It was strange, Sarah thought now as she sat down carefully on the small put-u-up which had been squeezed between the two beds, that Florrie, with her plain looks and thin angular body, possessed the ability to make an otherwise unprepossessing room glow with warmth and colour. A natural homemaker, Maggie had always called her, and she had added privately to Sarah on more than one occasion that Florrie was the sort of woman who, had things been different, and she’d met a man prepared to look beyond the outward appearance to the real person underneath, would have made a wonderful wife and mother.
Sarah shivered suddenly, rising and walking across to the deep-set black grate where she knelt on the mat and stared into the tiny flickering blue and red flames at the base of the fire. She, like Florrie, had lots to give, and she didn’t want to wait for ever. Life is what you make it. How often had she heard Maggie say that? And she wanted to do something more at the moment than housekeeping.
A newspaper advertisement she had seen some days before sprang into her mind. It had been a request for voluntary workers at a hospital. There had been some panic or other the moment after she had read it and she’d forgotten about it, but now she sat back on her heels as the thought took form. She would like to do something like that. She nodded to herself. She’d enquire about that as soon as she got back to London.
Decision made, she undressed quickly - if divesting herself of stockings and shoes, and her heavy wool dress, could be called undressing - and sitting on the narrow makeshift bed she pulled the pile of wellworn blankets, topped by a patchwork quilt, about her waist before reaching for the mug of tea. Away from the fire the room was cold but not chilled, and as she sipped at the tea, the mug cupped between her hands and the steam warming her face, her mind was full of Rodney again, and it continued to be so once she had slid down under the covers and shut her eyes in preparation for sleep.
In the other room, once the door had shut behind Sarah, Maggie and Florrie had remained standing for some moments before Maggie had said, her voice low and uncharacteristically soft, ‘Well? What do you make of that then?’
‘It was very kind of him to bring her home.’ Florrie’s voice was slightly stiff.
‘Aye, it was.’ Maggie paused, and then flopped down into a chair as she said, ‘I haven’t told her about Rebecca yet, an’ there’s still the other business. Perhaps you were right, an’ we should have written her about that when we found out, but I thought it’d be less of a shock face-to-face.’
Florrie shrugged her thin shoulders before she too sat down, and her voice was quiet when she said, ‘What the medical profession are thinking of to let someone like Matron Cox loose on society again, I don’t know. She should have been locked away for life. All this current talk about rehabilitation and so on; to my mind they just want to make room for all the war casualties that still need help, so anyone with two arms and two legs gets put back into the community. Never mind if they’re a penny short of a shilling, out they go. And after what she tried to do to you and Sarah too.’
‘Maud says her sister, her that was in the same ward as the Matron, is as right as ninepence since she’s been out.’
‘Maud’s sister didn’t try to murder anyone.’
‘No, there is that, lass.’
‘And while we’re on the subject, I for one would feel a lot better if I knew where she was living right now.’
The two women gazed at each other for a few seconds before Maggie gave a huh of a laugh and said, her tone suggesting her words had been said many times before, ‘Don’t worry, lass, don’t worry. I’m not daft, whatever else I am, an’ I’ll keep me eyes skinned.’
‘You say that, but you can’t be on your guard twenty-four hours a day, now then. And don’t forget Maud’s sister also said that all Matron Cox talked about, before she learnt to keep her mouth shut and aim to get out of that place, was getting even with you. She blames you for it all, Maggie, and you’ve got to face that and be cautious.’
‘If by bein’ cautious you mean I’ve got to live lookin’ over me shoulder the rest of me life, it’s not worth it, I’m tellin’ you straight, lass. The unnatural bitch has won then, hasn’t she, whatever way you look at it.’ And then as Florrie went to protest she added, ‘But I’ll watch meself, I will, Florrie. I can promise you that.’
‘You better had.’
‘Although after ten years I doubt she’ll risk bein’ put back in the loony bin by doin’ somethin’ silly. No, old Cox don’t worry me as much as Rebecca to tell you the truth, lass. There’s somethin’ I can’t get to the bottom of there, an’ I just hope Sarah’s able to get her to open up.’
‘If anyone can, Sarah can.’
‘Aye, you’re right there, an’ all.’ Maggie nodded slowly. ‘Well, I’ll tell Sarah what’s what in the mornin’, Florrie, put her in the picture about everythin’, the matron too, an’ we’ll go from there.’
Chapter Eleven
At two o’clock the next afternoon, when Rebecca still hadn’t put in an appearance at Maggie’s house, Sarah decided to go to her, and so it happened she met her friend just as Rebecca was closing the gate to her small front garden behind her.
The afternoon was a dull one, the sky low and heavy and threatening snow, but on her walk through the freezing streets to Rebecca’s neat little house in Bentley Lane, Sarah had barely noticed the cold, anger at what Maggie had told her about Rebecca’s black eye and disquiet about Matron Cox’s release keeping her warm, along with another emotion . . .
Surprisingly, in view of the rickety old put-u-up, Sarah had slept well, but when she had awoken she had been aware that her dreams - or certainly the last one, fragments of which had stayed with her for some time - had been of a nature to make her blush. How could she, she had asked herself during the journey to Rebecca’s house, how
could
she imagine her and the doctor doing such intimate things? She had never dreamt anything like that before, or if she had, she hadn’t remembered it upon awakening. She was still blushing when she caught sight of Rebecca.
There was a moment, when Rebecca turned round and Sarah saw her poor bruised face, that she realized her friend had been crying, and then their arms were round each other and Rebecca was saying, ‘Sarah, oh, Sarah, Sarah . . .’ They clung together for some minutes, and it was Rebecca who drew away, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand as she said, ‘Come on in, the curtains will be flapping like mad.’
