Forgive and Forget (30 page)

Polly bit her lip, but this time she could think of nothing to say in answer.

‘Are you managing, Poll? For money?’

Now Polly plastered a smile on her face and said as brightly as she could, ‘Don’t you worry about us, Dad. We’ve managed before and we’ll do it again.’

‘You know, Poll, I never thought I’d ever hear mesen say it, but I’m glad your mam isn’t here to see me like this. It’d’ve broken her heart, seeing me banged up with all these criminals. Murderers some of ’em. And one or two, you’d never guess it to look at ’em. They’re ordinary blokes just like me.’

Polly fought back the tears. She wanted to shout and rage at him. Don’t you know you’ve broken my heart by what you’ve done?

Because now I can never marry the love of my life.

‘Right, Vi, now you’re back on your feet, I’ll have to see if I can get some work somewhere.’

Violet’s head shot up. ‘Work? What do you mean you’re going to find some work?’

‘I have to. We’re running out of money. Eddie gives me nearly all his wages now. He’s been really good.’ She had difficulty in keeping the surprise out of her tone. ‘And Stevie hands over every penny of the money he earns on a weekend for Mr Wilmott. And he’s still bringing home vegetables and fruit on a Saturday night. But it’s still not enough.’

Violet’s voice rose. ‘You mean you’re expecting me to do all the housework? The washing and cooking and cleaning
and
look after Michael.’

‘It’s what mothers do, Vi. You’re no different to anyone else who’s had a bairn.’

‘Oh yes, I am. I’m only seventeen. I’ve a right to a bit of life.’

Polly raised her eyebrows. ‘Oh, and I hadn’t, I suppose, when I took over looking after the family at thirteen?’

Violet pouted. Then suddenly she smiled and put her head on one side. Polly steeled herself; she knew that look. It was Violet’s wheedling face.

‘Why don’t I go back to Mawer and Collingham’s? I’d be paid more than you could ever earn. You’ve been off too long. Nobody’ll employ you now.’ Slyly, she added, ‘Not even dear Roland.’

The Longden family had certainly been shown the truth of the saying that you find out who your real friends are when trouble strikes. The Hallidays were lost to her, but Roland was a frequent and faithful visitor. Out of everyone they knew, only he and Micky Fowler came to the house and Roland brought little gifts, usually food, for the whole family to share.

‘I could ask him,’ Polly murmured.

‘Why won’t you let me work instead?’ Violet persisted. ‘It’s doubtful Miss Carr will have found out about the baby and . . .’

‘You’re the daughter of a jailbird, Vi. She’ll have heard about that,’ Polly snapped, her patience at an end with her sister’s selfishness. ‘And your place is with your baby. You’re still feeding him yourself. How do you propose to do that if you’re serving Lady What’s-her-Name with a hat when he gets hungry?’

‘He can go onto the bottle.’

‘No,’ Polly said firmly. ‘Breastfeeding’s safer for him than on the bottle.’

The two girls exchanged a glance and Violet lowered her gaze; she knew just what Polly meant. And for once she had to agree that her older sister was right.

But Violet had been right about one thing it seemed; no one would give Polly a job and as the money ran shorter and shorter, she was desperate. The shadow of the Union Workhouse loomed large. She began to go without food herself to ensure that the other members of the family never went short. Heartbreak, anxiety and now lack of food, made Polly look thin and tired. Her lovely red hair lost its shine and her eyes were ringed with dark shadows. But every week she trudged up the hill to see William and reassure him that all was well, though the lies were getting harder to make convincing.

‘I’m taking you out tomorrow night,’ Roland said firmly on one of his visits. ‘Dress up in your best black dress, Polly, with that little white lace shawl you wear round your shoulders. You look so pretty in that and we’ll go into town. I’ll book a table—’

‘Oh no, Roland, I couldn’t. Everyone will be looking at me and pointing.’ Tears sprang to her eyes. ‘There goes that jailbird’s daughter.’

‘Of course they won’t. They won’t even know who you are. How could they?’

She stared at him, wanting to believe him.

‘Dear Polly,’ he said gently, taking hold of her cold hands, ‘just because everyone in this street – and maybe one or two on either side of you – knows who you are, it doesn’t mean the whole city does.’

She understood his reasoning and knew he was right, but she was still afraid to venture out into wider society.

‘Besides,’ he went on practically, ‘people are beginning to forget. They get on with their lives. The strike – and the riots – were dreadful at the time, but memories soon begin to fade. The strikers were reinstated and working conditions for the railwaymen are going to improve.’

‘The families of the folks who were killed or injured,’ Polly said haltingly, ‘aren’t ever going to forget, are they? Or forgive.’

‘No,’ Roland said. ‘Of course they won’t, but that’s the same for all kinds of war. And it was a sort of war, Polly. That’s what the seamen called it when they struck in June. But they were standing up for their rights, just like all the transport workers were doing. And they achieved some results. Perhaps not all they wanted, but things are altering, so some good came out of it.’

‘You’re condoning what they did?’

‘I’d never condone the violence that happened here – and in other places – but yes, I agree that it’s a working man’s right to withdraw his labour in protest if he has a good enough reason.’

‘And did they?’

‘Did they what?’

‘Have a good enough reason?’

‘I don’t know all the details, but they evidently thought so. It was union backed. It wasn’t a wildcat strike.’

‘What’s that?’

‘When workers strike without the backing of their union. Polly, your dad ended up in prison because he helped to incite a riot and even I don’t agree with what he did. He’d had a bit too much to drink that Saturday night. I was with him earlier in the George and Dragon. I tried to bring him home – ’

Polly hadn’t known this.

‘But he was too far gone to listen to reason. Him and Bert Fowler both.’

‘Bert was with him?’

