Paddy's Puzzle

by Fiona Kidman

  ‘It doesn’t matter if she finds you here Ambrose. I don’t care. You’re more important than she is. Than anyone.’

  ‘I know. But you listen to me. I don’t want her to find me here.’

  ‘You’re not getting scared of her too, are you?’

  ‘I’m not scared of her Clara baby. No, it takes more than a honky lady to make me scared.’

  She believes him. She has seen him when he is afraid. But he hasn’t been scared, which is different.

  ‘Come on, sit down.’ They sit on the edge of the bed, awkward, because usually they would have wrapped their arms around each other but he is trying to fasten all her attention on what he wants to say and he has one eye on the door at the same time. ‘I had to see you,’ he says.

  ‘Janice said. She came in here, just a few minutes ago.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Yes, of course you do. I forget. I’m so muddled this morning. She brought me more stuff. I haven’t got time to sell it this morning though.’

  ‘I brought you this.’ He puts some tea and a half-bottle of brandy on the bed.

  ‘More! I’ll have to put it away.’

  ‘You need tea, all you drink.’

  ‘I get such a dry mouth. Shall I make some now?’

  ‘No. Listen. I don’t want her to find me here, because she mustn’t be angry with you.’

  ‘I don’t want that either, but why … you teased me about it before? What does it matter really? I thought it did but, you know, she’s nothing much to me now. We’re different, Winnie and me. I used to think, that’s what I’ll be like some day, when I was a kid, that’s what I used to think. But I never will be now. Even if …’ She looks at him. ‘Doesn’t matter what happens, I’d never be like Winnie. She’s all right but she doesn’t know anything. I thought she did. She’s just …’ She stops once more. She has been going to say different again, but it is she who is different. ‘Ordinary,’ she says. ‘She’s pretty ordinary is Winnie. Makes no difference really. I’m glad she came. I’m glad I found out.’

  ‘You’re not listening little girl,’ he says softly. ‘You’re talking to yourself and you ain’t listening to me at all.’

  She sighs. She suspects she doesn’t want to hear what he is going to say. ‘I’m listening. What is it then?’ she asks.

  He answers her with a question. ‘Did she say anything about you going home with her?’

  ‘Yes,’ she says cautiously.

  ‘She guess you sick?’

  ‘Ye-es. But she doesn’t know how much.’

  ‘I want you to go with her.’

  ‘Ambrose. No.’

  ‘Please. Please little girl, let her take you with her.’

  Fear engulfs her. She sees Janice’s wan face again. ‘You don’t want me any more?’

  ‘I want you.’

  ‘You don’t.’ Her voice is rising. ‘You got another girl …’ She starts to cry hysterically, ashamed of herself because she is sure in one way that she is talking nonsense, and not knowing what is happening to them, in another. ‘Janice, Janice,’ she says over and again, through snuffling and screeching at him.

  ‘You all right Clara?’ Ma Hollis shouts through the door.

  ‘She’s all right Missus Hollis,’ he calls.

  ‘You sure Clara?’ she calls back suspiciously, waiting on her answer.

  ‘Yes, yes, it’s all right Ma. Honest.’

  They listen to her retreat, grumbling, back into her room.

  ‘See what you’re doing? You’ll get everyone going if you’re not careful.’

  He waits until she stops crying and wipes her face with his handkerchief. ‘Listen,’ he says gently, as before, ‘That man of Janice’s, I heard what happened. Very silly man. Vain. Selfish. Frightened. Easy way out.’

  ‘She loved him,’ Clara says.

  ‘She didn’t know him too well.’

  ‘She still loved him. How d’you know he was like that — those things you said?’

  He circles his throat with his fingers and thumb, indicating a clerical collar. ‘I’ve seen men say they love the Lord God. They think, some of them, that they’re better than others. That’s vain. They fall from the Lord’s grace a little because they are like all men, okay?’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘So they must get back on the right side of the good Lord. Frightened. They will take any easy way they see. They think they will please their good Lord even if they are unkind along the way. That is selfish. I think.’

  ‘Poor Janice,’ she says. ‘I hope the Lord’s pleased with Ron now.’

