The Corner House (4 page)

Bernard swallowed a sob. ‘You what?’

‘She’s narrow round the beam.’ Liz might well need a Caesarean next time. In spite of mounting evidence, Eva refused to have any faith in the benefits of surgical intervention. Women’s wombs were not meant to be hacked at; a man with a knife was all right as long as he stuck to carving pork or chicken. ‘She’ll get over it, Bernard. She’ll be chattering away like her old self in a day or two.’ The baby was downstairs in a shoe box. ‘Give your Liz time,’ said Eva.

The midwife bustled off, tears dampening her face as she closed the fish-shop door. They would have made a lovely mam and dad, Liz and Bernard Walsh.

Bernard entered his brother’s little room. ‘I think Liz is asleep,’ he muttered wearily.

Danny placed a hand on the larger man’s trembling shoulder. ‘What do we do with … with her?’ He pointed with the stem of his pipe.

Bernard lowered his head and stared dully at the box containing his daughter. ‘No ceremony, Danny. Eva Harris’ll come back and do what’s necessary.’ He gulped, dragging a shirt sleeve across his face. ‘She never breathed, so she never existed. I’d best get back to Liz.’

‘Like a perfect little doll,’ whispered Danny, his eyes fixed to the makeshift coffin. The box had ‘
SIZE TEN
’ and ‘
MADE IN ENGLAND
’ printed on the end. ‘God, I’m sorry. So bloody sorry.’

Bernard climbed the stairs and entered the bedroom. ‘Liz?’ She hadn’t moved, was still propped up as still as a rock on the pillows, eyes closed, chest moving in time with slow, even breaths. ‘Liz?’

She opened her eyes and moved her head a fraction of an inch. ‘What?’

‘Are you all right?’ That, thought Bernard, was the daftest question of all time.

‘Is the baby still asleep?’ asked Liz.

He cleared his throat of emotion. ‘She’s dead, Liz. She was born dead.’

‘Make her a bottle, will you? I’ve no milk yet, so use that National Dried in the kitchen cupboard. Keep her well wrapped up, too. It’s very cold tonight.’

Bernard left the room again, closing the door softly in his wake. Danny was halfway up the stairs. ‘She’s gone crackers,’ mumbled Bernard.

‘It happens,’ replied his brother.

‘Not to my wife.’ Bernard sank onto the top step. ‘No, I can’t let Liz go crazy.’

The night dragged on. Bernard and Danny sat in the first floor kitchen, ears straining towards the silent bedroom. Liz was asleep. Perhaps she would be all right in the morning? ‘She won’t,’ whispered Bernard.

‘Eh?’

‘Liz. I don’t think she’ll come round in a hurry, not after this shock. She was putting all her energy into getting the nest ready. We’ve even bought a cot.’

‘You must move,’ replied Danny. ‘Get away from Derby Street, let these rooms, go for fresh air and a fresh start.’

Bernard pondered. It was three o’clock in the morning. Neither man had bothered to report for duty at the fire post. Everybody knew about Liz’s pregnancy, so Bernard’s absence might be accepted. But Danny hadn’t wanted to leave his brother alone with an unbalanced wife and a pretty little waxen doll in a shoe box. ‘You should have reported in, Dan.’

‘Sod it.’ Danny stirred his umpteenth cup of tea. At this rate, there’d be no tea coupons left. ‘Shut the shop tomorrow,’ he suggested. ‘I’ll meet the train and see to the market.’

Bernard shrugged. If he shut the shop, there’d be customers kicking the door down. He couldn’t even manage to worry about that, seemed unable to fret about anything except the state of Liz. He cocked his head to one side. ‘Did you hear that?’

‘What?’

‘Like a tapping sound.’

Danny listened. ‘It’s not your Liz. That’s from downstairs. I’ll go. There must be a fire.’ He left the room and crept downstairs, anxious not to wake the sleeping Liz.

Fingers rattled the letterbox.

‘I’m coming,’ he hissed in a stage whisper. He opened the shop door, his jaw dropping when he saw Eva Harris. ‘Hello,’ he began uncertainly.

She thrust a package into his arms. ‘Take that,’ she ordered abruptly. ‘I’ll go and get the … the wotsit. The box with the … I’ll get the box.’ She bustled off to pick up the dead baby.

The parcel moved, causing newspapers to rustle. What was this? A kitten, a puppy? Was it some hastily wrapped child substitute?

