I shrug. ‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘It’s probably best if it’s not in the papers. It’s probably best if nobody knows he’s back, actually.’
‘But, why? It’s amazing. It’s unbelievable. Like Nan says, it’s a miracle!’
‘I suppose so,’ I say. But it doesn’t feel like a miracle. It feels all complicated and messy and confusing. ‘Could you do me a favour?’ I ask her. ‘Could you keep it a secret for now? Just between you, me and your nan? I don’t think Mum and Dad would want anyone knowing just yet.’
Jackie nods, seriously. She’s always loved secrets. ‘Of course,’ she says. She mimes zipping up her lips. ‘Me and Nan won’t say a word.’ She leans over and hugs me. She smells sweet, of burnt sugar and hair lacquer and custard creams. ‘I’ve missed you, Vi,’ she says. ‘But, I’ve just been so busy. Life’s a whirl these days, isn’t it?’
Brenda comes back carrying a tray with three little glasses of amber liquid. ‘Here you are, girls,’ she says. ‘Get this down you.’ We clink glasses. I shudder as the brandy burns my throat. But soon it begins to warm my insides and the familiar cosiness of Brenda’s front room wraps itself around me. Brenda swallows her brandy and sighs. ‘That’s better. Nothing like a drop of the good stuff for shock.’ She shakes her head. ‘Still can’t believe it, though,’ she says. ‘I remember him being called up like it was only yesterday. So proud of them all, we were. All those young men going off to fight for us.’ She sips some more brandy. ‘And so many of them never came back.’ Her eyes glisten. ‘Your mum must be over the moon. It’s like all her prayers have been answered.’
I nod, thinking of how young and girlish Mum has seemed lately and how I thought it was all because of a man and because of love. And I was right in a way. She’s got her first love back. She’s got her perfect son back, when she thought she’d lost him for ever.
‘And you really don’t know where he’s been?’ Brenda asks. ‘Or why he hasn’t come home before now?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘And like I said to Jackie, if you could just keep it all to yourselves for now … you know … until Mum and Dad sort things out …’
‘Of course,’ she says. ‘You can trust us, Violet. You know you can.’
I smile at them both and they smile back with bright eager faces. I feel like I’ve given them some sort of unexpected gift. Something they didn’t know they wanted but are really happy to have.
‘So …’ I say to Jackie. ‘How’s things at Garton’s?’
She curls her feet up under her bottom and stretches her arms above her head. ‘Same as always,’ she says. And, just like that, things are back to how they used to be. Brenda switches on the television set and gets out her knitting and me and Jackie slope upstairs to her bedroom.
She shows me her new Dansette record player. It’s bright red and cost her a whole month’s wages. We lie side by side on her bed and listen to Billy Fury, The Everly Brothers, Ricky Nelson and Helen Shapiro. Jackie rolls on to her front and hangs over the edge of the bed to reach underneath it. She brings up a packet of Embassy cigarettes, a box of matches and an ashtray. ‘Want one?’ she says, waving the packet in front of my face. I slide a cigarette out and wait for Jackie to light hers before I lean in towards the match. I manage to inhale without coughing this time and it makes me think of Beau and how he laughed at me and called me a virgin.
Jackie tells me that she’s been seeing a fella called Colin Trindle. He works in the packing department at Garton’s. ‘He’s ever so nice,’ she tells me. ‘He kisses like a dream and earns seven pounds a week!’ She lowers her eyes. ‘If I tell you something, promise you’ll keep it to yourself?’ she says.
I promise her. And I get the old feeling back for a minute. The old, ‘it’s Jackie and me for ever’ feeling.
‘He asked me to do it, Violet,’ she whispers. Then she puts her hand over her mouth like she shouldn’t have said what she said, and looks at me with wide eyes. ‘I’ve let him touch me,’ she says between her fingers. ‘You know. Down there.’
I don’t know what to say.
‘Are you shocked?’ she asks.
I know what she’s telling me, of course I do. And I am shocked. I’m completely shocked, and I feel sick too – with jealousy. It’s another thing she’s done without me. ‘What was it like?’ I ask, before I can stop myself. ‘What will you do, you know, if he gets you pregnant?’
