Lonely Teardrops (2008) (52 page)

Steve took a sideways step to block her way.

‘Please get out of my way.’

Ignoring her, Steve remained where he was, now looking deeply troubled and very contrite. ‘Look, I’m sorry if we jumped to the wrong conclusion but ...’

‘We?’

He glanced away, not wishing to meet her condemning gaze. ‘Mother overheard some of the conversation between you and Rose last evening, and she rather thought you were talking about Vinny.’

Now Harriet was even more angry. ‘Well, she was wrong. If you want to know the truth that letter was from my
mother
, my
real
mother, who apparently isn’t dead after all, and wants to see me after all these years. She’s the one I’m desperate to see. Now do you understand why I’m so thrilled?’

‘Oh, lord, but Mother thought it was Vinny.’

‘Well, she thought wrong. Serve her right for eavesdropping on a private conversation. Please, it’s been a long morning and I wish to see my child.’ Pushing Steve out of the way Harriet started up the stairs, unshed tears already marring her vision.

‘She isn’t there,’ Steve called after her retreating figure, puzzled by the comment.

‘What?’

‘Michelle isn’t there. Joyce collected her earlier. She was supposed to be meeting you after work.’

Harriet froze. ‘Joyce has taken my baby? Why didn’t you tell me?’ Turning, she flew down the stairs and out of the house, and, after a moment of stunned paralysis, Steve ran after her.

The stallholders of Champion Street were attempting to go about their business as normally as possible, despite the presence of bulldozers at one end of the street, lined up like an army waiting to invade. Men in hard hats stood about making notes on their clip-boards, engaged in endless discussions. They seemed to be blocking off the street with barriers, erecting scaffolding here and there, putting up warning signs.

‘Are they going to start work today?’ Jimmy Ramsay was asking, as a group of them stood huddled together in the rain, worrying over what to do next.

‘Since they’ve given us only till the end of the week to move out, it’s bound to be soon, that’s for sure,’ Patsy agreed. ‘Then what? Do we meekly leave, or stay and fight?’

Rose was livid that all their efforts seemed to be coming to nought. ‘We stay and fight. We ring all of the newspapers again, the nationals this time, not just the local lot.’

‘And the television people,’ Papa Bertalone raged, shaking his fist. ‘We should make them take pictures to show the world how these developers mean to take down perfectly good houses and destroy our market.’
 

‘You’re absolutely right,’ Belle agreed. ‘I’ll get on to it this very minute. We need to show everyone that we haven’t given up yet, that we remain strong.’

Jimmy Ramsay turned to Rose. ‘It’s time you and me paid another visit to them flippin’ councillors, tried one more time to get them on our side and persuade these people to at least meet us half way.’

‘Let’s march on them right now and chase them bulldozers off our street,’ Winnie Holmes shouted, and a roar of approval went up.

It was at this moment that Harriet come running across the cobbles, quite out of breath and her face ashen, a picture of distress. Steve, looking equally concerned, was by her side. She skidded to a halt and instantly burst into tears.

It took a moment for Rose to get any sense out of her, the entire gathering of stallholders and residents listening agog to the tale. It seemed that out of some long-held desire for revenge, Joyce had stolen little Michelle and clearly meant the baby harm.

‘She would,’ Frankie Morris agreed. ‘That sounds very like Joyce. She’s been out for revenge all her life.’

‘But why take it out on an innocent babby?’ Winnie Holmes wanted to know.

‘Because she’s a paranoiac and has lost all sense of reason and logic. She were raped when she were young,’ Frankie bluntly told them, suddenly tired of secrets. ‘By my brother, as it turned out, though she didn’t know that at the time. I’ve kept quiet to protect him ‘cos he was nobbut a lad, a young sailor the worse for drink at a party and really hadn’t the first idea what he was doing, or that she was unwilling. Unfortunately, he left Joyce pregnant with Grant and she’s tried to cover it up with lies ever since. The bitterness of that tragedy ruined her marriage and warped her mind. But now isn’t the time to talk about the rights and wrongs of the case. We have to find that baby.’

