by Pip Granger
‘Thank God we finally managed to rid ourselves of that deranged fucker,’ she said before Auntie Maggie could stop her. She didn’t even pick up the loud tut Auntie Maggie managed to squeeze in. ‘That Stanley Janulewicz is without doubt the maddest bastard I’ve ever had the misfortune to witness crawling out of the woodwork and believe me, that’s saying something. Our club’s more or less cornered the market in mad bastards, being mainly painters, actors and writers, and you know how close to the edge they can be. Goes with the territory.’
We all nodded at this. There were some very odd types about, and a lot of them belonged to the arty-farty mob. They wore a lot of black clobber with flowing scarves and berets and had dramatic, wine-drenched love-lives. When they weren’t getting sloshed around at Bandy’s or playing pass-the-partner in their attics, they were in our cafe, sobering up and talking about who was with who that day. They were a source of endless fascination. Funny thing was, only a few of them actually seemed to find the time to paint, act or write anything.
‘But Stanley, he’s in a league all of his own,’ Bandy assured us. ‘He makes our mob look positively overburdened with marbles and brimming with the milk of human kindness to boot. Mark my words, he’ll be back and we’d better be ready for him.’ Bandy suddenly seemed to see me, although I’d been right there all the time, and she gave me a wide, but rather tired and strained, grin.
‘Rosie, my honeypot! Come here and give an old bag a hug, there’s a dear.’ So I did. I never minded a snuggle with Bandy. She liked kids in general and me in particular and the feeling was mutual. Some grown-ups demand kisses and cuddles the first time you ever clap eyes on ’em just because they’re grown-ups, or they knew Auntie Maggie’s second cousin’s cousin forty years ago, or something. I never liked that. I wanted to know if I liked them first, but it’s tricky when you’re just a kid and they’re grown-ups and everyone’s taking it for granted that you don’t mind. I don’t know who’s worse, them or the cheek pinchers. Still, Bandy was all right. She was one of the ones who let you make up your own mind and they’re the best. She smelt of Turkish tobacco, brandy and sandalwood soap smuggled in from France, and she felt solid and bony, not soft and pillowy like Auntie Maggie.
After a cuddle, satisfactory to both sides, she let me go, sighed and heaved herself to her feet, saying, ‘Sugar, let’s wend and get some sleep. Bert, I’d try to get hold of Joe if I were you and I’ll have a go when I surface tonight. ’Bye, all. See you later, Bert.’ And with that, she and Sugar were gone.
Uncle Bert yawned and stretched and began fiddling with his beloved pipe. ‘Gawd, Maggie my love, that Stanley ain’t half hard work. I’d forgotten that about him. He never comes straight out with anything, like what the hell he wants. No, he has to be all mysterious and enigmatic on us, long silences, hints here, veiled threats there. The man’s so twisted he makes that Machiavelli geezer look like a bleeding learner. All I managed to get out of him is that he feels he’s owed some lolly and he’s here to collect. Wants Bandy and me to pass the message to Joe. But you could tell that that wasn’t all the bleeder was after.’ He paused and began to light his pipe. Once he’d got a decent fug going, he turned to Betty Potts. ‘Still, enough of our troubles. What brings you to Soho, Miss Potts?’
Taking the hint, we all switched our attention to the safer topic of Betty Potts. ‘Oh, you know,’ she said. ‘A yen for the bright lights and better money. I had a job in Brighton for a while, but thought I’d try my luck in the Smoke.’ A lively discussion followed as Auntie Maggie, Uncle Bert, Luigi and Madame Zelda all came up with suggestions for finding work.
For once in my life, I said nothing. I was far too busy wondering where this Machiavelli bloke came into it, when I wasn’t worrying my nut off about this madman, the Widow Ginger, or Stanley Janulewicz as Bandy called him. I was to worry even more when I found out later that what I had heard was a heavily censored version of events on account of the stranger at our table and my ever-ready lug’oles.
No, the whole truth about the Widow Ginger’s past turned out to be a lot more frightening. I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t happy at all, and neither were my grown-ups.
