The Corner House (14 page)

He hated living here. Bernard, Liz and Katherine now occupied Danny’s Bromley Cross cottage on a so-called temporary basis. Liz had become hysterical when bombs had fallen, had declared her intention to leave Derby Street with Katherine and with or without her husband. As soon as the war ended, they were supposed to swap back again, and Danny could scarcely wait. The large rear garden he had treasured was a barren, iced-up mess, because Bernard simply wasn’t interested in the art of cultivation. But Liz wasn’t going to be easy to shift. Liz liked the
country, while Katherine was settled happily in the village school. All the same, Danny meant to have his house back, because he, too, was a man with responsibilities.

He sighed resignedly, went into the shop and sorted through an icy jumble of cod’s heads. These delicacies were kept on one side for the owners of cats. With water just short of boiling, he swabbed down marble slabs and wooden blocks. After years spent fishmongering, Danny was impervious to both ends of the temperature’s spectrum.

The inner door opened. ‘Your tea’s ready,’ snapped a turbaned dragon.

Danny grinned broadly. Edna Greenhalgh was loathed and feared north, south, east and west of Derby Street. She had as many enemies as Judas and she feared nothing on earth. Well, almost nothing. Danny had seen into the heart of his monstrous mother-in-law, had managed to lay bare a small fissure in the iron cladding. Edna doted on her only daughter. The fear of losing Pauline was never expressed, seldom shown, but Danny had cared enough to seek it out. Like Pauline’s first husband, he had brought Mother Greenhalgh into his life. The house on Tonge Moor Road remained Pauline’s property for the time being. After the war, it would probably be sold.

He ascended the stairs and entered the lion’s den. Mother was cooking something delicious in a large cast iron pan. ‘All right, Mother?’ he asked. She was standing with her feet well apart, the sturdy body encased in a bright-patterned wrap-around apron, grey frazzled hair twisted into curlers and Ladye Jayne wave-grips and wrapped in a scarf. With a wooden spoon, she stirred the soup, tasted, stirred
again. Danny smiled to himself. This was no witch from the heath, no product of some bloodied Shakespearian tragedy. She was just an old woman with pride, dignity and a terrible way with words. ‘Smells good.’

Edna sniffed. She had perfected the craft of nasal inhalation, had developed a set of sniffs to cover almost any occasion. The recently delivered offering was one of the ‘don’t talk daft’ items in her repertoire. ‘I’d be better off with a bit more barley. And a lot better if Longshanks would give up helping on that bloody market. She could lose a finger.’ Longshanks was one of Edna’s nicknames for her daughter. Nicknames were the nearest she could manage to get towards terms of endearment.

Danny sat in his usual chair. Pauline liked working. She had been more than happy to put a bit of space between herself and Maurice the Mole in the jewellery shop. ‘She loves the market, Mother. It doesn’t seem to be doing her any harm.’

Nostrils dilated, Edna delivered an ‘I know better than you’ before dumping a dish of steaming soup on Danny’s portion of the table. ‘It’s nearly all men down yon,’ she stated unnecessarily.

‘I know.’

‘I dare say some of that there backspeak’s not ladylike.’

‘She’s not bothered.’ Pauline still didn’t fully understand the fishmarket’s language.

Edna sat down to supervise her client’s sampling of food. ‘Too much salt? It looked a bit salty, that ham shank.’

‘No, it’s lovely.’

‘And her hands is going all rough.’

Danny attempted no reply. Edna Greenhalgh,
many of whose recent years had been spent in a fireside chair, was alive again. She took stairs, fish and rheumatism in her stride and was a sight more active than many women half her age. She cooked, cleaned, polished, washed and ironed. At every conceivable opportunity, she invaded the shop and plagued the life out of regular customers. Armed with a new pair of spectacles, she read all newspapers within reach, did the crosswords in the twinkling of an eye, educated all within earshot on the state of the war and the stupidity of mankind in general.

Danny mopped out his dish with a lump of homemade bread. ‘That was better than good,’ he sighed.

Edna eyed him suspiciously. ‘Have you lost weight? You’re like a pair of coathangers, you and our Pauline.’

He was the same weight as ever. Danny reckoned he could have eaten a U-boat with impunity, while Bernard, his poor brother, could gain several pounds by simply standing within two yards of a raised pork pie. Edna was up to something. Edna was looking for a project, something to occupy her overactive mind. ‘There’s nothing wrong with either of us,’ he answered.

Nostrils stretched themselves, though a sniff was not employed at this juncture. ‘She’s thirty-five.’

