The Girl From Barefoot House (23 page)

Louisa hadn’t even turned round when she went to say goodbye. She was in her rocking chair facing the window, and said gruffly, ‘Bye, dear. Have a nice time.’ Josie wanted to fling her arms around her, have a good cry, but Louisa waved a dismissive arm, which Josie took as a sign she didn’t want an emotional farewell. Closing the door quietly behind her, she cried on the train instead. The new companion, a retired headmistress, seemed very nice, very firm. Louisa would be safe with
her, but she didn’t doubt the poor woman would be reduced to a nervous wreck in no time.

Mixed with the sorrow was a feeling of relief, a sense of freedom, the awareness that Louisa had been right to let her go. Somewhere, buried deep within her mind, there’d been a dread of remaining in Barefoot House for years while she watched Louisa die.

Tomorrow, she would leave Lime Street station for London, where she would stay the night – she’d booked into a little hotel right by Euston – then make her way to Heathrow early next morning to catch the plane to New York. Thumbelina was picking her up from Idelwild airport. Josie had a passport with a horrible photo inside that made her look like a criminal, and over three hundred yellowing American dollars that had been found in an old handbag in Louisa’s wardrobe upstairs. Since Louisa’s second stroke, there hadn’t been much opportunity for Josie to indulge her weakness for new clothes, and she’d managed to save up over fifty pounds. This she was keeping for when she came back from America. She’d have to start again then, find somewhere to live, another job.

A new beginning! It made her feel almost as excited as the holiday.

That afternoon, Marigold and her family were coming for a farewell tea, as well as Daisy and Eunice. Daisy had telephoned earlier with a message from Aunt Ivy. ‘I told her about your trip to America. She’d love to see you, Jose.’

Mrs Kavanagh shook her head when asked for her advice. ‘I don’t think it’s such a good idea, luv,’ she said. ‘That part of your life is well behind you. Don’t rake it up.’

‘I promised meself I’d never go back to Machin Street
again,’ Josie said, relieved. Mrs Kavanagh had promised to look after Louisa’s brown envelope and Mam’s Holy Communion veil and prayer book, because it seemed silly to take them all the way to America.

The front door opened, and a man’s deep voice shouted, ‘It’s only us, Ma. I’ve been showing Imelda the fairy glen.’

Lily made a face. ‘I wonder what she thought of
that
?’

Imelda was Ben’s fiancée, who’d come for the weekend to meet her prospective in-laws for the first time. They were getting married at Christmas because Imelda had always wanted a winter wedding. She and Ben had just left Cambridge, Imelda with a first class (hons) degree in English, and Ben with the same in physics. He was due in Portsmouth in a few weeks’ time to start his national service in the Navy, and would be made an officer straight away because of his degree.

The Kavanaghs had been expecting to meet a studious-looking girl with glasses, a blue-stocking. Instead, Imelda was dainty, with delicate white skin and china blue eyes. Her hair was black, shiny and very straight, and she wore it parted in the middle and tucked behind her ears, which really did resemble two little pink shells.

It went without saying that Lily couldn’t stand her soon-to-be sister-in-law, who was everything Lily wanted herself to be; thin, with manageable hair and make-up that seemed willing to stay on for ever. ‘And she’s all over our Ben. She keeps kissing him in front of everyone. I’m sure he’s dead embarrassed.’

‘He doesn’t seem embarrassed to me.’ Last night, when Josie had first arrived, also expecting to meet someone plain, possibly with plaits and flat, lace-up shoes – how else would you expect a woman with a degree to
look? – she had felt a totally unreasonable stab of jealousy when she saw an exquisite creature wearing strappy, high-heeled sandals and a stiff petticoat under her white sundress, making her look like a fairy off the top of a Christmas tree. Ben didn’t seem to mind at all when she snuggled close, tucking his arm in hers as they sat together on the settee and occasionally nuzzling his ear.

‘Hello, Josie.’ Ben had leapt to his feet when she went in. ‘It’s good to see you.’ He had kissed her cheek, in the friendly way you’d kiss a cousin or an aunt.

‘You’ve changed. Oh, you’ve got a moustache!’ She had to stop herself from reaching up and touching the pale hairs on his upper lip.

‘Imelda persuaded me to grow it.’

‘But he won’t grow a beard,’ Imelda pouted.

Ben grinned. ‘One day.’

