The Hardie Inheritance
Page 29
She would have had a stocking of her own had she still been living at Greystones. ‘Until you’re twenty-one!’ Grace had said firmly when she once wondered aloud whether she wasn’t becoming too old for that sort of thing. It would have been filled with food treats and new paints and brushes. Grace would have made something out of clay or carved a puzzle or – but Trish shook such thoughts out of her head. She didn’t care about such childish things as stockings herself, but was sorry that Grace had been deprived of the pleasure of giving and being thanked.
Wandering aimlessly through the empty streets, she found herself passing an ugly building labelled Public Baths. Perhaps she had noticed it before, but if so had assumed it to be a swimming pool. Now, looking more closely at the schedule of services, times and prices, she discovered that it would provide her – although not until after Boxing Day – with the hot bath which she badly needed. The promise of cleanliness made her immediately feel more clean. Her eyes brightened, her footsteps lightened as she set herself to make new plans.
By the time she returned to the square she had decided how to spend the day, if she could find the right materials. It was easy to break into the four houses on which the builders had been working. Yes, there were pots of paint and a selection of brushes. It wasn’t stealing, she told herself as she picked up as much as she could carry; only borrowing. Most of the tins had already been opened and she would return everything except a few inches of paint before the holiday period was over.
The selection was not an inspiring one. House decoration, like everything else, was confined in a utility mode. There were two kinds of white paint: one for ceilings and the other for woodwork. There was cream for walls and black for gutters, and a variety of undercoats: white, grey and dark red. The one unopened tin was the most exciting: a daffodil yellow paint which was perhaps intended for a front door.
Back in her own squat, she sat down on the large sofa and stared at the wall which faced her. Most of it was covered with a wallpaper patterned with roses, but at both top and bottom lumps of plaster had fallen away. Had Terry been here, he would have made it all good, but there was an easier way to deal with the damage. Half closing her eyes, she allowed the triangular shapes of missing plaster to transform themselves into sharply pointed mountains. A graceful crack provided the skeleton of a willow tree. The damage higher up could be hidden under clouds.
If only the owner of the unpainted front door had chosen green instead of yellow! But even as she sighed, a study in grey and black and white began to form before her eyes. A Chinese landscape, but formalized until it was hardly identifiable as a landscape at all. So touches of the red metal undercoat would serve to indicate what ought to be green. The sun could shine on it from one corner, sending down daffodil yellow rays.
It was quite wrong to mix so many different kinds of paint, of course. The finished effect would probably be ridiculous. But it could only have a temporary life and planning and executing it would be fun. The first necessity was to obliterate the wallpaper roses.
Their colour proved to be stronger than the white of the ceiling paint, and two coats were needed to cover them. While she waited for the first to dry, she squared out a design which could be enlarged to the size of the wall. Although she wanted the work to emerge spontaneously, that much preparation was needed so that she could use bold brushstrokes with no second thoughts.
One of the boring things she had been taught at college was perspective, which now proved not to be boring at all. She used it to increase the size of the tiny room by opening up a vista, allowing a river to wind between the mountains of damaged plaster and away into the distance. By the time the light faded on Boxing Day, only the yellow sun was missing from her picture wall, and for good measure she had slapped white paint over the other three walls so that there was not a rose to be seen.
For two days she had hardly been aware of hunger, content to nibble at raw carrots and cabbage, but now she was starving. Returning to the next-door squat she raided her friends’ small stock of tins. Unlike the paint, though, these could be replaced. Early the next morning she set out to shop.
Chapter Eleven
The street market behind the Angel was already crowded when Trish arrived. She was carrying her ration book, but quickly realized that no one here would demand it. The knowing looks of the stallholders were intended to give the impression that their goods were black market, but the solitary policeman patrolling the streets showed little interest. No clothing coupons were required for the army surplus blankets which were just what she needed; nor was she expected to hand over any ‘points’ for battered tins of food. Almost certainly these had been condemned as unfit for sale, but what did a few dents matter? Carefully picking the least damaged, she was just about to pay for half a dozen tins of baked beans when she heard her name being called and looked around to see who it could be.
It was Boxer. He was standing on a wooden box about three stalls away. She made her way towards him with her fists pumping like pistons in their old greeting.
‘Hold on a tick,’ he said, for he had serious business in hand. A crowd was already gathering around his table, which was loaded with cardboard boxes. He was selling china tea sets which he claimed to be export rejects. A non-stop patter flowed from his earnest, high-pitched voice as he waved a specimen cup in the air.
‘Well of course they’re seconds, ladies and gents. Who asked if they were seconds? Of course they’re seconds. ’Ow else would you expect to get a pattern as pretty as this on your tea table. If you’re ’appy with plain white china then go away and don’t get in the way of them as knows a good thing when they sees one. If I’d ’ad these ’ere a week ago; ladies and gents, I’d ’ave been asking a tenner for the set so’s you could give Granny a real treat this Christmas, but they’re late and so you’re lucky and yes, of course you can take a look but it’s a fiver if you drop it. Now then, ten pound a set these are worth, but am I asking ten pound? No I’m not. Am I asking eight pound? No I’m not. Am I asking six pound?’
