‘Good… still, I’m not convinced.’ She was probing her lip. ‘I’d like another woman’s opinion.’
‘You’ve just had Ella in here, haven’t you?’
‘Russ!’ His wife dealt him a scolding laugh. ‘You’ve seen the Daws’ parlour – Ella couldn’t be trusted to furnish a dosshouse. Hmm… I suppose I could ask her and if she says the curtains look all right I’d know to take them down – sorry, love, you were telling me about South Africa.’
‘Oh, it’s all a bit dreary really. I haven’t been in the fighting much since I went back.’ His cup was hoisted to his mouth.
‘Then I don’t see why they had to keep you out there while we at home had to suffer all manner of atrocities. I didn’t write and tell you because I thought you were having a hard time of it…’
The vision of the naked African woman dissolved and his face adopted a look of concern as he asked what had happened.
‘I had my window broken, that’s what happened! And all because I spoke my mind in the shop. Of course, we all know it’s fatal to do that; Mrs Phillips is such a gossip.’ Russ asked what she had said. ‘I said, I thought it was a disgrace what the Army was doing to those wretched women and children in South Africa and how I was sometimes ashamed to be British.’
Russ groaned and, finishing the last dregs of cocoa, leaned forward to put the cup on the table.
‘It’s getting to something, Russ, when a person can’t speak her mind without inciting violence against her personal property. Five shillings it cost me! Five shillings for saying what a lot of other people are thinking but aren’t brave enough to come out with. The Army’s made this country look the villain to the eyes of the world – of course, I blame half of it on this new King, he’s undermining the whole nation’s morals.’ She bobbed up to place her cup next to his, then fell back on the sofa
Russ had always liked Edward – thought him a ‘bit of a lad’, a man after his own persuasion – but he said nothing in defence.
‘You only have to look at the quality of general help to see that! None of them are willing to do a proper day’s work – d’you know, I still can’t settle to those curtains, they’re making me feel quite ill.’ She jumped up and, pulling a chair up to the window, began to unhook the offending articles.
‘What the… Rachel, you can’t start faffing around with them at this time of night!’ He came round the table to coax her from the task. ‘Leave it till morning, then tomorrow we’ll go out and buy some more.’
‘Oh yes, and where’s the money going to come from?’ She placed her palms to the sides of his head as he grasped her waist and lifted her down. His ears were cool to the touch.
‘Getaway! You make it sound like we’re destitute.’ He watched amusedly as she put the chair back into place, sliding its feet into the exact hollows they had made in the carpet.
‘As well we might be if we had to rely on the Army – oh, and that reminds me!’ Grinning, she turned and held out her hand, palm upwards. Russ didn’t bother feigning ignorance. Ruefully, he handed over his accumulated pay, out of which she returned half a crown before putting the rest in the cashbox. She then washed and dried the cocoa cups and afterwards said, ‘Right then, Russ, bedtime.’ She tried to make it sound casual. Rachel had always felt guilty for enjoying their lovemaking. To show eagerness would seem indecent… but she couldn’t suppress the thrill which his expression induced, knowing how much he wanted her. Lamp in hand, she led the way, tiptoeing past the nursery. Her hair, loosed of its pins, tumbled to her waist, drawing a sigh. Soon they were abed. ‘Oh, you don’t know how much I’ve been aching for this!’ Russ wasted no time in reaching for her.
But hardly had his fingers settled then she mouthed softly, ‘Picture, love,’ putting a brake on his romance.
After a moment of incomprehension, he gave a smiling sigh, ‘Shows how long I’ve been away,’ and climbed out of bed. Approaching the portrait of Rachel’s mother, he turned it to face the wall. Only when this ritual was done did his pretty wife allow him to claim her body. His fingers sought her in the darkness and, ‘Oh, I do love you, Russ,’ she murmured in his ear.
And with these words the vision of the plump black thighs vanished. He cupped his wife’s slim buttocks and cleaved her to him.
