Hold My Hand (21 page)

Chapter Thirty-one

At least they're not rationing water, he thinks. Even though I can't have a bath more than three inches deep to save fuel and I've three sons I haven't heard from in weeks, at least my pansies don't have to suffer.

He's even managed to scrounge a sack of mature horse manure from the stables at the dairy – an unheard-of triumph, and probably illegal given that everything is supposed to be going toward agricultural production, but the Bodmin Road flowers were his pride and joy before Adolf and his hordes, and he'll be blowed if he lets them fail because there's a war on.

Arthur Boden replenishes his watering can for the fifth time from the greenish supply in the horse trough, and sloshes his way up to the far end of the platform. It's a beautiful day – a blazing day, perfect for watching the dogfights further along the coast over the channel – and he has taken his jacket off while he works. It's easier, in these days of shortages, to get the sweat stains out of a shirt than to get a uniform cleaned. He hums as he lugs the can, screws his eyes up against the light.

There's a small girl sitting on the bench behind the flower trough. His display is so grandiose, and the child so scrawny and drab, that he hadn't noticed her. He doesn't remember her coming through the ticket office, but he's only been on duty since noon. She has a battered brown suitcase with her which looks like it's made of cardboard. She wears a dress that may once have been made of red gingham, but its general greyness makes it hard to tell. It doesn't fit her, is far too large, and has been darned at the armpits, make-do-and-mend style. It's her hair that really attracts his attention, though. It stands out from her scalp as though it has been roughly shaved, and recently. Nits, he thinks. That one's had nits.

He pauses in front of her, feels the watering can bounce off his shins.

She gives him a look.

“What?” she says. Challengingly.

“There's not another train due in for four hours,” he says. “Are you sure you're in the right place?”

“What's it got to do with you?”

Arthur Boden puffs himself out, annoyed that his authority should be called into question. “I'm the stationmaster, that's what, young lady,” he informs her, “and I've got every right to be finding out about people's business. There's a war on, you know.”

“Yer, yer, yer,” says the child. “Change the record, Mister. This one's got a scratch on it.”

“Well, there's no need to be rude,” he says. Walks off to water the pansies, muttering under his breath about young people and modern times.

She doesn't move from her spot on the bench while he drenches the half-tubs of compost, feels the plants breathe out gratitude and pleasure as the water reaches their roots. It's funny, he thinks, how, once you're responsible for a garden, it becomes so much more alive. You can practically see plants taking a stretch, laughing with pleasure, when you give them a drink. A bit like people, really. In the Legion on a Saturday night. I must remember to tell Ena about that when I get home

The child starts kicking her legs, swinging them into the space beneath the bench, fingers gripping the slats to give her better purchase. What a way to pass a summer afternoon, just a sitting on an empty station finding grownups to be rude to. That's not country behaviour. I'd have got a clip round the ear if I spent more than ten minutes on the village bench. The country's going to wrack and ruin, that's about the truth of it, the blitz driving London slum dwellers all over the place like rats off a sinking ship, bringing their city ways to places where they're not wanted. You can't turn your back on half of them or they'll be away with anything that's not nailed down.

He glances at her again. Nasty, mean little face, he thinks. Poor little mite. Probably hasn't stood a chance, wherever she's come from. Nothing but bread and dripping to eat, never seen a vegetable before she came here and not a breath of fresh air from one day's end to the next. He softens, re-approaches.

“You off somewhere?”

The child rolls her eyes insolently, lets loose a groan. “I tolja,” she says, “it's got nuffink to do wiv you.”

“Well, there's no need to be rude,” he says again. “I'd be well within my rights to order you off this station if I felt like it.”

“Well, bully for you. Aintchoo the big almighty.”

Arthur sits down on the bench beside her. He's a kindly man, really, under the veneer of officialdom. Doesn't like to see kiddies on their own. Doesn't feel it's natural. He digs in his pocket and finds the eighth of Mint Imperials he got off the ration at the beginning of the week, in their crumpled paper bag. Puts one in his mouth and offers the bag.

