by Maggie Ford
‘Want to go for a walk?’ George asked her, his voice low and deep and full of adoration as, surreptitiously, their hands joined, entwined, each revelling in the touch of the other’s flesh.
‘Where?’ she sighed.
‘Somewhere where it won’t be too crowded.’
‘Up in the Gardens?’
He pulled a face. ‘It’s a bit on show up there. Anyone could see us.’
‘We could walk into Chalkwell. Along the Esplanade. We’re bound to find somewhere quiet. No one we know is going to go that far from here.’
It was settled. Closing together as they left Leigh behind, they walked leisurely, the feel of hand in hand a seduction to savour; occasionally his thumb rubbed her palm and she squeezed his fingers to show her pleasure at its suggestiveness.
Trains carrying the first of the seasonal contingent of day trippers rattled noisily by, making it hard for the couple to hear what each other had to say. But there was little need to talk. The touch of their bodies, their hands, was all the communication they needed.
Soon the rattling railway veered off from its short run along the seafront, leaving the two in a quiet more suited to them. Past Chalkwell Station they began looking about for somewhere to sit. Somewhere alone. Not much hope. Even here the beaches were quickly filling with the overspill from Southend on this first proper sunny holiday of the year.
‘What about Chalkwell Park,’ George suggested as they searched in vain. ‘It’s not a long walk and it’s bound not to be too crowded.’
‘And maybe we can find a spot just to ourselves,’ she breathed.
Already she could see herself in George’s arms in some grassy hollow hidden by bushes. There they could kiss and fondle to their hearts’ content. In her mind she could already feel his hands caressing her breasts beneath the pale blue blouse she wore, chosen today for its convenient buttons down the front, the flat bra loosened to allow his hand to enjoy the released flesh. The thought made her tummy churn with an animal thrill of anticipation as they walked, more purposefully now, up Chalkwell Avenue to the park.
They did find it virtually deserted, visitors preferring the long awaited seaside. They did find a grassy hollow, and it was well hidden by bushes. The strengthening sunlight filtered through the canopy of park-planted may trees spread above them to weave moving golden patterns across their reclining bodies In this idyllic setting he found her breasts with his hand and his lips, and she sighed in ecstasy, willing him to proceed further. And he did. And she felt him and got him excited, and with the very necessary precautions on his part, they made love with the urgency of the young, over too soon. And no one disturbed them.
They sat side by side, feeling hungry, allaying hunger with cigarettes. They sat now in anticlimax, excitement spent, the world punching its unhappy reality into their heads.
‘What’re we going to do, George?’
‘Wish I knew.’
‘I want to tell the whole world about us, but I can’t. I daren’t.’
He remained silent, lost in thought, lost in the hopelessness of it all.
‘We could elope,’ she suggested, a wild suggestion doomed to failure at the moment of being said. George was already shaking his head miserably. ‘No, I see your point, darling,’ she added. ‘I could never face my family again.’
‘No matter what we do,’ he said, ‘we’re up against your dad and mine. My dad might be easier, but he’s getting on – too old to change now.’
‘And mine’s never got over it, that silly business. It’s not fair. I wasn’t even born then, but I’m the one who has to suffer for what two silly old men got up to.’
‘They weren’t old then. They were our age.’
‘But they’re old now. You’d think all that sense that old people are supposed to gather over the years – or so they keep telling us … “We know better than you …”’ she mimicked what she thought was the tremor of old age. ‘“You youngsters don’t know nothing.” You’d think all that sense they keep telling us they’ve got would have made them see a bit of it by now.’
‘Perhaps they might see some when they know how much in love you and me are. After all it was their fight, not ours.’
‘You try telling my dad that.’ Pam sucked in a deep lungful of smoke. ‘He makes it quite plain that any of us having anything to do with Bryant people are as good as kicked out. I don’t know how we’re going to get over this one. I’m fed up!’ She flicked the half-smoked cigarette away from her.
George laid a placating hand on her arm. ‘Don’t get upset, darling. It’ll all come right in the end.’
