Kitabı oku: «Hunter’s Moon»
ALEXANDRA CONNOR
Copyright
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
Copyright © Alexandra Connor 2001
Alexandra Connor asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780006513520
Ebook Edition © FEBRUARY 2016 ISBN: 9780007400911
Version: 2016–01–13
Dedication
This book is dedicated to my sister Diana Brierley-Jones. Love you, kiddo – but I still haven’t forgotten the marshmallow …
Epigraph
Hunter’s moon – the moon following the harvest moon.
Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
Part One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Part Two
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Part Three
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Part Four
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
Chapter Sixty-Two
Chapter Sixty-Three
Chapter Sixty-Four
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Also by the Author
About the Publisher
Prologue
1911
It took a moment for him to realise what he had done. A second spent staring at the dead woman, then a quick glance upwards to the bedrooms. Outside the sky was coming into moonlight, a horse stamping its feet in the driveway and whinnying with impatience. He turned down the gaslights. Then he saw a figure silhouetted in the doorway.
Panic made him fling open the window next to him and climb out, then run down the lawn towards the drive without daring to look back. Breathing heavily, he headed towards the road leading down to Oldham. A couple of men passed him and nodded automatically. He was known, a man of importance. Their superior. They would remember seeing him … He stopped, watched them pass. Then as soon as he heard their footsteps die away he started running again.
The moon – a hunter’s moon – had now risen and he thought fleetingly how it would sneak under the blinds back at the house and fall across the carpet. It would glow, melancholic, on every surface, wiping its yellow feet on everything it touched.
He stopped; looked round. He would get away. But where? He had nowhere to go. This was his town, his home. This was where his family was … Sweating, he leaned against the wall of an alleyway, limp with terror. Calm yourself, he thought, be calm. It was a mistake, a mistake. You can get over this, you can live with this. Unexpectedly, an uncanny peace came over him. He could do it, he would blot it out, put it up on a shelf at the back of his memory and leave it there.
He began to walk again. Yes, he could live with it. All he had to do was to close down his conscience, find a way to stop the sickness welling up. He had thought fleetingly of giving himself up – but how could he explain what he had done? How he had lost control and hit out – and then kept hitting.
They would go to the house and see that it had been no accident, no random blow, but a concentrated violence of blows. A determined intent to kill.
At first, they wouldn’t believe it of him. Not him.
You have to forget it, he willed himself. But the calm had gone and in its place was the knowledge that he could never forget it. Oh Jesus, he breathed, oh Jesus …
He could never go home. Never go back. He would run instead, and hide and hope they never caught him. But at night, every night, he knew he would replay what he had done. Over and over.
He kept running, but even now he could hear and see her on the flagstones and cobbles. Every lamp carried her eyes in its light; every bush and wall he passed, her figure.
And overhead the wide yellow hunter’s moon tracked him and illuminated every step of the useless, hopeless way.
Part One
Chapter One
1915
Barely thirteen yards from the railway viaduct stood the sour corner building of the children’s home. It had been built in the 1830s to house the abandoned or orphaned offspring of the industrial towns Oldham and Salford. The smaller, surrounding semirural villages like Dobcross, Diggle, Uppermill and Failsworth were poor, populated with mill and pit workers, but an illegitimate child there was usually assimilated into the extended family. Often, daughters caught out had their bastard offspring raised as their sibling. As for the incest, that was a brewing undercurrent in the worst slums, but those unlucky offspring were also soaked into the family, unsure of their parentage and belligerent with the outside world.
But in the larger towns, like Oldham and Salford, there was not the same tightly meshed community. It was not uncommon for an infant to be abandoned on the stone steps of the Netherlands Orphanage, without even a name to call its own. These were the forgotten children, often sickly, frequently little more than a day or so old.
It was no real secret where these children came from: most were the casualties of streets like Grimshaw Street, or the notorious area called The Bent. From the 1850s most of Oldham’s Irish population lived here, a small webbing of streets occupied by low pubs, brothels and boarding houses where the hopeless ended up. If you found your way into The Bent, the chances were you wouldn’t get out again.
For a child born there the future was bleak. If a girl had a struggling, but respectable family, she might end up in one of the mills; a boy in the pit. But those were the fortunate ones. All too often the children of The Bent became ensnared in thievery or prostitution. Of these, the lucky ones – if you could call them lucky – were the ones abandoned at Netherlands Orphanage.
Their future was harsh, but secure – set to the rule of order and religion. If they survived a sickly start they would be fed and clothed, even taught a trade in time. Behind the soot-darkened, red-brick walls, a fierce little army of poorly paid staff sucked children with no name and no past into their regimented system. A few of the staff were tyrants, getting their revenge on the world by bullying their charges, but some – a few – were kindly.
The orphanage was run by Miss Clare Lees, a tall, prematurely stooped woman in her fifties, who had risen from being an orphan at the home, to its principal. Not that anyone would ever refer to her past to her face. To all intents and purposes, she behaved as though she despised the children under her care and had nothing in common with them. But it was a front. She was as much a slum child as the ones under her care.
Clare Lees had never married, never had children, and had seldom ventured far from the high walls of the home. This was her kingdom, here she was ruler. The terrified child who had been abandoned fifty years earlier had metamorphosed into an unfeeling martinet. It was not her nature to be cruel, but kindness eluded her. She could not feel – or show – what she had never experienced.
The kindness was left to others, who had come in from the outside. Like Ethel Cummings.
‘Alice, come here!’ she hissed under her breath.
A little girl obediently got to her feet and walked towards her. She was small for her age and dark-haired, her eyes black-fringed. She had a very mature face for a child, looking almost like a tiny, exotic woman.
‘Alice, what’s that in your hand?’ Ethel asked kindly, leaning down, her bulk making the movement awkward.
‘Nothing.’
The matron looked at her. ‘Alice, show me.’
Reluctantly, the little girl opened her hand. There was a pebble in her palm.
‘Why, it’s just a stone –’
‘It’s a jewel!’ Alice said defiantly, closing her fingers over it. ‘And it’s mine.’
Ethel sighed, then glanced over her shoulder as a bell rang. The sound echoed emptily down the corridor. One ring, two rings. Ethel breathed out and relaxed. Thank God it wasn’t for her, she had had enough of Miss Lees for one day.
Hurriedly she moved Alice down the narrow corridor towards the nearest dormitory. It was empty, as most of the children were in the yard taking their daily exercise. More like prisoners than children, Ethel had said to her husband, the little things pushed out in all weathers, walking round and round in circles. They should be playing, running on grass and climbing trees …
‘Give over, Ethel,’ he had replied. ‘You’ll lose your job if you keep trying to change things.’
‘But it’s not good for them!’ she had answered hotly. ‘When I think how our boys were brought up –’
‘They weren’t orphans,’ Gilbert had retorted, his tone sharp. ‘Oh listen, luv,’ he’d said more kindly, ‘you do what you can for them. Don’t make waves or that cow Lees will fire you and then what good will you be to any of them?’
Ethel had known he was right. So she bit her tongue repeatedly, and bent under the myriad tyrannies of Netherlands. It seemed to her that many of the children were cowed by the sheer size of the home, and the fact that they had nothing they could call their own. Nothing to cling on to for comfort. Every piece of clothing had been handed down many times over: when a child grew out of it, it was patched and passed on to another. Likewise with shoes. Even underwear, faded with use, was boiled and handed on.
