When she’d poured the tea, she found her mother lying back in the chair, arms folded tightly across her, as if she was cold, and her eyes closed. She sat like this a lot now. Alice leaned closer, wondering if she was asleep. Her mother had lovely thick pale hair which had been cut in a fashionable pageboy, though it had grown long and straggly now. She had been so pretty, with her sweet, feminine face and laughing blue eyes, when her friends came round to drink tea in the afternoons. And Daddy’s parties – Alice always associated them with her mother’s perfume, which had smelt of flowers. All she smelt of now was cheap soap. She’d had a pink silk dress which fitted her slim figure beautifully and brushed the carpet as she walked. Alice had seen her hurl it, screaming and crying, onto a pile of things to be sold, before they left the house.
‘I won’t be needing this any more!’ she cried. ‘Since I shan’t have any life any more!’ Then there’d been a great, agonized scream, ‘You bastard! You rotten, deceiving bastard!’
‘Mummy—’
Alice didn’t want to touch her.
The blue eyes opened, with dull, vacant expression.
‘I made your tea.’
‘Oh. Thank you.’ She hauled herself up in the chair as if she had no energy, and took the cup.
‘Why’re you in your vest?’
‘I washed my blouse.’
‘Oh.’
Alice stood by the chair. She was always on tenterhooks with Mummy now, never sure of her mood. Alice was hungry. Should she ask if she should go along to the shops? Was there anything for tea? Mummy didn’t leave the house. Not ever. She’d have to put her one other blouse on to go out.
Her mother drank half the tea, then sat back with the cup balanced in her lap. She closed her eyes. Alice didn’t know what to do. But then she heard a sound, someone knocking on the front door!
‘Go and get rid of them, Alice.’ Louise Wilson gave a bitter little laugh. ‘We aren’t buying anything at the door.’
Alice crept through to the front and went to the window to see who was knocking. Screwing up her eyes, she saw a woman on the doorstep. Her heart gave a jolt before starting to pound madly. It was Miss Purdy! She could see the blurred blue of her dress. What on earth was Miss Purdy doing here? And whatever was she going to do?
Paralysed, Alice stood very still, praying Miss Purdy couldn’t see her and that she’d just think no one was in and go away. Part of her longed to ask Miss Purdy in, to say to her: please help me, just help me, I don’t know what to do. But she just couldn’t open the door. Mummy would have a fit! Not knowing what else to do, Alice tiptoed away to the back room again.
‘Who was it?’ her mother asked, indifferently.
‘No one,’ Alice was saying, when the knocking came again.
‘Oh, for goodness sake, go and tell them we don’t want anything.’
Alice’s body seemed to turn to water. She couldn’t argue with Mummy. Full of dread, she went and opened the door.
‘Hello, Alice!’ She could make out Miss Purdy’s lovely smile. ‘I’ve just come to have a word with your mother. May I come in, please?’
Alice had only opened the door wide enough to poke her head round. She squirmed. How could she lie to Miss Purdy and refuse to let her in? Helplessly she stood aside.
‘She’s in the back,’ she whispered.
Alice saw her mother look round as they walked in. At the sight of a stranger in the house she sat bolt upright.
‘Who’s this?’ she demanded sharply.
‘Mummy,’ Alice pleaded. ‘This is Miss Purdy, my teacher.’
‘It’s very nice to meet you,’ Miss Purdy said, with her hand held out. Mrs Wilson automatically responded, and for a second Alice thought it might be all right after all. ‘I’m sorry to disturb you. Only I’m a bit worried about Alice. I wrote to you a little while ago about her eyes . . .’
But Alice saw her mother withdraw, fold her arms across her body and lower her head.
‘Get out of my house,’ she hissed. To Alice’s horror she started to rock back and forth. ‘Just go away. I never asked you to come here. I don’t want anyone here. Leave us alone!’
Miss Purdy turned to Alice, utterly bewildered, but she couldn’t look up. She was so mortified she just stared at the floor, tears welling.
‘I’m very sorry,’ Miss Purdy said wretchedly. ‘I didn’t mean to . . . to offend you in any way. I’d better go.’
‘Yes – go!’ Alice’s mother screamed suddenly, then broke into sobs.
Alice followed Miss Purdy to the door, her throat closed with emotion.
‘I’m sorry, Alice. I didn’t want to make things more difficult,’ Miss Purdy said, on the step. She looked upset. They could hear Mrs Wilson sobbing in the back room. ‘I’ll see you at school tomorrow.’
