He swallowed painfully.
‘They’re blood, Bernard. At the end of the day, they’re as near to one another as they can be without being Siamese. Shared a womb, they did. Some folk say they hold hands, you know, touch one another’s faces, play about and kick before they’re even born. It’s a God-given gift and—’
‘Stop it, Eva.’ Bernard found himself trembling again. ‘Don’t try to make me feel even more guilty, please.’
She pulled herself up to full height. ‘I’m guilty, not you. I separated them, because I realized that Theresa Nolan could hardly manage one, let alone twins. Like I said before, I never even thought, not proper, like. You just need to know everything, Bernard. Knowing makes you more … It makes you fit for whatever happens.’
‘I thought … I even hoped that the mother had died. Or that Katherine came from a family with a dozen children and not a pair of boots between them. It was easier to think along them lines, I suppose.’
She inclined her head. ‘But it’s not so easy now, eh?’
‘No.’
Eva wondered why she had told this poor man the truth. Had she been trying to ease her own burden by passing half of it to him? None of this was Bernard Walsh’s fault. He had seen his wife keening silently, inwardly, dangerously, for a dead child, had watched Liz crumbling, falling into that dark, formless place halfway between sanity and madness. ‘I had to do this,’ Eva told him. ‘There’s the chance of Theresa noticing, of others seeing how alike the kiddies are. The girls themselves might meet one day by accident. I had to tell you,’ she repeated, as if underlining her decision would prove its correctness. ‘As for the rest of it – them being twins – well, that’s just my guilt talking.’
‘Go home, love,’ he said. ‘You must be frozen.’
She touched his arm, then walked away.
Bernard perched on the edge of an empty stall’s counter. Katherine had a sister. Little Jessica Nolan was Katherine’s twin. This hadn’t happened suddenly – the girls were five years old and they had always been related. But fear wrapped its tentacles around Bernard’s heart because he had new knowledge. In this particular case, that knowledge decreased its owner’s power. This was the famous exception which might prove the rule.
FIVE
The Merchants’ Club Inn was an unprepossessing piece of architecture. It was flanked by education offices and a notorious public lavatory around which dark-clad men hovered in the hope of meeting fellow members of their often taunted minority.
Inside the tradesmen’s club, members of a more acceptable society enjoyed the privileges accompanying stamped and paid-for membership cards. Travelling businessmen could buy a bed for the night, while Bolton traders were often to be found negotiating deals, entertaining prospective clients, or simply reaching a state of inebriation that allowed them to forget or ignore their various positions in life.
The interior of this exclusive club was not beautiful. Shoddy plasterwork and squeaking floorboards had been garnished in glory – wood panelling, red carpets, shiny-topped tables and maroon curtains. A small bar occupied one corner of the meeting room and, at the opposite end, dartboard and billiard table offered cheap recreation to anyone with a modicum of energy.
Three men hung over a table in the quiet room, each staring into his drink as if searching for a spiritual hand to reach out from within the soul of alcohol to offer guidance. Drooping shoulders and bowed heads made the group an ideal subject for any passing impressionist who might have cared to capture the essence of depression.
‘What a bloody mess life is. I can’t cope with this any more,’ mumbled a pale-skinned, well-spoken man in a very decent suit. He was referring not only to Theresa Nolan, but also to other areas of his life. ‘We must continue to pay, and to pay more. After what our sons did, there can be no question of neglecting the woman and her child.’
When the statement bore no fruit, George Hardman settled back and gazed once more into a pint of bitter beer. He had meant what he had just said. More than ever before, he pitied Theresa Nolan, but his own existence was about to alter so radically that he had little energy and little real interest in lives other than his own. Theresa was just one of many last straws heaped on his aching back. ‘Things must change,’ he added in a whisper.
Maurice Chorlton clicked his tongue. ‘Yes, I suppose you have too much to lose by refusing to pay, as have I,’ he advised George Hardman. Hardman’s Hides, which had been in the family for almost a century, was a thriving business even now, before the cessation of hostilities. ‘Once the war’s over, you’ll be back on your feet properly,’ added the jeweller. ‘And with young Ged to help you.’ Roy, too, would be coming home. Roy Chorlton’s interest in the art of jewellery manufacture was practically non-existent.
