by Nancy Carson
‘Nice of your mom to invite me to your house next Saturday night,’ he said.
‘Yes, but I won’t expect you if you’re still seeing Nellie.’
She was standing facing him, her arms folded. In the dimness of the entry he saw the catchlights in her eyes. Never before had he seen eyes so beautiful, with such a look of gentleness and honesty, as at that moment in the half-light. He took both her hands and held them down by her side. Their bodies touched and, as he leaned his head forward to kiss her, to taste again her lips, her heart beat faster. Whilst he had been sitting in the house, talking, laughing with the family, confident and at ease, he was still contemplating their afternoon out. He liked this girl; she was so refreshingly honest, and he realised that Henzey would never commit herself until she was certain that Nellie played no further part in his life. He also perceived that when – if – she did commit herself it would be whole-heartedly. That commitment would be his for the taking.
It presented him with a great dilemma. He had in mind his intense sexual encounters with Nellie, and how much they meant to him.
‘I’ll be finished with Nellie by Saturday,’ he whispered, unsure of the truth of it; but he kissed her convincingly enough. ‘So shall I see you Tuesday night?’
She shook her head, slowly, deliberately, meeting his eyes directly. But if he’d been able to read her expression accurately in the darkness he would have read her look of uncertainty. She wanted him for herself so much, that to refuse him was breaking her heart. Heeding Clara’s advice was decidedly painful.
‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Are you doing something else?’
She shook her head again. ‘No, but I’m not going to see you till you’ve finished with Nellie,’ she whispered coolly. ‘If that’s what you decide you want to do. When you have, you can tell me what happened, and how she took it. If you don’t…well…you won’t turn up here, will you? And I shall understand, Billy. At least we’ll know exactly where we stand.’
She was aching to hug him tight, to give him her love, but how much better to lose him now than to hurl herself headlong into an affair that might end in heartbreak because she was too soft in the beginning. Billy had to know she was not going to be a pushover. She had her standards, and she intended to implement them. A week gave him plenty of time. If he failed to do it there would be little point in carrying on, for this new affair would deteriorate into a charade. She was certain she had given him enough of a glimpse of how things could be. She could do no more. The rest was up to him.
On Tuesday dinnertime Alice found time to present herself in front of Wally Bibb at George Mason’s. He offered her a job at a shilling a week less than she was getting at Bean Cars, but she accepted it gladly, since it was almost certain that she would not have a job in the office there much longer. Shop work was not exactly what Alice wanted. Her heart was set on the glamour of being a private secretary to some suave company director, but it would do till such an opening came along. When Henzey asked Alice later what she thought of Wally, she replied that she’d probably have to watch out, because he kept looking at her bust.
‘Oh, I daresay he was trying to see where it had got to,’ Henzey quipped, and dodged as Alice went to swipe her playfully.
Henzey had kept out of the way while Alice was interviewed. Afterwards Wally asked her if she was any relation, since he reckoned Kite was not that common a name. She admitted Alice was her sister, and Wally made some sarcastic comment about there being safety in numbers, which seemed to amuse him.
But her mind was not on Alice, nor Wally, nor George Mason’s. As the week wore on, Henzey was becoming disconsolate, certain that Billy was out enjoying himself with Nellie Dewsbury. Each night as she lay in bed thinking, she would imagine them together. She pictured them laughing, holding hands, kissing. As sleep escaped her, and the night induced more disturbing images, she saw them making love with all the passion and commitment of a latter day Romeo and Juliet. The more she thought about these things the more she convinced herself that it was so, and the less chance she believed she had. She yearned to be with him again, to hear him laugh, to feel his lips on hers, to hold his hand, to feel his manly arms around her. If only she had agreed to see him on Tuesday night she might not be tossing and turning now, unable to sleep. If only he would call at the shop tomorrow. He would only have to smile at her and she would know. She would know immediately that all was well. But she did not know, and it was torture. This uncertainty was torture, and she still had this night to get through, and then two more to follow.
