The Corner House (57 page)

A porter stopped them at the main door and asked to see their pass. ‘Ward Seven,’ he advised them. ‘Doors will be locked and you’ll have to knock.’

It was grim. The corridor, painted a heavy cream above the dado and a sad green beneath, led Monty and Maggie past several doors, each bearing a number. When they reached 7, they paused, drawing breath in unison before Monty raised a fist. The door opened and a cheerful nurse grinned at them. ‘Going to break my nose, are you?’

For answer, Maggie gave her the pass and a covering letter.

The young, fresh-faced woman sobered. ‘So you’ve come to see our Irene, have you?’

Maggie nodded. ‘How is she?’

The nurse shook her head. ‘Well, she’s eating. She’s eaten everything except her bed so far. And she’s so … so calm.’

‘Especially for someone who killed her mother,’ concluded Monty softly.

Maggie staggered against the door-jamb. ‘I should have stayed. But I thought if I faced her out with Jessica there, it might have got unpleasant.’

‘You did what was right at the time,’ said the staff nurse. ‘This was an incident just waiting to happen. But the doctors can’t work out whether she’s fit to stand trial. On the one hand, she was treating her mother like another corpse, but on the other, she fed her and finally killed her. Yet she’s so rational. Ask her anything about anything and she’ll give you a perfectly acceptable answer. Ask her about her mother and her childhood, and she glazes over.’

Maggie nodded. ‘There’s a woman called Eva Coates – she’s staying with us at the moment. Eva has lived almost next door to Ruth and Irene since Irene was born. She knows more than I do, so ask her. But I suppose only the doctors can decide whether or not Irene can be prosecuted as a sane person. Myself, I have doubts.’

The nurse drew Maggie and Monty into the ward. It was not an open ward. It was another corridor, narrower than the outer one, with doors along each side. ‘The cells are padded,’ said the nurse. ‘And I must warn you that everything you say will be overheard by a doctor. Are you willing to visit in view of that?’

‘Yes,’ replied Maggie immediately. ‘Whatever it takes, she must be treated fairly.’

Irene’s room was empty except for a bed on the edge of which she was perched, a magazine in her hand. Monty stood with his back to the handleless door, an item that was upholstered as thickly as the walls. Although he knew that the nurse was right outside, he felt claustrophobic and found himself pulling at his collar.

Irene looked up. ‘You get used to it,’ she advised him.

Maggie sat next to the patient. ‘Are they treating you well?’

The younger woman lifted a shoulder. ‘Food’s all right, I suppose, but there’s never enough. They let me read books.’ She paused, chewing thoughtfully on her lower lip. ‘I never had books. Nowt to read, no toys, no food.’ She was silent again for a second or two. ‘How’s my mam?’

Maggie sighed heavily. ‘Dead, love. She died three nights ago. You were with her.’

Irene nodded. ‘I laid her out. I washed her. I paid for her funeral, saved up for years.’

The Irishwoman closed her eyes, caught the scent of death in her nostrils, remembered the dirt, the panic in Ruth McManus’s eyes. ‘Irene, you killed her,’ she said clearly for the benefit of whoever was listening. ‘When Jessica and I left, you put a pillow over Ruth’s face until she stopped breathing. You had been feeding her, but she was not clean.’

Irene turned her head slowly and stared dispassionately at Maggie Courtney. ‘Oh no,’ she stated. ‘I’m the murdered one. My mother killed me years ago. I still walk about, but I’m dead.’

‘Dead?’ Maggie’s voice, squashed by a drying throat, had raised itself in pitch.

Irene nodded. ‘That was why I worked with them. I understood them and they understood me.’

Maggie allowed a few beats of time to pass. ‘You killed Ruth, Irene. You took a pillow and pressed it on her face until she stopped breathing. She had been neglected so badly that her bedsores had gone gangrenous.’

‘I washed her.’ The tone was not defensive. ‘Like I washed all the others.’

Maggie took hold of Irene’s plump, flaccid hand, felt no response, no resistance. ‘She wasn’t like the others. Ruth was alive. You made her dinners, you fed her.’

‘Yes. I was good to her.’ She pulled her hand away and turned a page of her
Woman’s Weekly
. ‘You can go now,’ she said. ‘I want to finish reading this.’

Back in the company of the plump young nurse, Maggie wept quietly for a few minutes. ‘She’s as cracked as an old cup,’ she managed finally.

‘Yes,’ answered the nurse. ‘That’s what we all thought.’

