The September Girls (44 page)

‘Only my bed. You two can sleep together and I’ll doss down on the settee.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Unless you and Kitty would prefer to doss down on the settee, yes, I’m sure.’ She got to her feet, the sleeve hanging limply by her side. ‘Would you like another cup of tea?’

‘Yes, please. Is there anything to eat in this place? I’m starving.’

‘There’s a fish and chip shop around the corner. I’ll go and buy some in a minute.’

‘Is that all you eat, fish and chips?’

‘Yes, except for the days I don’t eat anything at all.’

‘I suppose you drink instead. Oh!’ Cara said exasperatedly. ‘Fielding, my friend, you’re not doing yourself any good living like this. Couldn’t you have gone to live with your father?’ Fielding had never been exactly forthcoming about her family.

‘He lives in Devon and only came to see me once in hospital. I haven’t heard from him since, although that’s hardly surprising as he doesn’t know where I am and probably doesn’t want to. My mother died when I was fourteen and, within a year, he’d married this bitchy woman called Barbara who couldn’t wait to see the back of my brother and I. Roger joined the Army and we lost touch. I moved to London, took acting classes and went on the stage. I haven’t been home since.’ She dried her nose on her sleeve. ‘I keep going to do things with my left arm, but it isn’t there. You’re very lucky, Caffrey, having a proper family.’

‘I haven’t seen a single member of my family since I came home from Malta,’ Cara said. ‘I’ll tell you about it another time.’

Kitty gave an unladylike burp, Cara changed her nappy and took her into the bedroom for a sleep. The bedroom was as untidy and as unclean as the rest of the flat. Fielding said she’d go for the fish and chips, having forgotten all about the tea, and Cara asked if she could use the phone she’d noticed under the mess on the sideboard. ‘I want to ring someone in Liverpool and tell him I’ve arrived safely.’

‘Help yourself. I won’t be long.’

Marcus answered the phone at the other end, as she knew he would. ‘It’s me,’ Cara said. ‘Everything’s fine. Did you go to see the doctor?’

‘He came to see me. He wants me to go into hospital to be X-rayed, ’ Marcus grumbled.

‘When are you going?’ she asked sternly.

‘I’m not sure if I want to. They might find something wrong with me.’

‘But that’s the whole point of being X-rayed, to discover the reason for the pain. Have you got it now?’

‘Only slightly.’

She was about to accuse him of lying through his teeth, when Kitty set up a desperate wail and she said, ‘I’ll have to go, Kitty’s crying. She’s probably wondering where on earth she is.’ Cara credited Kitty with a great deal more intelligence than any normal two-month-old child.

‘I can hear her from here. Goodbye, Cara. Let me know what train you’re catching on Friday and I’ll meet you at the station.’

 

The line clicked, she’d gone to attend to Kitty, but Marcus kept the receiver against his ear, her voice and the sound of the baby crying lingering in the silence. After a while, he replaced the receiver in its cradle and got painfully to his feet. The ache in his side was anything but mild. Since the doctor had poked every inch of his stomach that morning, he was convinced it had got worse. There was something terribly demeaning about lying on the bed with your trousers down to your knees and having your stomach prodded by a man half your age. Dr Langdon, who’d delivered Anthony and Sybil, had retired many years ago and could be dead by now for all Marcus knew.

If only Cara were there! Last night, when he’d been groaning in his sleep and she’d come to see what was wrong, something wonderful and entirely unexpected had happened . . . He wanted to think about that, not this ferocious, nagging, never-ending pain. He shouted down the stairs for Nancy, wanting to ask if she’d make a hot water bottle to rest on his stomach but, when she didn’t come, he remembered she was out, but had promised to be back by seven.

‘In case there’s a raid,’ she’d said. Wherever she might be, Nancy always rushed home if an air raid started, preferring to be in her kitchen than anywhere else on earth.

Marcus had no idea where the hot water bottles were kept. He shivered, the house felt unusually cold for March - almost April - or perhaps it was just him. These days, no matter how wealthy a person might be, there was a limit to how much coal they could buy. He could understand the poor burning their furniture when it was cold and, had he been in a fit condition to drag one of the heavy sideboards or bookcases into the yard and saw it to pieces, he might have felt tempted to do it himself.

