The Corner House (35 page)

‘She could have told me afterwards.’

Bernard was gazing up the street, his eyes darting frantically from shop to shop. ‘Could she?’

‘I made it plain that I couldn’t mind Jessica. I had to get away from Bolton.’ She paused for a second. ‘God, she must have nearly had a heart attack when she realized we were all in the same city.’

Bernard could scarcely stand still. He was waiting for Liz on Bold Street in Liverpool, yet he was back in 1939, was standing in an alley watching three drunks as they lurched away from their victim. One of those objects was Katherine’s father. ‘I’ve got to go,’ he muttered. He gripped Theresa’s arm. ‘Don’t be thinking I’ve got no conscience, please. It’s in my will that the two girls have to be brought together. If I live, I’ll introduce them to one another myself. In their early twenties, I thought.’ He paused for a second. ‘Liz will have to be told, too, when the time comes.’

Theresa nodded her agreement. ‘Bring my daughter
to the Mustard Pot in South Road on Saturday. I want to meet her.’

He gulped. ‘But—’

‘It’s all right. You and I know one another from Bolton. We can act surprised, have a cup of tea together.’

‘But what about Liz?’ he asked.

Theresa raised a shoulder. ‘Please yourself. Only I’d leave her at home if I were you.’

He swallowed again. He could pretend to be Christmas shopping. But what if Theresa came over all emotional? He looked at her. She didn’t seem to be experiencing anything. A door had closed over her face, leaving the expression frigid and empty. There was a definite look of Theresa in Katherine. Would the child recognize her own birth mother? There were instincts, finer feelings for which the female of the species was eminently famous. What could he do? ‘I’ll bring her,’ he said. He owed Theresa Nolan that much, he supposed. The rest would have to take care of itself.

Bernard had felt numb for days. His wife’s questions had been answered vaguely – he thought he might have a cold coming on, fish prices were in danger of rising, the shop needed doing up. Now, seated with his borrowed daughter in the window of the Mustard Pot, he simply waited for life to take its course. Liz and Katherine were his life. Deprived of either, he might well cease to exist altogether.

‘Dad?’

‘Yes, love?’ He saw that her eyes were round and sad.

‘Will we find another dog just like Chaplin?’

Bernard bit his lip before answering. The dog had
been a charmer, a clown. ‘Very similar,’ he answered.

Katherine, heartbroken by the premature death of her canine friend, could not imagine an animal as clever as Chaplin. ‘He was special,’ she sighed, a tear threatening to spill from one china-blue eye.

Bernard patted her hand. ‘All dogs are special. They all have their different ways. You just eat your cake,’ he said.

Katherine shook her head. ‘I can’t.’ She knew that Dad had done his best, that Chaplin had been in pain. But she missed him so badly that her insides felt empty. The space within could not be satisfied by food.

‘We’ve told you that there’ll be one ready in a few weeks. Puppies mustn’t leave their mothers too soon.’ Katherine had been taken from her mother within minutes of birth …

‘Will he be ready by Christmas?’

The tired man drew a hand across his eyes. ‘No, but I’ve arranged for you to visit him on Christmas Eve. You’ll be able to see him with his brothers and sisters, then you just have to wait until he’s six or seven weeks old.’

Katherine forced herself to smile. Dad looked exhausted. Poor Dad had taken Chaplin to the vet, had sat with the dog until the injection had done its work. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered.

‘What for?’

‘For Chaplin. For my school. Most of all, for being a good dad.’

Bernard inhaled, felt the breath catching the back of his throat. Katherine deserved the best. She was an unassuming, undemanding child. If she had a fault, it was that she loved too much and too easily.
She raved about her teachers, her schoolfriends, her dog. Katherine’s fault was that she saw no faults in others. What was her sister like? he wondered.

‘Dad?’

‘Yes, love?’

‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes.’ Of course he was all right. His little girl’s real mother was about to walk into the café at any moment. His little girl’s other mother, her actual mother and nurturer, was sorting out Christmas decorations and polishing her brasses. His little girl’s real sister was living in Bolton with Eva Harris, now Coates, who had started all this damned mess in the first place.

‘What shall we get Mam for Christmas?’

He produced a shadowy smile. ‘I thought we’d get her a bit of jewellery.’ Theresa Nolan was standing across the road. ‘Pearls. She’s always liked pearls.’ Theresa was crossing the road. ‘Necklace from you, earrings from me.’ She was almost at the shop door. ‘All wrapped in nice paper and ribbon.’