Chapter Four
The translation to civilian life was always difficult. Last night Russ had promised himself a lie in, but even without the intrusion of the bugler he found himself awake at first light. He turned his head to look at the sleeping woman beside him, smiled, then rose quietly so as not to wake her and went for a stroll across Knavesmire. There was the smell of cocoa on the air from the factory at Clementhorpe. The dew on the greenbelt spangled his boots and the air was chill, but he found it pleasantly refreshing and continued right across to the far side where he spent a short time in the woods. Here, he sat on a log, lit a cigarette and listened to the sounds from the trees. His ears picked up a scuffling sound. Looking about him he spotted a red squirrel rifling one of its winter hoards. Armed with a nut, the creature bounded up the trunk of a fir. Russell’s eyes followed it to an untidy bundle of twigs way up amid the branches. After a second, the animal came back down the tree and the act was repeated several times. He watched it until his cigarette burnt down to his fingertips. Taking a final puff, he crushed it on the ground.
The squirrel was on its way up again. Russ decided to make his way back. He rose. There was a bang! The squirrel, halfway up the trunk, lost its grip and plummeted to the ground. Mouth open, Russ stared at it.
Daw came past him and bent to retrieve the furry corpse, holding it aloft to inspect where his bullet had landed. ‘Mm, not bad.’
Russ was still staring at the dead creature. ‘What d’you want to go and do a thing like that for?’ Daw beheld him quizzically. ‘It could have had young ’ns up there!’ Russ gestured at the drey. ‘How’re they going to survive without a mother?’
Jack examined the corpse. ‘Father,’ he corrected. ‘And fathers often do desert their offspring, don’t they?’ Then he laughed and clapped his friend on the shoulder. ‘Sorry, only joking. Away!’ He balanced the Mauser on his shoulder. ‘Come and have a shot with this, it’s…’
Russ had turned away. ‘I have to get back for breakfast.’ Jack gave a derogatory laugh and shouted after him, ‘Ah, you’re too soft, Russ! I don’t know what you’re bothered about, they’re only bloody vermin.’
Russ tightened his jaw, but made no answer and headed for home. He heard the Mauser’s bark several times before he got there. On his return he found his wife had risen. But his complaints about Daw’s behaviour went almost unheard, for Rachel was in far too much of a flap cooking breakfast and seeing to Robert whilst heartily bemoaning the lack of a maid. When he had eaten he went to the yard and gave his kitbag a good brushing, then took it upstairs to unpack. Shortly, Rachel followed him up to make their bed.
‘Russell, what do you think you’re up to?’ Horrified eyes took in the contents of the wardrobe which were now strewn about the room. His reply was muffled, his head amongst the hanging garments, telling her that he was seeking his cigarette card albums. ‘Well, do you have to make so much mess about it?’ She tugged at the waistband of his trousers. ‘Come out! They aren’t in there anyway.’
He emerged, the hair on his crown sticking up like a duck’s tail. He smoothed it. ‘They were in there when I left.’ She told him well, they weren’t in there now and pushed him out of the way in order to stack everything in its place. Russ sighed heavily. ‘Do you think I might be privy to their whereabouts or do I have to start snapping arms and legs?’ He was asked what he wanted them for. ‘I want to light a bonfire, what d’you think I want them for?’ He waved a fistful of the cigarette cards. ‘These are what I’ve saved while I’ve been away.’ Everything replaced in the wardrobe, she clicked the door shut and went to a chest of drawers. From here she withdrew an album.
‘Thank you!’ He whipped it from her hand and made to open the drawe
r. ‘Are they all in there?’
The sheets were being hauled into place. ‘No, that’s all there is.’ Grasping the corners of the red counterpane, she gave a flourish to send it floating down on the bed. He asked where the rest were. ‘Gone.’ She moved onto the landing.
‘Gone!’ His pursuance was swift. ‘Oy! Come back – gone where?’
‘Russ, don’t shout so!’ On turning she spied a crumpled fold in the bedroom curtain and marched back in to tug it straight.
Russ charged after her. ‘Rachel, what’ve you done with all my albums – eh, you haven’t burnt them, have you?’
‘Don’t be daft!’ She spoke as if he were mad. ‘I’ve sold them.’
‘What!’
‘Ogdens were paying ten shillings each for them, they were going to send them to hospitals or something – though heaven knows what for. I thought it was an excellent offer, don’t you?’
