Lonely Teardrops (2008) (49 page)

‘Let me feed her,’ he would say, as she tuned up with the first opening cries of hunger, and Harriet would laugh.

‘All right, softie, but make sure you burp her properly.’

Steve watched how Harriet did things, and took great care to follow her lead. She was a natural mother, and his admiration and love for her grew with each moment he spent with her.

And when the baby was tucked up for the night, they would sit together in the lamplight and talk, not about anything in particular, nor about Harriet’s uncertain future, which he knew was of great concern to her. They would stick to more general topics, perhaps chewing over the day’s news from her transistor radio. Whether Kennedy would make a good president now that he’d scraped into office, or the fact that for the first time in cricket history, a test match had ended in a draw despite Australia needing only six to win with three wickets left.

‘A catch dropped, a run out, five frantic runs, then finally a fantastic throw from Joe Solomon,’ Steve cried. ‘What a game!’

Not understanding a word, Harriet smiled fondly at him.

They might talk about whether or not Yul Brynner should have shaved his hair off again for
The Magnificent Seven
, or the new star Albert Finney in
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning.
But they went to see neither of these films. For one thing they didn’t have any money, and for another they were quite content to light a fire in the small Victorian grate in Harriet’s room and toast crumpets. Then she might let him kiss her a little, which was adorable, although Steve made sure that he kept his emotions firmly in check.

Sometimes, when he reluctantly left her to go to his own bed, he couldn’t remember what they’d talked about at all.

It was a week or two after Christmas when Harriet got the shock of her life. She was just giving Michelle her morning bath when there came a tap on the door and Margaret Blackstock popped her head round it, for once not smiling when she saw the naked pink baby kicking her little legs in the bath.

‘Ah, I thought you might be busy. You have a visitor. Two, actually.’

Harriet could tell by the tightness in the other woman’s face that this wasn’t a welcome visitor, and her heart skipped a beat. ‘Who?’

‘It’s him, your young man.’ Margaret Blackstock nodded coldly in the direction of the baby, in case Harriet had forgotten the identity of the baby’s father already.

‘He isn’t - my young man,’ Harriet said in her quietest voice. ‘What does he want?’

Margaret considered Harriet’s ash-pale face and her heart softened a little. It was very clear that her son was desperately in love with this girl, a fact which had at first alarmed and displeased her. Now her opinion was gradually changing. Harriet wasn’t in fact a bad lot at all, as she had at first assumed. A bit silly and rebellious perhaps, but who wasn’t in their teens? Margaret preferred not to recall how close she had come to making a similar mistake herself. And with Joyce for a mother, or stepmother, was it any wonder? ‘There’s a girl with him, quite pretty.’

‘Shelley. She’s the singer in the band.’

‘Ah!’ There was an awkward moment while Margaret waited for Harriet to say something more. When no further response came, she continued in a softer tone, ‘You don’t have to see him, if you don’t want to. I could take a message, or ask him to leave, if you prefer.’

Harriet looked into the older woman’s face, momentarily startled by the sympathy she found there, and took less than a second to decide. ‘Yes. Yes, please do that. Thank him for calling and ask him to leave.’

Margaret nodded. ‘A good decision.’

She returned ten minutes later with a cup of coffee for each for them, and two slices of jam sponge. ‘There, a little treat for us. I baked it only this morning so we must eat it while it’s at its very best. May I take her for a moment?’

Moved by the woman’s unexpected generosity, Harriet happily handed Michelle over. After a moment, in which she praised the lightness of the sponge, she asked, ‘Has Vinny gone?’ She felt the need to use his name, to prove to herself she could say it without any ill effects, and was pleased to find that she could.

‘Indeed he has. He asked me to tell you that the band is back in Manchester. Things apparently didn’t go too well in London and he’d be happy for you to join them, if you’re interested. But it’s now or never, apparently. You must make up your mind once and for all, because if you aren’t available to work for them as before, then he’ll have to find somebody else.’ Margaret glanced at the girl, gauging her reaction.

