Three Things About Elsie(24)

She looked at me over the scarf. ‘No thank you, Miss Claybourne,’ she said.

‘You’d better hurry,’ I said, ‘before it all goes.’ I gave a little laugh, but she didn’t answer.

I waited a bit, but they started talking about something they both watch on the television, and I couldn’t really join in, so I left them to it. I took the long way around the courtyards. I sat on one of the benches for a while, and looked up at the windows of my flat. I’d left the lights on, but you still couldn’t really see much from the outside, even when you stood and craned your neck. I was going to go up there, but then I thought I should call in at the residents’ lounge. Check the noticeboard. I hadn’t looked at it since I’d had my hair done, and they might have pinned up something important.

When I walked in, Jack was laughing at some television programme he had on at full volume, and Elsie was sitting in the corner and watching the birds through the French windows. I went over to the noticeboard, although nothing had changed, but neither of them spotted me. They wouldn’t have seen me at all if I hadn’t gone to the coffee table to find a magazine I wanted to take home.

‘Florence!’ Jack shouted over all the canned laughter. ‘What have you been doing with yourself?’

I didn’t bother looking up. ‘I’ve had my hair done.’

‘Of course you have,’ he said. ‘Of course you have. Very fetching.’

‘I just wanted a magazine. I’ve got lots to do, I need to be on my way.’

‘Why don’t you take your coat off? Stay here a bit?’ he said.

‘No, you’re busy.’ I nodded at the television.

I’d got as far as the door when he shouted to me. ‘Florence,’ he said. ‘You’ve forgotten your magazine.’

When I went back, he reached for the remote control and turned off the television programme. ‘Do me a favour and keep me company for a bit?’

‘I thought you were watching that,’ I said.

‘Only until someone better came along.’ He pointed to the other armchair.

Elsie shouted from the corner, ‘For heaven’s sake sit down, you’re making the room look untidy.’ And she shook her head and laughed.

‘Just for a bit then,’ I said. ‘But I can’t stay for many minutes.’

I told them both as I was taking my coat off.

‘He found out where I was,’ I said, as I pulled at one of the sleeves. ‘He researched me.’

‘He was probably just talking about tracing his family tree.’ Elsie looked at me over the top of a cup. ‘It’s easy to get the wrong end of the stick in a hairdressers. All those strong smells and running water.’

‘No,’ I said, ‘he came looking. He wanted to find me.’

‘And why would he want to do that?’ Jack said.

I thought I saw Elsie shake her head very slightly.

‘Because of what happened,’ I said. ‘Because of what happened to Beryl.’

Elsie was definitely shaking her head now, but I decided I wasn’t forced to take any notice.

Elsie says I can’t help myself. She says I’ve always been the same. She says my mouth runs away with me, and before anyone realises, I’ve said everything there is to say.

‘Some things are better left in the past,’ she says, ‘but all you want to do is dig them up again and show everybody.’

‘Beryl was Elsie’s sister,’ I said to Jack. ‘Something happened to her. Something terrible.’

‘Jack doesn’t want to hear about that,’ Elsie said. ‘Why don’t you tell him about the factory instead? We had some good times there, didn’t we? Despite everything?’

‘I never wanted to work in the factory,’ I said. ‘Neither of us did.’

It was true. We didn’t. But sometimes life takes you along a path you only intended to glance down on your way to somewhere else, and when you look back, you realise the past wasn’t the straight line you thought it might be. If you’re lucky, you eventually move forward, but most of us cross from side to side, tripping up over our second thoughts as we walk through life. I never used to be like that. I always knew exactly what I wanted to be, even when I was a child.

‘Did Beryl work at the factory?’ Jack said.

I shook my head. ‘Apparently we mustn’t talk about Beryl.’

Jack frowned. ‘What about the factory, then? If you didn’t want to work there, what did you want to do?’

‘I wanted to be a scientist,’ I told him. ‘I wanted to make a difference with my life.’

I did. The first time I announced it to the world, we were sitting at my kitchen table. The house smelled of warmth and pastry, and my dog, Seth, lay at our feet, his tail beating a tune into the carpet. Elsie said she sometimes borrowed my family, just to taste what it was like for a while. She said it was the only time she ever saw cutlery arranged around a placemat.

‘I’m going to invent something.’ I moved my schoolbooks from the path of a dessert spoon. ‘Something that will change the world.’

‘And what about you, Elsie?’ my mother said.

Elsie reached down and stroked Seth’s head. ‘Beryl says we’ll both end up working at the factory, and I’m not sure you can really change the world from there.’