‘What’s happened, love?’ Mrs Prescott said as soon as she got Sara indoors and in front of the dead but still warm parlour fire. ‘That evening gown will never be the same again and as for your shoes . . . well, girls will be girls, I suppose.’
‘We went to the harvest supper and I disagreed with the Reverend Atwell’s attitude and said so. Afterwards my father said if I wouldn’t apologise he wouldn’t take me home and I was in the middle of explaining why I wouldn’t apologise when he told the taxi driver to drive on and they left me,’ she said briefly. ‘Gran, I forgot about Miss Boote, but can I sleep on your sofa tonight? I’m just absolutely exhausted and so cold that if I don’t cuddle down soon I’ll probably fall over.’
‘The sofa? No, indeed, we’ll share my nice double bed,’ Mrs Prescott said decidedly. ‘Come along, I’ve a hot-water bottle in already and plenty of blankets. Remember when you were small and used to stay with me? I’d put you to bed in the little front room and by midnight you’d be in bed with me, cuddled up all warm and close, because you said you were frightened, alone in the other room.’ She chuckled. ‘Not that you were frightened, you little monkey, you just liked to share my bed, and wake me up at the crack of dawn in the morning, and play old harry with my lie-ins.’
‘Yes, I remember. Oh, Gran, I was awful then and I’m awful now,’ Sara said. ‘I’ll try not to put my cold feet on you, and I’ll try not to wake you too early, as well. Not that I will, I’m far too tired myself.’
And presently she climbed between the sheets, clad in a vast cotton nightdress belonging to her grandmother, and cuddled down blissfully into the warm bed.
‘I’ll bring you a cup of hot milk with a drop of rum in it,’ Mrs Prescott promised, but by the time she came up the stairs again, with the hot milk and a plate of marie biscuits, Sara was fast asleep.
Grace came out of the front door at the fastest pace she could manage and shot across the pavement, turning right around the side of the house and making for the roadway beyond the court. Her father had recently come home from the pub, and he was in a wicked rage. He had smashed in through the door, she had heard his onslaught, heard the door slam back into the wall, and he had started to scream and curse, shouting that his wife was a slut, his home a filthy hole fit only for rats, his kids bastards who wouldn’t piss on a man if he was afire.
Grace had been asleep in the bundle of rags which was the best they could manage for a bed, with assorted young Carberys beside her, but she woke pretty fast when her father began to shout. She sat up, every nerve quivering, her heart thumping so hard it could actually be seen when she glanced down at her thin chest. Bang, bang,
BANG
it went . . . he’s coming, he’s coming,
HE’S COMING
!
The Carberys had long since been turned out of Snowdrop Street for non-payment of rent and now had the basement flat in this tall, ugly block. The kids slept in the back room and the family lived in the front, which meant that if you wanted to leave the back room you had to go through the front. And that meant risking a confrontation with Stan Carbery, and a drunken Stan Carbery was terrifying. But if he came through . . . Grace wondered whether she might burrow so deep into the rags that he would not find her, then abandoned even the thought. She dared not risk it. She simply had to escape . . . she would make a run for it the moment he wasn’t looking.
She slid out of the rags and padded over to the door which separated the two rooms. It wasn’t closed – well, it wouldn’t close, her da had broken the hinges years back – so she was able to see through the crack into the dim, candlelit room beyond. Her mother was backed into a corner, swinging what looked like a black bottle full of something, and she was shouting almost as loudly, now, as her husband.
‘Gerrout of ’ere, you swine,’ she screamed. ‘I’ll break this bottle over your bleedin’ ’ead if you comes one step closer!’
Mam must be very drunk, Grace reflected. Usually she fled the moment her husband entered the house if he was in a violent mood. She never even woke her kids, so that they could defend themselves, but let them bear the brunt of her husband’s wrath. But tonight she was fighting back, it seemed.
‘The wicked bugger ma’ me leave ’is bloody rotten pub,’ Stan Carbery roared. Grace caught a glimpse of his face – scarlet, bug-eyed – as he lunged at his wife, but she waved the bottle and he pretended to change his mind, beginning to shout again. ‘He shaid I were the worshe for booze, the wicked bugger!’
