Everybody's Somebody

by Beryl Kingston

  ‘Darling Jim,’ it said. ‘Meet me by the newsagent’s in Newcomen Street at 10 o’clock. I think I have found just the place. Your ever-loving Rosie.’

  He was feeling so much easier that morning he went to meet her. Nothing’ll come of it, he thought, as he limped along the pavements in the sunshine, but I’ll go an’ see it, just to please her. She can’t help getting ideas above her station. That’s what comes a’ working in that club with all them toffs.

  He saw her before she caught sight of him. She was standing on a street corner looking very pretty in her tawny jacket, her red skirt and her best straw hat. He was seized by two strong, conflicting emotions. The first was lust which was usual, the second was sorrow because she was going to be so disappointed when she found out they couldn’t afford these rooms she’d found. Then she was running towards him, her face bright.

  ‘Come on,’ she said, grabbing him by the hand. ‘Just wait till you see this.’ And without giving him a chance to answer she pulled him into the corner shop. He had a vague impression of rows of newspapers on a wide counter, shelves full of fags and jars of sweets, but he didn’t get a chance to say anything or even to take it all in because she was beaming at the man behind the counter and saying, ‘All right to go up, Mr Rogers?’ and the man was beaming back and lifting the flap on the counter to let them in. Through a door, up a flight of stairs to the first floor, then along a short corridor and up two more flights to the third.

  ‘I’ve brought you up here first on account a’ the stairs,’ she explained. ‘There’ll be fewer of them going down. There ent much to see up here so we can get this bit over quite quick.’

  Two doors, one in front of them, the other to the left, two rooms, both empty, the walls plastered and painted cream, brown lino on the floor, a fireplace in each one. The larger of the two overlooked the street, the smaller one looked out on a backyard and the roof of a two-storey building set at right angles to the shop. ‘This ’ud be our room,’ Rosie said as they stood in the larger room, ‘an’ the other one ’ud be Kitty’s. Now come an’ see the rest.’

  Down the stairs and into a room immediately below ‘their’ bedroom, same size, same cream walls, same lino, larger fireplace. Out onto the landing again. Rosie standing with her hand on the doorknob of the smaller room and a devilish expression in her face. ‘Take a look at this!’ she said and led him into the room.

  It was the same size as the back bedroom and overlooked the same backyard but there the similarity ended. There was large cupboard filling the corner beside the fireplace, a butler sink with two taps on the opposite wall with a cylindrical contraption attached to the wall above it, which she said was a geyser for hot water, and, standing beside the sink, what looked like an iron cupboard, with a pipe running up one side and a very solid handle to the door and the words ‘A & R Main’ embossed below the door. He was intrigued despite his misgivings.

  ‘What’s that?’ he said,

  ‘That,’ Rosie said happily, ‘is a cooker. I used one a’ them when I was keeping house for that Anthony Eden feller. Cooks by gas, what there’s a meter for out in the hall. That’s the pipe that brings up the gas and that’s how you turn it on, and this is the oven where you can cook roasts an’ pies an’ all sorts and these things on top are gas jets for cooking, so’s we can have vegetables and cook chips and make soups. What d’you think a’ that?’ She was glowing with such excitement he was caught up in it too, and said it was amazing, even though he knew they couldn’t afford such a thing.

  She rushed at him and gave him a quick, happy kiss, holding his face between her hands. ‘An’ that ent the end of it,’ she said. ‘Wait till you see the rest.’

  Out to the landing again and on into another part of the house. Two doors right and left facing one another. She opened the right-hand one with a flourish. ‘Take a look at that. We got our own WC. Think a’ that. No more carrying stinking jerries down to the yard and scrubbing ’em out after. You just pull the handle and it’s all gone. And this,’ opening the left-hand door, ‘is the coal hole, what’ll hold all the coal we want. And this,’ leading him towards a third door straight ahead of them, ‘this is the best a’ the lot.’

  He followed her through the door into a small rectangular room, with a window giving out to the yard, a washbasin with two taps, a copper for the laundry and an enamelled bath tub all clean and white with another one of those geyser things set in the wall above it. His jaw fell open before he could prevent it.

  ‘What d’you think?’ she asked. ‘Ent it just the best ever?’

