‘Could be anywhere mate,’ one of the women said. ‘’Idden away, I ’spect. We never saw the goin’ of ’er. Bleedin’ river!’ And she called again. ‘Peggy! Peggy-peggy-peggy. Come on! Where are yer?’
‘How old is she?’ Jim asked. If he had some idea of the size of the child, he’d have a better chance of finding her.
‘No idea,’ the woman said. ‘Used ter belong to my neighbour, you see. I took her in when she left on account a’ she’d got a flat an’ they wouldn’t allow cats.’
Jim readjusted his thoughts. ‘What colour is she?’
‘Tabby,’ the woman said. ‘Not that that’s gonna help us. She’ll be drowned-rat colour be now. Look at the state a’ this place.’
There was a clatter of falling bricks behind them and Jim turned to look, instantly alert and ready to pull them all to safety. But it was a fireman clambering over the debris into the yard.
‘Let’s have you out of here,’ he called as he approached. ‘I’ll carry the kiddie.’ And he picked her up and settled her against his shoulder.
‘We can’t go till we’ve found our Peggy,’ the woman said, looking stubborn.
The fireman was patient and reasonable. ‘You can’t stay here,’ he said. ‘It’s too dangerous. We don’t want to have to dig you out the rubble. This lot’ll come down if you sneeze.’
‘I’ll find the cat,’ Jim said to her and explained to the fireman. ‘I don’t live ’ere. I come to help out.’
‘Watch out fer the mud, then,’ the fireman said.
Jim laughed. ‘I’m used ter mud,’ he said. ‘I was in the trenches.’
‘Ah well then,’ the fireman grinned, ‘you’re just the sort a’ bloke we need. See if there’s anyone up that alley, will you. Some of ’em are in shock an’ don’t move.’
Jim never found the cat, but he worked long and hard that day, persuading people out of the remains of their houses, supporting them when they were too hurt or shocked to walk, comforting them when they wept, slipping off to buy fags and handing them out to anyone who needed them. It was as if he was back in the trenches, mud caked to his knees and with the stink of the wreckage in his nostrils, and in an odd sort of way he almost enjoyed it, partly because he was helping people who needed his help and partly because he felt so at home there. By the time it grew dark and he limped back to Newcomen Street, he was worn out and filthy from head to foot but undeniably pleased with himself.
Rosie and the girls had been cooking all afternoon and the kitchen was warm and welcoming, with a good fire going and the smell of a hotpot rising succulently from the oven. All three of them rushed at him as soon as he got in.
‘That smells good,’ he said, fending them off. He wanted to hug them all, but he was much too dirty for that. ‘Must jest nip an’ have a bit of a wash first.’
‘I’ll run a bath for you,’ Rosie said, ‘an’ you can tell me all about it.’ Which, once she’d settled the girls with the gruff billy goats, she did, while he sat on the bathroom chair and told her what a terrible mess the flood had made.
‘Put your clothes straight in the copper,’ she said, when the bath was ready. ‘I’ll bring you in some clean ones presently.’
He did as he was told, throwing his wet jersey on the floor, unbuttoning his mud-stained shirt and dropping that too, stripping off his sweaty vest where he stood, glad to be rid of them. And she watched as if she was mesmerised. For here was her own dear lion again, mane bristling, tawny eyes shining, muscled and powerful, his hands looking so strong and competent and loving, she simply had to put her arms round him. He was such a good honest man, even if he did get depressed and grumpy now and then. He hadn’t spent his day rescuing silly paintings, he’d been looking after people. ‘Oh Jim,’ she said. ‘I do love you.’
‘Likewise,’ he said, grinning at her. ‘I’d show you if I wasn’t so filthy dirty.’
‘Later,’ she said happily.
And later it was, most pleasurably. Well who’d have thought that after such a day?
The next morning the papers told the full story of the flood, horrors, pictures and all. Fourteen people had been drowned, most of them in their cellars before they could escape, six thousand had lost their homes and a great swathe of central London had been completely destroyed. Later in the day, firemen began the long job of pumping the water out of the tube and clearing the debris from the Embankment, where the cobbles had been ripped out of the road and thrown about like children’s bricks. The next day the schools opened, Mr Feigenbaum’s supplies got through, the trams ran again and life in the Borough began to return to normal. Not that Jim and Rosie noticed very much of it for they were in love again and so happy they could hardly believe it.
