by Jenny Holmes
‘Sherry for me, please.’ Norma knew that Millicent had half a bottle left over from Christmas.
Cynthia obliged with three small glasses and the bottle.
‘A toast,’ Millicent said, holding up her glass. ‘To Norma.’
‘To Norma,’ Cynthia echoed. She knew the drink would go straight to her head but she didn’t care. She was with friends, celebrating a special occasion, sharing their happiness. ‘To married life!’
‘Hold your horses,’ Norma cried. The sherry trickled warmly across her tongue and down her throat. ‘We’re engaged but Douglas knows it’ll be a while before we tie the knot. I told him and he understands.’
‘I wouldn’t be too sure about that.’ Millicent downed her drink. ‘Now that you’ve said yes, it’s a bit like a runaway train – there’ll be no stopping it.’ It felt good to be back to normal, even if only for a while – relaxing with friends and basking in Norma’s good news.
‘What kind of ring will it be?’ Cynthia wanted to know.
‘A ruby, with two diamonds to either side.’
‘See.’ Millicent turned to Cynthia with a wink. ‘She already knows exactly what she wants. You can’t tell me she hasn’t been lying awake all night thinking about it.’
‘Where will you go to buy it?’
‘I’ve seen one like it in Jasper’s, next to the Odeon in town.’
‘See again,’ Millicent laughed. ‘The little minx has it all planned out. A ruby with four sparkling diamonds – I only hope Douglas has been saving up.’
‘I can’t wait to see it on your finger.’ Cynthia sighed, imagining a time when perhaps she and Wilf would be in this situation.
Millicent noticed the faraway look in Cynthia’s eyes. ‘“The runaway train goes down the track,”’ she crooned quietly. ‘“And she blew, blew, blew, blew, blew …!”’
‘Someone’s feeling better,’ Norma observed. ‘Will you be back to work on Monday?’
‘Yes. Wild horses wouldn’t stop me.’
With the sherry warming their insides, they chatted on about their fellow telephone girls. ‘Brenda says the same as you – she won’t rush to do the night shift again in the near future,’ Norma told Millicent. ‘Molly’s different – she needs the extra money.’
‘What about you, Cynthia?’ Millicent asked. ‘Are you still in the supes’ good books?’
Norma answered for her. ‘Oh yes, Cynthia never puts a foot wrong, bless her.’
‘I try not to,’ Cynthia added, blushing slightly. In fact, she took pride in the speed with which she made connections and in rarely having to bother her supervisors with a request for an urgent, feeling that she still had a lot to prove. Her pronunciation was improving too – sounding less stilted as the days went by.
‘Talking of which.’ Millicent swung the conversation towards the topic that loomed large in all their minds. ‘I want us to agree to carry on breaking the rules as far as Clare is concerned.’
A small frown creased Cynthia’s brow, which she concealed by collecting the empty glasses and taking them to the sink. Meanwhile, Norma eagerly took up the thread.
‘That goes without saying. We could even work out a warning signal every time we take a call to and from Mrs Parr.’
‘What kind of a signal?’ Millicent wanted to know.
‘A little cough, perhaps. No, that would be too obvious. I know – why don’t I keep a hankie tucked up my sleeve? Then when a call comes through from the salon, I could take it out and pretend to blow my nose. You two could do the same whenever you take a call.’
‘Then two of us could distract the supe while the third one listens in?’ Though it sounded childish at first hearing, Millicent considered it and thought it might work. ‘Sooner or later, Phyllis Parr is bound to talk to someone about what happened to Sidney, then who knows what we could pick up by listening in? What do you think, Cynthia – shall we try it?’
Still standing at the sink with her back turned, Cynthia nodded.
‘Starting on Monday, then,’ Norma decided. ‘At least then we’ll carry on trying to help Clare.’
‘Which no one else is,’ Millicent added.
The mood darkened as Norma repeated Douglas’s news about the magistrates’ court and the existence of Sidney Hall’s wife and children. ‘I’d bet my life that Clare didn’t know he was married – he certainly didn’t behave as if he was, the swine.’
