The Longest Fight (22 page)

He wouldn’t meet her smile; he let his eyes search the grey street on the other side of the nets. Win clicked her heels
together. ‘There’s been talk of people coming and going. Men and women. Winifred and I don’t want that to be true.’

‘How is Mrs Bell?’

‘You live next door to her, John.’

Winifred touched a handkerchief to her nose with one hand, clutched the brooch in the other. He wanted to ram the white rag down her throat. No wonder she’d never cried when their dad’s inky hands slapped out: too afraid the neighbours might hear. Jack wouldn’t get the truth out of the Winnies even if he held the back of their legs to the burning stove. He saw them looking around the room, heads tilting, lips pressed tight; but if they noticed the soot outlines above the fireplace, square as the picture frames which had hung there for years, they never said a word.

He knew why they were there. ‘They don’t think it’s right you still living here with me, Pearl.’

‘Making money from Mother’s house – that’s not right either,’ Win piped up.

He was surprised he couldn’t hear the flap of their wings as they hovered inside the small room. ‘Never seemed so interested before.’

‘We tried after Mother’s funeral.’ Winifred laced her fingers together. ‘We offered Pearl a place to stay. We wanted to get her out of London.’

‘I had to come back home. Jack needed me.’

Pearl rubbed her palm on the table. A splinter poked from the side of her hand; he touched her shoulder to get her attention. Pearl sucked it out between her teeth.

‘But fighters in the house. And women –’

‘Not “women” – one lady. Pearl likes her.’

‘Please, don’t try to get the girl to defend you.’ Winifred tucked away the hanky with a sharp shake of her head. ‘Pearl isn’t old enough to understand the true implications of your actions. But understand our concern, John. The agreement, informal as it was, was that you and Pearl could stay here until such time as she was ready to move on.’

‘We’ve never pressed you on that. But it has been several years now. And to be making money behind our back, it simply isn’t fair.’ Win shook her head.

‘I don’t think it’s right for the child to hear all this, sister.’ Winifred’s feet sat firmly together.

‘Go and make that tea, there’s a dear.’ Win smiled and waved Pearl away. ‘Can she make tea with her condition?’

Jack didn’t want her to go; somehow her being in the room held them all in their place, and he was afraid of what they would do to each other if she wasn’t there to hear.

‘We’re out of tea.’

‘I can use the leaves left in the pot – they’ll do for another brew, Jack.’

‘They ain’t staying.’

He tightened the belt around his waist. There wasn’t a fighter Jack ever met who could cut him up and shred him into pieces the way his own family could. But he wasn’t a small boy any more; let them beg this time.

Winifred fixed her brown eyes on him. ‘We simply think it would be better for Pearl to move from here. Don’t you want her to have a chance?’

‘We ain’t ready to go yet.’ Jack inspected his fingers; he bit away the layer of dirt from the top of his missing thumbnail. ‘I’ve got deals coming off, but not quite yet.’

‘She isn’t a child any more. We have to plan for her future.’ Win patted her gloves and smoothed them into place on her knee. ‘With her affliction it may not be a very long future.’

‘I’ve got some numbness in my arms and legs. That don’t make me a cripple.’

Pearl, with her baby-fine hair and grey eyes… she was better than anything they could ever have to offer. They wanted to rush her out of that house in a flap of winter coats and fur-lined gloves. Jack would lose everything – no fight, no Frank without Pearl.

Winifred sat forward. ‘Pearl, wouldn’t you like to leave this place?’

‘It’s for the best, Pearl. A new start.’ Win smiled.

‘But we live here,’ she whispered to Jack.

‘Don’t worry about John. He doesn’t need another person getting under his feet. He said it himself – he’s a working man.’

Winifred held out her hand. But she couldn’t reach Pearl without falling off the chair. Jack was closer; he took hold of her belt.

‘Pearl belongs here.’

‘What about what I want?’ She brushed his hand away but stayed next to him in the doorway.

‘Of course, what is it the girl wants?’ Winifred nodded.

Jack opened his mouth but Pearl put a hand on his sleeve. ‘I want to stay. I’m happy here, and now there’s Frank…’

‘It’s happening all over again, sister.’ Win stretched out to grasp Winifred’s hand. ‘She wouldn’t stay if she knew.’

‘No, not if she knew.’

‘Knew what?’ Pearl braced herself against the doorframe.

‘The lies, John. Did you really think you could keep them all to yourself?’ Winifred twisted the brooch at her neck.

Jack scratched at his collar. He wanted her to stop fiddling with that black brooch; the more she twisted it, the more it felt like hands squeezing his own throat.

‘You heard her. She ain’t going back to Guildford with you.’

‘Of course not. We haven’t got the room in our small home. Times are hard for everyone.’ Win shook her head.

