The Corner House (12 page)

George Marsden spoke to the pair of lads. ‘I’ll be round to see your mams later,’ he promised ominously. ‘That window’s going to cost a bob or two. Get home before I lose my temper.’

Ernie knew that George Marsden had no temper to lose. George was a mild-mannered man who should have retired from the police force. Because of the war, many older and experienced men had been required to retain their jobs while younger ones fought for King and country. ‘There’s the kiddy to think on,’ Ernie told the constable. ‘Only four, a nice little lass. I’ve not seen her, neither.’

Halfway down Emblem Street, warden and policeman hammered at Theresa Nolan’s door. The sound echoed throughout the small house, as if the place had been emptied of its contents overnight.

‘I’ll have to break in,’ muttered George.

‘Do it, then.’ The feeling in Ernie Moss’s bones was intensifying. He was prepared to accept ‘Mrs’ Nolan’s wrath, would be grateful for it. If she would only open the door, give him that famous cool stare and tell him to mind his own business and be on his way quick smart, Ernie would be a happy man. ‘Get on with it,’ he urged.

George Marsden removed his helmet, placed a hand inside this item and used the headgear to smash the front window. Molly Kershaw put in an appearance on the step next door. ‘What’s going on?’ she asked.

‘Have you seen her?’ Ernie nodded in the direction of number 34. ‘Or the kiddy?’

Molly Kershaw shook her turbaned head. ‘She’s on the quiet side, is Theresa, doesn’t want no interference, like. Come to think, I’ve heard nowt for a while.’ There had been no rattling of a sweeping brush, no battering of rugs in the back yard. Molly felt a bit guilty. She should have noticed, should have done something about it. ‘I never thought,’ she muttered softly.

George climbed into the front room of 34, Emblem Street, stepped round a few items of furniture, then let himself into the narrow hall. There was an empty feeling, a sort of aged, almost professional silence that had seeped its way into the building’s fabric. In the kitchen, two gas mantles flickered uncertainly, while no fire occupied the neglected black grate. On the mantelpiece, a cheap clock had given up the ghost at ten minutes past six this morning, or yesterday evening, or whenever.

He left the empty room and climbed the stairs. As a veteran of the Bolton police force, George had encountered many situations like this one. A sixth sense had developed over the years, a feeling that went beyond all normal perceptions like sight and hearing. Death was spreading his dark cloak over this place. But when he entered Mrs Nolan’s bedroom, George heard a small, shuddering breath, crossed the floor in two strides and found a flickering pulse in a chilled wrist. The soul had not quite left the body, yet Theresa was just a hair’s breadth from kingdom come.

George tore off his jacket and threw it over the still form. He wrenched a dressing gown from a hook, a rug from the floor. Frantically, he rubbed at Theresa’s hands, then he strode across the bedroom and opened the window. ‘Ernie?’

The warden took a backward step and looked up at his old friend. ‘What’s up?’ he asked anxiously.

‘Ambulance,’ replied George. ‘She’s had some sort of a turn – out for the count and very cold, she is.’

Doors opened, spilling women and children onto the pavements. Some members of the audience ventured across cobbles to get a better view of the
crisis. Cissie Monkton, who had lived through two wars and two husbands, craned her stiff neck. The crusty, unwashed shawl stayed exactly where it was, as if obeying its mistress, as if it dared not budge on pain of death or laundering. ‘Where’s the kiddy?’ These words shot smoothly past a clay pipe from which noxious fumes emerged in staggered puffs.

George re-entered the house and searched. He finally found the chilled and blackened little girl in the coal store beneath Theresa Nolan’s stairs.

Jessica rubbed her eyes, felt grit scraping beneath the lids. ‘Is Mam dead?’ she asked when her senses began to return. She felt weak and giddy, while her eyes perceived the policeman through a fog, as if she were watching a very poor copy of some aged movie.

‘No,’ murmured George. ‘She’s not well, like, and she’ll be needing a bit of looking after.’ If she survives, the man commented inwardly.

‘But she had a sad face and a straight-line mouth and she was cold.’

Theresa Nolan was very cold, but George could not tell the little girl about hypothermia. He could not tell Jessica anything which might upset her. Part of George’s training had covered shock and bad news. He had to be positive, no matter what his own deductions were. ‘She’s going to the infirmary. So are you.’

Jessica absorbed the information. Mam, who had not moved all night and all day, was alive. A bubble of hope spilled onto the child’s face, allowing a tentative smile to play on the coal-streaked face. ‘The devil isn’t under the stairs,’ she informed her saviour.

