by Tania Crosse
Hillie nodded, and picked up her tea, warming her hands round the cup. No. Her dad didn’t believe in fires in the bedrooms, and Eva had guessed correctly that apart from the kitchen, the chimneys hadn’t been swept in years. But Hillie really couldn’t bring herself to speak. And besides, she was chilled to the marrow, and no fire could hope to penetrate that.
A knock on the front door lifted her from her misery, and her heart rose in reckless hope.
‘That’ll be your Jimmy with the doctor,’ Eva announced, springing to her feet. ‘I’ll go.’
But Luke had evidently got there first as Eva had scarcely left the room when she came back in again with a middle-aged woman carrying a leather Gladstone bag. Hillie was glad that Jimmy had the integrity to keep Luke company downstairs. This was no place for men.
‘Now then, what’ve we got here?’ the doctor smiled with calm confidence.
Hillie exchanged glances with Eva, who quietly shut the door.
‘Don’t want no one else hearing,’ the older woman said in a whisper, turning back into the room. ‘She told me before she passed out. She was trying to… well, you know… get rid. She’s already had six.’
The doctor scarcely raised an eyebrow, but nodded knowingly. Hillie stood back from the bed, chewing her fingernail, her heart knocking hard against her ribs. She turned her head as the doctor turned down the covers. She didn’t want to see again, and was barely aware of the stranger examining her mum’s motionless body before pulling the bedclothes back up.
‘Can you… say it’s a miscarriage?’ Hillie just about managed to scrape the plea from her throat. ‘Dad mustn’t know. He… he’s violent. He’ll take it out on her when she’s better.’
The doctor unhooked the stethoscope from her ears and slung it around her neck. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said with genuine compassion. ‘He won’t get the chance. Her heart’s barely beating, and there’s virtually no pulse.’
Hillie had to stifle her horror as the doctor’s words sank into her brain. ‘You mean…? But surely there’s something you can do?’ she stammered.
But the doctor shook her head. ‘Even if we get an ambulance, she wouldn’t make it to the hospital. And she certainly wouldn’t make it through any surgery to try and stop the bleeding. I really am sorry. It’s about the worst case I’ve ever seen. So… you need to tell me who did this before whoever it was does it to someone else.’
Eva released a heart-wrenching sigh. ‘I only wish I could, but she didn’t say who it was. Oh, Lordy Love, poor Nell. We’ve been best mates since we was kids.’
Hillie raised her eyes. But at that moment, she didn’t care about Dolly. She only cared about her mum, and accusing Dolly wasn’t going to help. Oh, God, her poor mum.
‘How… how long?’ she managed to gulp.
‘I’ll stay,’ the doctor said. And Hillie knew what she meant.
‘Better get Luke,’ she whispered, looking at Eva again. ‘But don’t wake the girls.’
Eva nodded, and did as Hillie asked. The three women and the boy stood around Nell’s bed: her eldest child and her best friend holding her hands, her only son and the kindly doctor in the background. A quiet gurgling started at the back of the dying woman’s throat, rhythmical, with each slow breath. Hillie sat there, stunned, aching, as the horrendous noise rapidly grew louder. It slashed at Hillie’s heart and she wanted to run from the room. But her legs were numbed. This was her mum…
She suddenly realised the rattling noise had stopped. The doctor hurried over with her stethoscope. And then drew in a deep breath.
‘I’m sorry. She’s gone.’
Hillie stared, blinded by tears. Hearing Luke’s young sobs.
‘Goodbye, old friend,’ she caught Eva’s choked whisper.
How long the minutes took to tick by. Or perhaps it was seconds. Hillie didn’t know. Or care, really. But then she felt the doctor press something into her hands.
‘You’ll need this to register the death,’ the woman said gently. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t lie. This sort of haemorrhage from a miscarriage is incredibly rare. It’d raise an inquest, and probably a post-mortem. And you wouldn’t want to put your mum through that, would you?’
Hillie wiped the back of her hand across her face, and looked at the piece of paper trembling in her hands. Oh, God. Her dad would have to know the truth. ‘No,’ she murmured, her voice broken and empty. ‘And thank you.’
‘I just wish I’d been in time. But… you say your goodbyes. I’ll see myself out.’
