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Synopsis
Lancashire 1934. Three years after her husband's sudden death, Stella comes into some money unexpectedly and decides to make a new start in the country. She settles on Ellin Valley, where she quickly begins to make friends. She falls in love with a cottage in Birch End, but an unscrupulous man wants it too. Will she be able to buy her dream home?
Life has changed drastically for local handyman Wilf Pollard as well. When tragedy strikes, Wilf is left as the only support of his two young children. But his friends rally round to help so that he can pull his life together and take up an exciting new job with a well-respected builder.
Some of the local council are eager to deal with the squalid conditions of the Backshaw Moss slum, but others will stop at nothing to keep their profitable rents. And Stella's dream cottage is threatened by their plans to build yet more cheap housing. Can Stella, Wilf and the residents of Birch End pull together to make sure good triumphs over evil?
(P) 2020 Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
Release date: April 2, 2020
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Print pages: 368
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A Widow's Courage
Anna Jacobs
Lancashire, November 1931–34
Stella Newby woke with a start as someone yelled in the street. She sat up in bed, puzzled by the flickering light for a moment, then jerked fully awake as she realised what it was. She shook her husband. ‘Wake up, Derrick! Something’s on fire.’
He was out of bed in a flash, peering out of the window at his side of the bed. ‘It’s next door, love.’
Someone was shouting for help and he called, ‘Get out of the house!’ as he ran from the room.
Stella grabbed their clothes from the chair beside the bed, not waiting to put hers on because flames were flickering near their bedroom window now.
Coughing and spluttering, she raced downstairs and risked going into the kitchen to grab her handbag and the pot containing their rent money from the mantelpiece, before running out to the front. She gasped at how hot it felt there.
‘This way.’ Someone pulled her away from the house and along the street towards the corner shop, outside which people were gathering. She looked around for Derrick but couldn’t see him.
There was a clanging sound and a fire engine turned into the street, slowing as people in its path scattered.
Stella stood there in her nightdress, clutching her bundle of clothes, looking for her husband.
‘Here. Put your coat on, love. Good thing you grabbed it, eh?’
She let the owner of the shop help her put it on, then picked up her bundle again. ‘Have you seen my Derrick?’
‘No.’ Mrs Lilley turned to yell, ‘Anyone seen Derrick Newby?’
People shook their heads or murmured ‘No’.
Stella was really worried now. Where could he be?
Someone down the street was having hysterics, calling out a name again and again.
A man came running to join them. ‘There’s a little lass missing. Anyone else not accounted for?’
‘My husband.’
He stared at her. ‘Tall chap? Thin?’
‘Yes.’
‘I saw him run into the house that was on fire, saying he’d get the little lass out.’
Stella felt sick and dizzy as that sank in. When she managed to gather her thoughts, she found she was sitting on a chair, surrounded by faces. The electricity had gone off but there was plenty of light from the fire.
Someone else came up. ‘Number seven’s caught it now, gone up like a torch, it has.’
The woman next to the man jabbed him in the side and pointed to Stella. ‘That’s her house.’
He stared at her in shock. ‘Eh, lass. I’m that sorry. I didn’t recognise you with your hair down. You allus look so neat.’
‘Has anyone seen my husband?’
‘I’ll go and ask.’
The neighbour didn’t come back for a while, not till the flames were starting to die down as the firemen got things under control. A man came with him, the curate from church. He knelt beside Stella and she knew then, knew before he even said the words.
‘I’m sorry, Mrs Newby. I’m afraid your husband’s dead. He got caught by a falling beam. He was a real hero, rescued a child.’
What did she care about that? She wanted Derrick back, alive.
‘Come through to my back room, love,’ Mrs Lilley said. ‘You’ll want to get dressed.’
Stella looked down at the bundle of clothes, not even knowing what she’d grabbed in her haste to leave. The neighbour helped her sort them out and she got dressed, staring down at Derrick’s outer clothes.
She cried then, sobbing and clutching his shirt. But what good did that do? What good did anything do now?
When the tears dried up, she felt numb, as if she was made of stone.
Stella didn’t feel anything till she found out that Derrick had let the fire and life insurance payments slip. There was no money even for a proper funeral. She’d been left to start life all over again at the age of twenty-seven, with her dreams shattered and owning only the clothes she stood up in.
One of the firemen had found a slightly scorched wedding photograph of her and Derrick, saved by its glass and the fact that it had fallen down the back of the chest of drawers. Stella couldn’t bear to look at it.
She stayed with Mrs Lilley for a few days, sleeping on the rug in the kitchen. Derrick’s workmates from the factory and the people in their street took up a collection for her. Two days after the fire they presented her with a little drawstring bag of coins. She hated being the object of charity, but she took it. She needed to buy clothes and other necessities.
Once she had Derrick’s death certificate, she went to the Post Office Savings Bank accompanied by the curate to prove who she was and get access to their savings. Not that there was much, just a few pounds.
When they came out, he asked gently, ‘What are you going to do, Mrs Newby?’
‘Find a job and somewhere to live.’
‘I know a lodging house with a vacancy. I can vouch for your respectability.’
She heard of a job in an office and got there at seven in the morning, to find herself fifth in a queue of hopefuls. The second one got the job.
Next time she heard of a job she got there at four in the morning and was the first in the queue. She got that job because she had good office skills and could prove it.
People from her old street went on with their lives and the quiet evenings began for her. Stella didn’t like living in lodgings with other people and sharing all her meals, but she had no choice. She missed cooking for herself and was a far better cook than her landlady.
One thing she hadn’t expected was that some men assumed she missed the marriage bed and treated her disrespectfully. She’d been shocked rigid the first time it happened, because the man to do that had been a neighbour of theirs for years and should have known she wasn’t that sort of woman.
If her granddad hadn’t taught her ways of protecting herself when she was younger, the man might have succeeded, too, because she was small and slender, and looked weaker than she was.
As the months passed, it happened again. Several times. She learned to kick out and kept a hatpin handy for a weapon of defence. It certainly made a man yelp to be jabbed in the arm with one, or to scrape your shoe down the front of his shin or, as a last resort, kick him in a vulnerable place.
After a few months, she left Salford and moved to Rochdale to work for a friend of her employer, who was moving to the south. She didn’t keep in touch with anyone, not even the cousins who were her only close family.
