The Londoners (5 page)

‘Now dear,’ Miss Helliwell said again as the door closed, leaving them in privacy. ‘Let’s see what we have here.’

She took Kate’s hands in hers, examining them closely. ‘Very nice,’ she said at last. ‘Very nice indeed. You have the long-fingered, well-shaped hand of a typical Water
personality. Water hands are sometimes called sensitive hands because they indicate great sensitivity and emotional warmth.’

Kate felt some of her tension ease. If Miss Helliwell was going to say nice things about her there was no need for her to be apprehensive.

Miss Helliwell took hold of her right hand and cupped it, staring down intently into the palm. For a long moment she didn’t speak and when she did her voice was oddly strained.
‘Well, well,’ she said, stalling for time in order to get over the shock she had just received. ‘How very . . . unexpected.’

All Kate’s apprehensions flooded back in full force. ‘What is?’ she demanded. ‘What’s wrong? Is it my life-line . . .’

‘Oh no dear,’ Miss Helliwell said swiftly. ‘There’s nothing wrong with your life-line. Your life-line is so long it reaches your wrist! You’re going to make old
bones, dear. Very old bones.’

‘Then what is it? What can you see that you didn’t expect to see?’

Miss Helliwell squinted with renewed concentration at Kate’s palm. ‘It’s rather difficult to explain, dear,’ she said at last, choosing her words with care. ‘There
is great happiness in your future. Very great happiness. It is, however, a happiness that comes only after heartache. You have an enviable capacity for love, and love is going to be central to your
life, but where love is concerned you’re going to have some very hard choices and decisions to make.’

‘But can’t you tell me what my choices and decisions should be?’ Kate asked in rising anxiety.

Miss Helliwell shook her head. ‘No, my dear. You will have to make up your own mind about the paths you will take. One thing you can take comfort from. You have a cross on your Mount of
Jupiter which is very rare and very lucky. There, can you see it?’ With a rheumatically afflicted finger she pointed to two small lines forming a cross on Kate’s palm. ‘That
indicates that at some time in your life a great and lasting love will occur, a love from which nothing but good will come.’ Gently she released Kate’s hand.

‘Is that it?’ Kate asked in surprise. ‘I thought you said that readings took a long time.’

‘Some do and some don’t,’ Miss Helliwell said, carefully avoiding Kate’s eyes so that Kate couldn’t see the troubled expression she knew was there. ‘Will you
go and tell Caroline that I am ready to read her palm now?’

Reluctantly, wishing that Miss Helliwell had been a little more specific about the nature of the heartache she was apparently to suffer, Kate pushed her chair away from the table and went in
search of the conservatory.

It was at the back of the house adjoining the kitchen and the instant she entered it Carrie leapt from the chair she had been sitting in. With a finger to her lips she indicated that Esther was
asleep and then whispered urgently, ‘What happened? What did she tell you?’

‘She didn’t say much at all.’ For the first time in her life Kate was unwilling to share her experience with Carrie. Miss Helliwell’s odd attitude had deeply disconcerted
her and she wanted to think over what had been said to her, before trivializing it by gossiping about it.

Carrie’s dark, well-defined eyebrows rose high. ‘She must have said
something!
’

Aware that she was going to have to at least partially satisfy Carrie’s curiosity, Kate said, grateful that one part of her palm-reading had been uncomplicated, ‘I have a Cross of
Jupiter on my palm and it signifies great good fortune.’

‘Golly!’ There was envy in Carrie’s voice. ‘I wonder if I’ve got one as well?’

‘You won’t find out standing here, talking to me.’ There was impatience as well as affection in Kate’s voice.

‘That’s true,’ Carrie said, ever-practical. ‘I’d better be going, hadn’t I? Wish me luck.’

‘You’re having your palm read, not swimming the Channel!’

Carrie gave an exaggerated shiver. ‘It may not be a plunge into the Channel but it’s a plunge into the future and I jolly well don’t want any nasty surprises!’

With fingers crossed, she left the conservatory and Kate sat down in a battered cane chair near to Esther’s wheelchair. The younger Miss Helliwell, well into her seventies, was snoring
gently, a worn tartan blanket covering her knees.

Kate stared out into a rear garden as dense with blossom as the rose-drowned front garden, wishing she had never broached the idea of palm-readings to Carrie. She was an intelligent girl and she
was well aware that her palm-reading had been brief because Miss Helliwell had been too taken aback by what she had read in her palm to have talked to her truthfully and at length about what she
had seen there. Instead she had taken refuge in generalities.