The doctor tiptoed down the stairs. She’d seen it all before. Many times. Women, girls, in trouble. Married or otherwise. If only this sort of thing could be made legal. So that doctors could perform the procedure safely and with impunity. But she couldn’t see that happening in her lifetime. If only the politicians and the religious objectors could see what she had over and over again…
As if to compound her convictions, the front door crashed open just as she reached it and a stocky, lurching drunk in a flat cap staggered inside. He stopped, swaying precariously, and glared at the stranger.
‘Who the bleeding hell are you?’ he demanded.
‘I think… you’d better go upstairs,’ she answered levelly, and slipped past him, smelling the beer on his breath as she did so.
She shook her head as she pulled the door shut behind her. And heard the fellow’s bellicose roar as he pounded up the stairs. Dear God, she wouldn’t fancy being in that poor young girl’s shoes just now!
Chapter Fifteen
Jimmy had been waiting down in the kitchen, not wanting to intrude. But recognising Harold’s bellowing voice, he ran up the stairs behind him. He might be needed, and he wasn’t going to let that monster hurt his Hillie ever again.
He reached the front bedroom just in time to hear Mrs Parker tell Harold in a few words what had happened. It was just as well he was there, Jimmy considered, as Hardwick went berserk, flinging himself about the room in a frenzy so that everyone had to dodge out of his way. Jimmy was about to launch himself on him before someone was hurt, when the devil lurched over the bottom of the bedstead, breaking his stampede. He looked down on his wife, jerking himself into reality, and crawled round the side of the bed to her.
Jimmy sought Hillie’s gaze. Her face was white, but she mouthed her thanks at him. ‘I’ll call if I need you,’ she whispered. ‘And take Luke with you.’
Jimmy was reluctant to go, but Harold seemed to have calmed down so Jimmy led Hillie’s trembling brother down the stairs, followed by an anxious Eva, who mumbled that she’d fetch a bowl of water. They left Harold kneeling by Nell’s bedside, holding her hand in his and kissing it repeatedly. ‘Oh, my darling, what’ll I do without you?’ he moaned, his words slurred from a night at the pub.
Hillie watched him, grief, fury, contempt bubbling up inside her. ‘Oh, don’t play the grieving husband with me,’ she growled, burning with disgust as she noticed his eyes were totally dry. ‘You never loved her.’
He swivelled round, scarlet rage flushing up from his neck. ‘How dare you!’ he yelled, letting go of Nell’s hand to raise his fist. Then, realising Hillie was towering over him, face set like granite, he appeared to think better of it. ‘I did love her. Very much,’ he protested – as if butter wouldn’t melt, Hillie considered.
‘Then you had a dead funny way of showing it,’ she retorted.
‘Don’t you cheek me, you little minx,’ Harold grated, his usual ill-temper returning at once. ‘This is your fault. If you hadn’t run away to marry that scum, you’d’ve been here to help, and she wouldn’t’ve felt she couldn’t cope with another un. And now they’re both dead ’cos of you.’
Hillie brushed aside the stab of guilt. Yes, her mother and her baby brother or sister were gone. But she wasn’t going to let her father bully her like he had her mum. It was time for some home truths.
‘I didn’t run away. You drove me away. You beat me up for going out and having some fun. And don’t think I don’t know about you s
tealing the money I sent for Luke and the others for their birthdays. You’re just a damned, bloody bully! And this,’ she seethed, gesturing towards Nell, ‘had nothing to do with me. And it didn’t really have anything to do with the baby, either. She’d have loved it and cared for it just as she did all of us. It was you who ground her down. Bullying her, treating her like muck. It was that that made her feel she couldn’t cope. Well, at least she won’t have to put up with you any longer. She’s well out of it. Now get your sodding self out of here so Mrs P and I can lay her out.’
Harold’s jaw had dropped open several times as he went to interrupt her tirade, but in his drunken stupor, the shock of Hillie’s unfettered rage was too much for him. ‘And where am I supposed to go?’ he whined pathetically, changing tactic as he stood up and yawned, just as if his dead wife wasn’t lying there in the bed. ‘I’m knackered and I need some kip.’
