Magnolia Square

by Margaret Pemberton

  ‘“Let the sinners be consumed out of the earth, and let the wicked be no more!”’

  ‘Well, I’m not,’ Pru said abruptly, and slammed the door in his face.

  Malcolm stared at the reverberating wood in incredulity. What on earth had he said to her to have occasioned such a reaction? And who on earth had Wilfred Sharkey been in conversation with? He shrugged, aware he would probably never have the answer to either question. Turning away from the door, he walked back down the path, towards the gate. If Pru didn’t want to join in the celebration of the century, it was her loss, not his. All the same, it was a pity. He rather suspected that, when she was in a good mood, Pru would be exceedingly jolly company.

  As he reached the gate a faint but unmistakable sound impinged on his consciousness. He paused, looking back towards the house, his eyebrows contracting in a deep frown. Someone in number ten was crying. Someone female. Someone sixteen or seventeen years old.

  Chapter Eleven

  Ellen Pierce plumped and rearranged the cushions on her sofa, hurriedly removed a small dog-basket from the side of the hearth and re-located it in a discreet position in the corner of the kitchen, checked her appearance in the mirror hanging over the fireplace, and then plumped and rearranged the sofa cushions yet again. Why did she get so agitated when Carl was about to visit her? Why couldn’t she simply relax and enjoy his company and cease fretting about whether the house was suitably tidy and whether or not the dogs were going to be annoying and if he was ever going to ask her to marry him? She knew Harriet didn’t behave in a similar manner where Charlie was concerned, but then Harriet was the most sensible woman imaginable and Charlie had already asked her to marry him and, in any case, Charlie wasn’t a complicated personality in the way Carl was complicated.

  ‘Down, Hotspur,’ she said, flustered, as a Welsh Terrier jumped up at her, eager to gain her attention. ‘Your basket is in the kitchen for the rest of today. And please don’t jump on the sofa! I’m sure Carl doesn’t like it when you jump on the sofa. And where are Macbeth and Coriolanus? Are they sulking because I’ve taken their baskets upstairs?’

  Hotspur yapped in an excited frenzy, certain he was about to be taken for a walk. Ellen did her best to ignore him. Was it because of her dogs that Carl still hadn’t suggested they formally spend the rest of their lives together? She knew that, before Kate had given a home to Hector, the Voigts had never owned a dog. And though Carl had never said a single word to indicate he wasn’t happy at Hector’s presence in his home, she couldn’t really tell whether he was unhappy about it or not.

  It was never possible to tell what Carl was thinking. He was such a quiet, introspective, complex man that his private thoughts were a complete mystery to her. And that was the source of all her anxiety. How could she relax and be happy in their relationship when she didn’t know how Carl viewed that relationship? Though he was affectionate towards her, they weren’t lovers in the accepted sense of the word. They had never gone to bed together. But then, they weren’t married, and Carl was a very moral man. She couldn’t imagine him even considering going to bed with someone to whom he wasn’t married. And it wasn’t as if she were an experienced sex-siren! She was a forty-year-old virgin, for goodness sake!

  A large, ungainly mongrel lolloped into the room and clambered on to the sofa. Ellen was too distracted by the route her thoughts had taken to even notice. Was her unwanted virginity one of the reasons their relationship never achieved real mental and emotional intimacy? Or was it because he couldn’t imagine being married to a woman who, though capable of holding down a responsible position at Harvey’s, was not his intellectual equal? A woman who very foolishly shared her small Greenwich terraced house with three bombed-out dogs?

  As Coriolanus nuzzled contentedly deeper into the cushions on the sofa, she looked despairingly into the mirror. She’d had her mouse-brown hair permed shortly after VE Day, and now VJ Day had come and gone and the perm still hadn’t settled down! She’d been a fool, of course, to have ever had it cut. At one time she had worn it in a sensible bun, as Harriet wore her hair. Only her bun had never looked as elegant as Harriet’s, and she had thought that a cut and perm might make her look a little more fashionable. It didn’t, of course. She looked the same as always. A middle-aged Plain Jane.

