East End Jubilee

by Carol Rivers

  ‘And I thought I had troubles.’ Rose bent down and kissed her sister’s forehead. Gently removing her turban she brushed her dull fair hair over the pillow with the tips of her fingers. ‘Oh Neet, her life must have been so unhappy. She never said a thing in her letters.’

  ‘Would you?’

  Rose had to agree she probably wouldn’t.

  ‘That bloody Arthur.’

  Rose nodded. ‘It was like keeping her a prisoner.’

  Anita made no comment except to sigh, ‘She’ll have a snorter when she wakes.’

  Rose drew the heavy curtains. ‘Come on, I’ll make you a cup of tea.’

  ‘Yeah, I’d better sober up before me old man comes home.’ Anita giggled. ‘We polished off the bottle, you know.’

  Rose softly led the way downstairs. She needed that cup of tea now.

  ‘I did it, Mum, I did it!’ At four o’clock Donnie was bursting with news. ‘I did what you said. I stood up to Diane Balls.’

  Rose felt her heart thump. ‘You did?’

  ‘We was in the playground and Diane came up and poked me in the shoulder.’

  ‘What did you do?’ Marlene queried as they all gazed at Donnie.

  ‘I poked her back as hard as she poked me.’

  ‘Lummy,’ Will gasped looking impressed. Rose had brought him with her so that Em could rest undisturbed.

  ‘She thought I’d run away,’ Donnie said with a toss of her head.

  ‘But you didn’t?’ Rose asked.

  ‘No. I just stood there. I was scared stiff really, but I remembered David and how he stood up to the giant.’

  ‘What giant?’ Marlene demanded as Rose urged the three children along the busy pavement.

  ‘Come along, Donnie can explain on the way home.’

  ‘Goliath of course,’ Will said decisively as they went. ‘He was nearly seven feet tall and really ugly.’

  ‘And David was just an ordinary person,’ Donnie continued. ‘But he had a catapult and five little stones. He aimed one of them at Goliath’s head and it hit him right in the centre of his forehead, killing him dead.’

  ‘How do you know that?’ Marlene frowned.

  ‘It’s in the Bible,’ Will said simply.

  ‘I don’t like the Bible,’ Marlene objected moodily, ‘it’s got too many long words I don’t understand.’

  ‘Well, you should look at the pictures then. There’s lots of lovely colour ones in the Bibles at school.’

  ‘I ain’t a baby,’ Marlene replied, blushing.

  ‘Anyway, you were telling us about Diane,’ Rose interrupted in order to return to the subject of Donnie’s triumph.

  Donnie nodded, her face grave. ‘Then she called me a bad name, a very, very bad name and everyone started to laugh.’

  Rose sighed. ‘Oh dear.’

  Donnie went red. ‘So I called her one too and said if she hit me again I was going to hit her back even harder.’

  Rose stopped in the street. ‘That was very brave of you.’

  ‘Like David,’ Donnie said cheerfully.

  ‘Yes, like David.’

  ‘Sally Piper said she ain’t ever heard me speak like that before.’

  ‘What was the name you called Diane?’ Marlene asked interestedly.

  ‘I mustn’t say it again, must I, Mum?’

  ‘No.’

  Donnie’s face glowed. ‘I didn’t run away. I just stood there and looked her in the eye and all she did was kick the railings.’

  Rose was close to tears. What a world! Her poor Donnie. But she’d won the first round of a lifelong battle.

  ‘Can we go to the sweet shop?’ Donnie asked shyly.

  Rose smiled. ‘I think you deserve a treat.’

  ‘Have we got any lemonade bottles at home?’ Marlene asked expectantly.

  Donnie nodded. ‘Two.’

  ‘We’ll save the bottles,’ Rose intervened quickly, since she didn’t want to disturb her sister. ‘I’ll give you sixpence each.’ The offer was very extravagant but she still had some of Em’s grocery money in her purse. Instead of stopping for groceries she’d make do with sardines tonight.

  ‘I’m gonna buy some brandy balls,’ Marlene decided at once.

  ‘I think I’ll have me favourite,’ Donnie said thoughtfully. ‘Sherbet dabs. They melt in your mouth.’

