Carrie bit her lip. She had assumed Billy would go down in Wilton Lane history as a jilt. She had never thought of that beating turning him into a sympathetic character.
‘Anyroad,’ said Letty, ‘we fell to talking, and then we bumped into one another again.’
‘And one thing led to another.’
‘It happened gradual, like.’
‘You never said.’
‘I’m saying now. I know Billy let you down, but there’s a lot of good in him; and it’s not as though you didn’t find consolation elsewhere.’ She didn’t say: and right quick an’ all, but she was undoubtedly thinking it. ‘Look at you: married, your own home, a baby on the way. You’re never going to begrudge me this chance, are you?’
‘Of course not. It’s a surprise, that’s all.’ And that was an understatement, if ever there was one.
‘I didn’t want you hearing it from anyone else. Look, I’d best get back.’
‘Are you coming round after?’
‘Sorry, not today. I promised Mam I’d give her a hand. She wants to turn the sheets sides to middle. It’s a lot of sewing … well, you don’t need me to tell you …’
Carrie was dismayed to see her dearest friend prattling in such an embarrassed fashion. Was this how it was going to be in future? She seized Letty’s hand.
‘I’m sorry if I didn’t sound pleased, only I were that surprised. But I am glad for you, and I don’t want it to come between us.’
‘Thanks. Look, I really must go. I’ll see you soon.’
Carrie watched her hurry away before walking back to the shop. Letty and Billy: how was she going to get used to that? Then she pulled herself together. She would be home in five minutes and Ralph would expect her to be her usual cheerful self, so she had better get used to it pretty sharpish.
‘You’ve got a smut on your face.’ Ralph rubbed his thumb between Carrie’s brows and she let him, not liking to say he was removing the ashes Father Kelly had smudged onto her forehead.
She set about dusting the pieces Ralph had brought through to the office. She couldn’t stop thinking about Letty and Billy; she felt fluttery and unsettled. That was what had brought her downstairs. To stay upstairs might have seemed like she was hiding, as if she had something to be ashamed of, as if she were still harbouring feelings for Billy.
Would he tell Letty about the baby? And if he did, which story would he tell? The truth – but that would make him look a complete cad; or the tale he had told Father Kelly. Would Letty shun Carrie ever after – or would she refuse to believe her best friend capable of making free with a string of lads? Carrie closed her eyes and hoped with all her heart that Letty and Billy would both feel too awkward to breathe a word about her.
‘Carrie? You all right?’
Her eyes flew open. ‘The baby kicked. I swear my insides are black and blue.’
‘You look peaky. Maybe you should put your feet up.’
‘I’m fine.’ She attempted a laugh. ‘I’ve a while to go yet. I can’t be resting all the time.’
‘Is that friend of yours coming this afternoon?’
She wanted to say, ‘She has a name,’ but she had found herself being careful what she said since Arthur had been roughed up. ‘Not today. She’s busy.’
‘Good.’
And what was that supposed to mean? Ralph was generous with housekeeping and pin money and since her marriage she had received more presents than in the whole of her life put together, certainly more than she felt comfortable receiving. ‘I’d give you anything you wanted,’ he said time and again, yet somewhere along the line she had sensed he was capable of taking things away too – like Letty’s friendship.
Well, perhaps he wouldn’t need to separate her from Letty. Maybe Billy would do the job for him.
Running the duster over the hand mirror that was the last piece in front of her, she decided to call it a day. Checking there was no one but Ralph and Arthur in the shop, she went to Ralph at the counter.
‘I’ve finished.’
‘Righto. Put everything back, Renton.’
As she turned away, something caught her eye on the shelf under the counter. Spectacles.
‘Whose are those?’
‘No idea; some customer or other. Lost property.’
The bell pinged as the door opened to admit a lady and gentleman. Ralph moved, shielding her from view, and she was quick to take the hint. She was halfway upstairs when she remembered Miss Deacon rummaging in her handbag to find her spectacles. Going back down, she peeped into the shop. Ralph was ushering the couple towards a splendid table on the far side. She retrieved the spectacles and hurried out.
