Jessica emitted a breath of relief as her aunt dashed off to buy her cigarettes. What had she said about blood? Auntie Ruth seemed the sort who would take anybody’s blood, anybody’s anything. With her spending money all gone, Jessica sat and waited. It had taken ages to save a full pound. A nice man at the Co-op had swapped all Jessica’s coins for a note. That pound had been earmarked to go towards a new summer frock.
Ruth McManus returned with forty Woodbines and two pints of stout. The stout was for her nerves. ‘I’m bad with me nerves,’ she explained. ‘Anybody with a daughter like mine would be bad with their nerves. She’s drove me mad all her life.’
Jessica, feeling very uncomfortable, offered her aunt a cup of tea.
The front door slammed. ‘Sorry I’m late,’ yelled Maggie. ‘It took longer than I thought, Liverpool and back. Poor Ada’s all wound up like a mummy, both legs in plaster, bandages on her arms.’
Ruth raised her eyebrows quizzically.
‘It’s Maggie’s friend,’ Jessica explained. ‘She fell and broke her legs.’
Maggie entered. She was wearing a purple suit, purple hat, purple shoes. In the doorway, she ground to a halt. The devil’s wife had arrived, then. ‘Hello, Ruth.’
‘I’ve bought you a bottle of stout,’ announced the visitor.
Jessica opened her mouth, closed it immediately. She had paid for the beer, but manners forbade her to speak up.
Maggie placed her garish handbag on the sideboard. All her purples quarrelled today, each being of a shade that played havoc with the next. ‘I’m off the drink, thanks,’ she replied.
Jessica poured tea for Maggie.
‘No smoking, no drinking?’ Ruth laughed shrilly. ‘Are you thinking of taking the veil?’
‘If I did, I’d be a better candidate than some.’ What the hell was this woman doing here? Ruth wasn’t the sort to bestir herself to come halfway across Bolton unless she was after something. ‘So,’ said Maggie as she settled into a chair. ‘To what do we owe the pleasure of your company, Ruth?’
The intruder plastered a very sad expression across her face. ‘Get me a glass, love,’ she asked Jessica.
Jessica went into the kitchen.
‘I’ve lost my job,’ Ruth moaned. ‘I’ve no money and the landlord’s going to throw me out.’
Maggie tut-tutted. ‘That’s terrible. What are you going to do?’
Ruth grabbed the glass from Jessica. ‘Get me a bottle-opener,’ she commanded.
Jessica left the room again. As she searched though a jangle of implements in the cabinet drawer, the reason for her aunt’s visit became clear. The woman wanted to move in. As her hand closed over the bottle-opener, she suddenly felt sick. She didn’t want to live with Auntie Ruth.
‘Ta,’ said the aunt in question when Jessica handed over the opener. Ruth removed the cap deftly, poured the stout like an expert, running the black fluid down the glass’s side, topping it with a flourish to create a creamy head.
‘You’d soon get a job as a barmaid,’ suggested Maggie.
‘I don’t want to be a bloody barmaid.’
‘But beggars can’t be choosers.’ Maggie sipped at her tea, a little finger crooked outward while she played the lady. ‘A job’s a job. With rent to pay and food to buy, you’ll have to take whatever you can get.’
Jessica felt utterly miserable. The thought of living with Auntie Ruth was awful. Auntie Ruth’s anger showed in her face. It didn’t just visit her features occasionally, wasn’t a temporary guest, it was more a long-term resident, a fully paid-up member.
‘I thought I might move in here for a bit.’
Jessica swallowed. This was her house, her very own place, paid for by Mam on Jessica’s behalf. But how could she, a twelve-year-old girl, forbid an adult to stay here?
‘No,’ said Maggie firmly.
Jessica’s heart soared. Maggie was here. Maggie was her shield, her guardian, her saviour.
‘You what?’
Maggie did not flinch. ‘I’m sorry, Ruth, but we aren’t able to allow that, not without Theresa’s permission.’
The clock ticked. Two or three large vehicles clattered by, probably buses or lorries. Jessica picked at the sleeve of her cardigan. Ruth sat like a statue, the glass of milk stout frozen mid-air, as if the bearer intended to propose a toast. Maggie, wearing her no-nonsense face, kept her eyes fixed on Ruth.
