The Widow Ginger

by Pip Granger

  ‘Now, hold your water there, Joe. I’ve told you before, I won’t be a party to any maiming or killing.’ Uncle Bert paused for a moment. ‘Well, p’raps a little maiming, seeing what he did to your poor old mum. But restrict it to him, eh? He’s the sod that did it all, so he’s the one that should suffer. Any others he might have aboard, well, they’re probably scared shitless and will do anything he wants. You know what he’s like; he frightens people into things. And anyway, the lads might maim a total innocent and that ain’t never right. You’d be no better than him and that ain’t right neither, Joe, and you know it.’

  There was total silence for what felt like a week, while we all wondered whether Uncle Bert was likely to leave the table with his bonce on. And then, out of the blue, there was a brief burst of applause and Bandy’s plummy tones saying, ‘Hear, hear, Albert. Well said. I agree with you. Something must be done about Stan, and I agree with Joe as well, a permanent solution is probably best. But as the man says, Joe, we needn’t start a run on wheelchairs.

  ‘Maggie dear, any chance of a slug of the hard stuff to get my gears shifting? Young Luigi here dragged Sugar and me from the land of nod and I’m not all present and correct yet.’

  I heard Auntie Maggie’s chuckle and the rattle of glasses. ‘Looks as if Sharky’s bottle has gone the way of all Sharky’s bottles, into the bin. I’ll just nip upstairs to get another. Hang on a tick.’

  It’s just as well Auntie Maggie wasn’t built for nipping, because I was safely tucked up under my plump eiderdown reading Swallows and Amazons when her head popped round my bedroom door.

  21

  Poor Jenny had the mumps and had been laid even lower. I felt awful, even though Auntie Maggie kept telling me it wasn’t my fault. I was after all the only mump-stricken person to visit her, so it stood to reason that I took them there. Mrs Robbins said it was pitiful to see her. All I could do was send in comics and little notes in the hope of cheering her up a bit.

  Betty got a bit odd after the day old Ma Joe was found in the broom cupboard. Luigi didn’t understand it because she’d gone very quiet and started turning down his dates again, with lame excuses about hair washing and cleaning her flat. He was upset because he couldn’t work out why she’d cooled down so suddenly. He confided in my auntie Maggie, as everybody did. ‘We seemed to be doing all right. You know, low-key but all right. Then out of the clear blue, she doesn’t want to know. What’s all that about?’

  ‘I really couldn’t say, Luigi. Maybe you should ask her.’ My auntie Maggie was a great believer in ‘talking things through’. It sometimes got up my uncle Bert’s nose, but she did it anyway.

  ‘I have, but all she keeps on about is Maltese Joe and the Widow Ginger and how she can’t be doing with all the violence and mayhem. Now what’s that got to do with me, I ask you? I can’t make sense of it at all. Still, no Campanini’s ever been known to beg, so I reckon I’ll stop asking soon. What do you think?’

  Auntie Maggie was cautious. ‘That depends, Luigi, on just how keen you are. If you stop asking, she may think you’ve lost interest, and I hate to say it, but there’s plenty to step in. There’s been a queue forming ever since she got here. On the other hand, pestering her will do no good at all. Why don’t you compromise and ask her out along with other people? Maybe she just needs a bit of time. Perhaps she feels things have been going a bit fast. You’ve behaved yourself, I hope. Been a gentleman and all that, have you?’

  Luigie managed to look hurt and innocent at the same time. ‘Of course I’ve behaved meself. I can if I put me mind to it, you know. I like this girl, Maggie. Why would I ruin it by jumping on her? I’m not a total prat.’

  Auntie Maggie was soothing, ‘Of course you’re not, Luigi. I never said you was. My advice is take things slow. Take a good old-fashioned chaperone with you. You can borrow Rosie here if you like. She’d be a good chaperone, and it might put Betty more at her ease if she feels you’re both taking Rosie out instead of you taking just her. You can always ease Rosie out as things develop.’

  Thank you very much, Auntie Maggie! All this talk of easing made me sound like an old wellie. Still, it did mean I was likely to get more first hand gossip on the Luigi and Betty front, to pass on to Jenny when she felt better. And, of course, to Auntie Maggie, Madame Zelda, Paulette and all the other devoted Luigi and Betty watchers, although I expect that consideration was a million miles from the Auntie Maggie mind when she made her generous offer. I don’t think! She knew she could rely on me to take careful note of all romantic developments on account of me being the nosiest kid in London, England, Europe and possibly the world.

