Jubilee (Book 1 of The Poppy Chronicles)

by Claire Rayner

  Her daydream grew, spread its wings and soared; now she had not only the employment in the pretty flower shop and the lovely little flat to go home to each night to dream of, but also friends. Faceless but delightful, they fluttered around her head, laughing and chattering and making much of her as they visited her in her flat, or went with her to tea shops and theatres and –

  And then her fantasy shivered and died in a shower of falling sparks, for the only person she could manage to see beside her in a theatre was Kid Harris. It was as though her fantasies were no longer her own; it seemed he had calmly walked into her head and taken over, and whenever she tried, as she went striding through the park, to see herself in her shop with her flowers, there he was, watching her. When she tried to see herself in her little flat, once again he sat himself down on the facing chair and stared at her. However much she struggled to rid herself of him, it was impossible. It was as though he had engraved himself on her mind and was never going to leave her. Ever.

  There were times when she was afraid her control would burst; that she would start to shout and scream at her images, and then another set of fantasies would fill her head. She was going mad, quite mad, and she watched in horror as stiff starched nurses came and held her down as she shrieked and wept and roared her rage at Kid Harris for invading her imagination so cruelly, and saw herself carried off to some mysterious shadowy place labelled ‘asylum’ – and then she would find herself standing stock still in the middle of the path that led through to the Long Water, her eyes wide and tears streaking her cold cheeks. It was indeed a dreadful time.

  The weather changed again, became softer and gentler, and the green spikes that had peered uneasily above the black soil of the park flower beds took courage and shot up, dragging their flower buds with them, and she stood sometimes and stared at the crocuses and snowdrops that carpeted patches of grass beneath the trees and watched the still unopened daffodil buds nodding at her and thought that possibly, just possibly, one day soon, she might feel better, that perhaps things would go back to being what they had been, before the events of the winter. A dull life, but at least not a miserable one, was all she wanted; and the crocuses and snowdrops seemed to mock her a little, telling her she still had to wait – and inside her head, deep inside, the wriggling ideas curled and beckoned. To have a place of her own, and a job that would pay for it –

  It was in the first week of March that the first message came. Freddy came to the drawing room where she was sitting after luncheon to tell her that ‘the messenger from Father Jay’s is below and wishes to speak to you.’

  She stared at him blankly.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The messenger from Father Jay’s,’ Freddy repeated woodenly, staring at a point somewhere three inches above her head.

  ‘Father – oh! Yes,’ and she bit her lip. She had almost forgotten that convenient lie that she had used to get herself out of the house during her wild days; Father Jay, the man who ran the boxing club at his Mission in Spitalfields. Suddenly she could see the boy Ruby sitting at Mama’s sitting room table and gobbling cake and milk and looking at her with those impudent eyes of his and she took a sharp little breath in through her nose and said, ‘Tell him I have nothing for him today. I am sorry. See if there are some food scraps in the kitchen, and send him away.’

  Freddy departed and came back a few minutes later, more wooden than ever in expression.

  ‘He says he has an important message to give to you directly, Miss.’

  ‘Does he, indeed?’ She tightened her lips. Ruby indeed it had to be, for only he could be so cheekily persistent, and she would not see him. She knew precisely what his message was and wanted no part of it. ‘Then tell him he must take his message away undelivered. I am too busy. The – ah – Mission demanded too much of me. I still feel the need of rest. I – er – I may be beguiled into doing more work again if I speak with this messenger, so it is better I do not. Tell him that.’

  Somewhat to her surprise, Freddy had not returned, obviously having successfully sent Ruby about his business, and she had for a little while felt some pleasure at contemplating how downcast Ruby would be. He prided himself not a little on always completing his tasks, and this time he had failed.

  But he wasn’t so easily defeated, for he returned the next day and the next and the one after that until Freddy began to look as though he would explode with passivity whenever he came to tell her, yet again, that Father Jay’s messenger was waiting below to speak to her. She managed to go on refusing for some time, but at last Freddy stood there and stared directly at her and said that he ‘couldn’t take it upon himself to deal with the matter any further and perhaps it would be better to arrange for the boy to return at some time when the Master could speak to him,’ and she capitulated. She had to.

