The Old House on the Corner (39 page)

Marie stood frozen to the spot and stammered something incomprehensible. Hadn’t Enda said all the Kellys had gone to live in Birmingham? Perhaps he’d said most, not all.

‘You don’t remember me, do you?’ the woman said kindly. ‘I’m Brigid O’Connor, used to be Kelly. If I remember right, you came to me and Edward’s wedding.’

‘No, I didn’t. I’m not Marie Brennan. Me name’s Victoria. Victoria Jordan, and I’ve never been to Donegal in me life.’ Marie fled from the shop. Her face felt as if it was burning and she was sweating cobs as she strode back to the square. She had almost reached home when she remembered she’d left the card on the counter and it had their telephone number on. Luckily, she hadn’t included the address.

I’d better tell Liam, she thought when she entered the house, but there was no sign of him. He must have gone out – they’d hardly spoken since Patrick’s outburst a few days ago. Danny would be well ensconced in Victoria’s by now, and Patrick had gone to a summer day school with Rachel’s daughter, Kirsty – script writing, or something.

Marie sank on to the settee and took several deep breaths. Was there any need to tell a single soul? None of the Kellys would wish her or her children any harm.
Weren’t they all on the same side, after all? Anyroad, hadn’t she denied she was Marie Brennan? Brigid Kelly, or O’Connor as she was now, would see no reason to disbelieve her.

Even so, if someone rang about the computer, she’d say it was sold rather than give their address to a stranger. ‘None of this would have happened if you hadn’t been so greedy,’ she told herself, and tried not to think about all the nice things she could have bought with a hundred pounds.

‘You mean he actually tried the door?’ Sarah gasped. She was outraged and at the same time petrified by such unwelcome news. She and Victoria were sitting on the back step watching Jack paddle in the plastic pool, his blanket on his head. Alastair, wearing only a nappy, lay in the shade examining his toes and Tiffany was in Victoria’s house, playing with Danny on the computer. Sarah had been feeling exceptionally contented with the world until her neighbour had arrived to describe what she had witnessed in the early hours of the morning.

‘Well, he went up to the door,’ Victoria said. ‘I think he examined the lock. I couldn’t see all that well.’

‘And it was definitely Alex?’

‘I couldn’t swear to it – I only saw him for a minute the other day when he was being shoved into the police car, but there was a Rolls-Royce parked in the main road.’

‘I didn’t hear a thing. I would have phoned the police if I’d known he was prowling around outside.’

‘I was wide-awake and the window was open. I could hear their voices, but not what they were saying, I’m afraid,’ Victoria said regretfully. ‘As to the police, I should’ve rung them meself. I didn’t think fast enough.’

‘My window was open too, but I was fast asleep and so was Alastair – his tooth’s appeared. It’s like a little white pimple on his gums.’ She felt inordinately proud, as if she personally was responsible for the tooth coming through. But there were more important things than Alastair’s teeth to think about at the moment. ‘What on earth am I to do about Alex?’ she cried. ‘He’ll probably come back tonight or another night, break down the door, snatch the children, and within an hour they’ll be on a plane to who knows where.’

‘Have they got passports?’ Victoria asked.

‘No, but that won’t stop Alex,’ Sarah said frantically. ‘He’s got his own plane, a little one with about six seats. I’ve never been in it, I was too scared. He only uses it to go to race meetings, sometimes in France.’ Once the children were out of the country, she’d never get them back.

‘Oh, Lord!’ Victoria bit her lip. ‘Tell you what, why don’t you all stay at mine tonight? You’ll have to bring your own bedding and Alastair’s cot. You and Tiffany and Jack can sleep in Gran’s old bed.’

‘Thank you, Victoria, that’s very kind of you and I’m very grateful. But we can’t sleep in other people’s houses for the rest of our lives.’

‘Of course you can’t,’ Victoria soothed. ‘Look, let’s put our brains together and we might think of something constructive we can do.’

Sarah didn’t think she was capable of thinking constructively. She wondered if Daddy would
still
have sold her to Alex Rees-James had he known the way things would turn out?

Kathleen and Steve had spent a blissful morning in bed. They hadn’t exchanged a single cross word.

‘This is how it ought to be,’ Steve said with a complacent grin when, at midday, they decided it was time to get up. ‘Perhaps we should stop talking to each other and just make love.’

