The Painted Lady by Harriet Crawley

Author:Harriet Crawley [Crawley, Harriet]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Google: UwfAwQEACAAJ
Amazon: B07KX6KRXJ
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

Why must our inner cities be so bleak, Archie thought; wastelands of crumbling tower blocks and rubbish tips. Flora Fenton came from the slums of Birmingham. She got out. It can’t have been easy. Nothing’s easy round here.

Archie watched as Flora’s coffin was lowered into the earth in St Michael and All Saints graveyard, a massive red-brick Victorian church which once stood in acres of green; now it was surrounded by a council estate and the vicar had to shout above the roar of traffic. The immortal words, ‘From dust to dust, ashes to ashes,’ were drowned by the roar of a jet coming into land at Birmingham airport.

There weren’t many people, just a few girls Flora’s age and a woman who resembled Flora, except she was older and unattractive. She blew her nose loudly into a handkerchief. A broad-shouldered man, with untidy hair, a cheap grey suit and Flora’s green eyes, was crying openly. Archie walked over to him.

‘John Fenton?’

The man looked up.

‘Archie Gibbs. I worked with Flora.’

‘She told me about you,’ he said, shaking Archie’s hand.

‘We were colleagues and became friends. I admired her very much.’

‘They’ve sent a wreath,’ John Fenton said, nodding towards the flowers by the headstone. Archie read the card; it was from William Wardington.

John Fenton shook his head and muttered, ‘They’ve all been here, Special Branch and the Royal Protection Group, asking me questions, taking my flat apart, looking in all my papers. They wouldn’t tell me why. One of those detectives, a pompous git called Burns, told me it was probably suicide. Not bloody likely. A couple of weeks ago I got a letter from Flora saying she was taking me to Rome this summer. I’ve never been to Rome.’ He paused for a moment, the tears welling in his eyes. After a long, deep breath he went on, ‘Flora wouldn’t kill herself. She had too much to live for. What was he getting at, the Burns fellow?’

‘She did what a lot of girls her age do, she fell in love with a married man and when he broke it off she was very unhappy. Listen, we could talk about this over a drink, or do you want to be with your family?’

‘The wife,’ he said, nodding towards the woman who looked like Flora and who was leaning on the arm of a man in a cashmere coat, ‘she doesn’t want to know me now I’m bankrupt. That’s her new husband over there, a company lawyer. He’s raking it in with all these closures. The girl next to him is my wife’s daughter by her first marriage, Flora’s half-sister. She and Flora didn’t get on. No, Flora was my family. I’ll have that drink, thanks.’

Across the car park the Coach and Horses smelt of tobacco and lager; they sat in a far comer and sipped neat whisky.

‘He didn’t come then, the boyfriend?’

‘No.’

‘A coward and a bastard.’

‘Yes. He’s both those things.’

‘You haven’t told me the half of it, have you?’

‘No. And I can’t, not for the time being.

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