Mulligan's Yard

by Ruth Hamilton

  ‘I think so,’ he replied.

  ‘Poor little Margot,’ whispered Amy.

  ‘She will feel better when everything is out in the open.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Amy began to cry. She leaned her head on the man’s shoulder and allowed the tears to fall on his coat. ‘It’s too much,’ she moaned, ‘and I must be strong.’

  ‘I’ll be here.’ This short sentence arrived after pushing its way past some powerful emotions. He wanted to be brother, father and friend to this woman. And more, so much more.

  ‘Strong,’ she repeated.

  ‘You are stronger than you know.’

  ‘I hope so, James.’ She placed a hand on his chest and looked up at his face. ‘You are such a good man.’

  ‘An Irish upstart,’ he answered.

  ‘That, too.’ Amy managed a smile.

  His disobedient body craved to love her, but he could not allow any further contact. This was hardly the time for romance, anyway. He pushed her gently back into the passenger seat. ‘Be calm,’ he said. ‘I shall come with you into the house in case . . . well, in case you need me.’

  Amy dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. ‘Wait a few minutes,’ she begged. ‘I don’t want to arrive tear-stained.’

  James Mulligan agreed. For Amy and because of Amy, he would sit in torment next to the woman he loved.

  Mona was a wreck. She had spent the day with Margot and Ida, the latter knitting, the former existing in deathly silence. Ida’s day off had coincided with Margot’s visit to the doctor, so the three had been pushed together by this collision of circumstances.

  Now Mona sat with Margot in the parlour of Caldwell Farm. Margot’s eyes strayed repeatedly towards the mantel clock, while every chime of the grandmother in the corner had the girl on the edge of her seat.

  ‘Not long now,’ said Mona wearily.

  ‘I can’t do it. I can’t tell her.’

  ‘Then if you won’t, I must,’ was Mona’s answer. ‘You can’t carry on this road, love. Putting it off’s only making it worse for yourself and everybody else.’

  Margot closed her eyes.

  ‘I’d forgotten Ida’s day off.’ The hours spent in Ida’s cottage had been difficult for Margot. ‘I thought it would have been just the two of us. See, I’m only the lodger.’

  ‘Yes. It’s no matter,’ replied the younger woman.

  ‘Still, at least the kiddies are back at school.’ Mona bit her tongue. She should not have mentioned children, not while . . . yet why not? Margot needed to face up to the fact that the planet would continue to turn in spite of her own troubles.

  ‘I suppose Rupert will have to be told,’ mumbled Margot.

  ‘Aye, well, I reckon Camilla will batter him when this all comes out. She can’t stand the sight of him as it is.’

  Margot’s eyes opened. ‘You see, it’s not just the shame,’ she said, ‘it’s him. I don’t want him. I don’t want to marry him.’

  The older woman held her tongue.

  ‘I can’t be forced to marry, can I?’

  ‘No, you can’t.’

  Margot studied her chewed nails. She had got herself out of what Mother had always termed ‘that disgusting habit’, yet here she was again, working her way down to the quicks. ‘Marriage would give the child proper status. Yet I could never be happy with a man whose backbone is clearly made of treacle.’

  Mona hid a smile. In spite of her situation, Margot remained spontaneously funny and very perceptive.

  ‘I was a fool and I got caught out. Must I pay for the rest of my life for that stupidity? And should this baby pay?’ She patted her belly. ‘I know this much, Mona. Rupert would make a very poor father.’

  Mona nodded thoughtfully. ‘I never married, as you know. But, oh, Margot, I’d give a lot to have a son or a daughter now. Bugger the disgrace – pardon my language again, dear – aye, bugger the shame. To have someone of my own, happen a couple of grandchildren.’ She paused. ‘But I was never pretty, so I’d no chance of marriage – few chances of even courting. So I wasn’t in the same boat as you. You could get any man, but I suppose . . . well, a baby could get in the road of any . . . any other . . .’

  ‘I know,’ sighed Margot. ‘I have no chance of achieving a decent marriage, not now.’

  Seconds dragged. ‘If you have the child adopted,’ Mona began.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Margot.

  The fire belched and delivered a stream of smoke into the room. ‘Mother hated that fire,’ said Margot absently.

  ‘I bet she did. We’ve got . . . we had one the same at home.’

