by Dawson, Jill
Later, Tony packs Maria’s stuff into the boot and carries her to the backseat, telling her sweetly to lie down, while he tucks a blanket over her. She keeps lifting her head up like a tortoise. She looks bewildered as Gloria leans in to plonk kiss after kiss on her and Betty leans in, too, to say a weak goodbye, offering a formal handshake.
The nanny takes Betty inside. Tony slams the car door, saying pointedly to me, “Thought you ladies had a bit of business to sort out?” I know he’s trying to get Gloria out of the way. It’s also clear that Maria has no idea she’s coming with us, and certainly not for good. Tony says firmly, “That’s enough now. Don’t get Maria upset,” and, giving Gloria a kiss and a pat, shoos us inside the house so he can sit in the car outside on the expensive gravel with the engine running, while Gloria and I pop upstairs.
In the master bedroom, Gloria delves about in her wardrobe for an envelope. The rest of my money she’s been safekeeping for me since the jewelry robbery. I’ve calculated there should be about £1,400 left, after the money I’d been giving to Bobby for sheltering me, and other bits and bobs I’d told Gloria she could use it for while I was inside. Gloria hands me an envelope, which feels light, but I don’t open it, not in front of her. That would be rude.
In any case, Gloria is sobbing, suddenly. Deflating in her yellow dress like a sunken lemon soufflé, mascara blackening her cheeks, the strands of pearls round her neck clattering painfully as her chest lifts and falls; sitting on her purple satin bed, all ruffles and flounces, clutching at me, saying, “Don’t take Maria, she’s all I’ve got . . .”
Alarmed, I lift the glass from Gloria’s hand and put it on the bedside table. Now I’m so close I see that she must have been drinking steadily all day; she’s sodden and glazed, her eyes barely focusing. A toot from the car horn outside makes me jump. Tony will be tapping his fingers on the wheel.
“Don’t be silly, you’ve got Betty . . .”
“Betty hates me!” She collapses backwards onto the bed.
The one person I don’t expect to see punctured: Gloria. Pouting, playful, bubbly, kindhearted Gloria. I don’t know what to do. How to thank her, how to repay her. I sit down on the bed beside her, take her hand.
“Gloria—you can see Maria every weekend; or as often as you like, honestly . . .”
She gazes up at me, and struggles to sit up, brushing at her face with her hands and attempting a watery smile.
“Maria will want to visit, won’t she, to see her lovely pony?” I say.
And strangely, at that, Gloria collapses again.
“I’ve got nothing,” Gloria wails. She sweeps an arm around the room, vaguely indicating the purple velvet curtains, the white dressing table, the half-open door to the dressing room stuffed with mink.
Taking my own child feels like stealing is my grim thought, as I close the door to Gloria’s bedroom, sneaking across the landing to the staircase. Does nothing really belong to me? What do I have, what can I wrap up and tie in a bow and pass to Maria? Not a pony, or a white bunny rabbit. Is it nothing, like Gloria? Is that what I have to pass on—one big fat nothing? Gloria’s despair washes over me, as I creep away down the polished staircase of her grand house. Fine fingers of glass from a crystal chandelier point accusingly, every step of the way.
So is that why? I wonder. Why I was tempted out of going straight—retirement you might call it? Tempted to risk everything, risk Holloway, all over again? Because I thought I was useless, nothing anyway, under all my bravado? Like that Marilyn Monroe quote—what was it?—about only wanting to be somebody so badly if you fear you’re nobody really.
No, that doesn’t strike me as true, actually. It strikes me as corny, the wanting-to-be-special idea; or if it was true for me, it was just a tiny, weeny bit. There were other reasons. Other pressing reasons. We’ll come to those. Give me a chance: I’m trying to be honest here.