She was certain she had driven Billy away with her feigned indifference. How could she have been so sure of herself? How could she have been so arrogant? She could no more dictate to Billy Witts what he should do than he could dictate to her. Now she was angry with herself for ruining the best opportunity ever to find happiness, with a man who really suited her, a man she admired in every way. She liked him so much. No. It was more than that; it was much more than that. She loved him. Even more than that; she loved him desperately.
As they left the shop on Saturday evening after work, Clara Maitland and Henzey stepped out into the bustle of market traders packing away their wares, and across the street to Clara’s tram stop. The days were getting longer, and it was still light, but the overhead wires, from which the trams drew their power, were swinging in the wind that was yet vigorous.
‘I haven’t seen that Billy all week, Henzey,’ Clara said, avoiding a handcart. ‘Hasn’t he been to see you? It’s unusual. Have you upset him?’
‘If I have I never intended to,’ Henzey answered, her eyes misting.
‘Oh?’
‘I haven’t told you, but I went out with him last Sunday afternoon. He stopped for tea and for supper and my mother invited him to our house tonight for my birthday…But I don’t expect he’ll come.’
They paused while a man loading sacks of potatoes onto a lorry blocked their way. He apologised for holding them up, and they walked on.
Clara said, ‘I suspect he hasn’t been to see you just to make you think about him all the more. Absence making the heart grow fonder, and all that. I wouldn’t think much of him if he accepted your mother’s invitation, then didn’t have the grace to show up.’
‘Oh, I don’t think it’s just that, Clara…’
‘What then? There’s something else?’
‘Well, I thought he’d given that Nellie Dewsbury up. At least that’s what he led me to think.’
‘And he hadn’t?’
‘No. So I told him I wouldn’t see him again until he had. I told him only to come tonight if he’d finished with her.’
‘Well, good for you, Henzey. He sounds a bit of a cad after all.’
‘I suppose I’ve put him off. I suppose he thought I was a bossy little madam. Did I do the right thing, d’you think, Clara?’
‘You did exactly right. You’ve let him know you weren’t going to be manipulated, or swept off your feet.’
‘Oh, but I’m swept off my feet, all right, Clara. I’m swept off my feet good and proper.’
‘And that’s what makes it hard for you, eh? Did your mother like him?’
‘She must’ve. She invited him tonight…’
‘Well, if he doesn’t come you’ll have lost nothing, Henzey,’ Clara said resignedly. ‘You’ll have escaped a lot of heartbreak. That’s the best way to look at it.’
But that was not the way Henzey wished to look at it. In the intensity of her infatuation she had her heart set on Billy Witts. Come the evening, Henzey contemplated him as she undressed herself, ready to put on her new frock, just in case he did turn up after all. If he did come, it would be to claim her, and she knew he would be far more demanding than Jack Harper had been. Jack was never any trouble to keep at bay. Only occasionally would she allow him to kiss her. But she was much more of a woman now. Her natural awareness of things sensual and erotic was infinitely more acute, and her emotions were intensifying, accelerated by her enduring hopes and dreams
of being Billy’s girl. As she recalled how he had taken her in his arms and kissed her, her heart beat faster and her body seemed to glow.
It occurred to her that she might not want to keep Billy at bay at all. Her new adult emotions were less ambiguous, more profound. She was contemplating more and more what it would be like to go all the way with a man. Of course such things were for marriage and not before, and she understood that, but still she couldn’t help wondering. She closed the door to the bedroom and sat naked on her bed. With her eyes closed she gently squeezed her breasts, imagining Billy to be doing it, and an unfamiliar warmth of desire lit her up. She stood up, and for the first time seriously scrutinised her own slender body in the tall mirror standing in the corner. He breasts were firm and supple, and she saw how her nipples had awoken in response to her own sensuality, each standing proud like a small, pink raspberry on a smooth, cream blancmange. She stroked the skin of her stomach. It was silky smooth. Her face was fine-featured and strikingly beautiful, though she considered her nose too long and her eyebrows too thick. She twisted sideways and turned her head to inspect her body in profile. Her waist was tight, her neck elegant, her stomach gently rounded. Her legs were long, well-shaped and unblemished, and her buttocks protruded neatly. Without even trying she possessed the sort of figure every modern, young woman was striving for.
