Chapter Thirteen

Peggy had beaten me to the bathroom. While I was being helpful and taking out the dishes she’d nipped upstairs and was now ensconced behind a firmly bolted door. I could hear the hot water gurgling and could smell Yardley soap and bath salts.

‘She’s got to make herself beautiful for her young man,’ said Mrs Brown equably. ‘She seems to be seeing a lot of him these days.’

‘That Lenny do you mean?’ asked Mr Brown over his copy of The News.

‘Yes. Such a nice young man.’

Mr Brown snorted. ‘Too bloody nice if you ask me,’ was all he said and went back to the paper.

‘Well he’s obviously making our Peg happy and that’s what’s important.’

‘Doesn’t seem very happy to me. Don’t know what’s got into the girl lately,’ said Mr Brown. He looked prepared to put down his paper and discuss it.

‘Oh, you know what girls are like, especially when they’re in love,’ said Mrs Brown, dismissing his concerns. She was busy putting her shopping away. Every time she took something out of her basket, she took the brown paper bag it was wrapped in, shook it out, folded it carefully and put it in the cupboard next to the range. The cupboard that smelt of polish, candles and mousetraps.

‘We don’t seem to see her smiling much any more. She’s normally a real smiler,’ Mr Brown persisted. But Mrs Brown had disappeared into the pantry.

‘Now Rosie,’ she said when she emerged. ‘We’re off early tomorrow morning. We’re going to a christening. What a journey it’s going to be. A train and two buses. So you two girls will have to fend for yourselves. There’s plenty of that rabbit pie left, and you can do yourself some potatoes with it. And mind our Peggy doesn’t leave you with all the pots to do.’

I just wished Peggy would hurry up. Phil had said he would probably call round and I wanted to be ready for him.

There was a click of the latch at the back door and Janice appeared to creep around it. Even by her normal small and scruffy standards she looked particularly woebegone.

‘Hello pet,’ said Mr Brown. ‘Why, what’s the matter with you? Lost a sixpence and found a ha’penny, have you?’

Janice came and stood next to the range, as if trying to absorb all its heat. Her hair looked lanker, her face paler and bleaker than usual. Her socks had fallen down her bony grubby legs, and her shoes were so scuffed and battered it was impossible to tell what colour they had been. She looked like a little brown animal seeking shelter.

‘They’ve taken our Kevin and Terry away.’

‘Away?’ Mrs Brown looked alarmed. ‘Where to?’

‘Parkfields.’

‘Ah.’

There was a long silence. The room that had seemed so warm and cosy now suddenly seemed chill.

‘Parkfields?’ I asked hesitantly.

‘The asylum,’ said Mrs Brown.

‘The mad house,’ said Janice.

I realised that they were talking about the huge Victorian mansion I’d passed while in the van with George one day. It had locked gates and a high wall. ‘How old are Kevin and Terry?’

‘Thirteen. They’re twins. They’re the ones that howl,’ said Janice simply, in explanation.

‘But that’s dreadful! They can’t take children to a place like that.’

‘They say my mum can’t cope any more.’ Janice was rubbing her hand round and round the lid on the range’s hot plate.

‘Well it’s been very hard for her,’ said Mrs Brown kindly. ‘I don’t know how she’s lasted that long with them. And with all the little ones as well.’

‘But Kevin and Terry are getting better!’ said Janice fiercely. ‘They can do jobs around the house. They can feed themselves and dress themselves and they dig the garden. They can do all sorts now!’

‘I know, pet. But they’re not little boys any more. They’re turning into young men, getting bigger all the time. It will be hard for your mother to cope with them. And your dad … well.’

‘Dad works very hard!’ said Janice defensively.

‘Yes he does. He can turn his hand to anything in all weathers. But because he’s out working so much, it’s hard for him to do much for them, isn’t it? And after the window …’

I looked enquiringly.

‘When Janice’s mother comes to clean at the post office, she has to leave the twins at home, so she locks them in their bedroom. A few weeks ago they got so angry that they smashed the window and tried to get out. They were terribly cut. Blood everywhere, ooh it was a real mess.’

