The Sixpenny Cross Collection

by Victoria Twead

  “Yes. She’ll be named Bella. After my Italian grandmother. Bella means ‘beautiful’ in Italian, you know.”

  “A lovely name,” said the midwife. “A beautiful name for a beautiful baby.”

  To be fair, only a midwife or the baby’s parents would have described this baby as beautiful. Little Bella’s face was scarlet, screwed up and furious.

  Donald had heard the cry and didn’t need calling; he raced up the stairs and charged into the bedroom. Standing at his wife’s side, he clutched her hand.

  “Is the baby okay?” he asked the midwife.

  “Bless you, she’s perfect! Here you are, I’ve wrapped her up. Meet your brand new little daughter.”

  Oh so carefully, Donald took the precious bundle from the midwife and sat down slowly on the edge of the bed. He gazed at his daughter’s angry little red face, her toothless mouth wide open in a howl.

  “Hello Bella,” he whispered, “I’m your daddy. How beautiful you are! Believe me, whatever you want or need, for the rest of my life, I’ll move heaven and earth to get it for you.”

  Baby Bella stopped crying and fell asleep. The midwife smiled.

  On the other side of Sixpenny Cross, another baby was crying. The man slurped the last of his beer and dropped the bottle on the floor.

  “Oh, for gawd’s sake shut that brat up!”

  “I can’t help it if she cries all the time,” his wife protested. “I ’aven’t got time to see to her every minute.”

  “I told you, you shouldn’t have ’ad it.”

  “Too late now.”

  “Well, call Mary then. I swear if that brat don’t stop bawling, I’m outta here.”

  “Mary! Mary! Go and see what your baby sister wants, I’m tryin’ to get your dad’s dinner ready.”

  “But Mum, why does it always ’ave to be me?”

  “Because I said so. Rock the pram a bit, see if she’ll go to sleep. If she doesn’t, dip ’er dummy in a drop of your dad’s whiskey. Then just shut the door on ’er so we don’t ’ave to listen to her bawling. And get me another bottle of stout from the cellar when you’ve done that. I’m parched.”

  Mary stamped out and they heard her speaking to the baby.

  “For gawd’s sake, what’s the matter with you? Why are you always crying? When I’m older, I ain’t going to ’ave kids, they’re too much work. And I ain’t going to live in Sixpenny Cross. I’d rather be back in Yewbridge, this place is a dump!”

  She rocked the pram for a while, but the baby didn’t stop crying.

  3

  “Perhaps you’d like to pass her back to your wife and we’ll see if Bella will take her first feed?”

  June Tait smiled into her husband’s eyes and took her baby daughter, holding her close. Still half asleep, Bella latched on immediately and the room fell silent as everyone watched her suckle.

  “Well, she certainly likes her food!” laughed the midwife.

  That was true, and Bella never lost her love of food. When she was tiny, June and Donald marvelled at her appetite but delighted in giving her the food she so enjoyed. If anything upset her, they’d placate her with a slice of pizza or a few spoons of homemade gelato. She was a smiling baby who grew into a chubby, happy toddler, enveloped in the adoration of her parents.

  Bella loved everything and everybody. If anybody asked her what she loved most, food and animals came high on the list. Only her parents topped them.

  One day, when June was cooking macaroni in the kitchen, Bella toddled outside into the backyard. June caught sight of her daughter through the window. She was squatting on the path.

  “Donald, are you there? Bella is in the garden doing something. Could you check on her, please, and bring her in? I’m just about to serve the macaroni.”

  Donald strolled outside and crouched down beside his little daughter.

  “What are you doing, la mia bella Bella?”

  “Worm!” said Bella, holding up a large, wriggling earthworm for her father to admire.

  Donald recoiled a fraction, then smiled at his earnest little daughter.

  “Oh! He’s a beauty, isn’t he? Shall we put him down and go inside and have some macaroni?”

  “No!”

  “Willy the worm likes to dig in the garden. He doesn’t want to be inside with us.”

  To his consternation, the little girl burst into tears.

