Meet Me at the Pier Head

by Ruth Hamilton

  ‘Everything I have is yours, baby.’

  ‘Not until we’re married, Mr Quinn.’

  ‘Presumptuous, aren’t you?’ he said, his face split by yet another wide grin.

  Tia shrugged. ‘It’s inevitable.’

  He cocked his head to one side. ‘Really?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Despite your worries about matters genetic, we belong together. Now bugger off while I get dressed.’

  He buggered off happily, fed his animals, showered, shaved, cleaned his teeth and dressed himself in decent clothes. This was the last week of the school year, possibly even his final week at Myrtle Street. Would he be here in September? He might well be arrested for kidnap, abduction, or whatever the wording might be in the statutes of Britain. Maggie and kidnap victim were still asleep, and he moved quietly in order not to wake them as he left the house.

  Am I to lose all this, my dream since the end of the war? Will my Portia’s name and reputation be sullied because of what must be done for little Rosie? But the machine is already rolling, and I cannot, will not, stop it. He went to his office where he penned a letter to his solicitor, telling all he knew about Sadie’s history, about her dead pimp and his habit of shutting the child in a coal shed, about Sadie in a coma and Rosie’s maternal grandmother’s need to remove the little girl in case Sadie reverted to type when she recovered.

  The phone rang. It was Tia. ‘Hello, sweet man. Ma’s agent has spoken to Pa’s agent. My father is leaving the country today, and that will be broadcast tomorrow, so we can use Rose Cottage. Maggie, Rosie and I will stay there, but you and the Athertons might get rooms at the Punch Bowl, though Mrs Melia has offered to lend you Lilac Cottage if you prefer that.’

  ‘You’ll be seen, Tia.’

  He almost heard her shrug. ‘I’m afraid of very little, Mr Quinn. My parents’ business is not mine, so it matters not at all if I’m approached. The main thing is that we keep Maggie and Rosie safe. Happily, there are many places where Rosie can play, but she and Maggie must remain on the estate unless we go out in the ambulance. When we do go out, we use back lanes and stay away from the village.’ She paused. ‘Actually, I have an idea, Mr Quinn.’

  Theo groaned inwardly. ‘And Juliet?’ he asked.

  ‘She’ll be here in my flat with Ma and Joan. Matron released her from duty as soon as I delivered the warning; she doesn’t want the rubbishy press crawling around in the hospital grounds and corridors. I spoke to Juliet, too. She’s tougher than she looks, yet she remains the baby of the family, and we guard her well. See? I think of everything, Mr Quinn.’

  He smiled. ‘I think of you all the time.’

  ‘Yes. I suffer too, you know.’

  ‘We’re diseased, Portia.’

  ‘Probably. See you later.’

  Theo sat back, a silly smile plastered across his face. She was worth it, as were Rosie and Maggie. Should proceedings take place, Portia’s name would be kept out of . . . No. She wouldn’t agree to that, because Madam was as stubborn as the proverbial mule, and she probably had a kick to match, too. What is it about her? She’s difficult, opinionated, mercurial, crazy. She’s lovely. Don’t question this, you fool. You can trust her, and that’s the main thing. Write down all your rubbish and cleanse yourself; she will take you as you are in spite of your lineage. He placed the letter for his solicitor in an envelope.

  After tapping on the door, Colin Duckworth poked his head through a small gap. ‘Sir?’

  ‘Yes, Colin?’

  The rest of the child crept in. ‘You know in America, Sir?’

  ‘I know a few things about America, but not everything.’

  ‘Why do they have Indians? Indians should live in India, shouldn’t they? Was they brung over from India like the slaves from Africa?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So is there another India as well as the India what used to belong to our Hempire?’

  ‘No.’ Theo squashed a laugh. Hempire?

  ‘So what happened?’

  Theo sighed heavily. ‘Where does your teacher think you are, Colin?’

  ‘Toilet, Mr Quinn.’

  ‘We have to stop meeting like this, son. Rumour has it that Christopher Columbus thought he’d found India. The people labelled Red Indians are indigenous.’

  ‘Oh. Is that an illness? Is that why they’re red?’

  ‘They’re not red, Colin, they are brown. And indigenous means they were there first.’

  ‘Oh, I thought it meant indigestion. My mam suffers with that and says it’s my fault.’ He paused, though not for long. ‘So it’s their country?’

