The Rose in Winter

by Sarah Harrison

  ‘Not lucky, I have to work hard for it.’ Suddenly he turned to look at her and she felt the impact of his attention, like a beam of light. ‘You want some?’

  She fired up with embarrassment. ‘No thanks.’

  ‘Want anything?’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’

  ‘I mean it. We’re pals, aren’t we? Pals help each other.’

  This was such a leap it took her breath away. What had he been thinking all this time? What had he been feeling? Something had been going on and she had had no idea. No one had ever spoken to her of friendship in such a direct way before. Indeed, no one had ever spoken of it at all. She had been handed something, some sort of present, and scarcely knew what to do with it or how to react.

  ‘I suppose.’

  He was still looking at her intently. ‘I won’t let anything happen to you, Molly Flynne.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she muttered. He got up and went into the house. She heard her mother’s voice talking sharply about time, boots, tea … Eldridge’s more ingratiating growl … Lad … day … Molly Malone …

  What was it she wondered, puzzled, as she waited for her mother to call her in, that Johnny would not allow to happen?

  There was a rustle of applause and some appreciative murmurs as the band finished their number. It only emphasised the silence between Barbara and Molly.

  ‘Did he keep his promise?’ Barbara asked. ‘Or maybe, if he did, you’ll never know.’

  ‘Oh, he kept it,’ said Molly. ‘And I knew all right.’

  The first time was so quick, that it was over and she was alone again before she’d had time to think. She’d been asleep and didn’t hear the door open. She felt the heavy weight of someone sitting on the edge of her narrow bed. There was a looming extra-darkness over her, the smell of breath and the rummaging of a long arm and a heavy hand with prying fingers. A juicy, wheedling whisper in her face.

  ‘Came to say goodnight to you, Molly Malone. Let me have a sweetie, yes, let me have a sweetie, yes, there’s a good girl … Little Molly Malone … Ooh what a lovely sweetie!’

  There was a grunting sound, a shifting of the weight and then the door opening and closing, with only the tiniest most careful ‘click’. She lay paralysed with horror and shame, unsure of what exactly had happened and what it meant, except that her most private place, her peeing place, felt scoured and no longer private, and there was something sticky on the sheet.

  She didn’t cry, but she didn’t sleep either and the next day she couldn’t eat her breakfast. Neither Eldridge nor Johnny was there, but when her mother questioned her lack of appetite and put a hand on her forehead to see if she was ill, she knew she couldn’t tell her anything. She didn’t know how. What would she say?

  That afternoon when she got back from her long, lonely day at school she still had no appetite and felt strangely cold and weak. She went up to her room and put the hard chair under her door handle again. When she heard her mother come back she removed the chair quietly – explaining its presence would have been too complicated.

  ‘You’re not right are you?’ said Annette, that firm, judgmental hand on her forehead again. Molly could tell she was genuinely worried. ‘I must say you look very cheap. You get into bed and I’ll bring you up some beef tea.’

  She didn’t argue, though she knew she wouldn’t be able to drink the horrible stuff. Eldridge came in and her mother said something about her.

  ‘Sorry to hear that, I am indeed. Poor lass …’ he replied. The sound of his soupy, guttural voice made her sweat, she thought she might faint. The moment her mother had left the hot drink she put the chair under the handle again. Next to come back was Johnny, there was another short conversation, this time in the kitchen and then the light tick-tock of his steps coming up the stairs, softly, two at a time.

  He tapped on the door. She moved the chair carefully and opened the door a couple of inches. His face was right there, up against hers, his black eyes like mirrors.

  ‘He been up to his tricks?’

  Molly couldn’t answer. Her face and neck ached and swelled with what she couldn’t say. She let out a sound she didn’t recognise as tears ran down her face, her mouth stretched and dribbled in helpless, nameless misery.

  ‘Johnny!’ Eldridge’s voice from downstairs.

  ‘Don’t cry.’ He wiped her tears with his fingers, with quick, jerky movements. ‘I’ll stop him, don’t you worry. Promise.’

  She closed the door, replaced the chair and lay down tense and shivering on the bed. She heard the sounds of tea, the voices – what were they talking about? Her? What would Eldridge say? The trembling was so great that her jaw ached and then her head. She had not been ill, but was becoming so.

