The House By Princes Park

by Maureen Lee

  ‘Why not!’ He waved his fork. ‘Let’s celebrate. It’s not every day a couple decide to get married.’

  The second bottle quickly went and Emily felt quite gloriously tipsy. By now, they were sitting on the settee and Bill was kissing her thoroughly as he’d promised. Her heart thumped wildly in her chest as she responded with an almost fierce passion. She would never know another night like this.

  Bill opened more wine and they began to discuss wedding arrangements. ‘I think we should get hitched pretty soon, hon. We love each other, so what point is there in waiting?’ His voice, like hers, had become slurred.

  Emily couldn’t have agreed more. ‘I wouldn’t want a grand affair. A register office would suit me.’

  ‘Me, too.’ he stroked her breast. Emily shivered with delight. ‘And where shall we go for our honeymoon? How about Rome, my favourite city? I’ll do this to you all day long.’

  She sighed pleasurably. ‘Rome’s perfect. Where shall we live? Please say London. You know how much I love it. I’ve told you so many times.’

  ‘Then London it shall be, my lovely Em.’ He stretched his arms and glanced around the room. ‘Though I love this house. It will be a shame to sell it, but if you’re intent on London, we have no choice. I can’t get rid of the hotels at the drop of a hat. It will take at least a year, possibly longer.’

  Emily laughed. ‘Then I’m afraid we’re stuck in Brambles until then. I can’t sell it. It isn’t mine to sell.’

  Bill reached for his glass, a strange expression on his face. Emily, trying to discern it, decided it was expressionless, very still, telling nothing. ‘I beg your pardon?’ he said politely.

  ‘Edwin left the property to the boys.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘I can – we can – live here as long as we want, but I’m afraid that’s all. If it hadn’t been for Edwin’s ridiculous will, I would have sold up the minute he died.’

  ‘But I thought...’ he paused. He was very pale.

  ‘Thought what, darling?’

  ‘Nothing. Will you excuse me for a moment?’

  He walked unsteadily out of the room. She heard him trip on his way up to the bathroom which she badly needed herself after so much wine. She slipped off her shoes, lifted her feet on to the settee, and hugged her knees, a demure, girlish pose in which to welcome him back. Her mind felt blurred and, afterwards, Emily wondered how, while she was in such a blissfully confused state, the truth should arrive so clearly and so cruelly.

  She was wondering idly why his face had changed so suddenly, then gone so pale. What was it he’d thought but wouldn’t say?

  The answer came unexpectedly, like a physical blow. He’d assumed she owned Brambles. It was the reason he’d wanted to marry her. He was after the money he’d thought she’d get from the sale of the house.

  Edwin had been right about the will.

  Bill was coming downstairs, entering the room. Their eyes met. Emily’s were sick with horror. She felt as if her bones were corroding inside her body, that any minute she would collapse into a flabby, boneless lump of flesh. Everything he’d said had been a lie – and she’d fallen for it, she thought bitterly, silly old woman that she was.

  ‘How many hotels do you have in Monte Carlo, Bill?’

  He shrugged, her face, the tone of her voice, made it obvious she had guessed the truth. Her blood boiled when his handsome face twisted in a grin. ‘None, though I’ve worked in quite a few.’

  ‘What as, a waiter, or a kitchen hand, collecting the swill for the pigs? Or did you pimp for the rich guests, procure – I think that’s the word – procure old tarts and young boys for a fat tip? That would be just up your street.’

  He flushed an ugly red, every scrap of charm gone. He took a step towards her and she felt frightened for having spoken so venomously. But she was speaking from the heart which he had broken only a few minutes ago.

  ‘The only old tart I know is you, Emily,’ he sneered and she wondered how she could possibly have thought him likeable, let alone fallen in love. It was as if he’d shed an outer skin and revealed the real man underneath. ‘You were very easy to seduce. And I’m not the only one who’s a liar. Forty-nine! You’re sixty if a day.’

  ‘You bastard!’ She picked up her glass and threw it at him. It merely glanced off his arm, but a few dregs of wine stained the sleeve of his grey tweed suit. It looked like blood.

  ‘You’re a bad loser, Emily.’

