The Corner House (7 page)

‘Hello, Maurice.’

Maurice smiled. After Alan Betteridge’s hunched shoulders and not-quite-correct clothing, George
Hardman was a sight for sore eyes. One of the richest men around, George was slender, elegant, yet undoubtedly masculine. Grey from the age of twenty-five, the man had always looked clever and eminent. ‘Betteridge has gone. I got you a whisky, but he drank it,’ explained Maurice.

‘Of course.’ George repaired to the bar to buy drinks.

Fascinated, the jeweller watched as a group of newcomers stepped aside in the tanner’s favour. George Hardman had everything. He had a fine house, servants, a healthy bank account. And he had a wife who behaved like a trollop. In spite of Lily Hardman’s meanderings, Hardman continued to be admired, courted, listened to. No-one ever questioned George; if anyone considered him a cuckold, the opinion was not voiced, or not in public company, at least.

George planted a Scotch in front of his companion, then sat in the chair recently vacated by Betteridge. ‘Is the child born?’ he asked.

Maurice Chorlton nodded.

‘I thought that might be the case.’ The newcomer sniffed at the contents of his glass. ‘Not a bad Scotch,’ he announced. ‘Did she have a boy or a girl?’

‘A girl. And the blackmail continues.’ Maurice stared into the tanner’s pale green eyes. ‘The fishmonger and the midwife, of course, demanding money with menaces. An extra pound a week.’

George twisted the glass in his hands. ‘Mother and child must be cared for.’ The voice was low and steady. ‘Our sons were lucky to avoid imprisonment. They were also fortunate not to have received a dozen lashes from me. We do manufacture the
odd horsewhip, Maurice.’ He paused for a second. ‘Betteridge? Will he pay?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then we continue as before, but with another pound.’ With the air of a man competing with time and against a multiplicity of pressures, George Hardman left the Hen and Chickens.

Maurice Chorlton remained in his seat. Life was a mess. Ellen was long dead. She hadn’t been much to look at, but Ellen Bradbury had known how to run a house, how to keep a gardener and a daily in order, how to present a meal, how to deal with company.

The jeweller glanced at a clock on the wall, then drained his glass. Roy, Teddy Betteridge and Ged Hardman were training to be soldiers. They would go to war, they would live or die, they would be heroes whatever happened to them. But Roy had let his father down. By becoming a rapist, Roy Chorlton had besmirched the family name.

As he made his way home to compose a lecture on the subject of pride, Maurice Chorlton gave no thought to Theresa Nolan and her bastard. Rape was ghastly, of course, but the woman had come out of it very well. With a quieter conscience and hooded headlights, the master jeweller began to recite his sermon. ‘Pride cometh before a fall,’ he said aloud. Yes, that was a good beginning.

Jessica Nolan was three days old before her mother managed to feed and dress her properly. Under the watchful eye of Eva Harris, Theresa Nolan struggled with nappy and pins, with hooks, eyes and the many loose ends that seemed to accompany the garb of a newborn human.

‘That’s better,’ said Eva, lifting the baby from her exhausted mother’s arms. ‘It’ll get easier.’ The result of rape was a contented little soul, a quiet child who fed readily, brought up wind obediently and cried only when hungry.

Theresa sank back into a mound of pillows. Eva had enlisted the services of several miners who had been passing on the morning following the birth. At the risk of reporting late for their shift, these gentlemen had brought Theresa’s bed into the kitchen. ‘Will it really get easier?’ she asked the midwife. ‘I feel as if I’ve spent half my life in bed.’

Eva nodded, but made no reply. Theresa, a victim of infantile rheumatic fever, was not the healthiest of Eva’s clients. The disease had left its fingerprints on Theresa’s heart, had weakened her body and her soul. It was as if the girl had lost the will to live long before coming of age, Eva mused inwardly. That
father of Theresa’s hadn’t been much use either, cursing mankind for the premature death of his wife, trying not to curse God for the same reason. And yet … and yet there was something different about Theresa today, a glimmer of hope, a tiny spark of not-quite-ripe energy.

‘I mean, will I still have to work?’ asked Theresa. People had to work during a war. Even the women – especially the women – were forced into factories to spin, to weave, to make bullets and bombs.

‘You’ll not be expected to do anything while this one’s so young,’ replied Eva. When the child became old enough for school, Theresa would probably be excused on medical grounds. ‘You’ve done your bit.’ Surviving the birth had been more than a bit. It had been closely related to the miraculous.