  It was springtime, therefore still light in the early evening. She heard the clatter of the dishes being cleared and washed by her mother and Johnny. Eldridge’s steps in the hall, at the foot of the stairs, pausing – she whimpered. But no, he went into the parlour for his evening pipe. In the street were other voices, boys playing football, over-the-road’s toddler bawling, the clatter and clop of a horse and cart, the clang and swoosh of slop buckets. All that everyday life was going on so close, so unknowing, while she lay up here with the secret inside her like a disgusting growth.

  A little while later, she heard Johnny go out and Eldridge’s usual admonishment to ‘Be good and do as you’re told!’ So he had deserted her anyway, he didn’t understand. She cried frantically, silently, pushing a handful of sheet into her mouth.

  The evening began to darken and the children went in. She heard her mother climb the stairs and got out to move the chair.

  ‘You didn’t drink much.’

  ‘I tried, I couldn’t.’

  ‘Have you been crying?’ She scrubbed at her swollen face, she couldn’t deny it.

  ‘There’s nothing to cry about. We’ll raise you Molly, but you should eat something or you won’t get better.’

  She wanted to say that nothing she ate or drank could help – only protection could do that. Safety. But to ask for those things, she’d have had to say so much more and that was beyond her.

  ‘I’ll leave it here. Is there anything else you’d like? There’s a bit of seed cake in the tin.’

  Molly nodded, just to have her mother go away and come back. When she did, she put the cake on the little wicker table by her bed and touched her head gently, stroking her hair. She wanted to grab her mother’s hand and hold on to it, to keep her there in this sympathetic and affectionate mood.

  ‘You take those clothes off and put them on the chair,’ said Annette, absent-mindedly moving the chair back to its usual place, ‘and get under the covers properly. I’ll come in again before we go to bed.’

  She said ‘Yes,’ but she didn’t remove her clothes. She had a deadline now, a moment after which she would not be safe. After the next time her mother came, she would be truly alone in the dark.

  Johnny hadn’t meant a word of it. He lied to her and what could he have done anyway?

  An hour went by like an eternity. The tap on the door was so soft that she wasn’t sure if there was anyone really there. She’d heard no footsteps, so she lay still as death. Then came her name, whispered,

  ‘Molly …’

  She held her breath.

  ‘Oy, Molly!’

  The second she opened the door he was in and had closed it behind him.

  ‘Quiet. Get into bed.’

  ‘I thought you—’

  ‘Ssh. I said quiet.’

  He pushed her back on to the mattress, yanking up the thin eiderdown as he did so. Urgency made him rough and for such a skinny kid he was strong.

  ‘You don’t know I’m here.’

  He ducked down and she felt him slither under the bedstead. He wriggled around under there, making the thin metal frame rattle and bump. She was glad there was nothing in the chamber pot.

  An hour later her mother came to say goodnight.

  ‘How are you feeling? Bit bet
ter?’

  She nodded. ‘A bit.’

  ‘That’s the way.’ Her mother plonked a brisk kiss on her forehead. ‘Sleep tight, you’ll be all right in the morning.’

  ‘Night, Ma.’

  Not long after that, she heard Eldridge call up the stairs.

  ‘Nice evening, just going out for a pipe …!’

  Now the deadline was past. She trailed her hand over the side of the bed.

  ‘Johnny …?’

  No reply. What if he’d fallen asleep under there?

  ‘Johnny, are you awake? Mum’s gone to bed.’

  Still no reply, but this time his cool, dry hand closed around her fingers and gave them a squeeze, releasing them with a little push, telling her to lie doggo.

  Another half an hour – she heard the kitchen clock give its single ‘ting’ – and the front door closed. A pause, while Eldridge took his boots off, and then the soft heavy creak of his feet on the stairs.

  The door opened and shut and he was in, so quick and quiet for a big man.

  ‘How you doing Molly Malone …?’ The edge of the bed sank down as he lowered himself on to it. ‘Been poorly, eh? Got a sweetie for me, have you?’

