The Grace Girls (46 page)

But Kirsty instinctively knew that the mistake Claire had made would not be held against her where she lived in Glasgow. The people there would only see her lovely clothes and nice big house and car and her unbowed, proud ways. The kind of people Claire mixed with would probably be like that Fiona and Helen who would still feel so superior and above everyone else that nothing anyone could say would bother them.

As the car turned into the hospital grounds, Kirsty su
ddenly came to a startling conclusion. It was only people in small, parochial villages like Rowanhill who kept those
rigid, judge­mental views where everyone had to behave the same as everyone else, and where it was demanded that everyone toe the Church and community line.

Kirsty had thought it was the same everywhere. But n
ow she suddenly understood that it was only Rowanhill’s
way, and the way of other small claustrophobic villages. There was a bigger, wider world outside where people were far too busy getting on with their own lives to waste time scrutinising the shortcomings of their neighbours.

The more she thought about it, the more Kirsty realised that the big world outside Rowanhill was the one she wanted to belong to, where people could do what they liked and it was nobody else’s business.

When the time was right, Kirsty Grace wanted the freedom of the bigger world.

Lily’s eyes lit up with delight when she saw Kirsty coming through the ward doors, all dressed to kill like a model out of a fashion magazine, and she was gratified to notice all the nosy-parker visitors at the other beds were having a good look at her too.

When they were having their evening meal earlier on, Lily had told the other children in the ward that she was expecting her big cousin to visit her tonight, the big cousin who was a famous singer and who wore only the most fashionable and expensive clothes.

And Kirsty hadn’t let her down. She had followed the instructions – passed on through Mona – that she must look her best.

‘Well, you came,’ Lily said, folding her arms and giving a satisfied little sigh. She was sitting there resplendent in a pair of fancy pink pyjamas that someone had got her for Christmas, and a bright pink hair ribbon that one of the young nurses had tied in her curly blonde hair just before visiting time. She had loads of nightdresses and pyjamas to choose from now, and Mona had brought her in hair ribbons in a variety of colours.

‘Aye, I did, cheeky-chops,’ Kirsty said, coming over to give the little girl a peck on the forehead. She lowered her voice. ‘And I didn’t wear my scabby oul’ working duffel coat, I put on my best clothes just like you said.’

‘I’m glad to see you did,’ Lily said, glancing around the ward to see who was still watching. Disappointingly, most of them had gone back to their own conversations. She looked up at her two brothers, her brow furrowed. ‘Is it only youse two that are comin’ tonight?’ she quizzed.

Michael nodded, handing her a brown paper bag. ‘My mam and dad have gone to the rosary for that Stewart lad that got run over by a taxi – did you hear about it?’

Lily nodded, her eyes flitting between her brothers and the unopened bag in her lap. ‘Aye, it was Heather’s old boyfriend. I knew him really well. We used to have a laugh when he was in her house, and when his dog died in the summer he gave me the dog’s fancy collar for Whiskey. The red one with the studs. Did you not know that?’

‘I think I remember something about it now,’ Michael said, smiling over at Kirsty.

‘Talkin’ about Whiskey,’ Lily said in a serious tone now, her eyes narrowed and looking from Michael to Sean, ‘I hope youse are all keeping him well fed. He looked a bit skinny to me when I was home for New Year.’

‘That’s because he’s missing you,’ Sean told her. ‘He wouldn’t eat a bite for days when you went into the hospital at first, and every time you come home and go away again, he does the same thing.’

A big smile broke out on her face now. ‘Aw . . . poor Whiskey. He must be really missin’ me.’

The boys looked over at Kirsty and then they all rolled t
heir eyes and tried not to laugh at their bossy, temperamen
tal young sister.

Lily opened the brown paper bag now and took out the latest copy of
The Beano
and an Enid Blyton book called
Welcome Mary Mouse
. She had asked her mother to look in her bedroom for the book, as she wanted to give it to a little girl in the ward who got hardly any presents at Christmas.

‘Brilliant,’ she murmured to herself as she scanned the cover of the book, then she shook out a Bounty Bar and a packet of Rowntree’s Fruit Gums from the bottom of the bag.

