No Shelter from Darkness (19 page)

Beth raised an eyebrow. “What about me?”

“You don't talk anymore. If it's nothing I've done then something else is really worrying you. You've been so quiet, and in school the teacher's never had to tell you off so much.”

“It's definitely not you, Mary.”

“So what is it?”

“Like I said, it's the illness I had,” said Beth, her eyes darting around.

She looked uncomfortable, but even without that conspicuousness Mary was suspicious. “No it's not,” she said. “Last time you were sick and recovered you couldn't wait to get up and get out. You even
somehow
won a race after being tripped up. You were so full of energy.”

Beth looked up across the park, and Mary knew she'd struck a nerve. Whatever was wrong with her, it was more than her special condition. Beth looked back down and twiddled her thumbs in her lap. The silence between them was verging on awkward, but Mary sensed that her challenge had prompted her friend to be more truthful. “Everything's changing,” she said suddenly. “I'm changing.”

“What?” Mary was genuinely confused. Beth looked at her, and then down at the ground as if in shame.

“Mary … what if I'm a bad person?”

“What are you talking about, Beth?”

“I've been getting angry at the smallest things. At people. That's not like me.”

Suddenly Mary thought she understood everything, and she smiled.

“It's not funny,” said Beth.

“It kind of is, actually. You're the last person who needs to worry about growing up into an evildoer. You don't have a bad bone in your body.”

“I wouldn't be so sure.”

“Look what you did on sports day. Pullen's bullied you and made your life hell since she first started at Bonner Street, and yet you went back to save her when no one else would—not even her own friends.

“I've known you for as long as I can remember. Trust me when I say you couldn't be anything other than good.” Mary budged her with her shoulder, and for the first time in a long time, Beth returned a genuine smile wide enough for Mary to notice something. “Nice gap.”

Beth immediately covered her mouth with her hand.

“It's okay,” laughed Mary. “You can barely see it.”

“But you can see it?” asked Beth through her hand. She seemed ever so slightly frantic.

“Well, of course. You've got a bloody gap in your teeth.”

“That's all you can see?”

“Why? Am I missing something?”

“No,” said Beth, slowly lowering her hand and retaining a small smile, albeit with her lips pressed firmly together.

*   *   *

The girls ended up walking around the park for a couple of hours, talking, though Mary found that Beth steered the conversation around to her and Gibson more than once. When the afternoon grew old, they agreed it was time to go home—being late for dinner was never a good idea. Along the way, Beth asked how bad the floor was to sleep on and insisted that they take turns. Mary had suggested sleeping top-to-tail on the bed as they had in the shelter, but Beth oddly appeared to be almost afraid of the idea. Stranger still was when Mary asked what the difference was between the shelter and her room, and Beth mumbled something about it not being as safe. Mary was confused, but she didn't push the subject any further.

“Mmm,” said Beth as they started down Moravian Street. She closed her eyes and sniffed the air. “Beef. And Mum's gravy.” They were still a house away from their own. “Jeff's been round with a little treat.”

Mary sniffed the air. “How can you smell that? All I can smell is …” she sniffed the shoulder of her dress. “Never mind.”

“You can't smell that?”

“No,” said Mary with a chuckle that insinuated Beth's madness.

“I think next door's making soup.”

“You're kidding, right?”

Beth shrugged. “Must be the hormones.”

“Yeah … must be,” said Mary, warily, as they walked through the front door.

Beth's father was hobbling toward the table from his armchair, while her mother was just setting down the plates. “Good timing, girls,” she said.

Each plate had the usual rationed portion of home grown vegetables and a small slice of beef with a dollop of gravy. Mary puzzled at Beth's prediction being spot on, before taking her place next to Oliver. After Bill led the family through a quick prayer, they all dug in.

“So children,” said Lynne, initiating the table banter. “One more week left.” Mary just assumed the question was naturally intended for Beth and Oliver and kept on eating. “It'll be nice to have some help around the house”, she continued. “You can do all the shopping! Ooh, and the cleaning.” She grinned at both her children.

