V for Violet

by Alison Rattle

  ‘Do you know them?’ I ask Beau. ‘Nah,’ he says. ‘But I will do in a minute.’

  I follow him as he wanders over. He melts into the group as easily as lard in a hot frying pan. They admire his bike and check out the badges on his jacket and arrange to drive over to Chelsea Bridge one Saturday night. An old couple shuffle past as the fellas are all laughing at something.

  ‘Need a few years in the army, you lot,’ the old man mutters. ‘Disgusting!’

  ‘Mind how you go, pops!’ one of the fellas shouts back. And they all laugh good-naturedly.

  ‘I’m starving,’ says Beau. ‘Fancy some grub?’ He grabs my hand and we head off across the road to a café called Divalls which has the words Fastest Service on Record painted in big white letters above its shop window. Beau orders two chip butties and two teas, and true to their word, in less than five minutes we’re sitting on the beach biting into the most delicious butties in the world. The bread is cut in thick, soft doorsteps, and the chips are so hot and vinegary that melted butter runs down our chins with each bite. ‘Good, eh?’ says Beau, grinning at me with a mouthful of bread.

  ‘The best,’ I say.

  We drink our tea and watch a dog chasing pebbles into the sea, its owner throwing the pebbles further and further out, so eventually the dog is swimming. ‘Did you know,’ I say, ‘that Newfoundland dogs are the best swimmers, because they’ve got webbed feet?’

  ‘Really?’ says Beau. ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Dunno,’ I say. ‘Must have read it somewhere.’

  He laughs.

  ‘Also …’ I say. ‘Bassett hounds can’t swim at all.’

  ‘You’re a card, you are, Violet. A real bloody card.’ He lifts my chin with his fingers and kisses the butter from my mouth.

  We spend the rest of the day wandering the streets and lanes of the town. There’s dozens of pubs and coffee bars. We wander into one and drink mugs of thick, dark coffee while Beau fills the jukebox with coins and we listen to Eddie Cochran and then Chuck Berry’s ‘Sweet Little Sixteen’, which Beau sings along to at the top of his voice.

  He pulls me off my chair and spins me round the floor and the other customers clap and sing along too.

  Breathless and giddy, we wander back down to the beach and take off our shoes and socks. The sharp pebbles dig into our feet as we walk gingerly to the water’s edge and dip our toes into the freezing shallows. I squeal like a little girl and Beau laughs and eggs me on to go deeper. We roll up our jeans and wade in, one step at a time, until a wave slaps over our knees and soaks the bottoms of our jeans. Beau pulls me towards him and our noses bang awkwardly as we find each other’s mouths.

  The light’s fading now, it’s getting late. ‘Wish we didn’t have to go back,’ I whisper.

  ‘We don’t have to go back,’ he says. ‘We don’t have to do anything we don’t want to.’

  ‘Wish that was true.’

  He grabs my hands. ‘Course it’s true! You want to stay here? We’ll stay here.’

  I bite my cheek, trying not to laugh, as the idea sinks in. Not go home? Stay here with Beau? Not have to face the mess and devastation that’ll be happening at home? To stay in this fairy tale bubble for just a while longer?

  ‘Really?’ I say. ‘Can we really stay?’

  In answer to my question, Beau leads the way off the beach and into the town, to a quiet side road where every other house has a Rooms to Let notice in its window. ‘Which one?’ he asks. I pick a house with a sea-blue door that still has winter pansies growing in pots on the doorstep. We walk up the pathway and knock on the door. ‘Keep your left hand in your pocket,’ Beau suddenly whispers, just before a stern, dark-haired woman opens the door to us. ‘Good evening,’ says Beau. ‘We saw the sign in your window and we wondered if we could have a room for the night?’

  A flicker of suspicion crosses the woman’s face.

  I shove my hand in my pocket. ‘Me and my wife,’ says Beau. ‘Well, we’ve just had a lovely day out, and we fancy staying over. Can you fix us up?’

  The woman smiles, showing off a mouthful of pearly falsies. ‘Of course,’ she says. ‘Do come in.’

  The hallway smells of talcum powder and wet dog. The walls are covered in thick red wallpaper and the floor in worn red and black checked lino. ‘Money up front,’ says the woman, ‘if you don’t mind. And you’ll need to sign the register.’ There’s a small desk squeezed into a corner of the room. The woman pulls a book out from under it and hands a pen to Beau. ‘Name, please,’ she asks.

