‘Reen, stop worrying about me. I’m a big girl.’
The phone rang. Neither of them moved. Angie sprinkled sugar on her cornflakes. The phone continued to ring. Angie said, ‘It won’t be Gene, and I don’t care if it’s Roger.’
Doreen said. ‘It won’t be for me. And if it is, they shouldn’t be ringing me this early anyway.’
‘What if it’s Si?’ Angie said, giving the name three syllables.
‘I doubt it,’ Doreen said, but a smiled flitted across her face.
Angie wandered into the hall, still holding a spoon. She picked up the receiver. A strange voice said, ‘Can I speak to Angela Smith?’
‘Yes,’ Angie said. ‘This is Angela, Angie.’
‘Angela, this is Alison Fairfield, from the Hornsey College of Art.’
‘Oh!’ Angie’s stomach flipped. The woman from the interview. She sat down on the seat attached to the table. ‘Hello.’
‘I’m ringing to let you know that we loved your interview yesterday and I must say, although it wasn’t part of the job description, I really enjoyed looking at your designs. Most impressive. As I said yesterday, sadly it’s not part of the job you applied for.’
Angie closed her eyes and took a deep breath, bracing herself for the rejection she knew was coming. She wondered if she would ever be able to find work in the industry that she yearned to be involved with.
Alison Fairfield was still speaking. ‘But we would like to offer you the job you applied for.’
‘Sorry,’ Angie said. ‘Could you repeat that?’
‘The job is yours if you want it.’ She paused. Angie was breathless. ‘Now I don’t know if it was mentioned to you, but all members of staff can sit in on lectures if it’s appropriate and if it doesn’t interfere with their own work schedule. We run some sessions in the evening that you could possibly attend. I’m only sorry that the pay isn’t higher. So, will you accept our offer?’
I’ve got it, Angie thought. I’ve got the job. And because we’ve got some money I can say yes. ‘Yes,’ she said into the phone. ‘Yes please. I mean, thank you. I didn’t expect . . . This is fantastic.’ She couldn’t think straight. ‘Thank you.’
‘Do I take that as a yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m very pleased. We’ll be sending out some documents for you to fill in and then we can confirm a start date.’
‘That’s fantastic. Thank you.’
‘My pleasure. We look forward to seeing you.’
Angie put the receiver down quietly and stood up. Then she sat down on the stairs. She put her head in her hands and she began to cry. She had never been so happy. This is where her life would begin.
Doreen walked into the hall. ‘All right, big bum, can you move please? I need to go to the bathroom. Oh my god what’s wrong? What’s happened?’
‘Nothing, it’s wonderful.’ Angie lifted her face and laughed. ‘I’ve got the best job I could ever have and on top of that, they liked my designs.’
‘Oh Angie, that’s fantastic. This is your life. This is where it starts.’
Angie stood up. ‘I’m going to ring work, I’m going to ring them now and hand in my notice. Hornsey want me to start as soon as possible.’
‘Don’t be daft,’ Doreen said. ‘There won’t be anyone in the personnel department at this time in the morning. You’d better get dressed and go to work and sort it out properly then. But finish your cornflakes first.’
‘Oh, I’m too excited to eat cornflakes.’
‘Well, don’t forget to pick up your ten pounds, or Dad’ll have it back off you.’
‘I’ll take Graham and Mandy out for dinner. As a celebration. They’ll love that.’ She sat down again. ‘Oh but I’ll be leaving them. I’ll be saying goodbye . . . Perhaps I shouldn’t do it. And then I’ll have to tell Mum . . .’
‘Oh yes, you should do it,’ Doreen said. ‘You’ve wanted to do this all your life.’
Angie looked up at her. ‘Have I?’
‘Yes! Don’t you remember all those dresses you used to make for your dolls when you were small? And how we all had to do sewing lessons when we played schools?’
‘You kept sewing the same bit of cloth. You covered it in in lazy daisy stitch.’
‘Is that what it was? But you still made it into an apron for me. You were meant to do this, you’ve got to do this.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. And don’t worry about English Electric. You’ll see them again. That Graham won’t let you disappear into the sunset, you mark my words. And I’ll speak to Mum for you. She’ll understand.’
