The Dressmaker - Beryl Bainbridge [2]
‘Oh, Auntie,’ she cried, muffled in flannel, ‘I do love him.’
Nellie could see Marge’s hand with the thin band of gold encircling her finger, stroking the girl’s bent head. The packet of cigarettes slithered to the rug. With a puritanical flick of her wrist, Nellie flung them clear to the back of the grate.
‘You daft beggar, it was a full packet.’
Margo was outraged, looking up with hatred at her sister. But she quailed before the fury of the older woman.
‘Shhh,’ she said over and over to the girl at her knee, gazing sullenly at the cigarettes consumed by flame.
Nellie took the newspaper parcel into the scullery. She returned and stood at the mantelpiece holding her clenched fist out over the fire. The eyes of the cat flicked wide. The flames spat. Wax melted over the coals.
Rita said, startled: ‘What’s that?’
‘Someone knocked over the little wax man in the hall. It’s broken.’
The girl sat upright, the tear-stained oblong of her face full of accusation.
‘The little wax man?’
‘Don’t look like that, Miss. It couldn’t be helped.’
Nellie sucked the pad of her finger where a splinter of glass had penetrated, adding, so that the girl would know where to apportion blame: ‘Your dad knocked it over.’
‘Uncle Jack? Has Uncle Jack been, then?’
She looked from one aunt to the other, but there was no reply. Nellie bolted the back door and brought a jug of water to pour on the coals. The smoke billowed outwards. The cat sprang from its place on the sofa and went with disgust to lie on the heap of newspapers behind the door.
Auntie Margo said: ‘Poor old Nigger, he doesn’t like that,’ beginning to laugh deep in her throat and bringing her hand up to her mouth to smother the sound. Turning her face to the grate, she stared into the dampened fire.
Rita was puzzled about Uncle Jack coming. He only came round on a Saturday with the Sunday joint.
‘Did Uncle Jack come about the engagement party, then?’ she wanted to know. ‘Is he getting Valerie Mander a cut of meat?’
‘Bed,’ said Nellie, but not unkindly. By now Jack would be on the dock road, heading towards Bootle. She waited in the hallway while Rita and Marge went upstairs. She let them get settled before leaning over the stair rail to extinguish the gas light.
‘Are you in?’ she called after a moment.
Rita could hear the banister creaking as Nellie hauled herself up the stairs. On the dark landing her bare feet smacked against the lino.
‘Are you cold, Rita?’
‘Yes, Auntie.’
‘You best come in with us.’
She didn’t want the girl having that nightmare. She hadn’t had it for several weeks, but she was obviously upset, fretting herself. It was best to have her near. They’d all catch their death of cold shenaniging about in the middle of the night.
Rita climbed on to the bed and slid down between the two women, putting her head under the starched sheets to shut out the cruel night air and the heart-beat of the alarm clock set for six, thinking it absurd that she should even attempt to close her eyes when her mind wandered so restlessly back and forth in search of the happiness she had lost, and falling asleep even while her head nuzzled more comfortably into the stiff linen cover of the bolster. From time to time she whimpered; and Margo snored, curled up against Rita, with one arm flung out across the green silk counterpane, cold as glass, joined to the girl by a strand of hair caught on her dry upper lip.
Nellie dreamed she was following Mother down a country garden, severing with sharp scissors the heads of roses.
1
It was late August when Valerie Mander asked Rita to the party.
‘Well, it’s more of a sing-song, really,’ she amended. ‘But you’ll enjoy yourself. Tell your Uncle Jack you’re a big girl now.’ And off she went up the street, swinging her handbag and tilting her head slightly to catch the warmth of the sun.
Rita had first seen her on the tram