Perseverance Street (15 page)

‘Can I help you?’ Lily asked.

‘Er, yeah – I’m looking for a ring that looks real enough to fool my girlfriend long enough until I can buy her a real one.’

‘I see.’

He grinned at her. ‘I spent all me demob money on a motorbike and she’s expecting me to propose to her tonight. She’s a real beauty. Goes like the clappers.’

‘Does she really? What’s she called?’

‘BSA Gold Star, 1938.’

Lily found herself smiling. ‘What? Oh, right. And what
does your girlfriend think about you buying a motorbike?’

‘She doesn’t actually know yet. I haven’t found the right moment to tell her.’

‘So you’ve been in the forces?’

‘Yeah, army – got an early demob due to the job I was doing. So, what do you think? I’ve got a fiver between me and the workhouse and I want to take Beryl out tonight for a slap-up meal with the full works, so it’ll have to be no more than four quid.’

He had china-blue eyes that looked older than the rest of him and Lily wondered just what horrors those eyes had witnessed. Had they seen the same sort of things as her bank clerk husband?

‘What were you before the army?’

‘Me? I was a demolition man. Still am when I go back to it – work for my dad’s firm, actually.’

Without hesitation and without sparing a glance at Dee, Lily pointed to the real diamond solitaire.

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I think that might fool Beryl for quite a while.’ Then he frowned. ‘Four pounds seven and six. Doesn’t leave me much to take her out. You need ten bob nowadays for a decent night out.’

Lily slid it on her ring finger beside her own engagement ring. ‘My ring’s a real diamond,’ she said. ‘Can you tell the difference?’

‘Blimey! None at all, except this one’s a bigger diamond.’

Dee moved in. Lily was expecting her to put the young man off this ring and recommend something else.

‘Are you local?’ Dee asked.

‘When I’m back in Blighty I’m local. Up to getting demobbed I haven’t been around Leeds for nigh on two years – and then only on leave.’

‘He was in the army,’ Lily explained.

The young man grinned at Dee. ‘I remember you. You’ve been working this market since I was at school.’

‘Thirteen years,’ said Dee. ‘Tell you what, seeing as how you’re a soldier of the King I’ll let you have it for four quid.’

‘
Used
to be a soldier of the King. Four quid eh?’ The young man took the ring off Lily and examined it. ‘Blimey! It looks real enough to me.’

‘I buy job lots,’ Dee explained. ‘For all I know, it might well be the real thing but my eyes aren’t what they used to be. But if that’s imitation it’s top quality and worth four quid of anyone’s money. Get it valued. You never know.’

‘Right. I might just do that. Hey! If it’s a real diamond I’m not giving it back.’

‘I don’t expect you to.’

Lily and Dee watched him walk away, happy with his purchase. ‘Are you mad at me?’ Lily asked, still with her eyes on the soldier.

‘Not this time – just don’t do it again, that’s all. If he gets it valued, which I suspect he will, he’ll tell all his mates in the pub. Word’ll get round.’

‘If word gets round to his girlfriend he’ll be in trouble.’

Dee shook her
head. ‘If he’s got any sense he’ll tell her he knew it was a real diamond when he bought it. It’ll keep my reputation intact.’

By the time they packed up at four-thirty they’d sold twenty-eight pieces of jewellery. Total cost to Dee, including the diamond solitaire, seventy-three pounds. Total takings, ninety-eight pounds.

‘If we’d sold the genuine pearl earrings I’d have still broken even on the day,’ Dee said, licking the end of a pencil with which she was working out the day’s profit. ‘As it is we’ve made twenty-five, less the cost of the stall for a day … one pound ten … less a gallon of petrol and wear and tear on the bike … six bob. Net profit before tax, twenty-three pounds four shillings. Of which you get a fiver clear. Not bad money for a day’s fun, is it?’

‘It’s more than I used to earn in a week. What do I do about tax?’

‘We’ll worry about that as and when we have to. At the moment the government owes you for one husband and one month’s freedom.’

Lily nodded and took her fiver. The fact that she was earning somehow empowered her. Not only that but she was in a higher income bracket than the coppers who were looking down their noses at her. Her mind was clearer. Her chances of getting her boys back didn’t seem quite so hopeless. She kissed Dee on the cheek.

‘Blimey, girl. What was that for?’

‘Oh, for all sorts of stuff, Auntie Dee. You’ve been like a mother to me.’

‘I promised your mam I’d look after you – a promise I severely neglected, I’m afraid.’

