The Hardie Inheritance (37 page)

‘Trish, dear, you mustn't flounce off in a huff like this. I've
been looking forward so much to having you back here for Christmas. You surely don't want to spend the vacation all alone in London. Your landlady–'

‘I shan't go back there. Why should you have to pay out for an appendage of someone who isn't even a proper husband?'

‘You're not to say that. If I've had an uncustomary sort of marriage, that's my business, not yours. All the same – sit down for a minute and listen to me.'

Trish sat down on the suitcase, whilst Grace began to walk up and down the room, pausing at the window to look out.

‘Well?' asked Trish as the silence lengthened.

‘It sounds too simple to be believable, but it's the truth. The companionship and support and affection which your father has given me for the past thirteen years has been exactly what I wanted. No more, no less. You have to believe that.'

‘If that were true, you wouldn't be throwing him out now.'

‘He's going because he has a job to do.'

‘With Jay.'

‘Yes. With Jay. If Ellis and I are both happy with the situation, it isn't for you to go into a tantrum about it.'

‘You weren't being happy when I came home an hour ago.'

‘I was angry with Jay, not with Ellis. He was flaunting their relationship in a way which was disturbing Max and would have upset you. I didn't want you to find out –'

‘No! Keep Trish in the dark; that's all that matters. I don't care a damn what you and Ellis do or don't do together. All right, it's none of my business; that's why I'm going. You've had thirteen years of companionship and affection. I've had thirteen years of being lied to and made to believe that everything was different from what it really was and I've had enough.'

Had it been the only shock of the day she might have been able to bear it. But she had suffered once already from an inability to realize what was going on in front of her eyes. In that case it had been all her own fault. Rupert had not deliberately tried to deceive her but had simply been as blind to her feelings as she was to his. She had no right to be angry
with him. But she had every right to be angry with the two people whom she should have been able to trust.

‘Go away,' she said furiously. Only by giving her anger full rein could she prevent herself from bursting into tears. ‘Just go away.'

Trish was squatting in someone else's squat. As squats went, this one was positively cosy. A land mine a year or two earlier had damaged almost every roof in an Islington square, but the tightly-packed terrace houses had held each other up. Some of the walls nearest to the blast had cracked, but all were still standing. The top floors were unusable, of course, but at ground level the rooms were dry.

The usual occupants were neither down-and-outs nor political protesters. They were fellow-students of hers who had failed to find accommodation in London at a rent they could afford. All of them had gone home for Christmas, but she knew how to get into the house and how to operate the illicitly-connected electricity. It was tempting to settle herself in and stay, since she had as much right as they to be there – in other words, no right at all. But this would be unfair. She proposed to use their premises as a base only while she made the house next door habitable.

Before the bomb fell all the residents of the square had been tenants, not owners. Most of them had moved away, but those who remained proved to be friendly, glad to welcome more life in the area: someone who might join in the battle against rats. Trish found herself offered cups of tea, advice, and a selection of battered saucepans and cracked mugs, together with information on where she might find equipment abandoned by earlier squatters – a paraffin stove and a small electric cooker which would be invaluable if she could find someone to wire it in.

There was another source of booty. Workmen had begun to
make repairs on the far side of the square. She went to see what they had thrown out, and was soon in possession of a mattress which was damp but serviceable, a battered kitchen table and two chairs with the right number of legs. There was a large sofa in the house already, presumably because it was too large to move. Within three days of her arrival her new home was beginning to look furnished.

The hard work of sweeping out the debris from the blast and carrying buckets of water to clean up the two ground-floor rooms exhausted her energy. Time passed unnoticed until suddenly it was Christmas Day.

Awakened by cold, she rose early and set out to look for a public telephone. Her resentment had burned itself out, but she still felt let down by the way she had been treated. Leaving home had been only half a gesture of independence. The other half was staying away, proving that she could look after herself: and a good way to prove that was to make a voluntary return for one day only, refusing all invitations to stay, even for a single night. Such a visit would have the secondary advantage of enabling her to have a hot bath, which she would not be too proud to refuse.

Even to herself she did not express her intentions in those terms. Instead, she allowed herself to feel sorry for Grace. Ellis and Jay, evicted from Greystones, would no doubt be happy enough with each other's company over Christmas and Max, back at home, would be enjoying the company of his sister and brothers. It was wrong that Grace should be left all alone on a day which she would have expected to be a happy family occasion. It was Trish's intention to wish her a merry Christmas and agree to come back for the day as though nothing had happened.

It took some time to find a call box in working order. By the time she dialled the number, Grace would be just finishing breakfast. She listened as it began to ring.

There was no answer. She rang off and tried again in case there had been a fault at the switchboard. The harsh buzzing
went on and on. Mrs Barrett was nervous of answering the telephone, but would certainly have alerted her mistress to its ringing had she been in the house. She must have been given the day off. And as for Grace herself – might she have had an accident of some kind? It wasn't likely. Much more probable was that she was treating Christmas Day as an ordinary day and had already retreated into the studio, where the bell could not be heard.

More disappointed than she liked to admit, Trish put down the receiver. To make the journey and arrive without warning or invitation would be a confession of defeat, and she was not defeated. But the day stretched bleakly in front of her. There was no snow here in London to cover the dirty streets. There was no one around to provide even an impersonal nod of greeting. Behind the closed doors and curtained windows children would be opening their stockings, but they had not yet emerged to play with any new treasures.

She would have had a stocking of her own had she still been living at Greystones. ‘Until you're twenty-one!' Grace had said firmly when she once wondered aloud whether she wasn't becoming too old for that sort of thing. It would have been filled with food treats and new paints and brushes. Grace would have made something out of clay or carved a puzzle or – but Trish shook such thoughts out of her head. She didn't care about such childish things as stockings herself, but was sorry that Grace had been deprived of the pleasure of giving and being thanked.

