Dancing in the Moonlight (38 page)

To the taxi driver’s delight, Donald told him to wait when they pulled up outside the Crawfords’ house. ‘I might be a few minutes, but that’s not a problem, is
it?’

‘Not if you’re happy to pay for the meter ticking, mate.’

‘I am.’ He needed to be able to get to Tom’s house immediately he was done here, that’s if Jacob was still inside. Otherwise he’d go back to the forge and wait at
the end of the lane. Either way, he needed the taxi; he couldn’t walk more than a few steps today and already the pain was kicking in again.

Climbing out of the taxi, it dawned on Donald that he had never once entered the Crawfords’ house through the front door. And, thinking about it, the only times he could remember using his
own front door was for his mother’s and then his da’s and Ernie’s funerals. All the coming and going had been via the back lane, even when it was claggy with thick mud or a sheet
of frozen ridged ice. Amazing when you thought about it, and even more amazing that he had never queried this unwritten law.

Enid’s doorstep was as white as snow and the brass door knocker in the shape of a pixie gleamed as only Brasso and elbow grease could make it gleam. Even the stiffly starched curtains at
the front window were as he remembered. For a minute he’d gone back in time and was a bairn playing in the street with Ernie and the Crawford brothers. Playing the games Tom decreed, and
everyone doing as they were told to avoid a bashing from his fists.

Pushing the thought aside, he knocked on the door. It was only a few moments before it opened and Enid stood framed in the doorway, staring at him without an iota of recognition. ‘Hello,
Mrs Crawford,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s Donald. Donald Fallow.’

‘Donald?’ Her voice was high with surprise. ‘Saints alive, it is you, lad. What’s happened to you?’ Then, remembering herself, she said, ‘Come in, come in,
lad. Well I never, Donald Fallow.’

He stood aside to let her pass him in the hall and she led the way to the kitchen at the back of the house, saying, ‘It’s funny you came today of all days, because our Jacob is here,
home on leave.’ She stopped before she pushed open the door that was slightly ajar, turning to him as she said quietly, ‘You bad or something, lad?’

He almost smiled. As direct as ever. ‘Aye, I’m bad, Mrs Crawford.’

‘Dunkirk, was it?’

‘No, no. It’s me stomach – cancer. I’ve been middling for a couple of years, and it came to light when I tried to join up back in September last year.’

‘I’m sorry about that, lad. Heart-sorry.’

She touched his arm and Donald was surprised by a rush of emotion. She’d looked as though she cared, really cared, and he was about to blow her little world apart, because she thought the
world of Tom. And then he hardened his heart. The truth was the truth and Jacob needed to be told.

He followed Enid into the kitchen. Jacob was sitting at the table and as Enid said, ‘It’s Donald – Donald Fallow – lad’, Jacob stared at him with the same shock that
had registered on his mother’s face.

Recovering himself the next moment, Jacob stood up, holding out his hand as he said, ‘Don. It’s been a long time.’

‘Aye, too long,’ said Donald as he shook Jacob’s hand.

‘Sit down and have a cuppa, lad.’ Enid fetched another cup and saucer as she spoke, adding, ‘This one said he’s not hungry, but it won’t take me a minute to make
you a bacon sandwich, if you’d like a bite?’

‘No thanks, Mrs Crawford.’ She was making him feel like a Judas and he knew he had to come straight to the point. ‘It’s Jacob here I’ve come to see,
actually.’

‘Oh aye?’ Enid put the cup and saucer on the table, but made no effort to pour the tea. Her eyes narrowed as she said, ‘Why is that then?’

‘It’s private, Mrs Crawford.’

‘Private, is it? Well, if it’s anything to do with your sister I know my lad went to see her this morning and she told him to sling his hook, same as she’s made it clear she
wants nowt to do with me.’

‘
Mam.
’ Jacob’s voice was grim. ‘This is nothing to do with you, and Lucy isn’t obliged to see either of us. I’ve told you.’

Ignoring him, Enid kept her eyes on Donald. ‘In a right state he was when he got here, or I don’t doubt he wouldn’t have said anything. Tried to palm me off with some tale or
other, but I got the truth out of him.’

Donald could imagine. Enid Crawford in battle mode was frightening. Quietly he said, ‘It
is
something to do with Lucy, but I would prefer to speak to Jacob alone if you
don’t mind, Mrs Crawford.’

Jacob stood up. ‘Come into the front room.’ And as his mother went to speak again, he looked at her, a long look, and she made a ‘huh’ in her throat, but said no
more.

