Chapter Text
Tom Bennett had always had a talent for getting under people’s skin.
Kitty knew it when they were kids, when they’d run around the streets of Longsight and the alleyways behind Slade Grove. He would rile anyone up, regardless if they were older or bigger than him. He didn’t even do it for a reason, he just liked to get a raise out of people.
He used to tease her too, for all sorts of stupid reasons, because she was a year younger than him, because her mother used to dress her in shirts and shorts that used to belong to her older brothers, because when they’d buy bags of Yorkshire mix from the shop, she would only eat the red ones. Every Sunday after Church, they’d sit in the park or on the front step of the Bennetts’ house, and Tom would pick out every sweet he knew she liked, and keep the rest for himself.
When Tom was eleven he moved to the big school, where Kitty’s brothers all went, Eddie, Art and Stevie. Eddie was a prefect. He used to come home with all sorts of stories of Tom Bennett, ‘from over the road’. Tom talked back to his teachers, disrupted assemblies, picked fights with other kids, every offence Kitty’s mind could imagine.
It only got worse when his mam died.
*
Thursday 12th July, 1928
Kitty had never been to a funeral before. She had a new dress and a black overcoat for the occasion. It was cold in the church graveyard, overcast and windy. Mam had held her hand so tightly she wondered if she’d ever get it back.
The Bennetts stood together, on the other side of the grave. Lois’ hair was braided into a messy plait that stuck out on one side, the ribbon at the end tied into a knot rather than a bow. She was trying to hold her father’s shoulder as he cried, but she couldn’t quite reach. Tom stood a little further away from his father. His hair was messy, his knees scabbed and bruised, his shirt skewed and the buttons done in the wrong places.
Kitty kept her eyes on him, all through the service, the burial and the wake back at number 27. Tom didn’t cry once.
That night, when she should have been asleep, she lay awake in her bed, listening to her brothers whispering and in the next room as they always did. Sometimes she felt sad to be left out of their antics, but tonight she was glad to be on her own, in her little box room at the front of the house.
Until she heard a tapping on the window.
She froze between her sheets. Was it too late for it to have been a bird?
And then it came again, tap, tap, tap.
With a determined little huff, she rose from the bed, smoothed her hands down the front of her nightgown and drew back the curtains.
“Tom?” she whispered.
He grinned when he saw her, perched on the windowsill behind the glass.
Kitty raised the window and before she could invite him in he was crawling through it.
“What are you doing?” she hissed.
Tom shrugged and went to sit on the edge of her bed. He glanced around the room, at the little shelf of books, dolls and small wooden animals, the black overcoat hung on the back of the door and the drawings stuck to the wardrobe. He’d been in the Wheelans’ kitchen before, but he’d never been allowed upstairs.
“Couldn’t sleep,” he said, far too loudly for Kitty’s liking.
She pressed a firm finger against his lips. She held her breath, waiting for one of the lads to notice, but they kept on chatting– whatever it was teenage boys chatted about.
“Keep your voice down,” she said.
Tom smiled against her finger and made a cross over his heart.
She sat beside him, swaying her legs while she tried to think of something to say.
Tom reached for a book on her bedside table and flicked through the pages. When he was bored of that, he grabbed her teddy. He tossed it about in his hands and ran his hands over the ancient and matted fur. It had been Eddie’s, back in the day. Every single one of her brothers had owned it before her.
“I don’t like seeing my dad cry,” Tom said.
Kitty frowned. “Why not?”
“I just don’t like it. He’s always been a bit…”
Dad had often mentioned the case of Douglas Bennett. They had fought in the same regiment in 1914. When Micheal Wheelan came back from war, he returned as a self-proclaimed hero. His boys loved to hear his stories and take turns wearing his medals. Douglas Bennett had returned to Manchester a far more troubled kind of man.
“And with mum he–” but he stopped himself with an irritated grunt. “Can I stay here?”
“What?”
“Not forever, I just… can I sit here, just for a moment?”
Kitty took the teddy from him and placed her hand firmly in his. “That’s what we’re doing, isn’t it?”
From then on, Tom made quite a habit of appearing at the window and hiding in her room whenever he was in trouble.
*
Saturday 2nd September, 1939
Being up and out before the boys are awake is a strange feeling, it’s the only time the house is so quiet.
It’s just before dawn. The sky is a hazy shade of dark blue but an orange glow is starting to appear over the rooftops. Mr Gregory wants her in the shop early to help with a delivery.
Something draws her eyes from her black leather shoes on the pavement, up to the end of the street. A figure makes his way down Slade Grove. She recognises the sway of his shoulders and the end of a lit cigarette in his mouth.