‘How?’ she shot at him, the tender love they’d just made cast aside.
He was equally sharp. ‘I don’t know how.’
‘Then what’s the point?’
‘I don’t know, do I? How should I know?’
Pam scrambled to her feet. ‘If you’re going to be like that, George Bryant, I might as well go home. And don’t bother to meet me next Sunday.’
He too was on his feet. ‘What’s that mean? You’ve had enough of me? We’ve just been making love, Pam. And that’s all it was to you, you telling me you don’t want to see me anymore?’
She cringed from the pain on his fine looking face. But she wasn’t going to be the one to wilt. ‘It’s up to you, think.’
‘What’s up to me?’
‘You … us … well … I don’t know.’ Words had begun to fail her. Her voice was shaking with threatening tears. There was even a sob in her throat at the pain she herself was beginning to go through.
‘I don’t know, do I?’ she cried out in despair.
For an answer he grabbed at her, pulled her down on to the ground again, took her shoulders and drew her to him, kissing her mouth hard. For moments they remained like that. Then he said against her lips, ‘Pam, I love you,’ and his voice was trembling. ‘I never want to let you go.’
‘I don’t want to let you go either,’ she replied. ‘But what do we do?’
They crouched in each other’s arms until she said very slowly: ‘If I fell pregnant, then I’d have to get married to its father, wouldn’t I? They’d make me. The scandal an’ all. And if you was the father, they’d have to bury the hatchet and let you marry me.’ She felt him nod solemnly, and holding on to each other, each became lost in thought about what she had just said.
Chapter Four
‘Are you sure we’ve got everything?’
Peggy met her oldest daughter’s brown eyes. ‘Everything I can think of, far as I can see. Now don’t worry. Everything’s going to be all right.’
Connie moved her hands about in premature frustration on this eve of her engagement party at all that could go wrong. ‘I do hope so, Mum.’
Her mother’s round face broke into a faint smile. ‘Look, we’re not entertainin’ royalty, love. Ben’s people are only East Londoners. They don’t come from … I don’t know … Chelsea.’ Her knowledge of London was nil. She’d hardly ever been far from Leigh, just a few times to Southend. What did she want with Southend, except its shops of course? But she’d had a field day only last week. When Connie had taken her there to buy a dress for the special day – cream, with brown flowers, a scooped neck and a brown bow, really fashionable. She’d feel a real lady in it, and Southend had been quite a jaunt. Otherwise she didn’t know much of the world beyond Leigh and cared even less. But she had heard said somewhere that Chelsea was a posh and wealthy area of London. ‘Ben’s people can’t be so different to us. Well, you should know, Con, you’ve been to see them often enough.’
It was usually Ben coming here one Sunday, and Connie going there the next. Ben mostly had to work all the week, on tugs, often through the night, Connie said. It depended. And her working too. Sundays were the only time they could meet. Peggy wondered vaguely, as she put the finishing touches to the engagement cake she’d been icing, where Connie and Ben would live when they got married this time next year. She couldn’t see Ben coming here. He had his base
in London, working with the company his father worked with. It would probably mean him and Connie finding themselves a place near his work in London. Connie would miss the fresh sea air.
She thought on this intently as she surveyed the finished cake, mostly to evade thinking of the emptiness Connie’s going would leave. But all the thinking in the world couldn’t quite dispel the heavy thump that was pounding against her chest wall like a dull hammer, the vision of this once crowded house beginning to empty as one after another left the nest. It had always been full of buzz, full of life, people coming in and out, their friends invited in, house bulging at the seams with people and conversation. The times she had been glad to be on her own for a few hours when they were all out, she regretted enjoying them so much now.