She looks at him suspiciously.

“Go on, have one,” he says. “They're not poisoned.”

She gazes at the sweets, looks up at him, back at the sweets.

“They won't be here forever,” he says.

She snatches a sweet from the top, crams it into her mouth as though afraid he'll change his mind. Sits there with it pressing her cheek out like a gobstopper, and sucks and sucks.

“What do you say?” he asks.

“You ain't supposed to be giving sweets to children,” she says.

“And you're not supposed to be taking them,” he reminds her.

She shrugs. “Well,” she says. “Fanks.”

“You're welcome,” he says. “Been evacuated, have you?”

She shrugs again. “Ain't going to stay evacuated, neither.”

“Going back to London, are you?”

“Don't be stupid,” she says, “Portsmouth.”

“Ah, right,” he says.

“My Mum's there.”

“Ah, right,” he says again.

They sit, and suck, and she swings her legs in the sunshine.

“Missing her, are you?” he asks.

She shrugs again. Swaps her sweet into the opposite cheek. “Dunno about that, but I bloody hate it here.”

“Ooh,” he says, ignoring the swearword, though his own children would have been standing in a corner by now, “I'm sorry to hear that. You told anyone you were off, did you?”

“Course not. Ain't nobody spoken to me since Tuesday anyway. I'm in
Coventry
.”

Five days, he thinks. That's a fair old time to put a child into Coventry for.

“What, no-one?”

“No-one. Buggers. Snobs, the lot of 'em.”

“I daresay,” he says. He imagines some old-fashioned Cornish family, landed suddenly with this foul-mouthed larrikin. Chances are they wouldn't be too happy. But five days… “Where you been staying?”

“Meneglos.”

“That's a fair old way. What did you do? Walk here?”

“Don't be stupid,” she says. Sneers. “They was all going in to the cinema in Bodmin. Only when we got there she suddenly goes Lily you're not coming in with us cause I'm
not to be trusted
, apparently, so she says I've got to sit in the car and not touch nothing for
two hours
while they're all in there watching
Pimpernel Smith
and I thought, bugger that for a game of soldiers. I'm making myself scarce.”

“I don't blame you. Don't you think they'll be worried, though?”

She's broken through to the mint's soft, powdery interior, concentrates on it for a second or two before replying: “Course not. Glad to see the back of me, more like.”

“All right,” he says. “You know best, I daresay.”

“She's told me so often enough,” says Lily.

“Has she? And who's “she”? The cat's mother?”

“Mrs Bloody Blakemore,” she says. “bloody Bitch Blakemore, I call her.”

“Do you?” he asks. The name has a familiar ring to it. One of the big houses around Wadebridge way.

“She's a snob and no mistake,” says Lily.

Probably not wrong, he thinks. Still, what am I meant to do? These people are
in loco parentis
. She'll probably be worrying herself sick.

“So you don't like it there, then?”

“I want my Mum,” she says firmly. “At least my Mum didn't used to lock me in bloody
cupboards
.”

Mmm, he thinks. A vivid imagination, as well.

“And she hits me, and all,” she says.

“Hits you? What for?”

“Who cares what bloody for? I ain't done nothing bloody wrong but she blames me for everyfink.”

“Oh, dear,” he says. “It does sound like you've been having a hard time of it.”

“Can I have another one of them?” She nods at the mints.

That's my ration for the month. The cheek of it. Doesn't even say please.

“All right,” he says, unwillingly, regretfully. Offers the packet once more, sees his precious sugar allowance disappear into that toothless maw.

“Tell you what. I was just about to make myself a nice cup of tea. Don't suppose you'd be interested, would you?”

“Don't mind,” says Lily.

“I'll take that as a yes,” he says. “Tell you what. You wait here and I'll bring it out. It's a nice day. Might as well make the most of the sunshine.”

“Toodleooo,” she says.