‘So you bloody are,’ his wife shrieked. ‘Gerrout, go on, gerrout of me ’ouse this instant, Stan Carb!’
‘Whose bloody ’ouse?
Whose
bloody ’ouse?’
The trouble was, the door opened the wrong way. Grace would have to run round it once it was open in order to get out of the outer door, and then she would have to climb the area steps . . . she shuddered at the thought of her father clawing her back down again by the legs, falling on her, crashing his fist into her skinny, vulnerable frame. He’d near killed her a couple of times . . . oh, if only Jess were still alive, Grace thought, whilst the sweat of terror beaded her brow and made her breathe short. If Jess were still alive she’d think of something, do something!
But in the further room, her father had suddenly begun to see things. Grace knew the signs and thanked her stars. He was hitting out at nothing now, wiping the air with both fists in a desperate, ugly paroxism of fear. Whatever he imagined was attacking him was doing a good job, Grace surmised, as he suddenly dodged and began to retreat, shouting all the while.
‘No . . . no, you don’t, you buggers . . . gerroff, will you? Leave me be, I ain’t done nothin’ . . . leave me be!’
It was the moment. Grace slid round the door and set off at a fast pace across the room. She was out of the living-room door and tugging at the outer one when her mother said: ‘Wharra you doin’, you little bitch? Don’t you run off an’ leave me to tackle this bastard by meself! Stan, she’s . . .’
It acted like a spur. Grace tore the door open, shot through it and ascended the area steps so fast that she could not afterwards remember her feet so much as touching them. And at the top, she simply ran, though she had no stamina and knew she would speedily have to stop to regain her breath.
But there was no pursuit. Panting, sobbing, she made for the one place where her father would not pursue her – the graveyard of the nearest church. And once there, safely ensconced in the shed where the sexton kept his gardening tools, she had leisure to think.
Why had Mam given her away to her da like that, knowing him to be capable of killing when the drink was on him? And why was it always her who was the object of his greatest fury, his most violent wrath? Addy, her only remaining sister, who had run away eight months before, said it was because Grace had been Jess’s favourite, and their father had always hated Jess.
‘Why, Addy?’ Grace had asked helplessly. ‘Why did he hate Jess? She was good, was Jess, real kind an’ all.’
‘She weren’t ’is get,’ Addy had explained kindly. ‘Our da always said our mam played ’im false when she got our Jess.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Grace had said. ‘What d’you mean?’
Addy had sighed and cast her eyes at the sky, but at least she had answered.
‘Mam was ’avin’ a baby, see? She weren’t wed, not then. She telled our da it were ’is baby, that ’e was the dad, see? So then they got wed. Only our da reckoned she’d gone wi’ another feller, an’ the baby – Jess – were the other feller’s. See?’
‘I think I do,’ Grace had said. ‘I wish . . . I wish our da di’n’t ’ate me so much, Addy.’
Addy had shrugged. ‘Our da ’ates the ’ole lot of us,’ she said cynically. ‘’E ’ates me ’cos I’m the eldest gal, an’ you ’cos you’re the next, an’ Reggie ’cos ’e’s a little lad, an’ . . .’
Grace had got the message though and from that moment on had accepted, albeit sadly, that her father hated her. She had not known, until this minute, that her mother hated her too.
But at least I’m safe now, for a bit, she told herself, curling up on a pile of old newspapers. She checked the pocket of her ragged cardigan and the possession she most prized was still there, so that was all right. And the sexton didn’t hate her. He left the door of his shed unlocked and the newspapers handy . . . she thought he must pity her and pity was better than either hatred or indifference.
But she still wished Jess was alive, wished she’d been able to find baby Mollie and take care of her as, once, Jess had taken care of the young Grace.
In her worn-out, confused mind, she told herself that the next best thing to being loved was loving.
And then she slept.
Chapter Eight
Sara slept like a log and didn’t even stir when Mrs Prescott got out of bed next morning and crept down the stairs to get breakfast for Miss Boote – not that this was in any way necessary, for she and her lodger had long ago come to an understanding. Miss Boote made the breakfast if she was downstairs first, cooking a pan of porridge and cutting bread, making a pot of tea and so on. But if Mrs Prescott was about early they sometimes had an egg, or even fried bread and a piece of bacon, for Miss Boote was secretary to the manager of the County Bank on Walton Road and bicycled to work which meant, Mrs Prescott insisted, that she needed a good breakfast to keep her strength up.
