After settling the child next door, Ernie Moss and George Marsden had a chat. When everything had been mulled over, Ernie shut Albert in his house, explaining that a three-legged canine was not equipped for the long trek up Derby Street. Albert, who knew a great deal about human nature, curled up for a rest. Ernie would not desert him. Ernie would be back to feed him later.
The warden walked past the Tivoli cinema, caught his breath, then resolutely carried on struggling up the slope. The ambulance would probably have arrived by now, and Theresa Nolan would be in good hands. What about the kiddy, though? There probably wasn’t much wrong with her apart from shock, so the hospital might kick her out tomorrow with a clean bill of health. Where to? Lostock? The orphanage up Edgeworth?
He stood outside the door of number 35, View Street. Mike Nolan lived here, Big Michael, the one with a gob like the Grand Canyon and a lot more than enough to say for himself. Big Mike should have been dead years ago, by all accounts, due to pneumonia, pleurisy, liver trouble, leg ulcers. But only the good died young, and this man was far from good. Big Mike Nolan had won the Great War all by himself. He had routed the Kaiser, killed a million Germans, had saved the lives of countless inept men, was worth more than ten regiments.
Ernie raised his hand to knock, but decided to get his breath back first. Big Michael Nolan had fists like lump hammers and was not averse to using them. Even the slightest hint of criticism could cause Big Mike to let fly. He had thrown out poor Theresa in her hour of greatest need, had caused all but one of his other children to escape as soon as they were grown, and lived now in the company of Ruth, the one and only Nolan who could match him for strangeness.
The door opened. Ruth McManus poked out her less than attractive face. At the age of thirty, she was already wrinkled, her face criss-crossed with lines caused by ill-temper. ‘What do you want?’ she snapped. Her neck, too thin for the largeish head it supported, was stringy, like something that should have poked out of a shell – the front end of a turtle or a tortoise.
Perhaps the orphanage was the best place, thought Ernie. Blood was thicker than water, but this one here seemed to have ice-filled veins. Her husband had buggered off back to Ireland when the clouds of war had gathered, and Ruth’s temper had not been improved by Joseph McManus’s sudden disappearance. ‘I’ve not got all day,’ she snapped. ‘I were watching you from the parlour – are you going to stand out there for ever?’ She pulled at a lock of her thick, black hair and twisted it about her fingers.
Ernie swallowed. ‘It’s your sister—’
‘Which one? I’ve five altogether, and three brothers.’
‘Theresa.’
Ruth’s mouth snapped shut. Beady brown eyes fixed themselves on the unwelcome caller. ‘She’s no sister to me, no daughter to my dad, either. She refused to budge herself to visit him when he were at death’s door, so she’s nowt a pound, our Theresa.’
Ernie squashed his temper. The female on the doorstep had chased Joseph McManus three times round Bolton before managing to get herself in the family way. McManus, who had not been able to escape quickly enough at that particular time, had been dragged up the aisle of St Mary’s by a very annoyed Big Mike Nolan. ‘She’s ill,’ he muttered at last.
‘She were always ill,’ replied Ruth. ‘Always wanting attention, always needing summat or other.’
‘Rheumatic fever leaves kiddies weak,’ Ernie said. ‘And she grew up weak and all.’
‘And who said she had the rheumatic?’ asked Ruth scathingly.
‘It’s common knowledge. Everybody knows about her heart being affected.’
Ruth McManus sniffed disdainfully. She could have just about killed for a Woodbine. ‘Have you got a ciggy?’ she asked.
‘I don’t smoke, sorry.’
The woman folded thin arms about her flat chest. ‘What’s up with her this time?’
‘She’s in hospital. We had to break in and she was very near death.’
She nodded. ‘So what do you want me to do about it?’
Ernie cleared his throat, trying to make a space in which he might think. ‘It’s Jess,’ he said eventually. ‘Theresa’s little girl.’
‘I see.’ Ruth opened the door, then opened her mouth. ‘Dad?’ she screamed.
‘What?’ Even from the back of the house, Michael Nolan’s voice was loud.
‘Some feller from down the road. Wants you to do summat about our Theresa.’
