The Judge's Daughter (2 page)

Meek as a kitten, Fred allowed himself to be placed in the passenger seat of Sam Entwistle’s van. ‘I’m not right,’ he said softly when Sam was seated beside him.
‘I’m half here, half there and half no-bloody-where.’

‘That’s three halves.’

‘I know. See what I mean?’

The fact that Fred had insight into his own condition was the biggest cruelty, Sam mused as he turned the vehicle into Derby Street. Yet there was hope, because this was not senile dementia
– it was the aftermath of a bleed and the man would come good. ‘See, Fred, you weren’t well at all. You were a fighter, and you survived. Look – you’ve got your
talking back and you can shift on your feet better than most your age. Another few months and you’ll be right as rain in the memory department. It’ll stop. I promise you – this
carrying-on will stop.’

The passenger nodded. ‘I blinking well hope so, son. I wait for our Agnes to come home from school – she’s been working for years and she’s married. I do daft things like
this – going to work, getting on buses and throwing stuff out – I’m bloody puddled half the time.’

‘But the other two halves of the time, you’re all right. Takes a while, old son. My dad had a stroke and he never walked again. Be patient. You’re doing all right, believe
me.’

Fred was cross with himself. He knew full well what had happened – hadn’t it all been explained in the hospital? A stroke meant all kinds of things and he could walk and talk well,
could behave properly for most of the time. ‘In me pyjamas again,’ he pronounced morosely.

‘At least you’re not naked and frightening the horses.’ Sam pulled up at Fred’s front door. ‘Now, listen to me. Find something to do with your hands – make
toys or furniture or whatever you feel like. Your head’s got a broken wire in – like a telephone that doesn’t carry the message. There’s things you’ve got to relearn,
you see. And you’re one of the lucky ones – you’re not flat on your back or in a wheelchair. Get busy. Keep yourself occupied, that’s my motto. It’s the only way to
stay out of the graveyard, old lad.’

Fred entered the house and inhaled deeply. It smelled of death. His good old girl was on her way out. He’d been married to Sadie forever, and she was leaving him. He should have been
looking after her. He should have been looking at the card propped next to the clock, a white background bearing the numbers 1964 in large black print. Agnes had put that there to remind him of the
year. There was a list somewhere – the Prime Minister and other stuff that didn’t matter. Tory or Labour, they were all the bloody same, in it for what they could get out of it. He
smiled wryly; some things were impossible to forget. Somewhere inside himself, Fred remained as angry and positive as ever.

Sadie was on morphine now. She didn’t laugh any more, didn’t talk to him; she just lay there till a nurse came to clean her up and try to get some fluids into her. Cancer. He hated
that word. It meant crab, and crabs owned sharp claws. ‘Sadie,’ he whispered sadly. His wife needed to die. That was another bit of sense he had retained – the ability to judge
when a person had taken enough. And his Sadie had taken well more than enough.

She was in the downstairs front room. Denis and a neighbour had brought the bed down; Fred slept alone in a contraption that felt like an ex-army cot, just canvas stretched over a metal frame.
‘But I’m alive,’ he accused himself. ‘And I have to learn . . .’ Learn what? How to be a human being, how to get from morning till night? Hadn’t he been doing
that for over seventy years? Did he have to go back to Peter and Paul’s nursery, start all over again?

Agnes would be home from school soon. No, that was wrong – she would be home from work. He had to behave himself, must make sure that he didn’t . . . Tin of polish. Had he paid for
it? Where was it, anyway? He was stupid. Then he remembered Sam Entwistle pushing something into a pocket of the decaying overalls and he plunged his hand inside. It was there. ‘I
remembered,’ he breathed. He could go and pay for it, could complete the errand. They could call him daft if they wanted, but he was going to show them.

After looking in on his wife, he set forth to pay his debt to Eva Hargreaves. At the same time, he would buy a notebook. ‘I’ll write everything down,’ he said to himself.
‘That road, I’ll have half a chance of remembering to be normal.’

Normal. What the blinking heck did that mean and who had decided? Normal was having no weak blood vessels in the brain, no cancer, a full memory. He could see the war all right – his war,
the war to end all wars. Jimmy Macker blown into a thousand pieces, flesh and bone everywhere, corpses stacked beneath mud in endless miles of trenches. But he couldn’t remember the current
days, weeks and months; was not
normal
.

