‘As I said before, I’ll keep in touch.’ He extracted his fingers from Alan’s vice-like grip, then directed a few words at the seated jeweller. ‘I’ll leave something in an account for the Nolans. Talk to my solicitor when things get hot, let him do the sorting out.’
Left alone with Alan Betteridge, Maurice drew a hand across his forehead as if smoothing the path for a headache borrowed from his companion. ‘What on earth will Lily Hardman do with a tannery?’ he mused aloud.
Betteridge shrugged. ‘There’s some big lads working in yon factory. She’ll have plenty to keep her busy, I daresay.’
Maurice shuddered. With George Hardman, there had been decent conversation; with Alan, there was little more than utter tomfoolery. ‘Do you ever take anything seriously?’ asked the jeweller now.
Betteridge considered the question. ‘Money, I take that serious, I dare say. And Hilda going off to live in a slum with that stupid bugger was a bit of a sobering experience.’
‘Yet you carry on acting the goat.’
Alan stared hard at his companion. ‘What’s the alternative? Finish up a picture of misery like you? They call you Maurice the Mole, you know, and—’
‘Yes, I’m aware of that.’
‘Because you’re so …’ Greasy wouldn’t do. Oily would be far too unkind. ‘Well, the way you treat folk, crawling halfway up their backsides so’s they’ll buy a dearer watch.’
‘That’s called salesmanship, Alan.’
‘Where I come from, it’s called arse-kissing.’
‘It works.’
Alan lit a Pasha, coughing as he exhaled the pungent, harsh tobacco. ‘Then all that Methodism lark … I mean, what do you want to be joining the Holy Joes for? Stood up there every Sunday in your black suit, listening to folk going on about drinking and smoking. I went to school, you know. I were taught about loving thy bloody neighbour. If you’re a true Christian, I’ll eat my next delivery of bedroom suites. Religion’s about more than church, lad. See, I’m no hypocrite. I know I’m in business for the money and not to help worthy causes.’
Maurice felt the heat in his face. ‘Are you calling me a hypocrite?’
‘Please yourself,’ came the swift response. ‘Wear the bloody cap if it fits. You’ve stuff stashed on Deansgate as’d keep a family in food for donkey’s years. Can’t you be honest? What’s wrong with being a clever so-and-so? Only don’t go bleating to Jesus on a Sunday, because the rest of the week you’re as near a copy to Scrooge as anybody could imagine.’
Maurice suddenly sensed a weakness in his knees, was glad that he was seated. How could a man as low as this one cause Maurice Chorlton to feel … confused? Maurice had always managed to keep his mind clear and sure, had been convinced of the correctness of his lifestyle. God was for Sundays and business was what happened for the other six days.
‘I’m sorry,’ mumbled Alan Betteridge.
The jeweller blinked.
‘I mean, I shouldn’t be criticizing and …’ His voice faded to nothing.
‘Why are we doing it?’ Maurice asked.
‘Eh?’
‘Working. Saving. For what?’
Alan placed the Turkish cigarette in an ashtray, allowed the tasteless thing to cremate its own remains. ‘For our sons?’ he pondered. ‘For posterity?’
Maurice shook his head. ‘Let’s be honest for once. Is your Teddy going to make a success of Betteridge’s Fine Furnishings? Is my son interested in the manufacture of jewellery?’
The furniture salesman leaned back in his seat. ‘Our Teddy wants a bellyful of ale every night and a woman on Fridays, specially one as won’t make any trouble, won’t want a wedding ring in exchange for favours, like.’
‘While Roy thinks he’s a cut above the rest of them.’
Alan bit back the opinion that Roy had taken after his father.
‘We do the job because it’s there,’ said Maurice. ‘Because we’ve got into the habit, because we’ve lived through two wars and a depression.’ He looked at his companion. ‘Too late to change, Alan. We are formed and we can’t alter our ways.’
‘Aye, you could be right there.’ Alan wished he’d never started this particular conversation. Things were getting a bit philosophical, and he wasn’t quite up to putting the world right after three pints and two shorts.
‘I can’t help it,’ continued Maurice Chorlton. ‘I see a nice bit of silver and I have to have it. You see a brass bedstead at a clearing-out sale and you grab it, clean it up and sell it.’
