Dream On

by Gilda O'Neill

  Susan, who was now twenty months old, had also grown impatient with waiting. She liked to toddle around on the floor and play, but Dilys, not wanting to be bothered with keeping an eye on her, had had different ideas and had strapped her firmly into the big carriage-built pram that Sid and Micky had bought for her when she’d been born. With nothing more to amuse her than a crust of bread and the fringing round the hood, Susan had dropped off to sleep.

  Before finally giving up and closing her eyes, she had made a feeble attempt at whining for attention, but, young as she was, Susan had already learned that it wasn’t easy to get a reaction from her mummy. Her nanny and Auntie Ginny were a very different matter, they were always ready to pick her up, to talk to her and play with her, but they weren’t here. So sleep had been her refuge.

  It might have been better if Dilys had also had a nap, maybe then she wouldn’t have been in such a foul temper. As it was, she was fuming. She was so angry that she was actually about to get off her backside and do something for herself for once. She was going to go indoors and fetch her coat, and start walking round to the Roman Road to see if she could find Pearl. But she hadn’t even stood up, when her salvation appeared on the corner of the street – Ginny Martin, striding along on her way home from work, a bag of shopping swinging from each hand.

  Dilys leapt to her feet and waved frantically; she would have shouted but she didn’t want to wake Susan. Not that Dilys was worried about her daughter’s rest being disturbed, it was just easier when she wasn’t wanting attention all the time. That could wait until someone else was looking after her.

  Within a matter of minutes Dilys was indoors washing and primping herself, and Ginny, delighted that her friend was going out for a few hours with her new mystery boyfriend again – the GI was still sending money over from America apparently, but that didn’t stop Dilys from needing company – was only too pleased to keep an eye on Susan for her.

  Ginny had popped over home first to let her mother-in-law know she was back from work and to give her the ham she had had freshly sliced off the bone for her tea. Nellie hadn’t been very impressed by the idea that she was expected to boil herself a few potatoes and wash her own lettuce, and had gone on and on about her daughter-in-law’s terrible behaviour. Ginny, as she usually did now, just ignored her and got on with putting away the rest of the shopping.

  Being bold enough to deal firmly with Nellie wasn’t the only thing about Ginny that had changed; since Susan had been born, her life had been turned around. She now felt content, complete almost, in a way she would never have imagined possible. Susan was, after all, the child of a friend, not even related to her, but the fact that Dilys was Susan’s mother didn’t seem to matter somehow. Ginny and Pearl spent far more time with the child than Dilys ever did and it seemed to suit them all.

  Ginny smiled to herself at the thought of the happy hours and some of the unforgettable moments that she had spent with Pearl and Susan: the day the little one’s first tooth had finally come through after miserable days of fretting; the first excited steps she had taken when she had tottered across the kitchen to be scooped up in her proud grandmother’s outstretched arms; the wonderful feeling Ginny experienced as Susan relaxed into sleep in her arms, as she and Pearl shared a pot of tea and an afternoon’s easygoing chatter about whatever came into their heads.

  It was as though Ginny, who had had so much taken away from her, was being given a second chance to be part of a proper family once more. Sid and Micky often teased her, as they rushed in after work to get ready to go out with their latest girlfriends, that she spent more time in number 11 than they did and they were probably right.

  Ginny almost couldn’t have been happier. She no longer hungered for the crumbs of affection that Ted might let fall from his table to nourish her. She had no need of such condescension. Even the fact that he had been missing again was almost of no consequence. Maybe he was still up to his old tricks. But so what? She now had Susan to fill her time and her thoughts; a little girl she loved and who Ginny knew loved her in return.

  While Dilys was indoors getting ready, Ginny sat outside the house in the fading evening light, with Susan no longer in her pram but settled comfortably on her lap, watching the children from Bailey Street and their mates from the surrounding neighbourhood playing at being in the Olympics. With all the wireless and newspaper coverage about the run-up to the great event that was to happen in August when the games were coming to London, ‘playing Olympics’ was all that most of the kids in the East End had been interested in for weeks.

