Page 3 of Mine before Dawn
“Oh, don’t listen to this lot.”
Chapter 2
Further down the bar, a woman had been pulling a pint. She was large-hipped and brisk, with her orange frizzy hair pinned carelessly under a scarf. Her cheeks were flushed from the heat of human bodies packed in a crowded room. She set the glass down with a thunk in front of a grizzled old man and looked at the petite stranger with open curiosity.
“We’ve a room upstairs,” she said. “A small one, nothing fancy.”
The large man from before who had shooed her off exhaled in annoyance.
“Mavis!”
“Oh, hush,” she shot back without even looking at him.
“As though we’ve not let this lot sleep upstairs when they’re too pissed to find the road.”
A few men chuckled.
The woman behind the bar wiped her hands on her apron and came round to the front. Up close, her weathered face softened a little at the sight of the sleeping child.
“It’s seventy pence a night,” she said in a matter-of-fact way. “And you can stay a couple of days, no more. After that you’ll have to find somewhere proper. Can you manage that, love?”
The young woman nodded quickly, as though afraid the offer might be snatched back.
“Yes. Thank you. Yes.”
Mavis gave her another assessing look, her sharp grey eyes missing nothing. She took in the hollows beneath the woman’s cheekbones, the tiredness that bowed her slender shoulders, the tiny shiver that ran through the child. She noted the threadbare clothes, a few sizes too big, and the woman's face, barely past girlhood. Whatever she saw seemed to satisfy her.
“Come on, then,” she said, as if saving her questions for another day.
“You look frozen.”
She ignored her blustering husband and took the suitcase from the woman’s hand before she could protest. Though she gave a little grunt at the weight of it, she did not comment as she waddled towards the stairs at the back, her joints creaking painfully. The woman adjusted the boy against her shoulder and followed.
Behind them, the room resumed its noise, now that the show was over. The woman could feel the stares between her shoulder blades as she quickly turned the corner towards the narrow stairs at the back. Her gaze stayed lowered. The wood creaked underfoot. The child stirred and gave a small fretful murmur into her neck.
“Nearly there,” she whispered, smoothing a workworn hand over his back, though she did not know if it was true.
The landing upstairs was dimmer and colder than below. A single bulb flickered weakly in the corridor. The wallpaper had once been patterned white with blue flowers but had longsince faded into a weary yellow. Somewhere a tap dripped. Floorboards groaned underneath their feet.
Mavis led her to the last door and pushed it open with her hip.
The room was small enough that one could stand in the middle and touch nearly everything with only a few steps. There was a narrow iron bed pushed against the wall, a washstand with a cracked basin and pitcher, one chair with a wobbling leg steadied with a block of wood, and a chest of drawers with peeling paint. The window looked out over the back alley where bins crouched in the gathering dark. The curtains were thin and floral, trying valiantly and failing utterly to make the place cheerful. A faded blanket lay folded at the foot of the bed, thick but scratchy-looking.
“It’s clean,” Mavis said in a tone daring contradiction.
“Water in the basin if you need it. Common bathroom down the hall. End door on the left.”
She set the suitcase down. The young woman murmured her thanks again and carefully extracted her purse from the inside of her bra. She then counted out the money for the two nights' stay in Mavis's outstretched hand. Their eyes met over the little boy's head, one knowing, the other grateful.
Mavis hesitated in the doorway, as if embarrassed by her own gruff kindness. Then she grunted and said, “Wait there.”
She disappeared before the woman could reply.
The boy was awake now and blinking, bewildered by the unfamiliar room. His little fingers clutched his mother’s collar. She set him gently on the bed and removed his shoes. His feet were icy. He watched her solemnly as she tried to rub some warmth into them. He was too sleepy to ask questions and her heart sank as she listened to his stomach rumble. Their last meal was a sandwich they shared that morning before boarding the bus.
When Mavis returned, she carried a tray with a bowl of stew, a hunk of bread gone a little stale, and a glass bottle of water.
“There,” she said, placing it on the washstand. “It’s hot.”