Connie was just the thin end of the wedge. So, the other three girls had no boyfriends yet. But it could come. Right out of the blue, all three meeting that right boy and falling in love, coming home to announce they were getting engaged, would marry in a year or eighteen months. No reason why it couldn’t happen all in the space of a couple of years. And Danny, who had one girlfriend after another. He didn’t say but Peggy knew. Among them could be that one special girl that he intended to marry. Visions of her and Dan left here alone together loomed. It happened. There would still have been Tony if … She stopped herself in time thinking on those lines. But death did come so easily, with no warning; maybe slowly, but inevitably. And if anything happened to Dan, she’d be left …
For God’s sake pull yourself together! She forced a smile at Connie. ‘It’ll be the best engagement party anyone round here’s ever seen,’ she said with conviction. And it would be. She’d make sure of it.
On Friday evening, the sky still light with the sun not yet set, Josie bounded out of her house before she could be stopped again.
Preparations for that silly party tomorrow night, with Sunday for them all to get over it, were sending the whole house into an uproar, with all of them, apart from Dad and Danny, expected to turn to and help. But it wasn’t going to stop her going out this evening with her friends and spending some of her wages from the job she’d got last week. Part-time waitressing in the tea rooms at the Cliffs Hotel in Westcliff. Posh.
Annie had put her forward. They had questioned her really closely at the interview, but she had done a bit of waitressing and had lied a bit, exaggerating her skills, putting on the talk which she could when she wanted. Her looks and figure had done the rest.
The money wasn’t bad and this evening she was determined to make the most of what she had left after giving Mum her bit. She’d been set on getting out this evening but she nearly hadn’t made it.
‘Josie, you’re not going out, are you?’ Mum’s tone had contained its usual expectation of instant contrition, instant obedience. She had partially submitted by polishing the best cutlery got from its velvet-lined mahogany case; had polished quickly and skimpily, escaping before Mum could have a go at her for not doing it properly.
‘I’ve done it, Mum! I’ll try to get back a bit earlier and do whatever else you want me to do.’ And she’d left before anyone could say anything – no need for a coat, just her hat and handbag. She was already in a decent dress and sandals.
She didn’t intend getting back any earlier if she could help it. There was always the excuse of a train home being delayed, or a bus too full to take any more. Mum would understand, would forgive.
‘Where are we going?’ were her first words as they met up, half a dozen girls loitering around the station entrance.
‘We thought on going up the Kursal.’ They all spoke with a Leigh accent, used ‘on’ for ‘of’, in the same way their parents did.
‘Bus or train?’
‘Whatever comes along first.’
They would sit together on the long bus seats if they could, or if on the train, rush to gain an empty carriage before it filled; the girls giggling all the way; would swap anecdotes of what had gone on at their particular place of work; poke fun at whatever odd character worked there, or what the boss had said or done, or if he was having an affair or not; discuss whatever boy had taken their eye, dissecting him and putting him back together again, meticulous as forensic scientists over a corpse.
Josie had no eye on any boy. There had to be something more in life than finding a partner from around here. She dreamed constantly of some rich young man sweeping her off her feet, bearing her off to a romantic life.
She read avidly all the film magazines and, when she could afford them, those giving accounts of society life in New York and Hollywood and in London, probably the furthest she would ever get, despite her dreams of far away places and wealthy handsome sheikhs. Innocently she’d recounted her dreams to friends on one occasion, and had felt hurt and angry when they’d laughed.
‘Gee whiz – off to Hollywood? Got your ticket? Who you setting your cap at then, Douglas Fairbanks? John Gilbert? Or is it Charlie Chaplin?’
How could she dare provoke further derision or even outright hostility, losing all her friends by telling them that she thought Southend cheap and nasty and that her sights were cast towards the socialites of London, longing one day to be one of them?
There was one who didn’t laugh at her, Winnie Blackman, whom she caught looking as wistful as herself. Confessing her dreams to Winnie, she had been surprised to find a kindred spirit pounding against the barriers of Southend dress shops, local dancehalls and tunnel-visioned work mates.
She and Winnie had grown closer together while staying with the others, and this evening, shrieking with the rest at the sudden curves and dips of the scenic railway in the Kursal, or being whizzed around on some other hair-raising contraption, they continued to keep close together, their eyes searching for that elusive handsome wealthy knight who might sweep them away to the heights of society. How they expected to find him in a place like the Kursal they had no idea. Still it was lovely to look.