Jimmy MacKenzie, usually known as Macker. Aye, he could see him now, cheeky grin, stolen silver cigarette case twinned with a silver matchbox, both taken from a body in a trench. That daft smile
had been blown away with the rest of Jimmy and with a million others, all ploughed in now, all gone from mud to dust.
Alice in Wonderland
. He had read that to Agnes a few weeks – no
– a few years back. Cheshire cat. The grin remained when tail, body and whiskers disappeared. Macker’s grin had lodged itself into Fred’s mind, clear as crystal . . . Poor
Macker.

But what had Fred eaten for breakfast? Did it matter? Was breakfast important enough to be remembered? Yes, he would write everything in a notebook. Eva sold notebooks and pencils, didn’t
she? It was the only way to learn. He could copy the date from the newspaper at the top of a page. He would make a note of every damned thing he did, ate and said. Sadie needed him. She
didn’t talk, but he felt sure she knew when he was there. He must spend more time with his wife and less time wandering about in pyjamas. There was probably a law about pyjamas in the street.
Blessed government – they all wanted shooting.

Glenys Timpson was cleaning her windows again. Oh, he remembered her all right. She stoned her steps and cleaned her outside paintwork several times a week, because she couldn’t bear to
miss anything. She was a curtain-twitcher and a gossip. That hatchet face was not something that could be forgotten.

‘Fred Grimshaw?’ There was an edge of flint to her tone.

He stopped, but offered no greeting.

‘You pinched a tin of polish from Eva’s shop before. I were there. I watched you pocket it and run.’

‘And I’m going back to pay for it.’ He was glad she had reminded him, as he still needed to acquire his memory notebook and the polish was not at the front of his mind any
more.

‘You should stop in the house,’ she snapped.

He took a step closer to the woman. ‘So should you. That scraggy neck’s grown inches with you poking your head into everybody’s doings. Mind your own business.’ Another
dim memory resurrected itself. ‘You could try keeping your lads sober for a kick-off.’ He marched away, head held high, the mantra ‘Pay for polish’ repeating in his head.
But there was triumph in his heart, because he had remembered that nosy neighbour. One of these days, she’d end up flat on her face and with no one to help her up.

Glenys Timpson, who declared under her breath that she had never been so insulted in all her born days, retreated into her domain. Eva was right – the old man was getting better. Or worse,
she mused, depending on a person’s point of view. Some folk thought they were a cut above their neighbours and that there Agnes Makepeace was one of that breed. Aye, well – pride came
before every fall.

Her lads weren’t drunkards. They liked a drink – especially Harry, who was an amateur boxer – but they didn’t go overboard unless it was a special occasion. Perhaps
special occasions were becoming more frequent, but she wasn’t having her lads tainted with the reputation of drunkards. She set the table angrily, throwing cutlery into place. Some folk
didn’t know when to keep their mouths shut. Some folk wanted teaching a lesson. It was time to have a word with Mrs Agnes Makepeace.

Fred entered the shop.

‘Hello, love,’ Eva began. She liked the man, had always had time for him and his loudly expressed opinions on most subjects. She could tell from his expression that he knew he had
done something wrong and was struggling to remember the sin.

He held up a hand. ‘I need help,’ he said bluntly. ‘Seems some of my memory got muddled while I was in the infirmary. I could do with a notebook and a pencil to help me make
lists of stuff. My brain’s got more holes than the cabbage strainer.’

Eva nodded. ‘I’ve some coloured pencils. You could write about different things in separate colours. You could use both ends of the book as well – important business at the
front and details at the back.’

‘Good idea,’ he said. ‘And you can take pay for that tin of polish.’ He had remembered the polish. This was a red-letter day, and he would mark it on the page in scarlet.
‘Funny how you remember things,’ he said. ‘It’s not the things themselves that come back right away – it’s a smell or a sound or some bit of detail. Like Jimmy
Macker’s smile. I’ll never forget his smile.’

Eva took money from his hand, counted it out, placed it in the till. ‘Fred?’

‘What?’

‘Did you use that polish at all?’

He frowned. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Do you know whether your Agnes needs polish?’

He had no idea.

She looked at the tin. ‘Tell you what – seeing as it’s you, I’ll take it back. That’ll save you money and it’ll save your Agnes worrying over where her new
tin of Barker’s came from. And you’ll get your book and pencils for the same price as the polish.’

