Polly's Pride (27 page)

Polly knew that she was right. ‘Sleep, m’cushla. It’ll be fine, I promise you. He’ll not hurt you while I have breath in me body. And won’t I tell him so first thing?’

The following morning Polly left Lucy getting dressed while she went downstairs to confront him, fists clenched into her narrow waist, mouth pursed upon the tightness of her anger. Inside she could feel her heart beating twenty to the dozen, yet this time she’d not stand down. Wouldn’t she fight for her children to the death?

It’s to the Catholic Church we go next Sunday, like it or not, Joshua Pride. D’you hear me now?’

He cast her a glance of scathing contempt. ‘I hear you, Polly Pride.’

‘You can tell us what to eat, when to get up, go out, come in, even when to wash our daft faces, but you’ll not tell us how to pray to our God. D’you mind what I’m saying to you?

Without a word, he simply smiled. Then, walking past her up the few wooden stairs, turned the big rusty key in the bedroom door, leaving Lucy firmly locked inside.

Shaking with shock and fury in her own kitchen, Polly railed at her brother-in-law while upstairs she heard her daughter’s scream. ‘Mam, Mam! The door’s stuck. I’m locked in. Someone help me. Please. Mum!’ But even as she called, her throat drying with fear, Lucy knew that despite the brave show of defiance; her mother could do nothing. Uncle Joshua was still very much in control, and there was no one in this house strong enough to stand against him.

Chapter Eighteen

It was one day at the end of May that Charlie came to the house. Disturbed by Joshua’s handling of Polly at the tram stop, he’d quietly followed them home, watching from street corners as she was marched along, itching to intervene but instinct telling him it would only make matters worse for her. He hated the way the man had forced her almost to run to keep up with him. Charlie didn’t like that. In his world men showed respect and consideration to women, not treated them like chattels.

Besides this very real concern, she’d looked so lovely, so fragile with her heart-shaped face and big greeny-grey eyes, that he hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind ever since. It was daft of him, he knew, they’d only just met and spent no more than a few minutes together, but in truth he’d fallen for her badly. He was glad of any excuse to look her up again.
 

Charlie had never been short of women in his life, but nor had he ever wanted any of them to stick around. This one, he felt, would be different. What he couldn’t quite decide was how to go about
it.
He’d stood on street corners and watched the front door of the small terraced house for weeks on end when really he should’ve been looking for work. All in the hope he might spot her when she came out to do a bit of shopping. But not once, in all this time, had she ever emerged, and his worry increased by the day.
 

Was she ill? Had she left the area? Neither thought brought him comfort so, in the end, without a plan of any kind in his head, he strode across the road with his sailor’s rolling gait, and knocked on the door.

He prayed she would answer. Or perhaps a child. He assumed she would have children. A child answering the door would be perfect. He was good with children. It was opened by a large woman, with fists the size of hams.

‘Well?’ she demanded, in a voice which said she was ready to deal with all time-wasters in a flash, or with one flick of her brawny arms. Charlie swallowed, wishing desperately he’d learned the young woman’s surname, then he could ask more politely. But he hadn’t.

‘Is Polly in?’ he ventured, feeling very much like a school boy asking a favour of a sweetheart’s mother. But then she wasn’t his sweetheart, was she? Not yet, anyway.

‘And who might you be?’

‘A friend.’

Big Flo considered this. She’d heard of no friend, certainly not a young Jack-me-laddo like this one. ‘I suppose you have a name?’

‘Charlie Stockton, ma’am.’ He stood to attention, very nearly saluted. If he’d been in uniform he probably would have done. The old woman’s tone reminded him very much of his commanding officer. ‘I’d just like a quick word.’ To ask her to spend the rest of her life with me, a voice in his head murmured. Charlie struggled to ignore it. ‘If she has a minute to spare.’

‘I’ll ask,’ the old woman said. ‘But keep them mucky boots off my clean doorstep. And Charlie found the door slammed shut in his face.

