The Cuckoo Child (41 page)
‘She’s in hospital,’ Dot reminded him. ‘I did say, Nick. She had a miscarriage first thing this morning and Sister said they’d keep her in for at least a week and possibly longer. I dare say me cousins would like me to go home an’ slave for them, but I don’t mean to do it. They can bleedin’ well find out what it’s like to light a fire, cook a meal, wash their clothes and do the messages. It ’ud be different if me aunt were home, but she ain’t.’
At this point, they entered Mitchell & Grieves and were sent upstairs by a smiling Miss Snelling. ‘The police have left and the doctor’s been,’ she told them. ‘I sent for him because I thought Miss Grieves was still looking very poorly, though she insisted that she was only tired. The doctor said she must stay in bed until she is stronger and left some tablets which he said would help ease the pain, but so far as I know she’s not taken them yet. She went to sleep pretty soon after he left and she’s asleep still, so I came downstairs to check that everything was all right here. You go on up and give me a shout if you need me.’
The three of them went straight to the kitchen. Dot put the kettle on the stove and lit the gas and Corky went and fetched a loaf of bread, some butter and a big piece of cheese from the pantry, whilst Nick went quietly out of the room, returning moments later to say that Emma was sleeping like a baby. He looked enquiringly at the food spread out on the table. ‘What’s this?’
‘Grub,’ Corky said, looking up from his self-imposed task of slicing the loaf. ‘You know how generous Emma is – and we’ve had nothing to eat for ages. As soon as she wakes up, we’ll feed her as well, and that’ll make it all right, won’t it?’
‘Yes, I’m sure it will,’ Nick said heartily, as Dot put a steaming mug of tea down in front of him. ‘C’mon, everyone dig in and then we’ll discuss what to do next. The chief inspector said I could have an exclusive so far as the paper’s concerned, but I guess there are things you’d both rather I didn’t write about, isn’t that so?’
Dot and Corky exchanged somewhat guilty glances and Dot knew that Corky shared her own feeling that there were some things she would very much rather no one knew. For instance, she was pretty sure playing in the churchyard – and hiding a stolen necklace in the ruined church – were details better kept to themselves, and she did not want her uncle’s part in the affair, innocent though it may have been, to become common knowledge – though the fact that she had hidden in Mr Rathbone’s dustbin would obviously have to come into Nick’s story.
‘I guess you’re right, Nick; there are some things which we don’t want to see in the papers,’ Corky agreed. ‘I’m fourteen, but from what I’ve heard I’m under the control of the people at Redwood Grange until I’m sixteen. Can you use a made up name instead of my real one? Though I don’t see why I have to come into it at all. I’ve been helping, but that’s about it.’
‘Tell you what, I’ll type out my story tonight and then you and I will come round here tomorrow morning and I’ll read it out to everyone,’ Nick said. ‘The chief inspector will want to make out a cast iron case against both men, Rathbone and McNamara, before he releases anything to the press, anyway.’ He helped himself to a large cheese sandwich and spooned pickled onions on to his plate. Then, to Dot’s surprise, he spooned them back into the jar. He caught her astonished look and a faint blush tinged his cheeks. ‘I don’t want to go breathing pickled onions all over Emma when she does wake up,’ he said gruffly. ‘I – I think I’ll just pop back into her bedroom, make sure she’s still asleep.’
A week later, things had become very much clearer. As arranged, Dot had moved in with Emma who, though very much better, still stayed in bed until noon and then ambled gently about the flat, but did not attempt to go outside. Dot had the little spare room and revelled in the luxury of wonderfully clean bedding and a bathroom in which she could take a daily bath. She had visited her aunt regularly in hospital, taking her small comforts such as a bunch of grapes, a bar of Nestlés chocolate and some scented soap. Her aunt had been grateful, though annoyed that Rupert and the boys were having to manage without Dot’s help. However, she agreed, grudgingly, that it would probably do them good and make them appreciate Dot’s presence when she returned to Lavender Court.
Dot did not tell her that she was unlikely ever to go back; she would wait, she decided, until her aunt was fully recovered before breaking what she now realised would be bad news. But she owed it to herself to take up Emma’s offer of an apprenticeship in the jewellery trade and a home with her in the cheerful little flat, until one or other of them decided to move out.
