Someone Special (27 page)

She had longed for spring, thinking that her cough would go away with the finer weather and her general health improve, but this had not been the case. Instead, she got worse, dragging herself wearily through the days until even Mr Hicksome, who moved with the speed and
agility of a very old tortoise, commented on what he termed her lazy, slovenly ways.

Nell did her best to help in any way she could, but she was always hungry and, although Hester had only just realised it, she had another preoccupation: avoiding Mr Hicksome. The dreadful old man, it transpired, had probably only employed Hester because he had a wicked weakness for little girls, and had been trying to get his hands on Nell for all of the eight weeks they had lived in his house.

‘I didn’t want to worry you,’ Nell had said in a small, exhausted voice as the two of them had fled the house and made for the doctor’s surgery. ‘I kept out of his way, or ran to you. Only tonight he trapped me as I was coming into the kitchen and when I tried to push him away he grabbed the poker and …’

Nell had shuddered, indicating the crushed fingers.

‘I’ll have the law on him,’ Hester had muttered. ‘But not until the doctor’s done what he can for your fingers, love. Just you be brave and he’ll have you right in a brace of shakes.
Then
we’ll tackle the disgusting old monster.’

For that moment she had felt strong and brave, capable of tackling anyone: Mr Hicksome, Mr Geraint, even Matthew, whom she had grievously wronged. But by the time they had explained to the doctor’s wife why they were here and had entered the crowded little waiting room, most of her courage had evaporated.

What will we do? she thought listlessly, even the arm that cradled the child aching now. Where can we go, how can we live? No one will believe a child of eight if it came to court and anyway I suppose it isn’t a hanging offence for a dirty old man to put his hand in a child’s knickers; better just keep our mouths shut and move on. Again.

But she was so tired! Because she was sitting down the ache was easier, but soon they would have to find themselves a bed for the night – oh, how could she do
it? How could she keep on when all she wanted was to lie down and die?

‘Next!’ The doctor’s door had opened and a woman, fat and red-faced, came out. The man closest to the door got up and went in, closing the door behind him. Everyone moved up a seat, shuffling themselves along one nearer. Nell was actually sleeping though and Hester was wondering how on earth she could move the child without waking her when the problem was taken out of her hands.

‘You sit still, gal, you look fair wore out. I’ll give the tiddler a lift.’ The speaker was a young woman, probably about Hester’s age. She had thick, streaky brown-blonde hair, rosy cheeks, almost black eyes and a wide, friendly smile. She was also strong; she lifted Nell and her chair to one side, pulled the empty chair out of its place, shifted everything along and replaced Nell again, all in one swift, practised movement.

‘Thank you ever so much,’ Hester whispered. ‘She’s crushed her fingers, I don’t want to wake her until I must.’

‘Oh, so the kid’s the patient, is she?’ The girl looked hard at Hester. ‘You look poorly yourself, gal.’

‘I’m just tired,’ Hester said. ‘And I’ve got a cough. But Nell’s fingers are badly crushed.’

‘Kids mend good,’ the girl said. ‘When you see the doc you want to mention that cough, gal. No point wastin’ a bob. I doubt he’ll charge you more for two than he would for one; he’s a good feller, Dr Burroughes.’

‘I might mention it,’ Hester conceded, as her new friend settled herself once more. ‘I’m not usually this tired. I ache, and … but why are you here? You look very well, if you don’t mind my saying so.’

The girl smiled again and stuck out a square, sun-tanned hand, the wrist covered in rather grubby bandage.

‘I am well, except for my wrist. I did it in a week
back,’ she said cheerfully. ‘We’d better interduce ourselves if we’re going to sit here chattin’. My name’s Barbie Grace Allingham; what do they call you and the littl’un?’

‘I’m Hester Makerfield,’ Hester said. She had reverted to her maiden name, feeling that she had no right now to call herself Coburn. Besides, it would make her harder to trace. ‘And this is my daughter, Nell.’

‘Nice to meet you,’ Barbie said. ‘In fact …’ she lowered her voice, though no one in the waiting room seemed to be taking the slightest notice, ‘… In fact, between ourselves, I’m not the only patient I’m tekin to the doc’s. See my bag?’

Hester had noticed the gladstone bag at her new friend’s feet. She nodded, looking curious.

‘Well, that ain’t luggage, nor yet shopping. It’s my livin’, you might say.’ Barbie looked hard at Hester. ‘Scared of animals, are you?’

‘I thought I saw it move a bit just now,’ Hester said. ‘No, I’m not scared, I like ’em. What is it? A dog? cat?’

