by Laura Powell
‘Did I give you a fright? That was cruel of me.’
He leans against the doorframe between the hall and the big room with a small smile.
It is peculiar; his face sat in her mind for days – she was furious at him for stealing her words and she has waited to confront him – but now they are finally alone she wants to squeeze herself inside the dresser to hide. It is painful, somehow, to stand so close to him.
‘I’d love a tea,’ he says, friendlier than she has heard him before.
She nods, relieved for an excuse to disappear into the kitchen. She runs her wrists under the cool tap as the kettle boils. When she returns to the big room he is pert on the settee, his left calf draped over his right knee. She rests his teacup on a coaster and returns to polishing.
‘You might try soda crystals on those. A trick from Father’s housemaid,’ he says.
She nods but it is strange for Gallagher to tell her how to clean, as if Hotel Eden itself has tipped upside down. He sips his tea. She tries to concentrate on the spoons but the room is stifling. She juts out a lip and blows cool air onto her forehead. She would like to open the stiff windows but she will do it when he isn’t there to watch.
‘Look, I didn’t thank you for your help,’ he says after a silence.
‘You’ve nothing to thank me for.’
‘The Cornish Cleaver thing. You’re annoyed… You’ve barely said a word.’
‘I’m really not.’
‘Let me take you for a spin this evening.’
‘There’s no need.’
‘I need to take my car for a run anyway. We could stop by the flicks.’
Betty grips the rag and imagines Mary’s face if she saw Betty strolling into the pictures with a man at her side; her eyeballs would pop right out of her skull.
‘I can’t. Mother wouldn’t like me going out when we’re this busy.’
‘Nonsense, she has that other girl who helps,’ he says and Betty is pleased that he doesn’t remember Jennifer’s name.
‘Mother’s out this evening so I have to—’
‘There, all the better,’ he says quickly, then looks taken aback at his own words.
‘Thank you but I shouldn’t.’
The front door bangs open and Gallagher’s face falls, or perhaps she imagines it. He picks up his cup and swallows the tea fast, making his Adam’s apple bob, then jumps to his feet. She still wants to ask him why he stole her expression without telling her and part of her would like to apologise for seeming so cold and uninteresting around him, but there isn’t time.
‘All right, the pictures. Six o’clock,’ she says suddenly, surprising herself.
He raises one eyebrow, gives a small nod, then sweeps into the hall and up the stairs, just as Mother breezes into the big room with a string bag of vegetables.
‘I hope he wasn’t giving you any trouble. Reggie says he’s a high and mighty pain in the backside, that one.’
‘He’s fine,’ mutters Betty, not meeting Mother’s eye. Then she remembers her panic. ‘Where’ve you been? You were gone so long I almost called Inspector Napier.’
At half past five, Betty still can’t decide what to wear to the pictures. She is standing in front of the bedroom mirror, wrapping Mother’s best raccoon stole around her shoulders, when Mary bursts in.
‘Only me,’ she squeals, draping herself across the bed. Betty rips off the stole, embarrassed. ‘Guess what? Gray’s asked me to supper. I think I’m going to die with happiness.’
‘To supper? That’s so exciting,’ says Betty, trying to sound enthusiastic.
‘We’re courting! At least we will be when he asks me. Can you believe it? He’s the second best boy in all the villages. Except George, obviously, but I won’t fight you for him.’
Betty rolls her eyes and glances at the clock. Its second hand seems to beat louder than usual.
‘I just don’t know how to behave around him,’ continues Mary. ‘I wish I could be more like you, Bet. More, you know, aloof and get boys to want me without even trying.’
Betty nods, only half listening. She still hasn’t dressed properly and she didn’t arrange where to meet Gallagher. What if he has changed his mind? Then she registers what Mary said.
‘Wait, aloof?’
‘Yes, to make George mad about you. You know, you’re all frosty around him and pretend not to care. It’s George Paxon for goodness’ sake. Any girl would want him.’
A coldness sets in Betty’s stomach.
‘That’s not what I do. I don’t even like George.’