  She thought of Johnny under there, crushed. They were both going to be crushed. Eldridge’s arm was under the covers, his fat, dry fingers were rummaging, his breath was coming quicker, she clamped her legs together, but his scrabbling hand pushed its way between them. She thought that, this time, she might die because he was going to break her apart.

  She couldn’t stop him and neither could Johnny. At least, like last time, it was quick. Less than a minute and his breathing jolted and calmed and he tucked the covers back under her chin.

  ‘Sleep tight Molly Malone. See you in the morning.’

  ‘I’ve seen you. I can see you now.’

  It was Johnny’s voice, not raised but not whispering either. Eldridge stood up. Molly could make out his big head swinging from side to side.

  ‘What the bleeding—?’

  ‘I been watching you.’ Johnny emerged from beneath the bed on the far side. His arms were held slightly away from his body, his eyes were gleaming. ‘I know what you do. You can’t do that. I’ll tell.’

  ‘You didn’t see anything. Get out of here.’

  ‘Won’t.’

  ‘I’ll make you.’

  ‘Go on then. I’ll tell. Not just Mrs, I’ll tell everyone. You’re disgusting.’

  Molly lay between them. She’d feared she might die and now she wanted to. She would die of fear. Eldridge’s breathing was ramping up again.

  ‘You get over here you rotten, filthy, little toad …!’ Molly whimpered. ‘And you shut your mouth! Hear me?’ He spoke in a snarled whisper and she felt his spit on her cheek.

  ‘Percy …?’

  It was her mother’s voice. She could hear that their bedroom door had been opened. The three of them were still as statues.

  ‘Percy?’ She was out on the landing now. ‘Is everything all right?’

  ‘All well Netta.’ He was out there in a split second, his voice cheerful and matter of fact. The door shut behind him. ‘Just went in to say goodnight to the invalid, but she’s out like a light, must be better.’

  ‘I thought I heard voices.’ Her mother had turned, or been turned, away.

  ‘Told those lads in the road to keep their language down.’

  ‘Quite right, I bet you got some back …’

  The bedroom door closed. Johnny came round the bed and replaced the chair under the door handle. He sat down on the key-pattern rug by the bed, with his back to her, his arms around his knees. He sat very still but Molly could hear his quick breathing, his bony shoulders moving in time.

  Minutes went by before she spoke.

  ‘What’s going to happen? What will he do?’

  ‘He won’t do that again.’

  ‘But if it’s his word against yours, then …’

  ‘And yours.’ He glanced over his shoulder. ‘Your Ma will believe you.’

  Molly knew this to be true. Whatever Annette’s shortcomings she loved her daughter and had brought her up right, she wouldn’t for an instant think she was lying.

  ‘He’ll go. He’ll be off tomorrow.’

  ‘Poor mother,’ she began silently to cry again.

  ‘Good riddance for both of you.’

  ‘What about you?’

  He shrugged. ‘I can look after myself.’

  The band were packing up, people were moving. Barbara and Molly carried on sitting beneath the lengthening shadow of the tree. Molly’s voice had a rough, uncertain edge, but she was dry-eyed.

  ‘The thing was he couldn’t. Not really. He looked after me, but not himself.’

  The little dogs trotted past, towed in the considerable shadow of their mistress. A discarded, open newspaper fluttered and fanned between the deck chairs. Barbara found she had to clear her throat.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘They went, both of them, not right away. Johnny got a terrible beating, his father didn’t say why but we knew. He couldn’t do his odd jobs, he hung around the house and I saw him in the street now and again. I stayed out of school a couple of times to keep him company. He was light-fingered, but he never took anything from us.’

  ‘When did Eldridge go? Did he – did you –?’

  Molly shook her head. ‘He didn’t come to my room again. A couple of weeks later, I got home from school and my mother was crying, and they’d gone, both of them. But for a long time, I went on seeing Johnny.’

  ‘You stayed friends ever since?’

  Molly moved her legs to the side and leaned her shoulder against the tree, looking directly at Barbara for the first time.

  ‘There is one thing I haven’t told you.’

  That same night, Johnny curled up to sleep on the rug, like a dog. A long while passed and Molly knew that neither of them were asleep. When she could actually hear Eldridge’s snores from next door she hung an arm out and tapped Johnny on the leg. He jerked up as though she’d fired a shot.

