Jean felt her own breath tighten. This was the most intimate conversation she had had with a man for years.
The shop bell rang again. Jean took this as a signal to leave. She had satisfied herself that husband and wife were in perfect accord over Mrs. Tilbury’s approach to the Echo, and that he had not brought any pressure to bear on her. Of course, it was impossible to know what went on in a marriage behind those neat bay windows, but she had met bullying men before, at work and elsewhere, and Mr. Tilbury was quite unlike them.
“I must let you get on,” she said.
He sprang forward to help her out of the chair. There was a dangerous moment as she took his hand and pulled herself up rather heavily, when their balance faltered and it seemed as though she might topple back and drag him down on top of her. A look of panic passed between them and then he planted his feet more firmly and gripped her hand until she was steady again.
“Goodness, we made heavy weather of that,” Jean laughed. “I told you I was clumsy.”
“I don’t feel I’ve been much use at all,” Mr. Tilbury said. “But I’ve enjoyed talking to you anyway.”
“There is one other question,” Jean remembered. “Your wife said she was in a clinic or sanatorium before Margaret was born. I wondered if she was still in touch with any friends from that period of her life. Or anyone who knew her as a young girl.”
Mr. Tilbury considered, his head on one side, but seemed to draw a blank.
“Do you know, I can’t think of anyone who comes to mind. The clinic was down near the coast—Broadstairs, I believe. Before that she was at school in Folkestone. I suppose any friends would have lived down that way. By the time I met the Edels they were living in Wimbledon, and the few people they knew there were recent acquaintances, so I don’t know. My wife has friends now in Sidcup, of course. Mothers of Margaret’s little chums and so on. But you’d have to ask her about anything further back.”
Jean followed him into the shop where the customers, a young couple, were waiting. Newlyweds, Jean decided, from the way the girl clung to his arm and gazed at him so adoringly. Or perhaps newly engaged and wanting a large and costly ring. Jean hoped so, for Mr. Tilbury’s sake. As she squeezed past in the cramped space she could feel the happiness streaming from them.
Later, when Jean had cooked meat and potatoes for dinner, and washed up, and watered the garden, she wrote up her shorthand notes of the meeting and underlined the word Broadstairs. Then flicking back to her interview with Gretchen Tilbury she found a reference to St. Cecilia’s and circled that also. This would be her next focus of enquiry.
There was no urgency, of course. Mrs. Tilbury and Margaret were due at Charing Cross Hospital for their first set of tests and observations soon; the results might preclude any further investigations on her part. But she was already looking forward to it. It was quite a few years since she had been to the coast. There was Worthing, of course, in ’46, but she didn’t count that because of what came afterward.
Perhaps, she thought, turning her mind firmly to Broadstairs, she might even stay the night and drive home the following day. It took no more than a moment’s consideration to dismiss the idea, appealing though it was to imagine waking to the high call of gulls and the shush of waves on sand. It was quite impossible; her mother wouldn’t be left, even for one night. The mere suggestion would aggravate her already highly developed sense of helplessness.
Because they depended on Jean’s salary to live, Mr. Swinney having left neither pension nor savings, she was able to accommodate Jean’s absence for the length of a working day, no more. Crises that could be held off between nine and five-thirty were likely to rear up outside of those hours and overwhelm her. Jean, as a rational woman, had always intended to challenge this principle, but time had passed and she never had, and now the habit was fixed.
There had been occasions in the past when she had regretted this. On Friday evenings Bill, Larry, Duncan the picture editor and some of the subs would go over to the Black Horse in Petts Wood for a drink after work. Once or twice they had invited her along, because she was, after all, one of the guys, but she had declined because she hadn’t cleared it with her mother in advance, and now they didn’t ask anymore.
Now, Mrs. Swinney was installed in her wing-backed armchair in the front room, waiting for Jean to help her to wind some wool. She had knitted a pullover to send to Dorrie for Christmas, but it had kept growing and stretching as she worked at it and the end result would have fitted two Dorries standing side by side. Privately, Jean doubted that it ever got cold enough in Kitale to warrant such an abundance of wool, but her mother was adamant. There was nothing for it but to unravel the whole thing, wash and dry the skeins and start again.