CHAPTER 22
WELL, MONEY HADN’T MADE MUCH DIFFERENCE to their lives, Doreen thought. She still had to work for a living. She had to keep paying for the overdraft.
She was tired and fed up. Another Wednesday afternoon and nothing to do. Wednesday was early closing in Chelmsford. Of course, it was nice to have the afternoon off, but what for? Everyone else was at work. Sometimes she went to the pictures with the girls from Womenswear. Sometimes she went to the library and sat in there for a bit. Or she’d go for a drive.
Sometimes on a Wednesday she went and said hello to Harry in his barber’s shop. He closed early on a Wednesday too, but later than they did in Bolingbroke’s. They’d go and have a cup of tea, after he’d finished for the day. But she didn’t want to run the risk of bumping into Gene. She hadn’t seen him since the night in Ronnie Scott’s. She felt she’d rather shown herself up. She shouldn’t have gone. She’d been stupid.
She decided to go for a walk. It was ironic, now that she had a fantastic car, that she had started to enjoy walking. You could think when you walked, you didn’t have to keep stopping for traffic lights, and you didn’t have to worry about old men drivers, wearing hats, who didn’t understand the words ‘mirror, signal, manoeuvre.’
It was a sunny day and she was wearing her new shift dress. The dress was simple, but modern and sharp. Angie had picked out the material. They’d met in town one Saturday, in Doreen’s lunch break, and bought it together. It was cotton with a contemporary design of uneven blue and green lines with a slightly blurred edge. Angie had noticed it, had known the colours Doreen liked. Doreen had loved it immediately. Angie had designed it, she’d even made the pattern, cut it out and run it up on the new sewing machine. Two straight lines, a couple of darts and a zip. Angie was so careful with that sewing machine. And finally, Doreen had stood on a kitchen chair while Angie pinned up the hem. They’d laughed all the time, Angie had nearly swallowed a pin, and Mum kept coming into the kitchen to watch and make comments, about what was fashionable in her day and how she’d had a dress with those sleeves but she’d never wear anything like that now. Mum had been cheerful, and bubbly, so happy about the money, and Angie and Doreen had shared looks, smiling. It had been a lovely time. If she didn’t think about Gene.
She walked past the Avenues, past Christy’s, the High School and the Grammar School. It was a bit chilly when you got out of the sun and she wished she’d worn a cardigan, though that would have spoiled the line of the dress. When she got to the bus station she was tired. Her sandals were making her feet ache. She walked past Snows – oh they were all so young in there, drinking coffee in their school uniforms, pushing and laughing loudly. She walked past the Co-op butcher’s and decided to go into the Cumf. It was a small café, no fancy espresso machine, just offering a nice cup of tea and occasionally a bun, oozing with butter and the sweetness of sultanas. That’s what she’d have. A cup of tea and a bun, like a little old lady. She thought about it and laughed. Sometimes she felt about a hundred years old. But a nice bun with juicy sultanas was good to have, so why not? However much money you had, the simple things were sometimes the best.
She ordered at the counter and carried her cup and saucer and the plate with the bun to a table by the window. She looked over at the bridge and the railway line. She wondered if she should get on a train and go somewhere by herself, walk round Witham o
r Colchester. But now it was half past three. Far too late to go anywhere. She stirred her tea and gazed out of the window, watching the big green double-deckers lumbering in and out of the bus station. Yes, she’d just get the bus home when she’d finished her bun, back to the delights of the Greenway Estate.
‘Watcha!’
She turned and looked up at a figure, outlined by the sun. She frowned prettily.
‘We meet again. Hang on, I’ll get myself a drink.’
She looked at him as he stood at the counter.
‘Oh God,’ she said. It was Cliff.
She should go. But she didn’t.
He came over to her table, with a cup of tea. ‘Mind if I . . .?’
‘It’s a free country,’ she said.
He sat down. ‘How’s the new car? Did it match your swanky black sweater?’
‘Don’t talk to me about my swanky black sweater.’
‘All right, if you say so.’
