East End Jubilee

by Carol Rivers

  ‘Do you think so?’

  Rose nodded silently as she stared at the delicate looking ring with a starry cloud of tiny, sparkling white stones surrounded by a narrow fringe of gold.

  ‘I didn’t have the nerve to ask her today. The Hoover was just an excuse to turn up.’

  ‘So are you going to ask on Sunday?’

  He snapped the box closed and shuffled it back in his pocket. ‘I’ll have to work up the courage again.’

  ‘Oh, Bobby, I hope she says yes.’

  ‘If she does, I’ll be the happiest man on the planet.’

  ‘You deserve to be happy,’ she told him earnestly and he blushed, his fair skin darkening right up to his hairline. He smiled in his shy way and took her hands into his and she knew he meant to thank her by squeezing them. But then he stopped and seemed uncertain of what to do next until with a look of sadness he touched the fading bruise on her cheek. Suddenly she felt his warm lips brush the grazed skin and, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, he gave her the gentlest of kisses. Then, moving back awkwardly, he gathered himself and rushed past her and out of the door.

  Eddie took her in his arms and hugged her. He had spent the last week in gut wrenching agony and now he saw what they had done to her all his fears were realized. ‘My poor Rose, my darling . . .’ His body ached with anger and frustrated protectiveness and for the first time in his life he couldn’t think of a gag. He couldn’t make light of something so precious to him and he could hardly contain his emotion as he held her face between his hands.

  ‘Sit down, Eddie, love, everyone’s watching.’ Her voice was calm and soft and he did sit down but only because he was in danger of punching the first screw who dared to come over in the face. The officers regarded embraces, when couples were locked together, starved of physical contact for so long, as the most appropriate time for passing or exchanging messages, drugs, sharp implements and other illicit items prohibited by Her Majesty’s hotels.

  Not that the screws were able to halt this forbidden traffic. They didn’t have eyes in the backs of their heads and some of them, Eddie acknowledged generously, ignored what was going on under their noses in return for a peaceful life. His friend Solly, for instance, received information from his accountant disguised in the dog-ends that he slipped in his shirt pocket. Solly was not a smoker and he’d coughed his heart up frequently after a visit from his wife.

  But when Eddie felt Rose’s slender frame leaning against his own he didn’t want to let her go. It wasn’t a case of transferring illicit items, he had none to pass and Rose certainly had no intention of doing so. Just holding her was enough to make him live again, to resurrect the man inside that had disappeared since being wrenched from the bosom of his family.

  The honest truth was he’d kidded himself into believing that he was going to get out of this mess, repay his debt to Norman Payne and start afresh. Yet when the new kid on the block had pressed a small, inconspicuous parcel into his hands last week and he’d opened it to discover a lock of Rose’s lovely brown hair, he’d known it was all over.

  ‘Eddie, it’s all right. I’m fine. I just got me hair cut short, that’s all.’

  He stared into her sweet face as they sat down on the hard chairs and he gazed into her lovely, earth brown eyes that seemed to look right through him. She could never lie to him, not that she ever tried. His Rose, his good, sweet Rose, what had they done to her?

  ‘I know you don’t like it, but—’

  ‘I know, Rose. I know what happened.’

  She stared at him and fear clouded her eyes. Her lips trembled but she bravely put on a smile. ‘I don’t know what you mean, love.’

  ‘You were never any good at telling porkies.’

  She blushed deeply then and his heart went out to her for being so brave.

  ‘Last week a new bloke in here gave me this packet. Inside it was some of your hair. I nearly did me nut. Tell me, Rose, what happened, before I bust me gut.’ His voice shook and he had to push the anger down, hide his fury and demented worry. If she knew how he was feeling, what he was capable of at this very moment . . .

  Her face was as pale as china, her hair unfamiliarly shorn from her brow. He couldn’t bear to think of how it had happened, how they’d touched her, terrified her. And it was all because of him. Of what he’d done with his life, screwed it up, abused the gift of a wife who loved and trusted him.