The front room was another step into the past. Donald could remember as a boy peeping into the Crawfords’ front room and standing agog at the stiff, shiny splendour of it. Even now he felt
awkward about disturbing the mausoleum-like chill. A wave of the nausea that plagued him night and day made him glad to sit down as Jacob gestured towards the sofa.

‘Did Lucy send you?’ Jacob remained standing, tense and still.

‘No. She doesn’t know I’m here, truth be told. In fact she made me promise not to tell you what I’m about to say, but I was in the garden when you came this morning and
after you’d gone she – well . . .’ Donald didn’t know how to put it. ‘She was in a state.’

‘That wasn’t my intention.’

‘I know that.’ Donald smiled gently. ‘Look, would you mind sitting down? I’m getting a crick in me neck and, frankly, for what I’m about to tell you, you’d be
better sitting.’

‘Lucy’s not ill?’ Jacob’s face lost some colour as he sat down.

‘No, I’m the one with cancer,’ Donald answered with dark humour, and at Jacob’s ‘I’m sorry, man’ he shook his head. ‘I’m not here to talk
about that, it’s unimportant. What is important is that you listen to me without interrupting, if you can. I didn’t know any of what I’m about to say until this morning when Lucy
collapsed – only Ruby’s known. It’s not pleasant, I warn you.’

Jacob stared at him, his jaw working. ‘Let’s have it.’

‘The night you were attacked and left for dead all those years ago, I walked out on Lucy and the bairns and went down south,’ said Donald, making no excuses for himself.
‘Somehow Tom found out she had no one to protect her and the next night he went to the house and tried to force her to marry him. When she refused, he—’

‘What?’ said Jacob, his face now chalk-white.

‘There’s no easy way to say it, man. He attacked her, raped her there on the floor in the kitchen.’

The blood thundered in Jacob’s ears, the agony pressing in until it swelled his whole body and erupted in an anger and murderous hatred, even as his heart cried, ‘Lucy, oh, Lucy,
Lucy!’ His mouth spewing curses, he wrenched himself from Donald, who had stood up and was trying to press Jacob back down in his chair. ‘I’ll kill him. I swear I’ll kill
him.’

‘That’s exactly what Lucy was afraid of. You do that and he’s won, don’t you see? You’ll hang for him.’

‘I don’t care. He’s filthy – scum. He’s never been normal.’

No, Tom Crawford wasn’t normal. Donald’s mind recalled some of the stories he’d heard from Maurice Banks and other men who’d worked for Tom and the Kanes. But
‘abnormal’ wasn’t the right word for Jacob’s brother. Tom was something more than that. When a man was mad they put him away in a lunatic asylum to protect folk, but most of
them poor blighters wouldn’t hurt a fly, in spite of their gibbering and jabbering. Yet the ones like Tom, the ones cunning enough to appear sane, were more dangerous than a hundred of the
other kind.

Now Donald did press Jacob back into his chair, saying, ‘She fled the next morning because he’d told her he’d be back, and no one was giving you any hope of making it. She
couldn’t go to your mam for obvious reasons. Then, after the fishmonger took ’em in out of the kindness of his heart, she found out she was carrying a bairn, Tom’s bairn. The man
married her to give her protection and he didn’t touch her until after the bab was born, and then not until she let him. She didn’t love him, but she was grateful to him for saving them
all. He was a good bloke, Jacob, and your brother had him done away with.’

Jacob had been sitting with his head in his hands and now his eyes shot to Donald. ‘Lucy knows that for sure?’

‘Oh aye, lad. Tom threatened he’d do the same to you if she had any truck with you, and he’s haunted her for years, turning up places or waiting outside the house. She’s
had no peace.’

Jacob ground his teeth, wiping his wet eyes with the back of his hand. ‘And you say I shouldn’t kill him? If I don’t, she’ll never be free of him, you know
that.’

Aye, he knew. For a moment Donald thought about telling Jacob what he was going to do, but decided against it. Jacob would say he had to be the one to deal with his brother, and the whole
purpose of him coming here today would be useless. Jacob would know soon enough that the problem had been taken care of, and without him being involved and Lucy losing the man she loved.

Quietly Donald said, ‘It’s Lucy who needs your attention right at this minute. I’ve never seen her like she was this morning after you’d gone. Go and see her. Tell her
you know it all, man. She loves you; she’s kept quiet all these years to protect you, because she’s sure that beating you had years back was arranged by Tom.’

Jacob groaned. ‘I thought she’d married the fishmonger because she loved him and that Daisy was his. How could I have doubted her?’