By now she had enough money to hire a room where she could share cooking facilities on the landing – two gas burners and a sink.
She didn’t tell any of her new friends and neighbours about losing Derrick. Better to pretend to be a colourless spinster whose elderly aunt had just died. She was small and found it easy to dress plainly and stay in the background.
Three years later, Stella waited outside the newsagent’s for her friend to buy a coupon for the football pools, as she did every week on payday. Stella knew Lena had been doing that for over a year but had only won once, though it had been a nice little sum of just over £5.
Stella would have saved that money, but Lena had insisted on paying for them both to go to the cinema in the best seats and had spent the rest on new clothes and a handbag.
As months passed with no more wins, she tried to show Lena the sums that proved she was wasting her money gambling. Her friend had just laughed and said she got her sixpence worth every single week in the dreams of what she’d do if she won a big amount.
Today it seemed to be taking longer than usual to buy the coupon and Stella was about to go in and see what was wrong when Lena came out, beaming at her.
She held out an envelope. ‘Here you are. Happy birthday, love!’
‘Oh! I didn’t think anyone knew.’
‘I found out when I was waiting for you in the outer office at the laundry a few weeks ago. It was in the ledger with all our details in it, sitting open on a corner of Miss Marlow’s desk. I couldn’t resist having a peek.’
‘Well, it’s very kind of you to buy me a card but—’
Lena chuckled. ‘It’s more than a card, love. There’s a present in there as well. Let’s go and sit on that bench while you open it.’ She led the way across to the small public garden and plonked herself down, looking smug.
Stella sat beside her and opened the envelope. The card had a bunch of flowers on the outside and was garishly bright, as you’d expect of anything Lena bought. There was something inside it as well, so she opened it and her heart sank. When you worked hard for every penny, it hurt to see even the smallest amount thrown away.
‘Oh, Lena! You shouldn’t have wasted your money.’
Her friend got that stubborn look on her face. ‘It’s not wasted, and it’s only sixpence.’ She put an arm round Stella and gave her a hug. ‘You’ve been very down in the mouth this week and I wanted to give you something happy to dream about. I’ve filled it in for you already because my cat knows more about football than you do.’
What could she say other than ‘Thank you for your kind thought’?
Something suddenly occurred to her. ‘I won’t know how to check whether I’ve won or not!’ From what she’d heard, it was something to do with whether the teams had scored draws or not, but what difference that made, she hadn’t a clue.
‘I’ll come around on Sunday afternoon and help you check, then if the weather’s fine we’ll go for a walk. I can borrow Alistair’s newspaper because he’ll have checked his pools and be fast asleep on the sofa by two o’clock.’ She wagged her forefinger at Stella. ‘You have to promise me that you’ll dream about what you’d do if you won.’
‘All right. How much am I going to imagine winning?’
Lena thought about this for a moment, head on one side, then said firmly, ‘A thousand pounds. You might as well have a big dream as a little one. It is your thirtieth birthday today, after all.’
‘I can’t imagine having ten pounds to spare, let alone a thousand.’ Stella managed on what she earned and all she really cared about these days was looking decent, having books to read and making occasional visits to the cinema. She not only borrowed books from the local library but also bought herself a novel every month from the tray of cheap second-hand books on one of the market stalls. She’d always wanted her own bookcase, but Derrick hadn’t been a reader and said it would clutter up the room. Now she had made one very cheaply out of planks balanced on bricks and had filled two whole shelves with books.
Lena stared at her, head on one side. ‘You’re hopeless, Stella Newby. Look, you could dream about buying a whole pile of your beloved books. Brand new ones, mind, with bright, shiny covers, not those tattered second-hand ones. And a new winter coat. Yours is shabby.’
They parted company at the end of the street and Stella walked slowly home. She let out a huff of disgust as she went into the untidy hall where someone had kicked off their muddy shoes and left them lying near the foot of the stairs. She wished she could afford to rent a house of her own again. She still missed the privacy.
The previous Monday had marked the third anniversary of the fire and that was what had made her sad. She was a different person now from Mrs Derrick Newby, living a quiet life, enjoying her simple escapes into films and books.
But she remembered the happier days and Derrick’s loving smile. She always remembered. He’d been a quiet sort of man, really kind. You needed kindness in a hard world.
Well, life went on. One day perhaps she’d manage to find a more interesting way of living and to achieve her dearest dream: a home of her own. But she couldn’t afford to rent a whole house on a woman’s lower wages, so it remained just that – a dream.
She hadn’t intended to do any dreaming about winning the pools, whatever Lena said. But the dingy room made her feel unsettled, as did the sound of her neighbour splashing and singing tunelessly in the bathroom just along the landing. Jane paid the landlady an extra sixpence every Saturday evening for a bath and made it last as long as she could. The singing always got on Stella’s nerves but there was nothing she could do about it.
Imagine winning a thousand pounds, Lena had said, and dream of what you’d do. Before she knew it, Stella was working out what she’d do with a hundred pounds because she simply couldn’t imagine winning a thousand. Find somewhere nicer to live, for a start.
‘Oh, you stupid woman!’ she said aloud. ‘Haven’t you learned what happens to dreams?’
From then on till she went to bed she managed to stop her imagination running riot because she had a new library book by Angela Thirkell, her favourite author, and she couldn’t put it down.
But who can control what happens when you’re asleep? Certainly not her.
She woke up in the morning feeling angry and unrested, wishing she did have a thousand pounds, because she’d buy the beautiful little cottage she’d owned in her dreams, the sort of place she and Derrick had talked about buying one day.
By the time Lena arrived on Sunday afternoon, Stella had got her irritation under control and stopped herself from indulging in any more stupid, impossible fantasies. She kept reminding herself that her friend had meant well as she got out her tin of special biscuits. Lena was the only guest she ever had, but that didn’t mean she had to be mean with her.
She was watching out of the window as Lena walked up the street and her anger evaporated at the sunny smile on her friend’s face. Who could stay angry at such a kind, cheerful woman?
She ran down the stairs and opened the front door before the knocker went.
Lena brandished a newspaper at her. ‘Here we go.’
‘Come on up.’ She saw the curtain of the downstairs room move slightly and knew her landlady would be checking that the visitor wasn’t a man.
