The Fisherman's Girl

by Maggie Ford

  ‘Oh, Mum!’ the hovering tears dried miraculously as if they had been sucked away by a syphon. A great kiss was planted on her cheek.

  She rubbed it vigorously. ‘Don’t be so stupid.’ But it was nice to be appreciated.

  Josie skipped off to tell Winnie the news. She hadn’t told Mum about meeting a boy up there. She’d have been even more reluctant to let her go. Anyway, she had no intentions of going serious with Arthur, did she? And he probably had none himself. Hadn’t even kissed yet, had they? All this really was, was her passport to London to see what it was like.

  Chapter Six

  Although Mr Willoughby had left his address, Annie had not taken it up. It wasn’t up to her or any respectable girl to make the first move in matters of that sort, and if he thought she would have, he wasn’t quite so nice himself for all his apparently moneyed upbringing and his obviously well-appointed address. He had probably taken her for a floozy, a gold digger he could have strung along with fine promises and dropped when he had tired of her after getting what he wanted out of her. After a while the thought had made her exceedingly angry and rightly indignant. She wouldn’t dream of putting pen to paper on such an arrogant invitation, would rather have died, the way he had taken it for granted that she would indeed. And yet as the months had gone by she felt constantly pricked by a small indefinable thrill whenever his name crept into her mind, which seemed more often than was healthy for her.

  So it was in November that the thrill hit her anew when a letter came, via her work, handed to her by Colin Wakeman, his thin fair eyebrows lifted enquiringly at the expensive thickness of the envelope’s paper, a move that made her delay until a more private moment to open it. But she had already noted the London postmark and made a guess who it might be from, her nerves jangling with excitement all morning as she went about her reception duties.

  Over a snatched lunch of ham sandwich, a cake and coffee, she tore it open before Jean the office typist could come to the table and join her.

  Dear Miss Bowmaker,

  I am taking the somewhat anxious liberty of writing to you, as I now realise that I had not been entirely proper by leaving my address and no other word for you. I do realise, of course, how unsavoury it must have appeared to you, and I don’t blame you for not contacting me. In fact I find it commendable that you didn’t under the circumstances so I am hastening to rectify my awful mistake by writing to you now and begging that I may follow it with another letter – that is if you feel you would wish to reply to this one, which I do sincerely hope you are reading at this very minute and haven’t thrown away in disgust. At this point may I add my abjectest apologies too?

  I shall not at present go into detail as to my reason for leaving you my address, although I hope you will guess why. Our eyes met that day, you know, and I hope I wasn’t mistaken in reading what I did in yours. If so, dear Miss Bowmaker, I’m certain I can look forward to your reply, your favourable reply. I shall say no more but look forward to hearing from you. If I hear nothing, I shall understand utterly of course.

  Your ardent admirer.

  Alexander (Alex) Willoughby.

  P.S. Please write.

  Annie’s joy knew no bounds. She showed the letter to everyone at home, hardly able to sustain herself. Mum bit her lip and said she could be getting into deeper water than she imagined, that everyone had a place in the walk of life and it didn’t do to step off the beaten track.

  Mum was old-fashioned. People of today were doing things differently, a new decade was approaching, fashions were already changing as clothes became more clingy, women’s forms more rounded. Cars had got faster. Silent films had been ousted in less than a year by talkies, and now the only silents left were those starring Charlie Chaplin. Cinema audiences had ceased to be noisy; it was the films that were noisy, hardly anyone understanding what American film stars were saying they spoke so fast and so nasally.

  Mum and mothers like her were being left behind the times. The Thirties promised to be an era when women would lift themselves out of their class and marry into a higher one. That it promised to be a frugal decade with that recent Wall Street Crash – the papers had talked about thousands in America on the dole with hints of this country probably following – she was too young and heady with excitement now to care. A modern woman, with a salary enough to afford the newest fashion, even if more cheaply made than those in the large cities, she was good enough for any young man with a postal address like Hampstead.

