Rags to Riches

by Nancy Carson

  ‘Yes,’ she replied, suddenly thoughtful, ‘I’d like to try my hand at writing songs. Perhaps while you’re away.’

  This offer to play the Queen Mary had made such a difference to Brent, Maxine thought, sitting beside him as he drove her to his home in his powerful Mercedes Benz. Gone was the melancholy that had persisted since Eleanor had left him, gone was the edginess. He was different, as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. His only major concern was to find a new drummer. That would not be difficult, especially if he had a contract playing the Queen Mary to offer somebody, but finding a drummer who could make the music swing like Kenny could, would be more difficult. He had a minor concern, too, that required more immediate attention.

  ‘I’m in a bit of a spot, Maxine,’ he said. ‘I need to get some petrol and I’m bereft of cash at the minute. Could you lend me five or ten bob till I can get to the bank tomorrow?’

  ‘Course,’ Maxine replied, at once rummaging through her handbag.

  ‘Thanks. I’ve been running on fresh air for days.’

  ‘It’s okay. Let me pay anyway,’ she suggested. ‘You run me round a lot.’

  ‘No, no. Just till tomorrow…Here, look. A petrol station…’

  She drew two half-crowns from her purse and, when they pulled up at the side of the petrol pump, she handed them to him. ‘Here, that’s all the change I’ve got.’

  ‘Do you mind? Can you afford it?’

  ‘Better than you by the looks of things,’ she replied. ‘I don’t have a house or a car to run.’

  ‘Maxine, you’re a real angel. A totally good egg. Thanks.’ He turned and his eyes were warm on her, then he got out to supervise the filling and to pay the attendant.

  Eventually, they reached his house and they both alighted from the car.

  ‘The place is a bit of a mess since Eleanor went,’ he warned as he opened the front door.

  ‘As long as you’ve got two clean cups for a cup of tea,’ she replied.

  ‘I wouldn’t count on that. I might not have any milk, either…After you…’

  ‘You know, that’s the first time ever you’ve held a door open for me and allowed me in first – anywhere.’

  ‘Nonsense.’

  ‘It’s true. I notice these things. You’re getting soft in your old age.’

  As she entered the house a strange smell struck her; it was a musty, musky aroma, she thought, but with bass notes of eau de rotting cabbage. She held her breath momentarily.

  ‘This is the front room,’ he said gesturing, ‘this is the parlour, and the kitchen’s through there. I wouldn’t go in the kitchen if I were you.’

  That in itself was as good as an invitation and she followed him there.

  ‘Brent!’ she cried in horror. ‘I’ve never seen such a mess.’ At once she returned to the hall, took off her coat and threw it over the bannister. ‘How can you live like this?’ she said as she returned to the kitchen. ‘You can’t live like this.’ She went to the sink, removed a pile of dirty dishes coated in rotting food that were causing much of the smell. ‘Do you have hot water?’

  ‘The geyser. But you haven’t come here to wash my dishes.’

  ‘Brent, I can’t put up with this while I’m here. This lot stinks. Can’t you smell it? Run the water for me. Let’s do some washing-up. It’s just too disgusting. Got any soap powder?’

  ‘There used to be some under the sink. I’ll get it.’

  Water began to flow hot from the geyser and, with a shake of caking soap powder, a reassuring foam started to form in the sink as she filled it. She immersed the food-encrusted crockery and the cleaning began. Brent discovered a clean cloth with which he could wipe everything dry and store it where he thought it belonged, making a joke of the whole episode. When she’d washed the crockery, the cutlery, the pots and pans, she wiped every surface with a dishcloth and scraped more burnt-on food from the hob of the stove.

  ‘If you try and keep everything clean as you go along, Brent, it’ll be much easier,’ she tried to explain as she folded the dishcloth and put it to rest neatly at a spot at the side of the sink. ‘Now, what about that cup of tea?’

  ‘I’ll do it. You go into the front room. The piano’s in there.’

  She dried her hands and left him to it. The front room, however, was almost as bad as the kitchen. Never had she seen a room so untidy, so dirty. Trying her best to ignore it, she picked her way over the debris to the piano. She shifted a pile of manuscripts and sheet music from the stool, sat down and played a few chords. At least the instrument was in tune. The first few bars of a new number the band had been rehearsing spilled out through her fingers: ‘Summertime’…But it was no good. She couldn’t concentrate on music with all this distracting mess lying about. She had to clean it up.

