Dreams Can Come True Read online

  BY THE SAME AUTHOR

  Innocence Lost

  The Polish Connection

  A Woman Undefeated

  DREAMS CAN

  COME TRUE

  VIVIENNE DOCKERTY

  Copyright © 2011 Vivienne Dockerty

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study,

  or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents

  Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in

  any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the

  publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with

  the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries

  concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

  Matador

  5 Weir Road

  Kibworth Beauchamp

  Leicester LE8 0LQ, UK

  Tel: (+44) 116 279 2299

  Fax: (+44) 116 279 2277

  Email: [email protected]

  Web: www.troubador.co.uk/matador

  ISBN 978 1848765 955

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Typeset in 11pt Aldine401 BT Roman by Troubador Publishing Ltd, Leicester, UK

  Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  Chapter One

  Katie tried in vain to get her very large mother off the mattress. She was quite a big girl herself, but her mother’s bulk defeated her.

  “I’m going ter have to get a doctor to yer,” Katie gasped.“That leg is getting worse now. It seems to be growing bigger by the day and I don’t like the look of those running sores at all.”

  Ruthie slapped at her daughter’s hand in frustration and fell back, grumbling in annoyance.

  “Yer know we can’t afford no doctors, Katie. Just go and get some bilberries from that bush down the lane. They seem to ease me. You’ll have to get me up, girl, I need ter piss. Unless yer want me to do it in the bed. Can’t see how they made yer a nurse, when yer can’t even lift yer own mother. Oh, give me a minute, will yer? I’ll get there me bloomin’ self.”

  Ruthie rocked from side to side until she eventually rolled off onto the cold flagged floor. She crawled on her hands and knees, swearing and muttering painfully, while Katie tried to keep her mother’s dirty, floor-length nightdress from catching on the uneven flags, or winding round her swollen legs.

  It was a long and pitiful process, made worse by the distance involved in getting Ruthie to the lavvy anyway. It was housed in a shed attached to the cottage, a replacement for the midden that they had been used to before.

  Life had not got any better for Ruthie Tibbs since the days that she was Maggie Haines, the Irish immigrant’s, neighbour. Ruthie was still allowed to live in Farmer Briggs’ tied cottage, even though Solly, her husband, had died two years before. He’d been found dead in a ditch on a cold winter’s night on his way back from his favourite hostelry, but Ernie, Ruthie’s grown-up son, was able to step into his father’s shoes. Ernie had never had a regular job, preferring to make his living as a wild fowler, paddling the punt he had carved himself along the coast of the Dee estuary. He was five feet ten, big framed, muscle-bound and just the person to fill the vacancy at the farm.

  Ruthie spent most of her days lying on the mattress in the living room-cum-kitchen of Thistledown Cottage, counting the injustices that had visited her poverty-stricken life. Solly, her husband, had gone, and her elder son had joined the army and hadn’t even bothered to visit in nearly ten years. Her disabled boy, Lenny, God bless him, had been taken from her. Died in his sleep with no bother to anyone. Then there was Annie, a mouthy girl who’d got married to Sam Piper a few years before. She only came to visit on high days and holidays, too busy with those kids of hers to come along to see her Mam.

  Out of all her family, Katie seemed to have made something of herself. Though her attendance had been poor, she had managed to learn to read and write at the local infant school and had been rewarded with a job as a probationer nurse, at the newly-built cottage hospital. She had found it hard going, working long hours and studying to the level needed to pass the staff nurse examination, especially as her mother’s illness left her relying on Katie more.

  “Didn’t yer say yer were goin’ to ask one of them doctors at the hospital what could be wrong with me?” asked Ruthie, when she inched her way back from the privy.

  “Mam, they’re like gods up there. Someone like me would never dream of even lookin’ in their direction, never mind askin’ them a question. No, I think I’m goin’ to ask the local doctor to call. You can’t go on like this, you know.”

  “I told yer, doctors cost money and we got none. I’ve had legs like tree trunks fer years, though now I’m older they don’t seem to hold me up like they used to do. Will yer get more money when yer pass this examination? Maybe we could wait ‘til then or ask Ernie fer some.”

  “I’ll get more money, Mam, but I don’t know how much it’ll be. I know me uniform will change though. From a grey dress with a white belt to a striped grey dress and a blue belt. I’ll still have me starched cuffs and apron with me lacy bonnet and warm woollen cloak.”

  Katie puffed her chest out proudly as she explained the changes to her mother.

  “Are yer legs worse than usual today? Perhaps I could ask the chemist if they have some kind of salve. If not, I could borrow a little money from the Sheldon Loan Company to pay fer a doctor. They don’t charge much interest, I could repay it in a couple of weeks or so.”

  Ruthie tried to pull herself up again in her agitation.

  “Yer’ll not go anywhere near that place, our Katie! That woman has made her money off the backs of people like me. When yer dad was alive and he had spent all the wages up at the Wheatsheaf, I had ter go and see that Mr. ‘Arrinton. I didn’t know she owned that loan place then, I thought ‘Arrinton did, until yer dad telled me what she’d bin up to. It was talk of the village fer weeks, yer know.”

