“I wasn’t. Really.”
“Well, you’re right. She wouldn’t. I know that. A woman like her could have had anybody, and I’m certainly nothing special.”
“I’m sure she feels very fortunate to have you,” said Jean, finding this display of self-abasement embarrassing and unwarranted.
To her mind, Gretchen had nothing to complain of. With a mother and a doting husband convinced of her virtue, the woman had already been doubly blessed. And she had Margaret. What more could she possibly want?
The shop bell tinkled and Mr. Tilbury stood up. “Do you mind?” he said. “Please make yourself comfortable.”
Easier said than done in such a chair, Jean thought, levering herself up to standing and feeling the blood tingle in her numb legs and feet. From the other side of the door came the murmur of voices, male and female. She began to inspect her surroundings, as she always did when unobserved. A lifetime of quiet watchfulness had convinced her that the truth about people was seldom to be found in the things they freely admitted. There was always more below the surface than above.
She opened the topmost of a chest of wide, shallow drawers. It was subdivided into dozens of tiny wooden compartments, each containing a piece of jewelry awaiting repair. There were cameo brooches, engagement rings, bracelets, lockets, all with broken clasps or missing gems, and each bearing a brown paper label, numbered and dated in minute handwriting. In the drawer below were the corpses of numerous wristwatches, their body parts cannibalized for repairs.
Jean picked up a dainty coping saw and touched the pad of her finger against its hair-thin blade. She flinched as the skin peeled apart and blood welled up in the cut. She was still blotting it with her handkerchief when Mr. Tilbury returned, holding a sapphire brooch, which he labeled and consigned to the shallow drawer.
Since he had politely declined to notice her snooping, Jean felt a perverse urge to confess.
“I’m afraid I was fiddling with that little saw,” she said, holding out her hand for his inspection and feeling rather foolish. “I wanted to see how sharp it was.”
He seemed to find this highly amusing.
“Well, Miss Swinney, it’s lucky I came back before you decided to test the soldering iron to see how hot it is.”
“I’m very inquisitive, I’m afraid,” said Jean. “It comes with the job.”
He took down a battered first aid kit from a shelf and from it took a Band-aid with which he proceeded to dress her finger.
“Such tiny hands you have,” he said when he had finished. From any other man it might have struck her as a paltry kind of compliment, as if this was the one physical attribute that he could find to praise. But he went on to say, “You’d make a good jeweler with those delicate fingers,” holding up his own chunky hand in comparison. “Some days I feel like a bear in boxing gloves.”
“I was just thinking what a satisfying job it must be,” Jean replied, taking her seat again. “Making and mending people’s treasures. I’m far too clumsy to do anything like that.”
“There’s nothing very exalted about sizing wedding bands or altering watch straps,” he said. “But it’s my bread and butter, so I can’t complain.”
“When you spend all day at a typewriter, the idea of making something real with your hands is very appealing.”
“I’m sure most people would think your world the more exciting,” he replied.
Jean shook her head. “Fleet Street, maybe. But the North Kent Echo is very staid. It makes the front page if somebody breaks into the British Legion and pinches a bottle of gin.”
She thought of the piece she had dashed off that morning to mark National Salad Week:
* * *
The humble lettuce, if properly dressed, can be the foundation of many nutritious family meals. Try serving with baked or fried forcemeat balls for a crisp new touch . . .
* * *
“You don’t wear jewelry yourself, I notice,” he said.
Jean’s hands, wrists and neck were, as always, unadorned.
“No, but not as a matter of principle. I just don’t own any. It’s not the sort of thing one buys for oneself.” She stopped, conscious that she was straying into territory that was more personal than professional.
“I suppose not. Though there’s no reason why.”
“And if I did, I would probably never wear it, just keep it in a box and look at it from time to time.” She knew this much about herself.
“That would be a waste. It needs to breathe.”