Nest of Sorrows (4 page)

‘They have. We all have. Lancashire Fusiliers then, is it?’

‘Aye.’

‘Front lines, I shouldn’t wonder?’

‘Eeh, I don’t know, do I? I mean – we’ll be the last to know when and where. Same as you’ve said over the last lot – we’re just the cattle, we go where we’re put. Only I’m going to try and get on, pass some classes if there’s chance.’

‘You’re looking for education? Out of a war? It might have been possible had you been a regular, but as a call-up . . .’

‘I’ve not been called up. It’s not my turn yet. But a few of us decided to go whether or not. I mean, it’s our country, isn’t it? He’ll be wanting more than Poland, you know. Next news, he’ll be prancing past the Eiffel Tower and that’s only a cough and a spit from England. I just thought I might take advantage . . .’

‘Of a war?’

‘It’s the only bloody chance I’ll ever get. Mind, as a Fusilier, I might not go far. The other feller’ll have a gun too, I suppose.’

‘He will. He most certainly will. Don’t think about it, Peter. I never thought about it. God alone knows how many lads I killed before they brought me down. It does not bear imagining. When you go in there, when it comes your time, just keep the tin hat on and the gun blazing. Does Rachel know you’ve joined up?’

‘No. She’ll not be all that interested.’

‘Ah, now, I wouldn’t be saying that, man. This is your chance now, not just for an education, but to see things right between yourself and my daughter. Though the damage to Katherine is probably beyond repair . . .’

‘Eh? What damage? Who’s been hurting her?’

Joseph breathed a long drawn-out sigh. ‘How will they educate you when you can’t see past your own nose? The child is terrified of you, frightened to death. Where she expected love, she got coldness. Sure I’ve tried to be a father to her, but it’s not the same. Unless you can get round Katherine, the child is a wedge between you and Rachel for evermore.’

Peter’s lip curled slightly. ‘She’s only a kid! How can a kiddy come between man and wife, eh?’

‘She resents you. For not loving her. Peter, she resents your resentment. Even at five years of age, she knows she was a disappointment to her father. Can you put that right?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Do you want to? Do you love the little girl?’

Peter hesitated. ‘No,’ he said eventually. ‘I don’t love her. I suppose this is the time for truth, what with the war and all. No point in lying over these things. No. At first, I thought she wasn’t mine. I know she is mine – I do know that now. Only I can’t get near her. It’s not just me. I know there’s something wrong with me if I can blame a baby for not being a boy and for its mother turning barren. But it’s her too. There’s summat about Katherine. It’s a way she has of looking at me . . .’

‘As if she knows everything?’

Peter shot a grateful glance in the old man’s direction. ‘That’s it! As if she’s got all the answers.’

‘Her mother was the same. Rachel bested me from infancy, she had me heart scalded every day of her young life. And my wife’s mother back in Dublin used to tell me that Katherine’s granny was the same as a child – all eyes and no comment. But if only you knew Katie, Peter! If only you knew your own daughter! She sings like an angel and her drawings are like the pictures of a child twice her age. Judith is a clever and industrious girl, but I’m convinced that Katherine has a brain that will shame us all. Ah well. Perhaps after the war . . .’

‘Aye. Happen when it’s all over there’ll be no problem. If Rachel’s a widow, then . . .’

‘Away with your bother, man! I wasn’t meaning that at all! A war changes everyone – even children. Perhaps it changes children most of all. When you come back at the end, you can have a fresh start – all of you.’

‘We’ll see.’ He rose to leave.

‘Will you be back to say farewell?’

‘I will. And I’ll get some leaves before . . . before whatever.’

Joseph O’Leary stood at his front door and watched his son-in-law marching away from him in the ill-fitting uniform. Poor Rachel! Poor Judith and poor Katherine! But most of all, his thoughts were with Peter Murray. He was the one going into the ‘whatever’. And only a man of Joseph’s experience could begin to know what that meant.

The war meant little to Judith. At worst, it was an inconvenience, because she liked her bed and did not enjoy the many nights spent in a communal shelter at the back of Grandad’s house. They lived in Maybank Street during the days now, full days at the weekends, and during the week coming home from school for tea, then sitting awhile to listen to the wireless when the battery was working. After dishes were washed, all three of them made their way to Grandad’s for the night, and Judith thought this was all very silly and time-consuming. No sooner did she settle with a book than someone moved her from one place to another.

