The Girl in the Polka Dot Dress Read Free Page A

was dark and some­ times drunks fell down in the
     gutter.
    Rose knew about men. She’d been on her own, off and on, in London
     since she was sixteen, and had often found herself in difficult situations. It was due to
     politeness, mostly. Mother had instilled in her that if you really wanted something, like a
     second piece of cake, you had to say no. And if the cake was awful and you didn’t want
     another piece, you said yes, so as not to offend. Once, a man had bought her drinks in a pub
     in South Kensington and then taken her to his room near the Brompton Oratory. It was a posh
     area, so she didn’t think any­ thing could go wrong. After all, it was only the dispossessed
     who needed to exert power. The man had forced her onto his bed, knocking a tooth out in his
     struggle to hold her down. Bloody-mouthed, she said she’d do whatever he wanted if he’d just
     let her use the toilet first. As she fled down the stairs he’d emptied a cup of water over
     the landing banisters, and she’d fancied he was weeing on her. She’d gone to the police, but
     as she was under age they wanted the address of her par­ ents. There was no way she was
     going to let Father know what had happened.
    Which was why it was all right to invite Harold into her bedsitter.
     She’d known he wasn’t the kind of man who needed to make an impression, at least not of that
     sort. Besides, he was a psychologist. That first evening, she’d even thought he hadn’t
     noticed her—apart from her being in the same room as Bernard and Polly—until he asked her
     about Dr. Wheeler’s photograph on her bedside table, that is. It wasn’t a very good photo
     and had been taken eight years before, the time Dr. Wheeler had come up to London to say his
     goodbyes before leaving England for good. It was her nineteenth birthday and he’d given her
     an old Brownie camera that he said had belonged to his sister. She’d snapped him standing
     outside Charing Cross station, capturing his image a second before he raised a hand to blot
     out his face. He was wearing his trilby hat.
    Washington Harold hadn’t told her he recognised Dr. Wheeler, simply
     stood there holding the framed picture to his chest as though accepting a bunch of
     flowers.
    The meal was ready when Rose returned to the kitchen. There wasn’t
     a tablecloth.
    She said, ‘That place where you bought the roof rack for the
     van—’
    â€˜Camper,’ he corrected.
    â€˜I thought I was in the cottage hospital having my appendix
     out.’
    â€˜Odd,’ he said, but she could tell he wasn’t listening.
    While they ate he told her his plans for the following day. They
     would pack first thing and then go into town to see his broker; then they’d head off for
     Washington.
    â€˜Gosh,’ she said, wolfing down the bubbling meat.
    He kept filling her glass with red wine and she drank it to make
     the time pass quicker. After a while she felt much better, was even confident enough to
     light a cigarette without asking permission. When she leaned back to blow out smoke he
     looked at her chest. She smiled and felt on top of things. Presently he said there were a
     lot of last-minute jobs that needed doing, but as she was obviously in no condition to be of
     assistance she better get to her bed. Though this was pos­ sibly a rebuke, she continued to
     smile. The bedroom, he told her, was the second door down the hall.
    She didn’t bother to clean her teeth, even though the brush was
     brand new. Changed into her nightgown, she stared at her surroundings. The room was devoid
     of pictures, of orna­ ments. There was a newspaper picture of a woman pinned to the back of
     the door, but she was too hazy in the head to read the caption. A vent in the skirting board
     blew out hot air; the pile of the carpet swam like dust across her toes. Peering through the
     shutters she saw a veranda