Mags pointed to a green door. ‘Fire escape? We could go and watch Donald Duck at the children’s matinee. Or what about a manhunt? If we sit for long enough on the town hall steps, someone will pick us up. We’d do better there than here. I work with lawyers and they are a dry lot. Let’s go and be discovered by a pair of lusty youths. We could repair to some nearby tavern and talk about football and stuff.’
Helen considered that. ‘A balding eagle could find us. The eyesight of the species is legendary.’
‘True.’ Mags sat on a pink stool. ‘Being unbeautiful isn’t easy.’
‘I know.’
‘Lucy always says that my beauty lies within. I bet no one ever says that to Marilyn Monroe.’
Helen voiced the opinion that it was easy to hate Marilyn Monroe. ‘Beautiful women have a special knowledge that precludes the need for actual brains. They always seem to know exactly what to do and say – it must be something that arrives with maturation and admiration. One minute, they are sitting at the back of the class with runny noses. The next they are at the Palais de Danse picking up every youth without spots.’
Mags agreed that the whole thing was sick-making. ‘I had a boyfriend for six months. Then I found out he was only in it for the chips. My parents own a fish and chip shop and he got a free supper every time he took me out. A piece of bad cod put paid to that adventure, I’m afraid. Nearly put paid to him as well – terrible case of food poisoning.’ She sighed. ‘Alas, he survived. There is no true justice in this world.’
‘So you are a friend of Agnes?’
‘Yes.’
‘Her husband works for my father.’
Mags nodded. ‘Denis needs an easy job – he had TB when he was a child and it left a few scars. Even then, he and his family were well loved. Three mills set up a fund to send him off to Switzerland. He couldn’t go till the war was over, so his lungs never fully recovered. He’s lucky with his wife, though. Agnes has never been one for frills and flounces – and she adores him.’
‘Good. He works hard. My father appreciates him.’
Mags raised an eyebrow and smiled broadly. ‘Really?’
‘Father approves of anyone who fights the odds, but there is no real affection in him.’
‘Your mam died?’
Helen dusted a hair from her shoulder. ‘I scarcely remember my mother, but I believe my birth was her undoing. She became unsteady and prone to accidents. Childbirth weakened her heart.’
‘Sad.’
Emboldened by alcohol, Helen continued to open up to the stranger. ‘I used to think he blamed me for her death, but nothing is as easy as that with him. He doesn’t like women. I am a woman. Quod erat demonstrandum, as the theorem states. It’s as if I’m not there. Or I wasn’t until today.’
‘Balding eagle?’
‘Exactly.’ Helen applied lipstick. ‘We still haven’t an answer. Where do we hide?’
‘Give me five minutes.’ Mags disappeared into the corridor.
Helen sat on the pink-padded stool and stared unseeing at the mirror. What on earth was she thinking of? First, she had tried in vain to have an affair with Agnes Makepeace’s husband; second, she was currently engaged in conversation with one of that woman’s closest friends. A nip of brandy put paid to misgivings. She was a thirty-two-year-old adult and she could do what she damned well pleased.
Mags returned, a key brandished in one hand. ‘I got us a room for the day,’ she crowed in triumph. ‘Two beds, two chairs and our very own bottle of champagne.’
‘But my father—’
‘Your father can bugger off. If anyone questions you, I was taken ill and you were kind enough to cater for my needs. It’s nearly true. I am allergic to lawyers and I need champagne. You can pour, thereby providing me with the medication I require.’
Helen blinked. Could all lies be turned into truth? Could she marry a man she had disliked on sight, could she go through a hyphenated life with a smile on her face? ‘I won’t marry him.’ The announcement surprised her – she hadn’t meant to say the words out loud.
‘You tell ’em, matey. We’ve a similar article at work. He is articled – a mere clerk. He’s as fat as two boars and the beer gut enters a room five minutes before the rest of him. He breathes.’
Helen giggled. ‘Everyone breathes.’
‘It’s his main occupation. You can hear him from the other end of the building. Near me, he breathes more heavily and, to top it all, I get the impression that he expects me to be grateful for his attentions. Come on. We can manage an hour away from the chaos, but I’ll have to go back eventually. Lucy and I have been friends since school.’
