The Willow Pool

‘Then it’s a pity some fly-by-night got her in the family way, ’cause she never knew much happiness in this place. Where was your ma born, by the way?’

‘I don’t know. All she told me was that she was sent into domestic service as soon as she was old enough. She didn’t ever talk about anything before that. Not once. Her life began – and ended, I think – at Candlefold.’

‘There must’ve been a lot of poverty in Liverpool once.’ Nell threw a minute cigarette end into the fireplace. ‘People had so many kids they was sometimes glad to put them into orphanages, or send them to the nuns. At least Dolly kept you, girl. Happen she knew how shaming charity was.’

‘I think she must have, Nell. And I wasn’t being nasty when I said Ma should have left a letter. She worked her fingers to the bone for me, and if she didn’t want me to know about when she was a little girl, or how I was got, then that’s her business, I suppose. It makes you think, though …’

‘Ar.’ Nell got to her feet. ‘Don’t do to go dwelling on how exactly it was, if you get my meanin’.’

‘Which dark corner, you mean? Which hedgeback, and with who? And if he told her that if she loved him she would let him – you know …’

‘Let him have a bit of what he should’ve waited for till he’d wed her? Ar, men always said that; always will. It’s the nature of the beast, see?’

‘Kip Lewis hasn’t tried it on!’

‘Then just wait, girl! Even the best of them are after only one thing!’ She paused, red-cheeked, wondering if this was the time to warn Dolly’s girl how easy it was to get babies, and how difficult they were to get rid of! ‘Anyway, it’ll be up to you to put your foot down, Meg Blundell. You’ll never get a husband if you’re easy. Men don’t run after a tram once they’ve caught it! But I’ll be off to find a few ciggies, if you’re sure you’re all right?’ She picked up the carrier bags.

‘I’m fine, Nell – or at least I will be when I’ve weighed things up. Let’s face it, I didn’t catch Ma’s TB, I’ve got a job and a roof over my head. Things aren’t all bad, are they?’

‘Not when you look at it like that,’ Nell laughed. ‘G’night then, girl. God bless.’

Meg watched from the doorway until the neighbour who all at once had become her legal guardian crept on slippered feet into her house. The sky was darkening; best she should close the door, draw the blackout curtains. She ranged her eyes around Tippet’s Yard. Opposite, the little houses of Nell Shaw and Tommy Todd, and next to them, where numbers 4 and 5 once stood, an empty area. Ma had tried to dry washing there, but the clothes were covered in chimney smuts in no time at all, so she had given it up as a bad job and dried them indoors.

Beside the empty area was the coalhouse, where the coal rations were stored carefully in three separate corners, never to be borrowed from, nor stolen from. You had to be honest, Meg considered. It wasn’t right to steal from your own kind – especially when coal was rationed now to one bag a week for each household.

At the end of the yard were two lavatories and beside them, a washhouse. Once, Ma said, there had been earth closets and a midden, but the landlord was ordered by the Corporation to put in proper sanitation. So now there were water closets and the midden concreted over and a washhouse built – and the rents increased by a shilling a week!

But you got nothing for nothing, Meg shrugged, shutting the door on the miserable yard that had been condemned years ago. And Nell and Tommy were decent folk to have as neighbours.

She thought again about the rent book, then pushed it from her mind. She would worry about it tomorrow. Tonight, there was the sealed package to open, and only heaven knew what she would find inside it. Just to think of cutting the tape and breaking the seal made her uneasy.

‘Right then, Meg Blundell!’ She squared her shoulders and tilted her chin as her mother had done so often in the past. ‘Shift yourself! The blackout, a cup of cocoa and then the fat envelope!’

In that order, and no messing!

Tommy Todd paused beside his coal heap, listening to the sound of Nell Shaw’s slippers as they slithered and slapped across the yard.

Nell and Dolly Blundell, he considered, carefully selecting pieces of coal, had been strange stablemates. Nell as rough and common as the milkman’s horse; Mrs Blundell softly spoken and ladylike – a filly with a bit of breeding. Yet the two became friends the day Nell moved into number 2, and remained friends in spite of Nell’s ways.

