Anyone Who Had a Heart (26 page)

‘He’s escaped a number of times. We’re afraid he may do himself an injury. Pull this if you need to,’ said the nurse, pointing to an antiquated bell pull with a cast-iron handle.

Without more ado, the door was closed. Rosa took in the sparse details of the room. There were four chairs and a table. Garth was seated opposite her on the other side of the table. There were no pictures on the walls and no curtains at the one and only window. Luckily it appeared to face north so she did not have to suffer bright sunlight in her eyes. However, the room was cold. It almost made her envy Garth’s warm jacket, but only to a point.

The only other thing to lighten their dour surroundings was someone humming the ‘Londonderry Air’ – ‘Danny Boy’. Rosa found it soothing and it helped her concentrate.

‘Garth, they tell me you’ve been trying to escape.’ She kept her voice low, almost as though she were afraid that the walls might have ears. It felt that way: this place of cold surfaces and strange echoes.

Garth’s eyes were as bright as ever. ‘I didn’t like it here, but I’m alright now. This jacket’s warm. Do you like it?’

It wasn’t often that Rosa Brooks was lost for words, but she most certainly was now. She had to remind
herself
that Garth was a simple soul who’d faced some pretty grim knocks in his short life. He’d been used to being neglected. Attention of any kind was a bonus as far as he was concerned.

‘Have you been pretending to run away because you were cold, Garth?’

He nodded and giggled until he dribbled. Rosa leaned across and wiped at the drool with her handkerchief. She shivered and hugged her coat around herself.

‘It is certainly very cold in here. I think I might do the same if I was here very long.’

Garth nodded vigorously. ‘Pretend you’re going to escape and you’ll get a jacket too, Auntie Rosa.’

It was hard not to smile, but Garth’s simple logic also saddened her.

‘I do not think they want me to stay, Garth, otherwise I might very well do the same as you. That was a very good idea. I have brought you food.’

She smiled and took out the bag of food she’d brought with her: home-made pasties, pies and cakes.

‘It wasn’t my idea,’ he said, drooling afresh as he set eyes on the home-cooked fare, his nose twitching like a hamster. ‘It was Albert. He told me to do it.’

He took the pasty to his mouth then devoured it at a rapid rate so that crumbs flew everywhere.

‘This Albert. Does he try to escape too?’ she asked cautiously.

Garth shook his head, sending a shower of crumbs down the straitjacket, over her black coat and over the table. He chomped a while before he could answer properly and even then a shower of crumbs came with it. Garth’s teeth were uneven, his upper jaw overshot so he couldn’t help it.

‘Albert’s been here for ages. It’s his home. He doesn’t want to go. Not now after all this time. But he does know how to get out because he built this place. That’s what he told me. He was a master builder.’

Rosa sighed as Garth recounted the tales of this Albert character who she presumed was another inmate. The poor soul might have been a builder but he’d have to be very old by now if he’d ever had a hand in building this place. The stone carving above the entrance said ‘1833’.

‘Perhaps Albert would like to share this food with you,’ offered Rosa.

Garth looked puzzled. ‘I don’t know.’

Rosa raised her eyebrows in pretend dismay. ‘You mean he will not like my cooking?’

Garth’s frown deepened. He turned suddenly and looked over his shoulder at the right-hand corner behind him. ‘Albert, would you like a pie? My Auntie Rosa brought them for me, but you can have one if you like.’

During the half-minute Garth turned, his attention
fixed
on the right-hand corner of the room, the humming stopped. It resumed the moment Garth turned round again, his face wreathed in smiles.

‘Albert says he doesn’t need to eat anything any more. That means he don’t need to go to the toilet either. That’s good isn’t it, Auntie Rosa – not having to eat and not having to go to the toilet?’

He laughed, not really knowing what he was saying, but having fun saying it. But Rosa knew. She heard the humming. Garth heard the humming, but not everyone did and not everyone would believe, she told herself – which could be catastrophic for this poor boy.

There was a chance Garth could be released once those in authority gave him leave. She’d offered him a home. Everything was in place, but if they thought he was hearing voices he could be in here for ever.

