The Deserter's Daughter

by Susanna Bavin

  Was that a good sign? ‘Perhaps if you went and talked to her—’

  ‘No! I keep telling you. I can’t go out.’

  Mrs Jackson and Mrs Tilbury crossing the road. ‘No, Mam, I know. Not yet. Let’s not fret about that now. Let’s have summat to eat. Shall I help?’

  But Mam stayed put. ‘You do it.’

  The meat safe was empty. Carrie assembled plates of bread and butter with tomatoes and chutney, and a pot of tea. Yesterday she had commented on the flavour of the tomatoes, but now she couldn’t taste them. Yesterday, she had washed her hands twice after tea because of trying on her wedding dress.

  ‘Did anyone come round while I were out?’

  ‘No – yes. No.’

  ‘No yes no?’ She spoke lightly, trying to encourage Mam into conversation. ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Someone knocked but I never answered.’

  ‘You didn’t answer the door?’

  ‘Two or three times.’

  ‘It could have been Mrs Clancy or Mrs Hardacre, come to see how you are.’

  ‘Or come to give me a mouthful for keeping it secret all this time.’

  ‘They wouldn’t do that. They’re your friends.’

  ‘Friends I’ve kept a terrible secret from.’

  ‘Go round and see them, try to explain.’

  ‘How many times must I tell you? I’m not going out.’

  Carrie pushed her chair back. ‘Then I can pop next door and fetch Mrs Clancy.’

  ‘You’ll do no such thing.’ Mam’s eyes were bright with anger, or possibly panic. She fetched a deep sigh. ‘Leave it, love. Honestly, just … leave it.’ She closed her eyes.

  Fine. Carrie looked at the plate in front of her. She had been brought up to think of the starving children in India, but she had done little more than pick at her meal and what she had forced down sat heavily in her stomach.

  ‘Aren’t you going to touch yours, Mam?’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘You need to keep your strength up.’

  ‘So do you.’

  Carrie got up. ‘I’ll clear away, then I need a strip-wash.’

  Right now, right this minute, she should be setting off for the public baths, armed with her towel and her lavender bath salts. A fist squeezed her heart.

  Upstairs, she sprinkled some salts into the flowery china bowl on the washstand. It was only right. It was like saying she knew things would get sorted with Billy.

  Afterwards, she washed her hair, though without Mam to help with jugs of clean water, it took ages. She kept her hair long because that was how Billy liked it, and she did too. If only she could have proper fair hair, it would improve her looks no end. A couple of years ago she had tried rinsing it in vinegar to lighten it, but all that had achieved was to make her smell like a chip shop. Now she used rosemary to make it shine and told herself she was content, but she wasn’t really.

  She towel-dried it and put it in rags.

  ‘Why are you getting all primped up?’ Mam wanted to know.

  ‘I’m seeing Billy later.’ How calm she could sound, almost as if the two of them had agreed on it. ‘He likes me to look my best.’ It was important for a town hall clerk’s wife to look the part.

  Mam disintegrated into tears. She patted her skirt, searching for the pocket, and pulled out a sodden little scrap trimmed with lace. Carrie went upstairs and opened Mam’s drawer. They hadn’t kept Pa’s clothes, but they had kept his handkerchiefs because Mam said they would be useful if one of them had a bad cold.

  She shook out the hanky and offered it to Mam.

  ‘This has ruined all our lives,’ Mam mourned.

  Carrie badly wanted to discuss the Billy situation. In particular, she would have appreciated sharing a jolly good gripe about Mrs Shipton, but with Mam focused solely on their disgrace, what hope was there of that?

  The afternoon dragged by. Carrie kept one eye on the clock. At last it was time to take out her rags. Her hair was still damp and she wanted to give it a good brush, but if she did that, the waves would drop out. She fastened it up in a loose knot. The looser it was, the longer the waves would last. Evadne never had to worry about such things. Her hair had a natural crinkle that looked very modern.

  There. She was ready to meet Billy on his way home from the office. She stood up straight, feeling tall – Billy’s job always made her feel tall. He was a town hall clerk, and that counted for something. They might be starting out their married lives in a modest way, being so young, but one day they would have a house with a garden and Mam could live with them and help with the children.