‘That’s when the doctor said it had to end. That if we didn’t do something, they would kill each other, or Mum, or someone else. But they wouldn’t, I know they wouldn’t.’

I expected her to be in tears, but she was fierce and dry-eyed.

‘What exactly is the matter with them?’ I asked.

‘They’re not right in the head,’ said Mrs Brown, with great brevity but not a terrific amount of clinical accuracy. ‘Never have been. There’s a few like that in her father’s family.’ While she’d been talking she’d been making a pot of tea and now she poured a cup for Janice, who took it and scuttled back to the shelter of the range.

‘It’s for the best. It really is,’ said Mrs Brown kindly. ‘They’ll be looked after there by people who are used to dealing with them. They’ll have those nice big grounds to be in. They can play cowboys there. They like that, don’t they?’

Janice nodded.

‘And your mother will be able to spend more time on the rest of you, won’t she? There’ll be more time and space for them too. You’ll still have four brothers at home and that’s more than enough! They’re all shooting up and wanting to be fed and clothed. Your mother will have her hands full enough. It’s for the best.’

‘Tell you what,’ said Mr Brown, ‘why don’t we find some polish and clean those shoes for you? You’re such a smart little thing, let’s look smart on the outside too.’

Janice pushed her shabby shoes off and almost hid behind the cup of tea. I tried to imagine those thirteen-year-olds in that institution, and hoped that Janice was comforted by the Browns’ kindness.

Into the gloomy silence came a cheery yell from upstairs. ‘Bathroom’s free!’

I went up and was almost knocked over by the smell of bath salts, talc, and the scented soap that Peggy had used in abundance. Lenny didn’t know how lucky he was that night. I stayed upstairs until I heard him arrive to call for Peggy. I thought it best, really, that I didn’t see him. I didn’t want to upset him.

When I went downstairs, Janice had gone.

‘Best thing that those boys are going to Parkfields,’ said Mrs Brown again. ‘How that woman’s managed all these years I’ve no idea. That husband of hers – well, he’s a worker I suppose, but he hasn’t got much up top either. All he’s good at is making babies. And look where that’s got him. And the house! Well, she does her best. But there’s no money, and what she does manage to do, those twins wreck.’

‘What are the other children like?’

‘Well, they’re normal enough I suppose, as far as you can tell, because they’re only young. But they’re not going to set the world on fire. No, little Janice has got all the brains in that family. Pity really that the only girl should be the clever one. It would have been much better if one of the boys had had the brains. They could have done something with them then.’

‘Little Janice might. She’s very bright,’ said Mr Brown peaceably.

‘Yes, well, that’s all very well, but then she’ll only go and get married and have babies like her mother’s done. A boy could really make something of himself.’

I was just drawing breath to leap in and slice this argument to pieces when the doorbell rang again. ‘That’ll be your young man, Rosie,’ said Mr Brown. ‘Aren’t our girls popular tonight? You get your coat, I’ll let him in.’

I swallowed hard and just contented myself by saying pleasantly to Mrs Brown, ‘And I’m sure Janice will make something of herself too,’ then I went to the hall where Phil was standing shyly.

‘I’ve got the bike, I thought we’d go out into the country,’ he said. ‘A pub perhaps?’

‘Great idea,’ I said as we went outside. I clambered on the back of the bike. I didn’t feel quite as nervous as before without a crash helmet, but I did still feel a bit vulnerable. I put my arms around Phil’s waist, companionably I didn’t long to cling to him and get as close as I could, not the way I had with Billy. We went up into the hills that surrounded the town. The road was narrow, not much more than a track in places, as we got higher into the hills. Then we were going along a ridgeway, looking down at the valley below. We came to a row of houses – you couldn’t really call it a village – and Phil stopped in front of a small pub with a bench outside.

‘Cider?’ he asked, taking off his big leather gauntlets.

‘Yes please. Can we sit out here?’

‘Of course. I thought you’d like the view.’

It was terrific. You could see for miles. I was trying to place the village we were in on the modern map that existed only in my mind and memory. It was on the edge of my consciousness somehow. I couldn’t quite reach it.

