The Corner House (23 page)

Absently, she patted the nervous dog’s head. She had argued ceaselessly, had suggested that Chaplin could be taken to the copse on a lead, or that he should be left at home. And anyway, there hadn’t been any sheep near that spot. But Dad had become quite cross, not at all like his real self. The child shivered and hugged herself, though the day was far from chilly. All she wanted was a chance to meet the girl again, to talk, to get to know Jessica. Why were grown-ups so silly and childish? Dad’s, final answer had been, ‘We’re not going because I said we’re not going.’ Daft reason. No reason at all, just a stupid decision based on nonsense.

Liz stopped rushing about for a few moments. ‘Have you been crying, Katherine?’

‘No.’

‘Yes, you have.’ The child was clinging fiercely to her roots, was even talking about a girl she had met, someone who bore a resemblance to herself.

Katherine sighed deeply. She couldn’t go back to that thicket because Dad had said no, and she would never be able to find it by herself, as Dad had driven the family to the Belmont area on that day. Now, she must have been crying because Mam said she had been crying. After all, adults were always, always right. She hadn’t cried, not quite. ‘I’m sad, but I’m not crying,’ she replied. ‘I don’t want to move to Liverpool. I want to stay here in this house and carry on at my own school. But I’m only five, so I don’t count. What I want doesn’t matter.’

Liz inhaled. ‘This is Uncle Danny’s house. We borrowed it to keep you safe from bombs. Now, Uncle Danny wants to come back here with Auntie Pauline and Pauline’s mother. He misses his garden, you see.’

‘Yes, but we could buy another house just the same. There’s hundreds.’

These had been Liz’s thoughts, but, after discussions with Bernard, Danny and Pauline, a decision had been reached with regard to the fish business and expansion to Liverpool. Prices at Liverpool’s wholesale fishmarket were competitive. Once the dross of war had been removed, the Walsh brothers could take advantage of broader purchasing bases, allowing Bernard to bargain for bigger and better deals. With a decent van, Danny could easily fetch fish from Liverpool a couple of times a week.

‘I’m all right, Mam,’ insisted the child.

Liz gulped back her own uncertainties, squashing all doubts so firmly that her stomach almost ached. ‘Please, Katherine,’ she began.

‘I’ve told you, Mam, don’t worry, ’cos I’m all right.’

Liz squatted down until she was at her daughter’s level. ‘It’s time to move on, pet. The war’s over and done with at long last. Your dad’s got a special job to do, because so many people in Liverpool got killed. Remember? We explained to you about bombs, didn’t we?’

Katherine nodded.

‘Thousands died in Liverpool. Bernard’s going to help the ones who’re left to get things back together. Three of the fishmongers aren’t there any more, so your dad and a few other men are going to help with mending some shops and getting them open as soon as possible. It’s important work.’

Katherine bit her lower lip. ‘Is the shop in Crosby?’

‘No. It’s in a place called Scotland Road, just a little lock-up. Every afternoon, when the shop shuts, your dad’ll come home. He won’t have to go fire-watching three nights a week any more.’

‘What about my school?’

‘Ainsley House, it’s called. It’ll get you ready for the grammar school. Nuns are very good teachers – the best – and you’ll—’

‘I don’t like nuns.’

Neither did Liz. But, by fair means or foul, nuns forced children to learn. They used moral blackmail, prayer, detention and any other weapon they could lay hands and tongues across. Nuns never accepted second best. In their book, a day of idleness was a day of sin thrown into the face of God Himself. And, in Liz’s opinion, every bride of Christ had endured a
sense-of-humourectomy, a total removal of mankind’s most endearing grace, so they stuck to teaching with grim-faced tenacity and left little room for diversion. ‘I think they’re good women inside,’ Liz managed.

Katherine shrugged. She couldn’t seem to care any more. The adults had taken over again and, as always, they were hot in pursuit of trouble and complications. Jessica would have understood, no doubt. Jessica was another wise child, a girl whose vision probably spread itself far beyond the blinkered view of myopic, silly grown-ups. Yet how did Katherine know all that about the girl in the woods? How could she?

‘Katherine?’

She looked at her mother. ‘I’m not happy, Mam, but I know I have to go where you go. If I ask to stay here, with Uncle Danny and Auntie Pauline, you won’t let me.’ No, that solution would have been too easy, too sensible. And really, Katherine did not want to lose Mam and Dad, as they were more important than houses and schools and beloved places.

Liz stood up, bit back words of wisdom. Katherine was grieving and should be left alone with this particular sadness.

