Читать книгу Christmas on Coronation Street: The perfect Christmas read - Maggie Sullivan, Maggie Sullivan - Страница 7

Elsie Grimshaw stopped and stared at the newsagent’s window, like she’d done every day since the small Christmas tree had appeared. The same as every year, it was draped in silvery tinsel and dotted with fluffy wads of cotton wool pretending to be snow. On the topmost branch was a fairy with a glittering wand. She shivered and wrapped her arms round her skinny body, trying to rub some feeling into them. It felt cold enough for real snow today though, and her arms were too puny and her coat too thin to offer any defence against the wind. Under the lower green branches of the tree, several gift-wrapped parcels were lying and she longed to pick them up. They were different shapes and sizes; all in fancy coloured paper, though much of it was faded. Some were strung with a ribbon that ended in a bow.

Must be some kind of chocolates, she had long ago decided as she gazed enviously at the packages. Seeing her own reflection in the newly cleaned glass, she was momentarily distracted and she stared at her outline. She pulled a funny face, laughed and then frowned, then stared straight ahead, a gradual smile coming to her lips. Her nose was all right, if a little pointed. She never had managed to scrub off the dusting of freckles. Her dark green eyes, which she knew were her best feature, looked huge against the paleness of her face. Lots of expression in those eyes, she was always being told. Nowt but bloody cheek and impudence, according to her dad. But it was her long eyelashes the girls at the factory envied. Much darker than the flame-red of her hair. She moved closer until they almost touched the glass. Everyone seemed to want long eyelashes. Not that she could see hers. Her fringe was too long. Long and lifeless, despite the curls, like the rest of the tangled mess that hung in different lengths around her shoulders. She’d tried to smooth it out but it wasn’t easy. Maybe she could get her sister Fay to have a go at it if they could cadge some scissors off one of the neighbours. Of course, it would look quite different if it was washed and cut properly. She thought of the women she saw regularly coming out of the hairdressers in some of the nicer streets of Weatherfield. Then she could look like her favourite film star. Fiery hair, fiery temper her mother always said. But Elsie didn’t mind, not if it made her like Maureen O’Hara. Maybe the hairdresser could make her look like that one day. Elsie peered again at her reflection and pulled another face, this time stretching her thin lips, then pouting. Nothing a spot of carmine couldn’t improve.

She rubbed her fingers over her cheekbones, which Fay reckoned stuck out like film stars’ bones. They stick out because I don’t get enough to eat, Elsie had thought. Not the kind of problem Hollywood film stars have to worry about. She pictured herself stretched out on a sofa like she had seen in the films, munching through the contents of the chocolate boxes, deliciously soft and sweet. She imagined licking the melting chocolate from her fingers, though it wasn’t chocolate that coated them now, stuck as they were with all the cotton fluff and grime from the machines at the factory. It never occurred to her the boxes might be dummies.

I’ll be fifteen next birthday, she thought. In March. Not that anyone else would remember. Fifteen, and I’ve never had a present in me life. One of these days I’m going to have one and it will be all wrapped up just like those. She sighed before adding: And not only for me birthday, but for Christmas as well.

Suddenly, through the thin fabric of her shabby coat, she felt the touch of a hand in the small of her back and she spun round, feeling foolish and hoping she hadn’t spoken her thoughts out loud.

‘Bobby Mirren!’ she squealed. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

‘Just being friendly.’ He tilted his head to one side and gave her a lopsided grin. ‘Thought maybe you’d like Christmas to come early this year. If you know what I mean.’ He winked. ‘I’ll make it worth your while.’

Elsie’s hand closed on the wage packet that filled her coat pocket when he said that. Not for the first time she thanked no god in particular that she had a steady job at the textile factory. At least it meant the family could eat – most days. So long as her mam was smart enough to grab something back off her dad before he drank it all away.

She gazed at Bobby for a second or two then beckoned towards the end of the street with her head. There was still some daylight left in the early wintry afternoon. He crooked his elbow and she slid her arm through his as they sauntered off down the road together. She could feel the envelope in her pocket as she walked, but she was thinking that an extra ha’penny or two would never go amiss.

It was completely dark by the time she got home and as she opened the front door to number 18 Back Gas Street it wasn’t much brighter inside. A dull glow was emitted by the small clump of coal that still smouldered in the hearth at the back of the room, but the single lightbulb that dangled from the low ceiling close to the room’s solitary window was not lit. She flicked the switch on the wall but nothing happened. In the gloom, she stumbled over the pile of filthy clothes that still lay unwashed from last week. She sighed. Her mother had promised to do them today.

‘Is that you, our Elsie?’ There was no mistaking the bloated shape of Alice Grimshaw as she emerged in the gloaming from the scullery that was curtained off from the room, behind the stairs at the back. The telltale bump of her stomach looked about ready to drop, even though Elsie knew her mother had a few months to go before yet another wailing mouth to be fed appeared. In her arms, twelve-month-old Jack, favourite teddy in hand, struggled to get down, for once he’d heard the voice of his favourite big sister he was in no doubt about where he wanted to be. He grinned at her. A ghoulish grin, for his front teeth were already black and decayed from constantly sucking on the bottle he had inherited from his three-year-old sister Polly. It was kept almost permanently topped up with sugared water to keep him quiet.

