by Polly Heron
‘Well, if Mrs Rostron isn’t there…’
‘You’re speaking to her secretary. Has Mr Cropper…has he passed away?’
‘No, but things don’t look good, if you understand me. Mrs Rostron might wish to prepare the son for bad news. Or she might want to wait until it’s over to tell him.’
‘Thank you. I’ll do what’s needed.’
She would indeed. Ending the call, she replaced the earpiece in the holder on the side of the stick and sat perfectly still. Her heart beat steadily, reverberating through her body, filling her with the warmth of resolve. It was time to act. She pulled the telephone towards her and asked the operator to connect her to the Grove Hotel, tapping a fingernail against the desktop as she waited.
‘This is highly unsatisfactory,’ declared Mr Dallimore when she told him she wouldn’t be able to attend that afternoon.
Hanging up, she knew there would be consequences. Her absence from her Saturday afternoon placement would cast the business school in an unfavourable light, but she couldn’t think about that now, any more than she could think about the far more important and severe consequences likely to rebound on her here in the orphanage.
What she intended to do was right, she had no doubt about that. It needed to be done and it needed doing right now, this very minute. But she couldn’t do it without money. She had only a handful of change in purse, but when she had done the wages yesterday, Mrs Rostron hadn’t been here, which meant that, with her own wages unchecked by the superintendent, Molly had put her brown wages-envelope in her drawer. Unlocking the drawer now, she removed the envelope, slit it open and took out her money.
She couldn’t tell anybody what she was going to do, yet neither could she go without leaving word. She bit her lip as she weighed her choices. Choices – as if she had loads. Actually, there was one and only one. Hope surged inside her. It didn’t matter that there was only one if it was the right one; and it was, oh, it was. No question. She would leave a note for Aaron. He of all people would understand.
She scribbled a few lines, slipped the sheet into an envelope and wrote A Abrams Esq on the front. Running downstairs, she went in search of the smalls, finding them with a couple of nursemaids under the supervision of Nanny Mitchell. That was a relief. Nanny Mitchell was kinder than Nanny Duffy.
‘Nanny, please would you make sure that this letter is given to Mr Abrams when he comes back from the rec? It’s important that he receives it.’
‘I can send one of the fourteens to the rec to deliver it.’
‘No, it can wait until he comes back.’
One last thing and she would be ready. She returned to the teaching room, hearing giggles as she opened the door though the girls fell silent, heads down over their sewing, when she walked in.
‘I’m sorry, girls. I’ve been called away. If you finish the pattern-matching, so that the curtains look the same when we hang them, and prepare the lining, we can finish off another time.’
‘Yes, miss.’
Grabbing her hat and jacket and slinging her handbag over her arm, she hurried from the building and across the playground, heading for the rec. When she arrived, she took a moment to compose herself outside the gates. She must give an impression of calm and normality. Planting a smile on her face, she walked in, her smile automatically expanding into one of genuine pleasure at the sight of the children’s game, which was in full swing, with Aaron as umpire and some of the nursemaids sitting in the shade under the trees with the children who had been run out.
Molly made her way around the edge towards those under the trees. Carmel was sitting slightly apart from the rest. Molly went to her, bending quickly to speak to her before Carmel could politely spring to her feet. A few murmured words was all it took. No explanation was necessary, not when the secretary spoke to a nursemaid.
‘I need to take Daniel Cropper.’
‘Yes, miss.’
It couldn’t have been better. Danny was a fielder in the deeps, easy for her to approach without having to say anything to Aaron.
‘I want you to come with me,’ she said softly.
‘But I’m playing, miss, and our team hasn’t batted yet.’ His face turned up to hers, with an obstinate look that almost smoothed the dent in his chin.
Molly took a side-step, placing herself between the boy and the game, ensuring her back was to the other fielders, so no one would catch so much as a breath of what she said. Not that anyone was near enough, but even so.
‘I’m …’ A wodge of emotion the size of a tennis ball clogged her throat. She had to squeeze her words around it. ‘Danny, I’m taking you to see your dad.’
