Mulligan's Yard Read online

  For Diane Pearson, the best editor in the world . . .

  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

  . . . . probably

  (no apology to lager brewers, by the way)

  I thank you, Diane, for nursing me through thirteen books, for teaching me so much, for your forbearance with this difficult woman. Most of all, I thank you for your friendship, your loyalty and your humour.

  God bless you and yours.

  APOLOGIES

  If there is a Makersfield in Texas, I am sorry that I used the name herein.

  The crematorium in Bolton was built much later than 1921 – I beg licence.

  Any religious community bearing a name similar to the one in this novel should be aware that I mean no disrespect to its founders and fellowship.

  Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Twenty-three

  Twenty-four

  Twenty-five

  Twenty-six

  Twenty-seven

  Twenty-eight

  Twenty-nine

  One

  Diane Hewitt was as bright as a button. She could run like a racehorse, was light-fingered, crafty, and several shopkeepers in Bolton were on the lookout for her.

  In her younger, slightly more innocent years, her gamine appearance had won hearts, but once belts tightened in the wake of the Great War, the charity in people’s souls began to run dry. Many had their own families to worry about. Widows wept, mothers grieved, crippled soldiers begged on street corners.

  So Diane went into the business of finding things. She found bread, milk, fruit, vegetables and, on good days, purses with an odd sixpence or two wedged into folds of worn leather beneath pennies and farthings. She could be in and out of a back kitchen or a scullery without the busy householder noticing any draught created by an opening door.

  At the age of ten-going-on-eleven, Diane broadened her horizons. She picked carefully from a crowd of eager applicants, choosing children who, like herself, were thin and swift, boys and girls with lines of hunger and disappointment already etched into fine, undernourished skin. The rules were few and simple. Groups were formed, scenarios planned, babies, dogs and cats borrowed. A child crying over a lost pet could empty shops and houses in seconds, while a wailing baby was worth a fortune, especially on market days. Like a seasoned choreographer, Diane Hewitt trained the members of her chorus line to slick perfection.

  On a windy March Tuesday in 1921, Diane discovered the wash-house. It was situated in a square originally called Massey’s Yort, now titled Mulligan’s Yard. Rumour had it that an Irish card-sharp had won the yard and its buildings at the turn of an ace, but Diane could not have cared less about names and origins. Her attention was riveted firmly to the present day. She didn’t care who owned what – as long as she got her unfair share.

  She pressed an inquisitive nose against a steam-misted rear window and watched women doing battle with sheets, possers, scrubbers and mangles. Tilly and Mona Walsh were in charge of the huge laundry. Spinster sisters built like battleships, they were poor movers, not at all hasty off the mark. Diane knew the two women from the Temple of Eternal Light, a new faith that had started to burgeon in Bolton’s Deane and Daubhill. Yes, she had seen this pair bobbing and scraping about in the congregation.

  A woman brushed past Diane, turbaned head lumpy with steel curlers, workday clogs slapping the cobbles, a pramload of washing in front of a shapeless body clad in a bottle-green coat. She entered the building, walked to a desk and handed money to Miss Tilly Walsh. After this transaction was complete, the customer passed her purse to Miss Tilly for safekeeping, then hobbled off to claim a place at one of the massive sinks.

  Diane’s gaze was glued to the older Miss Walsh. She was mountainous, a great deal fatter than Miss Mona, with several wobbly chins, a huge belly and legs like twin oak trees. Tilly Walsh took the purse and placed it under the counter. The child’s blue eyes narrowed as she counted the laundry’s occupants. About twelve, she reckoned, though there might have been a couple more behind the steam-heated drying cupboards. Easy pickings? How best to play this one? Lost dog, a sick baby, an accident in Mulligan’s Yard?

