Wishing and Hoping (15 page)

Marcie blinked at the confrontation she could see through the back window. All the pain and confusion of a young child left without her mother flooded over her. Her father had married this woman in place of her mother. Why her?

‘He wanted somebody who was weaker than him,' said her grandmother as though reading her thoughts. ‘Your mother was stronger than him. Much stronger. At the time I wished it hadn't been so. I was brought up in an age when women were supposed to be subservient to their husbands. Your mother was not that. She was never that.'

Marcie looked into the wrinkled old face, not sure exactly what her grandmother was saying. ‘You encouraged him to marry Babs?'

She heard her own voice and knew she sounded shocked and amazed.

Her grandmother nodded. ‘She was a silly, pretty girl who made it very obvious that she wanted him badly. I was foolish enough to think that he could manage her and that that would be enough. I was even foolish enough to think that he would settle down at last and not desire other women. I even thought that she would be of a mild disposition and prefer her children and home to anything else. I was wrong. They should never have married. Your father tired of her. I know now that he prefers stronger women, women who can stand up for themselves.'

‘Like my mother,' Marcie whispered as she picked Aran up from his carrycot. Closing her eyes, she rested her chin on her baby son's head. ‘Not that it matters much now.'

The sound of raised voices continued from outside.

‘You bitch!'

‘You bastard!'

‘Slut! You deserve a bloody good hiding.'

Marcie winced at the words, wondering if her father had ever hit her mother. Somehow she didn't think so.

‘Your father was in awe of your mother.'

Her grandmother's voice suddenly intruded into her thoughts.

‘Did she used to sit under the apple tree – like Garth told me?'

Rosa Brooks nodded. ‘Your father used to stand at the kitchen window looking at her in silence. He was amazed that she'd ever agreed to marry him. Because of that he used to treat her as though she were made of china. She always had her own way. She was the boss in her house.'

Marcie nodded silently. Her heart was racing. Her grandmother and her father rarely mentioned her mother. It was as though her memory had been erased from the house and their memories.

In time she would meet up with her mother again, but not yet, not until all was well in her own world and Michael was home again.

‘I'm selling my house. Under the circumstances I think it's the best thing to do. I need to be in the heart of London so I'm moving back into the flat.'

‘Your friend was living there?'

‘Yes. But Allegra has other plans so is OK about moving out.'

It was true. Allegra had told her that she needed to be somewhere else for a particular reason. To Marcie's surprise she would not be drawn on the details. Marcie guessed she had another man in her life. She hoped so. Allegra seemed such a lonely soul at present.

‘I sometimes wish I was back here,' said Marcie. ‘Things seemed so much simpler when I lived here with you.'

Her grandmother handed her the tea towel whilst shaking her head. ‘That time is passed. You have to go back to London. That is where you have problems and that is where you will solve them.'

‘Just wishful thinking,' said Marcie. She had already made up her mind about that. There was no point in hiding away on the Isle of Sheppey whilst her husband was locked up. To her shame she found herself actually wondering if Michael really had killed that girl. Had he really got her pregnant? Did anyone know anybody that well? Really?

The back gate at the end of the garden closed with a bang. Looking out of the tiny kitchen window Marcie could see that the garden was empty. Her father and stepmother had either gone to see the kids or one was chasing the other with a view to con tinuing the fight.

Marcie sighed. It had occurred to her to leave her own children with her grandmother whilst she returned to London. Michael's business could not be left to run itself. Someone had to be there. She decided it wouldn't be a good idea, not with Babs flying in and out with her bad language. Joanna and Aran weren't used to that and, besides, Rosa was getting too old and tired to be bothered with children.

It was only half an hour later when her father returned, his face flushed and a bruise turning swiftly from red to black and yellow around his eye. Babs had caught him one.

His eyes were bright. ‘Marcie!'

‘I'll get a wet cloth.'

