Birmingham Friends

by Annie Murray

  Now I knew about Olivia’s baby I was certain in a way I had not been up until now that she was being wronged by her confinement in Arden. Through the summer I had been beset by doubts, waiting for some improvement in her that might give me hope: a grain of light through the black screen of her depression. An explanation. Instead it had grown worse until she was almost unreachable and I no longer knew who or what to believe.

  But now I had reasons for the changes in her: grief, loss, anger. And now, by waiting, I had more to hold against Alec Kemp. Soon, very soon, I was going to catch him at his most vulnerable.

  * * *

  OLIVIA

  I have only one thing left and I keep it in my head, calling upon it like a rosary or a lucky stone. It’s real and not real. That is, it never happened exactly like this. It’s a summing up, a kind of poem. I call it up at night when I am once more lying awake and often in the day. It makes me ache with happiness and sometimes I cry. It’s my only doorway to feeling, even if it is an illusion.

  I am five years old. I live in our beautiful house in Moseley. It is a smooth, pure house, for I do not yet know its drawers and cupboards are full of squirming secrets. As the years pass the drawers are topped up until the pressure becomes unbearable.

  But I am five. I am playing in the garden on velvet grass, the sun like warm hands on my face, and I am wearing a pretty white frock. Mummy likes me to wear white. I have a hoop which I am using for skipping. I twirl the smooth wood round over my head and down for my feet to jump over as it passes at the right moment in perfect rhythm. Step, twirl, step, twirl.

  Suddenly I stop. I am happy, full of a deep, thrumming joy, but there is one thing missing. What I need to fill me right up to the top is indoors. I like to see my feet moving neatly one in front of the other. My white sandals clack on the path as I trot into the blue shadow of the house. Through the glass door, along the hall, clack clack still on the grey, white, orange tiles.

  I know that all I need is here. Searching, I go to the back room, our refuge with its bulging sofa, for the family only. He is sitting with white shirtsleeves rolled in the heat, his strong, dark hands gripping the newspaper, legs stretched out and comfortable.

  ‘Daddy!’ Running to his arms. ‘Daddy!’

  The newspaper is laid down immediately. The arms are always open, as hungry for me as I for him.

  ‘Angel! Hello there, princess!’ His lips are on my cheek and I am in his smell, the best in life: crisp shirt, whiff of sweat, tobacco, man.

  I lie against his body, warm, overflowing, tearful with contentment.

  * * *

  My chance with Alec came in November, the week after Douglas and I moved house. The night I found Alec Kemp was also the first time I saw Jackie Flint and one of his other women.

  ‘Lisa!’ We heard Jackie hammering at the door. It was about eight o’clock on a Tuesday evening. Don was at the pub, Douglas, as usual, at a meeting. When Jackie came in from the darkness, panting, I started to wonder whether Kemp’s employees were selected purely on looks. She was lovely; a soft, rounded figure, long fair hair, big blue eyes and square, widely spaced teeth. In one hand she had a cigarette. Catching sight of me, she said, startled, ‘Oh, it’s you! I remember you from when Doris ’ad ’er babby.’

  I had no recollection of her, but held out my hand to introduce myself. She ignored it, taking a puff on the cigarette. ‘ ’E’s ’ere again. Me sister just saw him – up Catherine Street. ’E’s after some kid at number twenty-eight. You’ll ’ave to get a move on. They won’t be stopping up there long.’

  I was all of a dither, heart going like mad and suddenly no idea what I was doing.

  ‘Where do I go?’ I asked, breathlessly.

  ‘After ’im of course,’ Lisa said, poised as if to throw me bodily out of the door.

  ‘Round the back of Kemp’s,’ Jackie told me. I could tell she was enjoying this, being in the know, and the prospect of revenge. ‘That’s where ’e takes ’em. We’ll come with you.’

  ‘No!’ I was trying to pull on my coat, arm catching in the sleeve. ‘It’ll mean waiting around. I’ll need to be absolutely quiet.’

  ‘She’s right, you know,’ Lisa said. ‘Be like a cowing ’en ’ouse with us tagging along.’

  ‘Right,’ I said, trying to sound as if I had any idea what I was going to do. ‘I’ll be back later – I hope.’

