Elsewhere

by Ken McCoy

Genres: Sagas; Siblings; Historical Fiction

Synopsis

Eleven-year-old Billy Clegg and his big sister Peggy disappear from their home in Leeds after a suspicious fire in a local mill. The owner says the children caused it by lighting fireworks on Mischief Night. Their widowed mother Betty, badly injured in the incident, doesn't know if her children are alive or dead. She prefers to think of them as being elsewhere.

Following a series of accidents and adventures, the resourceful duo find themselves a long way away from bleak post-war Britain, earning a living in an entirely unexpected way. They make a success of their new lives but both of them are haunted by memories of the fire and the possibility that they caused their own mother's death. It takes all the ingenuity of Betty's two determined suitors to reunite the family — and the complications don't end there.

Fans of Jessica Blair and Dilly Court will enjoy the latest heart-warming nostalgic story from Ken McCoy.

Release date: April 5, 2018

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 416

Sample

The light had gone from the day and it was now Mischief Night when otherwise well-behaved children roamed the streets, bent on causing mischief. Garden gates would be removed and swapped with neighbours’ gates; dustbins removed and left in the middle of nearby roads; doors would be knocked upon with the callers then running away (a simple hoax for the more infantile mischief-makers); rival bonfire stacks would be set on fire a day earlier than the proper date – 5 November, Bonfire Night – a serious piece of mischief, this. The rival stack would have been created by many weeks of ‘chumping’ or collecting wood for the bonfire. To have all that hard work destroyed a day early was seriously annoying and always provoked retaliation from the victims; but it was all good, traditional fun, with the same stunts being passed down through the generations, with little variation.

On the odd occasion the miscreants would be caught and given a thick ear for their trouble, but it was worth the risk and these summary punishments were never reported to parents, and certainly not to the police by parents who had been no better behaved in their youth.

Bonfire Night was thus named because on 5 November 1605, Robert Catesby and his gang of dissident fellow Catholics, including Guy Fawkes, were planning to blow up Protestant King James I who, two years prior to that, had succeeded Queen Elizabeth I as the English monarch. Way before that, in 1567, at the age of thirteen months, he had assumed the crown formerly belonging to his mother, Mary Queen of Scots, becoming King James V1 of Scotland. Even once he was over forty, the Scots didn’t have much time for him, believing him to be tainted by his mother’s Catholicism, though his regents and advisers had taken pains to bring him up in the Protestant tradition.

It seemed James was unpopular with Catholics too, for not making a stand and adopting his mother’s faith once he reached his majority. This led them to take matters into their own hands. Early one November morning in the second year of James’s rule over England, prompted by an anonymous letter, guards searched the cellars of Parliament and found Guy Fawkes standing guard over thirty-six barrels of gunpowder. When asked by his interrogators why he was in possession of so much explosive material, his reply was: ‘To blow you Scotch buggers back to your native mountains!’

Perhaps he thought this reply might endear him to his monarch, who was constantly having trouble with the Scottish branch of his kingdom, but it earned Guy, or Guido Fawkes as he was known back then, no clemency whatsoever. He was sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered: a punishment designed to strike terror into the hearts of anyone even contemplating such a heinous act of treason. He was to be ‘put to death halfway between Heaven and Earth, as he was unworthy of both’.

And so it was that on 31 January 1606 Fawkes was dragged on a hurdle to receive this terrible punishment, prior to which he had been tortured mercilessly on the rack. However, while he was hoisting his broken body on to the scaffold, he decided he’d had enough of this torment and would make his own way to heaven, if that indeed was where he was bound. He flung himself, head first, from the ladder and broke his neck, dying instantly and thereby denying the executioners their moment of grisly retribution. This also ensured, by personal order of the king, that henceforth Fawkes’s fellow Catholics were denied the right to vote, and in fact declared to be traitors, especially the Jesuit priests. Fawkes’s remains were vengefully quartered, and his butchered body parts put on display around the kingdom, with his head on a spike on London Bridge, along with those of his fellow Gunpowder Plot conspirators.

