by Mary Gibson
As her coat and blue dress were gifts, the only things she’d had to buy herself were a pair of strapped shoes and a bottle of Amami shampoo. That afternoon, at the end of her Saturday shift, she’d gone to the Bermondsey public baths, taking the shampoo with her; she wasn’t risking the frizz that their packets of pine needles usually produced. Now her hair was shining and her heart racing as Martin held out his hands.
‘Dance?’
As the jazz singer got into his stride, couples were beginning to whirl around the smallish dance floor, gleefully bumping into each other. No one was trying to win any dance prizes tonight. She felt more confident. She put a hand on Martin’s shoulder and he whizzed her elegantly into the crowd, dancing in roughly the same manner as he drove. After the singer paused for a drink, they joined Ginger Bosher, who was sitting out the dance with his wife, Fran. She was enviously eyeing the couples as they laughed and collided with each other.
‘He can’t dance,’ she explained to Kate.
‘Martin’ll dance with you, Fran!’ Kate suggested.
‘May I dance with your wife?’ Martin asked Ginger politely, and as soon as the piano started up, Fran was on her feet.
Watching them go, Ginger said, ‘Thanks, Kate. It ain’t much fun for Fran with me and my two left feet. He seems a nice chap.’ Ginger nodded towards Martin. ‘You seen anything of Rasher lately?’
‘No.’ She wished he hadn’t reminded her of Johnny’s figure at the door, watching her leave in Martin’s car.
‘It was a bloody show-up, what he done at the gallery, I’ll give you that. But he’s a good bloke, really.’
‘You don’t have to tell me that, Ginger. But I can’t rely on him. I had enough of punch-ups at Aunt Sylvie’s. I don’t want to be with someone who starts using his fists every time he sees another chap paying me a bit of attention.’
Ginger nodded silently, his large feet tucked in so as not to trip the dancers. ‘It’s hard to understand it, if you’re not the jealous type. I’m not. Look at her.’ He nodded towards Fran and Martin. ‘Having the time of her life and it ain’t with me, but I’m not complaining.’
‘Exactly! That’s because you’re thinking of Fran, not yourself. Johnny’s had a lifetime believing he’s some great catch that girls can’t resist… he’s too cocky by half.’
She didn’t believe that and she didn’t feel as harshly towards Johnny as she sounded. The truth was he didn’t feel at all cocksure of himself where Martin was concerned; in fact it was the opposite, and she’d worked out that he’d rather be without her than live in fear of losing her. And all this was far too complicated to relay to Ginger Bosher right now.
Ginger took in a long breath. ‘Trouble is, love, you caught him, hook, line and sinker, and if you’d seen the state of him the other night, you wouldn’t say he was cocky, not at all.’
‘Why?’ she asked, surprised to find that Ginger knew his friend almost as well as she did. She dropped her indignation. ‘What was he like?’
‘He’s ashamed of himself and so he bloody should be. But if you still care about him, I’d pay him a visit soon, love. The drink runs in his family and you don’t want it to take hold.’
Martin delivered Fran back to her husband and invited Kate for another dance. But Ginger’s news about Johnny had dampened her spirits and Martin noticed. ‘Or maybe a drink?’ He took her elbow, guiding her around the sides of the room to the refreshments.
A young volunteer served their drinks from behind the blue and yellow table. It was a night when Ethel had insisted all divisions of class or work should be banished, and the young woman serving was a medical student who travelled in from Kensington for the lectures.
‘I should think it’s a pleasant change to be on this side of the table!’ he said, handing Kate her drink.
‘A change? You could say that – I think it’s more like a bloody good holiday!’
He laughed loudly, so that a couple of girls helping themselves to food looked up and smiled.
They took their plates of sandwiches to some chairs a little away from the singer. She hadn’t eaten all day and the dainty ham triangles were good. She ate three before he’d even started his.
‘Kate…’
She knew what was coming. ‘No, Martin. You promised not to talk about it. Eat your sandwiches.’
Obediently, he chewed in silence, then brushed crumbs from his trousers, stood up and offered her his hand. ‘Come on then, let’s make the most of your holiday.’
