Up Our Street

by Sally Spencer

Genres: General Fiction; Sagas; Romance

Synopsis

Glorious East End saga from the author of SALT OF THE EARTH A nostalgic saga set in Cheshire which continues the story of Becky Taylor - the gutsy heroine introduced in SALT OF THE EARTH - and her family as they struggle against the odds to find happiness.

Release date: July 26, 2012

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 416

Sample

PROLOGUE

 

The man approaching Marston from the south marched with the measured stride of a professional soldier. He was no stranger to the village, but it had been a long while since he’d last paid it a visit. And though he appeared totally in control of himself, anyone who’d known him from his childhood could have seen that not very far beneath the calm exterior of this six-foot sergeant lurked little George Taylor – as nervous as a kitten about the reception he would get when he finally reached home.

At the bottom of the lane, George stopped and took in the view.

It’s been five years, he said softly to himself.

Five long, exciting, dangerous years, years in which he had seen things he could never have imagined and visited places which defied description. And all that time, Marston had been here, unchanged and seemingly unchangeable.

He turned his head to look at Cooke’s grocery store. The familiar yellow Lipton’s Tea sign gleamed in the afternoon sun, the yard brushes Mr Cooke had hung outside swung gently in the breeze. His eyes followed the course of Ollershaw Lane – flanked on each side by squat terraced houses – from where he was standing to the point at which it disappeared at the top of the hump-backed bridge over the canal. It all seemed so … so normal, and yet at the same time he was forced to admit that he would have felt more at ease in a Burmese village with its bamboo huts and Chinese merchant’s emporium.

For a moment, George considered going into Cooke’s store for a packet of cigarettes and a chat. After all, he really did need the cigarettes, he told himself, and talking to Sam Cooke – whom he’d known all his life, but still wasn’t family – might be a way of getting back gradually into village life. But it was not in George’s nature – not in the nature of any of the Taylors except perhaps Philip – either to put things off or do them gradually. Squaring his shoulders, George set off again in the direction of his mam and dad’s little house.

He did not get far. A train was coming along the mineral line which crossed the village, and the railwayman in the smart blue uniform had already pulled the gates across the lane. This had been a favourite spot of Becky’s when she was little, George recalled with a smile. When Mam had sent his sister out on errands, she’d always found a reason to delay so that she would be at the railway gates just as one of the huge Puffing Billies was furiously steaming its way through.

What stories she’d come up with to make sure she was right on time for the trains!

‘I can’t find me boots, Mam.’

Well, she’d only to look under the table, where she’d kicked them seconds earlier!

‘I need to go to the lavvie, Mam.’

And it wouldn’t be five minutes since she’d last gone!

Did she ever think she was really fooling Mam? George wondered. Didn’t she realize Mam knew quite well that the engine driver would sometimes throw her sticky boiled sweets?

Oh, she was a little devil, our Becky, he said to himself.

And now she was a grown-up woman with a baby daughter he hadn’t even seen yet.

The train thundered past, rattling the crossing gates and leaving a smell of burnt cinders behind it. The railwayman began to push the gates back over the track and George was on his way again.

He marched up the lane, passing the alley where he’d once listened breathlessly while Gilbert Bowyer, sitting on his camp stool, had told tales of the Far East.

An old soldier’s tales, George thought, hardly realizing that in experience, if not in years, he was now an old soldier himself.

Ahead of him, leaning against her front railings, was a middle-aged woman with a beak-like nose and black hair pulled back into a tight bun. George grinned. He wasn’t the least surprised to see ‘Not-Stopping’ Bracegirdle perched there like a hungry crow – he’d only have been surprised if the village gossip hadn’t been at her post.

‘Good afternoon, Mrs Bracegirdle,’ he called out.

Not-Stopping jumped as if he’d startled her.

‘George?’ she said. ‘George Taylor?’

‘That’s right,’ George agreed.

‘Well, don’t you look smart!’ Not-Stopping gushed. ‘How’s the army treatin’ you? Have you heard about your sister’s baby? Isn’t it terrible about your brother-in-law’s works?’

‘Yes,’ George said, quickening his pace, because he knew from experience that though Mrs Bracegirdle was never stopping, she could sometimes detain you for an hour or more. ‘Yes, it was a terrible shame about Michael’s works.’