Why did I go to Haylands? Josie wondered wildly. Why did I give him up? The moustache made him look dashing and sophisticated – and older, more like twenty-five than twenty-two. He wore khaki cotton trousers and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, revealing tanned, surprisingly muscular arms. The mere fact that someone like Imelda found him attractive only increased his appeal in Josie’s eyes.

It could have been
me
marrying him at Christmas!

She was relieved when Ben took Imelda out that night to see a play at the Royal Court, because she was worried he would guess how unsettled she felt, full of doubts and uncertainties. Had she made a terrible mistake?

During the night, as she tossed and turned in the uncomfortable camp bed in Lily’s room – naturally, Imelda had been given the spare – she could have sworn
she heard someone on the landing. Ben creeping into Imelda’s room, or perhaps it was the other way around.

I’m being stupid, she told herself. If Imelda had been as ugly as sin, I wouldn’t have felt like this – at least, I don’t think so. Anyroad, if Imelda didn’t exist, and Ben asked again if I would marry him, he’d be dead set against me going to New York, and we’d be right back where we started. I’d have to tell him, no.

Phew! Josie snuggled her face in the pillow and fell asleep.

She fell in love with him at first sight, something she hadn’t thought possible, not in real life. It was her last night in New York. In Thumbelina’s magnificent house, her case was packed, and Matthew had been alerted to drive her to the airport in time to catch the ten o’clock flight to Heathrow. She had bought him and Estelle a little present each for looking after her so well. She was sorry to be leaving New York, yet looked forward to going home.

Then she met Jack Coltrane and everything changed.

Four weeks previously, just as the sun was setting, Thumbelina, tiny, dazzling, seventy-five years old but looking more like fifty, with improbable golden hair and five-inch heels, had picked Josie up from the airport in a chauffeur-driven car. Josie was introduced to the chauffeur, Matthew, a handsome, grizzled black man, then to Henry Stafford Nightingale the third, known as Chuckles, who was in the back, a mild, tubby man with a bright red face who reminded Josie of a robin. They were leaving early next morning on a round-the-world cruise, Thumbelina explained, a belated honeymoon.
‘Aren’t we, hon?’ She gazed adoringly at her new husband, who gazed adoringly back but didn’t speak.

Josie felt shaken after a bumpy flight. Her legs were like jelly, and she had never felt so hot before. She tried to concentrate while she was bombarded with questions about Louisa, about herself and about Liverpool, which Thumbelina knew well, having stayed many times many years ago at Barefoot House. It was difficult to answer when her brain was still halfway across the Atlantic, and had yet to catch up with her body.

They were driving through an area called Queens, she was told, which had a look of Liverpool about it, but then the car crossed a bridge over a shimmering green river, reaching the other side through a vast arch flanked by colonnades, and Thumbelina said, ‘We’re on the island of Manhattan, hon. This is Chinatown.’

All Josie’s tiredness, her feeling of disorientation, vanished in a flash, and she blinked in disbelief at the brilliantly lit shops, the pagoda-topped telephone boxes, restaurants with the names written in Chinese, tiny cramped arcades hung with banners and bunting. All the shops were open, although it was late, and the pavements were packed. Some people wore genuine Chinese clothes, long, gaudy silk robes with frogging and embroidery.

‘Oh!’ she murmured, and Chuckles glanced at her awe-struck face, smiled and opened the window of the air-conditioned car to allow in hot, spicy smells, mixed with wafts of musky perfume, as well as gentle tinkly music that sounded slightly off key, and the buzz of a hundred voices speaking a hundred different tongues. Or so thought an open-mouthed Josie as she listened to the strange sounds and breathed in the strange smells. The world seemed to have got lighter and brighter, noisier,
busier, more colourful, larger than life. She was captivated instantly. New York was undoubtedly the most fascinating, the most exciting city in the world.

Louisa had said the Upper East Side was the poshest place to live in Manhattan. The house in which Josie stayed for the next four weeks was palatial – a double-fronted brownstone off Fifth Avenue, solidly built, with a row of pillars supporting a balcony that ran the width of the front. Josie was impressed, but wouldn’t have wanted to live there permanently. It was more like a museum than a place to live. Even the house in Huskisson Street in its glory days couldn’t have looked so grand. ‘I’m not exaggerating, Lil,’ she wrote in the first letter to her friend, ‘but you could live in one of the wardrobes. They’re
huge
. Downstairs, the floors are marble-tiled, but the carpets upstairs are so thick my feet almost disappear. You should see my room, it’s a parlour as well as a bedroom.’