‘You needn’t play coy with me, Betty Broadbent. I haven’t time. And anyway, I only came here because my hair’s a fright and I thought your mother might set it for me, but that sourpuss girl let me in and said she’s not home.’
‘Jennifer? She’s all right. But yes, Mother’s out so—’
‘So I’m stuck looking like this, that’s what,’ finishes Mary.
Betty looks at Mary’s hair, curled strangely like a plumed bird.
‘It’s fine.’
‘I suppose I do look quite pretty, don’t I?’ says Mary, twirling before the mirror. ‘And I’m going out with GRAY.’ She lets out an excited little shriek.
Betty tries to look excited too but she feels very old suddenly, as though she is Mary’s elderly aunt instead of her oldest school friend.
‘You should probably ignore Gray for a while,’ continues Mary in a serious tone. ‘He talks an awful lot about you. He obviously likes me more but you still shouldn’t speak to him, just to be sure. You know how you encourage them sometimes. You need to be fair, Betty.’
Betty sighs. She likes Gray. They have long conversations without him staring at parts of her body, the way George does. She can be herself around him. Gray confided in her recently that his parents are thinking of moving to Devon to be closer to his grandparents but she won’t tell Mary that; she would be crushed. She wonders whether to tell Mary about going to the pictures with Gallagher. No, it would be gossiped around in minutes and get back to Mother.
‘Now what dress shall I wear? Bottle green or pink?’ continues Mary.
‘Green, I think. And make sure he walks you all the way home. It’s not safe.’
‘Do you really think green? Because I prefer the pink. Do you think Gray likes pink?’
By the time she has followed Mary down into the hall and waved until she is a smudge at the end of the street, the hall clock is chiming six times. Betty runs upstairs to change, just as Gallagher’s bedroom door opens. He steps out, blocking the landing.
‘Who was that visitor of yours? The Eskimos could probably hear her in Siberia.’
‘My friend Mary,’ she says and stifles a laugh.
He shuts his bedroom door and turns the key, his black spy coat slung over one shoulder.
‘Come on now, the pictures won’t wait for us.’
‘But I’m not dressed.’
‘Nonsense. You look splendid as you are.’
Her heart pounds. Splendid, that’s what he said.
At the front door, he helps Betty into her coat. Jennifer is humming in the kitchen. Gallagher puts a finger to his lip and they walk out, closing the door softly behind. The street is empty, Betty’s hands are sticky with nerves. She walks two steps behind him and he stops beside a black car with no roof and a shiny silver bumper.
‘My baby. Miss Austin Healey,’ he says and smacks the bonnet. ‘Beauty, isn’t she?’
‘I didn’t realise motorcars had surnames,’ she says. Or Christian names, she thinks.
Gallagher laughs as if she has made a joke and Betty blushes.
‘We’ve never had a motorcar,’ she explains.
He opens the door for her. She climbs in, drawing her coat tighter around her.
‘Father spotted her,’ says Gallagher, slotting in beside her. ‘He happened to be at Silverstone shortly after she was launched and met some chap who had tired of her already. Out there with the Grand Prix, the lucky devil.’
Betty doesn’t know who Grand Prix is, only that he must be a very important Frenchman. She nods intelligently and Gallagher starts the engine. He speeds along the road and she clutches the edge of her seat. Her stomach churns and she bunches her legs near the passenger door, far from his.
‘I should have brought my camera,’ she says to make conversation.
But he doesn’t hear her over the throaty engine and the rumble of the road, and they drive the rest of the way in silence.
They arrive for the film fifteen minutes early. Gallagher hands her a humbug, still warm from his pocket. She fiddles with the paper. He chooses seats in the front row.
‘It’s empty,’ she says, surprised.
‘He’s terrified them all away, it’s always the businesses that suffer first,’ says Gallagher in a matter-of-fact tone and it takes Betty a moment to realise who he means.
‘Have you any leads?’ she says, her eyes on the red velvet curtain.
‘Leads?’ and he half smiles, as though she shouldn’t know the word.
‘So have you?’
‘None apart from Forbes. Napier’s focusing on him, though I’m not convinced.’
