June looked indignant. ‘A thousand times better.’ Then she smiled. ‘But my brother and Albert were at the same Oxford college. The two of them became friends and that’s how we met, so perhaps I can be allowed a little bias.’
Anna smiled too. ‘I think so.’
‘It’s a very different world from here.’
Anna’s eyes began to shine. ‘The sort of world I want for Ronnie. Somewhere green and beautiful. What are the schools like in Kendleton?’
June felt a tightening in her stomach. ‘There’s a catch, Anna. Barbara needs peace and her doctor is adamant that she mustn’t have a child living in the house. Ronnie would have to stay with Stan and Vera.’
The smile faded as quickly as it had come. ‘Then she’ll have to find someone else.’
‘But …’
‘No.’
‘Anna, think …’
‘No! Absolutely not. Ronnie’s all I have. I could never leave him. Never!’ Anna flushed, her voice softened. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be rude. You’ve always been kind to us and I’m grateful but this isn’t possible.’
Anna picked up the tray and continued her work. Upstairs June could hear Albert laughing at something Ronnie had said. On the far wall was a picture of the Tower of London. Another of Ronnie’s efforts. Exceptional for a boy of not quite nine.
‘It wouldn’t be for ever, Anna. A few years, maybe less. You could come and visit. Kendleton’s not that far away. Albert and I would keep an eye on Ronnie. He could visit us whenever he wanted. You know how fond we are of him. Please don’t just dismiss the idea. Promise me you’ll think about it.’
Silence. Upstairs the laughter continued.
‘What’s the matter, Mum?’
‘Nothing, Ronnie.’
‘Yes there is.’
They sat in the window of the Amalfi café. Ronnie had moved on from dissecting jam tarts and now ate chocolate éclairs. The café was crowded, the buzz of conversation almost drowning out the Alma Cogan record playing on the newly installed jukebox.
She told him what June Sanderson had said. ‘Will you go?’ he asked when she had finished.
‘No. I told Mrs Sanderson that her cousin would have to find someone else.’
He nodded.
‘Which she will.’
‘They won’t be as nice as you.’
‘Thank you, Ronnie.’ Anna sipped her tea. At a nearby table Emily Hopkins, sister of her one-time suitor, Harry, talked with a younger woman called Peggy. Both kept looking over, making Anna feel uncomfortable. Harry had married Peggy the previous year and they were expecting their first child at Christmas. Peggy had dull hair and a mean mouth. Anna’s friend, Kate, thought that Harry was a fool. That Peggy didn’t have Anna’s looks or sweet nature. But she didn’t have an illegitimate child either.
Ronnie was staring at her. His eyes were troubled. Now it was her turn to be concerned. ‘What is it?’
He didn’t answer.
‘Ronnie?’
He swallowed. ‘You should go.’
She put down her cup. ‘Do you want me to?’
‘No. But …’ He didn’t finish his sentence. There was no need. She knew what he was thinking. What she was thinking herself.
‘I don’t want to leave you, Ronnie.’
‘I’ll be all right. I’m not a baby.’
There was cream on his lip. She reached out and wiped it away. ‘No, you’re not,’ she said softly. ‘You’re my big, clever, grown-up boy, aren’t you.’
Emily and Peggy were still glancing over. Uncharacteristically Ronnie made a face at them. Both quickly looked away. Anna suppressed the urge to laugh. ‘That was naughty,’ she told him. ‘I’m very angry.’
He made a face at her too. A nice one this time. She thought of what she would have gained through marrying Harry. A decent, hard-working husband. A home of her own. Respectability. More children perhaps. The only price losing Ronnie for ever.
His hand was on the table. She gave it a squeeze. He squeezed back.
‘I love you, Ronnie Sunshine. More than anything in the world.’
‘I love you too, Mum. I don’t want you to go away. But if you do I’ll be all right.’
‘Finish your éclair. We’ll talk about this another time.’
He took a bite. Made a display of eating. But when they left the café half the éclair still remained on his plate.
