by Lizzie Lane
Edna asked her a question that had been nagging her for days, one she hadn’t mentioned to Colin. ‘Will I still be able to have children?’
Sister Monica paused before answering, her attention riveted on her black bag that she was currently clipping shut. ‘Possibly, but you have to bear in mind that you’re getting older and have had three children already. You may very well get in the family way again, but there are no guarantees that you’ll carry to full term. I suggest that you be thankful for what God’s already given you.’
They were in exchange for Colin’s legs, Edna wanted to say, but that would sound too bitter by far. They had to be grateful for the happiness they had. They couldn’t possibly be happy all the time.
When. the phone rang she made her way downstairs despite the fact that each step jarred and Colin had warned her to ignore it. Her father was phoning from the local phone box down by the park to check that everything was all right. She apologized for leaving so abruptly, and asked if he would be coming out to see her.
‘No,’ he began hesitantly, ‘what with yer mother how she is …’
‘Oh Dad!’ She felt and sounded exasperated.
Even now her mother was ruining her enforced confinement to bed, not that she knew it. Although completely illogical, it was hard not to feel that the illness was self-inflicted, that her mother had contracted this particular illness at this particular time in order to gain attention.
She struggled back up the stairs. She’d got halfway when the phone rang again. Carefully, so as not to slip or jar the fragile balance between pain and ordinary discomfort, she went back down the stairs and picked up the receiver.
‘Whore! Leave my husband alone! You slut! You cheap whore!’
Edna sank down onto the lyre-legged piano stool which served as a seat to telephone users. ‘Mother,’ she groaned, ‘why are you doing this?’
There was a sound of struggling on the other end of the line, followed by a click, then silence. Edna closed her eyes and rested her head against the wall. Her mother was just a shell, a crazy, empty shell. ‘In fact,’ Edna exclaimed with frustration, ‘she might just as well be dead!’
Charlotte swept into the bedroom on the stroke of one wearing a powder blue suit and a matching hat that seemed to consist of half a handful of swansdown. After the customary greeting, the fluffing up of pillows, and the administering of vegetable soup and lightly buttered bread, Charlotte served tea.
She just loves being in charge, thought Edna, and obediently ate and drank everything that was put before her.
‘Now remember,’ said Charlotte, ‘no getting up for at least two weeks.’
‘That’s ridiculous!’
‘Of course it’s not. You’ve been ill.’
‘No, I haven’t. I’ve had a miscarriage. It’s a perfectly natural part of being in the family way. Anyway, I can’t leave Colin to fend for himself. He’s tired out already.’
‘Oh Edna!’ Charlotte sounded totally exasperated.
Edna would not be moved. ‘As soon as I can, I’m out of this bed. Colin and the children need me.’
‘Don’t rush. Janet told me to tell you that she’ll call in for Susan and Peter this Saturday. At least that means you and Colin will only have Pamela to deal with. She said something about taking them to Clevedon.’
‘What a wonderful daughter you have,’ said Edna, sighing with contentment as she lay back against the pillows. ‘What with the miscarriage and my mother’s condition, I’d almost forgotten Janet and how much she enjoys being with the children. A day with just Colin and Pamela will be blissful – even if he does fuss. I didn’t think she would have time. Is she still seeing that young doctor she was sweet on?’
Charlotte looked at her askance.
Edna bit her lip and felt her face flush warm with embarrassment. ‘You didn’t know?’ she asked cautiously.
‘I thought there was someone, and Geoffrey hinted at it, but you know Janet, she keeps things to herself and Geoffrey is not always around, not that he’d say much if he was.’
Edna sensed Charlotte’s disappointment that Janet had not mentioned having a new boyfriend. I wonder what she’d say, she thought, if she knew that Janet had also trusted me with her darkest secret of all?
‘It can’t be very serious if she hasn’t told me,’ said Charlotte.