‘But…’ He could barely speak. ‘I’ve been collecting them for years!’
‘Yes, I had noticed.’ A duster whisked from surface to surface.
‘I was saving them for the lad!’
She laughed lightly. ‘You daft ’aporth, what does Robert want with them? He’s only a baby, they’re only bits of paper.’
‘They were full collections! I had every single card.’
‘Not in that one, you didn’t, it only had sixty-seven photographs in.’
‘Oh! I wondered why you’d been so kind as to leave me this’n! Would you like to stand there while I stick these in?’ He waved the loose cards. ‘Then you can get another ten bob.’
‘No, I can’t, the offer finished last January.’
‘Oh, Rachel, sometimes I could…’ His voice tailed off helplessly. ‘You know how I like saving them.’
‘It’s all very well for you to have the luxury of saving them out there in Africa with nothing better to do, but we at home have to make ends meet.’
He had a sudden chilling thought and rushed up the short flight to the attic – which had been another of Rachel’s specifications to the builder. When she caught up with him he was gazing at the cabinet that housed his birds’ egg collection. ‘Well, you didn’t think I’d sell those, did you?’ she demanded in a hurt tone as, summoning the courage, he opened the drawers to find his collection intact.
Russ offered a prayer of thankfulness and studied the magnificent array of blue, buff and speckled eggs. The cigarette cards had been a hobby; this was a lifetime’s study. His cabinet housed every British bird’s egg from the wren’s pea-sized effort to the great golden eagle, each tray meticulously numbered and cross-sectioned. It was his joy to come up here and just look at them – sometimes for hours. He eyed his wife tellingly, then carefully slid the drawer back in. A faint knocking saved further altercation. Rachel went down a storey to peer from a window. On seeing the fruit and vegetable cart in the road she duly rushed off to make her purchases. Russ sighed and turned back to the cabinet. Soon, though, a commotion brought him down a flight to the window that overlooked the street where he leaned, palms on sill, and watched the exchange between the two women.
Rachel stood on the pavement, flourishing a shovel at her neighbour. The object of the disagreement appeared to be a pile of horse-droppings which steamed in the road. ‘Ella, I tell you it’s mine! Anyway, what do you need if for?’ She indicated the bare plot under Ella’s front window.
Ella, one hand holding her own shovel, the other on her hip, retorted mildly, ‘I need it for my rhubarb.’ She was a woman of gaunt appearance, though the manner she had of drawing in her chin – which she was doing now – gave a false impression of fleshiness. Her eyes and hair were very dark, her skin verging on the sallow, but there was a humorous twist to her mouth as she stood opposing Rachel. She enjoyed nothing more than getting her neighbour rattled.
‘Rhubarb doesn’t grow in March!’ parried Rachel, eyes sweeping Ella’s unflattering brown dress.
The impatient vegetable seller tried to intervene. ‘I’ve got some nice big onions…’
‘Stop bragging,’ mocked Ella, then to Rachel, ‘Roses don’t grow in March neither.’
‘They need the manure while they’re dormant!’ The calmer Ella was, the angrier it made Rachel.
‘Well, when there’s a pile on your front they’ll be able to have it, won’t they?’
‘Ella, the cart is on my front!’
‘Well, if I’m not mistaken this didn’t drop off the cart,’ Ella responded breezily, ‘it dropped out of the horse – and the horse is on my front.’ With this she scooped up the droppings and, holding the shovel proudly before her, went into her house.
‘That… woman!’ Rachel, now in the spare bedroom where she had stormed in defeat, watched Ella deposit her prize on the small square of earth in her back yard – then sprang from the window as Ella looked up with a grin. ‘She’s insufferable! Oh, we’ll have to move, Russ, it’s no good.’
Russ had donned his jacket and was examining his smart presentation in the wardrobe mirror. He shook his head amusedly and called, ‘What, over a pile of hossmuck?’
‘It’s not just that!’ Rachel changed rooms like a whirlwind. ‘It’s everything: that self-satisfied smirk when she thinks she’s got the better of me… I’d hoped to get away from that when we moved here but no! your friend has to copy your idea and come here and ruin it all. I just can’t live with her, Russell, I’ve tried my best to be sociable but that woman is so… ooh!’ Injustice provoked another display of fist-clenching and she sped back to the spare bedroom.