  ‘And now you’re starting a new life, Mona.’

  ‘I am that. Stopping with Ida till I decide where to go, working at the shop, dressing up nice. Aye, it’s a fresh start.’

  ‘You’re brave,’ said Margot.

  ‘So are you,’ came the reply.

  A car arrived, pulled up near the front door. ‘Now we’ll get the measure of my backbone,’ Margot said.

  ‘Aye, and it’s not treacle.’

  ‘Jelly,’ Margot answered. ‘Jelly, but not quite set.’

  Eliza stepped out of the car, brushing the front of her coat before walking towards the door. She paid the driver and stood watching him vaguely as he turned to go back the way he had come. She was safe now, safe for a while, at least. There would, of course, be more questions, but she was on her own little patch of England now.

  Elspeth Moorhead opened the door. ‘Well, you didn’t stop down yon long.’ The housekeeper pulled herself together. ‘Sorry, Miss Eliza, but I were that surprised to see you—’ The words were cut off as Eliza pushed her way into the house. ‘The luggage is on the drive.’ This sentence she threw over her shoulder.

  Elspeth went to fetch her husband. In her opinion, Miss Blinking Eliza Burton-Massey wanted her bum smacking. Hard. With a horsewhip or some such thing.

  Eliza strode into the parlour, grinding to a sudden halt when she found herself in the company of Mona Walsh. Margot, white as a sheet, was clinging to the arms of a chair and, it seemed, to the edge of sanity. ‘Where’s Amy?’ Eliza demanded.

  ‘Er . . . we thought you were her,’ said Mona weakly.

  ‘But I am not.’ Eliza removed gloves and scarf.

  ‘She’s at the shop.’ Mona felt very uncomfortable with the new arrival, yet she could not abandon Margot. ‘First day today,’ Mona added. ‘Mr Mulligan will be fetching her home.’

  ‘I see.’ Eliza sat down. ‘Ring for some tea, Margot,’ she commanded.

  Margot made no move.

  ‘I’ll see to it.’ Mona left the room for the safer atmosphere of the kitchen.

  The two sisters sat in silence. Margot chewed avidly at a thumbnail, while Eliza leaned back and closed her eyes. She was in something of a mess, but she had no intention of talking to Margot, who was young, silly and clearly distraught.

  Minutes dragged by. Mona brought in the tea, poured, handed out cups and saucers. ‘Course, he’ll be taking Diane and little Joe home, too. Before coming up here, like.’

  ‘What?’ Eliza raised a perfectly arched eyebrow.

  ‘Mr Mulligan.’ Mona sat down. ‘Before he brings Amy here, he’ll take the kiddies home to Ida.’

  Eliza sipped her tea. ‘So why are you here?’

  Mona almost choked. ‘I . . . er . . . I should have started at the shop today, like, only I had to go to the doctor’s, so I never got to the shop and—’

  ‘Margot and I will pass on your apologies.’

  Mona glanced at the younger girl. She could not leave poor Margot to the tender mercies of this cold-blooded creature. ‘I’d sooner see Amy myself, ta.’

  ‘As you wish.’ Clearly annoyed, Eliza left the room, cup and saucer in one hand, a leather bag in the other.

  Margot swallowed audibly. ‘I can’t say anything while Eliza’s here. She’ll just mock me, I’m sure.’

  Things were becoming rather complicated for Mona. She wasn’t keen on the dark, so the idea of w
alking back to the village was not a pleasant one. Also, the unexpected return of Eliza threw a spanner in the works. ‘We have to get Amy on her own.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Never mind but, Margot. Eliza might well be here tomorrow, then the day after that. It’s got to be done. We’ve spent all day working our way up to it, so . . .’

  Another vehicle arrived. They heard Elspeth opening the door, waited for Amy’s voice, heard a different one. Mona reached over and touched Margot’s hand. ‘She’ll not be long, love. This is her first day and she’ll have been busy.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  Mona shivered involuntarily. ‘That’s Camilla, isn’t it?’

  Margot nodded.

  What the hell now? wondered Mona. The house was becoming as crowded as Trinity Street station during the Bolton holiday fortnight. ‘It’ll be all right,’ she told Margot, without conviction.

  Margot shrank into the chair. It would definitely not be all right.