King James also ordered that throughout the villages, towns and cities of England bonfires should be lit on 5 November ever afterwards to celebrate his survival. He was an unmanly monarch and those who knew him best referred to him as Queen James, though not to his face.

Four hundred and some years later, the passage of time had left people wondering if they lit their bonfires as a reminder of this act of treachery or as a way of celebrating the courageous men who once tried to remove a tyrannical government. Countless fires were lit in celebration or commemoration; countless properties put at risk in consequence. This particular story begins on 4 November 1946, and the building in danger was not the Houses of Parliament but Blainey Brothers’ clothing factory in Leeds.

The factory was five storeys high, built of Victorian brick, and had six stacks pointing a total of twenty-four smoking chimney pots at the Leeds sky – a sky which already held its fair share of soot. The skyline was also dominated by the gleaming white clock tower of Leeds University’s Parkinson Building, completed ten years previously. This was the scene being contemplated from a nearby hill by two boys and a girl.

*

‘That’s Leeds University, that is,’ said Peggy Clegg, the girl. ‘You two might be goin’ there if you pass your scholarships. They give you a degree and then you can be a teacher or a doctor or summat.’

‘Who wants to be a teacher?’ said her brother Billy. ‘I wanna be a Spitfire pilot.’

‘What? So the Germans can shoot you down?’

‘The Germans have lost again – that’s two nil to us. So they can’t shoot anyone down. All I’ll have ter do is fly around at five hundred miles an hour. I bet it’s great fun.’

‘Me as well,’ said David, who’d been instantly converted to the idea of being a fighter pilot with no one to fight.

The three children were unaware of the concealed peril threatening the peaceful scene below. They didn’t have thirty-six barrels of gunpowder, they just had a few tuppenny fireworks, and they definitely weren’t planning on blowing up the factory. But someone else was.

‘Our mam works in there,’ said twelve-year-old Peggy. Her actual Christian names were Margaret Mary. She was a bright girl, pretty enough, albeit somewhat gawky in build and not particularly athletic, unlike her younger brother Billy who was matchstick thin but very lively, and forever in trouble both at school and at home, although he wasn’t a bad lad at heart. When Peggy was with him she kept him in check, as she could easily beat him up and Billy knew it. In fact, she could beat up most boys of her own age.

‘It looks a right mucky ’ole,’ said David.

The three of them stared solemnly down at the ‘mucky ’ole’, which was coming to the end of its useful life. A quarter of its windows were unglazed, giving it the appearance of a dark and dirty monster with twenty sightless eyes. The rest of the unwashed windows either reflected the sparse lighting from the gas lamps below or were illuminated by a murky yellow light from within.

‘It is a right mucky ’ole,’ said Billy. ‘Our mam gets her cards and coppers this week.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means they’re layin’ off workers – sackin’ them all. Cards is what they give yer when yer leave and coppers is yer wages. When our mam loses her job, we’ll be looking at the workhouse. Our dad got himself killed in Germany so he’s no help. Mind you, when he were here, he was as much use as a chocolate fireguard was our dad.’

‘Chocolate fireguard… that’s a good ’un,’ said David, laughing.

‘You shouldn’t say that, Billy,’ chided his sister.

‘I don’t see why not. I thought it were right good news when our mam got that telegram. I didn’t see her cryin’ like Raymond Lubble’s mam did. Ray said his mam didn’t stop cryin’ for a fortnight. Our mam never even started.’

‘I never liked Raymond Lubble,’ commented Peggy. ‘He never blew his nose.’

Billy and David recited together: ‘Here comes trouble, Raymond Lubble/ Four foot six and a big snot bubble.’

‘It’s not right to be glad our dad’s dead,’ said Peggy, returning to the subject. ‘You shouldn’t speak ill of the dead. Mam says that.’

‘Give over, Peg. Our dad used ter beat us black an’ blue when he came home from the pub. He beat our mam as well. He spent all his wages in t’pub while we lived on bread an’ drippin’. Then he came home an’ knocked seven bells out of all of us.’

