Room for a Stranger

by Ann Turnbull

  Rhoda didn’t come. Doreen had rejected all her overtures of friendship and Rhoda seemed at last to have taken the hint. She stayed at home and cooked, or did things to her hair, or went to Aunty Elsie’s.

  Doreen’s gang – she thought of it as her gang, although June was a rival leader – roamed the woods, playing P.P. or A.R.A.; all their games were known by initials, like the Services and the programmes on the wireless.

  There were other gangs in the woods. The boys were mostly involved in battles: Brummie evacuees versus Scousers, with the locals divided between them; or Scousers and Brummies in a brief alliance waging war on the locals. The boys swung from trees, stalked each other, laid ambushes, but few of the battles were ferocious.

  The girls didn’t go in for battles, but they had their own ways of making war. June got fed up with Rosie and tried to make her go home, but Doreen always became protective if anyone else bullied Rosie. “Leave her alone,” she said. “She can come if she likes.” And Barbara backed her up.

  “She’s dim and she’s snotty,” said June when Rosie was out of earshot.

  “I know,” said Doreen, “but she can’t help it.”

  She felt a responsibility for Rosie because she lived next door and they had known each other all their lives.

  June fell out with Doreen and attached herself to a group of tough girls led by Joyce Revell. Doreen was afraid of them. Joyce’s gang took to following Doreen’s and yelling abuse or charging in and breaking up their games.

  There was a constant struggle among the Culverton children for use of the Dungeon. It was the best place in Old Works. The boys often took it over, but sometimes Joyce’s gang drove them off. If Doreen and her friends got there first, Joyce’s gang would come up the back way onto the broken roof and shout insults and shower them with twigs and pine cones.

  Graffiti appeared on the wall of the Dungeon:

  “D.D. IS STUCK UP.”

  “DOREEN L. SNOT-FACE.”

  It was a shock, seeing her own name. Doreen felt humiliated, even a bit scared. She remembered a rhyme Dad used to say:

  Sticks and stones may break my bones

  But words can never hurt me.

  It wasn’t true. Words were the worst.

  She pretended not to care. “Stupid nits.”

  “What does it say?” asked Rosie. She couldn’t read much.

  “Nothing,” Barbara said quickly.

  “They needn’t think we’re scared,” said Doreen.

  But they were. Lennie told Doreen about a ruined cottage in the woods off Love Lane; they’d try going there, Doreen thought.

  In the end there was no need to move. A scheme was organized to get children onto neighbouring farms to help with the harvest, but you had to be twelve or over. So Rhoda went, and Joyce Revell, and most of her friends; June was left without a gang and tried to get back into Doreen’s but they drove her off.

  Suddenly the weather worsened. There were thunderstorms day after day, and rain that could soak you in seconds. The harvest was abandoned; the woods emptied of children. Doreen read The Call of the Wild and then started on Little Women. Rhoda went to Aunty Elsie’s to help with the costumes.

  Like the weather, Rhoda changed. She seemed nervous and edgy – “funny”, as Doreen put it.

  “It’s the thunder,” said Mum. “Gives you headaches.”

  But it wasn’t that.

  On the Saturday before they went back to school Phyl came round with her baby, Ian. She often came when Mum was off work, and would sit and drink tea and complain about living with her mother-in-law.

  Doreen and Rhoda put aside their differences for a while and played with Ian. He was not quite walking, and they encouraged him to stagger between them as they knelt on the hearth-rug with outstretched arms.

  Phyl was deep in conversation with Mum. Doreen half-listened, as she always did when grown-ups were talking. “And another thing, Mum, she goes on at me if I want to go out of an evening. I’d like to go out with my friends from work – I miss work – but she thinks I should just stay in every night and write to Jim.”

  “Well, you’ll come to our concert, won’t you, next Saturday? See your old mum making a fool of herself?”

  “You’ll be the best, Mum!” insisted Phyl. “And don’t worry, I won’t let her stop me coming to that.” She turned to the two girls on the hearth-rug. “You’re in it, too, aren’t you, Rhoda? I saw the poster.”

