by Mia Dolan
Marcie wanted to say that Allegra’s cream was expensive and bound to be better, but Sally would be hurt. ‘I’ll try a bit of both. I’ve brought none myself and I wouldn’t want to leave either of you two with nothing.’
She thought of Johnnie as she rubbed the cream into her hands. He’d said that motorbike oil kept his hands nice and soft. Nonsense, of course, but still it made her smile.
‘A penny for them,’ said Sally.
Marcie looked up. ‘What?’
‘You were smiling to yourself,’ said Allegra. ‘Were you thinking of him? The one who had his wicked way with you?’
Marcie blanked out the episode with Alan Taylor before answering. ‘He died in a road accident. He was riding his motorcycle on the North Circular.’
She didn’t add that his parents had made him angry. She didn’t know the full details of course – they hadn’t said so in so many words – but she knew they hadn’t wanted him to marry her. There were just a few overheard words. ‘You can do so much better than her.’
Her two room-mates both said that they were sorry to hear that.
‘My bloke kept telling me he was going to marry me as soon as his ship came in. When it did I was five months gone and he’d signed on as crew on a freighter going to New Zealand.’
‘Not nice,’ said Marcie. ‘I bet you were livid.’
Sally nodded. ‘So was his wife. The bloody sod never let on he was married. But that’s men for you. Have their fun and head for the hills – or in my case for the sea.’
Allegra was folding things up and putting them away in one of her pieces of luggage.
Both Sally and Marcie exchanged a look. It was obvious Allegra would offer nothing of her personal history unless she was asked.
‘Come on, princess. Tell us how you got knocked up,’ said Sally in her brash Cockney manner.
Allegra visibly paled. ‘I don’t wish to talk about it.’
Marcie was willing to let it go at that, but Sally was like a dog with a juicy bone; she insisted on hanging on.
‘Come on, Allegra. Your parents have got a few bob; they could have paid for you to get rid of it. And before you say that it’s illegal, bollocks! I’ve heard it’s possible. Christ, I would have done the same myself if I’d had the ready cash.’
Allegra looked as though she’d been stung. The pretty lace underwear she’d been folding – underwear that would only fit her once she’d delivered – was squeezed between her hands.
‘We’re Catholics. We don’t believe in that.’
‘So why didn’t he marry you?’ asked Sally. ‘Come on. Tell us.’
It was obvious from Allegra’s face that something was hurting her very deeply. It was also obvious that her seemingly cool attitude to having her child adopted was only a façade.
‘I think that’s her business,’ said Marcie.
‘Oh, come on—’ Sally began.
‘Leave it,’ snapped Marcie.
There must have been something in Marcie’s expression that pulled Sally up sharply. She seemed in two minds about resuming before she looked into Marcie’s eyes. Whatever was there warned her off.
Chapter Forty-five
The dining hall at Pilemarsh Abbey was one of the few general rooms in the building that didn’t have panelled walls.
‘Look at it,’ muttered Sally. ‘They even Bible bash when you’re eating.’
Marcie tried not to look at the religious texts Sally referred to. Like strings of Christmas tinsel, they were festooned around the walls three deep, the shiny brown writing catching what light came through the pigeonhole windows 20 feet above their heads.
‘They’re hoping to reform us,’ said Allegra as she slowly spooned the contents of her dessert dish into her mouth. ‘What is this?’ she asked suddenly, referring to her spoon.
‘Semolina,’ said Marcie. ‘Don’t you like it?’
Sally was eyeing Allegra over her second cup of tea. ‘Not used to it, your ladyship?’
‘No. Not really,’ Allegra replied, appearing unaffected by Sally’s attitude. ‘But I’m hungry and not likely to get anything else. I’ll cope.’
Sally pursed her lips and looked daggers.
Marcie was impressed by Allegra’s apparent calm. She also felt strangely privileged to be a bridge between these two totally different, but strangely alike young women. They were both proud and although they didn’t know it, both were from more upmarket backgrounds than she was.
