Lonely Teardrops (2008) (17 page)

Finding herself out on Water Street she hurriedly climbed over a gate into the yard behind the Old Botany Warehouses, thanking her lucky stars that she’d always been agile, having been something of a tomboy in her youth. Then she flung herself behind a pile of crates, quite out of breath and with a tearing stitch in her side.

How long she lay there, fear still coursing through her veins as she heard the group banging about looking for her, Harriet had no idea. Maybe as little as five minutes, or as long as an hour. It certainly felt more like the latter. She thought of her lost belongings, her precious clothes, her toothbrush and face flannel, more importantly the photo of her father and even her much-loved teddy bear, and tears sprang to her eyes. Now what was she going to do? She clasped the purse tight in her pocket. At least she still had the money.

‘Ah, there you are!’ a voice said, and Harriet looked up, knowing she was lost.

Grant had hardly slept a wink since the conversation with his mother, determined to keep an eye out for what might happen next. He’d been curious to know what she was doing in Harriet’s room, and then delighted to overhear Joyce order his hated half-sister to leave. He’d rejoiced still more when in the early hours he’d heard Harriet slip out of her room, creep down the stairs and let herself out of the house.

Grant had followed, a safe distance behind, wanting to see where she went, how she intended to handle this disaster.

He’d followed her along Champion Street, fearful of being seen, and struggled to keep pace at one stage when she actually begun to run. But even he’d been shocked to see the gang of youths suddenly pounce upon her like feral wolves, while secretly relishing her predicament. Didn’t the daft mare deserve a going over, for all the trouble she’d caused him through the years?

Somehow Harriet broke free and was off again, running like a hare with baying hounds on her trail. Grant quickened his own pace and scuttled after them, not wanting to miss the capture when they would surely tear her apart.

He ran along Grove Street, then down Gartside Street but it was as he turned along Hardman Street heading for the river that one of the youths suddenly leapt out in front of him. To his utter horror, Grant was the one now to find himself surrounded by the gang, every one of them furious at having lost their quarry and eager to take out that anger on anyone who chanced along.

Unfortunately for Grant, this happened to be him. As they set about him with their fists and their boots, with stones and cudgels, he had time only to consider that this was one more debt Harriet owed him, one more reason for him to one day take revenge.

Harriet had never felt more alone. She was hurting so much the pain felt like an iron band squeezing her heart. What was she doing sitting in this dark, damp tunnel by the river watching the dawn come up all pink and gold over Prince’s Bridge? The purse, with its roll of notes, was still a warm, solid pressure in her jeans pocket but what would happen now?

Okay, she’d been lucky that Vinny had been the one to find her and not his mates. And that he seemed willing to help rescue her from her pursuers.

‘Don’t make a sound,’ he’d told her when he’d come across her hiding behind the broken old crates. ‘I have you now. You’re quite safe.’

‘How did you know I was here?’

‘I heard you scream. Ssh, they might hear you.’

The next instant they were creeping along by the river, the sluggish Irwell even more dark and gloomy in the eerie pre-dawn light. Vinny held her firmly by the hand and for some reason she no longer felt afraid. Maybe because Harriet was so relieved it hadn’t been Beer Belly or Skinny Jimmy who’d chanced upon her instead.

When they’d reached the bridge, he’d pulled her down this narrow tunnel that cut into the rock under the railway lines. And here they were hiding amongst the filth and the mud, the rubble and the broken bricks, tangled bits of wire and no doubt the odd rat. The narrow tunnel dripped with water and stank of cat pee but Vinny had found some reasonably dry cardboard boxes and broken these up for them to sit on.

When it was almost light he volunteered to go and look for her stuff. ‘You stay here,’ he ordered, and reaching forward, gave her a quick kiss. ‘I’ll be back in a jiffy.’

Harriet grasped his arm. ‘How do I know you won’t bring that lot back with you? They’re your mates, after all. Why would I trust you?’