  Doreen’s head jerked up. Rhoda, in the concert? Rhoda? She couldn’t be. No children, Miss Forrest had said…

  She looked at Rhoda and saw that her face had flooded with scarlet.

  So it was true.

  “Poster?” Rhoda stammered. “Where?” She wouldn’t meet Doreen’s eye.

  Doreen sprang to her feet, fists clenched. She looked at her mother. Had she known? But she could see from her face that she hadn’t.

  Ian began to cry. Phyl soothed him, unaware of the effect her remark had had. “They must have just gone up,” she said. “I saw one in the High Street, in Jennings’ window, when I got off the bus. All those names. There’s a lot of people in it…”

  “Doreen—” began Rhoda.

  “I’m going out,” said Doreen.

  She ran all the way to the High Street, and stopped outside Jennings’. There it was: a proper printed poster, with a drawing at the top of someone playing a piano, and underneath the list of performers: “Miss Hilda West … Mrs Elsie Meadows … Mrs Adeline Dyer…” and, last of all, “Miss Rhoda Kelly”.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “Doreen!”

  Rhoda was running down the street towards her. She arrived panting. “Doreen – don’t think – I’m not going to do it unless you can—”

  “Yes, you are!” said Doreen. “It says here you are: ‘Miss Rhoda Kelly’. No mention of me.” She was burning up with anger. She had wanted so much to be in the concert; the thought of Rhoda being in it and not her was unbearable. “Now I know what you’ve been doing up at Aunty Elsie’s! Getting round Miss Forrest—”

  “I meant to tell you—”

  “You didn’t! You never meant to tell me anything!”

  “It was only last week. I went to Aunty Elsie’s and Miss Forrest was there.”

  “So you showed off and sang for her.”

  “She was interested…Doreen, I asked her if you could do it too. She was interested because of my mother—”

  “Oh, yes, of course, your wonderful mother, who’s so famous and beautiful. Only we’ve never seen her. Maybe she doesn’t exist, like your boyfriend. Like your father—”

  “He does!”

  Doreen saw that she had touched a nerve and continued relentlessly. “She might as well not exist. She never writes. She never visits. You don’t even know where she lives. She doesn’t care much about you, does she? She doesn’t want you and neither do we.”

  “Your mam does. She likes me.”

  “No, she doesn’t. She’s just being polite. She thinks you’re precocious; she told me so. The only thing my mum likes about you is the ten and six a week.”

  Rhoda was silent. “I hate you,” she said at last. And she turned away and began to walk back towards home.

  Doreen felt a flicker of guilt; she’d gone too far. “Well, it’s true, isn’t it?” she shouted after Rhoda. “You don’t know your mother’s address!”

  After Rhoda had gone, Doreen stayed in the High Street. She was shaking. She walked up and down, looking in shop windows, seeing over and over again the offending poster and letting it reinforce her anger and convince her that she had been entitled to say what she had.

  When she got home there was no sign of Rhoda. Phyl and Ian had gone and Mum was ironing.

  “There you are,” said Mum. She looked wary, as if Doreen were an unexploded bomb.

  “Where’s Rhoda?” asked Doreen.

  “Upstairs. She was very quiet when she came in. Went straight up. Have you two sorted it all out?”

  “Oh, yes, it’s
all sorted out – she’s in the concert and I’m not.”

  “That’s not what I meant. Has she explained? She told me and Phyl that she’d asked Miss Forrest if you could be in it, too. She says she doesn’t want to do it otherwise.”

  “She’s got herself on the poster, though, hasn’t she?”

  Mum sighed, and thumped the iron down. “Poor Phyl – she wondered what she’d said. Listen, can you three get your own tea tonight? I’ve told Rhoda. I’m going to Aunty Elsie’s; she’s made me a dress and it needs fitting. There’s a vegetable pie in the larder—”

  “If that’s the one Rhoda made I don’t want it.”

  “Doreen! I know you’re angry with Rhoda. But you’ll eat that pie.”

  Doreen smouldered. “All right.”

  There was silence from upstairs. Doreen didn’t want to face Rhoda, so she went into the front room and found Little Women and lay on the floor and read.

