Family of Women

by Annie Murray

  ‘Well, who I am’s nothing to be proud of, believe you me. But you pays your money and takes your choice and this is me. OK?’

  Chapter Seventy-Nine

  ‘I s’pose you want to know why I left? I dunno – look at you. You’re only a kid yourself. I shouldn’t be telling you all this – but you want me to, don’t you? Seems a whole lifetime ago now. I don’t even remember you being born. ’38? Yes, I was long gone by then. I remember Joycie arriving. Vi’d had all her problems with babies. I s’pose that’s why I wanted to come for the wedding. And ’cause Vi’d written to me. She never has otherwise. S’pose she’s had too much else going on.

  ‘They probably told you I went off with an actor. Michael Albie was his name. I met him in my days hanging round the photographers and the stage doors at the Hip and the Alex. I was mad about Michael. Never felt the same way about anyone after him . . . All right, Mario? Yes, another cuppa’d be lovely. We’ll be here for a bit yet, ta, love.

  ‘See, I left Brum with Michael because I wanted more – I wanted life and the stage and I was in love with him. And I couldn’t stand any more of our mom. There was no room for anyone in that house except for her and what she wanted. Sometimes you could hardly bloody breathe, and all them babbies and that carry-on. Always had to be queen bee, Mom did, never mind who she walked all over. I mean what she did to poor old Marigold. That was an evil, wicked thing she did. Don’t s’pose you know all about that, though? No, I thought not. You’d’ve been too young . . . But you’re just the age now that she was. See, this’ll shock you, but Marigold had a child herself. A little boy. He was born at home – I’ll never forget that night. It frightened me at the time, hearing it. But I can see him now. Beautiful, he was. But our mom upped and took him straight to some orphanage. Never would say where. She might as well have thrown him out with the rubbish, the attitude she had. Not a by your leave to Mari – she never had a say in anything. Christ, Linda, I can feel myself boiling inside even now, thinking about it. God knows who the father was – she was a poor old thing, Mari. But she loved that babby – you could see.

  ‘Thing was, when I left Brum I was carrying Michael’s child . . . oh, I’m going to get all weepy now . . . I mean I wanted to go anyway, but if our mom had known . . . I’d never have had a say either. And I loved Michael, wanted nothing else but to be with him. I’d only just found out and his stint at the Alex was ending and he was coming back to London. He wasn’t poor, Michael wasn’t. He was much older than me – gone thirty already and he had money from his family, not like a lot of the stage crowd, all living on a shoestring. He had a little flat – not so very far from here in fact. Anyway, when we got down here he started on me. If I wanted to be in the theatre it was no good thinking about carrying on with the child. He didn’t want it, of course. Most of ’em don’t – that’s what I’ve found. They’re not like us, Linda, men, that’s one thing for sure.

  ‘I gave in in the end. Course, I was frightened. I was only seventeen when we left, turned eighteen in the December. Michael took me to this woman . . . It makes me go cold now . . . Thing about it was how ordinary it all was. It was her flat, up some dark stairs, and her kitchen, a washing-up bowl and that. On her kitchen table in this flat. I s’pose that’s where her kids ate their tea. She had a great big bottle of antiseptic stuff. It hurt, Linda. Hurt so much I fainted . . . Phoo – makes me go all hot and cold to think of it. Michael had to get a cab to take me home and I wasn’t right for weeks after. When I got better he started on me to look for work and I wanted to, of course, although I’d lost a lot of weight and was a bit too skinny. But he helped and I got a couple of parts – stand-ins in chorus lines. I can sing, see, as well. I’ve got a half nice voice, even now. And then he left me. Locked me out of the flat one night and he was going off to work up north somewhere. Never said where. I was left with only what I had to stand up in. We’d only been together six months, altogether. That night, I slept in Hyde Park. Sounds bad, doesn’t it? At the time all I could think about was Michael. Broke my heart, he did. I didn’t care about sleeping on a bench in the park, only that he’d left me and I couldn’t understand why.

