She's Out

by La Plante, Lynda

  Julia smiled, touching her mother’s wrinkled hand. ‘I am trying, Mother, but you know my job – it’s always taken precedence over my personal life.’

  ‘You look very well, dear.’ Changing the subject deftly, Mrs Lawson smiled sweetly. Will you be staying tonight?’

  ‘No, sadly I can’t. I’ve got surgery this evening.’

  ‘Ah, yes, of course. Perhaps a cup of tea?’

  Julia nodded and stood up. She was so tall that the low ceiling felt as if it was pressing on her head. ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’

  ‘That would be nice, dear, thank you.’

  Julia stood at the window and wanted to cry. Everything was exactly as she remembered it, as she had always remembered it. Nothing had changed for years. Only her mother had got older and more frail, softer, her voice light and quavery. Nothing else had changed. It always seemed so strange that her mother never noticed how different she was. Didn’t it show? Couldn’t she tell? ‘I’ll make the tea.’ Julia left the room and Mrs Lawson turned to stare at the solitary goldfish swimming round and round in the empty glass bowl.

  ‘We should get some green things for the fish, shouldn’t we, Bates? He seems very lonely.’

  Bates dozed, Mrs Lawson continued to stare as if hypnotized while the fish went round and round. ‘Poor little soul,’ she whispered.

  Angela let herself in, hating the smell that always hung in the air – babies’ vomit and urine. ‘I’m back, Mum,’ she yelled as she dropped her bag.

  Mrs Dunn was making a half-hearted attempt to iron, feed the two kids and cook all at once. She was a tired-looking woman: everything about her was tired – her face, her hair, her clothes and, worst of all, her eyes. They seemed devoid of any expression.

  ‘Where’ve you been?’ It came out as a single sigh, the iron thudding over the drip-dry shirt that always creased.

  ‘Working.’

  Mrs Dunn thumped the iron back on its stand. She pulled more semi-damp clothes from the wooden rail, tossed them into an already laden basket, switched off a steaming kettle and took an empty Mars Bar paper out of her youngest son’s mouth, all in one slow, tired swing.

  ‘Here’s a tenner for you.’

  ‘Put it in the tin on the sideboard. Eric’s going crazy – you don’t pay any rent or anything towards the food, we don’t know where you are, when you’re coming in, you treat this place like it was a hotel, you use the phone. There’s been call after call for you.’

  ‘Who from?’

  ‘I don’t know, that girl Sherry? John at the ice rink? I’m not your social secretary. Where’ve you been?’

  Angela sat down, kicking her heels against the table leg. ‘Ester Freeman gimme a job for a night – just waitressin’.’

  Mrs Dunn moved slowly back to the ironing. ‘I’ve told you not to mix with her, she’s no good, she’ll have you on the game next. Eric said he wouldn’t be surprised if you’re not on it anyway.’

  ‘Eric would know, wouldn’t he? He’s a pest, a dirty-minded, two-faced shit. This is your house and he has no right to ask me to pay rent in it.’

  ‘He does if he’s paying the bills, love, and he is. And don’t speak about him like that.’

  ‘He’s not my dad.’

  ‘No, he isn’t, thank Christ, or we’d have no roof over our heads. Eric’s taken you on.’

  Angela snorted, looking around the dank kitchen. ‘Yeah, I’m sure. This is a dump, it always was, and it’s got worse over the years. You should complain to the council – you got every right, you know. There’s empty flats either side, they’re moving everyone else round here. You’d be up for a new place, five kids, no husband.’

  Mrs Dunn banged the iron. ‘Now, don’t start. I know you always start like this. Just because you’ve got nothing in your life you got to have a go at me! Well, just stop it or you’re out on your ear.’

  Angela sighed. She hated being home – hated everything about it – even more since Eric had taken over as ‘man of the house’. He was half her mother’s age and constantly made moves on Angela, but her mother refused to believe or take any notice of it, fearful that if Eric was confronted he would walk out on her.

  ‘So, where have you been?’

  ‘I just told you. You don’t listen to what I say. I went to Aylesbury.’

  ‘Oh, yes, Ester Freeman.’ Mrs Dunn suddenly sagged into a chair. ‘Don’t go back to working for her, Angela, she’s no good. I just don’t know what to do about you, I really don’t.’