His stomach felt as if it was being pierced by a knife. I’ll go to bed, he decided. It was the best place to be when he felt like this. Lately, he’d been keeping a supply of Aspro tablets in the desk drawer. He took four, although the packet advised two, and staggered upstairs.

Within half an hour, the tablets had done their work and he was asleep. When Nancy came home, knocked at the study door, found it empty and saw the box of Aspros on the desk, she took for granted he was in bed. She returned to the kitchen, made herself some supper, and retired to her sitting room to listen to the wireless, hoping there wouldn’t be a raid. The house seemed unnaturally quiet without Cara and the baby. They hadn’t been gone a day and she was already missing them badly.

Marcus had no idea what time it was when he was woken by the pain, so severe that he screamed out loud, ‘Help! Somebody help me!’ Then, ‘Cara! Cara, come quickly,’ followed by a whimpered, ‘Please!’

But Cara didn’t come as she’d done the night before and he remembered she was in London. ‘Nancy,’ he yelled, but Nancy was now fast asleep two floors below in the basement.

He needed the doctor, an ambulance. The pain wasn’t natural, something was badly wrong. Marcus practically fell out of bed. If he could reach his study, he could phone for help. But he could hardly stand, the pain wouldn’t let him. He managed to crawl as far as the door, managed to open it and crawl on to the landing, where he was faced with the daunting prospect of getting down the stairs. He grasped the banisters, hauled himself to his feet and shuffled down the stairs like an old, old man, very slowly, one at a time, pausing for breath. Halfway down, a wave of dizziness swept over him and he tried to sit down, but toppled forward instead and landed head first at the bottom, stopping just short of the grandfather clock with its loud tick and creaking pendulum.

At some time during the night, he regained consciousness, although was unable to make out where he was or why there were such strange ticking and creaking noises close to his head. His face was covered with something cold and sticky.

‘Cara,’ he whispered. ‘Cara, my darling girl, where are you?’

When a horrified Nancy found him next morning lying in a pool of blood, there was hardly any life left in him and his body felt as cold as ice. She telephoned for an ambulance and watched him being taken away on a stretcher, knowing for certain that she would never see Marcus Allardyce alive again.

 

‘This is a nice street,’ Cara said. ‘What’s it called?’

‘Piccadilly,’ Fielding told her. ‘I thought we could stroll as far as Green Park, then cut through to Oxford Street.’

‘Sounds fine to me.’ Some of the buildings looked as if they’d been there for centuries and the shops were terribly posh. Women, beautifully dressed and liberally perfumed, drifted in and out, looking as though war was the very last thing on their minds. There was no sign of bomb damage. The siren had gone the night before, but all the activity had sounded very far away. ‘In London,’ Nancy had said once, ‘it’s the poor that are getting the worst hammering, the East Enders, who live close to the docks. Least in Liverpool, rich and poor alike get an equal share of Hitler’s bombs.’

They arrived at Green Park, which looked very pretty, the trees covered with a spattering of pale-green buds as they prepared for summer. ‘I’d love to have had a wander round,’ Cara said, ‘but me arms are already aching from carrying Kitty.’ She wished it had been possible to bring the pram - it would have gone in the guard’s van, but not the taxi.

‘I’d offer to carry her for a while, but as you can see I’ve only got one arm to ache.’

‘When we get to Oxford Street, can we stop for a cup of tea?’

‘We’ll go in Selfridges, and this afternoon I’ll take you to see Buckingham Palace and the Houses of Parliament.’

‘I came to see you, Fielding, not the sights of London.’ She seemed much better this morning and Cara was glad that she’d come. Her visit had stirred her out of her torpor. Last night, they’d talked until the early hours, right through the raid, reliving their time in Malta with Kit and Mac, especially the weekend in Gozo.

‘That’s when I fell in love with Mac and he with me,’ Fielding confessed. ‘We slept together, although it was the last thing we’d ever intended doing. Until then, our relationship had been entirely platonic. We both knew nothing would come of it because he would never have left his wife and children.’

‘You know,’ Cara mused, ‘this is the first time I’ve ever given a thought to Mac’s wife. She must have been devastated when he was killed.’

‘And what about Kit’s family, His mum and dad? Are you going to take Kitty to see them some day? After all, they’re her grandparents.’

