The Corner House

by Ruth Hamilton

  Roy sat down and drank the last of his lemonade. He would miss Jessica. She was his nearest, most certainly his dearest. As for her mother … He looked round the area in which she had tended him that night, gazed at the chair she had used, at the door she had locked, bolted, then unlocked. ‘Just a few more steps,’ she had said.

  Bolton was his home. Lancashire had been his lush, green playground, the place where he had walked as a child, the area which would pull at his heartstrings for ever. The moors, the farms, little villages of stone cottages, the lake at Barrow Bridge, the town with its bustle and noise. Yet he had to go.

  ‘I can’t stay,’ he told a drinking glass. ‘I would try to claim her eventually.’ He must never tell Jessica that he believed himself to be her father. Desperate for someone of his own, he might weaken in later life, might say words that would hurt so many people.

  There was no-one else, no chance for him here. Perhaps some woman from foreign parts might take pity on him, marry him, nurse him into his dotage. As for his friends in Bolton, both were now dead. Ged Hardman had bled to death in the King’s Head; Teddy Betteridge had strung himself up with bed-sheets while remanded in prison. Roy was the only one remaining of the King’s Head trio. Since the night of Ged’s death, Roy had not entered that pub, preferring to drink alone in his large, empty house.

  He rinsed jug and glasses, leaving them to drain. Tomorrow, the clearance sign would go up and he would sell off the few remaining items, leaving no reason for him to return to the shop. If he really was going to emigrate, he would need to empty the house and leave the shell in the hands of agents.

  A loud hammering at the front door made him freeze. He glanced at his watch and realized that he had closed rather early. After drying his hands, he went to let in his customer.

  Dressed almost exclusively in purple, Maggie Courtney pushed the man to one side and entered the shop.

  ‘May I help you?’ asked Roy.

  She slammed a deep-mauve dorothy bag onto a plate-glass counter. ‘I’m Maggie Courtney,’ she announced. She was in high spirits, completely ready for the fray. ‘And I want a word with you. Several words, in fact.’

  Temporarily confused by the accent and the sheer colourfulness of his visitor, Roy awaited further explanation.

  ‘What game are you playing?’ she asked.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Well, you’ll not get it. There’s no pardon granted to the likes of you, Mr Chorlton.’

  He took a step away from her. ‘I don’t understand—’

  ‘Indeed, and nor do I. You shouldn’t be accosting young girls on their way home from school. Not with a reputation like yours.’ She tried to envisage him naked and on the run from Theresa, socks up to his knees, his little legs dashing away from that pearl-handled gun. Having seen many men without their clothes, Maggie was not impressed by her imaginings in this particular case.

  ‘You mean Jessica, I take it?’

  ‘Exactly. If you have any notions in your head, clear them out now before I pick up a broom and do the sweeping for you.’

  Roy Chorlton found himself backed up against one of the counters. He mopped his brow with a handkerchief and wondered how he might explain himself. This woman in her purple dress, purple cardigan and gaudy make-up was truly terrifying. She made Lillian Hardman seen a quiet soul, Theresa Nolan a gun-toting angel. ‘I’m leaving the country,’ he achieved finally.

  ‘Now, isn’t that the best news for a decade or more? With the other two dead and gone, you’d be the only rapist left.’

  He felt heat arriving in his cheeks.

  ‘That child is not yours, Mr Chorlton.’

  ‘But I didn’t mean—’

  ‘She’s Theresa Nolan’s daughter, nothing less, nothing more. She has been nurtured and cared for by Eva Coates and by me, because her mother has never been well enough. The rapes took away any chance of good health, because she didn’t care about herself after you had used her. Stay away from that child.’

  He nodded.

  ‘Was that a yes?’

  ‘Yes.’ He would have agreed to almost anything to be rid of this person.

  Slightly mollified, Maggie took a closer look at him. ‘Jessica is nothing like you. She’s like her mother, the Lord be praised.’ He was uglier than sacrilege. ‘So. Why did you start talking to Jess? She tells me everything, you see.’

  He gulped. ‘Just lately, when she was passing, I started to say hello. I’m going to Canada or New Zealand and I wanted to … To be honest, I have no sensible answer to your question.’

