Harold had cleverly always insisted he only imposed certain measures and precautions to keep her safe.
‘You’re too gullible to be out on your own, love,’ he’d say. ‘I’ll come with you, make sure nobody tries anything on.’
As a young, newly married woman, Cora had initially been flattered, but of course it soon dawned on her that her husband was controlling her for his own selfish reasons. He wanted to ensure she was there just for him; he didn’t want to share her with anyone else: friends, acquaintances, even children. Harold had never wanted children.
As usual, a wave of sadness came with the realisation of so many lost opportunities.
The mood gripped her until she reached for the rich butter biscuits that Harold would certainly have forbidden her to buy because of the extortionate cost. She placed two packets carefully in the trolley and allowed herself a smug grin.
Sometimes she was too hard on herself, she knew that. It wasn’t at all easy, in those days, to escape a difficult marriage. With no job and no friends, Cora had felt paralysed to do anything about her circumstances. It had simply been easier to put up and shut up.
She knew a lot of women hid their true feelings for one reason or another.
Take Holly. She seemed a nice enough young woman, but Cora wasn’t fooled by the happy-go-lucky character she seemed fond of displaying on the surface. You didn’t live as many years as Cora had without garnering a sense of people, and she was absolutely certain that there was more to her young visitor than met the eye.
She’d thought as much that day when she’d abandoned the post office queue and gone to speak to the sobbing undernourished waif who seemed utterly inconsolable that she wasn’t able to get her twenty pounds from the counter.
Even though some customers had shown their disapproval, and others their pity, Cora had sensed there was a determined young woman underneath the frail exterior who was in need of neither.
She would be loath to admit it to anyone else, but as she had been trying to comfort Holly, the thought had occurred to her that without Harold around to dictate her actions, she might view this wretched young person as a sort of personal project.
She could offer assistance and help guide her to a more fulfilling life, while bagging herself a companion in the process.
After all, wasn’t that what ladies used to do in times gone by? They’d advertise and pay for a female companion so they didn’t have to put up with the achingly long hours of loneliness that Cora herself had suffered with no prospect of respite.
The Victorians got a lot of things right, and they set great stock by order and routine, just like Cora herself.
It had occurred to her that day that this could be a match made in heaven. It was all a matter of striking the right balance to break through the generation gap.
She had begun by regaling Holly with interesting stories about her life. Holly had seemed genuinely interested and this had encouraged Cora to continue.
She’d asked her visitor a couple of pointed questions about her own past, and it hadn’t escaped her notice that each time, Holly had cleverly – or so she thought – refrained from answering by luring Cora back into her own reminiscing.
But she was in no rush. She could wait.
When Holly was prepared to open up a bit and trust her with her personal history, then Cora would tell her the truth.
That was, the truth about what Harold was really like.
Not the other truth.
She didn’t intend telling anyone about that until she’d made up her mind exactly what to do.
Chapter Fourteen
Holly
‘This is Pat’s son, the nice young man I told you about who lives next door.’ Cora beamed as she looked alternately between Holly and the tall, serious-looking man called David – not really that young at all – who now stood in front of her.
He had dark brown hair desperately in need of a cut. He was pale, as if he might never have had a tan at all, and wore wire-rimmed spectacles that did him no favours unless he was actively trying to look like a geek. On top of all that, he was fidgety.
‘Hello, I’m Holly.’ She extended her hand. ‘Cora’s told me a lot about you.’
David pressed his palm to his thigh for a moment or two before grasping Holly’s hand. His fingers felt unpleasantly hot.
‘David Lewis.’ He introduced himself abruptly.
It seemed as if he were forcing himself to stand there when his feet were perilously close to running out of the house, away from her enquiring eyes.
When he finally released her hand, Holly fought the urge to wipe it on her jeans.
‘It was so nice to see your mother yesterday, David,’ Cora remarked. ‘She said you’d spotted Holly out in the yard and wondered who on earth she could be.’
‘I wasn’t… I mean, I just happened to look down from my window and…’
‘Don’t worry, I didn’t think you’d been spying on me,’ Holly quipped.
Both she and Cora laughed, but David’s face remained impassive, a deep, mortified bloom creeping into his cheeks.
Holly was instantly reminded of Evan’s cheeks. They’d flush just the same if practically anyone at all, apart from Holly, spoke to him. She felt a little squeeze in her heart.
‘It’s so nice of you to come around and say hello, David,’ she said, speaking a little more softly. ‘I don’t know anyone around here yet, so I do appreciate it.’
David shifted on the spot, his cheeks continuing to glow. His eyes darted to her face, but he looked away again before she could offer him a reassuring smile.
After a beat of silence, he cleared his throat. ‘Mrs Barrett, if you have any jobs you’d like doing while I’m here, it would be a pleasure to help you in any way I can.’
He spoke in a rapid, formal manner, as if he were reading the words from an invisible prompt.
Cora clutched at her chest, her mouth forming a perfect O. ‘David, what a gentleman you are. Isn’t he, Holly?’
‘Yes,’ Holly agreed. ‘He certainly is.’
She watched as David found a sudden fascination with a fleck on his sleeve.
‘Actually, if you don’t mind, David,’ Cora said, ‘I could do with a chair bringing downstairs. It’s the one in the corner of Holly’s room. It really would be quite heavy for us girls to try and shift on our own.’
Holly grinned. She’d already got used to Cora’s everyday sexism. ‘I’ll make us all a drink, then.’
As she walked towards the kitchen, she became aware that David had followed her into the small hallway. He faltered at the bottom of the stairs.
‘Is it all right… I mean, to go into your room?’ His voice sounded scratchy in his throat and Holly watched as his fingers twisted against themselves.
‘It’s fine, David. I’m in the back bedroom, the one on the left,’ she said easily. ‘Cora insisted I take the room overlooking the garden. Now I feel like I’ve pinched her bed!’
‘Nonsense,’ Cora called from the other side of the door. ‘Since I’ve been on my own, I’ve slept in both rooms, depending how the mood takes me. I’m quite happy with the front bedroom for now.’
‘You just can’t tell some people, can you?’ Holly whispered, gently nudging David and grinning.
His arm jerked away from her as if she’d given him an electric shock.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to…’
But before she could finish her sentence, David had bounded up the stairs.
Chapter Fifteen
David
Upstairs, I stand frozen in the doorway of the back bedroom like an idiot.
Next to the window is the wooden dining chair that Mrs Barrett asked me to bring up here just a few months after her husband died.
Harold Barrett was a small, wiry man with a tight mouth and mean eyes.
In his fitter years he was a keen gardener, always preferring plants and the vegetable patch at the bottom of the yard to spending any time with the meek boy who watched him digging for hours from over next-door’s fence.