Faith - Lesley Pearse [66]
She dressed very carefully for the visit, for she wanted to convey the message that she was successful and sophisticated so that her mother would take her seriously, yet at the same time didn’t want to look as if she was showing off. Finally she settled for a navy pencil skirt and white sweater and borrowed Jackie’s string of chunky dark blue beads. With high heels and her hair fixed back with a velvet bow at the nape of her neck, she thought her image was just right. Her winter coat was navy too, and she brightened it up with a red scarf and matching gloves.
The bus ride seemed endless because she had butterflies in her stomach. She wished now that she’d planned this earlier so she would have had time to buy the children a present each. All she’d been able to get on a Sunday was a big box of Quality Street, and a bunch of flowers for her mother.
She stood outside the house in Barnes for some time before she plucked up the courage to push open the gate and walk through the front garden. It didn’t look so big, or as grand as she remembered, just a very ordinary double-fronted red brick house, and the dark blue front door needed painting.
There was a fence on either side of the house now, with a gate on one side. When she’d lived here it was open all the way around and she could remember Freddy riding his tricycle right round the house. The cherry trees in the front had grown very big, and the leaves which had fallen in autumn were still lying on the grass. She thought that was odd, as Vincent had always been really fussy about how the garden looked. But she was pleased to see his car wasn’t there – that at least should make the visit easier.
Meggie opened the door, at least Laura had to assume it was her, for she didn’t actually recognize her. She was as tall as Laura, and a lot heavier, her hair up in a beehive, her eyes dark-ringed, Cleopatra style. She looked at Laura blankly.
‘It’s me, Laura,’ she said. ‘I can’t believe it’s you, Meggie! You’re all grown up.’
‘What do you want?’ her sister replied in a surly fashion, half closing the door on her body as if to prevent entry.
Laura was taken aback by such hostility. She’d prepared herself for it from June and Vincent, but she hadn’t for one moment thought her sisters would be anything but overjoyed to see her.
‘I wanted to see you, and Ivy and Freddy,’ she said, her heart sinking.
‘Who is it, Meggie?’ her mother shouted from the back of the house.
‘It’s Laura,’ Meggie shouted back. She scowled at her older sister. ‘She won’t want to see you!’
Suddenly June was there at the door, her expression one of complete disbelief. ‘You!’ she said.
‘Yes, it’s me.’ Laura felt like running away now. ‘I came to see how you all are.’
‘It’s taken six years to remember us, has it?’ June snapped.
She looked good, far younger than Laura had expected. Her hair was still blonde, but a far prettier honey-blonde, and it curled on her shoulders. She was a little plumper, but it suited her, as did the pink sweater she was wearing.
‘May I come in and talk to you?’ Laura asked. ‘There were good reasons why I left.’
‘You slunk away like a thief in the night,’ June exclaimed, her voice rising to a shriek. ‘You didn’t write or phone. You could have been dead for all I knew.’
‘Just let me explain,’ Laura retorted. ‘But I can’t talk about it out here, so please let me in.’
‘You’ve come back because of the money, haven’t you?’
‘What money?’ Laura was confused now.
‘The money Vincent left,’ Meggie chimed in. ‘Well, you won’t get anything, so you might as well sling yer hook.’
The thought flashed through Laura’s mind that Meggie might as well have stayed in Shepherds Bush; she looked and sounded like the tarts that hung around the market.
Laura glanced from Meggie to her mother. ‘Are you trying to say Vincent’s dead?’ she asked.
‘As if you didn’t know,’ June retorted.
‘I didn’t. How would I know? I haven’t kept in touch with anyone from around here. I only came to see you and the kids. I had no idea he was