‘But try telling the judge that,’ Millicent pointed out. ‘In any event, it might make things worse – it would allow the prosecution to argue that Clare found out that there was a wife and that was the real reason she attacked him – in a jealous rage.’
‘Worse and worse,’ Norma agreed, while Cynthia still busied herself at the sink. She felt uneasy about the plan to keep on listening in and she was sure she would lose sleep over it. Yet she could understand why the other two were so keen.
‘Cynthia?’ Norma cut into her thoughts. ‘I said ta-ta, I’ll see you at work on Monday.’
‘What? Oh yes.’ She wiped the last of the glasses and gave Norma a weak smile as Millicent showed her to the door. ‘Congratulations, Norma. Ta-ta.’
‘And we’ll look forward to seeing the ring, don’t forget,’ Millicent added.
Across the yard, Chalky was setting off for the Green Cross, detained by Walter who stood propped against his doorpost. Two sleek young starlings dropped out of the grey sky and squabbled noisily over a crust.
Norma looked up and felt a spot or two of rain. She would need to call in at home for an umbrella before she went on to Douglas’s lodgings. Town would be busy on a Saturday afternoon and she would probably have to queue for a bus. Should she walk there instead, or would it be too wet? Making her plans, she hurried off.
A smell of boiled vegetables permeated the prison. It drifted along the airless landing where Clare was incarcerated. When a warder slid back the hatch in the door to hand her a tray, she shook her head. The hatch closed.
The cell where she was held on remand was bare except for a bed, table, chair and bucket. A coarse grey blanket was neatly folded at the end of the bed. The pillow had no pillow case. There was a small, high window with an iron grille and there were heavy bolts on the outside of the door. The brick walls were painted shiny green and cream.
She observed her surroundings without reacting. Night and day meant nothing. The electric light stayed on so that the warder could slide back the panel and see what she was doing. There was no need. Clare didn’t move from the bed where she sat, staring at the stone floor.
They’d taken away her clothes for evidence and forced her to have a bath before issuing her with a grey prison uniform. Her face was scrubbed clean of make-up and her hair was pinned back behind her ears. It lay flat to her head, accentuating her pallor and the dark shadows beneath her eyes. The bruises on her neck and shoulder showed against the whiteness of her skin.
Late on Saturday afternoon, the bolts slid back, the metal door swung open and a female warder entered the cell. She was spare of frame, with crimped fair hair and thin, arched eyebrows. ‘You’ve to see the doctor,’ she informed Clare.
‘I don’t want to.’ All she wanted was to be left alone.
‘You have to,’ the woman said. ‘They want to examine you. Come along.’
She led Clare along the landing, ignoring faces at the hatches and cat-calls from inmates.
‘It’s her – she’s the one that stabbed her chap,’ a woman hissed from a cell halfway along the landing.
More faces appeared.
‘Are you sure?’
‘It doesn’t look like her. I thought she was meant to be a humdinger.’
‘It’s definitely her.’
Clare and the warder reached the end of the landing and entered a small room with a table and two chairs. There was no window. A bald, plump man wearing steel-rimmed glasses, a navy blue suit and a wedding ring sat at the table and greeted them without looking up from the typewritten form in front of him. ‘Sit down,
please,’ he said to Clare.
She stared straight in front of her without moving.
‘Sit down, please,’ he repeated.
The warder took her by the elbow and made her sit.
‘This won’t take long. My name is Dr Wright. I have to examine you for signs of mental illness. That means I need answers to the questions here on this list.’
Clare looked at him without seeing.
‘Do you understand?’
She gave no response.
‘If you don’t cooperate, I will have to write down that you refused to answer.’ He spoke as if he’d been through this routine many times before and really didn’t care about the outcome. ‘In which case, the judge and jury will have to draw their own conclusions.’
The warder at the door stared stonily at the doctor and gave a single shake of her head. ‘She’s been like this ever since she got here. No one’s been able to get a word out of her.’
Wright tapped the point of his pencil against the table. Clare blinked then went on staring into space. ‘Take her back to her cell,’ he said.
