‘I’ll have to go,’ James decided. ‘We can’t just leave her up in the north all by herself. Anything might happen to her. I’ll borrow a car and drive up there on Sunday. It’s a helluva haul, there and back in one day, but it can be done.’
Susan gave him a hug. ‘That’s really good of you, Jamie. Look, I’ll come with you, and I’m sure Bob will too. If we all go, she’s sure to listen to us.’
The last thing James wanted was Bob as a travelling companion, but he supposed that somebody from Lillian’s family ought to come, so he reluctantly agreed. Better Bob than Frank or Mr Parker, and he knew Wendy would never get out of bed early enough to go with them.
He got the loan of a small Austin for the day, in exchange for giving it a full service for free. He filled up the petrol tank and put three extra two-gallon cans in the boot. They smelt a bit, but he couldn’t risk running out of fuel on a Sunday evening with no petrol stations open. It was dark when they started out, a wet December day that never really appeared to get light, even at midday. The Al seemed to go on for ever, rolling under their wheels. Bob began to complain that it was a stupid idea and they should never have come, but was pacified when Susan produced neatly wrapped packages of cheese and pickle sandwiches and home-made Victoria sponge, together with a flask of tea. It was gone one o’clock by the time they got to Sheffield and the rain was bucketing down. After asking for directions at the police station, they finally found Lillian’s digs in a long terrace of identical houses climbing up a steep hill. Stiff, weary and irritated with each other, they climbed out of the car and knocked on the door.
A tall thin woman let them into her narrow hall. There was a smell of roast meat and gravy in the air that made all their stomachs grumble.
‘Lindy!’ the landlady called. ‘Visitors for you.’
A door opened along the passage and Lillian’s face appeared, pale and suspicious. When she saw who it was, she squealed with delight. ‘James! And Susan—and Bob! I don’t believe it! Is it really you?’
She ran down the hallway and flung herself at them, hugging each of them in turn. She turned to the landlady, pink with pleasure.
‘Oh, Mrs Frazer, this is my brother Bob and his fiancée Susan and her brother James. They’ve come all the way from Southend. You don’t mind if they come up to my room, do you?’
‘You’ve come from Southend today?’ the landlady asked.
‘We drove. It’s taken us well over six hours,’ Bob said, speaking for all of them.
Mrs Frazer insisted on giving them all tea and biscuits, then Lillian led them upstairs. Hers was a small dark room at the side of the house which appeared to have been made by dividing a larger room down the middle so that she only had half a window. It had faded wallpaper that must have been put on before the war, cracked lino on the floor and cheap Utility furniture. Lillian whipped a pair of damp stockings off the back of the only chair, and insisted that Susan had that while she and the men sat on the bed.
James shivered. He had been freezing in the car, despite wearing a winter coat and gloves, and this room wasn’t much warmer. He sipped thankfully at the strong tea while Lillian asked Bob for news of all her family and Bob told her what a furore she had caused. Already Lillian was beginning to look mutinous.
‘So this is where you’re staying,’ Susan interrupted, looking round with distaste.
James knew what she meant. Their flat might be cramped and shabby, but it was homely. This room was depressing.
‘Yes. It’s wonderful to have a room of my own at last. No more sharing a bed with beastly Wendy! It’s a real treat—’ Lillian broke off and looked at their serious faces. ‘You haven’t come to take me home, have you? Because I’m not going. You can say what you like, but I’m not going.’
Bob opened his mouth to speak, but Susan got in before him. Leaning across to pat Lillian’s knee, she said, ‘You know, dear, your mother is so worried about you. So are we all. We only have your best interests at heart.’
Lillian flared up. ‘Excuse me, Susan, but you don’t know what my best interests are! All I want is to be a dancer, and now I am. James knows that, don’t you, James?’
Her eyes sought his, large and pleading. James knew she was relying on him to side with her, to understand her. He was torn. He knew all about ambition, and he had always encouraged Lillian. But she was only sixteen and a very long way away from home.
They were all looking at him now.
