Birmingham Friends

by Annie Murray

  When his go was finished he straightened up and turned to Olivia, deliberately including her. ‘You know your piano playing is just beautiful. Have you ever thought of applying to a music school?’

  Olivia let out a harsh laugh. ‘Oh, I’ve thought about it,’ she said. ‘But Daddy would never let me. I thought you knew – when I leave school I’m to take my place as a breeder of sons.’

  * * *

  OLIVIA

  I wasn’t supposed to go up to Izzy’s attic, but she never minded and that day Mummy was out. I called Izzy by her Christian name. She liked children, was still almost a child herself, with hair the colour of rust curling round her face and deep blue eyes.

  It was two days before my seventh birthday, back in those days before I had started to watch and listen at doors. I was lovely then, clean. Life was sweet, mutual adoration. Daddy. My beautiful, talented, worshipping Daddy. I was his princess in white gossamer dresses, his fairy, his angel. Comfort and trust: his embrace, his tobacco smell, the scratchy worsted of his flamboyant suits, bright checks dazzling my eyes and the strong warmth of his long, long body.

  A thin carpet curved up the attic stairs, the colour of green baize. But at the top the floor was bare for the maids, a peg rug or two in their rooms. I had new shoes: black patent leather, rounded toes, with a strap and a button to fasten them. I watched my feet as I ran up the stairs, my thin brown legs beneath a cherry-coloured skirt, white ankle socks, the shoes . . . They tap-tapped loudly on those wooden boards. I ran to Izzy’s door, rapped with my fingers, didn’t wait –

  ‘Izzy, look – I’ve got new shoes!’

  It was his face. For seconds as I burst in on them, Daddy was in crisis, deep in his body’s pleasure. He curved back over Izzy’s little body, pushing down on his arms, her knees very white drawn up each side of him as she held him. His face was thrust back, red and sweating, mouthing the air, eyes squeezed shut.

  Before he could recover himself enough even to speak my name I was downstairs in my room with my birds, bent up rigid on my bed with the eiderdown over my head. I was too sick even to cry. What they were doing I knew, and I didn’t know. He had showed me all his weakness.

  ‘Olivia?’

  He’d pulled clothes over himself quickly and come down to sit on my bed. He was scared and I hated him for it. He lifted the eiderdown and laid his big hand on my back, but I curled myself tighter, squirming.

  ‘Princess? Come on – there’s no need to be upset. Izzy and I were just playing a little game and it’s all over now. It’s nothing to worry about. You can just forget it.’

  His voice was light and wheedling. He tried to lift me on to his lap but he had a new sweaty smell and I pushed him away. But then I started to cry on my bed and I crawled back into his arms. He stroked my hair. His hand smelled of her.

  ‘We’ll let that be our little secret. Mummy needn’t know our secret, need she? Just you and me, my pretty angel. You’re good at keeping secrets, aren’t you?’

  I nodded, sobbing into his chest. The birds shifted on their perches.

  The next day he came to me holding a box tied with extravagant pink ribbons. ‘Angel – this is for you.’

  The dress was also pink – taffeta, with silky bows sewn round the full skirt and lace petticoats.

  By the end of the week, Izzy was gone.

  * * *

  Chapter 8

  Birmingham, 1938

  That terrible July evening.

  The four of us were at the Kemps. We had lain in the sun most of the afternoon, drugged by the heat. The boys, shirts unbuttoned, sprawled side by side on a rug. William’s solid, sporty frame was tanned and muscular from a summer term of tennis, cricket and swimming, his broad chest covered by a down of fair hair. His face was freckled and rather bullish. He lay with his arm under his head, his wavy hair bleached on top by the sun, blue eyes moving over a book on the Renaissance. The pages were dwarfed by his large hands.

  Angus, much slighter with only a few dark hairs visible on his chest, was reading poetry, propped sideways on one elbow, but often stopping and looking up at the mellow brickwork of the house, with Virginia creeper trailing between the windows. Sometimes he looked across at me and we exchanged a secret smile.

  Olivia lay on her back beside me on another rug, her vivid blue dress pulled up so the hem barely covered her knees, and a wide-brimmed straw hat shading her eyes. She seemed to be asleep. I sat up, sated with sunshine, pulling my skirt down to my ankles. The colours of grass and sky looked dark and intense after I’d lain so long with bright light beating on my eyelids.