  It dawned on her that he no longer spoke with an accent. Instead, he had a trace of Cockney whine. He wasn’t even an American! She’d been set up!

  All the love that had recently flowed so sweetly through her veins turned to acid. She launched herself at him, knocking over the little round table that still held the debris of their meal and catching Bill by surprise, so that he stumbled and almost fell. He blinked, raised his hand, and hit her hard across the face.

  Emily screamed, just as Ruby rushed into the room wearing a dressing gown that was much too short.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ She leaped on Bill’s back, wrapping her arms like a vice around his neck. Bill seized the arms, easily pulling them apart, and pinned the slight, valiantly struggling figure against the wall.

  ‘You pig!’ Ruby yelled, doing her best to bite his hands, kicking at him with her bare feet which only made Bill laugh.

  He turned his laughing face to Emily. ‘You know how I managed to kiss you without puking, Emily, dearest? I thought about Ruby. I pretended I was kissing her instead. Like this!’ He bent his head and kissed the still wriggling Ruby full on the lips. Emily watched, horrified, as his hand reached for the belt of her dressing gown, undid it.

  Suddenly, someone was pulling him away and Emily nearly fainted when she saw who it was – Jacob Veering! He was barefoot, like Ruby, naked to the waist, and the savagery of his anger was awesome. Emily was trying to digest the awful fact that the two young people must have been upstairs together, when Jacob pulled Bill round to face him as effortlessly as if he’d been a rag doll. He drew back his fist and aimed a blow that sent the man hurtling across the room, slamming him against the wall with a thud that shook the house. Bill’s body bounced forward like a ball and he fell to the floor, where he lay face down, absolutely still.

  Nobody spoke for several minutes. Then Emily said in a dull voice, ‘You could have killed him!’

  Ruby ran across the room, knelt beside the prone figure, and felt the limp wrists for a pulse, then turned the body over and laid her head against the chest. She straightened up, eyes huge and fearful, and shook her head.

  ‘Oh, my God!’ Emily screamed.

  It was the girl, not the woman, who took charge of the situation. ‘Jacob, you’ve got to get away,’ Ruby said crisply, shaking the young man’s arm. He looked at her dazedly, as if he was being shaken from a deep sleep. ‘Jacob! Bill’s dead. You’ve killed him.’

  ‘He shouldn’t have touched you.’ Jacob’s eyes blazed briefly, then his broad shoulders slumped, all anger gone.

  ‘They’ll hang you.’ Ruby shook him again. ‘You’ve got to get away.’

  Jacob sighed. His arms hung hopelessly at his side. He looked lost. ‘I don’t know where to go, Ruby.’

  Ruby flung her arms around his neck. ‘I’ll come with you. I know where we can go. But we must leave straight away. Emily will have to call the police soon. Come on, Jacob.’ She dragged him towards the door. ‘Let’s get dressed.’

  They left without a backward glance. Emily heard them go upstairs, heard their voices in the bedroom – Ruby’s full of reckless urgency, Jacob’s slow and muffled. They came down again. Ruby was wearing the ghastly spotted dress she’d bought in Blacklers, much too grown-up. It looked silly with her childish red shoes. There was a handbag and a white cardigan over her arm. She’d never seen Jacob in a suit before. It looked the cheapest you could buy. There was something terribly brave and vulnerable about the pair. They looked too young to be throwing themselves at the mercy of a capricious fate.

/>   ‘You’ll be all right, won’t you, Emily?’ Ruby said anxiously.

  Emily nodded.

  ‘You’ll give us a chance to get away before you call the police?’

  Emily nodded again. She would have spoken, offered money, suggested Ruby take a coat, asked if it was still raining, but her lips were too stiff to move.

  ‘We’re going now, Emily. Look after yourself.’

  All Emily seemed able to do was nod.

  ‘We might see each other again, you never know.’

  Another nod.

  Jacob grunted something. Shortly afterwards the front door opened and closed and a sense of emptiness descended over Brambles, along with an oppressive silence that was so palpable that Emily felt she could have reached out and touched it with her shaking hands. She hid her face in the velvet arm of the settee and wondered what would happen to her now. She was friendless. There was a feeling in her bones that the Rowland-Graves had been behind Bill’s scheming. They had encouraged her pathetic belief he might be interested in a woman old enough to be his mother. She vowed never to see them again.

