‘I’ll be passing Mrs. Collins’ on my way home. I visit her regularly. I’ll call in and tell them that Linda’s found. Goodbye, Linda. I expect I’ll see you again one day at Mrs. Collins’. . . .’
‘Thank the lady for bringing you home like this. Where did you find her, miss?’
‘Linda’ll tell you that,’ said Alison, making her escape quickly after the child had mumbled something that sounded like thanks.
As she was walking past the bomb-site, dark and silent now, she crossed the road and peered into the depths of the deep shadows cast by the ruined buildings. The child had said that there was a man there—a soldier, that he was watching old Mrs. Collins’ house. Long training in the tortuous minds and imaginations of the families she tried to help had made Alison quick in reasoning. The reasoning at which she arrived was not always correct, but she had decided that to reach some definite, if erroneous, conclusion and work from it was the way which most helped in getting the truth.
The soldier had been a Serviceman, Linda had insisted. For what reason should a Serviceman hide all day in such a place? There was only one obvious one—the same one which had made young Collins disguise himself as his sister. Strange that he should be watching the very house in which Neil was hiding. She immediately decided that the man must be a friend of the Collins boy and that he could be up to no good. A man who would threaten a little girl like that was dangerous. Alison Rhodes was accustomed now to going where she was not welcome, to entering homes where she was greeted with hostility and reluctance. The waste ground looked sinister and somehow menacing in the dark, and the heavy rain made it more uninviting, but she was not a person to shirk an unpleasant duty. Children must be protected. She would go and see whether the man was still there and if so she would inform the police. She began picking her way carefully and with difficulty over the blocks of fallen masonry. She came suddenly up against a wall or rather the remains of a wall and, turning sharply to regain her way, she found herself face to face with the man whom she was seeking. She was startled, caught suddenly off guard. None of the things which she had rehearsed in her mind to say to him came to her. She could only stare and then, at his menacing intent look, say faltering. . . . ‘So you’re still here. . . .’
‘What d’you mean—I’m still here? How did you know I was here?’
‘The child. The child told me. You frightened her.’ Then, gathering courage as she saw how young he was, she said more firmly, ‘If you go about frightening children you’ll soon find yourself in trouble. . . .’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. But let me tell you something for your own good, miss. It won’t help you any to go around poking about where you’re not wanted.’
But what are you doing here? You’ve been here since early afternoon. You can’t tell me it’s for any good purpose that you’re hiding here on a wet night like this. Are you waiting to break in somewhere?’ Then, as he did not answer but just continued to stare at her threateningly, she said suddenly, looking at his uniform. . . . ‘Of course. I know who you are. . . . You’ve run away like your friend in that house over there. You’re Neil Collins’ pal, Mike. . . .’ Why hadn’t she thought of it before? The old woman had read her bits of Neil’s letters when Mike had first taken up with him. . . . What had he written? ‘He’s got a queer brown face, narrow and with funny eyes, Gran. But he’s always laughing so you can’t see them properly—they disappear completely when he laughs.’ And the child had said much the same . . . ‘funny eyes . . . I didn’t like them.’
‘Have you deserted, too?’ she asked, accusingly. But he did not answer. He just went on staring at her so that she said quickly and angrily. ‘I was going to leave the boy over there alone. But if there are two of you it’s different. And you frightened that child. I warn you now that I intend to go immediately to the police.’
Then at last he spoke. ‘I shouldn’t do that if I were you,’ was all he said but he advanced a few steps towards her so that his face was very close to hers. The implied threat was a whetstone to her anger, a challenge to her to perform her duty from which she had been deflected by others. She turned sharply to retrace her steps back to the road, and as she began picking her way carefully among the loose bricks and stones something hit her sharply on the neck. She stumbled, putting out her hands frantically trying to find something on which to take a hold: she lost her balance and stepped backwards, crashing into those dark foundations about which she had been hesitating when she had encountered the man. Her head hit the concrete floor, her beret and handbag fell from her as blackness engulfed her.
CHAPTER XVII
ALISON Rhodes came to herself on the concrete floor of what had once been the foundations of a large block of flats. She was lying on her back, her beret had fallen off and she was conscious of blackness and wet and acute discomfort. She moved her arms cautiously, and then more cautiously, and then her legs. She could move them both but one hurt quite frighteningly. She sat up slowly and waves of sickness sent her down again. Her head was racking her with a sharp stabbing pain, which was combined with violent nausea.
She was soaking wet and very cold. She groped for her handbag but could not find it. How long had she been here? She felt for her watch; it was still on her wrist but she could not see its small face in the darkness. Looking up at the sky she noticed that the blackness was changing to grey. The dark night clouds were slowly and beautifully giving way to a steel blue vista shot with streaks of bright light. She made another determined effort to get up, but was forced down again by giddiness. Her head and right foot were excruciatingly painful, her back and shoulders felt stiff and strange.