Ernie stepped back when Big Mike strode down the hall. He was a bull of a man, red-faced, sweaty and as Irish as the gill of black beer in his hand. ‘What about you?’ he asked. ‘Did you want something from me, Mr … er?’
‘Moss. Ernie Moss. I live a few doors down from your Theresa—’
‘Who?’
‘Your daughter.’
Mike Nolan placed his pint glass on a small table just inside the door, then pulled Ruth back into the house before stepping out. ‘I have no daughter of that name,’ he said coldly. ‘Ruth should know that by now.’
‘But little Jessica—’
‘Jess-i-ca?’ There was mockery in the three syllables. ‘There’s nobody here knows a Jess-i-ca. Or a Theresa. Ruth must have been confused when she called me, because we’ve had no Theresa here for as long as I can remember. And a name like Jess-i-ca would be a bit sick, for wasn’t that the name of my sainted wife? No, I’ve no memory of either of the people you’re talking about. So be on your way, Mr … er.’
Mike Nolan’s memory was as short as his neck, thought Ernie. He looked at the ugly man, at the ugly woman, then noticed a child peeping round Ruth’s skirts. She looked to be about ten or eleven, though thirteen was nearer the actual mark. Starved, she was, deprived of love and decent nourishment, concluded the warden. He eyed Irene. It was a sin to call a child ugly, he told himself. But the flat, colourless face and those glassy eyes were reminiscent of a sad field-beast – a goat, perhaps, or a particularly unlovely and unloved sheep.
‘Come away, Irene,’ chided Ruth when the girl pushed her way to the door.
Ernie shuddered. The orphanage, then. From what he had just seen in Big Mike Nolan’s lobby, this was a family unfit for little Jessica Nolan.
Theresa groaned, opened her eyes and saw a beautiful man looking down on her. He was not handsome, not rugged or manly, but simply beautiful. Jessica. Where was she?
‘Mrs Nolan?’
It was Miss Nolan, though she had not the strength to argue.
‘Can you hear me?’
She could hear him, all right, could see his bright blue eyes and his yellow, damped-down shock of curls. He was too young to be a doctor. Perhaps she was dead and in some waiting room outside St Peter’s gates. No, no, there was work to be done …
‘You’re going to be all right,’ he announced cheerfully. ‘You just wore yourself out and got very cold.’
She coughed, was lifted by strong arms into a sitting position. Her tongue accepted gratefully a few drops of water. The room was stifling, and she was swaddled in half a dozen blankets.
‘Mrs Nolan?’
She was drifting away again. Somewhere, Jessica was calling out, but the sound was inside the dream, not here, not in this hard bed. It was time to leave Jessica with Eva Harris, wasn’t it?
‘Mrs Nolan?’
‘Leave her.’ The female voice was strong, authoritative. ‘Let her sleep, Dr Marshall.’
Theresa slept. She walked up those four well-worn steps into her home on View Street. Dad was there, was smoking his pipe and spitting into the fire. Ruth’s husband, drunk as usual, was counting money at the table.
‘Who did you rob this time?’ screamed Ruth. ‘Dad – he’s got a gold watch in his pocket. We’ll be getting the police round if he doesn’t start behaving.’
Big Mike Nolan swivelled slowly in his chair. ‘Shut up,’ he bellowed. He didn’t care how Joseph McManus acquired the money. As long as he got his baccy and his pint, Nolan was not interested in the finer details.
Theresa stood
near the door. Her heart was jumping crazily in her chest. She could not tell Dad. There had been trouble enough over Ruth’s recent shotgun wedding. She turned away and trudged wearily up the stairs.
‘Mrs Nolan?’
She opened her eyes.
‘Nice cup of tea?’
The nurse had a pleasant, round face, dark eyes and a starched white cap. Theresa’s eyelids, still heavy with sleep, returned to the closed position.
The alley was darkening in the drizzly April dusk. She could hear them breathing, sniggering as they jumped out of a backyard. Her coat was ripped away, then her blouse, her skirt, her undergarments. When her arms were pinned down by two of them, the third tore his way into her. He was rough, but very quick.
The second attacker took longer. Beery breath filled her nostrils as the beast grunted its way towards some kind of seizure. The ogre shuddered, cried out, bit her chest. She knew him. By the time the third monster had performed his vile act, the first deemed himself fit for a repeat performance. Whatever he was doing did not work. The others mocked him. Her eyes adjusted to the dying light and she recognized the criminals.