‘Who the bloody hell do you think you are?’ asked Ruth.
‘Maggie Courtney,’ was the tart reply.
‘You’ve no right talking to me like that. This is my sister’s house, not yours. I’ve got rights, I’ve—’
‘You can’t live here without Theresa’s permission,’ insisted Maggie. ‘Just as Theresa couldn’t live in her father’s house without his say-so.’
‘That was me dad – he wouldn’t let her in.’
‘And after he died?’
Ruth’s eyes became harder than ever. ‘He’s still there.’
Maggie made an improbable sound that was half laugh, half snarl. ‘Well, I never saw him. I wish I had, because there might have been someone to talk to, someone who didn’t come out with a load of rubbish about spooks and how horrible her daughter is. Monty pretended to see your ghost, of course. He’s a great joker.’
Jessica wished with all her heart that this argument would stop. Trouble frightened her, and she knew how colourful Maggie could be, how her speech could become as purple as her clothing.
Ruth jumped to her feet, spilling half of her Mackeson’s on Theresa’s new rug. ‘Our Theresa’s never coming home,’ she screamed at the top of her voice.
For a heavy smoker, this one had good enough lungs, thought Maggie. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Our Theresa. She’ll not be coming home no more. Her’s been on the way out for donkey’s years. Switzerland’s just somewhere nice for her to die with her fancy man on the spot.’
It was Jessica’s turn to freeze. For several seconds, she remained motionless while Ruth’s words echoed in her head. Mam not coming back? Mam dying in a foreign country?
‘You black-hearted bitch—’ began Maggie. She stopped in her tracks when Jessica leapt to life. ‘Jessica—’ But it was too late. The sweet, well-educated, well-behaved child had just delivered a blow to her aunt’s upper body, a punch that sent Ruth McManus reeling backwards onto the chaise longue. There was black beer everywhere.
‘You are a very bad person.’ Jessica’s voice was quiet. ‘No wonder Irene was always in trouble. You can’t stay here. I won’t let you stay.’ She leaned over the woman. ‘This is my house. My mother went away to work so that she could buy this house for me. She’s lovely, my mother. And she isn’t going to die.’
Ruth was thoroughly shocked. Few had stood up to her in years, and here she was, flattened by the one member of her family who was receiving a good education with emphasis on manners, decorum and religion. Where grown men had flinched and shivered, this girl had stepped in and said her piece.
Jessica, appalled at what she had done, fled out of the room and up two flights of stairs until she reached her attic. This pretty, oversized room was twice the length and width of the other two bedrooms on the first floor, as it covered the whole house, with dormer windows front and back. But Jessica didn’t notice the pretty pinks and golds. She lay face down on the bed and sobbed. The tears were born out of fear for her mother’s health and disgust with herself. Maggie’s temper had been on hold. Maggie, who had a habit of speaking her mind, had kept her dignity; Jessica had disgraced herself.
Downstairs, daggers were unsheathed and getting sharper. Maggie, who had not budged an inch, said not one word as Ruth McManus struggled to her feet. Would a bit of vinegar lift the stains from upholstery? Maggie wondered. Would Jessica be pacified? Would this awful woman bugger off back to hell, the place from which she had obviously originated? But Maggie’s silence was not a sign of defeat. Each woman recognized that the other was gearing up, preparing for the fray.
Ruth rubbed ineffec
tually at her ruined best red suit.
Maggie picked up an apple and bit into it.
‘Well?’ The intruder’s voice was shaky.
‘Well what?’
‘Aren’t you going to clout that little madam?’
Maggie shook her head vigorously, dislodging henna-dyed curls and a handful of hairpins. ‘I don’t believe in it,’ she mumbled through a mouthful of orange pippin. ‘See, the way I look at it is – well, if you batter a child, it grows up to be a child-batterer. I mean, look at your own case. You’re selfish, power crazy and a freak. So you’ve made your daughter into the same thing, but probably worse, because she has a brain. God help your grandchildren.’
Ruth did an impression of a stirred-up snake, almost hissing before she struck back. ‘You bloody bitch,’ she spat, furious because the cleverer words had not yet arrived.
Maggie continued to gnaw at the apple, a feat made no easier by the dull edges of old dentures. ‘Say what you like – you’re out of here.’