Welcome Mary Mouse
was a book she had grown out of, and one she would be able to read aloud when they were in the day-room together, and practise what it would be like when she was grown up and a teacher.

She had decided that the other day. She would be a dancing teacher with her own dancing school if her legs got back to normal, and if they didn’t then she would just be an ordinary primary school teacher. Either way, there was no harm in practising her teacher’s voice for when she was older.

‘So what’s all the news?’ Kirsty asked her now. ‘Have they told you when you’re getting’ out yet? And what’s happened to what’s her name – your wee specky pal? I noticed she’s not in her usual bed any more.’

Lily put the book down in her lap and tried hard to look disapprovingly at Kirsty’s description of her ward-mate. ‘For your information,’ she said primly, a little smile sneaking around the sides of her mouth, ‘Margaret got home last week. She said she’s going to write to me every week, and that we can be pen-pals.’

‘Where’s she from?’ Sean asked.

‘Holytown,’ Lily said.

‘That’ll be excitin’ for you,’ Michael laughed. ‘A pen-pal that lives only a few miles away. You’re supposed to get pen-pals from America and Australia and places like that. You don’t get pen-pals wi’ people that only live up the road from you.’

‘Shut up, you,’ Lily said, tutting at him. ‘It’s only because we’re not well and can’t walk or get on the bus to see each other. We’ve said when we’re older that we’ll visit each other’s houses and we’ll stay with each other during the summer holidays.’ She sniffed. ‘You can’t do that if you live in America or Australia, can you?’

‘So what’s this about me havin’ to get all dressed up to vis
it you?’ Kirsty asked in a high, indignant voice. ‘My oul’ d
uffel coat wasn’t good enough, I hear.’

‘Well,’ Lily said, ‘it’s just that some people in here didn’t believe me when I said my cousin was a singer, so I wanted to make sure you looked like a real singer when you came in. There’s nothing actually wrong with the duffel coat, it’s just that it makes you look like somebody that only works in a chemist’s shop.’

Kirsty’s heart lifted as she suddenly noticed that Lily was using her hands now the way she always used to. She was pointing and moving them when she wanted to make a point. Not as flamboyantly as she used to, perhaps, but she was definitely using her hands again. She decided not to make any issue of it, as she didn’t want Lily to become all self-conscious as she sometimes did.

‘Oooooh . . . that would be absolutely terrible, wouldn’t it,’ Kirsty teased, ‘havin’ a cousin that looks like she works in a chemist?’

Lily ignored her now, having spied one of the nurses coming up the ward. ‘Veronica!’ she called to the heavy-set elderly woman. ‘Is Frankie on tonight?’

‘Yes, Lily,’ Veronica smiled. ‘Did you want him for some­thing?’

‘Aye,’ Lily said, trying hard to conceal her excitement, ‘I just wanted a wee word with him.’

‘I think he’s in the office. I’ll tell him when I go back down.’

‘Who’s Frankie?’ Kirsty asked for something different to say.

‘Oh, he’s the porter for this ward.’

‘And what do you want him for?’ Sean asked.

Lily sighed as though she was weary of answering daft questions, as though she was the adult and the other three were the irritating nosy children. ‘I just want to check wi’ him what time I’ve got physio in the morning.’ She raised her eyebrows disapprovingly at her elder brother. ‘Is that OK with you?’

Sean shook his head and laughed. Mona would soon knock all the uppity-ness and cheek out of Lily as soon as she was well enough. The four of them sat chatting for a while, Michael and Sean giving Lily a run-down of what had been happening in her favourite television shows, and then they all took turns telling jokes. Then the two lads said they were going to visit a local man they knew who was in another ward with a broken leg, and they’d be back in ten minutes.

Lily went on to ask Kirsty all about Gerry Stewart being killed and what had actually happened to him. She listened carefully as Kirsty told her a diluted version of events, then she looked up at her big cousin. ‘He was a bit funny at times, wasn’t he? I don’t
mean funny as in a good laugh – I mean he was a bit peculiar at times.’