‘I mean, it doesn’t exist anymore.’
His eyes widened. ‘Why? You seemed very proud of it.’
‘Well, I was. If you must know my little sister’s boyfriend wrapped it round his scooter or something and now it’s no bigger than a dishcloth and twice as tight.’ It was good to be able to complain to someone. At home the feeling of guilt stopped a lot of the conversations she wanted to have. ‘Now I’ve got the car, but not the sweater,’ she laughed.
‘Well that’s a real shame.’ Cliff took a packet of Benson and Hedges out of his pocket and offered her one. She shook her head. ‘Benson and Hedges!’ he said, encouragingly.
‘No thanks, not with my tea.’
‘Mind if I . . .?’
‘Be my guest.’
He put a cigarette in his mouth and took a small book of matches from another pocket. She watched him as he lit the cigarette and inhaled. He leaned across to another table and picked up an ash-tray. ‘Not at work?’
‘It’s Wednesday,’ she said. ‘We close early on Wednesdays.’
‘Whereas, in my business, we never close. People die all the time. This afternoon, by coincidence, I am not required by the dead.’
‘Or the living,’ she said lazily.
‘OK,’ he said. He pushed his chair back. She thought she’d gone too far, that he was going to move, but he was simply giving himself room to put one leg across the other, his pointed black shoe resting against one knee. He seemed quite contented. He held his cigarette in one hand and drank his tea with the other.
Doreen took another sip from her cup.
‘You know what you look like, sitting there?’ he said.
‘The Mona Lisa?’
‘Prettier. But you look so serious, drinking that tea. You look as if it’s a job for you.’
‘Oh well, yeah,’ she said. ‘I do this part time. Tea-tasting.’
‘Then shouldn’t you be writing stuff down?’ he asked.
‘No. I keep it all up here.’ She tapped her temple. ‘Then when I get back to head office, it goes into a big book we call . . . the teapot.’
‘Do you want to know what I think?’
‘Not really.’
‘I think you should take other people’s points of view into consideration.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘Yeah. I’ve got a lot to say about tea.’
‘Is that a fact?’ She didn’t know if he was being serious.
He picked up his cup and took a mouthful of tea. ‘I take sugar.’
‘Good for you.’
‘Looking at your spoon I can see you don’t. You haven’t used it. So your tea will taste very different.’
She laughed. Then she watched as he picked up her own cup from the saucer and took a mouthful.
‘Hey, watch it,’ she said. ‘I don’t know where you’ve been.’
‘Oh, it’s not like we haven’t shared saliva before.’
‘What do you mean?’ She began flicking through her mental diary. He couldn’t know she’d drunk from his coffee cup in Wainwrights, surely. How could she explain that? ‘Is this what you were talking about the other day? Because we certainly didn’t share saliva when I came round with the jam jars. You just got a mouthful of Max Factor face powder.’
He laughed. ‘Oh yeah. Not bad. No, I don’t mean then. It was when we were at school.’
‘All I remember of you at school was you and all your mates laughing at the girls when we went off to do our shorthand and typing class, and trying to nick our pencils. Give me a cigarette.’
He passed her a cigarette and lit it for her. He shook out the match. ‘I was only messing about because we had technical drawing and I hated that lesson. But what about the dog thing? Don’t you remember how that ended?’
‘What dog thing?’
‘You must remember, it was one morning, we were all on the bus on the way to school. I think you were wearing your school mac.’
She shook her head. ‘I was always wearing that horrible mac.’
Their hands touched as they tapped ash from their cigarettes into the ash-tray.
‘You were on the bus,’ he said, ‘and someone got on with a big dog.’
‘Oh God.’ She shuddered. A memory was returning. She took a deep drag on her cigarette.
‘And the dog bounced up the stairs all on its own and came up to your seat and started nosing around. And you were shrink-shrink-shrinking up against the window. The bloke who owned it came up the stairs and just sat down at the back and left the dog to it. He didn’t give a monkey’s that you were scared. Though he could have seen that. Then the dog jumped up on the seat beside you. Bloody great big thing, it was an Alsatian.’
