Paradise Lane (46 page)

The man, fascinated in spite of himself, folded his newspaper and glanced again at the vision before him. In his opinion, however uneducated he might have been when it came to fashion, scarlet and lime-green did not make for a perfect partnership. And this strange person had used powder so pale that she looked as if she had quarrelled with a flour bin and lost the argument. Twin spots of rouge made a clown of her, while the low-cut blouse failed completely to achieve the effect she so clearly sought.

‘What are you staring at?’ Her voice was strange, high-pitched, with an accent that sat about halfway between mid-Lancashire and Jean Harlow.

‘I’m sorry,’ he managed. ‘Are you American?’

She grinned, stuffed a stick of gum in her mouth and chewed noisily. ‘Half and half,’ she giggled. ‘Want a piece?’

He wanted no piece of gum and no piece of her. ‘No, thanks.’

‘I’m coming home,’ she advised him. ‘To get married.’

‘Really?’ Perhaps her fiancé was blind. Or perhaps this had been a courtship carried out by post. God help the poor devil when he set eyes on this lot! ‘Wonderful,’ he added lamely.

‘Known each other for years, of course. But I’ve been working in New York.’ The ‘new’ came out as ‘noo’, while the second word, in accordance with Lancashire speech, emerged as ‘Yoerk’. What a mess she was.

‘Bought this costoom special,’ she said. ‘It was on sale in Macey’s. I had to fight for it, but I always get what I want.’

The man pulled out his watch and wished time would fly.

‘You married?’ she asked, one finger and thumb stretching a length of gum from bared teeth.

He had never seen a grown woman playing with chewing gum. ‘Yes, I’m married with three children.’

‘I have a daughter,’ drawled Lottie. ‘Fourteen now. My intended’s got a nice cottage up Bromley Cross. We’re gonna live there after the wedding.’

He nodded, because he had run out of trite comments.

‘So I’ve a lot to look forward to.’ She pulled a manicure set from her bag and began sawing at her nails. He was a boring man, so she gave up on him. Another few minutes and she would be home. Home? She stopped the laugh from bubbling over into the carriage. For years, she’d had nowhere to call home. Morton Amerson had turned out to be a nasty piece of work. The bar position had never materialized, though she had certainly been placed in many other positions during her seven years abroad.

When her manicure was finished, she stared at her reflection in the dark mirror created by evening blackness behind the window. From day one, she had worked the clubs. Not as a barmaid or a waitress, but as a companion. As a companion-hostess, she had made the men pay for drinks, then for favours. Morton, her pimp, had allowed her twenty-five per cent of all she had earned. The wages were low so that the ‘girls’ could not escape.

Her Englishness had almost guaranteed that she would be busy. Enlivened by the idea of something different, men had queued to lie down with her. She twiddled the gum. The lying down hadn’t been too bad, but she could have done without some of the sessions in back alleys and doorways. Well, she was away from all that now. Mr Worthington – Mr Westford – had sent her the money and she had escaped at last. Soon, she would be a decent married woman with a nice stone cottage and a daughter.

Thinking about Sally always made Lottie uneasy. Over the years, she had managed to forget the kid for most of the time, had been too busy staying alive and fit for work. But occasionally, in the dark hours of the few nights she had spent alone, she would wonder about Sally. She would never have another live kid. After all the proddings and probings by various ‘doctors’, her inner workings were useless. Anyway, who wanted to be pregnant at forty? She didn’t look forty, she told herself by way of reassurance. She just looked tired. Anybody would have looked a bit worn out after half a dozen abortions and countless men with strange tastes.

Worthington, now Westford, was another oddity. Still, she reckoned she could cope with one pervert. With just the one, she would know where she stood. Or lay. She giggled, covered her mouth and pretended to cough, told the bloke that she’d swallowed some of her gum.

He rolled up his paper as the train slowed down. ‘Bolton,’ he advised her.

‘I know.’ For some reason, she was all excited. Was she looking forward to meeting Worthington again? No. She picked up her bag, gave the man a nice smile when he lifted down her suitcase. ‘Ta,’ she said.

He suddenly felt sorry for her. She was a grown-up infant with no idea of how to dress, how to behave. ‘I hope you’ll be happy,’ he said before disappearing from her life.

Lottie sat on the edge of her seat. Happiness was not something she understood. She understood a full stomach, a not-too-cruel client, a laugh with the other girls who had shared the brownstone at the bottom end of 42nd Street. What was happiness?

