The House Across the Street Read online

  Hilda didn’t approve of Jilly; she said the Carters were ‘not our sort’, and claimed Mr Carter had been a bookie’s runner. Katy neither knew nor cared what a bookie’s runner was, and she continued to think of Jilly as her best friend, even though Jilly had gone to the local comprehensive while she went to fee-paying Hamilton House School. Katy had found the best way to deal with her mother’s prejudices was to avoid bringing up the subject so, while seeing her friend as often as she could, she just didn’t mention Jilly at home.

  Yet Katy often felt bad that the Carter family’s affection and generosity towards her were never reciprocated by her family. She felt compelled to tell Jilly what her mother was like, and why she couldn’t invite her back to Collington Avenue. But it shamed her to think that was necessary.

  Jilly only shrugged. ‘Maybe she had something bad happen to her, to make her that way,’ she said with her usual generosity. ‘It doesn’t worry me, anyway.’

  As always, Katy felt happy to be with the Carters for a few hours; it would be bliss not to guard what she said, or to try and appease her mother.

  ‘So what’s brought you round in the middle of the week?’ Jilly asked her, running her fingers through her blonde hair, as the woolly hat she’d been wearing had flattened it. ‘Fed up with the police presence in your road, or is Rob getting on your nerves?’

  ‘Neither of those two. Rob went back to Nottingham this morning, and I’ve decided to give finding a job in London a go. I hoped you might join me.’

  ‘Oh wow, would I ever!’ Jilly exclaimed, and both mother and daughter made whooping noises.

  ‘She’s been hoping for this for months,’ Mrs Carter said.

  ‘And I’ll get a room to myself, if she leaves,’ Patsy added.

  Katy immediately felt just a little jealous that Jilly always had her family on her side, whatever she wanted to do. ‘I’ve got a week’s holiday owing to me,’ she said. ‘I think you said you’ve got some, too. So how about we go up there to reconnoitre?’

  3

  ‘Good luck and have a good time, girls,’ Albert said as he dropped his daughter and Jilly off at the station on Saturday afternoon.

  ‘Thanks, Dad,’ Katy said, taking her small suitcase from her father. ‘I’ll phone tonight so you know we are safe, but if Mum answers I don’t suppose she’ll tell you.’ She stood on her tiptoes to kiss him. ‘I hope she isn’t too mean to you.’

  It had been a strange week. On the 24th there was the bombshell of Winston Churchill dying. It made her father very sad, as he’d admired him so much.

  But since the evening when Rob said he was going, the atmosphere at home had been poisonous. Dinner practically thrown at the table, drawers and doors banged, and then when Katy said she was going to London on Saturday with Jilly Carter and that they would be staying in Hammersmith with Mrs Carter’s sister, Hilda revved up the banging, the sighing and added abuse, too.

  ‘You’d stay with a relative of that guttersnipe!’ she exclaimed.

  She carried on muttering about mice, rats and bedbug infestations until Albert ordered her to stop it.

  ‘You are being ridiculous,’ he said. ‘There is no reason to suppose these people have a lower standard of living than us. Besides, Katy has made up her mind to go, and unless you start being a little more pleasant and encouraging, you may very well find that when she does move away, she won’t even come back to visit.’

  Albert chuckled at Katy now as they said their goodbyes. He appreciated her saying she hoped her mother wouldn’t be mean to him. ‘Don’t worry, I’ve lived with her moods for too many years to get distressed by them. But while you are away, I’m going to try and talk about our future together. We certainly can’t carry on like this.’

  Once the girls had found a compartment on the train all to themselves, Katy sighed with relief. ‘I thought Mum was going to try and stop me,’ she admitted to her friend. ‘I expected her to play ill or something; she’s done that before now when I said I was going somewhere special. You are lucky your mum is so well balanced.’

  Jilly looked lovely today. Although she was only wearing her old navy-blue coat, she’d added a shocking-pink woolly hat and matching scarf, and even her lipstick was the same colour.

