Indian Summer

by Sara Sheridan

  ‘Oh, there’s no need.’ Mirabelle’s tone was insistent.

  ‘It’s all right, love,’ the man said. ‘I can buy a lady a drink, can’t I? I’m not too old for that.’

  ‘Two drinks,’ said Vera.

  The man grinned, revealing a gap in his teeth. ‘Why not?’ he said. ‘A party.’

  ‘I’m actually looking for a friend,’ Mirabelle continued, but I can’t remember the number of her house. It’s only round the corner.

  ‘Jimmy Gill’s house,’ Vera said.

  ‘Number twelve,’ the man said sagely. ‘Though Jimmy’s long dead now. One of the neighbourhood’s first casualties, he was.’

  ‘It’s his daughter that I know.’

  ‘Of course,’ the man said, staring quite nakedly at Mirabelle. ‘You’d be the same kind of age.’

  Mirabelle hadn’t considered it, but she supposed that was probably about right. The other nurses were younger, but Frida must be in her forties. The same as Sister Taylor.

  ‘I met her through another friend. She’s a nurse. Or rather, a sister. She lives on the other side of town. I don’t suppose you’ve heard of her? Rita Taylor’s her name.’

  ‘There’s one or two Taylors round here. It’s a common enough name.’

  ‘Any nurses you can think of?’

  Vera and the old man shook their heads.

  ‘You ask a lot of questions,’ the man said and sipped his pint. ‘I’ll give you that.’

  Mirabelle drank the gin and bitter lemon. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I’d best get going.’

  Back out on the street, Mirabelle walked round to number twelve. She had every right, she told herself. She’d said to McGregor she wouldn’t trouble Nurse Frida, but she hadn’t said anything about her mother. She tidied herself as she knocked on the door. The woman who answered was old. Her hair was almost completely white and she wore a floral housecoat. Mirabelle thought it through – her mother, had she been alive, would have been in her late sixties by now. This woman was a decade older.

  ‘Yes?’ she said, so loudly that Mirabelle realised she must be deaf.

  ‘Hello,’ Mirabelle replied, raising her voice.

  ‘Well, there’s no need to shout,’ the woman berated her. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Are you Mrs Gill?’ Mirabelle toned down her voice.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Superintendent McGregor sent me,’ Mirabelle said smoothly. ‘You know, the policeman who was here yesterday evening.’

  ‘My daughter isn’t in. She’s at work at this time of day.’

  ‘It was you he asked me to come and see, Mrs Gill. To check a few details.’

  ‘I’ve nothing to do with it.’

  ‘Nothing to do with what?’

  ‘Frida’s friend. The sister. I don’t know anything about it.’

  ‘Could I come in?’

  The woman nodded. ‘All right,’ she said, peering around Mirabelle and down the street. ‘It’s probably best not to discuss things on the doorstep.’

  Inside, a narrow hallway led on to an old-fashioned front room, which was comfortably furnished with three chairs around an unlaid, wrought-iron fireplace. The sun beat through the lace-fringed sash-and-case window, highlighting a universe of dust mites suspended in the air. Ahead, a whole wall was covered with photographs in wooden frames, some depicting images of people in Victorian dress. Several were of men in uniform, the photographs taken, Mirabelle imagined, before they left for war.

  ‘How lovely,’ she said. ‘Are these family pictures?’

  The old woman closed the door behind her. ‘My brothers,’ she said, vaguely. ‘I had nine brothers, all older than me. They’re gone now. What did you want to know?’

  ‘The superintendent wondered if you’d met Sister Taylor? If you might know anything about her. I’m sure he explained last night that the sister has disappeared and we’re following all avenues of inquiry. Anything you can remember, anything at all, might help.’

  ‘I met her twice.’ The old woman sat down and motioned towards Mirabelle to do the same. A cross-stitched pillow cut into Mirabelle’s back. It felt as if it was made of wire. ‘I couldn’t say I knew the sister. Not really,’ Mrs Gill said.

  ‘So you have no idea where she might be? Where she was from? Most people, you know, on the run, go somewhere familiar.’

  ‘No, I don’t know. I’m sorry.’

  ‘How close were Sister Taylor and your daughter?’

  ‘They worked together. That’s all.’

