The Widow Ginger

by Pip Granger

  Giovanni, who was all of twelve and therefore a man of the world, answered this time. ‘Where women are concerned, Rosie, men are never friends. Maltese Joe wants her but Uncle Luigi has her, so naturally they fight. Except that Uncle Luigi didn’t fight, he just stood there like a girl.’ His tone showed his disgust, and for some reason I felt the need to defend his uncle.

  ‘Perhaps Maltese Joe got away before Luigi could do anything,’ I offered.

  Scorn soaked Giovanni’s reply. ‘No, Maltese Joe didn’t run. Betty told Uncle Luigi that if he made a fight of it she’d see herself home, so he just stood there and didn’t even try to defend his honour.’

  My sense of fair play overcame what passes for my common sense at that moment and I remembered that Giovanni had also been on the wrong end of Maltese Joe’s fist and why. ‘I didn’t notice you defending your honour when Maltese Joe clobbered you. At least Luigi doesn’t beat up girls.’

  This was a big mistake because, of course, Giovanni had no such qualms. Next thing I knew I was flattened by an enraged boy and we were surrounded by a host of yelling Campaninis. The girls were chanting ‘Rosie, Rosie’ as I scratched, kicked, tugged hair out by its roots and bit anything that came anywhere near my gnashers. Queensberry rules, what Queensberry rules? Who the hell was Queensberry anyway? I didn’t know and I didn’t care. All that mattered was winning, and getting that great lump off of me.

  The boys were on Giovanni’s side and were also shouting encouragement – ‘Go on, bash her, Vanni. Hold her arms down, you twerp,’ and other handy hints – but I was beside myself with fury and he couldn’t get a grip. At last, after what felt like a week, the weight was lifted from me and I opened my eyes to see Giovanni hanging from Luigi’s fully dressed arm and Mamma standing behind him, arms crossed over her enormous bosom. Nobody was smiling, although I swear that Luigi’s one good eye gave me the tiniest of winks.

  Mamma was furious with Giovanni, being of the opinion that no amount of provocation justified beating up little girls. Giovanni was sent to Luigi’s room on account of his own being several streets away and I was sent home in disgrace. Which wasn’t fair, in my opinion. Auntie Maggie was all for making me apologize to Giovanni and Mamma but I was rebellious. I would apologize to Mamma gladly, I told her, but nothing on God’s earth would make me apologize to that oaf Giovanni. I really was pushing my luck. Two acts of defiance in swift succession. Luigi saved me from further punishment.

  ‘It wasn’t Shorty’s fault, Maggie, honest. Even if I say so myself, that Giovanni is a nasty piece of work. Gets it from his dad.’ (Who was not a Campanini, naturally, but a Rossi.) ‘Giovanni was calling me a sissy for not beating the hell out of Maltese Joe in return for the shiner and Shorty here reminded him of his own … er … shortcomings in that area. He took exception to a blast of the truth and decided to prove his manhood by slapping her about a bit. You’d have been proud, Maggie. Shorty here was definitely winning when I hauled the bugger off.’

  Auntie Maggie thought for a bit then reluctantly decided that Luigi had a point; nice girls should stand up for their friends and Luigi was my friend. ‘All right, young lady, although by the sound of it I can hardly call you a lady. You can write a note to Mamma apologizing for turning her living room into a bear pit and we’ll leave it at that. But Gawd help you if I catch you fighting again.’ She always said that, but nothing ever came of it, because whenever she caught me fighting I always seemed to have a good reason. Gawd never needed to help me, thank goodness; a really angry Auntie Maggie was a terrifying thing.

  Still, I didn’t get away with it scot free; I was made to tidy my bedroom from the floorboards up. Instinct told me that shoving it all under the bed wouldn’t do this time, and I resigned myself to sorting everything neatly into cupboards and drawers. It took all of the rest of the day. It was punishment enough. I hated clearing up and, anyway, what a terrible waste of a day’s holiday!

  17

  The Easter holidays seemed to fly by, as my grown-ups took it in turns to amuse me. I spent a couple of days at Southend, visiting one of Madame Zelda’s friends, who told fortunes at the end of the Longest Pier in the World. There was a little train that would take you almost to the door of her snug little booth, in case you couldn’t face the walk. We took the train for fun and then walked back. It was funny looking through the gaps in the planks and seeing the grey sea curling and frothing beneath our feet. Funny, and a bit scary too. I decided it might be a good idea to learn to swim before I stepped on to another pier.