Wandering aimlessly through the empty streets, she found herself passing an ugly building labelled Public Baths. Perhaps she had noticed it before, but if so had assumed it to be a swimming pool. Now, looking more closely at the schedule of services, times and prices, she discovered that it would provide her – although not until after Boxing Day – with the hot bath which she badly needed. The promise of cleanliness made her immediately feel more clean. Her eyes brightened, her footsteps lightened as she set herself to make new plans.

By the time she returned to the square she had decided how to spend the day, if she could find the right materials. It was easy to break into the four houses on which the builders had been working. Yes, there were pots of paint and a selection of brushes. It wasn't stealing, she told herself as she picked up as much as she could carry; only borrowing. Most of the tins had already been opened and she would return everything except a few inches of paint before the holiday period was over.

The selection was not an inspiring one. House decoration, like everything else, was confined in a utility mode. There were two kinds of white paint: one for ceilings and the other for woodwork. There was cream for walls and black for gutters, and a variety of undercoats: white, grey and dark red. The one unopened tin was the most exciting: a daffodil yellow paint which was perhaps intended for a front door.

Back in her own squat, she sat down on the large sofa and stared at the wall which faced her. Most of it was covered with a wallpaper patterned with roses, but at both top and bottom lumps of plaster had fallen away. Had Terry been here, he would have made it all good, but there was an easier way to deal with the damage. Half closing her eyes, she allowed the triangular shapes of missing plaster to transform themselves into sharply pointed mountains. A graceful crack provided the skeleton of a willow tree. The damage higher up could be hidden under clouds.

If only the owner of the unpainted front door had chosen green instead of yellow! But even as she sighed, a study in grey and black and white began to form before her eyes. A Chinese landscape, but formalized until it was hardly identifiable as a landscape at all. So touches of the red metal undercoat would serve to indicate what ought to be green. The sun could shine on it from one corner, sending down daffodil yellow rays.

It was quite wrong to mix so many different kinds of paint, of course. The finished effect would probably be ridiculous. But it could only have a temporary life and planning and
executing it would be fun. The first necessity was to obliterate the wallpaper roses.

Their colour proved to be stronger than the white of the ceiling paint, and two coats were needed to cover them. While she waited for the first to dry, she squared out a design which could be enlarged to the size of the wall. Although she wanted the work to emerge spontaneously, that much preparation was needed so that she could use bold brushstrokes with no second thoughts.

One of the boring things she had been taught at college was perspective, which now proved not to be boring at all. She used it to increase the size of the tiny room by opening up a vista, allowing a river to wind between the mountains of damaged plaster and away into the distance. By the time the light faded on Boxing Day, only the yellow sun was missing from her picture wall, and for good measure she had slapped white paint over the other three walls so that there was not a rose to be seen.

For two days she had hardly been aware of hunger, content to nibble at raw carrots and cabbage, but now she was starving. Returning to the next-door squat she raided her friends' small stock of tins. Unlike the paint, though, these could be replaced. Early the next morning she set out to shop.

The street market behind the Angel was already crowded when Trish arrived. She was carrying her ration book, but quickly realized that no one here would demand it. The knowing looks of the stallholders were intended to give the impression that their goods were black market, but the solitary policeman patrolling the streets showed little interest. No clothing coupons were required for the army surplus blankets which were just what she needed; nor was she expected to hand over any ‘points' for battered tins of food. Almost certainly these had been condemned as unfit for sale, but what did a few dents matter? Carefully picking the least damaged, she was just about to pay for half a dozen tins of baked beans when she heard her name being called and looked around to see who it could be.

It was Boxer. He was standing on a wooden box about three stalls away. She made her way towards him with her fists pumping like pistons in their old greeting.

‘Hold on a tick,' he said, for he had serious business in hand. A crowd was already gathering around his table, which was loaded with cardboard boxes. He was selling china tea sets which he claimed to be export rejects. A non-stop patter flowed from his earnest, high-pitched voice as he waved a specimen cup in the air.

‘Well of course they're seconds, ladies and gents. Who asked if they were seconds? Of course they're seconds. 'Ow else would you expect to get a pattern as pretty as this on your tea table. If you're 'appy with plain white china then go away and don't get in the way of them as knows a good thing when they sees one. If I'd 'ad these 'ere a week ago; ladies and gents, I'd 'ave
been asking a tenner for the set so's you could give Granny a real treat this Christmas, but they're late and so you're lucky and yes, of course you can take a look but it's a fiver if you drop it. Now then, ten pound a set these are worth, but am I asking ten pound? No I'm not. Am I asking eight pound? No I'm not. Am I asking six pound?'

The crowd joined in. ‘No, you're not.'

‘But that's the limit, ladies and gents. A bargain's a bargain and if I go any lower there'll be a riot, fighting in the street, because I've only got ten of these boxes and I can see fifteen, twenny of you feeling for your money already. Only the first ten's going to be lucky. Best export reject, a fiver the set for the first nine but the sky's the limit for the last one.'

‘'Ere, guv. One for me!' With amusement Trish saw that the hand which was waving a five-pound note belonged to Dan.

‘Thank you, sir. One for the gentleman. Only nine to go and the last one makes its own price. Don't be left standing, ladies and gents, while a bargain slips past yer eyes. Best export reject!'

Alerted by Boxer's shout, Dan came to stand beside Trish as soon as he had completed his purchase.

‘I take it that goes straight back into stock,' she said laughing. ‘When do you produce another set of only ten tea sets?'