Dancing in the Moonlight (18 page)

Getting the rooms above the shop clean and sweet-smelling – along with the privy in the yard, which had stunk to high heaven – had taken time, especially because Lucy had found the
fishmonger’s boys very demanding at first. Traumatized by their mother’s untimely demise and the long periods when they’d been locked in the flat alone by their harassed father,
they were confused and frightened. Charley wet himself constantly and Matthew had nightmares several times a night, his screams so bloodcurdling that poor Flora and Bess wailed and whimpered under
the bedclothes.

After making the decision to put Charley back into nappies for the time being and allowing him a pap bottle whenever he asked, there was a marked improvement in his wellbeing. Flora and Bess
regarded him as a live doll and spoiled him outrageously, something Charley lapped up, and within a few days he was toddling about and laughing and getting up to mischief like any normal
three-year-old.

Matthew was a different kettle of fish. Try as they might, Flora and Bess found they couldn’t persuade him to join in their play, no matter what they said or did. He watched Charley and
the twins silently most of the time, sucking his thumb and answering in monosyllables when the little girls talked to him. He was never rude or hostile, merely totally uncommunicative. Every so
often he would dissolve in tears for no apparent reason and at those times couldn’t be comforted.

Lucy had found Matthew to be an intelligent and thoughtful child with a sensitivity beyond his years, the very antithesis of his rough-and-ready father. Maybe he took after his mother or even
his grandparents, but as both the boys’ paternal and maternal grandparents were dead and Ada’s two sisters had long since moved away from the district, there was no one she could ask.
Certainly it was clear that although Matthew loved his father, they were not close, and Perce had a limited understanding of his son.

She encouraged Matthew to help her in little jobs about the house, seeking to draw him out of himself, but although there was the occasional breakthrough, it was obvious the child was troubled
and very unhappy. Some of this was to be expected, for he had lost his mother recently after all, but Lucy felt there was more to it than that. She couldn’t put her finger on what it was, but
sometimes she thought he was living in a state of terror, and then she would ask herself if she was seeing her own state of mind in the little boy, as an answer to his problem. The thought of Tom
Crawford finding her, of knowing where she was living, was a constant fear.

And then came the night when, after a particularly bad nightmare, she lifted Matthew out of bed and took him into the sitting room, determined to get to the bottom of what was troubling him. He
had always refused to talk about his night terrors and she hadn’t pushed him, feeling it was early days and she needed to tread carefully with the boys, but on this occasion his white,
pinched face and stricken eyes persuaded her differently.

Perce was snoring loudly in the third bedroom. He never woke, whatever the din, and she wondered how many times Matthew had lain, rigid with fright and crying, since his mother had died. She
held him for a long time until he stopped shaking and his sobs diminished, and then said softly, ‘Tell me what the dream was about, Matthew. If you talk about it, it won’t be so bad. I
promise.’

The reply came choked by tears. ‘It will.’

One small hand was resting on hers, dimples where knuckles would be one day, and her heart went out to him. ‘If you share it with me, I will know how to help if it comes again, won’t
I? And although it’s scary and horrible, it’s best to tell someone. Do you want me to call your da so you can tell him, hinny?’

‘No.’ His hand clutched at her. ‘I – I’ll tell you.’

‘Good lad.’ When he didn’t speak for a few moments she prompted, ‘Is it always the same dream or different ones?’

‘The same.’ He sniffed and rubbed his nose. ‘It starts off being very dark, like when you close your eyes, an’ I know I’ve got to open the door.’ He gave a
great heave of a sob. ‘So I find the handle, but when I open the door the dark’s turned red and me mam’s there an’ she’s screaming at me. There’s –
there’s blood everywhere, an’ she comes at me like this’ – he held out his arms, making his hands into claws – ‘and the blood’s coming out of her mouth.
An’ I see Charley on the floor an’ she’s done for him an’ I know she’s going to get me too. I scream and scream’ – he took a shuddering breath –
‘an’ then I wake up.’

‘Oh, Matthew . . .’ Appalled, she pulled him closer as the sobs racked his body, rocking him back and forth. He burrowed into her like a baby animal seeking protection and for a few
minutes they remained like that, only his quiet weeping and the ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece breaking the silence.