  But Will was silent until Marlene demanded his choice.

  ‘Do they sell wine gums, Auntie Rose?’ he asked cautiously.

  ‘Yes, dear. They sell just about any sweet you could possibly think of.’

  ‘I’ve changed me mind,’ Marlene interrupted noisily. ‘I might have two ounces of them chocolates with toffee insides. Or I might have a bag of gobstoppers.’

  ‘They never stop your gob,’ Donnie giggled and they all burst into laughter including Marlene.

  Rose took the road that led to Amethyst Way, joining in their happy chatter. Her cares were temporarily forgotten and she wondered if she would see Bobby Morton in his shop. Perhaps she would look in as they passed by. Not that she had any intention of displaying any interest in a washing machine, even if she had warmed to the idea lately. It was a luxury someone like her couldn’t possibly afford, not unless you had four hundred and thirty-five pounds hidden under the floorboards at home!

  Chapter Thirteen

  Rose inhaled the aroma of frying onions permeating the small waiting room. This was once Dr Harding’s parlour and was now Dr Cox’s waiting room. Up until two years ago, Dr Harding’s patients had squeezed on to six hard-backed wooden dining chairs lined like skittles in the draughty hall. But now Dr Howard Cox was installed and the arrangement had changed.

  Rose had mourned the loss of the family doctor who delivered both of her girls at home. With the assistance of the midwife he had brought Donnie and Marlene into the world with very little fuss on his part and not very much more on Rose’s. She’d had complete faith in him, instilled from childhood and the happy visits she’d made to the gentle, smiling practitioner. Dr Harding had made a joke at every one of them, tickled her under the chin and very rarely prescribed anything unpleasant to swallow. Looking back she wondered if this was because she was rarely ill or because he really was a saint of a man whom the whole neighbourhood had loved and admired.

  Islanders, a generally friendly bunch, had few words to say on the new doctor. Rose knew their silence was more a testament to their feelings than outright criticism. Dr Cox, a much younger man, guessed at being somewhere in his late thirties to early forties, had brought with him a wife and four young children, all crammed into the three-bedroomed house that comprised living quarters, surgery and waiting room. Sitting in the dull little waiting room and staring up at the pagoda-shaped lampshade that dangled an unequal fringe around its base, she noticed the mauvish cloth-covered flex adorned with a fly paper. She didn’t like to think of the tiny dead insect bodies struggling there and averted her eyes to the picture rail. This had once sported Dr Harding’s chosen photographs; the children he’d delivered, the women and men he had treated, his own wife and family and other portraits and landscapes of the island community that he had served for over forty years. These were all now banished and only their outlines remained like pale ghosts clumsily masked by Dr Cox’s stark white certificates confirming his medical training.

  Rose also noted the rose decorated wallpaper was beginning to peel at the corners. Also, the six original wooden chairs on either side of the room had lost their patina, once so lovingly polished by Mrs Harding. Rose considered the oblong table in the centre of the room. It boasted chromium legs and a green painted top, an addition made in the hope it would revive the spirit of the room. But instead it looked dreadfully mismatched, as did last year’s spring editions of Punch and Life magazines lying neatly untouched on its shiny surface.

  Rose had always enjoyed browsing through Dr Harding’s dog-eared copies of Woman’s Own and My Home. Indeed any tattered offering from the Companion Book Club had held his patients spellbound as had the t
oppling piles of knitting, cooking and sewing magazines. For the children there had been Tom Sawyer and Ivanhoe or the much-loved Anne of Green Gables, minus its dustjacket.

  It was clear to see that Dr Cox had made a clean sweep. Sacrificing his living room for his patients, he had made an attempt at modernization, but there was nothing left of the reassuring atmosphere, Rose decided with dismay.

  A woman exited from the white-painted door labelled afresh in large hand-written capitals, SURGERY. Rose beamed a smile as she hurried off, but her head was bent and her walk brisk.

  Rose was beginning to feel a fraud, having convinced herself her trouble was not an ulcer, but an anxiety problem. Doctors had so much more to do these days with their practices extending as Dr Cox had informed them his had. Would he think she was wasting his time?