  ‘Oh, Eddie, I was trying not to worry you,’ she said forlornly and the breath came out of her mouth on a long sigh. ‘But you must believe I’m all right. They . . . they didn’t hurt me. All they wanted to do was frighten me and they did that all right.’

  His screwed his fingers together in anger and his heart seemed about to burst. ‘It was him, wasn’t it, Norman Payne?’

  She nodded. ‘The man you owe money to. Oh, Eddie, why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I couldn’t,’ he whispered pathetically. ‘I wanted to, that first year after Marle was born I wanted to so much. But I knew you wouldn’t like it. I knew you wouldn’t go along with floating. I wanted to give you everything, to make life—’

  ‘Eddie.’ She stopped him mid-sentence, a cold, distant look that he didn’t recognize coming over her face. ‘Please don’t say you did what you did for me and the girls. Please don’t say that.’

  His blood felt chilled in his veins. He had lived so long now with the dream of making good in his heart, the dream, the dream to make them rich, to buy new clothes, to have a nice house full of expensive furniture and carpets, to run around in a posh car and clean it every day outside the front door. To take the girls to school and let the other parents see them climbing out of the motor with him in a brand new suit and Marlene and Donnie dressed like the little ladies they should be. This was his dream and now she was saying she didn’t want to hear about it.

  ‘But Rose—’

  ‘I only ever wanted us to be happy, to have time together, to be a family,’ she said softly. ‘I didn’t want things, not material things. I wanted love. And you and the girls meant everything to me. All the love in the world I could ever dream of.’

  Eddie stared into her face and wondered where his brains were. Which direction he had been going for the last six years without his wife. Oh, they’d compromised all right. He’d kept quiet about his dreams and so had she, apparently.

  ‘I’ll always love you, sweetheart,’ he protested, ‘but I wanted more for us. I wasn’t the same man in ’45 as I was when we were kids. Me and millions of other blokes came back from the brink of death and wanted to live life with a capital L. Being bunged a few quid for a load of junk didn’t satisfy the hunger in me. I needed to prove I was capable of giving you a good life.’

  ‘You could always have got a job.’

  Eddie stared at her, this woman whom he loved so much and who was almost a stranger to him. ‘Me, as a nine to five geezer? Oh, Rose, you know that ain’t my style.’

  ‘And Norman Payne’s way of life is?’

  ‘’Course not,’ he said bitterly. ‘I never meant to get into debt.’

  ‘Was that five hundred pounds yours, or was it Norman Payne’s?’

  He felt the skin over his face tighten. ‘By rights it was ours.’

  ‘No, Eddie. It was bad money and I’m glad he took it back. I’d rather live on bread and water than take anything from him ever again. I told him so, too. I told him I’d rather see you in here than outside, working for him.’

  Eddie swallowed, his world turning upside down. ‘Rose – no one speaks to that bastard like that—’

  ‘Well, I did and I meant it.’

  ‘He could have killed you,’ Eddie breathed fearfully. ‘Not just cut off your hair.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be much use to him then, would I? He wants to get to you through me. He said you gambled away our lives and sold him your soul.’

  Eddie had no reply to give her. His addiction had taken him deeper and deeper into debt and all the things he had dreamed of had slo
wly started to fade away. Yet he still went on, robbing Peter to pay Paul, trying to find a way out of the living nightmare he’d fashioned for himself.

  She reached across the wooden table and covered his hand with her own. ‘Eddie, I can take anything Norman Payne wants to dish out, as long as we’re fighting on the same side. You don’t want to work for him, do you? I mean, that isn’t even a consideration, is it?’

  ‘’Course not.’ His heart raced. He couldn’t admit to Rose and barely to himself, that in his darkest hours he had been tempted. To agree to any crumb that Norman Payne might throw at him. In his heart of hearts, once or twice, he’d been prepared to quit the struggle and take the easy way out. Especially when that great oaf had pushed Rose’s hair into his hand with a smirk across his pock-marked face that reeked special delivery.

  Oh yes, he’d been tempted. What good was he going to be to Rose when he got out of here? He’d have form. A record that would make him a no-no in civvy street. That is, if he wanted a job. But the thought of becoming a company man, yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir, filled him with horror. Even if someone took him on, he’d hate every breath he took in a factory, warehouse or dock. And that was all he was good for, manual work. With no qualifications, no special skills, he was as useless as a boat without a hull.