Inadvertently, Dot had also cleared up another mystery. Emma had told the police about the man in the false beard and moustache, who had collected the weekly protection money, but had been unable to provide any real description, though she had said that his accent was a local one. She and Dot had been chatting idly one evening, over their supper, when Dot had said something which stopped Emma in her tracks. ‘I’m glad I shan’t ever have to go back to Lavender Court,’ Dot had been saying, ‘because I can’t help being scared of Uncle Rupert. I keep imagining his hands, all covered with long black hair, gripping me round the throat. I don’t wonder that me mam cut and run, though I can’t help wishing she’d taken me with her. Wharrever’s the matter, Em?’
Emma stared at her. ‘Hairy hands?’ she whispered. ‘Is – is your uncle tall and skinny? Does he wear a brown raincoat which nearly reaches his ankles?’
‘That’s right,’ Dot said, chewing a mouthful of salad and helping herself to another round of bread and butter. ‘How d’you know, Emma? Oh, I suppose you’ve seen him in old Rathbone’s yard, when he’s been shifting carcasses.’
‘No,’ Emma said, no longer whispering. ‘I – I rather think he’s the man who called on me a couple of times to collect – well, to collect the protection money. You know, the money all the small traders paid each week to ensure that they weren’t robbed again, and didn’t have their windows broken or their stock ruined.’
‘Golly,’ Dot said inadequately, digesting this. ‘So that was why Uncle Rupert went off after work each day and paid good money for that stupid coat. I did wonder why he had done so, because when he were humping carcasses old Rathbone gave him a filthy old boiler suit and a sort of rubber apron thing. Will he go to prison, Emma?’
‘So far as I know, Archie Rathbone hasn’t split on him,’ Emma said. ‘Nick said that Rathbone admitted he’d employed your Uncle Rupe but swore it was only to help move the carcasses and that he’d not taken him on until a couple of months after the last robbery. In fact, I don’t know what’s been said about protection money, but perhaps I ought to have a word with the police.’
To her own surprise, Dot leaned across the table and caught Emma’s hand. ‘Do you have to tell on Uncle Rupert?’ she said urgently. ‘I thought it would be grand if he were sent to prison, but now I’m not so sure. I – I don’t mean to go back to Lavender Court, and without Uncle Rupert’s wage poor Aunt Myrtle won’t know which way to turn. The boys are no help, and – and . . .’
Emma smiled at her with real understanding. ‘I don’t think he would be sent to prison because, after all, he only did what he was employed to do: collect money from tradesmen who handed it over willingly. He could have believed the money was owed, I suppose, but I won’t mention it, unless someone else is accused of course. Only – only if you don’t mind, I think we ought to tell Nick and Corky, because one shouldn’t keep secrets from friends.’
Dot agreed with alacrity; the close friendship between the four of them was the nicest thing that had ever happened to her and though at first she had been in daily dread that Corky’s true identity would be discovered, despite Nick’s sticking religiously to his promise not to name Corky in his article, this was one thing that no longer worried her. Earlier in the week, Nick and Corky had got on a train and gone back to Redwood Grange, where Nick had talked to the principal and then signed papers which allowed him to take care of Corky until he was old enough to fend for himself. Corky had told Dot, jubilantly, that the principal had not been too keen at first; in fact, he had been downright aggressive, saying that he did not mean to see a boy rewarded for ingratitude – that meant running away – and wickedness, which he supposed meant enjoying his freedom. Corky, however, had said bluntly that if he was returned to the Grange, he would make life hideous for everyone and would run away again at the first opportunity. ‘I’ll get a berth as a cabin boy and if I’m killed in a dockside brawl me pal Mr Randall will see that it’s headline news on every paper in the country that you’d driven me to it,’ he had threatened. ‘What do you say to that, eh?’
Not unexpectedly, the principal had backed down and Corky had known that he was safe at last. After all, he would be fifteen in a few weeks; an age at which most boys were working anyway.