4
My friend Mr Herbert didn’t open up on Sundays because it was against the law for most shops to trade on the sabbath. Mr Herbert sold books in the Charing Cross Road. But we were mates, and there was no harm in taking a quick squint at the books while we were there having our tea, now was there? As long as no actual money changed hands at the same time as borrowing books from a friend, it was no crime. So that’s what we did. We borrowed books one Sunday and coughed up for them the next. We went to his place to do the borrowing and he came to ours for his tea and to collect his lolly. What my uncle Bert called ‘a very amicable arrangement’. Both the bookshop and the cafe were open at the same time, you see, so proper visiting and getting books had to be done on a Sunday or after hours. Uncle Bert, Mr Herbert and I liked Sundays best, and once a fortnight Auntie Maggie got to spend an afternoon on her big bed, reading, listening to the wireless or having what she called ‘forty winks’ in peace. I watched her more than once and I reckon there was a load more than forty of those winks. Forty thousand, more like. Auntie Maggie liked a snooze. She said it was much more peaceful when we weren’t there, so everyone was happy.
I loved Mr Herbert’s shop. The old books had a smell all of their own and that, together with the beeswax that Mr Herbert lovingly rubbed into the beautiful, gleaming wooden bookshelves, created a scent I have never forgotten. It was a mixture of dust, leather, polish and the special glues and inks used by different generations of printers. One whiff and I was, and still am, in heaven. The Charing Cross Road was almost an enchanted place for me, because it meant a dose of Mr Herbert combined with a trip out with my uncle Bert, just him and me, and we both loved that. Funnily enough, it was my mum who first took me to Mr Herbert’s, so I also associated the shop with happy times with her, when she wasn’t drunk and there were no snakes crawling out of the walls that only she could see. It was my mum who taught me to love books, helped a lot by Mr Herbert.
Then, of course, there was Great-aunt Dodie, who was also a good friend of Mr Herbert’s because they grew up together. I’d been mad about her since we’d met the year before, and we often saw her at the shop when she was in town. So you see, going to Mr Herbert’s was a jolly good thing all round. This time, though, Great-aunt Dodie was terrorizing the people of Kathmandu, and nowhere near the Charing Cross Road, and a couple of really creepy things happened that scared all of the joy out of this particular visit.
It started on the way out of the cafe. I was prancing ahead as usual. Uncle Bert always said that I’d never just walk when a hop, skip, jump or jitterbug would do. Anyway, Uncle Bert had stopped, with his back to the street, to lock the cafe door, so he never saw the man come round the corner from Greek Street and stop dead as if he’d just seen someone he didn’t want to see. I looked around, but there was no one in our bit of the street but us. Sundays were dead quiet round our way. When I turned back, the man had disappeared back round the corner. I don’t know why, but when Uncle Bert turned towards Greek Street to take the Soho Square route to Mr Herbert’s, I grabbed his hand and steered him the other way, towards Cambridge Circus, so that we walked up Charing Cross Road instead. All the way, I kept wanting to look round, almost as if I could feel eyes behind me, but every time I turned there was no one there.
I loved Mr Herbert, who looked like a little Father Christmas. His pink, round face, equally round specs and electric white hair all positively shone with enthusiasm as he showed me a leather book, with gilt-edged pages and a gold, embossed title on the cover telling me it was a special copy of Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows. Mr Herbert opened the book reverently and showed me the marbled endpapers, cream and brown whirls sometimes brightened up with just a touch of coral pink. It was a lovely book, but way, way beyond the threepenny bit and three measly farthings that were left in my piggy bank. I’d r
ecently raided it to buy a miniature sideboard for my doll’s house.
I’m not very good at saving. Sadly, I’m much better at spending. I’d have no proper savings at all if Auntie Maggie didn’t sometimes snatch some of my birthday or Christmas money off me and squirrel it away into a Post Office Savings Account. The savings book had my name on it all right, but it was out of my reach because she hid it in ‘the family vault’, a scruffy Typhoo Tea tin on top of her wardrobe. It was pushed right to the back, so that I couldn’t reach it, even with a chair. That battered old tin held all the important bits and pieces in our lives, including insurance books kept up to date by ‘the man from the Pru’, who had called every week for as long as I could remember, Auntie Maggie’s and Uncle Bert’s wills, important letters, one of many copies of my adoption papers and all our birth certificates.
