A Lesser Evil

  In the first few years of school, Clara had to listen almost daily to complaints from Fifi’s teacher that she couldn’t concentrate and disrupted the class. Clara remembered biting back tears because she couldn’t bear the fact that her oldest child was so much trouble. No one, neither teachers nor doctors, had any practical advice to offer.

  Clara had no choice but to battle away on her own with Fifi, making time to help her with reading and writing, at the expense of the other children. No one fully appreciated how exhausting it was, or what a thankless task it seemed. She had three perfect, completely lovable children, but the eldest, who had such a special place in her heart, drove her almost mad, and prevented her from enjoying the other three.

  By eight or nine Fifi became more stable, and by ten she had caught up with other children of the same age. But Clara found it impossible to forget the havoc Fifi had wreaked in those early years. Perhaps that was why she was always so hard on her. Was it her unconscious way of getting back at Fifi for all the unhappiness and anxiety she’d caused in the past?

  As she turned back to the kitchen, she began to cry. Harry would be cross with her when he found Fifi had gone off in a huff. Only yesterday he’d said that they should write to her and congratulate her about the baby. He’d also said it was high time they accepted Dan, for if Fifi loved him that was all that mattered. Clara guessed he’d be concerned about Dan’s injuries too; he wouldn’t jump to the conclusion, as she had, that Dan was involved with crooks and thugs. But most of all he’d be horrified that his wife had forced Fifi to rush back to London in an emotional state when she was pregnant.

  Chapter eight

  Fifi was on the way to the corner shop on Saturday morning when she saw Molly Muckle coming along the street towards her. Her heart sank, for she was in no mood for being accosted by anyone, especially someone like Molly.

  Last night’s train journey home to London had seemed endless, and she’d had to fight back tears all the way. It was nearly midnight when she got to Paddington, and the tube on to Kennington was packed with drunks. By the time she got back to Dale Street she was completely wrung out. The flat was hot and airless, and when she opened the windows dozens of moths flew in towards the lights. The more she flapped at them with a newspaper, the more seemed to come in, and she finally burst into tears.

  She had never felt so desperately alone. She wasn’t just angry with her mother, she felt a real sense of abandonment. While she hadn’t expected that just one visit would put everything absolutely right immediately, she had believed that the baby coming would make her mother soften. But now there was no way back. She had lost her family for good.

  She might have told herself countless times that she didn’t need anyone but Dan, but now that was all she had, it didn’t seem anywhere near enough.

  She couldn’t sleep because it was so hot, and her mind kept going over and over the nasty things her mother had said.

  It was a relief when the sun finally came up, but the thought of a weekend all alone made her want to weep again. She didn’t want to have to tell Dan what had happened in Bristol, but if she just turned up to visit him and said she’d changed her mind about going home, he’d suspect something and keep on until she told him the truth. Nor could she stay away from him and pretend she was in Bristol, as when he came home he’d soon find out she’d been here all along.

  The anxiety made her sick. She had to run to the bathroom and was in there for over half an hour until Miss Diamond hammered on the door and reminded her the bathroom wasn’t hers alone.

  But by eleven, and feeling a bit better, Fifi decided to go out and buy a newspaper. When she saw Molly she wished she’d stayed indoors, or at least stayed on her own side of the street, for if she crossed back now to avoid the woman it would be all too obvious.

  ‘’Ow’s yer old man?’ Molly bawled out, still some ten feet from Fifi. ‘I ’eard’e’ ad a bit of bother.’

  ‘He’s not too bad now, thank you,’ Fifi replied politely, hoping that would be the end of it.

  ‘’E’s still up the’ ospital then?’

  Fifi groaned inwardly. ‘Yes, but he’ll be out soon.’ She could see a glint in the woman’s eyes that looked all too much like malice and she wanted to get away from her as quickly as possible. Molly was wearing a sleeveless pink cotton dress which had food stains down the front and her fat bare arms were mottled like sausagemeat. As usual her hair was in curlers and she had rings of the previous night’s mascara around her eyes.

  ‘I’ ear you’re up the spout an’ all,’ Molly said. ‘When’s it due?’