They’d exchanged details of where they were from, but Marcie had been loath to go into any great detail about her family. She’d told them that her mother was dead, that her father had married again and that she had half-brothers and sisters.
She did not tell them about her father’s prison record or the event with Alan Taylor. She wanted to cling on to the most likely probability that Johnnie was the child’s father. It was the one thing that would help get her through this.
Marcie threw in her own observation on life and food at this place.
‘We all have to manage with what we have, and we all have to get along together. After all, look what we’ve got in common.’
Sally and Allegra exchanged cryptic glances before steadying their gaze on Marcie.
‘You mean we all have big bellies,’ said Sally with a half smile.
‘Yes.’
‘And wish it had never happened,’ added Allegra, dropping her spoon into her dish.
‘Yes.’
‘Did he love you?’ It was Sally addressing Marcie.
Marcie pretended that the mouthful of food prevented her from answering. But she nodded.
Sally had another go at asking Allegra how she’d got pregnant.
‘Look,’ Marcie began. ‘Just let it drop—’
‘It’s OK,’ said Allegra
She dropped her eyes and studied her long, slim fingers as though she were trying to sum up the courage to go on.
‘I was raped. I was walking late at night. Silly really. A man attacked me.’ Sally took another sip of her tea and said, ‘Oh!’
Marcie looked around the room at the sixty or so young women, some still pregnant – most of those who had given birth looked pensive as though still considering their options.
Her attention went back to her food.
Sally asked her how come she’d got pregnant.
‘I used the pill, but it didn’t work.’
‘I’m going to get some of those,’ said Sally. She turned to Allegra. ‘How about you?’
Allegra shook her head. ‘No. I’m going to get married and have a lot of children.’
‘But you’ll always remember this one,’ said Marcie blurted without thinking.
The others made no comment. They all knew she was speaking the truth.
Marcie was sound asleep when she felt someone shake her arm. Blinking herself awake, she saw Sally was bending over her.
‘I need a wee and the chamber pot’s full.’
‘Empty it,’ Marcie whispered hoarsely.
She rolled away, tucking her chin beneath the bed sheet.
Sally stayed put. At last she said, ‘I’m frightened of the dark.’
‘I told you before, there’s a light on the landing.’
‘I’ll get into trouble if I turn it on.’
Marcie sighed and opened her eyes. ‘All right. I’ll come with you.’ She swung her legs out of bed. ‘But YOU have to carry the potty,’ she whispered.
The brown lino floor was cold to their bare feet so they both tiptoed along the landing to the sluice and the deep sink situated at the end of the corridor.
A frosted window let in enough light so they could see what they were doing. The effluent was poured away, the tap turned and a gush of cold water flushed it clean.
‘I can’t see why we can’t all have our own potty,’ Marcie observed. ‘One isn’t enough for all of us.’
‘Do you think we should ask for another?’ said Sally.
‘You mean you want me to ask for one.’
>
‘You’re so much braver than the rest of us.’
It struck Marcie that Sally’s brash exterior hid a marshmallow interior.
‘Allegra should take her turn to empty the po.’
Marcie pointed out that she never used it.
‘That’s ridiculous. She can’t avoid using it.’
Marcie shook her head. ‘It amazes me that she manages to hold herself so long, but she does.’
‘Probably has a servant to empty it for her at home,’ grumbled Sally.
She took her cigarettes and matches out from her bra.
She held out the packet. ‘Want one?’
‘I don’t usually …’ Marcie began, then took one. She didn’t usually hang around in places like this. Come to that, she didn’t usually find herself pregnant.
In the quiet space of this other world, their only real respite from the regimentation and religion of Pilemarsh House, they smoked and for a moment were silent.
It was Marcie who spoke first.
‘You shouldn’t be so hard on Allegra just because she’s rich.’
Sally seemed to think about it for a few minutes. ‘I have to hit out at someone, otherwise I think I’d cut my wrists.’
‘What?’
Marcie was horrified. ‘You wouldn’t really. Surely not.’
Sally shrugged. ‘I get depressed at times.’