There was, he supposed, no accounting for taste, and not for anything would he give voice to his opinions. After all, Nell washed his Sunday shirt every fortnight without asking for payment and he, in turn, swept Nell’s doorstep every week, and the cobbles outside; Mrs Blundell’s too, since she’d been responsible, till she got badly, for the ironing. He also took it upon himself to keep the yard tidy and free from tomcats. That, he considered, was his duty done and his shirt dues paid.

Through the open door of the coalhouse he heard the door of number 2 being closed, then shrugged and walked to his house with the few lumps of coal that must last until he went to bed. The sooner it was used, the sooner he went to his bed. It was as simple as that.

Only when heavy black curtains had shut out the April night; only when she had slowly sipped saccharin-sweet cocoa and painstakingly washed and dried the cup, did Meg break the seal of the package.

She found only papers and let her breath go with relief. Papers relating to her mother’s indentures, set up and signed when young Dorothy Blundell first went to work at Candlefold? Or maybe papers concerning Ma’s childhood?

But domestic servants were not apprenticed, and why should Ma’s parents give her a bundle of documents when all they had wanted was to be rid of her? Meg focused her eyes reluctantly on the flowing handwriting.

THIS CONVEYANCE is made the 1st day of October one thousand nine hundred and twenty-two BETWEEN CANDLEFOLD ESTATES NETHER BARTON IN THE COUNTY OF LANCASTER (hereinafter called ‘the Vendor’) and DOROTHY BLUNDELL SPINSTER DOMICILED AT CANDLEFOLD HALL NETHER BARTON IN THE COUNTY OF LANCASTER (hereinafter called ‘the Purchaser’).

THE VENDOR is seized of the property hereinafter described and has agreed to sell the same to the Purchaser for the price of one shilling (12d) and that the said property shall be vested in the Purchaser …

‘Oh, my Gawd!’ Breathless almost, Meg read on. It looked like Ma had bought this house from the people at Candlefold for a shilling! But who in his right mind sold a house – even a slum like this – for a bob! More charity! Ma had been given a place to live – damn near given, mind you – just five weeks after the birth of her child at Candlefold Hall!

Dry-mouthed, Meg made for the door and Nell, then stopped in her tracks. No! Nell must not know. No one must know yet! Before she said a word to anyone, those pompous words must be read and read again, so there could be no mistaking that the house belonged to Ma, and if what was in that package really meant what she thought it did, then her search for a rent book was over an’ all, because people who own a house don’t pay rent.

The rent, Ma always said, had been taken care of. And so it had, but by the charity of John Kenworthy, Landowner, whose signature appeared with Ma’s at the end of the document. And now, Meg thought incredulously, it would seem that this house was truly hers; willed to her by her mother. Meg Blundell’s house! No landlord to pay six weeks’ arrears to; no bailiff to throw her out!

The fingers on the mantel clock, the only really decent thing Ma had owned, pointed to five minutes to midnight before Meg had read and read again the conveyance and deeds; dry, legal phrases so difficult to make sense of. Yet even so, one thing stood out clearly from all the gobbledegook: 1 Tippet’s Yard had been sold to her mother for a shilling before she left Candlefold. And, far from throwing her onto the street, the gentleman she worked for had allowed her to remain there to have her baby, then put a roof over her head! It was queer, to say the least, and Meg wanted to know why, because nobody, not even people as decent as Ma made out the Kenworthys to be, gave away a house. Not without good reason.

Then all at once the curiosity, the disbelief and anger gave way to tears, and they flowed hot and unhindered down her cheeks.

‘Oh, Ma,’ she whispered. ‘Why didn’t you think to tell me? Couldn’t you, before you went out into the freezin’ cold and sat down outside the lavvies to die, have told me just who I am?’

They left the Rialto when the floor began to get crowded and the dance hall too warm for comfort.

‘You’re a smashing dancer.’ Meg laced her little finger with Kip’s as they walked. ‘I can do fancy footwork with you better’n any other bloke.’

‘That’s because we fit, kind of.’ He didn’t like to think of her dancing with other men. ‘You and me get on well in most things.’

‘Mm. And oh, wouldn’t you know!’ They arrived at the fish and chip shop to read, with dismay, the notice: ‘SORRY. NO FAT. OPEN FRIDAY.’

She should have expected it! Chippies ran out of fat all the time, because fat was severely rationed; shops ran out of lipsticks and face creams too. Hardware shops ran out of mops, brushes, floor polish and paint all the time, and wallpaper had ceased to exist long ago!