I was supposed to be giving Maria a life as far from mine as possible, but it wasn’t easy. Seeing Maria with the white pony didn’t make me feel happy for her. Instead I had this other feeling, this horrible grudging feeling that I didn’t even have a name for then, but a feeling I knew well enough. I’d felt it often enough in the past. It was like that day long ago when Elsie Salmon taught me what guilt was all about. This feeling that I had towards my own daughter—I’m sure that was what was in the package wrapped up in ribbon; that’s what Moll passed to me. Shameful feelings, taboo ones, ones you shouldn’t feel towards your own beloved daughter, but you do. It makes me wonder if anyone can ever give their child something they don’t have themselves. Don’t we pass on exactly what we don’t mean to, despite our best intentions? After all, what had Maria had so far? A locked-away mother, and an only-there-some-of-the-time father.
I didn’t realize that then. There was a way to go before I saw that. No, at that point it was all about Tony, and picking up where I left off, and having a laugh with Stella, doing all the things I’d been denied. I was only twenty-seven years old, and I had a lot of catching up to do. Oh, and ironically enough, it seems it was me who had paid for Maria’s pony in any case. Gloria had dipped into my money over the three years: no wonder the envelope felt light. Her light-fingered habits were hard to break.
Living with Tony, with a man, was not what I expected. We rubbed each other up the wrong way; we were both independent and loved our own routines. I couldn’t cook, producing burnt toast and eggs so floppy they wriggled off the plate; he wasn’t a bad cook, but if he’d worked in the café all day he wasn’t about to do it again in the evening, and anyway, cooking is a woman’s job.
He slept longer hours than me; he liked to lie in on a morning, and if Maria woke him, he’d be in one of his tempers, charging like a bull at things, frightening us both. He kept on and on about getting hitched, and I kept fobbing him off. I didn’t know why I didn’t want to; I just used to tell him that I’d never imagined myself married, and Tony would reply, “Surely every bird does,” or, if he was in a bad mood, “Fucking hell, Queenie, you ain’t no spring chicken . . .” If he was in a very bad mood he’d call me a bitch and say I should be glad that anyone wanted an ungrateful old cow like me, but he was always sorry for those outbursts, and I’d scream equally ugly names back at him and then feel sorry for him. I didn’t have a good reason not to get married and it was in the days when “living over the brush” was something quite shocking, frowned upon, though everyone knew someone who did. I felt I was being unfair. I didn’t understand myself.
We scraped along like this for a couple of years. Money was tight—we were living off my few remaining savings and Tony’s wages from the café—and, in the end, Tony accepted that as the reason not to get married. But it drained us, the fighting.
And once again, they got nasty. One time Maria stood between us—she actually plonked herself right in the kitchen between us—and I saw that she was red in the face, and shaking from head to toe, and Tony came tearing at me and pushed her out of the way, and she was screaming, screaming, and I was trying to notice her, trying to duck as Tony’s fist came flying, and trying to sweep Maria out of the way all at the same time, and I did think, I remember thinking, this is how it was for me and be honest for once, Queenie, it wasn’t all right was it, it was terrifying, and as I try to allow this thought to form I’m also fending off Tony with the nearest thing to hand—a pan, a heavy pan—and I smash one of the lightbulbs as I swing it and it pops and Maria screams again . . . and I tell her, “Run, run upstairs, don’t come down!”
That night I cried into my pillow, remembering Maria’s little red face, her bravery, standing between us, and yet the sight of her, how scared she looked. I’ve never seen anyone shake that hard. And then suddenly my sobbing was about Moll, and myself, and remembering. Taking Bunny to bed with me, hiding under my pillow, holding Bobby’s little sweating hand, and how I dealt with it by thinking: I’m not like her. Why does she let him do that to her, and hating
her, and furious with her, blaming her, for allowing it. I sat up in bed at this thought, crept out from beside the snoring Tony, and went to stand at the kitchen window, looking out towards Well Street. What Stella said before I went inside came back to me. You’re half Tony’s size. Wasn’t Moll half Dad’s size? Why on earth had I been mad at her for so long—wasn’t it unfair to expect her to have been able to stand up to him, defend herself against him?
I went next door to check on Maria, sleeping with her nightie rucked up and her face hot against her pillow. I tugged the cotton material down over her bottom and covered her with the sheet. And then I lay on the narrow single bed beside her, my face close to hers. She breathed out and the smell of cherry-flavored toothpaste wafted towards me. And I kept remembering her, placing herself between us, trying to be strong, trying to prevent a twelve-stone man from hitting me with her tiny little girl bulk. How long before she realizes she can’t save me and can’t stop the horrible scary things from happening all around her, and switches to hating me?
