The White Room (15 page)

‘Shame Johnny couldn't have been here today,' said Ralph. ‘He'd have enjoyed himself.'

Jean and Joanne said nothing. Jean noticed Joanne shudder despite the heat.

‘I thought he was looking better, didn't you? He recognized us when we got there.' Ralph smiled. ‘Yes, I think he's turned a corner. It'll be a while, but I think he's on the mend.' Another smile. ‘Ah, yes. Definitely on the mend.'

Jean and Joanne said nothing.

Jean turned to the window, sighed. The ghost woman was still there, looking at her.

Jean stared right back at her. Held her gaze.

All the way home.

Next came galloping and trotting.

Competitors from all over England and Scotland arrived for the racing at Blaydon in the afternoon. Showhorses and racehorses. Crowds oohing and aahing, clapping and cheering.

All over the region, street parties sprang up. Streets closed off. Battered bunting, last seen during the Coronation, had been dragged from damp cardboard boxes and given an airing: strung between lampposts, wrapped around telegraph poles, draped from windowsills and eaves, they flapped, bringing a faded ghost-colour to the soot-blackened streets. Tables dragged from kitchens and parlours formed higgledy-piggledy lines down the centres of streets. Chairs as mismatched as tables lined up alongside. On the tables: white triangular sandwiches filled with egg and tomato or tinned meat, orange squash in various kinds of cups, crisps, stodgy cakes. Children ate, shouted, laughed. Adults ministered, poured squash, replenished plates, helped themselves. They stood in their street, drank tea or bottled ale, chatted. Seeing their surroundings through different eyes: the sun, the gathering, the temporary dispensing of working ritual made their street, their world, a happy place of spirit, of love, of opportunity.

Mae Blacklock sat with the other children her own age, slowly chewing on a chopped-pork sandwich, swallowing, washing the taste away with orange squash. Repeating the actions until her plate and cup were cleared and empty. Between mouthfuls she looked around, saw the other children making up jokes, play-fighting at the table, carrying on, earning mock admonitions from their parents, calling to their friends.

But not to her. Never to her.

She sat with the other children her age. They talked over her, around her. She had seen something on telly once about a boy who had to live in a plastic bubble. There was something wrong with him. It looked great at first: a huge, see-through tent stretched over his specially adapted hospital bed in his specially adapted hospital room. He had toys and attention. It was an adventure. But as the programme went on, it began to look less great. He couldn't laugh with the other children, breathe the same air as them, run and play with them. The toys he played with had to be specially disinfected. They could only be small. Everything, his whole world, had to fit into the small space inside the tent. He couldn't reach out and touch.

Mae thought about that boy a lot. She often found her six-year-old mind wandering; she imagined reaching out, touching only plastic. Imagined stepping outside the bubble but finding the air poisonous and having to step back inside, choking but safe in her see-through tomb.

She was the boy, the bubble her house. The other children beyond that. She could reach out but never connect; call, but never be heard. She was always pulled back, gasping and choking, to the bubble. Her house.

Back to her mother.

And the things she couldn't talk about.

Her mother. In the room with Jesus in pain. And white walls with dark shadows. Too many shadows.

Of prison.

Then, thought triggered, thinking back: the time Mae had been talking non-stop, clowning. Wanting attention, wanting her mother to listen to her.

Playing her up, her mother had said, being wilful.

Clips around the ear, cuffs around the head, no use. Mae kept talking.

‘You see that?' her mother had said.

Mae stopped talking and looked, followed her mother's pointed finger, pleased that her mother had noticed her at last, had wanted to share something with her.

They were in the centre of Newcastle, walking back home from shopping. Her mother was pointing at Grey's Monument, the imposing stone edifice at the heart of the old Georgian Grainer town. Earl Grey's statue stood atop the huge stone column. Mae looked at it.

‘There,' her mother said.

Mae nodded.

‘That's a prison. That's the tower where they send the naughty children who won't do what their mams tell them.'