‘And we had a prince come to the village,’ Not-Stopping shouted after him. ‘A real prince – come to see Ma Fitton.’

‘So I heard,’ George called back over his shoulder.

God, but the woman could go on. Put her on the beach at Blackpool for a morning, and no matter how many donkeys there were, she’d talk the hind legs off the lot of them.

He was almost level with the New Inn, where his sister Becky’s best friend, Colleen O’Leary, lived. She was a funny little thing, that Colleen, he remembered – as timid as a mouse. Maybe it was that big nose of hers that made her so shy, though he’d never found it particularly unattractive.

His thoughts shifted from the daughter to the father. Paddy O’Leary had promised him free ale when he was home on leave and he’d hold the landlord to his word soon enough. But first he had to go and see his mam and dad.

He glanced at the point halfway up the bridge where a tall brick chimney was belching out smoke, and saw the words ‘LG Worrell and Sons’, picked out in white letters in the middle of the stack.

Well, that’s not true any more, he thought.

Old Len Worrell himself had been dead for nearly two years, and one of those two sons – Michael – had left the company a few days after he’d married Becky. All of which meant that the sole Worrell left at the works was that bastard Richard.

It wasn’t the time to dwell on Richard Worrell and what he had done to the Taylor family, George told himself. Finally – after weeks of travel through oppressive tropical heat, after the crowded troopship full of seasick soldiers, after more, almost unendurable, days of cooling his heels in the Aldershot Barracks – he was home. And that was all that really mattered.

He gazed with affection at the house he’d been brought up in, at the front parlour which had a wooden fish suspended over it because now it was Ted Taylor’s chip shop. The door was closed for the moment, but come five o’clock, when the miners emerged from the Adelaide Mine and the wallers at Worrell’s works left the sticky brine pan behind them, the chip shop would be doing a roaring trade.

George opened the back gate and stepped into the yard. Yes, it was still all there. The wash-house with its single tap stood opposite the back door. And beyond that was the coal-shed and the outside lavvie which was as cold as ice in winter and like an oven during the hot summer days.

He walked up to the back door and caught himself in the act of lifting his big fist to knock. There’d have been hell to pay if he had actually knocked, he thought. Nothing could be guaranteed to offend Mam more than having one of her own sons asking permission to come in. Still, it did feel a bit odd, just walking straight into a house he’d been away from for so long.

No point in puttin’ it off any longer, George told himself.

Bracing himself as he always did when he was about to see action, he raised the latch and stepped over the threshold.

Mary Taylor was sitting at the table with her head bent over her sewing. She didn’t look up. Instead she merely said, ‘I hope you gave that fishmonger a real tellin’-off, Ted. Goodness knows, the customers won’t spare us a piece of their minds if their fish isn’t ready an’ waitin’ for them when they knock off work.’

She’d always done her own sewing, George remembered. Even when Dad had been a salt miner and life was hard, she’d been too proud to buy second-hand or take the gentry’s cast-offs which her daughters, then in service, had brought home to her. And she was still making clothes, despite the fact that Dad was now a ‘fried fish merchant’ and she could easily afford anything Bratt and Evans had displayed in their window.

‘I said, I hope you gave that fishmonger a real tellin’-off,’ Mary repeated.

‘No, Mam, I didn’t,’ George said quietly.

Now, Mary did lift her head, though her face was frozen in a look of astonishment.

Had she changed much in the time he’d been away? he wondered. A few grey streaks, perhaps, in what had once been pure ash blonde hair. A few wrinkles around the eyes and a little slack skin on her neck. But she was still the Mam he knew and loved, the Mam who had bullied him into escorting Becky on her first day at school and stuck up for him when he wanted to join the army against his father’s wishes.

Mary’s face was slowly coming to life again and she seemed to be about to find her voice.

‘I haven’t …’ she began. ‘We didn’t … You never told us you were comin’ home.’

‘There was a chance we’d be posted again before we got any leave,’ George told her. ‘I didn’t want to raise your hopes.’

Or my own, he thought. Or my own.

Mary got up from her chair – perhaps just a little stiffly – and threw her arms around her big, strong son.

‘You’ve always liked surprises,’ she said, almost crying. ‘All of you kids have. I don’t know where you get it from. It certainly doesn’t come from me.’

It was wonderful to feel his mother’s warm, comforting arms around him once more – but he’d never really worried about how she would receive him.