  ‘Me foot’s stuck,’ Jack moaned. ‘Hang on.’ He dragged himself out of a pile of coal. ‘And we’ve come in circles,’ he complained. ‘Back in the bloody coal-hole again.’

  ‘Enough here for fires all year round in our house,’ grumbled Harry. ‘There’s nowt else for it, Jack, we have to find the kitchen door and bang on it till we get let out.’

  Jack agreed wholeheartedly. ‘Far as I can tell, the one locked down here must be gagged or summat, it’s that quiet. Mind, we can’t have been in all the rooms.’ They had found a locked door, had clattered their fists against it. Whoever was shut inside must have been bound and gagged.

  A thought wandered through Harry’s skull and he caught it as it passed. ‘We don’t know where the kitchen door is, ’cos we never found no stairs. I’d kill for a cup of water.’

  They slid down a wall and sat side by side. ‘Jack?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Kitchen door has to be near the coal-hole. You wouldn’t keep coal in a cellar miles away from the kitchen.’ Harry congratulated himself on his brilliance. ‘Stairs must be in here, then. At the other side of this pile.’ He waved a hand towards the coal. ‘We have to get past the coal to the other side. So we’ll stick to the edge, like, go round instead of up.’

  ‘Right.’ Jack, too, was astounded by his brother’s cleverness.

  They shuffled along, hit the end of a wall. ‘It’s a wall inside the walls,’ said Harry. ‘Come this way.’ They walked around a structure built to keep the coal within its designated space, turning with the wall into a clean walkway. Except for a couple of holes from which coal could be taken, the area was free of clutter. ‘And her up there’ll bloody kill us, too,’ concluded Harry, as they placed themselves side by side on the bottom stone step.

  They sat in gloomy silence for several minutes. Then Jack spoke up. ‘Right, you go and bang on the door.’

  ‘Why me?’

  ‘Why not?’ asked Jack. ‘You’re the brains.’

  Harry pondered. ‘Let’s hang on a bit, see what happens.’

  ‘You’re the one what’s thirsty,’ said Jack.

  ‘Aye, and we’re stopping here for a bit, so shut your cake’ole.’

  They sat, shivering on icy stone, a mountain of fuel in front of them. ‘We could happen light a fire,’ suggested Jack.

  ‘Shurrup,’ snapped Harry.

  Jack shut up.

  Camilla Smythe, red-faced and breathless, threw open Eliza’s bedroom door. For several seconds, she steadied herself on the jamb, her eyes riveted to the figure inside the room. So beautiful, so rotten, this woman was. Like the Bible’s whited sepulchre, Eliza Burton-Massey was all shell and no living innards.

  The lovely woman, supine on the bed, lifted herself into a sitting position. ‘Camilla?’ Her voice was clear, showed no sign of surprise. She propped herself against pillows, folded her arms, arranged her face in what was meant to be a sympathetic expression.

  The unexpected visitor strode into the room, stopping only when her knees hit the side of the bed. ‘I want the truth. No nonsense, do you hear?’

  ‘You should not rush about so, dear,’ came the reply. ‘Your colour is very high and—’

  ‘Shut up!’ screamed Camilla.

  Eliza almost smiled. ‘If I shut up, as you so elegantly advocate, then I can tell neither truth nor lies.’

  ‘You killed him,’ whispered Camilla.

  Eliza shrugged. ‘There then is still no reason for me to speak, since your mind is clearly settled on its own version of the event. I was in the house when Rupert had his unfortunate accident, but I played no part in what happened.’ She paused fractionally. ‘I am very sorry for your loss.’

  Camilla’s hands tightened themselves into twin balls of fury. ‘The event? My version of the event? My mother is devastated and my father is permanently drunk. Rupert was not a particularly good man, but he was still my brother and their son.’

  ‘He fell,’ Eliza pronounced.

  ‘He fell from the steps just outside your room.’

  ‘That is the assumption,’ drawled Eliza. ‘The stairs in those narrow London houses are difficult. They have many turns and twists. Rupert was drunk – the police said so. He was probably coming up to tell me something.’

  ‘And you ran away. After the police interviewed you, you rushed back here.’

  ‘The police know where I am.’ Eliza closed her eyes for a moment. He was tearing at her, spoiling her clothes, forcing his hard mouth on to her lips, grabbing, squeezing flesh, pressing himself against her body.

