The Elephant Girl(25)

‘Yeah,’ mumbled Charlie with a far-away look in her eyes.

‘And what about Fay?’ said Helen.

‘Fay’s a good person. Believe me, if she could wave a magic wand and turn back the clock, she would. She suffers daily. She just doesn’t show it. Anyway, what do you know about what Fay’s done? She hardly ever talks about it.’

‘Nothing, really.’

‘I care about the people here,’ said Charlie, chewing her thumbnail. ‘That goes for Lee as well, but he’s just too bloody stupid for his own good. He never learns. He’s been in and out of prison like a yo-yo. The time he’s lived here is the longest he’s been straight, but I don’t expect it to last. With a face and a body like his there’s so much more he could do with his life, and this is as far as his imagination stretches? That really gets to me!’

‘Yes, I can see that.’

Charlie stopped gnawing on her finger and laughed. ‘I’m glad you moved in. I haven’t had a real friend in years.’

A warm feeling fanned out inside Helen’s chest. Me neither, she thought. Smiling back, she was about to say something when the kitchen door opened. She tensed, and so did Charlie, but Charlie relaxed when she saw it was Fay. Helen didn’t.

‘There’s tea in the pot,’ said Charlie.

‘Ta.’ Fay was wearing a threadbare towelling dressing gown, and her grey hair lay flat against her skull. Her hand shook as she poured.

‘Bad night?’ asked Charlie.

Fay nodded.

‘Helen’s got a job interview.’

Fay’s face lit up with a genuine smile. ‘Already? That’s great! Good luck and all that.’

She put her hand on Helen’s shoulder and gave it a little squeeze. Helen stiffened, and Fay immediately withdrew her hand as if she’d been stung.

Helen got up, pretending this hadn’t happened. ‘I’d better go.’

Ransome & Daughters was situated near Berkeley Square, in a four-storey town house with arched windows and the company’s name in gold lettering. Facing the green-painted façade, Helen knew immediately that she must have been here before, yet couldn’t quite remember it.

But there was nothing for it.

In the foyer she approached the receptionist who sat behind an imposing walnut desk. The woman ran a lacquered fingernail down a clipboard list and tapped it audibly. ‘Oh, yes, here we are. Meeting with Ms Walcott at ten. Please take a seat. I’ll send for someone to take you upstairs.’

Helen sat down on an imitation Regency style sofa – or was it the real thing? – and looked around her. The foyer was large, with marble flooring, mahogany-clad columns, a red-carpeted staircase and a corridor at the far end leading to a darkened room. In front of an imposing fireplace stood a polished table with an arrangement of white lilies, their cloying scent filling the air.

Helen closed her eyes briefly. There had been white flowers on her mother’s coffin.

‘Miss Stephens?’

She looked up to find a craggy-faced, bald man in a brown workman’s smock smiling down at her.

‘Yes?’

‘If you’d follow me, please?’

They climbed the stairs to the first floor, their feet moving soundlessly on the thick carpet. Everywhere Helen turned she saw opulence, or a good impression of it. The banister gleamed golden-red, up-lighters enhanced the lichen-green wallpaper with its velvet fleur-de-lis pattern, and English Romantic paintings were hung to maximum effect in strategic places.

The company was making serious money, a stark contrast to what Helen was used to, but she hadn’t imagined this to be reflected in the surroundings, and she nearly gasped. Her annual dividends began to seem like a paltry sum.

‘Are you here about the job?’ her companion wheezed as he opened the door to an outer office with two doors leading off it. A large desk stood in front of the doors as if it had been placed there in order to form a bastion against invaders. Behind it a secretary was tapping away at a computer.

‘I’m here about a job.’

‘You look familiar,’ he said.

‘Really?’ It was possible he’d known her mother if he’d worked here long enough, but she knew from the only photograph she had of her parents, and which she carried in her wallet, that she didn’t look like her. He couldn’t have recognised her.

She didn’t know whether Letitia had announced she was expecting her niece, but she suspected her aunt wanted to keep the association between them private. She’d never showed herself to be an auntie in the true sense of the word, so why start now?

He scratched his chin, rasping his fingers against his grey stubble. ‘Not sure, but I expect it’ll come to me.’ To the secretary he said, ‘Helen Stephens for Ms Walcott.’