The Girl From Barefoot House (18 page)

‘Oh, well, that’s that.’ Josie threw the letter at Lily. ‘I can’t possibly go all the way to Liverpool for an interview.’

‘Someone’s not going to take you on as companion to her dear old ma on the strength of a letter,’ Lily argued. ‘It stands to reason she’ll want to see you. You can easily get there and back in a day. Wednesday’s our afternoon off, and I’m sure Mrs Baxter would you let you have the morning off as well. We’ve both been reliable workers. Oh, look at the address – Barefoot House, Sandy Steps, Formby. It sounds lovely. Come on, Jose,’ she coaxed. ‘Formby’s only the other side of Liverpool. We could go out together nights and weekends. At least you’ll have
friends
, which won’t be the case if you move away.’

‘I’ll think about it,’ said Josie.

It was a bright, sunny day, and Liverpool seemed incredibly
loud
when Josie got off the bus at the Pier Head, loud and very crowded. Trams clattered noisily along the metal lines. They, and the buses, seemed much bigger than she remembered, and she almost gagged when a car passed exuding clouds of black fumes. The New Brighton ferry had just docked, and people were hurrying to board down the big, floating gangway – families, mainly, the children carrying buckets and spades.

Josie paused for a second on the very spot where she’d stood once before and watched the same scene. It seemed a lifetime ago, and she found it hard to connect the small, mixed-up child with the person she was now.
Yet they were the same. And she was still mixed up, but in a different way. And then she’d had Mam.

She walked to Exchange station, where the Southport train was waiting. It left almost immediately. After the wide open spaces of the camp, with its small cream buildings, the landscape she passed through seemed claustrophobic, the houses small and dark, crammed together in narrow streets. There were still bomb sites to be cleared, and the air was full of smoke. But when they reached Formby, the scenery became more countrified, the houses spaced widely apart with big gardens. Cows grazed in a field.

It wasn’t quite half past one when she got off the train at Formby station. There was plenty of time to find Barefoot House – Mrs Kavanagh had been unable to find Sandy Steps on the map.

Unfortunately, the few shops were closed and wouldn’t be opening again because it was half-day closing, and there wasn’t a soul about. She walked along a road of large, detached houses, and approached a man working in his garden.

‘Sandy Steps? Sorry, dear, I’ve never heard of it, or Barefoot House. Try the post office.’

‘It’s closed.’

Two girls on bikes couldn’t help either, or a woman walking her dog, or the man about to get in his car. By then it was almost two, and the idea of having come all the way from Colwyn Bay and not being able to find the house added desperation to her search. It wasn’t hot, but her hair felt damp against her neck and her armpits were wet, although she’d rubbed them with deodorant that morning. Worst of all, the canvas shoes which had always felt so comfortable, began to rub her heels.

At last! ‘That’s where Louisa Chalcott lives, isn’t it?’
exclaimed an elderly lady in conversation with another over a garden gate. ‘It’s at the bottom of Nelson Road, on the beach. Go back down this road, turn left, then second right. It’s quite a walk,’ she chuckled, ‘but it won’t take long on your young legs.’

As Josie limped away, she heard the other woman say, ‘I thought Louisa Chalcott was dead?’

Nelson Road was lined with bungalows, and led directly to the shore, beyond which flowed the greeny-brown waters of the Mersey. At the point where the bungalows ended, the road sloped down to meet the sand, and on the right a series of steps, attached to a brick wall, led to a tall iron gate with a name on a metal plate: B
AREFOOT
H
OUSE
.

With a feeling of relief mixed with annoyance at the lack of directions, Josie hurried down the steps, through the gate, up more steps and into a small garden of withered bushes, bent reeds and long-dead trees, separated from the sand by a low wall. She almost ran towards a large, windswept, sandstone house with curved bay windows upstairs and down. The window frames had more paint off than on, and the front door, which might have once been grey, was pitted, as if gravel had been thrown against it.

She knocked, and the door was opened by a smiling woman in a flowered wrap-round pinny, a scarf tied turban-wise around her head.

‘I’m so sorry I’m late,’ Josie began, ‘but—’

‘There’s no need to apologise to me, luv,’ the woman said cheerfully. ‘Save it for the terrible twins in the parlour. What’s your name, luv? I’m supposed to announce you. Stupid bitches,’ she said under her breath.