Katherine was terrified. The wail of the sirens made her jump almost out of her skin, and she became even more ‘nervy’ and ‘highly-strung’ during that first awful year, that year of silence, dread and rumour. A further problem was that she seemed to take an unhealthy and very mature interest in the progress of the fighting, pushing herself to read daily and local presses, worrying herself ill when the Battle of Britain started and all those poor men went up in aeroplanes.

Rachel dragged her off to the doctor. ‘She doesn’t sleep, she won’t eat, she’s always in a corner worrying and she’s driving me out of my mind and all.’

‘Is she taking her cod-liver oil and orange juice?’

‘Yes. And malt on a spoon. I dose her up with malt every morning.’

‘Good . . . good.’ The man listened to the child’s heart. ‘She’s thin, Mrs Murray, very thin. Does she have a cough?’

‘No, not really. Only the same as everybody else – when she has a cold, like. But she won’t behave, Doctor. I can’t get really good food, you know how we’re all fixed with rationing. But we’ve got a few hens in the wash house and she won’t even take an egg. I can get her to eat a bit of yellow on dipped bread, but she won’t eat no white. Then when me dad kills a chicken, this one goes into mourning, won’t eat what she calls her friends. I’m at the end of me rope, can’t do a thing with her.’

Dr Barnes stared with mock-severity at the child before him. ‘Won’t eat your friends, eh?’

‘No. They ate Martha last week. Just because she stopped laying eggs.’

The doctor struggled not to smile. ‘Do you want to die, Katherine?’

Rachel stepped forward. ‘Nay, don’t go frightening her, she’ll only get worse!’

‘Shush!’ He placed a finger to his lips, then spoke again to Katherine. ‘If you don’t eat, you will starve to death.’

‘The spuds is all green,’ the child said clearly. ‘I will not eat green spuds.’

‘Neither will I. Green potatoes are dangerous. Tell you what, will you eat my chickens? My chickens have no names. If I eat yours and you eat mine . . .’

A half-smile played over Katherine’s mouth. ‘You’re daft, you are.’

The doctor straightened. ‘Well. That’s me put in my place, I suppose. Katherine, will you eat anonymous chicken?’

‘A chicken without a name, you mean?’

‘Yes.’

She pondered. ‘With stuffing on the side. I’ll eat it with stuffing on the side, but not out of its bum.’

The doctor threw back his head and laughed heartily. ‘What you have here, Mrs Murray, is a child over-endowed with intelligence and sensitivity.’

‘Aye, and without a pick of flesh to her bones. The cruelty will be having me up about her. You could play a tune on her ribs.’

‘Wait outside, Mrs Murray,’ he said quietly. ‘I want a private word with my patient.’

When they were alone, the young doctor watched as Katherine pulled on her clothes. Then he squatted on his haunches so that his face would be level with hers. ‘What are you afraid of, child?’

‘The war.’

‘Just the war?’

She nodded quickly. ‘Mind, there’s other things I don’t like. I don’t like boys with irons on their clogs and I don’t like soldiers.’

‘Oh? Why not?’

‘They frighten me. Their clothes are rough and a horrible colour. Boys kick. Soldiers kill each other. People kill hens too. Even nice people like my grandad. Sometimes, I don’t seem to like anything at all, except for drawing.’

He took her tiny hands in his large palms. ‘What about Daddy? Do you like him? Are you afraid of him?’ He knew enough of the family’s circumstances to ask this very leading and dangerous question.

‘I don’t like my dad. He doesn’t like me, see? He only likes our Judith. She’s a good girl, never does owt wrong.’

‘But what wrong have you done, child?’

She suddenly seemed to age, for the eyes of an old woman stared blankly from her face as she said quite simply, ‘I got borned. And I got borned a girl. I heard them talking about it – my mam and Grandad and Uncle Joe. After me, my mam can’t have any more babies. I should have been a boy.’ She studied their intertwined fingers for a second or two. ‘I tried being a boy for a few days, pinched some keks off a line at the back of Hillside Street. But wearing keks doesn’t make you a boy, and I’ve got a bit missing. So I put the trousers back on the line.’

John Barnes suddenly felt a hatred for Peter Murray, a hatred that made his stomach churn with anger. ‘You’re a fine lass, Katie. There’s no need for you to try to be a boy.’

