A Lesser Evil (21 page)

‘You’d better go before it starts to rain,’ Dan said. ‘I reckon we’re in for a big storm.’

Fifi did leave before visiting time was over when she saw the first spots of rain. But by the time she was halfway to the tube station the rain had turned heavy and her thin dress was soaked. When she got out at Kennington it was a deluge. She stood for a moment in the entrance to the station, watching the rain bouncing off the pavements and turning the gutters into gushing streams. There was no light in the sky at all, and it was all too obvious by the rumbling thunder that this was far more than a brief summer shower, so she had no choice but to run for home.

The streets were completely deserted, cars slowing down to a crawl in the driving rain, and the pavements were slippery after the long dry spell. She was soaked to the skin and out of breath when she turned the corner into Dale Street and suddenly she slid on something and fell flat on her face.

She banged one knee very hard, and jarred her hand and arm as she tried to break her fall. The shock made her cry out. She felt someone grab her arm to help her up, but her wet hair was all over her face and she didn’t know who it was until she heard his voice.

‘You shouldn’t be running like a mad thing in your condition,’ he said. ‘A drop of rain won’t ’urt you.’

It was Alfie Muckle. As she brushed her hair back off her face she saw he was leering at her and she realized that her thin dress was stuck to her body and he’d probably seen right up to her knickers when she fell.

She backed away from him instinctively.

‘Well, that’s nice,’ he said, his pale blue eyes travelling up and down her body. ‘Not a word of thanks that I helped you up!’

‘I didn’t mean to be rude,’ she said quickly. ‘I’m a bit shaken up, that’s all. Thank you.’

‘You’ll be all alone with the old man up the ’ospital,’ he said, moving closer and putting his hand on her elbow. ‘Come over to my place and I’ll fix your leg up.’

From anyone else that offer would have touched her, for when she looked down she saw blood streaming from her knee. But coming from him it sounded menacing. ‘I’ll be fine,’ she said, moving away from him. ‘Thank you anyway.’

She hobbled the rest of the way home, aware he was still standing under the shelter of the corner-shop blind watching her.

Once indoors, her wet clothes stripped off and in her dressing-gown, Fifi found herself shivering with shock. Her right knee was badly grazed, as was the palm of her hand. All at once everything – Dan’s injuries, the visit to her mother, her fall, being touched by Alfie and the prospect of a night alone – blew up in her mind to astronomic proportions and she felt vulnerable and fearful.

A loud clap of thunder, quickly followed by a flash of lightning, made her feel even more nervy, for she’d always been frightened by thunderstorms. She pulled the curtains shut and switched on a lamp and the television, but at each further clap of thunder she shook, and she could barely hear the television for the drumming of rain on the roof and windows.

Cold, shaken and frightened, she went to bed. But the thunder seemed even louder there, and as darkness fell outside, each flash of lightning lit up the room. She burrowed under the covers and even put Dan’s pillow over her head, but she could still hear the storm and she became more and more scared.

As a child she had been terrified of storms, to the extent that sometimes her mother thought she was about to take a fit. She felt herself going that way again, for she was rigid with fear and struggling to breathe. She felt as if she was marooned in a high tower with the storm raging all around her, and that any moment the roof would come crashing in and she’d be killed.

Through the paralysing fear, a memory of her father came to her. She saw herself as a small girl being held safe in his arms as he got her to watch the storm with him from the bedroom window. She remembered that watching what was happening outside wasn’t as frightening as imagining it, and often she fell asleep in her father’s arms.

Although far from convinced it would work alone, she forced herself to get out of bed and wrap a blanket round herself. Then she pulled back the curtains.

It wasn’t as black outside as she’d expected. Although the rain was very heavy, she could see a faint yellow glow from street lighting in the road behind Dale Street, and there were lights in many of the windows in the backs of the houses to remind her that there were people all around her.

Another crash of thunder made her jump, but the lightning which quickly followed it lit up the darkness, and for a second or two the heavy rain looked golden and beautiful like sparks from a firework. At each successive flash of lightning Frank’s garden below was lit up, and she could even see the pink roses climbing over his shed.

