Читать книгу The Willow Pool - Elizabeth Elgin - Страница 5

Two hats. A leghorn straw and a warm winter felt, belonging to a faraway, mist-wrapped happiness. They were all she would keep of her mother; all that mattered. Meg closed her eyes and clamped her jaws tightly against tears. Yesterday she had wept, raged against the Fates for the very last time. Today she arranged her mother’s clothes into two piles: one to be discarded, the other to be given to the deserving – except the hats, of course.

She picked them up, spinning one on each forefinger, liking them because Ma had worn them year in, year out; disliking them because they were the badge of her poverty, given in charity. Dolly Blundell would not wear them again. She had laundered her last sheet, ironed her last starched shirt, washed and laid out her last corpse. Ma had gone to a heaven called Candlefold, where all happiness was and is and would be, and only someone selfish as herself, Meg thought sniffily, would want to call her back to Tippet’s Yard.

She slid her eyes to the clothes on the tabletop. Not much to show for over forty years of living, and they could go as soon as maybe. All Meg wanted was the hats, and Ma’s nine-carat gold wedding ring that hung now on the chain around her neck. Funny about that ring, when there was no man in Ma’s life; never had been.

Of course, there must have been really. If only for a brief coupling there had been a man, though who he was and where he was Meg would never know now. He’d never even had a name, which was sad. Bill Blundell was he called, or Richie or Ted – and had he been a seaman, a scholar or a scallywag?

Ma had never let herself be drawn to speak one word about him, good or bad. Nor had Nell Shaw been of any help. If Nell knew anything, she too had been stoically silent and had Meg not discovered at an early age how babies were got, she could have been forgiven for thinking Ma had found her on the doorstep of 1 Tippet’s Yard, and taken her in and worked like a slave to keep her fed and clothed.

‘Come in, Nell,’ she called, when the door knocker slammed down. But it couldn’t be her neighbour, because Nell always walked in uninvited. ‘That you, Tommy?’ Meg squinted through the inch-open door.

‘No it isn’t, and let me in, girl, or you’ll not get the pressies I’ve brought you!’

‘Kip! Kip Lewis, am I glad to see you!’ She nodded towards the table. ‘I was trying not to whinge, see. But sit yourself down and I’ll make us a brew. And leave the door open, let a bit of air in!’

And let all the misery out, and Ma’s unhappiness and that constant, frail cough. Let Dolly Blundell go to her Candlefold and be happy again.

‘Sorry about your mother,’ he said gently. ‘Amy told me. I knew she wasn’t all that good, but I hadn’t expected – well – not just yet …’

‘Nor me, Kip. It came quick, at the end. Looking back on things she’d said, I think she’d had enough. I found her there one morning early, sitting against the lavvy wall, arms round her knees; must’ve been there for hours. You might have thought she was asleep, but I knew straight away she was dead – it had been a bitterly cold night. Promise you won’t say anything to your Amy, but I think she meant to do it. She’d got that she couldn’t work, because of the coughing. She was just getting thinner and weaker, so in the end I sent for the doctor.’

She set the kettle to boil, closing her eyes tightly, determined there would be no more tears.

‘Ma wasn’t best pleased; said doctors cost money and, anyway, there was no cure for what she’d got. But the one who came was very decent; said he’d get her into a sanatorium in North Wales; told her there was a charity ward for people like her, without means. Said he could have her in, within a week …’

‘She had TB?’

‘Yes. I think she always knew it. Mind, she had a decent funeral. Always kept her burial club going, no matter what. Said she wasn’t letting the parish give her a pauper’s funeral. God! She was so cussed proud, even at the end!’

‘Don’t get upset, Meg. You did your best.’

‘I did what I could, once I was working. And I think she’d have gone into that sanatorium if the doctor hadn’t mentioned charity. There was something about her, Kip; a sort of – of – gentility. Even Nell noticed it. Maybe it was because she’d been in service, you see; housemaid to the gentry.’

‘She was different, I’ll grant you that. Amy said she always kept herself to herself.’

‘Which wasn’t hard in a dump like this.’

Apart from the entry and a sign to the left of it marked ‘Tippet’s Yard’, you could pass by and never know it was there.

‘It isn’t such a bad little place, Meg.’ He wanted to take her in his arms and kiss her breathless, but he held back, sensing her need to talk. He loved her, did she but know it, though he’d never dared say so; never gone beyond hugs and goodnight kisses.

‘Not bad, but the Corporation would’ve had it pulled down if the war hadn’t come. If it hadn’t been for flamin’ Hitler, me and Ma would’ve been in a decent house now, with an inside lavvy and a garden. But where have you been, Kip? It was a long trip this time.’

‘Sydney and back by way of Panama. Never been through the canal before. It’s amazing. Fifty miles long and about a dozen locks. Australia’s a smashin’ country. Real warm and no blackout, them being a long way from the war. And when it’s Christmas there, it can get up to eighty degrees! The opposite to us, see. Upside down!’

‘Kettle’s boiled. Tea won’t be long.’

She looked up and smiled and it did things to his insides. This was the time to tell her how he felt, ask her to be his girl, but instead he said, ‘I’ve brought you a few things. There’s not such a shortage of food down under as there is here.’ He emptied the carrier bag he had brought with him.

‘Kip! Are they black market?’

‘No. All fair and square.’

‘Oooh!’ A packet of tea, a bag of sugar, tins of butter, corned beef and peaches and – oh my goodness, silk stockings! ‘Kip Lewis, you’re an old love and you’re to come to Sunday tea, and share it. I’ll ask Nell and Tommy too.’

‘By Sunday I’ll be gone again. Got the chance of another trip the same, so I signed on for it before I came ashore. The Panama run is a good one – safer than the Atlantic. And don’t look so put out, Meg Blundell! You won’t miss me!’

‘But I will! When I saw you on the doorstep I was real glad to see you, honest I was! It’s been awful these last six weeks. I just couldn’t believe Ma was gone; not even after the funeral. I’ve been putting things off, I suppose – y’know, sorting her clothes and going through her papers.’