Carelessly, they spoke to one another, tossed names about. Theresa took those names and scorched them into the forefront of her brain. She would never forget, would never forgive. These filthy articles were privileged, supposedly educated creatures, were from the better end of town. Theresa knew their fathers, their families, their businesses. These articles had sprung from the loins of successful men.
‘What a gem,’ breathed Theresa Nolan.
‘Just a sip.’ The nurse supported her, guided the cup to her lips. ‘Who’s a gem?’ she asked.
The patient flopped back into the pillows. ‘A rough diamond,’ she mumbled. ‘Set in fools’ gold.’ In her delirium, she referred to Roy Chorlton, son of the master jeweller.
She lost count after a while. For at least half an hour, she was left on rain-slicked cobbles while they drank and smoked. Matches and lighters illuminated their faces. They were hideous. She was used and abused repeatedly until the trio lost interest. Laughing and joking, the three revellers staggered away towards their next adventure.
She sat up, leaned herself against a wall, vomited, removed an object from between her thighs. She stared through the gloom at the beer bottle. This was almost more humiliating than the actual rapes had been. Their final act had been to use her as a dustbin, a rubbish heap for their discarded debris.
‘Mrs Nolan?’
‘Where is my daughter?’
The nurse smiled reassuringly, carried on administering tea. ‘She’s tucked up in bed on the children’s ward.’
Theresa had to stay alive. There were things she had to do, people to be dealt with. Had she waited too long? she wondered. Jessica had come first. Theresa had always wanted Jess to be older before … before what? Was she going to kill those men – was that to be the plan? Was blackmail not enough? ‘What happened?’ she managed to ask the nurse. And the leaving of Jessica was going to be so difficult. ‘What happened?’ she whispered again.
‘Never mind that now. Just get some rest.’
Rest? There was none. She stood on the doorstep of her home, picked up belongings that had been tossed through an upper window. Ruth hadn’t said anything. Ruth never said much. But Big Mike Nolan had lived up to his reputation, had unleashed his famous Irish temper. ‘Get out of my house! You’re no better than any other stinking English whore!’
Theresa gathered her few possessions and moved into number 27. Mrs Eva Harris, midwife and mentor to the troubled, was the only person who knew the full story. Dad had refused to listen, would never have believed it.
Mrs Harris’s husband knew somebody who knew somebody else. The somebody else found the Emblem Street house and a job in a small newspaper shop. As the pregnancy progressed, Theresa found herself tired to the point of collapse. Eva had come to the fore yet again, had demanded money from the jeweller and his friends. Fearful for his reputation, the coward coughed up, as did his fellow business associates. And since then, Eva Harris had continued to extract money from the rapists’ families.
The blue-eyed doctor returned, listened to her heart, nodded, walked away. A woman across the room screamed for a bedpan. Theresa watched the ward’s activities, refused soup, drifted in and out of sleep. She had not looked after herself. There was money in a tin under a bedroom floorboard, but she had never used much of it. The money was for Jessica, because Jessica was the blameless child of rape.
Which one was the father? Was it the jeweller, the tanner or the furniture dealer? Which one of those heroes had planted Jess inside Theresa’s body? Strange how those men of substance feared a woman as tiny as Eva Harris. They paid up each time, quickly and almost noiselessly. Why?
Her eyes fixed themselves on a grimy window pane. There had been a fourth man. He had crossed the bottom of the alley – she remembered seeing him outlined against the sky. For a few seconds, he had seemed riveted to the spot. Yes, there had been a witness, a good man who had arrived far too late to intervene. Bernard Walsh had smelled of fish. He had offered comfort, had wept silently into Theresa’s hair. Later, the same man had ridden shotgun on Eva’s ‘blackmail’ visits.
Oh, Jessica. Time was running out for Theresa Nolan. Rheumatic fever had left her weak and available to any passing germ. Diminished even further by a harrowing pregnancy and a difficult birthing, she was exhausted. She must use what was left of her life to bring to justice those so-called men who had used her so carelessly. The legal system had nothing to offer, not after this length of time; Theresa must mete out the punishments herself. To do that, Theresa must leave behind the light of her life, her one and only love, her little Jessica.
