‘So am I. If I were a boy, I’d knock the shit out of them.’
His mouth twitched. ‘You shouldn’t say words like that. Judith never says those words.’
She looked up at him, yet her eyes held such an air of arrogant superiority that he felt as if he were the shorter of the two. ‘Judith never does anything interesting,’ she said, clearly. ‘Judith is boring.’
He realized with a terrible jerk of his heart that this was the first time he had had a conversation with this child. And she was walking away, cool as a cucumber, covered in blood – the kid was walking away from him. ‘Wait!’ he called.
Immediately, obediently, she stopped. But she did not turn her head in his direction. Instead, she simply stared ahead and waited for him to catch up with her. ‘What do you want?’ she asked now.
‘What do you mean, what do I want? We’re both going home, aren’t we?’
‘You want to walk with me?’
‘Why not?’
‘I don’t know.’
They walked along a few paces, then Katherine sniffed and said ‘Thanks.’ Her tone was subdued. ‘They get me cos I’m cleverer than them and I do all the sums right. They can’t fight with words, so they use their hands and feet and stones. Like soldiers.’
‘I’m a soldier.’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘And I can’t fight with words?’
She stopped and looked at his bandaged arm. ‘You never say words, not to me. And you’re not doing so well with the other sort of fighting, are you? Does it hurt?’
He smiled uncertainly. ‘I haven’t done any fighting yet. I got this falling off a wooden horse in the gym. It was an accident.’
‘Oh.’ They resumed their walk. ‘Does it hurt?’
‘A bit. Does your face hurt?’
‘A bit.’
He coughed. ‘So, what are you going to do about the bullies?’
She shrugged. ‘They’ll get fed up now. They’ll move on to somebody else. If they don’t, I’ll find a way. I ripped Tommy Holland’s sum book up last week and he got the cane. There’s always a way to get back.’
‘Katherine?’
‘What?’
He cleared his throat self-consciously. ‘We’ve had a bad start, you and me. But we’re both in the wars, aren’t we? Me in real muck and bullets, you stuck with that crowd at Peter and Paul’s. Don’t you think it’s time we . . . well . . . made up?’
Her eyes were round as she asked, ‘Friends, like?’
‘Yes. Friends, Katherine.’
‘Oh.’
‘Well? What do you say?’
‘We can be friends.’ It was obvious that the words were being chosen carefully. ‘Even though I’m not a boy, and even though I’m not Judith, I suppose we can be friends.’ It wouldn’t be easy. She knew with an unwavering certainty that it would not be easy. ‘We can try to like one another, then Mam will be happy.’
Peter Murray’s breath seemed stuck in his throat. She was bright, clever and – yes – infinitely more interesting than her older sister. Not that his instinctive love for Judith could ever be lessened, but this was . . . different. Possibly more valuable, because it had needed learning, had come about through a process of pain. ‘Forgive me, lass,’ he whispered. ‘For God’s sake, forgive me.’
And she looked at him with a smile of such sadness and beauty that his heart was almost cut from him. She was a stunner! In repose, her face was ordinary, unremarkable, even plain. But when she smiled, it was as if the sun had been turned on by God’s magic switch. ‘You can’t help it,’ she said quietly. ‘Grandad said you’d come round in time. And Grandad’s always right.’
So began the relationship between father and daughter, though the latter was six years old. It was a tentative start to a love that would never come easily to either of them. For what no-one realized was that Katherine’s faith in humanity had already been shaken, that it was too late for her to form a complete partnership with Peter. Almost from birth, she had missed her father’s love, and those six missing years formed a hole that would never be healed. More than that, her ability to give of herself and of unquestioning love had been sorely diminished during her infancy. But on that October day in 1940, the whole family rejoiced in the peace treaty that had apparently been negotiated between father and daughter.
Rachel was particularly pleased. Peter had gone back to fight for King and country, and Katherine had cried when the train pulled out of Trinity Street. ‘Why are you crying?’ Judith had asked, her own blue eyes dry and wide with surprise. ‘Why is she crying?’ she had asked her mother.
‘Because she’s found summat and they’ve took it away.’