Even the first snow of winter was something to enjoy. On that first whitened Sunday, when it was so cold there were frost ferns halfway up the bedroom windows every morning, they bundled their daughters into every bit of warm clothing they possessed — jerseys, coats, thick skirts, two pairs of socks, boots, mufflers and knitted hats, and took them off to Hyde Park, like two tightly wrapped parcels, to play snowballs, which Gracie said was ‘the bestest game ever’. On their second visit, the Serpentine was frozen over and there were people skating on it. Gracie was enthralled. ‘Can we do that, Mum?’ she asked.
‘If we had skates we could,’ Rosie said, wondering where she could get some and how much they’d cost. ‘I’ll have to see.’
But the person who saw wasn’t Rosie, it was Gerard de Silva, who rang early the next morning to say he’d got the perfect idea for the Winter painting. ‘You and the kiddies skating on the Serpentine,’ he said. ‘It’ll be an absolute winner. Your Gracie is off school, isn’t she? Yes. I’ve got the perfect outfit for you and the light couldn’t be better. Have you got any skates?’
It riled her to be given her orders so peremptorily, even though she was used to it, and she told him quite crossly that she didn’t possess such a thing. Why should she? It didn’t quell his excitement in the least. ‘Just tell me your shoe sizes,’ he said, ‘and I’ll get some for you.’ And when she’d told him, he said, ‘Right-ho! I’ll be with you as soon as I can. Wear lots of warm clothes.’ And rang off.
He was outside the flat in less than an hour with his usual picnic basket, three expensive-looking shoeboxes and a lady’s coat and hat made of thick blue velvet trimmed with white fur. It made Rosie’s mouth water even to look at it.
‘Try the boots on,’ he said as he drove off. ‘I want to know if they fit.’
It wasn’t the easiest thing to do in the confines of the car and the girls made a better job of it than Rosie, but all three pairs were a good fit when they were on and laced, their fine white leather very grand against their dark winter clothes and the skates shining like silver. And then, after an impatient drive, they were in the park and on the ice among all the other skaters, slipping and slithering and falling over as they tried to find their balance and enjoying themselves so much that Rosie could actually feel her spirits expanding with the sheer joy of it all.
It took them all morning before they could move about with any ease and Gerry skated with them, holding their hands and laughing at them and hoisting them up when they tumbled. But in the afternoon, when they’d had bowls of steaming hot soup poured from a huge Thermos flask and lots of bread rolls and eaten every crumb of Mrs Fenchurch’s seed cake, he decided the time had come to start sketching and produced his folding stool, a sketch pad and his new Agfa camera and worked by the edge of the lake while they played. From time to time he waved his arms to show that they were to join hands and skate towards him but for the rest of the afternoon they simply skated, making a better and better job of it until they were flying like birds, fairly skimming across the ice as the wind bit their cheeks and the crowds swirled around them.
‘Shall we come back tomorrow, Uncle Gerry?’ Gracie asked as they drove home in the dusk.
‘And tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,’ he promised her, ‘providing the weather
holds and my hands don’t fall off with the cold.’
She was thrilled by the idea. ‘Will they?’ she asked, her eyes wide.
He turned his head to grin at her. ‘You never know,’ he said.
The next morning it was snowing but they skated on, their coats patterned with snowflakes. At the start of the next week, Gracie had to go back to school but Rosie and Mary went skating again, which Gracie said was very unfair particularly when her sister was being smug about it. It was more than three weeks before the picture began to take shape and by then all hope of any more skating was over because the ice was melting. But it was a very good picture. Rosie thought it was the best thing she’d ever seen, with all those dark figures swirling and dancing and making patterns in the background and she and her daughters skimming together right in the middle of it all. The girls looked so pretty, and that blue coat was the most handsome garment she’d ever worn. She was really quite sad to have to hand it back.
‘I wonder what’ll happen next,’ she said to Jim as she packed the skates away at the top of the cupboard.
‘Somethin’ will,’ Jim said. ‘It always does. You ever comin’ ter bed?’
