The Second-last Woman in England (11 page)
She paused on the doorstep, listening. The tinny strains of light music from Mrs Thompson’s wireless drifted up from the kitchen. Harriet pulled the front door closed behind her and went down the steps, her pumps making no sound on the stonework. Resisting the urge to pause again at the gate she lifted the latch and crossed the street. She wanted a cigarette, but one didn’t smoke in the street so she walked, head up—this was, after all, her own street. No traffic came by, no front doors opened or closed. No one appeared at their windows. It was almost eerie. She walked on the opposite side of the street along the length of the garden, the black railings and the privet hedge on her right until she reached the padlocked gate. As she eased the key into the padlock she looked over the gate into the garden beyond. An elderly couple, the Pashkints, émigrés from some extinct Eastern European state, were seated at the bench nearest the gate, both muffled up for a Moscow winter, she with a dusty fur stole, he with a long gabardine coat, sitting side by side, silent and staring straight ahead.
Harriet entered the garden, wondering whether to wish them a good afternoon, but it was simpler not to. She walked soundlessly past them and neither looked up, only the eyes of the dead animal around Mrs Pashkint’s neck followed Harriet’s progress, an animal that had probably been killed in another century.
There were four benches in the garden, one on each side of the square of lawn. Two of the benches were empty, aside from a lone pigeon strutting importantly back and forth. The bench on the far side of the lawn was occupied by a young man in a linen suit and hat. Even from a distance one could see how tall he was. He leaned back, an arm resting along the back of the bench in a posture that seemed to want you to believe he was relaxed and unconcerned, but the arm in its pressed linen sleeve was stiff and awkward, the fingers of the hand beat a rapid tattoo on the spotted wood of the bench.
Her footsteps made a sound on the path and he looked up at once and met her eyes. His was a handsome face, clean-shaven, dark hair cut short, dark eyes and a light tan—a face she had never expected to see again, and for a moment her footsteps faltered. But only for a moment. She smiled. Moisture stood out on his forehead and upper lip and, as though aware of her gaze, he reached for a handkerchief and dabbed at his face. He looked like someone who had been sitting here a while.
‘Well, finally!’ he said by way of greeting, uncrossing his legs and standing up. ‘Do you know how long I’ve been sitting here?’
They were not the words she had anticipated and Harriet felt her smile dissolve into a frown but she embraced him anyway, clinging to him, her fingers digging into his arm, then abruptly releasing him.
‘I’ve no idea, Freddie. I didn’t tell you to come at a certain time. In fact, as I recall, I didn’t tell you to come at all.’
‘One o’clock I got here, one o’-bloody-clock!’ he complained, as though she hadn’t spoken. ‘
And
I was here all yesterday afternoon too. I’ve had to suffer the gaze of every child and old biddy in the district, not to mention the faecal matter of every pigeon in this part of London. It’s a wonder I haven’t been moved on or arrested. One charming young lady took her children away, obviously under the impression I was just waiting for the opportunity to expose some part of my anatomy to her young charges. Really, I’m quite fed up.’
‘Things came up expectedly yesterday. And you did just ring up out of the blue! I warned you it would be difficult—’
She could hear her voicing rising and she made herself stop. She would not cry; she had told herself she would not cry. Freddie didn’t need tears. What did he need? She couldn’t imagine. She took a deep breath.
‘—and today we went out to lunch and, really, what do you expect me to do? Invite you along?’
She sat down beside him and as Freddie made no reply to this they sat in silence and stared at the pigeons. She laughed suddenly. ‘Do you know, you sound just like Julius. That same petulant schoolboy manner.’
Freddie stirred and she regretted at once saying that.
‘Well, I wouldn’t know, would I? Haven’t seen the little blighter since he was five.’
They fell silent again.
It’s no good blaming me, Harriet thought bitterly. Wasn’t she taking enough of a risk just being seen out with him? She allowed herself a quick glance to left and right, but cautiously, not wanting Freddie to notice. At the far end of the garden the Pashkints hadn’t stirred. Just then Mr Pashkint lifted a mournful head and said something, holding his right hand out before him, palm upwards in a gesture that said, What can you do?