  Maggie understood. She also understood Theresa’s newborn near-pity for this unfortunate creature. It was a terrible thing to be born into a world in which your own kind would have no time for you. Looks should not matter, but they did. Artists through the ages had produced wonderful images: paintings of Adonis, statues of David, all kinds of beautiful men and women. And here cowered a gargoyle. ‘Well, as long as you mean no harm.’

  ‘No harm at all.’

  ‘Good. And don’t talk to her again, or Theresa would have a fit over there in Switzerland.’

  ‘How is she?’

  Maggie studied the man quizzically. ‘Ah, I see. She’s wrapped herself around your heart. Isn’t that just the pig’s backside? And there you were, just a needful boy taking what was rightfully his – the body of a beautiful girl. Well, that’s what dogs and cats do, so where’s the difference? Then, years later, you realize that she’s lovable.’ Yes, she did feel a bit sorry for him. He looked like a man who had suffered and repented.

  ‘Is she improving?’

  Though she felt a sight sorrier for Theresa. ‘She’s on the mend, or so they keep saying. Dr Blake’s with her. I think they might just settle down together when Theresa gets home.’

  ‘Good.’ He was surprised to recognize that he meant it.

  ‘I’ll give her your best wishes.’

  ‘I really do hope she has a good life and a long one.’

  Maggie exhaled slowly. She had to be getting back, because she didn’t like leaving Jessica on her own. ‘Mr Chorlton, I trust you’ll have a safe journey.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘And that life will treat you kindly. I think you have punished yourself for years because of what happened that night.’

  He made no attempt to reply.

  ‘Well, I must away.’ She turned, stopped. ‘Those men’s socks – are they really that price?’

  He nodded. ‘It’s a clearance sale.’

  Maggie opened her purse. ‘I’ll take two pairs. They’ll come in handy with my winter boots in a few months.’

  Roy grabbed a handful and pushed them at her. ‘Keep your money,’ he begged. ‘Please.’

  Maggie did not need telling twice. ‘Listen, son,’ she said as she grabbed the free socks. ‘I think I have you worked out, so.’ Her experience of men spanned almost three decades. ‘There are rapists, then there are men who make just one horrible mistake and regret it for ever after. You don’t need me to tell you which parcel you belong in. What you did was terrible, but she has forgiven you. Hang on to that knowledge and say your prayers.’

  He watched her leave. Alone again, he sank into a chair and closed his eyes. But eyelids proved a poor dam against the tears. He sobbed until he was empty of emotion, just a shattered shell in an empty room, in an empty life. There was no forgiveness for Roy Chorlton, because he would never forgive himself.

  Irene was laying out a Mr Thornton from Noble Street. At ninety, he had a mop of silver hair and a gentle face, the sort of face a real grandfather should have.

  As she smoothed his shroud and added a little colour to his skin, she spoke to him as if he were alive. ‘I can tell you’re a nice man,’ she told him. ‘And you’ve worked hard, too, right up to the end.’ With a small wooden tool, she cleaned the underside of his nail-tips before applying a coat of clear varnish. Irene prided herself on her corpses. They all went out of the preparation room looking a damned sight
happier than when they came in. Well, most of them did. Sometimes, Irene got a body she didn’t like, often a dark-haired woman with a shrewish face. Such folk reminded the young woman of her mother, a creature who had caused Irene almost unbearable pain.

  Such a woman lay across the room from Mr Thornton. Irene went over to deal with her once Mr Thornton was up to scratch. She was a Mrs Entwistle, a youngish woman who had died of a stroke. Irene washed her, performed all the necessary offices, combed the hair, cleaned and painted the nails. ‘One day,’ she told the still form. ‘One day, she’ll be lying there where you are, nicotine up to her elbows, stinking of Woodbines. I bet she’ll sit up and ask for one last smoke before we put the lid on.’

  Irene found some hairpins to make Mrs Entwistle a bit tidier. After all, it wasn’t Mrs Entwistle’s fault – she hadn’t asked for a face like Irene’s mother’s. ‘You don’t look like her now, with your fringe fastened back.’ She applied a little more rouge, a tiny smear of lipstick. ‘The worst of it is, I love her. She’s me mam. I really tried to make her love me back, but she never. I was only naughty so’s she’d notice me. Nobody likes me. You look a lot less like her now. Yes, you’re pretty.’ Irene lifted the woman’s hands again, found no cigarette stains. This one had fed her children rather than her own habits. This one hadn’t locked little girls in houses while she went to work. Irene forgave the lady on the table and went on to make her gorgeous.

