‘Course you will. You wait, some day someone will come along and it will be your turn to help them. That’s how it works, see, you pass it on.’ He was only trying to help her back to normality, she knew, but for Rose the words had a resonance that burned deep inside her.
‘And I will do that, Josh,’ she told him passionately. ‘I promise.’
His arm around her shoulders was warm and comforting, and he hugged her closer. ‘I know you will, Rosie.’
Instinctively she leaned closer into him. Dear wonderful Josh, who made her feel so safe.
Then a new fear struck her. ‘I’m so glad you came, Josh, and so very grateful to you, but I’m scared for you as well–after what Mr Russell said about paying you back.’
‘You don’t need to be. It was just talk, that’s all.’
Josh sounded so confident that Rose didn’t want to pursue the subject, but she couldn’t help worrying and she just hoped that Josh was right.
They were in Sloane Square now and the taxi had stopped. They both got out. The cold wind made her face sting where Arthur Russell had struck her. From the old church on Sloane Street, the sound of carols reached them in disjointed wafts of sound, a few familiar words here and there. At home they had always gone to the midnight carol service at the small church nearby. Tears stung Rose’s eyes.
‘You OK?’ Josh had reached for her hand and was squeezing it reassuringly.
‘Yes, thanks to you.’
The Christmas lights twinkled and danced, the square and the King’s Road beyond it both busy.
‘I doubt that we’ll be able to get a table in the pub now. It will be standing room only.’
‘Yes.’
‘Want me to take you back to your place instead?’
Rose’s immediate shudder gave him his answer. ‘There won’t be anyone there.’ She couldn’t face the thought of being alone. It was, she knew, silly to be afraid that somehow Arthur Russell would track her down, but she was still too close to what had happened for logic. ‘Perhaps if I were to go to Euston I might be able to find a train that will get me back to Macclesfield.’
Josh looked at her. Poor bloody girl. Thank God he’d been born male, he decided.
‘OK,’ he announced, having come to a decision. ‘Come on.’
‘Where are we going?’ Rose set off down the King’s Road, keeping her hand firmly within his own.
‘My place,’ he told her. ‘You’ll be safe there.’
Chapter Thirty-Two
‘It’s Christmas Day.’
Josh looked at his watch. It was ten minutes past midnight. ‘So it is,’ he agreed.
They were in his flat, warmed by the gas fire. Rose was curled up on the battered old leather chesterfield he had ‘found’ in a skip, and wrapped up in the eiderdown off his bed after the bath she had told him she needed to make herself feel clean again. Now she was drinking the medicinal cup of cocoa heavily laced with brandy, which he had made for her.
Since the bathroom was shared with the other tenants and did not possess a lock, Josh had gallantly stationed himself outside it whilst she had bathed.
‘But what do you do? I mean, how do you stop other people coming in?’ Rose had asked him.
‘Whistle,’ Josh had informed her. ‘If you can hear someone whistling you know the bathroom’s occupied. Works fine but it’s tricky when you’re cleaning your teeth.’
‘I expect your family will be waiting for you,’ Rose told him sleepily now, ‘with it being Christmas.’
Josh was sitting cross-legged on the frayed Turkish rug on the floor. He got up and smiled.
‘I’m Jewish–remember. We don’t celebrate Christmas.’
‘Oh!’ Rose flushed and then laughed. She felt strangely light-headed and relaxed, and not at all as she felt she ought to feel in view of what had happened. Being here with Josh made her safe and warm and cosy, and as though she never wanted to be anywhere else.