‘Who do you think it is?’ she says quickly, hoping he won’t ask her any more about Mr Forbes.
‘Never you mind, little lady.’
‘I could probably help.’
‘Aren’t you a tease? I’m sure you’d make quite the KGB interrogator.’
‘I’m serious,’ she says crossly.
‘Why are you so interested?’
She shrugs.
‘Because all the ladies in this village seem awfully scared but not particularly inquisitive,’ he continues. ‘Whereas you’re quite the opposite.’
‘It’s just… Mother’s not safe until he’s caught.’
‘Your mother? What about you?’
‘Oh I’m fine, but Mother’s a blonde.’
Gallagher raises one eyebrow. It is that funny eyebrow with the life of its own.
‘Just like poor Maureen and Elsa,’ she explains. ‘He’s picking blondes, isn’t he?’
‘Who told you that?’
‘No one, but I saw their pictures in the newspaper. And if there’s nothing else linking them… They didn’t live in St Steele, they weren’t related, they didn’t even go to school together. So he must have chosen them because they’re both pretty and look a bit alike. Unless it’s a coincidence. But is anything in the world ever a true coincidence?’
‘Sharp as a tack, aren’t you,’ he says, watching her. ‘I think I’ve my next story.’
‘No, don’t listen to me,’ she says, blushing. ‘Maybe it is just a coincidence.’
‘Gentlemen prefer blondes, and so does the Cornish Cleaver,’ he says, nodding in the direction of the screen. ‘How’s that for a timely headline?’
Betty frowns. It’s tasteless, she wants to say. And, why do you always write about our private conversations in your articles? But he is too busy rummaging in his trouser pocket to notice her expression. He pulls out a fistful of humbugs and banknotes.
‘I’ve been meaning to give you a little something.’ He pushes the notes into her hand.
‘What are these?’
‘For the tip off, the Cornish Cleaver suggestion. I look after all my sources.’
‘But I’m not a source,’ and she drops the money on the floor in surprise.
A cheap source, Reggie’s words return to her. She jumps to her feet.
‘Sit down, for goodness’ sake. What’s the matter with you?’ he hisses.
‘I–I need to get back.’
‘What are you talking about? The film’s about to start.’
The door swings open. A group of girls, a little older than Betty, file in. They speak in high voices. Betty’s throat tightens. The humbug seems to have lodged itself between her tonsils but when she moves her tongue, it is still on top of it.
‘Betty, it’s perfectly normal. Reporters often tip their sources,’ whispers Gallagher in a hard way. ‘Just accept it. Then we can watch the film and, after I drive you back, we need never speak again if that’s what you want.’
She opens her lips to explain what she means; that she didn’t want to be his source, that he should never have stolen her words in the first place. She wants to know why he is warm one moment and frosty the next; why the other reporters dislike him so much; and why he pays attention to her at all, when all she does is spill tea over him and say daft things. Her eyes well up and Gallagher looks blurry. He probably looks at her and sees a silly girl. She should never have come. She rushes out of the picture house and onto the street.
Outside she runs faster, pounding the pavement with her feet. One mile closer to home, the picture house far behind her, she slows to a walk and wipes her eyes with her fists. The street is empty, the air is mild and choking with midges. She tucks down her head as she passes Mr Forbes’s closed-up shop. Someone has thrown eggs at it. Stringy yellow yolk dribbles down the glass shopfront. Half of her would like to wash it off for him but then she thinks of Mother and she isn’t sorry for him at all.
Betty had pretended not to mind when she saw Mother kissing him in the kitchen of Hotel Eden two months ago, and when Mother didn’t come home from his shop until eleven o’clock for six nights in a row. When she did, she smelled of meat and grease and smiled too much, making Betty smile too. But one night she didn’t come home at all.