  Angela got up and slipped her arms around her mother. ‘Mum, I’ve got a boyfriend, I was sort of working for him in a way. He’s asked me to go and live with him. He’s got a nice house and—’

  ‘Oh, just stop it, Angela, you make up stories all the time. What man is this now? That copper? It was all in your head and she’s got you back at it, hasn’t she?’

  Angela shrieked, ‘No. Why do you always think I’m on the game? I’m not, and I never was. I just used to clean for her!’

  Mrs Dunn put her head in her hands. ‘I don’t know what to do with you. You won’t go back to school, you got no qualifications. How you gonna get a job with no qualifications? You tell me that.’

  Angela stuck out her lower lip. Since she’d been picked up after the bust at Ester’s, she’d had a string of part-time jobs. Nothing kept her interested for more than a few weeks and the pay was bad in all of them. She’d been a waitress, a barmaid, a clerk, a trainee at two hair salons, part-time sales girl in numerous boutiques and she’d even helped out a few market-stall owners at Camden Lock. But in reality she was just drifting around and she knew it. She didn’t know how to stop it and in a way she had hoped Mike would guide her – but he just fucked her, like everyone else.

  ‘I dunno what to do, Mum. Nothin’ seems to work out for me.’

  Mrs Dunn kissed her daughter. She was such a pretty girl: her thick hair hung in a marvellous Afro spiral cascade and she was a pale tawny colour with big, wide, amber brown eyes. ‘I want you to go and talk to your old teachers, see what they say, maybe get on some government training course. You can’t just live your life wanderin’ from one part-time job to another, you got to have a purpose.’

  ‘You mean like you?’ Angela said sarcastically, and saw the pain flash across her mother’s face.

  ‘No, what I don’t want is for you to have a life like mine, I wouldn’t want it for my worst enemy.’

  Angela started to cry. She just felt so screwed up, with nothing in the future. She knew Mike didn’t want to see her any more – he hadn’t for a while now. ‘I’ll go and see them tomorrow, okay?’

  Mrs Dunn smiled and suddenly all the tiredness evaporated. ‘Just stay away from Ester, that woman’s a bad influence.’

  Angela nodded and went upstairs. She packed her bag, stuffing anything that came to hand into it. She’d had enough, she was leaving. She heard Eric come in so she never even said goodbye to her mother – she could hear him shouting and yelling at her in the kitchen.

  She had no place to go. She called Mike at home but his wife answered so she put the phone down. She had no place to go but back to the Grange. She knew she shouldn’t have told Mike about the women but she hadn’t thought about the repercussions. She just wanted somewhere to stay until she sorted herself out. Maybe when she told Mike he would help her, find a job for her. Then she’d come back to London.

  By the time Dolly returned it was after nine and she was still carrying the white rabbit. Ester was waiting in the hall as she had seen Dolly’s arrival from the bedroom window.

  ‘Did you have a nice day?’

  ‘Didn’t you ask Julia? Here, she got the fish, you get the rabbit.’ Dolly threw it at her and walked slowly up the stairs as Connie wandered out of the kitchen.

  ‘I got some stew on.’

  Dolly looked at her. She had cotton wool stuffed up her nose, which was swollen and puffy, both eyes were black and she was crying. ‘What the hell happened to you?’

  Connie snivelle
d and went back into the kitchen just as Kathleen was coming down the stairs. ‘Boyfriend, if you can call him that, whacked her one.’

  Kathleen passed Dolly, raising an eyebrow at Ester. ‘Well, who gave you the bunny?’

  Dolly washed her face and hands. She heard Julia returning and went downstairs, when the doorbell rang. Ester came hurrying out from the kitchen. ‘I’ll get it. You go on in and sit down and have your dinner, Dolly.’ She swung open the front door to see Angela huddled on the doorstep.

  ‘What do you want?’ Ester snapped.

  ‘Oh, please, Ester, I’ve had to leave Mum’s house. It was terrible and I had no other place to go.’

  ‘Well, you can’t stay here, you can sod off.’

  Dolly walked further down into the hall. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘It’s Angela, she’s come back. I said we don’t want her here.’

  ‘Well, she can’t go back at this hour. Let her in, we’ve got enough rooms.’