She held her breath. She could feel the enormous dog beside her, its saliva spraying on to her mac as it barked. She had been so scared.
‘You didn’t even dare turn round to see who the bloody dog belonged to. You just kept looking out of the window, like you could see something really interesting on the Main Road. And the dog started barking. I think you had your eyes tight shut, sitting there really straight and still. But tears were rolling down your cheeks.’
And then someone shouted ‘Bastard!’ she remembered, and suddenly the dog disappeared, dragged off the seat, and then the owner was tumbling down the stairs. ‘And the bus stopped and they fell off the bus,’ she murmured. ‘It was raining. And some people clapped.’
‘Yeah, well it wasn’t me doing the clapping. I was the one who chucked him down the stairs.’
‘That was you?’
‘God, you don’t remember, do you? I came up to see if you were all right and you threw your arms round me and kissed me.’
‘Did I? Are you sure?’ Another memory was coming back. Someone holding her tight, stroking her hair.
‘You just looked up and kissed me.’
‘I was obviously grateful. But if it helps, thanks again.’
‘That’s OK. The kiss was enough.’
She thought about it. ‘And then, didn’t you get off the bus? Without saying a word.’
‘I’d just kicked a bloke down the stairs, I was a bit worried I was going to get done over by his mates, or the old Bill. Anyway, I had to get off at the next stop. I needed some fags for school.’
‘You and cigarettes! But you never said anything after that. Are you sure it was you? I thought it was the Lone Ranger. I told Janice about it, and she said, “Well who was it?” and I didn’t know.’
What Janice had actually said was, ‘Well, who was it? He sounds gorgeous.’
‘You could have mentioned it later.’
‘I wasn’t there.’
‘Where were you?’
‘I had one or two run-ins with the law.’
‘Oh yes.’ Another memory was coming back. ‘Oh yes!’ Police cars at the school gates, everyone rushing to the windows, someone in handcuffs, laughing, being led away.
‘I was a bit too easy with my fists in those days. I’m a changed man now.’
She sighed. ‘I should bloody
well hope so. There’s too many men who let their fists do the talking.’
‘I’m sorry about that,’ he said.
They lived so close, he had to know what she was talking about. There’d been police cars outside their house often enough.
‘I only did it to save people,’ he said. ‘Well, a couple of times when boys at school wound me up. You’re not the only one who’s got family issues.’
She frowned. ‘Your mum seems so nice.’
‘If you mean my old woman in the Crescent, yeah, she is nice. But she’s not my real mum.’
‘Yes, I did hear something like that, something about the war?’
‘Yeah. You know she fosters kids. Well, I was the first one. My real mum was a friend of hers who’d been knocked up by some bloke in France.’
‘You’re French!’ That was a turn-up for the books.
‘Maybe. Some soldier. I might be a Yank. Probably a Tommy.’
‘What was your real mother doing in France?’
‘Driving an ambulance.’
‘God! What does she do now?’
‘Heroin, I think. I don’t see much of her.’
‘Oh Cliff, I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be. My mum is the one who lives in the Crescent. The other one – well, she doesn’t know me, and I don’t know her.’
‘Oh.’ Doreen took another mouthful of tea. ‘After that I think I need a bit of sugar in this.’ She took a spoonful of sugar from the bowl on the table and stirred it into her cup.
‘Much better,’ he said.
She took a sip. ‘I’m not sure about that. But . . . thanks. For the dog thing.’
‘All in a day’s work.’
She laughed. ‘What happened to him?’
‘Who?’
‘The man with the dog.’
‘Oh, he was all right. He had his arm in plaster for a bit. Belly aching all over town about it, apparently.’
‘He broke his arm because of me?’
‘He broke his arm because of me,’ Cliff corrected. ‘Don’t worry about it. It was years ago.’
‘That wasn’t why you went away?’
‘No, no. That was some other arse. Who might have been my dad.’
She gazed at him. He had a smooth complexion, just the hint of a shadow on his cheeks, he had dark eyes, and that bit of hair that flopped over his forehead. And he could do chit-chat. She liked that. ‘All right,’ she said, ‘you’re forgiven.’
The Girls from Greenway Page 18