The Girl From Barefoot House (32 page)

Jack refused anything to eat. He also refused to meet his wife’s eyes. ‘Black coffee’s all I want,’ he said shortly to the wall.

‘There’s loads of Christmas cake left, Daddy. And a big tin of biscuits with only half gone. Would you like a ginger cream, your favourite?’

‘No, thank you, darling.’ He reached out for his daughter and held her tightly in his arms. ‘I love my little girl. Always remember that, won’t you?’

Laura looked slightly startled. ‘I knew that already, Daddy,’ she solemnly replied. ‘I love you, too.’

It was pitch dark. Laura had gone to bed and it had started to snow again when Jack announced he was going out. They had spent the hours since the row ignoring each other. Josie was already regretting some of the things she’d said. She shouldn’t have criticised his precious plays.

‘Where to?’ She felt a pang of concern.

‘For a drive, to clear my head.’ He put his hands to his forehead. ‘I can’t think straight.’

‘Don’t have anything more to drink, Jack,’ she pleaded. ‘It’s not safe to drive if you’ve been drinking. You might have an accident.’

‘Would you care?’ He looked at her sardonically.

She stamped her foot. ‘Of course I’d care. I worry about you all the time when you’re driving.’

‘Oh, well, that’s something, I suppose.’

‘You’ll need a coat.’ She went upstairs to fetch it, but when she came down Jack had gone, and she heard the inside door to the garage slam. Then there was the grating roll as he pulled up the main door. A few minutes later the car backed out, and Jack drove away. The sound of the engine seemed to go on for ever in the stillness of the night.

‘What have I done?’ Josie whispered to the empty room.

Jack stayed away for almost two days, and during most of the time it snowed. On the first night Josie slept soundly as she hadn’t slept a wink the night before. She wasn’t surprised when he wasn’t in bed when she woke up, or particularly bothered when the spare room proved empty when she looked. He was probably indulging in a long,
drawn-out sulk. She regretted telling Laura that he’d be back any minute when she demanded to know where Daddy was, because the child visibly itched with worry as the hours passed and he didn’t return.

On the first afternoon the Ward-Pierce children called, and Laura helped to build a snowman. It had black stones for eyes, and Charlotte made something resembling a pipe out of cardboard.

‘Have you heard from Daddy?’ she demanded the minute she came back.

‘Not yet, luv,’ Josie said brightly.

Her face fell. ‘Mummy, everything in our garage is covered with snow.’ She frowned. ‘It looks funny, like a Christmas grotto, but there’s no Santa Claus.’

‘I left the door up so Daddy can drive straight in.’ In fact, she hadn’t been outside the house all day and had forgotten it was open. It didn’t seem worth closing it now.

When darkness fell, and Jack had been gone twenty-four hours, Josie began to worry herself. Laura was fast asleep in the double bed with Blue Bunny clutched in her arms. If Jack had had an accident, surely the police or the hospital would have been in touch. He had his driving licence in his wallet. Maybe he’d holed up with a friend, not that he had many friends these days, or maybe Mattie Garr had offered him shelter from his ogress of a wife. She actually hoped this was the case, and the Austin Healey wasn’t buried in a ditch in the depths of the countryside covered in snow, with a dead Jack draped over the steering-wheel. If she rang the police, they’d want to know where he’d gone, and she had no idea. He could have gone north, south, east or west. He might be hundreds of miles away or hundreds of yards.

Why didn’t he pick up a phone and let her know he
was all right?
If
he was all right. And if he was, she would never forgive him for putting her and Laura through the mill like this. He’d passed the point of no return, she thought angrily. As soon as he came back, she would leave. But where would she go?

Liverpool, obviously. She felt hungry for the place where she was born. Jack would never see his daughter go short, even if he didn’t give a damn about his wife. He would let them have an allowance, them she would rent a nice little house and look for a part-time job. Jack could come and visit whenever he pleased. Life would seem dead peculiar without him, but she welcomed the peace it would bring. She was fed up with the non-stop worry, the guilty feeling that she had ruined his life. It was all her fault that he had become a successful, highly paid writer when the poor man preferred to write lousy plays for nothing at all!

Josie woke up next morning and met the brown eyes of her daughter on the pillow next to hers. ‘Daddy’s still not home. I’ve just been to look.’ The eyes, normally so shining and full of fun, were wet with tears. ‘He’s coming back, isn’t he, Mummy?’

