A Woman’s Fortune

‘I don’t know what you two have got to be so cheerful about,’ Grandma Sue said, easing a swollen foot out of a worn and misshapen slipper. ‘My ankles are plumped up like cushions in this weather. It’s that airless I can hardly catch my breath.’ She slumped down on one of the spindle-back kitchen chairs and began to massage her foot.

‘Here you are, Gran, a cup of cold tea,’ said Evie, emerging from the pantry and putting Gran’s precious bone-china cup and saucer down on the kitchen table beside her. Sue had been given the china as a present when she left her job as a lady’s maid to get married. No one else in the family would even think of borrowing it, knowing that the crockery was doubly precious to Sue because it had not only survived the war, it had outlasted Granddad Albert, too.

‘Here you are, Mum … boys.’ Evie placed mugs of the tea, which was no longer particularly cold, in front of her mother, Jeanie, and her younger brothers. Peter and Robert were frowning over their school homework, applying themselves to it with much effort and ill grace.

‘Thanks, Sis,’ Peter smiled on her. ‘I’ll just get this down me and then I’m off out to play football with Paddy.’

‘Football, in this heat?’ Sue shook her head and smiled. ‘You’re a tough one, an’ no mistake.’

‘Lazy one, more like,’ said Jeanie, taking off her pinny. ‘What have I said about not going out to play until you’ve done your homework?’ She sat easing her back, then removed the turban she wore when she was working to try to prevent the steam from the copper frizzing her hair. As her mother raised her arms and pushed up her flattened curls, Evie noticed how sore her hands were. Mum liked to look nice but it was difficult in this heat, with all the steam and hard work. In winter it was even worse, though.

‘It’s too hot to do schoolwork. It’s the play next week and no one’s bothered about doing sums when there’s the play to rehearse.’

‘But you’re not even in the play, are you, Pete? Isn’t it just the little ’uns that are doing the acting?’

‘I’m in the choir and I’m playing the whistle,’ said Peter. ‘You can’t have a play without music.’

‘That’s right,’ Robert had his say as always. ‘Pete’s got a solo.’

‘Two solos,’ Peter corrected. ‘Anyway, it’s only one more year before I’m fourteen and then I can leave school. I can read and write already – what more do I need when I’m going to be a musician?’

‘A musician, is it now?’ smiled Sue. ‘I don’t know where you get such fancy ideas.’

‘Fifteen,’ Michael corrected, coming out of the pantry with a second bottle of cold tea. ‘You can’t leave until you’re fifteen.’

‘But that’s not fair. Evie left at fourteen. Why can’t I?’

‘Evie left to help Mum and Grandma Sue with the washing,’ Michael reminded his elder son, not for the first time. ‘The authorities turn a blind eye if you’ve got a family business to go into, especially when it’s the best in Bolton.’ He beamed at Jeanie and she rolled her eyes at his nonsense.

‘And if I don’t get on with that last pile of ironing I might as well have stayed at school,’ Evie said, getting up and moving to the ironing board, beside which was a pile of pretty but rather worn blouses.

‘I could always go and help you at the brewery until the music takes off, Dad,’ Peter went on, adding innocently, ‘I’m sure we need the money.’

‘And you wouldn’t be spending it in the pub like Dad does either,’ Robert said, unwisely. ‘Or betting on horses.’

Typical, thought Evie, in the brief silence that followed. When would Robert ever learn to keep quiet?

Jeanie, Sue and Michael all spoke at once.

‘Shut up, Bob, and get on with your homework. I won’t have you cheeking your father,’ said Jeanie.

‘I think you’re asking for a clip round the ear, my lad,’ said Sue.

‘Ah, come on, son. A man’s got a right to have some fun,’ said Michael.

Robert lowered his head and began snivelling over his exercise book while Peter got up very quietly, collected his books into a neat pile and sidled over to the door.

‘I’ll see you later,’ he muttered and left, taking his mug of tea with him.

Sue eased herself off the chair and made for the living room, where the light was better and where she kept her workbasket. ‘I’ll just finish that cuff on Mrs Russell’s blouse and you can add it to the pile. I’m that grateful for your help this evening.’

‘Oh, and I’ve found one with a missing button. Do you have a match for this?’ Evie followed her grandmother through with a spotlessly white cotton blouse and showed her where the repair was needed.

Sue turned to her button box and Evie went back to the ironing, mussing up Robert’s fair hair supportively as she passed. Robert was still sniffing over his schoolbooks, writing slowly with a blunt pencil. The distant sound of Peter’s voice drifted up the alleyway from the street, Paddy Sullivan answering, and then the dull thud of a football bouncing.

‘Right,’ said Michael, ‘I’ll be off out. See you later, love.’ He planted a kiss on the top of Jeanie’s head and was gone. Jeanie didn’t need any explanation.

She got up and took her tea into the living room to sit with her mother.