  Ester stepped aside and Angela said, ‘Thank you very much, Mrs Rawlins,’ giving Ester a snooty look.

  ‘There’s some stew on so put your bag in a room and come into the kitchen,’ Dolly said, smiling. She headed into the kitchen.

  Ester gave a half smile. There was no way that Dolly could get the two hundred grand back now: it would have gone straight through from her bank into Ester’s overdrawn account.

  Julia was already sitting at the table, helping a still tearful Connie serve up the stew. They heard Gloria returning and she banged in from the back yard. She was filthy, and went straight to the sink and ran the taps over her hands. ‘I brought me gear from the house.’

  They all concentrated on the food, and the scraping of their knives and forks was accentuated by the silence.

  Dolly cleared her throat. ‘Right. Things have changed since last night. I’m not taking on this house. I’m sorry, but I’ve had time to think and I reckon it’ll be too expensive to do up and as it had such a bad reputation I think I’ll go back to my original plan and open up a smaller place back in town.’ She placed her knife and fork together.

  ‘You should have told me this morning, Dolly,’ Ester said.

  ‘I’m telling you now. I want my money back, Ester.’

  ‘Well, if you’d told me this morning that might have been possible but you’re too late now. I put it in the bank.’

  ‘You can take it out again, can’t you?’

  ‘No. I’m bankrupt and they gave me the deeds of the house. They were holding them as collateral. I’ve still got about three hundred grand to pay off, but they won’t cash a cheque for a tenner right now.’ Ester looked dutifully crestfallen and her voice took on an apologetic whine. ‘I’m really sorry, Dolly. Like I said, you should have told me this morning.’

  Dolly’s face tightened. ‘If you’d told me you were bankrupt I’d never have walked out without getting my money.’

  ‘But you did and now there’s nothing I can do about it. The house is yours, Dolly, lock, stock and barrel.’

  Dolly pursed her lips. ‘You really stitched me up, didn’t you, Ester? I should have known there’d be some hitch. I really walked into this one, didn’t I?’

  ‘With your eyes open, Dolly, I never pushed you. I told you to think about it, if you recall. Now there’s nothing I can do. But we’re all here, we can all lend a hand, get this place up and rolling.’

  Dolly clenched her hands. ‘You any idea how much this will cost to get fixed up?’

  ‘No, but we can start getting estimates in tomorrow. Local builders are cheaper than up in London.’

  ‘And how do I pay them?’ Dolly said quietly.

  Ester flicked a look at Julia, shrugging her shoulders. ‘Well, they give you grants, don’t they? Unless you’ve got more dough stashed away.’

  Dolly got up and fetched a glass. ‘Any wine left from last night?’

  Ester sent Angela to get a bottle from the dining room. All the women were looking at Ester, then back to Dolly as if at a tennis match.

  Dolly followed Angela out, and went into the drawing room, where Angela was at the desk, reading a stack of newspaper cuttings. When she saw Dolly, she tried to stuff them back into the drawer. ‘I couldn’t find any wine, Mrs Rawlins.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be in a drawer, would it, love?’ She pushed past Angela and opened the drawer as Angela backed away from her. She flicked through the cuttings, headlines about the murder of her husband, headlines about the shooting of Shirley Miller – and the diamond raid, then folded them and picked up her handbag.

  ‘What you staring at me like that for?’ she demanded.

  Angela stuttered, ‘I’m not, I just – just didn’t know about all that.’

  ‘What? That I’d been in prison? You knew, they all know. Now go and get the bottle. Try the dining room, dear.’

  Angela scuttled out, and Dolly, taking a deep breath, walked back into the kitchen. The room fell silent.

  Angela uncorked the wine as Dolly sat waiting, her hands clenched over her handbag. As soon as the wine was poured, Ester lifted her glass. ‘Well, here’s to the Grange Foster Home.’ Echoing her, they sipped the wine. Dolly took only a small mouthful before she replaced the glass.

  ‘Isn’t it about time you all cut the pretence and came clean?’

  ‘About what, Dolly? Ester asked innocendy.

  ‘Why you’re all here,’ Dolly replied calmly.