Her heart was racing and she felt sick, but remembering how her father used to reassure her that the storm was gradually moving away, she began to count from the clap of thunder until the lightning flashed. At first it came after two seconds, but the next was three, and by the time the gap was six and then seven seconds, her heartbeat was gradually slowing back to normal.

Another crash came and she peered down at Frank’s shed again as she counted while awaiting the flash.

It came on the count of ten, illuminating not just the shed but the wall at the end of the garden. There, standing on the wall, was a man looking up at her, his face as clear as if lit by bright sunshine. It was Alfie Muckle!

She backed away from the window in terror, and a sudden tightness in her chest and throat made it hard for her to breathe again. An instinctive need for protection made her run for the stairs, calling for Frank.

She didn’t stop to switch on the light, just flew down the stairs, forgetting in her panic that she was wearing only her nightdress. But as she reached the top of the last flight of stairs, her bare feet slipped on the worn carpet. She tried to stop herself falling by grabbing the banister but a sudden sharp pain in the arm she’d hurt earlier prevented her, and she toppled down the stairs.

Frank was sitting up in bed reading a book when he heard Fifi call his name. He threw back the covers immediately, sensing her panic, but even before he’d put his feet on the floor he heard the ominous sound, like a sack of coal falling down, thumping on each stair. He wrenched his door open just in time to see Fifi land at the bottom, her blonde hair bright against the floor in the dark hallway, arms and legs splayed out grotesquely.

The light came on just as he reached her, and Miss Diamond appeared at the top of the stairs in a long white nightgown. ‘Oh, my God!’ she exclaimed as she hurtled down the stairs towards them. ‘Why was she screaming?’ she asked. Then, bending down beside Frank, she pulled Fifi’s nightdress over her bare thighs. ‘She’s not dead, is she, Frank?’ she whispered.

Frank had enough knowledge of first aid to find Fifi’s pulse and tell his neighbour she was alive but had been knocked unconscious. ‘I’ll run and phone an ambulance,’ he said. ‘Stay with her, but don’t move her. If she comes round, talk to her and make her keep still. She’s having a baby, and that will probably be the first thing she asks about. I’ll bring a blanket for her after I’ve got my shoes and coat on.’

Nora Diamond sat on the stairs beside Fifi while she waited for Frank to come back from the phone, all her usual composure gone. To her, the awkward way the girl had landed suggested serious injuries, and with her husband in hospital too, things couldn’t look blacker for the young couple.

Nora rarely took to anyone young, but she had to these two. They were a warm couple, always smiling and joyful, yet not noisy or dirty in their habits like so many of the previous tenants. She wished Fifi had told her she was pregnant, then she wouldn’t have shouted at her this morning. She felt awful that she’d assumed the vomiting she’d heard was a result of drinking the night before.

What could have frightened Fifi tonight? Was it just being alone without Dan during the storm, or something more? Would she have been sympathetic if Fifi had come to her for comfort?

Deep down she doubted it. She had gone to bed early with a book and she always hated being disturbed. In fact, had she realized Fifi’s sickness this morning was due to pregnancy, she would almost certainly have been alarmed at the prospect of crying babies above her head, or wet nappies hanging in the bathroom. The chances were she’d already have been planning a letter to the landlord asking him to evict the couple well before the birth.

But now, as she looked down at the beautiful girl lying at her feet, seemingly lifeless, for the first time in many years she felt ashamed of her bitterness and intolerance.

At Fifi’s age she’d been just like her, vivacious, enthusiastic, warm and generous, despite having been orphaned at the age of eight and sent away by her guardians to boarding school. She had been popular with both teachers and pupils all through her schooldays, and though her guardians were distant and chilly, she was shown a great deal of affection by her schoolfriends’ parents who often invited her to their homes for the holidays.

If she had fallen in love with anyone but Reggie Soames she might have stayed that way. But she married him at twenty-two, refusing to listen to all who suggested he was only interested in her sizable inheritance. But it turned out that they were right. Reggie was not only a womanizing fortune hunter but a swindler, a thief and a liar. The war made it all too easy for him to fool her. While she was tucked away in Dorset, doing her bit for the war effort, growing vegetables and helping out at the local hospital, she really believed Reggie was doing top secret work for the War Office.

