Mulligan's Yard

by Ruth Hamilton

  ‘So he was a figure of fun.’

  ‘Ooh, you can say that again. And she were cruel, specially to him. She used to lock him in the coal-hole under their stairs – Emblem Street, they lived. She flayed him with his dad’s belt till there were no skin left on him. It was because he was so ugly, I think.’

  James drove down Deane Road. Peter Wilkinson had probably hated his mother. She had humiliated and belittled him, had locked him up, had beaten him. The man had travelled through life despising and fearing women. That was the reason, but it was no excuse. ‘His brother seems a decent enough man. Runs the post office up in Pendleton, sells groceries and cakes. Stephen Wilkinson’s a talented baker.’

  ‘Aye,’ replied Mona thoughtfully, ‘but, looking back, Stephen got better treated, because he were quite a handsome little lad. He always did what he were told. Mrs Wilkinson used to say as how Peter looked at her wrong. As far as I can work out, she’d no love at all for her eldest.’ She turned to look at her companion. ‘Does that mean he can’t help what he does – if he does owt, like?’

  ‘No, it means nothing of the sort. The man has free will, just like the rest of mankind. He knows the difference between right and wrong.’

  She shivered. ‘I’d never have thought but for you mentioning it. If you hadn’t asked me to keep my ears and eyes open, I’d have carried on with them shut. I mean, with it being a religion, it’s supposed to be about making you a better person.’

  He pulled the car into John Street, stopped outside number 13. He remembered earlier visits when he had met Ida and little Joe Hewitt in this very house. ‘It isn’t a religion, Mona. The Temple of Eternal Light is a cult. Inventors of cults find people who are needy, some rich, some poor. The unloved rich provide funds, while the poor provide manpower. Texas is a big empty state with too few women. For the promise of enough food and a roof, girls are enticed across the Atlantic Ocean. They are used as brood mares, cooks and cleaners.’

  Mona gulped audibly. ‘How do you know all this?’

  ‘Friends in Dallas who write to me.’

  ‘So . . . so the Light is bad through and through?’

  ‘Possibly. But that doesn’t make all the members bad. Most of them don’t know what the Light is really about. If my suspicions are correct, any unsuitable females travelling to Texas could be thrown straight into the arms of uncouth cattlemen or oil workers, men who live hard and drink hard.’ James lowered his chin. ‘I know what it is to live in the wilds with a dangerous drunk. The Light has to be extinguished.’

  Mona felt a sudden dryness in her throat. ‘Do you fancy a cuppa?’ She could show off; she could let him see all she had done to the house. More than that, she could get the subject changed. She didn’t fancy thinking about poor girls lost in a country full of foreigners and Red Indians. ‘I’ve got gas rings to boil a kettle, and two stools in the scullery. If we leave the gas on, we’ll be nice and warm.’

  ‘Promise you’ll keep an eye on him, Mona.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Good.’ He got out of the car, then helped Mona across the slick pavement. She opened her front door, turned to welcome him.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked, when the woman stopped dead in her tracks.

  She put a finger to her lips. There was no sound in the house, yet something felt different, as if the air had been displaced by recent movement.

  ‘Mona?’

  ‘Shush.’ She took his hand and walked through darkness into the living room. ‘There’s been somebody in here,’ she whispered, moving away to light a mantle.

  James struck a match and entered the scullery. ‘Sweet Jesus!’ His legs almost buckled at the knees. He sensed that Mona was standing behind him. ‘Go away,’ he ordered shakily. ‘Get a blanket—’

  ‘I’ve got no blankets yet.’

  ‘Find something – anything.’ He struck another light and applied it to a candle on a small table. Slowly, he knelt and reached out a hand. ‘Don’t be afraid,’ he mouthed quietly. ‘You’re safe now, safe with us.’

  Mona ran round almost aimlessly until she happened on some curtain material. It was not as warm as blanket, but it was all she had. When she returned to the scullery, James made no attempt to prevent her entering the room. ‘My God,’ she murmured.

  He took the cloth and placed it over the girl. She was lying on a pegged rug, her eyes and mouth covered by two scarves. ‘You take off the gag and blindfold,’ he told Mona, ‘so that the first face she sees is a woman’s.’

