Hunter’s Moon

They laughed at her, but there was something about Alice Rimmer which made them wonder. She didn’t have the scarecrow looks of the rest of them and could stand up for herself – maybe her people would come back for her. After all, she had hinted at coming from an important family. Her mother, she said, was famous.

But the fantasy Alice had created over the years she had been at Netherlands felt sour that night. She kept her head under the pillow, tears exhausted. The matron had always cared about her, given her little treats and protected her – but she wouldn’t any longer. She would hate her now, now she had broken the horse …

Alice turned over onto her back. The sounds of the other girls’ breathing told her they were asleep as she crept over to the window and looked out through the wide bars. From where the dormitory was situated on the third floor, she could see the other wing of the home, the boys’ wing. Totally separated from the girls’ wing, the school sandwiched between the two, it could have been in another county. The children never mixed, went to church at different times and ate at different times. Segregated, all contact forbidden. Two independent entities, within sight, but never in touch.

Alice sighed. Far away she could just make out some lights on the Heights. She wanted to be out there. Longingly Alice remembered what she had seen that day: the streets, the shops, the people. Ethel had walked her across town, buses passing by them intermittently. She had even called into a greengrocer’s on the way home, holding tightly on to Alice’s hand. Mesmerised, Alice had looked at the ‘Epicure’ tins on the shelves and the mean-looking bacon slicer on the counter.

Beside her, a middle-aged woman in a fur wrap had waited patiently, her hat topped with feathers. Alice had stared at the woman. She was beautiful. Like her mother would be. She’d studied the woman, observing the dark brown hair, the strong attractive features, and the confident voice. Her mother was definitely just like that, Alice had thought, looking longingly after the woman as she left. Her mother was out there, somewhere. In these streets. She was alive. In fact, they might have passed her. She might even have been that woman …

Sighing at the memory, Alice continued to stare out of the window. She had been out of the home and she had seen the world. But now she was back in disgrace. Mrs Cummings wouldn’t invite her again. She would have to wait for years and years to escape. Until she was fourteen, when most of the Netherlands girls left to go out to work in service. Four whole years. Chilled, Alice shivered and slid back under the sheets, pulling her coat over her. Fighting tears, she tucked her cold hands into the pockets to warm them and then stiffened.

In the darkness her hand closed over a strange shape. A smooth, wooden shape. Carved in the image of a camel.

Clare Lees was going to put a stop to all this nonsense before it got out of hand. It was Ethel Cummings’s fault indirectly. You shouldn’t favour one child above the others. She should never have allowed it, but it had seemed a good idea at the time. God knows, Alice Rimmer needed to work off some of her excess energy. Stiffly Clare Lees rose to her feet, her neck aching. As though the child wasn’t enough of a handful already – and now this.

‘Come in!’ she barked, Alice walking into the gloomy office slowly. ‘Sit down.’

She did so, her eyes fixed on the principal.

‘Alice, I’ve been hearing some very silly things. Apparently you’ve been telling the other girls that your mother is coming back for you. She isn’t.’ It was better to be blunt, Clare Lees thought. No point letting the child live in a fool’s paradise.

‘She is,’ Alice said defiantly.

Clare Lees was unnerved by the vehemence of the girl’s retort.

‘Now look here,’ she said coldly, ‘I’m in charge of Netherlands, and what I say goes. You have always been a handful, Alice Rimmer, but I had thought lately that you were settling down. It appears that I was wrong.’

Alice was listening, her breathing fast.

‘You were abandoned here, and you have been cared for by Netherlands, due to the charity of others. You owe this home a debt of gratitude. Delusions of grandeur will not work here.’ Her eyes fixed on the girl, who still looked defiant. Clare’s dislike flared like a newly lit torch. ‘You are a nobody, Alice, a foundling. You have no family. No one’s coming back for you. They left you. They didn’t want you.’

Alice took in her breath, but said nothing.

‘When you leave here you’ll have to work and make your own way in this world. It is better,’ Clare Lees paused for effect, ‘to learn your place now. Life can be very hard, Alice. No one likes an upstart.’

Alice didn’t know what an upstart was, but she knew it was bad.

‘Remember – I can make your life here very difficult, if I choose to,’ Clare went on. ‘Extra duties, extra work – they could soon break your spirit and make you toe the line. But I’m giving you a chance. Mend your ways – and your manner – and you and I could still get on.’