When they got up to her room, Stella said firmly, ‘Sit down in the chair and I’ll sit on the bed. I’ll make you a cup of tea in a minute but first, I want to get one thing clear: if a miracle happens and I win a pound or two, I don’t want anyone knowing about it.’
Lena flattened one hand across her chest. ‘I’ll keep your secret if you tell me what you dreamed about.’
Stella sighed. ‘Oh, very well. I dreamed I’d won enough to buy myself a little cottage to live in all on my own.’
‘You didn’t dream about meeting a handsome hero as well?’
Her heart clenched at that but she hoped she hadn’t shown it. ‘Good heavens, no. I’d rather have a cat than a man, thank you very much.’
‘Trust me, a man is more fun! But you’re such a quiet little thing, you don’t even try to attract anyone’s attention. Get your coupon out and we’ll go through it. My Alistair won this week, and it’ll probably be about five pounds. I have a feeling it’s a lucky week and you’re going to win as well. Got a pencil?’
‘Yes. Here you are.’ She had it ready on the mantelpiece.
Muttering to herself, Lena used the newspaper to go through the football results and mark them off on the paper. Stella didn’t bother watching her but sat staring into space, wishing her friend would hurry up then they could go out for a walk in the fresh air.
When Lena squealed and grabbed her by the arms, she nearly jumped out of her skin. ‘Stop it, you fool. You’re hurting me.’
Lena’s grasp slackened but she was staring at her as if Stella had suddenly grown horns. ‘You’ve won.’
‘I don’t believe it. Check again.’
‘I don’t make mistakes about this sort of thing.’
‘Check again. Please.’
A few minutes later Lena gave her a smug look. ‘I checked. Same results. Happy birthday, lucky lady.’
‘How much have I won?’
‘You won’t know for a day or two.’
‘You said Alistair had won five pounds. How could you tell?’
‘I said about five pounds. You’ll have to wait for the exact amount, but I can tell you now that you’ll have won a lot more than that.’
‘How much more?’
‘A hundred or so.’
‘Oh, dear heaven!’ Stella’s legs gave way and she sat down abruptly on the edge of her bed.
‘We should celebrate,’ Lena said.
‘No! You promised you’d not tell anyone.’
‘But Stella, all your friends at work will want to share such good news.’
‘You’re the only real friend I have. The others are just … workmates. All they’ll want is for me to pay for a celebration and I’m not doing it.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I think we ought to share the win.’
‘No. I bought it for you. I think it’d be wrong to take your money.’
Lena had that stubborn look on her face Stella had seen before and she knew her friend wouldn’t change her mind. ‘If you’re sure about that?’
‘I am. This is your piece of luck.’
‘All right. But please don’t tell anyone. If the local newspaper gets to know about this, they’ll go ferreting around and probably find out about my husband as well.’
Lena stilled. ‘You have a husband? You never said.’
She clapped one hand to her mouth, wishing that hadn’t slipped out.
‘What did he do? Run away? You get such a sad look sometimes. I always want to hug you.’
‘He died. In a house fire. He was a hero. Saved a child’s life. Only he lost his own doing it. Our house was next door and burned down, too. I lost all our possessions.’ She hadn’t meant to tell her friend about any of that but once she started it all poured out.
For once Lena didn’t squeal or shout, just took hold of Stella’s nearest hand. ‘I knew there was something sad in your life. That must have been so dreadful for you.’
Stella could only nod. ‘Last week was the three-year anniversary of my husband dying, and that’s what upset me. Please don’t tell anyone about this. I hate people pitying me.’
‘Only Alistair. And he’ll keep it a secret.’
‘All right. Look, it’s a lovely sunny day. Let’s go out for our walk now.’
After their tour of the park, Lena went home and Stella sat down at the small table squashed in between her bed and the window. She stared outside at the row of houses across the street, thinking she should be happy. The money would make a wonderful difference to her life.
She was happy, wasn’t she?
Of course she was.
A hundred pounds or so, Lena had said. It sounded like a fortune.
Only … she was surrounded by people struggling to make ends meet. If they knew she’d won money, they’d be pestering her to help them. And you couldn’t help everyone who needed it, much as you’d like to.
Besides, she wanted to feel secure more than anything else, and if that was selfish, she couldn’t help it. She would save the money because she hadn’t felt secure since Derrick died, was terrified of falling ill and not being able to pay her rent.
She stared blindly out, blinking away the tears, and suddenly the world came into focus. Dark little soot-stained houses. Not much smoke in the air today because it was a Sunday, and there weren’t as many mills as there used to be anyway, because some of them had gone broke and closed down.
But there were still enough mills left to dirty the air you breathed and any washing you hung out came in speckled with smuts. Suddenly she longed for the countryside. She and Derrick used to go walking on the moors sometimes. Fresh air, open spaces, birds calling in the sky above you. They’d both loved that.
And then it came to her, the best dream of all. If she had won a hundred pounds, she’d use it to move to a small town or even a village, somewhere close to the moors. She’d be careful, find a job before she moved. Working in an office was boring but she had more skills than most typists, what with shorthand and being able to understand accounts, so she should have more chance of finding employment than most women did.
But she wouldn’t know what she’d won for a day or two, so for the time being she’d just carry on as usual.
Sometimes that was all you could do: carry on.
Wilf Pollard hesitated as he got ready for work. Enid was looking chalk white this morning and had hardly opened her mouth, though she’d got up as usual to prepare his breakfast.
‘Are you feeling ill again?’ He spoke hesitantly because she’d snapped at him for the slightest thing lately.
‘Just a bit off colour. It’ll pass.’
‘You’ve not seemed well for a while. Maybe you should see the doctor.’
‘I have done. He said to take a tonic.’
‘Perhaps you should see him again?’
‘And waste our money being told to rest? I’ve enough to worry about and will leave wasting our money to you.’
He breathed deeply and managed not to snap back at her. She was being so careful with money lately, he wasn’t finding the meals satisfying and he was sure the children ought to have more to eat. ‘It’s not wasting money to see a doctor.’
‘It is for people like us. Doctors are for rich folk who have nothing better to do than lie around in bed and coddle themselves. He says my problem is women’s trouble, if you must know, and it’ll pass once my monthlies stop.’
