She never wanted it to end but, as the minutes ticked by, she was thinking about how she was going to get back home. Supposing he couldn’t fix the wheel – where was the nearest station? It was still reasonably early, so she guessed there would be no problem in finding a train, but would she have to go to Brighton first or could she get a train direct to Worthing? His kisses were wonderful, wonderful, but she had to be sensible.
‘Hadn’t you better go?’ she whispered.
‘Go?’
‘To fix the wheel.’
‘In a minute.’
It was getting very late. ‘Please, Eustace,’ she whimpered.
Reluctantly, he broke away. ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can.’
As soon as he’d gone, Milly went to the bathroom. He was out of loo roll, so she looked for a new one in a cupboard. When she opened the door, several things fell out. The shelves inside were filled with nail varnishes, talcum powder, perfume and face creams. Milly was startled. After putting them all back, she opened the door next to it and found fancy soaps and a lady’s bath cap. Her heart sank. He had someone else living here. A woman.
When she came out of the toilet, she stared at the other doors in the corridor. There were obviously two bedrooms. She opened one door. The master bedroom had two massive wardrobes. Milly hovered by the door. She wasn’t one to snoop, but now she felt compelled. One wardrobe was full of men’s things. Eustace’s. She recognised the duffel coat he’d worn when they had gone walking by the river. The other wardrobe was full of ladies’ clothes. Milly felt sick. He had joked about his friends having loose morals, and yet it was obvious that he was married. Even more disturbing was the fact that he’d gone to great lengths to hide his wife’s things. That’s when it dawned on her. There was no flat tyre, was there. He’d planned this from the start. He was going to come back in a minute and tell her he’d tried to fix it, but he’d have to get a mechanic to look at it in the morning.
Milly went to the window and looked out. The flat was on the first floor but there was a fire escape on the side of the building nearest the window of the second bedroom. There was no apparent access to it, but she could stand on the low roof immediately in front of the window and easily reach it from there. She would have to climb under the handrail to get onto the stairs, but it was doable.
After a few minutes, Milly had gathered her things and gone into the smaller bedroom. There was no lock on the door but a fairly large chest of drawers stood to the right. It took some effort, but she pushed it in front of the door. There, that would stop someone getting in in a hurry.
It only took a few minutes to reach the ground, and then she headed for the bright lights of the busy street. Something told her to be cautious and sure enough, when she put her head around the corner, she had a terrific shock. Eustace was standing just a few feet away from her, outside the front door, smoking a cigarette. Milly jumped back. She was livid and could have easily given him a piece of her mind, but she also wanted to steer clear of him and get home, so there was no other option but to wait for him to go back in.
As soon as the coast was clear, Milly came out onto the street and hailed a taxi. With a bit of luck, she would be able to catch the last train from Victoria. If not, she would wait on the platform for the milk train in the morning. As luck would have it, she was in time for the last train to Worthing and scrambled aboard just as the guard blew his whistle.
On the way back home, she had a little smile to herself. How she wished she could have been a fly on the wall when he realised his quarry had flown.
Chapter 33
After a couple of days, Milly and Lena had both expected Seebold to roll up and see how they were doing, but when almost a week had passed with no sign of him, Milly was getting worried. Whilst it was true that she sometimes felt awkward around him, he was still her friend and she missed him.
‘You know Seebold,’ said Lena, when Milly remarked that they hadn’t heard from him. ‘Once he gets focused on something, everything else goes out of the window.’
She was right of course, but Milly couldn’t shake this feeling of unease. She decided to make her way over to Wonderland after work. It was already dusk as she alighted from the bus, but the first thing that struck her was that there were no lights on anywhere in the Wonderland. The gate was locked, but she knew of a weakness further along the fence, so she climbed in that way and headed for Seebold’s caravan.
Milly was even more concerned when Nipper, looking rather bedraggled and miserable, came out from under the caravan. ‘Hello, old fellow,’ she said, waggling his ear. ‘Where’s your master?’ Although she knocked hard on the caravan door and called his name, Seebold didn’t appear. Now Milly was really worried. She tried the caravan door and, much to her relief, found it open.
It was the smell that told her something was very wrong. The whole place reeked of vomit. The lights were run off a battery but, when she reached for the switch, it didn’t work. She remembered that he kept an old oil lamp on the table, so she searched for matches. Once the pale yellow beam filled the room, she could see stacked-up dishes in the washing-up bowl. That was odd because Seebold was a tidy person. Nipper, who had followed her in, was making a yipping sound, so she poured some water into a clean bowl and put it down for him. The dog lapped at it greedily.