They drank the champagne, then laid themselves flat on the two beds. Helen, who had never before mixed her drinks, was decidedly befuddled, though she managed to remain alert while Mags told tales from a childhood she had shared with the bride and the matron of honour.
Then, while Mags Bradshaw snored gently, Helen considered her own childhood. It had not been normal, and she found herself resenting three girls who had played with skipping ropes, bats and balls, pieces of slate as hopscotch markers. They had been injured in the rubble of bomb sites, had gone to Saturday matinees armed with liquorice allsorts and sherbet dabs, had been dragged home by a constable after stealing apples from an orchard.
Helen’s own childhood? A series of nannies, then a governess followed by some years in a select school for the privileged. Dance and music lessons while Father was in court, silence when he was at home. She had never been to the roller rink, to public parks, to the wild and wonderful moors. For her, Rivington Pike had been the name of a place; to Mags, Lucy and Agnes, the pike was for rolling eggs at Easter, for sliding down on an old tray in snow, for picnics on summer days.
‘I hate him,’ Helen advised the ceiling, which suddenly refused to keep still. ‘It’s not an earthquake,’ she added, a barely contained mirth accompanying her words. But it wasn’t just mirth – she felt like sobbing. The feelings were justified this time, though. The thing that had happened to her in church had been unattached to any particular fear and she hoped it would never return. She liked Mags Bradshaw. Would she be allowed to like Mags? Would she ever be allowed to choose anything or anyone?
Mags woke with a start and tried to work out where she was. Someone was talking. That someone lay in the other bed, and Mags remembered the strange turn of events that had led to her current situation. Downstairs, people were dancing and talking, celebrating Lucy’s marriage to George Henshaw. She had to go.
‘I hate him,’ said the woman in the other bed.
Was she referring to her dad or to the balding eagle, Mags wondered.
‘Nowhere to go, nowhere to go.’ The words were accompanied by a few quiet sobs.
Mags sat up. ‘Oh, my God,’ she moaned. ‘Remind me that champagne’s off-limits for me, will you?’
But Helen continued to mumble, and Mags realized that the woman was now asleep, but still speaking.
As quietly as she could, Mags repaired damage to make-up, straightened her skirt, walked to the door. She had just spent an hour or so in the company of a very strange woman. No one loved Helen Spencer. She had travelled thus far without encouragement or affection. But Lucy and Agnes were downstairs and this was an important day.
Before leaving the room, Mags found hotel notepaper and scribbled a message for Helen. Had to go back to the party, hope you are OK, Mags Bradshaw. She placed it on the bedside cabinet and crept to the door. A strange feeling of guilt accompanied her all the way back to the reception. Helen Spencer was not fit to be left alone. Although Mags did not understand why, she continued to feel uneasy for the remainder of the day.
‘Where’ve you been?’ Agnes pulled Mags into a corner. ‘You missed Pop having a go at the twist. He got stuck between Eva and the groom’s mother – said he thought he’d need a bloody doctor to cut him out. Mind, he looked quite happy wedged between two pairs of enormous bosoms. So, where did you get to?’
&nbs
p; ‘I found Helen Spencer in a bit of a state. So I put her in a room and sat with her till she fell asleep. It’s her dad. He’s found her some lawyer to marry and she’s not best pleased.’
Agnes blinked rapidly. Had Miss Spencer mentioned anything about her misplaced affection for Denis? Probably not – Mags owned a face that gave away inner feelings, and she was looking her companion in the eye.
‘Agnes?’
‘What?’
‘Have you ever met anyone really desperate?’
‘My grandfather when he loses his rag with one of his blinking doll’s houses. Lucy till she found the right wedding shoes. Oh, and you now. What’s happened?’
Mags shook her head. ‘I don’t know. But she shouldn’t be on her own. I feel as if she might do something horrible. She’s living life right on the edge, Agnes. He never talks to her.’ She nodded in the direction of Judge Spencer, who was holding court across the room. ‘Now, he says she’s got to marry somebody who looks like a starving hawk. I’ve never in my life met anyone so completely miserable. She’s given up.’
‘Stop worrying about other people and start thinking about yourself.’