Mae froze and stared. Her eyes travelled from the door in the base right up to the statue on the top. A small, railed walkway ran around the base of the statue.

‘They put the naughty children in there and lock the door. And leave them. The only way out is for them to climb to the top and jump off.'

Mae stared. She could well believe it. She did believe it.

They walked on in silence after that, Mae not daring to speak lest her tiny heart break and she start to sob, lest her mother lose patience and put her in prison.

They had finally reached their house in Scotswood, Mae's feet hurting but not daring to complain about them, gone inside, Mae in fear and silence. Into the place she called home.

Her mother there all the time.

She remembered times, dimly, when her mother hadn't been there. A time in hospital when she was very small: unpleasant at first as they had forced her to drink a sour, salty liquid, then stood by when she had been violently sick, smiling and helping her to clean up. After that, they had been as nice as anything: the nurses in their stiff clothes that creaked and rustled like kicked leaves when they stood up or sat down. The smiles they gave her as they tucked her up in her hospital bed. The way they sat and talked to her, laughed at her jokes, listened to her as her mother never had.

Then there was the nice woman. She had taken Mae shopping, buying her lots of pretty clothes, lovely dolls and toys. The nice woman had taken her for lunch in a café. The woman had made promises, told her about the house she would be living in and how it would always be sunny, the friends she would have. Her exciting, beautiful future.

And the other time in hospital, after the fall. Mae didn't remember much about that, just how amazed the nurses were at her lack of injuries. ‘God's marked you for something special,' said one of them. Mae got a warm feeling when the nurse said that. They had asked her questions then, questions Mae didn't know the answers to. They kept asking them, and she tried to make things up just to make them happy, but they told her not to do that. She still enjoyed it, though, with the rustling nurses playing with her and talking to her.

There were other stories, other times dimly remembered, but all with the same conclusion: her mother turned up and took her home.

Back to the things she was told not to talk about. Her mother in the room with Jesus in pain. On the cross, mouth pulled back in agony. Dying. Crown of thorns, head wreathed in golden light. Mae could reach out to him but never connect, call but never be heard.

The room with white walls with dark shadows. Too many shadows.

The other children were still playing, still laughing. Mae reached for another chopped-pork sandwich, took another small handful of crisps.

She was a pretty little girl, she had been told that enough times, but had trouble believing it. Brown hair and green eyes that looked deep into people, tried to see beyond their skins and into their hearts. To see who they really were, to see what they really wanted.

From her.

‘Hello, me darlin'.'

Mae looked up. She recognized the voice at once. It brought an instant smile to her face.

‘Hello, Bert,' she said.

Bert looked at her, returned the smile. Dressed in an old suit, belt and braces, a collarless shirt open at his neck. Battered old boots on his feet, similarly scarred cap on his head. He could have been any age from late thirties to early fifties. He was the kind of person who seemed to have been born at a certain age and stayed there.

‘Y'enjoyin' yourself, pet?'

Mae nodded through a mouthful of crisps.

‘Champion,' he said. ‘Good to see the bairns havin' a day out like this.'

‘Where's Adam?'

‘Tethered up in the yard. Haven't done the rounds today. No need.'

Mae turned round, her face lit with a rare excitement.

‘Can we go and see him? We could join the parade to Blaydon.'

Bert smiled.

‘They wouldn't want us in the parade, pet. I'm just an old rag an' bone man, an' Adam's too old for that lark.'

Mae's face fell.

‘Can we still go round and see him, though? Can we still go to the yard?'

Bert sighed.

‘You don't want to spend the day with an old duffer like me, do you, bonny lass? Not when you've got all your friends your own age to play with.'

Mae looked down the length of the table. Children ate, talked, shouted, laughed.

But not with her.

‘Please, Bert,' she said. ‘Can I go down the yard with you?'

Bert looked at her, smiled. He loved this little girl. This sad-eyed little girl who seemed to have no friends.

He drained his bottle of brown ale, placed it on the table.

‘Come on, then, bonny lass, let's go an' see Adam.'

