Another envelope. Another Derbyshire postcard. Four frames: a spartan, stone slate-roofed chapel; a loaf in the shape of wheat-sheaf; a bloke clutching a giant stripy marrow; two boys in Sunday best, matching grey jackets and shorts, hair plastered with Brylcreem, each posing with an untrimmed leek taller than themselves. And the caption:
EBENEZER METHODIST CHAPEL HARVEST FESTIVAL, 1933
What chance you could lend me £100? The bathroom here is out of the ark and the kitchen is little better than a calabash and an open fire. I can’t expect Rosie to live here with a new baby, not in conditions like this. I thought it was all pretty grotty when I was growing up, and Mrs. 1958 expects a lot more than my mum did. Next door still ponches clothes in a dolly tub and puts them through a wooden mangle! All her husband’s shirts have to have rubber buttons. Next door, t’other side, they keep coal in the fucking bath! So … so … I’ve decided to refit, new bathroom suite, new cooker, and get rid of that horrid Belfast sink. God … I hate to think of it … but mum used to bathe us girls in that, it’s so big. Anyway, a hundred ought to cover it. I will pay you back. Honestly.
It’ll slow me down a bit. If I can get a plumber sharpish I could be home in a week. Or maybe two.
SFXX
He posted Foxx a cheque for two hundred pounds. How readily the unravelling plot skeined into his hands. How easily his conscience salved.