The crowd joined in. ‘No, you’re not.’
‘But that’s the limit, ladies and gents. A bargain’s a bargain and if I go any lower there’ll be a riot, fighting in the street, because I’ve only got ten of these boxes and I can see fifteen, twenny of you feeling for your money already. Only the first ten’s going to be lucky. Best export reject, a fiver the set for the first nine but the sky’s the limit for the last one.’
‘’Ere, guv. One for me!’ With amusement Trish saw that the hand which was waving a five-pound note belonged to Dan.
‘Thank you, sir. One for the gentleman. Only nine to go and the last one makes its own price. Don’t be left standing, ladies and gents, while a bargain slips past yer eyes. Best export reject!’
Alerted by Boxer’s shout, Dan came to stand beside Trish as soon as he had completed his purchase.
‘I take it that goes straight back into stock,’ she said laughing. ‘When do you produce another set of only ten tea sets?’
‘Not for two hours. All this crowd’ll have gone by then. But they know there are plenty more, whatever old Boxer says. Not doing too badly, is he? It’s my stall really, him being still at school, but I let him have a go in the hols to see how he gets on. You living near here, Trish?’
‘Yes. Squatting. Just came down to pick up a bit of food.’
‘We’ve got a trolley. Tell us what you want and we’ll bring it round. Save you lugging heavy stuff home.’
‘Right.’ She gave him a ten-shilling note. ‘Just tins of things that don’t need cooking, only heating up. You could eat some of them with me.’
‘About two o’clock then, after the market closes and we’ve cleared up.’ He wrote down the address and went back to his own stall to supervise Boxer’s salesmanship.
When the time came they arrived together, pulling a trolley laden with tins and vegetables.
‘Should keep you going for a day or two,’ said Dan. ‘Six bob change.’
‘Know how to get the best price, don’t we?’ said Boxer proudly. ‘Always things going cheap after the market closes, and we do each other turns.’
‘Well, thanks a lot. It’s marvellous. What shall we eat now?’
They lunched on Spam and tinned peaches, washed down by a bottle of Tizer. ‘A feast!’ exclaimed Trish. ‘Tell me, how’s Terry?’
‘Having the time of his life, old Terry,’ Dan told her. ‘Buying and selling. He’s got a nose for it, finding people with something to sell. He’s big in parachutes.’
‘Parachutes? Who wants a parachute now the war’s over?’
‘Anyone who wants some nice undies without coupons. They’re made of nylon, see, or silk. You buy a great big triangle and cut it up and make a petticoat or something out of it. All on the level – ’cos like you said, no one needs parachutes any more. It’s the factory wot’s selling them off. And army surplus, that’s a big thing – warm stuff and no coupons.’
‘So Terry has a stall as well as you, does he?’
Dan shook his head. ‘He’s got a shop. With a warehouse at the back. He buys bulk – things that have gone wrong in the factories – and sells to market traders like me. You can’t go in ordinary, like, and buy just one of anything. You have to get it by the dozen. He makes me pay like anyone else –’ Trish could tell that this was a sore point –’ ’cos he says it’s the only way to learn about making a profit.’
‘How did he manage to get hold of a shop?’
‘He used that money Grace gave him, and his demob gratuity, to buy a bomb site with a shed still standing. He did the selling out of that to start with, while he and some mates and Boxer and me put a shop up in the front. We’re going to build a flat on top of it soon’s we can get some more bricks. He’s on a winner, bound to be. Everyone wants to buy things but there’s nothing you can buy except when there’s something wrong with it and then the people who make it don’t want anyone to know where it came from. I mean, he bought two prefabs last week because the transporter skidded off the road and they got bashed, but they’re all right except for some dents. We’re going to keep one of them and he reckons he can auction the other for as much as he paid for the two.’
‘He must be a good salesman.’
‘Anyone can sell, he says. It’s finding something to buy that’s the hard work. Well, we gotta get back. I help him out, afternoons.’
‘It’s been marvellous to see you.’ She hugged them both vigorously. ‘And all this food is my best Christmas present.’ My only Christmas present, she might have said, but she had given no hint of her strained relations with the rest of her family. ‘Give my love to Terry. And I’ll see you again in the market, I expect.’
Cheered by the meeting – and the generous stocking of her larder – she set to work to finish her wall painting. She saw that her first idea for the daffodil paint would be disproportionately bright. Instead of a full sun high in the sky, she painted just its narrow curve rising from behind a mountain, and began to speckle in the rays with tiny dots. So well did they cheer up the scene that she scattered them more widely, making each almost too small to distinguish. The wall changed character in front of her eyes. Could she have started again – and with a more reasonable choice of materials – she would have done it all differently. Nevertheless, she was pleased with the effect when at last she stood back to look at the finished result.
‘Not bad,’ said a voice from the narrow hallway.
She turned, startled. Terry was sitting on the bottom stair, his hat on his knees.
Terry! How long have you been there?’