Alice looked down. A triumphant Clare Lees read the action as submission and thought she had the upper hand.

‘Stop these fantasies. Stop talking to the other girls about your dream world. Stop pretending you’re better than everyone else.’ She walked over to Alice and looked down at her. ‘I expect you to change. Now. I want a calm, quiet, obedient girl. A girl who knows her place. Do I make myself clear? Well, do I?’

That night, Alice Rimmer ran away.

Chapter Six

Alice had no idea where she was going, only that she had to get out of the home. She crept downstairs after everyone was in bed, stole out of the back entrance, crossed the yard, and climbed over the locked gates. No one saw her. When she jumped down on the other side she felt a rush of excitement. There was no one about, but then a late bus passed by, its wheels throwing up rain from the gutter.

If she was caught there would be hell to pay. She knew that. But somehow Alice didn’t care. What right had old Ma Lees to tell her that she was a no one? How did she know? You are a nobody. No one’s coming back for you … The words drummed into her head. A nobody. No one’s child … It wasn’t true! Alice thought helplessly, walking along the dark pavement and keeping to the shadow of the wall. She had had a mother and a father, everyone did. They must be alive somewhere. Somewhere outside. Where she now was.

But where could she begin looking? She imagined old Ma Lees’ face when she presented her parents to her; when she said, ‘Look, this is my father and this is my mother.’ Oh, she wouldn’t be so spiteful then, Alice thought. Not when she was a somebody, someone’s child, not a foundling to be pushed around.

The rain came down chill with the wind and made Alice shudder. The road which had looked so inviting was suddenly menacing, unfamiliar. A stout woman passed, looked at her curiously and then moved on. Alice paused momentarily outside a pub. The lights were on, the sound of raucous laughter drifting out into the dismal street. A song twanged haphazardly from an out-of-tune piano. Alice pressed her face to the etched glass. Inside she could just make out the backs of the customers, and smell the beer and cheap cigarette smoke. Then someone coughed, and a man staggered out of the door, pushing into her as he made his unsteady way home.

Her parents wouldn’t go to a place like this, Alice thought. They wouldn’t be smoking and drinking in some Salford backstreet pub.

‘Oi, you!’

She turned, startled by the man who had doubled back and was watching her, weaving unsteadily on his feet.

‘Wot you staring at?’

‘Nothing,’ Alice said sullenly, her fear making her belligerent. ‘What are you staring at?’

He leaned towards her, sour-breathed. ‘You nowt but a kid, wot you doing out so late? Waiting for yer father?’

‘My father isn’t in there!’ Alice said heatedly. ‘He’s … rich. He doesn’t come to places like this.’

Unexpectedly the man laughed. ‘Oh, rich, is he? So why are you hanging about Salford at this time of night? You some little princess in disguise, come slumming?’

Biting her lip to control her fear and indignation, Alice stood up to him. ‘It’s nothing to do with you –’

‘I bet he’s just another drunk, propping up the bar in there,’ the man said, his voice slurred. ‘Yer mam sent you to call him home before he spends the rent money?’

‘He’s not like that!’ Alice said heatedly, walking away and then turning. ‘My father’s important and my mother’s well known. A beauty.’

‘Yeah, and I’m Rudolph Valentino,’ the drunk sneered, pulling a half-bottle out of his greasy coat and taking a swig. ‘And the more I drink, the more I believe it.’

Alice hurried off, moving under the viaduct and beginning to mount the steep street. If she was honest, she wanted to double back, but was afraid to meet up with the man again, so she kept walking ahead. Soon she was drenched, her hair dripping down her back, her skin chalk white. Wrapping her arms around herself she hurried on. She then realised that she was lost. The streets meant nothing to her, she had no idea of where she was, and there was nothing familiar in sight. The outings she had had with Ethel had been in daytime and Salford hadn’t seemed so grim then, but under the dim gaslamps the streets looked sour, the alleys gloomy. Disembodied voices and shouts came from behind doors and drawn blinds, the rain drumming on the cheap tin roofs of outside lavatories. Alice was afraid suddenly, stopping and looking round. Where was she going? Did she really think she was going to find her parents this way? When she didn’t know who they were, where they were, or what they looked like?