Papers. That was a laugh. Ma’s special things, more like, locked inside a battered attaché case and, since the war started, never far from her side, night or day.

‘That’s sad, Meg.’ He took the mug she offered, then sat on the three-legged stool beside the fireplace. ‘And I interrupted you, when you’d made up your mind to tackle it.’

‘No, Kip. I wasn’t given much choice. Nell said if I didn’t shift meself and sort things out, she’d batter me! None of Ma’s things fit Nell, so she’s goin’ to find good homes for the best of them and take the rest to the jumble for me. She’s been a brick. I don’t know what I’d have done without her that morning I found Ma.’

She closed her eyes, biting her teeth together, swallowing hard on a choke of tears. Then she drew a shuddering breath, forced her lips into a smile and whispered, ‘Now you know how glad I was to see you, Kip. There’d have been another crying match if you hadn’t come when you did. I’m grateful. Honest.’

‘I’d come to ask you out, but I can see you’ve got other things on your mind. What say I leave you in peace, girl, and take you out tomorrow night? There’s a good band at the Rialto. Fancy going to a dance?’

Meg said she did, and would he call for her at seven, so they could get there early before the dance floor got crowded. And could they find a chippy afterwards, and walk to the tram stop, eating fish and chips out of newspaper?

‘The only way to eat them, sweetheart,’ he smiled. ‘I’ll be here on the dot. Want me to wear my uniform or civvies?’

‘Uniform, please.’

She liked to see him in his walking-out rig, peaked cap tilted cheekily. And besides, uniforms were all the fashion these days, and popular. Men in civilian clothes were not!

‘Then I’ll leave you to get on with things.’ He placed a finger beneath her chin, kissing her lips gently. ‘Sure you don’t want me to stay?’

‘Sure.’ This was the last thing she could do for Ma, and she needed to be alone. ‘See you tomorrow, Kip, and thanks a lot.’

She watched from the doorway as he crossed the yard, bending his shoulders as he entered the alley that led to the street. When Tippet built his yard in 1820, Meg thought, men must have been a whole lot shorter. She looked to her left to see Nell, arms folded, on the doorstep of number 2, waiting to be told about the visitor.

‘There’s some tea in the pot,’ Meg called. ‘It’ll take a drop more hot water. Want a cup?’

Nell said she did, ta very much, and wasn’t that Kip Lewis who just left?

‘It was. And I’ve done what you wanted, Nell. Just got to put them in bags.’

‘And her case? Have you opened it yet? I think you ought to. Dolly told me there was a bankbook in there, and her jewels.’

‘Ma had no jewellery, and I don’t think there’d be much in the bankbook.’ If a bankbook had ever existed, that was. ‘And I haven’t got around to the case yet. One thing at a time, eh?’

‘Then you’d best do it whilst I’m here to give moral support, as they say.’

Dolly Blundell had been a quiet one, Nell thought frowning. Never said two words when one would suffice. She had always chosen not to reply to questions concerning Mr Blundell, and had answered Nell’s probings about why the tallyman never called at number 1 with quiet dignity.

‘The tallyman doesn’t call because I don’t borrow. We manage. I’ve got money in the bank.’

Dignity. She’d learned it in service, Nell had long ago decided. How always to speak slowly and quietly; never to shriek or laugh loudly; always to hold her shoulders straight and her head high. There had been a dignity about her even in death, because who but Doll could fade away so quietly and with so little fuss? And who but Doll could look almost peaceful with her face pinched blue with cold, her shoulders leaning against a lavatory wall?

‘Saccharin for me, please.’ Nell was not a scrounger of other people’s rations, even though she had noticed the bag of sugar the moment she walked through the door. ‘An’ when we’ve drunk this, I’ll fold the clothes whilst you get on with seein’ to that case. I’ve brought a couple of carrier bags.’

Two bags, she thought, briefly sad. Her neighbour’s life stuffed into a couple of paper carriers. It was to be hoped, she thought, all at once her cheerful self again, there’d be more to smile about when Meg got that dratted case opened.

‘Cheers, queen!’ She lifted her cup in salute.

‘Cheers!’ Meg arranged her lips into a smile, liking the blowzy, generous-hearted woman, even though she drank gin when she could afford it, and swore often, and took money, some said, from gentlemen. Nell’s man had not come back from the last war, and she had remained a widow. Marriageable men were thin on the ground after the Great War, so Nell had become a survivor and laughed when most women would have cried.

‘And thank the good Lord the clocks have gone forward, an’ we’ve got the decent weather to come, and light nights.’

To Nell’s way of thinking the blackout was the worst thing civilians had to endure; worse even than food rationing. In winter, the blackout was complete and unnatural. Not a chink of light to be seen at windows; streetlamps turned off for the duration and not so much as a match to be struck to light a ciggy outdoors, because Hitler’s bombers, when they raided Liverpool, were able to pick out even the glow of a cigarette end. If you had a ciggy to light, that was.

‘Think I’ll put a match to the fire.’ Early April nights could be chilly. ‘And I suppose I’d better open Ma’s case. I’ve put it off too long.’

‘You have! What are you bothered about?’

‘Don’t know.’ Meg reached into the glass pot on the mantelshelf for the tiny key. ‘Nell – did Ma ever tell you about my father? I could get nothing out of her, so in the end I stopped askin’. Was he a scally or somethink?’

‘Dunno. Doll made it plain that the subject of your father wasn’t open for discussion. I never even knew if her and him was married.’

‘But she wore a wedding ring!’

‘Weddin’ rings come cheap, and ten bob well spent if it buys respectability. Your mother never said he’d been killed in the trenches either.’

‘But she wouldn’t say that when I was born four years after the war ended. I wish she’d told me, though. Had you ever thought, Nell, that my father could be a millionaire or a murderer? It’s awful not knowing, and all the time wondering if you’re a bastard or not.’

‘Now that’s enough of talk like that! Your ma wouldn’t have allowed it, and neither will I! Dolly asked me to look out for you, once she got so badly, so it’s me as’ll be in control, like, till you’re twenty-one. Doll wore a wedding ring, so that says you’re legitimate, Meg Blundell, and never forget it!’

