Miss Appleby's Academy (29 page)

‘They’re asleep. What happened?’

Nell shut her eyes again. ‘Lost the baby.’

‘Oh God, Nell, I’ve only just found you. I never had a sister before, only a stupid brother who never cared if I lived or died. Please, Nell, don’t leave me here, on my own. I haven’t anyone but you. Please don’t—’ She started
to cry. She knew it was stupid, she knew it wouldn’t help Nell, she wanted to stop, but she wanted so much to have this sister she had just found, for them to be together, to have history in common, to laugh and to grow old.

Emma stared. ‘Nell?’

There was no reply.

Emma had seen her father dead and her mother dead, but she had not been with someone as they died. She had always thought there would be some time, that you might have some decent conversation, some indication that it was going to happen, not that it would be like this. She had not thought that you would know instantly when the life left the body, but she knew, and still she sat there for a very long time, waiting for Nell to open her eyes. Emma willed her to be there not just for her own sake or the sake of her children but for the sake of her half-sister who had only just learned to love her.

She had the feeling that if she sat there, holding Nell’s hand like this, eventually Nell would sit up and say that she was all right, and she would take Nell home back to the schoolhouse and in the morning she would be able to take the children to see their mother. It would be a surprise and she would never let Nell go back to that tumbledown damp hovel at Road Ends, and somehow she would persuade Laurence to come and live with them too. It could not be that difficult. Why had she not insisted before?

She had not wanted to take over, to make Nell feel small or unimportant in the way that they had both at different
times been made to feel. She wished now that she had insisted, that she could somehow have helped Nell, given her ease and time, and for them to sit together like families never did and people wanted to. She wanted to have time with Nell and now it was over.

There was a noise behind her, but Hector who was sitting on the floor beside her did not growl and she assumed it was either Ed or Jack, and then she turned just a little and saw the two men in the doorway, Mick and Dr Blythe. She did not move and after regarding them for just a second she went back to what she had been doing.

Dr Blythe moved forward and she said, ‘Stay there.’

‘Emma—’

‘Goddamn you, don’t call me by my first name,’ was the only thing she could get out, her voice breaking like the surf over rough sand. She couldn’t remember how to breathe, she couldn’t take in what had just happened.

‘I have to see—’

‘You don’t have to see anything. A blind man could see from there that she’s dead. Could nobody have brought her inside when it happened? Did they have to leave her out there on the pavement to bleed to death?’

‘Emma—’

It was Mick.

‘Shut up!’ she said. ‘You useless bastards,’ and she started to cry. ‘How can men do such things to women? How can you do it? How can somebody like this be left to such a fate? It isn’t right. Did nobody want to help her? Did nobody offer? All she had was two children and a man
who was deranged. Could they not have done something? It isn’t right, it isn’t fair.’

She drew even closer to Nell. Nobody moved. She took her sister into her arms. Nell was so warm, even then Emma half believed she might come back to life, that she couldn’t leave so quickly, and in a way it was just like when an animal died. She could remember one of her father’s dogs in just the same way: one moment there and the next gone, as quickly as that. It was the only time she had seen death close up, her father’s beloved friend, light gone, spirit fled.

She began to cry. She held her sister in her arms and began to sob for all the things that Nell had wanted and not had, for all the times that nobody had been there for her, for all the long days when she had seen to her children and to her brother, alone and not complaining, and taken men up the alleyway for money. Emma didn’t think she could bear that her sister had died.

It was Hector who moved. She didn’t tell him to stay away and shut up, but then she didn’t think he would have taken any notice. He stood up and came the tiny distance between them and then he put his chin on Nell’s stomach, and the tears ran down Emma’s face in great streams as never before.

Sam carried Nell’s body upstairs and put her into the bedroom where Emma and George had slept. Emma didn’t want to leave her there. The place was full of memories: her arrival, her despair, her becoming part of the pub itself. She loved and hated the damned place and now Nell was there and there was nothing left.

‘Is Jack with the children?’ Mick asked her as she sat on the bed.

