The Cobbler's Kids (25 page)

The armchair by the fire was empty and for a moment neither of them could see any sign of their dad.

Benny was the first to spot him. He grabbed hold of Vera’s arm, nodding urgently in the direction of the table. The tablecloth had been pulled towards one end and draped like a curtain. Michael Quinn was under the table, hiding behind it.

‘Dad?’ Tentatively, Vera pulled the tablecloth to one side and bent down. ‘What are you doing under there?’

Michael didn’t answer. Instead he pushed himself as far away from her as possible. Cowering up against the back legs of the table he held a chair he’d taken under there in front of him, as though defending himself against an intruder.

Vera felt a shiver run down her spine. ‘Whatever are you doing?’ she asked, trying to keep the alarm she felt out of her voice. ‘Why don’t you come back out and sit in your chair by the fire where it’s warm,’ she suggested.

He stared at her as if he didn’t recognise who she was and jabbed at her with the chair.

‘Shall I try?’ Benny asked, as he gently pushed her to one side and went down on his knees. But before he could talk to him, his father let out an angry roar and thrust the chair at Benny, catching him across the face with one of the legs.

Benny sprang back and pulled Vera to safety. ‘I don’t know what’s the matter with him, but I think we’d better leave him where he is,’ he muttered.

As soon as Vera lifted the corner of the tablecloth, Michael Quinn knew he was in danger. Fear gripped him like a cold hand. The enemy had discovered his hideout and were intent on taking him prisoner, but he wasn’t going to let them succeed. He’d fight for his life every inch of the way.

It had been bad luck getting separated from the rest of his platoon. If he hadn’t stopped in the last village they’d come through to filch a couple of eggs from the hen house then it wouldn’t have happened. He’d be on jankers because of that, so, although he didn’t want to be captured, he was in no rush to get back to his unit either.

Trapped between the devil and the deep blue sea, he thought ruefully. He wasn’t cut out to be a soldier. When he’d joined up he’d looked forward to a taste of freedom, to not having to work from eight in the morning until seven at night hammering soles and heels onto other people’s boots and shoes.

He’d never bargained on being trapped on such a treadmill when he’d married Annie. She’d been so pretty, so full of fun, he thought it would go on being like that. The minute she had a ring on her finger she became all prissy and dull.

The moment Charlie was born all she could think about was looking after the kid. At first that had been fun and he’d accepted the role of being a dad. Then, after Eddy and Vera had been born, Annie became even more of a mum and less and less like the girl he’d married. She’d been so caught up in feeds and teething, and the kids’ bellyaches, that she’d had no time for him. It seemed that his whole life was centred on work, mending other people’s broken down boots and shoes.

He didn’t fancy spending the rest of his life in the same old routine, day in, day out. He wanted fun. He didn’t want to have to turn up every penny he earned to keep his family, and he was fed up with being constantly told what to do. If it wasn’t Annie lecturing him then it was his father-in-law, or his mother-in-law, giving him good advice.

There were times when he longed to drop everything and take Annie out dancing or to the pictures, but that was no longer possible. Everything had to be done to the routine that Annie imposed.

Annie was a good mam, he’d give her that. Her own mam and dad tried to help out as well, but he didn’t like the way they were always bringing them food, or inviting them to their place for meals. It felt like charity and he’d had enough of the milk of human kindness when he’d been a kid to last him a lifetime.

He hated the way such benevolent people expected you to be grateful to them when they did something for you. Half the time, they only did it because it made them feel good. Yet they made you feel they owned you, body and soul. They were like leeches, sucking your lifeblood out of you.

His biggest gripe was having to act as if he was one of them. He hated that. He wasn’t used to the way they were always polite and considerate to each other. They seemed to forget that he’d been bunged into an orphanage as a tiny tot and that he’d had to learn how to be tough.