‘But I don’t go mee-mawing in a pew every flaming Sunday.’
‘Well, I do,’ replied Maurice heatedly. ‘And I can’t see why that makes me any worse than you. Perhaps I am a hypocrite, but I try to make my peace with God, at least.’
‘Waste of time,’ declared Alan before standing up. ‘Fancy another?’
‘No,’ answered Maurice. He was tired. He was going home.
The sanatorium was a weird place. Although there were plenty of patients, the Nolans’ section felt empty, like a huge cave divided into smaller sections inside which animals nested silently, each scrap of life curled into its proper niche. Corridors were wide, broad enough to take a tram, while the cells flanking these thoroughfares tended to be small, naked and very white.
Perched loftily on a moor and purpose-built for the sufferers of tuberculosis, the main body of Williamson’s was a large, single-storeyed structure. It was a plain, no-nonsense piece of architecture, soulless, almost sad in its isolation from places built to house mankind’s sounder members.
On arrival, most residents were placed in single rooms while the severity of their ailment was assessed. Jessica had been allowed to stay with her mother, because Jessica had screamed blue murder until permission had been granted. But Mam slept a lot. Jessica, bored almost to tears after a couple of days, took to sneaking along corridors to investigate other occupants of Williamson’s, especially those at the other end of the building, lucky people with company, jigsaws and newspapers.
Those in solitary confinement tended to be quite poorly, so they weren’t up to much. But others, on the way to recovery, were in larger, four-bedded wards, some with a wireless, some with gramophones and records that could be played from two o’clock until three each afternoon. When music spilled through doorways, it got tangled up like runaway balls of wool in a variety of colours. Vera Lynn competed with Bing Crosby, Richard Tauber tried to fight his tenor-pitched way past Glenn Miller and George Formby.
Jessica liked George Formby. He played something called a ukulele and he seemed to laugh in the middle of his songs. Glenn Miller was just tunes, though the band sometimes shouted out the name of a town and a long number. The men in Room Fourteen of the shared section joined in with the town and the number, and they sounded quite happy and jolly while the music played.
The rest of the time was tedious. Meals were huge. Jessica was expected to put away porridge, bacon, eggs and toast every morning, though she had made an arrangement with some mallards in the grounds. These ducks, gleaming with health and loud of voice, quacked near the Nolans’ iron-railed ground-level balcony at seven-thirty every morning, retreating only after Jessica had deposited half her breakfast on the lawn. Similar tactics were employed at lunch, afternoon tea and supper, with the result that Jessica and the birds became reasonably content with regard to mealtimes.
Theresa was not always forced to eat. She managed a few crumbs from time to time, a mere forkful of mash and a bit of gravy, but no-one pressed her. Jessica, alert, young and not as ill as most, had to show clean plates after every meal, so her gratitude to the visiting waterfowl knew no bounds.
The room occupied by the Nolans was very tiny, made smaller by Jessica’s bed. Really, Theresa Nolan should have been the sole occupant of Room Two (Single), but Jessica needed to keep a weather eye on Mam. Mam could not be trusted to look after herself, and Jessica placed little faith in nurses. They popped in occasionally, sometimes with food, sometimes in the wake of a doctor with
a flapping white coat, red cheeks and a rather jolly Father Christmas-like nose. The men in Room Fourteen (Shared) were always joking about Dr Blake and his fondness for drink, so Jessica decided not to place a lot of faith in him. According to Mam, alcohol was the cause of most of the world’s crimes.
While Theresa slept her way towards a hoped-for recovery, the child found herself wandering further afield with each passing day, even daring to venture into some of the wards at the opposite side of the building. Everyone was always glad to see her. As the only child in the sanatorium, she was thoroughly spoilt with fruit, chocolate and sticky sweets, most of which she ate, some of which she saved for Mam. Mam would get better soon. Mam would take Jessica home and they could start all over again in 34, Emblem Street, all cosy and warm in their own little house.
Warmth was becoming a distant memory. Jessica remembered how she had objected to the heat in the hospital, how she had declared time after time that she intended to emigrate and live with penguins. Was there no happy medium? Couldn’t a person be just right, neither too warm nor too cold?
