The Paying Guests(53)

There came a few calmer minutes after he had left the house, but presently she heard movement downstairs: her mother, heading for the kitchen. She thought of the stove to be seen to, the milk to be brought in, the breakfast to be made, all the chores of the day ahead of her. Could she do it? She had to try. Her stomach quivering, she rose, put on her slippers, tied on her dressing-gown. So far, so good. Then she went to the glass. Her eyes were red and swollen, but her face was powder white; even her lips were white. Her hair was sticking up as though she’d been electrocuted.

She did the best she could to put herself tidy, then ventured out of the room. There was no sign of life on the landing save the smell of Leonard’s rashers.

Down in the kitchen she opened her mouth to wish her mother a casual good morning, and instead began to cough. The cough had the taste of those filthy cigarettes in it; it went on and on until it almost convulsed her.

‘I hope you aren’t starting a cold, Frances,’ her mother said at last. She was cutting herself a slice of bread.

Frances wiped her mouth and streaming eyes, and spoke hoarsely. ‘I think you know very well that I’m not.’

‘You enjoyed yourself with Mr and Mrs Barber?’

She nodded, swallowing something with the taste and texture of tar. ‘We didn’t disturb you too much, did we? We ended up playing a silly game of —’ She coughed again. ‘Snakes and Ladders. Things ran on later than we planned.’

‘Yes, I heard them doing that.’

Now the bread was cut and on a plate. It couldn’t be toasted, with the stove unlighted. Her mother was bringing over the butter dish, fishing out a knife from the drawer. But, the weather being so warm, the butter was beginning to run: Frances caught the faintly rancid whiff of it as the lid of the dish came off, and had to turn sharply away. She must have grown even paler as she did it, because her mother, with a mixture of rebuke and concern, lowered the knife to say, ‘Really, Frances, you look dreadfully done-up! You must remember, you aren’t as young as Mr and Mrs Barber.’

Frances kept her gaze from the liquefying butter. ‘Mr Barber is only a year younger than I am.’

‘Mr Barber is a man, with a man’s constitution.’

‘What a very Victorian thing to say.’

‘Yes, well, as I’ve often pointed out, the Victorians are much maligned. How old is Mrs Barber?’

Frances hesitated. ‘I don’t know. Twenty-four or -five, I think.’

She knew very well that Lilian was twenty-two. But she was counting on her mother having reached a stage in life from which it was impossible to tell the age of anyone under forty. So her mother surprised her by narrowing her eyes in a sceptical way and saying, ‘Well, she has a very youthful air indeed for a woman of five-and-twenty. As for Snakes and Ladders —’

‘A nice Victorian game.’

‘A nice noisy one, apparently! Noisier than I remembered it. I’m amazed you were up to playing. Your head was too sore, I thought, for bridge at Mrs Playfair’s.’

Frances couldn’t answer. She’d had another flashing vision of Lilian’s stocking coming down. If her mother knew about that! The thought went through her on a wave of heat. With a trembling hand she drew herself a glass of water. Once she had drunk it she managed to take care of the stove. But then she caught another whiff of the butter-dish.

‘If it’s all the same to you, Mother, I think I’ll go back upstairs for an hour. Tasker’s boy will be here soon, but you can take the meat from him, can’t you? I’ll just slip a coat on and fetch the milk —’

‘The milk is in already. Mr Barber brought it in for us. And, yes, I think bed is the best place for you. Goodness knows, we don’t want anyone to see you while you’re in this sort of condition.’

Frances drew herself another glass of water and slunk from the room.

So Leonard had brought in the milk, had he? He had never done that before. He must have guessed that she wouldn’t be up to it. The thought made her uncomfortable. She remembered how, the previous night, he had pressed the gin on her, filling up her glass the moment it was empty. He’d practically poured it down her throat! Just why, exactly, had he done that? She recalled the grip of his hand on her ankle. She remembered, again, simpering at him over the box of cigarettes. And hadn’t she leaned and poked his knee? Another wave of shame ran through her. She had to pause on the stairs and put a hand across her eyes. Once she was back in her room she lay turning the scenes over in her mind until she fell into a fretful sleep.

When she awoke from that, at almost eleven, she felt much better. She made a second start to her day, taking a bath, even managing a few light chores. She and her mother spoke politely to each other. They ate their lunch in the garden, in the shadow of the linden tree.

There was still no sign of Lilian. Frances began to wonder if she mightn’t have quietly left the house. In a way, she hoped she had. In another – oh, she didn’t know what she wanted. Her burst of energy was already fading; bringing in the lunch things from the garden seemed to finish it off. She had planned to go out today. She had promised to visit Christina. But she thought of the jolting journey, the walking about, the four flights of stone steps up to Chrissy’s flat… She couldn’t face it. When her mother settled herself in the drawing-room with a new book of brain-teasers, she crept back upstairs to her bedroom and lay fully clothed on the bed.