But inside the thick walls of Netherlands it was cool, untouched by the heat. Untouched by anything.
‘Good Lord,’ Ethel said to Hilly, mopping her forehead. The girl was sick again, back in the sanatorium. ‘I’ve just got back from town and it’s smouldering. I can’t take this heat, and as for Gilbert, he’s a martyr to the summer.’
Hilly smiled her long-distance smile.
‘They said there would be thunderstorms.’ Her voice was weak, as insubstantial as she was.
‘Good God, I hope so. Something has to break,’ Ethel replied, folding some sheets and peering at a hole in the cotton. ‘I’ve never known it so hot.’
Later that night Ethel was lying next to Gilbert, a single sheet over them both. Then thrown off. Then pulled back again.
Sticky and overtired, Gilbert grumbled, turning constantly.
‘Aye, Ethel, it’s like sleeping next to a fire, luv. Get over your own side of the bed, you’re burning me up.’
His wife, hair damp against her neck, was not in the mood to be patient.
‘It’s as hot for me as it is for you, Gilbert Cummings! You want to stop grumbling. I’ve hardly had any bloody sleep and I’ve a job to go to in the morning.’ She rolled her bulk over and lay on her back, Gilbert muttering beside her.
She couldn’t sleep so she might as well think. Her thoughts turned to Alice immediately and Ethel smiled to herself. It had been a real worry for a long time, wondering how the girl would turn out, but things were going to be OK. The governors had been impressed by her, Sir Henry Hollis especially. As for Clare Lees, she had been beaming when she told Ethel – for once confiding, even happy.
Oh yes, Alice was set up nicely. She would take over from Miss Lees and, Ethel hoped, meet some nice young man and marry him. She should have children too. After all, the principal of the home didn’t have to be single, did she?
Ethel frowned as Gilbert nudged her. ‘You’re leaning against me, luv, move over.’
‘There was a time when you’d have done anything to have me lean against you,’ she teased him, feeling Gilbert take her hand.
Again, her thoughts wandered. How would Alice meet a man at the home? The place was full of children and the few teachers there were hardly eligible. Ethel thought suddenly of Evan Thomas and grimaced. Now there was a man who could tell a lie and prove it … No, Alice would have to get out and about more to find a suitor.
It was silly the way the home was run; the children kept apart. They should be mixing with the local children long before they left – learning to act and behave naturally. As if the sigma of being an orphan wasn’t enough, Ethel thought. She had heard what the townspeople said; how they kept their distance from the Netherlands offspring and advised their children to do the same. Don’t go staring at the orphans. They have to rely on charity. If you’re bad, you’ll be sent to that big ugly building and left there …
Local gossip had long since sentenced Netherlands to be an island in the midst of the town. Many of the people outside might be poor, but they had families, which was more than a Netherlands child did. The shabby hand-me-down clothes didn’t help either. Ethel had heard of many of the girls going out to work in service and being teased. As for the boys, there had been a number of fights caused by people mocking the institution head-shaving and wooden clogs.
Some of the children bolted when they came of age and left the town. Tommy Cotterall had done just that and ended up – two years later – in Strangeways for theft, a fact which only compounded people’s suspicions of the orphans. Others automatically slipped into the role of subservient dogsbodies and lived their lives in the shadows. They should be grateful that they had been given a home, a job, a chance, the mantra went.
Hardly any of them made anything of their lives. But how could they? Ethel wondered. The education was rudimentary and they had no social graces. They were orphans, the stigma running through them like a place name in a stick of rock.
But Alice … she was going to be the one to show them all. She was going to make them proud. People would look at her and be impressed, and in time she would become a marvellous figurehead for Netherlands. And no one, but no one, would ever know who she really was. Least of all herself.
Uncomfortable again, Ethel moved.
‘Oh, stay still!’ Gilbert moaned. ‘You’re like fly on an elephant’s arse.’
She jabbed him in the ribs and turned over.
What would Alice have done if she’d discovered her past? The thought made Ethel sweat. It would have been a disaster and, knowing Alice as she did, Ethel realised she would not have been able to cope with the knowledge and the damnation it would surely bring. No one would have given her a chance if they had discovered who her father was; and if Alice had known, highly strung as she was, she would have been crushed under such a burden.
Thank God, Ethel thought, that there was no need to worry any more. The past was just that, the past. A secret no one knew, and no one could uncover. Alice Rimmer was safe from the gossips.
And from herself.
The heat built up over the next three days and by Sunday evening the town was smouldering. In the park the trees hung listlessly, the gravel outside the entrance door of Netherlands dusty and whitened. Buses droned past the gates and when Mr Grantley read the sermon at evensong the air was drowsy, eyelids drooping closed amongst the congregation.
Everyone agreed that the heat couldn’t last, but the promised rainstorms hadn’t come. Slowed by the temperature and her arthritis, Clare Lees took a while to reach the lectern and when she read the lesson her voice snuffled amongst the pews like an animal looking for shade to hide. The day had seemed to pass like a dream, nothing substantial, and when the service was over the congregation walked out into the humid air and winced.
As always, Alice had sat next to Clare Lees and stolen a few glances at Dolly Blake, stiff in a paisley dress, her round face shiny. Behind her had sat Evan Thomas, as glossy as an apple, catching Alice’s eye and smiling. She had not smiled back.
Standing on the hot gravel outside, Alice paused and glanced at her watch. In three hours’ time she would see Victor. The thought soothed and excited her at the same time. Victor, who was so sensible; Victor, who was planning their future; Victor, who loved her, controlled her impulses and made her think of their future.
She wondered how she could possibly have lived without him. How could she have endured the grind at the home? The persistent lecturings of Clare Lees? The yawning future which would have loped before her so unappetisingly? Without him, Alice knew she would never have gone on. She would have run away, done something reckless.
But there was no need to be reckless now. She had found her rock, her man. All she had to do was to follow his lead and they would be together … She glanced at her watch again. Hurry up, she urged, hurry up. I want to see him, to touch his hand, to hear his voice. Loving Victor was easy. The easiest thing that she’d ever done.
‘Expecting someone?’
Alice turned at the sound of Evan’s voice. His brown eyes were hard as nuts.
‘No, should I?’
‘I just wondered. You keep looking at your watch.’
She shrugged, but her heart was thumping. This was a man who hated her and would do anything to ruin her. Be careful, Alice told herself, be very careful.
‘It was a good sermon.’
Unexpectedly, Evan laughed. ‘Oh