Someone Special (53 page)

The trouble was, he was also a disappointed man. Ariadne, Ted’s previous assistant, was tall, redhaired, beautiful … and had moved in with Sammy Scarface, who owned the Whale Scenic and was the nastiest, as well as the richest, showman on the gaff. Sammy had decreed that no wife of his was working for anyone else, so poor Ted was suffering all the pangs, not only of unrequited love, but of seeing the object of his desire apparently quite happy to be mistreated by another man. Which was why he had advertised for a dark girl to take Ariadne’s place. He could not bear the thought of working with another redhead.

Because Marushka’s fair over-wintered in Tunbridge Wells, Ted had advertised at Christmas, thinking that his new assistant would need the winter months to prepare himself for the act, and he was right. Nell had seldom seen a good illusionist – Gullivers had not run to such a thing – and had to be taught all the movements, facial expressions and so on before she could appear before an audience.

‘You’re a quick study though,’ Ted had said the
previous day. ‘You aren’t Ariadne, but the flatties will like you; there’s something about you …’

‘You mean I saw in half beautifully?’ Nell had asked, twinkling at him. But Ted, it appeared, was being serious.

‘Anyone can be sawn in half, Nell,’ he said, ‘but not everyone can make sure the flatties are watching her face all the while and not checking up on me.’

So the learning period had gone well and Nell, now the owner of her own spangly cloak and a shimmery bathing-suit with flesh-coloured tights, felt confident that she would not let Giovanni down when they took to the road.

Walking home to her lodgings on Mount Sion at dusk, with her jar of frogspawn tucked into the crook of her arm, Nell was wondering whether she would stay with Ted and Marushka’s or if this was just another staging post in her life, when she saw Ariadne coming across the common. She waved and Ariadne waved back and gestured.

‘Nell,’ she shouted, ‘telegram!’

Nell felt her heart break into a terrified gallop. A telegram! She had never received such a thing in her life, but had heard of them and knew they always brought bad news. Thoughts whizzed through her head; Philips must have crushed Hester, or Snip’s injuries were worse than he had implied. Something awful was about to hit her.

‘What is it?’ she panted, still clutching the frogspawn to her chest. ‘Is someone hurt? What’s happened?’

‘Dunno. Didn’t open it, but Ted said to come and find you,’ Ariadne said. ‘Here, take it.’ She thrust the small yellow envelope at Nell, then grabbed the jar of frogspawn just in time as Nell released it. ‘Steady, luv – telegram’s ain’t allus bad news.’

But she was wrong. Nell opened the envelope with shaking fingers and spread out the sheet; even in the dusk she could read it clearly enough:
NELL JACKS KILLED STOP CAN YOU COME QUESTION MARK YOUR LOVING HESTER

‘Nell, are you all right?’ Ariadne’s face swam for a moment as Nell struggled to adjust to the words on the sheet of paper. ‘You look awful – it’s bad news, then?’

‘Yes, I’ll have to go right away. My – my step-father’s been killed. Can you explain to Ted for me? Tell him I’ll be back as soon as I can get away.’

‘Right. I’ll go back to the tober, you go to your lodgings. What about this stuff? Is it jam?’ Ariadne flourished the jar.

‘No, it’s frogspawn; give it here, I’ll take it back to Amy, drop it off as I go. And thanks for bringing the telegram, Ariadne. Tell Ted I’m sorry.’

‘Your mam’s goin’ to need you, Nell,’ Ariadne called as Nell began to trot towards Mount Sion once again. ‘You won’t be back for a week or two, I wouldn’t be surprised, p’haps not ever.’

‘Yes, I could be a while,’ Nell shouted over her shoulder. She shot a backward glance at Ariadne and was surprised to find the other girl following her. ‘Can you stand in for me if necessary? Will Sam let you?’

‘He’ll have to; the show’s gotta go on,’ Ariadne said grandly. ‘TTFN, Nell, and good luck.’

Nell arrived in King’s Lynn in the early hours, having caught a milk train from London. She was stiff and cold after the long, slow journey but she warmed herself by walking briskly from the station to the gaff and knocked on the door of Ugly Jack’s trailer feeling worn out but at least human.

The lamp was burning so she guessed Hester had not gone to bed. Indeed, her mother answered the door so quickly that Nell suspected she had been waiting for her daughter’s arrival, probably ever since the telegram had been sent.

With the lamplight behind her, Hester was just a dark silhouette, but the light was shining into Nell’s face and
Hester gave a strangled sob and grabbed her daughter convulsively.

