Songbird by Josephine Cox Page B

promising Maddy that things would sort themselves out, she had a murmuring dread that more trouble was bound to come out of all this.
    Yet, even now, after witnessing the violence he was capable of, neither Alice nor Madeleine fully realized the true evil that was Steve Drayton.
     

Four
     
    Alice had always been a light sleeper. She couldn’t tell whether it was the sound of Maddy crying that had woken her, or whether she had just woken like she normally did, after a few short hours of sleep. Either way, she was now wide awake and concerned about the younger woman. “Poor little devil,” she yawned. “What’s to become of her?”
    Taking her robe from the bedside chair, she slung it on and crept into the kitchen of her two-bedroomed flat to make a cup of tea. It was a bright summer morning, and even in this busy area of London, near the big roundabout at Aldgate East, she could hear the blackbirds calling to each other.
    Coming into the kitchen, she found Maddy hunched across the table. Red-eyed and sorry-looking, the girl immediately apologized. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”
    Alice laughed and filled the kettle. “Away with you! Sure, the walls are so thin, I can hear the man next door pulling on his trousers,” she joked. Looking to see if there was an empty cup on the table, she gently chided her young friend, “I see you’ve not yet made yerself a cup o’ tea then?”
    Maddy shook her head.
    “Hmh! Well, let’s have one together now — you’re bound to be thirsty, all the tears you’ve cried. Then I’ll make us a good breakfast. Remember that you’re eating for two now.” She bent to look at Maddy’s face. “Ye look awful, so ye do. There’s not a man this side of the Irish Sea who would want to kiss that sorry little face, and who could blame them, eh?”
    Her cheeky words had the intended effect, for they made Maddy laugh out loud, even though it hurt to do so. “Well, that’s not very nice, is it?” she chuckled.
    Alice gave her a hug. “Tea then, is it… with a dash of milk and one sugar?”
    “Thank you — yes, I’d like that.” Heartened by this darling woman who always seemed to say the right thing, Maddy drew the dressing gown Alice had lent her tighter about her. “I really am sorry if I woke you,” she murmured.
    Alice prepared two cups and opened the biscuit tin. “The thing is,” she answered cheerfully, “I’d have woken up sooner or later, and if I didn’t wake up it wouldn’t matter, would it, because I’d be dead and gone, so I would.”
    “Don’t say that!” Maddy didn’t believe in joshing about such things.
    It was like tempting Fate.
    Having made the tea, Alice brought the tray to the table. “And I’ll thank ye kindly not to eat all them custard creams,” she warned dryly. “There’s two for you, an’ two for me. And I won’t be pleased if there’s crumbs all over the table neither.”
    Her banter had done the trick, and soon Maddy was brighter. “You’re such a good friend to me,” she told the older woman, “letting me stay with you like this.”
    Alice brushed away her comments, saying, “What are we going to do with you, that’s what I’m wondering. You can’t possibly go back to him — not after what he did. Like as not, if he takes another bad mood, he could finish you off. Think of the baby, my love.”
    Maddy took a sip of her tea and sighed. “I’m sure he’ll be in a better frame of mind today,” she said hopefully. “When he’s had time to think, he might realize what he’s done.”
    “Don’t you believe it, me darling! That’ll be the day, when Steve Drayton admits to being in the wrong. No.” Alice was emphatic. “I can’t let you go back to him, at least not until we’re certain he really wants to take care of you and the child.”
    “Oh, if only he would…” Maddy said wistfully. “Tell me the truth, Alice. Do you think there’s a real chance he might come to terms with the idea of a baby?”
    Alice was