  “Want worm, want worm!”

  Donald thought quickly.

  “Don’t cry, la mia bella Bella. I’ll tell you what, we’ll find a jam jar. We can fill it with soil and put Willy the worm in there, and take him inside to watch us eat our dinner.”

  The tears stopped, and serious brown eyes regarded him.

  “Well, la mia bella Bella, what do think? Shall we do that?”

  The little girl nodded.

  Father and daughter found a suitable jar in the shed. Donald punched holes in the lid and together they filled the jar with soil.

  “Pop him in then,” said Donald, and Bella dropped the worm into the jar.

  Donald sprinkled some more soil on top, screwed the lid on tight, and the pair returned to the kitchen, just as June was pouring homemade tomato and basil sauce over the steaming macaroni. They put Willy the worm on the counter to watch them eat.

  Later, Willy came with them to the bathroom to see Bella have her bath. Willy listened to the bedtime story that June read to her daughter, and he stayed on the shelf when Donald turned off the light.

  “I’m not sure about Bella keeping a worm in a jar,” said June later. “It might not survive and Bella will be so upset.”

  “I can fix that,” said Donald.

  He took an old shoelace from the kitchen junk drawer and snipped it to roughly the same length as Willy. Then he tiptoed into his sleeping daughter’s room, collected Willy’s jar and emptied the contents into the garden, giving Willy back his freedom.

  Then he refilled the jar with soil, dropped in the shoelace, and added more soil.

  When Bella woke up in the morning, her first thought was for Willy.

  “Mummy, where’s Willy?”

  “He’s in the jar, darling. He’s dug right down but you can still see a little bit of him if you look carefully. He can see you, too. Do you want to bring him to the table to watch you eat breakfast?”

  For the next few weeks, ‘Willy’ went everywhere with the little girl, and she never suspected that she was carrying part of a shoelace around.

  Willy the worm was the first of Bella’s pets but by no means the last. By her fourth birthday, she was the proud owner of several guinea pigs, two hamsters, a budgerigar and five white mice.

  It was only a matter of time before she asked for a kitten, but actually, the kitten found her.

  Visitors who drove through Sixpenny Cross couldn’t help but admire the village green and the cottages with their neat front gardens. In summer, window boxes were crammed with scarlet geraniums, and the Dew Drop Inn was decorated with hanging baskets stuffed with multi-coloured petunias.

  These visitors probably wouldn’t have noticed one particular street at the edge of the village. Springfield Road was a cul-de-sac flanked by new redbrick semi-detached council houses. Each one was identical in structure to the next. Some were well cared for, others not so much.

  The villagers had fought Yewbridge Council when it was announced that these homes were to be built, and that the new residents would be ‘difficult’ families rehoused from Yewbridge council estates. But to no avail. The houses were completed and the ‘problem’ families moved in.

  At the police station, PC Arthur Cooper groaned when he heard the news. He was close to retirement and looking forward to the day when he could hand over all duties to his son, Stan, who was following in his father’s footsteps.

  “Let’s hope these new families don’t bring trouble with them,” he said to his wife.

  Arthur changed the route of his beat to take in Springfield Road, just in case. He decided that a police presence co
uldn’t do any harm.

  To be fair, the new families hadn’t really caused any problems yet. When Arthur cycled up the street every day, some of the residents even greeted him. But already the front gardens looked untidy, particularly the Dayton family’s. The grass was overgrown and weed-filled. An old fridge lay on its side, and broken toys and a threadbare sofa sat in the drive.

  Young Christine Dayton was often around. Arthur guessed that she’d been told to play outside, and he smiled at her. She stared at him, her ratty little face devoid of expression. Then she poked her tongue out, and turned her back on him.

  Charming, thought Arthur and pedalled away.

  He didn’t see what Christine was doing. She’d found a green cricket in the long grass, and she was pulling its legs off, one by one.

  The Tait’s cottage in Sixpenny Cross was quite near the village green. One afternoon, June and four-year-old Bella walked over to the pond to feed the ducks. On their way home, Bella tugged at her mother’s hand.