‘Nell, oh dearest Nell, I knew you’d come! Such a terrible thing … Jack was always careful, it was the ice … the tractor driver didn’t see him until it was too late, he put his brakes on but the tractor slid, the brakes didn’t grip or something. Jack tried to get out of the way and he slid too. The doctor says he didn’t know a thing, he was dead at once, he didn’t suffer.’

‘Thank God,’ Nell said fervently. ‘Mum, I’m so terribly sorry. Jack was one of the best.’

‘He was the best,’ Hester said. She slumped into one of the easy chairs beside the fire. ‘He put up with Phillips – he never liked snakes, you know – and saw my tent was always set up in good time. We never went short, me and Phillips, not even when things were at their worst. And, oh, Nell, I repaid him poorly!’

‘You never did, you were all he cared about, the only thing that really mattered to him,’ Nell said stoutly. ‘He loved you ever so much, Mum, you only had to look at him to see that.’ She looked hard at her mother’s tear-stained face in the lamplight. ‘Mum, when did you eat last?’

‘I don’t know … yesterday? We had breakfast, Jack had two eggs, I managed to get some from a farm up the road, I walked a couple of miles and sold the farmer’s wife a bag of honey-toffee … oh Nell, Nell, I’ve been a wicked, selfish person all my life and now I’m repaid! How can I go on living with what I’ve done?’

‘You’ve never done anything bad in your whole life, not on purpose,’ Nell said, falling to her knees by the chair and taking her mother’s shaking hands in her own. ‘You went without often so that I should have what a child needs, and I bet you never had an egg when Jack only had bread. You aren’t selfish, you’re the most unselfish person I know, and Jack loved you with all his heart. Now I’m going to put the kettle on and we’ll have a nice cup of tea
and you can tell me why you’re saying such wild, foolish things.’

Hester would have spoken, but Nell shook her head reprovingly. ‘No. Eat and drink first, then we’ll talk. I mean it, Mum. You’re in no state to explain anything right now.’

Hester heaved a great sigh and sank back in her chair. ‘All right,’ she said humbly. ‘I’ll eat and drink and then I’ll tell you what I’ve done and you’ll probably never want to speak to me again. I hate myself, I hate Hester bloody Coburn!’

Nell, slicing bread, stopped to glance at her mother in the flickering light of the oil lamp. Hester Coburn: what could that mean? Hester had called herself Makerfield for years now, ever since they had left Pengarth. What had made her, at this moment of pain and stress, revert to her old, despised name?

But Hester was gazing at the dying fire while slow tears coursed down her cheeks. She took no notice of Nell, who returned to her task then set in her mother’s lap a wooden tray with a plate of bread and honey and a mug of hot sweet tea.

‘There you are, Mum,’ Nell said, ‘eat that and drink your tea and then explain.’

Hester went on staring at the embers of the fire but her hand picked up the bread and honey and she began to eat, seeming not to notice when a thin trail of honey ran down her chin. Then, still without looking away from the fire, she drank the tea.

Nell made up the fire, poured herself a cup of tea and cut some more bread. Then she sat down opposite Hester with a slice of bread and butter in one hand. ‘All gone? Good. Now why are you blaming yourself for what cannot possibly be your fault?’

‘The accident, you mean? I’m not blaming anyone for that. It’s how I’ve treated dear Jack all these years …
never marrying him though I knew what a lot it would mean to him, never … oh, Nell love, never telling him how much I loved him, and I do love him, I do!’

‘I expect lots of people never tell someone else how much they love them,’ Nell said uncertainly. ‘I expect he knew anyway, Mum. Deeds speak louder than words, and though you didn’t marry you’ve lived together for a long time, and always happily.’

She smiled at her mother, but Hester was shaking her head mournfully, fresh tears glistening on her cheeks. ‘No, you don’t understand! I never, in all that time, let the words “
I love you
” pass my lips, not once!’

‘Well, I’m sure dear Jack knew. Mum, you wouldn’t have lived with him if you hadn’t loved him.’

‘But I didn’t – live with him, I mean, not in the way you think.’

Nell had been about to take a drink of her tea; she lowered her cup, staring at her mother over the top of it, biting her lip.

‘You … you didn’t live with him? You mean you didn’t …’

‘We never slept in the same bed or made love,’ Hester said baldly. ‘We shared the trailer and we cuddled sometimes, but Jack said he understood. All that business … it always meant trouble you see, love, and I couldn’t face up to it, not again. Every now and then he’d ask, mind, very wistful, whether I felt I could … but I always said no, it was too soon.’