  She replied that very evening, and two days later received his letter saying he would be at the Cliffs Hotel on Saturday evening to take her out somewhere nice, a theatre and a meal if she cared to. Yes, yes, she cared to, very much.

  Josie, who made no secret of her foolish futile desire to one day join the upper crust and marry someone rich, was jealous. But Josie at only just eighteen was of no account. Pam too was jealous, with no boyfriend of her own. Connie, engaged to Ben, held no envy. But Annie’s joy was complete.

  The moment Alex Willoughby entered the hotel foyer it seemed to Annie that he commanded immediate attention. He was the most handsome man she had ever seen and her heart flipped at the sight of him. It flipped even more as he came up to her, said hello in a deep pleasing tone, and added in a quiet, cultured accent that it was a great pleasure to meet her.

  Reciprocating, trying to throw off the vague sensation of being a pick-up, she purposely made no attempt to adopt any fine accent. Hers, developed over the years working for this hotel, was good enough for them; it would have to be good enough for him. Truth in all things was her motto and she meant to start off this association, if indeed it was one, with honesty and straight dealing. If she felt a little like a pick-up, he was not going to be allowed to imagine she was. It had been a mistake deciding on this place to meet, with those she worked with able to witness it. Now all she wanted was to get out of here as fast as possible.

  He seemed to sense her feelings. Preliminaries over, he crooked his arm for her to take, saying they wouldn’t have drinks here but that his car was outside and they’d motor along to the Palace Hotel.

  ‘What would you like to do?’ he asked as he opened the passenger door for her and settled her into the seat of a beautiful, brand new, red American Pierce-Arrow, which is what he said it was as they pulled smoothly away. She wouldn’t have known one car from another. In fact this was the first she had even been in; the experience quite took her breath away so that she sat the whole way to Southend in rapt silence apart from managing to gasp that she’d let him decide what they would do. Her only conscious thought recognised that he was visibly loaded with money, judging by this kind of car, the kind of suit he wore, the way he conducted himself with such casual aplomb. Again came the feeling that she, not he, had engineered this meeting, the sole lure his obvious affluence. She almost visualised being handed a sum of money as they parted company and decided there and then that she would conduct herself with decorum at all times and give him no reason to doubt her integrity.

  Over drinks he told her something about himself. As she listened, all her intentions to put her own cards on the table wavered before the facts of her lifestyle that would astonish if not appal him. How he imagined she lived and the sort of family she had, she couldn’t begin to think. She was rightly proud of her upbringing, her family, her parents, but listening to him it would be hard to describe her life when finally he asked her about it.

  He had visited America, he told her. The imported car, especially designed for his needs on British roads, said that much. His father was a large importer of gems, had agents in Holland and America and India. He spoke a lot about the ins and outs of it, little of which Annie understood. Now that his continuing friendly, almost formal conduct had got her over her initial fears, she heard only his wonderful deep voice and saw only his outstanding handsomeness as she drank in the way his rather large hands moved when he expressed his interests and aims in life.

  ‘I’m a director in the firm at the moment. Not
terribly important or overworked. I don’t have to do much, obviously. Just learn the business and one day inherit from my father. But I hope that day is still a long way off.

  ‘I’ve four sisters,’ he continued, than gave a small chuckle. ‘All older than I and married. My parents must have despaired of an heir – four girls in quick succession, it must have shattered them. Then I came along. I’ve been spoiled ever since. I am sure my sisters blame me personally. But I see very little of them. One lives in the States and one in South Africa. The other two gad about the world with their husbands. While I was growing up they were all at finishing school in Switzerland When they came out – debutantes, you know – I was still at public school. They got themselves married off into good families almost immediately – so I see hardly anything of them.’

  He looked at her for a moment, his eyes filling with interest. ‘And how about you, Annie? Tell me a little about yourself.’

