The House by Princes Park (11 page)

They walked quickly. The rain had stopped, the moon was out, though the midnight air was chilly. Ruby regretted not bringing a coat.

Jacob followed like an obedient animal. He hadn’t said a word since they left the house. Ruby spoke to him gently. He’d killed Bill Pickering while protecting her. Who knows what Bill might have done if Jacob hadn’t been there. She doubted if Emily had been in a fit state to help.

During the hours spent in the waiting room, she held his hand and murmured comforting words of support. ‘We’ll be all right,’ she told him. ‘We’ll bury ourselves where no one knows us, the Dingle, I’ve been there loads of times. We’ll find a nice place to live and get jobs. I’ve always wanted to work in a shop.’ The more she thought about it, the more she tried to convince herself it was an adventure, the sort of thing they might have done, anyway, at some time in the future.

A train came puffing in just after six o’clock by which time a watery sun had risen in a pallid sky. Jacob had only seen trains in the distance and found the noise terrifying. He put his hands over his ears to shut it out, wishing he could shut out the world as easily.

When they reached Exchange station, Ruby remembered they hadn’t bought tickets. She paid the fares at the barrier and looked worriedly in her purse. ‘I’ve only got tenpence left. Have you got money, Jacob?’

He shook his head. He had more than five pounds saved, but it was in his loft on Humble’s farm.

‘We’d better walk to the Dingle,’ Ruby was saying. ‘We’ll need to buy food later.’

For Jacob, the walk was a nightmare. So many tall buildings rearing skywards, threatening to collapse on top of him, tramcars almost as noisy as the trains, buses, cars, lorries, the occasional horse-drawn cart that made him think longingly of Waterloo, the horse that kept him company on the farm. Ruby said, ‘It’s only early, so it’s not so busy as usual,’ as if he’d like it better when it was, when he already hated it with all his heart.

It started to drizzle, and he felt as if they’d been walking for ever by the time they reached the Dingle, a rabbit warren of little streets. It was only then that Ruby paused, looking lost.

‘How do we find somewhere to live?’

Jacob hoped she wasn’t asking him because he had no idea. He had no idea about anything any more.

‘I know, I’ll ask in a shop,’ she said cheerfully. She went into a sweet and tobacconists and emerged with a piece of paper clutched in her hand.

‘There’s a room to let in Dombey Street. The landlady’s called Mrs Howlett. It’s along this way, second on the right. I think we should take it, whatever it’s like. If necessary, we can look around for somewhere better when we’ve got more time.’

He trudged behind her in a daze, wanting to die, yet knowing he would have followed her to the ends of the earth. She knocked on a house with steps up to the front door and it was opened by a nervous-looking girl of about eighteen.

‘I’ve come about the room,’ Ruby said importantly.

‘Me mam’s gone out a minute.’ The girl had a nice, kind smile. ‘Come and have a decko. She won’t be long. It’s upstairs at the back.’

The room was small and cramped and had too much
dark furniture including a great double bed. Jacob felt his insides shrink. It was like being inside a coffin.

‘It’s nice,’ Ruby said. She sat on the bed and bounced up and down a few times. ‘We’ll take it. How much is the rent?’

‘Half a crown a week in advance, but you’ll have to wait for me mam.’

‘What does “in advance” mean?’

‘It means me mam wants paying now. People have been known to do a moonlight flit and she ends up out of pocket.’

Ruby had never heard of a moonlight flit, but got the meaning. She didn’t have half a crown, but she was wearing the gold watch Emily had bought for her birthday which had cost five guineas. She’d offer Mrs Howlett the watch as a deposit until she earned enough to pay the rent.

‘I hope she lets you have it,’ the girl said wistfully. ‘It’d be nice to have young people for a change.’

The front door opened and a voice shouted, ‘Dolly!’

‘I’m upstairs, Mam,’ the girl shouted back. ‘There’s people here about the room.’

‘Coming.’ Mrs Howlett puffed up the stairs like a train. She appeared in the doorway, a big, stout woman, red-faced from her exertions. Her small eyes took in the young couple, Ruby sitting on the bed, Jacob hunched and awkward, wishing he were anywhere else in the world.

