The next time the third Saturday in the month rolled around, she decided to send Finetta with him. They hadn’t asked for her, and she didn’t ask Crowther, but having her there in the house while Ian was gone had felt like torture – if she did leave the kitchen table and breathe out, Finetta was there making her hold her breath again, reminding her, not letting her forget.

So she sent her and waited, and tried to make a holiday of it – three days without children, what could she do? She could do anything. She could give Peel the time off and stay in bed all day. She could go to the First Church of Christ and pretend to be a woman in shock, so that all healing hands would be put upon her, or she could go to the park and see the first blossom come out, undisturbed by little hands saying hurry up, or I’m cold.

She didn’t do any of those things. She lay in the bath for as long as possible. She lay in bed listening to the radio. She ate her tea in a cafe on the King’s Road, sausages at six o’clock, like a child. The children came back, no nanny this time, dropped off in the Rolls that pulled quietly away, the driver impassive at the wheel, not looking round.

“Did you have a nice time?” she said to Finetta, who held Ian’s hand up the steps.

“Very nice, thank you,” said Finetta.

The next morning, Crowther was inundated with letters from Joan’s lawyers about child welfare and bathing, what constituted an adequate diet and the threat of further court orders if the children were left to play alone in public gardens. They weren’t public gardens, they were private, open to residents of Evelyn Gardens and they weren’t left alone – she always kept an eye on them from the sitting-room window – but that didn’t seem to make any difference to Joan. Anyway, she’d learnt. Messages got through. Finetta must have spent the whole time blabbing. She didn’t send her again, and Joan didn’t ask to see her, so there it was.

He went, he came back, he went, he came back, on and on it went, into 1927, rolling through spring into summer. As May took hold of London, an infection took hold in his eyes, those eyes of his that still wouldn’t look at her. She tried to delay his visit, but Joan threatened her with another court order. Crowther said, “Every row is an expense, madam. I advise you to stick to the arrangements.”

“But he has an infection,” she replied.

“Is it your fault?”

“She’ll say it is,” Enid said, picking up her purse, knowing she was beaten.

She packed him off to Joan. She tried to fix his eyes before he went, but they looked terrible.

Joan, 1927

29

Joan, 1927