  ‘The Lord. Pah.’ He makes a dismissive disgusted noise. She wonders afresh if he has someone waiting for him at home, and if he has made his own peace. But she does not ask him that. Instead she says, ‘But you thought He was okay?’

  ‘The Lord?’ He shrugs. ‘I thought. Never mind. It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘What did you think?’

  ‘Oh. That it makes some kind of diff’rence. When we sing and clap and shout Hallelujah to the Lord on Sunday, then I think it makes some kind of diff’rence to the rest of the week. And it does. It does. If you never know no diff’rent.’

  ‘You do?’

  His damson-coloured eyes, protruding slightly. Their gaze rests on her.

  ‘I want you to go with your sister, little girl. Not for any other girl I know …’

  ‘Not for one that you could step out pretty with in the streets?’

  ‘No.’ He shifts slightly. ‘You know that ain’t true Clara. Eh?’

  ‘I know. But why then?’

  ‘I ain’t supposed to know, but I reckon it’s right, what I’ve heard. The ship’s due to sail, maybe next week, maybe two weeks, no longer than that.’

  She has known all along that her fears are not misplaced.

  ‘So you see,’ he goes on, ‘I could go, knowing that you were being looked after real good. I’d sure like that Clara.’

  ‘No.’ She says it with such fierceness she surprises herself. This is what it is about then, fighting to keep what you want. How like her, she thinks, that she is prepared at last to fight an impossible enemy outside and beyond her, when her will, however strong, cannot change things.

  ‘Please.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘For me.’ She has forgotten, temporarily, that he is asking her to go with Winnie; all her energy is concentrated on stopping his ship from sailing. She stares at him dumbly. It is one and the same thing.

  ‘No, Ambrose.’

  He shakes his head as if trying to clear some pain out of it and puts his hands up to hold it, or to extract the pain.

  Watching him, she says, ‘I’ll tell you what. I’ll go to her when the ship’s sailed.’

  He drops his hands then and looks at her carefully. His eyes light up with hope. But he says, ‘How could I be sure that you’d do that?’

  ‘Because … because, you’ll help me pack my bag,’ she says, her mind racing ahead of her story. And anyway, she thinks it’s true, she thinks that this is what she will do, even as they talk about it she sees that it is the right thing; it is no good going on about Janice if she isn’t prepared to do something for herself; already she knows she will lose him, so she must make the best of what is left, yes, already she has decided. ‘We’ll turn the key in together the day that you go … and then, then, I’ll come down to the ship and see you off. It’s so nearly spring, and I haven’t seen the sea for so long … it’ll be something to help me over your leaving.’

  ‘You’d stand out in the cold for too long. I know you, little girl.’

  ‘All right,’ she says. ‘To please you, I’d let you see me, the last thing, turn away with my suitcase, and you knowing that I was on my way to Winnie’s.’

  She sees that he believes her. His face is alight with pleasure and she is happy just to have pleased him so much.

  ‘We-ell, if you mean it.’

  ‘I’ll tell Winnie when she comes back that I’ve been thinking it over a
nd I’ll be leaving here within the next two weeks. I’ll tell her I’ll come … let’s see, as soon as my rent is up. That sounds okay doesn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. Very okay,’ he says. ‘You see that you do that eh?’ He gets up, stretching himself, his urgency gone.

  What happens next is like the movies. She can see, again, that old Chico and Groucho and Harpo and all would get a real kick out of them. But then, as far as she is concerned, her life has always been a bit like a movie set. She has thought it dull but today it seems a bit of a laugh. That’s if you didn’t just break up crying.

  Janice flaps in again with her eyes like saucers. She doesn’t knock, she bangs in as if she is coming through the door. That’s one thing that can be said about Paddy’s Puzzle though, the doors are solid. When old Paddy Gleeson built the place he put in doors to ward off invaders. It is not easy for the uninvited to get through his doors.

  As soon as she steps in she sees the brandy and tea on the bed beside Clara and scoops it up in chocolatey hands. She hasn’t even washed before leaving the factory.

  ‘That sister of yours, she’s coming down the street. I took off without a by-your-leave and ran all the way.’

