Trouble In Paradise

by Pip Granger

  Which left me thinking it was a pity the boy didn’t measure up to his voice in the purity stakes, but I never said so. However, the family chests swelled with pride to hear that glorious voice soaring effortlessly up to the rafters. Except it wasn’t effortless. Tony’s beautiful rendition of ‘Once in Royal David’s City’ the Christmas before had been the result of many hours at choir practice. He sang all the time at home, too. He only had to hear a song on the wireless once and he could hum the tune; give him a couple more hearings and he’d have the words, as well.

  It was the one thing he stuck to, despite serious ragging from his mates. I’d heard him being taunted for being ‘a holy Joe’ and one of ‘Jesus’s little sunbeams’. But it seemed not to touch him at all; he’d just grin, shrug, roll his eyes and say it kept him off the streets. Which it did – sometimes. It also made him a favourite with Reverend Cattermole, which came in handy at church teas when Tony always got a slightly larger slab of cake or an extra sandwich, and these were not to be sneezed at during hard times. The Reverend’s precious choir members had always been first into the crypt for shelter when the air raid sirens sounded. Of course, they were mainly women and children, and the Reverend insisted this was the reason, not favouritism for his precious choir at all.

  ‘Think of the Devil and he shall appear,’ as my old gran would say, and sure enough, it was Tony hammering on my door. Eyes huge and sticking out like organ stops, he panted, ‘Can I come in, Auntie Zelda? Good!’ and barged past me without ceremony, bounding up the stairs to the flat door. I followed after him with my keys. Once we were safely inside the flat I turned to him and had a good look. He definitely looked scared.

  ‘What or who has rattled your cage?’ I demanded, thinking it best to get straight to the point. Time was passing and the service would be in full swing when we got there if we didn’t get our skates on.

  Tony looked furtive and desperate by turns. His eyes kept darting around the room and then settling briefly on his boots, then back searching the corners, like a hunted, but hugely embarrassed animal. What on earth was the matter with the boy? ‘Spit it out, Tony, there’s a love. Your grandad’ll have my guts for garters if I don’t show my face at church this week. Your mum or someone’s bound to tell him if I don’t make the early service. Which is where you’re supposed to be, I might add!’

  There was a bit more eye sliding and then he finally blurted it out. ‘I think something’s wrong at Auntie Zinnia’s,’ he said.

  My voice was sharp. ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘I saw some smoke coming over her garden wall,’ he answered.

  ‘It could be a bonfire,’ I suggested. It seemed reasonable.

  ‘Not on a Sunday, Auntie. Auntie Zinnia would never have a bonfire on a Sunday.’ Tony sounded shocked.

  He was right. Zinnia wouldn’t dream of lighting a bonfire on the sabbath. It would have been sacrilege where she came from and considered none too clever in Paradise Gardens either. Sunday was supposed to be special, a day of rest and worship and not a day for gardening chores.

  Which was how I came to miss the service for the second week in a row. I sent Tony packing: he had to sing in church, and anyway, there was no reason for both of us to land in hot water. I told him to tell everyone that I’d heard a rumour about trouble at Zinnia’s and that I had gone to warn her. No point in dragging Tony into it, even though I was convinced that the little toe-rag knew a whole lot more than he was letting on. If fire was involved though, it was not the time to give the little bugger the third degree; Zinnia could be burned to a crisp before I got the first thumbscrew on.

  It made sense to keep schtum as far as his grandad and mother were concerned, as well. No point in prompting them to ask questions until I was sure the answers would be satisfactory. I had high hopes of Tony and Mr Burlap and I didn’t want the boy to be put off by a huge family row if it could be avoided.

  I arrived at number 23 and saw smoke drifting over the garden wall just as Tony had said. I went through the front gate, followed my nose to the source and found that Zinnia’s wooden tool shed was smouldering. Someone had a lit a fire underneath it with petrol-soaked rags and garden rubbish, and it was beginning to catch. I could smell petrol fumes clearly. The problem was, the shed nestled up snugly to the glassed-in room, which in turn was right up against the house. I had to get a move on!