Arthur Boden walks back up the platform to the station house. He doesn't like it when he has to do this: interfere. But what can you do? They all hate it, without exception, these poor mites, dragged away from their families and dumped in strange places, with strange people and their strange habits. He's had one staying who screamed the first time she saw a cow. She'd never even heard of cows, certainly didn't know they were where milk came from. But you can't have them wandering about willy-nilly all over the train system. Anybody could get them, and even if they did make it home, there's no guarantee that home even exists any more.

The room behind the ticket office is fusty, sleepy in the afternoon heat. He takes off his peaked cap and lays it on the desk, beside the timetables. Fills the kettle and puts it on the single ring the company have provided as the sole source of cooking for their all-day-and-night employees. Sits heavily down on the chair and picks up the telephone. Rattles the nuggets on the top and waits for the operator.

“Ah, Bella, love,” he says. “Arthur Boden at Bodmin Road station. You couldn't find out, could you, who's in charge of the evacuees over Meneglos way? I've got another one here. Trying to get to Portsmouth.”

He listens, chuckles.

“I know,” he says. “I think it's the weather. This is the third one this week.”

Chapter Thirty-two

The TV has been on the blink for nearly a year. The only way to turn it on and off has been to crawl round the back and switch it off at the wall. But tonight, when she has emerged on her hands and knees from turning it on, nothing has happened at all. She's tried taking the fuse out of the kettle and using that in its plug, but it's made no difference: there's no sound, no picture, and the red light on the front which shows that the set is connected remains obdurately dark. She's tried all the tricks usually so effective with delicate technology: banging it hard on its top; tipping it forward and rocking it back and forth on its stand; shouting at it. But nothing has happened. The machine has died.

It squats in the corner, laughing at her, reminding her that everything she owns is on its last legs, one way or another. You can only make do and mend for so long in a world where built-in obsolescence is the key to manufacturing growth. All her stuff, the ageing accoutrements of modern adult life, will need replacing, bit by bit, as her money situation steadies. That's one of the miserable, crushing things about poverty: once you've been in it for a while, the distance between you and what other people would call a civilised level of existence gets greater and greater.

Never mind, she thinks. I saw a second-hand TV shop in St Austell, in one of those pikey three-for-two, everything for a pound, discount streets the tourists never see. I'll buy one – just a small one, it doesn't have to be anything grand – when next month's money comes in, and that will tide us over until things are easier. And in the meantime, while there are no guests here, I'll use that fabulous entertainment centre down in the drawing room. It would be stupid not to. I can't spend every night alone with nothing to keep me company. I'm not the embroidering type.

As she's going downstairs, baby alarm and copy of the
Mirror
tucked into her armpit, mug of tea in her hand, blanket thrown over her shoulder, she glances out of the window and sees that it has begun to snow. Eddies of white circle beyond the pane, lit up by the security light, which she keeps on permanently at night since the scare. She pauses in the dining room and climbs onto the window seat, leans her elbows on the sill and presses her nose and forehead against the cold glass. I do hope it lies, she thinks. Yasmin's never actually seen snow lying on the ground, except in pictures. They do say you hardly ever get snow lying around here, but we're an island on the edge of the Arctic Circle, for heaven's sake. It's got to happen some time.

She feels like a burglar. Feels strangely guilty, though she's never been told she can't use the house. The equipment is there, after all, sitting unused, and it's not as if she's having a wild party or anything. No-one could begrudge her a night in front of the telly when her own has broken down. And yet – she feels like an interloper. Feels that Tom Gordhavo will somehow
know
. Is careful to put a coaster under the mug, as though he'd be able to tell the difference between servants' stains and those left by tenants.

The big sofa is more comfortable than she had expected. It looks hard and austere with its leather frame and kelim cushions, but feels like the firmest, most welcoming of beds when she lies on it. It's cold in here – she doesn't feel confident to run the boiler above defrost level when there are no tenants because a house this size will eat heating oil – and she's glad of her blanket. She doubles it over and lies with her head on a cushion, only her head and the hand that holds the remote control protruding. Hits the power switch and begins to flick through the channels.