Once the weather improved, Kitty went back to visiting them every week, usually on a Wednesday because it was half-day closing and usually with a cake of some kind for ‘the littluns’. In the middle of March she arrived with a chocolate sponge that Gracie and Mary said was their ‘very favouritest’.
As soon as Jim got home from work, they sat around the table in the kitchen with the windows open to let in the nice fresh air and Kitty opened the tin. ‘They do like their cake,’ she said, watching the girls as they ate.
‘That’s kids for yer,’ Jim told her, grinning at her.
Kitty grinned back. ‘As I shall find out mesself in a month or two,’ she said, ‘accordin’ ter the midwife.’
Rosie’s eyebrows rose so far into her hair they all but disappeared. ‘Midwife?’ she said. ‘Are you…?’
‘Yep!’ Kitty said with wonderful aplomb. ‘Comin’ August, so she says. Whatcher think a’ that?’
Then what squeals and cuddles and kisses there were. ‘Fancy my kid sister expecting,’ Jim said, giving her a bear hug.
‘Not so much a’ the kid, if you don’t mind,’ Kitty said beaming at him. ‘I’ll be thirty come October. That’s old fer havin’ babies.’
‘You’re gonna have another cousin, our Gracie,’ Jim said. ‘Whatcher think a’ that?’
Gracie wasn’t impressed. ‘I’d rather have a cat,’ she said.
Later that night as they were undressing, Jim began to giggle. ‘Who’d ha’ thought the ol’ Monster would’ve had it in him?’ he said. ‘It beats cock-fightin’.
‘Well I hope he treats ’em right, that’s all,’ Rosie said. ‘I wouldn’t trust him an inch with anybody, newborn or not.’
‘I shall watch him,’ Jim said, suddenly serious and frowning.
‘Good,’ Rosie said. ‘You do. An’ I’ll take her to the seaside, an’ give her a breath a’ fresh air. Daytrip from Balham. That ’ud do her no end a’ good. As soon as we’ve got the weather for it. An’ the money.’
The weather arrived with a flourish of roses at the end of May. By that time Kitty had reached the cumbersome stage of her pregnancy and thought a trip to the sea would be just the thing. ‘I’d like to see your sisters again,’ she said. So Rosie looked out their swimming costumes, sent postcards to Tess and Edie to say they’d be down on Saturday, and off they went.
They had a lovely idle day. Rosie and her sisters sunbathed and went for a swim to cool off; Kitty took the littluns paddling and fell asleep in her deckchair afterwards; they had fish a ship, to Gracie’s delight, and a steady supply of ice creams; and the cousins played in the pools and built a sandcastle under Gracie’s bossy supervision, while their mothers reminisced about what it was like when they were little and played in the fields.
‘It seems such a long time ago,’ Rosie said, gazing out to sea. ‘And now here we are with kids of our own.’
‘An’ three more coming,’ Edie said, grinning at her.
That was news. ‘Three?’ Rosie said.
‘Me an’ Tess,’ Edie told her happily. ‘I’m due November and she’s a month later. We’re gonna be waddlin’ about like elephants together, ent we Tess?’
‘My stars,’ Rosie said. ‘That’ll be seven cousins. Think a’ that. There won’t be room for us all on the beach.’
‘I always thought it ’ud be you havin’ all the babies,’ Tess said, flicking a fly away from her face. ‘Like Ma.’
‘Well you were wrong.’ Rosie said.
‘If they come, they come,’ Kitty said, shifting her bulk uncomfortably in her deckchair. ‘An’ that’s the truth of it. You jest have ter grin an’ bear it.’
‘Not in the twentieth century you don’t,’ Rosie said, turning her face to the sun.
She’d spoken carelessly, feeling pleased by how much she knew and without thinking of the impact of what she was saying, but she regretted it as soon as the words were out of her mouth because the others were instantly intrigued and staring at her so hard, she could feel their eyes on her face. ‘What d’yer mean, you don’t?’ Kitty said.
Oh God! Rosie thought. I shall have to tell them. I can’t backtrack now. ‘There are things you can do,’ she said vaguely. ‘I mean, you don’t have to get pregnant.’ She could feel her cheeks reddening with embarrassment and ducked her head to hide them.
‘What sort a’ things?’ Kitty said. Her voice didn’t sound disapproving, simply very interested.