  ‘She’s had to be well balanced; my dad’s been in and out of work all their married life. The building trade is like that, especially in the winter.’

  ‘Then I don’t suppose she’ll really want you to move out?’

  Jilly laughed. ‘Oh, she’s not like that, she makes jokes about how I eat three pounds’ worth of food a week and only give her two pounds ten shillings. She wants me to work at London Zoo as much as I do. Speaking of which, I’ve got a surprise for you. They rang me late yesterday afternoon and I’ve got an interview there on Tuesday morning!’

  Katy whooped loudly with joy. ‘How wonderful. We’ll have to celebrate that tonight.’

  ‘I expect Mum’s already been on the phone by now to tell Auntie Joan about it. She’ll be thrilled and baking a cake or something.’

  Katy already knew that Mr and Mrs Underwood, Jilly’s Auntie Joan and Uncle Ken, adored her as they had no children of their own. So the girls would be made very comfortable and be fed really well, but the downside, as Jilly had pointed out, was that they wouldn’t be able to stay out half the night, or come back roaring drunk.

  But then, this time in London wasn’t supposed to be about going out dancing or drinking in clubs. Jilly had her job interview at the zoo, Katy would be calling on employment agencies to find a job, and then they needed to find a flat.

  Later that same day, tucked up in bed, with Jilly in the twin bed beside her, and traffic still humming outside even though it was nearly midnight, Katy felt she’d made the right choice in coming to London.

  Mr and Mrs Underwood – or Joan and Ken, as they’d insisted she call them – were really kind, jolly people, and their Victorian terraced house was as cosy and warm as they were. They had already said the girls could come back and stay for as long as they liked once they’d started their new jobs, so they could find a flat at their leisure. But both girls were determined to find somewhere in the coming week. They had great plans for decorating it to their own taste and throwing parties.

  Jilly’s relatives, however lovely, were very strait-laced. Just this evening Joan had spoken very disapprovingly of seeing a girl in the grocer’s wearing the new miniskirt.

  ‘I couldn’t believe a girl so young could be that brazen,’ she said in horrified tones.

  Jilly and Katy had to choke back giggles. They both intended to shorten their skirts in line with what girls were wearing here, the moment they were settled in London.

  Sunday was spent with Joan and Ken. They went for a bracing walk together along the riverbank towards Chiswick. It was very cold and the sky was the colour of lead, but it was good to see that even in a big city there were open places to walk. After a huge lunch, the rest of the afternoon was spent watching television and dozing by the fire. Then on Monday the girls roamed around Hammersmith. They had been advised it was a good, central area to find a flat and nowhere near as expensive as nearby Kensington.

  They were a little daunted initially by how scruffy everywhere was, but a flat-letting agency they went into told them not to be put off by that. ‘I have a very well-appointed one-bedroom basement flat in a very tidy road for just eight pounds a week,’ the man told them.

  That seemed cheap enough and they went to see it straight away, only to be horrified by how damp and dark it was.

  ‘It was probably well appointed to him because he had a very reptilian look about him,’ Jilly said as they scurried away. ‘And the landlady was a dragon, too!’

  They had a coffee before venturing into any further agencies, and kept laughing about the landlady, who had said she wouldn’t tolerate male visitors, parties or loud music.

  ‘It was so cold, too,’ Katy said. ‘And the stink of mould! We’d have people backing away from us because we’d pic
ked up the smell on our clothes.’

  On Tuesday they left home together at nine to go to Hammersmith tube station. Jilly was going off to Regent’s Park for her interview at the zoo, and Katy to Oxford Circus to enrol at some employment agencies. They arranged to meet back home in the late afternoon.

  By two o’clock Katy had been into four agencies and given all the details of her present and past employment, typing speeds, exam results and her personal interests, and she was feeling jaded. She’d been tested in typing and shorthand, and they all said her speeds were impressive. But none of the agencies had talked about specific companies that needed someone with her skills. All they’d said was that they would ring her at Hammersmith when they had something lined up. She guessed that she was being a bit naive to suppose they’d grab her with both hands, there and then.