*
After that evening Martin came for her once a week, usually on Saturday evening but sometimes on Sunday afternoons, when, as the first signs of spring appeared, they would motor out to Kent in the Baby Austin. The apple blossoms came early that year and she began to feel free, and sometimes even happy, as they skimmed along narrow lanes with clouds of white and pink frothing over every hedge. He never spoke again of loving her or marrying her. She knew that if he’d pushed the subject on the night of the dance, that would have been the end of it for her. But because he turned out to be just like Ginger Bosher, putting his own feelings aside, happy that she was happy, she carried on going about with him, trying out the new world that he offered, letting the unusual feeling of unfettered affection and fun be her guide.
But happiness, like the apple blossom, was double coloured. A stain of doubt over his history with Nora still cautioned her, but more than that, deep veins of sadness tinged her heart when she thought of Johnny. Ginger’s warning about his drinking had been playing on her mind. Part of her thought she should just let it go, but she had told Johnny they could still be friends, and a friend wouldn’t leave him to go the way of his mother. She made up her mind to pay him a visit, prepared for him to be as uncommunicative as when she’d last seen him. When he answered the door, his expression was muted, his eyes were red-rimmed and bruised with tiredness and he sported a two-day growth of beard. He looked as if he’d been sleeping in his clothes. He let her in without a word. She looked around the tiny room.
‘Your mum’s bed’s still here.’
He looked at it, almost surprised. ‘Oh, yeah. I didn’t know what to do with it.’
‘Perhaps you should give it to the Sally Ann – you’d have a lot more room.’ She felt guilt twist her gut. She should have been here all along helping him.
There was a bottle of brandy on the table. She walked over to it and shook it – there wasn’t much left. ‘Have you been clearing out your mum’s hiding places?’
‘It’s the last of it.’ His gaze slid away to the scullery and she knew he had more there.
‘Do you really want to end up like her?’
He clenched his fists and she prepared herself for an outburst. Instead he ran his fingers through his untidy hair. ‘Sit down, Kate, for chrissake. Or ain’t you stopping?’
She sat down. ‘You can make me a cup of tea, if you’ve got any.’
Once she would have leaped up to make it, but now she waited while he filled the kettle and spooned tea into the pot. She looked for trembling, but his hands seemed steady, if a little grimy.
He put the tea in front of her and sipped his own.
‘You need to sort yourself out, Johnny. Get down Bermondsey Baths, have a haircut and start taking a pride in yourself again. Your mum wouldn’t be happy to see you like this.’
He sighed. ‘My mum wouldn’t have noticed if I’d gone out in the street stark naked, she certainly didn’t care if me hair was washed.’
‘When she was sober she did. What about when you was a kid and come home up to your neck in Thames mud? She tanned your hide – all the way up the lane and back again!’
The memory brought a smile to his face. ‘She did, didn’t she?’ He rubbed tears from his eyes and they sat in silence for a minute until he had recovered. He got up and took the brandy bottle into the scullery. She heard him pouring the contents into the stone sink, then went to join him. He retrieved beer and spirits bottles from behind the kitchen cupboard and underneath t
he copper. She watched as he poured them away. When it was done, he said, ‘Kate, I should’ve come and apologized. I should never have done that – at the gallery. You must have been so embarrassed, and I don’t blame you for not wanting to have anything to do with me now.’
‘It wasn’t the embarrassment that hurt, Johnny. It was that you never trusted me about Martin. And it’s not that I don’t want nothing to do with you – I do still care about you.’
He looked her properly in the eyes for the first time. ‘But I was right. You two are courting now.’
She hadn’t come for a row. She took a couple of breaths before answering. ‘No – you were wrong! But we go out to different places together. I’m trying to get on with me life but, Johnny, it’s not what you think.’
His eyes suddenly filled with hope. ‘If I get myself sorted out, would you give me another chance?’
She thought carefully before answering. ‘Come and ask me that again when the old Johnny’s back.’
