settled the pot away from the pram. The mother-in-law reached out and touched Anna lightly on the wrist. ‘Thank you, my dear. We did not mean to disturb the other customers.’
Anna refrained from pointing out that the other customers seemed to be enjoying the floor show. She simply smiled at the woman and left.
The older woman poured tea for the younger one and heaped sugar lumps into the cup, though no milk. A minute later Anna heard a cry and rushed out from the kitchen to find that the older woman had just pulled the younger woman’s hand out of the cup of scalding water.
‘Get her a dishcloth with cold water,’ Ottmar told Anna, and she did.
At the table Anna passed the wet dishcloth to the older woman, who attempted to wrap the younger woman’s hand. Anna stood across from them and moved all the scalding objects out of the way. The younger woman nodded dumbly as her hand was wrapped and then she looked up at Anna, her face streaming with tears.
‘I am going to kill my baby.’
‘Shhh. Shhh,’ the older woman soothed.
Anna was surprised to hear that the younger woman had no foreign accent. Instead her voice had a soft twang of east London to it.
‘If I don’t stop myself I’ll choke him in his sleep.’
‘Shhh.’
‘How old is the baby?’ Anna asked.
‘He is nineteen days,’ the grandmother said.
‘I think your daughter needs to see a doctor.’
‘The doctor tells her to sleep—’ the older woman started.
‘But I cannot sleep,’ the younger interrupted. ‘If I sleep, the dreams come.’
‘I knew a girl once,’ Anna said, ‘I knew a girl who was very young and when the baby came it seemed to make her mad. But she was not mad before.’
‘I know,’ the older woman told her, ‘I know of such things happening but we cannot make it stop. She will not feed him. She will not eat. She says she’s going to kill him if I leave them alone.’
‘Then you cannot leave her,’ Anna said.
The older woman’s eyes overflowed with tears. ‘I will not leave her. I do not leave her any second of the day. I don’t know how to make her better.’
Anna shook her head. The older woman’s face contorted into something more like control. ‘What happened to your friend? The young girl and the baby? Did she stay mad for ever?’
‘No. She didn’t. I don’t remember … I only knew her for a little while. A year after the baby came I heard that she was well again. She went back home.’
‘And the baby? The baby survived?’
‘Well, yes. I suppose. They took him away.’
‘Why did they take him away?’
‘Well, she was so young, you see. They were always going to do that.’
‘No father?’
‘No one who wanted to be a father.’
The older woman looked gratefully at Anna, as if she were relieved simply to be spoken to.
‘Would you still like me to bring your food?’
The older woman shook her head. ‘I pushed her out of the house too soon. I think we need to go home.’
Ottmar and Leonard were listening from across the little room. Ottmar shook his head at the woman. ‘No charge,’ he called out. ‘No charge.’
When they had gone Anna went and sat by Ottmar on the stools by the hatch. Ottmar introduced her to Leonard, who asked: ‘What were you saying to her? You seemed to be telling her a story.’
‘I knew someone … someone else who had a baby and then went a little mad for a while. It happens. I wanted her to know it happened to other people too. Their doctor … I don’t know what you do if your doctor doesn’t understand what’s happening. I mean, who else do you ask?’
‘God?’ Leonard suggested, but he seemed to be saying this almost as a joke.
Anna looked at him carefully. He was in his forties, middling in height with dark hair and a little hint of beard and moustache. He wore a navy V-neck with a flowered shirt beneath and bottle-green cords. She could not quite place him in terms of class and station. He seemed to be something of an oddity.
‘Well, I suppose if they have a god perhaps that’s better than nothing,’ she said at last. ‘Though I don’t know. Can you lean on something that offers no resistance?’
Leonard looked at Ottmar and raised his eyebrows. ‘She’s sharp.’
Ottmar grinned in turn at Anna. ‘Our Anna is a heathen. But a very clever heathen. Very clever indeed. No time for boys, our Anna. Work and study, books and words, always in her mind. She’s reading Lermontov. Very keen on Lermontov right now.’
Anna looked embarrassed. ‘I do like him very much.’
‘He’s a poet?’ Leonard asked her.
‘Poetry and a novel. A very good novel. Very modern and shocking. Upsetting in the strangest way … I could lend it to you, if you like,’ Anna offered.
Leonard studied her face through the hatch. She had a sharp chin with full cheeks and large dark eyes. She also had what people would call a strong nose and mouth.
‘You’re not Russian, are you, Anna?’
‘Russian! No.’
‘There’s something about your face. You have something … un-English about you. I was thinking Polish or German …’
‘German!’ Anna laughed.
‘Who knows? The Germans have all evaporated. The Baumanns are Bakers and the Krugers are all Crabtrees. I mean, if you were German it’s not as if you’d say …’
Anna shook her head. ‘Definitely not German. My mother’s family have a line of French relatives … generations back. None of us look quite the thing.’
‘Well,’ Leonard nodded, ‘that explains it.’
Ottmar leaned through the hatch and fixed Leonard with a smirking grin.
‘My dear friend Leonard …’
Leonard shot Anna a look. ‘He wants something.’
‘This poor young lady has to make the most terrible journey to and from my cafe every day. And I was thinking …’ He trailed off hopefully.
‘What? The second floor?’
‘You only have one tenant.’
Leonard looked apologetically at Anna. ‘The second bedroom is a shoebox. You can barely fit a bed in there. I don’t even like letting it out.’
‘But it would be so convenient. She would be just upstairs.’
‘Do you want to live in a shoebox?’ Leonard asked. And Anna thought about it. She did not relish the thought of living in a shoebox but a flat on the corner of Shaftesbury Avenue …
‘What’s the rent?’
‘Three pounds, six shillings a week. Bills included.’
It was the same as she was paying for a room in Forest Hill but then she’d save on bus fares. ‘Who would I be sharing with?’
‘Well, the tenant in the main room changes. Normally I rent to actresses or dancers. I’d try not to lumber you with anyone too awful.’
Anna looked at Ottmar who was twinkling away at her expectantly. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘That would be most acceptable.’ She offered Leonard her hand through the hatch