  When the scarves were removed, the girl made no sound. She simply continued to lie without moving, without attempting to escape, eyes closed, limbs motionless. The only sign of life was the movement of her chest as she breathed.

  Mona bent down and touched a cold hand. ‘Hello, love. What are you doing here? Who brought you in, eh?’ The poor kiddie was stark naked. ‘What’s that sickly smell?’ she asked James.

  ‘Chloroform,’ he replied, his voice thickened by anger. ‘She’s been doped. Put the kettle on, then I’ll go and fetch the police and a doctor.’ As he spoke, he massaged the girl’s hands.

  Mona straightened, filled the kettle, lit both gas rings so that the room would warm up. As she turned to leave the scullery, she noticed something in the corner. ‘Look here,’ she said. ‘Come and see.’

  The clothes were folded in a perfect pile, had been arranged in the order in which they had been removed – coat at the bottom, underclothes and stockings on top. ‘Who the heck would do a thing like this?’ asked Mona. ‘Leaving her here, too, in the freezing cold.’ She shot a glance over her shoulder, looked at the sleeping child. ‘She can’t be more nor thirteen. Has she been . . . ?’ Mona clapped a hand to her mouth, plainly seeking to hang on to words and suggestions that were far from palatable.

  ‘A doctor will have the answers.’ James stood up. ‘Will you be all right? I’ll have a look round before I go, make sure whoever did this has gone.’ He checked the doors, found an unlocked window in the living room. The perpetrator had come in through here, then. ‘Is the scullery door unlocked?’ called James.

  ‘Yes,’ came the answer. ‘I left the key in the inside lock.’ So, a criminal had paid a visit tonight, had entered via a sash window, had opened the back door, had . . . So much reckoning had gone into the preparation. Premeditated crime, thought James, as he searched two bedrooms. This place had been made ready by the hunter, then he had gone to seek his prey.

  After looking upstairs and in the front parlour, he left the house. When the Austin shuddered to life, he drove towards the police station, his hands almost too unsteady for steering. ‘She wasn’t touched,’ he muttered. ‘Wasn’t raped, at least.’ With a certainty that was almost uncanny, James Mulligan knew who had committed this crime. It was a man who both feared and worshipped women, a man who could not cope with female adults. Guardian Peter Wilkinson, respected pastor of the Temple of Eternal Light. ‘And who will believe that?’ he asked. ‘Who on earth will listen to me?’

  He ran as fast as his shape would allow, bouncing off a wall, colliding with a lamp-post in his haste. He needed the Light, the shining purity of Moses’ legacy, that eternal flame carried so far across the seas from a land of cactus and dry earth, from Texas, from the original miracle, breathing was so hard.

  I had to look, to see the female body, another temple, sacred part of our faith. She was not beautiful, was not like the Burton-Massey girls. My body failed me yet again; I am arid, dry as bone bleached in the desert sun where the flame flourishes.

  The bottle bounced from a pocket, hit the flags and smashed into a hundred pieces. Could he get more? Would he need more? The idea of dealing yet again with a criminal was unpleasant. Five shillings for a small amount of the drug, five shillings to remind himself that he was still less than a man.

  Less than a man? Or do I need a certain kind of woman, a special creature with spun silk hair and features carved in porcelain? Running, running, a stitch in my side, pain in my legs. She folded me
into a cage once, a crate made to contain fruit. She poked food through the gaps and called me Fido. Why did you hate me so, Mother?

  He was home. Home was not with a sister or a brother; home was a sanctified shed, part of a mill. Once inside, he would be safe. Nothing, no-one could hurt him while he stood near those dancing flames.

  He slammed the door and made for the centre of the room. Here stood a large dish in which the sacred fire danced, fuelled now by kindling and coal, the resulting smoke drawn up a flue created specially for this purpose. Several times each day, the Light was taken, stored in lanterns, guarded while the dish was cleaned and reset. On every occasion, the new fire was created by the original flame.

  She did not see me. With the scarves over my face, she would not have known me, anyway. I crept up behind her and placed the pad over her mouth. Oh, how quickly she fell. Dragging, dragging up the yard and into that empty house. Unconscious, how heavy she was. No white towels, but I blessed the sleeping girl and cleansed her head and feet. Nothing. Again, nothing.