  She thought of Ruby, making her way through the dark countryside with Jacob and wondered if the girl loved him as much as he obviously loved her. She was far too good for him in every way. Jacob might be physically strong, but Ruby would have to carry him through whatever life they might have together.

  After a long while, Emily got wearily to her feet, averting her eyes from the body on the floor. It was time she got washed, made herself look respectable. She painted her old face, changed into a sensible frock, and wondered as she returned downstairs what to tell the police. What explanation could she give for her lover having been punched so hard by a local farmhand that it had killed him? Not the truth. It was too shameful and was bound to be pounced on by the press. She’d be a laughing stock.

  Then Emily had an idea she desperately wished she’d had before. She gritted her teeth and dragged the still warm Bill by his heels to the bottom of the stairs. He’d been drinking, she’d say, and had fallen the whole way down. It would still cause a bit of a scandal, but would be more bearable than the truth. She put a cushion under his head so it would look as if she’d tried to care for him and checked there was no blood on the carpet where he’d lain. The carpet was clean. The injury that had killed him must have been internal.

  She picked up the telephone, dialled the operator, asked for the police, and was waiting to be connected when she heard a noise, a groan, that sent shivers of ice down her spine. From the corner of her eye she saw a movement at the bottom of the stairs. Emily could scarcely bear to look, not sure if she could stand any more shocks that night. When she did, she saw Bill was trying to sit up, groaning, and holding the back of his head. He looked at her fearfully. ‘Where’s that bloody maniac who hit me?’

  ‘Gone.’ Emily replaced the receiver, weak with relief, and regretting she hadn’t the sense to feel for a pulse herself. ‘And I’d like you to be gone by the time I get back if you don’t mind. If you’re still here, I’ll call the police and have you thrown out.’

  He was struggling to his feet, holding on to the banisters. She felt no inclination to help. ‘Where are you going?’ he asked in an old man’s voice.

  ‘Never you mind.’

  She was going to look for Ruby, fetch her back. There was no need, now, for her and Jacob to have gone. In the dark, lonely days that lay ahead she would need Ruby as she had never done before.

  Outside, the rain had stopped. A brilliant moon, almost whole, shone out of a dense, black, cloudless sky, making long, glistening ribbons of the still wet roads. The tyres of the Jaguar sizzled in the wet as Emily drove for miles and miles in every direction, until she felt giddy, and realised she was passing places she’d already passed before.

  Still Emily drove, hopeless now, looking for Ruby, until the moon disappeared and a glimmer of yellow light on the horizon signalled the night was over and a new day was about to dawn.

  Jacob

  Chapter 4

  1935–1938

  She made an impressive sight, the pawnshop runner. Tall for a woman, taper thin, she proudly walked the streets of the Dingle in her polka-dot frock and shabby red shoes, her sleeping baby tucked in a black shawl. Her long hair was thick and wavy and as black as night and it billowed like a cloud behind her, reminding her many admirers of a ship in full sail. The baby was a girl and her name was Greta – no one was surprised that the remarkable pawnshop runner hadn’t given her child a conventional name like Mary or Anne.

  It was said she was only seventeen, though she looked older. Her long face with its sharp nose and wide mouth could appear pinched when she wasn’t smiling, but as she seemed to be smiling all the time, not many people noticed, just as they didn’t notice when her dark eyes grew sombre as they sometimes did when she looked at her child who wasn’t thriving as well as she should. She lived in Foster Court, an appalling slum, where twenty or thirty people dwelt in a single house, whole families in just one room. And, yes, she had a husband – she wasn’t that sort of girl. It was rumoured that he, the husband, drank his wages. The pawnshop runner supported him, just as she did her baby and herself.

  Those who had spoken to her said she was clever. She used long words and knew all sorts of funny things, though she didn’t talk posh. Her accent was more Irish than Scouse and she’d obviously fallen on hard times. Oh, and her name was Ruby – Ruby O’Hagan.

  When Ruby and Jacob left Brambles, they’d headed straight for Kirkby station. ‘It’s too late for a train,’ Ruby said, ‘but we’ll be safer inside the waiting room, out of sight.’

