Charity (25 page)

At the sound of feet on the stairs, she reached out for her coat, anxious to avoid any confrontation. But suddenly Joan was coming through the door, followed by Sue and Denise, and she knew from their faces it meant trouble.

‘Leaving, are we?’ Joan asked in a nasty tone, folding her arms across her chest, flanked by her sidekicks.

Joan was big with wide, masculine shoulders. As always, she wore men’s jeans and a skinny rib red sweater that showed off her big bust. As she stood there she tapped the lino with the tip of her long black winklepickers.

‘Tomorrow.’ Charity tried to smile, but she was scared. ‘I’m just going round to clean the room, it’s filthy.’

The other two girls were known troublemakers too. Sue was a gangly simple-minded girl, with bad skin and lank, greasy brown hair.

Denise was a small bleached blonde, one of the girls who went with men for money. She was clearly dressed ready to go out in a skin-tight white pencil skirt and short boxy navy jacket, her hair done up in a beehive.

‘Lady Muck!’ She gave one of her hysterical giggles. ‘Even Buck ‘ouse wouldn’t suit you.’

Charity noticed the oddest things about the girls. Denise’s suspenders sticking through her tight skirt, a yellow-headed spot on Sue’s chin and a huge love bite on Joan’s neck.

Joan sauntered over, the cigarette dangling from her lips. She put one hand on Charity’s bag. ‘You ain’t nicked nuffin, ’ave you?’

‘Of course not!’ Charity backed away.

‘Well let’s just check, shall we?’ Joan flipped the bag up and over, tipping the contents out on her bed.

Sue leapt forward like a hyena, big rough hands picking up Charity’s underwear.

‘Look at ’er fancy knickers!’ she taunted, holding up a pair of dainty briefs. ‘No skid marks in those. Bet her shit even smells like fuckin’ roses.’

‘Please don’t,’ Charity begged them. ‘I must get going.’

‘Oh you must, must you!’ Joan leapt forward before Charity had a chance to move away, handing her cigarette to Denise. ‘You fuckin’ poncey cow. You think you’re better than all of us, don’t you?’

She got Charity by the throat, her big hands squeezing her windpipe. Charity could feel her eyes popping almost out of her head and she desperately clutched the girl’s arms.

‘You think you’re so pretty, don’t you?’ Denise came forward, braver now her big friend had Charity in a stranglehold. Her small sharp features were alight with spite. ‘Well I’m going to cut off your bloody hair and mark your face.’

Charity had lived with people making fun of her all her childhood and had learned at an early age just to laugh it off. But she couldn’t laugh now. These three girls with their evil, grinning faces were like something from her worst nightmares.

She screamed, but a blow on her cheek silenced her momentarily. She didn’t see it come, just a flash of fist and the impact of bone on bone. It threw her back against the door, slamming it behind her.

‘Shut up, you evil little slag,’ Joan commanded. ‘Bring those scissors here, Sue!’

‘No!’ Charity yelled. ‘No, please don’t!’

Denise came forward to hold her head as Sue danced from one foot to the other like a mad thing.

‘No, please don’t,’ Sue mimicked. ‘Go on Joan, cut it off, the lot of it.’

Hank after hank came away in Joan’s hand.

Charity screamed again, her arms flailing around, trying frantically to protect herself.

At last she heard running footsteps on the stairs, and someone pushing against the door. Joan took a step back, the scissors still in her hand.

Charity moved to let the person in, still screaming in terror, but Joan ran at her, the scissors pointing right at her face.

Covering it was a reflex, but as the door burst open, taking her with it, Joan made a final lunge and the point of the scissors went right through her fingers into her cheek.

‘What’s going on?’ Miss Gullick shouted.

Blood was running through Charity’s fingers and dripping down her hands but she didn’t dare remove them from her face for fear of what had been done to her. She was aware that other girls had come in, and someone put a comforting arm round her shoulders.

‘Ring the police,’ Miss Gullick ordered. ‘You, Pat! Don’t just stand there.’

Charity slowly lowered her hands. Miss Gullick had Joan pushed back on to a bed and was restraining her by sitting on her. Sue stood over by the window smirking, Denise bent over the end of Charity’s bed shoving the clothes back into the bag as if her life depended on it. Five or six other girls were elbowing their way into the room, faces alight with curiosity.

