Read Online Paradise Lane by Ruth Hamilton - Free Book Online Page B

work-bound feet dragging slowly along the pavements, as if each man and woman wanted to be on time but not early.
    Most of these people hated their jobs, despised their employer, carried on simply to buy bread, coal, clothes for their children. Joseph knew many of them, knew the shape of a clock, the cut of a suit that would be pawned on Monday morning. The silver teapot woman passed by, then another lady who pledged her dead father’s watch at the beginning of each week. Joseph kept that item ticking, made sure it was safe and healthy every Friday when its owner redeemed it.
    He pulled out his own watch, noted that closing time was almost upon him. This was Tuesday. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays were often quiet except for a few sales of unredeemed pledges and some visits from totters. The rag and bone merchants were a wily lot, often extracting items of value from waste, then trying to sell them on to pawnbrokers. Today’s totter had been particularly difficult, as he had arrived in a good suit. But Joseph had looked not at the diamond ring, but at dirt ground into the huge, outstretched palm on which it rested. ‘Your mother’s, you say?’ Joseph had asked pleasantly.
    ‘Aye.’
    ‘She died recently?’
    ‘Aye. Sad loss.’
    Joseph had carried on as usual, had studied the ring. He was no jeweller, but he understood marks. ‘Her engagement ring?’
    ‘Aye.’
    ‘So this is quite old, then?’
    ‘Aye. Married nigh on fifty year, she were.’
    The pawnbroker had handed back the item. ‘That ring is new. Did you find it on your rounds? Can’t you remember where?’
    The totter had held his ground. ‘It were me mam’s. The owld man bought her a new one when she lost the other. See, I’d forgot till you said. She can’t have had this one more than ten year, happen twelve.’
    ‘More like five or six.’
    The man had picked up his find and dashed from the shop. His round was probably out of Bolton, because Joseph recognized most Bolton totters. Somewhere, a heartbroken housewife was looking for a mistakenly discarded token of her husband’s love.
    He put up his shutters, went inside, locked the door with three separate keys. Although the Reich was defeated, he did not forget. In spite of his best efforts at reasoning with himself, the fear of being targeted as a candidate for persecution stayed with him. Ruth often got cross with him. ‘This is England,’ she would say in German. ‘It will never happen here.’ Ruth was a clever woman with a simple soul. She was, he thought now, an enigma. Well-read, a good conversationalist, an excellent organizer, Ruth Heilberg saw only the good in people.
    Joseph stood behind his desk, rooted about in the recent memory compartment of his mind. Ah yes, the books. He would carry one or two of Derek Crumpsall’s books round the corner, would visit the poor man. How on earth had that wife of Derek’s managed to carry such a weight from Paradise Lane to Derby Road? With determination, he answered himself. She wanted, she got. Then, of course, she left the man to die. Since the books, Joseph had refused to lend money to Lottie.
    He called up the stairs, told his wife of his intention. She poked her head round the top of the stairs. ‘For a businessman, your heart is almost gentle,’ she chortled.
    ‘Your English improves,’ he replied. ‘So try with the cooking.’
    He walked down Worthington Street, counted his blessings. He had three successful shops. His son ran and lived above one, Maureen Mason ran the second, and he and Ruth looked after the third. He worried about Maureen’s shop, because it was a lock-up with no accommodation, but all had been running well for several years now. Even through the war, Heilberg’s had ticked over with the help of friends and neighbours.
    Joseph was happy in England. His understanding of the British dilemma had nursed him through internment. Even then, he had been fortunate, had worked alongside his wife right through the