  ‘I was quite presentable still and I managed to get a job the next day. That was a miracle then. Jobs were hard to find and I didn’t have a reference, but it was this woman, see, Mavis her name was, ran an eating joint off the Tottenham Court Road. I dunno if I reminded her of her daughter, or what, but I was bloody lucky is all I can say. She said I was pretty and that was good in a waitress as long as I could do the work. She worked me hard and tried to patch up my heart. Course, any time I could I was round the theatres, trying to get something else. I did get one little speaking part. That was the picture I sent you. I think my face’s always been my fortune because I knew next to nothing. They said I had the right look and it was a play called The Garnet Ring. I had two appearances in it. I don’t think it was much of a play but I can still remember the lines now! The first time I went on I had to say, “Mr Fellows, I do wish you could arrange to conduct your private business elsewhere . . .” Well, you can imagine what that was all about – yes, it was funny. And then later I had to say, “It’s no good, I’m going to hand in my notice. Never have I had the misfortune to put up with conditions like these before!”

  ‘Anyway, things went on like this for quite a while – can’t say exactly how long. I had a few fellers come and go of course. Nothing serious. I was still in a mess after Michael. And then I met Johnny – just before the war. Hot and lovely it was, that summer. Johnny was an actor and he was no better off than me. Both of us had our rooms in seedy lodgings. But he was so handsome, Johnny was. Dark and sleek somehow, with thick wavy hair and sort of little boy looks. His eyes were blue as anything. China blue. He bowled me over. He was going to get somewhere with acting, I thought. With looks like that how could he not? He was quite young, see, not like Michael. He was only a couple of years older than me. I didn’t want him to know how things had been. That I’d begun . . . a child, and that. I was very careful, held off from anything much in the love department. Very prim and proper I was – you should’ve seen me!

  ‘Course, soon as the war broke out there was trouble – they closed the theatres and that, for a bit. But there were shows put on – Johnny got me into a few things. Bloody frightening it all was then – all those gas warnings, air raid sirens . . . I hated them public shelters. Stank to high heaven and you never knew who you were going to be with. Anyway – the thing was, I couldn’t last out with Johnny. The Virgin Mary bit, I mean. By the time the Luftwaffe were hammering the guts out of us every night I was expecting again. Couldn’t believe it – I mean I thought we’d been careful, you know, taken precautions. I’m one of them only has to look at a man, I reckon . . . Sorry, bab, keep forgetting your age. You seem older, you know, Linda. Well, you’ve guessed it – first hint of a babby on the way and Johnny was off. I mean I didn’t tell him straight away, not after Michael. I thought, bide your time, Rosy, see how the land lies. I tried to get out of him whether he wanted to marry me. But you can’t hide a babby for ever and I wasn’t doing away with it . . . Sorry, I have to whisper that. I wasn’t doing that again. It does summat to you, however much you don’t want to keep the baby.

  ‘Any road, Johnny guessed, in the end, saw my little belly swelling. “So now you know,” I said. “And what’re we going to do about it?”

  ‘“I dunno,” he said. “It’s not me that’s having a baby, is it?” Just like that. Couldn’t care less. So I knew he’d be off and I took off first. Found a new room. He’d have come back for his bit of fun otherwise and I wasn’t having that. I don’t know what you must think of me – you’re keeping very quiet. But it gets worse, Linda. I told you, if you’ve come to find someone to model your life on, you’re barking up the wrong tree with your auntie Rosy.

  ‘Any road – the best thing happened then. I’d finished working at Mavis’s place a while back and I was in another joint in Soho. Course it was a bit diffe
rent here then – not so many coloureds for a start – and the war was on. That’s where I met Reeny. Irene Bartlett. Best thing that ever happened to me – apart from my kids. Irene’s bloke had joined up, gone in the army, and that was the best thing ever happened to her, an’ all. Proper toe-rag he was. Joined up almost before Neville Chamberlain had finished telling us there was a war on, and good riddance, she said. He came back at the end, you know – but not to her. Had some bit of stuff somewhere. Reeny had her boy, Kevin. He was six then, and she had her mum up the road. We always hit it off, Reeny and me, and she was golden to me. Like a sister – always had been. “Don’t you worry, Rosy,” she used to say. “Us women’ll stick together and sod ’em.”