‘Dad’s out, is he?’ George asked.

‘Yes,’ Mary said, sniffing slightly. ‘He’s gone to see Stanway’s about their deliveries. They’ve been gettin’ a bit slack lately.’

‘They won’t be slack any more,’ said a new voice behind them. ‘Not after the talkin’-to I’ve given them.’

George felt his mother’s arms drop and turned around to face his father, who was standing in the doorway. Ted was as stocky and solid as his son remembered him, and his expression was as inscrutable as ever. George had never been able to read Ted’s face, never known whether his father was poking fun at him or merely being grumpy. And he couldn’t read it now, though he did recall what Ted had said when he’d finally given in and allowed George to take the queen’s shilling.

‘I’ll give you me permission,’ he’d told his middle son then, ‘but not me blessing.’

And how did he feel now, after years of having the time to think over his decision? George suddenly wished he were somewhere else.

‘Well, well,’ Ted said. ‘Look what the cat’s dragged in.’

He inspected his son from head to foot.

‘Soldiering’s put a bit of weight on you,’ he continued, ‘but with a frame like yours, you can carry it.’

There were so many things George wanted to say – ‘Are you pleased to see me, Dad?’ ‘Have you forgiven me for joinin’ the army when I could have made four pounds a week playing football?’ ‘Can I spend me leave here, or had I better see if Mr O’Leary can give me a room at the pub?’

– so many things, but George had never been a quick thinker and he couldn’t make up his mind which to say first.

‘Lost your tongue?’ his father demanded.

‘Hello, Dad,’ George said, telling himself that he should have worked it all out in advance, should have planned it just like he planned a patrol for his men.

Ted closed the back door and advanced into the room until he was standing squarely in front of George.

‘So you think you can just waltz in any time you feel like it, do you?’ he asked.

None of the men who had served under the cool, disciplined Sergeant George Taylor would have believed it if they could have seen him now. His firm mouth drooped uncertainly, and the eyes which had remained calm even under enemy fire now started to fill with panic.

‘I didn’t … I wasn’t sure …’ he stuttered.

He looked over his shoulder, hoping against hope for some support from his mother – and saw that she was smiling.

‘He never could tell when I was takin’ the mick out of him, could he?’ Ted asked.

‘No,’ Mary agreed. ‘He never could.’

George turned again and Ted threw his arms around his son.

‘It’s grand to have you back, lad,’ he said with a catch in his voice. ‘Really grand.’

Chapter One

George had arrived on Thursday, but even though he was on leave, everybody else still had work to do. So it was not until Sunday that the whole family could arrange to get together to give him a real hero’s welcome.

But wherever will they all fit? Mary wondered early on Sunday morning as she looked around the kitchen where she had spent so much of her married life.

The kitchen had three doors: one in the back wall which opened on to the yard, another facing it which let on to steep stairs, and a third, diagonally opposite, which led into the small pantry under the stairs. Between the back door and the stair door was the old oak Welsh dresser which contained all the blue and white willow-patterned crockery as well as the receipts from the fish and chip business.

The kitchen table, where the food was both prepared and eaten, stood in the centre of the room and on the far side of it were the easy chairs, facing the fireplace and the cast-iron oven. The window gave on to the yard and Mary’s Singer sewing machine rested under its sill. The sofa had somehow been squeezed in between the table and the wall which backed on to the stairs.

Get more than the two of us in here, and there’s not room to swing a cat, Mary thought. However did we use to manage?

It was true that this room had once accommodated the whole family – but they’d all been little kids then. Besides, the size of the family had increased, what with the girls getting married and Eunice and Becky having children of their own.

Mary inspected the room once more and decided they’d manage to fit in somehow. After all, they were all relatives.

But relatives or not, the house would have to be smartened up before they came – and this despite the fact she not only swept and dusted every day but also religiously cleaned the place from top to bottom on Saturdays.

‘Waste of energy if you ask me,’ Ted grumbled as he watched his wife black-leading the grate.

‘Well, nobody did ask you,’ Mary pointed out. ‘And it’s my energy I’m wastin’, not yours.’

‘We should get a maid to do the heavy work,’ Ted said.

The grate having been completed to her satisfaction, Mary took down the brass rod from over the fireplace and began to rub it vigorously.

‘A maid!’ she scoffed, not slackening her pace for even a second. ‘Gettin’ ideas above your station, aren’t you, Ted Taylor?’

