She came across Clifton suspension bridge quite by accident, after wandering through an intriguing area with dozens of smart little shops, and her heart nearly stopped at the magnificence of it. She stood for ages on the bridge, looking down into the formidable gorge with the river so far below. It scared, awed and inspired her all at once. Somehow after seeing that place her own problems and anxieties seemed almost trivial.
Sometimes she would walk down the steep steps from Kingsdown that led right into the heart of Bristol’s shopping centre and could hardly believe the huge variety of goods available for those with the money to buy them. Catcott had only the general store and the post office and they had barely changed since the war, stocking up with only the most basic essentials.
Here the shops had rail after rail of pretty dresses. Rows of shoes in every colour of the rainbow. Jewellery, cosmetics, and food shops laden with items she’d never even seen before. She observed elegantly dressed women going into smart little cafés for afternoon tea, and marvelled at their attractive hats, high-heeled shoes and stockings with nice straight seams. There were so many cars too, cinemas and dance halls. It was, as Miss Pemberton had said, an exciting place.
Yet as much as she liked to see the shops and watch the people, it was here her feelings of loneliness were most intensified. She saw mothers and daughters shopping together, groups of girls her own age giggling and chatting as they looked at make-up and jewellery in Woolworth’s. Everyone seemed to have someone, except her. She would look at toy shops and wish Alan was looking with her. She missed him so much.
A letter arriving during her third week in Kingsdown Parade finally stopped Rosie from thinking about running away. Mrs Bentley came down into the kitchen where she was washing up and handed it to her.
‘For me?’ Rosie asked in astonishment, hastily wiping her hands on her apron. It was the first letter she’d ever received.
‘Well, it’s addressed to you,’ Mrs Bentley said with a sniff. ‘It’s a London postmark. I didn’t know you had any relatives there?’
‘I ain’t,’ Rosie said. ‘I mean, I haven’t,’ she said quickly, then opened the letter with fumbling fingers. When she saw Thomas Farley’s signature she was frightened, certain it would be a nasty letter about her father. But as she began to read she found to her delight it was nothing of the kind.
He said he was going down to see Alan in Taunton on the following weekend, and as he would be changing trains at Bristol on Sunday afternoon, with a two-hour wait between them, perhaps she’d like to meet him there. He said he understood she hadn’t been able to visit Alan herself and he thought she might like to hear how he was first-hand.
‘Well?’ Mrs Bentley said. ‘Who’s it from?’
‘Mr Farley,’ she said, and because she was so overwhelmed by his kindness she handed the letter to Mrs Bentley for her to read.
‘Isn’t that nice of him?’ Rosie said, grinning from ear to ear and expecting the older woman to agree with her. But to her dismay and embarrassment Mrs Bentley winced.
‘How very strange,’ she said in her snooty voice, handing her back the letter. ‘If I were in Mr Farley’s shoes, the last person I’d fraternize with would be the daughter of the man who gave my sister an illegitimate child, then murdered her. I shall have to discuss this with Miss Pemberton.’
Later, alone in her room, Rosie wondered how a woman who talked continually about Christian kindness could be so cruel. She was already crushed by the enormity of what they said her father had done, she didn’t need to have her nose rubbed in it too. In fact she was so terribly ashamed that she didn’t know whether she had the nerve to see Mr Farley anyway.
By the next morning though, she felt defiant. She would meet him, even if Miss Pemberton forbade it. If he was big enough to suggest it, she would be cowardly to refuse. Besides it would be a relief to talk to a real human being again after being trapped in this house for three weeks with a woman who belittled her every effort to please. And of course she was dying to know how Alan was.
On the morning of the Sunday when Thomas Farley was to come to Bristol, Rosie awoke feeling jittery. Mrs Bentley had been as cold as ice ever since Miss Pemberton agreed to the meeting. There was church to get through, then lunch. Both would be ordeals. The morning service seemed even longer than usual. She kept fidgeting during the sermon, and Mrs Bentley rapped her on the knee several times. It was very hot too, and someone close to their pew smelled of sweat. She kept imagining the moors, thinking how nice it would be to go paddling in a ditch with Alan and catch a few tiddlers. She wondered how she was going to get through lunch and then the washing-up without screaming.