What
could
you do? Freddie was back. He had rung up out of the blue on Thursday. They had spoken briefly on the telephone, but nothing had been resolved. They had spoken about the past. And what
could
be resolved? Freddie couldn’t stay here.
‘You didn’t tell Cecil?’ he said suddenly and Harriet shook her head irritably.
‘No, of course not. Why on earth do you think I would tell him? Besides, there’s something going on with him. A police matter—’
Beside her Freddie stiffened.
‘No, it’s something at work. One of Cecil’s employees stole from the company and disappeared. That’s all he’s concerned about at the moment.’
Freddie settled back down again. ‘But will you tell him?’
‘I don’t see what can be gained from it.’
Freddie almost seemed to want Cecil to know he was back, as though he wanted to force things. But he didn’t know Cecil, he didn’t know what Cecil might do. Harriet did. And because of that she wasn’t going to let Freddie coerce her into anything.
‘Why
did
you come back, Freddie?’ she demanded and even though she could see the sudden hurt in his eyes she couldn’t hold back. After all, it was his fault, all this, not hers. He had brought it on himself. ‘It’s not that I don’t want to see you, Lord knows, but for God’s sake why didn’t you stay in Canada? You had a life there. You said you had a new life.’
Freddie said nothing. He didn’t have to. He reached over and took her hand and held it and they sat like that for a long time until Mr Pashkint had stood up and offered his wife his arm and tottered back with her through the gate and away.
Anne was proving to a be something of a handful.
It was Monday morning. The smell of bacon wafted up from below and Mr Wallis could be heard, distantly and petulantly, complaining that there was no newspaper.
The Times
came some mornings but not others—for no adequately explained reason. Julius was up, Jean could hear him rummaging about in his room, flinging open doors and banging them shut again. But from Anne’s room there was silence.
‘Good morning, Anne. Oh, you still in bed? Come on, then, let’s get your things together for school.’
Jean came into the room, pulled Anne’s school uniform out of the wardrobe and handed it to her. Anne reached out to take it then withdrew her hand at the last minute so that the tunic fell to the floor.
‘I don’t want you going through my wardrobe, Nanny,’ she announced getting out of bed and flouncing over to the window.
Jean looked down at the uniform where it lay on the floor.
‘Oh. So how am I to get you ready for school then, Anne?’
‘I can get my self ready.’
‘Suit yourself. I’ll go and see if breakfast’s ready. Don’t forget your hat,’ and Jean indicated the St Lydwina’s straw hat hanging on its hook on the door. It was the third such hat Anne had had this month. The previous two were now at the bottom of the school pond and Anne was on double report with her teacher.
‘I did it on purpose,’ Anne had declared after the first incident. ‘My friend Patricia Pritchard said I was stupid because I’d done it while everyone was watching. She said they can’t get you if you do it when no one’s looking. But what’s the point of doing it when no one’s looking?
She’s
the one who’s stupid.’
What
was
the point of doing anything if no one was looking? That appeared to be Anne’s motto.
Downstairs
The Times
had made a miraculous, if tardy, appearance and Mr Wallis could now be heard exclaiming indignantly from the breakfast room. As Jean passed the door, Mrs Wallis looked up from her cup of coffee and saw her.
‘Nanny, where’s Anne got to? Her father will be leaving for the office soon and she must come and say goodbye.’
‘She’s coming down directly,’ replied Jean, though Anne had indicated no intention to do any such thing. It was strange, this insistence on saying goodbye to their father each morning, the three of them—Anne, Julius and Mrs Wallis—lined up at the front door as though Mr Wallis were going off to war rather than simply catching the Piccadilly Line to Holborn.
‘Oh. Goodfellow’s resigned,’ she heard Mr Wallis remark. ‘Harriet, your old school chum Daphne’s husband has resigned from the Ministry, ‘… in order’, it says here, ‘to concentrate on his electorate’. Wonder what that means?’
‘Anne, come and say goodbye to your father,’ Jean called up the stairs and, getting no response, went back up to the girl’s room.
‘I said goodbye to him last night,’ replied Anne and she got out of bed and wandered over to the window. ‘Father prefers it that way.’
There was silence while Jean attempted to make sense of this. She decided Anne was just being difficult.
Downstairs the front door slammed shut and a moment later they could hear the smart click of Mr Wallis’s shoes on the front steps.