‘OK. I won’t. And I’m glad there’s someone I can turn to, though I won’t be a bother to you.’

‘You’d better not be, and you know what I’m gettin’ at. No messin’ around with fellers; that kind of messin’, I mean. And where has Kip Lewis been, then?’

‘Australia. He brought me those things.’ She nodded towards the table. ‘You and Tommy are to come to Sunday tea. We’ll have corned beef hash, and peaches for pudding. How will that suit you?’

‘Very nicely, and thanks for sharin’ your luck, girl. Tommy’ll be made up too. Poor little bugger. He’s that frail he looks as if the next puff of wind’ll blow him over. Sad he never wed. But are you going to open that case or aren’t you?’

Nell was curious. Any normal girl, she reasoned, would’ve done it weeks ago. But Meg Blundell was like her mother in a lot of ways: quiet, sometimes, and given to stubbornness. And besides, there really could be a bankbook locked away, and heaven only knew what else!

‘I suppose I must.’ Meg gazed at the tiny key in the palm of her hand. ‘I don’t want to, for all that. I don’t want to find out – anything …’

She and Ma had been all right as they were and all at once she didn’t want to know about the man who fathered her. And when she turned that key it might be there, staring her in the face, and she might be very, very sorry.

She fumbled the key into the lock, turning it reluctantly. In the fleeting of a second she imagined she might find a coiled snake there, ready to bite; a spider, big as the palm of her hand. Or nothing of any importance – not even a bankbook.

She lifted the lid, sniffing because she expected the smell of musty papers; closing her eyes when the faint scent of lavender touched her nostrils. She glanced down to see a fat brown envelope, addressed to Dorothy Blundell, 1 Tippet’s Yard, Liverpool 3, Lancashire. The name had been crossed through in a different ink and the words Margaret Mary Blundell written in her mother’s hand. The envelope was tied with tape and the knot secured with red sealing wax. Meg lifted her eyes to those of the older woman.

‘You goin’ to see what’s in it, girl?’ Nell ran her tongue round her lips.

‘N-no. Not just yet.’ The package looked official and best dealt with later. When she was alone.

‘There might be money in it!’

‘No. Papers, by the feel of it.’ Ma’s marriage lines? Her own birth certificate? Photographs? Letters, even? ‘Ma would’ve spent it if there’d been money. I – I’ll leave it, Nell, if you don’t mind.’

‘Please yourself, I’m sure.’ Nell was put out. ‘Nuthin’ to do with me, though your ma left a will, I know that for certain. Me an’ Tommy was witness to it!’

‘But she had nothink to leave.’ Meg pulled in her breath.

‘Happen not. But to my way of thinking, if all you have to leave is an ’at and an ’atpin and a pound in yer purse, then you should set it down legal who you want it to go to! Dolly wrote that will just after the war started; said all she had was to go to her only child Margaret Mary, and me and Tommy read it, then put our names to it. Like as not it’s in that envelope. Best you open it.’

‘No. Later.’ Quickly Meg took out another envelope. It had Candlefold Hall written on it and she knew at once it held photographs. To compensate for her neighbour’s disappointment she handed it to her. ‘You open it, Nell.’

‘Suppose this is her precious Candlefold.’ Mollified, Nell squinted at the photograph of a large, very old house surrounded by lawns and flowerbeds.

‘There’s a lot of trees, Nell.’ It really existed, then, Ma’s place that was heaven on earth. ‘Looks like it’s in the country.’

‘Hm. If them trees was around here they’d have been chopped down long since, for burnin’! And look at this one; must be the feller that ’ouse belonged to.’ She turned over another photograph to read Mr & Mrs Kenworthy, in writing she knew to be Dolly Blundell’s. ‘They look a decent couple. Bet they were worth a bob or two. And who’s this then – the old granny?’

A plump, middle-aged lady wearing a cape and black bonnet sat beside an ornamental fountain, holding a baby.

‘No. It’s the nanny,’ Meg smiled. ‘Nanny Boag and Master Marcus, 1917, Ma’s written.’ Her heart quickened, her cheeks burned. All at once they were looking at her mother’s life in another world; at a big, old house in the country; at Ma’s employers and their infant son.

Hastily Meg scanned each photograph and snapshot, picking out one of a group of servants arranged either side of a broad flight of steps – and standing a little apart the butler, was it, and the housekeeper? And there stood Ma, all straight and starched, staring ahead as befitted the occasion.

Another snap, faded to sepia now, of three smiling maids in long dresses and pinafores and mobcaps, in a cobbled yard beside a pump trough.

‘See, Nell! Norah, Self & Gladys. That’s Ma, in the middle. And look at this one!’

Tents on Candlefold’s front lawn, and stalls and wooden tables and chairs, and Ma and the two other housemaids in pretty flowered frocks and straw hats. Only this time the inscription was in a different hand and read. Candlefold 1916. Garden Party for wounded soldiers. Dolly Blundell, Norah Bentley, Gladys Tucker. Her mother, sixteen years old. Dolly Blundell! So Ma had never married!

‘What do you make of that, Nell?’ Her mouth had gone dry. ‘Ma’s name was –’

‘Ar. Seems it’s always been Blundell.’

‘So whoever my father was, he didn’t have the decency to marry her. I am illegitimate, Nell!’

Tears filled her eyes. When she hadn’t been sure – not absolutely sure – it somehow hadn’t mattered that maybe she was born on the wrong side of the sheets. But to see it written down so there was no argument about it – all at once it did matter! Someone had got a pretty young housemaid into trouble, then taken off and left her to it. And that girl became old long before her time, with nothing to lean on but her pride!

‘There now, queen.’ Nell pulled Meg close, hushing her, patting her. ‘Your ma wasn’t the first to get herself into trouble, and she won’t be the last. She took good care of you, now didn’t she? Didn’t put you into an orphanage, nor nuthin’. And if the little toerag that got you upped and left, then Doll was better off without him, if it’s my opinion you’re askin’.’