A slight pause, and then Harriet said, ‘Did he ask about the baby, whether I’d had a boy or a girl, for instance?’

Margaret shook her head, watching the girl closely from over the rim of her cup as she sipped her coffee. ‘He did say that you were welcome to bring the baby, no strings attached. He seemed to imply you were well aware of his need for freedom.’

‘I am.’

‘And will you be joining him?’

‘No, I won’t.’

‘I see. No regrets?’

‘About not accepting his offer? No, none at all.’

Harriet managed to smile even though she was silently fuming inside. She felt angry towards Vinny for not caring if he’d fathered a boy or a girl, for not even bothering to ask how Harriet was coping on her own, or if she needed any money. Not that she would take it, she told herself, but it was the principle that counted. He could at least offer.

And how had he known she was here? Had Joyce told him she was living with the Blackstocks? Most significant of all, he still had Shelley with him. Nothing had changed then.

Well, he was gone now, thank goodness. They both were, and Harriet doubted they’d be back.

It was true what she’d just said, she didn’t feel any regrets, except for having met him in the first place. She reached over to tickle her baby’s tummy. ‘I have Michelle, I don’t need Vinny Turner. He is indeed trouble with a capital T.’

‘Good girl,’ Margaret said, without the slightest hint of being patronising. ‘And what about our little treasure then? She seems to be growing daily, before our very eyes. What a little beauty you are going to be,’ Margaret said, placing a raspberry kiss on the baby’s bare tummy. Michelle chuckled and both women burst out laughing. ‘Do you think that was a laugh or simply wind?’ Margaret asked, surprised.

Harriet shook her head in delight. ‘I’ve no idea, but it sounded lovely, didn’t it?’

‘It did indeed!’ And the two women contentedly played with the baby while they enjoyed Margaret’s excellent coffee and jam sponge.

Chapter Forty-Three

The market was in turmoil with the arrival of bulldozers and JCBs. Homes were within days of being razed to the ground, the hairdresser’s salon included, and Joyce was frantically packing up to leave. She’d found them a house to rent in Quay Street, just a short distance away, but hadn’t yet found alternative accommodation for the salon. She was filled with fury over the situation, angry with her mother for not having accepted the generous offer from the developers. At least then they could relocate her business somewhere decent. Many people had already done so, the rest were beginning to ask if it was worth going on with the fight.

All except for one or two stalwarts, her mother included. Rose was still calling the newspapers and trying to drum up support for this fruitless campaign.
 

The folk who lived at the bottom end of Champion Street were, of course, delighted at the prospect of being rehoused in a posh new flat, thrilled to escape the damp overcrowding, the peeling wallpaper and the invasion of cockroaches in the dark of night. But those in the top half of the street took a different view.

The Poulsons were still holding out, as were Winnie and Barry Holmes; Dena Dobson too was hoping either for a last minute reprieve or word that the developers or the city council had found them a new home and were willing to relocate the market. Patsy Bowman, now Patsy Bertalone, was likewise hanging on, having persuaded Clara Higginson not to accept the developers’ offer either. It was a dangerous game they were playing.

Amy and Chris George had already sold up and gone, as had Sam Beckett. His ex-wife, Judy, was standing very much behind the campaign to save the market, and the fact she’d recently gained full custody of her children made her even more determined to win. She was also reputed to be back with Leo Catlow, although not in a hurry to re-marry. The world’s morals, Joyce thought, rather hypocritically, were rapidly disappearing.

Terry, Alec’s son, was steadfastly hanging on to Hall’s Music Shop in the Market Hall, opening his door for business every morning irrespective of the dust and disruption in the street. He was assisted by his wife Lynda when she wasn’t doing her stint working for her mum Betty Hemley on the flower stall.
 

Betty was another stubborn soul not prepared to be bullied by any tin-pot building firm, a somewhat ungenerous description of one of Manchester’s largest developers.
 