Alison was a determined woman. She realised that even if she called out it was extremely unlikely that anyone would hear her—unless her attacker was still hiding here. She tried to recall the events which had led to her lying unconscious in this horrible place. Her mind v/as clearing but it was still difficult to think. The only thing which was sharp in her memory was the face of the young soldier with whom she had been talking when she fell. Had she fallen or had she been pushed? She put her hands up to her forehead as she tried to re-live that last moment when she had turned to retrace her way back to the road. Why had she been in that road? She lay still, trying to remember. But she could not. All she could see was the face of the young soldier as he stood there on the edge of the deep foundations. Brown skin, strange narrow eyes and a thin mouth. What had she been doing here at all when she encountered him?
The events previous to his face appearing suddenly out of the darkness were blank and she gave it up. She groped again for her handbag, then with a determined effort she began crawling to the wall nearest her. If she could only prop herself against something firm she could pull herself upright, and once up she could try to find a way of getting out. She decided not to call out in case the man was still about. It took her a long time to get to the wall, and when she felt its solid mass behind her she lay still for a while trying to gather her strength. She had the feeling that she must get out quickly or she would relapse again into unconsciousness; the waves of nausea were becoming worse with each movement and she knew instinctively that she should lie still.
Cautiously, like a wounded creature, she began pushing herself up against the wall putting her weight on the uninjured leg until at last she stood upright leaning her body against the wall. All the time it was growing lighter and she would soon be able to see the time by her watch if it was still going. She leaned there for some time. Now she heard the birds chattering and calling one to another and was surprised at the number of them in this oasis from the pavements. There was a tree near her and in its branches there was a noisy activity. She listened astonished at the beauty of the sounds which these small feathered creatures could make.
It seemed to her that she had never noticed birds before, although much of her life had been spent in the country in her mother’s Sussex home. And there were trees round the block of flats where she lived, there mus
t be birds there, too. But she had never noticed them. Here, in this waste ground where the grass and fireweed had covered the stones and bricks and only the children came, they seemed to have collected. And as they sang and gossiped one to another the masses of night parted in the hemisphere and with their songs came light, so that it seemed to Alison Rhodes recently returned to consciousness that she was indeed being delivered from darkness and that the birds, harbingers of morning, were welcoming her from the depths of the unknown.
Very slowly she began edging her way round the wall looking for a break in it. And, at last, after what seemed an endless, agonising journey the wall stopped and in the grey half-light she could make out the broken staircase which had once led to the basement of the house. She looked around before putting her good foot on the first step, but she could see no one. There was nothing on which to lean her weight, or on which to hold, and she had to drag the injured foot up to the level of each step. It was a nightmare ascent, she kept swaying and almost falling backwards again—as she must have done last night, but she stuck doggedly to it, and at last she was standing on the level ground above the rectangular pit in which she had been lying. The birds were now making a veritable chorus and she thought whimsically that they were congratulating her. I shall never be oblivious to birds again, she thought. I shall listen and be grateful to them always. She longed to he down again, such nausea gripped her; but she staggered as determinedly and blindly as a drunken woman towards the nearest pavement. Once there, she lifted the barbed wire which failed to keep the children out, and was in a deserted street.
I have no money and no key, she thought worriedly, and then she remembered the pound note which for reasons of prudence she always put folded in the breast pocket of her suit. Alison Rhodes knew that a handbag could be snatched in a shop or street and she never risked being stranded without money. In the same pocket, attached with a safety pin, was a latch-key. She felt that she was in a dream or a film. This simply doesn’t happen in real life she thought. She had the feeling that she was a machine, an automaton performing those actions dictated to it by a brain completely remote from the body, as she limped slowly and painfully in the empty street. Her foot, she could now see by the street lamps, was terribly swollen. A trickle from the back of her head was seeping through the collar of her grey suit with a dark reddish stain. Horrified, she put up her hand and it came away red and sticky.
She was now at the corner of the street where it joined a main one. Her watch was still going. It said half-past three. Towards her came a crawling taxi. She hailed it feebly. The driver looked hesitantly at her thinking at first that she was drunk. But she spoke clearly and intelligently to him.
‘I have been attacked on that piece of ground there. I am soaking wet and must get home at once. Can you kindly take me to Willow Court?’
‘You’d better let me take you to the police station, miss,’ he said, concernedly. ‘They’ll see to you there. Look, your head’s bleeding all over your collar and your foot’s pretty bad by the look of it.’
‘No. Take me home first, please. I must change these wet things. I’m feeling as if I may lose consciousness again. I live at 18, Willow Court. It’s down by the river.’
‘I know it all right,’ said the taxi-driver. ‘But in case you pass out again, miss, what’s the name? I shall have to know it to get you in there. Have you your key?’
‘The key’s in this pocket with a pound note for the fare. My handbag’s been stolen. Fortunately, I always carry a spare pound and a key in this pocket. Could you help me in, please?’
The man lifted her easily into the taxi. She was shivering badly and she looked terrible.
‘You’ll be home in ten minutes,’ he said, consolingly. ‘I’ll look after you. Anyone at home when you get there?’
‘No,’ she said, ‘I live alone.’
When he pulled up at the entrance to the expensive luxury block and opened the door to help her out, she had slumped down in the corner and was unconscious. The man looked at the closed door of the block of flats and back at the young woman. ‘No good taking you up there, lass,’ he said. ‘It’s hospital for you and police station after that for me.’
