Saturday's Child (17 page)

He parked the vehicle, took a deep breath, dashed to the infirmary’s entrance. Magsy was muttering and sobbing like a woman unhinged. Her hands were twin balled fists, while tears flooded
down her face.

‘You can’t stop here,’ a constable was saying.

Magsy seized his arm. ‘That is my child. They have to allow me to be with her . . .’

The second policeman tutted loudly. ‘Isolation means isolation, Mrs O’Gara. Even on the ordinary wards, you can only come in at visiting times. You can’t go upsetting sick folk
and them what’s supposed to look after them.’

Paul pushed his way into the small group and took hold of Magsy’s shoulders. ‘Come with me, love,’ he bade softly. He could feel the hysteria shuddering through her body.
‘Carry on like this and you’ll be ill yourself.’

‘Tell them,’ she implored, ‘tell them I can’t live without her and that she can’t live without me. She can’t die, because she’s going to be a
doctor.’

He made secure eye contact with her. ‘Magsy, love, if they let you into isolation, you’ll come out with all sorts on your clothes. Can’t you see that? These lads and lasses are
only doing what’s right. Now, do you really want to spend the night in a prison cell? Do you? Because that’s where you’ll finish up if you don’t give folk a bit of
peace.’

Magsy held his stare. ‘But where will I go?’

‘Come with me,’ ordered Paul. ‘Now. This minute, before I ask a doctor to knock you out with something or other. This is no way to behave.’

She continued to gaze levelly into his eyes. Something about this man reached out to calm her. He was dependable, trustworthy. Putting herself into his care would do no harm at all. ‘I
don’t want to go home,’ she said eventually. ‘I know I can’t see her, but I have to be near her.’

‘We’re not going home,’ he told her. ‘We’re camping out.’

‘In this weather?’

‘That’s right.’ He spoke now to the policemen. ‘You’ll have to forgive her, I’m sorry. Beth’s all she has in the world. She lost her husband in the war
– this is the last straw for her.’

One of the two nurses wiped a tear from her eye. ‘We do understand,’ she said softly, ‘because I’d be just the same if it were my daughter. But we have to have rules, you
see, otherwise we couldn’t do our jobs. Magsy knows the rules, because she works with us.’

Paul led the weeping Magsy round the corner to the back of the van. He opened the doors. ‘Right – there’s your bed, so lie down.’

She crawled in, placed herself on an old eiderdown, allowed him to heap blankets on her. When he stretched out beside her, she felt not the slightest fear. With a sureness that cut through all
the grief and confusion, Magsy knew that this man would never, ever hurt her. He understood, realized that she had to stay here. Sitting or lying in a van in the grounds of a hospital might have
seemed insane, but he accepted her craziness.

‘Next door’s looking after my mam,’ he said. ‘Now, get to sleep. If I catch hold of you, it’s only for warmth – I’ve no plans for rape.’

‘I know that.’

‘How?’

‘I just do.’ She closed her eyes. ‘Paul, what’s she got?’

‘I don’t know, love.’

‘And all the Hardcastles, too. She’s spent quite a bit of time just lately with young Roy.’ A shuddering breath made its way into and out of cold-stiffened lungs. ‘God
help them all,’ she said.

‘Go to sleep, love.’

‘William used to call me that.’

‘Then I’ll try to stop.’

After a pause of at least a minute, her sleep-slowed voice reached him. ‘I don’t mind,’ she said.

There came a light tapping at the van’s back door. Paul struggled inelegantly out of his nest of blankets, crawled along, opened the van. ‘Oh, hello,’ he said.

The nurse gave him two steaming cups of cocoa and a plate of toast. ‘Just to warm you up,’ she whispered, ‘and I suppose it’s no use wishing you a happy Christmas.’
She sniffed back a sudden need to weep. ‘Look after her.’

‘I will,’ he promised.

And he did. He forced her to take small bites of toast, got half a cup of cocoa into her. When she finally slept, he remained at her side, senses tormented by her proximity, his mind firmly
fixed inside the hospital in which her daughter lay. The question of touching Magsy was never on the agenda. He slept with her, held her, wiped away the tears.

For this woman he would do almost anything. Her grief affected him beyond words, as he could find no language to assuage it. Whenever she woke, he simply stroked her hands until fitful sleep
arrived once more; he soothed her as one would instinctively calm an animal or a human infant in distress.

