On Wednesday, Mrs Edgar had been round with some more cuttings and bits and pieces for the garden. I said thank you very much, of course, but actually the beds are pretty full at the moment, everything’s grown so much, so I wasn’t sure where I’d find the gaps to put it all. But then after the meeting on Thursday, when Margaret’s friends had all gone home, I suddenly had a brainwave, and I asked if there is a garden at the hostel. It turns out there is, not much more than a pocket handkerchief (I went to see it today), and it’s very bare, nothing more than a patch of grass and some bits of overgrown ivy and other climbers on the fence. None of the women living in the house seem to know about gardens, and the staff don’t have the time. It could certainly do with some brightening up, so I did a bit of digging over and put in some of Mrs Edgar’s dogwood cuttings, and a few clumps of Michaelmas daisies. Nasreen came out to say hello and brought me a cup of tea, and she remembered to put in the milk, and another young woman, who introduced herself as Lauren, came and chatted to me. She seemed quite interested and even took a turn with the spade – though she’d got on the most unsuitable shoes, white with what we used to call kitten heels. I said I’d go back next weekend and dig in some compost, because the soil is ever so thin and sandy, and Lauren said she’d help me again, if I didn’t mind, which was very nice of her.
I’m reading another one of Margaret’s books. I finished the last one, Ruth, and it was so sad at the end it made me cry, so I asked if she had anything lighter. This one’s by Anthony Trollope, and it’s called The Warden. It’s all about a Victorian vicar who is the warden of some almshouses. Margaret said it made her laugh because her father is a vicar, and it reminded her of the petty arguments that still go on today in church politics, but I think it’s funny that she should have recommended it, because in a way her hostel is the modern equivalent of an almshouse, really.
Last week they started the refit at the bank. They’ve put up partitions which are supposed to keep the plaster dust away from where we are working, but it still finds its way through. We keep a J-cloth and some Mr Sheen handy all the time, but the computers still look as if they’ve been dusted with icing sugar, the way I do with my chocolate sponges sometimes. If you leave a cup of coffee standing for a while, it starts to look like one of those fancy cappuccinos they do in that new American place, Starbucks. It’s ever so noisy, too – a bit of hardboard does nothing to keep out the banging. The drills are the worst. We either have to yell at the customers, or else wait for the gaps in the drilling and then speak really fast. I’ve got quite good at it now – during the loud bits I just smile at the customer and plan what I’m going to say when it goes quiet again. Mind you, I do get a few funny looks sometimes, if there’s a particularly long spell of drilling.
The other big news is that on Friday Mr Slater, the MP, phoned up again to speak to Margaret. She didn’t say much about it, afterwards, except that he wants her and Nasreen to go to London to meet a government human rights lawyer, and that he’s going to meet them in Ipswich and travel down on the train with them, but it was lovely to see her looking hopeful again – her eyes were shining like I hadn’t seen them shine all week.
With all my love, darling, and a big wet lick from Snuffy,
Cora xxx
From: Rebecca Prichard [[email protected]]
Sent: 22/5/05 21:53
To: Margaret Hayton [[email protected]]
Hi! Oh God, Margaret, the gaping maw of eternal damnation is opening ever wider beneath my feet. I had a phone call on Friday night, quite late, after I had got back from Declan’s . . . and it was Elliot. For a foot-soldier of Lucifer he doesn’t half have a gorgeous voice. He said he was going to be over in Manchester again this weekend, and he knew Declan and Zoe were going to London to see Zoe’s mum. (Did I tell you, turns out she is French, lives in Lyon, so if she’s over here with work, as she is this weekend, Declan always takes the opportunity to let her see Zoe. They seem to get on well together still – it’s all disgustingly adult and civilised.) So Elliot said, maybe he and I could meet for a drink. Which seemed perfectly reasonable. But it wasn’t what he said, so much as the way he said it, as if having a drink was some kind of wickedly pleasurable intimate practice known only to handservants of the Dark Lord. I actually had to sit down to recover after he’d rung off. But by then it was too late – I appeared to have said yes. And only then did I wonder by what demonic craft he had obtained my number – because he sure as hell hadn’t asked Declan!
