Kitabı oku: «A Girl Can Dream», sayfa 2
TWO
The following day, Meg pushed her brothers and sisters off to school. Though they might not want to go, she felt it was best that they should keep to their usual routine, and in any case she had plenty to do that would be best done without the young ones getting under her feet. Rosie offered to look after Billy as he wasn’t yet at school and Meg accepted gratefully for she had the telegrams to send first, and then there was a pile of washing needing attention, and sometime during the day she had to squeeze in time to visit her wee sister in the hospital.
When she eventually got there the doctor told Meg that she should be proud of the baby’s tenacity, that after everything she’d been through, she was going to make it.
Meg let her breath out in relief. To her it made some sort of sense to her mother’s death that the baby she had been carrying had survived.
‘When can I take her home?’ she asked.
‘Oh, that’s a little way off yet,’ the doctor said. ‘She must weigh at least five pounds, and that might take a week, possibly two.’
‘Can I come and see her?’
‘Of course,’ the doctor assured her. ‘She is still in the special care baby unit and when she is a little stronger you may be able to give her a bottle. You will have to get used to doing that anyway.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Meg. ‘I would love to . .’
Afternoon was turning into evening as Meg scurried home, collecting Billy on the way, knowing the children would all be sitting there with their tongues hanging out; her father, too, because he hadn’t gone to work that day. However, if Meg had thought he might be some support for her, then she was disappointed. She’d known he had taken himself off to the Swan after the meal she had put before them all, but the children told her that while she had been at the hospital he had staggered home at closing time and was in bed sleeping it off . .
‘It’s how many men deal with things,’ May told her when they met in the yard as Meg was bringing in the washing. ‘I often think that it is women who are the copers in this world. A man loses his wife and goes to pieces, and yet if a woman loses her man she will roll up her sleeves and work to feed and clothe her children and get on with it without moaning much. Now your father has lost the love of his life, so don’t expect him to just get over it as you will have to.’
In the light of May’s words, Meg was patient with her father when she woke him to have his dinner, and she bit her lip when he sat at the table bleary-eyed and complaining that the food wasn’t a patch on what Maeve would put before him. Meg had been too busy to make anything more than a scratch meal using the meat and vegetables intended for the previous day, and was stung by the criticism.
However, to prevent herself either flying into a rage or dissolving in tears, Meg told her father about her visit to see the baby.
‘Ruth is definitely going to make it now,’ she said. ‘So that’s good news.’
‘Is it?’
‘Oh, Dad, of course it is.’ Meg insisted. ‘She will be able to come home when she is over five pounds in weight. I can’t wait for that.’
‘Don’t see why,’ Sally said.
‘Why do you say that, Sally?’ Meg said. ‘I thought you liked babies.’
‘I do,’ Sally maintained. ‘But not this one, not Ruth.’
‘Why on earth don’t you like our own baby?’
‘’Cos if she hadn’t been born, our mommy would still be alive,’ Sally said.
Meg was astounded. Sally was only seven years old and Meg wondered if she had overheard the others talking about it. ‘Is this how you all feel?’ she asked, glaring at them all around the table; she knew by the uncomfortable glances they exchanged with one another that they did.
‘You can count me in as well,’ Charlie said. ‘Don’t expect me to get excited over a baby that robbed me of my wife.’
‘How can you blame one small helpless baby for Mom’s death?’ Meg cried, patience with her father gone. ‘The truth is, Mom shouldn’t have been expecting at all, and the fact that she was can’t be laid at little Ruth’s door. I take it you won’t be going to see her?’
She was met by a wall of silence. ‘All right then,’ she screamed. ‘Have it your way, but I will visit every day until the time I can bring Ruth home. And when that time comes, she is never to feel any sign of this resentment. And that goes for you all,’ she added, looking at each one of the children in turn.
The children looked aghast, waiting for their father’s reaction, but he didn’t respond. Meanwhile Meg felt such misery envelop her that she knew if she stayed in the house a minute longer, she would burst into floods of tears. She strode purposefully to the door, stepped into the street and shut it behind her with a resounding and very satisfying slam.
She had no plan of where she wanted to go. She felt all churned up inside and so she set off for Calthorpe Park, where she walked alongside the Heath, passing the bandstand where the brass bands played on Sundays. She could see boys having a kick-about with a football on the far side, and a couple of families packing up after a picnic. It was a peaceful scene and began to soothe Meg’s bruised soul.