Jackie smiles a secret smile. ‘It was lovely,’ she says. ‘Better than I thought it would be. And I won’t get pregnant, cos if I decide to go the whole way, he’s got some of those French letters.’
Now I don’t know what she’s talking about. What the hell’s a French letter? But I don’t want to look stupid, so I just say, ‘Well, that’s all right, then.’
There’s a bit of an awkward silence. Then she asks me if I’m seeing anyone yet and I’ve half a mind to tell her about Beau. But I don’t even know his last name and he only held my hand. He didn’t even kiss me. And besides, he’s still too shadowy. I can’t let myself believe that he’s real yet and I’m scared that If I talk about him it’ll turn out that he’s just a figment of my imagination. So I tell Jackie that no, I’m not seeing anyone and she says that in that case I’ve got to go with her to the next Friday-night dance. ‘You can meet the girls from Garton’s properly this time. And …’ She winks. ‘I’ll introduce you to Colin.’
She gets up from the bed and begins to dance around the bedroom. She jerks her arms up and down and moves her hips from side to side like she’s trying to shake a tail. ‘Come on,’ she says. ‘Dance with me.’
I wish I could. But I feel too stiff and self-conscious. I can’t let go of myself like Jackie can. I think I’ve always been like that, but I’ve only really noticed since Jackie went off into the world and left me behind.
‘I’d better go,’ I say. ‘It’s getting late.’
Brenda hugs me before I leave. ‘You know where we are,’ she says.
‘Let me know when I can come and meet Joseph,’ Jackie says. ‘And don’t forget the dance next Friday. No excuses!’ She winks at me, wriggles her hips and starts singing Helen Shapiro at me … Walking back to happiness, woopah, oh, yeah, yeah …
As Jackie’s wriggling around, I see a glint of silver around her neck. I put my hand to my own throat and feel the silver V nestling there; our matching necklaces, the symbol of our friendship. And if Jackie hasn’t taken hers off, that must mean something.
I walk back home with Helen Shapiro singing in my head, but I don’t walk back to happiness. Just to Mum sitting on her own in the kitchen cradling a cup of tea. ‘Good of you to leave like that,’ she says in her best sarcastic voice. ‘You never even spoke two words to him.’
‘What did you expect?’ I say. ‘Happy families?’
‘Actually, yes,’ she snaps back. ‘That’s exactly what I expect.’ She digs around in her housecoat pocket, pulls out the piece of paper she’s been hiding there and shakes it in my face. ‘When I got this letter from Joseph, it was the happiest day of my life.’ Her voice cracks. ‘My boy’s back, Violet. My boy’s come home.’
I wish she wouldn’t cry. Not for him anyway. She might be a pain sometimes, but I don’t like to see her upset. I put my arm across her shoulder and try to comfort her. ‘It’s all right, Mum,’ I say. ‘Don’t cry.’
‘We should all be so happy,’ she sobs. ‘But your dad cares more about what people will think when they find out that Joseph deserted the army than the fact he’s alive! And you don’t seem to care at all.’
‘Mum …’ I say. I think about when I first saw her sitting on the bench in the park in her kingfisher-blue headscarf and her red lipstick. I remember how I felt when I saw her holding hands with a strange man. ‘You’ve got to give us more time to get used to it all,’ I say. ‘When I saw you in the park with Joseph, I thought he was your lover. I thought you were going to leave Dad and run away with another man!’
Instead of her laughing at the idea and telling me not to
be so daft, she whips her head around to glare at me. ‘That’s disgusting, Violet,’ she spits. ‘How could you have thought such a thing? He’s your brother!’
She might as well have slapped me in the face. ‘He’s not my brother,’ I shout back at her. ‘He’s a stranger. And he lied to you for seventeen years.’ Mum’s face flushes. ‘You can’t make me love him,’ I say, before I slam out the room. ‘You can’t make me love a stranger.’
Bus Stop
It’s Saturday. I’ve got a pocket full of pound notes and I’m sitting on the top deck of the number 49 on my way to Shepherd’s Bush. Mum decided to talk to me again this morning, after ignoring me all day yesterday. She told me that Joseph is staying in lodgings until things settle down a bit. Which means, until Dad can bear to look him in the face. I’m not sure he ever will though. I saw the photograph, still in its shattered frame, at the bottom of the bin. The telegram and the tortoiseshell frame have disappeared too. What’s the point in displaying a lie on the mantelpiece?
