Angel Meadow Read online

  She saw it happen and at once she became still, like a young animal that has caught the scent of danger, even allowing the man with whom she had been arguing to make off with his trophy. She straightened up and over the edge of the crowd they looked into one another’s eyes and the message winged its way from one to the other.

  So, it’s still the same then?

  Oh, yes, will it ever be any different?

  No.

  Dear God!

  It was glorious! It was a disaster!

  He was the first to recover. Tearing his gaze from hers he spoke briefly to the warehouseman, nodding in her direction but without looking at her. The warehouseman nodded and, leaving the two gentlemen staring after him in disbelief, began to make his way towards her. As she watched Josh Hayes he disappeared into the crowd.

  “Miss Brody,” the man said respectfully, as he reached her side. “Was yer wantin’ something? I can fetch it to yer if yer care ter go an’ sit on’t bench by’t wall. You an’ the other lady. ’Ow many pieces did yer ’ave in mind?”

  She wanted to run after him, push her way through this seething crowd of so-called gentlemen, grab his arm and shriek at him that she had no need of his help, no need of his charity, no need of any man to give her a hand with her own business. She was perfectly capable of managing her own affairs and did not want his favours, but how could she? She desperately needed this cotton to keep Mary busy on her machine in the parlour which would lead to Jennet standing behind her stall on the market where she would sell what Mary had made. Working men’s shirts from the coarser, stronger fabrics, baby dresses and little nightdresses from the finer cotton. Well made and, to give them a little added something, the babywear beautifully embroidered with little motifs to appeal to a mother, done by Jennet of an evening. So she couldn’t afford her pride, her rage that he should feel the need to give her preferential treatment, nor the scalding knowledge of why he did it.

  Realising with intense annoyance that she was trembling, she turned away and did her best to give her attention to the confused warehouseman. She was dimly aware that Jennet was holding her arm as though to keep her steady and she found she was glad of it. She had not forgotten that strange day when he had ridden her down, lifted her up in tender arms, held her and carried her home, then vanished from her life as though what had passed between them had not happened, or if it had, he himself had forgotten it. But she had been so wrapped up in the crisis which had hit not only herself but the whole of Lancashire that she had made herself believe she had no time for the softer things in life, and certainly when they extended to a man, to men who had absolutely no part in her life.

  “Nancy,” Jennet whispered, “are you all right? Only everyone is looking at us. Will you not move to the bench as the warehouseman suggests and let him bring the pieces over to us?”

  “I will not be beholden to him, Jennet,” Nancy hissed, wishing it could be true, glaring about her at the men who, seeing her turn, all looked hastily away. It would create bad feeling now that they knew Josh Hayes was favouring her – a woman, and what might they deduce from that? – but there was nothing to be done about it now. She had her cotton and so, for a week or two, they would be safe. They had a life. The wolf was still at the door but there would be food on the table and coals for the fire. The rent would be paid and money for new boots for Kitty would be found. They managed, the four women, with what they had, wearing boots and last year’s gowns, patching and darning, but the child grew so quickly, three years old already and her boots were too small for her before you could turn round from having just laced her into them. Little dresses could be let out, pieces put in, hems let down, but boots were a different proposition altogether.

  “I know, dearest.” Jennet’s voice was soothing as she helped Nancy to the bench just as though she were an old woman. She felt like an old woman at times. Scurrying frantically here and there, from this place to her place on her knees at the inn, from the market stall where she helped Jennet, who was not really cut out for shouting her wares, having been brought up to be quiet and retiring, then back again to the house to give Mary a hand. Life had become one long and constant tussle so that at night, though she was bone-weary, her body aching, her mind unable to switch itself off, she tossed on her bed from the moment she got into it until the moment she got out of it. She would savagely envy Mary who slept peacefully beside her, secure, she supposed, in the knowledge that she, Nancy, had it all in hand. Dear God . . . Dear God, let the war be over soon. Let the cotton come flooding in and let me forget the man who has just given me a few weeks’ respite.

