‘That sounds interesting.’
‘Yes, well, we ain’t getting any younger,’ Nell said. ‘We’re both finding the standing behind the bar a bit much, what with Bert’s gout and my varicose veins.’
Scarlett looked at them in alarm. ‘You’re not thinking of retiring, are you?’
‘Well, sort of,’ Nell admitted.
Scarlett was horrified. Now she would have to get another job, just when she thought she’d found a safe haven. She would never find employers as kind as Bert and Nell.
‘The thing is,’ Bert explained, ‘we’d like to take more of a back seat, like, and we thought you might consider being the manageress. We’ve been thinking about it for ages, but we could only do it if we found the right person. Now, you’re a real grafter, and you know your way about a bar and, most of all, you’re good with the customers, so we think you’d be ideal. We’d have to talk about wages and that, and we’d still do some work so that you could have time with the kiddies.’
‘Oh—!’ Scarlett exclaimed, overwhelmed. No one had ever put their trust in her like this before. ‘I don’t know. I mean, I’d love to, but—’
The complications of looking after the babies raced through her head. How could she possibly do a good job here and be a proper mum? How could she bear to leave them with the Harringtons every night, even supposing the Harringtons would agree to have them?
‘—it’s the children,’ she said.
Bert and Nell looked at each other and smiled.
‘Ah, well, that’s the clever part. There’s the flat on the top floor.’
‘Ivy’s flat?’
‘Ivy’s flat. We’ve been wondering what to do with it. I mean, we don’t want any old Tom, Dick or Harry living up there, not when you have to go through the back of the pub to get there. If it had a separate entrance, it’d be different. But anyhow, there’s room up there for you and the little ’uns. There’s no bathroom, mind, but there is a toilet and there’s a nice little kitchen and three rooms. Then in the evening we could leave the doors open and I could listen out for the babies.’
It sounded wonderful. A job and a home and built-in babysitting. Scarlett couldn’t believe it. She would be able to support her children herself and still have time to be with them. Best of all, she wouldn’t have to leave them at the horrible Harringtons’ any more.
And then she came down to earth with a bump.
‘What about my dad?’ she asked.
Nell gave a sigh. Bert looked embarrassed.
‘Look, love,’ Nell said. ‘From what you’ve told us, your dad’s a drinker, right?’
Scarlett nodded. It was no use denying it. She’d often told them how worried she was about him, how he was in danger of losing even the bottom-of-the-heap job he had, how she had to stop him from borrowing from the neighbours.
‘A drinker in a pub’s no good,’ Bert said. ‘I seen it so many times. If he was upstairs there in the flat and he needed a drink, where’s he going to go? Down the off-licence? I don’t think so. He’s going to come down to the bar, and then you’re going to be put under pressure to slip him a free one.’
‘I wouldn’t do that—!’ Scarlett cried.
‘I know. You’re dead honest, you. But you’d be piggy in the middle between him and us, wouldn’t you? And no offence to your dad, but it’d be a temptation, wouldn’t it, having all this drink down here? He’d be down here taking a sly one.’
‘He wouldn’t—’ Scarlett began, but stopped. If her father could spend everything on drink and still try to get subs off the neighbours, he could well get desperate enough to steal.
‘I seen it before,’ Bert repeated. ‘They can’t help it, drinkers. They just got to have another one. And we don’t want it to be a cause of trouble between you and us.’
If anyone else had put it that baldly, Scarlett would have been up in arms. But she loved and respected Bert and Nell enough to face the truth. They were right. Her father couldn’t be trusted to live in a pub. It was so frustrating. Here was this golden opportunity and she couldn’t take it. She could have wept. If only things weren’t this way. If only her dad was like most men, and went out to do a proper day’s work and just got a bit tipsy on a Saturday night. Nobody minded that. Why did he have to be a slave to the drink?
