by Maggie Hope
The wind had freshened and a few early, fallen leaves scurried across the pavements. It was autumn already.
The front door was locked so Cath walked round the house to the back. Aunt Patsy and Annie were there, sitting in deckchairs watching Uncle Jim dig over the vegetable patch. In the shelter of the house it was quite warm, something of a suntrap.
‘Cath!’ Annie stood up and went to her sister, kissing her on the cheek. Annie looked well, considering, Cath thought as she gazed at her.
‘How are you, pet?’ she asked. ‘I’ve missed you.’
‘Me too,’ said Annie. ‘Thanks for coming.’
‘She’s fine with us,’ said Patsy. She had not risen from her chair. Uncle Jim paused in his digging and nodded a greeting.
‘Yes, of course she is,’ Cath agreed. In spite of Annie’s greeting she felt decidedly unwelcome. But after a few minutes Patsy offered her a cup of tea and went into the kitchen. Uncle Jim brought out a couple of kitchen chairs and they sat down together.
‘Don’t worry about your auntie,’ he leaned close to Cath to whisper. ‘She’s just afraid you’ll take Annie away.’
‘I won’t do that, I couldn’t,’ Cath replied.
‘What are you two whispering about?’ Patsy had come out again with the tea tray.
‘Nothing,’ said Jim. ‘By, I’m gasping for a cup of tea, Patsy.’
Cath came away feeling thoroughly depressed. Annie was so quiet and so obviously dependent on Patsy. She watched her aunt anxiously all the time. It was the drugs she was still taking, oh, Cath knew that’s what it was that made Annie so dull but it saddened her to see her sister like this. It was all the fault of Ronnie Robson, she told herself savagely.
‘Walk with me to the bus, Annie?’ she asked. ‘A walk will be good for you.’
‘She’d better not,’ said Patsy but Annie surprised them both.
‘I will,’ she said. ‘It’s not far to walk home by myself from the bus stop, is it?’
Patsy demurred, but Annie had made up her mind. ‘I’ll follow you down then,’ said her aunt. ‘I’ll meet you coming back. Don’t say anything to upset her, now, Cath.’
The two girls walked down the road, Annie’s hand tucked in Cath’s arm.
‘Don’t worry about me, Cath,’ Annie said suddenly. ‘I’m happy here, no one will hurt me. See, I’m not frightened of walking back on my own.’
‘Hurt you?’ asked Cath. ‘Of course they won’t.’ But they didn’t get to say much else for the bus was trundling down Redworth Road to the Hippodrome and there was no time left. Cath kissed Annie goodbye and jumped aboard. Poor Annie, she thought as she waved out of the window. She was just a kid and she had no life, no life at all. Cath turned to face the front so she didn’t see the man coming around the corner from Main Street.
Walking into Rossi’s at a couple of minutes after seven o’clock that evening, Cath saw Mark straight away, sitting in the first booth with a cup of coffee before him. He jumped to his feet with a smile.
‘There you are,’ he said. ‘I was wondering where you were.’
‘Hello, Mark. I’m not late, am I?’
‘No, not really, I was early though. I’ve been to Staindrop to see the parents.’ He paused for a moment before going on. ‘You don’t want a coffee, do you? Only I booked a table at the Bridge for seven-thirty. It’s halfway to Durham and I’ll give you a lift back. I’m going anyway.’
‘Great, only I’m not really dressed for it.’
Mark glanced at her blue tweed suit with the fitted jacket and full skirt that showed off her slim figure. She wore it with a white blouse with a mandarin collar and a small blue hat, which fitted over her dark hair with the aid of a plastic hairband concealed in it, and blue court shoes to match. She had renewed her lipstick before leaving Aunt Patsy’s house and the wind had whipped colour into her cheeks.
‘You look beautiful,’ he pronounced. ‘Stop fishing for compliments.’ Taking her arm, he led her outside. ‘I’ve parked in South Church Road,’ he went on, smiling down at her.
‘Watch where you’re going, can’t you?’
Cath looked up startled as a woman bumped into them. ‘Sorry,’ she said, then gasped, for of all people it was Mrs Musgrave, Brian’s mother. The woman drew herself up and her eyes gleamed but she said no more, simply brushed past and walked on.