As Lottie Crumpsall stumbled off the Manchester train onto Trinity Street’s platform 1, she thought she had an answer. Someone of her own. Somebody who belonged to her and only to her. That kind of closeness came only from a child. She had a child, her own child, a daughter who had grown in her belly. Ivy Crumpsall had no rights at all when it came to Sally.

She saw the people on the platform, looked for Worthington, could not pick him out. An old man came forward and picked up her suitcase. ‘Lottie,’ he said quietly.

‘Is that you?’ she asked stupidly.

‘No,’ he replied, attempting some levity. ‘It’s my twin brother.’

She saw the shock in his face, knew that her own features wore a similar expression. This man was as old as Father Time.

‘You’ve changed,’ he remarked, a note of disapproval entering the words.

Lottie straightened her spine, decided that she would just get on with it. If she had to live with an old man, at least that was better than working the streets. ‘You’ll get used to me,’ she advised him. ‘And I suppose I’ll get used to you.’ It was only a matter of time, she told herself firmly. She needed Worthington. Through him, she might get a chance to reclaim the one person who might give her a taste of happiness.

‘You look a bloody sight worse than you did before,’ he said. ‘What the hell happened?’

Lottie stood in front of the mirror and looked at herself. ‘It’s not so bad if the sun don’t shine,’ she told him. ‘It only looks green in bright light.’

Westford sank into his chair. She was supposed to be cleaning up, but the place still looked like a rag yard. He had refused to marry a bottle blonde, so Lottie had been to a salon for a brown dye. She had come out khaki and she still looked like a tramp. ‘We’re supposed to be getting our daughter back,’ he told her. ‘Can’t you find something decent to wear?’

Lottie looked down at her frock. It was the longest dress she had, and it reached halfway down her calves. Its only saving grace lay in the fact that it was a lovely colour called burnt tangerine. ‘This is decent,’ she snapped. ‘I ain’t wearing navy blue just to keep you happy, feller.’

‘You’ll do as you’re told,’ he advised her.

Lottie Crumpsall, whose travels had taken her thousands of miles into all kinds of trouble, was not afraid of this man. Next to Morton Amerson and his bully-boys, Andrew Worthington, now Alan Westford, was going to be a pussy cat. ‘Don’t tell me what I can’t do and what I can do. Any more of your lip and I’ll go after Sally without your help.’

He paused, thought for a second or two. ‘What can you offer her? You’ve no place, no money, no chance of—’

‘Aw, pipe down,’ she shouted. ‘Do you think I’m a crazy woman? I saved.’ She had kept a tin under a loose floorboard, had stashed away the odd few dollars every week. Even when Morton had battered her, she had continued to lie, had insisted that she was not creaming off some of the profit. ‘I got money,’ she said now. ‘Not a lot, but enough to set me up in a rented place till I find work.’

He stared at her. Who the hell would employ this woman? She was so unattractive, so coarse and shabby. ‘We must do this together, Lottie. You won’t get her back without me. We have to prove that there’s a decent home for her, enough money to carry on her education and see to her needs.’

Lottie wet her fingers and smoothed her eyebrows before turning to look at him. ‘I don’t need you at all. She’s my kid – that’s not hard to prove. But who’s to know that you’re her real father? Anyway, I can’t see the authorities being impressed by a bloke who lost a fortune, left his wife and tried to kidnap a child.’

He hung on to his temper, just about. It was vital that he kept peace with Lottie. Even if they didn’t go through with the marriage, even if they didn’t manage to get Sally away from Ivy, he wanted the old woman to know that he and Lottie would be here after her death. The realization that Lottie had returned for Sally would be sufficient to finish the old woman. If she knew that Sally’s real father was waiting, too, she would surely perish in misery.

‘I can wear a hat,’ said Lottie.

‘Yes, that would be an improvement.’ He stood up, joined her at the mirror. ‘Look, I’ll take you to Manchester tomorrow and buy you a new outfit. I’m not completely poor, you know. I, too, have worked and saved.’

Lottie turned once more and viewed their reflection. ‘What happened to you?’ she asked. ‘You’ve shrunk like a prune.’

Again, he sat on his anger. ‘We’re none of us the same as we were, Lottie. Now. Are you going to clean up a bit?’ He waved an arm across the untidy room.

Lottie shrugged. ‘I ain’t used to it,’ she advised him. ‘We had servants.’ The ‘servants’ had been young girls serving a sort of apprenticeship. These unfortunates had swept and polished until they reached the age when they, too, could earn money in a horizontal position. ‘Cleaning is one thing I can’t do.’

