The Paying Guests(154)

Vera was finally lighting her cigarette. ‘It’s Len’s mother I feel sorry for.’

‘Oh, now don’t,’ said Mrs Viney.

‘I should like to see her face, that’s all.’

The little girl, as usual, was taking everything in. ‘Why should you like to see it?’

‘Because she’s a mean old woman,’ said Vera, ‘who thought that the sun shone out of Uncle Lenny’s you-know-what. And now’ – she drew savagely on her fag, her features sharp as a hatchet – ‘now she’ll know that it didn’t. That’s why.’

Again Mrs Viney protested. It wasn’t fair to speak ill of the dead. And the funeral flowers barely drooping! Still, she did think Lenny had played Lil a very shabby trick…

There was a teapot on the table in a knitted cosy; someone tipped it over a cup as the conversation ran on, and when a bit of brown sludge came out someone else filled the kettle, fetched extra milk for the jug… Frances knew what was going to happen now. She and Lilian would sit here in this overcrowded room, gazing in agony at each other while the dog did tricks for a biscuit; and then they would have to stand in some dark corner to talk the thing furtively through, in whispers.

She wouldn’t do it; not this time. The cup was put on a saucer and set in front of her, but she spoke across it, directly to Lilian again.

‘May I see you somewhere, alone?’

The room fell silent at her words. After a pause, blushing, uncertain, Lilian got to her feet. ‘Yes, of course, if you want. I’ll – I’ll take you upstairs.’

The women were watching. Even Violet was watching. For once, Mrs Viney seemed doubtful. ‘You’re taking Miss Wray up to the bedroom, are you? None of the fires are lit up there.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Lilian, her head lowered.

‘Well, why don’t you go through to the parlour?’

‘No, we just need to talk for a minute about – Oh, we just need to talk!’

She was blushing worse than ever. Clumsily, she led Frances from the room. They went out to the half-landing, then climbed another narrow flight of stairs.

The house grew gloomier the higher they went. The staircase window had lace across it; a skylight was dingy with smuts. The bedroom they entered was small and cluttered, almost filled by its few bits of furniture, a high iron bedstead, a chest of drawers, a dressing-table with a blue satin skirt; a puppet hung on tangled strings from a crucifix on the wall. Here and there in the lino were odd little shining commas and stars: Frances peered at them in confusion, then heard the scrape of a chair, a murmur, and realised that they were chinks of light. The room below was the bright kitchen. She had a vivid sense of the women down there, still sitting at the table, perhaps gazing wonderingly up.

Lilian had gone around the bed to open the curtains wider, in order to let in the last of the fading grey daylight. When she had done it she turned back, then stood there, hunched and wretched. They looked at each other across the flowery eiderdown.

‘What are we going to do?’ whispered Frances. And then, when Lilian didn’t answer: ‘You know what it means? An innocent boy! We never thought of that, did we? We thought of Charlie. That was bad enough.’

‘It’s like a judgement on me,’ said Lilian.

‘What?’

‘It’s like a judgement on me, for everything I’ve done.’

Frances was thrown by her expression, and by the bitterness of her tone. She said, ‘It isn’t a judgement on anyone. It’s just – oh, I don’t know what the hell it is. What exactly did Sergeant Heath say?’

‘Just what my mother’s told you.’

‘You don’t know anything about this boy? How can they possibly have charged him? It doesn’t make any sense. What was your mother saying about a weapon?’

Lilian had lifted her hand to her mouth. ‘He had something on him – a cosh or something. Something, anyhow, that they think could have done it. And they’re talking about those hairs on Len’s coat again. They think some of them might be his.’

‘But that’s impossible. Isn’t it?’

Now she was gnawing at her lip. ‘I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about it. Some of them might have got there from the girl. From this – this Billie. If one of the boy’s hairs was on her shoulder, and then if she and Len – if they —’

‘That couldn’t happen, could it?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘How could that happen?’

‘I don’t know! I don’t know anything, do I? Len might have been seeing her every other evening for all I know! He might have been taking her to hotels —’

‘Hotels! Do you think he was?’

‘I don’t know! Yes, probably. Every time he said he was kept at work or had to go to some dinner – probably he was seeing her then. Anything could have got passed between them.’

Frances put her hands to her forehead, trying to take it all in. ‘God!’ She couldn’t draw her thoughts together; they felt as though they’d been hammered apart. ‘How could he have kept up the secret like that? For months and months, did your mother say? But, look.’ She lowered her hands, in a steadying sort of way. ‘It doesn’t matter now what he did or didn’t do. It doesn’t matter how long it went on for. What matters is this thing with the boy. What matters is that someone’s been arrested for a crime he didn’t commit. What on earth can we do about it? What did the sergeant tell you about what’s going to happen next?’