‘Fair enough.’ With his coloured pencils and his stiff-backed notebook, Fred went home. He intended to sit next to his dying wife and write the date in red at the top of the first
page. Nothing was impossible. For the sake of his Sadie and his beloved granddaughter, Fred Grimshaw would carry on. There was life in the old dog yet.

The drain was blocked again.

Agnes, who had come to the end of her shortened tether, flung mop and bucket across the floor. Ernie Ramsden, nicknamed Ramrod by his staff, was too stingy to send for a plumber, so he would
deal with this himself. He would uncover the outside drain, piece his rods together and riddle about until he had shifted the offending item. Derby Street was about to smell like a sewage works
again, and the problem would return within days, but why should she worry? It was his pub, his stink, so he could get on with it, while she would clean elsewhere in the building.

In the bar, she picked up polish and duster and began to work on the tables. Ramsden came in. ‘Have you done the men’s already?’ he asked.

‘Blocked,’ she answered tersely. If he wanted to go poking about in ancient drains, that was his privilege.

‘Are you sure?’

Agnes shrugged. ‘There’s stuff all over the floor and nothing goes down. When I flushed, the place flooded. The women’s isn’t much better. So yes, it’s happened
again. You need a plumber.’

‘Brewery wouldn’t stand for that,’ replied the landlord.

‘And if something isn’t done, your customers won’t stand for it, either. They won’t be able to stand, because they’ll be overcome by fumes. Every time you lift the
pavement cover, folk start crossing over to the other side of the road. You’re becoming a health hazard. Will the corporation not help with this mess before people start ending up in
hospital?’

Ernie Ramsden shook his head. ‘Nay. Trouble is, the blockage is here, under the pub. Not the town’s property.’

Agnes stopped polishing. Several months, she’d worked here. It was part time and it was driving her part mad. But there was little she could do about it, because the hours suited her.
Looking after aged grandparents meant that she couldn’t take a full time job, so she came here every day and, at least once a week, needed her wellington boots so that she could wade through
excrement and lavatory paper. ‘Up to you,’ she said before resuming her attack on a circular table. ‘I can’t do any more.’

Ernie stood for a few moments and watched Agnes at work. She was a corker, all right. Denis Makepeace was a lucky fellow, because his wife was built like a perfect sculpture – rounded,
ripe and strong. She was a good worker, too. She did her job, invited and offered few confidences, then rushed home to see to her elders. ‘How’s the family?’ he asked.

‘All right,’ came the dismissive response.

The landlord sighed before retreating to his living quarters.

They were a long way from all right, mused Agnes as she placed a pile of ashtrays on the counter. Nan was dying of cancer, while Pop, who had been the old lady’s chief carer, was fighting
for the right to return from a world all his own. Only last week, he had been marched home by a bus conductor, a female whose vehicle had remained stationary for at least ten minutes at the top of
Noble Street. Agnes could still hear the woman’s shrill voice. ‘Can you not keep him in? He’s no right to be on a public vehicle in his dressing gown and carpet slippers. Said he
were on his way to catch the train to Southport – and his train ticket were nobbut a label off a condensed milk tin. I can’t be leaving the bus to bring him home all the
while.’

Agnes swallowed hard while she wondered what Pop had got up to today. She’d locked the front door, but he needed to get out into the yard for the lavatory, so the back door was on the
latch. Into the open drain beneath the tippler, he had thrown his lower denture, a week’s worth of newspapers, one brown shoe and, she suspected, an antimacassar taken from the front room. It
was probably Pop’s fault that the area’s drains were getting blocked. No, it couldn’t be him. The stoppage was the sole property of Ernie Ramsden and the Dog and Ferret.

‘I’ll just have a go meself,’ muttered Ernie as he struggled past with his rods. He was always having a go himself and he knew that the problem was way beyond the reach of his
rods.

Agnes prayed that she had left no matches in the house. Pop needed to be separated from anything combustible or sharp. Knives were wrapped in sacking on the top shelf of her wardrobe. What a way
to live. If she’d been one for visitors, she would have needed to excuse herself in order to fetch an implement with which to cut cake. But few people came to the Makepeace house.
Denis’s work took him away from home for many hours – and who wanted to sit with a poor old woman and a mad old man?