In a bed in Crosby, Liverpool, a young girl twisted about until the covers were in knots. The dream was weird, all shapes and swirls, a mountain, birdsong and a woman in white. The lady had shoulder-length hair in a pale blond colour with a tiny hint of red. She stood on a balcony and laughed as if watching a comedy act in an outdoor theatre.

The man with her was a blur, darkish hair, darkish clothes and a booming laugh. ‘Jessica,’ the lady said, a hand outstretched in Katherine’s direction.

‘I’m not Jessica,’ replied a very young child. The
teacher came and dragged Katherine away. ‘You should stay in your chair,’ said Miss Brown, an expert in being cross.

Katherine, who was six again, kicked the angry teacher.

‘I’m going home,’ called the lady on the balcony. She floated heavenward, arms outstretched like the steady wings of a great wandering albatross. The man followed her, a giant bat outlined against an ice-blue sky.

Katherine sat up in bed, her mind clinging to the frayed edge of a dream that refused to knit together again. At least she was almost thirteen once more, not a victim of one of Miss Brown’s tantrums. The other woman’s hair – she had seen it before, but she could not remember where or when. The lady on the balcony had shouted a name, the name of a girl who lived on a farm. It didn’t matter. Dreams came, dreams went, but today was Christmas. And anyway, men and women could not fly.

Katherine Walsh straightened her bed and lay down again. As sleep reclaimed her, a very silly thought skittered across her mind. Was it possible, she wondered, to have someone else’s dream by mistake?

Jessica woke with a start. There was something different about today, something special. She was downstairs, but she had been sleeping on the ground floor ever since the arrival of Jimmy and Eva, so there was nothing new in that. She yawned, and remembered. It was Christmas Day. No. Well, yes, it was Christmas, but that wasn’t the really special bit. What else was special about today? she wondered idly.

She turned over and faced the back of the chaise. There had been a dream, only she could not recall any of it. Closing her eyes, she courted sleep, but it drifted away from her on a draught of sage and onion accompanied by the clatter of utensils.

‘Sorry,’ said Maggie, emerging from the kitchen. ‘Still, it’s just as well that you’re awake, because I want to use the range as well. Electric is all right, but I’d sooner have my coal oven any day of the week. Anyway, happy Christmas and would you like a cup of tea?’

Jessica nodded, sat up and rubbed the remnants of night from her eyes. Sheba barked, licked her mistress’s face, then lay down again on the rug. ‘Happy Christmas, but it doesn’t seem right,’ Jessica told Maggie. ‘Having Christmas while Irene’s in hospital and Auntie Ruth’s dead.’

‘Life goes on.’ Maggie grappled with a string of sausages that seemed to have a will of its own. ‘These English sausages aren’t up to much,’ she grumbled.

‘It’s in the sideboard,’ said Jessica.

‘What?’

‘Your present.’

Maggie sniffed, picked up a sausage that had fallen by the wayside, rubbed it on her apron. ‘No presents until after lunch,’ she reminded Jessica. The defluffed sausage was placed in a pan with its brothers. ‘That’ll teach you to try and make a break for it, English pig,’ chided Maggie.

Jessica sat up in her makeshift bed, sipped her tea and thanked her lucky stars. She had Maggie, that lovely, humorous lady who would give her a big hug once the sausages were sizzling. She had Monty, the wonderful old sailor who had managed to make
geography interesting, who had painted word pictures of far-away places with magical names.

‘Your present’s too big to wrap,’ said Maggie with her head in the oven.

‘A bike?’

‘Wait and see,’ advised the Irishwoman. She stood up, pushed the dyed hair away from her eyes, opened her arms wide and demanded Christmas kisses.

Physical contact often brought tears to Jessica’s eyes. She missed her mother every minute of every day, even while thinking of other things, even when playing with her dog, listening to the wireless, or doing her homework. Maggie’s touch, though gentle and full of love, served only to remind Jessica that Mam was away, that she might die.

Monty came in, newly shaven and wearing a white shirt with a dark tie and navy trousers. ‘They’re on their way,’ he announced, a thumb jerking towards the ceiling. ‘She’s been yelling at him for half an hour – he’s lost his tie-pin, cufflinks and God knows what else. Happy Christmas.’ He kissed Jessica first, then Maggie.

‘No presents till after lunch,’ grumbled Jessica.

Offstage, Eva’s voice floated none too gently down the stairwell. ‘A shave? Call that a close cut? What did you use – a butter knife? I’ve seen shorter bristles on a bloody hedgehog.’

Jessica laughed. She was safe. There was Eva, there was Jimmy. She had Monty and Maggie, she had friends at school, her beautiful, devoted Sheba. Yes, she had many blessings to count.