  ‘What?’

  She shunted back and lifted the bedclothes on his side. ‘Want to get in?’

  He hesitated for only a second.

  ‘All right.’

  They tried putting the pillow between them but that didn’t work, the bed was too narrow, so they put it back beneath their heads.

  ‘Do you mind?’ he asked.

  ‘No.’

  In the end, they put their arms around each other so neither of them could fall.

  ‘So that,’ said Molly, ‘is how it is between Johnny and me.’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘And now he’s in love with you.’

  ‘I sometimes think he doesn’t know me.’

  ‘Any more than you know him, though perhaps you understand a little more now. Remember I asked you to be careful?’

  Barbara nodded.

  ‘Please do. And take care as well. You can hurt Johnny, terribly, and he can hurt you without meaning to.’

  ‘If he doesn’t mean to, then it doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Molly. She moved to rise, stiffly. ‘But God help you if he does.’

  Fourteen

  1931

  With Molly’s revelations in the park that day, Barbara felt she had been given a gift, but one that had been handed over in trust. There followed a summer that brought change on its warm and languorous breath. It would test that trust to the full.

  She was delighted that her parents had taken to Johnny. Her fears in that direction had proved not just unfounded, but were banished. Her mother frankly doted on him and, for this reason, alone her father – whatever his misgivings – reserved judgement.

  She had never expected this, nor that Johnny would be equally taken with them. All through May they visited them at the weekends and it wasn’t long before Julia had asked Johnny to make some changes in the garden. She wanted to create a rus in urbe, a city sanctuary that mirrored the artful ease of Ardonleigh, and John
ny was full of ideas for honeysuckle and old-fashioned, rambling roses, an arbor, a cloud of tall delphiniums in blue, purple, pink …

  Soon, while Barbara was busy with her job at The Countrywoman, he was at her parents’ house, discussing plans and working in the garden. The evenings were growing longer and he began to suggest she meet him there. She would find him outside with one or both of them, expanding on his ideas, a glass in one hand, rubbing his brow with the kerchief that had been round his neck.

  All this was pleasantly unexpected, but increasingly Barbara was unhappy. Their secret had been shanghaied, was no longer a secret, nor even theirs. She had feared disapproval but this enveloping net of not just approbation, but delight, was too much. There had been a reversal of roles and she had become the outsider.

  As well as that, she couldn’t forget Molly’s story and was sickened to realise that she was jealous. She and Johnny had never done it – never lain together! It’s they who have a secret, she thought. Whatever she did with Johnny, it would in some sense be with Molly’s permission.

  Molly had sworn her to secrecy about the events she’d described.

  ‘If you say anything, to him or to anyone, I’ll lose him,’ she told her. ‘And, what’s more, so will you.’

  Still, her foolhardy heart blundered on. There was foreshadowing, but at the time she was aware only of a coolness, as small clouds passed between her and the sun.

  The first of these concerned Hannaford. George Hannaford was the gardener in Regent Terrace, a man who stood in a particular and special relationship to his employers, especially Julia. She gave instructions, or at least expressed her wishes, and he listened patiently and responded with advice. The garden was his domain. Any mention of that earlier garden, in the country, let alone the rude mechanicals in whom Julia had put her trust down there, was met with the shortest possible shrift. The appearance of Johnny on the scene, full of ideas and basking in Mrs Delahay’s affection, was calculated to get his goat.

  One late afternoon, Barbara had arrived after work. She was hot and bothered after a long and strenuously diplomatic interview with one Lady Seaborne (a Lady solely through her businessman husband’s elevation) and searched for the others. She found her parents were out, but from the drawing-room window she could see both Hannaford and Johnny down in the garden. This was unusual in itself because Hannaford, having arrived at eight o’clock would normally have gone home at four. He was standing near the end of the garden, feet apart, facing the house, holding a rake as if it were a pike. From his stance alone, she could easily infer his dissatisfaction. Johnny was nearer the house, with his back to it. He had been pushing a wheelbarrow containing plants but, just now, the legs of the barrow were on the ground and he was standing between the shafts. It was perfectly clear that he was speaking and Hannaford listening, the one enthusiastically, the other with extremely poor grace.