The Castlefield Collector Read online

  The Castlefield Collector

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Acknowledgements

  Next in Series

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  1929

  Dolly Tomkins put her arms about her mother’s frail shoulders and hugged her tight. ‘It’ll be all right Mam, you’ll see. Dad’ll walk through the door any minute with his wage packet in his hand.’

  ‘Aye, course he will, chuck.’

  They both knew this to be wishful thinking. When had Calvin Tomkins ever put the needs of his family before a sure-fire certainty? That was how he viewed any bet, whether on the dogs, the horses, or two raindrops running down a windowsill. And since it was a Friday and payday at the mill, his pocket would be full of brass, burning a hole in his pocket. Most women hereabouts would be waiting with their open hand held out to collect wages as each member of the family came home on pay day. Maisie certainly did that with the three children she still had left at home: Willy, Dolly and Aggie, but had learned that it was a pointless occupation to wait for Calvin’s pay packet. He wouldn’t give a single thought to his long-suffering wife and daughters, not for a moment.

  Dolly studied her mother’s face more closely as she bent to cut the cardboard to fit, and slid it into the sole of her boot. The lines seemed to be etched deeper than ever. Dark rings lay like purple bruises beneath soft grey eyes, which had once shone with hope and laughter, and her too-thin shoulders were slumped with weariness. She looked what she was, a woman beaten down by life and by a husband who thought nothing of stealing the last halfpenny from her purse in order to feed his habit, his addiction, despite the family already being on the brink of starvation.

  Maisie handed the boots to her younger daughter with a rare smile. ‘There y’are love, see how that feels.’

  Dolly slid her feet inside and agreed they were just fine, making no mention of how the boots pinched her toes since she’d grown quite a lot recently. They’d been Aggie’s long before they’d come to her and probably Maisie’s before that, and their numerous patches had themselves been patched, over and over again.

  Mending her daughters’ footwear was a task carried out each and every Friday in order to give the boots a fresh lease of life. Dolly wore clogs throughout the long working week, but in the evenings and at weekends when she wasn’t at the mill, she liked to make a show of dressing up. Worse, it’d rained for days and Dolly’s small feet were frozen to the marrow. She’d paid a visit to Edna Crawshaw’s corner shop and begged a bit of stiff cardboard off her, whole boxes being at a premium. This piece had Brooke Bond Tea stamped all over it but that didn’t trouble Dolly; the card was thick and strong and would keep out the wet for a while, which was the only consideration that mattered.

  Even so, Dolly longed for a proper pair of shoes instead of this pair of old fashioned button boots; ones with a strap, which would set her off as the modish young woman she so wanted to be. She longed too for a beaded dress with a square neck and no sleeves, the kind with a short skirt that was all the rage at the moment. Perhaps in a deep blue to match her eyes and to set off the shine of her bobbed hair, dark as a blackbird’s wing. In all her sixteen years, Dolly had never possessed anything that hadn’t been handed down to her from her older sister. She ached for something new, for something entirely her own, instead of having to share everything, even her bed with Aggie.

  She never expressed these thoughts out loud, of course, because it would only upset Mam, and where was the point in such dreams anyway? The Tomkins family considered themselves fortunate if they had bread and dripping on the table. Tonight, being payday, Maisie might buy them each a potato pie, and tomorrow be able to afford to add a bit of boiled mutton to the stew pot that sat on the hob day in and day out. Even more exciting, Dolly and Aggie planned to go to the Cromwell Picture House to see Mary Pickford in Little Annie Roonie, a rare treat indeed.

  ‘Oh hecky thump, he’s here already!’ Maisie Tomkins sank to her knees, pulling the two girls down beside her, so that their heads slid down below the windowsill and would not be seen by the man now hammering on their front door. The letterbox flew open and his raucous voice echoed loudly around the small room that served as both kitchen and living room in the back-to-back terraced house.

  Dolly felt a surge of resentment that he could see in; that his greedy little eyes could explore their humble home. Though what was there to see? A stone flagged floor, a pegged rug, a black-leaded grate, which combined fireplace, oven and hot water-boiler, and a slop stone where the washing up was done. The only furniture comprised half a dozen bentwood chairs and a deal table where the family ate, (when they were fortunate enough to have food to put on it, that is), or perform any other function that required a flat surface. The table was covered with a dark red chenille cloth with bobbles round the edge, of which Maisie was inordinately proud. This was taken off when the table was used for baking and other messy jobs, or covered with a scrap of scorched cotton for the ironing. Other than the beds upstairs, this was all they possessed in the world, plus what little remained of their pride. No different from anyone else who lived hereabouts, whether in Tully Court or any of the other ginnels, courts and alleyways which led off Potato Wharf.

  ‘I know yer in there Maisie Tomkins, so don’t think ye can escape by hiding from me. I’ll be back, don’t you fear.’ Again he applied his fist to the rickety panels of the door, and followed this up with a vicious kick from his booted foot.