By this time Henzey was earning eleven shillings a week and could afford to buy a nice dress and decent shoes occasionally. That day she had been shopping and bought a pair of silk French knickers, and a blue, waistless dress the same colour as her eyes, in crepe de Chine, loosely fitted at the hips. It was barely knee length, and her flesh-coloured silk stockings enhanced the shape of her legs. Her lustrous, dark hair framed her face, and she rounded off the whole effect with a long string of glass beads and a dab of her mother’s Chanel No. 5 behind each ear. When she emerged into the scullery even Herbert commented on how lovely she looked.
On tenterhooks, she helped her mother with final preparations while Alice and Maxine changed into their Sunday best. The closer the hands on the clock moved towards half past seven, the more she trembled inside, praying silently that he would arrive, but resigned to the certainty that he would not. When her mother spoke she failed to hear, her thoughts only with Billy. Lizzie smiled to herself at her daughter’s preoccupation, and understood; she had been there herself.
But prompt at half past seven she heard a motor car pull up outside the house. Her heart pounded with anticipation as she ran into the front room where the table was laid out for a meal. She peered through the lace curtains. It was him. It was Billy. She breathed a sigh of profound relief and smiled, rushing to the back door to greet him, keeping her fingers crossed that everything had gone the way she wanted.
‘Here, I’ve bought you some flowers,’ he said, producing a bouquet of roses from behind his back when she opened the door to him. He smiled at her expression and placed a kiss on her cheek, which made her blush since her mother witnessed it. But everything was all right. He had come to claim her after all.
‘Oh, Billy. Red roses. Oh, they’re beautiful. You shouldn’t have, but thank you ever so much. Aren’t they beautiful, Mom?’
‘You’d better put them in some water right away,’ Lizzie replied.
The evening went well, and Henzey was pleased to see that her mother seemed less tense than she had been for some time, more able to enjoy herself. Jesse, too, was bubbling with even more humour than normal. It was good to see them so happy.
Afterwards, in Billy’s arms, as they stood in the entry as he was about to leave, Henzey said, ‘It would mean a lot to me if my mother and Jesse got married. I’ve dreamed about it for ages now.’
‘They seem well suited.’
‘Oh, they are.’
‘That Jesse seems a genuine sort of chap. Is he anything like your dad was?’
‘In some ways. Except my dad used to get upset with people. He was so deep sometimes – very serious. Other times he was just the opposite – soft as a bottle of pop. Jesse never gets frustrated or upset like my dad used to. Good as gold he is with us, ‘specially considering he isn’t our dad. He thinks the world of our Herbert.’
‘It seems to me he thinks the world of all of you, Henzey. I think your mom’s lucky to find somebody like him.’
‘I think he’s lucky to get my mom.’
He gave her a hug. ‘That as well. She’s a lovely looking woman for her age, your mom. I can see who you get your good looks from.’
Henzey shrugged. ‘Everybody says I’m like my father. I loved him, Billy. He was a lovely man. I did some drawings of him when he was alive. I can show you them one of these days.’ She forced back a tear. This was not the time to weep after so pleasant an evening. ‘So what about Nellie?’ She had been dying to ask. ‘You finally broke it off with her?’
‘Last Monday night. I went round to their house, and we went for a drink at The Saracen’s Head. We talked things over and decided to part friends. She took it better than I thought she would. I think she was half expecting it.’
‘Any regrets?’
‘No regrets, Henzey. No regrets at all. I’m happy if you are.’
‘Oh, Billy, I’m happy,’ she breathed, and snuggled into his open coat like a kitten seeking warmth. ‘You’ll never know how happy.’
He gave her a hug. ‘I’ve been dying to see you all week. D’you know, most o’ the time I couldn’t even remember what you looked like. Daft ain’t it?’
‘So why didn’t you come and see me? I’d have been glad to see you. I was dying to see you.’
‘I dunno, really. It was a sort of punishment for me. A test, in a way, denying myself the pleasure of seeing you. I knew it’d be all the sweeter when I did. The waiting made me all the more anxious. I haven’t felt like that for years. It was a sort of perverse enjoyment.’
