Josephine Cox - Songbird

She had lost a thumb, yes. But it was a small price to pay.

There was something else. On waking, Maddy had quickly realized that one side of her face was swathed in dressings; now, as she raised her fingers to touch them, she asked, “My face – what happened to my face?” Of all the injuries he had mentioned, the doctor had said nothing about her face, and the idea of being scarred was the most fearful.

The doctor was noncommittal. He called a nurse over, and asked her to stand by while he undid the bandages. “We had some repair work to do on the side of your neck and face, which was where you took the brunt of your injuries,” he told Maddy. “It’s time to take off the bandages, so we can see how it’s all healing.”

Her heart beating fast, Maddy sat very still while the bandages came off. It seemed to take forever. She wondered how bad it was. Had the side of her face been sheered when she careered across the concrete? Did it get damaged when she crashed through the undergrowth and into the ditch? Suddenly she could recall every heart-stopping minute – every twist and turn as she rolled faster and faster, even the dull thump as she hit the ditch and fell inside the muddy green tomb.

The last strip of dressing fell into the basin. “Mmm,” the doctor kept saying. “Mmm.”

Asking the nurse to bring a mirror, he turned his attention to Maddy, who was by now holding her breath, afraid to ask. Afraid to know the truth.

He did not mince his words. “Your left ear was almost detached by the impact,” he informed her quietly. Seeing the look on her face, he said quickly, “The ear is fine now, and your hearing should not be impaired; indeed, from our conversation so far, I’m delighted to note that it appears not to be affected at all. As for the scarring, well… all I can tell you is that we’ve done the very best we can. The scars will be angry for a while, but in time they will fade, I can promise you that.”

When the nurse returned with the hand-held mirror, the doctor took it from her and held it out to Maddy. “The first sight may alarm you, but like I say, the scars will fade in time.”

For a long, nervous moment, Maddy clutched the mirror to her chest, afraid to look, afraid of what she would see. Then, finally, knowing she must, she held the mirror up.

Horrified at the sight reflected there, she gave a cry, dropped the mirror and sobbed as though her heart would break.

Both nurse and doctor thought it best to let her cry it out. Then, after a moment, the nurse collected the mirror and pressed it into her hand. “Look again,” she urged Maddy. “You have to look and see what a wonderful job the surgeons have done. They sewed your ear back on, and repaired all of the other damage. And yes, there are scars, and there will always be faint marks. But they can be disguised, with special makeup, skillfully applied; your hair will grow back where we trimmed it away, and in time the traces of your accident will hardly be noticed.

“Please, look again,” she repeated, “and remember what I said.”

So Maddy looked again, and she remembered what the nurse had told her, but her heart dropped like a stone at the sight of her neck and face. Yes, the ear was sewn back on, and though the skin was raw, it seemed as normal as it ever did, except for the marks all around… deep, meandering, red gashes of skin that spread from the front of her ear into the side of her face and down to her neck. The front of her face was bruised and you could see the line of fine cuts that were fast healing. But the damage to the side of her face and neck was a great shock.

Maddy told herself that, considering how she might have been killed, the awful sight of her face and neck did not matter. But it did. It did!

Silently, she cursed the man who had caused this to happen. But once more, the overriding thought was for Ellen and the baby. As long as they were safe, she kept telling herself, she could live with this disfigurement.

The man she had cursed was already celebrating the news that his instructions to do away with Maddy had finally been executed. “Are you absolutely certain?” he demanded.

Danny assured him, “The Songbird is no more!” Grinning from ear to ear, he boasted, “She won’t ever trouble you again, boss. Oh, I’ll admit things got a bit out of hand, and she got hurt bad in the process. But you said to make her squeal – to tell us where the kid is, and that’s what we tried to do. The trouble was, she weren’t anywhere near as tough as you think, because she croaked too soon.”

“So now you’re saying, we’re not likely to find out where the brat is?” Drayton frowned.

“Sorry, boss. But if you need the information that bad, we can start over, see if we can’t find out who negotiated the adoption?”

Drayton considered that for a moment, then he shrugged carelessly.

“Nah, don’t bother,” he told Danny. “Let the little bastard get off scot-free. To tell you the truth, I’ve got more important things on my mind right now.” Glancing behind him, he seemed unusually nervous.

Danny took that to mean he had been causing trouble and there was some kind of a backlash. He wasn’t surprised.

Steve Drayton had been at the top of the tree for too long. It followed that some bolder, younger villain would be waiting in the wings, ready to take over.

Either way, it was not Danny Boy’s problem. “So, you’ll arrange for me to be paid then?” he asked.

“Have you ever known me to welch on a deal?”

“No.” Danny knew that Drayton usually paid up in matters of this kind.

“Right then. You sit tight and you’ll get your money in due course.”

With that, Danny left, satisfied on all counts.

When Drayton’s woman jumped from that car, she had saved them the job of killing her. The description his men gave him, of her lying dead in the ditch, was not a pretty one.

But hey! What did Danny Boy care? He would have his payment, and his reputation was revived. He went away whistling.

It was earlyin July of that eventful year of 1979, that Maddy was allowed to leave Bedford Hospital. She was almost whole in body, but far from whole in mind and spirit. The accident and its aftermath had knocked the stuffing out of her, and she felt more disorientated than ever before in her life. She had lost her home, her child, her lover, her career, and most importantly, her identity. She didn’t even look like herself any more.

The Songbird, she thought dully, would never sing again.

The young nurse Cathy, who had looked after Maddy during her stay in the ward, helped her pack her things and put her medication in a safe place. The Lady Almoner had ensured that Maddy left hospital fully equipped with clothes, shoes and all the other things she needed, for her torn and bloody clothes had been thrown away when she was admitted. Of course, there had been a police investigation into the accident, but they had come up with a complete blank – Maddy saying that she had accepted a lift from a couple in a red car, but had fallen out of it as the back door was not properly closed, due to her own carelessness, and that possibly the driver had not gone to the police for fear that she had died and he might be arrested for manslaughter. The police unwillingly accepted this story, sensing that there was more to it than she was telling, but they were adamant that the driver was guilty for not reporting the accident, which could have led to her dying undiscovered in the ditch.

Fortunately, Maddy was so ill at the time of their questioning that they did not pressurize her. She had given them the Blackpool address – not that they would use it – and her name as Sheelagh Mulligan – using dear Alice’s surname – in a feeble burst of self-protection, so that those thugs could not ring the hospitals and find out that she was still alive…