  Fifi couldn’t imagine how Molly had found out about her pregnancy. She had only told Frank and Yvette, and neither of them would gossip about it.

  ‘How did you come to hear that?’ she asked.

  ‘I gets to’ ear everything.’ Molly grinned, showing yellow teeth. ‘Me old man calls me the ears of the world. You ain’t showing yet though, you feeling all right?’

  ‘I’m fine, thank you,’ Fifi said starchily, hating the way the woman was looking her up and down. ‘The baby’s due in March. But I must go now, I’ve got to meet someone.’

  ‘You look after yerself,’ Molly said. ‘I ’ope yer ’ubby ain’t in the ’ospital long. You need’im around to watch out fer you.’

  It was only after getting the paper and then going on to the greengrocer’s to buy some fruit that it suddenly occurred to Fifi that she’d seen no bruises on Molly. Surely anyone taking a beating like the one she’d heard would have some visible injuries?

  The more she thought about it, the stranger it seemed, and Molly’s parting shot, ‘You need him around to watch out for you’, seemed to hold a warning too.

  When Fifi got home she could see that the back door through to the garden in Frank’s kitchen was open, so she called out to him.

  ‘So it was you I heard earlier!’ he exclaimed when he saw her. He was in his gardening clothes, old khaki shorts, a vest and a battered panama hat. ‘I thought you’d gone home for the whole weekend.’

  Fifi explained that she’d thought better of staying in Bristol. Frank invited her to come outside as he was doing some weeding.

  ‘I just saw Molly Muckle,’ Fifi said once she was sitting down. Frank’s garden was very pretty, with masses of flowers. He had said it had been his saviour since June died as he could forget himself while working on it.

  She went on to tell him about her conversation with Molly, and how she had been surprised to see that the woman looked uninjured.

  ‘How could she be unhurt?’ she asked him. ‘We heard all the screaming and thumping, it was terrible. Either Alfie was hitting someone else, or it was all fake. And how does she know I’m having a baby? I haven’t told anyone but you and Yvette.’

  ‘Well, I did tell Stan on Friday night,’ he admitted. ‘But only because of what happened to Dan, and I know he wouldn’t have passed it on, he isn’t that sort. I couldn’t see Yvette speaking to Molly either, she steers well clear of her like I do. I suppose the police could have said something. They were over there just after you left for Bristol.’

  ‘About Dan?’ Fifi asked, immediately thinking that it was even odder Molly should have spoken to her if she had cause to blame her for something.

  Frank nodded. ‘They came over here afterwards to talk to you and I said you’d gone home for the weekend.’

  ‘Did they tell you anything?’

  ‘Only that they had found a length of lead pipe in the alley where Dan was attacked. They think it was used to hit him.’

  ‘Any fingerprints?’

  ‘They didn’t say. But they did ask me if I could confirm Alfie was at home on Friday night. I had to say I thought he was. Maybe they told Alfie and Molly not to upset or harass you in any way as you were having a baby.’

  Fifi raised her eyebrows. ‘As if that would deter them!’

  They discussed it for a little while and Fifi said she wondered if the fight had been staged to give Alfie an alibi.
After all, she hadn’t actually seen Alfie, only the outline of someone in the window who looked like him.

  ‘He’s crafty enough for that,’ Frank said thoughtfully. ‘Maybe you’d better tell the police what you think.’

  ‘I can’t,’ Fifi sighed. ‘Dan was a bit sarcastic about the Muckles getting blamed for everything. It’s going to be hard enough telling him why I came home so quickly.’

  She blurted out then how her mother had been.

  Frank listened sympathetically, at times shaking his head sadly as if shocked her mother could be so hard. ‘I’m sorry, Fifi,’ he sighed as she finished. ‘She’s being daft about Dan, but it isn’t easy to accept your little girl is grown-up enough to marry, and even harder when you think she’s made the wrong choice. I expect she wanted you to marry someone just like your dad.’

  ‘Dan isn’t really that different,’ Fifi said sadly. ‘He’s honest, hard-working, loves kids and has a kind heart. He just didn’t have the kind of education and upbringing that meant he could go to university.’

