Elsie gave a tight smile. Fran wanted to explain that this was why she couldn’t talk to Liz now. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to. In fact, she’d give anything for a proper chat with Liz, even one-sided. But now she felt inhibited. Not least by Elsie, who for the past hour had been untwisting boiled sweets from their wrappers and sucking them contemplatively. Suddenly everything about Elsie was annoying Fran, even down to her green sweatshirt with the cartoon lamb appliqued to its front. Elsie was talking to Liz with the ease of someone well used to not expecting replies.
“It gave me pause for thought.” Elsie smiled vaguely to herself. “I mean, obviously I don’t mind, but it did make me think. He’s still my own little lad, isn’t he? And there he is, running around with a woman, inviting her to stay over for the night — in my house!”
Fran wondered if she should be hearing any of this.
“I’m sure you don’t mind me telling you like this, Liz,” Elsie confided as she scooped a heap of sweet wrappers and brushed them into the bin at her feet. “But it’s my job, I think, to keep you up to date. The fact is, your lovely daughter and my son Craig are very definitely an item. Already she feels quite the little daughter-in-law. She’s stayed over at our house three nights this last week. And I thought it would be weird, you know, my son bringing back a woman to sleep in his boyhood bedroom. But it isn’t. It’s company. Your daughter is lovely company, Liz. I’m sure you’re proud of her. She’s washed up, helped me with the breakfast things, she’s a sunny smile about the place. She’s a tonic to me, to tell you the truth.”
Fran thought the irises under closed lids shifted. The eyes would fly open. But Liz stayed silent.
“What I would have given for a daughter like that!” Elsie said. “You need a good daughter for your old age. Daughters are good to you.”
Fran thought, What’s that poor girl doing to herself? That Penny, they reckoned she had all the good prospects. She could go off and have a college education, a career, anything she wanted. It would be no effort at all for her to get off this town. Fran couldn’t imagine such a thing for herself. How would you set about leaving? But the likes of Penny, she would have no trouble, setting up a better life elsewhere. There she was, though, by all accounts lumbering herself with Elsie’s son. Did Fran have anything against Craig in particular? True, he had separated himself from the rough gang of lads over the road. He had stopped running around with them at night, causing trouble. He’d moved back to his mam’s house and seemed to have turned over a new leaf. But what were his aims in life? What was he going to do? If Fran had been a different sort, a better woman, she would take Penny aside and have a word with her. She would explain a thing or two. About what it’s like to tie yourself down and deliberately ignore the other, more complicated options. Fran wasn’t one for interfering, though. She didn’t instigate events; she mopped up afterwards.
Elsie was looking at her. She had run out of things to say.
“Shall we let her rest?” she asked. And Fran felt a twinge of sadness. Elsie looked so pleased with herself. Pleased at taking over another woman’s promising daughter.
“I’m parched,” Elsie said, and they went to the canteen.
Elsie asked, “What do you know about scabies, Fran?”
“Well, nothing. Not a lot. It’s like nits, I think, isn’t it?”
Elsie shrugged and looked about. “I don’t know. I wish I did know. Who do you ask about things like that?”
The canteen was mostly empty, apart from a boy of twelve, hugging a toddler to his shoulder, waiting for his mam, who had been in the ladies’ a full half-hour. The twelve-year-old looked anxious, as if preparing to ask one of the women at the canteen counter for help. The canteen women put chips on plates with small golden shovels like those in McDonald’s. The tea came in the smallest of aluminium pots, which made it taste metallic, Fran thought. These trips out to Bishop to see Liz were becoming routine; they were always rounded off with a pot of tea in this bleak canteen.
“You don’t think you’ve got scabies, do you?” asked Fran, prompting.
“I’m itching like crazy,” said Elsie, her lips pursed in self-disgust. “It started off and it was just our Craig. When he moved back from that rough house of lads.”
“Ah,” said Fran. “You think it’s come from there.”
Fran’s heart was thudding crossly. The idea of Craig and Elsie passing scabies on to the whole street! It was like living in a slum. How did you catch scabies? Was it in the air, or skin on skin? Could it be through brushed contact of sleeves or leaving your coat hung up in someone’s hall? Unreasonable anger welled up in her throat as she watched Elsie pour herself a second cup of tea from the metal pot.
“I saw a bit on the telly about it once,” said Elsie. “And, like nits, they said it’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
Fran leaned in closer. “Isn’t it more like crabs?”
Elsie blanched. Her own worst itching came around her pubic hair and just above. The doughy white folds of her stomach were red and inflamed with the itch. She had been like this for the past few weeks. This discomfort was something she’d grown used to. She clenched her teeth against it. Her inner wrists and ankles seethed and tiny boils had poked up under the surface