‘Look what they’ve done to her lovely hair,’ a voice piped up.

Tears came then. Charity saw the hanks of hair, white gold on the dark brown lino, and felt with horror the shorn stumps on one side of her head. Her face stung, not just from the cut, but from the punch before it. She didn’t have to look to know she would have a black eye by the morning. But it wasn’t spoiled looks that made her cry, it was a feeling of utter desolation.

She was pregnant, Hugh didn’t want her, and now this!

*

She wouldn’t stay the night, even though the police who came begged her to. She let them bathe her face, but she insisted on going to her new room, even if there would be no sheets or blankets.

‘You can’t stay here, it’s filthy,’ said the policewoman who had come up the stairs with her at King Street.

Charity looked round at the woman’s sympathetic face.

‘It’s not as filthy as Greystones,’ she retorted. ‘But if you’re really worried about me, you could go along to Bell’s dining room four doors down and explain. My boss Marjorie has some sheets and blankets for me and a box of cleaning things I bought today. She’ll give them to you.’

The policewoman came back ten minutes later with Martin carrying the stuff.

He took one look at Charity’s face and hair, put down the pile on the bed and held out his arms.

‘That place ought to be closed down.’ He shook his head in shock as Charity leaned against him. ‘And that woman who runs it should be locked up for not warning you it was a hostel for disturbed girls.’

Martin tried to make her go home with him, but Charity would have none of it.

‘This is my home now,’ she said, needing to hold on to her last vestiges of pride. ‘When I lock that door no one can hurt me, or steal from me. It’s kind of you to offer but this is where I stay.’

It was after eleven when she finally got to bed. The room smelt of bleach and cleaning fluid and it was as bare and comfortless as a monk’s cell.

She had only a tiny handbag mirror in her bag, but it was big enough for her to see her face was a mess. The cut was deep, though small, and it would probably leave a scar. The other cheek was swollen, the eye above it half closed and turning black. Thumbprints on her neck were clearly visible, but it was her hair that concerned her most. On the right side of her face it was cut jagged right up past her ear and there was no alternative but to have it cut short all round.

She was exhausted now, shaking with delayed shock and the punishing cleaning she’d forced herself to do. But the sheets and blankets were clean and aired, and the new mattress was softer than the one at Greystones.

‘Why, Hugh?’ for the millionth time she asked herself. ‘What did I do wrong?’

Chapter Twelve

‘A bit further to the left.’ Marjorie stood back while Charity reached up on the stepladder to pin a gold foil ball to the ceiling. ‘That’s perfect. Make certain it’s fixed, we don’t want it falling into someone’s dinner.’

It was the beginning of December and the restaurant was closed for a couple of hours in the afternoon while they put up the decorations. A big box on the floor was spilling over with paper garlands, tinsel and damaged Chinese lanterns, the tables were stacked in pairs to make more room, and draped over some of them were plastic snowmen and Father Christmases which Marjorie was attempting to sort out.

‘So many of these are broken,’ Marjorie sighed. ‘Every year we say we’ll buy new ones for next year, and each December we find we’ve forgotten once again. Remind me, Charity, to throw this lot out when they come down.’

Charity smiled down at her employer.

‘Well throw all the bad ones away now,’ she suggested, pointing to one of the snowmen. ‘He’s only got half a hat for a start and those lanterns are so decrepit no one would even pinch them if you left them outside the door.’

‘It’s memories, you see,’ Martin chimed in as he struggled to stand the tree in the window. ‘We got those lanterns when we first got married. Did up our one room like a little grotto, didn’t we sweetheart?’

Charity knew exactly what Martin meant. Each one of these decorations had reminded her of past Christmases. Making paper chains with Toby and Prue, arranging the Nativity scene that father brought out of the attic every year. Decorating Babylon Hall with some of the parishioners and putting the special Christmas cloth over the altar.

This year there would be no children to watch opening stockings. Lou and Geoff would be alone with James; Toby and Prue sitting at the big dining table at Studley Priory. Would they talk about her? Did they feel the same sense of loss she did?

Marjorie heard her husband’s remark about their old memories but she didn’t respond. She was looking at Charity up on the stepladder. A light caught her sideways on, and to her surprise she could see a pot belly.