  There came the sound of his familiar knock on the door and her heart jarred against her ribs. He was here! They would spend the rest of the day together and she knew that she was lucky, lucky, lucky! If he wanted, Carl could have his pick of middle-aged, unmarried lady companions, yet he continued to seek only her company and she was deeply, unspeakably grateful. If only she could be sure he would continue to seek only her companionship, she would be the happiest woman in the world. She hurried to open the door to him, wondering if she had put enough lipstick on, or too much; wondering if he would be impressed by the sponge cake she had made for their tea, or if he would think it a poor thing compared to the sponge cakes his late wife had no doubt once made for him; wondering if she should chatter on about the celebrations of VJ Day, or if he would like a little peace and quiet now that the boisterous celebrations were over.

  Carl, happily ignorant of being the cause of such tormented indecision, was wondering if the suggestion he intended putting to Ellen that afternoon was, perhaps, offensively cavalier. Her house wasn’t very big. Not when Hotspur, Macbeth and Coriolanus were taken into account. And even if her home was twice the size, it still wouldn’t alter the fact that it was a man’s responsibility to provide a marital home for his wife. Moving into a woman’s home was, after all, little different from living off her money.

  As he heard Ellen’s dearly familiar footsteps hurrying towards the door, he knew it was a problem he had to face up to. Though his own home was a spacious, Edwardian family house, it wasn’t spacious enough to accommodate another three dogs. Or at least not to do so in comfort. And besides, much as he loved his daughter and her children, he didn’t have a temperament suited to boisterous family life. He liked to read and listen to music, and he liked to do so in peace and quiet. Ellen, too, was accustomed to living quietly, or as quietly as her dogs allowed. To start off their married life sharing number four Magnolia Square with Kate and Leon and the children, would be a sure-fire recipe for disaster. And as he had no capital with which to buy a second house, the only other alternative was for him to move in with Ellen.

  The door opened and Hotspur shot past him like a bullet from a gun.

  ‘Hotspur! Hotspur!’ Ellen shouted ineffectually, having no choice but to hurry straight past Carl in an attempt to call Hotspur to heel before he should reach the main road.

  Hotspur, dimly aware that things were not quite as they should be, had the sense to come to a halt when he reached the street comer.

  ‘Naughty, naughty dog!’ Ellen chastised, gulping for air, realizing too late that she didn’t have a dog lead with her.

  Twenty yards away, Carl was still standing at the doorway, waiting patiently for her return.

  Hotspur was not the best trained of dogs. Ellen knew that if she once let go of his collar, he would immediately dart off in the wrong direction in the happy expectation of again being chased. Resignedly she hooked a finger under his collar and, stooping lop-sidedly like the Hunchback of Notre Dame, awkwardly began to drag him back to the house.

  Carl continued to wait for them patiently. Who but Ellen would nearly break her back in dragging a recalcitrant Welsh Terrier home? If necessary, he knew she would be quite capable of laying down her life for one of her dogs; or for anyone she loved. The sensation of warmth he always felt when in her company eased through him. Loyal and loving, totally incapable of a harsh thought or word, she had brought romantic companionship back into his life at a time when he had been bereft of companionship of any sort. As memories of the internment camp he had been imprisoned in during the war flooded into his mind, he thrust them firmly back. Those days were over, just as the war was now over. The neighbours he had lived amongst for over twe
nty years and who, when war had broken out, had ostracized him because of his nationality, had long since sheepishly befriended him again. One memory he would never try to suppress, however, was the memory of how a middle-aged lady he had never even met had, when she had heard of his internment, shyly begun a pen-pal relationship with him in order to ease his loneliness and isolation. It had been an act of Christian charity, and utterly typical of her. His heart swelled with love. Dear Ellen. Sometimes he wondered if she had even the remotest idea of how much her letters had meant to him, how they had renewed his faith in human nature.

  ‘Hotspur’s not usually such a naughty dog,’ she said now, dragging Hotspur off the pavement and on to her short garden path, still bending at an almost impossible angle as she did so. ‘It’s just that he does so love a walk.’

  Carl closed the garden gate so that Hotspur shouldn’t make yet another bid for freedom. ‘We’ll take all three dogs to the park, if you like,’ he said amenably, ‘but first I want to have a chat with you, Ellen. I’m afraid it’s all a little difficult and I shall quite understand if you think my suggestion unacceptable . . .’

