“Don’t forget, Beverley will be picking you up tomorrow at midday,” said Mr Lovett, relieved that the sensitive purpose of his phone call was dealt with, and that he could return to more mundane arrangements. “She’ll explain where you’re going. I’m afraid it wasn’t possible to accommodate you all in one place, so you and Dorothy will be with one foster mother, and Paul and Lucy with another.”
David barely digested the information. His mind was swimming with the grandmother news, and he had to force himself not to collapse like Dorothy.
“I can’t remember their names,” continued Mr Lovett, “but I’m told they’re very efficient about security. Much more efficient than that disastrous lot you’ve just been with. Goodbye.”
*
The next day, after Beverley had taken the children away, Miss Clements sat in her kitchen, stirring a pudding. There would be no one to eat it, except herself. She would have to cut it into quarters and put them in the freezer. Donald was in his basket, so she wasn’t alone, but the house was huge, and it was sad to have no one to cook for.
Even so, it was a relief they’d gone. They were nice children, very considerate and their manners were impeccable, but there had been an awful lot of hassle with all that security business. She really couldn’t face going through that again. It was too disturbing.
Somehow, the cottage in Greece didn’t appeal to her any more. It was a dream that had caused her to lose her judgment, and the thought of it filled her with shame and embarrassment. She scooped the pudding mixture into an ovenproof dish, scattered it with brown sugar and popped it into the Aga. So satisfying! Straightening herself up, she smoothed down her apron and reached a decision. She crossed the hall to the dining room, checked in the mirror over the fireplace to make sure that her hair was tidy, and then picked up the phone and dialled Mr Nicholas.
“Hello, Primrose! How nice to hear your voice. Have you thought about my offer?”
“Yes,” she said. “I had to think about it very carefully, because marriage is such an important step, don’t you think?”
“It is indeed,” said Mr Nicholas.
“Well, I’ve decided to accept.”
The thought that the pudding would not go uneaten flashed through her mind, while delightful visions of sponge cakes and casseroles and roasts danced before Mr Nicholas’s eyes.
“You’ve made me a very happy man,” he said.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“I do hope Beverley won’t get into too much trouble,” said Lucy, as all four of them huddled together against a wall under Waterloo Bridge. “But we’ve told them over and over again that we won’t be separated.”
They had slipped away quietly while Beverley was upstairs inspecting the bedrooms with Paul and Lucy’s prospective foster mother. They did feel guilty and horribly mean, because they knew she’d be in a panic searching for them, but their worst fear was that once they were separated they might never see each other again. They had made a pact that if they ever did lose contact, they would make their way back to Nain Jones’s house. But supposing it had burned down, or she’d gone away, or one of them didn’t manage to make it back there and the others never found out what had happened?
“We’re insecurity in human form,” Dorothy had commented, “but it can’t be helped. That’s the way we are. It’ll get better with time, but in the meantime we have to stick together.”
Now it felt like old times, on the run in London. It was all so familiar. There was a small fire burning near the opposite wall, and a strong smell of marijuana. A girl was crouching a few yards away, injecting herself with something, and a group of men were drinking out of cans and chatting among themselves.
“This takes us back a bit,” whispered David. “Remember the night we saw Father Drax with his briefcase, fast asleep under the railway arch”
“Will we ever forget it!” said Dorothy. “And he’s got my birth record in that briefcase, according to Mr Lovett. I wish I’d known then. I’d have pulled it out from under his head while he was sleeping and stamped on his face.”
“Ugh!” exclaimed David. “You’re gruesome!”
Dorothy shrugged. “Ugh to them! Anyway, let’s try and sleep. And keep as clean as you can. We don’t want to look like tramps tomorrow.”
*
When they woke, the traffic was rumbling overhead. Respectably dressed people were hurrying through the tunnel, taking a shortcut to work and skirting nervously round the dark, lurking figures.
“They’re afraid of us,” whispered Paul, and they felt ashamed.
“Well, we’re afraid too,” said Dorothy, “but at least no one knows us. Come on, let’s get out of here.”
They washed in the public lavatories on Waterloo station and cleaned their teeth, and checked each other over to see if they were tidy.
“My anorak’s filthy,” said David.
They brushed each other down as best they could, and then went off to look for some coffee and a sandwich. They studied the underground map and worked out their route, and half an hour later they found themselves walking towards a large sign announcing, “The Laurels Residential Home”.
Lucy stopped short and stared at the house. It was identical to Father Copse’s house, and her stomach did a somersault.
“I can’t go in,” she said.
Dorothy stood stock still. “I don’t think I can either. She may not want to see me, or she may be too demented to understand who I am. Or it may make her more demented if she does know who I am – like poor Mr Jones with Lucy.”
“You three go and sit on that bench over there,” said David, “and I’ll go and knock on the door and ask if we can visit.”
He rang a security button and a woman appeared.
“What do you want?” she said crossly.
“Is it possible to see Mrs Ferranti?”
“It’s much too early,” she snapped. “We haven’t got them all up yet. Visiting’s at two.” She shut the door in his face.
