Songbird

by Josephine Cox

  Alice readily acknowledged it. “I also know it would be a terrible hurtful thing for Maddy to find out how she was lied to, in such a terrible way,” she sighed. “Day and night, she’s never far from my mind. I desperately needed to be with her when the baby came!”

  “Alice, listen to me. What good will come of tormenting yourself? What you did, you did for Maddy’s sake, not your own. And if there ever comes a day when she finds out, Maddy will know that, and she’ll understand.”

  Alice wasn’t so sure. “Think of the pain I must have caused her,” she sorrowed. “Think of how my poor girl was sent on her way, pregnant and frightened, with the belief that I… her only close friend… was dead and gone. How could she ever forgive me for that?”

  Raymond would have spoken again, but she stopped him. “No, Ray. Whatever you say, you can’t ever ease my conscience.”

  “But we have to move on,” he argued. “Punishing yourself won’t help anybody – not you, and certainly not Maddy.”

  When they arrived at the garage, Alice stood aside while Raymond handed over a small sum of money. “Another three months payment for storage,” he told the clerk.

  “I could have sold that Mini a dozen times over.” The clerk rang the amount up on a greasy cash register and handed over a receipt with a large black thumbprint on it.

  “Well, I don’t want it sold,” Raymond replied, pocketing the receipt. “I’ve already told you my daughter has gone abroad for a year or two, and she doesn’t want to part with her car. She asked me to look after it until she gets back, and that’s what I’m doing.”

  Afterward, Alice said, “We daren’t sell it, and we can’t use it. Cars and their details are traceable to the owner, and Steve Drayton is nobody’s fool. He’s bound to put two and two together and surmise that where Ellen is, you’ll find Maddy. I reckon the best place for that blessed car is at the bottom of a deep lake, miles from anywhere.”

  Raymond said nothing, but he thought that Alice was right. Moreover, paying storage was becoming a burden on his modest finances. So, at some time in the future, running it into some deep dark lake, might be just the thing.

  It was visiting time in Brixton Prison, and Steve Drayton had been brought down to meet his visitor. “Hands flat on the table, Drayton. You know the rules!”

  The hard-faced prison officer had already experienced numerous confrontations with this “cock of the roost.” And knowing how Drayton manipulated everyone around him, it was his avowed aim in life to watch him like a hawk.

  “What’s his problem?” The visitor was a little man who had been a friend to Drayton in their younger days. Now older and wiser, wizened and sharp as a shrew, he had bright eyes that darted left and right, seemingly to cover every corner and exit, as though looking to escape.

  “Take no notice of him,” Drayton snarled. “He’ll get his comeuppance soon enough. What I need to know is, why are you here, Danny Boy?”

  “Hmh! Charming way to greet an old friend,”

  “Old friend, be damned! It’s been nigh on fifteen years since we’ve set eyes on each other, and as I recall we did not part on good terms. You and I might have started out on the same side, but you managed to change all that, with your ideas of taking over my patch.” He grinned wickedly. “You should have known you’d be the one to come off worse.”

  “Okay! You did me good and proper, I’ll give you that. But you went too far. You not only humiliated me in front of my men, you broke me into the bargain, and I’ve never been able to get back up. Dammit, Drayton, you owe me.”

  “I owe you nothing!”

  When he leaned forward, looking as though he might go for the other man, the warden was quick to step in. “You’ve got a few more minutes yet, Drayton, and the choice is this: you can keep the temper in check, or we can take you back to your cell right now.”

  “Sorry, guv.” Drayton was wily enough to know that giving out trouble brought trouble in return, and if he was set to be the number one here, he had no choice but to toe the line with the screws, however much it rankled.

  Returning his attention to the little man, he showed his impatience. “Well? I’m waiting for an answer.”

  “What was it you wanted to know?” Unnerved by the screw coming too close, the little fellow had forgotten what it was that Drayton had said.

  “I’ll say it again – what’s brought you here? What is it you’re after?” The prisoner lowered his voice until it was almost inaudible. “And don’t fob me off with your lies, because I know you from old.”

