Thank you so much for the guidebook and your help. I use the book every day and there is so much to see that I just couldn’t come back yet. I found a little job and I may stay on longer. Once again, thanks for everything.
Claire
The last card was the most difficult. She wrote her home address and then had to pause. The sun had gone behind a cloud, and it looked as if the weather – as usual – was about to change. Unsure of what she would say Claire began to write.
Dear Mom,
I had this chance from work to go to London and I decided to take it. Sorry I didn’t tell you first, but I wasn’t sure I would go until the last minute. Don’t worry about me. I’m fine. I’ll write soon. Love to Jerry.
Writing that last line was difficult but she knew she had to add a P.S.
P.S. I used your Saks card. Don’t worry. I’ll pay you back when I return.
She decided she wouldn’t mention that her mother owed her more than the card balance. After all, her disappearance might come as a shock, though with her mother she really couldn’t tell. Perhaps she’d be glad that she and Jerry had the house to themselves. She would regret the lost income, but maybe it would finally force Jerry to go out and get a regular job. Claire shrugged.
She didn’t want to be charged another pound for the chair, so she rose, bought stamps and posted the cards. (She had learned that you don’t mail things in London, you post them.) Then she wandered south through the park until she came out of it on The Mall. Turning to her right she saw the enormous stone mound that was Queen Victoria’s memorial, and behind it Buckingham Palace.
When she had had a chance to take it in – the size, the gates, the guard, the gold – she opened Abigail’s book. She read that it was the main home of the kings and queens since Victoria was crowned. And that when the Queen is in residence, her royal flag is flown. The flag was up and Claire approached the gates. Somewhere inside, not far from her, the Queen of England was drinking a cup of tea or reading a book or playing with one of her dogs! Claire had never been this close to royalty, and the idea that the elderly woman whose picture she had seen a thousand times actually lived right there astonished her. She read that the changing of the guard happened at eleven-thirty and decided to come back another day to see it.
She followed the fence to the right and began walking along Constitution Hill. All along the left-hand side of the road was an old brick wall, ten feet or more high with razor wire curled in gleaming coils along the top. Claire walked and walked but the wall continued. She looked on her map carefully. The wall was the one that enclosed the Queen’s backyard! When she looked on her map she saw the yard – actually called Buckingham Palace Gardens – was about the same size as Green Park and had a lake with an island in it. Claire shook her head. What would it be like to have a private park in the middle of a city like this? What would it be like to live in ‘Buck House’ and be able to choose from a hundred rooms? It was, of course, impossible for her to imagine. But she thought, on the whole, that she preferred to sit in a deck chair in Green Park than to be walled up and alone in Buckingham Palace Gardens. She wondered if the Queen was lonely, and then for a moment, if she was. Oddly, she decided she wasn’t and continued her walk with a faster pace.
She got confused at Wellington Arch: she knew it was close to Knightsbridge because she and Michael had gone past it so often. But walking was different. She took two wrong turns, and then managed to get to Park Lane where she walked past all the grand hotels on one side and Hyde Park and traffic streaming by on the other. When she finally got to the end she was on Oxford Street but she was very, very tired. She took out her map again. She simply couldn’t walk all the way to Chamberley Terrace, though she’d had every intention of doing it in the morning. As it was, she had walked so much in the last week that she had noticed her slacks were fitting a little bit looser. Perhaps she was losing weight. But she couldn’t walk any further. Feeling guilty she slunk down into the underground at Marble Arch.
It was four o’clock before she got back. She washed, changed, brushed her hair and teeth, ate a piece of cheese and lay down. But she couldn’t nap. She took out her knitting instead. It was calming and she worked steadily at it. Her needles clicked and clicked.
It seemed no time at all before Claire finished. She spread the scarf flat on her little bed and studied it with pleasure. The piece wouldn’t need blocking and it didn’t have one imprecise stitch. Whenever Claire knit she had to correct every twisted yarn or reversal because if she didn’t her eye moved always to the spot where the imperfection was.
