Dead to Me (16 page)

Thankfully, he opened his eyes after a few moments, so clearly he’d just fainted, or maybe it was shock. He tried to sit up.

‘Sorry,’ he said haltingly. ‘I don’t know what happened there, I felt whoozy and then suddenly I was on the ground.’

‘I think you just fainted,’ Verity said, helping him to sit up. ‘It might be shock, especially if you haven’t eaten anything today.’

‘Just before you came along I was telling myself I ought to go to a cafe. I haven’t eaten since yesterday.’

‘Eat this for now,’ she said, getting one of her apples out of her bag. ‘Then I’ll come with you to the cafe. There’s one down the bottom, on Lee High Road.’

In Fred and Ada’s cafe he ordered beef stew with mashed potatoes, while Verity just had a bacon sandwich. She waited until he’d begun to eat before she asked him any questions.

It was apparent he was very hungry, and she was reminded of the day she bought Ruby a meat pie. The
difference was that this man’s manners were impeccable, no stuffing his food in or not using cutlery.

‘I’m Verity Wood,’ she said. ‘I live close by, I’m sixteen and I work in a wholesaler’s in the City.’

‘Well, I’m Miller Grantham. I’m twenty-five and as of today jobless and homeless.’

‘Miller! What an unusual name,’ she said. ‘But you’ll soon find another job and home.’

He gave her a weak smile. ‘Of course I will, just feeling a bit sorry for myself, as it was so unexpected. Miller is a family name, my father and grandfather both had it as a second name.’

‘I like it,’ she said. ‘And it kind of suits you.’

‘You don’t think I need to be covered in flour dust to carry it off, then?’

Verity laughed. ‘No, not at all. You said you had no family, I haven’t either. What happened to yours? You sound very top drawer.’

He smirked and raised an eyebrow. ‘An expensive boarding school,’ he said. ‘My father had a government position in India, but he and my mother got yellow fever and died out there when I was ten. I was already at boarding school here. So I stayed, even through the holidays, under the care of Matron. That’s when I started gardening, as I used to help out the school groundsman. Along with caring for the cricket pitch, he had a vegetable and flower garden too. A lovely man, he died a few years ago and I still miss him.’

‘What would he tell you to do now?’ she asked.

Miller laughed. ‘For a girl of sixteen you are very direct and adult.’

‘I’ve had to be,’ she said, telling him briefly she’d lost her mother and her aunt recently and was now on her own.

‘First thing, I need to find some cheap digs,’ Miller said. ‘Then look in
The Lady
, to see if anyone needs a gardener. But from what I’ve heard, all young men will be called up soon, so maybe I should just jump into that instead of waiting to be pushed. I quite fancy the air force.’

‘You’d suit the uniform,’ she said. ‘I think you’d look quite dashing.’

‘Are you flirting with me?’ he said with a warm smile. ‘Or just trying to cheer me up.’

‘A friend told me I was useless at flirting,’ Verity admitted, blushing because that wasn’t what she’d intended. ‘I’m usually tongue-tied with boys. I think I was trying to help you see the positives. But surely joining up is a bit mad, when you haven’t had time to think it over?’

‘Well, the money I’ve got won’t last long without a job – even the cheapest room and buying food will soon eat it up. And who will want a gardener now, not with war imminent?’

‘That’s all true, but you need to give yourself a couple of weeks’ breathing space,’ she said. She paused for a moment, an idea spinning around in her head. ‘Look, I’ve got a spare room you can have.’

The moment those words came out of her mouth she wished they hadn’t. She couldn’t have a male lodger, it wasn’t right. She knew nothing about him, he could be an escaped murderer for all she knew, and she was living alone. On top of that she still had things to do in the room. But yet, when she saw his expression – surprise, delight and relief – how could she back down?

‘Of course it would be just for a couple of nights, until you’ve thought things through,’ she said quickly. She wanted to warn him off any funny business too, but she didn’t know how to say that.

‘If you are sure,’ he said. ‘It’s a wonderful and kind offer, Verity, and you can rest assured I won’t take advantage of your generosity.’

Verity thought it ought to feel awkward as she brought him into the house and showed him the spare room and explained about the lack of a bathroom, but it didn’t.

‘I didn’t have one in the coach house, either,’ he said. ‘So I’m quite used to going to the public baths, or sluicing down in a big bowl. And as you said, it’s only for a couple of nights.’

By the time Verity went to bed that night she felt she’d done a good thing bringing Miller home. He was easy to be with, he washed up after supper without even being asked, and fetched more coal from the back shed when it got chilly. They sat by the fire talking until quite late; he told her his memories of India, before he was sent to school in England, about being taken on to train as a gardener at Hever, the old Boleyn house in Kent, where he stayed for three years, then a chance meeting with Mr Solway, which brought him to Blackheath.