  ‘Eliza?’

  ‘What?’

  Camilla swallowed. ‘Did he . . . assault you?’

  ‘Did he assault me? Oh, no, of course not.’ The door had burst inward, forced open by the weight of their bodies. The catch on that door had never been good. No other tenants lived up in the roof. She had been alone. She was alone now. No, he was with her. ‘Please,’ he begged.

  ‘Never,’ she spat into his face.

  He was strong, so strong for a thin man. They fell on to the bed. She could not win, could not defeat his object. Object. She lifted a candlestick from her bedside table and crashed it into his temple. Heavy, he was so heavy, breathing, alive, asleep. There was very little blood, just a few flecks on her pillow case, and she had changed that later.

  ‘Eliza?’ demanded Camilla.

  Carefully, she pulled herself free of him, washed the candlestick, washed herself, arranged her clothes. She covered his head with the pillowcase to avoid further staining, dragged him inch by inch from the bed and on to the landing, using her foot to launch him down the stairs. As quick as a flash, she ran back into her room, picked up a book, sat by the window for a few seconds.

  Emerging almost immediately from her refuge, Eliza stood, book in hand, a scream forced from her throat. Someone announced that he had broken his neck, the landlady had hysterics, Eliza descended the stairs and cried prettily.

  ‘Eliza?’ Camilla was almost screaming.

  Elspeth Moorhead dashed in. ‘Whatever’s the matter?’

  Camilla turned. ‘He’s dead,’ she said clearly. ‘She killed him.’ Her voice rose until it filled the house. ‘Eliza murdered Rupert,’ Camilla shouted.

  Elspeth placed an arm around Camilla’s shoulders. ‘Come with me, love.’

  Sobbing, Camilla was led from the room.

  As she closed the door, Elspeth looked into the beautiful face of Eliza Burton-Massey. The lovely eyes were wide open and, for once, they revealed an expression. Elspeth could not be sure, would possibly never be sure that what she saw was a gleam of absolute triumph.

  She guided poor Camilla down the stairs and into the kitchen. It was time to produce the cup that sometimes failed to cheer.

  Upstairs, Eliza lay back on her bed. The few days spent in London had taught her two things: she must never trust a man and she was not made for theatre. Rejection hurt more than any physical wound. Her singing voice, clear but too thin to travel, had failed to impress at au
ditions. Her playing, too, had been judged nondescript, and she had been left with one asset – her perfect body.

  Eliza had been offered a position on the day of Rupert’s death. For three pounds a week, she was invited to sit naked and motionless behind a thin layer of voile while men stared at her. Which brought her back to the first point, the one about never trusting men.

  She absolved herself of the sin of murder. No man would ever use her until she agreed to be used. That his intention had been rape was very clear, though he might not have achieved his goal after drinking so much. But he had annoyed her beyond endurance. She had left him, the theatre and London behind.

  What now? Her brain, never still, burrowed its way towards the future. Bolton, grey and particularly dull at this time of year, held little promise for Eliza. A cotton town was not the place for her. Up here, on the fringe of Pendleton, there was land and more land, but—

  But. There was also James Mulligan. He was the sort who could make things happen, a man with plans. If she could capture him, persuade him to hang on to Pendleton Grange, then she would be the wife of a very rich man. Amy and Margot could keep Caldwell Farm, of course, but the lion’s share should belong with Mulligan and his wife.

  Mulligan’s wife. Eliza closed her eyes and, with her problems solved, drifted into restful sleep.

  Twenty-one

  I love you. An arrangement of eight letters in a form that could change lives for ever, a short statement, such a long stride. He could never tell her how he felt, how the pain was becoming unendurable. ‘Mona was not at the cottage,’ he said, the words limping from a tongue that ached to say so much more. ‘She is at the farm with Margot, I am sure of that.’

  ‘Yes.’ Amy’s mind buzzed, while her heart lurched about like an ill-controlled marionette. Trouble, more trouble. It was as if she sat somewhere near the electricity that was being generated at Pendleton Grange, as though she were being penetrated, invaded by a power that was invisible and, therefore, unavoidable. Margot. Poor, stupid little girl. ‘Camilla’s there, too,’ she mumbled. ‘That was her van earlier.’