After Hours (45 page)

‘Oh, yes,' she cried, and held on to him. ‘We can't lose him, not like this, please God!'

On the afternoon of the accident Jess telephoned Maurice in Manchester, and, leaving everything under the charge of his deputy, he took the evening train down.

In spite of his reason for being there, his spirits rose as he stepped off at King's Cross, glad to be back on home turf. Grey stone instead of red brick, plain classical lines instead of the Victorian scrolls and furbelows of Manchester's master brickies. Even the Underground seemed familiar and welcoming, inviting cosy purchases of Quaker Oats, Nestlé's chocolate and Player's Navy Cut.

At home in Ealing, Jess told him the latest news on Walter. They were to visit the hospital next day, slotting in after Annie and Duke, if all went well. In his own mind, Maurice readily believed that Walter's toughness of character would see him through; a view which would hold good only until the first hospital visit brought home the frailty of the human condition.

Talking in bed together, after a gentle and loving reunion, Maurice admitted to Jess that he was feeling homesick. ‘It ain't just you and Mo and Grace,' he confessed. ‘It's the whole place I miss. The smell and the feel of it.'

She smiled, luxuriating in the warmth of his body. ‘You ain't going soft on us, are you?' She'd never thought of him as nostalgic; only as forward-looking, thrusting into the future, feeding people their impossible celluloid dreams.

He grinned back. ‘A tiny little bit maybe.'

‘You ain't serious?' She put her arms around his neck, wondering where this would lead.

‘Why?' Absence had worked its miracle: to him Jess seemed lovelier than ever. She'd softened into her old ways, and that evening as he'd watched her putting the children to bed, he'd realized what
a good mother she was; practical and calm, ready to smile and praise, full of cuddles and goodnight promises.

‘'Cos I been thinking about us, Maurice.'

He unwrapped her arms from around bis neck. ‘Am I gonna like this?'

‘I don't know. Are you?' She took a deep breath and lay back on her pillow. ‘I've been thinking, the family needs to be together. I been over and over it: how can I make it happen without giving up the things that mean something to me the shop, designing, taking a pride in all of that.'

He nodded, leaning on one elbow and jutting out his chin. ‘Go on, hit me as hard as you like,' he invited. ‘I deserve it for dropping the choice in your lap. It weren't fair.'

‘Is that you saying sorry, Maurice Leigh?' She turned towards him a smile playing around her lips. ‘Well, it was a hard decision, I don't mind telling you. But I finally talked it through with Ett earlier this week, and we think we come up with the answer.' Pulling the sheets around her, she sat up and hugged her knees.

‘Come on then. Spit it out.'

‘Who says Ett and me only have to design and sell clothes here in London? When you think about it, why can't I do the same thing anywhere I like?'

He caught on. ‘In Manchester, even?'

‘Yes, or in Leeds, or Bradford. The women up there like to dress up in nice things, don't they?'

‘I should say so,' he said slowly.

‘Well, then, that's the idea. I'll move up to Manchester and open a new branch. Hettie will work from here, but we'll get together on the designing. We'll sell up here and buy a house in Manchester if you like, and find Mo and Grace good schools. What do you say?'

‘Is that what you want?' He held his breath. No more Mrs Walters. Farewell to her travelling gentlemen and her snuffling Pekineses.

Jess smiled at him. ‘You won't go on at me for opening another shop? We're not asking you for money, mind. This is something
we want to do for ourselves. But I won't have no time to go to the library for you, or nothing like that. I'm gonna be busy, Maurice, I give you fair warning.'

He put up his hands in surrender. ‘Anything you say, Jess.'

‘Don't look so gormless, for God's sake. I ain't said we'll fly to the moon together!' She gave him a gentle push. He toppled sideways, clean out of bed. ‘Maurice!' She scrambled after him towards the edge.

He pulled her down on top of him, and they lay on the floor, tangled in sheets and eiderdown.

‘It's settled, then?'

‘What about your pa?'

‘He's got Annie and Ernie, and there's Ett and Sadie and Frances. And Rob,' she added.

That night they slept peacefully, their big decision made. They'd move north. London would be all the nicer to come home to: Duke Street and Paradise Court, with Duke in the old pub, God willing, and Walter on the mend, everything as it was, nicely in place.