  He took a breath to steady himself. ‘It’s a palace,’ he said. ‘I’ll grant you that. A palace. But what’s the rent? That’s gonna be the problem.’

  She told him straight, chin up and face determined. ‘Seven and six a week.’ And when his face darkened, ‘An’ don’t say it can’t be done. There’s three of us working an’, if we all chip in, that’s only ’alf a crown a week. We could afford that.’

  ‘Oh come on, Rosie,’ he said, ‘that’s ridiculous. Seven and six is a hell of a lot a’ money. A hell of a lot. If we spend all that on rent, what would we live on? An’ how would we furnish the place? We couldn’t live in empty rooms. An’ what if one of us got the sack? We’d never be able to manage between two of us. Be reasonable.’

  But she’d found her dream house and there was no such thing as reason. ‘You can leave the furniture to me,’ she said. ‘I been savin’ up my wages ever since they sent you to that hospital. I reckon I got enough put by. Me an’ Kitty are going shopping on Thursday to find the best bargains. She’s swapped her shift.’

  Now he was too furious to hold himself in control. He felt that she and Kitty were ganging up against him, going shopping as if it was all signed and settled. He was the breadwinner for Christ’s sake. If anyone was goin’ to make this sort a’ decision, it should be him. Not them. ‘You an’ Kitty?’

  ‘We been talking about it ever since I start looking,’ she told him. ‘She’s all for it. I told her as soon as I saw the advertisement. She’d ha’ come this morning an’ seen it for herself if she could ha’ swapped another shift, only she couldn’t, because she’s done it already, so’s we can go out Thursday. Oh come on Jim. We could afford half a crown. Think how good it ’ud be to live here, with our own cooker an’ as much hot water as we want an’ a WC an’ a bath an’ a copper an’ no black beetles an’ no stinking bedbugs. Well worth half a crown.’

  He was shouting now. ‘You’re not listening,’ he roared. ‘We can’t afford it. Don’t you understand? It’s out of our range. We can’t afford it.’

  She knew she would have to fight him. ‘Yes, we can,’ she shouted back, ‘if we make up our minds to it. Or d’you want to go on living with bedbugs for the rest of your life?’

  ‘We all have ter put up with bedbugs,’ he said dismissively. ‘It’s a fact a’ life if you live in London.’

  ‘No we don’t,’ she said. ‘You’ll never have to put up with ’em ever again if we live here.’

  She looked so ravishingly pretty and so determined with that chin stuck in the air that he lusted for her despite his anger. And that irritated him and made the anger worse. ‘We can’t afford it,’ he said, furiously. ‘We can’t. An’ that’s all there is to it. We can’t.’

  She was blazing at him. ‘We can! We can!’

  He turned on his heel and headed for the stairs, taking them quickly even though it hurt him. She was calling after him, ‘Jim. Please!’ but he was too angry to stay with her another minute. Through the shop, a brief nod at the shopkeeper and then he was out in the street and limping home. How could she be so bloody stupid? She just rushes off like a bull at a gate. Why don’t she ever stop to think?

  She was thinking at that moment and thinking hard. She couldn’t let this flat go. It was the best place she’d ever seen and just right for them. She simply couldn’t understand why Jim couldn’t see it too. It was so silly. He can be very stubborn when he likes, she thought. But
she could be stubborn too. She’d got the money in her purse. Three weeks’ rent in advance. It was all there. All she had to do was hand it over. It would make him cross, but she couldn’t help that. She couldn’t let a place as good as this go to someone else. He’d come round to it in the end. He’d have to, once she’d settled it. And having made up her mind, she went downstairs to settle it, there and then.

  Mr Rogers took her money and smiled at her and said she wouldn’t regret it. He could guarantee it. And when Rosie said she’d like to move in on Thursday fortnight, he agreed to it at once, before attending to his next customer, and said he’d have the rent book ready for her the next time she came in.

  There’s a lot to be done, she thought, as she walked rapidly along the road towards the Borough High Street. And she began to make a list in her head of all the things that would have to be bought for a start. But even as she was thinking, she knew that what she was really doing was deferring the moment when she would have to tell Jim that she’d taken the flat. I’ll wait till I’ve seen Kitty on Thursday, she decided. She might have some ideas. And then she had to run because she could see her tram coming.