  ‘But you’d met her. Twice, you said?’

  ‘In the street. Yes, twice. When I was with Frida. If you’re out and about you bump into people, don’t you?’

  ‘Did Frida like Sister Taylor?’

  ‘Nurses tend not to like the sister.’

  ‘You were a nurse, weren’t you?’

  ‘Where did you hear that?’

  ‘Perhaps I can just tell.’

  The woman gave a tiny smile and wrinkled her nose. She pointed at a grainy black-and-white picture of a slim young woman in a pristine nurse’s apron. ‘The Great War,’ she said. ‘I started my training the day my brothers joined up. My sister and I went together. She’s gone now too, of course.’

  ‘And Frida followed you into the business.’

  ‘It’s a different thing these days. She has a cushy job over at that home. The pay’s good and the children are easy. We had it rougher.’

  ‘I imagine. Where were you?’

  ‘We moved around. There were field hospitals in them days. The Serbs were good people. There was a lot of surgery. My mother looked after Frida.’

  ‘Have you met the other nurses at the home? The younger girls?’

  ‘They don’t know they’re born. That darkie and the little blonde one.’

  ‘Uma and Berenice?’

  ‘That’s them. There’s no surgery over there, see. It’s all recuperation.’

  ‘The place seems very well run.’

  The old woman gave a half-shrug, as if she didn’t like to heap praise, even on the establishment that employed her daughter. ‘Well, Frida seems happy. They pay her well enough,’ she managed.

  ‘And working with children must be rewarding, I imagine,’ Mirabelle kept fishing.

  ‘Children. Yes.’ The old lady’s lips pursed.

  ‘Don’t you like Frida working with children, Mrs Gill?’

  ‘Frida’s all right. I’m sure she’s a good nurse. She should be.’

  Mirabelle leaned forward a little in her chair. ‘But you have reservations.’

  ‘She wasn’t trained for children, that’s all.’

  ‘Specialist training, you mean?’

  ‘During the war she worked in the women’s ward. The other side of London.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Oh, everyone thinks of wartime injuries. Battle injuries. Men, you know.’

  ‘That was your training, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Baptism by fire, more like.’ The old lady looked Mirabelle up and down. ‘Well, you’d have never been to a field hospital. It’s a baptism of fire being so close to the front. But Frida was posted to the women’s ward out in the countryside. It was still military. Women don’t go to the front line, of course, but they get injured too. Pilots. Munitions. Wrens. That kind of thing. They need to recuperate.’

  ‘So, like you, Frida had a military training.’

  ‘We were both army trained, yes,’ she conceded.

  Mirabelle sat back, shifting the uncomfortable pillow to one side. Why was the old lady telling her this? ‘It’s fascinating,’ she enthused. Mrs Gill almost smiled. ‘So, do you think Frida oughtn’t to be working with children, then?’

  ‘I didn’t say that. It’s a good job. Pay and so forth.’

  ‘Yes, you mentioned that.’

  ‘But they didn’t train her for it. After the war there was a scramble, you see. Most nurses went back to their families. There was a positive rash of weddings. On Frida’s ward half the nurses
married the doctors!’

  Mirabelle thought of Uma and Ellen. That was how they had got together. That’s what Ellen had said.

  Mrs Gill continued. ‘So that meant there weren’t enough nurses after the war. I mean, the injuries slowed up, of course, but still, there were a lot of patients in the system. Frida got offered the job at the home – back here, where she’d started, in Brighton, with me. She had her pick, really. Her dad had died and her husband, well, we hadn’t heard about him yet, but the news was in the post.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  The woman’s eyes swam for a moment, as if she was focusing on something far off, in memory. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘It just wasn’t Frida’s specialism, that’s all. Children. If there’s nothing else …’

  Mirabelle got to her feet and the old woman saw her to the door. As it closed behind her, the street seemed particularly silent as she turned towards town. As she came down the hill there was a brisk breeze off the sea. The shady side of the street felt colder than before, cutting almost.

  She ran through everything the old woman had said, wondering how difficult it might be to look after the children at the home. Most of them seemed on the mend. Still, it was obviously on the old lady’s mind. Uma must have trained in India, she thought, but what about Berenice and Sister Taylor? What was their previous experience?

