A Woman’s Fortune

‘Where are we?’ said Peter, waking from a deep sleep. Sue and Evie had also nodded off, and Robert was still asleep on his mother. ‘It must be the sight of those mattresses that sent me to sleep. They look so comfy compared to this seat.’

Everyone gazed out of the windows at the countryside they were passing through. In the strong summer sunshine the scene was glorious.

Evie wished she hadn’t slept and missed seeing some of this: on either side of the road hedges grew tall and green, dog roses twining through them. At breaks in the hedges, through field gates, she could see cows and sometimes horses grazing. It was all so huge and so green that she couldn’t quite believe her eyes.

‘Countryside – there’s just so much of it,’ said Peter. ‘I’d no idea it was so big.’

‘And the air smells different – sort of nice,’ said Sue, winding down the window.

They continued travelling south, amazed at how green everything was and how clean. Sometimes they passed through a town or village and Jeanie would point out a pretty house and wonder aloud if they were heading for one like that.

Eventually Sue looked at her watch and declared it was ‘dinnertime’ and if Fergus would like to find a suitable place to stop they could have something to eat. Fergus turned off the road in the next market town and pulled up in a car park where there was, everyone was pleased to see, a sign for public lavatories. The little town was quiet on a Sunday lunchtime and the shops were closed when Jeanie took her children for a short walk to stretch their legs after enduring the cramped seats.

When everyone was back at the van and standing around in the sun, Sue got out a cake tin, which was filled with rather warm sandwiches, and when they’d eaten those, another in which there was cake, and Jeanie poured lemonade from a flask. Michael produced a bottle of beer with a flourish, which Fergus declined to share because he was driving. Evie noticed that her father drank it all himself then.

The sandwiches and most of the cake eaten, the Carters and Fergus climbed back into the van and set off again. There was a stop at a petrol station, where Sue paid for the van to be refuelled and bought some boiled sweets, but by mid-afternoon the novelty of the journey had worn off and everyone was bored, fidgeting and eager to arrive. They had long since passed signs for the city of Birmingham and still they headed south.

‘Not too far now,’ said Fergus when Robert asked for the tenth time if they were nearly there. ‘We’ll be there before nightfall, don’t you worry.’

‘Thing is, Fergus,’ said Peter, reasonably, ‘it isn’t dark until nine o’clock, so that’s quite a long time yet.’

‘It could well be,’ said Fergus, vaguely. ‘We’ll have to see how it goes …’

‘Do you know what this place is like, Fergus? Have you ever been there before?’ asked Jeanie.

‘No, I haven’t, Jeanie. I just said to Brendan that I’d take you in the van. I think it might be quite a small village as I’ve never heard of it and I had to look up the way on a map. I don’t think Brendan knows much about it either. But he trusts his friend Jack Fletcher so it’ll be all right, don’t you worry.’

‘But it is all right for us to be there?’ asked Jeanie, beginning to get anxious. ‘We don’t know this Jack Fletcher, and Brendan’s a long way away now.’

Seeing Jeanie quietly wringing her hands, Evie picked up her mother’s mood and began to worry too. What if there had been a mistake and there wasn’t an empty house after all? What if someone else was living there? Or maybe there’d been a mix-up and they’d been given the wrong address? Or he could have been misled by the owner of the house …

Peter, sensing her distress, nudged her gently with his elbow. ‘C’mon, Evie, it might even be nice,’ he whispered bravely.

It was late afternoon when Fergus drove past a shabby-looking farm and slowed down at a sign announcing a village.

‘Here we are,’ he said. ‘Church Sandleton.’

Everyone sat up and peered out to try to get the gist of the place. There was an assortment of old and new houses lining the road, a pub and a couple of shops.

‘Slow down, Fergus, and let’s remind ourselves what it is we’re looking for,’ Sue said, fishing the writing pad out of her handbag. Then she had a rummage around for her reading glasses and Fergus pulled into the side of the road while she found them and put them on. ‘The house we’re looking for is called Pendles, so keep your eyes peeled for that name,’ she said.

‘Pendles …’ Michael murmured, looking to the right and left, while Evie, Peter and Jeanie craned forward in their seats to see the nameplates on gates as Fergus drove slowly on.

