That'll Be the Day (2007) (25 page)

At least Lynda would be able to pop in most days for a chat or a cuppa, so she wouldn’t feel totally isolated. And as long as a satisfactory agreement could be reached between herself and Sam, the children could continue to see their father.

Ruth and Tom, however, were far from happy about the change, something Judy had half expected and resolved to deal with firmly and cheerfully.

‘Daddy and I aren’t getting on too well at the moment so we’ve decided we need some time apart,’ she explained, as she led them up the stairs with its grubby brown carpet and, on reaching the first landing, unlocked the door that was to be their new home.

Tom looked at her wide eyed and asked if his daddy would still be taking him fishing at the canal on Sunday. When Judy agreed that of course he would, that his daddy still loved him, he seemed perfectly content and ran off to explore cupboards and see if the wireless worked. But then, apart from the fishing, Tom tended to find his father somewhat intimidating, and since the bullying incident had been even more circumspect and withdrawn towards him, and even more clingy with Judy.

Ruth was another matter entirely. ‘You mean we can’t live at home any more? What about all my things, my clothes, my books and stuff?’

‘I’ve packed everything I think you’ll need for now, but if I’ve forgotten anything important I’ll go back and get if for you tomorrow. The rest of our things will have to wait until we have more space in which to put it.’

Judy smiled brightly but Ruth looked about her in shock, a look of appalled disbelief on her young face. ‘You can’t be serious! You can’t expect us all to sleep here, in this one room, in one bed? It’s impossible, I shall hate it.’

‘I’m sorry, love, but I’m afraid we’ll just have to put up with it for a while. At least until I can find us something better.’

Judy could see the conflict in her daughter’s eyes, like a private war going on in her head. A part of her longed to rage at her mother, to blame her for depriving them of their home, and of Ruth’s own precious bedroom as well as her beloved father, but another part of her mind remembered the ruin of Judy’s lovely pictures, including the one of herself and Tom.

‘It’s not
fair
! Why should Tom and me suffer because you and Daddy have had a falling-out? If you
must
live apart while you sulk, why doesn’t
he
have this nasty little room then
we
could all stay at home? There are three of us and we need more space than him. It’s not fair,’ she said again, for good measure.

‘Life isn’t fair, my darling,’ Judy said, kissing her brow and instantly worrying about how hot it was. ‘Don’t get yourself in a state about things you can’t control. It’ll be fun, you’ll see. We can eat fish and chips in bed tonight, if you like?’

Tom giggled. ‘Ooh, yes please.’

‘And then will we go home tomorrow when Dad has stopped being in a temper and you’ve stopped sulking,’ Ruth insisted.

‘No, darling, I don’t really see how I can.’ Whereupon the girl burst into tears. As Judy gathered her weeping child in her arms, Tom standing anxiously by, it came to her that building a new life for them all was going to be much harder than she’d thought.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Easter was drawing near and Champion Street Market was bright with craft stalls selling gaudily painted Easter eggs and fluffy chickens, prettily painted silk scarves, and on the Higginsons’ stall a captivating display of straw panamas, flirty little summer hats and Easter bonnets.

Yet Lynda could take no pleasure in the scene. Her life had changed completely. To everyone else Ewan Hemley was charm itself but her mother was crippled, her brother had disappeared and she was trapped in a living nightmare.

He would sit in his chair and do nothing but complain and criticise, constantly making her do things over and over again. She wanted to protest, to do battle, but how could she? Ewan Hemley had a nasty habit of getting his own way.

Only this morning she’d been rushing round cooking his breakfast, checking what was needed for a meal that night, worrying about how many daffs to buy at market while ironing a shirt at the same time. She should have done it the night before but had gone to bed at eight o’clock, absolutely exhausted.

Lynda had handed him the shirt, all white and neatly pressed and he’d examined it carefully. ‘What do you call this? Looks like the cat has slept on it.’ Then he’d crumpled it into a ball and tossed it onto the floor.

Close to tears, she’d gone back to the kitchen to damp it down and iron it all over again. But then she’d found coal dust on the cuffs, knew that it would need washing again and very nearly burst into tears, over a stupid shirt.

Yet she said nothing, what was a crumpled shirt in comparison with what poor Mam was having to endure?

At the end of the day Lynda washed the empty flower buckets, swept and scrubbed the duck boards and stowed these and all the remaining flowers away in the lock-up at closing time. She decided that before going home, she’d call in to see how Judy was getting on, make sure she was settling in all right. She’d been in the bedsit just over a week and at least concern for her friend and the children distracted Lynda from her own worries.

The little bedsit was round the corner of the market hall close by the fish market and she saw at once that something was happening as a crowd had gathered with half of Champion Street coming to their doors to watch.

Lynda broke into a run and as she drew nearer, realised it was Sam hammering on the door and shouting his head off.

‘Open this door this minute before I break it down!’

Lynda could see Judy at the window, and the fearful faces of the children beside her. Without a thought for her own safety she rushed up to Sam.

‘What the bleeding hell do you think you’re doing? This is no way to behave, making a public exhibition of yourself and frightening your lovely kids.’

Sam stared at her, his eyes empty of emotion, of any expression whatsoever. Ignoring her he reached down to pick up a pebble and Lynda kicked it away.

‘No, you flaming don’t.’ For a moment she thought he might be about to hit her as rage bristled in every muscle, his fists clenched, and the glare he gave her should have shrivelled her on the spot.

Then he put his face in his clawed hands and his shoulders started to shake. Dear lord, surely this big strong man wasn’t going to cry? But then he straightened up and she saw it wasn’t tears at all but cold fury that caused him to shake and quiver like that. Lynda felt a shiver run down her spine. For a man as disciplined as Sam Beckett to lose control seemed somehow even more chilling.

