Mulligan's Yard (51 page)

‘Deprived children?’ asked Amy.

‘Exactly – non-boarders, too. Think of the lives we could change. And you’d still have the shop, so you wouldn’t need to be involved full time. But imagine introducing a
child from the slums to horses, pigs, cows. Imagine him collecting eggs, learning to milk, picking mushrooms for his own breakfast.’

‘Yes.’ She fanned her face with a handkerchief.

He waited. ‘Well?’ he asked eventually.

‘Just do it,’ she answered. ‘The house is yours.’

He was not going to travel that particular route again, had no intention of arguing about who owned what, because the path had been trodden so many times that it bore signs of erosion.
‘Look, Amy, what I need to know is this. Would you mind if the house were used for the betterment of young lives?’

‘I have no particular attachment to it,’ she answered. ‘I have always believed in looking forward.’ She smiled at him. ‘If you keep looking over your shoulder, the
future is fraught with accidents. Rather than bumping into lampposts, I keep my eyes front.’

‘Could your future contain two or three dozen needy children?’

Was this the proposal? she wondered briefly. No, he would not propose in this way, would not be so impersonal – might not propose at all. ‘I think it’s an excellent idea,
provided you can get funding.’

‘I can. We would also be a charity.’

‘And you are a qualified teacher.’

‘Yes.’ Following Amy’s example, he rubbed a sliver of ice over his face. He had sorted out the deprived, was leaving himself on one side for now, would speak tonight when the
air was lighter, when . . . when his face might be in shadow. ‘Do you mind where you live?’ he asked.

‘No, I don’t.’

‘So Caldwell Farm is just another place for you?’

She nodded her reply.

‘Mona loves that house,’ he continued. ‘I mind the time she first saw it – not long after her sister’s death. “That’s a proper house,” she said
several times. Ida and the children are cramped – they’d be better at the farm. The Moorheads could have the cottage . . . So . . . you wouldn’t mind a move?’

‘As long as Margot and William are safe, I have no preferences for myself.’ Another lie. She wanted to live close to him. That was nearer the truth, though the reality was that she
wanted to be closer than close . . .

‘I have made some tentative plans,’ he said.

Tentative? The man was intending to up-end everyone’s life, had probably studied blueprints for days on end. This was not a person who worked in generalizations: like the captain of a
ship, he knew his course. ‘May we finish this at midnight?’ she asked. ‘Because my brain is as sluggish as the rest of me.’

‘A day to remind us of hell’s heat,’ he answered.

‘Indeed.’ She sighed.

Then they waited in silence for release from prison.

Kate Kenny was a woman whose clock changed with the seasons, her body either lingering in bed during winter mornings, or leaping up with the lark each summer’s dawn. She
had to be busy while the day gave light, resting when the sun dipped, going into her hibernatory phase with the start of autumn. The day after the fair, she was on early shift, as the sun rose
before five o’clock and she was too concerned about James to lie still and do nothing.

She had much to think about, as her nephew was teetering on the brink of a recklessness he had never displayed before. She welcomed his courage, praised his newborn strength, feared for him,
too. The fear shot into her hands, making them busy as they punished silver till it shone its way towards blinding brightness. He had stayed out all night. He had spent the night in the company of
Amy Burton-Massey.

‘I can’t carry on,’ he had told his aunt.

‘I know,’ had been her reply. ‘Whatever, go with God.’

‘With God?’ His eyebrows had been raised halfway up his forehead.

‘Yes, with God,’ Kate had insisted.

And he had gone. The bed had not been slept in. James Mulligan, confirmed-for-ever bachelor, had spent more than six hours in the company of a woman. Or had he? Was he wandering alone out there,
rejected, isolated in this cruel, bitter world?

‘Mrs Kenny?’

Kate jumped. ‘Holy St Joseph,’ she breathed, a hand to her chest. ‘You scalded the heart out of me, Sally Hayes. Whatever are you doing up at this time?’

Sally was always up early, though she usually took her time getting ready, nice clean frock and apron every day, hair smooth, nails scrubbed, face shiny and fresh. ‘They’re
outside,’ she ventured now.

‘Who’s outside?’

Sally looked over her shoulder. ‘In a stable,’ she whispered.

‘Some good people come out of stables,’ answered Kate, ‘Jesus Christ among them. I take it you mean my nephew and Amy Burton-Massey?’