Alice couldn’t say anything. Through her tears, she saw the blurred figure of her beloved teacher turn away and walk off along Franklin Street. She got further and further along until she was a small, blue blob, and her disappearing felt like the most desolate thing Alice had ever seen. She couldn’t bear to be alone with all this any more. Desperate feelings swelled in her until she could no longer stand it. Her throat unlocked.
‘Miss Purdy!’ She shouted along the street at the top of her voice. ‘Miss Purdy! Don’t go – please!’
Twenty-Three
The little girl’s cry pierced through Gwen.
Fighting back tears of shock at Mrs Wilson’s violent dismissal of her, she turned to see Alice’s forlorn figure by the lamp outside her house. Alice’s desperate call was the loudest sound she had ever heard from this timid child.
Whatever was wrong with her mother? Gwen had been horrified by the glimpse she had had of the Wilsons’ house. The front room was completely bare, not a stick of furniture in it, and the back room hardly better. In its way, it felt even more dismal than the crumbling squalor of Joey Phillips’s house because Mrs Wilson was so obviously genteel. Gwen hesitated, unable to think what to do. It would be easiest to run away – Mrs Wilson had made it very clear she didn’t want anyone. But the least she could do was to try and comfort Alice.
Seeing her teacher approaching her again, the little girl lowered her head and cried heartbrokenly. It was only then that Gwen noticed that the child was dressed only in a vest with her skirt. Gwen did the only thing she could think of and took the fragile child in her arms, stroking her head.
‘It’s all right, Alice,’ she said softly. The intensity of the child’s grief made her want to cry as well, but she fought back her own tears. ‘It’s all right, dear. It’s all right.’ The words came instinctively. She held the child and let her cry.
‘Is your mummy often upset?’ she asked when Alice was a little calmer. She felt Alice nod.
Gwen had no idea what to do next. She could hardly go back into the house when Mrs Wilson had ordered her out so angrily. She was frightened of the way the woman had looked, the hysterical sound of her voice and of her own role as an interfering busybody. She felt completely out of her depth. But how else could she help Alice? The poor child had to live with this day after day, quite apart from not being able to see properly. Surely there was something that could be done.
‘Come along, Alice.’ She sounded a great deal more decisive than she felt. ‘Perhaps I should come in again and see if I can have a word with your mother.’
Alice didn’t protest, though Gwen couldn’t help wishing she would.
In the house Gwen and Alice could hear weeping. They tiptoed into the room. Mrs Wilson was sitting hunched in the chair, rocking back and forth. The fury seemed to have left her and she appeared smaller, girlish and completely bereft. It was only then that Gwen noticed that although Alice’s mother was quite nicely dressed she was not wearing anything on her feet.
Mrs Wilson looked up, her cheeks wet with tears. It was a sweet, blue-eyed face. Gwen realized that she was not a great deal older than herself, barely thirty.
‘Oh
no
!’ she wailed, her face crumpling again. ‘Why can’t you just go away and leave me alone? I just want everyone to leave me alone!’
Her voice was light and well spoken, at odds with the poor, bleak surroundings. Gwen couldn’t make any sense of it.
‘I’m sorry,’ she began, ‘only Alice was so upset, and . . . well, you’re obviously so unhappy too and I wondered if there was anything I can do to help you?’
‘No!’ Alice’s mother began crying afresh then. ‘Just go away! Leave me!’
Gwen could see that despite all her protests, the woman desperately needed someone’s comfort. Finding all the courage she could, she went and knelt by the chair.
‘Please don’t worry. I only want to help – you and Alice. She’s such a good girl, and you seem so terribly sad . . .’
These words of kindness made Mrs Wilson cry all the harder. She put her hands in her lap, kneading them in dreadful agitation.
‘Oh!’ she burst out eventually, between her sobs. ‘Oh, I can’t bear it any more. I can’t go on struggling on alone like this!’
Gwen dared to reach and take one of her hands and the woman quietened a little and looked into her face, as if trying to decide whether she was worthy of trust. Gwen could see how much Alice resembled her, with her pale hair and eyes.
‘It’s all right.’ Again, it was the only thing Gwen could think of to say.
‘You won’t tell anyone?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Alice, dear – I’d like to talk to your teacher. Would you go upstairs for a little while, please?’