Jeanie caught sight of a cottage with a garden full of blooming roses and lavender. ‘Slow down, Fergus. Is that it?’ She squinted hopefully at the sign on the gatepost, then saw it said Lavender Cottage. ‘No …’ Disappointed, she sat back.

‘Wait, wait, what’s that one?’ said Sue, pointing over to Fergus’s side of the road where a fine square house was set back with a black front door and steps up to it from a wrought-iron gate. ‘P … It’s P-summat, I can’t quite see …’ She couldn’t keep a note of hope from her voice.

‘Prospect House,’ said Fergus, and everyone sighed and subsided in their seats.

‘It must be on this road somewhere because the address is “High Street”,’ said Sue.

‘Brendan told me that Jack Fletcher said it’s towards the end of the village. I thought we’d find it easily,’ Michael added.

The end of the high street was in sight as the buildings became more widely spaced and gave way to hedges and fields ahead of them. Evie felt a flicker of panic. What if there was no such place? Would they end up living out of Fergus’s van? She dismissed the ridiculous thought immediately but her stomach was now churning nervously.

‘It’s just a derelict shop this side and what looks like it might be a market garden over there,’ said Sue. ‘We must have missed it. Let’s turn round and go through again.’

‘No, wait,’ said Michael. ‘There! Over the shop. It’s called Pendle’s. It must be that.’

‘It can’t be,’ breathed Jeanie faintly. ‘No one said anything about a shop. We’re looking for a house.’

‘It has to be that,’ insisted Michael. ‘Stop here, Fergus, and let’s have a look.’

Fergus pulled up and Michael climbed stiffly out and went to the front of the boarded-up shop. There was a door at one side with wood planks nailed over it and a heavy padlock securing a hasp. Next to it was a large expanse of window, also covered in planks. The paintwork around the window, what was visible of the door and on the fascia, was a dull green. The deep fascia spanned the whole of the front and on it in peeling gold capital letters was painted the name ‘PENDLE’S’.

There was no doubt this was the right name, Jeanie saw. She hoped it wasn’t actually the right building, that there would somehow be another place called Pendles, and it would look more like, if not Prospect House then at least that cottage with the pretty garden they’d passed earlier.

‘Brendan said the key would be here, is that right, Sue?’ called Michael, looking up at the building, his back to them all waiting in the van.

Evie guessed her father was disappointed too and hiding his face until he was ready to put on a brave show.

‘Round the side, under a brick, apparently,’ confirmed Sue.

Michael went up the side of the shop, saw a ruined-looking wooden door, lifted the sneck and disappeared through it. A few moments later he reappeared holding up a key.

Oh dear, thought Evie. That means it really is the right place. And it’s going to be awful, I know it is.

She could hardly bear to watch as her father fitted the key to the padlock and it opened. Everything now had a dreadful inevitability. He removed the padlock, eased open the door with its planks attached to the frame and went inside.

‘Come on,’ said Sue, heavily, climbing out of the van. ‘I think we’re home.’

The Carters and Fergus stood in the shop part of the building. The good news was that the electricity was on so they could at least see how awful the place was behind the boarded-up window. There was long counter parallel to the interior wall and floor-to-ceiling drawers and shelves against the far wall. They were empty and dusty, a few dead flies littering the surfaces and the front window, and mouse droppings on the floor. There was no indication what Pendle’s had ever sold or how long the place had been empty, but the smell was stale as if it had been abandoned a while ago.

‘God save us,’ muttered Jeanie, her voice trembling. ‘A shop. Not even a proper house.’ Her face was white with tiredness and disappointment.

‘You stay here. I’ll go and look upstairs,’ said Sue. She thought she’d better learn the worst and break it to Jeanie gently rather than risk her kicking off unprepared. It had been such a long day, it didn’t look like they would be able to get to bed for ages yet and Sue had the unhappy idea that Jeanie’s fuse might just be ready to blow. ‘Come with me, Peter, Evie, and let’s see what we can find.’ She opened the door behind the counter and sure enough it led to a hallway with two rooms opening off and a flight of stairs to the floor above.

‘Right, you two,’ Sue began when the door had closed on weighted hinges behind them. ‘Your mum’s had enough and I don’t blame her. Let’s see what works, what we can get working this evening, and decide where everyone’s going to sleep. Everything else can wait until tomorrow.’

‘Are we really going to live here, Grandma?’ asked Peter. ‘Did Dad know it was a shop?’

