Free Crooked Heart by Lissa Evans Page A

his gaze still upon her, and she turned and walked rapidly away.
    There was no one in at the first house, and at the second, the door was answered by a child.
    â€˜Is your mother in, dear?’ asked Vee. The girl disappeared without a word, leaving the door ajar. Vee took the collecting box out of her bag. It was borrowed from the Sunday School cupboard at Bethesda; she’d covered up the writing on the side with a picture of an aeroplane that she’d cut out of an illustrated paper.
    â€˜Yes?’ said the woman, not opening the door further, but sliding sideways into the gap. She was a shrunken little thing – Vee’s age, but with a withered, papery complexion. From within the house came a steady shrieking.
    â€˜Spitfire Fund,’ said Vee, giving the box a silent shake. It came to her, too late, that she should have primed it with a few coppers.
    The woman nodded, and closed the door. Vee waited, uneasily. A minute went by. Should she stay? Should she try next door? Should she run ? It wasn’t the sort of house thatwould have a telephone, but might the child have climbed over the back wall, and be racing to call the police? She was just turning to leave when the door reopened to reveal the girl with her fist outstretched.
    â€˜Mum says to give you this,’ she said, and dropped a sixpence into the slot.
    The door closed again.
    The rattle of silver on wood seemed to linger in the air; Vee thought she had never heard a sweeter sound. Sixpence. Sixpence . The ease of it – she had knocked on a door and a child had given her money. It had the jingling simplicity of a nursery rhyme. She seemed to float along the pavement towards the next house.
    â€˜Spitfire Fund,’ she said to the woman who answered the door.
    â€˜What’s happened to Edna?’ asked the woman.
    â€˜Who?’
    â€˜Edna Cleverley who does the Spitfire collection.’
    â€˜Hurt her foot,’ said Vee, randomly.
    â€˜How?’
    She hesitated. ‘Tripped over a dog?’
    The woman frowned. ‘She doesn’t have a dog.’
    Leave now , ordered a voice in Vee’s head. ‘Next door’s dog,’ she heard herself saying.
    â€˜The collie?’
    â€˜That’s right.’ A miracle. Vee smiled breezily and rattled the box.
    The woman shook her head. ‘I gave something last month,’ she said, and closed the door with a hint of a slam.
    Vee glanced in the direction of Noel. He was staring directly at her. She skipped a couple of houses, for no reason other than nerves, and swung the knocker of the third.
    Another child answered, a thick-set boy this time, with pink cheeks and a scornful mouth.
    â€˜Spitfire Fund,’ said Vee.
    â€˜That’s not a Spitfire.’
    â€˜What isn’t?’
    â€˜On the box. It’s a Wellington.’
    â€˜Is it?’ She peered at the picture. ‘Well, it doesn’t matter.’
    â€˜I’d like to see you try to fight a Messerschmitt with a Wellington,’ he said. ‘It’d matter then all right.’
    She gave the box a shake.
    â€˜Haven’t collected much, have you?’ he asked. ‘What you got in there, a button?’
    â€˜Can I speak to your mother?’
    â€˜She’s not in.’
    â€˜Why aren’t you at school?’
    â€˜None of your business.’
    â€˜You’ve got a cheek, speaking to me like that.’
    â€˜You gonna stop me?’
    â€˜Somebody damn well ought to.’
    The boy turned his head. ‘Dad!’ he shouted, up the hall. Vee started to walk very quickly back along the road, her best shoes rubbing.
    â€˜Come on ,’ she called to Noel before she reached him. She dared a look back before she turned the corner and the boy was gone, the door closed; he’d been codding her. She sat on the wall to catch her breath.
    Noel had already stood up, and remained standing as Vee slipped off a shoe and rubbed her heel. Distantly, a church