Chandlers Green Read online

  Alf exhaled slowly before framing his reply. ‘Sykes and Moorhead did the best for their client, which is what they get paid for. This is 1960, you know, not the Dark Ages. Life’s a free-for-all now, never mind them who thinks they’re better than the rest of us. I worked for this place, I earned it. I didn’t sit on my arse while my dad paid my bills.’ And that was another thing. ‘Your father still owns yon land.’ Alf jerked a thumb over his shoulder. ‘But you keep him locked up, don’t you? Aye, we’ve all heard.’

  Richard Chandler shivered involuntarily. With the deeds in the bank, house bought and paid for, what was to be done? ‘If it takes me the rest of my life, Martindale, I shall make sure you live to regret this day.’ These words were delivered in a tone that was quiet, but menacing.

  ‘Why? Did you feel safe while I was down in Bolton? And are you threatening me? Because I’ve a witness in a bedroom here, Mr Chandler, a chap measuring up for wardrobes. Shall I get him to write down six feet by four with a tall lid to fit over that paunch of yours? So we can bury you? Full military honours, of course.’

  Richard Chandler had taken enough. He fetched his prospective purchaser from the living room and led her outside.

  ‘The key,’ called Alf just before the door closed. ‘And if owt happens to this place, like spontaneous combustion or flooding, I shall know who to blame.’

  The door slammed, then the key clattered through the letter box.

  ‘I’ll get the locks changed tomorrow,’ Alf told his wife. ‘I wouldn’t put it past him to have copies of every bloody key in this village. I hope other folk have had the sense to make themselves safe from him. He can’t go marching about as if he owns the whole flaming world, Leena.’

  Leena sank onto the top stair. ‘Have we done right, love?’

  ‘Course we have. It’s nice up here, fresh air, lovely views, places where we can walk without ever seeing a factory chimney. All my life, this is what I’ve wanted.’

  ‘Because of him? Has it all been to get your own back?’

  Alf sat beside his wife and placed an arm across her shoulders. ‘No, it’s been about you, love, especially since you had the TB. Me and our Marie and our Colin – we thought we were losing you when you went up to that open-air hospital. What’s the point of them policies, eh? What use would they be if you died from breathing in the filth we get down yon? It’s all settled. This is a high-up place in more ways than one, a decent village with good air and a chance for you to grow strong.’

  ‘I am strong. We could have gone to Bromley Cross or Edgworth.’

  ‘This is higher.’

  ‘This is where you can rub his nose in his own mess, too.’

  He paused before answering. ‘Aye, happen there’s summat in what you say, Leena. But we’ve done it now. If you like, I’ll smarten the place up and sell it on, then we can get somewhere else nice. Whatever you want, love.’

  She pondered for a few seconds. ‘I’d like to live in this house. It’s as if I can feel her here, as if she wants me to take over.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Miss Forrester, you daft lummox. Keep her clock. I feel as though we should start it up again – I’m sure she’d like that.’

  ‘Still a romantic, eh?’

  She nudged him with her elbow. ‘Take me home, lad. I’m starving – I could do murder twice over for a toasted teacake.’

  Number 34 Emblem Street managed to be a cut above its neighbours. There was no undue pride attributed to its occupants, but the Martindales lived well, kept their house in good order and obviously had a few bob tucked away. This situation was accepted with equanimity by the neighbours, because Leena and Alf Martindale had never feared hard work, had not carried on as if they felt better than the rest.

  Marie Martindale, a lively and pretty girl in her early twenties, remained at home with her parents. She had her fair share of followers, but no-one had taken her fancy thus far and she often declared herself to be ‘on the warpath’ whenever she went out with her friends. Educated at the Catholic grammar school, she was a good all-rounder with no particular interest in academia, though she held down a decent job as a legal secretary and was generally considered to be a competent employee.

  Her mam and dad were up to something. They had rattled off in the van straight after dinner and Mam’s face had been flushed. It hadn’t been that TB flush, the horrible harbinger that had appeared a few years ago just before the diagnosis. Oh, no, Leena Martindale was up to something, as was her husband. There’d been a fair amount of electricity in the air for a few weeks; many a time, Marie had felt words hanging in the air, sentences curtailed when she or her visiting brother had entered the room.