  ‘Mrs Weaver?’ Dr Cox beckoned her. She quickly assessed his appearance as being very professional. A white coat under which he wore a dark suit, light brown hair cut so short that his sideburns were almost nonexistent and his skin had a very clean, washed look, as though he’d scrubbed himself thoroughly after each patient.

  Rose saw that inside the consulting room there was a marked change to the decor. Steely white walls reflected the doctor’s own high standard of hygiene, which, Rose thought, should in some way have bolstered her confidence. Instead it had the effect of making her more apprehensive as she sat down on the chair by the desk.

  ‘I’m a little at twos and threes still,’ Dr Cox apologized as he drew out a folder from his shoulder-high file cabinet and studied the contents. ‘I don’t appear to have your notes to hand.’

  ‘I came last year with Marlene, my youngest daughter—’

  ‘Then I should have you here.’ He went back to investigating the drawer.

  ‘I have another daughter too, Andrea, but we call her Donnie. And there’s my husband, Eddie—’

  ‘This really won’t do.’ Dr Cox was apparently talking to himself as he fingered a set of papers with obvious disdain.

  Rose waited patiently, aware of the plastic clock positioned strategically on the desk directly in front of her. Its tick was as loud as an elephant’s heartbeat and she wondered how he could possibly concentrate when the noise seemed so jarring in the otherwise silent room. Dr Harding had never seemed to possess a clock. It was always first come, first served and wait in the queue until surgery had ended. No one ever bothered about time. It took as long as it took. Now the clock seemed to be counting the minutes aloud and there was an unspoken urgency in the air.

  ‘My wife has been acting as receptionist,’ he said, not looking at Rose but still lost in his cabinet. ‘And we don’t seem to have you under W.’

  ‘You could try R. Read is my maiden name and my family were with—’

  ‘Very unsatisfactory,’ he cut in, shuffling his fingers.

  Rose waited again, wishing now she had abandoned the idea of this visit. She had felt better this morning and would definitely have abandoned coming if Em hadn’t pushed her out of the house.

  The doctor made a severe clucking sound. ‘Very unsatisfactory indeed.’

  ‘Have you found us?’

  ‘Yes, but in quite the wrong place.’ Dr Cox returned to his seat, his face disgruntled. He had a thin, severe mouth and Rose at once felt sympathetic towards the absent wife who not only cooked, fed and kept clean her large family but acted as his bookkeeper too. Rose appreciated how much effort it took to keep factory records in order and assumed it to be much the same with a doctor’s practice.

  ‘Well, what is wrong today?’ he sighed at last, looking up with a frown that stretched across his previously unlined brow. His face was shining under the bright bulb above them, his cool, pale eyes fastening on her for the first time since she had taken her seat.

  Rose sat forward, gripping her handbag tightly. ‘It’s probably nothing—’

  ‘Shall I be the judge of that?’ His intense stare and clipped voice made her start. She felt quite intimidated.

  ‘Well,’ she hesitated. ‘I’ve had these bouts of sickness and as my mother suffered from ulcers—’

  ‘The two conditions are not necessarily connected,’ he told her sternly.

  ‘No . . . no, I suppose not,’ she agreed meekly. ‘But I thought ulcers might run in the family and—’

  ‘How long have you been feeling unwell?’ he interrupted again and Rose was forced then to explain her other theory, about the anxiety problem stemming from the events of Coronation Day.

  Dr Cox listened without expression and Rose tried bravely to stick to uncluttered facts, but she still couldn’t make Eddie’s arrest and the subsequent events sound any better.

  Apparently unfazed by her revelations he then asked her several questions about her health. When these were answered to his satisfaction he stood up and gestured to a long flowery curtain attached to a rail by shiny brass rings. ‘I’d like to examine you,’ he told her shortly. ‘Undress down to your undergarments please and lie on the examination couch.’

  Rose was horrified. She hadn’t expected this at all.

  ‘But it’s only a tummy upset,’ she protested weakly.

  ‘So you keep insisting,’ he replied, head bent once more as he scribbled on the notes in front of him.

  Rose had no answer to this and obediently went off to install herself behind the flowery curtain. She took off her dress and hung it on a hook, then lay nervously on the examination couch in her petticoat.

