Dead to Me (7 page)

‘Mother sits around all day sighing and talking about all she’s lost, the chandeliers, the velvet curtains, our housekeeper, Georgian silver. Aunt Hazel shrieks at her to shut up and tells her to get down to the butcher’s and get a bit of scrag end for our tea.’

Verity had been deliberately vague about the reasons why they came to live with Aunt Hazel. She had said her father skipped off, leaving them in financial difficulties, but not that he was on the run for embezzlement. She had already made her mind up that, if this should come out, she’d pretend she hadn’t known. Police had called at Aunt Hazel’s twice since they had moved there, but so far they hadn’t caught Archie. The last time they came, the police said they believed he had left the country, and Mother said she thought he’d only come back to Daleham Gardens the night his crime was discovered in order to get his passport.

Late one evening Verity was in bed but she’d left the
door open, because it was a hot night, and she heard her aunt and her mother talking about the missing money.

‘I don’t think he was the kind to hoard cash,’ Cynthia said. ‘He’d be too frightened of me finding it. So he must have been putting it into another bank account, perhaps in a false name, because it certainly wasn’t in our household account.’

‘I told you as soon as you met him he was tricky, but you scoffed at that,’ Aunt Hazel said, and Verity could imagine her aunt crossing her arms across her chest and doing the sucking lemons thing she did with her mouth in disapproval. ‘But then you were a tricky customer yourself, always looking for the main chance. You two deserved one another.’

‘How can you say such a thing about me? It isn’t true,’ Cynthia bleated.

‘Come off it, Cynny, you were scheming at the age of five, making out you were practically royalty. Anyway, I reckon Archie had been planning for a long time to take this money and run out on you,’ she went on, her voice sharp with malice. ‘I bet he had some fast floozy in tow too.’

Cynthia burst into tears at that and Hazel went on to tell her she’d got to pull herself together, get a job and rebuild her life.

Verity thought her aunt talked a lot of sense, even if she was mean and grumpy. She said if Cynthia was bringing in a wage they could get decorators in to smarten the house up, and a new carpet on the stairs. She pointed out that she hadn’t had any housekeeping money from her for two weeks now, so Cynthia had better sell something if she wanted to stay.

In October Verity would be fourteen, and her aunt had said Chiesmans would give her a trial day with a view to taking her on. They had made an appointment for Cynthia to be interviewed too but she hadn’t turned up for it, claiming she was ill. Verity could sense her aunt’s utter frustration; she’d pointed out that when winter came, her sister had better not think she was going to sit by a blazing fire all day, as she wouldn’t allow it to be lit until she got home from work.

Verity didn’t understand her mother at all. If she wanted to get on her sister’s good side, all she needed to do was show her appreciation at being taken in by making Hazel more comfortable. Cooking, cleaning and doing the washing was all that was needed, and surely Mother was bored stiff doing nothing all day.

Hazel had screamed out the other day that Cynthia was a parasite – and it was true, she was. Verity had located a pawnshop in Lewisham and suggested it was time to go and sell something else to give Hazel some money, but so far her mother had refused. She still squeezed past the big trunk of her clothes in the bedroom, as if believing that any day someone would rescue her from this shabby little house and put her back in the surroundings where she felt she belonged.

Verity had told Susan a little of the situation, though in a comic manner, with her spoiled mother and mean-spirited aunt squabbling all the time. But it was hard to make jokes about it when the reality of it was so bleak. Verity was quite sure Susan didn’t go home from school to clear the unwashed breakfast things still in the sink, to prepare the dinner for her family and to clean the house. But Verity felt she had to, for fear Hazel would throw them out.

Hazel got nastier and nastier about keeping them for nothing – to the point when, finally, she bought just one chop for herself for Sunday dinner and nothing for her sister or Verity.

‘I am not feeding you for nothing any more,’ she spat at her sister. ‘What makes you think you have the right to live off me? Have you no pride? And what sort of message is this giving Verity? Is she going to grow up thinking the world owes her a living too?’