‘Never mind – will this make up for it?’ He tilted her chin and kissed her gently.

‘No!’ she teased.

‘Then maybe another …?’ He folded her in his arms, this time with lips more demanding, and because she liked him and had had a lovely time dancing with him, she returned his kisses with warmth.

‘I’m going to miss you, Kip.’ She pulled away from him.

‘And I’ll miss you, sweetheart; more’n you think. Be my girl, Meg? I love you a lot …’

‘Kip, I love you too, but you wouldn’t want me to be your steady, would you? What I mean is –’ she took a deep breath – ‘you’re the nicest man I know, but I’m not ready for courtin’ seriously; not just yet.’

‘So there’s some other bloke you fancy?’

‘No! There’s no one! But I don’t want to be tied to a promise just yet. I still haven’t got myself straight over Ma. There’s a lot of things to be sorted – mostly to do with money.’

‘But I could make you an allotment out of my pay and the shipping line would send it to you every month. You’d never go short – if we were married, I mean.’

‘Married!’

Oh, my Lor’! Here was Kip proposing marriage, near as dammit, and her not ready for it! Not by a long chalk she wasn’t! Just to think of it made her insides churn, because Nell had put her finger on it only last night! Men were out for one thing, so it was best they wed you first! And the trouble was that she wasn’t ready for that sort of thing, because that was how babies happened and she didn’t love Kip enough to have his child; not when you had to do that to get one! Kip was nice and kind, good to dance with and to kiss, but her and him in a double bed making babies was another matter altogether!

‘Don’t look so shocked! I’m not askin’ you to marry me – not just yet. But I’d like you at least to think about it. Tell you what – why don’t I look out for a ring? I know you can’t get engagement rings here any more, but I’ve seen plenty in Sydney. Can’t we give it a try, Meg?’

His words were soft and urgent, his eyes tender, and she came near to hating herself when she said, ‘Kip – I’m nineteen. I don’t know my own mind yet, except that you’re one of my best friends and I like being with you. But it wouldn’t be fair if I made a promise I wasn’t sure I could keep. Don’t go spending your money on a ring – not just yet? Give me time?’

‘OK. If that’s the way you want it, I’ll have to take no for an answer. But I’ll buy a ring, no matter what, and every time I come ashore I shall ask you to wear it – so be warned!’

He was smiling again, and she sensed an easing of the tension between them and was so relieved that she reached up on tiptoe and kissed him gently.

‘I’d like to be your best girl, Kip, if that’s all right with you, but I’m not ready, just yet, to start thinking about – well – serious matters. Not with any man, I’m not.’

‘Then when you do, sweetheart, be sure that I’ll be top of the queue! And don’t worry. I’d never ask for anything you weren’t willing to give. I’d wait, Meg. I’d respect your feelings.’

‘Then what more could a girl ask for?’ she said, remembering the way it had been for a housemaid called Dolly Blundell. ‘And if we don’t get a move on, we’re goin’ to miss the last tram to Lime Street!’ Smiling, she took his hand, hesitating just long enough to whisper, ‘And thanks, Kip, for what you’ve just said. I do care for you – only be patient?’

That night Meg thought a lot about Kip Lewis and about the way he loved her. Yet she, deceitful little faggot, had hemmed and hawed and asked for time, saying she was too young; not over Ma’s death; didn’t know her own mind. But it was none of those things, because truth was that she was in a muddle still about Ma and the people at Candlefold Hall, and a legal document in which her mother was hereinafter referred to as the Purchaser.

She had told no one about the deeds, yet before much longer Nell Shaw must know, because the enormity of her inheritance must be shared with someone; the mystery of it too. So tomorrow, after she had said goodbye to Kip and wished him Godspeed and a safe landfall, she would show Nell what was inside the bulky packet; would hand it to her casually – ‘So what do you make of this, eh?’ – then watch her face as the truth dawned.

What was more, Meg fretted, punching her pillow, turning it over, Nell must promise never to say a word about it; especially to Kip. It was bad enough, she sighed, being illegitimate; what would people around here think if it got about that Dolly Blundell hadn’t been entitled to the wedding ring she wore and had been given a house into the bargain? Ma’s reputation would be in the gutter!

Yet her mother’s good name would be safe with Nell. Nell had been her friend and wouldn’t blab, though what she would say when she got her hands on the packet of deeds was anybody’s guess!