‘The thing is, Lindy—’ he began.
Lillian’s eyes grew hot with disappointment. He could see that she felt betrayed. He, of all people, should have seen things her way.
‘—it’s like I said to you when you finished at the pier; you’re a bit young to be leaving home.’
‘I’m old enough to be married!’ Lillian retorted.
‘Married? You’re not here with a man, are you?’ Bob interrupted. ‘Because, if so, I want to meet him. I shall have a thing or two to say, I can tell you.’
‘That’s not what I meant!’ Lillian cried, exasperated. ‘I meant if I’m old enough to be married, I’m old enough to leave home. I’ve got these digs. Mrs Frazer’s very nice. She used to be a dancer, and she knows what it’s like. My friend Diane’s got the room next door and two of the courtiers have got the front room and it’s all very jolly—’
‘Courtiers?’ Susan asked.
‘Yes. At Sleeping Beauty’s court. We’re all theatricals here, you see.’
This was said with something between pride and defiance. James looked at her as she sat very upright on the bed, flushed and bristling. He had to admire her. Not many kids of her age would go to these lengths to achieve what they wanted in life.
‘Theatricals!’ Bob said with distaste.
‘It’s a good job. This is a big production. The comics were top of the bill at Blackpool in the summer, and the Wicked Fairy’s played in the West End. And it’s a good run, too. We’re opening on Boxing Day and going right through till halfway through February. So you can say what you like, Bob, but it’s not some little tinpot show. I got chosen out of more than thirty dancers to be one of twelve.’
James whistled. ‘Well done, Lindy.’
Bob and Susan both glared at him. He realised that he was letting the side down. But it was true; Lillian had done well. It was just her age, and her vulnerability. He had found going away for national service a shock to the system, and he had been eighteen. To be sure, it had made a man of him, as everyone had said it would. He was fitter and tougher mentally and physically, he had learnt how to get on with people and had seen different places and cultures. It had broadened his view of life beyond all measure. But was being in a pantomime in Sheffield going to do the same for Lillian? There she was, fresh-faced and leggy and innocent. She knew nothing of what the world might throw at her. She had to be rescued.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘you’ve proved you can do it. You know you’re good enough to be a professional dancer. You’ve got all your life ahead of you, Lindy. A year or two’s waiting won’t hurt. Come back with us now and take it up again later, when you’ve grown up a bit—’
‘No!’
Lillian jumped up. She was shaking and her breath was coming in big gulps.
‘If I back out now, I’ll get a reputation for being unreliable, then nobody will take me on. I’ll be finished before I’ve hardly started. I can’t do that. Can’t you see, James? I thought you’d understand. They don’t—’ she gestured contemptuously at Bob and Susan ‘—they can’t see anything more than mortgages and saucepans and curtains. But you—I thought you knew what it was like, having a dream. This is my dream and I’m going to follow it, just like Aunty Eileen said, and nothing any of you can say is going to stop me!’
Tears ran down her face and she brushed them away angrily as she glared at all three of them.
Bob stood up to face her, partly blocking James’s view. ‘This has gone far enough,’ he stated. ‘Now, you listen to me, Lillian. We’ve come all this way today t
o take you home with us, and that’s what we’re going to do, whether you like it or not.’
He reached out to take hold of her arm. Lillian screamed, ‘No! No!’ and slapped him hard across the face. Bob yelped and Susan gasped and, before any of them knew what was happening, she was out of the door and running downstairs, her feet pounding on the lino-covered steps.
‘Lindy!’ James pushed between his sister and her fiancé, who seemed to be rooted to the spot, and charged after Lillian. Bedroom doors flew open as he passed and curious faces watched the show.
‘Lindy, stop, please!’
He ran behind her along the downstairs passage, through a breakfast room and a kitchen where the dishes from Sunday lunch were still stacked in the sink. He almost reached her as she wrenched open the back door, but then she whipped through it and slammed it in his face. James followed her outside. He found himself in a small dark yard with the rain slanting down in stair rods. Where had she gone?