‘I can’t leave him.’ She sighed. ‘What’d happen to him if I wasn’t there? He’d get thrown out of lodgings because he was drunk and he’d never pay the rent. He wouldn’t go to work half the time and he’d lose his job. He’d end up on the street, a down-and-out. I can’t let that happen to him, can I? He’s my dad.’
Bert and Nell tried to persuade her that she couldn’t be responsible for her father’s behaviour, and for a while Scarlett was almost swayed. Her whole future would be better if she didn’t have to consider him.
‘Oh, it’s so unfair!’ she cried, thumping the table. She felt as if her head were bursting with the pressure of it all. But, even though she was tempted, she knew in her heart that she couldn’t abandon her father. Years of loyalty could not just be wiped out. She would never be able to live with herself.
In the end Bert and Nell had to accept that family must come first. Scarlett agreed to do Friday and Saturday evenings behind the bar, as long as the Harringtons agreed to have the children. Bert and Nell decided not to let the flat to anyone else, just in case something should happen to make her change her mind. Scarlett went home at midday to find her father collapsed in the outside toilet, and knew that she had made the right decision. He needed her, and that was an end to it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
THROUGH the summer months Scarlett got into a new routine. On the days when she had worked the night before, she made sure her father was all right and left him a cup of tea before going round to the Harringtons’ to collect the babies. Then she pushed them to the Horse and Groom and spent the morning there, cleaning, making out orders and seeing them in and looking after the cellar. The children were quite at home there. Joanne had a supply of toys and Simon happily crawled round the floor and learnt to pull himself up onto his feet by holding onto the bench seats around the walls of the public bar. Once the pub opened, Nell would take the children into the kitchen at the back and give them a meal while Scarlett looked after the bar, and then either Nell or Bert would cover the rest of the midday opening while Scarlett had some time off.
The afternoons were family time. There was usually shopping to get, but on the days when Scarlett didn’t have washing or too much housework to do at home, they went to the beach or one of the parks for an hour or so. She tried to insist that her father join the children and herself for tea, and most days he did sit down with them and eat something, always with a cigarette smouldering in an ashtray close to his hand.
After tea she chased Victor out of the house in one direction to get to The Oaks, while she piled the children back into the pram and wheeled them in the other direction round to the Harringtons’, before returning to the Horse and Groom to work behind the bar all evening.
By August, Ricky had been gone for nearly a year. Scarlett had long given up any thought of his returning. If she did think of it, she found that she didn’t even want him to come back. Her life was hard, and making ends meet was still difficult, but she was much happier without him. Then, two days before Simon’s first birthday, she arrived at the Harringtons’ to find Betty looking nervous and George more than usually grim.
‘What’s up?’ she asked.
‘Well…er…’ Betty began.
‘It’s got nothing to do with her,’ George interrupted.
‘Oh, but it has! We’ve got to tell her,’ Betty insisted.
Scarlett looked from one to the other in surprise. Mrs Harrington hardly ever contradicted her husband, or at least not in front of her.
‘Tell me what?’ she asked.
Various possibilities paraded themselves. Had Ricky returned? Had he gone to the USA? Was he dead?
‘Nothing,’ said Mr Harrington.
>
‘We heard from Ricky,’ said Mrs Harrington.
‘Oh,’ said Scarlett.
‘Is that all you can say?’ Mr Harrington demanded. ‘“Oh”?’ A lot you care, I must say.’
‘I…I was just surprised. Flabbergasted. I never thought—but where is he? What’s he been doing all this time?’
‘Hamburg,’ Mr Harrington said, with heavy disapproval.
‘Hamburg?’ Scarlett exclaimed.
‘Hamburg,’ Mr Harrington repeated. ‘That’s in Germany. He’s got a job in Germany.’
As far as he was concerned, the Germans were still the enemy.
Scarlett made a dive for the stairs, where Simon was crawling up the first steps with amazing speed.
‘Oh, no, you don’t,’ she said, scooping him up. Simon yelled in protest. He loved stairs. ‘What’s he doing in Germany?’
