Coronation Summer

by Margaret Pemberton

As she turned and led the way into the classroom, Daisy followed her, unhappily aware that, for herself, the subject was far from closed. For nearly a year now Billy had wanted to put their relationship on a different, more intimate, footing. ‘Yer fifteen now,’ he had said exasperatedly when she had been reluctant to follow through from hand-holding to kissing. ‘Girls get married at sixteen! Yer can’t tell me they don’t do so without ’aving done any kissing and petting before’and!’

  Daisy was sure he was right in his assumptions.

  She knew from her schoolfriends, many of whom broke school regulations with great brazenness when not within sight of the school-gates, that long kissing sessions on the back seats of local cinemas were considered a quite normal activity. But not for her. At least not yet.

  Miss Bumby began marking the class register, calling out names in her dry, clipped voice. Daisy’s thoughts continued to dwell on Billy. The problem was, her schoolfriends’ boyfriends were schoolboys from nearby St Joseph’s or St Dunstan’s. They weren’t mature twenty-one-year-olds, running a business of their own, having served two years in uniform doing their national service. Billy, she knew, was serious about her. In no time at all he would be wanting to put an engagement ring on her finger, and though in many ways that would make her the happiest person in the world, it would also mean an end to all her dreams of an Oxford university education.

  ‘. . . Daisy Emmerson . . .’ Miss Bumby called out without looking up from her registration book.

  ‘Here, Miss,’ Daisy replied automatically. If only Billy were a few years younger, she mused, and still at school, then things would be so much simpler. She became aware of stifled giggling coming from behind her.

  ‘Any old iron?’ the class comedian was singing rag-and-bone-man style under her breath. ‘Any old iron, junk or lum . . . ber?’

  As all the girls within hearing distance collapsed into stifled giggles, Daisy flushed scarlet, not in embarrassment, but in angry indignation. How dare her classmates make fun of Billy? He was twice the young man any of their wimpish grammar-school or public-school brothers or boyfriends would ever be.

  As Miss Bumby, hearing only the giggles and not their cause, glared and rapped on her desk with a ruler for order, Daisy opened her geography textbook in readiness for the first lesson of the day. One thing was for sure: when the time was right for her to become Billy’s girlfriend, she wouldn’t let any snide remarks about his occupation stand in her way – and she certainly wouldn’t let them do so if, as a university graduate, she became his fiancée!

  Chapter Six

  Carrie waved Christina goodbye, as oblivious as Kate had been to the need that lay behind Christina’s words when she offered to look after Johnny for her. ‘Well now,’ she said, looking down at him as he stood in the centre of her kitchen, ‘what shall we do today? Shall we visit the donkey-man on the heath, or go to the pond, or to—’

  ‘Yer can collect me boots from the menders, Ma,’ Danny said, sitting unshaven at the kitchen table as he studied the racing column in the Daily Express, a steaming pint pot of tea cradled in his hands. ‘And yer can get me some dubbin while yer about it,’ he added, wondering whether he dare risk a quid on Little Italy in the two o’clock at Haydock or if, considering what he’d already parted with at the bookies that week, he should keep his hand in his pocket instead. ‘And I’m out o’ wintergreen. The new liniment Jack’s bin tryin’ out ain’t ’alf as good.’

  Carrie, who had been bending down to speak to Johnny, straightened up. ‘What did your last slave die of?’ she asked with such unexpected and out-of-character tartness that Danny abandoned his scrutiny of the day’s runners and stared at her in bewildered amazement.

  ‘Blimey, pet, what’s got into you?’ he asked, deeply aggrieved. ‘I only asked fer some dubbin and some—’

  ‘I know very well what you asked for!’ Carrie was filled with such a rush of resentment and frustration that if Johnny hadn’t been present, she would have clouted him around both ears. ‘But did you have to ask for them as if I’d nothing else to do all day? And did you have to speak to me as if I was your blooming mother?’

  Danny blinked, totally at sea.

  ‘My name’s Carrie,’ she said, aware of his incomprehension and suddenly, ridiculously, feeling as if she wanted to cry. ‘And I’d like to be called Carrie.’