Later that afternoon Millicent opened the door of number 10 to Wilf, who stood like a puppy with his tongue hanging out, so eager was he to take Cynthia out for a surprise spin in Alf Middlemiss’s taxi.
‘Is she in?’ he demanded, brushing past Millicent and investigating every nook and cranny of the spick and span kitchen.
‘Well, she’s not hiding under the table so there’s no point looking there,’ Millicent said wryly. ‘Anyway, why has Alf lent you his car?’
‘He’s gone to watch a cricket match so he gave me the keys as a special favour, provided I put a gallon of petrol in the tank. Is she upstairs? Can I go up?’
‘No – you stay here.’ Millicent went to the bottom of the stairs and called Cynthia’s name. ‘Make sure you’re decent before you come down,’ she warned.
‘Don’t bother on my account,’ Wilf added cheekily, loud enough for Cynthia to hear.
She flew down at the sound of his voice and within a minute she had on her hat and coat, ready to leave. ‘How do I look?’ she checked with Millicent.
‘Fresh as a daisy, isn’t she, Wilf?’
‘And twice as pretty.’
Millicent gave him a warning look. ‘Flattery will get you nowhere – didn’t they teach you that?’
‘Yes, but they were wrong,’ he quipped, sidestepping Millicent and seizing Cynthia’s hand. ‘Come on – let’s take a spin over to Beckwith.’
‘In the rain?’ Peering out through the open door, she saw that it had set in for the afternoon.
‘You won’t get wet,’ he promised, dangling the ignition key in front of her. ‘Your carriage awaits!’
So they left Millicent grumbling about being a wallflower as usual and before long they were speeding along Overcliffe Road towards Hadley and the favoured spa town beyond.
‘I’ve got a bit of good news,’ Wilf said as they took the moor road. He was wearing a tweed jacket over a Fair Isle pullover and a collarless shirt, with a cap pulled jauntily over his forehead. He talked above the heavy patter of rain on the car roof and the swish and squeak of the windscreen wiper. ‘Mr Oldroyd has sold North Park to Antony Norton.’
‘Who’s he when he’s at home?’ Nervous that Wilf was driving too fast and taking the bends too wide, Cynthia tried to be blasé.
‘The Antony Norton – the chap behind the famous new chain of department stores. You know – “Norton’s for top value and service!” You see them springing up everywhere.’
‘And why is it good news?’ She cringed as a coal lorry chugged towards them and Wilf had to swerve on to the grass verge at the last minute.
‘Because,’ he said, righting the car and driving smoothly on, ‘Norton has bought the whole estate, including the lodge. He’s asked Mum to stay on as housekeeper. It means we won’t have to move after all.’
‘That is good,’ she agreed. ‘Your mum must be heaving a sigh of relief.’
‘We can call in and meet her, if you like. I’m always going on about you so it’s time you got to know each other.’
‘I’m not sure about driving into Hadley, Wilf.’ Cynthia was reluctant as they came to the familiar fork in the road. ‘I don’t want to run into Uncle William – or Bert, for that matter.’
‘Don’t worry – we’re steering well clear of Moor View.’ He signalled and took the road into the village then was taken aback when a figure wearing a cap and a belted raincoat stepped out suddenly from behind a tree. Wilf slammed on the brakes and squealed to a halt. ‘What the flaming heck …!’
‘It’s Leonard.’ Cynthia recovered from the shock then wound down the window to ask her uncle’s odd-job gardener if he was all right.
‘Flipping bike.’ Leonard jerked his thumb towards his motorbike, which was propped against the tree. ‘The spark plugs got damp and the engine’s packed up on me. Sorry – I wasn’t looking where I was going.’
He obviously had something on his mind, so Cynthia rested her hand on the steering wheel to prevent Wilf from driving on. ‘Can we give you a lift somewhere?’ she asked.
Leonard shook his head. ‘Flipping kids,’ he mumbled. ‘I’ll wring the little blighter’s neck when I catch him.’
‘Whose neck?’
‘My eldest boy, Len. You drag them up trying to teach them right from wrong, and look what happens.’
‘What does happen, Leonard?’
