Andrew Taylor - Bleeding Heart Square

He grinned at her, relieved at the change of tone. ‘They probably lost their money in the slump or something. The new poor.’

But Fenella was no longer smiling. ‘I think I’ll go home now.’

‘I’ll take you.’

‘No. If you don’t mind, I’d rather go by myself.’ She looked up at him. ‘I just feel like my own company. It’s nothing personal, you know.’

‘I know,’ Rory said. ‘That’s rather the problem, isn’t it?’

Lydia Langstone hadn’t realized that being poor brought with it so many unpredictable humiliations. Being poor meant more than not being able to buy things. It changed the way that people looked at you. It changed how you looked at yourself.

After breakfast on Monday morning she went to the Blue Dahlia, where she ordered a cup of coffee and asked to speak to the manageress. The manageress turned out to be the fat woman behind the counter who took the orders.

‘I wondered whether you had any vacancies,’ Lydia said.

‘You what?’ demanded the woman.

‘A position.’ Lydia lowered her voice, aware that the other customers were probably listening avidly. ‘I’m looking for a job, you see.’

The woman shook her head. ‘We ain’t got anything going here, love.’ She leant on the counter, bringing her face closer to Lydia’s, and added in an unexpectedly gentle voice, ‘Anyway, our sort of job wouldn’t suit you, and you wouldn’t suit it.’

Lydia left the cafe with her ears burning. It wasn’t so much the rejection that embarrassed her. It was the way the woman had talked to her at the end, the way she had called her ‘love’. On her way home, she went into the library in Charleston Street. Upstairs in the reference room, the Situations Vacant columns from the daily newspapers were pinned up on boards. She couldn’t reach them because there was a crowd of unemployed, both men and women, heaving like a football scrum in front of her.

It was nearly lunchtime by the time she got back to Bleeding Heart Square. There were letters on the hall table — none for her or her father, but one of them was for Mr Wentwood. She heard a sound behind her and turned to see Mr Fimberry advancing down the hall, smiling broadly.

‘Mrs Langstone, I thought it must be you! You see — I recognize your footsteps already.’ He laid his hand on her arm. ‘I wondered whether this afternoon might be a good time for me to show you round the chapel in Rosington Place.’

‘No,’ Lydia said, pulling her arm away. ‘I’m afraid it wouldn’t.’

‘You’re back home for lunch? I was just about to warm up some soup for myself, and-’

To Lydia’s relief, she heard footsteps on the stairs. Fimberry glanced past her.

‘Good afternoon, Mr Serridge,’ he said.

‘Mrs Langstone?’ Serridge said, ignoring Fimberry. ‘Can I have a word?’

Fimberry slipped into his own room, closing the door.

Serridge towered over her. ‘He’s not been pestering you, has he?’

‘Not really.’

‘That means he has.’ Serridge scowled. ‘I’ll have a word.’

‘Please don’t. He’s just trying to be friendly.’

‘It’s up to you, Mrs Langstone. How are you getting on?’

‘Very well, thank you.’

‘I heard you were looking for a job.’

Lydia nodded, wondering who had told him.

‘Any luck so far?’

‘Not yet. But it’s early days, I suppose.’

Serridge scratched his untidy beard. He was such a big man, Lydia thought, and not just in terms of physique. He took up too much space. She found him far more oppressive than she did Mr Fimberry, though she was not sure why. There was the sound of hammering upstairs, perhaps from the attic flat. Mr Wentwood must be making himself at home. At least Mr Wentwood seemed relatively normal.

‘If you want a job,’ Serridge said, ‘I might be able to help you.’

A narrow flight of stairs rose up to the tiny attic landing. Doors to left and right led to the sitting room and to the bedroom respectively. Both rooms had dormer windows, steeply sloping ceilings and gently sloping floors of ill-fitting, creaking boards. The rooms made you feel as though you were living life at an angle and were slightly drunk as well. The furniture was plain and old-fashioned. Most of the pieces were dull with lack of polish but they had a solidity lacking in Mrs Rutter’s furniture in Kentish Town.

It took Rory nearly an hour to unpack. He set up his typewriter, a Royal Portable his parents had given him as a leaving present before he sailed to India, on the table in the sitting room. It squatted there, looking efficient and important. It was his badge of office, he thought, a visible sign that he was, or soon would be, a working journalist or copywriter.

Most of his clothes went into a big chest of drawers with tarnished brass handles. One of the two top drawers had jammed, and he returned to it last of all. He was obliged to take out the drawer below it before he was able to ease it out of the chest. The drawer itself was empty but removing it dislodged a folded sheet of paper that had wedged itself at some point in the past between the drawer and the side of the chest. Yellowed with age and spotted with damp, it was covered with sloping handwriting in faded ink.

… rather lax about making notes, as I had intended. Still, as I was rereading the Parable of the Prodigal Son this evening (Luke 15), I could not help be struck both by the beauty of the language and the spirituality of its message. We must rejoice when a sinner repents, Our Lord tells us, because Our Father which is in Heaven will …

Someone’s Bible study notes, Rory thought idly, and began to screw up the sheet. As he did so, he noticed something written in pencil on the other side.

Dear Mr Orburn

Thank you for your letter of the 7th inst. I have considered what you sayyour proposals aboutre the house very carefully and decided to proceed as you suggest, so long as it doesn’t cost more thanthe cost does not exceed your estimate of?110. Please let me know when you will require the money, and I willso that I may instruct my bank manager to withdraw it from the deposit account .

Yours faithfullytruly ,

P. M. Penhow

Rory frowned. P. M. Penhow . Fenella’s Aunt Philippa and Narton’s Miss Penhow came together in the signature. For the first time, she was more than a couple of words in someone else’s mouth. This piece of paper was independent proof of a living, breathing woman. It was a draft of a business letter, presumably — to a builder? No, more likely to her agent or her lawyer. Clearly she had not been used to writing this sort of letter. He touched the signature with the tip of his finger. Had she once owned this chest of drawers?

Footsteps were coming up the stairs from the landing below. Rory dropped the paper into the drawer, closed it and turned towards the open door. Mrs Renton appeared, carrying a tray.

‘I brought you some tea,’ she announced.

‘That’s awfully kind.’

‘Not that I’m going to make a habit of it, Mr Wentwood. And there’s a letter come in the post. Mind you bring the cup down when you’ve finished, and don’t forget the tray.’

The Lamb in Lamb’s Conduit Street was far enough away from Bleeding Heart Square for Narton to be able to relax. He ordered half a pint of mild-and-bitter and nursed it by the fire. He wondered whether Wentwood would turn up. That was the trouble with having to deal with amateurs. You couldn’t rely on them. Five minutes later, however, the young man came bounding through the door. Christ, thought Narton sourly, the chap’s like an overgrown puppy. But at least he was here.

‘I had your letter,’ Wentwood said. ‘Everything all right?’