The Ship of Brides(79)
Author: Jojo Moyes

In the face of their poverty, Frances could never work out how her mother acquired the money to get as drunk as she did.

And then, one night, she disappeared – with the evening’s takings.

Frances had been taking a five-minute break, seated on a bucket in the broom cupboard, eating a couple of slices of bread and margarine that Hun Li had left for her, when she heard the commotion. She had already put down her plate and stood up when Mr Radcliffe stormed in. ‘Where is she, the thieving whore?’

Frances froze, wide-eyed. She already knew, with a familiar sinking feeling in her stomach, whom he was talking about.

‘She’s gone! And so has my bloody cash! Where is she?’

‘I – I don’t know,’ Frances had stammered.

Mr Radcliffe, normally so urbane and gentlemanly, had become an enraged, puce-faced creature, his body somehow threatening to burst out of his shirt, his huge fists balled as if in an effort to contain himself. He had stared at her for what seemed like an eternity, apparently weighing up the possibility that she was telling the truth. She had thought, briefly, that she might wet herself with fear. Then he had gone, the door slamming behind him.

They had found her two days later, unconscious, at the back of the butcher’s. There was no money, just a few empty bottles. Her shoes were missing. One evening that same week, Mr Radcliffe went round ‘to have a word with her’ then came back to the hotel to tell Frances that he and her mother had decided it might be best if she left town for a while. She was bad for business. Hardly anyone would give the Lukes credit. He had personally helped her out. ‘Just till she straightens herself out a bit,’ he said. ‘Though God only knows how long that’ll take.’

Frances had been too shocked to react. When she arrived home that evening, took in the heavy silence of the little house, the bills sitting on the kitchen table, the note that failed to explain exactly where her mother was going, she had laid her head on her arms and stayed like that until, exhausted, she slept.

It had been almost three months later that Mr Radcliffe had called her in. Her mother’s shadow had diminished; people in town had stopped murmuring to each other as she passed – some even said hello. Hun Li had been conciliatory – had made sure that there were scraps of beef and mutton in her dinner, that she had regular breaks. Once he had left her two oranges, although he later denied it and raised his cleaver in mock anger when she suggested it. The girls in the bar had asked if she was doing all right, had tweaked her plaits in a sisterly manner. One had offered her a drink when she finished her shift. She had refused, but was grateful. When another had popped her head round the kitchen door and asked her to nip up to his office, she had flinched, afraid that she was about to be accused of theft too. Like mother like daughter – that was what they said in the town. Blood would always out. But when she knocked and entered, Mr Radcliffe’s face was not angry.

‘Sit down,’ he said. The way he looked at her seemed almost sympathetic. She sat. ‘I’m going to have to ask you to leave your house.’

Before she could open her mouth to protest, he continued, ‘The war’s going to change things in Queensland. We’ve got troops headed up here and the town’s going to get busy. I’m told there are people coming in who can pay me a much better rent on it. Anyway, Frances, it doesn’t make sense for a young girl like you to be rattling around in it alone.’

‘I’ve kept up to date with my rent,’ said Frances. ‘I haven’t let you down once.’

‘I’m well aware of that, sweetheart, and I’m not the kind of man to turf you out on the street. You’ll move in here. You can have one of the rooms at the top, where Mo Haskins used to sleep – you know the one. And I’ll take a reduced rent for it, so you’ll have more money in your pocket. How’s that sound?’

His confidence that she would be pleased with this arrangement was so overwhelming that she found it hard to say what she felt: that the house on Ridley Street was her home. That since her mother’s departure she had started to enjoy her independence, that she no longer felt as if she was teetering on the brink of disaster. And that she did not want to be indebted to him in the way this arrangement suggested.

‘I’d really rather stay in the house, Mr Radcliffe. I – I’ll work extra shifts to make up the rent.’

Mr Radcliffe sighed. ‘I’d love to help you there, Frances, really I would. But when your mum took off with my takings she left a great big hole in my finances. A great – big – hole. A hole that I’m going to have to fill.’

He stood up, and walked over to her. His hand on her shoulder felt immensely heavy.

‘But that’s what I like about you, Frances. You’re a grafter, not like your old mum. So, you’ll move in here. A girl like you shouldn’t spend the prime of her life worrying about the rent. You should be out, dressed up a bit, having fun. Besides, it’s not good for a young girl to be seen to be living on her own . . .’ He squeezed her shoulder. She felt immobilised. ‘No. You move your stuff in Saturday week and I’ll take care of everything else. I’ll send one of the boys over to give you a hand.’

Afterwards, she realised that perhaps the girls had known something she couldn’t. That their sympathy, their friendliness and, in one case, hostility stemmed not from the fact that they lived under one roof, all girls together, as she had assumed, but from what they understood about her position.

And that when Miriam, a short Jewish woman with hair that stretched to her waist, announced she would spend an afternoon helping her to smarten herself up a bit it had perhaps been the result not of girlish friendliness, but of someone else’s instruction.

Either way Frances, unschooled in friendship, had found herself too intimidated by the unfamiliar attention to protest. At the end of the day, when Miriam had set her hair, pulled tight the waistband of the deep blue dress she had altered to fit her and presented her to Mr Radcliffe, boasting about the transformation, Frances had assumed she should be grateful.

‘Well, look at you,’ Mr Radcliffe said, puffing at his cigarette. ‘Who’d have thought, eh, Miriam?’

‘Doesn’t scrub up too bad, does she?’

Frances felt her cheeks burn under their scrutiny and the makeup. She fought the urge to cover her chest with folded arms.

‘Good enough to eat. In fact, I think our little Frances has been wasted on old Hun Li, don’t you? I’m sure we can find her something more decorative to do than bottle-washing.’