  He spoke to the Light. ‘What is my mission? Am I to live in Makersfield, Texas, a male who is not a man, and must everyone know of my plight? Will I serve with the old and stagnant, those who weave cloth and tend gardens? Or should I remain here, continuing my role as a seeker of virgins?’ He prayed for guidance, then sat and looked at his temple. It was so calm, so peaceful.

  When a draught of cold air wrapped itself around his ankles, Peter Wilkinson scarcely noticed. It would be one of the nightwatch, people who took turns to come and tend the Light. Footsteps approached, then he was suddenly dragged upward by two very strong hands. ‘Don’t hurt me,’ he wailed.

  James swung the man round and threw him into a seat. ‘What are you?’ he asked. ‘In God’s name, what kind of creature have you become?’

  The Guardian of Bolton’s Eternal Light was terrified. ‘I . . . er . . . what do you mean by coming in here like—?’

  ‘I mean business. That poor girl – why?’

  Wilkinson swallowed. This was one of Satan’s cohorts, a Catholic, a man damned to an eternity of suffering.

  ‘Number thirteen John Street,’ continued James. ‘Mona Walsh will be living there shortly. Tonight, she and I visited the house and found your handiwork in the scullery.’

  I washed her, blessed her, cleansed her mind and body.

  ‘Why?’ James persisted. ‘Tell me why.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  James bent over the cowering figure. ‘Oh, you do, but. You climbed in through an unlatched window, opened the scullery door, then lay in wait for a victim.’

  ‘No.’

  Before he could check himself, James Mulligan was shaking the man, rattling him back and forth until the jowls shook like setting aspic. ‘I am going for the police,’ he promised now. ‘And I shall mention your name.’ Furious with himself for touching Wilkinson, James left the building.

  Guardian Wilkinson let out a long sigh. Who would listen to an immigrant Catholic, one whose father had destroyed an old family from these parts? Who was going to heed the son of Thomas Mulligan, a gambler, a drunkard who had died in his own faeces, whose destroyed liver had spilled on to the floors of Pendleton Grange?

  James drove away, wheels spinning on ice, brain burning with fury. The Guardian of the Light was a do-gooder, one whose hideous face appeared quite often in the pages of local newspapers. He gave to the poor, collected food parcels, begged scraps from shopkeepers who were only too glad of free photographic publicity. On paper, Peter Wilkinson saved bodies and souls; in truth, he sought a place for himself, forgiveness for his appearance, a cloak behind which he might hide his true nature.

  ‘God forgive me, I should pity him,’ breathed the driver, as he pulled up outside the main police station. ‘But I pity his victim more.’ This was just the beginning. The man was on a mission, was attempting to prove his manhood. While shaking Peter Wilkinson, James had glimpsed madness in the man’s eyes. Not sheer lunacy, but obsession, a terrible, terrible need. ‘To be normal is all he asks.’ He left the car and walked towards double doors. ‘And he will never, ever be that.’

  Thirteen

  ‘And where have you been?’ Kate Kenny stood in front of the kitchen range, arms akimbo, the usually obedient hair sticking up in places like the wig of an ill-kept doll. ‘Isn’t there enough for me to do without worrying about you in that motor car, in icy weather, in the dark, and in case you’ve had a crash? The trouble with men is they’ve no thought for anyone.’

  James lowered himself into a chair next to Ida. ‘Is this you still here?’

  ‘No,’ replied Ida Hewitt. ‘I’m just a shadow of me former self. You said you were going up Daubhill to find some woman for that there Amy Burton-Massey’s shop. Well, it’s took you long enough. Kate’s been fretting herself daft. Wore holes in her slippers and the mat, she has.’

  He closed his eyes. ‘I’ll explain in a minute, so I will. Where are the children?’

  ‘Playing marbles in the second drawing room,’ answered Kate. ‘With Sally. And, in reply to the next question before it jumps out of your mouth, your supper’s in the pigs.’

  ‘I’m not hungry.’

  ‘Good.’ Kate, still muttering under her breath about wasting good food while people starved in Africa, clattered about with cups and saucers.