He's got the full gamut of satellite. She feels a small surge of resentment. He's paying for this, no doubt advertising it as one of the attractions of the house, but there's no aerial outlet in the flat. People like me, she thinks, get five channels only. Even Freeview doesn't work down here without a proper aerial to feed the box. And all this time, there's been scores of channels just sitting there waiting for people who are here on holiday and the least likely of all to need it.

QVC has a diamonique sale on. BBC4 has a documentary on Sam Johnson. BBC3 is rerunning
Four Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps.
UKTV is showing
Are You Being Served
. The History Channel is doing something on the Nazis. ITV3 is showing
Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol
again. Living has a drama series where no-one wears clothes. E4 is doing a
Friends
all-nighter. FilmFour is in Czech.

Ok, she thinks. Scores of channels and it's still all crap. She tries the movie channels.
Lord of the Rings.
Great. If I wanted to see what it was like to climb a mountain in real time I'd go and climb it myself. Kirsten Dunst, smirking. She doesn't even wait to see what the film is.
Twenty-eight Days Later.
Zombies with their faces hanging off, running howling at the camera. She used to love zombie movies. Always cherished a secret ambition to be an extra in a Romero film. To sit around eating bacon sandwiches with half her head falling off.

Yeah, but. I'm so suggestible these days, I'd never sleep again if I watched that. I'm seeing ghosts as it is.

Yasmin stirs in her sleep, mutters, goes quiet again. Beyond the window, a singing quietness tells her that the snow is still falling. She tucks herself further in, mesmerises herself with an auction for a waterproof watch and a Star Wars fabric patch kit. Finds something with Shirley MacLaine in. Settles.

She's surprisingly tired, she realises. All I need now, she thinks, is a nice warm cat on my lap and I'd be off to sleep in seconds. Shirley is wearing clashing fabrics and saying outrageous things while a younger woman rolls her eyes. This is fine. Good background. She unfurls her arms, opens the paper. Someone from last year's
Big Brother
has got drunk in a nightclub. A group of footballers have got drunk in a nightclub. Two young men have been shot in their car two roads over from the Streatham flat. Tom Cruise is barking mad. Madonna's got the builders in again. Nikola, 23, from Purley, thinks the government should be doing more about law and order and has taken her top off to prove it. Some actors from
EastEnders
have got drunk in a nightclub. There's been a dust-up at the first day of the Harrods sale between three people all after the same plasma TV. The TV was broken, and all three were arrested. Someone from Transport for London wants to knock down Admiralty Arch to make room for bendy buses.

I don't miss London at all, she thinks. All that argy-bargy and elbowing and thinking that you
are
your consumer goods. She yawns, sips her tea. The young woman has stormed out of the house and Shirley is pulling “so-what” faces and polishing a vase.

Mystic Meg says that someone from the past is thinking about her. And that Love will be found where friends share spicy food.

The newsprint begins to swim. I'm tireder than I thought, she thinks. Maybe I should've gone to bed rather than coming down here. I'd go back up now, but I can't be arsed. I'll wait a bit, rest up ’til I've got the energy.

She drops the paper onto the floor. Stares up at the ceiling. The rooms are low, in comparison with their size. She can make out every detail of the knotting in the beams, illuminated in relief by the lamp on the side table. There are faces in the wood; long, despairing faces: the spirits of trees, mourning the lives they once had. Bridget blinks away a batch of sleep-tears. Tries to watch the movie. Realises that the actors might as well be speaking Martian for all she's taking in. She hits the mute on the remote for some peace and quiet. Closes her eyes, just for a second.

“
I'm cold… I'm so cold…”

Bridget feels as though she is swimming underwater, as though she has fallen into a deep, dark lake, that the current is trying to suck her down. Who was that? Who just said that?

“
Where is she? She's downstairs… don't worry… we have time…”

Whispering. Not speaking. I'm asleep. I've fallen asleep.