‘There aren’t no workhouses no more,’ said David, who was not related to the brother and sister, just a friend. ‘My mam reckons me dad died in one o’ them camps in Germany, with him bein’ a Jew. They’d have got us as well only me uncle Eli sneaked us out under some rags on his ’orse an’ cart an’ handed us over to some kind French people who looked after us. Then we got sent here.’

‘Are you a Jew?’ asked Billy. ‘Is that why yer’ve got a big nose?’

‘Dunno. Mam says it’s best not ter be, so we’re nowt really. Anyroad your nose is bigger than mine.’

‘We’re Catholics.’

‘I know. D’yer go ter Confession an’ tell the priest all yer sins an’ stuff?’

‘Yeah, yer’ve got to if yer a Catholic, else yer won’t go to Heaven.’

‘Won’t I go to Heaven then?’

‘No.’

‘Where will I go?’

‘No idea. Where d’yer wanna go?’

‘Bridlington.’

‘What’s wrong with Scarborough?’

‘Nowt, but I’ve been ter Bridlington before with me mam an’ it’s all right.’

‘We’ve been ter Blackpool.’

‘I know.’

‘What about your dad?’ asked David. ‘D’yer think he went to Heaven?’

‘Doubt it.’

‘Well, I reckon my dad went to Heaven,’ David said. ‘He were a real good bloke, me dad. Never got drunk nor nowt. I reckon he’s in Heaven.’

‘So what?’

‘How d’yer mean, so what? Me dad were a Jew and I bet he’s in Heaven, an’ your dad were a Catholic and he’s most prob’ly in Hell, so there’s not only Catholics go to Heaven.’

‘No, I ’spect not,’ conceded Billy.

The three of them trudged down the hill towards the factory, their conversation stifled by the profundity of the subject they’d chanced upon. Both David and Billy inwardly vowed never to talk about religion again as none of it made much sense, although Billy was mulling over in his mind the prospects of Bridlington versus Heaven. He’d never given any thought to there being a choice.

‘What fireworks have yer got?’ he asked David, having now expunged all thoughts of Jews and Catholics and Bridlington and Heaven.

The conversation was back on familiar ground. Fireworks beat religion into a cocked hat as far as the boys were concerned. David grinned. ‘Six Little Demons, two rockets and two jumpin’ crackers.’

‘I’ve got nine Little Demons.’

‘I’ve got three Roman candles and a rainbow fountain,’ said Peggy. ‘Why do you only ever buy bangers? All they do is go bang.’

‘I got nine for a shilling,’ said Billy, ‘an’ they’re usually tuppence each, which makes one and six, so I saved sixpence. And bangers are always best for Mischief Night.’

‘I think Mischief Night’s daft,’ said Peggy, but she was a girl so she was ignored. Fireworks was boys’ stuff.

‘I bet I can fire one of my rockets straight through one o’ them ground-floor winders,’ said David.

‘Bet yer can’t,’ said Billy.

‘How much?’

‘I bet yer two of me bangers – that’s fourpence. How much did yer rockets cost?’

‘Fourpence each.’

Billy spat on his hand and held it out to seal the bet. David took it, shook it and wiped his hand on his coat as Peggy looked on in disgust.

The trio reached the bottom of the hill and entered the factory yard through a hole in the wire fence. A loose strand caught on a tear in Billy’s coat and extended it by three inches. He didn’t notice. Torn garments were always a mystery to him, in pretty much the same way as scabs on knees and scuffed shoes were. To their left, lights were on in four of the five storeys, but in front of them, and to their right, there was no sign of life. Billy pointed left, up to the second floor of illuminated windows.

‘Our mam works up there. It’s a cuttin’ room. She’s a cutter.’

‘What’s she cut?’ David asked.

‘Cloth for clothes and stuff. She uses right big scissors called shears. Sometimes she brings stuff home to make clothes for us. We’ve got a Singer sewing machine. Auntie Dot gave it to us. Mam made our Peg’s dress.’ David looked at Peggy’s dress, mostly hidden by her coat which, unlike her brother’s, had no tears. Not knowing a good dress from a bad one, he made no comment. Instead he picked up a loose brick from the ground.