Katherine clapped her hands. ‘Can I do the wrapping?’

‘Course you can, love. I’m fit to wrap nothing unless it’s come in on a trawler.’

Theresa entered the shop, went to the counter to order a cup of tea. With her fingertips clutching the edge of her handbag, she waited for her order to be filled. Behind her, framed by a slightly steamy window with green check curtains, Katherine Walsh was discussing Christmas with her excellent father.

Bernard stood. ‘Is that Mrs Nolan?’ he asked.

Theresa picked up her tea and the cue. She turned and faced a piece of a past she had never known, stared head on into a limited future over
which, if she chose, she might take full control. Even from this distance, she could see beads of sweat on the worried man’s brow. ‘Mr Walsh?’

‘Come and sit with us,’ he said, his voice rather unsteady.

Theresa looked at the child. Like Jessica, she was beautiful. This one’s clothes were better than Jessica’s, but, apart from this outer layer, there were few differences. The faces were the same, the eyes, the set of the chin. Katherine’s hair was a mere shade away from Jessica’s. Even the hands, long-fingered and with deep, well-shaped nails, were the same, right down to a slight double-jointedness in the thumbs.

Theresa sat, the cup rattling nervously in its saucer until she placed these items down on the table.

‘This is my daughter,’ said Bernard. ‘Katherine, meet Mrs Nolan. She used to live near Uncle Danny’s shop on Derby Street.’

‘Hello, Mrs Nolan,’ said Katherine.

Theresa smiled nervously. The child’s speech was almost perfect, with just a hint of Liverpool trimming its edges. ‘Hello,’ she replied.

‘Are you Christmas shopping?’ Katherine glanced at her father. ‘We are. We’re going to buy pearls for my mam.’

Theresa sipped hot tea, then set the cup down with both hands in an attempt to attain some steadiness. ‘I’ve done my shopping,’ she answered. ‘Just a few bits and pieces to buy.’

Bernard held his breath. This must be so hard for Theresa. She had abandoned the other child, had reputedly run away from a sanatorium, but she still had rights. Over Katherine, Theresa had been permitted to make no choices. Even now, the woman
had every right to scream from the rooftops, to claim her child.

‘You remind me of somebody,’ Katherine was saying now.

Theresa attempted a laugh. ‘You know, people are always saying that to me. I must have one of those faces.’

A hint of relief entered Bernard’s bones. Grasping at hope, he pretended to study Theresa’s face. ‘Well, I know who you are anyway,’ he said. ‘And you don’t look like anybody else except yourself.’

For a split second, Katherine was in a wood with a puppy called Chaplin and a girl called Jessica. But when she thought about her dog, she was back in the here and now. ‘My dog died,’ she told Theresa. ‘He was a golden retriever. We’re going to get another one in January.’

‘Nice dogs, retrievers,’ commented Theresa.

Katherine smiled. ‘He was very funny when he was a pup. Mam says we’ll have all that trouble again.’

Mam. The pain scalded Theresa’s chest, made her reach for another sip of tea. ‘Would you go next door and get me an
Echo
?’ she asked the child. She fought for composure as she reached into her bag to snatch up some money.

Katherine took the proffered coin and left the shop.

Theresa, as if burned by the touch of the girl’s hand, nursed her fingers. ‘She’s lovely,’ she told Bernard when they were alone.

‘They both are,’ he replied. ‘I saw Jessica last week.’ He turned and grasped his companion’s hand. ‘They’ll both be all right, I promise. Even if Liz has to be told, I’ll make sure the twins come to no harm. Arid if I’m not around to tell the tale, John
Povey will do it. He sold us our house, and we’ve been friends ever since.’

Theresa shook her head wearily. ‘I don’t blame you or your wife, not for one minute. There’s no way I could have looked after two. I even left the other one.’ She paused, chewing her lip. ‘I’m no good as a mother,’ she muttered.

‘Rubbish. You were injured, you were hurt and … Don’t carry on like this, love,’ he begged. ‘Look, if it’ll make you feel any better, I’ll think about telling Liz what happened—’

‘No.’ The ferocity of her response amazed both of them. ‘You’ve done a good job. It’s no use telling the truth now, because I’ve not got long. And don’t start trying to talk me out of dying, because that’s something we can’t alter. If you go upsetting Liz and telling Katherine who I am – well, it’ll be for nothing, because I’ll not live to be a mother to anybody.’

‘I’m sorry, lass.’ And he was sorry. Her skin was thin to the point of transparency, pale, unhealthy. ‘She’ll catch no harm with us.’