‘Here you are,’ said Phil, coming back with the drinks, which he placed on the rickety table, a table that clearly lived outside all winter and in all weathers.

‘Thanks.’ I took a mouthful of cider, still gazing at the view – the ridgeway, the sharply sloping hill, the town in a sort of bowl at the bottom …

‘It’s the motorway!’ I said suddenly. Phil was looking at me over his pint. ‘Sorry What did you say?’ he asked, looking puzzled.

‘Oh nothing, nothing at all,’ I said quickly and confused. ‘I was just admiring the view.’

What I wanted to say was that I recognised it because I always came back this way from seeing my parents. You come across the view suddenly, just past the Long Edge Services, so it sort of hits you – I always know that I’m nearly home, nearly back with Will. But here there was no motorway. Just a country road, and a cluster of cottages, and the baaing of sheep, sounding louder now the light was beginning to fade.

‘What’s this village called?’

‘Long Edge,’ said Phil.

I sipped my cider and looked at the view, relished the silence and peace of it. I thought of the narrow road overlaid by the six-lane motorway. This little pub is somewhere under the service station now, all flashing yellow-and-red neon signs and constant traffic and noise and people. It was a hard idea to get my head around.

‘Penny for them,’ said Phil, smiling.

‘What do you think this place will look like in fifty years?’ I asked him.

‘Probably much the same as it does now,’ said Phil. ‘It hasn’t changed much in the last thousand years, so can’t see fifty making much difference.’ He lit a cigarette as though that ended the matter.

‘I liked your story about the dog that caught the train,’ he said. I’d done a shaggy dog story about a dog that hopped on a train every day to meet his master coming from work. It was a bit daft.

‘Billy reckons you’ve got a really nice touch with light stories – as well as the big stuff like the Littlejohn piece. He thinks highly of you.’

I wanted to punch the air with glee. I was glad the light was fading so Phil couldn’t see me blush, or see the eagerness in my face. Trying to keep the conversation about Will going would be the next best thing to being with him. I wanted to talk about him, find out more of what he was like at work, what Phil knew about Carol and the family. I was trying to frame ways of asking questions without seeming unreasonably interested, but Phil was telling stories about stories, the way newspaper people always do when they get together.

We had another drink or two and talked in easy, friendly fashion about work. All the time I was thinking about Will.

Finally it was dark. We still sat there on the bench outside the pub, with the sound of the sheep, and the muffled buzz of conversation and clatter of dominoes from the few old men inside. Phil put his arm around me and then he kissed me. Not passionately, but nicely. I was a bit shocked. Not because it was Phil – but because it wasn’t Will. Surprised really.

And I kissed him back, a bit absent-mindedly, but quite nicely, politely. And we got on the bike and rode down the hill into the deep darkness, with just a few pinpoints of light from the occasional house. And I thought about all the lights and the gantries on the motorway and it was a bit odd really.

When we got back to the Browns’ house, I hopped off the bike and gave Phil a swift kiss on the cheek before he could get the bike propped up and get me into a clinch.

‘Thank you for a nice evening, Phil,’ I said, and went quickly into the house and upstairs to bed where I could devote myself to thinking about Will without any distractions.

Just before I drifted off to sleep I wondered briefly about Peggy’s big night with Lenny.

As I lay in bed on Sunday morning I could hear the Browns getting ready for their day out. The rattle as they cleared the fire. The back door banging and the stamping of feet as they took ashes out and brought coal and sticks in. Familiar morning sounds now. They were making an early start for their complicated journey. They seemed to be pottering on for ages until finally I heard the front door close and their footsteps receding along the quiet Sunday street.

Once they’d gone, I made a pot of tea and sat at the kitchen table reading Mr Brown’s Sunday Pictorial, a real scandal sheet, but still with a surprising amount of news in it. What bliss. No thought of church, or of peeling vast amounts of vegetables for lunch, or anything. Nothing to do at all. I finished reading the Sunday Pictorial. Had a second cup of tea. Sambo, for lack of anyone else, leapt up gracefully and settled down on my lap. I stroked him absently.