“Why do London people have to be like that?” sighed Lucy when he reported back. “It’s so much easier to be nice.”
They sat on the bench to rethink. Lucy looked at her watch. It was only half past nine.
“Tell you what,” said David. “We’ve got loads of time. Let’s go back to the tube station and see if we can get to our old commune. There won’t be anyone there. They’ve all been arrested or escaped by now. And we could have a look at Father Copse’s old house while we’re there, and the Mag’s school.”
*
“Let’s go up the High Street to look at the communes first,” said David as they climbed the steps from the underground station, “then the school, and then we’ll go over the common to look at Father Copse’s house.”
The Drax and Copse communes faced each other from opposite sides of the High Street. They were boarded up.
“They can’t hurt us now,” said Dorothy quietly. “We’re free.”
It was a while before anyone spoke, as the old memories hit them. But they had to move on if they were to face up totally to the past.
David was the first to speak. “Let’s see if they’ve blocked up the passageway to the disposal cells.”
They crept up through the Drax House garden and out into the woods beyond. The entrance to the passageway had a cordon round it and a no-entry sign, and a new, barred grid with heavy padlocks. They stood and stared in sober silence. Then they turned and ran.
“Good riddance to the lot of them,” said Dorothy bitterly when they reached the High Street. “I hope they all rot in the fire of the melting flesh.”
When they reached The Mag’s school it was boarded up as well. They went round the side to the bicycle shed.
“It’s not even a year since Lucy and I used to hide behind there,” said Dorothy. “It’s like another life.”
Lucy said nothin
g. She was remembering how Dorothy had tried to persuade her that there was no such thing as the Magnifico, and she had refused to listen.
“Come on. Let’s go and look at Father Copse’s house,” said David.
They followed their old path over the common, and came out at the pond where Paul and Lucy used to play.
The house had been flattened, the land had been cleared, and even the old garage had gone. There was no sign of the fire. All the events of last September flooded back into Lucy’s mind. She was glad there was nothing left. The appropriate word was ‘cleansing’, she thought – or was it ‘closure’? That’s what people said on television.
“That land must be worth a fortune,” said David. “Look at the size of it! Somebody will build a block of flats there one day, and sell them for hundreds of thousands of pounds. If Father Copse dies, you and Paul – and I suppose all his other children – will inherit it, and you’ll be rich.”
“Ugh!” exclaimed Lucy. “We wouldn’t want it, would we, Paul?”
“No,” he said. “The ghosties would make me hum.”
They made their way back to The Laurels, and sat on the bench waiting for two o’clock.
“Do you know what?” said Lucy after a while. “I feel better now I’ve seen those places.”
The others nodded their heads in silent agreement.
At two o’clock on the dot, they crossed the road to The Laurels and rang the bell. A voice crackled, “Yes?” out of a box in the wall. Creepy!
David put his mouth to the box and said, “We’ve come to see Mrs Ferranti.”
There was a buzzing sound and the door clicked. David pushed it open, and he and Paul stepped inside. Dorothy hesitated. Lucy took her hand as they followed the boys.
The hall was wide with patterned tiles on the floor, just like the hall in Father Copse’s house, but there the similarity ended.
Aunt Sarah would never have allowed the place to smell like this, thought Lucy.
Paul put his hand over his nose and mouth, and tried not to breathe. David approached the reception desk and asked a woman where they could find Mrs Ferranti. She pointed wordlessly to the second door on the left and waved her hand.
They stood in the doorway and stared, embarrassed, at a semi-circle of white and bald heads, gazing awkwardly up at a blaring television or lolling forwards in sleep. To one side, a very upright old gentleman sat at a table reading a newspaper. A woman on a sofa nearby was counting the stitches on her knitting needles. Another slept in the window overlooking the side garden.
Dorothy turned away. “If I told her who I was, she wouldn’t understand,” she said sadly. “Come on. Let’s go.”
“Don’t be silly,” whispered David. “Most of them are just ordinary people like you and me, sitting down because their backs are bad or their legs are tired. Of course they can understand.”
Paul didn’t move. He was looking round the room studying each individual intently. Two of them stared at him and smiled.
One elderly lady stretched out her arm and tried to touch him. “Hello, darling,” she said softly. “How nice of you to visit.”
“It’s a pleasure,” said Paul. “I hope you’re happy and comfortable.”
“Very,” she replied. “Are you looking for someone in particular?” But, before he could answer, her eyes had closed.
“Come on, Paul,” said Dorothy nervously. “We’re disturbing them.”
Ignoring her, he crossed over to the woman in the window. He studied her carefully as she slept. Her bone structure was fine but emaciated, and her face was surrounded by soft, silver curls. The long hands that lay in her lap were bony, but had once been slender and graceful. Paul inspected the ankles. These too had once been elegant. Now they sprouted likes sticks from the depths of her sheepskin slippers.
Paul put his hand on her knee and whispered, “Mrs Ferranti?”
When visiting time was over, the children were back on the bench outside, flushed with success. Dorothy was still trembling.
“She said her name was Dorothea, just like me, only Italian,” she said, as tears streamed down her cheeks. “My mother named me after her!”
