Doreen tiptoed up, pushing Madge before her. ‘What’s up?’ she mouthed, glancing over her shoulder towards Mrs Duffy and the others.
‘I don’t know?’ Doris whispered back. Both looked anxious at Emily Horton’s obvious distress, but began almost immediately to coo over Louis.
*
Gracie had heard Mrs Duffy blaming her for leaving the side gate open and Scamp’s escape and had slipped out of the back door to check it was locked. Bertie was talking to one of the carpenters who was making a window frame and walked over to her.
‘Penny for your thoughts, queen,’ he said to her back as she pulled the bolt across the green-painted door.
Gracie turned sharply around at the sound of his voice. ‘Oh, Grandad, I’m just bolting the gate before I get into any more trouble,’ she said.
Bertie took the rag hanging from his belt and wiped his hands on it. ‘Did you get the blame for the dog escaping?’
Gracie smiled. ‘Don’t I always get the blame for everything around here? I came and opened the gate for Emily Horton, to bring the pram around the back, because she sometimes does and she told me last night she would be here early this morning. I thought I was being helpful. I forgot about the noise you made with the hammers, Grandad.’ She looked so forlorn, Bertie felt sorry for her. ‘And, anyway, if that woman hadn’t been hanging around the hedge again, he probably wouldn’t have run out. Do you want me to fetch you a mug of tea?’
‘What woman?’ Bertie asked.
Gracie flicked her ponytail back over her shoulder. ‘The woman who was waiting on the other side of the door by the hedge. I thought she must have been waiting for one of your men because I’ve seen her here a few times and I think she must work up at the hospital because I saw her with Nanna Ida.’
‘Did you now?’ said Bertie. Wives did sometimes come to the site, to collect pay packets before they walked into the pub, but none had been to this site for weeks and certainly Ida was not friends with any of them. ‘When did you see them?’ he asked as he tucked the rag back into his waist.
‘I was finishing in outpatients and I saw them in the canteen so I’m sure it’s the new woman who Nana is cleaning with.’
Bertie furrowed his brow. ‘Honest to God, your nana. Sometimes I think she leads a secret life.’
Gracie detected the concern in his voice. ‘Why, Grandad, what’s she done now?’
Bertie felt an overwhelming need to unburden himself. He had barely slept the night before and Ida’s words kept running around and around in his brain. He gave a big sigh, looked over his shoulder and then up at the large red-bricked house before him with the tall sash windows. ‘She’s only gone and written to the children’s services, complaining about how that little fella, Louis, is looked after.’
Gracie’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘Grandad, she never did!’ she gasped.
‘She did,’ he replied, and now that he had said it out loud, he regretted it. He felt worse, not better. ‘What do you think will happen?’ he asked.
The blood had left Gracie’s face. ‘They might take him off her and she loves that baby. I think she would die if that happened to her.’
‘What do I do?’
Gracie didn’t speak for a moment or two but he could almost see her mind working. ‘I think she has to go to children’s services and say she was sorry, that she wasn’t telling the truth.’
Bertie snorted. ‘Don’t you think I haven’t thought about that? Come on, Gracie. Your nan say she’s sorry?’
He met Gracie’s gaze and as the realisation dawned, watched the hope fade. ‘We can’t do anything then,’ said Gracie. ‘I need my job, Grandad, it’s all we have.’
She looked so worried he regretted telling her. ‘Aye, you’re right, queen. Go on, we’ll say nothing to anyone – but you keep an eye out for that woman and ask her what she wants next time you see her,’ said Bertie. ‘She might be wanting to rob the baby.’ They both began laughing at the absurdity of his statement and felt better as a result. ‘Can’t have you getting the blame for everything, can we? Tell you what though, I won’t blame you if you fancy making me a nice cuppa?’
‘I will Grandad, as long as you don’t tell me da. I’ll keep your secret, you keep mine.’ Gracie smiled and disappeared up the back stone steps with a heavy feeling in her heart.