It was the windows that caused the trouble. Each room had three walls, then sliding windows in the fourth. These were locked in the open position before breakfast and left wide all day so that the TB germs could be blown away over the railings of the wrap-around porch and up into the hills where they could do no harm.
After a week or so of duck-feeding and sneaking round in corridors, Jessica noticed smoke rising from behind a clump of trees. Where there was smoke, there was fire and, where there was fire, there was probably a house. She stared for ages at the rising plume, watching as it climbed upward into an icy blue sky. She looked at Mam, made sure that her breathing was even and quiet, then slipped along deserted passageways towards the Shared section. Sneaking was getting easier, even though footsteps often echoed. According to those in Room Fourteen, nurses kept as far away from patients as was possible. They were scared of TB and were working here simply because the food was good and plentiful.
Mr Coates was in a good mood, as usual. ‘Me little ray of sunshine,’ he declared.
‘Sunshine?’ laughed Jessica. She was entombed in clothes, dressing gown buttoned to the throat, woollen bonnet, gloves, boots. ‘I’m freezing.’ She placed herself in a visitors’ chair. Mr Coates looked very comical, scarf tied round his head, flat cap on top of the scarf, gloved hands struggling to turn the pages of a book. ‘Is there a house in the trees?’ she asked.
‘Oh aye,’ he replied. ‘That’s the farmhouse. That’s where we all live for a while when we’re nearly ready to go home. There’s cows and hens, even a few pigs. We get our strength back working the land. Farmer Williamson left the house and the land, you see. His wife died of consumption.’
Jessica stared hard at the old man. ‘Consumption?’
‘TB,’ he explained.
Panic hit the little girl’s chest like a hammer. ‘Will Mam die?’ she asked, her voice squeaky and high.
‘Nay, lass.’ He laid down his book and pointed to the other three men. ‘We’ve all been like your mam, love. Old Humphries there stopped breathing three times and he’s still with us.’
Old Humphries awarded the visitor a gummy smile. ‘You’d not be here if there were no hope, sweetheart,’ he wheezed. ‘They don’t put you in Willy’s unless you’ve got a good chance. The no-hopers go to Manchester. So stop fretting.’
Jessica wanted to go to the farmhouse. Inside, there would be a roaring fire with cats spread out on the hearthrug. Bread would be rising in rows of enamel bowls, and shelves would be covered in preserves bottled in syrup. ‘Will me and Mam go in the house?’ she asked.
Mr Coates scratched his chin, making a sound like sandpaper as the woollen glove caught against stubbly whiskers. ‘In time,’ he replied eventually. ‘They have to be sure that her sputum’s negative and that the X-rays look all right. From what I’ve heard, you’re not too bad, love.’
‘Oh.’ Sputum. It was horrible, really nasty. Twice a day, she was required to clear her throat and spit into a lidded mug. Often, she didn’t have any spit, so there would be nothing for the nurses to analyse. Mam got her throat poked into every morning, which unwelcome intrusion sometimes caused retching. No wonder, thought Jessica. If some daft woman had to go rooting around with metal prongs and cotton wool, a person had the right to be sick. ‘It’ll be a long time before Mam gets well enough for the farm,’ she said sadly. ‘She’s always asleep.’
‘Come on, Jess,’ chided Mr Coates. ‘I was like that for a while. With TB, there’s no way of knowing. Folk have come in here at death’s door, then, six months later, they’ve been back at work and back with their families.’
‘Six months?’ Jessica knew that her eyes were rounded in surprise. She was just turning five. In six months, she’d be nearly five and a half. She could not hang around in this terrible place for … ‘How many weeks is six months?’ she asked.
‘Twenty-six,’ came the shocking reply.
Jessica gulped. ‘Days?’
Mr Coates did a bit of mental arithmetic. ‘A hundred and eighty-odd,’ he said.
‘I can’t stop here all that long,’ she cried. ‘It’s been ages already. I’m sick of creeping about in case anybody catches me. And Dr Blake says I’ve not got bad TB.’
‘Then you’ll go home soon.’
The child bit her lower lip. ‘Mam’s my home,’ she whispered.
‘No dad?’ asked Mr Coates.
She shook her head. ‘Not even at the war. I never had one.’
‘Grandma?’