  I pounded on Zinnia’s back door but got no reply, so I looked frantically around for something to carry water from the outdoor tap to the shed. Zinnia’s hose and watering can were in the shed, so they were no help. Then I noticed a mound of earth with a spade sticking out of it and a wheelbarrow nearby. It looked as if Zinnia had been using one of her many compost heaps to feed the garden. I shovelled like a demon until the wheelbarrow was half full then trundled it along the path to the shed at a gallop, narrowly avoiding dumping my load before I got to the fire.

  I shovelled the contents under the shed, peering through the smoke until my eyes ran with tears and stung like mad, but I was pretty sure I’d dealt with the source. I needed water for the shed itself: the door was blackened at the bottom and glowing red further up. At any moment it would burst into flames, and if Zinnia kept any paraffin or paint in there, God help her poor house! I ran back to the tap with the wheelbarrow and filled it with water; it was all I had. Then I thundered back again and tipped my load on to the door, swamping my shoes, stockings, feet and the hem of my clothes in muddy water.

  The shed door hissed and steam rose into the air but the glow from the timbers had died. I could have wept, partly in relief that I’d got the fire out and partly in abject misery because I’d had to ruin my Sunday best to do it.

  And that’s where Zinnia found me, sitting on her compost heap in my tattered finery, face streaked with black smuts and eyes red with smoke and tears. I had been thinking that it was ironic, really: not a spot of bother all through the Blitz and the moment peace was declared, some bugger was trying to burn down Zinnia’s house!

  20

  ‘How’re things going with Chester?’ I asked Dilly as we lay out in the sun the day after the fire. We’d strolled over to water the allotment after we’d had tea at my place and were sprawled on the grass verge staring up at fluffy white clouds. It still seemed strange to feel that you could do a little cloud watching without fear of a doodlebug appearing out of the wide blue and spluttering into that awful, eerie silence that came just before it dropped.

  I remembered a time Dilly and I were baby-sitting the twins. They were in a playpen on the tiny patch of smutty green Doris called ‘the garden’, and we were in the kitchen, making a drink, when we heard the distinctive sound of a doodlebug chugging towards us. For a moment we froze: doodlebugs did that to you. Our ears were out on stalks trying to catch that moment when the chugging stopped; you even postponed breathing while you waited.

  Anyway, the engine cut out right overhead. Dilly and I rushed to the back door to get to the twins and became jammed fast in the doorway. We could not budge and had to wait, powerless, until the explosion came. Which it did – a few streets away, thank God. Once the tension left our bodies, we sagged with relief and were able to get to the twins at last. We had to hose them down gently, to get rid of the brick and plaster dust that had settled on them. It had been that close!

  Our relief was short-lived, however. We may have escaped the blast, but a girl from our old school, Spotty Penn, hadn’t. She was blown sky high when it caught her running for the family’s Anderson shelter in their back yard, or so her sister Rose reported after Spotty’s funeral. The family were never quite sure whether or not they’d managed to bury all of her in St Mary’s churchyard.

  Dilly’s voice brought me back and I had to think for a moment to remember what I’d asked her. Of course, it was about Chester.

  ‘Not bad, Zeld. He took me to this club in Soho last night. There was a bunch of Yanks playing jazz and Chester was right up there with them. He’s ever so good.’

  ‘An
y progress on the dance?’ I asked. ‘Has he taken the hint yet, or is he still being dim?’ Dilly had gone quiet about the dance.

  ‘He seems to go deaf every time I bring it up, Zeld. I don’t understand it. It’s not as if he can’t dance, like some blokes, and doesn’t want to say. We’ve been dancing. He’s good at it.’

  ‘So what are you going to do?’

  ‘What do you mean, what am I going to do? There’s nothing I can do. I can hardly ask him outright, now can I?’

  It was true, she couldn’t. No decent girl would, and our Dilly was thoroughly decent. We were quiet for a while. I was trying to think of ways round her problem. ‘Do you know any of his mates?’ I asked. ‘Maybe one of them could help – or one of their girlfriends would be even better.’

  ‘We don’t go out in a gang,’ explained Dilly. ‘I met one of his friends once, a nice chap called Skinny – or was it Slim? I know he wasn’t; he was a great, hulking fella, but I don’t know if he has a girlfriend and I don’t know if I’ll meet him again. So I don’t think that’ll work.’

