The Corner House (49 page)

Stephen Blake understood Theresa’s dilemma only too well. She was ill. She had already made arrangements for Jessica’s future in case … in case. He swallowed. Although Theresa had been back for a very short time, his love for her had grown into a huge, hopeless pain in his chest. He could not bear the idea of life without her; he might well have to cope with life without her.

‘There’s nothing I can do, is there?’ she asked him now.

‘No.’ If Theresa died, one girl would grieve, while
the other could continue without any real disturbance – for a while, at least.

‘Promise me?’ she asked Danny.

‘I promise.’ One day, Liz and Katherine would have to be told.

‘Before they’re twenty-five, before they get too old to care.’

Both men nodded their agreement.

‘It’s important.’

Stephen realized just how important it was. Conceived together, born together, they should be together.

A doctor drifted down the corridor. ‘Mrs Nolan?’

‘Yes?’

‘You can take her home tomorrow. She’s a very lucky girl.’

Yes, thought Theresa, Jessica was a lucky girl. From a distance of forty miles, a soulmate had saved her life.

Jessica remembered nothing of her floating dream. She came home to a bed tucked under the stairs, a lot of fuss from Maggie, Mam, the local doctor, and Eva and Jimmy who visited almost every day. It was nice in the living room with its bungalow range, easy chairs, sideboard and table. Everyone was extra-specially kind, particularly Dr Blake from the sanatorium. He knew a man who bred dogs, and a little baby Alsatian was earmarked for Jessica. The puppy was too young to leave her mother, but would be ready when Jessica’s ankle healed.

Theresa hovered, listened, waited for her daughter to say something – anything at all – about Katherine, but Jessica did not mention her twin. Were they telepathic? Was there some kind of
invisible communication system in existence? If so, did it kick in only during times of crisis?

Theresa had visited Danny on the market, had been reassured that Katherine retained no memory of the nightmare which had led to the discovery of Jessica. Whenever she thought of the day on which Jessica had disappeared, Theresa shuddered. She and Maggie had searched for hours, then, after Maggie had gone for the police, Danny Walsh had arrived. The love Theresa felt for her daughter was immense; she had not expected to experience emotion of such intensity. In Crosby, another child lived, went to school, ate and slept, another girl for whom Theresa might have developed similar feelings.

‘Mam?’

‘Yes, love?’

‘Why are you sad?’

‘Because I nearly lost you.’ And because I never even knew your sister, Theresa said inwardly.

‘Will you have to go back into Williamson’s?’

Time was closing in on Theresa. She had prepared as best she could, had invested over three thousand pounds as well as buying the house so that this precious daughter would have a head start. But Theresa wanted to be there, wanted to guide Jessica into adulthood. She was already in love with Stephen, now she was beginning to fall in love with life.

‘I’m going to call her Sheba.’

‘Who?’

‘My dog, of course.’

‘That’s nice,’ replied Theresa vaguely. She went off into the kitchen to wash dishes. As she rinsed cups and plates, she tried to reassure herself. Jessica had Maggie, she had Eva, Jimmy and Stephen, she had the Walsh brothers who would keep a weather
eye on things. There was the house, there was money. Theresa dashed a tear from her cheek. What Jessica needed was a mother. No-one could truly replace a mother.

Roy Chorlton was a meticulous man. He shaved twice a day, had his shirts laundered by professionals, filed his clothes with military precision – black socks divided from grey socks, suits graded according to colour and weight. He sat on the edge of the bed with duster and polish, slightly breathless after a long attack on a dressing table and two wardrobes. The woman who came in twice a week did not do cobwebs or windows, while her streaky applications of beeswax fell far short of perfection.

‘I should sack her,’ he said aloud. But he couldn’t. She had rent to pay, three children to clothe and feed, and a husband who had gone off with a barmaid from the Swan.

After weeks of treatment, the nasty legacy bequeathed by Maria Martin was beginning to clear up. He found himself grinning ruefully. How sweet had been Theresa Nolan’s vengeance. She had driven three men to their doctors, had broken a marriage, had stripped Roy of clothes and dignity. He admired her logic, her ability to plan and follow a stratagem through to the bitter end.