‘What’s to think about? I look like the back of a bus stuck in mud.’
‘You don’t. You’ve lovely hair and—’
‘Oh, shut up, Aggie. I know what I look like. Helen Spencer’s the same – plain and resigned to spending the rest of her life as half a person. She looked at me and knew that I was in a similar boat. It takes one to know one.’
Agnes sighed and shook her head. If Mags would only add some colour to the thick, mouse-coloured waves, she would look so much better. Green eyes begged for blonde highlights, but Mags, who hated artifice, seemed determined not to make the best of herself. ‘Right, you.’ Agnes folded her arms. ‘You are coming with me to the hairdresser’s and I’ll get you sorted out. Nothing drastic – don’t worry. It’s time somebody took you in hand, because you do nothing to help yourself.’
Mags blew out her cheeks. ‘He’ll breathe even louder!’ She was referring to the articled clerk at her place of employment. ‘It’s bad enough now – if I go glamorous, he’ll blow a fuse. I can’t be doing with clerk articles puffing around my chair. And my nose will still be the same.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with your nose. God, are you determined to become a carbon copy of Helen Spencer? In ten years, you’ll be exactly like her, dowdy and dull. If necessary, I’ll get Lucy in on the act,’ Agnes threatened. ‘The minute she comes back from Paris, I’ll beg her to help me frogmarch you to Bolton.’
‘All right, I give in. But nothing spectacular – are you listening?’
‘I’m listening. I’m always bloody listening. You’re worse than the Billy Cotton Band Show, all noise and no sense. Mags, put your future in my hands. By the way – where’s your locket?’
‘Locket?’
‘The one given to you by George – your bridesmaid’s gift.’
‘Bugger.’
‘Let’s be refined just for today. Buggery is off the menu.’
‘I’ve left it upstairs. God, Lucy will kill me.’ Mags left the scene at speed.
Helen was still unconscious, though the mumbling had ceased. After retrieving the silver locket from a dressing table, Mags stood over the sleeping woman. Agnes’s words echoed through the whole building – if Mags wasn’t careful, she might end up like the tormented and lonely soul in this characterless room. Mags swallowed. Agnes was probably right. In fact, Agnes had only skirted the edges of the problem.
On the landing, she fastened the locket round her neck, smiling as she remembered George’s speech. For a lawyer, he was very funny. He had spoken of a queue of women wanting to marry him, of Lucy winning hands down because she told the muckiest jokes.
‘Right,’ breathed the bridesmaid. ‘Might as well hang for the full sheep.’ She had saved for long enough. It was time to bite the bullet and endure the knife. And the chisel. She swallowed hard. Margaret Marie Bradshaw was going to have a new nose.
Denis was relieved when Helen did her disappearing act, perturbed when Mags followed her. All through the service, he had imagined Helen’s eyes boring into the back of his head like a pair of red-hot pokers. He hoped with all his heart that the judge’s daughter would keep her mouth shut about a situation that existed only in her head. She was ill. Beyond a shadow of doubt, Helen Spencer was a sick woman, a time bomb preparing to explode.
But Mags was a sensible girl. Of the trio, Lucy Walsh had always been the fun, Mags Bradshaw the brains, Agnes a mixture of both. Of said trio, Agnes was the best by a mile and he didn’t want her life made difficult by lies which would result in pity from her lifelong friends. Lucy would probably have dragged the screaming cat out of the bag; Mags, on the other hand, would always weigh pros and cons before wading in at the shallow end. He had to stop worrying.
The worry abated for about five minutes, then returned in the form of Fred, who had recently been rescued from the clutches of two inebriated and larger than life women.
‘I were nearer death then than in any bloody trench,’ cursed Fred, a grin widening his mouth. ‘Stuck between two fine ladies – what a way to go, eh, Denis?’
Denis feigned displeasure. ‘You’re old enough to stop chasing the girls.’ One of the ‘girls’ appeared behind Fred. ‘Hello, Eva. Can’t you keep him out of trouble?’
‘No.’ She lowered her bulk into a chair that looked too frail to bear such weight. ‘I thought about locking him in my shed for the day, but he would have got out one road or another. I didn’t know you could dance, Fred.’