The campaign to save the market was instantly put on hold. A baby’s life was at stake, which was surely far more important.

Everyone began to search and the police were called in to help. Only the men driving the bulldozers carried on working, perhaps glad to be free to get on with the job.

They could find no trace of her. Harriet was distraught, and accused Grant of aiding and abetting his mother to steal Michelle. He denied all knowledge of her plan, and for once looked so earnest that Harriet felt obliged to believe him.

Grant did, however, agree to help search for the baby, while privately thinking that if he found the child first, he would indeed help Joyce to dispose of the little bastard, any way he thought fit. He felt deeply aggrieved at being disinherited, which seemed to encapsulate all the neglect he imagined he’d been subjected to over the years.

He knew all about the rape now, that his father was some drunken sailor, apparently Frankie Morris’s useless younger brother and not a rich businessman at all. It was too much, serving only to fuel his resentment and anger still further.

Unaware of these thoughts, Harriet frantically hammered on door after door, working her way down the street, terrified her child might have been hidden in a house about to bulldozed out of existence. She kept screaming at someone to stop the men from working, but nobody took any notice, perhaps couldn’t even hear her above the din.

She felt as if her life were crumbling to ashes before her eyes. She’d come to trust Margaret, then the woman blatantly eavesdrops on a private conversation and jumps to entirely the wrong conclusion. Steve too had instantly assumed that she’d be eager to rush back to Vinny at a moment’s notice. Could she trust no one? Did nobody believe in her, or listen to a word she said?

Now her precious child was missing. What more could go wrong?

And why would Joyce suddenly take it into her head to run off with the baby? She’d largely ignored them both for months, barely speaking to Harriet and only then when out in public in a rather embarrassing pretence of family unity for the benefit of the neighbours. Surely she wasn’t still trying to prove that Harriet was an unfit mother, or angling to have the child adopted?

It came to Harriet in that moment where Joyce might have taken the baby. To Father Dimmock and that Christian middle-class family who were so desperate for a child. The priest lived at the top of the street, opposite Leo Catlow, right next to the church.

Harriet began to run. She didn’t wait for Steve or anyone else to join her, she just flew up the street in search of her child. Nor, when she reached the presbytery, did she pause to knock or ask politely if she might come in. Harriet thrust open the door and marched right in.

Joyce was sitting in the Priest’s private office. Father Dimmock was seated at his desk and opposite him sat a middle-aged couple who glanced up with a welcoming smile as Harriet charged in. There was no sign of Michelle.

‘Where is she? What have you done with her?’

‘Ah, Harriet,’ Father Dimmock said, getting up to go to her. ‘Do come in. I’m so pleased that you’ve changed your mind about having the baby adopted. We have the papers here, all signed. The new adoptive parents in this very private adoption, are absolutely delighted. Well done, Harriet, for doing the right thing. I’m sure you won’t ever regret it.’

Harriet gazed upon the little group gathered about the priest, numb with shock. In that moment of utter horror she felt as if she had lost everything. Whatever problems she’d had to contend with were as nothing compared with losing her child.

‘I have not changed my mind, or agreed to this adoption. If you have documents in your possession which say otherwise then they are fraudulent, possibly forged by Joyce.’

He didn’t seem to be listening. ‘Now Harriet, don’t get in a state. This little matter has been most satisfactorily sorted out’. Father Dimmock could see no wrong in Joyce. She was a stalwart, loyal member of his congregation and, in his opinion, would never stoop so low as to tell a lie or forge a signature. Her foolish daughter, on the other hand, who’d run off with an itinerant musician and given birth to his illegitimate child in a lavatory was an entirely different matter. An unreliable witness, if ever there was one.

‘Stop fighting this, Harriet,’ he warned her. ‘It is by far the best solution for your baby. Be grateful that she is to go to such a fine, morally upstanding couple who will give her the kind of upbringing you can’t.’

