Chapter 7 See The Pyramids Along the Nile #3
Mrs. Greta Kova?evi?, formerly of Yugoslavia, was somewhere in her fifties.
She had dyed red hair (the packet promised alluring auburn, but she suspected, without regret, that her alluring days were over), wolfish amber eyes, and the most restless of demeanors.
No one in the house had ever seen her sit down, not even to drink a cup of tea.
When beseeched to take the weight off her feet, to have some sherry, or a bit of cake, or a cigarette, she acted as if the beseecher were trying to hoodwink her, to seduce her into relaxing her steely discipline, thus impugning her claim that the housework left her not a moment for herself.
“You think I have time to sit?” she would demand. “And when washing up is not finished and dog is not fed and floors are not cleaned, what then?”
Among the residents, Greta’s omnipotence was accepted as part of the natural order.
A Tregunter Road fixture since before Honor’s reign, she was originally employed by Barbara, Gerald’s first wife.
The job had been quite different then; it was a family house, though the two sons were away fighting.
In Greta’s opinion, Barbara could easily have managed the housework herself, were she not such a lazy, vain woman.
She saw no shame in lolling around with her feet up, examining her face in a hand mirror, while someone else slaved.
Greta kept these judgments to herself. As a refugee from Hitler’s war, over forty, and with poor English, she considered herself lucky to have found work that wasn’t too arduous.
One morning in January 1942, as German bombs dropped on Liverpool, Greta arrived to find Barbara still in bed, sobbing and blubbering into a handkerchief. “He’s got another woman,” she wailed. “Can you believe it?”
Is that all? Greta thought. Barbara hadn’t seemed this upset when her sons were killed in action.
“Never mind. He says sorry? Men do silly things. He says sorry, you forgive him. Everything is all right.” Greta, who had a blanket contempt for the opposite sex, thought it beneath any woman’s dignity to cry about a man’s sexual incontinence.
Her own husband, Vladko, had been a member of the Usta?e—the Croatian fascist party—and was publicly executed for committing unauthorized violence against Serbs and Gypsies.
As a Catholic, Greta didn’t believe in karma.
But she did believe in the general principle of play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
“You don’t understand!” Barbara’s blubbering increased.
“He’s leaving me for her. Some bloody little awful trollop from his office.
Twenty-two! Says they’re getting married.
‘Not if I’ve got anything to do with it, you’re not,’ I told him.
‘What kind of twenty-two-year-old wants to marry an old codger like you?’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘you see, she’s very sophisticated.
An old soul.’ ” Barbara spat these words out. “That’s one word for it, isn’t it?”
It’s two words, thought Greta. She was itching to turn Barbara out of bed so she could strip it. Bloody little awful trollop or not, it was laundry day.
Greta had just folded one pillow slip and begun ironing another when Honor came in.
“Oh, Greta,” she said, “I know we’ve been over this, but is it really necessary to iron the sheets and pillow slips? Nobody would care if they were a bit crumpled. I’m only thinking of you, standing there for hours operating that thing.”
Greta pressed a button to release extra steam and pushed the iron tip into a corner with vigor.
“You want people to talk about unkempt bedrooms, like you’re running cheap bed and breakfast?
I have my own reputation to worry about.
Maybe you don’t care how your house looks, but I care. Is reflection of me.”
Why do I bother, thought Honor, going to put the kettle on. “Of course it is. And that is why I treasure you. Tea?”
Grudgingly, Greta nodded. She never refused a cup of tea, even if she didn’t interrupt her work to drink it. Apropos of nothing, she said, “What’s his name, that new boy?”
“Do you mean Jimmy? Mr. Sullivan?” Honor spooned tea leaves into the pot.
“Yes, him.”
After a pause, Honor said, “Well, what about him? Has he done something wrong?”
“Depends.”
She could have reached across the kitchen table and wrung Greta’s neck. “Would you care to enlighten me on your meaning?”
Greta smiled with gentle malice. “His bed was not slept in last night.” She shrugged, and her shrug said, There could be an innocent reason, but I highly doubt it.
Honor replaced the kettle on the stove. “How on earth do you know that?” She’d seen Jimmy first thing that morning, making himself a cup of coffee.