Putting on her outdoor things, she smiled, her spirits lifting. She would enjoy returning Miss Deacon’s glasses. The old dear must have been lost without them. She remembered the address. It wouldn’t take her long to walk there.
A sharp wind had got up and sleet was whipping through the air, slapping bitterly as it landed. Miss Deacon lived a couple of minutes from where there was talk of public swimming baths being built. The terraced houses were tall and smart, with lacy nets and a small semicircular stained-glass window above each front door. Carrie lifted the gleaming brass knocker and executed a cheery rat-tat. When there was no reply, she tried again. Still no answer.
She was about to walk away when she hesitated, thinking of poor Miss Deacon in need of her spectacles, thinking too of her baby, more than a fortnight late and surely due at any minute. Much as she would like to come back another time and have the pleasure of finding Miss Deacon at home, it would be better if she left the glasses now. They would fit through the letter box, but what if they smashed on the hall floor? She delved in her coat pockets and produced an old shopping list. If she popped round the back and left the spectacles in a safe place, she could write a quick note and put it through the letter box for Miss Deacon to find when she came home.
Down the entry, Carrie pushed open Miss Deacon’s back gate and found a small garden, a square of lawn, shallow beds against the fences and a sprawling twiggy mass that presumably would resolve itself into something pretty in the flowering season.
She walked up the path, deciding between the window ledge and the coal-hole roof as the safest place for the specs. The back door looked like it was ajar. Another step nearer and she saw it was indeed. She knocked, holding on to the door when it would have swung open.
‘Miss Deacon? I tried the front, but you never heard me.’
No answer.
Gently, she pushed the door open on to the kitchen, seeing a pair of wooden cupboards, a shelf with saucepans, a table with a single chair, a door in the far corner, presumably to the cellar. As the back door swung fully open, she saw the fireplace, empty and black, with not so much as a glowing ember, and all of a sudden she felt cold in a way that owed nothing to the weather.
She stepped inside. Above her head, dry washing hung from a pulley. Picturing the old lady lying injured at the foot of the stairs, she made straight for the far door, which was half-open. The hall was gloomy and no figure lay sprawled.
‘Miss Deacon! It’s Mrs Armstrong from the antiques shop.’
No reply. Perhaps she was ill in bed. Carrie didn’t like to venture upstairs before checking downstairs. The door to the back room was shut. She opened it; no Miss Deacon. Imagining herself finding the old dear bedridden, she popped her head round the front-room door, expecting to withdraw it immediately, only to gasp in shock at the sight of furniture turned over and things on the floor. Then she saw the crumpled form on the rug and her breathing stopped.
She staggered forward a step or two, halting abruptly, a wordless exclamation bursting out of her chest all the way up her throat and out of her mouth, as she saw the eye blackened and swollen, the marks along the papery cheek, the dark dry stain spreading from the side of the open mouth, the same stain blotching the rug, a single tooth sitting in the middle of it.
Her gaze lingered on the tooth; it looked so incongruous. For
a split second she was back in Wilton Lane and there was Joseph Armstrong on the kitchen floor, and Mam in a motionless heap. The next thing she knew, she was blundering from the room, clutching the walls for support, her eyes fixed on the front door. Her fingers scrabbled numbly for escape, tearing at the door chain. She threw the door open and stumbled forward, turning her ankle on the step. A sharp pain raced through her foot and shot up her calf, at the same moment as water gushed down her thighs.
She was aware of someone walking past and heard her own voice calling out. Her legs collapsed beneath her and she sank onto the slushy path. Her head was swimming and she thought she would faint clean away, only she didn’t; she carried on feeling woozy and distant.
Someone came bustling beside her, then someone else; she heard voices without being able to catch what they were saying. They would think she had wet herself. They would think how disgraceful, and they wouldn’t know what had happened to Miss Deacon.
A spasm of pain started in her spine and thrust into her abdomen. She thought she would pass out; instead, the pain brought her sharply awake.