‘Let’s hope he comes back sober,’ Sue muttered under her breath.

‘He’s usually better on a weekday,’ Jeanie said loyally, ‘and it’s Thursday as well, so I reckon there isn’t much left to spend anyway.’

They each lapsed into silence with a sigh.

Evie shared the attic bedroom with her grandma. It was hot as hell that night, as if all the heat from the street and the scullery and the kitchen had wafted up into the room and lingered there still. It was dark outside, although the moon was bright in the clear sky. Sue was lying on her back on top of her bed, her head propped up high on a pillow and with the bedclothes folded neatly on the floor at its foot. She was snoring loudly. Evie thought she looked like an island – like a vast landmass such as she’d seen in the school atlas – and Sue’s swollen feet, which Evie could just see in the dark, looked enormous, being both long and very wide. Poor Gran, thought Evie, it must be a trial carrying all that weight on your bones in this weather.

It was Sue’s snoring that had woken Evie and now she was wide awake and too hot to get back to sleep. The bed seemed to be gaining heat as she lay there and the rucked-up sheet was creased and scratchy. Lying awake and uncomfortable, Evie thought of the weaselly stranger she had seen earlier, how Dad had swerved her questions and obviously didn’t want her to know anything about the man. He’d more or less admitted it was a secret from Mum, too, and therefore from Grandma.

I bet it’s about money, Evie thought.

Her dad had a job at the brewery loading drays and doing general maintenance. She had long ago realised that it wasn’t very well paid. Despite Jeanie’s scrimping and all the doing without, though, Dad didn’t seem to care. He just carried on going for a drink or three, and enjoying what he called ‘a little flutter’ on the dogs or the horses. ‘You have to place the bet to have the dream of winning,’ he had explained to Evie. ‘A few pounds is the price of the dream.’ Sometimes he did win. Mostly he didn’t.

The laundry helped to support them. For someone so old – she was sixty-three and didn’t care who knew it – Grandma Sue was full of go, always trying to think of ways to improve the little business. She offered mending and alterations, and had found new customers away from the immediate neighbourhood – people with a bit more to spend on the extra service.

Enterprise, Mary Sullivan had called it. ‘Everyone admires your gran,’ Mary had said. ‘She doesn’t sit around being old, she gets on with it.’ Evie had to agree that Grandma Sue was amazing.

Evie looked at her now, lying on her back, snoring like billy-o, and grinned.

Getting up silently, Evie went to stand in front of the open sash window, desperate for a breath of cool fresh air. The rooftops of the houses opposite were visible but, from where she stood, there was no one in sight in the street. She lingered, breathing deeply of the hot, sooty air, leaning out and turning her head to try to catch any breeze.

Then she heard the echoing sound of approaching uneven footsteps and recognised her father coming down the street, weaving slightly, not hurrying at all, although it must be very late as he was the only person in sight. But – no, there was another man. Evie hadn’t heard him, but suddenly the man was right there, outside the house. She leaned out further to see who had waylaid her father; it was the man she’d seen earlier. In the quiet of the night their voices drifted up to her, and her heart sank. Something was not right.

‘I told Mr Hopkins what you said and he isn’t prepared to wait that long,’ growled the stranger. ‘He wants his money now.’

‘And I told you I don’t have it,’ Michael said. ‘I’ll pay him what I owe, I promise, but I need more time.’

‘Mr Hopkins says you’ve had long enough. He’ll be charging the usual rates from now.’

‘Please, I can get it all by next month. I just need a bit longer to get sorted, that’s all.’

‘I’ll be sorting you out if Mr Hopkins doesn’t see his money soon,’ snarled the man, leaning in close. Evie felt hot all over, the beginnings of panic flipping her stomach.

‘Next week, then,’ she heard her father pleading. ‘I’ll get it by the end of next week. C’mon now, I can’t say fairer than that.’ He tried for a friendly tone, a man-to-man kind of banter, but Mr Hopkins’ man was not to be charmed from his purpose.

‘Next week it is, then,’ he said, ‘but there’ll be interest, too, don’t forget. You should have paid up straight away, Carter. It’s going to cost you more now. I’ll be back to collect what you owe. All of it, and the interest. And if you don’t pay – and I mean every pound of the debt – I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes. You won’t be able to talk your way out of it with Mr Hopkins. Let this be fair warning to you.’ It was a dark warning.

The stranger seemed to melt away in the darkness, and Evie slowly sank down to the floor beside the window. She had a sense of trouble. Oh dear God, every pound. Dad owed Mr Hopkins pounds! And he had only until the end of next week to pay. And tomorrow was Friday already. How on earth had Dad got himself into that kind of mess? It couldn’t be a bad bet on the horses. That might have wiped out his wages but wouldn’t have led to such a debt, surely. Maybe this Mr Hopkins was a moneylender. Oh good grief, this was serious …