‘Perhaps.’ Kathleen smiled, lazily stretched her arms, then reached for her cigarettes off the floor. ‘Although, isn’t that rather a bad thing, that we only get on when we’re in bed?’

‘I suppose we’ve got to learn to live together,’ Steve said sensibly. ‘We did all our courting in bed. We hardly knew one another when we left Huddersfield.’

‘What if we don’t like each other out of bed?’

‘In that case, Kath, we’re in trouble. As from Monday, I’ll be working: a week nights, a week days, so half the time we’ll hardly see each other, let alone sleep together.’

‘And when
I
start working, we’ll see each other even less,
and
I’ll be on duty the occasional weekend.’ Kathleen wrapped her scarlet dressing gown around her and silently contemplated this rather bleak future as she went into the kitchen to make breakfast. ‘Do you want something fried?’ she called.

‘No, ta, just toast and cereal.’

It was time they turned the bungalow into a proper home, she thought. All they’d bought so far were essentials. They needed curtains or a pretty blind for the kitchen window, pictures, plants, a rug for the front room, little pieces of furniture like bedside cabinets and a coffee table – oh, and a microwave and some lamps.

Steve came strolling in wearing khaki shorts and a short-sleeved shirt. His legs and arms were thick, but shapely. She felt a surge of desire.

‘Do you really
have
to take this security guard job?’ she asked. ‘Couldn’t you wait until one comes up with regular hours? You just said we must learn to live
together, but we’re hardly likely to do that if we only see each other a few hours a day.’

‘That’s hardly my fault.’

Here we go again, she thought impatiently. ‘I never said it was your fault, Steve,’ she said in as reasonable a voice as she could muster. ‘It’s the fault of the job. I was just wondering if you couldn’t get another where you worked nine to five, that’s all.’

‘Why do I have to change my job?’ he said truculently. ‘Why don’t you change yours?’

‘Because we only came to Liverpool because of my job.’ Reason fled and she gave a sarcastic snort. ‘I didn’t realize you wanted to make a career as a security guard.’

‘We’re fighting again.’ He sat down abruptly at the table.

‘I know.’ She caught the bread when it popped out of the toaster and began to butter it ferociously. ‘What are we going to do about it?’

‘I dunno. I think I must resent you.’

‘For what?’ she asked curiously.

‘You have a better job than me, had a better education, you’re better off than I am by a mile.’ He shrugged. ‘I suppose you make me feel inferior.’

‘That’s good,’ she said encouragingly, pouring cornflakes into a bowl, milk into a jug, and putting them on the table in front of him.

He raised his eyebrows questioningly. ‘It’s good that you make me feel inferior?’

‘No, that you’re putting your feelings into words. If we work through this together we might find what causes our fights and never have them again. Go on,’ she urged.

‘Me go on? What about you? Or am I the only patient in this psychiatric hospital, Doctor?’

She frowned. ‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Is it only
my
fault that we fight?’ He regarded her thoughtfully. ‘Believe me, Kathleen, you’re very different now than you were in Huddersfield. You never used to be so sure of your bloody self. You seemed softer then, insecure, as if you needed me. Now, all you want to do is piss me around. I daren’t open me mouth ‘case you jump down it.’

‘Who started this row, Steve? All I did was suggest you got a job with more convenient hours. Is that so awful?’ She poured the tea then lit another cigarette. She was smoking herself silly.

‘There was no need to rub in the fact that my job’s shit and yours is so bloody worthwhile. I knew that already. It was only going to be temporary, anyroad, till I found something better. Don’t you realize how important it is to me to bring some money into the house? I don’t want you keeping me.’ He picked up the tea and half drained the cup, returning it to the table with a thump. ‘You belittle me, Kath. I think that’s the word.’

‘I’m sorry.’ She realized his esteem was very low. She’d have to be careful in future. The rows were both their faults, hers as much as his. She picked up his hand and pressed her lips against the palm. ‘I love you. Shall we go into town this very minute and have lunch, then buy some things for the house? There’s no need to get changed, you look lovely as you are.’

He nodded, smiling, and told her he loved her too, so she poured the cornflakes back into the box, threw away the toast, and went to have a shower.

After she had dressed in her new black skirt patterned with roses and the top to match, she asked if he would mind if she just popped over to Rachel’s for a minute. ‘I won’t be long, it’s just to see how she is.’

‘Be as long as you like.’ He was by the kitchen window, looking out. ‘It wants planting with something out there: bushes’d be best, and perhaps a little waterfall in the corner. While you’re gone, I’ll work out what’s best to buy. Perhaps we could go to a nursery tomorrow and get ’em.’

