by Louise Hare
The south side of the Common was busy with traffic, those famous red buses no longer a sight that thrilled him. At weekends the paths that cut across the Common would be much busier: couples strolling, children playing, fathers teaching their sons to sail boats on the ponds or feed the ducks. This was where he’d first set eyes on Evie, and where they’d had their first real kiss the summer before, sitting in the deep grass on a long hot Saturday afternoon. In better weather the air would be full of the shrieks of young children playing games, the chatter of their mothers as they exchanged gossip and pushed their progeny in huge Silver Cross prams that forced Lawrie from the path and onto the grass.
On this cold March afternoon, only the odd dog walker had ventured out. At this time of day he often saw these middle-aged women with their precious pets emerging from the large houses that surrounded the Common to walk their pampered animals in circles. Their children were grown and their housework managed by a housekeeper or a charlady, someone like Mrs Coleridge who did for a family over on the north side. They came striding along with an entitlement that Lawrie would never possess, letting their dogs off the leash and looking the other way as their beloveds squatted and left the mess for someone else to step in. Just before he reached Eagle Pond, Lawrie looked up and saw one such woman coming towards him, veering to one side as she walked briskly down the centre of the path; there was a Jack Russell trotting along at her heels, and if Lawrie had learned anything in his postal career it was to watch out for those little bastards. The woman stared as he rode past, and he knew that if he looked back she’d be watching him. Making sure he kept moving and didn’t hang around like a bad smell.
The lady who answered the door at Englewood Road was no better. Barely two words to say to him, neither of them wasted on thanks, but the money felt comforting in his pocket. Lawrie’s cut was twenty per cent, bargained up from ten the year before. Derek needed a trusted delivery man, he’d argued. Someone who didn’t look suspicious knocking on a door and handing over a brown paper package. Who better than the local postman?
Maybe he should take Evie out, he mused. Not just to the pictures. The boss of the club where he’d played the night before, he’d mentioned a few times that he’d get Lawrie a good table if he wanted to bring his girl along. Lawrie always smiled back and thanked him for the offer, said that he’d let him know. He wasn’t sure what he was wary of. There was no shame in playing music for a living. It wasn’t as though Evie didn’t know what he did but he liked that she was separate from all that. The women who frequented the club, not all of them but a few, they reminded him of his mistakes. They reminded him of Rose.
He cycled back the way he’d come, recognising the woman he’d seen with the terrier as he drew close to Eagle Pond, but the dog was nowhere to be seen. There was something strange about the way she was moving, and he found himself slowing down. She was pacing up and down in front of the pond, looking for something. Her gait was lopsided and, when she drew closer, he saw that her face was wet from tears that were blinding her. She didn’t notice Lawrie until the last moment, suddenly aiming towards him and coming up short as she took him in properly. She held herself rigid, her mouth gasping for air that her lungs didn’t seem to want to accept.
‘Ma’am?’ Lawrie swung his leg and dismounted, making his movements slow so that she didn’t spook. ‘You all right? Can I help you?’
She looked over her shoulder but turned back to him, fixing her eyes on his uniform. Whatever she’d seen was more frightening than one skinny black man. And there was no one else in sight. ‘You – you’re… a postman?’ Her tongue tripped as she spoke.
‘Yes, ma’am. Do you need help?’
She nodded and pointed in the direction she’d come from, a ragged sob creasing her body.
He couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary at first. There was the pond, and there he spied the terrier. The small dog was soaked through. Barking urgently at him, it ran back towards the water.
‘The pond.’ The woman squeezed out the words and he noticed now that her hands were filthy, her coat spattered with mud.
‘There’s something in the pond?’
It was useless. She had begun to shiver, her teeth actually chattering as shock took hold. Lawrie laid his bike down on the grass and headed towards the pond on foot. The dog was still barking in a fury, running laps between the edge of the pond and the path.
‘What you got, boy?’
The dog splashed into the water, checking back to make sure he was being followed. There was a bundle there, a dirty blanket that once had been white. Lawrie crouched by the edge next to a smaller set of footprints that must have belonged to the woman. It didn’t look like much, this wad of sodden wool, but that didn’t stop fear from squeezing his chest tight as he reached out with his right hand, the palm of his left sinking into freezing mud as he tried to keep his balance.
