The Forever House: A feel-good summer page-turner

by Veronica Henry

  ‘What were you thinking?’ she hissed. ‘The customer is always right at the Kitten Club. Always.’

  Sally suddenly understood.

  And in that moment, she remembered her eldest brother’s words. ‘London’s a dirty place, Sal. A dark place. I’m not sure it’s for you.’

  They threw her out on to the street. There was no question of her being given the money she was owed: nearly a month’s wages. She knew better than to bang on the door and ask for it.

  She walked the several miles from Mayfair to Kensington, for she had no money for a cab and she wasn’t going to flag down a car. She was exhausted, and all she wanted to do was make a cup of cocoa, fill a hot water bottle, and crawl into bed. She didn’t have to get up the next day now, she realised wryly. She thought she might sleep around the clock; for the past month, her days had become nights. She wished she’d found a flat nearer to the centre of London, but she’d needed to find somewhere in a hurry and Barbara, her flatmate, had seemed, if not a kindred spirit, then at least her own age. The two girls had to share a room, but the rent was affordable and, though the flat was gloomy, the area was lovely. And gloomy could be dealt with.

  Her heart lifted a little as she finally saw the black-and-white sign for Russell Gardens. She’d loved the road as soon as she saw it, with its white wedding cake houses and the communal gardens surrounded by black railings and plenty of trees. She turned the corner then jumped as she saw a figure in the gutter. A dark pile of clothes topped by a mop of hair. She still felt a little shaken by earlier events. Whereas once she would have rushed to help, she paused to assess the situation. She was, it seemed, learning fast to be wary.

  She hid behind the hedge of the nearest front garden and peered through the late night gloom. The figure stirred and groaned. It was definitely a man, but she couldn’t work out his age. Was he injured? Had he been attacked? Had he come out of his house and fallen?

  Eventually, she decided the man was no danger, as he could barely move, and it was her duty to help. She didn’t have it in her to walk on by. Her basement flat was only two doors down. She couldn’t possibly walk past and leave him in the gutter.

  She emerged from the shadows and went and stood over him.

  ‘Are you all right? Can I help?’

  As she spoke, she thought perhaps she should have knocked on a neighbour’s door to ask for assistance. But before she could do anything about it, the figure groaned and tried to sit up, levering himself until he was perched on the kerb with his feet in the gutter.

  ‘Shit . . . sorry . . . I don’t know . . . Where am I?’

  ‘Kensington. Russell Gardens.’

  ‘Oh. Well, that’s something, I suppose. Not too far from Paddington.’

  ‘There’s no trains now. Not till morning.’

  He put his hand up to his head. There was a nasty gash on his forehead. As he lifted his face, she could see that he was about her age, maybe a bit older. Pale skin, dark hair, and a lot of blood trickling on to his white shirt.

  The blood looked black in the lamplight.

  He looked at the blood on his fingers and swayed, whether from the realisation he was bleeding or the fact he was hopelessly drunk, she couldn’t be sure. He was only slight. Not like the hideous brute she’d fought off earlier. Instinct made her brave, so she knelt down next to him.

  ‘Are you badly hurt? What happened?’

  He looked at her, barely able to focus, his eyes rolling like marbles in their sockets, but he managed a slow and angelic smile. He gave a bewildered shrug.

  She recognised the smell of brandy on him, and no doubt there had been other things before that.

  ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘You need to get your head looked at. You better come in. I live just here.’

  She took him by the elbow and heaved him to his feet. She looked up and down the road to see if anyone was about. The row of white houses stood silent and stiff, as if watching in disapproval. She got him to hook his arm around her neck, and walked him carefully along the pavement until they reached the railings that fronted the steps leading down to her flat. He leant against her for support as they descended, and his knees nearly buckled once or twice. As they reached the well at the bottom he lurched into the dustbin.

  ‘Bit . . . tiddly,’ he slurred.

  ‘Just a bit,’ said Sally, straightening him up. ‘Where have you been?’

  He gave it rather a lot of thought, digging the answer out of the depths of his fuddled brain.

