The Judge's Daughter (6 page)

‘Lucy, don’t wear the mini,’ Agnes begged. ‘It might look stunning, but every time you bend down some lecherous old lawyer will see your knickers. When they go home,
they’ll laugh at you.’

‘If I wear any knickers.’ Lucy swallowed cold tea and a facsimile of injured pride. ‘All right,’ she said resignedly and with an air of acute injury. Then she burst out
laughing. ‘Your faces!’ she howled. ‘Honestly, you looked like a couple of spectators at a public hanging. Did you really think I was going to walk up the aisle in knee-high boots
and a lace mini?’

Mags, who had been swallowing her own cold tea, spluttered and coughed. Agnes hit her on the back till her airway cleared, then sat down again. ‘Lucy, you’ll be the death of
us.’

The bride-to-be grinned broadly. ‘Your nan would have laughed herself sick over that, Agnes. Remember? How she used to have those giggling fits? That’s how we’ve got to think
of her now. Her spirit, her silliness and how young she always was where it mattered.’ Lucy tapped her skull with a finger. ‘In here, Sadie never grew old.’

Agnes wiped a tear from her eye. ‘Yes, she was funny. Except for the last few months, and they weren’t amusing at all. But,’ she jerked a thumb in the direction of the next
room, ‘look what she’s left us to cope with. Wherever she is, she’s smiling.’

The door burst inward to allow a red-faced Fred and a wooden item into the arena. ‘See?’ he said triumphantly. ‘I’ve done half already.’

Agnes glanced at her friends. ‘Well, half a house is better than none.’

When Pop had retreated, Agnes sat for a while and remembered her beloved grandmother. Denis looked in, saw her expression, noticed that the other two were quiet, and decided to leave well alone.
Fred started to clear away his mess. Even his tidying was noisy, thought Agnes as she gazed into the near distance. But his half-house had seemed half-decent, so perhaps he was on to something
profitable.

‘I’m going to miss you, Nan,’ she told the ceiling. But she had been missing Nan for months already. Only the body had been there at the end, and the body hadn’t
functioned. Should she have stayed at home instead of cleaning for a few shillings a week? To that question, she was never going to find an answer.

‘You’ll not find her up yon.’ Lucy pointed to the upper half of the room. ‘She’s more likely to be making mischief with your granddad in the kitchen.’

Agnes lowered her eyes and looked at Lucy. Lucy Walsh, Mags Bradshaw and herself had been inseparable since nursery class. Mags, who had grown into a plain, quiet and dignified adult, had been a
shy and frightened child. Lucy, on the other hand, remained capable of starting a riot in an empty room. She was the one who had guarded and guided Mags, and Agnes was the cement that had held the
three of them together through their passage into adulthood. The vow had been that come boyfriends, husbands or children, Thursday nights would always be girls’ nights. ‘Thanks for
being here,’ said Agnes softly.

‘Where else would we be?’ Lucy began to stack cups and saucers. ‘All for one and one for all, isn’t it?’ She moved quickly, had always been the first to dress, to
clear up, to organize. Slim, dark and beautiful, she was sure of herself in mind and in body. ‘We couldn’t have let you go through it on your own,’ she said when her task was
completed. ‘Anyway, your nan made the best jam cakes in the business. Didn’t she, Mags?’

‘She made the best of everything.’ Mags stood up and prepared to carry the dishes away. ‘Can’t have been easy when her daughter died so young. But Sadie’s
generation never moaned. They just got on with what needed doing and that was that.’ She left the room.

‘What are we going to do about Mags?’ Lucy whispered.

‘Nothing.’

‘What do you mean? There has to be someone who’ll see beyond her quietness.’

‘Some people don’t need to be married.’

Lucy changed tactics. ‘All right, so what are we going to do about you? Will you fill that form in? Isn’t it time you pulled yourself together, Makepeace? The job in the pub was
supposed to be a stop-gap – you’ve no excuse now. Your Pop will get better in time—’

‘And the kitchen will be in bits—’

‘So what? It’s only a bloody kitchen. At least he’s doing something. It’s what you’ve always wanted and now’s the time to do it.’

Agnes thought about Pop and wondered if he would manage. The hours of work would be long and varied, there would be exams, rules, a uniform . . .

‘Well?’

Agnes sighed resignedly. ‘For goodness’ sake, Lucy. We buried Nan today. Does all the clearing up have to be done now?’