“Alright, pretty Kitty?” Tom says when they’re in earshot of each other, taking the cigarette between his fingers. “What are you doing up so late?”
“It’s early,” she says. He’s in a jacket and slacks, and he has a dazed sort of look in his eyes. She can guess where he’s been but it doesn’t stop her from asking. “What have you been up to?”
“Don’t give me that look,” he says, taking another drag. He tilts his chin up and exhales the smoke above their heads through pouted lips. “Just been down the pub, nothing scandalous.”
A likely story. She’s seen the police knocking on their front door twice in four weeks.
“How’s your job in the shop going?” he asks.
It was supposed to be temporary, a little money to make ends meet after dad got laid off from the factory. Six months later and she’s still there.
“Grand,” she says.
“Can you do me mates rates on a packet of Marlboros?”
“Yeah, if you promise to actually buy them.”
He clutches his chest and his face lights up in an ironic expression. “Of course, what sort of man do you take me for?”
The sort who used to sell cigarettes in the schoolyard— God knows how he got his hands on them in the first place. At that age he could talk himself out of anything. That’s what makes Tom Bennett every parent’s worst nightmare, he’s a troublemaker with pretty blue eyes and an infectiously charming smile.
“I should get going,” she says, taking another step until Tom moves in front of her. Her eyes meet with the collar of his jacket and the hollow of his throat. She can smell the musk of the pub on him, the cigarette smoke and the faded scent of his aftershave.
She looks up to his face and his expression has changed, not quite smiling but amused, smug and somewhat severe.
“What?” she says impatiently.
“Nothing,” he says, unphased, “have a good shift.”
The morning drags on at a gruelling pace. Mr Gregory’s getting on a bit now so Kitty has to do a lot of the heavy lifting, piling boxes into the storage room round the back, going through the stock in the shop, filling the shelves, flattening the boxes and bringing them to the bins outside. It feels like hours of work, but when she looks at the clock it’s not even 9. Eight hours until closing. Mr and Mrs Gregory live above the shop, so at least she gets a steady supply of tea, toast and bits of carrot cake.
By the afternoon she feels her eyes start to close. The morning rush is over now and business will dwindle for the rest of the day. She tries to stay awake, fanning herself with her blouse and nibbling on little mouthfuls of cake.
The bell above the door rings. She straightens her spine and smooths down her apron, ready to put on her best customer service voice, only for Tom Bennett to swagger in through the door.
He’s changed his clothes and donned a blue jacket instead of the earthy green she had seen him in earlier.
“Did you get enough sleep?” Kitty asks at the heavy look under his eyes.
He grins it off. “Packet of Marlboros please, Miss Wheelan.”
She fetches them from the cabinet behind the counter and places the packet in front of him. His aftershave smells a little stronger now. “Anything else?”
He drums his fingers against the counter, looking around innocently at the array of chocolate bars and the jars of sweets behind her.
“I’ll have a bag of Yorkshire mix,” he says.
She takes the jar down from the shelf. She can hear him breathing steadily through his nose as she scoops the sweets into a paper bag. When she turns back around he’s watching her.
“Nine pence,” she says, swallowing down a nervous feeling in her throat.
Tom counts through some change from his pocket and drops the coins into her hands, a sixpence and a thruppence. His fingertips brush over her palms and his knuckles are scabbed over. She dreads to think why.
“Nice one,” he says once she puts the payment through the till. “What do you make of this stuff going on in Poland then?” he says, popping a pear drop into his mouth.
She’s only been reading the headlines of the papers when she stocks them in the shop every morning, or hearing snippets from dad’s radio.
“Since when did you start taking an interest in foreign affairs?” she asks.
He reaches into the bag and pulls out a raspberry. “Been reading the news, haven’t I?” he says, holding it out for her.
She hesitates for a moment before she takes it. She lets the sugar melt over her tongue. It tastes like summer afternoons after school and weekends in the park, tearing at the grass and watching the boys play football because they’d never let her join in.
“That’s where Harry is, isn’t it?” she says, “Lois must be worried.
Tom tuts and tucks the bag into his pocket. “Posh boys can talk their way out of anything,” he says. “Speaking of, I met Madge’s new man last night.”
“At the pub?”
“Yeah. Right ponce in’t he?”
She purses her lips in irritation. She hates it when he does this, poking fun at others until he feels better about himself. “He’s training to be a barrister.”
“Like I said.”
She shrugs. “I suppose there are worse jobs to have.”
“Is that what you’ll do then? Find some rich boy with a big house and stick up his arse?”
