We've Come to Take You Home (9 page)

TWENTY-ONE

‘H
AS HE LOOKED AT
you? Really, and I mean really, looked at you?'

The youngest son had been home for two whole days and Ellie had talked of nothing else.

‘Now come on, Jess, has he?'

The shopping list the Major's wife had given Jess that morning had been double its usual length. While the one and only surviving son was home on leave he would want for nothing.

‘I don't know. How would I? I'm not allowed to raise my eyes from the floor…'

‘But Jess, there are ways…'

Ellie lowered her head and keeping her gaze down to the pavement slid her eyes sideways.

‘You'll get stuck, Eleanor Baxter, when the wind changes…'

It was what her mother used to say whenever she caught Jess sticking out her tongue.

‘Being all prim and proper, Jessica Brown, will get you nowhere. There aren't enough men to go round. I'd go with a chimney sweep if he'd have me…'

Ellie slid her eyes to the left.

‘But even if they tell you they want to walk you up the aisle, put a ring on your finger, take no notice, they'll still want to sample the goods first. So you just have to get yourself in there, get yourself in the family way and then you'll be looked after. It's the only way to keep them. The nearer the bone, the sweeter the meat…'

Standing right in front of them, propped up on a crutch, hand outstretched, was a skeletally thin boy dressed in filthy rags. At the end of his left leg, where there should have been a foot, there was a mangled mess of shattered bone.

He must have slipped, in the middle of the traffic, exactly as she had done. But nobody had seen. Or if they had seen, they had just turned and walked away, leaving the boy lying there, helpless, as the cart, its iron-clad wheels sparking, rumbled towards him.

Because it was the same boy, she was sure of it, the one she'd seen darting in and out of the traffic, so confidently, so quickly, outside the station the day she'd arrived in London. The boy who had taken her hand, pulled her up from where she had fallen and who led her to the safety of the pavement on the other side of the street. He was still wearing the red, grey and black tartan waistcoat, but it was so matted with dirt, so ripped and torn, it was barely recognisable.

There had been a longer than usual queue at the bakers that morning. When, after over an hour, it had been her turn to be served there had been just one solitary loaf left on the shelf.

She took the bread out of her shopping basket and walked over to the boy.

‘Jess? What are you doing?'

He had saved her life. She couldn't save his, that was impossible, but she had to do something.

The boy's eyes widened. He took the bread, hugging it to his chest and then turned and limped away towards an alleyway. He stopped and looked back, the crutch wedged under his arm. Jess nodded her head, so slight but still a nod.

‘He's seen you, that Tom, the Major's son. He's right there, outside the house. He'll have you for stealing…'

And Ellie was off, running down the street, her shopping basket in her hand. And Jess was left standing there, eyes down, staring at the pavement, as the youngest son walked towards
her. She was fifteen and his mother's maid-of-all-work. He was twenty and the son of the house. She washed and ironed his clothes, cooked and served his meals, cleaned his room and made his bed.

‘Why did you give that boy the bread?'

He was a young man with an old man's voice. Its tone and depth had surprised her that first morning, standing there at the front door, eyes down and invisible, as he strode past her into the house to greet his parents.

‘Is giving a loaf to a starving boy something to be punished?'

And except for a quick nod of the head or a curt, ‘Thank you,' she had, since then, continued to be the silent and invisible servant – until now.

‘Some might call it stealing. Others might call it charity.'

Head held high, she strode off towards the house.

‘Jess, where have you been?

His mother was waiting for her in the hallway.

‘Why has it taken you so long?'

The Major's wife never went out shopping. Which was why she didn't understand that Jess had to queue not at one shop but several, often three or four, if she had any chance of getting at least some of the items on the list the Major's wife gave her each morning.

Sometimes, after she'd been shuffling slowly forward for nearly an hour, the shopkeeper would come outside and pull down the shutters. There was nothing more inside the shop to sell. And then Jess and all the other women and children, lined up in front and behind her, would have to find another shop and join another queue.

Her first day in London, following the Major home from the station, she hadn't understood what had driven the women to rioting. But now she did. She was young and fit, and could stand there for hours, but for the elderly or sick it was impossible. Desperate people throw stones.

‘Did you get everything?'

‘Yes, ma'am.'

That she came home with anything was a miracle.

‘The jam and the eggs…'

Her mother had made her own jam from the strawberries and the raspberries she grew in their garden. And her father would often come home carrying some newly laid eggs, still warm with white and brown fluffy feathers stuck to them, as part-payment for the work he had done that day. But here in the city everything had to be paid for with pennies and shillings. The cost of the spoonful of jam and the two eggs she'd managed to buy that morning would have kept her own family fed for a month.

‘Yes, ma'am.'

The Major's wife clapped her hands.

‘The beef?'