‘Well, you’re
certainly making up for it now.’ Lily paused and asked, ‘What was she like? I mean, I’ve heard you talk about her but never even seen a photo of her.’

Dee stared at her for several seconds, as if coming to a decision. Then she opened her handbag and brought out a man’s wallet inside which were several photographs. Dee selected one and handed it to Lily.

‘Sorry love. I didn’t realise you’d never seen her photo. That’s me being thoughtless. This is your mam – I took it on a day out to Scarborough.’

The photograph was of a vivacious young woman sitting on the railings in front of a deckchair-strewn beach with the sea in the background. Standing beside her, with an arm round her, was a young man in slacks, braces and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. They looked an obvious couple. Also in the photograph, down at ground level, was a cheeky young boy who was standing on the beach and poking his head under the railings and pulling a face at the camera. Lily stared at the woman, who looked younger than she was now. But she could see her own face there.

She looked up at Dee. ‘Is this my mother?’

‘That’s her, Margaret Mary Windsor – everybody called her Peggy.’

‘Auntie Dee, she was beautiful.’ Lily clasped her hand to her mouth to choke back a sob, but it didn’t stop the tears arriving. ‘And this young man. He looks nice. Who’s he? Is he someone you met in Scarborough?’

Dee took the photograph from her and studied it, shaking her head slowly. ‘No, he came with us. We went as a foursome.’

‘So, he was my
mam’s boyfriend? Do you remember his name?’

‘I do. His name was Frank Nuttall. Lovely feller. Fancied him myself, but I had to settle for his brother, Ernest.’ She smiled. ‘Frank and Ernest. We always thought their parents must have had a sense of humour.’

‘What happened to him, this Frank?’

‘He died, love – Spanish flu. Went all through the first war without a scratch then died of flu.’

‘How well did she know him?’

‘They were very close, love – too close some might say. When I say
some
, I don’t mean me.’

‘Auntie Dee. What do you mean?’

Dee hesitated for a while then said, ‘Frank was your father, love. He fully intended marrying your mother but …’

‘But he died.’

Lily almost snatched the photo back and studied it with intense interest. ‘So, this is my mam and my dad?’

‘Yes, love.’

‘He was very good-looking. Was he a nice man?’

‘Lovely feller. Put it this way. If he hadn’t set his cap at yer mother I’d have made a play for him.’

‘Who’s the boy in the background?’

‘No idea – some cheeky young beggar who thought he’d get in on our photo.’

‘Can I keep it, please?’

‘Of course you can.’

‘But it says father unknown on my birth certificate. Why didn’t anyone tell me all this before?’

Dee hadn’t told
her this before because she’d only just made the story up. It was a much better memory to live with than Lily knowing that her mother had been a prostitute and her father a client. The person in the photograph was a young man they’d met that day in Scarborough and had never seen since. Dee couldn’t even remember his name. Frank Nuttall was the name of an old boyfriend, killed at the Battle of the Somme along with tens of thousands of others four years before Lily was born. She smiled at the look on Lily’s face.

‘There was only me knew, love – and I never really got a proper chance to tell you. Sorry.’

Lily sat on the empty stall for a full fifteen minutes as Dee loaded her wares into the sidecar hoping her lie sounded plausible. Lily’s eyes remained glued to the photograph, placing it to her lips, occasionally, and kissing it; making Dee feel guilty. But the lie was told, the seed had been sown and she’d now have to run with it, making up additions as time went on. Suddenly Lily looked up at her.

‘Auntie Dee, this has given me the first useful idea I’ve had for weeks.’

‘What sort of idea?’

‘Oh, one that might come to nothing, but I need to call in at Perseverance Street on the way home.’

‘OK, but if there’s any fighting to be done, I’ll do it.’

Someone had written
MERDERER
on her front door in white paint, the letters growing smaller as space ran out. Lily stepped out of the sidecar and glanced at it, shocked.

‘Take no notice,’ said Dee. She looked over Lily’s shoulder and murmured, ‘Fat woman living opposite, who’s that?’

‘Hilda
Muscroft. It’ll be her who wrote it, probably.’

‘You go in. I’ll be with you in a minute.’

‘Auntie Dee—’

Dee winked at her and waved her protest away. Hilda was at her door, arms folded having been alerted by the sound of the motorbike. Dee sauntered across to her with a smile on her face. ‘Are you Mrs Hilda Muscroft?’

