The Outcast by Sadie Jones

was the sort of hopeless young woman with messy hair who spent all the time in the park with her son, so she said in a rush,‘Lewis never had one before and he’s away at school
    . . . I mean, I’m not his mother, I’m his stepmother. His mother never had a nanny, she was—’ She didn’t want to say ‘eccentric’ about Elizabeth, but it did strike her as odd.
    ‘Is she dead?’
    ‘Yes, she died last year.’
    ‘She died? How ghastly. How did she die?’
    Alice felt the curiosity and glee, but she didn’t mind. It was a relief to tell her.
    ‘She drowned.’ ‘No?’
    ‘Yes, in the river near their – our – house.’ With a meaning look,‘And when did you . . .?’ ‘I met his father last November.’
    ‘And she died . . .?’ ‘In the summer.’

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    ‘Well, men can’t manage alone, can they? What’s his name, your boy?’
    ‘Lewis.’
    Alice was beginning to regret saying anything. She’d wanted to tell her and now she was wondering how to get out of it. She didn’t want to stop Lewis playing and take him home.
    ‘And his father? Does he mention the wife much?’ ‘No. He used to.We don’t talk all that much about it.’
    ‘I should think not. Well. One’s used to fathers dying of course, but a mother!’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘And whereabouts do you live?’ ‘Surrey.Waterford.’
    ‘I know it.We used to know some people near there.’ ‘Really?’ Alice was relieved, this was safer territory.
    ‘The country can be so hard to get along in. Even Surrey. Do you find you’re fitting in all right?’
    ‘Yes, everyone’s very nice.’ Alice began to dislike her.
    There was a shout and Lewis came running over. He had put the whole of one leg into the water and the drenched wool sock was hanging down. His shoe was spilling out water and he was laughing. He stopped in front of her, like a puppy about to bark, and stuck his wet shoe and leg out towards her.
    ‘Look!’
    ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Alice and laughed and felt very fond of him; she liked him for laughing and for thinking she would think it was funny too.
    ‘Lewis, isn’t it? I’m Marjorie Dunford-Wood.’
    Lewis was out of breath, smiling – ‘How d’you do—’ ‘I was so sorry to hear about your mother.’
    It was like watching an accident and not being able to stop it.

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    Alice could see Lewis was making an enormous effort to do something.
    ‘Thanks, that’s all right,’ he said.
    ‘Were you having fun with the boat?’ said Alice, in a rush,‘I think we should probably be off, don’t you?’
    The other woman mouthed an exaggerated apology to Alice that Lewis couldn’t fail to see.Alice didn’t return her look, but got up and took Lewis’s hand.
    ‘Goodbye,’ she said and turned away.
    The boy with the boat stood up from the water and waved and grinned.
    ‘Bye!’ he shouted then, thinking he hadn’t been heard,‘Bye then!’

    They walked back towards Kensington Gore and all the way across the park Alice tried to make up for it, but he didn’t speak to her.The cold was vicious and worse for being in the spring. Lewis’s shoe was squelching water and it should have been a funny sound and the sort of thing children liked laughing at, and Alice wanted to make him laugh about it, but couldn’t think of anything to say.They walked on through the empty park with her heels and the wet shoe the only sounds.
    ‘You can see your breath,’ she said. They walked on.
    ‘We’ll be there soon.’
    She wanted to cry and she nearly did just to make him feel sorry for her, but she thought maybe that wasn’t a fair thing to do to a child. In the taxi to Victoria she watched him look out of the window at a troop of Horse Guards go by and he looked like a normal child, leaning on his arms with his face against the glass and looking at the shiny swords and plumes. Just like any

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    other child. She felt terribly lonely and rather desperate, and decided to wait for Gilbert at Victoria.
    It was nearly five o’clock