‘Anyway, it’s too late, Daddy’s already left,’ Anne pointed out, gazing down at the street below where Mr Wallis’s rapidly retreating figure could be seen.
‘Well. It’s high time we got ready for school,’ Jean countered, feeling that she had somehow been out-played by the child.
‘We? Oh, are you coming too, Nanny?’ Before Jean could reply to this Anne returned to her bed and sat down heavily, placing a weak hand to her forehead. ‘Anyway, I shan’t be able to go to school today, I’m afraid, as I don’t feel well.’
Jean was about to reply that Anne was clearly well enough to get up out of bed and go and stand by the window, but stopped herself. What would a nanny do in such a situation?
‘Oh poor lamb,’ she said. ‘Yes, you do look a little poorly. Let me get you into bed,’ and Anne submitted to having her forehead felt and a thermometer placed beneath her tongue, lying perfectly still until Jean had removed the thermometer and studied it for a while with narrowed eyes, holding it up to the light and twisting it this way and that.
‘Oh. Can’t you read a thermometer, Nanny?’ asked Anne, sounding less wan than she had a few moments ago.
In the end, Jean went to fetch Mrs Wallis.
Mrs Wallis, it appeared, was about to go out. She was standing in the hallway pulling on her gloves and she looked blankly at Jean as Jean related the news of her daughter’s illness to her. Mrs Wallis picked up a spotted black and white silk head scarf and paused before the hallway mirror.
‘And in your opinion, Nanny, is it real or is she faking?’ she enquired.
Jean was a little nonplussed.
‘I took her temperature,’ she replied carefully. ‘But these things, well, you never can tell—’
‘Yes, quite.’ Mrs Wallis replaced the scarf on the hall table and followed her. Upstairs, Anne lay curled up on her bed.
‘Anne, dear, what is it?’
‘Don’t feel well,’ Anne replied feebly.
‘Well, is it your head? Your throat? Your stomach?’
‘My … head,’ Anne replied after a moment’s consideration and she delicately touched that afflicted part of her anatomy.
Mrs Wallis nodded as though she had expected this.
‘I suppose you had better stay home from school.’ The patient nodded meekly at this suggestion. ‘Nanny, please telephone the school and notify them that Anne will not be in today.’ And with that she turned and left the room.
Jean followed her out and back down the stairs.
‘Are you going out, then, Mrs Wallis?’
‘Yes. I have an appointment,’ she replied, clearly surprised at the question.
‘Dr Rolley’s number is in the address book downstairs on the telephone table should Anne’s medical condition … deteriorate.’
Mrs Wallis had now reached the hall mirror. Jean watched from her position on the stairs as she tied the scarf over her head and reached for a coat. ‘And of course Mr Wallis’s number at the office is in there too, should there be any kind of emergency,’ and she put on the coat, picked up her handbag and left.
Jean went back upstairs and found Anne standing by the window, absorbed by something down below. She spun around as Jean came in, her eyes flew wide open and she raced back over to her bed.
‘I think it’s rude to come into a person’s room without knocking first,’ she declared from the safety of her bed.
‘Do you? And I think it’s rude to lie about being ill,’ and Jean marched over to the window.
‘I’m
not
lying! I
am
ill!’ Anne insisted, curling into a ball on her bed.
Outside, Mrs Wallis could be seen walking purposefully along the opposite pavement. She wore gloves and a long raincoat and her face was almost hidden behind a pair of enormous sunglasses. She walked with her head down and her arms folded tightly over her chest. She stopped at the locked gate to the garden, pulled a key from her pocket and let herself in, locking the gate behind her and for a moment she was obscured by the tall privet hedges.
Jean’s eyes swept ahead and from her viewpoint, two storeys up, the garden was spread out before her. An elderly lady sat on a bench on the far side, staring gloomily at a small white dog that sniffed at one of the rose beds. A young man in a hat and a dark grey raincoat sat on another bench opposite them. Mrs Wallis came into view and made straight for the young man who stood up and went to her. They embraced briefly and sat down side by side on the bench. They too sat staring gloomily at the same white dog that a moment earlier had preoccupied the elderly lady.
Jean turned away and stared at Anne, who returned her gaze wordlessly.
‘Anne, get back into bed now,’ Jean said.