Lonely Teardrops (2008) (22 page)

He understood perfectly what had happened. Whatever mischief Rose had caused by revealing those unpalatable facts about Harriet’s birth, Joyce had obviously wasted no time in taking advantage of them by showing her the door. But why? Because she disapproved of Vinny Turner, and who could blame her for that, or out of some twisted desire for revenge on the dead father?

Whatever the reason, he felt desperately sorry for Harriet. But where the hell was she? And was she safe?

‘Can I speak to Rose?’ he asked, thinking he might get more sense out of the grandmother, but Joyce shrugged her shoulders.

‘Sure, if you like. She’s upstairs in bed, but you’ll get no sense out of her. My mother has had a stroke and can barely string two words together.’

‘Oh, I’m so sorry.’ Steve was appalled. Everywhere he turned doors seemed to be slammed in his face. His own parents, predictably enough, had offered no support either when Steve turned to them for help.

‘What has the fate of one foolish girl got to do with us?’ his mother had asked.

‘Maybe because I love her? I thought that might count for something?’ Steve told them, anger over their complete indifference making it hard for him to control himself. He had a sudden image of Harriet’s face when he’d stupidly retaliated by asking that blonde to dance. She’d looked utterly stricken. If only he could turn back the clock and do it all differently. ‘What’s more, I believe she still loves me.’

‘How can she when she’s run off with that Vinny Turner,’ his mother sharply reminded him. ‘That doesn’t sound like the action of a girl in love with you, dear boy. Stop behaving like a sentimental fool. What could you do in any case?’

‘I have to find her. Couldn’t we report her missing to the police or something?’

‘Don’t be foolish. She left of her own free will, so far as I’m aware. Girls leave home every day. The police aren’t going to send out a search party to look for a silly runaway. She’s made her choice, leave her to it. You have more important things to think about now. You’ve a new life to lead, a career to build.’

But as Steve sat through endless hours of lectures, churned out half-hearted attempts at essays, he couldn’t get Harriet out of his mind. She was his girl, lost somewhere, and he should be doing much more to find her and bring her home. If only he knew where to look.

It was a cold, wet day in October, the kind where washing hung damply on the lines strung about the back streets, without any hope of drying. Irma made her way along the street to see Rose, Joe having obligingly agreed to keep an eye on the stall for the last hour of the day. Yet she heaved a great sigh, filled with sadness.

She’d lived and worked on Champion Street Market for the last twenty years, and she’d be sorry to leave it, she would really. Irma could remember when they’d all feared for their lives as bombs were dropped all over Manchester. She recalled a time when there was bunting strung everywhere and hopes were high as peace was declared. Mothers had kicked up their skirts to dance on VE Day. But what progress had they made since that glorious day?

A group of kids were crawling all over an abandoned car, some playing hop-scotch on the paving stones while their mothers searched for a bargain on the open stalls, or bought a bit of bacon for their husband’s tea. Nothing had changed. People were still hard-pressed to make ends meet, as were the stallholders themselves. They all depended upon this market, which would soon be history.

As Irma walked into Joyce’s hair salon, she felt as if she’d entered another world. A world where the chief topic of conversation was whether to go for a June Allison pageboy bob, or the Lucille Ball bubble cut, apparently all the rage.

She stood in the doorway listening, acutely aware that Joyce had seen her enter but was choosing to ignore her.

‘I had a girl in here the other day who’d tried to bleach her own hair,’ Joyce was telling her customer as she folded the woman’s rich dark locks into a clever French pleat at the back of her head. ‘She’d mixed peroxide with washing-up detergent, and I have to say it was a disaster. Young girls, or teenagers as they like to call themselves these days, where are their brains? All they think about is fashion. Crinoline hooped petticoats that bounce and show their knickers as they walk. Tight pencil skirts under which they can barely wear any underwear at all. Then there’s popper beads, baby pink lipstick and ponytails, poodle skirts and plastic hoop bracelets all up their arms. I suppose they are at least trying to look smart for their boy friends, which is more than some women do for their own husbands. That dowdy, some of them, they’re invisible. Oh, I didn’t notice you standing there, Irma, were you wanting to go up?’