‘I don’t think so,’ her husband replied. ‘It’s not as if we couldn’t afford a few pounds a year.’

‘There’s more to havin’ servants than findin’ the cash to pay for ’em,’ Mary said.

‘Is there?’ Ted asked. ‘Like what?’

The question seemed to stump Mary, and for a second she even stopped burnishing the brass. Then her arm was back in action again and she turned to her husband and said, ‘Where would she live? They all expect to live in, you know.’

‘She could sleep in the back bedroom,’ Ted suggested. ‘We don’t need it now there’s just the two of us.’

‘And where would the children sleep when they deign to visit us?’ Mary asked. ‘On the chip shop floor?’

Had Mary not turned back to her work, Ted would never have dared risk a grin, but since she had, he indulged himself. Not having a maid was nothing to do with accommodation, he was sure of that. This kitchen had been Mary’s domain for thirty years, and she was not about to give it over to some slip of a girl who knew a tenth of what she did, thank you very much.

By noon, the house was sparkling clean and the odour of brass cleaner was beginning to mingle with the delicious smell of freshly baking scones. By two, Mary had run the flat iron over the antimacassars so many times that Ted was sure she’d all but worn them away. On the dot of four, Mary finished hanging clean curtains and announced that the house was now ready to receive the children of whom she was so proud.

George, who’d been banished from the house during the cleaning operation, was the first to arrive. He was quickly followed by his sister Jessie and Sid, her husband. Sid was wearing a smart new suit, but somehow he looked half undressed without the khaki apron he always wore behind the counter of the Co-operative Wholesale Society in Winnington. Still, he wouldn’t always be a counterman, wouldn’t Sid – he was a good reliable worker and was heading for promotion.

‘You take a seat at the table, George,’ Mary said. ‘Sid and Jessie, you sit on the sofa.’

‘You sound like you’ve got it all planned out, Mam,’ George said.

‘When have you ever known her not have it all planned out?’ Jessie asked.

Eunice and her Charlie arrived next, bringing with them the Taylors’ first grandchild, Thelma. Charlie was sent to sit next to Sid and Jessie, while Eunice took one of the chairs at the table. Thelma made a dutiful round of grandparents, aunt and uncles, kissing each one in turn, even the large stranger who she’d been assured was her Uncle George.

‘Do you remember me at all?’ George asked, giving his niece a big hug in return for her kiss.

‘I think so,’ said Thelma unconvincingly.

George laughed. ‘Well, here’s a penny for bein’ so kind and polite to your old uncle,’ he told her. ‘And unless Mr Cooke’s changed his habits, he’ll be open on Sunday afternoons just so he can sell sweets to little girls with pennies in their pockets.’

Thelma looked anxiously at Eunice for an approving nod, and when she got it she gave George another quick kiss, then dashed out of the door before her mother could change her mind.

‘Watch out for waggons,’ Eunice shouted after her, though she need not have bothered because very little traffic came up Ollershaw Lane, especially on a Sunday afternoon. ‘And let that be the last penny you give her,’ she cautioned her brother. ‘I don’t want her spoiled.’

Mary permitted herself a secret smile. Eunice always had been a bossy girl. Perhaps that was why they’d made her a monitor at the National School and given her the job of teaching the little children to repeat lessons she’d only learned herself a few years earlier. It was lucky, really, that she was married to easy-going Charlie. As long as he had his garden outside their tied cottage in the grounds of the Big House, Charlie was as happy as a pig in muck, and if Eunice wanted to order him around, well, that was all right with him.

Jack turned up next. Bright, irrepressible Jack, who had run away to sea when he was little more than a boy, who had kept sheep and mined for silver in Australia and bought palm oil from the natives on the River Niger.

‘The table for you,’ Mary told him.

And last came Becky and Michael, with their new baby, Michelle.

‘You sit next to Jack, Becky,’ Mary said to her youngest daughter, ‘and you, Michael, take the easy chair by the grate, next to Ted.’

‘The easy chair!’ Michael said, with a smile playing on his lips. ‘This is indeed an honour, my dear mother-in-law.’

‘Don’t talk soft,’ Mary said, cuffing his shoulder lightly with the back of her hand.

But really, there was a grain of truth in what he’d said. Though she liked all her sons-in-law, it was Michael that Mary really had a soft spot for. He was handsome, but not in a hard way like his brother Richard. He was educated, and yet there was no side to him.

