Andrew Taylor - Bleeding Heart Square

She tapped on the back door and waited. No one came. She was about to knock again when the door opened suddenly. A tall woman with ragged grey hair stared at Lydia. She wore a rusty black dress draped over a stick-like body. Her skin had a grey pallor, and her eyes were large, a faded blue in colour. The hand gripping the side of the door had long and graceful fingers that ended with nails bitten to the quick. Lydia thought the woman had once been beautiful. She had seen her before, of course, at the graveside, but then the widow had been masked by her veil and in any case her individuality had been swamped by the occasion.

‘Good afternoon,’ Lydia said uncertainly. ‘I’m Mrs Lang-stone. We haven’t met, Mrs Narton, but-’

‘I know who you are.’ The voice was low and harsh. ‘What do you want?’

‘First I wanted to say how sorry I was about your husband.’

‘Why? You didn’t know him.’

Lydia rushed on: ‘I was here with Mrs Alforde-’

‘You came to the funeral,’ Mrs Narton said. ‘I don’t know why, I’m sure.’

There was a long silence, during which Lydia wished more than ever that she had not come. Mrs Narton’s face remained impassive. Finally, she let go of the door and in doing so pushed it wide, revealing a low-ceilinged kitchen. She turned away and sat down at the table. She rested her hands on the table, palms down, on either side of an open Bible.

It was, Lydia decided, a sort of invitation. She went inside, closing the door behind her. She drew out a chair and sat down opposite Mrs Narton. She waited.

When the tapping on the window started, Rory was sitting as close as he could get to the electric fire with a blanket draped like a cape over his shoulders. He was whiling away the long evening with a plump and undemanding novel by J. B. Priestley that he had found in the kitchen. At first he thought he was imagining it because the tapping was both faint and sporadic, almost as though it wasn’t sure it wanted to be heard.

He put down the book, hobbled to the window and pulled aside the curtain. Lydia’s face, distorted by the rain on the window, swam on the other side of the glass. He dropped the blanket on the carpet, stumbled into the hall and opened the door.

The first thing he realized was how wet she was. Her coat was streaked with mud. She didn’t speak. She stood there on the doorstep and stared blankly at him until he drew her over the threshold. He helped her out of her coat and draped it with her hat on one of the pegs in the hall.

‘Come and sit by the fire,’ he ordered.

He followed her into the sitting room. She stood in the middle of the threadbare carpet, looking around her as though wondering what she was doing here. Her skirt and stockings were filthy.

Rory touched her shoulder. ‘Sit down.’

She sank obediently into the chair in front of the fire. He picked up the blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders. She seemed not to notice. Her teeth were chattering.

‘What the hell have you been doing with yourself?’

‘I–I walked from the station.’

‘Which station?’

‘Liverpool Street.’

‘But that’s miles away.’ He glanced at the mud on her shoes and stockings. ‘And you fell over too, by the look of it.’

‘That was on the footpath from Rawling.’

She pulled the blanket more tightly around her. Rory limped into the kitchen and returned with Dawlish’s whisky bottle and a clean wine glass. He filled the glass half full and held it out to her. She took it obediently and sipped, making a face at the taste.

‘Have some more,’ Rory said.

‘I don’t like it.’

‘Have another sip. It’s good for you.’

She obeyed, wrinkling her nose like a petulant child.

‘Why did you go to Rawling?’

She didn’t reply. She took another mouthful of whisky. In her bedraggled state she looked much younger than she usually did.

‘All right,’ he went on when she showed no sign of replying. ‘You can’t sit there in your wet things. I’m going to fetch some more blankets. Then you can take your things off and hang them to dry.’

He brought two more blankets from the room where he had slept. As an afterthought he added his pyjamas, which Dawlish had brought back from Bleeding Heart Square the previous evening. He went back to Lydia, who was sitting where he had left her.

‘You’ll need to take off your shoes, your stockings and your skirt,’ he said firmly, as though she were one of his sisters. He laid the blankets and pyjamas on the floor beside her. ‘The pyjamas are clean. You’re welcome to borrow them. I’ll leave you alone for five minutes.’

She looked up at him. ‘Thank you.’

In the kitchen he put the kettle on and smoked a cigarette. When he returned to the sitting room ten minutes later, the wet clothes were drying on the chair. Lydia had changed into the pyjamas and was curled up in a nest of blankets by the fire. The whisky glass at her elbow was empty. There was more colour in her cheeks.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I feel an awful fool barging in like this.’

‘You’re not.’

‘It’s just that I didn’t know where else to go.’ She hesitated. ‘The thing is, I’ve had a bit of a shock, and I need time to think about what to do. I don’t want to go to Bleeding Heart Square.’

‘Has Mr Langstone-’

She shook her head. ‘It’s nothing to do with Marcus. If you don’t mind, I–I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘When did you last eat?’

She shrugged. ‘I can’t remember.’

‘I’m going to forage in the kitchen. There is a bit of tinned ham left and some bread and one or two apples.’

‘I’m not hungry.’

‘Yes, you are, you just haven’t noticed.’ He smiled at her. ‘And then we’ll have some more whisky.’

‘I can’t stay here.’

‘Where do you think you’re going then?’

‘I don’t know. An hotel, I suppose.’

‘Don’t be silly. You haven’t any luggage. Besides, the weather’s foul, and you can’t go out dressed like that. You can have the bedroom. I’ll sleep in here.’

‘I can’t let you do that. Anyway-’

‘I’m sure Dawlish wouldn’t mind. You’re fagged out, the weather’s beastly and you’ve had a shock. Damn it, I won’t let you go. I’ll take away your shoes if you try.’

She looked at him and he noticed her eyes narrowing, as they sometimes did when she was amused. ‘Then it looks as if I haven’t got much choice.’

That evening they ate an unpleasant scratch supper in front of the electric fire. They drank Dawlish’s whisky and smoked Lydia’s cigarettes. Lydia asked him questions. She wanted to hear about his parents and his sisters. She wanted to hear about what it was like to live in the manager’s accommodation over a bank. She wanted to hear about grammar school and university and India. While he talked, she sat there, eyes half closed, glass in hand, with a dreamy expression on her face.

Had someone tried to rape her? Or robbed her?

Gradually they ran out of words. It was very quiet in the basement flat. Mecklenburgh Square had only three sides because to the west lay the children’s playground, once the site of the Foundling Hospital, so Dawlish’s house was effectively near the end of a cul-de-sac.

Rory felt his eyelids drooping. He wasn’t used to whisky. The room was warm and stuffy. He was glad not to be alone in this big house. No, it was more than that: he was glad Lydia was here.

The next thing he knew, he was fully awake. He wasn’t sure how long he had been dozing. Lydia was on her feet and folding one of the blankets. For an instant he didn’t recognize her, and a shiver of lust flickered through him. She looked down at him and smiled.