His first meeting with Annie had sealed his fate. He’d fallen for her there and then. He’d tried to change, just to please her. He’d succeeded, too. He was proud of the way he’d done that, and of the guff he’d told her about his past. Most of it had been lies, but she’d swallowed every word, hook, line and sinker.

He’d never meant to marry her, or anyone else. He simply wanted to enjoy her company, take her dancing, or to the pictures and make love to her. It had taken the wind out of his sails when she’d told him she was preggers and that they’d have to do something about it pretty quick.

Getting spliced was her answer to the dilemma and like a fool he’d gone along with it, a lamb to the slaughter.

At first his new lifestyle had seemed cushy enough, but he soon tired of it. He’d always hated routine, it was like being back in the orphanage. Annie and her parents had plenty of ideas about what he should be doing, but they never listened when he opened his mouth and asked them to do something.

That’s why he’d rushed to volunteer the minute the war had started.

The army sounded exciting. He looked forward to being in the company of men his own age, the stimulation of never knowing where you’d be, or what you’d be doing, from one day to the next. It was what he needed, the sort of excitement he craved for, in fact.

It had been like that for the first few weeks while they were in training. It was when they were sent overseas that he realised what a stupid mistake he’d made, being so quick to volunteer. They’d exchanged barrack rooms for tents, drill yards for mud and slush, regular meals in the mess for makeshift grub that they had to take turns in preparing. Most of the time, the results would put any self-respecting boy scouts outfit to shame.

The men he’d trained with were nothing more than cannon fodder. Two of his mates were picked off by snipers the very first week they were in France.

Living in dugouts, clambering up the slippery sides of water-logged trenches and risking your neck every time you did so, left him so scared that if he’d known how to get back to England he’d have deserted straight away.

He’d always known how to look after himself, and once he’d been called a ‘Wallasey boy’ he’d realised what the score was and mentally resolved to do just that. After he was made a corporal he never shared anything, not even water or a crust of bread, unless he had to.

As they advanced through the French villages he took anything he could find, whether it was food or something he could barter with.

Now he couldn’t understand how he’d managed to get separated from the rest of his unit, or how he came to be wearing civvies, but he certainly wasn’t going to put his hands up to the enemy. There must be some way of lying low and making his escape.

He was hungry and thirsty and his head ached as if he had suffered a blow of some kind, but he couldn’t remember being in any battle. He didn’t know what had happened to his uniform. He’d obviously managed to get inside one of the houses so perhaps he’d killed some Frenchie and was wearing his clothes. Making a den for himself and defending it against all comers was second nature.

The couple who’d found him seemed to have retreated. He strained his ears, listening to try and find out what their movements were. Although he could hear their voices he couldn’t make out what they were saying. If they were Frenchies he only knew a few words of their lingo, the rest was gibberish to him, so he stopped listening.

He didn’t intend to give himself up. He was safe for the moment. He was in the dry and reasonably warm. They might go away if he waited, even if it was only to fetch help. The trouble was, he didn’t know if they were friends or enemies.

He wished they’d make their minds up and do something. He felt so tired that he was having trouble trying to keep awake. As the minutes ticked by he wondered if that was their strategy and that they were waiting for him to nod off to sleep.

He could smell food somewhere, and he was immediately alerted to the growing hunger pains inside him. Was this a trick? Were they going to lure him out by offering him something to eat? If he let them do that, would they shoot him, take him prisoner, or hand him over to his own side?

He felt tears beginning to trickle down his cheeks and he dashed them away with the back of his hand. What a bloody mess!

He wished he was back on Merseyside, in his own bed, listening to Annie clatter around in the kitchen getting his breakfast ready, and the sound of Charlie and Eddy prattling away to her as she did so, and little Vera chortling away in her cot.

The dull routine that he had scorned suddenly seemed like heaven.

Overcome by fatigue and despair, his eyelids drooped. As he let sleep claim him he wondered if he would ever see any of them again.