Bentley Lane was a prim tidy street and its equally prim tidy inhabitants liked to think they were a cut above the surrounding neighbourhood. Respectability was the god of its residents and it was worshipped daily, and with great devotion. However, Rebecca was no longer overawed, as she had been when she’d first come to live there. The neatly painted front doors and white-laced windows were a façade, and she had come to hate them nearly as much as she feared the man she had married.
‘But what about Willie?’ Sarah caught hold of Rebecca’s hand as she turned to open her gate again, the sight of her friend’s face strengthening her conviction that Rebecca had to think about leaving this brute of a husband. ‘We can go to a café if you’d rather?’
Rebecca’s face had had a frightened look about it, but then, as Sarah looked deep into the dark brown eyes, there was superimposed a look of resignation, and Rebecca let out a long slow breath before saying, ‘No, you come in. We . . . we need to talk, that’s what you’ve come for isn’t it? And we can’t do that properly in a café.’
She turned fully now, opening the small wooden gate which was set in a three-foot brick wall, and walking through into the flagstoned rectangle that made up the nine feet of front garden.
Sarah had only been in Rebecca’s house once since Willie’s mother had died, and that had been a few days after the funeral when she had called round with a box of chocolates and a card for Rebecca’s birthday the next day. Willie had been at home on that occasion, and he had been crude and offensive as he had all but shown her the door. Out of deference to the pain and embarrassment the incident had caused Rebecca, Sarah hadn’t visited Bentley Lane again, meeting Rebecca at Maggie’s, or in a café, or, weather permitting, on the beach or at a park.
Sarah knew only too well that there would be more than one ‘good’ neighbour who would be interested in Willie’s wife’s visitors, and impelled by that thought she glanced about her as she waited for Rebecca to unlock the front door.
As her eyes moved probingly to the houses either side of number four, she could feel eyes burning into the back of her neck, and on turning she noticed the curtains of the house directly opposite were twitching.
‘Mrs Macintyre.’ Rebecca had followed her gaze. ‘She doesn’t miss a thing, the old bat.’
‘Rebecca, I’ve told you, we could go somewhere else.’
‘Aye, we could.’ Rebecca stared across the road for a moment before she turned to Sarah and added, ‘But this is my home and you are my closest friend. What could be more natural than for you to call on me? Come on in, Sarah.’
The door was open now, and Sarah followed Rebecca into the neat, clinically clean house that smelt of disinfectant and furniture polish. She hadn’t noticed this odour when Willie’s mother was alive, she thought now. The house had always been clean, immaculate even, but now it was . . . sanitary. Yes, sanitary. Not like a home at all.
Her thoughts prompted her to say, as Rebecca waved her through to the sitting room, ‘You must spend ages keeping everything so nice.’
The sitting room was as pristine as the hall had been, and not a thing had been changed from her last visit all those months before. The wooden mantelpiece was shining, and two brass candlesticks either end enclosed a host of gleaming brass ornaments below an imposing scriptural text on the wall which read, ‘The fear of the Lord prolongeth days: but the years of the wicked shall be shortened.’ Two other texts, with similarly encouraging verses, adorned the opposite wall, above two straight-backed chairs placed strategically underneath. There was a square of good carpet in the middle of the room around which a plumply upholstered horsehair suite sat, and everything from the two prancing wooden horses and crystal fruit bowl on the polished sideboard, to the dignified aspidistras either side of the lace-curtained window was positioned just so. It was like a small mausoleum.
‘I see you’ve kept all Willie’s mam’s brassware,’ Sarah said uncomfortably as she waved her hand at the mantelpiece. The room was positively depressing. ‘I used to hate cleaning the brass at Mrs Roberts’s, but you obviously don’t mind.’
‘No, I don’t mind.’ Rebecca’s voice was flat after the emotion she had displayed in the street, and now she added, ‘I’d better light the fire, it’s cold in here.’
‘Blow the fire. Rebecca, what’s wrong?’
‘How long have you got?’ Rebecca tried to smile, but it was beyond her, and when Sarah didn’t respond to the flippancy, she said, ‘Sarah, if I could tell anyone it would be you, but I just can’t. If I did . . . well, I don’t want any trouble and you don’t know what Willie’s like.’
She’d got a good idea. ‘Where is he?’
‘At a football match.’
‘Right, so we’ve got plenty of time to talk and that’s exactly what we’re going to do, but not in here. Come on.’ She took Rebecca’s arm and ushered her back into the hall as she said, ‘We’ll talk in the kitchen, I bet it’s nice and warm in there.’ She knew Rebecca’s habit of lighting the big stove in the kitchen first thing and keeping it going all day. When Willie’s mother had been alive, and Sarah had been a frequent visitor to the house, she had often found the two women ensconced in the large stone-floored kitchen that ran across the width of the house, Mrs Dalton gently rocking in her old rocking chair to one side of the fireplace as she watched Rebecca working at something or other at the long wooden kitchen table.
When they entered the room at the end of the hall, Sarah saw it was as immaculate as the rest of the house but warm, more homely, although it didn’t seem quite right without Mrs Dalton in her rocking chair, and Sarah said, ‘Do you miss Willie’s mam at all?’
‘Aye, yes I do, funny that, isn’t it?’ Rebecca took off her coat, and after taking Sarah’s, walked back into the hall to hang them on the carved wooden coatstand as she continued, saying, ‘She used to get on my nerves when she was alive. Oh, we got on all right, we liked each other and that, but she was so bossy it was like being back at Hatfield at times. And she thought she was the cat’s whiskers because her da had been high up at the docks. She was forever going on at Willie, he could never do anything right.’
As Rebecca reappeared she stood quiet for a moment, watching Sarah putting the kettle on the hob, before she added, ‘I used to feel sorry for him at times.’