A Lesser Evil - Lesley Pearse [39]
‘Is that the new-fangled place where you have to serve yourself?’
Fifi smiled. Although Alice Jarvis was over eighty and very frail, she didn’t miss much that was going on. Fifi had spoken to her for the first time a few days after they moved into Dale Street, a month ago now, and had been invited in for a cup of tea. The old lady lived in a Victorian time warp, still with the same heavy, highly polished or over-stuffed furniture her parents had brought with them when they moved in when she was a girl. She had four siblings, but she’d never left home as they did; when she married Mr Jarvis, he moved in with her and her parents.
Mrs Jarvis’s one and only concession to modern times was the electric lighting, which she’d reluctantly agreed to have put in after the war, a short while after her husband died. Her home reflected the lives and personalities of all those who had lived there: a lace-trimmed tablecloth made by her mother, a grandfather clock that had been her father’s pride and joy, dozens of framed sepia photographs of her brothers and sisters, and the piano in the parlour which they’d all played and sung around.
‘Yes, you do serve yourself,’ Fifi replied. ‘But it’s ever so much cheaper than the grocer’s.’
‘It sounds American to me.’ Mrs Jarvis sniffed with disapproval. ‘I don’t hold with anything from there. And I like someone to serve me.’
‘I’d rather save money,’ Fifi said with a smile. ‘And if I’m going for you, you’re not going to miss being served personally.’
Mrs Jarvis wavered. She looked very stern in her old-fashioned black dress and thick stockings, with her white hair tied up tightly in a bun, but Fifi had discovered she was a warm and friendly person. ‘Well, I could do with a quarter of tea and a packet of chocolate biscuits, if it’s not too much trouble,’ she said. ‘I’ve got my niece and her husband coming tomorrow afternoon. They usually take me out to tea somewhere, but it’s so nice out in the garden now, they might want to stay here.’
Fifi had a feeling Mrs Jarvis lived on little else but tea and biscuits; she hadn’t seen any sign of food in her kitchen when she was in there last week. But she didn’t know her well enough to start cross-examining her yet.
‘Have you finished your painting?’ Mrs Jarvis asked. The last time she had seen Fifi she’d remarked on the paint in her hair.
‘Yes, it looks lovely,’ Fifi said eagerly. ‘The living room is pale green and the bedroom cream. We’ve bought a new carpet too. Miss Diamond thinks it very tasteful.’
‘I hope she’s kind to you?’ Mrs Jarvis said anxiously. ‘She can be very fierce.’
Fifi grinned. Miss Diamond in the rooms downstairs to her was a supervisor at the telephone exchange and quite formidable, laying down the law about everything. ‘I can give as good as I get,’ she said. ‘She’s got a good heart really. I’d rather have her living downstairs than certain people in this road.’
‘Did you hear them last night?’ Mrs Jarvis said, raising her hands in an expression of horror and alarm. ‘Shouting and bawling, and the language!’
She was of course speaking about the Muckles. Hardly a night passed without something going on there. If it wasn’t a fight between Molly and Alfie, children screaming or music blaring out, it was the Friday night cards party when seedy-looking men left in the small hours, banging car doors and honking horns.
Last Friday, Dan had wanted to go over there because one of the women was screaming as if she was being viciously beaten. But fortunately it stopped suddenly and Dan let it go.
‘We thought everyone was exaggerating about them when we first moved in,’ Fifi replied. ‘I don’t really believe that the police can’t do anything about them. Surely they could charge them with disturbing the peace, if nothing else?’
‘They say Alfie bribes the police to turn a blind eye,’ Mrs Jarvis said conspiratorially. ‘I wish I could bribe someone to burn that house down and them with it. Mr Jarvis went over there once to try and stop their noise and soon after he was attacked coming home