Courting couples arm in arm were strolling along the banks of the river Rea, which were overhung with weeping willows, or walking under the canopy of trees by Pershore Road. And the bees taking in the last of the sun busily buzzed amongst the flowerbeds, which were a riot of colour. Meg gave a sigh that was almost one of contentment.
She strolled all over the park, drinking in the peace and tranquillity, taking her time, so that the sun was beginning to sink below the horizon when she turned for home. It was quiet when she went in and all the pots and pans, she saw, had been washed, dried and put away. Only Terry was up, reading a comic.
‘Where is everyone?’
‘Jenny, Sally and Billy are in bed.’
‘And Daddy?’
Terry’s eyes met Meg’s and she burst out, ‘He has gone back to the Swan, hasn’t he?’
Terry shrugged. ‘S’pose. He said he was going to see Uncle Robert.’
‘And that’s where the two of them will make for,’ Meg said grimly. ‘May said men often deal with loss by drinking too much, though I can’t for the life of me see what good it does. I hope Dad gets a grip on himself soon.’
‘And me,’ Terry said gloomily.
‘Did you just stay up to wait for me?’
‘And to say sorry,’ Terry said. ‘Maybe Mom shouldn’t have had this baby, but I know a bit of how babies are made and once you are having one, it’s too late then to wish you weren’t. But I got to thinking that the baby hasn’t had any say in it either, has she?’
‘No,’ Meg said. ‘And that was the point I was trying to make.’
‘I know,’ Terry said. ‘I should have had more sense, and I will try and make the others feel the same before she comes home.’
‘Oh, Terry, that’s great,’ Meg cried, for she was very fond of her twelve-year-old brother and had been disappointed with his initial reaction. ‘It will be a poor welcome for Ruth to come to a house where no one wants her.’
‘I got to thinking that too after you left,’ Terry said. ‘Anyway, I’m sorry for upsetting you.’
‘None of us is thinking straight since Mom died,’ Meg said. ‘Concentrating on the baby helps me, because it’s something positive.’
‘Here’s something else positive,’ Terry said. ‘Though maybe not so pleasant.’
‘What?’
‘A telegram was delivered while you were out,’ Terry told Meg. ‘Mom’s parents are coming for the funeral.’
When she finally met them, Meg didn’t care for either of her maternal grandparents one bit. Sarah Mulligan was a small woman, but a stout one. Her face was the colour of putty, and so creased and wrinkled it reminded Meg of a dried-up old prune. The wrinkles didn’t hide her thin tight lips, though, or her blue eyes that looked so cold that shivers ran down Meg’s back.
Conversely, everything about Maeve’s father, Liam Mulligan, was oversize. He was a tall man, and beefy, with enormous shoulders, a very large stomach and hands twice the size of her own father’s. He had an exceedingly red face with rheumy brown eyes and slack, bulbous lips.
However, it wasn’t just how they looked that Meg found off-putting, it was also their manner. They expressed no sorrow at the loss of a daughter, nor any sympathy for the family. They gave the children scant attention and little affection, but they were very quick to find fault and Meg found them very unwelcome guests.
On the morning of the funeral, all the Halletts – even Billy – were dressed in black. Meg’s long dark brown hair was up in a chignon, which Miss Carmichael had shown her how to do when she was going to the interview at Lewis’s and it had immediately had made her appear older and given her confidence – she thought she needed both qualities that day. The sun shone from cornflower-blue skies, though it seemed a mockery for the day to be such a bright one when their spirits were so low. The children’s aunts and uncles and grandparents had already gone to the church, and it was just the Hallett family left to walk together, Meg leading the way and her father bringing up the rear, as they walked along Bell Barn Road and down Bristol Passage on to Bristol Street, where St Catherine’s Church stood. All those not attending the Requiem Mass stood at their doorways in respectful silence and watched them pass.
The church was packed and Meg told herself she shouldn’t be so surprised, for her mother had been very popular, but it still warmed her heart to see so many there, including Miss Carmichael and the doctor standing at the back.
