AFTER WORK,SHE SATon the noisy Underground train crammed between two suited men, both holding open newspapers over her face and lap. She clutched her bag and read a headline, ‘Edmund Hillary Set to Conquer Everest’.
Was it even possible toconquera mountain?
She closed her eyes.
Why did it matter if some man climbed the highest mountain when her everyday drudgery remained unchanged?
After she married Frank, her life altered irrevocably. She found herself sharing a bed and a house with a man who snored, gambled and expected her to do everything, from cleaning and cooking to working extra time. It didn’t take long for her to realize that Frank was living well beyond his means. But it was too late. She had no choice but to make the most of it. Even after she’d had the baby, she went straight back to work, leaving Annabel with a neighbour.
She’d quickly worked out that the love of Frank’s life wasn’t her.
It was gambling.
Daily, he’d fill in coupons or go to the bookies, holding out for dreams of what he thought he deserved – or at least that he might claw back some of his losses. The racing commentary was continually on the radio, and Caroline and Annabel had to stop talking, treading on eggshells in case Frank won a million.
Except he never did.
As she trudged up the steps from Camden Town Underground Station, the familiar smell of exhaust fumes and rotting vegetables came from the street market, bringing her back to her drab reality. The market was closing, sellers calling the last of their wares, people hurrying past to get home. In the damp wind, a sheet of old newspaper flattened itself against her leg, pigeons fluttering over to see if there were crumbs on it. A few young lads barged through the crowd, laughing and shouting, the police close behind. It felt like a different country, not just a few miles from the riches of Buckingham Palace.
Caroline bought a cabbage and potatoes at a vegetable stall, and the butcher – a friend since the war days – gave her a few pork chops from under the counter. She’d give one to the neighbour who still took in Annabel after school – even though she was thirteen, Frank didn’t want her ‘getting in the way’ until Caroline got home. Wartime food rations were dragging on, and beneath the sheen and glamour of the new decade, petty crime and poverty were rampant.
Her pace began to slow as she came to the turning, past the bingo hall, the launderette, and one of those new beauty parlours she’dneither the time nor money to try. Soon, she was trudging up the steps and opening the front door.
Frank’s family’s residence for generations, the house was a beautiful whitewashed old Georgian terrace close to Primrose Hill. Ironically, she’d thought a lovely home would make marriage to Frank easier to stomach, but he couldn’t bear to change anything about it. His parents’ clutter moulded in every room; their pictures of country hunts covered the walls, men smeared with blood holding a dead fox aloft with glee. There was even a pet cockatoo stuffed inside its cage. It was as if Caroline were living in someone else’s house, or rather someone else’s museum.
But even if she had the money to escape, where would she go? As she had to give her pay to Frank, she didn’t even have funds for a week’s rent. And what about Annabel? Thoughts of a divorced colleague came back to her. She’d been thrown out of her job, an outcast, and her children had been claimed by their father, thanks to the archaic legal system. She couldn’t risk losing her precious child – she’d endure Frank forever rather than let him take Annabel.
As she eased open the door, the first thing that struck her was the quiet. Since the radio wasn’t blaring, she assumed that Frank had gone out. But as she padded into the living room and her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw his form in his usual battered red armchair.
He was asleep.
Carefully, she went through to the dining room, where an old clock ticked loudly, and although part of her wanted to push back the hour hand, stop it and her life from its inexorable march onward, somehow she also couldn’t wait for it all to be over, to be freed by death.
On her way, she picked upThe Sporting Lifeand put it on the dining table alongside the clutter of secondhand tools and empty cigarette packets. Frank was a collector. He liked to accrue, to hoard. Sometimes Caroline wondered if she and Annabel were merely parts of his collection, moving, working, useful tools who provided cooking, cleaning and a weekly wage.
Over every surface was Frank’s ever-expanding quantity of keys and locking devices. There were new ones, old brass ones, broken onestaken apart like exploded clocks, and blackened rusty ones with huge keys as if to a dungeon. Among them, there might be receipts from his work, but he usually kept those in his locked office at the back of the house, along with their wages.
‘Caroline, is that you, love?’ Frank stirred in his seat, his eyes opening as he patted his pockets for his cigarettes.
‘Yes, just in the door.’ She spoke with a cheery lilt, as if she were younger, fresher. ‘I picked up some nice pork chops for dinner.’
He struggled to his feet. ‘I hope they weren’t too pricey.’ He stretched, pushing back his thick dark-brown hair. At forty, he still looked youthful, as if the years hadn’t damaged him in the least. He was still lean, as narrow as a weasel ready to slip through a keyhole.
‘I used the last of the housekeeping money as it’s payday.’ Caroline felt inside her bag, pulled out the small brown envelope containing her weekly wage, and passed it to him.
He took it. ‘I’ll do the accounts while you put on dinner.’ He gave her a peck on the cheek before heading through to the office, and she heard him lock the door with a deft clunk.
It was his weekly ritual. Friday was payday for both of them, and he’d shut himself away and take out the lockbox. Then there were the household bills to pay and the housekeeping money to set aside for her.
Just as she was turning the chops over in the pan, he reemerged and handed her a few coins. ‘Only a few shillings this week, love. With summer coming up, we have to save for the beach.’
‘Surely we have enough by now?’
‘What with getting my locksmith business off the ground, I haven’t been able to make much of a profit yet.’
‘I would have thought that my promotion would cover the trip.’
He shook his head. ‘Your wages haven’t gone up that much, and have you seen the price of everything these days? Maybe you could work more hours?’