  “It’s simple.” The little man’s confidence was growing. “I’m here to do you a favor.”

  Drayton gave a low, strangled laugh. “You… do me a favor? Huh! You will never see the day.”

  “It’s a small favor, but I’ll want paying.”

  “Haven’t I just said, I want no favors from you.” Although in truth, he was intrigued.

  “It’ll cost you nothing to listen.” The little man went on quickly, “I hear you’re keen to find a certain little bird… I’m told she used to sing for you, until you replaced her with another little chirper. That put the first one’s nose out of joint – quite rightly, as I see it – but then she dropped you in it good and proper, and you want her taught a lesson. At least, that’s what I was told.”

  “Then you were told wrong!”

  When Drayton began to move away, the little man persisted. “Listen to me, Steve. You’ve said yourself that I had a nose for ‘sniffin’ the buggers out.’ Well, I still have the nose, and I can find her for you – at half the price you’re paying the other geezer. He hasn’t found her yet, has he, eh? Give me a chance, that’s all I want.”

  “Why should I?” Drayton had a long memory. “You tried to stitch me up once. What’s to say you won’t try it again?”

  “Because while you’ve gone on the up and up, my fortunes have changed for the worse.”

  Drayton laughed in his face. “Still the hapless gambler, eh? You’ll never learn, will you?”

  “Look, I need the money. I’ll do you a deal, Drayton. I’ll find her, or you don’t pay me, apart from expenses. Now I can’t say fairer than that. So, what do you say?”

  Leaning back in his chair, Drayton regarded the other man closely. He saw Danny Boy’s worn jacket and the clutch of gray hair that was once black and thick; he noticed how the little man’s hands were nervously fidgeting, showing that he could well be using drugs, and he realized that his old enemy, Danny Boy Maguire, really had fallen on hard times.

  He also recalled how good a “sniffer” he was, and that where many others failed to track down a certain person, Danny always came up trumps. Moreover, it was true what Danny had heard, that Steve was running out of patience with his own man.

  “Well?” Maguire had waited patiently while Drayton digested the proposed deal. “Do you want me to find her or not?”

  Drayton looked him straight in the eye. “One month,” he said. “You don’t succeed, you don’t get paid – that’s the deal.”

  “Six months,” the little man returned, “and I’ll deliver her, like a hamburger on a plate.”

  Another minute, while Drayton considered, then, “What makes you think you can find her, when my man can’t?”

  The little man smiled proudly. “Have you forgotten my nickname? ‘Bloodhound,’ that’s what they call me.”

  Drayton grinned. He had forgotten the nickname. “‘Call the Bloodhound,’ that’s what they’d say,” he chuckled. “Yeah, I remember.”

  “So, is it a deal then?”

  “Not on your terms, no.”

  “What then?”

  “Three months, and that’s it. And if my man finds her first, the deal is off. No money, no nothing. That’s it. Take it or leave it!”

  Because of his dire circumstances, the little man had no option. “I’ll take it,” he agreed, “but I’ll need you to organize expenses. I mean, she won’t still be hanging about these parts, now will she, eh? And I’ve got no
money to play with, or I wouldn’t be here with a begging bowl.”

  Drayton slowly nodded; there was a ring of truth in everything that Danny was telling him. And in any case, it could all be checked out if necessary, and Maguire knew that all too well.

  “Okay,” he said. “Find the bitch!”

  Money was discussed.

  And the deal was done.

  Fifteen

  “Amazing, isn’t it, lass? I can’t recall a January like this one.” Hair standing on end and wobbling dangerously on a rickety chair, Nora Winterhouse peered over the adjoining fence between numbers 8 and 10 Ackerman Street. “Last year it were cold enough to freeze the balls off a pawn-shop sign, and here we are, the first of January, 1979, and it’s like a September day. I’m sure I don’t know what to make of it.”