  After a while Mum put her head round the door and said, “I’m off, then. Now, don’t brood. It’ll all sort itself out. I’ll have a word with Elsie. Don’t forget the blackout curtains.”

  “I won’t.”

  There was still no sound from Rhoda.

  Lennie came home at five-fifteen. “Where’s Mum?”

  “Aunty Elsie’s. We’re to get our own tea.”

  She got up and began laying the table. The vegetable pie looked good. Rhoda had made it from a recipe in Woman’s Weekly.

  “Rhoda!” Lennie called.

  “Leave her,” said Doreen, but Lennie was halfway up the stairs, calling again. She heard a muffled voice: “…not hungry.”

  “What’s up with her?” Lennie asked.

  “We had a row.” Doreen explained, giving her own side of the story with much feeling, but Lennie was unmoved.

  “Girls!” he said dismissively, and cut a slice of pie.

  Lennie was going to the pictures with some friends. After he had gone, Doreen cleared away and washed up noisily, venting her anger on the plates and hoping Rhoda could hear. Then she went into the front room and curled up on the settee with her book.

  After a while she became aware of sounds overhead: footsteps back and forth, drawers opening and shutting. Then she heard Rhoda come downstairs and go out of the back door and down the passage.

  She sprang to her feet and looked out. Rhoda had turned left and was walking rapidly away. Doreen saw her red curls bouncing above the level of the Lloyds’ privet hedge.

  She put Little Women down and went upstairs.

  Rhoda’s things were gone: the photograph of her mother, the holy picture with its glints of gold, the rosary, the combs and hair slides and mascara. Her Bible and her dressing-gown were gone from the chair beside the bed.

  Doreen knew what she would find but she checked anyway. She pulled back the curtain of the makeshift wardrobe: Rhoda’s spare dress and cardigan were missing. The dressing-table drawers were empty. The nightdress was gone from under her pillow.

  The full implication didn’t strike Doreen at first. She thought, Idiot; she’s gone to Aunty Elsie’s to tell tales. Then she remembered that Rhoda had turned left out of the front gate. If she’d been going to Aunty Elsie’s she would have turned right.

  She was going to the railway station – to catch a train home to Liverpool.

  Doreen felt alarm flood through her. Mum would be frantic. She’d want to know what Doreen had said to Rhoda. And Doreen didn’t want to tell her. But if Mum went after Rhoda, or got the police or whatever people did, and Rhoda was brought home, she’d tell.

  I have to get her back, Doreen thought, even if it means saying sorry. She ran downstairs.

  The clock on the kitchen mantelpiece said seven forty-five. Doreen didn’t know the times of the trains. She tried to remember if she’d heard one go by since Rhoda left, but couldn’t think; you got so used to the sound.

  It was raining outside. The evening had closed in early, heavy clouds massing without a break. Doreen put on her mac and ran out of the house.

  The station was deserted, except for a porter sweeping the far end of the platform. No sign of Rhoda. Doreen checked the waiting-room and the ladies’. She was too late; the train must have gone.

  The porter was calling to her. He came closer.

  “No trains going west, love. Not till tomorrow. Derailment up the line.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Five forty-five in the morning, the first one.”

  “Did you see a girl? Red hair and a blue raincoat?”

  “Yes. I told her the same.”

  Thank goodness, Doreen thought. “Where did she go?”

  He shrugged and tilted his head the way Doreen had come. “Home, I suppose.”

  Home. Of course. She’d be home by now. Odd that they hadn’t passed each other. But perhaps she had gone along the lane and in through the back gate to avoid the embarrassment of being seen. That must be it.

  Doreen raced home.

  But Rhoda wasn’t there, and there was no sign that she had been back. Doreen checked everywhere, even the pigeon loft and the coal store. Perhaps she had gone to Aunty Elsie’s. And yet it wasn’t likely. Mum had told Rhoda that she was going there herself, and Rhoda wouldn’t want to face Mum, not after the things Doreen had said…

  Doreen felt guilty. She knew she should never have said what she had about Mum. It wasn’t true about the ten and six, and as for the other – well, it had been said in confidence, and to cheer Doreen up; she shouldn’t have repeated it.

  She remembered the graffiti at the Dungeon, and how she’d felt.

