not health at all. You’ll just have to wait and see, but at least you are prepared now, and hopefully will be better able to deal with whatever happens.’

Rose wasn’t too sure about that, but didn’t like to say so.

Irma led her to the door. ‘Come and see me again in a few weeks time if things haven’t improved. We could perhaps try the crystal and see what that can tell us. And don’t forget that ace of hearts for new love. That should give you real hope.’

Grant enjoyed a gamble but he wasn’t one to rely on chance, whether they be cards, palm readings, tea leaves or the crystal ball. He preferred a more hands-on approach. Besides which he was far more interested in the past rather than any future his nan might discover from Irma’s fortune telling. In particular, his mother’s early life.

Over these last few days he’d been asking rather a lot of questions around the various stallholders on the market, enquiring if they remembered Joyce when she was young.

‘I was wondering what friends me mam had during the war, if she had a boy friend before she married me dad.’ He’d tried making his request sound casual, as if he were only mildly curious.

Some, like Winnie Holmes, told him sharply that she didn’t poke her nose in other folk’s business, which was so blatantly untrue it almost made him laugh out loud. ‘You must know something.’

‘I know nowt, and even if I did, my lips are sealed.’ Which was the kind of enigmatic remark that didn’t help him in the slightest.

 
With others it had been hard to get them to stop. Once they started reminiscing, they’d go on for ages. They’d rant on about the home guard and rationing, a son or some other loved one they’d lost in the war, even recalling Stan when he’d been young and virile, which Grant had no wish to hear about at all.

Many of the men, like Sam Beckett and Jimmy Ramsay hadn’t been around, since they were in the forces doing their stint. Marco Bertalone had been in an aliens’ camp on the Isle of Man as he was Italian. Barry Holmes had been living in Blackpool, Clara Higginson in Paris of all places for much of the war, and several others had only come to the market in recent years.

Worn out from listening to these boring old yarns, Grant was beginning to despair of ever discovering anything useful. He wondered if it was worth even bothering to try this evening. Maybe he’d give it one more bash, but first he needed to check up on Harriet, and was intrigued to discover that her latest date was Vinny Turner.

Grant watched the couple stroll into the Salford Cinema arm in arm, then left them to it. A right loser he was. It gave him enormous satisfaction to think that Vinny would bring her nothing but misery as he sauntered off to pursue more interesting prospects.

Having left off stalking his half-sister and her latest boy friend, Grant decided to treat himself to a hamburger and frothy coffee at Belle’s café, despite having just enjoyed the steak and onions Harriet had made. And while he was enjoying this second supper, he thought he might as well ask if Belle had known his mother during the war.
 

‘I might’ve done,’ Belle told him, with a casual shrug. ‘Your mam did used to work on this market during the war, for Poulson’s Pies I seem to remember. That was before she took up hairdressing. Why do you ask?’

Grant was pleased and surprised by this snippet of information, the most he’d got so far, though how much it would help him he wasn’t quite sure. ‘Er, I’m planning a party to cheer her up,’ he improvised, saying the first thing that came into his head. ‘And I wanted to invite some of her old friends.’

Frowning, Belle set the hamburger before him, watching as he liberally dowsed it in tomato ketchup. ‘Is it her birthday or something?’

‘Not really, it’s just that she’s been a bit down lately, what with losing Dad and everything.’ Grant took a huge bite of the juicy beef, so that ketchup oozed out of his mouth and dripped down his hands. He licked it up, pleased with the tale he was devising, quite off the top of his head. ‘So, do you know of any? Old friends, I mean.’

Belle smiled. ‘Now that’d be telling, wouldn’t it?’

He felt a spurt of hope. ‘So you do know something? Go on, tell all, who were her special friends during the war? I’d really appreciate it, and I’m sure Mam would too. She likes a good party.’ Grant thought this bit of fiction so inspired he might even go through with it. It would be worth the effort to actually meet some of the old flames in her life. And his real father might turn out to be one of them.

‘I’m not so sure about that. We all have our secrets from when we were young, don’t we? And your mam is no exception,’ Belle darkly reminded him, handing Grant a paper napkin, which he ignored. ‘But I’ll give it some thought.’ She began to walk away, quietly chuckling, then half turned to cast him a teasing glance over her shoulder. ‘Of course, you could always ask Frankie Morris, over at the chip shop. He might be able to point you in the right direction.’

Grant sighed, grinding his teeth in frustration. Frankie Morris indeed. That big, blubbery man in a soiled apron whose bald head gleamed as if greased from the fat on his own hands? He’d be the last person in the world his mother would hang out with, war or no war. He was getting nowhere, nowhere at all.

