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Authors: Maggie O'Farrell
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of the window-sill against her elbows was good. Very good.
After a while, she turned back to the room. She moved the chair nearer the window. She shunted the bed against the wall. She straightened the mirror. She went clattering down the stairs to a surprised Mrs Collins to borrow a bucket, a scrubbing brush, some soda crystals and vinegar, a broom and dustpan. She swept, she dusted, she scrubbed the floor and the walls, the cupboard shelves, the gas-ring. She shook the eiderdown out of the window, beat the mattress, folded the clean sheets she’d stolen from home around it.
They smelt of lavender, of washing powder, of starch, a mixture that always summoned her mother to her mind – and always would, as she’d find out. Lexie pummelled the pillow into its case. She’d announced last night at the dinner table that she was leaving for London in the morning. It was all set up. She had digs, she had an appointment at the labour exchange on Monday morning, she’d withdrawn all her savings to last on until she started earning. Nothing they could do would stop her.
The expected uproar had ensued. Her father had pounded his fist on the table, her mother had shouted and then dissolved into tears. Her sister, with the baby in her arms, comforted their mother and told Lexie, with that drawn-in purse-strings mouth she had sometimes, that she was being ‘characteristically irresponsible’. Two of her brothers had started to whoop and run circles around the table. The second youngest child, sensing a change for the worse in the atmosphere, began to wail from its high-chair.
She tossed the pillow on to the bed, then pulled the eiderdown in from the window. It was dark outside now; the windows of the terrace opposite were lit yellow boxes, suspended in inky space. In one, she saw a woman pulling a brush through her hair; in another a man was reading a newspaper, his glasses perched on his nose. Someone else was pulling a blind down, and a girl was leaning out into the night, just as Lexie had done earlier, loosening her hair into the just-moving air.
Lexie undressed, lay between the sheets, tried to close her nose to their smell. She listened to the noises of the house. Feet on the stairs, doors banging, a woman’s laugh somewhere, then someone saying sssh . Mrs Collins’s voice, querulous, complaining. A cat outside in a garden, emitting a series of yowls. A pipe knocking, then hissing in the walls. The banging and clatter of pans. Someone in the lavatory on the floor below, the surge and rush of the flush, then the slow trickle of the cistern filling. Lexie turned and turned in her starched sheets, smiling up at the cracks in the ceiling.
The next day she met a girl called Hannah from the ground floor who told her about a junk shop round the corner, and Lexie went there to buy some plates, cups and pans. ‘Don’t pay the first price,’ Hannah warned. ‘Always haggle.’ She came back carrying a piece of hardboard, which Hannah helped her to drag up the stairs. On the third-floor landing, they had to stop to catch their breath and hoist up their stockings. ‘What do you want this for?’ Hannah panted.
Lexie propped the hardboard between the bed-end and the edge of the sink. She arranged the few books she’d brought from home on it, her fountain pen, a bottle of ink.
‘What are you going to do on it?’ Hannah said from the bed, where she was reclining, trying to blow smoke-rings.
‘I don’t know,’ Lexie said, staring at it. ‘I need to get a typewriter, practise my typing and . . . I don’t know.’ She couldn’t say that she needed to carve something out for herself, something better than this, and that she didn’t know how she was going to do it but that she thought having a desk might be a start. She ran her hand along its edge. ‘I just wanted it,’ she said.
‘If you ask me,’ Hannah said, grinding out her cigarette on the sill, ‘pots and pans might have
After a while, she turned back to the room. She moved the chair nearer the window. She shunted the bed against the wall. She straightened the mirror. She went clattering down the stairs to a surprised Mrs Collins to borrow a bucket, a scrubbing brush, some soda crystals and vinegar, a broom and dustpan. She swept, she dusted, she scrubbed the floor and the walls, the cupboard shelves, the gas-ring. She shook the eiderdown out of the window, beat the mattress, folded the clean sheets she’d stolen from home around it.
They smelt of lavender, of washing powder, of starch, a mixture that always summoned her mother to her mind – and always would, as she’d find out. Lexie pummelled the pillow into its case. She’d announced last night at the dinner table that she was leaving for London in the morning. It was all set up. She had digs, she had an appointment at the labour exchange on Monday morning, she’d withdrawn all her savings to last on until she started earning. Nothing they could do would stop her.
The expected uproar had ensued. Her father had pounded his fist on the table, her mother had shouted and then dissolved into tears. Her sister, with the baby in her arms, comforted their mother and told Lexie, with that drawn-in purse-strings mouth she had sometimes, that she was being ‘characteristically irresponsible’. Two of her brothers had started to whoop and run circles around the table. The second youngest child, sensing a change for the worse in the atmosphere, began to wail from its high-chair.
She tossed the pillow on to the bed, then pulled the eiderdown in from the window. It was dark outside now; the windows of the terrace opposite were lit yellow boxes, suspended in inky space. In one, she saw a woman pulling a brush through her hair; in another a man was reading a newspaper, his glasses perched on his nose. Someone else was pulling a blind down, and a girl was leaning out into the night, just as Lexie had done earlier, loosening her hair into the just-moving air.
Lexie undressed, lay between the sheets, tried to close her nose to their smell. She listened to the noises of the house. Feet on the stairs, doors banging, a woman’s laugh somewhere, then someone saying sssh . Mrs Collins’s voice, querulous, complaining. A cat outside in a garden, emitting a series of yowls. A pipe knocking, then hissing in the walls. The banging and clatter of pans. Someone in the lavatory on the floor below, the surge and rush of the flush, then the slow trickle of the cistern filling. Lexie turned and turned in her starched sheets, smiling up at the cracks in the ceiling.
The next day she met a girl called Hannah from the ground floor who told her about a junk shop round the corner, and Lexie went there to buy some plates, cups and pans. ‘Don’t pay the first price,’ Hannah warned. ‘Always haggle.’ She came back carrying a piece of hardboard, which Hannah helped her to drag up the stairs. On the third-floor landing, they had to stop to catch their breath and hoist up their stockings. ‘What do you want this for?’ Hannah panted.
Lexie propped the hardboard between the bed-end and the edge of the sink. She arranged the few books she’d brought from home on it, her fountain pen, a bottle of ink.
‘What are you going to do on it?’ Hannah said from the bed, where she was reclining, trying to blow smoke-rings.
‘I don’t know,’ Lexie said, staring at it. ‘I need to get a typewriter, practise my typing and . . . I don’t know.’ She couldn’t say that she needed to carve something out for herself, something better than this, and that she didn’t know how she was going to do it but that she thought having a desk might be a start. She ran her hand along its edge. ‘I just wanted it,’ she said.
‘If you ask me,’ Hannah said, grinding out her cigarette on the sill, ‘pots and pans might have
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