It was worth the pain and the terror to hear that.
“This’ll take the smarting away,” George said, putting the bottle of witch-hazel on the wooden bath surround.
“You just rub it in…”
She regarded the bottle, reached out a wet hand and picked it up. She read the label, frowning.
“Thank you, George. You’re thoughtful. Now run away and tidy up, as you put it. I won’t be long.”
George worked happily until Cora joined him. She was wearing Sydney’s dirty white dressing-gown.
“You are a busy little bee, aren’t you?” she jeered, looking round the room, her eyebrows making question marks.
He had put the old newspapers and empty beer bottles in one corner. He had wiped off all the sticky circles on the furniture and cleared up the mess in the fireplace. The dirty dishes he had taken into the kitchen. Already the room looked cleaner and brighter.
George grinned sheepishly. “I like doing this,” he said. “I’d like a place of my own.”
She sat in the armchair, lowering herself cautiously and with a little grimace. She lit a cigarette. “You’re a hit of a dope, aren’t you?” There was an unexpected note of kindness in her voice that George hadn’t heard before. He looked at her quickly, but she was regarding him with far-away, pored eyes, as if she were only half aware of his presence.