She had acted like a fool, Alice thought. Here she was out in the cold, lost, and there was no one to help her. No one was even looking for her. Scared, she dug her nails into her palms to stop herself crying and turned, trying to see the viaduct, the only landmark she remembered. But all she could see was a man, the drunk, a way off, walking towards her and, startled, Alice began to run.

It was him! she thought. He would catch her and then what? Her feet pounded on the pavement and then she saw a cobbled ginnel and dived in, catching her breath.

At once, a hand descended on her shoulder.

She screamed.

‘Hey, miss, it’s all right,’ the policeman said pleasantly. ‘What are you doing out and about this time of night?’

Relief was quickly followed by a sense of failure. Her big adventure was a sham. She was just a stupid, lost kid.

‘I … was walking.’

‘Where?’

‘Around.’

‘Around where?’ he repeated, leaning down towards her, his moustached face kind. ‘I think I should get you home, don’t you?’

‘I don’t have a home.’

He blinked. ‘Come on now, there’s no argument that bad that can’t be settled over a pot of tea. Your parents will be worried about you, lass.’

No they won’t, Alice thought hopelessly. ‘I don’t have a real home. I’m at Netherlands.’

‘Ah,’ he said simply, taking her hand. ‘Well, I think perhaps it’s time you were back, little one.’

She wanted to be grown up, but instead Alice held gratefully onto his hand and walked back to Netherlands with him in silence.

Ethel would say afterwards that it was the turning point. When Alice was brought back to the home that night she was cowed and defeated. You could see that all the fight had gone out of her, Ethel told Gilbert. It was hardly worth while Clare Lees punishing her; she didn’t seem to care any more. The petty duties Alice was given she completed without complaint, without resistance. She wouldn’t even talk about where she had gone that night. Or why.

‘Are you all right, sweetheart?’ Ethel asked her a few days later.

Alice nodded. ‘I’m fine.’

Compliance was more worrying than an outburst, thought Ethel.

‘No more running away now, Alice, promise me. It did no good, no good at all.’ She paused to see what effect her words were having, but the girl’s face was bland. What is she thinking? Ethel wondered. Or is she plotting something?

The truth was that Clare Lees’ words had cut Alice to the bone and forced a change in her. It was one thing to be put in a home, quite another for someone to spell out what you already knew. That you weren’t wanted. Alice’s hatred for the principal was absolute, although she wouldn’t admit it to anyone. She would keep her own counsel, that was the only way to survive at Netherlands. But her loathing for Clare Lees burned with such force that she wondered if it shimmered around her like a heat haze.

Clare Lees had crushed her dream. The one thing which Alice had clung to – the hope that her parents, in particular her mother, might come back for her – had been snatched away. Some humpbacked spinster had told her she was a no one and that she never would be.

Well, she would show her! Alice thought. She would show Clare Lees what she was made of. One day she would get out of the home and really find her family. They would explain that it had all been a mistake and welcome her back. They would be rich and she would come back in furs and riding in a new motorcar. She would gloat over Clare Lees and pay her back for every single cruel word.

That was the night that Alice Rimmer grew up.

Chapter Seven

Evan Thomas paused under the viaduct and lit a cigarette, inhaling the smoke and then tossing the match into the gutter. The sun was shining, which pleased him, and he hummed under his breath as he walked along. Oh yes, Evan thought, life was really quite good.

He had a new girlfriend and unless he was very much mistaken, he was impressing Clare Lees even more than usual. Evan sniffed the air and pretended that he was back in Wales. The daydream lasted for as long as it took a rag-and-bone man to ride by, his horse depositing a heap of foul-smelling dung on the roadside.

Pulling an expression of disgust, Evan moved off. Oh yes, Clare Lees was getting to need him more and more. If he played his cards right she might consider early retirement. After all, the woman must be over sixty. He would be kind to her, let her retire and teach a little now and then. There was no reason to be unpleasant; after all, she had made it all possible for him.

He liked to imagine how popular he would be. Liked to think of how everyone would love him after the old bag had gone … Evan sighed. He would have to make changes, bring the place into the present, get himself noticed. The governors seemed to like him well enough – better than that ridiculous Dolly Blake.

Evan thought about pretty, ambitious Dolly and her bullish boyfriend, Andy. Not many brains in poor Andy. Just brawn. He smiled. Dolly was such a fool; it had all been so easy. She had fallen for his line as soon as he had spun it her way. And she had kept falling.