  ‘It used to be until people from Europe took over and made them live in reservations. Those among us who are decent are thoroughly ashamed of that.’

  Colin made a decision and voiced it. ‘Right, Sir. Next time I go to the fleapit and they’re showing a cowy, I’ll cheer for the Indians.’

  ‘Cowy?’

  ‘Cowboy film, Sir.’

  Theo couldn’t contain the chuckle that escaped from his mouth. ‘Colin, you’re a long time at the toilet.’

  But Colin had an answer for that, too. Digging in a trouser pocket, he pulled out two sheets of lavatory paper. ‘She thinks I’ve gone for a number two, Sir. She’ll think I’m constipated.’

  That was the last straw. Theo burst out laughing, his head shaking from side to side. He loved this terrible kid, loved his deliberate Spoonerisms, his cheek, that enquiring mind, the silly hair, the deepening frown that had arrived through too much thinking. ‘Go, Colin,’ he gasped. The boy was definitely university material.

  Colin went. His true hero, Mr Blackbird-Quinn, liked him. For some time, Colin had suspected this, but he now had proof. Mr Quinn was the true seat of learning in this place of education. He rid himself of toilet paper and returned to class, one hand clutching his belly. ‘Sorry I took so long, Miss. I must have ate too many chips last night . . .’

  Twelve

  We were staying in our trailer on the ranch owner’s land about seven miles outside Atlanta, Georgia. It was 1930, and I was almost ten years of age, a skinny kid with too much hair and very little flesh on my bones. Mom used to say I looked like nobody owned me, though Dad always told her I would fill out in a few years. I still hear his wicked laugh from all the times he chased me with a wooden spoon, threatening to play a tune on my ribs. We had fun. I try to think about the fun, but nightmares still haunt me. My life may seem strange when you read this, but I was happy most of the time, and I was loved.

  Dad was working early mornings and evenings with horses, his favourite job, and I went with him occasionally. My father respected the noble beasts (his lovely Irish term) and refused to run them in the heat of the day. When it was hot, he did general jobs round the ranch. I recall occasions on which he took wet cloths and used them to cool down ‘his’ horses. There was an ice house under the ground in a kind of cave, and the ice man filled it twice a week.

  Mom stayed inside the trailer for most of the time; the reason for that was something I would come to understand fully quite soon. It was hot, so hot, and the air was wet and clammy; any clothing was soaked in sweat within minutes. There were baths in a shed. Sometimes, Dad and I took two or three quick baths a day, but Mom waited until the middle of the night to go and get clean.

  She was different, and I was finally beginning to understand what that meant. Mom didn’t act like other wives and mothers on the trailer park. They spent time together when chores were done, chatting over lemonade or iced tea, but my mother kept herself to herself. Sometimes, I stayed with her and we read together. Dad and I taught her to read.

  I loved her so much. She was gentle, kind, funny, an avid reader and a very beautiful woman. She was also terrified of other folk, so she kept herself very much to one side and was always delighted when Dad and I came home, because we were her whole life. She had a limp. Whenever I asked about the weakness in her left leg, she told me it had happened as the result of a fall when she’d been at school. She left
school after the injury.

  I still hear Dad almost growling at me whenever I spoke about Mom’s limp. He was very protective of his Lily-Mae, and she was clearly the love of his life. The chattering women sometimes spoke about us; I knew that, because they would occasionally stop talking when I passed them. Our trailer was parked away from the others, so I figure people thought we considered ourselves to be a cut above them. That was not the case at all. Mom needed to be some distance away from the rest because she was afraid, not proud.

  I’ve spent twenty-eight years wishing we’d never gone to the Bella Vista Ranch. It had been a toss-up between two places, and this one was the nearer. Dad’s love of horses might have been a factor; one of the beasts he tamed went on to win the Kentucky Derby. Dad backed it and won a bundle, but he’d rather have had Mom safe instead. He used his winnings to buy a marker for her grave, white marble and beautifully engraved. Although he was preparing to remarry by then, he still adored my mother. She’d loved calligraphy, so we had her details on the stone done in copperplate. I detest the weather in Georgia, but I visit her grave every time I go to America.