‘I’ll show you,’ Barbie said. ‘The old feller’s not too brave, he’ve got a bit of eye trouble. Doc’ll give me some ointment when he checks my wrist, he’s real good like that. Got more sense than most vets, I tell you straight.’

As she spoke she was unfastening the bag, giving Hester a look loaded with mischief as she did so. Hester, leaning forward, saw what looked rather like a couple of fat and bulgy bicycle tyres piled in into a pyramid and then, on top of the pyramid, she saw a small, spade-shaped head and a pair of bright, reptilian eyes.

‘It’s a
snake
,’ Hester whispered, choking on the first laugh she had had for months. ‘You’ve got a big snake in that bag!’

Barbie nodded, grinning. ‘That’s it, that’s Phillips. Want to give him a stroke? Some folk can’t bear ’em,
mind; I know that. In fact my feller, John, he’ve got a thing about snakes. Won’t let ’em near nor by. Which, as you can imagine, makes life awkward for me right now. Go on, stroke him.’

Hester leaned forward and put her hand cautiously into the bag. The snake’s skin felt smooth yet she could also feel the slight roughness of scales. And it was warm, not cold. She remembered a grass snake which Nell had brought in once; that had not repelled her either, she had thought it both beautiful and strange, neither slimy nor frightening. But Matthew had not liked the snake at all. He had shouted at them for bringing it in and his face had gone quite white when Nell had picked it up and walked past him to the back door.

‘Gosh,’ she murmured, ‘he’s big, isn’t he? He must be a weight.’

‘Aye, he’s eight foot long and he weighs getting on for a stone, I guess,’ Barbie confirmed, closing the bag and fastening it down again. ‘I’m with the fair on the Tuesday market place – I’m Barbie the Barbarian, the snake woman. I wrestle with old Phillips here twice nightly, mat’nees at weekends. Only not with a broken wrist, I don’t.’

‘Gosh,’ Hester said again. She eyed her companion with considerable interest. ‘Who’s wrestling with him now then?’

‘No one. That’s a strange old thing, but most folk seem scared to touch Phillips, let alone wrestle. Still, we’ve movin’ on in a few days, going farther into Norfolk. Perhaps I’ll get someone to take my place there.’

‘We’re moving on, too,’ Hester said, all her tiredness flooding back. ‘Not that I really want to, but …’

Suddenly the whole story came tumbling out; leaving her home because of the men’s threats, getting work, losing it, feeling pursued, arriving in Lynn and now having to leave because of Mr Hicksome’s behaviour. Every now and again someone emerged from
the surgery and they all moved up a seat but Hester scarcely noticed. It was so good to share her troubles with someone her own age, so good to talk openly of her fears and doubts. She found she was feeling better just for the experience and when Barbie nudged her at last and said, ‘Your turn now, gal,’ she was almost disappointed.

‘Come on Nell, darling,’ she said, gently shaking her daughter awake. ‘We’re going to see the doctor now, he’ll make your poor fingers well again.’ She turned to Barbie. ‘Thank you for your company,’ she said formally. ‘You’ve been ever such a help.’

The doctor proved as helpful and sympathetic as Barbie had implied. He was middle-aged, grey-haired, weary, but he unwrapped the filthy piece of towelling with surprising gentleness, then put his head out of the door and called his wife in.

‘Can you dress the young lady’s fingers while I have a word with her mother, my dear?’ he said. ‘I won’t keep her long, but she’s got a nasty cough.’

Nell went out happily with the doctor’s wife, perhaps because Mrs Burroughes was a sweet-faced, motherly woman but more likely because she had promised Nell a piece of fudge when the ordeal was over. Hester, sitting on the chair opposite the big desk with Dr Burroughes behind it, fumbled in her purse, but the doctor stayed her with a wag of the head.

‘Don’t worry about payment yet,’ he advised her. ‘How long have you had that cough?’

‘All winter,’ Hester said. ‘I don’t seem able to throw it off, doctor. And I’m most awfully tired.’

‘Just slip your coat off and jump on to my couch,’ the doctor said, taking off his glasses and pinching the bridge of his nose for a moment as though they hurt him. ‘I’ll take a look at you while you’re here. No harm in giving you a check-up.’

Hester took off her coat and climbed on to the examination couch, which was covered in prickly horsehair. She looked anxiously at the doctor as he loomed over her.

‘Nell’s fingers – are they very bad? Will they heal?’

