She clasped him closer in her arms, felt the curve of his head against her breast, the length of his legs buried in the chenille curtain.
She ran up the road to the Manders’ and said Nellie wasn’t feeling too good. She wanted to use the phone to contact Jack.
‘Shall I go up?’ asked Mrs Mander.
But Margo told her not to bother. Nellie wouldn’t want a fuss.
‘You’re to come at once,’ she said to Jack. She knew the Manders could hear every word.
‘Is Nellie bad?’ cried Jack, alarmed. He shouted down the phone as if she was deaf.
‘Just bring the van,’ said Margo. ‘Quick as you can.’
The heels of her shoes as she walked back to the house clicked like knitting needles. It was as if someone was following her.
They dragged Ira through into the wash-house in case Rita should come back. The cat thought it was a game, digging its paws into the material of the curtain, jumping skittishly into the air. Margo got the giggles when they had difficulty getting him through the door. She had to let go of him and lean against the sink.
‘Give over,’ said Nellie.
She was as white as a sheet, strong as steel. She never paused to gather breath. She pulled Ira down the back step into the dark and told Margo to open the wash-house door. She was used to carrying the dummy about. The screw had gone from the stand – you had to watch the body didn’t fall away from the pole. She handled the curtain with skill. When they lumped him on to the concrete they snapped the head of the lupin plant. All its petals blew away down the yard. When Nellie had manoeuvred him into the wash-house she still thought of things to do.
‘Straighten the hall,’ she bade Marge. ‘There’s a stairrod broken. Throw it into the back.’
When Jack knocked at the door, she ran up the hall after Marge and told her not to let him in.
‘Tell him to go round the back,’ she hissed. ‘Tell him to take the van up the alleyway.’
Jack cursed Marge – he thought she was playing silly beggars. He hadn’t a collar to his shirt, just a stud. He looked like the vicar.
‘Whatever’s going on,’ he said, coming in through the back door with his face all peaky with bewilderment.
‘Sit down,’ said Nellie. She told him very little beyond the fact that she had knocked the young American down the stairs. She didn’t say what he was doing upstairs. Or why she had stabbed him with the scissors. Something had happened, she hinted, and she’d only done what was best. She knew by his face that he didn’t want to ask any questions. He was too frightened. He didn’t want to know.
‘It was that umbrella stand,’ she said, fingering the tape measure that hung about her neck. ‘You always said it was a death trap.’
‘Oh my God,’ said Jack. He clutched the mantelpiece for support. ‘Where is he?’ he asked, after a moment.
‘In the wash-house,’ said Margo.
‘Oh my God,’ he said.
‘We’ll have to get him in the van,’ Nellie told him. ‘You’ll have to take him down to the docks.’
‘Oh my God.’
‘You’ll have to tip him in the river. That’s best.’
‘Oh my God,’ he moaned again.
He couldn’t help them. The two women had to take Ira from the wash-house and slither him down the yard to the van. They could hear Jack retching in the scullery.
‘Take him,’ said Nellie, when they were done. ‘Take him down to Bootle, Jack.’ She held his face in her two hands, shaking him a little to give him courage. ‘You’re a good boy,’ she said.
‘Oh my God,’ he whispered, going down the yard with his black hat jammed on his head. They waved to him from the back step.
When the gate shut behind him he felt very alone. He knew Nellie couldn’t come with him on account of her health. But he hated being in the van with Ira in the back.
Nellie held her hand to her heart. The rain was pattering on the wash-house roof. She stood there for all the world as if she was taking the air.
Afterwards she went through into the little front room, the tape measure still dangling about her neck, and allowed herself a glass of port. And in the dark she wiped at the surface of the polished sideboard with the edge of her flowered pinny in case the bottle had left a ring …
Winner of the 1996 Whitbread Novel Award
Shortlisted for the Booker Prize
EVERY MAN FOR
HIMSELF
Beryl Bainbridge
For the four fraught, mysterious days of her doomed maiden voyage in 1912, the Titanic sails towards New York, glittering with luxury, freighted with millionaires and hopefuls. In her labyrinthine passageways are played out the last, secret hours of a small group of passengers, their fate sealed in prose of startling, sublime beauty, as Beryl Bainbridge’s haunting masterpiece moves inexorably to its known and terrible end.
‘Darkly brilliant … a rare and remarkable novel’ Observer
‘Brilliant … do not miss this novel’
Victoria Glendinning, Daily Telegraph
‘Extraordinary … both psychologically convincing
recreation and a wholly new and highly individual
work of art … beautifully written’ Independent
‘A moving, microcosmic portrait of an era’s bitter end’
Eric Wagner, The Times
‘Marvellous … exquisite pacing … stunning descriptions’
Independent on Sunday
Abacus
978–0–349–10870–4
WINTER GARDEN
Beryl Bainbridge
‘Brilliant … marvellous comedy … a tour de force’
Observer
‘Razor sharp … Bainbridge takes special pleasure in
human unpredictability. She shows that people
are hardly ever what they appear’
New York Times Book Review
Quiet and reliable, Douglas Ashburner has never been much
of a womaniser. So when he begins an extra-marital affair
with Nina, a bossy, temperamental artist with a penchant
for risky sex, he finds adultery a terrible strain.
He tells his wife that he needs a rest, so she happily packs
him off for a fishing holiday in the Highlands. Only,
unknown to her, Douglas is actually flying off to Moscow
with Nina, as a guest of the Soviet Artists’ Union. It is then
that things begin to get very complicated indeed …
‘A very funny as well as a frightening book’ Guardian
‘Marvellously deft … comedy is secreted everywhere, like honey;
but it is a surreal little honeycomb, with sharp teeth’
Times Literary Supplement
‘Well plotted and often very funny’ Sunday Times
Abacus
978–0–349–11609–9
The Dressmaker Page 15