The Cuckoo Child (28 page)
Dot, sitting herself quietly down opposite her younger cousins, now saw that her uncle’s forehead sported an enormous lump and realised that his shaking hands also had skinned knuckles and purplish abrasions. Knowing Uncle Rupert as she did, she guessed that he had probably blamed the firm for his fall, blustering that there had been a spillage on the iron staircase, or even that the stair was unsafe. It would be just like him and would be the very thing certain to put up the backs of the managerial staff at McCall’s. She did think her aunt was right, though: the firm might threaten to sack him but surely they would not actually do so? Her uncle had been with them as long as she could remember and knew as much about rope making as any other employee.
‘If you’re determined to send someone round to the butcher’s, then I suppose it had best be Dot,’ Aunt Myrtle said, her voice still thick with tears. ‘And how you can blame me because I’m expectin’ your twins, I really don’t know. Any road, you don’t see me gettin’ drunk and boastin’ over the thought of two more mouths to feed. And it were you what kicked me ankle with your damn great boot, or are you goin’ to pretend it were little Alan here?’
Uncle Rupert mumbled something and looked down at his feet. Dot hoped he had not kicked his wife on purpose and actually thought it unlikely. He was a violent man but more apt to use his fists than his boots, and anyway he looked too sick to start a punch-up. But at this point Aunt Myrtle turned to her and held out a hand. ‘Dot, me love, you won’t lerrus down, will you?’ she said coaxingly. ‘Mr Rathbone will be real angry if your uncle don’t tell ’im he’s sick, ’cos he’ll want som’un else to hump carcasses up from the slaughterhouse. I don’t say it’ll be easy to find anyone by tomorrer evenin’ but at least it should be possible.’ She saw Dot’s uneasy expression and added: ‘I know you say he don’t like kids but all you’d be doin’ is givin’ him a message. The shop’ll be closed, but there’s a door round the back an’ if you give a good loud knock he’ll come down from the flat. You can tell ’im that Mr Brewster has been sick as a dog after eatin’ a meat pie from Snetterton’s on the Scottie. Say he’ll be back to work in two or three days an’ say as how he’s real sorry. Can you remember all that?’
‘Of course I can,’ Dot said indignantly. ‘But it is true, Mr Rathbone don’t like kids. How about if I took young Dick with me? Old Rathbone ain’t so likely to clout first an’ hear the message after if there’s two of us.’
She thought that her aunt was about to agree, but Dick began to whimper and to say that he wouldn’t go to Rathbone’s not if it were ever so. ‘Me ball bounced into the shop when Freddie an’ I were playin’ footy down Heyworth Street,’ he whined. ‘Well, it weren’t a ball, it were a bundle o’ rags, but the mean old bugger chucked it in his waste bin and wouldn’t give it back, no matter how nicely we asked. So Freddie shouted he were a nasty old scumbag an’ he chased us halfway down Heyworth Street. We were scared; he were still holdin’ his cleaver.’
Dot began to argue her own case but at this point Uncle Rupert interrupted before she’d got more than two or three words out. ‘I don’t want Archie knowin’ I’ve gorra kid what gives cheek an’ acts like a hooligan,’ he informed them, glaring savagely at Dick. He turned to Dot. ‘Just you go round there right now an’ tell ’im I’ll see ’im in a couple o’ days’ time. An’ no argufying from you, miss!’ With that, he slumped down in a chair and began to sip from the mug in his hand which, Dot realised with considerable surprise, contained tea.
Aunt Myrtle tried to get to her feet, but groaned with pain. ‘Off you go, queen,’ she said, not unkindly. ‘I dunno where you’re goin’ to sleep tonight, ’cos neither your uncle nor meself will be climbin’ them stairs, I can tell you. Oh, I dare say you can sleep in our bed ’cos your Uncle Rupe will be in the parlour an’ I’ll tek your place down here.’ She indicated Dot’s sofa bed. ‘See you later, chuck.’
Reluctantly, Dot left the house and made her way to the butcher’s. She went first to the shop, thinking that if Mr Rathbone had stayed open late it would be easier to give him her message in front of a shop full of people. As her aunt had predicted, however, the ‘closed’ sign hung on the door and the window blinds were down. Dot knocked on the door, then pressed her nose to the glass, but all she could see was the empty window and a large bluebottle crawling up the pane. For a moment, she employed herself by following the bluebottle with one forefinger, hoping to scare it into flight, but it was either a very intelligent fly which realised she could not possibly get at it, or a very foolish one which did not have the sense to look through the glass. So she turned reluctantly away from the shop front and went towards the jigger.