She liked perfection, but it seemed achievable only in very small things. When she looked at her life and the lives of others she saw nothing but disappointment, compromise, dropped stitches and twisted yarn. She had always been wary of her mother and father’s life and their marriage. Her mother’s life with Jerry seemed even worse. Claire had never been envious of Tina or of Tina’s marital plans with Anthony. Other people she knew – in Tottenville, the women at work, the executives at the perimeter, both male and female – all seemed to live generally dreadful lives. Either there was no challenge or too much pressure; too little or too much. Even Mr Wonderful, who seemed to have – in a phrase Tina might use – ‘the world by its balls’ didn’t seem content.
Claire stroked the scarf flat. It really was perfect. Of course, it was only a scarf, but she had made it with her own hands, her own vision and her own intelligence. Perhaps the secret to a perfect life (or something close to it) was to keep it small and pay attention. For some reason, she felt as if here, in London, she could manage to do that. She sighed and folded the scarf to put it away in the wardrobe. It might be true that she could create a small but perfect life here, but she didn’t have the means to do it. And now that she was finished, what could she knit next? Where would she find a yarn shop? Her projects always felt like friends, something she could turn to when she was bored or alone.
Of course, now she had run out of time and she fell asleep immediately. She would have been late for Mrs Patel if it weren’t for the sound of Maudie’s two children running up and down the corridor.
She got up refreshed, ran a comb through her hair and greeted Maudie on the way out. The woman tried to apologize for her children but Claire merely smiled and told her not to. She should have thanked her, but Maudie seemed so grateful as it was that a thank you seemed overkill. Claire ran down the stairs and out onto the street.
THIRTY
Claire hadn’t been able to decide if she should be a half-hour or fifteen minutes early for Mrs Patel. She had been late the day before, and didn’t want to seem erratic by coming too early today. She also wanted to make up the time and prove that she could be dedicated.
When she arrived at 7:45 dressed in her navy slacks and her hand-knit sweater she knew from Mrs Patel’s approving glance she had made the right decision. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘apparently you can be prompt.’
Claire didn’t take offense at Mrs Patel’s condescending tone. ‘I’ll never be late again,’ she said. ‘I really am quite dependable.’
‘Well, can I depend on you to open those cartons and restock the shelves? I’ve been putting it off because –’ she tapped her belly. ‘Well, it’s awkward to handle those cartons, you know.’ Claire nodded.
Two customers walked into the shop and Claire turned away, found the boxes and began what she hoped was going to be her job.
Everything on the shelves was dusty, as were a lot of the new products coming straight from the supplier. Claire took the time to wipe them down carefully. While she was at it she began reorganizing. She couldn’t bring herself to put the tomato soup between the soap flakes and the dog food. And she couldn’t put a dust-free box right next to one that was grit covered. She also found that if she just slightly rearranged the products there was much more room, and she guessed that the new incoming items should be behind the older ones already there.
The shop was fairly busy from eight until almost ni
ne-thirty but then it slowed down and Mrs Patel had the chance to look at Claire’s work. She had unpacked all of the new stock, put it on display and had reorganized and cleaned an entire aisle of old stock as well. When Mrs Patel turned the corner she stopped and stood staring at the aisle. ‘Well, you have been busy indeed,’ she said. Slowly she walked up and down. Claire held her breath. Had she gone too far? Would Mrs Patel be annoyed that she hadn’t asked permission to relocate the merchandise? Would she take it as a criticism that Claire had cleaned things?
Of course, Claire didn’t know that Pakistanis were often victims of racial prejudice in London. Nor did she know that a good part of her charm for Mrs Patel was that the woman liked the idea of being able to give orders to an American girl. Nor did she know that Mrs Patel’s husband, never very useful, had gone back to Pakistan almost five months ago and was unlikely to return. All Claire knew was that Mrs Patel walked up and down the aisle twice, raised her long dark eyebrows and then cleared her throat.
‘You might do this in the other aisles as well,’ she said and at the sound of the jingle of the bell, turned back to the counter.
