An Awfully Big Adventure - Beryl Bainbridge [66]
‘It’s not broken, is it?’ asked O’Hara, studying the swollen foot.
‘Merely a sprain,’ said Vernon. ‘I shall be as right as rain in no time.’ He turned to tell Lily to put the kettle on, but she had fled into the scullery to tidy herself up.
O’Hara was looking round the room, trying to see the imprint of Stella. He longed to know which chair she sat in, what space she occupied. He noticed the picture frames on the mantelpiece had been turned to the wall. Then he saw her shoes, scuffed with mud, placed together on a sheet of newspaper at the hearth, and his heart leapt.
‘It was my own fault, you know,’ Vernon told him. ‘I wasn’t watching where I was putting my feet. It’s Mr Potter I feel sorry for. Our Stella says the lad who butted him comes from a well-to-do family.’
‘So I believe,’ said O’Hara.
‘She thinks he ought to be given the sack, but Mr Potter won’t hear of it. He told me this morning that he thought the boy had been working too hard.’
‘Potter’s been here this morning?’
‘You’ve just missed him,’ said Vernon. ‘Like you, he was bothered about my injury. But that’s the sort of man he is, isn’t he? One of nature’s gentlemen. He’s been very kind to me and Lily, as regards putting our minds at rest about Stella. She’s secretive, you see. She always has been, and me and Lily get worried about what she might get up to. Don’t misunderstand me . . . she’s a good girl and generous-hearted once you get to know her. Of course, you won’t know her very well, you being a newcomer.’
‘No,’ O’Hara said. ‘I haven’t been here very long. I suppose Stella told you I took over from Richard St Ives.’
‘She didn’t tell us. Mr Potter did. Stella never tells us anything, or anybody else for that matter. She seems outgoing enough but she keeps things locked inside her. That was why I wanted her to go on the stage . . . to help get them out.’
‘I would have thought she’s very close to her mother,’ O’Hara said. ‘She’s always telephoning her, even if she’s only just left the house.’
‘She’s having you on,’ said Vernon. He looked at O’Hara with something like reproach. ‘She can’t ring her mother.’
O’Hara remained silent. He had the curious feeling that the whole house had fallen silent too, as though listening.
‘Lily,’ called Vernon, ‘Lily, get in here.’ He tried to stand up and fell back with a little snort of pain.
‘What’s up?’ demanded Lily. She’d powered her face and put on a dab of lipstick. It had made her look older.
‘Stella’s been ringing somebody,’ Vernon said. ‘Two or three times a day.’
‘Not as much as that,’ O’Hara said.
‘She’s told him she’s ringing her mother.’
‘She can’t be,’ Lily said, not looking at O’Hara. She began to tidy the room. She picked up the shoes from the hearth and put them under the table.
‘Who the blazes is she ringing then?’ shouted Vernon. Suddenly he thumped the arm of his chair with his fist, remembering all the times he’d caught Stella on the stairs in the middle of the night, staring at the telephone. He asked O’Hara, ‘Has she told you anything else about her mother?’
‘Only about the rose on her pillow at Christmas . . . with the pearls.’
Vernon and Lily exchanged glances. If anything Vernon seemed more easy in his mind. ‘I’d be very grateful, Mr O’Hara,’ he said, ‘if you tried to find out, discreetly, of course, who she’s calling. I have my reasons for asking. It’s not just nosiness by any means. I’ve as much respect for her privacy as the next man.’
‘She can’t be ringing her mother,’ said Lily. ‘She doesn’t know where she is. None of us do, except she’s in America somewhere.’
Vernon fumbled with several beginnings. He wanted to confide in O’Hara, to get him on their side, but he didn’t want every Tom, Dick and Harry knowing their business. It wasn’t a story that put anyone in a good light. Under different circumstances he would have preferred to cover things over, the illegitimacy for one. It didn’t reflect well on Lily and him that they’d thrown Renée out.
‘We jumped through hoops to make allowances,’ he said. ‘I mean, we took her in when