After this, Katherine’s obsession with the war took on massive proportions. She wept copiously over fallen countries whose names she could neither read nor pronounce, and on the week beginning 12 May 1941, she took to her bed ‘forever’, would not eat and refused to attend school. The whole family was forced to remain in Maybank Street, because the child’s hysteria kept them there. When Joseph arrived to lift her from the bed, she kicked and screamed until the frail man gave in to her.
Dr Barnes was sent for. ‘What is it now?’ he asked the pale-faced patient. ‘There’s a war on – what the hell are you doing in bed when there’s trouble enough?’
She studied him as if from a distance. ‘London,’ she said quietly.
‘Oh. And you stopping in bed and not eating will build all the bridges up again and stop the city burning, is that it?’
She stared at the ceiling. ‘If I am very, very good, nothing will happen. If I stay very still, everybody will stop getting hurt and things will go right.’
‘What are you? A bloody student Buddhist monk?’ He shook his head as if to clear it. Why was he asking such a question of a child not yet seven? ‘Good God!’ A large hand passed over his face as he wished, not for the first time, that he’d paid more attention during psychology class. ‘Tell me about it, Katie. Come on, spit it out.’
The child in the bed was weeping softly now. ‘Over five hundred bombers. They killed one thousand and four hundred people in just one night! They hit the big clock!’ Hysteria bubbled nearer the surface now. ‘It won’t get put right till they’ve got me! I should never have been born . . .’
He opened his mouth to interrupt, but she continued, ‘They hit Parlyment. That’s where they do all the plans . . .’
‘No!’ He shook her quite fiercely. ‘Plans are done under the ground in a secret place.’
But she brushed aside his words and, with her teeth chattering while he continued to shake her, she went on, ‘In the paper, it says London can’t take no more. They are crying in the streets, little girls and boys with no house and no mam!’
He allowed her to fall back on to the pillow. ‘And is this your fault?’ he roared. ‘Is it?’
‘Yes!’ This word was elongated until it became a scream. ‘If I was a good girl, God wouldn’t let it all happen.’
‘Bloody Catholics!’ he cursed. ‘Bloody newspapers and wireless! What have they told you at that daft school, eh? That you can finish the war by praying?’
‘I don’t say my prayers at night,’ she moaned. ‘And when I did, I prayed that . . . that . . .’
‘What? Tell me, girl. You will tell me what is at the bottom of this or I will take you to the hospital. Well? What did you pray?’
‘I can’t say it. I can’t!’
‘If you don’t, you will be very ill. And I will stay here until you tell me what you prayed. While I stay here, other people are needing me. You are keeping me away from sick people.’ He cursed himself inwardly, because wasn’t he doing the same thing he blamed the nuns for? Wasn’t he playing on that over-developed sense of guilt? ‘Tell me, Katherine Murray.’
She turned slowly to face the wall, pulling the cover over her head before beginning to speak. ‘I prayed . . . I prayed for us to stay with Grandad.’ Her voice was muffled.
‘What?’
> ‘I wanted to stay in View Street.’
‘What’s wrong with that?’
‘HE HAD TO DIE!’
The doctor frowned. ‘Who did? Grandad?’
‘Don’t be silly!’ She jumped up in the bed, her eyes wide and staring. ‘My dad! I prayed that the Germans would kill my own dad! That is the most wickedest thing I could ever do! And I never told in confession and I went to mass and holy communion with it all inside me, all the sin! So the bombs still come!’
He faced the window while he pondered. This one was too clever for her own good, but not clever enough yet to work out all these mixed feelings. That parents could make such a God-awful mess of rearing a child . . . ‘You are not . . . significant enough to be responsible in any way for this war, Katie. A man called Hitler started this mess, a very evil man. The sins are his, not yours. And you’re not the first person who hasn’t liked his or her father. I didn’t like mine. When he died, I felt like celebrating.’
‘But I like him now. I try very hard to like him. I said the prayers before, when he wouldn’t talk to me. The prayers are all saved up in heaven. When the Germans kill my dad, it will be my fault!’