  When Brent came in with two mugs of tea she was sorting things into piles; a pile for newspapers, a pile for letters and bills, a pile for manuscripts, a pile for printed music, even one for cast-off shirts and socks he’d left lying about. Once she could see the floor, that, too, was a disgrace. No wonder the place stank.

  ‘Brent, how on earth can you allow yourself to live like this?’ she asked again. ‘The house is a pigsty. I can’t imagine that Eleanor would ever let it go like this. You must try to be cleaner – more tidy.’

  ‘I love it when you mother me,’ he said with a grin.

  ‘Well don’t get too fond of it. Do you have a Ewbank or something to sweep the floor with?’

  He put the mugs of tea on top of the piano. ‘I need a woman.’

  ‘I’m sure you could advertise for one,’ Maxine responded seriously.

  ‘I don’t mean a cleaning woman,’ he scoffed. ‘I mean a woman. A woman to live with me…You, for instance.’

  ‘Where are those arrangements you wanted to go over?’ she asked, wishing to change the subject.

  ‘Probably in that pile of manuscripts you’ve scooped up.’

  ‘Oh. Sorry…’

  ‘I’ll have a look. Want to help?’

  They stooped down together over the pile of hand-written music, facing each other as they searched. Her hair, cascading over her face, brushed his face and tickled him. He looked up at her and their eyes met.

  ‘Oh, Maxine…’

  ‘Yes?’ she answered softly, tucking her hair behind her ear.

  ‘Maxine, I want you…’ he breathed. ‘I…’

  Deliberately, she stood up, determined to side-step this beguilement. ‘You want somebody to keep house for you, Brent, that’s what you want,’ she proclaimed dismissively.

  ‘No…’ He stood up, side-stepped the pile of music and faced her, their bodies almost touching.

  They were so close that she could feel the warmth radiating from his body.

  ‘I know who I want, Maxine…Not to keep house for me, but to…’ He hesitated deliberately.

  ‘To what?’ she prompted, driven by a perverse wish to hear him say it.

  ‘To be lovers…’

  But she had not come here for this. She should have known…She went to turn away but his hands went to her waist, halting her.

  ‘Maxine, I can’t stop thinking about you. Christ, you’re so bloody beddable…’ He looked at her lips. They looked so soft and inviting and her teeth, so even and clean, made her mouth all the more enticing. ‘Let me kiss you.’

  ‘Stop messing about, Brent,’ she complained. ‘Why should I?’ But her throat had gone dry and her heart had started beating faster.

  ‘Because it might not be so bad…I’ve had quite a lot of experience at kissing.’

  ‘I can imagine,’ she said feigning disdain.

  He bent his head but she turned her face away from him.

  ‘Brent, stop it!’

  ‘No, I’m going to kiss you.’

  ‘No, you’re not.’

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  It was turning into a game. He lifted her chin and gently brought her face to his. Her resistance was token and, when he placed a kis
s on her lips fleetingly, she collected it with concealed pleasure for she had often wondered how it would feel to be kissed by Brent Shackleton.

  ‘There,’ he said, with a smile of triumph. ‘Was that so bad?’

  ‘It’s not that it was unpleasant, Brent,’ she conceded, blushing, with an appeal to his better nature in her eyes. ‘But you should have more decency than to take advantage. And I shouldn’t let you. I have Howard to consider.’

  ‘It’s too restricting to have a conscience, Maxine. I learnt that a long time ago.’

  ‘I take it then that you don’t have one.’

  ‘No, I don’t have a conscience. And nor should you. It’s not as if you’re engaged or anything.’

  Having kissed her once, he moved to kiss her again. This time, she met him half way, her lips parted ready, waiting to receive him.

  He was right, of course. She was not engaged.

