She said, ‘You shouldn’t have done that, upset her like that.’
‘What do you know?’ Julia spat out angrily.
‘Well, maybe she can’t talk but she can hear, Julia.’
‘I don’t give a shit.’
Norma began to massage Julia’s back. ‘I understand.’
‘No, you don’t,’ Julia said, her face buried in the pillow.
‘Try me,’ Norma said softly.
Julia rolled over and looked up into her face. ‘This was my bedroom, and you know something? I knew I was gay when I was about twelve or thirteen. She was a stable girl at the local riding school and we came back and we did it in here, then Mother served us tea. We laughed about that.’ Julia sat up and leaned against Norma. ‘I have wanted to make her understand, to know who I was since then, Norma, but she wouldn’t even let me discuss my life. All she wanted was for me to be married and have kids. She still asks...’ Julia mimicked her mother asking if she had a boyfriend and then she bowed her head. ‘You know, maybe she even knows about me being lesbian but she just could never talk about it.’
‘So what are you going to do?’
Julia sounded resigned as she said, ‘Get her into a home tomorrow, sell this place and that’s it. There’s nothing for me here. Maybe there never was.’
Later that night Norma washed Mrs Lawson. She kissed her and switched off the light before going up to bed with Julia. They made love and then Norma fell asleep. Later, Julia crept out from under the covers and slipped from the room. She removed Norma’s police riding cape and hat from the truck, closing the back as quietly as she could. She packed them into a case and left it in the hallway before returning upstairs. But she did not go back to bed immediately. Instead she inched open the door to her mother’s room: she had not moved from the centre of the bed, seeming somehow trapped inside the tight sheet across her chest. She appeared to be asleep.
Julia stood, staring at her, for about five minutes, and then silently left the room. She no longer felt anger, just a total lack of energy, as if she had been drained, and it was then she remembered. Her pace quickened as she went into the bathroom. She had to lie flat on the tiled bathroom floor as she unscrewed the cheap formica surrounds of the bath, pulling them away and reaching in, searching until she found the tin medical box. Not until she had re-screwed the panel into place did she open the old battered white box with the scratched red cross in the centre. Slowly she opened the lid and sighed: there were the rubber tube, the hypodermic needles, the tiny packets of white cocaine and one small, screwed-up, tin-foil square of heroin.
The following morning Julia had made some lists of what items she wanted from the house. She had arranged for a local estate agent to come in and also for a home to take her mother. It was expensive and Norma suggested they ring round a few others. ‘Nope. With the money from the house I can pay for it.’
‘Are you okay?’
‘Yes, I’m fine. Just got a lot to get sorted.’
Norma couldn’t quite understand Julia’s attitude. She had been talkative at breakfast and had been on the go since then. She simply put it down to her way of dealing with the situation and never thought for a moment Julia was high.
She didn’t see her mother again. Norma got her ready for the ambulance. Julia refused to help when the ambulance arrived, remaining in the drawing room when they took her away. She was still making phone calls, cancelling milk, papers, and the housekeeper.
‘She’s gone,’ Norma said sadly.
‘Okay, we can leave in about half an hour.’ Julia continued writing, calculating how much the house would be worth. As it had been remortgaged three times, there would be little or nothing left from the sale. She was going to need money more than ever before, and if it wasn’t from the robbery, she would have to find some other means to finance her mother’s stay at the home.
Norma did not notice her hat and cloak were missing until they left. She didn’t seem unduly worried, blaming herself for forgetting to lock the truck. ‘Probably be some kids. It’s a wretched nuisance because I’ll have to fork out for the replacements but at least they didn’t nick the truck.’
‘Yeah, that’s good,’ Julia said, and indicated the small case she was carrying out to the car. ‘Just a couple of things I thought I’d take back with me.’
Norma started the engine. ‘Well, if you need storage space, I’ve got a huge barn, and your mother has some nice pieces of furniture, antiques.’
As they drove off, Julia didn’t look back. The house and her mother were in the past now. She was as good as dead and at least there would be no more lies. She stared out of the window. ‘Stupid woman, why? Why did she never tell me she knew?’
Norma said nothing, knowing that Julia wasn’t expecting an answer. They headed back to the manor and Norma wondered if Julia would thank her for being with her, for caring, for loving her. ‘I love you, Julia,’ she said softly.
Julia continued to gaze out of the window, wondering if Ester was missing her. Then she began to think about the train hijack and started to smile: maybe it was the drugs, maybe it was just the thought of doing something so audacious, so, crazy that lifted her spirits.
‘Feeling a bit better?’ Norma asked.
‘Yeah, I’m feeling good, really good!’
Dolly was in a ratty mood. She had slept badly and the riding lesson had not been successful. The women bickered and argued, and without Julia they had been subjected to the scorn of the stable girl as they attempted to canter. By the time they returned to the manor, Dolly had to face the added frustration of finding John waiting to talk to her. She was running low on cash and he stood in her office, refusing to budge.
‘I just want to know what’s going on. If I lay the men off, I won’t get them back. You got half a roof, scaffolding up, I got cement and sand out there. I’ve laid out for the equipment, Mrs Rawlins. I’ve kept my end of the bargain.’
‘Look, I’m sorry about this but there have been a few problems. If you give me another day or so—’
‘But you say that every time I come here.’
‘I know, but I can’t help it if people don’t pay me. It’s not that I like doing this to you.’
‘The place is unsafe, Mrs Rawlins, and you got kids running around.’
Dolly opened a drawer and took out the last of the cash from the sale of the guns. Five thousand pounds. Now she was almost cleaned out. ‘Look, do what you can. If you have to lay a few of the men off then you have to do it but this is all I’ve got right now.’
John gritted his teeth as he counted out the money, then stashed it in his pocket. ‘Okay. At least I’ll finish the roof.’ He walked out and she could hear him banging down the hallway. She scratched her chin. The idea of the robbery was fading fast. There was no way they could do it, not for a few months, anyway. They couldn’t manage the horses, never mind hold up the train.
Gloria yelled from the yard for someone to get Dolly as the truck had arrived with the bags of lime. More money had to be paid over to the driver before he would even lift one of the twenty-kilo bags down from the back of the truck. Dolly then had to pay out for the skip that she had ordered. Money was always going out and nothing was coming in.
‘What we gonna do with all this lime, then?’ Gloria asked, prodding the bag.
‘Tip it into the old cesspit.’
‘Oh, yeah? Well, who’s gonna do that?’
‘All of you. Get them out there.’
‘Bloody hell,’ moaned Gloria.
Dolly clenched her hands. ‘Just get on with it!’
Connie, Ester and Gloria changed into old clothes, big thick gloves and scarves to cover their faces, and began to slit open the bags and tip them into the pit. The lime clouded and burnt their eyes and made their skin itch so there were further moans and groans. Julia returned, bright and breezy as she stood looking at the three figures resembling snowmen.