  As she went downstairs, the front door opened to admit Evadne.

  ‘How is she?’ Evadne asked without preamble.

  ‘The same. She hasn’t been out.’

  Evadne’s mouth went thin. ‘Some of us didn’t have a choice. Where are you going?’ she asked as Carrie reached for her shawl.

  ‘To meet Billy.’

  ‘Not again. I didn’t realise you were such a glutton for punishment.’

  Carrie was stung, but she hid it. Evadne didn’t understand. She had never been engaged. She didn’t grasp how it bound you together. And Carrie and Billy had the baby an’ all.

  She went to say goodbye to Mam, standing behind her chair to drop a kiss on her cheek so she couldn’t grab her and try to make her stay. As she walked down the hall, the letter box flap opened. The teatime post was early. But it wasn’t a letter. Carrie frowned as something floated to the floor. A piece of ribbon? No, a feather.

  She opened the door in time to see children running away. She picked up the feather from the mat. It was grey – from a pigeon? Her first thought was that it might contain any amount of miniature wildlife and she held it out in front of her in between her fingertips to drop it outside.

  Then the second thought struck.

  A grey feather doing the job of a white one.

  Chapter Nine

  Carrie hovered at the tram stop near the corner of Sandy Lane, bouncing on her toes as she gazed along Barlow Moor Road, willing the tram to clank into view. Would Billy take one look and sweep her into his arms? Her heart put on a spurt. He was so handsome in his suit and bowler. His stiff white work collar always made her want to loosen the knot in his tie and unfasten his collar studs and top button, then pull him down by his lapels to kiss him.

  The tram appeared. Nerves boiled up inside her, knotting her muscles. She threw her energy into relaxing them, striving to regain her calm. Calm! Try telling that to her tummy, which was rolling around like a drunken sailor.

  She stepped back for passengers to alight. Her eager gaze caught Billy before he saw her and her heart turned to putty.

  ‘Billy!’

  He gawped. ‘Carrie – what are you doing here?’

  ‘I’ve come to meet you.’

  His face changed. He flushed a dull red and his expression was … She recalled a term from the war: neutral territory. That was Billy’s expression: neutral, not giving anything away.

  ‘This is a surprise, Carrie.’

  ‘Didn’t you expect it? It wasn’t decent what you did yesterday, speaking to Evadne instead of waiting for me. Heaven knows, I were only upstairs.’

  ‘Aye, well, I’m sorry about that.’

  ‘I’m not holding it against you. Everyone was upset, but we’ve calmed down now.’ She waited for him to take up the cue, but all he did was shift awkwardly from foot to foot, so she had to say it herself. ‘We need to talk. Can we go to the park?’

  ‘My mam’s expecting me home.’

  ‘My mam’s expecting me home an’ all, but I’m making time for this. And my mam needs me right now a lot more than yours needs you.’

  ‘How is she?’

  Mam worn out with grief and shame. Mrs Tilbury and Mrs Jackson crossing the road. Once she got things sorted out with Billy, she could concentrate on looking after Mam.

  ‘Let’s go to the park, eh, Billy?’

  They walked in
silence. She wished Billy would offer his arm, but maybe he felt he couldn’t after breaking off their engagement. Only – how could you break an engagement by telling your fiancée’s sister? As far as she was concerned, she was still very much engaged. Lifting her head, she took Billy’s arm, but he didn’t bend his elbow to receive her hand, just let his arm hang. Shame slickened her skin. She couldn’t wait for the park’s green railings to come into view.

  They walked through the open gates, where the brook bubbled along in the dip to one side, and veered off the main path across the grass. As they approached a bench, Billy all but shook her off.

  ‘You never said how your mam is.’

  ‘Very upset. I’m that worried. She says she can’t face anyone ever again.’

  ‘Perhaps you should get back to her.’

  ‘Evadne’s there. What about us, Billy?’ She forced herself to remain steady when he wouldn’t meet her eyes. ‘Yesterday was horrible, but let’s put that behind us and think about the future.’ She waited, but still he said nothing. ‘I understand about yesterday. You were shocked rigid, your mam blew her stack, and things happened that shouldn’t. I’m not holding it against you. Billy – please look at me.’