‘Mr Gordon, the head gardener at Hever, advised me against it. He said Solway would just get me to do all the donkey work of creating a beautiful garden, then kick me out when it suited him. He did point out there was no real security in working in a famous garden like Hever, either, but at least there was some kudos in having trained there,
and people with huge estates would search you out to work for them. But I thought if I missed Hever, I could always go back as a visitor.’

‘So the head gardener was right about the Solways?’

‘Yes, sadly he was. In fact, looking back, they never cared about the garden the way I did. It was just something to show off to their friends. They paid me a pittance, the coach house was cold and damp, and I was very lonely sometimes, as I’d been used to working with half a dozen other chaps. I suppose I should feel quite excited about embarking on something new now, but all I can think about is that it’s heartbreaking to leave a garden I created from scratch.’

‘I can imagine,’ Verity said.

His eyes looked shiny with unshed tears. ‘It was like a field when I began. Weeds five foot high, and overrun by brambles, such back-breaking work in all weathers.’

Verity reached out and patted his arm in sympathy. He smiled weakly, as if he was gulping back tears.

‘Maybe tomorrow I’ll take you up there, before it becomes overgrown again, I need to rescue my tools anyway. Would it be alright if I brought them here and put them in the little shed to keep them safe?’

‘Of course,’ she agreed. ‘I can’t wait to see the garden you created.’

‘I built a pond with a waterfall, winding paths with arbours, big herbaceous borders, planted all the trees and sowed the lawns. I used to wake up every morning burning to get out there and care for it. It never seemed like work, just love made visible.’

Verity thought ‘love made visible’ was the most poetic phrase she’d ever heard. And so apt for a beautiful garden.

‘I’d like to say I fully understand, but the truth is I’ve never done any gardening,’ she admitted. ‘We had a lovely one in Hampstead, but I was too young to think about who created it. But maybe you can inspire me here? The back garden is a mess. I was thinking I’d like to make it nicer so I could sit out there.’

‘I’ll have a look tomorrow,’ he said. ‘After you being so kind to me, it’s the least I can do.’

Miller was, she decided, a perfect gentleman. She already knew she wasn’t going to be in a hurry to make him move on.

The
next day Miller took her up to the Lee Park house to get his tools and show her the garden. He was so honest, he even felt guilty at taking the Solways’ wheelbarrow to carry his forks, spades, shears, hoes, rakes and other gardening tools back to her house. But as he pointed out, it was the only way he could transport them – and the Solways wouldn’t even know they had a wheelbarrow.

‘They only had poor quality tools,’ he explained as he loaded up. ‘As the handles fell off, or the blades grew blunt, I replaced them with good ones I bought. That was part of the reason I was so upset yesterday when you saw me; I was wondering where I could store them till I got another job. You, Verity, have been a lifesaver.’

She was too shy to admit then that she thought he might save her life too, because suddenly everything looked rosier. She’d discussed her plan with him of getting a bathroom put in, and he’d said he’d help in any way, as he was good with his hands. But the bathroom was just the start of it, really, there was redecoration needed all round. The only thing holding it up was money.

The garden he’d created and maintained for the Solways was the most beautiful Verity had ever seen. Although it was too early in the year yet to get the full picture of how it would be in full bloom, there was enough blossom on the trees, camellias, hellebores, daffodils and other early
flowers to imagine what it would be like in a few months. She hadn’t known what the beautiful rose-like flowers in red, pink and white were, until he said they were camellias. The winding stone paths and the fantastic pond with huge rocks would look splendid when the water was turned on, but of course it had been stopped for now. The lawn, like a bowling green, also took her breath away. She knew then that a man who could do all this could be trusted.

As they trundled the wheelbarrow home, Miller told her about friends of the Solways who had already left their homes to go and live in the country. ‘Just upped and went. Of course some of the wealthier ones already had homes in the country. But the rest were like sheep, convinced that if the Germans invade down along the south coast, they’ll be straight through Blackheath on the way to the heart of London, burning, looting and killing as they go.’

‘I suppose if they do invade, that’s exactly the way they’ll come.’ Verity felt a pang of fear at the thought.

‘Do you really believe we’ll let them invade us?’ he said, looking at her incredulously. ‘I believe we’ll fight to the last man and woman standing to keep them out. You have to believe that!’

He let go of the wheelbarrow handles for a moment, and put his finger under her chin to lift it. ‘But if by some chance the Germans do invade, no one can guarantee people’s safety, however much money they’ve got, whoever they are, or wherever they go. Okay, so if bombs drop that’s more likely to be on the big cities and ports. But just the same you might stay safe in Lee Green but be bombed out in Hither Green, it’ll be like a lottery. So what’s the point of moving out?’