But after that, days had passed and then weeks and Johnny hadn’t come to her, and she’d not wanted to seek him out, for fear of what she might find.
*
Kate found herself looking forward to Monday nights. After the French class had finished Nora would help her clear up, and then, with the cosy reading room to themselves, they would talk. Kate found it hard to explain why it was so easy to be with Nora. It shouldn’t have been. Perhaps it was Ethel’s vision for the equalizing force of the bookshop; perhaps it was because the two women, for all their vastly different material wealth, had a similar family history; perhaps it was that Nora had always seemed friendless, lonely. Kate knew by now that her reserved manner could easily be penetrated and she was always glad when she could make Nora laugh – usually with her tales of the old ‘Marigolds’ or the Boutle’s girls.
Tonight Nora seemed more subdued than usual. As they sipped hot cocoa and ate cake left over from class, Kate asked, ‘Did I ever tell you about mad old Longbonnet?’
Nora shook her head and Kate got up, bent her body like an old woman and imitated Longbonnet’s direful warnings. Nora laughed at the imitation, but then stared into her cocoa, running a fingertip around the cup. Perhaps she wasn’t in the mood for a chat tonight. Kate started gathering up plates. ‘Well, I’d better let you get home.’
Nora’s head shot up. ‘Oh, no. There’s nothing to go home for,’ she said, sadness clouding her face.
‘Your husband’s away again?’
‘He’ll be back tomorrow. He’s been setting up a new venture. It’s a lot of work.’
‘Do you miss him when he’s gone?’ Kate asked, aware she was on dangerous ground. Nora never seemed to like talking about her marriage.
‘Well, of course, but to be honest, after he’s home I often wish him gone again!’
‘I can understand that. Men can get in the way, can’t they?’
Nora smiled. ‘Chibby doesn’t just get in the way, he fills every available space in my life. When he’s home he wants me all to himself – sometimes it’s hard even to get to the bookshop. Though I’m determined not to give it up. I’ve so enjoyed it.’
‘Has he asked you to give it up?’
‘No, he wouldn’t do that. It was Mrs Cliffe’s idea for me to volunteer and Chibby is very keen to keep Violet happy.’
‘Why?’
‘Because she’s largely funding his new project.’
‘Oh? But why does he need her money when he’s got yours?’
Nora flushed and Kate realized she had asked one of those questions that Aunt Sylvie used to answer with a wallop.
‘I’m sorry! Sometimes I just blurt out these things, Nora! Just ignore me.’
But the damage had been done and she could see she’d rattled Nora’s usual composure. She lifted eyes, not angry but sad, and said, ‘Kate, you always ask exactly the right question. The one other people won’t. That’s why I liked you immediately. The answer is that much of my inheritance is gone. Chibby made some bad business decisions, but he’s convinced this latest venture will get us everything back. I’m sure it’s largely why Violet agreed to help. She’s doing it for me.’
‘Good old Vi,’ Kate said with a grin.
Again, Kate was rewarded with a chuckle from Nora. ‘Speaking of good old Vi, she tells me that Martin’s turned into quite a rebel and it’s all your fault! You’re seeing quite a lot of each other, I hear.’
‘A bit. Whatever he says, I know it’ll never come to anything.’
‘And what is it he says?’ Nora was alert now, her dreamy sadness seeming to have evaporated.
Kate shrugged. ‘He’s young in his head. He says he’s in love with me. But you told me to be careful of him…’
There was a stillness in the air between them. Nora let out a long sigh. ‘I can’t really speak for Martin, but I do believe the situation is dangerous for you. Unequal matches are… full of challenges, my dear young Kate.’
Kate wondered if Nora was talking about her own marriage, but she daren’t voice any more questions. She’d got away with one too many tonight.
‘I’ll be careful, Nora. I don’t expect nothing of no one these days,’ she said wistfully.
And Nora patted her hand. ‘Perhaps that is the best way to be, after all.’