  She dragged a hasty comb through her dark blond hair and prepared to nip next door. It was time to have a conflab with Mam’s best friend, Elsie Ramsden. Elsie was clever enough, but she sometimes let the odd thing slip when her tongue wandered off on its own. Bert Ramsden, husband of the good woman, had been heard to say that Elsie’s gob should be kept on a lead and have a licence propped behind the clock, but that was Bert all over.

  Marie pushed open the door of number 32. ‘Hello?’ she called. ‘Anybody in?’

  ‘I’m in,’ shouted Elsie. ‘I’m ironing. I’ve been ironing since the relief of flaming Mafeking – that’s how it feels, any road.’

  Marie walked down the narrow hall and entered the kitchen. ‘Shall I do a bit for you? Only I’ve got today off, so I’m at a loose end. Mam and Dad have gone off somewhere secret.’

  Elsie pushed a hand through greying brown hair. ‘Secret? Alf and Leena don’t have secrets. Your mam couldn’t keep a secret if you put her behind lock and key and Elastoplasted her gob. Here, love, do this couple of shirts while I make a brew. I’m exhaustificated.’

  Marie picked up the iron and tackled a collar. ‘They’ve gone funny,’ she said. ‘They talk about something, then they stop.’

  Elsie paused, two cups in her hands. ‘Everybody talks and stops. Even I stop. Mind, Bert says I don’t, but I do.’ She plonked the cups on the table, found milk and sugar, emptied some biscuits onto a plate. ‘She’s not ill again, is she?’

  ‘I don’t think so. But she’s … she’s concentrating. So’s my dad. And she’s stopped sewing and she’s done no knitting for a while.’

  Tea forgotten, Elsie sat down, pulled half a Woodbine from behind an ear and set light to it. ‘Happen it’s the change of life.’ Marie shook her head. ‘She’s finished with all that, it stopped all of a sudden when she had the TB. And what about Dad? Men don’t get a change of life, do they?’

  ‘Well, I think they do. And if they don’t, they should. Aye, I think my Bert’s changed, and I’d change him again if I could. Only I wouldn’t be able to make me mind up, Marie. I’d change him for Fred Astaire or Gregory Peck – Fred’s got the feet and Greg’s got the looks and the beef. We need two husbands, really – one for jobs around the house and the other for the dance hall.’

  Marie laughed.

  ‘But they do go funny, just like women do. They start thinking. You can tell when they’re thinking, ’cos there’s a funny noise, a bit like an engine what needs oil. They sit in corners and brood. Does your dad do that?’

  ‘No, he does sums on bits of paper.’

  ‘Does he? That sounds a bit dangerous, Marie. He’ll be getting his brain all overheated if he does sums. Mind, they’re all right working out the horses or the dogs – give them the odds and they’ll tell you the exact winnings, plus what colour the animal is and what it’s had for its breakfast.’

  Marie grinned. Elsie Ramsden had been a part of her existence for ever. Life without Elsie would have been Blackpool without sand, chips with no vinegar, King Lear without his Fool. She turned the shirt and attacked the back. ‘Weren’t you making tea, Elsie?’

  ‘Ooh, yes. Good job me head’s stuck to me body, else I’d be leaving it in the Co-op.’ She jumped up and got on with the task of tea-making. As she scalded the pot, she considered what Marie ha
d just said. When she came to think about it, there had been something bubbling next door, a damped-down excitement, a glazed expression on Leena’s face when she had been hanging her washing out in the back street.

  ‘Sit down,’ she told Marie when the tea was brewed. She poured, added milk, passed the sugar bowl to her young neighbour. ‘You still not courting?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’

  Marie shrugged. ‘I can’t be bothered. They either want your knickers off or they’re too drunk to remember what knickers are. I still knock about with Josie Maguire and Aggie Turner. They’re like me – they’re still looking for somebody with brains and looks. Aggie had a fling with a librarian, but she felt as if he wanted to return her within the fortnight, so she gave him up as a bad job before she got stamped and listed as overdue.’

  ‘Shame,’ said Elsie before guffawing. ‘So, what the hell’s your mother up to? Do you want me to ask her? I have a way of making folk talk when I set my mind to it.’