  ‘Well, ’course you do, pet,’ Danny said, blissfully unaware that he ever called her anything else. ‘An’ if yer like, if yer feelin’ out o’ sorts, I’ll get the dubbin and wintergreen misself.’ He abandoned the Daily Express and his pint pot and rose to his feet. ‘I’ll tell yer wot,’ he said, still clueless as to what had so upset her, but not liking to see her upset, especially when Kate’s little nipper was standing nearby, all eyes and ears. ‘Why don’t I make yer a nice fresh cuppa? An’ when you and Johnny ’ave finished visitin’ the donkeys or the pond, why don’t yer visit the gym?’ As he walked past Johnny en route to the kettle and the sink, he ruffled Johnny’s mop of silky curls. ‘You’d like that, wouldn’t yer mate?’ he asked, grinning down at him. ‘Yer’d like to ’ave a go on one of the punch-bags, wouldn’t yer?’ Danny liked nippers. When Carrie, six months pregnant, had lost their own little nipper and the doctor advised them she shouldn’t become pregnant again, he was devastated. He was also pragmatically realistic. After all, it wasn’t as if they didn’t have a kiddie. They had Rose, and Rose was a kiddie in a million. She was a little gem. And if trying for another baby meant putting Carrie’s health at risk, then as far as he was concerned, there was no contest. He’d settle for what he already had, thank you very much, and be grateful for it.

  ‘How is he going to reach a punch-bag?’ Carrie asked, resignedly aware that the present moment was not the time and that nor, with Johnny present, was it the place, for a proper argie-bargie with Danny.

  ‘I’ll lift ’im up.’ He began filling the kettle at the sink tap. ‘Which’ll be a darn sight easier than lifting you up, pet,’ he said, grinning broadly. ‘If we ever ’ave a fire I could get our mahogany wardrobe dahn the dancers quicker’n I could get you dahn ’em!’

  Carrie walked Johnny over the heath to the donkeyman. His pitch was just opposite the top entrance to Greenwich Park, and he had been there for as long as Carrie could remember, his half a dozen donkeys giving placid rides to small children. Still smarting over Danny’s wise-crack about her weight, she paid the donkey-man sixpence and then stood by as he hoisted a radiant-faced Johnny astride the donkey of his choice. She didn’t know exactly how much she weighed, because she hadn’t been on a set of weighing-scales since a day trip last summer to Margate when, as well as a slip of paper with her weight on, she had received another slip of paper.

  ‘You will have a lucky life and live in exciting times’ it had said. She was unimpressed. The war years had been exciting, but she certainly didn’t want to live through anything like them ever again. The slip of paper with her weight on had stated that she was twelve stone eight pounds. Was she perhaps thirteen stone now? Down at the market she’d have to sell a hell of a lot of potatoes to sell thirteen stones’ worth!

  ‘I’m a cowboy, Auntie Cawwie!’ Johnny shouted to her from the back of his placidly plodding donkey. ‘I’m chasing Indians!’

  Carrie laughed and waved acknowledgement, but inside she wasn’t laughing. Thirteen stone. That was probably what her mother and her mother-in-law weighed. Common sense told her that she didn’t look like her mother or mother-in-law. Big she might be, but she still curved in and out at all the right places and nothing wobbled where it shouldn’t.

  Johnny, once again on terra firma, was beaming up at her, saying, ‘Can we go to see Uncie Danny at the gym now, Auntie Cawwie? I’ve been there with Daddy and I like it.’

  Carrie thought of the all-pervading smell of heatrub and liniment, and winced. She’d do a lot to keep Johnny happy, but she didn’t want to spend a precious day away from the family fruit and veg stall watching her other half putting sweating boxers
, and aspiring boxers, through their paces, and besides, Zac Hemingway would no doubt be at the gym and she didn’t want to run into him again in a hurry. She’d had quite enough male aggravation for one day without letting herself in for more.

  ‘Why don’t we have tea and toasted tea-cakes in Chieseman’s?’ she suggested, knowing it would be a temptation Johnny would find hard to resist. ‘If you’re especially good, we’ll have ice-cream sundaes afterwards.’

  Johnny beamed, his eyes shining. A visit to Chieseman’s, the big department store opposite Lewisham’s clock tower, was always a very special treat. It had the biggest toy department for miles around and a cafe that, as well as selling toasted teacakes and ice-cream sundaes, also sold cream cakes and deliciously sticky iced buns.

  ‘And can we visit your market stall?’ he asked eagerly as she took hold of his hand and began walking him towards the nearest bus stop. ‘Can I help polish apples and take owanges out of their boxes?’

