‘I know.’
‘You didn’t believe me?’
‘I tried to, I waited a long time.’
‘It took a long time,’ Jenny said. ‘I told you that. I’d also cut my hands and legs getting to you and I had to have them dressed. Not that it did my hands much good,’ she added, because though her legs and feet had been protected by heavy-duty trousers and boots, the bandages around her hands were filthy dirty and were virtually ripped to shreds.
‘Would you like a drink of water?’ she asked.
‘You’ve got water?’ Linda said, amazed. ‘I’ve dreamed about having a drink. My throat is so dry.’
‘You can’t take too much,’ Jenny warned. ‘It might have to last some time. I have special energy biscuits too. Are you hungry?’
‘I was,’ Linda admitted. ‘Terribly hungry. It went off, but I’d love a drink.’
She lifted the water bottle to her mouth and had the urge to drink and drink until it was all gone, but when the water had just taken the dust from the back of her throat and done nothing to slake her thirst, Jenny put her hand on the bottle. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘but you can’t have any more just now.’
‘No?’ Linda said with a sigh.
‘How’s the pain?’ Jenny asked.
‘Better, much better,’ Linda said.
Jenny sighed with relief. ‘That’s the injection your doctor gave me to give you,’ she said.
‘You gave me an injection?’ Linda’s voice was high with surprise.
‘I did,’ Jenny said with a smile. ‘I was scared stiff, I’ve never done such a thing before. I’m glad it’s worked.’
‘Who are you?’
‘My name’s Jenny O’Leary,’ Jenny told the child, ‘and I live in Pype Hayes Road. I know you are Linda Lennox because your neighbours told us all about you.’
‘Have you seen Mom?’ Linda said. ‘She’ll want to know I’m all right – has anyone told her?’
‘I don’t know, love,’ Jenny said gently.
‘And my brothers,’ Linda went on. ‘I bet they was dead scared in that raid.’
‘I expect so, love,’ Jenny said miserably, unable to keep the depression out of her voice.
‘Were they hurt or summat?’ Linda demanded and Jenny realized she could probably read the distress on her face. ‘They should have been all right,’ she went on, ‘they was in the shelter.’
‘Linda, I’ll have to turn the lamp off,’ Jenny told her. ‘We may need it later and we’re just wasting the battery now. Will you mind?’
‘Not now you’re here,’ the young girl confided. ‘It was horrible on my own.’
‘Well, I’m going nowhere, so don’t you worry,’ Jenny said. She clicked off the lamp, glad of the velvet dark around them concealing the deep sorrow she felt for the child beside her.
Linda was talking about her father. She’d been talking about him for some time and Jenny encouraged her; it was better for her to talk about him than ask searching questions about her mother or little brothers. She knew that when this was all over, Linda would have to live with someone, so she listened, hoping to hear of a nice gran somewhere, or a kindly aunt to help Linda over the tragedy of it all.
She felt it such a shame that her father hadn’t survived to see his daughter grow up. But she’d had a stepfather for four years; maybe he had relations she could live with.
She waited until there was a lull in the conversation, and then probed gently, ‘What about your stepfather Linda? Did you get on with him?’
She heard the sharp intake of breath and then Linda hissed, ‘I hated him. I wanted him to die. I was glad when he went off to war and every day I wished he’d never come home again. I was glad when we got the telegram.’
Jenny was so shocked by the venom in the child’s voice, she said not a word and Linda went on, ‘I bet you think that’s dead wicked don’t you?’
The Catholic Church would, Jenny knew, but she didn’t say that. Instead, she said gently, ‘Why did you want him to die?’
‘’Cos he used to knock me mom about,’ Linda said. ‘He was big, like an all-in wrestler, he was. Mom used to say he was as broad as he was long – he was, near enough – and he used to hit her, ’specially when he came from the pub. I used to think he’d kill her; I reckon he could have too. She used to have black eyes and bruises on her cheeks, me mom did. She always said she fell. But I knew she never, ’cos I used to hear him.’
She stopped and there was a pause and Jenny was loath to break it, feeling sure Linda hadn’t finished. After a minute or two, she began again, but her voice was so low, Jenny had to strain to hear. ‘I’ll tell you something now I’ve never told a living soul, not even Mom. Not ’cos I didn’t think she’d believe me, but ’cos I didn’t want her to be upset. I mean, what could she do about it anyway?’
There was another pause and part of Jenny wanted the child to go on with her tale, but the other half of her recoiled from it. In a way she was semi-prepared for what came next. ‘He used to touch me, you know, my … my privates, like. He told me I’d get to enjoy it, and when I was bigger he’d do more exciting things that I’d get to enjoy more. But I never did, I hated it, and I hated him, I did, and I was glad he died, so there.’
Jenny imagined Linda’s little face contorted with hate as she almost spat the last words out. She felt for her hand and held it tight, although her own was still semi-bandaged, and said, ‘That was awful for you Linda, but not all men are like that, you know.’
She felt she had to get that point across, but Linda said firmly, ‘I know that. My own dad wasn’t and there’s lots more who don’t do that sort of thing.’ Then suddenly she changed her tack and asked, ‘Was your dad nice?’
‘Very,’ Jenny said firmly. ‘But he was born to a totally different life from yours and mine, because he was brought up in a cottage in Northern Ireland in a village called Cullinova.’
‘Is that why you speak funny?’ Linda said. She knew all about Irish people. Most of them went to the St Peter and Paul’s Catholic church on Kingsbury Road on Sunday morning, and her mom always said they were odd. They couldn’t eat meat on Fridays but could get tanked up on a weekend and beat up their women, then go and tell it all to the priest who would say it was all right. Then, her mother said, they often went and did the same thing the next week. But Jenny didn’t talk like the Irish people she knew, and yet she didn’t speak Brummie either. ‘You don’t speak like Irish people,’ she said. ‘Not ones I know, any road.’
‘Well, I was