  ‘Bloody friend’s bloody birthday thing. Some Italian on the King’s Road for dinner. Then . . . I dunno. It all got a bit . . .’

  He stood at the bottom of the steps in the well outside her door, his eyes goggling at the memory.

  ‘Out of hand . . .’ he added solemnly, nodding at the recollection. Then stared at her. ‘I think I might be sick.’ He was deathly pale.

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ said Sally, unlocking the door. ‘I’ll get you a bucket. Wait there.’

  With two older brothers, neither his state nor his behaviour were shocking to her. Bucket and bed, that was the drill. She ran and grabbed the bucket from under the sink in the tiny kitchen, then took it outside.

  He vomited into the bucket as she held it out, then looked up at her.

  ‘You’re a cat.’ His face was puzzled.

  She put a hand to her head with a laugh. She was still wearing the black velvet cat’s ears from the club. She pulled off the headband that held them on and threw them into the dustbin, slamming the lid down. She didn’t ever have to wear those again.

  He was bending over with his hands on his thighs. He gave one more dry heave, then stood up. ‘That’s better. Oh God, I’m sorry. You’re so sweet. Most people would have given me a good kick back into the gutter . . .’

  He spoke as if that was what usually happened. He certainly had lovely manners, thought Sally, now he was able to string a few words together. He was wearing a black coat with a velvet collar, a white shirt and skintight black trousers. His hair was matted with blood, but she could see it was fashionably long. He looked as if he was somebody, thought Sally.

  ‘Come on in. I’ll clean up your head. Or do you think you should go to hospital?’

  ‘I think I just hit it when I fell. It’ll be fine. It doesn’t hurt. Where there’s no sense, there’s no feeling.’

  But he followed her in obediently, rather like a small child.

  There was no point in apologising for the state of the flat, thought Sally. Her charge was unlikely to notice his less than salubrious surroundings. It consisted of a small living room with a tiny kitchen off it, and off that was a miniscule bathroom. To the left was the bedroom she and Barbara shared, with twin beds, a dressing table and a wardrobe. It was a bit dreary and dark, and smelled of damp, being a basement, but Sally had thought once she got some money together she would buy some things to cheer it up and make it more homely: a heater, some cushions, a rug . . .

  As Barbara worked in the day and Sally at night, they barely saw each other, so Sally wasn’t sure how Barbara would feel about a stranger in the flat, but at the moment she didn’t care. She felt drawn to her gutter find. She didn’t want him to disappear off into the night, never to be seen again. She didn’t for a moment think he might be dangerous.

  He walked across the room with the deliberate care of a drunk and sank into the sofa. It was sagging and ancient, in faded red brocade, but he sighed with contentment as if he was falling on to a feather bed.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Beetle.’

  ‘Beatle? Like The Beatles?’

  ‘No. Beetle. Alexander Beetle. After the A A Milne poem? I found a little beetle . . .’

  Sally stared at him. She’d never met anyone like him. He was delicate and fragile, yet confident and blasé and for some reason she couldn’t take her eyes off him. Half of her wanted to look after him and half of her . . . well, wanted to do something else entirely. Was it his dark, all-seeing eyes, or his m
outh, which was in a permanent half-smile, a star of a dimple to one side?

  ‘Wait there,’ she told him.

  He spoke well, so she was confident he wasn’t going to ransack the place while her back was turned. Not that there was anything worth stealing. She went into the kitchenette and boiled a saucepan of water, then cleaned the blood off his face with the edge of a tea towel. He sat as still as he could, only protesting when she rubbed too hard on the wound.

  ‘There,’ she said. ‘At least it’s clean and you’re not covered in blood. You’ll need some antiseptic.’

  ‘Thank you, nurse.’

  She patted the arm of the sofa.

  ‘Put your head on here and I’ll get you a blanket.’