The Requiem Mass was a long one, but none of the children fidgeted or whispered together. Even Billy seemed awed by the solemnity of it all. And after it, as they began the short walk to Key Hill Cemetery in Hockley, where Maeve was to be buried, Meg caught hold of Billy’s hand. His very shiny eyes grew bigger when, after the murmured prayers around the graveside, the coffin that Meg had told him housed his mother was gently lowered into the prepared hole. The lump in his throat threatened to choke him as his father stepped forward and threw a clod of earth on top of the coffin. Thud. That seemed to Billy to bring home the fact that his mother really was dead. One by one the family threw a handful of earth onto the coffin.
‘You don’t have to do it, Billy,’ Meg told him kindly.
‘I want to.’ Billy shook his head emphatically and, dropping Meg’s hand, he stepped forward boldly. People started to cry afresh as the small boy took a handful of earth, but Billy didn’t cry till the clod hit the coffin. Then the enormity of it all seemed to get to him, the realisation that his mother was dead and gone, and he ran back to Meg and buried his face in her skirt as tears threatened to overwhelm him.
Charlie, too, felt stricken as he watched his children step forward one by one. Unbeknownst to Meg, the Mulligans had offered to take Billy and Sally back with them to what they said was a much better life in Irish countryside, and he had been very tempted,. They painted a powerful picture of the idyllic life the children would have and Liam Mulligan promised that Billy would inherit the farm one day if he took to the work. Charlie felt he couldn’t just dismiss the offer out of hand, but looking at the kids now, they were so lost and vulnerable. They were his children, he realised; they only had the one parent now. The children needed time to grieve for their mother; surely they could do that better in familiar surroundings with people that loved them.
He suddenly peeled Billy from Meg, lifted him into his arms and, carrying him like that, led the way to the Swan, where Paddy Larkin had given him the use of the back room. Rosie and her daughters had worked very hard to put on a good spread for the mourners, and Meg was immensely grateful to them as she took her place beside her father.
As tea and beer flowed, and neighbours got chatting, Charlie drew Meg into the corridor and closed the door against the noise.
‘Are you all right, Dad?’
‘Child, it will be many years before I am all right,’ Charlie told his daughter. ‘Indeed it might never happen.’ He gave a sigh and went on, ‘But I wanted to talk to you.’
‘Talk away then,’ Meg said.
‘It’s about the children,’ Charlie said, and he told her what Liam and Sally Mulligan had suggested, Meg gasped for it was just the very thing her mother said to guard against. Charlie hadn’t noticed her reaction and went on. ‘I know you don’t like Maeve’s parents and you want to keep us all together, but would it be selfish of us to keep Billy and Sally here when they can offer them a much better life in Ireland?’
Meg took a deep breath. She knew she had to remain calm and rational. He was clearly genuinely asking her opinion, so she had to push down her desire to tell him that she could see cruel malevolence in her grandmother’s gimlet eyes, and how much she hated her grandfather’s coarseness and belligerence, particularly when he had a drink in him. The thought of either Billy or Sally being beaten by that hulk didn’t bear thinking about. And there was also the promise she had made to her mother. But it was more than that: she knew the only way for them all to get over their loss was to stay together, so that they could offer support to one another.
She chose her words with care. ‘If I had to choose between health and happiness, I think I would choose happiness every time,’ she said. ‘Mom said she was desperately unhappy at home.’
Charlie nodded. ‘I remember. But I suppose people can change.’
‘Not those two,’ Meg declared determinedly.
‘So you don’t think they should be given this chance?’ Charlie asked her seriously.
Meg shook her head. ‘If you send them away I won’t be able to keep the promise I made to Mom and that will distress me greatly. But, more importantly, I think both Billy and Sally will be desperately sad.’
Charlie still looked hesitant and Meg took his arm. ‘Come on, Dad. Their place, the place for all of us, is in the bosom of the family where we are loved and understood.’
Meg saw with a measure of relief that her words had hit home as her father nodded his head. ‘You’re right. I think you are right.’ The image of his young ones standing by their mother’s coffin came into his mind again. ‘I don’t want to send the two young children away like that, however healthy it is. Their place is here – and more especially now, but have you no qualms at all about how you will cope?’
Meg put her hand on his arm. ‘Dad, I’ll never be another Mom, but I will do my best, and when I make mistakes I’ll learn from them. I know this is what Mom wanted above anything else, and that helps.’
‘Right,’ Charlie said, squaring his shoulders. ‘I am away back into the room and will tell Maeve’s parents that the children won’t be going with them.’
‘That’s the spirit, Daddy,’ Meg said, and she smiled with relief as she followed her father.