She inwardly cursed Jack Coltrane with all the invective at her command for causing such misery to a five-year-old child. Reaching out, she took the small figure in her arms and wanted to cry herself when she felt Laura’s heart beat anxiously against her own.

‘Daddy telephoned,’ she lied. ‘He called last night, long after you were asleep. The car broke down miles from nowhere in a place called Essex. He had to walk for ages through the snow to find a garage, but they didn’t have the parts to fix it. He’s staying in a hotel until they
arrive. He doesn’t know when he’ll be back, but there’s no more need to worry.’

Laura regarded her gravely. ‘Are you sure, Mummy?’

‘I wouldn’t have imagined all that, luv, would I?’

‘You’re not just saying it to make me feel better?’

‘Ask Daddy yourself when he gets home.’

Throughout the day, Laura inundated her with questions. Where exactly had Daddy phoned from? Had they got a map so Josie could show her the precise spot?

‘The road atlas is in the car, luv. It was somewhere round Chelmsford, I think.’ She had a feeling Chelmsford was in Essex.

‘Is it a nice hotel where he’s staying?’

‘It’s more a pub than a hotel. He said it’s nice and warm.’

‘And they’ll make him something to eat?’

‘Of course.’ She wondered if Laura was trying to catch her out, expose her lie, and wished she could tell herself a lie and stop worrying.

The day wore on. She made dinner, and forced herself to eat for Laura’s sake. For tea they had soup and finished off the Christmas cake. By then it was dark again, and the snow fell relentlessly against the blackness of the sky, obliterating the outline of the houses opposite. The windows were bright blurs in the midst of nowhere. Josie couldn’t have felt more isolated in her expensive home if she were living at the North Pole, hundreds of miles from the nearest neighbours.

She made up her mind that, as soon as Laura went to bed, she’d ring Mattie Garr. She’d ring every single person who had anything to do with Jack and ask if they knew where he was. If they didn’t know, she’d call the police.

Laura was ready for bed in her nightie and
dressing-gown. She lay on the settee with her head on Josie’s knee, sucking her thumb, which she hadn’t done for years, and idly watching television. The nightie was fleecy white cotton with a pattern of tiny rosebuds. It had long sleeves and a lacy frill at the neck. Josie had bought another at the same time, and they’d cost a mint. That would have kept me and Mam for a few months in Huskisson Street, she recalled thinking in Peter Jones.

She picked up the swathe of black silky hair that was spread like a fan over the blue dressing-gown. It lay like a rope in her hand. Laura gave a little bothered sigh, as if she were half-asleep with her mind on her missing daddy. It was nice to be in a position to buy anything she wanted for her daughter. Mam would have loved doing the same for her. She’d been thinking about Mam a lot over the last two days. Perhaps it was because the house seethed with the same sensation of dread she’d felt when she’d looked across the street and seen the ruins of the Prince Albert. She had known then that something terrible had happened. She had known life would never be the same again.

And life would never be the same if Jack was dead. She would miss him for ever. In the two days since he’d gone, her emotions kept changing by the minute – she loved him, she hated him, she would leave, no, she would stay. Just because
she
had never wanted to write, she reasoned, or paint, or act, or do anything creative, what right had she to judge someone who did? It was impossible for her to comprehend how Jack felt about his plays. When he came back, and he
had
to come back, she would make everything right again. Somehow.

‘I love you, darling,’ she whispered.

Laura wriggled on her knee. ‘I know, Mummy.’

From outside, there came the sound they’d been
waiting so long for, the harsh whine of the Austin Healey turning into Bingham Mews, the wheels muffled by the snow.

‘Daddy!’ Laura raised her head and stared, starry-eyed, at her mother. ‘Daddy!’

‘Not so fast, luv,’ Josie cried when Laura leapt to her feet and raced out of the room. ‘Wait till he stops,’ she called, when she heard Laura’s light footsteps running down the stairs. But the little door to the garage opened, and the car’s engine roared, as if in relief at the end of a long journey and the sight of home. There was an unfamiliar bump then the engine was switched off, followed by a silence that went on too long, far, far too long.

