The Shop Girls of Chapel Street (28 page)

‘And it wasn't?' Muriel checked. She'd left Ida to serve in the shop and sat with Eddie and Violet in the kitchen.

Violet shook her head.

‘It must be somewhere,' Eddie insisted. ‘You don't think there's any chance that someone gave it to Douglas Tankard for safe keeping, do you?'

‘It couldn't have been my mother, because my birth couldn't have been registered until after …' Violet's voice faded into a sigh.

‘Perhaps Tankard himself?' Muriel suggested.

‘But then again, no.' Violet ignored Muriel and took her time to think things through. ‘Stan's father never came back from the war.'

The new mystery defeated them and they lapsed into silence. ‘There's nothing we can do at the present so I'll leave you two to it,' Muriel decided, going upstairs and back to her sewing machine.

Eddie too knew that he couldn't stay long. ‘I left Dad wallpapering a ceiling,' he told Violet apologetically. ‘It's a two-man job.'

‘Yes – you go. We can talk about this later.'

He hovered by the door. ‘Ida mentioned something about you falling off your bike. How did that happen?'

‘It was nothing – I didn't hurt myself. I wasn't concentrating on what I was doing, that's all.'

‘That's not like you.' There was something in the air – an awkward barrier between them that made Eddie uneasy.

‘It's been a hard day,' Violet told him. She felt it too – a need to keep up her defences and hold Eddie at a distance even though he'd left his work and rushed across to help her. ‘I need a rest.'

‘Shall I tell Ida that you're taking a nap on my way out?'

‘Yes – could you?'
Go now. Please don't come near me until I've scrubbed my body from head to toe. Don't smell Barlow's whisky-soured breath on my clothes and skin.

‘Rightio,' Eddie said with deep uncertainty. ‘I'm working tonight and tomorrow. Will I see you at rehearsal on Wednesday?'

‘Wednesday – yes.'

‘I'll give you a lift over,' he promised as he left and Violet crept upstairs to hide under her bedclothes, pretending to be asleep until Muriel and Ida had shut up shop and gone home.

She knew that soap wouldn't be enough to wash away the stains of the day. Still, she tried, feeling her way downstairs in the dark to the kitchen and rubbing until her skin was red, examining one by one the bruises on her shoulders where Barlow had seized her and pushed her against the garage wall. At last she went back to bed, not to sleep but to lie awake and relive the attack, trying to contain it and give it a shape that she could bear and move forward from.

I stood up to him
, she told herself time and again
. It was soon over. It could have been much worse.

Violet managed to get through the routine of the next day and the one after that without telling a soul what had happened at Ash Tree House. On Wednesday morning she even delivered Ella Kingsley's dress, parking her bike in the same cobbled yard and knocking on the side door before handing over the delivery to a handyman working there for the day without betraying her discomfort. He was about thirty-five years old – small and stocky, dressed in crisp blue overalls, with a hinged metal ruler and a screwdriver protruding from a top pocket.

‘You mean to say you rode all the way up here without breaking sweat?' The handyman's friendly question threw Violet off balance and she fumbled for a reply. ‘There's no need to look at me like that – I won't bite. I'm only saying you still look fresh as a daisy after your bike ride.'

‘I'm in a rush,' she explained. ‘Could you tell Mrs Kingsley that she can drop in at Jubilee and pay us what she owes whenever she's passing.'

‘That's trusting of you,' the man said with a wry smile. ‘My name's Kenneth, by the way. Kenneth Leach. What's yours?'

‘Violet Wheeler.'

‘Well, Violet Wheeler, I bet you're new to the business of supplying goods. In future, I'd always demand payment on the spot if I was you. I learned that lesson early on in my trade – never let customers owe you money because they'll always find an excuse not to pay. The longer they leave it, the harder it gets to squeeze it out of them.'

‘I really am in a hurry,' Violet repeated, all too aware of the garage door yawning open behind her and of the memories that came flooding back.

‘Yes and Mr Kingsley doesn't pay me for standing here chatting,' Kenneth acknowledged. ‘I've got a sink to unblock and a couple of door hinges to mend.'