Hillie boiled over with hatred. He was unbelievable! ‘I don’t bloody well care where you go!’ She rolled her eyes in outrage, her gaze falling on his side of the bed. ‘Here,’ she snarled, grabbing his pillow and the eiderdown and bundling them into his arms. ‘Take those downstairs into your precious parlour. Make a bed for yourself on the floor. It’s where you belong. Like the dog that you are, and that’s insulting every dog on earth!’
She pushed him so hard as he staggered from the room, that he fell out through the door and only just managed to stop himself from going headlong down the stairs. Hillie watched him, disappointed that he didn’t do just that and break his neck. He deserved it, and the world would be a far better place.
Panting as her fury subsided, Hillie stumbled on unsteady legs back into the bedroom, hands over her mouth in horror at her own flaring outburst. She’d argued, shouted at her dad often enough, but she didn’t think she’d ever attacked him like that before. Perhaps if she had, things might never have got so bad, and this might never have happened. But there again, Harold hadn’t got so drunk in the past as he seemed to now. She was sure the only reason she’d got away with it was because he was semi-paralytic and wasn’t capable of retaliating. No doubt she’d pay for it later in one way or another.
‘Oh, Mum,’ she sighed out loud as she stepped up to the bed and took Harold’s place, kneeling on the rag rug over the bare floorboards. She stroked Nell’s cheek. It was already turning cold. ‘I’m sorry I let it come to this,’ she choked miserably, tears streaming unchecked down her cheeks. ‘I did try. But I still don’t really understand why you wouldn’t leave him. And now… now I never will.’
She took Nell’s hand, pressing her forehead against it, allowing the grief to pour over her. What had her poor mum suffered since she’d upped and gone away? Was it her fault, or would it have happened anyway?
Hillie gritted her teeth, steeling herself as she heard Eva’s heavy footfall on the stairs. She knew the dear woman would be carrying a bowl of warm water to wash Nell’s body clean, and that then with Hillie’s help, she’d change her clothes, put clean sheets on the bed. Make her friend ready for her journey into the afterlife.
Hillie watched, trembling, as the door handle turned. She’d never expected this. Was it really her fault? Dear Lord, what had she done?
*
Jimmy held her at arm’s length, his chocolate eyes deep with earnest. ‘I’m so sorry, Hill. I can’t come.’
Hillie’s face moved into a bewildered, accusing frown. ‘What d’you mean, you can’t come?’ she demanded, pausing as she pulled on her old knitted black gloves to match the coat Belinda had lent her. ‘You only went out to get a loaf of bread.’
‘Yeah, well, here’s the bread. But I bumped into Mr Jackson, and he’s got a job for us.’
‘A job for you!’ Hillie scoffed, halfway between disbelief and outrage. ‘The factory’ve given you a day’s compassionate leave to come to my mum’s funeral, and you’re going to swan off to do some dodgy deal for this Mr Jackson instead!’
‘No, Hill, you don’t understand. He’s giving us a month’s wages for just one day’s work. I couldn’t say no.’
‘And you expect me to believe it’s all above board?’ Hillie was infuriated. ‘I’ve always thought there was something fishy about him.’
‘Well, you’re wrong. He just moves in very different circles to the sort of thing we’re used to. He deals in lots of things, but this is to do with property. Anyway, I’ve said yes, so I can’t let him down now. Besides, your dad might decide he don’t want me at the funeral after all. He might turn nasty, and you wouldn’t want that, would you?’
Hillie glared at him, her lips twisted. She needed Jimmy at the funeral to support her. She was disappointed and deeply hurt. But a month’s wages… Besides, she was sure nothing she’d say could change Jimmy’s mind.
‘But what if it gets back to the factory that you weren’t at the funeral?’
‘If anyone asks, just tell them I got ill or something,’ Jimmy shrugged. ‘I am sorry, love. But it was too good to miss. I hope it all goes off… well, as well as a funeral can.’ He gave her a quick peck on the cheek before turning back to the door. ‘I’ll get you something nice to make up for it. And don’t wait up tonight. I mightn’t be back till late.’
And he was gone, leaving Hillie to stare at the closed door. Her legs felt wobbly, and her hand reached out to feel for the settee. She lowered herself onto it, feeling all topsy-turvy. The funeral wasn’t until two o’clock and she was running early, so she had plenty of time to sit quietly for a few moments to put her emotions in order. It was going to be hard enough, and she couldn’t waste any of her strength worrying about what Jimmy was up to.
