All The Days of My Life

by Hilary Bailey

  “It’s the children,” said Shirley. “And then I believed it, you see, for a long time. I was committed. But the nastiness underneath – you wouldn’t believe. Brian ended up wanting me to dress up – and him. Are you shocked?”

  “Dress up as what?” Molly asked, ignoring the question.

  “Well, I had to dress up as a tart – you know, corsets and high-heeled shoes,” Shirley said, in an undertone. “And he – he –” She paused and said, “He had to dress up as me, in my clothes. That’s Saturday night and on Sunday we’re in the chapel, singing hymns as usual.”

  “Oh, dear, oh dear,” Molly said. “In Greenford, too.”

  “And that horrible dad of his – having a go at me, all hands and quoting the Bible to prove it’s all right. They’re mad, Molly. I think they’ve driven me mad, too.”

  “It’ll soon wear off,” her sister said.

  “And it’s these pills,” sobbed Shirley. “I got them for depression. Brian sent me to the doctor. But I’m crying more. And I think they only make me feel more confused. I asked the doctor but he said to keep on taking them, they’d work in the end. I think I’ll give them up.”

  “You’d better,” Molly said. There came another crash, this time from upstairs. She ran up. George said, surveying the mess in the bath, “The big one, Brian, said he wanted to go to the toilet. He must’ve climbed up.”

  “There’ll be nothing left of this place by Monday,” Molly said, turning on the taps and flushing the mixture of shampoo, bath salts and cologne down the drain. She was fishing the broken glass out of the bath and throwing it in the waste bin when George said, “I’m sorry for them really. They’re disturbed.”

  “I’m sure you’re right,” Molly told him, cutting her hand on a piece of glass, “and so are we now. You’re being very nice about this, George. I’ll sort something out in a minute. Can you watch them a bit longer?”

  She went downstairs and told Shirley, “A few bottles in the bathroom.”

  “Oh,” said Shirley apathetically.

  Molly said, “Shirley – I’m sympathetic. But you can see for yourself there isn’t much room here. And I’m taking my final tests for my diploma in a fortnight. This place isn’t even mine. I’ve moved in because Cissie Messiter’s got rights over the place. But I don’t want to attract the landlord’s attention. So stay a little while till you get fixed up but you can see the problem.”

  “Oh, thank you, Molly,” her sister said. “I didn’t know where to turn.”

  That night Shirley slept in George’s room, with the boys on a borrowed mattress beside her. George slept on the sofa in the front room. This was his usual bed when Josephine came to stay. “Just for a few days,” she told George.

  At the end of ten days she was desperate. There was too little room at Meakin Street for herself, George, Shirley and the boys. Shirley remained lethargic. An effort to give up the tablets the doctor had given her failed. The more removed she became, the worse her children behaved. Molly would come home from the college tired, and hoping to practise for her tests, to find Shirley watching the TV and expecting her to cook supper for the five of them. Her drawers would have been turned out on to the floor, the kitchen would be in confusion and the cat hiding in the yard behind a tub of flowers which had all been torn up by the roots. Molly began to realize what had turned Ivy into the demonic figure from her childhood, and why she now clung so passionately to the featureless little house in the dull suburb. Waves of fatigue and irritability washed over her. She became obsessed with the importance of passing her tests and getting her diploma, even though she could take the tests again, even though without them she could still secure a good job. She worried about money. Shirley and the boys were costing a lot to keep. But she had not the heart to be too hard on her sister – she was so evidently bemused, trying to understand what had happened to her, trying to fight off the effects of the pills she was taking and lacking any money at all. Nevertheless Molly, coming back from college one day with a shopping basket full of food and the knowledge that she was down to her last fifty pounds, was resolved that she would speak seriously to her sister.

  Inside the house Shirley lay comatose on the sofa. She could hear the two boys making an uproar in the yard. It was raining and Molly wondered if they were even wearing coats. George, at the kitchen table, was eating a cheese sandwich and blotting out the noise by reading an engineering magazine. Glancing out of the window Molly saw the two boys coatless, pulling bricks from the garden wall. Kevin still had his bedroom slippers on. She could have screamed.