The smell of Aunt Hazel’s pork chop cooking made Verity’s stomach contract with hunger, but all there was left in the cupboard was one tin of sardines. She spread them on four slices of toast to share with her mother, and as they ate them Verity insisted that they sell something.

‘We can take the silver pheasant and the Bond Street cutlery up to Blackheath to a shop I’ve seen,’ she said. ‘It isn’t a pawnshop, but they buy silver – it says in the window. I think we’ll get a better price there. We can go when I get home from school.’

‘I can’t possibly go,’ her mother said stubbornly. ‘You will have to do it.’

Verity tried pleading that she was too scared to go alone. When that didn’t work, she refused to go.

‘Then we won’t eat,’ her mother replied, without even looking at her. ‘Miss Parsons told you what to do. I can’t see why you are being such a baby about it.’

‘Why can’t you behave like a grown-up?’ Verity retorted. ‘You are supposed to look after me, not the other way round.’

But her mother didn’t relent. She just sat there at the kitchen table staring into space, oblivious to her daughter
crying, or the fact that there was nothing left in the house to eat.

That evening Verity went up to her room and lay on her bed, beyond crying now but wishing she had someone she could confide in. She thought about Ruby a great deal and wondered if Maggie Tyrell had written to her and passed on Verity’s new address. Maybe she should go back to Maggie and ask? She thought she ought to write to Miss Parsons too. But with nothing cheerful to tell her, was there any point?

The next morning, as Verity was leaving the house for school, Aunt Hazel thrust a package at her. ‘Take this sandwich for your lunch. I kept a few bits in my room,’ she said by way of explaining where it had come from. ‘I know you don’t want to take the things to sell. But I’ll get some time off work, if you like, and come with you.’

Verity was astounded that her aunt understood how she felt, and that she’d made her a sandwich. She had already decided she had to go to the shop alone anyway. But it was good to know she had an ally; that made her feel much braver.

‘No, you don’t need to take time off. I can do it,’ she said.

‘You are a good girl,’ Aunt Hazel said. ‘I wish I could say you are a credit to your mother. But however you managed to turn out so well, it had nothing to do with her. You can put the things in that wheeled shopping basket of mine, they are far too heavy to carry all the way to Blackheath.’

When Verity got home from school the house was silent, her mother was fast asleep on her bed. It was tempting to wake her up and try to plead for her to come to the jewellery shop, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to persuade her. As she stood there looking down on her sleeping mother, she observed how Cynthia had stopped making an effort with her appearance.

Her hair resembled an untidy bird’s nest, hastily put up without taking any care. She had a food stain on the front of her sleeveless striped cotton dress and her bare legs looked mottled, like hairy sausages. Even without getting close she smelled of stale sweat, and yet this was a woman who had once been very particular.

To see her like this was more alarming than her refusal to help sell some goods, or her not trying to get a job, as it suggested she’d given up all together. Verity wished there was something she could do or say that might give her mother the will to start again.

But getting some money was the priority for now, so Verity dug out the wheeled shopping basket from under the stairs and loaded the silver pheasant and the cutlery set into it. She stuffed a couple of towels down around them so they wouldn’t rattle and couldn’t be seen.

As she walked up Lee Park to Blackheath, the hill seemed extra steep and it was so hot she felt sick. She knew it was mostly nerves, not just from the heat but because she’d passed men hanging around in groups on Lee High Road, and she was afraid they might suspect she had something valuable with her and come after her. Back in Hampstead she hadn’t really been aware of the Depression, which was mentioned on the news so often, but here
in Lewisham it was very obvious with so many men out of work. She guessed their wives and families often went hungry.

She had gone to bed hungry last night for the first time ever, and it was horrible. It had made her think of Ruby and how hungry she’d been the day she bought her the pie. She could understand now why Ruby had to steal – in fact, if she was really hungry and didn’t have these things to sell, she would too.

She paused for breath at the top of Lee Park. It was so hot the road was shimmering like a mirage, and she was perspiring. She mopped her face with her handkerchief and told herself if she could get the eighty pounds Aunt Hazel had suggested for the silver, she would buy an ice cream to eat on the way back.