‘No. And you have been very busy lately,’ returned Edna, licking her dry lips and avoiding Charlotte’s eyes. Best if the conversation was taken in another direction. She avoided asking Charlotte about her Polish refugees. Once her friend got onto that particular path there’d be no stopping her. She’d heard quite enough about Ivan and his compatriots already. She tried another tack. ‘Janet was saying something about a letter from Germany,’ she said suddenly. ‘She seemed to think it was something to do with me and was from a man named Josef.’
Charlotte looked at her blankly and forced a laugh. ‘I’m sure I don’t know what she means.’ She suddenly remembered seeing Janet in the study late one night, the file lying open on the desk. If only Janet had been more discreet, though it didn’t sound as though she’d told Edna the contents of the letters. And now was not the right time, she decided.
Edna perceived a stiffening of the flesh, a clenching of the jaw, almost as if Charlotte was trying to hold something back. She remembered the orphanage and the German prisoner of war who worked there. Charlotte had got him that job. She’d seen them in the grounds sometimes watching the playing children while she’d leaned over Sherman’s cot and tickled his chin. She remembered the looks that had passed between them. Never had she seen Charlotte look so beautiful, so completely enthralled. ‘Was it the man who worked at the orphanage?’ she asked.
Charlotte clasped her hands tightly together and looked down at them, running her tongue nervously along her lips. ‘Yes. I did have a letter from him.’ She looked up and smiled. ‘He asked to be remembered to you.’
For a moment Edna said nothing, then a slow smile spread across her face. ‘Just like the song.’
Another blank look.
‘Just one of those things,’ said Edna and saw she would have to explain further. ‘It’s the title of a song.’
‘Of course it is.’
Charlotte’s thoughts were in turmoil as she drove home. She was angry with Janet and angry with herself.
Janet’s prying had forced her to lie. Things were getting terribly complicated. If she was ever going to tell Edna about the letter regarding her son, it had to happen shortly before he got put up for adoption or sent back to Brazil to live with some far flung relative he hardly knew. But when was the best time? Certainly not now! The poor woman had just had a miscarriage. Things were difficult. And as for Janet …
Spoilt, selfish little … A few of Polly’s more choice descriptions came to her mind. Just lately Janet’s behaviour had become insufferable. She’d been distant, even rude on occasion and went out of her way to avoid their lodger, Ivan, who had done her no harm whatsoever.
They would have to have a talk about this. Things could not go on the way they were.
Chapter Thirteen
The Broadway Picture House was a bit like the saloon or bank in High Noon. The facade was reasonably attractive, but a peek round the back at the reinforced windows and the cast iron waste pipes spewing from the lavatories punctured if not completely shattered the illusion of entering a picture palace of opulent delight.
Polly got to work early, took off her coat and transferred the Basildon Bond notepad from her handbag to her overall pocket. She was bubbling with excitement. As soon as the opportunity arose she would dash off a letter to the nice people at Australia House. The fact that Billy’s face had set like plaster of Paris at the mention of her plans was ignored.
Like everything else at the Broadway Picture House, including the walls and the doors, her uniform was maroon and resembled an overall that was trying to be a dress. Polly would have preferred a uniform of black with white collars and cuffs, but person
al choice didn’t come into it. She felt for a pen in her hip pocket without success and turned to her shoulder bag, an Aladdin’s cave of cheap make-up and old bus tickets – but no pen.
‘Damn it!’ She gritted her teeth and had another shuffle through. Nothing! ‘Damn it,’ she muttered again and made for the glass-fronted payment booth, a dead cert to have at least a biro or a pencil.
She eased herself into her usual chair behind the narrow counter and the arched opening through which she doled out tickets for the one and threepenny seats in the stalls or the half crown half-empties up in the balcony.
Rummaging in the drawers she found a blunt pencil – not suitable at all for asking the Australian High Commission whether they wanted a ready-made family of immigrants with quick tongues, and, in Billy’s case, a casual indifference for the Inland Revenue.
She found a biro first then came across a fountain pen of blue tortoiseshell with a bright shiny nib. She frowned at the latter. It wasn’t hers. Perhaps it was out of the Lost and Found Box and had got shoved to the back of the drawer and forgotten about. Oh well, it was meant to be used.