‘You’re the fastidious one,’ replied Lucy. ‘Get it done. You’ve always wanted to be a nurse and now’s as good a time as any. You knew the mill was just for
money till you got married, then the pub job came along and it fitted for a while. But are you going to be just a married woman? All that went out at the end of the war. Women work. They get decent
jobs and keep house at the same time. What would your nan say?’

‘She’d make me go for it.’

Lucy picked up her bag and gloves. ‘Right, madam. I want that form filled in or I wear a mini wedding dress. I mean it. George would be delighted – he says my legs go up all the way
to Glasgow – so think on.’

After her friends had left, Agnes thought on. She peered into the kitchen, saw that Denis had been dragged into the business of house-building, took the form from the front room bureau.
‘Bloody hell,’ she cursed quietly. ‘They want to know everything I’ve ever done. What have I done?’ How might she fill all the naked spaces on the application
form?

She had doffed spools at a mule, back soaked in sweat, feet aching, head banging because of noise and heat. She had cleaned lavatories, had cared for Pop and Nan, had even helped Nurse Ingram to
see the old lady into the next world. Lucy and Mags, both legal secretaries, were pushing her towards a career, but what about Pops? With Nan dead, he was going to be at a loose end, and his mind
was not yet fully healed.

Agnes stared through the window, saw a car edging its way past the house. She knew little about motors, as few in these parts owned vehicles, but the driver seemed familiar. Was it Miss Spencer?
Why did she suddenly speed up after gazing into the house? Even Judge Spencer’s Bentley caused discomfort to passengers when it moved at a snail’s pace over cobbles – his
daughter’s smaller car might actually be shaken to bits. Oh well, it had been an odd day, an unhappy day, and Miss Helen Spencer was probably taking a short cut to somewhere or other.

‘Agnes?’ A hand touched her left shoulder.

‘Miss Spencer just drove past.’

Denis felt the heat in his face. He coughed quietly. ‘She brought me home.’

‘Yes, you said. I wonder why she’s still out there?’

He shrugged with deliberate nonchalance. ‘No idea. She did seem concerned – asked about you.’

‘Nothing like her dad, then.’

‘No.’ Helen Spencer bore not the slightest resemblance to her parent. She had a soft centre. She played Chopin and something called the Moonlight sonata – was that Beethoven?
She had needs. Beautiful hands, desperate needs.

‘Denis?’

‘What?’

‘Lucy threatened to get married in a crocheted mini.’

He relaxed. For now, the subject was changed. Yet the subject remained behind the wheel of a Morris with clean plugs and excellent timing. Denis shifted himself. There was sawdust to sweep,
there were tools waiting to be tidied. ‘I love you,’ he advised his wife.

Agnes nodded. ‘Make sure you pick up all the nails. And I pray to God that Pop hasn’t got to the painting stage.’ Doll’s houses, indeed. Whatever next?

Imitating the process of osmosis, Helen Spencer was seeping via some invisible semi-permeable membrane right through the defences of Denis Makepeace. She booked her time off
from the library, making sure that her holidays coincided with her father’s absence on circuit business. While the judge covered his territory, she set up a stall on her own tiny piece of
England. The campaign of which she was scarcely aware was plotted in her dressing room and completed in her bedroom.

She was now two people. There was the librarian – severe hair, sensible shoes, tweeds with kick-pleated skirts; there was also the strangely innocent siren. Transformation proved an
interesting process. Her face was an almost blank canvas onto which she painted today’s self. Eye shadows and liners emphasized her best features, and her skin glowed with brilliance borrowed
from Max Factor. As the days wore on, Helen’s confidence grew, bolstered by scaffolding acquired in department stores and chemist shops. She was finally a woman and he was watching her. When
he watched, she tingled with anticipation, often blushing when suddenly aware of the full extent of her sins. She wanted him.

Denis, plodding through chores, pretended not to watch. But he was fully conscious of the dangerous game over which he had no control. There were no rules, no linesmen, no flags raised when play
got out of hand. He washed the Bentley in which he had driven his employer to Trinity Street Station, pruned hedges, mended a gate, watered lawns. From open windows in the music room floated the
accompaniment to his labours, as did a pair of muslin curtains through which he caught an occasional glimpse of the entertainer. For him, she had made herself beautiful; for him, she played
brilliantly, windows flung wide, heart on a platter for the taking.