‘Who said he was?’ George perched on the rocker with Jessica on his lap.

She lifted thin shoulders. ‘It was all in my … imagining,’ she managed. ‘Lucy, too.’

George sniffed. This kiddy’s imaginings were doing her no good at all.

‘There’s only Mam who wants me, you see,’ she said as if reading his thoughts. ‘I’ve got no dad, so Grandad doesn’t visit us, not ever.’

‘You’ll be all right,’ replied George, the words seasoned with a decisiveness he did not feel. What sort of a family did Theresa Nolan have? A dad who had turned her out for being pregnant, a sister who, by all accounts, was as unpredictable as a mad dog in a thunderstorm? Theresa wasn’t the sort to go mucking about with men. She was a decent body, a girl who had made one mistake. And if such mistakes brought forth children like young Jess, then there should be more of them.

‘Mr Marsden?’

‘Yes, love?’

‘Can I stop with Mr Moss till Mam’s better? I’ll see to the pigeons.’

George knew that no-one on God’s supposedly good earth would place a four-year-old child in the custody of a man with six or seven decades under his belt. What would happen to her, then? Would she finish up in the orphanage until Theresa Nolan got better? Theresa might not get better. He cleared his throat. ‘I want you to go in with Mrs Kershaw for now,’ he advised. ‘She’ll give you a good wash and find you something clean to wear and a bite to eat till the ambulance comes. The hospital will want a look at you.’ George had, within the last few seconds, decided what must be done. Ernie Moss would have to be the do-er, as George intended to travel to the infirmary with Theresa and
Jessica. They had no-one, so he would be there for them.

After settling the child next door, Ernie Moss and George Marsden had a chat. When everything had been mulled over, Ernie shut Albert in his house, explaining that a three-legged canine was not equipped for the long trek up Derby Street. Albert, who knew a great deal about human nature, curled up for a rest. Ernie would not desert him. Ernie would be back to feed him later.

The warden walked past the Tivoli cinema, caught his breath, then resolutely carried on struggling up the slope. The ambulance would probably have arrived by now, and Theresa Nolan would be in good hands. What about the kiddy, though? There probably wasn’t much wrong with her apart from shock, so the hospital might kick her out tomorrow with a clean bill of health. Where to? Lostock? The orphanage up Edgeworth?

He stood outside the door of number 35, View Street. Mike Nolan lived here, Big Michael, the one with a gob like the Grand Canyon and a lot more than enough to say for himself. Big Mike should have been dead years ago, by all accounts, due to pneumonia, pleurisy, liver trouble, leg ulcers. But only the good died young, and this man was far from good. Big Mike Nolan had won the Great War all by himself. He had routed the Kaiser, killed a million Germans, had saved the lives of countless inept men, was worth more than ten regiments.

Ernie raised his hand to knock, but decided to get his breath back first. Big Michael Nolan had fists like lump hammers and was not averse to using them. Even the slightest hint of criticism could cause Big Mike to let fly. He had thrown out poor Theresa in
her hour of greatest need, had caused all but one of his other children to escape as soon as they were grown, and lived now in the company of Ruth, the one and only Nolan who could match him for strangeness.

The door opened. Ruth McManus poked out her less than attractive face. At the age of thirty, she was already wrinkled, her face criss-crossed with lines caused by ill-temper. ‘What do you want?’ she snapped. Her neck, too thin for the largeish head it supported, was stringy, like something that should have poked out of a shell – the front end of a turtle or a tortoise.

Perhaps the orphanage was the best place, thought Ernie. Blood was thicker than water, but this one here seemed to have ice-filled veins. Her husband had buggered off back to Ireland when the clouds of war had gathered, and Ruth’s temper had not been improved by Joseph McManus’s sudden disappearance. ‘I’ve not got all day,’ she snapped. ‘I were watching you from the parlour – are you going to stand out there for ever?’ She pulled at a lock of her thick, black hair and twisted it about her fingers.

Ernie swallowed. ‘It’s your sister—’

‘Which one? I’ve five altogether, and three brothers.’

‘Theresa.’

Ruth’s mouth snapped shut. Beady brown eyes fixed themselves on the unwelcome caller. ‘She’s no sister to me, no daughter to my dad, either. She refused to budge herself to visit him when he were at death’s door, so she’s nowt a pound, our Theresa.’