‘Lindy?’ he called. ‘Lindy, where are you?’
There was no reply. Surely she hadn’t run off through the back gate? Not on a day like this with only her indoor clothes on. Already the rain was soaking his head and shoulders. Then he saw a small building in the far corner. Of course. The khazi. He ran across the yard and tapped at the door.
‘Lindy? You in there?’
From inside came a stifled sobbing.
‘Lindy, please—’
‘Go away and leave me alone!’
He had to do something drastic before Bob and Susan found them. He lowered his voice. ‘For my sake, Lindy.’
There was a long pause. The rain beat down upon the slate roof of the privy. James tried in vain to find shelter. He was getting soaked to the skin.
‘Lindy?’
Finally a small voice came from within. ‘Are you still going out with Wendy?’
James closed his eyes and sighed. He couldn’t lie to her. It wouldn’t be right. ‘Yes,’ he admitted.
‘Then I’m staying here.’
At that point there was a clattering at the back door of the house and Bob and Susan could be heard. Then Bob loomed beside him, grumbling at the weather.
‘She in there?’
James almost denied it, but there didn’t seem to be any point in that. If he said Lillian had run off, then they would simply wait for her to come back. Nobody could stay out in weather like this.
Bob thumped on the door. ‘Come out, Lillian! Come out at once, I say!’
‘Go away!’ Lillian screamed. ‘Just go away and leave me alone! I hate you! I hate you all!’
It was Bob who gave in. After five minutes of fruitless orders, he issued an ultimatum. ‘I’m going back indoors, Lillian. If you are not out of there within five minutes, then we are going home without you, and you can take the consequences.’
They waited five minutes, then ten, then fifteen, while Mrs Frazer complained about the noise and the mess all over her clean floor. Lillian did not appear. Bob was in high dudgeon, calling his sister stubborn and wicked and irresponsible. Susan was trying to calm him down while not crossing him. James felt sick at heart. They had now made everything ten times worse. He knew Lillian. She would stick to her purpose. Maybe she would never speak to any of them again.
‘Right,’ Bob said, ‘that’s it. We’re going. On her own head be it.’
James couldn’t leave it at that. He borrowed a piece of paper and a pencil from Mrs Frazer and wrote a quick note to Lillian.
Dear Lindy,
Please try not to be too angry. We did it because we care about you.
The best of luck with everything. I hope your dream is everything you wanted, but if you do have any problems, please, please get in touch.
Yours,
James.
He ran upstairs to leave it on her chest of drawers. After that, there was nothing to do but to face the long weary journey home again, dogged by the knowledge of failure.
Chapter Fifteen
JAMES was due to see Wendy again on Tuesday. He hurried home from Dobson’s and put off the servicing of the Austin that had taken them all to Sheffield and back in order to give himself enough time to get ready. Cleaning up after a day’s messing around with the insides of cars took some time, since he took pride in looking as sleek and polished as any of the rich boys she had been out with.
When he got to the Parkers’, Wendy, as usual, was not ready for him. He took a seat at the kitchen table. From the front room came the sound of the television that Gran had recently bought. Despite the lure of entertainment in her room, still the rest of the family sat in the uncomfortable kitchen.
‘I went to that new serve-yourself shop today,’ Mrs Parker announced.
James looked at her in surprise. He couldn’t remember her ever having started a subject of conversation before.
‘How does that work, then? Sounds daft to me,’ Mr Parker said.
‘You pick up this wire basket thingy at the door and you go round and there’s all open shelves and you just pick what you want off them and put it in the basket. It was ever so strange. I felt like I was stealing.’
‘There will be people stealing, won’t there? What’s to stop them putting stuff straight into their own bags?’ Mr Parker asked.
‘I dunno. Nothing, really. I mean, it would be quite easy—’
‘And where do you pay? You do have to pay?’
‘Oh, yes, you have to pay. You can’t get out without passing the tills. They take all the stuff out of your wire basket and ring it up and then you put it into your own bag.’