Now what?

I was restless and didn’t know what to do. I had no friends to meet, apart from Phil, and he’d be having a lazy day because he was back on night shift tonight. Anyway, I didn’t want the poor chap to get the wrong idea by appearing too keen. I liked him too much for that. It was Will, of course, I wanted. But …

I decided I’d go for a walk, use up some energy. I put on my little red jacket, scribbled a note for Peggy and set out. I meandered through the town and found the path alongside the river. It was a pleasant walk, with that scent of spring in the air, still chilly but suddenly warm in the sun. I was enjoying walking. I noticed that I had much more energy than I had in my normal life. Getting more sleep helped, I suppose. And not drinking so much. There had to be some benefits.

I had no idea where I was going and I was trying to superimpose my route on the mental map of the modern town I knew, but I couldn’t marry the two. I walked on, glad to have an outlet for my restlessness. And then I laughed. Instinct was an amazing thing.

Somehow I had walked around the town until I was on the opposite side of the river from Billy’s house. There it was, at the bottom of that narrow lane, perched on the river bank, with the long garden stretching up behind it. I walked up some steps to a bench in the shelter of the old town wall where I could sit and look across. From here the neat rows of vegetables just beginning to come through had all the organisation and formality of a medieval garden. There was an intricate pattern of paths and squares. It reminded me of those Victorian samplers, neat, ordered.

Two small figures were running around the lower part of the garden. Peter and Davy, I guessed, chasing a ball. Then I saw Billy. He was coming down the path, carrying some sort of rake or hoe or something. He propped it up by the shed, then, wiping his hands on the seat of his trousers, he intercepted the ball. The two boys’ delighted yells of mock indignation floated across the river. I wasn’t the only one watching them. Another figure carrying a tray was coming up the steps. It was Carol who stood watching them all, while a tiny figure, Libby, clung to her skirts. One of the boys mis-kicked the ball and it headed straight for their mother. I waited, tensed for the tray to crash, but no, Carol had sidestepped neatly and then kicked the ball back towards the boys. She put the tray down somewhere just out of sight and they all gathered around her as she seemed to be dishing out drinks and biscuits.

It was a tiny snippet of family life. The sort of thing happening in hundreds of back gardens all over Britain. Nothing special at all. And it broke my heart.

They were a family, enclosed, happy together. And I was on the outside. I had no place with them. Watching them I was like a voyeur, watching people who had something I wanted so badly, something I couldn’t manage on my own.

I stayed there, watching and immobile, while they finished their elevenses. I saw Billy put a cup back on the tray and walk back up the garden to carry on with his work. I watched him as he picked up a spade and dug a small patch. It must have been hard work, but he worked quickly and easily in a smooth steady rhythm. I just stared at the sheer physi-cality of him.

This was an aspect of Will I had never seen. I had never, I realised, seen him do any physical work. Sport, yes, but not work. Billy seemed to spend much of his time doing practical useful things for his family. Will just seemed to amuse himself.

Then the two boys were having a pretend fight. Billy called something to them. He must have sent them on an errand because they came back with a bundle of long sticks and a ball of string. Billy stopped what he was doing and came over. He divided the sticks into smaller bundles, cut up the string and tied the sticks together. He was doing it slowly, obviously explaining to the boys what he was doing. They stood and watched, then they too tried the trick and Billy guided them, helped them. Then with great triumph, they put the bundles of sticks upright and spread them out and I saw that they had made two perfect sort of tent frames, tepee-shaped, which they set up in the vegetable patch. Presumably they were a framework for some vegetable to grow up. They boys looked pleased with what they had done and Davy ran back down the path, dragging Carol back up to see.

As they admired the boys’ handiwork Billy and Carol stood close together. He casually put an arm around her shoulder and she looked up at him. I couldn’t see their expressions, but I knew they must be smiling at the newly found skills of their children. I couldn’t watch any more.

My hands had gone numb while I’d been watching, trying to get as close as I could to that little family scene.