Ernie squashed his temper. The female on the doorstep had chased Joseph McManus three times round Bolton before managing to get herself in the
family way. McManus, who had not been able to escape quickly enough at that particular time, had been dragged up the aisle of St Mary’s by a very annoyed Big Mike Nolan. ‘She’s ill,’ he muttered at last.

‘She were always ill,’ replied Ruth. ‘Always wanting attention, always needing summat or other.’

‘Rheumatic fever leaves kiddies weak,’ Ernie said. ‘And she grew up weak and all.’

‘And who said she had the rheumatic?’ asked Ruth scathingly.

‘It’s common knowledge. Everybody knows about her heart being affected.’

Ruth McManus sniffed disdainfully. She could have just about killed for a Woodbine. ‘Have you got a ciggy?’ she asked.

‘I don’t smoke, sorry.’

The woman folded thin arms about her flat chest. ‘What’s up with her this time?’

‘She’s in hospital. We had to break in and she was very near death.’

She nodded. ‘So what do you want me to do about it?’

Ernie cleared his throat, trying to make a space in which he might think. ‘It’s Jess,’ he said eventually. ‘Theresa’s little girl.’

‘I see.’ Ruth opened the door, then opened her mouth. ‘Dad?’ she screamed.

‘What?’ Even from the back of the house, Michael Nolan’s voice was loud.

‘Some feller from down the road. Wants you to do summat about our Theresa.’

Ernie stepped back when Big Mike strode down the hall. He was a bull of a man, red-faced, sweaty and as Irish as the gill of black beer in his hand.
‘What about you?’ he asked. ‘Did you want something from me, Mr … er?’

‘Moss. Ernie Moss. I live a few doors down from your Theresa—’

‘Who?’

‘Your daughter.’

Mike Nolan placed his pint glass on a small table just inside the door, then pulled Ruth back into the house before stepping out. ‘I have no daughter of that name,’ he said coldly. ‘Ruth should know that by now.’

‘But little Jessica—’

‘Jess-i-ca?’ There was mockery in the three syllables. ‘There’s nobody here knows a Jess-i-ca. Or a Theresa. Ruth must have been confused when she called me, because we’ve had no Theresa here for as long as I can remember. And a name like Jess-i-ca would be a bit sick, for wasn’t that the name of my sainted wife? No, I’ve no memory of either of the people you’re talking about. So be on your way, Mr … er.’

Mike Nolan’s memory was as short as his neck, thought Ernie. He looked at the ugly man, at the ugly woman, then noticed a child peeping round Ruth’s skirts. She looked to be about ten or eleven, though thirteen was nearer the actual mark. Starved, she was, deprived of love and decent nourishment, concluded the warden. He eyed Irene. It was a sin to call a child ugly, he told himself. But the flat, colourless face and those glassy eyes were reminiscent of a sad field-beast – a goat, perhaps, or a particularly unlovely and unloved sheep.

‘Come away, Irene,’ chided Ruth when the girl pushed her way to the door.

Ernie shuddered. The orphanage, then. From
what he had just seen in Big Mike Nolan’s lobby, this was a family unfit for little Jessica Nolan.

Theresa groaned, opened her eyes and saw a beautiful man looking down on her. He was not handsome, not rugged or manly, but simply beautiful. Jessica. Where was she?

‘Mrs Nolan?’

It was Miss Nolan, though she had not the strength to argue.

‘Can you hear me?’

She could hear him, all right, could see his bright blue eyes and his yellow, damped-down shock of curls. He was too young to be a doctor. Perhaps she was dead and in some waiting room outside St Peter’s gates. No, no, there was work to be done …

‘You’re going to be all right,’ he announced cheerfully. ‘You just wore yourself out and got very cold.’

She coughed, was lifted by strong arms into a sitting position. Her tongue accepted gratefully a few drops of water. The room was stifling, and she was swaddled in half a dozen blankets.

‘Mrs Nolan?’

She was drifting away again. Somewhere, Jessica was calling out, but the sound was inside the dream, not here, not in this hard bed. It was time to leave Jessica with Eva Harris, wasn’t it?

‘Mrs Nolan?’

‘Leave her.’ The female voice was strong, authoritative. ‘Let her sleep, Dr Marshall.’

Theresa slept. She walked up those four well-worn steps into her home on View Street. Dad was there, was smoking his pipe and spitting into the fire.
Ruth’s husband, drunk as usual, was counting money at the table.

‘Who did you rob this time?’ screamed Ruth. ‘Dad – he’s got a gold watch in his pocket. We’ll be getting the police round if he doesn’t start behaving.’