‘Watcha gonna do with that?’ Billy asked.

‘Well, I’m allowin’ fer gravity.’

‘Why?’

‘Because everythin’s affected by the first law of gravity,’ said David, hoping not to be questioned too deeply

‘What’s that when it’s at home?’

‘What goes up must come down.’

‘And that’s a law, is it?’

‘Yep. If you jump up in the air, yer don’t just stay there. Yer come back down.’

‘I suppose I do. Didn’t know it was a law though.’

‘If I prop the front end of a rocket on a brick,’ said David, ‘so it’s pointing up a bit, gravity’ll bring it down and then it’ll go straight through that winder.’

‘Nah, I think yer’ll need two bricks on top of each other,’ said Billy – to whom the success of the venture was more important than winning the bet.

David set the rocket on one brick and bent down to the ground to trace its line of travel before conceding that Billy might be right. He found another brick nearby, stood it on top of the first, and bent down again to assess its new line of flight.

‘I think that should do it,’ he said, taking care to point the rocket in exactly the right direction.

Billy was by now as keen as David that the experiment should be a success. They were just boys and still young enough to put the spirit of adventure first. Billy stood behind the rocket as David lit the blue touch-paper.

The rocket fizzed into life, made a clumsy take-off and rose no more than three feet before hitting the factory wall and bursting into a mass of coloured sparks.

‘Yer need another brick at least,’ suggested Billy, ‘mebbe even two more.’

‘I think three should do it,’ said David, setting up his second rocket on three bricks. He turned to Billy. ‘Same bet again? Double or nowt?’

After the dismal failure of the first attempt Billy was surprised his friend was still up for a bet.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Double or nowt.’

*

Lester Blainey was in the cellar beneath the working half of his factory. At that time in the evening the workers should all have left, but he’d overlooked the fact that a few of them would still be hard at work, finishing jobs already started that would be needed first thing tomorrow. Although the factory was due to close down, the female workers took pride in their jobs and to them the prospect of imminent redundancy was no excuse for shoddy workmanship. If a job was worth doing, it was worth doing well. Anyway, they all clocked in and out and would be paid for any overtime – even if it were self-inflicted.

Lester Blainey often overlooked the obvious in the running of his factory, which was why it was running out of business. He owned the place after ‘buying’ his late brother’s share from his sister-in-law, failing to pay her properly in an act of financial chicanery that had left her all but destitute. His younger brother Jack had always been the driving force in the business but he was dead now, the victim of cancer, unlike the many men killed in the recent war that Lester Blainey had avoided due to his advancing years. He was fifty-seven years old and way past his best – although even his best had never been all that impressive. His only other sibling was his sister, Jean, who was a senior police officer with the West Yorkshire Police. She wouldn’t have been so pleased had she known what he was up to.

The clothing factory had been losing orders steadily. The following Friday, Lester Blainey had intended to close the place down and sell up, but right now he’d decided to set fire to the place and claim the insurance money, which should leave him considerably better off.

The cellar housed several boilers, originally coal-fired but now gas-fired after Jack had had them all converted before the war. The installers had warned them at the time about the danger of explosions caused by gas leaks. They’d be strong enough bring the whole factory down apparently. Jack had taken careful note of this and imposed a strict safety regime for anyone having cause to enter the cellars, whereas Lester had seen a distinct advantage in having an easy means to hand of destroying the building. This was the reason that had brought him here tonight. The mains gas supply to the unoccupied part of the factory had been turned off; Lester Blainey was in the cellars beneath the working half. There were four separate boilers in four cellars and he knew the locations of all the large locking nuts which, when loosened, would release gas from the mains. All the task required was a large spanner that he had with him, and a certain amount of elbow grease. He knew not to open the nuts fully, just enough to ease open a joint and allow a slow build-up of gas throughout the basement. He did the job methodically, one cellar at a time. The last nut proved to be the most awkward – seemingly a fraction too large for the spanner – but he needed the gas to escape from here too so as to carry out his plan. This was the fourth and largest cellar. He would then place a lighted candle in the doorway at the far side, about fifty feet from the gas leak. After that he’d run out of the cellar door, which was just adjacent to the overall exit from the building.

