The Girl From Penny Lane (43 page)

‘She’s been good company; but now I’ll have you, as well,’ Lilac said. ‘Isn’t it odd, we exchanged a few remarks in a hat shop goodness knows how many years ago, yet even then I felt that you would be a friend, one day. And here we are, going to share a flat!’

‘Only till I can gerrout and work,’ Kitty said flatly. ‘I’ve gorra get some money so’s I can find Johnny and I can’t let you do any more for me, Miss.’

‘And if you persist in calling me “Miss” when you know very well my name is Lilac, I won’t do anything at all for you,’ Lilac said roundly. ‘What’s the matter, Kit? You called me Lilac in hospital without your tongue falling off!’

‘Oh aye, but in there it were different,’ Kitty said awkwardly. ‘Oh Mi . . . Lilac, I mean, look at me bloody legs!’

With boots on, and a short, full skirt, Kitty’s thin little legs did indeed look pathetic, like a couple of pipe cleaners. Lilac patted her skinny knee consolingly.

‘Yes, legs like a canary but a heart like . . . like a lion,’ she declared. ‘Don’t worry yourself, Kitty, you’ll be strong and stout again in no time. And in a couple of days you can meet my sister Nell, because they’ll be settled in their house by then, and she’ll help me to feed you up and get you fit for this work you talk so much about.’

‘I gorra work, for me own sake,’ Kitty said, looking almost pleadingly up at the fair, smiling face so near her own. ‘If I find Johnny an’ ’e’s awright wi’out me, I’s still goin’ back to the country, see? There’s all sorts I can do there. But I’ll need some cash, an’ me full strength.’

‘Good for you, then,’ Lilac said. ‘Just don’t try to run before you can walk, there’s a good girl. I’m going to enjoy taking care of you. Why, as soon as we get home you’re going to have a proper dinner – roast beef, roast potatoes, cabbage – and then I’ll pop you into bed with a nice cup of hot milk and some arrowroot biscuits and you can sleep off your exertions until morning.’

Kitty smiled, but inside herself she sighed. She did not know how to tell Lilac that she needed, above everything, to have a bit of independence after weeks and weeks of being babied and bullied and bossed by every ward maid and nurse at the hospital. She didn’t want coddling, weak though she might be, she wanted the challenge of peeling her own spuds, boiling her own kettle, even shopping for her own milk and biscuits.

I were always better at lookin’ after folks than bein’ looked after, she thought rebelliously. ‘I’ll have to tell ’er, sooner or later, or I’ll bust.

‘Here we are, my dear,’ Lilac said as the taxi cab pulled up alongside a large block of flats. ‘Let me give you a hand – the driver will bring your bag up.’

Kitty’s bag was full of the stuff which Lilac had brought her; nice things, pretty things, useful things. But not chosen by Kitty, nor paid for by her. I’ll never stand it, Kitty thought desperately as Lilac insisted on helping her up every one of the twenty-four stairs to her flat. I’ll go mad cooped up here, dependent agin, ’stead o’ gerrin’ out there an’ copin’ for meself.

Nevertheless, by the time they reached the flat she was glad to sit down and found herself quite unable to eat the excellent meal Lilac had cooked. But the welcome from Patch made up for her sudden weakness, for Patch was beside herself with joy. She tried to climb onto Kitty’s lap and was gently pushed off, for Kitty was not used to such displays of affection and was very soon weeping, her arms round the dog’s neck, her tears liberally bedewing Patch’s thick neck-ruff. And Patch wriggled and whined and gave little yaps and licked and licked, her golden-brown eyes shining with devotion, her every movement proclaiming her love. Kitty found all her annoyance with Lilac for coddling her, all her guilt over Sary’s and Betty’s death, fading away to more manageable proportions. Patch loved her no matter what – and Patch reminded her more than anything else could have done that there really was another Kitty, another life, waiting out there for when she was well enough to go in search of it. So she would do just as Lilac said, get herself strong and fit once more. And then – ah then, she would find out what had happened about the farm, what had become of Johnny, if it took her the rest of her life!

Kitty had moved into the flat with Lilac at the end of May. It was nearing the end of June before she announced her intention of leaving, and then she did it not to Lilac, but to Nellie.

She had grown fond of Lilac’s beloved sister and made a great fuss of little Elizabeth, but in fact she told Nellie her plans because it had struck her that Lilac’s loving care was as much for Lilac’s sake as it was for Kitty’s own, and Nellie confirmed this.

