by Mia Dolan
Turning onto her side she heaved the eiderdown even higher, closed her eyes and wished.
Everything will be alright in the morning. Get to sleep.
She tried to convince herself that Johnnie was close by, if only in spirit, supporting her no matter what. She fell asleep though slept fitfully, semi-alert in case the dream returned.
In the morning she had butterflies. She eyed her reflection in the bathroom mirror, alarmed to see that her expression confirmed what she felt. The fine brows were arched and the blue eyes were luminous – a little excited, a little afraid. She told herself that the nightmare would not return and half convinced herself that it was so. In the nightmare she’d been once again in the Taylors’ bungalow. Alan Taylor’s face had loomed over her.
In the morning she recounted her dream to her grandmother.
‘I know it’s not real, but just a bad memory left over from what he did to me.’
When her grandmother eyed her it was as though she could see into her mind, into her very soul. ‘The nightmare will open a door.’
Marcie frowned but made no comment. She knew – or rather – she felt that her grandmother would enlighten her.
‘The nightmare is left over from an unhappy experience, but in time will develop into something more, an intuition that is always right and always frightening.’
‘But is it real?’ she asked, aware that she was knotting her fingers, not because she was scared, but purely because she was feeling so confused. ‘And I feel so apprehensive, yet I don’t know why.’
‘Approach it with an open mind. Believe like a child that something will happen and it will,’ said her grandmother. After having said it, she went off out into the back garden to tend to the herbs.
Marcie sat very still, not sure exactly what was being said.
You’re a woman now, not a child. Think logically.
She was halfway through tacking the last dress ordered by Angie when the bad news came.
First there was the sound of her father’s car pulling up outside. Then there was Babs, her face flushed and her breath racing.
‘Angie’s is gone,’ she said, shouting the news straight into Marcie’s face.
Marcie could see by her stepmother’s face that this was no time for silly quips. Something bad had happened.
‘Went up in flames,’ exclaimed her father who had rushed in behind his wife.
The kids had come too. The two boys rushed straight through the cottage and out into the garden. Annie wandered over to where Joanna was sitting on a blanket eating a Farleys’ Rusk. Annie espied a dropped piece, picked it up and shoved it in her mouth.
Marcie stared. ‘Angie?’
Her father shook his head. ‘Poor girl. She was led away by the police crying her eyes out.’
Stepdaughter and stepmother had never got on very well, but on this occasion Babs was on her side.
‘Marcie, I’m so sorry, love. First you lost the job at the hospital and now this. It’s just not fair.’
Marcie flopped down into a chair, her mind reeling. Now what? The sound of her grandmother’s footsteps, the old down-at-heel shoes tapping on the kitchen floor, made her look up.
‘One door closes, another opens,’ her grandmother repeated softly.
Marcie prayed she was right.
Chapter Fourteen
MARCIE WENT ALONG with her grandmother to see the still smouldering shop that had been Angie’s Boutique. The best news about it was that Angie had not been inside at the time. She’d gone away to Brighton for the weekend to visit her sister. News came also that having seen the damage for herself she wouldn’t be coming back. She was too upset.
Joanna was sitting in her pushchair. Marcie rocked her backwards and forwards on the pavement outside the remains of the shop. All that was left were blackened timbers and moulded lumps of plastic that had once been mannequins and shop fittings.
The most fashionable dress shop in Sheerness – in fact in the whole island – had come to an ignominious end. A lot of people said they were devastated by it. For Marcie it was more than that. She was gutted. All her hopes and dreams for her designs were now no more than cinders. The question was what was she going to do now? She had no wage from a job and no income from the shop. On top of that she was concerned about her reputation. Rita had had evil in her eyes. Marcie was convinced that her name was about to be dragged through the mud. The thing was she could cope with her name being dirt. As usual these days, it was Joanna she was concerned about.
A cloud of ash whirred on the breeze and cold cinders made a pitter-pattering sound as they were blown out onto the pavement. Some of them scattered around Marcie’s feet. She looked down at them.
‘I feel like Cinderella,’ she said wistfully.
Her grandmother, Rosa Brooks, a woman famed for her psychic powers, was strangely quiet.
Marcie looked at her.
‘Garth has gone missing,’ she said simply.
The rest of the day seemed to pass in a dream. Joanna still laughed and played and had to be changed and fed. Rosa Brooks went about her chores silently and looked as though her mind was far away.
Once Joanna was put down for her afternoon nap, Marcie resumed work on the last of three dresses earmarked for Angie’s Boutique. The dresses were no longer wanted, but Marcie found it impossible not to finish them. Being creative was like giving birth; come hell and high water, there had to be a birth, a complete article at the end of all the hard work.
Her father came calling at around tea time. He’d been out looking for Garth.
‘He is not dead,’ said Rosa.
Father and daughter exchanged knowing looks. They both knew better than to argue with her.
‘So,’ said her father, ‘what’s that you’re making? Another of your fancy frocks?’
Marcie smiled until she recalled that she and Angie had laughed about her father and his old-fashioned phrases. Still, at least Angie was alive.
