2003 - A Jarful of Angels Page 26

  He walked swiftly across the garden, his heart beating fast, hoping that Mervyn hadn’t uncovered it first. He knew now that while he’d sat in this garden one hot afternoon drinking tea with Agnes Medlicott, not ten yards away the boy had been hidden.

  He found the privet hedge. He guessed it had been planted sometime after the war, to hide the door, and the rockery had been built to cover the unsightly corrugated iron of the air-raid shelter.

  He had to breathe in to squeeze behind the privet hedge. His heart beat painfully and he stood and looked at the door for a long time, unsure now whether he wanted to know what he would find on the other side of the door.

  Then, he took the bunch of keys from his pocket. He’d kept them from his days on the force; skeleton keys that had never failed to open a multitude of locks. He tried three of them in the rusty lock with no luck. The fourth key turned stiffly and the lock clicked.

  He tried unsuccessfully to steady his breathing.

  The door opened with the minimum of force. He took a deep breath of cool air before he stepped into the blackness of the shelter.

  The air inside was fetid. He covered his nose with his hand. For a few moments he allowed his eyes time to adjust to the darkness which was almost absolute, only a weak shaft of daylight penetrated a foot or so in front of him. With faltering hands he took out his torch and switched it on.

  The shelter was filled with cobwebs, curtains of cobwebs from ceiling to floor. He pulled them away in handfuls. The torchlight picked out the bright eyes of a rat. The rat surveyed him for a second and then scurried away.

  In one corner lay the rusty frame of a camp bed, the canvas rotted away. A few scattered tins lay in a pile, corroded with rust. A heap of pop bottles. Two rusty candlesticks.

  This was where Lawrence Bevan had spent his last hours. Dear God! And he had sat not ten feet away drinking tea with Agnes Medlicott!

  There was no sign, as he’d imagined and dreaded of the remains of Lawrence Bevan. No small skeleton among the dusty debris in the shelter.

  Then he saw the box. A small metal box covered in a thick layer of dust and cobwebs. He stooped forward, picked it up and stepped back out into the fresh morning air, locked the door and crossed the gardens. Gardens lit now with a watery light. A magpie eyed him malevolently and screeched from the chimney top of the house and a cold wind brought a salty whiff of the faraway sea.

  As soon as the town came to life he hurried out into the town and bought a tape measure. Coming back to his room at the Firkin, he noticed the sunlight, which slanted through the window and fell in a pool of light at the statue’s feet.

  Ekaterina Velasco Olivares

  He looked at the left foot of the statue. It was whole. The right one had been chipped at some time. He pulled out the tape measure and measured the left foot across the base of the toes. Eleven centimetres.

  He measured the right foot. Eleven centimetres to where it was chipped. It still had five toes, the sixth toe had been broken away.

  Ekaterina Velasco Olivares had six toes on her right foot!

  He found one of his old notebooks and turned the pages carefully.

  There!

  Thus…successive generations of human beings may have an excessive number…or a deficiency of fingers and toes.

  Fatty Bevan had underlined the words carefully and in the margin he had written: MEASURE BOTH CATS FEET.

  Now he knew what had been troubling him. He remembered Iffy Meredith stepping into her daps in the kitchen of the old house in Inkerman Terrace. Her bare brown feet on the linoleum, and one extra toe on her right foot!

  The boy had known the truth, had uncovered a closely guarded secret.

  Other thoughts raced through Will’s mind: the old Italian reading the book behind the counter of the café; Laurie Lee’s journey down through Spain.

  Fatty Bevan had worked it out for himself but had someone wanted to stop him from letting the secret out? Someone who had kept him, against his will, locked in an old air-raid shelter. And then what had happened? He couldn’t bear to contemplate it.

  Ideas were coming fast and Will hardly dared pause for fear of losing the train of his thoughts. He scribbled down a few notes, then he visited the town library where he took down the Yellow Pages directory from the reference section and flipped through it.