It’s not quite the future she has planned out for herself. Her friend Madge is a secretary in Manchester. There are all sorts of exams she had to pass, but it could be doable. Mam’s always tried to put her off it though. “Parents need their girls,” she says.
“I don't think I’m likely to find any of those in Longsight. Maybe I should ask Lois for advice?” she says, trying not to smile.
“Steady there, Kitty, I didn’t mean to get you all excited,” he says, leaning into the counter. His voice is lower all of a sudden, it sends an odd, jittery feeling though her chest and stomach.
He winks at her before he turns and leaves. The bell rings and the shop is quiet again.
*
Her feet feel heavy when she walks through the front door. Her bed calls her name but she’s unbearably thirsty. Saturdays are half days and the boys are already home from the factory. Mam’s started on dinner and the others are around the kitchen table.
Dad waves a blue leaflet at her. “One of Douglas Bennett’s pacifist… things,” he says.
“Do you really think there’ll be a war, dad?” Kitty says, shrugging off her coat.
“If there is, it won’t be long,” he says with a determined nod, “no one wants another war.”
Eddie and Art hum in agreement. The oldest of the four Wheelan siblings, they were born before dad went away to war. Their faces are older and more stern, like they can still remember a time when they didn’t have their father around. They still call Stevie and Kitty “the babies,” which she thinks must make them feel more important.
Stevie’s in good spirits though. “Ran into Lois and Connie on the bus, and Connie personally invited me to their gig tonight!” he says brightly.
“Come off it,” Art grumbles, “she was just being friendly.”
“Kitty!” Stevie sings, waltzing over to her. He takes her coat from her hands and twirls her around the kitchen, to mam’s despair. “Come to the Fiddler’s Bow with me tonight, please.”
“So you can ditch me for Connie once their set’s done?”
“There’ll be other people there,” Stevie says, turning her around to face their brothers, “or ask one of these grumpy bastards to join us.”
“Stephen Wheelan!” their mother chides.
Eddie and Art share a pointed look and shake their heads, already backing away towards the front room.
In the end she decides she’ll just have to brave it. After eating, she changes into a flowy, white blouse and an emerald green skirt, pinning her hair up so it won’t go everywhere as she moves. She hides a tube of lipstick inside her purse. Mam and dad would rather die and let her leave the house with makeup. She only owns a lipstick because Lois Bennett had given her one.
Stevie brushes up well, in a white shirt and freshly shined leather shoes, his hair slicked back with wax. They run into each other on the landing and race downstairs.
Mam gives them the usual instructions. Home by 11 o'clock and not a minute later. One drink each. No smoking. No noise when they get in.
Stevie’s already pulling a packet of cigarettes and a lighter out of his pocket when they’re halfway through the front door.
And Kitty’s breath hitches when, for the third time that day, she sees Tom Bennett. He’s hovering in the doorway, putting empty milk bottles out. When he notices them, he smiles. “Off somewhere nice?” he says.
“Fiddler’s Bow,” Stevie calls back, “to see Lois and Connie play.”
“She’s down there already,” Tom says, his eyes flickering to Kitty for only a moment, “left half an hour ago.”
He’s in a white t-shirt now, that’s just a little too tight against his torso.
“Why don’t you join us?” Kitty says without thinking it through. “Stevie’s going for Connie, I’ll need a partner once he ditches me.”
Tom looks down at the pavement. His lips are thin and his hands fidget by his side. “I’ve um… got something else on tonight, ‘m sorry.”
Her heart sinks. Any lighthearted hope she had about enjoying the evening dissolves right in front of her. Right, of course, because why would he actually want to spend more than a few moments with her?
“Movin’ on,” Stevie says, steering Kitty down the road with a brief farewell to Tom. “He’s no good, you know that?” he whispers in her ear. “Eddie says he nicks scrap metal from the yard, sells it to all sorts dodgy fuckers.”
“Yeah, I know,” she breathes. Her chest feels tight and suddenly she feels like she wants to cry.
Stevie has a good time at the gig. Lois and Connie are first in the lineup and once their set is over, Stevie makes a point of cheering the loudest. The four of them spend the rest of the night dancing.
When Stevie and Connie disappear outside for a smoke, Kitty drags Lois to the bar, to catch their breath and down glasses of tonic water. Lois drones on about her Harry issue, but having three older brothers who presume every word they say is profound and worthy of note, Kitty knows where to hum and nod without really listening.
They walk Connie home first before the three of them make their way to Slade Grove. The houses are quiet now, save for a few lights in the windows, creeping through drawn curtains. Two policemen are standing outside number 27.
“Have you seen your brother?” one of them calls to Lois when she reaches the door.