  “Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary?” The things she’d said to Rhoda were none of those. She didn’t want Rhoda to go away to Liverpool thinking that she’d meant them.

  Where could Rhoda have gone? She wasn’t friendly enough with Barbara to have gone to the Lees’. Miss Wingfield, perhaps? But Miss Wingfield lived out at Cray’s Common, five miles away. Perhaps she had a telephone? If she did Rhoda might know the number and have gone to phone her.

  There was a telephone box in the High Street. It was worth a try. She ran all the way there.

  The High Street was empty. The shops were shut; only the pubs were open. Rhoda wouldn’t go into a pub. If she had phoned Miss Wingfield for a lift she would still have been waiting by the phone box.

  Doreen walked home, thinking. Rhoda knew the next train was due early in the morning. If she was determined to catch it she would want to wait somewhere nearby – somewhere sheltered, where no one would think of looking for her.

  Doreen put herself in Rhoda’s place; she imagined leaving the station, not wanting to go home or tell anyone what she was doing, looking for somewhere to hide.

  Old Works.

  Old Works was less than ten minutes’ walk from the station; and the Dungeon, where its roof was still intact, was dry.

  And by the time I get there, Doreen thought, it’ll be dark as well.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The house was in darkness. Doreen went from room to room, putting up the blackout. She had to drag chairs about and stand on them to reach, but at last every room was done and she could switch on a light.

  She felt lonely, and scared, and wished Lennie hadn’t gone out; he might have agreed to go with her to Old Works.

  When the lights were off, the street outside had still held a glimmer of daylight, but now, when she peeped out from within the lighted house, the sky looked black.

  The thought of going out alone filled her with fear. And would Rhoda be at Old Works? Would she really have gone there, knowing she’d have to stay all night in the pitch dark?

  I couldn’t, Doreen thought.

  But Rhoda was different. Doreen remembered that evening at Old Works with Lennie. Rhoda hadn’t been frightened by the gathering dusk. And besides, where else could she have gone?

  I’ll go quickly, Doreen thought. I don’t have to go into the Dungeon. I’ll call. I’ll tell her I’m sorry and we’ll be back home before Mum fi
nds out…

  She switched off the light and opened the back door. Rain was falling in a steady soft drizzle. She took her mac from its peg and went outside.

  The street was black, no street lamps, not a chink of light showing from any of the blacked-out houses.

  Doreen never went out in the blackout on her own. None of her friends did. They were always home before dark; it was like a curfew. Trips to the cinema or to Aunty Elsie’s with Mum or Lennie were different. Then the darkness was exciting: full of chatter and the rustle and scent of chips wrapped in newspaper. Now she was conscious only of the tap-tap of her footsteps on the pavement.

  Farther on, in the lane that led between hedges to Old Works, the shadows deepened and she couldn’t see where she was putting her feet and there was nothing ahead but the dark and the patter of rain on leaves. She felt utterly alone.

  I won’t know when I’m there, she thought. But somehow she did; her feet took her the familiar way, in among the ruined buildings, past the entrance to the tunnel. Her eyes gradually made out the outlines of walls and tree-stumps. The works went into a hollow, and down there was the entrance to the Dungeon.

  The hollow was a cup of darkness.

  I’ll call, she thought.

  Her voice was thin in the empty space. “Rhoda! Are you there? Rhoda!”

  No reply.

  An owl hooted. Even in bed at night the sound of owls frightened Doreen.

  “Rhoda!” Her voice rose, panicky, on the last syllable. “Rhoda, I’m scared! Please come out!”

  She began to tremble. Perhaps Rhoda couldn’t hear her because of the rain. Or didn’t want to. Perhaps she wasn’t there at all, and Doreen was alone in Old Works.

  The wavering cry came again.

  “It’s just an owl,” she said angrily, aloud. The rain fell harder. Its roar surrounded her. Her hair was streaming wet and water was running down her neck, and she dared not go into the hollow.

  She remembered another way. An easier way in the dark. There was a well-beaten path through the woods onto the roof of the Dungeon; all the children used it. You could walk onto the roof, and where it was broken you could look down into the room below.