‘I’m sorry I opened that case. I never wanted to.’

‘Happen not, but at least we’ve got one thing straight; somethin’ your ma chose to keep quiet about. An’ don’t think I’m blaming her! She brought you up decent and learned you to speak proper. You’d not have got a job in a shop if she hadn’t.’

‘Edmund and Sons? That dump!’ Years behind the times, it was, and people not so keen to part with their clothing coupons for the frumpy fashions old man Edmund stocked. ‘I’d set my heart on the Bon Marche, y’know. Classy, the Bon is.’

The Bon Marche had thick carpets all over; the ground floor smelled of free squirts of expensive scent, but you had to talk posh to work there.

‘You were glad enough to go to Edmunds, Meg Blundell. Your wages made a difference to your ma.’

‘Ten bob a week, and commission! Girls my age are earning fifty times that on munitions!’

‘So go and make bombs and bullets.’

‘I might have to, Nell. Trade’s been bad since clothes rationing started. The old man’s going to be sacking staff before so very much longer.’

‘Then worry about it when he does! Now are you going to get on with it?’ Nell glanced meaningfully at the attaché case. ‘Your mother’s will is in there somewhere.’

‘You’re sure?’ Meg slid the photographs back into the envelope. ‘I know she used to talk about a bankbook; said if we were careful with the pennies we’d go and live in the country one day.’

‘That’s daydreamin’. We’re talkin’ about fact – like all that’s in this house, for one thing, and the bedding and –’

‘There’s not a lot of that left. The people from the health department took Ma’s mattress and bedding when they came to stove the place out; you know they did!’

‘They always do, with TB. You were lucky they didn’t take more! But there it is, girl! It’s marked on the envelope, see? Will. Told you, didn’t I?’ Nell clenched her fists, so eager were her fingers to light on it. ‘And there’s more besides; that bankbook, I shouldn’t wonder.’

Nell was right, Meg thought, picking out two smaller envelopes, glancing inside them. Ma’s will, and the bankbook! It made her wonder – just briefly, of course – if this was the first time Nell Shaw had seen inside the case.

‘So is this what you and Tommy signed?’ Meg offered the sheet of paper. ‘All I own is for my daughter, Margaret Mary Blundell. Straight and to the point, wouldn’t you say?’

Her words sounded flippant, though she hadn’t meant them to. It was just so sad that it made her want to weep again.

‘Your ma wasn’t one for wasting words. Keep it safe, girl. That’s a legal document, properly witnessed and dated. And you’d better open the bankbook!’

‘Yes.’

To be told of the existence of a bankbook had always been a comfort in a strange sort of way. Not many in these parts, Meg had been forced to admit, would have one; wouldn’t have a magic carpet that might one day take them to a cottage in the country. It had been something to cling to when bad times got worse. To return to the countryside had been Ma’s shining dream. She had often talked about how clean the air was; how sweet the washing smelled when you took it from the line. They would have a little garden, one day. Dreams. Ma had had them in plenty.

‘You want to know how rich I am, then?’

‘Of course I do!’ Nell was past pretence.

‘Four pounds, eighteen and sixpence.’ Meg’s whisper broke into a sob. ‘Oh, God love you, Ma!’ Ma had thought near on five pounds was riches, yet it wouldn’t have paid for the funeral tea – if they’d had one; if food hadn’t been rationed.

Nell Shaw gazed disbelieving at the figures, then, swallowing on her disappointment, said, ‘I told you so, didn’t I? Dolly did have something put by, though only the good Lord knows how she did it, and her never once in debt to the tallyman. Is there anything else, Meg?’

‘Only her jewels.’ A string of pearl beads, a marcasite brooch in the shape of a D, a wristwatch and a lavender bag, daintily stitched. Meg held it to her nose. ‘Suppose the lavender came from Candlefold garden.’ Tears still threatened. ‘Would you like the brooch, Nell – a keepsake?’

‘No, ta. Best you should have it, girl. I wouldn’t mind the lavender bag, though.’ A glinty D-brooch wouldn’t serve to remind her of Dolly as much as the sweet-smelling sachet. She smiled, seeing in her mind’s eye a fair-haired girl hanging stems of lavender to dry in the sun, then sewing them into muslin.

‘I suppose that tea’s gone cold? Never mind. See if you can squeeze another cup. Think I’ll have a ciggy.’ She gazed lovingly at the cigarette she took from her pinafore pocket. ‘Terrible, innit, when They cut down your fags? This one’s my last. Think I’ll nip to the pub later on; see if they’ve got any under the counter. Landlord was saying that his beer supplies are going to be cut; something to do with the breweries not being allowed enough sugar. Things are coming to a pretty pass when They start interferin’ with the ale. Bluddy Hitler’s got a lot to answer for!’

She took in a deep gulp of smoke, holding it blissfully, blowing it out in little huffs.

‘I don’t know how you can do that.’ For the first time that day Meg laughed. ‘Swallow smoke, I mean. I once had a puff at a cigarette and I nearly choked!’

‘So don’t start. Once you get the taste for them you’re hooked, and the scarcer they get in the shops, the more you want one! I never thought I’d live to see the day I’d queue half an hour for five bleedin’ ciggies!’ Nell threw back her head and laughed, then returned her gaze to the little case. ‘Anything else in there?’

‘I know what there isn’t. There doesn’t seem to be a rent book, Nell. Will the landlord let me stay on in the house, do you think?’

‘Dunno. Best you say nuthin’. If he doesn’t find out your ma’s passed on, he’ll be none the wiser, will he? Where did she usually keep it?’

‘I don’t know. Come to think of it, I’ve never actually seen one. All Ma said every Saturday morning was, “That’s the rent taken care of and the burial club seen to. What’s left in my purse is ours, Meg.” I don’t even know how much she paid, or who she paid it to.’

‘Well, my ’ouse is five shillings. Yours would be a bit more, bein’ bigger.’