‘I managed to get us a yesterday’s loaf,’ Elsie said. ‘I bloody hope there’s some of that dripping left over what our Phyllis cadged off Mrs James next door.’ Jack had crawled over the cold flagstones to where Elsie was standing and clasped her knees, his arms appealing to her to pick him up. It was hard to resist him with his blue eyes and blond curly hair, even if his head was scabby with lice. From a distance, he looked a bit like the little cherub in the soap advert they had in town, but close to it was hard not to see that his poor little face was too gaunt and his arms and legs too much like those of a matchstick man to really look like such a pin-up. His legs were too thin even to support the grey rag of towelling that served as a nappy. It had been pinned haphazardly around his waist and it slipped each time he moved. Now it looked as if it was about to descend below his knees. Not that Elsie cared. He would always be her favourite. The only boy at the end of a long line of girls. Normally she would have picked him up. But for now she was distracted. She could see that her mother had neglected her duties as usual, for the small inadequate sink was piled up with every dish they possessed. Not that there were many, and what they had was either cracked or chipped, even the tin plates they’d got from the rag-and-bone man, and all the cups had broken handles. No wonder everything gets damaged Elsie thought crossly. This lot’s been lying here most of the week.

‘There’s a bit left for scraping,’ her mother said, absent-mindedly bending down to pick up her son again. She groaned and quickly dumped him at the foot of the bed he shared with her and Arthur. Jack protested loudly, banging his teddy against the bedpost, appealing once more for Elsie’s favours. But his sister still ignored him.

‘Bloody good job,’ Elsie said. ‘Mr Whitehead at the grocer’s up the passageway saved the bread for me special.’ Elsie looked at her mother, wondering what she would say if she knew what the bread had actually cost her eldest daughter from the ‘groping grocer’ who worked in the shop at the end of the courtyard. Alice obviously had no idea, for she just smiled.

‘Thanks, love. At least I’ve got summat for your dad’s tea now. Can you give us a tanner for the meter an’ all? Yer dad’s still out and there’s no one else to ask.’ She made it sound like her husband Arthur was the usual provider of their basic necessities.

Elsie clenched her fists at the lie, though she knew she should have been used to it by now. It was one that tripped so easily off her mother’s tongue, even though the old man hadn’t done much in the way of providing since he’d been laid off at the mill five years before. ‘Why does it always have to be me as feeds the lecky as well as feeding the whole bleeding lot of us?’ Elsie’s voice rose to a shout and she felt tears of anger scalding her lids. ‘Why can’t you get the little ’uns to run more errands for the neighbours so’s we can have summat regular for the meter for once?’

Alice stared at her, but all she said was, ‘You’re a good ’un,’ as the lightbulb sprang into life. Alice gave up then, abandoning the baby to the cold floor. She went back into the scullery, returning with a hastily washed plate with the last of the dripping and a knife for the bread. She banged it down on the table, which was surrounded by odd chairs in the middle of the room. ‘Yer dad’ll be back soon and you know how he likes summat to eat soon as he gets in.’

This time at the mention of her father Elsie quickly crossed the small dining-room-cum-kitchen that also served as a bedroom for her parents and Jack. She ignored Jack’s outstretched arms as he tried to grab her and ran up the steep wooden stairs to the small first-floor bedroom she and her sister Fay shared with Polly, Ethel and Connie – some of their other siblings. She hoped that as usual they’d be running wild somewhere on the streets with no thought of coming home yet, giving her some precious moments of privacy, though that was a distant dream. Her other sisters, Phyllis, Iris, Freda and Nancy had the other bedroom upstairs while their parents slept below with baby Jack squeezing in where he could; Elsie thought the house generally felt like Piccadilly Circus but without the bright lights and excitement. Pushing her back against the door to bar entry, she took her wage envelope out of her coat pocket and scrutinized the contents. She skimmed off several of the loose coins and added them to the couple already in her pocket, stuffing a grey cotton square that served as a handkerchief in with them to prevent any jangling noises giving her away. Then she resealed the envelope and went back downstairs.

She was only just in time, for her father was already rolling through the door and as soon as he saw her he stretched out his hand.

‘What you got for me, gal?’ he asked.

‘What makes you think I’ve got anything?’

‘Because it’s bloody payday, that’s why, so don’t get smart with me, lass.’

‘Well, I ain’t got nothing.’

Elsie stood arms akimbo and stared at him defiantly. For a moment he looked shocked but then before she had time to move he raised his arm and whacked her sharply on the side of her head.

‘Don’t you dare cheek me! How’s a man supposed to get a drink round here? Gimme tha money.’

Elsie was aware of Jack screaming, though she wasn’t sure where he was for the room was beginning to spin as she fell to one side. She didn’t lose her footing, however, for her father grabbed hold of her before she hit the floor and with his huge hands triumphantly ripped the envelope out of her pocket. She tried to reach out for it but he snatched it away. Above the baby’s shrieks she heard the loose change from her pocket spilling out on to the floorboards and knew she had lost everything.

‘What the bloody hell is this?’ Arthur shouted, stomping on two of the rolling pennies. ‘You’ve opened it already! Trying to do me, are you? Well, I’ll show you you can’t swindle Arthur Grimshaw. Pick ’em up.’ He pointed to the coins that had rolled under the chair.

Elsie glared at him for a moment then she spat on the money without moving.

‘Pick ’em up yourself,’ she snarled. But her defiance was short-lived. She was only to be rewarded by another clout, this time to the other side of her head. She heard as well as felt his knuckles make contact with her cheekbone and knew she would have a lump and a black eye by the morning.

‘Don’t you dare bloody cheek me!’ he yelled. ‘I’ll make you pay for this.’ Now her father grabbed hold of her shoulders and pulling her in front of him began to shake her violently. ‘Pick ’em up, I said,’ he shouted into her face. ‘Now!’ The cocktail of alcohol fumes, stale tobacco and the odours from his otherwise empty stomach, compounded with her spinning head, made her retch. Flinging her arms wide to fend him off, she raced out of the door and ran round the back of the house and across the tiny yard. She was heading for the midden they shared with four of their back-to-back neighbours, praying none of their snotty kids had noticed her plight and would deliberately block her way.