She spoke again, even more softly, her voice scarcely above a whisper as a thought occurred to her. ‘On the night your mam went to heaven, did you see her?’

There was a long pause and when his voice came it was so faint she could barely make out the words. ‘Charley was asleep, and me da had told me to stay in bed, but Mam was making this noise
and I wanted to see if she was all right. She – she was lying on the bed and’ – he shook his head as if it was too terrible to explain – ‘then Mrs Dodds took something
out of her and it was all bloody and it was a babbie. And then Mam was quiet and me da was crying.’

‘Did they know you were there, your da and Mrs Dodds?’

‘No.’ His head whipped up and again he was clutching at her. ‘You mustn’t tell me da, Lucy. He’d said for me to stay in bed. He’ll say it was my fault if he
knows.’

‘Your fault? Of course he won’t. Your mam – what happened wasn’t your fault, hinny. You mustn’t think that.’

‘I was supposed to stay in bed.’

‘Matthew, something went wrong when your mam was having the baby, something inside her, and it was nothing to do with you or anyone else. It wasn’t her fault – she loved the
baby like she loved you and Charley, and it certainly wasn’t your fault, either. Her and the baby are in heaven now and one day you’ll see her again, like she used to be before that
night, because that’s how she looks, I promise, but for now your da and you and Charley have to take care of each other. That’s what your mam would want, because she loves you all, very
much.’

‘If – if I’d done what Da said, she wouldn’t have died, nor the babbie. I was naughty—’

‘No.’ She stopped his choked words. ‘No, Matthew, that’s not true, and your da would tell you so if he knew what you’re thinking. You have to believe me.’
Desperately she searched for words to take away the images he should never have seen, images that haunted his days and turned his nights into horror. ‘What happened was an accident, Matthew.
Like when John cut himself the other evening on your da’s big knife in the shop. Do you remember? He came up here and I had to put a bandage on his hand and it kept bleeding for ages. But it
was an accident, like your mam’s. But she’s safe now with the baby in heaven, and you’re safe here with your da and Charley.’

‘And you.’ It was a whisper. ‘You’re going to stay, aren’t you, Lucy? I want you to stay.’

‘Of course I’m going to stay.’ She kissed the top of his small head. ‘I promise. Now do you want some warm milk to help you sleep?’

He nodded. ‘Can I have it in a bottle like Charley does, on your lap?’

She hugged him tightly. If he had but known, he could have had anything he wanted right at that moment.

She held him close while he drank the warm milk and when he drifted off to sleep she didn’t disturb him, settling herself in the chair and dozing on and off until morning when Perce came
out of his bedroom. Shushing him before his deep booming voice woke the child on her lap, she filled him in on what Matthew had said, both the nightmare and what had followed.

‘Damn and blast it!’ Perce was appalled, his voice uncharacteristically weak, and he sat down heavily. ‘He saw it? Matthew saw that bloodbath?’

‘He not only saw it, but he’s got it into his head it was his fault his mam died. These nightmares, when his mam’s trying to get him, it’s all mixed up with the night she
died. He needs reassurance that he’s not to blame. From you, his da.’

‘Aye.’ Perce nodded, staring at her a trifle vacantly. ‘But what’ll I say?’ He rubbed his nose, much as Matthew had done earlier. ‘I’m – I’m
not any good with words.’

The last emotion Lucy would have expected to feel for this great hulking man was compassion, but it was that which was filling her now. She still shrank from him, especially when she heard some
of his coarse banter in the shop with the more earthy of his customers – although he never spoke like that with her. And physically she found him repulsive, she couldn’t help it. But
over the last weeks she had come to understand that while he wasn’t simple or backward, he wasn’t too bright, either. As Perce himself was apt to say – with an element of pride
too – what he was short of in brain power he made up for in brawn. The fact that he had been an only child and his late parents had left him a thriving business had been his good fortune,
lifting him above the average man in the street. Quietly now she said, ‘We’ll go over it, but it’s important that
you
do the talking with him, all right?’