Anyway, I had to tell Mr Herbert that I couldn’t afford the book, even though he hadn’t yet told me how much it was, because it was obvious you didn’t get tooled leather and marbling for threepence three-farthings. I’d hung about at Mr Herbert’s often enough to know that. But he didn’t lose his rosy glow in regret. Instead, he upped the wattage until I thought he must explode with glee. ‘That’s the beauty of it, Rosie dear. Your dear mother has sent a cheque that more than covers this volume and perhaps a modest second tome, Arthur Ransome perhaps? It’s for your Easter present; a tad early, I confess, but I couldn’t wait to show you what I’d found. I hope you like it.’
Like it? I loved it! I opened the book, raised it to my hooter and took a deep sniff as my mother had taught me to do. It smelt wonderful and I launched myself at the little man and almost squeezed the life out of him in gratitude, or so Uncle Bert said.
After tea, I whizzed up and down the aisles between the bookcases on the wheeled library steps that were ordinarily used to get books from the very top shelves. But I liked zipping back and forth and screeching to dramatic halts just before I crashed into the furniture. The men chatted for a bit and then it was time to go. I had school the next day and had to have a bath before bed.
The twinkling brass bell at the end of its elegantly curved arm tinkled as we opened the shop door to leave. Outside it was quiet and dark, and I wished the bell had not tinkled quite so loudly as I peered into the shadows. This time, we did turn into Sutton Row, heading towards Soho Square and Greek Street. Once again I skipped ahead, playing invisible hopscotch along the pavement, looking down so I didn’t land on the cracks. Invisible hopscotch is like real hopscotch only you don’t have the grid, the throwing stone or anyone to play with. What you do is use the paving stones to practise the jumping bit, first on one leg in one square then on two legs on two squares, turn and turn about. I was so busy watching out for cracks that I wasn’t looking where I was going. I was just turning left at the end of Sutton Row, by the big left-footers’ church there, when a bloke stepped out of nowhere, right into my path. I landed heavily on his right foot, he grunted in pain and I looked up into the coldest pair of eyes I have ever seen.
‘Why don’t you look where you’re going, you little bastard?’ he demanded. ‘Look what you’ve done to my shoe.’ His voice alone could’ve given you frostbite.
I looked down and there was a large scuff mark on the toecap of an otherwise gleaming black shoe. Next thing I knew, he had grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and was forcing me to my knees. ‘Clean it!’ he ordered.
I was just going to ask what with when we both heard Uncle Bert’s steady footsteps approaching the corner. I twisted my head and broke the man’s grip on my collar and when I turned back he was gone. I was so taken aback that if you’d tortured me two seconds later I couldn’t have told you what had happened to him. He’d simply vanished into thin air, and not for the first time that night. I swear it was the same bloke I saw disappear at the start of our jaunt to Mr Herbert’s. I scrambled to my feet just in time for Uncle Bert to come up. The whole affair had taken seconds.
‘What’s the matter with you? You lost a shilling and found a penny or what? You’re shaking like a leaf and you’re as white as a Sunday hanky.’ (Which was very white in our house. Auntie Maggie took a pride in her whites and used a blue bag to make sure.) Uncle Bert looked at me hard and then looked around to see what had frightened me so, but there was nothing in sight and I couldn’t speak for fright.
‘I tell you what, do you want a piggyback home? You can tell me all about it over a cup of Ovaltine. What do you say?’ I nodded, and then I scrambled and he heaved me up on to his shoulders. Even though I was small for my age, I was still getting a bit too big for piggybacks, but I wasn’t ready to give ’em up yet.
Once I was aboard, we hurried home.
Auntie Maggie and Uncle Bert were not happy about my tale of the strange man. They were even less happy when they realized I’d seen him twice and they exchanged worried looks when I described just how cold, threatening and frightening he’d been.
Auntie Maggie’s voice was gentle as she stroked my hair and asked, ‘Can you remember what he looked like, Rosie love? You say he spoke to you. Was there anything about his voice?’
I closed my eyes and tried to drum up a picture of the man as he stood in the shadows. ‘He was thin, with a dark overcoat and a black hat. His shoes were very shiny and the creases in his trousers looked ever so sharp, like he pressed them every day the way Luigi does.’ I thought some more and saw once again those cold, grey eyes, like chips of ice glinting beneath the dark brim of his hat, but I didn’t know how to describe them properly. ‘He had iceberg eyes, like they could freeze you to death if he just stared at you long enough, and he sounded like a Yank, but I couldn’t be sure. He didn’t say much.’