Eva returned with the shoe box. ‘It’s a girl,’ she said, her head nodding in the direction of Danny’s parcel. ‘Same as the one poor Liz lost, God love and keep the little lass.’ She nodded in the direction of Danny’s wriggling parcel. ‘Yon kiddy’s full-term, but underweight, needs looking after. She could easy be a prem, so the two babies aren’t that much different from one another. There’s a bit of blanket round her, but newspaper’s nice and warm. All the tramps wear it between their layers, especially in winter and—’

‘A child?’

Eva nodded.

‘But it’s not … I mean, whose is she?’

‘Never mind that. Just tell Liz that her baby warmed up near the fire. Tell her that’s her own baby.’ She stepped closer to the astounded man. ‘Just do it, Danny. It’s for the best all round, I’m telling you.’

Danny gulped. ‘But the real mother?’

‘Enough on that family’s plate,’ answered Eva. She paused. ‘Have you told anybody about the stillbirth?’

He shook his head. ‘I’ve not been out. Neither has our Bernard.’ The second baby mewled in its cocoon of cotton and newsprint.

‘Then say nowt, Danny Walsh. Liz’ll rear that child without knowing the difference.’ She paused. ‘Look, your sister-in-law’s in shock. I’ve seen it all afore. I bet she still thinks her own baby’s warming up near the fire. Am I right or what?’

Danny gulped noisily. ‘Aye, Liz seems to be a bit strange, but what if—?’

‘And Bernard – well, he’ll do owt to keep Liz happy. I’ll have to go, because I’m needed. Tell them I’ll call in first thing tomorrow. If Bernard doesn’t want that sad little scrap, I’ll find somebody who does.’

Danny stood and watched the midwife as she bustled off to her other business. He removed one hand from the living, breathing package and scratched his nose. This was a right bonny state of affairs and no mistake. The real little Miss Walsh had gone away in the clutches of Eva Harris. This imposter was supposed to be registered within a few days as the daughter of Bernard and Elizabeth Walsh. The whole thing seemed sinful, heathen.

‘Danny?’ Bernard was still sitting on the landing.

‘I’m thinking. Stop where you are,’ Danny ordered his brother.

‘Bernard!’ screamed Liz from the bedroom. ‘Bernard? Where’s my baby? I let you mind her for two minutes, that was all. Bring her here, I want to nurse her.’

Danny went into his cold little room and peeled back a few sheets of the
Bolton Evening News
Saturday Green Final. She was beautiful. His heart turned over when he realized that this was his first contact with a recently emerged living soul. As long as he lived, Daniel Walsh would not forget this precious, hurtful, joyous moment. Tears welled in his eyes. He thought about this little mite’s overworked, poverty-stricken and possibly dead mother, about the rest of that unknown family.

Determinedly, the new Uncle Dan cleared his clogging throat. ‘You’ve come to the right place, sweetheart,’ he told the newborn. Her face was streaked with birth fluids. He imagined the sight of poor Eva Harris as she placed the child on one side in order to fight for the mother’s life. Or had the mother deliberately given away an unwanted daughter? ‘You’ll be loved, I can promise that much. Aye, you’ll have a cracking mam and dad, you will.’ He set his mouth in a hard, straight line and forgot about being a Catholic. If this was a sin, then it was a good sin. Wasn’t it?

When the child was wrapped just in the blanket, Danny carried her up to his sister-in-law’s bedroom. ‘Here she is,’ he called with forced cheeriness.

Bernard’s jaw sagged.

‘She’s on the small side,’ added Danny.

Liz beamed. ‘I told you she’d warm up, Bernard. Look at her. She’s the image of my mother, God rest that good woman’s heart and soul.’

The brothers’ eyes met across the counterpane
that covered Liz Walsh. Bernard asked silent questions while Danny nodded his willingness to give answers when an opportunity presented itself.

Liz crooned and put the child to a breast. Bernard looked at the tiny head, noticed the absence of patchy brown hair. He dragged his brother out to the landing. Liz, too engrossed in her daughter, perceived nothing amiss.

‘What the flipping heck—?’

Danny dragged Bernard into the kitchen.

‘Where did you get her? It’s not ours come to life, Dan. Ours had bits of hair. Ours was bigger—’

‘Eva brought her.’

‘You what?’

‘It’s probably a little orphan, likely from a big family. Eva took … she took the shoe box away. There’s only thee, me and Eva knows about what happened here last night.’

‘So this is … Whose baby is it? What if they want her back? I mean, folk don’t go about giving kiddies away, do they? This is bloody lunatic behaviour, our kid.’

Danny raised a shoulder. ‘Too late if they want her back now. Liz gave birth last night and she has a baby girl. Do you want to be the one who takes the child away? Eh? Is that what you really want to do to your wife?’