  ‘I shall see him in the morning room,’ she said stiffly. ‘Put him there. And tell him I shall be down directly.’

  She left him kicking his heels for fully ten minutes before, at last, going unwillingly downstairs to speak to him. She had dressed herself that morning in her dark blue merino and had not bothered unduly about dressing her hair well, settling for pulling it back off her face into a tight bun, and abandoning any effort to create a fashionable fringe. She looked tired and drab and was well aware of it, and cared not a whit.

  ‘Well?’ she said harshly, standing just inside the door of the morning room. ‘I have told my servant to tell you that I have no wish to hear your message.’

  Ruby had been sitting on the fender, swinging his feet and warming his hands at the coal fire that burned brightly there and he looked perkily over his shoulder at her, grinning, to answer her. And then stopped and frowned and got to his feet and came across the room to stand in front of her and stare up at her, his face crumpled with concern.

  ‘Cor, stone the bleedin’ crows, but you look godawful!’ he said, his dark eyes wide. ‘I mean, what have you done to yourself? You wasn’t no oil painting before, but you looked perky enough. Now you looks like you died last week an’ forgot to tell anyone! ’Ad the fever, ’ave yer? Is that why you wouldn’t come down and have a chinwag an’ that?’

  ‘I have no wish to talk to you or to hear of anything from whoever sent you,’ she said flatly. ‘I have sent enough messages back to you to make that clear. So go back to whence you came and tell – say that. I have no wish to hear anything at all from anyone –’

  ‘Oh, Father Jay’ll be that upset!’ Ruby said and went skipping back to the fire to stand in front of it and warm his tight little buttocks in a wicked imitation of an alderman. ‘’E’ll be upset enough to see you lookin’ so poorly, but ’e won’t be all that surprised. ’E ain’t bin feelin’ all that up to the blunt ’imself. P’raps ’im an’ you oughta –’

  ‘Will you be quiet!’ she snapped. ‘I am not interested, do you understand? And do stop this stupid lying. I have no wish to hear any messages from anyone and that is an end to it. You do not need to take a parson’s name in vain just to tell me that –’

  ‘You didn’t mind takin’ it in vain when it suited you,’ Ruby said and grinned again. ‘Oh, come on, ducks! No need to go daft over this, is there? The Kid, ’e says as –’

  She opened the door with a sharp twist of her wrist and then went across the room and took hold of Ruby’s collar.

  ‘Out,’ she said. ‘At once. I will not tell you again. I have no wish to discuss this with you or anyone else. If you come here again I shall be constrained to fetch a policeman to deal with you. Go away at once.’

  ‘You’ll be sorry,’ he said, but he went, allowing her to lead him to the front door and to open it and push him out on to the top step. She was well aware that behind the green baize door at the back of the hall Freddy was listening, agog, and she didn’t care.

  ‘I doubt it,’ she said and closed the door firmly in Ruby’s face and turned and went upstairs to the drawing room with all the dignity she could muster, shaking inside in case Ruby went on with his nagg
ing and rang the doorbell again.

  But he did not, and when she reached the drawing room and went to the window to look out, unable to prevent herself from doing so, the street was empty. He had gone, wasting no time about it, and for one incredible moment she felt a sense of desolation creep over her. The sight of that self satisfied young face, the sound of that perky impudent voice, had brought back with great poignancy all the memories she had of the pleasure there had been in life during those magic months, and she stood at the window, holding the curtains in a white knuckled grip, holding on to her self control.

  And she succeeded. That day at any rate. But it could not last.

  During the last week of March the weather once more decided to become capricious and an unseasonable warmth crept into the air. The trees blushed green with anticipation and the daffodils bawled their delight with wide brazen mouths at the warm air that stroked them and she stopped being miserable and became instead angry.

