Despite everything, as she walked up Abbot’s Close, she could not help smiling. With its trees planted in little squares of earth in the pavement, its neat little houses, built in the ’30s, its tidy gardens and wooden fences, here was everything Ivy had always wanted. In the long years at Meakin Street, where window panes rattled, where the kitchen was dark and inconvenient and where you could put your fingers into the big crack running down the back wall, Ivy had talked about her dream home passionately, inventively and obsessively. “There’s nothing like owning your own place – nothing,” she had declared. “Look at this place. Do you know when they put it up – to house the men who built the Albert Hall, that’s who! It’s a hundred years old. What I want is my own home, with a modern kitchen, easy to run, a bit of garden, some fresh air, not like this stuffy atmosphere. This place is making an old woman of me – I’ve given half my life to it. A thankless bloody task if ever there was one –”
Twenty, Abbot’s Close was semi-detached, with a bow window covered by net curtains. There was a garden, with chrysanthemums in the borders and a neat lawn. Roses had been pruned neatly. Molly, now very nervous, yet delighted at the prospect of at last seeing her parents and daughter, rang the doorbell. Chimes inside the house reproduced the sound of Big Ben.
Ivy answered the door in a smart navy blue two-piece. Her hair had been set recently. She fell back, clutching her heart. “Mary! Oh Mary!” she cried. Molly stepped forward and hugged her. Her decision to face the family out, let them accept her or reject her as they willed, fell apart immediately. “Oh, Mum,” she wailed, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I stayed away so long.”
“We’ve been sick with worry,” Ivy said, “sick.” Drawing away she shouted, “Sid! Josie! Come and see what the cat dragged in! Hurry up!”
Turning back to Molly she said, “You could at least have sent us a postcard, Molly, saying you were all right. It’s been terrible.”
“I was all washed up, mum,” sniffed Molly.
Sid stood in tears, unable to move, outside the living room door. A fat girl with brown curly hair rushed past him and pulled up short a few paces in front of Molly. “Mum!” she shouted.
“Sorry I stayed away so long, Josie,” Molly said to her daughter. Josie gave her a kiss and said, “Well – you’re back now.”
Sid shouted, wiping away the tears on his sleeve, “We heard you were sleeping rough. We thought you might be dead. What sort of a bloody game do you call that?”
“I brought a bottle of champagne to toast my own return,” Molly told him. “And a drop of whisky. I’d like to be invited in.”
“Half a mind to turn you out,” Sid said, angrily. Molly half-believed him but “Take no notice,” advised Josephine. “I don’t,” her mother said. She walked past Sid, kissing him on the cheek as she went. There was a patterned carpet, a floral three-piece suite. An electric fire made of imitation logs burned in the fireplace. Molly wrestled with the champagne and the cork popped. “All over the carpet,” mourned Ivy as Molly poured the wine into glasses.
“Welcome home, Molly,” said Sid, lifting his glass.
“I never thought you were dead,” Josephine said. “Did I, Ivy? Didn’t I say mum was alive?”
“She did,” confided Ivy.
“Nice place,” Molly said, looking round. “All new – better than Meakin Street.”
“She says it isn’t,” Ivy said, nodding at Josephine. “Would you believe it – she misses that dirty old street.”
“I’m at boarding school now,” Josephine said. “I got a scholarship. I only come home at weekends and in the holidays.”
“That’s very clever of you,” said Molly, impressed. “Do you like it?”
“Ooh – I love it,” declared Josephine. “They’ve got horses.”
“Horses,” said Molly.
“It’s only about ten miles from Framlingham,” Ivy said. “She ran away once and went and dumped herself on Mrs Gates. Mrs Gates made her go back.”
“She would,” Molly said.
Sid interrupted. “Well – where were you?” he asked. “And what have you decided to do now, that’s the question?”
“I was on the tramp, dad,” Molly said. “I’m sorry, but there it is. I think I’d had enough trouble and prison was the last straw. When I came out I couldn’t face coming back to you in disgrace. I couldn’t face making any decisions.” She sighed. “It must have been like a horrible holiday really.”