Well, he was staying at the Mitre Hotel, and even I knew better than to agree to meet him in the bar there, so we agreed on a pub nearby, Saturday night, eight o’clock. I thought, public place, lots of people about, nice early hour, nowhere near bedtime, what can possibly be the harm? Oh, but never underestimate the wiles of the Archfiend, because of course what I had forgotten was that an early start meant more drinking time! After six or seven draughts from Beelzebub’s accursed chalice (several of them doubles), I was in the hands of the Tempter. In the lift up to his hotel room, to be precise, with his hands doing exceedingly tempting things under my shirt, while he pressed me up against the carpeted wall, giving an ample demonstration of why he is known as the hornèd one. I made a last effort at saving my wretched soul and managed to tear myself away from him at the door to his room, and not go in to my certain perdition.
But I have sinned, and my fear is that I would sin again, and sin properly this time, if he only repeats the suggestion. He may be an emissary of the Evil One (and perhaps it goes with the territory) but, Margaret, he is hot, hot, hot!
As, coincidentally, am I. Something has gone wrong with the heating in my flat, so you can’t have the hot water on without the central heating going full blast as well. I must get on to the landlords about it. (Unless, of course, it is the first Hadean flames beginning to lick around my ankles.)
Hugs,
Becs xxx
From: Margaret Hayton
[[email protected]]
Sent: 22/5/05 22:38
To: Rebecca Prichard [[email protected]]
Dear Becs,
Well, I’m not your confessor, what do you want me to say? But Declan trusts you. And Zoe trusts you even more, and when you have forgotten both of these men and moved on to Fabian or Guy, Zoe will still have a dad and an uncle who aren’t speaking to each other, and a teacher who can’t look her in the eye. Garlic is the thing. Garlic and a crucifix. (But maybe that’s just vampires?) Or a chastity belt. You can borrow mine – I’m a vicar’s daughter, remember, I’ve still got the one Daddy stitched me into when I was thirteen.
I had a phone call on Friday night, too – but in my case it was more like angel voices. It was Richard again – to tell me that he has fixed up a meeting in London for Nasreen and me, to talk to a human rights lawyer. Not someone from the Home Office, because there might be a conflict of interest there, but a woman at the Foreign Office, an expert on international law, who might be able to come up with some help on Nasreen’s asylum case. He’d even remembered and made the appointment for the 31st, which is in half term. I asked if I could mention it to Caroline, you know, my friend from home who works at the refugee centre in Hounslow. I went to school with her – she was a couple of years older, but I knew her well because her mother was one of Dad’s churchwardens. She came to stay with me one weekend in our first year, do you remember? We thought she was very grown up and serious because she was at Oxford and reading Law and already doing her finals, and then she got drunk in the college bar and snogged Simon Shepperton. Well, she’s a solicitor now, and knows quite a lot about asylum and refugee law, and Richard said of course, bring her along too. Nas and I are going to meet him in Ipswich and travel up on the train together – he said to meet by the statue of Sir Alf Ramsey, which is just on the way to the station.
I can hardly believe he’s doing all this for Nasreen – it’s so brilliant of him! I said thank you on the phone of course, but I just wanted him to be there, so that I could give h
im a hug.
Love,
Margaret xxx
FRANKIE’S
DOMESTIC PLUMBING AND HEATING SERVICES
114 Hume Park Road, Moss Side, Manchester M15 5TX
25 May 2005
Dear Miss Prichard
I have been instructed by your landlords, Fallowfield Properties Ltd, to carry out necessary repairs to the central heating system at Flat 4b, 85 Gainsborough Road, Moss Side. I will need to have access to the premises in order to carry out this work. I should therefore be grateful if you could contact me as soon as possible, so that we can arrange a date and time, at your convenience, when you will be able to be present to let me into the flat.
