Dancing in the Moonlight (25 page)

‘Aye. You an’ Donald and the bairns went down south, didn’t you? When you left so suddenly?’

Lucy caught the edge to the last words and, strangely, it put iron in her backbone. She knew it wasn’t Tom’s mother’s fault that he’d forced himself on her and caused
them to flee their home, but for a moment it felt like it. Mrs Crawford had no right to judge her. No right at all.

She stopped so abruptly that John and the twins, who were behind her, cannoned into her and Enid walked on a few paces without realizing.

When Enid turned, it was to see Lucy staring at her with a tight face. ‘We didn’t go down south, Mrs Crawford,’ she said flatly. ‘Not me and the bairns. Donald did. He
left us. I knew I had to find work and a room somewhere for us or it’d have been the workhouse for the bairns.’

‘But’ – Enid’s brow wrinkled – ‘you could have come to me, lass. We’d have worked something out. To take off like that—’

‘There were reasons.’

‘Oh aye?’ Enid raised an eyebrow.

Lucy ignored the question. Instead she said, ‘I didn’t like to leave with Jacob in the hospital, but I had to.’

Enid remained still for a time as she stared into Lucy’s face, then nodded slowly. ‘Seems you landed on your feet right enough.’ Now her voice was as flat as Lucy’s had
been. ‘Jacob’s done all right for himself too. He’s old Williamson’s legal heir now. It all happened after he come out of the hospital.’

Jacob was alive.
Lucy was glad of the pram handle to hang onto. Weakly, she said, ‘I’m glad.’

‘How old’s the bairn?’

Lucy was surprised at the steadiness of her voice when she lied. ‘Six months.’ Mrs Crawford would report meeting her to Tom and the others and she couldn’t prevent it, whatever
she said. She understood her mother’s old friend well enough to know that. Besides, she could give no legitimate reason to ask her to do otherwise. The most she could do was say that Daisy
was younger, just in case Tom put two and two together. ‘I got married in July last year and fell for Daisy quite soon after.’ Thankfully Daisy, tired out after the excitement of the
outing and with a full stomach, had fallen asleep clutching her silver bell and, being petite and fragile-looking, could easily pass for six months when sleeping.

‘She’s bonny, like her mam.’

The words should have been friendly, but the edge was back and stronger.

Aiming to steer the conversation away from Daisy, Lucy gestured towards Matthew and Charley. ‘These are my husband’s boys from his first marriage.’

‘Oh aye, a widower, was he? What’s he do for a living then?’

The snow was falling in big fat flakes now and it was the perfect excuse for Lucy to deflect the question. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Crawford, I must get them home.’ As she spoke she
began to walk, turning the pram into St Thomas Street to her left as she said, ‘Happy Christmas, Mrs Crawford.’

Enid had walked a few steps with her and now she stood as the others trooped by her, Ruby and John echoing Lucy as they passed. Enid said not a word.

Lucy walked as quickly as she could, the others slipping and sliding behind her on the packed snow. It was like a skating rink in places where children had been playing their games. She found
that she was holding her breath and let it out in a silent sigh when Ruby’s voice came, saying, ‘Wait for us then. Where’s the fire?’

They were halfway along St Thomas Street, which, being a side-street, was not lit up like the main thoroughfare, with just the odd street lamp casting yellow pools of light on the snow, but when
Lucy glanced behind her as she waited for the others, she could see Enid’s figure still watching them. As Ruby reached her, her sister said, ‘Why did you tell Mrs Crawford Daisy’s
only six months old, our Lucy?’

Lucy stared at her, unable to think of one reason that would satisfy Ruby. ‘It’s complicated,’ she said at last, beginning to walk on.

‘I don’t see why.’

‘I have my reasons.’

‘Lucy, I’m not a bairn. You can trust me, you know.’

Lucy stopped again. Ruby’s voice hadn’t been belligerent, merely hurt. The two of them had become closer since Daisy’s birth, when Ruby had taken care of her for a week or two
and seen to the house and the children. She had worked hard and from the first had proved to be a devoted aunty, as besotted with Daisy as they all were. But whatever Ruby said, she
was
still a bairn at twelve years old; besides which, the truth was so humiliating, so horrible, that Lucy didn’t know if she could voice it, even to her sister.

