Born to Trouble (8 page)

Eventually she felt a little relief and after a while she steeled herself to stand up and get dry, pulling on her dress again and then going to the back door and opening it. It was quiet outside, since most children had been called in and put to bed, but high in the mauve- and charcoal-streaked sky, the swallows were calling to each other as they skimmed and dived in the thermals, skilfully swooping on airborne insects the hot weather had brought out and gorging themselves in a feeding frenzy.

She stood listening to their cries and watching their graceful dipping and rising until it was dark and they were gone, and slowly the numbness born of shock and trauma which had paralysed her mind began to dissolve. And she knew she had to get away.

Her mother had been paid for letting Mr F do what he’d done to her. Not only that, but her mother was going to let it happen again and again. She shut her eyes for a moment. She’d rather throw herself in the river than suffer that.

She felt sticky between her legs and knew she was still bleeding, but now panic at the thought that her mother might somehow constrain her was high. She couldn’t wait until morning – she had to go now, tonight. It didn’t matter where, she told herself frantically. But she had to change this dress for her other one, and put on her spare shift and drawers – and that meant going upstairs.

Once she was standing on the landing she could hear her mother snoring. The sound was reassuring inasmuch as it meant she could leave the house undetected, but now, as she put it to herself, she was feeling bad right through. Just climbing the stairs had made her sick and giddy, and as she entered the room she shared with James and Patrick, she had to hold onto the door handle when the floor shifted and everything spun. Sitting down on the edge of the bed, she looked at the sleeping faces of her brothers in the dim light. They were lying facing each other, James’s arms about Patrick. They often slept like this.

She had promised Seth she would take care of them both, so she couldn’t leave them. But she couldn’t take them with her either. How was she going to feed them and look after them? Where would they sleep? No, she couldn’t take them. Silent tears ran down her face. Her mother would
have
to look after them when she had gone, and it wasn’t as if they were any trouble, they were good little boys. And at least here they would be clothed and fed and have somewhere to sleep. The neighbours would keep an eye on them once they knew she’d gone; they were all aware what her mother was like.

She sat with her hands clenched in her lap in an agony of indecision, but really she knew she had no choice. She had to go, and she had to go alone. She didn’t care what happened to her – in fact, right at this moment she wanted nothing more than to hide somewhere and go to sleep and never to wake up again – but the boys needed a roof over their heads.

She was hurting so much she wanted to creep under the covers and lie down, but she mustn’t. Taking her spare set of clothes from the orange box under the bed, she slowly got dressed, pulling on her boots and replaiting her hair which had come loose in the struggle with Mr E Then she bent over the sleeping children, laying her face against one little tousled head and then the other before straightening, the ache in her heart a physical pain.

Silently she left the room and once downstairs took her hat and coat from their peg in the hall. It was summer and she didn’t need them, but she took them anyway.

In the kitchen she paused. The bunches of flowers were where James and Patrick had left them on the kitchen table. They belonged to another lifetime, another world. She stood, a small figure in the dark room, whispering, ‘Seth, Seth, I want you, Seth. Please help me,’ but the only sound was the uncaring tick of the mantelpiece clock and a rustling in the corner which meant the mice were hunting for crumbs of food. Her mother had never told her which prison Seth and the others were in, and her requests to visit them had been met with cuffs round the ear until she had learned to stop asking, but never had she longed for her brothers so desperately.

She had to leave the house. She couldn’t stay and let
that
happen again. She would walk into the country and hide somewhere and go to sleep. That was as far as her bruised mind could plan and it was enough.

The night was dark but not as black as she had expected; when she looked up into the sky she saw the moon was high and the stars were bright. She had always been frightened of the dark – Seth had used to tease her about it – but she knew she would never be frightened of the dark again. There were much worse things than ghosts and ghouls.

When she started to walk she didn’t know how she was going to get to the end of the back lane, let alone to the country. Any movement was excruciatingly painful, and the feeling of nausea had her swallowing hard.