THREE
No one felt particularly easy until the Mulligans had left. Charlie ran to the expense of a taxi to take them to the station as their train was leaving very early in the morning. But still the whole family got up to see them off, or, as Terry said, to make sure they really went. As Meg watched the taxi drive down the road she felt the sudden desire to dance a jig.
Terry had done his work well and soon Meg had her siblings all helping her with the weekly wash. Terry filled the large copper in the brew house, and when the clothes had had a good boil, Meg hauled the white shirts and the like into a shallow sink, She’d already added Beckett’s Blue to the water and Billy and Jenny swirled the clothes through there before wringing them out and taking them to Jenny who was operating the mangle. The rest of the clothes were heaved into the maiding tub and then Meg pounded them up and down with the dolly stick, That finished they all had a go at turning the mangle, while Meg hung the damp clothes on the lines criss-crossing the yard. This was all done to cries of encouragement from the women from the yard, who knew that Meg was keeping them busy for their own sakes.
And when the family wash was completed Meg fished out all the baby things their mother had put in a trunk in the attic and these too were washed in the sinks by hand for as Meg said, ‘There will be nothing new for this baby, so the least we can do is welcome her with sweet-smelling clothes and bedding.’
Later that evening Meg laid down the iron after pressing the last of the little smocked dresses and said to Terry, ‘You know, small as these clothes are, they are going to swamp Ruth. She is so incredibly tiny still.’
‘She must be all right to come home, though.’
‘Yes, she’s five pounds now.’ She began folding up the clothes. ‘I suppose I’m just nervous generally. I mean, I really want to bring Ruth home, it’s where she belongs, but I am worried how I’ll cope with everything.’
‘We’ll all help as much as we can,’ Terry said. ‘I think we’ll have to because I can’t see our dad giving you much of a hand with her.’
‘No,’ Meg said, shaking her head. ‘I can’t understand him. How can he blame a tiny baby for Mom’s death when it’s more his fault than her’s?’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘Nothing,’ Meg mumbled, not wanting to discuss the sexual side of marriage with a boy only twelve years of age. ‘Don’t mind me. I’m just cross with Daddy generally. I mean, we’re all suffering, but he just can’t seem to pull himself together. Where did he slope off to at dinner-time and where is he now?’ That didn’t need an answer. They both knew he was at the Swan. ‘Quite apart from anything else,’ Meg said, ‘he can’t afford to go to the pub every night.’
‘He says he is bought drinks,’ Terry pointed out.
‘Maybe he is being bought a few drinks at the moment,’ Meg said, ‘especially with Mom’s funeral just over, but that’s not going to go on for ever. And I doubt people buy him enough for him to get in the state he seems to be in some nights. I hear him stumbling around and muttering to himself.’
‘So do I,’ Terry said. ‘And I know it was agreed that you move into the bedroom with the baby while she is so small and needing night feeds so she won’t disturb us, but Dad disturbs us much more coming home drunk.’
‘Maybe he’ll take a grip on himself with another mouth to feed,’ Meg said.
‘Yeah,’ said Terry, with a rueful grin. ‘And maybe pigs fly.’
The following day, Meg and her aunt Rosie went to fetch the baby home. The nurse seemed a bit surprised and said, ‘I thought your father might be here with you today to discuss the little one’s care in the future.’
Meg’s eyes met those of her aunt, but she felt she had to defend her father. ‘He … he had to work,’ she said. ‘You know the funeral and all was a great expense.’
‘Of course, I understand,’ the nurse said, but Meg knew that she didn’t. It was small wonder: Meg herself didn’t fully understand why her father had never been to see his baby daughter since the day of her birth.
But she said to the nurse, ‘What do you mean about the baby’s care? She is all right, isn’t she?’
‘Oh, yes, she is,’ the nurse said, ‘but she is a month premature and so her feeds will have to be little and often – every two to three hours.’
Meg nodded and the nurse went on, ‘And she will be unable to regulate her temperature so you must ensure that she is kept warm. Be aware of that and add an extra blanket if the nights are cold. And guard against infection. Don’t let anyone nurse her if they have a cold or anything. In fact, keep visitors to a minimum for now.’
‘Little chance of that,’ Rose laughed. ‘Every woman in the street has been on pins all day, knowing the wee one is coming home. They mean her no harm, but want to welcome her properly.’
