Devil's Work

by Margaret Yorke

  ‘It’s in the sideboard,’ she said, and wanted to get it then, but he wouldn’t let her, stopping her with kisses.

  He was asleep first, and when she heard him breathing evenly, Louise slipped out of bed and from the room. She opened the sideboard drawer and took out the envelope containing her papers. There was the birth certificate, and it showed an address in Putney.

  She wrote it down, put the certificate back in the drawer and went back to bed.

  That night, sleep was elusive, and when Alan woke in the morning he found her already up.

  ‘I’ve got that address, Alan,’ she said. ‘Will you do something for me, when you’re in the library?’

  ‘Yes, if I can,’ said Alan. What address did she mean, he thought drowsily.

  ‘Will you look in the London telephone directory and see if there’s a J.W. Hampton – James Walter Hampton – at this address?’ She thrust the paper towards him.

  ‘He’s sure to have moved,’ said Alan. ‘But he might still live in London,’ he conceded. ‘Of course I’ll look, Louise.’

  ‘And write down the address, if you find him in another area?’

  ‘Yes, my darling.’

  ‘Oh Alan!’ She cast herself upon him. ‘It’s so wonderful having you here.’ She was liking this new, full-time pairing. They wouldn’t have many chances like this, Alan thought; Daphne was so seldom away. But she’d go to see Pauline more when the baby was born, he thought, brightening; grandmothers did.

  That afternoon, he returned with a short list of Hamptons neatly copied from the E-K volume of the telephone directory. There were three with the right initials, and one of these was in Putney. The address on Louise’s birth certificate had been Putney, too, though different from this one.

  ‘That’s him!’ she said. ‘I know it is! I’m going to see him.’

  ‘Better telephone first, to make sure,’ Alan suggested. ‘Or write. You could enclose a stamped addressed envelope; then there’d be an obligation on him to reply.’

  ‘No. If I do that, he might put me off – say it wasn’t convenient. But if I just turn up, he’ll have to see me,’ said Louise. ‘I’ve got to do it, Alan.’

  She was very quiet that evening, and for the first time, slow to respond to Alan’s caresses.

  In the morning, going to school with Tessa, she said, ‘Darling, I’m going to London today, on business. I’ll be back before you come home from school, but you’ve got your key if for any reason my train is late, so let yourself in and I’ll soon be there.’

  ‘But you’ll meet me, Alan, won’t you?’ said Tessa.

  ‘Sweetie, I’m going for an interview to a factory forty miles away,’ said Alan. ‘I won’t be able to get here in time.’ He felt utter dismay. Louise had waited until now to tell him her plan, when Tessa’s presence prevented him from marshalling argument.

  ‘Don’t worry, then, Mummy,’ Tessa said staunchly. She felt under her coat; the key was there, round her neck, beneath her clothes.

  ‘I will be back,’ Louise insisted. ‘There’s a two-fifteen train – I’ll catch that, at the latest, but sometimes they do run late, Tessa,’ she warned.

  ‘Couldn’t you go next week?’ Alan said. ‘I’d go with you, then.’

  ‘I must do it alone,’ Louise said. ‘And I must go while I’ve got my nerve.’

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t,’ said Alan, and Tessa felt her skin prickle. His voice had sounded funny, not like Alan’s kind voice at all, but almost cross. Her mother didn’t reply. What had she meant about nerve?

  ‘See you on Monday, Tessa,’ said Alan, when she got out of the car. He would have to go straight home after his interview for Daphne was coming back that day. This morning he must make sure there were no clues about to point to his absence. He’d left the telephone off the hook in case any callers wondered about it being unanswered and he must replace the receiver besides sorting out the larder, where the bread was probably mouldy, and there would be today’s milk and papers to take in. All this needed so much managing, without Louise suddenly taking it into her head to go sleuthing.

  ‘Please don’t go to London today, Louise,’ he repeated when Tessa had gone into school. ‘Can’t I persuade you to wait?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘I must do it,’ she said. ‘I’ll never be right until I know about him. It’s holding me back, somehow.’

  ‘But he may be at work,’ Alan pointed out.

