‘Hush a moment.’
The child froze. Whatever it took, she was going to break out of this prison – even on a part-time basis. It was awful. No matter what Jessica did, Mrs Crabtree criticized, complained, moaned. And older people smelled funny, as if they had gone stale or something.
Dr Stephen Blake felt like a man encountering his Waterloo. He couldn’t send Jessica Nolan into the house. What if one of the men turned out to be a molester of children? What if the little girl got out and got lost? He tut-tutted. ‘What will I do with you?’
Invited to break the brief silence, she spoke up brightly. ‘I could stay with the housekeeper. She’d look after me, so nothing would happen.’
Did the child read minds, too?
‘And I’d be good. Very, very good.’
Good? There was far too much merriment in those cornflower eyes, too much bounce in the ash-blond curls. ‘Shall we compromise?’ he asked.
She didn’t know the word, but it sounded encouraging, as if she might get some of her own way. She nodded quickly.
‘You go to the farm after lunch each day, help with jobs in the kitchen, then come back into your ward when you’ve had a play in the farmyard.’
Jessica considered this option. She would still have to sleep in the same room as Mrs Knowles, Mrs Crabtree and all those terrible teeth. ‘So I told the dentist, if my teeth wants to make trouble, take them out, let them fight among themselves in a jar,’ Mrs Knowles was always saying. As for Mrs Crabtree … ‘All right,’ said Jessica.
‘Splendid.’ With any luck, she would disappear now and leave him to his nip of whisky.
‘It’s just that I’m not getting enough sleep.’ Was she pushing her luck now? She took a deep breath. ‘Mrs Knowles sounds like German bombers. That’s what Mrs Crabtree says, anyroad.’
She was as old as the hills. ‘What is your exact age, Jessica?’ he asked.
‘Five and nearly two months, doctor.’
‘Would you like to live to be six?’
Jessica’s cheeks dimpled; she knew what was coming next. ‘If I want to live to be six, I have to make myself scarce,’ she told him. ‘You’ve said that to me before.’
‘Exactly.’ When she ran round the desk and kissed him, he felt the heat of embarrassment in his cheeks. Within seconds, the little charmer had disappeared, leaving in her wake a feeling of warmth and promise. If he could only stop drinking, he could perhaps meet a nice woman, have young ones of his own. If he could only stop drinking, or cut down, or …
‘No. No, not now.’ The nightmare was returning, was paying an unwelcome visit in the middle of the day. He closed his eyes, gripped the arms of his chair, felt his teeth grinding harshly. Dr Stephen Blake had cleaned up many messes. But that particular mess, that lump of bloody flesh …
He dragged the bottle from a drawer, drank deeply.
‘No!’ The nights were bad enough, but daymares? Were there such things? Should he see another psychiatrist? For the thousandth time, he peeled back the khaki jacket, watched arterial bleeding, knew that the lad was done for. All around him people were crying, dying, puffing desperately on a last smoke, clinging to whatever remained in the few moments between here and eternity. There wasn’t much morphine, but this boy was past needing it.
The tag in his hand, bloodied metal, a name, a rank, a number. Falling down into black silence, waking up in a Portsmouth hospital. How had they got him home? Some garbled story about a fishing boat, a destroyer, a lifeboat, a miracle. A long rest, a stay in a convalescent home, a couple of brain bods asking questions to which only a god might have stood a chance of compiling the answers.
And here he was, drinking himself to death in a TB hospital, nothing left, nobody in London, nobody anywhere. ‘Goodnight, Jack,’ he murmured, lifting the bottle to his lips once more. What had they done with Jack’s body? After the war, there would be a place to visit, no doubt, rows and rows of white gravestones, trees growing as if nothing had ever happened, as if Jack and the others had not existed.
‘Just like last time,’ he murmured. ‘Just like the so-called Great War. The only people who made a profit were stonemasons.’
Dr Stephen Blake’s eyes opened. He stared through the office window, watched clouds scuttering across a promising sky. Life went on. It had to go on, because the living had needs.
But oh, dear God. Was there a God? If there was, could not a supreme being help to bandage a broken mind?
Losing a member of one’s family was a dreadful thing. Losing a twin brother had proved devastating.