‘That’s what you said when you asked me to sleep in the loft so that you could get up if you needed to in the night without waking me. It’s been months now and you’ve not got any better.’ And he hadn’t heard her get up very often but had heard her groaning in her sleep as if she was in pain.
Enid had changed during the hard years he’d been on the tramp looking for work anywhere he could find it, and she now kept all her feelings to herself. Sometimes he felt as if she was a stranger, not at all like the lively young woman he’d married. It didn’t stop her being a good wife and mother in the sense that the house was always clean and so were their clothes. But the food wasn’t plentiful and sometimes he was left hungry.
‘Enid?’ he prompted when she didn’t reply.
‘Yes, well, it helps to sleep on my own. I get very restless. The best thing you can do for me now is leave me in peace till I get past this time of life. I’ll have a lie down this afternoon for an hour. That’ll help more than anything. You know I can’t abide people fussing over me.’
‘If you’re sure there’s nothing I can do to help you?’
Her voice was sharp. ‘You can get off to work and leave me to look after our home and children.’
Wilf shook his head as he got into his van and set off down the valley from the village of Ellindale. Enid was the most stubborn person he’d ever met, and was getting worse as she grew older.
He stopped just down the main road to pick up his helper and chatted to Ricky for the rest of the drive down the valley. With a sick mother to support, his young assistant was desperate for work, and although things were improving gradually, jobs were still scarce around here. Wilf wished he could give Ricky steady, full-time work, because the lad was a hard worker and a quick learner. But building jobs came and went.
Smiling, he drove through Rivenshaw and on to the farmland south of the town, patting the steering wheel affectionately. He’d bought this van earlier in the year and what a difference it had made to his life. He could find better building jobs now and more of them because he could travel further to get to them.
Enid had made such a fuss when he borrowed the money to buy it, but he’d proved her wrong by paying the loan from Charlie Willcox off in three months rather than six. A successful businessman like Charlie had believed in him, but his own wife hadn’t.
Enid had tried to make Wilf promise never to borrow money again, but he’d refused. He wouldn’t borrow money to spend on anything risky and she must trust him to know about that.
He hoped she wouldn’t speak sharply to the children as she got them ready for school today. She loved them, he knew she did, and it had been her idea to adopt them when their parents died, because she and Wilf hadn’t managed to get a child of their own after ten years of trying.
Maybe he should see the doctor himself and ask about Enid. No, the young doctor who’d come to the valley a few years ago had left recently, and the old doctor was stuck in his ways. There was a new doctor, but Wilf doubted she’d agree to go and see him.
Wilf forgot his domestic troubles as he worked on the stone barn he was rebuilding for Farmer Tidsworth to use for storage. It had been in a bad state, with the roof half collapsed, but the stone walls were still basically sound and able to be repaired. With a few new roof beams to replace the rotten ones that had given way under the weight of snow, most of the slates could be reused and the place made waterproof again.
Whoever had first built the barn had put in decent foundations, which folk hadn’t always done in the old days. He wondered why they hadn’t put in better roof beams while they were at it. Perhaps someone else had done that, someone who built shoddily like Higgerson did. Wilf scowled at the mere thought of that man. He might be the town’s biggest builder, but he only put an effort into homes for his richer clients. The houses thrown up for poorer folk were very badly put together.
At midday Wilf and Ricky accepted the offer of a bowl of broth from the farmer’s wife with real gratitude. It was not only tasty with chunks of meat in it, but it warmed you up nicely. And it’d save him nipping out to buy extra food to supplement what Enid had given him tonight.
When she saw the piece of dry bread, which was all Ricky produced for his meal, Mrs Tidsworth took it off him and buttered it, adding a few shreds of ham and topping it with a slice of her own bread before putting another ladleful of broth into his bowl.
Some folk could be so kind to those who were having a hard time, while others took advantage of them. This farmer and his wife were both decent folk.
When they’d finished their meal, Wilf led the way back outside into icy winds and a much damper feeling in the air. He got the sacks with tapes sewn to the corners out of the van. He’d oiled these sacks himself to make them fairly waterproof. They would put these round their shoulders if it began to rain and that’d keep the worst of the moisture off their bodies. It was no use buying fancy mackintoshes when you were doing this sort of rough work.
He sighed as he looked at the lowering sky. Long months of winter weather always seemed to loom ahead of you at this time of year, and it wasn’t even the shortest day yet.
He called an end to their work earlier than he would have done in summer, for sheer lack of daylight and because the rain was setting in. When he stood up after using the last of the mortar, he eased his back and studied his work, nodding in satisfaction. Whether jobs were large or small, he still liked to get them right, and he’d sorted through the stones that had loosened or fallen out and set them into the walls neatly again to match the others nearby.
He turned to Ricky. ‘You’ve worked hard today, lad. Well done. If you could just clear up any mess then put my tools in the van, I’ll work out exactly what we’ll need for tomorrow and measure up for the door frame.’
‘All right, Mr Pollard.’
Wilf had heard the sound of a motor vehicle coming to the farm a short time ago but hadn’t paid any attention to it, so when he turned round, he was surprised to see Roy Tyler standing a few paces away, arms folded, watching him.
‘You’ve made a nice job of that wall, Wilf.’
‘Thanks, Mr Tyler. There’s no one whose opinion I value more.’ He wondered what the builder was doing here. He must be a friend of Tidsworth, but if so, why had he come across the muddy yard to where they were working? Who stopped for a chat on a cold, wet day like this?
The older man nodded his appreciation of the compliment but didn’t smile. He hadn’t done much smiling since his only son had been killed while working on the roof of a house a year or so ago. He hadn’t taken on as many new jobs, either, from what folk said, which was a pity because it left Higgerson as the biggest builder in the valley, with no real competition and no one to hold him to account for his shoddy ways.
Folks said Tyler had grown old overnight after the accident, but though his hair was grey and sadness had added new creases to his weather-beaten face, he still seemed a sturdy figure of a man to Wilf. He couldn’t be more than fifty or so.
Wilf turned to Ricky, jerked his head towards the van, then waited. Tyler wasn’t known for being free with words and would say what he wanted when he was ready.
‘Have you time for a chat before you go home tonight, Wilf lad? About business.’
