Читать книгу A Family Secret: No. 1 Bestseller of family drama - Josephine Cox - Страница 15

DAVE GAVE ANNE and Cathy a lift to the station to meet Marie. Anne assured him they would get a taxi home; the train might be running late or Marie might have missed her connection at Manchester so there could be a long wait. They were far too early for the train, but he knew Anne was anxious about her mother and whether she’d at last plucked up the resolve to tell her former friends Tony and Eileen about Cathy. He hoped so. Anne was patient and encouraging in the face of Marie’s wavering sense of purpose and he would have liked Marie not to have to bear the burden of her secret – of their shared secret – for much longer. Dave was a simple man and believed that now Cathy was a young woman it was only fair to tell her the truth, no matter how hurtful.

It was a beautiful day and having done a few quick jobs, Dave was between trips for the haulage company so he decided to have a little stroll to the newsagent’s to get his newspaper, then maybe sit out with a nice cup of tea while he read it.

He was just turning back into the street where he lived when he heard raised voices, and saw a flat-bed truck was parked before the house next door, the semi-detached property with which his own shared a wall. A very heated altercation was starting up right there on the pavement. As he drew nearer, slowing his step to make sure he missed nothing, while making himself as inconspicuous as possible in case he should become subject to the fall-out, Dave was amazed to see that the argument was about a ‘To Let’ board. Several of these were in the back of the truck, and the driver had evidently managed to hammer one into the ground beside the pavement in front of the house before Dave’s neighbour, Bob, confronted him.

‘What the hell are you doing putting that thing up here?’ he shouted. ‘You can just take it down again right now because there is no way this house is to let.’

‘I’ve instructions from the landlord,’ said the sign man.

‘What instructions?’ spat Bob. ‘I’ve not heard anything about this house being to let. I’m the tenant here and the landlord hasn’t said anything to me. So you can take that ruddy sign down now.’

‘I have my instructions …’ the man started, but Bob, who had a short temper, a loud voice and plenty of practice with a noisy family over whom he had to assert himself, just raised his voice and yelled over him.

‘I told you, this house is not to let. It’s got tenants already – I’m the tenant – and you can get that there sign down now. And I mean now! No, don’t you turn your back on me! I’m the tenant here and I’m not leaving this house until the landlord tells me I am. And this isn’t telling. This is sneaky! This is dishonest! I’ve got a wife and children to keep and obligations to other folk – how are we going to manage without a roof over our heads? Answer me that! Eh? Eh?’

The sign man had started to edge away, but as Bob grew angrier, and his language grew more colourful and his shouting grew ever louder, the poor man gave up trying to reason with him, turned tail and legged it back to his truck.

‘No you don’t!’ bawled Bob. ‘Don’t you dare go off and leave that sign there. Don’t you dare, do you hear me?’

As he proceeded to tell the man exactly where he’d like to put the sign, the terrified sign man started the engine and the truck pulled away. It quickly picked up speed but Bob was not one to give up and he gave chase, thundering down the street and threatening hell and damnation if the man didn’t clear the sign off his property immediately.

The truck soon disappeared round the corner, and Bob was left cursing and swearing in the middle of the road, with other neighbours beside Dave taking an interest by now.

Dave wisely decided the matter was not his business – that is, he wanted no active part in it, though he was blessed if he wasn’t going to find out what he could – and he slipped indoors while Bob was shaking his fist in the direction the truck had gone, and took up a good position to hear and see what happened when Bob returned to his side of the property.

First of all Bob gave the sign a good kicking, but when it didn’t budge he strode indoors with a very dark expression. Soon Dave heard a row erupting, and he decided to follow his original plan and take a cup of tea and his newspaper outside at the back, where he could hear without being seen. Cathy’s boyfriend, Ronnie, lodged with Bob and Peggy’s boisterous family as their tenant, so Dave felt it was his duty to find out as much as he could. Ronnie was a nice lad, hard-working and polite, and Dave didn’t like to think he’d be made homeless along with his feckless landlord.

Soon the accusations were flying and Bob and Peggy did not hold back.

‘What do you mean, you didn’t pay the rent? How could you not pay it? Answer me that.’

‘How could I pay it when you stole the money I’d put by and spent it in the pub?’

‘Stole? You accuse me of stealing and it was my money all along!’

‘It was for the rent, Bob.’ Peggy’s tone grew sarcastic, as if she was explaining to an idiot. ‘You know, the rent, the money we have to pay the landlord in order to keep a roof over our heads.’

‘So what? You’ve always managed to pay it before … haven’t you?’

‘You stupid man, how do you think I pay it when you keep stealing it and drinking it away? I haven’t paid the rent for weeks.’

For a moment there was silence, but Dave guessed that the argument was just getting going after that revelation. Sure enough Bob’s temper erupted once again in a frenzy of swearing, and Peggy was giving as good as she got.

‘… And if it’s not bad enough there’ve been complaints,’ Peggy shouted. ‘Folks round here have been snitching on us to the landlord about the kids.’

‘Who?’

‘I don’t know, Bob. He’d hardly tell me, would he? Just sent a letter saying the kids were making too much noise too late at night. A warning, he said.’

