Nest of Sorrows (7 page)

‘Well, it’s true! He never bothered with me till he saw me tied to a lamp-post! He never cared till he found out I was as brave as any lad!’ Her temper teetered on the edge now, and Rachel grabbed her daughter’s arm tightly, but still the girl continued. ‘I used to listen when you were arguing. All about me not being a boy and Mam not having any more children. I thought things were all right between us now, but they’re not, are they? Oh, no, you’re going to pick on me all the while. Miss Goody Two-Shoes in there can’t do any wrong, can she? Well, I’m not having you telling me what to do all the while. And I shan’t go to university, I shan’t. So there!’ She stamped her foot against the rug. ‘Just because you never went, you force me. It’s all right for Judith, she’s like a big soft dog, she does as she’s told. But I remember things. I’ll always remember things!’

Peter Murray struggled to his feet and dealt to Katherine’s cheek a blow that sent both mother and daughter reeling, so fierce had Rachel’s restraining hold become. But she didn’t hold on for long, because the girl ripped herself away, picked up the large brass plaque and clouted her father full in the face with it. ‘Don’t you hit me,’ she snarled as the man put a hand to his nose. ‘Don’t you ever, ever again hit me. You’re always hitting me when Mam’s out. Never Judith. Always me!’

With this, she ran from the house, leaving her sobbing mother lying on the floor and her white-faced sister standing in the kitchen doorway.

Rachel picked herself up and stood shaking in the centre of the room, her hand straying along the table’s edge as if seeking support. ‘You’ve done it now, Peter,’ she said, her voice quivering with tears. ‘She’ll fetch somebody, you mark my words. I’ve known ever since I had her that she’d take nowt lying down. Judith, get up to your room. Go on. Don’t stand there as if you’re practising to be a tailor’s dummy!’

Judith turned and fled from the unpalatable scene.

‘The little bitch!’ With the back of his hand, he wiped a drop of blood from his upper lip. ‘Just wait till she gets in.’

Rachel composed herself, straining to listen as Judith’s footsteps reached the upper storey. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘You’ve been hitting her again. While I’m out, you hit her. You’re always going on at her, aren’t you?’

‘She gets what she deserves,’ he snarled. ‘I only thump her for clarting about when she should be studying.’

Rachel sighed heavily. ‘I’ve had enough, Peter,’ she said finally. ‘I know you’re drinking again. I know you can’t control yourself when you’re drinking.’ He turned his face towards the fire as she went on in a whisper, ‘I know what you’re like. Nobody knows better than me what you’re like. Thank God the two girls don’t know the half of it. But I’m your wife, I’ve had to put up with your temper. Oh aye, and I’ve the marks to prove it too!’

‘That’s nowt to do with this,’ he mumbled shamefacedly.

‘No,’ her voice was ominously low. ‘Happen it isn’t. But if you hit my daughter half as hard as you hit me . . .’

‘That’s private,’ he snapped, turning to face her, though he could not quite meet her eyes. ‘And I don’t mean it. I don’t want it to happen. It’s just when I’m . . . when I’m . . .’

‘When you’re drunk.’ She paused fractionally. ‘It can’t go on, lad. I shall have to go and stop at our Annie’s. And you can just forget about Hawthorne Road. Even if we did keep this family together, you’d never manage that rent, not with the amount you drink and put on horses.’

‘But I—’

‘When she gets in, I get out. And Katherine and Judith too. Our Annie’ll take us in. I’m not stopping here for you to use my daughter as a target.’

‘Oh aye?’ His voice arrived muffled. ‘And what about their education? Who’ll pay for that once you’ve hopped it? I’d like to see you putting the pair of them through The Mount on a doffer’s wage, especially after you’ve paid your Annie. She’s a grabber, is that one. There’s more Irish navvies kipping at her house than there is in all Liverpool.’

‘Then the girls will have to leave the school.’

He was suddenly sobbing, head in hands, back shaking violently. ‘Oh God,’ he moaned, ‘I don’t know what gets into me. It’s something about her. Like she’s defying me.’

Rachel sniffed. ‘No excuse to hit a little girl. No excuse at all.’

‘Please?’ He was pleading now, tears coursing freely down his cheeks. ‘Give me a chance, Rachel. Just give me a chance . . .’

She hesitated. ‘Right,’ she said at last, her tone firm and determined. ‘We’ll stop together on one condition, Peter Murray. Leave our Katherine to me. If you can’t deal with her without hitting her, just leave her to me.’