  ‘Bring us ’is ’ead back!’ Lisa called.

  ‘Or summat else!’ Jackie shouted brazenly, and their ragged trail of laughter followed me out through the door into the smoky air.

  I turned into Catherine Street and began to walk up the sloping brick pavement. I was so wound up that every sound – a dog barking, the slam of a front door – made me jump. There weren’t many people about and I certainly couldn’t see Alec Kemp. Nearing number 28, a house fronting on to the street near the top of the road, I stopped. I could hardly hang about here: I might run straight into them.

  A short distance away was an entry to one of the back courts, so I slipped just inside and waited, moving from one foot to the other, unable to keep still for nerves.

  It was a freezing night and very still, a half moon shining clear-edged in the sky. Children were playing out despite the cold. The entry was dark, smelled of urine, and the high walls muffled sounds so that I was constantly straining my ears to hear voices or footsteps.

  They went past so quickly that I only glimpsed them and for a few seconds I was paralysed and couldn’t think what to do. Then I rushed after them, seeming to fly down the dimly lit slope of Catherine Street. A gaggle of children were shivering round the steps of the Catherine Arms, and as I passed there came a waft of warm, beer-fed air and a wave of noise from inside the cosily lit windows, voices singing above the talk. Otherwise the street was quiet.

  They went right down to the bottom, towards Kemp’s, and I slowed down, frightened that they might turn and see me. At the corner they turned down into Vaughan Street and I hurried to keep them in view.

  The two figures in front of me were walking side by side but not touching. I knew the man was Alec Kemp by the height, his walk. The woman beside him looked small and slight. Now and then they appeared to exchange a word, but they were brisk and purposeful. He seemed to be urging her on. Once I saw her stop and turn to look up at him, saying something. Alec appeared to speak softly, touching her shoulder for a second. I froze, seeing him glance back up the street. I should have kept walking, looked more normal. But he can’t have seen me. I saw he had his hat pulled down well over his face. They walked on.

  As we neared Kemp’s, I realized the factory was still running. I had not given any thought to whether Kemp’s worked a night shift and had imagined him going to a place closed and deserted. Instead there were lights on, the front gates open, the hum of machines inside.

  Surely to God he can’t be taking her in, I thought. Round the back, Jackie had said, but so far as I could see there was only the main gate. They were going past it. There must be another entrance behind.

  Walking on the opposite side of the road from the factory, they skirted it and turned swiftly into the next street. I saw Alec putting his arm round behind her, urging her on.

  Looks as if this is it, I thought. My heart was going like the clappers.

  But when I turned the corner, they’d vanished. Damn and blast it! I stopped.

  The street was a short one, linking Vaughan Street to the main road at the bottom. At a glance it appeared to present a uniform frontage of two-storey houses, but a short way down there was a break, a narrow alley barely wider than the entries to the back courts. The alley was pitch black and I didn’t much like the look of it but I didn’t see there was anywhere else they could have gone. I couldn’t miss this opportunity now. I stepped into the black slit between the houses.

  The first part was very dark, hemmed in by the walls of the houses on each side. I couldn’t see the moon in the ribbon of sky, though I sensed the blackness thinning out ahead of me and bec
oming less intense. I felt my way along, moving my hands over the rough bricks, trying to tread absolutely silently. I heard a slight crunch as my foot pressed on broken glass. I stopped immediately and waited, taking in a deep breath and straining my ears to interpret the small sounds around me: the murmur of conversation from inside the houses, a distant rumble from Kemp’s and, surely, a faint voice from along the alley in front of me.

  I reached the end of the houses and the walls of their yards on each side and I could see fractionally better, as if hands had been lifted from over my eyes. The moon gave my surroundings a dim outline. The ground underfoot was rough and unpaved and I felt my way carefully into each step. On the right I could make out that there was now an iron fence, but not low enough to see over; behind it a silent warehouse. I realized I was soon going to be level with the back of Kemp’s to my left. The high wall tapered down roughly level with my head, and over it came a faint glow of light. The yard of Kemp’s was quiet, but I wondered just what sort of thrill it gave Alec Kemp to be in this particular place with a woman, so close to his daily role as grand panjandrum overseeing his laboratory and the works below it.

