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The Corner House Page 6


  Eva saw the cold lights flashing, almost sparking from Theresa’s eyes. Had the desire to live been born with Jessica? Theresa no longer seemed quite so vulnerable or powerless, was suddenly more alive. ‘Getting yourself worked up won’t do your heart any good.’ The girl wasn’t worked up at all. She was exhausted, but she was on a very even keel; too calm in fact.

  ‘It’s my own heart and my own temper. You know, I bet I’ll stay alive for as long as necessary.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Till I’ve got them. Till they’ve paid back – and I don’t mean money. They owe me more than money. A lot more.’

  Something in the new mother’s face sent a shiver down Eva Harris’s short spine. ‘How do you mean?’

  Theresa’s mouth shaped a smile, though the expression did not reach those frigid eyes. ‘That’s for me to know and for you to wonder about. I had to take what they did to me lying down, because that was how they held me, pinned out like the skin of a stripped cow at Hardman’s Hides. Anyroad, things have changed and I shall be back on my feet soon.’

  Their names were indelibly printed at the forefront of Theresa’s brain. Roy Chorlton, son of Maurice, Ged Hardman, son of George, Teddy Betteridge, son of Alan. These heirs to jewellery, tanning and furniture businesses were Theresa’s molesters, her targets. The victim would soon become the perpetrator. ‘The fox’ll catch the hounds,’ she muttered under her breath. ‘If the fox’s heart will just keep ticking long enough.’

  ‘Theresa, what …?’

  But Theresa had decided to be deaf. ‘One by one, they attacked me. One by one, they’ll suffer.’ The new mother nodded thoughtfully. ‘I’ll have to see to Jessica first, get her started in life, make sure she’s all right. Then I’ll find her a nice family who’ll look after her and give her all she needs—’

  ‘Theresa! Stop talking like this, stop—’

  ‘Everything she needs,’ repeated Theresa. ‘Once that’s sorted out, I’ll do what wants doing.’ She blinked rapidly, as if clearing her mind. ‘I’ve no intention of showing them the other cheek,’ she told her companion. ‘As far as I’m concerned, one bad turn deserves another.’

  Eva looked down on the child’s downy head. ‘You’ll give her away?’ she managed finally, tears threatening to choke the words.

  Theresa inclined her head. ‘Yes.’

  ‘But … couldn’t I look after her? Just while you’re …’ Just while Theresa Nolan committed three murders? Was manslaughter on this young woman’s agenda? ‘Just till you’ve done whatever you plan to do? See, if you give her to a family, you might not get her back.’

  Theresa lifted a shoulder. ‘I might not want her, Eva. Have you not thought? Has it not come into your mind that this baby’s a constant reminder of what happened to me?’

  ‘That’s not the child’s fault.’

  ‘Did I say it was?’

  ‘No, but—’

  ‘No, but I could do without looking at her and remembering how she was made. I’ll keep her till she goes to school, then …’ She looked at the midwife’s prematurely old face. ‘Then I’ll leave her with you.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘I promise.’ Theresa noticed her companion’s unhappy expression. ‘You’ve been so good to me,’ she murmured. ‘I’ll never forget what you’ve done.’

  Eva sniffed back a mixture of emotions. ‘She’s a beautiful child. She’s took after you for looks.’

  ‘Good. I’d hate her to favour one of them three ugly buggers.’

  ‘She’s just a little scrap of innocence.’

  ‘I’ll try to remember that.’ There was no sarcastic edge to these words. Theresa would try, because Jessica Nolan had not asked to be dragged into a cruel world.

  Eva placed the child in the drawer that filled a new role as temporary cot. ‘I’ll have to be going,’ she said.

  ‘Up to the fish shop?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And how is Mrs Walsh?’

  Eva thought about the dead child, about the child she had ‘found’ to act as replacement. Had she done the right thing? Of course she had. Little Katherine Walsh would be doted on, treasured. ‘Doing all right,’ she replied eventually. ‘Danny came with me to the jeweller’s. Bernard’s all wrapped up with his wife and baby, then there’s the shop to run.’

  ‘They’ve been kind to me, the Walshes,’ mused Theresa. ‘Good when it happened, cheap fish ever since.’