  Ginny smiled and nodded at the enthusiastic sprinters, jumpers and relay racers as they tore up and down the road. They were without the skills or the equipment of their adult idols, it had to be said, as most were dressed in ill-fitting home knits and patched and darned hand-me-downs, but they had as much passion as any internationally renowned athlete. Ginny would usually have cheered them on, willing them on towards the winning tape – a rough chalk line sketched between the pub and the bomb-site – but this evening she restricted her support to silent nods and encouraging smiles, as Susan was still fast asleep.

  But the little girl’s peaceful slumbers were rudely shattered as a great holler of incensed protest went up from the far end of the turning.

  The older boys, using all kinds of ingenious items ‘borrowed’ from backyards and kitchens, had just added the triumphant finishing touches to a makeshift hurdle track, when Sid had come charging round the corner from Grove Road as if he were being chased by Old Nick himself, scattering supports, and cross bars flying in all directions.

  ‘Oi you! You’ve spoilt our game, you rotten bleeder!’ was one of the more polite hollers from the chorus that echoed after Sid as he skidded through the wreckage of their course.

  Susan opened her eyes with a start and let out a whimper of fright at all the noise.

  Sid seemed not to hear or even notice the protesters as he continued his wild flight along the street, crashing towards Ginny and Susan like an out-of-control steam engine.

  Ginny stood up, hugging Susan to her shoulder, ready to give Sid a piece of her mind, but he didn’t even slow down; he just ran straight past her and into the house, nearly knocking her off her feet, and Susan with her.

  Clinging to the banister rail, trying to get his breath back, Sid shouted up the stairs, ‘Dilys. I know you’re up there. Where’s Dad? I’ve gotta find Dad.’

  ‘Shut your mouth, you,’ Dilys yelled back at him from upstairs. ‘You’ll wake the bloody baby.’

  Ginny was now right behind Sid. She stood on tiptoe and shouted in his ear. ‘She’s already awake, Dil. No thanks to this big lump. Half frightened her out of her little wits, he has.’

  Sid turned around, still panting, and reached out to ruffle his little niece’s shiny dark hair. ‘Sorry, sweetheart,’ he breathed. ‘Uncle Sid didn’t mean to scare you.’

  Ginny frowned disapprovingly and held Susan closer. ‘I dunno what’s got into you, Sid. First you go upsetting all them kids out there, and now—’

  ‘Look, Gin, do us a favour, just tell me where me dad is.’

  ‘No good asking me,’ she said primly. ‘He wasn’t about when I got in from work and that must have been a good half-hour ago.’

  Sid bowed his head. ‘I’ve gotta find him, Gin. I dunno what to do.’

  Ginny set Susan down on the floor. ‘Go and see if your dolly’s in the kitchen, babe,’ she said gently, guiding the serious-faced toddler in the right direction, then she straightened up and turned back to Sid. ‘Are you in trouble, Sid Chivers?’

  He didn’t reply, he just kept staring down at the floor.

  ‘Dilys,’ Ginny called up to her. ‘Come down here. Just for a minute.’

  ‘Leave off, Ginny. Can’t you see I’m getting ready?’ Dilys appeared on the landing at the top of the stairs, waving her mascara brush in the air by way of proof. She was just about to step back into her room, when Sid called after her to stop.

  ‘Y
ou’d better come down, Dil,’ he said flatly. ‘It’s Mum, she’s been knocked down by a trolleybus in Grove Road.’

  Dilys was down the stairs in a flash. ‘Where is she?’

  ‘They took her away in an ambulance.’

  ‘They what?’ Dilys rolled her eyes in enraged disbelief. ‘If she’s in the hospital, then who’s gonna sit with the baby?’

  She shoved her brother to one side so that she could see Ginny. ‘You ain’t gotta go home just yet, have you, Gin?’ she wheedled.

  Before Ginny could answer, Sid grabbed Dilys by the shoulders. ‘You’d better sit down, Dil,’ he said, pushing her on to the stairs. ‘Mum ain’t in the hospital. She’s in the mortuary.’

  Ginny shook her head in disbelief and pulled Sid round so that he was facing her. ‘No. You’re wrong. She can’t be. It must be someone else. It must . . .’ Ginny suddenly felt unbearably cold; the blood drained from her face and, as if she were a rubber balloon being deflated, she crumpled slowly to the floor.