Meg nodded. ‘And they have all been good to us since Mom died and I’d hate to offend them, but if I see anyone with a cold, I will ask them not to touch her.’
‘Well, do your best,’ the nurse said. ‘And we will keep our eye on her too. So for now I’d like you to bring her in every week to be weighed to make sure she is gaining enough.’
Meg could see the logic of it but it was yet another thing she had to fit into her week. Rose had seen the resigned look flit over her face and said, ‘It doesn’t have to be you that brings the child back here. I could do it sometimes. Don’t be too independent. We can’t help you if you don’t let us.’
Meg smiled gratefully at her aunt and felt the burden of responsibility that had lodged firmly between her shoulders lighten a little.
Rose insisted on paying for a taxi as she said little Rose couldn’t be expected to travel home on a tram, which rattled alarmingly and was probably full of germs. Meg thoroughly enjoyed her second-ever ride in a car, while Ruth, snuggled tight against her, went fast asleep.
Rose was right about the neighbours eagerly awaiting the arrival of little Ruth Hallett. The children barely had time to ooh and aah over their little sister before they were invaded. Everyone brought something: matinée jackets, dresses, nighties, leggings or pram sets. One neighbour brought a rocking cradle and another an enormous pram she no longer needed, and a woman who had had twins five years before brought a selection of clothes that Meg was sure would fit Ruth because the twins had been tiny too.
That evening, Meg showed the things to her father, but he showed no interest in either the clothes or the child, his only comment being, ‘That bloody pram is too big for this house.’
Stunned and hurt – Meg could not believe that her father would keep up this antipathy to his own child – she snapped back, ‘Where d’you suggest I leave it then? In the street?’
‘I’m just saying.’
‘Yes, well, you’ve said, and unless you have an alternative place for it, it stays right where it is,’ Meg told her father firmly.
For a moment he glared at Meg for speaking to him that way in front of the children, but he said nothing. Instead he stood up so quickly that his chair scraped on the lino, and then he lifted his coat from the back of the door and went out, slamming the door after him with such gusto that Ruth, lying asleep in the pram, woke with a start and began to cry.
Meg felt desolation surround her as she lifted the baby, realising at that moment that her father was a weak man. She had hoped against hope that when she brought the baby home he would finally mellow towards her and start looking after her in the way he should. But she recognised now that he was unable to take responsibility for his part in making her mother pregnant, and knowing by doing so he had put her life in danger. Instead of accepting any blame, he laid it all on the shoulders of a tiny, innocent baby.
The children began to clear the table and wash up the pots as Meg dealt with the baby. Then Terry supervised their getting ready for bed before putting a cup of tea down beside Meg. None of them had spoken about the incident after dinner, or their father’s indifference to Ruth, and she imagined that they were as confused as she was.
‘Not looking forward to him coming home tonight,’ Terry said.
‘Don’t blame you,’ Meg said. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have gone for him the way I did, but …’
‘None of us can understand the way Dad is with Ruth,’ Terry said. ‘I mean, when you see her, she’s just so helpless.’
‘I know,’ Meg said with a sigh. ‘I suppose I should be worried about his state of mind, really – I know he’s lost his wife – but I just feel angry with him for being so weak when we are all doing our best to muddle through.’
And muddling through it was. Despite the help that Meg had given her mother bringing up her siblings, she had quickly discovered that it was very different being totally responsible for a child. She hadn’t realised how loud and siren-like a baby’s cry was in the dead of night, and how crushingly tired she felt, having been roused every couple of hours. The fitful sleep that Meg would drop into eventually was shallow and far from refreshing, and she would be jerked out of it again and again before the night ended.
After four nights of this, she was bleary-eyed on the Friday morning as she ladled porridge into her father’s bowl, poured them each a cup of tea and sat down opposite him. As it was the school holidays she had left the others in bed until they needed to get up, and she was just about to broach the subject of housekeeping with her father – because she hadn’t a brass farthing to her name – when, as if he knew what was in her mind, he handed over what was left in his pay packet. Meg knew he got paid on a Thursday, but when she looked in the pay packet there was only one pound and one ten-shilling note left in there. She had no idea what her father used to give her mother to buy the food for them all, but she could bet it was much more than she had been given.
‘Is this all?’ she asked.
‘Aye, that’s all,’ Charlie snapped. ‘Your mother never moaned. Great manager, your mother was.’