And then Ruby said something that startled her. ‘It’s something to do with you marrying Perce so quick, isn’t it?’

The snow was falling thickly and each of them had a layer of white on their hats and shoulders, apart from Daisy who was snug and warm. Lucy blinked a flake from her eyelashes, her voice low
when she said, ‘We’ll talk at home when the others are in bed. I promise.’

Ruby nodded. Her voice equally hushed, she murmured, ‘Whatever you say, you know I’m for you, don’t you, Lucy? I’ve never really said it before, but I know there’s
not many people who’d have done what you did when Donald scarpered. Like he said in that note, you could have put us in the workhouse and looked after number one, but you didn’t.
I’ll always remember that.’

If Ruby had taken her clothes off and danced the fandango, Lucy couldn’t have been more surprised. And it was then she realized with a shock that Ruby was right: her sister wasn’t a
child any longer. At some point in the last eighteen months Ruby had grown up and her age was irrelevant. Furthermore, her sister had turned into a friend and she hadn’t even realized it.
Softly she said, ‘Thanks, lass.’

‘When you two have quite finished whispering, can we start walking again?’ John’s voice was aggrieved. He had been attempting to stop Matthew and Charley and the twins from
breaking their necks sliding on a sheet of ice that the neighbourhood children had polished to a glassy finish during the afternoon, and which was lethal. ‘I want to get home, if no one else
does.’

As Ruby and John took the four younger ones by the hands again, Lucy glanced down the street. Mrs Crawford had gone. But how much longer would it be before Tom discovered where she lived and
made his presence known? Because he would, she knew it as sure as night follows day. It was merely a matter of time now.

She began to walk on. And Jacob: what would he think when he heard she was married with a baby? Did he hate her for leaving when he was so ill? She didn’t blame him. And maybe he had a
lass now. A sweetheart who had taken her place in his affections. Someone young and pure, a lass with no dark secrets.

And then she glanced into the pram, Daisy’s sleeping face lit briefly by the street lamp they were passing. A love so strong that it made her chest ache gripped her.

Daisy was worth every single thing she had gone through, she told herself fiercely. Even if she could turn back the clock and set a different course, if it meant losing her precious little girl,
she wouldn’t do it. Not for a second.

But still, a chill had settled on her heart, and a sense of foreboding that made her shiver.

Enid Crawford was full of righteous indignation as she continued to walk towards the corner of Bridge Street where Tom was picking her up. She was a little late, for running
into Lucy had delayed her, but with her shopping bags full of this and that and the pavements treacherous, she didn’t dare rush, although with her head full of the last few minutes she nearly
went headlong a couple of times.

You live and learn, she told herself grimly. Oh aye, you live and learn all right. She would have bet money that Donald had dragged Lucy and the others down south against the lass’s
wishes, and that Lucy would have come to see her immediately she was up north again, should they return this way. But no. If she’d heard her right, Lucy had never left these parts. Jacob had
been grieving for her, fair tearing himself apart in the early days, and all the time she’d been making a life for herself with some widower or other and having his baby.

Edith’s eyes narrowed as she peered through the snow-filled air towards the corner of Bridge Street up ahead, but there were too many bustling shoppers coming and going to see if
Tom’s car was waiting for her.

And the way Lucy had been with her too, barely giving her the time of day, if truth be told. She’d always had a soft spot for the lass and she’d imagined Lucy thought a bit of her
too, but today she felt like she’d been kicked in the teeth. And on Christmas Eve an’ all. She wished now she’d stayed in Monkwearmouth and got her last bits there, but with Tom
offering to bring her in and things so bad at home, she’d fancied getting out for a bit.

For a moment Lucy’s cursory treatment of her was pushed aside as she thought of Aaron and the lads. Miserable as sin these days, Aaron was, and Frank and Ralph weren’t much better.
She didn’t understand them, she didn’t straight. Thanks to Tom, they were bringing in good money at a time when most folk didn’t know where their next meal was coming from, but
were they grateful? Were they heck. Faces as long as old Meg’s backside from dawn to dusk.

She sighed her disapproval, her mouth set in a grim line.

She cooked and cleaned and washed for them, and barely got a civil word. It felt as though they were blaming her for something, but she’d done nowt wrong. And when she’d lost
patience the week before as they were sitting at the evening meal, and told them they ought to count their blessings, Aaron had turned on her. Like a loony, he’d been. And the lads had said
nothing as he’d raved and ranted.