  ‘And we did. Not half we did. She asked me to move in with her and Kev and we had some laughs. It was a godsend. But of course neither of us had any money. She was getting by doing a bit of waitressing while her mom was in with Kev. And I was all right till Clarkie arrived. Reeny was there with me, and her mom – one night when there was no bloody air raid for once! Had him easy, I did. I mean it hurts like hell, screamed my head off and that, but I mean it came natural to me. And Clarkie was big and healthy and – oh! Light of my life he is – and Vivianne. But that was later.

  ‘Things got hard then, see, ’cause Reeny’s mom took sick. It was so quick – she just wasted away in front of our eyes and by the time Clark was six months I carried him to her funeral. Poor Reeny. She always said, if she hadn’t’ve had me she’d have gone off her head. Anyway, this is where things took a turn, as you might say. Reeny was working in the day, and I worked at night, doing what I knew best. See I’m blushing even now. When I’m here, the life I live – well, it’s just how it is, day by day. I’ve got used to it, see? D’you understand what I’m saying, Linda? What it is I do to earn my bread? Course, it’s not me doing it any more. Never – not now. I’ve got my girls and I treat them well. Come and work at Rosy’s and you’re as safe as you’re likely to be – not on the streets, fair’s fair . . . You do know what I’m talking about now, don’t you? But I couldn’t come out to face you all, let you see what I was, not all at once. I’ve got a nice little flat, kids at good schools – that’s all I want anyone to see, but it ain’t the whole of me, see?

  ‘I’m getting out of order now. There was a lot more road to walk before I got to this bit. Reeny and I kept each other going. She had her little house, kids upstairs, and I used the front room, nights, took the punters back there. The daytimes were another world – all kids and Reeny and me playing happy families and Kev at school. Clean, and nice.

  ‘And then I met Humphrey . . . I’m running out of fags. This is my last one – I’ll have to nip out and get some more . . . Anyway, this bit I’m ashamed of. It’s different when it comes to friendship, see. I let Reeny down. Let her down bad. She forgave me, but that doesn’t make it any better. Humphrey was this posh geezer. Not like the others. I never took old Hump back to Reeny’s. Hump had money – real money. He had a wife and couple of kids. He was some top-notch city type – worked high up in a bank. Reserved occupation and all that and plenty of lolly to splash about. Only he had a taste for . . . well, let’s call it lower life than what he was used to. Wanted his nose in the gutter – it gave him a thrill. I met him when I was working the corner and he came and started the chat-up bit. Ugly sod he was really – one of them with a round face, looks about twelve years old still, all chin and no cheekbones.

  ‘“I can take you somewhere nicer than this,” he said, all posh. “How much for the evening?” Well, I thought I’d up the score so I said “Ten quid” – well, what I really said was, “That’ll be ten pounds to you, sir,” trying to speak posh for him.

  ‘He took me back to his place – over in Kensington. Lovely little flat, top of one of them big houses on a square, all trees in the middle. It became a fixture – every Tuesday night, all night. God knows where wifey thought he was, I never asked, poor cow. Or perhaps she didn’t care. Thing was, Hump was fond of me. Sort of fell for me, in his way. Dunno if that sort can fall in love, exactly. Public school, sent away when he was four and all that. Always looked as if his shirt-button was done up too tight at the top – even when he was starkers!

  ‘I met him – when was it now – sometime in 1941. I know it was pretty cold the night he came up to me and he had a nice little electric fire in the flat. I’d never seen such a nice one. And he asked me to move in there. “I want to think of you here, even when I’m not here. You won’t be given any trouble – I’ve an arrangement with the landlady.”

  ‘“I can’t,” I said to him. “I’ve got a boy, not a year old.”

  ‘“Well,” he says, “I don’t mind that – so long as he’s not there when I’m there. Thing about me is, Rosy, I don’t like competition. I like to have my woman all to myself.”

  ‘And to my shame I went. I mean you should have seen the place! Me living in Kensington, all posh! Me and Clarkie, except for the times Hump was there – and that wasn’t all that many – and Reeny had him then. I thought I’d arrived. I’d left Reeny, pretty much – after all she’d done for me. Told her it was an investment for the future. Course I kept meaning to go back and see her more often, but it was a treat, living it up in Kensington. I felt like a lady and didn’t want to think about what else I was. Not until I got lonely, anyway. Humphrey was hardly ever there and when he was, he wasn’t much company, not really.