Next morning Sadie had her heart set on finding Walter fully conscious and sitting up in bed. Annie, recognizing her change of heart towards her old flame, warned her not to hope for too much. Rob drove her to the hospital to keep an eye on her if Walter turned out not to be as well as she expected. He couldn't help but feel proud of his sister, walking with her head up, her wavy hair hidden under a cream cloche hat, her pretty dark face set in determined lines. They parted in the waiting-room and Sadie went on ahead, down the already familiar corridor to Walter's ward.

There were old men in here, mere skeletons, hanging on to life by a thread. There were men with mottled faces and high fevers, men with hoarse, rattling coughs and hollow eyes. Walter was not as sick as any of these, she told herself. He was ten times as strong, with everything to live for.

She approached his bed. ‘He's awake,' the nurse whispered. ‘And asking for Sadie.'

‘That's me.' Sadie nodded and went forward. The wire cage lay in place. Walter was flat on his back, still connected to tubes.

The only piece of him that seemed alive was his face. With the rest of his body deathly still, his dark eyes slid sideways at her approach. She saw the click of recognition, checked her own distress and broke out in pleased tones, ‘Walter, what have you been up to, you bleeding idiot? Giving us heart failure like this.' She bustled up and took off her hat, sat down, bent to put one hand against his pillow. ‘What happened? No, don't try to talk. Tell me later. God, you ain't half given us all a shock.' She chattered on, trying to breathe life back into him. ‘What have they told you, Walt? How long are you gonna have to lie there with them tube things sticking in you?'

‘Sadie,' he whispered.

She put a hand on his shoulder.

‘Sadie.'

‘I'm here. Don't cry, Walt. I can't bear it. Listen, Annie and Duke and everyone send their love. Rob's outside waiting. He says, how's he supposed to get by without you?' Gradually her voice broke down. ‘Oh, Walt, what is it? What do you want?'

‘Sadie?' His eyes beseeched her. The word rolled around his mouth and seemed to fall from his lips like a heavy stone.

‘I'm here, Walt. I'm here for as long as you want me to stay.'

He closed his eyes.

‘Walt!' She could see he was tired, but it seemed more than that. She was afraid he was going to slip away from her for good.

His eyes opened.

‘You're gonna be all right, Walt.'

He shook his head and sighed. ‘I want you to stay, you hear? Don't leave me now.' He tried to free a hand from under the bedclothes, but the vigilant nurse came and told him to lie still. ‘Don't send her away,' he whispered.

Sadie looked up through her tears at the nurse.

‘I don't know about that.' She looked doubtfully down the ward. ‘I'll have to ask Dr Matthews.'

‘Please.' Walter managed another faint sound.

The nurse nodded and went off.

It would have taken an army of doctors to shift Sadie from Walter's bedside. ‘I'm still here, Walt. You sleep. I'll be here when you wake up.' She stroked his cold, clammy face, she listened to his breathing, scarcely moving a muscle in all the hours she sat there.

Matthews, the thickset doctor in the good City suit, with the gold watch-chain and the look of a prosperous merchant, reported instead to Rob. ‘Your sister's still with him, Mr Parsons. He's very poorly, I'm afraid. The fluid has seeped into the chest cavity. We're doing our best to clear it, but our guess is that it's gathered around the heart and that will affect the rhythm of the heartbeat. He's a strong young man, granted, and the heart muscle's good, but it's a matter of draining off the fluid before it affects things too badly. There may be an infection too, and that can inflame the heart.' He shrugged. ‘You understand what I'm saying?'

Rob nodded. ‘But he ain't gonna die?'

‘Touch and go, Mr Parsons. Touch and go. Try to persuade your sister to have a rest. There's no point her wearing herself out, you know.'

‘You won't prise her away from there,' Rob warned, as dogged as Sadie herself. ‘Ain't no point even trying.'

During the course of the day all the Parsons family filtered in to sit for a few minutes with Sadie by Walter's bedside. No one spoke much. Sadie stroked his face and whispered to him. He woke in the early hours of next morning to find her still sitting there. ‘See,' she said. ‘I knew you'd wake in your own good time.'