The doctor swivelled on his heel and marched towards the bed. ‘I am a doctor,’ he said gravely. ‘I am a very important man. Right?’
‘Right.’
‘Do you think God will listen to me?’
‘He should do. Being as you save people.’
‘Then get down on your knees with me, Katie. I, as a very imporant man, will un-pray your prayers.’
‘Will it work?’
‘Yes.’ He gritted his teeth. If Peter Murray went and got himself killed, then this child would never believe in anything, would she? Deity, the medical profession, people in general . . . her whole life would likely go down the drain. It occurred to him that he must cut a comical figure kneeling by the bed with a small child. But medicine, he told himself firmly, comes in all kinds of bottles, and this was medicine for the soul.
‘Dear God,’ he began, his voice suitably sombre. ‘Look down on this little girl and bless her. You gave me the gift of healing, and now I seek to mend this child’s tortured soul. She prayed for her father to die, but this was a mistake. Guard the life of Peter Murray against all aggressors, and forgive Katherine for her error.’ He then threw in a bit of Latin, a quod erat, a couple of ad infinitums and a Deo gratias. After all, the child was a Catholic. He glanced sideways at her. ‘OK?’ he asked.
Her face positively glowed. ‘Yes. Ta, Doctor. I thought I could never tell nobody about what I’d done.’
He left her there on her knees and went down to tackle Rachel. ‘That bloody man of yours doesn’t deserve a girl like Katherine! She’s whipping herself because of the way he’s treated her.’
‘I know.’
‘And look how he treated you too, eh? Like a rag for the cart, like something to be cast away as worn out. Bloody fool, he is.’
‘Things are better now, Doc,’ she said lamely.
‘Better? They’d better be better. I’m not having her blaming herself for London burning. He can never mend what he’s done, never! If she carries on like this, I’ll have her removed to the Cottage Homes. She needs peace from all of you, especially those stupid nuns. You’re a sensible woman, Rachel. How can you let the old crows put so much nonsense into your children’s heads?’
‘It’s our Faith. You can’t dictate our Faith!’
‘I can if it’s killing her! Now. Keep the wireless switched off at news time and don’t let her near a paper.’
‘Eh? She reads the headlines on her way to school. I can’t stop her knowing what’s going on. And you’ll not take my child away, Dr Barnes. I shall write to Peter this very day and tell him what you’ve said. I shouldn’t be at all surprised if he goes AWOL if he thinks you’re putting his daughter away.’
‘His daughter? Huh! He never recognized her existence till recently. The damage is done, Rachel. No matter how nice he is to her in the future, that girl will never forget how she was spurned. This could alter her whole life. Fortunately, she’s young enough to pull herself together, but it’s no thanks to either of you.’
‘What was I supposed to do?’
‘You could have left him. Permanently!’
‘I’m a Catholic . . .’
‘Ah. You see? We’re back to that again, back to your bloody religion. Well, you mark my words, Rachel Murray. That child is disturbed and a disturbed child makes an unstable adult. On your head be it!’ He picked up his hat and stormed from the house.
Judith arrived home from the library. ‘What’s for tea?’ she asked.
‘Tea?’ roared Rachel. ‘Tea? Your sister’s up there ill, and all you can think about is your stomach.’
‘She makes herself ill.’
Rachel stared hard at her older daughter. ‘Happen she does, Judith. And happen she just can’t help it.’
‘Why can’t you behave yourself like Judith does?’ Rachel Murray stood in front of the grate, her hand outstretched towards her difficult daughter. ‘Judith never gets in trouble. And look how smart she is in her uniform. She never comes home looking like the cat’s dragged her out of the river. Where’ve you been? We’ll be on blackout in a minute, I’ve been past meself worrying. And there’s your Grandad poorly too up yonder. We’ve got to hurry up.’
Katherine wiped a smudge of mud from the end of her nose. She didn’t care. It was 1944, she was ten years old and she was in love. ‘I’ve been playing with Mike Wray. We got a bit interested in building a house, so I forgot the time.’