There were still a few people about once she came into High Street East, but no one paid her any attention and she kept to the shadows, using the alleys and back ways as she forced herself to walk on. After a while the pain seemed dulled, the fear of what was behind her if she didn’t escape the town driving her limbs. When she came to Ashburne House and then Hendon Burn she was surprised she had got this far; it was as though she had been in a dream, unthinking. She was on the outskirts of the town now, not far from where she had brought the boys earlier. The odd farm and big house were interspersed with old quarries and disused clay pits, the countryside stretching before her. She breathed in the warm night air, her senses heightened even as her mind remained in the vacuum where it had taken refuge.

She walked until she couldn’t walk any more. If she had but known it, the birds were a few breaths away from beginning the dawn chorus when she crawled into the shelter of an ancient tree, the bottom of its trunk almost hollowed away and providing a small cave-like structure. Spreading out her coat, she fell asleep the moment she lay down.

When Pearl awoke, late-afternoon sunlight was slanting through a tiny crack in her hidey-hole. The day was very warm, but lying as she was inside the tree, the sun had not burned her. She lay looking out of the hole she’d crawled through. Tall grasses were swaying gently in the mild breeze and she could hear birdsong. On raising her head she felt so sick and dizzy that she was glad to shut her eyes again. This time though, her sleep was punctuated by strange dreams and disturbing images, and although she was uncomfortable and in pain she didn’t have the will or strength to do more than toss and turn. She knew she was unwell, but it didn’t matter. She didn’t want to wake up properly and leave her sanctuary, she just wanted to sleep.

Night fell. A vixen with her cubs passed the tree and paused, sniffing the air before hurrying her offspring away. An owl hooted, the creatures of the night went about their business as they always did, and eventually the pale pink light of dawn began another day. And in the hollow of the tree Pearl got sicker and sicker, the fever that was ravaging her body sending her temperature soaring.

The sun was at its height. It shone on the raven-black hair of several brightly dressed young girls with Gitano complexions and big gold hoops in their ears, sitting in a giggling circle plaiting rush baskets with deft brown fingers. In the field behind them were horse-drawn caravans and tents of all shapes and sizes, the smoke from numerous woodfires and the shouts of squabbling children and barking dogs filling the air.

The gypsy encampment had arrived early that morning, but to an onlooker it would have appeared they’d been settled in place for some time, such was the order prevailing. Horses had been put to grass, washing hung on lines constructed between trees, fowls were pecking about for scraps, and children were being bathed in the big wooden tubs the clothes had been washed in. Clothed all in black, gnarled old women with saffron skin and forbidding eyes sat on the steps of gaily painted, round-roofed caravans with babies on their knees, while younger women with harassed faces were bent over great black pots suspended above woodfires, stirring something or other in the cavernous depths. A group of men were sorting through a number of salvaged pans, metal buckets and kettles for those worth mending and selling; others were preparing rabbits and hedgehogs for cooking, still others chopping wood for the fires or inspecting the horses they intended to trade later. All was bustle and life, noise and chatter.

Some fifty yards or so from the encampment, three young boys were returning home with two pheasants caught by their lurcher dog. They were brothers, the eldest sixteen years old, and all had the swarthy fresh complexions, sturdy limbs and bright eyes which came from living and working in nature’s own atmosphere. The two younger boys having gone slightly ahead, the eldest’s attention was caught by the dog which was behaving strangely, whining and pawing at the foot of an old tree higher on the bank.

‘We’ve got all the food we want for today, Rex. Leave it.’ Byron Lock whistled to the dog and then frowned when he continued to scratch at the tree roots, grumbling deep in his throat. This wasn’t like Rex. Byron had trained the dog himself from a puppy, and he responded immediately to his every command. Calling to his brothers to take the birds they’d poached back to the camp where his mother would soon have them plucked and in the pot, the youth climbed up the bank and made his way to the dog. At his approach, the animal became still and sat down, but did not budge from the spot.

Byron crouched down and looked into the base of the tree, which he saw was one big cavity. A good storm and it would be down, he thought, in the moment before he saw the small figure of a child curled up inside. He started, making the dog jump and bark, but the child – a girl – didn’t move.