‘But we do have a share of this house too, John.’

He opened his fingers into a V, pointing at them both, as he lowered his voice, ‘Are you coming after me?’

He should have guessed – all they wanted was money. They would never be able to say it, not in that house when every creak of the floorboards and rattle of the windows could be
him
coming back from the Bible Factory.

Pearl turned towards him. ‘We’re staying here, ain’t we, Jack?’

‘The girl is poisoned against us already, sister.’

‘The vicar said we have to do what we think is right. It’s not too late for Pearl to have a life away from here.’ Winifred unfolded her coat.

‘I ain’t a baby.’

‘We should have kept her then, saved all this. Mother would be so disappointed in you, John. She was always too soft, covering for your lies.’ Win’s voice cracked a little. ‘We want our share of this house. Our mother provided for us.’

Our mother.
They knew. All these years and they’d just been waiting to throw a knockout blow. He lunged forward and grabbed the coats from their laps. ‘Get out. I’ll send you a bloody postal order.’

‘What about Mum? What they talking about?’ Pearl touched his elbow, but he couldn’t look at her.

Win rose out of the chair. ‘We tried to be pleasant.’

Winifred brushed down her skirt as she stood beside her sister. ‘We’re going to sell the house, John. Slum clearances are starting up all around here. We have to do it now before it’s too late. We want our two-thirds of the money.’

‘Why thirds? If there are two of us and two of them, they can’t make us go. Can they, Jack?’ Pearl was tugging on his sleeve now.

‘Don’t say it.’ Jack shook his head, offered up their coats with an open hand. ‘Don’t.’

‘It’s not your house, child.’ Winifred snatched the coats back from him.

‘The deeds still say Mum on them…’

The Winnies stared as Pearl tipped out the top drawer of the sideboard: wedding ring, papers, Dad’s souvenir Luger.
Pick a sister and fire,
that was what his dad said when Jack was nearly seven years old. But their dad was the only one laughing at the joke after Jack had clicked the trigger. He couldn’t remember which Winnie he chose.

He heard them suck in their breath, but Pearl only came towards them with a folded bunch of paper; she tapped at the
signature. ‘Look, her name. That means we all have a share, don’t it?’

‘Just get out of here.’ He pushed the Winnies towards the door. ‘I’ll be wanting to get rid of this stinking place soon anyway. You’ll both get your dues. Go on, get.’

He never should have touched that parrot, but them two – he wished that bloody gun had been loaded back then.

Winifred turned as she reached the front step, keeping herself inside the threshold. ‘She told us, John. Mum couldn’t take the lies to her grave.’

‘Why not? The rest of us fucking will.’ Jack lowered his face, pressed it close to hers.

‘What’s going on?’ Georgie stood at the top of the stairs, peering over the banister.

‘Don’t come down,’ Jack called back.

The Winnies shook their heads, clucking like birds, but he saw them trying to sneak a look at Georgie’s stockinged feet.

‘Tell me what you’re talking about!’ Pearl slapped the rolled-up deeds against the wall; Frank appeared behind her in the kitchen.

Jack wanted to press his hands over her ears, cover her eyes, but she was too big to pick up and carry away. The Winnies pulled their skirts straight, buttoned themselves up, pinned their hats in place, and stepped outside.

Winifred glanced behind her, checking the street before she spoke. ‘Only the three surviving children were named in Mother’s will…’

‘Legally a share of the house would only go to a grandchild after the death of their parent. Jack is still very much alive.’ Win nodded her head.

‘It’s most regrettable that you made us say these things, John.’

Jack turned and snatched the yellowing pages from Pearl’s hand. He still remembered them standing outside the aunt’s garden gate, smirking. He ripped the black brooch from Winifred’s throat, stabbed the pin through the paper
and into the green lining of her coat. The Winnies never even flinched.

‘Piss off. This is our place.’ His breath steamed.

‘It’s not the way we wanted things, John.’ Win sighed.

‘His bleeding name is Jack.’ Pearl reached forward and slammed the door, grabbed the banister and ran up the stairs. Frank darted after her, feet thumping against the steps.

‘Jack? Jack!’ Georgie kept calling his name.

It felt as if he’d been landed with a bolo punch to the gut: swallowing sharp gasps but no air getting in. He should have denied it, called them liars, but his dad had him too well trained:
fighting only makes it hurt worse, boy.
Jack pressed his palm to the wall, made his way through to the kitchen. He had kept Pearl with him for all those years but all that time he made her stay on the outside, the same as the Winnies did to him as a boy, keeping that garden gate closed between them; it must be rusted shut by now. Georgie followed him, stood by the dresser, blouse untucked and her slip on but no skirt.

‘I overheard it all, you know. Every word your sisters said.’

‘The ceiling ain’t finished yet.’

