was dark when Elsie returned home. She lived at the end of what at first glance was a typical North London terrace, quite close to a Victorian railway arch. But hers was the only complete house. The rest of the row of narrow, brownstone buildings had been subdivided into upstairs and downstairs flats, several of which were to-let, which meant they were drab, dingy affairs, the tiny strips of garden at their fronts filled with litter and refuse. Elsie, who had been able to buy her property thanks to the compensation she’d received when her husband, Ted, was killed in an accident working on a building site, kept her own front garden spick and span, as she did the interior of her home. Though, as Age Watch had noted, it wasn’t possible for her to do it all by herself these days, and even Age Watch’s generous assistance didn’t extend to the allotment on the other side of the road. There were ten of these in total, and in many ways they were the reverse of the buildings facing them. Where the Dawkins house was the only smart one in the row, the Dawkins allotment was the only unkempt one; it was deeply overgrown and covered with dead leaves, its shed dilapidated. All the others were tidy and fenced off from each other; at this time of year, many had been newly planted with flowers or vegetables.
Elsie gave her own oblong patch of scrubby vegetation a frustrated glance before going indoors. Several times now, a West Indian gent from the next street had enquired about taking if off her hands, but she’d always said ‘no’. She never used it, but was determined to keep it in memory of Tommy. Indoors, she drew the curtains and switched the gas fire on. She didn’t immediately remove her coat or mittens; the living room usually took ten minutes to warm up. As she waited, the phone rang.
“Hello?” she said.
“Mrs Dawkins? It’s Mrs O’Leary.”
“Mrs who?”
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