Oliver looked up like a scared rabbit. “Um, Dave and Charlie are, they need me to, um, I …”

Mary smiled at Oliver's fumbling.

“Well thought-out, Ollie,” said Beth. “Mary's got a good excuse though. His name is—
ow!
”

Mary kicked Beth lightly under the table. She didn't want this level of attention. Despite what Beth had said, she was still a little wary about her place in the household.

“Mary doesn't need an excuse,” said Beth's mother. Mary's eyes widened at the ominous sounding statement. “She did plenty of housework when you were sick, Beth. And she sat with me by your bedside every night.” She looked at Mary and smiled. “You can do whatever you want for the holidays.”

To Mary's amazement, Mr. Wade chipped in. “I agree. From what I've heard you deserve to have some fun.”

Mary glanced at Beth who was looking back at her with a smiling “told-you-so” expression. Immediately the room seemed warmer, the atmosphere more comfortable and jovial, and Mary had a flutter of butterflies at the implication that she wasn't only welcome, but appreciated.

Suddenly, she wanted to stay.

NINETEEN

OUR LADY OF THE ASSUMPTION
was the closest Catholic church to Moravian Street that was still standing—and still open. Lynne knew that the children pretended they went to Sunday Service in her absence, and while she pretended to believe them, it was more like a running joke. But today there was no excuse. It was the first Sunday that her whole family would be able to attend church together in a very long time, and Lynne felt she owed Him her thanks. Both her husband and daughter had been delivered to her—one from war, the other from Death's doorstep.

What she hadn't expected was Mary's attendance. Lynne was well aware of the Connell's stance on religion, and she wasn't the kind of person to force her beliefs upon others. So when Mary was ready to leave the house with the rest of them, Lynne concealed her surprise, smiled and welcomed her along.

They filed in through the large stone arch and began to walk down the middle of the nave between pews, but Lynne got the feeling that one of their party was missing. She turned and saw Beth standing at the entrance, looking up to the heavens. She was a silhouette against the bright day behind her. Then, with deliberation, she stepped over the threshold into God's house, her eyes firmly shut. She opened them warily, one at a time, as if she was expecting to find herself in Hell. She looked down at her feet, sighed in relief and then caught up.

“What on earth was that all about?” Lynne asked.

“Nothing,” said Beth.

Lynne looked shrewdly at her. “What have you done?”

“Nothing!”

“Beth?”

She shrugged. “I told a lie.”

“About?”

“About …” she hesitated, thinking. “About cleaning my room. I didn't dust. Sorry.”

It sounded like a lie, but with the congregation taking their pews, Lynne overlooked it. With the three children sitting between her and her husband, she felt humbled that, in the midst of war, she could enjoy a Sunday with all of them.

She cherished the moment, for it was impossible to know how long it would last.

*   *   *

With Bill's assurance that he could take care of the ration shopping, Lynne worked her first Monday in over a year. It would be a while yet before her husband was fit to start earning money again. The extra work was a welcome chore. It was all the more surprising when, on a day that she wasn't known to be in, Dr. Hawkins tracked her down.

“Ah, there you are Nurse Wade.”

“Doctor?” Something was wrong. He looked more agitated and fidgety than normal.

“I finally got around to doing your daughter's blood work.”

“And?”

“Not here,” he said.

Lynne frowned at him. “Doctor, whatever's going on?”

“Please, come with me.” He touched her on the elbow before he began walking down the corridor.

Lynne followed urgently. “Dr. Hawkins, please—tell me what's going on.”

“Something very odd. Do you remember when you thought one of your daughter's samples got contaminated?”

“Of course.”

“It appears to have happened again.”

Lynne stopped dead. Dr. Hawkins halted as she looked at him. “So it
was
your fault,” she said. “And now you've done it again.” She felt her anger rise.

“No. I don't believe either sample got contaminated. Please … you must come and see for yourself.” The doctor marched off, glancing back and prompting Lynne to follow.

She quickly caught up. “What are you saying?” she asked as they turned down another corridor.

“In both instances your daughter's blood has contained two different types. And I'm not talking about type O and type AB or whatever. I'm saying one type is human, and the other … isn't.”

