‘I bet he’s just another drunk, propping up the bar in there,’ the man said, his voice slurred. ‘Yer mam sent you to call him home before he spends the rent money?’
‘He’s not like that!’ Alice said heatedly, walking away and then turning. ‘My father’s important and my mother’s well known. A beauty.’
‘Yeah, and I’m Rudolph Valentino,’ the drunk sneered, pulling a half-bottle out of his greasy coat and taking a swig. ‘And the more I drink, the more I believe it.’
Alice hurried off, moving under the viaduct and beginning to mount the steep street. If she was honest, she wanted to double back, but was afraid to meet up with the man again, so she kept walking ahead. Soon she was drenched, her hair dripping down her back, her skin chalk white. Wrapping her arms around herself she hurried on. She then realised that she was lost. The streets meant nothing to her, she had no idea of where she was, and there was nothing familiar in sight. The outings she had had with Ethel had been in daytime and Salford hadn’t seemed so grim then, but under the dim gaslamps the streets looked sour, the alleys gloomy. Disembodied voices and shouts came from behind doors and drawn blinds, the rain drumming on the cheap tin roofs of outside lavatories. Alice was afraid suddenly, stopping and looking round. Where was she going? Did she really think she was going to find her parents this way? When she didn’t know who they were, where they were, or what they looked like?
She had acted like a fool, Alice thought. Here she was out in the cold, lost, and there was no one to help her. No one was even looking for her. Scared, she dug her nails into her palms to stop herself crying and turned, trying to see the viaduct, the only landmark she remembered. But all she could see was a man, the drunk, a way off, walking towards her and, startled, Alice began to run.
It was him! she thought. He would catch her and then what? Her feet pounded on the pavement and then she saw a cobbled ginnel and dived in, catching her breath.
At once, a hand descended on her shoulder.
She screamed.
‘Hey, miss, it’s all right,’ the policeman said pleasantly. ‘What are you doing out and about this time of night?’
Relief was quickly followed by a sense of failure. Her big adventure was a sham. She was just a stupid, lost kid.
‘I … was walking.’
‘Where?’
‘Around.’
‘Around where?’ he repeated, leaning down towards her, his moustached face kind. ‘I think I should get you home, don’t you?’
‘I don’t have a home.’
He blinked. ‘Come on now, there’s no argument that bad that can’t be settled over a pot of tea. Your parents will be worried about you, lass.’
No they won’t, Alice thought hopelessly. ‘I don’t have a real home. I’m at Netherlands.’
‘Ah,’ he said simply, taking her hand. ‘Well, I think perhaps it’s time you were back, little one.’
She wanted to be grown up, but instead Alice held gratefully onto his hand and walked back to Netherlands with him in silence.
Ethel would say afterwards that it was the turning point. When Alice was brought back to the home that night she was cowed and defeated. You could see that all the fight had gone out of her, Ethel told Gilbert. It was hardly worth while Clare Lees punishing her; she didn’t seem to care any more. The petty duties Alice was given she completed without complaint, without resistance. She wouldn’t even talk about where she had gone that night. Or why.
‘Are you all right, sweetheart?’ Ethel asked her a few days later.
Alice nodded. ‘I’m fine.’
Compliance was more worrying than an outburst, thought Ethel.
‘No more running away now, Alice, promise me. It did no good, no good at all.’ She paused to see what effect her words were having, but the girl’s face was bland. What is she thinking? Ethel wondered. Or is she plotting something?
The truth was that Clare Lees’ words had cut Alice to the bone and forced a change in her. It was one thing to be put in a home, quite another for someone to spell out what you already knew. That you weren’t wanted. Alice’s hatred for the principal was absolute, although she wouldn’t admit it to anyone. She would keep her own counsel, that was the only way to survive at Netherlands. But her loathing for Clare Lees burned with such force that she wondered if it shimmered around her like a heat haze.
Clare Lees had crushed her dream. The one thing which Alice had clung to – the hope that her parents, in particular her mother, might come back for her – had been snatched away. Some humpbacked spinster had told her she was a no one and that she never would be.
Well, she would show her! Alice thought. She would show Clare Lees what she was made of. One day she would get out of the home and really find her family. They would explain that it had all been a mistake and welcome her back. They would be rich and she would come back in furs and riding in a new motorcar. She would gloat over Clare Lees and pay her back for every single cruel word.
That was the night that Alice Rimmer grew up.
Evan Thomas paused under the viaduct and lit a cigarette, inhaling the smoke and then tossing the match into the gutter. The sun was shining, which pleased him, and he hummed under his breath as he walked along. Oh yes, Evan thought, life was really quite good.
He had a new girlfriend and unless he was very much mistaken, he was impressing Clare Lees even more than usual. Evan sniffed the air and pretended that he was back in Wales. The daydream lasted for as long as it took a rag-and-bone man to ride by, his horse depositing a heap of foul-smelling dung on the roadside.
Pulling an expression of disgust, Evan moved off. Oh yes, Clare Lees was getting to need him more and more. If he played his cards right she might consider early retirement. After all, the woman must be over sixty. He would be kind to her, let her retire and teach a little now and then. There was no reason to be unpleasant; after all, she had made it all possible for him.
He liked to imagine how popular he would be. Liked to think of how everyone would love him after the old bag had gone … Evan sighed. He would have to make changes, bring the place into the present, get himself noticed. The governors seemed to like him well enough – better than that ridiculous Dolly Blake.
Evan thought about pretty, ambitious Dolly and her bullish boyfriend, Andy. Not many brains in poor Andy. Just brawn. He smiled. Dolly was such a fool; it had all been so easy. She had fallen for his line as soon as he had spun it her way. And she had kept falling.
She was waiting by the park gates now, her blonde head shining in the sunlight, her face a mixture of pouting prettiness and hard-nosed guile.
‘Evan,’ she said softly, her lips pressing briefly against his.
‘Hey now, we have to be careful in public –’
She pinched his arm. It hurt. ‘Why’s that, Evan?’
‘You’re the one with the fiancé,’ he replied smoothly, leading her into the park and away from prying eyes. Andy might be dumb, but he was big enough to flatten Evan.
‘Oh, Evan,’ she said, stopping and pulling him towards some bushes, ‘I’ve been thinking about you since Thursday. Do you really love me?’
He cupped her breasts in his hands and nuzzled against her neck ‘Now that’s a silly question, girl. You know how I feel about you.’
Dolly