The Dressmaker - Beryl Bainbridge [61]
Marge was looking at her, her hand twisting about at the waist of her dress.
‘I’ve got to do Valerie’s belt,’ said Nellie. ‘I said I would go back.’
‘We ought to tell someone,’ said Margo again, like a gramophone record – like Jack’s records in the upstairs room above the shop, covered with dust.
‘If we do,’ Nellie said, ‘there’ll be talk. I don’t want there to be talk.’
‘But it’s wicked,’ Margo said, unable to keep her eyes from the man on the floor, with the little pearls scattered about his head.
‘We haven’t had much of a life,’ cried Nellie. ‘We haven’t done much in the way of proving we’re alive. I don’t see why we should pay for him.’ She thought ‘wicked’ was a funny word coming from Marge, considering what she’d been doing. She thought of them both being taken into custody and Mother’s furniture left with the dust accumulating.
‘Think of the scandal,’ Nellie said. ‘Whatever would Rita do? I only did what was best. He had no right to touch Mother’s table.’
They sat on either side of the fireplace listening to the clock ticking. In the hall Nigger rolled beads across the lino.
‘Whatever was he doing with that necklace?’ asked Nellie. But Margo was moaning, rocking herself back and forwards on her chair as if to ease some private grief.
After a time Nellie stood up and went into the hall. She pulled down the curtain from under the stairs.
‘We best wrap him up,’ she said.
‘What for?’ Margo asked.
‘We don’t want young Rita tripping over him.’
She was very capable, a dressmaker to her bones. She put the chenille curtain under the clamp of the sewing machine and made a bag for Ira. She made Marge drag him by the feet into the kitchen. He pulled the carpet sideways and his head bumped on the lino. At the side of his throat the wound looked as if he had been kissed by a vampire. There was a little bubble of blood about the edges. Nellie said they had to put him inside the curtain.
‘What for?’ said Margo. She was gormless, all the sense knocked out of her.
‘We’ve got to get Jack,’ said Nellie. ‘He best come round with the van. We have to cover him up. You know how squeamish Jack is.’
They slid him into the bag. It was like turning a mattress; Nellie made Marge hold Ira in her arms by the sewing machine so that she could sew the bag up over his head. It had to be a proper shroud. Jack mustn’t see any part of him. There was no cause to lay pennies on his eyes or cross his hands on his breast. He wasn’t one of the family.
‘Wait on,’ said Margo.
She went into the hall bravely and gathered up the pearls, brought them into the kitchen and slipped them into the curtain with Ira.
‘Whatever was he doing with that necklace?’ said Nellie once more.
‘I don’t know,’ Margo said, lifting him in her arms again and letting Nellie complete her job. ‘He said Rita buried them in the garden and he dug them up when she wasn’t looking. He thought I might want them.’
‘What garden?’ asked Nellie, snapping the thread with her hands, unable to use the scissors. Marge couldn’t tell her.
‘There wasn’t time,’ she explained.
She clasped him closer in her arms, felt the curve of his head against her breast, the length of his legs buried in the chenille curtain.
She ran up the road to the Manders’ and said Nellie wasn’t feeling too good. She wanted to use the phone to contact Jack.
‘Shall I go up?’ asked Mrs Mander.
But Margo told her not to bother. Nellie wouldn’t want a fuss.
‘You’re to come at once,’ she said to Jack. She knew the Manders could hear every word.
‘Is Nellie bad?’ cried Jack, alarmed. He shouted down the phone as if she was deaf.
‘Just bring the van,’ said Margo. ‘Quick as you can.’
The heels of her shoes as she walked back to the house clicked like knitting needles. It was as if someone was following her.
They dragged Ira through into the wash-house in case Rita should come back. The cat thought it was a game, digging its paws into the material of the curtain, jumping skittishly into the air. Margo