‘Yes.’ Sally filled the kettle and set it to boil before turning to face the housekeeper. ‘Holding hands, they were.’

Kate managed not to react. ‘Make tea enough for four in case they decide to come in, Sally.’

The young maid smiled at the housekeeper. With Diane Hewitt’s help, Sally had achieved so much. She was beginning to agree with Diane – adults did need a push from time to time.
‘Mrs Kenny?’

‘Yes?’

‘Will they get married?’

Kate kept her expression neutral. ‘Make that tea,’ she pretended to snap, ‘and keep the nose on your face. Don’t go sticking it into other people’s
ongoings.’

‘Yes, Mrs Kenny.’

‘Stop grinning, Sally. Should the wind change, you’ll have a split face the rest of your life.’

‘Yes, Mrs Kenny.’

‘And stop saying “Yes, Mrs Kenny.”’

‘Yes, Mrs Kenny.’

Kate looked up at the ceiling. ‘Dear God,’ she implored, ‘is it not enough that I am stranded here in England? Did You have to send me all these pure eejits?’ She
addressed Sally once more. ‘Make that tea then go . . . somewhere – anywhere. Take the morning off. And if you say those three words, I’ll stretch you from here to Christmas by
putting you through them squeezers.’ She pointed to the mangle. ‘You would not want that, Sally.’

‘No, Mrs Kenny.’ A wild happiness had entered Sally’s veins, and she could not help being naughty. She wanted to dance and scream, to throw a few pots at the wall, to
celebrate. Instead, she brewed tea, fetched cups, saucers, milk and sugar to the table. There would be a wedding and she would be able to wear the gloves given to her as a leaving gift by the staff
at Chiverton Children’s Home.

‘Is this you still here, Sally Hayes?’

Having developed an immunity to Kate’s sarcasm, Sally answered in the affirmative, simply nodding.

‘Go.’

‘But me and Diane . . . I mean yesterday . . . I just want to see them together, Mrs Kenny. They are made for each other. Diane heard her gran and Miss Mona saying that. I won’t
stare, I promise.’

‘Aye, keep your promise, Sally, by putting as much space as possible between your excellent self and this house.’

Sally blinked away some happy-but-sad tears. ‘You know what, Mrs Kenny?’

‘Go.’

‘You know what? If I had a granny, I’d want her to be just like you.’

The older woman’s heart melted like wax beneath a wick. She adored little Sal, that conscientious, kind, beautiful child who wore her feelings in her eyes. ‘You’re a good girl
altogether, but a desperate pain to me. Finish that tea, pick up your soda bread and let me see the back of you.’

‘Yes, Mrs . . . Granny.’

Kate picked up her polishing cloth and set it flying with alarming accuracy at Sally’s face. ‘Out,’ she screamed, laughter a mere inch from the surface. ‘Take yourself
and your cheek to the other side of Pendleton Clough, Miss Clever, or you’ll be mangled.’

Choosing not to be mangled, Sally set off to find her partner in crime, that famous amateur sleuth, Miss Diane Hewitt. She and Diane had done it again – they had made the grown-ups see
sense.

They had talked all night. For Amy, it had been a homecoming, a sense of remembering this man from her future. It had been an encounter with destiny, she supposed, something
meant to happen, a gift straight from God.

As morning approached, James became less calm. He had not proposed, not yet, though his plans had been expressed in a way that clearly involved her. If she would have him, that was. It was now
or never, because she had to know, had to be in possession of the whole truth before making her decision. ‘We’ll go in now,’ he said.

She looked up at him. This was a face she could trust, yet there was trouble in it. Did he intend to make her into just a business partner? No, the kisses had been warm, urgent. Why had he not
mentioned marriage? Why had he skated lightly over certain parts of his plan? She knew more than she had sought to learn about dormitories, children’s playthings, the benefits of swimming and
how much fruit a five-year-old should eat in a week. As to the arrangements for her own future, all she knew was that she had agreed to give Caldwell Farm to two old women and two children.

‘Where . . . ?’ she began.

‘Yes?’ He offered her a broad smile.

‘Nothing,’ she answered. ‘I shall ask later.’

They entered the house, just catching sight of an inner door while it closed in Kate’s wake. ‘She has left us in peace,’ said James, as he placed two tartan rugs on a chair.
‘And look – a feast of toast and jam. We, Amy, are the richest pair of people on earth.’

