Read 2003 - A Jarful of Angels Online
Authors: Babs Horton
Bessie’s mam and dad had false teeth. Their gums were as pink as Blackpool rock.
“You’ll be gummy like Dai Full Pelt.”
Bessie didn’t care. She was going to marry Morrissey the Sweet Shop when she was older because he always called her darling and said he’d wait for her to grow up.
Iffy didn’t like Morrisey. Once she’d bought some dolly mixtures and the pointer on the scales went just past two ounces. Morrissey had taken a dolly mixture out and cut it in half.
Morrissey’s shop was in the middle of Armoury Terrace, squashed in between all the other little houses. It had thick, green, dimpled-glass windows. When the shop door opened a rusty bell tinkled high above your head. Then there was silence for a few seconds. Then
up
would pop Morrissey like a bloody jack in the box. It made Iffy jump every single time, even though she knew it was going to happen.
Morrissey was a very queer man to look at. He had pointy pixie ears, and eyes the colour of Parma violets. His nose was long, thin and peaky. He had thick black curly hair that was a wig, whatever Bessie said.
Syrup of figs – wigs
Apples and pears – stairs
Hampton Wick – Dick
That was proper English. Fatty had told her.
The English lived through the Severn tunnel that was seven miles long. It was a long train ride to get there. On the other side of the tunnel lived the English. The English had a very swanky way of talking. They had fluffy lids on their toilets and said mummee and daddee, and her nan said they’d never learn to make gravy as long as they had a hole in their arse.
Morrissey’s mouth was very tiny and his voice was a strangled squeak.
He always wore the same clothes, day in and day out. Very dapper in his dressing but not too clean about himself. He wore a red dicky bow, a fawn shirt, brown trousers and a yellow waistcoat the colour of lemonade powder.
He thought he was the goods, did Morrissey. Iffy didn’t like the smell that came off him, wet biscuits, brown sauce and cough drops all mixed together.
Inside Morrissey’s shop it was as dark and mysterious as a wizard’s den. When your eyes got used to the dim light they could feast on the rows and rows of sweet jars that stretched right up to the ceiling. All types of bon bons: Lemon. Strawberry. Chocolate. Aniseed balls as red as blood. Rainbow drops. Sherbet pips. Chocolate eclairs. Rum and butter. Coconut macaroons. Pineapple chunks. Toasted teacakes. Pear drops. Humbugs. Everton mints.
Barley sugar. Sherbet lemons that gave you ulcers on your tongue from sucking too hard.
On top of the shiny wooden counter there were boxes of Spanish, which the English called liquorice, Flying Saucers, Black Jacks, Milk Gums, gobstoppers, bubblegum, tiger nuts, sweet tobacco, shrimps, Fry’s Five Boys, banana splits, everlasting strips, Jamboree Bags galore.
In front of the counter there was a bran tub as deep as a well. It was thruppence a go.
It was heaven apart from Morrissey.
On the right-hand side of the shop, close to the door, there was a huge cream-coloured fridge that hummed like an angry bumble bee. Iffy’d seen inside and it was deep and dark and full of snow. It contained ice-cream blocks and Miwies, choc ices, tubs and Jubbly’s. If you bought icecream blocks, Morrissey wrapped them in newspaper.
Morrissey was so short he had to stand on a box and on tippy toes to reach down into the fridge. Iffy liked watching him disappearing down into it. When he came back up for air his black wig was sprinkled with frost and his thin nose was blue with the cold. Iffy wondered if he fell into the fridge whether it would be like falling down a frozen well and if he’d come out where the Eskimos lived, where there were polar bears and igloos and seals balancing balls.
Bessie went into the shop first. The rusty bell tinkled high above their heads.
Iffy held her breath and clamped her feet to the floor. She was determined that she wasn’t going to jump.
Up
popped Morrissey behind the counter. Iffy’s feet left the floor.
Bugger. Bugger. Bugger. Shit. Shit. Damn.
“Good morning, lovely girl,” Morrissey said to Bessie. He ignored Iffy.
Bessie smiled her best smile, all dimples and gappy teeth. She stank of double helpings of baby powder and cod liver oil. She always spoke to Morrissey dead proper and never dropped her aitches. Iffy knew that was because Morrissey thought he was a cut above and Bessie wanted him to think her posh.