The third man, Alan Betteridge, chuckled softly. ‘You’d think this were the bloody dark ages,’ he told his companions. ‘Who cares, eh? Our sons had their wicked way with a girl – so what? So bloody what? She can sod off. How would she manage in court, eh? If she sued, she’d be laughed at after all these years.’
‘Morality, not legalities,’ said George Hardman softly. ‘Put up and shut up, that’s my advice to you, Alan.’
Maurice sighed, inflating his rounded stomach until the buttons on his waistcoat all but screamed for mercy. He leaned forward, causing further stress to his clothing. ‘There is yet another form of proof, Alan.’ He still didn’t care much for Alan Betteridge, was inclined to dislike a man so crude, so common. ‘As well as Bernard Walsh’s statement, that is. My son offered to marry the girl, remember? Years back, when the lads were still in training, he went to see her.’
‘Daft sod, that one of yours,’ spat Betteridge. ‘No bloody guts and no sense.’
Maurice glared at the so-called fine furnisher of homes. ‘And Eva Harris was a witness to that – well, she says she was. She was the one who told me about the stupid proposal. I felt like killing him, but you have to admit, there’s no denying the truth now. Anyway, my business depends on good will. I can’t have Bolton running off to Manchester for its wedding rings just because one of our lads fathered a bastard.’ Once again, he singled out Alan Betteridge. ‘And there’s bigger fish than you in the cities, too.’
‘Don’t talk to me about fish,’ snapped Betteridge. ‘Them bloody Walshes are at the back of Eva Harris, you know.’
‘Nobody’s forced to buy their chairs and tables from you,’ continued Maurice, ‘I reckon there’ll be all sorts of changes once the black-outs are over. Folk’ll want new stuff. They’ll be chucking out all sorts just to be rid of all the junk they’ve sat amongst during air raids. You stand to make a fortune when Utility stops sticking its stamp on matchwood. So forget about the Walshes and the Nolans of this world. I say we pay up again. The Harris woman’s on the warpath, because the Nolans are both in poor health up at the TB sanatorium.’ He glanced now at the tanner. ‘Well?’
George Hardman raised his hands in a gesture of hopelessness. ‘Please yourselves,’ he said. ‘Because I won’t be here for much longer.’ He attempted a light shrug. ‘It’s nothing to do with the girl, or her child, or our sons. As I said before, everything must change.’ He took a deep breath. ‘I’ve had about as much as I can take. I intend to make my exit from the scene at the earliest opportunity.’
The other two stared closely at George Hardman. ‘You what?’ asked Alan Betteridge.
George let out a deep, heartfelt sigh. ‘Look,’ he said with exaggerated patience. ‘For a start, there’s Lily.’ He pursed his lips, as if the sound of his wife’s name had left a bitter taste in its wake.
‘What about her?’ asked Alan Betteridge.
‘She’s been at it again.’
Maurice Chorlton kept his composure, while Alan Betteridge leaned forward like a hungry animal expecting scraps from some medieval banquet.
George Hardman ran long, thin fingers through a thatch that had been grey for over twenty years. A tall, slender man, he carried himself with an eleg
ance that had never visited the other two tradesmen. ‘My head went white within twelve months of marrying Lillian,’ he stated bluntly. ‘I don’t even know if Ged is my son.’
‘Who’s she messed with this time?’ persisted Betteridge.
George Hardman cleared his throat. He had nothing to lose, he informed himself firmly. His wife was a tramp and the truth would come out eventually. ‘Her pièce de résistance,’ he announced, the words trimmed with damped-down anger, ‘is our vicar.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘Man of God, shepherd of a parish, bringer of the word and an ugly beggar if ever I saw one.’
It was an unwritten rule at Merchants’ that no-one ever laughed at George Hardman. His wife might be a nymphomaniac, while his son wasn’t much to write home about, yet George Hardman stood head and shoulders above every man in the club. But Alan Betteridge, the balance of whose chair had slipped during recent moments, fell underneath the table, his laugh almost loud enough to shatter glassware.
Maurice Chorlton, unable to bear public embarrassment, was glad that the club was almost empty. He dragged the man off the floor, righted the chair and thrust the drunken Alan Betteridge back into his seat. ‘Shut up,’ he muttered.
