Mrs Resterick and Miss Barnicoat. Together they showed me how to put plenty of elbow grease into the cleaning. They’ve spent hours here scrubbing and dusting and cooking and it was good having their company. Mr Greg kindly brought over some things, especially for the baby. Don’t know how I would have managed without them. Mrs R has been a brick. She’s been like a doting aunt to me, and Eloise too. I told her I’d like to provide some things for Eloise myself, and Mrs R told me that Denny Vercoe, the craft worker, also deals in all sorts of stuff and if you haven’t got the cash he’s happy to barter. Mrs R said I could pop Eloise in with her when I go out. I’d best not leave her here alone with Mum just yet.’ Finn deliberately paused.
‘I’d be pleased to help out with the baby, Finn,’ Belle offered straight away. She admired and liked Finn very much. He obviously doted on his baby sister.
Yes! Finn yelled out inside his head, with rapture. He could manipulate her offer to suit him. ‘Really? I’ll be glad to take you up on that,’ he replied, unable to keep the enthusiasm out of his tone. ‘Nurse Rumford has been a wonderful help too, although she’s getting nowhere with Mum, I’m afraid. I expect you’ve heard she has this post-natal depression thing. I’m grateful to the neighbours who have been so good to us, you included, Mrs Belle.’ There, he had said it, turned her title into something much more familiar and she didn’t seem to mind. This way he had got rid of her husband’s claim on Belle. His Belle. He wanted her to become his Belle.
‘You’re very welcome, Finn. While the kettle’s on, may I see Eloise? I’ve got a son, Sam, he’s the same age as you and I’m sure you’ll become friends. Sam’s like his dad, friendly and easygoing. I would have loved to have a little girl but it wasn’t to be.’
Finn didn’t like her having a son who might get in the way. ‘I’ll bring Eloise down. Come through to the front room. I’m afraid it’s not very grand.’
Finn couldn’t tear his sight off Belle, who in turn was avidly examining the shabby state of the long wide room, which ran under the main bedroom and the bathroom. The furnishings were meagre.
Belle was saddened for Finn and his family. There was the evidence in the hanging shelves and a candle box of fresh wood dust outside tiny boreholes indicating live woodworm. A crocheted blanket of multicoloured squares and some chintz cushions lifted the barrenness a little, with a linen runner on the sideboard. Holiday snaps of Finn and his mother in various foreign locations were set there, with two highly detailed drawings depicting Tolkien-like creatures signed by Finn. On the mantel over the gaping brick fireplace was a bracket clock, which Belle recognized as coming from Sunny Corner, and two dark wood carved giraffes that she had seen on the shelves in the thrift niche. A white milk jug with a chipped rim was filled with wild flowers and sat on the ledge of a boarded-up window.
Finn read her emotion and loved her all the more for it. ‘Pretty bleak, isn’t it? Our landlord had to go away on family business. He offered us his house in Wadebridge but Mum wanted to go somewhere isolated. She got her wish here. The landlord will be back soon hopefully and he’s promised to do something about the worst of the place. Mrs R said we could do with a working party in the house and outside, that Mr Greg would be glad to organize some willing villagers to hack down the gardens and remove some of the tree branches. It would make the place much lighter, but Mum said she couldn’t bear that yet. God knows when she will be up to anything. Take a seat, Mrs Belle. I’ll get Eloise.’
He reached the creaking landing and Fiona’s voice came to him strained and muffled for she tended to hold the bedcovers over her face. ‘Finn . . .’
He went in to her and made a face at her manky sweaty smells, the same as when he had brought some porridge to her the day Eloise was born. ‘Yes, Mum?’
Fiona’s puffy face peeped out of the crumpled sheet. ‘Is someone downstairs? I thought Mrs Resterick wasn’t coming until later and the nurse isn’t due yet, is she?’
‘It’s Mrs