Alice obeyed. Her face was blotchy from crying, but Gwen could see she was relieved. They paused, listening to her tread on the stairs. Gwen found herself wondering if they had any furniture up there.
‘She’s a dear little thing,’ she said to break the silence.
‘Yes,’ Mrs Wilson said miserably. ‘Poor Alice.’ Her tears fell again and she gripped Gwen’s hand. ‘Can I trust you? I don’t know who I can trust any more. I don’t know who I am or what I’m about!’
‘It’s all right, really it is. I just want to help.’ For some reason Gwen added, ‘I’m not from round here myself.’
Mrs Wilson’s pale eyes searched her face.
‘Is it just you and Alice who live here?’ Gwen asked.
‘Yes. We never had any more children. A blessing as it’s turned out. I can hardly manage with Alice.’ She seemed to come to herself for a moment. ‘I should make you a cup of tea . . .’
‘No, please don’t bother. I’m quite all right.’ Gwen imagined that Alice’s father must have died, or deserted her, for her to be left alone like this. The poor woman was obviously finding it very hard to cope with her reduced circumstances. She decided it might be easier to be direct.
‘What is it that’s troubling you, Mrs Wilson?’
While Gwen stayed kneeling on the floor at her feet, Mrs Wilson’s story came pouring out. Until a few months before, she and her husband and Alice had lived a very comfortable life in a respectable part of Solihull. Her husband, Bernard, was a partner in a thriving engineering business in Birmingham. He was almost a decade older than her and Louise Wilson – she told Gwen her name – had married young, had Alice, and settled into being the pretty, sheltered wife of a prosperous businessman. She attended the business functions, ladies’ nights at the masonic lodge of which he was a member, always pretty and admired on his arm. Alice went to a good private school, where she had nice little friends. Louise had servants, but she liked to make things to decorate the house, curtain pelmets and flower arrangements. Her home was her pride: her project to make it a pretty, orderly haven for her friends to visit and her busy husband to come home to. She felt he was proud of her and that she was a success as a wife. As she spoke, the tears dried on her cheeks and despite her unkempt hair, Gwen could see glimpses of the pretty, contented person she had been.
‘I’ve asked myself over and over again how I could not have seen . . . whether I could have done something to stop it. I feel almost sorry for Bernard and I wonder if it was my fault.’ She turned to Gwen for a moment with an agonized expression on her face. ‘That’s what he said, you see – that he did it for me. Because he wanted to be a good husband . . . But that’s wrong. It’s so wrong and stupid . . . Couldn’t he
see
that?’ Tears rolled down her cheeks again.
‘It was the end of the summer – a horrible wet day. Bernard came home in the afternoon. He never did that normally, so I thought he was ill. He was in the most dreadful state. I’d never seen him like it before. He was as white as a sheet but he wouldn’t say anything. In fact he was dreadfully rude to me. And then the police came. Alice was at one of her little friends’ houses, thank heavens. She didn’t see them taking him away . . . Stupid,
stupid
. . .’ The words were spat out and she clenched her fists. ‘That’s what makes me so angry – that he thought I couldn’t be strong. That all that mattered to me was . . . was
fripperies
! And he didn’t think enough of me as his wife to tell me what was going on!’
‘What did he do?’ Gwen asked gently.
‘He was siphoning off money from the firm. Embezzlement. I didn’t even know the word before. All our nice home, our things, were riding on him stealing. Of course the firm wasn’t doing nearly as well as he wanted me to believe but he couldn’t admit it. Times are hard for everyone, but Bernard always wanted to be the exception who held the biggest parties, drove the best motor car, smoked good cigars, was generous to people. But –’ her voice rose higher with emotion – ‘it was all appearance and show to make him the big noise in front of everyone. He didn’t care about me or about Alice – he just had to show off all the time. And look where it’s got him!’
Gwen had seldom heard anyone speak with such bitterness. Louise Wilson looked hard into her face.
‘So you see – here I am. As it turns out, I’m only a stone’s throw from Bernard, in there behind the prison walls. The bailiffs took everything we owned, except for a little money I had from my father’s will in an account of my own. They didn’t find that. I took Alice and came here – I hardly knew what I was doing. I just knew I didn’t want anyone to know where I was – my mother, my sister, our friends. No one knows we’re here. I didn’t go to court with Bernard. I thought:
Damn
Bernard, for what he’s done to us. I’ve never been to see him . . .’ She crumpled for a moment, unable to speak.