‘What? And let her get away with what she’s done?’

‘You hit her first. And you can’t expect a wiry lass like her to put up with being clobbered. She might be thin, but she’s strong. Remember how she dealt with the lads? She got them in more trouble than enough when they kept going for her. She’ll have you, Peter. She’ll get the police or the cruelty – just you wait and see.’

But Katherine didn’t bring anyone to the house. She simply stalked in, head held high, her eyes bravely meeting her father’s as he sat huddled over the fire nursing his sore nose. And he knew when he looked at her that she had won. Whatever he did to her, she could and would do worse. His defeat did not come with the battered nose, oh, no, the battle had been lost as soon as he raised his hand to her.

Without a word to anyone, the girl walked stiffly through the room and into the kitchen. It seemed that no-one breathed as she opened the stairway door and went upstairs. Judith received her without comment. The drama was over and she had a book to study.

‘You’ve lost her.’ There was a note of finality in this statement from Rachel. ‘What ground you made up, you’ve just lost. There’ll be no getting her back now. You are the biggest damn fool I ever met in my life.’

‘Aw, shut up. She’ll get over it.’

‘She won’t. And neither will you, you big soft lad. Shouldn’t you go to hospital and see if your nose is broke?’

‘It’s not broke.’

Rachel began to set the table for breakfast, her mind filled by a picture of Katherine’s determined face. His nose might not be broken, but that tenuous link with his younger daughter had been severed, possibly forever. Yet they loved one another, Rachel knew that.

After that night, no further mention was made of a house in Hawthorne Road. Peter knew that Rachel had been right. As expected, he spent his extra money on whisky and horses, coming into the house only to sleep and eat. His downslide had begun again.

Michael Wray ran his fingers across the clear handprint on Katie’s face. ‘He did that? Your own father did that?’

‘Yes.’ Her head was bowed in shame. ‘I couldn’t go to school today in case anybody noticed it.’

‘I’ll kill him.’ The boy’s tone was restrained in spite of the severity of his words. ‘Or I’ll set my father on him. He’s a sergeant now, you know. The other police think a lot of my dad, they’ll listen to him.’

‘No! I don’t want . . . I don’t want my dad in trouble.’

‘Why not?’

Her mind said, ‘Because I love him’, but she spoke aloud, ‘Because my mother couldn’t stand the shame. He’s never been happy because I was a girl. He seems to want me to be like a boy, successful and everything. It’s with me being ugly. He knows Judith will get married and her education will be wasted. But me, I’ll be on the shelf.’

‘Rubbish. You’re not ugly.’ He knew his face was burning with embarrassment. ‘You’ll get married, Katie.’

‘Huh! Who’ll have me? I’ve got stringy hair, eyes like a cat’s, great big feet and . . .’

‘A very nice smile.’ He hesitated and turned away slightly. ‘Yours is the sort of face painters like. It’s got lots of angles and planes, very good bone-structure. After you’d been to tea that day, my mother remarked on your cheekbones. Very high, she said. Very elegant.’

‘Oh.’

‘Anyway.’ He kicked a stone across the path to hide his acute discomfort. ‘I’ll marry you.’

‘Will you?’

He nodded. ‘We’ll have a farm with a duckpond, lots of mallards to paint. And in a barn we can make a big studio with good lighting and hundreds of canvases. I’ll use oils and you can use water-colours. We’ll have seven children and they’ll all be artists and actors and stuff like that.’

‘Nice. But we’ll have to wait years.’

‘What will you do till then, Katie? What if he turns on you again?’

‘He can’t help it. At first, he didn’t love me at all. Now, I sometimes think he loves me too much.’

‘If he loved you, he wouldn’t hurt you.’

‘And if he didn’t love me, I couldn’t disappoint him and make him hurt me. You can’t understand, Mike. Nobody but me can understand about me and my dad. I’m special to him. If I let him down, it really gives him pain.’

‘If he hits you again, we’ll run away and hide till we’re old enough to get married and be famous artists.’

She smiled broadly. ‘For thirteen, you don’t half talk daft.’ But the smile remained on her face all the same.

Peter Murray leaned on his walking stick and glared at his annoying daughter. She was a mess and no mistake. Blue jeans rolled up to the knees, a sleeveless striped blouse with a flyaway collar, the whole lot covered in streaks and splashes of paint. Her hair, too, was paint-spotted, that beautiful red hair that had thickened out something wonderful during the past few years. ‘What do you mean, you’re going to Didsbury? Didn’t you get an offer for Newcastle?’