Every child had short hair too, in order to make sure that there was no outbreak of nits – and to make it easier for the staff to comb and wash on Monday nights, when queues of little bodies waited silently for their turn at the tap. None of the children complained, in fact they spoke little and in whispers to avoid drawing attention to themselves. There was no individuality and any high spirits were soon dampened by the crushing indifference of the system.
Naturally the boys and girls were separated and housed in different wings. The doors spelled it out for them – ‘BOYS’ over the entrance to one side of the home, and ‘GIRLS’ over the entrance of the other. They exercised at different times too and could – for all they knew – have been in a single-sex institution. Clare Lees was very firm about there being no fraternising. After all, wasn’t that how these children had come about? Boys and girls getting together …? She shuddered at the thought. Oh no, she would have none of that behaviour.
Punishment was harsh if anyone ever broke her rules. Several years earlier one girl had somehow formed a friendship with one of the boys. Notes had been exchanged, secrets, longings, written in Poor Home script. It had been innocent and silly, but when it was discovered the girl was made an example of in front of the school. Her hair had been cut to her scalp, and round her neck was hung a board with the word ‘WHORE’ in red letters. She wore the board for a month.
Now Ethel looked down at the little girl in front of her and then impulsively gathered Alice into her arms. She knew she shouldn’t – it was frowned upon to show affection – but this little one was so different from the others.
Immediately Alice responded and nestled against her, her eyes closing. If the truth be known, Ethel was afraid for Alice Rimmer. She was too pretty, for a start, too full of spirit which even years in the orphanage hadn’t dampened. Where her spirit came from, God only knew. Her background was a mystery, the only information sketchy. Apparently she had come to the home when she was nearly a year old. Some council man had delivered her early one November morning. Her parents were dead, he told the principal; Alice Rimmer was just another poor child of the parish, destined to live off charity.
Ethel remembered first seeing Alice when she came to work at Netherlands a few months later. She’d been more outspoken then, and had showed her surprise at Alice’s appearance.
‘Oh, what a beautiful child! This one will be adopted all right.’
Irritated, Clare Lees had shaken her head. ‘No, she’s to stay here. No one’s to adopt her.’
Ethel’s mouth had fallen open. ‘But she’d find a home, no trouble.’
Miss Lees’ tone was impatient. ‘No one is to adopt this child. Alice Rimmer is to stay here until she is old enough to leave and find her own way in the world.’
Still sitting on the edge of the dormitory bed, the matron stroked the top of Alice’s head and frowned at the old memory. It wasn’t right, she thought. Alice could easily have found a new family, new siblings … She looked down at the four-year-old sitting on her lap. Oh luv, where did you come from? She had the look of breeding, that was for sure. Such a stunning child wasn’t from farm or factory workers. Ethel had seen the usual depressing run of poor children: the whey complexions, the undernourished limbs, the flat expression in the eyes.
But there was a gloss about Alice which she had to have inherited from money and position … Ethel rocked the child absent-mindedly. She was so distinctive that her looks would give her away anywhere. But although Ethel had asked the office secretary – very furtively – about Alice, there was nothing to discover. Only that her parents were dead. Apparently there were no grandparents, no brothers and sisters, no home. Alice Rimmer was just another foundling
She didn’t look like the usual foundling, Ethel thought for the hundredth time. Maybe some society woman had been caught out, leaving the pregnancy too long to abort the unwanted child. It would certainly explain the exotic looks. Ethel put her plump arms tightly around the child. Maybe one day she would see a photograph in the paper and it would all click. Maybe Alice was the child of royalty or nobility, Ethel thought fancifully, her parents still alive somewhere. Of course! That was why she wasn’t able to be adopted. Her own people meant to come back for Alice one day.
And then again, maybe they would leave her in Salford, and forget her. It happened all the time. Children no one wanted, no one gave a damn about …
Ethel took hold of Alice’s hand, her fingers still clutching the pebble. One day you’ll come into your own, my love, she thought. One day it will all come out. No one can hide the sun under a blanket for ever.
Chapter Two
The door banged closed behind Ethel. The overcast day made the room dim. Heavy furniture, old-fashioned and well polished, surrounded her, the floorboards shining like glass. The children did that. It was one of their duties – to keep the principal’s office in immaculate condition. It was good practice for them, Clare Lees explained, for the time when the girls went into service.
Nervously Ethel glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. It was hideous, she thought, with thick black hands and a bad-tempered tick. Her glance wandered to the window, but there was no view worth seeing, only the high wall about four yards away, mottled with chimney soot, with not even a weed to break up the lines of brick monotony.
A bell rang outside. Once, twice, three times – dinner, Ethel thought. In a minute the children would make their way to the dining room. But they would move quietly, not like normal children, and quietly they would stand for grace and then quietly sit down. Unnatural …
‘Mrs Cummings.’
Ethel jumped at the sound of her name and got to her feet as Miss Lees walked in. Automatically Ethel smoothed her uniform over her prominent bosom and straightened her white matron’s cap.
Clare Lees moved over to her desk, her stooped figure casting a shadow on the glossy floorboards. Her dress was dark, the hem brushing her ankles, her laced boots functional. Calmly she turned to look at Ethel, her eyes weary and suspicious at the same time.
‘Sit down,’ she said, taking a seat herself behind her desk. Her voice, Ethel noted, had little trace of an Oldham accent. Odd, that. ‘I want a word with you.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘You’re a good worker, but you spend too much time with the children.’ Clare laced her fingers together. She wasn’t cruel, just remote. ‘We have a home to run here, we can’t afford to waste time –’
‘It’s not wasting time, talking to the children,’ Ethel replied warmly. ‘They need a bit of affection, attention. It’s only right.’
‘I know what’s right for Netherlands,’ Clare Lees replied coolly. ‘This isn’t the first time I’ve had to talk to you. I thought you’d learned your lesson. But you can’t seem to abide by my rules, Mrs Cummings. Why is that?’
Ethel bit her lip. She had done what she swore she wouldn’t. Her bloody mouth! Why couldn’t she hold her tongue, like Gilbert said?
‘Miss Lees,’ she replied quietly, ‘you’re right, I should do as you say.’
If she lost her place here she would lose a reasonable wage and God knew, she needed to bring money in. Her sons had been sent to fight in France, although Gilbert was too bad with his chest to be called up. But he did have a part share of a window-cleaning round and helped with the odd flitting when they were pushed. Yet although money was tight, there was more to it than that. Ethel needed to stay at Netherlands for other reasons. The children. She might be fooling herself, but she believed they needed her; needed someone they could talk to. The ones that wanted to talk, that was. Like Alice … Suddenly Ethel realised that if she lost her job she would probably never see Alice again.
‘Miss Lees, I’m sorry,’ she said, her tone placating. ‘Truly I am.’
Ethel knew that grovelling would work, and it did. The principal smiled her snow smile …
You could have been quite a handsome woman, Ethel thought, someone’s wife, someone’s mother … Pity shifted inside her heart. It wasn’t that difficult to see the lost child in the woman sitting in front of her.
But Clare Lees’ next words shook Ethel to the core.
‘In particular, it has been brought to my attention that you are paying too much attention to Alice Rimmer.’
Ethel flushed. ‘Well, I –’
‘We can’t have favourites here,’ Clare went on, seeing from Ethel’s face that she had scored a direct hit.
So she was fond of the child. Well, well, well … Clare sighed to herself. She was ashamed of the fact, but she didn’t like Alice Rimmer – and she wasn’t sure why. Perhaps she was too pretty, too wilful, but something about the child rankled.
