A Better World than This (30 page)

Florence caught the train with seconds to spare and sat by the window seat staring unseeing through the grimy window. It could be that when she got back to Blackpool the big car would be parked in the street outside the house with Sam already inside, grinning at the surprise and delight on Jimmy’s face, holding Daisy close, bringing the colour back to her cheeks and the sparkle back to her eyes.

‘And if you believe that, then you will believe anything,’ Florence muttered aloud, drawing the net gloves from her pocket and smoothing them over her long hands, being
careful
to get the seams of the fingers just so.

Joshua came into the kitchen just as Daisy was starting on the washing-up after a Sunday dinner which he declared could have graced the table at Buckingham Palace and not been bettered. Picking up a teacloth, he advanced towards the draining-board.

Daisy was shocked. ‘No, thank you, Joshua. You’re a guest in this house.’ She almost said a
paying
guest, then snatched the word back in time, feeling it might sound indelicate.

Joshua took no notice. He picked up a dinner plate and began to wipe it, rubbing it with a circular movement, the cloth all screwed up; Daisy had noticed in films that the men always dried up that way. ‘I thought I was a
friend
.’ He pretended to sound hurt. ‘Anyway, why don’t we get this lot finished, then take Jimmy out for a walk? It’s so warm outside it could almost be a summer’s day.’

‘A walk?’ Daisy’s face was a study. ‘Do you know what I have to do this afternoon?’ She pushed a wayward strand of hair behind an ear. ‘You would never imagine, would you, that with thirty-four samples to choose from for curtain material for the lounge I could pick out the wrong shade? Would you have guessed that what looked like a pale shade of apricot in the shop could turn out to be bright blood-orange when you get it home? Have you noticed that the chairs I bought that were so comfortable to sit in in the furniture emporium have turned out to be so near to the ground that it would take an athlete at the peak of a year’s intensive training to spring out of them?’

‘A
walk
,’ Joshua said, picking up the gravy-boat and shoving the whole of the cloth inside it to get it dry. ‘Jimmy’s in Bobbie’s room beating him hands down at Ludo. Telling Bobbie to look through the window at something or other, then palming his own counters and moving them on. That lad could make a seasoned card-sharper on an old-time Mississippi river boat look like an old lady at a church whist drive.’

Daisy looked worried. ‘He’s so
furtive
, Joshua,’ she
frowned
. ‘Not a nice word to describe a small boy, but that is what he is. Furtive and sly. He came home from school last week with half a dozen crayons on his head underneath his cap, and
swore
he had no idea how they’d got there.’

‘A crooked card-sharper and a kleptomaniac.’ Joshua picked up a knife that hadn’t been washed and wiped it vigorously on the cloth. ‘Come on, Daisy. The blood-orange curtains will still be there when we get back.’

‘And in a hundred years it will all be the same,’ Daisy said, savouring the feeling of being ordered about instead of making all the decisions herself.

‘Poor Sam,’ she said, as they stepped out into a day so golden it could have been high summer. ‘He’s spending the whole weekend slaving over his books. If he fails these coming exams I don’t know what he’ll do.’

‘Has his divorce come through yet?’

Daisy glanced at him sharply. The word had such a worrying connotation in her own mind that to hear it spoken out so naturally startled her. She was getting paranoiac about it, she thought, catching herself looking over her shoulder in case a woman coming up close behind had overheard.

‘We never discuss it in our letters,’ she said stiffly. ‘Putting things down in black and white, you see.’

‘Of course.’ Joshua accepted her explanation immediately. But then, that was the way he was, asking direct questions, then accepting your answer without further discussion. A
comfortable
sort of man to be with. She relaxed, matching her steps to his, glad she had left her handbag at home so that she could swing her arms a little.

It was such a lovely afternoon. The wind had that first spring softness in it, and along the Golden Mile the new posters advertising the coming attractions had a shiny look about them. Far to the north, towards The Gynn and Cleveleys, the hotels and big houses were washed in a soft peachy shade, the exact colour Daisy had had in mind for the lounge curtains. Turning their backs on them, they began to walk south.

Half-way towards the pier they smiled at each other and
coming
to a decision climbed down one of the iron stairways to the beach. The tide had left pools of clear green water and soon Joshua’s brown suede shoes were muddied and stained.