Katherine Walsh rode her brand-new bicycle up and down the Northern Road. Wrapped tightly in a new scarf and an old coat several sizes too small, she tried
to come to terms with gears, bigger wheels, a taller saddle. She reached Moorside Park, turned, and set off homeward again. Mam was up to her eyes in stuffing and gravy, while Dad, newly immersed in carpentry, was testing his Christmas tool set and making a great deal of noise in the garage. With one thumb already bandaged, Bernard was also trying out some interesting language.

When the bicycle skidded, Katherine steered into the swerve, her reaction instinctive and completely correct. But the bike hit a small stone and sent Katherine hurtling against a garden wall. She had read about people seeing stars, but had never taken the meaning literally. She blinked, sat up, found herself worrying about the new bicycle, which must have cost a good fifteen pounds. Houses across the way wobbled, steadied themselves, then shook like inanimate victims of a huge earthquake.

People walking home from church hove into view. They clustered round the fallen girl, identified her, sent one of their number to fetch the Walshes. Then a path opened and John Povey bent over her. Katherine remembered that he had been invited for Christmas dinner. ‘Katherine?’ He placed a hand on her forehead. The girl moved her lips to speak, but her tongue felt thick and stupid. Colours merged, voices echoed, sleep beckoned.

‘Katherine?’

She opened her eyes and smiled up into a beautiful face. The angel in white spread her wings and folded them over Katherine’s prostrate form. There was birdsong, there were mountains poking snow-tipped crests into a sky of palest blue. ‘Come home,’ whispered the angel. ‘Come home to me.’

Jessica seldom had headaches, but she took an aspirin and went to lie on Maggie’s bed, well away from the hustle and bustle of giblet gravy and mince tarts. Eva and Maggie were arguing the merits of brandy butter set against the more traditional appeal of white sauce. Jimmy, after failing to find his tie-pin, cufflinks and new handkerchief, had dragged a willing Monty out to the Starkie for a pre-lunch pint. Even here, on the first floor, Jessica caught snatches of a heated discussion about flaky and shortcrust pastries. Too many cooks? One would certainly have sufficed.

She closed her eyes and spread a cold flannel across her forehead. Maggie’s answers to a headache involved a cold compress over head and eyes, a hot water bottle on the stomach. This will send the blood away from your head and stop the pain,’ she was wont to say. ‘Drawing blood to the stomach aids digestion, too.’ If the aforementioned remedies did not work, syrup of figs was the next port of call. Headaches, in Maggie’s ever-changing book, had two sources of origin: the eyes, or the bowels. Jessica was quite lucky, as her occasional headaches were blamed on studying. Which was just as well, because syrup of figs had been known to make way for the dreaded castor oil, a curse which should never be visited upon any God-fearing child. Iron jelloids and spoonfuls of malt were bad enough …

‘My head,’ said a voice like Jessica’s own, though the vowels came out a little bit squashed. Jessica walked down a street she had never seen, one of those posh places with grass verges and trees. There were telegraph poles, too, and a red phone box outside one of the houses. Jessica looked inside her little handbag and searched for a tape of Aspros.
Someone else needed the aspirin, cold head and warm tummy treatment, it seemed.

This was a special place. This was a special day. A giant seagull bounced along on air currents; it came closer. ‘Hello, Jessica,’ it said before flying off down the road. Even while asleep, Jessica knew that she was dreaming. Seagulls did not speak; they certainly sounded nothing like Mam. Seagulls squawked and hovered about looking for fish and scraps.

She woke refreshed, with the headache just an unhappy memory. Eva hovered with a cup of tea. ‘Bossy Boots says if you don’t want your dinner, she’ll plate one up for you and keep it for later.’

Jessica grinned. ‘I don’t know why you two keep arguing,’ she said. ‘Really, you’re the best of friends.’

Eva sniffed. ‘He’s arrived home medicated. Monty’s all right, but my daft bugger’s been at the whisky. Jimmy and whisky are not what you might call compatible.’

The girl in the bed heard Eva’s words, noticed a quiver in the voice. ‘Don’t be upset, Auntie Eva. He’ll get sober when he eats something.’

‘Aye, well, he’d bloody better.’

When Eva had left the room, Jessica tidied the bed, washed her hands and began to walk downstairs. Everyone stopped talking. The cuckoo clock did its job, announced three o’clock before letting the bird re-enter its nest. There had been a bird in the dream, hadn’t there? Why could a person never remember dreams properly? Why had Eva’s voice shaken? Was there bad news? Why was the house so quiet?