‘Josephine Flynn, er, Miss Flynn.’ Josie was a bit put out by the reception. She ached to go to the lavatory,
and would have liked to comb her hair, see if her lipstick had smudged, have a wash. As she followed the woman across a square, spacious hall, she tried to straighten herself up as much as possible.

‘Miss Josephine Flynn,’ the overalled woman said regally when she opened a door without knocking. She jerked her head at Josie. ‘Go on in, luv.’

Josie entered a massive, sparsely furnished room overlooking the river, where two women in pastel twinsets and pearls were seated officiously behind a table. They would have been identical, except that one wore glasses and the other didn’t. Their round, narrowly set eyes regarded the newcomer with disapproval. She saw her letter on the table.

‘You’re late,’ the woman with glasses snapped. She looked at her watch. ‘It’s a quarter to three. In another fifteen minutes we have to interview somebody else.’

‘I’m sorry, but—’ Josie began, but the other woman interrupted. ‘It hardly seems worth our whiles interviewing this person, Marian. Not only was she very late, but she’s far too young for Mother.’

‘I agree with you there, Hilary.’

Josie plonked herself in a chair without being asked. She was seething. ‘If you’d bothered to put the proper address on your letter, I wouldn’t have been late,’ she said spiritedly.

The women gave each other an outraged look. ‘Everyone knows where Barefoot House is,’ Marian said curtly. ‘Our mother, Louisa Chalcott, is very well known.’

‘Well, I asked loads of people who’d never heard of Barefoot House, and the only one who had thought Louisa Chalcott was dead.’ Josie tossed her head. ‘As to me being too young, I put me date of birth on me letter.
All you had to do was work it out.’ She rose to her feet, knowing that the job would never be hers, but she wasn’t leaving without tearing the women off a strip. ‘You’re both very irresponsible and rude. I don’t appreciate having me time wasted by the likes of you.’

Their faces sagged in stupefaction. Josie went to the door and opened it. ‘Tara,’ she said loudly, and they both jumped.

‘Stay!’ an imperious voice thundered.

It was Josie’s turn to jump. Outside the door stood a very old, very tall, painfully thin woman with jet black hair, lightly sprinkled with grey, and black, bushy eyebrows. She had a walking stick in one hand. The other, trembling slightly, she held in front of Josie’s face. She wore baggy tweed trousers, a man’s shirt worn loose and carpet slippers. Her dark eyes, large and very beautiful, flashed angrily in her deeply wrinkled face. She gave a terse nod, which Josie took as an indication to return. The woman followed, leaning heavily on the stick, and sat down with difficulty, waving aside Josie’s attempt to help. ‘If I need a hand, I’ll ask for it,’ she snapped.

‘Please yourself,’ Josie snapped back. She wasn’t in the mood to be nice to people, even if they were old and walked with a stick.

‘Really!’ Hilary gasped.

The older woman smiled. She took cigarettes, a holder and a silver lighter from her breast pocket, lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. Puffs of smoke emerged from her nostrils, reminding Josie of a dragon. ‘I want
her
,’ she said emphatically. ‘I don’t want another retired schoolteacher fawning over me, or a retired nurse, or a widow with nothing to do. I want someone young for a change, someone with a bit of spirit who’ll answer back. I want
someone like
her
.’ She nodded at a dazed Josie, then chuckled spitefully. ‘I enjoyed the way she wiped the floor with you two.’

‘Have you been eavesdropping, Mother?’

‘I most certainly have.’ The woman – presumably Louisa Chalcott – had a deep, hoarse, attractive voice, and spoke with an accent Josie couldn’t identify. ‘I was amused to hear some people think me dead. I am, however, very much alive, and, despite your insistence to the contrary, I am not an invalid. I am also still in possession of all my faculties, and quite able to choose a secretary for myself.’

‘But, Mother, you
are
an invalid,’ Marian cried. ‘We were only trying to help. This …’ She waved her hand at a still-dazed Josie. ‘This person is entirely unsuitable.’

‘She isn’t to me.’ Louisa Chalcott banged her stick on the floor and yelled, ‘Phoebe.’

The woman in the flowered overall must have been indulging in a spot of eavesdropping herself, because the door opened immediately. ‘What, Lou?’ Hilary and Marian winced.

‘Show this young lady to the room that would be hers should she deign to live with us. She is quite likely to subject you to the third degree, and I’d like you to be brutally honest so she’ll know what to expect. Oh, and, Phoebe, show her the lavatory on the way. She looks desperate for a pee.’

