War Babies (41 page)

She heard him go out of the door. For a moment she sat there, stunned and queasy at the shock of being woken suddenly, and panicked at seeing Danny so ill.

I might as well go out and get some more water, she thought, while I’m waiting. She took her shoes this time. Downstairs, the door was ajar. She paused behind it to slip her feet into her
shoes, picked up the other bucket and went out to the tap.

The lamp shed a dim light. The night was cold and damp, the sky thick with cloud. With just a cardigan over her nightdress, she was soon shivering. As she stood filling the bucket, even the slow
flow of water from the tap sounded loud in the dead hours of the night. But as she turned it off and was going back to the house, she heard a little whimpering sound.

Her heart beat faster. Surely that wasn’t Danny? She stopped, listening, the bucket weighing down her left side. The sound came again, from her left, a thin, desolate wail. Then a high
voice said, ‘Mo-om . . .’ and a grizzling crying followed. It was coming from the direction of the Suttons’ house. As she moved closer, she saw that there was a tiny someone
sitting in the shadow of the doorway, curled up on the step.

‘Evie?’ She left the bucket and went to bend over the little girl. ‘What on earth’re you doing out here, babby?’

Evie raised her blonde head from her knees. Rachel saw there was something draped over her legs, a coat or bit of blanket. Her face was stony with woe. Rachel sat beside her and put her arm
around her. She knew the little girl well. Evie often came into their house.

‘Why’re you out here, Evie?’ She was beginning to simmer with rage at Irene. What in the name of God was she playing at, leaving this little one out on the doorstep? Had she
got drunk with Ray and forgotten about her? ‘Evie?’ she repeated, when there was no answer.

‘Mom said,’ Evie hiccoughed the words out between sobs.

My God, Rachel thought furiously. So it was no accident!

‘Did she say you’d been naughty, Evie?’

The child nodded.

‘Why did she say you’d been naughty?’ The little girl did not seem to know, or remember. It was nothing, probably, Rachel thought, knowing Irene. Looking down she saw that Evie
was barefoot. She wrapped her hands round each of her plump feet for a moment. They were icy. The poor child was freezing cold.

Rachel got up and tried the front door. It was locked. They had gone to bed, deliberately locking Evie out. By God, she fumed, she’d be having words with Irene in the morning! She wanted
to hammer on the door and demand that they get up and come and get their daughter. But she knew if she did that she would wake everyone else, even if Irene and Ray were stupefied with drink. And if
they did wake, there was no telling how Evie would be treated.

‘Come on, babby,’ she said. ‘You can come and sleep with our Melly. Holding Evie’s hand, fetching the bucket as she went, she led her into the house. As she tucked her in
at the other end of the mattress from Melly and Tommy, she started to worry about Danny. He was taking such a long time. Had he passed out in the lav? Her heart thumped harder again with fear.

‘There you go, littl’un.’ She stroked Evie’s hair and tucked the blanket around her. The child was giving tired little sobs. ‘You go to sleep now, babby, all
right?’

As she crept out again she heard Danny come staggering in downstairs. To her relief she could hear Gladys giving off little snores from her room. Thank goodness Gladys was such a good sleeper!
She slipped her shoes off and hurried down again. Danny had sunk down onto a chair.

‘Danny – love?’ Panic-stricken, she laid a hand on his back. He seemed so terribly poorly. She had never known him as sick as this before. ‘Come back to bed –
it’s cold.’

‘In a minute.’ Head down, he was gathering his strength. ‘This is malaria,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to go to the doc – get me the medicine.’

‘Malaria?’ She knew something about it being a disease people had in foreign countries. No one had it here, surely?

‘Got it in Burma, first time.’ He gathered his breath. ‘It comes back. Need quinine . . . Oh – I’m gonna be sick again!’

Rachel seized an empty bowl just in time, panicking as Danny heaved and retched. Malaria – what did it mean? Was he going to die?

When he was finished at last, Rachel cleaned the bowl and went back to him. Danny held out an arm. ‘Help me back to bed. Feel bloody terrible.’ Side by side they shuffled and
squeezed up the narrow stairs to the attic. Holding him as they climbed, stopping often to rest and whispering words of encouragement to him, was the closest she had felt to Danny in a long time.
He fell back into bed, shaking and shivering. She held him, warming him as he gradually slipped away into sleep.

‘Mom – why’s Evie in our bed?’

