by Nancy Revell
When they’d left they’d practically been blown off their feet by the winds that had worked themselves up into a frenzy while they’d been having their drinks. When they’d arrived at the little private road where Peter lived, Rosie had gasped in delight. Despite living and working in the town since the age of sixteen, not once had she ever stumbled across this little gem of a residential street that was gated at both ends and consisted of a row of thirteen immaculately kept Victorian terraced houses.
‘Mowbray Road!’ the young clippie’s voice sounded, bringing Rosie back to the here and now.
This was her stop. She jumped up, smiled at the conductress and stepped carefully back into the darkness of the blackout. As she hurried down the quiet, tree-lined street she passed the Sunderland Church High School, which she knew was the all-girls private school where Helen had been educated. As Rosie regarded the grand, slightly Gothic-looking building that she presumed must have at one time been the home of some town dignitary or other, the slightest wisp of resentment managed to skirt around her feelings of love and joy.
Helen was one of those women in life who just seemed to have had everything handed to her on a plate. She’d had a stable, happy home life – admittedly, Miriam was probably not the best mother anyone could wish for in the world, but Jack wasn’t far off the best dad a girl could have – on top of which she had never ever done without. But most of all, in Rosie’s opinion, she’d been given the greatest gift of all – a top-notch education.
As Rosie hurried across the Ryhope Road and on to a long, wide residential road called The Cloisters, which was also home to the magnificent Christ Church, Rosie started thinking about her conversation with Peter the other day. They often talked about Charlotte and she had told him about how she had found the single-sex school in Harrogate. It was one of the few state-funded boarding schools in the country, which meant that Charlotte’s education was paid for by the government, but all her living expenses – her board and lodgings – were financed by Rosie. When she had found out about the school all those years ago after her mum and dad were killed, she had been over the moon. She had looked into the Sunderland Church High School, but it had been too costly, and Rosie had also felt the need for her little sister to be somewhere their uncle Raymond wouldn’t easily find her, should he try.
But now, Rosie mused as she turned left into West Lawn, she didn’t have to worry about anyone knowing where her sister was, and her present income far exceeded what she had been earning back then.
As she reached the front gate of Lily’s and walked up the short gravel pathway, the beginnings of an idea started to form in her head. Could she bring her little sister back home to live?
All of a sudden, Rosie didn’t feel so tired as she hurried up the steps.
When Rosie reached the top and got out her key, the familiar whine of the air raid siren started up, and by the time she let herself in, Rosie was just in time to hear the house mantra, which, as always, was vocalised in true Mae West fashion by Vivian.
‘Come on, y’all.’ Vivian’s very convincing American accent was emitted in an almost growl. She stood with her hand in the air, demanding everyone’s attention and beckoning them to the cellar door.
‘And remember …’ She put her other hand behind her ear to show she was expecting a response.
‘Keep calm …’ she repeated the house mantra.
‘… and party on!’ the rest of the girls and their ‘guests’ sang out as they slowly made their way down the steep stone steps and into the extravagantly kitted-out basement-cum-air-raid-shelter.
Rosie shook off her mac and hung it up on the coat stand by the doorway, then followed everyone down to the cellar.
Lily, she noticed once her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, had added more rugs and also hung up some old oil paintings that had been gathering dust in the attic. There were also candles in every nook and cranny.
Rosie saw the slender back of Maisie as she moved from candle to candle, lighting them. She might have been full of herself since coming back from London, but she had also been eager to please, and had ingratiated herself even more with Lily by checking on La Lumière Bleue, Lily’s second business. Modelled on the Parisian ‘blue light’ brothels, it catered for a higher class of clientele.
Within just a few minutes everyone was settled, a record had been put on the portable gramophone and the drinks cabinet opened up. Milly, more or less a permanent fixture at Lily’s as both cleaner and cloakroom girl, was presently taking on the role of bartender and mixing and serving drinks on demand. Rosie wouldn’t have been surprised if she was on the verge of asking Lily to become a live-in employee.