May was spreading her polka-dotted skirts across Danny Walsh’s unkempt lawn, almond, apple and cherry blossoms scattered over dandelion and dock leaves. Danny looked to the moors, noticed how green they were becoming. A busy April had wept for days on end, removing the grey scum of winter from pasture, leaving acres of lush grasses in her wake. ‘Soon,’ mumbled Danny. ‘The war has to finish any minute now.’ He could scarcely wait to get the teeth of his forks and rakes into this lot.
He swivelled once more and surveyed his own neglected portion of England, battered lawn, untidy flower-beds, three panes missing from the greenhouse. It would take a lot of work, but Danny was raring to go. If only Pauline could be happy, his life would be complete. But Pauline was having difficulty conceiving.
Danny thrust his hands deep into pockets, as if to stop them itching in their need to pick up the tools of cultivation. Pauline would have no truck with the idea of adoption. Inside the house, Danny’s wife was playing with Katherine, who was a stolen child. Should he tell Pauline about Katherine’s true origin? She knew about the rape of Theresa Nolan, but as for the rest of the tale … Katherine was sort of adopted. No, no, he must keep quiet for now.
‘Are you coming in, or what?’ screamed Pauline from the back door.
‘Later,’ he replied.
It was almost over. Benito Mussolini had been strung up like a dead chicken, his remains left on show for Italians to gloat or wonder over. Hitler was dead, had blown out his disturbed brain just a couple of days earlier. Berlin was becoming a flattened wreck, its surviving civilians waiting for Russian flak to finish them off.
Danny tried to feel some joy, but he couldn’t. Belsen. The pictures had arrived, soldiers crying their eyes out, living skulls staring into a camera lens, their dead brothers and sisters piled up behind them. Measured against that, Pauline’s infertility was a mere comma, a pause among several million full stops.
Like many whose occupations had kept them at home, the Walsh brothers felt a degree of guilt. They could have managed as long as their spectacles had remained intact. Lately, they had even achieved some decent scores in darts, so a full-grown German would have been no problem. Pauline and Liz were forever berating them, reminding Danny and Bernard that myopia and war were poor bedfellows, but it didn’t make any difference. In Bolton, fatherless children, widows and grieving mothers made the stay-at-homes culpable, inadequate.
Katherine came out, a daft dog at her heels. Chaplin, who had been named after the cinema’s greatest clown, was a badly co-ordinated puppy, all feet, floppy ears and lolling tongue. He ate most things in his path, including underwear from the washing basket and slippers from the fireside, the latter items being his favourite pudding after the evening meal. Liz had threatened to drown him, to return him to the farm, to have him ‘seen to’ at Vernon Street, the destination of many unwanted pets. But Liz loved the rascal, as did everyone else who came across him.
‘Uncle Danny!’ yelled the child. ‘He’s had the pillow off my bed. There’s feathers everywhere and Mam’s looking for him.’
The dog sat down, scratched an ear, fell over.
‘He can’t do anything right,’ laughed Katherine.
‘Aye, he’s a nutcase, that dog of yours.’
Katherine decided to ask a very important question. ‘Uncle Danny?’
‘Yes, love?’
‘If Auntie Pauline has a baby, can it live with us?’
&nbs
p; He closed his eyes in case the pain showed. ‘Katherine, go in and tidy up Chaplin’s mess, there’s a good girl.’
Sensing her uncle’s sombre mood, the little girl turned to leave.
Danny watched child and dog as they scampered off, then he kicked a few stones down the flagged path.
Bernard appeared. ‘Danny?’
‘Hello, our kid.’
‘Katherine says you’re sad.’
Danny pushed his hands deep into pockets, shrugged. ‘Pauline would love a baby. So would I. Why does life have to be so hard?’ Greedily, his eyes scoured the moors. Only here would he find a modicum of peace.
Bernard sighed. Their Danny was an extra-sensitive soul. He took things in and nursed them, worried about all kinds of events, couldn’t seem to come to terms with what was happening around him. ‘You’ve to stop this and get back to normal,’ said Bernard. ‘There’s no good’ll come of your fretting.’
