September Starlings (41 page)

Nuns. I liked the sound of that, trusted it. I realized that day that I would always run to the sisterhood when I was troubled. There was Confetti in the post and there was a convent in St Helens. They would find me wherever I went, the sisters.

Gerald was weighed and measured, played with and cosseted, fussed over by half a dozen women in hospital white and the usual veils. The doctor was a layman, of course, and he expressed the opinion that this had been a one-off, a sudden rise in temperature, probably caused by a passing virus, and that Gerald had shaken off his fever in the age-old way, by having a short fit. ‘There’ll probably be no more,’ said the doctor. ‘A fine boy, a credit to you.’

The nuns walked me to the door, asked after Hetty, told me to keep an eye on her. ‘She’s had a bad bout of illness, can’t work any more. Tell her we’re thinking of her.’

I waved from the taxi, blinked against my filling eyes, remembered the charabanc with the awful orchestra and the puny choir, saw Sister Agatha’s face when ‘her girls’ assassinated a perfectly innocent piece of music. Love. It was all about love.

He was clutching my finger all the way home, holding on to me, willing me to look at him and be his mother. At some traffic lights, the driver turned and stared at me, took in the sight of my tears dripping down onto my son’s head. ‘Eeh, that’s a picture,’ he said contentedly. ‘There’s no mistaking a mother’s love, is there?’

So this was mother-love, was it? This feeling of relief that had replaced my terror? Was this it? Or had my anguish sprung from guilt, was it the same emotion I would have experienced had a dog almost died of my neglect?

‘Da,’ said Gerald.

I dashed a palm across my moist face. ‘You’re too young to talk, Gerald Thompson. People do not talk until they have teeth and a proper backbone and no holes in the middle of their skull.’

‘Da,’ he said.

I touched the spot where the four sections met, where Mother Nature had left room for my child’s brain to grow before closing its container. He was going to be clever. That was why he stared all the time. Like me, Gerald would be a collector, an assessor of things or of people. ‘Silly,’ I said aloud. ‘How on earth can I tell what you’re going to be? As long as …’I paused, because the thought was frightening. ‘As long as you don’t turn out like your dad.’

He grinned wetly, toothlessly, the bright red gums seeming sore and swollen. ‘Da.’

And I hugged him all the way home.

By the time my father was due to arrive, my toothless son had four thin wafers of bone in his mouth, two in the upper storey, two in what Frank called the balcony seats. ‘Teething,’ said Frank. ‘It can drive them nuts, give them all kinds of peculiar symptoms.’

‘Not fits.’ I clutched the baby to my bosom, refused to leave him out of my sight even for a second.

‘You can’t keep taking him to the bathroom with you,’ said Frank. ‘Come on, Laura, this has got to stop.’

Dad entered by the front door, was immediately accosted by me. I told him about the fit, the neighbour, the hospital. Dad wasn’t unduly impressed or worried. ‘Those things happen. Get him off to bed, Laurie. He’ll be exhausted after producing four incisors in one fell swoop.’

I obeyed reluctantly. As I placed him in his cot, Gerald ‘Da-ed’ again, chuckled loudly when I tickled his ribs. ‘Listen, you little monkey,’ I said. ‘There’ll be no more of this caper, right? If you want a bit of attention, just yell “Da”.’

‘Da,’ he repeated.

I crouched down and looked at him through the wooden bars. ‘Why didn’t you say something about those nasty teeth, kid? How the hell am I supposed to read your mind? Couldn’t you just have stuck your fingers in your gob? I mean, you don’t even give clues, do you?’

He laughed again, obviously found me amusing. He was so alive, so pretty, that I forgot all about meals waiting downstairs, cleared my mind of threats that had been issued by the so-called natural father of my son. Gerald and I got through
The Three Bears, Rumpelstiltskin
and
Little Miss Muffet
before I remembered that there were other people in the house. But it was a good feeling, a positive change for the better. I had just learned how to be a reasonable, if not an excellent parent.

My meal awaited me. I sat down in the kitchen, picked up my fork, tackled the chicken casserole that Frank had served on my plate.

‘Is he settling?’ asked Dad.

I nodded, swallowed some food. ‘He’ll be OK.’

My father looked at Frank, at me, at Frank again. ‘Tommo’s in trouble,’ he said carefully. ‘He’s … been charged with rape.’