  We decided not to bother with the Kursaal on the grounds that I had recently been to Battersea funfair. At least, when I say ‘we’ I mean Madame Zelda and Paulette decided. Me, I’d’ve made the sacrifice, but Madame Zelda said there was no need, because she had every intention of hanging on to her fish and chips, thank you very much. So we had a great time freezing our toes off having a paddle, making sand-castles with moats and turrets and everything, and eating winkles with a bent pin and plenty of vinegar instead.

  Then I spent a whole week with my great-aunt Dodie and Mr and Mrs Filkins, the butler and housekeeper who ran her house for her and looked after it when she was away – which was a lot. Great-aunt Dodie had very itchy feet sometimes, especially in the winter. She hated our weather. She said she didn’t mind being up to her neck in the burning sands of some desert or ditto in snow in the Himalayas; what she couldn’t stand was the ‘half-arsed winters that old Blighty knocks out, all monochrone days and bloody endless rain, mud and fogs’.

  In London, we had smogs, when the fog mixed with the coal smoke from millions of fires. The pea-soupers in London were awful. The smog would get so thick that you literally couldn’t see a foot in front of your nose, and it was absolutely filthy. It could be so dirty that if you put a clean white hankie over your nose and mouth and walked down the road, it would be grey and black with smuts by the end. It stank of sulphur, too, like the pits of hell.

  The name ‘pea-souper’ might suggest a green tinge, but the split peas used for soup were yellow, and so was the smog. Like soup, it was tricky to breathe in, and lots of people got bronchitis or even died. Sometimes it was so bad that the school would be closed because the teachers couldn’t get there, with buses and trains being cancelled and Shanks’s pony being out of the question. Those pea-soupers could hang about, too. Sometimes you didn’t see the sky for a week or so. So I could see Great-aunt Dodie’s point: English winters did leave quite a lot to be desired.

  Still, she was back by Easter, which was lucky for me because, to be frank, I was a bit fed up with home. What with the frights, the fights, the fire and my best pal being too ill to play out, it was good to get away. When I was out and about in Soho I couldn’t help looking over my shoulder all the time, on the watch for a slight figure with pale hair. I noticed all the grown-ups were the same. It was unsettling, and I didn’t like it. I knew that the Widow would not be in Bath, though. What’s more, Great-aunt Dodie and Mr and Mrs Filkins liked a good time and knew how to play exciting games.

  I had my own, big room at my great-aunt’s house. It had been my mum’s when she was little, but we’d changed it so that it became mine. It had high ceilings with fancy plasterwork around the light fitting. I loved picking out the birds that hid among the leaves and flowers that twined round and round. The windows were enormous, and light flooded into the room at all times of the day.

  Best of all, my bed had a roof and its very own curtains, so that I could pull them closed to make a cosy cave for a bear and her cubs, or a cavewoman and her children. Or, better, it became a secret camp where I was a member of the French Resistance trying to send coded messages back to Blighty. Great-aunt Dodie and Filkins were awfully good at being the Gestapo, crashing in on me and scaring me half to death, but I always managed to fool them and escape their hideous clutches. Other times, the bed was a pirate ship afloat on the endless sea, and I tried to spy land before the rum and ship’s biscuits ran out. I spent many happy hours on wet, miserable
days, simply playing in that bed.

  Great-aunt Dodie took me to Bristol in her lovely, low silver Lagonda. We swept over Clifton Suspension Bridge and back again with the roof down and the wind blowing in our hair. I loved everything about that car. I loved its throaty throb as it belted along, and its dull silver paintwork, gleaming chrome fittings, and the AA badge clamped to the front bumper. Even the headlamps were handsome at the end of the long, low bonnet. I loved its little windscreen with the funny little wipers that clicked as they wiped, and the walnut dashboard with its swirls and whorls. There was a gleaming knob that Great-aunt Dodie said was the choke, which I wasn’t to touch, and lots of businesslike but good-looking dials. Great-aunt Dodie did try to explain what they all were, but it was lost on me. Best of all, I liked the smell of the dark red leather seats and the canvas roof that would be folded down like a pram hood on dry days.