‘I should’ve asked, I suppose. I just presumed it was paid Saturday mornings, though I never saw anyone call for it. But I’ll have to find that book and try to catch up with the arrears. It must be at least six weeks behind.’ She didn’t like the house in Tippet’s Yard, but she didn’t want throwing onto the street until she was good and ready to go!

‘And that looks like the lot – except for this.’ She picked up a blue envelope. Perhaps it was the missing rent book, though she doubted it, even as she pushed a finger inside it.

‘Oh! Look!’ She felt the colour leaving her cheeks and a sick feeling on her tongue. ‘It’s my birth certificate. I never knew I had one.’

‘Everybody’s got to have one It’s the law!’ Nell caught the paper as it slipped from Meg’s agitated fingers. ‘Oh, my Gawd! Name of mother, Dorothy Blundell. Name of father – not known. Place of birth, Candlefold Hall, Nether Barton, Lancashire. Well …’

‘So I am illegitimate, in spite of the wedding ring! Wouldn’t you have thought there’d have been a letter from Ma, or something? But not one word of explanation, even at the end!’

‘Maybe not, but what was you expectin’ – an apology? So your mother and father wasn’t wed; does that make it the end of the world? And if it’s explanations you’re lookin’ for, then that birth certificate says it all! You thought you was born here, in Tippet’s Yard, but it was at that Candlefold place, so what you’ve got to ask yourself is why!’

‘Exactly! Why, for one thing, didn’t you tell me, Nell?’

‘Because I flamin’ didn’t know! Your ma had been living at number 1 the best part of a year when I moved into the yard! I just took it you was born in this house.’

‘Well I wasn’t, it seems, and it doesn’t make sense. Why, will you tell me, when she’d got herself into trouble, wasn’t Ma thrown out, because that’s what usually happened, wasn’t it? Unmarried mothers were thrown onto the street with their shame – or into the workhouse! They still are, even today!’

‘I’ve got to admit,’ Nell frowned, ‘that it’s all a bit queer – unless, mind, those toffs she worked for was decent people, and they helped her out.’

‘You think that’s likely?’

‘N-no. But your ma was a housemaid at Candlefold Hall, that we do know, and your birth certificate says you was born there, so there’s no getting away from that. Seems they didn’t show your ma the door – well, not until after she’d had you, Meg.’

‘All right. So maybe the Kenworthys were decent – Ma always spoke of the place as if it were – well –’

‘Flippin’ ’eaven,’ Nell supplied bluntly. ‘But any place would have seemed like heaven, once you’re reduced to livin’ in Tippet’s Yard!’

‘But Ma loved working there; she longed to go back. She once told me that the day she first saw Candlefold was one of the best she would ever know; said she’d never seen so many fields and trees and flowers. I don’t think she ever wanted to leave there.’

‘Then it’s a pity some fly-by-night got her in the family way, ’cause she never knew much happiness in this place. Where was your ma born, by the way?’

‘I don’t know. All she told me was that she was sent into domestic service as soon as she was old enough. She didn’t ever talk about anything before that. Not once. Her life began – and ended, I think – at Candlefold.’

‘There must’ve been a lot of poverty in Liverpool once.’ Nell threw a minute cigarette end into the fireplace. ‘People had so many kids they was sometimes glad to put them into orphanages, or send them to the nuns. At least Dolly kept you, girl. Happen she knew how shaming charity was.’

‘I think she must have, Nell. And I wasn’t being nasty when I said Ma should have left a letter. She worked her fingers to the bone for me, and if she didn’t want me to know about when she was a little girl, or how I was got, then that’s her business, I suppose. It makes you think, though …’

‘Ar.’ Nell got to her feet. ‘Don’t do to go dwelling on how exactly it was, if you get my meanin’.’

‘Which dark corner, you mean? Which hedgeback, and with who? And if he told her that if she loved him she would let him – you know …’

‘Let him have a bit of what he should’ve waited for till he’d wed her? Ar, men always said that; always will. It’s the nature of the beast, see?’

‘Kip Lewis hasn’t tried it on!’

‘Then just wait, girl! Even the best of them are after only one thing!’ She paused, red-cheeked, wondering if this was the time to warn Dolly’s girl how easy it was to get babies, and how difficult they were to get rid of! ‘Anyway, it’ll be up to you to put your foot down, Meg Blundell. You’ll never get a husband if you’re easy. Men don’t run after a tram once they’ve caught it! But I’ll be off to find a few ciggies, if you’re sure you’re all right?’ She picked up the carrier bags.

‘I’m fine, Nell – or at least I will be when I’ve weighed things up. Let’s face it, I didn’t catch Ma’s TB, I’ve got a job and a roof over my head. Things aren’t all bad, are they?’

‘Not when you look at it like that,’ Nell laughed. ‘G’night then, girl. God bless.’

Meg watched from the doorway until the neighbour who all at once had become her legal guardian crept on slippered feet into her house. The sky was darkening; best she should close the door, draw the blackout curtains. She ranged her eyes around Tippet’s Yard. Opposite, the little houses of Nell Shaw and Tommy Todd, and next to them, where numbers 4 and 5 once stood, an empty area. Ma had tried to dry washing there, but the clothes were covered in chimney smuts in no time at all, so she had given it up as a bad job and dried them indoors.

Beside the empty area was the coalhouse, where the coal rations were stored carefully in three separate corners, never to be borrowed from, nor stolen from. You had to be honest, Meg considered. It wasn’t right to steal from your own kind – especially when coal was rationed now to one bag a week for each household.

At the end of the yard were two lavatories and beside them, a washhouse. Once, Ma said, there had been earth closets and a midden, but the landlord was ordered by the Corporation to put in proper sanitation. So now there were water closets and the midden concreted over and a washhouse built – and the rents increased by a shilling a week!

But you got nothing for nothing, Meg shrugged, shutting the door on the miserable yard that had been condemned years ago. And Nell and Tommy were decent folk to have as neighbours.

She thought again about the rent book, then pushed it from her mind. She would worry about it tomorrow. Tonight, there was the sealed package to open, and only heaven knew what she would find inside it. Just to think of cutting the tape and breaking the seal made her uneasy.