‘Alice Rimmer could turn out to be a difficult girl,’ Clare went on. ‘She’s very high-spirited, giddy.’ She expected Ethel to interrupt, and was almost disappointed when the matron didn’t. ‘I think she’s a child we have to control and watch carefully. I want her to leave Netherlands as a credit to us.’
‘I think she will,’ Ethel said carefully. ‘In fact, I’m sure she will.’
Why was the principal so rattled about Alice? Did she know something about the child which no one else did? Or did she simply dislike her?
Clare sighed. ‘Mrs Cummings, haven’t you noticed that Alice Rimmer can be defiant?’
‘Well, she does have a mind of her own.’
Clare’s gaze hardened. ‘That’s what I’m afraid of. Alice Rimmer is an orphan. She has no reason to have a mind of her own. The girl has no family – and no chance in this world unless she knows her place. She has no cause to be proud – or to think that she’s special.’
Oh, so that’s it, Ethel thought, you can see something in Alice which you envy. She might be orphan, but she has the looks and spirit which could enable her to make something out of her life. Ethel glanced down at her hands. She would have to be very careful from now on.
She didn’t believe that Clare Lees was vindictive, but she was certainly insecure – and that made her dangerous. Netherlands was her whole world. Outside there was only disorder. The country was at war, but within these walls there was little hint of the chaos beyond. Inside, Clare Lees could control everything. Or so she thought.
But Ethel also knew instinctively that, given time, Alice would escape the home and survive outside. Which was why Clare Lees was jealous of her. And jealousy, Ethel was aware, could destroy people.
‘I’m glad we’ve had this talk. We needed to get matters sorted out. After all,’ Clare said, rising to her feet to deliver the final blow, ‘it would be a pity to lose you.’
Chapter Three
Winter came in fast and hard that year, Netherlands cold, the fire in the girls’ dining room inadequate and only warming the nearest table – which was where the staff ate.
It was a bitter Sunday in November, Miss Lees toying with some tough lamb for lunch. On her left sat her assistant, Dolly Blake, and on her right the Reverend Grantley studied the gravy which had just been poured over his meat. He sniffed, his head bent down, intoning the grace automatically although he was still eyeing the gravy through half-opened lids.
No one was uncharitable enough to mention the vicar’s strange hair, or the fact that it was patently dyed. He was, after all, the only cleric who attended Netherlands regularly and he was responsible for reporting back to his superiors to ensure further financial support. So he was flattered and indulged by Miss Lees and all the staff. They puffed up his vanity and fussed him into thinking he was important – something he needed to believe desperately. A petty man, he had long given up his dreams of advancement. Bullied outside, he liked to visit the home where he was superior, the foundlings in awe of him.
Dolly glanced at the top of Mr Grantley’s head and winked at Ethel, sitting further down the table. Ethel smiled back, watching her. Dolly was a natural politician, with her sights set on running Netherlands after Clare Lees retired. ‘Why not?’ she had said to Ethel. ‘It’s a good job. Better than the mill or cleaning out some snotty cow’s fire grate at five in the morning.’
The vicar finished grace and then prodded his meat to check for signs of life. Satisfied that it was beyond resurrection, he cut off a piece and began to chew. Slowly.
‘So, Mr Grantley,’ Dolly said, in her best voice, the one she used for people she thought were her betters, ‘how are you keeping? I heard you had had a cold.’
He swallowed manfully, his expression all holy tolerance.
‘I …’ A piece of gristle stuck in his throat and he coughed loudly, waving his napkin in front of him like a white flag. ‘I’ve been better.’
You can say that again, Ethel thought, looking at Dolly, who was all mock sympathy. It’ll do you no good; the vicar’s not powerful, he’s just the governors’ poodle. Oh, Dolly, she mused, you think you’re so clever.
‘Perhaps a little whisky would help,’ Dolly went on, adding hurriedly, ‘for medicinal purposes, of course.’
‘I believe in setting an example,’ Mr Grantley replied, finding some gristle in a back tooth and sucking his teeth reflectively. ‘I have to be careful. A man in my position knows that all eyes are on him.’
Nodding, Dolly watched him suck his teeth again and looked away. The man was a pig, but it didn’t do to let her thoughts show … Like the children, she ate hurriedly, hungrily, her thoughts turning elsewhere. When she finished work that night, she would go to her room and write a letter to Andy. He had been posted to France to fight. Silly sod, he shouldn’t have volunteered like that, Dolly thought. Why not wait until he was called up? It was all right being a hero, but what about her?
She missed him … Her eyes wandered round the rows of tables. The girls sat together in ages, the smallest ones nearest to the staff table. When Andy and she got married they could run this place, no problem. He’d be caretaker and she’d be principal. The thought warmed Dolly, almost made the food taste good in her mouth. Her eyes glanced over to the vicar, still picking at his lamb. He’s lucky to get it in wartime, Dolly thought. They don’t have lamb in the Army. Andy would be grateful for it, but not this old coot. I hope he chokes.
A child sneezed suddenly, Dolly frowned.
‘Oh no, not a cold. That’s all we need,’ she said to Ethel, hurriedly reassuring the vicar, ‘It’s not your cold, of course,’ as if there were a pecking order to chills, ‘but we have to be so careful here, Mr Grantley. If one child gets a cold, they all do.’ And that meant more work, she thought to herself. One snotty nose was all it took …
Ethel knew exactly what she was thinking. Dolly might think she could fool the vicar, but not Ethel, She looked back to her plate. Honest to God, she thought, this was never lamb! It tasted more like something that had been pulling a cart yesterday. She chewed on a piece of the hard meat and then looked down the table again.
‘I find it so bracing, this cold weather,’ Dolly went on, her voice ludicrously forced. ‘So good for the lungs.’
‘Not if you’re recovering from a cold,’ Mr Grantley said darkly, turning over a suspicious-looking piece of meat with the end of his knife. ‘I’ve heard that chill weather can turn a cold into pneumonia. I had two parishioners who died last winter from colds. Never stood a chance. They were fine one Sunday and then,’ he paused, flicking over the meat like a corpse on a slab, ‘bang! Dropped down dead. From cold. Pure cold.’
More likely that they’d frozen their bloody arses off in your church, Ethel thought wryly.
‘Well, you must take care of yourself, vicar. No one would want to miss one of your services,’ Dolly ventured, watching, glassy-eyed, as the clergyman began to pick at a piece of gristle stuck in his front teeth.
‘I am always available to my flock, cold or no cold. I have to be.’ He sucked his teeth forcefully to release the wedge of gristle. ‘People look up to me; they look to me to set an example.’
Ethel was certain that Dolly did not see the humour of the situation, and regarded her thoughtfully. Dolly’s high spirits were a little too excessive for lunch with Mr Grantley. She must have heard from Andy, Ethel thought. Did she really believe that she had it all worked out? Most of Salford knew that Andy was writing to a number of lovesick girls. At the last count he had three fiancées, one putting on a lot of weight recently …
Dolly’s blonde hair was bent towards the vicar’s dyed pate. There was no chance she’d be running this place one day, Ethel thought. Dolly Blake might be pretty and clever, but she wasn’t what the governors looked for in a principal. She was too flash. Too obviously on the make.
If anyone was going to take over from Clare Lees it would be the quiet man sitting at the head of the next table. Ethel studied Evan Thomas curiously – the narrow head, long nose, and large luminous eyes the blue of iris. A very delicate creature, too frail to be sent off to fight. Ethel smiled to herself. Oh, Dolly might think she was smart, but Evan was the one to watch.
Suddenly there was a commotion, a shriek of temper as a glass was thrown across the dining room. Miss Lees stared open-mouthed, Dolly wide-eyed, Mr Grantley poised with his fork halfway to his mouth.