  Please God, let it still exist. His heart leapt when he saw the name in black print. He wrote down the address and telephone number, and then rang a cab from the telephone booth in the entrance lobby.

  Will walked up the gravel driveway, and stood before the enormous oak door and tugged the bell pull.

  A grille in the door opened and dark eyes scrutinised him.

  “Will Sloane,” he said.

  “Ah. Sister Immaculata is expecting you.”

  Sister Immaculata, an ancient-looking nun, sat behind a large table in a bare room, the white wall behind her punctuated only by a stark crucifix, as black as gangrene.

  “How may I help you, Mr Sloane?”

  “Perhaps you can’t. Sister. I’m trying to trace an ex-pupil of yours, but she was here a very long time ago.”

  “Well, the only good thing about old age, Mr Sloane, is the improvement of long-term memory. Try me.”

  Will could barely contain his impatience as Sister Immaculata turned the pages of a huge black book the size of an old family Bible.

  “Here we are,” she said and beamed up at Will.

  He closed his eyes as she spoke.

  “Elizabeth Gwendoline Meredith. She won a place here because she was the most outstanding student in her primary school.”

  Will’s heart began to race.

  “So she was a pupil here?”

  “No,” said the old nun.

  “But you said – ”

  “She was due to start here. She was an orphan, and was going to come here full time. Some of our pupils stay here all the time, we make special provision during the holidays. Her grandparents, who had brought her up, had both recently died.”

  “So what happened?”

  “She’d been fitted out with the uniform but she never arrived.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t look so alarmed.”

  “But she didn’t arrive. Did she have an accident?”

  “No. It says here that there was a last-minute telephone call from someone, a foreign relative of hers. There was a change of plan. She went abroad to live. Her suitcase had already arrived, but we never actually met Elizabeth Meredith.”

  Will’s head swam.

  Mervyn Prosser had seen Iffy Meredith in her uniform down by the docks talking to a boy. Someone had rung the school to say there was a change of plan! This school was miles from the docks.

  “Thank you, Sister,”he said.

  “Mr Sloane, do you feel all right? You’ve gone very pale. Can I get you something?”

  “No, really. Thank you for the information.”

  “There’s just one more thing, Mr Sloane, that might be of help.”

  Sister Immaculata rang a small brass handbell that was on her desk and, as though by magic, a young nun appeared in the doorway almost immediately. Sister Immaculata stood up and spoke quietly to her and the young sister scurried away.

  Rain had begun to fall as the enormous oak door of St Martha’s Convent closed quietly behind Will Sloane.

  “May God bless you, Mr Sloane,” Sister Immaculata called out through the grille.

  “He just did, Sister.”

  He walked slowly away down the drive. Beneath his feet the gravel crunched as though he was treading on ancient bones. Clutched tightly to his hammering chest was the battered suitcase that Sister Immaculata had given him.

  There was no sign of Fatty. Days passed. The ponds were dragged. Weeks passed. Posters were nailed up all over the town. The policeman who had spoken to Iffy went away.

  Iffy stood outside the Limp and looked at a poster pinned to a tree. Fatty’s face stared out at her. She swallowed the lump i
n her throat at the sight of his tousled curls, the cheeky tilt of his head. It was a black and white photograph which didn’t show the blue and black of his eyes, the silky dark eyelashes, his skin the colour of toasted tea cakes.

  Iffy was coming up past the hump-backed bridge when she heard the whistle. “Wee ooh wit!”

  She stood quite still and listened. Her heart bumped wildly against her blazer badge.

  “Wee oo wi i i it!”

  She’d know that sound anywhere. It was Fatty’s whistle.

  “Iffy! Under the bridge.”

  She looked around fearfully, but the road was deserted. It was dark under the bridge, the slippery walls were dappled with moving shadows and all around her was the glug and slippery suck of the river.

  “Fatty?” she whispered into the darkness.

  “Over here.”

  Fatty stepped out of the shadows.

  He was dirtier that she’d ever seen him. Stinking, rotten dirty.