Rosen’s, the jewellery shop, was halfway up Tranquil Vale, and her heart was pounding with fright as she approached it.

She took a deep breath outside, mentally pulled herself up straight and opened the shop door. A bell tinkled and a small, bald man in gold-rimmed spectacles smiled at her.

‘Good day, miss,’ he said. ‘What can I do for you?’

Verity closed the door behind her, and took another deep breath before replying. ‘Would you like to look at this silver and give me a good price for it?’ she blurted out.

She lifted the silver pheasant out first and put it on his counter, then the wooden box of cutlery. ‘My father died suddenly a few months ago,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid he left me and Mother in a real pickle financially. We’ve had to move to a rented flat here and Mother isn’t very well. I think it’s the shock affecting her.’

‘How sad,’ the gentleman said. ‘But how fortunate for your mother that she has such a sensible, brave daughter. Did she say how much she was hoping to get for these goods?’

‘A hundred and thirty pounds,’ Verity said, remembering what Miss Parsons had said about asking for more. ‘The cutlery was a wedding present and it came from a store in Bond Street.’

‘So I see,’ he said, taking a knife from the box and looking at it closely. He picked up several different pieces and checked them over. Then he picked up the pheasant and, turning it upside down, examined the hallmark.

‘How old is the pheasant?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know exactly, but it belonged to my great-grandparents. They were rather grand and lived in Shropshire. Father said he used to love visiting them because they had so many treasures like that. He would hate us selling it, but we have no choice.’

The pheasant’s origins were true, but she made up the bit about her father loving to visit his grandparents purely because it sounded nice. In fact her father had said they were old skinflints, and he hated going there.

‘I can’t give you that much, my dear,’ Mr Rosen said. ‘We are in the middle of a depression, as I’m sure you know, and people are not buying silver. The most I could give you is seventy-five.’

Verity looked right at the man and let her eyes fill with tears. ‘Please make it ninety,’ she pleaded. ‘We still have to pay for father’s headstone.’

Mr Rosen shook his head. ‘I cannot, my dear. It might be months, even years, before I can sell these things. But I feel for you, so I’ll go to eighty.’

‘Eighty-five, or I’ll have to try somewhere else,’ she said, picking up the pheasant as if to put it back in the basket.

There was a lengthy pause, and Verity held her breath. ‘Fair enough, eighty-five,’ he agreed. ‘You drive a hard bargain.’

After he’d counted out the notes for her, Verity asked him to put them in an envelope. She dropped the envelope down the front of her gymslip, and tightened the sash around her waist so it couldn’t fall out.

‘Is that safe?’ Mr Rosen asked, frowning at her.

‘Safe as houses,’ she said, patting it. She wanted to smile, to sing and see him smile too, but she reminded herself she was supposed to be upset about her father’s death. ‘Thank you, sir. You’ve been very kind.’

It was only as she walked back down Tranquil Vale pulling the empty wheeled basket behind her, her other hand over the package in her gymslip, that she remembered about the ice cream. She couldn’t take any money out now – not without attracting unwanted attention – and anyway, any shopkeeper would be reluctant to change a five-pound note for just a penny ice cream.

But it didn’t matter so much now. Aunt Hazel would be happy, and maybe even her mother might raise a smile or two.

Archie
opened the window of the hotel in Rouen where he’d been staying for the past week. With a length of rope tied around the handle of his suitcase, he carefully lowered it down behind a bush in the garden. He would leave the hotel within the hour, as if just popping out on business, but then double back to collect his case and avoid paying his substantial bill.

He had caught a ferry from Dover to Calais early in the morning the day after he’d run from Daleham Gardens. With a sizable lump on his head inflicted by that witch Miss Parsons, he was feeling none too clever, but he knew if he stayed in England he’d soon be caught.

Since then he’d been doing what he was best at, gambling and finding gullible women to support him until his mythical ship came in. He liked French women – they were better dressed and sexier than English women – and as his French wasn’t very good, he had the perfect excuse for not telling them anything much about himself.

