A HANDFUL OF STARS An enthralling story of poverty, passion and survival: one of the Tyneside Sagas

by Trotter, Janet MacLeod

  Chapter 38

  To Clara’s surprise, Patience took to Paolo immediately.

  ‘Reminds me of our Jimmy at that age,’ she said smiling, ruffling the boy’s spiky black hair, when Clara brought him down to Byfell for Sunday tea.

  Paolo dodged away, scowling, and grabbed Clara’s hand, which only made Patience snort with laughter.

  ‘See that look? Just like Jimmy.’

  Jimmy also showed the boy some attention. Paolo crept up to study him as he polished his boots and badges and Jimmy let him finish off buffing them with a yellow duster.

  ‘Like this,’ Jimmy said, spitting on the toecaps. Solemnly, Paolo spat in imitation. When Jimmy praised him, he gave a shy smile, understanding the tone rather than the words.

  ‘You can bring him down here any time,’ Patience said, ‘specially if you’re getting tired and need to rest. I see your ankles are swelling up in the heat. You need to take care.’

  Clara blushed, helping herself to yet another slice of her mother’s coffee cake — the only thing she ever baked — and brushing off her concern.

  ‘I’m fine — never felt better.’

  At home, it was more difficult. Vinnie soon tired of trying to instruct the boy, frustrated at Paolo’s nervous incomprehension. He took to shouting at him in English.

  ‘I think he’s only ten pennies in the shilling, that one,’ he said dismissively. ‘And he’s soft as clarts. You just have to look at him and he bursts into tears.’

  ‘He’s had a frightening time of it,’ Clara said defensively.

  ‘So you say.’ Dolly was disbelieving. ‘How do we know he’s an orphan? Bet his family sent him over here to scrounge off us English ’cos we’re that generous-hearted. Next thing you know, there’ll be a whole family of peasants on our doorstep.’

  Clara struggled to keep her temper. She found it increasingly difficult to stay in the same room as Dolly or Vinnie. Dolly refused to allow Paolo to eat with them in the dining room, insisting he took his meals with Ella in the kitchen. At every opportunity Clara took him out for walks and picnics in the park or to visit Terese at the Lewises’. There he became animated, chattering to his cousin and happy to play in the street with other children. Clara loved to see him laugh and noticed how Marta brightened when the boy was around.

  Terese was taking English lessons from a friend of Max’s and was soon interpreting for Paolo.

  ‘Is he happy?’ Clara kept asking anxiously.

  ‘Happy yes,’ Terese assured her, ‘with you and with house. But not soldier and grandmother. Too much shouting.’

  ‘Soldier?’

  ‘Man in black,’ Terese said. ‘Senor Craven, yes?’

  Clara felt dashed. ‘He must not worry about them,’ she told Terese. ‘I’ll look after him.’

  Gradually, she began to gain Paolo’s trust. The boy was quick to understand her words, though spoke little. Clara would doodle pictures and words on a drawing pad to communicate with him. One day, she found a picture he had drawn of a huge aeroplane covering the page and a house on fire beneath its wings. In the corner, a stick figure stood watching, the only human in the drawing. Beside him was an animal, perhaps a dog.

  Clara went to find Paolo in the garden where he was helping Ella pick pea pods. She beckoned the boy to her, holding out the picture. Paolo hesitated. Clara hurried towards him, eyes smarting with tears.

  ‘This is you? This is Paolo?’ She pointed at the stick figure. The boy nodded, his face crumpling. Clara held her arms wide and Paolo rushed into them. She hugged him fiercely. He sobbed and clung on to her.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered, choking with emotion. ‘My poor, poor bairn.’

  It was from Terese that she learned how Paolo had witnessed his house and family being destroyed by a bomber flying back from a raid. He was playing by the river, the only one of his family to ignore his mother’s call for the evening meal.

  After that discovery, Clara took Paolo to choose a puppy and they returned with a West Highland terrier called Dougie. Dolly was horrified, but boy and dog became inseparable. Paolo, ignoring Dolly’s command that Dougie sleep in the garden shed, sneaked out after bedtime and carried him into his room at night. The boy began to smile and laugh more readily, and it warmed Clara’s heart.

  When Paolo had been with them for two months, he asked to go with her to Gilead. Clara had left him with Patience on previous visits, trying to explain about Sarah, but he had grown agitated when she was away so long.

  ‘Why don’t you take him with you?’ her mother had suggested.