‘Oh yes, but he sidled off when the police began their baton charges. So did Micky and your Eddie.’ He sighed. ‘Only William was fool enough to carry on throwing bricks and bottles – anything he could lay his hands on.’

‘I expect that was when Eddie found me,’ Polly murmured, ‘and brought me home.’

‘You were there? You were out in the streets that night?’

She nodded. ‘Yes, both nights. The Friday and the Saturday. Oh, not taking part, of course,’ she added hurriedly, in case Roland should think she’d been one of the raucous women shouting encouragement to the rioters. ‘I went out to see if I could find Dad and Eddie and – and then, I just couldn’t tear myself away. I couldn’t believe what was happening.’

‘Then thank God Eddie did find you and bring you home, else I might have been visiting you in prison somewhere.’

It was a weak attempt to lighten their conversation, but the effort fell flat.

Polly became aware that Roland was still holding her hands and she eased them gently out of his grasp, but her mind was working quickly now. If she accepted Roland’s invitation, at least she would get a decent meal. She felt the colour rise in her face at the thought of how she was using his kindness, but she was desperate, almost faint with hunger some days now.

Roland, however, was blithely unaware of the true reason for the pretty blush on her cheeks as she murmured, ‘Thank you, Roland. I will come out with you tomorrow night.’

It wasn’t until they were sitting in the fancy restaurant that Roland realized how hungry Polly was. She devoured every course that was put in front of her and cleared each plate of every scrap. At first, when she kept her eyes down and concentrated on the meal, he’d thought it was because she was still anxious about being recognized, that she didn’t want eye contact with anyone else in the room. But by the end of the meal, when she sat back with a smile and looked about her, he realized just how famished she’d been.

Fortunately for Polly, this was not one of the places she’d visited with Leo, so there were no poignant memories to spoil her enjoyment. And she even managed, for an all too brief couple of hours, to put thoughts of her father and the concerns of her family out of her mind.

‘Oh, Roland, that was wonderful. Thank you.’

He reached across the table and touched her hand. ‘We’ll do it again, Polly. And soon.’

She smiled thinly, feeling so guilty that she could not share this wonderful food with the rest of her family, but quite unable to refuse the chance of another sumptuous meal.

Over the next few weeks, times were still desperate for the Longdens, but now Roland brought more gifts for the other members of the family too when he realized just how hungry they all must be. And he took Polly out for an evening meal at least once a week. She was not daft and she knew exactly what he was doing and, more worryingly, why he was doing it. But she was powerless to stop him; she needed his help as she had never needed help before. For the sake of her family, she was trapped into accepting succour from a man she knew might be falling in love with her.

She didn’t like doing it, but she had no choice.

Just as, a little voice deep inside her reminded her, Leo had had no choice when he had arrested her father for his violent behaviour.

It was July 1912 before William was released, having served the full nine months of his sentence. He might have been out sooner had he not got embroiled in a fight in the prison and lost the reduction in his sentence that the judge had given him.

‘Are you never going to learn, Dad?’ Polly had hissed at him across the table when she heard about the fight on one of her visits. William would not have admitted it to her, relying on the fact that his daughter would not understand the prison system and would think that a nine-month sentence meant exactly that. He was forgetting entirely that Polly had heard about the reduction to six months given by the judge at his trial. But when he came into the room where she was waiting for him, he was sporting a yellowing bruise around one eye.

‘There’s this nutcase on our landing and he started a fight when we were on exercise in the yard.’

Polly pursed her lips. ‘So I take it you’re not going to get out at the end of six months now, like the judge said?’

William glanced at her. So Polly did know. Trust Polly, he thought morosely, but then realizing what a heavy burden she was carrying during his absence, he murmured, ‘I’m sorry, Poll. Don’t tell ’em at home, will you?’

‘I’ll have to, Dad. They’re all expecting you home in April.’

Now there was another three months to be added on to his sentence. Another three months to try to keep them all out of the workhouse.

The weeks until his release dragged slowly and not only for William but for his family too. The other strikers – those that had not been imprisoned – had been reinstated in their jobs as part of the terms of settlement agreed upon to end the strike. But Polly realized that this would probably not be the case for her father; he would be branded a troublemaker and a jailbird. But at least with him back home, she could go out to work. And yet no one seemed prepared to take her on.

The day she met William coming out of the doors of the jail should have been cause for celebration, but it was not. She was thankful to have him home and yet, in some ways, even more fearful about what would happen next – what he would do next. She’d thought a prison term would sober him, would curb his quick temper, but the fight had proved otherwise. If she had expected a cowed and broken man to emerge, she was mistaken; William Longden would never change. Not even a term in prison with hard labour had altered him.

But nevertheless she was thankful to have him home.

‘I hope you’re not still seeing that bugger who got me put away,’ he said as he sat down in the kitchen.

Polly rounded on him. ‘No, I’m not, but if you think you’re the innocent in all this, then you can think again. I’ll not forgive him for what he did, but I’ll not forgive you either for being the cause of it.’

William glowered at her. ‘Don’t you dare speak to me like that, girl. I’m still master in my own house.’

Polly stood in front of him, her arms folded. ‘Are you indeed? Then you’d better get out there and try and find some work.’

Now William blinked. ‘Work? What are you talking about? I’ll be going back to me work on the railway.’

‘I rather think not, Dad. D’you really expect them to take
you
back?’

‘You said everyone had got their jobs back.’

‘Oh aye, they have.’ She leant towards him. ‘The ones that didn’t get caught for inciting a riot. The ones that didn’t get sent to jail.’

He was thoughtful for a moment, before muttering, ‘I’ll go and see the boss, but first, Poll, you can get the tin bath in out the yard. I want to get the smell of that place off me. I hope you’ve got me some clean clothes ready?’