Archie was off now to see Françoise Albin, a rich widow in her early fifties. He’d met her in the Church of Saint-Maclou where she had been arranging flowers. He often dropped into churches, because he’d found them to be a veritable hive of lonely and grieving women. He only had to kneel for a while, pretending to be deep in prayer, then light a candle, pausing as if thinking about the person
the candle was for, and before long a woman would approach him. To be fair to them, they usually offered genuine sympathy, but it was so easy to turn that into something more useful to him. He told different stories each time: sometimes a wife who had died after a long illness, a child who had met a tragic death, or a sibling snatched from him too soon.

So many of these lonely women had been wishing for love and passion, and who was he to deprive them of that? He could fake love and romance, as long as they gave him what he wanted: food and shelter. And passion was no problem, he could always manage that. He usually sensed when he needed to end it and move on, but by then he’d almost always discovered where the women kept their cash or valuable jewellery, and he took that with him.

The pretty dark-haired receptionist smiled at him as he left the hotel. They knew him here as David White, a businessman from the north of England, and Françoise knew him as Peter Lane. That was the only drawback to his new life in France, constantly changing his name. Fortunately, the French police didn’t appear to liaise with their colleagues in other towns. Or maybe it was that his victims were too embarrassed to admit how foolish and gullible they’d been.

After Archie had rescued his suitcase, he made his way to Rouen Station, but as he walked, his thoughts turned to Cynthia. He wished he’d left her years ago; her constant social climbing, her pretence at being out of the top drawer, had been so wearing. But to give her some credit, she was the only woman who had succeeded in duping him. Not only making him believe she had illustrious relatives, but also passing off that brat Verity as his.

He wondered if Cynthia still had enough of her old spirit to convince some other man that she could enhance his life? Somehow he doubted it. He felt it was far more likely she’d had to slink back to Lewisham and persuade that old maid of a sister to take her in. She would be savage about that.

‘Wilby!’ Ruby said one afternoon after coming in from a walk. ‘I really love it here.’

Wilby was busy making some soup for supper. But on hearing such an unexpected statement from Ruby, she abandoned the vegetables she was cutting up and went to the girl to embrace her.

‘You’ve just made my day,’ she said, kissing Ruby’s cheek. ‘But what, pray, brought on such a profound thought?’

Ruby stepped back from Wilby and grinned. ‘I just went down the cliff walk to Oddicombe Beach, the sea was so shiny and clean; I had a paddle and I suddenly realized how happy I was. I think it’s the happiest I’ve ever been. I don’t ever want to go back to London, and I’m sorry I was nasty to you at first.’

‘I’ll tell you a secret,’ Wilby said, patting her nose for secrecy. ‘I don’t ever want you to go away. I want you to continue with your lessons so your reading and sums come up to scratch, then find a good job. In the fullness of time I hope you’ll meet a nice young man and get married. Maybe one day I’ll even be holding your baby in my arms.’

‘That sounds lovely,’ Ruby smiled. ‘You’ve done a good job with me. I bet my friend Verity would be amazed to see me now. She’s posh, like you. But I don’t know how to get in touch with her, so I don’t expect I’ll ever see her again.’

‘That is a shame,’ Wilby said. ‘But you never know, Verity might be missing you too and she’ll think of some way of finding you.’

Aunt Hazel and Verity were sitting together on a dilapidated bench in the tiny back garden having a cup of tea, because it was cooler than in the house. Despite the lack of care, the garden looked quite pretty, with masses of tall white daisies blocking out the weeds, and a pink rambling rose had scrambled along the broken fence.

Hazel normally worked on a Saturday, but she’d been given this one off as things were quiet in the soft-furnishing department.

‘I’m worried about Mother,’ Verity suddenly blurted out.

It was five days since she’d sold the silver in Blackheath and although her mother had brightened a little that night, and suggested they all had fish and chips from the shop in Lee High Road, by the next day she had sunk back into her previous apathy. Today, like most days, she hadn’t even got out of bed, and it was nearly noon.

