Trio - [38]

At the end he shrugged. ‘Not bad. Anyone ever tell you you could sing, they were lying.’

She felt her face flush at the jibe. ‘Will you take it?’

‘I could show it to Candy.’

Candy! This burke dealt with Candy? Yes, oh, yes! She swallowed. ‘Yes. I’d want royalties, though, not just a flat fee.’

‘Don’t want much, do you?’

‘Nothing wrong with a little ambition.’

He grimaced. Maybe it was meant to be a smile.

‘Leave it with me. ‘

Not fully trusting him she had rung every week until he confirmed that Candy liked it and would record it for her next-but-one single. It would be released in July, the day after Lena flew home.

Joan saw her off at the airport.

‘I wish you’d come,’ Lena repeated, ‘we’d be so happy.’

Joan shook her head, smiling. They’d been over this so many times. She loved Lena – her exuberance and her daring – and she owed her so much for showing Joan how women could love, but in her heart she knew she didn’t love Lena enough to give up everything else. Things were just starting to happen for her and she adored life in London.

‘You’ll be happy,’ Joan told her. ‘You will.’

And she had been.

Lilian

‘They say Friday at noon.’ She handed the letter to Sally.

‘But once you sell this place…’

‘They won’t wait. If the bill’s not settled the bailiff’s will take the furniture, anything of any value.’

‘What’s bailiffs?’ Pamela came in from the hall.

‘Never you mind,’ Lilian said. ‘Where’s Ian?’

‘Out here.’

‘Well, watch him or he’ll be after the china ornaments. Take him in the garden.’

‘She’s not daft,’ Sally pointed out as Pamela left.

‘I know, but she doesn’t need chapter and verse.’

‘I’ll talk to Ed. I’m sure we can sort something.’

‘Oh, would you?’

‘Of course.’

‘And we’d another couple looking round yesterday, agent thought they were very keen.’

‘I’m not worried about being paid back,’ Sally said. ‘I know you’re not going to pull a fast one.’

In the forty-eight hours that followed the phone was red hot with calls from Sally detailing the various conversations Ed had had with the bank manager and the accountant and everyone else. He would collect the money on Friday morning.

‘Don’t open the door. Don’t let them in,’ Sally told her. ‘And make sure they don’t try anything early. We'll be there by twelve.’

At half past eleven a white van drew up outside the house. Lilian watched from the upstairs window as two well-built men got out, both dressed in overalls. They made no attempt to approach the house but leant against the van smoking.

‘Where was Sally?’ She’d tried ringing the house twice but there was no answer. If they took the furniture it would be that much harder to get settled somewhere new. And there were a few pieces that meant the world to her. Her mother’s dresser, which had come from Wales when her mother married her father, the writing bureau that Peter had bought second-hand and restored. Somewhere for his engineer’s drawings and books. Later when he worked away more it had become a place for all the family to use. The drawers held maps and stationery, photograph albums, certificates, a set of watercolours, dominoes and a chess game.

And the bed. The bed they’d shared, the bed where Peter had died. She’d heard rumours that the bailiffs couldn’t take all the beds in a house, they had to leave you something to sleep on.

She went down and tried the phone again, praying for a reply. She listened to the ring, counting seven, ten, fifteen times before putting the receiver back.

She watched from the lounge as another car drew up. Ed? But he drove a Ford Popular. This was a Wolsey. A bald man in a suit and tie stepped out. He spoke to the men by the van. It must be the bailiff. She looked across the road to the houses opposite. They were all watching. Some behind the curtains other quite blatantly. Please, Sally. She went into the kitchen and lit a cigarette, sucked the sulphur of the match in her haste.

Knocking at the door startled her. It was only ten to twelve. More knocking. ‘Mrs Gough.’

She went along the hall. She could see the man’s head through the stained-glass panel at the top of the door.

‘Someone’s coming,’ she said, feeling faintly ridiculous at shouting through the door. ‘They’re bringing the money.’

‘They’ll have to look sharp. We have a noon deadline.’

‘They’ll be here.’

‘I have to advise you that we have legal powers to enter at midday and to remove items as we see fit.’

‘I know.’ Her voice trembled.

In-between smoking she bit at her nails, a habit she hated but found impossible to stop. She used to try every so often, when Peter was alive. She would put false nails on to fool herself and enjoy how sophisticated it made her look but she never managed to break the habit. It didn’t matter much now, her nails would be broken anyway from all the extra jobs she was doing to keep the house shipshape.

I’m selling the house, she wanted to tell him, I can pay back the money then, more if it helps. But she had already had those conversations and they were like banging her head against a brick wall.

The phone rang and she raced to it.

‘Mrs Gough, we’ve a Mr and Mrs Jarvis who’d like to view this tea-time if that’s convenient.’