Morning found them huddled together, awakened once more by a little nurse who brought tea and bacon sandwiches. She imparted the news that there was no change in Beth, no change in any of the
Hardcastles. The illness had not yet been identified, but several others from the Deane and Daubhill area had been admitted during the night.

‘It’s an epidemic,’ said Magsy.

‘Looks like it,’ Paul replied.

‘If she dies . . .’ The rest of her sentence was lost in a bout of weeping. There was no possibility that she could face life without her daughter.

‘Try not to think like that,’ he said.

‘I can’t help it, Paul.’

While they picked at the sandwiches, he found himself wishing that he could be in Beth’s place. If only he could make the swap, he would lay down his life for the sake of this
woman’s happiness. So this was love, then. It was not just a physical need, was more than a meeting of minds. Love was an instinct that depended on no particular sense.

‘Why her and not me?’ she asked.

‘It happens, Magsy. Let them find out what it is, then they can shift it.’

‘She was unconscious.’

‘I know.’

‘You could have fried eggs on her face.’

‘Yes.’

They walked together into the hospital, requested and were given permission to use toilet facilities just off the reception area. In the ladies’ room, Magsy watched the pale ghost in the
mirror, wondered what had happened to yesterday. She remembered the fun of packing parcels of books, most bought secondhand from a market stall, Beth’s giggles as she had wrapped
Magsy’s gift. Where was yesterday? How could life change so suddenly, so easily?

Paul warmed his hands on a radiator. It was Christmas Day and Mam was all on her own except for Bertha next door. Bertha next door was about as much fun as a burning orphanage, all downturned
mouth and snide gossip. Yet he could not abandon Magsy at the infirmary.

He joined her at the front desk. ‘Any news?’ he asked.

Magsy looked at him. ‘Not yet. But isolation’s nearly full. And they want us out of here in case we are carriers of whatever this thing might be.’ She straightened her
shoulders. ‘She would want me to go home. We can do nothing here.’

So she was talking sense at last. ‘Yes, she would. And we have been asked to leave, anyway, in case we pass the disease on.’

They left the hospital grounds and drove in silence through town and up Derby Street. As he reached Magsy’s door, Paul spoke for the first time. ‘You’ll be on your
own.’

‘No, I won’t. I’ll be with Lily.’ She turned and looked at his profile, saw that his chin was darkened by new growth of beard. He was kind. He was a good friend.
‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘you have calmed me. I had better go and cook now.’ She considered the idea of planting a kiss on his cheek, decided against it, opened the door. It
was time to think of practical things. The dinner intended for Ernest Barnes would go to Nellie Hulme. ‘Go to your mother,’ she told Paul, ‘and I cannot thank you
enough.’

When Magsy was back inside her house, she placed all the Christmas gifts in a cupboard. From somewhere within herself, she had found a strength bequeathed to her by generations of starved Irish
cottagers, a will to survive no matter what. Enclosed in that determination was a special seed, a small plant that seemed to take root of its own accord. Beth would survive. With a certainty for
which she would never account, Magsy O’Gara knew that her daughter was not going to die.

When the simple dinner was prepared, she washed her face, combed her hair and went across to visit Lily. Quarantine was senseless – everyone in this street had been exposed to whatever
raged in the infirmary’s isolation unit.

She walked into Lily’s house, only to find that the housewife was sitting beside a cold grate, no sign of food, no attempt to keep warm. ‘Lily?’ It was plain that the woman had
not washed, had not combed her hair, had not taken as much as a cup of tea.

‘Oh, hello.’

The bitch and her puppy leapt gladly at the visitor; a morning of silence and hunger had not pleased them. Magsy found them some scraps, then squatted in front of Lily, rubbing the woman’s
cold hands. ‘Come on, love.’

‘Eh?’

‘Over to my house for a bit of dinner.’

Lily blinked, her eyes dull and empty.

‘I shall bring Nellie as well. If I knock, Spot will fetch her.’

‘Roy’s puppies,’ said Lily.

‘Yes.’

The older woman’s mouth opened wide and she howled like a wild animal baying at a full moon. She railed against the Almighty for allowing the illness, at mankind for carrying it into her
home, at the world for being a cruel place. But, for the most part, Lily Hardcastle’s anger was directed at herself. ‘I prayed for change,’ she howled.

‘We all do that,’ replied Magsy.