In the doorway, Bernard watched the scene, his daughter’s words seeming to echo round the room. This move was for Katherine’s sake, though neither child nor woman realized that truth and its implications. Even if she had to be dragged kicking and screaming, Katherine’s address had to change now, today, for her own safety’s sake. Pauline and Danny were remaining in Bolton because they had nothing to hide. Bernard’s whole life revolved round a lie, and the embodiment of that untruth was railing
against change. If Katherine stayed here with her uncle and aunt, the move would be completely unnecessary.

Katherine studied her father, found uncertainty in his expression. He, too, was afraid. She looked up at Liz, noticed misgivings there, a slight frown, a narrowing of the eyes. ‘If it doesn’t work, can we come home?’ Katherine asked her father.

‘Yes,’ he lied. He couldn’t lose her, couldn’t lose either of them. What might have happened had he not followed Katherine into the trees that day? Would the girls have compared birth dates, eye colour, other similarities? If Liz were to lose her daughter, she could well give up and die. ‘Let’s just see how it goes, Katherine,’ he said. ‘You’ll take a while to settle – we all will.’

Liz bent down to stroke Chaplin’s silky head. ‘Look at him – you’d think he was going to prison.’

Katherine, who shared the dog’s feelings, held her tongue. Forces above and beyond child and dog had planned the move. Liz and Bernard were the makers of decisions, while she and Chaplin didn’t even get to vote.

She picked up a pile of comics, grabbed Chaplin’s lead and made for the door. Without a single backward glance, Katherine Walsh walked away from the only home she remembered and towards a future in whose choice she had played no part.

Jessica Nolan, who still had to visit her doctor once a week and the sanatorium’s clinic on the last Thursday of each month, was living quite comfortably in the home of Eva Harris. Eva, directed by Theresa Nolan, had visited the Emblem Street house to retrieve a box of money from beneath a floorboard
in Theresa’s bedroom. After opening this container, Eva had shaken her head angrily, had rambled endlessly about folk with no sense who didn’t eat while there was money in the house, who ended up in Williamson’s because they didn’t care about living or dying, who had no thought for anyone who cared about them, who were as daft as brushes, selfish, stupid … She went on about things a fair bit, did Eva.

Jessica was allowed to visit Mam during her own trips to the clinic. Theresa, who was eating and sleeping well, had roses in her cheeks and a lovely sheen on that famous strawberry-blonde hair. Mam was beautiful once more. Dr Blake kept saying that Theresa needed at least a year in the sanatorium, since she continued poorly in spite of looking so well. Still, Jessica’s mam was safe, and safe would have to be good enough for now.

For the first time in months, Jessica was relatively content. Sometimes, when she remembered that strange, brief meeting with Katherine, she felt a bit lonely, but she didn’t really need a Lucy figure any more, because there were so many children in the View Street area, real children who lived in the here and now, who played hopscotch, skipping rope and ball games.

Occasionally, Jessica came into contact with Auntie Ruth or Cousin Irene. They lived nearby, just a few doors away from Eva, with a grandfather who kept nearly dying and who didn’t want to know Jessica. Other aunts and uncles visited the grandfather, often staring at Jessica as they passed by. But the child instructed herself not to care. They didn’t want Mam, either, so they didn’t matter at all.

On a Friday afternoon in July, Jessica meandered
homeward, stopping to look in shop windows, passing the time of day with a couple of Magee’s dray horses, watching trolley buses as they hummed and clicked their way up Derby Street.

A hand clamped itself onto her shoulder. Startled, Jessica swung round to find herself face to chest with Cousin Irene, who was thirteen and rather tall. Irene had eyes which were hard to describe, rather flat in her face, glassy, greenish, yellowish, devoid of expression. Like a pot doll’s eyes, thought Jessica. When Irene spoke, her lips scarcely parted. ‘Grandad’s dying,’ the girl said. ‘He’s been dying a few times, like, only I think he’s doing it proper this time.’

Jessica had never seen anyone quite as plain as Irene. Pasty-faced and marble-eyed, the girl bore no resemblance to Ruth, her mother. Ruth’s ugliness was born of bitterness – lines too deep for a woman of her years, a downturned mouth, shifty eyes, one with a slight tendency to squint inward towards an upturned and freckled nose. But Irene had been born unfortunate and, denounced loudly and frequently by her own mother, had resigned herself to being hideous and to acting hideously. ‘Dying,’ she repeated, a strange, damped-down pleasure in the muted tone.

‘Oh,’ squeaked Jessica.