‘Right then, Meg Blundell!’ She squared her shoulders and tilted her chin as her mother had done so often in the past. ‘Shift yourself! The blackout, a cup of cocoa and then the fat envelope!’

In that order, and no messing!

Tommy Todd paused beside his coal heap, listening to the sound of Nell Shaw’s slippers as they slithered and slapped across the yard.

Nell and Dolly Blundell, he considered, carefully selecting pieces of coal, had been strange stablemates. Nell as rough and common as the milkman’s horse; Mrs Blundell softly spoken and ladylike – a filly with a bit of breeding. Yet the two became friends the day Nell moved into number 2, and remained friends in spite of Nell’s ways.

There was, he supposed, no accounting for taste, and not for anything would he give voice to his opinions. After all, Nell washed his Sunday shirt every fortnight without asking for payment and he, in turn, swept Nell’s doorstep every week, and the cobbles outside; Mrs Blundell’s too, since she’d been responsible, till she got badly, for the ironing. He also took it upon himself to keep the yard tidy and free from tomcats. That, he considered, was his duty done and his shirt dues paid.

Through the open door of the coalhouse he heard the door of number 2 being closed, then shrugged and walked to his house with the few lumps of coal that must last until he went to bed. The sooner it was used, the sooner he went to his bed. It was as simple as that.

Only when heavy black curtains had shut out the April night; only when she had slowly sipped saccharin-sweet cocoa and painstakingly washed and dried the cup, did Meg break the seal of the package.

She found only papers and let her breath go with relief. Papers relating to her mother’s indentures, set up and signed when young Dorothy Blundell first went to work at Candlefold? Or maybe papers concerning Ma’s childhood?

But domestic servants were not apprenticed, and why should Ma’s parents give her a bundle of documents when all they had wanted was to be rid of her? Meg focused her eyes reluctantly on the flowing handwriting.

THIS CONVEYANCE is made the 1st day of October one thousand nine hundred and twenty-two BETWEEN CANDLEFOLD ESTATES NETHER BARTON IN THE COUNTY OF LANCASTER (hereinafter called ‘the Vendor’) and DOROTHY BLUNDELL SPINSTER DOMICILED AT CANDLEFOLD HALL NETHER BARTON IN THE COUNTY OF LANCASTER (hereinafter called ‘the Purchaser’).

THE VENDOR is seized of the property hereinafter described and has agreed to sell the same to the Purchaser for the price of one shilling (12d) and that the said property shall be vested in the Purchaser …

‘Oh, my Gawd!’ Breathless almost, Meg read on. It looked like Ma had bought this house from the people at Candlefold for a shilling! But who in his right mind sold a house – even a slum like this – for a bob! More charity! Ma had been given a place to live – damn near given, mind you – just five weeks after the birth of her child at Candlefold Hall!

Dry-mouthed, Meg made for the door and Nell, then stopped in her tracks. No! Nell must not know. No one must know yet! Before she said a word to anyone, those pompous words must be read and read again, so there could be no mistaking that the house belonged to Ma, and if what was in that package really meant what she thought it did, then her search for a rent book was over an’ all, because people who own a house don’t pay rent.

The rent, Ma always said, had been taken care of. And so it had, but by the charity of John Kenworthy, Landowner, whose signature appeared with Ma’s at the end of the document. And now, Meg thought incredulously, it would seem that this house was truly hers; willed to her by her mother. Meg Blundell’s house! No landlord to pay six weeks’ arrears to; no bailiff to throw her out!

The fingers on the mantel clock, the only really decent thing Ma had owned, pointed to five minutes to midnight before Meg had read and read again the conveyance and deeds; dry, legal phrases so difficult to make sense of. Yet even so, one thing stood out clearly from all the gobbledegook: 1 Tippet’s Yard had been sold to her mother for a shilling before she left Candlefold. And, far from throwing her onto the street, the gentleman she worked for had allowed her to remain there to have her baby, then put a roof over her head! It was queer, to say the least, and Meg wanted to know why, because nobody, not even people as decent as Ma made out the Kenworthys to be, gave away a house. Not without good reason.

Then all at once the curiosity, the disbelief and anger gave way to tears, and they flowed hot and unhindered down her cheeks.

‘Oh, Ma,’ she whispered. ‘Why didn’t you think to tell me? Couldn’t you, before you went out into the freezin’ cold and sat down outside the lavvies to die, have told me just who I am?’

They left the Rialto when the floor began to get crowded and the dance hall too warm for comfort.

‘You’re a smashing dancer.’ Meg laced her little finger with Kip’s as they walked. ‘I can do fancy footwork with you better’n any other bloke.’

‘That’s because we fit, kind of.’ He didn’t like to think of her dancing with other men. ‘You and me get on well in most things.’

‘Mm. And oh, wouldn’t you know!’ They arrived at the fish and chip shop to read, with dismay, the notice: ‘SORRY. NO FAT. OPEN FRIDAY.’

She should have expected it! Chippies ran out of fat all the time, because fat was severely rationed; shops ran out of lipsticks and face creams too. Hardware shops ran out of mops, brushes, floor polish and paint all the time, and wallpaper had ceased to exist long ago!

‘Never mind – will this make up for it?’ He tilted her chin and kissed her gently.

‘No!’ she teased.

‘Then maybe another …?’ He folded her in his arms, this time with lips more demanding, and because she liked him and had had a lovely time dancing with him, she returned his kisses with warmth.

‘I’m going to miss you, Kip.’ She pulled away from him.

‘And I’ll miss you, sweetheart; more’n you think. Be my girl, Meg? I love you a lot …’

‘Kip, I love you too, but you wouldn’t want me to be your steady, would you? What I mean is –’ she took a deep breath – ‘you’re the nicest man I know, but I’m not ready for courtin’ seriously; not just yet.’

‘So there’s some other bloke you fancy?’