Russ finished preening and followed her to the window. ‘She’s not a bad lass at heart – and she was entitled to it really, the horse was on her front.’
‘I might have known you’d side with her!’
‘I’m siding with nobody. I just think it’s daft to fall out over something as trivial as a pile o’ manure… what was second prize, by the way?’
His wife gasped her disgust and stormed out; Rachel had no sense of humour. Russ was about to turn from the window when Jack Daw stepped into his yard. The Mauser was wrapped up now, but the bundle of corpses that dangled from the man’s hand showed it had been busy. Russ’ nostrils flared with disgust – not simply at Daw, but at himself for not being more strident in his condemnation. He turned his back on the sight.
Downstairs, he tried to make amends to his wife for his tactless wit. ‘Would you like me to put an advertisement in the press for another servant? I’ve nothing much to do this morning, I thought I might have a wander into town.’
‘If you like.’ She had taken out the material for Mrs Haines’ hat and was stabbing pins into it.
‘You really need one, don’t you? All this hat-making… you won’t have time for housework and such.’
Her brown eyes came up like arrows. ‘Are you insinuating I neglect my duties?’
‘No, no! I’m saying nothing of the sort, I’m just trying to help.’
‘Trying to get back into favour, you mean – and don’t go spending all your money in town.’
He averted his face, muttering under his breath, ‘No love, I’ll just have the odd gallon o’ beer and three whores and put the rest in the bank.’
‘Sorry, Russell, I didn’t catch that.’
He swept across the room and squeezed a pacific arm round her. ‘I said would it be possible to have the money for the advertisement?’
She tuttered at his ingratiating posture, ‘What about the half-crown I gave you last night?’ then butted him lightly with her brow, ‘Oh, go on then!’ and took the money from the cashbox. ‘But make sure you get the wording correct.’
‘Respectable young woman required for the post of general maid, wages by arrangement – how’s that?’
‘I didn’t mean it that way, I meant be succinct; I don’t want charging for a line that only has one word on it.’
The advertisement which Russ placed in the Evening Press was answered before his leave was up by four young women in turn. The first two w
ere much too attractive to be trusted with Rachel’s husband and were dismissed without interview. The third, a plain woman of thirty, was entertained quite hopefully until Rachel had the awful thought that, being two years older than her employer, the woman might try to usurp command – she did seem a very confident sort – Rachel could not have that. The fourth, an Irish girl of fifteen called Biddy Kelly, was ugly of feature and totally subservient – ideal for Rachel’s requirements.
The two faced each other across the table this chilly morning. Biddy wore an ancient plaid dress which was patched in several places and stained on the bodice, and a green woollen shawl which was milled and motheaten. She wore no hat; Rachel was quick to comment on this. Biddy replied apologetically that she didn’t have one.
‘Goodness me! Biddy, a young woman’s outfit is incomplete without a hat. I must make you one.’
‘Thank ye very much, ma’am, I’m sure.’ The girl nodded.
‘It’ll come out of your first week’s wages, naturally,’ said Rachel.
‘Does that mean I’ve got the job, ma’am?’ ventured Biddy.
Rachel pondered for a moment, then said, ‘Let’s see you make a pot of tea, then we’ll decide.’
Biddy delivered a vacuous nod, stood and looked around. Rachel pointed out the teapot and caddy. With elephantine movements Biddy transferred two spoonfuls of the tea from the caddy to the pot and was about to add a third when Rachel stopped her.
‘Two is sufficient – and you forgot to warm the pot.’ The big ugly face turned to stare at her. ‘You’re meant to pour a little water from the kettle into the teapot.’
‘But, I’m about to do that now, ma’am.’ Rachel said she was meant to do it before she put in the leaves. ‘So… I put the water in first, then the tea?’
‘No, you… oh, never mind! Just do it and I’ll show you what I mean another time – and you didn’t wash your hands, did you?’
‘They’re clean already, ma’am.’ Biddy displayed two huge red hands that would have done credit to a prizefighter. ‘I washed ’em before I came out.’
My Father, My Son Page 5
