bag was being used for, though. Reaching it, he bent down and opened the buckle securing the strap. Seemed to be clothes inside … his clothes! And his razor and shaving brush and his few other personal possessions. What the hell was going on? Jumping up, he grabbed the knob of the back door and turned it. It would not budge. It was locked. He stood back from the door and bellowed, ‘Oi! Open this fucking door!’
Two faces appeared at the kitchen window.
Glaring at them, Arnold shouted, ‘What the hell’s going on? Why is the door locked? And why is my bag out here with all my stuff in it?’
Aidy shouted through the window, ‘We thought you might need your belongings.’
Bewildered, he bellowed, ‘Why?’
‘Because you don’t live here any more.’
‘You stupid cow! I’m the tenant. It’s me who says who lives in this house and who doesn’t. If you and that old bag …’ he shot a murderous glare at Bertha’s amused face, peering at him through the window ‘… and those blasted kids want to keep living here, then open the door and let me in. I’ll kick it in, and you lot out.’
Aidy couldn’t remember when she’d had so much fun. ‘Do that and I’ll have the police on you. You aren’t the tenant any longer … I am. It’s me who says who lives here and who doesn’t from now on. And you don’t any longer ’cos we don’t want you.’ She placed the opened rent book flat against the window so he could clearly see that his name was no longer down as the tenant but his daughter’s instead. ‘Maybe if you’d paid some rent over to the rent man in person since you’ve been back, he wouldn’t have believed me when I told him you hadn’t lived here for years and were dead for all we knew. After that he happily handed the tenancy over to me. Now pick up your stuff and clear off!’
Arnold was left staring at her agog. He hadn’t a leg to stand on, and he knew it. His period of sponging off his family was over. He furiously snatched up his bag, which he slung over his shoulder, and stormed off down the yard disappearing through the gate to the accompaniment of loud laughter from inside the house behind him.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Aidy was humming happily to herself as she entered the last patient’s name into her ledger one morning. Four weeks had passed since Arnold had been driven from their lives, and from the moment the back gate had slammed shut behind him, the atmosphere in the house had returned to the happy one it had been before he’d made his unwelcome return. There was still the underlying sadness of their loss of Jessie and the breakup of Aidy’s marriage, but time was helping both wounds heal.
They were all excited about Christmas and each in their own way trying their best to have a present to give every family member on Christmas morning. Aidy was certain that the children had put together their farthings and ha’pennies earned from running errands for neighbours, topped up by the odd ha’penny she or Bertha had been able to scrape together on a Saturday for them, and had bought her a box of her favourite liquorice allsorts. She knew this because Marion was terrible at keeping secrets and had dropped so many hints to Aidy that it would have been difficult for her not to guess what her siblings had done for her, although she would never spoil their surprise by letting on.
Aidy wanted to buy her family the world, but the few coppers in her purse dictated she should lower her sights. Up to now she had managed to purchase Marion a cut-out doll book; for George a second-hand Meccano set minus a couple of pieces, which was how she was able to afford it; and had fashioned a new dress for Betty from one of her mother’s old frocks, hand sewing it in the evening after the children had gone to bed. And for all the family to play with, a pack of Snap cards. For Bertha she had yet to think of something as she hadn’t any spare money. Should she not be able to, she knew her gran would be more than understanding, just content they were all well and happy, dry and warm under the same roof together, and more especially no longer suffering the tyranny of her detested son-in-law.