  I heard his voice before I could see them and stood absolutely still. His tone was soft, persuasive, and they were closer than I’d realized. They were standing against the back wall of Kemp’s. I made out their shapes, sensed them by the sound of their voices.

  In a tiny voice, the girl said, ‘Oh, Mr Kemp – it’s so dark.’

  ‘It’s all right, Dolly.’ That voice came back so soothingly. ‘I’m sorry it has to be like this, but it’s only for now. I’ll find somewhere better for us to go. If I hadn’t wanted you so badly . . . You can see I’m in a very difficult position, can’t you?’

  I heard nothing. The woman must have nodded.

  ‘That’s my girl. You’ve no idea how I feel about you, have you? How long I’ve wanted to – to touch you like this. It’s just – ’ There was a pause. ‘Sometimes I get very lonely, you see. My wife’s not – well, she’s not like you. She won’t let me touch her, and . . .’ Another pause, as if he was taking in a long breath. ‘I can’t live without this. Without having someone to hold.’

  My eyes widened in the darkness. As he began speaking I had readied myself to hear the line being spun, the Kemp magnetism knowingly at work. What I was not prepared for was the sincerity of his distress. I felt shame wash through me at being here, hearing this.

  ‘When you first came to work for me I saw something special in you immediately. I saw you were someone I could trust, who might give me a bit of . . . loving.’

  The girl made a small ‘oohh’ sound, of tenderness and arousal. He’d got her well and truly. Had he spoken those words to me, my arms would have been round him as well. Clenching my teeth, I dragged an image of Olivia into my mind. I could see the faintest outline of Alec and the girl fastened together by a kiss.

  I let out a cough, loud and deliberate. The sound broke into that black, tense space with all the force of an explosion.

  ‘Who the – ? What the bloody hell d’you think you’re doing?’ The panic was plain in his voice. ‘Come back here!’

  I started to run. He was soon right behind me, grabbing at my back. I had no intention of trying to escape him completely but I wanted to get to the street so that he could see me and I could face him properly, see the look in his eyes.

  ‘Stop right now or I’ll call the police!’ he shouted irrationally.

  In a few seconds we were out on Vaughan Street. His hand came down hard on my shoulder.

  ‘Don’t touch me, Mr Kemp.’

  He released me more in surprise than anything, standing back to look at me. ‘Kate? Little Katie? What on earth?’

  I suppose he was relieved for a moment when he saw me. His voice was soft again, full of that persuasiveness. I gritted my teeth against it, the way that tone could even at this moment make me want to run into his arms.

  ‘A few things have happened since you called me Little Katie.’ I injected venom into my voice.

  He gave me his charming smile, gesturing with his hand back towards the alley. There was no sign of the woman Dolly. ‘For goodness’ sake, Katie. That didn’t mean anything.’

  ‘So what does mean something to you? Does anything mean more than getting a seat at the next election?’ I took a step closer to him. ‘Do I really have to spell this out? Your daughter is in a lunatic asylum. You creep around the streets at night to have – relations – with your employees and you have at least one illegitimate child to show for it.’

  He was silent. I saw shock freeze into his face.

  ‘I’m well acquainted with both Joyce Salter and Jackie Flint who – God alone knows why – have been remarkably loyal to you up until now.’ I paused for a moment, watching his expression. ‘I’ll go to anyone I have to, you know. My husband knows all the right people to tell.’

  Alec gave a kind of laugh, containing no mirth, merely an enormous tiredness. ‘Oh, I see. I see.’ He leaned his head back, looking to the sky for a moment, then his eyes met mine, direct again, and prepared. ‘What do you want? D’you want money like all of them? How much do I have to pay you to keep you quiet?’

  ‘Money?’ I was enraged, the sensation coming as a relief. ‘Is that always the first thing that enters your head?’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘What the hell d’you think? I want Olivia. You’re the only person who can get her out. You can say the word, and – ’ I snapped my fingers.

  ‘She’s not well. You’ve seen it – the way she talks . . . I can’t tell them to let her loose. I won’t take responsibility for her. She’s not my Olivia any more.’