  ‘He might be frightened of such a place.’ Clara was unsure.

  ‘I doubt it — not after what he’s been through,’ Patience said.

  Vinnie wanted nothing to do with the trip. ‘You’ll give the lad nightmares,’ he said unkindly, ‘putting him with all the loonies.’

  Clara was full of apprehension, but Paolo was excited about going in the car and Clara had managed to persuade Clarkie to let Jimmy drive them up there. Dougie came too and yapped in the back at the occasional passing car, while Paolo chattered away to him in a mix of languages.

  Jimmy stayed outside with the boy and the dog while Clara went to fetch Sarah. Her daughter kicked and squealed to see her.

  ‘She’s moving her legs much better,’ Clara said eagerly to the matron.

  ‘The swimming baths have been opened up. We take her into the shallow end for hydrotherapy,’ Matron said proudly. ‘She loves the water.’

  Taking her out in her chair, Clara introduced Sarah to Paolo. He looked at her curiously and said hello.

  ‘She can’t talk back to you,’ Clara tried to explain.

  Paolo pulled a face at the small girl. Clara felt a pang of shame, but Sarah gave a screech of delight and tried to grab at him. Paolo repeated the gesture with more exaggeration and clowned around in front of her. Sarah laughed and threw up her hands, banging them on the sides of the chair. Clara smiled in relief as she pushed the chair forward and Paolo ran along beside it, making animal noises and trying to tickle the giggling Sarah. Jimmy followed, whistling, with Dougie on his lead.

  They picnicked under the trees and Clara was amazed at Paolo’s patience with her daughter. He spent ages entertaining her on the rug, playfully imitating her noises while Sarah rolled around, watching his every move. Eventually, he grew bored and rushed off with Dougie into the trees. Sarah wailed with disappointment.

  ‘He’s coming back,’ Clara reassured her, propping her up between her legs so she could watch Paolo running and tussling with the dog.

  When she took Sarah back to the ward, Clara felt a wave of longing even more acute than usual. She left her daughter trying to pull herself up on the bars of her cot, her dark bewildered eyes watching her go. Only Paolo’s grinning face, waiting for her in the car, eased her unhappiness at leaving Sarah.

  ‘Thank you, Paolo.’ She hugged him and kissed the top of his head. ‘You’re a kind lad.’

  He gave her a quizzical look, but burrowed under her arm on the journey back as if he sensed her sadness over Sarah.

  ***

  As summer wore on, Clara wished that these long days full of activity with Paolo could go on indefinitely. She took him with her when covering stories for the local papers and found that many people were put at ease by the presence of the bashful handsome boy. But she knew that the happy time was running out. Vinnie only tolerated the situation because of her pregnant state and he was coming under increasing pressure from their friends, especially the Bell-Carrs, to hand Paolo back.

  Alastair and Cissie were aghast at the presence of the Spanish boy in their midst. Clara had thought that James Bell-Carr could be a playmate for Paolo at Hoxton Hall, but Cissie would not hear of it.

  ‘I’ll not have him stay with us, Clara, it’s quite out of the question,’ she pronounced over the telephone. ‘I don’t know what Vinnie’s thinking of, taking in an enemy alien.’

  ‘Enemy? Don’t be so dramatic! We’re not at
war with Spain,’ Clara dared to retort. ‘He’s a small boy without a home.’

  ‘You’re giving succour to a little Bolshevik,’ Cissie said querulously. ‘I forbid you to—’

  ‘If Paolo can’t come to Hoxton Hall, then I won’t either,’ Clara interrupted and put down the receiver. She stood shaking for several minutes at her defiance of the powerful Cissie, but soon felt better for it. Cissie was as much a bully as Alastair or Vinnie and she was tired of doing her bidding.

  Vinnie went alone to the Bell-Carrs’ and returned full of renewed indignation. All that week he harangued Clara about Paolo and on Friday it came to a head.

  ‘The boy has to go,’ he ordered, swigging back his third whisky. ‘Alastair is determined to have the alien children repatriated. We’ve given them homes for long enough. Now they should go back where they belong.’

  Clara stemmed her panic. ‘Send them where? Paolo’s home was destroyed in the bombing. There’s civil war — it’s far too dangerous.’

  ‘Franco has all but won,’ Vinnie said dismissively, ‘and Spain will have stability again. Alastair says the refugees have nothing to fear.’