“Is this some sort of practical joke?”

Dr. Hawkins cringed. “I would never be so callous.”

“Then what?”

“I think she's had some kind of cell conversion.”

Lynne scoffed. “Doctor, please. We both know that's not possible.”

“Which is why you must come and see for yourself.”

They turned the last corner and Hawkins took out his keys, hurriedly trying to enter his office. He put the key in the lock and turned it, but the door was already unlocked. “I thought I locked this,” he mumbled, before turning the knob and inviting Lynne in.

She was becoming ever more suspicious of the doctor's behavior.

Hawkins searched his desktop and picked up a brown paper folder, handing it to her before going over to one of the large fridges. She opened the folder and scanned over the results. “I assure you,” said Hawkins, opening the fridge. “Even if the sample was contaminated, the results wouldn't look like that.”

“Like what?” asked Lynne. “I'm not quite sure what I'm looking at.”

Hawkins stepped back over to her and peered over her shoulder. “Come now, Nurse Wade. For example, that—” His finger pointed at the piece of paper. He started to murmur, “No, no.” He snatched the piece of paper from the folder and held it out before him, frantically looking up and down the results. “This isn't possible, this is—” He slammed the paper on the worktop, making Lynne jump and feel uncomfortable. The doctor walked back over to the open fridge, noisily shuffling glass beakers and bottles around. They clattered so much Lynne was expecting a breakage. “It's gone!”

Lynne picked up the results from the worktop. “These seem perfectly fine to me.” She said it calmly, hoping it would have a similar effect on the increasingly erratic doctor.

Hawkins spun around. “They're not
her
results.”

“But her name is at the top, and your signature is at the bottom.”

“No! I didn't write that.” He shook his head. “Someone's tampered with it. Someone's been here. The door … I know I locked it.”

Lynne steadily put the paper back on the worktop. “Doctor. It's okay. I'm sure it's just a mistake. We all make them—heaven knows we're pushed to our limits here.”

But Hawkins just kept on shaking his head. “Someone's been here, I'm sure of it.” He looked at Lynne. “I need another sample.”

“Excuse me?”

“This could be a major discovery, Lynne. Please, I need another sample of your daughter's blood.”

“
Nurse Wade
.” Lynne made her fading patience clear. “And I'm not sure that's a good idea.”

“But, Nurse.”

“Dr. Hawkins, please. I'm very grateful for your help over the past few weeks, but my daughter is fine now and we know what the problem is. If she gets ill again, we'll simply perform another transfusion. I'm sorry, but I won't have my daughter become a guinea pig for a discovery that's more likely an accidental occurrence.”

Hawkins looked set to explode. He took a few deep breaths and, almost creepily, tried to smile. “Of course, Nurse. Sorry. I wouldn't want to put Elizabeth through any more hardship.” He looked like he was about to continue, but instead just smiled.

Lynne took her leave of the doctor. She'd been careful with her wording, but were her daughter to require another transfusion, she would do it herself. Dr. Hawkins had been a pleasant man, but it seemed the slim chance of making his name famous had changed him.

Lynne glanced back at him from the door as she left, gazing worriedly at his messy laboratory. “Goodbye, Dr. Hawkins.”

TWENTY

“BACK TO NORMAL.”

The term sounded like a joke and yet it was the best way Beth could describe her past week.

She stood in the yard at the front of the school building. It was Saturday, just past midday, and school was finally over for the term. Normally children would be walking away, eager to put the prison-like building behind them, but when it was the last day everybody seemed to linger around. Beth scanned through scattered children, clustered into small groups. She spotted Mary standing with Gibson and was about to wander over to them when Susan and Angela swooped in from the side, stepping in front of her. Julie trailed behind them.

“Better watch yourself, slave girl,” said Susan, looking down at her.

Beth sighed and stepped to the side to go around. Susan matched her and blocked her way. It was amusing how important Susan believed she was, how big a role she thought she played in Beth's life. But compared to the rest of her problems, Susan was like a fly buzzing around: nothing more than a mild irritation.