  Less thrilling was the fact that I was finally pronounced fit to go back to school. Which I suppose was OK really, because it gave me less time to brood on what the Widow Ginger was going to do next.

  Now the weather was warming up a bit, we began to limber up for Sports Day. We always had Sports Day at the end of the summer term, and practice started early. Suddenly, PE lessons leaned heavily towards sack racing, running, jumping and swimming at the Marshall Street baths. It was all go. Everyone in the school had been put into a house when they started, a fact that we forgot about a lot of the time, until Sports Day, or the swimming gala, or the netball, football, rounders or cricket matches came round. Then house loyalty became fierce and everyone – well, almost everyone – strove to make their house victorious in the various competitions. So out came the gym knickers and plimsoles ready for action. I quite liked running and jumping and had made up my mind that I would learn to swim as well, which came in handy, because it gave Luigi and Betty somewhere to take me when I was on chaperone duty.

  But the Widow Ginger still lurked at the back of my mind, icicle eyes fixed on me and a box of matches in his hand. He was a regular feature of my dreams, and once or twice I was so frightened I snuggled up in bed between Uncle Bert and Auntie Maggie. Uncle Bert swore that fairies came in the dead of night and sharpened every one of my ninety-four elbows and two hundred and fourteen knees to vicious points, so that I could dig them all into him. Auntie Maggie was less critical. She just said I was a wriggle-monster, and left it at that.

  But the anxiety still gnawed away at me the minute I wasn’t busy enough to keep it away. The Widow Ginger had done nothing but cause trouble and fear since his shiny shoes had hit our Soho streets once again. He’d even managed to get Auntie Maggie and Uncle Bert at each other’s throats, and that wasn’t easy. He’d been behind the trouble between Uncle Bert and Maltese Joe, too, when you got down to it. It might have been Auntie Maggie who pulled the trigger but the Widow definitely loaded the gun. I kept seeing him standing in the cafe doorway, pale hair glinting to match his eyes. Or he’d have me by the scruff of the neck again and I’d feel such terror, I’d almost wet myself. He was, without doubt, the most frightening person I had ever met, and, let’s face it, Soho wasn’t short of frightening men; the war and circumstances had seen to that. But I wasn’t afraid of them the way I was afraid of the Widow. He was one on his own, thank you God. The world couldn’t stand too many people like the Widow, in my opinion.

  I knew that every single one of Maltese Joe’s boys was looking for him, but the trouble was, nobody would venture a guess as to what would happen when he was found. Uncle Bert’s face just got hard and closed off when I asked him, and Auntie Maggie looked anxious and scrunched up her pinny in worried hands. So going back to school came as something of a relief. Even old Welbeloved’s kisser was a reassuring sight, so you can imagine just how bad I felt, underneath it all.

  22

  The Widow Ginger must have been clever, because none of the landladies, landlords, hotel managers, maids or madams would own up to having seen him. Which, according to Bandy Bunyan, meant one of two things: either he wasn’t staying locally, or the person or people housing him were too afraid of the consequences to grass him up. Either was possible.

  ‘Let’s face facts,’ said Bandy, settling her bony frame more comfortably in her chair. Her g
iant hooter and Brillo pad hair made her look more like my Great-aunt Dodie than anyone who wasn’t related should do. She even sounded like her; it was amazing. ‘Everyone knows the sewer is a firebug, and nobody wants to lose either barnet or business in a conflagration, now do they?’

  ‘That seems a reasonable deduction, my dear Bunyan,’ agreed Uncle Bert, pretending to be Sherlock Holmes and waving his pipe around. I told Madame Zelda that I should have bought him a Sherlock Holmes special when I was in Southend; it would have suited him down to the ground, especially when he was showing off. However, he managed to be just as pompous with his bog-standard briar.

  Maltese Joe was less patient. He was in the cafe daily to check progress and was given to ranting at no one in particular and everyone in general when told that there was no progress. In the end, Auntie Maggie got shirty with him. ‘Will you stop barging in here and shooting your mouth off, Joseph? There’s our customers to think of, not to mention poor Rosie’s nerves, so just calm down, will you?’