In fact he was using her inheritance to support his playboy life-style in London. While she was worrying that he could be in terrible danger in Germany, he was gambling and drinking away her money, sleeping with other women and laughing up his sleeve at her naivety.

It was only when the war ended, and he showed no sign of returning permanently to Dorset, that she began to be a little suspicious. She had got to know many other women with husbands involved in secret war work, but they were all coming home and settling down again. She tackled him about it when she found she was pregnant, and he promised that he would be back for good within the month.

He never returned.

She found out then that he had forged her signature on her trust fund and plundered it. The family jewellery was gone from the safe deposit box, and every penny had been cleared from the bank account. She lost her baby when angry creditors began calling on her.

A great deal more happened before she ended up here in Dale Street, but she knew it was the loss of her baby which started the fundamental change in her nature. The girls who worked under her, neighbours and even local shopkeepers were intimidated by her, and that was how she wanted it.

The funny thing was that Fifi and Dan were the only people who didn’t seem nervous of her. On many an occasion they had knocked on her door and asked if she needed anything when they were going to the shops, and they’d invited her up to their flat to see how they had decorated it. Dan had mended her coffee table when the leg broke off, and Fifi often invited her up for a cup of tea when he was working late. Nora told herself it was only good manners to accept these invitations from time to time, but it was more than that really. She had wanted the couple to stay at number 4 because she liked and trusted them.

Whatever the outcome at the hospital tonight, Nora had no doubt they would move on now, and that both saddened and frightened her. Since they moved in she had felt happier, less aware of all she had lost. And they had become the closest she could get to family.

‘Are we feeling better now, Mrs Reynolds?’

Fifi opened her eyes and looked at the nurse bending over her. She was West Indian, her plump face shiny like a conker.

‘Better than what?’ she asked with some difficulty as her mouth was as dry as a desert. She knew she was in a hospital, she remembered Frank telling her she was in an ambulance with him because she’d fallen down the stairs, and later being examined by a doctor.

Yet she was confused by seeing it was daylight now. It seemed as if there was a great deal of time unaccounted for.

‘Any pain?’ the nurse asked, and offered her a drink of water from a cup with a spout. ‘You had a little operation, you see, you’ve just come round from the anaesthetic.’

Fifi mentally checked herself. She seemed to be aching all over, but she supposed she would if she’d fallen down the stairs.

‘Not real pain, just aches,’ she said. ‘Did I break something?’

‘I’m afraid so, your right wrist,’ the nurse said. ‘Can’t you feel the plaster?’

Fifi looked down and saw the plaster cast lying across her chest, her fingers coming out of the end looking swollen and discoloured. She wiggled them and felt a stab of pain run up her arm, but she thought she’d got off lightly if that was the extent of her injuries. ‘What about the baby?’ she asked, almost as an afterthought.

When the nurse hesitated Fifi became wide awake immediately. ‘Have I lost it?’

‘I’m so very sorry, Mrs Reynolds,’ the nurse said in her curious sing-song voice. ‘I’m afraid you miscarried and we had to give you a D and C too. But your husband will be coming down to see you soon, he’ll tell you all about it.’

Fifi was too stunned to say anything. She closed her eyes and allowed the nurse to assume she was falling asleep again.

So she’d lost her baby, and what hadn’t come away naturally had been scraped away. And who would mourn that little life? Her parents hadn’t welcomed it, she hadn’t even welcomed it herself, not at first. Dan was the only person who was one hundred per cent joyful about it.

So why was it that when she could barely feel the plaster on her arm, she could feel her heart breaking?

Dan was brought to her bedside later in a wheelchair. When she heard him say her name she opened her eyes to see his swimming in tears.

‘They didn’t tell me till this morning that you’d been brought in,’ he said brokenly. ‘They wouldn’t bring me to you then because they said you were having an operation. I thought it must be on your broken wrist. They only told me an hour ago that you’d lost the baby.’