Daisys secret, p.26
Daisy's Secret, page 26
David cast his eyes heavenwards, his face inscrutable. Laura watched him for a moment, thinking that perhaps he had something more to say, perhaps even some quip about Daisy having better things to do with her time than scribble in a diary but he said nothing and it finally dawned on her that his silence was telling. A burst of excitement exploded within her.
‘She did keep a diary, didn’t she? Where is it? Tell me. Oh, I would so love to see it.’
‘Sorry, no, that wasn’t her style. But I was just thinking, Daisy was a member of the Local Oral History Society.’
‘Oh!’ All the excitement drained out of her. Although Laura appreciated that these sort of tapes were a valued method by which an older generation could pass on information on how they’d lived their lives in the days before television and computers and technology changed employment and life styles for ever, yet she was disappointed. ‘I wanted more than snippets about how the war was won, or when rationing was brought in. I long to discover more personal, intimate details, to know and understand the woman herself; to get inside her head.‘
‘Suit yourself, Laura, but you might find them worth a visit. I don’t think you’d be disappointed. I have the telephone number of the secretary somewhere. I’ll drop it in some time, if you like.’
For once in her life, Rita quietly sat and listened to her sister’s tale without interrupting, so avid was she for every mouth-watering detail. She learned all about Florrie’s many disappointments over the state of the farmhouse, the hard work she had to do, the loneliness of the place, even the foulness of the weather. Florrie’s bitterness at the way things had turned out was all too evident.
‘Oh Rita. You can’t imagine what I’ve gone through,’ Florrie moaned, dabbing at her eyes with a fresh white handkerchief. ‘I’ve been so lonely up there, on that mountain. And you wouldn’t believe the wind and the rain we get. My nerves are in shreds.’ But if she’d hoped for a glimmer of pity, or a softening of Rita’s stance, she was soon to be disenchanted.
Rita folded her arms across her skinny bosom and gave a smirk of satisfaction. ‘Serves you right, you daft happorth. You should’ve had more sense than to run off with him in t’first place: a man old enough to be your father, and a perfect stranger you knew nowt about. I warned you not to marry him and see how right I was.’
‘I thought I was in love.’
Rita made a pooh-poohing sound. ‘You fancied yer chances at lording it over the rest of us. But it hasn’t worked, has it?’
Florrie glared moodily at her sister. Sometimes Rita had an unhappy knack of putting her finger right on the pulse. Of course she’d hoped that marrying Clem would take her up in the world, out of Salford and into a fine house smoothly run by a housekeeper and a bevy servants so that she wouldn’t have to lift a finger. Why else would she choose to marry such an unexciting man as Clem Pringle, fond though she’d been of him at the time? Instead, all she’d achieved was a lifetime of toil and misery.
‘Sometimes Rita, I don’t think you have a heart. I’ve really suffered, can’t you see? Have you no pity?’
‘Not when it comes to no-good little madams like you were when you were young, and like our Daisy is now. You’ve got your just desserts, no doubt about that. And if our Daisy isn’t careful, she’ll get hers an’ all.’ Rita was positively glowing with moral rectitude. She’d waited years for this moment. ‘Ever since you walked through my front door months ago, we’ve heard nowt but how hard done to you are: how tired and lonely, how Clem doesn’t understand you. Now you tell us your husband isn’t rich, you don’t live in a posh house, you’ve no servants and you’re overworked. You and the rest of the flippin’ universe. Hard cheese. You aren’t the only one to be suffering, so stop feeling sorry for yourself and get on with life.’
If there was an iota of common sense in her sister’s advice, Florrie certainly wasn’t in the mood to take it. Twin spots of fire burned on flat pale cheeks as she furiously sought self-justification. ‘What about losing my child? You don’t seem to appreciate how that has affected my life.’
‘You could’ve tried again but no doubt a child would have got in the way, taken Clem’s attention away from you.’
‘That’s not true. I would’ve loved another only I was too afraid the same thing might happen again. Anyway, you’re wrong. Clem isn’t the attentive sort. He doesn’t like a fuss, and he’s far too busy on the farm.’