Danny’s eagerness was hard to bear. Molly sat opposite him in the swaying train compartment, her heart torn in two by the transformation she had witnessed. She remembered the first time she had seen him; she had thought then that, if only he didn’t look wary, his face would fall naturally into a cheerful expression. It turned out she had been right. Look at him now. Even overshadowed by the man’s cap he wore, his pale skin was flushed with anticipation, his eyes aglow. He was positively good-looking.
From the moment his eyes had widened when she promised to bring him to his father, he had burbled non-stop about his beloved dad.
‘He used to be a night-watchman. Well, not to start with. Before the war, he worked in a factory, but I don’t really remember that. After he came home from fighting, the only job he could get was night-watchman.’
‘Where, Danny?’
‘Not just for one place, one factory or what have you. You know how sometimes they have to dig a hole in the road? Someone has to watch over it at night to make sure nobody falls in. That’s what Dad did.’
‘It’s a responsible job.’
Danny gave her a knowing look. ‘Tell that to the bosses who pay it so poorly. My mum had to take in washing because Dad couldn’t earn enough. Not that I’m complaining, mind, and Mum never did neither.’
‘You sound proud of him.’
‘Aye, I am. There was this one time he organised a dads versus lads football game up our road. To make it fair, the grown-ups weren’t allowed to run. I don’t know how he did it, but he borrowed a real football from somewhere instead of using a rag-ball. That was the best game of football ever – well, until the ball went through Ma Lambert’s window and she chased the whole blinking lot of us down the street, waving her rolling-pin and shrieking blue murder.’
At last Danny subsided into his thoughts, his gaze turned towards the window. Did he see the landscape flying past or was he lost in memories of happier times?
His silence provided a not entirely welcome opportunity for reflection. Her fingers tightened around the handles of the handbag in her lap. What awaited her on their return? Rather than dwell on that, she focused on the child opposite her. Was it her imagination or had his narrow oval face filled out? Could happiness have plumped up his skin? She smiled at the sight, but her pleasure quickly turned to worry. Oughtn’t she to prepare him? Was it fair, was it right, to let his spirits leap so high? But how did you tell a child he was being taken to his father’s death-bed? In her head, Mrs Rostron said, ‘It takes experience to see what’s underneath.’ She would know what to say, or not say, in this situation.
Oh lord. She had made off with Danny without so much as a by-your-leave, based on nothing more than an instinct that had flooded her bloodstream, giving her no choice but to act. What if instinct had played her false?
A loose, tingly feeling uncurled in her stomach, but the fear she felt wasn’t for herself. It was for this poor lad now in her care. A measure of confidence returned. She must concentrate all her thoughts, all her efforts, on giving him the support he needed to get through whatever today held.
‘Danny.’ She waited for his eyes to swivel her way.
‘You’re not allowed to call me Danny. You’re meant to call me Daniel. Actually, you’re meant to call me Cropper. That’s the rules.’
‘I know. And when we get back
to St Anthony’s, I’ll obey the rules again, but just for today, wouldn’t you rather be called Danny?’
He shrugged – fearing a trick question?
‘My name is Molly. It’s short for Margaret, but no one has ever called me that. If anyone did, I wouldn’t know who they were talking to. So I know what it’s like to have your name shortened and to feel that that’s the name that belongs to you.’
Danny nodded. ‘I was always called Danny until I landed up at the orphanage. Mum and Dad called me Danny and so did the neighbours and my mates at school, but I’m at a different school now.’ He gave her a speculative look. ‘Can you keep a secret, miss?’
‘As long as it isn’t something Mrs Rostron ought to be told.’
The brightness of his smile, the way his eyes glowed with mirth, almost took her breath away. Such a good-looking boy! This was how he was meant to be, not ground down with worry and loss.
‘You wouldn’t be able to spill this secret, miss, not after calling me Danny.’
‘Oh aye?’ She ought to be stern, but her lips twitched.
‘Aye. You see, Mr Abrams calls me Danny an’ all. Not when there’s anyone else about, like, but when it’s just the two of us…which means almost never. But there were two times when he could have got me into deep trouble and he didn’t and he called me Danny. He’s a good sport.’
‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘He is.’
Trust Aaron to do his best to help the lad. One occasion would have been after the theft of the money from Upton’s. Apparently Danny had needed further support since then. Many a person wouldn’t have helped Danny a second time, would have felt he wasn’t worth the bother if he couldn’t learn his lesson from the first occasion; but Aaron had a bigger heart than that, a greater understanding.
‘And then there’s this lad that sometimes calls me Dannyboy,’ Danny added.
‘A friend of yours?’
He squirmed on the fuzzy upholstery. ‘Just someone I see sometimes.’
They must be nearing Southport by now. If she intended to give him an inkling of what to expect, she must get on with it.
‘Danny, listen. You understand that your dad is very poorly, don’t you?’
‘Course, miss. That’s why he were sent to the sanatorium. He’d have died if he’d stayed put in our house, what with the damp and the stench of the gas-works. That’s what Mum said. That’s why she made him say yes when the doctor found a charity to pay for him. She said it was his only chance.’
Molly’s heart dipped. Danny’s quick response, half cheerful, half obstinate, the set of his chin, the trust in his eyes, all said that the sanatorium was going to make his dad get better, however long it took.
Oh, Danny.
Cords of anguish tightened in her throat. She wanted to reach for his hand. She wanted to sit beside him and gather him to her.
Sitting up straight, leaning forwards a little, she held his gaze as she spoke gently.
‘Danny, this is important. I know how much you want to see your dad, but you need to know before we get there that he is very ill.’
‘I know that, miss.’ The cleft in his chin deepened stubbornly.
She pressed on. ‘There was a telephone call from the sanatorium this morning. They…they’re worried about him. He’s worse than he was and I’m afraid he might be…slipping away. Do you understand?’ Her heart thudded. Please don’t let her have to be more explicit.
‘Look, miss.’ Danny sat up, pressing his forehead against the window, squashing the peak of his dad’s cap. ‘Are we there? Is this Southport?’
Chapter Twenty-Three
THE FIRST TAXI driver refused point-blank to drive them to the sanatorium. Molly’s flesh prickled: suppose no one would take them? But she hadn’t brought Danny all this way just to fail so close to the end of their journey. Marching purposefully towards the next taxi in the rank outside the station, she made the same request.
‘No need to sound so fierce, miss,’ said the driver. ‘I don’t mind going there, but only as far as the gates. You’ll have to walk up the drive.’
‘Is she taking that child to the san?’ said a woman’s voice and Molly looked round to see a pair of well-dressed ladies walking past, arm in arm. ‘Disgraceful.’ The speaker wobbled her shoulders in a dramatic shudder. ‘If he catches his death – and I mean that in the most literal sense – on your head be it, young woman.’
Tossing her head, she pulled her friend on their way, leaving Molly staring after her. How could she say something so hurtful, so damaging, in front of a child?
Turning quickly to Danny, she urged, ‘Don’t listen to her. We’ll be perfectly safe.’
Danny ignored her, not out of rudeness, but because he was so fixed on what he had wanted for such a long time. ‘You’ll take us, mister?’ he asked the driver.
‘Aye, son. Get in.’
‘I’ve never been in a motor car before,’ said Danny, but there was no display of excitement, just concentration that grew more intense by the minute.
As the taxi headed out of town, Danny looked round in agitation.
‘Where are we going?’
‘It won’t be in the town itself,’ Molly told him. ‘It’ll be in the countryside close by.’
‘So that the townsfolk don’t catch anything?’
‘So that the patients have peaceful, healthy surroundings with plenty of fresh air. That’s why it’s near the sea.’
True to his word, the driver dropped them next to a high brick wall at the foot of a hill. Tall wrought-iron gates stood closed but not locked, each metal pole topped with an arrowhead. Molly paid their fare, adding a tip. She wanted to take Danny’s hand to give him reassurance, but he was already pushing the gates open. They clanked, the sound mingling with that of Danny’s boots crunching on the gravel drive.
Molly hurried after him.