  Back at the office, she clattered up the stairs. Vesta was at her desk.

  ‘All right?’ she asked, looking up as Mirabelle entered.

  ‘Fine.’ Mirabelle went to hang up her jacket.

  When she turned round, Vesta was staring. ‘You’ve had a drink, haven’t you?’

  ‘I did. I also spoke to the doctor about it. He says I’m fine, within limits.’

  ‘What limits?’

  ‘Well, a couple of gins in the afternoon.’

  Vesta’s palms lay flat on top of the paper she had been working on. Mirabelle couldn’t help think that the ink was bound to come off on her skin. ‘Without lunch, I suppose?’ Vesta said.

  ‘I had a late breakfast.’

  The girl’s eyes narrowed. ‘I can’t bear this,’ she said. ‘What on earth is going on? Mirabelle, you’re sneaking out in the daytime like some kind of dipso.’

  Mirabelle felt her hackles rise. ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Vesta. Stop it. Just because you’ve had Noel, doesn’t mean the rest of us have to become members of the Mother’s Institute.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Time was, you’d have a drink with lunch.’

  ‘You didn’t have lunch, Mirabelle. I just asked you. If I can spot you’ve had a drink, our customers will be able to spot it too.’

  ‘And what if I have? I’m not drunk.’

  ‘You have drink taken.’

  ‘That’s a different thing, isn’t it? I’m fine.’

  ‘You’re not fine. I know you too well to fall for that. It’s been a rough week with Father Grogan dying and McGregor back on the scene. I can see.’

  Mirabelle’s temper flared. ‘Don’t start on about McGregor again. I think I’m beginning to hate him.’

  ‘Does he think your drinking has got out of hand too?’

  ‘My drinking has not got out of hand, Vesta.’ Mirabelle felt tears stinging her eyes but she blinked them back, determined not to cry.

  ‘Do you think I’d bring up something like that for fun?’ Vesta crossed her arms.

  Mirabelle didn’t reply.

  ‘Well?’ Vesta pushed her.

  ‘I think your life has changed so you think mine ought to as well.’

  ‘You have changed, Mirabelle.’

  ‘Maybe it’s for the better.’

  Vesta shook her head. Mirabelle relented slightly, the anger draining out of her.

  ‘Look, I know it’s been difficult the last few weeks. But I don’t like all this criticism. I don’t seem to fit in anywhere any more.’

  She hated that she could feel a single tear trickling over her cheekbone.

  ‘Well, drinking isn’t going to help,’ Vesta said smartly. ‘Not being here for the business, it’s crazy when we’re doing so well …’ The girl sounded frustrated.

  Mirabelle reached for her coat and bag. ‘I don’t want to fight. I’ve enough to see to. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  Vesta let out a sharp exhalation.

  ‘It’s my company,’ Mirabelle turned on her. ‘It’s easy for you.’

  ‘Easy?’ Vesta puffed. ‘With a baby to look after and all this?’

  ‘You chose it. You didn’t want to quit.’

  ‘I don’t want to. But Mirabelle, I miss you.’

  She gasped. She bundled out of the door and down the stairs, almost running to get away. Back out on East Street she couldn’t hold back the tears. She walked to Kingsway and crossed, taking the steps down to the pebbles. It was tricky to negotiate the bumpy surface even in kitten heels, but at least it gave her something to focus on. She sat on a vacant deckchair, only half checking for the man who took payment. Ahead, a wave washed in over the pebbles and was sucked back out again. Mirabelle scrambled in her bag for a handkerchief and blew her nose.

  ‘You all right? Lovers’ tiff, is it?’ a voice said behind her. The man wore an apron and a peaked cap. ‘It’s tuppence, love,’ he said. ‘For the chair.’

  Mirabelle hated having to pay to sit down, but she didn’t want to argue any more. Reluctantly, she pulled a coin from her purse and handed it over. ‘You got a front-row seat,’ the man said cheerily. ‘They found a body down here the other night. Just the other side of the pier.’

  ‘I know,’ Mirabelle muttered under her breath.

  He walked away, stopping to talk to another fellow. She thought she heard him say something about her, something derogatory. ‘That one down there, she’s had a couple.’ Some kind of snide joke.