‘No.’ Jessica inhaled deeply. ‘She’s dead and my grandad doesn’t want me. There’s an Auntie Ruth in Grandad’s house, and she doesn’t want me, too.’ She let the air out slowly, noticed that it made a little cloud in the ice-cold ward.
Jimmy Coates lowered his head. What was the world coming to? Lovely kiddy like this, no father, nobody to step in while her mother was ill.
‘Are you all right?’ asked Jessica. He looked ready to cry. She couldn’t remember seeing a man in tears.
‘Aye,’ he replied gruffly. He lifted his face and made it smile. ‘Who were that woman you were going on about?’
‘Auntie Eva? She’s not my real auntie, Mr Coates. She … she borned me in our house. She visits us sometimes when we’re at home, about once a week, I think.’
‘Do you know where she lives? The street and the number?’
Jessica nodded.
Jimmy Coates swung his legs over the side of the bed. He was wearing proper trousers, socks and a massive grey cardigan. ‘Kill us with bloody double pneumonia, they will.’ He walked across the room. ‘Give us an envelope,’ he demanded of Mr Humphries. ‘And a sheet of paper.’ If nobody else cared a toss about the future of Jessica Nolan, he, James Edward Coates, most certainly did.
Eva’s eyes limped over the address, worked their troubled way across the spidery, uneducated hand. She hadn’t been able to visit Theresa and Jessica because they were in isolation. If they could be moved into a recovery ward, visitors would be allowed. This letter was from a patient in recovery.
It was no use. Eva rattled about in a dresser drawer until she found Sam’s reading specs. Even dead, the man remained useful, since Eva’s sight was not as good as it might have been. ‘Dear Mrs Harris,’ she read.
My name is James Edward Coates and I have been stuck up here at Willie’s for going on eight month. A little lass called Jessica is here with her mam. Jess is the only kiddy in the san, so she is right fed up what with having no visitors and not much to keep her amused.
Her mother is still not taking much notice of anything because one of her lungs is very weak. There’s some treatment now that can shut down a lung to make it rest, so happen the doctors are thinking about that. We don’t know what goes on really, because nobody ever says much. They just come in with food and they do bed baths if you’re not well enough to get yourself clean, but they always wear masks except for Doc Blake. Doc Blake is often as not
three parts cut, so he’s the only one who comes in bare-faced. There’s no point talking to him. He goes on about us all getting better and not worrying about anybody else, so we keep our gobs shut.
Anyroad, little Jess is a right gem and she visits us nearly every day. She’s not supposed to, so don’t go telling on her. The thing is, we can have visitors. Visiting is every afternoon from one till five for us that’s on the mend. I don’t get anybody coming to see me because my wife is dead and my son is still abroad. He’s missing believed dead.
Eva suspected that there had been a pause after that last sentence, as if the man had done a bit of grieving before continuing his letter in a different colour of ink.
The next paragraph had been written more carefully, slightly more clearly, probably a day or so later than the rest.
I hope you don’t take offence, but I’m sure young Jess would like to see you. If you would kindly visit me in Room Fourteen (Shared), I’m sure that Jess would be delighted.
Yours faithful,
Jimmy Coates
She would go to visit Mr Coates. He sounded a nice man, seemed to care about what happened to poor little Jessica Nolan. The other child, Jessica’s twin, was still ensconced in Bromley Cross with Bernard and Liz Walsh. Bernard had been looking at North Liverpool, was hoping to put Katherine into a prep school in Crosby once the war had ended. Liz wasn’t taken with the idea of moving, but Eva had pleaded with Bernard to stick to his guns. Those two girls needed separating or putting together immediately; there could be no half-measures. For Liz Walsh’s sake, for everyone’s sake, a move seemed by far the best solution.
She drained her cup and fixed her eyes on Sam’s image. ‘You’re best out of it, lad,’ she advised him. ‘This world isn’t really fit for decent folk.’ But, all the same, decent folk remained and, in a day or so, Eva would be visiting a couple of that number.
‘Eeh, you do look bonny.’ Eva clung to the sobbing child and gazed over Jessica’s head into the sad eyes of Jimmy Coates. ‘Doesn’t she look well?’ she asked the man.
The Corner House Page 14