Dream On

by Gilda O'Neill

  ‘We’ve been waiting quite a while for an opportunity to bump into you on our travels, Mr Martin,’ Charlie sneered. ‘And I mean waiting, ’cos let’s face it, we didn’t wanna waste our energy actually looking for someone as unimportant as you, when we knew we’d see you crawling out from under some rock sooner or later.’

  Still bent forward, and with his arms shielding his head, Ted whimpered pitifully, ‘I don’t understand. I ain’t done nothing.’

  ‘No?’ Charlie’s voice dripped with sarcasm. ‘I don’t suppose you have, a piece o’ crap like you. But think about it, you slippery little bastard. Something you done to a little lady?’

  ‘That kid’s nothing to do with me. I swear. Dilys is a fucking liar. You ask—’

  ‘Dilys? Who the hell’s Dilys?’ Charlie looked at his silent mate who just shrugged. Then he grabbed hold of Ted by the collar. ‘What, give a good hiding to more than one, have you?’

  Ted tried a conspiratorial laugh – a man dealing with his equals. ‘You chaps know how it is. You have to shut their gobs for ’em sometimes, or they start taking liberties.’

  When they didn’t join in with his laughter, Ted shut up.

  ‘Lilly ring any bells?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘Lilly? I ain’t seen her for months.’

  ‘Five months, actually. It was July if you recall.’

  Ted shrugged. ‘You don’t expect me to keep tabs on all the old sorts I knock about with, do you?’

  ‘Knock about? You said it, moosh. But she weren’t yours to knock about, now was she?’

  Two hours later Ted came to. He was lying in a puddle of filthy, icy cold water, on a bomb-site off the Ratcliffe Highway near St Katherine’s dock, in the shadow of Tower Bridge. But with his eyes puffed up to slits from the beating he had taken, he had no idea where he was. And, with the pains in his head befuddling his thinking, he had only vague memories of how he had got there.

  What he did know, as he dragged himself towards the road, was that he vowed, if it was the last thing he did, he would get his own back on Lilly, the filthy little whore who had grassed him. He’d make her suffer until she begged him to finish her off.

  When he eventually got back to Bailey Street it was nearly five o’clock in the morning and still pouring with rain.

  It took all his effort to bang on the street door.

  Ginny was down the stairs in a matter of moments. She hardly ever slept well when Ted was away. Not that she worried about what might be happening to him any more – she was past all that. She now worried about herself, about what he might do to her if he did decide to come home in the early hours.

  But when she opened the street door, instead of finding Ted loud-mouthed, roaring with drink and ready to pick a fight as she had expected, he was soaking wet, bleeding and, by the look of him, totally exhausted.

  Automatically, she reached out to steady him as he fell into the pssage. ‘Ted, whatever’s happened?’

  He lifted his head and glared at her through cut and swollen eyelids. ‘What d’you think’s happened, you brainless mare? I’ve been to a ball and tripped over me partner’s dance frock.’

  Ginny stiffened. She never knew how to handle Ted at the best of times, but when he was already in a temper he was capable of anything. But despite her resolve to look out for herself she couldn’t just abandon him, not in the state he was in.

  ‘What can I do?’ she asked quietly as he staggered towards the kitchen.

  ‘Get me a drink, and a basin of hot water and a flannel to clean myself up. And then you can piss off out of it and leave me alone.’

  Ginny went over to the corner cupboard and took out what was left of Nellie’s scotch and a glass, which she wiped with the tea-towel before filling it. She wasn’t taking any chances, something as inconsequential as a smeared glass had, in the past, been enough to get her a cracked rib.

  As she took the drink over to Ted, her hand shaking, Ginny’s imagination was working overtime. Thoughts and fears spun and twisted around in her mind. For Ted to have had such a beating he must have really upset someone. The man the coppers had warned her about that time maybe, the man who had it in for him. Or someone’s husband.

  She put the drink down carefully in front of him, went over to the sink and filled the kettle. Her heart was pounding. All she wanted to do was go back to bed, pull the covers up over her head and pray that Nellie had left enough whisky to knock Ted into oblivion before he too made it upstairs. But she wasn’t banking on it. She was a woman with few illusions left and knew that things didn’t work out that easily. Well, not for her they didn’t.

