That'll Be the Day (2007)

That’ll Be The Day

Freda Lightfoot

Originally published 2007 by Hodder & Stoughton Ltd. 338 Euston Road, London NW1 3BH

Copyright © 2007 and 2011 by Freda Lightfoot.

All rights reserved.

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher. Nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

ISBN 978-0-9568119-8-1

Published by Freda Lightfoot 2011

 
‘You can’t put a price on Freda Lightfoot’s stories from Manchester’s 1950s Champion Street Market. They bubble with enough life and colour to brighten up the dreariest day and they have characters you can easily take to your heart.’

The Northern Echo.

‘Lightfoot clearly knows her Manchester well’

Historical Novel Society

‘Kitty Little is a charming novel encompassing the provincial theatre of the early 20th century, the horrors of warfare and timeless affairs of the heart.’

The West Briton

‘Another heartwarming tale from a master story-teller.’

Lancashire Evening Post
on For All Our Tomorrows.

‘a compelling and fascinating tale’
Middlesborough Evening Gazette
on The Favourite Child
(In the top 20 of the Sunday Times hardback bestsellers
)

‘This is a book I couldn’t put down . . . a great read!’

South Wales Evening Post
on The Girl From Poorhouse Lane

‘a fascinating, richly detailed setting with a dramatic plot brimming with enough scandal, passion, and danger for a Jackie Collins’ novel.’

Booklist on Hostage Queen

‘A bombshell of an unsuspected secret rounds off a romantic saga narrated with pace and purpose and fuelled by conflict.’
The Keswick Reminder
on The Bobbin Girls

‘paints a vivid picture of life on the fells during the war. Enhanced by fine historical detail and strong characterisation it is an endearing story...’

Westmorland Gazette
on Luckpenny Land

 
‘An inspiring novel about accepting change and bravely facing the future.’

The Daily Telegraph
on Ruby McBride

You’ll find bargains galore and life in the raw at Champion Street Market

‘Husbands, so demanding of wives and yet so flawed themselves. Useless lumps the lot of them, in Betty’s opinion.’

Working on her busy flower stall in Champion Street Market, Betty has lots of opportunities to observe her customers, and to speculate on their lives. Sam regularly buys bouquets for his wife, Judy, so why does she always look so worn out and miserable? Leo comes every week for flowers for his mother, but has never bought so much as a rosebud for his elegant wife.
 

Betty’s own husband went off long ago, so is it any wonder if she and her daughter, Lynda, have such a dim view of men? But all that is about to change …

Chapter One

1958

After today Betty Hemley would forever associate the scent of chrysanthemums with the shock of seeing again that face. Which was a pity because she loved these stately flowers. Unlike carnations, which always reminded her of weddings and funerals, events she disliked with equal loathing, chrysants, as she liked to call them, were vibrant with colour and positively bounced with vigour. She loved their large showy blooms in golden yellow, pink, bronze or brilliant white, they were perfect for flower arrangements being erect and strong stemmed, a flower to admire. Now, whenever she looked at these beautiful plants she would be reminded of this long-dreaded moment when her past came back to haunt her.

‘Are you okay Mam? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

She heard the voice of her own daughter as if coming from a great distance and fear bloomed in her like a stain of hot blood. It was imperative that Lynda didn’t see him standing there. Who knows how she might react?

Yet Betty could do nothing to prevent it, could neither speak nor move. She’d been putting the finishing touches to the display preparatory to making a sale, now she was grasping the flower far too tightly but felt powerless to unclasp her fingers. It was as if frozen fire was flowing through her veins, her limbs oddly flaccid and unresponsive, her brain a mush of confused emotion.
 

She was transfixed by the shock of seeing that all too familiar face, all other sounds from the bustling market around her fading into insignificance. Betty could hear nothing but his voice: whining, complaining, criticising, coming back to her like an echo through the years, hearing again those pitiful excuses, those bare-faced lies.

Maybe he
was
a ghost. Maybe he hadn’t just walked across the cobbles of Champion Street and smiled at her with that sardonic curl to his lip. Perhaps she was hallucinating and he wasn’t standing leaning against the wall of the Dog and Duck at all, watching her with those nasty beady eyes of his. Perhaps he didn’t even exist except in her fevered imagination.

This might all be some sort of nightmare because of that cheese she’d eaten for her supper. She might still be at home in bed, not seated at her stall surrounded by her beloved flowers which she’d risen before dawn to buy, spending hours arranging them in an array of metal vases and baskets.

Yet even in the nightmare Betty was able to savour every nuance of their differing scents: some sweet and cloying, others earthy and moist, or spicy and herblike, each one an individual and at this instant overwhelming her senses.