  Maisie jumped, stifling her own instinctive whimper of fear as she drew her two daughters close and silenced them with a fierce glare. Not that either Aggie or Dolly needed telling to keep their mouths shut and their heads down. They’d been hiding from the talleyman, the rent man, the insurance collector and any one of the many bookies that Calvin got involved with, for as long as they could remember. They’d grown up with these tricks so that even though they were now young women, their one thought was to steer clear of trouble, for their mother’s sake. Even Aggie, not known for her patience, was keeping silent, biting down so hard on her lower lip, she was almost sucking off the cheap lipstick she’d so recently applied. Nevertheless, when the knocking finally stopped, Aggie was the first to speak.

  ‘Has the bugger gone?’

  ‘Hush love, I’ll have no bad language here. What would yer dad have to say if he heard you?’

  ‘Dad would say nothing against me. It’s you what’s got us into this mess.’ Certain always of her father’s uncritical love, Aggie gave a little toss of her head, flicking back her pretty chestnut curls, hazel eyes glinting.

  ‘Eeh, how can you say such a thing?’ Maisie heaved a weary sig
h and sank further down onto the stone flagged floor, leaning her head against the damp wall. ‘Why can you not appreciate that I’ve done my best to manage but it’s not easy? Everyone’s suffering with wages being what they are. There’s talk of a general strike, of the whole country being brought to a standstill and all workers coming out in sympathy with the miners. Where will we be then, eh? And what has that got to do with me, or yer dad for that matter?’

  Despite severe provocation, Maisie had never once blamed her husband for the plight they were in. That would have been far too risky, much safer to blame the bosses, the rich businessmen who cut wages to penurious levels year after year. Dolly understood very little about the economics of an industry which had once been called King Cotton, and in which she’d been employed for the last two years, ever since she’d started work as a doffer in the mill at fourteen. She’d done her job, knocking off the filled bobbins or cops as they were called, and replacing them with empty ones, needing to stand on a stool and use a long stick in order to reach, her being so small. Oh, but she loved it in the mill and was doing well, having achieved her dream to become a spinner. She was proud to walk to work every morning with the tools of her trade clanking in her pinny pocket: including her shears and sharp knife of which she took great care.

  Yet she’d never questioned why it was that despite working long hours, she brought home little more than a pittance, a few shillings to give to her mam and only coppers left over for herself, if she was lucky.

  According to Maisie, the post-war boom in cotton had lasted barely a couple of years before the bosses, the mill owners, were cutting wages and yet at the same time trying to force up production. The unions, such as existed, had resisted objecting to new technology, to the introduction of ring-spinning and automatic looms which meant fewer operatives would be needed, and in particular to the lower rate paid for piece work. But there was more to the relentless decline of cotton than that, something to do with rigid, outdated systems and of a reduction in demand, with fewer orders coming in from abroad; that mysterious world beyond Manchester and even the shores of England, of which Dolly was largely ignorant, save for the bits of the British Empire marked in red on the map that had adorned her classroom wall as a girl.

  Even with her elder brothers having married and left home, with only their Willy, Aggie and herself left to feed, there never seemed to be quite enough to make ends meet. But then Willy was sickly and more out of work than in. She and Aggie brought in next to nothing, as they all knew what Dad did with his money.

  There were some weeks when Calvin would be in the pub before six in the morning, tempted in by the ale and a warm fire, and never get into work at all, staying there till closing time, not just drinking but also laying illegal bets with the bookie’s runner, celebrating when he won, or drowning his sorrows when he lost. He’d do this day after day for as much as a week, till he was too drunk to get out of bed. Then he’d try and sober up and abstain for a week or two before it started all over again. Somehow or other he always managed to hold on to his job, him being a skilled spinner. Everyone knew his failing and seemed to tolerate it. Unfortunately, much of this betting and drinking was done on tick, or by borrowing money from Nifty Jack, the talleyman, to feed his habit.

  Mam too was forced to borrow in order to survive, which left her constantly struggling to catch up with a debt that grew bigger as the months and years slid by, despite the huge sums she poured into Nifty Jack’s pocket. Now she was in hock up to her ears and would constantly warn her two daughters to watch for the talleyman. ‘He’s after more than your money. He’ll wring the last drop of life-blood from your veins, if he can.’

  As if echoing these thoughts, Maisie said, ‘Edna Crawshaw were telling me only this morning how when poor Molly Jenkins died, she were still owing on a blanket she’d been paying off on t’club at threepence a week, and the talleyman came and took it from her starving children, before she was even cold in her coffin.’

  Aggie gave a snort of derision. ‘Edna Crawshaw’s an old gossip. You shouldn’t listen to a word she says. What do you think she says about you, about us when yer back is turned. I’ve heard her nattering on about dad an’ all, nosy old witch.’

  ‘Nay lass, I don’t reckon she says owt that isn’t true. Edna’s me best mate. She’d say nought against me. Anyroad, she knows how things stand. She understands.’

