Mrs Whistler

She stood at various windows. She went upstairs and sat on the bed. The summer sun broke through the clouds, the floor growing bright around her feet; and the notion arrived, sudden and irresistible, of travelling north. Of finding Edie, in Lionel Crossley’s office or wherever she might be, and learning the address of the foster family – Edie had it, Maud was sure, even though she’d never admitted as much – and visiting her daughter. This could happen. It would be so simple. She’d let a month pass. More than a month. They were both in this same city. They were a mere handful of miles apart. Why shouldn’t Ione know who she was – why shouldn’t she be held by her mother? She might be smiling by now. She’d surely smile at her.

Maud wasn’t aware of having made the choice to go – only of being at the end of their path, pushing open the gate in a hat and a jacket that did not match, running the coins in her pocket through her fingers to check she had enough for the fare. Glancing downriver, she saw a lone woman about twenty yards along the Row, over at the rail, gazing out at the water. It was Rosa Corder, clad in a bright coral gown. Maud was in no mood to talk with her. She’d been tight at the Café Royal that night, but not so much that she had no memory of what Rosa had said about Ione – about the fostering, and how it had been so necessary