‘Forgot the time? You’ve been on that bombsite again, haven’t you? While our Judith’s been up at Grandad’s for an hour or more. She’s likely done all her homework by now! And how are you going to shape if you pass your scholarship, eh? I took the doffing job for you and your sister! Five days a week I work in that mill to save for your education. And what do you do? Sneak off with Michael Wray!’
‘He’s my best friend.’
‘You shouldn’t have a boy for your best friend. You should have a girl like . . .’
‘Like Judith does,’ mimicked the unrepentant child. She was happy. Happy, happy, happy! And she wasn’t going to let Mam spoil it. Rome was free again, British soldiers were on their way to Paris, everything was going to be all right! And Dad was coming home with a bad foot – he probably wouldn’t have to go back again. And Mike had given her a hairslide with a flower on it, and he’d blushed when he gave it her, so he loved her and Mam was such a pest. ‘Are we going or not?’ asked Katherine. ‘You keep telling me I’m late, then you keep standing there. What’s the matter?’
‘Grandad.’
‘Oh.’
‘With everybody wed now and him on his own all day, well, he’s let himself go. The doctor says it’s pneumonia, Katherine. Our Nellie’s with him at the minute . . .’
‘And Judith.’
‘Yes, but Judith’ll be doing her . . .’
‘Her homework.’ snapped Katherine. ‘Is he going to die?’
Rachel’s head drooped. ‘They think so, lass. He’s not so good.’
Katherine studied her shoes sadly. ‘I love my grandad. He used to go on about shoes and clogs. He took notice of me.’
‘I know.’
‘Why do people have to die, Mam?’
Rachel shrugged weary shoulders. ‘To make room for more, I suppose.’
‘Then why can’t it be just the bad people? And Grandad doesn’t take up much space.’
‘You’re ten now, lass. You know the answers as well as I do. Grandad’s old. He’s never been all that well since the last war ended. I reckon he’s had longer than what we expected.’
‘Do we have to go up and look after him?’
‘Aye. We’ll lock up here, then we’ll stop with him till it’s all over one way or the other. Our Nellie’ll have to get back home, so it’s down to us.’
‘It’s always down to us. Last time Grandad was ill, it wa
s down to us. Not that I mind, Mam. But he’s their dad too. You’d think they’d want to be with him.’
‘Yes. Yes, he was a good dad. A very grand man, he was. Eeh, I wish you could have seen him, our Katie. Done up in his good suit and with me mam on his arm. His moustache was dark then, all waxed at the ends, it was. And me mam, well, she was just beautiful.’
‘Was she?’
‘You’re like her.’
‘I’m not beautiful.’
‘You will be, lass. Aye, you will be. Now get that fire doused with tea and make sure all the gas is off. Your clothes are already up there, our Nellie carried them. I’m just going next door to tell Eileen to keep an eye on this place – for the post and that. And for God’s sake, don’t start your worrying. I’ve enough on without you ill on top of everything else. And get your face rinsed, you look like you’re straight out of a midden feet first . . .’
When Rachel had left, Katherine stood and stared at the photograph of her father over the mantelpiece. He was a sergeant major now, and he wore his crested stripes with an air of great pride. There was a commission waiting for him at the War Office, he only needed to pick it up when he was ready. He’d intended to ship the whole family off to India where they could have had servants and a posh house, but his recently wounded foot would put a stop to all that. Katherine breathed a sigh of pure relief. Mam hadn’t wanted to go to India and neither had she. It would be too hot there for people with red hair and fair skin. Judith hadn’t said much, Judith never did. Life seemed to leave the older girl untouched, but Katherine guessed that her sister would not have wanted to give up her place at Mount St Joseph’s Grammar School for Girls.
So, they would be staying here. Some posh bloke from the regiment had got Dad a promise on a job over at the paint and varnish works, a sit-down job too on account of all the exams he’d passed during his training. Only now, to spoil everything, poor old Grandad was going to die.
They walked together up the darkened street, mother and child hand in hand as usual. People came out of their houses with little gifts, poultices and inhalations for the old man, teacakes and bits of precious meat for the rest of the family. Rachel thanked them all soberly, then she and Katherine walked those last paces towards a house of death, a house that had once been so happy.
Nest of Sorrows Page 4
