Cath Staincliffe - Stone Cold Red Hot

I couldn’t second-guess her reactions to her brother’s desire for a reunion and her share of the inheritance. Pleasure, I’d hope. But people act in strange ways: guilt, regret or bitterness skewing their responses. It was all speculation anyway. I had to find her yet. And deep down, in my bones, I didn’t think I would.

I walked home briskly. My cheeks were glowing from the crisp bite in the air. It was a sharp, sunny autumn day. The distant sky was a dark, moody blue heralding rain and contrasting perfectly with the sand, copper and ruby coloured leaves.

Our house is a big Victorian semi in the south of the city. Manchester is a large sprawling conurbation, laying on the plain between the Pennine foothills to the north and the rich Cheshire farmlands to the south. Its history as a centre of trade, industry and commerce brought successive waves of immigrants to live and work here. Manchester was now home to a myriad of cultures. There are large, long established communities from the Caribbean, from India, from Bangladesh and Pakistan, from China and Ireland.

The city is cross-hatched by the old canals and railways that transported the goods back in the days of the industrial revolution. The Manchester ship canal provided a thoroughfare to bring cargo all the way from the coast to the docks. In Manchester they would meet each day to set the price of cotton for the world. Whoever first lived in our house probably made his money in that trade.

I made myself a cheese and pickle sandwich and a mug of tea. Sat to eat at the big kitchen table. The house was quiet: kids at school, Ray at college, Sheila, our lodger, at the library working on her project for university.

Ray was in love. I should have been pleased for him but I was anxious. If it became serious he and his son Tom might move out. They might decide to buy a place instead of renting. Ray and I had set up home together for mutual convenience. Two single parents, a child apiece, a big house we could rent indefinitely. He’d answered my advert, and we’d given it a trial. It worked. It worked really well. My daughter Maddie had a surrogate brother in Tom and Ray and I benefited from sharing out the relentless routine of childcare and chores. We’d become a family of sorts. If Ray and Tom went I’d have to try and replace them – and they felt irreplaceable. It would be such a wrench. Or maybe Laura would move in? Could that work? Would she want to move into a set-up like ours? It was hard to share a house, hard enough for families and for couples but for people who hadn’t got those roles allocated there was so much to negotiate. Ray and I had done hours of that along the way. And we’d had our very own lodger from hell, too, as well as some people who just didn’t want to share a home with others in the long run.

I recalled the pokey bedsit I’d been in with Maddie before we’d got the house, no bath, no garden. It felt like a trap, a punishment, never a sanctuary. What if Ray did move out and I couldn’t find anyone suitable to share? We’d have to move too – I couldn’t cover the rent. I didn’t want to leave Withington, I liked it. It was handy for the library and the baths, there were enough shops to suit us, and a park, even a cinema. The hospitals in the area and the universities down the road provided employment and brought students into the mix of people who lived in the neighbourhood. I’d hate to move.

I sighed, cleared away my plate and went out into the garden, the big beautiful garden, and launched myself into activity. There were still flowers on the sweet peas even though the foliage was powdery with mould. I picked a handful and there were enough buds to leave the plants for another few days. I cut back the worst of the dead perennials, leaving the ornamental grasses, the mint and honesty for the frost to decorate. I piled the twigs up for a bonfire. There were two clumps of Michaelmas daisies still blooming, their puce flowers vibrant against the wall. I picked an armful. Gaudy, cheerful. I put them in a vase on the kitchen table.

The dark sky had passed over, holding onto its rain. I set off for school. Someone else had been busy: I could smell woodsmoke. Strictly not allowed – we live in a smoke free zone. I know bonfires are supposed to be terrible for the air but a bonfire once or twice a year is so good for the soul.

Maddie; my daughter, and Tom; Ray’s son, are like chalk and cheese. Maddie, aged six, is sensitive, imaginative and fearful of all sorts of things. She’s also temperamental, but I would think that because being her mother means I’m on the receiving end when she throws a wobbler. Tom, aged five, is fearless, he hurls himself at the world and remains on an even keel much of the time. His grandmother, who is known as Nana ‘Tello, short for Costello, is Italian and both Ray and Tom have inherited an olive skin and glossy dark curls from her. Maddie, by contrast, is pale-skinned and has light brown hair. They squabbled lightly most of the way home and collapsed in front of the television when we got in. I started cooking tea for the three of us. Ray would be late back and Sheila, who rents our attic flat, caters for herself.

Half-an-hour later we sat down to veggie-sausages, mashed potatoes and broccoli. Broccoli is just about the only green vegetable that both Tom and Maddie eat. It seems to have something to do with its resemblance to a tree, or to lots of little trees if you separate the florets. Maddie was constructing a forested landscape when she dropped one of her sausages. Digger the dog, sentinel beneath the table, snapped it up. Tom chortled. Maddie tried to be philosophical. “I’m not bothered, I’ve gone off those sausages. They’re horrible.”

“Can I have that one, then?” said Tom.

“No.”

“You said you’ve gone off them.”

They bickered on until I intervened. “When Maddie’s finished, if she doesn’t eat her sausage, you can have it”

Tom smiled. “Goody.”

Maddie wolfed down the sausage.

As I washed up I thought about the new case. Mrs Pickering was dying and facing death might soften her attitude to her long-lost daughter. It was possible that Roger was exaggerating the animosity, though he said she’d bitten his head off then wept when he’d raised the question a year ago. Would Mrs Pickering be as unapproachable a year on?

I wondered whether she had ever heard from Jennifer; letters that she tucked away or tore up? Would she have shown them to her husband? If he was so strict perhaps she’d kept them from him. She had called Jennifer a disgrace. I tried to imagine feeling that way about Maddie. Not wanting to speak her name, ignoring her existence. I could picture myself being hurt or angry at things she might do but I couldn’t envisage a situation where I’d turn my back on her. No matter what she’d done.

It could have worked the other way; and been Jennifer who had severed the tie. Hurt by their lack of support she may have decided to cut them off. Deny them the chance to relent or make amends. Had she been pregnant? If that had been the case wouldn’t the Pickerings have wanted to see their only grandchild, once they’d got used to the idea? Or would their church regard the baby as unwelcome evidence of sinful behaviour? A burden of shame not a bundle of joy. Were they that harsh? By the seventies public attitudes to illegitimacy had relaxed a lot, but the church and its members may well have opposed such changes and clung doggedly to maintaining their own high standards in the face of moral decline and corruption.

I had a rush of memory. I had announced my pregnancy at the tax office where I was working. I was happy about it even though the pregnancy was unplanned. I joked about the struggle ahead being a single parent (oh, how little did I know) and accepted people’s congratulations.