October. While her husband snored in front of a quiz show on their new television set, Mrs Fletcher studied entries for a picture competition she had set the fourth-year class. The theme was ‘An Important Person in My Life’. The winner was to receive five shillings and have their picture displayed on the school noticeboard for a week.
Most of the children had drawn their mothers. Naughty Alan Deakins had drawn that tart Marilyn Monroe, but Alan’s mother looked like a tart so that was rather appropriate. Stuart Hooper, bottom of the class and eager to curry favour, had drawn what was supposed to be a flattering portrait of herself resembling a gargoyle. Some had drawn their fathers. Patriotic Catherine Meadows had drawn the Queen. Archie Clark had drawn his cat.
But one entry stood head and shoulders above the rest. Ronnie Sidney’s drawing of his cousin Thomas.
It was an unusual drawing. Thomas himself did not appear. Ronnie had drawn a graveyard; at its centre a tombstone guarded by a stone angel with its wings spread out and its hands clasped in prayer. On the stone was carved: ‘Thomas Stanley Finnegan. Born 12 November 1940. Died 7 October 1953’.
Mrs Fletcher thought back to the previous October when Thomas had gone missing. Her colleague, Mrs Jennings had told her how the whole class had prayed for Thomas’s safety and of how worried Ronnie had been. Scared that Thomas might be dead. Fortunately it had all worked out well.
But it could have been so different. That was what the drawing showed.
It was clever. Imaginative. Like Ronnie himself.
But it was also disturbing. Not the sort of thing to be displayed on a noticeboard. It might give the first-years nightmares.
She decided to award the prize to another child. There would be other competitions for Ronnie to win.
January 1955.
Ronnie stood on a platform at Paddington Station, talking to his mother at the window of her train. Uncle Stan and Peter, who had helped carry her luggage, waited near by.
‘I’ll write every day,’ she told him. ‘Tell me if you can’t stand it. I can come back. I don’t have to stay.’
‘Don’t worry, Mum.’ He gave her his best Ronnie Sunshine smile. ‘I’ll be all right.’
The guard blew his whistle. It was time. She leant through the window. Hugged him as best she could while late arrivals pushed past trying to find seats.
The train began to move, sending clouds of white steam into the air. She remained at the window, waving. He waved back, fighting the urge to run after her and beg her to stay.
Then he walked back towards the others.
‘All well, then, Ronnie,’ said Uncle Stan in a tone of forced joviality.
He nodded.
‘Let’s have a plate of chips somewhere. I’m sure your aunt won’t mind this once.’
‘Thanks, Uncle Stan.’
‘You two wait here for a minute. I need to get some cigarettes.’
‘Aren’t you going to cry?’ demanded Peter once they were alone.
‘No.’
‘Yes you are. Come, on cry-baby bastard. Start blubbing for your mummy.’
Ronnie shook his head.
‘You’re only staying with us because Dad told Mum it would look bad if we didn’t keep you. Otherwise you’d be in the orphanage with all the other bastards.’
A lump was growing in Ronnie’s throat. The tears he had been battling against all day were very close. Peter’s eyes shone as if sensing this. As Ronnie looked into them he remembered Auntie Vera lying on the kitchen floor. He imagined Peter lying there instead; screaming as boiling chip fat ate away his face.
Laughter bubbled up inside him, melting the lump into nothing.
Peter’s smile faded, replaced by confusion. ‘Cry!’
‘Or what? Going to leave one of your roller skates for me to fall over?’
Peter flushed. ‘Cunt!’ He went to join his father.
Ronnie turned, wanting a last glimpse of his mother’s train. But the platform was empty and she was gone.
4 February 1955
Dear Mum,
Thank you for your letter. It came this morning and I read it at breakfast. Auntie Vera was cross but I didn’t care. I took it to school and read it three more times there. I am going to read it in bed too!
I am fine. Thomas has a cold and has given it to Uncle Stan but not me. Mrs Fletcher gave me a book to read called King Solomon’s Mines. It is very good. We had a maths test and I came top with Archie. Last night Mr and Mrs Brown came for dinner and Auntie Vera made fish stew from a recipe book. It took her all day and I heard Mrs Brown tell Mr Brown that it was the most horrible thing she had ever eaten.
