She heard a clatter from the kitchen. “I’ll just go and see if I can help—er . .” She did not know who Mr. Brett’s friend was, although Sonny called her Valerie and seemed to know her from visitors’ days at the hospital. Nellie did not mind even if they had been staying here together. Her morals were strict, but somehow someone like Mr. Brett seemed to be outside the rules that you were taught in chapel.
Half-way to the door she had a cold, upsetting thought, and turned round with the tray. “Mr. Brett,” she said bravely. “I’m afraid-Is it because you don’t like the idea of living here with us that you’re going away? Because if you—”
“Hey, Nell!” Sonny said, but Mr. Brett laughed.
“Got it in one, Nellie. How did you guess?”
She went quickly into the kitchen, where Valerie was making toast, and asked her quite boldly: “Does Mr. Brett pretend things he doesn’t mean, to have you on?”
“Gracious, yes. If you accuse him of something, he’ll always take the wind out of your sails by agreeing, whether it’s true or not.”
“Why is he going away then?” Nellie set down the tray and began to put cups and plates into the sink, marvelling at the boiling water that came from the tap.
“Because he wants to go to Italy,” Valerie said. “Oh—and other reasons.”
“It seems like he must be unhappy,” Nellie said, looking out of the window, not turning round, because she was shy of discussing Mr. Brett like this. “Always to be so restless, never able to stay long in one place.”
“He was.” Valerie brought a cloth to dry the things that Nellie was washing. “This time, though, he’s going away because he’s happy.”
“I’m glad of that,” Nellie said. “I’d feel awful else, when he’s done so much for me and Sonny.”
“That’s why he’s happy, you idiot,” said Valerie, and then the whistling kettle suddenly began to shriek, so that Nellie could not be sure whether she heard her say: “And me too.”
TO HAL
This electronic edition published in 2011 by Bloomsbury Reader
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Copyright © Monica Dickens
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ISBN: 9781448203086
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Flowers on the Grass Page 29