Katherine dashed in with Theresa’s newspaper, her face aglow from exposure to an icy breeze that skittered from the water and up South Road. ‘Can I go and look at the pearls, Dad?’ she asked.

Bernard gauged Theresa’s mood, decided that Katherine’s presence was upsetting the woman. ‘Say goodbye to Mrs Nolan,’ he instructed.

Katherine looked at the frail lady, then, following an instinct whose origins she did not question, planted a kiss on a pallid cheek. ‘Have a lovely Christmas,’ she said before dashing off to the jeweller’s.

‘Oh, Bernard.’ The use of surnames seemed silly on an occasion such as this. ‘She’s a wonderful girl.’

‘Aye, she is that.’ He tried a change of subject. ‘Are you working?’

She nodded. ‘I’m housekeeper at Jutland House.’

Bernard’s jaw dropped. ‘There’s talk about that place,’ he said, almost without thinking.

She made no reply.

‘It’s a bit more than a seamen’s rest, or so I’m told.’

‘Oh.’

Bernard rearranged salt, pepper and mustard, just to give his hands an occupation while he sought the right words. ‘There’s nowt goes on in Liverpool without John Povey knowing the details. There’s going to be a raid. Soon, too.’

Theresa stiffened. ‘A raid? Half the police force visit the place.’

‘Aye, well, perhaps it’ll be a different force that does the questioning, police from another town.’ He pondered for a while. ‘You’d best get the hell out of there, love. John Povey – the chemist – reckons that the Liverpool police are sick of themselves. It’s been a very corrupt force.’

‘There are others as well as police.’

‘Yes. Only the police are supposed to guard the law, not break it. There’ll be heads rolling any day. What’ll you do?’

She couldn’t manage to care. She was the mother of two beautiful girls whose welfare would be secured by this lovely man. She had scores to settle. Even now, she knew that she would not give up the search for justice. For so long, it had been her sole reason for surviving.

‘What are you going to do?’ repeated Bernard.

She was going to get out right away and she was going to take Maggie with her. ‘Go home to Bolton, I
suppose,’ she replied. ‘I’m going for a visit, anyway, in a day or two. Might as well stay. I’m going to see Jessica, anyway. So I might just buy a house in her name and you can see to the paperwork.’ She paused. ‘Can I do all that through your Danny?’

‘Of course.’

Theresa rose from her seat. ‘In case Katherine comes back – I want to be gone.’ She shook his hand. ‘Thanks for letting me meet her. Give my regards to Liz and tell her I’m going back to Bolton – that should stop her inviting me for tea.’

Bernard understood. ‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered.

‘Don’t be.’ She awarded him the widest smile she could manage. ‘You’ve done nothing but good,’ she advised him. Which was more than could be said for some people – including Eva Harris-as-was.

Theresa, having confided in Maggie, found that she dared not say a word to anyone else about the imminent raid, because such information could result in a mass exodus from the house. Monty Sexton, who had been better than good to Theresa, would have to take his chances with the rest of them. As go-between, Monty could not be relied upon completely, because he sometimes consorted with the enemy. So Theresa and Maggie were the only two who knew that a raid was on the cards.

‘Maggie,’ said Theresa, a layer of patience etched into the name. ‘You can’t take everything. We’re supposed to be getting out without being noticed.’

Maggie grimaced. She had enough bits and pieces to fill a seaman’s trunk, and she was very attached to all her possessions. The bed was covered in a river of purple imitation silks and satins, nightgowns, peignoirs, scarves, blouses. ‘I don’t know what to choose,’ she moaned.

‘Take just enough,’ chided Theresa. ‘Wear as much as you can, then pack one bag.’

Maggie sulked. She sat in a wicker chair and stared gloomily at her friend. ‘I’ve been here a long time,’ she moaned. ‘I’ve never been to Bolton. Who wants
to go to bloody Bolton? It’s all cotton mills, isn’t it? And the people talk funny.’

Theresa laughed. ‘You’ll be the odd one out. You’ll be the one who talks funny.’

Maggie picked up a mauve garter. ‘I’ve had some fun in that. There was a pair, but somebody pinched one in 1944. I can’t remember whether it was an alderman or a detective inspector. We had a load in that night from one of the lodges.’

Theresa shook her head in mock despair. ‘Look, leave the Bolton men alone,’ she said. ‘There’s trouble enough without you starting lessons in obedience.’ She pointed to a leather whip. ‘So you can leave that behind for a start.’