She kicks upward, struggles, breaks free. Something was holding me. I must –

She wakes with a start, all limbs jumping. Hears a croak break from her throat, looks around. Panics, because she doesn't know where she is. Somewhere large and dark and… Rospetroc. I'm in the drawing room at Rospetroc. I was dreaming. I must have gone right off to sleep.

Her limbs are dead-weighted beneath the blanket, her body temperature depressed by lying open-bodied under such inadequate covers. She lifts her head and looks at the screen. It is black: white lettering scrolling up the centre. Gosh, I must have been asleep a while. The film's finished. What time is it?

Nearly eleven. Damn. I've been out for well over an hour. I'll be awake all night, now.

The baby alarm crackles, comes alive.

“It's all right… go on… touch it…”

Bridget frowns.

“She'll never know. She's downstairs, I told you.”

Yasmin sounds – different. But people do when they're whispering. What is she up to?

There's an urgency to the next one.
“Hurry up! Hurry up! I can hear her! She's coming!”

Eleven at night. How long has she been awake?  Bridget sits up, kills the TV.

“
I'm cold. I'm so cold. Oh, don't… I want my Mum.
”

God.  Is she looking for me?  I'd better…

A harsh giggle. Spiteful. What's going on? What is she doing?

The voice speaks out loud. It doesn't sound like Yasmin at all.  “Stop it!  Stop it!  Oh, don't!  Stop it!”

Bridget is on her feet in an instant. It's OK, baby, I'm on my way. She leaves the mug, the blanket, takes only the alarm.  Runs through the house, feels the beat of urgency. 
I'm coming, darling. I'm coming...

Another laugh. “She won't know… don't you see? She won't know. She'll say it was your fault. It's always your fault…”

She reaches the flat stairs. Calls up them. “Yasmin?”

She's running up the staircase, bouncing off the close, tight walls. It's so cold in here. How could I leave her when it's so cold? It feels as though the air is freezing.

The corridor is quiet, empty. Bridget glances into the rooms as she passes them, the silent kitchen, the dark sitting room.
My baby. I'm coming.
Belts down the sisal carpet, puts her hand on Yasmin's bedroom door handle. It's almost frozen, like a block of ice. “It's all right,” she says as she enters. “I'm here.”

No movement. No noise. The night light burns on, in the corner, its thick mobile shade casting moons and stars and comets on the walls, the sloped eaves ceiling. She stands in the doorway, and her breath mists the air. It's as cold as the tomb in here.

“Yasmin?” she asks, uncertainly.

The child sleeps on. Bundled up beneath the covers, only her forehead showing, a lock of dark hair curled across of the pillow. The spare bed is rumpled again, blankets trailing like a mudslide to the floor.

Bridget looks down at the alarm in her hand. The monitor light, she notices, is off. She puts her thumb on the on-off-volume dial, feels the click and sees it light up. I must have turned it off while I was running.

She kneels by the bed. Peels the covers back from her daughter's face, to check. Asleep. Definitely. Not faking it. Her mouth is slack and her skin slightly damp.

“It's all right, darling.”

Yasmin screws her eyes tighter, unwilling to be disturbed, then opens them. Stares at her mother as though she doesn't recognise her. “Wh-” she says.

“It's OK. Go back to sleep.  You were having a dream.”

Yasmin stares at her, sightless, drugged by sleep. I'll get her another blanket. The heating must be shot in here. I've got to face up to telling Tom Gordhavo about all the things that are wrong with this place. It's no good letting it all go to rack and ruin because I'm scared of seeming troublesome. “Sleep,” she orders.

Yasmin turns back on to her side, buries her face in her pillow. Bridget gets up, takes a blanket from the tumble on the spare bed, spreads it over her. Tucks her in. “Night night,” She whispers.

In the corridor, as she makes her way to her own weary bed, the alarm crackles to life once more. “Night night,” it replies.  “Nunnight.”