  Again they looked at Ester to take the lead. She smiled sweetly. ‘You know why. We were all at a bit of a loose end and thought it would be nice, you know, to have a little welcome-out party, that’s all. As it turned out, you got this place.’

  ‘Off your hands,’ said Dolly.

  ‘Well, if you want to put it that way.’

  Dolly opened her bag slowly. ‘Well, maybe I will be able to open up but that isn’t what you all bargained for.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean, Dolly,’ Gloria said.

  ‘Don’t you?’ Dolly threw the newspaper cuttings on to the table. ‘Not too clever leaving them lying around, was it? That’s why you’re all here. That’s what you’re all after, isn’t it?’

  ‘The diamonds?’ Connie asked, and received a kick under the table from Ester.

  ‘Yes. The bloody diamonds.’ Dolly rarely, if ever, swore.

  Mike drew up outside Jimmy Donaldson’s run-down antique shop. The lights were on and a patrol car was parked outside. He patted his pocket, felt the pouch bag, and then walked into the shop.

  Arc-lights were turned on and three uniformed officers were strip-searching the place. It was a tough job as furniture, junk and bric-à-brac were crowded into every inch of the shop space. An officer looked up at Mike as he entered. ‘There’s another floor even more stuffed than down here, plus a backyard crammed full, and an outside lav.’

  ‘You not found them, then?’ Mike asked innocently.

  ‘No. According to Donaldson, they were hidden behind a wall. Well, we’ve nearly had the place come down on us, we’ve chipped away at so many bricks, but we’ve come to the conclusion he’s playing silly buggers.’

  Mike eased his way round a Victorian washstand. ‘Well, carry on. I was just passing so I’ll give you a hand for an hour or so.’

  The officer nodded. ‘You want a cup of tea? We’re about to brew up out back.’

  ‘Yeah, milk, one sugar.’

  Left alone, Mike looked round the shop. He could see the wall where they had been removing bricks and he inched towards it. He had to be fast as the men were within yards of him. He pulled back two bricks and stuffed in the pouch, then rammed the bricks back into place. When the officer returned with two mugs of tea, Mike was standing by the opposite wall. He was inspecting the brickwork. ‘Go over every inch of all the walls again. Donaldson is still insisting it’s behind the brickwork.’

  Mike stayed for another half-hour, helping move furniture around but keeping well away from where he had stashed the pouch, concentrating on the opposite wall. As he left, he
suggested they stay at it.

  He got home after eleven. His wife was already in bed and when he got in beside her, she didn’t move.

  ‘You awake?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Sorry I’m so late. It’s this bloke we brought out of the nick, taking up a lot of extra time.’

  ‘Phone call for you.’

  ‘Oh yeah, who?’

  ‘I don’t know. She put the phone down.’

  Susan turned to face him. He sighed. ‘If whoever it was put the phone down, how do you know it was a she?’

  ‘I can tell. And that’s what I’m asking you to do, Mike. Tell me if there’s somebody else, just tell me.’

  ‘There isn’t, Sue, honestly, there’s no one. I’m not seeing anyone else, I swear to you, and this is starting to get on my nerves.’

  She turned over again, and lay awake for about ten minutes, crying silently, until she couldn’t stand it any longer and turned back to him, but he was fast asleep. She’d been through his pockets again and this time she’d found a crumpled half page torn from an old diary. There was a phone number and a name. Angela. She’d called the number, asked to speak to Angela, but a woman had said she no longer lived there, had no idea where she was, and slapped down the receiver. Susan realized she should have said that the girl on the phone had said her name was Angela, confronted him, but then he could have asked the real Angela if she’d called and spoken to his wife. She punched the pillow. Nothing in the world was worse than lying next to someone, hearing them sleep, when you couldn’t. She lay on her back and stared at the ceiling. She wondered who Angela was, if it was her, if there was anybody, or if it was her own paranoia, because she sensed, deep down – probably like every woman who suspects their lover or husband is seeing someone else constantly makes excuses, because she is afraid of the truth.

  The bottle was empty. The women sat listening to Dolly as she twisted the wine glass round by the stem. ‘There were the four of us, all widows, Linda Pirellie, Bella, Shirley Miller and me. They’re all dead.’

  Angela stared. She knew the name Shirley Miller, knew it very well because it was the name Mike was always saying. It was his sister’s.