  The garden was immaculate, laid out on two levels, the upper area where we were lying edged by tall privet hedges. Around us were the scents of guelder roses, buddleia, mock orange, and in the middle of the lawn a fountain played out from the mouth of a stone dolphin on to a bed of water lilies and fish with feathery tails. The cool, sprinkling sound of water was constant. On the lower level of the garden, screened off by conifers from the vegetable patch, stood the round summer-house which the Kemps called the ‘gazebo’. It was made of varnished wood with high windows and had inside a couch and chairs. I’d spent hours playing in there with Livy, in its shadowy light, its musty, exciting smell.

  Elizabeth Kemp was sitting in a wicker chair in the shade of the house, a finely woven straw hat on her head, lifelessly turning over the pages of the Queen. She saw me turn to look at her.

  ‘Would you like a drink?’ she asked in her thin voice. ‘There’s a jug on the table. Or I could have Dawson bring something out?’

  ‘It’s all right,’ I said, standing up slowly and stretching. ‘I think I’ve had enough sun for now, thank you. I’d like to go and sit inside, if you don’t mind.’ I saw Angus raise his eyes from his book, and knew that if I moved inside he would soon join me.

  ‘William?’ I called, making sure. ‘Are you all right here?’

  ‘Mmmm. Want to get through some more of this.’

  Olivia didn’t stir.

  I walked into the cool of the house, poured a drink of blackcurrant juice, and took it through into the informal sitting room which looked over the garden. It was the more attractive of the two rooms, I thought, the plump settee and chairs covered with trailing flower patterns in pinks and greens, and plants on the windowsills. After a moment, holding the glass against my warm cheek, I saw Angus get up and move towards the house. I smiled, waiting for him to find me inside. As the months passed we were overcoming our inhibited shyness, but our time alone together still felt furtive and stolen.

  Angus came in and stood behind me.

  ‘I can feel you,’ I said. ‘You’re giving off heat like a boiler.’

  ‘Not very flattering!’ He moved my hair aside and I felt his lips warm on the nape of my neck. ‘Couldn’t you think of a more attractive comparison?’

  I reached round and took his hand behind my back. ‘You’re the poet round here.’

  ‘I only read it.’ He came and stood beside me, his arms lean and tanned. ‘Olivia seems to be out for the count.’

  ‘Good.’ I turned to him. ‘D’you want some blackcurrant?’

  We went and fetched him a glassful and sat side by side on the settee. After a few moments his slim fingers closed round mine. He sipped the rich-coloured drink.

  ‘That’s good stuff.’ He indicated the glasses on the low table in front of us. ‘Homemade?’

  ‘Oh, I should think so. Can’t imagine Elizabeth Kemp having shop-bought cordial, can you?’ We laughed together.

  ‘Everything just so,’ Angus said. He nodded towards the garden. ‘Even out there.’

  ‘Makes our gardens look a bit ramshackle, doesn’t it?’

  He looked down at me. ‘I want to see your eyes.’ Sliding my specs off carefully with one hand he put them on the arm of the sofa. ‘There, that’s better.’ He ran his hand over my hair, gently lifted my chin with his fingers. Both of us were nervous, and within seconds there were footsteps in the hall. We sat up an
d I quickly put my specs back on. Elizabeth put her head round the door and found us sitting sedately side by side, looking through a book on Wedgwood china.

  ‘I’m just going to slip up for a wash and change,’ she said. ‘I’m glad you’ve made yourselves at home.’ A few moments later we heard water running upstairs. I took my glasses off again. We laughed, our eyes meeting.

  He was very correct when we kissed, as if he was slightly afraid of me. He kept his arms stiffly round my shoulders or waist, or caressed my back. Both of us sat skewed round to face the other so our legs got in the way.

  ‘Angus?’ I looked into his eyes and saw in them such strong feelings that I wanted to say something, tell him I loved him, but it felt too soon, the words too important.

  We leaned back in each other’s arms. Moments later, very softly, he laid his hand on one of my breasts, hesitantly at first, then more firmly, and I so big, filling his hand. He unfastened a button of my dress and for a few seconds his fingers reached in to touch my bare skin. It sent such an extraordinary sensation through me that I arched my back. Angus withdrew his fingers as if he had been burnt.

  ‘Did I hurt you?’

  ‘No. It felt lovely.’