‘Shit!’

He cursed aloud as he tried to jam the spanner on to an unforgiving nut. Among his bag of tools Blainey found a lump hammer with which he hammered the spanner until it fitted around the locking nut. Then he heaved on it with both hands until it made a full turn and he could smell gas escaping. Time to make his own escape. Fifty feet away, in the doorway, he placed the lighted candle, then ran as fast as he could up the steps and out into the factory yard.

He wasn’t sure how long it would take. He knew the candle wouldn’t go out for hours but guessed the gas would reach it within minutes, if not seconds. His second guess was a lot nearer.

*

David lit the touch-paper of his second rocket and stood back, hoping for success this time. Failure would mean losing four of his six Little Demons to Billy. Peggy lit her rainbow fountain and stood back as it sparked into life. David’s rocket fizzed, took off and went straight through the target window, hitting something inside and disintegrating in an explosion of noise and colour. His jubilation was cut short by another explosion that was a thousand times louder. It blew out the bottom of the factory wall fifty yards to their left. Out of the dust and debris a man came running towards them. He stopped and looked at the window through which David’s rocket had gone. It was still firing out the sparks that should have formed its aerial display. Then he looked at Peggy’s rainbow fountain that was still going from colour to colour with sparks flying all over. For once, Blainey thought on his feet and saw the advantage to himself in this unexpected turn of events. He stopped in his tracks, despite the imminent collapse of the building and the flames issuing from behind him, and screamed at the children.

‘What the hell are you buggers up to? Throwing fireworks at my factory… Just look what yer’ve done! Blown the whole bloody place up!’

‘It weren’t us, mister,’ said David. ‘It were only a fourpenny rocket an’ it went off in there.’ He pointed at the dark window on the ground floor, a good fifty yards from the inferno.

‘I don’t care where it went off. Sparks travel. It were you lot what did this – I’m getting the police! And don’t think I don’t know who you are.’ The furious man peered hard at Peggy. ‘You’re Betty Clegg’s lass.’ Then he looked back at the blazing building and suddenly realised it still had a few occupants.

‘She’s in there, yer know. Yer mam’s in there!’

‘What?’

‘Yer mam’s working up there with the other cutters.’

The four of them looked up at the second-floor cutting room, which by now had flames shooting out of all the windows.

‘Will she have got out?’ asked Billy.

‘How the hell could she have got out?’ said the man, scathingly. ‘The lower floors are even worse.’

Billy ran towards the blaze but was stopped by Peggy, who ran after him and grabbed his arm.

‘It’s no use, Billy. We can’t do anything.’

‘But our mam’s in there!’

He screamed at the flames.

‘MAAAAM!’

His sister joined in, although she knew their cries would go unheard. They screamed until they were both hoarse and in floods of tears, staring up, open-mouthed, at the roaring inferno that even now was taking their mother’s life. It was an appalling sensation, haunting their memories for many years afterwards; a searing combination of heat, smoke and abject misery that sent them backing away from the fire. Watching it was too much for them to bear. An optimistic thought struck Peggy then. Optimism was all she had left.

‘Mam might not be in there,’ she said to Billy. ‘She usually finishes work at five or half-past at the latest. It must be half-past six now.’

‘Do you think so, Peg? I never thought of that.’

‘I’m just saying what I know, that’s all.’

‘You’re right She’s always home before half-five. I bet she’s not in there at all.’

‘Come on, Billy. We’d better go home and see what’s what.’

Peggy turned and trudged away. Despite her optimistic words her head hung low in misery. Billy followed her in like manner, as did David, who hadn’t lost his mother in the fire but was moved to tears by the sorrow of his closest friends.

Blainey called out after them: ‘Hey, you lot! Don’t you go running away. I know who you are… I know where yer live!’

He walked as far as the factory gates and turned back to admire his handiwork, pleased that he’d taken advantage of those daft kids messing about with their fireworks. A factory burning down on Mischief Night – the police would have to believe it was kids to blame. In a couple of weeks Lester Blainey’s money worries would be well and truly over. He gave no thought to his innocent employees, who had perished in the blaze. The blame for that would be heaped on the kids.