  ‘Then I’ll ask a neighbour where he works, and go and see him there,’ Louise said. ‘I can’t go at the weekend, Alan, because of Tessa. There’s no need for her to know what this is all about. Please will you take me to the station.’

  ‘Have you got any money?’

  ‘Yes. Fifteen pounds,’ she said. ‘That’s plenty.’

  Alan gave her the contents of his wallet and told her to take a taxi from Paddington.

  ‘Don’t try to cope with the bus or the tube today, Louise,’ he said. ‘That’s asking too much of yourself. Now, promise.’

  Louise promised. That was easy to do.

  Alan knew that a few weeks ago she would not have been capable of undertaking a trip like this on her own. He tried to feel pleased that she had made so much progress as he stood on the station platform, watching the train disappear.

  Louise had not waited to wave at the window. She settled into a corner seat, all her attention fixed on the day ahead.

  She spent the journey gazing out of the train window reciting the Putney address in her head: 67 Widersedge Road. I’m going, to see my father, she thought, and spun a fantasy in which they fell into one another’s arms, twin souls reunited. But after a while she banished this dream. If they were twin souls, somehow or other he would have kept in contact with her.

  At Paddington, Louise experienced a sudden and bad attack of the gremlins, the first for some time. Sitting on a bench on the station concourse, waiting for her thumping heart to slow and the dizziness to pass, she breathed deeply and thought that Alan’s advice about taking a taxi was sound. She’d been to London so seldom and didn’t know how to get around easily; already the crowds were daunting.

  The taxi driver did not know Widersedge Road, but he had an idea where it was, a branch from another, bigger road. He drove slowly along a wide street, looking out from his cab at the names on the turnings. Louise peered out too. They both saw the sign, Widersedge Road, at the same moment.

  ‘Drop me here, please, on the corner,’ said Louise. ‘I’ll walk the rest of the way.’

  ‘Sure, love?’

  ‘Yes.’ She got out and opened her bag. ‘How much?’

  She was trembling again when he drove off, but once more she breathed deeply, clenched her hands, and set off along the street which had rows of identical pebble-dashed semi-detached houses on either side. Here and there an owner had made some attempt at individuality, with latticed windows or a vivid front door. There were Venetian blinds at some windows, and net curtains at many. Most of the small front gardens were neat. In some, daffodils were thrusting through the soil, a few already in bloom. One or two front lawns were shaggy with growth and some flower beds were full of weeds. It seemed a quiet area. Even numbers were on one side of the road, odd on the other. Louise was beginning her walk at the lower end of the register, on the even side, and as the numbers grew higher, her footsteps slowed.

  She stopped on the farther pavement, a little way off from number 66 and looked over the road at number 67.

  It was like most of the rest, duller than some, the unpainted pebble-dash a drab, sandy brown; the window frames and the door were black. There were faintly grubby net curtains shielding the occupants from an inquisitive gaze. Louise walked nearer. An almond tree, already breaking into bloom, grew near the fence; crocuses flowered beside the front path.

  Louise glanced at her watch. It was just after eleven, quite a respectable time for an unheralded call, but she was surprised to see that it was so late; she must have spent some time at the station wardi
ng off her attack.

  She crossed the road, opened the wooden gate, walked up the path, took a deep breath and rang the bell.

  Her head spun as she stood there, and her heart began thumping again. An unreal feeling, as if she were dreaming and watching what was happening from some spot overhead, came over her.

  The door opened and a small woman with grey hair and spectacles, wearing a much-washed blue jumper and a sagging brown tweed skirt, stood revealed.

  ‘Yes?’ she inquired.

  Louise had not rehearsed what to say.

  ‘Mr Hampton,’ she said. ‘Mr James Hampton. Does he live here?’

  ‘Yes, he does. I’m Mrs Hampton,’ said the woman briskly, and waited.

  Mrs Hampton. Mrs Hampton was Freda. Mrs Hampton was Louise’s mother.

  She looked at this woman, shorter than herself, and saw that she was old. Her face was pouched round the mouth, and was lined. She looked much older than Louise’s mother.

  ‘What is it?’ Mrs Hampton asked, as Louise stood staring at her. She sounded impatient.

  ‘Is he in?’ Louise asked, licking her dry, lips. ‘Mr Hampton?’