  ‘Where is she now?’ Clara asks. But she knows, they all know, in that instant. Winnie’s footsteps are in the passage. Beneath the window the children sing to the tune of Santa Lucia, ‘Arseholes are cheap today/ cheaper than yesterday/ little boys are half a crown/ standing up or bending down.’ The voices are thin and sweet; Clara sees that it has stopped raining.

  ‘I dunno. I ran right past her.’ Janice’s words are plucked from the air and fluttering in her throat.

  ‘Quick … Ambrose … the stuff … you …’

  ‘Too late,’ moans Janice. ‘She’s here.’

  ‘Take it Ambrose,’ Clara says, shoving the tea in his hands and pushing him into the bathroom. The brandy is still on the bed. She slams the door on him as Winnie bangs at the other door. Doors. In one, out the other, everybody right on cue. She had always loved the flicks, all right.

  Winnie walks in past Janice and Clara, her face very shiny and pink, just like it used to be when she was young. She has a dreadful smell clinging to her. She appears to notice it herself as she walks in. The other two look at her feet and one foot has slopped through vomit. It could have been anybody’s. Clara thinks of the drunk and now dead captain from a couple of nights ago. Would it have been allowed to lie that long? It occurs to her that this is a reflection of how they live here, that it could have lain a night or two nights and they are all used to it, used to every kind of crap and pollution. She feels ashamed.

  ‘Hello Winnie,’ she says. ‘You’re back early.’

  ‘Yes.’ She keeps looking at her shoe. ‘Stick it outside. We can hose it down afterwards. You brought some spares, didn’t you?’

  ‘They’re wet,’ she says, and she looks as if she might cry if she let herself, but she isn’t going to give in to anybody, especially them. She unlaces her shoes and kicks them outside though and Janice and Clara breathe a sigh of relief as the smell disappears.

  ‘Why are you so early?’ Clara knows she is betraying her anxiety but she can’t help herself.

  She looks at her coldly. ‘I couldn’t see the man I was supposed to and I didn’t want to hang around in the wet. I’m to go back later this afternoon.’

  Janice has been sitting on the bed trying to look demure. Clara says: ‘This is my friend Janice. She works with me at the factory. My sister, Winnie Hoggard, you know the one I told you about, Janice.’

  ‘How d’you do, Janice,’ says Winnie, still in the same cold haughty tone. ‘The chocolate factory I take it.’ She sniffs the air. The smell of chocolate prevails now, emanating from Janice.

  ‘It’s the one next door to Clara’s,’ says Janice, a shade too quickly. Clara can see that she is terrified of Winnie and for a moment it makes her feel good. At least she isn’t the only one.

  Winnie goes back to the sink and starts washing her hands, cleaning off the filth from her shoes. ‘Oh stop your lies,’ she says. ‘You’ve never worked in munitions in your life, Clara.’

  ‘What’s it matter what sort of factory it is?’ says Janice. She is a bit like a defiant schoolgirl, but she is recovering herself. Clara can see there might be blood on the floor if she and Winnie are let loose at each other. A bit like rats in the drum.

  ‘It’s industry,’ says Janice.

  ‘Winnie,’ Clara says, racking her brains as to how to pacify her and conscious of Ambrose holed up in the bathroom. ‘Janice is a good sort. Seeing I was sick she brought over a few things. She brought some stuff over for you to take home to the kids too. I’ll bet Jeannie and Caroline haven’t seen a whole cake of chocolate in years.’

  ‘They won’t either.’ Her lips are thin. ‘They’re stolen goods.’

  ‘We’re entitled to a few bits, working there,’ says Clara.

  ‘If you worked there. But that’s not even true is it Clara, as far as you’re concerned?’

  ‘Winnie, you’re tying me up in knots.’

  The onslaught begins. Throughout it she thinks, dully, that it serves her right. It serves her right for killing her sister’s husband. That’s what it comes down to.

  Winnie’s voice is loud and very strong. ‘It’s nice, isn’t it,’ she is saying, ‘that everyone in … in Paddy’s Puzzle or whatever this dump is called, has access to your black market tricks. People like you … my husband was killed for your sort … oh my God.’

  They look at each other, and Clara thinks, she knows. She must know.

  ‘Who told you?’ she asks, and she is not certain what she is asking her about.