  ‘Eddie, it’s not too late. We can pay back the money—’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I’m working now. I’ve got a good job in the canteen but I’m going for an interview next week for a job in the office which will be more money.’

  ‘Norman Payne ain’t interested in HP,’ he told her bitterly. ‘And anyway, I don’t want you to have to work.’

  She sat up and stiffened her shoulders. ‘Well, things have changed, love. You couldn’t expect them to stay the same.’

  ‘It ain’t right. You should be looking after the kids. Matthew needs a—’

  ‘A father, Eddie, that’s what he needs.’

  He felt his stomach contract with regret. He knew only too well he had been deprived of the pride and joy a father takes in a boy heir. But he hadn’t intended for this to happen. It wasn’t as if he’d deliberately got himself nicked. God, what was happening to him? He felt his world was slipping out of his grasp. He couldn’t protect his family or look after them in here. It was so unfair – the whole bloody past year was unfair and he still had another to do.

  ‘Anyway,’ he said, trying to calm his emotions, ‘the most important thing right now is you. I was going barmy thinking you’d come to some harm.’

  ‘No, they didn’t hurt me.’

  ‘Tell me what happened.’

  Eddie listened as his wife explained how the car had knocked her off her bike and the men in it had tied something around her eyes and driven her to a place close by. Then Norman Payne had told her who he was and disclosed the truth about that bent copper who had stitched him up with an assault charge. Then the bugger had cut off her hair when she’d given him some lip, but thank God he’d been disturbed by some kids. Eddie had imagined worse, much worse during these last few days. But perhaps this time they’d been lucky. Maybe Norman Payne had made his point and the next little reminder would come from inside, as it had done at Brixton. Well, they could do whatever they liked to him. He wanted it that way. He’d take anything – anything – rather than have them touch his family.

  ‘I don’t want you going anywhere alone,’ he told her. ‘Or the kids.’

  ‘They play in the yard now,’ she assured him, ‘and I go by bus with Kamala Patel’s daughter, Nima and some others who all wait at the same stop. On the way home I walk with the girls from the mill.’

  ‘What happened to the bike?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Eddie chewed on his lip. Something, somewhere didn’t sound right, but he didn’t know what.

  ‘Eddie, don’t worry. We’ll be all right.’

  Eddie wished that was true, but he knew different. He wasn’t a violent man but at this very moment he wanted to close his fingers around Norman Payne’s worthless neck and squeeze tightly.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Autumn was Rose’s favourite time of the year but as the days grew shorter and the nights longer, she found even the cosy evenings spent indoors made her feel as unsettled as the damp, foggy weather.

  The mild spells of warm and wet weather had given way to outbursts of gusty wind and in November the roof started to leak after a violent storm blew tiles off the roof. Rose informed the landlord, but as usual, nothing was done. She considered them lucky, though, to have escaped a series of gales that swept over west and north London, causing damage to property and even loss of life. Gunnersbury tube station was destroyed and further south the South Godwin lightship was overturned in freak weather conditions. An inch of rain fell on London, almost matching the record of the disastrously wet Coronation year.

  Two weeks before Christmas Donnie came out in large red blotches that covered her entire body followed a week later by Marlene. Dr Cox diagnosed measles and very soon was proclaiming Will infected too. As none of the children were allowed to school and had to be quarantined, Rose had no need to worry about Norman Payne’s unwelcome attentions. She was, however, still vigilant when it came to work. She had now joined the typing pool of Kirkwood’s, having left the canteen and a disappointed Gwen House in early November.

  Anita had been right when she’d assured Rose that she’d soon recover her speed. Her fingers took no time at all in recalling their correct positions on the big, lusty half moon typewriters that clacked noisily in the office. Rose had been nervous on her first morning, making several unnecessary mistakes. But during her lunch hour, Phyllis Waters, the clerk she had met when first applying for a job at Kirkwood’s, paid her a visit.