‘If you don’t mind.’

‘Why would I mind? It’s me mother you’re attending to, not me.’ And turning back to her customer Joyce went on with her conversation as if Irma were nothing more than the washer woman come to collect the dirty laundry.
 

Irma made no comment but quietly squeezed past two women seated under hair dryers, and others studying the latest fashion magazines as they waited their turn. Joyce seemed to be busy, not coping quite so well without Harriet to assist, and young Grant had evidently been coerced into making coffee. Yet it was all very calm, quietly civilised and professional, so long as no one was in too much of a hurry.

‘Thinking of taking up hairdressing then?’ Irma joked as she reached the foot of the stairs and saw Grant heading towards the kitchen.

‘No chance. That dozy mare Harriet should be doing this, not me.’

Upstairs was a different story. Rose was in great distress. The old woman had clearly been left unattended for some hours and she was in floods of tears over having wet her bed.

‘I’m worse than a babby,’ she cried, wretched in her shame and despair. Irma put her arms round her old friend and gathered her close against her plump warm bosom.
 

‘Nay, don’t take on. It’s not your fault. When’s the last time your Joyce came up to see how you were, or if you wanted anything?’

‘Dinner time.’

Irma looked shocked. ‘But that’s more than five hours ago. Six, if she came up around twelve.’

Rose nodded. ‘She left - water.’ Then shook her head as she indicated the still full glass, showing how she’d been too afraid to drink it in case she needed to relieve herself.

Irma helped the old lady out of bed and to the bathroom where she cleaned her up then sat her in a chair while she stripped and remade the bed. She could feel fury boiling up inside her. How could a woman treat her own mother in such a fashion? It was dreadful.

‘I blame meself,’ Irma said. ‘I should have popped in for a few minutes in the middle of the afternoon. I will in future. I’ll make sure our Joe is available to take over for half an hour or so every now and then, while I see to you.’

‘I – I d-don’t want to be no . . .’ Rose struggled over the next word.

‘Eeh, you’re no bother, chuck, so you can put that idea right out of yer head.’

‘Harriet. Want - Harriet. She’d help.’ And then summoning all her failing energy, Rose asked, ‘Where is she, Irma? Where’s my lass gone?’

‘I don’t know,’ Irma grimly replied. ‘But I mean to find out. In the meantime, I’ll move into her room so’s I can look after you properly till we get you on your feet again. Though mebbe I’d best ask your Joyce if it’s all right, since it’s her house.’

‘Nay - it’s not. Mine,’ Rose told her, surprising her friend.

‘Really? It’s your house, is it? Well, strike me down with a wet feather, and there’s me thinking Madam Joyce was the one with the brass. In that case, I’ll go and fetch me box right now, shall I?’

Rose beamed her pleasure.

Which was how it came about that it was Irma who moved in with Joyce, and not Joe after all.

Chapter Nineteen

Harriet wasn’t coping terribly well. There were times when she cried with quiet despair into the musty old cushion that she’d found in a rubbish skip and used as a pillow; times when she ached to run back home to Nan, to a hot bath and a warm bed.
 

Then the sun would come up, lighting the Ship Canal, glinting on the metal struts of giant cranes, polishing the railway sleepers to a glowing silver, and she’d sneak out to buy breakfast for the lads and think: ‘Where would I rather be? Here, with Vinny, having fun, or back home being harangued by Joyce, stood up by Steve, and with nothing more to look forward to than another day of constant criticism?

She missed her nan, of course. Harriet had tried ringing home a couple more times but had received the same abrupt response, so gave up. Instead, she wrote a long letter to her grandmother every week. Not that she could ever give any address for a reply, but at least it would put the old woman’s mind at rest.