The fork hung in mid-air for a split second, then clattered onto my plate. Some other poor woman, some other poor girl … ‘How old was she?’ It was important that his victim should be mature, capable of understanding what had happened to her, capable of anger. Though, whatever her age, any woman would be shattered by such an experience.

‘No name has been issued, but the folk around Deane think they know the girl. She’s eighteen. Laura, you may be called upon to answer questions.’ He held up a hand to
still my clear apprehension. ‘It’s more than likely that the questions will come from a doctor. You won’t be required to give evidence in court against your husband. But the rumour is that Tommo’s … out of control.’

‘Insane.’ I did not lift up the second syllable, did not need to frame questions about Tommo’s state of health. I knew now. Since Frank, I knew about my husband’s sickness. ‘Is she … is the girl all right?’ Damned silly thing to ask, but I was so concerned for her.

‘Well, she’s in hospital,’ answered Dad. ‘He knocked her about a bit, cracked a couple of ribs. Rumour also has it that Tommo’s insisting that the girl consented, that all the injuries were accidental. It’s going to be his word against hers.’ He paused, sipped at his glass of water. ‘That’s if the girl decides to testify at all. Raped women do tend to get a raw deal sometimes. He may even get off scot-free. Unless you tell this doctor that Tommo needs some kind of treatment for his problems.’

I realized that I was shaking like a leaf. Frank came to my side, knelt on the floor, held my hands until the ague passed from me to him. Our eyes locked until he had absorbed my terror. ‘Laura, you don’t need to do anything unless you want to.’

‘He’ll find me. If I talk, he’ll find me.’

Dad pretended to busy himself by cleaning his glasses on a paper napkin. Obtusely, I thought of Mother, wondered how she would react if she learned that her daughter used paper serviettes. ‘Any answers or opinions given to a doctor will be kept secret,’ he said. ‘Tommo won’t know anything about it. But the medical folk in Bolton were not fooled by your story, Laura. Didn’t you insist that you had fallen down the stairs?’

I nodded mutely.

‘But …’ My father paused, dreaded the pain he would suffer if I spoke the whole truth about my leg. He placed his spectacles on the table, steadied himself, cleared his throat. ‘But he hurt you.’ He jumped up from his chair and paced about. ‘Sometimes, people can be really stupid.
When you had the broken femur, I wondered, I worried. But I wanted so badly to believe your version … I believed what suited me, Laurie. Because I couldn’t have coped with the truth.’

I watched him as he travelled back and forth across my kitchen. ‘It’s over now,’ I said. ‘And I would like to help that girl. But I don’t want to think about him, don’t want to talk about what he did to me. I’m sorry.’

Frank shook his head. ‘Talking might help you, love.’

‘No. I’m not ready.’

My father came back to the table. Frank went off to make coffee, kept one eye on me as I talked to Dad. ‘Sorry,’ I muttered. ‘Perhaps I’ll be able to talk about it one day. But not yet.’ I swallowed, felt dry and sore in my gullet. ‘I can’t always remember all of it. But he’s not right, Dad. I might manage to tell the doctors that he’s not right, but I can’t discuss what he did.’

He patted my hand. ‘All right, sweetheart. Whatever you decide will be all right.’

I couldn’t eat any more, couldn’t even drink Frank’s coffee. The enormity of it all sat on my shoulders until I felt like Atlas, as if the future welfare of the globe rested on my shoulders. If I talked to a psychiatrist, a doctor who would, no doubt, be working for the prosecution side of the case, then the whole sordid mess would be brought to the front of my consciousness. The possibility of nervous illness did not appeal to me any more than it might have appealed to any person. But if I refused to help the doctors, then Tommo might run free to rape again. A crowd of anonymous girls squatted in my head, every one of them weeping and bleeding.

‘Laura?’ There was concern in Frank’s tone, and not a little love. ‘What are you thinking about?’ This wonderful man always tried to share my troubles.

‘I’ll have to do it,’ I said. ‘But nothing I say can be used in court. There are things known only to me – I haven’t even told you what really happened during my marriage, Frank. If those facts are used against Tommo, he will
know who has given the ammunition to the prosecution.’ I swallowed. ‘It’s Gerald. He’s too little to take care of himself. We have to mind him, you and I – you too, Dad. We can’t take chances with the baby. But at the same time, if Tommo carries on doing these things, then I’ll share his guilt. We have to do all we can to get him stopped.’

‘Brave girl,’ said Dad.