‘And no need for me to try to like my dad either. If he doesn’t like me, then I shan’t like him. So there.’

‘Things will be different once it’s all over, love. When he gets back safe, he’ll be glad of his little girl.’

‘No!’ She stamped her foot sharply. ‘And I’m still not eating green spuds.’

He released his hold on her. ‘My God,’ he whispered beneath his breath. ‘Six years old! Whatever are you going to become at all?’

She raised her chin. ‘Not a boy, I do know that. Partly because I can’t, mostly because I don’t want to. Anyway, who wants irons on their clogs?’

There was no answer to that, he thought as he opened the door to allow Rachel in. There was no answer at all to this precocious child.

Peter came home on leave several times. When he did, the family lived at 39 Maybank Street, and things looked fairly normal on the surface. But each time he came home, Katherine ran away at least once to her grandfather’s house. Joseph brought her back on every occasion, and she returned to her proper home without a great deal of protest. It was as if the child had a point to make and, come what may, she would make it and be damned.

School was all right – Katie quite liked that. It was a place where she could be just like everyone else, where it didn’t matter that daddy didn’t love her. At school, she could do things, pretend about things. There was story time for a start, she loved that. Then there was composition and drawing – even arithmetic held a certain logical charm.

But there were also the bullies. It was about them she had expressed her concern to the doctor. They were big, loutish lads with irons on the wooden soles of their clogs, and they took pleasure from frightening anyone who seemed smaller and defenceless. Katherine Murray was certainly small, definitely defenceless in the physical sense. But what the lads hated most particularly about her was that she was cheeky. When they threatened her, she conceded no ground, showed little fear and gave them a load of lip, so they decided, in their infinite wisdom, to teach her a lesson.

The lesson involved a length of rope, a lamp-post, and several six-year-old thugs. At four o’clock one October afternoon, they fastened the protesting child to the lamp standard and threw stones at her. She faced them, eyes wide and unblinking as they hurled abuse and missiles in her direction. ‘Pig-face!’ they shouted. ‘Ugly red-head cow, silly teacher’s pet, scrawny kid.’ She bit back the threatening tears. If her fear showed, they would have power over her forever. Even when a sharp stone grazed a corner of her eye, she stood her ground.

Then suddenly her father was there, his arm in a sling from a recent practice accident that had resulted in extra leave. With an almighty roar, he lifted a brick from the pavement and threw it at the lads. ‘Never touch my daughter!’ he roared at their disappearing backs. He stared at her in silence for a while. They were both tied up, she to the post, he to a rigid splint. With much difficulty, he unfastened the ropes with his one good hand. They eyed one another cautiously. ‘Why?’ he asked at last.

‘Because I’m only a girl.’

‘Katherine!’ He paused. This was the child he did not, could not love, yet he somehow wanted to protect her. Was this paternalism? Had it arrived at last – too late? There was despair in his eyes. ‘It’s OK to be a girl. I’m sorry.’

‘So am I. If I were a boy, I’d knock the shit out of them.’

His mouth twitched. ‘You shouldn’t say words like that. Judith never says those words.’

She looked up at him, yet her eyes held such an air of arrogant superiority that he felt as if he were the shorter of the two. ‘Judith never does anything interesting,’ she said, clearly. ‘Judith is boring.’

He realized with a terrible jerk of his heart that this was the first time he had had a conversation with this child. And she was walking away, cool as a cucumber, covered in blood – the kid was walking away from him. ‘Wait!’ he called.

Immediately, obediently, she stopped. But she did not turn her head in his direction. Instead, she simply stared ahead and waited for him to catch up with her. ‘What do you want?’ she asked now.

‘What do you mean, what do I want? We’re both going home, aren’t we?’

‘You want to walk with me?’

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t know.’

They walked along a few paces, then Katherine sniffed and said ‘Thanks.’ Her tone was subdued. ‘They get me cos I’m cleverer than them and I do all the sums right. They can’t fight with words, so they use their hands and feet and stones. Like soldiers.’

‘I’m a soldier.’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘And I can’t fight with words?’

She stopped and looked at his bandaged arm. ‘You never say words, not to me. And you’re not doing so well with the other sort of fighting, are you? Does it hurt?’

He smiled uncertainly. ‘I haven’t done any fighting yet. I got this falling off a wooden horse in the gym. It was an accident.’