Whether it was beef, or cat, or dog, or even rat, the Major's wife had some meat for her suet pudding.

‘Yes, ma'am.'

‘And the bread, you did get the bread?'

What should she say? Should she tell the truth, that she'd bought the bread but had given it away to a starving boy who would be lucky if he lived another day?

‘I'm sorry, ma'am.'

‘What? There must have been a loaf of bread somewhere…'

‘I'm sorry, ma'am. The shops had run out.'

‘All the shops?'

If there had been one more person standing ahead of her in the queue, her lie would be the truth.

‘Yes, ma'am.'

‘We'll have to get you out of the house a little earlier tomorrow morning…'

Eyes down, mouth closed, Jess followed the Major's wife along the hallway.

‘Tom is out with his father. They won't be back until five o'clock, possibly six o'clock, which will give us time to get ready. The glass and china will have to be washed and the silver will need polishing. The Major wants flowers, candles, everything just like it used to be…'

Her last day at Eaton Villa was going to be a long, hard one. After the son told his parents about their maid, a thief and insolent with it, she would get her dismissal. She would go back home to the country and try to find a job, one that didn't need a reference, perhaps in a factory or on a farm, closer to her mother.

‘Jess, I forgot, this came in the post for you.'

She tucked the envelope up her sleeve. It must be from her mother. The paper, the envelope and the stamps would have been expensive. And she would have had to find someone to write it for her. She must have something very special to say.

TWENTY-TWO

S
AM TIPPED HERSELF OFF
the chair. The floor lurched over to one side. Walls that had been solid tilted and swayed. She grabbed hold of the table and closed her eyes. The darkness whirled and swirled. She opened her eyes and raised her head. The window seemed much further away but also much larger, soaring over the kitchen and everything in it, including herself.

She fixed her eyes on the curtains. The spots and stripes, which before had been so regimented and orderly, now shimmered and shook, spiralling and cart-wheeling, backwards and forwards, out of control. Finger by finger, she detached herself from the table. She slid her foot out across the floor. It held. One step, two steps, a third step and she was safely across.

She leant over the kitchen sink, fighting the waves of sickness bubbling up inside her. The feeling of well-being she had experienced earlier had been replaced by a cold, dark, bleak emptiness. She was drunk. And not just drunk but very drunk. And she had to get upstairs to her bedroom without her mother either seeing or hearing her.

She turned off the light and, with her hand clamped onto the doorframe, took one step and then another out of the kitchen into the hall. She listened for movement, a door opening, the pad of feet along the landing, but none came. Her mother was still in her bedroom and, hopefully, still asleep. She clicked off the light.

Halfway up, the staircase slid away from underneath her
feet and she collapsed down in a heap. It was comfortable, very comfortable, just lying there, going nowhere and doing nothing. She closed her eyes. The house started to spin round, faster and faster. The spinning slowed and then stopped.

She looked down towards the hall. She looked up towards the landing. Both seemed a very long way away but if she went up it would, at least, be in the right direction for her bedroom. And if she stayed down on her hands and knees there would be less risk of falling.

She pushed herself away from the wall and up and around onto her knees. She planted the point of one elbow and then a second elbow into the carpet. She hauled one knee and then a second knee up onto the first step, second step, and on and on up, until she hauled the last knee up and over the final step. She glued her back up against the wall and, inch by inch, straightened her legs until she was standing upright. She edged her way along the wall, down the landing.

Somebody was standing underneath the street lamp on the opposite side of the road. It was too dark to be able to tell whether they were male or female, young or old. But to stand there in the pouring rain with no umbrella, staring up at the house, was more than a little strange.

Sam pulled the curtains tight shut. She tumbled, almost falling headlong, down the stairs. She grabbed the key off the hook, jammed it into the lock and turned. The top bolt, the bottom bolt, if somebody wanted to come in they would have to batter the door down.

She put the key back onto its hook and then hauled her shaking body, step by shaky step, the floor and walls rocking and rolling around her, up towards the landing. She clamped her hands over her mouth. She ran past the closed door of her parents' bedroom and threw herself into the bathroom. She leant over the sink, heaving and retching, while her body emptied itself of red wine. She picked up her toothbrush. Yes,
she would feel better if she cleaned her teeth but it would have to wait. She was just too exhausted.

She slid out of the bathroom, along the landing, hugging the wall behind her. Her mother coming out of her bedroom and finding Sam collapsed in a comatose heap just wasn't worth thinking about. Walking or crawling, she had to get to the safety of her bedroom.

But was it safe? Downstairs in the kitchen, she had been so drunk, so out of it, slumped there head down on the table, she wouldn't have heard somebody stealing into the house. Anyone could have slipped the lock on the front door, crept down the hall, up the stairs and along the landing into her bedroom.