She stopped for a moment, adjusting her shopping bags and catching her breath, every word Aaron had flung at her burnt on her mind. ‘You can say that? Count me blessings? Blessings!’
He’d turned to glance at Frank and Ralph and they’d lowered their eyes to their plates. ‘You’ve no idea, have you, woman? And why? Because you don’t want to see. As
long as you have your new front room and your gramophone and wireless and the rest of it, you keep your head buried in the sand. He’s bought you – lock, stock and barrel – and to
hell with the rest of us. Well, you can’t spit in the face of the Almighty and get away with it forever. There’ll be a day of reckoning, sure enough. Remember that, when I go the same
way as Walter and Ernie Fallow.’

He’d stomped out of the back door, pulling on his cap as he went. She had been left staring after him. She had turned to Frank and Ralph in bewilderment. ‘What did he mean? Go the
same way as Walter and Ernie?’

They hadn’t answered her, saying instead, ‘We’d better get after him’ and she had been left staring at the uneaten meals on the kitchen table. They hadn’t come back
till she was in bed.

She walked on and was relieved to see Tom’s car waiting for her, the engine running. He jumped out and took her bags, throwing them on the back seat before helping her into the passenger
seat as he said, ‘I was beginning to think you’d come a cropper; the ground’s like glass, and it looks like we’re in for another packet. I shouldn’t have let you go by
yourself, but I didn’t think at the time.’

She glanced at him fondly as he slid into the driver’s seat. ‘Don’t be daft, lad. I’m all right. I’m sorry I kept you waitin,’ but you’ll never guess
who I ran into a minute or two back.’

Tom was concentrating on pulling out into the traffic, his mind preoccupied when he said, ‘Who was that then?’

‘Lucy Fallow and the bairns.’

The car swerved, a loud blast of a horn from a vehicle travelling in the opposite direction causing Tom to pull the wheel sharply to the left again. He swore at the other driver before saying,
‘Lucy Fallow? Are you sure?’

‘Course I’m sure. She was just coming out of Binns, she’d taken the bairns in for tea apparently. Her husband must be good for a bob or two if they can afford to do
that.’

‘Husband?’

‘Oh aye, told me she’d married some bloke or other, a widower by all accounts with a couple of bairns. Got one of her own an’ all, six months old, she is.’ Enid stared
complacently out of the windscreen where the wipers were labouring to clear the snow. It was grand travelling in style like a lady, she thought, the luxury restoring a sense of wellbeing.
‘Bonny little thing she was, the image of Lucy. Seems Donald cleared off down south like we’d thought, but Lucy and the bairns stayed in these parts. And not a word to me, when she must
have known I’d be worried about ’em.’ Enid’s voice hardened. ‘She’s not the lass I thought she was, that’s for sure.’

‘Where does she live?’

‘We didn’t get on to that. Truth be told, she didn’t want to know me, lad.’ Enid’s sniff spoke volumes. ‘Couldn’t wait to get away.’

Tom was gripping the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles were white. It took all his will power to relax. He wanted to turn the car round this minute and go looking for her, but of course
that was impossible. But to think she had been under his nose the whole time. Fury was a white-hot ball in his stomach. But then much of his business was contained to Monkwearmouth and Southwick;
he only came over the river to see the Kanes on the whole. But now he knew for sure she was in these parts, he’d ask Jed to put the feelers out. Casually he said, ‘So you didn’t
get her married name, anything like that?’

‘No. Why?’

‘No particular reason, Mam. Just making conversation. I’m sorry she upset you, though, you were always good to the Fallows.’ He patted her hand briefly. ‘Try and forget
it now. Don’t let it spoil your Christmas.’

‘No, you’re right, lad, but when I think of her going off and getting wed, and our Jacob in the state he was about her, it makes my blood boil. I didn’t realize it until he was
in the hospital, but he was fair gone on her, and from what he said he’d had some encouragement that way an’ all. I didn’t think she was the type of lass to play fast and loose,
not Lucy. She took me in good and proper.’

‘You know what they say about the quiet ones who look as though butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths. They’re always the worst.’

Enid nodded. ‘That’s true enough.’