Her head dropped over the open notepad. First she wrote her address, then Dear sir. What next? Her heart fluttered and, once she’d got the first few words down, her pace quickened. She knew exactly what needed to be said.
‘Mrs Hills!’
Polly popped up like a Jack in the Box and came face to face with a shiny face and bushy eyebrows frowning over washed out eyes.
‘What are you up to? Explain!’
Mr Griffiths, or Major as he preferred to be called, spoke in clipped tones with his head held high, just as if he were still in the army and his staff were raw recruits all needing to be licked into shape.
Polly slammed the notepad shut and shoved it into her pocket. She found her voice. ‘I was looking for a pen.’
‘A pen?’
His voice went from low to high in an incredulous manner and his eyebrows went up too.
‘Yes, Major.’
His jaw stiffened. ‘You don’t need a pen. You sell tickets.’
‘But I wanted to write something down, and I couldn’t find—’
‘I want an explanation.’ He turned on his heels. ‘Come into my office.’
He marched across the foyer like a general on parade, coping well with the sticky sound his feet made on a carpet well past its best.
Polly followed, each step she took accompanied by a barely hissed swear word just right for the occasion.
Major Griffiths stood ramrod straight behind his desk in an office with pea green walls. A fully drawn Airwick sat on top of a green metal filing cabinet. It made little headway against the smell coming from the men’s lavatories next door or the rubbish rotting on the waste ground on the other side of the frosted window just behind his head.
‘Close it!’
Pursing her lips helped keep the swear words in, but only just. After closing the door she stood chin up and face bright despite her annoyance at being deflected from the task that was now the very centre of her being. Australia! A new life. A new place. If she kept all those lovely thoughts in her head, nothing Griffiths might say could upset her.
‘I don’t believe you!’ His mouth reset into a straight line the moment the words were out.
Polly frowned. ‘You don’t believe what?’
‘A pen! You were not looking for a pen. You were looking for money! That’s the ticket!’
Polly’s jaw dropped before indignation lifted it again. ‘You cheeky bugger! What the bloody hell do you take me for!’ Every night the takings were checked by her, then another member of staff, then Griffiths. Everyone signed to say that everything was correct. Not a penny could go astray.
He didn’t give her time to explain. ‘I know your sort! Knowle West! Typical. Thieves or tarts. Now! Which one are you?’
Polly stared. She couldn’t believe she was hearing this. OK, her husband Billy was no saint. But that didn’t make her a criminal and she didn’t consider herself a tart either. OK, she’d enjoyed herself with more than one foreign serviceman during the war, but hell, you couldn’t see to do anything else in the blackout.
If things had been a bit more secure at home, she would have let him have the sharp edge of her tongue, but she wasn’t that stupid. She loved her job and needed the money. The pictures were also her idea of the perfect career; she met people, saw the same picture all week and could almost repeat the dialogue word for word by the end of the run. What’s more, it fitted in nicely with her home life, and doing a bit of cleaning for Charlotte. Meg and sometimes Billy too were there to look after Carol.
Polly pulled herself up to her full height, which, at five foot two, wasn’t exactly statuesque especially when coupled with a figure that was greeting the plumpness of the middle thirties. ‘So where’s the proof?’
‘No need! I just know!’ His mouth slammed shut like a letterbox.
Polly was small, but she wasn’t silly – neither was she a coward. Resting her palms flat on his desk she leaned forward and stared him straight in the eyes. ‘You’re not in the army now, Mister Griffiths. You can’t accuse and sentence all in one go. It ain’t like that in civvy street. Now you tell me why the bloody ’ell you’re pointin’ the finger at me!’
Although his eyes seemed to be fixed on hers she had the distinct impression that he was taking in every inch of her body – especially her bosom.
He smiled and his glittering eyes looked into hers.
He pointed his finger at her right breast. ‘What’s that!’