‘That weren’t dancing,’ came the swift response. ‘That were hopping – you were stood on my other foot. It felt as if the coalman had dropped all his bags at once. Denis?’
‘What?’
‘Can we have a word?’
‘I’ve never known you have less than five hundred words, but feel free.’
Fred placed himself in the chair next to Eva’s. ‘I want to ask you about Agnes,’ he said.
‘What about her?’
The older man inhaled deeply. ‘I want to know how she’d feel if I got married again.’
‘Married again,’ echoed Eva.
Denis scratched his head. Was marriage infectious? Was this a germ picked up by Fred at the church this morning? ‘Who’d have you?’ he jested.
The ‘She would’ and the ‘I would’ arrived simultaneously.
Denis glanced from one to the other several times. ‘Oh, I see,’ was the best he could achieve.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ Fred said. ‘I spend more time in Eva’s place than I do in ours and we get on a treat – don’t we, lass?’
The ‘lass’ nodded. ‘House on fire,’ she agreed.
This was a pantomime, thought Denis. Or perhaps a Laurel and Hardy film with a slightly altered cast. Fred, recently bereaved, stroke victim and doll’s house builder, wanted to marry a shed. Was it right for a man to marry just for a damp-proof area in which he might work for a few years?
‘We’re suited,’ chimed the chorus of two.
‘Eva, you’re a good twenty years younger than Fred.’ Denis could think of nothing else to say.
‘Companionship, mainly,’ said Eva.
‘And good meat and tatie pies,’ added Fred. ‘She’s a better cook than our Agnes.’
Denis took a quick sip of beer. So, he was marrying a shed and some pies. Oh, well – better two reasons than one, he supposed. And Eva was well respected by all who knew her. But how would Agnes feel? He had no idea whatsoever.
‘There’s a lot of reasons for getting wed.’ Fred was clearly reading his son-in-law’s thoughts. ‘Eva here’s been on her own for a fair while and she gets fed up.’
‘Fed up,’ she agreed.
‘I know my Sadie’s not long gone, but she thought a lot of Eva, and me and Eva think a lot of you and our Agnes. That’s why we’re going to clear a path for you. You’d be better off up Skirlaugh Fall with fresh a
ir for that chest of yours. I’m holding you back.’
‘Back,’ chirped Eva.
Denis wished he hadn’t drunk three pints plus champagne for toasts. He didn’t want to be released to live in Skirlaugh Fall, right on the doorstep of a woman who was plainly suffering some kind of breakdown, a female who had set her sights on him. And how would Agnes react when she heard that Fred intended to remarry before Sadie was cold in her grave?
‘What do you think?’ Fred was staring hard at Denis. ‘Will our Agnes throw a fit?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘He doesn’t know,’ agreed Eva.
‘It makes sense, though,’ argued Fred. ‘I am at one end of life, you and Agnes are at the other. Eva might be a few years younger than me, but we can keep each other company and run that shop. I can’t have you two looking after me all the while, can I? Me and Eva will look after each other.’
Denis waited for the echo, but nothing came. ‘I’ll talk to her.’
‘You talk to her.’ Eva patted her rigid curls. ‘Let us know what she says, like. We don’t want to go upsetting her, but at our time of life, we can’t be hanging about.’
‘No,’ agreed Fred. ‘We can’t hang about.’
This double act worked both ways, Denis realized. They were good people, lonely people who had found each other in spite of the odds against such a match. They talked in harmony, danced with difficulty and ran an excellent business between them. The doll’s houses, recently advertised in the Bolton Evening News, promised to bring in a decent income – Fred was taking orders for Christmas and would soon have to close the book, as he had a full schedule for the foreseeable future.
‘He’s thinking,’ said Eva, pointing at Denis.
‘He is,’ replied Fred. ‘And it’s a strain, because his brain cell’s had a couple of pints – it’s in danger of running out of steam.’
Denis found himself incapable of suppressing his mirth. ‘I’ll talk to you two later,’ he threatened. ‘And don’t be getting into any mischief before the ink’s dry on your marriage certificate, or Agnes will have your guts for garters and your bones for soup.’
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