  Ellen released her hold of Hotspur and, not without a little difficulty, straightened her spine, fear flooding through her. What on earth could he be about to suggest that might be unacceptable to her? Was he going to suggest they didn’t see each other quite so often? Was he about to try to end their relationship? She led the way into her tiny, linoleum-floored hallway. Macbeth, her aged Scottie, barked in greeting. In the sitting-room Coriolanus raised his head from the cushions and, on hearing more than one set of footsteps, prudently abandoned the sofa and did his best to make himself comfortable on the floor.

  ‘I’ll put the kettle on for a cup of tea,’ Ellen said a few seconds later as Carl sat down in the place Coriolanus had vacated.

  ‘No,’ he said gently, trying to ignore the suspicious warmth emanating from the sofa cushions, ‘don’t make a pot of tea yet, Ellen. Let me tell you what’s been preying on my mind.’

  She sat on the edge of an easy chair, her hands clasped on her knees, as apprehensive as a little girl about to receive a catechism.

  ‘I don’t quite know how to go about this,’ Carl began awkwardly, hoping the warmth Coriolanus had so obviously left behind him, wouldn’t prove to be damp warmth. ‘But with Kate and Leon now married . . .’

  Ellen’s knuckles showed white. He was going to leave the house in Magnolia Square to Kate and Leon and the children. He was going to leave London. Maybe, now Hitler and Nazism had been ground into the dust, he was even contemplating a return to Germany? She clenched her knuckles even tighter. She wouldn’t cry when he told her – she wouldn’t. But she would cry afterwards, when he had gone. She would cry and cry and she doubted if she would ever stop. For the moment, though, she had to listen to whatever it was he was trying to tell her. She had to try and concentrate.

  ‘. . . and so if I moved in here—’

  ‘In here?’ she blinked. What did he mean? Was he asking her if he could become her lodger? And if he did so, what would her neighbours say? They all knew that he was her gentleman-friend and they would come to some very incorrect and salacious conclusions! Or would their conclusions be incorrect? Scarlet spots of colour stained her cheeks.

  Carl, mistaking the emotion that had occasioned them, said with even greater awkwardness, ‘I’m sorry, Ellen. I shouldn’t have even put the suggestion to you. It’s just that I think it will be years before German is reinstated on grammar school syllabuses and until it is, my income won’t cover the cost of buying a second property. We could probably rent somewhere, of course, though finding a landlord or landlady willing to accept Hector and Macbeth and Coriolanus won’t be easy and, as you’re so comfortable here, I didn’t think you’d like the idea of starting married life in rented accommodation.’

  ‘Married life?’ The blood had begun to beat in her ears so loudly that she couldn’t be sure she had heard correctly. ‘Did you say “married”, Carl?’

  He looked at her shiningly beautiful face, naked of powder, naked of guile. Had she been wool-gathering again? Had her thoughts been on Hotspur, still yearning for his walk, and not on what he had been saying to her? Tenderly he said, ‘Of course I said married, Ellen. You can’t imagine I would have suggested my moving in here before we were married!’

  Tears had begun streaming down her face. ‘Oh, Carl! Oh, of course we can live here after we’re married! It’s just that I hardly dared hope . . . I thought perhaps you were going to go away . . . I thought . . . I thought . . .’

  There was no way she could possibly tell him all the foolish things she had thought. And it didn’t matter that she couldn’t do so. All that mattered was that he wasn’t going away. He wasn’t going to end their relationship. He was going to marry her. And he was going to marry her because he loved her; because she was just as necessary and dear to him as he was to her.

  Her legs were too weak with joy and relief to be able to support her unaided and Carl crossed the room towards her, taking her hands in his, drawing her to her feet. ‘I love you, Ellen,’ he said simply. ‘I love you with all my heart.’

  ‘And I love you, Carl.’ Her voice was unsteady, tremulous with joy.

  Behind them Coriolanus cocked a speculative eye towards the sofa.

  ‘There’s no sense in our having a long, formal engagement, is there?’ Carl said, the light glinting on his spectacle lenses. ‘If you’re happy for me to do so, Ellen, I’d like to ask Mr Giles to announce the banns this coming Sunday.’