‘No, I left them on their own,’ she said savagely. And then she thought of something. It was very late. ‘Laurence. He’ll have gone back to Road Ends.’

‘I’ll go.’

‘No, you’ll frighten him. I’ll go myself. You should get back to your wife,’ and she got up and strode out the room.

She had not gone far when she heard his footsteps and turned. ‘I don’t need your help. I have Hector.’ She indicated the black dog at her heels, as though he wouldn’t have noticed.

‘For God’s sake. Sam’s gone to see to Isabel.’

‘He couldn’t manage without you before. Where’s the difference?’

‘The difference is that it’s cold and dark and you shouldn’t go all that way on your own.’

‘You think worse could happen to me?’ She laughed and then choked. ‘You think I care?’

‘You should think about George if anything did happen.’

‘My God, Mick, do you ever think about anybody except children and your wife?’

She set off again, ignoring him. He didn’t follow her immediately, but she wasn’t far past the end of the street before he caught up with her.

She did not believe that Nell was dead. She had the feeling that she would get there and Nell would open the door and they would meet again and everything would be all right, but the wind was so bitter with nothing to stop it. She cried all the way. It didn’t matter, the wind dried the tears immediately. The man beside her said nothing and she didn’t speak to him, she didn’t care whether he was there or not. She wished she’d never seen him. She wished she had not had to face any of this.

When they reached the house at Road Ends everything was silent. Emma went up and hammered on the door, but there was no reply. She shouted Laurence’s name, but nothing happened and when she tried the door it was locked. It being the end house it was not far from there to the back door, but when Mick tried it it was bolted from the inside.

There was no light of any kind.

‘He could have gone back to the pub,’ Mick said. ‘We could have missed him.’

‘He wouldn’t.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I just do.’

They walked back round to the front and Hector stopped and his hair did not stand on end and he did not growl, he knew Laurence and his tail began to wag just a little, as though he was not certain he should be pleased that he had realized who the man was, and Emma spied a figure in the darkness well beyond the houses. She set off very slowly. Mick didn’t follow and Hector sat down beside him. The figure began to move away and then further so she stopped and called.

‘Larry, it’s me, Emma.’

He moved and then turned as if he were going to run, and she called again but more softly,

‘Nell is with me.’ He stopped. She didn’t want him to misinterpret. ‘She’s back at the pub.’

He didn’t run. He turned slowly to face her though she couldn’t see his face.

‘She’s not here,’ he said. ‘She comes home at this time.’

‘She isn’t going to come home tonight,’ Emma said, and hoped and prayed that her voice didn’t falter. It did, but only after the words were said. She did her best to swallow her grief. The night was not a decent covering for it. Even here as the year grew towards its finish there was no place to hide. She thought she could learn to hate summer when there was not a decent covering for people’s grief, but autumn and winter were kinder, dark and cold, and sent you inside to sit over the fire and take comfort.

‘Who’s that?’ Laurence asked.

‘It’s Mr Castle. He didn’t want me to walk all this way by myself. Will you come back with us?’

‘Nell says I mustn’t leave the bairns.’

‘They aren’t here,’ she reminded him.

‘Why not?’

‘They’re with me, at the academy. You remember.’

‘I want Nell.’

He might not have understood, but he was not to be easily deceived, Emma thought. He faded against the shadows of the long building which was the dozen houses that stood there. Emma didn’t know what more to say and Mick came and stood beside her.

‘Larry, it’s me, Mick Castle,’ he said gently.

Laurence didn’t move. ‘Where’s our Nell? And the bairns?’

‘The bairns are at Miss Appleby’s school,’ Mick said, ‘and Nell’s at the pub just now. Would you like to come back with us?’

There was a long silence during which Emma felt despair hit her like a huge stone. She was never going to get past this, perhaps none of them would. She didn’t know what more to say.

‘She’s had an accident,’ Mick said.