Rosie greeted Lily, who gave her the usual light kiss on both cheeks, but was distractedly looking about the room. Rosie was just about to start saying something to her when Lily huffed dramatically and walked back up the stairs. Poking her head into the hallway, she bellowed out: ‘Kate! Ma chère. Descends! Now!’
A few minutes later a sheepish-looking Kate came scurrying down the steps and into the cellar. As usual she made a beeline for Lily. True to form, Kate, who would never come down to the shelter empty-handed, had a piece of embroidery in her hand.
Rosie went to get herself a brandy before returning to Lily, who had now commandeered the chaise longue. She had been chatting to the Brigadier but he was now being enticed away by Vivian, who knew that Lily’s patience was limited at times like this. She didn’t like to be stuck talking to clients for too long, especially the Brigadier, who was what Vivian deemed a ‘sweetie’ but had the annoying habit of spitting when he talked.
‘Lily.’ Rosie sat down on the chaise longue. ‘You all right?’ she asked.
‘Oui, oui, ma chère, I’m good. Just been a bit of a day of it. We haven’t had an air raid for weeks now – it lures you into a false sense of security, doesn’t it? You forget what a disruption they are. Never mind. Shouldn’t complain. There are worse things.’
Lily put her hands up to check that her oversized updo was still more up than down. Satisfied, she clasped her hands together. She looked at Rosie, who she could tell wanted to say something. Lily had known Rosie long enough now to know what she was thinking before Rosie herself did.
‘Well,’ Rosie began, ‘I’ve been wanting to chat to you – now that things have calmed down a bit.’
Lily gave a sharp gasp. ‘Calm! It certainly doesn’t feel like that. I’m being run ragged at the moment! I’ve had so much catching up to do since that unexpected week off we had!’ Seeing the instant look of guilt on Rosie’s face, Lily squeezed her hand.
‘That week,’ she added, ‘was actually quite nice in a strange kind of way. No work, just enjoying every day as it came.’
‘Mm.’ Rosie wasn’t remembering it quite through such rose-tinted glasses. ‘Like living every day as though it was your last, more like.’
Lily gently slapped Rosie’s hand before reaching for her Gauloises.
‘Remember, no smoking in the cellar!’ George’s voice warned as he made his way down the length of their underground sanctuary.
‘Force of habit,’ Lily said, putting the packet back down.
George came and sat next to Lily.
‘So, then,’ Lily asked, ‘what is it you wanted to chat to me about?’
‘Well,’ Rosie said, ‘you know before the “mass panic”?’ That had become Rosie’s way of referring to the night they’d had to shut up shop for fear of being raided by the police.
‘You mean,’ Lily said somewhat harshly, ‘when your copper “friend” found himself in – what did he call it? That “untenable” situation? – and couldn’t quite decide whether to grass us up or not?’
Lily might have forgiven Rosie for landing them in it, but her charity had not stretched as far as Peter, and she still couldn’t bring herself to absolve him for putting Rosie and the rest of the girls through a week of hell while he made up his mind whether to lock them all up.
‘Yes,’ Rosie said throu
gh pursed lips. Lately, whenever she chatted to Lily she felt her bubble of love and happiness start to deflate.
‘Before then,’ she continued, ‘we had started to talk about the possibility of legitimising the business, hadn’t we?’
‘Mm,’ Lily said. George had leant forward a little to hear what Rosie had to say as she had dropped her voice in order to keep their conversation private.
‘Well, I was wondering, because of everything that has happened, whether we should start looking at that seriously?’
Both Lily and George guessed that this wasn’t just a casual question. And they were right, Rosie had been giving it an awful lot of thought. From the moment she knew that Peter had found out about the business – the very illegal business she was involved in – she had been thinking of ways in which they could somehow become legitimate.