She sat down, remembering how glad she had been to wrap herself in one of those rugs: even in a heatwave, the air grew chill towards morning. She poured tea, munched on a slice of toast.
‘James?’ she said thoughtfully, when he sat opposite her. ‘What is going on?’ A lady in waiting? No, she had arrived, wanted the answers, needed a future.

‘I love you,’ he replied.

‘But—’

‘I have dealt with my buts. In a moment, you must face yours.’

‘You love me, I love you. Show me the buts.’

He stood up and scraped back his chair. ‘Come with me.’

Amy allowed herself to be led to the cellar door. She stood in shocked silence as he turned a huge key in the lock.

‘Let’s go down,’ he urged.

She watched as he lit a lamp, showed no resistance when he led her into a blackness lit only by a spill of light from his lantern. ‘We used to play hide and seek down here,’ she
said. Her words bounced from walls and back into her ears. This was his secret. He was about to show her his true self, whatever that was.

They travelled past the wall that restrained coals, Amy holding fast to his hand while he made his practised way through several small cellars. At last, he stopped and placed the lantern on an
upturned crate.

She breathed in the cellar’s dankness, a scent given only to places never visited by sunlight. As her eyes adjusted, they lit upon a rocking horse, a dolls’ house, a case from which
spilled assorted small toys. Closing her eyes, she sent herself back to childhood, saw three little girls playing and squabbling over the better doll, a father acting like a bear, chasing,
catching, causing shrieks and squeals of delight. Amy swallowed. Yes, this had been her home.

James unlocked another door, led her into one of the very tiny rooms. She stopped abruptly in her tracks, saw a slice of light piercing a grating, followed its path until her gaze rested on a
figure of the crucified Christ. The table on which it stood was clothed in a pristine white cloth on which rested a makeshift tabernacle and a pair of tall candlesticks.

From behind a little curtain at the centre of this altar, James took a chalice, a paten, a stole.

Her throat was suddenly dry and tight. The food, the bread. He had been – no! Surely not? ‘This is no more,’ he whispered across two yards of semi-darkness. ‘But I
don’t want you to think I sacrificed it for you. It is finished.’

‘Finished?’

‘I was released from my vows a month ago.’

There was nothing she could say, so she kept silent.

‘Being ordained seemed a good idea at the time, Amy. I was raised a Catholic, was educated by monks. And my temper – my father’s temper – kept me from living the ordinary
life.’ He stopped, pondered. ‘As a priest, I felt safe. Then, coming here to mop up after my father, I began to feel differently, became a man who had made a mistake.’

This was a mistake of giant proportions, thought Amy, as she absorbed the shock. ‘You said you were a teacher.’

‘I told no lie, Amy, for many priests teach as well as ministering. And, yes, I did see your father’s war, as I was a chaplain for two years.’

Amy stood rigidly still. ‘I don’t know what to say,’ she mumbled at last. ‘You gave this up, but not because of me?’

‘You are a part of it, but not the whole,’ he said.

She nodded thoughtfully. ‘You were a chaplain in the Great War. Then you went home to run a church and a school.’ She felt forced to repeat everything in order to take in the
magnitude of the moment.

‘Yes.’

She paused for thought. ‘What do you want from me, James Mulligan?’

‘A wife,’ he answered, ‘a soulmate, one who cares for and about others.’

Amy bowed her head. This promised to be complicated, though anything worth having usually arrived with baggage. This handsome philanthropist was to share her life. The concept of refusing him
did not enter her consciousness, because she had loved him since . . . since for ever, since before meeting him. ‘I will marry you,’ she said, noticing that he was completely
motionless. ‘Did you think I would say no?’

He waved a hand through light and shadow, the move sweeping across all the tools of his calling – candlesticks, vestments, the paraphernalia of Mass and Communion. ‘I am, to say the
least of it, a Catholic, and my children must be reared as such.’

‘I don’t mind,’ she replied.

‘And you will live here with me?’

‘Yes.’

‘And the yard?’ he asked.

‘The yard will continue,’ she answered. Mona still had the wash-house, there was A Cut Above, there were people who had worked there for donkey’s years. ‘We shall rename
it Mulligan’s Yard officially,’ she said, ‘because Margot will not mind and I am to become Mrs Mulligan. You deserve recognition for what you have done in this town.’