“And what can I do for you, little princess?”
Ugh! thought Iffy.
“A quarter of pineapple chunks, please, Mr Morrissey.”
A quarter! Iffy could only ever afford two ounces. Gutsy pig.
Morrissey climbed up the rickety ladder to reach the jar.
Pineapple chunks were on the second shelf from the top in between Pontefract cakes and chocolate bon bons.
He climbed back down the ladder, smiled again at Bessie, tipped up the jar and the pineapple chunks clattered into the metal weighing dish. The arrow on the scales pointed to four ounces. He lifted the dish, tilted it and the chunks slid into the triangular paper bag he held in his left hand. Morrissey twisted the top of the bag shut.
“There you are,” he said handing them to Bessie, and stroking her hand as he did so. “For the most beautiful little girl in the valley.”
Iffy thought he must be blind.
Bessie giggled and grinned like a bloody Cheshire cat.
Iffy looked away. Sometimes Bessie could be dead soppy, as daft as arseholes. Bessie thought she was IT. If she was made of chocolate she’d eat herself.
Anyway, Morrisssey called lots of people beautiful girl. Iffy’d heard him. He’d never said it to her though, and she was glad.
“Two ounces of sherbet lemons, please, for my friend Iffy.”
She had to let Morrissey know she was buying Iffy sweets to show how nice and generous she was. Morrissey weighed the sherbet lemons out. The arrow on the scales went just over the two ounces mark. Fat chance he wouldn’t notice. He took one sherbet lemon out and popped it back into the jar.
Tight as a camel arse in a snowstorm.
The red arrow on the scales wavered just before the two.
Bessie gave him her money. Morrissey put it in a box under the counter and when he gave Bessie the change he squeezed her fingers tight and blew her a kiss through his cat’s arse lips.
Bessie giggled and turned pink.
Behind the kiss, Iffy caught the smell of his breath which stank of cough drops.
“Goodbye, Mr Morrissey,” Bessie said with a plum in her mouth.
“Goodbye, princess,”
“Yuk!” said Iffy under her breath.
“I’ll wait for you to grow up!” he called after Bessie.
Double yuk.
Iffy went out of the shop first. Behind her the bell tinkled. Bessie waved to Morrissey with her fingers, like a baby.
If Bessie did marry Morrissey when she grew up she’d live above the sweet shop and be able to eat sweets all day long. Bessie Tranter, Queen of the Sweet Shop. Lucky gutsy pig!
She’d have to kiss him though on his cat’s arse lips and rub their belly buttons together if they wanted babies.
Treble yuk!
And a baby would come out of Bessie’s bum.
Urrrgh!
Serve her right.
Will climbed wearily up from the river bank, walked up the hill and turned left towards the rec, if there was still a rec after all this time. He was astounded by the sight that confronted him.
The walls of the Big House were overgrown with ivy and brambles and behind the walls the house was a charred shell, the roof had fallen in, inhabited by crows and magpies. The wrought-iron gates were intertwined with brambles, and a sign warned, KEEP OUT! It had once been a glorious house with a particularly fine garden. He had been invited to sit in the garden and take tea by Agnes Medlicott, the woman he had called the second witness.
He could still conjure up a picture of Agnes Medlicott in his mind. She had been an elderly woman, with thick coiled plaits flattened over her ears, a fashion rarely seen these days. He remembered thinking at the time that she must have been a strikingly handsome woman in her younger years. She was strong boned, with intelligent deep-brown eyes. Her nose was large and hooked but this did not detract from her looks. She had been out of the top drawer. She had explained to him that her late husband had been the local doctor years before. She’d moved abroad after his death but had come back about nine months earlier.
It had been one of the most stunning gardens he had ever seen. The lawns were mown to absolute perfection, the flowerbeds were carefully tended and the flowers were a riot of harmonious colours. He could remember the soothing sound of falling water from concealed fountains, the humming of contented bees.
At one side of the garden close to the wall bordering the river there had been a steep rockery, resplendent with morning glory, lobelia and periwinkle. There was a large pond with giant-sized goldfish, and in alcoves and shady corners were an assortment of exquisitely beautiful statues. He’d commented on them and she’d said, “Ah yes, all my dear children…they remind me of the good times.”
He’d been shocked by her words and had counted up the statues, there were well over twelve of them. Surely they weren’t all her daughters?