He picked his brush up from the pot, paint dribbled on to his hand. The colour reminded him of all those hospital rooms: listening to doctors rabbit on, watching nurses take blood, waiting to find out if he had broken Pearl the night he dropped that yellow bundle of wool at Albany Basin: the mud, the mossy cobbles, it had marked her too. He sank down on the back step.

‘Well, penny to the pound there’s never a good time to let out a secret like that.’ Georgie came up behind him, her shins pressed against his spine. ‘I should be angry, only I’d do better to think you would’ve told me some day. But I ain’t the big problem at the moment. What you going to say to Pearl?’

A bedroom door slammed, shaking the glass in the windows.

‘Later, after I’ve done out here…’

The breath ran out of him, whistling between his teeth. He felt light as if he could float up after those gnats. Jack leaned his head against the doorframe, hair sticking in the paint. The walls inside were drying lighter than he thought, brightening up to the same grey as Pearl’s eyes.

T
he scar on Pearl’s leg has shrunk to a pink, gathered line; the weeks have passed but they are back at the hospital. The doctor is talking at Jack but there is a crack in the left side of his glasses: why can’t the doctor see it, and what else might he have missed? The doctor pauses, folds his hands on the leather-covered desk; he is waiting for some answer. Jack nods his head as if he understands. The room is full of dust, thick sheets of it cover the high window, and the doctor’s pale hair looks as if it is coated in it; blackout curtains, tape across the glass, left in place even though the war is over now.

The doctor beckons Pearl. She doesn’t move, and Jack has to roll his shoulder to shift her upright; it leaves a cold patch at his side as Pearl goes behind the desk.

The doctor takes hold of Pearl’s arm, hauls her closer as if he is drawing the curtains. Jack sits up in the chair, grips his knees. The doctor picks up a paper straw and cuts it in half; he holds Pearl’s small chin in place with his thumb and sticks the straw up her nose. One test has led to another and another, Jack can’t even remember how many. But this is the worst. It doesn’t hurt, he knows that much, but Jack recognises the look on her face: the same red shame burned him up after each run-in with his dad. The doctor moves the straw, talking all the time. Pearl stands perfectly still; he wishes now he hadn’t promised her a comic if she behaved. Why doesn’t she pull away, make a noise at least? The doctor drones on, all nasally as if he has a cold; maybe someone should stick a straw up
his
nose.

‘As you see, as all our tests have shown, there is nothing demonstrably wrong with the nervous system, Mr Munday. The nerves appear to be conducting signals normally but the body is not interpreting this as pain.’

Jack wishes the doctor would stop calling her
the body
; she was right next to him a minute ago, tugging on the ends of the plaits either side of her head. His mum has dressed her in her best green pinafore and matching green cardigan. Jack shifts on the hard wooden chair and stares at the hanging skeleton in the corner. Funny that underneath they are all the same: him, that doctor in the knitted waistcoat and thick-rimmed spectacles, all of them. Pearl glances up and blinks heavily and the straw drops out a little lower; it is her signal that she wants to leave. She is only eight, but Jack wonders how much she understands.

‘She is of normal intelligence. The body has good muscle strength but numbness to the skin, especially the arms.’ The doctor sits back in his chair. ‘If, as you say, there is no family connection, then we could suppose it was as a result of a trauma to the head, or an infection. Are you sure there has been no such incident?’

Pearl presses a finger to her nostril, blows the straw out of her nose. Jack shakes his head. His mum made him promise that he wouldn’t tell the doctors about Pearl’s
little accident
– how she refers to that night at Albany Basin. Jack taps his foot against the desk, click click, in time to the clock over the bookcase.

‘So what you’re saying is, you don’t know nothing?’

‘No, on the contrary. We know what it is. As I told you there is even a name for it, if you remember. Idiopathic neuropathy.’

‘Idiopathic neuropathy,’ Pearl parrots as she chews on the straw.

Jack nods. Fucking doctors. That’s what he gets for pawning everything he owned, and selling off his only fighter too: a name. He can’t very well admit he hasn’t been listening
now, and the old fool is looking at him, eyebrows drawn together, nostrils flared, as if Jack is the one with the problem.

‘It is not so rare as one might suppose. It could strike any of us at any time, given the correct correlation of events. She is more fortunate than some. She has limited sensations at least. Support shoes to prevent curling of the toes will need to be made. Careful monitoring for blisters on the hands and feet will need to take place. But I am afraid, as yet, there is no definitive treatment.’ He wipes the glasses on the edge of his tie; they are covered with dust now too.

‘No tablets, nothing you can give her?’

Jack glances at Pearl: her cardigan buttons are fastened wrong, one ribbon hangs undone. She studies a pair of pigeons on the windowsill, shuffling closer together as buses rumble past, pecking at the moss-covered stone.