  She woke up one morning to see the sunlight gilding the rooftops of the houses across the Terrace and felt herself tight with it. How dare the likes of Kid Harris cause her so much unhappiness? How could such a one as he persist in invading her dreams and her daylight thoughts as he had done? It was now fully a month since that awful night at the old Britannia and still she felt the fury of it all, and she went through the day, doing the normal domestic tasks, instructing Jane and Jenny and Mary on the way the spring cleaning, due to be started after the first day of April, next week, was to be done, with her anger just under control but simmering steadily. He had to be told to leave her be. He had to be told that she was no longer interested in him or his doings. He had to be forced to leave her mind and let her be at peace again –

  Once again circumstances conspired, or seemed to, to make her behave as she should not have done. Her father returned home early to change for yet another dinner in the City, but this time he was far from being in a bad mood or anxious about his evening. Mama’s quinsy had been better this past week, and she in turn had been less given to whining complaint, and this may have put him in a better humour; but whatever it was he spoke jovially to Mildred as he left the house shortly after six to go to Guildhall; and that made her feel in turn a little more relaxed. And then Mama said in a dying fall that she was going to bed early and disappeared, leaving Mildred once again completely alone in the drawing room with the long hours stretching blank and empty in front of her.

  It was almost inevitable that she should reach the decision she did. The warmth in the air was so reminiscent of how it had been last September and the silence in the house was so thick and familiar that she found herself feeling as though all the intervening weeks had been little more than a bad dream. And shortly before ten o’clock, she found herself in her bedroom, putting on her serge jacket and pinning her black straw hat to her head.

  It was not exactly a planned thing, but neither was it totally spontaneous. It was almost as though she were on the outside of herself watching it happen, as though none of her actions were under her full control. It seemed that she was doing what had to be done, without thinking. And what had to be done was that Kid Harris had to be told to leave her in peace. He had interfered enough in her life already, and he had to be made to leave it. That he had for the past four weeks inhabited her mind rather than her life in any real physical sense was almost beside the point. She only knew that until she told him of her anger at how he had behaved, and how unhappy he had made her, she would have no peace at all.

  So, with all her old stealth she went down the stairs, past the gaslight on the landing, turned down as usual in the evening to an economical half light, across the tiled hall, walking on her toes to prevent any clattering of her heels, to the front door. She opened it gently, slowly, so that there should be no risk of rattling the chain that dangled on its inner side and then, still moving with practised slow ease, she was out on the front step, and pulling the door gently to behind her so that it closed with only the lightest of snaps.

  She stood there poised on the top step, listening hard, to make sure no one inside the house had heard her go, clutching her reticule with its precious front-door key safely tucked into it, and then, when she was sure that all was as silent as it needed to be, turned to come down the steps.

  And as she reached the bottom his hand came out of the shadows and seized her by the elbow.

  12

  ‘I knew you’d come out eventually,’ he said. ‘You could have done it sooner, though. It’s been damned uncomfortable out here some nights. Cold –’

  ‘I – go away,’ was all she could say. ‘Leave me alone. I don’t want to talk to you –’ and then stopped short, for wasn’t it precisely in order to talk to him that she had come out at all? She had expected to have to go and find a cab and go out to the East End in the way she had been used to, to hunt through the more familiar cafés and theatres, not to find him here at her very doorstep. That would have given her time to think about what she would say to him when she found him. But now he was here, and all she could do was stand dumbly looking at him.

  Ruby had been right. He didn’t look as though he was feeling well at all. His face had a pinched look it had never had before, and his corrugated forehead shone a little damply in the soft gaslight from the street lamp behind him and his eyes, those wide and rather full eyes, had an expression of anxiety in them.

  ‘Millie,’ he said and let go of her elbow at last. ‘Millie, are you all right? You look – are you all right?’

  ‘Don’t call me Millie,’ was all she could say. ‘My name is Mildred.’

  ‘Have you been eating right? You’ve gone thin again. You need one of Barney’s good salt beef sandwiches.’