My fingers were white and bloodless and scratched from the splintered wood of the bench. I liked the chilly numbness. It seemed right and fitting. It was how I wanted my mind to be, my emotions too.

How could I still want Will when he so clearly was happy with someone else? Will and I could never be together in this bloody awful place at this bloody awful time.

I hated myself and I hated what was happening to me. This challenge was too real, too painful. I remembered dimly the time when I had thought that it was meant to be a television programme. But that seemed like a dream now. All my other life did. I had to concentrate hard to remember it. Reality was here and now. Caz and Will, Carol and Billy. My two best friends, leaving me out and alone.

I jumped up from the bench and down the steps, landed awkwardly on the river path below. I sat there for a moment, just wanting to cry. I’d grazed my hands and knees and twisted my ankle. But I didn’t care. That wasn’t important.

I had thought that as soon as Will saw me again, he would want me and just come to me. It had seemed so simple, so obvious. Will and I loved each other. Surely we were meant to be together. So how could he not want me here as he did in our own time?

Yet maybe he did. I remembered the way he looked at me sometimes, the way our eyes met, the way he had held me after the evening at Littlejohn’s … Oh yes, Billy was attracted to me.

But he wasn’t going to do anything about it, was he? Will might have no one else in his life but me, Will and I might be free to wonder whether we wanted to be together. But Billy and I didn’t have that choice. Billy had already chosen, chosen Carol. Now he had a wife and family, and there was no way I could fit into his plans.

I hobbled home, almost glad of the pain in my ankle.

By the time I got back to the house I was in a dreadful state and close to tears. There was blood streaming from my hand and my trousers were ripped. I headed straight up to the bathroom. I needed to bathe my cuts, find some other clothes and just sort myself out. I went upstairs, hanging on to the banister and hauling myself up as my ankle was quite painful now.

I paused, frozen, at the top of the stairs. There was someone in my bedroom.

It sounded as if someone was opening all the dressing-table drawers. I could hear a drawer being opened and someone going through my things. Then another drawer opened …

Burglars. It had to be. Well, there wasn’t much for them to steal from my room. But what should I do?

There was a phone downstairs in the hall below me. If I could get down quietly, I might be able to dial 999. But what if the burglar heard me?

I started inching quietly back down the stairs, wincing as I put weight on my rapidly swelling ankle. Then I heard another noise. It was a sort of whimper and a sob. And a familiar voice said, ‘Oh where are they?’ in a voice reeking of tears and desperation.

‘Peggy?’ I asked tentatively, hauling myself back up on to the landing. ‘Peggy, is that you?’

The noise in my room stopped completely. I knew that on the other side of the door Peggy had frozen at the sound of my voice.

I limped along and pushed the bedroom door open.

There was devastation. All the drawers and the wardrobe were half open with a lot of stuff obviously just taken out and flung to one side. I didn’t think I had much, but when I saw it scattered like that, I realised there was quite a lot really. And my handbag had been emptied out on the shiny, slippery green eiderdown.

Peggy was sitting on the bed now. Her face was swollen and blotchy, her eyes red. She looked dreadful.

‘Peggy? What on earth are you doing?’ I limped towards her.

‘Where are they?’ she demanded. ‘Where do you keep them?’ Honestly, she seemed mad.

I answered warily. ‘Keep what?’ I had absolutely no idea of what she was on about, but she was clearly in such a state I didn’t dare upset her any more.

‘The pills. Those tablets you told me you had to stop you having babies.’

‘Tablets? Babies?’

I remembered our conversation at the kitchen table, the one that her mother had cut so vehemently short.

‘Oh Peggy, I haven’t got them with me. Anyway, you have to take them to prevent you getting pregnant. Though, of course, there’s always the Morning After pill …’

Ah. Suddenly it all became clear. ‘Peggy, do you think you might be pregnant?’

And with that she howled. A dreadful, stomach-chilling howl of misery and desperation. ‘Don’t say it!’ she shrieked at me. ‘Don’t say it!’

‘Hey,’ I said, as gently as I could. ‘It’s not that bad. It’s not the end of the world …’

‘What do you know about it?’ she screamed at me. ‘It’s not you, is it?’

