Lonely Teardrops (2008) (26 page)

‘Just leave me alone.’

Steve was flapping his hands as he used to do when she’d accused him of ruining her skipping game in the playground. ‘OK. OK, keep your hair on. I just wanted to ask when you’d be coming home, that’s all. But obviously you aren’t by the sound of it.’

‘No, actually, I’m not. I’m staying with Vinny, thanks. And it would be best if you just forgot all about me.’

He was looking at her now with a sadness in his gaze. ‘I see. That’s what you want, is it, to be with Vinny?’
 

Harriet looked away. ‘Yes, it is.’

There was a long pause before he spoke again. ‘I’ll leave you to it then,’ and with a curt nod he walked away. Out of the pub, out of her life.

Harriet slapped the tears from her cheeks and stared at Vinny, her new love, leaping about like a mad thing. She could never go back, not with the way things stood, so why fret about it?
 

She’d made her choices, and she would stand by them.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Little by little, and by dint of sheer will power and bloody-mindedness, Irma forced Rose to get going again. She made the old woman do regular exercises, first with her hands and arms, which she would massage and manipulate, and then her legs. Irma would make her lie on her back while she rubbed and bent them up and down, up and down. Then she’d make her sit on a chair while she did the same there. After a few weeks of this, she started hoisting her to her feet, holding the fragile old woman safe in her big arms while Rose got the feel of the weight of her own body again.

It sometimes went wrong. Rose would lose her balance, or she’d use the wrong word, and they’d fall about laughing like a pair of silly teenagers. But that was no bad thing.

Irma absolutely refused to allow her friend to sink into depression. She kept Rose alert by reading to her, by persuading her to listen to her favourite programmes on the wireless:
Woman’s Hour
,
Paul Temple
and Valentine Dyal as
The Man In Black
, whom she loved. And Irma talked, mostly nonsense but it didn’t matter. Anything she could think of to stimulate her friend’s mind and prevent her from just lying there doing nothing.

Joyce frequently objected to the noise they made, claiming that the loud music disturbed her customers, that their shrieks of laughter were doing her head in. She objected even more when a constant stream of visitors began to trickle through the hair salon, all asking if they could just pop upstairs and have a bit of a crack with Rose.

‘We miss seeing her out and about on the market,’ Winnie explained. ‘Anyroad, she’ll want to know all about this campaign that she’s started.

‘What campaign?’

‘To save the market. It were Rose’s idea that we investigate thoroughly what’s happening and then set up a special committee to fight the closure. We’re not going to let them get away with it. She’s very determined, your mother, when she sets her mind to something. Anyroad, you’ll be glad of the help to get her back on her feet, I reckon, even if it’s not coming from the direction you would have sought.’

‘I’m afraid I don’t understand what you’re implying, Winnie.’

‘No, course you don’t. Why would you? I’ll just go up, shall I?’

The whole of Champion Street Market seemed to be trailing through her salon and up Joyce’s stairs at one time or another. It was infuriating.

Joyce hated to feel beholden to anyone, and loathed having Irma in the house. Apart from the fact that it put paid to any hope of secret trysts with the silly woman’s husband, Joyce deeply resented the intrusion into her own private domain. And she hated to be at the mercy of the market gossips.

Steve could have kicked himself. He’d messed up yet again. He seemed to make a habit of saying the wrong thing. Not only had he upset Harriet by implying she was letting herself down, but he’d criticised her precious new boy friend too, which apparently was unforgivable. Why was she behaving so stupidly? He couldn’t understand it.
 

Yes, he could.

After all she’d been through he could understand perfectly. It was difficult to imagine how anyone would react to suddenly discovering that your mother wasn’t your mother, after all. Even if Joyce Ashton hadn’t been the easiest woman in the world to live with, she was the only mother Harriet had ever known. Steve’s own mother could be a pain at times, but he still loved her.