She’d given Verity a whole pound for selling the silver, and if it wasn’t for the anxiety about her mother she would have been in Lewisham right now to see what she could buy with it. She had thought of a length of dress fabric from the market, or new shoes, but she didn’t feel able to be so frivolous – not when her mother was seemingly unaware of anything going on around her.

‘I have to admit I’m worried too,’ Hazel nodded. ‘She ought to have come out of it by now, but she won’t go to the doctor and get a tonic, all she does is lie on her bed.’

‘She doesn’t seem to care about anything,’ Verity said. ‘I don’t think she’d eat, if we didn’t put it in front of her.’

Aunt Hazel put her hand over Verity’s, an unexpectedly warm gesture of affection. ‘You mustn’t worry yourself, she’s big enough and ugly enough to sort herself out. If she doesn’t, she’ll end up in the asylum. I told her that last night.’

‘Oh, Auntie!’ Verity said reprovingly. ‘Telling her something like that won’t help.’

Hazel shrugged. ‘She always was selfish. Demanding this and that from our parents, thinking she was special. They should’ve slapped her down, the way they did to me when I stepped out of line, but they let her get away with it. Always on about how pretty she was. As if that was any credit to her! You get the looks you’re given, it’s just the luck of the draw.’

Verity suspected that, although her aunt was being harsh towards her sister, she actually cared more than she let on. ‘Should we talk to the doctor and get him to come and visit her?’

Hazel pondered that for a moment or two. ‘Yes, I think that might be a good plan. We could go together on Monday evening. I’ll go straight from work, and you could meet me there at five thirty.’

‘I bet you wish you’d never agreed to take us in,’ Verity said glumly.

‘Sometimes,’ Hazel agreed. ‘But I haven’t got any issues with you, dear. I know I’m a grumpy old spinster, and this house isn’t what you are used to, but you’ve made the best of it. I like that about you.’

That praise from her aunt meant a lot to Verity.

Verity went off to meet Susan that afternoon feeling happier. There were only two more weeks’ holiday left before she went back to school, and as she walked up Lee High Road towards the library she was thinking of her fourteenth birthday in October. She could officially leave school then, although her teacher had said it would be folly to leave before she did her school certificate. Miss Ranger said she could arrange for her to do it in November or December.

She was happy to stay on until the new year. She thought it likely she could work on Saturdays at Chiesmans up till Christmas, and if they liked her they might offer her a permanent job. But she’d rather do some kind of office work, really – at least with that there was a chance of advancement eventually.

Susan was waiting at the door of the library. ‘Don’t let’s go in today,’ she said. ‘It’s too nice to be indoors.’

Verity didn’t argue. She wanted to talk, and they couldn’t do that in the library.

The park was very busy with cricket games, little children on tricycles or pushing doll’s prams, and lots of families picnicking on the grass. The girls went down by the duck pond and found a bench to sit on.

‘I was thinking how close we are getting to leaving school and going to work,’ Verity said. ‘I’m not sure whether to be excited or scared.’

‘Well, I’ll have a year of secretarial college first, bored out of my mind,’ Susan said, taking a bag of sherbet lemons from her pocket and offering Verity one. ‘What are you going to do?’

‘I don’t really know,’ Verity said as she took a sweet,
wincing at the sharp taste. ‘You can’t train for things like nursing until you are at least seventeen. My aunt wants me to work in Chiesmans like her, but I’m not mad about the idea.’

‘Chiesmans is nice,’ Susan said thoughtfully. ‘I’d sooner be there than go to college. I don’t want to learn typing and shorthand to be a secretary; if you work in a shop, you get to talk to people. I bet the time flies when the shop is busy. Imagine just typing letters all day! How boring will that be?’

‘It sounds very sophisticated to me,’ Verity said with a giggle.

‘Well, if you like the idea, you could try to get an office junior position,’ Susan suggested. ‘That way you don’t have to work on Saturdays, and you could even learn to type at night school.’