‘I’ve written to them twice, told them about Kitty, but never got an answer. It would seem his family don’t want to know.’ There was still the matter of Kitty’s other grandparents to sort out, something she wasn’t looking forward to a bit.

‘Are you going to get a false arm?’ she asked when they were in Selfridges restaurant waiting for their tea and crumpets. Kitty was wide awake and getting fidgety. In a minute, she’d take her to the Ladies and change her nappy.

‘Actually, I thought about getting a hook,’ Fielding replied. ‘It would be handy in a fight.’

‘Can’t you possibly be serious for a minute? Cara rolled her eyes impatiently, thinking it was quite like old times, trying to get some sense out of Fielding. ‘Wasn’t there some famous actress who had a wooden leg?’

‘Yes, Sarah Bernhardt.’ She laughed derisively. ‘The thing is, she was brilliant and I’m not.’

‘I bet she couldn’t sing like you,’ Cara said stoutly. ‘You can’t spend the rest of your life busking, Fielding.’

‘I can if I want.’

‘Don’t talk such utter rubbish, of course you can’t.’

‘It was when I was singing “A Foggy Day in London Town” in that café in Gozo that Mac fell in love with me,’ she said in a soft voice, eyes misty as she recalled that glorious night, the night when Kitty had been conceived.

‘When did you fall in love with him?’ Cara asked, interested.

‘When I saw him watching me sing “A Foggy Day in London Town”. I could tell from the expression on his face what was happening and realized I felt the same.’ She cocked her small head on one side, like a bird. ‘Are we lucky to have such wonderful memories, Caffrey, or would we be better off without them?’

‘Lucky,’ Cara said firmly. Kitty was squirming on her knee. She jumped up and took her to the Ladies where she changed her nappy and kissed her rosy cheek. ‘Really lucky,’ she told her little daughter.

 

After an exhausting day, they returned to the flat in Greek Street at teatime. Fielding went to buy fish and chips and Cara slowly climbed the stairs, Kitty in her arms, by now weighing a ton. Two women were coming down, heavily made up, one with long, dark hair, the other dyed a brassy blonde. Their skirts looked awfully tight and were far too short.

‘What a sweet little baby,’ cried the blonde. ‘How old is she, dearie?’

‘Two months. Her name is Kitty.’ These must be two of the ‘girls’ Fielding had spoken about the night before. They might even have been involved in the fight outside.

The dark-haired one, she looked no more than Cara’s age, chucked Kitty under the chin. ‘She’s a real little bobby dazzler,’ she said in a strong scouse accent.

‘Are you from Liverpool?’ Cara asked.

‘Yes, Pickwick Street in Toxteth.’

‘I’m from Shaw Street, it’s only just round the corner.’ It was only now that Cara noticed the girl had yellow, sickly eyes and her face was covered with spots. Worried Kitty might catch something, she muttered, ‘I’d better go, excuse me,’ and hurried up the final flight of stairs. She was unlocking the door, when a voice from below shouted, ‘Hey, you up there! Have you never heard the saying, “There but for the grace of God go I?” If things had gone different, it could’ve been
me
carrying the baby and
you
with the scabby face. Just remember that next time you turn up your nose at an innocent working girl.’

Cara slammed the door behind her and leaned against it, panting. ‘Really,
really
, lucky,’ she gasped.

 

Early next morning, she rang Marcus to tell him she was catching the half past ten train. It was supposed to get into Liverpool at half past two, but who could tell in wartime? She was surprised when Nancy answered and was about to tell her the time of the train, but didn’t have the chance, because Nancy said, ‘Cara! Oh, I wish I’d known your number.’

‘Why?’

‘Because Marcus is dead, pet, that’s why. He died yesterday morning. I couldn’t let you know.’

Cara could hardly believe her ears. Marcus
dead
! She sat heavily on the settee and the springs creaked in protest. ‘But how did he die?’

‘It might have been peritonitis as a result of a burst appendix or it could have been the fall downstairs. No one knows for sure, not yet. There’s going to be a post-mortem today and he’s being buried on Monday.’

‘I’ll still catch the same train home,’ Cara said hurriedly, ‘the half past ten.’

‘Don’t do that, pet. There’ll be ructions if you and Kitty turn up now. Let’s get the funeral over first, we can deal with the fireworks later. Come on Tuesday, but give me a ring first. I might have something to tell you.’