‘Ah, that’s the way of it, is it? You were wallowing in self-pity and he wasn’t fussing over you enough. So you turned into this moaning Minnie where nothing were ever right.’
‘How can you be so cruel?’
‘I speak as I find, take it or leave it. There’s others have lost childer, them what grew up and were loved for years. Nay, not me, thank God, but plenty in this street, and there’ll be more before this war is over. They don’t wallow in self-pity. They pull themselves up by their boot straps and carry on.’
‘Drat you, our Rita.’ Florrie’s tears were all too real now, though more from anger and frustration than genuine distress. She was utterly convinced that throughout her married life she’d suffered terrible deprivation and anguish and nobody cared; not her husband, not even her own sister. ‘You never did like me and I’ll not stop where I’m not wanted.’
‘Nobody’s asking you to. You don’t belong here, Florrie Pringle. So stop your moaning, pack your bags and go on home to your husband, even if he isn’t flippin’ rich. Or else batter somebody else’s ears with your troubles. I can’t say we care one way nor t’other where you go or what you do, but we’ve had enough of your whining here.’
‘I’ll not stop where I’m not welcome.’
‘And you’re certainly not that.’
Florrie marched upstairs, stuffed her new clothes into her bag and stormed out of the house, making sure she banged the door shut behind her. Determined to have the last word, Rita whipped it open again to stand screaming from the doorstep as her sister strode away through the entry. ‘See if I care, you useless baggage!’
When Joe came home later, he gazed with suspicion upon his wife standing quietly at the sink and asked where Florrie was.
Rita prevaricated, concentrating on peeling potatoes with short, furious stabs of the knife. ‘How should I know? I’m not her flippin’ keeper.’
‘Why have you got that frosty look on yer face? Nay, you two haven’t had another falling out? Not in the middle of all this.’
‘She started it. Miss High-and-Flippin’-Mighty. Does she think she’s the only one with problems? I told her: you can go and jump, you. Go and lord it over someone else fer a change.’
Joe shook his head, looking exasperated. ‘Nay lass, you’re a nasty piece of work at times. What else did you say?’
‘I told her to go back to her husband.’
‘It’s not your place to tell her what to do. For once in your life, woman, don’t interfere. Haven’t you done enough damage to our Daisy? Leave well alone, why don’t you?’
Rita turned on him in a fury. ‘What’s come over you, sounding off all of a sudden? I’ve done nowt to our Daisy save what was best for her.’
‘What’s best for you, you mean.’
‘You agreed. You did nowt to stop me.’
‘I’d need to call out the Manchester Brigade and the Auxiliary Fire Service to stop you, once you’ve an idea fixed in yer head. And what else happened? Go on, tell me the worst.’ Joe was determined to get to the bottom of this matter because he could see by the triumphant expression on his wife’s face, there was more to it than she was telling.
Rita smirked. ‘I was right all along, she’s been lying to us all these years. There is no fancy big house, no rich husband, only a flamin’ farm.’
‘Nay lass,’ Joe said, his tone weary, ‘I knew that already. Didn’t you ever guess? It was fairly obvious when she never wrote to show off her new-found wealth, or invite us over to view this grand house she supposedly lived in. Why you bother to be jealous of her I’ve never been able to work out. She’s got nowt to write home about at all, none of her dreams have come true. No big house, no rich husband, no wonderful love-match, and she’d give her eye-teeth to have a daughter like our Daisy.’
His words seemed to inflame Rita’s rage still further. ‘She’s welcome to her, wittering on about that flippin’ child she lost, as if she were the only one. What about me? Haven’t I suffered most with our Daisy behaving like a loose woman? I told our Florrie to go home to her husband, and good riddance.’
Joe grabbed his wife by the arm, an unheard of action in this house, and gave her a little shake. ‘You can be a venomous old cow, Rita, when you put your mind to it. You know she’s depressed. Has been for years, ever since she lost the babby. She can’t help it, poor lass, that’s the way she is.’
‘Well, she doesn’t have to weep all over me! I’ve enough troubles of me own.’