‘I don’t know and I don’t know, Pete, but we’re here tonight and the main thing is we’re all together. So far as I know no one on earth has ever heard of Church Sandleton, so we’re most likely safe from that Mr Hopkins.’

As she spoke she led her grandchildren into the first of the downstairs rooms behind the shop. It was a large sitting room, empty of furniture, with a dirty wooden floor and a bare light bulb suspended from the centre of the ceiling. Evie tried the switch and the bulb glowed dimly. Through the unboarded window they could see into a small backyard, paved but with weeds peeping through between the slabs. There was a little brick building at the end, which they all guessed was a privy.

‘It’ll do,’ said Sue stoutly, looking round the room. ‘Your mum and I will know what to do with this, I reckon.’

Evie smiled, feeling less dismal, and she saw Peter was bucking up, too.

‘The kitchen will be the other room,’ said Sue. ‘It’s make or break there, I reckon,’ she added, leading Evie and Peter back to the cramped hallway and into the room next to the sitting room.

‘It can be put right and your mum will come round to it – if we’re allowed to do as we like, that is. It’s not our place, don’t forget. I haven’t had a chance to work it out yet, but I think we’re renting it from Jack’s friend, and we don’t even know who he is yet … Oh, this is big. It must be twice the size of Shenty Street’s kitchen. Needs a lot of cleaning, though,’ she added, looking at a solidly built but very grubby cream-coloured electric cooker.

Evie opened a door at the back and found a pantry with a cold slab and a vent to the outside to keep the air cool. It was empty except for a cardboard box on one of the shelves. It looked like a recent addition, being free of dust, and she opened it and gasped in astonishment.

‘Look, Grandma,’ she said, bringing it out and putting it on the built-in dresser. ‘There’s a note with Dad’s name on it and a loaf of bread and a packet of tea. Who can have left this?’

‘One way to find out,’ said Sue, unfolding the lined sheet of paper and holding it at arm’s length because she’d left her glasses in her handbag in the shop room. ‘It’s no good, Evie, you’ll have to read it to me. Never mind it’s addressed to your dad.’

Evie saw that the letter was elegantly written with a fountain pen:

Dear Mr Carter,

I hope you have had a good journey. I am sorry about the state of the shop. Jack Fletcher says you are a friend of his and need a place to stay, so I hope it will do for now.

The electricity is working. Please accept the bread and the tea.

I look forward to meeting you shortly.

Yours sincerely,

Frederick Bailey

‘Well I never!’ exclaimed Sue. ‘Our first piece of good luck, and I’m hoping not the last. ’Course, we’ve never met Jack Fletcher, but let’s not fret about details. Obviously Brendan has some influence with folk, even down here. Maybe things aren’t as bad as we thought.’

‘I’ll go and show Mum,’ said Evie.

‘You do that, love. It might just pull her back from the brink. Peter and I will go and look upstairs and see if we can cope, eh? Whoever this Frederick Bailey is, at least he knows this place is a shambles. Mebbe he’ll be round in the morning to sort it all out.’ Though I wouldn’t bet on it, she thought.

Upstairs was pretty grim, too, but there was an electric water heater over a wash basin, and even a working lavatory. The three bedrooms were bare of furniture, dusty and stuffy in the heat, but there would be room for all of them, as there had been in Shenty Street.

‘I think we’re staying, at least until we sort out summat better, don’t you?’ Sue asked her grandson.

‘I reckon you’re right, Grandma. Let’s go and tell Fergus we can start unloading the van. It’s going to be dark soon and I’m that hungry I can hear my tummy singing.’

‘Good thinking, young fella,’ said Sue. ‘I won’t put up with an unclean house, but just for tonight I think I may have to break that rule.’

The van was unloaded far quicker than it had been packed up that morning. Fergus and Michael took the bedsteads and then the mattresses upstairs between them while Jeanie and Evie carried in the chairs and the boxes for the kitchen. The mangle went into a corner of the kitchen.

Fergus was invited to stay the night, Peter agreeing to double up with Robert so as to leave his bed free for the helpful Irishman, but Fergus said he’d rather be getting home. He didn’t mind driving late at night if it meant his own bed at the end of it, and his wife, Kate, waiting for him, so Sue made him a cup of tea and gave him some of the cake left from earlier, and then the Carters waved him on his way with heartfelt thanks and love to be passed on to Brendan and the family.