  When all her silent clients were prepared for their final journeys, Irene sat down and took her break. It was so peaceful here, so quiet. The work she did was important and she was often congratulated by grieving families. No-one shouted at her; no-one told her she was too ugly to deserve attention or affection. She had received gifts galore from grieving relatives, while several other undertakers had tried to lure her away. Even an extra pound a week from the Co-op had not tempted Irene. This was where Mam would come. This was where Irene would spend that last hour with Ruth McManus.

  Mr McRae came in. Irene had taken some getting used to, because she talked to the deceased while preparing them. But that was an integral part of her talent. Communicating with her charges was one of the factors in the young woman’s resounding success. ‘The Wilkinsons sent you this.’ He handed her a pound note. ‘They said their dad looked better dead than he did alive, as if you’d ironed the pain out of his face.’

  Irene smiled, the uncomely face made slightly more acceptable by the small grin. ‘I talked him better,’ she replied.

  ‘Well, whatever you do, it works. I’m putting your wages up by ten bob.’

  The smile disappeared. ‘Co-op offered a quid,’ she advised him.

  He sighed. ‘All right, Irene. A quid it is.’ Shaking his head, he left the woman nicknamed ‘the queer one’ to her tea and her imaginings. Sometimes, he wondered what she thought about while she sat so composed, as still as the other occupants of the preparation room. Of her intelligence there could be no doubt. She could calculate the cost of a funeral in ten seconds flat, was a wizard with the books, with measurements and any other task that required a level of reasoning.

  He lit candles in his chapel of rest, rearranged a few flowers so that visitors could say goodbye to a cherished member of their family in decent surroundings. Mr McRae sat down to wait for the chapel doorbell. He never allowed Irene much contact with relatives. She had a way of staring at people, never blinking, seldom smiling, as if the marble eyes sought to drill right through to the soul of a person. It was her mother’s fault, he believed. Her father hadn’t been much use, either, having buggered off back to Ireland at the first sounding of a war siren. As for her grandfather – well, Michael Nolan had done the world a favour by dying after a dozen false promises.

  The doorbell rang. Mr McRae donned white gloves and an expression of sympathy. Life and death had to go on.

  Ruth McManus had been dealt a terrible hand in life. Her self-pity, carefully nurtured throughout childhood, youth and adulthood, was now in full glorious flower.

  She hunched herself over the meagre fire, hitching up her skirt in order to gather into herself as much heat as possible. It wasn’t her fault. Yet again, things had turned on her, the usual ill luck conspiring with those around her to cause limitless, bottomless pain. Everybody smoked in corners at the mill. Everybody sneaked out now and then to have a crafty drag on the stairs, in the lavs, in a corner of a shed when the boss was out.

  But the boss had come back early. After several verbal warnings, Ruth had received a letter of dismissal. Nobody would back her up. Colleagues, some of whom had received similar verbal diatribes about smoking, had ignored her. They were glad to be rid of her, she supposed, just because she spoke her mind and didn’t suffer fools. Three Woodbines left. When they ran out, she would have to go on the scrounge, to neighbours who didn’t care two straws, to Irene who hated her, to shops where her poor reputation caused owners to refuse her credit.

  She lit a cigarette. ‘What did I ever do to her?’ she asked aloud. ‘She got what she needed, never went without.’ Ruth was blessed with a brilliantly selective memory, a talent which shielded her, helped her to ignore the blacker days in her past.

  The rent hadn’t been paid. Her sisters and brothers would not take her in, neither would her daughter. That little rat had fallen on her feet, was being praised halfway to glory because she knew how to dress up a corpse. ‘Her’s in the right bloody place,’ breathed Ruth through a fug of smoke. ‘They can’t see her ugly mug, can’t tell her where to get off.’