It was Alice. Screaming, standing up on her seat as the girls around her shrank back. They knew there would be trouble, but she seemed immune to everyone. Her face was pink, her fists clenched, a steady wail coming from her open mouth. Ethel got to her feet, roughly caught hold of the child and physically removed her from the dining room.
Her hand fastened over Alice’s mouth as Ethel paused outside the door and listened. At first there was a stunned silence, followed by the angry scrape of a chair being pushed back. As fast as her stocky legs would carry her, Ethel hurried away. Alice had relaxed in her arms and was heavy as Ethel hurried up the narrow back stairs and on into the pharmacy.
Out of breath, she deposited Alice in a chair and put her hands on her hips.
‘What …’ Ethel puffed, ‘… what … was …’ She breathed in deeply. ‘What was all that about?’
Alice was quiet, surprised by the anger coming from the only person who had ever shown her affection.
‘Alice, talk to me!’ Ethel snapped. ‘Miss Lees will be here in a minute and she’ll take a bad view of this. You’re in trouble, my girl. You don’t know how much. Alice, you have to help me to help you – now, what happened?’
‘She took my jewel.’
‘What?’ Ethel said, baffled.
Alice looked up, tears on her black lashes. ‘Annie Court took my jewel. I felt her hand go in my pocket and she stole it.’
‘What jewel? Oh, you mean your stone.’
‘It’s a JEWEL!’ Alice shrieked. Her voice was rising again.
She’s going to have hysterics, Ethel thought frantically. Oh no, not that. Hurriedly, she bent down to the child. ‘Alice, pull yourself together! Miss Lees will be here any minute –’
But it had no effect. Alice had lost all fear of anything. Her cheeks burned red, her fists clenching as she swung her feet against the chair. Ethel was shaken and remembered all too clearly what had happened a few years ago. There had been another child who had been troublesome – prone to tantrums, Miss Lees said. One day the child was transferred to another home. No one knew where. Ethel wasn’t about to have that happen to Alice.
So she grabbed the hard green soap in the sink and worked at it frantically, lathering up some thick white foam. Then, she grabbed Alice by the scruff of the neck and smeared the foam around the child’s mouth. She screamed – just as the door opened and Clare Lees walked in.
Her glance took in Ethel and the red-faced child, who was apparently ill, foaming around the mouth. Anger left her at once. This wasn’t a bad child, but a sick one.
Appalled, she glanced over to Ethel. ‘God, what is it?’
‘She’s having a fit, ma’am,’ Ethel said calmly. ‘If you’ll just let me deal with it … Having people around only excites them more.’
Clare Lees nodded, and backed out. When Ethel finally heard her footsteps die away she got a cloth and wiped Alice’s mouth. The child was silent, her huge dark eyes watching Ethel.
‘Now look what you’ve made me do! Made me lie for you.’ Ethel wiped the beautiful little face. ‘They’ll think you’re ill now, not just a child having a tantrum. You’ll get away with it this time, but not the next.’
Alice’s tongue tasted of soap and her mouth hurt from where the towel had rubbed it. But she knew that Ethel had saved her. Had looked out for her. Noone else had ever done anything like that before. The child put her arms around Ethel’s waist and buried her head emotionally in her apron.
‘Aye, luv, you’ll have to learn to be good,’ Ethel said gently, stroking her hair. ‘It’s a hard life, and it gets harder. Don’t go looking for trouble.’
Alice was crying softly, the sound muffled. She was so highly strung, Ethel thought anxiously, and that was dangerous anywhere. In amongst a family, with supportive parents, it could be managed, but here … Ethel shivered. She didn’t want to see Alice’s spirit knocked out of her. How sad that the child had inherited a volatile character along with her beauty. A mixed blessing, to put it mildly.
‘You must learn to be good,’ Ethel urged, her voice soothing. ‘Be good. Be quiet, sweetheart. Don’t make waves. Please.’
Evan Thomas was walking out of the front gates of Netherlands, completely unaware that he was being watched. His slight tall figure in his dark coat was huddled against the cold November rain, his hand over his mouth. He paused, coughing hoarsely, as he padlocked the gate behind him. The cough had kept him out of the war. Most of the other men in their twenties had been called up, but Evan’s life had changed little. He coughed again, then moved on into the street and out of Clare Lees’ gaze.
As he disappeared from sight, Clare found herself curious, wondering where he was going. Sundays dragged. Her hand idled along the side of her desk, her fingers tapping the wood. Mr Grantley was hard work, she thought; it was a nuisance to have to make him feel so important. But what could she do? She relied on his good feeling to make things smooth for her with the governors.
Clare stepped back to the window. The empty area of gravel drive was dull, unchanging. It had been like this when she was a child here, and it would be like this after she had gone … Her mood darkened with the dull day. Dolly was angling for her job, Clare thought, smiling coldly. What a fool the girl was. But Evan Thomas was another matter.
He wasn’t orphanage fodder. He was educated, his parents both teachers in Wales. So why come to the North of England? Clare had asked him when he applied for the post. ‘It’s good to get away and see other places,’ he had replied. ‘Good to see as much of the world as possible …’ Clare wasn’t sure of that.
Her gaze moved back to the gates. She had been outside, of course. But infrequently. There seemed little reason to go out. The home provided everything she needed. It gave her accommodation and had its own chapel. She could work, eat, sleep and pray – what else was there? As for the shopping, that was done by the kitchen staff on Clare’s orders, never by herself. Even the governors of Netherlands Orphanage came here to see her.
Clare leaned her head against the glass, wondering where Evan Thomas was now. Was he in the town, or visiting friends? Maybe he had a girlfriend. She blushed at the thought, mortified at the feelings it provoked in her. Why should she care? He was nothing to her, and besides, he was thirty years younger than she. He wouldn’t be interested in some spinster with rounded shoulders and no charm.
But she hadn’t always been like this. She had been young, once. The high black gates of the home suddenly looked different to Clare – terrifying and inviting all at once. She ran her tongue over her dry lips. It was raining hard. All the children would be in their dormitories now, learning the religious collect for the day, and most of the staff were relaxing. On an impulse, Clare hurriedly put on her coat and hat, then left her office by her own private exit.
The gates were huge, only yards away, the rain blowing into her face. Her heart speeded up as she hurried towards them, her hands shaking as she took out her key and unlocked the gates. In another instant Clare Lees was outside. Firmly she pulled the gates closed behind her and looked ahead.
The street was empty. The vast Victorian viaduct threw its massive shadow, its arches mouthing at her. Go back, go back. Nervously, Clare moved a couple of feet to her right and then felt her head begin to swim. Breathing rapidly, she unfastened the collar button of her coat and noticed that her palms were sticky.
She could remember the first time she’d come through these gates – wearing a dress which was too long for her and a coat which smelled of stale cooking fat. Only seven years old. Her mother had died and Clare had stayed beside her body for two days and two nights in their shabby rooms in The Bent. A neighbour had finally found them and before Clare knew what was happening she had been taken away and brought to Netherlands Orphanage.
‘Little one, come and sit by me,’ her mother had said when she was so ill, lying in a poor cot of a bed beside a damp wall, with a cheap print of a sailing boat on it. The sounds of the pub below came loudly up through the bare floorboards. Her mother’s face was gaunt, the eyes flat. A stupid face in reality, but the hands had been kind. They had held on to Clare and pulled the thin blanket over both of them. ‘Little one, one day we’ll get out of here, and go away. Go off to somewhere sunny. We’ll have a garden, and servants … I love you. I love you.’