‘This isn’t simply about folks’ homes,’ Rose reminded her daughter. ‘Or whether they will be given the opportunity to live in one of the new flats, once they’re built. It’s about people’s livelihoods. Champion Street Market has a long tradition going back hundreds of years and to see it dismantled with all the attendant community spirit lost for ever, would be criminal.’

‘I do see that, Mother, but where are we supposed to live, if they tear down our house? Tell me that.’

‘And it would be little short of a tragedy if the wonderful Victorian Market Hall with its new extension was demolished,’ Rose continued, as if Joyce hadn’t interrupted.

‘Are you listening to me?’

Rose was far too busy painting posters for the final demonstration in the campaign to listen to anyone. Who was listening? Nobody, in Joyce’s estimation. Nobody ever had. They were all too wrapped up in their own concerns, too busy to care about whether or not she was happy. What was she supposed to do if she lost this business? Where was she supposed to go? She’d poured years of hard work and toil into this place.

Joyce had quickly grown bored of being stuck at home with a baby and come to a decision. She would go back to work. They needed the money in any case, if she was to continue paying Eileen her allowance, as Stan insisted they should, and which even Joyce felt obliged to do, at least for a while. After six months or so she’d fully intended to gradually reduce the amount paid, then stop it altogether. Stan would still have been away at sea and none the wiser.

Joyce had longed to start her own business. Rose would have to come too, of course, to help look after the baby during the day, but at least they’d be away from Ancoats, and from Eileen.
 

She’d soon found and taken on the lease of this shop in Champion Street, which was perfect. There was the flat above, although when she’d first viewed the premises, it had been occupied by an elderly couple. Given time and the right inducements, Joyce had persuaded them to leave, and she’d moved in with the children and Rose, eager to start afresh and put the past behind her.

Despite the perfidy of fate, everything had seemed to be working out for them at last.

Now, her own mother had betrayed her, refusing to sign the property over into Joyce’s name, and all because of that flaming child she’d stupidly adopted. Taking Harriet on had been the biggest mistake of her life. She’d succeeded only in landing herself with a great deal of trouble and responsibility. Her noble act of generosity hadn’t saved her marriage in the end. Nothing had.

Stan had come home at the end of the war a damaged man, both physically and psychologically. He’d blamed Joyce for everything that had gone wrong since he went away, and proved himself deaf to her complaints for their entire married life.
 

If she’d disagreed with any decision he made regarding Harriet, he would ignore her, making it very clear that she had no say over the girl’s welfare, that his word was final. Stan had been far too soft with the girl, and always shut Joyce out. He’d allowed her to wear make-up far too young, and to go out with boys, that Steve Blackstock for one. She might well have behaved far more responsibly if Joyce had been allowed to exercise a bit more discipline over her.

Stan’s answer to everything was to shower the child with soppy love and affection, give her pointless cuddles and thoroughly spoil her. Was it any wonder if Joyce had come to hate her? Just like her tart of a mother, she’d stolen Stan’s affection from her.

But what would her husband think of his beloved daughter now? Shacked up with one lad after giving birth to the child of another. What did that say about a decent girl’s reputation? Joyce sincerely hoped such wanton behaviour would reap its just rewards in the end. The lass really didn’t deserve to be happy.

Harriet had been staying with the Blackstocks for almost six months now and was still obstinately refusing Steve’s frequent and increasingly persistent offers of marriage. Summer was upon them, his finals were over and done with and a teaching certificate was in his hand. He even had an offer of an excellent post teaching mathematics at a local secondary school.

‘So what’s the problem?’ he asked her, times without number. ‘You know very well that you love me.’

Yes, it was true, she did love him. And yes, she knew that he loved her, but where did that get them? Joyce had loved Stan once upon a time, and Stan had loved Joyce, apparently. But Harriet’s father, fine man that he still was in her eyes, had found it quite impossible to live with the fact that Grant was not his child. And from that moment on, the pair of them had resolutely set out to destroy their marriage and each other.