  ‘They’re great people. There is some gradely folk in this world, you know.’ Eva gazed down at the contented child in the dresser drawer. ‘Make sure you look after Jessica.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Because you’ll have me to answer to if owt goes wrong with her.’

  Theresa stared at her visitor. ‘I like to think of myself as one of the good people,’ she said softly. ‘I’ll do what’s right by my baby. You don’t need to go worrying over me or mine. And she is mine.’ Sometimes, Eva Harris stepped over the mark by an inch or two – on this occasion, she had taken several paces too many. ‘I’m grateful, Eva. To you and to the Walshes. Without you and them two brothers, I don’t know what might have happened to me. But I’ve a lot of thinking to do, stuff I can’t talk about. That doesn’t mean that my daughter will go without.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Forget it.’

  Eva left the kitchen and picked up her coat from the front room. As she layered herself against the weather, she shivered, but not from the cold. She trembled because the woman in the next room had changed. Pregnant, Theresa Nolan had been quiet, almost biddable. She hadn’t become noisy, hadn’t started shouting the odds, yet here came a different Theresa, still weakened by many wounds, yet beginning to emerge all new after the shedding of her little burden. Life was a mystery, and no mistake.

  The midwife opened the front door and looked out into Emblem Street. Steam rose above Kershaw’s mill, a turbaned woman stoned her step, another nipped into the corner shop with an empty basket. A pungent smell emerged from a building just a few strides from Theresa Nolan’s house. God forbid, but if a bomb ever dropped on Emblem Street, the whole community might well be destroyed. Munitions were manufactured round the clock, seven days a week, right in the middle of an area so built up that daylight was almost a luxury. ‘Should be making bombs in the bloody countryside, not here,’ she muttered. ‘Flaming lot of them wants talking about, not a brain cell between them.’

  Eva adjusted her scarf, waved at the woman with the scrubbing brush and donkey stone. ‘Stupid sods,’ she continued under her breath. Thus she dismissed the government, the Germans and Bolton Corporation before hastening towards her next patient. Eva was in the business of bringing new life into a world that courted disaster, and she nursed little respect for those stupid men who threatened humanity’s safety. With her head bent against a bitter wind, the midwife walked towards Derby Street and a stolen child in a pretty, lace-trimmed crib.

  Theresa squeezed the last drop of tepid tea from the pot. Thoughtfully, she chewed on fishpaste sandwiches prepared by Eva Harris, then poured water from a bottle to slake her thirst. Breast-feeding was a nuisance, because it required a degree of liquid fuel, but she did not want to lose her milk. The money remained untouched thus far, and mother’s milk came free and involved no expeditions to shops.

  Something was happening to Theresa, something she hadn’t bargained for. She had fallen head over heels for the child in the drawer. Jessica. Despite her weariness, the mother’s arms ached to hold her baby. ‘I could do without this, you know,’ she advised the sleeping infant. ‘You weren’t supposed to be a point of interest on the map, Jessica.’ Pregnancy hadn’t been about a particular person. Theresa had never imagined the end product, had not even chosen names. Pregnancy had been tiredness, swollen ankles, a big belly. This situation was one for which Theresa had deliberately neglected to prepare.

  She swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood up with the aid of a chair. It was time to get a move on, time
to start going down the yard again. Buckets were all very well, but the lavatory was preferable.

  With shaky knees, Theresa dragged herself along, fingers trembling over the buttons of her coat, legs stiffened by several days in bed. She edged past the lidded pail that used to be her toilet, then looked back at little Jessica.

  All that had mattered so far was the money: pounds, the odd fiver, some ten-bob notes and a pile of silver. She wasn’t quite sure why she’d saved so assiduously, but she suspected that the motive might well be revenge. What was that saying about revenge? And where had she heard it? It was something to do with vengeance needing an extra coffin, because it often finished off the perpetrator as well as the target. Theresa shook off a sudden chill and tried to concentrate on the matter in hand.

  But even as she staggered towards the door, Theresa’s brain remained in gear. How was she going to drag herself away from her daughter? So far, Jessica was a warm, mewling infant whose needs centred on a full stomach and a clean, dry body, but she would develop a personality, would become interesting, would turn into a person. As Jessica grew, would the love keep pace?