‘What’s it ter you?’

‘Nothing … except I’ve been hearing horrible stuff about you, from your neighbours.’ She pointed at Lily’s door. ‘You spelled it wrong, by the way – did you not go to school?’ Then she stopped in her tracks, two yards away, and wafted her hand in front of her face. ‘Woooaagh! It’s true what they all say about you! Good God, woman! Have you never heard of soap and water? Has your husband never told you that you stink like a pig?’

Hilda was too taken aback to respond.

Dee backed away holding her nose. She turned to follow Lily into the house, happy that she’d delivered a grade-A insult.

Hilda stormed back into her house to report this outrage to her husband. Arnold, who had long since become inured to his wife’s pungency, comforted her with the words, ‘Nay, lass, yer smell a bit, but yer all right.’

Lily was already coming out of her house by the time Dee got to the door. She was carrying a small bundle of letters and an unimpressive-looking box camera.

‘Does that
actually work?’ Dee asked, nodding at the camera.

‘Of course it does. It might not look much, but it takes good snaps in the right hands.’

‘How many does it take?’

‘Eight, but we only took about four. I took two of Michael then Mr Oldroyd took a couple of us both.’

‘And you think the Oldroyds might be on the ones you took of Michael?’

‘I’m not sure but I do know their table was behind where Michael was sitting. I’ll drop the film off at the chemist’s in the morning. I should get them back in three or four days.’

‘You will not. I know someone who’ll have it developed tonight.’

‘Is it right about your Mickey?’

The question was asked by Tony Lafferty who had approached down the pavement and was standing just a few feet away with hands on hips and his wishbone legs wide apart. Lily looked down at him and asked, ‘Is what true?’

Tony frowned and shifted his feet nervously. ‘Is it true that yer killed your Michael?’

Lily looked down at him. He’d asked as innocently as such a question could be asked.

‘No it’s not true. Michael’s missing. We’re looking for him.’

The frown left Tony’s face. ‘That’s what me mam said. She said yer wouldn’t do a thing like that. D’yer want me to help yer find him? I’m good at looking for stuff.’

Lily broke into a
smile. ‘That’d be a real help, Tony. How is your mam?’

She scarcely knew Mrs Lafferty but it seemed impolite not ask about the only neighbour she knew about who didn’t think she’d murdered her son.

‘She’s a bit brassed off.’

‘Oh dear. Why’s that, I wonder?’

‘It’s me dad. He’s not comin’ home from t’ war.’

Lily was shocked. ‘Oh dear, Tony. I’m sorry. How’s your mam. Is she OK?’

‘No, she’s as mad as ’ell. She says he’s gone off wi’ a French tart.’ He squinted up at Lily. ‘What’s a French tart, Mrs Robinson? Do they taste nice?’

Lily looked at Dee, then back down at Tony, not knowing what to say.

‘He’s not sendin’ us no money and we’re skint. I’m supposed to have some new boots but we can’t afford ’em. Grown outta me old boots.’

Lily, who knew all about boys growing out of boots, looked at his feet. Two big toes poked out of the cut-off ends of his plimsolls. He looked scruffier than usual and somewhat emaciated. She guessed he existed entirely on free school dinners. But he had a mother who believed in her. Strange world.

‘Wait there, Tony.’

She went back into the house leaving Dee and the boy standing looking at each other. Tony wiped a sleeve across his perpetually runny nose. Dee tapped a foot on the pavement wondering what Lily was doing. Lily was back out within a couple of minutes with an envelope in her hand which she gave to Tony.

‘This is a note
for your mam, and here’s a shilling for you if you deliver it to her without losing it.’

She pressed a coin into the boy’s other hand. He looked at it in wonder. This was the most money he’d ever had.

‘Straight to your mam. No messing about.’

‘No, missis.’

‘How much was in the envelope?’ asked Dee as they both watched the boy gallop off, slapping his backside and whooping with delight at his new-found riches.

‘A tenner,’ said Lily. ‘It’s all I have at the moment. I need to borrow a couple of quid from you, of course.’

‘I’ll go halves,’ said Dee, after some deliberation. ‘Should pay for a new pair of boots and keep ’em both well fed for a few weeks. Poor little sod.’

‘At least he’s got his mam at home,’ said Lily, her eyes still on the galloping boy. ‘And she loves him enough to cut the toe out of his pumps so his feet don’t hurt. And I’ll bet he has a new pair of boots tomorrow. He’s better off than some.’