She pushed the mirror and my child swung into view looking heavenwards, her hair curling on her brow, her sublime pallor that of a bored cherub, the light catching her eyes. There was a strong, bright silence.
‘What do you think, Mrs Parr?’
I looked away, saw a patch of blue sky beyond the window, widening between ragged, running clouds.
‘I don’t know,’ I said at last. ‘I don’t know at all.’
Penny was gazing up at me, the tea towel caping her straight little shoulders. When I said nothing else she shifted in the chair. ‘I suppose I should be going.’
‘Yes.’ I spoke deliberately. ‘They’ll be waiting for you at The Place.’
She got up out of the chair. ‘Thank you very much for the haircut, Mrs Parr. And the shepherd’s pie—’
‘Wait. Penny.’
‘What?’
‘I’m thinking. Perhaps you don’t absolutely have to go. The school is still closed, after all. If I ring Mrs Dennis, and she says it’s OK, would you like to spend the rest of the day here?’
‘That would be terrific.’ Her eyes were sparkling.
‘Wait till I tell you what we have to do.’ I smiled. ‘Feed the hens, and then go on the bike to visit Lady Brock.’
‘I love biking.’
‘More than beanbag relays?’
‘We have to do them in the gym when it’s raining.’ She lowered her voice. ‘I prefer death to beanbag relays.’
Mrs Dennis, effusively grateful, allowed it. The number of refugees at The Place had risen to fourteen. I gave Penny my wooden hen-run clogs and a bucket of peelings. Going upstairs for extra socks, I saw her out of the bedroom window casting the scraps wide, like a sower in a field. The beret was back on her head, but more rakishly set.
Neither of us were heavy, but together we probably weighed as much as a corpulent man. The bicycle tyres needed more air. I handed her the pump and she worked it vigorously, her face turning a faint rose. At last I’d got her blood going round. I tied an old hassock to the bicycle rack. Much darned and finally thrown out by the church worthies, I used it as a kneeler for weeding and scrubbing. William’s sheepskin was kept upstairs again, hanging on the back of a little chair in my bedroom. It was so old, the hide cracked and frail. It had done good service.
Penny climbed on. I put my weight on the front pedal and, with one fearful wobble, we moved off. I laughed aloud and so did she. Soon we were going apace. Momentum was vital in the water, and we took the bends of the lane in style. ‘You’re a good passenger, Penny. You lean the right way.’
‘Charlie takes me on his motorbike when he’s on leave. My big brother.’
‘Is he in the Army too?’
‘Mm. He’s in Cyprus.’
We came to the Absaloms. There was a neat path of floodwater up to, and inevitably under, each front door. The concrete walls looked at home in the wet, since they were already green from sucking up decades of damp from the ground. There was nobody left inside.
‘Look at those houses, Penny. They’re prefabs. Not yet thirty years old but they’re empty. Condemned.’
‘Prefabs?’
‘Prefabricated houses. They arrived on great lorries after the war. Whole walls and roofs. Men put them up in an afternoon or so. Plumbed them in, ran the electricity along the lane and hey presto. They thought they’d get rid of poverty itself.’ I drew breath and worked my legs harder. ‘I don’t know how anyone thought it would be a saving, to buy cheap housing. Look. Number One. That was where I lived, but not in that prefab. This was long before they came. My house was a brick house, and nearly a ruin.’
There was a silence, broken only by my breathing. Then she began talking, her voice so soft I barely heard her.
‘I’m sorry about Mum, yesterday. Dad’s just gone back to Northern Ireland, you see. And what with Charlie as well …’
I considered this, the life that her mother wasn’t cut out for. I doubted I could ever reach the stage of pardoning Veronica Lacey, but understanding her – that, perhaps, glimmered on the horizon.
‘Penny, you don’t have to explain.’
‘Dad says it’s more dangerous to cross the road in London.’
‘I’m sure he’s right.’
I was too short of breath to say more.
‘Let me pedal, Mrs Parr.’
‘Really? Do you think you can?’
‘I could have a go.’
I guided us to a damp field verge and we changed places. She pushed off and careened to the other side of the road, as if she were breaking in a black metal steer, one with a bell on his horns.
‘Wheee! This is the biggest bike I’ve ever ridden. Ha ha! We could go off on an adventure, Mrs Parr. Why don’t we? We could have a picnic!’
‘Perhaps when the water’s lower.’ I was laughing. ‘Keep left, I implore you, Penny.’
Lady Brock’s front door was locked this time, but we couldn’t summon her. Our second, more imperious knock only alerted Stuart, who could be heard working himself into a frenzy somewhere within the house. I slid my hand inside a broken flowerpot on the step, and took out a key. When I opened the door Stuart came racing down the hall, barking so hard that he almost fell off his feet. From the sitting room came Lady Brock’s voice, shouting, ‘Stuart, hold your blasted tongue,’ through the noise.
‘Althea?’
‘Ellen.’ Lady Brock sounded hoarse. ‘Come through.’
The sitting room was grey and cold. Lady Brock was on the floor surrounded by pieces of the suit of armour. She flourished a nonchalant hand at them. ‘I thought I’d give my knight an overhaul. Who is this creature?’
‘It’s Penny, Althea. From the other week. I’m not surprised you don’t recognize her.’
‘Good lord, so it is.’ Althea guffawed appreciatively. ‘Is that your work, Ellen? Bravo. Very gamine.’
Only now did I see how Althea’s other arm was braced rigid behind her back, her legs splayed straight out in front of her. ‘Penny,’ I said. ‘Go and put the kettle on, do you mind?’
When she was gone from the room Althea groaned. But it wasn’t a beseeching look in her dark eyes. Althea would never beseech. ‘I’m cast, Ellen. Like a mare in a stall.’
‘I know.’ I brought a footstool near, and then bent over her. ‘Lift your arm if you can. And now the other. Round my neck.’
‘I’ll bring you down, my dear.’
‘No, you won’t. This is how I got Selwyn out of bed in the last week. Now hold fast.’
I swung her gently onto the footstool and thence to the sofa. She was so easy to lift, for all her height. Her bones had to be as hollow as a bird’s. She leaned back, mouth open, alarmingly like her own death mask. Then the carmined lips moved. ‘Good God. It’s come to this.’
‘Althea, please think about a daily woman. Suppose I was busy and couldn’t call?’
‘Oh …’ She lifted her shoulders. ‘Someone always drops by eventually.’
I turned my back, which was sometimes the only resort in the face of such pig-headedness, and went to the kitchen.
Penny and I brought tea. Then she and I sat on the floor and worked on the knight’s dismembered limbs. I watched her dashing away at a greave, buffing it to a mirror shine. The bike ride had thawed her: she was quickening, all elbows and eagerness. ‘I wouldn’t mind if Upton Hall was washed away in a tidal wave. Oh, Lady Brock, I forgot it used to be your house …’
Althea, snorting with mirth, agreed: ‘I have felt the same at times, my dear …’
Penny’s light cotton jeans were stretched over bony knees. No wonder she shivered. I could take her to Waltham, buy her some warmer clothes. ‘Penny, I’ve had an idea. This afternoon, if you like, we could—’
A heavy rapping at the front door provoked Stuart once more into clamour. Althea cocked her head. ‘Must be William. Why everyone feels they have to beat my door down, I can’t imagine. Penny, do go and let him in.’