  Ida, more content than she had been in years, carried on with her knitting. If she had anything to do with it, Pendleton Clough would not do well in next summer’s two-horse race. When it came to working with wool and needles, Ida was confident of an outright victory for the village of Pendleton. Then there was the cake competition. Ida had a few recipes of her grandmother’s up her sleeve; banana bread, carrot cake, sponges that floated off at the prod of a fork. All she needed was her legs back; once she got her legs, she might even take part in the tug-of-war. She was so grateful to her host that she was determined to get better even if the effort killed her.

  James watched her. Ida was coming on in leaps and bounds. He had been bringing her up to the Grange each morning, and she had made a good friend of Kate. Kate, who did not make friends easily, had grown fond of the ‘poor soul’ with the weakened legs and the sad past. Ida was now capable of peeling vegetables, washing dishes, a bit of polishing. And knitting, of course.

  Kate slammed sugar bowl and milk jug on to the table’s surface. ‘Did you find the woman?’

  He looked at her vaguely.

  ‘The woman,’ she repeated, her mouth exaggerating each syllable. ‘The woman from that fashion house in Manchester, fancies herself as a designer.’

  ‘Oh, her? I did, yes.’

  ‘Good.’ Kate glanced meaningfully at Ida, who looked sideways at James. ‘Well, you took your time.’ There was sarcasm in Kate’s voice, but James was used to that. ‘Did she look as if she might be some use, then?’

  ‘What? Oh, yes, yes. I’ll get her to visit Amy after Christmas,’ he said, with the air of a man whose thoughts are definitely elsewhere. ‘Louisa Burton-Massey left a lot of sketches to be worked on, so that’ll give them a head start.’ He paused, drew a hand through his thick, dark hair. ‘Then I met Mona Walsh. You’ll know her, Ida.’

  ‘Her from the wash-place? Her what’s taking over our old house? Big fat woman with a face like a stewed prune?’ Ida had even managed to stop knitting. ‘Been in laundry for years, her and her sister. Didn’t you say she was supposed to be helping out with the ironing if the frock shop ever opens?’

  ‘Yes, to all the above,’ replied James. ‘She wanted to show me the house, so I drove her there.’

  Ida winked at Kate. ‘He’s been out courting,’ she said mischievously.

  ‘Him?’ The Irishwoman laughed, though the sound was hollow. ‘Nobody’d have him, and that’s the rock bottom truth of it.’

  ‘Kate?’ James shook his head slowly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Shut up, there’s a good woman.’ He told them the story, omitting just the scene i
n the temple. ‘The girl’s in shock, but she’s not been seriously damaged,’ he concluded.

  ‘Good God.’ Ida’s knitting now rested on the table between teapot and biscuit tin. ‘In my house?’ It was plain that she took this as a personal insult. ‘Who the hell would do a thing like that to an innocent kiddie?’

  James shifted his chair until he faced Ida. ‘The behaviour was strange to say the least of the matter. The man – she never saw his face – drugged her, removed all her clothes, then . . . just looked at her, I suppose. This is a sick fellow altogether, one who is driven by some terrible poison in his brain.’ He paused, looked straight at Ida. ‘I think . . . I’m ninety-nine per cent certain that it was Peter Wilkinson.’

  Ida shut her mouth with an audible snap, opened it immediately. ‘Get away with your bother. I know you don’t think much to him, but he does a lot for folk – he did a lot for us.’

  ‘And he wanted a great deal in return.’ He paused for a second. ‘He wanted your granddaughter.’

  Ida closed her eyes for a moment. A sudden headache was drawing jagged lights across her vision. ‘What did the police have to say about it?’

  ‘They managed not to laugh at me. The girl was unhurt, confused, but in one piece. Ida?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Mona says he’d a mournful childhood.’

  ‘So did you,’ snapped Kate. ‘I mind the time when—’ She stopped herself, reminded her tongue of the rules James had set down when she had arrived in England. She was to say nothing, nothing at all about his past. Feverishly, she back-pedalled. ‘I mind the time you told me a little about yourself.’

  ‘Ida knows about my early life,’ he said, the emphasis on the ‘early’.

  ‘All I’m saying is that your childhood didn’t make you bad. You can’t go about making excuses for people just because their young years were a bit uncomfortable.’ Kate poured the tea.