A Family Affair

A Family Affair Nancy Carson A new family, a new beginning or a life changed forever?When Clover Beckitt’s mother announces her impending second marriage, Clover can’t help but be wary. Especially as the new – very young – husband comes with a new stepsister for Clover.But Ramona brings with her a freedom that Clover has never been permitted. Like the aircraft being pioneered at the time, with Ramona in her life, Clover finds there are new horizons to explore and new people to meet. Her new outlook even allows a love affair to blossom with handsome photographer Tom Doubleday.But then her stepfather’s brother arrives…and everything that was good and changed, is about to change again… A Family Affair NANCY CARSON A division of HarperCollinsPublishers www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk) AVON HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk) First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2015 Copyright © Nancy Carson 2015 Cover images © fourseasons /istock by Getty 2015 Nancy Carson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library. This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Ebook Edition © 2015 ISBN: 9780008134846 Version: 2017-11-14 Contents Cover (#u3dcada55-52af-570d-b4d1-ae32ed458812) Title Page (#u2bdfb79a-b1bb-5222-9311-bc804c0495e7) Copyright (#u0d7f00b2-e0a1-5d5f-b4f9-0053b7b04233) Chapter 1 (#u54065c2a-a6f8-5d1c-bece-fff3e4b8c5a0) Chapter 2 (#u908fd076-059c-57b8-b313-dbdf3966faea) Chapter 3 (#u4962f541-c53a-5f0c-b2ab-131cf6b2df01) Chapter 4 (#u480cc8a3-81e9-5404-b296-ea01c3098356) Chapter 5 (#u471b8416-3984-5abe-ad0f-bc10ca407170) Chapter 6 (#u6a116c6e-7491-557c-addd-592363e75347) Chapter 7 (#u89d8dec9-272e-5645-add8-273b3e9ebd06) Chapter 8 (#ua045df38-27e0-5ba8-933c-e4974547bf09) Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 26 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 27 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 28 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 29 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 30 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 31 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 32 (#litres_trial_promo) Be swept away by THE BLACK COUNTRY CHRONICLES (#litres_trial_promo) About the Author (#litres_trial_promo) About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 1 (#u755eb682-2687-5ddb-88a8-de493a40f4ea) What she’d just been told shook Clover Beckitt rigid. How greatly it would change her life she did not know, but change her life it would; irredeemably. Maybe it would change it for the better – there was plenty of room for improvement – but maybe it would not. Time alone would tell. And that time would not be long coming, for the change was to commence one week from tomorrow. Preparation, however, was about to start right now. And with a vengeance. ‘Get your hat and coat on, our Clover,’ Mary Ann, her dour mother instructed. ‘I’m taking you to the dressmaker’s. Zillah has promised to look after the taproom till Job comes on.’ ‘I’d better change into something clean, Mother, and wash my face and hands. I’ve just got in from work. I’m filthy dirty.’ ‘Well make sure your underwear’s decent and all. I don’t want folk talking about me behind me back, saying as how me only daughter’s riffy.’ ‘You’d be riffy as well if you had to work in a foundry making cores,’ Clover complained as she headed for the stairs. ‘Why can’t I have a nice clean job in a nice posh shop?’ ‘Because the pay’s better in a foundry,’ Mary Ann called after her. ‘As you know well enough.’ In her spartan bedroom, Clover unfastened her home-made working frock and underslip, took off her headscarf and unpinned her dark hair. She placed a sheet of newspaper over the podged rug at the foot of her brass bed and vigorously brushed her hair over it to dislodge any bits of sand that sometimes penetrated to her scalp. Tiny grains of black sand rippled gently onto the newspaper, which she screwed into a ball to throw away in the miskin outside. She washed her face, her ears and neck, and then her feet in cold water which she poured from her ewer into the bowl that adorned the wash stand. Dried, and feeling immensely more presentable, she rummaged through her wardrobe for a clean dress, and in the drawers of her dressing table for a decent underslip, clean drawers and clean stockings. She loathed dirt, especially foundry dirt, and it was such luxury to change into clean clothes. When she was finished, wearing dainty shoes and all, she returned to the parlour. ‘I’m ready.’ ‘I’ll just tell Zillah we’m off then. Wait outside for me, our Clover.’ Mary Ann, her hair tied back severely with a black ribbon, was wearing the long black coat she’d owned ever since Toby, Clover’s father, had died in 1892 – fifteen years ago. It was profoundly unfashionable, but fashion was a luxury they could not afford. The coat, however, was not the only Victorian thing about Mary Ann. The stern, unsmiling, tight-lipped demeanour prevailed, as did the total rejection of anything that was not orthodox or had not been entirely sanctioned by the Good Book. For Mary Ann was also a devout Christian. However, as a licensed victualler, her loyalties were often divided, especially when the intolerant aims and ideals of the Band of Hope were thrust in her equally intolerant face, as they so often were. Still reeling with consternation from the news her mother had imparted, Clover walked outside into George Street and stood with her back to the Jolly Collier, the public house her mother owned and ran. It was a red-brick affair, dingy on the outside from the smuts of heavy industry and intensive coal mining. The roof was missing one or two slates and the window-frames were shedding their dull green paint in brittle, curling flakes. Inside, the curtains reeked of cigarette smoke and stale ash and even the wallpaper on the upstairs landing was yellowing with nicotine stains from the thick smoke that drifted upstairs from the taproom. The stale smell of beer was pervasive. But it was home. As Clover turned her face to the slanting sun to consider once again this monumental change that was facing them both, she heard the tap-tap of her mother’s footsteps on the quarry-tiled floor of the inside passage. She turned, ready to go. They walked briskly up George Street and turned the corner into Brown Street. Clover had a thousand questions she needed to ask her mother, but there was no time now. They arrived at the door of Bessie Roberts and entered her front parlour, which had been converted into a shop-cum-sewing room many years earlier. Inside was a stout woman with grey hair and spectacles. ‘Mrs Beckitt, how lovely to see you again,’ Bessie Roberts greeted obsequiously in her thin voice that was incongruous with her size. ‘How long’s it been?’ ‘A year or two, Mrs Roberts, by anybody’s reckoning. Our Clover here wants a new frock. Suitable for a wedding.’ Bessie looked Clover up and down with a well-practised look of admiration. ‘Oh, a wedding dress, eh?’ She smiled professionally. ‘Very nice. Oh, she’ll make a lovely bride and no mistake. I reckon I’ve got the very thing.’ ‘It’s me that’s getting married, Mrs Roberts, not our Clover,’ Mary Ann pronounced self-righteously. ‘And I know what I’m gunna be wearing. Like I said, it’s me daughter as wants the frock.’ ‘Forgive me, forgive me, Mrs Beckitt. I naturally thought…Well, fancy…that’s nice as you’m getting wed again. Let me congratulate you. Shall you be staying on at the Jolly Collier?’ ‘Oh, yes, we shan’t be going nowhere. So what have you got in the way of material, Mrs Roberts? Something blue or green, I fancy.’ ‘Oh, blue to match your daughter’s eyes,’ Bessie Roberts affirmed. ‘I reckon I’ve got the very thing.’ She hunted beneath her counter and flopped a roll of azure-blue satin material on top. ‘This is beautiful stuff, Mrs Beckitt. Just feel…And the colour would contrast beautifully with her lovely dark hair…Don’t you think?’ ‘Have you got e’er a pattern what I can look at? The fashion seems more for fitted bodices and skirts these days from what I can see of it.’ ‘I’ve got the very thing, Mrs Beckitt.’ She hunted again in a cardboard box. ‘When is the happy day, Mrs Beckitt?’ ‘A week on Saturday.’ ‘Good Lord! So soon?’ ‘Yes, we’ll all have to get our skates on, I’m a-thinking. I take it as read that you can accommodate we, Mrs Roberts?’ ‘It’ll be a bit of a rush but, yes. Ah…Here we are…’ Mrs Roberts placed the printed sketch of the dress on top of the roll of material. ‘I like it,’ Clover said, taking the first available opportunity to get a word in. ‘I think it’s perfect.’ She looked at Mary Ann for consent. Mary Ann nodded and, without further ado, the decision was made. ‘I’d better take some measurements, young Clover. Would you like to slip into the back room with me and take your dress off? I like to take an accurate measurement.’ The three women trooped into the tiny back room. Clover took off her dress and stood in her clean underwear while Bessie Roberts produced her measuring-tape from her apron pocket. ‘Such a lovely figure you’ve got, Clover,’ Bessie commented. ‘Doesn’t she, Mrs Beckitt? It takes me back to when I was as slender…Just lift your arms a little bit, please…That’s it. Now your waist…I see you don’t wear a corset, Clover.’ Clover thought she detected disapproval in Bessie’s tone. ‘I don’t need to, Mrs Roberts.’ ‘It’s one thing we can never agree on, Mrs Roberts,’ Mary Ann complained. ‘I’m a firm believer that all women should wear a corset.’ Clover smiled secretly as she alone caught the unintended humour in her mother’s words. ‘Oh, as you say, Mrs Beckitt, but your daughter’s very trim.’ She gently prodded Clover’s belly. ‘Just look…I wish my belly was as flat…Can you hold the end of the tape for me, Clover?…At your waist…while I get the length?…That’s lovely.’ It was half an hour later when they left. Mary Ann had paid a deposit on the dress which would be ready on Good Friday, provided Clover could come for a fitting about the same time next Wednesday. When they returned to the Jolly Collier Mary Ann placed two plated dinners in the oven to be reheated. The meal had been cooked earlier by Zillah Bache. ‘Are you marrying for love, Mother, or convenience?’ Clover asked pointedly as she sat down in front of the coal fire. The question had been troubling her. Mary Ann shut the oven door of the cast-iron grate using a rag and stood upright. ‘Do I seem the sentimental sort, our Clover?’ ‘That’ll be the day.’ Clover scrutinised her mother’s expression, looking in her eyes for a clue as to her true feelings. ‘I just wondered. It’s all so sudden. It’s such a shock.’ Mary Ann pulled a chair from under the scrubbed wooden table. She sat down opposite her daughter and sighed. ‘Ever since your father passed away fifteen years ago next November I’ve run this place on me own, pub and brewery. I’ve tried to bring you up to the best of me ability and all, but it ain’t bin easy. I had to take Zillah on to help in the house and look after you. But folk cost money to employ and money’s scarce, Clover. It’s always bin scarce.’ ‘Our beer’s still as good as ever it was,’ Clover encouraged. ‘Because I know what I’m a-doing when I brew it and because it has to be, else we’d sell none. By this time last year though, our Clover, I’d had enough. I know I never said nothing to you but I was ready to pack it all in. I’d been working me fingers to the bone eighteen hours a day. And for what? What with a mortgage on this place to pay off, bills for malt and hops, for coal to heat the copper and the mash tun, the excise man to pay, as well as Zillah and Job Smith, that bone-idle cellarman. And God knows who else. It’s no wonder I insisted you went out to work. We’ve needed the money, Clover.’ ‘And it’s not every girl’s dream, working in a foundry,’ Clover commented as one of the cats, Malcolm, came in and rubbed itself gently against her shins, a sensation she enjoyed. ‘Anyway, when I thought about it hard, our Clover, I had to admit to meself that the only way we could live in anything like comfort and peace of mind would be for me to marry, cause there’s no sign of you getting wed.’ Clover peered through the window onto the back yard and saw that it was raining. ‘Well, that’s not my fault. When have I ever been given the chance to do any courting?’ she said, throwing right back in her mother’s face the prejudice she instinctively held against any of Clover’s likely suitors. ‘You’ve never allowed me to go out with lads.’ ‘It’s been for your own good,’ Mary Ann said soberly, picking her fingernails. ‘I never wanted you getting mixed up with any damned scruff. I always wanted you to wait till the right chap came along.’ Clover shrugged off the subject. Her mother knew her feelings well enough. ‘So did you ask Jake Tandy to marry you?’ ‘Me ask him? As if I would.’ A hint of a smile teetered on the brink of Mary Ann’s eyes at that. ‘I didn’t have to, thank the Lord. He asked me. I’ve got to know him over the six months he’s been a regular here. He’s had a stall on Dudley Market and he ain’t short of a bob or two. He’ll have a house to sell as well. He wants to put money into the brewing, to expand that side of the business. He reckons we can sell our beer to free houses and off-licences. Not only that, he reckons them as owns the pits and the ironworks will buy barrels of the stuff off us. As he says, a hammer driver in a forge can sink twenty pints or more on a hot day. For every worker that amounts to a tidy lot of beer, our Clover.’ ‘So tell me about Jake, Mother. I hardly know him.’ ‘He’s younger than me – by four years…’ ‘So he’s what? Thirty-eight?’ Mary Ann nodded, either ignoring or failing to recognise the trace of disapproval in Clover’s voice. ‘And he’s never been married?’ ‘Oh, he’s been married afore, Clover. He’s a widower.’ ‘A widower? Does he have children then? Children who are coming to live here?’ ‘Just a daughter. Seventeen. Two years younger than you.’ ‘Mmm…’ Clover mused. ‘Does she work?’ ‘She’ll work here – serving, helping out in the brewery.’ ‘While I have to work in a foundry.’ The main room of the Jolly Collier was the taproom, but it also boasted a snug with a fireplace where the women were more likely to congregate on Saturday and Sunday nights. The taproom was devoid of a bar counter; the beer pumps were built into a wooden construction that hugged one wall. So, when you wanted your glass refilled you hailed Mary Ann, or Clover, or Job Smith or whoever was serving, ordered your drink and they would deliver it to your table. A low, cast-iron fireplace framed a hearty coal fire at one end of the room, around which the older men huddled for warmth in winter. Clover realised that running a busy public house and brewing sometimes in excess of thirty barrels of beer each week had indeed tended to keep Mary Ann at full stretch. But Clover did her bit to help despite her day job. By five each morning she would be up, lighting the fire in the taproom ready to receive the first ironworkers and miners when they called for their threepenny rum and coffee on their way to their morning shift. They would yawn and gossip like old biddies with their colleagues who also called in for a drink when returning home, tired from the night shift. That evening, Jake Tandy turned up in the taproom with his younger brother, Elijah. ‘How am yer, my flower?’ he greeted. Mary Ann smiled with pleasure at seeing him. ‘Rushed off me feet, as ever. But all the better for seeing you, Jacob,’ she replied. ‘Usual?’ Jake nodded. ‘And a pint of pale for our Elijah. Here, I’ve bought our Elijah to meet you, Mary Ann, seeing as how he’s gunna be me best man.’ Elijah stood erect and held out his hand formally. ‘I’ve been looking forward to meeting you, Mrs Beckitt. Jake’s said some fine things about you.’ ‘Well, that’s just as well in the circumstances.’ Mary Ann replied. She turned to Jake. ‘And now is as good a time as any for you to meet our Clover properly. She’s always gone to bed by the time we’ve finished serving, so there’s never been a chance for her to get to know you.’ So Mary Ann issued them with a pint of beer each and led them into the living quarters, leaving Job Smith, the part-time bartender, to serve the customers. ‘How do you do, Clover,’ Jake said agreeably when he saw her. Clover smiled back and blushed. ‘Nice to see you again, Mr Tandy.’ ‘Hey, Mister Tandy, eh? Now that’s summat as’ll have to change. It’ll be no good calling me Mr Tandy when me and your mother am wed. Why not call me Pop and start right off? Sounds better than papa, I always reckon.’ Clover continued to smile politely. ‘I bet you’m wondering what sort of a chap I am, eh, Clover?’ ‘I’m bound to wonder, Mr Tandy. I hope we can all live together contentedly.’ Clover had been aware of Jake Tandy for months, serving him pints of bitter in the taproom of the Jolly Collier. He had started loitering after closing time, collecting glasses, washing up, sweeping up the old sawdust and putting the spittoons out to wash – generally currying favour, by which time Clover had usually gone to bed ready for her early start next day. It galled her that she had not known he was to be her stepfather till today. Even though the banns must have been read, nobody had thought to mention the fact to her. Typical. Still, Clover couldn’t help wondering what Jake saw in Mary Ann and her stone-faced demeanour. ‘I’ve got a daughter meself, you know,’ he said and took a swig from his glass. ‘Mother said.’ ‘Ramona. You’ll like her. There ain’t that much difference in your ages.’ ‘I’m sure it’ll be very nice having a stepsister,’ Clover said equably. ‘Especially if she’s of an age.’ ‘Well, she’s a nice lass, though I say so meself…And this is me brother, Elijah…’ Jacob turned to him. Clover shook his hand and said hello. She guessed him to be in his early thirties. He was smart, with dark hair, engaging brown eyes and a confident smile. ‘He’s going to be me best man at the wedding, Clover. I hope you’ve got a nice new frock to wear for it. Has your mother treated you?’ ‘We’ve been today to order it, Mr Tandy. I’m sure it’ll be very suitable.’ ‘It’s costing enough,’ Mary Ann commented typically. ‘But the wench has got nothing else.’ ‘I bought one for our Ramona,’ Jake said. ‘Cost me a fortune, it did. But what’s money? Why worry about it?’ ‘It’s only them as ain’t got money what worry about it,’ Mary Ann remarked. ‘And you know how we’ve been fixed, Jacob.’ ‘And all that’s coming to an end, Mary Ann,’ Jake declared with a grin. ‘All that’s coming to an end.’ Good Friday in 1907, as well as being a holiday, was a perfect day for flying. A light south-westerly breeze was panting warmly as it ran up the side of Rough Hill, where Ned Brisco sat apprehensively in a weird contraption he had built, hoping it would fly. His older brother, Amos, sat crouched beneath the fragile wings on its port side waiting for Ned’s signal. Ned gazed into the distance. Distance was his challenge. From these heights he overlooked the Clent Hills to the south, lush and green in their spring finery. In the far distance he could discern Worcestershire’s Malvern Hills, colourless on the hazy south-western horizon. Towards the north-west, beyond the furnaces of Ironbridge and Coalbrookdale, the Wrekin lay like a stone pushing up through Shropshire’s greenery. Ned imagined himself flying effortlessly in his machine over the vast expanse of gently undulating terrain that lay between himself and these yet unvisited outposts. Once beautiful countryside, it was now pockmarked by scores of pit-heads and slag heaps and quarries, and by chimney-stacks that spewed endless palls of filthy smoke into the hazy, white sky that was struggling to turn blue in the spring sunshine. As well as these effigies to the industry and enterprise of man, the inevitable stone structures loomed that were erected to the greater glory of God. The spire of Top Church in the middle distance to the north-west pierced the atmosphere like a tintack, while St John’s and its square grey tower occupied a ledge on Kates Hill to the north. Beyond St John’s stood Dudley Castle, hoary, crumbling, derelict, yet defiantly majestic. The girl with him looked striking, despite being plainly dressed in a home-made blouse and skirt. Her eyes were intelligent, as blue as summer cornflowers. Her skin was fair yet her lush hair was as dark and shiny as the coal they mined thereabouts. When she smiled her face lit up and you couldn’t help but smile with her, for she seemed then to throw off the shackles of reserve and shyness that normally confined her. Clover Beckitt was Ned’s soul mate. As well as Clover and his brother Amos, both of whom gave Ned much needed encouragement, a smattering of ragged children had attached themselves to the band and their cart. They looked on in incredulous silence and wonder, hoping they would witness the miracle of man and machine in flight. ‘All right, Amos,’ Ned called. ‘Let her go.’ Amos quickly pulled a chunk of wood from under one of the thin, spoked bicycle wheels on which the contraption stood. The ensemble began to roll downhill over the stubbly grass that cloaked that side of Rough Hill between two disused quarries, gathering speed quickly. Ned held his breath as his stomach seemed to rise into his mouth. ‘Be careful, Ned!’ Clover called, hearing the creak of struts and wire and stretched canvas. ‘Don’t crash into the pepper-box.’ ‘Let’s hope he gets that bloody far,’ Amos said dubiously, seeing that the Dudley Tunnel’s air shaft of which Clover spoke was directly in Ned’s path, but unreachable. ‘If he ended up in Warren’s Hall pond, even that would be summat to crow about.’ Clover chuckled at the mental image Amos’s words conjured, then remained silent for seconds that seemed like ages while they watched Ned’s progress. The contraption had reached about thirty miles an hour and was almost at the place where the steep hill was levelling out when Clover whooped with excitement. ‘Look, Amos, look! He’s flying! He’s flying!’ She turned round to catch Amos’s reaction, a delighted grin on her lovely face. Behind them, the group of ragamuffins cheered boisterously. ‘By Christ, he is and all…He’s airborne, Clover…Whoops!…Oh, Jesus Christ…Well, he was airborne.’ She saw the contraption stall and hit the ground. At once she hitched up her long cotton skirt and ran for all she was worth down the hill in her buttoned-up boots, her dark hair flowing like a mane behind her. ‘Ned!’ she called. ‘Are you all right? Are you all right?’ As she hurtled towards him, she watched with relief as Ned disentangled himself from the wires, broken laths and strips of sailcloth that had come adrift from the wooden frame. Eventually, breathless, she was within hailing distance. Ned slid down from what remained of the lower starboard wing, onto his feet. ‘Ned, are you all right?’ she gasped again. He watched her as she approached and grinned, his brown eyes alive with exhilaration. ‘I did it, Clover – I did it. I flew – I actually flew.’ She ran the last few steps towards him and flung her arms around his neck with pride at his brilliant achievement. ‘I know,’ she shrieked, as happy as he was. ‘I saw you.’ Then, self-consciously, she let go of him, for fear he should presume too much. ‘Are you hurt?’ she earnestly asked. ‘No, Clover,’ Ned said, pulling his gloves off. ‘I’m as good as new. I think I know what went wrong. As soon as the thing started to lift it climbed gently for about thirty or forty yards then came down again nose first. It stalled, that’s all. I should’ve fixed in some ballast. Ah well – next time, eh?’ Ned stood with his hands on his hips looking thoughtfully at the tangled wreck before him and shook his head. ‘How did it feel, Ned, gliding above the ground?’ ‘I – I can’t describe it, Clover…Smooth…Incredibly smooth. Like being on a magic carpet, if you can imagine that.’ ‘You’re going to try again, then?’ ‘’Course I am. If Wilbur and Orville Wright can do it, so can I. And now I’ve got this far…’ Clover looked at him with admiration in her wide eyes. Although he was not her sweetheart he was…well, he was dear to her. Oh, he wasn’t handsome, nor was he particularly elegant. She didn’t fancy him in that way, yet in a sisterly sort of way she liked him. He was ordinary with reddish hair and gawky looking in his tallness, but he was so clever and such a gentle soul. And so determined. Like other lads that had left school at twelve because their parents could not afford to send them to the Dudley Grammar School, Ned Brisco could have developed into one of the finest engineers of his time. Of that, Clover was certain. As a moulder at the Coneygree Foundry where she also worked, he was wasted and frustrated. Exercising his mind with the seemingly insuperable problems of flight was his only outlet. Clover looked back up the hill towards Amos and waved. He was carefully leading the pony and cart down the steep, grassy hill, followed by the posse of assorted youngsters. Earlier, the cart had hauled the flying machine, still in sections, up Oakham Road and past the hangman’s tree to the top of Rough Hill. ‘What are you going to do with what’s left of your flying machine, Ned?’ Clover asked. Ned inspected it cursorily. ‘Oh, there’ll be some bits I can salvage. Perhaps by Whitsun we can try again. I’ll have built another machine by then. A better one.’ So, Ned started to disassemble his damaged machine. He had unfastened the rigging that secured both pairs of wings to the flimsy frame that was the fuselage by the time Amos heaved to with the borrowed horse and cart. With Clover’s help, Ned stacked the separate assemblies onto the inadequate transport as best he could, considering the wings’ deformed leading edges and the nose that prevented it all sitting squarely. When it was all in place and tied securely, Ned invited Clover to sit alongside him on the cart while Amos led the horse. ‘We can get onto the New Rowley Road if we follow that path down,’ Ned claimed, pointing. ‘If we go that way it’ll save trying to lug this lot back up Rough Hill.’ Amos waved his acknowledgement and the horse blew his lips as if in thanks. ‘It’s back to the drawing board, Clover,’ Ned said stoically. He turned and smiled at her, the warm smile of a good friend. ‘It’s a good job you’ve got the patience, Ned,’ she replied, signalling her approval. ‘But what do you hope to do with all this if you’re successful?’ ‘I’d patent my design,’ he answered at once. ‘I’d start my own factory building flying machines. I reckon there’s a big future in them if you can get them to stay up a decent time and make them controllable. ’Course, I’d need a decent engine and that would cost money. But just think of the possibilities, Clover. Just imagine the possibilities if only I could build flying machines big enough and strong enough to carry freight or passengers.’ ‘Well don’t ask me to fly in one,’ Clover said. ‘I’d be scared stiff. But at least this is a start. At least you got the thing off the ground, even if you did crash. I’d like to help you, if I could. I’d like to help you build the next one.’ He turned to her again and she saw the admiration he had for her in his eyes. She was certain he wanted to be her sweetheart, but was thankful he’d never asked. He was her pal and they talked like pals. She enjoyed their friendship. If she became his sweetheart it wouldn’t be the same. She would have to kiss him and somehow, she just didn’t fancy kissing him. Whenever she thought he was about to broach the subject of them courting, she astutely introduced some topic to distract him – like now. ‘My mother’s getting married again, Ned.’ ‘Never!’ He regarded her again, but disconcertedly. ‘Who’s she getting wed to?’ ‘A man called Jake Tandy.’ ‘What’s he like?’ ‘I hardly know him,’ she answered wistfully. ‘It’s funny, when I was a child, most of the kids in my class at school had a father and I didn’t. I always felt a bit jealous, a bit out of it because my father had died when I was so young. I only ever had my mother and Zillah to go back home to and all the time I wondered what it must be like to have a father. My friends at school all used to speak of their fathers with such reverence, yet all I had of mine were a few vague memories. Well, I suppose being faced with the prospect of a new father – one I don’t really know – makes me a bit apprehensive. He’s a widower, by the way.’ ‘A widower? Does he have any kids then?’ ‘Just a daughter, she’s seventeen.’ ‘What’s she like?’ Ned asked. ‘Is she pretty?’ Clover shrugged. ‘How should I know? I’ve never seen her.’ They were trundling past the Warren’s Hall pond, which was brimful of frogspawn. To their left sat grim pit banks, the same roan colour as the horse, where any grass feared to prosper. The headgear of pit shafts, some derelict now, stood like gallows in the ravaged landscape, their unturning wheels the halos of their victims. ‘She can’t be as pretty as you, Clover,’ Ned said kindly. ‘I bet you any money.’ Clover shrugged again, but smiled at the compliment. ‘When are they getting married, Clover?’ She sighed. ‘Tomorrow…From tomorrow it’ll be a whole different way of life. A new stepfather, a new stepsister…’ ‘You sound as if you’re not relishing the prospect.’ ‘It’s just that…I don’t know what the future holds, Ned.’ Chapter 2 (#u755eb682-2687-5ddb-88a8-de493a40f4ea) Mary Ann Beckitt, n?e Scriven, and Jacob Tandy were married at noon on Easter Saturday. The Reverend John Mainwaring, the recently installed and increasingly popular vicar of St John’s, Kates Hill, officiated. Outside in the spring sunshine the party posed for photographs with Mary Ann in the centre in her new red velvet dress. Clover looked radiant in her sky-blue satin dress and her blue satin hat with its white lace brim. Jake said he wanted this marriage, unlike his first, to be a proper do and insisted they have a record of the event. So he engaged the services of an enterprising local young photographer called Tom Doubleday who had his own studio and darkrooms in Hall Street near the centre of the town. Tom was about twenty-five, or so Clover Beckitt estimated. With increasing interest, she watched him changing plates in the huge wooden camera that looked top-heavy stuck on its wooden tripod. When he’d finished, Jake asked Tom if he would like to return with the rest of the party to the Jolly Collier, where they were providing a meal and free beer. Clover was secretly delighted. In addition to Clover and her mother, there were nine Scrivens in the form of the bride’s brothers and an unmarried sister. On Jake’s side, there were only four relatives in addition to himself and his daughter Ramona; his elderly mother and father, and younger brother, Elijah with his betrothed, Dorcas Downing, who was the daughter of a wealthy local industrialist. Old Man Tandy hacked in a corner and expectorated the product of his miner’s cough into the fireplace where it bubbled and hissed, only to be castigated by Elijah for making Dorcas, who was sensitive to such vulgar mannerisms, feel sick. Old Mrs Tandy unfastened her boots, slipped them off and presented her bunions, which were killing her, to anybody that was interested in inspecting them. Tables had been laid in a line down the middle of the taproom and trestles spanned the lot. When everybody had supped their first glass or two of free beer, this is where they sat. Zillah Bache, who was generally sober but not quite today, unsteadily served up the roast beef, Yorkshire pudding and vegetables. Job Smith, shifty-eyed, served the beer. Clover sat next to her new stepsister, Ramona, who, to Clover’s relief, was neat and tidy. She was also exceptionally pretty with an mop of fair curls, which remained unruly despite her determined attempts to tame. Her eyes were big and the colour of the sherry she was drinking. She seemed friendly and made conversation easily. Maybe Ned Brisco would like her. They talked, comparing their lives, likes and dislikes, interspersing their verbal explorations with comments to Tom Doubleday, the young photographer, who sat opposite. Tom’s blue eyes creased into the most pleasing smiles and, as his participation in their conversation increased, Clover was torn between his charm and the certain knowledge that she must get to know and befriend Ramona. ‘How long have you been a photographer, Mr Doubleday?’ she asked politely, placing her knife and fork together on her plate, for she had just finished her dinner. ‘I’m not sure,’ he replied, pleased with the interest he was getting from this lovely dark-haired girl with the smiling blue eyes and beautiful nose that looked so appealing in profile. ‘It’s something I drifted into. Even as a small boy I was interested in photography.’ ‘Is it fiddly?’ Ramona chipped in, not about to be excluded. ‘It looks fiddly to me.’ ‘Yes, it is a bit, Miss Tandy—’ ‘Oh, please call me Ramona, Mr Doubleday.’ ‘Yes, er…Ramona.’ He smiled into her alluring brown eyes. ‘It’s even more fiddly in the darkroom.’ ‘In the darkroom?’ Ramona’s voice had an appealing, girlish croakiness about it. ‘I don’t know if I’d like it in a darkroom. Would I be scared, do you think?’ ‘Not if you’re with somebody else.’ ‘Would I need to be scared with somebody like you?’ Her eyes darted knowingly from Clover to Tom and Clover thought her new stepsister was maybe trying to be just a little provocative. ‘Do you have to work in complete darkness?’ Clover interjected, seizing the opportunity to get back into the conversation before Ramona completely hijacked it. ‘Yes, otherwise you’d fog the latent image on the plate,’ Tom explained. ‘It’s light-sensitive, you see, Miss Tandy.’ ‘Miss Beckitt, but you can call me Clover,’ Clover corrected with a broad smile. ‘Ramona and I are stepsisters. That’s why we have different surnames.’ ‘Oh, I beg your pardon. But Clover…Mmm, what a lovely name that is.’ ‘Well, thank you, Mr Doubleday.’ Tom Doubleday nodded his acknowledgement. ‘Well now – with all this informality, I’d be obliged if you’d call me Tom.’ ‘All right.’ Clover smiled delectably. ‘So, to get back to my question – Tom – does all this working in darkness mean you have to go through the whole process of developing your plate without even knowing your photo’s come out all right?’ ‘Not just developing, Miss…er, Clover. To make the image so it’s not sensitive to light any more, you have to thoroughly wash off any developer – after a given time – then fix it in another solution we call hypo. But listen, forgive me. The last thing I want to do is bore you.’ ‘I’d like to see it done,’ Ramona said. ‘It sounds ever so interesting.’ ‘Well, it’s more frustrating than anything, Ramona,’ Tom said pleasantly. ‘Especially when you enlarge or make prints. You’re never quite sure how long to expose the paper to the negative. You waste a lot getting it right, and it’s expensive stuff.’ Zillah Bache served the pudding, hot apple pie and custard, and the girls’ conversation with Tom Doubleday continued. Clover was drawn to him inexorably. He was clean-shaven and his teeth were beautiful and even. As he spoke, she watched his lips and imagined how his kisses might feel. But she would dearly have preferred it if Ramona had not been there. She felt Ramona was a rival when she wanted her as a friend. Trouble was, she did not know the girl well enough to tell her to keep her pretty nose out of it. Meanwhile, Job Smith tapped a firkin of old ale and presented everybody with a glassful. Elijah Tandy got to his feet and set about doing his duties as best man. He made a clever speech that made everybody laugh and asked them all to drink the health of the bride and groom. Then Jake Tandy thanked them all for their good wishes and said how lucky he was to be wed to somebody like Mary Ann. Mary Ann summoned a rare smile and Clover even thought she detected a blush in her mother. While the tables were cleared and the trestles taken away, the guests drank more old ale, stretched their legs and stumbled about from one conversation to another, noisily putting the world to rights. The women complained about their men while the men cag-magged about work, feeling obligated to denigrate their gaffers. Job Smith, meanwhile, tapped a second firkin of old ale and began doling it out. Ramona Tandy, to Clover’s surprise, played an old accordion adeptly while many sang along raucously to the tunes. ‘They reckon as all the steam engines at the pits am gunna be replaced by ’lectric motors afore long,’ said one of Mary Ann’s brothers to another above the hubbub. It was Frederick, a miner, who had just been given a fresh glassful of old ale. ‘Like the trams,’ remarked the other. Frederick took a swig from his glass. ‘And the sooner the better as far as I’m concerned. Bloody stinking, noisy articles, steam engines. Why, you cort hear yourself think when you’m a-standing by ’em. And somebody’s gorra be shovelling coal in night and day.’ It was at this point that Zillah Bache dropped a tray of glasses and the room went eerily quiet. ‘Zillah!’ Mary Ann shouted in her most intimidating voice. Zillah froze. She faced Mary Ann and affected a toothless smile that was intended to project innocence. ‘Zillah, are you drunk again?’ Mary Ann asked admonishingly. ‘Have you been a-guzzling me best ale behind me back?’ ‘I don’t know what you mean, Mary Ann,’ Zillah responded defiantly. ‘It was just an accident. I’m sorry.’ ‘Right,’ said Mary Ann. ‘Get your hat and coat on. You’m sacked.’ ‘Please missus…’ Zillah pleaded, suddenly remorseful. ‘I said I was sorry. I lost me balance. It wo’ happen again. Let me pay for what I’n had.’ ‘You’ll be paying till kingdom come from what I can see of it,’ Mary Ann said. ‘No. Up the road. Get on with you, you drunken swopson.’ ‘Mother, will you let me talk to Zillah?’ Clover interceded diplomatically. ‘I think I can sort this out a different way. You go and look after your guests…Please?’ ‘All right, but don’t be soft with her, our Clover.’ Clover escorted Zillah into the scullery. She thought the world of Zillah, who had been like a mother to her. Zillah had soothed the cut and grazed knees of childhood, mopped her tears and held her in her fat, dimpled arms when Mary Ann was too busy. When Clover had started her monthly bleeding and believed she was terminally ill, Zillah had explained about womanhood, how babies were conceived and brought into the world. She could talk to Zillah. Just because Zillah had helped herself to a glass or two of beer was nothing afresh. It had never bothered Mary Ann before. So Clover felt justified in sparing Zillah the belittling glare of attention from her mother’s guests, which had doubtless made Mary Ann feel she should be seen to be doing something about the offence. ‘Take your coat off, Zillah,’ Clover said kindly. ‘You’re not going anywhere. Come on, there’s work to be done.’ Zillah took off her coat biddably and rolled her sleeves up, relieved that she’d been reprieved. ‘Now listen, Zillah. Can you understand why my mother is so upset about you?’ ‘I reckon so.’ ‘Right. Well, when you come to work in future there’ll be no drinking behind her back. We all know you do it. Mr Tandy’s here now and he won’t stand for it. But if you bring a clean bottle with you every day and give it to whoever’s serving, I’ll see as they fill it up with free beer for you ready for when you go home. I can’t be fairer than that. Agreed?’ ‘Oh, God bless yer, Clover. God bless yer, my wench. I need the money from this job and I should be in dire straits if I lost it. And I’ve always loved workin’ here, yo’ know that. Not another drop’ll touch me lips again while I’m at work. May the Lord strike me down if ever it does.’ ‘Good. I don’t want to see you go, Zillah. You’ve always been like a mother to me. I’ve always been able to come to you with my troubles. I’ll never forget how kind you’ve been.’ ‘God bless you, Clover. But what about Mary Ann?’ ‘Don’t worry about my mother, Zillah. She only wanted to put on a bit of a show in front of her guests. She’s probably a bit tipsy herself by now. I’ll straighten it all out with her and Mr Tandy tomorrow.’ On the morning of Easter Sunday, the day after the wedding, there was a gleam in Jake Tandy’s eyes as he sat at the table in the scullery and smiled fondly at Mary Ann. To Clover’s amazement, there was a corresponding gleam in Mary Ann’s eyes too, as she smiled fondly back. Mary Ann delivered a plate of bacon, eggs, fried bread, fried tomatoes and sausage to her new husband with something approaching a smile. ‘There you are, Jacob. Start the day with a good breffus, I always say.’ Jake nodded and smiled back gratefully. ‘Thank you, my flower. I could do with it. I’m clammed.’ ‘Are we going to church this morning, Mother?’ Clover enquired, sitting facing Ramona who had arisen that morning as fresh as the dew. ‘We’re all going to church, our Clover,’ Mary Ann replied piously as she placed a full plate in front of Ramona. ‘It’s Eucharist today. I always go to Eucharist. Have you been confirmed, Ramona?’ ‘Yes, when I was eleven, Mother,’ Ramona replied. She had already been coached by Jake to call Mary Ann ‘Mother’. ‘Me and Father always went to Top Church.’ Mary Ann placed a plate in front of Clover. ‘Our Clover, you could’ve got up yourself for this, save me stretching over the table.’ Clover thought it unfair that she’d not made the same comment to Ramona who was just as awkwardly placed. ‘Marmaduke’s on my lap. I didn’t want to disturb him.’ ‘Oh, sod the cat, Clover.’ Mary Ann frowned and placed her own plate on the table, sitting down opposite Jake, with Clover on her right. ‘Well…now we’m a family we’ll have to decide who’s doing what in the pub afore we open. What do you say, Jacob?’ ‘Quite right,’ Jake responded, nodding and chewing bacon rind. ‘It’s good if we all have a routine. Ramona, you can bottle up while Clover sawdusts the floor and polishes the tables. I’ll stoop any barrels and mek sure as there’s plenty oil in the lamps and coal in the scuttle. What’ll yo’ be doin’, Mary Ann?’ ‘I reckon I’ll have me work cut out cooking we dinners when I get back from church, Jacob. But have no fear, I’ll come and serve while it’s a-cooking.’ ‘Well at least Zillah will do the spittoons for me now,’ Clover informed them. ‘After yesterday she’ll be glad to do anything.’ ‘And serve her right,’ Mary Ann remarked. ‘Still, I liked the way you handled it, our Clover. Good idea to give her a pint of beer every day. Save her pinching it and more.’ ‘But I don’t think we should put on her, just because of what’s happened,’ Clover stressed. ‘She’s been a good friend to us in other ways. You know she has.’ ‘And in a day or two it’ll all be forgotten, I daresay,’ Jake said. Clover turned to Ramona. ‘I’ll show you all round the house after, Ramona, so you know where everything is. How did you find your bed, by the way?’ ‘Lumpy, if you want the truth.’ She dipped a piece of fried bread into her egg yolk. ‘I didn’t sleep very well. I’m not used to a lumpy bed.’ Clover watched for her mother’s reaction. ‘Then we’ll go down the town to the Worcestershire Furnishing in Wolverhampton Street in the week and order you a new one,’ Mary Ann said with a finality that was unassailable. Clover could hardly believe her ears. Such sudden and unbounded generosity. ‘Can I have a new bed as well?’ she asked, not wishing to be outdone. ‘What do you want a new bed for, our Clover?’ Mary Ann asked, evidently irked that her daughter might be trying to take advantage. ‘They cost money and the one you’ve got is best feather and down.’ ‘But it’s all lumpy and hard, Mother. Same as Ramona’s is.’ ‘Try giving it a good shake. How come you’ve never moaned about it afore?’ ‘’Cause I knew you wouldn’t buy me a new one. But if Ramona can have a softer bed, I don’t see why I shouldn’t.’ Jake stuffed a forkful of best back bacon into his mouth and it amazed Clover how so much food could pass his huge moustache without leaving its mark upon it. ‘If the wench wants a new bed she can have one, Mary Ann, as I see it,’ Jake adjudicated fairly. He looked at Clover and smiled. ‘Nobody wants to kip on a hard bed, do they?’ ‘Thank you…Pop.’ She was having difficulty getting used to calling him that. ‘Huh!’ Mary Ann tutted indignantly. ‘Tis to be hoped you’m as finicky when you get married, our Clover. Lord help whoever it is as gets you.’ Conversation paused while the family, all self-conscious of each other in their new situation, concentrated on their breakfasts. Despite Clover’s concern about just how radically the presence of a new stepfather and stepsister might affect her, it seemed that things might not be so bad after all. Maybe she was going to like her new stepfather. He seemed very fair. ‘Are you courting, Clover?’ Ramona asked, tackling her food with determination. Clover shook her head and smiled self-consciously, glancing at her mother. ‘No, no, I’m not courting.’ ‘Not courting at nineteen?’ Jake sounded incredulous. ‘Why they must be a-queuing up – a fine-looking madam like thee.’ Clover smiled demurely and continued eating. ‘Oh, there’s one or two that come in the taproom and ogle at her all soft-like,’ Mary Ann admitted. ‘But I wouldn’t give tuppence for e’er a one.’ ‘I’m a-courting,’ Ramona stated proudly. ‘I’ve been courting more than six months now.’ Jake burst out laughing. ‘Courting at seventeen, eh? What d’you think about that, Mary Ann?’ ‘I think seventeen’s a bit young to be a-courting, Jacob,’ Mary Ann declared disapprovingly. ‘I take it as you ain’t serious with this chap, Ramona? Whoever he is.’ ‘No, I ain’t serious, Mother,’ Ramona felt inclined to confirm. ‘It’s just a chap I know.’ ‘There’s no harm in the wench stepping out with a young chap a couple of nights a week if she wants to, Mary Ann,’ Jake said. ‘As long as she’s back home afore ten.’ ‘What they can do after ten they can do afore it, Jacob,’ Mary Ann argued. ‘I don’t hold with young women being out nights on their own with men, as our Clover knows. Specially at seventeen. But if you’m content, Jacob, then I’ll be ruled by thee.’ ‘She’ll come to no harm, Mary Ann.’ Clover smiled to herself. Things were really looking up, because whatever Ramona could do, she would be able to do also under this new regime. The terraced buildings that lined both sides of George Street and Brown Street on Kates Hill were made up mostly of dwellings, but were interspersed with little shops. Brown Street, generally the busier of the two, boasted shops that sold lamp-oil and clothes pegs, sweets, haberdashery, greengrocery, as well as a barber’s shop, a fish-and-chip shop, a couple of butchers’ shops and several public houses. George Street hosted a newsagent, a pawnbroker, a coal yard, and a grain merchant. A mere three pubs vied for trade in George Street; the California Inn, the Jubilee Inn – which was the headquarters of the pigeon club – and the Jolly Collier. But then it was less than a hundred yards from one end to the other. Clover proudly showed Ramona around Kates Hill that afternoon to help walk off their Sunday dinners. Groups of children tumbled through the narrow streets on their way to Sunday school, and courting couples strolled hand in hand. All were wearing their Sunday best. ‘It’ll be nice having a sister,’ Ramona said chirpily as they ventured up Cromwell Street, and Clover began to feel they were growing close already. ‘’Course, with my mother dying when she had me there was no chance of a brother or a sister after.’ ‘Oh, I didn’t realise your mother had died in childbirth,’ Clover said sympathetically. ‘So your dad’s been on his own all these years.’ ‘More’n seventeen years now. I worked it out – they had to get married, you know. They’d only been married five months when I was born.’ ‘But that’s tragic,’ Clover remarked with the utmost sympathy. ‘Your poor father. He’s hardly known any married life. And he must have reared you by himself.’ ‘With a bit of help from my two grandmothers. When I was little, I used to go to one of my gran’s when he went to the market.’ ‘I like your father,’ Clover proclaimed. ‘He seems very fair.’ ‘He’s all right. Your mother don’t smile much, though, does she?’ Clover chuckled good-naturedly. ‘She was smiling this morning at your father…’ ‘I know…What if she gets pregnant, Clover?’ ‘Pregnant? At her age?’ ‘Well, I know she’s forty-two but women do have babies at that age.’ ‘No, not my mother, Ramona. Not Mary Ann. She wouldn’t. That sort of thing wouldn’t interest her.’ ‘It interests every other woman. Why should she be different?…Anyway, Clover, tell me about your father.’ ‘I can hardly remember him. Just a few vague impressions, that’s all. He was called Toby. He and Mother became licensees of the Jolly Collier in 1890 when she was twenty-five and I was just two. He died of pneumonia when I was four.’ They passed the Sailor’s Return on their left, which fronted the Diamond Brewery. ‘So who’s this Ned Brisco you mentioned?’ Ramona asked. ‘Oh, Ned? He’s just a friend. But a good friend. I’ll show you where he lives in a minute.’ ‘Isn’t he your sweetheart?’ ‘My sweetheart?’ Clover burst out laughing. ‘No, I don’t fancy him that way.’ Ramona registered surprise. ‘Have you ever had a lover? Have you ever done what lovers do?’ Clover shook her head, half resolutely, half apologetically. ‘No. I’d wait till I was married before I did anything like that.’ ‘I have.’ Ramona paused for Clover’s reaction. ‘You mean…?’ Ramona smiled smugly. ‘Ramona! You never.’ ‘It’s nothin’ to make a fuss about, you know. Plenty of my friends do it.’ They were silent for a few seconds, hearing only the sound of their footsteps on the Ketley blue paving-blocks with the criss-crossed pattern, while Clover mulled over this surprising information. ‘Does it hurt? They say it hurts.’ ‘A bit. The first time. Made me bleed a bit as well, but it didn’t stop me liking it. I really liked it, Clover.’ Clover was intrigued. ‘So who did you do it with? That boy you’re courting?’ ‘’Course. Sammy.’ ‘How long since the first time?’ ‘Last Christmas. I was seventeen, Clover,’ she said reassuringly. ‘I mean, it’s not as if I was a child.’ ‘But where did you do it? I mean, if it was Christmas?’ ‘Me and my father were going to my gran’s for our Christmas dinners, but he wanted to go to the Jolly Collier first for a drink. So he left me in our house by myself getting ready, and I was supposed to meet him at my gran’s after. Anyway, Sammy called to bring me my Christmas box. I gave him a big kiss for it…you know…and one thing led to another…I locked the door and we ended up on the hearth in the front room, me with me nightdress up round me waist.’ ‘God…But what if you’d got pregnant, Ramona? Think of all the trouble, the disgrace.’ ‘Oh, I won’t get pregnant. Sammy pulls it out a bit sharp when he’s ready to…you know…’ Clover digested this thought-provoking information for a few seconds while they turned the corner by the Junction Inn. Watson’s Street, where Ned lived, stretched narrowly to their right, a steep hill that took you to the top of Cawney Hill and its tiny twisted streets, its back-to-back cottages and its disused quarry. But Clover decided not to point out Ned’s home; it would be too distracting and she wanted to explore this fascinating subject more. So they began the climb up Hill Street with its row of terraced houses on the right and its allotments on the left behind a small row of cottages. ‘Some of the girls I work with at the foundry do it with their sweethearts,’ Clover admitted at last. ‘They tell me all about it.’ ‘And do they like it as well?’ ‘They must do. They’re at it every chance they get.’ Ramona chuckled. ‘See. It ain’t just me then, is it? You’ll have to get yourself a chap, Clover.’ ‘I think I’d be too scared to let him do anything, though. My mother’s never allowed me to have a chap. She’d have a fit if I ever got into trouble. Maybe now you’ve come she’ll allow it. Especially if your father allows you to see this Sammy.’ ‘But he don’t know we do that, Clover. Lord above, he’d kill me if he knew, so keep it under your hat.’ ‘Oh, don’t worry, Ramona.’ She smiled reassuringly. ‘Anything you tell me is just between the two of us.’ Ramona chuckled. ‘It’ll be nice sharing secrets, won’t it?’ Chapter 3 (#u755eb682-2687-5ddb-88a8-de493a40f4ea) It had been some time since her mother’s wedding when Clover walked to the Coneygree Iron Foundry in Tividale early one sunny morning in May. It would be her twentieth birthday next week and she wondered what present her mother might afford her. A new summer dress for best would be nice if she were allowed to choose it herself. As she walked on, past St John’s church and over Brewery Fields to the Birmingham Road, she pondered how her life had surprisingly changed for the better since Jake and Ramona had become a part of it. Clover had always lived in the shadow of her mother’s dominance, had accepted it with resignation, but now she felt a new freedom. Jake was in charge and, if nothing else, he was even-handed where she and Ramona were concerned – so far, at least. Mary Ann could no longer impose her restraining and often unfair moral and social code on Clover any more than she could on Ramona. It allowed for a certain latitude she had never enjoyed before. She was even allowed to visit Ned Brisco’s workshop some nights, where she helped him construct his new flying machine. And she did not have to return till ten o’ clock. She clambered over the stile where the stubbly field met the highway. Three young beaux on bicycles wished her flirtatious good mornings before she stepped, smiling in response, onto the cobbles to reach the other side of Birmingham Road. A carter hauling sacks of coal steadied his horse while a tram rattled past and she caught up with it while the conductor alighted to change the points. She walked on, not heeding the passengers who turned their heads to look at her. In the middle distance, the black, foreboding headgear of the vast Coneygree Collieries loomed like the artificial skeletons of huge automatons. As she passed the grim Coneygree Brickworks and its great marl-hole like a giant pockmark on the landscape, she wondered whether working as a brickmaker might be cleaner than coremaking. She dearly wished she could get away from coremaking. She felt she was worthy of work more dignified, cleaner; a job where she did not have to wash her hair every other night because of the filthy atmosphere. Maybe, now Jake was in charge and they no longer seemed impoverished, she would be allowed to find a job working in a nice shop. Even working in the brewery with all its steam would be better than the foundry. As she reached the gates of the Coneygree Iron Foundry the familiar, acrid smell of scorched sand and burning metal filled her nostrils. She headed for the time office and had her time-card stamped. In the ablutions block where she donned her headwear and her dusty brown coverall she greeted other girls who worked alongside her with a chummy smile. Conversation was generally robust and Clover indeed learned much more about life in their company than she would if she’d stayed at home helping her mother. Despite the overtly strict moral conventions that were supposed to inhibit sexual activity outside of and before marriage, it never ceased to amaze Clover just how many young women she knew who were manifestly flouting it. Ramona’s confessions had only served to confirm the notion. But where did all these girls find out about such things? Who coached them? ‘Have you and that Ned Brisco started courting then?’ one of her friends, Selina, asked. Clover was changing her boots, for it would not do to be seen walking in public in unsightly working boots. She smiled reticently and tugged at the laces. ‘We’re just friends, Selina.’ ‘You seem to spend enough time with your heads together. I wonder as you ai’ wed the chap a’ready.’ ‘He hasn’t asked me. Besides, he’s too preoccupied with his own interests to worry about the likes of me,’ Clover answered tactfully. Selina’s expression suggested she did not believe her. ‘Would you marry him if he asked you?’ ‘He’s not likely to ask…Hey, come on. Look at the time. Old Ratface Mason will be docking us a quarter-hour if we don’t hurry.’ So Clover, Selina and the others trooped across the dusty yard to the core shop. Their machines were already set up to produce the cores that were required later for insertion into moulds that were to fashion gear casings, electric motor housings and the like. The atmosphere was dense and smoky and the constant roar of the blast furnace, that melted the concoction of iron ore, scrap, coke and limestone ready for casting, meant they had to shout to each other to be heard. Clover pressed a foot pedal and the two halves of the corebox that bore the impression of the core she was making closed together with a sibilant hiss of compressed air. ‘Me and Charlie have decided to go to the seaside at Whitsun, Clover,’ Selina shouted over the din. Clover pulled on a lever and black sand, like a sudden fall of soot, was forced into the iron corebox under air pressure, filling the precisely machined space inside it. Black sand these days was a mixture of Bromsgrove red loam sand and fish oil, and smelt none too savoury. It was soft and easy to work and, by the time the cores came to be used, they would be cured hard and dry. In any case, oil sand was eminently preferable to muck sand, a mixture of coal dust and sand, with strands of hemp and horse manure to bind it together. When Clover opened the corebox again, the sand would have taken on the shape of the intricately engineered recess. The result was called a core. The molten iron would be poured into the mould at an exact, predetermined position, and would solidify around the core. By the time the iron cooled, the core would have disintegrated leaving its impression; a hole through the casting that its design and purpose ordained. ‘Where to?’ Clover asked. ‘Which seaside town?’ ‘We thought about New Brighton. There’s a train early from Dudley Port.’ Clover carefully eased the fragile core from its mould, inspected it and set it down gently on the table behind her. Then she began the whole process again. In a day, she would produce up to a thousand such cores. ‘Let’s hope the weather holds, Selina,’ she called. ‘Why don’t you come with us, Clover, you and Ned?’ ‘I doubt if he’ll have time. Besides, I’m supposed to be helping him with some work. I’ll ask him though.’ ‘Yes, ask him. Too much work’s no good for nobody. Going to the seaside would be a nice change.’ At half-past twelve they had a half-hour break. Clover spent it with Ned outside in the warm sunshine, eating sandwiches as they sat on a crate of castings that were destined for Indian Railways, Lahore. She asked him if he fancied accompanying her to New Brighton with Selina and Charlie. ‘If the weather’s fine I’d rather try out the model of my new flying machine,’ he replied predictably. ‘I’ve done some wing-load calculations, Clover, and I reckon I need to increase the wingspan a bit.’ Clover took a crunching bite out of a rosy apple. ‘I’m making some changes to the tail as well.’ ‘Oh?’ ‘I’m incorporating hinged flaps.’ ‘I see.’ She didn’t. She never did when he launched into his technicalities. ‘I’ve been going over and over everything I’ve ever read about flying machines and one thing’s struck me, Clover.’ ‘What’s that, Ned?’ She bit into her apple again. ‘The Wright Brothers have a patent for controlling direction and height by warping the wings in flight. All it does is induce drag – and it’s drag that gives you control. After four years of knowing about it, none of the Continental aviators have taken any notice at all and that’s why they can only get their machines to hop a few yards at a time. But I reckon I can get the same effect by incorporating flaps in the wings and the tail wings. Something a bloke called Sir George Cayley suggested a hundred years ago.’ ‘A hundred years ago?’ Clover repeated, incredulous. ‘Oh, Sir George Cayley dedicated his life to the pursuit of flying. As long ago as 1809 he flew a full-size glider, unmanned at first but later with a young lad on board. Everybody seems to have forgotten the work he did. But I haven’t.’ ‘Does that mean all my good work covering the wings was for nothing if you’re increasing the wingspan?’ she asked. ‘No, not all of it. Just bits. I need to test it all first on my new model, though. I’m certain it’ll work. I’m modifying the rudder as well.’ ‘I hope all this will be worth it in the long run,’ Clover said. ‘Mind you, I have to admire your patience, Ned. And your determination.’ He smiled warmly. ‘It’ll be worth it, Clover. I’ll be rich one day from making and flying these machines. You’ll see. Then I might even ask you to marry me.’ He said it as if in jest but Clover knew that this attempt at flippancy was merely a device to disguise how earnestly he meant it. She laughed dismissively. ‘Is there any fear of you achieving it in this century then?’ ‘Well if I don’t, it won’t be for want of trying.’ The hooter sounded and Clover picked up her lunchbox and the empty bottle that had contained her tea. ‘See you later, Ned. Shall I come and help you tonight?’ ‘If you want. It’d be nice to see you.’ Clover returned home to the Jolly Collier just after six o’ clock that evening. Although she had had a good wash in the ablutions block at the foundry and thoroughly brushed her hair, she felt she did not look her best. So when she popped her head round the door from the passage that led into the taproom and saw Ramona talking to none other than Tom Doubleday, she found herself in a dilemma: whether to stop and say hello and risk Tom’s silent disapproval of the way she looked in her working clothes, or allow Ramona, who looked delightful in a clean, pale-blue cotton dress, to have him to herself. But before she could escape, Tom had already spotted her. He smiled over Ramona’s shoulder and hailed her to join them. ‘Oh, I daren’t. I’m filthy. I must have a decent wash down and change before tea. And my hair…’ Clover rolled her eyes. ‘It’s lovely to see you,’ Tom assured her, seeing nothing untoward in her appearance at all. ‘Let me buy you a drink.’ ‘He’s brought the pictures of the wedding, Clover,’ Ramona chipped in. ‘Come and have a gander. They’re ever so good.’ Self-consciously, Clover stepped into the taproom and sat next to Tom. There were possibly a dozen other men in there, smoking, drinking, cursing, some playing crib. At one table a group were playing shove-ha’penny and beneath their table a mangy German shepherd dog lay, keeping a weather eye on the begrimed boot of one the more animated players whose foot shot out unwittingly from time to time in his excitement. Tom picked up the album from his lap and handed it to Clover. Smiling with anticipation she opened it and looked at the first photograph. ‘God! Look at Mother. She’s actually laughing,’ she said, delighted. She flipped over to another. ‘Oh, ’struth, look at me. I look awful.’ Tom craned his neck to see the offending photograph. ‘To tell you the truth, Clover, I thought how nice you looked.’ With a glow of satisfaction, she looked first at Tom then at her stepsister. ‘Has he been flannelling you like this, Ramona?’ ‘He says I look like Ellen Terry,’ Ramona answered flatly. ‘Ellen Terry?’ Clover pulled a face of disapproval. ‘I said you look more glamorous than Ellen Terry, Ramona.’ ‘I should hope so,’ Ramona said, her voice characteristically croaky. ‘She’s older than a flippin’ conker tree. She’s older than Mother.’ ‘I only meant,’ Tom explained, ‘that you have similar poise. You must admit that Ellen Terry has poise. She’s very elegant.’ Ramona smiled and looked at Tom warmly. ‘I believe you. Thousands wouldn’t.’ ‘This is a good one of you, Ramona,’ Clover said generously and held a photograph up for her stepsister to see. Ramona agreed that she liked it. ‘Let me buy you a drink, Clover. May I?’ ‘Thank you, Tom. A glass of lemonade wouldn’t come amiss. It’s thirsty work I’ve been doing all day.’ Mary Ann appeared at the door from the passage, in stern mode. ‘Clover. Come and help me with the tea now you’m back,’ she said curtly. ‘Have you seen the photographs, Mother?’ Clover waved the thin album at her to buy more time with Tom. ‘Yes, I’ve seen them,’ was the terse reply. ‘Now I could do with some help in the scullery.’ Clover looked disappointedly at Tom and then at Ramona. ‘I’d better go. Shame about the drink.’ ‘Another time,’ Tom suggested, his face manifesting equal disappointment. ‘Yes, another time.’ She smiled her apology. ‘Coming, Mother.’ Tom Doubleday appeared again in the taproom of the Jolly Collier a couple of days later. Clover spotted him as she returned home from work. Self-conscious about her dowdy working clothes, she flitted past the door hoping to be unseen, but Tom caught sight of her and waved. She waved back but scurried out of sight into the security of the scullery. Later, as she was peeling potatoes at the stone sink, she peered through the window and saw Tom Doubleday talking and laughing with Ramona outside. A pang of jealousy seared through her. Never in her life before had she experienced jealousy and it was not a pleasant feeling. Suddenly, her heart was beating fast and she felt hot; she hated Ramona for being in Tom Doubleday’s company, for luring him away. Just as suddenly she hated Tom Doubleday for spurning her by being so obviously taken with her stepsister. She’d hankered for Tom Doubleday since the day she met him and Ramona must have known that. Ramona surely didn’t want him; she’d got this Sammy she’d talked about. Could the girl really be so thoughtless, so selfish as to take the man she wanted? At tea Clover hardly spoke and didn’t even acknowledge Ramona. But nobody seemed to miss her contribution to the conversation that was growing more intense by the minute. ‘Six more free houses will take our ale, Mary Ann,’ Jake announced. ‘And an off-licence in Castle Street. As soon as we can brew the extra beer they’ll start selling it. Things am really looking up.’ Mary Ann sighed and swallowed a mouthful of rabbit stew. ‘It’s all well and good finding places what’ll take the stuff, Jacob, but can we brew it fast enough? That lot in the taproom can soak it up as quick as ever I can brew it.’ Jake picked a small piece of bone from between his teeth and set it on the side of his plate. ‘We need a bigger copper boiler. Six hundred and fifty gallon capacity wouldn’t be amiss. That’s eighteen barrels a brew, Mary Ann. Brewing six days a week, that’s one hundred and eight barrels. ’Course, we’d need half a dozen new fermenting vessels and all. And that grist mill we’ve got is buggered.’ ‘And where d’you suppose the money’s coming from, Jacob?’ Mary Ann asked astutely. ‘’Cause I don’t suppose for a minute as it’ll stop at a new boiler and fermenting vessels. I daresay we’ll need an extension to the brewery, eh? Then we’m gonna need a new horse and dray and somebody to drive it.’ Jake dipped a piece of bread into his stew and popped it, dripping, into his mouth thoughtfully. ‘Well, we’ve made a start,’ he said. ‘You see, Mary Ann, what you’ve gorra consider is the potential. In five years, if everything goes according to plan, we could own six or seven licensed premises besides this’n. You only have to see what Hanson’s have done to see as there’s money to be made.’ Clover displayed little interest in the schemes and aspirations of her new stepfather. Let him get on with it. It was a different world to the one she inhabited. She was more concerned about Tom Doubleday and how he now seemed out of her reach. She excused herself from the table and went to her room sullenly. There, she sat on her new bed and sighed, full of frustration, full of animosity over Ramona. She gazed at the wash-stand with its ewer and bowl set and saw her face reflected in the mirror at the back of it. She was frowning. Yet she was not given to frowning. She must be in love with Tom Doubleday, else why would she feel like this? Her inborn common sense, however, suggested she had no prior claim over him. Ramona had just as much right to him. She stood up and rummaged through her wardrobe for a frock that would be suitable attire for sewing canvas pieces onto wing sections. A home-made one presented itself and she changed into it. If Tom Doubleday fancied Ramona who was she to complain? She could hardly blame him. After all, Ramona was a fine-looking, vivacious young woman. Doubtless, in no time, they would be doing together eagerly what Ramona had been doing with Sammy. Naturally, the thought did not please her. It did not please her at all. Deftly, she buttoned up the dress, then shook out her long dark hair, brushed it thoroughly and tied it up again. At least Ned would be glad to see her. At least she could rely on Ned. When she called for Ned at his home in Watson’s Street his mother, as usual, made a huge fuss of Clover. No, he’d gone half an hour since to Springfield House. He’d had another idea and couldn’t wait to get cracking on it. He’d said to send her over when she arrived, but would she like a cup of tea first? Clover replied that she’d not long had one and another would ensure she’d be dying to pee in an hour, when there was nowhere for a woman to pee at the stables of Springfield House since they’d demolished the old earth closet. She didn’t like to bother Mr Mantle, either, when he was so good anyway about them using the old stables to construct Ned’s flying machine. So Clover bid goodbye to Florrie Brisco and carried on down Watson’s Street, turning right at Percy Collins’s greengrocery store. When she reached the top of Hill Street where it levelled out, she could see the blue slate roofs of Springfield House in Tansley Hill Road, a narrow, descending lane that was overhung like a grotto with tall trees. Now that Joseph Mantle had bought a Sunbeam motor car and housed it in a newly constructed garage on the other side of Springfield House the old stables were redundant and the horses and carriage long since gone. The stables comprised one building that used to be sectioned into stalls on one side and was long enough to accommodate a forty-foot wingspan. Ned realised he was lucky to have such a fine facility, and with no outlay. His mother had been instrumental in arranging for him to use the stables through her connection with the Mantles; she had been in service there for years before she married, and was highly thought of. She still called regularly and the Mantles welcomed her like any old friend. Indeed, Joseph Mantle took a keen interest in Ned’s project and often put his head round the stable door to check on progress. Ned smiled when he saw Clover. He had already taken off the sailcloth coverings at the wing-tips, ready for extending the wingspan. ‘So what do you want me to do, Ned?’ ‘I want you to cover in the fuselage behind where I sit,’ he told her. ‘There’s no advantage in leaving it open like a frame. Enclosing it can provide storage space and protect the control wires to the tail and rudder.’ ‘All right.’ She set about measuring up for the first piece. ‘Look, here’s the model. It’s nearly finished already. What do you think?’ ‘It looks a bit different to the first flying machine you made,’ she said fingering the tail. ‘It’s less like a box kite.’ He grinned with satisfaction. ‘And it’ll perform better than any box kite design.’ She smiled at him with admiration. He was so engrossed in his machine and how he could make it fly. His determination was formidable. Nothing would deter him from his goal. Oh, he would succeed, of that she was certain. He read every scrap of information there was to read about the progress of other aviators all over the world and utilised their best ideas. Clover moved to the trestle table and rolled out the expensive canvas sailcloth. She measured it and marked it out with a piece of blue chalk, then began cutting with a huge pair of scissors. Meanwhile Ned sawed and sanded the lath of wood that was to become an extended spar on one of the wings and offered it up to the construction. They worked companionably, speaking little, while Clover’s thoughts were about Tom Doubleday and whether he was supposed to be meeting Ramona that evening. It depressed her to think about it. Ramona and Tom Doubleday…What if she got pregnant and he had to marry her? If only he had asked her, Clover, to be his, she would be the happiest girl in the world. Oh, she was not without admirers, that much was obvious. Often she caught men looking at her covetously in the Jolly Collier when she was helping to serve. Men looked at her in church on a Sunday, they ogled her at the foundry. When she was walking to work she would attract many a wolf whistle. Yet no other man had really appealed. Nobody had ever made her stomach churn like Tom Doubleday. She’d never looked at a man’s lips before and known she wanted, more than anything, to be kissed by them. She’d never looked at a man’s hands and wondered what sensations they would elicit if they explored her body. She’d lain in bed at night imagining it and all sorts of other very private things, and could not sleep for ages after because of it. The nearest thing she’d experienced to romance was Ned Brisco, but that was too one-sided to be any good for him. It was time to be honest with Ned, time to make him realise there could never be anything more than that which already existed between them. Some day, she would meet a man and fall head over heels in love; somebody other than Tom Doubleday who was occupying her thoughts now. Ned had to be prepared for that. It was only fair. ‘Why is it that you like me to spend my time here with you, Ned?’ she asked, breaking the concentration. Ned stopped what he was doing and turned round to face her. ‘That’s a funny question, Clover.’ ‘But I’d really like to know.’ ‘Well, because I enjoy your company, I suppose. It’s nice being with you. And because you help me a lot.’ ‘You enjoy my company, you said. But you hardly ever speak while I’m here.’ ‘I still enjoy your company, Clover. I feel comfortable with you. We don’t have to talk all the while.’ ‘No, I suppose not,’ she answered softly. ‘What’s the matter, Clover? You sound real fed up.’ He sounded uneasy. ‘Aren’t you interested in the flying machine any more?’ ‘’Course I am,’ she admitted. ‘I still want to see you succeed. I want to see the thing fly and know that I had a hand in it. But, as regards anything else…I mean us…you and me…we see each other here, yet we don’t talk much, you have to admit.’ He sighed with dejection. ‘I admit I’m not such a brilliant conversationalist, Clover.’ She smiled affectionately. She couldn’t help but like him. ‘Well you do seem to be limited to one topic…’ ‘Yes, I know I’m a bit preoccupied with it. Sorry. It doesn’t mean I’m not interested in you, Clover. I think the world—’ ‘So how would you feel if you saw me with another man?’ she asked straightforwardly. ‘Because if another man I liked asked me out and I liked him, I’d most likely go. I mean, it’s not as if you and me are courting or anything like that.’ ‘No,’ he said and she perceived his dejection. ‘I agree, it’s not as if we’re courting. I had hoped though, when—’ ‘So it would be a mistake for you to regard me as anything other than a friend –wouldn’t it? Even though plenty folk think we’re more than just friends.’ He shrugged again disappointedly. ‘So have you met somebody you like, Clover? Is that why you mention it?’ ‘No, no. I haven’t met anybody, Ned. But I might. And if I do, I don’t want you to think that I…I don’t want you to think you have any claim on me. On the other hand, I’d hate you to think I don’t care anything for our friendship, ’cause I do. ’Cause that’s what we are – friends.’ ‘Yes, we are friends, Clover. I’d like us to be more than that but…Dammit, I might as well say it, since we’re talking about it…I’m in love with you, Clover. Always have been. All right, I know you’re not in love with me, so…’ He shrugged again and turned back to the wing he was modifying. ‘Well, at least we work well together, don’t we?’ Clover’s twentieth birthday came and went and no great fuss made. She was privately delighted when she received a birthday card from Tom Doubleday which she secreted away in her bedroom away from Ramona’s prying eyes. She had a lovely new white two-piece summer dress made at Bessie Roberts’s. It had a high-necked bodice and pouched in front; she chose the style and paid for it herself. Mary Ann gave her a new prayer book, Jake handed her a sovereign to spend as she wished, and Ramona bought her a new parasol for the summer. The new dress re-exposed a recent bone of contention that Clover had hoped was buried for good: to Mary Ann’s reaffirmed dismay, Clover still refused to wear a corset to pull in her waist. She insisted that her waist was small enough at twenty-four inches, so she didn’t need a corset. ‘Brazen faggot,’ her mother called her. ‘Wait till you’ve had kids and you’m my age and it all starts to puff out like a bladder full of wind,’ she told her. But Clover perceived some humour in her mother’s eyes. Perhaps envy, too, that she herself could not be so brazen as to face the world corsetless, especially as her younger husband was fond of patting her rock-hard backside, when he might well have preferred patting untrussed feminine flesh that yielded more temptingly to the touch. Ramona, too, embraced Clover’s attitude to corsets. It made perfect sense not to constrict your movements and make yourself uncomfortable and hot, especially now that summer was coming. In any case, at work she was bending down so much, reaching for bottles on low shelves, stretching up for glasses and spirit bottles. It was bad enough having to wear all the uncomfortable things a woman was expected to wear, let alone corsets. Besides, Ramona’s waist measured only twenty-three inches, so she needed a corset even less than Clover, being so petite. So corsets they did not wear and, since corsets were not a fit topic for discussion at the meal table in any case, the subject was finally abandoned. Whitsun came and went in days of perpetual sunshine and the scaled-down model of Ned’s flying machine proved to be a big attraction in Buffery Park on the Sunday, watched by a gathering clutch of highly curious Sunday afternoon walkers. He carried out the modifications he deemed necessary the same evening and put them to the test next day, to the delight of a chattering of children who were astonished, and a group of grey old men whom nothing would surprise. It only remained to incorporate these changes into the full-scale biplane he had almost finished constructing. Tom Doubleday, Clover knew, called in at the Jolly Collier two or three times a week nowadays, but since it always coincided with her return from work when she looked her shabbiest she seldom spoke to him. Occasionally, he would spot her drifting through the passage but there was no opportunity for conversation. And besides, she did not want to antagonise Ramona. Apart from one or two days of squally rain early in June that left the uneven cobbled streets of Kates Hill dotted with inky puddles, the weather became more settled again. Ramona enjoyed her eighteenth birthday and she, too, had a card from Tom Doubleday which she kept in her room away from Clover’s prying eyes. Her father bought her a new accordion. A new copper boiler with a capacity of six hundred and fifty gallons was installed in the brewery along with a larger mash tun. But Jake could make full use of neither yet; three more fermentation vessels were required to give them the capacity they needed. Lack of capital was proving to be the problem and his house remained unsold, making matters worse. Mary Ann seriously distrusted all banks so, out of respect for his new wife’s wishes, Jake was reluctant to apply to one for a loan. However, some progress had been made, inasmuch as several outlets had signed up to take deliveries of Beckitt’s Beers, as the products were being branded. It was time for Jake to implement his back-up plan. On the evening of Wednesday, 5th June, he left the Jolly Collier’s customers in the care of Mary Ann, Ramona and Clover while he headed for the Dudley Arms Hotel in the Market Place. The Dudley Arms was where Elijah Tandy lived, enjoying his wealth in lordly fashion, in a fine room that offered him easy access to all the card schools in the town. As a soldier Elijah had served unscathed under Kitchener, first in the Boer War from 1899 to 1902, and in India during 1903 and 1904 and had seen something of life. He had returned from India somewhat better off than when he’d departed, thanks to a skill he had acquired during countless off-duty hours playing poker. Nowadays, Jake often referred to him as the Nabob. Since his soldiering, he had done little other than gamble successfully. Jake considered that the time had come for Elijah to make himself useful and be a more responsible citizen. He found him in his room, fastening a collar to his shirt in front of the mirror. ‘Off out, our Elijah?’ ‘A spot of courting.’ ‘Can you spare me half an hour before you go? I doubt if Dorcas will mind.’ ‘Why, what’s up?’ ‘The brewery, Elijah. I was counting on having sold the house by now and the money from that subsidising the expansion of the business a bit further. Well, it ain’t sold, as you know and we need money for more fermentation squares. Otherwise we can’t get no further forward. I wondered if you’d got a few hundred I could borrow meanwhile.’ Elijah struggled with his collar stud but managed to attach the collar at the back. ‘This brewing business, Jake…Is it sound? I mean, is there money to be made?’ ‘Sound? I should say it’s bloody sound. Already I’ve got off-licences and free houses clamouring to buy our stuff. You know what Mary Ann’s beer’s like – it’s beautiful. The blokes love it. Then there’s the ironworks we could supply. Have no fear, Elijah, your money would be safe enough.’ Elijah pondered while he tied his necktie. ‘I ain’t so sure as I want to lend you money, Jake,’ he said at last and noted the disappointment that registered on his brother’s face. ‘But I’ll come into the business as a partner, if you’ll have me. And I’ll put money in.’ Jake’s face lit up. ‘And you’re welcome, our Elijah. Do you fancy getting stuck in with the graft like the rest of us then?’ ‘I don’t mind getting me hands dirty, our Jake. Anyroad, it’s time I did something worthwhile instead of farting about in card schools.’ ‘Then it makes sense to come and live at the Jolly Collier, eh? After all, you couldn’t live here still when the place belongs to a rival brewery. And we’ve got a spare bedroom. We could soon get it ready for you.’ Elijah adjusted his necktie in the mirror, but looked thoughtful. ‘There’s just one small consideration, Jake…’ ‘Which is?’ ‘Dorcas.’ ‘Oh. Are you getting wed at last then?’ ‘Me wed? You’re kidding, mate. I ain’t about to get wed. But I do like to claim me conjugal rights from time to time.’ ‘Oh, I see…’ Jake looked pensive. ‘There is one way we could solve it, Jake…’ Jake looked up at him hopefully. ‘How?’ ‘By you allowing me to use your house a couple of nights a week for me courting. They turn a blind eye here when Dorcas comes back to me room at night, but I can’t see Mary Ann turning a blind eye at the Jolly Collier, can you?’ Jake shook his head. ‘Not likely. Besides, there’s the two girls…’ ‘As you say, there’s the two girls,’ Elijah agreed. ‘Well, I’ve got no objection to you using my old bed to get your wicked away a couple of nights a week, our Elijah. Far be it from me to get in the way of that. In fact, I’ll call in meself and get it all made up for you.’ Elijah smiled. ‘Let’s go down to the bar and have a drink on it then, eh?’ ‘It’s all settled then?’ ‘It’s all settled. How much money do you want off me, our Jake?’ ‘Let’s say a thousand for now if you can spare it. We’ll have a deed of partnership drawn up, legal like, and agree later the final figure. Wait till I tell Mary Ann. She’ll be beside herself.’ ‘With joy or despair?’ Jake laughed. ‘You can never tell just by looking. But she’s all right. I wouldn’t swap her for crock of gold.’ Chapter 4 (#u755eb682-2687-5ddb-88a8-de493a40f4ea) On 10th June, a Monday, Clover and Ned walked back to Kates Hill together from the Coneygree. Whichever route they took they had a steep uphill climb at some point. Today, they decided to take the Bunns Lane route. ‘Did you read about that attempt in France yesterday to fly?’ Ned asked as they ambled past the Bunns Lane brick works on their left. ‘No, tell me about it.’ ‘Some chap called Alberto Santos-Dumont. Yesterday, on its first test flight he wrecked some weird concoction of aeroplane and airship he’d put together.’ ‘That’s a shame,’ Clover commented. ‘Just think of all the work he must’ve put into it, if what you do is anything to go by.’ ‘Well I don’t feel sorry for him, Clover,’ Ned said trenchantly and slung his knapsack onto his other shoulder to underline his point. ‘Serves him right for not sticking to one configuration. He tried his luck first with a biplane he’d built in March and that didn’t work. So he cobbles together this latest daft combination and that don’t work either. Well, I ain’t surprised. Now he’s said he’s going to try and fly with a monoplane arrangement. Why don’t he make his mind up?’ ‘You mean he should try and master one thing at a time?’ ‘It’s obvious. We know biplanes’ll fly ’cause the Wright Brothers have flown ’em. Why didn’t he just stick with his biplane and try to master that shape? That’s the trouble with the Continentals. They keep hiving off in different directions. I bet any money I’ll fly sooner than they do – and further.’ The exertion of brisk uphill walking in the warm muggy evening air made them both hot and they were at the point in Watson’s Green Road, by the wooden cowsheds of Roseland Farm that reeked of farm animals, where the climb started to get steep. ‘If the weather stays fine this weekend I want to try and fly the Gull.’ The Gull was the name he had given to this, his new biplane. ‘It’s as good as ready, Clover, and Amos can borrow the horse and cart again so we can transport it.’ ‘Are you going over Rough Hill again?’ she asked. ‘It’s the best hill facing south-west. And not much in the way of trees if I come down a bit sudden. Shall you come?’ ‘’Course I’ll come. You don’t think I’m going to miss it after all the hours I’ve put in, do you?’ She laughed and pushed her hair away from her forehead that was bearing a sheen of perspiration. ‘I’m ever so confident it’ll fly, Clover, I’m thinking of inviting the Dudley Herald to send a reporter. I want local factory owners to take an interest. I want the world to know about my efforts.’ ‘Good idea,’ she said enthusiastically. ‘You deserve some recognition for all the work you’ve put in.’ ‘That’s what I thought. Even the French get loads of publicity and they generally fall on their arses. What are you doing tonight, Clover?’ ‘I’m going to stay in tonight. I’ve got some ironing to do.’ ‘I just wondered if you fancied going out with me…If you’re going to be busy though, it don’t matter.’ They reached the Junction Inn with its rounded fa?ade, said cheerio and parted. Holding her coat by the loop with which she hung it up, she flung it over her shoulder and walked briskly down Cromwell Street. She was hungry and wanted her tea. She hoped it would be ready when she arrived home. As she reached the bottom of Cromwell Street, she could see the rotund figure of Zillah Bache in her long skirt ambling towards her in George Street. She waved and smiled and Clover crossed the road at Brown Street to intercept her. ‘I’m just on me way home,’ Zillah announced. ‘It’s warm, int it?’ ‘It is warm,’ Clover agreed. ‘Too warm. What’s for my tea, Zillah? I’m famished.’ ‘I’n done yer a nice meat-and-tater pie, my babby.’ ‘Ooh, lovely.’ ‘It’ll be in the oven at the side of the grate. The others’n had theirs.’ As she made to continue her journey, Clover noticed a solitary bottle of beer frothing in Zillah’s basket; her daily reward for not helping herself. ‘I’d better go, Zillah. I don’t want anybody else pinching my pie. See you tomorrow.’ ‘I er…heard your mother and that Jake talkin’ today, Clover…’ ‘Oh?’ Clover checked herself. ‘He was on about ’em needing more money to finish what they’m a-doing in the brewery.’ ‘God knows where they’ll get it. You know what Mother’s like about the banks.’ ‘Well that Jake was saying as how they’ve got to the point where they can’t turn back. They’ve got to go forwards, he says. So he’s asked his brother Elijah to come in with ’em. He ain’t short of a copper or two by all accounts.’ ‘Well, if that solves the problem, Zillah, all well and good.’ ‘Yes, but you ain’t heard the best of it,’ Zillah gloated, bursting with this opportunity to impart even more astounding information. ‘He’s taking up lodgings with you. He’s moving into the spare bedroom. From next Sunday. I gorra spruce it all up and air the bed.’ ‘You mean he’s coming to live at the Jolly Collier?’ ‘That’s about the size of it, Clover, my wench.’ She pressed her lips together tightly and nodded once, her expression suitably grave. ‘Thanks for letting me know. I don’t suppose Mother will tell me till the last minute. She never tells me anything. I sometimes wonder if she knows I exist.’ ‘Well, she seems a bit took with your stepfather Jake, and no two ways. I ’spect she can’t keep her mind on nothing else yet awhile.’ ‘As long as she’s happy…I’ll go, Zillah. See you tomorrow.’ ‘Yes, see you tomorrow, Clover. Keep out the hoss road.’ Clover carried on, smiling and acknowledging people who were walking in the opposite direction. As she reached the Jolly Collier, Tom Doubleday rushed out and almost knocked her over. ‘Oops!…God, I’m so sorry, Clover,’ he said full of remorse. ‘Oh, hello, Tom. Fancy bumping into you.’ Standing on one leg, Clover tried, hidden by the length of her skirt, to secretly rub her shin with the upper of her shoe at the spot where his foot had caught her. ‘I hope I haven’t hurt you, Clover.’ He placed his hand on her arm in a gesture of concern and the sensation of his hand, warm upon her, set her pulse racing. ‘I ought to start looking where I’m going before I wreak too much damage. I’m such a clumsy clot.’ ‘It’s all right, Tom, I’m fine,’ she assured him. He took his hand away. ‘Did I hurt your leg?’ ‘Just my shin,’ she admitted and raised the hem of her skirt to reveal a well-turned ankle. ‘It’s nothing. Are you just leaving?’ He smiled with a warmth that churned her insides. ‘I’ve got work to do.’ ‘Oh…Is Ramona all right?’ she asked awkwardly. He turned his head momentarily as if to check inside the pub. ‘Yes, she seems all right. Why? Is something the matter? Are you worried about her?’ ‘No, no…’ She shook her head, tongue-tied, and hoped he would be able to think of some comment to make, for she could think of none. ‘How’s your friend?’ he blurted, almost as dumbstruck as she was. ‘Isn’t his name Ned? I think that’s what Ramona told me.’ ‘Oh, Ned…’ She nodded, flustered. There was no sense in denying Ned if Ramona had made it her business to mention him. ‘Ned’s all right…thanks.’ ‘He’s building a flying machine, isn’t he?’ ‘Yes, that’s his real passion.’ She smiled then looked abashed at her shoes that were poking out daintily under her skirt, silently cursing herself for blushing so vividly. ‘I help him. I help him build it. He’s going to fly it on Sunday morning over Rough Hill. ‘Tis to be hoped the weather stays fair.’ She looked up into the sky as if it would yield some clue. ‘Let’s hope so.’ He found it difficult to avert his eyes from her face. ‘Are you helping him tonight?’ ‘Oh, no, not tonight. I’m having a night in tonight. Ironing.’ She uttered a little laugh of embarrassment and rolled her eyes. He nodded. ‘Well, it’s nice to see you Clover. I seldom get the chance to talk to you…which is a shame. Still…I’ll see you again soon, I hope.’ She smiled demurely and nodded again. ‘Yes…I hope so.’ ‘See you then, Clover. Sorry about your shin.’ ‘It’s all right, Tom. I can’t feel a thing.’ And she couldn’t. As the week wore on Clover thought more and more about Tom Doubleday. Meeting him so unexpectedly and talking to him had triggered dreamy thoughts again which, because of Ramona, she dared not foster. The week also brought a steady dribble of cardboard boxes and a couple of suitcases; Elijah’s belongings that were in the course of being transferred from the Dudley Arms to the Jolly Collier. And still nobody mentioned to Clover that his permanent arrival was imminent. ‘Do I take it that somebody is coming to lodge with us, Mother, seeing how somebody’s trankelments are cluttering up the passage and the stairs?’ she asked, pretending she did not know, peeved that nobody other than Zillah had mentioned it. ‘Elijah Tandy,’ Mary Anne responded economically. ‘Sunday.’ ‘Why has nobody mentioned it?’ ‘Oh? I would’ve thought that Jacob or Ramona might’ve said.’ ‘Nobody’s said. I would’ve thought you might have said, Mother. So how come he’s moving in here?’ ‘He’s investing some money in the brewing venture and coming to work with us. Jacob said that if he did, he might as well live here.’ ‘Why doesn’t he go and live in Jake’s house till it’s sold?’ Mary Ann laughed scornfully. ‘I imagine he’s afeared that if he does, young Dorcas will take it as a sign to go and live with him. That’ll mean him getting wed and he don’t want to get wed. You’d think she’d have the gumption to take the hint. He’s only been engaged to the wench three years.’ ‘Will he be paying rent here?’ ‘Lord, no. He’s Jacob’s brother, our Clover. Besides, you could hardly ask him to pay rent when he’s coughing up a load of money.’ ‘I suppose not. How did he make his money, Mother?’ ‘I shouldn’t ask.’ Mary Ann lowered her voice. ‘Gambling, if you want the truth,’ she muttered distastefully. ‘Cards. Not as I hold with it, as you know. But if it can do Jacob some good…’ Clover finished her ironing by eight o’ clock that night and, looking neat and tidy in a white blouse and navy skirt with her hair done up, went into the taproom to help Ramona. The number of young men that were patrons these days suddenly struck her, young men she had not seen before, many more than there ever used to be. They all had eyes for Ramona but, when Clover herself appeared, many of them fastened their eyes onto her too. Ramona spoke familiarly to those who addressed her. She giggled at their flirting and her repartee was equal to the wittiest. ‘You seem to have quite a few admirers, Ramona,’ Clover commented ungrudgingly. Ramona grinned. ‘Well, they’ll all be disappointed when Sammy comes.’ ‘Sammy?’ she queried, thinking of Tom and how it might affect him. ‘Is he coming?’ ‘I ain’t seen him for ages. But I had a letter from him yesterday. He says he wants to see me again, so I wrote back and asked him to come tonight.’ Clover was tempted to ask her about Tom Doubleday. She felt inclined to comment that it seemed hardly fair on him, especially if she intended resuming her shenanigans with this Sammy. But she thought better of it. It was none of her business. It was best to keep well out of it. ‘When he comes, Clover, would you mind covering for me while I go out with him, seeing as you’re down here?’ ‘I don’t mind,’ Clover replied. ‘Just as long as Pop doesn’t mind you going out.’ ‘Oh, he won’t mind.’ ‘Is Tom coming tonight?’ ‘He’s already been and gone, Clover.’ A group of young men on one table called Ramona’s attention. They wanted their glasses replenished. She made a show of provocatively swinging her narrow hips as she approached them and it seemed to Clover that her stepsister was deliberately flaunting herself. She seemed to enjoy it when they gawped at her. She revelled in their looking her up and down wantonly, making lewd signs to each other. She played up to them, laughing at their ribald comments while she collected their glasses ready for refilling. ‘You seem to enjoy egging those men on,’ Clover remarked with disapproval, helping her fill a couple of the glasses from another beer pump. ‘Do you think that’s wise?’ ‘Wise?’ Ramona queried, as if such wisdom was irrelevant. ‘It’s good for business, Clover.’ ‘You mean…?’ ‘I mean, I couldn’t give a sod for any of them, but as long as they think they’ve got a chance with me they’ll keep coming in here and spending money.’ Clover laughed as the realisation struck her. ‘Yes, I suppose…’ ‘You could help the cause as well, you know, Clover. You can fetch the ducks off the water. I’ve seen how men look at you.’ ‘Do you think so?’ ‘I know so. You’re different to me but that don’t mean they like you any less. What one bloke likes, another won’t. What one bloke don’t like, another will. One man’s meat, Clover.’ Clover smiled to herself. They were different, she and Ramona. Ramona was so much more worldly than her years suggested. But then, she had always had the freedom to do as she pleased. She was canny and uninhibited. Clover was neither. Ramona understood love, life and how to manipulate. Clover did not. Ramona’s big brown eyes, her curly, flaxen hair and her dimpled grin she could use to gain ascendancy over anybody she wished and she was not reticent about doing it. A couple of inches taller, with dark hair and blue eyes, and with an innocence Ramona lacked, Clover certainly was different. But she was no less appealing. Each had something the other did not possess. Clover oozed innocence. Although she was two years older, compared to Ramona she was a novice, never allowed to go out alone at night before Jake and Ramona came along. She had led a sheltered life and she was beginning to realise just how sheltered it had been. Clover had never been loved by a man – not truly loved. How could she be a complete woman when she was lacking such experience? How could she truly know what men appreciated in a woman when she had never been allowed to mix freely with attractive, eligible young men who might teach her? She had obediently succumbed to her mother’s will in all things, seldom challenging; not that Mary Ann had been tyrannical – indeed, she had not, but she brooked no opinion contrary to her own. Sometimes Clover wondered whether Mary Ann’s decisions were derived for Mary Ann’s own benefit and the daughter’s considerations were secondary. Well, times were changing. Things were going to be different. The front door latch clattered and a youth walked in with an expectant look on his fresh face. He was about nineteen, Clover estimated, with short-cropped dark hair and a cheeky grin. He had a pretty face for a boy, features that many a young girl would have been glad of. With an indisputable cockiness he stepped up to Ramona, who had her back towards him. ‘Ramona?’ At once she turned around, a grin of anticipation on her face. ‘Sammy. You came. How are you?’ ‘All the better for seeing your lovely face, Ramona,’ he replied. ‘Can I have a pint?’ ‘Have it on me,’ she said and immediately pulled him a pint of mild. ‘When you’ve drunk it we’ll go out if you like. Clover here will cover for me, won’t you Clover?’ ‘I said I would. So this is Sammy.’ She smiled politely. ‘Clover. My new stepsister,’ Ramona explained. Sammy shook her hand and smiled broadly. ‘I bet you fetch the ducks off the water,’ he commented. The two girls broke into a fit of giggling. Dorcas Downing and Elijah Tandy appeared in all their finery at the Jolly Collier on the Saturday night. They drank in the snug with Jacob, Mary Ann and Ramona by turns, when customers in the taproom would allow them a few minutes from serving. Elijah Tandy was celebrating his thirty-second birthday that very day and he bought everybody in the pub a drink. He oozed confidence and had a way with women. He was not excessively handsome, but he was fit and solid and his pleasant and polite manner, his easy way with a compliment, won him the admiration of many a girl. Dorcas Downing, his woman, was twenty-five, dark and strikingly beautiful with enormous brown eyes. Her father, who owned a hollow-ware factory at Eve Hill in the parish of St James, was also a magistrate and highly respected. His affluence ensured Dorcas could indulge herself in expensive clothes. They lived in a fine house in Ednam Road on the rural north-west side of the town. Whether Mr Downing approved of his prospective son-in-law, nobody knew. ‘Can I interest anybody in a cheese sandwich?’ Clover was carrying a tray into the snug. She looked a picture of fresh-faced femininity with her dark hair shining, done up in loose curls on top of her head. She wore a crisp white blouse with a high neck and a long black skirt that emphasised the youthfulness of her hips and gave her bottom some attractive contours. ‘There’s some Spanish onion as well, look, if anybody wants some.’ ‘Yes please, Clover, my babby,’ Elijah said amiably. He put down his pint and took a couple of sandwiches. ‘Dorcas?’ Dorcas sighed heavily as if the world and all its problems had suddenly come to roost on her shoulders. ‘Well if Elijah’s having cheese and onion, I suppose I’d better.’ ‘I should,’ Clover urged with a friendly wink. ‘You’d better,’ Elijah agreed and there was a twinkle in his eye, ‘else you won’t want to kiss me after.’ ‘Who would not want to kiss you, Elijah?’ Clover said flippantly. ‘Onion or no onion.’ At once she realised she had been tactless. She was not that familiar with Elijah, yet his easy-going nature had allowed her to believe she could get away with such innocent innuendo. Elijah chuckled but Dorcas’s face was like cold marble. She was evidently not so easy-going. ‘Does that mean that when my back’s turned others will be trying to usurp me?’ she asked Clover, her eyebrows raised in pique. ‘Not at all,’ Clover apologised earnestly. ‘I was just being frivolous, Dorcas. I didn’t mean anything by it. You shouldn’t read anything into it.’ ‘It’s all right, Clover,’ Elijah said, and others had cottoned on to the chill atmosphere that was suddenly pervasive. ‘Dorcas can be a bit touchy, can’t you Dorcas? Time of the month, I reckon.’ Dorcas looked at him with scorn. ‘Don’t be so coarse, Elijah. But how do you expect me to feel now you’re coming to live in the same house as two frivolous young fillies who can’t keep their eyes off you?’ ‘I think that might be a bit of an exaggeration, Dorcas,’ Clover said and left to fetch another tray of sandwiches for the taproom. Ned and Amos had already loaded the flying machine onto the borrowed cart by the time Clover arrived at Springfield House. Mr Mantle appeared in his dressing-gown and night-cap and wished Ned the very best of luck, to which Ned replied that he was getting nervous about the whole thing. But at least the weather remained warm and sunny. ‘I hope there’s a bit more wind up on Rough Hill,’ Ned commented apprehensively as they walked alongside the cart down Tansley Hill Road. ‘I’ll need a bit o’ wind to keep me aloft.’ ‘The wind’s kept me aloft all sodding night,’ Amos said sombrely and Clover giggled. ‘That Millard’s bloody mild up at the Gypsy’s Tent serves me barbarous. And what with having to run up the yard when I was took short…’ ‘It’s all right for you to mock, Amos,’ Ned complained, ‘but what about if I fail today? I’ve asked the Dudley Herald to come and report on this attempt.’ ‘Well I don’t suppose he’ll mind, the Dudley herald, specially if you crash, our Ned. It’ll give him summat to shout about…Who is he, anyroad, this Dudley herald?’ Amos winked conspiratorially at Clover. ‘Who is he!’ Ned scoffed. ‘The Dudley Herald is the newspaper, you fool…’ Then it dawned on him that Amos was pulling his leg. He laughed, embarrassed. ‘Swine!’ All three laughed and it relieved some of the tension they all felt. This was going to be a day of great significance. If Ned and his machine covered any distance and it responded to his new control mechanisms, he could be on his way to more important things. Powered flight would inevitably be next, and the search for a suitable engine. If he failed…No. Failing was not to be contemplated. Even though he had to scrimp and save so he could afford to buy the materials to build his machines, it really was a labour of love. Folk on their way to church stopped and gawped at the strange contraption that was strapped in sections onto the cart. One or two of the more enlightened men guessed that it might have been a flying machine but, for all some of them knew, it could have been a giant bedstead. Eventually they trundled past Oakham Farm and, on a lane known as Turner’s Hill, they arrived at the broken gate that led into the high field that crowned Rough Hill. To Ned’s relief the wind was blowing significantly harder up here than it had been in Tansley Hill Road, which lay in the lee of Cawney Hill. They off-loaded the flying machine and Ned began by bolting the undercarriage – a pair of bicycle wheels attached to a wooden frame – to the fuselage. While Clover held the assembly steady, Ned bolted the wings to the fuselage and began the complicated routine of fastening the bracing and the rigging between the top and bottom wings that afforded some stability and tension to the structure. By this time, the reporter from the Dudley Herald had shown up and began asking Ned all sorts of questions. Ned answered them patiently while he worked, but he would not stop what he was doing. He fastened the stiff wires that joined the wing flaps to the levers by his seat and within an hour, the Gull was ready to fly. ‘Steady as you go,’ Ned urged as they trundled it towards the launch point, holding it back so that it shouldn’t run on its own down the hill and fly off unmanned; that would be the ultimate embarrassment with a reporter there to witness it. Amos was chocking the wheels with a large piece of wood when they heard a man’s voice calling from behind them, its sound almost carried away from them by the stiff breeze. ‘Clover! Clover!’ She turned around. Tom Doubleday was rushing towards them carrying his camera, a case and a tripod. Her heart leapt into her mouth but she waved at him, blushed and grinned. Guiltily, she looked at Ned. ‘Ned, there’s a photographer here to take your picture,’ she said. ‘Don’t climb aboard yet.’ Tom was panting when he reached them. ‘I’m glad I caught you…Didn’t think I’d get here in time…Which one’s Ned, Clover?’ Clover introduced them. ‘You’re just in time, mate,’ Amos informed him. ‘Two more minutes and you’d have missed all the fun.’ ‘Do you mind if I take a photograph of you and your machine, Ned?’ Tom asked. ‘It’s for my own interest really.’ ‘I’ve got no objection,’ Ned replied. ‘Maybe the Dudley Herald would like a copy?’ Clover suggested to the reporter. ‘It could illustrate your article.’ The reporter nodded. ‘That’d be perfect. We could make a proper feature of it.’ ‘What’s your name, by the way?’ Ned asked. ‘Julian Oakley.’ Julian smiled. ‘At your service.’ ‘Welcome to this little gathering. Let’s hope you get something worth reporting.’ ‘I have every confidence, Mr Brisco,’ Julian replied diplomatically. ‘And a picture will certainly help, if it comes out.’ ‘Great,’ Tom said. ‘It’ll come out all right, have no fear. Now, if you can just bear with me a minute while I set up my camera and put in a plate…’ When Tom had found a suitable place to stand that showed the biplane off to best advantage, he adjusted the legs of his tripod to compensate for the uneven ground. ‘If you like, I’ll take one of you, Ned, standing at the side of the machine, then another with you sitting in it.’ He hid his head under the black cloth that enabled him to see an inverted image on the ground glass screen. He focused it, then inserted a photographic plate into the back of the camera and pulled out the dark slide that protected it from unwanted light. He screwed a shutter release bulb into the body of the lens. ‘Smile, please.’ ‘Can I have one with Clover and Amos on?’ Ned asked. ‘Have you brought enough plates?’ ‘No trouble, Ned,’ Tom said obligingly. So Amos took his place by Ned and Clover self-consciously shuffled into the frame. Ned suggested she stand between them. Tom took out the exposed plate and inserted a new one. ‘Right…Look into the lens and smile, please.’ The shutter clicked, the group dispersed, Ned clambered up onto his machine and posed for another photograph. ‘If I can get one of you in flight as well…Give me one minute to swap plates…’ Tom rushed to finish his task then thanked Ned for waiting. ‘I think we’re ready now,’ Ned called. ‘Amos, shift the chock…Wish me luck, you lot.’ ‘Good luck,’ Clover called, echoed by the rest of them. Amos removed the chock and the biplane rolled downhill, rapidly picking up speed. Clover saw Ned gently pull the levers that worked the flaps on the trailing edges of the wings and tail and, magically, the glider lifted into the air. She watched, mesmerised, unable to speak as its trajectory levelled out. Momentarily the wings dipped from side to side as Ned played with the controls and Clover was reminded of a heron she’d once seen floating with absolute grace and composure over a field not unlike the one she could see now below her. The biplane seemed to climb a little, but from these heights it was difficult to tell how much. It turned slightly to the right, then to the left and Clover knew that Ned was testing his controls for response. Smiling, her eyes sparkling with tears of admiration at Ned’s achievement, she turned briefly to Tom. Her only fear now was that Ned was going to run out of terrain. He was rapidly approaching the New Rowley Road and the Springfield Colliery. Suddenly, Clover was anxious. ‘What’s he going to do now, Amos?’ ‘Practise landing a bit sharp, I wouldn’t be surprised,’ Amos replied sardonically. Clover realised that of course, Ned had never been able to practise a landing, for he’d never got that far before. Last time he’d crash-landed. ‘Think he can do it, Amos?’ ‘He’s gunna have to try. The ground’s a bit rough down there though, all them great tufts of grass and gorse bushes and pit shafts…And that bloody stupid hoss, look…’ Clover held her breath. The next seconds seemed like hours. The aircraft looked small in the distance now but she discerned it descending, lower and lower. From where Clover stood it looked as if the tail end touched down first and she realised his wisdom and foresight in fitting a tail wheel. Then the narrow bicycle wheels made contact with the ground and the whole assembly seemed to shake and flop about as it came to a halt over the rough field. She breathed a sigh of relief. ‘He’s done it!’ she yelled, ecstatic at Ned’s success. She turned to Tom Doubleday and Julian, jumping up and down with excitement. ‘He’s done it. Did you see that? He’s done it.’ ‘That was pretty impressive,’ Julian declared. ‘Wait till our readers hear about this. Ned Brisco will be a hero. He was in the air about fifteen seconds by my reckoning.’ ‘What d’you reckon that is in terms of distance?’ Tom asked. ‘Gettin’ on for two hundred yards,’ Amos estimated. ‘At least. We can easy pace it out. Come on, Clover, we should be getting down there to him. We’ll have to congratulate him.’ ‘Yes, we’d better.’ She turned to Tom Doubleday as Amos went back to fetch the horse and cart. ‘I’d best get down there,’ she said apologetically. ‘Do you mind if I come with you?’ he suggested. ‘Maybe we could walk down together.’ Clover smiled happily. ‘All right.’ Her elation all at once took on a new perspective. ‘Would you like me to carry something for you? Your case, maybe?’ ‘Thanks.’ He handed her the case that contained his plates. ‘It’s not too heavy, is it?’ ‘Not at all,’ she said and they began the steep descent down Rough Hill. ‘That was quite a spectacle,’ Tom said, ‘seeing man and machine fly. Quite a spectacle. Something I’ll never forget. Something to tell my grandchildren about.’ ‘Quite a spectacle,’ Clover agreed. ‘I’m so pleased he succeeded. He’s worked ever so hard for it, you wouldn’t believe. He lives and breathes this aviation lark.’ ‘But you obviously share some of his enthusiasm?’ ‘Oh, I do. Because he would never allow it to beat him. He’s read everything about what the Wright Brothers have done and wanted to prove to himself that he could do it as well. He knew he could. You have to admire such determination, such faith. I suppose his enthusiasm has rubbed off on me a little bit.’ ‘So how long have you been courting, Clover?’ ‘Oh, we’re not courting, Tom.’ She looked at him earnestly and almost tripped over a tuft of grass. ‘You’re not? But I got the impression from your stepsister that you were.’ Clover shook her head and, with her fingers, brushed aside her hair that was blowing about her face. ‘I don’t know what Ramona’s told you about me and Ned, but we’re definitely not courting. We’re only friends. Good friends, but only friends.’ She could see Ned scrambling out of his glider that looked like a small toy from here. He walked round to the rear of the craft, fiddled with the tail and checked the tail wheel. ‘Well she seems to think you’re courting, Clover.’ ‘No, she doesn’t, Tom,’ she answered decisively. ‘She knows very well that Ned is only a friend. She knows very well we’re not courting.’ ‘So why would she…?’ Clover looked at him and saw a flicker of realisation in his eyes. He caught her look and smiled dismissively. ‘So, what’s the next step for Ned as regards aviation?’ ‘For Ned? Oh, powered flight, he reckons. Obviously, he’s going to need an engine.’ ‘Well there are plenty of firms locally who make engines. He could use a motor car engine, I daresay.’ ‘I don’t think they’re suitable,’ she replied. ‘Too heavy and not enough power – so he says. The other problem is that he pays for all this out of his own pocket. The reason he asked the newspaper to come and report it was so that he might get some factory owner interested enough to sponsor him somehow and contribute to the costs.’ ‘Good idea. I hope he succeeds in that as well. It would be a crying shame if the project had to stop through lack of money.’ ‘It would,’ Clover agreed. ‘Ned has a dream. He wants to develop these machines – these aeroplanes – enough to carry freight and even passengers. He wants to start his own factory building them.’ ‘Well, what a dream, eh, Clover?’ She looked at him and smiled. ‘I know. What a dream. You have to admire it. But he sees such potential.’ After a few seconds pause, Tom said, ‘Can I ask you something, Clover?’ ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Ask away.’ ‘I can see you’re very attached to Ned but…well, if you’re not courting, may I ask if I could take you out tonight?’ She thought he would hear the sudden pounding of her heart and she was sure she must have coloured crimson, but she smiled delightedly, wide-eyed. ‘Oh, I’d love to. But what about Ramona?’ ‘Ramona?’ he queried, a puzzled look clouding his handsome face. ‘Yes. She won’t be very pleased.’ ‘I don’t understand. What’s she got to do with it?’ ‘Well…’ She uttered a little laugh of embarrassment. ‘Aren’t you and Ramona supposed to be—?’ Tom laughed out loud. ‘Me and Ramona? Has she told you that?’ ‘No, she’s said nothing. I just got the impression that…You always seem very close, Tom. Heads together in the taproom…you know?’ He laughed again. ‘Well, it’s an illusion, Clover. There’s nothing between Ramona and me.’ ‘I’m sorry, Tom. I really was under the impression.’ She smiled, embarrassed but so relieved. She was relieved on two counts; one, that he and Ramona were not courting and two, that he was therefore not being two-timed on account of Sammy. ‘Oh, Ramona’s always very bright and friendly. I like her. And she’s a fine looking girl. I flatter myself to believe that if I asked her out she would accept. But you’re the one I’ve always set my cap at, Clover. Why else d’you think I’ve been calling so regularly at the Jolly Collier? To see you. Trouble is, you’ve been so elusive. You kept hiding yourself away.’ She laughed and her eyes lit up like bright blue crystals. ‘Only because I didn’t want you to see me all scruffy.’ Then she was stumped for words again. ‘You look good in anything, Clover.’ He paused, certain she would savour the compliment. ‘So can I call for you at, say, eight o’ clock?’ ‘Yes, eight o’ clock would suit well. What shall we do, though?’ ‘I don’t know yet. Go for a walk maybe? This weather seems very settled. It should be a pleasant enough evening.’ ‘All right.’ She smiled and there was a skip in her step now. Julian, the Dudley Herald reporter, had tagged along with Amos who was leading the horse and cart carefully down the steep slope. They remained a good sixty yards or so behind Clover and Tom and Amos furnished him with a few background details that he would be able to use in his story. Eventually they all reached the grinning Ned, who could scarcely contain his joy. He’d inspected the aircraft and declared it free of damage. ‘Tonight, you lot, I’m having a celebration and you’re all invited.’ Tom’s eyes met Clover’s and they both smiled with resignation that their planned evening stroll might have been thwarted. ‘Where at?’ Amos asked. ‘At the Jolly Collier. Is it all right, Clover if we all pile into the snug at your place tonight? I want my mother and father to come, and Amos’s wife.’ ‘I expect it will be all right,’ she replied, catching Tom’s look again. ‘Is Tom invited?’ ‘Yes and you, mate…’ He nodded at Julian. ‘Bring your wives as well.’ ‘Thanks,’ said Tom, ‘Tell you what. I’ll develop and print the pictures I’ve got and bring them with me.’ ‘That would be lovely,’ Clover enthused. She would see Tom after all. ‘I want to be first to see them, Tom,’ she said with a wink. ‘Can you bring them about eight?’ Chapter 5 (#u755eb682-2687-5ddb-88a8-de493a40f4ea) Tom Doubleday showed up in the taproom wearing a smart grey suit with a subtle stripe. His plain royal blue tie contrasted well with his white cotton shirt and starched round-edged collar, and the silver chain of his pocket watch hung glistening across his waistcoat. ‘Well, you look smart tonight, Tom, and no two ways.’ Ramona greeted chirpily. He smiled gratefully at the compliment. ‘Thank you, Ramona. That’s exactly what I needed to hear.’ ‘So who’s the lucky lady?’ He glanced around to see if anybody was listening, then leaned forward conspiratorially, as if to divulge some deep secret. ‘Your stepsister,’ he whispered. ‘Clover?’ Ramona’s expression changed and she paused while she took stock of this vital news. ‘She never said.’ ‘Would you do me a favour and let her know I’m here?’ Stunned, Ramona left the taproom. In a few seconds she returned, her demeanour unusually aloof. ‘She’ll be a minute or two yet. D’you want a drink while you wait?’ ‘Not for now, thanks, Ramona. Later.’ He smiled pleasantly but Ramona did not return it. He turned around while she tended to somebody else’s needs and he nodded at those regulars he was already familiar with. ‘Lovely evening,’ he said to somebody. He scrutinised the ends of his fingers and nervously creased the flap of the brown envelope he was holding that contained the photographs of Ned’s triumph. He wondered what Clover would be wearing. Of course, she wore the new white dress she’d bought herself. She’d piled up her dark hair in the Pompadour style that emphasised the youthful set of her head and the elegance of her neck. ‘You look beautiful.’ She smiled demurely. ‘I’m glad you approve. Thank you.’ ‘I’ve never seen you looking so lovely.’ ‘Perhaps you can appreciate why I always hide away from you when I get in from work all grubby in my scruffy clothes. I can look decent. I’d much rather you see me looking this way.’ He looked her up and down admiringly. ‘I’ve seen you decent before – at the wedding, if you recall. But decent is a bit of an understatement, Clover. You look delicious enough to eat. Come on, let’s go for a walk so the world can witness me at the side of somebody so lovely.’ She smiled again and felt her colour rise at his compliments. ‘You don’t mind walking out, do you?’ he asked and she shook her head. ‘There might not be much opportunity to talk later. What time did Ned say he would get here with his family?’ ‘About nine.’ ‘That gives us an hour. Shall we head for Buffery Park? It’s a lovely evening.’ ‘If you like. Give me a minute, though, to get my hat on.’ She went out again and returned wearing a beautiful Leghorn hat, trimmed with field flowers. She wore it tilted slightly to one side, in the manner of the fashionable women she’d seen in pictures in newspapers. Tom said how elegantly she wore it as they stepped out of the Jolly Collier into the warm evening sunshine of George Street and she felt like a queen. They talked at first about Ned’s achievement that morning and how Amos made her laugh with his irreverence. Before they knew it they were near the hothouses of Buffery Park. The flowerbeds were ablaze with colourful blooms. Clover said how she wished they could have a garden at the Jolly Collier instead of the dreary brewery that overlooked and overwhelmed the rear of the pub. ‘Do you like living in a public house?’ Tom asked. ‘I don’t know any different,’ she replied, stepping over a crack in one of the paviours to avoid bringing bad luck. ‘But I like all the company we get. I see different people all the time. It’s nice getting to know lots of people.’ ‘Yours is a decent pub, you know, Clover. It has a reputation for being a good house, as well as for the beer.’ ‘Yes, I know. It’s because of my mother, I suppose. The way she’s always run it.’ ‘Do you get on all right with her?’ Clover chuckled. ‘She’s a funny woman.’ ‘Oh? How is she funny?’ ‘In the sense that she seldom smiles, her attitude to folk. She has some funny ideas, mostly about me, it seems. She’s not been so bad since she’s married again. Jake keeps her in check.’ ‘What do you think of him?’ ‘I like him. He’s very placid, very down-to-earth. He’s certainly good for my mother. Good for me, too. Before he came along I wouldn’t have been allowed to walk out with you, without somebody else with us.’ ‘A chaperone? God, how old-fashioned.’ ‘Like I say, she’s a funny woman – old-fashioned – a dyed-in-the-wool Victorian. But Jake’s changing all that. Ramona was always allowed to go out apparently, so now I am as well.’ She smiled with the satisfaction of having won some great privilege. ‘So you’ve had no chance to meet sweethearts?’ ‘I didn’t say that,’ she answered coyly, half teasing. ‘There have been one or two boys I’ve been sweet on…’ She looked away for she found herself blushing again. ‘How about you?’ she said, diverting him. ‘How many sweethearts have you had?’ ‘Oh, hundreds…’ He grinned first and they both burst out laughing. ‘Oh, you have to be truthful, Tom,’ she said. ‘Have you really had lots of sweethearts?’ ‘About two.’ ‘You mean two hundred?’ she suggested mischievously. She loved how he laughed at that, how his eyes crinkled at the edges so deliciously. ‘Just two,’ he answered. ‘A girl from Sedgley who was my sweetheart for two years and a girl from Brierley Hill.’ ‘Oh? What went wrong?’ ‘Well…with the girl from Sedgley there were too many instances where we didn’t see eye to eye. Too many arguments over nothing, too many unreasonable requests, too many times I was taken for granted when I’d gone out of my way to do things for her and her family. There was too much incompatibility, Clover. We would never have made each other happy. So I ended it.’ ‘And the girl from Brierley Hill?’ A couple of sparrows descended into one of the flowerbeds they were approaching, twittering angrily at each other as they squabbled over a worm, then just as rapidly took flight again, the one hurtling after the other. ‘Maud…’ He sighed. ‘Maud didn’t play quite by the rules. While I was conscientiously trying to nurture our relationship she sought extra attentions in the arms of one of my friends.’ ‘She was being unfaithful?’ ‘Yes, she was being unfaithful. Seriously unfaithful as it turned out. Six weeks after we split up she married the bloke, already pregnant. And the child certainly wasn’t mine.’ ‘I imagine you were upset, Tom.’ ‘I was engaged to be married to her. I was in love with her. Yes, I was upset.’ ‘And you had no idea what was going on behind your back?’ ‘Not then. Oh, looking back now I can see there were lots of clues, but I was oblivious to them. I imagined her not wanting me to touch her was a passing phase – something all women go through. I thought the reasons she gave not to see me sometimes on our regular nights were genuine, and I never challenged them. Oh, there were lots of little things – insignificant on their own, but when you view them as a whole, a different picture develops.’ ‘It’s a shame you had to go through all that…Good for me, though, Tom…Otherwise you wouldn’t be here now.’ ‘No, I don’t suppose I would.’ He smiled cheerfully to indicate he was over the trauma. ‘The trouble is, Clover, when something like that happens, you tend to lose confidence in yourself, in women, in human nature. I’d never allow it to happen again. I’d know the symptoms another time and at the first signs I’d…well, I’d just walk away.’ ‘Only right, Tom,’ she agreed. ‘A couple has to be committed to each other if they want their relationship to work.’ They fell silent for a few moments while they each digested what the other had said. The shadows were lengthening and the low sun, directly in front of them, was promising a rhetorical bedtime for itself. ‘How old are you, Tom?’ ‘Twenty-five. And you?’ ‘You should never ask a girl how old she is,’ she said feigning indignation. ‘But I’ll tell you anyway. I’m twenty. I was twenty last month.’ He laughed at the way she changed direction so quickly. ‘That’s a nice age gap between a man and woman, five years. Don’t you think?’ ‘I hadn’t thought about it. Ned’s two years younger than you.’ ‘Ah, Ned, eh? Good old Ned…I must say, he seems a decent sort. The sort who wouldn’t hurt a fly.’ ‘He’s too wrapped up in what he’s doing to hurt anything,’ Clover mused. ‘So how did the photographs turn out?’ He waved the envelope that contained them. ‘Let’s sit on that bench over there and I’ll show you.’ ‘Are they good?’ ‘They’re fine.’ ‘Do you live with your folks, Tom?’ Clover asked, changing tack again. ‘Yes, I do. I have a sister, Lily, the same age – no, a year older than you. She’s getting married soon, so she’ll be leaving home to live with her new husband. I have another sister, called Frances who is already married and pregnant, and a brother called Cedric who is married with children.’ ‘So where do you live? Nobody’s ever mentioned it.’ ‘Stafford Street, towards the top. By Top Church. That damned great clock of theirs often wakes me up in the middle of the night, striking.’ She laughed, a sympathetic laugh. ‘You poor old thing.’ By this time they had reached the bench that looked out onto shrubberies where rhododendrons blossomed in profusion. Clover dusted off the bench with her handkerchief to protect her new white dress, then sat down expectantly, her back gracefully erect, her knees drawn towards Tom. Tom sat down casually and opened the brown envelope. He drew out the pictures and handed them to her. ‘Oh, yes, they’re really good, Tom…Look at Amos’s expression here. He’s such a nit.’ She laughed at them, at how ordinary they all looked, at their incongruity with what they had achieved together – especially Ned. ‘That’s a good one of Ned. He looks so serious – he always looks serious…God, don’t I look awful?’ ‘Actually, I think you look beautiful,’ Tom answered, his voice low. ‘I took the liberty of enlarging that portion of the photo to show just you…the very bottom one…I thought I’d keep it for myself, if you have no objection…’ She pulled it out and glanced at it, then hid her face with it, giggling girlishly. ‘I look so stupid,’ she said self-effacingly, and blushing for she felt his eyes hot upon her. ‘Why do you have such a low opinion of yourself, Clover?’ he asked seriously. ‘You’re really a very beautiful girl.’ ‘Lord, I’m not,’ she countered flatly. ‘My nose is too long for a start.’ ‘You have the most scintillating nose I’ve ever seen,’ he said sincerely. ‘It was one of the first things about you that really struck me.’ ‘About ten minutes before the rest of me came into view, you mean,’ she said with humour brimming in her eyes. ‘Stop laughing, for God’s sake. It’s not that funny.’ ‘Yes it is.’ He spread his arms across the backrest of the bench so that one was behind her. ‘You wouldn’t think it was funny if you were stuck with it.’ He couldn’t help but laugh for quite some time. He had never anticipated that Clover Beckitt could be so amusing. ‘You’re a jewel, Clover.’ ‘A jewel, eh?’ ‘Yes, a jewel. Don’t denigrate yourself. Few girls are as lovely as you are. And you know what’s most appealing about you?’ She rolled her eyes, wondering what gem he would come out with next. ‘Don’t say my nose.’ ‘You don’t acknowledge your looks. You’re not affected by them. You’re just natural.’ ‘You mean that’s good?’ ‘It makes you different, Clover. I get young women all the time in my studio, come to have their photographs taken for their sweethearts or husbands. Most are nowhere near as pretty as you. Yet they have such a bob on themselves, some of them. They really think they’re something special when they’re not at all. You are the exact opposite. That’s refreshing – and appealing.’ Clover tried hard not to blush, but she couldn’t help it. ‘Anyway, I think Ned will be pleased with these. And that Julian chap, the reporter.’ ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I just hope they do Ned some good. I reckon he deserves recognition for what he’s achieved already. It seems there’s nobody else in this country seriously attempting flight. I wonder why it should be left to some ordinary bloke with no great education and little money to do all the groundwork for something as important. Such apathy is unforgivable.’ Clover shrugged. ‘Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?’ ‘Here we are, the richest country on earth and nobody cares tuppence about aviation, except Ned Brisco.’ ‘And me.’ He laughed. ‘Yes, and you.’ ‘Are you a wealthy man, Tom?’ she asked. He looked at her curiously. ‘God, Clover! Why do you ask? Does it make any difference?’ ‘No, no difference at all, but you always wear such nice clothes. I mean, look at this suit your wearing…’ she fingered the material of his lapels admiringly and he enjoyed the intimacy of it. ‘You always look so smart. Even when you came to Rough Hill this morning you looked smart.’ ‘Well, to answer your question, Clover, I’m not a wealthy man. I wear decent clothes because I come into contact with the public who spend money with me. If I was a scruffy article, people might assume my work would be scruffy. I can’t afford for people to think that. But I’ve worked up a decent little business and I earn enough to buy nice clothes and to put a bit by.’ ‘My mother always says you have to put a bit by.’ ‘What happened to your father, Clover? If you don’t mind me asking.’ She smiled wistfully as she told him. ‘Do you remember him?’ ‘Not really. I’ve got a picture of him. I know what he looked like.’ ‘Will you show me sometime? I’d like to see it.’ ‘’Course…Hey, what time is it?’ He took his pocket watch from the fob in his waistcoat. ‘Nearly nine, according to this.’ ‘Maybe we should head back to meet the others.’ She smoothed the back of her skirt with her hands and stood up, ready. ‘I suppose you’re right, Clover.’ He put the photographs back into their envelope and stood up with her. ‘Look, I might not get the opportunity later, so do you mind if I ask you something now?’ The sun was going down and the sky was shot with streaks of orange and magenta. Distant clouds that had settled on the horizon were caught in the blaze, daubed with the same vivid colours. Tom and Clover started walking, casting long shadows across the neat lawns of the park. ‘What did you want to ask me, Tom?’ ‘If I can see you again – another evening.’ ‘Yes, please, I’d like that,’ she answered softly, sincerely, looking into his eyes. ‘When?’ ‘Whenever you can. How about Wednesday?’ ‘All right, Wednesday. Eight o’ clock again?’ ‘Eight o’ clock would suit very well…’ He smiled, took her hand and her heart starting beating noticeably faster. Clover, her bright eyes alive with the exhilaration of one hour alone with Tom Doubleday, walked buoyantly down the passage and through the door of the snug. When he saw her, Ned looked at her in disbelief and unwittingly stood up. He’d never seen her looking like this, like a princess all in white, with her hair done so elegantly beneath the pretty hat that was adorned with flowers. The Brisco family were already supping their first drinks with Julian Oakley and a mousy young woman who was evidently his wife. Ned looked disconcerted standing there, trussed up in a stiff collar and necktie as he supped a pint of mild ale. Florrie Brisco wore a grey dress that she’d evidently bought when she was a stone and a half lighter, and Old Man Brisco wore a striped shirt with a mismatched, crumpled collar beneath his unpressed serge suit. ‘Clover!’ Ned greeted. ‘Where’ve you been? Your stepsister said you’d gone —’ Then he saw Tom. He watched Tom follow this princess in. He watched her turn to him and smile enigmatically, as if they shared a thousand secrets. Ned’s mouth fell open with disappointment that was rapidly spiralling into an abyss. ‘I went for a walk in Buffery Park with Tom,’ she said casually, as if it was an everyday occurrence, trying to make his fall gentler. ‘He wanted to show me the photographs he took this morning. They’re ever so good.’ He nodded unsurely. Maybe he was jumping to conclusions too quickly. ‘I’ll get you a drink, Clover. And you, Tom,’ he added, trying to hide any animosity. ‘What would you like?’ ‘A half of shandy, please,’ Clover answered. ‘A pint of bitter, Ned, if that’s all right,’ Tom said. ‘Can we see the photos?’ Julian asked, lighting a cigarette. Tom handed him the envelope and Julian opened it with a professional keenness. ‘Oh, yes…This is exactly what I need to illustrate the report I’ve written,’ he said when he’d looked at them. ‘Can I have these, Tom?’ ‘You’d best let Ned see ’em first. They’re for him. I could bring some prints round to your office tomorrow.’ Meanwhile, Amos was keen to introduce Clover to his wife. ‘Clover, come here a minute and meet our Ida…This is Clover, our Ida. Dint I tell yer as she was a bit of a bobbydazzler?’ ‘What a beautiful frock,’ Ida commented, scrutinising Clover’s lovely outfit. ‘You never work in a foundry?’ Clover laughed generously. ‘Not in this outfit. But yes, I work at the Coneygree – when I’m not helping Ned build his machine.’ ‘Dint he do well, eh? Amos is that proud…I wished as I’d sid it meself.’ ‘Well, I daresay there’ll be other opportunities, Ida,’ Clover assured her. ‘He’s not going to give up now.’ ‘And him getting his name in nex’ wik’s paper and all.’ ‘And his picture,’ Clover added. And so it went on. Amos fetched a round of drinks from the hatch in the passage that opened into the taproom, then Tom paid for a round. The party was beginning to get noisier, the room smokier and soon Elijah joined them. He, too, paid for a round while Jake came in carrying a lighted spill and lit the oil lamps. Mary Ann put in an appearance on her way to the taproom and Ramona joined them later. ‘Ramona, you haven’t met Ned before, have you?’ Clover said. ‘No.’ She looked around. Tom Doubleday smiled his good wishes but she failed to acknowledge him and her eyes settled on the only man other than Elijah who was not ostensibly with a woman. Clover introduced them and Ned stood up. He shook Ramona’s hand uncertainly and sheepishly avoided eye contact. ‘Nice to meet you, Ramona. Clover’s told me about you.’ ‘Nice things, I hope.’ ‘Nothing bad.’ He smiled self-consciously. ‘Er – can I buy you a drink? It’s my celebration and I think I’ve bought everybody else one.’ ‘There’s no rush, Ned,’ Ramona replied easily. ‘I’ve not long had a drink. Somebody bought me one in the taproom. Tell me about your flying machine first. It sounds really interesting.’ She smiled, a warm, open smile. ‘What do you want to know?’ he asked, at once feeling comfortable with Clover’s pretty stepsister. ‘Oh, I dunno…How you got started, why you decided to build your own machine. Things like that. I think it’s really interesting. I think you’ve done wonders, Ned, I really do.’ ‘D’you want to sit down, Ramona?’ ‘Thank you.’ She sat beside him and Ned shuffled along the settle to make more room. ‘You’re a real gentleman, Ned and no mistake. So what a day you’ve had. What a triumph. Are you going to let me see the photos Tom Doubleday took?’ Ned retrieved them and opened the envelope. ‘Here, look. Here’s one of me actually in flight…’ ‘My God…’ She looked up from the photograph and glanced at him, catching the pride in his eyes. ‘How did it feel, to be actually flying?’ Ned shook his head. ‘I can’t describe it, Ramona. I haven’t got the words. All I can tell you is the human race should’ve done it a long time ago.’ She looked at him again, her clear brown eyes meeting his with all the appeal she could summon. He could not maintain the eye contact, however. Her look seemed brim full of veneration, of wonderment. No girl had ever looked at him like that before – with such beautiful eyes. He did not know how to react. He glanced towards Clover; she was intent on something Tom Doubleday was saying. ‘So what gave you the inspiration, Ned?’ ‘Well, when I was about ten years old my father bought me a book called Progress in Flying Machines. It was written in 1894 by an American called Octave Chanute. Ever since then—’ ‘Did they build flying machines that long ago? In 1894?’ ‘Even before that. Years and years before.’ ‘Oh?’ ‘Yes. In 1809 Sir George Cayley, a man dedicated to aeronautics, built and flew a full-size glider…’ While Ned and Ramona became acquainted, Elijah amused Tom and Clover with tales of his experiences in India. Florrie Brisco, perspiring under her several layers of necessarily unfashionable over and undergarments, familiarised Julian and the plain Mrs Oakley with the fine detail of Ned’s childhood, his youth and his adulthood. As she eulogised over his dietary peculiarities and on the regularity of his bowel movements, Julian yawned. ‘I just hope as he axes young Clover to wed him afore it’s too late,’ Florrie added with a sideways glance at Tom Doubleday. Julian excused himself and made for the dismal but obnoxiously aromatic urinals at the rear of the pub. A solitary candle standing in an old jam jar afforded meagre light. Julian lit a cigarette off it and unfastened his fly as Tom Doubleday appeared at the door. ‘Tom!’ Julian greeted, his cigarette hanging from his bottom lip while he looked up at the wall directly in front of him to avoid smoke going up his nose. ‘Fancy seeing you here.’ ‘I know.’ Tom stood alongside him, keeping a discreet distance. ‘It’s funny how you have to keep running off when you drink beer.’ Julian laughed. ‘Blessed relief. God, that’s better.’ He gave himself a brief shake and fastened his buttons. ‘It’s the volume, Tom. Never could drink much beer. Now whisky – that’s a different kettle of fish. Hey, about them photos. How much shall we owe you?’ ‘How many shall you want?’ ‘Just two, I reckon. That one of the three of them standing in front of the flying machine, and that one where you’ve caught it in flight.’ ‘How much are you prepared to pay?’ Tom asked. He turned away from the wall and buttoned his fly. ‘After all, it’s a bit of a scoop.’ ‘How about a guinea a picture?’ Tom shook his head. ‘Three guineas, more like. Surely your newspaper can afford to pay for exclusive photographs?’ They settled on five guineas for the pair and shook hands on it. Tom said he would bring them round tomorrow with his invoice. When they returned to the snug Ramona was standing near the door strapped to her new accordion. She gave it a squeeze and, with an expectant smile, played a chord to get everybody’s attention. ‘What yer gunna play then, our Ramona?’ Elijah called and swigged his beer. ‘I know,’ she said, at once decisive, and launched into ‘Wait Till the Sun Shines, Nellie’, while Tom and Julian resumed their seats. The sound of the accordion, like an unrefined organ, filled the little room. Then Ramona sang and her singing voice, like her speaking voice, had an appealing catch in it, far removed from the clear warbles of a soprano or contralto. The only other sounds to be heard were the occasional spit and crack of the fire as the coals shifted further into their basket. When she’d finished everybody applauded noisily. ‘More! More!’ Amos yelled. ‘I think Clover ought to sing us one,’ Ramona proclaimed, pleased with her success and the attention she was eliciting. She beckoned her stepsister to stand alongside her, knowing her shyness would inhibit her. This was Ramona’s golden opportunity to demonstrate to the two men who meant something to Clover, her own pre-eminence in confidence, talent, and her supremacy over Clover’s innate reticence. Clover, predictably, shook her head. But attention was suddenly focused upon her and hoots of encouragement prompted her to bury her face in her hands with embarrassment. ‘Come on, Clover,’ Ramona persisted. ‘We want to hear you sing.’ ‘I bet you can sing like a lark,’ Tom encouraged, at her side. ‘I can’t,’ she insisted. But her denial seemed to have no clout. ‘I bet you can. Go on, let’s hear you.’ All at once recognising Ramona’s implicit challenge, vividly perceiving again the difference between them and wishing to obliterate it, Clover emptied her glass. She rose from the settle and went to stand by Ramona. She straightened her back and raised her head defiantly. ‘All right. What shall we do?’ Clover asked. ‘Do you know “Waiting at the Church”?’ Clover shook her head. ‘I don’t know the words. I do know “How’d You Like to Spoon With Me”, though.’ ‘But I can’t play that one, Clover,’ Ramona reluctantly admitted. ‘I could never get the music.’ ‘Well I’ll start it by myself. See if you can get it as we go along.’ Ramona nodded uncertainly, fearing that her ploy was about to backfire. ‘All right, I’ll try,’ she said. All eyes were on Clover as she began her soft crooning. The light from the lamp spilled on her young head and rimmed her hair with a soft, dancing yellow glow. Her voice was clear and light, almost soprano in pitch. Everybody fell silent and Clover made no attempt to find favour by singing loud. But when she sang the title, ‘How’d You Like to Spoon With Me’, she made sure the lyric was a personal message to Tom. Behind her, Ned stood, fingering his necktie, anxious about the woman he adored, anxious about this romance that he could see budding right under his very nose. When Clover had finished, she paused a moment and coughed, laughing in anticipation. Surprisingly, everybody merely clapped. There was no vocal praise. Clover had taken them all too much by surprise for that. Clapping by itself seemed to demonstrate the most profound admiration. ‘That was brilliant, Clover,’ Elijah said. ‘D’you know any more songs like that?’ ‘Maybe one,’ Clover replied, enjoying the limelight for a change. ‘It’s called “Sweet Adeline”. Do you know it, Ramona?’ She was conscious that her stepsister was temporarily in the shade, a situation that would never suit the girl and, with typical unselfishness, Clover wished to bring her to the fore again. Ramona began to play the introduction. It was a party song and more people joined in with the singing. It was the start of a good old sing-song that had everybody singing at the tops of their voices. Some of the men from the taproom even gathered round the door of the snug and lent their voices too. When the party was over, Ned lingered deliberately, so that he might impede any progress between Clover and Tom. The thought of them kissing goodnight was abhorrent to him. But Ramona lingered too and was very sweet to Ned, although her charm was largely lost on him. Rather, he began to regard her as a likely chum. Anyway, Ned’s ploy met with success and satisfied, he watched as Clover merely waved Tom off from the front door after closing time. Ramona and Clover met on the landing when everybody had gone. Clover was returning from the scullery with a ewer of water in one hand with which to wash herself come the morning, a candle to light her way in the other. ‘We had some fun tonight,’ Ramona remarked. ‘Yes, I enjoyed it,’ Clover agreed, resting the heavy jug on the wooden handrail while she secured her grip of it. ‘Did you enjoy your walk with Tom Doubleday?’ ‘Yes, I did, thank you.’ Clover was uncertain how much she should divulge. ‘He’s nice, isn’t he?’ ‘I’ve always thought so.’ ‘Are you seeing him again?’ ‘Wednesday. He’s taking me out on Wednesday.’ She smiled at the prospect. ‘Ooh, lucky you, Clover. Is there romance in the air at last?’ Clover shrugged non-committally. ‘I can’t tell. It depends on him.’ ‘I think Ned likes me.’ Ramona hunched her shoulders and grinned shyly. ‘Ned?’ Clover queried, somewhat alarmed. ‘Oh, keep away from Ned, Ramona. He’s no match for you.’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘You’ve got Sammy after all. Be satisfied and leave Ned be. I can’t believe you’re really interested in him anyway. Just don’t lead him on.’ ‘Why not let Ned decide, eh, Clover? Seems to me you’re in love with Ned after all, for all your denials. Tom Doubleday had better watch out.’ Chapter 6 (#u755eb682-2687-5ddb-88a8-de493a40f4ea) Tom collected Clover at eight o’ clock on the Wednesday evening. The weather had turned and a light drizzle had set in. Beneath his brolly, she warmly linked her arm through his as they walked along Brown Street and on, down steep Caroline Street and Claughton Road towards the Opera House, absorbed in each other. Outside the theatre in Castle Hill, people arrived in cabs and stepped off trams in swarms. In the foyer, folk were milling about animatedly, looking at photographs and colourful posters, chatting, laughing. ‘Tickets here, please,’ somebody in uniform was calling. Tom joined the queue and paid for two seats in the stalls near the orchestra at two shillings each. He smiled at Clover as he rejoined her and his heart skipped as the bright flare of the ornate gas lamps reflected in her eyes, enhancing their sparkle. An attendant with polished brass buttons pushed open the door into the auditorium. Two enormous crystal chandeliers that hung majestically from the high ceiling cast a warm glow. Several men in army uniform, tall, straight-backed, with fine moustaches, turned to stare at Clover and nudged each other as Tom allowed her to go before him. They took their seats ready for the nine o’ clock show and Clover smiled admiringly at Tom. As they sat, he looked at her with profound curiosity. ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ she asked, puzzled. ‘Because you never seem to look the same twice,’ he said. ‘I thought I’d remembered your face from the last time I saw you, yet you look different. Your cheeks seem rounder, your eyes bigger. Your nose…No, your nose is the same…as beautiful as ever.’ ‘My nose!’ she said with exaggerated scorn and laughed. ‘You’re always going on about my nose.’ ‘I can’t get over your nose.’ ‘Because it’s such a big obstruction?’ He laughed. ‘It’s not big. Only you think it’s big…All right, it’s a tiny, tiny bit long, but that’s what makes it so exquisite. Don’t you see?’ ‘I’m glad you like it. I hate it.’ ‘Don’t hate it. It’s an alluring feature.’ ‘Let’s look at the programme,’ she said, wishing to turn his attention. He opened it up between them. ‘Have you heard of any of these?’ ‘I’ve heard of that comedian, Little Tich, and Casey’s Court Circus troupe. They’re supposed to be very funny. Nobody else, I must admit.’ ‘Nor me. I’ve not seen a variety show before. I expect you’ve seen hundreds.’ ‘Oh, I’ve been here a few times – and to the Empire. I always enjoy it. I imagined you would enjoy it as well.’ ‘Well, it’s a change for me.’ She looked about her and was surprised to see how already nearly all the seats had been taken. Another couple asked if they could come through their row and Tom and Clover stood up to allow them passage. ‘I do like the atmosphere,’ she whispered. ‘It seems so friendly and warm.’ The lights went down and the little orchestra struck up. An arc light was trained on the stage curtain and a little man wearing navvies’ clothes strutted on and told a few ribald jokes then sang a song. He introduced the magician, who had a moustache bigger even than Jake Tandy’s. Clover’s attention was divided equally between the show and Tom’s being so close to her. Sometimes she would turn to him and smile and he would tilt his head towards her as she whispered some comment or query. Then she would tilt her head as he whispered a reply, and his breathy words in her ear sent shivers up and down her spine. She glanced about her, at the ornate plasterwork of the Opera House, and the gilt scrolls and the fluted columns that supported the roof and the galleries behind them. She watched the conductor’s baton as it waved about like something from a Punch and Judy show above the dark velvet curtain with its bright brass rod that divided the orchestra from the rest of the auditorium. She shuffled her bottom in the velveteen-covered seats that were so plush and comfortable. She loved the acrobats that tumbled all over the stage and somersaulted off each other’s shoulders and tiptoed across a wire that was fastened tight between two posts. The comedian called Little Tich, who wore a dark suit with large yellow buttons and a shiny top hat, had her in stitches with his smutty jokes that would have had her mother turning her nose up in disapproval. When one of his jokes went over her head, she tapped Tom on the arm, shook her head and frowned. He explained it in a whisper and she put her hand to her mouth in shock, then giggled and nodded that yes, she did understand after all. Tom’s attention was focused almost entirely on her. He loved how she chuckled at what she heard, at her facial expressions that registered shock, surprise and apprehension, sometimes all at once. He loved the way she glanced at him to see his reaction to almost everything, how her eyes creased and sparkled with vitality as she laughed. He was excited at having her so close to him, at having her to himself at last, after yearning for her for so long. Dottie Baxter, a handsome, round-faced girl with a fine figure and wide hat trimmed with lavender, sang ditties with a streak of blue implicit in them. She had the modest air of a young girl at her first dance, and Clover identified with her. During her first performance she pretended to surprise herself with little fantasies that cropped up in the lyrics of her songs. The audience became mouse-quiet, leaning forward lest they missed any of it. The next turn was spectacular: Monsieur and Madame Salambo, human lightning conductors. A volunteer was needed from the audience and a self-conscious young man was coaxed onto the stage. Madame Salambo asked him to hold one end of a hollow glass tube while she retained the other end. Suddenly, there was a brilliant flash as the glass tube lit up, and everybody laughed at the astonishment on the young man’s face. When he was asked to touch Madame and Monsieur he was just as amazed when a series of sparks shot out from them. The tricks went on, amazing everybody and Clover looked on in open-mouthed incredulity. When the curtain came down for the interval, Clover asked Tom the time and he told her it was just after ten. ‘I ought to go,’ she said reluctantly. ‘Mother will have been expecting me by ten.’ ‘But we’ve only seen the first half of the show. Don’t you want to see the rest of it?’ ‘’Course I do. More than anything.’ More than anything she wanted to remain with Tom. ‘Oh, to hell with her, Tom. I’m staying. If I’m late, I’m late.’ ‘Blame me,’ Tom said. ‘I’m the one keeping you out late. Anyway, what do you have to fear? You’re a grown woman and Jake is very fair. You’ve said so yourself.’ ‘It’s just that I didn’t realise we were coming here tonight. If I’d forewarned her…’ ‘Well, the show won’t be over till after eleven. You might as well sit it out and enjoy it. You might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb. What time do they shut the Jolly Collier?’ ‘Oh, they’ll be serving till going on for twelve o’ clock. Maybe later.’ ‘Well, then. They won’t even notice what time you come in. In any case, I’ll come in with you and explain. I’ll tell your mother it’s my fault. Anyway, you should be allowed to stay out late if you want to. It’s not as if you’re a child.’ Clover smiled up at him, embarrassed that they should both have to contend with her mother’s quaint but annoying idiosyncrasies. She made her mind up to do something about it. Indeed, she would have to if she wanted to be courted regularly by Tom. So, she settled comfortably into the second half of the show. Robert Fordham, a black American singer with a brilliant dance routine got the second half rolling when he performed ‘Chocolate Dreams Cakewalk’. Clover liked the brassy sounds the orchestra made accompanying him, the easy, foot-tapping tunes. The Court Casey Circus was a knockabout troupe that had the place in uproar and their antics brought tears to her eyes. She forgot about Mary Ann’s stern glare. Dottie Baxter did a second spot, this time dressed as a policeman. She sang a song about how the policeman lost his love to the sergeant, which was poignant and funny all at the same time. Little Tich closed the show and he’d certainly been holding his funniest jokes till last. Even when the orchestra had finished playing ‘God Save the King’, Clover still had tears in her eyes from laughing. She turned to Tom, coming out of her happy dream. ‘I suppose we’d better hurry.’ He nodded and grabbed his umbrella. She held his hand as he thrust his way through the men that were lingering around the aisle stretching their legs and the women smoothing their dresses. Outside, the rain was pouring. He opened the umbrella and, beneath it, they crossed the road, heading towards the Station Hotel and Trindle Road. The street lamps beyond the Station Hotel were not so bright, but the paltry light they afforded was increased as it reflected off the glistening cobbles. ‘I’ve really enjoyed tonight, Tom,’ she said, looking up at him as they turned into Claughton Road. ‘Thank you for taking me.’ ‘Thank you for coming,’ he answered. ‘I hope we can have plenty more nights like it.’ ‘I hope so too. I just hope my mother doesn’t spoil it. I expect she’ll be all of a franzy.’ ‘I told you, Clover. Don’t worry. I’ll handle it.’ It was after half past eleven when they arrived at the Jolly Collier. Clover looked at Tom apprehensively while he opened the door and allowed her to go in before him as he shook the water off his brolly. The taproom, full of noise and smoke, was still busy and Mary Ann, Ramona and Jake were all working. ‘Is it still raining?’ Jake asked Clover. ‘Pouring,’ she said over the hubbub and smiled at him appealingly. ‘I bet Tom would like a pint, wouldn’t you, Tom?’ He winked at her. ‘I’d love one. Bitter, please.’ ‘We’ve been to the Opera House,’ she explained to Jake. Ramona, by this time, was standing by her. ‘Shall we sit down, Tom?’ ‘Was it a good show?’ Jake asked pleasantly. ‘One or two have said how good it is.’ ‘Oh, it was grand, Pop. You ought to take Mother. You’d both love it.’ ‘Hear that, Mary Ann?’ he called. Mary Ann looked up from the washed glasses she was wiping. ‘Clover says as how good the show is at the Opera House this week. She reckons I should tek you to see it.’ ‘Oh yes. And who’s going to serve in here while we’m gone?’ ‘Well I could, Mother,’ Clover said. ‘And Tom wouldn’t mind helping either, would you, Tom?’ ‘I’d be delighted. It could be my penance for keeping Clover out so late, Mrs Tandy.’ ‘Is that an apology, since you mention it?’ Mary Ann asked, stone-faced. Tom smiled steadily, not about to be unnerved. ‘If you honestly feel one is necessary, Mrs Tandy.’ Perceiving dissension, Jake waved it aside. ‘Christ, Mary Ann, anybody’d think the wench was late in,’ he retorted placing a pint of bitter in front of Tom. ‘I’ve told you before, she’s twenty now. This time next year she’ll be of age and able to do as she pleases. She’ll even be able to go and get wed without having to ask you. Think about that. You’d best start letting go of her now.’ He winked at Tom and poured a glass of cider for Clover. ‘Here, have these on me.’ ‘As long as she can get up in the morning,’ Mary Ann responded, conceding defeat. ‘Cheers,’ Tom said and raised his glass. ‘Here’s to you, Jake.’ Jake smiled. He’d won another round by reasonableness and good sense. Tom stayed in the taproom for twenty minutes before deciding it was time to go. Clover went outside with him in the rain to say goodnight and they stood under his umbrella, facing each other, their bodies touching tantalisingly. ‘Thanks for a lovely night,’ she said again. ‘And for squaring it with my mother.’ He put his arm around her waist and gave her a squeeze. ‘Jake did that. Not me.’ She smiled into his eyes then looked at his mouth, so inviting. She had not yet kissed him and the urge to, fuelled by the warmth of his companionship, overwhelmed her. Impulsively, she pursed her lips and turned her face up to reach him, then, standing on tiptoe with her hands behind her back, she planted a kiss on his lips as gentle as a butterfly landing on a petal, lingering just a little. ‘There. I’ve done it,’ she said, as she experienced the eminently palpable thrill shuddering through her. ‘I’ve kissed you. I bet you think I’m a right hussy.’ He laughed with delight. ‘Oh, unquestionably. But I’m pleased you are. When can I see you again?’ ‘Friday?’ He smiled with happiness. ‘Yes, please, Clover. Friday.’ The family took turns to take baths when they could fit it in, often between brews when the huge copper boiler on the first storey of the brewery was free to heat up water for cleaning with enough left over. Normal practice was to put the tin bath in the scullery and fill it with hot water, fetched in buckets from the brewery. One Saturday evening in August, Elijah, sweaty and hot from cleaning the mash tun, the coolers and the available fermenting vessels, decided to take a soak himself before getting changed for a night out with Dorcas, which would finish inevitably with some vigorous courting at Jake’s old house afterwards. In the small brewhouse that housed the mangle that Zillah used on washing day, he lifted the galvanised bath off the whitewashed wall and bore it across the yard to the brewery where he set it on the quarry-tiled floor. He drew off the fresh water that was already heating up, by way of a hose arrangement and, while the bath filled, he returned to the brewhouse to cut himself a cake of soap. On the way back, he fetched a towel from the house and whistled tunelessly as he strutted across the sunlit yard. Back in the brewery he put his fingers in the water to check its temperature. It was too hot so he stemmed the flow of hot water and turned on the cold tap, playing another hose into the bath. He undressed himself, had a good scratch round and dipped his toes in the bath. It was still hot, but bearably so. Having got used to the intense heat of India and enjoying it, bathing in hot water always reminded him of his time there; he liked to get a bit of a sweat up. He immersed himself in the water, lay back and relaxed. His thoughts drifted back to India and, inevitably, to those beautiful Indian women he’d enjoyed so much there. Such sultry pleasure he’d had in India’s fierce heat with sensuously perspiring, dusky girls with sleek, jet-black hair, dark eyes and wonderful bodies, many of them younger than his niece Ramona. Recalling those times aroused him enormously. At about the same time that Elijah was getting all steamed up, the tea was ready. Clover had taken pork chops out of the oven all sizzling and succulent and smelling divine, and put them on warmed plates along with fresh-cooked vegetables and steaming gravy. But nobody was around to serve it to. Where was everybody? Ramona appeared. ‘Do you need any help, Clover?’ ‘You wouldn’t like to round everybody up, would you? Mother and Pop are serving in the taproom. Uncle Elijah will still be in the brewery, I daresay.’ ‘I’ll go and fetch him,’ Ramona said, wiping her hands. As she stepped into the yard the whine and clatter of a lorry’s engine trespassed into the late afternoon air as it chugged up George Street, and a neighbour’s pig was squealing discontentedly close by. A dog barked in St John’s Street and a flock of pigeons flapped in a great whooshing arc overhead. The door to the brewery was already open and Ramona wondered whether Elijah had left it so to keep the place cool, or whether the breeze had done it. She stepped inside. Just as she was about to call his name, she saw him standing in front of a fermenting vessel, his back toward her, as naked as the day he was born, dripping with water. Her heart went to her mouth and she was suddenly stricken with a strange inertia. His lean, supple, military back looked hard, rippling with masculinity as a shaft of slanting sunlight glinted off the droplets of water that clung jealously to him. The cheeks of his backside were small and tight and muscular and she imagined cupping them in her hands, like she did Sammy’s, to feel how hard and firm they really were. She was mesmerised. Water lapped against the side of the bath tub as he leaned forward to grab the towel that was hanging over one of the water pipes. She beheld, with a healthy womanly curiosity, his scrotum dangling loose between his legs as he bent over, like two eggs hanging from a nest but still attached to it. Slowly, as she watched, becoming reconciled to this unexpected vision, the ability to move returned. As he began towelling himself dry, she slid silently to one side to conceal herself behind a pile of stacked beer barrels. Through the gap caused by the curvature of the barrels she continued to gawp unbelieving at her Uncle Elijah. He turned around, presenting himself in profile and she gasped when she saw how well-blessed he was – and standing up so hard and so proud, all ready for action. Maybe, naked in the bath, he’d been thinking of all the things he liked to do with Dorcas when they were alone, she thought. No doubt Dorcas was very accommodating in bed. No doubt he was very active there too. Ramona watched, transfixed as he took the towel and dried his hard, extended rod with gentle care and attention; understandably, for it was such a handsome piece of equipment. But he must not see her watching him. She waited for him to turn away, hardly able to divert her eyes from his very excellent tackle. Deftly, but with great reluctance, she silently side-stepped back through the open door and back onto the yard. ‘God!’ she murmured to herself and smiled impishly as a wayward thought flashed through her mind. ‘Oh, my God! Uncle Elijah! You’re magnificent.’ Back in the scullery the others had all sat down to their meal. Elijah’s was placed in the oven to keep warm. They had been eating for five minutes or so when he returned, his hair plastered down where it was still wet, a sheen of perspiration seeping from his forehead. ‘Your dinner’s in the oven, Elijah,’ Clover said, trimming a piece of fat from her meat. He grabbed a cloth and pulled the plates, one upturned over the other to keep in the moisture, out of the oven and placed them on the table. ‘You’ve been a while,’ Mary Ann commented as he put the covering plate into the sink. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t realise I’d been so long.’ ‘I sent Ramona into the brewery to look for you,’ Clover added innocently. ‘Oh?’ Elijah turned and looked from one to the other, a light of realisation brightening slowly in his eyes at Ramona’s refusal to meet his. Her face was already rubescent. ‘But I couldn’t find him,’ she was quick to blurt out with a brief but guilty glimpse at her uncle. ‘Well, you didn’t look very bloody hard,’ he said, wilfully catching her glance and evidently finding it amusing. No, but you did, she wanted to say and lowered her eyes as she ate. Chapter 7 (#u755eb682-2687-5ddb-88a8-de493a40f4ea) Next day, Sunday, Tom Doubleday called after dinner for Clover, as he did every Sunday. By this time they had been stepping out together for two months and love was blossoming. Sometimes, they went for a walk around the fields of Oakham, sometimes, a tram ride into Birmingham where they enjoyed window shopping in New Street and Corporation Street. Today, they intended to take a leisurely walk through the Castle Grounds. The weather was settled, although typically humid for August, and they decided they might find some cooling breeze in the shade of the trees that covered the elevated paths to the castle keep. On the way, it was necessary to pass Tom’s studio. ‘I’ve got an idea,’ Tom said, stopping outside it. Still holding his hand, Clover turned to him in a swirl of sleeveless summer dress with a scalloped neck. ‘What?’ ‘You look so beautiful – so fresh and breezy…I feel inspired to take a photograph of you. It’s time I did a really nice one.’ She smiled at his compliment. ‘I don’t mind. If you want to take my picture…’ ‘Well, we’ve been courting for ages now, Clover, and it’s a sin that I haven’t got a studio photo of you. And the light is perfect, look. Bright and hazy. No hard shadows.’ ‘All right,’ she agreed easily. ‘As long as I can take one of you as well.’ He laughed at that and said she could as he took the key from his pocket and opened the front door. They entered into a small foyer, with examples of his best work hanging in frames from a picture rail, and a small carved counter facing the door where transactions were concluded. Plush velvet curtains hung from a brass rail along the side wall and similar drapes, tied back, adorned the deep window. Tom led her through the door into his studio which was, by now, familiar in any case, since she’d called on him a few times while he was working. Tom had had the room extended in the fashion of a conservatory to make best use of the soft north light, with a glass roof and vertical windows that stretched to the floor. Roller blinds had been fitted to the roof windows to adjust the intensity of light, and rich floral curtains hung from floor to ceiling. Two of the solid walls of the studio were decorated to look like the drawing-room of some stately home, even with a false, but very ornate door and frame let into one wall. Odd pieces of furniture stood randomly; props that could be included in a photo as required. A mahogany whatnot stood with a shiningly healthy aspidistra sitting on top in a brass pot. There was a screen, several armchairs in various styles, all ornate, a variety of occasional tables that subjects might rest their backsides on for a jaunty pose, a music stool, a chaise-longue that looked soft and comfortable, and a soft bearskin rug on the floor. ‘How do you want me to pose?’ ‘Oh, all ways.’ She thought she detected a sparkle of mischief in his eyes. ‘No, you must tell me, Tom. I’ve never had my picture taken in a studio before. You’ll have to suggest something.’ He was fiddling with his plate camera. ‘Well, we can have one of you reclining, one sitting, one standing, full length, three-quarter or just head and shoulders. Personally, I’d like one full length and a head and shoulders. You choose the pose, Clover. Just be yourself.’ She stood with her hands on the whatnot, partially hidden by the aspidistra. ‘No, stand to the side of it, my love. The damned plant’s hiding you…Yes, that’s better.’ He bent down to look through the class screen and pulled the dark cloth over his head. ‘Thrust your bosom out a bit, Clover…Ooh, lovely.’ He focused the image and emerged from under the black cloth. He smiled as he inserted a plate into the rear of the camera. ‘That looks good. Now…A nice smile…Smiling is a part of your nature, Clover, so I want to see a smile.’ She smiled. ‘Don’t forget to thrust your chest out a little…That’s good. Hold that.’ He pressed the shutter release bulb and Clover stood perfectly still. The next was a head and shoulders portrait, three-quarter face, which captured her exquisite nose to perfection, although Tom deliberately did not say so for fear of protest. ‘I think I’d like one of you reclining like some Greek goddess now,’ he suggested. ‘Like those girls in paintings by Alma-Tadema in diaphanous dresses, lounging on animal skins draped over marble. Have you seen them?’ She laughed dismissively. ‘Not that I can recall.’ ‘As lifelike as any photograph, except they’re in colour.’ ‘But there’s no marble to drape myself over,’ Clover replied. ‘I know. Pity. We’ll have to make do with the chaise-longue.’ Clover swirled over to the chaise-longue and sat on it, half reclining. She looked up at him with all her love in her eyes and smiled. She was enjoying this experience, this attention. She only ever received loving, caring attention like this from Tom; only ever kindness and consideration. No wonder she loved him so much. ‘You don’t look comfortable, Clover,’ he said and left his camera to walk over to her. He knelt down and adjusted the folds of her dress as it draped over her legs. ‘Rest your head on the headrest and raise one arm languidly above your head…No, that doesn’t seem right…I know, pretend you have a new ring on your finger – an engagement ring for instance – and your lover has had to go away. Now you’re wistful and pining for him…Oh, yes, that’s beautiful. Can you hold that while I—’ ‘Tom…Can I not do that? Please? I think it would be a bad omen.’ ‘A bad omen?’ ‘Yes, you photographing me looking all heartbroken because my sweetheart has gone away.’ ‘Oh, Clover,’ he said, full of tenderness. He leaned forward and took her in his arms. ‘Have no fear, I’ll never leave you. I’m yours for as long as you want me, my sweetheart.’ ‘Oh, Tom.’ She squeezed him and felt his cheek reassuringly against hers. ‘I love you so much. I couldn’t bear to think of losing you…even for a short time.’ ‘You’re not going to lose me,’ he said. ‘Ever.’ He turned his face towards her and kissed her full on the lips, a hungry, searching kiss. She responded as she always responded, with warmth and enthusiasm. She took his head lovingly in her hands and drank his kisses as if they were some potent wine. She closed her eyes and when his tongue passed between her lips she thrilled to the taste of him. After some minutes they broke off and he whispered how much he loved her. They kissed again, long, luxuriously, sensuously. He was still kneeling beside her and she felt his hand on her breast, gently, lovingly kneading. She made no attempt to stall him. His mouth left hers and traced a cool, moist trail down her throat as he kissed her neck. She was tingling in the most surprising places and, as she wriggled with pleasure, she slid herself down on the chaise-longue. ‘I wish there was room for me on there,’ he breathed. ‘Why don’t we lie on the bearskin?’ ‘Is the door locked?’ she whispered. He nodded and kissed her again. ‘Come on. It’ll be more comfortable. I’ll get a couple of cushions to put under our heads.’ As he gathered up two cushions from the other side of the studio, it was a delight to see her lying down on the bearskin waiting for him. The fall of her dress outlined her figure tormentingly. Never before had they been in this position and he’d never thought to engineer such an opportunity. But here she was now, lying on his rug of her own volition; this, the most beautiful girl he’d ever had the privilege of meeting, the only woman he’d ever truly, honestly loved with all his heart. And how he wanted her. By God, he wanted her so much. He could have waited but, maybe now it was time. He lay down alongside her while she turned her head and smiled with her entire fund of affection. He raised himself up on one elbow and leaned over her, whereupon he traced a line lovingly from her hairline, over her nose and lips, to her chin. As her arms went around his neck and their lips met again in another lingering kiss, she realised she was smiling contentedly. ‘Do you love me enough, Clover…and trust me enough…to let me make love to you all the way?’ he whispered. ‘Yes,’ she breathed, unhesitating. He sighed profoundly. ‘Are you sure you understand what I’m asking?’ ‘Yes,’ she said again. ‘’Course I do. I love you, Tom. With all my heart. And I know you love me equally.’ He sighed again, uncertain how he should proceed. Perhaps he should solicit her help. ‘Do you think we should get undressed? I mean, you don’t want to get your dress all creased.’ ‘Nor you your suit.’ She uttered a little laugh, belying her nervousness. He took off his jacket and unfastened his necktie. The collar of his shirt sprung open like a metal spring bent back and suddenly released, which made her laugh. He slipped his braces from his shoulders and undid the buttons on his trousers. ‘Let me help you,’ he said, and gently, carefully unfastened the tiny buttons that started between her shoulders and ended past the small of her back. She slipped the straps down her arms and stood up while she passed the dress over her slender hips and off. She placed it with care over a chair and knelt down gracefully. To her surprise, she felt no embarrassment as she took off the rest of her clothes and lay down again. It seemed the most natural thing in the world. Meanwhile, he took off his shirt and his underpants and looked into her eyes self-consciously. ‘Oh, Clover,’ he said, sighing inadequately. ‘My love.’ She still had her stockings on. With a pounding heart he kneeled before her and gently slid them down her smooth unblemished legs, garters and all. He thought he would burst with desire at the touch of the warm, inviting flesh of her thighs and the sight of her naked body and skin that looked like cream. He tossed the stockings aside and lay with her. With heart pounding scandalously, she offered her mouth once more and, as he leaned over her, she felt his leg part her own and she trembled with nervousness. ‘I want to kiss you all over,’ he said. ‘Yes, I want you to.’ Her throat was dry, her voice barely audible. She tingled as his lips floated over her breasts, barely touching, but she felt her nipples harden nonetheless. She began to ache in the pit of her stomach, an ache of profound longing for him. His hand glided over the smooth skin of her belly and his fingers drew a line from her navel to her crop of soft, dark hair. There, he lingered at the hidden flesh beneath, silky and soft with its powerful, tormenting wetness that told him she wanted him as much as he wanted her. But he resisted the urge to hurry. These moments were worth savouring. He kissed her on the mouth again while his fingers teased her, eliciting little sighs of pleasure that fired him up the more. As he eased himself onto her she parted her legs. ‘I think you’ll have to guide me in,’ he whispered, half apologetically. She reached for him between his legs. As he raised himself slightly she held him and was delighted and surprised at what she felt; so lovely and soft and smooth on the outside yet with an inner firmness that was also reassuring. Gently, she pulled him towards her and, as she felt him penetrate at last there was a sharp, incisive pain. She gasped as he pushed deeper into her and he stopped, concerned. Again she drew him into her, just a little at a time till she felt his groin hard against her. Then she held him tight as the pain diminished and the pleasure increased. The photographs turned out well. Tom brought them to the Jolly Collier on the Monday evening after work. Clover was not due to see him that evening but, after their first lovemaking the previous afternoon, she was glad to see him, just to be sure the magic that had bloomed between them then was still there. Clover didn’t mind him seeing her in her working clothes any more. He’d seen her stark naked so he knew now how God had intended her to look. Whether she wore her shabby working gear or her new best dresses was no longer relevant. ‘They’re lovely photos,’ Clover admitted. ‘Thank you. Have you printed some for yourself?’ ‘One of each for my bedroom, one of each to go on top of our piano at home, one of each to go in the studio and one of each to go in the foyer. All framed.’ She laughed happily. ‘I never got round to taking one of you, Tom.’ ‘Next time, eh?’ He winked saucily. ‘Do you want to stay for tea?’ ‘I’d love to, Clover, but Mother will be expecting me. I’ll finish my pint and go. So I’ll see you tomorrow night.’ She smiled and nodded. ‘Usual time?’ ‘Usual time…Hey, I nearly forgot. One of the women from Cook’s drapery store came in today with her daughter. She reckons they’re after an assistant to work in the fabrics department. I said you might be interested.’ ‘Cook’s?’ she repeated, her eyes lighting up. ‘That’d be a lovely clean job. I wonder what they pay?’ ‘Probably not as much as you get now, and you’d have to work Saturdays, but it would be cleaner. Why don’t you go and find out about it? Ask for a Mr Butters. You never know.’ ‘I’ll mention it to Mother later.’ Zillah Bache had made some liver faggots for tea that evening and they smelt divine. They had them with grey peas and boiled potatoes with hot, thick onion gravy, a doorstep of bread-and-butter and a huge jug of beer between them. Talk was about brewing and the inroads Beckitt’s Beers were making into the local hostelries. ‘Elijah’s got another forge signed up today and the Earl’s ironworks have agreed to take a couple of barrels to try, to see if the blokes take to it,’ Jake announced proudly as Clover placed dinners in front of them all. ‘Everything’s on song, Mary Ann. Already we’m selling fifty barrels a week on top of what the Collier takes. Already the money’s rolling in.’ ‘And no good squandering it,’ Mary Ann advised seriously. ‘But I don’t reckon much to that new drayman you’ve started, Jacob. I wunt trust him as far as I could throw him. And idle? He’s too idle to scratch hisself.’ ‘I know, I’ve been watching him,’ Jake replied defensively. ‘I’ve got somebody else lined up.’ ‘Mother…’ Clover muttered tentatively. ‘If the business is doing better now, can I leave the foundry?’ ‘And work here in the business with us, you mean?’ ‘Not in the business. You always said you didn’t want me working in the licensed trade. Tom says they’re after somebody to work in the fabric department at Cook’s in High Street in the town. I fancy applying for it. It would be clean work.’ ‘I see no reason why she shouldn’t, Mary Ann,’ Jake proclaimed before her mother had chance to swallow her bit of faggot and shape her lips. ‘Like I said, we’m on target and making money. What bit Clover’s been contributing is chicken feed now. Let the wench find herself a nice clean job. I certainly wunt like to work in e’er a foundry.’ Clover smiled her best smile and thanked Jake for his consideration. ‘I know it’ll mean working Saturdays but I don’t mind that. At least I’ll be able to buy material and things cheap for dresses…for all of us.’ ‘I should get the job fust, afore you start planning what you’m gunna get cheap, our Clover,’ Mary Ann counselled. ‘I think I’ll call in tomorrow. There’s no sense in letting the grass grow under my feet. I’ll have the day off.’ It was on the Tuesday that Clover informed Ned Brisco she would not be working at the foundry for much longer. The tramlines of Birmingham Road glinted like polished silver in the low sunshine as they seemed to disappear into the depths of Dudley Castle, which stood sentinel over this thoroughfare into the town. Trams rumbled past with workers packed tight, while others, preferring to take in the summer evening, walked home. Ned climbed over the stile into Brewery Fields before Clover and courteously handed her down when she clambered over it. ‘When are you finishing then?’ Clover shook out her long cotton skirt and continued walking. ‘Friday. I told old Ratface Mason today.’ ‘What did he say?’ ‘What could he say? Oh, he said he didn’t want me to go, but he could tell I’d made my mind up.’ ‘Did he offer you more money?’ ‘It wouldn’t make any difference if he did. I’d be mad not to take this offer of shop work. It’s less money, but shop work is what I’ve always wanted. I hate working in filth.’ ‘But I shan’t see you, Clover,’ Ned complained. ‘We’ll lose touch, specially now you’re courting him.’ ‘Don’t be daft. You know where I live. You can always come and have a drink. I’ll always be glad to see you.’ ‘If you could find time on the nights you don’t see him you could still come and help me with the Gull, if you wanted.’ Clover disliked the resentment Ned always manifested for Tom in the scornful tone he used when he said ‘him’. It was unjustified, but she let it pass. ‘If you still want me to, I will. Tom won’t mind, you know. He’s not an ogre.’ ‘Would you tell him?’ ‘’Course I’d tell him. He knows I helped you before. He admires what you’re doing. He says he’d like to take some more photographs when you go flying again.’ ‘I don’t want him taking any more photos, Clover. The last ones he took he sold for five guineas. Julian Oakley, the reporter from the Herald told me. It’s as if he’s pinched all my work and he’s the only one to get paid for it. If anybody should be making money from photos of me and my Gull, it should be me. The money could go towards an engine.’ Clover was taken aback. ‘Is that why you resent Tom? Is that why you’re always so scornful when you mention him?’ ‘Partly. I resent him most because he’s got you, though. You know how I feel about you – how I’ve always felt about you…But he suddenly pops up from nowhere and sweeps you off your feet.’ Clover sighed, feelings of guilt over Ned returning. ‘I can no more help how I feel than you can, Ned,’ she said gently. ‘It doesn’t mean I don’t care about you.’ Further conversation seemed superfluous after that. So they climbed St John’s Road in silence, past the vicarage and its vast garden, almost as big as the churchyard. The forge opposite the church was still working and the great thud of forging hammers shook the earth beneath their feet. Workmen with dirty faces and dirtier hands drifted into the Freebodies after their shifts for a drink before they went home, as they would be doing at the Jolly Collier. ‘Aren’t you going up Price Street?’ Clover asked, at last punctuating their wordless silence, for at this point they normally went their separate ways. ‘No, not today,’ Ned answered defiantly. ‘I’ll come and have a drink at the Jolly Collier. I can say hello to Ramona.’ Clover cast a concerned glance at him. ‘Won’t your mother wonder what’s happened to you if you’re late?’ ‘I’m not a little boy, Clover.’ She glanced at him. No, he was not a little boy. He was a man, full-grown. Yet he was perilously immature in so many ways. He lacked the experience of requited love, had never known the joy, the pleasure, the richness it could bring…or the agonising heartache. He had not experienced the intense, uncontrollable emotions that prompted rational people to behave in totally irrational ways. Maybe he had not known desire either; he had never said. Ned obviously knew jealousy. But jealousy was not the same as being in love; it was an unwelcome bed partner of love. Clover had experienced jealousy over Ramona when she believed she had taken Tom from under her very nose. It was a cruel state of mind, an injured lover’s hell. She wanted no more of it, so she sympathised the more with Ned. But desire…? Clover at last was beginning to understood how a timely kiss, exquisitely delivered, could stoke up enough desire to allow you to throw caution to the wind. Desire could turn your world upside down, could make you wanton. She desired Tom now. Ever since those delectable moments on Sunday afternoon when she had lain naked with him on his bearskin, she had been unable to concentrate on anything else. Ever since she’d felt that profound tenderness and exhilaration, which had fuelled the need to give herself utterly in the name of love, the reliving of it in her mind had consumed her. Yet it had been over all too soon. She longed for that absolute and total intimacy and gentleness to last and last. Although spiritually, she had been content, physically she was left still tingling, instinctively wanting more, requiring more. There must be more to it than what she had experienced that first time. But what she’d had was enough to whet her appetite for the next time they lay together on his bearskin – and that would have to be tonight. Whether it was his intention or not, it was hers. The thought made her pulse race. Chapter 8 (#u755eb682-2687-5ddb-88a8-de493a40f4ea) ‘It’s bloody scandalous, the price of an ’undredweight o’ coal,’ Noah Fairfax complained to the man sitting on the adjacent stool in the taproom of the Jolly Collier, which was buzzing with laughter and a dozen assorted conversations. ‘I’ve just bin to fetch a load in me barrer and I couldn’t catch me breath when old Ma Poxon asked me for the money. One and threepence ha’penny her charged me.’ ‘Blame the miners,’ the other man, Urban Tranter, said and noisily slurped the froth from the pint Ramona had just placed on the table before him. ‘They’m forever on strike. Swines. Never satisfied, them lot. Coal’s bound to be scarce.’ ‘Scarce?’ Noah queried indignantly. ‘Rockin’ hoss shit’s scarce but nobody’s asking one and threepence ha’penny a bloody ’undredweight for it.’ ‘But nobody wants to burn rocking hoss shit, Noah. Trouble is, when coal gets scarce, the price goes sky bloody high.’ ‘So what they oughta do,’ Noah said, withdrawing a tin of twist tobacco from his jacket pocket, ‘is let them saft Suffragettes go down the mines when the miners am on strike.’ Ramona returned to the table. ‘Your change, Mr Tranter.’ ‘Ta, my lover,’ he said and pocketed it. Urban chuckled at Noah and nodded his agreement as he dipped his nose into his pint mug. ‘Yo’ can loff, Urban, but if them Suffragettes want the vote like a mon, then let ’em get down the pits and dig coal like a mon.’ Animatedly, he rubbed a knob of tobacco between the palms of his hand to break it into smokable strands. ‘Then they might get a bit o’ sympathy from the likes o’ you and me. Eh, Urban? Then we might get reasonable price coal and all.’ Elijah Tandy, who was also serving, heard the discussion and laughed. ‘Are you going to argue about the Suffragettes now, Noah?’ he asked. ‘Ramona will argue with you, won’t you sweetheart?’ ‘Me? I never argue with customers, Uncle Elijah,’ she replied pleasantly and pulled another pint. She caught his eye and he winked at her, which had an unsteadying affect. She could not hold his look, for fear he could read her mind and see the image of himself therein, standing magnificently naked in the bathtub in the brewery. Her long eyelashes swept the intensifying bloom of her cheek as she turned away. ‘You’re blushing, Ramona,’ he teased provocatively, for he believed he knew why. And it was easy for him to make gain from a situation that would have mortified another man. ‘No, I’m not,’ she protested and pulled another pint to keep her face hidden. Since she’d secretly watched him towelling himself dry, she’d seen her Uncle Elijah in a dangerously different light; not as an uncle – her father’s brother – but as a man. And an attractive man at that, with all man’s hard and healthy cravings for love. She’d been excited at what she’d witnessed so secretly. Oh, he was a man all right, fit and full-blooded. And she’d found it impossible to dismiss from her mind the images of him standing in all his full-blooded glory in the oblique rays of the yellowing sun as it streamed through the brewery window onto his muscular body that evening. When she thought her colour had subsided she looked up and saw with grateful surprise that Ned Brisco was standing beside her, an expectant grin on his face. ‘Ned! What brings you here?’ ‘Hello, Ramona. I just walked back from work with Clover. I thought I’d call in and have a drink before my tea and say hello.’ ‘Sit you down, eh, and I’ll bring you a pint over.’ ‘I’ll stand here by you, if that’s all right.’ ‘All right. Just so long as you don’t stand in my way.’ She smiled to soften what might sound like disapproval. ‘Clover’s back now then, is she?’ ‘Yes. She said she was going to wash and change. I suppose she’s going courting tonight.’ ‘Lucky girl.’ She delivered two drinks and returned with the money which she dropped into the till. ‘Are you courting now, Ramona?’ It was a leading question. She began pulling another pint. She could so easily say no and wheedle an invitation out of Ned to go out with him. And, if she answered no, she wasn’t courting, she would be telling no lie, for Sammy had joined the Staffordshire Fusiliers and had gone away to commence his training. On the other hand, she could so easily say yes to an invitation. Ned was nowhere near as fanciable as Elijah but what the hell. It could be her way of getting back at Clover for luring Tom away when she reckoned he was so close to asking her to be his girl. Clover cared about Ned, for all her denials. She had even warned her off. ‘Well?’ Ned prompted. ‘No I’m not courting any more, Ned…’ She looked him in the eye and handed him a pint of bitter beer. ‘How’s your flying machine coming on?’ He delved into his trouser pocket and handed her sixpence. ‘Oh, all right,’ he answered brightly, well and truly sidetracked. ‘I shall be flying it again in a week or two to try out some modifications I’ve done. Why don’t you come and watch? I daresay Clover will come if she can drag herself away from that Tom Doubleday.’ He took an ample quaff from the glass. Ramona regarded him with pity. ‘You ain’t still bitter about him, are you, Ned? What you need is a sweetheart of your own to take your mind off things.’ Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/nancy-carson/a-family-affair/?lfrom=688855901) на ЛитРес. 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