Betteridge groaned with the pain of suppressed glee, then banged his head on the table rather sharply. Pictures of Lily Hardman and a man of the cloth played naughtily across his small, active mind. ‘I’m all right now,’ he announced through tears and sobs produced by near-hysteria. He was seeing stars, and Lily Hardman continued to dance behind lights produced by near-concussion. ‘I’ll have a bloody headache tomorrow,’ he grumbled.
George Hardman appeared not to have noticed anything amiss. ‘She started going to church a lot. Good, I thought. Perhaps she’s mending her ways, I thought. But she wasn’t mending her ways. She was mending hymn books in the vestry while he looked at her.’ He paused for a couple of seconds. ‘Last summer, it was. Her sister called unexpectedly, so I went to fetch Lily from church.’
Alan Betteridge blinked twice, suspense etched into his features.
Maurice Chorlton slipped a hand into his pocket and brought forth a silver hip flask. Deftly, he poured whisky into a tumbler, then passed the drink to George.
The tanner drank, grimaced against the cheap Scotch, yet claimed a refill. When the second drink had disappeared, he continued. ‘She was on a high stool in front of a pile of Books of Common Prayer, blouse undone to the waist. The reverend was behind her, left hand on her bosom and the right one attending to other business.’
‘What did you do?’ breathed Alan Betteridge.
‘I battered the living daylights out of him.’ George Hardman’s voice remained steady. ‘Then I … well … I suppose I clouted my own wife, gave her a couple of black eyes and a very thick ear. She had to stay in the house for ten days.’
‘You hit her in front of the vicar?’ asked Maurice Chorlton.
‘Oh yes. Even if the bishop had turned up, I would have acted in the same disgusting way. I was so bloody furious.’ He paused, nodding. ‘You know, I even felt like raping her. I was suddenly a savage. Rape’s nothing to do with sex,’ he advised his companions. ‘It’s power. It’s devaluing somebody’s currency, lessening their worth. That’s what our sons did to that young woman. It was a terrible crime, and I should know, because I could easily have been as guilty as they are.’
‘Nay,’ said Betteridge. ‘That were different. Lily’s your wife. You would have been claiming your rights.’
George Hardman shook his head. ‘No, that’s not the case. I wanted to dirty her, make her less than human, make myself less than human.’ He looked down at his hands, as if he expected to see filthy claws rather than well-manicured fingernails. ‘She’s hardly come out of her bedroom for the last six months. Not when I’ve been in the house, anyway. I don’t like her. I could stay on at home without loving, but not without liking. So I’ve been shifting money, salting it away. When Ged gets back from the war, he’ll be in charge of the tannery.’ He smiled grimly. ‘What’s left of it. They deserve one another, Lily and Ged.’
Maurice swallowed. ‘Where will you go?’
For the first time, George Hardman grinned properly. ‘I’m running away with Emily Birchall,’ he sighed blissfully. ‘Her husband died early on in the war, some sort of stomach thing he picked up in barracks.’
‘She’s your secretary.’ Maurice’s tone was accusing.
‘Yes.’
‘And she’s only about twenty-five,’ continued the jeweller.
‘Twenty-seven,’ George said. ‘A nice, gentle girl. There’s been no funny business, mind, just a peck on the cheek now and then. I shall get divorced. My solicitor’s holding enough evidence against Lily and the vicar. I don’t reckon the reverend’s chances of turning out to be Archbishop of Canterbury after this little lot.’
‘Well, bugger me,’ said Alan Betteridge.
George, in happier mood now that his intentions had been aired, managed a laugh. ‘No, thanks.’
Maurice was thoughtful. ‘So it’ll be down to me and Alan, then. I take it you won’t be sending money for the Nolans?’
‘I might,’ replied George. ‘Depends, I suppose. But I will keep in touch.’
Troubled glances passed between Maurice and Alan. George Hardman, richer than the two of them put together, was going to clear off. ‘When do you go?’ asked Maurice.
‘When I’ve spoken face-to-face with Ged and his mother. There’ll still be a tannery for them to run, but they must start from as near to scratch as I dare leave them.’
The jeweller groaned. ‘We’ll all suffer, man,’ he exclaimed. ‘You employ a fair number in this town. Who’s going to want brooches and beds if they’ve no jobs?’