  Encouraged, his kiss grew more intense, lingering, savouring the pleasure of her lips, the delicious taste of her. She knew it was wrong, against all her principles, but it was so toe-curlingly pleasurable. Of course, it could not go on…well, for no more than a second or two at any rate…She could not allow it to go on…At least, she shouldn’t…Then, she realised that her own arms were around his waist, that she was participating almost whole-heartedly in a romantic embrace with this man when she had Howard to consider. But this one kiss wouldn’t hurt. Like he said, she wasn’t engaged…

  He pressed himself against her and to feel him rock hard against her belly was the ultimate compliment. Hungry for her, his mouth searched for hers more urgently, his hands wandered to her bottom…

  ‘No!’

  She wrenched herself away from him decisively.

  ‘God! How can I live with myself?’ she groaned, realising how far she had let him go, realising how far she had let herself go. ‘I’m sorry, Brent. I shouldn’t have…’ She turned away in shame and guilt, her head in her hands. ‘I don’t want you to get the wrong idea or think I’m easy, Brent, because I’m not…But you shouldn’t have…Please don’t take liberties with me again. You’re supposed to be my friend. I came here trusting you. I didn’t come here to be seduced.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I won’t tell Zadoc if you won’t,’ he said, and she could not decide whether he was angry or mocking.

  ‘It’s all right for you, with no conscience at all, but I feel I’ll have to tell him,’ she said, ‘to salve mine.’

  ‘Then more fool you, Maxine. If you tell him he won’t trust you ever again. He won’t see it as my fault, but yours. Still, that’s up to you…I can live with the consequences.’

  ‘You’re an absolute rotter, Brent Shackleton. A cad. Did you know that?’

  A grin spread all over his face.

  ‘Now you’re making fun of me. Stop it!’ She turned to pummel his chest with her fists in her disillusionment, but he took them and held them firm.

  ‘You know,’ he said in a whisper, his mouth only inches from hers, poised, threatening to kiss her again. ‘I’m pretty certain you’d come to bed with me…’

  ‘Not if your damned bed’s in the same state as the rest of the house, I wouldn’t. Will you let go of me please?’ He let her go. ‘Now, do you still want me to go over those arrangements with you before I go?’

  Chapter 18

  Kenny Wheeler arrived to collect Alice Harper from the dairy house at five past eight. Whilst she was sitting waiting, all dressed and ready to go in a stylish yellow linen dress with a dirndl skirt and tight bodice that conveniently buttoned down the front, she heard the sound of a motor’s engine in the street. As she flounced through the entry to meet him, her heart beat faster in anticipation of another evening of lusty, exciting lovemaking that was free of commitment. Kenny was certainly different to Charles. He was relatively uninhibited and only interested in her for pleasure. That was fair enough. It was entirely mutual.

  She waltzed round to the passenger side of his van. ‘Blimey, this is a posh new van,’ she commented admiringly as she got in beside him.

  ‘I don’t know about posh,’ he answered morosely, pulling away from the kerb.

  ‘Did you get into trouble over it?’

  ‘Not really. Accidents happen. I reported it as an accident.’

  She thought how intense he seemed. The bright-eyed roguish look that had drawn her to him in the first place had disappeared.

  ‘Din’t nobody ask how it fell into a quarry?’

  ‘Yes, but I said I’d taken my missus on a picnic. I said we got out to enjoy the view and the next thing I knew the perishing van was rolling away and I had no chance to stop it before it toppled over the edge. It seemed to satisfy the transport manager…Which way do we go for somewhere quiet, eh? Somewhere where we can talk.’

  ‘Talk?’ She hadn’t put alluring new underwear on just to talk.

  ‘There’s something I’ve got to tell you.’

  ‘Oh. Did you get into trouble with your wife, then?’

  ‘You could say that.’

  Alice felt a sudden surge of alarm. ‘Did she find out about me then?’

  ‘No, not you, Alice…Rose. She found out about Rose.’

  She breathed a sigh of relief. ‘How did she find out about her?’

  ‘That’s what I need to talk to you about. Where can we stop where it’s quiet?’

  ‘I dunno. D’you want to stop in the van an’ talk, or walk an’ talk?’ She thought that sounded quite amusing but suppressed any laughter; this evidently was not an appropriate time for jokes, judging by the serious expression on his face.

  ‘We’ll stop in the van. I don’t want to risk this one rolling off without me.’