  Making a wide gesture to the skies, she almost fell off her perch. “Them crazy prophets down at the market hall might be right after all,” she spluttered as she struggled to retain her balance. “Happen the end of the world really is nigh.” And judging by her precarious stance, she could well be right.

  Having already startled Maddy with her sudden appearance, she then proceeded to give her a lecture on childcare in her usual tactless way. “I heard the babby crying last night,” she informed her with a tut. “I’ve had six childer, so I think I can tell a hungry babby when I hear one. I expect you’re breastfeeding him, aren’t you? Well, hope they told you at the hospital, you need to sit him up and burp him every so often. I don’t mean to tell you how to bring up your child” (although she did), “heaven only knows. But it’s just commonsense, when all’s said an’ done. Y’see, sometimes the wind gets caught in their little gullet, and they need to let it out, one end or t’other.”

  “Really?” Maddy decided the best way to deal with this was to humor her. “I’ll remember that. Thank you.”

  “Eeee!” Nora declared sadly. “I used to baby-sit for a lass on her own, like you are. Gave her a chance to get out now and then, it did. Poor little soul.”

  The “poor little soul” apparently went by the name of Sarah, and was taken advantage of “…by a local troublemaker. There were those who said he made her believe they’d get wed one day, and there were others who said he’d never even been out with her, but that one night he followed her home from the pictures and trapped her against the wall in Montague Street.”

  She bristled with indignation. “I reckon men who take advantage of an innocent lass – well, they want shooting, don’t they? Or at best, they deserve their cobbles chopping off. Don’t you agree, lass?”

  Having come to realize how Nora often let her tongue run away with her, Maddy didn’t know whether to believe a word of it. “So, what happened to the girl and her baby?” she asked, curiously.

  “That bugger drowned them in the canal, that’s what!” Taking both hands off the wall to shake her fists in anger, the plump little woman lost her balance and went clattering down in a hail of arms and legs, at the same time emitting a long, woeful scream. There was a second or two of silence, and then: “Ooh! Me back… me back! Bloody chair… I’ve allus said it were neither use nor ornament!”

  “Nora!” With nothing to stand on, Maddy gripped the top of the wall and jumped up and down. “Are you all right?” She could see their neighbor upended on the ground, showing her bloomers to all and sundry. “Nora – are you hurt?”

  “Oooh! I think I’ve done meself a damage.” There came a stream of cusses and the sound of something being flung across the yard.

  When the groaning subsided and she couldn’t see her any more, Maddy grew anxious. “Stay where you are, Nora. I’m coming round.”

  “Nay, lass!” Nora was back on form. “I’m all right – it’s only me pride that’s hurt, and me backside.” She hoisted herself onto her perch. “Bloody chair.” She peered down on Maddy. “Damned thing nearly did for me.” Making the sign of the cross on her forehead, she looked upward with penitent eyes. “Sorry lord, I didn’t mean to cuss,” she mumbled.

  Now she was looking down on Maddy. “I lied,” she confessed. “It weren’t the lad who threw them in the canal – it were the lass herself. Some fella passing saw her jump from the bridge and called the police… but it were too late.”

  Maddy was deeply shocked. “Oh Nora, that’s terrible.”

  “Aye, well. I know she threw herself in, but if you ask me, it might as well have been him that pushed her. She used to tell me, ‘He’s ruined me, Nora,’ she’d say. ‘No man will ever marry me now, not with a little one in tow.’”

  Being in that same situation and often wondering how her own future would pan out, Maddy made no comment.

  In her darkest moments, she too had thought about finishing it all. But then little Michael arrived, and her life was changed forever. She would hold him in her arms and experience such love and tenderness, it took her breath away.

  And where that other poor girl was taken and violated against her will, Maddy had freely and foolishly given herself to a known gangster with a streak of madness in him. God forbid that her lovely son Michael should ever know who or where his father was. Or take after him.