  ‘Yes.’ The woman glanced past Louise into the street. What she saw, or didn’t see, seemed to reassure her. She opened the door a little more widely, but repeated, ‘What is it?’

  ‘Mr James Hampton, formerly of Farland Road?’ Louise said, and felt her knees go weak as the woman looked startled.

  ‘He did live there, yes,’ she said shortly, and called into the house, ‘Jim!’ She glanced back at Louise, hostile now, and called again, Jim, there’s someone to see you.’

  Jim! That was her father! Louise was aware of no sound apart from the pounding inside her chest that was made by her frightened, desperate heart.

  A man appeared at the back of the hall. He wore a V-necked Fair Isle pullover in shades of blue, and a green worsted tie. He was almost bald; what hair he had was sandy-coloured. He was wearing half-moon glasses over which his pale blue eyes looked at her in perplexity

  He could be the man in the photograph. It was impossible to be certain. He had not recognised her, but why should he? Louise did not recognise him.

  ‘Yes?’ he was saying, moving forward. ‘You want something?’

  Louise’s pulse was steadying; the world had stopped swaying around her.

  ‘I’m Louise,’ she announced.

  ‘Louise?’ he repeated, puzzled. It seemed to mean nothing to him, but the woman stiffened and Louise sensed her tension.

  ‘I think I’m your daughter,’ she said.

  ‘Oh – Louise,’ he repeated, staring at her, blinking behind his glasses. ‘Oh, Louise,’ he said again.

  It was Mrs Hampton who recovered first.

  ‘You’d better come in,’ she said. ‘Now that you’re here.’

  She had found the right man, though he was gaping at her as if he still had not understood. Louise stepped into the narrow hall and Mrs Hampton closed the front door. There was some manoeuvring as they reformed, James Hampton standing back to let Louise enter the sitting-room first.

  The others trooped after her. It was a small room, and shabby, but snug. A gas fire was alight in the hearth; daffodils, arranged in a blue glass vase, stood on a modern oak chest of drawers of the kind that could be bought in any large furnishing store. There were a few books, mostly paperbacks, in a recess by the fireplace, and a newspaper, the Daily Mail, lay open on the sofa. Across the room an elaborate stereo system occupied most of one wall, with shelves full of records; this was the only touch of luxury in the room.

  ‘Well, Louise,’ said her father, and repeated, ‘Well!’

  ‘I thought you were dead,’ Louise burst out. ‘I only found out a few months ago that you might not be.’

  ‘Oh!’ said James Hampton. ‘How strange!’

  ‘Sit down,’ said Betty Hampton. What did the girl want? Money? She was quite well dressed in a dark green skirt, matching dark tights, long boots, and a hip-length camel coat.

  Betty Hampton had always feared this would happen one day, though as the years passed, the chance seemed less likely. She’d better make coffee, give them all time to collect themselves. The girl was quite pale and seemed nervous. Jim must have had a severe shock, hearing her say who she was like that. She suggested the coffee, aloud, and Jim signalled with his eyes that he did not want to be left alone with this stranger. He’d better not lose his head, whatever lay behind this extraordinary visit.

  ‘Have you come far?’ Betty asked, and Louise told her she had come from Berbridge by train to Paddington.

  ‘Then you’d like a wash,’ Betty stated. ‘Come along, Louise. I’ll put the kettle on while you’re upstairs.’

  She was bossy, Louise thought, as was Freda; but she was much softer-looking, and in a way pretty, still, though so old.

  Louise went upstairs meekly.

  There was worn lino patterned in a green marbled design on the bathroom floor. Two flannels, one blue and one pink, hung on a rack over the stained, yellowing bath. There were faded print curtains at the window. Two large Turkish towels, their edges fraying, one blue and one pink, hung over a rail.

  It was very clear that her father was not well off, Louise thought, washing her hands at the basin where soap scum lingered round the taps, and his wife was no great housekeeper. She dried her hands gingerly on a corner of the blue towel.

  A door was ajar on the tiny landing. Louise paused at the top of the stairs and listened. Sounds came from below where, in the kitchen, her father’s wife was making the coffee.