‘I’ve always got time for you, Mr Tyler. Do you want to talk here or somewhere else?’
‘How about you follow me back to my home in Birch End? It’ll be warmer there. It’s going to freeze tonight or I’m a Dutchman. Besides, what I have to say is private and I don’t want anyone else listening in.’
‘I have to drop Ricky off first, but it’s on the way. He’s a good worker, that lad is, if you ever have any little jobs.’
‘I could see that. I’ll bear him in mind f. . .
Stella Newby woke with a start as someone yelled in the street. She sat up in bed, puzzled by the flickering light for a moment, then jerked fully awake as she realised what it was. She shook her husband. ‘Wake up, Derrick! Something’s on fire.’
He was out of bed in a flash, peering out of the window at his side of the bed. ‘It’s next door, love.’
Someone was shouting for help and he called, ‘Get out of the house!’ as he ran from the room.
Stella grabbed their clothes from the chair beside the bed, not waiting to put hers on because flames were flickering near their bedroom window now.
Coughing and spluttering, she raced downstairs and risked going into the kitchen to grab her handbag and the pot containing their rent money from the mantelpiece, before running out to the front. She gasped at how hot it felt there.
‘This way.’ Someone pulled her away from the house and along the street towards the corner shop, outside which people were gathering. She looked around for Derrick but couldn’t see him.
There was a clanging sound and a fire engine turned into the street, slowing as people in its path scattered.
Stella stood there in her nightdress, clutching her bundle of clothes, looking for her husband.
‘Here. Put your coat on, love. Good thing you grabbed it, eh?’
She let the owner of the shop help her put it on, then picked up her bundle again. ‘Have you seen my Derrick?’
‘No.’ Mrs Lilley turned to yell, ‘Anyone seen Derrick Newby?’
People shook their heads or murmured ‘No’.
Stella was really worried now. Where could he be?
Someone down the street was having hysterics, calling out a name again and again.
A man came running to join them. ‘There’s a little lass missing. Anyone else not accounted for?’
‘My husband.’
He stared at her. ‘Tall chap? Thin?’
‘Yes.’
‘I saw him run into the house that was on fire, saying he’d get the little lass out.’
Stella felt sick and dizzy as that sank in. When she managed to gather her thoughts, she found she was sitting on a chair, surrounded by faces. The electricity had gone off but there was plenty of light from the fire.
Someone else came up. ‘Number seven’s caught it now, gone up like a torch, it has.’
The woman next to the man jabbed him in the side and pointed to Stella. ‘That’s her house.’
He stared at her in shock. ‘Eh, lass. I’m that sorry. I didn’t recognise you with your hair down. You allus look so neat.’
‘Has anyone seen my husband?’
‘I’ll go and ask.’
The neighbour didn’t come back for a while, not till the flames were starting to die down as the firemen got things under control. A man came with him, the curate from church. He knelt beside Stella and she knew then, knew before he even said the words.
‘I’m sorry, Mrs Newby. I’m afraid your husband’s dead. He got caught by a falling beam. He was a real hero, rescued a child.’
What did she care about that? She wanted Derrick back, alive.
‘Come through to my back room, love,’ Mrs Lilley said. ‘You’ll want to get dressed.’
Stella looked down at the bundle of clothes, not even knowing what she’d grabbed in her haste to leave. The neighbour helped her sort them out and she got dressed, staring down at Derrick’s outer clothes.
She cried then, sobbing and clutching his shirt. But what good did that do? What good did anything do now?
When the tears dried up, she felt numb, as if she was made of stone.
Stella didn’t feel anything till she found out that Derrick had let the fire and life insurance payments slip. There was no money even for a proper funeral. She’d been left to start life all over again at the age of twenty-seven, with her dreams shattered and owning only the clothes she stood up in.
One of the firemen had found a slightly scorched wedding photograph of her and Derrick, saved by its glass and the fact that it had fallen down the back of the chest of drawers. Stella couldn’t bear to look at it.
She stayed with Mrs Lilley for a few days, sleeping on the rug in the kitchen. Derrick’s workmates from the factory and the people in their street took up a collection for her. Two days after the fire they presented her with a little drawstring bag of coins. She hated being the object of charity, but she took it. She needed to buy clothes and other necessities.
Once she had Derrick’s death certificate, she went to the Post Office Savings Bank accompanied by the curate to prove who she was and get access to their savings. Not that there was much, just a few pounds.
When they came out, he asked gently, ‘What are you going to do, Mrs Newby?’
‘Find a job and somewhere to live.’
‘I know a lodging house with a vacancy. I can vouch for your respectability.’
She heard of a job in an office and got there at seven in the morning, to find herself fifth in a queue of hopefuls. The second one got the job.
Next time she heard of a job she got there at four in the morning and was the first in the queue. She got that job because she had good office skills and could prove it.
People from her old street went on with their lives and the quiet evenings began for her. Stella didn’t like living in lodgings with other people and sharing all her meals, but she had no choice. She missed cooking for herself and was a far better cook than her landlady.
One thing she hadn’t expected was that some men assumed she missed the marriage bed and treated her disrespectfully. She’d been shocked rigid the first time it happened, because the man to do that had been a neighbour of theirs for years and should have known she wasn’t that sort of woman.
If her granddad hadn’t taught her ways of protecting herself when she was younger, the man might have succeeded, too, because she was small and slender, and looked weaker than she was.
As the months passed, it happened again. Several times. She learned to kick out and kept a hatpin handy for a weapon of defence. It certainly made a man yelp to be jabbed in the arm with one, or to scrape your shoe down the front of his shin or, as a last resort, kick him in a vulnerable place.
After a few months, she left Salford and moved to Rochdale to work for a friend of her employer, who was moving to the south. She didn’t keep in touch with anyone, not even the cousins who were her only close family.
By now she had enough money to hire a room where she could share cooking facilities on the landing – two gas burners and a sink.
She didn’t tell any of her new friends and neighbours about losing Derrick. Better to pretend to be a colourless spinster whose elderly aunt had just died. She was small and found it easy to dress plainly and stay in the background.
Three years later, Stella waited outside the newsagent’s for her friend to buy a coupon for the football pools, as she did every week on payday. Stella knew Lena had been doing that for over a year but had only won once, though it had been a nice little sum of just over £5.