She pushed open the door and flicked on the lights. Her laptop was still on her desk, her mobile on the top of the cupboard beside the bed. Her rucksack lay on the floor, the side pocket un-zipped, her purse easy to see and grab, just as she had left it.

But perhaps they didn't want her laptop or her mobile? Or her money, what little there was of it? Perhaps they wanted something else? Perhaps they were outside, on the balcony, waiting for her? Because what they wanted was…

She was drunk, and she was tired, and she was scaring herself witless about nothing at all. No one was outside. Nobody was waiting for her. It was just another stupid, silly, drunken, little thought.

She checked the door out onto the balcony, not once, but twice, unlocking it, re-locking it, and then, just in case, checked again for a third time. She pulled off her shoes, pulled off her clothes, pulled on her pyjamas, crawled underneath the duvet and turned off the light.

TWENTY-THREE

F
OUR HOURS
'
SLEEP WASN
'
T
enough. And definitely not enough if you've drunk more than a bottle and a half of red wine.

Her head, her arms, her legs, were as heavy as lead. Her tongue felt like sandpaper. She dragged herself out of bed, across the room and out of the door. It was grey and misty outside. And it was raining – the sort of slow, steady, stubborn drizzle which would go on and on throughout the rest of the day.

She shuffled down the landing and into the bathroom. She brushed her teeth and gargled with mouthwash. At least she no longer smelt or tasted of sick.

She'd spent most of the night, huddled under the duvet, afraid that if she closed her eyes and went to sleep she'd be woken up by the chiming of a clock. And when that clock chimed, and when she woke up, she'd find herself inside somebody else's body, in a room that didn't exist, putting on clothes that didn't exist.

She closed her eyes. She opened her eyes. Sam Foster was still there, staring back at her out of the bathroom mirror, even if she did look just a little bit hungover. And just a little bit crazy.

The door to her parents' room was open. The bed was made but not in her mother's usual I-don't-know-why-I'm-bothering-to-do-this-it's-all-so-boring sort of way. Pillows and cushions were lined up in a perfect line, rather than thrown together in a haphazard pile, and the duvet was positioned
exactly in the middle of the bed rather than hunched over to one side. Neat and orderly, everything precisely in its place, the bedroom looked exactly how her father would have left it. Not her mother. Or at least not the mother she'd had yesterday or the day before yesterday.

‘They're doing tests…'

Her mother, her phone glued to ear, was pacing up and down and around the kitchen. It must be somebody from work. Not the hospital. Which wasn't good news, her father's condition hadn't improved, but then it wasn't bad news either. There had been no change for the worse.

‘We should know later this morning…'

She didn't know which was scariest; the mother who had gone to bed and cried herself to sleep or this mother, this too brisk, too bright and too organised one, chatting away on her mobile.

‘We have to be at the hospital at ten…'

Sam took a mug out of the cupboard and poured herself a coffee. She took a sip. It was hot, too hot, but it numbed the dull ache inside her head.

‘They'll have the results of the scan by then…'

The evidence was there for all to see; two wine bottles, both empty, on the floor beside the rubbish bin. Her mother must have found them exactly where Sam had left them last night, sitting on the table, when she came downstairs to the kitchen earlier that morning.

‘I'll give you a ring…'

Would she say something, about going to her room and staying there, leaving Sam all alone to get drunk as a skunk? Or would she sweep it to one side, pretend that everything was as it should be, that nothing out of the ordinary had happened?

She took another sip of coffee. All she wanted to do was crawl back into bed and bury herself under the duvet. But that wasn't an option.

The doorbell rang, loud and long.

Parked in the road, at the front of the house, was her father's car. Sam ran out into the hall. The front door wouldn't open. She tried again. It wouldn't budge. And then she remembered.

Looking down through the upstairs window and seeing the person, man, woman or child, it was impossible to tell it was so dark, standing outside in the pouring rain, staring up at the house. But last night she had been so drunk she would have seen, and believed, anything. She slipped the bolts back, took the key off the hook and unlocked the door.

‘Hello, Sam. Your dad phoned us yesterday. We've fixed the seatbelt…'

It was the man from the local garage. It had been silly to hope, even for just a second, it was her father. She'd been there, sitting behind him in the car, when he made the call.

‘Hello, Mr. Harris.'

Her mother, smiling as if this morning was just another Monday morning, was walking towards them down the hallway.

‘All right, there is it, Mrs. Foster, at the front, or shall I put it round the side?'

‘It's fine. Thank you.'

The man held out a set of keys. Her mother took them.

‘Cheers.'

He walked away down the path.

‘I phoned your school. They're not expecting you until after lunch…'

A girl, dressed in black, was standing underneath the streetlamp, on the other side of the road, directly opposite the house.

‘There's some toast but you'll have to be fast…'

And she was looking at Sam; not just looking, she was staring.