  ‘There’s little to tell,’ she hedged. But why should she prevaricate? Who was he that she should make excuses for herself! Speak the truth and shame the Devil, and if he didn’t like it, then he was welcome to say goodbye before her heart got too lost. She’d be sad, but she’d get over it at this early stage. People have to get over the death of a cherished one – could do nothing else but – and carry on with their lives. So shame on her if she could not get over this sensation that was fast mounting up inside her were he to walk away. If he did, she wouldn’t blame him, he of a different class, different tastes to her, but she’d force herself to think less of him and have done with it.

  She expected his interest to flag as she talked of her life in Leigh-on-Sea, her father a cockle-picker, no match for a London gemstone importer – but she spoke with pride. She was amazed to see interest glow in his eyes.

  ‘That’s so fascinating. My God, you have an interesting life. All that open air and space.’

  ‘You’ve been to America,’ she reminded him severely. ‘There’s lots of space and open air there.’

  ‘Not where I was. New York. No horizons at all unless you go to the top of the Empire State Building, and then all you see is skyscrapers and the river and hills beyond, all through a mist it seemed to me. No colour. No real fresh air to breathe. All that noise, honking cars, popular tunes blaring swing and jazz, people rushing everywhere, not one of them stopping to give you a second glance. I spent most of my time there sitting in a board-room or someone’s office doing deals. Even in London you’re restricted. And at home, though the house is in quite decent grounds, and we have the Heath not far away, it’s still London in a way. I can just imagine the silence you talked about, out there on the flats with the tide far away and the distant mewing of gulls. You set such a wonderful picture. I think you must be a poet … No, I really do,’ he broke off to assure her as she gave a scoffing laugh. ‘And I envy you your solitude.’

  ‘It can get noisy enough at home,’ she said. ‘And we have our parties and social get-togethers – we’re not exactly living in the back of beyond, you know.’ Her tone rang with reproval and he hurried to rectify any misunderstanding.

  ‘I’m sorry if I sounded high-handed, Annie. Look, let’s not talk about our lives. Let’s talk of something else.’

  ‘What?’ She still felt a little ruffled.

  ‘I don’t really know.’ For a moment he looked so non-plussed that all her indignation melted away and she began to laugh.

  He was laughing too, so natural. ‘I really don’t know. What does one talk about on a first date?’

  ‘First date?’

  ‘There are going to be others, aren’t there … Annie?’

  Silently she nodded, unable to trust her voice lest she sound far too eager, but her heart was thumping too fast and too heavily, more so as his hand came across the table and slowly took hers, which had been lying near her sherry glass.

  ‘Annie …’ he began, to her surprise, hesitantly. ‘I … I know this does seem a little premature, but I do want to see you again. And again. I’ve been sitting here utterly overwhelmed by you. It’s made me talk too much but I can’t … my dear Annie, I feel this … this electric thing inside me all the time I’m looking at you, listening to you. I’m sure I’m in love with you, but that’s silly, isn’t it, after just an hour?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she answered, recognising those self-same emotions inside herself.

  ‘I felt like that the day I saw you in the hotel. I looked for you again but you weren’t there. They said you had gone home. All I could think of was to leave my address. I should have written a letter at least, but I could not think straight. Afterwards, I was ashamed, as though I’d treated you as one might a casual acquaintance. And you were not a casual acquaintance, not from that very first sight of you. Can you understand what I’m saying?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’ Her tone seemed to her unusually husky.

  ‘Then may I see you again?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said in the same husky tone as though her throat were being obstructed by some web or something.

  The rest of her evening had become a haze, with just a sprinkling of recollections approaching anywhere near clarity: of leaving the hotel bar and later entering the rose and gold foyer of the Westcliff Palace Theatre. There had been a film whose title she could not recall followed by some live theatre, drama, its subject matter lost to her as she tried to think back on it. Her only real memory was of a feeling that the future seemed to be slowly unrolling before her, a rosy carpet going on forever. He had brought her home in his wonderful car, riding smoothly, had taken her almost to her door and then, with a murmured request for her permission, had kissed her. The keenest memory she nurtured as she lay in bed next to Josie was the feel of that kiss. It lingered on her lips like the soft touch of a windblown blossom. In her head she could still hear his voice, deep and positive even as it asked a question. ‘Shall I see you next week? Saturday – shall we say eight o’clock? I’ll wait for you here.’

