“Which boy?” Nellie puzzled.
“You’ve only got two,” Landor said, “unless you’ve got a secret love child.”
“Well,” Nellie said.
“He beat me up, you know, your boy.”
“Someone should,” Nellie said.
* * *
—
Hawker glanced in his rear-view mirror at Nellie. You could almost see her brain working, he thought. It was terrifying.
He waited patiently until finally she said, “Home,” and added, “Hanover Terrace,” as if he might not know where she lived.
A Tryst
The benches surrounding the boating lake in Regent’s Park were jostling for a supporting role in the Coker drama. Sitting on one now was a pale, still-frail Edith. “Going out to get a bit of fresh air and exercise,” she told the cook, who had made a futile attempt to bar her exit from the house. Nellie was still insisting on bed rest for Edith, and in her absence this morning the cook had been charged with the impossible task of corralling Edith.
“She looks as if a puff of wind would blow her over,” the cook said to Phyllis. “You’d better follow her. If anything happens to her we’ll be blamed.”
You’ll be blamed, Phyllis thought, but said, “I’ll get my coat.”
* * *
—
Phyllis wasn’t the kind of girl you noticed. A wasted gift, her mother and aunt thought, given their trade. Phyllis didn’t need to lurk behind trees or duck beneath hedges, she could simply stand in plain sight and yet not be seen. “It’s like looking at water,” her Auntie Agnes said.
Invisible Phyllis watched as a feeble Edith teetered along the path and dropped onto the first bench that she came to. “Blood poisoning” was what had laid her low, apparently, and Phyllis’s mother had said, “Is that what they call it?” so Phyllis had a good idea what had gone on with Edith. Although Phyllis lodged in the rather spartan attic of the Hanover Terrace house, she still made regular visits home to Whitechapel. “Like a little go-between,” her mother said fondly. The family always welcomed news of Nellie. Who wouldn’t?
It wasn’t long before Edith was joined on the bench by a man. The man had a small dog on a lead that sat between them, looking from one to the other as they talked, as if following the conversation. And talk they did, for quite a long time, very serious. He frowned a lot, while Edith drooped, not even a smile between them, and then eventually he helped her to her feet and walked her to the park gates. He escorted her across the road, putting his hand up like a policeman to stop the traffic so that he had time to get the invalid Edith to the other side without them both being run over. They made their farewells to each other, very polite, and he watched her enter the house, as if he were worried something might happen to her in the last few yards between the front garden and the door. A proper gentleman, Phyllis thought. A policeman though, definitely. Given her ancestry she could spot one a mile off.
Phyllis lingered in the fresh air for a little longer. She had so much work in Hanover Terrace that she was beginning to wonder if the straight and narrow was all it was cracked up to be, when you could lift a wallet from a pocket and live off the contents for a week.
* * *
—
Despite the cook’s objections, Phyllis was determined to tell Nellie about Edith’s little escapade when she returned. She liked being in Nellie Coker’s good books.
“By the way,” Phyllis said by way of greeting, “you’ve got rats.”
“Tell me about it,” Nellie said.
* * *
—
“So who was it? Who did she meet?” Nellie asked when news of Edith’s adventure in the park had been delivered. “Maddox?”
“No,” Phyllis said. “Not him. He’s got the black heart of a Barbary pirate.” The girl read books. Nellie sighed.
“So, who was it if it wasn’t Maddox?”
“You’ll never guess.”
“No, clearly I won’t. So, tell me.”
The Waste Land
Frobisher made his way on foot towards Tower Bridge. The outing to Oxford yesterday had made him averse to getting back behind the steering wheel, as if the Austin itself had somehow been responsible for the disastrous outcome of his day with Gwendolen Kelling. He cringed at the memory. A wife? The word reverberated in his brain. He was haunted, too, by the look of disbelief on her face. Distaste, as well, as if he were the worst of Lotharios. Well, perhaps he was. His actions may not have been those of a lover, but his intentions were.