‘Like what?’ asked Roy.
‘Like hell.’
Roy understood. Roy had a theory, an idea that he had entertained for some years. Having come to suspect the existence of God, the man both feared and accepted the concept of retribution. His soul was tortured, mostly during the hours of darkness, because dreams were beyond his control, while wakefulness was scarcely bearable. Almost every night, he saw her, heard her whimpering, felt her soft flesh beneath his hands. He swallowed painfully. ‘We’re probably getting what we deserve.’
Ged Hardman threw up his hands. ‘Don’t start all that again, Roy,’ he warned. ‘Or I’ll take you outside and change your appearance.’
Roy shrugged. ‘Please yourself,’ he invited.
Teddy Betteridge looked from one to the other. ‘You can shut up and all,’ he advised Ged Hardman. Glaring at Roy, he lowered his tone. ‘If you want to carry on being some kind of a martyr, bugger off and do it somewhere else.’
Roy raised a shoulder. ‘Don’t you ever wonder what happened to her?’
‘Only when you start whining,’ snapped Teddy. ‘I wouldn’t care – you were the one who moaned when me and Ged talked about her just before the war.’
‘She could be dead,’ murmured Roy.
‘We could all be bloody dead,’ replied Teddy, impatience narrowing the syllables. ‘We fought for King and country, didn’t we? So be a hero and leave the past where it belongs.’
‘And the child …’ Roy took a sip of bitter.
‘Look.’ Ged leaned forward, allowing his companions a closer view of facial skin textured like crumpets before toasting, sickly-white and covered in craters. ‘I’m not saying we did the right thing. What we did that night was wrong. But life has to go on.’
‘There’s not one of us happy,’ stated Roy flatly.
‘That’s nowt to do with owt,’ barked Teddy. ‘And we agreed about forty-seven times to stop talking about this.’
Roy sighed inwardly. He sometimes drew a strange comfort from Betteridge and Hardman, because they were the only humans on God’s earth who might just understand the nature of his mental torture. Yet they were little help, he acknowledged. Ged laboured under his mother’s thumb, while Teddy drank himself into a stupor just so that he could face his wife. ‘I’ve no-one else to talk to,’ Roy said now.
Ged and Teddy rose simultaneously from the table. Roy was in one of his moods again. They were sick of telling him to let go, to get on with his life, but the man seemed bent on his own peculiar brand of self-destruction. Without speaking another word, they left to take their custom across the road to the Hen and Chickens.
Roy watched his two so-called friends as they sauntered out onto the pavement. Although Teddy Betteridge and Ged Hardman seemed not to care, Roy knew that both had changed after the rape. Life had provided few distractions for Roy Chorlton. While Ged and his mother had fought to preserve Hardman’s Hides, while Teddy had struggled with an alcoholic father and an unhappy wife, Roy had ‘fallen on his feet’. After all, hadn’t Maurice Chorlton left a small fortune for his son? Even after the disgrace of dealing with police and stolen property, Roy had emerged with a fair packet of money. If only he hadn’t been born with a silver spoon in his mouth and several precious gems in the safe, he might have found something to do, some activity that might have taken his mind off Theresa Nolan and her child.
Yes, it had all been too easy. With one hand, Roy had closed a jewellery shop; with the other hand, he had opened a tailoring business catering to the better end of the clothing market, a small empire from which he took little real pleasure. Behind the selling area, men and women laboured with scissors, chalk, machines and half-clothed dummies, while Roy, alone in his shop, courted customers with an air of benevolence that might have suited a Uriah Heep. He disgusted himself.
He had never expected to develop a conscience of such gigantic proportions. Surely, these thoughts and memories should have diminished after all the intervening years? She was always inside his head, usually slightly hidden behind other thoughts, often gliding noiselessly through the mist to accuse him, curse him.
Suddenly, he was aware of eyes boring into his skull from the outside rather than from within his brain. As if feeling pain, he brushed a hand across his forehead before looking up. It was Eva Harris, now Mrs Coates. Her husband accompanied her, and he, too, was staring at Roy.
They walked to his table as few seats were available now, most having been occupied by the newly released patrons of several town cinemas.
Eva sat down while her husband went to the bar.