‘I’m doing teaching,’ she said with quiet determination. ‘We’re both doing teaching so we’ll have plenty of spare time for our painting.’

‘Both. I see. So it’s still you and Mike Wotsisname riding off into an orange sunset, is it?’

‘With a touch of burnt umber, yes.’

‘Don’t you come the clever lip with me, lady! Your mam isn’t here to protect you now, is she? Why can’t you be like Judith? She’s doing so well at Oxford . . .’

‘I’m not a linguist. I’m an artist.’

‘I see. So you’ll be living in a garret next news, all candles and boiled spuds.’

‘No. We’ll do OK.’ She turned as if to leave the room, but he waved his stick at her and she stopped in her tracks, back towards him. ‘I hope you’re not threatening me, Dad.’

He shook his head sadly. That he could love her so much, that he could fail to tell her how much. He brought the cane down on to the table, noticing how she didn’t even flinch at the crash it made. ‘Katherine! Study art at Newcastle or wherever. Study fine art – you can always teach it if you want to.’

‘No. Mike and I have it all planned out. I’m going to teach juniors and he’s doing seniors. We shall get married as soon as we leave college.’ The catch in her voice was caused by the need to explain to him, to tell him that she loved Mike, that she loved her father too, that there was no need for all this animosity. But things had gone too far for that. And things hadn’t been right from the start, had they?

‘Katherine, why do you have to throw yourself away? Judith hasn’t got a boyfriend – she lives for her studies.’

She faced him now. ‘Good for Judith. It’s all working out wrong for you, isn’t it? You thought I’d be your nearly-son and Judith would get married and give you those male grandchildren you’re setting so much store by. Well, Judith can’t get a man. She might look like an angel, but she’s a cold fish. You spoiled her. You made her take and take until she didn’t know how to give. As for me, well, I started off as a disappointment, so I might as well carry on in the same vein. I’m not going to be a spinster just for you, just so you can say, “Look, I made a woman into a man”. And don’t wave your stick at me, I’m eighteen now and I can do as I please.’

‘You cheeky young bugger, you!’

‘And shouldn’t you be down the betting shop? They’ll be shutting the doors without your custom.’

‘Enough! Is it any wonder I’ve taken to the horses? With you coming in like a bloody rainbow and your mother going through one of her “silence is golden” phases? Look at you! Just look at the state of yourself! What the hell have you been up to at all?’

‘I’ve been painting ducks.’

He nodded sagely. ‘I hope the park keeper never caught you.’

‘Pictures of ducks. Not the actual birds.’

‘Oh, I thought they’d happen struggled and covered you in something or other. And what’s me-lad-o been up to while you’ve been painting ducks?’

‘Trees. He’s been experimenting with greens.’

‘Very nice. I hope it stays fine for you.’

She sucked in her cheeks, then exhaled loudly. ‘Have you finished? May I go to my room now and get ready for the dance?’

‘What dance is that?’

‘The Thornleigh and Mount leavers. They’ve booked the Palais for the fifth and sixth years.’

‘What about the paint? Are you going covered in that?’

‘No. I’m going to the slipper baths, if you’ll excuse me. I agree, I need a good scrub.’

They looked at one another without speaking for several seconds, then she went upstairs to fetch her bath bundle. The man was impossible, he really was! And he looked so . . . so ill. No wonder, she thought as she slipped towels and soap into her brown paper carrier. He drank enough for ten men, gambled away the change. Poor Mam.

Downstairs, Peter Murray pulled on his coat and walked out of the house, leaning heavily on his stick as he made for the betting shop. With a bit of luck, he could catch a bet for tonight’s dogs, and to hell with Katherine and her cavorting. But oh God! If only he could say . . . if only he could find the words. What words? I love you? Would she believe him after all this time? Could she be made to realize that he’d loved her since the day of the rope and the lamp-post? Aye, to hell with her. Her and all bloody women.

At the baths, Katherine paid her pennies, refused the bar of coarse soap and the rough towel that came free with the service, then locked herself gratefully into a cubicle. Although splashings and singings could be heard from adjoining baths, this was one of the few places where she could feel alone. She filled the bath as far as it would go without spilling into the overflow, poured in some salts, stripped off her disreputable clothes and sank beneath hot soothing water. It was bliss. Heaven, she had long ago decided, was a hot bath with taps, a soft towel and a jug to rinse her hair with afterwards. Simple. Life could be so simple.