Yours sincerely,
Frankie Scott.
From: Michael Carragan
[[email protected]]
Sent: 26/5/05 15:26
To: Richard Slater [[email protected]]
I’ve been meaning to ask you, Richard – what on earth’s going on? What has become of the celebrated Slater nose for picking the issues that cut the mustard? You’ve been well outside off-stump recently, mate.
First it was VAT on, er . . . ladies’ sanitary items. (Bloody ’ell, I can’t even sit through an advert for them myself. The merest glimpse of a laboratory bottle of blue liquid has me grabbing for the remote.) All that little fol-de-rol earned you was an unholy association with those harpies whose natural territory it is, and believe me when I say that they are not image-enhancing bedfellows – vociferous Iraq war objectors, to a woman. And then greenhouse gas emissions! Come on, Richard! Of course we’re all committed to boosting renewables and meeting Tokyo targets on emissions – you know how hard it is to fault the Rottweiler’s green credentials – but it isn’t turning out to be that easy. So drawing public attention to the slow rate of progress is, well, frankly just plain rude. Like pointing out when your aunty’s slip is showing, or your constituency chairman has got gravy on his tie. Take my word for it, that is not the road to Whitehall.
Michael.
Michael Carragan (Labour)
Member of Parliament for West Bromwich West
From: Richard Slater [[email protected]]
Sent: 26/5/05 16:12
To: Michael Carragan [[email protected]]
You are right of course, Michael, I have been straying most grievously from the path, and I must get back to some serious ducking for good-publicity apples. But in the last few weeks I find that I have been applying additional, and for me completely novel, criteria in the issue-selection process.
On a not wholly unrelated subject, I have arranged to meet Margaret and her asylum-seeking Albanian friend next Tuesday, and take them down to meet that human rights lawyer at the FO, Liz Thompson. Probably a fool’s errand. But even if it’s not exactly designed to win me plaudits at No. 10, it might just temper the icy blast of disapproval from another quarter.
Richard.
Richard Slater (Labour)
Member of Parliament for Ipswich
From: Michael Carragan
[[email protected]]
Sent: 26/5/05 16:20
To: Richard Slater [[email protected]]
Well, I suppose the odd diversion is harmless enough – but for God’s sake keep one eye on the ball.
Michael.
Michael Carragan (Labour)
Member of Parliament for West Bromwich West
From: Margaret Hayton [[email protected]]
Sent: 27/5/05 19:05
To: Rebecca Prichard [[email protected]]
Dear Becs,
Poor Cora was in such a flap tonight! She’d got herself into something of a scrape at work. They are having this refit in her bank – she was telling me about it the other night. Apparently there’s a lot of noisy hammering and drilling, and it makes it very hard for them to make themselves heard when they are speaking to the customers. Cora has evolved this rather bizarre staccato delivery style, to get out what she needs to say in between the bursts of noise from the drills. She had me in stitches demonstrating it.
Well, today she said this customer came in, a young man whom she vaguely recognised as having been in a couple of times earlier in the week. Anyway, he came over to her and sat down (they don’t have a counter, they each have their little area with comfy chairs), and instead of saying anything, he wordlessly handed her a note on a piece of paper. I suppose when you work in a bank you are always expecting to be robbed, so of course Cora immediately assumed that her worst fear had been realised, was far too scared to read the note, and just pressed the emergency button discreetly concealed in the arm of her chair. This activates a flashing light in the office of the branch manager, Mrs Davies, as well as sounding an alarm – not, unfortunately, at the bank but in the main headquarters of the Suffolk Constabulary.
Only then did Cora’s eyes focus sufficiently for her to read what was written on the paper which the man had given her. Rather than ‘Hand over all your cash, I’ve got a gun’, it merely inquired politely, ‘May I extend my overdraft limit to £250 please?’ When a special armed response unit arrived within minutes, Cora had rather a lot of explaining to do. (Presumably hammered out in quick bursts between the resumed drilling.)