  As she searched under the sink for the disinfectant to clean Ted’s wounds, Ginny was startled by a frenzied banging on the street door. She straightened up and flicked a quick look at the clock on the dresser. Ten past five. It was either the police, or – God forbid – whoever it was who had jumped Ted had decided to come round and finish the job properly.

  ‘What shall I do?’ she breathed, as the banging grew more insistent.

  ‘Get rid of ’em,’ spat Ted, stumbling to his feet and lurching towards the back door.

  Ginny ran out into the hall, pulling her dressing-gown around her.

  Upstairs, Nellie was yelling, ‘What’s all that noise down there?’

  Ginny closed her eyes. Nellie starting; that was all she needed. ‘It’s all right, Nell,’ she called up to her. ‘I’m getting it. You go back to sleep.’

  ‘Some bloody chance I’ve got of that.’

  Ginny closed her ears to the rest of her mother-in-law’s ranting, took a deep breath, swallowed hard and grasped the door handle with both hands.

  When she saw who was outside she could have kissed them with relief.

  Standing there in the gloom of the early morning – without coats, hats or even shirts, and with the freezing rain soaking through their vests – looking for some inexplicable reason as though they were about to pass out, were Sid and Micky, Dilys’s two younger, but now enormous brothers.

  ‘Thank Gawd you’ve woke up,’ gasped Sid, grabbing her by the arm. ‘You’ve gotta come over and help Mum, Gin. Please. Dad’s gone for the doctor, but I think he’s gonna be too late.’

  All thoughts of Ted shivering and bleeding out in the lavvy in the backyard were immediately forgotten. Pearl needed her.

  Pulling away from Sid’s huge paw was impossible, but Ginny managed to stretch back just far enough to grab her coat off the end of the banister.

  ‘How long’s Pearl been ill?’ she asked, throwing the coat over her head to protect her from the rain.

  ‘It ain’t Mum,’ Micky quavered. ‘It’s our Dilys. She’s only having the baby, ain’t she.’

  Ginny rushed through the Chivers’ open door and took the stairs two at a time up to Dilys’s back bedroom where the panic-stricken brothers had directed her.

  They needn’t have bothered, the sounds of Dilys screaming and hollering were signal enough for even the dimmest of wits to follow.

  The brothers themselves were more than happy to have been relegated by Ginny to the kitchen to boil water – she wasn’t sure they needed any, but at least it would keep them busy and away from under her and Pearl’s feet.

  Ginny paused on the landing. If the truth were known, she was just as scared as the boys were. This was the moment she had been dreading: Dilys having her baby. For no matter how well Ginny had managed during her waking hours to shake off any jealous or resentful thoughts about Dilys, her dreams were a different matter. Those she couldn’t control. Over and over again, they came to taunt her, always the same: spiteful visions of cradling her new-born baby in her arms. Sometimes it was blonde like her, other times it was dark like Ted. But whatever it looked like, it was her baby. Hers. The images were so real that in her first waking moments she would be puzzled at not seeing her baby’s crib at the end of the bed. Then she would remember, and she would weep at the unfairness of it all.

  She was the one who was married – even if it
was to Ted Martin – and she was the one who should be having a baby. Not Dilys. And seeing Dilys, as she bloomed with approaching motherhood, had been a daily torment for Ginny. If she hadn’t gone to Jeannie Thompson’s, she would be almost eight months gone by now. Ironically, almost the same as Dilys.

  Almost eight months?

  Ginny frowned. It hadn’t occurred to her until now that there might be a problem. Babies, or rather, healthy babies, weren’t meant to come into the world so soon.

  Warily, she pushed open the bedroom door and focused on the scene inside.

  Lit by the stark glare of the overhead light, rather than the soft glow of the bedside lamp, Dilys’s bedroom was no longer the cheerful place where she and Ginny had spent so much of their girlhood gossiping and giggling, practising dance steps and trying on each other’s clothes and make-up. It had been transformed into an unfamiliar place, with the smell of fear hanging thick in the air.

  Pearl was kneeling down next to the bed with her back to the door, wiping Dilys’s forehead with a flannel.

