Miranda Emmerson - Miss Treadway & the Field of Stars

‘When I was at school it used to drive me up the wall listening to the teachers go on about the folly of youth. If someone is ugly you don’t say to them: “Hey you, stop being ugly over there!” so why is it okay to mock the young for being inexperienced?’

‘I was not meaning to mock you, miss!’

‘No! Sorry. I didn’t mean you were. I meant that it sometimes feels hard to be young when no one has a good word to say about youth.’

Ottmar set down her cup and saucer. He frowned at someone out of her line of sight. ‘If we are grumpy it is because we had to leave the party and you are still there.’

‘And the party is a stupid party?’

Ottmar laughed. ‘Yes. A very stupid party. Very loud and drunken and disgusting.’ His eyes crinkled in all directions. ‘But so much fun!’

Anna laughed and Ottmar felt his heart glow in his chest.

‘Will you have anything else, miss? We have cake. We have sweets. We have baklava.’

Anna held her book at arm’s length and glared at it. ‘I spent my lunch money on something else to cheer me up. But your coffee was wonderful.’

‘Why do you need cheering up? Is it a stupid boy?’

‘A stupid boy of fifty.’

‘Too old for you. Forget him.’

‘I was called to interview at Jamiesons on Waldorf Street. And I borrowed five pounds from my landlady to buy this suit because it said: “Professional position. Business attire is requisite.” But when I got there, there were fifteen girls in the waiting room and I had hardly sat down when Mr Jamieson said: “You mustn’t be too disappointed. We had no idea we’d be so popular.” And that was that. With lunch and fares I’m out by six pounds and five shillings and I can’t conjure that kind of money out of the air.’

‘You need a job?’

‘I only have a short-term contract and it’s almost over.’

‘We have a job.’

‘Do you?’

‘Waitressing. It’s not professional, I’m afraid. I’m not sure what you’d do with the suit.’

‘I don’t mind. I mean, I have waitressed before. How many days would you want me?’

‘All week. Six days. You could start this weekend. In the evenings. If that was convenient.’

‘That would be very convenient. My name is Anna. And thank you so much.’

‘I think you should have some baklava to celebrate.’

‘I’m sorry. I’ve nothing left to spend.’

‘It’s on the house,’ said Ottmar expansively. ‘Our waiters eat for free.’

This was not strictly true.

***

Anna caught the bus from Forest Hill to Cambridge Circus every evening at 5 p.m. She worked from 6 p.m. until 11 p.m. and then stayed on until midnight helping to clean up and tidy and sitting around with the other waiters and waitresses playing pontoon for matchsticks and drinking the ends of bottles. Then she walked down to Trafalgar Square and sat for an hour in a shelter on the east side near St Martin-in-the-Fields waiting for a night bus to take her near to home. She became fascinated by the statue of Edith Cavell and would stand at the base of it in the freezing cold of a December morning, looking up.

Patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness for anyone.

Sometimes those words made her cry. The tears would come uncontrollably and they would not stop. And in those moments Anna found forgiveness and it made her free. But they were only moments. Forgiveness is a hard thing to hang on to.

Monday, 8 November

Orla Hayes climbed the stairs and pulled on a jumper and another pair of socks. She put her head round the door of Gracie’s little room and pulled the quilt and sheet and blanket up to her chin. She stood for a moment looking down at Gracie’s fat, beautiful face; listening to the sound of the breath that came through lips slightly parted; allowing her hand to brush strands of dark hair away from her closed eyes. Nothing on earth must be allowed to disturb Gracie, for if Gracie was fine then so was all the world.

She left her little one sleeping and crept downstairs to turn off the fire, though it was only ten o’clock and the nights were becoming bitterly cold. Her fingers were tingling now and her nose and the tips of her toes. She had wanted another hour of light and reading or else to darn Gracie’s socks before she went to bed but the cold was going to be too much for her.

She pulled the blue-flowered quilt out of its cubbyhole and made the sofa into a bed, arranging her cushions as she always did. She briefly lit the gas and warmed half a cup of milk, which she mixed with sugar and drank down straight. Then she ran to get warm while the effects of the milk could still be felt and pulled the quilt right up to her eyes. The window in the kitchen whistled and shook in the wind. Brennan was late home tonight and she wanted to be asleep when he came in.

She must have been lying there more than an hour when she heard his keys rattling against the door. Then a click and a scrape of wood and brush against the floor and a gust of cold blew across her face and fingers. The door shut again with a soft crunch.

Brennan Hayes paused for a minute, standing on the mat, listening to the silence in the flat. Then he crept into the kitchen, poured water into a glass, left his boots by the understairs cupboard and softly plodded up towards his bed. Orla listened to him do this just as she had done on hundreds of other nights and she waited for him to speak to her, though this he never did.

The little carriage clock ticked on the windowsill in the darkness. She guessed it was nearly midnight; he was rarely home earlier than half past eleven these days. In six hours Gracie would be awake, sitting on her mother’s stomach, poking her awake and she would grudgingly agree to light the fire again and make them both tea and porridge and the radio would be playing ‘Make It Easy on Yourself’, which always made Orla want to cry. And after seven he would come downstairs, washed and shaved and in his smart, clean uniform and he would drink a cup of tea at the kitchen table while Gracie told him some crazy story about monsters and eyes and tigers walking her to the shops and then he would kiss his daughter on the forehead and say goodbye and he would be out of their lives again for another fifteen hours or months or even years … because in every real sense he had been cut adrift and it was she who had done the cutting.

Tuesday, 9 November

At twenty past seven Brennan Hayes walked out of the house, squeezing the door closed behind him. He could still just feel the warmth of Gracie’s head where he had kissed her. The sky was dark grey and rain spotted his uniform. He turned north onto Finsbury Square and then headed west towards Smithfield Market. Fleet Street. The Strand. Charing Cross Road. Leicester Square. Piccadilly Circus. Savile Row. And at the end of it all – at the end of the road crossings and the grey-suited shuffle and the noise of angry bus drivers and the taste of petrol on his tongue and the spiky cold air of a London morning which thrilled him and froze him in equal measure – at the end of it all lay a different name, a different voice and a different life.

***

‘Excuse me. My name is Anna Treadway. I’ve been called in for an interview at eleven.’

The desk sergeant continued to stare at her sleepily. Anna felt compelled to continue but couldn’t think what else to say.

‘Shall I go and sit over there?’ she asked, nodding to a wooden bench by the door.

The desk sergeant frowned for a moment, as if this was a truly ingenious question to ask. Then he looked her in the eye as if seeing her for the first time: ‘Yes.’

Anna retreated gratefully and sat down, squeezing herself to the very edge of the bench – against the armrest – in case some strange or large or terrifying other should arrive at any moment and be told to sit with her.