‘Don’t see the point of it,’ Mr Parker said, dismissing the whole idea.
‘It’s American, ain’t it?’ Frank said, without looking up from his motorcycle magazine. ‘Yanks of got all the best ideas. It’s quicker, see? Instead of waiting around for people to serve you with this and that, you just get it yourself.’
‘Sounds a very bad thing to me. It’ll do a lot of people out of jobs. The unions ought to get on to this.’
‘I don’t think I’ll go again,’ Mrs Parker said. ‘I didn’t like it. There’s no one to talk to except the girls at the tills. I think I’ll just stick to the Co-op.’
‘It won’t last, you mark my words. Stupid American idea.’
‘I think it’s good,’ Frank said.
James tapped his fingers impatiently on the table top. He really couldn’t care less about shops.
‘Have you heard from Lillian?’ he interrupted.
‘Not a word,’ her father said. ‘Flighty little madam. Don’t know what side her bread’s buttered, that’s what.’
‘Have you written to her?’ James persisted.
Frank shrugged. Mr and Mrs Parker looked amazed that he had asked the question.
‘No need, is there? ’S obvious she don’t give a monkey’s about her family.’
It was obvious to James that her family didn’t care very much for her, either. Poor Lillian.
At that point he heard Wendy’s high heels tip-tapping down the stairs and sat up straight, ready to stand when she came in. As always, she was worth waiting for. She was wearing an electric blue satin dance dress with a tight bodice, scoop neck and wide skirt that rustled as she moved. Long white gloves, a little envelope handbag and a sparkly necklace completed the outfit. She looked a million dollars, and he was the lucky man to be taking her out.
The one downside was that she didn’t appear to be pleased to see him.
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘You’re here. Come here a minute.’
She took hold of his arm. Over her shoulder, James could see Frank grinning at them in a particularly unpleasant way. He followed her into the chilly PG’s breakfast room, a faint but definite feeling of doom gathering in his guts. As soon as she had shut the door behind them, Wendy turned to face him.
‘I got something to tell you,’ she announced.
He knew what it was before she said it.
‘You can’t come out with me tonight,’ he guessed, h
oping against hope that this was all.
Wendy looked almost put out that he had pre-empted her. ‘Right. Well, it’s more than that. I don’t want to go out with you at all. Ever.’
James could feel himself dropping into the great black chasm that was the future without Wendy in it. For several long moments he just stared at her, stunned, as if she might change her mind.
‘Well, that’s it, then,’ she said, turning to go.
‘No—’ The word was wrenched out of him. Wendy paused and looked at him, but nothing sensible seemed to form in his head. Finally, he managed to say, ‘Why?’
Wendy shrugged. ‘Terry found out. He don’t like sharing me with anyone else.’
‘Terry? Terry Dempsey? I thought you said you weren’t going out with him any more.’
She definitely had said that. He remembered it clearly.
‘Well, now I am again, all right?’
‘No, it’s not all right,’ he burst out. ‘He’s a cheap crook, Wendy. You’re much too good for him.’
The future without Wendy in it was bad enough. The future with Wendy in it but going around with that man was a hundred times worse. It made him feel sick to the stomach.
Wendy drew herself up and faced him, her big blue eyes glittering.
‘He’s not a crook. That’s just a filthy lie. He’s a very successful businessman. He’s got more money than you’ll ever see in your life.’
With those words, something of the shine came off. There she was, as lush and desirable as ever. He still loved her and wanted her, but now, reluctantly, he could see the flaws beneath the beguiling surface.
‘And money’s what matters, is it?’ he asked.
In his heart he had known it all along. He had simply closed his eyes to any imperfections.
‘Of course,’ Wendy said, as if he were an idiot. ‘You don’t think I want to live in a dump like this all my life, do you?’
‘So you’ll sell your soul to the likes of Terry Dempsey?’
Wendy’s beautiful mouth took on an unattractive pout. ‘I haven’t got time for all this. I’m going out.’
Follow Your Dream Page 16
