Looking Back Read online

  Suddenly Jack’s hands clamped on to her shoulders and he swung her back into the parlour. ‘Get off me, Ja—’ Her voice was smothered beneath a long, hard kiss. Afterwards he held her for a brief second, his eyes locked into hers, and his hands like iron fists around her arms.

  He was the first to speak. ‘I have a house in Bedford, and another by the sea. I’ve money enough to give you whatever you want.’

  ‘I don’t want anything from you!’ she cried. But her eyes and heart told a different story.

  He smiled. ‘Oh yes, you do,’ he said huskily. ‘You want me, every bit as much as I want you.’

  The moment was shattered by Lottie’s frantic voice. ‘Mam!’ Already halfway down the stairs, she had the child by the scruff of the neck. ‘Eddie’s messed himself!’

  Ignoring the interruption, Jack said intensely, ‘I came here to take you away with me, but if you really don’t want to come, it’s all right.’

  He was playing a game and she knew it well. ‘I’ll stay a week. That’s all the time I can spare, even for you, Amy.’ Knowing she wanted him to, he kissed her again. ‘I’m staying at the Darwen Hotel in Blackburn,’ he confided, ‘but I’m out of a night-time, seeing old friends and catching up on the news. Most nights I’m to be found in the Sun public house, top of King Street.’ Preparing to leave he reminded her again, ‘One week. After that I’ll be heading back south and I’m telling you now, Amy: I won’t be coming this way again. Ever!’

  ‘Goodbye, Jack.’ In spite of the turmoil inside her, Amy decided that least said was soonest mended.

  Turning her gently, he fondled her breast. ‘Like I said, we belong together, you and me. But I can’t force you, Amy. It’s got to be your choice.’

  ‘I can’t! Desperately unhappy with the life she had, Amy was torn in two by his offer. ‘The children… everything! Surely you can see how it is?’

  Grabbing her to him, he shook her hard. ‘I can see you’re a bloody drudge! I can see you’re shackled to six kids and another on the way – used by a man who doesn’t give a toss about you. That’s what I can see, Amy. And I want you out of it!’

  Eddie’s loud cries as Lottie smacked and berated him on the stairs smothered Jack’s closing words. ‘For God’s sake, Amy, leave it all behind,’ he urged. ‘Trust me – I’ll look after you. The kids won’t want for anything. I’ll make you an allowance so you can send them whatever they need.’

  ‘And what about this one?’ Stroking her swollen midriff, she looked him in the eye.

  ‘That’s up to you. Give it away – leave it for him to look after. I don’t care, so long as I never have to clap eyes on it.’ When he felt her shrink from him, he reminded her, ‘No kids, Amy, that’s the deal. I’m no good with kids. I never was.’

  Before she could open her mouth, he was gone, down the passage and out of the house.

  When the door closed behind him, she stood there for a while, her lips aching from his kiss and her breast tingling from the touch of his fingers. ‘You’re a heartless sod, Jack Mason,’ she whispered. All the same, he had brought her hope, even if there was a price to pay.

  For a moment she was back in the past, fancy free with a future and a sweetheart. It had been a long, lonely time since she had felt like that.

  Lottie had seen it all, but said nothing. Instead, she brought Eddie down and watched while her mother took off his soiled nightgown. ‘There’s a clean nightie in the scullery cupboard, and a bar of carbolic under the sink. You’ll find a flannel there, too,’ Amy told the girl. ‘Fetch it for me, will you? Oh, and get the bowl out of the sink, while you’re at it.’

  While Lottie followed her mother’s instructions, Amy brought the kettle from the fender and poured a measure of warm water into the bowl. Dipping her fingers into it, she made sure it wasn’t too hot for the toddler’s tender skin. ‘Just right!’ With a warm, wet flannel, and a good rub of carbolic, she soon had him comfortable again.

  ‘There!’ Planting a kiss on his mouth, she fastened the top of his clean nightgown. ‘He’ll sleep now,’ she told Lottie, groaning as she climbed up off her knees. ‘The bairn’s weighing heavy,’ she confided. ‘It won’t be too long now.’

  The sooner the better, she thought. It was getting her down, more than the others ever had.

  Before she went upstairs, Lottie gave her mother an accusing, quizzical look that unnerved Amy. ‘Is there summat on your mind, lass?’

  ‘That man…’ Lottie saw the fear on her mother’s face and was wickedly delighted. ‘Who was he?’