Lily continued to berate herself, crying out about nose-picking, smelly feet, spotty faces, folk who ate with their mouths open. ‘It were all getting me down, then Dot went, then I wanted
to go, then I knew I couldn’t. I hate this place and my job and everything, so God has repaid me. He’s made me watch this, Magsy. If I could be ill, I wouldn’t suffer in my head,
because I wouldn’t know anything. So He’s making me eat my words.’

‘God isn’t like that,’ said Magsy.

‘Then happen the devil heard me,’ cried Lily.

Magsy made all the right noises, yet she knew that Lily’s anguish was unreachable, that this poor woman would not respond to reason. Having been in this state so recently, Magsy understood
that no amount of argument would serve to calm Lily.

Someone knocked at the front door. ‘I’ll go.’ Magsy abandoned her weeping neighbour to allow Nellie Hulme into the house. The old woman waddled up the hall, her arms filled
with gifts. These she deposited on Lily’s table. ‘No fire. This house is cold,’ she mouthed at Magsy before approaching the weeping woman. Nellie, too, was close to tears.
‘Come,’ she said, pulling at Lily’s hands, ‘come and see.’

Lily allowed herself to be dragged to her feet. Nellie led the way, a reluctant Lily behind her, while Magsy brought up the rear. They entered Nellie’s house, both visitors gasping when
they saw how neat and clean it was. Lily was so startled that she forgot to cry as she looked at the furniture, the new rug, a spotless hearth where a fire burgeoned. ‘It’s . . .
clean,’ she stammered.

Spot threw himself at Lily, pleased to see the one who had been there right at the beginning of his life. He fussed, yapped, then did a lap of honour round the three women.

Nellie took them through to her kitchen where a black-leaded grate boasted new polish. Flames danced across the room, falling on a table whose cloth was exquisite. ‘I made dinner,’
Nellie mouthed proudly, ‘but upstairs first. I show you.’

‘Would you ever take a look at that cloth,’ exclaimed Magsy. ‘I swear that’s hand-made and worth a fortune.’

But Nellie was ushering the pair of them towards the stairs. When they reached the top, the deaf woman turned and beamed at them. ‘My secret,’ she said.

Lily already knew the secret, as Roy had seen it, but her breath was taken away when she entered Nellie’s back bedroom. It was spotless, gleaming, had obviously been kept in this state for
years. The walls were lined with rolls of linen in white and ecru, while shelves bore piles of completed items. A work table was spread with dozens of bobbins, most in pairs identified by beads,
small bells, wooden cubes.

‘Good heavens,’ exclaimed Magsy.

‘Roy climbed up the drainpipe,’ said Lily, ‘and told me about this.’

Nellie showed them letters from the households of gentry, barons, dukes, princes, Buckingham Palace. Magsy wandered across to look at a fan on a wall, its lacework so delicate that it almost
required magnification to see the detail. Letters from the mothers of debutantes were also pinned to the wall, as were requests for table linens, collars, chair covers. ‘Bloody hell,’
Lily exclaimed, ‘her does this for royalty.’

‘She does indeed,’ said Magsy quietly. She thought about the old lady, given up for adoption due to deafness, isolated by that same condition, depressed to the point where she had
cared naught for her appearance, for her diet, for the state of her home. And here was a room filled with beauty, the island on which Nellie had marooned herself with silent deliberation, a place
filled by books, pricked-out patterns, the cushions on which those patterns were executed.

Magsy turned and made eye contact with Nellie. ‘Beautiful,’ she said.

Nellie nodded. ‘Always hope.’ The two words, perfectly framed, emerged soundless from her lips. ‘This is my hope, mine.’ She hit her breast with a closed fist. ‘You
must never stop the hope, because it is all we have.’ She spoke perfectly, yet soundlessly, the words accompanied only by the rasping of her breath. An expert lip-reader, Nellie Hulme had
practised for many hours while standing in front of a mirror.

Magsy threw her arms as far as they would go around Nellie, who, in spite of recent weight loss, was still a hefty woman. Lily joined them, and they hugged like children in the street, a band of
humanity joining in tearful confusion. Nellie’s tears were almost noiseless, but Lily made up for the absence of sound, her whole body heaving as she broke her heart once more.

They separated, each woman sniffling and patting at nose and eyes with a handkerchief.

‘You’ve worked hard,’ Magsy told Nellie.

The deaf woman nodded. ‘They say I was born on a Saturday,’ she mouthed.

‘So was I,’ exclaimed Magsy, ‘and Beth was, too.’