He strained his arm and caught an inch of fabric between two fingers. Pulling gently, the bundle moved closer and he grabbed a tighter hold. The wool was heavy with water. White and yellow embroidered flowers peeked out from beneath the pond filth. Daisies. When he lifted it the bundle was heavier than he’d anticipated, but it wasn’t the weight that sent him crashing to the ground – only sheer luck landing him onto the bank rather than into the water. His heart pounded his ribs so hard that he glanced down at his chest, expecting to see it burst out through his coat, scattering buttons onto the ground.
The blanket lay there on the grass, the bundle coming apart. A baby’s arm had escaped, along with a shock of dark curly hair and a glimpse of a cheek. It could have been a doll, but one touch had been enough to convince him that it wasn’t. The hand was frozen stiff but the skin gave as his fingers had brushed against it.
Someone had left a baby in the pond to die. A baby whose skin was as dark as Lawrie’s.
2
Typing had a rhythm to it that Evie enjoyed. When she was in a good mood, more often than not these days, she sang along quietly to the tapping of the keys as she transcribed Mr Sullivan’s letters. He called her his little songbird and had been known to pat her on the head like a child, but he was a nice older gentleman and she knew she was lucky to have him. When his last secretary had left to get married, Evie had only been in the typing pool for a few months. Mr Sullivan’s single stipulation for her replacement was that she should be the fastest and most accurate typist. Mrs Jones, the pool supervisor, had sent Evie upstairs with a sly smile on her lips, and Evie had braced herself for his polite excuse but Mr Sullivan’s jaw had only dropped half an inch when he saw her, quickly masked by a smile, and it was Evie who had skipped back downstairs to whisk away Mrs Jones’s smirk along with her coat and bag.
She loved her job at Vernon & Sons. A light and airy office on the third floor, a desk by the window so that she could indulge in the odd daydream, and her best friend sitting right opposite. Delia was attached, professionally speaking, to the young Mr Vernon, the boss’s son, and would fix a tight smile to her face each time she had to untangle herself from his wandering hands and their clammy palms, her head turned away from his halitosis. As Ma often said, thank goodness Evie had not been born pretty and blonde. Not that Delia was a bad typist, only the young Mr Vernon had his own set of requirements when it came to secretaries.
‘I’ll be off now, Evie.’ Mr Sullivan emerged from his office, hat on head and overcoat slung over an arm. ‘I’m taking a slightly longer lunch today but you won’t tell anyone, will you?’ He winked and grinned, in the manner of a kindly uncle to his favourite niece.
Evie smiled conspiratorially. ‘I’ll not say a word. Off anywhere special?’
‘Just to see the kiddies.’ His eldest daughter had two of her own now and lived just off Lavender Hill, only up the road. ‘I’ll be back by three if anyone needs me.’
She waved him off. It was one o’clock and the offices were all emptying out; she could hear doors opening and closing throughout the three floors that the company occupied,
echoing up and down the staircase. The girls would be heading to the small staffroom, or outside if they were brave enough, to eat their sandwiches. The men would be going out to a café or home for a hot meal, to see their wives, or mistress in the case of the young Mr Vernon – he’d packed his wife off to Surrey during the war and never thought to bring her back.
‘You almost done?’ Delia whizzed a sheet of paper from her typewriter with a flourish. ‘I’m starving.’
‘Two ticks.’ Evie locked her drawer. Things had a habit of going missing when she didn’t.
‘Off out are you?’
Evie looked up, stifling a groan. The suspected thief herself was standing in the doorway, her lip curling upwards in a sneer as she stared at Evie.
‘Hello, Mildred,’ Delia said, raising her voice. ‘Can we help you?’
Mildred sidled into the room. ‘We’re having a whip round for Hilda. She’s getting married a week on Saturday.’
‘Hilda?’ Delia pulled a thoughtful face, pretending she didn’t know who she was. Hilda and Mildred were thick as thieves, each as spiteful as the other. ‘Is she one of the typing pool girls? They all look the same to me.’
Evie saw Mildred’s face flush.
‘Are you going to put anything in or not?’