Mary remembered the conversation she’d had with Eunice on the morning of Becky’s wedding, the day Len Worrell had sworn he would cut his son out of his will for daring to marry beneath him.

‘It’s a rum thing, gettin’ married when there’s no money comin’ in,’ Eunice had said.

‘You just wait an’ see,’ Mary had replied. ‘Michael’ll surprise the lot of you yet.’

And hadn’t he just! He’d built a successful business out of almost nothing. He had gone to Africa and rescued Jack from the cannibals who were holding him prisoner. Now his business was in ruins, but no one could have predicted that – no one could have known that the land under his works would suddenly subside as it had.

Yes, Michael was a catch, Mary thought as she watched him fussing over the baby daughter who had been born while he was still looking for Jack in Nigeria. But then Becky was a catch, too. She had her mother’s hair, and whilst there was no mistaking the fact that she was Mary’s daughter, she was beautiful where Mary had only been very pretty. And she’d got spirit, too. She had supervised the dismantling of Michael’s works, saving what she could from destruction, even when she was on the point of giving birth.

‘You’re very quiet, Mam,’ Jack said, cutting into Mary’s thoughts. ‘What’s on your mind?’

‘Oh, you know – just things,’ his mother replied, moving towards the oven and telling herself how lucky she was.

It was a magnificent tea even by Mary’s high standards. There was delicious freshly baked bread and scones. There were three kinds of juicy home-made jam and a cake absolutely bursting with fruit.

While they ate, the family talked, filling in the missing years in a way that letters never could.

‘Tell us about Burma,’ Mary said.

‘It’s a grand place,’ George replied. ‘Warm all the year round and as green as … well, so green I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with me own eyes.’

‘What do they grow there?’ asked Eunice’s Charlie, a gardener down to his bootstraps.

‘Rice, mostly,’ George said. ‘Acres and acres of it, as far as the eye can see.’

‘Humph,’ Ted said thoughtfully. ‘They must really like their puddin’s.’

‘Is there still any trouble out there?’ Michael asked.

‘A bit,’ George admitted. ‘But it was much worse just after we got rid of the king.’

‘I don’t approve of gettin’ rid of royalty,’ Mary said. ‘We wouldn’t like it if some foreign army came over here and told us we couldn’t have our queen any more.’

‘He wasn’t like Victoria,’ George told her. ‘In fact, he was a thoroughly bad lot. He was only twenty when he came to the throne, but one of the first things he did was to have all his brothers and sisters killed.’

‘Shockin’,’ Eunice clucked. ‘It shouldn’t be allowed.’

‘Mind you,’ George continued, ‘It wasn’t really all his doin’. They do say it was his mother-in-law’s idea.’

‘You have to be very careful when you’re dealing with mothers-in-law,’ Michael said, looking at Mary with a twinkle in his eye.

‘Get off with you!’ Mary said, reddening slightly.

‘Are you goin’ back to Burma when your leave’s over, George?’ Jack asked.

George shook his head. ‘We set sail for Egypt next month,’ he said.

‘Egypt?’ his father repeated. ‘That’s where that mad bugger Gordon met his end, isn’t it?’

‘No, Dad,’ said George, frowning because Gordon was his big hero, the man who had inspired him to join the army in the first place. ‘Gordon was murdered in the Sudan.’

‘Well, that’s only next to Egypt,’ said Ted, as if he was talking about a couple of houses down the lane.

‘And what are you going to do, now that your works has collapsed?’ George asked Michael.

‘I’m not sure yet,’ Michael replied.

Becky looked sharply at her husband. She knew that tone in his voice. It said that he knew perfectly well what he was going to do, but he wasn’t prepared to tell anyone else until he’d managed to talk his wife into it.

‘No,’ Michael continued hurriedly, sensing Becky’s eyes on him, ‘I haven’t made my mind up yet. Thanks to Becky, we managed to save all the parts of the works which could be shifted, and when we’ve sold that, we should have a bit of capital to play around with.’

What was he up to? Becky wondered. But of one thing, she was sure, whatever scheme he came up with – however madcap – he would justify it by saying it was sound business sense.

‘Has anybody heard from our Philip?’ George asked.