‘Your shoes will be ruined.’ Daisy was anxious, motherly.

‘They’re only shoes.’ Joshua kicked at a pebble. ‘It’s hard to believe that soon this stretch of sands will be crowded, with cars streaming past on the promenade up there, isn’t it?’ He pointed ahead into the far distance. ‘Just look at those two horse-riders way over there. They’re making the most of having the beach to themselves, and who can blame them?’

Obediently Daisy looked, shading her eyes against the sun, but the fast-moving specks were out of her limited field of vision. ‘Oh, yes,’ she said, but Joshua wasn’t fooled.

‘Why don’t you wear your glasses more often, Daisy? You miss so much and they suit you. No, I mean it, they really do. You look about twelve when you’re wearing them, especially when they keep slipping down your nose and you push them back with a finger. And while I’m being personal, can I say how it also suits you to wear your hair straight instead of curled? There are auburn lights in it that don’t show when it’s all curled up like. …’

‘Claudette Colbert’s?’

‘What I had in mind was Greta Garbo’s in
Anna Karenina
. A big bunch of frizz stuck over her forehead.’ He seemed to walk deliberately through a shallow puddle, like a naughty boy. ‘Did you see that one?’

Daisy sighed. ‘Twice.’ She stopped suddenly. ‘Do you remember the moment when she stepped from the train in a cloud of steam, and Frederic March saw her for the first time. …’

‘And their eyes met, and in that instant they
knew
!’

‘Even though she was married to another. It made no difference.’

‘And from that moment on they were
doomed
.’ Joshua had stopped too. For a long breathless moment they stood quite still, staring into each other’s eyes. As lost in a spell of wonder as if they sat close together in red plush seats in the
warmth
of a cinema. With Tolstoy’s tragic story firing their imaginations so that the real world faded and dimmed. ‘They say that Tolstoy understood the working of the human mind better than any other writer has done either before or since,’ Joshua said softly.

‘She was honour bound to a selfish man.’ Daisy appeared to be talking to herself. ‘Basil Rathbone, with his long cold face and his possessive love for his young son. He used the boy to punish his wife for her infidelity.’

‘You knew from the very beginning that it would end tragically.’

‘
I
knew when they showed the wheel-tapper crushed to death between two carriages of the shunting train.’ Daisy’s face was rapt. ‘The end was
terrible
when you saw her face and guessed she was going to throw herself off the platform beneath those grinding wheels. …’

Suddenly she gave a small scream as her feet were sucked from beneath her by a wave of the rapidly incoming tide. Always quicker to move than to cry out in any crisis, Joshua’s arms came round her, lifted her free of the swirling water, held her close against him before carrying her to safety.

Her hair smelled of summer flowers, and her body was small and soft. He could feel the swell of her breasts as he strained her to him. She was suddenly the ghost of an old pain, the first woman he had held in his arms since his wife had died. She was, in that moment, the comfort and kindness, the warmth he craved, the expression of the aching need in him. Dear God, a voice inside him said, I would like this dear, dear woman to bear my child.

With that totally unbidden thought, he felt the shameful tears fill his eyes.

‘Now
my
shoes are ruined.’ Daisy was laughing up at him.

Reluctantly Joshua set her down on the rippled sand. It was the laugh he had found himself listening for when he came into the house in the early evenings, a combination of music and the promise of a lasting happiness.

As they walked back to the house together Joshua looked
up
at the wide arc of the sky. The Tower rose into it, wreathed now by cloud drifting in from the east. He shivered and dug his hands deep into his pockets.

When they met Florence walking plod-footed from the station Joshua nodded curtly and excusing himself, broke away from them to hurry into the house and up the stairs into the solitude of his quiet room.

On her journey back, Florence had decided not to tell Daisy about seeing Sam until they were alone. Out of consideration for Daisy’s feelings of course. She was bound to be upset, and who was it who had said evil news rides post? Shakespeare
could
have said it, but she had a feeling it was Milton.

‘I see you’ve been for a walk,’ she said, and innocently Daisy explained that Joshua had insisted.

‘Been for a paddle in the sea?’ Florence stared at Daisy’s shoes encrusted with wet sand. ‘Best go and get those off.’