  ‘Mr and Mrs Smith,’ says Beau. He keeps a straight face, but I can feel the back of my neck getting hot and I will myself not to blush or giggle.

  ‘Would you sign here please?’ says the woman. Beau scribbles in the book as I stare at my feet and at the cracks in the lino.

  ‘Ten shillings then, please,’ she says. ‘The door will be locked at ten and if you require breakfast it will be served in the dining room at eight sharp.’ She passes a key to Beau. ‘Any luggage?’ she asks, looking us up and down.

  ‘Only my motorcycle,’ says Beau. ‘It’s parked up on the seafront. I’ll go and fetch it in a bit.’

  ‘Right you are,’ says the woman. ‘Well, it’s the room to the left at the top of the stairs. Bathroom’s right next door.’

  We steal our way up the stairs. I can feel her eyes burning into my back. She knows we’re not married. She’s not stupid. But suddenly I feel stupid. What the hell am I doing? What am I thinking? This isn’t the sort of thing a girl like me does. I’ve never spent a night away from home before, apart from when I slept over at Jackie’s, but that doesn’t count. Spending the night with a fella is whole different thing. The sort of girls who do this, get pregnant at sixteen and married soon after. They’re ‘fast pieces’, as Mum calls them, and destined to end up on the scrap heap.

  Beau opens the bedroom door. ‘Ladies first,’ he says.

  I hesitate. If I step inside, will there be any going back?

  ‘Hey,’ says Beau. ‘Don’t look so worried. I’m not going to eat you. We can go straight back to Battersea if you want. We don’t have to do this.’

  And that’s when I remember there isn’t any going back anyway. The police will have Joseph by now. Mum, Dad and Norma will be in bits and none of them will ever want to see my face again. I step into the bedroom and Beau closes the door behind us.

  It’s late now. But the curtains in the room are thin and the room is at the front of the house so the streetlights are shining in, and I can see Beau’s face as clearly as if it were daylight. His head’s on the pillow next to mine.

  The room is a bit pokey. But it’s clean. The walls are painted white and as well as the double bed we’re lying on, there’s a small chest of drawers with a spare blanket folded up on top, a boarded-up fireplace and a painting on the wall of a girl with eyes as big as saucers.

  We’ve taken our shoes and jackets off, but we’ve kept the rest of our clothes on. The sheets are the fluffy flannelette sort and they smell of fresh air. We’ve got them pulled up to our chests.

  ‘You sleepy yet?’ asks Beau.

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever sleep again.’

  ‘I promise I won’t snore,’ he says.

  ‘I’ll poke you if you do,’ I say.

  ‘Here,’ he says. ‘Come over here and have a cuddle.’

  I shiver. Is this how it happens? A cuddle first, and then …?

  ‘Hey, you’re cold. Come on, let me warm you up.’

  I wriggle over to him and he slips his arm under me and pulls me into his chest. I shiver again, but I’m not cold. My stomach is wound up into a thousand knots. He kisses the top of my head.

  ‘Only a cuddle, Violet,’ he whispers. ‘Not every fella’s after only one thing, you know.’

  After a while, the knots in my stomach loosen a bit and I let myself relax into him.

  ‘Tell me some more stuff,’ he says.

  ‘Like what?’

 
‘I dunno. Like dogs having webbed feet. Some of that weird stuff you seem to know about.’

  His sweater is scratchy on my cheek and it smells of sweat and soap. I tell him that there are over a hundred different words for camel in the Arabic language, that people with Moebius Syndrome can’t smile and that the word for a group of ravens is an unkindness of ravens. Then I take a deep breath and tell him that earlier on today I shopped my brother to the police.

  ‘Your brother?’ He turns on to his side to face me. ‘You think your brother is the Battersea Park Killer?’

  I tell him everything then. About how I have this weird sense about people and that I always knew Joseph was hiding something. About how strange it is that girls only started to go missing when he arrived back in Battersea. I tell him about the letters I read from Arabella, the odd phrases; dark places, you’ve changed, you frighten me. That I think he might have killed her too.