‘Do you want to come and see him? His mouth’s open and he makes right funny noises. He had a fly in his gob this morning. Come on, I’ll show you.’

‘He doesn’t want me there,’ managed Jessica.

‘He won’t bloody know – he’s three parts dead already, me mam said so. I could sneak you in the back road while nobody’s looking.’ The older girl took a threepenny bit from a pocket and pressed it
into Jessica’s trembling hand. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘That’s for you.’

The metal felt hot enough to burn its way right through Jessica’s palm. She didn’t want the money, didn’t want to be bought or to stand here shivering and shaking, but she was almost immobilized by the presence of this strange, unwholesome creature.

‘You can be me friend now,’ Irene was saying. ‘I’ve give you money, so you’ve got fer t’ be me friend.’

Irene’s Bolton accent was the most pronounced that Jessica had ever heard in a person so young. She sounded like a very old woman, one of those black-shawled Victorian remnants who stood on street corners taking snuff and puffing on clay pipes. ‘All right,’ breathed Jessica, who nursed the suspicion that to refuse Irene’s friendship would be to court disaster.

‘If you don’t be me friend, I’ll hit you,’ added Irene, her voice still monotonous. ‘Right hard and all. I know how to hit. I learned it off me mam.’

For the first time in her short life, Jessica experienced real dislike. She also caught an uncomfortable echo of the terror she had felt that night in the coal hole. Cousin Irene was horrible, even bad. There were some people whom Jessica thought were not particularly lovable, but actual antipathy was a new emotion for her.

‘Did you hear me?’

Jessica nodded.

‘Is your mam going fer t’ die?’

‘No. But she has to stay at the sanatorium.’

Irene nodded jerkily, as if the movement caused a degree of discomfort. ‘Do they all spit blood? Me mam says they choke to death on it, blue and purple in t’ face, blood shooting out all over the floor and that.’

It occurred to Jessica that Irene took pleasure from the concept of others’ sufferings. She was creepy, far more dangerous than any of the coal hole’s imagined inhabitants. Yet there remained something pathetic in Irene’s demeanour, as if the girl’s shoulders bore an invisible burden of immense proportions. ‘I’ve got to go home now,’ said Jessica.

‘Home?’

‘Well, Mrs Harris’s house. I’m stopping there until my mam gets well enough to come out of hospital.’

Irene bit a thumbnail, chewing absently. ‘See, I’ve got a dad,’ she pronounced. ‘He’s no good, like, ’cos he ran off and left us. And he were always beating folk up for their money and their watches. He did a bunk years ago, ’cos police was after him. So we’re a bit the same, you and me, just a mam.’

Jessica gulped quietly. She didn’t want to be like Irene, didn’t even want to talk to her. For a split second, a picture of Katherine flashed across her inner mind. Being like Katherine would have been all right: chasing about with a dog, racing through trees and meadows, those activities would have suited Jessica. But this older girl with her terrible stillness, her fixations with illness and death – she was absolutely terrifying.

‘Are you coming to see Grandad, then?’

‘No, thank you.’

Irene understood the concept of rejection. ‘I don’t blame you, ’cos he never wanted you while he were alive, so why should you visit him when he’s nearly dead? Mam reckons he’ll be well gone by tomorrow, then there’ll be a funeral. Have you ever been to a funeral?’

‘No.’

‘They go in a coffin, then they get buried in a big, wet hole full of beetles and stuff. Coffins fall to bits, so worms get in and eat dead bodies.’

Jessica noticed that Irene’s eyes were completely closed, as if the girl had immersed herself in a dream that would have fallen far short of palatable for a normal person, but which absorbed the dreamer totally.

The eyes opened slowly. ‘I can show him to you once he’s dead. He’ll be in the front room in his best suit, me mam says.’

Death in the sanatorium had been a quiet, respectful affair, a few closed curtains, men in black suits, the wheels of a trolley caressing a tiled floor with their soft, rubber surfaces. ‘I don’t want to see anybody dead, Irene.’

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t know.’

Irene pondered for a second. ‘You don’t know owt, you. Never mind, I’ll look after you.’

The prospect of being looked after by Irene was disconcerting. The unprepossessing girl was grim, almost macabre, knowledgeable in a nasty and unnatural way. Katherine Walsh was clever, but Katherine Walsh was just another bright, ordinary child, a girl who appreciated the pleasanter sides of life. ‘You’re a lot older than me,’ offered Jessica after a pause. ‘I don’t need looking after. I’ve got Mrs Harris and loads of friends the same age as me.’