  Kitty turned up to inspect the flat on Thursday afternoon, wearing a flower in her hat and a happy expression. She looked so completely and contentedly herself that Rosie had hopes that Jim had told her about the flat and had accepted that they’d rent it. They went upstairs at once and Rosie led her from room to room and watched as she squealed with amazement at all the modern things she was seeing and sniffed the air with a rapturous smile on her face. When they were back in the kitchen, she said, ‘I never smelt nowhere as clean as this in all me life.’

  ‘Didn’t Jim tell you what it was like then?’ Rosie asked.

  ‘No,’ Kitty said, looking out of the window at the yard below her. ‘He jest said he’d seen a flat an’ then he wen’ out ter the pub. I ain’t seen much of him since, ter tell yer the truth, except fer mealtimes. But he’s took it ain’t he? That’s the great thing.’

  ‘Ah!’ Rosie said. Then she paused, uncertain how to go on. ‘The thing is, he ent exactly taken the flat.’ And when Kitty looked puzzled. ‘What I mean to say is, it’s taken but it was me that took it. What I mean to say is, I paid for it.’

  ‘You ain’t told ’im, ’ave yer?’ Kitty understood. And when Rosie shook her head. ‘Oh my dear life! Whatcher gonna do now?’

  Rosie didn’t know the answer to that, so she said the first thing that came into her head. ‘I’m going to get it furnished and ready for us to move in,’ she said. ‘And it’ll need to be at bargain prices.’

  Kitty grinned at her. ‘Better get cracking then,’ she said. ‘We’ll go to Clapham Junction to Arding an’ ’Obbs. That’s a good place. Lots a’ bargains there.’

  ‘We’ll start with the beds,’ Rosie said, when they reached the store.

  ‘Well you’ll only need one,’ Kitty said. ‘I can bring me own.’

  ‘No,’ Rosie said. ‘You can’t.’

  That was a surprise to Kitty. ‘Why not?’ she said.

  ‘On account a’ the bugs,’ Rosie told her. ‘They live in wooden furniture. An’ mattresses a’ course. That’s how they get carried from place to place. Filthy things.’ So they bought two new brass bedsteads, one double and one single, and two brand-new flock mattresses and three goose feather pillows, and all the sheets and blankets and pillowcases they needed to cover them and arranged to have them delivered before the next Thursday.

  Kitty was most impressed. ‘You ain’t ’alf saved up a lot a’ money, our Rosie,’ she said, as Rosie opened up her purse yet again.

  ‘Well at least we’ll sleep easy,’ Rosie said. ‘Let’s go an’ see what their china’s like, shall we.’ She was full of excitement now that she was spending her money. It was almost as if she was rich. But when the shopping was over and she went back to the club, she still hadn’t said anything to Jim. There was a postcard waiting for her telling her he’d got a new pair of trousers for the wedding and she sat down at once and answered it saying she was glad to hear it. But she couldn’t bring herself to say anything else. I’ll wait till everything’s ready at the flat, she thought, and I’ll tell him then.

  By the following Thursday everything was ready. The beds were up and made, the china in the kitchen cupboard, the kettle on the cooker; there was coal in the coal hole and spare linen in the linen cupboard, they had a table and three chairs; she’d even run up two pairs of lace curtains on the sewing machine in the laundry room at the club and hung them in the rooms at the front of the flat. But she still hadn’t told Jim. By Friday afternoon, she’d seen the maître d’ and asked for his permission to be a day worker instead of living in and although his consent had been rather grudging, it was given, and her new life was arranged. And she still hadn’t told Jim. But by then it was Friday evening and she was on the train and on her way to Binderton and tomorrow was her wedding day and it was a bit too late. I’ll tell him when the wedding’s over, she decided. There wasn’t any other time.

  Her sisters were waiting for her at the window and they pulled her into the cottage at once to tell her they’d got a nice hotpot all ready for her and that the roses were all coming along lovely for her bouquet. ‘We’ll pick ’em first thing tomorrow morning,’ Tess said, ‘while the dew’s on ’em. An’ Pa’s got his suit ready. We hung it up didden we Edie? Everything’s organised.’