  Serious thinking set in. Wandering back on to Deansgate, Diane Hewitt sat herself on one of the steps leading into the Red Lion coaching house. The Red Lion was an unmentionable place in the Hewitt household. Diane’s mother used to borrow a room here, a place where she had taken men. Of course, once the landlord had cottoned on to Brenda Hewitt’s doings, he had kicked her out and had sacked the member of staff who had made the arrangements. Shortly after that event, Diane’s mother had packed a cardboard suitcase and had left the family slum in John Street for ever. A nearly-orphan with a frail brother, the daughter of Brenda Hewitt was now fighting for survival.

  She sucked a thumb, chewed on the filthy, broken nail. Perhaps it wouldn’t be for ever. Mam might come back with a load of money from all the men she was going with in London or some such place. Tuesday. The wash-house would be fuller on Mondays. Mam wasn’t a nice woman, anyway. Gran was always going on about how horrible Mam was. A fuller wash-house would mean more purses, more money. But it would also mean more folk, more eyes, more chances of getting caught. The Misses Walsh were slow and fat, but many of Bolton’s housewives were quick, thin, and used to defending their property in the face of young marauders.

  She must not sit here for too long. The School Board had men on the lookout for children these days. There was even a rumour that those who truanted too frequently might be taken away and put in orphanages. As a breadwinner, Diane had responsibilities. If she went to school every day, she’d have fewer chances of getting her hands on food or money. But she had better start putting in the odd appearance: an orphanage place could mean that her younger brother and her grandmother might starve.

  A shadow fell across her body, so she shifted sideways to allow its owner into the hotel. In a way, an orphanage was almost attractive. Three square meals, clean clothes, no messing about and stealing . . . What about Joe and Gran, though? The shadow remained. When, after several further seconds, no one ascended the steps, she glanced upwards at a tall, dark-haired man dressed all in black.

  ‘And what are you doing here, young lady?’ he asked.

  Diane made no reply. He was Irish. Gran had ordered Diane to stay away from Irish people. They were usually drunk or Catholic, sometimes both.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be at school?’ the shadow asked.

  She lifted a bony shoulder. ‘Nits,’ she replied, then added, ‘and fleas,’ for good measure.

  He leaned on an ebony cane. ‘Wouldn’t it be a good idea to go home and clean yourself, in that case?’

  Again, she shrugged listlessly.

  ‘Well, you can’t stay here. We don’t want the hotel catching fleas, do we? You could infect the whole building.’

  He didn’t need that cane, mused Diane. He wasn’t old. Idly, she wondered how much the silver-crowned item might bring if offered to a second-hand stall on the market. She stopped gnawing at her thumb. ‘Fleas can’t jump that far.’ She jerked the chewed thumb over her shoulder in the direction of the foyer.

  ‘But they might jump from you to me,’ he argued reasonably.

  She awarded him her full attention. No flea on God’s earth
could ever possess the temerity to light on such a man. From her present position in life, low down on the Red Lion’s steps, he looked as big as the giant in Jack and the Beanstalk. ‘You’ll never have fleas.’ Her tone was flat.

  ‘Won’t I, now?’

  ‘You’re too clean.’ He owned the appearance of someone who took a bath every day.

  ‘Nonsense.’ He stooped over her slightly. ‘A flea doesn’t know the difference between dirty and clean. All it wants is a free ride and an ample supply of blood.’

  ‘Eh?’ Dark eyebrows raised themselves. ‘Blood?’

  ‘What else did you think they feed on, child? That’s why they bite. They’re blood-suckers.’

  Diane Hewitt had never given a thought to the domestic and social arrangements of lower life forms. Fleas bit folk. Everybody recognized flea-bites. Like freckles, they appeared on the skin before disappearing or relocating from front to back, leg to arm, hand to foot. ‘So . . . so fleas eat us?’

  He nodded gravely. ‘See, I’m standing here next to you, am I not?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘If fleas were athletes, they’d beat every human being into a cocked hat. They can jump so far – well – it would be like one of us leaping over a cloud.’

  ‘Like the giant in Jack and the Beanstalk?’ This fellow could clear the Town Hall clock if he set his mind to it. And his cane would clear half-a-crown and all. He talked a bit like a teacher, though he was a sight more interesting than most of the dried-up sticks in Diane’s school.

  ‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘So a few might leap from you to me, then from me to someone inside the inn. Why, there’d be murder done if the best hotel in Bolton became infested.’

  She understood now. The creatures on her body were both threat and asset. ‘I’ll go away for sixpence,’ she announced bravely. ‘For a shilling, I’ll stop away.’ She spat on her hand, then pushed the wet palm against her chest. ‘Promise. Hope to die if I don’t keep my word.’

  He smiled.

  ‘It’s not funny,’ Diane insisted. ‘I’m serious.’

  ‘Are you, now?’

  She didn’t want to like him. In fact, she needed to hate him, because he was one of them, one of the folk who dressed well and hung on to money so that proper people couldn’t eat or have a decent set of clothes. And he was Irish into the bargain. Mr Wilkinson down at the Temple of Light was always going on about Catholics and all that kind of stuff. ‘Yes, I’m serious. I’ve got something you don’t want, so you can pay me to keep it to myself.’

  ‘Ah. A business arrangement, so.’

  ‘That’s right’. He was good-looking, she admitted grudgingly. Big broad shoulders, large brown eyes, some black curls peeping out beneath the brim of a tall hat. His voice was soft, fascinating, the sort of voice that might put you to sleep if he read a story out loud. ‘It’s business,’ she snapped.

  He looked at his watch. ‘And if I don’t pay?’ What a bright child this was. Thin, straggly brown hair hung over her forehead, almost obscuring eyes that seemed to cut through to his core. The irises were dark blue, the cheekbones as fine as he had ever seen. ‘What if I get the police?’

  He would not do that. Diane stared into his face and saw something for which she could find no name. It wasn’t pity or sympathy – she had the ability to recognize such expressions. No, it was as if he already knew her, as if he’d known her always.

  ‘Or the School Board man? I could go and fetch him.’

  ‘I told you – I’ve got fleas.’

  He pulled a silver disc from a pocket. ‘A florin,’ he said. ‘But don’t push your luck, Miss . . . What is your name?’

  Her mouth watered. Two bob. But he held the money aloft while awaiting her answer.

  He coughed impatiently.

  ‘Mary Pickavance,’ she replied, after a short spell of hesitation.

  His head shook slowly. ‘I don’t think so. Give me your full name and address – don’t worry, I won’t visit as long as you behave yourself. It’s just that I like to have some idea of my money’s destination.’

  She wavered. ‘Diane Hewitt, number thirteen John Street,’ she admitted eventually.

  ‘And your parents?’

  She sighed. They were all the same, this type. They either wanted to know everything, or they ignored you completely. Busybodies and Couldn’t Care Lesses, Gran called them. ‘My dad died in the war. My mam . . . she went away. There’s me, our Joe and my gran. Joe’s got crooked legs and Gran’s got no heart.’

  Immobilized by this final piece of information, the man waited for further news.

  ‘Rickets,’ offered Diane. ‘Our Joe caught rickets.’

  ‘And your grandmother?’

  ‘She went poorly when Dad got killed. Mrs Atherton next door told me my gran lost all heart after Dad died and . . . and . . .’

  ‘And what?’

  She took a deep breath. ‘And after Mam went no good. She used to be no good in Bolton, but now she’s no good somewhere else. Gran lives in the kitchen. Mr Atherton brought her bed down when she lost her heart.’ Why was she telling him all this? The truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth, all for a measly two bob?

  He gave her the coin. Something was stirring in the region of his stomach, a feeling he recalled from childhood. But remembered hunger was one thing; hunger contained now within this small scrap of flesh and bone was more urgent. ‘Diane?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘How do you get by?’ He noticed that the blue eyes were old, too knowledgeable for a person of such tender years.

  ‘We get some off the welfare – Gran calls it parish pennies. Then the Temple folk send stuff on a Friday – bread and a bit of meat, like. Our Joe cleans fireplaces and does a bit of step-stoning for old folk, then I . . . well, I get what I can.’