  ‘How would he know?’ Clara cried. ‘He hasn’t lost his home and family. Paolo will end up in some orphanage or on the street — or worse. To force him back when we can give him a home is cruel — unthinkable.’

  Vinnie gave her a hard look. ‘We agreed he would go before the baby’s born. I want him out by next week. You can hand him back to whatever charity dragged him here in the first place.’

  ‘And if I refuse?’ Clara challenged him.

  A flicker of uncertainty crossed his face, and then he was bullish again. ‘I’ll throw the lad out myself and you’ll go back to stopping in the house all day.’

  Clara felt sickened by his words, yet that glimpse of doubt on Vinnie’s face gave her courage. Vinnie was not God, as Clarkie had said. She would not become his prisoner again and she could no longer keep up the pretence of the past months. It was time to act.

  On Saturday, Clara filled a large handbag with jewellery, silver pill boxes and housekeeping money. Despite the warm weather, she wore her fur coat and nagged Paolo to wear a jacket and cap. Pretending to go to the hairdresser’s, Clara went straight to Patience for help.

  ‘I won’t let Vinnie throw the lad out. Can I bring him here, Mam?’

  Patience stared in consternation. Paolo was playing in the back yard with Dougie, aware that something was wrong. He kept dashing back in to make sure Clara was still there. Jimmy sat at the table darning a sock, looking warily between the women.

  ‘I doubt Vinnie would allow me to take him,’ Patience said worriedly. ‘He pays the rent on this house remember; he can hoy us out whenever he pleases.’

  ‘What if I paid the rent from now on?’ Clara asked. ‘If I came here too. Started working full time again.’ They stared at each other. Jimmy stopped his darning.

  ‘Are you talking about leaving Vinnie?’ Patience asked nervously.

  ‘Yes,’ Clara said firmly.

  Patience let out a shuddering sigh. ‘You know you can’t. You’re carrying his baby; he’d never let you go. And how could I keep you both? Vinnie would sharp give me the sack — maybe Jimmy too.’

  ‘Not me!’ Jimmy was indignant. ‘I know where me loyalty lies.’

  ‘Perhaps the Lewises could take Paolo,’ Patience said in desperation. ‘With the baby coming you’ll have your hands full anyway—’

  ‘I’m not pregnant!’ Clara blurted out.

  Patience gawped at her in bewilderment. ‘But—’

  ‘I made it up,’ Clara confessed. Jimmy was open-mouthed.

  ‘Whatever for?’ Patience gasped.

  Clara reddened. ‘To stop Vinnie bothering me in bed.’ Jimmy looked away in embarrassment. Clara ploughed on, thankful to be telling someone. ‘I knew if I pretended I was carrying his child he would treat me better — loosen his grip. I’ve been writing again — not just silly bits and pieces on Willa’s charities and church fetes but interviews and things about the BUF for the socialist press.’

  ‘You’ve done what?’ Jimmy scowled.

  Clara answered, ‘You can tell Vinnie if you like, I don’t care anymore.’ She got up restlessly and looked out of the window. Paolo was throwing a stick for Dougie to catch.

  ‘Once I’d started the lie I couldn’t stop,’ she went on, ‘so I made sure I ate twice as much to make myself fat. That’s all I am, Mam, fat. When the chance came along to take Paolo, I knew I had to keep up the pretence. He’s the best thing that’s happened to me since Sarah—’ Clara broke off. She turned and faced her mother. ‘I’m not giving him up,’ she said stoutly.

  ‘Heavens above!’ Patience cried, covering her face. ‘Vinnie will kill you for this! For lying to him about the baby.’

  Clara went to her mother and took her by her skinny arms. ‘I’ve been living a worse lie for years! Thinking I was in love with that man — believing all that poison he preaches about Reds and Jews — lapping up all the luxury while half of Byfell goes hungry for food and work. My God, what sort of lass was I? Greedy and selfish, that’s what!’ She clutched her mother; she felt bony and fragile. ‘Well it stops now. I’m not going back to Vinnie. I’ll find somewhere for me and Paolo to live. Reenie will help me if you won’t.’

  Patience let out a sob. Clara let go and turned away. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve spoilt everything for you and Jimmy,’ she said with regret, ‘but I can’t live Vinnie’s way any longer. He might be pleased to be rid of me,’ she added bleakly. ‘I think he’s carrying on with other women anyway.’

  At once, she felt her mother’s hand on her shoulder. ‘Oh, Clara, my poor pet! Why didn’t you tell me things were that bad with Vinnie?’