“Probably a crisis point,” pointed out Josephine. “You had to sum up your life and work out a fresh course.”
Molly looked at her daughter. “Taking psychology, are you?” she said. “As well as riding?”
“I’m entitled to speak, aren’t I?” asked Josephine.
“I don’t know anyone who ever stopped a Waterhouse from speaking,” Ivy said. “I’ve tried hard enough but I’ve never succeeded. That reminds me – Jack’s a prospective candidate.”
“What for?” asked Molly.
“Parliament, of course,” Sid told her.
“Blimey,” Molly said. “Everybody seems to be going up in the world.” She sat down. She remembered Joe Endell’s blue eyes. She said, “The long and short of it is that I’m moving back to Meakin Street.” She told them about coming across the party back from Lil Messiter’s funeral. She told them of her plans to take up the secretarial course again. She added, “I don’t see why Josie can’t come to Meakin Street and here alternately. George can sleep in the front room when she’s there and they’ll be company for each other.”
“What’s he like?” Josephine asked.
Molly told her, “He’s crushed. He’s had a rotten life and now his mother’s dead. You’ll be lucky if you can get him out rockin’ and rollin’.” She added, “He’s clever, though. He could help you with your maths.”
“Don’t need any help,” Josephine asserted.
Sid, holding out his glass, said, “Pour us another drop of whisky, Molly.” As she did so he told her, “I don’t know whether all this ought to be discussed with Josephine in the room.”
“She’s a bit too old to be sent out to play,” Molly told him. “We might as well talk in front of her. It isn’t as if she’s been brought up in a convent, is it? What you’re going to say is that it all sounds all right but you don’t trust me – you can’t have Josephine coming to a house stuffed with stolen property where her mum’s hanging around with a gangster. Well, that’s over. There won’t be any more of that.”
“What I don’t like is the glint in Josephine’s eye when she thinks about it,” Ivy said. “They’re all mad, these days, the girls. I don’t want her getting adventurous and bold when she’s supposed to be doing her exams.”
“I’m sure she won’t,” Molly told her mother. “Course, if you think I’m too unwholesome to be allowed to see my own daughter –”
“That’s up to you, really, isn’t it?” Ivy said tartly.
“Steady work – that’s the best way,” Sid remarked sententiously.
“Looks like the only way at the moment,” Molly told him.
“I can’t say I’d fancy moving back to Meakin Street,” Ivy said. “Can’t you find a nice little flat somewhere?”
“It’s cheap,” Molly said flatly. “Anyway, those old houses have got a bit of character.”
“Got a nice lot of leaking roofs, too,” Ivy said. “And outside toilets and badly fitting windows and doors. They’re subsiding, you know.”
“I miss them,” Sid remarked. “Not that I’m unhappy here – but we had some good times –”
“It’s the pub you miss,” said Mrs Ivy Waterhouse. “You hardly ever had to unplug that outside toilet when it blocked or cook dinner for five in that cramped kitchen. That place was a hell for women – look at poor Lil. It killed her. Don’t talk to me about Meakin Street. I never want to hear of it again.”
“You can always come over with Josie and go to the pub,” Molly said to Sid. Standing up she said, “I’d better go – I’m ta
lking to Cissie tonight and I’ll probably be making a start on the place tomorrow. It’s in a bit of a state.”
She was relieved, as she walked back to the station, that the meeting with her parents had not gone worse.
A quiet Christmas in Meakin Street, she thought, walking through the November dark. Thinking of the cells, of the bomb sites and warehouses she thought, it could be worse. It could be a lot worse.