‘Well! Bugger me!’ Nell said. ‘It makes you think, dunnit? I mean – givin’ her an ’ouse for a silver shillin’. It isn’t on, is it …?’ She laid the documents on the kitchen table and fished in her pocket for a cigarette. ‘Tell you what, girl. How about puttin’ the kettle on? A cup of tea is what we need, and sod the rations!’

‘A bit of a shock, Nell?’

‘Not half! Now don’t get me wrong, Meg Blundell, but those Kenworthy folk must have been plaster saints, or sumthin’! I mean who, will you tell me, looks after a girl who was nuthin’ to them but a paid servant, doesn’t show her the door when she’s been left high and dry and in the club, then gives her somewhere to live into the bargain?’

She drew hard on her cigarette, sucking smoke through her teeth, shaking her head in bewilderment.

‘So now you know how I felt.’ Meg stirred the teapot noisily. ‘When I’d got over the shock I thought the same as you. Were those people at Candleford saints or sinners? Did someone have a guilty conscience? Was Ma paid off? I went over it and over it, and y’know what, Nell? I decided that they were decent, even if they were toffs, because Ma never spoke of them with anything but respect and she loved Candlefold till her dying day.’

‘So we let well alone! Doll’s gone, and we don’t speak ill of the dead nor think ill either. If your ma had wanted us to know she’d have told us, so we respect her wishes – say nuthin’ to nobody! Don’t give the gossips bullets to fire – is that understood?’

‘Understood.’ Gravely Meg nodded. ‘And I appreciate you sticking up for Ma.’

‘She’d have done the same for me.’

‘She would, but for all that, Nell – and strictly between you and me – aren’t you just a bit curious? I know I am. I’d give a lot to get to the bottom of it, though where I would start, I don’t know.’

‘At the beginning, I’d say – if you’re really set on knowing. But before you start anything, Meg Blundell, ask yourself if you’re goin’ to be prepared for what you might find.’

‘What d’you mean? Just what might I find, will you tell me?’

‘Dunno. But if you go poking and prying you might find something you didn’t bargain for. When you start turnin’ over stones, something nasty might just creep from under one of them – see? And before you go all toffee-nosed on me, remember I’m on Doll’s side, no matter what.’

‘So if I was to try, Nell, would you be on my side, an’ all?’

‘You know I would, ’cause, let’s face it, I’m as curious as you are, truth known.’

‘So where, if you were me,’ Meg smiled, all at once relieved to have Nell’s blessing, ‘would you say the beginning is?’

‘Can’t rightly say.’ She took one last, long draw on the cigarette end, then threw it into the hearth. ‘The more I think about it, the more baffled I am. Happen by tomorrow I’ll have had a bit of time to take it in. But you’re not serious, are you?’

‘I’m not going to seriously jump in with both feet, if that’s what you mean, but I’d like to know more about the house I was born in and the people who looked after Ma, and stood by her. You can’t blame me for that, now can you?’

‘Suppose not – but be careful. You and your ma got on all right for the best part of twenty years, so ask yourself if raking over the past is what she’d have wanted – bearin’ in mind that she leaned over backwards to keep it from you!’

‘Yes, and bearing in mind that she must have known things would come into the open when she died, don’t you think Ma would’ve understood how curious I am about her precious Candlefold?’

‘So what do you aim to do?’

‘Like you said, the best place to begin is at the beginning, Nell. Once, Candlefold was a fairytale place to me. Ma would talk about it like it was all from a storybook, and I never quite knew if she was making it up or not. But suddenly it’s real. It’s the house I was born in, and the first thing I’m goin’ to do is go to the library and have a look in the atlas for Nether Barton!’

‘Up to you, I’m sure.’ Nell rose to her feet to glare at the pile of offending documents. ‘Think I’ll get me ’ead down for a couple of hours. What time are you expecting me an’ Tommy?’

‘Tea is at six,’ Meg smiled primly.

‘I came by some pickled onions the other day,’ Nell said, hand on the door knob. ‘“I’ve got something for you, Mrs Shaw,” the grocer said, all smarmy. Then he went under the counter and brought out the onions, would you believe? From the look on his face I thought I was in for half a pound of butter – but there you go! You’re welcome to them. They’ll go down nicely with corned beef hash. Sorry I can’t bring a spot of cream for the peaches, girl! See you, then!’