Ruth hesitated. As hesitation did not form a part of her usual repertoire, she was further annoyed. Angrily, she lit another of the cigarettes provided by her niece. ‘When our Theresa dies, all I’ll need is to talk to the right people – doctors, welfare, our Jessica’s schoolteachers. When they find out my niece is living with an owld woman with no blood-ties, there’ll be a right cartload of ructions. Then I’ll get her.’
‘You?’ laughed Maggie. ‘With no job and no house? And no legal papers signed by Theresa to nominate you as guardian? Not a cat in hell’s chance, Ruth.’
‘We’ll see.’
Maggie shrugged, the movement designed to conceal panic. What if they tracked her back to Liverpool and discovered her past? ‘Do your worst, and I shall do mine. I am the legal guardian of Jessica Nolan. Nothing you can do will alter that, especially once your character has been investigated by the so-called powers.’
‘Just you wait,’ snapped Ruth.
‘Oh, I shall. Bye-bye for now. You know where the door is.’
Ruth was beside herself. The rent collector had been shouting abuse through the door, and Maggie bloody Courtney had sent a solicitor’s letter to do with the guardianship of Jessica. With her hands tied by the letter’s implications, Ruth was red-raw angry with the whole world. Suffering from nicotine withdrawal and a dearth of milk stout, food and coal, she was bordering on the hysterically dangerous.
No-one in the immediate vicinity seemed willing to employ Ruth McManus, which fact had delivered a blow to her ego, as Ruth saw herself as the greatest, the fastest, the most competent. She was going to try a big hotel in town, a place where she was less well known. There were no cigarettes, the tinned food was running out and the weather had turned. Although July was only half over, Ruth sat in her living room wrapped in two jumpers and a shawl.
No-one had visited her since God alone knew when. Irene seemed to have given up. She’d gone and got herself a second job collecting money from people who bought clothes and furniture through a loan club. So Irene worked a normal day in the funeral shop, then did her other job in the evenings. Irene would have money. Irene wouldn’t miss a few bob, a couple of quid for bread and ciggies.
She threw off her shawl and donned her unhappiest coat, a grey thing that had accompanied her to the mill for years. Noxious emissions from Bolton’s various industries seemed to have seeped into the coat, lending it a patchy, gun-metal sadness. Ruth’s favourite colour was red. Like Maggie, she had a tendency to combine inappropriate shades, her outfits ranging from orange right through to burgundy, the resulting mixed marriages often turning out less than ideal. But today was a grey day, a day for looking homeless and starving.
She left by the back door in order to avoid direct confrontation with the rent collector. She wasn’t herself, hadn’t felt right since Jessica’s tantrum. As for the solicitor’s letter – that had kicked the rest of the belly out of her. She was even getting headaches, pains in her back, a bit of sciatica down her left leg.
Dodging in and out of doorways, Ruth made her way down Derby Street until she reached the funeral parlour. Irene would be round the back doing things with cotton wool and face powder. After negotiating a narrow side alley, Ruth found herself at the back door. This was locked against prying eyes and strange kids who liked looking at the dead. Irene had been one of those queer children in her time.
Uncomfortable when in the vicinity of death, Ruth tapped at the door. Irene opened it. She was dressed all in white, her dun hair bundled into a mob cap, a plastic apron tied over the bleached overall. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said in her usual monotone.
‘Can I have a word?’
Irene stepped back and made a gesture that invited her mother in.
Ruth paused, took one last, deep breath of air and entered a large room filled with the sickly-sweet aromas of disinfectants and preservatives. ‘Are you on your own?’
‘No.’ Irene pointed out four sheet-enveloped figures. ‘Mrs Hardcastle, Mrs Charleson, Billy Mayer from John Street – he were only twenty-one, motorbike accident – and Elsie Shipperbottom.’
‘Elsie?’
Irene nodded.
‘What happened?’
The younger woman shrugged. ‘She just went to bed and died. I’ve not seen her death certificate. I just clean them up and pass them back to their families.’
Ruth perched on the edge of a chair. Her daughter seemed so efficient, so adult. It suddenly occurred to Ruth that she had no tangible power over this girl. Married and with two jobs, Irene seemed to be the older of the pair. ‘Erm … I thought I’d walk down and see how you’re going on, like.’