  After chatting a while with Nora, Maddy pegged out the last item of clothing, and was securing the line with the long prop, when she heard the baby cry out. “All right, Michael… I’m coming!” Grabbing the clothes basket, she hurried into the kitchen, where Michael was kicking his legs in the pram and howling for all he was worth. “Hey now… ssh!” Taking him in her arms, she carried him into the sitting room by the cozy fire, and pressing him close to her, she began to softly sing:

  “Go to sleep, my baby, close your pretty eyes

  Angels watch above you, from the deep blue skies

  Great big moon is shining, stars begin to peep

  Time for little Michael, to go back to sleep.”

  Outside in the street, Ellen and Grandad had climbed out of the car and were at the door, when they heard the sweet sound of Maddy singing.

  “By, that lass has such a beautiful voice.” Bob Maitland did not spare his praise. “The pair of you should be earning a fortune on the stage.”

  Ellen thanked him for saying so, but added, “I can sing, yes. But Maddy has a magical way with a song. She lifts the soul in a way I could never do. I reach the notes and I entertain. People listen to me,” she smiled wistfully, “but our Maddy takes them with her, into the song… into her world.”

  Curling his arm round her thin shoulders, her grandfather looked down on her. “I’m so proud of you,” he told her. “When you were no higher than the table, you could always entertain… singing away to your heart’s content. You have a lovely voice, my girl. Don’t ever forget that.”

  But he knew what she meant about Maddy. When Ellen sang, it made you sing along, and smile with pleasure. But when Maddy sang, it was a haunting thing, a journey of the soul. She had that indefinable magic quality which only a very few performers possess.

  It was late morning. The beds were made, the washing was blowing freely on the line, and the meat pie for dinner was in the pantry, ready for reheating in the oven later in the afternoon.

  “It’s such a nice day,” Grandad suggested, “why don’t the two of you go into town, have a couple of hours to yourselves? The young lad’s just been fed and I can take care of him; you’ve seen me change his nappy and rub his back. You could have a drink at a café – and what about that new dress shop in Lytham? I heard the pair of you saying how much you’d like to pay a visit. Well, now’s your chance.”

  “But it’s a half-hour bus ride to Lytham,” Ellen protested half-heartedly.

  “Then take the car, and you’ll get there a bit quicker. I filled the tank up only last night, so there’s no reason not to go. Besides, the pair of you haven’t been out together for days. And don’t worry about young Michael. He’ll be fine with me.”

  The girls were grateful for his offer.

  “It’s true,” Ellen told Maddy, “we’ve not really been anywhe
re for days now, except for this morning when I went for a job at Woolworth’s and was turned down, because,” in thin, nasal tones, she mimicked the manageress, “‘I’m sorry, my dear, but we have so many applicants, we can pick and choose. And of course we must give priority to someone who’s experienced.’”

  “You wouldn’t have liked it anyway,” Maddy grinned. “You know you can’t stand being cooped up.”

  “Yes, you’re right. I couldn’t stomach being stuck behind a counter for eight hours a day.”

  “There’s many as do.” Grandad had his say. “Needs do when needs must.”

  “Oh Grandad, I understand that. But you know what my feet are like, and I’ve worn high heels for so long, I couldn’t do without them. But they’re not ideal for standing on all day long.”

  Maddy teased her, “You’re missing a lot though, Ellen. Think how many Nora Winterhouses you might get to serve?”

  Ellen made a face. “That settles it,” she declared. “I think I’ll look for a job as an usherette at the pictures. That way I’ll be in the dark, and I can scowl to my heart’s content.”

  Grandad finished the conversation. “You said you wouldn’t go looking for work until the summer, so I don’t see why you shouldn’t stick to that plan. Unless o’course, you’re all spent up?”

  Ellen shook her head. “Not yet,” she told him. “Me and Maddy did our sums only the other day, and we’re all right for a while yet.”

  “There you are then.” Old Bob was pleased at that. “Once you start work, there’ll be no time for walking round the shops or strolling through the park. So make the best use of it while you can.”

  A few moments later, Ellen and Maddy were away down the street in Grandad’s Rover. “I’ll telephone you when we get there!” Maddy called through the open window. “Meantime, if you need help before then, get Nora in from next door.”