*
‘I have got into a terrible mess,’ Emily sobbed into Mavis who cradled her in her arms, stroking her hair, as Mrs Duffy stood to her other side, her hand on her shoulder. Madge, silent, rolled out a sheet of shortcrust pastry and continued with the baking. Madge was never comfortable with tears, her own or anyone else’s. ‘I lied on the adoption forms and I knew I was doing it. I said I was giving up work to adopt Louis, and I never have and I never wanted to. I love my job and I knew I could bring Louis up and work. I looked after my mother and the boys in the war, before the bomb and mam was so sick. I thought that if I could do that, then I could bring up a healthy baby and work with no problem. But now they are onto me and I have no choice. They won’t sign the final papers unless I give up work and Matron confirms it. And someone has made a complaint about how I look after Louis. Said they saw me pushing the pram at night with Louis inside.’
‘Who won’t sign?’ Mavis looked confused.
‘Who made a complaint?’ Mrs Duffy looked angry.
‘The children’s services won’t sign. The battleaxe of a woman, Miss Devonshire, she is adamant.’
‘Does Matron know?’ asked Mrs Duffy.
Emily’s tears flowed afresh. ‘No, because that’s the worst of it – I lied to her too. The forms said quite clearly that adoptive mothers must be full-time mothers and – and I told her I had been given an exemption.’
Mavis fell to her knees and threw her arms about her as Emily laid her head on her shoulder. Mrs Duffy opened the drawer on the press and removed a clean white napkin and handed it to Emily. ‘Here you go, love,’ she said and Emily wiped her eyes and blew her nose as they all watched her.
‘And had you,’ asked Mavis, ‘been given the exemption?’
Emily shook her head. ‘No, and what is worse, I haven’t only lied to Matron – I didn’t tell Dessie what I had done. Now I have to tell Matron and this – this will be my last Christmas with you all. They won’t let me carry on as we do. You should have seen her, the old battleaxe. She would take him away from us and not feel a bit of shame.’
‘I don’t understand it,’ said Mrs Duffy. ‘They weren’t that fussy when my next-door neighbour took in the kids from number twelve when the mam died.’
‘Yes, but they had family to help too. Dessie and I, there are no parents, no sisters or brothers.’
‘Nonsense! What are they on about? You have us. We are all your family. Hardly a day goes by when we don’t see Louis and we all help to look after him.’
‘It’s not enough,’ wailed Emily. ‘If I don’t leave, I can’t keep him and that is all there is to it.’
They all looked over to Doris and Louis who had finished his bottle and was happily lying across her lap as she patted his back. A loud burp filled the room.
‘You haven’t lost your touch,’ said Mavis, ‘thanks for doing that.’ She nodded her head towards the bottle and Doris smiled. A genuine smile of happiness, her anxiety forgotten. For the first time in a very long while she had been needed, had done something truly useful – and it felt so good she couldn’t keep the smile from her face or the stinging tears from her eyes.
Chapter 14
Eva closed the front door to the Seaman’s Stop as quietly as she could. She had tried to make her escape unseen earlier in the day and had failed. She had crept down the stairs, stood on the bottom step, listened for any noise and there being none, had tiptoed along the hallway, but as soon as she reached the hatch he was there, as if he had been waiting to catch her. The palms of her hands were as damp as her mouth was dry as her thoughts froze. She had spent what felt like her entire life running, hiding afraid of being caught.
‘You off then?’ Malcolm had said, surprised, and her heart hammered in her chest as she wondered, should she lie? It was so easy to do, she had done it all her life, from the day her parents had bundled her out of the house in the early hours of the morning in Poland and handed her over to their friends to take her with them to England. ‘Melly says you ate all your tea tonight. You can say what you like about Melly, and I do, God knows, for I have to put up with her every day of my life, but she can make good grub. Did you enjoy it?’ He pushed the pencil he had been writing with behind his ear. ‘I’m just filling in the laundry book,’ he said. ‘I need to put it on top of the laundry bags by the back door.’
