Instead, she heard herself say:
“But what about Adrian? You know he is so looking forward to seeing you.”
“But he hasn’t met me yet. Only photograph. Maybe when he sees me, he thinks I am ugly.”
“I’m sure he will think you are very pretty. I think you are.”
“Did he talk with you about me?”
“Yes, yes, he said he was excited about meeting you after all this time.”
Marion could hardly believe she was capable of putting on an act like this, but she had to get away from those service station toilets before another coach party came in.
“And is he handsome? Like in the photographs online?”
“Well—of course I’m his aunt, so obviously he looks handsome to me.” She hesitated, then thought of that young man Simon from the estate agents. “He has a lovely smile and he is very charming.”
“Do you think I will be his girlfriend?”
“Perhaps—he doesn’t have a girlfriend at the moment. I think he would like that very much.”
“I—I am scared that he won’t like me—that—that he will send me away again.” Her words were punctuated by little sobs and gasps. “This is my only hope, I just want someone who takes care of me. . . . I can’t go back home now—Mama, she has this new man and baby—they don’t want me—she makes me leave, and I have to sleep on floor of my friend from hotel, but she doesn’t want me now either—there is nothing for me except this.”
Marion felt a sudden wave of sympathy for Violetta. She wanted to believe that the girl’s dreams would come true, that Adrian was a real person who would rescue her and care for her for the rest of her life.
“Then you’d better come now, hadn’t you?”
A woman and her small daughter came into the toilets. The mother gave Marion a suspicious look and then used her hand to guide the child’s eyes away, as if to prevent her from witnessing something inappropriate.
“Now, come on, we have to get going.”
The bolt of the cubicle door slid back. Violetta rushed out and wrapped her thin, sharp arms around Marion’s waist. Damp curls pressed against Marion’s face. The girl was surprisingly strong, and it felt strange to have this tiny, tough little thing pressed against her body. How long since anyone else had hugged her? She couldn’t remember. Lydia as a child used to wrap her arms round her just like that, usually when it was time to go back to Judith’s house and she didn’t want to leave, but that was many years ago. If John embraced her, she would have died of shock. Hugging had not been commonly practiced when they were children. Mother, though she might press dry lips against her children’s cheeks at birthdays and Christmas, considered overt displays of affection “classless” and likely to spread infection.
Something about Violetta’s fierce embrace made Marion want to cry.
She patted the girl’s back, feeling the ridges of small hard bones through her clothes.
“Come on, we have to get back to the car now. John is waiting.”
Violetta slept for most of the journey home. John tuned the radio to a program that was playing old Broadway hits. They listened to songs from shows like Oklahoma!, South Pacific, and The Sound of Music.
? ? ?
THEY FINALLY PULLED up outside the house at 9 p.m. Marion, her head fuzzy from the hours of staring at the road ahead, got out of the car and opened the front door of the house while John woke Violetta. As she walked into the hall, the girl stretched sensuously then looked at John.
“What about suitcase?” she asked sleepily.
“I’ll get that later,” said John.
The inside of the house was barely warmer than the street outside, and the air smelled strongly of damp; or perhaps, having been away from it for the day, Marion just noticed it more. As she walked through the hall Violetta looked around at all the piles of newspaper and rubbish with an expression of dreamy confusion on her face.
“Come this way,” said Marion, leading the girl through the dining room into the kitchen.
“Is Adrian here?”
“Not yet, but you’ll see him soon. Would you like a cup of tea?”
The girl gave a drowsy nod. Then she looked in her handbag for something and frowned.
“Phone is gone.”
While the girl was sleeping, Marion had noticed John take her phone from her bag and throw it out the window somewhere along the M1.
“Maybe you dropped it in the car,” said John. “We can go and look for it when we get the suitcase, but let’s have tea first.”
The girl seemed too tired to object.
John already had the special mixture ready; he had placed the pills ground up in the blue cup before they went out. He left Marion alone in the kitchen with the girl. She put the kettle on. Her hands were shaking as she poured the tea, but Violetta didn’t notice. She made sure to add lots of sugar, just as John had instructed her to do. It was nearly over; she had done all that John asked. Soon she could go and rest. As she tasted the tea, the girl screwed up her sharp little nose, but drank it down anyway. She probably thought all English tea tasted funny. It took ten minutes of anxious waiting until her head began to drop towards the table.
When John came back, his hair was neatly combed over to hide the bald pate. His face looked shiny from recent shaving; he had put on a new white shirt and a fresh pair of trousers. Marion could smell his aftershave. When he looked at the unconscious girl, it was as if he were seeing her for the first time, and his face filled with hope and wonder. No one had ever looked at Marion that way. Suddenly she felt as though she were no longer present in the room; it was just John and the girl. He picked her up with reverence, as if she were a princess in a fairy tale, the sleeping beauty, perhaps, with all that curly dark hair flowing down her back. Marion knew that when you cared about someone and they were happy, you should be happy for them, but who cared about her happiness? Certainly not John—he hadn’t even thanked her after all she had done for him. He carried Violetta down to the cellar, leaving Marion alone in the kitchen.
TEDDY BEAR
The weeks following Violetta’s arrival, John spent almost all of his time down with the visitors. Each evening he put his dinner on a tray and took it to eat in the cellar. When he did come up, he seemed to have too much on his mind to even say a word to Marion. Not even the occasional “Good morning” or “Everything all right, Mar?” So rarely did she talk to anyone during this time, she sometimes worried that she might lose the power of speech altogether.