he loves me or not, or whether he knows what love is, but he needs me, because I…well I’m what he needs. And he doesn’t understand either, he can’t understand that Nat don’t mind me seeing him. He knows that Nat has a lot of friends who tell him or his friends what’s going on. But Nat doesn’t mind me going about with a white man, a white actor from the television. Nat thinks that’s just company for me. Now can you understand any of that at all?”
At the end of the week when the birdbrain’s story appeared it was pretty tame stuff. She did have an angle that Andy Sparks had some mystery woman in his life, someone he leaned on, someone he needed, but was not prepared to discuss.
Rita came around that day to collect some things she’d left in the drawer of her desk, and to pick up her salary. She came at lunchtime when there was nobody there, except her replacement, who was full of chat and said that she had told Rita all about her fiancé being mean with money. She asked Rita if she thought that was a bad omen. Rita had said that she couldn’t care less.
“Odd sort of woman, I thought,” said the replacement. “Very untidy, sort of trampishly dressed really. Funny that she wasn’t more pleasant. Black people are usually happy-looking, I always think.”
Queensway
----
P at wished that she didn’t have such a lively imagination when she was reading the advertisements. When she saw something like “Third girl wanted for quiet flat. Own room, with central heating” she had dark fears that it might be a witches’ coven looking for new recruits. Why mention that the flat was quiet? Could central heating be some code for bonfires? But she couldn’t afford a flat of her own, and she didn’t know anyone who wanted to share, so it was either this or stay forever in the small hotel which was eating into her savings.
She dreaded going for the interview, which was why she kept putting off answering any of the offers. What would they ask her? Would they give her a test to see whether she was an interesting conversationalist? Might they want to know all about her family background? Did they ask things like her attitude towards promiscuity, or spiritualism, or the monarchy? Or would it be a very factual grilling, like could she prove that she wouldn’t leave a ring around the bath or use the phone without paying for her calls?
There were about twenty women working in the bank, why did none of them want to share? she complained to herself. At least she knew something about them, that they were normal during the daytime anyway. But no, they were all well established in London, married to men who wouldn’t do the shopping, or living with blokes who wouldn’t wash their own socks, or sharing flats with girls who wouldn’t clean up the kitchen after them. There was no place in any of their lives for Pat.
Three months was all she was going to allow herself in the hotel, three months to get over the breakup of her home, to calm herself down about Auntie Delia being taken away to hospital and not recognizing anyone ever again. It was better, the doctors said, that Pat should go right away, because Auntie Delia really didn’t know who she was anymore, and would never know. She wasn’t unhappy, she was just, well there were many technical terms for it, but she was in a world of her own.
If you have worked in a bank in Leicester, you can usually get a job working in a bank in London. But if you’ve lived with Auntie Delia, funny, eccentric, fanciful, generous, undemanding, for years and years, it’s not so easy to find a new home.
“What should I ask them?” she begged the small, tough Terry who knew everything, and who had no fears about anything in this life. “I’ll feel so stupid not knowing the kind of questions that they’ll expect
me
to ask.”
Terry thought it was so simple that it hardly needed to be stated.
“Money, housework, and privacy are the only things girls fight about in flats,”
At the end of the week when the birdbrain’s story appeared it was pretty tame stuff. She did have an angle that Andy Sparks had some mystery woman in his life, someone he leaned on, someone he needed, but was not prepared to discuss.
Rita came around that day to collect some things she’d left in the drawer of her desk, and to pick up her salary. She came at lunchtime when there was nobody there, except her replacement, who was full of chat and said that she had told Rita all about her fiancé being mean with money. She asked Rita if she thought that was a bad omen. Rita had said that she couldn’t care less.
“Odd sort of woman, I thought,” said the replacement. “Very untidy, sort of trampishly dressed really. Funny that she wasn’t more pleasant. Black people are usually happy-looking, I always think.”
Queensway
----
P at wished that she didn’t have such a lively imagination when she was reading the advertisements. When she saw something like “Third girl wanted for quiet flat. Own room, with central heating” she had dark fears that it might be a witches’ coven looking for new recruits. Why mention that the flat was quiet? Could central heating be some code for bonfires? But she couldn’t afford a flat of her own, and she didn’t know anyone who wanted to share, so it was either this or stay forever in the small hotel which was eating into her savings.
She dreaded going for the interview, which was why she kept putting off answering any of the offers. What would they ask her? Would they give her a test to see whether she was an interesting conversationalist? Might they want to know all about her family background? Did they ask things like her attitude towards promiscuity, or spiritualism, or the monarchy? Or would it be a very factual grilling, like could she prove that she wouldn’t leave a ring around the bath or use the phone without paying for her calls?
There were about twenty women working in the bank, why did none of them want to share? she complained to herself. At least she knew something about them, that they were normal during the daytime anyway. But no, they were all well established in London, married to men who wouldn’t do the shopping, or living with blokes who wouldn’t wash their own socks, or sharing flats with girls who wouldn’t clean up the kitchen after them. There was no place in any of their lives for Pat.
Three months was all she was going to allow herself in the hotel, three months to get over the breakup of her home, to calm herself down about Auntie Delia being taken away to hospital and not recognizing anyone ever again. It was better, the doctors said, that Pat should go right away, because Auntie Delia really didn’t know who she was anymore, and would never know. She wasn’t unhappy, she was just, well there were many technical terms for it, but she was in a world of her own.
If you have worked in a bank in Leicester, you can usually get a job working in a bank in London. But if you’ve lived with Auntie Delia, funny, eccentric, fanciful, generous, undemanding, for years and years, it’s not so easy to find a new home.
“What should I ask them?” she begged the small, tough Terry who knew everything, and who had no fears about anything in this life. “I’ll feel so stupid not knowing the kind of questions that they’ll expect
me
to ask.”
Terry thought it was so simple that it hardly needed to be stated.
“Money, housework, and privacy are the only things girls fight about in flats,”
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