Big Flo marched back through the parlour, where Joshua was painstakingly making notes for his next speech, and into the kitchen. Polly was standing at the sink, peeling potatoes. ‘There’s a young chap at the door, wants a word. Says he’s a friend o’ yours.’

Polly turned, a frown knitting her brow. ‘What’s his name?’

‘Charlie Stockton, he says.’

Joshua, who had come to stand in the doorway to listen to this conversation asked, ‘And who might he be, Polly’ The expression on his face was glacial, making her shiver.

Polly realised instantly who it was, though it must be several weeks since their meeting at the tram stop. How had he known where she lived? If Joshua had forgotten meeting the young seaman, she certainly had no intention of reminding him. Seeing her own daughter locked in her room for the better part of a long day had distressed her greatly, even though Polly herself had castigated Lucy for disrespect to her elders. Joshua’s behaviour was deeply troubling, as if there were more to it than simple bad temper on his part, like some sort of vengeance he was inflicting upon them both.

‘I think he’s one of the hawkers from Oldham Street,’ she said, pulling the idea out of the air, quite certain Joshua would recognise it for the lie it was. But he only stared at her through narrowed eyes as her heart started to race at her own recklessness. ‘I expect he’s come to ask how I am.’ She started to wipe her hands on a cloth but Joshua held up one hand to stop her.

‘I’ll see to him. I won’t have you troubled by riff-raff.’

‘Oh, but he’s not. It’s no trouble, I . . .’

‘I said I’ll see to him, Polly.’ His tone was so authoritative, so tinged with suppressed hostility, that she could do nothing but bite her lip and keep silent, praying Charlie wouldn’t start any trouble.

In the event, Joshua opened the door on to an empty street, returning to announce with some satisfaction that her so-called friend had not even troubled to wait. Dipping her head so he did not see the disappointment in her face, Polly went back to peeling vegetables.

Charlie, alarmed by the length of time it was taking the old woman to relay his message, had withdrawn to the corner of the next ginnel. From here he could see the front door of number twenty-three without being seen himself. When he saw the man step out, he recognised him instantly as the one who had marched Polly off that day. He sighed with relief at his own foresight. But there was something about this set-up that he didn’t like one bit, and Charlie made a decision, there and then, to keep a close watch on the comings and goings at number twenty-three.

Later that same evening Joshua addressed Polly in the tone of voice he might use on a half-wit child. ‘Isn’t it time you went to bed?’

She lifted her head and met his gaze with calm defiance. For all his efforts to make the Irish woman’s life not worth living, he saw in that look that she was in no way defeated. But she said not one word. It was in fact Big Flo who answered.
 

‘Aye, it will be soon enough, but I’ve to fill this bath first. It’s Friday remember, bath night. You’ll be off out as usual, I suppose?’

Joshua felt a niggling irritation that he’d somehow been put in the wrong as he sat and watched the two women struggling to carry the large zinc bath tub from the back yard and start to fill it with hot water from the two kettles on the hob.

He hadn’t believed her lie about Charlie Stockton being a hawker. Did she take him for a fool? What he needed was to find some way to cure that wandering spirit of hers. Maybe he knew the very thing.

A further pan of hot water stood waiting. Towels had been warmed, and a drop of Dettol was ready to put in the bath water, together with a bar of soap and a pumice stone. Cleanliness being next to Godliness, in his mother’s view, this was the normal ritual of a Friday evening. ‘I’m off out,’ he said, reaching for his bowler hat.

Thinking he had gone Polly began to unbutton her blouse but, pausing in his stride, Joshua took a step back into the kitchen to cast one last lingering glance over her, smiling sardonically as her fingers froze and he caught sight of a glistening strip of bare flesh between her breasts. His eyes said clearly that she was a fine figure of a woman, no doubt about it, and that he could curb her defiance whenever he chose.

In that moment Polly felt no hint of the laughter she had once shared with Matthew at the thought of his brother with a woman. Instead, a shiver rippled down the length of her spine, leaving her chilled and more disturbed than she cared to acknowledge.
 