  His arms were around her and she could feel his heart beating next to hers. ‘Oh, yes!’ she said, happier than she had ever been in her entire life. ‘I’m very happy for you to do so, Carl!’

  Behind them Coriolanus made his move, heaving himself back on to cushioned comfort.

  Carl lowered his head to Ellen’s in loving commitment. Ellen’s hands slid up and around his neck.

  Coriolanus closed his eyes, intuitively knowing that no-one was going to disturb him for quite some time.

  Jack Robson and Mavis Lomax sat on the grass, by the Princess of Wales pond. Mavis had her knees hugged to her chest, her arms circling them. Jack was sitting with his legs slightly apart, his arms resting on his knees, his hands clasped loosely. It had been an accidental meeting, though Mavis doubted that any busybody seeing them would think it so. Jack had left number eighteen in order to buy a packet of cigarettes. She had been taking Bonzo for a walk on the Heath. Bonzo now lay a few feet away from them, his head on his paws, snoring soundly.

  ‘If I knew what was wrong, I could put it right,’ Jack was saying bluntly. ‘But the hell of it is, I don’t know what’s wrong!’ He ran a hand through his hair dishevelling it and, unwittingly, making himself look even more attractive. ‘We haven’t had a row over anything. Nothing has been said, but this leave home hasn’t been anything like I anticipated it would be.’

  ‘In my experience, things never are,’ Mavis said dryly, unclasping her hands and plucking a blade of grass. She began to shred it with a scarlet-lacquered nail. ‘Christina probably finds it ’ard ’aving a reunion with you while she’s living at number eighteen,’ she said, showing a perspicacity that would have surprised a great many people. ‘I know I wouldn’t ’ave wanted to ’ave been living there when I ’ad my reunions with Ted.’ She chuckled throatily. ‘It was bad enough ’aving to cope with our Billy and Beryl charging in and out of the bedroom at inconvenient moments, without ’aving Mum and Dad and Gran doing it as well!’

  Despite his despondency, Jack grinned. ‘Maybe,’ he said, not totally convinced. His grin faded. ‘The thing I really don’t understand,’ he said, frowning slightly and disclosing a perplexity he wouldn’t have disclosed to one of his mates in a million years, ‘is why Christina is now so friendly with Carl Voigt. I mean, the man’s a German for Christ’s sake! You’d think he’d be the last person in London she’d want to hob-nob with! Yet the first night I was home she slipped away from the k
nees-up at The Swan, just to have a natter with him. And she did the same thing again yesterday morning.’

  Mavis plucked another blade of grass. ‘I don’t ’ave an answer for that one,’ she said frankly. ‘Leaving out ’is being German, Carl isn’t exactly the kind of fella to ’ave a laugh and giggle with, is ’e? ’E’s far too quiet and serious.’

  Jack remained silent. Christina never laughed and giggled in the way Mavis and Carrie and their friends did. It was one of the many things about her that had first caught his attention. And as it was quite obvious Christina wasn’t merely having a laugh and giggle with Carl Voigt, as Mavis did with Daniel for instance, it only made the puzzle of why Christina was chin-wagging with him so often even more perplexing.

  Some twenty yards or so away from them, on the far side of the pond, Leon Emmerson was squatting down on his haunches at the edge of the water, Matthew beside him. Slowly, and very carefully, he was launching a magnificent-looking sailing ship.

  ‘They’re an odd couple, aren’t they?’ Mavis said, intuitively realizing that Jack had said as much as he wanted to say where his wife was concerned.

  ‘Kate and her bloke?’

  Mavis nodded. ‘And ’im and the kiddie. I mean, ’owever much Leon loves and cares for Matthew, no-one’s ever going to believe ’e’s Matthew’s real dad, are they?’

  Jack’s mouth twitched in amusement. ‘No,’ he agreed, as Matthew clapped his hands in delight at the sight of the sailing ship forging its way across the pond, his hair the colour of pale wheat in the bright afternoon sunshine, ‘it would beggar belief a bit, wouldn’t it?’

  They remained in companionable silence for a little while, watching Leon’s dark figure as, time and again, he retrieved his handiwork, making adjustments to the sails and then floating it again, Matthew eagerly helping him and chatting to him non-stop.