‘But I’m her
mother
!’ Despite her best efforts, a great sob burst from her. ‘Doesn’t that count for anything?’

‘You are a very foolish, silly girl. A wanton little hussy who should beg the Holy Virgin for forgiveness for your sins. Have you even attempted to make confession?’

Steve quickly stepped forward. ‘Hold on a minute, that’s putting it a bit rich. I’ll not have you speak to Harriet in that way. I love her, and I’m hoping to persuade her to marry me soon, perhaps when my probationary teaching year is over, then the baby will have everything she needs, a proper home with two loving parents.’

Harriet looked at him with wonder and love in her eyes. What had she done to deserve such a lovely man?

Joyce’s mouth twisted with bitterness. ‘It’s too late. The deed is done. The papers are all signed.’

‘And
you
signed them,’ Harriet said. ‘
I
certainly didn’t.’

‘I am still your guardian. You’ll do as I say.’

‘Never!’

And while they argued, while Harriet wept and railed and the priest and her stepmother refused to listen, the proposed adoptive parents anxiously waited to take possession of their child.

Eventually, Father Dimmock pushed Harriet into a chair and ordered her to be quiet. Then he instructed Joyce to fetch the child. ‘Enough! Let us put an end to this nonsense.’ Joyce disappeared into the back kitchen where she’d left little Michelle sleeping in her pram. Harriet sat frozen by fear, terrified she was about to lose her baby. And then Joyce burst through the door, breathless.

‘She’s not there. The baby’s gone. Someone has taken her.

Chapter Forty-Six

Manchester has a long history of markets, going right back to 1066 when William the Conqueror conferred the manor, together with the privilege of holding fairs and markets, to celebrate his victory at Hastings. Yet despite this, Champion Street Market was about to be closed down, and, much to Rose’s annoyance, no alternative site had yet been offered or found.

Rose had never thought of herself as a rebel, preferring to leave all of that to the younger generation, to her granddaughter and grandson who had more than enough rebellion in their blood for one family. Nevertheless, she wasn’t going to stand back and witness the loss of her beloved street, and her home, without a fight.

Belle had rallied numerous members of the press, both local and national, and she and Rose were even now holding court and giving interviews, while keeping half an eye on what was happening at the bottom end of the street. Rose could hear the bulldozers grumbling and groaning and grinding their gears; heard the thunderous crash as a great metal ball swung through the air and smacked right into the sides of the old Victorian houses behind the fish market.

‘All we are saying,’ Rose shouted at the young reporter, lifting her voice above the din, ‘is that while the bottom of Champion Street may well need demolishing and rebuilding, that doesn’t apply to the rest of it. And the market shouldn’t be affected at all. Why can’t it stay here, even when the new flats are built?’

‘Since no one has paid any heed to these arguments so far, what do you think your next move should be?’ he asked.

It was a good question, one to which Rose had no answer. She was at her wits’ end, her mind a complete blank, yet her fighting spirit, her fury at being treated in such a cavalier fashion was as strong as ever.

‘We’re going to carry on fighting,’ yelled Jimmy Ramsay, waving his home-made banner in the young man’s face.

Cheers went up all round as a gathering of a hundred or more people prepared to march on the bulldozers. Big Molly Poulson had barricaded herself and her husband Ozzy in the house, swearing they’d have to knock it down around her ears before she left it. Most of the stallholders were more circumspect, but they were all fired up with anger.

The street was in chaos with television camera crews very much in evidence, men with microphones finding the prettiest girls to talk to for their opinions on the loss of this traditional market. Where would they go for their gossip and their bargains now?

Papa Bertalone was there with his entire family gathered about him, including Gina and Luc, declaring this draconian decision reminded him very much of Hitler. The Bertalone children had decorated both the parlour and the old ice cream cart with home-made streamers and posters. SAVE OUR MARKET, these proclaimed in slightly drunken, bright red, blue and yellow letters.