‘Great manager!’ Meg repeated. ‘The rent is seven and six a week.’
‘I am well aware of that,’ Charlie said. ‘And you may as well know it all. We are three weeks in arrears. Our landlord, old Mr Flatterly himself, came and offered his condolences when Maeve died and told me I wasn’t to worry about the arrears, that I had enough on my plate. He’s a decent sort, not like his son, who I hear is taking over the properties from him now.’
‘Great,’ Meg said. ‘So I’ve got to meet with this son, who isn’t a decent sort, and give him just one week’s rent when we owe three weeks. And how am I going to find the money to pay even one week if we are going to eat as well?’
‘You’ll not likely meet him,’ Charlie said. ‘You know it’s Vince O’Malley collecting the money, and if you tell him you can’t pay anything off the arrears yet, he’s not going to bother about it, is he?’
‘But I don’t like owing money,’ Meg said doggedly. ‘Mom never held with it, but even with the basic rent paid I don’t see how I will make the money stretch. We have another mouth to feed now and little Ruth has to have milk.’
‘Well, you know how I feel about that.’
‘Don’t start that again,’ Meg said. ‘She’s your daughter just as much as I am, and so she is your responsibility and she has to eat.’
Suddenly, Meg saw her father’s shoulders sag and the eyes he turned to her glittered with unshed tears. ‘Don’t fight me at every turn, Meg,’ he said. ‘I am doing the best I can.’
It was on the tip of Meg’s tongue to snap that her father’s best was not good enough, but she stopped herself. Instead she said, almost gently, ‘Perhaps things might be better for all of us if you stayed in more.’
‘And do what?’ Charlie demanded. ‘Stare at four bare walls?’
Before Meg could reply, Terry entered the room, followed by Billy, and Ruth started to wail. With a glance at them all, Charlie lifted his coat from the door and set out for work.
He, Alec and Robert worked in the same place, Fort Dunlop, so they tended to go to work together. As Charlie waited for them that day he went over Meg’s words.
Before Maeve’s death he had never been a heavy drinker, nor an habitual one, but whereas during the day he could keep his thoughts in check because he was busy, they came back to haunt him in the evening. To drink heavily was the only way he could try to blot out that dreadful day when his beloved Maeve had died. The doctor had warned them before that another pregnancy would put her life at risk, but he had been selfish and careless and he couldn’t help but blame himself. And now the presence of the child – whose birth had caused his wife’s death – ensured that he would never totally forget. He knew he was wrong to feel this way but he just couldn’t help it; he wished he’d stood up against them all and left her at the hospital. She’d have been taken to some orphanage and adopted, and he would eventually have been able to come to terms with the loss of his lovely wife.
When Meg heard the imperious knocking on the door that morning, Meg guessed it must be the rent man. But instead it was a young man wearing a dark blue suit, and a trilby hat over light brown hair. His tanned face had a haughty look to it and his eyes were piercing blue, as cold and hard as granite.
‘I am Richard Flatterly,’ he said. ‘I am here to express condolences about the death of your mother.’
‘Oh, your father—’ Meg began, but the man cut her off.
‘My father’s unwell and so you’ll be dealing with me from now on. I see you owe three weeks’ rent.’
‘I can pay this week’s.’
‘I was hoping for something off the arrears.’
‘I’m afraid I haven’t got it at the moment,’ Meg said, ‘with Mom’s funeral and all.’
‘I am not interested in excuses, my dear,’ Richard Flatterly said, and there was no doubting the slight menace in his voice. ‘I am just interested in getting the money owed me. I do not run a charity, and if you can’t pay your rent I shall have to let the house to someone else. Do you understand that, my dear?’ He looked her slowly up and down.
Meg nodded dumbly and handed the man the rent book and the ten-shilling note.
‘If I take it all,’ Flatterly said, ‘it will be two and six off the arrears.’
‘I know that,’ Meg said. ‘But I need it for food.’
Flatterly smiled but his eyes remained cold. ‘I understand your father is in full-time work.’
‘Yes, he is.’
‘Then the rent should present no problem to him,’ Flatterly said, handing Meg back half a crown. ‘So next week I will return myself. I will want the full rent and a good bit off the arrears, otherwise I can make life very uncomfortable for all of you.’
Meg scuttled inside as soon as she could, shut the door and leaned against it. She felt really shaken. Flatterly’s animosity had been almost tangible.
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