Stella would have saved that money, but Lena had insisted on paying for them both to go to the cinema in the best seats and had spent the rest on new clothes and a handbag.
As months passed with no more wins, she tried to show Lena the sums that proved she was wasting her money gambling. Her friend had just laughed and said she got her sixpence worth every single week in the dreams of what she’d do if she won a big amount.
Today it seemed to be taking longer than usual to buy the coupon and Stella was about to go in and see what was wrong when Lena came out, beaming at her.
She held out an envelope. ‘Here you are. Happy birthday, love!’
‘Oh! I didn’t think anyone knew.’
‘I found out when I was waiting for you in the outer office at the laundry a few weeks ago. It was in the ledger with all our details in it, sitting open on a corner of Miss Marlow’s desk. I couldn’t resist having a peek.’
‘Well, it’s very kind of you to buy me a card but—’
Lena chuckled. ‘It’s more than a card, love. There’s a present in there as well. Let’s go and sit on that bench while you open it.’ She led the way across to the small public garden and plonked herself down, looking smug.
Stella sat beside her and opened the envelope. The card had a bunch of flowers on the outside and was garishly bright, as you’d expect of anything Lena bought. There was something inside it as well, so she opened it and her heart sank. When you worked hard for every penny, it hurt to see even the smallest amount thrown away.
‘Oh, Lena! You shouldn’t have wasted your money.’
Her friend got that stubborn look on her face. ‘It’s not wasted, and it’s only sixpence.’ She put an arm round Stella and gave her a hug. ‘You’ve been very down in the mouth this week and I wanted to give you something happy to dream about. I’ve filled it in for you already because my cat knows more about football than you do.’
What could she say other than ‘Thank you for your kind thought’?
Something suddenly occurred to her. ‘I won’t know how to check whether I’ve won or not!’ From what she’d heard, it was something to do with whether the teams had scored draws or not, but what difference that made, she hadn’t a clue.
‘I’ll come around on Sunday afternoon and help you check, then if the weather’s fine we’ll go for a walk. I can borrow Alistair’s newspaper because he’ll have checked his pools and be fast asleep on the sofa by two o’clock.’ She wagged her forefinger at Stella. ‘You have to promise me that you’ll dream about what you’d do if you won.’
‘All right. How much am I going to imagine winning?’
Lena thought about this for a moment, head on one side, then said firmly, ‘A thousand pounds. You might as well have a big dream as a little one. It is your thirtieth birthday today, after all.’
‘I can’t imagine having ten pounds to spare, let alone a thousand.’ Stella managed on what she earned and all she really cared about these days was looking decent, having books to read and making occasional visits to the cinema. She not only borrowed books from the local library but also bought herself a novel every month from the tray of cheap second-hand books on one of the market stalls. She’d always wanted her own bookcase, but Derrick hadn’t been a reader and said it would clutter up the room. Now she had made one very cheaply out of planks balanced on bricks and had filled two whole shelves with books.
Lena stared at her, head on one side. ‘You’re hopeless, Stella Newby. Look, you could dream about buying a whole pile of your beloved books. Brand new ones, mind, with bright, shiny covers, not those tattered second-hand ones. And a new winter coat. Yours is shabby.’
They parted company at the end of the street and Stella walked slowly home. She let out a huff of disgust as she went into the untidy hall where someone had kicked off their muddy shoes and left them lying near the foot of the stairs. She wished she could afford to rent a house of her own again. She still missed the privacy.
The previous Monday had marked the third anniversary of the fire and that was what had made her sad. She was a different person now from Mrs Derrick Newby, living a quiet life, enjoying her simple escapes into films and books.
But she remembered the happier days and Derrick’s loving smile. She always remembered. He’d been a quiet sort of man, really kind. You needed kindness in a hard world.
Well, life went on. One day perhaps she’d manage to find a more interesting way of living and to achieve her dearest dream: a home of her own. But she couldn’t afford to rent a whole house on a woman’s lower wages, so it remained just that – a dream.
She hadn’t intended to do any dreaming about winning the pools, whatever Lena said. But the dingy room made her feel unsettled, as did the sound of her neighbour splashing and singing tunelessly in the bathroom just along the landing. Jane paid the landlady an extra sixpence every Saturday evening for a bath and made it last as long as she could. The singing always got on Stella’s nerves but there was nothing she could do about it.
Imagine winning a thousand pounds, Lena had said, and dream of what you’d do. Before she knew it, Stella was working out what she’d do with a hundred pounds because she simply couldn’t imagine winning a thousand. Find somewhere nicer to live, for a start.
‘Oh, you stupid woman!’ she said aloud. ‘Haven’t you learned what happens to dreams?’
From then on till she went to bed she managed to stop her imagination running riot because she had a new library book by Angela Thirkell, her favourite author, and she couldn’t put it down.
But who can control what happens when you’re asleep? Certainly not her.
She woke up in the morning feeling angry and unrested, wishing she did have a thousand pounds, because she’d buy the beautiful little cottage she’d owned in her dreams, the sort of place she and Derrick had talked about buying one day.
By the time Lena arrived on Sunday afternoon, Stella had got her irritation under control and stopped herself from indulging in any more stupid, impossible fantasies. She kept reminding herself that her friend had meant well as she got out her tin of special biscuits. Lena was the only guest she ever had, but that didn’t mean she had to be mean with her.
She was watching out of the window as Lena walked up the street and her anger evaporated at the sunny smile on her friend’s face. Who could stay angry at such a kind, cheerful woman?
She ran down the stairs and opened the front door before the knocker went.
Lena brandished a newspaper at her. ‘Here we go.’
‘Come on up.’ She saw the curtain of the downstairs room move slightly and knew her landlady would be checking that the visitor wasn’t a man.
When they got up to her room, Stella said firmly, ‘Sit down in the chair and I’ll sit on the bed. I’ll make you a cup of tea in a minute but first, I want to get one thing clear: if a miracle happens and I win a pound or two, I don’t want anyone knowing about it.’
Lena flattened one hand across her chest. ‘I’ll keep your secret if you tell me what you dreamed about.’
Stella sighed. ‘Oh, very well. I dreamed I’d won enough to buy myself a little cottage to live in all on my own.’
