works long hours and needs his rest and I really don’t mind.’ They had come indoors to the front room so that they could sit and chat comfortably. ‘Enough of me. What have you been up to?’
Penny looked at her friend over the rim of her glass and decided not to say what was in her mind, that in her opinion George was a selfish dominating brute and before long Barbara would become a drudge with no life of her own. ‘I’ve got a lead in a West End play.’
‘Congratulations!’ Barbara’s eyes lit with pleasure.
‘I’m going to have a party after the first night when we know what the critics say. It will either be a celebration or a solace. You’ll come, won’t you?’
‘Oh, Penny, I wish I could, but I can’t leave Alison.’
‘Of course you can. It’ll only be one night and Mrs Kennett will look after the baby. It’s not for a couple of months, she’ll be weaned by then, won’t she?’
‘Yes, but it’s not just that. I’m not sure when we’re moving…’
‘You’re just making excuses. You’re vegetating, you know that, don’t you?’
‘No, I’m not. It’s simply that I know I’ll be busy.’
‘Busy doing nothing,’ Penny said firmly. ‘When did you last pick up a paintbrush?’
‘I’ll do plenty of that soon.’ She laughed. ‘We’re decorating the new house ourselves. It will save George having to pay his painters to do it.’
‘I didn’t mean that and you know it.’ Penny could see that the newness of marriage was already wearing off and her friend was not as blissfully happy as she pretended.
‘I’m sorry, Penny. You must be very disappointed in me.’
‘Yes, I am. I thought you had more spirit.’
‘I’m tired, that’s all. It will be better when Alison sleeps through the night.’
‘Then you’ll find other excuses. If you neglect a talent, you lose it. Think about that.’ She looked up as Elizabeth came into the room and wondered how much she had heard. ‘Hallo, Mrs Kennett.’
‘It’s Miss Barcliffe, isn’t it?’ Elizabeth said, as if she didn’t remember her.
‘Yes. I’m sorry I can’t stop, I’m rehearsing this afternoon.’ She picked up her crocodile handbag and turned back to Barbara. ‘I’ll send you an invitation. Be sure and come.’
‘What invitation?’ Elizabeth asked, plumping up the cushion on the chair Penny had used, as if she couldn’t wait to erase the evidence of her presence.
‘A party she’s giving to celebrate a new play she’s acting in. I told her I couldn’t go.’
They moved into the new house on a scorching day at the end of June. Numbered 1a Cambridge Crescent, and not, as Barbara had expected, 150a Newtown Estate, it had one large living room and a kitchen with a gas cooker, two bedrooms and, unlike the neighbouring council houses whose baths were in the kitchen, it had an upstairs bathroom whose water was heated with a gas geyser. The bathroom was Barbara’s delight. The one at Victoria Street had been added to the back of the kitchen by George just after the war, but having a bath meant you had to stoke up the kitchen range hours beforehand to get hot water.
She spent days going round the shops choosing carpets, curtains and furniture, sometimes taking Alison in her pram, sometimes leaving her with Elizabeth. She took an immense amount of trouble, using her flair for colour to make it special. It had to be to eradicate the feelings of guilt which still beset her. But the distempered walls in a pale coffee colour were a little too bare.
‘We need a few pictures,’ George said, hanging their framed wedding photograph up in the lounge and rooting in a box for another of his mother. He had no picture of his father, which Barbara thought rather strange. But photographs were not what was needed, she decided, and after he had gone to work, she set about covering one of the bare walls in the sitting room with a mural.
It was great to have a brush in her hand again, to look down at the different coloured pots of paint she had set out on a small table, and know that she could create something lasting, something that was unique to her. Alison was asleep and in no time at all she was totally absorbed. She painted a rural scene, a meadow with daisies and buttercups, running down to a ribbon of river, where a small dinghy sailed. The sky was cobalt blue and the sun a golden orb. A young man on a