Theresa sighed. She didn’t know how to thank Eva Harris. Months earlier, when Theresa had been forced by her father to leave home, Eva had come to the rescue, had sheltered Theresa, had eventually found this house for her. The midwife had also intervened on Theresa’s behalf to extract money from those who had created so much pain and sorrow in Theresa’s life. ‘Do they know?’ the mother asked quietly.

‘Your dad and your Ruth?’ The woman in the bed was almost transparent, so worn out was she, yet she seemed angry. Was angry the right word?

Theresa shook her head. ‘No, not him and Ruth.’

Eva sat at the table with Jessica in her arms. Theresa’s mother had been Jessica – it was a lovely name for a perfect child. ‘Aye, I know who you mean, lass. I paid a visit on yon Chorlton feller in his fancy shop, told him to meet his mates and come up with a few bob for this baby.’

‘And?’ Theresa’s heavy eyelids closed themselves.

‘They’ll pay. Oh, they’ll pay all right.’

Theresa sighed. ‘But it was their sons who hurt me, Eva. The fathers did me no harm.’

‘Sons takes after their dads,’ snapped the tiny midwife. ‘That’s a well-known fact. If you find a bad girl, look at her mam. A bad lad nearly always has a rotten father.’

Theresa had no axe to grind with the tanner, the jeweller or the furniture man. They hadn’t raped her, hadn’t left her bruised, pregnant and crying on Bernard Walsh’s broad shoulder. ‘I still think what we’re doing is wrong, Eva.’ Her eyes opened. ‘We shouldn’t be taking money from the parents. Especially Mr Hardman.’ The owner of Hardman’s Hides was a true gent, the sort of exception who proved, perhaps, the rule so loudly uttered by Eva. ‘They don’t always take after their dads,’ she said. ‘And it’s the sons I want.’ The voice remained low and even.

Eva saw the cold lights flashing, almost sparking from Theresa’s eyes. Had the desire to live been born with Jessica? Theresa no longer seemed quite so vulnerable or powerless, was suddenly more alive. ‘Getting yourself worked up won’t do your heart any good.’ The girl wasn’t worked up at all. She was exhausted, but she was on a very even keel; too calm in fact.

‘It’s my own heart and my own temper. You know, I bet I’ll stay alive for as long as necessary.’

‘Eh?’

‘Till I’ve got them. Till they’ve paid back – and I don’t mean money. They owe me more than money. A lot more.’

Something in the new mother’s face sent a shiver down Eva Harris’s short spine. ‘How do you mean?’

Theresa’s mouth shaped a smile, though the expression did not reach those frigid eyes. ‘That’s for me to know and for you to wonder about. I had to take what they did to me lying down, because that was how they held me, pinned out like the skin of a stripped cow at Hardman’s Hides. Anyroad, things have changed and I shall be back on my feet soon.’

Their names were indelibly printed at the forefront of Theresa’s brain. Roy Chorlton, son of Maurice, Ged Hardman, son of George, Teddy Betteridge, son of Alan. These heirs to jewellery, tanning and furniture businesses were Theresa’s molesters, her targets. The victim would soon become the perpetrator. ‘The fox’ll catch the hounds,’ she muttered under her breath. ‘If the fox’s heart will just keep ticking long enough.’

‘Theresa, what …?’

But Theresa had decided to be deaf. ‘One by one, they attacked me. One by one, they’ll suffer.’ The new mother nodded thoughtfully. ‘I’ll have to see to Jessica first, get her started in life, make sure she’s all right. Then I’ll find her a nice family who’ll look after her and give her all she needs—’

‘Theresa! Stop talking like this, stop—’

‘Everything she needs,’ repeated Theresa. ‘Once that’s sorted out, I’ll do what wants doing.’ She blinked rapidly, as if clearing her mind. ‘I’ve no intention of showing them the other cheek,’ she told her companion. ‘As far as I’m concerned, one bad turn deserves another.’

Eva looked down on the child’s downy head. ‘You’ll give her away?’ she managed finally, tears threatening to choke the words.

Theresa inclined her head. ‘Yes.’

‘But … couldn’t I look after her? Just while
you’re …’ Just while Theresa Nolan committed three murders? Was manslaughter on this young woman’s agenda? ‘Just till you’ve done whatever you plan to do? See, if you give her to a family, you might not get her back.’

Theresa lifted a shoulder. ‘I might not want her, Eva. Have you not thought? Has it not come into your mind that this baby’s a constant reminder of what happened to me?’

‘That’s not the child’s fault.’

‘Did I say it was?’