  ‘Congratulations,’ she told Rose enthusiastically as she perched a slim thigh on the stool by Rose’s desk. ‘I came to wish you good luck and fatten you up.’ She unwrapped a rather greasy looking brown paper bag. ‘Coconut Madeleine,’ Phyllis giggled and offered one to Rose. ‘By the looks of you, rushing around in the canteen has kept you as thin as a rake.’

  Rose gratefully accepted the pastry. She hadn’t brought any sandwiches with her. Coming up to Christmas every penny counted. She took a cautious bite and closed her eyes. ‘Scrumptious,’ she sighed as the jam and coconut melted on her tongue.

  ‘It’s hard work in the kitchens,’ Phyllis said sympathetically as she picked at the cherry with her small white teeth. ‘You’ll soon put on a few pounds now Gwen doesn’t give you the runaround.’

  ‘Gwen was a good supervisor,’ Rose said loyally. ‘In many ways I was sorry to leave.’ She didn’t tell Phyllis it wasn’t the canteen work that kept her thin, but keeping alert to a very nasty individual, causing her almost to live on her nerves. Rose thought Phyllis was far too young and naïve to know anything about Norman Payne’s sleazy world.

  ‘Mr Grimmond, your boss here, is a bit of an old grump,’ Phyllis warned as they polished off the delicious cakes. ‘But he is fair to his staff.’

  Rose had met Mr Grimmond once, at her interview. He was a small, round and bespectacled man, close to retiring age. He had given her a test on one of the machines and seemed satisfied with her execution of a dictated paragraph that she completed slowly but efficiently. Sweat had been pouring down her back at the time as she hadn’t used a typewriter in years.

  Rose had been surprised when he gave her the job. She had been one of four women who had applied, and the others were all experienced typists. Her one advantage had been that she was already an employee of Kirkwood’s and had her name down on the list. She was to have three months’ trial in the typing pool, her starting wage a princely four pounds seventeen and sixpence. If she could refresh her shorthand too, her salary would rise to five pounds fifty.

  Rose was thrilled at the prospect, though when the children came down with measles, she didn’t like leaving Em to cope alone. Having a serious job meant she couldn’t take time off as easil
y as she had done in the canteen. But Em said she didn’t mind and as it was almost Christmas, the kids would be on holiday anyway. It was the perfect opportunity to make decorations.

  Eddie was less enamoured with the situation. Rose hoped he would be happy to hear her news, but his letter, or rather note of just a few lines, was discouraging. ‘Why can’t you stay in the canteen till I come home?’ he wrote. ‘You can give up work altogether when we’re back to normal. With luck, I’ll be home in March.’

  It was the first Saturday in December when his letter arrived. Rose opened it hurriedly before Em or the children were up. The house was cold, she hadn’t made up a fire yet and a few bleak spots of rain splattered against the kitchen window. There was no visiting order enclosed.

  ‘Thought I heard you up,’ Em said, coming up behind her in her plaid dressing gown and slippers. ‘It’s only seven o’clock. You should have had a lie in.’

  ‘I heard the postman.’

  ‘Is there a letter from Eddie?’

  ‘Yes, but no VO. And I asked him to send one for us all. I wanted to see him before Christmas. Well, all of us really. The kids will forget what their dad looks like.’

  Em put the kettle on, her hair in curlers still. ‘Eddie knows what he’s doing.’

  ‘I sometimes wonder.’

  ‘In his shoes wouldn’t you want the same? Christmas in a prison must be a terrible reminder for men of the home they’re missing. It would be like sprinkling salt on the wound seeing everyone so happy.’

  ‘But what about the kids? They need reminding we’re a family. And he hasn’t seen them since that time when Bobby first took us all up.’

  Em turned round and rubbed her hands together. ‘Why don’t you just go up on your own? Eddie could handle that. Bobby will take you.’

  Rose looked away. Bobby had been a bit of a stranger lately. She guessed he was embarrassed to face her. But their kiss was innocent. It had happened on the spur of the moment and wasn’t intended. The moment didn’t reflect on his relationship with Em or, indeed, with her.