Above them, partway up the hill, the sanatorium was a long, low building, just a downstairs and an upstairs, presumably with accommodation for the staff under the roof. The windows were large. All along the front of the building stretched a wide verandah on which people lay in beds or reclined in basketwork chairs. Beside Molly, Danny tensed, his head turning swiftly. Lord, if he was hoping to see his father, then he really hadn’t absorbed her words on the train, had he? So much for trying to prepare him.
Going up the steps to the verandah, Molly was unpleasantly warm after walking so quickly uphill. It had been breezy in town, but there was no breeze out here: the hill must provide shelter. She approached the double doors, the top two-thirds of which were glassed, which meant the door-knob was unusually low and she had to bend her knees to reach it.
There was no reception desk. A woman in a white uniform dress with a nurse’s winged headdress appeared through a doorway.
‘Can I help you? Have you made arrangements to visit a patient?’ She frowned at Danny. ‘We don’t permit children to visit.’
Molly gave Danny a nudge and he removed his cap respectfully, screwing it up in fingers that couldn’t be still. His feet couldn’t keep still either.
‘Does the boy need to visit the lavatory?’ asked the nurse and it wasn’t a kindly enquiry.
‘No, thank you,’ said Molly. She glanced down at Danny. She didn’t want to say this in front of him, but there was no choice. ‘Someone from here rang St Anthony’s Orphanage in Manchester first thing this morning, with news of one of your patients, a Mr Cropper.’
‘Yes?’ The nurse’s eyes sharpened.
‘This is his son, Danny. I’ve brought him to see his father.’
‘This is most irregular.’
‘I realise that, but we’ve come a long way and Danny hasn’t seen his dad for some months. Couldn’t you please make an exception?’
‘We don’t allow—’
‘You don’t allow child visitors – yes, you said. But…’ Oh hell, there was nothing for it. Placing her arm lightly around the boy’s shoulders, she said, ‘The person on the telephone said that Mr Cropp
er is…might be fading. I’ve brought Danny to see him.’
‘What d’you mean, fading?’ The swiftness with which Danny turned to face her almost dislodged Molly’s arm. She held on tighter.
‘I’m sorry, sweetheart. I tried to tell you before, but I didn’t use the right words and, anyway, I don’t think you wanted to hear them. Fading means…it means the doctors and nurses have done everything they possibly can to help your dad get better, but he’s too ill and they think…he might not live much longer.’
‘You mean he’s going to die?’ Danny demanded. ‘Like Mum.’
‘I’m afraid so,’ Molly whispered, peering anxiously into his face, expecting him to crumple; but Danny’s face was a mask. She looked at the nurse. ‘Please. You heard him. He lost his mum a few weeks back. That’s why he’s living in the orphanage even though he isn’t an orphan.’
The nurse’s manner softened. ‘Sad to say, it looks like that’s the most appropriate place for him.’
‘You don’t mean…?’
‘No, Mr Cropper’s still with us…for now.’ The nurse stepped across the corridor and opened a door. ‘Sit down while I see what I can do.’
Like the corridor, the floor of the room was covered in linoleum. On the wall was a poster with a picture of the head and shoulders of a man clutching a handkerchief to his mouth. At the top it said in thick black capitals PREVENT DISEASE. Beneath the picture were the words INFLUENZA and TUBERCULOSIS are Spread by Thoughtless Coughing, Sneezing and Spitting. Thoughtless spitting? Ugh!
Too anxious to sit, they awaited the return of the nurse. Molly watched Danny from the corner of her eye. Should she speak? Try to offer comfort? But his closed expression told her not to attempt it.
Two sets of footsteps sounded in the corridor. Molly placed a hand on Danny’s shoulder to remind him not to go flying towards them. The nurse reappeared, preceded by another nurse, this one in a dark blue uniform, her starched headdress more elaborate.
The first nurse barely had time to say, ‘These are the people I…’ before the newcomer, having briefly taken in their appearance from head to toe, said, ‘I understand you’ve come a fair distance to see Mr Cropper. I can honestly say it’s the first time one of our charity patients has had visitors.’