When she had been under the threat of exposure – and of imprisonment – after Peter had rumbled her ‘other life’, Rosie had vowed that if she managed to keep her liberty, then no one – especially not a man – would ever be able to have such control over her ever again. Her uncle Raymond had managed to screw her into such a tight vice she’d hardly been able to move; then Peter had come along, and although he was by no means in any way comparable to her uncle, her future had, for a while at least, been dependent on what he decided to do or not do. She knew now that Peter would never use her life at Lily’s against her, but what had happened these past few weeks had stoked her desire to make her life as normal and as legal as possible.
‘Well,’ Lily began. She seemed unexpectedly at a loss for words. ‘Yes, we can certainly start looking into that. I suppose it’s been so hectic lately, I haven’t really given it much thought.’
Lily looked at Rosie’s expectant face. She looked as though she was on a different planet – a happy one – and Lily didn’t want to spoil it for her. Rosie had had enough awfulness in the past without Lily dragging her back down to earth, much as she might want to.
‘Yes.’ Lily looked at George, who was wearing a blank expression on his face, making it impossible to know what he was really thinking. ‘We’ll definitely get our thinking caps on, won’t we, George?’
Rosie looked at them and smiled. ‘Thank you. Both of you!’
The excitement in her voice was painful for Lily and George to hear, but they beamed back at her.
‘In the meantime, though, you just concentrate on those ledgers of yours. Business is booming at the moment, so you just keep us right with all those balance sheets and whatnots of yours,’ Lily added.
Rosie gave them both a hug, which took them by surprise.
‘We just need this damned raid over with,’ Rosie said, but with no trace of real annoyance in her voice. ‘Next time I’m going to do a Kate.’ She flashed a look over at her old friend, now sitting in the corner hunched over her sewing, squinting to see what she was doing by the meagre light of the candle burning next to her.
As Rosie meandered over to chat to Milly, and when she was safely out of earshot, George whispered to Lily, ‘Darling, I feel awful. I feel like some deceitful old scoundrel.’ His voice sounded so down and dejected.
Lily looked at him and picked up her packet of Gauloises again and started rotating it in her hand.
‘Don’t be silly, George!’ she reprimanded him, but she too looked guilty.
‘We should have just come straight out and said it.’ George leant in again to speak into Lily’s ear. ‘I feel like we’re stringing her along.’
‘It would have been unwise to say anything to Rosie at the moment,’ Lily said, forcing a smile on to her face so that if anyone was looking at the pair of them they would think they were having a perfectly harmless, light-hearted conversation. ‘She’s flying high as a kite due to that bleedin’ copper of hers.’ Lily took a deep breath. ‘I hate to say it—’
George immediately butted in and finished her sentence off for her: ‘—but you don’t trust him as far as you can throw him.’
George had lost count of the number of times that Lily had told him this over the past couple of weeks since Rosie had coyly admitted that she and Peter were together, and quite clearly lovers at that. Neither of them had ever seen Rosie even a little in love, never mind totally and utterly head over heels.
‘Bloody typical of Rosie,’ Lily lamented. ‘She never as much as goes on a bleedin’ date – ever in all the time I’ve known her and I’ve known that girl since she was sixteen – and now, aged… how old is she? Twenty-two? … now she decides to fall madly in love. And with a copper! And not just some lowly boy in blue, but a bloody detective.’
As George looked at the woman he loved and whom he hoped to marry sooner rather than later, he realised she was right in not being entirely forthcoming with Rosie. He just hated not being upfront and truthful with anyone – let alone Rosie.
‘We have to keep our heads well and truly screwed on,’ Lily said quietly, still making sure she had a wide smile on her face, ‘as Rosie is very obviously losing hers to Detective Sergeant Whiter-than-White.’
She took George’s hand. ‘You and me both know there is no way we can go legit. Not completely. Not with the bordello. It’s impossible. And if Rosie was thinking straight, which she plainly isn’t, she would see that too. Yes, we might be able to make the Gentlemen’s Club a bona fide, above-board business – but the bordello? Never. It doesn’t matter how we dress it up, it’s always going to be what it is . . . Gawd, I need a fag,’ Lily muttered, looking at her packet of cigarettes.