  ‘I need nothing of the sort,’ she said. ‘I just need to be left in peace. I came out to tell you to leave me alone, that –’

  ‘You knew I was here?’ He seemed to pounce on that.

  ‘No, of course not –’

  ‘Then you were coming to the East End to look for me?’ He still sounded eager.

  ‘No! I mean, I just came out for a walk –’

  ‘You never ever told me no lies, Millie, did you? You used to tell ’em here, I know, on account of here they don’t care about you, but I care about you and you never told me no lies. Are you tellin’ me one now?’

  She looked up at his face again and then away. The expression on it was so anxious it made her want to cry. ‘Yes,’ she said after a moment. ‘Yes, I suppose I am.’

  ‘Then you did come out to talk to me? To find me and talk to me?’

  ‘Yes.’ It was almost a whisper.

  ‘Oh, glory alleluia!’ he cried at the top of his voice and at once she reached for his arm and shook it, terrified that someone would hear and come investigating. But he just laughed and took her hand in his and held on to it tightly, staring at her in the dim light and grinning hugely.

  ‘I’ve been feeling awful,’ he said simply. ‘Awful. Night after night I’ve been coming here, waiting outside, hoping you’d come out. I felt so bad, and I missed you something dreadful, Millie. I even lost a fight two weeks after you went. Me, lose a fight!’ He shook his head in disbelief. ‘Would you Adam ’n Eve it! Me! I know what it was, o’ course. The thing of it is I wasn’t concentrating. A boxer has to concentrate, but I was thinking of you, in the third round, and whoops, there I was, gone.’

  ‘Were you hurt?’ She looked closely at him. ‘Did it do any damage?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, I’m all right,’ and his hand closed warmly on hers. ‘Does it matter to you if I’m hurt or not?’

  She pulled her hand away from him, nervous suddenly. ‘It matters if anyone is hurt. I hate to see people suffer – You – you made my brother hurt –’

  ‘Yeah, I know. I’m sorry about that –’ He stopped then and said awkwardly, ‘Listen, Milly, I told you. I missed you this past month something awful. I ain’t been eating or sleeping right – it’s been dreadful. And the last thing I want to do is u
pset you again, not now we’re talking. But though I’m sorry for his hurting I can’t say I’m sorry about hittin’ your brother on account he behaved like a – well, he carried on in a way that’d make any man hit out. He talked about the people in the theatre that night – my people, the ones I live with and – my people – he called the women in the theatre Jew girls and tarts, as though bein’ one meant a woman was always the other as well, and I couldn’t be doing with that now, could I? And he wouldn’t apologize, so I hit him. And I have to tell you, if he walked down here right now and said it again, I’d hit him again. I’d have to.’

  ‘There are other ways of dealing with – with things you don’t like, aren’t there? Do you always have to hit people?’

  ‘Mostly,’ he said. ‘I’m not as good with words as you are. Maybe you can talk your way out of trouble – well, I know you can. You talked your brothers out of big trouble with me, didn’t you? That was the only time I ever let anyone welch on a bet, you know that? The only time. And all because of the way you talked. Like I said, a class lady, you. But me, I’m just a boxer. An East End boxer, and I don’t know no better way to sort out a foul-mouthed devil than hittin’ him. But I want you to know that whatever your brother said and whatever I did, it shouldn’t make no difference to us. To me and you –’

  ‘Stop it!’ she said and knew her voice was shaking. ‘There is no me and you – I mean, it’s mad. We were both crazy to think we could be friends and –’

  ‘Could be? But we were,’ he said. ‘Weren’t we? Good friends. You can’t say we weren’t. And I don’t see why we can’t still be. I’ve missed you so bad, Millie –’ And again he put his hand over hers, and again she felt the warmth of him move into her skin, into her muscles, into the very centre of her.

  There was a rattle of wheels and a cab turned the corner of the Terrace from the Bayswater Road end and she jumped back from him as though she had been bitten. ‘Go away!’ she said. ‘For heaven’s sake, go away! If that is someone who knows me and tells Papa – oh, please go away!’