She still felt angry over what had happened to her, over the way Joyce had treated her since Nan had announced the truth about her mother. It was absolutely unforgivable. Harriet felt she had only one real friend, and that was Shelley, the girl who sang in the band. They would sneak off together for a frothy coffee and a giggle and gossip whenever they got the chance, swap clothes and advise each other on the right shade of lipstick. It felt good to have a friend. But Shelley kept urging Harriet to go home, to get out while she still could.

Harriet laughed at the very idea. ‘Joyce would never have me back. She chucked me out, remember?’

‘You’re lucky you have a home to go to. I don’t. My parents are both dead. Vinny’s in the same boat. You could at least ask. What have you got to lose?’

‘Everything. My freedom. My pride, I suppose. Vinny?’

Shelley looked at her askance. ‘You aren’t in love with him, are you?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Good, keep it that way. He’ll bring you nothing but unhappiness.’

‘I think you’re being a bit hard on him, actually. He’s had an unhappy life too. He needs friends just as much as we do.’

Shelley raised her brow and said no more.

Harriet was suffering so badly from home sickness that she’d decided to pay a visit to her nan. Letters were all very well but Rose was the only one who had ever cared for her, and the old lady would probably still be worrying over how her favourite grandchild was coping. Besides, Harriet missed her, and felt in desperate need of a warm hug.

She chose a Saturday evening when Harriet knew Joyce would be out at the Dog and Duck with Joe. The market too would be closed, so there’d be less danger of her running into someone she knew who would ask awkward questions. Much as she ached to see her friends she had no wish to own up to them what a mess her life was in right now.

She rang the door bell, a slight sense of nervous excitement making her anxious even as she was eager to see her nan. She could hear the bell echoing through the shop, could imagine the sound of it in the flat above, but no one came, no one answered. Harriet was deeply disappointed.

Finally, she was forced to admit defeat and walked disconsolately away, tears rolling down her cheeks. Harriet told herself off for being so foolish as not to warn her that she was coming. Why hadn’t she at least sent a postcard? Perhaps because she’d been afraid of Joyce finding out and attempting to block her, or creating some sort of scene. Harriet had been so obsessed with avoiding her stepmother that she’d messed up an opportunity to see her lovely grandmother.

A little sob caught in her throat and she briskly rubbed her tears away with the flat of her hands. Next time she’d do it properly.

Upstairs, stuck in her bed unable to move, Rose had heard the doorbell ring and wondered who could be calling. Everyone knew the market would be closed by now so it couldn’t be a customer, or a commercial traveller trying to sell them shampoo. Oh, well, if it was important they’d call again, she thought.

Harriet strolled along the empty street, imagining the stacked stalls as they usually were, all decked out in their pink and white striped awnings and open for business, packed with produce, the entire market humming with people as they haggled over the price of a hand-knitted sweater or length of curtaining, bought their Fisherman’s Friend or coltsfoot rock, a meat pie or chunk of cheese from Poulsons, mint chocs from Pringle’s Chocolate Cabin. She thought of the times she used to sit in Bertalone’s ice cream parlour enjoying a peach gelato, or chatted over a hot Vimto with her friends in Belle’s café. How she missed it, all the fun and laughter, and most of all, the people.

She felt a warm acknowledgement that this was the place she belonged, almost as if she were an exile being granted a glimpse of her homeland.

Finding the big doors unlocked, Harriet couldn’t resist walking through the market hall. One or two of the traders were still in the process of closing for the day, cashing up or perhaps taking the opportunity to carry out a few maintenance jobs now all the customers had gone home.

To her great relief, Winnie Holmes was not among them. The nosy old woman would only need to catch a glimpse of her for Harriet’s presence to be broadcast to all and sundry. Joyce would be sure to hear then that she’d been back on a visit. Harriet tiptoed past Winnie’s stall, almost as if she half expected the old woman to leap out from behind the locked grill that protected the goods on display.

Even as she laughed at her own fears, she heard her name being called and almost jumped out of her skin. Turning, she saw with relief that it wasn’t Winnie, and the next instant found herself caught up in a warm hug from her friend Patsy.