  Carrie gave a deep, defeated sigh. Not only had she let herself in for a buttered toasted tea-cake that would do her hips no favours whatsover, but she’d also let herself in for a jaunt down the High Street on the one day when she thought she’d escaped from it! ‘All right,’ she said, knowing when she was beaten. ‘But we’re not going to stay there long, pet lamb. I see quite enough of the market, working in it, without paying it unnecessary social calls!’

  Johnny giggled. He liked his Auntie Carrie, though she wasn’t his real auntie, of course. Johnny wasn’t sure, but he didn’t think he had a real auntie. His big brother, Matthew, had. Matthew had two aunties, one of them a great-aunt, which meant she was very, very old. Matthew had once had a great-grandad as well, though he and Jilly and Luke and Daisy had never had one. Instead, they had Gran and Grandpa Voigt who lived in Greenwich, and though Matthew’s great-grandad hadn’t been his, Jilly’s and Luke’s and Daisy’s great-grandad, Grandpa Voigt was also Matthew’s grandad. It was all very complicated, but he didn’t worry about it because his mummy had told him it was nothing for him to worry about and that he’d understand everything much better when he was a little older.

  ‘Has Mummy gone to see Maffew at his school?’ he asked chattily as they began to re-cross the heath, walking towards the hill that led the short distance down into Lewisham.

  Carrie, aware that Kate hadn’t told Johnny about Matthew’s disappearance from school, squeezed his hand and nodded. After all, Kate had gone to Matthew’s school, and so she wasn’t completely misleading him. Much to her relief, he didn’t ask any more questions as to why he was spending the day with her. Once in Lewisham they went into Chieseman’s and had tea and toasted tea-cakes in the cafe. Johnny also had an ice-cream sundae, and Carrie exercised great will-power by not ordering one for herself, and not ordering a selection of cream cakes either.

  It was scarcely fifty yards from Chieseman’s to her dad’s market stall, but it might just as well have been five hundred. First of all they ran into Christina Robson’s mother, Eva. Like her daughter, Eva was a German Jewess, but unlike her daughter and despite having been married for three years to a Greenwich butcher, her English was heavily accented.

  ‘So vat are you doing not working today?’ she asked Carrie cheerily, her near-white hair elegantly styled, an emerald chiffon scarf adding panache to a classically elegant, but inexpensive, beige pleated skirt and cream-coloured blouse. ‘I buy tomatoes from your Mutter and she says you haff other fish today to fry.’

  ‘Did she?’ Carrie suppressed a surge of annoyance. It was a relief to know her mother wasn’t broadcasting to all and sundry the reason why she was manning the stall, but there was no need for her to make it sound as if Carrie had taken the day off for no very good reason.

  Eva fumbled in her handbag and then, taking out a toffee, bent down and offered it to Johnny. ‘There, Liebling,’ she said, beaming fondly at him. ‘A toffee for a little boy sehr, sehr gut.’

  Carrie felt a lump come into her throat. With her first husband and her only son murdered by the Nazis, and with the war years spent not knowing if Christina had escaped the same fate, Eva had suffered more than her fair share of grief. What she longed for now, in some way to compensate her for all she had lost, was a grandchild – and it was beginning to look as if she would never have one.

  With a polite ‘fank you’ Johnny took the toffee and popped it into his mouth. Mindful of the giant sundae he had just eaten, Carrie regarded him with some misgivings, hoping he wasn’t going to make himself sick. ‘We’re just on our way to see my mum now,’ she said, not wanting to stay chatting any longer in case Eva proffered Johnny another toffee ‘for later’.

  ‘Schade.’ Eva hid her disappointment stoically. ‘Auf Wiedersehen, cheerio for now.’

  ‘Auf Wiedersehen,’ little Johnny said, much to Carrie’s surprise. Then, as they began crossing the High Street, she remembered. Kate’s father was German, and though it was very seldom anyone heard him speak his native language, he had obviously troubled to teach his grandson a few simple phrases.

  ‘Cooee there!’ Lettie Deakin called out, carrier bags bursting with vegetables in either hand. ‘Won’t it be grand if the weather stays like this for the coronation?’