  ‘He wants to watch himself,’ snapped a miserable-looking old woman, as George Chivers accidently brushed her arm as he edged past her on the way back from the bar. ‘He might have just buried his wife, but that ain’t no excuse to go knocking people’s drinks out of their hands.’

  ‘You’re right there, Florrie,’ agreed Nellie, who was standing with her. ‘Ignorant as shit, some people.’

  If George heard the women’s complaints he certainly didn’t show it. He kept his eyes lowered and his head down as he made his way back to the table in the corner of the Prince Albert, the base from which he had plied backwards and forwards to and from the bar, gradually getting more and more drunk, but still feeling stone-cold sober.

  He had no need to fetch his own drinks, there were more than enough of the mourners – some genuine, some, like Nellie’s elderly companion Florrie Robins, only there for the free food and drink – who would have been more than willing to fetch them for him, but George hadn’t listened or said a word to anyone since the funeral cars had come to the house that morning.

  He plonked down onto the bench seat and knocked back the scotch he had in one hand, then downed half of the pint of bitter he had in the other in a single swallow.

  ‘George.’ Ginny, her eyes puffy and red-rimmed from weeping, touched his arm gently. ‘Can I get you a sandwich or something? You should eat just a little bit, you know.’

  George said nothing, he just stared unseeingly at the floor as though watching some distant episode playing in his head.

  Sid came up behind Ginny, tapped her on the shoulder and whispered quietly into her ear, asking her if she’d help him start getting people to make a move so that he could get his dad home before he drank himself into a stupor.

  Ginny nodded and went to find Ted, who had actually turned up for the funeral just as she had asked him.

  She found Ted at the other end of the pub. He was sitting next to Dilys. He had her child on his lap and was singing to her, a happy little nonsense ditty that he seemed to be making up as he went along. It was about a pretty canary bird called Susan, and he was smiling blissfully.

  Ginny stood there watching him, not caring that she was being buffeted about by the crowds of increasingly drink-enlivened mourners.

  As he continued with his song, Ted was so entranced by the beaming toddler that he was completely oblivious of Ginny’s presence.

  The tender intimacy she was witnessing felt like a knife in Ginny’s guts. Could this sensitive, affectionate man really be the same one who had refused even to discuss having a child? The same one who had kicked her in the stomach as she lay on the floor begging him to stop just because she’d mentioned it?

  ‘Ted.’ Ginny’s voice sounded strange even to her.

  Ted looked up, the enchanted smile still on his handsome face; an expression he hadn’t deigned to share with his wife in a very long time.

  The moment he realised who had spoken to him his smile melted away like snow on top of a chimney pot.

  ‘I didn’t realise you even knew Dilys had a baby,’ Ginny said quietly. ‘Let alone that you knew her name.’

  ‘Here, Dilys,’ he said wearily. ‘You take her.’

  Ginny flinched as she saw how he handled the little girl: not clumsily, but in an experienced, easy sort of way, as though he cherished the very bones of her.

  Ginny tried to stop herself even beginning to think it, but her thoughts were galloping ahead of reason. Ted and Dilys? Surely even Ted wouldn’t do that to her?

  He stood up. ‘You ain’t gonna start, are you, Ginny?’

  ‘No, Ted,’ she said, her voice flat. ‘I’m not starting. I’ve just come to tell you that Sid and Micky asked if we’d all start making a move. George is getting slaughtered and they wanna get him home.’

  ‘Shouldn’t a man expect to get pissed at his wife’s funeral?’ someone behind her asked.

  Ginny closed her eyes and groaned inwardly. It was George. She hadn’t realised he was standing there.

  She twisted round, ready to apologise, but George wouldn’t let her. He held up his hand and shook his head. ‘It’s all right, Gin, I ain’t blaming you,’ he slurred. ‘I heard what Sid said to you. But just leave me be, eh?’

  With that, he shoved his way back towards the throng at the bar, leaving her standing there, red-faced and more distraught than ever.

  She turned back to Ted.

  He stared levelly at her. ‘Me mother’s not got a drink,’ he said, sitting down next to Dilys again and taking Susan back on to his lap. ‘You’d better go and get her one. Go on.’