Mum also told me not to speak to strangers and to be home no later than three o’clock. They found that girl, you see. Joanne Thomas. They found her body yesterday. She hadn’t run off with her boyfriend and she wasn’t pregnant. It was much worse than that. She’d been raped and strangled. They found her in the old pump house in Battersea Park. Apparently someone had managed to break the lock on the door and drag her inside. When they’d finished with her they covered her body in dusty leaves and pieces of old brick that had fallen from the pump house walls. They hadn’t locked the door behind themselves though, and a dog (a spaniel they said) had pushed his way through the door and when his owner found him he was already chewing on one of Joanne’s shoes.
Now everyone’s freaking out. At the bus stop, the air was thick with snatches of gossip. Someone knew her mother and from all accounts she was a good girl; quiet and sensible. Someone else had another opinion. Her skirts were too short. And why was she out on her own at the funfair anyway? A girl of fifteen shouldn’t be out on her own in the evening. Have the police got any leads? Could the murderer be someone local? It couldn’t be, could it? No one around here would do such a thing. People seemed to be talking about it like they thought it was her fault. On and on they went.
I was glad when the bus arrived to shut them up. But I still can’t stop thinking about it. This sort of thing only happens to other people in other places. It doesn’t happen around the corner from where you live. But it has, and now everyone’s looking at everyone else in a different way and the funfair’s been closed and the only people out walking in the park now are the police.
I remember being at the pump house last Saturday. I remember feeling that something was wrong. And it was. Joanne’s body was already in there. There was a real ghost inside those walls. A Sleeping Beauty, asleep for ever. There’ll be no prince coming to wake Joanne up. I shudder. I think about how she must have looked; her blonde hair all tangled with leaves and twigs and her white skirt all muddied and ruined. I imagine what it was like in there. Did the rain find its way through the gaps in the bricks and spatter down on her cold skin? Was it quiet in there and dark? Or did the sun filter through the ivy-covered windows to warm her body and did the faraway voices of children in the playground and the screams of riders from the funfair keep her company while she was waiting patiently to be found?
A horrible thought crosses my mind. I can’t help it, but I’m thinking that at least Joanne will be remembered for ever now. Everybody knows her name and her photograph will be displayed pride of place on her parents’ mantelpiece.
I wonder if I saw the killer that day without knowing it. Was he wandering around, bold as brass, all pleased with himself and with what he had done? I think about Mr Harper, the park keeper, and how he gives everyone the creeps with his droopy skin and yellow teeth and the way he looks up girls’ skirts and always gets a funny look on his face if anyone kicks a ball where they shouldn’t. Did he murder Joanne? Did he do those awful things to her before he put his hands around her neck and squeezed until she had no breath left? Or was it someone else? Someone who works on the funfair? Someone whose face is so familiar that I wouldn’t even notice him?
I look around the top deck of the bus. He could be here now. He could be that man over there. The thin one sitting looking out of the window; the one with his hair cut so short you can see the pale skin of his scalp. Or he could be that one there with the bag of shopping on his lap or the one sitting opposite me chewing his fingernails. But it’s Mr Harper’s face I keep seeing. I’ve always known there was something not right about him. And I’m not usually wrong.
The bus pulls in and the cheery conductor announces we’ve arrived at Shepherd’s Bush. I push poor Joanne and Mr Harper from my mind as I jump off the bus on to the pavement. The market’s buzzing. I push through the crowds, past stalls piled high with fruit and vegetables and others hung with colourful shirts and denim jeans, and more stacked with cheap jewellery and second-hand books. The air is vibrating with the shouts of market traders and the chatter of shoppers. There’s people spilling out of cafés and music blaring from open doorways. The air smells of fried bacon and new possibilities.