  George went on reading. The doorbell went. Answering it she found Josephine, wearing a lot of black make-up round her eyes, on the step with a small bag. “Josie,” she said, “we agreed you weren’t coming this weekend –”

  “It’s my friend’s birthday party,” Josephine told her. “You and Ivy didn’t listen to me.”

  “There’s nowhere for you to sleep –” Molly said.

  “I’ll go on the kitchen floor –”

  She came in with the bag, but before Molly had shut the door the bell rang again. Harold Soames, the old landlord’s heir, stood on the step in his navy suit and blue striped shirt and white collar.

  “I’d like to see Miss Messiter,” he said.

  “She’s out,” said Molly, just as the two boys raced up the stairs, leaving a trail of muddy footprints. Molly saw eviction looming. She had no proper rights as a tenant. “Can I give her a message?” she offered doggedly as one of the boys fell over the cat, who was sneaking downstairs because he could hear them coming up. “I’ll give it to her when she gets back.”

  Shirley came groggily out of the front room and, ignoring Molly and Soames, plodded upstairs after her children, who were now doing something noisy on the landing.

  Soames stood staring at Molly, waiting for an explanation. When none came he said, “I don’t like what I see.” The noise continued upstairs, while Josephine stood staring in the passageway with the make-up standing out on her childish face. The cat streaked along the passageway with what Molly recognized as a chop in its mouth. Brian, coming down, fell down the last two stairs. As he opened his mouth to yell, Joe Endell stepped past the landlord and handed the chop to Molly. At that instant, although no one noticed, a flashlight went off in the street. He said, “I hope I’m not interfering with your way of feeding your pets.”

  Molly took the chop automatically, failed, for a moment, to recognize him, and then seeing the point of humour said with relief, “Oh, Mr Endell. Mr Endell – let me introduce Mr Soames, my landlord. Mr Soames – this is Mr Endell, our local member of Parliament.”

  Soames took a deep breath and said, “Well – how do you do, Mr Endell – well, I must be running along. Perhaps you’d tell Miss Messiter to get in touch with me Mrs – er. We landlords have our duty to do,” he said to Endell. Endell nodded.

  Molly, seizing the advantage, said, “I think perhaps it’d be a good idea to write to her suggesting an appointment.”

  He smiled at her uneasily, said goodbye and left.

  “Do you want to come in?” Molly asked.

  Once Endell was inside she began to laugh.

  “What’s happening?” Shirley said, coming downstairs.

  “Eviction, that’s what,” she said with some relish. “Looks as if we’ll all have to find somewhere else to live. A drink, Mr Endell? I think I need one anyway.”

  She pushed open the door of the front room with difficulty, for at some point the boys had moved the sofa close to it. There were toys, bits of puzzle and a half-made model of a plastic dinosaur lying on the carpet. She handed the chop to Josephine and said, “Put that under the tap and then back in the fridge.”

  “Shall I make some coffee?” asked Josephine, alarmed by her mother’s grim good humour.

  “That sounds like a good idea,” Endell told her. He had the idea he should say what he had come to say and leave. Sam Needham, who had resolved not to mention Molly Flanders to him, had succum
bed to his great weakness – the love of gossip – and had blurted out the story. He had said, to satisfy his conscience about the lapse, “Better stay away, though – that sort means nothing but trouble. She’s got a track record, Joe.” And Endell, visiting a block of Council flats a mile from Meakin Street, had found himself, nevertheless, driving there.

  “Sorry about the mess,” Molly said, putting on the electric fire and stooping to pick up some of the litter on the floor. “My sister and her two boys are here temporarily and we’re a bit overcrowded.”

  Shirley came in and sat down. “Josephine said she’d give the boys some baked beans,” she said. “You can’t mean you’re going to be turned out.”