Worse, because of their quarrel, he’d again forgotten to tell her that Rose was ill. Harriet would be furious with him if she ever found out that he’d known about her nan’s stroke yet had failed to mention the fact. And Joyce clearly didn’t intend making any effort to trace Harriet and inform her of the state of her grandmother’s health.

There was no help for it, he’d have to pay another visit to a gig by The Scrapyard Kids, and tell her. Apologise to her yet again, this time for failing to tell her that her grandmother was ill.

Steve felt a spark of hope. At least it would give him an excuse for seeing her again. He certainly wasn’t going to give up on her, or forget her, despite Harriet having told him to do so, even if she was behaving stupidly.

The problem was that his time was limited since he was at college during the week, which meant he only had the weekends, and, once his work load increased as the course progressed, even those would be in jeopardy. He spent the next weekend trailing around from pub to pub, like some sort of desperate inebriate, looking for any sign that The Scrapyard Kids were due to perform. He spotted Grant in one pub, and then in another, and turned the other way, wanting to avoid him.

The next weekend, Steve followed the same routine, with little better luck, and yet again he spotted Grant. What was the lad up to?

Grant had followed Harriet back to her digs, and, now that he knew exactly where she was staying, kept a close eye on her movements, covertly following her wherever she went.
 

He would see her call in at a baker’s shop to buy them sandwiches or pastries, or go to a take-away for burgers or fish and chips. At other times she’d visit some pub or other, presumably to talk with the landlord about a possible booking. Grant thought he was really rather clever trailing after her as she went back and forth on what seemed to be a constant stream of errands for the band while they rehearsed in that decrepit old warehouse. It amused him to think of her as being little more than an errand girl.

One evening she called at several public houses, then recklessly chose to take a short cut down a side street, clearly anxious to get back to lover-boy as quickly as possible. Grant followed her. Dusk was falling and he thought that maybe this could be the very opportunity he’d been waiting for. He pictured in his head what he would do to her.

He would shove her down into the gutter where she belonged, strip her of her dignity, pummel her soft white flesh with bruises and reduce her to tears. He’d make her beg for mercy, plead with him with tears in her lovely grey eyes for him not to hurt her. Oh, but he would hurt her. If she could open her legs for all and sundry in that band, she could open them for him too. She deserved to be humiliated. She needed to be made to understand the injury she’d done to him over the years, the neglect she’d caused him, just by being Stan’s favourite.

Grant slipped from one doorway to another as he made his way along the street, making sure that he kept a safe distance. As she reached the end and swiftly turned the corner, he put on a little spurt so that he didn’t lose her. Then, edging slowly around the corner, he found to his utter shock and horror that he’d walked right into her. She was standing waiting for him, hands on her hips and an expression of cold fury on her face.

‘So what’s this all about, Grant, this creeping about behind me like some tin-pot detective?’

He valiantly attempted to recover his equilibrium, though he was sweating furiously. ‘Good evening, sister dear, I wondered if it might be you. What a coincidence!’

‘Coincidence my foot, you’ve been following me for days. Did Joyce put you up to this, or was it your own idea?’

‘I can’t think what you mean?’

There was something about her demeanour which unnerved him. She’d never been the meek and mild sort, always considering herself to be a cut above him, and completely unmoved when he, as her older brother, exercised his right to discipline her. She’d always been a cocky little madam who refused to do as she was told. Grant hated her for that attitude alone.
 

She might think she was somebody because she was involved with this ramshackle band, living in cheap little boarding houses, but she wasn’t at all. Harriet was nothing but a bastard, the scum of the earth. So what right did she have to lord it over him?

Grant curled his upper lip in a sour smile. ‘If you want to know, I came out for a bevy and I spotted you in that pub. It’s really not the sort of place a young girl like you should visit on your own. I don’t approve of any sister of mine making herself look cheap, so I followed you to check that you were OK.’

‘Don’t lie to me, Grant. And don’t creep about. I’m not stupid and I won’t be spied on. You go back home and tell Joyce that I’m fine, thank you very much. I might be homeless but I’m not starving, and I’m not without friends, so don’t for a moment think of trying anything.’