‘Don't bother with that. The phone was ringing when I came past the box. It was Jacob Solomon.'

Marcie's spirits rose instantly. ‘What did he say?' Her heart thudded like a steam train against her ribcage.

‘Linda Bell wasn't pregnant.'

‘That's wonderful news, isn't it?'

Tony Brooks blustered a bit. ‘I think so.'

‘There's no motive! Right?'

‘Right! Except that . . .'

‘She was lying! ' Marcie exclaimed with feverish excitement. ‘He'll be released. They can't hold him, surely. He'll be coming home!'

The look on her father's face failed to reflect her excitement. He looked pensive as he thought through the possibilities and found them wanting.

Marcie shook her head as the truth hit her. ‘But it doesn't matter if she was lying, does it? He thought she was telling the truth and that was why he shot her – that's what the police will say. His fingerprints were all over the gun.'

Number ten returned to its slumbering silence once the family had left and gone back to London.

Rosa was pleased with herself. Marcie had not noticed that she wasn't quite her old self. She had not noticed her failing sight or questioned the lack of sparkle in her eyes.

She lowered herself into her favourite chair, one of a pair of old armchairs placed either side of the old iron range.

The cottage kitchen was quiet except for the occasional sparking of the coals glowing bright red in their cast-iron nest. The smell of fresh baking hung on the warm air.

Rosa dozed, her thoughts wandering off into dreams of the past and hopes for the future. Not for her future, of course. She was too old to have much of a future. In her mind she was asking Cyril what kind of future he thought lay ahead for their granddaughter.

You always were a worrier. Always was upset easily, but I guarantee the worst of the past is behind you. Do you remember that night in 1942? What could have been worse than that?

The deepness of her sigh was such that her body sagged like an old sack leaking grain. Of course she remembered. She would never forget. She recalled it as if it were only yesterday, the pictures alive in her mind.

A dive-bomber screamed overhead, and a series of staccato firing from an accompanying fighter ripped into the dirt out in the street. The planes flew past towards Marsa at the end of the creek, where they would make a turn and come back for a second run.

Another sound: a low droning, instantly recognisable. Despite being alone she'd cheered out loud. Hurricanes – too few and too slow to be truly effective, but better than the old biplanes they'd depended on such a short time ago. They were just about holding their own against faster, more numerous planes. Flattening herself more securely between the buildings, she steeled herself for the bombers' return. Too many people had taken a lull in bombing as a sign that it was all over. It rarely was.

Returning planes droned overhead. Dock workers and others who had chanced coming out to inspect damage and retrieve bodies scampered for cover.

Dark greyish figures appeared in the fog of debris some way along the quay running towards her. For a moment it looked like a surreal vision of washing flapping and flying. The grey solidified to the black habits of fully committed nuns and the grey of a few novices shepherding a crocodile of small children.

The children were dressed in white and probably going to church for their first communion – if they got there. They'd got caught in the raid.

With fear clutching at her heart, she looked up at the sky; looked back at them.

The droning was getting louder. She imagined the spinning blades of the propellor, the bomb aimer, thumb ready on the button.

‘No!' Stepping out from her hiding place, she waved her arms and ran towards them. ‘Go back!'

The force of the blast blew her straight back into her hiding place, jammed there like a bundle of damp rags.

The earth, the buildings, the very air reverberated with aftershock. She didn't know how long it was before she emerged, staggering as though sun-blinded into bright sunlight, except that the sunlight wasn't blinding but clouded with dust.

For what could only be seconds, the silence was so intense that she thought she'd gone deaf. Even when all hell erupted around her, people running, shouting, screaming and crying, she did not –
could not
– move.

Just yards away lay what remained of the nuns and the children. Earlier they had been running along hand in hand. The worse thing was seeing two small arms ripped from children's bodies, the hands still clasped in death as they had been in life . . .

‘I didn't tell them, Auntie Rosa.'

Garth's voice brought her back to the present.