  It was freezing outside, and the cleared area of yard was slick with a thin layer of new ice. Snow piled against the walls looked grey and crusty, as if the miners who had shifted it had brought their trade onto Theresa’s flags. She must not fall. Remaining upright was important for … for Jessica’s sake.

  White distemper was peeling off the walls in the lavatory shed. She wanted better, better for Jessica’s sake. A nice house with an inside bathroom, a bit of grass at the back, even a tree or two. Privet hedges, a blue front door with a brass knocker, carpet in the living room, a red Axminster runner up the stairs with white paint at its edges. For Jessica’s sake. But no, she had to stop thinking like this. There could be no house, no neatly trimmed privet hedges, because she would have to leave Jessica behind in a safe place until … until all the other business had been concluded.

  Jessica’s fathers’ fathers all had nice houses, two up Chorley New Road, lap of luxury, red-brick boundary walls and wide pavements where no-one threw empty beer bottles or cigarette packets. Even Alan Betteridge had a decent enough home, though it wasn’t as well placed as The Villa and Holden Lodge. The Betteridges had a great big place up Deane Road, not as fancy as the others, but worth a few bob all the same.

  The rapists all enjoyed three meals a day cooked in proper gas ovens and served at decent tables onto good plates. When they were at home, that was. They were all in the army now, all carrying guns and piking about on parade grounds in big boots and daft hats.

  She let herself into the scullery, turned on the single brass tap and forced herself to let the scalding cold burn into her fingers. She had to be clean, had to keep the germs at bay with carbolic and a stiff brush. The pain didn’t matter. Just now, the money didn’t matter either, because the child was the pivot, the centre of Theresa Nolan’s universe. The three men could wait, she supposed. Perhaps the Germans would get them. If the enemy didn’t manage it, then Theresa would. When she was ready. In her own good time.

  The King’s Head was filled with chatter, smoke and the scent of Magee’s Ale. The hostelry’s landlord, a placid man with a large belly and very little hair, was doling out drinks and keeping a weather eye on three rowdy soldiers who sat at a table just inside the door. Had it not been for their uniforms, he would have asked them to leave an hour ago, but the country needed its heroes. ‘She’ll bleed us bloody dry.’

  The trio of champions supped another pint of ale, arms raising in perfect unison, glasses returning simultaneously to the scarred top of a metal-legged table. ‘I imagine she’ll forget it in time,’ replied Roy Chorlton, the lie sliding past slightly crooked teeth. She would never forget. In his heart of hearts, Roy knew that the girl’s life was ruined for ever. Still, he shrugged off the guilt and straightened his tie.

  ‘She’d better forget, all right,’ belched Teddy Betteridge.

  Roy Chorlton’s father was the spokesperson, the one who dealt directly with the Walshes, so Roy took it upon himself to calm the lesser beings with whom he kept company. ‘She’ll have the baby to think about.’ He smoothed a slick of short black hair, wiped the resulting deposit of oil on a sleeve of rough khaki. If Teddy Betteridge didn’t shut up about Theresa Nolan, Roy might just crown him with his beer glass. ‘Let’s change the subject,’ he suggested for the third time. Things had become very heated a few minutes earlier, and the landlord was watching. Also, something akin to conscience had begun to stir in Roy Chorlton’s breast. Perhaps it was the war that had made him sensitive, the knowledge that he might easily be dead within weeks or months.

  Teddy Betteridge shrugged. After three or four jars of ale, he scarcely knew what day it was. ‘She’ll forget it,’ he agreed drunkenly. He always agreed with Roy Chorlton, because Roy was quality. The Chorltons had a jewellery shop on Deansgate and a detached mansion at the best end of Chorley New Road. ‘I wonder where they’ll send us?’ The short sentence was punctuated by several more loud belches.

  Roy gazed at his companions, wondering how the hell he had managed to fetch up in such glorious company. Ged-short-for-George Hardman had a face that resembled the surface of a full moon, round and deeply pitted by years spent picking at abundant acne. His father, the unabbreviated George Hardman of Hardman’s Hides, was a man of influence, a major employer in the township of Bolton. The son was a mess.

  Teddy Betteridge, who sat opposite Roy, broke wind, guffawed and lit a Woodbine. ‘Could be posted anywhere, I suppose.’