  The rain was still falling, though in a steadier, heavier downpour as his mare walked dejectedly along Bury New Road. He bent his head to keep the rain out of his eyes but it only ran off the brim of his hat in a small waterfall so that he could barely see and down the back of his coat collar, soaking through to his shirt. He wore a waterproof cape but the water just ran off it into his boots but somehow he couldn’t find the interest even to care. Jesus, what was he to do? She lived in his heart, in the pure agony of his mind and in his soul and no matter what he did he could not seem to wrench her out of it. He’d tried everything, even taking up with a certain attractive woman who lived in Cheetham Hill, the young and neglected wife of an elderly gentleman with a small engineering firm whom he had met in the way of business. He had been invited to dine and the young wife had made it perfectly clear to him that his attentions would not be unwelcome and though it had satisfied his physical needs he found it most distressing at times, just when he was about to penetrate her, to see Nancy Brody’s scarred face on the insides of his closed eyelids.

  He hunched even deeper into the chafing collar of his cape and so deep was his misery he did not even turn his head when he passed the small house where the woman who was in his thoughts lived. Goddammit, he would have to do something soon. He wanted more from life than a furtive hole-in-the-corner affair with a lonely and deprived woman who was the wife of another man, and though his pleasure in his boy, his love for him and the boy’s love which was returned was a sweet joy to him, it was not enough. He wanted a wife, more children, a proper home, not the luxurious hotel his home had become since his mother and father left.

  God almighty, he was cold and soaking wet. He wished he had taken up the gentleman’s practice of carrying a hip flask of brandy with him. A good swig would put some fire in his belly and sustain him until he got home to a hot bath and a hot meal; but then why should he wait until he got home? There was the answer just across the road in the shape of the Grove Inn where he could take a glass of brandy and sit by the leaping flames of a good fire. He had taken a glass or two there before and his mare would be looked after in the landlord’s stable which had been there, and still stood, since the days when the premises had been a coaching inn.

  The boy took his animal, promising to give her a rub down and a handful of oats until the gentleman came for her and to take his time since it was dry and warm in Mr Ainsworth’s stable. He pocketed the sixpence Josh gave him and, whistling through his teeth, began to rub down the mare with a handful of straw.

  She was on her knees, her arms bare, her back swaying, her head drooping, the brush in her hand sweeping in great arcs on the flagged floor and beside her was a bucket of hot, soapy water. She didn’t look up as his feet stopped on the bit of floor she was just about to scrub, merely waiting patiently until he removed himself, for surely it was plain to any fool that he should get out of her way. Her hair had come loose from the chignon she had contrived earlier in the day and fell in a cascade of ringlets about her flushed face, and down the front of her short-sleeved blouse which was unbuttoned at the neck he could see the twin half-moons of her white breasts almost to the nipple.

  “Won’t be a minute, sir,” a cheerful voice from the bar called out. “Some chap dropped his meat pies and there were gravy everywhere. Nancy’ll be done in half a tick. ’Urry up, Nancy, there’s a good lass, an’ let the gentleman get by
.”

  Still she did not look up. “Sorry, Mrs Ainsworth. I’ve nearly done. Sorry, sir, if you could just—”

  Before she could finish the sentence and to the open-mouthed amazement of every man in the bar, the gentleman who had just come in bent down, took her by the forearms and dragged her to her feet on the slippery floor. She almost fell but he had her fast and when she looked into his face every last one of them saw the colour drain from hers.

  “What the devil d’you think you’re doing?” he hissed at her, his face so close to hers his saliva sprayed her.

  She blinked, so amazed she seemed not to know who he was or what he was up to and so could not answer, even if she knew the meaning of his question.

  “’Ere,” Mrs Ainsworth said truculently. “Never mind what she’s up to, what the ’ell’s up wi’ you?”

  She might not have spoken.

  “I asked you what you’re doing here,” he snarled dangerously, giving Nancy a shake that nearly had her off her feet and it was perhaps this that brought her to her senses.