  Wary, Amy gave a vague answer. ‘Somebody I used to know, that’s all.’

  ‘What did he want?’

  ‘He was just visiting – why?’

  Lottie shrugged. ‘Doesn’t matter.’

  Worried now, Amy couldn’t let it go at that. ‘If there’s summat on your mind, it does matter. Out with it!’

  A smirk crossed the girl’s pretty features. ‘He kissed you.’ Amy groaned inwardly; so Lottie had seen them after all. ‘Sometimes old friends do kiss,’ she said casually. ‘It doesn’t mean anything special.’

  ‘You blushed… I saw you!’

  Angry now, Amy retorted, ‘You’re imagining things!’

  ‘No, I weren’t. He kissed you and you went red as a beetroot. I saw you!’

  ‘Go to bed, Lottie.’ Lifting Eddie into her arms, Amy carried him to the door. ‘I want no more of this silly talk.’

  ‘It’s a good job Dad weren’t here.’ Seeing how she had her mam worried, the girl continued relentlessly.

  Amy gasped as an unexpected pain seemed to break her back in two. ‘There’s no need for your dad to know he was ever here,’ she said, taking a deep breath. ‘I don’t want you telling tales, causing trouble when there’s no need.’

  Lottie saw the pain in her mother’s face and was afraid. ‘Is the baby coming?’

  Amy shook her head. ‘No. Now go to bed, there’s a good girl.’ Momentarily shaken, Lottie assured her, ‘I won’t tell about the man. Not if you don’t want me to.’

  ‘Listen to me!’ Amy resisted the pains that swept through her. ‘He was just an old friend, come to say hello. Tomorrow he’ll be gone, and that’ll be the end of that.’ More’s the pity, she thought sadly.

  There was an awkward moment while Lottie quietly regarded her mother – the flushed face and that faraway look in her eyes. So tomorrow he’d be gone, eh? And that’d be the end of that. She suspected there was more to it.

  ‘Will you be sorry when he’s gone?’ she asked.

  At the end of her tether now, Amy rounded on her daughter. ‘It’ll be you who’s sorry if you don’t get yourself off to bed, my girl!’ Thrusting the infant into Lottie’s arms, she muttered, ‘He won’t be back, that’s all you need to know. Now, for the last time, get off up them stairs afore your dad comes in.’

  ‘Were you sweethearts?’

  ‘That’s enough!’ Amy felt a warm blush running up her neck and over her face. ‘I’ll give you one minute… afore I run you up them stairs at the end of my foot!’

  With a sly little grin, Lottie backed off. ‘All right, all right, I’m going.’

  Grateful, Amy’s mood softened. ‘Goodnight, lass.’

  ‘Goodnight, Mam.’ Lottie’s smile was deceivingly innocent.

  Eddie offered his face for a kiss; not Lottie though. She wasn’t that kind of child.

  Amy closed the parlour door after them and leaned against it for a time, eyes closed. The encounter with Jack had set her pulse racing and her mind working. Then there had been the inquisition from Lottie. She had a pain in her lower back that was taking her breath, and the idea of Frank coming home, probably drunk and raring for a fight, was putting her on edge.

  What with one thing and another, it was all too much. If only Lottie could manage to keep her mouth shut, things might work out all right. But Amy had a bad feeling about it all. She shook her head. ‘That lass has a spiteful streak in her a mile wide. If only she was more like Molly.’
Her eldest girl was a different matter altogether. Loyal and loving, she was a real treasure. ‘Lottie takes after Frank,’ Amy sighed. ‘The Lord only knows who our Molly takes after.’

  She chuckled wryly. ‘One thing’s certain: she doesn’t take after her father. Jack was never loyal. He was loving though – too bloody loving!’ There was no denying they had had some good times together.

  Amy settled her considerable bulk into a chair. ‘If Lottie does open her mouth and tells her father,’ she whispered tremulously, ‘it’ll be God help us all, an’ no mistake!’

  Chapter Two

  ‘Will ye look at that? It brings a smile to your heart, so it does.’ Digging her old daddy in the ribs, Rosie Craig winked. ‘Sure they can’t keep their hands off each other!’ Laughing her loud raucous laugh, she threw the dishcloth at the young sweethearts. ‘Hey! That’s enough o’ that,’ she teased. ‘You’ll put me off me tea, so ye will, and besides, isn’t it time young Molly went home to her mam? The little ones will want putting to bed, and I don’t expect yer father will be home till the pubs close.’