There was only one way for Danny to distract himself. He needed to be creative, longed to clean up his own garden. ‘I want the house back, Bernard,’ he said baldly. ‘We’re selling Tonge Moor, so Edna will be living here, too, in time. I can’t carry on down yonder, you see. I need to be up here where it’s fresher. Tell Liz there won’t be any more bombs. It’s safe to go back now.’ He thought about that statement. ‘Well, safe from attacks. But as for the rest …’ His words died. There was no need for him to embroider the fact that Bernard’s daughter was half of a set of identical twins.
Bernard breathed in deeply. He had become fond of Danny’s little cottage, but fair was fair and he had been looking into the situation. ‘Give us a few weeks,’ he begged. After glancing over his shoulder, the younger brother lowered his voice. ‘They’re still in the sanatorium.’ There was no need for names. ‘But we don’t know for how long. Eva Harris says the kiddy’s well on the way to recovering, but Theresa’s going to be inside for a while. We can’t risk it, Danny. You’ll have to put Pauline and her mam to run the shop while you see to the market – or vice versa, whatever suits. Like we said before, the rooms over the shop can be rented out.’
Danny nodded. This was no shock, no news to him. ‘You’re going, then? Leaving Bolton?’
‘Aye.’
‘What’s Liz said?’
Bernard attempted a careless shrug. ‘I’ve not told her yet.’
‘You what?’
‘You heard me, our kid.’
Danny Walsh scratched his head. ‘I’m not saying that Liz is the boss, Bernard, but she can be a bit on the determined side.’
‘Aye, we know all about that.’
‘What are you … I mean, how are you going to break it to her?’
Bernard grinned sheepishly. ‘A bit at a time, Danny. First, I’ve got to get her interested in fancy schools for Katherine. Liz is keen on the lass getting a proper education.’
‘There’s preparatories here. Then there’s Bolton School—’
‘We’re supposed to be Catholics.’
Danny stared at his brother. ‘You what? You’ve not seen the inside of a church since Adam was a lad in a very small figleaf.’
‘I’ve started going again, sometimes. And Liz attends mass every Sunday. She takes Katherine.’
‘There’s Mount St Joseph’s—’
‘Liverpool schools are better.’
‘Rubbish,’ replied Danny.
Bernard rubbed a hand across his brow with the air of a man struggling to impart information to a deaf foreigner. ‘I know that and you know that. Let’s just hope Liz doesn’t. It would kill her, Danny. If she found out about where our girl really came from, she’d go straight out of her mind. We have to leave Bolton. We’ll be living in Crosby.’
Danny studied his shoes. ‘Aye, you’re not wrong, I suppose. But you’ll have to be getting on with it in case young Jessica gets the all-clear. Eva Harris is going to have her till Theresa comes home. I mean, I suppose you could stop here a bit longer, but if you go back to Derby Street, even for a few weeks …’ He shook his head. ‘Something’ll have to be done.’
‘I have been getting on with it. I’ve found a place with a nice big garden and a park down the road. There’s good shops, decent houses, then there’s sand. It’s only a few miles from Southport. You know how Liz has always liked Southport.’
‘Bloody hell, Bernard. You’ve not gone and bought a bloody house, have you?’
‘No.’ It was an empty house where a chemist had lived. The old man had died, and his son, also a pharmacist, had moved on to a different part of Liverpool, had left his inherited home in the safekeeping of solicitors. ‘I’m not that daft. You should know me better than that. There’s quite a few properties on the market. The population hasn’t been on the move while the war’s been on. So it’s mine if I want it.’ He cleared his throat. ‘And if Liz wants it, too.’
Danny chuckled. ‘Will she need much persuading?’
Bernard thought not. ‘Four bedrooms, nice bathroom, downstairs toilet as well. We’ll be going up in the world, I suppose. She’s got to like the house. So I thought we might run out to Southport this weekend, me, Liz and Katherine.’
‘And happen to pass through Crosby on your way home.’
‘That’s it.’
Danny placed an arm across his brother’s shoulders. ‘Well, good luck with it.’ Knowing Liz, Danny felt that Bernard would need some luck. ‘And make sure you’ve no heavy objects in the car. We don’t want her clattering you round the ear with a starting handle.’