She wallowed luxuriously in his embrace. ‘Mmm. I know what you mean. It’s been the same for me, Billy.’
‘Anyway, I’m certain of one thing, after it all.’
‘What’s that?’
‘That I’m in love with you.’
She trembled inside at his unexpected confession of love, while he bent his head and kissed her on the lips, a long, lingering kiss.
At length, he said, ‘Shall I see you tomorrow? We could go for a ride out into the country like last Sunday. The weather’s due to pick up. What do you reckon?’
‘If you promise not to take me round any more churchyards.’
Henzey had never been so happy. At last she had the love of Billy Witts. Boys like Harold Deakin, Jack Harper and Andrew Dewsbury paled into insignificance. But she had known them to good advantage; even Andrew Dewsbury. They had given her the experience she needed, to know how to handle men. Everything had been in preparation for this love of her life at the ripe old age of seventeen, and she knew it. Now she could not imagine life without Billy. He was her life, all of a sudden.
But there was something else afoot.
‘Me and your mother are gettin’ married on the 28th of April,’ Jesse announced one evening, with Lizzie at his side.
Henzey, utterly surprised, embraced her mother and then Jesse. ‘All my wishes are coming true,’ she said, weeping tears of joy at the news. She had Billy Witts and soon her mother would be Mrs Lizzie Clancey. ‘Oh, wait till I tell Billy. He’ll be that pleased. How’s Ezme taken the news?’
Lizzie smiled. ‘Let’s just say she’s come round to accepting it. She didn’t at first, but she does now.’
The next time the rent man called, Lizzie gave notice that they wanted to vacate their house by the 4th of May, which would give them ample time to shift everything to the dairy house, their new home. Henzey suggested to her brother and sisters that for the first few days after the wedding they should continue to sleep in the old house, thus giving their mother and Jesse a brief honeymoon alone.
And so the ceremony took place at St John’s church, Kates Hill, at twelve o’ clock, after ma
tins. It was conducted by the Reverend John Mainwaring who knew the bride and groom well. Lizzie looked significantly younger than her thirty-nine years and quite radiant in her short cream satin dress with its fashionable uneven hemline. Maxine was the only bridesmaid and Dr Donald Clark, Jesse’s lifelong friend, was best man. Henzey wore a new short straight dress in cinnabar red with the row of pearls Billy had given her, and Alice, a beige flouncey dress and a borrowed fox fur. They all looked exquisite, enhancing the reputation they were rapidly acquiring of being the best-looking girls in the parish. And that reputation also included Lizzie in the eyes of a great many.
Later that evening when the hangers-on had left and Alice, Maxine and Herbert had drifted back to number 48, Billy Witts announced he ought to leave, too. It was after midnight and he’d got to be up early next morning. Henzey duly fetched her best hat and coat from the hall and gave Jesse and her mother a goodnight kiss.
‘It’s been a happy day for me seeing you two married,’ she confessed. ‘I know you’ll be happy.’
Lizzie wrapped her arms around her. ‘Thanks, my flower. You don’t know how much that means to both of us.’
‘Goodnight, Mom. Goodnight, Jesse.’ Henzey took Billy’s hand. Billy raised his free arm in a gesture of goodnight and they left the newly-weds to their first night together.
As Henzey and Billy walked across the street, Lizzie watched them from the front room window of the dairy house. She watched as they stood by his car holding each other in a clinch for about five minutes, pecking at each other’s lips occasionally, looking into each other’s eyes and laughing.
‘Are you coming to bed, Lizzie, or are you gunna stand ganning on them pair all night?’ Jesse called from the bedroom, after settling his mother for the night.
Lizzie dragged herself away from the chink in the curtains and climbed the stairs. ‘I just wanted to make sure Billy hadn’t gone in the house with her at this time of night.’ She kicked off her new shoes with relief and slumped onto their new, supple bed. ‘If they do, I’ll know they’re up to no good. I just don’t trust that Billy, Jesse.’