Nevertheless, on his way home he did call in at the fish and chip shop, and risked the question. ‘Did you know my mam during the war when she was young?’ Grant asked.

Frankie paused in his labours of battering the fish, wiped his sticky hands on his greasy apron and waddled over to glower at the lad. ‘What’s it to you?’

‘I – I just wondered.’

‘If I did, that’s my business, not yours. Buzz off!’

‘So you did know her?’

‘That’s not what I said.’

‘But you knew some of her friends?’ Again Grant spun his yarn about a party he was planning, but something about the expression on Frankie’s face made him wonder if he’d pushed the explanation too far. ‘Well?’

‘What makes you think your mam likes parties?’

‘Everyone likes parties.’

‘Not your mam.’

‘Why?’

‘Would you like to see how it feels to be battered like a wet fish?’

Grant fled.

When he got back home he was surprised to find his mother sitting alone in the kitchen, sipping a rum and coke and looking very sorry for herself. It wasn’t like Joyce to drink alone and he wanted to ask where Joe was, but hadn’t got round to plucking up the courage when she came right out with it and told him.

‘Before you ask, Joe has gone home early. Apparently Irma has a wedding cake to deliver first thing in the morning, and Joe has to be up early to drive her there.

‘Oh, right!’ Grant didn’t dare risk commenting further, knowing it would only inflame her disappointment over the apparent shortcomings of her lover still further. Instead, wanting to please her, he told her the gossip he’d picked up about Harriet.

‘Hey, what do you think? You’ll never guess who our Harriet is out with tonight? Vinny Turner, no less. What do you reckon to that?’

‘Vinny Turner?’

‘Aye, he has a police record as long as your arm. Been up for shop lifting, drunkenness and assault, lives round the back of the fish market with . . .’

‘I know who Vinny Turner is, and the whole rapscallion crew that makes up that no-good Irish family. Why on earth would our Harriet be seeing him? He’s not in Steve Blackstock’s league?’

Grant was startled by how concerned and angry she sounded, but pleased that he’d obviously got Harriet into yet more trouble. ‘I reckon it must be what you might call teenage rebellion.’

Joyce glowered at him. ‘Teenage rebellion my left foot. I’ll give that little madam what for when I catch her.’

And for the second time in the space of one evening, Grant thought it best to beat a hasty retreat.

Chapter Thirteen

Harriet returned home from the pictures later than usual, her cheeks glowing bright pink from all the kisses Vinny had given her. She knew in her heart that she was playing a dangerous game by going out with him when he had such a tarnished reputation, but rebellion was strong in her. She had this urge to do something wicked, to make people sit up and take notice, to have them see her as a real person with feelings and needs, albeit one damaged and hurt from all the revelations that had been thrust at her.
 

Maybe she was behaving badly because she
was
illegitimate, losing her moral standards or whatever it was; her decency or proper status in the community, exactly as Mrs Blackstock had predicted. But deep in her heart she didn’t want that to happen. It was Steve she wanted, Steve she loved not Vinny Turner, only she didn’t quite have the courage to resolve their quarrel.

In the meantime Vinny was making her feel good about herself, something she needed after having been so badly let down.

Harriet went to the kitchen to make herself a cup of cocoa and found Joyce sitting in her dressing gown sipping a small whisky and more than a little the worse for drink. Apparently, she was waiting up for Harriet.

‘What’s all this?’ Harriet asked on a laugh, almost tripping over something blocking her way as she walked in. She glanced in shock at the suitcase, all packed, ready and waiting. ‘Are you off on a trip somewhere?’

‘No, you are. I’ve put you up some sandwiches, and there’s money in the purse to buy yourself a train ticket to wherever you want to go.’

‘Go? What are you talking about? Go where?’

‘A new beginning, a new job, wherever you fancy, only you’re not stopping here. I’ve done my duty by you, much against my better judgement, and despite your being no relation. Now it’s over. Joe will be moving in soon, and we reckon it would be best for all concerned if you weren’t around when he did. It’s time for you to leave, so you can go first thing in the morning.’ Joyce’s eyes were half closed and her voice sounded slurred, so that Harriet could hardly believe what she was hearing.

‘You can’t be serious. Where am I supposed to go?’

‘Why don’t you ask them new friends of yours for some ideas? That rabble-rousing lot you hung out with last night at the dance, Vinny Turner and his mates.’

 
‘I – I don’t understand.’

‘You don’t have to understand. You’ve lost the right to stay here, that’s all there is to it.’

‘Why? I wasn’t doing any harm going out with Vinny.’

‘You were showing yourself up, showing
me
up, which is far worse, and you’re not even my responsibility any more.’