‘I think,’ George said, ‘we will have to explain to Rosie that when we originally talked about going legitimate, it was more to do with the Gentlemen’s Club, and that we’d not really meant the bordello. The bordello will actually be keeping the club afloat until it gets going and becomes self-sufficient, which is going to take time.’
‘I know,’ Lily said. ‘I wish we’d never breathed a word about it. Besides, this is the only business I know, and Rosie may hate to admit it, but the same’s true for her too.’
As Lily and George chatted on the Regency settee, Rosie was standing next to Milly, nursing a brandy and looking around her. The faces she caught in the flickering candlelight were either deep in conversation or animated with laughter. Rosie thought how wonderful it would be to make all of this legal. She had no idea how, but she was sure Lily and George would find a way. George had his friend Rupert who was a lawyer. Surely he could work something out?
She and Peter had never once discussed the bordello. It was about the only subject they had not talked about, but she started to imagine how she would tell him that her ‘other life’ was now totally legal. That she was a proper businesswoman. An accepted part of society.
And there was another huge advantage in going legit – with nothing to hide, she could bring Charlotte back home for good.
Chapter Eighteen
Friday 19 December 1941
Vinnie sat up in bed, lit a cigarette and gave it to Sarah before pulling out another and lighting one for himself. He put the heavy glass ashtray on top of the bedspread between them. Sarah looked at Vinnie in surprise. He wasn’t normally so considerate. Especially first thing in the morning. He’d even been unusually considerate during their lovemaking last night.
Sarah inhaled on her cigarette, then blew out a long stream of smoke and felt happy. Happier than she had done for a while now. Perhaps things were finally starting to settle down.
It wasn’t far off a month since the christening fiasco, and since then Vinnie had rarely mentioned Gloria or the baby. Perhaps Vinnie’s stopover courtesy of the Sunderland Borough Police had instilled some sense into him, and made him get over this obsession with Gloria and the bab.
‘Let’s do something nice today, eh?’ Vinnie asked, tapping his cigarette on the side of the ashtray and taking another drag. ‘It’s not very often we have a day off together. And it’s nearly Christmas. Might as well make the most of it, what do you reckon?’
Sarah looked at
Vinnie with complete surprise for the second time in as many minutes. Things really were looking up.
‘Ah, I’d love to, Vin,’ Sarah said. ‘What do you reckon? A trip into town and maybe a drink in the Londonderry for a change?’
‘Sounds good to me!’ Vinnie stubbed out his cigarette and swung his legs out of bed. ‘Bloody hell! It’s brass monkeys!’ he said as he hurried to put his clothes on.
‘I’ll get a nice pot of char on the go,’ Sarah said, getting out of the bed and pulling an old woollen cardigan around her before padding into the kitchen. ‘And I think we’ll treat ourselves to a fry-up this morning.’
This was going to be a good day. It wasn’t very often she got into town of late. She might even persuade Vinnie to go to the flicks after they’d been to the Londonderry – perhaps even treat themselves to some fish and chips on the way home.
Vinnie and Sarah finally made it out of the flat at eleven o’clock and by the time they got the bus into the town centre it was gone half past.
‘I’ve got an even better idea,’ Vinnie said as they got off at the Park Lane depot. ‘Why don’t we head down to Hendon for a change?’
Sarah looked at Vinnie.
‘Ah, it’s a bit of a walk, Vin?’ she said, trying to keep the disappointment out of her voice. She didn’t want anything to spoil today, but still, she’d had her heart set on going to Jacky White’s market, maybe even picking up some cheap Christmas presents, and then over to Joplings – even if she couldn’t afford anything, she could at least window-shop.
‘Come on, yer lazy cow.’ Vinnie gave Sarah a playful shove. ‘Let’s do something different. Anyways, the girls at work are always saying that there’s some great shops along the Hendon Road – and some even better pubs.’
Sarah could tell that Vinnie had made his mind up and that it didn’t matter what she said, they were going to the town’s east end. Seeing Vinnie check his watch, she assumed he was thinking about opening times.