Room for a Stranger by Ann Turnbull Page B

laughed: Lennie making
her
tea! But Mum had told him to, before she went off with Mrs Revell.
    Doreen sat in Dad’s chair now, wearing her nightie and socks, with a blanket wrapped around her. While she sipped her tea, Lennie told her stories of men who’d been rescued in mining accidents. Slowly her shaking subsided.
    At half past ten Lennie said, “I’d best make the fire up. Mum’ll be cold when she gets back.”
    The hospital was at Wraybury. “How long does it take to get there?” Doreen asked.
    â€œNot long in an ambulance. Twenty minutes?”
    â€œThey’ve been gone hours. Lennie, how will Mum get home?”
    â€œI don’t know. Perhaps someone will bring her.”
    â€œIf only she could get a message to us!” She began to cry. “It was all my fault.”
    â€œDon’t be daft,” said Lennie. “That roof could have gone at any time. The rain we’ve been having – that would have weakened it, like. That and the kids climbing on it.”
    â€œI didn’t mean the roof. I meant Rhoda going off there. Because of the things I said.”
    â€œWhat things?”
    â€œI can’t tell you. Horrible things.”
    â€œThey can’t have been that bad.”
    â€œThey made her want to go home.” Doreen was choking on her tears.
    Lennie rearranged the blanket and hugged her awkwardly. “Look, Mum said you’re not to get upset.” He went to pick up the kettle. “I’ll make some more tea.”
    All night they listened to the slow tick of the clock. Eleven o’clock came; twelve; twelve thirty. Still no message, and no way of finding out what was happening.
    â€œYou’d better go to bed,” said Lennie.
    He made her a hot-water bottle.
    â€œI’m not cold, it’s nerves,” said Doreen. But it was nice, all the same, to feel cared for.
    She lay awake for a long time, reliving the events of the evening all jumbled up: the rush of earth, the screams, the awful stillness of Rhoda’s body were mixed with the bumpy, rattling trip home in the Revells’ cart and seeing the rain falling in the circle of light from the hurricane lamp.
    She must have slept at last. The next thing she was aware of was the room full of daylight and Mum silhouetted against the window as she lifted down the blackout screen.
    â€œMum…?” The events of the night rushed back to her, and she sat up, becoming aware of pulled muscles and bruises that she hadn’t noticed before.
    Mum turned round. “She’s alive.”
    Doreen felt as if a weight as heavy as the brick roof had been lifted off her. She began to cry in relief. “I thought she was dead.”
    Mum hugged her – cautiously because of the bruises. “She might have been if you hadn’t dug her out so quickly. She came round in the ambulance. She’s got a broken collar bone, badly bruised ribs, a lot of cuts and bruises.”
    â€œWhere is she?”
    â€œStill at the hospital. They kept her in overnight. Miss Wingfield will fetch her this afternoon.”
    â€œGood.” She sank back on the pillows. But other anxieties began to surface. Her heart beat fast. “Did Rhoda talk… much? Did she say why she went to the Dungeon?”
    â€œShe tried to explain, but I said we’d sort all that out later.” She looked suspiciously at Doreen. “She was running away, wasn’t she, because you’d quarrelled?”
    Doreen fiddled with a loose thread on her eiderdown. “I didn’t mean the things I said.” She looked up, anxious. “She will stay, won’t she? She won’t have to be moved?”
    â€œDo you want her to stay?”
    Doreen looked around the room: at the empty chair where Rhoda’s clothes had hung, the dressing-table swept clear of her possessions. It would seem odd, now, without Rhoda. But did she want her to stay? Or did she just want not to have made her