‘Garth?'

No longer sitting at the table, he'd made her a cup of tea and brought it to her with a mismatched saucer.

‘What didn't you tell them, Garth?'

‘That you can't see very well. But you'll see better soon, won't you, Auntie Rosa?'

Rosa smiled as she took the proffered cup and saucer. ‘Yes,' said Rosa and thought of Cyril and of seeing him again – though not of course in this world.

MARCIE HATED THE
prison. She hated the high walls, the dense red of the Victorian bricks and the sound of the main gate closing behind her.

The prison prided itself on being modern; there was no mesh grille between the visitors and prisoners. Instead inmates and visitors slouched over the tables meant to keep them apart, as though slouching would bring them an extra inch closer.

Prison officers – whom everyone referred to as ‘screws' – stood like dark pillars at strategic points around the walls. The windows were high above their heads.

The institutional smell of packed bodies and boiled potatoes permeated the air along with something else that Marcie could only interpret as desperation.

Just one look and Marcie could tell that Michael hadn't eaten. The rings beneath his eyes looked as though they'd been etched in with graphite. He was eyeing her pleadingly.

They said hello but were not allowed to touch – not even their fingertips.

Marcie swallowed her concern. It would do no
good to ask him how he was or question why he looked so awful. He needed hope, though she had precious little of that to give him. But there was one thing, of course.

‘I suppose Jacob told you that Linda Bell wasn't pregnant.'

Michael nodded. ‘He did. Not that it makes that much difference. It's the gun that's causing the problem – that and the shirt. How did the gun get in my office? How did the shirt get where it was found?'

She shook her head. ‘Someone wanted you out of the way.'

‘Rafferty is known to be harsh in repaying slights or insults. He'll try and get round you, get you to sign over the club. That's why I want you to sell it. Quickly.'

‘To him?'

He sighed and hung his head. ‘If you have to.'

‘I won't!'

He looked surprised at her outburst.

‘I'm determined to hold on to it.'

‘Marcie, you don't know who you're dealing with. Without me there . . .'

‘But you're not there, are you? You're in here. I have to do what I think fit. If this hadn't have happened you might even have been setting up another club by now.'

‘Are you accusing me?' He sounded hurt.

Marcie sighed. It was difficult to take on board how even the silliest comment could upset a prisoner with nothing to do but dwell on his reason for being there. She'd reminded herself before coming to be careful what she said, but it wasn't easy.

‘I didn't mean that. If you hadn't gone back in that night . . .'

‘A passer-by phoned and said there was a fight outside . . .'

Now it was Marcie who was surprised. ‘Isn't that why you employ bouncers? Why did you have to go in? Why?'

‘I thought they were slacking.'

‘And were they?'

Hanging his head, he ran his fingers through his hair and groaned. ‘No. It was a hoax.'

‘So why didn't you come home right away?'

‘OK, I went into my office and fell asleep. Honestly.'

‘Oh, Michael. Why did you do that? You should have come home.'

‘I didn't do anything, Marcie. Honestly I didn't. I didn't get that tart pregnant and I didn't kill her.'

She glanced around her, making sure the screws weren't listening too closely before whispering, ‘Linda Bell came to see me.'

He looked surprised. ‘When?'

She told him.

He frowned. ‘Why didn't you tell me before?'

She shrugged. ‘I saw no need to tell you. I didn't believe her. I told her to clear off.'

His frown deepened. ‘Christ, Marcie, you should have told me. I could have sorted it out right away.'

‘Could you?'

She couldn't help the disbelief in her voice. The sharpness of his rebuke hurt. What he said next hurt even more.

‘I barely knew the girl. She worked at one of Victor's clubs as a hostess. She was always on at Victor, at Roberto and at me to let her dance on stage. Victor and Roberto never did, though they promised – in return for her favours, of course.'

‘And you? Did you give her a chance?' She recalled Linda saying he had.