  “What are you wearin’?”

  “Recognise it?”

  She peered at him, looking him up and down. It was Bessie’s Sunday school frock. It still had frog blood on it.

  “I got it out of the ash tip, thought it might come in useful. Shut your eyes a minute.”

  She shut them tight.

  “You can open them now.”

  Iffy squealed.

  “Hush up, Iffy! Someone’ll hear you.”

  Iffy put her hand over her mouth.

  Fatty’s syrupy-coloured hair was gone. In its place were thick black curls.

  “I can see the join,” she said.

  “Take Bessie down to Morrissey’s tomorrow for sweets. She won’t want to marry him when she sees he’s bald. He’s got a head like a baby’s arse.”

  “Fatty, how did you get it?”

  He tapped the side of his nose. She hated it when he did that.

  “They’ll catch you if you go running round wearing a girl’s frock and a wig!”

  “I’ve got some new clothes too. Iffy, how come they realised I was missing so quick?”

  And, swallowing hard, she told him the truth.

  “What the bloody hell did you do that for?”

  “I just didn’t want you to go.”

  “Look, Iffy, I’ve got to go, but I’ll be back one day.”

  “Promise?”

  “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

  “But the police are looking for you. They’ve got posters of you up all over town. Where’ve you been hiding?”

  “Can’t tell you that. But they won’t catch me. I’m going away, Iffy.”

  “You can’t just go away.”

  “There’s things I’ve got to do. Remember what Bridgie said that day about secrets? Well, she was right, there are secrets in this town.”

  “But Bridgie Thomas is nuts!”

  “Remember the wishes we made?” he said.

  She nodded.

  “Well, mine came true. I said I wanted to be an orphan.” There were tears in his eyes as he spoke. “That night under the bridge when we heard…”

  Iffy took his hand.

  “He’s not my dad! That was the best part of the wish. I know that that fat spiteful bastard isn’t my dad and I’m glad about that.”

  “Where will you go?”

  “Abroad.”

  “Abroad!”

  “I’ve got a map, I’ve got some money. I’ve got something really special too. Look!”

  He took out the jar and showed her. Iffy stared at it.

  “What’s so special about that?”

  It was grimy old jar with a few holes punched in the tin lid. She looked closer, just an empty, steamed-up jar.

  Iffy stared at Fatty as though he’d lost his marbles.

  “It’s just an empty jar, Fatty.”

  He sighed, put the jar down very carefully, and smiled sadly.

  “I’m going to follow the river down to the sea.”

  “But you can’t!”

  It had been a plan of theirs. They’d always said that one day they were going to follow the river down to the sea. They were going to wear wellies and take sandwiches and fishing nets and sleep under the bridges at night. For a month at least. They were just waiting for the right day.

  And now Fatty was going all by himself.

  “What will you do when you get to the sea?”

  “Get on a boat and hide away.”

  He was the bravest boy she knew. The bravest boy in Wales and probably in the whole wide world.

  “But Fatty…”

  “Don’t worry.”

  “When are you going?”

  “Tonight. About nine. I’ve got to go and see someone first. Can you meet me here? Promise me, though, not a word to anybody mind. I’ve got to trust you this time, Iffy.”

  She felt her cheeks go red with shame.

  “Okay,” she said quietly.

  She left him then, and ran up the hill towards home. Darkness crept up the river like smoke. The windows of Carmel Chapel blazed with the last glow of the sun and turned black.

  A light burned in an upstairs window of the Big House. She felt the eyes of the old woman upon her, but she was no longer afraid. She stopped beneath the lamp post by the Dentist’s Stone. She turned around slowly and waved. The old woman waved back, and then the light went out.

  The gaslights began to light up the windows of Inkerman. Somewhere a mouse squeaked.

  Iffy slipped out of the back door just as the town clock chimed the first stroke of nine. The breeze was cold and she shivered. A dog howled somewhere in the darkness.

  “Wee ooh wit!”