  He lay down, then reached out a hand to her before she could move away. He stroked the inside of her arm, his long, slender fingers on her pale skin, then linked those fingers in hers, holding on tightly as if he needed her. She shivered. How strange it was, she thought, that she didn’t want him to let go, whereas the man at the Kitten Club had made her skin crawl. What made one person’s touch irresistible, yet someone else’s repellent?

  His eyes were closing. She couldn’t stand here all night holding his hand, so she extricated herself from his grip as gently as she could and went to fetch a spare eiderdown. She covered him up, then stood and looked at him for a moment, stretched out on the sofa, wondering who and what he was. Alexander Beetle. She smiled. He seemed to be a mass of contradictions. Man but boy. Glamorous but innocent. She wasn’t sure how he made her feel, but at least she had forgotten the horrible man from earlier.

  She wondered what Barbara would think if she found him in the morning. She might think an angel had been dropped from heaven. His dark lashes stood out against the paleness of his skin; a black wing of hair fell across his forehead. He didn’t look very old – a little older than she was, definitely, but not much. As well as the gash on his head, she now saw his lip was swollen and bruised, which was why it looked so inviting. He was lucky not to have lost any teeth.

  Sally felt a sudden urge to bend down and kiss him. She shook her head in bewilderment. Was it a sense of protectiveness that made her want to do that? She thought very probably not.

  *

  It was nearly four o’clock when she got into bed. Barbara was in the other, rasping away. She was a biggish girl and when she lay on her back she snored all night long, oblivious.

  Sally put on two pairs of socks, pulled on a vest under her nightgown, and huddled under the covers. It had been quite a night. Her life couldn’t really be further from what it had been just over a month ago, and although she wasn’t sure if she liked it yet, it certainly wasn’t dull. None of tonight’s events would have happened in Knapford, of that she was certain.

  9

  1967

  At ten o’clock the next morning, Sally woke with a start. It took her a few moments to work out why she felt unsettled and then she remembered. Alexander. Alexander Beetle. She’d meant to get up early to go and check on her patient before Barbara woke. But Barbara’s bedclothes were thrown back and she had already got up. Sally hurried out to find her flatmate sitting on the sofa in her dressing gown, eating cornflakes with the top of the milk and two spoons of sugar, her large feet splayed into a pair of red nylon slippers. And no sign of last night’s apparition. Just the eiderdown neatly folded on to one arm of the sofa.

  Sally wasn’t sure what to say. She didn’t want to admit to letting a total stranger into the flat, now it was the cold light of day. It seemed a rash thing to have done. Last night it had seemed like the action of any good Samaritan.

  Barbara waved her spoon. ‘Morning!’ she said through a mouthful. Then seeing Sally look perturbed: ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Sally. ‘I lost my job last night.’ She cast around for any evidence of Alexander, but he’d vanished without a trace. She was a tiny bit relieved, standing there with her hair all over the place in her nightdress and bedsocks.

  ‘Oh,’ said Barbara, reaching out for the cornflakes and pouring herself another bowl. ‘They’re looking for someone at the chemist.’

  Sally made a face. Counting out pills and selling Durex to awkward men wasn’t really her idea of a career path.

  ‘Slight problem,’ she said, sitting down next to Barbara. ‘They wouldn’t give me my wages. So I’m a bit stuck for this month’s rent.’

  Barbara stopped eating and stared at her through thick-lensed glasses. ‘Well, I can’t afford to pay for you,’ she said.

  Sally bit her lip. ‘If you lend me the train fare, I’ll go and get some money off my brothers.’ They’d spot her some cash between them, even though it would be a bit humiliating.

  ‘I’m not a ruddy bank.’

  ‘I know. But it’s either that or I move out.’

  Barbara heaved a sigh and dug her spoon back into her cereal. Sally’s stomach rumbled. She hadn’t eaten since six the night before.

  ‘Could I pinch a few cornflakes? I’ll bring back a load of stuff from the butcher’s shop. Whatever you fancy.’

  Barbara looked at her, weighing up the situation. Decisions were obviously laborious for her. ‘Lamb chops,’ she said finally. ‘And a bit of gammon. I like a bit of gammon.’