She took a deep breath, putting the lid on her frustrations and sorrow. Time to face the music. And she let herself out of the flat.
It was drizzling and cold, a thoroughly miserable afternoon. When she turned into Banbury Street, already feeling chilled and wretched, a lifetime of memories flooded back. Childhood dreams, playing innocently on the pavement with Kit and Gert, and then Luke when he was old enough, wary of her dad but unaware of the animosity that would eventually develop between them. Above all, her mum, always there to comfort her, bathe a grazed knee, kiss a bumped head. Help her to read her first book, and all those that came after. It was special what they’d had. Was that because she was the firstborn, and the war had meant a four-year gap before Luke came along? Perhaps. And now her mum was dead. Gone. At peace. And somehow Hillie was going to have to make sure her brother and sisters were properly cared for.
The front door to the house was open, and Hillie went inside. The atmosphere was strange. Hushed. The parlour door was ajar, and Hillie peered round it. Her dad was there, staring down at the long, narrow box balanced on two trestles. His expression was unfathomable, hair greased down, his work suit sponged and pressed in an outward show of grief.
Hillie pulled herself up short. On this of all days, she should give him more credit. Surely he must have loved her mum once upon a time. But yet again, there wasn’t a tear in his eyes.
His features stiffened when he saw Hillie, but she ignored it and instead stepped forward to look at her mum one last time. Nell looked so peaceful, as if she was asleep. All her cares gone. And Hillie felt sorrow rising in her throat again.
‘Have the… the little ones said goodbye?’ she managed to croak.
‘Yeah. Of course,’ Harold snapped back.
Hillie couldn’t find it in her to retort, but nodded briefly. Then she gazed down into the open coffin again, imprinting the image on her mind forever. Kissed her own fingers and placed them on Nell’s marble forehead.
‘Goodbye, Mum,’ she mouthed, unable to voice the words. Grief strangling her.
There were sounds in the hallway, footsteps, muted voices. A couple of men Hillie didn’t recognise came into the room and lifted the coffin lid into place. She watched until the last second. The shadow closing over her mum’s face. And then she was swallowed up into darkness.
Hillie couldn’t bear to watch the
lid being nailed down. Gasping for breath, she stumbled out into the kitchen. Luke was there, stone-faced, as he kept an eye on his four younger sisters. The relief as Hillie appeared was palpable, and she scraped herself together for their sakes. They were back to their normal, loving selves again, and Hillie wondered what lies Harold had told about her – or what threats he’d made towards them if they dared to speak to her.
‘Get your coats on,’ she said gently. She bent to help Daisy into hers and then turned to Frances who was struggling to fasten her buttons.
‘Luke says Mummy’s gone for a long sleep,’ the child told her in a matter-of-fact tone.
‘That’s right. She was very tired,’ Hillie managed to confirm in what she hoped was a normal-sounding voice.
‘And we won’t see her for a very long time.’
‘No. So you all need to be very good for Daddy.’
Hillie straightened up as Luke peered round the door into the hallway. ‘Come on. It’s time,’ he rasped.
They trooped outside just as the plain coffin was being lifted onto the decorated dray-cart from the brewery that owned not just the Duke of Cambridge on the corner but some of the street as well. Some of the people from the brewery still remembered Nell as the sweet little daughter of the grocer who used to be round the corner, and when they heard she was to have the equivalent of a pauper’s funeral, they’d stepped in to provide some decent transport for her last journey. The cart had been cleaned, and the massive horses groomed until their coats gleamed, their manes and tails plaited with black ribbons. The sight tightened the constriction in Hillie’s throat, and suddenly the street filled with people spilling out of their front doors. Jessica came down the steps of Number Three followed, amazingly, by both her parents dressed immaculately in black, wanting to be seen to be doing the correct thing, Hillie imagined. But it was nevertheless appreciated.
Belinda, although unable to come herself, had also wangled from Personnel a couple of hours’ compassionate leave for Stan and Gert, who was holding little Trudy’s hand. Eva was trundling Primrose along in an old pushchair, and then Hillie was happily surprised to see Kit manoeuvring Old Sal’s wheelchair over the threshold and onto the pavement.