The sun was setting in a red sky as the forlorn family watched the rear lights of Fergus’s van disappear down the road and they waved until he was out of sight. Then they filed back into the shop through the boarded-up door and Sue, Michael and the boys went to make up the beds.

‘We won’t unpack more than necessary,’ said Jeanie to Evie, leading her into the kitchen. ‘I don’t know as we’re staying, despite that Frederick Bailey’s letter.’

‘But it will be better when we’ve cleaned it up and got our things where we want them, I’m sure, Mum. And at least we’ve got Dad away from Mr Hopkins.’

‘Thank the Lord.’ Jeanie looked around the big filthy kitchen and shook her head. ‘You know, Evie love, I’m really trying to see this as the start of a new life, a hope that things will be good for us from now on in a different place. That’s what your grandma would be saying to you.’

‘And she’d be right, Mum. We’ve got somewhere to stay, at least for now, and Mr Bailey must be a good sort, don’t you think, as he thought to write that note and leave the tea and bread?’

‘Yes, love, but we don’t know him, do we? We’ve never even met Fergus’s friend Jack, who arranged this with Mr Bailey. And if we do stay here we’ll have to pay rent. Your grandma and I have a bit of money saved from the washing but it won’t go far. We’ve lost our laundry business now, and your dad’ll need to find a job straight away.’

‘I know, Mum, but didn’t Brendan say Jack Fletcher has an ear to the ground and might come up with something? And Dad can start looking tomorrow. I know he’s been a bit … daft with the betting, and then this card game with Mr Hopkins, but mebbe he’s learned his lesson.’

‘I want to think so, love, I honestly do. But somehow I can’t see your dad changing, and that’s what’s worrying me. I’ve seen the road he’s been going down for a while. Mebbe it’s too late for him to be any different.’

Evie wanted to argue that their lives would get better now they had a chance to start again, all of them together in a new place, but they’d lost so much by running away – all their friends, not least – and she couldn’t bring herself to lie to her mother. In her heart she knew that Mum was probably right: Dad would never change. She only hoped he wouldn’t drag them down further.

She thought about Billy – how he had kissed her farewell and told her he’d wait for her to come back. Was it only this morning? It seemed like days ago.

Quietly contemplating their new lives, she felt furious with her father. Stupid man! Stupid and selfish. His selfishness had caused his family to lose everyone they knew and cared for, everything Mum and Grandma Sue had worked for, and their little home in the town where they belonged. Now they had only each other.

For a moment she stood breathing deeply until her anger subsided.

‘We’ve got each other and we always will have,’ she said, trying for a smile. ‘Together, who knows what we can manage?’

CHAPTER FOUR

As Evie woke up very early in a strange room, the light streaming through the uncurtained window, and remembered the upsets of the weekend and her parting from Billy, she was comforted to see the familiar bulk of Sue in her own sagging bed close by.

‘Awake, Evie?’ Sue smiled. ‘New home, new life, lass. Shall we be up and at it? I’m keen to see what that shop part is like. I had a few thoughts about it in the night. Let’s get your dad busy taking down the boards and we’ll see better what’s what.’

‘Gran, you always know how to make the best of things,’ Evie said, feeling less anxious. ‘So much to do … I’ll go down and make a pot of tea while you get up.’

It was impossible for Evie to feel miserable for long with Sue’s remarkable energy and enthusiasm rallying her.

Sue and Evie were up and making toast when Peter appeared, playing a cheery ditty on his penny whistle.

‘You’re in a good mood,’ Evie remarked to Peter, as he smiled at the music, quietly tapping his toes.

‘No school,’ said Peter simply.

‘But you’ll have to go sometime.’

‘Not for ages and ages. It’s the summer holidays from the end of this week. Mum and Dad won’t send Bob and me to school for one week, will they, Grandma?’

‘They haven’t even had the chance to think about school, Pete,’ Sue replied. ‘I reckon you’re safe now until September.’

‘Yippee! Though I won’t tell Bob just yet. Let him stew, like.’

‘Don’t be cruel,’ laughed Evie. Within five minutes it was smiles all round. The music was jolly and lifted their spirits.