  And he did. His colour was high, his eyes desperate. ‘I’m sorry, Carrie.’

  ‘I know, love. It’s all right. I know your mam saw Father Kelly this morning and called off the wedding, but we can go and see him tonight.’

  ‘She’s cancelled the registrar.’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘You can’t have a Catholic wedding without the registrar. My mam went to town this morning and cancelled him.’

  The air froze in Carrie’s lungs. She couldn’t breathe and she couldn’t think. Somehow she managed to get to her feet and walk away. There was a breeze. She knew there was, because she could see the leaves moving in the trees, but she couldn’t feel it on her skin. Down in the dip, Chorlton Brook must be chuckling along, but she couldn’t hear that either. Somehow, even though she couldn’t hear him, she knew Billy was coming after her. She swung round to face him, slicing through whatever he was saying.

  ‘Not now, Billy. Meet me here—’

  ‘I can’t come tomorrow.’

  Tomorrow. Saturday, June the 19th. Their wedding day. The world – this bizarre world she had somehow ended up in, after Father Kelly’s friend had blabbed about Pa – swam around her.

  ‘Sunday, four o’clock.’

  ‘I don’t know. My mam—’

  Carrie walked away. She got through the gates before hot tears blurred her vision.

  ‘God, not you again.’ Ralph said as Adam appeared in the sitting-room doorway, looking like a society swell from the last century in his frock coat, carrying his glossy silk topper. ‘What do you want now?’

  ‘Evening,’ Adam replied, unperturbed.

  He placed the top hat on the art-nouveau side table and walked right in as if he had every right to, which he didn’t, blast him. He didn’t live here any more and the moment Dad retired, that would be the end of Adam’s dropping in for cosy chats. Ralph would change the locks if needs be.

  They shook hands.

  ‘I brought this for Dad,’ said Adam.

  Ralph didn’t look. What did he care?

  ‘Give it here. Dad’s in the office.’

  ‘I’ll pop down.’

  Oh no you won’t, me laddo. Ralph loathed Dad’s habit of finding something to finish off in the office after he had gone upstairs to the flat when the shop shut, just like he had when Ralph was fifteen. Why the hell couldn’t the old sod let go?

  ‘No need,’ he said. ‘He’ll be up in a minute.’

  ‘You’re looking handsome this evening, Doctor Armstrong. Are you stopping for your tea?’

  Bloody hell, that was all he needed, the hired help putting her two penn’orth in. She was their daily cook, for Pete’s sake. It wasn’t up to her to hand out invitations. But what could you expect? She had been with them for donkey’s years and that gave her certain privileges, or it made her think it did.

  Adam smiled at her. ‘Evening, Mrs English. No, I’m not staying, though I’m sure I’ll be sorry when you tell me what you’ve prepared.’

  ‘It was pork and rabbit pudding for dinner, so I kept back a bit of pork for pig-a-leekie.’

  ‘Sounds delicious.’

  ‘Next time, perhaps. You’re always welcome, Doctor Armstrong.’

  That was another thing. Dad was Mr Armstrong while Ralph, as – Christ Almighty, there must be a better word for it – the junior mister was Mr Ralph; but Adam, instead of being Mr Adam, was Doctor Armstrong. It was ruddy irritating.

  Why wouldn’t the old man retire? Then Ralph could get rid of Mr Weston toot sweet and set up his auction room. He would give Mrs English her marching orders too. It was like the Ghost of Christmas Past doing the cooking. Dad had hired her during Mother’s illness and she would have been gone seven years ago if Molly—

  His thoughts snapped shut.

  Except they didn’t quite. A few squeezed out and trickled across his consciousness.

  He would never forgive Adam. It hadn’t been Adam’s fault, but that wasn’t the point. In fact, that made it worse. More damaging.

  Mrs English said, ‘I’ll serve up and leave the plates in the oven, Mr Ralph, and I’ll tek the rabbit skin and get the thre’penny deposit back from the butcher on my way in tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes, fine.’ As if he cared.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs English,’ said Adam. Quite the lord of the manor.

