“I’ve got a surprise for you,” he said, pulling a napkin-wrapped parcel from his huge overcoat pocket.
“My pastry,” said Eudora. “Thank you, Daddy.”
“Happy birthday, Dora.”
“Would you like a bite?” she asked.
She could hear the smile in his voice. “No. You enjoy it. It’s your treat for being such a good girl. You make Mummy and me very happy.”
Eudora nestled closer, making sure she savored every bite, the sharp-sweet taste of apples reminding her of days spent picking fruit from Uncle John’s orchard.
“It’s a shame Mummy couldn’t come today,” she said, wiping her mouth on the napkin when she’d finished.
“Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that.”
Eudora stared up at her father. There was a note of caution in his voice. Her skin prickled in the close heat of the shelter.
“You see, Mummy is very tired at the moment because she’s going to have a baby.”
Eudora froze, unsure of how to react.
Her father seemed to sense this. “Now, you don’t need to worry because it’s going to be wonderful. You’ll have a new playmate and someone to be your friend for always.”
Eudora felt reassured. That did sound nice. Most of her friends at school had siblings. She sometimes wondered if she was missing out.
“And of course the baby is going to be the luckiest child in the world to have you as a big sister.”
Eudora nestled her head against her father’s chest, breathing in the peppery scent of tobacco.
“And there’s something else.” There was that note of caution again. Eudora held her breath. “I’m going away for a while.”
“Where? How long for? When will you come back?” The words tumbled from her.
He squeezed her to him. Eudora started to feel claustrophobic. “I can’t really say, and I don’t know for how long. So I need you to be very brave and look after Mummy and the new baby while I’m away.”
Questions flooded her mind. But why now? And why can’t you say how long? And why can’t you tell me that it’s going to be all right? Eudora pressed her lips together tightly to stop them spilling out because she knew he would never lie to her and, more than anything, she feared the truth.
The all clear sounded but the two of them stayed where they were until everyone else had gone. Her father held her tightly. Years later, Eudora realized that, rather than comforting her, Albert Honeysett had been clinging to his child, painfully aware of the uncertain future ahead.
“So, will you look after Mummy and the baby for me? Please?”
She gazed up at him. She thought she saw the reflection of a tear but decided it was a trick of the light. “Of course, Daddy. I’ll look after them until you get home and then we can do it together.”
Her father nodded before hurrying them to their feet. “Good girl, Dora. I knew I could rely on you.”
As they emerged, blinking, into the light, Eudora stared up and down the street. Everything looked exactly as it had an hour previously. She could see two women through the window of the tea shop, sitting at the table where she and her father had sat earlier, drinking tea and eating sandwiches as if nothing had happened. She watched the buses and taxis hum along the street, the people milling back and forth, continuing with their lives. Business as usual.
In contrast, as she walked along Piccadilly hand in hand with her father, it was as if every cell of Eudora’s being had changed. It wasn’t until adulthood that she recognized this as the moment her childhood ended. If she’d known the dark times that lay ahead, Eudora probably would have begged her father to let them run back to the shelter and stay there forever.
Chapter 2
The next morning, Eudora is woken not by her alarm clock but by the sound of a lorry reversing. She retrieves her glasses and looks at the clock: 7:27 a.m. She frowns at the intrusion, but as her brain slides into consciousness, Eudora realizes that for the first time in many years she has slept through the night without waking. And then she grasps the unfortunate fact that her bed will need to be changed as a result. She takes a deep breath and hauls herself into a sitting position, contemplating the effort of the task ahead. The words of Ruth, the endlessly encouraging social worker, spring into her mind.
Please be assured that the help is there if you need it.
Then Eudora remembers the booklet she read from cover to cover last night. It galvanizes her into action.
“Come along, Eudora. No sense in idling. Let’s get this done and make that telephone call.”
Stripping the bed is easier than remaking it. Eudora has to take several breaks during the process, cursing the inventor of duvets and fitted sheets as she works. She remembers changing the beds with her mother—the holy trinity of sheet, blanket, and eiderdown all smoothed with hospital-cornered precision. Eudora had succumbed to the infernal duvet trend when her mother became ill, deciding that it might make life easier. And it had. For a while. But then she got old and discovered that elasticated sheets and plastic poppers are the enemy of arthritic fingers.
By the time she’s finished, Montgomery has sloped upstairs in search of food. He jumps up onto the freshly made bed with a petulant meow. Eudora shoos him off, receiving a sharp hiss in reply.
“You really are the most bad-tempered cat,” she tells him. He fixes her with a cold green stare before yawning to reveal dagger-sharp teeth.
Like the duvet, she’d bought the cat in a moment of weakness, thinking he would be good company during her twilight years. Sadly, Montgomery has morphed into the equivalent of a long-endured husband—cantankerous, offhand, and only interested in being fed.
Eudora uses her last remaining energy to dress. She won’t go swimming today. There is a far more important task at hand.
She pulls back the curtains to be confronted with the sight of a removals van, vast as an ocean liner, parked across next door’s curb and hers as well. A gang of men of different sizes and with varying quantities of body tattoos are loading items of furniture into it with practiced efficiency. One of them glances up at her with a cheery smile. Eudora drops the curtain. She doesn’t need distractions from the outside world today.
As she carries her soiled bedsheets to the landing, the cat plants himself with defiance across the top step.
“If you trip me up, there’ll be no one to feed you,” she tells him. He stares up at her with momentary distaste but seems to take the point, slinking down the stairs with practiced arrogance.
Eudora stuffs her washing into the machine’s gaping mouth and feeds the ungrateful cat, who devours it and exits the house in record time. She settles with tea and toast in the living room, taking tentative bites before realizing that she’s ravenous. Once finished, Eudora switches on the radio and decides to close her eyes for a moment before making the phone call. They’re talking about a woman who ended her life at a Swiss clinic. She’d worked as a geriatric nurse and couldn’t bear the idea of old age, having seen the indignities and hardship people had to suffer firsthand.
“Wise woman,” murmurs Eudora as she drifts into sleep.
A sharp knock at the door jolts Eudora back to startled consciousness. She closes her eyes again, but whoever it is seems determined, as they rap the knocker with renewed vigor. Eudora struggles to her feet and makes her way to the door. She is relieved to see that the chain is on, enabling her to peer through the narrow gap. A young, shaven-headed man carrying a large holdall leans forward with a leering smirk.