David was already on his mobile phone to Gwen Jones.
“Can you come?” he asked her urgently. “We need you fetch Mrs Ferranti and take her back to Wales.”
“How is she? Is she ill? Can she travel?”
“She’s not exactly ill, but she’s been broken-hearted for a long, long time -– ever since Dorothy’s mother was taken.”
“Ah, the poor, poor soul! I can’t come tomorrow, but I’ll get the train the day after, and I’ll go and see her and find out what she’d like to do. She may prefer to stay where she is.”
“No. She won’t. It’s horrible. They don’t smile, and it smells, and I think she pays a lot for it, though she didn’t say how much. She’s very thin. Maybe Miss Clements would have her as a lodger and feed her up.”
“Miss Clements told me she’s getting married – but if she can’t have her, she can stay with me till we find her somewhere better.”
David gave her the address, and instructions how to get there.
“By the way,” she said anxiously. “Someone from Mr Lovett’s office rang to see if you were here. She said they rang The Laurels this morning and asked if four children had turned up there, and they told her you hadn’t. Are you alright? What about Paul?”
“We’re all fine, so don’t worry about us. They shouldn’t have tried to separate us. We explained to Mrs Ferranti that we can’t go back to The Laurels because Mr Lovett is sure look for us there. We told her to expect you – I hope you don’t mind, and I hope the train isn’t terribly expensive. When we found her, she was really drowsy and far away, but she seemed to come alive, and she certainly hasn’t got dementia as Mr Lovett seemed to think. She said she was going to give them notice as soon as she’d discussed things with you.”
“I’ll be there!”
*
Dorothea Ferranti got up from her chair, bent and stiff. She stretched slowly. What on earth was she doing wasting her time sitting down all day? Idling her life away wouldn’t put her poor old heart back together again. Her eyes brimmed with tears. It wouldn’t bring back her beautiful daughter.
She put her shoulders back, and stood up straight and tall. Back in her room, she burrowed in a drawer and found her mobile phone. She wondered when she had last used it. The battery was empty, so she burrowed a bit more and found the charger and plugged it in. She pressed a number and rang her brother.
“Mario. Come and see me.” She spoke in Italian, and her voice sounded strange to her. “Get on the first plane out of Rome. Such news! I have a granddaughter!” Her legs buckled and she dropped down into her armchair. Mario’s voice crackled anxiously. Was she still there, was she alright? She took several deep breaths and tried to still the galloping of her mind.
“The business – I need to be brought up to date.” She paused. I’m incoherent, she thought. He’ll think I’ve gone mad. “And can you send me a lawyer. I want to make a will – two wills, one Italian and one English. Come tomorrow if possible. I’m thinking of moving to Wales. Such a beautiful girl!”
Rising shakily to her feet, she left the phone to charge fully and crossed the room. With wasted arms, she pulled her suitcase out from the bottom of the wardrobe. Her sheepskin slippers squeaked on the vinyl flooring, and she looked down.
“Good heavens!” she said aloud. “What on earth have I got on my feet?”
In the back of the wardrobe she found some pretty shoes with elegant little heels. She sat down to put them on. Her feet were a bit loose in them but never mind.
“That’s better!” she said.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
They were too elated to go back to Waterloo Bridge.
“We’ll go to Piccadilly Circus,” sai
d Dorothy. “I went there last year. We can sit on the steps all night if we want to and no one will care. And there are plenty of snack bars, so we can eat. Tomorrow, we could stroll around Soho and places, and I might even be able to get a job as a waitress or something.”
“It might be difficult to get work without identification,” said David. “And, remember, until Mr Lovett sorts out your birth registrations, you and Lucy don’t exist in the eyes of the law.”
“He’s had all my details for ages, from Father Copse’s file,” grumbled Lucy. “I don’t know why it has to take so long.”
“Bureaucracy,” said Dorothy. “Red tape. Anyway, I don’t see that it should stop me getting a job, because they employ immigrants all the time in Soho. I could pretend I’m an immigrant.” Her face lit up. “Hey, do you realise, I’m half Italian!”
They strolled cheerfully along, and then took a bus. It was still light when they found themselves on the steps in Piccadilly Circus.
*
Father Drax paced up and down in the flat on the Cromwell Road. Something must have gone wrong. Isobel had not contacted him for three weeks or was it four? The syringe was still lying waiting for her, under the handkerchief on the coffee table. Head office hadn’t replied to his phone calls, and its website had disappeared from the internet. He had rung its travel department, but the phone number was unavailable, and although he had been told weeks ago that his documents were ready, they had not turned up.
The flat had become a prison. He was a caged animal – an enraged animal. It was the ingratitude that got him. He’d been a good Father to his commune, made sure the children were kept clean and well-fed. He’d even given the aunts a little pocket money now and then. He could understand the Copse kids turning against their Father because he’d bullied and starved all his children, including those two in his own house, and he never gave Aunt Sarah a penny. Everyone knew that floral dress she wore in the summer had been made out of old curtains. Copse had deserved to have his house burned down. This was entirely his fault.
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