  ‘She’s not well because you snatched her baby away from her against her wishes.’ I was having to hold on tight to myself so as not to become incoherent. ‘It’s enough to make anyone ill. Can’t you see she’s sick with grief? But no. All you care about is what people will think – your career at the expense of everything else.’

  He put his hands over his face, slightly bent forward as if I’d kicked him in the stomach. He was distraught. ‘She told you. She wasn’t supposed to tell anyone. She was my girl. Mine.’

  Words spilled out of my mouth like thick green slime, cleansing me. ‘I don’t know what you’ve done to her between you. You had a beautiful, talented daughter and together you’ve crushed and warped her and you’re too much of a cowardly bastard even to go to her and see with your eyes what you’ve done. You sicken me, Alec. You’re despicable.’ I stopped, finding I was shaking.

  Lowering his hands, Alec stared at me. ‘I never thought I’d hear you talk like that, Katie. You used to be so innocent. So charming.’

  Tears blurred my eyes. I felt the sadness of his words.

  ‘Look,’ he said quietly. ‘I know what you think – how this looks to you. I can’t – ’ He took in a long, shuddering breath. ‘I can’t bear it that she’s in there. It’s killing me. I can’t stand to see it. But she is ill, Kate. You didn’t live with her. For weeks after she came home it was unbearable, the way she was. It was like a bad dream. We didn’t feel we could leave her . . . her moods. And then I found out she was . . . was . . .’ He shook his head, unable to go on.

  ‘Going with all those men?’

  He expelled his breath with a sound that was half sigh, half sob. I stood with my arms straight down by my sides, clenching my fists. He put his hand into his coat and pulled out a handkerchief. ‘We’ve been at our wits’ end.’

  After recovering himself for a moment, he said, ‘You’d do all this for her?’

  I nodded, somehow unable to look into his eyes. ‘I want her out. I’ll take her. I’ll look after her.’

  ‘I’ll have to think about it,’ he said.

  ‘You do that. You’ve got two days.’

  He turned from me and began to walk off down the street.

  ‘I’ll be round!’ I called after him.

  Walking back to Lisa’s house I felt not in the least
jubilant. I was heavy-hearted and disgusted with myself at what I had felt forced to do.

  When I went in I was startled to find four women waiting for me, their eyes darting in my direction as soon as I appeared. Lisa and Jackie, but also Joyce Salter and another woman I’d never seen before with red hair.

  ‘This is Sarah,’ Jackie said. ‘She works at Kemp’s.’ A thick blush spread across the woman’s pale skin.

  They were waiting.

  ‘Well,’ I said flatly, ‘I’ve done it.’

  They must have seen the shamed lines of my face, and I didn’t see in them any of the triumph I had expected: raucous, perhaps a little sadistic. Instead there was sadness, and shame in them, too. They had egged each other on, brazenly, to the idea of revenge, women drawing together against the vile seducer, all bravado. But now, seeing their faces, I knew it was not just for money that they had kept faith with Alec Kemp. He had aroused feelings in each of them which, whatever the cost to themselves, had bound them to their silence with a kind of tenderness.

  * * *

  OLIVIA

  Once the WRNS have released me, six months pregnant, with my little suitcase, and once Daddy has stopped shouting and abusing me, he tells me, all sorrowful, ‘The only thing that matters is that no one finds out.’ He says, ‘My girl, my little girl. How could you? You’re spoilt now. There’s no going back.’

  They keep me inside for nearly three months. Sometimes in the evenings I walk in the garden at dusk, feeling the new weight of my body.

  They polish up my story about pneumonia and, fortunately, at the right time, when they are ready to let me out, my chest is bad. Mummy, of course, manages to believe the story at least half.

  I am so afraid. I say to her, ‘What will it be like? What will happen to me?’ And, ‘I’m frightened Mummy, the baby’s getting so big. It’ll never come out, I’m so small.’

  She fusses about me. ‘Darling, you must rest. Have a cushion. Eat this liver, drink that milk.’ She pours concern over me like cream, but cannot be with me in the place where I am. The word baby barely escapes through her lips. They keep me there, almost motionless, in the dark like a white puffball, feeding me, waiting for me to spill my terrible seed. Threads of feeling string themselves between the three of us, always tangling and knotted, never direct and spoken. Had they pulled straight they would have snapped, spraying blood metallic red.