The Home Girls (10 page)

A RAT IN THE BUILDING

Maud was just ready when Vera came.

She (Maud) had just blown dust out of the teacups and set them back on their saucers when Vera's tap was heard on the door.

“I'm just ready!” Maud cried letting her in. “Just ready this very minute!”

She smiled a broad false-toothed smile on Vera who slid in and sat where she usually did close to the door. Maud fussed with the cushion behind her.

Dear me, she's depressed again, thought Maud feeling her own spirits rise.

She took her pleased face to the window and told herself she was allowing Vera a little time to recover.

There is something I'll point out to her, Maud thought with self congratulations on her generous nature.

“Look at the pretty flowers out in Mrs Morris's window box! They must have just come out. Violets they look like.”

“I saw them this morning,” Vera said, her broad flat face the colour of an old brown blanket with two raisins for eyes. She stood then sat again, a gesture of protest. “They're not violets. She poked some plastic flowers in among that green stuff. I wish you could've seen the violets I grew Maud.”

Maud stood still her hands folded at her waist.

“There was this big rock at the back of the house,” Vera said in a near trembling voice. “I grew the violets under it.

“It was cool and damp and I used to go at dusk every day and stand and smell.”

Vera drew air into her nostrils and Maud did too.

“I'll get you a drink! I didn't offer you a drink when you came,” Maud said when they had both exhaled.

She went briskly though an opening leading to a kitchen and returned with Vera's drink.

“And I didn't kiss you!” Maud said and kissed Vera over the glass of ginger beer causing the contents to wobble and almost spill on Vera's dress, a navy blue crepe patterned in brown, fraying around the buttonholes.

Vera took a sip of her drink and Maud watched her face for a change. There was none.

“I lost the house, you know Maud. It was in his name.”

Maud knew. She gave her sitting room a brief but loving glance.

“I'll get myself a little drink too,” she said and rose and did so.

They sipped alternately until Maud felt it was time to say something more.

“Irene should be in presently,” she said.

“She still got her rat?” Vera said a thin stream of envy running into her mournful voice.

They both glanced at the floor and Maud who was quite proud of her slim feet in their medium heel beige shoes lifted them and folded one behind the other resting only one toe on the floor.

Vera lifted her feet too. She wore large boat-shaped shoes, some of the creases breaking into cracks and bulbous where her corns had taken over their shaping. She too placed one upon the other ready at a given moment to climb the chair leg.

Maud smiled a very tolerant smile.

“I saw her on the stairs yesterday and she said she couldn't sleep the night before and when she put the light on there it was sitting up looking at her.

“It made no attempt to go back into the hole, she said.”

Maud and Vera looked stealthily around the visible areas of Maud's skirting board.

“We mustn't tell Mabel,” said Maud.

She put a thumb under her chin pushing it upwards looking wisely on Vera.

“Mabel talks to Henderson.”

“Runs after Henderson!” corrected Vera. There was the bark of a fox in her voice. Indeed she looked a lot like a large navy blue fox with age squashing its features and straggling its coat.

She tossed her head and opened her mouth as if she was ready to snap her jaws on Henderson, caretaker of the flats where they lived.

Her eyes strayed to the floor and so did Maud's and stayed there until there was a tap on the door.

Both jumped and swept their legs upwards.

“Oh dear,” said Maud recovering first and standing up she smoothed down her dress and her hair even sweeping both hands down her cheeks.

She opened the door to Irene.

Irene sidled in.

She was unmarried while Vera was divorced Mabel widowed and Maud married to Bert not yet retired who worked as a storeman in a firm in the city.

Irene was long like a pencil with a small round head at one end and surprisingly big feet at the other. She had been tall and hard and skinny in her youth while other girls were rosy, warm and fleshy. The result was that Irene bent herself sideways in an attempt to shorten herself on one side at least. She remained bent in her old age and looked like a dandelion weathered by rain and wind with its head gone colourless and tufty. Irene had taken lately to hiding her colourless and tufty hair under an ancient dusty straw hat with a mauve flower made of some faded flimsy material sitting above her forehead.

