Orphan of Angel Street (36 page)

‘You’ll have to watch it, eating and drinking wine with all them toffs!’ She grinned cheekily in the mirror. ‘Bet some of ’em wouldn’t’ve wanted me up there if they knew . . .’

She washed herself then sat on her bed, pulled her knees up and hugged them, full of wonder. Everything felt so soft, so comfortable. She’d sleep like a princess tonight.

But her happiness never came unmixed with guilt and sorrow. Every time she’d been to see Elsie she’d looked worse and worse. More drawn in the face, more exhausted. When she had begun visiting regularly again in the autumn she was terribly shocked. She found Elsie in a chair, weak and shrunken, barely able to move.

‘Elsie—’ With a tight feeling in her chest Mercy rushed to her side.

‘Oh – oh Lor’ – Mercy—’ She tried to raise herself in her chair, giving a whimper of pain.

Mercy was really frightened. She felt as if the breath had been knocked out of her. Elsie’s face was so pinched and thin, barely recognizable. Her hands clutching at the arms of the chair were bony as twigs.

‘What’s the matter, you look terrible! Oh Elsie, I’m sorry. I meant to come more often. I didn’t know things were this bad.’

‘You’re awright.’ Elsie’s voice had changed. It sounded high and reedy. ‘I know yer busy, bab. I just ain’t been too bright lately.’ She tried, unsuccessfully to laugh. ‘As you can see, I’ve got a bit be’ind with myself.’ She jerked her head in Tom’s direction. ‘With ’im and that. Rosalie does ’er best to ’elp like, but you know . . . ’Ere, let’s ’ave a cuppa tea.’ The range had all but gone out and the room was dank and cold.

‘Don’t move, Elsie.’ Mercy was fighting back tears. The sight of the two of them, mother and son, stranded in this room together was so pitiful she could hardly bear it. She wished she could knock the rotten house down and rebuild it, warm and clean and comfortable for them.

‘I’ll make tea. I’ll cook for you. And let me sort Tom out . . .’

She fetched a bucket of slack and stoked the range, noticing as she moved round the small room the dirty state of the place, the grimy floor, bugs in the crevices, running up the walls.

‘I was going to stove the place today,’ Elsie said, seeing Mercy looking round. ‘Only I just never got round to it some’ow.’

‘What’s wrong with you, Elsie?’ Mercy asked gently, but the only reply she got was, ‘Oh, nowt worth wasting breath on, bab.’

It took a long time for the kettle to boil. Mercy got the broom out and briskly swept the room, swishing bugs from the corners.

‘And I’ll come and sort you out in a tick when I’ve got some hot water,’ she said to Tom.

She handed Elsie a cup of tea and prepared a pail of water, soap and a rag.

The bed was in a filthy state, the smell of it overpowering. Tom had been settled on a collection of rags to try and preserve the sheet, but they were badly soiled and the stained sheet was wet from edge to edge.

‘There’s a spare.’ Elsie pointed to a sheet hanging over the chair beside the dead fire. ‘Might still be a bit damp.’

Mercy moved the chair next to the warm range and stood the bowl on another chair near the bed. By the time she’d made all her preparations, Elsie was dozing again, the cup of tea forgotten on the table. Her clothes were holed and stained, stockings crinkled down her thin legs.

Using all her wiry strength, Mercy rolled Tom over. He let out a groan. His body was so much thinner now, the limbs pale and wasted. She turned him on his side. Even in his soiled state she could see the sores at the base of his back, the skin chaffed away from pressure on the bed to form two deep wounds.

‘Oh my God.’ She stood holding him, aghast. For a few moments she was overwhelmed, felt as if her sorrow would drown her. Tears coursed down her cheeks. ‘My poor, poor boy,’ she whispered. ‘Oh Tom, what’s happened to you, my love?’ For those moments, soiled and vulnerable as he was, he was once again the quiet, kind lad she could still remember with great tenderness.

She wiped her eyes with the back of one hand. In a fury she pulled all the filthy rags out from underneath him and bundled them up by the door to be thrown out. The mattress was so wet and foul. If only she could get him on to another bed! But there was nothing, and even if there had been she had the strength only to roll him over and pull the sheet out from underneath him as she’d seen Elsie do so many times.

