Three Things About Elsie(26)

‘Mr Beckett,’ Elsie said. ‘The supervisor.’

‘Mr Beckett. You don’t give me enough time to think. You rush me too much. I would have got there myself if I’d had a minute.’

Elsie arched her eyebrow, but I chose to ignore it.

Jack reached over for his tea. ‘What did you make at the factory?’

I laughed. ‘Corsets.’ He laughed along with me. ‘They were all bones and panels,’ I said. ‘When you tried to sew one, it was like holding on to a hostage.’

‘You were very good,’ Elsie said. ‘Mr Beckett’s star pupil.’

I looked across the lounge, and into the past. It was more useful than the present. There were times when the present felt so unimportant, so unnecessary. Just somewhere I had to dip into from time to time, out of politeness. When I came back, Jack was waiting for me. ‘There was a girl,’ I said. ‘Sat next to me and Elsie. She couldn’t get the hang of it at all. Shook every time she tried to thread a needle.’

‘You mean Clara?’ Elsie said.

I nodded. ‘Said Beckett was just like her father. She was terrified of him.’

‘What happened to Clara?’ said Jack.

I whispered, ‘She hanged herself.’

‘She did not!’ Elsie put down her cup, and it argued with its saucer. ‘Wherever has that come from?’

I ignored her and turned to Jack. ‘Elsie’s mother said Clara was still swinging when they found her.’

‘No one hanged themselves.’ Elsie hadn’t got anything else to put down, so she raised her voice instead. ‘You’re getting all mixed up again. Why on earth would she do that?’

‘She was afraid,’ I said. ‘Mr Beckett used to bully her.’

‘Surely they did something about him, after that?’ said Jack.

Elsie leaned forward and tried to find my eyes. ‘But you helped her, Florence. Don’t you remember? You taught her how to thread and how to stretch the corset. She got really good at it.’

I stared at her. ‘I don’t remember.’

‘You spent hours teaching her. She started coming to the dance with us on a Saturday night. Married the boy who worked in the fishmonger’s. Moved to Wales, I think.’

I began to say something and swallowed it back.

‘Try to remember, Florence. The long second. What did you do with it?’

‘Take your time,’ Jack said. ‘Don’t worry about it. We all get in a muddle.’

I turned over thoughts like a game of cards, trying to decide on the ones that matched. The coat still rested on my knees, and I felt the material twist between my fingers. After a while, I said, ‘I can’t find a memory I trust.’

‘I’ll bet you can.’ Jack reached for my hands. ‘Tell me something clear. Tell me something you’re absolutely sure of.’

I stopped twisting the material, and looked him straight in the eye. ‘Ronnie Butler worked in the factory,’ I said.

‘When did you last see it?’

It was the girl in the tangerine overall. Of all the pointless questions you could ask a person who has lost something, this has to be the one to win a prize.

‘If I knew that,’ I said, ‘I’d know where to find it, wouldn’t I?’

She was an unusual-looking girl. Small eyes. Small ears. Wears a crucifix. Although if she’s ever seen the inside of a church, I’ll go to the foot of our stairs.

‘What does it look like?’ she said.

‘It’s a book.’ I closed my eyes. ‘It’s book shaped. It has words in it.’

‘But what colour is it?’

‘I don’t know. Blue. Green, perhaps. I don’t remember. I don’t take any notice of the outside, it’s the inside I’m interested in.’

‘My mum says things are always where you least expect them to be,’ said the girl. ‘Why don’t we try looking there?’

‘The refrigerator, then? Or maybe the lavatory cistern?’

The girl smiled. ‘Yes, exactly!’

I closed my eyes again.

The book should have been exactly where I left it. On the little table next to my armchair. Each night I leave it there when I go to bed, and each morning I pick it up from where I left it, and read until Elsie comes over.

‘You must have put it somewhere else last night.’ The girl poked around behind the cushions. ‘Perhaps you were a bit absent-minded.’

‘My mind isn’t absent,’ I said. ‘It’s very much present and correct, thank you. It’s just old.’

The girl stood with her hands on her hips in the middle of the room. ‘Well, it’ll turn up,’ she said. ‘When you least expect it.’

Which, I believe, means ‘I’m tired of looking.’

‘It’s not the first thing, either.’ I sat in the armchair whilst she unpacked her little basket of dusters. ‘Last week, a pint of milk vanished from the fridge – and I know it was there, because I’d only started it that morning – and the week before, I found the Radio Times underneath my pillow.’

The girl didn’t say anything.

‘It was one of you, wasn’t it? It must have been. I’d rather you told me you’d done it, then I can stop worrying.’