*

By now the three children were running as fast as they could back up the hill. None of them looked at the scene of devastation below them. Tears streamed down all three faces. Finally, when they ran out of breath, they stood still.

‘What shall we do?’ Billy asked his sister.

‘I don’t know. I s’pose we’d best go home an’ see if our mam’s there.’

‘What if she isn’t?’

‘I don’t know, Billy.’

‘Yer might have ter run away,’ David advised. ‘It weren’t us what caused all that, but if that feller says it was, they’ll believe him, not us.’

‘Rotten fireworks!’ cursed Billy, taking his from his pockets and throwing them over a nearby wall. The others did the same, as if ridding themselves of the accursed objects might ease their anguish. The three children lived close to each other in Ashton Place, a short, cobbled street of terraced houses. They were old, down-at-heel dwellings, enlivened only by their inhabitants who took pride in their homes and kept the street neat and tidy. Every step was scoured with a donkey stone; every yard was kept clean, as was every window, and every door and gate looked to have been recently painted – and probably had been. Whenever a visiting horse left droppings on the cobbles, a watchful resident would insist that the driver of the cart should remove the nuisance immediately, and such instructions were always obeyed; it was a rule of the street. Washing lines were strung across it from side to side but carried no washing because today was Thursday and washday was Monday. It was the accepted, if unwritten, rule.

They parted company in silence. Peggy and Billy opened the gate to their yard, hoping against hope a light might be on in the back room; but no such luck. Peggy unhooked a key hanging from a nail in the outside lavatory and they went inside. She switched on the light.

‘Mam!’ she shouted. ‘Mam… There’s been a fire at the factory.’

No answer.

Their optimism waned. Billy shouted as well. They went through to the front room, always kept for best, then up the narrow stairs to the two first-floor bedrooms. Still no sign of Mam. Billy climbed another flight of stairs to his own attic bedroom, knowing she wouldn’t be there either. Why would she be? But it was his last remaining hope. Of course she was nowhere to be seen. He sat down on his bed and burst into tears. Their mam wasn’t in, which was where she definitely would be if she were still alive. Peggy, also in tears, came slowly up the stairs to join him. She sat beside her brother and put an arm around him.

‘I don’t think we’ve got a mam any more,’ said Billy.

Peggy said nothing. Her young brain was trying to think of something to do; something to help their situation. No point going to the police; they’d only lock up Billy and her for burning down the factory. Their mam wouldn’t have been the only one to have died in the fire. No point going to any of the neighbours for help either. Both children felt terribly sick in the face of this devastating and momentous loss. Peggy tried to overcome it by thinking of a plan.

‘I… I wonder if David’s told his mam what happened?’ She voiced her thoughts out loud. ‘If he has, there’ll be someone knocking on our door any minute.’

‘Is… is there any money in the house?’ Billy asked, after several minutes spent sobbing. He knew his sister was trying to do her best for them both, so he tried to help. Their nearest relatives were Uncle Joe and Auntie Freda in Nuneaton. No aunts or uncles close enough to help them, in fact no one at all to turn to, given the enormity of their problem. What happened now was entirely up to the two of them and no one else.

They were on their own.

‘It’s Thursday… there should be rent money and some gas-meter money in the box on the mantelpiece,’ said Peggy.

‘How much is that?’

‘About fifteen shillings altogether, why?’

‘If we’re gonna run away, we might as well take it. We’ll need money to run away with.’

‘Where would we run to?’

‘Blackpool,’ said Billy. ‘I like Blackpool and we know our way around there.’

‘We know the Tower and the Pleasure Beach, that’s all.’

‘It’s more than we know of anywhere else.’

Peggy wiped away a tear because her younger brother was right. Their mam had taken them on a two-day trip to Blackpool last summer. It was the only holiday they’d ever had.

‘Mebbe we should pack a case with our stuff,’ suggested Billy, warming to his own idea. Making a plan would help take his mind off the horror of their plight. ‘It won’t take mu. . .