Violet said a hasty goodbye then got back on her bike and was gone before anyone could stop her, out onto the road and past the splendid houses built at the turn of the century by mill owners and colliery bosses when it looked as if the good times would last for ever. Carved stone lions stood guard on gate posts, curving driveways were swept clear of falling leaves and decorative gables were newly painted. All stood to attention, present and correct.

That night, soon after Eddie and Violet had arrived at Hadley Village Institute for rehearsal, Ida made a beeline towards her. ‘Good, Violet – you're early. We've just got time to carry out my secret plan.'

‘Why? Where are we going?' Violet asked as Ida frogmarched her out of the hall and across the yard onto the main street. They passed Stan chatting with Kathy, Peggy and Evie in the pleasant evening air, crossed the road and hurried on towards the row of houses where Donald Wheeler had briefly lodged.

‘Oh no you don't!' Violet protested when she saw what was afoot. ‘Anyway, it's no use. Uncle Donald doesn't live here any more, and even if he did I wouldn't have anything to say to him.'

‘That's my point – you might not want to talk to him, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have plenty he could tell us about Douglas Tankard and your mother if he wanted to.' By this time Ida was knocking on the door and peering through the downstairs window. ‘It seems you were right – the place is empty. Look.'

Taking Ida's place and pressing her nose to the dirty window pane, Violet saw nothing but bare floorboards and cobwebs. There wasn't a stick of furniture in the room or any other sign that it had recently been occupied.

‘But my plan doesn't end here,' Ida declared. She was dressed as usual for the night's theatre business in practical trousers and a light, short-sleeved sweater, with rouge and lipstick to lend a softer touch to her cropped fair hair. ‘Our next stop is the vicarage.'

‘I'm sure you're on the wrong track,' Violet told her. Nevertheless, she marched up the street with Ida then followed her through a tall iron gate into a tidy front garden with lawns and flower beds leading to a substantial house next to the church. ‘Uncle Donald's lips have been sealed on the subject of my mother for nearly twenty years,' she reminded her. ‘What's going to alter things all of a sudden?'

‘Coming out with the name – Douglas Tankard – to your uncle's face – that's what's going to make him buck up his ideas. You wait and see.' Ida knocked on the vicarage door and waited impatiently until it was opened by a tall, upright man in a clerical collar.

‘What can I do for you?' The vicar's opening remark was delivered in a guarded tone. His face was unusually worn, his skin pale and criss-crossed with wrinkles, with tufts of white hair sprouting sparsely from the top of his head.

‘We're looking for Donald Wheeler,' Ida announced, bold as brass.

‘Not here.' The elderly vicar was already closing the door on them, going back to his tea of tinned-salmon sandwiches and a well-deserved rest from parish business.

‘This is his niece,' Ida explained, thrusting Violet forward for inspection. ‘She's bothered about losing touch with her only living relation – and who wouldn't be? Surely that deserves five minutes of your time, Vicar.'

The door stayed open as the clergyman's conscience pushed itself to the fore. ‘I'm afraid your uncle didn't leave a forwarding address,' he told Violet in a kinder voice. ‘In fact, his leaving left me rather in the lurch.'

‘My aunty died and he took it hard.' Violet gave the explanation she felt the vicar would understand but without going into details.

‘Are you sure you can't give us a clue as to where he went?' Ida persisted. ‘He didn't mention anything to anyone here in the village?'

‘I did hear that Donald Wheeler had links with Welby in his youth,' he said abruptly. ‘Perhaps that's where he went back to now that his wife has passed away.'

‘Maybe,' Violet said doubtfully.

‘Welby's a big place.' Ida was eager for more details while with a sinking heart Violet pictured the tall chimneys and dark, maze-like terraces, the thousands of mill workers and the gangs of unemployed miners on the steps of Public Assistance offices, women in wash houses and children in rags sent out with rough carts to scavenge coal from the old slag heaps.

‘I'm sorry not to be of more help,' the vicar said, his duty done. He prepared to close the door on his visitors. ‘But when a man like Donald Wheeler chooses to drop out of sight, there's very little anyone can do.'