  Mirabelle pulled herself up so she was sitting tall. At school she’d taken classes in deportment. She peered round, intending to say something, but then she caught sight of a bobby up on the promenade. She didn’t want to get involved in a fracas so she swung back round, hoping the man hadn’t realised that she’d noticed what he had said. These days it seemed she wanted to shout at policemen and deckchair attendants and even Vesta.

  It’s not that bad, she told herself as she tried to calm down. Lots of people have a far worse time than I do. Father Grogan was dead and Rita Taylor was missing. She had responsibilities. She had better pull herself together.

  Ahead, three teenagers were paddling in the surf, splashing and laughing. Further along, two old men were sipping bottles of beer and playing gin rummy, struggling to keep the cards in place when now and again there was a gust of wind. Above, the sky was crayon blue – as if a child had coloured it in. Mirabelle decided she’d sit for a while to gather her thoughts. Nobody was going to tell her what to do. Things would work out, she was sure of it. She’d get to the bottom of it all and then she’d feel better.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life

  As the beach began to empty, Mirabelle gathered her thoughts. The afternoon was almost over. The sun was low on the horizon and a few streaks of cloud had formed. Vesta would have closed the office by now and rushed to pick up Noel and get back to her tidy family life. Mirabelle tottered up to the pavement and turned westwards. Jinty had said the party started at half past four, she recalled, and Mirabelle liked the idea of arriving slightly late. The doorman at the Old Ship Hotel recognised her as she approached. It should have been comforting, but today it made Mirabelle bristle. ‘Good evening, madam,’ he said as he opened the door and Mirabelle swept through.

  The stairs were elegant; a shallow, carpeted sweep the colour of blood. Mirabelle felt herself becoming calmer as she made her way upwards and along the hallway, hung with gilded chandeliers and strings of crystal. A sign pointed the way to the ‘salon’. It was easy to find – the sound of music drew her towards the rear of the building.

  The ro
om was busy – there must have been thirty people, most of them men wearing dark suits, clustered between the lush sofas and mahogany side tables. In the background a jazz record was playing on a gramophone – an instrumental tune that she didn’t recognise. For a second Mirabelle stood at the door, and then she spotted Jinty in the heart of it. She was dressed in a figure-hugging, peach taffeta frock, regaling a group of three men with an anecdote they seemed to find amusing. ‘Belle!’ she squealed, and flung an arm around Mirabelle’s shoulder as she approached, her ponytail bobbing. ‘Here, have a glass of bubbly,’ she said.

  Mirabelle swept a glass off a tray but she didn’t take a sip.

  ‘This is Charlie,’ Jinty introduced the men, ‘and Michael and John. Gentlemen – Belle.’

  The men nodded. One of them raised his glass in greeting, the others mumbled their hellos.

  ‘The fellas were just telling me about their conference speeches today. About, what was it?’

  ‘Statistics,’ Charlie said.

  ‘Yes. Statistics,’ Jinty repeated. ‘Fascinating. They’re here for the whole weekend.’

  ‘I’ll drink to that,’ Charlie said.

  In no time Mirabelle was dancing with one of them though she had forgotten his name. When you stopped looking for differences, it was astonishing how similar these men were – short hair, neat silk ties, perhaps a pair of spectacles, and all married, of course. She felt a sense of freedom as the man twirled her, catching her by the waist and then twirling her again. The only people she knew here – Jinty and Rene and Tanya – wouldn’t judge her for having a good time. On the sofa Rene was talking about going to the Midlands with a man she’d met – someone who wanted to take her away. Mirabelle raised her hands and let the man hold her close as the music slowed to a ballad. His skin smelled of shaving soap, she realised as he kissed her neck.

  ‘I’m only popping in,’ she said, laying her hand on his chest to keep him at a distance. ‘I won’t be staying.’

  ‘You’re not … one of the girls?’

  ‘I’m only here for the party.’

  The trays of half-filled champagne glasses disappeared at eight o’clock. Tanya had long gone upstairs with a tall man from Nottingham. Jinty was perched on a thin sofa with a man on either side. Mirabelle wondered what she had planned. Two bottles of brandy arrived on a tray and she found herself gravitating towards the little group.