‘I think I can spare a bit of change.’ Delia reached for her purse and dropped a few coins into Mildred’s palm.
Mildred scowled and closed her hand around the loose pennies. ‘Don’t worry, Evie, I don’t expect you to chip in. I know you’re hard up.’
Evie’s jaw dropped as Mildred smirked, disappearing before Evie could think of a smart retort.
‘I’d love to give her a good smack,’ Delia said.
Delia had been Evie’s best friend since the first day of school. All the little girls and boys had been dressed up in new uniforms, drowning in oversized clothes that their mothers prayed they would not outgrow before year end. Agnes Coleridge knew well by then what the other mothers would whisper about her at the school gates, and she wouldn’t give them more ammunition than they already had. A talented seamstress, she had sewed Evie’s hem so that she had a properly fitting skirt that could be let out as she grew. Evie had cried that morning as her mother cursed and plaited her hair, pulling tighter until she’d quashed its rebellion. Ma had wiped her daughter’s tears with a damp flannel and kissed her forehead roughly.
At the school gates Evie had been unsure. Most of the children seemed to know one another but the Coleridges had only just moved to Brixton from Camberwell the week before. Ma had given her a little shove towards the teacher and told her she’d be back at the end of the school day. Miss Linton was young and smiley, her glasses making her hazel eyes look like giant marbles. She was too young to know what to do when Mildred had thwarted her seating plan by refusing to sit next to Evie. Delia was the one who shoved her hand straight in the air when Miss Linton asked for a volunteer to change places.
Like a bad smell Mildred had always been there in the background, impossible to get rid of. Nothing wound Mildred up more than knowing that Evie and Delia occupied privileged desks upstairs while she languished down in the typing pool with her poor WPM and tardy timekeeping. Evie had caught her before, sneaking around her desk when she thought that Evie had left for the day. She fingered the key to her desk drawer lightly and dropped it into her pocket.
‘Usual?’ Delia asked.
Evie nodded as they pulled on their coats and went downstairs, emerging onto St John’s Road, just up from Clapham Junction station. The street was busy as usual, buses piling down in both directions, but they were only heading to the café next door.
‘Egg and chips twice and tea for two, please.’ Delia waved the menu away as they sat at their usual table, delivering their order to the waitress. ‘Honestly, I don’t know why she bothers asking. Are you seeing Lawrie tonight?’
Evie shook her head. ‘The band got a regular Thursday night gig in Soho. It’ll be just another evening in with Ma. She’s taken on too much piecework again and I said I’d help out.’ Not that she’d have been given a choice but it felt better to imagine that her mother was like anyone else’s.
‘What about tomorrow after work? Fancy coming shopping? I need to get some new shoes. These ones are worn through.’ Delia stuck her leg out from under the table so that Evie could see the stretched leather, her big toe almost through at the front as she wiggled it around.
‘All right but it’ll have to be quick. I want to see Lawrie before he goes into town – Friday nights they play at the Lyceum.’ She barely saw Lawrie during the week these days; a musician in great demand, their relationship was becoming a series of stolen moments between their day jobs and the band’s growing popularity.
Delia smiled wryly. ‘I see how it is. Lawrie comes first. You’ll be getting married before long and I’ll never see you no more. You’ll be spending your days baking pies for Lawrie’s tea and popping out beautiful brown children for him. And you’ll remember that once you had a friend who you used to have fun with but now she’s a dried-up old spinster and you don’t have time for her.’
‘Stop it!’ They were both giggling now. ‘Besides you’re a long way off becoming a spinster. And if I do get married then you’ll get to be my bridesmaid.’
‘I’ve been a bridesmaid. Twice. It’s not as exciting as you seem to imagine.’ Delia’s nose wrinkled.
They both fell silent while the waitress plonked down a heavy tray laden with teapot, cups and saucers, milk, sugar.
‘Tell you what we should do.’ Delia lifted the lid to check on the tea, determining that longer was required. ‘Let’s go to the Lyceum tomorrow night and see Lawrie play.’
Evie bit back her immediate response, to say that her mother wouldn’t let her. She was eighteen after all. She could leave home any time she wanted, marry Lawrie if she felt like it without having to ask permission. And she’d rather face up to Ma than lie.
