things she’d never had to before. This house was the only home she had known. She might most of the time feel like an intruder here, due to the way her parents were, but at least she’d had a certain amount of security, knowing a meal would be on the table for her, her washing done, her bedroom cleaned, albeit by Agnes Dalby, the daily her mother employed, who saw to these household chores.
She felt that she was being forced headlong towards a closed door, her unknown future concealed behind it, with no one to offer her comfort or support, let alone love.
CHAPTER SIX
‘Have you got a watch?’
Glen sat bolt upright, still half-asleep but instantly on his guard. He didn’t like waking up to find a stranger close to him. No, not a stranger, he realised belatedly. It was the woman he’d saved in the arches the night before – and now she would not leave him alone.
‘A watch?’ he queried.
His tone of voice left her in no doubt what he thought of her for asking such a stupid question. ‘Well . . . er . . . what I meant was, how do I find out what time it is?’
He glanced out of the shop doorway at the street beyond and answered, ‘It’s about five-thirty.’
Jan stared at him in surprise. ‘How can you possibly know that if you haven’t a watch?’
He gave an irritated sigh. ‘I can just tell, by the morning air and the colour of the sky, which you’ll come to do yourself in time. Now, if you don’t mind, I want to try and snatch . . .’
She interjected, ‘We have to go.’
He looked at her incredulously. ‘Go where? There is nowhere to go at this time in the morning.’
Jan was desperately trying to stretch the stiffness out of her body so she could get up. She was surprised to find that she had slept for as long as she had, considering the circumstances. ‘I told you last night, I know where we can get you cleaned up . . . me too. Look, I haven’t time to explain – we have to get there before six. Come on.’ When she saw he was just looking back at her, befuddled, she urged, ‘Come on . . . What is your name, by the way?’
‘Eh? Oh, Glen. Glen Trainer.’
‘I’m Janet Clayton. Jan. Now come on, Mr Trainer . . . Glen . . . we have to arrive where we’re going before it gets light, and I’ve no idea where we are at the moment so I don’t know how far we have to go.’
Glen was confused as to where on earth she could be taking him.
Jan was standing up by now, peeling the rotting blanket Glen had loaned her from around herself, conscious that its smell had seeped into her clothes and of her own desperate need to freshen herself up. And there was the fact that she was still so cold she needed to move in order to get the blood flowing in her veins again. Handing the blanket to him, she urged, ‘Come on, we really need to be off.’
The conversation they’d had hours before flooded back to him. The woman he now knew to be Janet Clayton had proclaimed that she knew somewhere they could go to smarten themselves up. He was highly intrigued to find out just where the likes of him would be allowed to do that. And besides, he had no clean clothes to change into. But he was wide awake now so he might as well go with her. It didn’t look like she was going to take no for an answer.
Out in the street, once Glen had informed Jan exactly where they were, she hurriedly set off. She took him to the town centre then up the high street, crossing the Grand Union Canal over the Richard III bridge, then on up the Narborough Road. It seemed to them that they were the only ones up and about on this bitterly cold early morning. On and on they seemed to go before Jan finally turned down a palisade terraced street. She stopped for a moment by the entry between two houses, taking a good look round to confirm that they weren’t being observed from behind any closed curtains before she urged Glen to follow her down the entry.
Halfway down in the near pitch dark, Glen reached out to grab her shoulder. ‘If it’s your idea to break into