Yesterday I saw Mr and Mrs Sanderson. They said to send you their love and Auntie Mabel and Uncle Bill did too. Mr Sanderson gave me a penny red stamp and some American stamps and an album to put them in. There are different pages for different countries. Archie’s uncle lives in Australia and he is going to give me stamps too.
Catherine Meadows sat next to me at school today. She said that she is going to look after me while you are in Oxfordshire but I told her that I don’t need to be looked after. My job is to look after you.
Lots and lots of love
from
Ronnie Sunshine
Mabel Cooper stood in her corner shop, listening to Emily Hopkins talk about her brother Harry’s newborn son, John. ‘Such a beautiful baby! And clever too. Do you know …’ Mabel nodded politely, while wondering whether Emily was actually going to buy anything.
Ronnie Sidney entered the shop, dressed in his school uniform. In his hand was a white envelope.
‘Hello, Ronnie, dear. What a nice surprise.’
‘How are you, Auntie Mabel?’
‘All the better for seeing you.’
He approached the counter. Emily’s mouth tightened. She looked him up and down as if trying to find fault with his appearance. ‘How’s your mother getting on?’ she asked curtly.
‘Fine, thank you.’
‘Well, I must be off. Next time, Mabel, I’ll bring a photograph of John.’
‘And a shopping list,’ muttered Mabel as Emily left. Then she smiled at Ronnie. ‘Is that letter for your mother?’
‘Yes.’ He held out a shilling. ‘Can I have a stamp, please?’
She gave him one. ‘Did you send her our love?’
He nodded, while fixing the stamp to the envelope.
‘And how are you getting on, Ronnie?’
His head remained lowered. ‘All right.’
‘Really?’
He looked up. Managed a smile. ‘Really.’
She gave him a chocolate bar. The biggest one they had. ‘Have this too.’
‘Thanks, Auntie Mabel.’
‘Have tea with us soon. Bring some of your pictures. We’d love to see them.’
‘I will. Goodbye, Auntie Mabel. Say hello to Uncle Bill for me.’
She watched him make his way out of the shop. His second-hand uniform was too big but he would grow into it in time. A group of boys were playing football on the street outside, making the most of the last few minutes of daylight. One of them called for him to join them but he shook his head and carried on his way.
Once, years ago, she had heard a psychiatrist talking on the wireless, saying that often creative people needed solitude to truly hear the music inside themselves. Ronnie was something of a loner and he was artistic. Her husband, Bill, had a hunch that Ronnie would be famous one day. Perhaps he was right. Perhaps, twenty years from now, people would be asking her about the Ronnie Sidney and she would tell them: ‘He was always contained. Solitary. But that was how he needed to be. Couldn’t waste energy on the mundane. Not if he was to hear the music inside himself.’
Little Ronnie Sidney. A great man of the future? She hoped so. But only time would tell.
Another customer entered. She prepared to make a sale.
All the lights were off in 41 Moreton Street. Ronnie, wrapped in his dressing gown and using the moon for illumination, sat on the window ledge of his bedroom drawing a picture for his mother.
It was a copy of his favourite painting. Ophelia drowning with flowers in her hair. It wasn’t as perfect as the original. He wasn’t as skilled as Millais. Not yet. But one day he would be a famous artist and everyone in the world would know his name. It was what his mother wanted for him. He wanted it for her.
Her bed was stripped bare now. Uncle Stan had told him that he could sleep in it if he wanted. A change from the camp bed, which was almost too small for him. But he had refused. It was his mother’s bed. He didn’t want it to be used by anyone else, not even himself.
The moon was full. A great white orb high in the cold night sky. He stopped his work and gazed up at it, imagining as he had so many times before that he could see his father’s plane flying across its face. In spite of his mother’s pleas he refused to give up hope. One day his father would come and then the three of them would be together. He and his mother would finally be members of a proper family rather than just unwanted attachments to the family of others.
