"Thank you," she whispered, as she set the book down in front of him.
He nodded in response, and as Maisie walked out of the reading room, she glanced back to see Mrs. Hancock watching her. She raised her hand and nodded acknowledgment, and the woman waved in return, her smile puffed with importance.
Maisie checked the time on the way out of the library. Much as she wanted to try to find someone, somewhere, who could tell her more about the demise of Clifton's Shoes, she had promised to visit Doreen Beale, and knew she should be on her way to Shoreditch. In any case, if she was to be honest with herself, what she truly wanted was not so much new information, but to see if one of her what-ifs might be true.
To an outsider, the journey from the west end of London to the east end might have seemed like leaving a full buffet dinner with the finest china, for bread and water at a rough-hewn table. The houses on many streets were still without running water, so women gathered at the communal pump to fill their buckets and kettles, then huffed and puffed their way home carrying their burden. But despite such inequities, and a level of poverty that threatened to grind the soul to dust, there was a spirit here that Maisie understood, a language in which she was fluent, and a camaraderie among the likes of the women at the pump that underlined a certain resilience borne of want. And though the communities encompassed within London's boroughs still retained something of their respective tribal forefathers, there were common threads of experience between the people of Lambeth, where Maisie was born and brought up, and Shoreditch, with the most distinct being poverty.
The people who lived on Billy's street had done their best to rise above the grayness of life in the East End. Most of the children playing in the street had no shoes and were clad in hand-me-down clothes that were ill fitting and worn. Though the Beales made ends meet and ensured their children wore clean, if not new, clothes, they were among those who just couldn't make the leap to a better standard of living somewhere else. For Billy there was a comfort to be had from living in the surroundings of his childhood, with his elderly mother nearby, yet Maisie knew that such comfort could not be confused with contentment. The desire to get away burned within Billy Beale, so the plans had to be grand plans, and the destination not to a better borough in London, but to a land some three thousand miles away.
Having drawn long looks as she walked from the bus stop-a well-turned-out woman such as Maisie was rare on the streets of Shoreditch-she arrived at Billy's house and made her way to the front door. Looking in, she saw Doreen sitting in a chair by the window. She appeared to have fallen asleep while keeping vigil, her deceased daughter's ragged toy lamb held close to her chest, as if she had been breathing in the scent of a childhood gone. Maisie knocked lightly at the door. Standing alongside the window, she could see Doreen waken, rub her eyes, and rest her head on the back of the armchair as she regained full consciousness. Maisie knocked again, and this time Billy's wife pushed the toy behind her chair, stood up, came to the window, and waved to her before leaving the room to come to the door.
"I'm sorry, Miss Dobbs, I must have dozed off when the boys went round to their nan's for tea." She stood aside for Maisie to enter the narrow passageway.
"You deserve a nap, Doreen, what with Billy and Bobby keeping you busy."
Doreen smiled as she stepped aside for Maisie to enter the narrow passageway. "Please go on into the parlor, Miss Dobbs, and I'll put the kettle on."
The Beales' house was typical of many small terraced houses in their area, but atypical in that only one family lived there, though Doreen's sister and her family had resided for some time in the house while her husband looked for work in London. The parlor was a small, square room with a fireplace, a picture rail about a foot from the ceiling, and two armchairs that had seen better days. It was a room hardly used by the family, who made the kitchen the center of their home life, keeping the parlor for Sundays, Christmas, and the odd special occasion. Maisie's visit was a special occasion.
"Here we are, Miss Dobbs. Nice cup of tea does you good, doesn't it?"
"It certainly does-and I am gasping."
Maisie regarded Doreen as she set the tray on a table positioned along the back wall and proceeded to pour two cups. Just before Doreen was sent away to a psychiatric hospital, some four months earlier, she had lost a good deal of weight and was run down in mind, body, and spirit. The usually meticulous woman had relinquished care of both herself and her children, and had demonstrated a temper never before revealed. The grief at losing her youngest child, a daughter who was dear to everyone whose life she touched, had dragged Doreen into a cavern of darkness that she had neither the strength nor the will to escape. Now she seemed as if she was on her way back to being her old self. She'd regained some weight, and her skirt and blouse were plain, but laundered and pressed.
"How are you keeping?"
"I'm doing much better, Miss Dobbs. Dr. Masters helped me with, you know, how to get on without Lizzie. And now I'm back on the mend, so we'll be all right, me and Billy and the boys. Yes, we'll be all right." She passed a cup of tea to Maisie with two hands, but still managed to spill some in the saucer. "Oh, I am sorry, here-"
"Not to worry. I'm always doing the very same thing. That's why I get Billy to serve tea to our clients when they visit!" The lie came easily. "Pour yourself a cup and sit down with me, Doreen."
Doreen Beale brought a second cup of tea, again held with two hands, and sat in the chair in which Maisie had seen her sleeping.
"Are you managing, Doreen?" Maisie thought there was no point in any conversational subterfuge, for she had visited Doreen when she was in hospital, and had seen her after she had been subjected to a violent procedure. Maisie had subsquently pulled strings to have the woman transferred to another, more humane psychiatric institution.
Doreen nodded. "Like I said, Miss Dobbs, I'm doing better. I'm taking in some needlework again, and I'm managing to finish a dress or alteration without forgetting about it. Billy's mother comes around every morning after the children go to school, and we have a chat and she helps me. I know it's not right, a woman of that age helping the likes of me, but she's very good. She makes sure I eat some of her broth. I don't always feel like eating, you see, so I forget, and she reminds me. Yes. I'm getting better."
The neat hair pulled back in a bun and a trace of color in her cheeks, were further evidence of a slow recovery. Maisie remembered her visit at Christmas, when the usually meticulous Doreen-the want of money had never stopped her caring for her appearance-wore clothes in need of repair and laundering; her complexion had been rough and gaunt, and her hair ill-kempt.
"Are you getting out, Doreen? You could do with some fresh air, you know."
"That's hard to find here in Shoreditch, Miss Dobbs. I'm a Sussex girl, you know, I didn't come up to London until I married Billy. I don't know that the air ever feels fresh to me."
The conversation went on for another fifteen minutes or so, and when Maisie announced it was time to go, she carried the two teacups into the kitchen while Doreen took the tray with teapot and milk. The kitchen, though small, was spotless, and while they continued talking, Maisie picked up a tea towel and dried the crockery as Doreen placed each washed item on the draining board. She put the things away in a cupboard, and while she was still talking to Maisie-about the boys, about Billy's dream of going to live in Canada-Maisie noticed her wiping down every surface in the kitchen time and again. Then she washed her already clean hands once more, shook them dry, and wiped the draining boards for the umpteenth time to absorb droplets of water.