‘Do you know her?’ asked Mark, as they walked on to where his Armstrong Siddeley was parked.
‘It’s Brian’s mother,’ said Cath. ‘You know, you met Brian on Elvet Bridge that day.’
‘The ex-boyfriend?’
‘That’s right.’
She would write to Brian as soon as she got home and tell him it was over between them, Cath decided. Before his mother did.
The film was Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House, with Cary Grant. Cath and Mark sat in the darkness and he didn’t put his arm around her nor did he hold her hand. He didn’t touch her at all except when Cary Grant said something funny in his clipped accent and Myrna Loy smiled up at him with that ‘All men are boys at heart’ look, and then he squeezed her arm. It was a light-hearted film, not exciting really, but they came out of the cinema happy and comfortable in each other’s company somehow.
Mark drove back to Durham and dropped her at the door, and it wasn’t at all like the time Jack came. Mark didn’t even kiss her goodnight.
‘Thank you for tonight,’ he said. ‘I’ll be seeing you soon.’
She ran up the steps to the front door and he drove off into the city. As she opened the door and went in, the telephone was ringing.
‘Get that, will you, Cath?’ asked Pete, who was just emerging from the sitting room. ‘It’ll be for you anyway. The ruddy thing has been going mad all evening.’
Cath’s heart leapt, and for a wild moment she thought it was Jack ringing to say he was sorry he hadn’t got in touch sooner but he’d had to go to Timbuktu or somewhere. But it was her mother’s voice that came from the receiver.
‘Cath? Cath, where the hell have you been? What did you say to our Annie this afternoon? I’ve had your Aunty Patsy on the telephone and she’s frantic. Annie’s only gone and tried to kill herself, she has. Taken a load of her tablets, the selfish little pig, doing this to us!’
The telephone table was by the side of the staircase and Cath sat down heavily on the stairs, as her legs suddenly seemed to give way.
‘Tried to kill herself? What do you mean?’
‘What the bloody hell do you think I mean? She’s tried to do herself in! She’s in hospital, the General at Auckland. Well, I tell you, if she gets over this they’ll have her in the loony bin again and they won’t let her out in a hurry, indeed they will not. Our Patsy’s having a fit! You’d best get yourself home tomorrow and explain yourself, do you hear me?’
‘I hear you, of course I do.’
‘Well then, do as I tell you. By, I dare say Henry won’t have me now. I—’
Whatever else Sadie had been going to say Cath didn’t wait to hear. She put the receiver down. She was seething with rage at her mother’s selfishness. Sadie seemed more bothered about Henry’s reaction than she was about poor Annie.
‘Would you like a cup of tea, pet?’ Hilda was standing at the sitting-room door, her face showing her concern. ‘Is there something wrong at home?’
‘It’s my sister—’ Cath was saved from having to explain further by the telephone ringing again. This time it was Patsy.
‘What did you say to Annie?’ Patsy shrieked down the line. ‘I’ve had to go to the hospital with her she’s in such a state, poor lass. By, I cannot trust any of you Raines with her, I just cannot! I wasn’t five minutes behind you and when I got there she was sitting on the Hippodrome steps shaking and crying and I couldn’t get a word out of her—’
‘I didn’t do anything, she was all right when I got on the bus,’ said Cath. She felt sick.
‘Well, she’s not all right now, she’s knocked back as far as she ever was. You must have
said something to upset her!’
‘No, I tell you, I didn’t. Oh, I would come back tonight but I can’t get a bus or a train, not now.’
‘They wouldn’t let you see her, any road. She’s in a coma or something. She’s out of it, anyway.’
‘But how did she try to kill herself? I mean, if she was on the steps when you found her, how could she?’
‘I took her home and put her to bed and then …’ Patsy choked over her words before she went on. ‘I thought she was just asleep when I first went up, but then after a couple of hours I went in and she looked funny somehow and she wouldn’t wake up and she’d taken the whole bottle of her tablets, the ones that make her sleep. I tried to wake her up; me and your Uncle Jim tried. We walked her up and down but I had to send him for the doctor in the end.’
‘I’m sure you did everything you could, Aunty Patsy,’ said Cath dully. She leaned against the banister as she tried to think. ‘I’ll come tomorrow morning. We’ll have to get to the bottom of this.’