She looked down at her palm and at the faint web of lines forming a small cross below her forefinger. It hadn’t all been generalities. There had been utter sincerity in Miss
Helliwell’s voice when she had told her that the cross signified great good luck and a lasting love. Some of the tension she had been feeling eased. Miss Helliwell had also been quite adamant
that, beyond the heartache, happiness lay in wait for her. That being so, it was ridiculous of her to feel unnerved at being told she would have heartache and hard choices and decisions to make.
Hard choices and decisions were, after all, something everyone had to cope with.

As Faust padded into the conservatory, she gave a rueful smile. She had expected too much from the palm-reading, that was the trouble. And she had completely forgotten to ask Miss Helliwell
whether or not she should apply for the job at Harvey’s. Faust sprang up on to her knees and settled himself comfortably and she knew that her forgetfulness didn’t matter. She
didn’t need advice where the new job was concerned. Of course she was going to apply for it. Her future would be what she would make of it. And she had stayed in the typing pool long
enough.

On the following Saturday, as they walked towards the Heath where the church fête was being held, Carrie was still full of all the things Miss Helliwell had told her.
‘She was quite adamant that I had already met my husband-to-be and that I would be married long before I was twenty-one,’ she said, obviously highly delighted at the prediction.

‘But that was precisely what you didn’t want!’ Kate protested. ‘You didn’t want to marry someone you’d known since nursery days! You wanted to be swept off
your feet by a tall, dark stranger!’

Carrie grinned. ‘I did, didn’t I? However, I have exercised a lady’s prerogative and I’ve changed my mind.’

‘But why on earth . . .’ Kate began, exasperated.

‘Because Miss Helliwell saw a uniform quite clearly and children with red in their hair. Danny Collins is quite obviously my
fate.
Don’t you think that wonderfully
romantic?’

‘I think you’re crackers,’ Kate said starkly. ‘You can’t decide to marry someone just because of a palm-reading!’

‘Oh, I’ve a little more reason than that,’ Carrie said, a naughty sparkle in her eye. ‘He’s home on leave again and he’s been promoted to sergeant. Stripes
suit him. He looked
very
tasty when I ran into him at the chippie last night.’

Kate shook her head in mock despair and then began to laugh. Arm in arm, Kate in an ice-blue sundress that emphasized the blondeness of her hair, Carrie in her highly fashionable lavender
crêpe dress, they walked out of Magnolia Terrace and across the main road and onto the Heath.

The tiny section of the Heath given over to the fête was resplendent with flags and bunting. There were white-naperied tables laden with home-made jams, cakes and pickles. A long trestle
table groaned under the weight of entries for the most splendid basket of home-grown vegetables. A large crayoned notice pinned to a festively decorated tent announced that Miss Helliwell,
Palm-reader and Clairvoyant, was available for consultations.

Clumps of balloons flew from every available anchorage. Donkeys plodded contentedly around a roped-off circuit, small children on their backs. There were bagatelle tables and pingpong tables.
There was a section each for ninepins, quoits, skittles, darts and an impressive archery ground. A large bell-tent, the notice TEAS pinned to its entrance, was presided over by Hettie Collins.
Nibbo was helping Kate’s father to hammer cricket stumps into position ready for the obligatory cricket match. Mavis was sprucing up her little daughter ready for the Bonny Baby competition.
Miss Godfrey, wearing her habitual tweed suit despite the brilliant sun and cloudless sky, was busy selling last minute raffle tickets. Ted Lomax, Carrie’s quiet-spoken brother-in-law, was
manhandling a barrel of sarsaparilla into place under a label proclaiming REFRESHMENTS.

‘Well I haven’t entered the home-grown vegetable competition and I don’t have an entry for the Bonny Baby Competition,’ Carrie said pragmatically, ‘so we can give
those a miss. How about a shot at archery. Are you game?’

Though she couldn’t possibly have heard Carrie, Mavis shouted across to her, ‘Don’t go skiving off when it’s time for the Bonny Baby competition, Carrie! I want you
clapping your hands and stamping your feet on your niece’s behalf!’

Carrie gave an exaggerated groan. ‘You’d think she’d have enough support with Mum, Dad, Gran and Christina.’