Clare stopped, her mouth half open, the shocking memory a fist in her heart. The street was still empty, nothing familiar in it, nothing she remembered from over forty years ago. I could run away, she thought, then remembered that she was a grown woman. Besides, she had nowhere else to go. Her gaze lingered hopelessly on the street ahead of her. She studied the dark viaduct; watched the rain making the cobbles shine.
They had buried her mother in the same graveyard as her father and that was that. The end of her family. The end of her life outside. Slowly Clare tipped back her head and felt the rain on her face. Netherlands had become her prison, she knew that. She was serving a sentence which would only end at her retirement, and even then she would stay on. And die there.
The cold rain fell against her eyelids and ran over her cheeks. Memory and longing beat to the rhythm of her heart.
Then, slowly, she turned and walked back through the gates, locking them after her.
Chapter Four
Years passed and no one came for Alice Rimmer. No one sent letters or called, no one discovered a relative or remembered a friend of the Rimmer family. The foundling remained where she had been placed – behind the high walls of Netherlands. Forgotten.
Ethel never got over the fact that Alice could have been adopted. But it was more than her job was worth to say anything. Better to hold her tongue and keep an eye on the child and look out for her as best she could. But she never stopped wondering who Alice was, or where she had come from. And she never stopped hoping that she would find out one day.
‘I’ve always said it and I’ll say it again – that child is well bred,’ Ethel told Gilbert firmly, ‘and she’s growing up fast. Ten this Friday.’ She paused, then leaned on the pile of ironing in front of her. ‘I was thinking, Gilbert …’
He glanced up at the wheedling tone, his broad face suspicious.
‘Oh aye. Your thinking usually costs me money, or sleep.’
Ethel smiled winningly. ‘I was wondering – would you mind if I brought Alice home for her birthday?’
‘Here!’
‘No, London Zoo,’ Ethel replied archly. ‘Of course here. She’s hardly ever been out of that home – none of the children has. It’s like a world of its own.’ Ethel paused, wondering how to put it best. ‘Alice needs to think she has some family.’
Gilbert’s forehead creased into frown lines. He had given up the removals now, and was making wooden toys in the shed to keep himself busy – and to make a bit of money. Tommy Field’s market sold them – well, now and again.
‘Look, luv, we have our own family. Alice Rimmer isn’t our responsibility.’
‘And that,’ Ethel snapped back, ‘is probably what her mother once said!’
He sighed, knowing that Ethel had already made her mind up.
‘But what about Miss Lees?’ he continued gamely. ‘She doesn’t like any of the kids to get out and about – and she’s not one for favouritism, you’ve said so often enough. Besides, is she really likely to agree to a child – especially Alice Rimmer – coming here for a birthday treat?’
Ethel frowned. ‘Who said she had to know it was a birthday treat? Look, Gilbert, that child needs a change, and I intend to give her one – and Clare Lees isn’t going to stop me. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.’
Which there was. A little white lying on Ethel’s part and she convinced Clare Lees that Alice needed a way to run off her ‘excess energy’. She wouldn’t mind taking her out and about, now and then. After all, Ethel said reasonably, it would stop Alice stirring up the other children, wouldn’t it?
So the following Friday Gilbert found himself sitting opposite a little girl in a plain print dress, her black hair in plaits, her eyes huge and wary. Obviously nervous, Alice was sitting with her hands on her lap, terrified of the old man watching her. Gilbert was also terrified. What the hell was he supposed to say to a child?
Paralysed and silent they both looked up relieved when, a moment later, Ethel walked in with a cake.
‘It’s a birthday cake, for you, Alice.’
‘For me?’ The child replied, her voice low. No one had celebrated her birthday before. In fact, only Ethel had ever mentioned it. But now here she was, out of Netherlands, with a cake! It was too good to be true.
Beaming, Ethel put the cake in front of Alice, then lit the ten candles on the top. As soon as she saw the flames, Alice reared back in her seat, alarmed.
‘No, luv, it’s all right.’ Ethel laughed. ‘It’s a candle for every year you’ve been born. Ten candles, ten years.’
Alice stared into the flames, each of them reproduced in the dark pupils of her eyes.
‘Blow them out and wish,’ Ethel urged her.
Gilbert was watching the little girl and then glanced at his wife. A cake of all things! I wonder how much that cost. They hardly ever had cake these days, what with money being so bloody tight.
Urged on by Ethel, Alice leaned towards the cake, took in a huge breath, and blew. The candles went out all together, thin trickles of smoke curling up from the spent wicks. She smiled, then clapped her hands together and giggled. The sound was so infectious that Gilbert found himself laughing too.
Excited, Alice leaped to her feet. ‘Oh, thank you, thank you!’ she said, hugging Ethel tightly. ‘It’s the best thing that ever happened to me.’
She chatted on and on after that, all shyness gone. Gilbert put down his paper. Fascinated, he listened to the stories of the home and tut-tutted where he thought it was appropriate. Knowing that she had an audience, Alice was vibrant, her voice rising and falling, her eyes brilliant, her hands waving in the air as she talked.
On the sidelines, Ethel watched, amused. Yet even she was surprised when Gilbert went out for a moment and then came back from the shed with some of the wooden toys he had made.
Diffidently, he showed them to Alice.
‘I … I made these,’ he said, pushing a toy horse and a camel across the table towards the little girl.
‘You made them?’ she asked, astonished.
Gilbert nodded, puffed up with pride. Carefully he lit his pipe and sat down in his battered easy chair.
‘I learned to carve from my father. He could make anything.’
Alice’s eyes were fixed on the toys.
‘Go on, you can touch them,’ Gilbert said.
Ethel raised her eyebrows. Well, she thought, this was a turn up. Her husband was normally so possessive of his carvings. Things were going better than she would have dared to hope.
Slowly Alice picked up the camel and turned it over in her hands. Then she laughed and picked up the horse. In another moment she was racing them along the table, Gilbert watching her, Alice hooting with laughter. She felt secure, happy in this little house, and was so giddy with excitement that she lost her grip on the horse and it fell over the edge of the table.
As it landed heavily at Gilbert’s feet, its head snapped off.
Alice froze in her seat, watching as he bent down. Ethel too was holding her breath. Carefully Gilbert fingered the broken toy, then glanced over to the child. For an instant he was enraged, but when he saw tears running down Alice’s face he faltered.
‘It were badly carved,’ he said, coughing. ‘It weren’t your fault, luv.’
But she knew it was. Knew he was lying to be kind to her. She had broken the toy and ruined everything. They wouldn’t ask her to their house again. No one wanted a stupid clumsy girl around. No one ever wanted her around for long.
Brushing away her tears, Alice stammered, ‘Sorry, I’m sorry –’
‘Like I say, it weren’t well made,’ Gilbert persisted manfully.
Mortified, Alice got to her feet and turned to Ethel. ‘I should go back now –’
‘You don’t have to,’ Ethel said, her heart shifting. Oh, bugger the bloody toy! Why did that have to happen? ‘Stay a while longer, Alice.’
She shook her head. ‘No, I should really go back.’ She turned to Gilbert. ‘I’m so sorry about the horse, Mr Cummings … really sorry.’ Then she looked back at Ethel. ‘Thank you for my cake. It was the best birthday I’ve ever had.’
Chapter Five
Alice cried herself to sleep that night, her head under the blankets so that the others girls wouldn’t hear her. They would have gloated, she knew. They had all been so jealous that Alice had been allowed out. Why her? they’d asked. It must be because she was so pretty. Matron’s favourite.