‘Seebold?’ The only sound Milly could hear was that of her own heart thumping. ‘Are you there, Seebold?’
His sleeping quarters were at the other end of the caravan, behind the heavy curtain. Taking the oil lamp with her, Milly made her way cautiously towards it, her thoughts growing darker by the minute. What if he had left? Supposing he was . . .? When she pulled back the curtain, it came as a relief to see the outline of his body in the bed, but then she realised he wasn’t moving. ‘Seebold!’
She held up the lamp and was shocked by the colour of his face. His skin was grey. Beads of perspiration stood out on his forehead and yet when she touched his bare arm, it was cold and clammy. Dried vomit was stuck to his pillow and in his hair. His eyes were half-open and he was shivering. His breathing was shallow. When he saw her, he let out a soft moan. She lifted his head gently and turned the pillow so that he wasn’t lying in the goo.
‘Listen, Seebold,’ she said, firmly yet not wanting to alarm him, ‘you’re ill. I have to go for help. You need a doctor, okay?’ She pulled another blanket over his naked chest. ‘I have to go to the phone box in Ham Road.’ She patted his arm. ‘I’ll be as quick as I can.’
Seebold did his best to smile. ‘Bad pain. Chest.’
‘I know, I know.’ There were tears in her eyes, which she fought to hold back. Nipper pushed his nose towards his master.
‘I’m going to leave Nipper in here with you. I shan’t be long.’
It was only as she stepped out of the caravan that Milly remembered the telephone in the office. Where were the office keys? Dashing back into the caravan, Milly searched until she found a big bunch of keys in a drawer, but which was the one for the office? For a second she hesitated. What if it took her ages to identify the right one? What if it wasn’t on this bunch at all? It might be quicker to run to the kiosk, after all. Three minutes, she told herself. If she hadn’t found the right key in three minutes, she would run to Ham Road.
As luck would have it, it was fairly obvious by the size of the lock which key was the one to the office. Once inside, she found the switch, and electric light flooded the room. There on the desk was a black GPO telephone. Picking up the receiver, she waited for the telephonist to answer. If she had been in London, she could have used the new 999 service everybody was talking about, but it wasn’t yet available in all parts of the country.
A few minutes later, a doctor was on his way. Now all she had to do was find the key that opened the gate.
By the time the doctor arrived, Milly had heated some water and put it into a bowl. She’d found a flannel and was washing the dried vomit from Seebold’s face and hair. It seemed strange to be touching him so intimately. Apart from that one time when he’d put his arm around her and drawn her close to him after her mother had been so nasty, they had never really touched each other. As she washed his dark curls and cleaned his ear, Milly felt oddly emotional – close to tears. Her heart was thumping. He was such a wonderful person. She swallowed the lump in her throat as she washed his torso. She had begun by thinking of him as like a brother, but now that those strong arms were limp and his clear blue eyes (lapis lazuli, she had once told Lena) were dull and empty, Milly was afraid. He had a dry cough and it was obviously hurting him a lot. As she did her best to comfort him, she felt painfully tender towards him.
Nipper sat up and barked as the doctor came through the door. The doctor wrinkled his nose. ‘Has the patient been drinking?’ he said curtly.
‘No,’ said Milly. ‘I thought the same at first but there’s nothing here. No bottles at all but he’s been dreadfully sick.’
The doctor came towards the bed. Milly stepped to the other side of the curtain and left him to examine Seebold. She was washing her hands when the curtain flew back again and the doctor came out.
‘I’m glad to see you’re washing your hands,’ he said. ‘Make sure you do a good job of it. It looks as if he may have pleurisy and he’s also got hypothermia.’
‘What’s pleurisy?’ Milly asked as she dried her hands.
The doctor took her place at the bowl to wash his own hands.
‘It’s a lung infection,’ he said. ‘As soon as I’ve finished, I shall ring for an ambulance. He may have to have the fluid drawn from his chest.’
Milly caught her breath. That sounded really serious.
‘I suggest you get rid of those sheets,’ said the doctor. ‘Burn them if necessary, and you should sleep elsewhere tonight until this caravan is thoroughly cleaned.’