Vinny grinned, and somehow the smile softened the hard lines of his handsome face. ‘Because I’m sick of that daft lot, I’d much rather be with you. If you want to know the honest truth, I was wanting rid of them anyway. Terry has got me a job in a rock band. I’m going places, babe, and you can come along with me. You and me were meant to be together, I knew it from the first moment I clapped eyes on you. We’re free spirits you and me.’

‘Are we?’ Harriet stared at him, bemused.

‘Course we are, why else would we both be here at not much after five in the morning, with our life’s possessions in our pockets, well almost. I need to pop back home for me guitar, and a few other bits and bobs. I’ll pick up your stuff too. Keep yer head down, I’ll be back in two shakes.’

And then he was gone, leaving Harriet all alone in the semi-darkness. She pulled up the collar of her shirt to stop drips of water sliding down her neck and sat shivering, arms tightly wrapped about her knees while she watched the clouds roll away and a limpid sun peep through.

Vinny said she could trust him, but would she be wise to do so? Harriet was quite sure he must have a police record. Hadn’t he been done for shop lifting not so long ago? She was certainly aware that he smoked and drank a lot, that he’d drawn graffiti on the end walls of the terraced houses, tied dustbin lids to door handles and nicked milk bottles from people’s doorsteps. He and his gang liked nothing better, in fact, than to create havoc in Champion Street. But how far did his crimes reach? What were his limits? Did he have any moral core at all?

Ever since his family had moved into the smelly old flats behind the new fish market just a few months ago, they’d been the talk of the district. But what other choice did she have but to wait for him? Who else cared where she went or what she did?

Certainly not Joyce, the woman who had half-heartedly carried out the role of mother throughout her life and had now abandoned her almost the moment her father had died. Admittedly the two of them had endured a difficult and complicated relationship but, strangely, Harriet still loved her. Joyce had been the only mother she’d ever known, so why wouldn’t she? It hurt so badly that Joyce should reject her in this way.

Harriet had also believed in Steve. Yet even he didn’t seem interested now that she was no longer the respectable girl his mother had fondly imagined her to be.

She still had Nan, of course, but what could one old woman do? Rose didn’t have the clout to stand up to Joyce. Nobody did. Or to deal with Grant, who was a real chip off the old block, cold and condemning, exactly like his mother in so many ways.

Harriet felt as if she were all alone in the world. Whatever she’d taken for granted in the past, was now gone. Love was a commodity not to be trusted. Far too dangerous an emotion to risk since it hurt too much when it was withdrawn.

How long she waited for Vinny to return Harriet couldn’t quite decide, but it felt like an age. The sun was high in the sky and she was beginning to despair he would ever come back when suddenly there he was, loaded down with gear. He was carrying a guitar and a large knapsack on his back, and in his other hand he held her suitcase.

‘I’m not sure I’ve got everything. Some of it might have blown away, but I did my best.’

‘Oh, Vinny, thank you so much. I can’t tell you how grateful I am.’ In that moment she made her decision. To hell with her so-called family. To hell with Steve. He could go off to college and marry a
nice
girl and live in a
nice
semi-detached house in a
nice
garden suburb if that’s what he wanted, exactly as his mother expected. He could go out with the blonde he’d been dancing with the other night. Harriet would tag up with Vinny Turner. Vinny would look after her, which was surely better than trying to cope alone.

Chapter Fifteen

It was a week now since Harriet had walked out and Rose was frantic with worry, becoming increasingly obsessed with searching for her lost granddaughter. Every single day she went all around the stallholders on the market, asking if they’d seen her, if they knew where Harriet was.

‘The lass can’t have gone far. She doesn’t have any money, and she knows no one but us. Where would she go? She hasn’t even got a job.’

The stallholders were most sympathetic. Everyone liked Harriet as she was a lovely girl. But sadly, nobody had seen her anywhere.