‘Well, that’s your fault, that is. It’s your job to discipline the children and you’re so lazy you can’t even manage that. You’ve got no control over those kids and you’ve brought them up to be ruffians with no respect for anyone else.’

‘Who says it’s my job? You’re their father, you tell them!’

‘Tell them what, that their mother can’t keep them in order? Whenever I chastise them you complain so they take no notice of me whatsoever. Tell them that you’re a born liar who gets a letter from the landlord and doesn’t tell me – me, the man of the house – and then gets behind with the rent and doesn’t tell me that either?’

‘I’m telling you now, aren’t I?’

‘Too ruddy late now, you daft woman, when we’re about to be homeless. You created this mess, now you deal with it …’

And so it went on, each blaming the other and neither doing anything to help the situation. Their voices rose and there was a sound that Dave thought might have been a plate smashing.

‘I’ll be round there giving that landlord a piece of my mind. He can’t go throwing us out without formal notice,’ Bob yelled. ‘It’s not legal.’

‘You’ll be in trouble if you do, Bob, ’cos he has given us notice.’

‘When? Answer me that. When did he give us notice?’

‘I don’t know! It was a while ago, some weeks. Some snooty letter asking us to leave. I was that angry I threw it in the bin.’

‘You did what?’

‘You heard!’

‘I don’t believe you were so stupid. What in hell’s name did you think would happen? Did you think it would just all go away – that he’d forget about it? Well, did you?’

‘Ah, shut up, Bob. I’ve had it up to here with you, and the landlord.’

‘No, you shut up. You just shut up and listen …’ The shouting continued, the language becoming quite shocking, and Dave retreated indoors, having got more than the gist of the situation.

He hadn’t been inside long before there was a knock at the back door. When he answered it, Ronnie, Cathy’s boyfriend, was standing there, a knapsack at his side.

‘Come in, Ronnie,’ Dave said. ‘I know about next door.’

Ronnie gave an ironic smile as he stepped inside. ‘Yeah, I reckon there aren’t many who haven’t heard,’ he said. Bob and Peggy’s raised voices were audible even now and the two men stood listening for a few seconds.

‘Thing is, Dave, I’m going to have to find myself a new place. No use waiting a minute longer when it’s this plain which way things are going. So I’m off. Is your Cathy in? I wouldn’t go without saying goodbye.’

‘But what about your job, Ronnie? What about Cathy? I know you and our girl have got really close these last few months, and it’d break her heart if you left.’

‘I wouldn’t hurt Cathy for the world, Dave. Of course I wouldn’t. She means everything to me. But they’ve just laid me off at the garage as there’s not enough work to go around, and with what’s happening next door it’s time to move on. I mean to find something that pays enough for me to save up, make a future for Cathy and me. I shan’t let her down, but I do need to look around, see what’s on offer, and I know already that there’s nothing here for me. It won’t be long before I’m settled and then I’ll be able to make some plans with Cathy and our future in mind.’

‘I’m sorry you’re having to get away to look for a new job, Ronnie, and Cathy will be that upset when she hears. Thing is, she isn’t here now. She’s gone to meet her nan at the station. She’s been there a while but I don’t know how much longer she’ll be.’

Ronnie looked stricken at this news, but then he had an idea. ‘I’ll go there and see if I can find her. But in case I miss her I’d better leave her a note. I need to find somewhere to stay tonight and I’ve got to see Beth, too, so I best be getting on.’

‘Of course,’ Dave approved. Ronnie was a good lad who cared deeply for his sister, the only family he had. Dave couldn’t think of a nicer man for Cathy, though she was very young to be thinking of a permanent relationship. ‘Here, I’ll just get you some paper. I think there’s another cup in that teapot if you can squeeze it.’

Ronnie laughed and poured himself a cup of the, by now, very strong but not very hot tea while Dave disappeared briefly and returned with a writing pad, a ballpoint pen and an envelope.

Ronnie dashed off a few sentences in a spikey scrawl while Dave loitered at a polite distance and the muffled sounds of smashing pots and swearing came from next door.

‘Reckon you’re well out of that, lad,’ said Dave as Ronnie folded the paper and sealed it in the envelope.

He wrote ‘Cathy’ on the front and gave it an unselfconscious kiss before handing it to Dave. Then he drank down his lukewarm tea and shook Dave firmly by the hand.

‘Thanks, Dave. I’ll see you soon, I hope. Tell Cathy … well, tell her I’ll be in touch. She knows …’ He nodded at the envelope, which Dave had propped behind the toaster.

‘If you hurry you may yet see her at the station,’ Dave said, showing Ronnie to the door. ‘Take care, young fella. And best of luck.’

‘Thanks, Dave.’

‘And we’ll see you again before long.’

‘Sure will. Goodbye.’ Ronnie shouldered his heavy bag and, with a smile and a wave, set off down the path to the front of the house, where, next door, the fight had erupted into the garden and Bob and Peggy were yelling obscenities at each other and hurling flower pots.

Dave hoped the young man would meet up with Cathy to say goodbye in person. She’d be devastated to have missed him.