Some of them would have liked to bully Alice, but there was something about her which stopped them. She was so confident, not like the rest of them. It did no good telling her that she was an orphan like everyone else; Alice would simply shrug her shoulders and walk off. She was special, she told them; she was only at the home temporarily. Her family were coming back for her, she said. Her rich family.
They laughed at her, but there was something about Alice Rimmer which made them wonder. She didn’t have the scarecrow looks of the rest of them and could stand up for herself – maybe her people would come back for her. After all, she had hinted at coming from an important family. Her mother, she said, was famous.
But the fantasy Alice had created over the years she had been at Netherlands felt sour that night. She kept her head under the pillow, tears exhausted. The matron had always cared about her, given her little treats and protected her – but she wouldn’t any longer. She would hate her now, now she had broken the horse …
Alice turned over onto her back. The sounds of the other girls’ breathing told her they were asleep as she crept over to the window and looked out through the wide bars. From where the dormitory was situated on the third floor, she could see the other wing of the home, the boys’ wing. Totally separated from the girls’ wing, the school sandwiched between the two, it could have been in another county. The children never mixed, went to church at different times and ate at different times. Segregated, all contact forbidden. Two independent entities, within sight, but never in touch.
Alice sighed. Far away she could just make out some lights on the Heights. She wanted to be out there. Longingly Alice remembered what she had seen that day: the streets, the shops, the people. Ethel had walked her across town, buses passing by them intermittently. She had even called into a greengrocer’s on the way home, holding tightly on to Alice’s hand. Mesmerised, Alice had looked at the ‘Epicure’ tins on the shelves and the mean-looking bacon slicer on the counter.
Beside her, a middle-aged woman in a fur wrap had waited patiently, her hat topped with feathers. Alice had stared at the woman. She was beautiful. Like her mother would be. She’d studied the woman, observing the dark brown hair, the strong attractive features, and the confident voice. Her mother was definitely just like that, Alice had thought, looking longingly after the woman as she left. Her mother was out there, somewhere. In these streets. She was alive. In fact, they might have passed her. She might even have been that woman …
Sighing at the memory, Alice continued to stare out of the window. She had been out of the home and she had seen the world. But now she was back in disgrace. Mrs Cummings wouldn’t invite her again. She would have to wait for years and years to escape. Until she was fourteen, when most of the Netherlands girls left to go out to work in service. Four whole years. Chilled, Alice shivered and slid back under the sheets, pulling her coat over her. Fighting tears, she tucked her cold hands into the pockets to warm them and then stiffened.
In the darkness her hand closed over a strange shape. A smooth, wooden shape. Carved in the image of a camel.
Clare Lees was going to put a stop to all this nonsense before it got out of hand. It was Ethel Cummings’s fault indirectly. You shouldn’t favour one child above the others. She should never have allowed it, but it had seemed a good idea at the time. God knows, Alice Rimmer needed to work off some of her excess energy. Stiffly Clare Lees rose to her feet, her neck aching. As though the child wasn’t enough of a handful already – and now this.
‘Come in!’ she barked, Alice walking into the gloomy office slowly. ‘Sit down.’
She did so, her eyes fixed on the principal.
‘Alice, I’ve been hearing some very silly things. Apparently you’ve been telling the other girls that your mother is coming back for you. She isn’t.’ It was better to be blunt, Clare Lees thought. No point letting the child live in a fool’s paradise.
‘She is,’ Alice said defiantly.
Clare Lees was unnerved by the vehemence of the girl’s retort.
‘Now look here,’ she said coldly, ‘I’m in charge of Netherlands, and what I say goes. You have always been a handful, Alice Rimmer, but I had thought lately that you were settling down. It appears that I was wrong.’
Alice was listening, her breathing fast.
‘You were abandoned here, and you have been cared for by Netherlands, due to the charity of others. You owe this home a debt of gratitude. Delusions of grandeur will not work here.’ Her eyes fixed on the girl, who still looked defiant. Clare’s dislike flared like a newly lit torch. ‘You are a nobody, Alice, a foundling. You have no family. No one’s coming back for you. They left you. They didn’t want you.’
Alice took in her breath, but said nothing.
‘When you leave here you’ll have to work and make your own way in this world. It is better,’ Clare Lees paused for effect, ‘to learn your place now. Life can be very hard, Alice. No one likes an upstart.’
Alice didn’t know what an upstart was, but she knew it was bad.
‘Remember – I can make your life here very difficult, if I choose to,’ Clare went on. ‘Extra duties, extra work – they could soon break your spirit and make you toe the line. But I’m giving you a chance. Mend your ways – and your manner – and you and I could still get on.’
Alice looked down. A triumphant Clare Lees read the action as submission and thought she had the upper hand.
‘Stop these fantasies. Stop talking to the other girls about your dream world. Stop pretending you’re better than everyone else.’ She walked over to Alice and looked down at her. ‘I expect you to change. Now. I want a calm, quiet, obedient girl. A girl who knows her place. Do I make myself clear? Well, do I?’
That night, Alice Rimmer ran away.
Chapter Six
Alice had no idea where she was going, only that she had to get out of the home. She crept downstairs after everyone was in bed, stole out of the back entrance, crossed the yard, and climbed over the locked gates. No one saw her. When she jumped down on the other side she felt a rush of excitement. There was no one about, but then a late bus passed by, its wheels throwing up rain from the gutter.
If she was caught there would be hell to pay. She knew that. But somehow Alice didn’t care. What right had old Ma Lees to tell her that she was a no one? How did she know? You are a nobody. No one’s coming back for you … The words drummed into her head. A nobody. No one’s child … It wasn’t true! Alice thought helplessly, walking along the dark pavement and keeping to the shadow of the wall. She had had a mother and a father, everyone did. They must be alive somewhere. Somewhere outside. Where she now was.
But where could she begin looking? She imagined old Ma Lees’ face when she presented her parents to her; when she said, ‘Look, this is my father and this is my mother.’ Oh, she wouldn’t be so spiteful then, Alice thought. Not when she was a somebody, someone’s child, not a foundling to be pushed around.
The rain came down chill with the wind and made Alice shudder. The road which had looked so inviting was suddenly menacing, unfamiliar. A stout woman passed, looked at her curiously and then moved on. Alice paused momentarily outside a pub. The lights were on, the sound of raucous laughter drifting out into the dismal street. A song twanged haphazardly from an out-of-tune piano. Alice pressed her face to the etched glass. Inside she could just make out the backs of the customers, and smell the beer and cheap cigarette smoke. Then someone coughed, and a man staggered out of the door, pushing into her as he made his unsteady way home.
Her parents wouldn’t go to a place like this, Alice thought. They wouldn’t be smoking and drinking in some Salford backstreet pub.
‘Oi, you!’
She turned, startled by the man who had doubled back and was watching her, weaving unsteadily on his feet.
‘Wot you staring at?’
‘Nothing,’ Alice said sullenly, her fear making her belligerent. ‘What are you staring at?’
He leaned towards her, sour-breathed. ‘You nowt but a kid, wot you doing out so late? Waiting for yer father?’
‘My father isn’t in there!’ Alice said heatedly. ‘He’s … rich. He doesn’t come to places like this.’
Unexpectedly the man laughed. ‘Oh, rich, is he? So why are you hanging about Salford at this time of night? You some little princess in disguise, come slumming?’
Biting her lip to control her fear and indignation, Alice stood up to him. ‘It’s nothing to do with you –’
‘I bet he’s just another drunk, propping up the bar in there,’ the man said, his voice slurred. ‘Yer mam sent you to call him home before he spends the rent money?’