‘No one wants it now. There’s no boutique in Sheppey now,’ she said angrily. ‘Great! No job. No boutique. What the bloody hell am I going to do?’
She threw the garment onto the floor. She didn’t care that her language had caused her grandmother to glare disapprovingly. Everything in her life was turning sour.
‘You’ll be fine in a day or two,’ said her father.
His attempt at joviality only served to anger her more. What did he know about it?
‘Dad! I will not be fine! I have no job, no husband and no prospects of anything good ever happening to me again. And I’ve a baby to support! So don’t say that. Just do not say that!’
He looked surprised at her show of temper suddenly recognising that there was a great deal of himself in his daughter. Strange he’d never noticed it before, he thought, and wondered why. The truth was that he’d only seen her mother in his daughter’s features, but he wasn’t ready to face up to that. Not yet.
Much to his merit, he tried again to show sympathy, resting his big rough hands on her shoulders, then taking them off again when he saw how incongruous they looked, how ugly and rough compared to her.
‘Look, love, something will turn up. It always does you know.’
Her temper had not calmed that much.
‘Not in Sheppey!’ She gulped a lungful of air before continuing. ‘There’s nothing here. It’s got nothing except mangy sheep and mangy people! I want a career in fashion, but not here. I need to be in London. That’s where I need to be. London!’
Tony sucked in his bottom lip. He didn’t often feel helpless but on this occasion he did. He felt a desperate urge to sort something out.
‘I’ve got contacts,’ he said suddenly.
Marcie had met some of her father’s contacts. ‘Don’t tell me! One of them owns a boutique.’
He looked hurt. ‘As a matter of fact, yeah. Yeah, he does.’
She didn’t say outright that she thought he was talking a load of flannel, but that was exactly what she was thinking. Her fat
her would say anything to make her feel good because making her feel good would make him feel good. Whether he was telling the truth or not had nothing to do with it.
‘You wait,’ he said, less jovial now, more serious. ‘I’ll fix you up with something in London. Just you wait and see.’
Chapter Fifteen
IT WAS FATHER Justin who found Garth Davies and brought him round to Endeavour Terrace.
‘He insisted he lived here,’ he said to Marcie’s grandmother.
‘He does now.’
Rosa Brooks asked no questions but pressed Garth to sit himself at the table. Two doorsteps of white bread were set in front of him followed by a spoon. A pot of lamb stew was simmering on the stove. Rosa dipped a ladle into the thick, aromatic potage and poured a generous portion into a white china bowl. Garth fell on it, devouring the bread in great gob-stopping mouthfuls between spoonfuls of soup.
The sight of Garth alarmed her; his face was smudged with what looked like soot and his hairstyle – not that he’d ever had much of a hairstyle – was oddly truncated at the front. On close inspection it looked singed. His smell alarmed her more than anything. He smelled of smoke and that worried her.
Unwilling to cast aspersions, Rosa Brooks turned to the priest. ‘Can I tempt you, Father?’ She knew a salivating set of lips when she saw them.
‘Indeed,’ said the black-robed priest, ‘though not quite so large a bowl if you don’t mind. Gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins after all, though in Garth’s case I don’t think he’s eaten for days.’
Rosa had known Father Justin for a long time and understood what he really meant. He wanted to be tempted. He wanted a large portion and being a good Catholic she had to appear generous – especially to a priest.
The priest thanked her and, although he didn’t gulp his food like Garth, he certainly paid it great concentration. When they more or less finished together, she poured tea for them both.
Joanna chose that moment to wake up. Her cry carried down through the plasterwork ceiling, demanding attention. Marcie had gone to the Labour Exchange with the hope of finding a job in one of the local factories. She hadn’t really relished the prospect but had thought that a larger firm might be more forgiving of a girl in her circumstances.
While Rosa went to attend to the child, Father Justin finished his food, pushed his bowl away and turned his attention to Garth. The boy – for he couldn’t help thinking of Garth as a boy despite the fact that he was fully grown – was reaching for more bread, dunking it into the morass of vegetables and gulping it down.
Garth didn’t see the look of disgust on the priest’s face. Father Justin was as susceptible to the baser responses of humanity despite his holy cloth.
‘I think I will have a word with the Sisters at St Saviour’s,’ he said out loud. ‘That’s where you should be, Garth, my boy, with the rest of the loonies.’
Father Justin was the pillar of priestly behaviour when he had an audience, even if only one parishioner. Out of earshot of anyone who might be appalled, he said what he was thinking, becoming baser and fouler mouthed than any of his parishioners could ever dream of.
Garth didn’t understand what he was talking about anyway and he would have carried on, enjoying kicking over the traces and saying what he liked.
He didn’t get chance to say any more. Marcie came breezing through the door. Initially, her look seemed one of surprise, though he could never be sure with Marcie. She had a habit of turning away from him he noticed. A suspicion that she might be gifted – or in the church’s opinion – cursed with the same affliction as her grandmother had crossed his mind. He’d heard rumours about Rosa, had touched upon the matter with her, though Rosa had blanked him out.
His smile was broad. ‘Why, Marcie. You’re looking flushed my girl. Have you been rushing now?’