Heyworth Street was a busy thoroughfare in daytime, but at this time of night there was very little traffic and it was mainly children who raced up and down the pavement and popped in and out of the few shops which were still open, their mothers having sent them on last-minute messages. Dot went down the jigger, looking rather apprehensively about her. It was the first time she had come along here since her hurried flight on the night of the burglary, and she was surprised to find that the place was quite clean and that the wall was too high, for the most part, to allow even a well-grown adult to look in the back yards of the shops. On her previous visit, she had scrambled over the wall which happened to be nearest to her when she feared to be caught by Fizz, but now she realised she could just as easily have gone through the gate. It was a pretty solid affair, more like a door than a gate, really, and it was unlocked. Dot guessed this was because, in summer, the dustmen would clear the bins every day. She let herself into the yard, noticing for the first time that the butcher had stencilled both the number of his shop and his own name in white upon the green paint of his gate. And I was in such a hurry to get hidden that I never even noticed, she thought with awe. If I had, I’d have gone one further along, because even then I knew old Rathbone was a wrong ’un. But I’m glad I did hop into old Rathbone’s by mistake, otherwise I’d never have met Corky, or got to know Emma. And of course the mystery of the necklace would have remained a mystery, though I dare say I’d have been a whole lot safer.
She was thinking this as she crossed the yard and it made her rap rather timidly upon the heavy oak door, but after a moment or two her courage returned and she looked round for something to bang the door with, and realised that there was a bell-push on the left-hand door post. She pressed it and presently its shrill summons brought someone heavily down the stairs and the door swung open. Mr Rathbone was chewing and he had removed his collar and unbuttoned his shirt. He had a large meat pie in one hand and did not look at all pleased to be disturbed. ‘Whadda you want?’ he growled. ‘Bleedin’ kids! It’s been nothing but bleedin’ kids all day. If you’ve knocked your bleedin’ ball into my bleedin’ back yard, you can say goodbye to it ’cos I won’t have kids on me premises; if I’ve told you once, I’ve told you . . .’
He looked as if he were about to close the door and Dot spoke up hastily. ‘It ain’t nothing like that, mister. I’ve got a message from me uncle, Rupert Brewster.’ She eyed the pie in the butcher’s hand and hastily changed her story. ‘Me aunt were give a basket of eggs from her sister what lives on the Wirral. She made a great big omelette for me uncle’s tea, but there must have been a bad ’un amongst ’em, ’cos he’s been sick as a dog. The chemist says it’s food poisoning an’ he’s to stay in bed till he stops chuckin’ up.’
The butcher looked distinctly displeased. ‘What you’re tryin’ to say is, he’s goin’ to let me down,’ he said. ‘Food poisoning! Fellers these days gerra belly-ache an’ say it’s food poisoning. Well, you tell ’im he’d best be back before the weekend or he’ll find himself without a job.’
Dot opened her mouth to say that it really was food poisoning, that he had been so ill that he had fallen down the stairs, but such embroidery was denied her. She had left the gate in the wall open so that, if the butcher got nasty, she could make a quick getaway, but it must have swung partly closed again, for she heard the creak of its hinges and saw the butcher’s eyes flicker to something – or someone – behind her. She turned, her heart jumping into her mouth, but then it lodged itself in its rightful place once more. The newcomer was not the weasel-faced man she had met on the night of the burglary, but a scuffer, tall and broad, with a jolly, rosy face. He did not seem to notice Dot but touched his helmet to the butcher, saying as he did so: ‘Evenin’, Mr Rathbone, sir. I noticed your gate were open as I come along the jigger so I thought I’d best pop in, make sure you didn’t have no trouble. I know you complained up at the police station that there had been kids muckin’ about with your bins, and I know you always keep your gate locked, so I thought I’d best step in and make sure everything was as it should be.’