  We had our tea in Clifton Village at a posh tea shop with ladies in black dresses and little white pinnies to serve us. The cakes were scrumptious and I had three. I had a vanilla slice, a custard tart and another vanilla slice, then I felt sick and we had to go home. I never did get a proper look at the Gorge, but Great-aunt Dodie said that it wasn’t going anywhere and we would see it another time.

  Another day we went to Bradford-on-Avon, a tiny place in a deep hole. It had a very old bridge and loads of ancient houses and shops. It looked like a toy village to me. We went into this funny little toyshop there. It was minute but crammed to the ceiling with good things.

  Finally, after a great deal of thought and rummaging about in my purse to check on funds, I bought Jenny a book made up of a cardboard cut-out theatre, with actors and actresses complete with cut-out costumes and what’s called ‘props’ and everything. It had the costumes and props for three whole stories, Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk and The Sleeping Beauty. I thought that Jenny might be bored, stuck at home all day with no one to play with, and that the theatre was something she could do by herself or with someone else. I was right, too; she got a lot of mileage out of that theatre.

  For Kathy Moon I bought a thinner cut-out book with just a couple of dolls, a girl and a boy and their weird clothes. For some reason, cut-out books nearly always had Edwardian or Victorian people and their clothes in them. Still, it didn’t seem to spoil the fun any. In fact it made it better. The hours spent cutting out and being very careful not to cut off the tabs that you folded over to attach the clothes to the doll were almost half of the attraction. Many’s the time my tabs got lumpy with Sellotape or glue because my scissors had slipped. They never worked as well once they’d been mended, either.

  In all the time I stayed with Great-aunt Dodie I didn’t once think of the Widow Ginger for more than a minute or two on waking up or dropping off to sleep. I was simply too busy the rest of the time; Great-aunt Dodie saw to that. Every day we did something different. We’d slide into the Lagonda, picnic hamper in the back, and we’d be off. When we weren’t sightseeing, my great-aunt just loved a good garden and she taught me a good deal about what she called the ‘noble art’ as I trailed around behind her. I can hear her now, her voice passionate as she told me her views on the subject.

  ‘Rosa dear, gardening is such a generous pastime as well as being good for one’s spirit. Generous because most people and most creatures enjoy a welcoming spot to throw off the hurly-burly of the modern world …’ there’d be a pause while she launched a slug into orbit over the garden wall, and then she’d carry on, ‘and it’s good for the spirit, because growing things is so hopeful. It’s an investment in the future, don’t you know.’ And then she’d grab a dandelion by the scruff of the neck and yank it out from between some paving stones. It seemed to me that there was an awful lot of killing things involved in this generous and spiritual hobby. Still, her small garden was gorgeous, full of scented honeysuckle climbing the walls along with vanilla-smelling clematis. The borders were planted with blowzy pink peonies, bit fat oriental poppies and stately delphiniums. Pink phlox filled in some gaps and pinks hugged the edges. It was a riot of colour in the summer, but just then, at Easter, the buds were just beginning to swell and only the hellebores and the bulbs were flowering their heads off.

  I knew it was time to go home when I found Filkins solemnly packing my bag after I’d had my breakfast one morning. Straight away I had a blinding vision of a pale head, immaculate trouser creases, shiny shoes and cold, hard eyes. Suddenly, I was dreading being home again and that had never happened to me before.

  I told Great-aunt Dodie all about the Widow Ginger on the drive up to London. Every now and then her face would harden as I spoke and she’d remind me even more than usual of Bandy Bunyan, right down to the big nose and Brillo pad hair. Funny thing was, they weren’t even related, but they might have been. Bandy looked a lot more like Great-aunt Dodie than my mum did, even though she really was her niece. I got to the bit about the Widow’s shoe and she roared, ‘The filthy sewer!’ with such ferocity that I jumped out of my seat.