She must have noticed the puzzlement on his face because she’d smiled sadly and said, “Not my own children, Inspector. I’m afraid I wasn’t blessed with a family. I lost my only child.”
Will had looked at her closely and seen a slow ripple of grief pass across her features. Then she’d swiftly changed the subject.
“When my husband was alive, I ran a small school here, a sort of finishing school for young girls.”
“And the statues?”
“They were just a hobby of mine.”
“A hobby of yours?” he’d said astonished.
She could easily have made a very good living as a sculptor and he’d told her so.
She’d sighed softly, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. Outwardly, she gave the impression of supreme serenity, but he guessed that this belied a very great inner turmoil, a life unfulfilled. He noticed too that in contrast to the rest of her body, her hands were hard, strong and sinewy, used to heavy toil.
“My husband was an old-fashioned sort of man in many ways,” she’d said. “I don’t think he would have approved of me making a living by sculpting.”
Will had thought that it was a great pity that her husband’s approval had had any bearing on her life as an artist.
“But you ran a school, that was profitable no doubt?”
“Well, not really. I did that as a sort of hobby too…I’d lived abroad, you see, for many years before we were married. In Spain. I was fluent in the language and still had contacts over there. My girls came on recommendation. I taught them English and other things considered useful. I was never lonely, Inspector.”
From the tone of her voice he knew that he was talking to a very lonely old woman, a woman living more in the past than the present.
“Is there any news on the missing child?” she’d asked and she’d lowered her eyes and turned slightly away as though she wanted to hide her face from him.
“No, I’m afraid not. Can you be definite about the time you say you saw the child?”
“Oh yes, most definite. You see I’d asked Sandicock, he’s a sort of general dogsbody who’s worked for us, me, for years, to serve tea at three o’clock on the dot and by a quarter past three I was rather annoyed. I’m a stickler for punctuality, Inspector. I always take afternoon tea in the first-floor drawing room. While I waited for Sandicock I stood by the window. I saw the child down on the bridge, leaning over as if looking for someone.”
And Will had wondered for many years just who that someone was.
When Iffy came up the road from the Cop where she’d been sent to buy milk, Fatty was sitting on the bridge, eating cockles out of an old newspaper.
“Where d’you get them from?” asked Iffy.
“Mrs Baker. Always trying to fatten me up she is. Want some?” he asked Iffy as she jumped up next to him.
“No thanks.”
She’d been sent out to buy extra milk for visitors who’d come from down the valley so she couldn’t stay long to yap. Auntie Blod and Cousin Eirwen. She’d never met either of them.
“Guess what, Iffy!”
“I dunno. Give in.”
“My wish is going to come true.”
“What wish?”
“You remember – when we drank the holy water.”
Iffy turned her head away, she didn’t like thinking of that.
“What did you wish for?”
“A puppy. And now I’m gonna get one.”
“Where from?”
He pointed towards the Big House.
“Old Gravelwilly’s black Labrador’s having pups.”
The black Labrador that belonged to Mr Sandicock was a pedigree. Pedigrees knew more about their ancestors than people did.
“How do you know she’s having pups?”
“Cos I heard them talking ages ago.”
“Who?”
“Dai Full Pelt and Gravelwilly.”
“What did they say?”
“Dai was going to take the Labrador to get it covered.”
“You make it sound like a settee.”
“Don’t be dull! Covered by another black Labrador.”
“Why?”
“So she’ll have pups!”
Iffy didn’t ask him any more in case he explained. She got embarrassed. Nothing ever embarrassed Fatty at all.
“When is she having pups?”
“Any day now, but they won’t be black Labradors.”
“How come?”
“Cos a couple of days before Dai took the dog to be covered, the Labrador got out and done it with Barny the bulldog. I seen ‘em, so they’ll be half bulldog and half Labrador.”
Barny the bulldog lived on Old Man Morgan’s farm. He was tied up to a post most of the time, but sometimes when the moon was full he escaped and took himself off on adventures. They called him Barny the bulldog, but he was much bigger than the pictures of bulldogs they’d seen in books, nearly big enough to ride on.
Whenever he escaped he came along Inkerman dragging the chains and the post behind him.
Bessie was terrified of him. She always ran inside and pulled the bolts across the door.