He had begun a frantic but futile search through the
Bolton Evening News
, eyes ripping down the jobs column in search of an occupation that might be managed by a man with a weak chest.
Thus far, he had found nothing suitable and his main emotion had become that of dread. She had made up her mind. A poem about a fly invited into the parlour of a spider dashed through his head. He
had to resist her because he was a decent man and he loved Agnes, yet he continued to harbour very mixed feelings. Helen Spencer needed someone and she had chosen him. ‘Because I’m
here, that’s all,’ he announced softly. ‘Anybody would do for her, the state she’s in.’ And a married man should not stray, he told himself regularly. Even so, the
pity he felt for the judge’s spinster daughter remained.

He was flattered by the attentions of such a woman and that was normal – all men responded to this kind of courtship. Helen Spencer was gifted, knowledgeable, educated and, when
encouraged, interesting. ‘And rich,’ he grumbled. She wasn’t ugly, wasn’t beautiful, but she certainly looked better in her new guise.

Denis continued to rake gravel on the driveway. The judge insisted on ordered pebbles and smooth grass with stripes rolled across its surface. He was a boring old bugger, and his daughter was
delivering a pretty piece of Chopin – well, Denis thought it was Chopin. The gauze-like curtains parted anew, allowing him a brief glimpse of a handsome woman in a satin gown, probably
something called a peignoir. ‘Playing in her underwear now,’ he muttered. There were no jobs in the papers. He was married to Agnes. Curtains came and went while Denis listened to a
grand mixture of birdsong and nocturne.

She summoned him. He stood, face turned away from the house, heavy-duty rake clenched fiercely in his hands. He wanted to run, but his feet were welded to loose chippings. Ridiculous. He had to
go inside, needed to tell her that he loved Agnes and only Agnes.

‘Denis?’

Helen Spencer was not in her right mind just now. Running out of time, out of hope and patience, bored to death, in love, in this miserable house, she had set her sights on one of the few men
within her limited orbit. What would happen when he told her he didn’t want her? Would she fall apart, and would he feel guilty? Beautiful hands. She played like an angel, chose pieces that
haunted, poured all her loneliness and despair onto piano keys.

‘Denis?’

With excruciating slowness, he turned to face her, saw her standing in a frame of cloudy white muslin. On leaden feet, Denis Makepeace walked towards inevitability.

‘Denis?’ Her tone was quieter.

‘What?’

‘You enjoyed my playing?’

His heart was fluttering like a bird in a chimney, all fear and darkness and no points of reference. ‘Yes, but I’ve a lot to do. Judge Spencer left a list and—’

‘Have a rest.’ She draped herself across a small sofa. Denis could imagine her practising such moves in bedroom mirrors. ‘I like you.’ Underneath the panstick, her cheeks
glowed. ‘I have grown fond of you.’

He opened his mouth, but no words emerged.

‘You are a fine man. Even my father says so, and he hates just about everyone, as you probably know by now.’

Denis pulled at his collar, which was already open. ‘I’m chauffeur and handyman, Miss Spencer.’

‘Helen.’

‘I work outside except for the odd mending job in the house. The judge would go mad if he knew I was taking time off to chatter. Sorry.’ He turned to leave, but she went after him.
The seconds that followed were a blur, but she managed to catch him, arms clasping tightly round his neck, tears hovering on the edges of blatantly false eyelashes. ‘I think I’ve fallen
in love with you,’ she whispered.

His body, suddenly detached from brain and heart, responded automatically to soft skin, heady perfume and sad eyes. But he pushed her aside. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, Miss Spencer.
This can’t happen. You know it and I’m sure of it. You’re a well-read woman, so you must know about infatuation. I was infatuated with Barbara Holt in my class when I was ten, but
I got over it.’

She nodded. ‘I am not ten years old.’

‘Yes. But infatuation’s nothing to do with age.’

Helen began to cry. Through loud sobs, she poured out a jumble of words relating to her ugliness, her loneliness, her love for Denis.

‘You aren’t ugly,’ he told her. ‘But I’m married and I love my wife. You’re fishing in the wrong waters, Miss Spencer. You should be going for salmon or
rainbow trout, not for plain tench.’ He strode out of the house, picked up the rake and continued to work. But unsteady hands made a poor job of straightening shingle, so he went off to mend
a fence. As he drove home a nail, he wondered whether his fences could ever be truly mended after today’s tragic scene.