Claire accepted that as praise. For the next half-hour it seemed to her that people lingered in that row. She told herself it was her imagination and to stop being silly. But at the end of the night she had finished another half row and the two that she had done really did seem more inviting.
Despite her desire for promptness, Mrs Patel had quite a few customers at ten o’clock and kept the store open until twenty after. Then she called Claire over. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘it was a good night. Maybe you bring luck.’ She walked to the back slowly, her hand on the bulge in her sari. She didn’t say anything about the second row, half completed, but Claire saw her eye it carefully. ‘This isn’t so bad,’ she said. ‘Now, can you help me with the gate – and do you have time to sweep?’
‘I’ll give it a quick sweep and a mop up. Remember? We talked about that yesterday.’
‘So we did,’ Mrs Patel said. ‘I’ll just go to the back. Push the gate down all the way.’
Claire took half an hour to get the mopping done and empty out the slop bucket. It was odd, but she didn’t mind doing the dirty work at all, though she tried to be careful of her clothes. There was a certain satisfaction in being able to see the results of your work. A satisfaction she never got at Crayden Smithers. She looked at the clean floors and the rows she had completed and smiled to herself. But when Mrs Patel rejoined her she merely stood and waited. It didn’t seem as if she had the kind of character that enjoyed praising people.
Claire was right. There was no praise but in lieu Mrs Patel handed her a bag. ‘Take what you like,’ she said and moved up to the front where she began counting the money in the register.
Claire was modest in her wants. She did take some detergent and a bar of soap as well as a box of cereal that was called Weetabix and had the Queen’s emblem on it. If things got desperate, Claire thought, she could give up her breakfast and eat the Queen’s cereal. She didn’t want to take too much or look greedy; besides she had just about everything she needed. One thing this trip had already taught her was that a person could get by happily, in fact, more happily, with less stuff to worry about. She walked to the counter, her bag only half full.
Sharp-eyed Mrs Patel took a look at the bag and once again raised her brows but didn’t comment. What Claire wanted her to say was whether or not she should come back, and to her enormous relief, Mrs Patel, looking down at her figures said, ‘Perhaps tomorrow you could do the window. It certainly needs doing.’
‘Yes, of course.’ Then Claire thought she sounded too emphatic about the window, as if she were criticizing Mrs Patel. ‘What would you like me to do with it?’ she asked.
Mrs Patel shrugged. ‘You seem to know what to do on your own,’ she said. ‘Can’t expect me to supervise every little thing.’
Claire nodded. She thought Mrs Patel must make a demanding mother and as if in response to that thought the girl Claire had seen before came running out of the back of the shop. ‘Oh, Mum, Fala won’t go to bed and she’s keeping me up. She’s turned on the telly and won’t turn it off.’
Mrs Patel looked at the girl coolly. ‘Well, it’s your responsibility to get her into bed. I can’t do everything, Safta.’ She turned to Claire. ‘This is my daughter, Safta, who has forgotten her manners,’ she said.
Safta looked down. She had the longest, darkest eyelashes that Claire had ever seen. They seemed to touch her cheeks. ‘Hello, Safta,’ Claire said and put her hand out to her. ‘My name is Claire Bilsop.’
Safta looked at her. ‘You’re an American, then?’ she asked.
Claire nodded. Before they could continue any discussion Mrs Patel interrupted. ‘Questions are not getting the telly off,’ she reminded her daughter. ‘And your brother?’
‘I put Devi to bed, but he wouldn’t brush his teeth. He said he doesn’t like the taste of the toothpaste.’
‘I’ll tell him tomorrow that he might like the taste of soap far less. Tell Fala she must be in bed in five minutes.’
Safta gave Claire a glance, then turned around and gracefully ran to the back. ‘I’ll tell her,’ she called.
‘That takes care of that,’ Mrs Patel sighed. ‘I don’t remember being so much trouble to my mother. We did as we were told.’