  Dilys looked terrible. Her thick dark hair, usually her pride and joy, was plastered to her head with sweat, despite the freezing damp of the early morning, and her face was deathly pale and contorted as she thrashed about, tangling the bedclothes around her legs.

  Ginny knew that Dilys had never been much of a heroine – George had always joked that whenever his daughter had said she was unwell, he never knew whether to call the doctor or a drama critic – but this time it was obvious that Dilys wasn’t crying wolf. She was really suffering; the anguish on her face was, for once, genuine.

  Pearl, whispering reassurances to her daughter, pulled herself up off her knees, did her best to straighten the sheets and turned round. She let out a little gasp of surprise to see Ginny standing there in the doorway.

  ‘Hello, love,’ she said, fixing an encouraging smile to her lips and doing her best to block Dilys from Ginny’s view. ‘What you doing over here?’

  ‘The boys asked me to come and help,’ Ginny managed to mutter.

  Pearl felt like going downstairs and braining her pair of lummocking great blockheads of sons. As if she didn’t have enough on her plate seeing to Dilys. How was she meant to cope with Ginny as well? The poor little thing hadn’t got over her own trouble yet. Still, she sighed to herself, they weren’t to know. Fellers didn’t know much at the best of times, let alone at a time like this.

  She put her arm round Ginny’s shoulder and said gently, ‘You sure you wanna stay, love? I’ll understand if you’d rather go home.’

  Ginny hesitated, then nodded. ‘I’d like to stay if it’s all right.’

  ‘Course it is. Now you roll up those sleeves and give your hands a good scrub in that basin; then you can mop her forehead to cool her down, while I have a look at the business end of things.’

  ‘Mum!’ Dilys screamed.

  ‘And I think I’d better be quick about it.’

  As Pearl pulled back the covers she saw the look on Ginny’s face. It was obvious that Dilys wasn’t the only one in pain.

  Pearl did her best to sound calm as she encouraged her alternately furious and then terrified daughter to push and to breathe through the final stages of her labour, but she too felt like screaming – at the complete, bloody injustice of it all. What was wrong with the world when . . .

  All thoughts of unfairness were forgotten. ‘Here we go!’ Pearl urged her daughter. ‘One last time, darling!’

  Dilys grunted and heaved and yelled like a banshee, as she made her final effort, clasping Ginny’s hand as though she were the last lifebelt on a sinking ship. ‘I ain’t never, ever,’ she hollered, ‘going near no bloke, not ever again.’

  A few moments later Pearl straightened up and stared at her daughter. ‘Dilys,’ she breathed. ‘You’ve done it.’

  Ginny backed away from the bed, dropped down on to the dressing-table stool and covered her face with her hands.

  For a baby born so early, Dilys’s little girl was surprisingly lusty.

  ‘Hello, darling,’ cooed Pearl as she held the bawling infant in her arms. ‘Today’s your birthday, my sweetheart. November the twentieth, 1946. The most special day in my life.’ She kissed the warm, down-covered head. ‘You go to your mum, while me and your Auntie Ginny here clear up a bit.’

  She bent forward to hand Dilys her child, but Dilys shook her head pathetically. ‘I can’t,’ she wailed. ‘I’m so tired and I can’t stand all that noise.’

  ‘You’ll have to soon,’ Pearl warned her. ‘She’ll need to go to your breast, love.’

  Dilys shuddered with horror. ‘You’re having a laugh, ain’t you? She can have a bottle and like it.’

  Pearl turned her head away from her daughter so that she wouldn’t see the look of disappointment that had clouded her face. ‘Good job I got some in then, eh?’ she said, her voice light and comforting.

  ‘Can I hold her?’ Ginny whispered. ‘If you don’t mind.’

  Pearl nodded. ‘Course you can.’

  As she placed the little bundle into Ginny’s arms, Pearl saw the tears brimming in her eyes and felt fit to weep along with her. It wasn’t the right thing for a mother even to think, Pearl knew that, but it would have been clear to anyone that her daughter wasn’t exactly the type to take to all this, whereas Ginny looked like a natural.

  Pearl watched her, stroking the baby’s face with her fingertip and smiling so lovingly as its crying gradually eased, and wondered again why things hadn’t turned out differently, why it hadn’t been Ginny’s child she had just delivered.