‘Yes, let’s do it,’ she said, with more resolution than she felt.
Their food arrived and Delia wondered aloud if a dress the colour of her vivid egg yolk might not suit Evie. Evie laughed and shook her head, looking up to see their waitress standing at the door just behind Delia, deep in conversation with a local bobby. The policeman had popped in to grab what looked like a sandwich, parcelled up in paper, but something in the urgency of his manner made her stop and listen in closer, tuning out Delia.
‘… don’t know what the world’s coming to,’ the waitress was saying, holding out the bag.
‘Not the sort of thing you expect round here,’ the policeman agreed. ‘Something’s changed, and not for the better.’ He glanced at Evie as he spoke, his face flushing crimson as she held his gaze. He grabbed his paper bag and left with a nod to the waitress.
‘… and of course even bloody Mildred’s waltzing round on the arm of a chap these days,’ continued Delia, oblivious to Evie’s wandering attention. ‘Jack flipping Bent of all people.’
‘You wouldn’t want to be stepping out with him though, would you?’ Evie turned back to her friend. ‘Nothing much going on between them dirty ears of his.’ It was Evie’s turn to wrinkle her nose.
‘But there’s been no one decent since Lennie,’ Delia complained.
‘Really? You’re saying that man’s name in the same sentence as the word “decent”?’ Evie laughed. ‘You could do so much better, Dee. You’ll see, I bet you, tomorrow night you’ll be batting them away. And if not you can come backstage, meet the band.’ She said it as a joke but regretted it immediately.
‘Oh no, no penniless musicians for me, thank you,’ Delia said, before quickly looking down at her yolk-smeared plate. ‘I mean, Lawrie’s one of a kind, ain’t he? He’s got a proper job, not just scraping by playing a few tunes.’
‘Everything all right?’ The waitress came to clear their plates and broke the awkward silence that had descended upon the two friends.
‘Lovely thank you,’ Evie told her, remembering what
she’d overheard. ‘Excuse me, sorry, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but that policeman who was just in – did I hear him say that there’s been a murder?’
The waitress leaned down to speak in a hushed voice. ‘They found a baby drowned in one of the ponds on Clapham Common. Terrible, ain’t it?’
The girls nodded, wide-eyed, and the waitress carried off their empty plates.
‘Who’d do such an awful thing?’ Evie exclaimed, as Delia pulled a packet of Player’s cigarettes and a box of matches from her bag. ‘I suppose it’ll be in the papers tomorrow.’ She took the cigarette that was offered.
‘People shouldn’t be allowed to have children if they aren’t willing to do what’s best for them.’ Delia struck a match forcefully and held it out.
‘Maybe some people don’t have a choice.’ Evie leaned into the flame, inhaling deeply.
‘I don’t believe that. Most of us know to do what’s best. You know that.’ Delia blew a smoke ring, thinking it over. ‘That place is still open, isn’t it? Where your mother went.’
‘I suppose.’ Evie didn’t like to think about what might have happened if her mother had abandoned her there, at the home for unmarried mothers just off Clapham Common, not far from where this poor mite had been found. ‘Either way, they deserve to suffer, whoever’d do that to a child,’ she said finally.
As they packed up their things and prepared to head back to the office, Delia slid the topic of conversation back to the more pleasant territory of fashion. They decided to go along to Arding and Hobbs before they had to go back to work. Maybe she should think about buying something new to wear to the Lyceum. Lawrie might be working, but it would be their first proper night out together, and Evie wanted to look the part.
3
The room they’d left him in was inhospitable, but he supposed that was the point. Barely bigger than a large cupboard, it was windowless and even colder than outside. Lawrie watched his warm breath swirl like smoke beneath the harsh flickering of the bare fluorescent tube above him. Its relentless blinking made his head ache. The rectangular table before him was empty but for his own hands, fingers splayed across its dull scratched surface and his fingernails full of the same pond mud that coated his trousers and his coat. He wanted to change, to wash away the dirt on his hands that was making him itch. He’d asked for a glass of water but the policeman who’d left him in the room had not replied. Distant male voices could be heard along the corridor and he felt a coward for not going out there and demanding they give him something to drink.