As the weeks passed, Vera was so concerned about her father’s mental state that she found it difficult to keep her mind on her work and she knew that Miss Linacre was becoming very annoyed about this. Vera’s greatest fear was that she might report her to Leonard Brown himself and that he might sack her.

She kept wondering exactly what the future held not only for her, but for all of them. She found herself starting each day tense and anxious, pondering on what fresh problems she was going to have to face. It was often mid-morning before her nerves settled down and she could concentrate on the work she was being paid to do rather than try and sort out her own personal troubles.

Benny still had two more years to complete at grammar school, but would she be able to afford for him to go on attending there for all that length of time?

So much depended on how much longer her father could cope with his day-to-day work. Unless business improved she wasn’t sure they could even go on living at the shop. The overheads, the rent and rates, had to be met.

When her father was reliving his wartime experiences, his mind was usually far too disturbed for him to do any work. He was in another world, back in the mud, blood and horrors that he had known in France during the war.

She found it so confusing because the rest of the time he seemed to work as hard and efficiently as he ever did. It was the day-to-day uncertainty of the situation that worried her the most. She never knew if he was going to be fit to work or not and it meant she couldn’t make any definite plans at all.

Money, or rather the lack of it, was one of her main concerns. But at least with Di Deverill out of their lives their expenses were considerably reduced. Di’s smoking habit had been a drain on the housekeeping, and so, too, had the bottles of sherry and vodka that she had bought for herself whenever she undertook to do any of the shopping.

Now Vera was as frugal as she could possibly be and hoarded as much spare cash as she could. Sometime in the future she was sure she was going to need every penny she had if they were going to survive.

Benny accepted the situation far more pragmatically than she did. When she tried to talk to him about their future he simply shrugged his shoulders.

‘We’ll manage; things will work out,’ he told her confidently. ‘Take each day as it comes. We know Dad is deranged, but he may snap out of it as quickly as he went into it.’

Vera could only nod in agreement. She felt taken aback to hear him describe it as he did. To her ears that made it sound as though their dad was suffering from a mental problem.

She was sure it wasn’t anything quite so serious, but she wished there was someone she could talk to about it. She didn’t want to enter into a lengthy discussion with Benny in case it distracted him from his studies and his forthcoming exams.

‘It’s all to do with things that happened long ago,’ she said lamely. ‘Something has triggered off memories to do with his past.’

‘I understand all that,’ Benny told her. ‘I think you should keep a note of the dates when he has these transgressions into wartime scenarios and see if they are becoming more frequent. It might be a good idea to get him to talk to you about the war. That way you might find out exactly what is worrying him.’

She knew Benny was right, but somehow trying to do as he suggested made it all seem even more frightening. As she listened to her dad’s ramblings, some of the horrors that he had endured on the battlefield impressed themselves upon her.

She began to understand his distress and sympathise with his fears. She had no idea, though, what to say, or do, to bring him any comfort.

When he began looking over his shoulder, hiding in corners, crouching with his hands over his ears as if to shut out the sound of gunfire or bombs exploding, her heart went out to him.

She knew better than to try and console him physically. Once, when she had gone towards him, her arms outstretched to try and soothe him, he had lashed out at her viciously. It was only because of the fact that when he was in the throes of such an attack his vision seemed to be impaired, and he lacked coordination, that she had managed to avoid his flailing fists.

Since then she’d kept her distance when he was having one of his attacks. If he spoke to her she responded in a quiet voice, answering his questions no matter how weird they might sound.

Usually she was able to persuade him to ‘hide’ for his own safety. In the early days of these attacks he had always taken refuge in the living room, either under the table or crouched in his armchair. After a while he began to suspect that the enemy knew where he was and would rout him out.

‘Perhaps you would be safer upstairs in your bedroom,’ Vera suggested.

His eyes narrowed and he stared at her speculatively, but said nothing. She wasn’t sure if he had understood, but the next time he had one of his attacks he made straight for his bedroom.

‘I’ve got a new hideout where they won’t find me,’ he told her triumphantly as he raced for the stairs.