  ‘We kept it up all through the summer. He kept saying, “I’ll come and take you out for a day. We’ll take a boat on the river.” I liked the idea of that – even with him. I mean he wasn’t that bad – quite easy to please really. Course he never did, though – take me out in a boat, I mean.

  ‘Anyway, you’ve guessed – he was Vivianne’s father. He got me up the duff. I told him, soon as I knew, and waited for him to run. I s’pose I just wanted to get it over with. That was men. I never expected anything of them – not by then. The soft bit of me that expected had all dried up with Michael. Everything hurts more when you’re young. Course, he did run, but my God, Linda, he was all right, really, Hump was. He cried, you know, when I told him, went on about how he couldn’t understand his children – they had two already – and he was a hopeless father and husband, unfaithful and no good to anyone and now he wasn’t going to stay with me either. I mean I ended up feeling quite sorry for him, poor bloke. He seemed as if he was locked in a box and couldn’t get out and I thought well, at least I’m not as bad as that.

  ‘I went back to Reeny and asked her to forgive me. She was all right, she understood, she said. She’d’ve done the same. She wouldn’t, though. She’s more loyalty than that.

  ‘Thing was, though . . . Old Hump waved me goodbye as if he’d never have another thing to do with me. Oh well, posh bastard, I thought. That’s how it goes, and you’ve had your fun, Rosy. Then one night I’m back at my post on the corner and back he comes, hat pulled down over his face.

  ‘“I want you to know,”’ he says, and he sounded quite tearful. Made me feel really sorry for him. ‘That you’ve been a real light in my life, Rosy. You’re all the things I’m not – courageous, strong, amusing. And I don’t want you to remember me as a . . . as a complete cad . . .” was what he said, I think! “So I want you to have this.”

  ‘He gave me this envelope and kissed me on the cheek and off he went.

  ‘Well, business wasn’t looking good that night anyway and I went back to Reeny’s and opened the envelope. And what d’you think was inside? There was a note, saying, You’ll need to set yourself up. This is for you and the child. With love from H. He’d written me a cheque for five grand! Yes – well, I gasped even louder than that at the time! Reeny and me toasted him with champagne all that week, I can tell you.

  ‘But I’ve got a good head for money, when I’ve got hold of any. I wasn’t going to fritter it away. This was my main chance and I took it.

  ‘First thing I did was buy us a house, number twenty, the one you’ve just seen.
The flat didn’t come till later. But Reeny and me and the kids had a bigger home and I ran my little business from downstairs. Vivianne was born in 1942 and that put me out of action for a bit, but Reeny was working – regular work, I mean, in a shop – and we managed. I bought the flat after the war. The kids were old enough then to notice what was going on around them and I wasn’t having that. I can remember the day the war ended, everyone dancing and the tugs blowing their hooters along the river, V for victory! And dear old Winnie up there on the balcony with the Royals – we were there, Reeny and me. We took the kids. And as we stood there and everyone was drunk with happiness, I thought, I’m going to make a future for my kids. Whatever it takes, it doesn’t matter about me, but they’ve got to have something better. Oh dear – where’s my hanky? Soppy old thing aren’t I, really? See, they don’t know what I do, to this day. They go off with their little boaters on to their nice school and life’s sunny and happy. Their dad was killed in the war, that’s all they know. Their mum works for a firm and she often has to work late. But there’s Reeny, you see. She’s like a second mom to them, always has been. Happy as Larry they are, trips out and about, me all dressed up and coming along to the do’s at school.

  ‘They don’t even know about Richie. He’s my bloke – and he doesn’t know about them. Proper Jekyll and Hyde, me, ain’t I? Richie’s not the sort I want round my kids. He’s a love really, deep down, only he’s got a temper and he’s not the family sort. I just like to have a man about – for me and for the house, just in case, you know. I don’t love him – nothing like that. I’m past all that. He’s my night life, if you like. Only – I dunno. Coming to Brum, seeing you all, I was frightened. I admit it. I didn’t want things brought together. Didn’t want to admit that the left hand doesn’t know what the right’s doing. Yes – you’re right, Linda. Sooner or later Clarkie and Viv are going to ask more questions . . . and honest to God, I don’t know how I’m going to answer them.’