'Everyone knows that,' said Mrs Berry. 'When's that blasted bus coming?' They were waiting at Church Bridge for the bingo bus to take them to Terrington out across the fens.
'But she always called me auntie — I can't think why.'
'And I can't think why you suddenly started to come to bingo. Gambling — that ain't like you, Jenny Jervis.'
Miss Jervis simpered. 'Maybe I'm feeling lucky, Phoebe.'
Heavens, yes. Very lucky. First Rosemary with the eels, and now Rosemary's mother has passed away. By accident. So she'll never come looking for her darling little Rosemary again. How very convenient. No need of eels for her.
'I feel fresh as a daisy today,' said Miss Jervis. 'Free as a bird.'
'Damned if you don't look it.' Mrs Berry cast an eye over the flowered dress, the gloves and the white hat with a hint of veil across Miss Jervis's brow. 'It's not a wedding, you know — only bloody bingo.'
'It pleases you to be blunt, Phoebe,' said Miss Jervis, 'but other people are not so unkind. Rosemary for one — although,' she added modestly, 'I still can't think why she has always been so nice to me.'
'Don't come that with me,' said Mrs Berry. 'You know well enough.' The bus came drifting along the waterside. 'And for God's sake help me up these blasted steps.'
Mrs Berry, unlike Miss Jervis, was fat and her hips were so bad she could hardly lift her feet. She handed over her stick before she grasped the handrail. 'And wipe that stupid expression off of your face, Jenny Jervis. The girl calls you auntie because she loves you, God knows why.'
Miss Jervis held the stick by the middle and kept it clear of the ground in case germs ran up it and into her gloves. 'I've only been doing my duty by the girl,' she said.
'Duty be blowed.' Mrs Berry's grunt was muffled in her fat bosom as she heaved her way upwards. 'Who cares about duty? — you don't, for one.'
'You are wrong there, Phoebe.' Miss Jervis regarded the broad rear end.
Quite wrong. My duty was to dispatch the child. She should never have been born, so it was her destiny, the darling.
'I have a strong sense of duty,' she said.
'Squit! You have a strong sense of looking after number one — like the rest of us.'
'Here's your stick, dear.' Miss Jervis handed it over, and dusted off the tips of her gloves.
'And don't call me dear!' Mrs Berry had found a seat and was peeling the wrapper from a pack of king size. 'I'm not in a bloody rest home yet.'
The bus began to move, and Miss Jervis looked down into the river as it slid by.
Silly to call it a river, but they all do. It's a drainage cut, as they very well know, because the water's quite still and not like a river at all. Fortunate, really, because I knew just where Rosemary was until the eels had finished with her. It was quite hygienic. All I had to do was wrap up the bones and put them in the dustbin a few at a time until there was nothing left. Nothing.
'What are you smiling at?'
'Just thoughts,' said Miss Jervis.
'Once a schoolteacher, always a bloody schoolteacher. You're just the same as you was when you was a kid, Jenny Jervis. Anyone could've seen you was never really going to put that school behind you.'
'Don't get so cross with me, Phoebe. There's nothing wrong with being a teacher.'
Headmistress, actually, when I retired. And what did you ever do, fat Phoebe?
'I love being with children,' she said.
'You never showed much sign of it.' Mrs Berry plugged a cigarette into her plump face and waved a flame at it. 'You never got married, did you? Never had no children of your own, never hardly got away from this village where you was born.'
'I was away at training college for three years, don't forget.'
'Training college.' Mrs Berry clicked her tongue. 'That must've been a riot.'
Phoebe, Phoebe, I had a baby.
The rhyme sprang to Miss Jervis's mind and made her smile.
I had a baby, and I don't mean maybe.
She looked out of the window.
Mrs Berry, who had been watching her from the corner of her eye, said, 'You can't tell me you girls didn't get up to some fun and games when you was away from home.'
Miss Jervis raised her eyebrows. 'We were training to be teachers, Phoebe, so nothing very terrible happened.'
Except, of course, I had a baby girl and couldn't come home for a while.
'And anyway,' she smiled, 'even if there had been something I was ashamed of I wouldn't have let anyone know, would I?'
'You're grinning like a cat that's had the cream,' said Mrs Berry.
'Am I? I wonder why.'
And you may well turn away with that disgusted expression on your face, fat Phoebe, because now there's no chance at all you'll ever find out anything.
Using both hands, Miss Jervis smoothed her dress firmly across her thighs and spoke to herself very clearly.
And wouldn't you just love to know that the daughter I had was adopted and grew up to have a daughter of her own? And that little girl was Rosemary — so I'm not her auntie; I'm her granny. I'm a granny, Phoebe, just like you.
'Anyway,' she said mischievously, 'I don't suppose my sins will ever come home to roost now.'
'Not that you ever had none.'
'Not that I ever had any,' said Miss Jervis primly, but she could not help a shiver, because her sin very nearly had come home to roost. Not long since.
But you don't know that, Phoebe. I had my baby adopted the day after she was born and I thought she was gone for ever.
Miss Jervis closed her eyes.
And then … after all those years… she found me!
'It was a terrible moment' — the words came out before she could stop them.
'What was?'
'I mean it must be a terrible moment when your sins catch up with you.' She gave a little grimace.
You'll never catch me out, Phoebe fatbum. Not now. Rosemary has gone, and now my dear daughter is also no longer with us.
'Did you read about that awful plane crash?' she asked.
'What about it?' Mrs Berry was annoyed at the sudden change of subject.
'Well, I was just wondering about those poor people. Their sins caught up with them, didn't they?'
My daughter, for one. She dumped that Rosemary on me, and threatened to give away my secret if I didn't take her, just so she could gad about with her boyfriend. Well, now she's gone, her and her boyfriend. Serve 'em both right.
Miss Jervis had read the passenger list. 'It's so sad,' she said.
'Not that you look it.'
'Well, it's such a lovely day.'
And I'm so lucky. Nobody left to ask questions about Rosemary; no more blackmail from Rosemary's mother.
'I can't never fathom you out.' Mrs Berry, because her fat legs pressed into the seat in front, let ash dribble into her lap. 'You was headmistress, with your own little house by the river, everything you ever wanted — and then you had to go and saddle yourself with that kid Rosemary. At your time of life.'
'It was because of a friend from the old days.'
A friend! I mean my dear daughter — happily no longer with us.
'And my little home was just perfect for the two of us.'
'Well, kids are kids — I wonder you could stand having your place messed up.'
'But it was no problem, Phoebe, no problem at all.'
Until the stupid child began to whine for the mother who didn't want her.
'Because she is such a sweet little girl,' said Miss Jervis.
Was a little girl. And sweet at the end. She drifted away so softly under her pillow she could hardly have felt its touch.