  He got up abruptly and stood with his back to me, looking out at the garden. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Whatever for?’

  ‘For – perhaps going a bit far. I don’t want to do anything to offend you, Katie. I wouldn’t dream of it. It’s just that I’m new at all this – knowing how to behave and what you expect of me. I feel I ought to know exactly what to do.’

  I went over to him and put my arms round him. He felt rather stiff and reluctant at first. ‘Angus – I don’t mind – really. Perhaps I’m supposed to, but I don’t!’

  Laughing now, he pulled me into his arms. We stood holding each other more easily, kissing, the house quiet around us.

  ‘It must look very dark in here from out there,’ Angus said after a while, looking over my shoulder towards the garden. ‘There’s no one out there now. They must have come in.’

  A few moments later, hearing the sound of the front door, we sprang apart again. There were brisk footsteps along the hall and Alec Kemp appeared at the door.

  ‘Hello, you two,’ he said, with that smile he could bring out, mischievous and complicit as if he guessed exactly what we were doing there. ‘Got all you want?’ He stood loosening his tie and removing the studs from his collar. His suit was a loud tweed. ‘Elizabeth upstairs?’

  We heard her voice from behind him. ‘Darling, hello. Did you have a good day?’ Her tone was caressing, solicitous, as if addressing a convalescent. ‘Poor thing, having to work when it’s so hot.’

  ‘Oh, it wasn’t so bad. Where’s Olivia? Upstairs?’

  ‘I thought she was with you,’ Elizabeth said to Angus and me. Her right hand moved nervously to her throat, fingers nipping a fold of skin. ‘She’ll be around somewhere.’

  Ten minutes later, when Angus and I were ready to leave, Alec came down from changing into more casual clothes.

  ‘I gather that brother of yours is here too,’ he said to me tersely. Every trace of mischief was gone from his voice.

  ‘He was,’ I told him, bewildered. ‘But he must have gone on home.’

  ‘Well,’ Alec replied grimly. ‘We’ll see.’

  Outside, the only signs of life were two magpies, stalking across the grass.

  Alec strode down the lawn, tensed and threatening, his hands clenched. The sight of him filled me with a terrible sense of dread though I could make no sense of it at the time. Angus and I followed.

  Our feet were silent on the grass as we approached the gazebo, neat as a doll’s house in the corner of the lawn. We were right behind Alec as he pushed the handle then stood across the doorway. The scene came to me in painful, jumbled images, like a cubist painting. Olivia’s face, hair loosened in thick waves, her expression frozen; long, brown arms, the blue dress startling at her waist, her white, white breasts. And William’s hand, arrested in the act of touching her, looking huge and dark as it was snatched away. I found my eyes moving anxiously downwards to check the extent of my brother’s embarrassment, but he was fully clothed, everything fastened. His face was enough, flushed red like raw meat, eyes childishly wide. He could not speak. The two of them sat like trapped rats.

  There were no smiles from Alec this time, no knowing looks. This was his daughter, matured and ripe as a siren, legs spread on the striped couch, pulling the blue cloth up fast now to cover her nakedness.

  ‘I knew I’d find this.’ His voice came low, more broken than angry. He stood over her, trembling. ‘Oh God – Olivia. You were supposed to keep yourself clean. Clean.’ In an anguished whisper he hissed at her, ‘Have you any idea what you’ve done?’

  She stared ahead of her sullenly, wouldn’t face him. He leaned down, provoked into anger now, and took her chin roughly in his hand. ‘Look at me – ’ He jerked her face up violently, but her eyes still didn’t meet his. ‘You filthy, disgusting . . .’

  ‘No, Mr Kemp, no!’ William cried, jumping up, his face gleaming with perspiration. ‘It wasn’t – that’s not fair!’

  ‘Fair?’ Alec shouted at him. ‘What the devil has fair got to do with it? Are you telling me it wasn’t her leading you on, getting you so wound up you couldn’t resist her?’ William couldn’t seem to deny this. ‘I know what they’re like.’ Suddenly he slapped Olivia hard across the face. I saw the pain flare in her eyes but she made no sound. She carried on staring sullenly across the room.

  I slid past him. ‘Livy – are you all right?’ My friend’s face was hard and full of hatred.

  ‘Course I’m all right,’ she spat out. Then more softly to me, ‘Thanks.’