He held out his hand. She quickly jumped from her seat and took it, a rare, beaming smile lighting up her face.

‘Mind, we cannot be too long. Your mam'll be wonderin' where you've gone, like.'

Mae shivered, as if a cloud had passed over the sun.

‘Are you cold?' said Bert.

Mae shook her head.

‘Let's go and see Adam,' she said.

Bert's yard. The only place in the whole wide world where Mae felt safe.

Really safe.

Fridges, tables, chairs, settees. Shelves and ornaments. Tin baths and old tyres. Everything old, worn and unwanted by others. Everything new, exciting and dream-like to Mae. A place of possibilities and adventure. On her first visit, Bert had given her a tour, told her what was potentially dangerous, told her never to get inside a fridge and close the door, to beware of sharp and rusty objects, that kind of thing, but also let her play there.

‘Hello, Adam,' said Mae. She crossed to the horse, patted his flank. The old nag swished his tail.

Bert closed the gates, followed her in. He found his old armchair, dragged outside to catch the good weather, and sat down in it, pulling a bottle of brown ale from his coat pocket and uncapping it with the bottle opener he had tied to the arm of the chair by an old piece of string.

He was happy to let Mae play in his yard. He knew she didn't get on well with the other kids and needed somewhere to go. Somewhere to get her out of the house, away from her mother.

Bert was a widower. He had no children of his own and had never remarried after Winnie's heart attack had claimed her. He had needs, obviously, and had found himself having them taken care of by Monica. But then she started to get rough and he didn't like that. But he liked her. So he still kept in touch, took her out sometimes, down to the pub, for a walk. He liked to think of himself as her boyfriend, but he didn't know what Monica thought.

He had been on his rounds one day and Mae had seen him. She had walked alongside Adam, stopping when he did, moving when he did. Not saying a word, just looking at the horse.

Gradually she had begun to speak, and eventually he had invited her to sit with him. He hadn't been comfortable with her at first since he had had no children of his own, but Mae wasn't the kind of child who said much anyway. That suited him fine. Soon she was accompanying him on his rounds when she wasn't at school. She seemed to like that.

Bert became fond of the silent little girl. Pretty, yet quiet and intense. He knew it must be difficult being brought up by her mother when her mother was with a few different men every night, but still she seemed as if she had no joy in her life. If coming on his rounds made her happy, then good. He enjoyed the company. She seemed more like a small person than a little girl. She was, as his wife would have said, an old soul.

He watched her play, sipped beer from his bottle.

Mae chatted away to herself and her imaginary friends, talked to Adam more than he had ever seen her talk to another human being.

Bert checked his watch. Getting on for six.

It wouldn't be long before he would have to take Mae back home. Then she would become sullen and monosyllabic, dragging her feet ever slower the nearer she got to her house.

Bert didn't enjoy that bit at all.

Seeing the look on Monica's face when she saw her daughter. Like someone had just attached a dead weight around her neck. Bert would try and be cheery, see if Monica wanted to go out somewhere, all three of them even, but he didn't hold out much hope. Her mother had moods. Especially when Mae was brought back to her.

He had seen the child with bruises, sometimes gashes on her legs and arms. Made him wonder what was going on in that house. What Mae was experiencing.

Best not to think of it. Not just yet.

Because that wasn't for an hour or so. Let the lassie enjoy herself while she could.

He watched her play, sipped his beer from the bottle.

Best not to think of it. Not just yet.

Let her enjoy herself while she can.

Ralph Bell parked the car, switched off the ignition, sighed.

Balmbras would be starting its evening of entertainment by now. Old-tyme music hall. ‘Cushy Butterfield'. ‘Blaydon Races'. ‘The Lambton Worm'. All flat cappery and fake nostalgia.

And why was ‘time' spelled ‘tyme'?

Ralph didn't know. Cared less.

The further away from Kenny, the nearer he had got to home, the darker his mood had become. His initial prognosis on Kenny's condition had become riddled with holes, clouded by doubts. His optimism draining as his son's face faded from his mind.