When he had finally gone, she took the quickest bath ever, acutely aware of her nakedness in the cold draughts of her own kitchen. As she hurried through the weekly ritual, she kept half an ear tuned to the sound of the front door. As if sensing her unease but misjudging the reason, Big Flo touched her gently on the shoulder and offered to wash her hair.

‘You need to come to, lass. This jumping at shadows cant go on. Our Matt’s gone, bless him, and all you can do is look forward to the day you meet him again. Till then, you have the childer to think of. And yourself.’

As Big Flo washed and dried her hair, Polly knew that the old woman was right. Day after day Joshua had continued to devise ways of humiliating her. He’d kept her half senseless with the sleeping powders, constantly criticised her and undermined her confidence. Whether she was scrubbing a step or peeling vegetables, he loved to find fault and point out how useless and inadequate she was. If all else failed, he would taunt her over her parents and the bleakness of her childhood. He even used his power over her daughter to hold her in check.

Polly felt as if she was pitched in a daily battle against him, yet couldn’t for the life of her work out why, or what the reason for the war could possibly be.
 

She wished that Charlie had waited, or at least that she could find some way to see him. Remembering how lively and kind he had been, she ached for his friendship, for the chance to talk to him again. Secretly, deep inside, it had felt good to be reminded that she was a woman, young and perhaps even still attractive. Of course she wasn’t for a moment contemplating anything improper between them, but for those few moments in his company she’d felt alive again.
 

She suddenly longed to tell all of this to Eileen, who she hadn’t seen in ages despite her friend living next door.
Polly
couldn’t remember the last time she’d talked to a woman of her own age, one who could understand how she felt. Polly knew she was done with grieving, must resolutely set aside that sense of emptiness left after Matthew’s death. She longed to be in charge of her own life again, as she’d once been. But somehow this final step still eluded her.

Finding a job so that she could be independent of Joshua was becoming her chief concern. At first she hadn’t cared about the loss of her business. Now Polly began to wonder if she’d thrown away her only life-line. She had no money, except for a few coins she’d kept tucked under the floorboards. The rest had been used to help feed them over the last year. She didn’t even have any furniture of her own to sell to raise fresh capital. It all belonged to Big Flo and Joshua. She was trapped in a state of dependence and destitution.

As these thoughts raced through her head, Polly only half listened to Big Flo’s homely wisdom. And the memory of Joshua’s burning eyes haunted her all through that endless night.

The next afternoon, it being a Saturday, Terence was off down to the dogs. Eileen had finished her chores early for once and was feeling in need of a bit of company. She’d tried on numerous occasions to see Polly, but to no avail for some weeks now. Today she meant to succeed.

Gathering up her squabbling children and dragging Beryl away from nibbling coal from the scuttle, she set out with her brood in tow, one of the twins draped about her neck as usual - and bumped slap-bang into a man in a blue reefer jacket. He was half bent down and she ran into him frill tilt, knocking her nose against his shoulder in the process.

‘Dear Lord, where did you come from?’ she yelled, putting a hand to her nose to see if it was bleeding. Her eyes filled with tears of pain and she could see nothing but a blur. Meryl, still clinging fast round her neck, had acted like a cushion and simply bounced off him. Even so she began to yell and the man was all concern, insisting he check that the children were unharmed.

‘It was my fault,’ he admitted. ‘I was bending to tie up me laces. I never saw you coming.’ Charlie had in fact been trying to peep around the half-open door of number twenty-three, to see if the man was working in the front parlour, as he so often was. But he could see only the green curtain that shielded the vestibule from the rest of the house, no sign of anyone. Despite hours of careful watching he still hadn’t clapped eyes on Polly. He was becoming seriously worried.

‘D’you know next door?’ he asked, as he helped Eileen back on her feet and dusted down a green frock that had seen better days. She knocked away his hands as if they scalded her.

‘Now why would I?’ she commented with biting irony.