  Marie shook her head. ‘No. I’ve a feeling it’s one of those things she’ll announce all of a sudden when she’s ready. I just thought you might have known something, that’s all. Best leave them, Elsie, let them play their little games. It’s very hard rearing parents in this day and age. Something to do with the war, I’ll bet. Their emotional development got arrested by Hitler. I think I’ll sue Germany.’

  Elsie glanced up at a photograph on the mantelpiece, an enlarged black-and-white picture of a very young man in RAF uniform.

  ‘I’m sorry, Elsie,’ said Marie, ‘I never thought.’

  Elsie bit down on a digestive. She was very proud of their Brian, a grand boy who had gone down in the Battle of Britain, one of many lads from hereabouts who had never returned when the mess had ended. ‘It’s all right, love. I’m used to it.’

  ‘I wish you hadn’t had to get used to it, Elsie.’

  ‘So do I. The worst thing is him not having a grave. When folk go over to cemeteries in Italy and France, when they get the chance to stand there and pray, put flowers on a grave – eeh, I do envy them. Mavis Liptrott from John Street took some soil across and put it on their Ian’s plot in Florence – a bit of England. But there were nowt left of our Brian.’

  Marie felt like biting off her own tongue. Elsie was supposed to be the one with the runaway mouth, yet this wasn’t her fault, it was Marie’s doing. She reached across and held Elsie’s hand. ‘Remember when I used to call you Auntie Elthie? When I had that lithp?’

  ‘Aye, I do.’

  ‘Well, you’re thtill my Auntie Elthie. And you alwayth will be.’

  ‘I know, love. Finish them shirts, will you? Me feet feel like they’ve been in the oven half the morning, nicely risen and ready for butter and jam. Hey, and if you find out what Leena and Alf are up to, give us the nod. It might be a bank job. If it is, make them leave the Trustee alone – my bit of money’s in yon.’

  Marie finished the ironing while Elsie ran through a list of her husband’s escapades on the building site, then she kissed her on the cheek and went home. The house was still empty and Marie remained absolutely certain that her truanting parents were up to no good.

  Richard Chandler stamped his way up the path to Chandlers Grange. He felt as if he had been kicked all over, stuffing gone, bones turned to jelly, a headache like a spinning jenny grinding loudly above his eyes. Alfred Martindale, hero, had pulled the rug yet again from beneath the feet of his betters. Well, something had to be done.

  He clattered through the vast hallway, threw his walking stick onto a central table and marched up the curving stairway. He couldn’t even talk about it, had no wish to remind others of events from more than fifteen years ago. Oh, he had explained it all away, had given an adequate account of himself, but here came the living ghost to haunt him all over again.

  In his room, he sank onto a chair in front of his writing bureau, elbows on the blotter, head in hands. He closed his eyes, was back in France, blood and sweat everywhere, that searing pain when the bullet sank its nose into soft flesh, the impact as his body folded to the ground. Along came Alfred Martindale, blood on his own face from a flesh-wound—

  The bedroom door opened. ‘Richard? Would you like—’

  ‘Out!’ he roared.

  The door closed.

  He was carried by Martindale, was left in a bush, lay there with his eyes fixed on his saviour. Martindale abandoned him there and ran off, not towards the sound of battle, but away, back to where he had found Richard. Coward. Bloody yellow-belly, trying to save himself and bugger his fellows.

  From his hospital cot, Major Chandler had accused Martindale of desertion. The latter had said nothing in his own defence and had been contained in a prefabricated hut pending hearing.

  God. Richard Chandler opened his eyes, saw the scenario, entered it again. Captain George Fenner came into the tent, was sitting in a wheelchair, a medic pushing him along. Captain George Fenner was never to walk again, but he had walked all over Major Richard Chandler. Sergeant Martindale had not deserted; he had gone back for this second wounded officer, had shifted the major first, had assessed that of the two officers Chandler had been the less seriously wounded, so, trained to save the saveable, had rescued him first.

  Once Major Chandler had been settled under cover, Alfred Martindale had returned to the scene and had carried the captain’s broken body for over half a mile. In a coma for days, Captain Fenner had recovered against all odds and had come forward in great pain to speak the truth.

  ‘Damn him, too,’ spat Richard.