He was making conversation, she was not, and despite the fact that she didn’t answer him, he was unperturbed. He thought her pallor sallow, like a wax candle and his immediate alarm was dispelled by the fact that Melly had told him she was eating everything she put before her. Her eyes were fixed on the clock and the only thought running through her mind was that she had to get away. The hospital gates were a ten-minute walk up from the docks and she could not afford to be late because to be late meant she’d be noticed and she never wanted to be noticed.
‘Are you off to the hospital?’ Malcolm still had his glasses on and peered over the top at her.
‘Yes. I told Melly that I would clean my own room because I sleep during the day now and I will change my own sheets.’ She didn’t add that she was glad that removed any possibility of Melly rummaging through her belongings.
‘You are a funny one,’ said Malcolm as he shook his head. He wanted to say that a night cleaner’s job wouldn’t cover the rent and ask where was the rest of the money coming from. But she dropped her head, lowered her lashes and looked forlorn so he would not push her. When she was ready, she would talk. ‘Well, don’t you be worrying. Your breakfast will be on the range, ready and waiting for when you get back as you know.’
Eva felt a twinge of guilt. She didn’t need the money, she had money, but how could she tell him? She had run with enough money to start a new life. Lovely Malcolm… he was the most thoughtful person she had ever met; if she had known a man like Malcolm before, things would have been very different. But she had a secret to bear and it was one she could not share with anyone and especially not Malcolm because Malcolm knew Biddy and she hadn’t expected that. She had wanted to wait for the right moment, to reduce the chances of being caught, but Biddy had seen her, met her, and Liverpool women were as inquisitive as baby kittens and as sharp as knives. That Doreen had never taken her eyes of her, had weighed up her every word as she had spoken, did not like her; she had sensed that immediately. She would have to act fast. She had got the job as a night cleaner with almost no effort at all and this was exactly where she needed to be, in the hospital, on the inside. There would be a way, an ideal time, and she would find it.
She felt the pain begin, just as it always did. Low down and slowly, like fingers splayed and stretching, it reached out across her abdomen and with it, she knew, the heat would come and the light-headedness.
Malcolm pushed down on the desk with his hands as he rose. ‘I need to fill the coal bucket,’ he said as he picked up the laundry book to deposit by the back door. ‘Can you feel the change in the air? Look at that. It’ll be white with frost out there in no time. Maybe we might have a white Christmas after all.’
She breathed in deeply and then held her breath, her only weapon against the pain, and then she counted in her head, one, two, three. She could hardly hear a word Malcolm said as he prattled on, not noticing her as he pulled the string on the laundry bag.
‘I’ve got a tree being delivered tomorrow. I always have one. Me mam used to make me da carry one on his shoulders all the way back from St John’s market every year until the war and I’ve still got all the baubles and bits and bobs we used to put on it.’
Four, five, six. It was at its height. This was the point at which she often passed out. Swallow, breathe. Remember to breathe… seven, eight, nine. Hold on, hold on. The blackness began to creep into her peripheral vision. Oh no, no, I can’t. Her legs began to shake and the pain, the pain, was rising higher, spreading further; breathing became almost impossible as the heat flushed into her face and burnt her cheeks.
‘I know the night shift doesn’t start until after visiting is over, so let me light the fire and make you a cuppa before you go. Most of the night cleaners will still be at the bingo.’ He opened the door and hauled the bag onto the step and tucked the laundry book under the string. ‘There we go, job done.’ He looked down the yard and she could see the whiteness of his breath in the air as he spoke, but could no longer hear what he was saying. ‘It’s worse than I thought. It’s going to snow overnight, I reckon.’
She watched his back as he walked away; as soon as he was gone she would slip out of the door and the pain, it must go. This could not be one of the nights when it remained, stabbing upwards into her belly. She had to put her plan into action, had looked at the rota before she had left her last shift to see where she would be placed.
‘What are you looking at that for?’ Ida had asked her. ‘It’s all the bloody same. There’s no difference between one mop bucket and another or one floor and the next. Dirt is dirt.’