‘You need the police. There’s a lady inside … And could someone please take me home right now …’
Chapter Twenty-Six
Ralph clamped his fists at his sides. It was the only way to stop himself raining blows on that bloody idiot Renton, who had returned without the doctor. Without the bloody doctor! He should have gone himself. He would have found out the address the doctor had been called to, gone round there and marched the quack here, with his arm twisted up his back if necessary.
‘Is he coming?’ The midwife appeared, wiping her hands.
‘No, he sodding well isn’t!’ Ralph fixed Renton with a glare. Seeing the way Renton blanched, he took a threatening step towards him. When they’re scared, make ’em more scared. Don’t stop till they’re shitting themselves.
‘You’ll need another doctor, then,’ the woman said, as if he couldn’t have worked this out for himself, ‘or I’ll not be responsible.’
‘What’s going on?’
He swung round. Jesus, trust Adam to turn up when he wasn’t wanted.
‘The door was open so I came up.’ Adam looked from one to the other. ‘I heard raised voices.’
‘What, and you’ve come rushing to the rescue? I hope you left the door open. It’ll make it quicker for you to leave.’
In the bedroom, Carrie cried out and Adam looked round.
‘Is Carrie in labour?’
‘Yes.’ Ralph shouldered his way across the room, intending to hustle Adam back through the door and straight down the stairs, preferably without benefit of gaining his footing first, but Adam held his ground, fixing his attention on the midwife, who was still standing there, stupid bitch, when she should have gone back to Carrie. What the hell did she think she was being paid for?
‘Is everything all right?’ Adam asked.
‘It’s fine,’ Ralph butted in before the woman could answer. ‘Get back to your job,’ he ordered her, ‘and leave me to deal with the other thing.’
‘What other thing?’ Adam wanted to know.
‘We need a doctor,’ the midwife said before Ralph could shut her up. ‘Baby’s a breech.’
‘Have you sent for him?’
Ralph inhaled sharply. ‘Of course I have. Now get gone, will you?’
‘Doctor’s out,’ snapped the woman, giving Ralph a defiant look that made him want to deal her a bloody good crack across her self-righteous face.
‘I’ll find another.’ His words snarled out between clenched teeth. ‘Now will you do as you’re told and get back to my wife?’
As the woman vanished, Adam said, ‘I’ll deliver the baby.’
He stared. It would never have occurred to him in a hundred years to turn to his brother for help. ‘You – the waxworks man?’
‘It might surprise you to know this won’t be my first birth.’
‘Not flaming likely. That’s my wife in there.’
‘Carrie needs a doctor and she needs one now.’ He was actually shrugging off his jacket, damn him, the interfering bastard.
Ralph squared up to him, muscling close. ‘If you think I’m letting you clap eyes on my Carrie in that position—’
‘Good God, is that was this is about? Don’t be a fool, man! I’m a doctor. Carrie’s got nothing I haven’t seen before.’
‘Not on my wife you haven’t.’
He could see that Adam almost laughed, but fortunately for him he didn’t or the next medical procedure he performed would have been to extract a fist from a sodding great dent in the front of his face.
‘Get out of here,’ Ralph barked. ‘I don’t need you.’
‘But Carrie does.’ Adam didn’t budge an inch, blast him. ‘Are you prepared to deny her the help she needs because it’s more important to keep me from seeing certain parts of her anatomy?’ His voice rose. ‘Do you have the first idea what a breech birth means?’
‘I’ll fetch another doctor,’ he began.
‘Fine! Do that. Meanwhile, I’ll see to your wife and child.’
Before he could grab him, Adam was through the door and marching down the landing to the bedroom. Boiling with rage and hatred, Ralph caught up just in time to have the door slammed in his face.
Gazing tenderly on her baby’s downy head, Carrie was filled with wonderment. Here was perfect love. ‘Joey,’ she whispered over and over, cuddling her little boy close. It had been her idea to name him Joseph. She wanted to make this baby Ralph’s in every way she could. When she suggested the name, she had trembled with hope and generosity; and his easy, offhand acceptance, ‘Yes, if you like,’ had surprised and hurt. But that was her own fault. Naturally, Ralph attached no significance to her choice; he probably took it for granted. It was her guilty conscience that lent it such meaning.