As if he already felt the blow, Bernard rubbed his ear. ‘Leave her to me,’ he said. ‘I can manage her.’
Danny bit back the line about famous last words and followed his brother into the house. Liz, a large brown paper bag in her arms, bumped into her husband. Her hair was spotted with feathers, while several clumps of fine down clung to her clothes. She blew a ticklish item from the end of her nose before speaking. ‘Don’t say a word, either of you,’ she said.
Obediently, Daniel and Bernard Walsh entered the cottage. When Liz was riled, silence was the preferred option.
The dog ran and ran as if he would never tire. Bernard, who had given up the chase, leaned on a stile next to his wife and watched their daughter running behind a dafter-even-than-usual Chaplin.
‘She might get lost,’ fretted Liz.
‘Nay, she won’t. She’s got radar, our Katherine. Remember when she was two and we lost her in Moss Bank? She was back in a few minutes with a paper bag full of conkers.’ He was proud of his daughter. She was pretty, cheerful and clever. She loved life, her parents, her schoolfriends and her dog. ‘I can’t remember when she last cried,’ he said.
‘I can.’ Liz strained her eyes, caught no sight of Katherine. ‘She said her chest hurt. I took her to see the doctor, but there’s nothing wrong with her.’
Bernard’s heart seemed to skip a couple of beats. He remembered reading about identical twins who had been separated as children. Sometimes, when one twin was ill, the other displayed similar symptoms. But no. According to Eva Harris, little Jessica’s TB was so mild that the child had felt little discomfort. The mother was quite ill, though. He shook his head to chase away unwelcome thoughts. They had to get away from here, had to move to Liverpool quick smart as soon as the war ended – before, if possible.
‘You’d best go and look for her,’ said Liz.
Bernard nodded. He had just a few hours during which he would have to tell Liz that Southport was on tomorrow’s itinerary. ‘All right, lass,’ he sighed as he gazed into her worried face. ‘Let’s see how far that bloody mad dog has gone. I’ll find them, don’t fret.’
Jessica Nolan, pink, breathless and wonderfully naughty, sat on a tree stump. She was being so disobedient that she could scarcely believe herself. The potatoes were peeled and washed, the floor was clean, the cutlery drawer had been tidied. Encouraged to play alone in the fresh air after her chores, Jessica had seen a couple of hares leaping about in a field. March was long over, as was April, bu
t the madness endured and, fascinated by the animals’ antics, Jessica had sped across meadows, laughing each time those ridiculously long ears popped out of a clump of foliage.
She looked up into the trees, saw the sun sparkling through newborn leaves, heard music created by birds and by a gentle breeze that rocked overhead branches. This was the country, then. This was where lucky people lived, people who kept sheep, cows and chickens. Men who stayed at the farm strode about all day in rubber boots, farm smells clinging to their clothing, faces shining as a result of toiling out of doors.
Of course, Jessica had seen the country for several months, had viewed it from the peeled-back windows of Williamson’s Sanatorium. But this was her first real experience, her first bodily contact with Nature’s true wildness. She bent over, lifted a clump of moist earth and held it to her nose. It had a beautiful smell, clean, exciting. Opening her fingers, she allowed the crumbs to trickle back to their home, amazed to see that her hand remained clean. Dirt and soil were not even related, she decided.
There were no clocks here in the woods. The seasons dictated time, short days in the winter, longer days in summer. She could have lived here quite happily, she thought, imagining herself as a Robinson Crusoe, a human forced by circumstance to create from natural materials a shelter, a place all her own.
But she had to go back. If she did not return to the house soon, Dr Blake might well change his mind and force her to stay within the confines of the main building. Retracing the route back to the farmhouse would be no problem, because Jessica seemed incapable of getting lost. Always, she found her way home in the end, depending on instinct or, perhaps, on exterior forces of which she was not fully aware, like the position of the sun or the general drift of wind and rain.
Emblem Street. Until recently, a weary little house, set with others against a backdrop of factories, had been her home. Up here on the moors, air was plentiful and sweet. Jessica and her mother would be forced to go back, she supposed, back to pinched, cobbled streets and dark alleyways, back to foul air, a pub on every corner, back to monotony.
The Corner House Page 16