Rachel opened her eyes blearily. It had been a terrible night. Danny had been up several times being sick and staggering out to the lavatory. He was sleeping more peacefully for the moment,
completely worn out, his face drawn and sallow. Rachel felt she had barely slept at all. Melanie’s serious little face looked over the bedclothes at her.

Evie! She had forgotten all about that. Anger drove her up and out of bed.

‘Evie just had to stop over with us,’ she told Melly, not wanting to start a long discussion about why and how. ‘I need to go and see her mom.’

‘She’s asleep,’ Melly said. ‘And Tommy’s awake.’

‘She’ll be all right, let her sleep,’ Rachel said. ‘You leave them both and get ready for school.’

I wonder if Irene will even notice she’s gone? Rachel thought, pulling her dress over her head. She felt frayed with exhaustion and nerves. Was Danny going to be all right – should
she get the doctor? Could he die of it? All the time as she got Tommy up and fed him, the worry jangled inside her, making her jump at the slightest thing.

‘Auntie!’ she cried as Gladys appeared downstairs. ‘Danny’s ever so bad – he’s been up all night being sick and he says he’s got malaria and he needs
the doctor to give him some medicine . . .’

‘Malaria?’ Gladys said, bewildered. She stood hugging her shawl around her, over her skirt and blouse. ‘That’s some foreign thing. He must’ve brought it back with
him.’

‘He says he needs the medicine . . .’ Rachel was almost crying. ‘And I found Evie out on the step last night and she’s been up with Melly, and I don’t know how
I’m going to—’

‘Hang on, slow down –
what
?’ Gladys held her hand up. When Rachel explained about finding Evie outside she saw a cold, enraged look come over Gladys’s face. Her
jaw clenched.

‘My
God
,’ she hissed, turning away to see to the stove. But a moment later, under control, she turned back to Rachel. ‘I’ll go for you – to the dispensary
for Danny, soon as it opens. You’d best deal with Irene – I don’t trust myself.’

But a few minutes later, Irene was out, bawling across the yard.

‘Evie? Get in ’ere – where’ve yow got to?’

Before she even got to the door, Rachel heard Dolly’s voice.

‘What’s up with you, Irene – lost ’er again, have yer? You want to keep a better eye on your kids, you do.’

‘Who asked yower bleeding opinion?’ Irene retorted. ‘EVIE! Come on, babby – get ’ere, now. Stop messing about!’

Trembling with rage at Irene, both for her treatment of Evie and at hearing the way she spoke to Dolly, Rachel burst out into the yard.

‘I’ll tell you where Evie is,’ she announced at the top of her voice. ‘I found her out on your doorstep in the middle of the night – and the door locked – as
you know perfectly well. She’s in bed with my Melanie and that’s where she’s staying – although much you care so far as I can see. You ought to be locked up, the way you
treat that child!’

Irene bridled. She was dressed in a flowery frock, all pinks and pale greens and belted tightly at the waist, her hair newly peroxided, and a pair of black heels. Her stocking-less legs were
lardy white against the shoes. All in all she was looking smug and self-satisfied. Things must be going all right with Ray, Rachel thought, so the stupid bint was full of herself, preening and
prancing about.

‘Always got pennies for a new frock, haven’t you, Irene? It’s a pity you don’t spend it on feeding your family.’

‘So you’ve taken ’er, you interfering cowbag!’ She came marching across to Rachel. ‘Here’m I worrying myself to death about ’er and yow’ve been
hiding her all the sodding time. Who d’yow think yow are? You get ’er out ’ere – now!’

‘Hey, you!’ Dolly came striding over like a steamboat at full speed, magnificently large with child. Her wavy dark hair was all hanging loose as she had been in the process of
brushing it out, which made her look younger and rather wild. ‘Who’re you talking to like that? Our Rachel’s been looking after your babby when you and that feller of yours are
too kalied or idle to bother – you should be thanking ’er, not shooting yer mouth off!’

Irene, already in the wrong and faced by two furious women with their arms folded, could see she was beaten.

‘All right – well, now you’ve got
my daughter
you can cowing well give ’er back!’

‘She’s asleep,’ Rachel said. ‘And that’s the best place for her. How much sleep did you think she was going to get sat out on the step all night with next to
nothing on? You’re a lousy mother, Irene – your kids’d be better off in a home than with you, the way you carry on.’

She hadn’t really meant to say that, but she was tired and overwrought.

‘Oh-ho!’ Irene drew herself up, relishing the insult she was about to deliver. ‘
My
kids ought to be in a home?
My
kids’re all right. It’s that
halfwit babby of yours should be shut away in a home – with all the other cripples.’

