Injury Time - Beryl Bainbridge [44]
‘You always were a rotten judge of character,’ said Alma. ‘He’s weird. I wouldn’t touch him with a barge pole.’
‘He’s not weird,’ protested Binny. ‘He’s not at all like Harry or that swine Widnes—’
Alma said she was being absurd. Widnes had acted in a brutal manner because he thought he’d been double-crossed. The woman asked for everything she got.
‘You’d passed out,’ said Binny crossly. ‘He tried to strangle her.’
‘Well, he was annoyed, pet. You’d have done the same. There’s nothing wrong with a bit of healthy anger. And Harry’s harmless enough. He’s a bit slow—’
‘He wasn’t slow smashing my lampshade,’ cried Binny. It was just like Alma to get the wrong end of the stick. It was useless discussing anything with her. ‘I ticked Ginger off about breaking the window,’ she said. ‘He was quite apologetic. I tried to get him to release Edward.’
‘You are funny,’ said Alma. ‘You worry over Teddy, but when you’re together you never stop goading the poor man. The way you sulked when he mentioned buying aspirins for his wife. If looks could kill—’
Binny attempted to straighten the tablecloth but gave up. She couldn’t trip backwards and forwards across the sleeping gunman on the floor. She wished Alma hadn’t referred to Helen as ‘his wife’ – it was illogical of her, she knew, but the possessive pronoun hurt. She said tearfully, ‘What will she do when she learns about Edward and me? She’s bound to find out now, isn’t she?’
‘She knows already, darling. You and I would. Why do you keep thinking she’s any different?’
‘She doesn’t know. Edward says—’
‘Rubbish,’ snapped Alma. ‘She’s probably been trailing him for months.’ She smiled suddenly. ‘Do you remember that time I thought Frank was carrying on with a girl at the office? You were useless. You kept saying please God don’t let’s find him.’
‘I know,’ said Binny. She hadn’t enjoyed the incident – following Frank all over London in the passenger seat of Alma’s little car, shooting through traffic lights, Alma driving with one hand and swigging whisky out of a bottle with the other. People looked down on them from buses. Binny was terrified they might actually spot Frank and he would hurl himself across the bonnet of the car. He had a very nasty temper. Alma made her wear a wig from Woolworths and sunglasses. They went into the most unlikely places in search of him – the crypt of St Paul’s, under the arches of the embankment. ‘For God’s sake,’ Binny had argued, clutching her horrendous wig in the wind and standing ankle deep in filth, ‘he’s supposed to be courting, not doing away with her.’ In the end they sat for three hours outside the house of Frank’s auntie in Battersea, in case he was using the place as a rendezvous.
‘I wish he’d run off with some woman now,’ said Alma. ‘I’d be glad to get him off my hands. I hid the clock to annoy him before I came out. How’s the poor sod going to get up for work?’
‘Do you think the neighbours will take in the children?’ asked Binny.
‘Not if they’ve any sense, darling. I don’t suppose Victor will notice I’m not there. Not until the food runs out.’ Alma swung her feet on to the carpet and stood upright in the gloom. She fretted over the state of her dress and her hair. ‘I look as if I’ve been down a coal mine,’ she accused. ‘What on earth did you do to me when I was so ill?’
Binny ignored her and went through to make the pot of tea. She’d noticed there were splinters of light bulb among the bread crumbs on the table. She wondered if she dared make Widnes a cheese-and-glass sandwich. When she returned to the table, Alma was standing leaning against the wall talking to the wallpaper. ‘This is Alma Waterhouse calling, pet,’ she said. ‘Will you please tell Frank the alarm clock’s in the airing cupboard. Repeat . . . in the airing cupboard. Thank you very much.’ She looked defiantly at Binny. ‘Well, he’ll be looking all over for it, darling.’
Binny asked Alma to take the woman in the hall a cup of tea. She didn’t know what to do about the others. She stood at the open door and called