Talbot, and after last night, there was nothing to be at home for. Amy decided as she put her things back into her bag that the bleak hostel would be friendly and welcoming by comparison.
At the bus stop she bought a newspaper. She scanned the tall, black banner headlines and saw that Tony’s prediction had been correct. The Labour Government under Ramsay MacDonald had divided and collapsed over the question of reducing unemployment benefits. A coalition National Government was being formed under the Prime Minister’s leadership, with a Cabinet composed of four Labour members, four Conservative and two Liberal.
From the paragraphs of close type under the heading Amy learned that one of the new Conservative Cabinet ministers was Peter’s friend Archer Cole.
‘Dear God,’ Helen Pearce greeted her on her return to the ward. ‘You look about as cheerful as a wet Monday morning at the hock-shop. Didn’t you enjoy your leave? Had a fall-out with Tony, did you?’
‘Not really.’ Amy smiled at her in spite of herself. ‘Everything with Tony is just the same as it always is. You look a hundred times better than you did.’
It was true. Helen’s face was rounder, there was a glow of natural colour in it instead of the unnatural flush of fever, and she was sitting confidently up in bed with none of the old, strained immobility.
‘I feel it,’ she said proudly. ‘The doctor says I can go home for when Freda and Jim get back from Bournemouth.’
‘I’m glad. But I’ll miss you on the ward.’
Helen looked away and said casually ‘Well, p’raps you’ll come and see us at our place? It’s only round the corner, you know. And the little ones would like it.’
Amy beamed at her, delighted. ‘Of course I will. I’ll come and make absolutely sure that you’re taking care of yourself. And we’ll be able to talk without Sister watching to make sure we don’t get too friendly.’
‘Nurse Lovell.’ It was Sister Blaine, like a starched battleship.
‘See what I mean?’ Amy mouthed over her shoulder as she scurried away to do what she was told.
In the week after her evening with Tony, Amy discovered that the easiest way to cope was to absorb herself in hospital life. She fixed her attention firmly on the wards and on her classes, and even earned a word of commendation from Sister Tutor.
Isabel remained at West Talbot, and in her few free hours Amy went once to the cinema with Moira to see a new Laurel and Hardy film, and spent the rest of the time in the hostel. It was easier, in the enclosed atmosphere where the hospital was the sole topic of conversation, not to allow herself to worry about Isabel or to relive the humiliation of Tony turning away from her. If they really had been such good friends, she reasoned with herself, then Tony didn’t want them to be more than that because he didn’t find her attractive enough. She knew it was her vanity that was suffering, but that didn’t make the hurt any less.
There was something more, too. She hadn’t seen Tony particularly often, but she had always looked eagerly forward to their few times together. Now that there was no daily anticipation of seeing him, and imagining what might happen, there was a small, black void in the centre of her life. Amy began to fill the void with work, and with her deepening friendship with Helen Pearce.
As he had promised, Helen’s doctor allowed her to go home on the day that Freda and Jim came back from Bournemouth. Two days after that, on her free afternoon, Amy set out to visit her with the scrap of paper on which Helen had carefully written the address folded in her pocket.
It was the very beginning of September, and the first smoky tang of autumn was in the air. Although the streets were still hot and dusty, the leaves of the single spindly tree at the corner of Helen’s street were crinkle-edged with yellow. As Amy walked down past the houses, searching for the numbers on the peeling doors, a horse pulling the water-cart clopped slowly past her. The man up on his seat in front of the big brass-bound barrel sat lazily with his hands loose over the reins. The horse must know every street and where to stop in each one. Two women carrying pails that slopped dark patches in the dust came past and stared curiously at Amy.
‘Looking for someone?’ the younger of them asked.
‘Number seventeen. Helen Pearce.’
More friendly now, the woman jerked her head. ‘That one. Green door.’
Outside No. 17 a dozen children were skipping and singing a complicated rhyme. As Amy slipped past one of them detached herself and stared up at her. Amy saw Helen’s pointed chin and dark, wide-set eyes.
‘You must be Freda.’
‘Yes, miss.’ The child bobbed awkwardly.
‘I’m Amy. Helen’s friend, from the hospital.’
‘She’s waiting for you indoors. There’s been a bigger fuss than if the Queen was coming. Jimmy!’ A very dirty little boy scuffled towards them. ‘This is our kid.’
Their skin was tanned and glowing from their weeks at the sea, making them stand out from the pale faces hopping around them. Amy held out her hand and Jim shook it gingerly. Watching approvingly, Freda took a deep breath.
‘We wanted to thank you, miss. For looking after Helen when she was bad.’
Amy smiled, but her throat was stiff. ‘We were glad to. Everyone in the hospital. Your sister is someone special.’
But having done their duty, the children’s eyes were already turning back to the game. Amy said, ‘I’ll go in and find her, shall I?’
Helen must have been waiting inside the basement door. As soon as Amy knocked she flung it open and said formally, ‘I’m so pleased you could manage it. Won’t you come inside?’
The formality persisted as Helen showed her from the cramped, pitch-dark lobby into the low, square room.
‘This is it,’ Helen said abruptly, gesturing around her. Amy moved at the same time and they bumped awkwardly together. Stepping back in embarrassment, Amy saw a table covered with an oilcloth, three upright chairs and an armchair beside the small, empty grate. There was a truckle-bed against one wall, covered with a bright knitted blanket. Over the mantelpiece a piece of red plush was draped, and in the centre was a sepia wedding photograph which was probably Helen’s parents with the picture of Freda and Jim propped up beside it. A flowered screen stood in one corner and Helen pulled it aside to show a little gas ring and a tiny, scoured sink with buckets of fresh water standing beneath it. The kettle was already filled and Helen lit the popping gas.
Except for the photographs the room was bare of any kind of decoration, but it was the cleanest place Amy had ever seen. Every surface shone as if it had been individually polished, from the glass shade of the single light to the faded linoleum.
‘Me and Freda sleep in there,’ Helen said. Through the doorway Amy glimpsed a double bed that almost filled the cupboard-sized room. ‘And Jim in here.’ She pointed to the truckle-bed. ‘Well, now you’ve seen it,’ she said defiantly. ‘Except the privy. That’s out the back.’
Amy looked at her and saw that her friend’s face was stiff. Something mattered to her very much, although she didn’t want to show it. It was important that Amy should see where she lived and belonged, but she didn’t want the poverty of it seen against the imagined splendours of Bruton Street to make any difference to their friendship.
Amy opened her mouth to say something, anything, to show that it wouldn’t. But the words didn’t come. Instead she felt her eyes go hot and sudden tears prickled in the sockets.
Everything was wrong with the world. It was all, all of it, wrong and iniquitous.
‘I don’t know what you’re crying about,’ Helen said. ‘It isn’t you who lives here.’
Stupid shame flooded through Amy. Helen was right, as always. They looked at each other for a moment and then Amy shook her head helplessly. Helen put her hand out and Amy took it, and