  ‘It’s nowhere yet,’ snapped Roy. ‘The fighting’s hardly kicked off. This isn’t embarkation leave.’

  Teddy inhaled and blew out a couple of smoke rings. ‘We should tell her to bugger off,’ he declared drunkenly. ‘She were asking for trouble wandering about in back alleys.’

  Roy Chorlton bit back a quick retort. He didn’t like to think about his crime, hated to be reminded, wished he had joined a different regiment. He didn’t fancy digging himself in with these two, German bullets flying towards him, Teddy Betteridge going on about that bloody girl. According to a certain shrunken midwife, the victim had been returning from an errand of mercy when she had been pounced on and raped.

  Ged Hardman leaned back against the wall. Life hadn’t turned out as expected; it wasn’t what he had imagined for himself. He should have been working with his dad at the tannery, should have had a car, a nice girl, a future, a decent skin. Hardman Senior had taken a tough line with his son, had belted Ged across the face after hearing about Theresa Nolan’s ordeal. That had been a frightening day, because the suave, perfect gentleman who had fathered Ged was not given to displays of strong emotion. ‘I’m fed up,’ declared Ged now. ‘Bloody war, bloody Nolan whore.’ Mother believed in him; Mother swore that her son was incapable of rape.

  Teddy Betteridge grinned lewdly. ‘I doubt you’re the father of that kiddy, anyway,’ he told Ged. ‘You’ve not much lead in your pencil, lad.’

  Sensing more trouble, Roy Chorlton left his companions and wandered into the gents’. He shut himself inside the single, evil-smelling cubicle and sighed deeply. Had he seen a picture of himself in that moment, shoulders slightly hunched, hair threatening to thin, eyes bulging slightly, he might have realized how similar he was to his father.

  Betteridge. Like the Chorltons, Teddy Betteridge’s family were tradespeople. Unlike the Chorltons, they were not particularly well thought of. Betteridge Fine Furnishings sold stuff that often fell to pieces after a year or two. Alan Betteridge, Teddy’s father, didn’t seem to care. With the threatened advent of Utility items, he might begin to sell something almost decent at last, though he would no doubt be admonished from time to time about overcharging. Yes, the Chorltons and the Betteridges were traders, but they shared no common ground beyond that simple fact.

  Roy closed his eyes and tried not to breathe too deeply while keeping company with unsavoury odours. He had never drunk brandy after last April�
��s fateful occurrence. But the beer had loosened his mind tonight and was allowing unpleasant thoughts to invade the forefront of his brain. It was his fault. He had been the instigator, the first rapist. The child was probably his, born out of lust, greed and several glasses of cognac.

  Ged Hardman, the unlovely by-product of a handsome father and a beautiful, wayward mother, had simply taken his first chance, his first woman. With a skin like his, Ged got few opportunities where females were concerned. Inflamed by Roy’s actions, the tanner’s son had enjoyed a very brief moment of sexual gratification.

  As for Betteridge, he was a pig. Like his uncouth father, Teddy Betteridge acted first, thought later – if at all. ‘One more brain cell and he’d be a dandelion,’ Roy muttered to himself. Betteridge was incapable of remorse. Betteridge was probably devoid of pity, forgiveness, charity or any other form of sensitivity.

  He thumped a closed fist against the wall. Something had to be done. Roy Chorlton, son of a two-faced and money-grabbing jeweller, had discovered a sense of morality. It had arrived late, but it was here and it was screaming to be heeded. But why should he carry the weight of all this? The answer came swiftly. He had been pickled in brandy. He had raped a woman. And someone was banging on the door.

  ‘Hast tekken root i’ yon?’ shouted a rough voice. ‘I don’t want th’ urinal, I need a sitting-down job.’

  Roy pulled the chain and emerged to face an old man with an apoplectic complexion. ‘It’s all yours,’ he said.

  ‘Aye, well tha’ll get no lavvy in a trench, lad. It’s a case of drop it where you must in battle.’

  Roy stared at the closed door. The hidden man carried on, told his invisible companion about trench foot, the trots, fleas. For good measure, he threw in scabies and a bit of gangrene before settling down in the small cubicle.