  Well, where was Ruth going to end up? Down the Sally Army with all her possessions in a paper bag? She thought briefly of Eva, but dismissed the idea within seconds. Eva had pulled no punches when describing Ruth’s incompetence as a mother. They all had it so wrong. Ruth was the victim. Ruth had been born one of the middle children in a huge family. After the death of her mother, Jessica, she had dragged herself up. Dad, God rest him, had done his best, but he had worked in a mill, had concentrated on his younger children and on teaching the older end how to cope. Stuck in the centre of all that, Ruth had been deprived.

  Giving no thought to the rest of the ‘middlers’, she saw only her own misfortune. The rest had married decent men, anyway. They were all comfortably placed in council houses and … The Woodbine-bearing hand froze in mid-air. Their Theresa wasn’t in a council house. Oh, no, their Theresa was off in Switzerland having the life of bloody Riley. In fact, the house was in Jessica’s name. Surely a niece would not want to see her Auntie Ruth on the streets?

  Ruth placed the two remaining cigarettes on the mantelpiece. She would get herself dressed up in her nice red two-piece, would use her last few pennies for bus fares. It was time to go visiting.

  Jessica opened the door tentatively. Behind her, Sheba, who sometimes disgraced her kennel name, Roncott, Queen of Sheba, bared her teeth in a fashion that was rather less than regal. When the dog really didn’t like someone, she forgot her manners and left little space for negotiation.

  ‘Please wait while I put the dog in the yard.’ Jessica closed the door in Ruth’s face and went to tend to Sheba. Maggie was in Liverpool again, because she wanted to visit an old friend who had been taken into hospital after a bad fall.

  When the front door was reopened, Ruth smiled, though the action seemed to cause some difficulty. It was clear that her face was happier when frowning. ‘Jessica?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Can I come in?’

  The girl hesitated, Maggie’s words ringing in her ears. ‘Don’t let anybody in,’ she had said.

  ‘Well?’ The stiff smile was fading fast.

  ‘I’m … I’m not supposed to let people in. Maggie’s gone to Liverpool—’

  ‘I’m not people, I’m your Auntie Ruth, your mother’s sister. A cup of tea would be good.’ She brushed past Jessica and strode into the house. ‘Very nice,’ she said, peering into the front room and taking note of the tiled fireplace, blue sofa and chair, carpet, handsome rug, pictures on the walls. ‘That’
s a lovely tea-trolley,’ she remarked.

  In the living room, Ruth was similarly impressed. It was all right for some: new sideboard, decent table and chairs, a square of good carpet, some rockers, a chaise longue under the stairs. ‘A bit fancy for a terraced house,’ she muttered. ‘Is there a bathroom?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied a bemused Jessica. Auntie Ruth was behaving like someone intending to buy the place.

  ‘How many bedrooms?’

  ‘Three,’ was the reply. ‘One for Mam, one for Maggie, then I have the attic with windows on the roof.’

  ‘Doing well, aren’t you?’

  Jessica ran into the kitchen to make tea. Being near Auntie Ruth had always made her cold, almost shivery. Irene had much the same effect, though Jessica had a small corner of pity for her cousin. Ruth McManus looked as if she might be cruel, as if all or many of Irene’s stories had been true. Mam and Maggie were always going on about not talking to strange people, but the strangest people of all were already known to Jessica.

  ‘Kitchen’s nice, too.’

  Jessica all but jumped out of her skin. The woman had crept up right behind her, was standing so close that her breath moved the small hairs on Jessica’s neck. ‘Do you take sugar?’

  ‘Aye, I do. Would there be any ciggies in the house, love?’

  Jessica shook her head. ‘Maggie doesn’t smoke any more. She said she couldn’t afford it.’

  Ruth gazed round at the electric cooker, electric kettle, a little Hoover washing machine in a corner. ‘Everything right up to the minute, eh? Have you got a television?’

  ‘No.’ Jessica warmed the pot and spooned in some tea.

  ‘Have you got any money? Just for a few ciggies. The outdoor licence is open – I could go down and be back before the tea’s brewed.’

  Jessica lifted a ceramic cottage from the window sill. All Auntie Ruth’s questions began with ‘have you got?’ She took out a pound note and handed it over. ‘Eeh, love,’ gushed Ruth. ‘Your blood’s worth bottling.’