Rachel had no idea she was going to do it. She just found herself launching her whole weight at Irene, her knuckles smashing into Irene’s cheek, her other hand coming up and slapping her
face the other side. The pain from the punch jarred all down her arm, but she didn’t care. In fact it felt glorious! Irene screeched and Rachel felt her head jerked agonizingly to one side as
Irene grabbed handfuls of her hair and yanked on it with full force. Rachel went mad – she was screaming, lunging at Irene with her nails, her fists, feeling blows landing on her as both of
them yelled and flailed at each other. Rachel barely even knew where she was – she was full of crazed energy, a mass of kicking and hitting limbs, like a whirlwind with fists.

‘Eh, you two – pack it in!’ Dolly yelled, wading in.

‘What in heaven’s name is going on?’ Gladys hurried out into the yard. ‘Dolly, you keep out of it – you’re in no state . . .’ All the same, both of them
set about hauling the two scrapping women apart.

Rachel stood, panting and tugging at Gladys’s arms as she tried to hold her back. She could feel the burning from her cuts beginning and a hot trickling sensation down her right cheek, but
she couldn’t care less. She stared triumphantly at Irene, who was scratched all over her face, her hair dishevelled and a bleeding cut over her left eyebrow. None of her own pain mattered in
the slightest – she was full of a delicious, swelling ecstasy, of having let all the tension erupt out of her. To make it even more satisfying, she knew she was in the right – so sod
Irene!

‘You’re a stupid cow, Irene!’ she bellowed as Gladys hauled her back towards the house. ‘You’ll get your daughter back when she wakes up and not before!’

‘I should’ve thought you’d’ve had more sense,’ Gladys said, back inside. ‘Look at the state of you! But by God, that one’s had it coming to
her.’

Nothing seemed to shatter Rachel’s momentary, carefree mood. She peered in the glass on the wall. Her hair was wild as a madwoman’s and her gaunt cheeks were smeared with blood from
cuts and punches. ‘God – what a mess!’ she said, but then found herself laughing at the sight, unable to stop, until tears ran down her cheeks.

Gladys was buttoning her coat. ‘I’m going out,’ she said, with a disdainful sniff, ‘to get
your husband
his medicine. And by the time I get back I
should’ve thought you’d have pulled yourself together.’

‘Danny –’ Rachel shook him awake. ‘Here – Auntie’s got this for you. You’d better take some.’

Danny opened his eyes, utterly bewildered for a moment. He was still feverish but seemed calmer.

‘You haven’t been sick again?’ she asked.

‘No –’ He accepted the water she was holding out to him. ‘I think it’s stopped.’ He peered blearily at her. ‘What the hell’s happened to
you?’

‘Irene,’ she said, measuring out the medicine for him. ‘We had a bit of a barney.’ She sank down onto the edge of the bed. ‘Here – open wide.’

‘I was dreaming I was back there again,’ Danny said, lying back, exhausted. He sounded vulnerable, almost tearful. ‘It’s being sick, like this – just the same. I
had to keep walking along that road . . . So hot . . . Dust . . . Never felt so bad before . . .’ He was drifting off to sleep again. Rachel leaned over and kissed his cheek.

She crept out of the room and down to the one below, where she found Evie lying in the bed, looking around her.

‘Hello, bab,’ she said. The little girl brought out a special tenderness in her. Rachel had never felt that her own mother liked or wanted her and for Evie it was even worse.

Evie sat up. ‘Po,’ she said.

‘Come on then.’ Rachel sat her on the pot to relieve herself. ‘We need to take you back to your mom,’ she told her as Evie looked up at her. ‘Would you like a piece
first?’

The little girl nodded. Rachel led her down to sit at the table, near Tommy who was in his chair. Mo had fixed a wooden tray across it for him to play with things on and he was fiddling with
some tin soldiers Gladys had bought him at the market. He brightened up at the sight of Evie and made his noises of welcome. He loved having other children around. Rachel cut her a piece of bread
and scraped margarine over it.

‘Here you are – get that down you.’ And then we’d better go and face the music again, she thought, full of dread now that she had calmed down.

Holding Evie by the hand, she knocked at Irene’s house. Irene came to the door, her own face dotted with angry red welts and scratches, though she had tidied up her hair. With
satisfaction, Rachel noticed that Irene looked worse than she did. She wondered if Irene would start on her again, but suddenly she was all wheedling charm.