Betty had never been the kind of person prone to sudden attacks of panic. She prided herself on being a calm, unruffled sort of woman, steady and easy-going, although she was willing to take anyone on if she saw someone being bullied or picked on. She was a familiar figure on Champion Street Market where she had run her flower stall ever since before the war, bringing up her two children largely single-handed. She had always believed that although human nature may be frail, if you keep your heart strong and your spirits high everything will come out right in the end.

But who could blame her if she was scarred by a bitter resentment, against her own ex-husband in particular? Ewan Hemley had totally messed up her life, and it looked as if he might be about to do the same again.

The stem of the chrysanthemum snapped between her fingers and sound rushed in upon her like an express train. People talking and laughing, traffic roaring by, a baby crying, yet still Betty couldn’t move.

‘Oh, you’ve broken it,’ Lynda said, taking the crippled flower from her useless fingers. ‘It’s not like you to be so clumsy. Do you think I should call a doctor, Judy? Mam looks like she’s about to keel over.’

‘I’m not sure. Mrs Hemley, are you all right? Can I get you something? A glass of water perhaps?’

‘Do you want to take a tea break, Mam? Why don’t you go over to Belle’s caff for a cuppa?’

Betty became vaguely aware of a gentle touch upon her arm, and of anxious voices drowned out by the pounding of her own heart. She forced her trembling lips into a smile. Sweet strong tea sounded good. That’s what you took for shock, wasn’t it?

‘Aye, I might just do that, love. I am feeling a bit queer. Maybe I’m coming down with a cold. ‘

‘Let me help you, Mrs Hemley. You seem a bit unsteady on your feet.’

Betty looked up into a pair of gentle, cornflower blue eyes fringed by long, curling lashes. Judy Beckett, one of her regulars. The poor girl really should take better care of herself instead of always looking faintly worn out and a bit shabby, as if she’d thrown her clothes on or bought them at Abel’s second-hand stall.
 

But then her husband Sam who ran the ironmongery shop inside Champion Street Market, bought her a suspicious number of bouquets. In Betty’s opinion their marriage was almost bound to fail so was it any wonder if she always looked so gaunt and ill?

All of human nature passed by Betty’s stall, the good and the bad, allowing her the opportunity to speculate, rightly or wrongly, on the lives of her neighbours: to share in their celebrations, their weddings, birthdays and special occasions, and in the sadder events of their lives such as hospital visits and funerals, their squabbles, their guilt, and even their apologies.

She knew that the brand new marriage of Amy and Chris George had almost been destroyed by a family feud, yet when Amy presented her young husband with a baby daughter, he bought her the biggest basket of flowers Betty had ever seen in her life. Cost him a small fortune that he could ill afford, but then Chris was that rare breed - a loving husband.

Unlike Leo Catlow, for instance, owner of a large distribution depot down on the docks and occupying the big house on the corner of Champion Street. He was a demanding, restless, deep thinking sort of man who called at her stall once a month to buy carnations for his mother, yet rarely bought his wife so much as a single rose. Nor will he, Betty construed, until she did her duty and provided him with a son.

Hadn’t she also watched with a heavy heart as the young hopefuls came courting her lovely daughter Lynda, roses in hand? And seen how the poor girl spurned each and every one of them, not able to trust a man after her own father had so callously deserted her.

Men! Betty didn’t have a good word to say for any of them. If only all marriages could be happy, and divorce rendered unnecessary.

That’ll be the day . . .

Betty directed her level brown-eyed gaze across the street. He was still there, looking as cocky as ever. Damn him to hell!

‘Mrs Hemley? Can you hear me, Betty? Did you forget to have breakfast in your rush to get up early to collect the flowers this morning, and then were too busy preparing them to find time? You’re looking really washed out. I think a cup of tea would do you a power of good.’

Judy was petite and pretty with a warm easy smile. Betty liked her a lot and often enjoyed a chat with her about her two children, and encouraged her in her hobby of oil painting which she did so well. It was Judy who had wanted the chrysanthemums. She called at the stall every Friday morning to buy flowers for the weekend, as she was doing today. Often one of Betty’s specially made basket arrangements which Sam fondly imagined she did herself.

Husbands, so demanding of wives and yet so flawed themselves. Useless lumps the lot of them, in Betty’s opinion. Again she glanced across the street but the pavement was empty this time. The unwelcome intruder, if indeed he’d been there at all, had gone.

Once inside the café taking sips of scalding sweet tea, Betty began to feel faintly foolish. This was no way for a middle aged mother to behave, coming over all peculiar because of some imagined sighting of an ex-husband. She raked blunt-tipped fingers through cropped grey hair, rubbed the flat of her hand over the soft pads of her cheeks as if to wake herself from some nightmare, then sank her face into her hands with a weary sigh. If that really had been Ewan Hemley and not a figment of her imagination, then it couldn’t be good news, not good news at all.