His hair was wet, as if he’d just had a bath.
Greta must be mistaken, she told herself.
Although now that she thought about it, he had been whistling and looking rather pleased with himself.
“I know because yesterday I strip and remake beds. Today I do quick vacuum on stairs, top to bottom. Jimmy’s door was open, so I could see bed still made.”
Honor opened her mouth to interrupt, but Greta pointed a triumphant finger upward.
“I make beds yesterday.”
Honor understood. Greta put fresh linen on the beds once a month, but everyone was responsible for making their own beds in between times. Even if Jimmy had made the bed, his efforts could never match Greta’s drum-tight tucking and military corners.
“Oh well,” said Honor lightly. “He’s a grown man. He probably stayed out late and slept on a friend’s sofa.” She lifted the lid from the teapot and peered in. All this worry would make her ill, she thought. Running away and adopting a new identity for the second time suddenly felt very appealing.
“Robbie always makes his bed nicely,” said Greta. “But Robbie is nice boy.” Jimmy, she thought, was not nice boy. And yet she was the only one who seemed to have noticed.
Honor passed her a cup of tea. “Have you seen George today? I wanted to ask her something.”
“She got home little while ago. She was at one of her painters, but they lost the light.” Greta smiled, pleased at her reproduction of this artistic lingo.
“Did she? I might take a cup of tea up to her, then.”
Greta shook out her pillow slip and gave a shrug-nod as if to say, Suit yourself.
“Knock, knock,” said Honor chirpily, standing at the threshold of George’s ajar door. George was sitting at her dressing table, frowning at herself in the spotty mirror. She turned her head at the sound of Honor’s voice.
“I thought you might like a cup of tea.”
“How nice,” said George sincerely. “Thank you. Do come in and sit down if you like.”
“You look shattered, poor thing. Did you go out last night?” George’s bed, under the window on the other side of the room, was in a state of some dishevelment.
But that wouldn’t stand up in a court of law, Honor reminded herself, not with George’s domestic habits.
Her pink eiderdown really has seen better days, she thought idly.
“Do I? Thanks a bunch!”
“I didn’t mean…”
“I’m only teasing. I am a bit tired. How are you?”
“Oh, you know,” said Honor, “soldiering on under immense strain.” But her tone was flippant, and she quickly went on: “So what were you up to last night? A party?”
“No, I went to the pictures. Was in bed by ten. I think it’s just the winter, dragging on, taking it out of us all.
Or maybe I’ve got a cold coming on.” Or she was tired because she’d been chucking up all morning.
Somehow, the vomiting made the pregnancy more real than the doctor’s confirmation.
“Honor, I’m glad to see you, actually. I wanted to ask you something. I’m embarrassed to ask, but…”
Oh God, thought Honor. She wants to know if I mind, after all, her going out with Jimmy.
“Could I possibly touch you for ten quid? I’m a bit short at the moment.
Owed money here and there. You know what it’s like.
I’ll pay you back as soon as I can, naturally.
” She’d found a man in Battersea who would do the operation for twenty-five pounds, so long as you weren’t too far along.
Two shifts at the Camera Club had already netted her six guineas, so if Honor gave her ten quid, she was sure she could cobble together the rest.
Honor hesitated. Her bank account was depleted, thanks to the money she’d given Jimmy.
“Don’t worry if it’s a problem,” said George. “I can ask someone else.”
“If I give you the money, does that mean you won’t need to do that evening job? Because in that case—”
“Exactly. You were right. I thought better of it as soon as I arrived for the interview.”
“I’m so glad. I’ll pop to the bank in the morning.”
“Thank you ever so much. I do hate asking. It won’t happen again.”
Honor gave a say-no-more head shake. “So. Nothing else new with you? How are your current beaux?”
“Pretty much a dead loss, unfortunately. Never mind. Plenty more fish in the sea!” Just listen to yourself, she thought.
The hollowness of that phrase. Yet Honor seemed to brighten at this evidence of the usual George: the flighty girl with delightfully loose morals who thumbed her nose at convention and got away with it, who breezed through life exempt from comeuppance by the indulgent whims of fate.