The child needed to be kept safe, must be protected while Theresa went about her business. But who would minister to a fatherless waif? Who could be trusted to take care of that precious child? Eva. There was no-one but Eva, yet Eva was a busy woman with a job to do and a husband to care for. And nothing could be arranged properly until the end of the war, because all the attackers were abroad fighting for King and country. Perhaps the German army would do the job for her.
Theresa drifted off to sleep and the intensity of the dreams diminished. She returned to the time when Bernard Walsh had talked softly about being a witness should she choose to bring in the law, to the evening when he had held her sobbing against his hard shoulder. That was no coward; Bernard had been a man in shock, a good person who had not believed the horror before his eyes. The Walshes were lovely, kind people. How many times had Bernard said, ‘I felt riveted to the spot’? How many times had Theresa been the comforter? ‘You arrived when it was all over.’
The patient dozed, her expression more peaceful, the sobs less frequent. They had given her some sweet-tasting medicine in a little cup, something to trim the edges off painful memories. Nevertheless, while Theresa floated on the soft wings of sedation, three faces passed in turn before her mind’s eye, and the memory of wet cobbles forced hard against vulnerable flesh caused a sharp intake of breath from time to time.
‘She’s settling,’ the nurse advised the doctor. All the same, whenever she passed Theresa Nolan’s bed, the same nurse wiped tears from the face of her charge.
FOUR
While her mother clung uncertainly to the rim of life, Jessica found herself surrounded by a set of people whose components might have been fascinating had the circumstances been different. Doctors poked and prodded at her chest and back, pushed thermometers in her mouth, stared down her throat while making clicking noises with their tongues. One had bad breath; another, a bald man with sad eyes, was quite the nicest of them all. The bald one had told Jessica that her mother, though poorly, would survive.
Nurses fluttered about in white aprons that crackled with starch; then, when a visiting chest specialist took too close an interest, Jessica was wheeled into a little room for photographs to be taken. These were not ordinary likenesses; the pictures taken in the infirm
ary were all bones and shadows. Jessica was a skeleton. Underneath layers of dermis and flesh, she was a thing encountered only on ghost trains at fairs. She was more frightening than any imagined devil in a coal hole. She was a living monster wearing a borrowed garment of skin. And everyone else was the same, because a man in a white coat had told her so.
After X-rays had been assessed, the little girl was moved from the medical ward and placed in total isolation. Attendants came in with masks on their faces and food on trays. Books were made available, but they smelled funny and were placed inside a bag marked TB before being taken from the room. It was all so boring. Jessica did not feel particularly ill. Hospital food was all right, but the bed was hard and she wanted to play outside in the snow. ‘I want my mam,’ she advised a masked invader.
‘She’s still asleep,’ came Staff Nurse Joan Bowker’s muffled reply. ‘She needs rest, love.’
‘And I want to play out. Mr Moss says children should play out like pigeons do. He says children need fresh air and—’
‘You’ll be getting plenty of that at the sanatorium,’ replied the overworked angel of mercy.
‘What’s a san … it … that word you just said?’
‘It’s a place for TB.’
‘What’s TB?’
‘A germ that makes you cough.’
The child sighed heavily. ‘I haven’t got a cough.’
‘You will have if you don’t shape. Stop in bed and keep warm.’
Warm? The infirmary had three temperatures – hot, boiling and fit to roast the dinner. ‘But I’m already warm. When am I going to the sanity place?’
The mask changed shape as the nurse allowed herself a smile. It was a damned shame, a little lass like this having TB and a mother in and out of coma. Places at children’s sanatoriums in East Lancashire, Yorkshire and Cheshire were as rare as pigs in flight, so Jessica would be kept with Theresa. ‘You’re both going soon. You and your mother. It’s nice up at Williamson’s San. You get really good food, no rationing there. And there’s all trees and flowers.’ Like her daughter, Theresa Nolan had tuberculosis, though the child’s problem was comparatively mild. Both Nolans would be transferred within days to a place where TB was the norm, where everyone fought daily battles with the same bloodthirsty disease, where new antibiotics were being tested on those human volunteers for whom penicillin was not always the answer.
The Corner House Page 10
