Hannah joined the tail of a bus queue, waiting patiently while she allowed her thoughts to wander over the day behind her. She was glad that little Paul was perking up at last; it had been touch and go with him ever since his birth, but now it looked as though he was going to make it; another month or two of care and he would have caught up with his weight. She would miss him, and his mother too, for that matter. Mevrouw van Eysink was only a couple of years older than she was and although they came from quite different backgrounds they got on well.
She climbed on to her bus and was swept through the rather dingy streets, over the river and into still more streets, not dingy now but tired-looking backwaters, each row of Victorian houses looking exactly like the next. Hannah got off presently, walked down a side street and turned into another one leading from it. The houses here were just the same as all the others—shabby genteel was the expression, she decided, going down their length to the end of the row. Some of them were still occupied by only one family, but the rest had been converted in a ramshackle way into flats. From the outside they didn’t look so bad, but the builders had skimped the paint and plaster inside and used cheap wood for the doors and windows, so that nothing quite fitted any more. She turned into number thirty-six and started up the staircase the four flats shared.
She and her mother lived on the third floor, sandwiched between an old lady who walked with a stick whose every tap could be clearly heard by those beneath her, and a young couple who were ardent disciples of pop music, so that Hannah’s mother never ceased to complain in her plaintive way about the noise. But despite Hannah’s frequent suggestions that they should find somewhere else to live, both quieter and cheaper, she always refused. ‘This is a good address,’ she argued, ‘and surely you don’t grudge me that refinement? After all, your dear father was a rural dean and heaven alone knows how I have to scrape and screw on my miserable pension and the sacrifices I’m forced to make.’
Hannah, hearing it all for the hundredth time, had always agreed quietly and forborne to mention that a large portion of her own salary went to bolster up that pension. Her mother had never been able to cope with money; when her husband had been alive he had given her a generous allowance—too generous, as it turned out, for on his death it was discovered that he had been digging into his slender capital in order to pay it, and now, five years later, his widow still considered that she should have the same amount to spend upon herself. And Hannah had said nothing; her mother was still a pretty woman, a fact which her mother frequently pointed out to her, adding the invariable rider that she could never understand how it was that she had such a very ordinary daughter. She always said it laughingly, making a little joke out of it, but to Hannah, very conscious of her ordinary face and small, slightly plump person, it was not a joke.
Her mother’s voice, high and girlish and slightly complaining, greeted her as she opened their flat door.
‘Hannah? You’re late, darling. I’m afraid I haven’t done anything about supper yet; this warm weather has brought on one of my wretched headaches…’
Hannah went through the narrow hall into the sitting room. Her mother was lying on a rather shabby sofa, one beautifully kept hand to her forehead. ‘Don’t bang the door,’ she added sharply, and Hannah said, ‘No, Mother. I’m sorry you’ve got a bad head. I’ll get supper presently.’
She gave a small soundless sigh as she said it; she was tired and hot and hungry, and just for a moment she allowed her thoughts to dwell on life as it had been five years ago. She had been nineteen then, living at home and helping her father as well as coping with the major share of the housekeeping in the nice old house where they had lived. There had been a lot to do and plenty of time in which to do it and leisure to ride the elderly cob her father kept in the field beyond the house, or cycle round the lanes. She drove her father too and helped the old crotchety man who ruled the garden, and as though that wasn’t enough, she cooked most of their meals, so expertly that guests would compliment Mrs Lang on her cook, to be answered by a charming smile and a murmured: ‘Oh, we manage very well between us,’ which left them with the strong and erroneous impression that she had spent hours in the kitchen turning out the delicacies on the table. Which wasn’t true, of course, but Hannah never let on; her mother was selfish and dreadfully lazy, but she loved her, despite the rather tepid affection her parent accorded her.
Hannah stooped to kiss her mother and then went into the small kitchen to put on the kettle; she had missed her tea and if she was to get their supper she simply had to have five minutes’ peace and quiet first. She took the tray into the sitting room and sat it on the little table in the window, then sat herself down on a high-backed chair beside it.
‘Been busy?’ asked Mrs Lang idly.
‘Oh, about the same as usual.’ Hannah knew that her mother had very little interest in her work, indeed, she shuddered away from illness. ‘Would you like a cup of tea, Mother?’
Her mother accepted a cup with a wan smile. ‘Dear child, what a comfort you are—it’s selfish of me, but I’m glad that you have no plans to marry.’ Mrs Lang sipped her tea and took a quick questioning look at Hannah. ‘You haven’t, have you? I don’t suppose you get much chance to meet young men…only doctors and students.’
‘They seldom marry nurses, Mother. They can’t afford to.’
‘Oh, well, I daresay you’ll meet some nice man one day.’ Mrs Lang added with complete insincerity: ‘I do hope so.’ After a pause she added: ‘And poor little me will have to look after myself.’
‘I don’t suppose I’ll get married,’ said Hannah gruffly, ‘so you don’t need to worry. What would you like for supper?’
And presently she went into the kitchen and made a soufflé and salad, and all the while she was doing that she wondered what it would be like to be married and pretty like Mevrouw Eysink, lovingly spoilt and petted and the proud mother of a little baby like Paul, not to mention a devoted husband rushing over each weekend with armfuls of gifts…
‘Roses,’ said Hannah, gazing unseeingly at the view of chimney pots from the kitchen window, ‘hand-made chocs and diamonds…’
‘What did you say, dear?’ called her mother from the sitting room.
‘Supper’s ready, Mother.’
Hannah spent her days off in the usual way, slowly developed over the five years during which they had lived in London. At first they had made a point of going somewhere—an art gallery, a film they wanted to see, or a concert, but gradually things altered. Mrs Lang began to complain that she found the housework too much for her, even though Hannah did most of it in her off duty, and then, just for a little while, there had been the young man from the hospital pharmacy, who had taken Hannah out on several occasions. She hadn’t wanted to take him home, but she finally gave in to her mother’s request to meet him, and then sat and listened to her mother destroying, in the nicest possible way, the tentative friendship she and the young man had formed.
Not that her mother lied; she merely made it appear that Hannah was a dedicated nurse and moreover had promised her father when he died that she would live with her mother and look after her. Mrs Lang, without actually saying so, had led him to believe that she was suffering from something vague and incurable which necessitated constant loving attention. The young man hadn’t given up immediately; he asked Hannah out once more and she had accepted. But when she had mentioned it to her mother that lady said without a moment’s hesitation that she had invited several people to dinner on that particular evening and had relied upon Hannah to cook the meal. She had dissolved into easy tears, murmuring that she supposed that she was of no account any more and Hannah must certainly go out if she wished; the invitations could be cancelled. ‘The first dinner party I’d planned for months,’ she had finished plaintively. And the soft-hearted Hannah had hugged her and declared that she didn’t mind if she didn’t go out and she’d love to cook the dinner for their guests.
The young man