  Pearl could only imagine what the poor kid was going through as she rocked and whispered to the baby. The thought of what that bastard had done to her, what he’d driven her to, made Pearl’s usually generous heart turn to ice as far as Ted Martin was concerned. He was the one man she would gladly have seen disappear from the earth – and preferably in as unpleasant a way as possible . . .

  ‘Mum!’ Dilys wailed. ‘Do something. I feel terrible.’

  ‘You’ll be all right soon, love,’ Pearl said cheerfully. ‘At least me and Ginny delivering the little mite saved us the six quid we’d have had to have paid the doctor.’

  Pearl puffed as she bent down to parcel up the newspaper and the soiled draw sheet that she had taken off the bed. ‘I’ve had it put by in the dressing-table for weeks now,’ she explained. ‘Been saving a few shillings every week, I have. From the very first day you told us you was expecting. So, I tell you what, I’ll give it to you to spend on yourself. When you’re up and about you can treat yourself to something nice to wear.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ll ever be able to fit in nothing nice again neither.’

  ‘You’ll feel better once you’ve had a nice cup o’ tea. I’ll just sort this out first.’

  ‘Shall I go down and make it, Pearl?’ Ginny asked.

  ‘If you don’t mind, darling. Then I can get this finished up here.’ Pearl wiped her hands down her apron and reached out for the baby. ‘Let me take this little angel off you and I’ll get her settled down next to Dilys.’

  Just as Ginny was about to open the bedroom door, she pulled back in alarm at the sound of someone crashing up the stairs and coming to a skidding halt outside on the landing mat.

  ‘Pearl?’ It was George on the other side of the door; he sounded frantic. ‘I found the doctor for you. But he’s gonna be at least another hour. What shall I do?’

  ‘Why don’t you come in for a start?’ Pearl answered him.

  ‘You sure?’ he asked warily.

  ‘Course I am, love. All the worst is over now.’

  Dilys was about to say speak for yourself, but the look on her dad’s face as he stepped gingerly into the room and had his first glimpse of his grandchild was enough to silence even her mean mouth.

  George, a great lumbering docker who had spent all his working life heaving weights up to shoulder height that most men would barely have been able to lift, tiptoed over to his wife and grandchi
ld with the lightness of a gossamer-shod ballerina.

  Tears streamed down his weather-beaten cheeks as he looked down at the tiny infant in his wife’s arms.

  ‘Here’s your granddaughter, George. Here’s Susan Elizabeth.’

  The expression of love, pride and wonder on her mum’s and dad’s faces – never mind the sheep’s eyes on Ginny – cheered up Dilys considerably. It wasn’t her own maternal love and pride that was being uplifted, it was the fact that she now knew she had no worries whatsoever about being thrown out and no problems at all with having someone to mind the baby.

  With a bit of luck she’d be back to normal and out on the town again with Ted before anyone even realised it, or, from the soppy look on their faces, before they even cared.

  Dilys had great hopes for Susan Elizabeth: she was going to be a very useful claim on Ted Martin and a very convenient distraction.

  Chapter 8

  July 1948

  IT HAD BEEN a glorious summer’s day and Dilys had been sitting on a kitchen chair outside number 11 all afternoon, waiting for Pearl to come back from the Roman Road. It was now getting on for six o’clock and her mum was still not back from the market. She’d told Dilys that she was only going for a few veg and a bit of fruit and maybe to pick up something pretty for the little one, and yet she’d been gone for hours – since just before dinner-time, now she came to think about it.

  Dilys was not very happy, in fact she was becoming really agitated. If her mum didn’t get back soon, she wouldn’t be able to get away; Ted would be left waiting for her by Mile End station, then he’d think she wasn’t coming and clear off without her. Her whole evening would be ruined.

  Dilys folded her arms and tutted indignantly to herself. It just wasn’t good enough. Where the hell was she? It wouldn’t have been so bad if her dad had been around to give her a hand with Susan, but he was off with his mates as usual. That’s all he seemed to be interested in now he’d retired: hanging around talking to the other old boys about flipping football, and pigeons, and greyhounds. Everyone was so flaming selfish; it really got on Dilys’s nerves.