Seesaw by Deborah Moggach

Author:Deborah Moggach
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
Published: 2022-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Part Four

1

Sometimes, when she sat in a train, Val used to look at all the little houses flashing past and gone for ever; she would gaze at them and wonder who lived there, what did they do, how could there be so many of them. Britain was full of people she would never meet, she couldn’t possibly meet them all. How did they spend their time, day after day? What did they do?

Well, she was learning the answer to that: they queued. That’s what people did. Outside it was a sunny September morning; the shops were bathed in golden light. Here in the post office, however, nobody was restless. They stood in line patiently while a very old woman fumbled for her pension book; while a very young girl with two coffee-coloured babies, both crying, argued about some recorded delivery letter. The cigarette smoke made Val’s eyes water. How long-suffering people were! It was Monday morning and the queue stretched to the door. They coughed, they shifted from one foot to another and gazed at the display of cards saying ‘Happy Anniversary, Husband’. But nobody demanded to see the manager and ask why the other two windows were closed, what sort of service do you call this?

Val was collecting her family allowance. She hadn’t set foot inside a post office for years, not until recently. In the past Thérèse, or one of the other girls who had worked for her, had gone to send off the parcels. Val had been too busy. But now she was a housewife again, trying to budget the family finances, and she needed the cash because she hated asking Morris for money.

At last she arrived at the window, its smeary glass so barricaded by reinforced plastic that the man beyond was barely visible. ‘It’s a wicked old world out there,’ the policeman had said. Well, now she was in it. The man paid out the money, easing it through the slit. She folded the notes into her wallet. Forty pounds eighty pence per month—according to the government, that was what Hannah was worth. Val had a mad urge to swing round and announce to the queue: And according to us she’s worth half a million.

Val crossed the street to the supermarket. Its windows were fortified by sandbags of disposable nappies; it was one of those downmarket places that look vaguely closed even when they are open. But it was her local shop, the only place she could reach on foot, and Morris had the car. He had to have the car, to get to work. They lived in a hinterland between Harlesden and Kensal Rise. If she took the bus she could get to Sainsbury’s in Kilburn, but the buses were so infrequent and then one had to haul the bags home. How did people manage, with public transport? She had been learning, over the past two months, but the time spent waiting in the rain! The thumping of one’s heart as one hurried up

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