  ‘It’ll be smashing,’ Carrie agreed, thinking how strange it was that so many of her friends and neighbours were German. Not that anyone really thought of Christina or her mother as being German. ‘Jewish refugees’ was how they were described by the few people who bothered to describe them at all. Carl Voigt, Kate’s father, wasn’t Jewish, and so came into a different category. He’d been taken a prisoner during the First World War and, when the war was over, he hadn’t returned to Germany but had married a south-east London girl and settled in Magnolia Square. Widowed far too soon, he had only moved away from the square and to nearby Greenwich when, shortly after the end of the Second World War, he had married his middle-aged lady-friend.

  ‘Skiving, Carrie, are we?’ the pot-bellied gent manning the first fruit and veg stall they came to called out to her genially. ‘Wish I could take a day off whenever I felt like it!’

  ‘You might as well, the amount of trade you do!’ Carrie riposted with a grin.

  He grinned back. A bit of friendly rivalry and joshing never did anyone any harm, and he liked Carrie Jennings. She never had a bad word to say about anyone, was always cheery and, like her father, was as honest as the day was long.

  From where they now were, Carrie could see her mother weighing out carrots for a regular customer and not looking any too happy about it. Knowing very well that once her mother caught sight of her she was going to complain loud and long about standing in for her, she took a deep, steadying breath. She took it a second too soon, for instead of the next person she spoke to being her mother, it was her niece, Beryl.

  ‘’Lo, Auntie Carrie,’ nineteen-year-old Beryl said, pushing her way through the mid-morning crowd thronging the High Street and using the childhood diminutive with happy unself-consciousness. ‘I know why you’re looking after Johnny today, so you don’t have to do any explaining in front of little ears.’

  ‘That’s a relief.’ There was no sarcasm in Carrie’s voice, only sincerity. If Johnny learnt that Matthew was missing from school and that the police were searching for him, he’d be both bewildered and distressed, and his distress would only make things even more difficult for Kate. ‘What are you doing out of the office so early? It isn’t lunchtime yet, is it?’

  ‘I’ve been to the Post Office for the office-boy. He’s got a heavy cold and shouldn’t really be at work,’ she added, just in case her aunt should think her errand a demeaning one for a fully fledged shorthand typist. ‘And I thought on my way back I’d have a word with Gran. She doesn’t really like working on the stall any more, does she? She says it makes her legs ache.’

  Carrie made a sound that could have meant anything, and in this case meant that Beryl was being far too gullible and soft-hearted. Miriam’s legs only ached when she was doing something she didn’
t want to do. At other times they would carry her for miles.

  ‘I’ve been into Woollies for a new lipstick as well,’ Beryl continued, fishing the item in question out of her cardigan pocket. ‘What do you think of it?’ She twisted the plastic barrel and regarded the cerise-coloured contents doubtfully.

  Carrie didn’t blame her for being unsure about it. It was far too hard and bright a colour for a girl as young and as unsophisticated as Beryl. ‘It’ll make you look as if you have a spoonful of jam in the middle of your face,’ she said truthfully, but without the least hint of unkindness. ‘I know you don’t believe me, love, but you actually look better without make-up than with it.’

  Beryl didn’t believe her. She was a tall, firmly fleshed girl with straight, mousy hair and a face other people found shiningly and endearingly trusting and without guile, and which she was convinced was unredeemingly plain. ‘I thought it might make me look a little less like a Sunday School teacher,’ she said wistfully, shoving the offending article back into her cardy pocket.

  Carrie regarded her in loving bemusement. ‘But you are a Sunday School teacher, love.’

  ‘I know.’ Beryl grinned sheepishly. ‘I just don’t want to look like one. Especially not tonight. I’m going to the gym tonight and the new boxer will be there and he’s absolutely wonderful, Aunt Carrie. He’s—’ she stopped short, the blood draining from her face.

  He was walking towards them; there was no way he could avoid them – and here she was, in an everyday cotton dress and cardigan, and without even the saving grace of a dusting of powder on her nose! She turned her back swiftly, praying he would simply walk past without seeing her. She wanted to look special when he first spoke to her. She’d already ironed a lace-collared blouse to perfection and starched the petticoats she wore beneath her best summer circular skirt, all in readiness for wearing to the club that evening. She had a face pack, too, that she intended using, and if he stopped and spoke to them now, none of the effort she took would be any use whatever. His first impression of her would be that she wasn’t worth a second glance, and then he might never, ever, give her a second glance!