  They walked quickly. The rain had stopped, the moon was out, though the midnight air was chilly. Ruby regretted not bringing a coat.

  Jacob followed like an obedient animal. He hadn’t said a word since they left the house. Ruby spoke to him gently. He’d killed Bill Pickering while protecting her. Who knows what Bill might have done if Jacob hadn’t been there. She doubted if Emily had been in a fit state to help.

  During the hours spent in the waiting room, she held his hand and murmured comforting words of support. ‘We’ll be all right,’ she told him. ‘We’ll bury ourselves where no one knows us, the Dingle, I’ve been there loads of times. We’ll find a nice place to live and get jobs. I’ve always wanted to work in a shop.’ The more she thought about it, the more she tried to convince herself it was an adventure, the sort of thing they might have done, anyway, at some time in the future.

  A train came puffing in just after six o’clock by which time a watery sun had risen in a pallid sky. Jacob had only seen trains in the distance and found the noise terrifying. He put his hands over his ears to shut it out, wishing he could shut out the world as easily.

  When they reached Exchange station, Ruby remembered they hadn’t bought tickets. She paid the fares at the barrier and looked worriedly in her purse. ‘I’ve only got tenpence left. Have you got money, Jacob?’

  He shook his head. He had more than five pounds saved, but it was in his loft on Humble’s farm.

  ‘We’d better walk to the Dingle,’ Ruby was saying. ‘We’ll need to buy food later.’

  For Jacob, the walk was a nightmare. So many tall buildings rearing skywards, threatening to collapse on top of him, tramcars almost as noisy as the trains, buses, cars, lorries, the occasional horse-drawn cart that made him think longingly of Waterloo, the horse that kept him company on the farm. Ruby said, ‘It’s only early, so it’s not so busy as usual,’ as if he’d like it better when it was, when he already hated it with all his heart.

  It started to drizzle, and he felt as if they’d been walking for ever by the time they reached the Dingle, a rabbit warren of little streets. It was only then that Ruby paused, looking lost.

  ‘How do we find somewhere to live?’

  Jacob hoped she wasn’t asking him because he had no idea. He had no idea about anything any more.

  ‘I know, I’ll ask in a shop,’ she said cheerfully.
She went into a sweet and tobacconists and emerged with a piece of paper clutched in her hand.

  ‘There’s a room to let in Dombey Street. The landlady’s called Mrs Howlett. It’s along this way, second on the right. I think we should take it, whatever it’s like. If necessary, we can look around for somewhere better when we’ve got more time.’

  He trudged behind her in a daze, wanting to die, yet knowing he would have followed her to the ends of the earth. She knocked on a house with steps up to the front door and it was opened by a nervous-looking girl of about eighteen.

  ‘I’ve come about the room,’ Ruby said importantly.

  ‘Me mam’s gone out a minute.’ The girl had a nice, kind smile. ‘Come and have a decko. She won’t be long. It’s upstairs at the back.’

  The room was small and cramped and had too much dark furniture including a great double bed. Jacob felt his insides shrink. It was like being inside a coffin.

  ‘It’s nice,’ Ruby said. She sat on the bed and bounced up and down a few times. ‘We’ll take it. How much is the rent?’

  ‘Half a crown a week in advance, but you’ll have to wait for me mam.’

  ‘What does “in advance” mean?’

  ‘It means me mam wants paying now. People have been known to do a moonlight flit and she ends up out of pocket.’

  Ruby had never heard of a moonlight flit, but got the meaning. She didn’t have half a crown, but she was wearing the gold watch Emily had bought for her birthday which had cost five guineas. She’d offer Mrs Howlett the watch as a deposit until she earned enough to pay the rent.

  ‘I hope she lets you have it,’ the girl said wistfully. ‘It’d be nice to have young people for a change.’

  The front door opened and a voice shouted, ‘Dolly!’

  ‘I’m upstairs, Mam,’ the girl shouted back. ‘There’s people here about the room.’

  ‘Coming.’ Mrs Howlett puffed up the stairs like a train. She appeared in the doorway, a big, stout woman, red-faced from her exertions. Her small eyes took in the young couple, Ruby sitting on the bed, Jacob hunched and awkward, wishing he were anywhere else in the world.