  The ranch owner paid for her funeral and shot dead two of her killers. When I discovered the identity of those murdering bastards, my faith in humanity was seriously corroded. That day, I saw two men dead and two crying; one weeper was my dad, the other was his employer. These were tough men, skin etched in deep furrows caused by sun and wind, well-muscled limbs and chests, teeth stained by tobacco and beer, both harsh of voice, clear of eye, deadly with a gun. Yet they sobbed like babies on that day, the day my mother died.

  I didn’t cry, or so I’m told. I just absented myself and was almost catatonic until some specialist or other snapped me out of it weeks later. So my inner pain was postponed, as was Mom’s funeral because Dad, a far-seeing and somewhat primitive genius when sober, insisted that his son should see Lily-Mae buried. She was kept on ice, though not under the ground at Bella Vista. The boss paid for all that, too.

  So now, I approach the climax, the crux of the matter. Fortunately for me, Delia has just pulled up in that battered van, so I am reprieved once more. But I will get to it soon, Portia. I love you, and you deserve to know the truth about my beginnings. And it is time for me to let this out anyway for the sake of my sanity, because anger isn’t healthy, especially when it stretches over decades . . .

  Tia was already on the driveway when Theo arrived. ‘Hello, stranger,’ she said to him. ‘I thought you’d left home.’

  ‘Home is wherever you happen to be,’ was his whispered reply.

  She shivered in spite of the warm weather. Sometimes, the man of her dreams said the loveliest things. ‘Quite the romantic, aren’t you, Mr Quinn?’

  A red-faced Delia climbed out of her metal Turkish bath. ‘I’ve been roasting in that thing,’ she complained, kicking the van before hugging her older sister. ‘I feel like a Christmas turkey ready for the table. Where’s Juliet?’

  ‘Simon’s collecting her from the train. She’ll need help with luggage, and he has a bigger car. Izzy and Joan have gone shopping. And yes, you smell sweaty, my love.’

  Theo opened the rear doors of the van and looked at its contents. ‘Hell’s bells and bloody murder,’ he exclaimed. ‘What have you got here? The contents of wardrobe from Stratford-upon-Avon?’

  Delia fixed him with a steely glare. ‘I don’t know, do I? I’m just the bloody courier, bring me, fetch me, carry me, Delia.’ Her hard stare disappeared, but it was replaced by a wagging finger. ‘I’ve already helped to lift their junk at home when we packed the van, so I am now on strike, and that is official. My labour is withdrawn, and I need to pee.’ She marched away.

  ‘See? It’s not just me, is it?’ Tia asked innocently.

  ‘What isn’t just you?’

  ‘We all have a tendency to misbehave, though Juliet’s not as confrontational. She says little, but does as she pleases.’ She paused. ‘Hey, do you have ten rooms? I have only nine.’

  ‘No, I don’t have ten rooms, madam. If you’d open your eyes, you’d notice that my dining furniture is in the living room, so don’t start with the complaints, because Mr Quirke needs a room for his body parts. I’m thinking of using the other bedrooms for something or other so I won’t need to have guests,’ he grumbled.

  Tia looked into the van. ‘There are many items here, Teddy.’

  He scratched his head. ‘I need to buy another house for this lot.’

  ‘Don’t worry.’ Tia held his hand. ‘Most of it will be in storage – it’s all arranged. Anything with spots doesn’t come into your house.’

  ‘I should think not. We’ve enough to manage without breaking out in German measles.’

  Tia awarded him a look fit to curdle milk. ‘Get carrying,’ she snapped.

  ‘You’re too bossy,’ he complained.

  ‘I am not.’

  ‘And stubborn,’ he added.

  ‘I am not stubborn.’

  ‘You are.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  He stepped away from her. ‘See? That’s stubborn. You stick to your guns even when they aren’t loaded.’

  A decision was reached. Non-spotty containers would go into Theo’s spare bedroom, since Maggie and Rosie were sharing a room. Izzy and Joan could unpack at their leisure while he was at work. ‘I don’t want to interfere with ladies’ underwear,’ Theo explained.

  ‘No comment,’ Tia snapped.

  ‘I mended the thing,’ he muttered. ‘And I did a very good job.’

  ‘After you broke the clasp. I was one up and one down for most of that evening.’

  ‘Don’t be coarse,’ he advised, and they both burst into gales of laughter.

  Tia dried her eyes. ‘Are we leaving the spotty ones in the van?’