‘The world is our oyster, really,’ Verity said. ‘Who knows? We might get snapped up by a couple of rich and handsome bachelors before we’ve even learned to type our names. Then we’d live the life of Riley, whoever he is!’ She burst into laughter and Susan joined in.

‘My parents would go mad if I even considered marrying before I was twenty-one,’ Susan managed to get out through her laughter. ‘They believe girls should have proper careers and not think a man is going to sweep them off to a life of idleness.’

‘From what I see of married life around where I live, marriage isn’t idleness but slavery,’ Verity said. ‘I heard someone being slapped around the other night, the woman was screaming.’

‘Oh gosh, how awful! The way my folks are with one
another makes me think marriage will be wonderful,’ Susan said. ‘But then they were nearly thirty when they tied the knot. Mum said it takes that long to find out who and what you really want.’

Verity nodded. That made real sense to her. What could be worse than waking up one day to find she’d married someone like her father?

They chatted for some little time, and Susan confided that she’d just started menstruating.

‘What about you?’ she asked.

Verity shook her head, embarrassed to be asked. She was already worried that she hadn’t, and that her breasts hadn’t started to grow, as Susan’s had.

‘Mum said it’s a good thing, because it means I’m becoming a woman,’ Susan said. ‘But if the tummy ache you get is a regular thing, I’d rather be a man.’

There was so much Verity wanted to ask, but she couldn’t bring herself to. For some strange reason she changed the subject entirely, and told her friend about Ruby.

If Susan thought it was odd, she didn’t say so. ‘Ruby sounds like fun, but I expect my parents would have a fit if I wanted to be friends with someone like her,’ she said.

‘So would mine, but I don’t care what Mum thinks, she lies around all day feeling sorry for herself, letting Aunt Hazel keep her. Ruby only got into trouble because her mum was useless, and she had to get the food and pay the rent.’

Almost as soon as she’d spoken about her mother, Verity wished she hadn’t. But she knew by the look on Susan’s face she wasn’t going to be fobbed off.

‘I knew there was something troubling you,’ Susan said, her tone gentle and sympathetic. ‘Tell me, Verity, a trouble shared and all that. I won’t breathe a word to anyone else, if that’s what you are worried about.’

Verity needed to confide in someone, and she trusted Susan to keep it to herself. So, taking a deep breath, she told her the whole story, only omitting what her father had done to her.

‘The police haven’t found him yet,’ she finished up, tears rolling down her cheeks. ‘I think he must have left the country, but it was awful having to leave our lovely home. Aunt Hazel’s house is pretty grim, but it was generous of her to take us in and keep us. Mum’s gone really doolally now, and I despair.’

Susan put her arm around her friend. ‘You poor thing,’ she said. ‘I sensed there was something bad, you often look like you’ve got the worries of the world on your shoulders. I thought it was a bit funny, you making friends with Ruby. Was that something to do with it?’

‘Not really, I didn’t know what Dad had done then. But I wasn’t allowed to go out with girls from school, so I guess I was lonely.’

Susan didn’t speak again for a little while, as if she was thinking it over. ‘You don’t sound like you care too much about your dad,’ she suddenly blurted out. ‘I know it’s none of my business, but was he mean to you? Only just before the end of term, when we were playing leapfrog, your school blouse got all rucked up and I saw some marks on your back.’

Verity felt a little sick, she had never wanted to tell anyone about that. ‘Yes, he was, but please forget you ever saw
anything. I hate him, I don’t want to talk about him ever again.’

Susan put her hand over Verity’s. ‘I’m sorry for prying. You’ve been through enough without me poking my nose in. But sometimes it’s good to confide in someone, or so my mother is always saying. Nothing bad has ever happened to me, so I wouldn’t know.’

‘I hope it never does, because you’re so nice.’ Verity squeezed her friend’s hand. ‘Aunt Hazel and I are going to talk to the doctor on Monday about my mother. I’m hoping he can give her something to bring her out of this place she’s slipping into. If he can’t, she might end up in –’ She broke off, unable to say the word.