She stretched out tentative fingers, spoke softly to him. ‘Sam! Don’t do this. Look at yourself, man: unshaved, unwashed, unkempt, behaving like a lunatic. Go home, have a cup of tea and think things through. You need to calm down, then you and Judy can talk sensibly and quietly, but that’s not going to happen with you raging around like a mad bull. What will Ruth and Tom think of all this? They’ll not be able to sleep in their beds tonight if they see their dad behaving like . . .’

He interrupted her, furious contempt in his tone as he spoke through gritted teeth. ‘Don’t lecture me, woman! You know nowt.’ And then, to her great relief, he turned on his heel and strode away.

Lynda let out a great sigh and, catching sight of the huddled crowd, the watchful eyes and hushed whispers, shouted across to them. ‘All right, show’s over. You can go inside now and make your teas.’

Doors slammed, curtains were drawn and the street was empty within seconds. Lynda glanced up at the bedsit window. ‘You can let me in now, Jude. He’s gone!’

It took Lynda hours to calm her friend down after Sam had left. She made egg and bacon for the children and helped her friend to put them to bed, making sure they were happy and unafraid.

Then the two girls sat by the light of a small lamp and Judy told her in halting whispers that this wasn’t the first time Sam had disturbed them. ‘He keeps on coming round every night, creating the same sort of rumpus, shouting and throwing stones at the window, ordering me to come home and return his children to him. Oh Lynda, what am I to do? The first time I rushed downstairs to tell him to shut up but he takes not a blind bit of notice.’

‘You know what Betty would say? Stand up for yourself, girl.’

‘How?’

‘Go and see Constable Nuttall, or better still a solicitor. Get the law on your side.’ It seemed so easy to offer advice to others, but why, Lynda thought, wasn’t she able to do the same for herself? ‘I must go. I’m late as it is and Ewan won’t be pleased that there’s still no tea on the table.’

‘You are all right with him on your own, aren’t you Lynda?’ Judy asked, a slight frown creasing her brow. ‘I’m so wrapped up in my own troubles I keep forgetting yours.’

‘I’m fine. No need to worry about me.’

But then the moment she walked through her own front door Lynda knew that she wasn’t fine at all. Something was badly wrong.

While she’d been busy ministering to her friend the place had been ransacked. Drawers had been flung open, chairs overturned, and stuff thrown everywhere.

‘Oh, my God!’ Her first instinct was to run and pull up the rug to check that her mother’s secret hoard was safe only to discover that the floorboard had been smashed and the stash of money had indeed gone. Someone had stolen it, and it didn’t take a genius to work out who. Lynda was quite certain the culprit must be Ewan. Wasn’t he constantly complaining of being short of cash and asking her to lend him a bob or two?

But then she remembered Jake’s little run-in with Constable Nuttall. Her brother was no saint and it occurred to her that since she hadn’t seen him since her mother’s alleged ‘accident’, he must be living rough with no money coming in to feed himself. It was perfectly possible that Mam had been robbed by her own son.

Betty came home the following week and Lynda could see at once that all the fight had gone out of her. She spent her days largely confined to a wheelchair, occasionally lifting herself into the big winged chair when Ewan was out, sitting with her leg in its huge plaster cast propped on a stool. She showed little interest in anything, not even her precious flower stall.

She would sit staring into the fire for hour upon hour, saying nothing, not even reading the
Woman’s Weekly
Lynda regularly bought her.

Even friends calling round with gifts failed to cheer her, and she grumbled when Saturday morning came and the Salvation Army started playing ‘
O Perfect Love’
.

‘That’ll be the day,’ was her acid comment. She seemed to have lost her resilience, the sheer exuberance of spirit that had kept her going all these long years.

Worst of all she couldn’t get up the stairs to her own bedroom any more and a bed had to be made up in the living room for her. Ewan moved into her old room, and very smug he looked about it.

But then smug was the best way to describe Ewan nowadays. Following the break-in, which Lynda still hadn’t told her mother about, nor anyone else for that matter, certainly not Constable Nuttall, there’d been a definite change in his demeanour. He looked very much like the cat who had swallowed the cream and Lynda was feeling ashamed at having accused her own brother of the crime. She was quite certain now that Ewan must have discovered her mother’s secret hoard and helped himself to it, attempting to make it look like an ordinary burglary.

Far too afraid to call in the police and risk arousing his temper still further, Lynda had simply tidied the place up as best she could. And when he’d returned later that evening to find her doing just that, Ewan had made no comment at all save to say he was going out again and she needn’t bother making him a meal.

Just as well, she’d thought, as I’d be sorely tempted to put rat poison in his food.

All through her childhood Lynda had pined for a father, and now she had one she was rapidly growing to hate and fear him. Any hope that Betty might summon the energy to make him leave was now a distant dream.
 

Jake still hadn’t returned home although she’d recently heard tales of him having been seen sleeping rough under the railway arches, and staying the odd night or two with a friend. Lynda kept an eye out for him everywhere she went, hoping to spot her young brother and persuade him to come home, but in the end she knew she’d just have to wait until he felt ready.

Meanwhile, Ewan’s bullying was growing worse.

After collecting the fresh flowers at six she would then have to fry him a breakfast, every single morning. The first time he’d demanded this Lynda had objected.

‘I haven’t time. Have you any idea how much is involved in setting up a flower stall? All the flowers have to be prepared and set out in the rows of buckets, displays made in some of the baskets, and the potted plants set out and watered, as well as the stall itself needing to be set up with its awning and duck boards. I certainly don’t have time to wait on you as well.’

‘Now that would be a pity, chuck, if I had to make me own breakfast, because I’m not very good at it, d’you see?’ Ewan walked into the kitchen and taking an egg from the wooden holder cracked it on the edge of the table letting the yolk and white drop onto the floor.