She wrung the cloth out over the pail, pushing wisps of hair away from her face with her wrists. She set about washing him with a bar of carbolic. With great gentleness and care she soaped his body, massaging his stick-thin arms, the pale, almost hairless chest. He made no sound, though when she turned him on his back he was watching her with a puzzled look on his face. His belly was soft, sunk inwards. Very gently she washed the small shrunken part of him that should have fathered her children and felt in it not a flicker of life. She dried him, put the other, still damp sheet on the bed and tucked a bottle between his legs. Of course he’d move and it would spill, but it might help preserve the sheet. Mercy kissed his soap-smelling cheek, emptied the bucket, and sat spooning tea into his mouth. All the while he looked sternly at her.

‘Mercy?’ Elsie looked round at her with the dazed eyes of a much older woman. ‘Oh, you’re still ’ere. I must’ve dozed off.’

She reached for the tea and Mercy rushed to help. ‘It’s gone cold – I’ll get you some more.’

‘Rosalie’ll be in soon.’ This was an important moment of the day, Rosalie’s return from school.

‘There must be a place, you know,’ Mercy said very gently, moving her chair closer to Elsie’s. ‘Somewhere you could get Tom looked after.’

Elsie ignored her. She seemed far away, as if nothing anyone said fully sank in. Her face puckered in pain. Hissing through her teeth she reached under her left arm, moaned, eyes streaming.

‘What’s the matter, love? Let me look.’

She didn’t protest as Mercy, hands trembling, unbuttoned her blouse. The skin under Elsie’s arm and round her breast was taut and blackened.

‘Radiation.’ Elsie stared down at herself as if at a stranger. ‘That’s what it does to yer.’ Covering herself again she looked into Mercy’s eyes. ‘I want Johnny. Can yer find ’im for me?’

She tried Johnny’s address in Aston. He’d moved on. His second landlady was not many streets away.

‘Johnny Pepper? Ar – ’e were ’ere. Ain’t no more though. Went more’n a month ago. ’E couldn’t afford the rent like, after the strike.’ The police strike had ground on through the summer. Mercy had hardly given it more than a passing thought. ‘’E were one of the ones they let go. Quite a few of ’em with no job at the end of it. S’pose it serves ’em right really,’ she said complacently. ‘Any’ow, ’e couldn’t pay the rent no more.’

‘D’you know where he went?’

‘Can’t say I do, bab, no. ’E said summat about the country at one time. Moody lad, ’e was. Nights ’e’d be up moving about, in and out all hours. Used to walk the streets. I don’t know. Sorry not to be more ’elp though. ’E yer brother?’

‘No, just a friend.’ Mercy tried to smile, despite her sinking heart. ‘Ta any road.’

She told Elsie. ‘The woman said ’e’d gone to the country. I s’pect he’ll be in touch. She said ’e’d got himself a really good job on a farm somewhere.’

‘Ah well,’ Elsie said. She seemed cheered. ‘That’ll be nice for ’im. ’E always liked to be out and about.’

Elsie died in the December. With Margaret’s permission Mercy had visited every week and helped as much as she could. She knew Elsie was not going to get better. She was in bed through November and they watched her sink until she could no longer speak and didn’t know anyone. They took her to hospital where they gave her morphine, and after two days she was gone.

Rosalie gave up school and stayed at home to look after Tom. The funeral was at St Joseph’s and Margaret gladly granted Mercy time off to go.

‘She was like a Mom to me,’ Mercy told Margaret. She felt clenched up inside with sadness.

The sun shone in weakly through the long church windows, panels of light dancing with dust. They sang ‘Abide With Me’ and ‘Safely, Safely Gathered In’. Rosalie leant on Mercy and sobbed and Mercy stroked her auburn head. Poor kid, only twelve and the woman of the house now. She was a brave little thing. Maryann had come from Coventry, and Jack was there, but they hadn’t found Johnny. Josephine was there, pale and tired-looking. Things were strained with her husband. Alf’s hair was almost white but he still looked strong, upstanding. At his side, Mabel, in her smartest dress, hair piled high under her hat.

Mercy shyly kissed Alf as the organ played at the end of it.

‘’Allo, wench.’ He seemed stunned. ‘You’re looking very nice. Thanks for coming to see ’er like. It meant a lot to ’er.’

Mabel, who seemed to be a fixture beside him said, ‘I ’ear you’re doing very well for yourself, Mercy. That Dorothy Finch still looking out for you?’

‘Yes thanks. I see Dorothy from time to time.’ She was very taken aback. She expected to hear rancour or sarcasm in Mabel’s voice, but there was none. She even felt a little ashamed for harbouring so much bitterness towards her when she’d helped Elsie. This was Elsie’s funeral and she must behave nicely.

‘How’re you, Mabel?’