‘Fancy ’avin’ a go on the flyin’ chairs with me, darlin’?’
Josie looked into the bright blue eyes of an obviously Cockney lad of about eighteen, his straw boater declaring the ubiquitous words ‘Kiss me Quick’ tilted rakishly over one eye.
‘Does your mother know you’re out?’ she countered, and he laughed.
‘No, she don’t, an’ wot’s more, she don’t care. ’Ow abart it then?’
‘Push off,’ Josie said, and shrugged past him.
He caught her arm, turned her towards him. ‘You’re some looker, you are. I bet you’d pass fer a film star. You ain’t a film star, are yer?’
‘No I ain’t … I’m not,’ she blazed at him. ‘Now let go.’
He let go with a dramatic flourish, his hands going up in a gesture of surrender. ‘Orright, you win. What’s yer name?’
‘What’s it to you?’ Her friends were disappearing into the throng.
‘I’d just like ter know, that’s all. Mine’s Arfer.’
‘Arthur,’ she corrected disdainfully. But he was good-looking, and tall, and slim, and she felt a small twinge of admiration shoot through her. If only he spoke like a prince. After a second she said, ‘Mine’s Josie … Josephine.’
He grinned from ear to ear. ‘Not tonight, Josephine!’
‘You’re right,’ she came back at him. ‘Now I’ve got to go.’
Craning her neck to see where the others had gone, she felt dismay to find no sight of them. ‘Now look what you’ve done. You’ve lost me my friends. They could be anywhere.’
He was suddenly sober. He looked quite handsome without that silly smile. ‘I’m sorry. Look, I’ll come wiv yer ter find ‘em. Keep yer company.’
What else could she do? She didn’t care for being left alone in this crowd. He was better than nothing. ‘All right. But don’t read anything into it.’
‘I won’t. I swear,’ he said, breaking again into that silly grin.
He had taken her arm, tucked it through his in a masterly fashion as she went in the direction she had last seen he
r friends taking. They had gone quite a way, wending a course through whatever spaces there were between the knots of people; he shouldered his way through, taking her with him, taking over the situation. She had begun to wonder why she had allowed this. Who did he think he was assuming control, practically thinking for her when he didn’t even know her, nor she him?
But he had found them. Being a six-footer, he had glimpsed them over the heads of much of the crowd, standing on some steps to the Whip with garishly painted cars being flung around in circles and from side to side to the accompaniment of screams of enjoyable terror from their occupants and some sort of raucous tinny racket that passed for music.
All five girls were craning their necks, ignoring the shrieks and the clatter. Arthur turned to her. ‘Five of ’em? Do one ’ave blonde ’air and one really dark? One’s in green an’ one’s in white, an’ …’
‘That’s them,’ she cut in, glad to have found them and be rid of her self-appointed escort, and as they reached the little group who immediately demanded to know where she’d got to, added, ‘Thanks ever so much for finding them for me,’ hoping he would now go on his way.
‘Ain’t no bother,’ he said, but he hadn’t let go of her arm.
Compelled to explain how she’d come by him, or rather how he’d come by her, though she refrained from going into it too much, for the rest of the evening he had tagged along, commandeering her attention, taking exaggerated care of her on the ferris wheel and the roller coaster, showing her how to hit the moving line of wooden ducks with an air gun, or the tin cans with a fluffy mop, and she didn’t have the heart to tell him she wanted only to be with her friends.
She did ask if he had been with friends and he said he had, a club outing, but it didn’t matter, he could look after himself and they wouldn’t worry. He was chatty but entertaining, and after a while it didn’t seem so bad having him along. She listened to practically all his life story, which wasn’t that much: he worked in the docks; his dad had been killed in the docks in an accident; his mother did cleaning to keep him and his brother and sister; he hadn’t got a girlfriend at the moment, which seemed a bit of a hint. He didn’t see her home. She told him it was best if she and her friends went home all together and he’d never get back to London from Leigh – whether he would or not, she didn’t pause to concern herself. It wasn’t her problem.