He stretched out on the bed, dropping polish and cloth onto the bedside table. Betteridge and Hardman had not been the best of companions, but life without them was considerably greyer, emptier. Roy had been interviewed by police, had refused to be interviewed by press. Sooner or later, he would be a witness at a trial that might send Teddy Betteridge to the gallows.

Life was a grind. He worked five and a half days a week, went to the cinema alone each Saturday night, cleaned his house on Sundays. Church bells failed to summon him, as he associated religion with his father, a Sabbath-only Christian without an ounce of charity in his soul.

Roy had read press reports about Jessica’s accident. They had been contained in a couple of inches of script on two consecutive nights, and they had had a disturbing effect on him. She was probably his daughter, his flesh and blood. His part in her creation did not bear thinking of, yet her safety was suddenly of paramount importance.

‘Oh, God,’ he groaned. ‘Are You really there?’

There was no reason on earth sound enough to keep Roy Chorlton alive. He had no wife, no lover, no child to care for. Brotherless, sisterless, he owned a passing relationship to someone in the south, and another family in Yorkshire who sent a card at Christmas, usually a depressed-looking robin in a snowbound tree. Once, twice, almost totally removed, these relatives played no part in Roy’s life.

He needed somebody, anybody, just a friend with whom he might have the odd meal or have a drink, take a walk. Roy was a good cook, a man who had managed to sub-divide Mrs Beeton’s ‘take twelve eggs’ into manageable, sensible portions. His soufflés floated out of the oven, his omelettes melted on the tongue. But none of that mattered, because there was no-one with whom Roy could share the fruits of his labour.

Suicide beckoned; it grew more attractive each day. He had considered various exits, but had decided against anything involving the letting of blood. Hanging would be nasty, would leave him
looking even uglier, all blackened face and protruding tongue. Gas was probably the best answer, though an explosion could occur, and he had no desire to alarm his neighbours unduly.

Tablets, then. A few pills, a bottle of whisky, a couple of towels under the garage door, car engine running, a gradual descent into the final sleep. Father had choked to death with all his ill-gotten gains spread around him, so perhaps Roy’s end was destined to be similar.

He was jolted back into the present by a loud hammering on his front door. This noise was followed by a continuous ringing of the bell, a jangling that echoed the state of his nerves. He jumped up, straightened his clothes and went downstairs.

It was Lillian Hardman. She shot into the hall like a bullet from a gun, eyes wild, hair dishevelled, face devoid of its usual paint job. Frantically, she grabbed Roy’s arm.

‘You shouldn’t be here,’ he said.

Lily pushed Roy against the hall stand, an object whose carved surfaces were uncomfortable, to say the least.

‘Mrs Hardman—’

‘Call me Lillian. Or Lily, if you wish.’

He didn’t wish. ‘Mrs Hardman, I was a witness to—’

‘Exactly.’ She leaned forward until their faces almost met, causing Roy to lose the ability to focus. The white, blurred face spoke again. ‘It was murder. He killed my son. You have to say that in court.’

‘Interfering with a witness is an offence—’

‘So is Ged’s killing. You were there.’

‘As were forty-odd other people.’ Gently, he eased the woman backwards.

‘You were the nearest.’

Roy closed his eyes, saw the blood, the shattered glass, felt Ged dying in his arms. ‘You must go,’ he told her.

‘Not until you promise me.’

No such promise lay within Roy’s reach. Teddy Betteridge, a buffoon of a man, a drunken wastrel whose intellect was limited, was still a human being. Yes, he had killed Ged Hardman, but had that attack been planned? No.

Lily sank onto a monk’s bench. A clock above her head sang the quarter. ‘I got a letter saying that Ged had a dirty disease.’

Silently, Roy praised Theresa Nolan for her inventiveness, her staying power.

‘Did he have that filth in him?’

Roy nodded.

‘So he’d been with a … with a whore?’

He nodded again.

‘My son would never do that. He was a good, clean-living boy.’

‘And you, Mrs Hardman, were a good, clean-living mother to him. Especially when he was young.’

Lillian’s face blanched. She slumped, elbows on knees, head in her hands. ‘I blame George,’ she said, her tone quieter. ‘Running off like that with a girl young enough to be his daughter. Yes, this is all his father’s fault.’

‘We are each our parents’ fault,’ Roy replied.