She flung herself face down on the bed, sobbing hysterically. ‘I don’t know what I’ll do.’

Gingerly, I put out a hand and stroked her shoulder as she snivelled into my eiderdown. The sobs continued. I handed her one of my little lace-edged handkerchiefs that she had flung out of the drawer and onto the floor.

‘I haven’t got the pills with me. And even if I had, they’re no good to you,’ I said as gently as I could. ‘How far gone are you?’

‘I’ve missed one of my monthlies,’ she said, not looking at me, ‘and the other was due yesterday and it hasn’t, it hasn’t …’ She started crying again.

‘There’s still time for an abortion, just.’

Suddenly I remembered the steamy bathroom, the smell of booze. I’ve seen Alfie and Vera Drake. I knew what went on.

‘So is that what you were trying that afternoon? Hot bath and gin – you were trying to get rid of the baby, weren’t you?’

She nodded. ‘I didn’t know what else to do. But it didn’t work. Nothing happened,’ she sobbed. ‘I don’t know who to ask about … well, you know. I’ve heard there’s someone who can arrange things. But I don’t know who she is. And I’m scared.’ She stared at me, panic in her eyes. I certainly believed her about being scared.

Oh God, it was years before abortion would be legal. What a mess.

Peggy was gazing at me in desperation. ‘Don’t you know anybody? You seem to be … well … as though it’s the sort of thing you would know.’

‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Can’t help.’ And before she could start howling again I asked, ‘So, um, what about the father? Does he know? How does he feel about it?’

‘He can’t do anything!’ snapped Peggy. ‘Nothing! It’s hopeless.’

She looked up at me, her face utterly bereft.

‘He’s married,’ she said simply.

‘Oh.’

I remembered the proud smile, the way she smirked at the editor, the country bus to Middleton Parva … ‘Oh God, Peggy, It’s not Mr Henfield is it?’

She sniffed a bit and then nodded.

‘Have you told him?’

She nodded.

‘What did he say?’

‘He said I was panicking. That it was a false alarm. That I was just late. And I hoped … I thought he might be right. He said women always panicked and I’d soon find out I was panicking over nothing. I thought he knew about these things. After all, he’s married. And anyway,’ she sniffed, ‘I wanted to believe him.’ She had screwed the little lace-edged hanky into a knot between her fingers.

‘How on earth have you managed to work for him still?’

‘He’s hardly there. He hasn’t been coming in much. And when he has, he just pretends it’s all as normal. We always did in the office, in case anyone noticed …’

‘Could it be a false alarm?’

‘I don’t think so. I’m ever so regular normally.’

‘Then why …?’ I was getting really confused here. ‘If you were still trying to talk to Henfield about it, why were you so keen to go out with Lenny?’

She looked at me and turned my little hanky around and around in her hands with such force that I thought it would rip apart.

‘Richard’s married isn’t he?’ she hiccuped. ‘I knew he couldn’t marry me, so I thought …’

‘So you thought Lenny might. Is that it?’

She nodded.

‘But don’t you realise …?’

She clearly didn’t realise where Lenny’s sexual preferences lay, and I didn’t know how to begin to explain.

‘I thought … I thought if Lenny and I, well, you know, if Lenny and I did it, did it, then maybe …’

‘Then maybe you could get him to marry you?’

She sniffed and nodded.

‘Oh God, Peggy, you weren’t going to have sex with him and then try and fool him that the baby was his, were you?’

She howled again.

‘I guess that’s a yes, then. But it didn’t work, did it?’

‘No. Lenny, well, he, well almost ran away from me. He said there was no point in us seeing each other again. That it was all over.’

And suddenly I felt a bit responsible. Well, very responsible. I’d opened my big mouth and talked to Lenny as if he were Leo, rabbiting on about him and Jake being together. If homosexuality was still illegal then you could see why he wouldn’t want that news spread around the office too widely. What better way to quash any rumours than by getting himself a girlfriend? Pretty damn quickly. And there was Peggy, desperately on the hunt for a man, any man …

If I hadn’t said anything, Lenny wouldn’t have needed a sort of cover by going out with Peggy in the first place. Then she wouldn’t have got ideas, and … oh God what had I started?