‘Aye, and I’m nobbut thirty-four. That daughter of yours is a blinking cradle-snatcher.’

Edna messed about with teacups and milk jug. ‘And you’ve been wed three year. It doesn’t last for ever, you know.’

‘What doesn’t?’

The old lady poured tea. ‘Fertility. Women goes … well, they goes off, you know.’

‘Like fish in summer?’

She bridled. ‘You understand me, so don’t go piking about as if you don’t. If you want a family, you’d best get weaving. And for a start, you both want feeding up. Men needs to be healthy to make babies. It’s not all down just to the woman and I—’

‘I do know it’s a joint effort,’ interrupted Danny.

Edna studied the tablecloth. Danny had dropped soup and made a stain. ‘I’m interfering, aren’t I?’

His jaw dropped slightly. Edna Greenhalgh was not one to question her own undoubted perfection. She was never wrong, never mistaken, never to be interrogated. Danny shrugged lightly. ‘Well, you’re just taking an interest, I suppose. It’s only natural.’ Lovemaking was only natural, he told himself. It was wonderful, beautiful and seldom satisfactory, because Edna slept in the next room.

‘So I might move back to Tonge Moor,’ she said, her voice softer than usual. ‘See, I’m not daft. It can’t be easy with me here. But I’ll still come every day and do the housework. You and our Pauline need to be … getting on with your lives.’ They had a squeaky bed. Reluctant to go into too much embarrassing detail, Edna was conveying her thoughts as best she could. The headboard banged against the wall sometimes. Her heart bled because she knew they needed privacy and that she was very much in the way.

Danny lowered his head. The number of occasions when he and Pauline had enjoyed privacy could be counted on his fingers. While Edna was out at the Co-op or the butcher’s, Walsh’s Fish was usually open. Pauline worked with Bernard on the market, Danny ran the shop single-handed unless Mother butted in with her three penn’orth of insults and fish recipes. A rare trip out to the countryside, a
hurried fumbling in a barn or behind questionable screens formed by bushes and moors – these had provided backcloths for the only true intimacies between the couple.

‘Good job you’re a patient man,’ said Edna.

Danny found no words.

‘I’m not what people think, lad.’

‘I had worked that out.’

She took a slurp of tea and grimaced. ‘Tell you what, I’ll be glad when they start selling proper tea again – I’m sick of these here floor-sweepings. I bet the bloody government’s got proper tea. I bet them at the palace gets more nor two ounces of meat.’

Danny, who nurtured a fondness for the King and his family, tut-tutted. ‘They’re suffering the same as us, Mother. The Queen said she couldn’t look the East End in the eye till after Buckingham Palace got bombed.’

Edna sniffed loudly. Her dislike for the royal ‘hangers-on’ was a legend in her own teatime. She wanted a president like they had in America, wanted the palace turned into a children’s home, wanted the royals to live in two-up-two-downs with outside lavs to bring them back to earth. ‘Well, they have it too easy,’ she concluded, wanting the last word, as ever. ‘Anybody’d think they were made different, but they’re not.’

The war was going to be won soon – everybody knew that. Danny Walsh nursed the suspicion that his mother-in-law might have done a better job than Hitler, might have kept things on the boil for a bit longer. ‘Are you sure you’ll be all right on your own up Tonge Moor?’

‘Course I will.’ She wanted a grandchild, wanted to see Pauline with a baby. ‘She’ll make a good mother,’ Edna pronounced.

‘Don’t count your chickens.’

‘I weren’t on about chickens, Danny Walsh.’ She settled back and looked at him. He was just about the grandest chap she had ever encountered. He was kind, generous to a fault, and his philosophy was simple. Danny worked to live, did not allow the job to rule his existence. Money was needed, so he earned it. What he earned he spent on his household after saving a bit towards the unknown. Edna loved him.

‘Is there something wrong with my face?’ he asked.

It wasn’t a handsome face, yet it was lovely. ‘Your soul shows,’ Edna said quietly. ‘I never had a son, but, well … you’ll do.’

This was praise indeed. ‘Blooming heck,’ laughed Danny. ‘Don’t start going all nice. You’ll only upset everybody. Just imagine what a shock it would be if you went nice, Mother. Me customers’d be keeling over with heart attacks.’

Edna’s facial expression remained untouched. ‘It’s been a hard life, so I’ve hardened meself against it. When we lost Pauline’s dad, then when John Chadwick got himself blew up … Well, you’ve got to find your own way of keeping going, haven’t you?’