Ralph presented her with a pretty bedjacket and helped her into it.
‘It’s lovely,’ she breathed, fingering the ribbon detail. ‘But what an extravagance.’
‘Nothing’s too good for my wife.’
‘I only meant, when will I ever wear it?’
‘For the next ten days, at least. That’s how long you’re staying there.’
She couldn’t believe her ears. ‘You want me to stop in bed for ten days?’ Back in Wilton Lane, a woman was lucky to get twenty-four hours, and then only if she had a daughter of an age to make herself useful.
‘You’re not in the backstreets now. You don’t have to haul yourself out of bed to mop the front step for fear of setting tongues wagging. In the decent world, wives rest for ten days after giving birth.’
‘But what am I supposed to do? I can’t just lie about.’
‘You’ll rest and nurse our son and rock him and sing to him. You seem to be quite an expert at those things already.’
She laughed, seeing bed rest through different eyes. Ten whole days, just her and Joey.
‘What about Mam?’
‘She’s in good hands. Mrs Porter is doing extra hours and I can eat over the road if I have to.’
Carrie settled back against the pillows. Not that she could have said so to Ralph, but she was sore where she had been stitched. How lucky she was to be able to heal properly before she had to be up and doing. It was another reason to be grateful.
The next day she swung herself gingerly out of bed, wincing as the stitches tugged, inflicting a burning sensation. Tenderly, heart swelling with love, she lifted Joey from the cradle she had insisted be placed next to her side of the bed instead of at its foot.
‘Time to meet your nan,’ she murmured, laying him gently against her shoulder and feeling a thrill of pleasure as his tiny face snuggled into her neck.
Padding along the landing, she paused at Mam’s door and knocked politely because of the nurse. In she went – shock whooped through her. The bed was empty. More than empty – stripped. Her fingers spread out in a fan over her chest.
She stood staring; then, clutching Joey to her,
she turned and blundered her way along the landing.
‘Carrie!’ Ralph was at the top of the stairs. ‘What are you doing out of bed?’
‘Where’s Mam?’
‘Here, let’s get you back where you belong.’ He tried to guide her away.
She pulled free. ‘Where’s Mam? Tell me.’ Had she died? Joey started to squawl and her body began an instinctive rocking motion.
‘I’ll take him,’ said Ralph.
‘No—’
‘You’re hysterical.’
Deftly, he removed the baby and swung away, heading for the bedroom. She flitted anxiously behind.
‘Get into bed. I’ll let you have him once you’ve calmed down.’
‘Mam’s vanished and you want me to calm down?’
His handsome face froze and she knew she had gone too far.
‘That’s no way to speak to me. I’ll come back later.’
‘Ralph – wait! I’m sorry.’
But he had gone, Joey with him. Stitches burning, Carrie flew after him, the need to reclaim her baby pounding through her. As she reached out her hand to grasp Ralph’s arm, he turned, looking at her so coldly that her hand fell away.
‘What did I tell you?’ he said.
‘Don’t speak to me as if I’m a child.’
‘I wouldn’t have to if you conducted yourself like a good wife.’
‘I’ve always been a good wife to you.’
‘Good wives obey their husbands and they don’t need telling twice. I won’t have my son upset. Your outburst will unsettle him. You have to calm yourself. You don’t want him to be unhappy, do you?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Then do as you’re told. I’ll bring him back to you when you’re serene, as a new mother ought to be.’
How had she ended up in the wrong? She would never do anything to Joey’s detriment. She had barely begun being his mother, the most important job of her life, and already she had gone wrong. She returned to bed. The sheets were rumpled and chilled. She was stunned at the speed with which her perfect world had tilted sideways. She felt lost without Joey and couldn’t bear the thought of what must have become of her beloved mam. Had she been deemed too frail to be told Mam had died? Were new mothers to be protected from such things in Ralph’s so-called decent world? If so, she wanted no part of it.
The Deserter's Daughter Page 18