Just after two o’clock Betty had locked up the hotel, run along the black streets and knocked on Mr Forbes’s shop door. He hadn’t answered so she had walked around the back to the abattoir and noticed a bit of Mother’s green skirt fabric caught on a jagged broken window. She had climbed through after her and found Mother lying under the meat hooks on the red stained concrete, a bottle of sherry in one hand, a handful of white petals in the other. She was barefoot and sobbing and chanting his name. Betty had put her too-big shoes on Mother’s ballerina feet, laced them, and walked Mother home, her arm around Mother’s shoulders. Her own feet were slashed with chippings by the time they reached Hotel Eden.
Mother had gone back to his butcher’s shop the next night, and the next. On his back doorstep, she had left dozens of letters and Victoria sponge cakes cut into heart shapes, but Mr Forbes only ever sighed at her and said in a tired voice, ‘Please stop this Dolores. I’m sorry but it really is over.’
Betty had wanted to tell Gallagher every bit of it and explain that Mr Forbes was so cowardly and un-killer-like that, even when he changed his mind and stopped loving Mother, he wasn’t violent or nasty with it. Instead he ignored her letters and door knocks and pretended she was a ghost like his dead wife. But then Betty had reminded herself that if Gallagher wrote about it and the Inspector found out about the love affair, Mother would be questioned about him and her nerves might not stand it, so she had pledged to tell no one.
Betty glances at the butcher’s shop. The upstairs curtains are drawn but there is a snake of light in the gap between them. She thinks she sees a silhouette at the window but it is probably just her imagination. Still, she walks on a little faster. She passes Woolworth’s and turns onto the main carriageway with nothing but fields on one side and sea on the other, all wrapped up in black night. The first flutters of fear fill her chest and she starts to trot.
Minutes pass and a car engine fills the silence. She glances back and sees two enormous headlamps. It is bulkier than Gallagher’s car and it slows as it nears her. Something about it makes her break into a sprint. Her chest heaves and the thick air clogs her lungs, but she runs harder, imagining that each breath of wind is a blade swiping at her.
The car crawls along the kerb beside her and she tries to sprint faster but she can’t. She looks at the car but can’t make out the driver; the windows are too dark. She isn’t certain how much longer she can run for. At some point she will have to stop and give herself up to him. But then the car whooshes off and she is alone again.
Tears slide down her cheeks. She
slows to a jog and, to calm herself, she pictures Hotel Eden with the stone water jar heating the bed and Mother singing along to the wireless. She is still trotting when a second car rumbles up to her and the passenger door swings open.
‘Betty?’ says Gallagher in his short, cool way.
She stops. She is so relieved; she could throw herself down and hug his ankles.
‘There was a car…’ she begins.
‘Are you getting in or not?’ he cuts in.
He is hunched over the wheel, his face white and taut in the moonlight. She is about to thank him when she notices a slash of red across his knuckles. She freezes, one leg inside the car, the other out of it.
‘My nose bled,’ he says roughly.
‘Your nose?’
‘It does that when I’m… Look, that’s what kept me, so will you get in?’
He rubs his fist with his handkerchief. Betty looks at the dark road, then at him. She isn’t sure what to believe but she thinks again of the big car and clambers inside.
‘I’m sorry,’ she mutters.
‘I’m sorry about all of that,’ he says and she isn’t certain whether he heard her.
‘I shouldn’t have run off like that.’
‘Yes, well. I’ve never had a free source.’
She wonders whether it is a joke but neither of them laughs. He drives on. They reach a roundabout and he circles it twice.
‘Shall we go back and watch the end of the film?’ he shouts over the engine. ‘It looked quite good, but don’t tell anyone I said that or it’ll ruin my image.’
She nods and tries not to think about the blood on his knuckles or the other car. He shoots back to the picture house, so fast the night and the trees and the streetlamps merge into one.
Betty is woken just after dawn by a rustle of voices outside. She climbs out of bed and peeks between the curtains. The moon and the sun still sit side by side, but on the street below is a crowd of her neighbours, all wearing their dressing gowns and slippers. Joan stands in the middle, her head piled with rollers and her hands flailing as she talks to her husband Richard.
‘Mother,’ whispers Betty, nudging her.
‘Don’t,’ grunts Mother, her eyes still closed. ‘Leave him, he’s mine.’