‘He’s not like that!’ Alice said heatedly, walking away and then turning. ‘My father’s important and my mother’s well known. A beauty.’
‘Yeah, and I’m Rudolph Valentino,’ the drunk sneered, pulling a half-bottle out of his greasy coat and taking a swig. ‘And the more I drink, the more I believe it.’
Alice hurried off, moving under the viaduct and beginning to mount the steep street. If she was honest, she wanted to double back, but was afraid to meet up with the man again, so she kept walking ahead. Soon she was drenched, her hair dripping down her back, her skin chalk white. Wrapping her arms around herself she hurried on. She then realised that she was lost. The streets meant nothing to her, she had no idea of where she was, and there was nothing familiar in sight. The outings she had had with Ethel had been in daytime and Salford hadn’t seemed so grim then, but under the dim gaslamps the streets looked sour, the alleys gloomy. Disembodied voices and shouts came from behind doors and drawn blinds, the rain drumming on the cheap tin roofs of outside lavatories. Alice was afraid suddenly, stopping and looking round. Where was she going? Did she really think she was going to find her parents this way? When she didn’t know who they were, where they were, or what they looked like?
She had acted like a fool, Alice thought. Here she was out in the cold, lost, and there was no one to help her. No one was even looking for her. Scared, she dug her nails into her palms to stop herself crying and turned, trying to see the viaduct, the only landmark she remembered. But all she could see was a man, the drunk, a way off, walking towards her and, startled, Alice began to run.
It was him! she thought. He would catch her and then what? Her feet pounded on the pavement and then she saw a cobbled ginnel and dived in, catching her breath.
At once, a hand descended on her shoulder.
She screamed.
‘Hey, miss, it’s all right,’ the policeman said pleasantly. ‘What are you doing out and about this time of night?’
Relief was quickly followed by a sense of failure. Her big adventure was a sham. She was just a stupid, lost kid.
‘I … was walking.’
‘Where?’
‘Around.’
‘Around where?’ he repeated, leaning down towards her, his moustached face kind. ‘I think I should get you home, don’t you?’
‘I don’t have a home.’
He blinked. ‘Come on now, there’s no argument that bad that can’t be settled over a pot of tea. Your parents will be worried about you, lass.’
No they won’t, Alice thought hopelessly. ‘I don’t have a real home. I’m at Netherlands.’
‘Ah,’ he said simply, taking her hand. ‘Well, I think perhaps it’s time you were back, little one.’
She wanted to be grown up, but instead Alice held gratefully onto his hand and walked back to Netherlands with him in silence.
Ethel would say afterwards that it was the turning point. When Alice was brought back to the home that night she was cowed and defeated. You could see that all the fight had gone out of her, Ethel told Gilbert. It was hardly worth while Clare Lees punishing her; she didn’t seem to care any more. The petty duties Alice was given she completed without complaint, without resistance. She wouldn’t even talk about where she had gone that night. Or why.
‘Are you all right, sweetheart?’ Ethel asked her a few days later.
Alice nodded. ‘I’m fine.’
Compliance was more worrying than an outburst, thought Ethel.
‘No more running away now, Alice, promise me. It did no good, no good at all.’ She paused to see what effect her words were having, but the girl’s face was bland. What is she thinking? Ethel wondered. Or is she plotting something?
The truth was that Clare Lees’ words had cut Alice to the bone and forced a change in her. It was one thing to be put in a home, quite another for someone to spell out what you already knew. That you weren’t wanted. Alice’s hatred for the principal was absolute, although she wouldn’t admit it to anyone. She would keep her own counsel, that was the only way to survive at Netherlands. But her loathing for Clare Lees burned with such force that she wondered if it shimmered around her like a heat haze.
Clare Lees had crushed her dream. The one thing which Alice had clung to – the hope that her parents, in particular her mother, might come back for her – had been snatched away. Some humpbacked spinster had told her she was a no one and that she never would be.
Well, she would show her! Alice thought. She would show Clare Lees what she was made of. One day she would get out of the home and really find her family. They would explain that it had all been a mistake and welcome her back. They would be rich and she would come back in furs and riding in a new motorcar. She would gloat over Clare Lees and pay her back for every single cruel word.
That was the night that Alice Rimmer grew up.
Chapter Seven
Evan Thomas paused under the viaduct and lit a cigarette, inhaling the smoke and then tossing the match into the gutter. The sun was shining, which pleased him, and he hummed under his breath as he walked along. Oh yes, Evan thought, life was really quite good.
He had a new girlfriend and unless he was very much mistaken, he was impressing Clare Lees even more than usual. Evan sniffed the air and pretended that he was back in Wales. The daydream lasted for as long as it took a rag-and-bone man to ride by, his horse depositing a heap of foul-smelling dung on the roadside.
Pulling an expression of disgust, Evan moved off. Oh yes, Clare Lees was getting to need him more and more. If he played his cards right she might consider early retirement. After all, the woman must be over sixty. He would be kind to her, let her retire and teach a little now and then. There was no reason to be unpleasant; after all, she had made it all possible for him.
He liked to imagine how popular he would be. Liked to think of how everyone would love him after the old bag had gone … Evan sighed. He would have to make changes, bring the place into the present, get himself noticed. The governors seemed to like him well enough – better than that ridiculous Dolly Blake.
Evan thought about pretty, ambitious Dolly and her bullish boyfriend, Andy. Not many brains in poor Andy. Just brawn. He smiled. Dolly was such a fool; it had all been so easy. She had fallen for his line as soon as he had spun it her way. And she had kept falling.
She was waiting by the park gates now, her blonde head shining in the sunlight, her face a mixture of pouting prettiness and hard-nosed guile.
‘Evan,’ she said softly, her lips pressing briefly against his.
‘Hey now, we have to be careful in public –’
She pinched his arm. It hurt. ‘Why’s that, Evan?’
‘You’re the one with the fiancé,’ he replied smoothly, leading her into the park and away from prying eyes. Andy might be dumb, but he was big enough to flatten Evan.
‘Oh, Evan,’ she said, stopping and pulling him towards some bushes, ‘I’ve been thinking about you since Thursday. Do you really love me?’
He cupped her breasts in his hands and nuzzled against her neck ‘Now that’s a silly question, girl. You know how I feel about you.’
Dolly wasn’t totally satisfied with the answer and pulled herself – and her breasts – away from him.
‘Don’t get all clever with me, Evan!’ she snapped. ‘I want a proper answer.’
Well what was the proper answer? Evan thought. I’m using you, my dear. Just to get you off the scent whilst I make sure I get the upper hand at Netherlands. He knew the type Dolly Blake was: so clever she would cut herself. She thought that she was stringing Evan along, whilst he knew that he was manipulating her. Evan touched her cheek, trying to cheer her up at he looked at her. Dolly thought that by being Evan Thomas’s girlfriend she could protect her own interests. He would either help her to get where she wanted, or she would get it by default. And bugger poor Andy. If Evan Thomas was going to the top – she was going with him.
Or so she thought.
‘Oh, come on, sweetheart,’ Evan said, pulling her to him. ‘There’s no one like you.’
‘I dare say there isn’t,’ she retorted, her face flushed. ‘If you’re playing fast and loose with me, Evan, you’ll live to regret it.’
He stood back from her, his expression injured.
At once, she was contrite. ‘Oh, Evan, I’m sorry, I just care about you so much.’ She took his hand and kissed it. ‘I don’t mean to say the things I do; I just want us to be together.’