She raised her face. ‘Are you blaming me? George was useless. I was young and I wanted affection—’

‘Just as we all do. But some of us are totally inept, Mrs Hardman. Your son and I would have given our right arms to be loved, to have a companion at home. Even a difficult marriage would have been better than nothingness.’

She stood up. ‘I’m going back to work tomorrow,’ she said, a defiant edge to her words.

‘That’s a good idea,’ replied Roy.

She turned on him. ‘Who do I leave it to? Can you answer me that one, Roy Chorlton? Why am I trying so hard in that stinking hole now that Ged’s been murdered?’

Roy pondered. ‘Sell it.’

Lily stood stock still, her mouth slightly open.

‘Get your money back and travel the world. If you don’t need the factory, rid yourself of it, have a good time, because life is very short.’

She nodded slowly. ‘You’re not as daft as you look.’

‘No-one could be as daft as I look, Mrs Hardman.’

‘I’m … sorry,’ she said. ‘For barging in and screaming like that. I can’t come to grips with Ged’s death, you see. I want somebody punished.’ She remained where she was, thoughts rushing through her mind and showing on her face. ‘You’ve got me thinking. Thank you, Roy. Why should I stay here for the rest of my life? Yes, you’ve certainly given me food for thought.’

After Lillian had left, Roy sat in his elegant living room with its panelled walls, leather suite, inlaid desk, oak bookcases. Like Lily, he had no reason to continue here. Perhaps, once the trial was over, he would follow the advice he had so recently given away.

Theresa would be staying in Bolton, he supposed. In the newspaper, she had been photographed with Jessica and some doctor from Williamson’s. They had posed like a family, and that had cut Roy to the quick. What vague expectations had been lurking at the base of Roy’s brain? Had he wanted more than
forgiveness, more than a truce? Perhaps he had imagined himself in that picture, one arm around the child’s shoulder, the other drawing close a woman of extraordinary loveliness.

‘You’re pathetic,’ he told himself aloud. There were some minted cutlets in the fridge, but he could summon up no appetite. ‘She’d never look at you if you were the last man on earth.’ Even without the rape, Theresa Nolan would not have glanced on Roy Chorlton’s side of the street.

He thought back to the time when a Theresa Nolan would not have been good enough, when he had expected to marry a woman of decent trade stock, somebody with a business to inherit, with a father who knew what was what. And here he sat, into his thirties, with a small television set, a radio and two tiny, unwanted lamb cutlets for company.

The car was in the garage. He had plenty of towels to pack the cracks, enough petrol, whisky and aspirin to make a good job of it. But something held him back. What was that something? Was it hope, stupidity, instinct? He drew a hand through his hair, felt the ever-widening track running along the centre of his skull. Ordinary would have sufficed. He’d never hankered to look like Gregory Peck or Rock Hudson, hadn’t wanted to be a spectacular specimen of masculinity. Something along the lines of Fred Astaire without the fancy footwork would have sufficed, an acceptable face and body, nothing remarkable. Oh, but feeling sorry for himself was becoming a hobby rather than a habit.

When she had rubbed the life back into his hands, he had felt so much joy, a glimmer of hope. She could have shot him then, after touching him. ‘I can’t carry on here,’ he told the wall. Pictures of
himself, Theresa and Jessica plagued his dreams while he slept and when he was awake. There was no future for him here, in Bolton. A fresh start was required, somewhere too far away to pop back for a day trip. America or Canada, perhaps. He had the money to begin a new life, must summon up the energy to match.

His stomach rumbled, reminding him that matters mundane must be attended to. Appetite or no, a man needed his fuel. He rose, walked to the window, looked out on a grey, wintry garden. Across the road, lights blazed in a house where a family talked, played, listened to gramophone music. Everything outside underlined the deathly silence in his own house, the home in which he had been born, where his mother had died, where his father’s body had rested before burial. Yes, this was a moribund place. It was time to investigate pastures new.

Theresa Nolan’s front window overlooked a fairly busy main road with some council houses on the opposite side. She liked Tonge Moor Road. It was decent without being posh, lively without being overly busy. There was a little garden under the window, a few flower-beds bordering a minute square of grass. In the summer, there could be marigolds and busy lizzies, perhaps a few geraniums if the weather held up. In the summer, Theresa would not be here …

He put a hand on her shoulder. ‘It’s our only chance,’ he said softly.