  “Let go of me, let go of me, you bastard.” The fuse of her anger was lit instantly and was as furious as his, though neither of them was aware what had caused it, or if they were was not about to acknowledge it. She began to fight him, clawing to get away from his grip but his rage – was it rage or something deeper? – made him as strong as an ox and he shook her again as though she were a rag doll. The brush fell from her hand and her head lolled from side to side and the customers were mesmerised into total silence.

  “What does this mean? Why in hell are you scrubbing this bloody floor?” he babbled, unable to form coherent words. “I won’t have it, d’you hear. You’ll come with me now.”

  “Take your hands off me.” While from behind the bar Ginny Ainsworth unlocked her frozen mind and began yelling for her Sid.

  “You’re coming with me. I’ll not have you working in a place like this. I presume you are working.”

  “Why else would I be on my knees scrubbing someone else’s floor?”

  “I don’t know but I mean to find out. I’m taking you home.”

  “Let me go; let me go.”

  But he was too far gone, too incensed, too horrified, too close to breaking down with shame and guilt and his love for her, to listen and before the fascinated gaze of the whole assembly he put his arms about her, lifted her bodily from the floor and carried her outside into the driving rain. In an instant she was wet through to the skin and so was he. He had removed his oilskin before making a dash from the stable to the bar and now the pair of them, still glued together by his determined arms, were as wet as though they had just come from a dip in the Irwell.

  He drew her round the corner of the building into a patch of darkness which hid them from others but in which both could see the glitter of each other’s eyes. He pressed her up against the wall, the clothing between them so plastered to their skin they might have been naked. Especially Nancy. Her breasts and the darkness of her nipples, even in the dark, were clearly visible to his ardent eyes and when her arms, which had been fighting to get herself free of him, went round his neck and clutched him to her the water in their clothing was squeezed between them, running down their bodies. He wanted her and she wanted him. It was as simple as that. Nothing else mattered, the past, the future, even the now, which meant that someone would soon come out of the inn to find out what had happened to Ginny Ainsworth’s scrubbing woman. For a brief moment when both of them had no time to think about it, to consider what was important to them, they allowed themselves to rejoice in the ferocity of their gladness. Without thinking about it they allowed themselves to live, to think wholly and fully for themselves, knowing there could be nothing more wonderful anywhere in this cold world they had created, he for himself, she for herself, than the love and passion and wonder which each of their bodies generated for the other. Their mouths met, wet and slippery with rain which ran through their hair, which was plastered to their skulls, and across their faces. It filled their mouths, which were open and seeking, pouring off the gutters and on to them just as though they were standing beneath a waterfall. Heat flamed in them so that Nancy felt it would surely dry the rain that slicked her body. She was moaning with need and so was he and when his hard, wet hands went to the neck of her bodice and cupped her breasts she arched her back so that he would have easier access to them.

  “Aah, my dear love . . . Nancy . . .”

  “Josh, please . . .” and was she begging him to go on or to stop? Who was to say, for at that moment Sid Ainsworth lunged round the corner, almost cannoning into them, and it was over. The madness, the wonder, the flame of bewitchment had them both in a grip so tight it took several moments for them to acknowledge Sid’s aggrieved presence.

  “Well, call me a bloody fool but I never took yer fer a tart, Nancy Brody, so if that’s yer game yer can ’op it, fer me an’ our Ginny run a respectable place ’ere.”

  With that he turned on his heel and disappeared round the corner.

  22

  They met her at the door just as they had the last time Josh Hayes brought her home. Annie, patient, enduring Annie, had an expression on her face that seemed to imply she was not surprised. Mary was wringing her hands, a habit she had when excited, and Jennet looked her usual self, anxious and loving. Mary, still a child in many ways, hopped about from foot to foot, her bright eyes going from their Nancy’s face to Mr Hayes, knowing, of course, that something was up and waiting for Nancy to explain. But it seemed Annie and Jennet were curiously unamazed to see Nancy Brody and Josh Hayes arriving on the doorstep together, both in their oilskins and looking like a pair of “drowned rats”, Annie was to say later. His mare was tethered to the gatepost and at once Scrap, who had run out when the door opened, began to bark hysterically at the shadowed, unfamiliar shape at the end of the path. Being almost mid-summer, it was not quite dark.