George nodded benignly. ‘That’s your problem, not mine. I don’t mean to sound so callous, but my marriage has been hell on earth, so I’m saving my own skin this time instead of worrying about cowhide.’ He nodded. ‘There’s no need for the captain to go down with the ship.’ He blinked rapidly, realized that he was drunk and muttering what almost amounted to gibberish. ‘Emily and I will be climbing into a lifeboat,’ he concluded, the words colliding with each other as they fell from his lips.
‘You’re scuttling the bloody ship, you are.’ Alan Betteridge, whose wife had cleared off years earlier with the insurance man, quietened after a few seconds, becoming almost pensive. ‘Oh, do what you must,’ he added softly. ‘You wonder where you went wrong, don’t you?’
Maurice Chorlton kept his counsel. A widower, he saw himself as clean where marital matters were concerned. George Hardman had married a sex-crazed witch, while Alan Betteridge’s wife, tired of being a punchbag for her inebriate partner, had absconded in the company of a nice, quiet, bespectacled chap with bicycle clips and an insurance round.
George cleared his throat. ‘I went wrong the minute I bought three diamonds on a twist from you, Maurice. As soon as Lily got that ring on, she started having ideas. I mean, you both remember my dad, solid as a rock, no airs and graces. But the top of Deane Road wasn’t good enough for Lily. Oh no, we had to buy The Villa, five bedrooms, conservatory, big gardens, then a couple of servants living in the roof space. I must have stripped the skins off a thousand animals just to pay for the curtains.’
Maurice sighed. ‘You’ve to forgive and forget, George. That’s what marriage is all about—’
‘Forgive and for-bloody-get?’ roared the tanner, the veins across his temples throbbing in the heat of anger and drunkenness. ‘I found her with the gardener when she was six months gone with our Ged! She’s … there’s something wrong with her.’
Maurice smiled reassuringly at the bartender and a small clutch of greengrocers three tables away. ‘Keep your voice down,’ he muttered.
George gripped the edge of the table. ‘I’m going,’ he said, quieter now. ‘Once the troops are home and the ink’s dry on Churchill’s bits of paper, I’m taking Emily abroad, somewhere nice and warm. There’ll be no more work for either of us.
’ He blinked against a temporary doubt. Life without work could well turn out to be fish without chips, a cart with no horse. ‘We might buy a little café or something,’ he added lamely. ‘Just to keep us out of mischief.’
The jeweller closed his eyes and leaned back against a mahogany panel. Ged Hardman couldn’t run a bath, let alone a tannery. Like Maurice Chorlton’s own son, the tanner’s boy was not particularly interested in his family’s business. ‘I can’t see Roy knowing a Ceylon sapphire from a blue topaz. As for your Ged, the stench at Hardman’s will make him fetch up last night’s beer.’
The furnisher shrugged. ‘Aye, and our Teddy’s not what you might call a gift from heaven. The last time I left him in charge, he sold a chest of drawers for next to nothing, got the prices mixed up. And he scratched a good dining table. Inlaid, it was. Octagonal.’ Alan was fed up. Utility had marked his card, had shifted him into the second-hand market. ‘We’ve no support from our sons, none of us,’ he moaned.
George Hardman stood up. ‘I’m off now,’ he said. Back to that house, back to a silence punctuated only by the chiming of clocks and the mewing of Lily’s Persians. Lily’s Persians were flaming nuisances. They dropped hair, shredded upholstery, clawed at clothing. ‘No use sitting here,’ he told his companions. ‘Get up, get out and get a life worth living.’
Maurice Chorlton didn’t want any changes. He loved gems and precious metals, could not wait for the war to end. ‘We’ll miss you,’ he told the owner of Hardman’s Hides. ‘But Alan and I are set in our ways.’ Without George, Maurice would be stuck with Alan Betteridge, welded to him by the sins of their sons. George Hardman had a bit of class, but the furniture salesman was crude, vulgar and alarmingly uninhibited.
In a rare moment of empathy, Alan Betteridge rose and shook George Hardman’s hand. ‘I’ll be sorry to see you leave Bolton,’ he said. ‘You’ve been a good mate to me and Mo.’
‘Mo’ shivered. Maurice was not the name he might have chosen for himself, but Mo was dreadful.
The Corner House Page 13