The Dressmaker - Beryl Bainbridge [58]
‘You’ll be all on your own, Rita,’ protested Nellie. ‘Your auntie won’t be home for hours.’
When she had gone, Rita went upstairs into the front bedroom. She opened the drawers of the dressing table and looked inside Margo’s old handbag. There was a nail file and an empty carton of cigarettes; a letter from a firm saying her application had been received. She dragged the black suitcase from under the bed: a dress rolled up in mothballs, an empty envelope with a Dutch postmark, Margo’s gas mask, a little penknife made of ivory, a flat wallet with a birthday card in it and a ten-shilling note. She took the penknife and the money. She didn’t need it – Nellie wouldn’t take any of her wages – but she felt Margo owed her the ten-shilling note. There was nothing personal she could pry into, nothing exciting like the book she had once found. She went downstairs to fetch her coat.
Margo was ready for Nellie to be scathing about her coming home early – the remarks about her having no staying power. She was going to say the rehearsal had been cancelled. It had in a way: in her mind at any rate, she had just stopped being interested – sitting about for hour after hour waiting to sing one song. When she let herself into the house she was grateful that no one was in. It was awful sitting with young Rita, watching her waste away for love of Ira. She saw the cat pressed against the window, waiting to be let in. She opened the back door wide and put down a saucer of milk. Outside it was close, the rain coming down softly, spotting the red tiles of the yard. She sat down to rest, spreading her legs to ease them. Reaching out to pull the evening paper from the sideboard, she felt something cool to her touch. It was George Bickerton’s penknife. She couldn’t think what it was doing under the newspaper. She held it in her hand and remembered him peeling an apple for her, long ago on a Sunday afternoon in Newsham Park. It had made her laugh the precise way he loosened the green skin, round and round till it dangled to his lap, exposing the white fruit, the blade of his knife glistening with juice. She went through into the scullery to boil a kettle. She stood at the open door, watching the rain. She heard footsteps coming up the alleyway.
Mrs Mander thought the dress was a perfect fit – for her taste, a trifle plain, but Valerie looked beautiful. Even George was enthusiastic.
‘By gum, it looks good,’ he said, ‘even if it’s wasted on a Yank.’
He was putting Brylcreem on his hair, making himself smart to go down to the pub with his father. Cyril thought the world of him – his sailor boy in his bell-bottom trousers, the white bit at his chest showing off his pink skin, the little jaunty hat on the hall-stand.
Valerie stood at the mirror, holding her skirts away from the generous fire, looking at the curve of her shoulders, the plump arms rounded beneath the green straps. She had a tilted nose, brown eyes with full lids, a mouth that perpetually smiled above a slightly weak chin.
‘I’m not sure about the waist,’ she said. ‘What d’you think?’
‘What’s wrong with the waist?’ asked Mrs Mander. She studied her from every angle.
‘A belt, you mean,’ said Nellie. Valerie was gripping her waist with her two hands, emphasising the fullness of her hips.
‘I’m off,’ said Cyril. He kissed his wife full on the lips. He was a man that never did anything without gusto.
‘What d’you think, Nellie? D’you think a belt would round it off?’
Nellie thought she might be right.
‘I could wear me brooch,’ said Valerie. ‘The one Chuck gave me.’
‘Is Rita’s young man coming to the party?’ asked Mrs Mander. ‘He’s very welcome.’
Valerie and Nellie avoided looking at one another. When her mother went to put a hot-water bottle in George’s bed, Valerie said, ‘How is Rita, Auntie Nellie? I’m that worried about her.’
But Nellie wasn’t forthcoming, she had her pride. She wouldn’t discuss young Rita in front of the neighbours. She said she thought Valerie was right about a belt. It would give the finishing touch. She had a piece of mat erial at home that would