He smiled weakly. She slipped her hand between the sheets and held on to his.

‘Anyhow, Walter Davidson, just hurry up and get better and let's get you out of here. I can't stand hospitals, they make me come over all shaky.'

He gripped her hand. ‘You and me, Sadie. You and me both.'

‘Well, that's a good enough reason to get you out,' she promised with a brave smile.

If her willpower could do it, combined with Walter's strength
and courage, they would get him home. Between them they'd pull him through, for all the doctors' shaking heads and the nice, neat nurses' cold sympathy.

Fever set in. The infection that the doctor had feared took hold and racked Walter's weakened frame. For days he was delirious on a nightmare sea, dredging past horrors to the surface; the whine of bullets, the stinging stench of mustard gas, the unburied dead.

He saw the faces of his young pals, smoking cigarettes, hunched up in the trenches over letters from homes that they would never see again. He stepped over them, facedown in the mud, praying that the whine of the shell with his own name written on it would never reach his terrified ears and send him reeling down into the chambers of darkest hell.

They fought to keep down the fever, tried to persuade Sadie to get some rest.

‘He won't know you, even if he does come round,' they told her. ‘Not at present.'

‘I said I'd be here,' she said stubbornly. She turned to Walter's unconscious form. ‘I will be, Walter. There ain't nothing or no one can take me away from you, never again.' She would only agree at last to give up her place at the bedside to Rob, who volunteered to sit with his friend on the third night after the accident. ‘You send for me the minute he wakes up,' she made him promise.

Annie took her home to see Meggie and to persuade her to sleep.

Rob took up the vigil. A strange calm came over him as he sat at the bedside in the quiet ward. Walter's face was thin and pale but not much marked, except for the livid scar on his forehead. There was no sign of struggle; only sharp, shallow breaths and beads of sweat on his brow, which Rob sponged with a cold cloth.
The night nurse passed occasionally. Far off down the ward, a man coughed and turned in his sleep.

At three o'clock, Walter opened his eyes. He turned his head towards Rob. ‘Where's Sadie?' He sounded peaceful and rational.

‘At home, having a rest.' Rob leaned forward so that Walter could have a clear view of him. Walter nodded and sighed. ‘Know something? I think things is gonna be fine between us from now on.' He had a misty memory of Sadie leaning over him and whispering that nothing would take her away ever again.

Rob nodded. ‘I said I'd sit with you for a while.'

Walter hovered on the edge of consciousness, lured by the warm, drifting haziness of sleep, alarmed by his crisp, clinical surroundings. He focused on Rob. ‘What time is it?'

‘Three in the morning. Don't you worry, Walt, they're taking good care of you.'

Walter sighed. ‘How's Sadie?'

‘Worried sick, if you must know. She don't let on though.' He thought she'd been a marvel of toughness and loyalty. It had taken the accident to do it, but her feelings for Walter were shining out strong and true.

‘And little Meggie?'

‘Happy as Larry.' Rob kept his voice to a whisper. He knew the nurse was keeping an eye on them. ‘What about you, pal?'

‘Not so good, Rob. I'm weak as a bleeding kitten.'

‘I ain't surprised.' Rob whispered an account of the accident and Walter's injuries. He took care not to upset him by mentioning Richie Palmer's probable part in the whole ugly business. ‘We all knew you'd give it your best shot, though. Sadie, she won't listen to no Jeremiahs. She says you're tougher than any bleeding tramcar!'

Walter smiled.

Rob leaned forward to speak in his ear. ‘I reckon she might be right. We're proud of you, Walt, for doing what you did. The kid got off without a scratch, thanks to you.' He watched his friend give a faint nod.

‘I ain't done nothing special.'

‘We think you have, and you gotta keep that in mind. It's a
hero's welcome for you, Walt, when we get you out of here, back to the old Duke.' Rob's voice trembled.

‘How's that?' Walt stared at him. Had he heard right?

‘I said, back to the old Duke. That's where we'll be celebrating when you get back. Pa just got the word from Wakeley at the brewery. The licence came through for George this morning. He's taking over. It's all signed and sealed.'

Walter grasped his hand.