Her room was about forty feet square, with an oyster silk three-piece, a four-poster bed with matching drapes, a red carpet and lots of heavy black furniture decorated with gold.

When Matthew’s wife, Estelle, the matronly housekeeper, took her upstairs on the first day, insisting on carrying her case – which made Josie feel uncomfortable because she was so much older – she did a little jig when the door closed, because she had rarely felt so happy. She began to unpack her case. ‘If only you could see me now, Mam,’ she crowed.

Dinner was served in a room that reminded Josie of Liverpool Town Hall, where she’d once gone with Lily to hear Mr Kavanagh make a speech. After a five-course meal that was more like a banquet, Thumbelina and
Chuckles, who were leaving early in the morning, bade her goodnight and goodbye. She kissed them both, and wished them a lovely holiday, and they kissed her and wished her the same. Thumbelina said she must come back one day and they’d show her a real good time. Josie felt as if she’d known them for years. She went to bed immediately and slept like a log for twelve hours.

‘I looked in earlier,’ Estelle said next morning when she brought in a cup of coffee, ‘but you were sleeping as soundly as the sweet Baby Jesus, so I decided not to wake you. It’s ten o’clock. Now, honey, do you want breakfast in that mausoleum of a dining room or in the kitchen? Me and Matthew have already eaten, but we’ll share a cup of coffee with you.’

‘The kitchen, please,’ Josie said promptly. While she ate scrambled eggs, followed by delicious pancakes with maple syrup, Matthew explained where to find the nearest bus stop and subway station.

‘You’re welcome to eat with us whenever you want, honey,’ Estelle said, ‘but if you decide to eat out, you’ll find delis and diners are the cheapest. Oh, and Macy’s is the place for clothes. It’s the biggest department store in the world,’ she finished proudly.

Matthew gave her the key to the door and said she was to come and go as she pleased. Josie went upstairs to collect her handbag and guide book, give her hair a final brush and renew her lipstick, before setting off to explore the glorious wonders of New York.

Time flashed by. Days merged, became weeks. She went up the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building, sampled the gaudy, clanking delights of Coney Island, wandered along Fifth Avenue. She gaped at the prices of the clothes in the windows of the opulent shops, nipped
into Bloomingdale’s, sprayed herself with Chanel No 5, then nipped out again, which Estelle had done when she first came to New York. She went to Mass in St Patrick’s Cathedral, to Chinatown and Little Italy, the garment district, and so many museums she forgot which was which. She stood in the sharp, black shadows and gazed up in awe at the towering skyscrapers – it was like being in the middle of a giant pincushion – gorged on hamburgers, bagels, pancakes, pizzas and exotic ice creams, discovered a penchant for peanut butter and a passion for Coca-Cola with ice, not just because the weather was so hot.

And it
was
hot, as if a furious fire raged beneath the streets of this unique, fantastic city, and the heat could be felt through the thin soles of her sandals. Her feet hurt, her legs hurt, her head hurt from the noise, the crowds, the stifling atmosphere.

But Josie loved every minute. She rode buses and the sweltering subway, and sat on the grass in Central Park where she saw
As You Like It
and
The Merchant of Venice
for nothing. She spent far too long in Macy’s, where there were four floors of mouth-watering women’s clothes, and bought two sunfrocks and a lovely linen jacket.

The place she liked best of all was Greenwich Village, bohemian, unconventional, with quaint, tangled little streets that made a pleasant change from the rigid block system in the rest of the city. She wondered if anyone in Greenwich Village ever slept, because no matter how late it was the shops were still open, the bars and restaurants full, the streets buzzing with an almost anarchic excitement. It was possible to enter one of the dark little coffee-bars and find a play or poetry reading in progress, or a meeting going on, usually something
political, to do with banning the bomb or stopping the McCarthy witch-hunts, whatever they were. Josie would sit in a corner and listen, savouring every little thing, no matter how trivial, because it was like nothing she had ever known before.

Suddenly it was her last week, her last few days, then the final day of the most wonderful holiday anyone could possibly have had. She had bought presents for everyone at home: a pretty necklace and earring set from Chinatown for Estelle, and for Matthew a leather tobacco pouch because the one he had was wearing thin.