‘You have to help me. I don’t have anywhere left to turn.’ Lucy couldn’t help the panic in her voice, tears streaming down her face. ‘I’m in trouble, pregnant.’
But her mother was distracted by voices in the background, her stepfather asking who it was on the phone. Hoarsely, she whispered into the phone, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t help you.’
‘Please, Mum. Ask Stan, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind. He always liked me.’
Only that seemed to be the last straw, and she whispered, ‘Don’t come back here, Lucy, for all our sakes,’ and then she hung up.
As she stood in the phone box, Lucy had never felt so alone.
IT WAS SURPRISINGLY EASYto get the name of someone who could give her an abortion. The woman at the launderette was always discreet, and she gave Lucy a number. ‘He used to be a doctor. I heard he’s as reliable as you get with these things.’
Lucy’s jaw clenched with determination as she went back to the telephone box and made an appointment for the next morning. She would have to go to the palace to pick up her pay, and then she’d claim a headache and hurry back for the appointment.
She didn’t want to beg Richard for money. No doubt it would be attached to other favours. She shuddered at what she’d let him do to her, how foolish she’d been.
She’d get through this on her own.
The next day, as she knocked on the door of a run-down house on the edge of Camden, she tried to distance herself from reality. How low she’d become, how desperate.
But it wasn’t until she wandered home afterward that she realized how complicated the procedure had been. The drugs were wearing off, and a cramping pain forced her to stop every few steps, doubling over as she collapsed onto various benches or steps.
When she’d imagined this journey, she thought that she’d feel relief, set free from her predicament.
Yet all she felt was grubby, immoral, and emptied out.
The world had shown her what it thought of her: a worthless hussy, foolish enough to let flattery and the delusion that she could be a singer lead her to hurt herself in so many ways.
And what now? She couldn’t go back to the palace, not with Richard there. And she couldn’t face Betty and Miranda after all they’d saidabout him. It turned out they weren’t jealous after all, and she couldn’t bear to think about how she’d talked down to them.
On the way, she bought some aspirin from a chemist. Once she got home she could take them to help her forget, to make the pain go away.
If only they could make everything go away.
MIRANDA
THERE WAS ALWAYS A BUZZ IN THE PALACE DINING HALL ONa Friday afternoon. Not only was it the end of another hard week, but the pay went out on Friday, the weekend heralding a splurge of fun.
Miranda joined the ladies at the usual table, wondering if there was any news.
‘Where’s Lucy?’ Caroline sighed as she looked around the great hall. ‘I hope she hasn’t taken against us so much that she’s sitting at a different table.’
Betty shook her head. ‘She said she felt unwell and went home this morning after she got her pay. I told her to see a doctor, but she said it was nothing.’
‘I hope she’s not skiving off work, spending her wages on fancy dresses.’ Hilda frowned. ‘The palace doesn’t take well to malingerers.’
But Betty shook her head. ‘I popped home at lunchtime, and she was in bed, wrapped up warm. She promised me she was fine, just a bit of tummy trouble.’ Betty paused, frowning. ‘Only, as I came down the stairs, I noticed blood on her coat. I hope she didn’t have a fall or anything.’
Something about this little tale sat oddly with Miranda, and she found herself going over it. ‘She came to work this morning, stayed long enough to collect her pay, and then left, only to go back to bed?’ Miranda thought of the large sum that Lucy had borrowed from her just yesterday – why would she be so desperate for more that she’d come into work when she was sick?
‘She seemed fine on the way to the palace this morning,’ Caroline said. ‘Quiet, maybe, apprehensive about something, but not unwell.’
And then there was the blood.
Which is when Miranda recalled the woman at the launderette, asking if she knew the blonde girl, to keep an eye on her in case she was ‘in trouble’, the words emphasized with a sharp raise of the eyebrows.
Miranda hadn’t thought about it at the time – the woman was always speaking in a secret Cockney code.
But now, Miranda knew exactly what she could have meant.