Grant adopted an injured expression of outraged innocence. ‘What are you suggesting, sister dear?’

‘You’re a nasty little sneak, Grant, but you don’t frighten me. You forget that I’m used to your grubby little ways. They don’t intimidate me in the slightest. And call me by my proper name, if you please. Show some respect.’

Grant took a step towards her, a threatening note coming into his voice. ‘Or else what,
sister
dear?’

‘Or you’ll have me to deal with.’ The voice came from quite a different direction, and Grant spun about to find himself face to face with Steve Blackstock. By heck, did she have two lovers on the go? But then he noticed that Harriet was equally surprised by his sudden appearance.

‘Steve, what are you . . .?’ she began as if she’d had no idea he was even there.

‘I rather suspected this creepy little toad was up to something, and decided to keep an eye on him. I’ve been proved correct. Do you realise he’s been following you for days?’

‘Yes,’ Harriet snapped. ‘I’m fully aware of that fact, and I really don’t need you hanging around as well, appointing yourself as some sort of glorified protector. In fact, I’m pretty fed up with the pair of you. I don’t need anyone to look after me. I can look after myself, thank you very much, so will you both get off my back and leave me alone!’ Upon which note she walked away, leaving both young men feeling decidedly foolish.

The day came when Irma decided it was time Rose ventured downstairs. She refused, point blank.

‘Nay, I’ll fall.’

‘Not if I’m holding on to you.

‘Can’t walk - far. Couldn’t get down them - blame stairs.’

Not to be thwarted in her plan, Irma assured Rose she’d soon fix that. She took the problem straight to Joyce. ‘I don’t understand why you’re keeping your mother trapped upstairs when there’s a perfectly good room at the back here which your Stan used.’

Joyce regarded the other woman with a chilling glare. ‘You surely don’t expect me to give up my office?’ She’d taken the room over within days of Stan’s death, clearing out all his belongings, packing them into bags, ordering Grant to dump them at the tip. Good riddance to bad rubbish, had been Joyce’s view on the clothes, medals, books and personal mementoes that her husband had collected over the years. Then she’d set out the room as an office to her own impeccable taste. She rarely used the room, truth be told, but it looked rather smart, and she certainly had no intention of being evicted from her own personal, private space.

Irma said, ‘I’m fetching her downstairs tomorrow, like it or lump it, so we’ll set up her bed in here, shall we? Just till she’s stronger and can get up and down them stairs under her own steam.’ Irma caught sight of Stan’s wheelchair tucked in a corner. Joyce was still waiting for Grant to dispose of this bulky item. ‘Eeh, and we could make use of that an’ all.’

Joyce was outraged. She couldn’t believe this was happening to her all over again. ‘I’ll never agree to that!’ The thought of her mother within feet of her precious clients in the salon, trundling about in that wheelchair, sent shudders down her spine. Hadn’t she suffered the indignity of enduring an invalid in this room for more years than she cared to count? When would she ever be free? ‘Never in a million years,’ Joyce announced, lips thinning to their trademark line.

‘Oh, I reckon so. I’ve kept quiet about what I’ve found here, but if I ever started talking about the way you were treating your old mother before I arrived on the scene, I doubt I’d be able to stop. No food for hours, only a glass of water to drink all day, and no help to get to the bathroom. I can be a right jabber-mouth, me, when I want to be.’

‘Is that some sort of threat?’

Irma smiled. ‘Joe would back me up. Shall I ask him? Anyroad, I’m sure he’d come over and give us a hand to move her bed and stuff, if
I
asked him.’

It occurred to Joyce, to her dismay, that Irma was not, in fact, asking her permission. She was simply informing Joyce of her intention. In no time at all, Joyce’s desk, chair, lamp, and even the old typewriter she’d purloined from Harriet’s room, which had looked so important set out on the desk even if it was never used, were all stacked up against the wall, or shut away in cupboards.