‘I’ll tell you later, if you like,’ Rosie said. ‘I mean it’s a bit sort a’ private. Not the sort a’ thing to talk about on a beach.’
‘No nat’rally,’ Kitty said, rubbing her belly. ‘That’s understood. I shall hold you to it though. I don’t want a baby a year neither.’
Gracie was running up the beach towards them, trailing a long strand of brown seaweed behind her and calling, ‘Look what I got!’ so her mother was rescued. But only temporarily. As they were travelling home on their crowded train Kitty came back to the topic, in a roundabout way.
‘You know what we was talkin’ about on the beach,’ she said. ‘I been thinkin’. When I’ve had this baby will you tell me about it? It might be…’
‘Yes,’ Rosie said. ‘’Course. It ent a secret. It’s just most women don’t know.’
‘Secret’s the size of it fer me though,’ Kitty said, looking anxious. ‘I wouldn’t have ter tell Herbert would I? He wouldn’t like it an’ there might be ructions. I mean, he’s a tricky chap at the best a’ times. I sort a’ live round the edges with him. If you see what I mean.’
‘No,’ Rosie reassured her. ‘He wouldn’t need to know a thing.’
‘Good,’ Kitty said, and grinned. ‘In that case, I’ll ask you when the time comes.’
They were rattling into London by then and Mary was looking out of the window at the long lines of identical houses. ‘Are we goin’ to the beach again?’ she said.
‘Soon,’ Kitty said. ‘I’ll give you a ring an’ we’ll fix it.’
She rang them the next Tuesday, but it wasn’t to fix a trip to the seaside. She was bubbling with excitement. ‘We’ve got the vote, our Jim,’ she said. ‘At last. It’s jest been on the news. Everybody over twenty-one, men and women. We’ve done it. Whatcher think a’ that?’
‘Not before time,’ Jim said. And told Rosie.
‘I shall wear my sash to the polling booth,’ Kitty said when Rosie took the phone. ‘I can’t wait. After all these years an’ all them marches, an’ all them brave women bein’ sent to prison an’ force-fed, an’ Emily Davison dyin’ an’ everythin’ an’ our Sylvia fightin’ so hard, we done it. It’s a triumph.’
‘Yes,’ Rosie said, swelling with pride for her. ‘It is. You’ve made history. When’s the next election?’
‘Next year, probably,’ Kitty said and squealed. ‘I can’t wait. We’ll see some change
s now.’
Two days later she rang again, sounding even more excited than she had in her last call. ‘Guess what?’ she said.
‘You know when the election’s going to be?’ Rosie said.
‘Better than that,’ Kitty whooped. ‘I’m expecting twins. Whatcher think a’ that?’
Rosie wasn’t altogether surprised given how big Kitty was, but she didn’t say so. ‘Two for the price a’ one,’ she said.
Chapter 21
Gracie wasn’t impressed with Kitty’s babies. ‘They’re very small,’ she said, looking at the two pale heads, lying against the pillows in their identical cots. They’d been born the previous afternoon, each of them weighing in at less than five pounds, and for once, and because they knew the Monster would be at work, the entire family had come to Tooting on the tram to see them.
Mary didn’t even bother to look at them. She was far more interested in her new boots. ‘When September comes,’ she confided to Kitty, ‘I’m goin’ to school. Mummy’s bought me new boots. They’re ever so nice. I can’t wear them till I go school, or you could see them.’
‘Fancy,’ Kitty said vaguely, stroking the nearest baby’s head. ‘This one’s Robert,’ she said to Rosie, ‘and the other one’s George.’
‘I’ve got new socks an’ all,’ Mary said.
‘Take them out in the garden and show them the birdbath,’ Rosie said to Jim. ‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you girls? Me an’ your Aunty Kitty want to talk.’
So they were taken, chatting all the way downstairs, and the two women were left alone to get on with the serious business of discussing the birth, which they did, happily. Then Kitty turned the conversation in a different direction.
‘You know what we was talkin’ about in Worthin’ that time,’ she said, and when Rosie nodded, ‘Well, when d’you reckon I ought ter do what I got ter do, if you know what I mean? I don’t want to get caught out a second time. These two are enough of a family to be goin’ on with.’
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