‘Where’s your luggage?’ she snapped.

‘We haven’t got—’ Ruby began.

‘And where’s your wedding ring?’

‘I haven’t—’

Mrs Howlett gestured angrily towards the stairs. ‘Get out me house immediately. I’m not having the likes of you under me roof.’

‘But—’

‘Out!’ the landlady said imperiously.

It was the first time Jacob had ever seen Ruby stuck for words. She drew herself to her full height, tossed her head, and stalked downstairs. By the time she reached the bottom she must have recovered her composure, because she said in her loudest, most penetrating voice, ‘Come on, Jacob. This place is a pigsty. I wouldn’t live here if they paid me.’

They were outside, on the pavement, it was raining properly now, and Ruby was shaking, her face the colour of a ripe plum. Jacob longed to comfort her, as she had comforted him during the night, but nothing in his body seemed to be working, only his legs, which stumbled after Ruby wherever she chose to take him.

She took his hand. ‘What shall we do now?’ she whispered. It didn’t feel like an adventure any more.

Jacob’s head drooped. He didn’t know.

The door of the house from which they’d just been evicted opened and Dolly crept stealthily out. ‘Me mam’s gone to the lavvy.’ She touched Ruby’s hand. ‘I’m sorry, luv. I would have liked you to have the room, but mam’s a stickler for convention.’

‘She’s got awful manners,’ Ruby said spiritedly.

‘I know.’ Dolly sniffed. ‘And I’ve got to live with ’em, an’ all. Would you like a piece of advice, luv?’ She ignored Jacob. Perhaps she thought him deaf and dumb as well as useless.

‘What sort of advice?’ Ruby enquired.

‘If I were you, I’d buy meself a wedding ring from Woollies. They only cost a tanner.’

‘I will, thanks. We only got married yesterday,’ she lied shamelessly. ‘It was very sudden and we couldn’t afford to buy a proper ring. I didn’t realise you could get them for sixpence.’

‘Good luck – what’s your name, luv?’

‘Ruby.’

‘Good luck, Ruby.’

Dolly smiled and was about to leave when Ruby said, ‘Do you know if there’s a room going anywhere else?’

‘No, luv. There’s bed and breakfast places around, though they might get a bit sniffy if you haven’t got luggage and a ring. Anyroad, have you got the money?’

Ruby made a face. ‘Only tenpence.’

‘That’s not nearly enough. Mind you, if you’re stuck for cash, you could always pawn that lovely watch. In the meantime, you could try Charlie Murphy in Foster Court, number 2. He charges by the night, only thruppence, and he won’t care if you’re wearing a ring or not. But I warn you, it’s a terrible fleapit. Scarcely fit for human beings to live in.’

‘Your mam’s just made me feel less than human, so that won’t matter all that much.’

In all the times she had happily roamed the streets of the Dingle, Ruby had never come across anywhere like Foster Court. It was hidden, out of sight, between a billiard hall and a butcher’s, a narrow alley, barely six feet wide, with a handful of four-storey dwellings on either side, the filthy bricks bitten and crumbling, as if they’d caught a repellent disease. Despite the rain, barefoot children were playing in the water that ran along the cracked flags separating the houses, paddling, splashing their hands. One little boy, wearing only ragged short trousers, was trying to sail a paper boat. There was a sickening lavatory smell and the place was very dark, buried within its own shadows, as if the sun, when it was out, had been forbidden to shine in the hideous man-made chasm that was Foster Court.

She was tempted to go no further, turn back, but it wouldn’t hurt to know they had a place to sleep that night, even if it was horrible. It was only early. They could spend the rest of the day looking for work. If things went well, they might not have to come back. Mr Murphy could keep his threepence.

Ruby knocked on the unpainted door with the number 2 scratched on crudely with a knife. There was no letter box, as if letters were unknown in a place like this.

‘Mr Murphy?’ she said faintly when a ghostly figure appeared, an old man with a grey face and skin the texture of wet putty. His white hair was long and dirty, the ends the colour of tobacco, as if he was turning rusty with age.

‘That’s me, queen,’ he said chirpily.

‘I... we, we’re looking for a room.’

