Next day, when Lizzie Blank came in to clean, she found Colin’s present sitting on the coffee table. She looked at it for a long time, without touching. Then she knelt before it, as Colin had done, and traced the faculties with her finger. I have got these now, she thought. All of them. I have got everything, except offspring. Carefully she lifted the head and dusted it, although it did not need dusting, and set it down in the dead centre of the table. She was perfectly sure that it was what she had waited for. She had last seen it in Sholto’s shop; its arrival here could not help but tell her something. It was a mysterious transportation; there would be others.
Sylvia came downstairs. She was still in her dressing gown, and she smiled secretly to herself, and hummed as she went into the kitchen. Lizzie followed her.
“Mr. Sidney get his leg over, then?” she enquired.
“Lizzie!” Sylvia glared at her. “You can stop it, you know, or I’ll have to give you notice. I can’t have the children hearing you talk like that.”
“The little lambkins,” Lizzie said sarcastically. “‘Hearing you talk like that.’ We’ve got very snooty, haven’t we?”
Sylvia looked at her daily woman with barely concealed dislike. Since the incident with the photograph she had become increasingly familiar and cutting, and she was definitely skimping on her work, claiming that the breakdown of most of the electrical appliances was making cleaning impossible, that she was tired out and worn to the bone. She looked far from bone, Sylvia thought, her white unhealthy-looking flesh oozing out of her clothes. She had flesh, and to spare.
“I’ll be straight with you, Lizzie,” she said. “I believe in straight talking.”
“Oh yes?”
“I don’t like you, Lizzie. There’s something about you I never have liked, and I resent you poking your nose into my daughter’s business. I kept you on because when we had Colin’s mother here you were a godsend, and I don’t deny that, and I’ll give you a reference, and you can read it.”
“And now you’re discharging me?” the woman said sullenly.
“We don’t need you. We’ll be moving soon.”
“I can travel.”
“Not that far.”
Lizzie looked up. “And this house will be empty?”
“It will be on the market. As soon as I find somewhere, we’ll be off.”
“Well, I’ll save you the trouble of firing me, Mrs. Sidney, madam. I was going to give in my notice anyway. I think you stink.”
“That’s as maybe,” Sylvia said levelly.
“And you needn’t worry I’ll tell on Florence. I wouldn’t soil my lips, I might tell on her if they still had capital punishment. If I thought she’d be hanged by the neck till she was dead.”
“You monster,” Sylvia burst out. “Get out of my house.”
“Your house? Not for long.”
“And give me my daughter’s address before you go. Your address, I mean, it’s the only one I’ve got for her. I’ll send your wages on.”
“I’d sooner have cash.”
“I’m sure you would, but I haven’t got it on me. You’ll have to wait. I’ll pay you for the week.”
“Don’t bankrupt yourself, will you?”
“If you don’t go,” Sylvia said, “I shall hit you. Here, write it down on this.” She thrust at Lizzie the notepad she used for her shopping lists, and the stub of a pencil. “She’s not with you, is she, Suzanne?”
“No, I’ve not seen her.” Lizzie bent over the counter top, grasping the pencil awkwardly.
“If you do see her, tell her to come home. I can’t bear to lose my children.”
“You’re very emotional, aren’t you?” Lizzie looked up, and puckered her face. “Like this, you go.”
“How dare you imitate me?”
“I’ve seen your old photographs. How dare you imitate me?”
“What? You’ve been through my drawers?”
“A lot of water’s gone under the bridges since those days, Mrs. S.”
“It’s the last straw. Hurry up with that and go.”
Laboriously, Lizzie set down Mr. Kowalski’s address; wavering block capitals traced with much effort. She pushed it at Sylvia. “There you are.”
“You can barely write.” Sylvia took it from her and looked at it in astonishment. “Who wrote your application for you? I had a letter.”
“My landlord wrote it. You didn’t ask me if I could write.”
“You’re here under false pretences.”
“If you like,” Lizzie said grimly. She took her coat from the hook by the door and put it on.
“You can go out by the back door,” said Sylvia, pointing. “You always do.”