  Her own father, Michael Noonan, sat by the cheery fire smoking his pipe, his weathered face crinkling with a cheeky grin. ‘Aw, come on now, Rosie,’ he gently chided. ‘Leave the young ’uns alone, why don’t ye?’

  A lovable, mischievous man, Michael had come over from Ireland many years before. He had seen life in the raw and worked until his back was near broken, but he had loved and laughed, and been satisfied with his lot until six years ago, when his beloved wife had died before him, and he was left all alone.

  When his only child, Rosie, persuaded him to come and live with her, he was plagued with doubts. ‘Are ye sure I won’t be in the way?’ he asked. ‘Will it be all right with the twins? Alfie and Sandra are eighteen now. They’ll want to be bringing home their sweethearts.’

  Old though he was, Michael had not forgotten what it was like to be young and in love. ‘They’ll not want an old codger like me in the way,’ he protested.

  As it turned out, Alfie and Sandra were of the same mind as their mam. ‘It will be good to have you here with us, Grandad,’ they said. And Michael was persuaded.

  Now, after four years of contentment, he was rooted to this little house and as close to his grandson as any man could be. ‘Away with ye, Rosie. Leave ’em to kiss and cuddle,’ he urged her now. ‘Thank yer lucky stars the lad’s found a lovely lass like young Molly.’

  Rosie gave him a hug. ‘You’re an old romantic, that’s what ye are.’

  In the glow of the fire, with his eye on the young sweethearts, the old man grew dreamy. ‘Ah, sure, I can recall me and yer mam being in love the very same way.’ Taking Rosie’s hand, he gave it a fond squeeze. ‘You and Bill an’ all,’ he said. ‘You had a good fella there, so ye did.’

  ‘Ah, don’t I know it?’ she sighed. ‘There’s not a minute of the day when I don’t miss him.’

  There was a moment of quiet contemplation before, in his inimitable way, the old fella plucked a battered mouth organ out of his waistcoat pocket. ‘This was yer mam’s favourite,’ he told Rosie, and began to blow a merry tune, his feet tapping and fingers drumming on the instrument.

  Rosie cried with delight. ‘Yes, Da – I remember that as if it were yesterday!’ Leaping off the arm of his chair, she kicked out her feet and danced round to Molly, who was promptly plucked from Alfie’s arms and made to dance alongside her. ‘It’s an old folk song,’ Rosie shouted above the music, ‘and me mammy loved it! As soon as the tune got started, she’d be off like the pixies… dancing the night away.’

  She hummed and whirled round the room. ‘Come on, Alfie, me boy,’ she commanded. ‘Get yer arse outta that chair and dance with your fiancée, why don’t ye?’

  Alfie was embarrassed. ‘You two do the dancing,’ he said. ‘I’ll do the watching.’

  Rosie gave a little chuckle. ‘Will ye look at that?’ she told Molly. ‘He’ll fight the world and have a thousand people cheering him on, but he’s too shy to dance with his own folk, so he is.’

  Molly gave him a reassuring wink. If Alfie didn’t want to dance that was all right by her; so long as they danced cheek to cheek the next time he took her to the Roxy.

  For the next few minutes all was forgotten as Michael filled the room with music of a kind that came from the heart. The two women danced with all their hearts, Alfie cheered them on, and when the tune was done, everyone laughed and clapped and it was time for supper.

  Breathless, Rosie reached up to the mantelpiece for her husband’s photograph; he had posed for it in his naval uniform only weeks before she had received news that he was lost at sea. ‘Bill was shy, too, where dancing was concerned,’ she told the others. ‘“Don’t force me, Rosie,” he used to say. “You know I’ve got two left feet.”’

  When the tears threatened, she looked at Molly with a bright smile. ‘You know about our Alfie, don’t you?’ she asked. ‘How he didn’t come home from school one day. He was over two hours late and I’d no idea where he might be. I was almost out of me mind so I was! The naval recruitment officer brought him home. “Come back in a few more years,” he told him. “We’ve not taken to signing on fourteen-year-olds yet.”’ Rosie laughed, ‘The little sod wanted to fly the planes, so he did.’

  Crossing the room, Molly sat on the arm of Alfie’s chair, her hand in his. ‘I’m not surprised at anything he does. When Alfie makes up his mind, there’s no stopping him – I know that.’ She also knew from what Alfie had since told her, that he adored his father and cherished his memory.

  ‘Huh!’ Alfie wagged a finger at her. ‘I know somebody else who’s just as stubborn!’