As usual when they came out of the church, everyone gathered in the churchyard to chat. Mrs Bentley stopped to speak to a woman in a large blue hat. Mr Bentley stood at her side offering nothing but his usual polite nods.
Rosie looked around her with interest. She saw the same faces each week and liked to check what they were wearing. As she had only one dress fit for wearing to church and Mrs Bentley always wore the same navy blue and white dress, and a white hat with a blue band, she thought the women who wore a different outfit each week must be very rich. Some of the ladies were very fashionable, wearing slim straight skirts and waisted jackets, others wore the new ballerina-length full skirts with wide belts nipping their waists. All wore hats and such pretty ones too. One had what looked like a wide feathered Alice band in a brilliant salmon pink to match her dress. Rosie looked hard at it, wondering what bird had feathers of that colour.
The prod in her side took her by surprise.
‘Don’t stare at people,’ Mrs Bentley hissed. ‘It’s very rude.’
‘They stare at me,’ Rosie replied without thinking. ‘You’d think I’d got two heads!’
Then she saw Mr Bentley smiling. He was standing just a little way back from his wife in his usual subservient manner, but he was looking right at Rosie and his smile was pure amusement. Rosie had never noticed until then what nice eyes he had; they were grey-blue and kindly. She smiled back, and in that brief exchange, she knew he was on her side.
Rosie had to stand on tiptoe to see through the windows of the refreshment rooms on Temple Meads station. She could see herself reflected in the mirrors behind the long wooden counter, the glass domes covering cakes, a Kia Ora orange squash machine with artificial oranges bobbing around and the backs of a few heads. They were mostly ladies’ heads though, all wearing hats. Rosie thought perhaps men preferred to wait for their trains out in the fresh air; she didn’t much like the pungent smell of stewed tea and cigarettes either which escaped each time the door opened.
She hesitated before pushing open the glazed door, partly because she was again reminded of Mrs Bentley’s nasty insinuation about Thomas Farley, being odd because he wanted to see Rosie, but mostly from surprise to find he was already there waiting. The table he’d taken was just to the right of where she’d looked in the window and he was looking down at a train timetable.
He looked different from how she’d remembered him. Maybe it was because he wasn’t wearing the trilby, or that his tweed jacket, shirt and striped tie were so much more formal than the open-necked shirt he’d been wearing on their first meeting. Yet it struck her what a good face he had. Bushy fair eyebrows and a straight refined nose. His face was too thin and lined to be conventionally handsome, yet at the same time those lines suggested strength of character, and there was something compelling about him which set him apart from other men.
He must have sensed her presence because he suddenly lifted his head and his eyes caught hers. He smiled, and for a moment he looked like Heather, the same soft brown eyes and that special sparkle she had.
All at once Rosie knew she mustn’t allow Mrs Bentley to influence her about people, she was too mean-spirited to see good in anyone. There was nothing odd about this man, unless it was that he was unusually kind.
He pulled out a chair for her as she reached the table. ‘I was afraid you wouldn’t come,’ he said. ‘I’d resigned myself to a long dull wait between trains.’
‘I was a bit scared of seeing you again.’ Her voice trembled with nervousness. ‘But I so much wanted to hear about Alan.’
‘And you shall hear about him,’ Thomas said as she sat down. ‘Just as soon as I’ve got us some tea and cake.’
In fact Thomas was finding it difficult not to stare openly at her. He could hardly believe that this pretty girl in a well-fitting green print dress, polished shoes, dazzling white ankle socks and with her coppery hair brushed and gleaming, was in fact the same dirty ragamuffin who’d given him a cup of tea at May Cottage. She looked like the child of solid middle-class citizens, who’d never seen a day’s unhappiness in her entire life. Even her Somerset accent seemed to have faded a little.
Yet when she blushed and hung her head, Thomas was saddened. She had been so bold at their first meeting.
When he came back from the counter with a tray, she still seemed uneasy, sitting bolt upright as if poised for flight. He launched right into his news of Alan, hoping that would put her at her ease.