‘What is Christina like?’ Kate asked curiously as they side-stepped members of St Mark’s Boys’ Brigade Band who were practising for the display they were to give later in
the afternoon.

‘Quiet. Though I think that’s only temporary. She’d had a long and tiring journey and I reckon the nervous relief, when she realized she was actually in England, must have been
enormous. She’s here somewhere with Mum and Dad and Gran and she’s dying to meet you and make friends.’

From behind them a piercing whistle stopped them dead in their tracks. ‘It’s Danny,’ Carrie said without turning her head. ‘With a whistle like that he could earn a
living as a railway guard!’

The perm that had once made her hair look like a Hottentot’s had long since grown out and her hair now hung heavily and sleekly to her shoulders. As she pushed it away from her face and
turned around, Kate saw a tell-tale flush of colour in her cheeks. Wryly she acknowledged that where Carrie was concerned, Miss Helliwell’s predictions had quite obviously been a hundred per
cent accurate.

‘Fancy a shot at the archery?’ Danny asked, strolling towards them, Jerry and Jack Robson close behind him. ‘After all the rifle practice I’ve done this past few months I
reckon I should be able to hit the bull’s-eye easily.’

Not overly tall but broad in the shoulders, he had an engaging grin and the kind of pleasant, frank and open face that would be boyish well into middle-age. The boyishness was enhanced by the
hint of red in his hair and the freckles that peppered his rather snub nose. Until now Kate had been mystified as to why Carrie was so taken with him but seeing him in uniform she had to admit that
the stripes on his shoulders did give him a certain allure. Or perhaps, she thought reflectively as Carrie teased him about being so confident of his chances, it wasn’t the stripes but the
self-assurance they had given him that was attractive.

‘Archery?’ Jack Robson asked as he and his brother joined them. ‘Where the hell did the vicar get the idea for archery from? Lambeth Palace?’

Unlike Danny, there was nothing remotely homely about the Robson boys. Tall and hard-muscled, with thick shocks of unruly dark hair, they both possessed a reckless ‘damn-your-eyes’
quality that indicated they would be ugly customers in a fight and that they wouldn’t need much excuse to join in any fight that was going.

‘Archery is a very old and well-respected sport,’ Carrie said to him pertly. ‘It isn’t just for nobs. It was the bowmen of England that won the Battle of Agincourt for
King Henry.’

‘Well, isn’t that nice to know?’ Jack said affably, not remotely impressed by her show of knowledge. ‘And leaving Henry out of it and talking about this afternoon, what
prizes are being given for scoring bull’s-eyes?’

‘Knowing the vicar, it’ll be teddy bears,’ Jerry said glumly.

Kate giggled. Though the Robson boys had a reputation for being rough and ready they were also amusing company and she secretly had a soft spot for Jerry, whose swagger was marginally less
blatant than his brother’s. He said to her now: ‘Have we to go over to the archery then? I don’t want to hang around here. I might be asked to judge the Bonny Baby
Competition!’

They all burst out laughing and Kate saw Danny take hold of Carrie’s hand and tuck it proprietorially into the crook of his arm. ‘I think your mum and dad are over at the archery
ground,’ he said to her. ‘Shall we go?’

Carrie nodded, the sun glinting on the tortoiseshell combs holding her hair away from her face, the glow on her face radiant.

Kate felt her throat tighten. Carrie really
was
in love with Danny. A pang of wistfulness assailed her. She, too, would have liked to be in love, or at least to be on the verge of being
in love. Certain that she was far from being so and with Jerry at her side, she followed Jack and Danny and Carrie to the far side of the fête where the archery target had been set up.

‘This is the last time you’ll be seeing me for a while,’ Jerry said laconically, his hands deep in his trouser pockets. ‘I’m off to Spain tomorrow.’

‘Spain!’ Kate forgot all about not being in love. Ever since civil war had erupted in Spain it had scarcely been out of the news. ‘You’re going out there to
fight?’

She realized as soon as she said it that it was a stupid question and that of course he was going to Spain to fight. He nodded, saying with a lucidity and intensity of feeling that took her
completely unawares, ‘It’s no use leaving things up to the League of Nations, is it? They didn’t stop Mussolini marching into Abyssinia and it’s quite obvious that where
Spain is concerned they’re going to be just as ineffectual. If we want to put an end to fascism and to fascist bullies, we’ve got to stand up and be counted.’