‘You didn’t dream about meeting a handsome hero as well?’
Her heart clenched at that but she hoped she hadn’t shown it. ‘Good heavens, no. I’d rather have a cat than a man, thank you very much.’
‘Trust me, a man is more fun! But you’re such a quiet little thing, you don’t even try to attract anyone’s attention. Get your coupon out and we’ll go through it. My Alistair won this week, and it’ll probably be about five pounds. I have a feeling it’s a lucky week and you’re going to win as well. Got a pencil?’
‘Yes. Here you are.’ She had it ready on the mantelpiece.
Muttering to herself, Lena used the newspaper to go through the football results and mark them off on the paper. Stella didn’t bother watching her but sat staring into space, wishing her friend would hurry up then they could go out for a walk in the fresh air.
When Lena squealed and grabbed her by the arms, she nearly jumped out of her skin. ‘Stop it, you fool. You’re hurting me.’
Lena’s grasp slackened but she was staring at her as if Stella had suddenly grown horns. ‘You’ve won.’
‘I don’t believe it. Check again.’
‘I don’t make mistakes about this sort of thing.’
‘Check again. Please.’
A few minutes later Lena gave her a smug look. ‘I checked. Same results. Happy birthday, lucky lady.’
‘How much have I won?’
‘You won’t know for a day or two.’
‘You said Alistair had won five pounds. How could you tell?’
‘I said about five pounds. You’ll have to wait for the exact amount, but I can tell you now that you’ll have won a lot more than that.’
‘How much more?’
‘A hundred or so.’
‘Oh, dear heaven!’ Stella’s legs gave way and she sat down abruptly on the edge of her bed.
‘We should celebrate,’ Lena said.
‘No! You promised you’d not tell anyone.’
‘But Stella, all your friends at work will want to share such good news.’
‘You’re the only real friend I have. The others are just … workmates. All they’ll want is for me to pay for a celebration and I’m not doing it.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I think we ought to share the win.’
‘No. I bought it for you. I think it’d be wrong to take your money.’
Lena had that stubborn look on her face Stella had seen before and she knew her friend wouldn’t change her mind. ‘If you’re sure about that?’
‘I am. This is your piece of luck.’
‘All right. But please don’t tell anyone. If the local newspaper gets to know about this, they’ll go ferreting around and probably find out about my husband as well.’
Lena stilled. ‘You have a husband? You never said.’
She clapped one hand to her mouth, wishing that hadn’t slipped out.
‘What did he do? Run away? You get such a sad look sometimes. I always want to hug you.’
‘He died. In a house fire. He was a hero. Saved a child’s life. Only he lost his own doing it. Our house was next door and burned down, too. I lost all our possessions.’ She hadn’t meant to tell her friend about any of that but once she started it all poured out.
For once Lena didn’t squeal or shout, just took hold of Stella’s nearest hand. ‘I knew there was something sad in your life. That must have been so dreadful for you.’
Stella could only nod. ‘Last week was the three-year anniversary of my husband dying, and that’s what upset me. Please don’t tell anyone about this. I hate people pitying me.’
‘Only Alistair. And he’ll keep it a secret.’
‘All right. Look, it’s a lovely sunny day. Let’s go out for our walk now.’
After their tour of the park, Lena went home and Stella sat down at the small table squashed in between her bed and the window. She stared outside at the row of houses across the street, thinking she should be happy. The money would make a wonderful difference to her life.
She was happy, wasn’t she?
Of course she was.
A hundred pounds or so, Lena had said. It sounded like a fortune.
Only … she was surrounded by people struggling to make ends meet. If they knew she’d won money, they’d be pestering her to help them. And you couldn’t help everyone who needed it, much as you’d like to.
Besides, she wanted to feel secure more than anything else, and if that was selfish, she couldn’t help it. She would save the money because she hadn’t felt secure since Derrick died, was terrified of falling ill and not being able to pay her rent.
She stared blindly out, blinking away the tears, and suddenly the world came into focus. Dark little soot-stained houses. Not much smoke in the air today because it was a Sunday, and there weren’t as many mills as there used to be anyway, because some of them had gone broke and closed down.
But there were still enough mills left to dirty the air you breathed and any washing you hung out came in speckled with smuts. Suddenly she longed for the countryside. She and Derrick used to go walking on the moors sometimes. Fresh air, open spaces, birds calling in the sky above you. They’d both loved that.
And then it came to her, the best dream of all. If she had won a hundred pounds, she’d use it to move to a small town or even a village, somewhere close to the moors. She’d be careful, find a job before she moved. Working in an office was boring but she had more skills than most typists, what with shorthand and being able to understand accounts, so she should have more chance of finding employment than most women did.
But she wouldn’t know what she’d won for a day or two, so for the time being she’d just carry on as usual.
Sometimes that was all you could do: carry on.
Wilf Pollard hesitated as he got ready for work. Enid was looking chalk white this morning and had hardly opened her mouth, though she’d got up as usual to prepare his breakfast.
‘Are you feeling ill again?’ He spoke hesitantly because she’d snapped at him for the slightest thing lately.
‘Just a bit off colour. It’ll pass.’
‘You’ve not seemed well for a while. Maybe you should see the doctor.’
‘I have done. He said to take a tonic.’
‘Perhaps you should see him again?’
‘And waste our money being told to rest? I’ve enough to worry about and will leave wasting our money to you.’
He breathed deeply and managed not to snap back at her. She was being so careful with money lately, he wasn’t finding the meals satisfying and he was sure the children ought to have more to eat. ‘It’s not wasting money to see a doctor.’
‘It is for people like us. Doctors are for rich folk who have nothing better to do than lie around in bed and coddle themselves. He says my problem is women’s trouble, if you must know, and it’ll pass once my monthlies stop.’
‘That’s what you said when you asked me to sleep in the loft so that you could get up if you needed to in the night without waking me. It’s been months now and you’ve not got any better.’ And he hadn’t heard her get up very often but had heard her groaning in her sleep as if she was in pain.
Enid had changed during the hard years he’d been on the tramp looking for work anywhere he could find it, and she now kept all her feelings to herself. Sometimes he felt as if she was a stranger, not at all like the lively young woman he’d married. It didn’t stop her being a good wife and mother in the sense that the house was always clean and so were their clothes. But the food wasn’t plentiful and sometimes he was left hungry.