She leaned forwards, her dark eyes bright with intent, hypnotically gazing into his.

‘Garth! Listen to me. You must not tell anyone here about Albert. Promise me. He must remain a secret. Only you and I must know that he’s the one who told you to escape. I don’t think you should pretend to do that again just so they give you a padded jacket. Here. Have my coat.’

It was her best coat and a woman’s coat, but she’d decided Garth must never feel cold here. If he kept up this pretence of escaping they’d likely keep him
in
longer. She decided to have a word in the right ear on her way out.

‘Tell no one?’ he asked with childlike innocence.

‘No one,’ said Rosa. ‘Do you promise?’

He nodded. ‘I promise.’

The humming stopped once she was outside the door. It would still be there for Garth. Only the gifted could hear such a sweet sound. She’d hear it again herself on the next occasion she came to visit.

WHEN SALLY SAUNDERS
opened her eyes, she found herself face to face – or rather face to sparkle – with the latest present her lover had bought her: a cuff rather than a bracelet, two-inches thick and composed of top-quality diamonds. She knew they were top quality because Klaus was a Swiss banker of great wealth and taste. He never bought anything that wasn’t top quality. ‘Just like me,’ she’d said to him, and he’d agreed. Neither of them were under any illusion that his wealth had bought her too.

Sally had classic good looks, her nose just a little too large and straight to call pretty. Her hair was fair, helped to a more glamorous blonde by the attentions of a skilled – and expensive – hairdresser.

Stretching out her arms to either side of her, she trailed her fingertips over the spot where the warmth of her lover’s body remained and smiled. He was gone but the diamonds remained, as ever a girl’s best friend. But he’d be back. He’d look after her. That was why she’d chosen him.

‘Madam?’

As usual, Anne Marie had entered without
knocking
. A tall thin woman, she wore black with as much elegance as a mannequin wearing a Dior gown. She entered at the same time every morning and always used that same, questioning way of addressing her mistress as though she were querying whether the term was acceptable.

Out of habit, Sally adopted the same questioning tone back. ‘Anne Marie? How do you always know when I am awake?’

Anne Marie’s expression remained businesslike. ‘That is my job.’

She set the breakfast tray on the side table just as she did every morning. Fruit juice, coffee and a sliced apple with prunes, plus a single rose in a silver holder. It never varied and was always only picked at. Sally had no intention of letting the years eat into her figure too soon. She had made that mistake before – though not through food. Over a year had passed since she’d given away the baby boy she’d given birth to at Pilemarsh Abbey. She harboured a morbid fear of getting fat and unattractive. She’d been wooed, pampered and undressed by some of the wealthiest men in the world. There would be more in the future. There must always be a future.

‘Your post, Madam.’

Anne Marie pulled back the curtains and fluffed up her pillows so her employer could sit up and deal with her mail.

Sally glanced at the letters. One of them had been sent on from her old address. Her sister wrote occasionally, but only when family commitments warranted a diversion from the norm. She had half a dozen children and they filled her life. Asking what her sister was up to was like dipping into a gossipy magazine – it brightened her days. But I’m sure I gave her my new address, she thought with an irritable frown.

Raising herself more comfortably against the puffed-up pillows, she peered sidelong at the handwriting. There was nothing familiar about it. She frowned and racked her brains, hoping it wasn’t Klaus’s wife finally waking up to the fact that her husband didn’t take as many business trips as he told her and knew Soho better than he did Stuttgart or wherever else he was doing business.

‘I will run your bath?’ said Anne Marie without waiting for an answer. No reply was called for. Running the bath was a routine task.

The sound of water splashing into the brilliant white enamel came from the bathroom, Anne Marie becoming immersed in clouds of steam.

Sally ripped open the envelope and unfolded the letter within. As she began to read, she reached for her coffee cup and brought it halfway to her lips.

She paused …

The words danced before her eyes. She reached
out
to place the cup back on the tray without taking her eyes from the letter. The cup crashed to the floor as the address on the heading caught her eye.

Anne Marie, immersed in steam and the gushing of the bathwater, did not hear.