‘You’re putting on weight, my girl,’ Marjorie exclaimed.

‘Don’t be so personal,’ Martin chuckled. The tree just wouldn’t stand up, however hard he ground it into the bucket of sand. ‘It’s my fault, I’m always pushing food on to her.’

Marjorie opened her mouth to apologise for being so blunt, but her words were halted by the expression on Charity’s face. Not embarrassment, but fear!

‘You’d better check the fairy lights, dear.’ Marjorie turned to her husband and away from Charity. She could feel a blush spreading over her pale face and suddenly she understood everything.

The night when the police came in to tell them Charity had been attacked had been a turning point in the relationship between the three of them. Staff came and went, rarely putting much effort into the job; they could be sly, dishonest and most were plain lazy. The Bells had never felt involved with anyone before, but when Charity came in on time that next morning with a sticking plaster over her cheek, and makeup over her black eye, their hearts went out to her for her courage and singlemindedness.

They packed her off to the hairdresser’s to get her hair sorted out, let her work behind the scenes until her face returned to normal and encouraged her to put the nasty experience behind her.

Since then Charity had told them bits of the events that led up to her arrival in Hammersmith. It came out that she and her brothers and sister were orphaned and their uncle had become their guardian. Later she admitted her distress that she wasn’t allowed to see the children. She had never explained why she left the public school she worked in, or why she ended up in Greystones House, but Marjorie was sure there was a boy at the bottom of it.

She didn’t complain about anything. She worked hard and cheerfully, painted her room to make it as pretty and cosy as possible, but Marjorie often wondered why such an attractive girl had no friends. Now that Marjorie had spotted that tummy everything fell into place. The drawn, anxious look on the girl’s face, the way she rarely spent any money, and the way she never spoke of the future.

‘Give us a hand folding these serviettes,’ Marjorie said. She sat down at a table with a pile in front of her, nodding at Martin to make himself scarce. He had finally got the tree upright, wedged between two bricks, and the fairy lights flashed cheerily, reflecting off the decorations.

Charity sat down opposite Marjorie and began folding the serviettes in triangles. ‘I could make some table decorations for the evening,’ she suggested. ‘A candlestick in plasticine with a bit of holly and glitter. I did some at the school last year.’

‘That would be nice.’ Marjorie looked up at Charity and knew she had to tackle her now.

It was obvious, really; she didn’t understand why she hadn’t realised sooner. Charity’s face was plumper, with a rosy glow about it, and her breasts were bigger too. Of course the new haircut had altered her a great deal. Maybe that was what had distracted her.

The short feather cut emphasised her dainty small features and focused on her big blue eyes. She looked like an elf with all those little tendrils round her face. At a casual glance it was nothing more than a few gained pounds, but Marjorie was certain she was right.

‘Are you pregnant, Charity?’ she said in a low voice.

Charity looked up quickly, fear widening her blue eyes.

‘It’s all right. I’m not asking because I intend to sack you or anything like that,’ Marjorie reassured her. ‘But if you are, you need help, and quickly.’

Charity had wanted to tell Marjorie so many times. Alone in her room at night she worked out what she would say, but the next morning she found she couldn’t. Day by day as she felt her tummy getting bigger she became more scared, but now with Marjorie looking at her in sympathy she felt nothing but relief.

‘Yes. I wanted to tell you before, but I didn’t know how to,’ she admitted, trying hard not to cry.

She had come to like and respect Martin and Marjorie. They were hard-working people. Almost always cheerful, sincere and fair, they had built up a good trade by treating every customer as if he or she were important. The time was right to reveal everything now.

Charity told Marjorie everything: how she had met Hugh, and the summer holiday at the cottage.

‘When he wrote and said he’d had second thoughts I wanted to die.’

‘But you didn’t,’ Marjorie pointed out. ‘And you’ll get through this because you’re brave and sensible. But you can’t just ignore what’s happening.’

‘Do you know anything about abortions?’ Charity whispered.

Marjorie looked shocked.

‘Not much, love, but I know you’re too far gone to even consider that.’

Charity’s lips trembled.

‘Come on, love,’ Marjorie wheedled. ‘You couldn’t have gone through that anyway. What about writing to Hugh again and telling him how things are?’