  She went into a Wimpy Bar for a hamburger and coffee, tempted to just go and look in the shops afterwards. But eating gave her a boost and it occurred to her that it might be smart to return to each of the agencies to ask if they’d found anything for her. If nothing else, it would make her look really keen. Employers were supposed to like that.

  The first agency said they had been ringing around for interviews but were unable to pin anyone down as yet. The second looked at her askance, as if astounded she’d have the nerve to come back without being asked to. But the voluptuous blonde receptionist at Alfred Marks, the third agency, gave her a huge smile and said her colleague was just about to telephone the number in Hammersmith to ask her to ring them back to arrange an interview.

  Half an hour later, Katy came out of the agency unable to stop grinning. She had an interview the next morning as a legal secretary for a firm of lawyers in the Inns of Court. She’d heard staff at her solicitors speak about this historical home for lawyers that hadn’t changed in hundreds of years. In films she’d caught an occasional peep into the Dickensian chambers there, and it had always appealed to her.

  But setting aside the interesting working environment, the wages of a legal secretary were almost three times more than she currently earned. The agency had said they were impressed by her typing accuracy, as there was no place for mistakes on legal documents.

  Katy was so thrilled she went into Peter Robinson’s at Oxford Circus and bought a black-and-white mini dress. As she was short, it was only about an inch and a half above her knees but the chequered styling was up to the minute. She would never have found such a dress in Bexhill.

  ‘I’ve got the job!’ Jilly yelled as Katy came through the door. ‘There were four other girls for an interview, but they picked me!’

  Katy threw her arms around her friend. ‘I was sure you’d get it, you are such a good animal nurse.’

  Jilly drew back from her, laughing, her eyes shining. ‘Says you who have never seen me treat any animal. The closest you’ve come is seeing me feed Ruin.’

  Katy couldn’t help smiling. Ruin was a rather ugly, mottled brown mongrel, with a very soppy nature – unlike the animals Jilly would be handling at the zoo.

  ‘Well, you tell me so much about the animals, it’s like being there with you,’ Katy laughed. ‘And I’ve got an interview tomorrow. How about that!’

  Over dinner, a delicious shepherd’s pie, Jilly told them all about her interview.

  ‘There was a panel of five people,’ she said. ‘I was terrified, because there were four other girls waiting to be interviewed and they all looked more suitable than me. The panel fired questions about hygiene at me, and then how you treat an animal when it is waking from anaesthetic. I almost joked that I’d back out the door if it was a tiger, but luckily I stopped myself in time and admitted that all I could tell them was what I knew about domestic animals. I added that I supposed bigger, wild animals could be at their most dangerous at such a time, so I would expect a more senior nurse or the vet to explain what to do.’

  ‘Heavens above,’ Joan exclaimed. ‘I can’t imagine anyone nursing a tiger. In fact, I don’t much like the idea of you near one, either!’

  ‘She can’t be a veterinary nurse without getting near the patient,’ Ken said with a grin. ‘But I’m sure they don’t take any risks with wild animals. So did they tell you that you had the job right away?’

  ‘No, they asked me to wait in an adjoining room and I had to do some strange intelligence test. It was stuff like six different objects and you had to ring the odd one out. Or spot the differences between two pictures which, at first glance, looked the same. I can’t really see what bearing that would have on nursing sick animals.’

  ‘I would think powers of observation were vitally important,’ Joan said. ‘I read somewhere that they do tests like that in many schools now, and they can work out your IQ from the results. So did they tell you they wanted you right after that?’

  ‘Yes, one of the men, Mr Metcalf, I think he’s the top vet there, came back in the room, checked all my answers, then he smiled and asked how soon I could start. I’ll be a very junior nurse there – the bottom of the heap, always working under supervision – for at least a year. But that’s what I expected, anyway. And I was so surprised I’d been picked, I could hardly speak.’

  ‘So when did you say you’d start?’ Katy asked.