Roy’s breath quickened and thickened. A tightness at his throat caused a short bout of coughing.
Eva took a compact from her bag and powdered her nose. ‘Nice to see you, Mr Chorlton,’ she said, though her tone belied the message. She replaced the compact in the depths of her capacious bag. ‘Jimmy knows who you are, I think,’ she continued, her eyes straying to the crowded bar. ‘We’ve been to the pictures. Some daft cowboy thing with John Wayne in a big hat.’
He gulped, mopped his brow with a handkerchief. ‘How is she?’ he managed eventually.
‘Theresa?’
He nodded.
‘Oh, fair to middling, I suppose.’
Roy Chorlton gripped the edge of the table. ‘Where is she?’
Eva shrugged. ‘No idea,’ she lied easily.
‘The child?’
‘Still with me.’
He shifted in his chair. ‘Will … er … Theresa be coming back?’
Eva turned down the corners of her mouth, shrugged. ‘How would I know the answer to that?’
‘Surely she keeps in touch with you,’ he answered. ‘After all, there’s the little girl to consider.’
Eva leaned her head to one side. ‘You talking about duty?’ she asked. ‘About folk owing stuff to other folk?’ Her teeth bared themselves in a mockery of a grin. ‘Listen, sunshine,’ she spat. ‘Wherever she is, she’s got a good job and she sends money for Jess— for her daughter. Apart from that bit left by George Hardman before he scarpered, there’s been nowt from any of you. Not that she wants anything, mind. She says she needs no help and you’ve to stop away from the kiddy.’ She paused for a couple of seconds. ‘You’re likely the father – is that it? Is that why you’ve took an interest all of a sudden? Do you want to groom the lass to make buttonholes for you?’
‘No.’
‘Then what’s the matter with you?’
He didn’t know the complete answer, though he had his theories.
‘Conscience let itself out for an airing, has it?’
He held her gaze before nodding just once. ‘It’s always troubled me,’ he admitted.
She laughed mirthlessly. ‘You’ve got no blinking conscience, you and them other two buggers. If you’d any decency, what happened wouldn’t have happened and Theresa would have been all right. You make me sick.’
‘I make myself sick,’ he replied softly.
Eva studied him. Like his dad, he was greasy, soft and plump. Like his dad, he was going to be bald on top. His eyes were convex and heavy-lidded, while the hands were smooth enough to belong to a female member of the aristocracy. ‘You’re … sorry?’ she asked, astonishment lifting her tone.
He lowered his head. ‘I’ve always been sorry.’ He licked drying lips, wished for more beer to slake a fierce thirst. ‘When I asked her to marry me, I suppose I was being a bit arrogant, as if she should have been grateful.’ He let out a long, hopeless sigh. ‘But who would look at me? I know I’m ugly. I know what you see when you look at me. She was so beautiful, so frail—’
‘She’s still frail.’ Eva didn’t feel sorry for the man, even though he plainly regretted his actions.
‘So you do know where she is?’
Eva paused before answering. ‘Aye, I’ve a fair idea, only I’m bound to secrecy.’ She leaned across the table. ‘She’s told nobody where she works – even her daughter.’
Roy looked hard at his c
ompanion. ‘I want to help her.’
Eva nodded curtly, then shook her head. ‘Best help for her’s if you stop away. Them other two, and all.’ Theresa was working her way up to something. Was that something going to be murder? ‘She’s not forgot, neither,’ continued Eva. ‘There’s a lot of anger in her, a lot of hatred. She might not be strong, but I’d watch my back if I were you. Theresa’s … she’s clever, if you take my meaning. She stews on things, thinks them through.’
‘So do I,’ he said.
Jimmy returned, a glass of brown ale in each hand. ‘It’s like a bloody cup final crowd near that bar,’ he grumbled. He placed the dripping containers on the table. ‘Half the beer’s gone on yon floor.’
‘This is Mr Chorlton,’ Eva informed her husband.
Jimmy, whose sight was less than perfect, peered at his wife’s companion. ‘What? Him as … him as did the ra—’
‘Aye,’ snapped his wife. She spotted two vacant chairs at another table, jumped up and dragged her husband across the room. Although Chorlton had become a rather pathetic figure, Eva distanced herself determinedly. She would stand firm for Theresa and for Jessica.