‘What do you mean?’ Kirsty asked curiously.

‘Well, you know when they finished up?’

Kirsty nodded.

‘Well, he used to meet me up the road at the chip shop and that, and ask me all about Heather. He would ask me what train she got in the morning, and what time she got in from work. Then he would ask me to find out what she was doin’ at the weekends, and he would sometimes come into the library in the evenings to see if I was there and find out what she had planned.’

‘Did he?’ Kirsty gasped. ‘And did you tell him all about Heather?’

Lily nodded her head. ‘Nothing dead private, like. I only told him boring things like what trains she caught home from Glasgow.’

Kirsty cast her mind back to Heather’s first day at work. ‘Did you tell him when Heather was starting her new job and what time she’d be home the very first day?’

Lily’s brow wrinkled as she tried to remember. ‘Probably
,’ she said shrugging. ‘It was ages ago . . . before I got sick and went into hospital. I can’t think that far back.’

‘That wasn’t very nice of him, asking a wee girl loads of questions about an adult . . . I’m surprised you didn’t tell Heather.’

‘Och, I felt a bit sorry for him at first,’ Lily explained. ‘But I went off him a bit when I saw him actin’ strange.’

‘What did he do?’ Kisty asked, growing more and more worried at this news.

‘Well, one night I was up at the bedroom window, and I saw him hidin’ at the side of your house,’ she whispered. ‘But he didn’t see me. He was tryin’ to look in the window to see if Heather was there.’

Kirsty’s blood suddenly ran cold as she remembered the night she thought she had seen a man’s figure in the back garden. ‘How d’you know that it was Gerry Stewart?’ she checked. ‘Did you see his face?’

Lily shrugged. ‘Because I know his dark wavy hair and his height and everything. He’s not as tall as my daddy or my Uncle Fintan, and who else would be creepin’ about your house at night?’

‘Did you not say anything to anybody?’ Kirsty asked. ‘Did you tell your mammy or daddy?’

‘No,’ Lily replied. ‘I felt sorry for him because I knew he still liked Heather – and anyway, he used to give me a shilling every time I found out anythin’ about her.’ She gri
nned now. ‘I was savin’ up for Christmas and the money
was very handy.’

‘I don’t believe it,’ Kirsty said, aghast at the news, and even more aghast that Gerry had been prepared to use an innocent girl in such a way. He must have been really desperate. She shook her head now, thinking that Heather had had a
narrow escape. Turning up at the house drunk, causing
fights at parties – God knows what he might have done next.

Lily saw the medium-sized figure coming up the ward now in the white tunic and smiled to herself. He came to stand at the end of the bed.

‘I believe you wanted a wee word with me, Miss Grace?’ he said, running a hand through his Brylcreemed quiff.

‘Aye, I did,’ Lily said, beaming from ear to ear. ‘I just wanted to check what time I had to go to Marjorie in the m
ornin’?’ She glanced over at Kirsty to see what impressio
n the porter had made on her so far, but Kirsty was just looking at him with a strange look on her face, as if she was studying him closely.

Frankie’s brow furrowed. ‘Did she not tell you when you were there this afternoon?’

Lily looked all innocent. ‘I forgot . . . Och, it doesn’t matter anyway. I’ll find out tomorrow.’ She paused now, then indicated towards the silent Kirsty. ‘This is my big cousin, the one I was tellin’ you about. The singer.’

Frankie looked across the bed at Kirsty, and his eyes lit up when he saw the pretty, well-dressed blonde. ‘Don’t I know you?’ he asked, trying to work how they’d met before.

Kirsty looked back at him, then she realised that he was in fact familiar to her. ‘I think so,’ she said nodding. ‘I definitely know your face . . . but I can’t remember where from.’

‘Maybe you’ve seen him around the hospital,’ Lily interjected, not wanting to be left out of the conversation. That often happened with adults, she’d discovered. She’d start off on an interesting subject, and before she knew it, they were all talking to each other and ignoring her. ‘Frankie’s one of the best porters here and he wheels me up for my physiotherapy when he’s on the day shifts.’