comes as a shock the first time. You’ll get used to it.’
Madeline needed air. She left the suffocating parlour and passed quickly through the herb-filled kitchen into the garden, where she found her son kicking sulkily at the flower beds that held etiolated rosebushes, each with a single despondent pink bloom.
‘It’s cold out here, Ryan. You should stay indoors.’
‘Her husband smokes.’
‘Even so.’ Madeline rubbed her bare arms briskly, looking about. The Anderson shelters and chicken sheds of postwar London had been replaced with rows of flat-pack conservatories. New attics and kitchens thrust out along the terrace, the residents pushing their property boundaries as if halfheartedly trying to break free of the past. ‘I’m ready to go now. Come and get your jacket. We’ll go home.’
As the neighbours gathered in the hall with their coats, Mrs Summerton removed the tumbler from the parlour table, crushing the moth between her thumb and forefinger before it had a chance to revive, flicking it into the waste bin. She had started her refuge over twenty years ago, when alcohol abuse had been the main problem. Now it was drugs, not that men needed to take stimulants before battering their partners. Madeline had come to her with a black eye and a sprained arm, but had still been anxious to get home on that first evening in order to cook her husband’s dinner. Seeing the gratitude in her protégée’s eyes made Kate sure she was doing the right thing, even if it meant performing a little parlour trick with a moth. Madeline was a good mother, kind and decent, but badly damaged by her relationships with men. If she could not be taught to seek independence and protect herself by traditional means, it was valid to introduce more unconventional methods.
Mrs Summerton said her good-byes and closed the front door, then checked the time and went to change, remembering that someone new was coming to the shelter tonight. She only had room for eight women, and the new girl would make nine, but how would she ever forgive herself if she sent her home without help? Besides, the new girl came from a wealthy family; her fee could finance the refuge for months.
Mr Summerton stayed in the kitchen reading his paper. He had coped with the house being turned into a women’s shelter, had even enjoyed it for a while, but now it was best to stay out of the way. His wife was honest down to her bones, he had always known that. She had made a few missteps in her overeagerness to help, that was all, but now she was exploring strange new territory, enjoining the women to discover their innate psychic powers and leave their husbands—encouraging suspicion and hatred of all men, of which he disapproved.
Still, she was a force of nature when she made up her mind, and he knew better than to raise his voice in protest. There had always been too many women in the house, Kate’s friends, their daughters—even the cat was a female. His mother had once warned him that all women go mad eventually, and he was starting to believe it. Overlooked and outnumbered, he sipped his tea and turned to the sports pages.
Madeline walked home in the rain, clutching Ryan’s hand too tightly. ‘Why are we walking?’ asked the boy. ‘It’s bloody freezing.’
‘Don’t swear,’ his mother admonished. ‘I haven’t got enough bus fare. It’s not very far, and the exercise is good for you.’
‘That’s because you gave all your money to her.’
It was true that Mrs Summerton charged for her services, but you couldn’t expect her to do it for nothing. Kate had made sense of her life. During her lonely childhood years, Madeline had been sure that some secret part of her was waiting to be discovered. But instead of gaining self-knowledge she became beautiful, and the curse began. Boys from her school hung around her house, laying their traps and baiting their lies with promises. She had even seen that terrible crafty gleam in her own father’s eyes. She trusted easily, and was hurt each time. Beauty made her shy, and shyness made her controllable.
Now, at thirty years of age, she was finally discovering a way of standing up to the men who had always manipulated her. She owed Kate Summerton everything.
‘Is she a lady doctor?’ asked Ryan.
‘Not exactly. What makes you think that?’
‘You went to see her when you hurt yourself.’
Madeline had told her son that she’d fallen in the garden, and he