Irene whipped the sheet off Elsie and started to wash the body.
Ruth turned her head slightly so that she might avoid the sight of a dead working colleague.
‘Thirty years in the carding shed doesn’t half show,’ commented Irene. ‘Poor woman’s hands are wrecked.’
The visitor bit down against a remark about Elsie Shipperbottom’s hands now being beyond repair and redundant.
‘I hear you lost your job,’ Irene remarked.
‘Aye. The house and all. I’ve got no money, nowhere to live and nowt to eat. There’s been an eviction notice.’
Irene brushed Elsie’s silver-streaked auburn hair. ‘Still, you’re better off than these in here, eh? This one’s next address’ll be Tonge Cemetery. Makes you grateful for every day, working here.’
Ruth’s patience was gossamer thin at the best of times. ‘You’ll have to lend me some money,’ she said.
‘Lend?’
‘Aye, that’s what I said.’
Irene placed the hairbrush on the edge of Elsie’s table. ‘You don’t know the meaning of the word, Mam.’ She paused for thought. ‘No, that’s not true. If you lend something – and, let’s face it, that doesn’t happen often – you expect it back within half an hour. The whole town knows if you’ve not been paid back quick smart. But as for paying back what you owe …’ Irene shrugged, her hands wide apart. ‘What’s the money for?’
Ruth tried not to grind her teeth. ‘Food, rent, gas.’
‘What about your ciggies?’
‘If you can spare enough.’
Irene covered up a lady who had raised four children, a lady whose husband, crippled in a war accident, worked from his wheelchair mending shoes on a last in a cold, outdoor workshop next to the lavatory shed. Elsie had often given the neglected Irene a jam butty or a piece of pie.
‘Well?’ Ruth’s dander was up and preparing to operate.
Irene sat down. ‘“Eeh, Dad, isn’t she ugly?” ’ she began. ‘I can see you now, telling me there were nowt to eat, but oh, you had your smokes. No shoes to go to school in, no chance of a place at the grammar school for me, because you had to have your ale and your Woodbines.’
Ruth jumped up.
‘And don’t start telling me I shouldn’t talk to you like this, because it’s time somebody did. See, I’ll leave a box of food on your doorstep, be
cause I’m not as wicked as you, not quite. But you can find a job and pay your own bloody bills, Mam. We’re moving soon, going to buy a house with a garden and a garage. There’s no car yet, but there will be.’ Irene nodded thoughtfully. ‘Here’s me, refusing you ciggy money so that I can live a normal life. But you refused me living money so that you could smoke.’
It occurred to Ruth that she had spoken no more than a few syllables since arriving here, on Irene’s patch. She should have found neutral territory, somewhere away from the funeral place. In this white, spotlessly clean room, Irene was queen.
‘You might as well go, Mam. You know you don’t like dead bodies.’
Ruth’s mouth opened, but no words emerged from her mouth. She was suddenly like a dictionary with most of its pages ripped out.
Irene walked past her mother, opened the door wide and waited.
‘It’s all right, I’m going.’ Ruth picked up her slender, empty handbag and stalked out. Just before the door closed behind her, she spun round. ‘I said you were ugly because you were. And you still are. Do you keep an extra pillowcase for him to put over your head before he touches you?’
The door did not slam. It was eased home with a gentleness that served only to infuriate the outsider even further. She threw herself at the door, kicking and pounding until she had exhausted herself.
Mr McRae parked the hearse in the side alley, climbed out and came up behind Ruth. He placed a hand on her shoulder. ‘Mrs McManus?’
She spun round. ‘What? Bloody what?’
He studied her. The wildness in her eyes was so bright that it seemed to send out small sparks of fire. She was shaking from head to foot, and her hair, newly streaked with fine strands of grey, stood out around her face like the mane of some jungle animal. ‘You should see a doctor,’ he said mildly.
‘I don’t need a flaming doctor. I want a gradely daughter, one as’ll see to me when I need help.’
Mr McRae nodded slowly. ‘She’s the best worker I’ve ever had. Irene has a gift, a very special talent. She treats the deceased with a great deal of respect.’ It was no wonder Irene worked here, he thought. The preparation room was so peaceful, an ideal escape from this virago of a mother.
The Corner House Page 42