  Her tone made it quite clear that it was an instruction and not a suggestion. I almost felt sorry for the man, having been on the receiving end of a similar tone in my time, but I was also very worried that Maltese Joe would take exception to being told what to do, especially by a woman.

  Sugar soothed my fears. ‘It’d take more than an irate Maltese midget to put the wind up your auntie Maggie, sweetie, don’t you worry your little curly top about that. Your auntie Maggie is a force of nature when she gets her dander up, and it’s well up now. Old Ma Joe did not foist a fool on the world when she dropped her boy and he does know when to push it and when not to. Mark my words, little ’un, he’ll let it pass.’ And let it pass he did.

  Auntie Maggie’s scheme to lend me out to Luigi as a chaperone turned out quite well for Betty and me, but less well for poor Luigi, because although Betty wasn’t at all reluctant to go out with him as long as I was there she wouldn’t go out with him alone. This pleased Betty and certainly pleased me, because I got to go to all sorts of interesting places and, more to the point, I became the source of all gossip concerning the couple. This swelled my sense of importance, and my chest was puffed up like a pigeon’s when I was being grilled by Sugar, Madame Zelda, Paulette and Auntie Maggie.

  ‘So, where did they take you?’ Madame Zelda asked after our first outing.

  ‘The cartoons. We were supposed to go to the park, but it was raining, so we went to Leicester Square instead. Then we went to the deli for a cassata and then we came home.’

  ‘Any hanky-panky worth a mention, was there?’ Paulette wanted to know.

  ‘Nope.’ I liked to make ’em work for their info.

  ‘What, even in the pictures?’ Paulette’s voice rose in disbelief. ‘Luigi’s definitely slipping.’ And everyone agreed that he was, except my auntie Maggie that is, who thought he was behaving very well indeed.

  ‘What do you mean, slipping? He’s hardly likely to get an attack of the wandering mitts when our Rosie’s there, now is he? That would be on the verge of corrupting a minor, that would, and he’d never do that. He does know how to behave, you know, when he has to. His mother saw to that when he was a growing lad. Very moral people, the Campaninis.’

  She ignored the frantic eye rolling that passed between Madame Zelda and Paulette. They knew when Auntie Maggie was looking for a high horse to get on to and decided not to help her. Anxiety always inclined Auntie Maggie to shirtiness and high horse clambering. Uncle Bert said it made her feel more secure when she was bossing people about. She liked to think that everything was under control, especially when it wasn’t.

  And it definitely wasn’t. Maltese Joe’s daily visits proved that. It wasn’t just the Widow Ginger business, either. Things were obviously much less smooth with Betty and Luigi, and nobody was quite sure why. I hadn’t had the chance to get her alone to ask her, or Luigi either, for that matter.

  Just to add to the feeling of doom and gloom, Jenny wasn’t getting any better. In fact, what with the mumps and everything, she was getting more poorly and weaker by the day, or so Mrs Robbins said when asked.

  ‘Do you think a visit from our Rosie’d help perk her up a bit?’ Auntie Maggie asked in a sad, tired voice. The strain was beginning to tell on my aunt, and my almost nightly visits to her bed, with all my elbows sharpened and kneecaps in place, weren’t helping a lot, either. Sleeping with a wriggle-monster cannot have been easy.

  ‘Could she catch the mumps back again, do you reckon?’ Mrs Robbins asked, reminding me that it was me that gave them to poor Jenny in the first place.

  ‘No. You can only catch ’em once, I checked. So it’d be all right from that point of view, but it’s your Jenny we’ve got to think of. Will it do more harm than good, or more good than harm? That’s the question.’

  Auntie Maggie and I waited quietly while Mrs Robbins gave it some thought. ‘I reckon it’d be all right, as long as Rosie leaves the minute Jenny looks like she’s getting too tired.’