Maria remained elusive. That’s how I thought of her. Flitting, intermittent. It was as if she faded in and out of existence, like electricity being switched on. I’d be doing something: vacuuming, lighting a cigarette, chatting on the telephone to Stella, about to pick up a book. I’d look down, vividly conscious of her, like something was suddenly on fire right beside me. There she’d be, shimmering. A dark glittering child. Angry, like Tony. Other times she’d be running. On the way to Vicky Park, off to visit Granddad and Annie, or her big cousin Gracie; she’d be bowling by, fast as a blown leaf, and giggling and in her own little world and I’d try and catch her and swing her up or kiss her or even get her to smile at me. Nothing. It was as if she couldn’t see me at all; I didn’t exist. She’d keep on running, whirling, chasing birds. I worried about her. I talked to Stella, who I didn’t see that often by then—I think it must have been the summer of 1962—and her reply surprised me. “Well, you didn’t think you’d get off scot-free, did you?”
That stung. Stella meant the years I’d been inside, of course. I hadn’t expected her of all people to rub my nose in it. Stella often asked me, looking round the little flat in Hackney, didn’t I miss the rush, the glamour of my hoisting days? She’d learned to drive, and her boyfriend—this huge fat man she’d met at Murray’s who had two other mistresses dotted around London and only liked sex once a week and without looking at her (he liked it really cold and official, she said, from behind)—had bought her a cherry-red Mini that she was driving around in. Hard not to feel a twinge of envy, seeing her in that car, and yes, I did miss hoisting; I felt a kind of twitchiness when my life, like now, seemed so dull, and that made me want to do something to stir it up.
A fight usually did it. A huge fight with Tony. The pattern was the same: the drama and the adrenaline and the rage, and then the fog, the strange foggy sweetness that always enveloped me with such reassuring predictability along with the bruises afterwards.
So this one night, Tony comes home for his dinner and immediately I sense a mood. A warning mood. He’s excited. Hopping from foot to foot, hiding something. He did a little job, he says. Nothing big. He rolls his eyes, meaning: I can’t say more in front of Maria.
I’m in the kitchen in my apron—yes, really!—heating some peas in a pan on the stove; Maria is looking at a book of numbers on the table. She’s started school by now and she loves it, as long as she’s allowed to sit in the home corner and read all day. She’s lost in this book, only once glancing up from it to ask, “How many sweets are in a quarter pound of pear drops?”
“I don’t know. Twenty?” I answer.
“Good. Because I ate four earlier so I’ve got sixteen left.”
That’s what she likes to do, Maria. Little calculations, figuring stuff out. Tony kisses the top of her head and puts his hands round my waist at the stove. “Got something for you, doll,” he says. He’s twittery and agitated; he produces a box. A little black box that pops open and sparkles.
“There you go. What d’you say to that?”
There’s nothing I can say. Not now, not in front of Maria. I pretend to be pleased, and kiss him, and slip the diamond ring on and admire it, extending my fingers as if I’m a film star, as if I’m Marilyn—only not poor Marilyn, no, news of her is everywhere—all the while my heart ticking like a time bomb and I’m thinking: God, no. Not if you were the last man on earth.
So we sip Babycham and eat the tinned peas and gammon steaks I’ve made us and I run Maria her bath and read her stories and tuck her in and Tony flicks through The People with his feet up and his slippers on, half-watching Z-Cars on the telly, and all the while the feeling is brewing in me, swelling and filling every inch of me. I’ve been waiting for this somehow. Waiting for the moment to make things irreparable.
But the moment doesn’t come, and we watch more telly and I make us a cup of Nescafé and the evening drags on and soon Tony’s yawning and saying let’s go up to bed. Of course he thinks his luck’s in tonight, because of the ring, and I won’t have a headache like I have had every night lately. And even then, I get a reprieve. It seems as though he’s even going to accept mildly my murmured rejections; we’re going to be able to just fall asleep with a grudging kiss, and his leg flung over me, and if I’m not careful I’ll wake up and it will be tomorrow and I’ll find myself engaged to be married to Tony and the key will turn forever on a life I’m already locked in to, but ludicrously feel I could still escape at any time. There’s no logic to it. The only thing I know is that it’s got to be done. Now.