  ‘I said I’d have to give notice in Bexhill, but I thought they would be alright with just a week. So a week next Monday I might be going in there to work. Imagine that!’

  ‘Let’s hope I get my job tomorrow, then,’ Katy said.

  ‘I’m sure you will,’ Jilly said stoutly. ‘I’ll come up there with you and wait somewhere close by.’

  Katy put on a plain high-necked black wool dress the next morning, just in case she was asked to take her coat off at the interview. She tied her hair back in one bunch at the nape of her neck and finished it off with a black ribbon.

  ‘A bit funereal,’ Jilly remarked.

  Jilly never wore black; she liked bold colours, and once said it was because she hated to be overlooked. Katy didn’t think anyone would ever overlook her flamboyant friend.

  ‘Lawyers’ chambers are serious places,’ Katy retorted. ‘Besides, my navy houndstooth-check coat isn’t funereal, and they might not ask me to take it off.’

  ‘You might fall in love with a barrister,’ Jilly giggled. ‘Just imagine! But could you bear a man wearing a wig?’

  ‘They only wear the wig in court, silly,’ Katy said. ‘And I expect every last one of them is already married, with bad breath and smelly feet. Now let’s get going!’

  The girls got off the underground at Temple station by the Thames and walked up into Middle Temple. Katy was too nervous to take much notice of the centuries-old buildings, the gaslights or the ancient doorways that led to rabbit warrens of lawyers’ offices beyond.

  They found the chambers of Frey, Hurst and Herbert easily, as the brass plaque just inside the porch with their name on it was larger than others they’d seen.

  ‘I’ll go and explore,’ Jilly said. ‘If I’m not here when you come out, just wait.’ She put her arms round her friend for a brief hug. ‘Good luck, and don’t forget what my mum always says: “Look your interviewer in the eye, and ask intelligent questions.” ’

  Katy’s interviewer, a Miss Frogatt, came to the reception desk to meet her. She was a slender, very smart woman of about forty. Her plain black suit, high heels and shiny blonde bob all spoke of stern authority.

  ‘Good morning, Miss Speed. I have to admit your surname is most appropriate, if the agency has given me your correct typing and shorthand speeds. Come along to my office now and you can tell me a little more about yourself. I will be testing those speeds myself later.’

  Her office was spartan compared with others they passed that were furnished with red leather chairs, walls lined with books and enjoyed roaring fires. Miss Frogatt had an uncluttered light-wood desk, a four-tier filing basket and a wall of filing cabinets. Not even a framed photograph of a husband or other family member. But then Katy realized very quickly that the woman was stri
ctly business. It would be hard to imagine her ever unbending enough to share a bit of gossip or to talk about her private life.

  Yet despite that appearance she asked Katy questions about the kind of work she did in her present job in an encouraging way.

  ‘Mostly I take dictation and then type up letters about property sales, divorces and wills,’ Katy said. ‘I have, of course, typed many legal documents, too.’

  ‘That is good.’ Miss Frogatt nodded. ‘The ones you will be expected to do here are usually for a trial, for the barrister who is prosecuting, or defending a client. I have to warn you now, and this is of vital importance, you must never discuss anything you might hear about in the course of your work, not with anyone.’

  ‘Of course,’ Katy said. That was obvious to her; she’d had it drilled into her when she first joined the practice in Bexhill. ‘I understand confidentiality is vital in the legal profession.’

  ‘I’m glad you understand that, Miss Speed,’ the older woman said. ‘Unfortunately, we have had secretaries who have come, like you, from provincial solicitors, where the most interesting documents they have seen until coming to us are divorce petitions. Here we often have very high-profile cases – murders, for instance – cases that are in the news, and however tempting it might be to chat about what you know, it is vital you don’t.’

  Miss Frogatt tested Katy’s typing and shorthand speeds herself in another office, and also got her to fill in an application form. As Katy had only ever worked for the one company, and while at school had had a Saturday job in Woolworths, it didn’t take long.