Danny nodded his agreement.

‘So don’t go mauling about and playing heroes if there’s any more fires. Our Pauline needs you.’

He stirred his tea. Mother Greenhalgh’s speech was probably as near as she had ever come to apology or declaration of affection. She was a good woman, a frightened woman. In the house up Tonge Moor, she’d sat still deliberately, as if doing nothing would prevent any further nasty happenings. ‘Like Buddha,’ he said aloud.

‘Eh?’

‘You were. Waiting, not wanting to touch anything.’

‘What the hell’s that got to do with foreigners’ religions? I’m Church of England, me.’

Danny chortled. There was no point in telling Mother about Buddha’s theories. ‘Never mind. I was just thinking out loud.’

Edna squared her shoulders. ‘Aye, well, think yourself down to that market and fetch your missus home. She’ll want thawing out.’

‘Our Bernard’ll bring her. He’s got the van—’

‘You bring her. Tell her what I said before about sleeping up Tonge Moor, because I’m not making the same speech twice.’

As he walked down the road towards his wife, Danny Walsh found himself humming. He was content, happier than he’d ever been in his whole existence. Once he got back into his garden, he would have everything. But how strange life was. Dragged by Eva Harris into Chorlton’s Jewellery, he had met Pauline. Dragged through an alley by three bad buggers, Theresa Nolan had become the reason behind that first meeting between Mr and Mrs Daniel Walsh.

Life was bloody peculiar, all right. People were always laughing at Danny, especially the men, joking about mothers-in-law, ragging him because he was forced to live with Edna Greenhalgh. He wouldn’t have missed getting acquainted with Edna, not for the world. You knew where you were with Mother Greenhalgh. She was straight.

On the market, Pauline and Bernard greeted Danny. ‘Have you heard owt?’ Bernard asked immediately.

‘About what?’

‘Theresa Nolan and little Jessica. They’ve been down the infirmary for a couple of days now. Ernie Moss and George Marsden broke in, found Theresa near pegged out upstairs. Little lass was stuck in the coal hole.’

Danny absorbed the information, remembered Constable Marsden’s quick exit from the scene of the crime after the shop window had been broken. ‘What happened?’ he asked. ‘I know Ernie Moss dragged the bobby off quick smart, but why?’

Pauline took over. ‘Billy Isherwood from Jubilee Fish and Fruit’s got a daughter in nursing. Theresa Nolan was near starved to death.’ Pauline, who had been told by Danny about the rapes and the payments, lowered her tone. ‘What’s she doing not eating? There must be money, love. I mean, is she trying to die?’

Bernard stared hard at his brother. ‘If she’s saving it, what’s she saving it for, Dan?’

‘I don’t know.’ He didn’t want to know, not really, didn’t want to think. Because when he did allow his mind free rein, a few funny thoughts sometimes chased about in the tortuous canals of grey matter. ‘It’s her business, Bernard.’

The younger brother went away to finish clearing his stall.

‘What’s up?’ Pauline asked her husband.

Danny shrugged. ‘I’m not sure.’

‘They say she’s got TB – the little girl and all. Going up to the sanatorium soon. Once they’re there and on the mend, they can happen have visitors.’

Danny stopped in his tracks and placed a restraining hand on Pauline’s sleeve. ‘No, love.’

‘You what?’

‘Stay out of it.’

Pauline peered though the gloom at her husband’s troubled face. ‘What am I stopping out of?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘But—’

‘Leave it, love.’

Pauline kept her counsel. She had the best husband in the world, but Danny was a deep thinker. If he was uneasy, then there must be something to be uneasy about. He would tell her in time. And Pauline was going nowhere, as she had found her true place and a love as valuable as breath itself. She could wait.

Eva Harris drew the sheet over the dead man’s face. She couldn’t manage to cry, because she felt dry all through, right into the marrow of her bones. Sam had been ill for nearly three years. A gentle and unassuming man, Sam Harris had allowed his wife her head, had never complained when she had left him to go out and minister to mothers and babies.

She turned from the bed and picked up a photograph from the dressing table. ‘Eeh, Sam, I wish we’d had a kiddy. But it were too late for us.’ A loyal and loving daughter, Eva had nursed her parents to the end of their lives and had only married in her early forties. ‘You’d have been a smashing dad.’ The man in the suit smiled back at her through a sheet of glass that wanted dusting. Who would value this picture once Eva had shuffled off to meet her Maker? No close relatives to speak of, no-one to worry or wonder about the couple in their silver-plated frame.