  Katie pushed her mother back down gently and told her not to get so excited, just to take a good deep breath, relax and start again.

  “This Maggie. Maggie Haines, her name is. She came over from Ireland with a load of other immigrants and her and her husband got a job with Farmer Briggs. Yer dad helped Jack, her husband, by setting up fighting matches fer him, ‘cos Jack was a pugilist. Anyway, we used to be good friends, me and Maggie. She lived at Lilac Cottage just up the way. We were always poppin’ in and out of each other’s cottages havin’ cups of tea. I was even the one who told her she was expectin’, that’s how close we were. Then, one night at a fightin’ match, yer dad got accused of stealin’ some money that belonged ter Jack and he got banged up in Neston Jail. Not one of them lifted a finger ter get him out and he sat in that stinkin’ prison fer two days. He was never right after, didn’t like being closed in, yer see. Then before we knew it they’d gone. Dump
ed all her unwanted things on me and went to live with the mother-in-law. Well, I never saw her fer months after, ‘til one day she came lookin’ fer our Annie. Wanted yer sister to be a nursemaid, fer this babby I said she was expectin’, but this time she was livin’ at Selwyn Lodge! That big place on Burton Road. Yer know where Ernie said they’ve built that thingy fer horses? Well, the house belonged to the dressmaker, Miss Rosemary, and that left-footer got herself in with her. Then our Annie told me the rest, though they never took her on as a nursemaid. It seems that this Maggie told everyone that her husband Jack had died and she started seein’ this man. He was a sea captain, who lodged at the Brown Horse Pub. Then it turns out, so that woman Madeline who lives at the pub as well said, that the husband wasn’t dead at all. The family had pretended he was dead, because he’d got some woman up the duff and he and her had gone ter America. Seems he’s back now and they’ve got even more money, ‘cos he came back a rich man as well! So, if I was dying of these legs tomorrer, yer not ter go to the Sheldon Loan Company. ‘Cos I’d rather be buried in a pauper’s grave like yer dad was then go cap in hand ter them.”

  “I know who yer mean now,” said Katie. “There’s a son called Mikey and a daughter called Hannah. I’ve seen them together in the family’s carriage, or sometimes walking their great big dogs. I used to see them when I was comin’ home from school. In those days the nursemaid walked them down to the promenade, ‘cos they went to a private school down there.”

  “Yeah, the local school wasn’t good enough fer them. When I think how I put meself out makin’ sure yer got a good education, takin’ yer up ter Lily’s barrow on the market and findin’ yer good clothes ter wear. I said ter meself, “Ruthie, I got a clever child here. Don’t know where she gets it from, but it’s not from Solly’s side.”

  Katie smiled to herself. Strange how older people could look back and everything was rosy in their memories. As soon as Annie, her sister, had got a job as an alteration hand, it was herself who had taken over helping out her mother. She had been six at the time, but Ruthie had made full use of her. She looked after Lenny, her poor, now dead, brother; she went to the grocer’s for messages when she couldn’t even see over the counter to pay the man. Then, there was the school that Katie had demanded that she went to. She had seen the children playing through the railings and had asked a girl, what they did in there all day? Sums and reading, was the reply. For weeks she had nagged to be allowed to go, took the cuffs and blows from Ruthie and the nasty remarks from her dad, but eventually she wore them down. Though it had been very difficult, with Ruthie finding all sorts of reasons why she shouldn’t go, it had become a necessity to her. An urge to learn, to find out more about the world beyond the cottage. Her mother had never been out of Neston and she didn’t want to end up being the same.

  “You got any interestin’ cases up there, our Katie? What ‘appened ter that old woman that kept fallin’ on the floor?”

  “Oh, yer mean poor Dolly? She should be up at Clatterbridge hospital really. She’s cloggin’ up a bed that could be used fer a sick person. Someone like yerself, aye Mam, if yer don’t get yer legs sorted out. Well, there is a new patient. His name is Joe Collins. He works as a labourer over at Haven Farm. Seems he was workin’ in a marl pit, yer know digging out the sea shells fer spreadin’ on the fields and his fork went through his boot. His foot ballooned up so much that he had to hop all the way ter the hospital on one leg. That’s nearly a mile or so. He couldn’t speak fer the pain of it, but I felt so sorry, because that was the farm where they had the rinderpest last year. Not only that, but I remember some of his family, when they came to stay at the hospital to get over the cholera. His dad died of it and his younger brother, but his mother and Tilly, his sister, came and stayed a few weeks. They say that where our hospital stands, it benefits from the gusting wind that comes over the salt marshes. Not like the fever ward at Clatterbridge. It used ter be a workhouse yer know, but they closed it down a few years ago.”

  Ruthie shuddered. “Yer don’t have ter remind me. Many a time I thought we’d end up in there, especially when yer dad went on the piss, so I didn’t get no wages to spend. When I was younger I used ter fight him fer it. I’d get him under me arm and squeeze him ‘til the pips popped, but sometimes he was cunnin’ and he wouldn’t come home fer his tea. But one thing I’ll say in defence of yer dad, he always said it was best to live down here near the estuary. Down here we’ve got the spring water, up in the village they’ve got open sewers. They might have piped water, but the sewage gets into it, even if the authorities said the infection was carried in the air. No, that’s why you’ll never see me in any hurry to mix with the villagers. It carried me folks off in ‘44.”