Despair set in. Rose was at a loss over what to do next, feeling as if she no longer had any real purpose to her day. The thought of never seeing her lovely granddaughter’s cheery smile again was almost unbearable. She felt as if she were in deep mourning, worse in a way than when her lovely Ron had died. But then he’d enjoyed a good long life while Harriet was still only a young girl, with all her life before her.

‘She’s not
dead
,’ Joyce yelled at her mother, when Rose started worrying along these lines in front of her.

‘She might well be for all we know. She could’ve fallen in the canal, jumped off a bridge or under a train, been attacked by hooligans, owt could’ve happened to the poor lass, and do you care? I bet you didn’t even give her any money.’

‘Well, that’s where you’d be wrong. I gave her twenty-five quid.’

Grant snorted with disgust. ‘You’ve never given me that much cash in me life. I’d run away too if someone would give me that sort of money.’

‘Don’t tempt me,’ his grandmother retorted. ‘Twenty-five quid won’t last long if she’s rent to pay, has to buy food and so on. How will she manage? You didn’t even give her time to find herself a job, or somewhere decent to live. What sort of a mother are you?’

Joyce was only just hanging on to her patience as Joe still hadn’t agreed to move in with her, despite her best efforts to persuade him to take the plunge. She certainly wasn’t in the mood to concern herself over a silly young girl. ‘That’s just it, I’m not her mother, am I?’

At this Rose really saw red and she banged her fist on the table. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself for saying such a wicked thing. You’re the only mother that child’s ever known, and all you do is callously chuck her out the door at the first opportunity. All because you’re on heat and itching to replace your recently demised husband, that poor girl’s
father
, with another chap. You turn my stomach, you do really. Can’t you see you’ve lost a precious daughter, and I a beloved grandchild?’

‘I can see that I’m free of a great liability at last.’

‘You’ve still got me, Nan,’ Grant simpered. ‘In fact, if you’ve a bit of money going begging, I could find a home for a few bob meself.’ Whereupon Rose stormed out of the room, orange earrings bobbing angrily against her tightly clenched jaw.

Joyce’s stentorian voice bawled after her. ‘Don’t you go losing your temper, Mother, it won’t do your blood pressure any good at all.’

Over the coming week Rose did everything she possibly could to find her lost granddaughter. She continued to search for Harriet, but in the end was forced to conclude that there was nothing more she could do. Her only hope was that the girl would have the good sense to come home eventually, knowing her nan at least would be worried about her. Meanwhile, Rose felt she had no choice but to bury her misery in the campaign to save the market. Then they’d at least have a home for her to come home to.

It was generally agreed they should start a petition and Rose went round all the houses, shops and market stalls, asking people to sign if they wanted the market to stay. This did at least allow her the opportunity to keep on asking about Harriet, although the response was always in the negative.

Where had the girl gone, and why wasn’t she keeping in touch? That was what broke Rose’s heart. There’d been one measly postcard in those first few days, which at least proved she was alive and well, but there’d been nothing since.

Rose was so worried she felt ill the whole time, sick to her stomach, hardly able to eat because of her distress. Not only that but Joyce made little effort to take over Harriet’s chores in the house, and Grant certainly did nothing to help, so the task of making breakfast, dinner and tea each day fell to the old woman.

She was also responsible for all the washing and ironing, the cleaning, and hundreds of other chores like sewing on buttons or darning Grant’s smelly socks. And she was still expected to clean up the salon each and every night as she’d always done. Rose felt like a slave and could see now why Harriet may not have protested too much at being thrown out. Maybe she’d gone willingly, and with some relief.

‘Mother, is that food not ready yet?’ came a constant cry.

‘I’ve only one pair of hands,’ Rose would yell right back.

‘Well then put them to better purpose than writing letters for that flaming committee. I’m hungry.’

‘So why don’t you cook something for yerself for a change? You’ve got a pair of hands too, and I’m getting on, tha knows. I can’t do as much as I used to. You’ll have to sweep the back yard today, my back’s giving me gip. Or get that lazy article to do something useful for a change.’