1967
And, indeed, it could have been worse. The Waterhouses all spent Christmas packed into Jack’s house in Wapping. With Jack and his wife, the two West Indian children they had adopted, Molly, Josephine and George Messiter, Sid and Ivy and two of Jack’s brothers-in-law, their wives, their children and Jack’s mother-in-law. Two turkeys and three Christmas puddings later, as the rest of the family were in the living room, mocking the Queen’s speech, as was customary in their circles, Pat, Jack’s wife, made a scene in the kitchen over the washing up. Turning from the sink she said, “I’m fed up with them – I’m fed up with all of them. I’ve been brought up on the rights of bloody man and look at us – all the women, still in the kitchen washing up. What have they ever done for us? We’ve seen them through strikes and made their sandwiches for hunger marches and backed them up – up and up, all the time. And we still haven’t got proper jobs, or pay, or conditions – they’ll strike for men but they won’t think about women. Look at us – all women, all standing here clearing up all these dishes while they sit there. I can’t stand any more of it. I can’t. We still don’t count – these big humanitarians don’t think about us. We’re like the paper on the bloody wall, or this bloody sink here. I’m sick of it. Jack won’t listen to me. Rights of man.” She gazed into the sink and began to sob. “What about the rights of woman?” she cried suddenly and, smashing the meat plate into the crockery in the sink, she ran from the room. After a horrified pause, “Overtired,” said Pat’s sister-in-law. And “That’s right,” agreed the other women. “I’ll make her a cup of tea,” said her mother. “She’ll feel better after a nap,” Ivy said. As Pat’s mother put the kettle on she said, “She’s right, though.” The atmosphere in the kitchen thickened. There was a silence. Then Pat’s sister-in-law said, “Better see if anything in the sink’s survived the attack.” Molly saw Josephine fold her teacloth neatly, hang it on the rail by the door and quietly leave the room.
Pat came down later, after a sleep, and the day went on cheerfully. Shirley and her family were spending Christmas with her husband’s family. “Poor girl,” said Ivy, with one of the black toddlers on her knee. “It won’t be much fun for her with that lot.” Then they all started singing.
How little fun Christmas, or any other time, had been for Shirley came to light in late February.
By this time Molly was almost at the end of her secretarial course and worried about money. She had given Sid and Ivy half the proceeds from the sale of the ring. After all, they had been keeping Josephine for two years. She had spent some of the rest on restoring and repainting the house in Meakin Street, the rest went on taking up again her shorthand and typing course. She found it odd to be living with George and often with Josephine, who came frequently, but the experience was not unpleasant and to her surprise Josephine became fond of dreamy, withdrawn George, whose only conversation was about engineering. They played long games of chess. Josephine, who was in the habit of making satirical faces, indicating a state of dulled gloom, at George behind his back, told her mother, “Well, at least he isn’t always grabbing me like the boys in Beckenham – and that stuff about machines and cogs is quite interesting.” She also questioned her mother about her past. Answering, Molly found it surprising that this flashy character, the former Mrs Molly Flanders, was now practising shorthand in the evenings in front of the television, worrying about the price of fish, letting the cat in and out, and producing large meals for the improbable appetites of two teenagers. She should, she often thought, consider meeting a man, loving him, perhaps marrying him.
The doorbell rang one Sunday afternoon, just as she was giving skinny George Messiter, who had just put down two plateloads of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, a large slice of apple pie to follow. As she went to answer it she heard a crash. The cat, which had been taken to Beckenham by Sid and Ivy, had evidently trudged all the way back to Meakin Street, and lived as a stray until Molly reappeared. This had destroyed his manners. Now he had leaped on to the stove and grabbed the meat. George was sitting at the table looking astonished. He had no ability to anticipate ordinary domestic events. As Molly ducked down and seized the meat from the cat, the bell rang again. “George,” Molly called back at him as she hurried to answer, “you’re an idiot.” She still held the plate, with the meat on it, in her hand. On the step stood her sister Shirley, with the two boys, Brian and Kevin. Two-year-old Kevin still had the same red-rimmed eyes he had once had as a baby. Both boys were thin and looked anxious. Shirley had a large suitcase and a shoulder bag over one arm.
“You’d better come in,” Molly said, with the meat plate still in her hand. As they walked into the front room Shirley started to cry. The doorbell rang again.
Molly decided it would be Shirley’s husband but instead found herself facing a tall man in a suit. He carried a clipboard.
“Mrs Messiter in?” he asked, staring at Molly and the plate of meat.