‘Enid?’ he prompted when she didn’t reply.
‘Yes, well, it helps to sleep on my own. I get very restless. The best thing you can do for me now is leave me in peace till I get past this time of life. I’ll have a lie down this afternoon for an hour. That’ll help more than anything. You know I can’t abide people fussing over me.’
‘If you’re sure there’s nothing I can do to help you?’
Her voice was sharp. ‘You can get off to work and leave me to look after our home and children.’
Wilf shook his head as he got into his van and set off down the valley from the village of Ellindale. Enid was the most stubborn person he’d ever met, and was getting worse as she grew older.
He stopped just down the main road to pick up his helper and chatted to Ricky for the rest of the drive down the valley. With a sick mother to support, his young assistant was desperate for work, and although things were improving gradually, jobs were still scarce around here. Wilf wished he could give Ricky steady, full-time work, because the lad was a hard worker and a quick learner. But building jobs came and went.
Smiling, he drove through Rivenshaw and on to the farmland south of the town, patting the steering wheel affectionately. He’d bought this van earlier in the year and what a difference it had made to his life. He could find better building jobs now and more of them because he could travel further to get to them.
Enid had made such a fuss when he borrowed the money to buy it, but he’d proved her wrong by paying the loan from Charlie Willcox off in three months rather than six. A successful businessman like Charlie had believed in him, but his own wife hadn’t.
Enid had tried to make Wilf promise never to borrow money again, but he’d refused. He wouldn’t borrow money to spend on anything risky and she must trust him to know about that.
He hoped she wouldn’t speak sharply to the children as she got them ready for school today. She loved them, he knew she did, and it had been her idea to adopt them when their parents died, because she and Wilf hadn’t managed to get a child of their own after ten years of trying.
Maybe he should see the doctor himself and ask about Enid. No, the young doctor who’d come to the valley a few years ago had left recently, and the old doctor was stuck in his ways. There was a new doctor, but Wilf doubted she’d agree to go and see him.
Wilf forgot his domestic troubles as he worked on the stone barn he was rebuilding for Farmer Tidsworth to use for storage. It had been in a bad state, with the roof half collapsed, but the stone walls were still basically sound and able to be repaired. With a few new roof beams to replace the rotten ones that had given way under the weight of snow, most of the slates could be reused and the place made waterproof again.
Whoever had first built the barn had put in decent foundations, which folk hadn’t always done in the old days. He wondered why they hadn’t put in better roof beams while they were at it. Perhaps someone else had done that, someone who built shoddily like Higgerson did. Wilf scowled at the mere thought of that man. He might be the town’s biggest builder, but he only put an effort into homes for his richer clients. The houses thrown up for poorer folk were very badly put together.
At midday Wilf and Ricky accepted the offer of a bowl of broth from the farmer’s wife with real gratitude. It was not only tasty with chunks of meat in it, but it warmed you up nicely. And it’d save him nipping out to buy extra food to supplement what Enid had given him tonight.
When she saw the piece of dry bread, which was all Ricky produced for his meal, Mrs Tidsworth took it off him and buttered it, adding a few shreds of ham and topping it with a slice of her own bread before putting another ladleful of broth into his bowl.
Some folk could be so kind to those who were having a hard time, while others took advantage of them. This farmer and his wife were both decent folk.
When they’d finished their meal, Wilf led the way back outside into icy winds and a much damper feeling in the air. He got the sacks with tapes sewn to the corners out of the van. He’d oiled these sacks himself to make them fairly waterproof. They would put these round their shoulders if it began to rain and that’d keep the worst of the moisture off their bodies. It was no use buying fancy mackintoshes when you were doing this sort of rough work.
He sighed as he looked at the lowering sky. Long months of winter weather always seemed to loom ahead of you at this time of year, and it wasn’t even the shortest day yet.
He called an end to their work earlier than he would have done in summer, for sheer lack of daylight and because the rain was setting in. When he stood up after using the last of the mortar, he eased his back and studied his work, nodding in satisfaction. Whether jobs were large or small, he still liked to get them right, and he’d sorted through the stones that had loosened or fallen out and set them into the walls neatly again to match the others nearby.
He turned to Ricky. ‘You’ve worked hard today, lad. Well done. If you could just clear up any mess then put my tools in the van, I’ll work out exactly what we’ll need for tomorrow and measure up for the door frame.’
‘All right, Mr Pollard.’
Wilf had heard the sound of a motor vehicle coming to the farm a short time ago but hadn’t paid any attention to it, so when he turned round, he was surprised to see Roy Tyler standing a few paces away, arms folded, watching him.
‘You’ve made a nice job of that wall, Wilf.’
‘Thanks, Mr Tyler. There’s no one whose opinion I value more.’ He wondered what the builder was doing here. He must be a friend of Tidsworth, but if so, why had he come across the muddy yard to where they were working? Who stopped for a chat on a cold, wet day like this?
The older man nodded his appreciation of the compliment but didn’t smile. He hadn’t done much smiling since his only son had been killed while working on the roof of a house a year or so ago. He hadn’t taken on as many new jobs, either, from what folk said, which was a pity because it left Higgerson as the biggest builder in the valley, with no real competition and no one to hold him to account for his shoddy ways.
Folks said Tyler had grown old overnight after the accident, but though his hair was grey and sadness had added new creases to his weather-beaten face, he still seemed a sturdy figure of a man to Wilf. He couldn’t be more than fifty or so.
Wilf turned to Ricky, jerked his head towards the van, then waited. Tyler wasn’t known for being free with words and would say what he wanted when he was ready.
‘Have you time for a chat before you go home tonight, Wilf lad? About business.’
‘I’ve always got time for you, Mr Tyler. Do you want to talk here or somewhere else?’
‘How about you follow me back to my home in Birch End? It’ll be warmer there. It’s going to freeze tonight or I’m a Dutchman. Besides, what I have to say is private and I don’t want anyone else listening in.’
‘I have to drop Ricky off first, but it’s on the way. He’s a good worker, that lad is, if you ever have any little jobs.’
‘I could see that. I’ll bear him in mind f. . .
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