But when Mrs Prescott came quietly into the bedroom, having waved Miss Boote off on her trusty steed, Sara was sitting up in bed and stretching and declaring that she hadn’t had such a good night’s sleep for ages and ages, and did Gran think that they might find her a job today?
‘Goodness, Sara, whatever next?’ Her grandmother said, thoroughly startled, for though Sara had mentioned getting a job before she had not taken her seriously. ‘I can’t imagine your father lettin’ you work for your living – not if he didn’t like it when he saw you speakin’ to a young railway worker, and objected because you gave children some spare food. He would undoubtedly think you were letting him down.’
She was half-joking, but soon realised that her granddaughter had thought the whole thing through very thoroughly.
‘Yes, Gran, I know what you mean, but they’ve washed their hands of me, you see. They simply drove away from me – I could have been robbed or murdered or anything. You’ll say they’ll guess that I’ve come to you, but if so, why haven’t they been in touch, to find out? They haven’t, have they?’ she added with a transparent hopefulness which went to the older woman’s heart.
‘No, they haven’t,’ Mrs Prescott admitted. ‘But I’m sure they would have been terribly worried if they’d realised you had no money, no means of gettin’ either here or back to your home . . .’
She was interrupted. ‘I have no home,’ Sara said firmly. ‘Apart from here, I mean, and I can’t stay with you, Gran. It wouldn’t be fair.’
‘It would be the best thing that ever happened to me,’ her grandmother told her. ‘Miss Boote and I are very good friends, but it’s through circumstance, you see. You are my flesh and blood, chuck, and I’ve loved you from the day you were born. Don’t go off and leave me alone again!’
‘Oh, Gran . . . but you’ll want your bed to yourself . . . and you need Miss Boote’s money, I know you do . . . and I can’t pay you anything until I get a job,’ Sara said, her brow creasing with worry. ‘If I could have a little bed in the parlour . . .’
‘You shall have a little bed in my room; we’ll sell the double bed and buy two singles at Paddy’s market,’ Mrs Prescott said. ‘I saw respectable, clean secondhand beds for sale the last time I was there. How snug we’ll be, queen! I like to read before I nod off – how about you, eh? I ’member you always used to read in bed as a child.’
‘I still like to read, but Gran . . .’
‘No nonsense, no argufying,’ Mrs Prescott said briskly. ‘It’s agreed, then. I’ll sell my double bed and buy two singles this very day – you can come with me if you don’t mind walkin’ slow – and then you may take a look around for likely employment. We might do worse than ask Miss Boote, in fact, now I come to think, because she works in a big bank, they might easily need another young lady to do whatever it is they do in banks.’
Two days after Sara arrived at her grandmother’s house, Brogan came knocking on the door. Sara, delighted to see him and wanting to know what had been happening to him in the three years since they last met, asked him in, but the visit was not a success.
Brogan, who had seemed self-confident, breezy, amusing, when they’d met before was not at all at ease in Mrs Prescott’s neat front parlour, or with the young lady Sara had become, she could not tell which it was, she could just sense the unease. And he seemed shy of talking about his family, which had previously been a favourite topic of conversation. In fact he sat on the small sofa, dwarfing it with his size, and played with his cap on his knee and avoided her eyes. So in the end Sara asked him what on earth was the matter.
‘Nothin’,’ Brogan growled, staring at his cap. ‘Nothin’ at all at all.’
‘Then why won’t you look at me when we’re talking?’ Sara asked, frustrated and disappointed that this meeting, which had meant so much to her, was going so badly. ‘Your cap can’t be that much nicer to look at than my face!’
He laughed, but reluctantly. ‘If there’s somethin’ the matter, then that’s it,’ he muttered. ‘You’re a young lady now, and a smart one. You don’t want nothin’ to do wit’ the likes of me. I was a fireman on an engine, now I’m drivin’ goods trains on branch lines; if I’m lucky I’ll move to passenger trains next. If I spend the rest of me life workin’, then I’ll mebbe end up ownin’ a little house, ridin’ a decent bike, respected by me workmates. Nothin’ in this world could mek me gentry.’