‘No, but—’

‘No, but I could do without looking at her and remembering how she was made. I’ll keep her till she goes to school, then …’ She looked at the midwife’s prematurely old face. ‘Then I’ll leave her with you.’

‘Promise?’

‘I promise.’ Theresa noticed her companion’s unhappy expression. ‘You’ve been so good to me,’ she murmured. ‘I’ll never forget what you’ve done.’

Eva sniffed back a mixture of emotions. ‘She’s a beautiful child. She’s took after you for looks.’

‘Good. I’d hate her to favour one of them three ugly buggers.’

‘She’s just a little scrap of innocence.’

‘I’ll try to remember that.’ There was no sarcastic edge to these words. Theresa would try, because Jessica Nolan had not asked to be dragged into a cruel world.

Eva placed the child in the drawer that filled a new role as temporary cot. ‘I’ll have to be going,’ she said.

‘Up to the fish shop?’

‘That’s right.’

‘And how is Mrs Walsh?’

Eva thought about the dead child, about the child she had ‘found’ to act as replacement. Had she done the right thing? Of course she had. Little Katherine Walsh would be doted on, treasured. ‘Doing all right,’ she replied eventually. ‘Danny came with me to the jeweller’s. Bernard’s all wrapped up with his wife and baby, then there’s the shop to run.’

‘They’ve been kind to me, the Walshes,’ mused Theresa. ‘Good when it happened, cheap fish ever since.’

‘They’re great people. There is some gradely folk in this world, you know.’ Eva gazed down at the contented child in the dresser drawer. ‘Make sure you look after Jessica.’

‘I will.’

‘Because you’ll have me to answer to if owt goes wrong with her.’

Theresa stared at her visitor. ‘I like to think of myself as one of the good people,’ she said softly. ‘I’ll do what’s right by my baby. You don’t need to go worrying over me or mine. And she is mine.’ Sometimes, Eva Harris stepped over the mark by an inch or two – on this occasion, she had taken several paces too many. ‘I’m grateful, Eva. To you and to the Walshes. Without you and them two brothers, I don’t know what might have happened to me. But I’ve a lot of thinking to do, stuff I can’t talk about. That doesn’t mean that my daughter will go without.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Forget it.’

Eva left the kitchen and picked up her coat from the front room. As she layered herself against the weather, she shivered, but not from the cold. She trembled because the woman in the next room had changed. Pregnant, Theresa Nolan had been quiet,
almost biddable. She hadn’t become noisy, hadn’t started shouting the odds, yet here came a different Theresa, still weakened by many wounds, yet beginning to emerge all new after the shedding of her little burden. Life was a mystery, and no mistake.

The midwife opened the front door and looked out into Emblem Street. Steam rose above Kershaw’s mill, a turbaned woman stoned her step, another nipped into the corner shop with an empty basket. A pungent smell emerged from a building just a few strides from Theresa Nolan’s house. God forbid, but if a bomb ever dropped on Emblem Street, the whole community might well be destroyed. Munitions were manufactured round the clock, seven days a week, right in the middle of an area so built up that daylight was almost a luxury. ‘Should be making bombs in the bloody countryside, not here,’ she muttered. ‘Flaming lot of them wants talking about, not a brain cell between them.’

Eva adjusted her scarf, waved at the woman with the scrubbing brush and donkey stone. ‘Stupid sods,’ she continued under her breath. Thus she dismissed the government, the Germans and Bolton Corporation before hastening towards her next patient. Eva was in the business of bringing new life into a world that courted disaster, and she nursed little respect for those stupid men who threatened humanity’s safety. With her head bent against a bitter wind, the midwife walked towards Derby Street and a stolen child in a pretty, lace-trimmed crib.

Theresa squeezed the last drop of tepid tea from the pot. Thoughtfully, she chewed on fishpaste sandwiches prepared by Eva Harris, then poured water from a bottle to slake her thirst. Breast-feeding was a
nuisance, because it required a degree of liquid fuel, but she did not want to lose her milk. The money remained untouched thus far, and mother’s milk came free and involved no expeditions to shops.

Something was happening to Theresa, something she hadn’t bargained for. She had fallen head over heels for the child in the drawer. Jessica. Despite her weariness, the mother’s arms ached to hold her baby. ‘I could do without this, you know,’ she advised the sleeping infant. ‘You weren’t supposed to be a point of interest on the map, Jessica.’ Pregnancy hadn’t been about a particular person. Theresa had never imagined the end product, had not even chosen names. Pregnancy had been tiredness, swollen ankles, a big belly. This situation was one for which Theresa had deliberately neglected to prepare.