Josie tiptoed downstairs, her hands clasped mutely against her breast. ‘Please, God, you can’t do this to me,’ she whispered. ‘Say something, Laura.
Please
, God, make Laura say something.’

The first thing she saw was Jack. He was getting out of the car, and his face was a mask of horror. ‘I skidded on the snow,’ he said in a voice she’d never heard before.

‘Back up, back up,’ Josie screamed when she saw the body of their daughter jammed between the front of the crookedly parked car and the breeze-block wall. Her head had fallen forward, lying sideways on the bonnet. Blue Bunny was still clutched in her hand, and she was smiling because Daddy had come home.

It was all over. Everything was over – the inquest, the funeral, their marriage. She couldn’t live with Jack again. He had murdered their daughter, though the coroner had called it a tragic error which Jack would have to live with for the rest of his life. Only Josie knew that Laura had never run to meet her father like that before. It was
only because Jack had disappeared for two whole days that she’d been so anxious to see him, to touch him, to be kissed and cuddled by her dad.

She didn’t tell him this, because she loved him too much to cause more suffering. He had suffered enough. Perhaps he blamed her for not closing the garage door, for allowing the snow to drift in and make him skid. He didn’t say anything, and neither did she. They hardly spoke to each other in the days that followed the death of their beloved only child.

Josie felt as if her body was a bloody open wound that would never heal. She was sore all over, and her head threatened to explode with unbearable grief. Sometimes it was impossible to believe that it had happened,
impossible
. She would go into Laura’s room and expect to find her asleep in the white glossy bed or arranging her dolls in a row so that she could give them a lesson. But the room would be empty, the truth would assault her like a physical blow and she would double up, clutching her stomach, as the awareness sank in that she would never see her daughter again.

Their grief was suffered separately and alone. Josie slept in the spare room. During the day Jack remained in his study, the typewriter silent. He had shrunk inside his clothes, and they hung loosely on his rapidly thinning frame. She never glimpsed him without a drink in his hand, yet he appeared to be stone cold sober. She never asked, and he never said, where he’d been during the time he was away.

The house in Bingham Mews was put on the market to be sold fully furnished. They couldn’t live there any more, it held too many bad memories. Jack was returning to New York, Josie to Liverpool. She would go first, and he would wait until the house found a
buyer. People had already been to look round, and several had expressed interest.

‘According to the estate agent, we’ll make a profit.’ Jack’s thin lips quivered in what might have been a smile. ‘It’s worth thousands more than we paid. I’ll finish off the mortgage and send you what’s over.’

‘I don’t want a penny,’ Josie said quickly. It would feel like blood money. That night she tore up the chequebook for their joint account and threw it away. She had enough money in her bag for the fare to Liverpool. Once there, she’d start again on her own.

‘As you wish,’ Jack said dully.

Elsie Forrest was distraught. She had loved Laura deeply. ‘I felt like her grandma,’ she sobbed. ‘As if she were partly mine.’

‘She loved you, too.’ There would be other children for Elsie to love, but not for her, Josie thought bitterly. Laura was her one and only child. She would never have another.

She was grateful Elsie was willing to clear the house of their possessions. ‘What about the dishes, the cutlery, all your lovely ornaments and pictures?’ Elsie wanted to know.

‘I don’t give a damn what happens to them,’ Josie said listlessly. Her suitcase was already packed with a few clothes, a few photographs.

Charlotte had been a tower of strength. It was Charlotte who telephoned Mrs Kavanagh to relay the tragic news, because Josie couldn’t possibly have done it.

‘I can’t begin to imagine how you must feel, my dear, dear Josie,’ Mrs Kavanagh had written. ‘Your friend said you’re coming back to Liverpool. You know you’re welcome to stay with us as long as you wish.’

It was her last day in Bingham Mews. The house had been sold. The final contract would be signed shortly. She said goodbye to Charlotte and promised to write, though she knew she never would. She made the same promise to Elsie, avoiding the woman’s kind, worried eyes.

Jack was in his study when she went to bed. Tomorrow they would say goodbye for ever, and she wasn’t sure if she could stand it. If only they’d stayed in New York. The ‘if onlys’ could go right back to the start of time. If only she hadn’t worked for Louisa, she wouldn’t have gone to America in the first place. If only she hadn’t wanted to say goodbye to Tommy, then Mam wouldn’t have been in the Prince Albert when the bomb struck.