‘Aye, all right,’ he answered obediently. ‘An’ thanks, thanks, lass.’

All this had happened just over a week ago, and since the morning Perce had spoken with Matthew it was obvious: a weight had been lifted from the child’s shoulders. He
enjoyed playing with his brother and the twins now, and was undoubtedly the leader in their games. He was sleeping better and his appetite had grown, but he rarely let Lucy out of his sight, and on
the occasions Perce called her to help in the shop for a while, Matthew was forever up and down the stairs checking she was there. Lucy had flatly refused to lock the door to the flat at those
times, assuring Perce that the twins would keep little Charley with them upstairs, but that Matthew needed to know he was free to come downstairs when he wanted to.

To Lucy’s relief she found she didn’t have to cajole or threaten Ruby in order for her sister to pull her weight in the shop. From the first day, Ruby had taken to the work like a
duck to water. She cheerfully did her stint before school every morning and just as happily at night once she was home, learning the names of the different kinds of fish and their prices and
becoming a favourite with the customers. John did his share stoically, but he didn’t enjoy it and neither did Lucy when she helped out. The serried ranks of cod, whiting, plaice, catfish,
dogfish, monkfish, haddock, mackerel and the rest, all with blank eyes staring blindly, depressed her, and the huge tubs of live eels caused her stomach to churn. The smell, the slime on
Perce’s great marble slabs and the buckets behind the counter full of guts and innards and blood sickened her, and although she kept telling herself she had to get used to it and it would get
better as time went on, it didn’t. In fact it got steadily worse.

And then, at the beginning of a July that promised to be a scorcher, Lucy finally faced the fact that the sickness that had grown worse over the last week, until now she was actually vomiting,
wasn’t so much to do with the fish as with her own body. She had flown downstairs that morning, her hand over her mouth, and once in the privy had retched and retched until she was sweating
and shaking.

She had seen her mam like this.
The knowledge that she’d been refusing to let into her consciousness could no longer be kept at bay, and she laid her head against the rough brick
wall of the small outbuilding.
Before Ruby and John were born, and again with the twins.

She was carrying a bairn. Tom Crawford’s bairn.

Perce had been up when she had hurriedly left the bedroom and shot down the stairs, and as she leaned against the wall of the privy she heard him outside. After a moment he called, ‘Lucy?
Lucy, lass? Are you all right?’

She shut her eyes tightly. She doubted at this moment if she would ever be all right again. Only bad girls got themselves in the family way without a wedding ring on their finger. The lives of
such girls were blighted, and no decent man would look the side they were on. Charlotte Woodrow’s face was vivid on the screen of her mind. Charlotte, who’d been so bonny that the
little seven-year-old girl Lucy had been then had looked at her in awe. Charlotte had gone into service at a grand house in the country, and when she had returned home eighteen months later there
had been an almighty rumpus one night when her da had leathered her to within an inch of her life. A few months later a fine bouncing baby boy had arrived. Her parents had kept their grandson, but
thrown their daughter out, and it was well known that Charlotte had been reduced to servicing sailors down at the docks for a bob a go.

‘Lucy?’ Perce’s voice came again, louder. ‘Say something.’

Opening her eyes, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. She wanted to say that she wished she was dead – would that satisfy him? Instead she slid the bolt on the door and stepped
into the yard.

Perce surveyed her white face for a moment. ‘Belly upset?’

It would have been easy to say yes, but what was the point? She was only delaying the inevitable. Would he turn them out, lock, stock and barrel? She wouldn’t blame him, but if he did it
would be the end. Her fight to keep them all out of the workhouse would have been for nothing. Perhaps she would be able to persuade him to keep Ruby and John and the twins, if she made herself
scarce and agreed to disappear for good? She knew where she would go then – and it wouldn’t be the living death of the workhouse. But she wouldn’t end it round these parts;
she’d get as far away as she could, so there was no chance of Ruby and the others finding out and being distressed. Ruby and John worked hard and well in the shop, Perce was always saying so,
and the twins were good for Charley and Matthew. Would Perce see that when he’d had time to think?

Looking him full in the face, she said simply, ‘I think I’m expecting a baby.’