  ‘Well, I don’t understand. I wish someone would explain to me how it is we’re always on our beam ends despite us all working every God-given hour, and Dad being one of the best spinners in all of Barker’s Mill. All right, he falls off the wagon now and then, but what man doesn’t round here? If there isn’t enough money coming in, why don’t you get a job, instead of swanning about at home all day.’

  ‘Swanning about?’ Maisie looked hurt. ‘If that’s what you think I do, girl, you’ve a lot to learn. I never had your advantages, reading and writing and such-like. Anyroad, yer Dad will never hear of it. He likes me at home, looking after you lot, and you know very well I help out with the lads’ nippers so their wives can work. I’ve spent all me life looking after childer. What more can I do?’

  Maisie also did a good deal of her daughters-in-laws’ washing, even now a string of dingy looking nappies hung on the clothes rack above the pitiful fire in a vain attempt to dry them.

  Aggie gave a loud sniff, and cast a scathing glance in Dolly’s direction. ‘You could make her do a few more chores for a start, instead of letting her off just because she’s the youngest. It’s enough to make a saint swear the way you spoil that girl.’

  Maisie looked shocked. ‘Now you’re blaspheming, our Aggie, and I’ll not have it, not in this house.’ Her husband might swear and drink like a trouper but Maisie was a devout Methodist and believed in certain standards in a stoic acceptance of whatever life threw at you. She never complained herself, but took her troubles to discuss them with the Good Lord three times every Sunday and refused to tolerate any moaning from other members of her family.

  Aggie ignored her. ‘I’m stating a simple truth. If you hadn’t borrowed so much money we wouldn’t be in this pickle, and dad wouldn’t feel the need to bury his misery down at the pub, or be putting money he can ill afford on illegal bets.’

  ‘Eeh, Aggie, you can’t blame me for that. You can be right nasty at times. You watch yer lip madam, if you please.’

  Aggie had no intention of doing anything of the sort. Once having started along this road, her greatest pleasure was to take out on her mother a very real sense of resentment that her life wasn’t more comfortable, and nothing Maisie could say would stop her.

  ‘Look at this latest loan you’ve taken out, just for a frock for our Dolly. What a waste of money when she could have used an old one of mine.’

  ‘I bought a bit of sateen, that’s all, and I’m stitching it myself, by hand, for her to wear in the Whit Walks. She wants something new, all of her own, and why shouldn’t she have it? She’ll look grand in it, a real bobby-dazzler. I never hear you complain when I buy something new for you.’

  Feeling guilty that even her own simple dreams had put her mother into further debt, Dolly shut her ears to the quarrel. She’d heard it too often before, in any case. She tried to make herself comfortable on the hard, cold stone flags and mentally switched off; not listening to a word as the two women fell into their usual squabbling, though her heart was burning with hatred for the talleyman. Jack Trafford, or Nifty Jack as he was more familiarly known, had a bag of cold copper coins where his heart should be. It was said that he would take a jam buttie from a baby’s fist if its mother was behind with her payments.

  Easing herself up a fraction so that she could see over the sill, Dolly peered out into the street, catching a glimpse of his short, stocky figure as he strode away. His walk was unmistakable: feet flung out and with such a swagger and spring to his step you’d think he owned the place, his trademark bowler perched precariously on his round, ugly head. There was a leather bag slung acro
ss his hunched shoulders and in one hand he held a notebook, fastened with a piece of black elastic into which he tucked his pencil. He was a couple of doors down now; hammering and shouting for Ma Liversedge, letting the street know her business.

  ‘Open up, you daft old cow,’ he shouted. ‘You’re three weeks behind, so if you don’t shape theeself I’ll have you thrown in t’workhouse.’ He licked the end of his pencil and wrote something in the notebook.

  Dolly was familiar even with the style of his writing: small cramped letters in the same dark, purple ink that stained his short, podgy fingers, together with the brown of nicotine from the endless cigarettes he smoked. The nails, surprisingly, were neatly clipped and she’d often seen him fastidiously pick a thread off his jacket, or smooth his stiffly starched collar with the flat of his hand. And his brown shoes were polished as bright as conkers.

  Yet for all his dandy ways he was the nastiest, ugliest little man in all of the twin cities of Manchester and Salford put together, certainly in all of Castlefield. Dolly loathed him with a ferocity that ate her up inside. She’d like to see him dropped head first in the River Medlock for all the misery he’d caused their family, positively encouraging her Dad in his daft exploits. And she longed to save her mam from his podgy, grasping fingers. Small as she was, being teasingly referred to by her older brothers as the scrapings up off the mill floor, Dolly had a big heart and wanted nothing more than to see her mam happy again, to see a warm smile light her careworn face.

  ‘I’ll go and fetch me dad,’ she said, coming to a sudden decision. ‘Don’t worry I can guess where he is. I’ll fetch him home. Strike or no strike we have to eat, and bills have to be paid.’

  Maisie put up a hand to stop her but before even she could open her mouth to protest, Dolly was off, knowing she’d find her father in one of his favourite local pubs down by the docks or under the viaduct, no doubt conducting his ‘bit of business’ as he euphemistically termed his gambling. She’d find him and make him put things right for her mam.