As they stood not knowing what more to do since Laurence didn’t respond, Hector got up from where he had been patiently sitting and he went halfway to Laurence. Laurence saw him, and Emma could hear the smile in his voice because he had long since known Hector from the pub, and he said, ‘Good lad, good lad.’ He got
down and Hector went to him, tail wagging with great confidence. Laurence got right down to the dog and then he put his arms around him and he said, ‘Oh lad,’ and Hector, in fine acknowledgement that dogs knew more than people, suffered the embrace which Laurence took him into as he had suffered other embraces from the children at the academy, from them all really, Emma thought. Hector knew his duty and did it gladly, and she loved the dog for it. Emma and Mick waited and waited and after a long time Laurence emerged from the shadow of the building, Hector walking slightly behind and keeping to the shadows as though in protection.

‘Our Nell’s hurt?’ Laurence said.

‘Aye,’ Mick said.

‘But she always comes home,’ Laurence said, ‘always comes back. I stay here with the bairns and she comes back later and she’s always in the house and we go to bed and I can hear her, making up the fire for the night. I can hear it when I’m upstairs in me bed.’

‘Come back to the pub with us,’ Emma said.

Laurence did. Emma did not pretend to herself that he was fooled, that he imagined when he got there that he would see her and everything would be all right. Nothing was all right and never had been, and their experience of life had been so hard that Laurence did not expect anything to change for the better, and it hadn’t.

When they reached the pub he stopped quite a long way from the building and he turned to Mick and he said, ‘Where is our Nell?’

‘She’s upstairs.’

Emma put a warning hand on Mick’s sleeve, but his fingers came down on top of hers as though in reassurance.

‘I want to go up and see her.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ Emma said, and because he trusted her he went and her heart did incredibly awful things, thumping hard and moving around in her chest. She didn’t want to see Nell’s body; she didn’t want to think that her sister was dead.

Laurence watched the landing as though something were about to crash and destroy the building, and in a way, Emma thought, he was right.

‘Where is she?’ he asked.

She took him into the room, and she thought that Nell no longer looked as if she had been alive. She waited for him to shout and moan and cry, but he did none of that: he stood for a few seconds inside the door and then he very quietly made his way across to the bed and he sat down on the edge of it, as she imagined you did in hospital, and he watched Nell.

He looked as though he were waiting for her to wake up, but he was not, Emma could see. He was just sorry and nonplussed that someone he had loved so very much was not there any more. He sat for so long that Emma’s feet went to sleep, but not the rest of her; she thought most of her would never sleep again – why would she, when Nell was dead? How could you find and lose someone so rapidly? It was so sad, so awful. It was the bottom of life.

Larry looked at her, and there was something completely comprehending about him.

‘She’s dead.’

‘Yes.’

He sat there and cried, and Emma waited and she wondered why she did not cry.

At that point there was an intrusion. Mick was standing in the doorway, as if everything were normal.

Emma glared at him, and he looked back at her in such an even way that she could not hold his gaze, though she was appalled.

‘I thought you might stay here with me tonight, Larry,’ Mick said.’Why don’t you come downstairs and have something to eat?’

It seemed to Emma such a stupid thing to say, but it worked. Laurence got up and went with him and she followed into the bar. It was empty. The men had gone home. Why would they not? It was over, the whore was dead and there was nothing to keep them there.

Mick went to the bar and smiled at Ed. ‘Laurence and me, we’re hungry.’

Ed nodded and told them to sit down and he would bring them some food. Emma went through into the kitchen with him.

‘What have you got?’

‘Stew. You showed me how to do it. I’m not half bad,’ he said and he put it in the range. While it heated she wanted to cast herself upon his chest and be made to feel better, but she didn’t. She stood there and the stew gave
off a good smell, so at least she thought, I can teach cookery if nothing else.

Laurence and Mick sat down by the fire. Laurence ate. She tried not to notice that Mick didn’t eat. Ed brought beer. When Laurence had had enough to eat – for once he didn’t drink much – he lay on the settle and went to sleep. Just as she thought that she and Mick could sit there almost forever while Laurence slept and it was comfortable by the fire, he said, ‘Would you like me to see you home?’

‘Jack will stay with the children.’ She sat gazing into the fire and then she said,