‘God Himself would have assumed the same, if He’d been in your shoes. How were you to know?’

‘I should have known. Dammit’ – Jacob drove one fist into the palm of his other hand – ‘what she’s gone through, and all because of my brother. My
brother,
Don, my own flesh and blood. I could go stark staring mad thinking about it.’

‘Then don’t.’

‘Easier said than done, and I shan’t rest until he doesn’t draw breath. When the fishmonger died and I went to see her that day, I should have known then she wouldn’t
have walked out on me without one hell of a good reason when I was in the hospital. But I was jealous and angry. She’d had a bairn by someone else and it burned me up inside. I took what she
said that day at face value. I didn’t dig deeper.’

‘Look, you believing her was your protection, the way Lucy saw it. The way she still sees it. Go and see her. I’ve a taxi waiting and I can drop you off before I go on to the
hospital. I need more pills.’ He took a bottle out of his pocket as he spoke and rattled it. The lie had come to him as he’d been talking. ‘We’ll talk about how to handle
Tom when I get back.’

‘I know how to handle him,’ Jacob said grimly.

‘Aye, well, I can’t say I blame you, but talk to Lucy first – that’s all I’m asking. She deserves that.’

Jacob nodded, but as Donald stood up he said, ‘The world will be a cleaner place with him gone, Don. That’s the way I see it, and she won’t have to live in fear any more.
It’s no good trying the legal route – he’s a town councillor now, a pillar of the community, with half the town in his pocket. He bought his way out of the war by means of a bent
doctor, our da wrote and told me so, and you can bet he’s making a packet with the black market. He’s clever, that‘s the thing, and he can be charm itself when it suits him.
He’s had me mam eating out of his hand since the day he was born, and she’s no fool.’

When they walked through to the kitchen Enid was stirring something or other on the stove. As she turned, Jacob said, ‘I’m off, Mam.’

‘You’re going with him? To see her, I expect.’

‘I’m going to see Lucy, aye.’

‘You’re a fool. The way she’s treated you, I should have thought you’d learned your lesson.’

‘There’s more to this than you know, Mam.’

‘She had that fishmonger she married on the go long before she left here, you know. Our Tom told me so. She might be bonny enough, but she’s as hard as iron, lad. She has to be, to
have done what she did to you when you were at death’s door in the hospital.’

‘You know nothing about it.’ Jacob picked up his army cap.

‘That’s what you think. Our Tom said—’

‘Don’t tell me what that filthy liar said.’
Jacob swung round with such ferocity that Enid nearly jumped out of her skin. ‘He’s putrid, Mam. Diseased.
Here, in his mind.’ He tapped his forehead. ‘Did he tell you he was responsible for putting me in that hospital, eh? Did he tell you that? Or that he took Lucy down, the night after
Donald had left? Raped her in her own house because he didn’t want her to be with me? She didn’t know Perce Alridge before that. She and the bairns lived rough for a week when she fled
from here, because of what Tom had done, and the man took them in out of the kindness of his heart. And the result? Tom saw to it he was done away with.’

‘You’re mad.’ Enid’s hand was clutching her throat and she looked from Jacob’s livid face to Donald and then back to her son. ‘Has he told you
that?’

‘Tom’s rotten, Mam. Through and through. He always has been and he’s got blood on his hands.’

‘It’s true, Mrs Crawford.’ Donald had had to sit down on one of the kitchen chairs. ‘My father and Ernie were killed doing a job for him. I was there, I saw it. The
people he’s mixed up with are the worst sort of villains.’

‘I don’t believe it.’ Enid had straightened, but her face was white. ‘It’s all lies. Just because he’s got on, you’re jealous – you’ve
always been jealous of him. And Lucy knew that fishmonger all right. How else do you explain her marrying him in next to no time and having a bairn?’

‘He married her because she
was
expecting a bairn, Tom’s bairn, and it was either that or the workhouse. And she accepted him for the same reason. Like I said, he was a kind
man.’

Their voices had been raised and no one had heard the front door open and close. It was only when a voice from the kitchen doorway spoke, saying, ‘I knew it. I knew she was mine’
that they became aware of Tom’s presence.

Enid screamed as Jacob whirled round and sprang at his brother, but Tom had been expecting it, his great fist delivering a mighty blow under Jacob’s jaw that snapped his head back and sent
him crashing senseless to the floor. Donald staggered forward, the knife in his hand, but as he lunged, Tom caught the hand holding the knife and with seemingly little effort took it from him,
before punching him full in the face. He, too, crumpled into a heap, blood pouring from his broken nose as he lay groaning on the floor.