‘Oh, I’m awright.’ She smiled a fond, gap-toothed smile at Alf. ‘You know – going along.’

The neighbours were all there: the Ripleys, McGonegalls, Mary Jones and her kids. Everyone acted pleased to see her, was kind. She’d seen them in snatches on her visits to Elsie. But Mercy had felt strange, known their distance from her in their exclamations about how well she was looking.

The sadness of the funeral was deepened by her own sense of being an outsider. Thinking back on it now in this seaborne room so far from Angel Street, she knew it had been Elsie who had tied her to the neighbourhood. She’d changed, moved on from them. She couldn’t share their day-to-day concerns. The realization was one of melancholy and loss mixed with excitement. Her life was opening out, it had possibilities which she could never have dreamed of in Angel Street. It seemed her future lay with the Adairs.

Chilly now, and feeling sleepy, Mercy slipped out of bed to switch off the light.

She heard a low knocking at the door. She stood still holding her breath. Had she imagined it? The knock came again, still restrained but a little louder. Without stopping to think she went and opened the door a crack.

‘Oh goodness, I didn’t think you’d have gone to bed this early!’ Mr Adair sounded very flustered. ‘Margaret’s feeling very queasy again, so I said I’d come down and see Stevie instead. But I suppose’, he added lamely, ‘he’s asleep and peaceful?’

Mercy was confused. Margaret usually came to see Stevie much earlier when he was awake. James never usually came at all.

‘Well, yes. He’s sound asleep.’ She was speaking very softly. ‘Seems happy enough on the bed for tonight.’ She didn’t know whether she should open the door wider. She was acutely aware that all she had on was her nightdress. ‘D’you want to see him?’

James looked agitatedly up and down the corridor. He was holding his hat, circling the brim round between his fingers. ‘Perhaps, as I’m here. If you don’t mind.’

She stood back to let him in, his coat brushing her arm. Immediately she’d shut the door she pulled a cardigan on over her nightdress, for the sake of both warmth and modesty.

He stood in front of her. The fiddling with his hat went on. He stared at his hands, looked as if he was about to speak, closed his mouth again, sighed.

Mercy felt terribly awkward. His presence was so large and imposing in the small room and she, despite the wool garment she was pulling tight round herself, felt naked and foolish. She clenched her jaw to stop her teeth chattering. Why on earth didn’t he look at Stevie and then go away again?

‘He’s there.’ She pointed.

James stepped over and looked down at his son. Stevie was flat on his back, arms stretched out, his cheeks pink, mouth a little open. He looked adorable with his long eyelashes and dark curly hair. Mercy smiled. She stood with her arms tightly folded.

‘He looks perfectly comfortable.’ James spoke in a forced, jovial tone, which softened as he turned to her and said, ‘And you, Mercy? Is everything all right for you?’

‘Oh yes, thank you, Mr Adair. It’s lovely.’

‘Good. Good. Very well.’ There was a note of appeal in his voice as he said, ‘Is there nothing you’d like?’

‘’Er, no, thank you,’ she said, bewildered.

‘Right then. Good. I may come another night. Margaret’s still poorly.’

In that case, Mercy thought, she’d make sure she remained dressed until he’d been. It was all very strange. Perhaps as he was on holiday he thought he should see as much of Stevie as possible?

He put his hat on and went to the door. ‘Goodnight,’ he said tenderly.

‘Goodnight, Mr Adair.’

*

As Mercy closed the stateroom door behind him James Adair had to resist an impulse to lean against the wall of the rolling ship and bang his head on it at his own folly. But there were people coming, a respectable-looking couple in modest evening clothes earnestly reading the numbers on the doors.

He couldn’t bear the thought of the smoking room, or reading room. He didn’t want other people, nor could he possibly be still. He stormed along the passage and climbed one staircase, then another. The promenade deck: blast it, he was in second class still, of course, but the deck was more or less empty so no matter. It was too late, too bracingly cold out there for most people.

He went to the side and looked out. From inside he could hear the sound of a piano. It struck him how odd it was to hear a piano in the middle of the ocean. The ship’s lights dimmed quickly into the far greater darkness beyond for it was cloudy, moonless. He could sense the sea rather than see it, except for occasional riffles of white foam which appeared and vanished so quickly, he felt he might have imagined them. The wind was scouringly cold against his cheeks, but he welcomed it. He raged at himself.

Stupid, deluded imbecile. What the hell has got into you? What must she have thought of him turning up like that when she’d already retired to bed? It was asinine, it was insane!