  “Well, Shirley,” explained her sister. “That man was the landlord, Soames. Now I’m here because Cissie said that she’d let me have the place to help me out – also because she didn’t want George to have to leave school and go to live with his sister. But that means she’s subletting the house to me, which she isn’t entitled to do. And I don’t think Soames, after what he saw today, is going to believe that I’m not living here. Or everybody else in London. Awkward questions are going to be asked,” she said firmly to Shirley. Almost immediately she felt sorry about her pleasure in giving her sister a shock. She remembered the cheerful schoolgirl, singing “She Was Poor But She Was Honest” at her in the kitchen in Ivy’s house. She remembered the day they had celebrated her gaining the coveted place at Imperial College. She even remembered, suddenly, the dirty little girl who had offered her squashed chocolate at the station when she first came back from Framlingham. Shirley had never been like this before – she had been warped into the wrong shape and Molly knew she need not stay like it. She said, “Never mind, Shirley. I’ll think of something. It could even work out for the best.”

  Josephine came in with the coffee. “My daughter, Josie,” explained Molly. “And Shirley – this is Mr Endell.”

  “Call me Joe,” said Endell to them. ‘I’ll call you the same,” he said to Josephine. The doorbell went again.

  “Don’t let anybody in,” ordered Molly. But after Josephine opened the door there were voices in the hall. “What did I just tell her?” murmured Molly.

  “I thought,” Ivy said aggressively as she came through the door, “that if my old family except for Jack and his wife were all crowding back to Meakin Street I might as well come and see what was going on. As for you, miss,” she said, turning to Josephine, “I don’t suppose you told your mother I told you not to come here.”

  “I haven’t exactly had the chance so far,” Josephine told her sulkily.

  “Well,” Ivy began angrily. Her voice trailed off as she saw Endell.

  “This is Joe Endell,” explained Molly.

  “Oh,” Ivy said flatly. Then, realizing who he was she said, “Oh – that’s right. The MP. I think I’ve heard my son Jack mention you. My husband, too.”

  “You’re Jack’s mother?” Endell said. “Pleased to meet you at last, Mrs Waterhouse.”

  At that moment the two boys came into the room, holding cakes in their hands. They began to charge about. A toy gave way on the carpet with a crunch. Kevin, the younger, dropped his cake on the floor. His brother ran over it. Ivy, who had begun to look more agreeable, narrowed her eyes. She glanced at Shirley, who was standing by the window. Her back straightened.

  Joe Endell, the tactician, suggested to Molly, “I’m wondering, if we’re going to discuss this matter of the tenancy, whether we shouldn’t go over the road to the pub and talk?”

  Molly hesitated. Ivy said, “If you’ve got any problems with that ruthless Soames, take advantage of Mr Endell’s offer. And,” she added, “I could do with the room while I lend Shirley a hand.”

  “All right,” said Molly, glad of the chance to get away. “Will you be all right, Josie?”

  “I’ve got a bone to pick with her, as well,” Ivy said.

  Endell took Molly by the arm and said, “It seems to me that with Mrs Waterhouse in charge you need feel no anxiety. In fact we might be better off if she was running the country.”

  “That’s right,” agreed Ivy. “By the way, there’s a photographer lurking about across the street. Is that anything to do with you, Molly?”

  “No,” said Molly, looking questioningly at Endell. He shook his head. “I thought a flash went off when you came in,” Molly told him, remembering.

  “Maybe Sam Needham fixed something up with the local paper and forgot to tell me,” Endell said.

  In the street there was no sign of a photographer. “It looks as if my mother’s started on a sort-out,” remarked Molly. “I don’t give much for the boys’ chances.”

  “They look as if they could do with a little of granny’s hand,” replied Endell. At that moment a photographer dashed round the corner of the pub. There was a flash. “Oi!” cried Molly. “What do you think you’re doing!”

  Joe Endell ran after him as he walked away. “Who are you from?” he demanded.

  “Mirror” said the man.

  “What’s it all about?” asked Endell.

  “Dunno, mate,” the photographer replied. “I was just told to come here.”

  “Is it me, or him?” Molly asked, coming up. She had been photographed at sixteen, the stricken, pregnant widow of a man condemned to death, she had been photographed at Frames, in a low-slung dress, and at Nedermann’s funeral – the flashing of cameras had bad associations for her.