*
Her talk with Nora left Kate wanting to ask other questions. She knew more about Nora, but less about Martin. She had got used to his easy-going charm, and she wouldn’t pretend she wasn’t flattered by the attentions of such a handsome, wealthy young man. But she’d also found herself liking him so much more than she’d ever expected to. It wasn’t that she had forgotten Johnny; it was that love had been transformed into regret. And so she’d locked him away in a secret part of her heart and hidden the key, even from herself. Nora was right – it was a dangerous situation.
Nora had left her saying she’d be back the following afternoon. Ethel was unwell, so Nora had volunteered at short notice to run the bookshop for the evening. Kate wondered how her husband would view her disappearance on the very day of his return. At lunchtime Kate tried the door, hoping Nora might already be there, but it was locked. She searched out the spare key from its hiding place and was opening the door when she saw Nora emerging from her car, a little further down Bermondsey Street. Kate decided to wait for her. But then someone else got out of the car. He came around to the passenger side and took Nora’s hands in his. Kate’s curiosity was piqued and, half hidden in the doorway, she studied him. He was a tall man, at least ten or twelve years older than Nora, elegantly dressed in a well-cut grey suit and black homburg hat. He had a pale complexion and a longish face with a neatly clipped red-gold beard. He leaned closer to kiss Nora on the lips. Now Kate stood, transfixed. Trying to think how he could possibly be here, kissing her friend. The only explanation was that this was Nora’s husband. But that was impossible, for Kate knew the man. How she knew him, where or when she’d met him, she had no idea, but of one thing she was certain – she needed to find out before she could face Nora again.
12
Chibby
Kate ducked back into the shop, banged the door behind her and locked it. Her heart was racing and her blood pumping so hard she heard its dull thudding in her temples. Time seemed to stand still as she trawled her memory. How many striking, prosperous, powerful-looking men had she met in her lifetime? None. Her view of him had been fleeting but she concentrated on his features now: the pale, thin face, the hooded eyes – startling blue even at a distance. She replayed how he’d leaned forward to kiss Nora on the lips… It was perhaps the kiss that unlocked her memory – for although he was twelve years older than the last time Kate had seen him, the man who had just kissed Nora goodbye was not her husband Chibby, he was Archie Goss, Kate’s father.
She could barely breathe. This was impossible! Unless she’d been mistaken. Had she for so long imagined her father’s return that she put his likeness onto anyone who looked vaguely like him? She’d only been six when he’
d left, but surely she could not forget her own father? She closed her eyes, feeling a wave of nausea wash over her. It was true, she knew in her heart that it was. But it would take time for her brain to catch up with her heart and she didn’t have time, for Nora was knocking on the door to be let in.
‘Kate, Kate! Are you in there? I can’t find the spare key!’
Kate moved swiftly away from the door. First, she rushed to the scullery, then changed her mind and turned, hurrying for the stairs. From the reading-room window she’d be able to check if Nora was alone. She twitched the painted hanging and peered into the street below. Nora was still searching for the key in its hiding place under the step. Abruptly she stood and looked up. Nora had seen her. She smiled, then mimicked a key turning in a lock. In a daze of uncertainty, Kate moved to the centre of the room, tripping over a low table as she went, seeming to view herself from a long way off. This was so far removed from all her imagined reunions with Archie Goss, if it really was him, that she had no plan to follow. All her rehearsed speeches about missing him and believing in him for all these years, all her practised scenes of forgiveness, had evaporated at her first sight of him kissing Nora.
On unsteady legs, she slowly descended the stairs. Feeling sick, she took in a deep breath to still her trembling as she fumbled to unlock the door.
‘I’ve been knocking and knocking! Couldn’t you hear me from up there?’ Nora took a step into the bookshop and then stopped. ‘Kate, you look like you’ve seen a ghost! Are you feeling unwell?’
Kate shook her head and turned away, hiding her face. ‘I’m all right, thanks. I’ll just finish off upstairs.’
Nora took off her gloves and hat, following her. ‘No, you’re not all right,’ she insisted, puzzlement in her voice. Kate’s limbs were heavy, each stair a monumental effort. She kept her back to Nora, scared the woman might see into her heart. At the top step, she stumbled, and Nora, who was close behind, caught her before she could fall.