‘None, if you put it like that,’ she agreed. ‘But all these
rich folks in Blackheath who’ve cleared out, have they left their homes intact?’

He nodded. ‘I assume they’ve taken their jewellery and any stuff that’s easy to move, but I think most are the same as the Solways, running in panic, and haven’t even considered that their homes could just as easily be looted by locals as by Germans. Yesterday I even thought I might break into their house and stay there, drinking their wine and brandy, sleeping in their big bed and reading all their books. I mean they haven’t even turned the electric off. It would be like a swish holiday.’

Verity laughed and he joined in. ‘But you aren’t going to, because?’ she asked.

‘Well, they might come back for something. Imagine being stretched out on their bed with a big glass of expensive claret, and in they come?’

That second day together Verity cut the pork chop she’d bought for herself into two to share, and roasted lots of potatoes to make up for the small amount of meat. With cabbage, carrots and tasty onion gravy, followed by rice pudding, it turned out to be an excellent lunch.

‘You are a very good cook,’ Miller said appreciatively as he scraped his pudding bowl clean. ‘I’m fairly useless, I do a good bacon and eggs, and cheese on toast, but that’s about it. But unless you want me gone tomorrow, I’ll go and buy some food for dinner, maybe sausages or something, and I’ll have it ready for you when you get home from work.’

‘I don’t want you gone,’ she admitted. ‘It’s good to have you here, and you’ve no idea how good it sounds to come home to a meal I haven’t had to cook.’

After lunch Miller went outside to clear the little potting shed. It had nothing but ancient paint pots inside, some rusty tools and a great many cobwebs. She watched him sweep it out, then hammer some long nails into the sides so his tools could hang up tidily.

He stayed out in the garden for some time after he’d stowed away his tools, and when he came back in he sat down and drew a little plan of the ideas he’d had for it. ‘We should pave over that patch of mud and weeds in the centre,’ he said. ‘I know where there are some broken paving stones which will be perfect for crazy paving. I thought a nice arbour with honeysuckle growing on it, backing on to the scullery as that’s south facing, so a good place to sit. Then dense planting down the bottom to hide the ugly fence.’

It wasn’t until the washing-up was done and they were sitting by the kitchen fire listening to the wireless that Verity decided to tell him how she felt about having him here.

‘It’s nice having your company,’ she said. ‘Obviously, you’ll need to get some work, and maybe that will be somewhere else so it won’t be possible to stay here. But I’m really hoping you can find something locally and stay.’

His broad smile told her how pleased he was. ‘I’ll pay you rent, and help with the bills of course. I thought I’d go and see if they need anyone in Greenwich Park,’ he said with excitement in his voice. ‘At this time of the year they usually take on more men.’

Verity went out of her way to tell the biggest gossips in the street that she’d taken in a lodger, as she was struggling to make ends meet. If they thought she had gone off the rails
and was living in sin with Miller, they said nothing to her face. But she didn’t care what they thought, for the first time in months she was really happy.

Miller got work in Greenwich Park and bought an old bicycle to get there and back more quickly. He paid her five shillings a week rent, and they each put six shillings into a pot for food, coal and the gas meter. He went to work before her in the mornings and was back earlier, so he mostly bought meat or fish on the way home and started getting their supper ready. Verity loved coming home to find him busy in the kitchen. He often brought back a few flowers from the park to put on the table, which delighted her too.

‘I’m surprised you haven’t got a girlfriend,’ she said one evening.

‘I was crossed in love at Hever,’ he said with a grin. ‘She was a maid there and one day I caught her kissing one of the other gardeners. I was livid at the time, but a couple of months on I realized it would never have lasted. I lusted after her, but I couldn’t talk to her, and I think real, lasting love is a combination of both those things. What do you think?’

‘I’ve never lusted after anyone,’ she admitted, hardly able to believe she could tell him such a thing. ‘And I think you are the only man I’ve ever really talked to. I mean I talk to the men at work, have a laugh and a joke with them, ask them about their wives, girlfriends and kids, but it’s all lightweight stuff, not deep or meaningful.’

She’d told him about her mother gassing herself soon after he moved in, and a week or so later she told him about how she and her mother came to be here and her
father’s part in it. But it was only the previous weekend that she’d told him about Ruby.

He listened carefully, making no comment until some little time after she’d finished the story and had wiped a few emotional tears away.

‘I’d say she behaved like that towards you because she was afraid you’d always remind her where she came from.’

‘No, it wasn’t that or she would have broken friends with me long before,’ Verity said indignantly. ‘I would never say anything about her past, she knew that. I didn’t even talk about my own, because there was nothing to be proud of.’

‘I didn’t mean she thought you would blab about it. More that you were a reminder that she’d been given a second chance in life, and she’d messed it up and lost Mrs Wilberforce’s trust in her. Like you said yourself, the only logical explanation for her nasty note was that she feared you had tried to get between her and Mrs Wilberforce. But I bet anything you like she’s regretted it dozens of times, and is missing you like crazy.’