  Alec marched her to the house and the rest of us followed. He had Olivia by her upper arm and she acted as if she was oblivious to the stream of abuse that he directed at her as they crossed the lawn. She was a bitch, filthy, too clever for her own good. She looked round, up at the trees, anywhere. By the time we reached the house I was choked with helpless rage.

  ‘Get in the house,’ Alec ordered. ‘You won’t be going anywhere for a while, my girl.’

  He tried to bundle Olivia into the house while the three of us watched aghast from the bottom of the steps. I caught a glimpse of Elizabeth Kemp, her face a terrible white in the shadowy hall.

  Olivia grabbed hold of the heavy iron door-handle and held on tight, her hair tumbling all over her face. ‘You know why he’s like this, don’t you?’ she shouted shrilly. ‘Because my mother won’t do it with him – never – ’

  Elizabeth Kemp stood absolutely still behind her, her mouth open, one hand at her throat. In panic, Alec clamped a hand over Olivia’s mouth and pulled her with all his strength to loose her hands from the handle.

  ‘Just get out of here,’ he shrieked at the boys. ‘And take your hideous sister with you. Out – now!’

  Alec finally succeeded in wrenching Olivia’s hands away from the door. For a second she shook her mouth free. ‘. . . so he does it with tarts and whores.’ She spat out the words, ‘Councillor Kemp!’ and then the door slammed shut. Through the coloured glass we saw their movements receding from the door, heard Olivia’s cries.

  My legs nearly buckled under me. William was silent, standing quite still.

  ‘My God,’ Angus said. ‘D’you think there’s any truth in that?’

  I burst into tears then, and felt Angus’s arm round my shoulders. He put out a hand to touch William’s shoulder, but William shook him off.

  The three of us walked home in silence. As we passed under the sweet-smelling trees in the dusk I felt hatred sinking deep in me and settling there.

  ‘How could you be so stupid?’

  I felt like killing William. We’d sat through tea, through the passing of plates of bread and butter and jam and stewed fruit and junket, saying nothing to our parents, while misery and rage nearly choked me. What was happening to Livy? I wanted to rush back to t
he Kemps’ house and break glass to get in.

  Afterwards I cornered William in his bedroom. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, elbows on his solid thighs and a book between his hands. He didn’t look up at me.

  ‘Didn’t you think?’ I hissed at him furiously. We didn’t want anyone else hearing this conversation. ‘And put your flaming book down, can’t you? Don’t you care what you’ve done? What that bastard might be doing to Livy?’

  William looked up, shocked. ‘Katie – language.’

  ‘You weren’t such a prig with her.’

  He laid his book face down on the eiderdown and looked up miserably at me. His face with its freckles and boyish looks appeared very young suddenly, but it did nothing to melt my heart. ‘It wasn’t my fault.’

  ‘Oh no – of course not. Nothing to do with you at all.’ I stood haranguing him, hands on hips. ‘Anyway – I never knew you liked Olivia – like that, I mean.’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘So what the hell did you think you were doing?’

  ‘Look,’ he said, standing up suddenly. His face had turned red to the roots of his hair. ‘You’ve got a nerve coming in here lecturing me when you know perfectly well that you and Angus – ’

  ‘Angus and I what?’

  ‘Were up to exactly the same thing, weren’t you?’

  I stared at him, my fresh-faced, good all-rounder, oh-so-wonderful brother, and I could see him, ten, twenty years on, pompous and self-justifying. I’d never disliked William before as I did at that moment.

  ‘The difference with Angus and me, if you must know, is that we love each other and we know when to stop. Whereas you apparently have no idea what might be appropriate and you don’t care a fig about Livy.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that.’ William’s voice turned small and pitiful. He sank down on the bed again. ‘It’s true I’ve never felt that way for her. I can see she’s pretty as well as anyone else. But recently she’s been behaving so oddly. She’s too moody for my liking.’

  ‘Well, something obviously changed your mind.’

  William shot me a look of appeal, then stared down at the worn green carpet. ‘One minute she was asleep, or I thought she was. Then when you’d gone in, she suddenly got up and came and sat down, right next to me.’ He shuddered slightly at the memory. ‘She was like a snake. She started touching me, just my hands, very softly, but you know – seductively, and staring me in the eyes. Then she just said, “Come on – come with me.” So I went with her to the summer-house.’