  “Well, they’re settin’ up a waterworks now, seems they’ve learnt their lesson. I remember Tilly tellin’ me that all their beddin’ had ter be burnt and they had to apply ter the Board of Guardians fer compensation. Said they got a voucher, which the authorities paid fer and they went ter Frogerty’s in Chester and got a new bed!”

  “That’s her again. Got her hand in everythin’. Bounty vouchers, property, loans and rest of it. I heard tell she made a fortune, sellin’ the land she’d bought to the railway company, so that they could bring the train ter Neston. What do they say our Katie, money makes money? All I can say is that one day the mighty will fall and I hope I’ll still be here, ter see the day.”

  “I can hear our Ernie, Mam, comin’ down the path. It’ll be time fer me ter get up te the hospital. I’ll call in the chemists in the mornin’ on me way back.”

  Katie went to put her cloak on. She was so proud to be seen in her distinctive cloak and bonnet; folk always nodded and smiled as she passed them by. She had put her light brown wavy hair into a bun at the nape of her neck and glanced down at her large plump hands to check that there was no dirt under her fingernails. Matron was a stickler for cleanliness and Katie hadn’t realised what a slattern her mother was until she had been shown round the hospital near Neston Green.

  “Hello there, Sis’. Not made yer Matron yet?”

  “Get away with yer, our Ernie. I’m still waitin’ te hear if I’m ter become a staff nurse, never mind a Matron. But I’ll get there, I promise, one day.”

  “I’m just hoping I’m never struck down with an illness, our Katie. The first thing yer’ll do if I come to yer place, is ter stick one of them tubes up me bum. Ter pay me back fer all the ragging yer’ve had off me.”

  Katie smiled with affection at her brother. He had turned out to be a really special man. He used to be very withdrawn when his father was around, going off for days on end, never saying where he had been. Once Solly was buried, Ernie seemed to thrive on the responsibility of keeping hearth and home together, happy to take his father’s place as a farm hand and to look after his mother, when Katie wasn’t home. He was a fine-looking man, with kind eyes, a neat, thin nose and with a moustache and short beard that suited him. Katie couldn’t understand why none of the village girls had thrown their cap at him. Maybe there was a girl, but Ernie wouldn’t say. As for herself, she was not looking for a lifetime partner. She wanted to dedicate herself to caring for the sick for the rest of her days. She did not rule out a chance romance with a tall and handsome doctor, but for the moment she was satisfied. Doing things for other people brought its own rewards.

  “Can yer help me off with these boots before yer go, Katie? Mother hasn’t got the strength in her fingers anymore. They’re that tight today. I’ve bin’ workin’ in six inches of water over Cock’s Hill. Farmer wants the field ploughin’ tomorrer, though I think we’ll all be sinkin’ in the mud. Oh, I must tell yer before yer go. Briggs is puttin’ up some of his land fer sale, Lower Rake Meadow, Claypool and Daisy Croft. Says he’s gettin’ on now and wants to have some money fer his retirement, especially as he has no sons to carry the farmin’ on. I think he’ll keep me, ‘cos I’m the youngest and fittest, but I think they’ll be building houses all along there soon.”

  “
Well, I think it’ll be good fer the village. There’s too many young couples havin’ to live with their parents. Yer only have ter look at our Annie and Sam,” Katie said.

  “Yeah, and where would they get the money from to buy these fine new houses?” Ruthie, who had been listening, piped up from where she lay.

  Katie laughed and replied to her mother.

  “The Sheldon Loan Company?”

  The proprietor of the Sheldon Loan Company was at that moment sitting in the place she called her office, in the smallest bedroom of Selwyn Lodge. It had been raining most of the day, so she had taken the opportunity to spend some time scrutinising her bank accounts.

  She had chosen this room to work from, because of the panoramic views from the window, which overlooked the Dee estuary to her beloved Welsh hills, six miles away – not that she had ever travelled across the water to visit this wondrous place, as Maggie was a home bird and disliked being far away.

  Her eyes were tired and she felt a certain lethargy. She had been feeling like this for a while now, ever since her good friend and companion, Miss Rosemary, had died early the year before. Nothing had seemed the same since then. No more sitting comfortably together in the evenings, sipping sherry before they had their meal, no more discussions on the businesses they owned or chuckling over a happening in their day. That was what their relationship was all about. Maggie and Betty, as she called Miss Rosemary, Maggie and Betty against the world. There had been a forty-year age gap between them, but they had been soul mates, caring for each other as good friends should. Now there was no one to fill that gap. She had her husband and there were the children, but they all got on with whatever interested them and only met up in the evenings for meals.

  Jack, her husband, had become involved in the horse racing business. Mikey, her son, was the front man for the company they ran. Hannah, her stepdaughter, attended college in nearby Chester. It was a sort of finishing school for young ladies, but they learnt to do household accounts as well.