This was the best I could manage, but by the way my uncle and aunt looked at each other, it was good enough. They knew who he was and they didn’t like it, they didn’t like it at all. Neither did I, because I was pretty sure I knew who it was as well: the mysterious and very scary Widow Ginger!
I was hustled into my bath and got away with the merest hint of a wash before I was out, dried, dressed in my pink winceyette nightie with the blue rosebuds and bundled into bed. Auntie Maggie said I could have a ten-minute read of Arthur Ransome or a gloat over my precious new book if I liked, and then lights out, because it was school tomorrow. I don’t know how she expected me to sleep. I had been very rattled by the Widow Ginger. It was all too much, like the year before when that awful Dave creature had stolen me to give me to Ghastly Godfrey and the lady Great-aunt Dodie called ‘that vapid half-wit Evelyn’, who was my grandmother. I shuddered under my eiderdown, and just for a minute I felt sick.
I must have dropped off, though, because the next thing I knew I was woken up with a terrible start by raised voices. Shouting was about as common as hens’ teeth in our house, so you can imagine how it made me jump. ‘I don’t care what a good friend you say that Maltese Joe is, Bert Featherby; the truth is he’s always led you into trouble, ever since you was nippers. I’ve heard the stories. The Widow’s a dangerous man, Bert, you’ve said so yourself. I’m telling you to keep it quiet, for all our sakes. Can you imagine the kind of trouble those two will stir up once they tangle? You don’t want to be in the middle of that; you could wind up dead. And where does that leave Rosie and me, eh? I’m asking you, where does that leave us?’
I couldn’t make out Uncle Bert’s mumble but Auntie Maggie’s reply was loud enough to be heard clearly in Tipperary. ‘I’m telling you, Bert Featherby, if you go running to that so-called pal of yours, then me and Rosie will pack our bags and go and stay with my sister, you see if we don’t.’ And then the bathroom door slammed and there was silence.
The next morning everyone was very quiet. Uncle Bert’s face was set like concrete and he kept his pipe clamped in his mouth, even though there was no baccy in it. He barely spoke to anyone but me and then it was just to ask what I wanted for my breakfast and to kiss me goodbye when I set off for school. Auntie Maggie wasn’t much better. Her normally jolly kisser c
ouldn’t work up a beam for anybody, not even for me. I trailed down Old Compton Street to the corner of Wardour Street and turned left to wait for my best friend Jenny in St Anne’s Churchyard. We always walked to school together, and I liked to feed the pigeons and sparrows with bits of left-over bread while I waited. For some reason, I knew it wasn’t right to blab about our troubles with this Widow Ginger geezer, even to Jenny – and we normally told each other everything. So when I spotted her coming in the gate, swinging her satchel, I decided it was best to plaster a grin on my chops and try to forget the atmosphere at home and the terrifying stranger who had caused it.
5
Things went very quiet in our house for a while as we all tiptoed around trying to pretend nothing was the matter. However, I did find Bandy, Uncle Bert and Luigi deep in conversation one day shortly after our visit to Mr Herbert. Bandy seemed to be arguing with Uncle Bert about something to do with the Widow Ginger and Maltese Joe and Luigi was backing her up. ‘Bert, I’m telling you,’ Bandy said angrily, ‘he was in last night and asking about Rosie. You can’t not tell Joe. That’s madness and you know it. I know Maggie’s never trusted him, but it makes good sense to me to have him in our corner and you think so too.’
Luigi was nodding so hard I thought his bonce must drop off. But it didn’t. He spotted me instead and they all went schtum. All I gathered was that they’d settled on Luigi and his various relatives having a word with the Widow Ginger to get him to see reason, and, if that failed, then to divert his attention from the cafe and Bandy’s club, at least for a while. Luigi just said that he and his cousins Mario, Enrico and Fabio could simply help find him ‘a better place’. Uncle Bert said that it wouldn’t hurt for him to meet a small mob of well-muscled Italians either, to show him that he and Bandy were not without friends, whereas the Widow was.