‘There are no bones broken, it’s just bruising and abrasions. They’re very swollen, but they’ll go down as the bruising fades. Now take a deep breath, Mrs Makerfield, and hold it while I listen to your chest.’

Thirty minutes later Hester came limply out of the surgery and Barbie stood up.

‘Don’t you go runnin’ off, gal,’ she said fiercely. ‘Just you sit there and wait for me. I’ve got an idea.’

‘He wants me to go to hospital,’ Hester muttered. ‘I don’t know what to do … He says if I don’t I’ll get worse and worse. I’ve got to get Nell, I can’t …’

‘I’ll have a word with the doc, explain you’re in a bit of a pickle, but you’re to
wait
,’ Barbie said, giving Hester’s arm a shake. ‘Say you’ll still be here when I come out, do I won’t go in!’

‘I’ll wait,’ Hester said with a watery smile. ‘I’ve got to get Nell, though; she’s with Mrs Burroughes.’

Nell was perched on a stool eating toast and honey and chattering to the doctor’s wife. Her fingers were swathed in clean white bandages and someone had washed her face and brushed her hair. She looked almost respectable, almost happy.

Mrs Burroughes looked up as Hester came into the room. ‘Ah, here’s your mother,’ she said. ‘A slice of toast, Mrs Makerfield?’

Worried though she was, Hester’s watering mouth had said ‘Yes, please’, before she remembered that she had been threatened with hospital, that she should be running. And once she was eating it, and drinking the cup of strong tea which Mrs Burroughes pushed into her
hand, sitting in the comfortable kitchen chair before the stove … well, it seemed easier to tell Mrs Burroughes that the doctor had given her a note for the hospital, but that she simply did not know what to do.

‘I was working as cook-housekeeper for a Mr Hicksome, who lives in Old Market Street,’ she explained. ‘But we’ve left there and now we don’t even have a roof over our heads, so how I could go into hospital and leave Nell I can’t imagine.’

‘I think that can be arranged,’ Mrs Burroughes said comfortably. ‘Now what operation did the doctor recommend, my dear?’

‘He said it was nothing much, just a couple of stitches. I’ve got a – a prolapse,’ Hester said. ‘He thinks, after Helen was born, that things didn’t go quite right and it’s got steadily worse. It’s why my back aches all the time, he says, and why I’m so tired.’

‘Well then, you’ve got to go into hospital for a day or so,’ Mrs Burroughes said practically. ‘We have a spare room with a comfortable bed in it; Nell is welcome to stay with me while you are in hospital, and you are welcome to come here for a few days until you are fully recovered. Would that solve your problem?’

‘It would be so wonderful, but how can I trespass on your kindness to the extent of leaving Nell with you?’ Hester stammered, very confused. How kind some people could be, as good as others could be bad. She turned to her daughter, now drinking milk and only lifting her face from the mug to beam at her mother. ‘What do you say, darling? Would you like to stay with Mrs Burroughes for a day or two?’

‘While you’re in hospital being made better again?’ Nell said. There are no flies on my daughter, Hester thought with affectionate pride, she’s been listening to every word even when she was up to her eyes in honey and seemed engrossed in her own thoughts. ‘I’d like to
stay in this house with you,’ she ended, turning towards her hostess.

‘She’s a big help,’ Hester ventured. ‘And once I’ve had the operation I’m sure I could manage. If you could keep her though, while I’m in hospital, it would make all the difference.’

‘Then that’s settled; you’ll take the note in tomorrow morning, early, and probably be out the next day. Ah, here comes the doctor; I think you were one of his last patients.’

‘Yes, the girl next to us was last,’ Hester was beginning, when the kitchen door opened.

Barbie stood there, her bag in her arms.

‘Good gal; you waited,’ she announced. ‘Evenin’, Mrs Burroughes, the doc won’t be a minute. He’s give me ointment for Phillips’s eye and a telling off like you wouldn’t believe. But we had a laugh together.’

‘What mischief are you up to this time, Barbie?’ Mrs Burroughes said. She turned to Hester. ‘Barbie’s family always over-winter in Lynn. Did she tell you she came from the fair?’

‘Yes, she did. And you told me what was in your bag, didn’t you, Barbie?’ Hester said. ‘Mrs Burroughes is going to keep an eye on Nell and have her stay here while I have a small operation. After that …’

‘After that, if you like, you can come wi’ us,’ Barbie said decidedly. ‘Look, someone’s got to mind Phillips for me while my wrist’s queer. I’ll teach you all the business and fair folk is friendly folk. And you in’t scared of snakes, for a miracle. I reckon you could do what I do as easy as easy.’