Immediately a cloud of gloom settled over the table as each member of the family thought back over Philip’s chequered career. First there’d been Philip the Snitch, spying on his own work gang and reporting back to Richard Worrell. After that had come Philip the Pornographer, selling smutty postcards on the seafront at Blackpool. Then there’d been Philip the Gaolbird, serving eighteen months in Strangeways. And finally, there’d been Philip the Smuggler, abusing his position at Michael’s works to hide stolen jewellery in blocks of salt. And where was he now? God only knew.

‘No, nobody’s heard from Philip,’ Mary said finally, with a look of pain on her face. ‘All we can do is pray that he’s all right.’

‘He could end up doing great things yet,’ Ted said, more out of hope than conviction. ‘His main trouble is, he’s always been a square peg in a round hole.’

His main trouble is, he’s always taken the easy way out without considering how it might hurt other people, Becky thought.

Still, he was not all bad. Just before his last hurried departure, he’d visited her and offered what little money he had left if it would help to rebuild the works.

The thought of the devastated works naturally turned her mind back to Michael. Just what was he planning? Given the curious nature she had been born with – cursed with, her mother sometimes said – she was well aware that she would never rest until she had solved the mystery.

It was not only Becky who was wondering about Michael’s plans. Thoughts of them occupied the minds of the three men who were sitting round a table in the New Inn.

‘Mr Worrell won’t let us down,’ Brian O’Reilly declared stoutly. He took a sip of his pint – a slow and careful one because once that was gone, there was no money for any more. ‘He’s not like that bastard of a brother of his. He knows what good workers we are.’

‘Oh, if he wants workers, he’ll take us on,’ Tom Jennings agreed. ‘But what if he doesn’t want any?’

‘How do you mean?’ Brian O’Reilly asked.

‘Suppose he decides to move somewhere else, or go into another line of business,’ Tom Jennings said. ‘What happens to us then?’

‘We won’t get taken on by anybody else,’ Cedric Rathbone said.

That was true enough. The last time they’d all been out of work – after Richard Worrell had fired them for trying to start a union – they soon discovered they were marked men. And the reason had been obvious enough, too: Richard had sent word to all the other owners not to employ them. It had been a very lean time indeed until Michael had come along and offered them places in his new venture.

‘He owes us,’ Brian O’Reilly said, ‘especially you, Cedric. Why, if it hadn’t have been for you, he’d have lost everything in the subsidence.’

‘It was more due to Beck … to Mrs Worrell than me that things got saved,’ Cedric said in fairness. ‘Besides, he paid us a good livin’ wage as long as we were workin’, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s the only obligation any boss is ever under.’

‘I suppose you’re right,’ Tom Jennings said. ‘Still, it’s a bugger of a life, isn’t it?’

The other two men nodded their heads in agreement.

It seemed to Becky that most of the important decisions about her life with Michael had been taken in the open air. It was on Overton Hill, one warm autumn afternoon, that he had proposed to her. It had been standing on Burns Bridge that he’d announced his intention to open a rival salt works to his brother’s, and asked her if he could count on her support. And now, as they walked hand in hand up the cartroad towards Marston Old Mine, she was sure that he was about to tell her of the new plan he had come up with.

They climbed the steep embankment which led to the canal towpath. It was a warm spring evening, and the only sounds around them were the gentle slapping of the water against the bank and the twittering of the birds which had already begun nesting in the trees. Michael stopped and looked into the canal, as if his mind were a thousand miles away.

‘Tell me about it,’ Becky said.

Michael’s look of abstraction disappeared and was replaced by a self-conscious grin.

‘Am I that obvious?’ he asked.

Becky smiled back. ‘Only to me, I think,’ she replied.

Michael’s face grew serious again.

‘Even if we can raise enough money, I don’t think I want to go back into salt manufacturing,’ he said.

‘Why not?’ Becky asked.

‘The price of salt has started to drop in recent years,’ her husband explained, ‘and I don’t think it’s reached its bottom yet. Besides, ever since some of the owners got together and formed the Salt Union, conditions have changed.’

‘Changed?’ Becky said. ‘In what way?’

‘The Salt Union wants all the owners to join it, so it can get a stranglehold over the industry. And if anyone won’t join, then they want to see that person goes out of business.’

‘And you wouldn’t join?’ Becky said.

Michael shook his head.

She should have known without having to ask, Becky thought. Michael – her Michael – was the kindest, gentles