The two girls finished their meal and Dot carried the dishes over to the sink. She would have started to wash up but Emma, glancing at the clock on the mantelpiece, told her to go and get her coat. ‘I’ll wash up; I’ve got to start doing a bit more about the house,’ she said. ‘You go and visit your aunt and don’t forget, sooner or later, you’ve got to pluck up your courage and tell her that you won’t be returning to Lavender Court. After all, there’s no guarantee that your uncle won’t start trying to bully you again, and though you say your aunt finds you useful, she didn’t do much to prevent his bad behaviour, did she? But she’ll probably be released from hospital in a day or two, and I imagine when she goes home she’ll need help. Whilst she thinks you’re going back to Lavender Court, she won’t make any attempt to find someone else to come in and I know you, young Dot. If you see she’s in real trouble and she appeals to your better nature, you’ll probably agree to help out for a few days and end up back in the old groove of doing everything while your uncle and cousins lounge around like lords, doing nothing.’
Dot assured her friend that she was not such a fool, but a couple of days later, when she visited the hospital, Aunt Myrtle was dressed and ready to leave and taking it completely for granted that Dot would return with her to Lavender Court and take up her abode in the kitchen once more. It was a difficult moment for Dot because though her aunt was very much better, she was still prone to attacks of weeping, and though she said, often and often, that she was better off without more children, Dot knew that she blamed herself for the miscarriage and for Uncle Rupe’s disappointment, for he had certainly appeared to want the twins and had been cock-a-hoop to have fathered them at the age of fifty-six.
Dot waited until she and her aunt reached the kitchen of No. 6, Lavender Court. It was a dismal sight; the fire was long out and the room was chilly. Dirty dishes were piled up in the old clay sink and upon the wooden draining board, and the floor was covered in vegetable peelings, mildewed crusts and the caked mud from the men’s boots. The room smelt horridly of decaying food, filth and mice, as well as the nasty, greasy smell from a sink which had not been used, by the look of it, for a couple of weeks or more. Aunt Myrtle looked around, then flopped into a chair, heaving a sigh. ‘You’d best get going and clear up this filthy mess,’ she said resignedly. ‘I’d help only they telled me at the hospital as I weren’t to exert myself for at least a fortnight.’ She glanced around her with an expression of distaste and Dot thought of the clean, disinfected ward, the nurses in their crisp, rustling uniforms, and the all-pervading warmth which came from the radiators and was not dependent upon an open fire. Poor Aunt Myrtle! It would have been bad enough in the old days, when she and her aunt had kept the kitchen as clean as they could, but after her protracted stay in hospital, the slovenliness of her husband and sons must have been hard to take.
Dot looked about her rather helplessly; where to start? Then she decided that she must light the fire because such refinements as a gas stove were unknown at No. 6, and if she was to clean the place thoroughly – and make her aunt a heartening cup of tea – hot water was essential. She said as much and Aunt Myrtle, eyes closed, nodded resignedly. ‘I’m fair parched. I could murder a cup of tea,’ she admitted. ‘Get goin’ then, young Dot.’
Though this remark was made quite cheerfully, Dot found herself bristling slightly. She could well see now what Emma had meant. If she came back here to live, no matter how sincerely Aunt Myrtle meant to change her ways, Dot would soon become the little skivvy again and the boys would take it for granted that she should do all the work, run all the messages, and cook and clean whilst they pursued their own interests and treated the house like a hotel.
However, this was not the time to say so. Dot fetched water from the tap at the end of the court, the buckets under the sink being empty, boiled a kettle, made her aunt a cup of tea and then, grimly, began the gargantuan task of cleaning the kitchen. An hour later, she pushed the hair off her hot and sweaty face and went to examine the pantry. It contained a mouldy loaf of bread, an equally mouldy chunk of cheese, an almost empty tea caddy, the tin of condensed milk she had opened earlier, a flour bag which had split and must have got damp somehow since the flour inside was hard as concrete, and a blue bag with half a dozen sultanas sticking to the bottom. Dot returned to the kitchen. There was no need to ask what her cousins had been eating. Judging from the greasy papers she had found piled under the sink, it had been fish and chips, bought meat pies, bakers’ cakes and anything else which did not need much effort to prepare. Well, if they could afford such things when she and her aunt were absent, they could bleedin’ well go on affording them, she thought vengefully. She went across to the mantelpiece and picked up the tea caddy where her aunt kept the housekeeping money, but was not surprised to find it empty.
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