‘She’s yer sister, fer God’s sake!’ Joe shouted and turned to the door, his face a mask of concern and anger. ‘I’ll go after her. It’s not safe out there. Bombs dropping all over the show. Didn’t you hear the siren? We’re in for another battering. Who knows when the next one will drop.’
Rita was untying her pinny, reaching for her coat and scarf. ‘Don’t you try to play the hero, or stick up for that little madam, it doesn’t suit you. Get down the shelter. I’ll fetch her back. The silly woman can’t have got far.’ Rita slapped the potato peeler into his hand. ‘And finish them spuds afore you go. We need us tea, German bombs or no German bombs.
The secretary of the Local Oral History Society, a plump, bustling lady with spectacles hanging on a chain around her neck, led Laura with a cheery smile to an impressive filing system. ‘If your grandmother recorded anything, anything at all, it will be listed here. What was the name again? Daisy Thompson.’ An agonising wait while she riffled through countless cards. ‘No, sorry, nothing under that name.’
‘Oh well, it was just a thought.’ Laura turned to go.
Chrissy, who had insisted on coming with her on this quest, said, ‘Perhaps your gran was a modern woman and used her own name for personal matters. What was it?’
‘Atkins. Daisy Atkins.’
The secretary tried again. ‘Ah yes, well done, dear. Daisy Atkins. Not just one tape, in fact, but several. You’ll need to provide references, fill in a form, become a member of the library and so on, if you wish to borrow them.’
‘No problem,’ Laura said. She felt as if she’d struck gold.
Daisy’s own voice came over strong and clear. ‘My name, for the sake of the tape, is Daisy Atkins, although I am known locally as Thompson, my married name.’
‘Lord, she sounds as if she’s giving evidence in a police station,’ Chrissy chuckled.
‘Hush, I can’t hear.’ Laura rewound the tape to listen again to the bit she missed. They were all three, Laura, David and Chrissy, sitting in the kitchen at Lane End Farm, anxious to hear whatever the tapes could tell them.
‘This is my story, a part of it anyway, for those of my family who wish to hear it. An oral diary, and because of the personal nature of what I am about to disclose I hope listeners will bear in mind that I did always what I thought was for the best.’
David said, ‘This sounds pretty private. Would you like me to go?’
‘No, I want you to stay. You’ve heard so much of Daisy’s story already, and she was your friend. You might as well know the rest. There are too many tapes to hear it all at one go, so we’ll start with this one - intriguingly labelled ‘Robert’s Inheritance’.
‘Twice I have lost a son and in neither case through death, though it might just as well have been for the pain it caused. I don’t blame Robert for leaving. He was upset and cross. I hope and pray that he will not prove stubborn about accepting his due inheritance which I give to him now, as a gift, before I die. I’ve put it in trust for him so that he can’t do anything silly in a temper, like selling it. With that in mind, I tell my story. Perhaps, in time, he will forgive me, or at least understand.’
They came to the part where she’d finally found the farm, and how Daisy had taken at once to Clem. ‘Florrie was not settling back in Salford. She got caught up the blitz, and that’s when everything changed.’
Rita caught up with Florrie at the corner of Weaste street where she was arguing with an ARP warden. He was ordering her into a nearby shelter and Florrie was furiously resisting. ‘I have to catch my train. I’m not going down no shelter. Anyway, I suffer from claustrophobia.’
‘You’ll suffer from much worse Mrs, if you don’t get off this street right this minute.’
‘I’ll take my chances. I’m going home, I tell you.!’ Florrie made to set off but the warden grabbed her arm and dragged her back to the entrance of the shelter.
‘Don’t be so flamin’ stubborn, woman. It’s my job to see you’re safe.’
A mother and two children appeared on the scene and joined in the argument. ‘Nay, leave her be. She’s not the only one who doesn’t like bleedin’ shelters. I’ve left a pan simmering on the hob, Bill, so I’ll just nip back to take it off before I go down.’
Rita said, ‘We’ve a shelter of our own in t’back yard. We’ll go there, thank you very much, if we need to,’ and she made a grab for Florrie, capturing her in an arm lock so she couldn’t run off again.