Irene's face beamed under the flower with a sort of shy and ugly radiance.

“You look so happy dear!” Maud cried watching her while she seated herself sideways on a settee.

“Doesn't she look happy Vera?” said Maud.

“She's got her rat!” said Vera with a short sharp bark.

“Oh Maud,” Irene said, “I left the light on last night and out he came—here I am saying ‘he'.”

“We always say ‘he',” Vera said, “God knows why but we always say ‘he'!”

“I shouldn't be saying ‘he' Maud,” said Irene, “Because it raised itself up Maud—”

Irene raised her two hands like the front paws of a rat and Maud and Vera looked around their feet and lifted them clear of the floor.

“And I saw these little pink titties! Little pink titties peeping out of the white fur!” said Irene. “Maud it was trying to tell me something.”

“Well, it better not tell Henderson!” said Vera.

“We're keeping it from Mabel,” said Maud running her eyes over the floor before fixing them on the bobbing flower on Irene's hat. “In case she lets something drop.”

“Before the rat does!” cried Vera looking for the first time almost pleased.

“I'll get Irene a drink,” said Maud getting up and bringing it from the kitchen.

“And I didn't kiss her!” she said wisely crushing a cheek against the flower before putting the glass into Irene's agitated hands.

Irene held her drink on her lap with a fixed expression ahead of her and the hint of a smile causing Maud and Vera to nervously follow her gaze.

Maud cleared her throat.

“We're not saying anything to Mabel dear,” she said speaking louder than necessary. “Because she talks to Henderson and might say something.”

“You can't bring anything into this place!” said Vera.

“I didn't bring it here,” said Irene. “It might have been here first!”

“The notice says no pets of any kind,” said Maud.

“No dogs!” said Vera.

“No cats!” said Maud.

“No caged birds!” said Vera.

“No pot plants on concrete surfaces!” said Maud.

“No climbing plants in window boxes!” said Vera. “No rats! Certainly no rats!” There was something close to relish in her voice.

Irene whose eyeballs swam in some colourless liquid like pale brown glue gripped her drink harder and was gripping it when Mabel knocked on the door.

“Mabel, oh Mabel!” cried Maud in greeting as Mabel came in large and showily dressed in tan coloured jersey splashed all over with huge flowers pale pink in colour and sprouting centres that ran into the hemline and the edge of her sleeves finishing at the elbows. She had a large head with frizzy gingerish hair making it appear larger and her shoes were freshly caked with white cleaner.

Vera who hadn't cleaned her shoes backed them under her chair.

“She's got her hibiscus dress on!” cried Maud. “We all love Mabel's hibiscus dress!

“And she's brought the deaths! Oh thank you dear!”

Maud kissed Mabel remembering this time to do it at once something which caused Vera's raisin eyes to flash into hard little currants.

Mabel had a folded paper under an arm which she went to put on a little table near Vera then decided not to.

It was the section of a daily newspaper that contained the columns of death notices.

Mabel confiscated this when a tenant on her floor separated it from the news section and dumped the unwanted pages into a receptacle left for waste paper.

None of them bought a daily paper although Maud's Bert read one for free at his works.

Maud took the paper from Mabel and Mabel took the chair that appeared to be waiting for her and laid her large flowery arms along the chair arms.

Maud without her glasses held the paper at arms' length squinting and grimacing as if this would help her eyesight, then tucked it under her arm.

“I'll see them later! I'll get Mabel her drink!”

Vera put up a hand.

“I'll have a look!”

She raised the paper which she read easily without glasses and Mabel looked hard at the back of it.

“Put it where Maud can find it easy!” said Mabel loudly as if the paper was a wall she had to shout through.

Maud bringing Mabel a drink gave her a soothing smile which Vera saw while folding the paper.

“Anyone there we know dear?” said Maud with a little soothing smile to Vera which Mabel also saw.

“No one there I'd like to be there if you know what I mean!” said Vera.