He had not so much as glanced at Dot and she decided that this was an ideal moment to leave. Mr Rathbone was saying, in a grumbling voice, that as it happened the kid was just passing on a message from a feller he employed, and very inconvenient it was liable to be, so Dot turned and hurried out of the yard. The policeman began to reply – Dot did not hear what he said – but just as she let herself out through the gate, Archie Rathbone raised his voice. ‘Hey, you, wharrever your name is! Come back here, I’ve not finished wi’ you yet.’
But Dot was already scooting down the jigger as fast as she could and had no intention whatsoever of returning to the butcher’s yard. She now knew that he had actually gone to the police to make a complaint about kids meddling with his dustbins, though she was very sure that he would not have said that anything was missing – how could he? He could scarcely pretend to have thrown away one of his own valuables, so it must have been a general complaint, rather than a specific one.
Having discharged her errand, Dot returned home to find her uncle already snoring in the parlour, and her aunt trying to make herself a cup of tea, weeping copiously as she did so.
‘I’ve given Mr Rathbone your message, Aunt Myrtle,’ Dot said cheerfully, taking the teapot out of her aunt’s hands. ‘Just you sit down and let me pour you a nice cuppa. D’you fancy a piece of that cake we made earlier?’
Her aunt sank into the nearest chair and received the mug of tea gratefully. ‘You’re a good kid, Dot. What did old Rathbone say?’
‘Nothing much. Well, he moaned a bit, and said it was inconvenient, and Uncle Rupe must be back by the weekend, that sort of thing. Oh, and when he came down to the door he were eatin’ a meat pie, so I told him you’d made Uncle Rupe an omelette with eggs your sister had sent from the Wirral, and one of them must have been bad. I was going to say as me uncle had been so poorly that he’d fallen down the stairs in his weakness, only a scuffer arrived, so I made meself scarce.’
‘You’re a good girl,’ Aunt Myrtle said again. ‘A scuffer, eh? I ’spect it was Constable McNamara; they’re quite pally, I believe. Mind you, the constable’s a lot more popular than Archie Rathbone, but I believe they was at school together, which accounts for it.’
Dot cut her aunt a slice of cake and watched her eat it and drink the tea. Then she had to pretend to eat a piece herself though she was full to bursting, what with the slice of pie her aunt had given her before she left the house, and the enormous tea she had eaten before she left Emma’s. After that, she got out the bedding for the couch and helped Aunt Myrtle to remove her outer garments and lie down. Only when her aunt was comfortably settled did she turn out the lamp and make for the stairs, reflecting that it would be odd to spend the night in the creaking old brass bedstead which took up most of the main bedroom. She took off her own outer clothing and climbed between the sheets. She had not drawn the curtains since it would be her task in the morning to get herself washed and dressed, to wake the boys and then get Aunt Myrtle ready for the day. She thought her aunt should go to Brougham Terrace, where they would at least provide her with crutches, because otherwise she was going to make the ankle worse by using it whenever she wanted to go to the door, or to use the privy which was at the far end of the court.
In addition, she would have to make the breakfast porridge, brew the tea, slice the bread, and do all the other small tasks which she usually shared with Aunt Myrtle. Sighing, she also realised, as she cuddled down, that she was very unlikely to be able to get away from the house whilst her aunt remained incapacitated. Evenings would not be so bad because Sammy and Li would be home, but past experience had taught her that they were slippery as eels when it came to helping out. She very much wanted to see Corky and tell him about her visit to Mr Rathbone. If he knew Rathbone had reported her presence to the police, this might affect how they watched his premises. She supposed she could wait until the food was on the table tomorrow evening and then make an excuse and nip round to the churchyard. Why, provided she was not seen climbing the wall, she could go there when she was supposed to be doing her aunt’s messages. It was only then that she remembered: Corky would not be there. He would have done his packing and would be making his way to Nick’s lodgings the next day, and for the life of her she could not remember the name of the street where Nick was staying, let alone the number of the house.
Dismayed, she shot up in bed, then sank down again. Of course, Emma would know, and even if she did not, Nick and Corky were bound to visit the shop in Church Street. They would want to know if Emma had seen anyone acting suspiciously in the road outside, and to share any information they themselves had garnered. And then there was the necklace; if Nick really meant to tunnel under the wall to find it, he would need all the help he could get. It was a pity she had not noted the address of Nick’s lodgings but she would put that right in the days to come.
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