  ‘Maybe you should write to her and tell her that,’ Frank said, getting up from his weeding and coming closer to her. ‘Don’t let this come between you, Fifi, you’ll need your family when the baby comes.’

  Fifi went to visit Dan that afternoon. She was feeling utterly miserable, but she had a bath, washed her hair, made up her face and put on her prettiest dress because she didn’t want him to sense anything was wrong. When she got to the hospital she told him she’d come back from Bristol that morning because she wanted to be with him.

  ‘You must be mad,’ he said, but looked pleased anyway. ‘I know I’d sooner be out of London in this heat. Are you sure you didn’t have a fight with them about me?’

  ‘No,’ she lied, and smiled to reassure him. ‘I just felt strange away from you, and Patty wasn’t there to keep me company. I didn’t like the thought of you all alone without a visitor.’

  He looked at her doubtfully, perhaps wondering why she wasn’t full of what had been said at home, but he didn’t attempt to cross-examine her.

  ‘They might let me out on Monday,’ he said. ‘But I won’t be able to work for a week or two. Maybe next weekend, after my stitches have been taken out, we could go to Brighton or somewhere by the sea?’

  Fifi didn’t say they couldn’t afford to go anywhere while he wasn’t being paid. Instead, she just said they’d wait and see how he was feeling.

  Dan appeared to be back to his usual self, making jokes about other men in the ward and telling Fifi things he’d found out about some of the nurses. If he was worried about who had hurt him, he didn’t show it. When Fifi had to leave at the end of visiting he told her he loved her and that he was glad she was back in London.

  Fifi hadn’t been home for more than five minutes when the police called. Frank opened the door to them downstairs and they came on up to her flat.

  ‘Sorry to disturb you, Mrs Reynolds,’ the older one said. ‘But we wanted to ask you a few questions about Thursday night. We understand you were here all evening?’

  Fifi confirmed that she was, and the policeman asked her to tell him what she’d seen and heard that evening.

  While Fifi was explaining about the fight over the road, the younger man was looking out of her living-room window as if to ascertain how well she could see the Muckles’ house.

  ‘What makes you think the man fighting with Mrs Muckle was her husband?’ the older man asked.

  ‘I just assumed it was,’ Fifi said. ‘I could only see his silhouette in the window and he was the same height and size as Alfie.’

  ‘His nephew is a similar height and size. Could it have been him?’

  ‘I don’t know. I suppose so, but I saw him coming home later with Dora. Do you think it was Alfie who attacked Dan?’ she asked.

  The older policeman smiled. ‘Let’s just say we are still making enquiries.’

  Fifi blurted out that she found it odd Molly had no visible injuries.

  ‘That didn’t escape us either,’ the policeman said with a knowing look.

  Fifi went back to the hospital in the evening to see Dan again. It was very hot and sticky outside, but hotter still in the ward, and Dan looked sweaty and uncomfortable.

  ‘Shall I wet a flannel and at least cool your face and hands down?’ Fifi suggested.

  ‘It’s you making me hot,’ he said suggestively, looking at her cleavage.

  Fifi blushed. Since she became pregnant her breasts had got bigger, and her dress had a low neck. ‘If you’re well enough to think dirty thoughts you’re on the mend,’ she said, then went on to tell him about all the people who had asked after him.

  Later they heard a distant rumble of thunder and noticed how dark the sky had become.

  ‘You’d better go before it starts to rain,’ Dan said. ‘I reckon we’re in for a big storm.’

  Fifi did leave before visiting time was over when she saw the first spots of rain. But by the time she was halfway to the tube station the rain had turned heavy and her thin dress was soaked. When she got out at Kennington it was a deluge. She stood for a moment in the entrance to the station, watching the rain bouncing off the pavements and turning the gutters into gushing streams. There was no light in the sky at all, and it was all too obvious by the rumbling thunder that this was far more than a brief summer shower, so she had no choice but to run for home.