‘’Bout half an hour. Didn’t like to interrupt. You were going at it just like Grace does.’
‘Yes.’ Trish had had the same thought herself. It was from Grace that she had learned how to concentrate so completely on a task that she was not conscious of anything else. There was a difference, though. Grace would never have felt the urge to scrub the whole thing off as soon as she had finished.
‘The lads told me about seeing you.’ Terry stood up and came into the room. His finger went up to touch the black patch which covered his left eye, checking that it was in place. ‘I can offer you something better than this, Trish. And all on the level. No wondering when someone’s going to kick you out or pinch your stuff. Did they tell you about the prefabs? You could have one of them.’
Trish took her time about answering. If the offer had come from Grace or Ellis, she would have spurned it, determined not to accept a favour or be patronized. But from Terry it was in every sense on the level. Like Dan and Boxer with their overripe vegetables and dented tins, he was seizing the opportunity to show gratitude and repay a debt. It would be childish as well as churlish to refuse, and she was not a child any longer.
‘I’d want to pay my way,’ she said.
‘Sure. Give me something to sell, and I’ll sell it for you.’
‘Even pictures?’
‘Pictures, yes, easy, as long as they’re cheap. Walls even! But we’d like to have you as a neighbour anyhow.’
Trish grinned. ‘You always were one for having good ideas.’
‘And you were always the girl who recognized a good idea when she heard it. Coming, then?’
She smiled in happiness and relief. There had been moments during the past few days when she had feared that she might in the end be forced to ask either Grace or Ellis for help in staying away from them, but now she felt safe. She had earned Terry’s help and would continue to earn it. They could build a kind of partnership in which they would both have brilliant ideas about what she could produce and he could sell.
‘I’m coming,’ she nodded. ‘Thanks a lot.’
Part Three
Separate Lives
1947
Chapter One
‘Oughtn’t you to be at school?’ asked Grace; but she did not speak the words unkindly, for her youngest nephew was in a pitiable state.
This February of 1947 was the coldest month that she remembered in the whole of her life. January’s snow had frozen into bumpy ice, making it impossible to cycle and hazardous even to walk up and down the steep approach to Greystones. The chill of the air outside pierced through to the bone. Max wore no gloves and his navy-blue school mackintosh had little warmth in it. He had walked, it seemed, all the way from the railway station. His face and hands were blue with cold and his thin body shivered uncontrollably.
Even Grace, who as a rule was hardly aware of the temperature, had been forced in recent weeks to surround herself with stoves in one corner of the icy studio if her hands were not to stiffen and become useless. In the evening a log fire would provide cosiness, but at this moment, in the middle of the morning, the only reliably warm place in the house was the kitchen. She led the way there now and put a pan of soup to heat on the hotplate before repeating her question. ‘Oughtn’t you to be at school?’
‘I’ve run away.’ So violently was Max still shivering that it was hard to hear the words. ‘Not so much from school. From home. I’m never going back there again. Not ever.’
‘What’s the matter?’ Grace sat down on a stool close to him and began to massage his icy hands. The thirteen-year-old had spent a week of the Christmas holiday with her and he had not been happy then, because his mother had died three weeks earlier. For Christmas itself he had been invited to stay with his married elder brother, and had seemed cheerful enough when he left Greystones. What could have happened?
‘It’s the scholarship,’ he said. ‘To ballet school. I went in for it a year ago and they offered me a place and a bursary. Fifty pounds a year. It’s hard enough even to get a place, but to get money as well …! Father wouldn’t let me take it. Because of Mummy being ill and wanting me at home, he said, but that wasn’t the real reason
.’
‘And has the school renewed the offer now?’
He shook his head, his teeth still chattering. ‘They don’t hold anything over. You’ve got to take it when it’s offered. But I went in for it again this year. Father wasn’t going to let me, but I told him the wrong date purposely and I got Miss Berry to take me. I didn’t think I’d got a hope, because I haven’t been able to practise properly. But they have this thing that after you’ve done your audition piece one of the teachers gives you a kind of lesson in something new and they look to see whether you can do it. I was all right on that.’
‘So you got another offer? Here, drink this.’ She poured some of the hot soup into a mug and pressed his hands round it.
‘The scholarship,’ he said. ‘The top scholarship! I never dreamed … It means that all the teaching would be free. I’d only have to pay the eating and sleeping part of the fees. It’s a boarding school, you see. It, has to be, because you spend hours every day at dancing class, but you have to do ordinary school work as well. I thought Father would be pleased at least that I’d done so well.’
‘No, you didn’t,’ said Grace. ‘You knew he’d be furious. You and your mother have been deceiving him for years, trying not to let him find out that you were still having lessons.’
There was an odd moment in which Max, who had been on the point of tears, gave a gulp as if to control an urge to laugh.
‘But it’s not fair!’ he exclaimed. ‘John and Peter both went to boarding school when they were thirteen and Lily only didn’t go because she’s a girl. He paid all the fees for them, and I only need half of them. And he says my school work’s terrible and I know it is, but it would be better there because we’d all be the same and the teachers would understand.’