‘You can help your dad with those boards and let some light into the front,’ said Sue, as Michael and Jeanie came running in.

Peter gave his father a look that said he’d rather not help him but his words belied that. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I’m good on ladders – if we have one, that is?’

‘Saw one round the side yesterday when I fetched the key,’ Michael told him. He took a piece of toast and went off with it to find the ladder and his tools. All their things had been unpacked so quickly from Fergus’s van the previous evening that it was difficult for everyone to remember where they’d put their belongings.

‘You sound keen to get on,’ said Jeanie to her mother, sounding anything but keen herself. She looked as if she hadn’t slept at all and her eyes were red.

‘No point in delaying,’ Sue replied. ‘You never know what you’ll find.’

‘You’re right, Mum, of course,’ Jeanie pulled herself up, ‘though it’ll have to be an awful lot better than I think it’s going to be if we’re to stay here. The place is rundown – and a shop, for goodness’ sake!’

‘I’ll have no defeatist talk,’ Sue answered, though she was smiling. ‘We don’t even know who owns it, and we’ve yet to meet Brendan’s friend Jack Fletcher, either. Or maybe he owns it? I’m confused about that, I admit.’

‘Me, too,’ said Jeanie. ‘I expect someone will appear to tell us – especially if they want some rent,’ she added.

‘Come on, get that toast down you – and you too, Peter,’ Sue commanded, passing over mugs of tea. ‘It could be our lucky day.’

‘Give over, Mum. No need to go overboard,’ said Jeanie, but she winked at Evie and Peter.

‘Maybe there’ll be buried treasure,’ said Peter, as he led the others through to the front, bringing the plate of toast with him. ‘A secret cellar full of gold.’

‘Aye, and I’m the Queen of Sheba,’ said Jeanie. ‘Where’s Bob? Is he getting up?’

‘Sort of. He said his stomach aches but I told him to stop whingeing and see if it felt better when he came down,’ said Peter without a trace of sympathy. ‘I think he’s worried about going to a new school. I haven’t told him yet we’re not going,’ he grinned.

‘I’ll go and tell him and see if he’s all right. You know what he’s like with his sensitive stomach.’

It took most of the morning for Michael and Peter to remove the boards from the window to the street and stack them out of the way, while Jeanie and Evie found some dusty curtains in the attic and tried to get the place cleaner and more comfortable, and Sue unpacked their boxes. The whole family went to view the unboarded shop from the pavement, eager to see if it looked more promising than it had the previous evening.

‘At least we’ll be able to see out,’ said Michael. ‘And it’s a big room.’

‘A big room for what?’ snapped Jeanie, her anger with him not yet dampened down. ‘And everyone else can see in now, too. What are we going to do there, sit having our tea like goldfish in a bowl?’

Robert started pulling fish faces, his mouth silently working like a guppy until Peter gently cuffed him round the ear.

‘No, love, I only meant—’

A young woman with a baby in a pram and a toddler clutching her arm came along the pavement and the Carters moved aside to let her pass.

‘Good morning,’ the woman said, smiling. ‘Nice to see the old shop opened up.’

‘Morning,’ said Michael. He peered into the pram, turning on the charm in front of the pretty lady. ‘Now that’s a bonny baby … We’re new here and know nowt about the place. What was the shop, do you know?’

‘Yes, I can hear you’re not from round here,’ said the woman, but kindly. ‘It was a general household store. Mr Pendle sold buckets, brooms, seeds, string – you know the kind of thing. There’s still a call for it but people go to the new shop in the village now. Mr Pendle was old and couldn’t keep the business going when his health started to fail. That was a while ago. I’d heard that Mr Bailey was talking about finding new tenants.’

‘Mr Bailey?’ prompted Sue.

‘Frederick Bailey. The owner.’ The woman looked puzzled, evidently expecting Sue to know that.

‘Oh, aye? Well, Mrs …?’

‘Lambert. Josie Lambert.’ She held out her hand to shake Sue’s.

‘Mrs Lambert, we’re all very pleased to meet you.’ Sue introduced herself and her family. ‘Would you care for a cup of tea? I’m sure we can find summat for the little ’un, too, though I’m afraid we’ve nowt suitable for the baby,’ she added. ‘It’s nice to meet new folk and we know no one around here. If you have a few minutes we’d be glad to learn about the old place and this Mr Bailey.’