  Great-aunt Dodie was very angry by the time we got to the fire. ‘Oh I say, that’s hardly cricket. Fire’s a coward’s weapon, like poison. They do it secretly, like the slinking creatures that they are. And bullying an innocent child! The swine should hang. May a thousand dogs defile his ancestors’ graves! Mark my words, young Rosa, you mark my words, behind every bully there’s a coward skulking just below the surface. The trick is to winkle the bastard out and then face the blighter down.’ She paused, then gasped. ‘Oh, I do beg your pardon, Rosa. I know that your good aunt wouldn’t like me bandying foul language about while you’re aboard. Let’s keep cave about that little error, shall we?’

  And we changed the subject. But I don’t think she ever forgot it, because it wasn’t long after that that she started talking about my education and perhaps looking into decent schools. She was subtle about it, she didn’t press, but every now and then, after that, she’d deliver a report on a school she’d ‘just happened’ to hear about. She was ever so well informed for a woman with no kids of her own. If I’d kept my mouth shut, I’m pretty sure the subject of my going away from home to live in a school would never have come up.

  Back home, Sugar took me to the cartoons and we decided that Bugs Bunny was our very favourite rabbit in all the world. Bandy threw a slightly late Easter party and we ate chocolate and played silly games until we were practically sick with excitement and then she sent us home for our families to deal with. I remember Auntie Maggie saying, ‘Thank you very much, Bandy Bunyan,’ as she tried to scrape me off the ceiling and calm me down enough to get me to bed.

  I went to play with Jenny several times during that fortnight and each time she seemed a little smaller and a little paler. She loved her theatre, though, and we had one wonderful afternoon when she had enough energy for us to have a good long play with it. We ignored the given stories and set about making up one of our own.

  Needless to say, it got very complicated. One doll, dubbed the Mangy Cow, turned out to be the wicked stepmother. Maltese Joe was another character, who became Grand Vizier of Soho. Luigi was Prince Very Charming Indeed. We squabbled a bit over who should be his princess, but in the end I let Jenny take the part on account of her being ill. Uncle Bert and Auntie Maggie were Soho’s king and queen, naturally; it was a concession that Jenny readily agreed to once she’d nabbed being the princess. I wound up as a sort of naughty younger prince who was called, you’ve guessed it, Prince Not Very Charming At All, who was always on hand to get in the way whenever it looked as if Prince Very Charming Indeed and Princess Jenny were likely to wind up in a clinch. I wasn’t at all keen on the notion of Princess Jenny getting into too many clinches, even though she was ill; I wasn’t sure why.

  Before we knew it, it was time for me to get off home. According to Mrs Robbins, Jenny was so worn out that she fell asleep as soon as I’d gone, and spent most of the next day too knackered to bother with anything much. So I didn’t get to play with her for several days after that. I spen
t some of the time writing out the story we’d made up as I remembered it and drawing pictures to go with it. Then I made a cover for it out of cardboard and I called it Princess Jenny and the Handsome Prince in my very best handwriting.

  18

  The cafe was humming with the news when I came downstairs for my breakfast on the first day of the new term; another of Maltese Joe’s clubs had been set alight in the night. Luckily, a punter had noticed a small fire on the stairs and had stamped it out as he was on the way in. No one was hurt and the club hadn’t even had to close. Madame Zelda said it was something in the stars, all this trouble with fire or, in the case of the school boiler, the lack of it.

  ‘Stars be damned,’ said Uncle Bert. ‘It’s more likely the Widow Ginger with an oily rag and a match.’

  Auntie Maggie spotted me and clucked at him to shut up, but the damage was done. I’d been reminded that there was a firebug on the loose, and, worse, one with glacial eyes who didn’t like us. It was scary and my breakfast wouldn’t get past the mysterious lump that had suddenly appeared in my throat.

  Now, I loved my grub and had to be really poorly before I went off it, so the congealing bacon and egg on my plate was another cause for concern for Auntie Maggie. She looked at it, then she looked at me, then she cupped my chin in her hand and turned my head this way and that to get a closer look and to check what colour I was. Her cool hand felt my brow. Finally, she decided that I was a bit pale round the gills and, despite the new term and the mended boiler, I’d better stay home from school that day. I almost leaped with joy until I realized that any leaping had better wait until school was well and truly under way, otherwise I’d find my bum at my desk toot sweet. Madame Zelda, Paulette and Uncle Bert began muttering among themselves the minute Auntie Maggie led me back up the stairs to the comfort of my still warm bed.