It would happen one day. He knew it would.
A train rattled past in the darkness, filling the room with noise and light. In the world behind his eyes he was walking towards a beautiful mansion by a river where his parents stood waiting while the train came off its rails, careering down the bank, smashing into the house he had left behind, wiping out the lives of those who slept there like a careless hand crushing a family of insects.
The drawing was finished. Good, but not good enough. Tearing it up, he began again, focusing all his energies upon the page, shutting out all background noise to better hear the music inside himself. Bundles of jumbled notes that in time would swell and grow into concertos and on into symphonies. And where those melodies would lead him only time would tell.
Little Ronnie Sunshine, a pocket full of rye.
Little Ronnie Sunshine, slugs and snails and puppy dogs’ tails.
Little Ronnie Sunshine, a Mozart in the making.
Little Ronnie Sunshine …
Part 2
Oxfordshire: 1952
Osborne Row. A quiet street of terraced houses on the west side of Kendleton. Susan Ramsey lived at number 37 with her parents and a million photographs.
Every available surface was covered in framed images. Faded portraits of the grandparents she had never really known. Pictures of her father as an impish schoolboy or handsome in the uniform he had worn during the war. Pictures of her mother on childhood holidays or outside the church on her wedding day. But most of all there were pictures of Susan herself. Dozens of them. Every one of her six years lovingly chronicled for all to see.
Sometimes, when visitors were expected, her father would remove her pictures from the hallway and living room while her mother smiled and shook her head. When the visitors arrived Susan would hide on the stairs, looking at one of her books and waiting to be called down.
And as she entered the room, gazing curiously at the strange faces around her, the adult conversation simply died away.
Then it began, just as it always did. The talk of actresses known to all except herself. Vivien Leigh. Gene Tierney. Jean Simmons. Ava Gardner. Most were usually mentioned. But the one always discussed was Elizabeth Taylor. Susan knew nothing about Elizabeth Taylor except that she had once owned a beautiful collie dog called Lassie but then given it to a boy called Roddy McDowall. This meant that Elizabeth Taylor must be stupid, as if Susan had owned a dog she would not have given it to anyone. A dog was the thing she wanted most in the world.
Well, second most.
She
would sit beside her mother on the sofa, eating sponge cake and telling the visitors about the things she was learning at school and Charlotte Harris who was in her class and lived in the same street and was her best friend. The visitors would smile and nod while her mother stroked her hair and her father, unnoticed, pulled faces so that eventually she would burst out laughing, spraying crumbs everywhere. Her father would then adopt a serious expression, remarking on how quickly poisons took effect and making her laugh even harder.
Sometimes, after being excused, she would sit in front of her mother’s dressing-table mirror, studying the face that caused such excitement in others. It was heart shaped, framed by thick, dark hair. Blue-black, her father said. The skin was pale, lips red and full, nose slim and elegant. Huge eyes, rimmed by dark lashes, were so blue as to be almost purple. Violet, her mother said. The sort of face, said others, that men would one day die for.
But for now it was just her face. Quickly she would become bored and return to her own room with the bedspread decorated with moons and stars, the shelves full of books and toys and the conch shell her father had bought her while on holiday in Cornwall and which she had only to press to her ear to hear the sound of the sea.
In the centre of the room was a wooden crib that her paternal grandfather had made. Inside it, covered in a blanket, was a china doll that had been a present from her paternal grandmother. Both had died before her second birthday. She had no recollection of either but still she missed them. Her father talked about them often, keeping both alive in her mind.
She would kneel beside the crib, rocking it gently, singing the songs she had learned at school and feeling suddenly sad because the thing she wanted more than anything in the world was a brother or sister. A real-life doll that she could love and protect, just as her parents loved and protected her.
There would never be a baby. That was what her father had said. ‘Why would we want another child,’ he had gone on to ask, ‘when we have the perfect one in you?’ Though he was smiling his eyes had been sad and she had known that this was all part of some strange adult mystery that she did not yet understand and could only accept.
Apple of My Eye Page 6