‘No,’ said Marcie, taking off her scarf. ‘Not really.’
Her flush was surprise at him being there. As usual she tried not to look into his eyes. Her smile was for Garth and her pleasure at seeing him was obvious.
‘Garth, where have you been?’
‘Hello, Marcie. I’m eating stew.’ It was as though he had not been missing at all, but had merely popped out to the shops for five minutes. Marcie knew from experience that Garth had no concept of time.
‘So I see,’ said Marcie. ‘It looks as though you’re enjoying it.’
‘You’re a fine-looking woman, Marcie Brooks,’ said Father Justin getting to his feet. ‘Let me help you off with that coat, now.’
Marcie tensed, surprised at the speed with which he came behind her, his fingers brushing her shoulder as he helped her out of her coat. He hung it up at the back of the door. She suppressed a shiver when he looked her up and down with far more familiarity than a priest should ever use.
‘My, but you’re a lovely girl, Marcie. And strong too. These arms seem strong.’
He ran his hands down her arms, patting them as though she were a horse, thumbs caressing.
‘You know I have a vacancy for a cleaner at the presbytery. Would a few hours a week be useful to you?’
For the first time ever Marcie stared into his eyes and what she saw there scared her. It certainly wasn’t cleaning he wanted. Father Justin had sin in mind and she was the object of that sin. In his eyes she read his desires, his need to satisfy the lust he felt for her. All she wanted was for him to leave.
‘No thank you! I’m going to London.’
He looked deflated. ‘Are you now? I didn’t know that.’
Rosa came down with Joanna who gurgled with delight on seeing her mother.
Rosa did not ask her granddaughter whether she’d had any luck getting a job. She just knew she had not. An unspoken message passed swiftly between them. Neither would mention where she had been until Father Justin was gone. Although the priest was formally welcomed when he came to visit, he was not liked and neither was he trusted.
‘Where was he?’ She directed the question at her grandmother taking Joanna into her arms.
‘Father Justin says he was sleeping rough in a yard at the back of the shops in Sheerness.’
The statement seemed to reverberate between them and again there was that meeting of eyes and of minds. Marcie felt confused but gained something from her grandmother’s fearless look. It was as if she were telling her not to be afraid at what she was seeing because she was seeing it too. They were both worried about Garth and both wary of the priest.
‘Do you not think that young Garth here might be better off at St Saviour’s with the good sisters there,’ said Father Justin.
Marcie frowned. She’d never heard of the place. Her grandmother on the other hand had.
‘Garth needs a home, not an asylum.’
Marcie was horrified. This time grandmother and granddaughter did not look at each other, though they shared a single thought: something bad was about to happen. They both knew it.
Chapter Sixteen
THE POLICE CAME for Garth on Tuesday morning.
‘We have reason to believe the said person was seen at the back of the shops. A witness states he was sleeping there.’
A sergeant had come this time accompanied by the same young constable Marcie had met before.
‘That doesn’t mean to say he did anything wrong,’ Marcie pointed out hotly.
‘My granddaughter is right,’ said Rosa. ‘And we know he did not do anything.’
The sergeant almost laughed in her face. ‘What are you, psychic or something?’
The wrinkles around Rosa’s mouth intensified as she clamped her lips tightly together.
‘Anyway,’ the sergeant went on. ‘He is known as being not all there so it stands to reason that he’s not the sort to be left unsupervised with a box of matches.’
Marcie’s jaw dropped. Her grandmother laid into them before she had chance to.
‘His mother was careless with the men she went with, but was never careless with matches. And neither is Garth. He is just
a poor soul injured when he was born. That is all.’
The sergeant was having none of it. When he took a deep breath he seemed to swell within his uniform, as though emphasising his authority in these matters.
‘You cannot trust the lad to do things normally, madam, like other people do. Surely you’ve noticed that?’
‘He’s slow, but there’s not a nasty bone in his body,’ Marcie interjected, refusing to believe that Garth was responsible for destroying the future she’d planned for herself. ‘He wouldn’t do anything like that.’
She could see by their faces they were not convinced.
‘Tell me who this witness is,’ she demanded, fixing the sergeant with a disdainful glare and a defiant stance, arms folded, shoulders square.
‘Young lady …’ began the sergeant in a condescending tone.
She half wondered whether Father Justin had had a hand in this. Wasn’t he keen to see Garth carted off to the asylum?
‘I’m not at liberty to say at this moment in time. Not until we’ve asked this young man some questions and had him positively identified. But the person concerned does live above a shop in that rank.’
It was useless. Everything has become so difficult, thought Marcie. It was as though the life she’d always known in the place she’d always known was falling down around her like a house of cards. A tap on one card and the whole lot fell down.
‘When will he be home?’ asked Rosa Brooks.
The sergeant was hesitant. It was obviously a question he had no wish to answer. ‘The evidence will be assessed and so will he. He may be brought back here on bail, or he may be detained in a safe place – a suitable place for somebody like him – for his sort of person – if you know what I mean.’
‘No, sergeant. I do not know what you mean,’ snapped Marcie, her eyes blazing. Why was it people could not accept Garth for what he was? Just a poor creature in need of human kindness.