  ‘It’s a deal,’ said Sally. She’d head up on the train tomorrow. She was too tired today. She thought she’d probably go back to bed for a few hours, then go to the shop and find a paper, see what jobs were going.

  She found a bowl and tipped up the cereal packet. Three solitary cornflakes and a cloud of orange dust fell out.

  On Sunday morning, she got up and had a tepid bath – Barbara had used most of the hot water – and put on her favourite dress: a swingy shift dress in green and yellow, with a white polo-neck jumper underneath and her white knee-length boots. The outfit would give her a lift so she would feel positive when she saw the boys. She would look the part, even though they probably wouldn’t be fooled. Not when she asked them for cash.

  She wouldn’t say anything to her mum. Her mum would just worry. Or tell her to come home.

  She was sweeping black mascara on to her lashes when she heard the sound of a car horn tooting madly outside. It was persistent – beep beep beeeeep – so eventually she went outside and up the steps to see what was happening. Russell Gardens wasn’t used to disruption. Its quiet leafiness seemed affronted by the clamour, the houses looking askance at the interloper. For on the road outside was a gleaming bright red sports car, low-slung with a long bonnet. And behind the wheel, looking decidedly more human than he had the last time she saw him, was Alexander. He spotted her and waved.

  ‘Come on,’ he shouted over the throaty rumble of the engine. ‘I’m taking you for lunch.’

  She laughed. Already she realised it was typical of him to assume she had nothing better to do. She supposed people like Alexander knew they were always going to be the best offer anyone had. She stood for a moment on the pavement, the breeze ruffling her hair and her dress, thankful she was washed and dressed and made-up.

  Of course she was going to say yes. Of course she was.

  She was terrified by the speed at which he drove. London was still waking up – it was Sunday morning after all – but he seemed to have no regard for possible pedestrians as they roared down Kensington High Street. The shops were all shut and there was little traffic, but everyone who was out and about stopped and stared at them as they whizzed past.

  ‘Where are we going?’ shouted Sally over the deafening noise of the engine and the wind.

  ‘Home!’ replied Alexander. He looked sideways at her and smiled. She nudged his arm to indicate he should concentrate on the road.

  ‘Where’s home?’ She’d assumed he lived in London, but they were heading out of the city, the grandeur of Kensington left behind. Here the houses were nondescript and characterless: rows and rows of red or grey brick lining the road, interspersed with the odd row of shops.

  ‘Wait and see. It’s a
bit of a journey. Are you warm enough?’ He slowed down and reached behind the seat, grabbing a red tartan rug.

  Sally wrapped it around her and clung on to the edge of the seat, bracing herself every time they went round a corner. She had only ever been in the delivery van they used at the butcher’s, or her father’s Armstrong-Siddeley, which was cumbersome and slow. This car was like a jet-propelled bullet. There was no time to think about being sick, although she felt as if her stomach had been left behind miles ago.

  Was she mad, driving off into the wilds with someone she barely knew? It had seemed a better option than going home to face the questions she didn’t want to answer, and the memories. They had begun to fade. Not that she wanted to forget altogether, but it was hard, trying to keep your chin up. London had helped her do that.

  Eventually she relaxed, realising that Alexander knew what he was doing and where he was going. They left the outskirts of London and emerged into the countryside, whizzing through the occasional village. Sally caught a sign and realised they were heading towards Oxford, much further south than she was used to going.

  After a while he pulled over in a lay-by. He dug around behind him and pulled out a thermos flask.

  ‘Cocoa,’ he grinned, spinning off the lid and filling the two cups with deliciously steaming chocolatey milk.

  ‘You don’t seem to me like a thermos flask sort of person.’

  ‘Oh, trust me – I’m not. The person I was staying with forced me to take it.’ He put the cup to his lips with a grin. ‘Women do seem to love mothering me. Apart from my own, strangely.’

  He laughed, so Sally didn’t comment. The two of them sipped at their cocoa.

  ‘Look at us,’ said Alexander. ‘Like an old married couple on a Sunday jaunt.’