  ‘Oh I didn’t need to ask around. Your friends volunteered for you. Your Mrs Hollis across the hall, she said she hoped I’d found the stretcher comfortable. Well I said you’d slept on it, and she said that’s what she’d have expected of you, oh you really are a saint, Clara. And how good it was getting extra cocoa this week … give and take I think she called it.’

  She wipes her hand on a tea towel, looking at it with distaste as she does so. Oh such lily-white hands Winnie, thinks Clara.

  ‘Mrs Hoggard, you don’t understand,’ says Janice.

  ‘Oh yes. I understand all right. You’re a bright pair, aren’t you?’

  Clara thinks of Albie Tubbs and considers mentioning the subject. Instead they glare at each other.

  She moves towards the bathroom door. ‘Winnie, where d’you think you’re going?’ Clara asks, trying to sound as she had the night before, like it really is her place and she can tell Winnie what to do.

  ‘Don’t you know?’ She pauses with her hand on the doorknob. ‘I’m picking up my belongings and getting out of here.’

  It is worth one last effort. Clara says, ‘We’re out of tea. Why don’t you go and get us some at the corner shop. Look, it’s sunny out there now, and I’ll lend you some of my shoes. I’d forgotten we take the same size, had you? We could have a cup of tea and we could talk. I’ve got some coupons, I’ll get them for you.’

  ‘There’s plenty of tea. There’s more here than I’ve seen since the war started. I must be thick not to have picked it.’ She is turning the door handle.

  ‘You can’t go in there.’

  ‘Oh just try and stop me.’

  Then she starts to scream. She goes on screaming for quite a long time and Ma Hollis starts beating at the door again. Clara opens it to her, and beneath the noise she hears Ma saying, ‘I’m sorry Clara, I’m sorry,’ and the smell of her puha cooking with fish heads is pungent and sour, wafting in with all the other smells of Paddy’s Puzzle before Clara shuts the door once more. As Winnie’s noise dies down they hear the persistent shuffle of her slippers in the passage way, moving up and down, and then Biddy’s voice, and others, join in. They move away and it is quiet outside again. There are just Janice and Winnie and Ambrose and Clara looking at each other.

  Ambrose moves gently towards Winnie. ‘Take it eea-sy
lady, I won’t hurt you,’ he murmurs.

  ‘Please Win, I can explain everything.’

  ‘Don’t bother.’ She tears at her suitcase now, pulling Clara’s with it from where she had pushed it in her haste before. It falls open, spilling chocolate over the floor. Winnie’s face contorts. ‘You slut, you evil little bitch. You.’ She gathers herself together. ‘You prostitute.’

  Just like Mrs Mawson. Only the words are slightly different. Funny that.

  Ambrose just keeps on looking at her. Clara sees him from out of the corner of her eye. She doesn’t look at Winnie.

  *

  Ma Hollis listens with her ear to her door. She is troubled and sorry. She has not meant to hurt Clara. When the door across the passage way slams she hesitates briefly then turns and lumbers to the stove. The gas fizzles and splutters out; the pot of glutinous food rolls off the boil as she pushes it to one side. Then she makes her way down the stairs and out onto the street as quickly as her thick and painful ankles will allow.

  Winnie’s step has been brisk as she left the flat but now, outside, she is uncertain. Clearly she will have to walk if she is to get away from the Puzzle without any further loss to her dignity, and walk as if she knows where she is going. But her sense of direction has been disturbed. From where she stands in the gully, the hilly streets loom up on either side of her, and it is raining lightly again.

  Ma Hollis hobbles up alongside her.

  ‘You going then, Mrs Hoggard?’ she says. ‘I thought you were staying another night.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ says Winnie, going to move past her.

  ‘Is there something wrong.’

  ‘If you don’t mind, I’d like to get past.’

  ‘Something I said?’

  Winnie tries to push her aside which is not the kind of thing you do to Ma Hollis. She grabs Winnie’s arm. ‘Oh no you don’t,’ she says.

  Winnie is afraid now. ‘Please. I just want to get out in the fresh air. That’s all. Please.’

  ‘No. No, you’re not going anywhere till you’ve listened to me Mrs La-di-da,’ says Ma.