  It was certainly a thorny one. There were times, lots of times, when being a girl was a nuisance, and the dance was one of them. It looked as if Dilly was going to have to find a substitute partner. Ronnie was taking me, so I was all right. I had a partner who was most unlikely to try to take any liberties. Now we needed one for Dilly. She wasn’t worried about this, though. ‘It’s all right,’ she sighed in resignation, ‘Terry’s agreed to escort me so that I won’t look like a complete lemon.’

  Poor old Terry. He seemed fated to be the escort but never the boyfriend. It was good of him, but then he was that kind of chap. Being a brick seemed to come naturally to the man. What’s more, he’d do it with good grace, and wouldn’t feel sorry for himself nor expect any reward for services rendered. Incredible, really; in my experience of men in general, and Charlie in particular, they expected to be rendered a service, or at least a hasty grope, in return for the purchase of a lousy cup of tea and a fish-paste sandwich. I’d obviously mixed with the wrong sort.

  We were just gathering ourselves up to go when Zinnia arrived, looking fretful, with her hair all over the place. ‘Have either of you seen Hepzibah and Hallelujah?’ she asked, looking anxiously around the allotments then under the hedge for her cats. Dilly and I shook our heads as one.

  ‘How long have they been missing?’ I asked, catching her alarm.

  ‘They didn’t come in for their food last night, or this morning. And that’s not like them,’ she answered, peering under the shed belonging to Molly Squires’s mum. ‘Well, I can’t spend too long here looking for them. I have to get to the Whitelocks’ to see to their Eunice’s eldest. Keep your eyes open, will you? And ask around?’

  We said we would, and she was off at a gallop. Her hair made her look like a worried scouring pad on legs. I couldn’t help remembering how upset she’d been the previous evening when she saw how badly her tool shed had been damaged. Poor old Zinn really was in the wars.

  It was only when she was gone that I thought to wonder what was wrong with Eunice’s eldest. Eunice had been at school with me and Dilly and the poor girl already had three children and was up the duff with her fourth. Eunice’s old man had a bad back and couldn’t do his stint in His Majesty’s forces, but he obviously liked to keep himself busy. Everyone always muttered, ‘Like mother, like daughter,’ when another baby was born. Fertility was a Whitelock family trait, like the girls growing impressive moustaches as they grew older, while the boys only seemed to manage bumfluff.

  I had promised to help Zinnia with the birth of Eunice’s next one, if I could, as I had helped in a very modest way with the last. I had been visiting Zinnia when the call came that Eunice was in labour. It had been an easy birth and Eunice had said I was her good luck charm. She had even called the baby girl after me, which was a big thrill.

  At work, all was sweetness and light on the Mrs Dunmore front. She was walking around with a soppy grin on her face most of the time. She and Percy Robinson had taken to having their lunch – among other things – in her office. Poor Beryl swanned in there once and caught them at it. Or at least it seemed that way, what with Mrs D. lying across her desk and him having his trousers round his ankles. Beryl said that they were so involved in what they were doing, she was able to back out of the room completely unnoticed. However, she didn’t leave before she was able to confirm Ronnie’s assessment of Percy’s assets.

  ‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ she gasped. ‘It looked like a bloody log from where I was standing. Gawd knows how Mrs D. took it; I know I couldn’t. But she was panting like a dog in a greenhouse and yelling, “Harder, harder,” and Percy was thrusting so hard, the desk was skidding along the floor making this terrible screech.’ Beryl giggled, her face far redder than your average beetroot. ‘That’s how I got out of there without them seeing me. They wouldn’t have noticed if the Regimental Band of the Black Watch had marched through there blowing their bagpipes and banging their drums.’

  Sure enough, when we checked later, we found long scratches on the lino, and judging by the marks, the desk hadn’t been replaced in quite its original spot either.

  With the boss lady being satisfactorily rogered on a regular basis, work was a dream for once. Mrs D. was in such a good mood, I was able to flog her two tickets to the dance. I hesitated, I must admit – who wants their boss cluttering up their free time? – but in the end, I decided it was for a good cause, and anyway, I’d be surprised if Mrs D. actually put in an appearance. She seemed to have much better things to do with her time.