Sally fell back upon her pillows and stared into space before making a swift decision, swinging her legs out of bed and heading for the bathroom.

‘Add some cold,’ she ordered Anne Marie. ‘I’m in a hurry. I need to make a phone call. And get me some writing paper.’

She picked up the diamond bracelet, twirling it between her fingers and thumb before throwing it onto the bed. Did diamonds matter more than friends? On this occasion they did, but she couldn’t
not
reply. She had no choice but to brush Marcie off – at least for now, until she’d spoken to Allegra.

My dear Marcie
,

It was a great surprise to receive your letter. I can’t imagine how you got my address, but I was pleased to hear from you
.

You know me, footloose and fancy free. The past is the past and although I’d like to strangle the rotter who got me in that state (please note how restrained I am with my language nowadays) I really feel it’s all in the past and doesn’t matter much – at least to me
.

I’m having fun: men falling at my feet and drinking champagne out of my shoe. You know how it is. I am and for ever will be the blonde bombshell and realise now that I never was cut out to be a mother, so it’s just as well that I never dedicated myself to the task
.

Anyway, I must go. I’ve been invited to a friend’s villa on the Riviera. We’ll have a great time if past parties are anything to go by
.

Toodle pip until we speak again
,

Sally

PS. Please note the change of address
.

Marcie read the letter for a second time. Sally had told her to contact her and now she was brushing her off. Sally’s response was very disappointing and not at all what she’d been led to believe from her first letter. But there, people change and perhaps Sally was now in a situation where it would be very detrimental if her past came to light.

‘I know the feeling well,’ she whispered to herself.

The other women in the sewing room were trickling into work. Two of them were new arrivals, closer to her age and pretty. They were both excited because they’d been told they were to receive training in the shop on the King’s Road. They would be well-paid shop assistants, Mrs Camilleri had told them.

She’d carefully avoided looking at Marcie when she said this. There was a nervous fluttering to her hands, which disappeared once she was dealing with the older seamstresses: two ladies well into their forties who wore spectacles and kept pin cushions dangling from a ribbon around their necks.

Marcie knew she was being selfish, but her brush with Roberto was still raw so she didn’t dare tell the two girls what she knew. She wanted to get out of here and she wanted a place to bring Joanna. The two girls would have to look out for themselves just as she would have to.

She was running up a seam in a royal-blue dress with long sleeves and a row of gilt buttons down the front when Mrs Camilleri approached her wearing a very tight expression on her face.

‘Marcie, I have a favour to ask you. A valued client wishes someone to come around to alter a dress. As you know I usually attend to valued clients myself, but on this occasion I feel myself indisposed. This woman does not usually ask for a seamstress to come round to her and she has particularly asked for you.’

‘Oh.’ Marcie was flattered. She’d enjoyed working in the shop and meeting people. One of the customers had remembered her. ‘I must have impressed somebody. Unless you would prefer to go,’ she suggested knowing that Gabriella tended to take care of home visits.

‘No,’ said Gabriella Camilleri a little too sharply. ‘You go. I do not wish to.’

The sharpness of her tone was unusually pronounced, almost as though she feared the client or at least was in awe of her.

It did cross Marcie’s mind that she was being sent there for something other than an alteration. Was Roberto on the end of this, waiting for her in a private flat? He hadn’t come looking for her. He hadn’t phoned the shop to ask her out. A block of ice seemed to slither down her back. Roberto could make his mother do anything. It wouldn’t surprise her if he was waiting at the address, ready to rape her again and to make her feel bad.

Marcie glanced pointedly in the direction of the two older women bent like rusty hairpins over their whirring sewing machines.

Mrs Camilleri saw her glance there. ‘Mavis and Betty are very busy.’

There was something not right about this; Gabriella’s lips were being sucked clean of apricot-coloured lipstick and overall she looked ill composed.

‘This is the address.’

Marcie took the card, barely glancing at the address, but glad to be getting out.

On the way out she cut through the shop. Daisy Chain was busy, thronging with schoolgirls who’d skived off from school, young women with time on
their
hands, and dishy Chelsea girls who wouldn’t dream of landing a job when they had rich fathers to indulge their whims and shower them with money.