Frank said nothing, needed to say nothing, because he and I had quickly reached the stage where words were not always required.

I gulped against the rising panic, sat perfectly still with my hands on the table, angled my thoughts away from the evening’s main topic. ‘Dad, send some flowers to Ida Bowen – the woman who lived next door to me and … Tommo. She found me when I was hurt and she helped me. I’m beginning to realize how important neighbours are. I’ll get something in St Helens for Hetty the Hawk.’

Two pairs of male eyebrows were raised. ‘Hetty who?’ asked Dad.

‘Hetty lives here.’ I pointed to the next house. ‘She saved my baby’s life. And would you make a donation to the sisters at the hospital, Dad? They were lovely.’

Dad relaxed a little. ‘She’s always had a soft spot for nuns,’ he told Frank. ‘At one point, she even considered joining their ranks.’

After Frank’s hollow laughter had died, I said, ‘It was only to get away from my mother. And a convent’s not for runaways, it’s for people who really want to be in the sisterhood. It’s a job like any other, except that there’s only one boss and no unions. And anyway, I’m just not good enough.’

Dad wasn’t smiling. ‘I tried to get Liza to leave. If I’d persuaded her to go, you’d never have needed to run away. But getting rid of a person is not easy. Perhaps I ought to have insisted, then your childhood would have been a little rosier.’ He coughed, wiped his face. ‘My fault, Laurie. It was all my fault.’

When I lay in my bed with Frank that night, I wondered about people and happiness, people and disappointment, people and guilt. Dad felt responsible for the actions of his wife, just as I must now admit my own part in Tommo’s wickedness. Had I stayed, I might have been his only victim. Had Dad got rid of Mother, then I might not have been her only victim. But really, all my father could have achieved was the thinner spreading of Liza McNally’s malevolence. As for Tommo, I simply could not have borne any more of his cruelty, especially now, with a baby in the family. So I had left him and he now chose to prey on others.

My relationship with Gerald was an odd one, because I did not yet know how to love him properly. I mused on, thought again about the dolls in their boxes, the toy pram which had been used just to contain my collection of caterpillars, beetles, stones. In the drawers of my tallboy, I had kept piles of baby-doll clothes, lemon matinée jackets, rose-printed frocks, little bootees, tiny underclothes. I remembered giving them all to Anne, recalled the unspoken questions as they sat on her face all those years ago. I was not a mother. I would never be a mother. The mere act of giving birth could not make me into a maternal woman.

But the more I lay and thought, the more determined I became to make a decent stab at life. I liked my baby now, and surely I could build on that, could use it as a foundation for the future? I loved Frank, but that was different, easy. Frank looked after me, made a fuss of me, courted my favours. Frank pleased me. The baby in the next room was a burden, I supposed, someone who would depend on me until he became old enough to make his own way. If I treated him badly, or even coldly, then he might turn out to be another lost soul.

I watched the sky as dawn began to stain it pink, heard the birds twittering outside, listened to Hetty the Hawk as she stirred the fire and made breakfast for her husband. Days in the country started early, finished early. We always kept the volume low in our house after ten o’clock
in the evening, as those next door were often in bed by nine.

Life was about catering for others, then. All I could hope for was the chance to do my best, especially for Gerald. I tried hard not to blame my mother, but the fact remained that there was no pattern for me to follow, no outline that I could colour in. A bad parent breeds another, but I would break the chain now.

I stood over his cot, waited until those huge eyes opened. ‘Hello, you,’ I said. ‘This is the first day. From now on, we shall get on a treat.’

He yawned, blinked, didn’t smile. Gerald was weighing me up, was making the first collection of his life. At last, he could start compiling his list. At last, he had a mother.

We led a simple life. The winters were cold and crisp, as the pancake-flat fields offered no shelter from the sea. Although we were some miles inland, the winds whipped off the Mersey, through the suburbs of Liverpool and straight into our small world. Summer days could be merciless unless we found shade under our old apple tree, so my favourite times were spring and autumn, as I was never fond of extremes of temperature.

Frank travelled, expanded my father’s business, never left me overnight. I grew stronger, more cheerful, while Gerald blossomed into a sturdy youngster with limbs that were brown, eyes that were bright with intelligence. Even though there was a darkness at the back of my mind, I seldom allowed the fear to have a front seat. We painted walls, dug the garden, made silly meals from foreign recipes, enjoyed ourselves.