  Oh, the praise that had been heaped on Sergeant Martindale, such an intelligent soldier, should have a commission, would certainly be awarded medals. Victoria Cross, no less.

  ‘While I got a rollocking.’ He leaned back in the chair. The cracks had all been papered over, of course, but the stalwart silence of the accused had stood him in good stead, while Richard Chandler had been avoided after that, had suffered a loss of respect from his fellow officers and from the ranks below him.

  The man had saved his life and would never be forgiven for that. If it had been somebody else – anybody else – but no, that cocky-yet-quiet fusilier had taken the curtain call, had been cheered, decorated, had even received the Bar for saving the life of Captain Fenner. An accidental hero, a conscript too sure of himself, Alfred Martindale had now planted himself on land that was sacred to the Chandler clan.

  Something had to be done. What, though? If only Miss Forrester’s nephew had come to him for advice before putting Claughton Cottage on the market – damn. But the nephew had operated from a distance, did not live in the north, had gone straight to the estate agent.

  He looked up at a painting on the wall above his bureau, an oil executed at least three hundred years ago, the stone-built factory in which his ancestors had created candles for churches, for palaces and for ordinary homes. What was left now? Just the grange, a handful of cottages, a few hundred acres of land. And the family. The family? Father, confined to his room due to frailty, had become senile, had developed the unseemly habit of trying to force his feeble flesh on anyone who happened to be female. Richard squirmed when he thought of Father; but the right thing had been done, because the old man could no longer hold the reins – yes, yes, getting rid of Father had been justifiable.

  Then the wife, the children – best not to think about them, either. If he thought long and hard enough about Jean, he was likely to run round in circles until he dropped dead. Jean, the fragrant one who had put her head round his door a few minutes ago, Jean the expensive one who spent a fortune on clothes, shoes, jewellery and make-up, Jean whom he disliked to the point where he would have paid somebody to run off with her. Who would want her, though? She had the brains of an oyster, yet sense enough to keep the pearl.

  Someone tapped at the door.

  ‘Come,’ he bellowed.

  And in she came, the blue-eyed girl, yesterday’s news, face caked in powder, mouth set in
downturned and petulant mode, hair in the daytime ponytail that was far too young for her. She looked at him, was clearly trying to assess his mood, though she had not the brain required. ‘An invitation from Dr Beddows,’ she said, ‘a drinks party on Friday – would you like to go?’

  ‘I shall go,’ he replied. ‘Anything else?’

  She was hovering like a dragonfly, seemed unsure of where to land. ‘Are you all right, Richard?’

  ‘I am absolutely spiffing,’ he answered, ‘never better, in the pink, like a dog with two tails. I am in a state of rapture.’

  Jean Chandler frowned. He was being sarcastic again and she had never got used to this mood of his. Why couldn’t he answer questions properly, directly and truthfully? She didn’t ask him to love her, she had given up on that years ago; but surely he could manage civility? ‘Very well, I shall let them know.’ No, she didn’t want the love of this creature.

  ‘Do that.’

  She turned to leave.

  ‘Then get to town and have that ridiculous hair cut. You will never be seventeen again, so try a more dignified look.’

  Jean paused in the doorway. The fat pig was mocking her. She wanted to scream, needed to tell him how ugly he was, but she dared not. All the haircuts in the world would never improve him, bloated monster that he was becoming. Too fond of his food and drink, he was as hideous as mortal sin. ‘I put my hair up in the evenings,’ she said sweetly, ‘but I shall certainly give some thought to your kind suggestion, Richard.’ She closed the door.

  Out on the landing, she paused to catch her breath. For the sake of her children and for the sake of the staff, Jean Chandler kept her feelings inside. But they grew like cancer, collected in a solid mass that was becoming difficult to contain. Only one person knew how she truly felt; it was to that person she ran when her breath returned. Nanny Foster would soothe the wounds.

  * * *

  Sally Foster was making cakes. Wrapped in a pristine white apron and with a streak of flour on her right cheek, she pushed the tray into the oven, then set the kettle to boil. It was going to be one of those days; she had heard him coming in, had flinched when his stick had hit the table. The table was worth a small fortune, while he, self-appointed monarch of all he surveyed, was worth nowt a pound.