She was waiting by the park gates now, her blonde head shining in the sunlight, her face a mixture of pouting prettiness and hard-nosed guile.

‘Evan,’ she said softly, her lips pressing briefly against his.

‘Hey now, we have to be careful in public –’

She pinched his arm. It hurt. ‘Why’s that, Evan?’

‘You’re the one with the fiancé,’ he replied smoothly, leading her into the park and away from prying eyes. Andy might be dumb, but he was big enough to flatten Evan.

‘Oh, Evan,’ she said, stopping and pulling him towards some bushes, ‘I’ve been thinking about you since Thursday. Do you really love me?’

He cupped her breasts in his hands and nuzzled against her neck ‘Now that’s a silly question, girl. You know how I feel about you.’

Dolly wasn’t totally satisfied with the answer and pulled herself – and her breasts – away from him.

‘Don’t get all clever with me, Evan!’ she snapped. ‘I want a proper answer.’

Well what was the proper answer? Evan thought. I’m using you, my dear. Just to get you off the scent whilst I make sure I get the upper hand at Netherlands. He knew the type Dolly Blake was: so clever she would cut herself. She thought that she was stringing Evan along, whilst he knew that he was manipulating her. Evan touched her cheek, trying to cheer her up at he looked at her. Dolly thought that by being Evan Thomas’s girlfriend she could protect her own interests. He would either help her to get where she wanted, or she would get it by default. And bugger poor Andy. If Evan Thomas was going to the top – she was going with him.

Or so she thought.

‘Oh, come on, sweetheart,’ Evan said, pulling her to him. ‘There’s no one like you.’

‘I dare say there isn’t,’ she retorted, her face flushed. ‘If you’re playing fast and loose with me, Evan, you’ll live to regret it.’

He stood back from her, his expression injured.

At once, she was contrite. ‘Oh, Evan, I’m sorry, I just care about you so much.’ She took his hand and kissed it. ‘I don’t mean to say the things I do; I just want us to be together.’

‘What about Andy?’ Evan said, as though he thought of the other man as a rival.

‘What about him?’ Dolly replied. ‘I’d drop him like that,’ she clicked her fingers, ‘if you asked me to marry you.’

Jesus, Evan thought, no bloody way! He wanted Dolly safe with her dollop of a fiancé. In fact, it would suit him best if she married Andy. That way he could never get caught. Marry Dolly Blake! Was she crazy?

‘You know how I feel about you,’ Evan replied, pressing her hand to his cheek, ‘but I can’t marry until I’ve proved myself, got my career on track.’ He looked into her eyes wistfully. ‘You do see that, don’t you? I’m an ambitious man. Dolly. It wouldn’t be fair.’

Her brain took the words and sifted them like lump flour. In the end the meaning was unpalatable. Not that she would let Evan see it. So he thought he was taking her for a ride, did he? Well, time would tell.

Gently she laid her head on his shoulder and sighed.

‘I understand, luv,’ she said, letting her hand move inside his jacket and touch his chest. ‘Honestly I do.’

When Dolly came back to Netherlands that evening she was preoccupied, ready for a fight with anyone who crossed her path. Using the side door, she let herself into the home and paused in the corridor. It smelled of chalk and a less pleasant urine odour coming from the toilets nearby.

Sniffing, she walked into the back room beyond and snapped at an old bald man sitting smoking a pipe.

‘Mr Baldwin!’

He looked up, eyes rheumy. ‘Aye?’

‘The toilet smells.’

‘What d’you expect? It’s a toilet, not a bleeding perfume factory,’ he replied, sucking on his pipe and turning away.

Irritated, Dolly stood in front of him. ‘They need some more disinfectant –’

‘Aye, stop yer bleating! There’s many houses round ’ere that don’t have a lavvie – like yers, I’ll be bound.’

‘Now, you just –’

Irritated, Mr Baldwin stood up and waved his pipe at her. ‘I do what I can ’ere. The wages are bloody awful for what I have to deal with. As for the lavvies – they’ll be swilled out again in the morning.’

‘But –’

Impatiently he flicked his hand to shoo her away. Will Baldwin had been at Netherlands longer than anyone. He could remember being the caretaker when Clare Lees was a child, he didn’t need some cheap tart like Dolly Blake telling him what to do.