‘Should I write to her, then?’

‘No, Verity. She was the one who was in the wrong. If she’s too bull-headed or ashamed to get in touch and apologize, then that’s her funeral. You mustn’t let anyone walk over you, Verity, get tougher. You are a truly lovely person but, sadly, many people will take advantage of that.’

In April, just as they’d already heard, it was announced that men of twenty and twenty-one were to be called up, and Miller saw that as a sign he must join up now. That way he stood a better chance of getting into the air force,
rather than waiting until he was called up and being put into the service of the government’s choice, not his.

‘Let’s face it, they won’t want gardeners anywhere for the whole of the war,’ he said. ‘So I’m going to take next Friday off to enlist, then go and spend the weekend with my aunt and uncle in Surrey. I haven’t seen them for over a year, and if the air force do want me I might not get a chance to see them again in a long while.’

Verity didn’t like the thought of losing Miller at all, but she was happier about him going into the air force than the army or navy. He had no flying experience, and therefore she thought they would make him ground crew, which didn’t sound very dangerous. But she hadn’t realized until Friday evening, when she found herself alone at home, just how much she now depended on him for company.

She busied herself changing the sheets on his bed and ironing a few things. Then, feeling at a loose end, she wandered out into the garden. Miller had wasted no time in digging up the central area and laying crazy paving. He’d also dug out old shrubs that were not particularly attractive, and he’d brought new plants back from his work and some from the Solways’ garden – but he was so honourable that he’d only dug up those that needed dividing up. Although it was all still very new, it was beginning to take shape as the new plants filled out.

He had made a start on the arbour seat too; just last night he’d said he would finish it after the weekend. It was already looking good, with an almost Gothic aspect to the latticed, pointed top. Once the honeysuckle and jasmine he’d planted beside it got going, it would be a lovely sweet-smelling place to sit.

It wasn’t only his company she’d come to depend on, either – the five shillings a week rent would be hard to live without. As much as she’d hoped she could save a bit each week for decorating, repairs and the bathroom, so far she’d had nothing left over to save. So she was going to have real difficulty in making ends meet when Miller left.

The thought of all those abandoned homes up in Blackheath popped back into her head. Their owners clearly cared nothing for their possessions, if they’d just left them. Why shouldn’t she have them? She didn’t have to be greedy, just a small bag of stuff which would probably never be missed.

Ruby had told her how she used to get into houses without breaking windows. She said she used a thin, bendy blade which she slid along the middle strut of sash windows to push the catch back, and then she’d climb in. She’d said French windows were usually easy too.

Going indoors, Verity looked in the drawer where she kept cooking implements, took out a palette knife and looked at it reflectively. A thin blade, bendy too, and strong enough to withstand a little force.

As Miller had named three families who had abandoned their homes it was simple enough to walk down to the telephone box at the end of the street and look up their addresses in the directory. After finding them, she rang the numbers too. There was no answer from any of them.

What had started out as a mere fantasy suddenly became real. She actually wanted to burgle one of these houses, she even felt excited at the prospect of it.

When it was close to sunset on Saturday evening she walked up to Blackheath to make absolutely certain there
wasn’t anyone in the houses, and checked out each of them for lights as it got dark. The address in the Paragon was in a terrace, but she found the way to the back service alley and peered through the gate. She didn’t think she’d attempt to rob that one, it would be too hard. But Blackheath Park and The Glebe both looked like good possibilities, with side gates leading to gardens that had trees to hide her from view. She settled finally on the one in The Glebe and decided it would be at daybreak the following morning, with enough light to see what she was doing, but yet too early for anyone to be about on a Sunday morning.

Verity’s heart was pounding as she got to the house in The Glebe early the next morning. She was so nervous she almost walked away, but the side gate wasn’t even padlocked, and after slipping on her gloves she was through it and into the garden in seconds. Internal shutters were closed at the front of the house, but not at the back, and the trick with the palette knife worked like a dream on a small scullery window. She was through the window and on to a draining board in seconds, then with just the briefest glance around the kitchen and laundry room, where clearly no one but a maid or housekeeper came, she went up the stairs to the main rooms. In the drawing room she took a pair of handsome silver candlesticks and a silver bonbon dish. There was masses of silver in the dining room, mostly large tureens and heavy cutlery, but she took only a small jug, and nothing at all from the study at the front of the house.

She went upstairs then to the master bedroom, where she found a ruby brooch sitting in a drawer, and an
old-fashioned big silver locket. She looked in the wardrobe, purely because both her mother and her aunt had been in the habit of putting a little cash away in theirs. To her complete shock, there in a shoebox was a wad of five-pound notes.