The upstairs room was the same size as the one below, and just as sparsely furnished. There was a double bed with a white cotton cover, a wardrobe and chest of drawers, both urgently in need of varnish. Two faded rugs graced the polished wooden floor, and faded cretonne curtains the big bay window. The view,
overlooking a vast expanse of the Mersey, was breathtaking. Josie knelt on the window seat to watch a liner, making its stately way along the gleaming river, and several other smaller ships – tugboats and coasters. There was a single yacht, poised like a bird on the water. Fluffy clouds raced across the blue sky, much fester than the ships. Fancy waking up every morning to this!

Phoebe was standing inside the door, arms folded. ‘I must say you put the twins in their place,’ she said with a complacent smile. ‘Me and Lou laughed like drains.’

Josie climbed off the window seat, sat on the bed and bounced a few times. It felt nice and soft. ‘Who exactly is she, Louisa Chalcott? I’ve never heard of her meself.’

‘Not many people have, luv, only intellectual types. She writes poetry, used to be quite famous in her day. Before the war this house was full of people, parties most weekends. But then poor Lou had a stroke. That’s when I came to work here. She was only sixty-two, but it left her paralysed one side. She’s much better than she used to be, though she never goes out and there’s scarcely been a visitor since, apart from the twins. Lou doesn’t want people knowing the state she’s in.’

‘Why does she need a companion if you’re here?’

Phoebe came and sat beside her on the bed. ‘I’m only the cleaner, luv. I come a few hours a day, make Lou’s meals – she eats like a bird. She wasn’t always so thin. She needs someone to do her typing and live here full time, case she falls, like. She has to sleep downstairs because she can’t manage the stairs.’ She patted Josie’s hand. ‘I hope you decide to take the job, luv. You’re just what she needs, young and full of life. As long as you answer back, stand up for yourself, like, you and Lou will get on fine. She can’t abide what she calls lickspittles or toadies. Her last companion walked out in tears. Marian
and Hilary will be here till October, and they need someone to take over then.’ Phoebe made a face. ‘I can’t wait to see the back of them, interfering pair of bitches.’

‘What happened to Louisa’s husband?’ Josie enquired. She had, after all, been more or less authorised to ask questions.

Phoebe winked. ‘Never had one!’

Josie gasped. ‘But she’s got two daughters!’

‘Lou’s never been what you’d call conventional. And she never does things by halves. She didn’t just have one baby on the wrong side of the blanket, she had twins.’ Phoebe shook her head. ‘Lord knows what people said at the time. It must have caused a terrible scandal – she was forty an’ all. Mind you, she’s a Yank. Perhaps they do things different in America.’

Louisa Chalcott was waiting in the same chair, smoking a fresh cigarette. There was no sign of her daughters. Or, Josie noted with amusement, the woman who’d been expected at three o’clock. ‘Well, young lady,’ she said with a grin. ‘I expect Phoebe has just washed all my dirty linen in front of you. Can I expect you in October or not?’

‘Yes.’ She didn’t have much choice. ‘I’ve got a name, you know. It’s Josie Flynn.’

‘And I’m Louisa Chalcott. Thrilled to meet you, Josie. You can call me Lou or Louisa. I don’t mind which.’

The children had gone back to school, and with each week fewer and fewer campers came to Haylands. Once again the camp was almost deserted, the bars hardly used. The ballroom was a miserable place with so few people there, nearly all couples. Staff left, and Josie and Lily bade a tearful goodbye to their room-mates. Rene and Winnie had enjoyed themselves. The break had done
them good, they were looking forward to seeing their kids. They took each other’s addresses and promised to write.

The summer too had ended. September was a cold, blustery month, unsuitable for midnight sojourns on the sands. Half the Wasps had gone, back on the dole or to menial jobs in London where they could keep in touch with their agents and hope for better things. A lucky few had tiny walk-on parts in far-flung theatres throughout the country, which they hoped would lead to something better. They left, praying they
wouldn’t
meet up again in Haylands, a certain sign of failure.

Griff had the chalet to himself, so they could make love whenever they pleased. But something was missing – the enchantment, the company, the moonlit beach, the music. Josie knew she had been right to dismiss the idea of them getting married.

On the final night at Haylands, she and Griff talked for a long time. They said things to each other that they’d never said before. She hadn’t known he’d been a soldier in the war and that he’d hated every minute. She told him she was dreading being stuck in Formby with a horrible old woman.