‘No! There’s no one! But I don’t want to be tied to a promise just yet. I still haven’t got myself straight over Ma. There’s a lot of things to be sorted – mostly to do with money.’

‘But I could make you an allotment out of my pay and the shipping line would send it to you every month. You’d never go short – if we were married, I mean.’

‘Married!’

Oh, my Lor’! Here was Kip proposing marriage, near as dammit, and her not ready for it! Not by a long chalk she wasn’t! Just to think of it made her insides churn, because Nell had put her finger on it only last night! Men were out for one thing, so it was best they wed you first! And the trouble was that she wasn’t ready for that sort of thing, because that was how babies happened and she didn’t love Kip enough to have his child; not when you had to do that to get one! Kip was nice and kind, good to dance with and to kiss, but her and him in a double bed making babies was another matter altogether!

‘Don’t look so shocked! I’m not askin’ you to marry me – not just yet. But I’d like you at least to think about it. Tell you what – why don’t I look out for a ring? I know you can’t get engagement rings here any more, but I’ve seen plenty in Sydney. Can’t we give it a try, Meg?’

His words were soft and urgent, his eyes tender, and she came near to hating herself when she said, ‘Kip – I’m nineteen. I don’t know my own mind yet, except that you’re one of my best friends and I like being with you. But it wouldn’t be fair if I made a promise I wasn’t sure I could keep. Don’t go spending your money on a ring – not just yet? Give me time?’

‘OK. If that’s the way you want it, I’ll have to take no for an answer. But I’ll buy a ring, no matter what, and every time I come ashore I shall ask you to wear it – so be warned!’

He was smiling again, and she sensed an easing of the tension between them and was so relieved that she reached up on tiptoe and kissed him gently.

‘I’d like to be your best girl, Kip, if that’s all right with you, but I’m not ready, just yet, to start thinking about – well – serious matters. Not with any man, I’m not.’

‘Then when you do, sweetheart, be sure that I’ll be top of the queue! And don’t worry. I’d never ask for anything you weren’t willing to give. I’d wait, Meg. I’d respect your feelings.’

‘Then what more could a girl ask for?’ she said, remembering the way it had been for a housemaid called Dolly Blundell. ‘And if we don’t get a move on, we’re goin’ to miss the last tram to Lime Street!’ Smiling, she took his hand, hesitating just long enough to whisper, ‘And thanks, Kip, for what you’ve just said. I do care for you – only be patient?’

That night Meg thought a lot about Kip Lewis and about the way he loved her. Yet she, deceitful little faggot, had hemmed and hawed and asked for time, saying she was too young; not over Ma’s death; didn’t know her own mind. But it was none of those things, because truth was that she was in a muddle still about Ma and the people at Candlefold Hall, and a legal document in which her mother was hereinafter referred to as the Purchaser.

She had told no one about the deeds, yet before much longer Nell Shaw must know, because the enormity of her inheritance must be shared with someone; the mystery of it too. So tomorrow, after she had said goodbye to Kip and wished him Godspeed and a safe landfall, she would show Nell what was inside the bulky packet; would hand it to her casually – ‘So what do you make of this, eh?’ – then watch her face as the truth dawned.

What was more, Meg fretted, punching her pillow, turning it over, Nell must promise never to say a word about it; especially to Kip. It was bad enough, she sighed, being illegitimate; what would people around here think if it got about that Dolly Blundell hadn’t been entitled to the wedding ring she wore and had been given a house into the bargain? Ma’s reputation would be in the gutter!

Yet her mother’s good name would be safe with Nell. Nell had been her friend and wouldn’t blab, though what she would say when she got her hands on the packet of deeds was anybody’s guess!

‘Well! Bugger me!’ Nell said. ‘It makes you think, dunnit? I mean – givin’ her an ’ouse for a silver shillin’. It isn’t on, is it …?’ She laid the documents on the kitchen table and fished in her pocket for a cigarette. ‘Tell you what, girl. How about puttin’ the kettle on? A cup of tea is what we need, and sod the rations!’

‘A bit of a shock, Nell?’

‘Not half! Now don’t get me wrong, Meg Blundell, but those Kenworthy folk must have been plaster saints, or sumthin’! I mean who, will you tell me, looks after a girl who was nuthin’ to them but a paid servant, doesn’t show her the door when she’s been left high and dry and in the club, then gives her somewhere to live into the bargain?’

She drew hard on her cigarette, sucking smoke through her teeth, shaking her head in bewilderment.

‘So now you know how I felt.’ Meg stirred the teapot noisily. ‘When I’d got over the shock I thought the same as you. Were those people at Candleford saints or sinners? Did someone have a guilty conscience? Was Ma paid off? I went over it and over it, and y’know what, Nell? I decided that they were decent, even if they were toffs, because Ma never spoke of them with anything but respect and she loved Candlefold till her dying day.’

‘So we let well alone! Doll’s gone, and we don’t speak ill of the dead nor think ill either. If your ma had wanted us to know she’d have told us, so we respect her wishes – say nuthin’ to nobody! Don’t give the gossips bullets to fire – is that understood?’

‘Understood.’ Gravely Meg nodded. ‘And I appreciate you sticking up for Ma.’

‘She’d have done the same for me.’

‘She would, but for all that, Nell – and strictly between you and me – aren’t you just a bit curious? I know I am. I’d give a lot to get to the bottom of it, though where I would start, I don’t know.’

‘At the beginning, I’d say – if you’re really set on knowing. But before you start anything, Meg Blundell, ask yourself if you’re goin’ to be prepared for what you might find.’

‘What d’you mean? Just what might I find, will you tell me?’

‘Dunno. But if you go poking and prying you might find something you didn’t bargain for. When you start turnin’ over stones, something nasty might just creep from under one of them – see? And before you go all toffee-nosed on me, remember I’m on Doll’s side, no matter what.’

‘So if I was to try, Nell, would you be on my side, an’ all?’

‘You know I would, ’cause, let’s face it, I’m as curious as you are, truth known.’

‘So where, if you were me,’ Meg smiled, all at once relieved to have Nell’s blessing, ‘would you say the beginning is?’

