A Lesser Evil - Lesley Pearse [5]
Fifi could appreciate now how desperate her mother must have felt, particularly in the last year of the war, when she had three under-fives and her husband was away most of the time. Clara had been so worn out after Robin was born that they had to have a live-in nurse for a while. It was that nurse who had suggested that Fifi’s brain might have been damaged by the forceps during her delivery.
The nurse was wrong, of course. By the time Fifi was ten she could read and write as well as any child in her class, and her behaviour was vastly improved. While her mother claimed that she was still very difficult at home, elsewhere she behaved in a relatively normal fashion.
Fifi went out of her way to tell people what a horrible child she’d been. But then, she could look in the mirror and see no trace of the peculiar, bug-eyed, skinny kid she’d once been. At twelve she’d begun to fill out, her white hair finally darkened to honey-blonde, and all at once her eyes and mouth were not just in proportion, but her two best features. She still remembered so well the first time someone remarked that she was pretty – it was like finding a crock of gold. Now she got on well with almost everyone; people remarked how much fun she was, and on her caring, easygoing nature.
All except her mother, who still had plenty to complain about. According to her, Fifi was lazy, wilful, self-centred, undomesticated and completely oblivious to others’ feelings. Fifi felt her mother’s nastiness to her was just jealousy, because she’d never had the freedom or fun her daughter enjoyed.
Clara married Harry when she was twenty-one, just as war broke out. Harry had been teaching mathematics when they married, but he spent the war code-breaking, and was away from home for months on end. Fifi was convinced that the reason her mother sniped at her about her job, her clothes, and going dancing every weekend, was purely because when Clara was the same age, she’d been stuck at home alone with a baby.
Patty was fast asleep, but she’d left the little bedside light between their twin beds on. Fifi undressed quickly and got into bed, lying there for a moment remembering how when they were little they always slept together in one of the beds. The room still held so many childhood memorabilia. Cuddly toys and dolls still sat among their Enid Blyton books, a picture of a princess painted by Patty at seven or eight was still on the wall, and there were dozens of photos of them both. Patty kept pictures of her favourite film stars in a tottering heap of scrapbooks. Fifi had gone through a stage when she wanted to be a fashion designer, and the cards she made, with a sketch and samples of dress material pinned to them, were arranged on the wall by the window.
It was a big, comfortable room, with flowery curtains, pinstriped wallpaper and a long teak dressing table with triple mirrors. Patty’s side was neat and tidy, little china ballerinas carefully arranged alongside scent, hair lacquer and cosmetics. Fifi’s side was the complete opposite, littered with tubes and pots with the tops left off, pens, old letters, reels of cotton all mixed up with her makeup. Patty moaned about it, but she stoically removed dirty cups and plates almost daily, and when she dusted her side, she did Fifi’s too, just as she hung up her clothes and made her bed.
Dan had looked envious when Fifi told him about her brothers and sister. She had thought he was joking when he said he’d been abandoned as a baby in Swindon, but it turned out to be shockingly true. He’d spent his life in various children’s homes, and was kicked out at fifteen to fend for himself.
Fifi glanced across at Patty, lying on her side with one plump arm protectively around her head, and she smiled affectionately. She loved Patty; they were friends and allies, even if they were as different as chalk and cheese. Patty was placid and patient, while Fifi was fiery and impetuous.