  The woman withdrew and Ralph eyed his brother. Why doctors had to deck themselves out in clobber like that, he had no idea. Mind you, the frock coat sat well on Adam’s slim, muscular frame – not that he would ever tell him so. Truth to tell – and Ralph made a point of telling himself the truth, no matter what bilge he fed to others – he had always rather fancied himself in a frock coat and top hat. Imagine striding round the streets and people pointing him out with an admiring, ‘There goes Mr Armstrong. Dresses old-fashioned like, but doesn’t he cut a fine figure? Knows everything there is to know about old things, so they say.’ And not just in Chorlton-cum-Hardy either, but in town too. Imagine walking past those high-class antiques places on Deansgate and being recognised as the antiques expert from Chorlton.

  Except that, being thicker-set, he wouldn’t cut such a fine figure as Adam did. Besides, what if locals got them mixed up? And they would. People were stupid. He and Adam shared their mother’s brown eyes and mid-brown hair, and Dad’s aquiline nose, but that didn’t make them twins.

  ‘Where are you off to, all togged up?’ he asked as they sat, he in an armchair, Adam on the bentwood rocker. ‘Fancy-dress party?’

  ‘Very witty.’ Adam pushed the rocker to and fro. ‘I’m going to visit a patient.’

  ‘Oh yes, one of your charity cases. You can’t possibly do that in a lounge suit.’

  The chair stopped. Adam touched one of his silk-faced lapels. ‘It’s a uniform. People expect it.’

  A uniform? Soldiers wore uniforms. They lived and died in bloody uniform. They lit a fag and got their brains blown out by a sniper or they went over the top and died after half a dozen paces – in uniform. They dived for cover into a crater and got eaten alive by the mud, or they died hanging off the barbed wire, a piece of target practice for the Hun – in uniform.

  Or, in spite of horrific injuries, they lived and were sewn back together by the likes of his dear brother so they could be packed off back to the front to face it all over again. His bloody brother was so certain of his life-saving skills that he even thought he could bring back the dead – because that’s what those waxworks were, to all intents and purposes: dead. And not content with treating the waxworks at Brookburn, he had to get out and about in the community, bringing hope where none was due.

  ‘You might as well paint your face and call yourself a witch doctor.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘It’s not my pardon you want. It�
��s the pardon of all those poor saps you’ve kidded into believing their soldier boys have a hope in hell of recovery.’

  ‘The treatment we’re using is groundbreaking.’

  ‘So you keep saying. Break the ground open and bury ’em, I say. That’s all they’re fit for.’

  ‘I see you two are getting on well as usual.’ Dad walked in, blue eyes narrowed in vexation, but that was nothing new. It didn’t take much to irritate Joseph Armstrong. ‘I don’t know what your mother would say.’

  Now there was an interesting thought. If Mother were still here, Adam would be part of the business. It was Mother’s lingering and painful illness that had prompted his highfaluting ambition to become a doctor and save the world. Ralph wasn’t glad Mother was gone, but he was bloody delighted he would never have to share the business with his brother.

  Adam rose to shake hands. ‘Evening, Dad. Here’s the book I promised.’

  He resumed his seat and Dad lowered himself into the other armchair.

  ‘Oof. I’m glad to get the weight off my feet. Come to ask after Mrs Jenkins, have you?’

  ‘No.’ Adam grinned. ‘Well, maybe. How is she?’

  ‘Don’t know. Didn’t see her. If she was in, she wasn’t answering. I’ll try again tomorrow.’ He pursed his lips. He had a craggy face that lent itself to wry chuckles as much as it did to crusty vexation. ‘The young lass is meant to be getting wed tomorrow. Sweet girl.’

  ‘Mrs Jenkins won’t have time for you if she’s busy being the mother of the bride.’

  ‘Surely they’ll have postponed it after what’s happened?’

  ‘Damn right,’ said Ralph. Who in his right mind would shackle himself to a deserter’s daughter?

  ‘We’ll see,’ said Dad. ‘Off to see a patient, are you?’

  ‘The techniques we use at Brookburn are worth trying on people who have suffered strokes,’ said Adam. ‘Of course, it falls to the families to do all the exercises. I hope we’ll help some people.’

  ‘Got many patients round and about?’

  ‘Two at present. The boys at Brookburn must come first.’ He looked at the time. ‘I’d better be off.’