  The streets were completely deserted, cars slowing down to a crawl in the driving rain, and the pavements were slippery after the long dry spell. She was soaked to the skin and out of breath when she turned the corner into Dale Street and suddenly she slid on something and fell flat on her face.

  She banged one knee very hard, and jarred her hand and arm as she tried to break her fall. The shock made her cry out. She felt someone grab her arm to help her up, but her wet hair was all over her face and she didn’t know who it was until she heard his voice.

  ‘You shouldn’t be running like a mad thing in your condition,’ he said. ‘A drop of rain won’t ’urt you.’

  It was Alfie Muckle. As she brushed her hair back off her face she saw he was leering at her and she realized that her thin dress was stuck to her body and he’d probably seen right up to her knickers when she fell.

  She backed away from him instinctively.

  ‘Well, that’s nice,’ he said, his pale blue eyes travelling up and down her body. ‘Not a word of thanks that I helped you up!’

  ‘I didn’t mean to be rude,’ she said quickly. ‘I’m a bit shaken up, that’s all. Thank you.’

  ‘You’ll be all alone with the old man up the ’ospital,’ he said, moving closer and putting his hand on her elbow. ‘Come over to my place and I’ll fix your leg up.’

  From anyone else that offer would have touched her, for when she looked down she saw blood streaming from her knee. But coming from him it sounded menacing. ‘I’ll be fine,’ she said, moving away from him. ‘Thank you anyway.’

  She hobbled the rest of the way home, aware he was still standing under the shelter of the corner-shop blind watching her.

  Once indoors, her wet clothes stripped off and in her dressing-gown, Fifi found herself shivering with shock. Her right knee was badly grazed, as was the palm of her hand. All at once everything – Dan’s injuries, the visit to her mother, her fall, being touched by Alfie and the prospect of a night alone – blew up in her mind to astronomic proportions and she felt vulnerable and fearful.

  A loud clap of thunder, quickly followed by a flash of lightning, made her feel even more nervy, for she’d always been frightened by thunderstorms. She pulled the curtains shut and switched on a lamp and the television, but at each further clap of thunder she shook, and she could barely hear the television for the drumming of rain on the roof and windows.

  Cold, shaken and frightened, she went to bed. But the thunder seemed even louder there, and as darkness fell outside, each flash of lightning lit up the room. She burrowed under the covers and even put Dan’s pillow over
her head, but she could still hear the storm and she became more and more scared.

  As a child she had been terrified of storms, to the extent that sometimes her mother thought she was about to take a fit. She felt herself going that way again, for she was rigid with fear and struggling to breathe. She felt as if she was marooned in a high tower with the storm raging all around her, and that any moment the roof would come crashing in and she’d be killed.

  Through the paralysing fear, a memory of her father came to her. She saw herself as a small girl being held safe in his arms as he got her to watch the storm with him from the bedroom window. She remembered that watching what was happening outside wasn’t as frightening as imagining it, and often she fell asleep in her father’s arms.

  Although far from convinced it would work alone, she forced herself to get out of bed and wrap a blanket round herself. Then she pulled back the curtains.

  It wasn’t as black outside as she’d expected. Although the rain was very heavy, she could see a faint yellow glow from street lighting in the road behind Dale Street, and there were lights in many of the windows in the backs of the houses to remind her that there were people all around her.

  Another crash of thunder made her jump, but the lightning which quickly followed it lit up the darkness, and for a second or two the heavy rain looked golden and beautiful like sparks from a firework. At each successive flash of lightning Frank’s garden below was lit up, and she could even see the pink roses climbing over his shed.

  Her heart was racing and she felt sick, but remembering how her father used to reassure her that the storm was gradually moving away, she began to count from the clap of thunder until the lightning flashed. At first it came after two seconds, but the next was three, and by the time the gap was six and then seven seconds, her heartbeat was gradually slowing back to normal.

  Another crash came and she peered down at Frank’s shed again as she counted while awaiting the flash.

  It came on the count of ten, illuminating not just the shed but the wall at the end of the garden. There, standing on the wall, was a man looking up at her, his face as clear as if lit by bright sunshine. It was Alfie Muckle!