her lips together, rescued her hat and rose to her feet. Over by the door, Frank’s charms were working a treat, Mrs Redbourne smiling up at him coyly. She barely seemed to notice when Alice slipped past. Behind her, Charlotte sat quietly, eyes watchful.
In the hallway, Alice hesitated. She stood in solitary silence for a few seconds, head cocked as if listening. After a moment she turned sideways to squeeze past the pram and then moved towards a closed door at the end of the hall. A soft thump stopped her in her tracks. There was a creaking sound, and then the door gave way, a pair of eyes peering through the crack.
After a short pause in which no one moved, the door was opened to reveal a fleshy, puffy-eyed man with a glossy sheen across his forehead. Alice strode towards him, thrust out her hand and smiled, as if a meeting had been planned between them. ‘You must be Mr Redbourne?’ she said. ‘Alice Hudson. Pleased to meet you.’
The man looked down at her and passed his tongue over his lips, then took her proffered hand. ‘You’ll be from the hospital,’ he said in an uncertain voice. ‘The wife could do without the added pressure,’ he added, when Alice confirmed her occupation. ‘We do what we can, but you can’t expect us to give what we don’t have.’
He followed her to the living room, but when his wife caught sight of him she shooed him away with her hand. ‘I thought you were at the market, George? Get going will yer, there’s things we need.’ Mr Redbourne pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, took one into his mouth using his teeth, then, without another word, slipped out of the house.
When the front door clicked to a close, Alice entered the room he had just vacated. The back parlour was a dark room with a single bed in the centre, the wooden base held up by a pile of bricks at each corner. There was a bite to the air, the room colder than the street outside. A dozen shirts hung from a rope stretched diagonally across it, one end caught between the slightly open window and the other wedged between the top of a Welsh dresser and the wall.
Alice closed the door and peered into the nearby kitchen. Through the small window at the end of the room, a partly stone-flagged backyard was visible, a patch of bare earth beyond. An old lean-to housing the lavatory blocked what little winter light there was from entering the kitchen. There was no sign of running water; most working-class families were still filling buckets from a pump at the end of their street. The approaching twilight bathed the small area in shadows, the air fermenting with the smell of old dinners. With so many people living in the house the room was likely a place of much activity but, aside from a few black beetles scurrying across the floor and over the draining board, the overriding air was one of long abandonment.
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