‘She lost her fiancé in a tragic accident at sea; they were to be married in a matter of weeks,’ Nellie had explained. ‘Stuart got the job in Liverpool soon afterwards, but Elizabeth and I couldn’t leave the house in Balham until it was sold and then we had to find ourselves another house, organise the move and so on. Oddly enough, I thought I was coming home to take care of her, but Lilac’s grown competent and self-reliant and doesn’t need me the way she once did. In fact, my dear, it was you she needed – someone to take care of, to cherish. You’ve done her a great deal of good and if you feel that the time has come to act a little selfishly and move out, perhaps you’ll be doing her even more good. There’s a young man who seems fond of her . . .’

‘Joey Prescott,’ Kitty nodded. ‘He’s ever so kind but I don’t know whether he’s sweet on Lilac. She gets letters most weeks, he rings the hotel, but ’e ’asn’t come up again yet. Joey said somethin’ about a trip to New Brighton, but she said it were too soon.’

‘New Brighton! That’s where . . . she was right, it is too soon,’ Nellie said decidedly. ‘But Kitty, my dear, where will you go? You are very much stronger, you’ve got a good colour, you’ve fleshed up nicely, but jobs are hard to come by and both Lilac and I would hate to see you grow thin and pale again.’

‘I said I’d git work first, but I won’t, I’ll go to the country,’ Kitty said at once. ‘Johnny an’ me, we lost each other in Liverpool, but I know where he’ll be, if he’s able. It’s a long story, but after I ran away from ’ome after I lost them trimmin’s . . .’

She told Nellie the story and Nellie, making pastry on Lilac’s kitchen table, looked doubtful.

‘And you’re hopeful that he found the witness to the will and got the farm? My dear, of course it’s possible, but if he had wouldn’t he have tried to find you?’

‘He would, of course,’ Kitty agreed. ‘But how? First I were in me mam’s house in Paradise Court, the one place I swore I’d never go near no more, then I were in the Isolation ’Ospickle. I reckon he’s give me up, but I ain’t done for yet. Me and Patch ’ere, we know our way ’ome.’

‘Tell Lilac, then,’ Nellie advised. ‘She’ll help you, I know she will.’

Kitty could not explain, not even to Nellie, that she neither needed nor wanted help. In some part of her mind she believed that she would only find what she wanted alone, by her own efforts. So one overcast morning, when Lilac had gone happily off to the hotel, leaving Kitty to do the housework and cook a meal, she packed her bag, wrote her friend a note, and left. She and Patch trotted down the stairs, out of the front door and along the pavement without a single backward glance; their attention was fixed on what lay ahead – the grey ribbon of road which would wind slowly onwards until it reached the place they longed to be.

Footing it wasn’t the fun it should have been with just the two of them and no Johnny, but even so, they enjoyed themselves. Once they were clear of the city Patch really perked up. She ran ahead, she loitered, she rushed into meadows and snuffled along river banks. But she kept an eye on Kitty and was at her side in an instant when someone approached.

The first night was spent in a garden shed, the pair of them curled up on a pile of old sacks. Kitty, who had spent the past months under a roof and sleeping between sheets in a proper bed, was surprised at how good it was to find herself a makeshift meal and sleep on sacking. No doubt it would pall after a night or two, but right now, it felt good. On the second day she got a job, of sorts. She passed a farm where they were haymaking and went into the field. Without a word she picked up a pitchfork and joined the line, turning the hay, whilst Patch disappeared and came back after an hour or so with a rabbit hanging limply from her mouth.

The farmer’s wife let them share her midday meal and took the rabbit in exchange, she said, for allowing Kitty to sleep in the hayloft. And next morning, early, she invited Kitty in for a bite and asked if she would give a hand with the poultry before going on her way. She had a lot of poultry and wanted the sheds where they roosted cleared through so Kitty cleaned, disinfected, brushed, barrowed . . . and was fed again, and thanked, and sent on her way.

On the seventh day they had barely set out from their latest barn when they heard thunder grumbling and growling in the distance. The Welsh hills, for they were nearing their destination, were lit from time to time by flashes of lightning. But Kitty and Patch plodded on through the downpour, with their hearts set on reaching the farm. They got there just as the storm grumbled off into the distance and a pale and watery sun lit up the scene. Patch and Kitty, by common consent, reached the gate and just stood, staring. There was the house, its tiled roof steaming gently as the sun gilded it with long, golden rays. There was the barn, there were the haystacks, the sheep in the fields, their fleeces steaming too as the sunshine touched them with warmth. And behind, there were the humped shoulders of the Berwyn range, green with new bracken and gold with gorse, and the rowans and birches overhanging the pond, every leaf sparkling with raindrops.