‘What about Andy?’ Evan said, as though he thought of the other man as a rival.
‘What about him?’ Dolly replied. ‘I’d drop him like that,’ she clicked her fingers, ‘if you asked me to marry you.’
Jesus, Evan thought, no bloody way! He wanted Dolly safe with her dollop of a fiancé. In fact, it would suit him best if she married Andy. That way he could never get caught. Marry Dolly Blake! Was she crazy?
‘You know how I feel about you,’ Evan replied, pressing her hand to his cheek, ‘but I can’t marry until I’ve proved myself, got my career on track.’ He looked into her eyes wistfully. ‘You do see that, don’t you? I’m an ambitious man. Dolly. It wouldn’t be fair.’
Her brain took the words and sifted them like lump flour. In the end the meaning was unpalatable. Not that she would let Evan see it. So he thought he was taking her for a ride, did he? Well, time would tell.
Gently she laid her head on his shoulder and sighed.
‘I understand, luv,’ she said, letting her hand move inside his jacket and touch his chest. ‘Honestly I do.’
When Dolly came back to Netherlands that evening she was preoccupied, ready for a fight with anyone who crossed her path. Using the side door, she let herself into the home and paused in the corridor. It smelled of chalk and a less pleasant urine odour coming from the toilets nearby.
Sniffing, she walked into the back room beyond and snapped at an old bald man sitting smoking a pipe.
‘Mr Baldwin!’
He looked up, eyes rheumy. ‘Aye?’
‘The toilet smells.’
‘What d’you expect? It’s a toilet, not a bleeding perfume factory,’ he replied, sucking on his pipe and turning away.
Irritated, Dolly stood in front of him. ‘They need some more disinfectant –’
‘Aye, stop yer bleating! There’s many houses round ’ere that don’t have a lavvie – like yers, I’ll be bound.’
‘Now, you just –’
Irritated, Mr Baldwin stood up and waved his pipe at her. ‘I do what I can ’ere. The wages are bloody awful for what I have to deal with. As for the lavvies – they’ll be swilled out again in the morning.’
‘But –’
Impatiently he flicked his hand to shoo her away. Will Baldwin had been at Netherlands longer than anyone. He could remember being the caretaker when Clare Lees was a child, he didn’t need some cheap tart like Dolly Blake telling him what to do.
‘I’ve told you, Miss Blake, it’ll be done again in morning.’
‘I have –’
‘Oh, go off and pick a fight with someone else!’ Will replied, adding slyly, ‘You want to stay away from Welshmen and stick with yer own sort. You’d be better-tempered if you did.’
Dolly’s face flushed as she stood, tongue-tied, for a moment and then flounced out.
As she made her way back down the corridor she was listening for any sound, any child on whom she could vent her spleen. The boys’ section was silent, behind the locked doors, and in front of her there stretched the long gloomy corridor which led to the girls’ part of the home. It was empty, dimly lit by spluttering gaslight.
Her shoes tapped on the shiny floor as Dolly hurried along. She thought at one point that she heard something, but when she paused there was only silence. On she paced, seething, and then rounded the bend to find Alice walking towards her.
‘What are you doing here at this time of night?’ Dolly snapped.
Alice paused. She was carrying a tray with a cover over it.
‘I’ve come from the sanatorium,’ she said quietly, looking into Dolly’s flushed face.
‘At this time? I doubt it.’ Dolly pulled the cover off the tray Alice was carrying. ‘What’s this?’
‘Matron asked me to take it back to the kitchen –’
‘I didn’t ask what you were told to do with it, I asked what it was.’
‘Hilly Barker’s supper.’
Dolly paused to consider. Hilly Barker had been ill for some time, coughing and periodically feverish. She had been in and out of the sanatorium for the four years she had been at Netherlands. And she was getting worse. Not to worry, the doctor had assured Clare Lees, it’s not contagious. It was just that Hilly was getting weaker by the day.
‘Hilly Barker?’
Alice nodded, keeping her head down.
Dolly stared at her, taking in the dark good looks that had intensified since Alice had turned ten. She would be stunning one day, Dolly realised, her temper increasing at the thought.
‘It’s a waste of good food,’ Dolly went on, staring at the unappetising meal. ‘She should have eaten it. There are children starving abroad.’
‘Hilly tried, but she’s no appetite –’
‘Since when have you been a doctor?’ Dolly bellowed. ‘You’re altogether too big for your boots, Alice Rimmer. We had trouble with you before, didn’t we? I thought you’d learned your lesson.’
Alice said nothing, just waited. The tirade would pass in time. Dolly Blake was peevish, but her viciousness was always short-lived.
‘Sorry, Miss Blake.’
‘You should be sorry,’ Dolly went on, the corridor echoing her words. ‘Miss Lees doesn’t want any more trouble from you, Alice Rimmer, or you’ll be sent away.’
Staying silent, Alice stood with her head bowed. She knew that Dolly had no power to send her away, but she was going to be careful, just in case. The only people she cared about were at Netherlands – Ethel and Hilly. She didn’t want to lose what little she had. So she bit her tongue, as she had learned to do.
Obviously getting bored with her attack, Dolly sighed. ‘How is Hilly?’ she asked, toying with the cuffs of her dress.
‘Poorly.’
She glanced back at Alice. God, the girl was getting tall. ‘Why you?’
‘Pardon, Miss Blake?’
‘Why are you looking after Hilly Barker?’
‘Matron asked me to,’ Alice replied, her voice low.
‘Aren’t you worried that Hilly might have something contagious?’ Dolly asked meanly.
‘No.’
Dolly snorted and tossed her blonde head. ‘She could have smallpox for all we know.’ She leaned towards Alice and looked into the spectacular dark eyes. ‘If Hilly Barker did have smallpox you could catch it. It blinds you and leave pockmarks all over your face. Makes you ugly. Really ugly.’ She studied the girl’s perfect skin and felt a sudden urge to slap her. Then, just as soon at the feeling had come, it passed.
Dolly waved Alice aside. ‘Go on, get on with whatever to have to do,’ she said, capriciously. ‘Go on!’
As Alice hurried away, Dolly stood for a long time looking after her. But she didn’t even see the girl any more; she was thinking about Evan Thomas and Clare Lees, and wondering how she could make her future secure. Deep in thought, Dolly stared at the linoleum, the colour of treacle. She shivered suddenly and rubbed her arms with her hands. What she had to do was to get closer to Clare Lees. She had to become the principal’s confidante. Her ally.
She looked around. The walls were bare, without paintings or colour. Netherlands was a lot better than some of the other homes, Dolly knew, but it was hardly a place to choose to grow up in. No fires here, no little touches of home. No soft beds … Dolly thought of Evan again, and then of Andy.
Smiling, she touched her lips with the tips of her fingers. Oh, she would sort it out. Andy was a handsome man, not too bright, but good in bed. She smiled slyly. As for Evan Thomas, well, he would have to be taught a lesson, wouldn’t he? A little demonstration to show him that he wasn’t dealing with a common tart.
Calmer now, Dolly walked on. Ahead of her she could see the heavy door of the principal’s room, ‘Miss Clare Lees’ inscribed in gold lettering. Dolly stopped, glanced round, and then touched the letters, imagining it reading ‘Miss Dora Blake’. Or ‘Mrs Andrew Fellows’. Or ‘Mrs Evan Thomas’ … Sighing, Dolly let her fingers fall away from the wood.
Then she turned away and retraced her steps – never realising that she was watched by a silent Alice Rimmer at the turn of the stairs.
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