‘He’s really happy with Mr and Mrs Hughes, so don’t you go worrying yourself about him,’ he began, then went on to describe the bright sunny modern house with bay windows and a big back garden complete with sand pit and swing. ‘Alan shares a room with Raymond, he’s eight; then there’s Jennifer who’s four in a smaller room. You should see the toys they’ve got, Rosie, as many as in a toy shop, and dozens and dozens of books. Alan likes the tricycle best, he rides it up and down the garden. He calls the Hughes Uncle and Auntie.’
Thomas told her about a dog called Rex, a playhouse made out of old clothes-horses and blankets, even that Alan had started to learn how to tell the time.
Rosie found her nervousness fading as she listened to this man she hardly knew talk with such warmth and interest about her brother, reassuring her how happy the little boy was.
‘I think I’ve just about exhausted Alan as a subject,’ he said eventually. ‘So now it’s your turn to tell me all about yourself and what’s been happening to you.’
Rosie couldn’t remember when anyone last wanted to know anything about her. She sometimes felt the police had put her through a mangle, to squeeze out every last piece of information about her father and brothers, but they hadn’t any real interest in her personally. Mrs Bentley was the same, asking questions about the men, but caring nothing about Rosie’s feelings. In fact there had been nights when she’d lain awake wondering if her lot in life was to be someone who people whispered about behind their hands, something of an embarrassment whom they felt they had to help but would prefer kept out of sight.
It felt good to talk, to share all the new things she’d discovered since leaving the Levels, with someone else. She told him about the Avon Gorge, the suspension bridge, and climbing up Cabot Tower to see the panoramic view of Bristol. She spoke of wonderful shops she’d seen, of beautiful gardens and all the books she’d read. She wanted him to think she was happy.
But Rosie soon discovered Thomas Farley was as perceptive as he was kind. He had a way of picking up a hidden thread of a story woven into her conversation, then pulling it. One time was when she was describing a meal, another was the incident that morning at church. In both cases she’d told the story for laughs, imitating Mrs Bentley’s posh voice and starchy manner. But though he laughed with her, it seemed he sensed her underlying shame.
‘Do you feel all the church people know who you are?’ he asked.
‘I know they do.’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Mrs Bentley’s told ‘em. I bet it makes her feel really daring having a murderer’s kid staying in her house.’
‘So how do
you
feel about yourself?’ he asked. A doctor had asked him this same question once and he’d had a surge of relief from openly admitting that after his time in the POW camp he felt he was only half a man.
Rosie hesitated. It was the first time anyone had asked her such a thing.
‘It’s important to get it out in the open,’ he said gently. ‘Then you can tackle it.’
‘If you really want to know, I feel like I’ve got tainted blood, Mr Farley,’ Rosie said in a low voice, glancing around her to make sure no one was eavesdropping. There were around twenty or so people near by, and like in church she felt they all knew who she was, even though common sense told her they couldn’t possibly. ‘I could change my name, move away somewhere, and maybe for a while people wouldn’t know who I was. But I can’t change who I really am, or my dad. I’m marked for life, aren’t I?’
‘That’s rubbish,’ Thomas said firmly. ‘People will forget about your father, and so will you in time.’ Privately he knew she was right of course, it was almost insulting her intelligence to argue with her. But it was a very heavy burden for such a young girl to carry. ‘Let’s forget this Mr Farley stuff,’ he suggested, changing the subject. ‘It’s plain old Thomas to you. Now tell me more about the Bentleys.’
Rosie thought the name Thomas suited him very well. All the Toms she’d known at school had been daring and fun and she had a feeling he’d been that way too. When he smiled his whole face lit up just as Heather’s had. She found it oddly comforting.
‘Mr Bentley’s okay, he just doesn’t talk much,’ she said. ‘But
she
is so very proper. The table has to be laid just so. I mustn’t run downstairs, or go without my shoes. She’s always correcting things I say, and she doesn’t think much of my table manners.’
‘I found it hard when I first joined the army,’ Thomas said in understanding. ‘I was tough and strong and I couldn’t stand being treated as if I was second rate just because of the way I spoke and where I came from. There were weedy young officers as thick as two short planks, only there because they’d been to a posh public school, and they got to order me about.
‘But my sergeant gave me some advice on how to deal with them. He said, “Keep your gob shut, Farley, and salute them smartly. If they give you an order, jump to it, but make sure you do it better and quicker than they ever could. Watch those upper-class prats and learn from them. Remember, no experience is ever wasted.”’