His heart thumping hard, he put out his hand and felt the little body. It was warm, and when he slid his fingers under the chin, he could feel a rapid pulse. She was alive then. Breathing out his relief, he sat back on his heels. As he did so, the child stirred, muttering something unintelligible. ‘Wake up, little ’un.’ Byron reached into the hole again and shook her gently. ‘Come on, wake up. Time to go home, wherever home is.’

She stirred again, giving a low moan, and as his hand moved to her forehead he felt it was burning hot. Again he sat back sharply. They’d moved camp from their usual summer place near Newcastle because the hot weather had caused the fever to become rampant in the town.

Byron stood to his feet, glancing at the dog who stared back at his master trustingly. ‘Guard.’ Turning, he slid down the grassy bank and began to walk towards the camp. He didn’t need to check if the dog had obeyed him.

The laughing circle of girls called to him in the gypsy tongue as Byron passed by, but although he raised his hand in acknowledgement, he didn’t pause. He made his way to the far corner of the field where his mother and one of his sisters were already busy plucking the pheasants. Theirs was not a large family compared to some within the tribe. It consisted of his parents, two older sisters – Leandra and Ellen, who were both married with children of their own – Madora, his twin, who at sixteen was due to be married within the year, and his two younger brothers, Algar and Silvester, who were fourteen and thirteen respectively. Freda was the baby of the family, and she was eleven years old. Many of their relations had families of double numbers, and his mother had been one of twenty-two children, twenty of whom had survived to adulthood.

His mother stopped what she was doing at his approach, seeing from his expression that all was not well. Corinda Lock was a fine-looking woman, her thick shiny hair still as black as the day she had married twenty-three years ago, and her figure as firm and lithe as a woman half her age. Born a Buckley, and the eldest daughter of the Buckley clan, Corinda could trace her ancestry for many generations, and her heritage showed in her noble bearing.

‘What’s the matter?’ Corinda asked as Byron reached her. ‘Algar and Silvester said the dog was after something.’

‘Not exactly.’ Corinda was tall for a woman at five foot seven, but even at sixteen Byron was several inches taller than his mother. Swiftly he explained what he had found, adding, ‘She’s in a bad way by the look of her, Dai.’

Corinda stared at her son. Wiping her hands on a piece of sacking she gestured to Madora to continue with what she was doing. ‘I’ll get your dad – and keep this to yourself for the moment.’ Her husband had been tending a foal since they had camped; it had been born a few days before and was on the small side.

Mackensie Lock listened intently to what his son had to tell him. He didn’t hesitate. ‘Fever or not, we can’t leave a child out there in that condition.’

Byron made no answer but looked towards his mother. Quietly and in level tones, Corinda said, ‘Until we know what’s what, she had better be isolated in the caravan with just myself seeing to her. She can have Madora and Freda’s bed, and I’ll sleep in your grandmother’s. The three of them can have our bed and you’ – she looked at her husband – ‘can sleep with the lads.’

Corinda and Mackensie slept at one end of their long tent, a strong waterproof construction made with wooden hoops fastened into the ground and covered with canvas. At the opposite end, Byron and his brothers occupied a curtained-off area, and the two girls and Halimena, Mackensie’s old mother, slept in the caravan. Although the boys would strip to the waist in the open for a wash and think nothing of swimming naked in a river or lake, Byron had never so much as seen his sisters in their undergarments, and the most perfunctory toilet was done with the caravan door closed.

By the time Byron carried the small figure into the camp, Rex bounding and jumping beside him, Corinda had been joined by the wizened figure of Halimena. At seventy-six, Mackensie’s mother was still as nimble as a young girl. As her son had often remarked wryly to his wife, Halimena was quite capable of seeing them all out. Not that Mackensie didn’t love his mother, he did. They all did, and Halimena was greatly respected within the community owing to the fact it was generally acknowledged she had the Second Sight. However, she could be difficult to live with. As the eldest son, it had been Mackensie’s responsibility to take his mother under his protection when his father had died, but it had been a while before Corinda and his mother had co-existed comfortably.