Peggy was studying the pattern in the shiny green eiderdown while she tried to explain. ‘I tried to, well, you know, coax him … but he didn’t … he wouldn’t … he just said … he just said it wasn’t going to work and there was no point. And then he went. He couldn’t get away fast enough. It was dreadful.’

‘Poor girl. Poor, poor girl,’ I said. It was all so desperate that the image of Peggy trying to seduce Lenny and get him into bed with her didn’t even raise the ghost of a smile. It was a pretty shitty mess.

‘Richard won’t leave his wife. He says he can’t. They have a daughter.’

‘Well OK, so might you soon. And what about supporting you? If you have this baby …’

‘I can’t have it! I can’t!’

‘Shh now, shh.’ I put my arm around her. ‘Worst case scenario says you have this baby. And that’s not such a bad case is it? A little baby?’

‘My mother will kill me!’

She looked really seriously frightened. And I must admit, I wouldn’t have relished facing Mrs Brown with that particular bit of good news myself, to be honest.

‘OK, I know your mum can be a dragon. But deep down you know she’s really kind. Think of how she looks out for Janice and her family. She’s got a really good heart.’

Peggy gave me a stunned sort of look.

‘And I know it would be a shock to her, when you first tell her. It’s bound to be. But I’m sure she’ll get used to the idea. I’m sure she’ll be great.’

Peggy was crying again. Time to get off that tack, I thought.

‘Look, if Henfield’s the father then he has to support you. It’s his baby as much as yours. Even if he stays with his wife, he should give you enough money to live. He can’t get away with it, but you’ve got to tell your parents. You must do that. Apart from anything else, you need to look after yourself, go to clinics, check-ups, that sort of thing.’

I wasn’t too clear on the details of ante-natal health but I knew you had to keep getting MOT type things.

‘I just want to die.’ Peggy flung herself back down on the eiderdown.

‘No you don’t. What you want is to be well and happy and have your baby. Really, you do. Honestly, lots of women do it where I come from. They have babies all on their own, no man around, and it works. They and their babies are happy and healthy.’

I closed my mind to the Daily Mail type statistics here for a moment.

‘It can be done. Honestly. No one minds. There’s no stigma. Just wait, in a year or two, no one will take any notice.’

And so I went on. We sat there for another hour or more as I extolled the joys of single motherhood. I don’t think she was persuaded but she stopped howling and did seem to be listening. I raked up every example I could think of, friends who had babies on their own, friends who were the babies of single mothers.

Finally she stopped crying, calmed down and we reached some sort of decision. We decided that the next day she would tackle Henfield and persuade him into doing something for the child. And then, armed with that bit of provision, Peggy would come home and tell her parents. Her face still filled with fear at the thought, but I didn’t know what else I could do.

‘Don’t worry,’ I said, still trying to be soothing, ‘I’ll be there for you.’

But this sent Peggy straight back into a panic. ‘Where will you be? When will you be there?’ she asked, agitated. ‘What will you do?’

‘I’ll help you all I can,’ I said. I tried to move and realised my leg had seized up.

‘It’s no good,’ I said. ‘I’m going to have to do something about these cuts and this ankle.’

‘Oh I’m sorry,’ sniffed Peggy. ‘You should have done that first instead of listening to me.’

‘That’s all right,’ I said, not wishing to provoke another flood of tears. ‘Now why don’t you go and have a wash and then get that pie out of the pantry and warmed up. You need to eat, and in any case, your mother will only play hell if she comes home and we haven’t eaten it.’

Peggy nodded and dutifully went off to the bathroom. When she’d gone downstairs, I too hobbled off there and tried to clean myself up. I realised as I sat on the edge of the bath, holding my ankle under the icy water from the cold tap, that all the time I’d been talking to Peggy, I hadn’t given Will a thought. Only for an hour or two admittedly, but the longest I’d gone without thinking of him since I’d been here.