Maud arranged her features sympathetically.

“Would they come to the funeral if I died before them?” Vera said. “Would he come by himself? Would she come? I wonder!”

“They mightn't know,” said Mabel.

“Of course they'd know!” said Vera the bark back in her voice. “Everyone's death goes in the death columns, doesn't it Maud?”

“I would think so dear,” said Maud taking biscuits from a barrel and arranging them in a pattern on a plate. “What about the door? Shall we open it a little for Mabel to hear her phone if it rings?”

“Mabel's phone never rang once since we've been coming to Maud's on a Thursday!” barked Vera. “We could be blown to the GPO but the door has to be left open for Mabel's phone!”

Maud with some hesitancy opened the door a couple of inches.

“There! That shouldn't worry anyone!”

Irene's eyes full of watery dreams fixed themselves on the opening at floor level.

Maud looked down at her feet and moved them and Vera lifted hers.

Mabel looked down at her caked footwear and smoothed a hibiscus on her thigh.

“There has to be someone to put your death notice in the paper. It doesn't get there by itself does it Maud?” Mabel said. (Mabel had a married daughter living in the country.)

“He would put it in! I know he would!” said Vera.

“How would he know you died?” said Mabel. “He'd have to find out first.” Her eyes were gingerish like her hair and they flashed from Vera to Maud.

“They're pretty busy with their little place. I doubt they'd even have time to read your name in the deaths let alone put it there. What do you say Maud?”

Maud was moving four cups and saucers on the cloth worked by herself for her glory box when she first met Bert.

She paused and like Irene assumed a dreamy air. Bert was several years younger so it was likely she would die first. She pictured his droopy face above some papers he was shuffling looking for her full name.

“Maud Florence!” she said suddenly into the silence and Vera jumped and looked at her feet.

“Oh, dear,” Maud said going red.

“How would you know they're busy, Mabel?” said Vera as if gnawing a bone she was reluctant to put down. “You don't have to pass there to go to Dr Powers! You go the back way by Railway Street. It's shorter!”

“I can go to Dr Powers whatever way I like, Vera,” said Mabel. “Anyway I made a special trip to have a look at the little place.”

Vera for the moment could not raise a bark.

“They were busy too,” said Mabel.

“When?” said Vera.

“Friday if you must know.”

“You can't take any notice of Friday trade. All pubs are busy on a Friday! On other days there wouldn't be a soul there,” said Vera.

“Well there was plenty of souls there when I looked in,” said Mabel. “It was early in the day too. I saw her. She was flat out behind the bar. She had her hair all done up. Bouffant I think they call it. It looked real nice.”

Maud stood.

“I'll put the jug on shall I?” she said.

Mabel mesmerized Maud to stillness with her eyes.

“They were busy when you and Bert were there, weren't they Maud?” Mabel said.

“You've never been there, Maud!” cried Vera.

“Oh yes she has,” said Mabel. “Maud had a little stickybeak just like I did. Bert too!”

“Talk about rats!” cried Vera.

Irene grasped her bony knees in agitation and Maud sat suddenly lifting her feet from the floor. Vera looked wildly around the skirting board before finding Maud's face.

“Bert and I just took a little walk and when we were passing there Bert felt thirsty,” Maud said her corseted body upright.

“Ryan's is across the road and Tattersall's next door! Why didn't you go there?”

“Bert wasn't thirsty then,” said Maud.

“He got his thirst up in a hell of a hurry!” cried Mabel.

Maud reached out a hand and laid it on the ginger beer bottle.

“Have another little drink, Vera.”

“No thank you Maud! You bought that drink from them! Did you?”

“Of course I don't buy drink anywhere but the supermarket!” said Maud.

“You left them a tip, I suppose! To pay for her bouffant hairdo!”

“Of course not, Vera! Bert never tips!”

After a moment Maud looked Irene's way and gave her a small anxious smile. “You all right there, dear?” she said.

“She's all right!” cried Vera and lifted her feet so that they looked like a pair of boats about to start in a race against each other.