‘They let you down, good and proper.’ Ignoring the steady drip-drip of raindrops from the chestnut tree above and looking as if he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders, he gave the broken bike a kick. ‘I’ve just come from your Uncle William’s house, if you must know,’ he told Cynthia. ‘I was summoned by that pipsqueak cousin of yours. It turns out that Bert had been keeping his ear to the ground and found out that my Len had started shelling out cash.’
‘What do you mean?’ Leonard’s tale put Cynthia on high alert.
‘He bought his pals tickets for the flicks and treated them to fish and chips all round after youth club last night.’
‘Len’s spending money that he shouldn’t have had?’ she queried.
Leonard sighed and nodded. ‘You know Bert – he cornered Len in the yard behind the Institute and demanded to know how come he was flinging money around …’
‘It’s all right – I know what you’re going to say.’ Wanting to spare him further humiliation, Cynthia cut him short. ‘It was Len who took Uncle William’s cash box, wasn’t it?’
Another shamefaced nod confirmed it.
She quickly worked out what had happened. ‘Len kept his eyes peeled while he helped you with the gardening and managed to spot where the money was kept?’
‘Yes. I’ll wring his bloody neck,’ he repeated. ‘Your Bert forced him to empty his pockets right then and there – ten pounds, two and threepence was what Len had left after treating his pals. Then Bert frog-marched him up to Moor View and carpeted him in front of your uncle.’
All too easily, Cynthia pictured a red-faced Uncle William charging the trembling boy with burglary. ‘What now? Will the police be brought back in?’
‘Who knows?’ Leonard was the picture of misery – dripping wet as he gave the bike yet another vengeful kick. ‘According to Bert, Len scarpered before your uncle had time to pick up the phone.’
‘Perhaps he won’t bother this time.’ Wilf entered the conversation, leaning across Cynthia to talk to Leonard. ‘Think about it – the old man got most of his cash back, didn’t he?’
‘You don’t know Uncle William,’ Cynthia murmured. ‘He’s not one to let anybody off the hook. What did he say to you, Leonard?’
‘For a start, I’ve to scrape together the rest of the money and pay him back every penny before the end of next week. Then he sacked me from the gardening work – told me not to bother coming back.’
‘That hardly seems fair on you. Would you like us to put in a word?’ Wilf suggested. ‘Or maybe Cynt
hia could talk him round?’
Leonard shook his head. ‘What’s done is done. Let the lad face the consequences.’
‘We’re very sorry.’ Cynthia’s heart went out to this decent man who endured hardship but never stopped trying to do his best for his family. ‘Let’s hope things soon settle down.’
‘Ta.’ Leonard nodded briefly as he tucked his motorbike gauntlets into his belt. ‘Just wait until I catch the little bugger,’ he muttered, setting off on foot down the main street. ‘For all I care, the police can lock him up and throw away the key.’
‘He doesn’t mean it,’ Cynthia whispered. Rain streamed down the windscreen, blurring Leonard’s receding figure. The old mine workings and grim slag heaps behind the long row of terraced houses simply added to her sense of pity for a family who had hit rock bottom.
‘He does,’ Wilf countered as he turned on the engine and set off slowly down the street. ‘And I don’t blame him after all the trouble Len’s caused.’
‘What’s done is done.’ Cynthia echoed Leonard’s words. She held no grudges – after all, if it hadn’t been for the robbery and the false accusations that had been flung her way, she would never have left Moor View and now be living in Heaton Yard, building a new life for herself. ‘I’m better off with things the way they are. I wouldn’t go back – not for all the tea in China.’
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
What happened to summer? Millicent wondered. She regretted the disappearance of the recent heatwave as she peered out of her bedroom window early next morning and saw heavy rain falling from a dreary grey sky. Reluctantly she decided to skip her usual Sunday-morning ramble.
Bad weather didn’t deter Cynthia, however. She was up with the lark, getting dressed in the pale green frock and matching shoes that Millicent had insisted on giving her for good.
‘Where are you off to?’ Millicent enquired as Cynthia hurried along the landing.
‘To meet Wilf at the top of the street. We want to catch the Sally Army band in Linton Park.’