Free The Travelling Man by Marie Joseph Page B

arm-rests.
    ‘Aye. All talk and nowt else,’ she shouted. ‘Like someone else I could mention.’ She stabbed him in the chest. ‘No wonder you and that gyppo got on so well together. You’re two of a kind. No you don’t, miladdo!’ When Jack tried to get up she put a hand on his chest and pushed. ‘Me own son gave me my marching orders this morning. Said I could go to the workhouse for all he cared. How’s that for honouring your poor old ma? But what chance does he have against that sod he’s married to?’
    Jack made a valiant effort to have a bit of a say. ‘Your Jim wouldn’t do that. I know him better.’
    ‘Do you?’ Mrs Greenhalgh’s broad behind quivered. ‘But you don’t know that daughter-in-law of mine, do you? There isn’t the room for her and me in the same house, not one day longer. So do I move into here, and do we get married, or do I go to the workhouse? You’ve promised to marry me often enough. I reckon we’ve been courting for at least twelve months.’
    Courting? Unnoticed, Annie crept through into the back to sit on her bed and stare unblinking at the roundbellied copper. Her father and Mrs Greenhalgh married? The loud-mouthed common woman living
here
? Taking the place of her mother? Sharing her father’s bed? She shuddered. What would the boys think to it all?
    As if reading her thoughts the raucous voice from the other room bellowed: ‘I only had the one lad, but he’s caused me more bother than all your five put together. I’ll look to them, Jack. You know that.’
    ‘And Annie?’
    Was that her father asking the question, as meek and mild as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth? Annie held her breath. She leaned forward, a hand to her mouth.
    ‘The day I come here, out she goes.’ Mrs Greenhalgh was making no attempt to speak quietly. ‘Two women can’t share the same house. I know that better than most. It doesn’t work.’
    There was a silence, then the noise of the rocker moving along the flagged floor. Annie clutched her throat at the inference. That loud-mouthed woman was sitting on her father’s knee. She hadn’t wanted Jack to belt his daughter, because that would have taken his mind from the real issue. And the real issue was that she was determined to move in here.
    ‘Annie could get a job at the mine. She’s young and strong; she could work on the screens for a long time yet.’
    Annie couldn’t believe it. Her father was pleading for her … he was … and surely that meant that he must care? Not much, but a little? She moved to the door to hear better.
    Mrs Greenhalgh’s next words chilled her through.
    ‘An’ how long would that last once they found out she was expecting? Have a bit of sense, Jack. She can go to the workhouse to have the baby, they’ve a special section for girls in her condition. Come on, Jack. Think of the talk once it gets out. Starting with that mealy-mouthed Edith Morris …’
    Annie leaned against the whitewashed wall. Oh, dear, dear God, how could she have let it happen? Here on this bed, over so quickly, paining her so much. She closed her eyes, in her mind a picture of Laurie Yates sliding the torn blouse off her shoulders, kissing her and whispering words of love. She remembered the way his body had trembled, and the heat coming from him. All she had wanted was to be held and given the comfort she craved. ‘Oh, Laurie,’ she whispered. ‘Come back to me.
Please
. Don’t wait a year. Come back
now
.’
    ‘I’m going down the street.’
    Jack stood in the doorway and stared at his daughter. He couldn’t see any difference in her; she looked just the same to him, with the flat cap on her head and her clothes bunched round her as if she’d put them on all at once. Then she uncrossed her arms and he saw the unmistakable enlargement of her breasts, the slight swell of her stomach as she stood up to face him. Anger rose in him, a fierce and burning anger as if a naked flame had been run up and down his spine. He