‘Aye well, I’d best go,’ said Patsy. ‘They wouldn’t let me stay at the hospital, you know. I’m not her mother, that’s why. Next of kin only, they said. It makes you sick – I’ve done more for her than her blooming mother ever did.’ She was beginning to sound bitter and her tone had changed to a whine.
‘It’s true, you have,’ Cath said sympathetically. ‘Look, why don’t you go to bed and try to get some sleep? I’m sure everything will look better in the morning.’
‘Aw, how can it?’ asked Patsy, but after a moment she said goodbye and Cath put down the receiver.
‘I’ll just go straight up, Hilda, goodnight. Goodnight Pete.’
‘Oh, I’ve made some tea,’ Hilda protested. ‘Aren’t you going to tell us what is wrong?’
‘My sister’s in hospital. I’ll be going first thing in the morning,’ Cath replied and ran up the stairs and closed her bedroom door behind her. She couldn’t face any more questions, even if Hilda and Pete did take offence.
Chapter Twenty-one
Cath was up early on the Sunday morning. She had a bath and washed her hair before seven so that it would be dry before she went out. She had hardly slept and when she did she dreamed of Annie: her sister was upset and crying and she blamed Cath for whatever it was that had caused her trouble.
‘I didn’t do anything,’ Cath was insisting when she woke up suddenly in a sweat and the church bells were ringing, the chimes loud through the open window. So she had got up and tidied the room and kept herself busy until it was a reasonable hour to go out for the bus to Bishop Auckland. Usually on Sunday mornings she had breakfast with Pete and Hilda, so at nine o’clock she went downstairs and into the dining room.
‘Are you all right, pet?’ asked Hilda as she brought in plates of bacon and egg and fried bread. The smell of the food made Cath suddenly ravenous. ‘Did you sleep well?’
‘Not really. I was too worked up about Annie,’ said Cath.
‘Eeh, poor lass. What’s the matter with her exactly?’
Cath hesitated, but after all, it was probably best to tell Hilda now. If Annie were sent to Winterton again it would be hard to cover the fact up. Hilda was a kindhearted woman, but she was inquisitive and would have it out of her eventually. And Hilda knew her sister had had trouble with her nerves before. So she told her landlady what had happened.
Hilda shook her head. ‘Well, I don’t know, she must be in a bad way,’ Hilda commented. ‘But come on, sit down and eat your breakfast. You’ll need fortifying. By, I do hope she’s all right. How are you getting to Bishop?’
‘On the bus.’
‘It doesn’t start running until one o’clock, not on a Sunday. Did you forget? It’s Sunday service.’
Cath had forgotten; she could kick herself for it. She sat down heavily at the table. If only she knew where Mark lived; she would ask him to take her, but really she had no idea. It would be all right, she knew it would.
‘Your breakfast is getting cold,’ said Hilda. Cath picked up her knife and fork and began to eat mechanically. She had finished her meal and was going through the hall when it occurred to her that she would probably find his number in the telephone directory. Of course! It was just that such things were fairly new to her so it hadn’t occurred to her.
There it was: Durham 426. Mark Drummond, Claypath, it was. She had a few misgivings about ringing him but ring him she would. She thought she would die if she waited until the afternoon and then had to spend an hour on a bus ambling through the countryside.
‘Well, hello. I was just thinking of you,’ said Mark. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘I need to get to Bishop Auckland and there aren’t any buses until this afternoon,’ said Cath. ‘My sister has been taken to hospital.’ She was about to explain further but Mark butted in.
‘OK, I’ll take you,’ he said. ‘I’ll be over to pick you up in fifteen minutes.’
Cath was waiting outside the house when Mark drew up and soon they were on road out of the city and making for the south-west of the county. There was little traffic, and Mark relaxed and glanced over at her. She looked strained and anxious, with dark smudges under her eyes as though she hadn’t slept.
‘What’s it all about, Cath?’ he asked.
She hesitated, but in the end she told him about Annie and how her sister had been affected by what had happened to her.