And throwing back her head she laughed until her shoulders shook.

The table was laid with Ma’s best cloth, the cutlery placed neatly. Potatoes cooked gently on the stove; the peaches lay in a glass dish on the cold slab in the pantry. Meg sighed with delight. This was her first party ever, thanks to Kip’s bounty. Pity he couldn’t be here too.

She closed her eyes and sent her good wishes to him wherever he was now. Probably still anchored in the rivermouth, waiting for the convoy to gather. They were, he’d said, going part of the way under escort; stopping at the Azores to take on fresh water, then on to the Canary Islands alone, and across to Panama. SS Bellis was a new ship, and fast – could outrun any U-boat, just as the Queen Mary and the Mauretania did. Once they were free of the slow-moving convoy they could get their revs up, and go like the clappers! Kip had done more sea miles than most young men, Meg thought with pride. Kip loved her and she wished she could love him back; yet love, real love, made her afraid, because things could get out of control, Nell said, and then where were you?

‘Sorry, Kip,’ she whispered to the clock on the mantelshelf. ‘Take care of yourself, mind …’

She hoped he wouldn’t buy a ring in Sydney.

‘Now that,’ said Tommy Todd, ‘was a smashing meal. You didn’t tell us you were a good cook, Meg.’

‘I’m not. It was something easy, and a tin of peaches doesn’t take a lot of opening. But thanks for the compliment, and thanks for coming.’

‘It was kindly of you to ask, girl.’

‘And kind of Kip to provide it for us! Now would you both like to sit by the fire, whilst I clear away?’

‘I’ll help wash the dishes,’ Nell offered, sinking deeper into the chair that had always been Dolly’s.

‘Thanks all the same, but I’ll see to everything after you’ve gone. Give me something to do with myself. I miss Ma most in the evenings, y’know.’

‘I miss my feller all the time,’ Nell sighed, ‘for all it’s more’n twenty years since he was took, God rest him …’

‘That was a terrible war.’ Tommy gazed into the fireglow. ‘The day I got my Blighty wound I was mighty relieved, I can tell you.’

‘Relieved?’ Meg gasped. ‘To get wounded?’

‘Oh, my word yes! When you was wounded bad they shipped you to Blighty, to England. It was worth a badly leg to get away from those trenches. Thought I was in ’eaven in that ’ospital. Clean beds, no more fighting, meals reg’lar. I was lucky.’

‘So how did you get that limp?’ Nell demanded.

‘Was too small for the infantry, me being a stable lad-cum-apprentice jockey, so they put me in a horse regiment. Horses were used a lot in that war. More reliable than motors. Motors was always getting bogged down in winter. We was hauling a big gun – took six horses – and I was on the lead horse. We started getting shelled, and copped one. Horse was killed – went down on top of me.

‘By the time I was fit for active service again the war was over. Kids skit me when I walk past, but I’d rather have a limp and an army pension than what Nell’s man got. Life was cheap in that war. I was one of the lucky ones.’

‘Ar.’ Nell nodded, hooking a tear away with her knuckle. ‘Folks made a fuss at Dunkirk; said it was awful our army retreatin’ like they did, but if I’d been a feller I’d have been glad to get out of that country. No good to us, France isn’t!’

Seeing Nell’s trembling bottom lip, Tommy smiled, diving his hand into his jacket pocket, offering five cigarettes. ‘I stood in a queue for these! Thank God I don’t smoke. I was always a little runt, and folk said that smoking stunted your growth, see. I never growed over five feet, for all that! Go on, Nell. You’re welcome to them!’

Tippet’s Yard, Meg thought later as she washed dishes and scrubbed pans, was an airless, run-down slum that should have been knocked down years ago. Liverpool was a dump, but Liverpudlians were the salt of the earth, and people like little Limping Tommy and brash, buxom Nell made life worth living in Tippet’s Yard. You had to count your blessings, Ma always said, and that, Meg decided, was what she would try to do, because there were a lot of people worse off than she was!

Yet for all that, she knew that this city would never hold her; that somehow, some day, she would find Candlefold. And when she did, she would find Ma’s heaven; that special somewhere she must have yearned for, the night she walked out into that cold, mucky yard to die.

Candlefold. Place of dreams.