“No,” Lois says, “but if you see him before I do, will you tell him he’s in trouble?”
Kitty meets Stevie’s eyes and he raises his brows.
“Piss off,” she grumbles.
Mam and dad have gone to bed, but Eddie and Art are playing cards in the front room— or they should be. Eddie is standing by the window, peering through the curtains.
“Who are they after?” Eddie asks.
“Who do you think?” Kitty mutters, but she doesn’t stay to hear another rant about ‘troublesome Tom Bennett’, and slips her shoes off before she makes her way upstairs.
It can’t be said Tom doesn’t make an impression on the people he meets. Mam and dad still have a soft spot for him, though less so since he’s started getting into trouble with the police, and the lads seem to outright despise him.
She’d be lying if she said he didn’t find him irritating, to a certain degree. Maybe it’s because he’s cocky, maybe it’s because he used to be surprisingly sweet, or maybe it’s because nothing seems to phase him, but something about Tom Bennett makes her restless.
She wipes off her lipstick, takes out the pins in her hair and changes into her nightgown. Her eyes feel heavy, but tomorrow is Sunday, which means the shop will be closed and she can have a whole day of ‘freedom’, so long as that includes helping with the laundry and the dinner.
Dad’s snores are evident and the boys are still distracted downstairs, they’ve even put the radio on by the sound of it.
She’s about to turn off the light when she hears three taps on the window.
He knows it’s unlocked. The window slides up and Tom squeezes through it, slipping his boots off so he doesn’t make too much noise when he plants his feet on the floor. He goes straight to the bed, making himself comfortable over the throw with his hands under his head.
“Lois says the police have been round,” he says quietly.
She looks down at her hands, nervously playing with the fabric of her nightgown. “I saw.”
He turns his head to where she stands. The lamp hits his face like sunlight, catching the sharp features of his face, the point of his nose and the curve of his lips.
She nudges him closer to the wall, making some space for herself beside him. Her body rests against his. He smells like smoke and fresh air.
“What did you do this time?” she asks.
He doesn’t give her an answer. In a way she thinks she’d rather not know.
His arm falls around her and it feels like the most natural thing in the world. Nights with him are often like this, quiet, just two people existing in the same space.
He turns on his side to face her. “Can I stay the night?”
“Tom,” she whispers, “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“Please, or I’ll have to sleep on a couch in the pub.”
“Are you mad? can you imagine what Eddie’ll do if he sees you walking out my bedroom in the morning?”
“Kitty,” he hums. He brings his hand to her face, gently stroking his thumb over her cheek. His eyes are wide and pleading. “Please.”
It’s in moments like this when she hates Tom the most, when her heart thrums in her chest and she wants nothing more than to lose herself in the feeling of his skin against hers. When their heads are so close together, all she sees are two blue eyes.
Each time she thinks she wants to close the distance between them, something stops her.
Neither of them ever dare to move closer than this.
She reaches to turn off the light and turns back to Tom. Her head falls into his chest and her arm settles around his waist. She falls asleep to the pulse of his heartbeat, the sound of his breath and the warmth of his body.
And by the time the sun shines in through the window, he’s gone.
*
Sunday 3rd September, 1939
She appears in the kitchen just after 11 o’clock. Her body feels heavy and her eyes are still tired. She shouldn’t have gone back to sleep after she woke up the first time.
Dad’s fiddling with the radio, Art’s pouring tea into six cups, and Eddie and mam are listening to Steive’s retelling of the previous night. He seems incredibly proud of himself, despite the fact the closest he came to kissing Connie was lighting her cigarette.
She helps Art with the tea. They all like it the same way. Strong, with one sugar and a little dash of milk.
It might almost be a perfect morning, if dad were listening to something more uplifting than the news.
“How about some music?” she says as she hands him his cup, but he doesn’t take it. His eyes are fixed on the radio, and his hands are shaking.
“Dad…”
Art appears over her shoulder and turns up the volume. “Quiet,” he says, and the others fall silent.
A voice speaks through the crackles in the transmission, “consequently, this country is at war with Germany.”
Kitty looks at the faces around her, Eddie and Art glaring furiously, Stevie’s wide eyes and his lips fallen like a child’s, mam and dad’s haunted sorrow.
The transmission ends and she wishes it didn’t, it would save her from the grave silence in the house.
She decides to make herself busy. She washes out an empty milk bottle and goes to leave it by the door.
When she opens the door the two policemen are back, only now they’re walking out of the Bennetts’ house.
Her heart sinks. They have Tom in handcuffs.
His eyes meet hers across the road. He doesn’t make a fuss, or try to protest. He hangs his head as they walk him down the street.