“Tony. I can’t do this. I don’t want to . . . marry you.”
His face in the half-light in our bedroom seems to melt. He’s lying beside me; his side is to the wall, mine to the door. I’m already primed for feminine duties: to be the one ready to get out of bed to bring cups of tea, comfort a sleepwalking child. I don’t know what I expected from Tony: roaring, gnashing of teeth, thumping the pillow—or me, perhaps. Instead there’s a sadness so forceful that I think I must be mistaken, I must take it back; I surely can’t be saying this, can’t be deciding three people’s future all alone like this. Tony lies still for a while, then reaches a hand for mine. From the way the bed is shaking, I know he is crying.
Later, that night, in the middle of the night, I’m almost relieved to find myself shaken awake, to find the sadness gone and replaced: Tony shaking me, his strong hands tight around my throat, his coffee-smelling breath hot on my face, hissing at me: “You ain’t never going to take Maria, you know that? I’ll fucking kill you first. Or kill her.”
Not for one instant do I think he could do it, strangle me. Kill me. He’s frightening, yes. But I’m made of rubber, I’m sure of it: I’ll bounce right back.
I’m up on all fours in a flash, grappling with him. I reach for a mug, at the side of the bed, and smash at his head with it. He lets go of my throat, and rolls away from me, only seeming to be half awake, and now groaning in pain. I’ve cracked him a huge whack on his temple.
“See!” I’m shouting, careful to yell from the hallway, at some distance from where he’s holding his arms round his head, staunching the blood with a sock. “I can’t marry you, you stupid bastard. That’s why! See! See what I mean?”
9
One Last Job
So. That’s another reason I had to do it. Come out of retirement. That last big job, I mean. To get some money, some independence, to support Maria by myself, but more importantly, to escape from Tony. You don’t reject a man like that and expect it to end there.
If you want to know why women stay with a violent man, it’s simple. Because instinctively we’ve always known that he will become dangerous at the point at which we leave him. As long as you stay, you’re convinced you can manage him, appease him, control him, match him, keep him sweet in some way. Leave, or try to, and his threats become real. To kill you, kill the children, kill himself. He might well do it now, because
he’s desperate; the full force of him is unleashed if you’re leaving him—he’s got nothing to lose.
The sadness returns, soon enough. New Year—1963—comes and goes, and with it Maria’s sixth birthday. I feel dimly that I’d rather Tony was angry than sad, because only when he’s angry can I feel certain I’m doing the right thing. I pack some stuff in two cases and leave Tony slumped over a coffee in the kitchen, Maria’s defeated birthday cake on the table, candles and icing all mashed up, wrinkled balloons bobbing round the floor, tired old faces. She runs to say goodbye to Daddy, no doubt thinking it’s a short-term thing, flinging her arms around him and then, when he clutches her, saying squeakily, “Daddy! You’re holding me too tight . . .”
We go to Annie and Dad’s in Lauriston. I tell them we’ve had a row, but nothing more. In any case, I know that Tony won’t be able to stay away. Four days later, he turns up, battering the door. Dad is out, Gracie, too, but Annie and Maria and I jump out of our skins, recognizing at once the quality of the knocking.
“Take Maria upstairs to the bedroom,” I tell Annie.
I open the door to Tony. He’s drunk, unshaven, black-eyed, and visibly shimmering with anger, like a lit firework on the doorstep. Sizzling.
“I want to see my daughter.” Everything about his face, his words, reveal the mood he’s in. As if he can’t actually see me, he’s so thick with malevolence.
“D’you think that’s a good idea? In the state you’re in?”
“I want to see my fucking daughter!” he roars.
I hear a couple of locks turning somewhere. A dog barking. A window opening. The mood is familiar enough. That day I was first caught hoisting, when Annie and Dad were fighting. Here, on this very doorstep.