  I tell him I saw Joseph walking towards the Roxy on the night Jackie was murdered, but he lied to the police and told them he was at home. I tell him how I followed Joseph to Battersea Park and watched him revisit the scenes of his crimes, and how afterwards I followed him to Soho, where he went to pick up his next victim. I tell him that I’ll never forgive myself for not doing anything then. I could have saved the next missing girl. And finally, I tell him how I confronted Joseph this morning, how I called him a monster and how he seemed to know exactly what I was talking about.

  Beau is quiet for a long time. ‘Yeah, there’s some stuff that doesn’t add up,’ he says, finally. ‘But your brother? Your own flesh and blood. Why would he just suddenly …’ His voice trails off.

  ‘But that’s just it,’ I say. ‘Nobody’s seen him for seventeen years. Nobody knows what the war did to his head, and nobody knows what he was really up to in France.’

  ‘God, Violet,’ he says. ‘I can’t get my head round it.’ He pulls me closer. ‘You’re so brave. I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘You don’t have to say anything, I’m just glad you’re here.’

  He shifts around onto his back again. ‘What’s going to happen when you go home?’ he asks. ‘It’ll be madness, you know.’

  ‘That’s just it,’ I say. ‘I can’t go home yet. Not until I know they’ve got him. I can’t go back until it’s safe.’

  ‘It’ll be in the papers,’ he says. ‘I’ll go and fetch one in the morning. If they arrest him today, it’ll be all over the front pages by tomorrow.’ He slides his arm out from under me and sits up. ‘God,’ he says again. ‘I need a smoke now.’ He gets out of bed and opens the window and I watch him as he leans out and blows clouds of blue smoke into the night. ‘Hey,’ he says. ‘Come here a minute.’

  I climb out of bed and stand next to him at the window. ‘Lean right out,’ he says. ‘Lean right out and look over there.’

  I stretch right out over the windowsill and look towards where his finger is pointing. Far away to left, between the rooftops and chimneys, is a tiny gap, through which the thinnest slice of the sea can be seen. But right at this minute, it’s exactly where the moon is shining, like a shimmering silver lining in the middle of all the darkness.

  Pits and Bits

  Beau is still breathing softly beside me when I finally wake up. His arms are flung out above his head and his quiff has flopped into his eyes. Sunlight is streaming into the room warming the sheets that are tangled around our legs. My first thought isn’t, oh my God, I’ve just spent the night with a fella (even though nothing like that happened), and it isn’t, oh my God, my brother’s probably going to be in the papers today, named as the Battersea Park Killer. No, my first thought is, I haven’t got any clean knickers and I haven’t even got a toothbrush.

  I cup my hand to my mouth to sniff my breath. Then I remember that a better way of testing for bad breath is to lick your wrist, let it dry for a minute, then if it stinks, so does your breath. So, that’s what I’m doing, licking my wrist, when Beau suddenly says, ‘What on earth are you doing, Violet?’

  ‘Thought you were asleep,’ I say quickly, dropping my arm back onto the bed.

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ he says. ‘There’s something you know about licking wrists that I don’t, isn’t there?’

  ‘Well, actually, yes,’ I say. ‘Monkeys lick their wrists when they’re hot. It helps to bring down their body temperature.’

  He laughs. ‘And you’re just testing out the theory, are you?’

  ‘Might be,’ I say. ‘It is pretty hot in here.’

  ‘Crazy lady.’ He rolls over and nuzzles his mouth into my neck.

  I giggle and twist away from him. I don’t want him to smell my morning breath. ‘I’m starving,’ I say. And I am. We haven’t eaten since the chip buttie on the beach and my stomach feels like a yawning cave.

  He checks his watch. ‘Well, we’ve missed out on one of the landlady’s breakfasts. It’s gone nine, you know.’ Then he slaps his head with the palm of his hand. ‘Shit! I need to phone work. Throw a sickie.’ He flings the sheets to one side and jumps out of bed. ‘Listen,’ he says. ‘You stay here and sort yourself out while I go and find a phone box. I’ll bring us back something for breakfast as well. Okay?’

  He shoves his feet into his boots, pulls on his jacket, runs his fingers through his hair and then he’s out of the door. ‘Won’t be long,’ he calls. ‘Keep the bed warm for me!’

  I listen to his footsteps clattering down the stairs and the distant sound of the front door closing. I stretch and yawn and rub my eyes. Then I reach down for my glasses that I put under the bed last night.