‘I’ve told you, Miss Blake, it’ll be done again in morning.’

‘I have –’

‘Oh, go off and pick a fight with someone else!’ Will replied, adding slyly, ‘You want to stay away from Welshmen and stick with yer own sort. You’d be better-tempered if you did.’

Dolly’s face flushed as she stood, tongue-tied, for a moment and then flounced out.

As she made her way back down the corridor she was listening for any sound, any child on whom she could vent her spleen. The boys’ section was silent, behind the locked doors, and in front of her there stretched the long gloomy corridor which led to the girls’ part of the home. It was empty, dimly lit by spluttering gaslight.

Her shoes tapped on the shiny floor as Dolly hurried along. She thought at one point that she heard something, but when she paused there was only silence. On she paced, seething, and then rounded the bend to find Alice walking towards her.

‘What are you doing here at this time of night?’ Dolly snapped.

Alice paused. She was carrying a tray with a cover over it.

‘I’ve come from the sanatorium,’ she said quietly, looking into Dolly’s flushed face.

‘At this time? I doubt it.’ Dolly pulled the cover off the tray Alice was carrying. ‘What’s this?’

‘Matron asked me to take it back to the kitchen –’

‘I didn’t ask what you were told to do with it, I asked what it was.’

‘Hilly Barker’s supper.’

Dolly paused to consider. Hilly Barker had been ill for some time, coughing and periodically feverish. She had been in and out of the sanatorium for the four years she had been at Netherlands. And she was getting worse. Not to worry, the doctor had assured Clare Lees, it’s not contagious. It was just that Hilly was getting weaker by the day.

‘Hilly Barker?’

Alice nodded, keeping her head down.

Dolly stared at her, taking in the dark good looks that had intensified since Alice had turned ten. She would be stunning one day, Dolly realised, her temper increasing at the thought.

‘It’s a waste of good food,’ Dolly went on, staring at the unappetising meal. ‘She should have eaten it. There are children starving abroad.’

‘Hilly tried, but she’s no appetite –’

‘Since when have you been a doctor?’ Dolly bellowed. ‘You’re altogether too big for your boots, Alice Rimmer. We had trouble with you before, didn’t we? I thought you’d learned your lesson.’

Alice said nothing, just waited. The tirade would pass in time. Dolly Blake was peevish, but her viciousness was always short-lived.

‘Sorry, Miss Blake.’

‘You should be sorry,’ Dolly went on, the corridor echoing her words. ‘Miss Lees doesn’t want any more trouble from you, Alice Rimmer, or you’ll be sent away.’

Staying silent, Alice stood with her head bowed. She knew that Dolly had no power to send her away, but she was going to be careful, just in case. The only people she cared about were at Netherlands – Ethel and Hilly. She didn’t want to lose what little she had. So she bit her tongue, as she had learned to do.

Obviously getting bored with her attack, Dolly sighed. ‘How is Hilly?’ she asked, toying with the cuffs of her dress.

‘Poorly.’

She glanced back at Alice. God, the girl was getting tall. ‘Why you?’

‘Pardon, Miss Blake?’

‘Why are you looking after Hilly Barker?’

‘Matron asked me to,’ Alice replied, her voice low.

‘Aren’t you worried that Hilly might have something contagious?’ Dolly asked meanly.

‘No.’

Dolly snorted and tossed her blonde head. ‘She could have smallpox for all we know.’ She leaned towards Alice and looked into the spectacular dark eyes. ‘If Hilly Barker did have smallpox you could catch it. It blinds you and leave pockmarks all over your face. Makes you ugly. Really ugly.’ She studied the girl’s perfect skin and felt a sudden urge to slap her. Then, just as soon at the feeling had come, it passed.

Dolly waved Alice aside. ‘Go on, get on with whatever to have to do,’ she said, capriciously. ‘Go on!’

As Alice hurried away, Dolly stood for a long time looking after her. But she didn’t even see the girl any more; she was thinking about Evan Thomas and Clare Lees, and wondering how she could make her future secure. Deep in thought, Dolly stared at the linoleum, the colour of treacle. She shivered suddenly and rubbed her arms with her hands. What she had to do was to get closer to Clare Lees. She had to become the principal’s confidante. Her ally.