A Lesser Evil - Lesley Pearse [49]
‘Rubbish,’ Fifi retorted. ‘You’ve always worked, you aren’t a thief or a bully, you’ve got a brain, for goodness’ sake! There’s a million miles between you.’
Dan shook his head. ‘I’ll only think that when I can carry you over the threshold of our own house.’
A month later, at the very end of July, Fifi sat in a chair by the open window knitting a little white baby jacket. Yvette had helped her get started, and though she still kept dropping stitches, she found it a rather soothing pastime.
It had been a scorching day, and though it was nine in the evening, it was still very hot and sticky, without any breeze. Dan was working late, as he had done every evening for the past two weeks. The office building he was working on was behind schedule, and all the men were doing overtime to catch up. Fifi didn’t really mind being alone, but she was concerned that Dan was working too hard: last night he’d been so tired when he got home that he could barely speak.
She was finding her own journey to and from work hard. She felt she couldn’t breathe on the tube, and although her stomach had only the slightest curve so far, the waistbands of her skirts were now too tight. Sometimes on the way home she had to get off the tube because she felt so giddy and sick in the crowds.
She wondered if this was something that would go as the pregnancy advanced, or whether it would get worse. Her mother would have been the right person to advise her, but her parents hadn’t yet replied to the letter she wrote to inform them. That was over two weeks ago, so she could only suppose they thought a baby was another calamity.
Putting down her knitting, Fifi turned to look out of the window. All the children who had been playing in the street earlier had gone in now, but Angela was still outside, perched on her doorstep playing cat’s cradle with a bit of wool, all by herself.
Fifi had been so preoccupied by her pregnancy that she hadn’t thought much about Angela in the past weeks. She saw her often enough in the street, but Angela had very little to say, just a shy flickering smile, the odd halting question about where Fifi was going. The bruising around her eye was all gone now, but she still looked pitiful because she was so pale and thin.
Now the schools had broken up for the holiday, Fifi doubted the child got anything to eat at midday. Yvette had said she was pushed out of the house in the morning and stayed outside all day.
Fifi had become very friendly with Yvette since she made the curtains for her. They were only cheap cotton from the market, but the design of lilies on a pale green background was very pretty and they fitted from the ceiling right down to the floor and made the room look really swish. Each time Fifi looked at them she smiled because they were so lovely and she thought Yvette was very clever.
Yet she was puzzling too. Not just her frumpy clothes, or the hermit-like life she led, or even her flat which was a complete shambles – Fifi had got used to all that. The puzzling part about Yvette was that she gave nothing away about herself.
She had great warmth, she took others’ troubles to heart and often refused to accept any payment for little sewing jobs she did for neighbours. She was also intensely interested in other people, so why didn’t she ever reveal her hopes, dreams, past mistakes or glories?
Her ground-floor flat was overrun with pattern books, the walls almost hidden with fashion pictures cut from magazines. Boxes of fabrics and trimmings spilled out on to the floor, cards of buttons and reels of coloured thread covered almost every surface. Yet there appeared to be no personal belongings, not even a photograph. She fitted her clients in their own homes, admitting she would be embarrassed for them to come to her. Fifi could only assume, in the absence of any information, that Yvette had no family or real friends of her own. She appeared to live her entire life at second hand, listening to her clients talk about their families, holidays and social life.
Yet Fifi loved going