  And so it seemed to be. Rosie ate what she could of the hotpot, slept soundly all night, rather to her surprise, and woke to sunshine, birdsong and a newly cut bouquet of pink and yellow roses, carefully laid out on the dressing table. Then the day slid out of her control and became a kaleidoscope of fleeting emotions and vague impressions; missing Ma and Tommy, feeling weepy; her sisters dressing her and gazing at her in awe, telling her she looked ‘real lovely’; her father offering his arm to her as if she were royalty as she climbed out of the cart; the sudden peace of the church, with the organ pipes shining gold in the sunshine and the familiar pattern of the tiles under her feet; Jim standing without his stick, waiting for her and looking ill at ease, Father Alfred smiling encouragement as they exchanged their vows; stumbling over the words ‘Till death us do part’ because that was too awful to think about and Jim leaning towards her and whispering, ‘Well it won’t now.’ Dear, dear Jim. It was going to be all right, wasn’t it? But she still hadn’t told him.

  Then they were all on their way back to Binderton, she and Jim sitting side by side in Pa’s cart, and everybody else in procession. She caught a brief glimpse of Kitty and Tess and Edie, walking arm in arm and looking very grand in their rose-trimmed hats, and then they were back in the cottage and it was full of trestle tables set with meat pies and fruit pies and jellies and custards in a variety of teacups and she thought what a lot of work had gone into cooking such a feast and stammered her thanks. But she was swamped by smiling faces and urged to ‘sit ’ee down and try some of Mrs Taylor’s pie’ and soon they were all eating and drinking apple cider and Pa was making a speech, in which he called her ‘the best a’ gels, damn me if she ent’, and there was so much going on she couldn’t take it all in. Presently, old Mr Boniface struggled to his feet and reached across to the dresser to get his fiddle and, at that, they all stood up and the chairs and tables were carried out into the garden, dirty dishes and all, and space was made for them to dance. And she discovered that Jim couldn’t dance for toffee nuts and had to show him where to put his feet — to chirruping applause.

  It was growing dark by the time Pa went off to get the mare so that he could take them to the station. They changed into their ordinary clothes while he was gone, and Rosie went out into the darkening garden to retrieve her bouquet. But when she went to find Kitty, she said she was staying where she was.

  ‘It’s all arranged,’ she said, hugging her new sister-in-law. ‘Me an’ Tess thought it ’ud be nicer for you an’ Jim to have a bit a’ time on yer own. Get things sorted out like, what you’ll ’ave ter do now, won�
�tcher. I’ll come back termorrer. Don’t worry about yer things. I’ll bring ’em.’

  So they travelled to London without her, feeling a bit self-conscious and in no mood for tricky conversations, especially in front of the strangers who were sitting in front of them, eyeing the bouquet and exchanging knowing looks. But the conversation rushed up to bite them as soon as they arrived at Victoria station because, naturally enough, Jim headed off to catch the tram to Tooley Street. He was walking so quickly that Rosie had to pull on his arm to stop him.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not that way.’

  He was in a cheerful mood and teased, ‘Whatcher mean, not that way? I thought we was goin’ home.’

  She planted her feet firmly on the pavement and faced him squarely. ‘We are,’ she said. ‘Only not to Parish Street. We’re going to the flat. The one I found for us in Newcomen Street. That’s our home now.’

  He was so surprised that for a few exasperated minutes he didn’t know what to say and stood there glowering at her. ‘You don’t mean that,’ he said, eventually, although he could see she did. ‘Oh come on, Rosie. I thought we’d dealt with all that silly nonsense long since.’

  ‘It ent silly nonsense,’ she told him, staying calm with an effort because the expression on his face was making her feel guilty. ‘I paid three weeks’ rent in advance, if you want to know, an’ it’s ours. It’s all clean an’ furnished an’ ready for us. You can say what you like but we’re not going back to those awful rooms with all those awful bedbugs an’ cockroaches an’ everything.’

  ‘You never give up, do you?’ he said, glaring at her. ‘You just go yer own way and damn the consequences. What’ll happen if we can’t afford it? What’ll we do then? Have you thought a’ that? No course, you ain’t. You never think a’ nothink.’

  She was trembling but she still stood her ground. ‘Don’t!’ she said. ‘Please don’t.’