Roy got to his feet and grabbed at his cigarette case and lighter. It was time to go home. He lit a cigarette, flinching when hot smoke scalded an eye. Eva Coates was staring hard at him. Nothing would ever be right, he told his inner self. The pain would go with him to his death, and there was little he could do to change that fact.
With a heavy heart, he left the pub, turned right and wandered in the direction of Chorley New Road. A cold, lonely bed waited to receive him and his brief, tortured dreams.
Pauline Walsh was the happiest woman alive. She sat in her living room with Danny and Edna, both in their Sunday best, both grinning from ear to ear. The impossible had happened; the impossible lay cradled in Pauline’s arms, a boy-child clothed in an old Greenhalgh christening gown, over which was wrapped a white shawl. ‘I still can’t believe it,’ sighed the new mother. At the age of forty-two, almost old enough to be a granny, she had finally produced a healthy baby.
Edna cackled, allowing her companions a full view of newly acquired and ill-fitting dentures. Their Pauline had done herself proud in marrying Danny Walsh. Not only had Danny bought two houses, he had also been through all kinds of mental torture before the creation of little Jonathan William Walsh. Pauline’s insides weren’t up to much, but Danny had insisted that the ‘fault’ could well have been his. ‘I’m that proud, I could burst,’ announced Edna.
Danny grinned. ‘Please don’t explode,’ he begged his mother-in-law. ‘This house conversion cost me an arm, a leg and fourteen tons of cod.’
Edna chuckled happily. Two weavers’ cottages had been made into one, resulting in a big parlour, a decent kitchen, a downstairs washroom and a nice little morning room where Edna spent most of her time. Upstairs, a gleaming new bathroom had been installed, and there were four bedrooms, two large and two small. It was heaven. Edna was a grandmother, the child was beautiful and all was well with the world.
Danny glanced at the clock. Jonathan had been baptised at Sts Peter and Paul in Bolton, the church in which Danny and Bernard had been named. ‘Where have they got to?’ he asked of no-one in particular. ‘I hope they’ve not broken down.’ He was referring to the other Walsh family, the contingent from Crosby, Liverpool.
Pauline continued to croon softly into her baby’s hair.
‘They’ll be all right,’ said Edna. ‘They’ll be having a look round Bolton – it’s ages since they visited.’
‘I hope you’re right,’ said Danny. He and Pauline exchanged glances. Edna knew nothing of Katherine Walsh’s true parentage. Edna was ageing and garrulous, could not be trusted with a secret of such immensity.
Danny moved and stared through the front window. For years, Bernard had managed to avoid bringing his family to Bolton or to Bromley Cross. Danny and Pauline understood Bernard’s reasons, because Liz and Katherine must be protected at all costs. But Edna was often annoyed at what she chose to diagnose as an affront. ‘It’s me they don’t like,’ she would grumble, volunteering to visit an old crony or a relative. ‘If you tell them I’ll be out, they’ll come,’ she was wont to say.
‘They came to the baptism,’ Pauline told her mother. ‘I told you they’d come, Mam. Like you said, they’re probably having a drive round.’
Edna employed one of her sniffs. ‘Happen we’re not good enough for Liz. When Bernard comes to see his mates on the market, she stops at home in her posh house, doesn’t she?’
‘There’s Katherine to see to,’ answered Pauline.
‘Not in the school holidays.’ Once these words had been spoken, Edna smiled at her sleeping grandson and stalked off into the morning room.
‘She always has to speak last,’ grumbled Pauline. ‘Even if it means leaving the room.’
‘She’s old.’ Danny turned from the window. ‘And they’re here. Let’s hope your mam doesn’t start, love. Bernard feels bad about stopping away from us, but what can he do? Even though Theresa Nolan’s moved out of Bolton, Jessica’s still here and they’re like peas in a pod, her and our Katherine.’ He went to open the front door.
Pauline shook her head. Mam had refused to visit Crosby in recent years. She owned the opinion that she didn’t need to go out of her way for folk who never came to see her. Poor Bernard had seemed to be on a knife’s edge in church, was probably worrying himself sick about Katherine’s natural twin being at or near the church or along the route from town to Bromley Cross. If Mam started upsetting him … It didn’t bear thinking about, so Pauline placed her baby in his Silver Cross carriage and went to put the kettle on for a brew to serve up with the already prepared baptismal feast.