‘But it’s not right—’

‘It’s not right that your baby died, Bernie. It’s not right that some little orphan child shouldn’t be given a chance. This is a miracle. So shut up and get on with it. Look on it as fate or the will of God. Remember Moses in the bulrushes, Bernard.’

Bernard Walsh sat for a while in the kitchen while his brother grabbed some sleep. He was a father to a
child who wasn’t his child. Liz was mother to a dead child, mother to a live one. ‘Yon baby needs us,’ he said finally to the empty room. ‘And God above knows we need her. So we’d best just get on with it.’ This was too big for confession. This was a matter that could not be discussed with anyone, even a priest; not yet anyroad. Were commandments being broken? Was this theft, mendacity, greed? Bernard shook his head. ‘And the greatest of these is charity,’ he muttered aloud. Then, after a few seconds, he begged God’s forgiveness for a sin that had simply happened.

There were few secrets among the stallholders on Bolton fishmarket, though customers were often kept in the dark. Gossip seemed to transmit itself by some osmotic process from stall to stall, so, under the dark curtain of a dim winter dawn, Danny Walsh told his big lie just once. Later, as the day lightened, he was forced to add a little embroidery, but the die was cast once the tidings had travelled from Ashburner Street right through to New Street.

Between these two thoroughfares the fishmen spent their days, hands deadened by ice, fingers almost too numb to behead, fillet and arrange their wares. This was their own pungent little world, their private domain. They thrived together and suffered together, shared sorrow and joy, understood each other at that special level which needs no explanation.

The day brightened slowly, as if begrudging the earthbound even the slightest glimmer of hope. Lorries, single-filed in the market’s central aisle, coughed, spluttered, then followed their leader towards one of the huge doors. The rabbit and chicken vendors came and went, those with fish-and-chip shops collected cod and plaice. Then, in that short
lull between wholesale and retail, the shouting began. Chants of ‘Elrig, elrig,’ attacked Dan’s ears. Jim Brocklehurst, who had run a book throughout Liz’s pregnancy, paid out on the
elrig
list, and coppered up his winnings under
yob
.

Backspeak was the official language of Bolton’s fish-traders. When a word could not be reversed perfectly, it was bastardized into as near a representation of backspeak as was possible. This clever method of communication meant that prices could be stated and adjusted without the customers’ knowledge. A few Boltonians had struggled hard to understand the strange jargon, but most had given up after a few wearisome attempts.

To the rhythm of ‘Elcun Nad Shlaw’, the new Uncle Dan Walsh set out his stall. Bernard was open for business as usual on Derby Street, while Liz, tired from birthing and flushed with new motherhood, remained in the bedroom with another woman’s daughter. The baby was to be christened Katherine Jane Walsh, thereby becoming the physical embodiment of human dishonesty.

‘Danny?’

He lay down a thin, keen knife and blew into icy hands.

‘A word,’ commanded Eva Harris.

He followed the quick-footed woman into Ashburner Street.

Eva wasn’t looking forward to what was about to happen. Bernard Walsh was her usual companion on such unsavoury expeditions, but Bernard was unavailable. She could have gone on her own, she supposed, but the presence of a man was always a good thing, a sort of lubricant that oiled the wheels of negotiation.

‘Well?’ asked Danny.

‘Theresa Nolan had a daughter in the early hours,’ she stated without preamble. ‘I think just about the whole blinking world went into labour yesterday. Anyroad, there’s business wants doing. I reckon your Bernard’ll be tied up, what with one thing and another.’

‘So am I,’ answered Danny. He didn’t fancy bearding any of the lions, not today, not after such a harrowing night.

‘Peter Nuttall can man your corner.’ It was a well-known fact that fish-traders went out of their way to stand in for one another whenever necessary, often selling an absent colleague’s wares in preference to their own. The art of fair play had been truly mastered on Ashburner Street. ‘This lot knows as how your Bernard’s a dad, don’t they?’ continued Eva, a crooked thumb pointing towards the fish-sellers.

Dan nodded resignedly.

‘Then get your stall sorted,’ continued the midwife. ‘I’ve jobs to get to, babies as wants visiting. You can say you’re going on an errand for Liz and the kiddy.’

Danny thrust chilled hands into his pockets. ‘Look, I wasn’t a witness to …’

‘To the rapes?’ Eva was not one to bandy words. ‘Nobody said you were a witness. I wasn’t there, neither, but I made bloody sure I met the buggers after Theresa Nolan came to me. Oh aye, they got their membership cards stamped all right, once I got hold of them filthy rotten devils.’ Her nose twitched, then the already thin lips set themselves into a narrow line of fury.