‘There’s no time for a flippin’ mother’s meeting here, fer God’s sake!’ The ARP Warden looked about him in desperation, as if he might whip off his tin helmet and tear his hair out if the irate trio didn’t behave. ‘Women! Do as you’re told for pity’s sake. Take them childer in that shelter this minute.’ Then he pushed the young woman and her two children down the steps into the crush of people already hurrying below ground for protection. As he turned to do the same with Florrie and Rita, the world exploded all around them. It came with a surprisingly dull clunk but they felt the pavement shake and open beneath their feet, smelled the acrid scent of smoke and raw fear, saw the sky itself blaze with fire as they were lifted, arms wrapped tight around each other, and thrown backwards on a blast of hot air.
Chapter Twenty
The next guest to follow in Miss Copthorne’s intrepid footsteps during Daisy’s first week of business was a commercial traveller in agricultural foodstuffs by the name of Tommy Fawcett. He wouldn’t be permanent, he explained, but definitely a regular as staying on farms was generally his preference; so much more convenient in his type of trade.
It was arranged that whenever he was going to be in the area, he would write and let her know his dates well in advance. ‘You’ll soon get used to my routine, it doesn’t vary much,’ he explained, tipping his brown felt hat over one eye, ‘not like my dance routine which is even more imaginative than Fred Astaire’s.’
Daisy laughed. ‘Nobody can dance as well as Fred Astaire. I won’t have folk who tell fibs in my boarding house. We might as well start as we mean to go on.’
He pulled a sad face. ‘I can’t resist trying to impress a pretty young girl. Mind you, my mother always told me my bragging would get me in trouble one day. If I were as good as him I’d be in the films too.’ He pronounced it filums. ‘All right, mebbe he has the edge, but I am involved in amateur dramatics. Back home in Blackburn, I’m famous for my twinkle-toes,’ and he did a few steps, there and then on the lino, making such a lovely clicking noise that it brought Miss Copthorne and Clem to see what the noise was all about. In no time they were all laughing as he jumped up on to a chair, then tap danced across the kitchen table and down onto the next chair. Oh yes, he was a real card was Tommy.
Next came a widower by the name of Ned Pickles. He was a small, wiry man in his late fifties, as stiff and starched in his manner as the high collar about his long skinny neck. One glance at his tired, gloomy face, the dusty spectacles, threadbare suit and well polished, if down-at-heel shoes, and Daisy decided he needed looking after. He was clearly missing his late-lamented wife, which would mean he’d have something in common with Clem, who was still pining for the absent Florrie. Daisy hoped the two of them might get along famously. She pushed her carefully devised list of rules back into her apron pocket and put him in the back bedroom; the one with the blue eiderdown and a bookcase, since he claimed to be fond of reading and brought a stack of books with him when he moved in the very next day.
Sometimes, Daisy wondered at her own temerity in embarking on such a scheme. Here she was in the midst of getting a lodging house started just as rationing was going from bad to worse. The value of the meat ration had dropped from 1s 6d to 1s 2d, a state of affairs she complained about loud and long to anyone prepared to listen, quite certain that those in power would not be struggling on such meagre rations. Jams and marmalades were also now on ration and Daisy made a mental note to dig out Aunt Florrie’s recipe books and have a go at making her own; assuming she could buy some sugar, of course.
But she meant to do things properly. People were already sick and tired of ‘Lord Woolton Pie’ , ‘Boston Bake,’ mock cream, mock marzipan, mock beef soup and mock everything else. Daisy knew that she must feed her guests well if she was to keep them. Living on a farm and being able to produce better food than was generally available in the town, was her one advantage. It was also the most sound reason for her lodgers being prepared to put up with the long trek up the lane every day.
But then, they were so lucky, having this lovely place to live in.
Florrie was the first to recover. Finding herself unexpectedly clasping her sister to her breast, she quickly pushed her away and gave her shoulder a little shake. ‘Are you all right, our Rita? By, that was a close one.’
Rita struggled to sit up, looking dazed as she began to pick bits of plaster out of her hair. ‘Am I all in one piece? Eeh, thank God!’ She began to cough, her throat thick with lime dust.
‘I reckon we must have cushioned each other as we fell.’