‘Miss Alison Rhodes, 18, Willow Court,’ he repeated as he drove to the nearest hospital. ‘Shan’t take her fare but I’ll point out the pound and the key when I give her over to Casualty. Never know. She trusted me to look after her. I’ll trust her to pay me later. Poor girl! Now, let me think, exactly where did she come staggering along? The police are devils for details. . . .’
CHAPTER XVIII
IN the small airless room behind the flower-papered door Neil lay on the old iron cot with his arms folded under his head, staring up at the ceiling. It was dark but he knew exactly when he was looking at the patch of damp, or at the two large cracks in the ceiling. He knew the small area better than any map. He thrust off Nona’s scarf irritably. It irked him and degraded him—he would wear it no longer. His hair was damp as was his forehead. He could neither relax nor sleep because he was so afraid. He had failed to get Charlie to help him in time—and he had simply not had the guts to walk out on his own and take the train to Southampton.
Why should he suddenly know that the man waiting out there on the waste ground was Mike? Nona had succeeded in lulling his fears so that for a short time at least he had almost forgotten his anguish. Nona could always do that—always influence him, always soothe and heal him. And Charlie was furious and jealous. That’s why he had taken up with that girl in the photograph. Neil knew that. He realised now that Charlie loved Nona and that he was the cause of most of the trouble between them. He knew now that he should never have come home. He should have gone straight to Ireland to his aunt and taken the risk. It was unfair to drag them all into it. And it was all Mike’s fault. He would never have deserted again unless Mike had forced him to. The thought of Mike was so horrible to him that he could not lie still. Mike loomed ahead like an evil inevitable doom. He tossed and turned and the old springs creaked and groaned so that his grandmother called out. ‘Keep quiet, Neil. Try and get some sleep. You’ll need it.’
After that he made an effort to He still. Why hadn’t Mike come to the house? Was he intending to wait the full twenty-four hours he’d agreed on and then come over? Surely he couldn’t wait there all night. And Charlie had gone over there hunting for the child and hadn’t seen him. His heart had almost stopped beating when Charlie had come back and Nona had said, ‘Well?’
Where could he be all this time? What had happened? Supposing Mike had been arrested himself? Suppose he gave Neil away? He was the sort who might do that if his own plans went wrong. Well, it was only a few hours and he himself would be away. Nonie had promised. Charlie would not go back on his word once he had given it. He would take no risks. He would climb out over the yard wall at the back so that he need not go out in the street at all. Charlie could wait at the corner for him . . . that would be it.
He lay there listening, as did his grandmother, to the chimes of the clock. Each quarter—and then the full hour quarters and then the slow booms of each hour. It had been the very longest day he could remember—and now it seemed the longest night. The door was so frail that he could hear every movement his grandmother made—just as she could hear his. He could even hear the rustle of paper as she wrote to her sister. He watched the line of light go out under her door . . . and then in spite of his determination to stay awake for fear that Mike might come . . . he was suddenly overcome with sheer exhaustion and he slept.
Because she had deliberately omitted to take her tablets, Mrs. Collins awoke constantly. She would sleep a little then wake uneasily, think a while, doze a little and wake again. Occasionally, she would forbear to take the drugs, telling herself whimsically that unless she endured some pain she would no longer be able to appreciate the exquisite pleasure of escaping it. She awoke now just before one o’clock and lay thinking not about Neil and the ordeal which lay ahead of her in helping to get him off,
but of the farm where she had spent her girlhood. Shows I’m getting really old, she thought, for she always warned her grandchildren never to think of the past. She longed more and more now to see the farm once more. Not the garden belonging to Miss Rhodes’ mother about which she had been told so much, but the farm where she had been sent as a general help when she was old enough to leave the Home.
The farmer and his wife had had five turbulent children. They had been good to her and treated her as one of the family, and she had been happy with them—very happy, although the work was hard and was never finished. After three years she had met Jim. She thought now with tender amusement of their meeting. It had been at a local farmers’ ball. She hadn’t known how to dance but the two eldest farm children attended a dancing class and they had done their best to teach her what they themselves had been taught. The farmer’s wife had given her a dress. It had been of soft blue with a silver sash. She had never possessed anything so beautiful. How shy and awkward she had been—her hands had seemed enormous and red and her feet felt strange in the silver shoes with heels; but friends of the farmer had come up and been kind and she had not missed a dance. Quite early on she had been introduced to Jim and after that it had been wonderful. He and his brother had worked a small farm in the neighbourhood.
In the spring she had married him in the ugly little church where she had worshipped with the farmer’s family. The two eldest girls had stood behind her in hideous stiff frocks as bridesmaids. How good they had all been to her. Because her parents had not been heard of by any of their children for more than ten years, her employer himself had given her away and no one could have been kinder or more motherly than his wife. People have changed now, she thought, thinking of Charlie’s family and how they made fun of Nona’s having been to a good Secondary school and of her love of books and music. They’re harder—or maybe times are harder now.
The Fledgeling Page 19