It was hard to believe that someone like Sally could ever feel that way.
‘She has everything I want: money, beautiful things. What do I have? Nothing.’
‘You’re beautiful.’
‘Come on! Stop pulling my leg.’
‘I’m not. I mean it.’
‘But I’m not rich, not like she is.’
‘But you will be. One day.’
Sally eyed her quizzically. ‘How do you know that?’ Marcie shrugged. ‘I don’t know how I know. I just do.’
‘Oh! I see! You’re a witch.’ She peered over her shoulder. ‘So where’s the black cat and the broomstick?’
Marcie hugged herself. She hadn’t meant it to sound as it did. ‘There’s no need to laugh at me.’
Sally frowned. ‘I’m not laughing.’
Marcie’s hair fell around her face. Pregnancy had not diminished its lustre and she hadn’t put on as much weight as some of the girls.
‘You might do when I tell you.’
‘Tell me what?’
‘My grandmother is able to see things – you know – in the future. She reads tea leaves and stuff.’
‘That’s fantastic.’
‘I don’t know about that. I suppose I’m kind of used to it. She always said I had the gift too if I’d just believe in myself a bit more. She may be right. Sometimes I just get a sense of things—’
‘I’m impressed. That’s really fab.’
Marcie looked surprised. ‘You mean that?’
‘You bet I am!’ Her expression changed. ‘And what about our room-mate? What sort of future is mapped out for her?’
Eyes downcast, Marcie shook her head. She couldn’t sense anything about Allegra. ‘Who knows?’
‘Never mind about her. Just keep telling me that one day I’m going to be rich and you’ll be my friend for life.’
Sally threw her cigarette end into the sink then proceeded to pull up her nightdress and heave her backside over the sink.
‘Might as well while I’m here. Save filling up the chamber pot.’
‘Allegra is very beautiful – like Carmen Miranda,’ blurted Marcie. ‘My grandmother watches old films with her in. She dances around with a pile of fruit on her head.’
‘Carmen …?’ Sally looked at her in amazement for a moment before she burst out laughing. ‘Carmen bloody Miranda!’ She continued to hoot with laughter. ‘Carmen … de … dee … de … dee … da …’ she sang, grabbed the pot from Marcie’s hands and wiggled her hips in time to her song.
Because Marcie started giggling too, and with the sluice room filling up with the tune and the laughter, they failed to hear the quick marching footsteps.
‘Who’s talking out there?’
Sally thrust the pot back into Marcie’s hands. She almost dropped it, slopping the last of the washing mixture so that it splashed up the wall.
‘It’s the old battleaxe,’ Sally murmured.
The woman they referred to was the same one who had distributed the rules and timetable as though she were Moses himself, and the Ten Commandments had just been committed to quarto size paper.
They were becoming used to the fact that she was the main enforcer for the strict regime that was meant to return them to the straight and narrow. Captain Wilma Turnbull was so dedicated to the cause of redirecting the lives of the inmates that she was rarely off the premises. Straight backed, bewigged and poker faced, the running of the establishment occupied the centre of her life.
‘Probably convinced that the place can’t run without her,’ Allegra had said.
Marcie had dredged deep for an obvious truth. ‘There are a lot of people in the graveyard who thought the same about their places of work.’
Dark, long and contorted by an awkward angle, Miss Turnbull’s shadow fell over them from along the passage. She walked stiffly, her hands clasped behind her back, her feet encased in sensible, flat black shoes, placed perfectly with each step, heel to toe, heel to toe. It looked as though she were measuring something that fell in a perfectly straight line alongside her gaunt shadow. Obviously she had dozed off in the chair in the nursing office because her wig was slightly lopsided.
Sally noticed and hid a smirk behind her hand.
It was rumoured that Miss Turnbull was completely bald beneath her wig and not just grey.
‘Have you not read the rules?’
Sally answered. ‘Yes, Miss Turnbull. We were just—’
‘How many girls does it take to empty that!’ Her fingernail made a clinking sound as it connected with the vitreous china.