‘Of the cases reported, not all make it into adulthood, but those are the acute cases. I would advise a watchful eye when caring for this one. Breaks can become infected, as can blisters, grazes. Boiling water can burn internally –’

‘She’ll outlive us all.’ Jack shakes his head, blocks the doctor out. His mum is already looking at Pearl strange, making her bath scalding to see if she notices –
shock her into feeling,
is what his mum says. She refuses to go to the hospital, thinks Jack is making a big fuss about nothing, that the doctors have got it wrong: only she knows how to take care of Pearl.

‘There are a lot of things to be aware of.’ The doctor unclips his fountain pen and goes back to the chart in front of him. ‘Bring her back for a yearly check-up. My first case of this kind. I will be interested to monitor any deterioration.’

He disappears behind the paper, holding it close to his face. He wants them gone by the time he looks up. Jack has been through this before: so many waiting rooms with tightly packed chairs, so many doctors with short trimmed hair and round glasses. Maybe his mum is right about the doctors. Pearl is already waiting by the door, clicking her heels and holding out her hand.

‘What are you going to tell Mum?’ She walks in front of him down the corridor. ‘What about school?’

Heavy raindrops impact against the skylights like a fist. They are going to get soaked.

‘Didn’t you hear the doctor? Ain’t nothing wrong with you.’ He wipes away the thin little plait that brushes his hand. ‘Doctors don’t know nothing. Life might have been easier if I hadn’t felt a few things.’

‘So, I’m all better.’ She pivots and smiles.

‘There are things you’re going to have to do. I want you to promise me you’ll check yourself every day. I’m going to get you a first aid tin and I want you to carry it round.’ He puts a hand on her shoulder.

‘Why? You or Mum can do that.’ She slips away, skipping ahead, raising her knees to her chest.

‘You have to look out for yourself in life, Pearl.’ His voice echoes around the half-tiled walls.

‘Why?’

She skips back to him. She never stops moving, it makes Jack dizzy spending too long with her.

‘Because no one else gives a fu…’ He swallows down those words. ‘No one else can do it as well as you. You’re good at taking care of things, ain’t you?’

She nods, and tugs on his sleeve. ‘I’m going to tell you a secret.’

He lowers his head. She cups her hands around his ear, blocking out the thump of the rain above them.

‘I told the nurse with the red hair that you’re my dad.’

She laughs and runs on, the bar-strap of her brown leather shoes flapping free. It’s just a word she has heard, repeated in the classroom, shouted across the street:
wait until your dad gets home.
But he finds it hard to straighten his back, feels as if he is carrying her on his shoulders. The cartilage in his knees creaks as he stands upright. She holds out her arms and tries to walk along the grouting lines around the tiles; she travels in a square, in a rectangle until she is pressed against a
wall. She waves. That word will bubble up again one day. She might think back on this moment in the corridor and wonder –
did he do something to give it away, did he want to wrap his arms around me and claim me even just a small bit?
But he doesn’t have any right to think that way; he’s never done anything to deserve the word ‘dad’.

Pearl disappears into another corridor. Jack runs after her, gripping the wall as he takes the corner. ‘Get off there.’ He lifts her from the banister. ‘If you don’t see no one else doing it, don’t do it yourself.’

She hops quietly beside him as they go down the stairs. But he is glad there are some things that will never make her sob, never make her hug her arms around herself and rock. He won’t tell his mum everything the doctor said; no point worrying her. Pearl is never ill – small and thin maybe but she always heals, always bounces back: the dog bite, the twisted ankle, burned hands, grazes, cuts, bruises.
Indestructible
is what Jack calls her.

The red-haired nurse comes out of the door at the bottom of the stairs. Pearl slips out of reach, laughing as she sprints past.

‘Wait inside, Pearl.’

The nurse is pretty in a young sort of way, padded around the face and small hands. Her fingers rub against the edge of a paper file, squashed up against her chest. ‘She’s a lively one, your daughter.’

Those words make Jack’s neck itch. His nails dig in; the sound vibrates in his ear. The rain has stopped, through the double doors just ahead, sunlight pokes between the patterned glass.

‘She’s my sister.’

‘Oh, I thought she said…’

He doesn’t want to be here any more: the echo, the stink of carbolic. He keeps walking. The nurse follows beside him, marching quickly as if she has places to be. The grey paint in the corridor isn’t thick enough to cover the cracks in the wall.

‘Dad’s dead. I help out.’

He holds open the door; a bus huffs and puffs, pigeons coo around an old man with a brown bag of breadcrumbs. Pearl waves from the bottom of the steps, kicking up puddles. The nurse smiles, her blue eyes going soft around the edges as if she might cry.

‘So, like a father, then.’

‘No, nothing like that.’ Jack lets the doors swing shut behind him.