Freda and Jim came back from Bournemouth. Two days after that, on her free afternoon, Amy set out to visit her with the scrap of paper on which Helen had carefully written the address folded in her pocket.
It was the very beginning of September, and the first smoky tang of autumn was in the air. Although the streets were still hot and dusty, the leaves of the single spindly tree at the corner of Helen’s street were crinkle-edged with yellow. As Amy walked down past the houses, searching for the numbers on the peeling doors, a horse pulling the water-cart clopped slowly past her. The man up on his seat in front of the big brass-bound barrel sat lazily with his hands loose over the reins. The horse must know every street and where to stop in each one. Two women carrying pails that slopped dark patches in the dust came past and stared curiously at Amy.
‘Looking for someone?’ the younger of them asked.
‘Number seventeen. Helen Pearce.’
More friendly now, the woman jerked her head. ‘That one. Green door.’
Outside No. 17 a dozen children were skipping and singing a complicated rhyme. As Amy slipped past one of them detached herself and stared up at her. Amy saw Helen’s pointed chin and dark, wide-set eyes.
‘You must be Freda.’
‘Yes, miss.’ The child bobbed awkwardly.
‘I’m Amy. Helen’s friend, from the hospital.’
‘She’s waiting for you indoors. There’s been a bigger fuss than if the Queen was coming. Jimmy!’ A very dirty little boy scuffled towards them. ‘This is our kid.’
Their skin was tanned and glowing from their weeks at the sea, making them stand out from the pale faces hopping around them. Amy held out her hand and Jim shook it gingerly. Watching approvingly, Freda took a deep breath.
‘We wanted to thank you, miss. For looking after Helen when she was bad.’
Amy smiled, but her throat was stiff. ‘We were glad to. Everyone in the hospital. Your sister is someone special.’
But having done their duty, the children’s eyes were already turning back to the game. Amy said, ‘I’ll go in and find her, shall I?’
Helen must have been waiting inside the basement door. As soon as Amy knocked she flung it open and said formally, ‘I’m so pleased you could manage it. Won’t you come inside?’
The formality persisted as Helen showed her from the cramped, pitch-dark lobby into the low, square room.
‘This is it,’ Helen said abruptly, gesturing around her. Amy moved at the same time and they bumped awkwardly together. Stepping back in embarrassment, Amy saw a table covered with an oilcloth, three upright chairs and an armchair beside the small, empty grate. There was a truckle-bed against one wall, covered with a bright knitted blanket. Over the mantelpiece a piece of red plush was draped, and in the centre was a sepia wedding photograph which was probably Helen’s parents with the picture of Freda and Jim propped up beside it. A flowered screen stood in one corner and Helen pulled it aside to show a little gas ring and a tiny, scoured sink with buckets of fresh water standing beneath it. The kettle was already filled and Helen lit the popping gas.
Except for the photographs the room was bare of any kind of decoration, but it was the cleanest place Amy had ever seen. Every surface shone as if it had been individually polished, from the glass shade of the single light to the faded linoleum.
‘Me and Freda sleep in there,’ Helen said. Through the doorway Amy glimpsed a double bed that almost filled the cupboard-sized room. ‘And Jim in here.’ She pointed to the truckle-bed. ‘Well, now you’ve seen it,’ she said defiantly. ‘Except the privy. That’s out the back.’
Amy looked at her and saw that her friend’s face was stiff. Something mattered to her very much, although she didn’t want to show it. It was important that Amy should see where she lived and belonged, but she didn’t want the poverty of it seen against the imagined splendours of Bruton Street to make any difference to their friendship.
Amy opened her mouth to say something, anything, to show that it wouldn’t. But the words didn’t come. Instead she felt her eyes go hot and sudden tears prickled in the sockets.
Everything was wrong with the world. It was all, all of it, wrong and iniquitous.
‘I don’t know what you’re crying about,’ Helen said. ‘It isn’t you who lives here.’
Stupid shame flooded through Amy. Helen was right, as always. They looked at each other for a moment and then Amy shook her head helplessly. Helen put her hand out and Amy took it, and then they were hugging each other, half-crying and half-laughing.
‘God help us,’ Helen said at last. ‘Let’s have this tea, now you’re here. There’s penny buns as well, if you want.’
Helen insisted that as she was the guest Amy should have the armchair. She sat down in one of the upright ones herself, poured out the tea, and they began to talk.
They were still talking at six o’clock, with the teapot cold between them. Amy thought that she had never talked as easily or openly to anyone, even to Isabel.
When Freda and Jim came in at last, Amy knew that she had found a friend for life.
‘Where’s our tea, Helen?’ the little boy said plaintively.
The two girls blinked at each other, and laughed.
‘That’s never the time, is it?’ They stood up, together.
‘I’ve got to get back,’ Amy said reluctantly. ‘But I’ll be back. When can I come?’
‘Whenever,’ Helen said simply.
The three of them came with her to the top of the area steps, and then stood waving until she reached the end of the street.
Looking back from the corner, she saw the thin girl with the little, healthy replicas of herself on either side of her. Suddenly Helen looked fragile and too small against the gaunt height of the old houses.
Biting her lip, Amy made herself smile and wave one more time.
Then she turned the corner and walked slowly back to the hostel.
In the warm, pin-neat Ebury Street basement kitchen, Bethan looked at the tray and sighed.
There was clear soup in a gold-rimmed bowl and bread cut transparently thin. A little dish of green-gold grapes was set beside a wedge of creamy cheese. As she watched, Cook smoothed the starched cloth and carefully positioned a long-stemmed wineglass, then brought a decanter and filled the glass with red wine.
‘That will put some heart into her,’ Cook said with conviction. ‘When I was with Lady Kiftsgate and she was in the same condition, I always made sure she drank wine.’
Bethan had heard enough about Lady Kiftsgate, and she was afraid that all the wine in France wouldn’t change Isabel’s heart now. But she said, ‘Thank you, Cook. I’ll take it up now, and we’ll just hope she eats some