  ‘Bet your bottom dollar we are. I’ve been invaded, haven’t I? If I get a hernia, you can pay for the truss. OK?’

  But Tia was too busy dragging out a couple of suitcases. ‘Shut up and take those in,’ she ordered. ‘Are Rosie and Maggie in the rear garden?’

  ‘With the animals, yes. Izzy and Joan will be back soon. Izzy’s feeding all of us.’

  Tia dropped a heavy case. ‘I warned you. Don’t eat anything prepared by her. She’s lethal with food.’

  He chuckled again. ‘It’s OK, she’s bringing a fish supper.’ He disappeared into his flat.

  Tia threw out the last of the spot-free luggage. Members of her family were becoming a liability, and she hoped with all her heart that Teddy wouldn’t run out of patience. Until very recently, he’d lived in a huge house with just a cat for company. Now, he had Maggie and Rosie downstairs, while she had three Bellamys including herself plus one Joan Reynolds upstairs. Delia would be gone soon, but Ma and the rest might be here indefinitely. Oh, and Jules was on her way . . .

  Theo returned. ‘Shall I send them to a hotel?’ she asked.

  ‘No. I haven’t had this much fun since VE day in London. I started off near the palace, but woke the next day in a house in Bow, no idea of how I’d got there, and no memory of the householders. My father used to do that sort of thing quite often, and I was worried about becoming an alcoholic. But I failed alcohol and got a degree instead.’

  ‘Good,’ she said. ‘The occasional glimpse of a pretend drunk was difficult enough.’ She stepped out of the van. ‘That’s it,’ she announced, ‘just six cases. The rest have spots. The keys are in the ignition, so just secure the van while I visit my sweaty sister.’

  She’s gone bossy again; would I like her to change? Not at all.

  ‘Why are you staring at me?’ she asked.

  He shrugged. ‘Just imagining what fun taming you is going to be.’

  ‘Get a whip and a chair, Teddy. I’ll pick up my shotgun when we go to Kent.’ She turned on her heel and walked inside.

  No, she mustn’t improve, because I would hate that. I’m sure the consummate actress within will come to the fore at school. She’ll be a great teacher, and I’ll be Mr Quinn, the
busy blackbird. Before all that, we’ve a small matter of kidnap to think about, and the essay I’m writing for my Portia and her lovely mom . . .

  Martha Foster closed the door of their ground-floor flat. Reclaiming the ability to breathe, she stared at her brother. He was sitting on his low divan, the wheeled trolley abandoned, as he had finished selling newspapers for today. Next to him lay his mouth organs, the instruments that earned him and young Rosie extra coppers for playing and singing at the Pier Head.

  ‘Make us a cuppa, queen,’ he begged. It had never occurred to him that he might be questioned. Who would suspect that a man in his condition could be capable of murder? ‘They won’t come back,’ he said as he stared at his sister’s ashen face. ‘Put the kettle on.’

  She didn’t trust her legs. ‘Me legs have gone funny,’ she murmured.

  ‘I’ll swap you for mine,’ he answered. ‘If yours are funny, mine are bloody hilarious.’

  ‘Sorry, Harry.’ She leaned against a wall to steady herself. Two policemen had questioned them about Rosie. Had they known she was a victim of cruelty, that she’d been shut in the coal shed, that her mother was a prostitute? Did they know a strong, tall man with a black beard, had they heard anything about the murderer? Did they know of anyone who might have hired such a man to kill Miles Tunstall? Martha staggered into the kitchen and set the kettle on the hob.

  ‘They know nothing,’ Harry shouted from the living room, which also served as his bedroom. ‘They’re clutching at straws, Martha. It’s only because Rosie sings with me and helps to sell papers sometimes. Half this city knew what Tunstall was, so there’s a long list of folk who might have killed him or hired someone to do the job. He was vermin and he needed shifting.’

  Martha arrived in the doorway, a hand clinging to the jamb in search of steadiness. ‘They asked about false legs,’ she said. ‘Everybody in your condition gets false legs. I know you’re not the only one who didn’t manage to wear them regular, like, but the fact is that you used them and killed him, love.’

  ‘Apart from practising in here for Rosie’s sake, I never needed them except for . . . except for that day. My stumps were red raw, and they’re still a bit sore.’