‘Could we have some climbing roses?’ she said eagerly. ‘I love roses.’

‘What colour?’

‘Yellow. I like yellow best.’

‘Then yellow it’ll be.’

As Kathleen walked across the grass, she could see Rachel sitting on the settee in the living room, apparently staring into space. She waved, but Rachel didn’t respond. Perhaps she hadn’t noticed. The back door was open and she called, ‘It’s me, Kathleen. Can I come in?’

There was no answer. She called again, but still no answer. Was it deliberate? Did Rachel not want visitors and this was her way of showing it? Somehow, Kathleen doubted it. She went inside and noticed the dirty breakfast dishes were still on the table in the kitchen, the white of an egg congealed to the plate. Two wasps crawled around the rim of an open jar of jam.

‘Rachel – oh, what’s the matter, love?’ Kathleen never called anyone but her immediate family ‘love’, it seemed patronizing, but the word just slipped out. Perhaps love was what this poor woman needed.

Rachel’s face was like death, her eyes were dark and haunted with pain. She turned her head towards the visitor and said in a thick, dull voice, ‘Hello, Kathleen. How nice of you to come.’

‘Would you like me to make you some tea, Rachel?’

‘Yes, please. My throat’s very dry.’

‘I won’t be a minute.’

Kathleen boiled the minimum amount of water, found the teabags and put one in a mug, took milk from the fridge. It was hardly a minute later that she took the tea into the living room where Rachel hadn’t moved an inch since she’d left.

‘Here you are.’ She sat beside the woman and put her arm around her shoulders. Rachel’s body felt unnaturally cold for such a hot day.

‘Thank you.’

‘What’s wrong, love?’

Rachel was a long time answering and when she did, she spoke like a child, almost petulantly. ‘I thought when we moved everything would be different, that we’d make a fresh start. But you can’t escape the past, can you? Your troubles travel with you.’

‘That’s true. Drink your tea, Rachel. It will warm you up a bit.’ Rachel obediently sipped the tea. ‘What’s brought this on? You seemed all right yesterday.’

‘Frank said something this morning. Please don’t ask what it was. It just made me realize that there’s no way out. I’m trapped.’

‘In what?’

‘Trapped in this life, this awful life.’ She stared at Kathleen, who wanted to shrink away from the haunted eyes, scared that she’d be contaminated by Rachel’s hideous, all-consuming grief.

‘Would you like me to help you up to bed? Perhaps you could take a tablet. You mightn’t feel so bad after a good sleep.’ Kathleen felt ashamed. She was trying to find an easy way out, not wanting to irritate Steve by staying too long, yet knowing she couldn’t possibly leave Rachel in such a state.

‘I’ll never sleep. I’m all right here.’ She leaned her head on Kathleen’s shoulder. ‘I’m glad you’ve come.’

‘I can’t stay long, love. Steve and I have to go out. Another ten minutes or so and I’ll have to leave.’

Steve was in the garden when she got home, breathless from the short run from Rachel’s house. ‘I’m sorry I took so long,’ she panted.

‘That’s all right,’ he said easily. ‘I’ve made a list of things to get from the nursery. Apart from plants, we’ll need some garden tools and a hose. Are you ready to go now?’

‘In just a minute.’ She took the car keys out of her bag. ‘Will you get the car out? I just want to have a quick word with Victoria.’

‘Who’s Victoria?’

‘She lives in the old house on the corner. I met her yesterday and she’s awfully nice. I want to ask if she’d call on Rachel. The state she’s in, she shouldn’t be left on her own.’

‘Why don’t you stay with her, luv? We can always go out tomorrow.’

‘Would you mind? I was worried I’d upset you.’

‘You must think I’m a monster.’ He looked almost ashamed. ‘I suppose I did feel a bit put out when you came back late the other day, but I was worried about you more than anything. If the woman’s hurting, Kath, I’d feel a louse if you left her alone on my account. While you’re gone, I’ll find out where the nearest nursery is and get the stuff today.’

‘Steve!’ She threw her arms around his neck. ‘Kiss me before I go. Shall we go out to dinner tonight? Unhappiness is catching. I’ll need you to cheer me up as soon as I’m home.’

‘I know the best way of doing that – we’ll have dinner afterwards.’ He kissed her soundly and Kathleen went back to Rachel.