‘Ain’t it just beautiful, Patch?’ Kitty murmured, her hand on the dog’s ruff. ‘Oh, how’ll I dust go up to the door? If that man answers the door . . . oh, Patchie, I dussen’t!’

But it was as though her body took over, since her hand reached out and swung the gate open, then latched it behind her. The two of them walked up the drive, Patch staying close, seeming to know by instinct that even on this familiar ground, Kitty needed her constant loving presence.

The front door was shut, of course. Country folk didn’t use the front door. Kitty and Patch went round the back, seeing the familiar yard, the shippon, the byre.

A man was working in the byre, cleaning out after the day’s milking. He was tall and strong, but he wasn’t Elwyn Ap Thomas nor the poor half-wit who had worked for him. Kitty couldn’t remember seeing him before and once more she hesitated. Johnny had been stringy and gangly, but very strong; was it likely that he would employ another young man to work for him? But it was possible – she had worked hard, perhaps Johnny could not manage alone? If he had the farm, that was, and she would never find out if she didn’t move from this spot!

Resolutely, with a hand trembling on Patch’s collar, she walked forward. The man came out of the byre, saw them and stopped short. Kitty stopped too, just for a minute. And then she was running, her arms held out, running and running, with her mouth stretching into a huge smile and words babbling from her lips, as wildly and foolishly as the words were babbling from his.

‘Johnny! Oh Johnny, Johnny, Johnny! Oh, how I’ve missed you!’

And Johnny lifted her up and hugged her so hard that her babbling ended in a breathless squeak and then he put her down and hugged Patch and rocked the dog from side to side and called her his old love and his favourite dog. And then he put Patch down and grabbed Kitty again and held her tight, and the raindrops in her hair ran down and wet his checked shirt and she felt safe and comfortable in his arms.

‘Oh Kit, I searched and searched, why didn’t you come to the lodgings? I were late at the Shamrock but I went back two or three times over the next day or so around six . . . oh Kit, I’ve been desperate!’

‘I left a message with the landlord,’ Kitty said against his chest. ‘I went back to the café, too. I were wi’ me Mam and me sister, they was starvin’, Johnny, and . . . oh, so ill and ’elpless. And then I got scarlet fever and they put me in the Isolation ’Ospickle, but I come as soon as I could.’

‘Course you did, chuck . . . that bloody landlord though – I arst an’ arst if ’e’d seen you . . . I lit out o’ here at Christmas an’ spent three days searchin’. Never thought to go up to the Court, though, seein’ as you was so scared of meetin’ your folk.’

‘Oh Johnny, if only I’d ha’ known! But I couldn’t ha’ left ’em, they wasn’t fit to be left. In fact, I never did leave ’em. They died, Johnny.’

‘Through no fault o’ yourn, Kitty love,’ Johnny said at once. ‘That I do know. And ain’t Patch fit an’ ’ealthy? Oh, it’s grand to see the pair of you, grand! Come in the ’ouse, I’ll cook you a bite; I’m ’ungry an’ all.’

They went into the kitchen. It looked neglected, dust lay thick, but the fire burned up bright and the pantry-cupboard was well stocked. Kitty’s fingers itched to get going with a scrubbing brush, a duster, lots of hot soapy water, but it would have looked rude so she sat down and watched as Johnny joyfully fried bacon and eggs and made a pot of tea.

‘Now . . . tell me about this place,’ Kitty said when they were settled at the table with the food in front of them. ‘What ’appened, exactly?’

‘Well, I found John James O’Hare, but ’e was ’eadin’ for the ferry, to go over to Birken’ead, so I ’ad to follow, acourse. That’s why I weren’t at the Shamrock by six. In fact, I lorst ’im, ’ad to spend the night prowlin’ the area where ’e’d disappeared, but I picked ’im up again next mornin’ and managed to ’ave a word. John James O’Hare’s a real nice feller, queen. He’d got a week’s leave from ’is ship but ’e agreed at once to come to Wrexham wi’ me. We caught a bus, an’ when we got to the lawyer’s, guess what?’

‘What?’ Kitty said. Stuart had told her that any decent solicitor worth his salt would have had a copy of the will, but agreed that it might take force to shift the Ap Thomases, and also warned that if they had sold the farm on, it could be difficult to oust the new owners without a lengthy legal battle. But she would not have said any of this for the world, not with Johnny sitting opposite her, eyes shining, fair hair on end, proud of his story and longing to surprise her.