  “What’s that?” she asked, pointing at something in the gutter.

  “Oh no,” said June. “Don’t look. I do believe it’s a tiny kitten. I think it must have been hit by a car.”

  Bella froze, wide-eyed, then burst into tears.

  “We have to help it!”

  “I think it’s too late, darling,” said her mother. “I don’t think it’s alive.”

  Before June could stop her, Bella wrenched her chubby hand out of her mother’s and crouched down. She lifted the mangled body of the kitten out of the dirt. A green eye cracked opened and gazed at her.

  “Mummy! We have to help it!”

  June jumped into action. She tugged the knitted woollen hat from her head and held it out.

  “Quick, put it in there, that’ll keep it warm. We’ll go home and ask Daddy to take us to the Animal Hospital in Yewbridge.”

  Mother and daughter raced home, trying hard not to jolt the kitten nestled in the hat.

  “Daddy! Daddy!”

  “What’s the matter, la mia bella Bella?”

  “We got a kitty wot’s been in a accident!”

  The urgency in his daughter’s voice stopped him correcting her English.

  “We have to take it to the hostibal!”

  Donald peered at the scrap of fur in his wife’s hat and immediately grabbed his car keys.

  “Quick, I don’t think we have any time to waste.”

  Donald’s car ate the few miles to Yewbridge in record time. They ran into the building and were immediately attended to by one of the vets. She carefully lifted the broken little body out of the hat.

  “Please make her better,” begged Bella.

  “The vet will do her best, la mia bella Bella,” said her father, “but that’s a very sick kitten.”

  “I think you should go home,” said the vet. “Leave her with me. I’ll take a good look at her, and then I’ll phone you.”

  The Tait family left their details at the desk and drove home.

  “What will be, will be,” said June.

  4

  Later that evening, June tucked her daughter into bed.

  “You know the kitty is very poorly, don’t you?” she said, stroking her daughter’s head.

  Bella nodded, a giant tear squeezing from the corner of her dark eye.

  “The hostibal will make her better.”

  “The hospital will do the very best they can. Now snuggle down, and we’ll know more in the morning.”

  A little later, the phone rang.

  “Hello, it’s Sandra, the vet at the Animal Hospital. I have good and bad news for you,” she said. “Your kitten is seriously injured. She has two broken legs and was concussed. The good news is that she has no internal injuries. I think we can fix her, but it’ll be very expensive.”

  She named a figure and June gasped. They agreed that June should first talk with Donald and then get back to the hospital quickly with a decision.

  “We can’t afford this,” said June sadly.

  “I know,” replied Donald, “but how can we allow the poor little thing to be put down? Bella will be devastated.”

  “Do we have the money?”

  Donald took his wife’s hand and gazed into her face.

  “You know our Italy money? We could use that.”

  June looked back at her husband and finally nodded her head.

  “Yes, let’s use the Italy money.”

  The Taits had been putting aside a little money whenever they could. June’s dream was to visit Italy and see the village where her grandmother had been born and raised. She wanted to feel the same sunshine that had warmed her grandmother’s face, and smell the same Italian scents. She wanted to see the sapphire-blue Ionian sea, and taste the grapes and olives, just as her grandmother had.

  It was hard saving up the money for the holiday. Donald didn’t earn very much as a mechanic and it wasn’t the first time they’d needed to raid the Italy fund. A couple of years ago, the stairs in their cottage had needed re-carpeting. Another time they had to replace the engine in the car.

  This time they dipped into it for the sake of their beloved little daughter and a kitten they’d never seen before that afternoon.

  “We’ll get to Italy one day,” promised Donald, and June nodded.

  “Who knows?” she said. “Perhaps some day we’ll win the football pools.”

  It was a nice dream.

  “La mia bella Bella, we have good news for you,” said Donald the next morning. “The hospital is going to make your kitten better.”

  The smile on Bella’s face was worth every penny of the Italy fund.

