Caroline's Waterloo

Just for a moment she thought he was going to say something, but he didn’t.

CHAPTER THREE

CARO ARRIVED BACK at Meadow Road during the morning and the moment she opened the door of number twenty-six, Mrs Hodge bounced out of her basement flat, avid for a good gossip.

‘Your friends came,’ she said without preamble, ‘said you had a bad cut leg and concussion; nasty thing concussion; you could ’ave died.’ She eyed Caro’s leg with relish and then looked disappointed, and Caro said almost apologetically:

‘I don’t need a bandage any more. Thank you for looking after Waterloo, Mrs Hodge.’

‘No trouble.’ Mrs Hodge, a woman who throve on other people’s troubles, felt her sympathy had been wasted. ‘Your rent’s due on Monday.’

Caro edged past her with the duffle bag. ‘Yes, I know, Mrs Hodge. I’ll just see to Waterloo and unpack and then go back to the hospital and see when I’m to go back.’

She went up the stairs and unlocked the door at the back of the landing. Not one of Mrs Hodge’s best rooms, but it was quieter because it overlooked back yards and there was a tiny balcony which was nice for Waterloo.

He came to meet her now and she picked him up and laid him on her shoulder while he purred in her ear, delighted to have her back. Caroline sat down on the divan which did duty as a bed at night and looked around her.

The room was small and rather dark and seemed even more so after the Professor’s spacious home; she had done the best she could with pretty curtains and cushions and a patchwork cover for the divan, but nothing could quite disguise the cheap furniture or the sink in one corner with the tiny gas cooker beside it. Caro, not given to being sorry for herself, felt a lump in her throat; it was all such a cruel contrast… She missed them all, the Professor, even though he didn’t like her, Noakes and Marta, Juffrouw Kropp… She had been utterly spoilt, waited on hand and foot, and she, who had never been spoilt, had loved it. Right up until the moment she had gone on board, too, with Noakes seeing to her bag and getting her magazines to read and having a word with someone or other so that she had a super cabin to herself and a delicious meal before she had gone to bed. She had tried to pay him, but he had said very firmly that the Professor would deal with that later. Caroline had hoped that although he had said goodbye to her, she would have seen the Professor again before she left, but he had left the house after breakfast and wasn’t back when she went away, with the entire staff gathered at the door to see her off.