Claire nodded. ‘So did I,’ she said. But she thought that poor Safta had a lot on her hands. Fred certainly would have never listened to anything Claire told him to do. It wasn’t the nature of brothers to listen to their sisters. It occurred to Claire that she should send Fred a postcard and she wondered if she had his address.
Meanwhile, Mrs Patel closed the till and handed a twenty-pound note to Claire. ‘Here,’ she said.
Claire stared at the money. Twenty pounds! That would pay for her room. If Mrs Patel would pay her twenty pounds a night, well, she could stay for months. Especially since she had the groceries as well.
As if reading her mind, Mrs Patel looked up. ‘Don’t expect that every night,’ she said. She looked at Claire sharply. ‘Are you skint?’ she asked.
Claire had absolutely no idea what that was, but was too shy to say so.
‘Well? Have you any money? I don’t imagine you do.’
‘Oh, I have some,’ Claire said. ‘It’s just that, well, I came for a holiday and then thought I’d stay on longer.’
‘Fine,’ Mrs Patel said. She walked to the door and Claire followed her. ‘I’ll see you at the same time tomorrow and on Friday.’ Claire nodded enthusiastically. ‘Saturday’s a busy day, though,’ Mrs Patel continued, ‘and the children are home. Do you think you could help out a little longer then? Could you be here by one, when I have to give them lunch?’
‘No problem,’ Claire told her and as she left she felt as if, for the moment at least, she had no problems in the world.
THIRTY-ONE
Since her ride from the airport Claire had wanted to see the big Victorian piles they had passed on their way to the hotel. One was the Natural History Museum, another was the Victoria and Albert Museum and there was the Brompton Something.
Now it was Saturday and, somehow, the past two days had just flown by, with work at the shop and just, well, wandering and looking. But she had her morning free until her job with Mrs Patel. What would she do with her four hours? She should use the time to read the Charles Lamb book that Toby gave her. She had so much to tell him about: her new job, how wonderful she found London, and perhaps even about Corporal Tucker. Claire could also phone the young American to arrange getting together, but she didn’t feel she was ready for that visit just yet. Instead, she consulted her map, took the tube to South Kensington and set off to walk through the neighborhood, north to the museums.
On front door after front door the paintwork gleamed, and polished brass doorknockers set off the enameled colors. Somehow the bright blue or the bus-red didn’t look garish the way it would in Tottenville. Maybe it was the soft color of the bric
kwork or the gentleness of the light. Whatever it was, Claire walked for blocks on the wet pavement until her feet were cold but her eyes were delighted with the visual feast.
She turned a corner searching for a direct route to Exhibition Road, when she saw the tiny shop. ‘Knitting Kitting’ it said in gold letters on the faded gray paintwork. Claire could hardly believe her eyes. She’d just finished her scarf and here was a yarn shop. In all of her walking around London she hadn’t seen any place – aside from the vintage needles at Camden Lock market – that sold knitting supplies.
The door was quaintly set kitty-corner at the end of the wall where one side of the building met the other. Claire walked in. The bell jingled cheerfully and she looked around the store.
It was quite small, with bins up one side where some skeins of wool were arranged by color and yarn content. There was a table on which pattern books sat in piles and a small counter behind which an elderly woman, her white hair pulled up on top of her head, sat with her eyes downcast working on the knitting in her lap. ‘Hello, my dear,’ she said, looking up. ‘How can I help you?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Claire told her. ‘I need some inspiration.’ Claire looked over the desk at the old woman’s knitting.
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘don’t look at me. I don’t have the eyes for the kind of work I used to do.’ But as she shook her head she held up a circular needle and from it hung a cream colored garment.
‘You’re making a one-piece sweater?’
‘Actually, it’s a knee blanket. A very practical item when living here.’
‘You’re absolutely right,’ Claire agreed as she reached out to feel the texture of the yarn and to examine the pattern the woman was using. ‘It’s so soft. It feels like lamb’s wool.’
The woman smiled at Claire. ‘I hate to admit this to a potential customer but I have always wanted to make a cashmere wrap and I decided that it was high time. After all, I’m in my seventies. It’s working up beautifully, don’t you think?’
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