  Which was how it was decided that I would pop in to see my pal the following Saturday morning. I was armed to the teeth with comics, sweets and my second favourite teddy, working on the theory that any girl confined to bed would want a good read, something sweet to suck and something soft to cuddle when the need arose for a bit of comfort. I know I should have given her my first favourite teddy, on account it was my fault she was mumpy in the first place. And I did get him out of my bed, honest. I even gave his hair a good brush, and then I gave him a long goodbye cuddle, but when it came to getting him out of the door I simply couldn’t do it. My eyes filled with tears and my nose began to drip the minute I was on the landing and I had to take him back to the safety of my pink eiderdown. I struggled with myself for what felt like hours but in the end I realized I really loved my teddy. We’d been friends all my life and no amount of guilt was going to get me to part with him. Even parting with number two bear was a wrench. However, I was so ashamed of being too mean to part with Eddie Bear, and of seriously considering giving Jenny my least favourite soft toy, Ugly Blue Monkey, or Uggers for short, that I forced myself to make the sacrifice. So Dingle it was, so called because he had a rather fetching blue ribbon collar with a bell attached. He was almost as well loved as Eddie, and rubbed almost as bald with all the strokes and cuddles he’d had over the years.

  Once the decision was finally made, I was ready to go. I was almost out of the door when Auntie Maggie spotted Dingle dangling dangerously by one arm from the pile of goodies. She was curious. ‘Why’re you taking Dingle with you? I think you’d better leave him here, dear, in case you lose him. He doesn’t look very safe hanging off that lot. Anyway, I don’t think Jenny’s feeling much like playing actual games at the moment, pet. P’raps you can save that for next time.’ With that, she plucked Dingle from the pile and settled him comfortably on top of the till.

  ‘I thought Jenny might need something to cuddle, you know, when she’s feeling lonely or poorly,’ I mumbled, grabbing him back. I didn’t want to enter into a discussion about why she was only getting my second-best teddy, because I really, really didn’t want to be persuaded to do the decent thing and cough up my beloved Eddie Bear.

  ‘So you’re planning to give him to her, are you? Or is it just a loan?’ Now, a loan had not occurred to me. My heart leaped. Here was a way out. If I lent her Dingle, I wouldn’t have to part with him either. But then I remembered Eddie Bear and Uggers and felt ashamed all over again. No, Dingle had to be a gift. I told Auntie Maggie that Dingle was, in fact, moving out.

  ‘It’s very kind of you, Rosie, to want to give Jenny your bear, but why don’t you give her that blue monkey? You never play with him, and he’s very soft and cuddly and has plenty of hair left. I’m sure she’d like him, and he looks newer than Dingle.’

  My heart leaped again. If Auntie Maggie thought it was OK to fob my pal off with an unwanted and truly hideous toy, then maybe it was. Just as quickly my heart sank again because it knew that it wasn’t all right. Auntie Ma
ggie didn’t understand that I had to give Jenny something precious to me because it was all my fault that she’d been laid so low.

  A reject wouldn’t do at all. I knew what was right; it was bad enough that she was being given second best. Bottom of the heap Uggers wouldn’t do at all.

  I couldn’t explain because I had no words to describe the great lump that caught in my throat whenever I thought hard about how ill my friend was and how I made things worse. In a peculiar sort of way, I felt that if I made a sacrifice, gave up something I loved, somehow Jenny would get better. And I did love Dingle; his bald spots were testimony to that. I was trying to buy a miracle, only I didn’t know enough to understand it, let alone explain it. I realize now that I was bargaining with God. But as it turned out, He didn’t think much of the deal, and in my heart of hearts I knew He wouldn’t. Like my beloved aunt, He knew second best when He saw it.

  A quarter of an hour later I was at Jenny’s, sitting beside her narrow bed, while she lay still under her brown blankets. She would keep dropping off. It was odd because she’d suddenly snap out of it, open her eyes and see me sitting there, and her pale little face would be lit by an enormous smile. She was so pleased to have a visitor who wasn’t her dad, the Mangy Cow, the doctor or, believe it or not, old Welbeloved that it would have been wicked to tiptoe out of there while she was snoring. Me and Mrs Robbins agreed on that. So I stayed.

  Jenny said you could have knocked her over with a feather when old Welbeloved walked in. She said that she thought for one terrible minute that the old trout had brought her school work to do at home, but she hadn’t. It was just a visit. Mind you, if you ask me, you wouldn’t have needed a whole feather, or old Welbeloved either, to knock Jenny over. She was so thin and pale she looked like a wisp of smoke with big panda eyes, and simply breathing heavily probably would have done it. The moment I clapped eyes on her I knew it would take more than a second-best bear to make her better.