Marcie had had enough. ‘Not as many as it takes to fill it! Do you think we can have a pot each, Miss Turnbull? The amount of water we’re passing nowadays is enough to send over Niagara Falls. And that’s what our single pot is going to be: Niagara Falls – all the pee pouring over the rim.’
Miss Turnbull looked fit to bust a gut, her wig seeming to quiver on her head.
Sally stifled a giggle.
Miss Turnbull threw her a disparaging look, her mouth as straight and wide as a letterbox. Her shoulders quaked. ‘Get back to your room. And remember. No talking outside your room. Girls who have recently had babies are trying to get some sleep.’
Staggering with laugher, Marcie and Sally scurried back along the corridor.
‘Back to our virgin beds,’ said Sally loudly enough for Miss Turnbull to hear.
Marcie fell asleep with a smile on her face.
In the morning she pushed herself up on her slim hands and pushed back the covers. She winced as she dragged her legs over the side of the bed, tucking her nightdress below her belly so she could more easily inspect her ankles. She sighed at the sight of them. ‘Looking over my belly is like trying to peer over the top of a mountain. I vow that I will never allow myself to get fat again – certainly not on a permanent basis.’
Allegra slipped out of her own bed and cast a worried frown. ‘Are you alright?’
Marcie nodded. The sight of the hem of her nightdress skimming her slim ankles was incredibly reassuring. ‘Just a twinge.’ She wriggled her toes. ‘My ankles are still slim.’
‘Is that good?’
‘I think so.’ She turned to Sally for a second opinion. ‘Sally, do you think—’
One swift glance at their room-mate’s bed and she stopped in mid sentence. ‘Where’s Sally?’
They exchanged an apprehensive look, noting her nightdress slung down on the coverlet.
‘She left in a hurry,’ said Allegra. ‘And very early. I didn’t hear her go.’
‘She should have put her nightdress away. Miss Turnbull won’t l
ike that,’ said Marcie eyeing the rumpled nightdress with a look bordering on terror.
Allegra pursed her lips and reached for her towel.
Marcie busied herself tidying Sally’s bed. She folded the nightdress and put it under the pillow.
‘You should leave it for her to do,’ Allegra pointed out.
‘Oh no! What if Miss Turnbull comes in while she’s not here? She’ll be in terrible trouble.’
Marcie’s adherence to rules made Allegra smile. ‘Rule number twelve, nightdress must be folded neatly and put away. Eight lashes or solitary confinement for a week?’
‘Just the confinement,’ said Marcie with a weak smile.
Allegra laughed.
Marcie’s smile widened to a broad beam.
‘So where is she?’ Slipping her slim arms into the silky softness of the silk kimono, Allegra went to the window. Despite her girth she walked on tiptoe, reluctant to feel the cold lino the length of her foot. Palms flat, she braced herself against the windowsill and looked out, her breath misting the window panes and mixing with the condensation already there.
‘There she is.’ She pointed.
A figure in a full-length red coat stood out like a sore thumb – a ladybird among a gathering of dung-coloured beetles.
‘She’s not really doing anything wrong. Just taking a morning walk.’
Allegra raised her beautifully arched eyebrows.
‘The staff won’t think that. We’ve all done wrong. That’s how they and the world sees us.’
Chapter Forty-six
Once her son Antonio was safely out of hospital, Rosa Brooks deigned to visit him and his family at their new house. She’d visited him in the hospital regularly enough, but refused to visit the new house while he was not in it.
Once she did she was quite surprised. It was bright and had a homely feel. Never, ever would she admit it to Babs, but her daughter-in-law had done a pretty good job furnishing the place.
A smart Axminster carpet covered most of the living-room floor. The remaining floorboards were covered in linoleum slotted around the edge. There was none beneath the carpet itself.
She’d also got herself a G-Plan sideboard and dining set. Rosa made a stab at how much she’d spent: quite a lot. Presumably Antonio had provided the ready cash. She didn’t ask exactly how her son acquired his money – it was enough that he provided for his family. Where it came from was of little relevance. The family came first.