‘Are you now! Well, I’ve got a room. Second floor back, thruppence a night, payment up front.’ He grinned, showing the occcasional yellow tooth. ‘No parties, no drinking, no dancing.’

‘We’d like to take it, please. Just for tonight.’

‘Give us the ackers, queen, and it’s yours. You can find your own way up. The lavvy’s in the yard, the scullery’s below stairs. I’ll fetch you the keys.’ He threw open the door, and Ruby winced when she saw the damp-stained walls, the uncarpeted stairs worn to a curve in the middle from the tread of a thousand feet. She wondered if the owners of the feet had felt as miserable as she did as she went up one flight of stairs, then another, Jacob behind, as he had been all day, not speaking, his face a mask of despair. The sound of a woman screaming came from one of the rooms, using language Ruby had never heard before. A baby wailed plaintively in another.

The first thing she noticed when she went in the room was the threadbare curtain on the window. One of the panes was missing and there was a piece of cardboard in its place.

‘There’s no bedding.’ There was no sink either, no carpet or linoleum on the floor, no ornaments, hardly any furniture, no light, only a stub of metal tubing where a gas mantel should have been. The bed didn’t have a head-board, the palliasse looked disgusting, and the bolster had turned an unhealthy shade of yellow. A small fireplace was heaped with ash. Ruby crept over to the window and saw
a communal yard with just two lavatories for the use of the residents of all the properties on that side. Her heart sank and she turned away. Jacob was sitting on one of the wooden chairs beside a little square table with oilcloth nailed on top.

He spoke at last. ‘Go home, Ruby,’ he said in a voice as wretched as his face. ‘Go back to Emily. I’ll manage on me own.’

‘Don’t be daft!’ Ruby said spiritedly. ‘We’re in this together.’

‘I was thinking of turning meself in.’

‘And letting them hang you!’ she gasped.

‘I didn’t mean to kill him,’ Jacob groaned.

‘I know you didn’t.’ Ruby considered this fact. ‘I suppose,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘you mightn’t be tried for murder, but manslaughter instead. You’d be sent to prison for years.’

Jacob would rather hang than be shut for years in a cell with bars on the window, possibly never feel the sun again, smell the flowers, see the trees blossom in the spring and watch the leaves fall in autumn.

‘Let’s go and buy a cup of tea,’ Ruby said encouragingly. ‘Then look for a job.’

He shook his head and tucked his arms protectively across his chest. ‘I’d sooner stay.’ He needed to rest, come to terms with what he’d done, get used to the fact he was a murderer. The day had already been confused enough without having to look for work that he didn’t want. He would never be happy working anywhere other than on the land. As far as today was concerned, he’d had enough. He’d look for a job tomorrow.

Ruby must have lost patience with him at last. She stamped her foot. ‘If that’s how you feel, Jacob Veering, I’ll find a job on my own.’

Finding a job was just as difficult as finding a room when you didn’t know where to look. Did you just walk into a shop and ask if there was a vacancy? Although not one to refrain from pushing herself forward, Ruby couldn’t quite raise the nerve. And the shops she peered in appeared to be fully staffed. No one looked overworked. She passed a pub with a notice in the window, ‘Cleaner Required’, and sniffed in derision. She hated cleaning. She wanted to work in a shop. But how?

Some jobs were advertised in newspapers, but it meant writing a letter, waiting for a reply, going for interview with half a dozen other people, then waiting again for the interviewer to make up their mind – it had happened to Priscilla Lane in a picture she’d seen.

If only she’d brought a coat. Better still, her new mackintosh with check lining and a hood. Or an umbrella. It might be August, but it wasn’t exactly warm, particularly if you were soaked to the skin. Her shoes had begun to squelch and the rain showed no sign of stopping. She thought balefully that it was the rain’s fault she and Jacob were in such a mess. If it hadn’t rained yesterday, Emily and Bill Pickering would be in the Lake District. For the first time, she wondered what had caused last night’s fight? Alerted by the shouting, she’d arrived just in time to see Bill, whom she’d thought so nice, giving poor Emily a whack about the face. And now Bill was dead! Ruby tried not to think about it.