‘You’d better see for yourself,’ Mrs Harrington said. She disappeared into the back room and returned with a picture postcard in her hand. She held it out to Scarlett. ‘Here.’
There were four small photos of vaguely foreign-looking buildings with the words Grüsse Von Hamburg written across the centre. Scarlett turned it over. There in Ricky’s untidy writing was the brief message.
Dear Mum and Dad,
Got some regular spots in the nightclubs here.
Hope you’re all right, and Scarlett and the kids.
All the best,
Ricky
Scarlett stood staring at it, as if expecting more to appear. Her strongest emotion was one of anger. He’d been away a whole year without once letting them know whether he was alive or dead, and then this! She looked at his mother, who had tears in her eyes.
‘Is that it?’ she said.
‘That’s it,’ Mr Harrington said. ‘That’s all he can be bothered to send us. Hope you’re all right. All the best. It’s breaking his mother’s heart. It’s not how he’s been brought up to behave, I can tell you that for nothing.’
For the first time, Scarlett felt sorry for Mrs Harrington. She never had taken to the woman, but she could feel for her as a mother. She reached out to put an arm round her, but Mrs Harrington brushed her off.
‘Please don’t touch me!’ Hot-eyed, she rounded on Scarlett. ‘It’s all your fault! He would never have done this if it hadn’t been for you! It was you he was running away from. He’d still be here now if you hadn’t led him on. I shall never forgive you—never!’
‘Led him on?’ Scarlett repeated, outraged. ‘I was an innocent young girl till your precious Ricky took advantage of me.’
Mrs Harrington’s eyes flicked over her. They were stony with hatred.
‘Innocent? You were never innocent. Your sort aren’t. Look at you, all dolled up in your warpaint and your tight skirt, ready to go and flaunt yourself behind a bar all evening long. It’s disgusting.’
‘I beg your pardon? What exactly do you mean by that?’ Scarlett demanded.
Joanne, sensitive to the angry voices around her, flung herself at Scarlett and hung onto her leg, wailing. Simon, who was already cross at being stopped from climbing the stairs, joined in.
‘There, now look what you’ve done, you’ve upset the children,’ Mrs Harrington said.
‘Me? I didn’t start this,’ Scarlett retorted.
Then she realised just how childish that sounded. She was not in the playground now. And, what was more, the children were upset and she didn’t want to leave them in a state. She didn’t want to leave them at all, but she had to. She kissed Simon and handed him to Mrs Harrington, then picked up Joanne and cuddled her.
‘It’s all right, darling, Mummy and Nana aren’t cross with you. It’s all right. It’s all over now.’
She glanced at Mrs Harrington, who set her mouth in a hard line, but said no more.
It took a while, but both children eventually calmed down. Reluctantly, Scarlett kissed them goodnight and set off for work.
It took a lot longer for her to calm down. The incident churned round inside her all the way to the pub. Once at work, there was too much going on to think about it a lot, though she was always aware of a nagging worry at the back of her head.
It was on the long walk home that things really started to play on her mind. If Ricky had at last made contact, did that mean he was eventually coming back? But if he had only written to his parents, maybe he wasn’t thinking of returning to her. On the other hand, he had mentioned her and the children. Surely even Ricky would want to see his own children? What if he wanted to take up where he had left off? What should she do? She didn’t want to live with him again, but it would be wrong to deny the children the chance to have a proper family life with a mother and a father. The questions went round and round in her head, but the answers didn’t seem to be there.
Coming back to the flat was always the worst part of the day. Scarlett opened the front door and sniffed. Fresh cigarette smoke. That was one worry less, as it meant her father had got back. She paused outside his bedroom door.
‘All right, Dad?’
‘’Right love.’
The words were slurred, but he was reacting.
‘Cuppa tea?’
‘No, thanks.’