  “4 Meakin Street. Blonde lady – that’s what they told me,” he said. “That’s you, isn’t it?”

  “What for?” Molly asked indignantly.

  “I’ve told you – I don’t know. You’ll have to take it up with the features editor,” he said, turning round.

  “That’s exactly what I will do,” Molly shouted after him. They went into the pub. “You look like a gin and tonic to me,” Endell said.

  “How did you guess?” Molly replied.

  “Hullo, Molly,” shouted Ginger. “I just saw Ivy going past – she didn’t half look in a bad mood.”

  “That’s why I’m here,” replied Molly. “Hiding.”

  “Any news of Sid?”

  “He misses this place. Planning another pilgrimage.”

  Endell handed her a glass of gin. He himself had a pint.

  Molly said, “I’m speaking to that features editor first thing tomorrow morning. I know what they’re doing. ‘Where are they now – the villains of yesteryear?’ That sort of thing. Next thing, there’ll be a picture of me in my dressing-gown, taking in the milk. It’s not fair, just as I’m trying to get my life straight, get some qualifications, pay the rent –”

  “Mm,” said Endell, keeping his own council in case his girlfriend Harriet had a hand in this. He remembered Harriet’s odd reaction to his tale of how Sam Needham had found Molly. Her face had become guarded, and she had said, “I told you – that kind always survive,” and had then changed the subject. Endell, not a subtle man in such areas, did not quite understand. But he did know that she had again started talking of the future and was at least acute enough to know that she wanted to marry him. However, he was not sure whether she wanted him for himself or for the life-style he could provide as a young MP who was being watched by senior members of the party.

  Harriet had abandoned a well-off family, professional soldiers in the main, because they were too stuffy and conservative for a young woman of the ’60s. But he suspected that an innate craving to be top of the heap might be suggesting to her that the position of wife and hostess to a rising young Labour MP would satisfy her trendy radicalism and her social ambitions at the same time. Would she be pleased, he wondered, if they married and he lost his seat at the next General Election? Would she be happy if they went back to Yorkshire and she became wife of a writer on the Yorkshire Post? You never knew how much these things counted with women, thought Endell. In rare cases girls of eighteen married repulsive old millionaires, or countesses ran off with gypsies – but elsewhere the edges were blurre
d and a man could never be sure whether it was his power, his money, his status, or just himself, to which the woman was attracted. Nevertheless, it would be annoying if Harriet had sent the photographer to Meakin Street and would get, tomorrow morning, a set of glossy 10 × 8s showing him walking into the pub with Molly Flanders. But – to hell with it, he thought, tired of the intricacies and uncertainties of private life. On impulse he said, “Look – I’m off to a meeting with the Borough Surveyor. Could you sit through an hour of housing plans and have dinner with me afterwards? We still haven’t talked about the landlord.”

  Molly said “Yes.” Of course.

  They felt comfortable together, Joe Endell and Molly. It was as if, although they were excited by each other’s presences, they had known each other for years.

  Molly got interested by the housing plans. She said afterwards, in the cafe where they had gone for a meal, “Don’t let him put up any more of those tower blocks – people won’t want to live in them. They only suit single people with jobs who don’t need gardens or somewhere for the kids to play. And they’re not the people on the housing list.”

  Endell said, “They save space.”

  “They can’t save much,” said Molly. “They have to put big spaces round them so they look landscaped. Ordinary people would rather have a little patch of grass and flowers to themselves than a great big bit of landscaping. And what happens when the lifts break down and people start throwing old prams away all over the landscaping?”

  “They’re comfortable, convenient and decent,” Endell said. “That’s what people want.”

  “That’s what the people who make the plans want – and the councillors who think they’re wonderful,” Molly said. “But half the councillors were brought up in places like Meakin Street and they hate them like my mum does. But there’s worse ways to live. The other half just want the working classes tucked away on bits of old derelict ground where they won’t interfere with the prices of the other property. Look at where they’re building this lot – there’s the railway lines on one side, the gasworks on the other and over to the north is the graveyard. Speaks for itself, doesn’t it?”