I wander up and down the market aisles with my hand in my pocket holding tight to the wad of pound notes. I spot the jackets on a stall way down the end. There are rows of them, black and gleaming like liquorice. The stall holder, a pale, stringy man with a neatly trimmed beard, looks me up and down as I finger the warm leather of the jacket nearest to me. ‘Don’t touch the goods unless you’re thinking of buying,’ he says sharply before turning his back. He clearly thinks I’m a fake and a time waster.
‘How much?’ I ask. That gets his attention and suddenly he can’t do enough for me. He stands in front of me and cocks his head to one side, sizing me up.
‘Right,’ he says. ‘Try this one first.’ He slips a jacket from its hanger and hands it over to me. I take off my anorak and let it drop to the floor. I think of a snake shedding its skin. I look down at my old anorak, all shrivelled and washed out, and I kick it to one side. I slide my arms into the sleeves of the leather jacket. It’s heavier than I expected; I imagine it’s what a suit of armour must feel like.
‘No. Too big on your shoulders,’ the stallholder says. ‘Try this one.’
The next one is perfect. I know it as soon as it folds around me. It’s like it’s mine already. I smell the soapy warmth of the leather and listen to how it creaks when I bend my arms. ‘I’ll take this one,’ I say. It’s £9 8s, but I don’t even blink as I pull the notes from my pocket.
As I walk away, the stallholder calls after me. ‘Hey! You forgot your coat!’ He’s waving my anorak at me.
‘Keep it!’ I yell back. ‘It’s all yours!’
I love it. I love this new jacket. I feel different already. I don’t have to be a shrinking Violet any more; I can be whoever I want to be. I find a Boots the Chemist and spend ages choosing an eyeliner and a cake of mascara. After I’ve paid for them, I go to the underground public toilets on the Green. It stinks of bleach and stale pee down here and the big mirror over the sinks is cracked and stained. I polish a section with my sleeve until I can see my face staring back at me.
The eyeliner is in a small bottle with a tiny paintbrush. I take off my glasses and I carefully draw a thick line across each of my eyelids and add a little flick at the outer edges. I have to push my face really close to the mirror to be able to see properly. The lines are a bit wobbly, but not bad for a first attempt. Next, I spit on to the cake of mascara and mix it to a paste, then I brush the paste onto my lashes, top and bottom. I try not to blink until I’m sure it’s all dry.
I look like someone else now. Older, like a ‘don’t mess with me’ Rocker girl. Like the girls from Chelsea Bridge. But that might just be because I haven’t got my oh-so attractive, blue-rimmed National Health specs on. I shove them away in my pocket, because although everything’s a bit of a blur without them, at least my new look won’t be ruin
ed.
Back out on the street I realise that as people walk past me, they actually notice me. Some of them even turn around for a second look. I don’t hurry along like I usually do. I don’t stare down at the pavement. I walk slowly, enjoying myself. It feels like I’ve got all the time in the world. I can go wherever I want, when I want, and I can hold my head up high. Nobody can touch me.
I saunter to the bus stop. I imagine being back on Chelsea Bridge. I imagine Beau standing next to me, being proud of how I fit in with everyone else. I imagine how the other girls there might talk to me again and tell me their names. I want to see Beau again so much now, that I’m scared I might never see him again.
A girl with pointy boobs and a tight skirt bumps into me as she wiggles past. I’m about to say sorry, when I realise I don’t have to any more. Instead I say, ‘Hey, watch where you’re going!’ She opens her mouth to protest, but when she sees my leather jacket she mumbles sorry to me instead.
All the bright, mad colours of Shepherd’s Bush whirl around me as I feel myself grow taller and stronger. I join the queue at the bus stop and tap my foot impatiently. I zip up my leather jacket, then unzip it again, enjoying the chunky sound of the metal teeth. Eventually the bus appears at the end of the road and everyone picks up their bags of shopping and shuffles forward. I find a window seat and pull some coins from my pocket to pay for the ticket. The conductor is joking with some passengers up front, so I gaze out of the window while I’m waiting for him and that’s why I don’t see the last passengers to board; the ones who were late and had to jump on the bus as it moved away from the stop.
That’s why it jolts me when, just as the conductor has torn a ticket off for me, someone from behind coughs and taps my shoulder. I turn around and my heart jumps into my throat when I see Joseph sitting there looking all smiley and pleased with himself.
V for Violet Page 9