  ‘He is carrying on.’ Jimmy suddenly spoke up. They turned to see him standing up, clenching his fists in agitation. ‘I’ve wanted to tell you, Clara, but it wasn’t me business.’

  ‘Who with?’ Clara asked, her stomach leaden. ‘One of his music hall acts?’

  ‘Mrs Bell-Carr,’ Jimmy muttered.

  Clara was stunned. ‘Cissie?’ she cried in astonishment. ‘He wouldn’t be that daft!’

  ‘There’ve been rumours among the Blackshirts.’ Jimmy blushed. ‘Clarkie told me to keep me trap shut.’

  ‘Since when?’ Clara gulped.

  ‘The trip to Germany last year,’ Jimmy said, ‘though Clarkie thinks it’s longer.’

  ‘What a stupid, stupid man!’ Clara said angrily. ‘And I’ve been just as daft for not seeing what was under my nose. That woman practically told me to my face.’

  Clara sank on to a chair, shaking. She felt revulsion at the thought of Vinnie and Cissie’s greedy infidelity. Had Vinnie tricked her all along? Perhaps he had never loved her, just groomed her from girlhood as a suitable wife who would be naive enough to do his bidding. He and Cissie might have been lovers for years, for all she knew. Together they were a dangerous, ruthless pair. She shuddered.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Jimmy mumbled, seeing the state his sister was in. ‘I shouldn’t have told you.’

  Clara looked up. ‘No, it’s not your fault. I’m glad you did. It makes it easier to stand up to him. I hate him now more than ever.’

  ‘No, you mustn’t hate him,’ Jimmy cried in agitation. ‘It’s that Bell-Carr woman; she led him on. She’s to blame. Vinnie’s still our leader and we have to do as he says.’

  Patience and Clara looked at him appalled. His mother said, ‘How can you say that after the way he’s treated your sister?’

  ‘She’s lied to him!’ Jimmy pointed savagely at Clara. ‘And she’s betrayed the Movement. She’s brought this on herself. I’m not ganin’ to run away like a coward. Vinnie’s like a father to me. I’d choose him over you any day!’

  He kicked away his chair and stormed from the room. The women stood frozen in shock as they listened to him clatter out of the house and slam the front door. Clara saw the look of pain on her mother’s face and reached out to h
er. Their arms went round each other in a fierce hug.

  ‘He doesn’t mean it, Mam,’ Clara comforted her.

  ‘Oh, but he does.’ Patience stifled a sob. Holding Clara’s face tenderly between her hands, she whispered in a trembling voice, ‘I’ll help you — of course I will. You mean the world to me. If I can protect you from Vinnie, I will.’

  Chapter 39

  Leaving Patience to pack up a suitcase of possessions, Clara went quickly to the Italian cafe to meet Reenie. Her friend offered at once to take them in but Clara said no.

  ‘It’s the first place he’ll come looking. I don’t want your parents suffering any more on my account.’

  Within an hour, Max Sobel had come to her aid and let Clara move into his flat, insisting he would stay with a friend until she found her own place. She was aware it could only be a temporary solution and that she would be safer leaving Byfell altogether. For all her brave words, she knew that Vinnie would not let her go without a fight. She wrote a letter to him explaining that she had never been pregnant, was not going back and wanted nothing more from him. If he tried to come after her she would make public his long-standing affair with Cissie and ruin both their reputations. She paid two girls playing hopscotch in Glanton Terrace to deliver it to Craven Hall, then left swiftly with Patience and Paolo before Jimmy reappeared.

  On Monday, Patience did not turn up for her job at the garage and stayed indoors at Max’s flat with Paolo while Clara went to work. She hid the handbag full of jewellery and pawned the fur coat that Vinnie had given her to pay for food. When Jellicoe discovered that she had walked out on Vinnie, he nearly sacked her.

  ‘He won’t touch you,’ Clara promised. ‘I’ve something on him that he’ll never want made public.’

  Yet she waited in trepidation for Vinnie to waylay her in town or find out where she was hiding and confront her. Three days later, she came home to find the door to the flat kicked in and a scene of destruction. Crockery was smashed and Max’s books lay scattered and torn across the sitting-room floor. Dougie was whining beyond the bedroom door. In a panic, she rushed in to find Patience cuddling a frightened Paolo. Clara was filled with shame and fury that she had allowed the boy to be terrorised again.