  Louise pushed the door wider, far enough to let her look into the front bedroom of the small house. She saw a large, sagging double bed, covered with a pink candlewick spread. Across one corner of the room stood a kidney-shaped dressing table adorned with pink skirts printed with dark red rosebuds, matching the sprigged curtains at the bow window through which now streamed the mid-morning sun. A shiny pink dressing gown was draped over a chair; a pair of pink, fluffy mules lay on the floor, not neatly together but one in a corner and one on its side near the bed. The carpet was off-white, stained here and there. A scent hung in the air; musky, even sultry. To Louise it was a strange room, and the thought flew into her head that a prostitute’s room might be like this. She withdrew quickly, ashamed of her prying.

  At the hotel, her mother’s room contained a narrow single bed covered with a spread patterned in sharp geometric designs in green on a brown background. The carpet was dark brown, and so were the curtains. The dressing table, like all the rest in the place, was modern light oak.

  Louise went slowly down the steep stairs. The carpet, dark red, was threadbare.

  ‘Sugar?’ called Betty Hampton from the kitchen, hearing her.

  ‘No, thank you,’ said Louise at the kitchen door.

  She prepared herself for a further great contrast, though you couldn’t fairly compare a hotel kitchen, with its almost clinical cleanliness, with an ordinary family kitchen.

  Betty’s kitchen had red and white checked curtains at the windows and a red formica-topped table in the centre, with four spoke-backed chairs round it. A scrubbed dresser with open shelves bearing a mixed collection of plates and dishes stood against one wall. There was a rack on the drainer containing the breakfast dishes, blue and white Cornish ware. A saucepan stood at the side of the sink and on a newspaper beside it there was a pile of sprout leaves. Betty had been preparing the vegetables for lunch when Louise arrived.

  Three large cups and saucers of the same Cornish ware were ready on a plain wooden tray, and into them Betty poured fresh coffee which she had made in an earthenware jug. She added sugar to one and gave it a stir, then milk to them all. Some homemade shortbread was arranged on a plate. So he’d found another good cook, Louise thought, though this one was also, it seemed, a bit of a slut.

  The coffee with sugar was for her father.

  Suddenly Louise remembered a sandy-haired man with a soft moustache heaping sugar into a china cup.<
br />
  ‘He had a moustache,’ she said abruptly. ‘My father.’ He was cleanshaven now.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Betty Hampton. ‘He took it off long ago.’

  She picked up the tray and led the way back to the sitting-room, where James Hampton had tidied his newspaper away and plumped up the sofa cushions. He looked at Louise in what she identified as a sheepish manner.

  He’s a weak man, she thought, with a sinking heart. Then, remembering the room upstairs with the sagging bed and the scent in the air, she glanced at his wife. Somewhat shocked at the direction her thoughts were taking, she found herself speculating about her father’s life with this faded woman. What about her mother? How had that been? Questions that would never have occurred to Louise a few weeks ago now sprang into her mind: so much had Alan done for her.

  She took the cup and saucer her father’s wife was handing to her, and watched her father accept his coffee. His hands were large and square; they shook slightly.

  ‘You’ve retired,’ she stated.

  ‘Yes – last year, at Christmas,’ said Betty Hampton. ‘You’ve just caught us, Louise. Next week would have been too late. We’re moving away.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Louise. ‘Are you? Where to?’

  ‘To the coast,’ said Betty Hampton. ‘We’ve got a nice bungalow, newly built, a hundred yards from the sea.’ She didn’t say where it was. ‘We both like the sea,’ she added.

  So did Freda.

  ‘Have you always lived here?’ Louise asked.

  ‘Yes. Your father took out a mortgage straight away – all those years ago. It’s paid off now and we’ve sold well. We’re having new carpets and furnishings in the bungalow. It’s quite an excitement.’

  Her father had still scarcely uttered. There were the first faint signs of pigmentation on the backs of his hands, Louise saw.

  ‘We couldn’t move far, you see, because of your father’s work,’ Betty Hampton went on explaining. As she spoke, she cast a glance at her husband, reminding Louise of an anxious mother concerned for her child.

  ‘What was your job?’ Louise asked her father.

  ‘Insurance,’ said Betty. ‘It was always that, after the airforce, Louise.’