like that either.’
Pat’s eyes blazed at Aidy. ‘You should remember who you’re speaking to, lady. I’m yer mother-in-law. Now I’ll speak to anyone how I bleddy well like …’
Aidy folded her arms and took a stance. ‘Not on my doorstep, Mrs Nelson. So I’d be obliged if you’d remove yourself from it. If you thought for a minute I would even consider you moving in here to care for my family, then you were quite wrong.’ She addressed Arch. ‘We obviously can’t talk while your mother is present. Will you help her take her belongings back to her own house and we’ll sort this out when you come back.’
The back gate opened then and Betty came tumbling through it. She looked bemused at the scene before her and worriedly yelled over to Aidy, ‘What’s going on, our Sis?’
Aidy called back to her, ‘Get yourself in here now.’
By her tone of voice Betty knew better than to delay. Scuttling across the yard, she side-stepped Arch then squashed herself past Pat, which was no mean feat as the bulky woman practically filled the doorway. Betty clambered over the suitcase to join her gran and siblings.
Pat was livid that her plan to elevate herself had fallen foul of the obstinate madam before her. But all was not quite lost yet. She still had one ace up her sleeve. She snarled at Aidy, ‘My son has said all he’s gonna say to you on this subject. Get it through your thick head that he don’t wanna become a father to them kids, or bankroll them and that old cow either.’ There was a malicious smirk on her face when she added, ‘Yer can’t manage to do it yerself without Arch’s wage packet, can you? You’ll soon come running back to me, begging to take up my offer.’ She demanded of Arch, ‘Get me case.’ She saw him start to speak to Aidy and, clenching one fat fist, shook it at him menacingly. ‘I said, get me case!’
Arch couldn’t bring himself to look at Aidy, so ashamed was he of his mother’s appalling behaviour in her quest to get her own way. But, far worse than that, he was ashamed of not being man enough to stand up to Pat in front of his wife and her family. How he was ever going to regain their respect after this, he had no idea. And he still hadn’t had a chance to suggest his own answer to the problem of just who was going to care for the kids and Gran to Aidy yet.
He knew his mother well enough to realise that until she’d got her way she would be keeping a watchful eye on him, to stop him acting behind her back but she couldn’t watch him all the time and at the first opportunity he would attempt to sort out this mess with Aidy.
He grabbed the handle of Pat’s case and heaved it off the doorstep, struggling down the yard with it and disappearing down the jetty.
Before she too went through the back gate, Pat shouted back to Aidy, ‘When yer ready to accept me offer, yer know where yer can find me. I’ll give yer a fortnight at the most before you realise just what yer teking on and come crawling.’
Pat and Arch met up with Jim Nelson in the jetty.
Temporarily parking the handcart laden with their heavy, battered trunk, he wiped trickles of sweat off his brow with the back of one hand and eyed them both in confusion as they arrived to join him.
Before he could enquire what was going on, his wife bellowed at him, ‘Turn around, we’re off back home. Only temporarily, mind. It won’t tek that madam long to realise the big error she’s made, trying to do it all herself.’
Jim gawped at her. ‘Oh, but we can’t go back home. The new tenants have already started moving in.’
‘Well, they’ll just have to bleddy well move out again.’
Jim looked worried. ‘Even if yer got them to, Pat, I doubt the landlord would let you stay after what you said to him when yer gave him notice.’
She pulled a face. Jim had made a good point. She hadn’t held back from venting her feelings to the landlord over what she perceived as his failings during the years she had been renting his hovel. Besides that she was behind with the rent, owing money which her sons had actually given her but which she’d squandered on other things rather than