  She had said, full of disappointment, ‘I’ll be on duty next Saturday.’

  ‘Sunday then. Sunday morning.’

  ‘Yes, Sunday.’ Lying on her side, she breathed the words to herself, heard again his wonderful low voice.

  ‘I’ll be here at eleven and ask your parents’ permission to take you up to London. We can visit Hyde Park, have a boat on the Serpentine, or St James’s, or the Embankment. It depends of course on the weather. It could be a little too cold this time of year. If it’s too cold or wet perhaps we can visit a few museums. But we have time.’ He kissed her again, a tender peck. ‘All the time in the world. The rest of our lives, I hope.’

  ‘Yes,’ she had whispered again, fervently, and had echoed, ‘All the time in the world,’ already sure she was in love. The way he had kissed her, at first lingeringly then softly, spoke of no mere brief association but of something lasting, and she believed the kiss implicitly.

  In the morning she would tell her parents about him. They would be overjoyed for her. Not just the young man her mother had hoped she’d find one day but a young man of good means. It was almost too good to be true.

  ‘It sounds to me too good to be true,’ were her mother’s first words, rather stunning Annie. ‘You be careful you’re not getting too carried away.’

  ‘I’m not being carried away.’ Anger prickled up inside Annie. This wasn’t fair. ‘Don’t you want to see me settle down?’

  ‘With a nice young man, yes.’ Mum was putting the breakfast on the table, everyone coming to sit at their places in the back room which about gave enough room to squeeze by the backs of each other’s chairs. With its small window shielded by the back fence they needed the gas light on to see what they were eating. ‘But you can’t trust men what tell you about all the money they’ve got.’

  ‘If he had no money how could he afford such an expensive motor?’

  ‘Could’ve been borrowed,’ Pam put in a tiny bit spitefully.

  ‘Well, it wasn’t.’ Annie held her hands out of the way fo
r her mother to put the hot breakfast plate in front of her. ‘I know it wasn’t. He paid an awful lot for our meal and then we went to the theatre. And we had drinks.’

  ‘Mind you’re not getting yourself in too deep,’ her mother warned, at the same time giving Pam a look. ‘Drinking can get you drunk. And with a man you’ve only just met, don’t really know—’

  ‘I’ve already met him before.’

  ‘If all what he says is true,’ her mother continued, ‘and not trumped up to impress some gullible young girl, what’s he want of an ordinary girl like you? Why ain’t he out with some posh girl his own sort?’

  ‘Thanks very much,’ Annie struck out. ‘Nice thing for a mother to say – that her daughter’s not posh.’

  ‘You know what I mean. I mean at your age a nicely brought up girl could be easily led on by a man like that.’

  ‘He’s not a man like that, Mum. And I am twenty-two and I’m not gullible. I’m old enough to know my own mind and know what the world’s about. I work in a big hotel, remember, and meet all sorts of people.’

  ‘And I work in that hotel too,’ Josie began, but Annie ignored her.

  ‘I do get to know who’s genuine and who’s not.’

  At the breakfast table, her father moved irritably. ‘Twenty-two’s no age, my gel. You think you know the world just on working in some hotel? Well, you think again. Sometimes what you thought was a friend can turn on you and you find you don’t know him … them … as well as you thought. Think on it before you go off swanning around London with strange blokes.’

  ‘Alex isn’t strange!’ Annie pleaded, her breakfast going untouched in her disappointment at their lukewarm response to her joy. He’s coming next week, personally, to ask permission to take me to London. And he can’t be more genuine than that, can he?’

  ‘Anyone can sound and behave genuine when they want,’ her father mumbled into his plate. ‘Until they get tired on being genuine. That’s when it all comes out.’