  “Can we go and see my kitty?”

  “Not today, but soon.”

  “I’m going to call her Hattie, because she was in Mummy’s hat.”

  “That’s a perfect name, Bella. When we visit her, we’ll tell her.”

  Bella beamed, and her parents basked in her happiness.

  At Yewbridge Animal Hospital, Donald and June were worried that the metalwork on the kitten’s tiny legs might alarm Bella.

  Nothing could be further from the truth. Bella was fascinated by the hospital and the treatment. Years later, Donald and June agreed that visit to Yewbridge Animal Hospital marked the day that little Bella Tait decided her future.

  The vet was patient, taking time to explain in simple terms why Hattie had metal pins in her back leg, and how the splint and plaster cast on her front leg would keep the bone straight while it healed.

  “When you take Hattie home, you’ll need to keep her in a little crate. She mustn’t move around much. It’s very important that she keeps as still as possible while her legs mend.”

  Bella absorbed the vet’s words and nodded.

  At last they were allowed to take Hattie home, and Bella took on most of the nursing duties. She fed the kitten by hand, and stroked her head until she purred. She sat with her, making sure she wasn’t lonely and didn’t move too much.

  When Hattie’s treatment was over, she was as lively and agile as any kitten could be. Apart from a slight limp, she was as good as new.

  “Mum, can I ’ave some money?”

  “What for?”

  “Sweets.”

  “What d’you think I am? Made of bloomin’ money?”

  “It’s not fair!” Christine kicked the wall in temper.

  “I’ll tell you what I will give you, though. A smack round the chops, that’s what I’ll give you.”

  Her hand shot out. The slap was sharp and spiteful.

  Christine gasped. But she didn’t cry.

  Bella’s first day at the village school in Sixpenny Cross was harrowing for both mother and daughter.

  When the school bell rang, they followed the other mothers and children inside. Bella’s new school uniform swamped her, and her leather satchel and lace-up shoes squeaked with newness.

  Another mother dragged her daughter into the cloakroom. The child was thin and pasty, with a ratty face and small, hard eyes l
ike marbles that stared at the world defiantly. Her school uniform was crumpled, stained and clearly secondhand.

  “Christine, get a move on,” snapped the mother. “I ’aven’t got all day.”

  June and Bella found the peg labelled ‘Bella Tait’ in the cloakroom. Christine Dayton’s peg was next to it.

  “Right, so ’ere’s your peg,” said Christine’s mother, hanging her daughter’s coat on it. “Now, I’m off. Get yourself into the classroom, and behave. I don’t want to ’ear no stories from your teacher that you been playin’ ’er up.”

  Christine said nothing and showed no emotion on her pale, pinched face. Flat eyes stared at Bella and her mother. She didn’t even say goodbye to the departing figure of her own mother.

  June was finding it hard to leave.

  “I have to go, darling,” she said at last, gently detaching Bella’s arms from around her legs. “I’ll pick you up later, and we’ll have spaghetti for dinner, shall we?”

  Bella wasn’t used to other children or the noise. She wanted to be home with her mother and Hattie and all the animals. She opened her mouth and howled. Christine Dayton stared on in fascination.

  “Hello Bella,” said the teacher, crouching down to her level. “Mummy will be back to pick you up this afternoon. Now, I wonder if you could do something for me? Our goldfish needs feeding. Can you help? And then after that, do you think you could draw me a picture of all your family?”

  Bella stopped crying.

  Christine needed no consoling. She flitted from one activity to the next, quickly tiring of each before moving on. If another child had what she wanted, she snatched it away or pushed them off. Christine’s name was the one that the teacher used the most.

  “Christine, dear, we don’t push each other like that.”

  “Christine, please don’t do that, you could hurt somebody.”

  “Christine, wait for your turn.”

  But Christine pleased herself. She stopped to watch Bella hard at work on her picture. She picked up a paintbrush, dipped it into a paint pot and deliberately swiped it across Bella’s picture. The blue paint ran down Bella’s picture, saturating the paper.