‘Can’t rightly say.’ She took one last, long draw on the cigarette end, then threw it into the hearth. ‘The more I think about it, the more baffled I am. Happen by tomorrow I’ll have had a bit of time to take it in. But you’re not serious, are you?’

‘I’m not going to seriously jump in with both feet, if that’s what you mean, but I’d like to know more about the house I was born in and the people who looked after Ma, and stood by her. You can’t blame me for that, now can you?’

‘Suppose not – but be careful. You and your ma got on all right for the best part of twenty years, so ask yourself if raking over the past is what she’d have wanted – bearin’ in mind that she leaned over backwards to keep it from you!’

‘Yes, and bearing in mind that she must have known things would come into the open when she died, don’t you think Ma would’ve understood how curious I am about her precious Candlefold?’

‘So what do you aim to do?’

‘Like you said, the best place to begin is at the beginning, Nell. Once, Candlefold was a fairytale place to me. Ma would talk about it like it was all from a storybook, and I never quite knew if she was making it up or not. But suddenly it’s real. It’s the house I was born in, and the first thing I’m goin’ to do is go to the library and have a look in the atlas for Nether Barton!’

‘Up to you, I’m sure.’ Nell rose to her feet to glare at the pile of offending documents. ‘Think I’ll get me ’ead down for a couple of hours. What time are you expecting me an’ Tommy?’

‘Tea is at six,’ Meg smiled primly.

‘I came by some pickled onions the other day,’ Nell said, hand on the door knob. ‘“I’ve got something for you, Mrs Shaw,” the grocer said, all smarmy. Then he went under the counter and brought out the onions, would you believe? From the look on his face I thought I was in for half a pound of butter – but there you go! You’re welcome to them. They’ll go down nicely with corned beef hash. Sorry I can’t bring a spot of cream for the peaches, girl! See you, then!’

And throwing back her head she laughed until her shoulders shook.

The table was laid with Ma’s best cloth, the cutlery placed neatly. Potatoes cooked gently on the stove; the peaches lay in a glass dish on the cold slab in the pantry. Meg sighed with delight. This was her first party ever, thanks to Kip’s bounty. Pity he couldn’t be here too.

She closed her eyes and sent her good wishes to him wherever he was now. Probably still anchored in the rivermouth, waiting for the convoy to gather. They were, he’d said, going part of the way under escort; stopping at the Azores to take on fresh water, then on to the Canary Islands alone, and across to Panama. SS Bellis was a new ship, and fast – could outrun any U-boat, just as the Queen Mary and the Mauretania did. Once they were free of the slow-moving convoy they could get their revs up, and go like the clappers! Kip had done more sea miles than most young men, Meg thought with pride. Kip loved her and she wished she could love him back; yet love, real love, made her afraid, because things could get out of control, Nell said, and then where were you?

‘Sorry, Kip,’ she whispered to the clock on the mantelshelf. ‘Take care of yourself, mind …’

She hoped he wouldn’t buy a ring in Sydney.

‘Now that,’ said Tommy Todd, ‘was a smashing meal. You didn’t tell us you were a good cook, Meg.’

‘I’m not. It was something easy, and a tin of peaches doesn’t take a lot of opening. But thanks for the compliment, and thanks for coming.’

‘It was kindly of you to ask, girl.’

‘And kind of Kip to provide it for us! Now would you both like to sit by the fire, whilst I clear away?’

‘I’ll help wash the dishes,’ Nell offered, sinking deeper into the chair that had always been Dolly’s.

‘Thanks all the same, but I’ll see to everything after you’ve gone. Give me something to do with myself. I miss Ma most in the evenings, y’know.’

‘I miss my feller all the time,’ Nell sighed, ‘for all it’s more’n twenty years since he was took, God rest him …’

‘That was a terrible war.’ Tommy gazed into the fireglow. ‘The day I got my Blighty wound I was mighty relieved, I can tell you.’

‘Relieved?’ Meg gasped. ‘To get wounded?’

‘Oh, my word yes! When you was wounded bad they shipped you to Blighty, to England. It was worth a badly leg to get away from those trenches. Thought I was in ’eaven in that ’ospital. Clean beds, no more fighting, meals reg’lar. I was lucky.’

‘So how did you get that limp?’ Nell demanded.

‘Was too small for the infantry, me being a stable lad-cum-apprentice jockey, so they put me in a horse regiment. Horses were used a lot in that war. More reliable than motors. Motors was always getting bogged down in winter. We was hauling a big gun – took six horses – and I was on the lead horse. We started getting shelled, and copped one. Horse was killed – went down on top of me.

‘By the time I was fit for active service again the war was over. Kids skit me when I walk past, but I’d rather have a limp and an army pension than what Nell’s man got. Life was cheap in that war. I was one of the lucky ones.’

‘Ar.’ Nell nodded, hooking a tear away with her knuckle. ‘Folks made a fuss at Dunkirk; said it was awful our army retreatin’ like they did, but if I’d been a feller I’d have been glad to get out of that country. No good to us, France isn’t!’

Seeing Nell’s trembling bottom lip, Tommy smiled, diving his hand into his jacket pocket, offering five cigarettes. ‘I stood in a queue for these! Thank God I don’t smoke. I was always a little runt, and folk said that smoking stunted your growth, see. I never growed over five feet, for all that! Go on, Nell. You’re welcome to them!’

Tippet’s Yard, Meg thought later as she washed dishes and scrubbed pans, was an airless, run-down slum that should have been knocked down years ago. Liverpool was a dump, but Liverpudlians were the salt of the earth, and people like little Limping Tommy and brash, buxom Nell made life worth living in Tippet’s Yard. You had to count your blessings, Ma always said, and that, Meg decided, was what she would try to do, because there were a lot of people worse off than she was!

Yet for all that, she knew that this city would never hold her; that somehow, some day, she would find Candlefold. And when she did, she would find Ma’s heaven; that special somewhere she must have yearned for, the night she walked out into that cold, mucky yard to die.

Candlefold. Place of dreams.