  She legged it down the hill, over the slippery bank and under the dark archway of the bridge.

  Fatty’s face leapt at her from the shadows, glowing in the torchlight.

  “I brought you some sandwiches,” she said. “I made them myself. Bread and butter and sugar. Your favourite,”

  “Thanks, Iffy.”

  She swallowed the lump in her throat. Goosegog size.

  “Please don’t go.”

  “Listen, I’ve got to go, but I promise I’ll be back for you.”

  She didn’t believe him.

  “Remember the wish you made that night, Iffy?”

  “You don’t know what I wished.”

  He smiled.

  “I’m gonna try and make it come true for you.”

  “But you can’t.”

  “You’ll understand sometime, Iffy. I’ve got to go.”

  His eyes gleamed in the torchlight and she knew that she would always love him.

  He blew her a kiss. A steamy kiss that wafted from his warm fingers. That kiss was fragrant with the beautiful smell of bubblegum and horse shit and a million other things.

  She tried to smile, but the emptiness of a world without him was too awful to bear. She rubbed the tears from her eyes with the back of her freezing fists and swallowed the lump in her throat, the size of a plum.

  Fatty plonked a smacker right on her lips.

  Then he was gone. She touched her lips. They buzzed with the heat of him. She watched as he sloped off into the moonlight. Watched as he walked away down the river, past all the farms that she didn’t yet know the name of, all the way down the valley that led to the sea that she had never seen.

  The moon was full. Agnes Medlicott stood behind the curtains of the upstairs window of the Big House looking down into the darkness below. The statues in the garden gleamed in the silvery light which dripped through the wavering trees. The water in the fishpond reflected the stars.

  She knew now that she had been right to come back. She thought that she’d probably always known the truth, but hadn’t wanted to admit to it. It was one thing to be married to a philanderer, but her husband had been much more wicked than that.

  It had happened while she’d been away for a few days. When she came back he’d told her about Kat, only he hadn’t told her the whole truth. He’d said Kat had been pregnant and had given birth
early. The midwife, Mrs Bevan had helped him with the delivery, but the baby girl had been born dead.

  Agnes Medlicott had thought at first it was his baby, but now she knew that it wasn’t. She had never seen Kat again. He’d said it was imperative to get Kat away, save her from scandal and she had gone away. The baby had been buried beneath the lilac bush and no one had known except Ellen Bevan and he’d paid her handsomely for her trouble. But Agnes knew now! She’d dug up the lilac bush and uncovered the box. It had held no remnants of a dead baby only a pile of old love letters.

  Ekaterina had been sent back to Spain having been told that the baby had died! That poor, poor girl. Agnes knew what it was like to lose a child. How could he have been so cruel. No doubt he’d taken great pleasure in telling Kat of her lover’s suicide.

  And then that night she had seen the child with her own eyes, the very spit of her mother. Dear God! Looking at Iffy through the gate was like looking at Kat all over again!

  And the boy. That beautiful, brave boy. That day when he’d crept through the pipe, she hadn’t meant to scare him so. She’d kept him safe. She’d lied to the Inspector. He was a nice man, a good man and she’d felt bad about it, but she’d respected the boy’s wishes to keep silent.

  She saw the movement down by the bridge.

  She had said goodbye to Fatty earlier, had given him plenty of money, a map, Ekaterina’s last known address in Valencia and then she’d locked the door to the air-raid shelter for the last time.

  Moonlight fell on the boy’s face as he turned to wave back at the bridge. The light picked out his eyes, a glistening blue-black blur. She knew that he was crying. Then he turned and walked away down the river bank into the night.

  It was the last time she would ever set eyes on him. She waved from the darkness of the window knowing he couldn’t see her. She waved until her arm grew numb and the numbness spread through all her body.

  December 1963

  It was winter. The snow lay thick on the Sirhowy Road, puddles of ice gleamed in the pale winter sunlight and the river was a twist of frosted glass. As they passed the gates to the Big House Mr Sandicock stepped out in front of them.