He took a deep breath. ‘Let’s do it together, then. I’ll sweep while you dust.’ Andrew Worthington listened to Alan Westford, found him pathetic. No way would the owner of Paradise have taken up a sweeping brush. But he wanted everything to be right, wanted to make sure that he and Lottie were organized in case the Welfare stepped into the arena. As he moved a stack of dishes, he wondered again what the outcome would be. Sally had been safe all these years, but she had been living with a grandmother who was no blood relative. Maureen and Tom Marchant might bring in some big guns to oppose Lottie’s claim, but neither were they related by blood to Sally Crumpsall.

He pushed some cold potato into the bin, clanged the lid, scowled at the woman next door who was hanging out her sheets. The Heilbergs would come in on the act, no doubt. As long as they knew that he and Lottie were in the vicinity, they would be upset and anxious about the girl’s future. As long as they all knew that the girl’s mother and father would be visiting with gifts and treats . . . He would have to marry Lottie, there was nothing else for it. The thought of Joseph Heilberg’s face when his old enemy claimed Sally as his own daughter . . . Westford went inside and slammed the door, a smile lingering at the corners of his mouth.

In the sitting room, Alan Westford took charge. ‘Our surname will be Westford,’ he informed Lottie. ‘I’ve changed my name by deed poll. You’ll be Mrs Westford.’

Mrs Westford-to-be put down the nail-file and took up a yellow duster. She wasn’t sure. ‘I’ve not made my mind up yet,’ she told him airily. ‘I might not be the marrying type.’

Westford stifled a growl. ‘Nice jewellers in Manchester,’ he said. ‘A new outfit and an engagement ring?’

Lottie flicked a bit of dust around the dresser. ‘I’ll think about it,’ she said.

They were all in Ivy’s house having the usual Friday treat – cod, chips and peas from the fat ladies’ chip shop on Tonge Moor Road. Of course, the place wasn’t called the Fat Ladies’, but the pair of women who ran it were huge and friendly, always gave a waiting child a couple of hot chips wrapped in a little paper holder to keep fingers safe.

‘Eeh, that were good,’ sighed Ivy. She had rallied yet again, was up and about, though she still had to be pushed in the chair from time to time.

Prudence, who thoroughly enjoyed not being a lady, screwed up the paper that had contained her supper, then licked vinegar from her fingers.

‘The state of you,’ chided Ivy, who always had a plate. ‘Anybody’d think you were dragged up at the bottom end of Deane Road with jam jars for cups and nits in your hair.’

Prudence shrugged, tossed the ball of newsprint into the grate.

Sally retrieved it, threw it to Red. Red feinted to the right, bowled to the left, grinned when Cora Miles caught the missile. ‘You can’t fool me,’ said Cora, who had grown used to the young imp.

Ivy watched the impromptu game, smiled to herself. They were both doing so well. Sal was near the top of her class in everything except French, while Red Trubshaw, that mucky urchin from the slums, had long since left his science teacher at the starting post. ‘Give over,’ she told the assembly. ‘You know I get a stitch when I laugh.’

Sally yawned, caught the bundle of paper and fed it to the fire. ‘Where’s Gert?’ she asked.

Ivy shrugged. ‘She’s all mithered because she’s not seen yon daft husband of hers for a few weeks. I think she’s gone piking up Bromwich Street to see if he’s moved. If he has moved, it’ll be the first time he’s showed any signs of life. If he were burning, he’d be too lazy to run away from the fire.’ She stopped abruptly, remembered that Bert had been closely acquainted with the flames that had temporarily damaged the hands of a good friend. ‘Gert won’t be long,’ she told her granddaughter. ‘All she has to do is find the pub nearest to his lodgings.’

As if summoned by the conversation, Gert burst into the room, her face flushed. ‘He’s gone,’ she announced. ‘There were a black pudding in the meat safe crawling with maggots. Bread and milk’s gone green, and I chucked out a pound of stinking manifold. Nobody’s seen him for ages and the landlord says he’s going to let the room if Bert doesn’t come back soon.’

Prudence closed her eyes. For weeks, she had forced herself to carry on as normal in spite of a . . . a what? A feeling, a silly premonition that had plagued her since Rosie Blunt’s funeral? It was as if she were being watched or followed. Cora was worried, too. Even through closed eyelids, Prudence could feel Cora’s gaze. ‘You must tell the police,’ she said.