It was a lovely farmhouse-sized kitchen with an open fire, a big dining table, an electric cooker. She set the kettle to boil, then stood for a moment, gazing across frost-topped moors. Liz must never find out. Liz’s humour and toughness were outer garments. Inside, Liz was as vulnerable as a small child, still raw, still wounded by life. She had wanted at least two children, was sad that Katherine must grow up alone.
Alone? Pauline gripped the edge of her white porcelain sink. Katherine was not alone. She was half of a brace, fifty per cent of a perfectly matched pair. ‘Oh, God,’ whispered Pauline Walsh. New to motherhood, her senses were acute, painfully alive. ‘What would I do if someone knocked on my door in ten years’ time? If Jonathan turned out to be somebody else’s …’ She shivered, pulled herself up, warmed the pot. With a smile plastered across her worries, Pauline went forth to make small talk with a precious sister-in-law and a treasured niece.
He didn’t know why he had come. The weather was on the cold side and, while the actual chill meant little to a fishmonger, driving conditions were less than perfect. He was supposed to be visiting Charlie Hill, a newly retired chap who had spent the best part of fifty years working in Ashburner Street Market. But for some reason best known to his deep unconscious, Bernard Walsh was sitting at the bottom of View Street with his engine turned off and his eyes glued to a group of playing children. While he lingered here, Liz was helping Pauline to clear away after the christening tea.
Liz was also trying to get round Edna Greenhalgh, while Katherine, completely wrapped up in her baby cousin, was playing happily with child and pram, wheeling Jonathan back and forth in front of Danny’s new sofa.
The girl who lived with Eva was so like Katherine. Little Jessica Nolan was no longer little. Both children had shot up like weeds in hot, wet weather: long-limbed, knees a bit knobbly in developing legs, shoulders firm and well formed. Since discovering Katherine’s true origin, Bernard had been plagued by worry. Now, he feared family visits to Bolton, dreaded the thought of Liz ever finding out that her baby had died and that Katherine was a replacement. Against all odds, Katherine and Jessica had already met. What if they met again? And what if Theresa ever came across Katherine in Liverpool?
All that house-moving had been a wonde
rful mess, too. The day when he had found out about Theresa Nolan’s relocation to Liverpool, Bernard had feared a heart attack. He stared hard at Jessica as she played. The likeness was terrifying. There was no safety, here or there. There was no certainty anywhere.
The children in the street were honing a slide to glass-like perfection, slithering about, pouring water from a tin pail, stumbling, smoothing the flags with somebody’s long-handled mop. By tonight, the area on which the players concentrated might well become a death trap for some unsuspecting adult.
Jessica stopped playing and looked directly at Bernard’s car. With his heart beating far too wildly for comfort, Bernard studied a map while his cheeks glowed. When he raised his head, Jessica Nolan was nowhere to be seen. Feeling a disappointment for which he was unable to account, Bernard threw down the map and waited for a few moments. They should have been together all along. Katherine needed a sibling, a companion with whom she could play, eat, sleep, discuss the many problems of puberty.
He folded his hands on the steering wheel, placed his forehead on the ‘pillow’ formed by leather-coated fingers. His mind was all over the place, was asking unanswerable questions about the basic rights of man, about fairness, about Liz’s peace of mind.
Someone tapped on the windscreen. He looked up, saw Eva, watched as she walked to the passenger door and climbed in beside him. ‘Drive,’ she snapped.
He drove, turning right down Maybank Street, right again onto Derby Street. ‘What the hell—?’ he began.
‘Don’t you “what the hell” me, Bernard Walsh. What the hell are you doing? That’s more to the point.’
He slewed to a halt on a stretch of ice. ‘I don’t know, so don’t ask,’ he begged. ‘I just had to see that she was all right.’
‘Of course she’s all right. She’s living with me, isn’t she?’
Bernard raised his shoulders. ‘They should be together, Eva. They’re not just sisters – they’re twins.’
The Corner House Page 26