‘She was all right when I left her yesterday, I swear. Something else must have happened in the few minutes after I caught the bus.’ Cath looked at him, wondering what he was thinking. ‘She took all her tablets at once, Aunty Patsy says. She’s in hospital in a coma.’ Cath’s voice broke and for a minute she couldn’t go on. Then she told him about the bad feeling in Winton Colliery and Eden Hope, about the retarded boy, Ronnie and his grandmother. By the time she had finished Mark was driving up Durham Road and turning into the marketplace at Auckland. He had said nothing until he had driven up Newgate Street and Cockton Hill to the hospital and parked by the gates. Thoughtfully, he switched off the engine then turned to face her, and for one awful minute she thought he was going to say he didn’t want to get involved, but she was wrong.
‘Do you think she must have met someone from the villages? Someone who frightened her perhaps? She couldn’t have seen the boy, could she?’
‘Not Ronnie, no, he’s in a locked ward at Winterton. I don’t think anyone else would say anything to her. No one would be so cruel, seeing how she is.’
They got out of the car and went into Reception, which was in one of the old workhouse blocks. Annie, they found, was in H Ward, one of the prefabricated huts built as a hospital for ill and injured prisoners of war.
‘Close family only,’ the receptionist said. ‘Visiting hours are not until two.’
Cath explained she was Annie’s sister and proved it by showing her identity card, but Mark was not allowed in. ‘I’ll wait in the car,’ he said. ‘I don’t mind.’
Annie was first on the left in the long, cheerless ward with its high windows and dark brown composite flooring buffed to a high shine. The bed was hidden behind drab, fawn-coloured screens.
‘She has come round,’ said Sister coldly. ‘I hope you don’t upset her.’ She stared at Cath with hard blue eyes through thick glasses as she pulled the screen aside a little so Cath could pass through.
All Cath had eyes for was the small figure in the bed, her face as white as the pillowcase her head rested on. A policewoman sat at the side looking very, very bored. Annie’s dark hair straggled over the pillow in stark contrast to the white pillowcase and her eyes seemed sunken and glazed. She opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out except the barest whisper. Even that seemed to tax her strength.
‘You came then.’
Cath jumped as the voice came from behind her. Aunt Patsy was there. ‘I hope you haven’t said anything else to upset her,’ Patsy went on. She approached the bed and patted Annie on the forehead before sitting down in the chair that was by the bed.
‘Are you feeling better, pet?’
Annie looked at her, her dark eyes large and so despairing, somehow, that Cath had to steel herself not to cry.
The policewoman stood up and they looked at her. She nodded to Patsy.
‘I’ll take my break now, as you are here,’ she said. ‘I could do with a breath of fresh air.’
‘What is she doing here?’ Cath asked.
‘What do you think? It’s a crime to try to take your own life, didn’t you know that?’ Patsy spoke in an undertone for she didn’t want Annie to hear her. ‘They think she might do it again.’
Outside, they could hear the policewoman talking to Sister. ‘I have better things to do with my time,’ she was saying, ‘than sitting here watching someone who wants to die. I’d let her if it was up to me.’
Cath flushed a bright red. She felt like storming out from behind the screen and screaming at her that Annie could hear every word: the screen wasn’t a wall, it was just a bit of cloth on a metal frame. In fact, she stood up to do so, but glancing at Annie she realised the girl hadn’t heard at all; she had her eyes closed and seemed asleep.
‘Hard-faced cow,’ said Patsy. She put her hand over Annie’s and held it gently. ‘They won’t let her have a water jug and glass, you know. In case she breaks them and uses the glass to slash her wrists.’
‘Oh,’ said Cath. She sat down again. She hadn’t thought of the law getting involved, not with Annie the way she was. It was just so ridiculous.
‘You might as well go, Cath. At least she’s out of danger now. Though God alone knows what will happen next. I suppose a psychiatrist will be coming to see her. I expect it’s Winterton again for her, and if not it’ll be reform school.’ Patsy’s eyes were wet; she leaned her elbow on the bed and rested her head on her hand. ‘I’ll stay until I’m chucked out. Your mam might turn up, any road.’
Cath could see her aunt was very upset; she loved Annie, oh, she did indeed.
‘I’ll go then,’ she said. ‘I’ll come back tomorrow.’
‘Not until half past seven, mind. Annie’s off the danger list now. Visiting’s seven-thirty until eight-fifteen. Ta-ra then.’