Polly looked down. The tortoiseshell pen that she’d found buried deep at the back of the kiosk drawer stuck up from the breast pocket of her overall. She frowned. ‘I’ve just this minute found it out there in the drawer. So what?’
‘It’s mine!’ He snatched the pen. At the same time he pinched her breast. It was no accident.
‘Get yer bleeding hands off me goods! I ain’t used to strange hands grabbing at me bosom region.’
Not nowadays anyway, she thought, as memories of her youth flooded back. If she’d had the time she’d have blushed at her thoughts, but not now. She needed to stand up to him and blushing like a virgin didn’t come into it.
She stood straight, hands on hips. There was no way she was going to run from his accusations. ‘So you’ve got yer bloody pen. Can I go now?’
‘The money, Mrs Hills! The money!’
‘What money?’
Ramrod straight, his eyes seeming to meet above the bridge of his aquiline nose, he stepped round from behind his desk. He was smiling and looked like a snake about to swallow its supper.
Polly shook her head in the manner of someone who’d seen it all before and who’s now sick to her back teeth of seeing it again. She smiled knowingly. ‘Don’t say a word! You want me to be nice to you, right?’
‘Nice?’ His eyebrows rose and when he smiled a gold filling glinted at the side of his mouth. ‘Yes! You would call it that … A woman like you. Makes it sound respectable. In layman’s terms …’ He paused for effect. ‘I want to take your knickers off. Stick it in you!’
Polly was stunned. She’d heard blokes say it coarsely to her before of course, but that was years ago when she was naive and the blokes from the brewery knew what they wanted and didn’t have either the education or the finesse to put it any better. But this bloke – Major Griffiths! An officer he might be, but certainly no gentleman!
She folded her arms just beneath her chest and eyed him as though she could see right through to his long johns and knew they had a darn on the knee and a hole in the crotch. ‘Why me, Major?’
He smacked his lips and clasped his hands behind his back. ‘I do not want to pay for it from some greasy whore who’s been giving it to all and sundry. I want personal attention. Officer issue alone!’
Polly couldn’t believe her ears. ‘I’m married.’
‘That’s what I mean. There’s only one other man involved. He’s in no position to obje
ct – if he finds out at all that is. And you’re in no position to refuse me, unless you want him to do a while in prison.’
Polly had been about to blow. OK, so she wasn’t exactly as pure as the driven snow, but Griffiths was using blackmail and Billy to persuade her to give in. What a bloody cheek! With sassy bravado she perched herself on the corner of his desk. Her skirt rode up a bit and Griffiths licked his lips. ‘So why would my Billy be dragged off to Bridewell then?’
‘He’s been bookmaking. I have seen him myself. Please do not deny it. He plies his trade – if trade is the right word, I feel committing his crime might be a better description – around the side here. Street bookmaking is strictly illegal.’
‘Nah!’ Polly shook her head. Of course Griffiths was speaking the truth. Billy and half the more shady element on the estate did their deals on the piece of wasteland at the side of the Broadway. On a Saturday night you could buy all manner of things there or, if the coppers were hanging about, the trade moved lock, stock and barrel to the area around the Venture Inn down on Melvin Square. Clothes, fags, booze, sugar and anything still on ration were available, even a good sized carpet and the Ewbank sweeper to go with it.
Everyone knew Billy did it, but no one would shop him. There was too much at stake – including their money if they were betting and their supplies if they were buying! But Griffiths wasn’t interested in money. He was interested in uncomplicated sex and he wanted Polly to give it to him.
‘What if I say no?’
‘You’re sacked.’
No! She couldn’t afford to lose this job – not yet. Every penny that was needed for emigrating to Australia would come from her job. Billy would put a bit by, but the moment a load of chocolate fell off a lorry down at the docks he’d have to lay out money. She had to do her bit, after all, living abroad was her dream rather than Billy’s, but could she really give in to Griffiths’s suggestion just for the money?
He suddenly squeezed her knee.
‘Keep yer ’ands off. I ain’t decided yet.’ Despite her air of defiance, Polly was worried. ‘Can you give me time to think about it?’
