‘Too bad if I do, apparently,’ Janice Parkes said tartly.
So she hadn’t imagined things. The history teacher was definitely resentful. Why hadn’t she insisted on meeting the woman she’d be sharing the cottage with before she’d agreed to make the move? It was too late now, and she’d have to make the best of it. She decided to ignore Janice Parkes’s last remark.
‘Would it be possible for me to go over to the cottage and unpack my case?’ she asked.
Janice Parkes glared at the case as though it were a child who was misbehaving, then looked at her watch.
‘You’d better come with me this minute, as I have a class in ten minutes.’
She turned on her heel and marched out of the entrance door. Lana followed closely and cursed under her breath to think she had been so naïve as to assume the teacher she’d be sharing with would be pleasant. Janice Parkes hurried along a path at the side of the building and round the back where a pair of plain brick semi-detached cottages stood. The teacher went up the path of the nearest one and turned a key in the door. She pushed it open, pocketed the key, and turned to Lana.
‘Just pull the door to when you leave.’ And with that she stalked off.
Lana was glad she had. She needed time to compose herself. To think what she’d done. If Janice had given her the same warm welcome that the nice mathematics teacher Wendy Booth had, she knew she would have felt completely different. Why did it have to be Janice with whom she had to live in such proximity?
Lana put her case down and stepped back a few feet to take in the outside before entering. It was a plain exterior, which she felt would be vastly improved by cleaning the murky sash windows and repainting the orange front door that clashed horribly with the red brickwork. It could be a sweet cottage but had the air of one that had been neglected. Her gaze fell on the adjoining one. It was in complete contrast with its crystal-clear windows and green door, the colour of ferns. Lana’s eyes stung with tears. The cottage was exactly like the one she and Dickie had dreamed of. She’d suggested renting a flat when they’d first started to talk about where they’d like to live because it was cheaper, but Dickie had insisted on a little house with a garden.
‘All that time seeing nothing but sea,’ he’d said. ‘So when I’m home I must be able to step out onto grass and see trees and flowers.’
She’d happily agreed even though she knew little about gardening. Her father loved pottering about in his vegetable plot as a way of relaxing after standing so many hours in the shop. Lana’s mother preferred roses and shrubs. But since the war started the flowers had had to make way for more vegetables.
The cottage next door’s garden, with its recently painted white picket fence, was neat as ninepence, with an area dug over presumably ready for planting, whereas Janice Parkes’s garden was nothing but a mass of choking weeds and unruly ivy climbing the wall and doing its best to work into the roof.
After stepping into the dark cramped hallway Lana pushed open a door … and gasped. Presumably it was the living room though it was hard to tell. There wasn’t one inch of floor space or any other space. Every possible surface that could hold something was piled high. A sofa indicated someone had slept on it recently, by the way there were two pillows on the floor beside it, and a pile of blankets. A dirty cup was turned over on its side. The one other chair in the room was overflowing with clothes and shoes, which surely should have been in a bedroom. Is this how the woman lived? She’d given the appearance of a neat, clean, conservative teacher but her home said something quite different.
Lana put her case down and came back to the small hall. She strode through to the dining room and gazed round. This was the same. What should have been a dining room table was loaded with books and newspapers and a dirty wine glass. The three dining chairs were piled with more papers. A modest pine dresser, which should have been a striking piece of furniture, was practically obliterated by the crockery and dishes and even a couple of saucepans, and the smell from several overflowing ashtrays dotted around the room caused her to wrinkle her nose in disgust.
How could people live like this?
Not only would Janice resent being told to tidy up her things, but she would also take issue with the fact that the request was coming not from a teacher, but from the new headmistress.
Pulling a face, Lana stepped through an arch to the kitchen. At first appearance, it wasn’t quite so bad. There was a stack of dirty dishes in the sink and another pile that looked clean on the wooden draining board. Any work surface was home to items that didn’t belong in a kitchen, such as a pair of binoculars and a book: Birds in your Garden, but the small kitchen table covered with a pale blue cloth actually had space for two people to sit, and the kitchen chairs were empty of belongings.
Even if she decided not to take up the position, she’d have to spend at least the night here so she had a chance to talk to Mr Shepherd and explain her reasons. Grimacing, she hauled her case up the gently curved stairway to the landing.
One door at either side. She opened the left-hand one. Janice’s. The same untidy heap. Clothes all over the bed and chair, dressing table choked with so much rubbish you couldn’t possibly see your reflection in the mirror, Lana thought, with a curl of her lip. She shut the door quickly and opened the door on the right. It was tidy although the bed wasn’t made up, but there was a stack of sheets and pillowcases and towels on the chair. She looked in the wardrobe where there were half a dozen wooden coat hangers mournfully swinging on the rail when she pulled open the doors. No dressing table at all, though there was a sink with a decent mirror over. The room was smaller than Janice’s but she didn’t care. At that moment, she doubted she’d be staying more than a night.
There was another door at the far end of the landing and she opened it to find a bathroom with Janice’s things tossed all over the place, though upon inspection the toilet and sink and bath were all reasonably clean. But it was the general feel of the place. An atmosphere that Lana wasn’t used to at home.
She set to and made up the bed, worrying about the waste of clean linen if she didn’t take up the position. Hurrying over to the schoolhouse, her stomach rumbling at every step, she glanced at her watch. Goodness – ten past three. She’d had nothing to eat since her porridge that morning. Maybe the cook would give her something to tide her over until supper.
‘Here you are, lass.’ Meg put the tea and toasted currant bun in front of Lana. ‘You’ll feel better for something inside you. Why didn’t you say you’d had nowt?’
‘I’ve only just realised, Cook,’ Lana said.
‘Oh, just call me Meg. It’s nicer.’
Meg was a short dumpy lady, somewhere in her fifties, Lana guessed, although her cheeks were smooth, the blue eyes clear and bright, as she stood over her like a hen guarding her chicks. ‘Do eat up. As it’s your first evening I’ll leave the two of you some supper.’ She paused. ‘Janice is not one to cook so I doubt she’s got anything prepared for you.’
‘No, I don’t.’ Janice’s frame filled the doorway, a mocking smile on her lips. ‘I was relying on you, Cook.’
‘Your luck’s in then,’ Meg said briskly, going to the oven and removing a large dish. ‘Shepherd’s pie.’ She placed it on the kitchen table, assessing it with a critical eye. ‘You can easily heat it through. And there’s plenty for second helpings for both of you.’
‘Thank you, Meg.’ Lana was aware of Janice watching her closely.
‘We call her “Cook”.’ Janice Parkes’s tone was knife sharp.
‘I told Lana to call me Meg,’ Cook said, folding her arms and not taking her gaze from Janice.
‘Fine, if that’s what you want,’ Janice Parkes said. ‘I’ll see you later.’ She nodded to Lana and vanished.
‘She’ll come a cropper one day,’ Meg said after her disappearing back. ‘Shame. She used to be quite a nice woman.’ The cook