She was glad to see that Daisy’s hair looked such a mess, and eyed her own neat hair-do with satisfaction as she took off her hat and fluffed up the front piece in front of the hall mirror. She restrained herself from running upstairs after Joshua to tell him about seeing Sam, knowing instinctively how interested and concerned he would be. Knowing equally that it would be just like him to advise her to keep the news to herself.

But Daisy
had
to know. There was a tiny bubble of excitement inside Florence at the thought of the telling. Samuel Barnet
deserved
to be shamed. And the sooner the better. He was getting between Daisy and her wits. It was as if she saw him surrounded in a white shining light like a knight of old, his character unblemished, his integrity intact. That wasn’t real love, she told herself later as she sat inserting hooks into the top hems of curtains newly machine-hemmed by Daisy. Real love saw a loved one’s faults and accepted them as part of him. Just as she had accepted Joshua’s apparent rudeness when he had barely acknowledged her earlier. Joshua could be cool, indifferent and
unthinkingly
uncaring when he’d a mind. And she loved him for it.

Poor Daisy. Florence felt very close to her as they worked together through what was left of the afternoon. They were making curtains for the room Jimmy had been sleeping in.

‘Why don’t we move him into my room now? It’s better he should get used to it before the busy time begins.’ Daisy frowned. ‘It’s not ideal, but I just can’t give him a room of his own. He’ll be okay with that old screen in front of his bed.’

In the room on the top landing Florence shooed the kitten off the foot of a rather rickety camp bed. She plumped up a pillow. ‘How many kids did you know who had a room to themselves? Not many at our school. Do you remember the Cleggs? They slept four to a bed!’

‘And had the nits to prove it.’

Florence wrinkled her nose in disgust. She wasn’t in the mood for talking about or even thinking of nits. From Joshua’s room came the faint sound of music. Debussy, Florence guessed. Oh, yes, it would have to be Debussy. Soaring, sensual music. She imagined him listening to it as he sat in his chair with his head back and his eyes closed. When their relationship deepened she would sit with him, without speaking, without the need to say a word. And when the record finished Joshua would discuss with her the merits of the strings versus the wind instruments – her thoughts were wild and vague – he would teach her to understand.

‘If music be the food of love, play on. …’ Shakespeare never failed her.

She gazed limp-eyed into the middle distance. She would try to convey to Joshua the way she felt when the chapel choir lifted their voices in
The Messiah
or
The Crucifixion
. The way she felt at times her heart would burst when the congregation rose to join in the singing: ‘Alleluia! Alleluia!’

‘Are you feeling all right?’ Daisy’s voice seemed to be coming from a long way away. ‘You look like Jimmy looks just before he’s sick without bothering where.’ She bit back what she was going to say, then said it anyway. ‘I expect it’s
because
you missed a meal out. You’d think your father would have offered you
something
, even if it was only a cream cracker and a cup of tea.’

Florence shot her a venomous look. She’d often suspected Daisy had no soul.

Now
what have I said, Daisy wondered.

‘They were too busy praying, and anyway I wouldn’t have fancied anything,’ Florence said, taking umbrage. At what, Daisy couldn’t imagine.

Jimmy went to bed quite happily. He liked the idea of sleeping in Daisy’s room, but he wasn’t going to say so. It could be dead good sleeping behind the screen in the narrow little bed. Like being in a den.

Before his dad had gone to live in the other place, before all that, when his mum and dad slept together, they had sometimes let him climb in between them if he’d had a bad dream. It was hot and squashy, but he’d liked it a lot. His mother always smelled of talcum powder he’d often seen her shake down the front of her nightdress, and he liked her with her face all shiny with the cream she used for her wrinkles, not that he could see all that many.

Bogey men hadn’t a chance of getting at him when he was sandwiched between them. Even if the wardrobe door was slightly open he could be certain a body wouldn’t lollop out with a knife stuck in its back with the blade gone all the way in and just the handle showing.

The worst dream of all was the one he’d had the week he started going to school – the one where his dad was driving the motorbike with his mother sitting upright in the sidecar with her hair blowing, where they’d gone over the edge of a cliff into the sea. Daisy had sat on his bed and read him a story till he went to sleep again and told him that everybody had bad dreams sometimes.