How could she explain? She had found the bins where the pigswill was kept, behind the school of nursing, and from there she could see where Biddy parked the pram under the bicycle shed on the days it didn’t rain and bounced it up the steps on the days it did. She wanted to be early, to see if he had left yet, or was he still there. Would she catch sight of him on his way home? Or was he safely indoors, someone who was not his mother kissing the cheeks of her son? The rota had shown her that she and Ida were to clean the mortuary, wash the classroom floor and the stairs in the school of nursing. If he wasn’t there, she would go to the home, she would find him. Just one more night without him, that was all it would be. In the school, she might be able to touch something that was his. To smell him. The thought of inhaling the air that her son had breathed, just to feel a blanket he had laid on, delighted her.
Her concentration faltered and she forgot to count; the pain knew and, with a vengeance, it rose and stabbed like a hot knife upwards. It felt, this time, as though it ripped through her heart. She tried to regain control, but it was too late, her thoughts had wandered to her baby and she was lost.
‘Hey, just imagine,’ Malcolm said, ‘we can build a snowman for Christmas if it does snow. Now, let me make that tea before you leave and no arguments.’
‘I need to sit down,’ said Eva.
‘Bleeding hell, you don’t look good at all,’ Malcolm exclaimed as he swung around and saw her clutch at the back of the chair. He pulled the chair out for her and, taking her arm, helped her to sit. He almost recoiled at the stick-thin feel of her arms. She hid her thinness well with her bulky cardigan and coat. ‘Eva, what shall I do?’ he asked her, his voice laced with panic. She snatched her hands away as both flew to her abdomen and she shook her head.
‘Nothing,’ she gasped. ‘It will pass.’
‘I don’t like the look of you,’ he said. ‘Shall I get some Disprin?’
She didn’t answer, but two minutes later he was back at her side with the two white tablets fizzing in a glass of water in one hand and a glass of whisky in the other. ‘Here, swallow this. It’s disgusting, so hold your nose.’
The edge of the pain had already calmed and she panted from the effort of trying to control it. It had been just like the labour pains that had delivered her baby boy, Elijah, only this was a pain without any joy. There was nothing at the end of it, just exhaustion and weakness. If there had been any chance of her being pregnant, she would have sworn she was in labour.
Malcolm lifted her head and held the glass to her lips, ‘Here, get this down you. Your cheeks look very red and flushed. I think you might have a touch of gastric flu. We saw a lot of that during the war.’
Eva guzzled down the Disprin. Malcolm had not l
ied, it had tasted foul. He placed the empty glass on the table, tipped a small amount of the whisky into it, swilled it around and handed it back to her.
‘Just to make sure you get every bit,’ he said.
The whisky had become cloudy and she saw the white particles swilling around. She dreaded the taste, but there was none, just the strength of the whisky and the pleasant burn as it went down. She coughed and spluttered on the last drops.
‘There you go. Five minutes and that will work its magic.’
‘I’m sorry to be such a nuisance,’ she said and Malcolm’s eyes softened at the tone of her voice.
‘You aren’t a nuisance. It’s nice to have someone to look after.’ Malcolm blushed, felt he had said too much, a glance full of shyness met her own, full of relief.
‘That’s kind of you,’ she said. ‘I like being here. I have been very lucky to have found someone as nice as you, after everything.’ The whisky was making her feel light-headed and, without knowing it, loosened her tongue.
Malcolm knelt down at the side of her chair. ‘What do you mean “after everything”?’ He took one of her hands in his own, an unfamiliar gesture, but one that felt right. She looked down at her hand, at both of their hands, as though seeing her own for the first time. ‘If you need looking after, Eva, I can do that. No obligation, nothing in return. Why don’t you share your secret with me and let me help you?’
Eva looked into his eyes and his kindness flooded out and weakened her. She wanted more than anything to fall onto his shoulder, to sob in the arms of this caring man. Jacob wasn’t coming back. The yellowing letters she had written to him, unopened and perched under the lamp told her that.
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