He glanced up at the wheedling tone, his broad face suspicious.
‘Oh aye. Your thinking usually costs me money, or sleep.’
Ethel smiled winningly. ‘I was wondering – would you mind if I brought Alice home for her birthday?’
‘Here!’
‘No, London Zoo,’ Ethel replied archly. ‘Of course here. She’s hardly ever been out of that home – none of the children has. It’s like a world of its own.’ Ethel paused, wondering how to put it best. ‘Alice needs to think she has some family.’
Gilbert’s forehead creased into frown lines. He had given up the removals now, and was making wooden toys in the shed to keep himself busy – and to make a bit of money. Tommy Field’s market sold them – well, now and again.
‘Look, luv, we have our own family. Alice Rimmer isn’t our responsibility.’
‘And that,’ Ethel snapped back, ‘is probably what her mother once said!’
He sighed, knowing that Ethel had already made her mind up.
‘But what about Miss Lees?’ he continued gamely. ‘She doesn’t like any of the kids to get out and about – and she’s not one for favouritism, you’ve said so often enough. Besides, is she really likely to agree to a child – especially Alice Rimmer – coming here for a birthday treat?’
Ethel frowned. ‘Who said she had to know it was a birthday treat? Look, Gilbert, that child needs a change, and I intend to give her one – and Clare Lees isn’t going to stop me. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.’
Which there was. A little white lying on Ethel’s part and she convinced Clare Lees that Alice needed a way to run off her ‘excess energy’. She wouldn’t mind taking her out and about, now and then. After all, Ethel said reasonably, it would stop Alice stirring up the other children, wouldn’t it?
So the following Friday Gilbert found himself sitting opposite a little girl in a plain print dress, her black hair in plaits, her eyes huge and wary. Obviously nervous, Alice was sitting with her hands on her lap, terrified of the old man watching her. Gilbert was also terrified. What the hell was he supposed to say to a child?
Paralysed and silent they both looked up relieved when, a moment later, Ethel walked in with a cake.
‘It’s a birthday cake, for you, Alice.’
‘For me?’ The child replied, her voice low. No one had celebrated her birthday before. In fact, only Ethel had ever mentioned it. But now here she was, out of Netherlands, with a cake! It was too good to be true.
Beaming, Ethel put the cake in front of Alice, then lit the ten candles on the top. As soon as she saw the flames, Alice reared back in her seat, alarmed.
‘No, luv, it’s all right.’ Ethel laughed. ‘It’s a candle for every year you’ve been born. Ten candles, ten years.’
Alice stared into the flames, each of them reproduced in the dark pupils of her eyes.
‘Blow them out and wish,’ Ethel urged her.
Gilbert was watching the little girl and then glanced at his wife. A cake of all things! I wonder how much that cost. They hardly ever had cake these days, what with money being so bloody tight.
Urged on by Ethel, Alice leaned towards the cake, took in a huge breath, and blew. The candles went out all together, thin trickles of smoke curling up from the spent wicks. She smiled, then clapped her hands together and giggled. The sound was so infectious that Gilbert found himself laughing too.
Excited, Alice leaped to her feet. ‘Oh, thank you, thank you!’ she said, hugging Ethel tightly. ‘It’s the best thing that ever happened to me.’
She chatted on and on after that, all shyness gone. Gilbert put down his paper. Fascinated, he listened to the stories of the home and tut-tutted where he thought it was appropriate. Knowing that she had an audience, Alice was vibrant, her voice rising and falling, her eyes brilliant, her hands waving in the air as she talked.
On the sidelines, Ethel watched, amused. Yet even she was surprised when Gilbert went out for a moment and then came back from the shed with some of the wooden toys he had made.
Diffidently, he showed them to Alice.
‘I … I made these,’ he said, pushing a toy horse and a camel across the table towards the little girl.
‘You made them?’ she asked, astonished.
Gilbert nodded, puffed up with pride. Carefully he lit his pipe and sat down in his battered easy chair.
‘I learned to carve from my father. He could make anything.’
Alice’s eyes were fixed on the toys.
‘Go on, you can touch them,’ Gilbert said.
Ethel raised her eyebrows. Well, she thought, this was a turn up. Her husband was normally so possessive of his carvings. Things were going better than she would have dared to hope.
Slowly Alice picked up the camel and turned it over in her hands. Then she laughed and picked up the horse. In another moment she was racing them along the table, Gilbert watching her, Alice hooting with laughter. She felt secure, happy in this little house, and was so giddy with excitement that she lost her grip on the horse and it fell over the edge of the table.
As it landed heavily at Gilbert’s feet, its head snapped off.
Alice froze in her seat, watching as he bent down. Ethel too was holding her breath. Carefully Gilbert fingered the broken toy, then glanced over to the child. For an instant he was enraged, but when he saw tears running down Alice’s face he faltered.
‘It were badly carved,’ he said, coughing. ‘It weren’t your fault, luv.’
But she knew it was. Knew he was lying to be kind to her. She had broken the toy and ruined everything. They wouldn’t ask her to their house again. No one wanted a stupid clumsy girl around. No one ever wanted her around for long.
Brushing away her tears, Alice stammered, ‘Sorry, I’m sorry –’
‘Like I say, it weren’t well made,’ Gilbert persisted manfully.
Mortified, Alice got to her feet and turned to Ethel. ‘I should go back now –’
‘You don’t have to,’ Ethel said, her heart shifting. Oh, bugger the bloody toy! Why did that have to happen? ‘Stay a while longer, Alice.’
She shook her head. ‘No, I should really go back.’ She turned to Gilbert. ‘I’m so sorry about the horse, Mr Cummings … really sorry.’ Then she looked back at Ethel. ‘Thank you for my cake. It was the best birthday I’ve ever had.’
Alice cried herself to sleep that night, her head under the blankets so that the others girls wouldn’t hear her. They would have gloated, she knew. They had all been so jealous that Alice had been allowed out. Why her? they’d asked. It must be because she was so pretty. Matron’s favourite.
Some of them would have liked to bully Alice, but there was something about her which stopped them. She was so confident, not like the rest of them. It did no good telling her that she was an orphan like everyone else; Alice would simply shrug her shoulders and walk off. She was special, she told them; she was only at the home temporarily. Her family were coming back for her, she said. Her rich family.
They laughed at her, but there was something about Alice Rimmer which made them wonder. She