“Not here any more,” Molly told him in the accepted style of Meakin Street when faced with strangers making enquiries.
“Oh,” he said, still staring at her. “She’s down on the electoral register.”
Molly could hear thumps and bangs from the front room and guessed that her sister was sitting there in bewilderment while her nephews wrecked the room.
The man recognized her. “You’re Mary Waterhouse, aren’t you?” he asked.
“And who are you?” said Molly. “Look, you’ll have to excuse me –”
Now there came a sharp crash from the kitchen. Molly turned round and shouted, “George!” She turned back and said, “Mr – er.” She turned back and said, “George – can you please keep an eye on that bloody cat. What’s he done now?”
George, gangling in the kitchen doorway, told her, “It wasn’t the cat. I was working on my dishwasher when some plates fell off the table.”
Molly said to the man in the doorway, “It’s like living with a mad professor.” To George she said, “Make us a cup of tea, love. My sister’s just arrived.”
“You’re living here now, are you?” the man asked. He added quickly, “I’m from the Labour Party. I knew your dad – and you, when you were a little girl. I think you met our member, Joe Endell?”
“Oh,” said Molly, recalling the scene at the Houses of Parliament. “I remember him.”
“He’ll be glad to know you’re all right,” Sam Needham told her.
“Tell him if I vote I’ll vote for him. But I’m busy just now,” she said.
“Goodbye,” said Sam Needham to the closing door. A man in whose face many doors had been shut, he put a note on his clipboard and went on his way, thinking. Mary Waterhouse, even holding her meat plate and yelling about the cat, was lovely. He wondered if Endell had spotted that, under the dirt and old clothes. I bet he did, Needham thought cynically. He worried about Endell, unmarried in his mid-thirties, and wished he would settle down and have a couple of kids. It looked better in an MP and it cut down the chances of a scandal.
Meanwhile Molly had hurried back into the living room and was asking, “What’s it all about, Shirl?”
“I’ve left,” Shirley said despondently. “I think there’s something wrong with him – Brian.”
“What?” Molly asked.
“I can’t say, in front of them,” Shirley said. She nodded at the two boys, who were jumping on and off the sofa.
George came carefully in with a tray. He had assembled odd cups, a milk bottle and a teapot.
“George Messiter – Lil’s boy. He lives here,” explained Molly.
The older boy, Brian,
reached up and handed the clock to his brother. Molly ran across and took it. She put it on a shelf.
“We want something to play with,” he told her.
“Try to stop your brother fiddling with the TV,” she said. “Look – I’ll turn it on.”
“We don’t like TV,” he said.
Shirley was sitting in a chair, looking into space. Molly poured out the tea. She gave a cup to George. She gave one to Shirley.
“We want something to drink,” Brian told his mother. Shirley looked helpless. George said, “I’ll get you some water out of the tap.”
“Don’t like water,” said Kevin.
“I’ll get you a biscuit, too,” George said. Molly stared at him gratefully. For once he seemed to have assessed a situation and worked out how to cope with it. “Come with me,” he said.
“Mind their hands on all those broken crocks,” warned Molly. When they had gone she turned to her sister. “So you’ve left,” she announced.
“Who wouldn’t,” Shirley asked. “They’re awful, Molly. You can’t imagine. His dad was trying to corner me in the kitchen – my own father-in-law – can you believe it?”
“Yes,” Molly told her. “I can easily believe it.”
“And mean!” Shirley exclaimed. “I was getting seven pounds a week housekeeping – and that was to cover everything, including the boys’ clothes and shoes. And they’re making a fortune from those shops. And muggins here is doing all their accounts for nothing, and for all their creeping Jesus act they’re not above a false declaration to the Inland Revenue, just as long as they won’t get found out.”
“Straight out of Queen Victoria’s time, that lot,” said Molly. “All hard work, thrift and tabernacles and underneath they’re working orphans to death, and putting their hands up the scullery maid’s skirt. Honestly, Shirl, I don’t know how you stuck it. A month of that and I’d’ve been off in my bare feet if I had to.”
All The Days of My Life Page 46