  “Can’t someone shut that damned dog up?” Josh said irritably as he dragged at Nancy’s back towards the front door, with the evident intention of coming inside.

  They had argued bitterly all the way home as he repeated stubbornly that he would see her to her front door.

  “I can manage perfectly well by myself. After all it won’t be the first time I have done it.”

  “Oh, I’ve no doubt about that, Miss Brody, no doubt at all.” His voice was bitter. “And I can only say I am astonished that you should put yourself in such a dangerous position.”

  “Are you indeed? Perhaps you have heard of the saying ‘the devil drives where the needs must’, or something like that.”

  “Oh, I have indeed, but I cannot believe that—”

  “If you don’t believe me then there’s no more to be said, so perhaps it would be as well if you got on that damned horse of yours and galloped off home. I don’t need protection.”

  “Nevertheless, I insist.”

  “Mr Hayes, you have just lost me the only job I could get and where I am to get another I don’t know. You are perhaps aware that there are thousands of people on relief in this city.”

  “Not you, Miss Brody, you can be sure of that.”

  “I don’t know what you mean by that remark and I am not interested in an explanation, so if you would leave me alone I would be obliged.”

  “No doubt you would but I shall walk with you just the same.”

  “I am perfectly capable of—”

  “Walking home alone? So you have just said but while I am with you . . .”

  “You are not with me, Mr Hayes, so please, please, will you not just go on about your business.” Her voice broke a little. “I am . . . upset . . .”

  “You are upset? How d’you think I felt coming through that door and finding you on your knees scrubbing the bloody flags?”

  “I don’t know what you felt and anyway, what has it to do with you?”

  “You can ask that after what has . . . taken place between us?”

  “Nothing took place between us.”


  “Nothing! Miss Brody, if it was nothing to you, which I don’t believe, then let me say it was something to me.”

  “You took me by surprise.”

  “Can I assume by that remark that any man who ‘takes you by surprise’ is as warmly greeted as I was?”

  “No, of course not. It was just that . . .”

  “Yes, Miss Brody?” But by this time they were at the gate and at the lighted window were her family, watching out for her as they always did even at this early hour. She was not expected home until after closing time and it was far from that but, still, one or the other would sit at the window looking for her, ready to welcome her, to pet her a little, to put a cup of hot tea in her hand, weak with no sugar these days, to let her see that they thought she was very brave to work in such a place.

  She was terrified, enchanted, appalled, bewitched by that moment of loveliness at the side of the inn, remembering how she had wanted to take his hand as they walked side by side along Bury New Road, to lean against him sighing, to turn her face up to his to be kissed again; in other words to act like some silly, simpering female who has just been kissed for the first time. Which she had! And liked it. She had never known the rapture of touch, of a caress, of a hand on her that she welcomed, of soft kisses and fierce kisses which whirled to her head like the wine she had once drunk with Mr Bradbury when she and Jennet went to Oldham to hire their sewing-machines. The feelings had spiralled to other places as well, places she had known existed but had been innocently unaware could . . . could be aroused to such sensations. How could she explain it? even to herself. There were no words, at least she knew none, to describe how she had felt in Josh Hayes’s arms, none. She had accepted a year ago when he had brought her home from Market Street that she loved him. It was a deep, quiet thing, hidden from him, kept safe and warm in her heart where it would remain until the end of her days, she supposed. She had cradled it to her, in silence, keeping it from cold and noise as one might a newborn child. It was certainly not to be talked of, or shown to others, especially not him, and now, for the space of five ecstatic minutes, she had clung to him as though he were a rock in a stormy sea, held his hard, male body as close to hers as possible, felt his need, acknowledged her own and, she was only too sadly aware, would have lain down for him in the mud and muck of the inn stable yard and let him do to her, gloried in letting him do to her what Mick O’Rourke had forced on her in St Michael’s graveyard.