  The room’s so quiet and empty without him. There’s nothing of his in here and for a minute I worry that he might not come back at all. I still don’t understand what he sees in me. Perhaps if we’d done more than just kiss last night, I would understand more. I thought that all every fella wanted to do was to get into a girl’s knickers. But not Beau. ‘I’m not like that, Violet. I wouldn’t want anybody to do anything they didn’t want to.’

  Thinking about knickers, I hurry out of bed and into the bathroom next door. Luckily there’s a scrap of soap stuck to the side of the sink. I quickly strip off and give myself a once over. Pits and bits, Mum would have said. I dry myself off on some sheets of cheap, slippery toilet paper, then turn my knickers inside out.

  Back in the bedroom, I tidy the bed then open the window and look out on to the street, waiting for Beau to come back. It’s another dry day, and although the air is cold, there’s enough blue in the sky for me to pretend it might be summer. I imagine what it would be like to never go home. What it would be like to stay here in Brighton with Beau. He could get another job with the local electricity board and I could find some work in one of the fish and chip shops. I’m an expert at wrapping fish suppers, after all. We could rent a room somewhere and every night after work, I’d cook us our tea and then afterwards we could ride along the seafront on Beau’s bike and we’d get along just fine, just the two of us.

  I can see him now, strolling back down the street with an armful of paper bags. I lean out of the window and wave to him. It takes him a minute to see me, but when he does he lifts his free arm and blows me a kiss. I feel better now I know he’s back, and I run to the bathroom again to rinse my mouth out with water and to scrub at my teeth with my finger.

  I’m sitting cross-legged on the bed when he comes in and dumps the bags next to me. He bounces onto the bed and starts to tip out the contents. ‘Breakfast,’ he says, as two bottles of Coca-Cola, a loaf of bread and a packet of ham roll across the blanket. ‘Toothbrushes,’ he says. ‘Pink for you, blue for me. And lastly, a newspaper.’

  I stare at the newspaper, then at Beau, my heart banging in my throat. ‘Have you looked?’ I ask. ‘Is he in there?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘I wanted us to do it together.’

  I pick up the paper and slowly unfold it. It’s a copy of the Daily Mirror. I spread it out on the bed. Joseph hasn’t made front-page news. There’s a st
ory about a strike at London Airport and a picture of Queen Elizabeth visiting Ghana. I turn the page. Still nothing. Just an article about toys – ‘Only Six Weeks to Christmas’– an advert for diamonds, a story about London Fashion Week. I turn more pages, faster and faster. The football and rugby results, an advert for Qantas – Fastest Jets Around the World Service: London to New York in 7 hours – crossword puzzles and the television programme guide.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I say. ‘Why isn’t it in here?’

  ‘Maybe it’s too soon,’ says Joseph. ‘Maybe they’re still questioning him. Don’t forget, they thought it was that other bloke at first.’

  ‘Mr Harper,’ I murmur.

  ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘They were wrong about him, weren’t they? Maybe they just want to be sure this time?’

  ‘Or maybe they haven’t caught him yet,’ I say, the horrible possibility dawning on me.

  ‘Or maybe,’ says Beau, quietly. ‘Just maybe, he’s really not the Battersea Park Killer.’

  I shake my head. ‘Of course he is! It all adds up, doesn’t it?’ I glance up at him, but he quickly looks away and starts to unwrap the bread and ham. ‘You don’t believe me, do you?’ I ask. ‘You think I’m making it all up?’

  ‘Course I believe you. But there’s a chance you could be wrong, you know.’ He shoves some ham between two slices of bread and takes a bite. ‘Sometimes,’ he says, with his mouth full, ‘it’s like you really want him to be the killer.’

  Suddenly, I’m not hungry any more. I watch Beau finish his sandwich and shake my head when he offers me a bottle of cola.

  ‘Hey,’ he says. ‘Don’t be like that. I didn’t mean to upset you or anything.’

  ‘I’m not upset,’ I say. But I keep my head down so he can’t see that I’m lying. ‘But I can’t go home today. I can’t go home until I know they’ve got him.’

  ‘Well, I won’t go home either, then,’ he says. ‘Bout time I had a holiday!’

  ‘But what about your job? Won’t they mind?’

  He grins at me. ‘Don’t give a toss if they do. Besides, I just phoned in sick. As far as they’re concerned I’m stuck indoors with a bad case of the runs!’