  He had driven down Cross Guns Street and they were at the junction with Dixons Green which was lined with trees, and impressive houses where the prosperous professionals of the borough lived. The Fountain public house was on the corner.

  ‘We could go for a drink if you like,’ Alice suggested. ‘This pub here, or the Shoulder of Mutton just along the road.’

  ‘Better not,’ he said glumly.

  ‘If you carry on over this road into Bean Road then, there’s Buffery Park down there at the bottom. We can find somewhere quiet, or walk in the park.’

  Eventually they pulled up at the edge of Buffery Park in a select backwater called Selbourne Road. A street lamp picked out a man walking a dog, apart from whom, the road was deserted.

  ‘So, what is it you’ve got to talk to me about?’ Alice enquired, on tenterhooks by this time. She was beginning to fancy that any chance of lovemaking was slipping away.

  Kenny shuffled and delved into his pocket for a packet of cigarettes. He opened it and offered her one.

  ‘I don’t smoke,’ she said, her glumness beginning to match his.

  He put a cigarette to his lips and lit it. As he inhaled the smoke, he wound down the side window a few inches and sighed heavily. ‘I don’t really know where to begin.’

  ‘Start with Rose, if it’s all to do with her,’ Alice suggested logically.

  ‘Damned Rose!’ he groaned and shook his head in despair. ‘My missus found out about damned Rose.’

  ‘You said.’

  ‘Trouble is, it affects you as well…’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘Here we go. How, for God’s sake?’

  ‘You know her husband’s a merchant seaman, don’t you? Well he gave her the bloody clap when he came home on leave. Picked it up in Rotterdam, she reckons. Anyway, as you can probably guess, she passed it onto me and, guess what…I passed it on to my missus.’

  Alice gasped and began to tremble.

  She knew what was coming next; of course she did.

  But she could not speak.

  And it seemed like another hour before Kenny confirmed what she feared most.

  ‘So that means I’ve passed it on to you as well, Alice. God, I’m so sorry…’

  ‘Christ!’ Alice uttered and her voice was low, suddenly hot and frightened as she accepted
the inevitable.

  ‘I feel such a swine. I wouldn’t pass that on for the world – not to you, not to anybody – not knowingly.’

  ‘Oh, Jesus Christ!’ Her eyes swivelled to the roof of the van then became fixed on her lap, staring vacantly at the yellow linen material of her lovely dress. She was looking pale as porcelain now. ‘That’s just about my flippin’ luck, that is…Are you certain, Kenny?’ She looked into his eyes earnestly, seeking some scrap of hope to cling to. ‘I mean, are you absolutely certain?’

  ‘I went to the doctor. I was getting this horrible burning pain when I pee’d. So I looked for more clues and one morning when I got up I noticed I’d got a discharge…The doctor told me what it was likely to be, and sent me for some tests…It’s gonorrhoea, Alice. There’s no question. And it takes six weeks to cure.’

  She screwed her eyes up and put her hands to her face in horror.

  ‘You know what that means, don’t you?’ she said angrily, and her tone told him she was blaming him already. ‘It means I’ve passed it on to Charles, poor sod…Oh, Christ!’ She clenched her fists in her anguish. ‘The only time I ever let him touch me without a French letter on and you’re telling me you’d already given me the clap. Oh, God! I’ve got to tell him now. Jesus Christ, Kenny, he’s my gaffer at work. I’ll have no job anymore. I’ll have to leave. He was sorting out my divorce for me…Oh, bloody hell!’

  ‘I shouldn’t say anything to him till you’ve had it confirmed. It might not have passed to you.’

  She shook her head. ‘Not with my luck…’

  ‘Nor mine, either. But that ain’t all…’

  ‘Oh, God! What else?’

  ‘The doctor said I’d have to be tested for syphilis.’

  ‘You mean the pox? Christ! Are you sure you ain’t got crabs to go with it an’ all? God, it’s a pity you ain’t got flippin’ beriberi or diphtheria you could load on to me as well.’

  ‘Syphilis can take up to three months to show after you’ve caught it,’ Kenny said, ignoring her diatribe. ‘And, if you’ve got it, it takes two years to get rid of it. I’ve had to have a blood test for it. You’ll have to as well, Alice…I’m really sorry.’