  ‘Try to relax,’ he told her as he pressed carefully around her tummy. As apprehensive as she was, Rose had to admit that Dr Cox was very professional in every way and examined her with the utmost care.

  ‘You can get dressed again,’ he nodded eventually and soon she was sitting before him once more. The clock didn’t seem quite so loud now and his stare failed to be quite so off-putting, in fact she was certain his lips were tilted into the beginnings of a smile.

  ‘Congratulations, Mrs Weaver.’

  Rose stared at him blankly. ‘On what?’

  ‘You are pregnant.’

  Rose stared at him as if he was speaking another language. ‘But that’s impossible,’ she heard herself mumble in confusion. ‘We . . . we’ve not been able . . . we didn’t think . . . we—’

  ‘When was your last period?’

  ‘I – er well, before my husband . . .’ She stopped, trying to calculate. Eddie had been arrested on 2nd June. She hadn’t had a period since May and she knew why. The same thing had happened after her parents had been killed. Her periods had stopped for eight months and Dr Harding had simply told her it was shock and not to worry, they would return in time, which they had.

  Rose began to explain all this to Dr Cox, in a rushed, hectic sort of way, watching him write down the details in his large, neat longhand.

  ‘I would like a sample of your urine, of course,’ he said, looking up at her with raised eyebrows. ‘From what you’ve told me my calculation is that your baby is due in February, the middle of the month rather than later.’

  ‘February!’ she repeated, feeling poleaxed. ‘But . . . but I’ve just got a job!’ was all she managed to splutter.

  ‘Have you indeed?’ He nodded slowly. ‘Well, depending on your health, which as far as I can discern is good, you would be able to work for several months ahead or as long as you feel able, depending on the type of work you intend to perform. You’ll need to take care of yourself, rest, eat a sensible diet . . .’

  Dr Cox’s words faded into the distance. Even the loud ticking clock could not penetrate Rose’s consciousness. She was pregnant. She and Eddie had made a baby. Ever since Marlene they had hoped for another child to come along. Eddie wanted a son, but the years had passed and nothing had happened. Until now.

  ‘See me again in a fortnight and we’ll arrange future appointments,’ Dr Cox was saying as he stood and escorted her through to the waiting room.

  Rose walked out as if in a dream, leaving behind her the smell of frying onions, which from this
day onward she would associate with becoming pregnant.

  Rose didn’t want to go home. She couldn’t face Em just yet, she wanted to think about what Dr Cox had told her. She was expecting a baby! A tiny form was growing in her tummy, a vulnerable, precious presence that one day she would hold in her arms.

  Thoughts of wonder raced through her mind as she wandered along the street. What would Eddie say? They had wanted a baby for so long and now their wish had come true. Perhaps everything would work out for the best now, she thought hopefully. This might be a new chapter in their lives. Hope began to spread through her like a warm, refreshing glow.

  A whiff of smoke blew across her face as she turned the corner. A group of workmen had set light to a pile of rubbish on a building site. The shell of a ruined house was being fully demolished and the area cleared. Waves of dust blew across the road and swept in her face as a forklift tractor scooped the rubble before it. Everything was in the process of change.

  Just like her body. Just like their lives. Fast and furious came the changes sweeping them along, yet all her worries now seemed surmountable. Eddie would get his bail, return home and find Syd. He’d make the man admit to selling him the television and the police would revise their opinion and drop the charge of assault. With this baby, their lives would change.

  Rose turned down the opposite street, her step lighter and brisker. She kept walking, not knowing where she was heading, just wanting to extend the wonderful feeling inside her. She needed to savour the miracle of her conception. Would their baby be a boy or a girl? Would it have red hair like Marlene or dark locks like Donnie? Eddie’s grey eyes or her own deep brown ones?

  Rose viewed all her surroundings through new eyes. The old Victorian terraces looked as though they were sprinkled with stardust and not soot. The small enclave of prefabricated homes, tiny two-bedroomed bungalows that were hardly bigger than caravans, now sparkled like little pixie cottages. Life felt suddenly better and more beautiful than it ever had before.