‘Too soon? When you’d shared the living wagon for a dozen years? Oh, Mum, that was …’

‘I told you you’d despise me, not want to have anything to do with me,’ Hester said thickly, through her tears. ‘D’you not think I despise myself? If only I could go back in time I’d give him everything he wanted, everything. But it’s too late. He’s gone and he’s never heard the words “I love you” on my lips nor lain with me.’

Nell sipped her tea in silence, then stood the cup back on its saucer with a clatter.

‘All right, Mum, you never actually said you loved him and you never slept with him. But he didn’t strike me as a deprived or unhappy man, he seemed deeply content and very much in love. He
knew
you loved him, even if you’d not got round to saying it, and he knew you’d make love to him one day, when you felt the time was ripe. So don’t try to take on a guilt which would give Ugly Jack pain if he knew about it. Just be sorry he’s gone from you and glad he didn’t suffer. As for me, I know what you’ve done for my sake, how you’ve suffered. I was silly and babyish when you told me …’ her voice faltered, then strengthened, ‘… about Dan and me being related, but I’m sorry for it, now. Dan wants to be friends and that will suit me, and one day I’ll – I’ll meet a man who is right for me and we’ll marry and I just hope we’ll be as happy as you and Jack were.’

‘Darling Nell,’ Hester said. Her voice was slurred with exhaustion and the outpouring of emotion. ‘I know you’re right and I’ll do as you say. If you’ve finished your tea, we’d best go to bed. Tomorrow I’ve got to arrange the funeral.’

14

TWO DAYS AFTER
the funeral Hester called Nell in from the gaff, where she was talking to the jukels as she fed them scraps in their big, stoneware feeding trough. Nell, returning to the trailer, was surprised to see her mother dressed in a smart black coat and high-heeled shoes, with a bright scarf tucked round her neck and a black hat with a tiny veil perched over one eye.

‘What do you want, Mum? Are you going out? You look tremendously smart, a real swell.’

‘I’m going away,’ Hester said. ‘I’ll be away for a while. Will you keep an eye on things while I’m gone?’

‘Yes, of course, but where are you going? And why? I mean Ted’s been very good but he’ll want me to go back to Marushka’s as soon as I decently can so that we can practise the act.’

‘I – I don’t know how long I’ll be gone, but I’ll write as soon as I know what’s happening,’ Hester said slowly. ‘I wouldn’t ask you to hold the fort, but I can’t carry Phillips about with me any more, he’s too heavy, and as you know he’s valuable and can’t be left.’

‘Right,’ Nell said reluctantly. ‘I’ll stay until I hear.’

‘Thank you, darling.’ Hester had been standing by the trailer door; now she opened it and stepped outside. ‘I’ll keep in touch.’

‘Aren’t you going to tell me where I can contact you?’ Nell said, rather alarmed. Her mother’s initial self-blame and bitterness seemed to have evaporated and Nell had been congratulating herself that she would soon be able to return to Marushka’s, but this was an entirely unexpected development. ‘You can’t just walk out on me!’

She was half-laughing, but her mother returned to the trailer at once, her face serious.

‘You’re right, darling, you should know where I can be found. I’m going back to Pengarth.’

‘To
Pengarth
?’ Nell’s voice rose to something perilously akind to a squeak. ‘After all these years? Why on earth …?’

Hester came back into the trailer and sat on the edge of one of the chairs. After a moment’s hesitation, Nell sat, equally uneasily, on the other.

‘Why? I’m – I’m not sure. I think it’s because I know now how deeply I wronged Ugly Jack by refusing to let him show his love for me. And I got to thinking that I might have wronged Matthew too. He was a sick man when he threatened me, perhaps not even in his right mind. And I’m not afraid to go back now, not any more. What could they do to me, after all? If Matthew wanted to kill me once he won’t want to do it now, too much time has passed, and Mr Geraint can scarcely take you away from me – you went of your own accord when you joined the Land Army. So you see, I feel I owe it to Matthew to face up to things. He might be wanting a divorce, he might want to say he was sorry … Anyway, I’m going back.’

‘Have you ever thought that Matthew might have left, too? And Mr Geraint?’ Nell asked softly. ‘Time hasn’t stood still for any of us, Mum.’

‘I’ve thought. They could both be dead come to that. Mr Geraint was fifty-five when we left so he’s sixty-seven now. Even Matthew will be in his fifties. But I must
know
, Nell. I must try to put things right.’