An hour later, Ida was throwing her energy into rehearsing her leading players for a section in the final scene where the police inspector revealed the identity of the murderer. Violet sat in a corner with Kathy and Peggy, quietly hemming costumes until they were called onto the stage. Stan was in a side room making tea with Evie, while Eddie and Harold had slipped out to the Miners' Arms for a swift pint, returning just as Ida called a halt and Stan announced that refreshments were ready.

Kathy left off sewing and jumped up with alacrity to reach the head of the queue. ‘Where's the sugar, Stan?'

‘Not sweet enough, eh?' he teased from behind the trestle table laden with teacups and biscuits.

Kathy gave as good as she got, delving a spoon into the sugar bowl once, twice then three times. ‘No, not like Evie, as I'm sure you know better than anyone else by now. Evie, you don't take sugar in your tea, do you? You're sweet enough already.'

Though Evie blushed at Kathy's cheek, she kept on steadily pouring out the tea. ‘Who's next?' she asked.

‘I'll take two cups,' Eddie told her. ‘One for Violet, one for me.'

‘Always the gent,' Stan commented, noticing that Violet had found a quiet spot behind the tea urn and seeing that Eddie was carrying the cups in the wrong direction. ‘Violet's over there, Eddie.'

His friend changed course and thanked him as he went by.

‘Take care of her,' Stan told him without lowering his voice. ‘She's looking a bit peaky tonight. And I'm not surprised after what she told me.'

Eddie sat down next to Violet. ‘Are you feeling all right? Stan hit the nail on the head – you do look under the weather.'

‘I'm tired, that's all,' Violet admitted as she balanced her cup and saucer on her knees. ‘Ta for the tea, Eddie. I really need a pick-me-up.'

‘I saw Ida get you into an arm lock and march you down the street earlier. What was that for?'

‘Nothing – just one of her madcap ideas.'

‘To do with your Uncle Donald?'

‘Yes, but it didn't come to anything.'

Violet's short answers made Eddie feel that he was trying to squeeze blood out of a stone and he took it personally. ‘Look, Vi, if I've done something wrong, you'd tell me, wouldn't you? Then I could try to put it right.'

‘You haven't.' The effort of holding herself together for the last two days was taking its toll and Violet felt close to tears.

‘You're sure it's not something I said after you had the accident on Ida's bike? Wait a second – the brakes didn't pack up on you, did they? They shouldn't have because I only put new pads on the front two weeks ago.'

Violet shook her head miserably then stared down at her lap.

Feeling the distance between them grow every time he opened his mouth, Eddie frantically cast around for another subject. ‘Stan and Evie are getting on like a house on fire over there. Look, she's sending him out to collect the empties. Have you finished yours? Give it to me and let me save Stan a job.'

Taking the cup from Violet, he gave the steaming tea urn a wide berth then disappeared from view, returning empty-handed to arrange to take Violet home on the Norton as usual. ‘Unless you'd rather go home on the bus with Kathy and the others tonight,' he added abjectly.

Violet swallowed hard. What was she thinking, behaving so badly towards Eddie and shutting him out when all she wanted, deep down, was for him to put his arms around her and for her to lay her head against his chest? But the memory of Colin Barlow's sour breath, his hands and lips and the secret she was keeping from Eddie seemed to get in the way of a comforting embrace. She swallowed again and with an effort she pushed the memories to one side. ‘No, I'd like a lift home with you,' she said above the hiss of the urn, the hurt in her heart starting to heal as she saw Eddie's brown eyes light up with relief. ‘I wouldn't miss our ride along the moor road – not for the world.'

It would take time, but in the end Violet vowed to herself that she would put the Ash Tree House incident behind her and never need to mention it to anyone. Eddie would be by her side.

That night, after the ride home, she slept longer and woke up refreshed. On Thursday she busied herself with work. At the end of the day Evie dropped by for a chat, bringing reports that Sybil's recent adverts had attracted some new customers, but not as many as she'd expected.

‘It's to be hoped that things pick up again towards Christmas,' Evie said knowledgeably. After all, she'd watched Lily, Sybil and Annie set up the business and knew it inside out.

‘Yes. Here at Jubilee we have to hope orders coming into the mills buck up. That way the girls will hang onto their jobs and be able to save up for new dance dresses.'