She sighed and went into the kitchen to put the kettle on. It was no use making him one if he was only going to let it go cold. She washed at the sink, then with tea to fortify her, she faced her bedroom. It was crowded in here now. She had pushed the double bed against the wall, but she still had to edge round the wardrobe, the chest of drawers and the two cots. As always, her throat tightened when she looked at the empty cots. Her babies should be here, with her, not farmed out to their grandparents. She wanted to see their innocent sleeping faces, to smell their sweet breath. She wanted to see their first smiles in the morning.
She climbed into bed and lay in the dark. She was dead tired, but sleep did not come easily, for she had to face the fact that if Ricky did return, she would have to take him back for the children’s sake. Nell and Bert were generous employers, but women just weren’t paid as much as men. Ricky could earn enough for her to be with the children most of the time. There would be no more nights at their grandparents’. That had to be worth putting up with living with someone she didn’t love.
Carnival week arrived. Scarlett, Nell and the babies watched from the cliffs.
‘The first time I saw this, it was with Jonathan. I thought it was the most exciting thing I’d ever seen,’ Scarlett said.
‘Ah, well, it was first love, weren’t it?’ Nell said. Scarlett had told her all about Jonathan. ‘It’s all rainbow colours, first love.’
‘Yeah, you’re right.’
Rainbow colours. It had been like that, her first summer in Southend. She had been devastated by her mother’s death and having to move out of her home, but still there had been a magic glow to those short months. Everything had been larger than life.
A horde of people in animal costumes came running through the crowd, shaking their collecting tins. Simon bounced around so much that the pram rocked. Joanne jigged up and down with excitement.
‘Bears! Bears!’ she squealed.
Nell gave her some pennies to put in the tins. Joanne gazed with wonder at the huge furry creatures with their human faces while Scarlett got her pleasure secondhand. If Joanne was delighted, then so was she. It was the children that counted now.
‘Another couple of years and they’ll enjoy the fair up in Chalkwell park,’ Nell said.
‘Yeah, I’ll have to take them to that,’ Scarlett said.
Another two years. What would she be doing then? Would Ricky be back, or would she still be on her own, trying to be a mum and a breadwinner? She watched the carnival queen and her court go by, and remembered Jonathan turning to her and saying that she was a hundred times prettier than any of the girls on the float. She blinked back tears. It was no use thinking of that. It was the past. Even if Jonathan were to come back to Southend, why would he want to take on somebody else’s children? She put
her arms round Joanne and hugged her chubby little body.
‘Look, darling, a band! See all the boys marching!’
Simon bounced and crowed as the brass band played Colonel Bogey. Scarlett’s heart lurched painfully as she remembered Jonathan and his friends singing rude words to it as a band had gone by that first summer. She grabbed Joanne’s hand.
‘March! March to the music!’
Hand in hand, they marched on the spot, Scarlett trampling on her memories. It was no good looking back. It hurt too much.
After carnival week, the summer always seemed to hurry to a close. When the nights drew in, Scarlett bundled the children up in warm jumpers on one of her evenings off and wheeled them round Never-Never Land, where Simon enjoyed the lights and Joanne marvelled at the magical displays of fairies and animals. And then it was winter, with all its difficulties of lighting fires and getting washing dry. Taking the children round to the Harringtons’ in the dark and the rain seemed much worse than doing it in the light. Mrs Harrington seemed to think so as well.
‘It’s not right, pushing these poor mites round from pillar to post,’ she told Scarlett.
‘I know, but what can I do? Their father’s not here to support them,’ Scarlett retorted.
She knew as soon as the words had left her mouth that she shouldn’t have said that.
‘You could get a more respectable job, for a start,’ Mrs Harrington said. ‘A barmaid! Everyone knows what sort of women they are. We never had any barmaids in our family, not ever. We all had decent jobs in shops or dressmaking or hairdressing.’
‘I couldn’t take the children to work with me if I worked in a shop,’ Scarlett pointed out.
‘Yes, well, that’s another thing. I don’t like my grandchildren spending their time in a public house. It’s not a good way to bring them up at all.’
‘I was brought up in a pub,’ Scarlett pointed out.
Bye Bye Love Page 25
