Sandra’s Story
I WOKE UP WITH A START. What? What was it? My heart was beating like a Dave Clark Five record. What had woken me up? Was it Mum coming into the bedroom to have another go at me for arriving home late for tea? Or was it Judith, complaining I’d been wearing her skirt? Or was it Mr Brady, shouting from across the road that he knew Sandra hadn’t gone to visit Halina and demanding the truth?
But it was the middle of the night. I could hear Dad snoring next door.
I closed my eyes and curled into the blankets. Then something knocked against the window. It was something outside, in the back garden. It happened again, a tap tap on the glass. My heart thudded.
‘Judith,’ I hissed. ‘Judith.’
‘What?’ She turned over.
‘There’s someone outside.’
‘No there isn’t.’
‘There was a noise. In the garden.’
‘It’s raining.’
‘Not that noise.’
‘It must have been a hedgehog.’
‘No, it wasn’t. Will you look out of the window and see?’
‘No, because I don’t care. Go to sleep.’
There was a spatter against the window, like hail.
Judith sat up. ‘You look out the window.’
‘All right, but stay awake. In case . . .’
‘Well, hurry up.’
The garden was in darkness but I saw a movement in the shadows, by the shed.
‘It’s someone,’ I whispered, scarcely able to speak. ‘There’s someone down there!’
‘What do you mean? I’m going to get Dad!’ Judith threw back her covers.
I saw a flash of beige. ‘Don’t,’ I said. I squinted through the window. ‘I think it’s Sandra.’
‘What’s she doing down there?’
‘I don’t know, she’s supposed to be married.’
‘What? What are you talking about?’
‘Nothing. Nothing. What shall I do?’
‘I don’t know. Open the window?’ She tucked her legs back under the covers.
‘What if Mum hears?’
‘All right, leave her out there. She’s your friend.’
I opened the window and leaned over the windowsill. It was definitely Sandra, standing in the rain. We looked at each other for an instant.
‘What are you doing here?’ I whispered.
‘Can I come in? I can’t go home.’
‘She wants to come in,’ I said to Judith.
‘Then let her in. Hurry up, it’s cold.’ She pulled the blankets over her shoulders.
I closed the window and put on my slippers.
I padded down to the kitchen with mixed feelings. Turning up in our back garden in the middle of the night in the pouring rain was not a sensible thing to do, but she was back. She was back. But what did it mean?
In the kitchen I closed the door behind me before I switched on the light. As I turned the key to open the back door, I suddenly panicked – what if she’d brought Danny with her? His laugh was so loud.
I opened the door and Sandra stepped into the kitchen. She looked terrible. She was soaking wet. The Nottingham lace dress clung to her legs. My eyes flicked behind her. ‘Is Danny . . .?’
‘Oh, don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I’m on my own.’ She sagged against the sideboard and drops of rain from her hair dripped onto the red and white Fablon covering. I handed her a towel from the rail on the back of the broom cupboard. Roughly she rubbed her hair.
‘Are you . . . are you married?’ I whispered.
She said nothing.
‘Where’s your suitcase?’
‘Back in your shed,’ she said bitterly.
‘Why aren’t you in Scotland? Where’s Danny?’
She looked at me. Her eyes were huge in her face.
‘Was he there to meet you?’ I asked.
‘He was at Liverpool Street Station. And we went to a hotel.’
‘A hotel?’
‘It was horrible. The toilet was miles away from the room and there were all these really rough men walking around.’ She hung the towel back on the rail. ‘Then he disappeared. And then the police came.’
‘The police!’
‘They searched the room. They were looking for something, of course.’
I knew what she meant. My heart was racing.
‘They asked me if I had any packages. I said I had a wedding present.’
‘You didn’t!’ Those parcels had come to our house, they had had my name on them. I was implicated. This was terrible; it was the end of my life. I tried to speak. There was a gurgle in my throat.
‘I was terrified,’ she said. ‘It was the middle of the night and these two big policemen were going through everything in the room.’
‘Did you tell them how you got it?’
‘No!’
I whispered, ‘What happened?’
‘They opened the drawer in the dressing table and, of course, there it was.’
My heart was pounding. ‘What did they do?’
‘They opened it.’
‘What was it?’
‘Well, if you don’t know, I don’t know who does.’
‘It was nothing to do with me, it just came to our house. I didn’t . . .’
‘It was a torch, stupid. A torch! It was the present you gave me. It’s all there was. Danny must have taken the real present.’
I wanted to laugh with relief, even if she was implying that my present wasn’t real. ‘So what did they say?’
‘They said I was a very lucky girl not to be involved. So we’re both in the clear. They could see it was nothing to do with me. He’d taken everything, all his clothes and his slippers. He’d brought his slippers! And the parcel. He’d taken five pounds out of my bag, which was all I had, and he took the wedding ring. He didn’t need to – it was money in those parcels, you know, piles and piles of ten-pound notes. It was Trevor’s. It was, what do they call it – money-laundering, going through Danny. And he took it all and he just disappeared.’
I wanted to ask her about the fifteen pounds I’d given her.
‘Can I stay here?’
‘Here?’ Sandra never stayed at our house.
‘I’ll go home before anyone knows I’m here.’
‘What will you say to your mum and dad?’
‘I dunno. I’ll tell them there’s been a miracle, Halina’s mum’s cured.’
‘Oh yeah?’ I wanted to laugh out loud. She was back. ‘You’ll have to share my bed unless you want to sleep on the floor. Do you want something to wear?’
She shook her head and tapped her bag.
I locked the back door. We crept upstairs and Sandra slid into the bathroom. She came out in the baby doll pyjamas and climbed into bed beside me.
She pulled the covers up to her neck. There was silence. We were lying back to back and I thought she’d gone to sleep.
‘If it hadn’t been for your money I wouldn’t have had anything to eat and I wouldn’t have been able to get back to Chelmsford. Thank you.’ Her voice was small. ‘There’s some change.’
‘Who are you talking to?’ Judith murmured.
‘No one,’ I said.
We were silent.
*
Later I woke up and she was crying, sobbing quietly into the pillow, her back towards me. I put my arm round her and then I went back to sleep.
*
When I woke up in the morning, Sandra had gone and there was only the small lump of the baby doll pyjamas under the bedspread.
‘What did Sandra want?’ Judith said.
‘Don’t ask me.’
I shook out the tablecloth after breakfast and checked in the shed. Her case was there. I covered it properly with the old sheet.
I thought she might ring me before I caught the bus to work; I thought she might come into the Milk Bar. But by the time we closed at half past two she still hadn’t appeared. And she wasn’t waiting outside.
On my way home I dropped a note through Sylvie’s door. ‘S is back. She had a nice time. Nothing happened.’