  Rosie made a suggestion. ‘Ye can stay a while longer if you like,’ she told Molly, ‘but you’d best go and tell yer mam where you are first.’

  ‘Amy will know where she is.’ As he held his fiancée’s hand, Alfie’s eyes swam with love as he gazed on her homely features. With her untidy tousle of hair and strong features, Molly could never be described as physically beautiful, yet she was beautiful of nature, with a good heart that found the best in everyone. ‘Stay?’ he urged. ‘I’ll go along and tell yer mam you’ll not be long.’

  Molly’s blue eyes softened as she looked down at him, but she shook her head and gave her answer to Rosie. ‘Thanks for the offer,’ she said gratefully, ‘only I’d best get back and help Mam with the kids.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘You know what Dad’s like if they’re not abed when he gets home.’

  Rosie groaned. ‘Huh! We all know what your dad’s like when he’s had a few,’ she retorted forthrightly. ‘“The drink drives out the man and lets the devil in”, that’s what me mammy used to say.’

  Michael chirped in, ‘I hope you’re not tarring us all with the same brush.’ Winking cheekily at Alfie, he said, ‘Like any man, I’m fond of a pint. Sure there’s no harm in that!’

  Rosie glared at him. ‘Not for you mebbe, Da, but for some it might as well be poison.’ For years now, ever since their children were small, she and Amy had been the best of friends. It angered her to see what the poor woman had to put up with. ‘My Bill was fond of a pint an’ all,’ she reminded them, ‘and I have to say, in all the years we were wed, drunk or sober, I never once saw him violent!’

  Uncomfortable with the way the conversation was going, Molly said her goodbyes. ‘I’ll tell Mam you’ll be along to see her in the morning,’ she told Rosie.

  Ashamed that she had let her emotions run away with her, Rosie gave her a hug. ‘Don’t forget to tell her I’ve finished that skirt I promised. She’ll not be able to wear it yet, but it’ll fit her a treat after the babby’s born.’

  ‘Thanks, Rosie.’ Molly really liked Alfie’s mam. ‘That’ll please her. She’s always on about how she’s looking forward to getting her figure back.’

  ‘The trouble is, your dad seems to like her better with a big belly.’ The taunt was out before Rosie could stop it. ‘Sorry, darlin’!’

  Molly’s bright eyes had
shadowed momentarily, then: ‘It’s all right.’ She offered a forgiving smile. ‘Mam has a hard life. Nobody knows that better than me.’

  Realising she had touched a raw nerve, Rosie added hastily, ‘Oh, and tell her I’ve a lovely cream-coloured blouse she can have with the skirt. It’ll fetch out the brown in her eyes.’

  Thanking her again, Molly followed Alfie to the front door. ‘She didn’t mean any harm,’ he apologised as they walked up the street to the Tattersalls’ home. ‘She’d do anything for your mam, you know that.’

  ‘I know. But she was right, and it makes me feel ashamed.’

  ‘You’ve nothing to be ashamed about.’

  ‘Alfie…’

  ‘What’s on your mind, sweetheart?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ Glancing up at this tall, well-built young man with his black hair and midnight-coloured eyes, Molly felt privileged as always. There were any number of girls in this street and elsewhere who would have given anything to have Alfie Craig look their way. But he only wanted her, and that was grand.

  He gently nudged her. ‘Hey! Don’t look at me like that with them soft blue eyes.’

  She laughed. ‘Why not?’

  Bringing her to a halt he put his arms round her shoulders. ‘Because you’re turning me to jelly, that’s why not.’ Bending his head to hers, he kissed her tenderly on the mouth, right there in the street. ‘I love you, Molly Tattersall,’ he murmured.

  Maggie Lett’s voice sailed through the air. ‘Have you no shame, you young ’uns?’ Waving her arms, she let fly with a stream of abuse that would have shamed a navvy. ‘Gerroff out of it, afore I fetch a bucket o’ cold watter!’

  Laughing and blushing, they ran on, almost colliding with Amy, who was hurrying down the steps to fetch her daughter. ‘I were just coming to get you,’ she told Molly. ‘Your dad’ll be home soon, and you know what he’s like. Lottie’s playing me up again, and Eddie’s messed himself twice… I can’t think what ails him. One thing’s for sure, your dad won’t like it, eating his tea with the smell of Eddie’s dirty nappies in the air. I’ve rinsed ’em out and left ’em soaking in a pail of Omo, but your dad will still smell it, he always does.’