  Ginny said nothing. It wouldn’t be right starting anything, not on a day such as this. So, as she had so often done in the past, she just did as she was told.

  ‘All right, Nellie,’ Ginny said by way of impassive greeting, as she handed her mother-in-law a glass of port and lemon.

  ‘How about Florrie?’ Nellie barked. ‘How about one for her?’

  Ginny didn’t rise to Nellie’s nastiness. Not only did she not want to row in front of everyone, but she was too distracted by the image of Ted and little Susan to bother.

  ‘I’ll get her one, Nellie, and I tell you what, I’ll even fetch you a few rounds of sandwiches an’ all. That do you, will it?’

  ‘We don’t want nothing hard mind,’ Nellie called after her. ‘Florrie’s had all her teeth pulled out like me and she ain’t got used to her false ones yet neither.’

  Ginny was fed up with hearing about Nellie’s new National Health choppers. Yes, she had agreed, over and over again, it was a wonderful thing that such luxuries could be had by anybody now, and for free, but if she’d to express her amazement at the sight of the bloody things once more she’d grab them from the old trout’s mouth and dance up and down on them until they crumbled away like a stick of stale seaside rock.

  And not only was she sick of Nellie’s sodding teeth, if she or Flo said one more word about their made-to-measure Health Service glasses and how they beat the ones you bought lucky-dip style from the counter at Woolworths, Ginny would not be responsible for her actions.

  She could feel herself coming very close to the edge and Nellie was just the person who could push her over.

  Taking a deep breath, Ginny carried on towards the buffet table at the far end of the counter, keeping her chin in the air and her eyes fixed in front of her so that she didn’t have to look at Ted and Dilys who were still sitting together in the corner right opposite the food.

  With a weary sigh, Ginny began piling up a plate with anything and everything even vaguely soft-looking. Maybe if the old bats had their gobs full of food they’d give everyone a bit of peace for five minutes.

  Ginny was just about to carry her load back to Nellie and Flo when someone rammed into her back with such force that the loaded plate was sent flying from her hand. It sailed through the air like one of the lethal tin-lid discuses the mums had barred the kids from playing with in their Bailey Street Olympics and landed with a resounding cra
sh against the edge of the polished counter top, sending the sandwiches arcing across the bar in the direction of Martha, who had her head down pulling a pint of best.

  ‘What the bloody hell?’ yelped the landlady, as a slice of bread, butter-side first, landed with a slap on the side of her rouged and powdered cheek and slowly slipped down towards her bosom.

  Ginny spun around to confront the idiot who had pushed her, her mouth open ready to ask the clumsy so-and-so what exactly he thought he was up to. But when she saw George standing there, swaying alarmingly from side to side, she was more concerned than angry.

  He was jabbing his finger at Dilys and muttering furiously to himself, ‘It was her what killed you, Pearl. Her. The shame of it. Bringing trouble home like some little tart.’

  Dilys ignored him and carried on talking to Ted.

  ‘Come on, George,’ Ginny coaxed him, ‘it’s time we was all going home.’

  George twisted round and tried to focus on Ginny. ‘Pearl?’

  Ginny swallowed hard. ‘No, George, it’s me. Ginny. Ginny Martin.’

  ‘Ginny?’ George stared at her as though he was trying to make sure that it really wasn’t his wife.

  ‘Yeah, that’s right, George.’

  George’s lip trembled and his head lolled forward. ‘Well maybe you can tell me what Dilys is doing with your old man. Ain’t she in enough trouble with blokes?’

  Ginny closed her eyes and bit back the tears that were threatening to start again. ‘Come on, George,’ she said, doing her best to keep her voice under control, ‘let’s be off, eh?’

  ‘But look at her encouraging him,’ George persisted. ‘She’s letting him sniff around her like a bloody bitch on heat.’

  ‘Please, George.’ Ginny grabbed his arm. ‘Don’t. Don’t do this.’

  George lifted his chin. Looking at Ginny as though he were seeing her for the first time, he nodded meekly and let her lead him through the mass of mourners towards the door.

  Dilys watched their slow progress with unconcealed venom, sneering as people stopped him to pledge their promises of help and support.