[MaC] Interviewing Esme

[Mel Mason]

>>>Esme looked at her apprehensively.
>>>
>>>"What do you mean?" she asked.
>>>
>>>"What you're really upset about is that letter."
>>
>>Esme looked around.  Now that Cyril and Arabella had left, Esme and Vangie 
>>were alone together.
>>
>>"Yes," she said at last.  "She is in Bethnal Green, you know.  But ... our 
>>lives have been very different.  I married Marty and we became rich ... 
>>and she ... she helps girls in the East End.  And Marty found out!"
>>
>>She dissolved into tears.
>
> "That bullying husband of yours?" Vangie asked. There was a dangerous tone 
> in her voice. As though she knew very well what it was like to have had a 
> bullying husband. And before him, an overstrict father.

Esme nodded vigorously.  "He said ... that he would report her to the 
police.  Unless ... unless ... she helped him with chorus girls and so on 
who found themselves in ... in an unfortunate situation!"

Perhaps Vangie was beginning to sense that the sort of help Esme's sister 
gave to young women in the East End was not delivered in the form of soup 
kitchens.

"And she wrote to me," Esme went on, "and said that the rozzers ... the 
police, I mean ... have been asking questions.  About ... well, her 
customers."

Esme dabbed at her eyes again.