Margaret xx
From: Rebecca Prichard [[email protected]]
Sent: 27/5/05 23:03
To: Margaret Hayton [[email protected]]
My bank don’t like it when I try to extend my overdraft either. But calling in armed police does sound like rather an over reaction.
Becs xxx
42 Gledhill Road
Ipswich
29 May 2005
Dear Gran,
How are you getting on? How’s the ankle? Mum said that Kirsty has been coming in to do some extra hours over these last few weekends, or otherwise I should have tried to get over again myself, to help with your dinner and anything else you might need doing. But I’ll certainly come next weekend, if that’s all right, and I’ll remember to bring back those clean sheets. Can you put any weight on your ankle yet? And have you been doing those stretches from the sheet the physiotherapist gave you at the hospital? Or is it still too painful?
I am packing up a few books to send you, while you are still not very mobile. They are just some old ones of mine which I enjoyed and I thought you might too, to provide some variation on what Kirsty brings you from the library. I expect you have already read all the classics that I’ve got, so I’ve chosen a few recent novels, mostly funny ones that I thought might cheer you up. The Kate Atkinson, especially, is a favourite of mine.
It’s my half term holiday coming up this week. On Tuesday, I am going to London with Nasreen from the hostel and Richard Slater – the MP, you remember – to talk to a lawyer from the Foreign Office who might be able to help Nasreen with her claim to be able to stay in Britain. It’s Mr Slater who fixed it all up. It is very good of him – he seems to be taking a genuine interest in Nasreen’s case.
Nasreen came into school this week, on Wednesday, to talk to the children about her religion. We have been doing this project on Islam, you know, and there are hardly any Muslim kids in Year 3, only the doctor’s twins in Mrs Allen’s class, and it didn’t seem right to put them on the spot. Nasreen went down really well. The children loved her, and they had lots of interesting questions – although David Goldberg did ask her whether she had ever known anyone who was a suicide bomber, which was a bit embarrassing. I found out quite a lot, too. Because they can’t go out to a mosque, Nasreen’s family just pray at home, or sometimes they get together with a few Muslim neighbours if it is a special festival or something. The men and boys pray in the sitting room and the women and girls pray in the hallway. It seems odd to observe this segregation even though it is just the family most of the time, but I suppose it is the tradition. I wondered if being asked about home would be upsetting for Nasreen, but actually she seemed pleased to be able to talk about it, quite proud in fact, and no
t sad at all.
Helen has been quite poorly, so for the past week or so we’ve all been taking turns going in to sit with her at bedtime, until she gets off to sleep. It’s quite a commitment, but it’s worked well so far: she hasn’t taken an overdose, or even cut herself at all since last week. And it’s only Monday to Friday, because she is still going into hospital over the weekends. On Wednesday evening I went into the hostel office to do the bank reconciliation, and I met Alison in there – she is one of the support group. She was on her way to sit with Helen, and meanwhile she was sorting out some problem for Lauren, another of the residents, talking to the social worker on the phone, and smoothing over whatever it was beautifully. Alison is so organised and super-confident, always completely on top of everything – I really wish I could be like that! Anyway, she offered to help with the bank stuff before she went up to Helen (Alison used to be treasurer when WITCH first started), and we got chatting, and she mentioned she had a hospital appointment the next day, and not very tactfully I said, ‘Oh, what’s wrong?’ and she said, ‘Nothing really, I’m pregnant.’ And of course I had no idea what to say. I mean, normally you’d say ‘Congratulations’, at least to someone older and married, but there was something about the way she said it, and she’s well into the middle zone, and she’s got three big kids already, I think she said the youngest is in Year 5. So, because I couldn’t think what else to say, I found myself asking her when it was, and if she’d like me to go with her, and she looked at me and said, ‘Thank you, that would be great.’
More Than Love Letters Page 11