THE HOUSE WAS QUIET when she got in from the building site. Vi was still at the office. That was the good thing about this grimy city sunshine: days started at dawn, and early starts meant early finishes. Connie had the house to herself for an hour at least.
The door was stuck again with the heat so she gave it a good shove, glass rattling in the pane as she did so. It was stuffy for September. Even though she loved being on a terrace again for the most part, it wasn’t half hot. Not like Amos’s cottage; those walls were a mile thick and all the trees had scared away the sun anyway. Here she could barely breathe sometimes, in the mugginess, even though it was supposed to be the tail end of September.
When she’d first moved in, Connie had opened all the windows to get some air in and Vi had arrived home and screeched:
‘Are you trying to get us robbed in our beds? The looters’ll bite your arm off for easy pickings like that.’
They hadn’t known each other long at that point. Connie tutted at Vi’s paranoia, but the windows stayed shut.
Connie had felt faint all day today and her head was pounding. Maybe it was this heat. A bath would sort her out, and she’d still have time to get the job done. She went straight to the bathroom, set the taps going and stripped off, dropping everything on the floor. Next door’s wireless was blaring through the wall again; outside the window, the trains were rattling past and the neighbour’s kids were playing a hollering game of British Bulldog in the street. Some of them were right little tots; another few months and Joe might be big enough for that sort of thing now. But you missed his first birthday. You’ve got no right to imagine him playing games. She swallowed.
‘Yoo hoo! Connie! Are you back?’
She started, shocked, and bashed her knee against the side of the tub. For a second that sounded just like Joyce. Her face split with a beam and she scrabbled to hoist herself out of the bath.
‘Con? Where’re you hiding?’
Oh, Vi. Connie sagged. Stupid of her, really, to imagine it could possibly have been Joyce, who rarely went further than Cinderford. This was a bit early for Vi to be home, though.
‘In the bath.’ She hopped in quickly and lay back. The water was more than a bit nippy and she shivered as the door banged open and Vi burst in.
‘A bath in the middle of the week? Look at you, Lady Muck!’ Vi perched on the lavatory seat and poked at the water with shiny red toenails. ‘Lady Mucky, more like – look at that scum.’ She removed her foot sharpish. Good.
‘Some of us do actual honest work for a living, not pushing bits of paper around and flirting with delivery boys.’
‘More fool you, then!’ Vi grinned and picked up Connie’s tool belt. Vi thought the belt was hilarious, couldn’t for the life of her understand why Connie had saved up so long for it.
‘What’s in the belt of delights today?’
‘Hammers – you can see that. We’re fixing joists this week; row of houses not far from here, as it happens. If you line up all the nails then knock ’em in quick enough, it sounds like a woodpecker – rat-a-tat-a-tat.’ Connie had got all teary the first time she’d recognised the noise, but there was no way she was telling Vi that.
‘A woodpecker? More like ack-ack fire, lovie. We didn’t all spend our war hidden away in the back of beyond, you know.’ Vi dropped the tool belt and it rustled the bag hidden beneath Connie’s overalls. Connie tensed, but Vi was already nosing around. She pulled out the bag.
‘Ooh, so you did go to Woolies after all! That’s more like it. Get any good slap?’
Connie half rose from the bath, but Vi held the letter away from her, tilting it towards the light to see through the envelope.
‘Stationery? Pens and paper? What are you up to? Got a sweetheart I don’t know about, have you, Connie Granger?’
‘There’s plenty you don’t know about.’ Connie pushed under the water, where she couldn’t hear Vi’s comeback. The mental checklist in her head added on another item. People in the Forest had the sense not to ask constant questions.
She splashed out of the bath, accidentally-on-purpose getting water onto Vi’s fancy skirt, and marched past her in a towel.
Wait, she needed that stationery. ‘I’ll have that back, ta.’ Her hand shook and the paper rustled. Vi opened her mouth and Connie legged it to her room and shut the door as firmly as she could without actually slamming it in Vi’s face. She bent down under her bed and her towel fell off. She’d dry quick enough in this heat.
The sock was where she’d stuffed it, between the mattress and the springs, a rustling pile of envelopes and a crafty bottle of mother’s ruin alongside it. The sock was as lumpy and bumpy as a Christmas stocking, and her heart swelled a little bit. I did that. She reached inside it and pulled out a couple of crumpled notes and the latest envelope. Babies weren’t cheap, though Joyce never asked for any cash and certainly never made mention of Amos passing any comment. But in that last picture she’d sent of them all out picnicking, Connie had seen that Joe had on a little cap and blazer, not the sort of thing Joyce could have knitted. Must’ve cost a bob or two, even with coupons.
Well, maybe she’d find out for herself soon enough. Connie swallowed hard. No number of nails going into rafters month after month had tapped out the message of what she should do. After those first few weeks of what she’d thought was freedom, the doubts about London life had built up and up like sediment. But she’d stuck it out; the beginning of anything always felt a bit odd and that wasn’t a reason to give up. She was a city girl, she just had to get used to it again.
Then one morning, a month ago, she’d arrived at the rebuild site just after dawn and found herself listening out for Seppe’s humming. Into the disappointment that filled the silence, the answer had arrived, as shining and decisive as any blade she’d ever handled. The only way she’d know what the future looked like would be to go back and find out for herself.
Connie pulled an envelope from the packet and took a quick swig of gin. Her palms were sweating. Must be the heat.