  ‘Stealing?’

  Lying to such a person was strangely difficult. ‘I look round the market at closing time. There’s fruit and that on the floor, stuff nobody wants, gone a bit off, some of it. Leaves fall off cabbages. If you get enough leaves, you can cook them as if they’re a real cabbage. I run errands and do bits of jobs.’

  At last, he placed her. This was one of several who had been standing outside when Freddie Williams had lost over two pounds of sausage, a shank of ham and three rabbits. There had been a small gang, a member of which had fallen next to a tram outside the butchery. While much screaming and wailing had ensued, two ragamuffins had nipped into the unsupervised shop and relieved Freddie of a substantial amount of merchandise.

  She squirmed under his steady gaze. ‘We have to eat,’ she said. ‘For some of us, it’s . . . well, it’s steal or die.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Are you one of them Catholics?’ she asked, seeking a change of subject. His eyes were boring into her, cutting through, seeing her as she really was.

  ‘I am.’

  Catholicism was one of Gran’s pet hates. Catholics bred like mice, according to Ida Hewitt. When they weren’t having babies, they went round sinning as often as they liked, because they could get away with murder. All they had to do was tell the priest, give him a few coppers, then they could just go and do whatever they wanted all over again. Mr Wilkinson said Catholics had never seen the Light and would not see the Light in a million years. They worshipped what he called icons and plaster statues, then drank themselves stupid as soon as they got paid. Their children were always dying, because there were too many of them, and their fathers spent food money on Satan’s liquor.

  ‘What’s on your mind?’ the man enquired now.

  ‘Eh? Oh, I were just thinking, like, about sins.’ Her sins could never be forgiven until she could look into the Light and see the Almighty. She was a terrible sinner, too. ‘Can a priest really get rid of your sins? Like if you pinched some things or killed somebody, would it not matter to a Mick?’

  He shook his head. ‘Not quite as easy as all that, Diane. If we steal, we have to return the property before being forgiven. As for murder
, well, there is no forgiveness for that until the murderer gives himself up to the police.’

  Diane’s eyes were huge. ‘But I thought, well, I—’

  ‘A lot of people think, child. My religion is not the easy option.’

  ‘Neither is mine,’ she breathed. Her religion was becoming a pain in the neck, because she could never get away from it. There was thanksgiving for the Light every Wednesday, celebration of the Light on Sundays, bearing of the Light on Fridays, beautification of the temple on a rota basis, then the bringing of the Light to 13 John Street whenever Mr Wilkinson felt like it. The beautification was the worst, since it involved brooms, shovels, mops and a lot of polishing. ‘Have you heard of the Light?’

  He had. ‘Are you one of the Temple?’

  She nodded. ‘I’m a loud-it-ary.’

  ‘Laudatory,’ he corrected.

  ‘That’s what I said. I have to get cleansed soon. Then I might get made up to a bearer. Mind, you have to have a white frock. I don’t think I’ll be able to get one.’ She didn’t really want to be a bearer, anyway. Bearers got taken under Mr Wilkinson’s wing. It was something to do with some foolish virgins in the Bible, and Mr Wilkinson made sure that his virgins didn’t go daft like the ones in his Great Book.

  The man reached out and touched her cheek. ‘Well, Diane Hewitt of thirteen John Street, I’d better away and carry on with my business.’

  Diane shook herself out of the reverie. ‘What is your business?’ she asked unexpectedly.

  ‘This inn, the yard, a couple of farms, some shops, cottages – shall I go on?’

  She jumped up. ‘You’re him, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose I must be.’

  ‘The gambler.’ There was an accusatory edge to her words.

  ‘No. My father was the gambler.’

  She swallowed hard. According to Mr Wilkinson, gambling was the greatest sin, and Catholics gambled all the time. They were forever having raffles and games of lotto, grand Christmas draws, Easter draws, tombolas, shove-ha’penny stalls, guess your weight, how many raisins in a cake. ‘Gambling’s bad,’ she mumbled.

  ‘Perhaps.’