  So, all in all, I was quite relaxed that week, what with Charlie being away and Mrs Dunmore easy to get along with. I worried about her secretly, though, because she was heading for much misery. Old Percy had never left his wife for any of his bits of sly, even the ones who got pregnant, so I didn’t see why Mrs D. should fare any better. But none of us had the nerve to burst her bubble and tell her she was being had by a very married man. Anyway, perhaps she knew and didn’t care. Percy did seem to have that effect on some people.

  Ronnie was typically disgusting on the subject. ‘She’s being rogered rigid, dolly, with an enormous tool. Of course she doesn’t care. Who would? Hmm? Answer me that.’

  ‘I’d care. Big thingy, bingey or whatever you want to call it, or not, I’d not want to throw my cap at a married man.’

  ‘Not even the Dutch one?’ he asked innocently, at which point I clouted him playfully with my handbag and scattered its contents all over the Star and Garter’s snug. Which, in turn, got Molly Squires involved in our conversation, as she helped pick up my bits and bobs. She could have knocked me down with one fingertip, I was so surprised by what she told us. It just showed how sneaky people could be.

  ‘You’ve got it wrong, Zelda. Percy Robinson’s been walking out with that snotty Mrs Dunmore for a couple of months now, not a couple of weeks like you think. They was in here together as early as last March. The landlord’s a mate of Percy’s, and he often lets them have one of the rooms upstairs for an hour or so.’

  ‘Are you sure, Molly? I thought they met at the canteen.’

  ‘They did, but a while back.’ She seemed quite certain.

  ‘Of course, what Mr Armstrong doesn’t know is that Percy’s knocking off his wife as well, on Thursday nights when he’s at his meetings and sometimes a quick one early in the mornings when Percy’s on his way to work and His Nibs ain’t up yet. They’ve been at it for years. There’s even rumours their Robert isn’t his, but Percy’s. It wouldn’t surprise me. He’s always been a little bastard, that one. And if you look at him from certain angles, you can see it. It’s those ears of his, and his nose.’ Molly grinned a knowing grin.

  ‘Check in his nappy,’ advised Ronnie with a filthy chuckle. ‘That should give you a hint.’

  Molly laughed. ‘Her ladyship’s fit to be tied when old Percy’s upstairs giving it to Mrs D. instead of to her,’ she continued. ‘But there’s nothing sh
e can do or say, is there?’ And we agreed that there wasn’t, but it made me feel worse about Mrs Dunmore, somehow. She wasn’t that bad an old stick.

  ‘Do you reckon I should tell her?’ I asked.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Mrs Dunmore,’ I answered.

  ‘No!’ they barked in chorus.

  ‘No, dolly. It never does to interfere with the free expression of lust. Mrs Dunmore won’t thank you; she’ll hate you for it. Keep schtum is my advice.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Molly. ‘I told Mrs Armstrong, and she sacked me. Then Mr A. rehired me, because she couldn’t come up with a decent excuse and I’m a good barmaid. So I’d keep your mouth shut, unless you’ve got another job to go to. They always shoot the messenger.’

  ‘Oh do listen to the girl, dolly,’ Ronnie said firmly. ‘Mrs Dunmore is old enough and ugly enough to look after herself.’ So I left it there. They were probably right.

  Whether it was the cheese and gherkins I ate for my tea I don’t know, but I had a lot of bad dreams that night. I woke up several times, thinking I could hear the pitiful wailing of a cat, and then, worse, it turned into the howls of a person in pain. Extreme pain. But when my eyes flew open, the noises stopped, and I lay there in silence, drenched in sweat. Dreams that vivid and that bad always left me with a kind of hangover. I was like a wet rag when I went to work the next day.

  Then, just to add to the general joys, Mrs Dunmore went to the bank and while she was gone, Cook nagged me into reading hers and Beryl’s tea leaves. I told them the usual stuff: Cook was going to be surprised by a new grandchild – which, seeing she was Eunice’s mother-in-law, came as no surprise to anyone, except Cook. She managed to work up astonished delight every time, bless her.

  And of course, I told Beryl she was going to meet a new man in the very near future. Which was highly likely as she worked in a canteen full of them. Whether or not she would strike it lucky with this new man I didn’t say, largely because I didn’t know. When I gazed into those two cups that day, I saw nothing but tea leaves. Still, I had two satisfied customers, and that was the main thing.