‘Look…er…if she says she don’t want to talk to you, son, I think you’d better push off.’
‘Mr Smith, I—’ he began, when the next door along opened and Marlene put her head out. Her face was pale and her hair was a mess.
‘Will you lot stop making such a bloody row? Some of us ain’t feeling well.’
It only needed Irma to come along and the whole story would be reported to his mother. He ignored the two grown-ups and put his head to Scarlett’s door, forcing his voice to be low and reasonable.
‘I’ll speak to you later, Scarlett. We’ll work something out.’
There was no reply.
He hung about in the staff kitchen until opening time to avoid seeing his parents, then spent a miserable hour in the flat, sitting at the window and staring out unseeing across the water. What was he going to do? The dilemma went round and round in his head. The last thing he wanted to do was to hurt Scarlett. The last thing he wanted to do was to leave her. But—but this opportunity was just too good to miss. If he turned it down, it would never come again. The day had started so well, too. They had been so happy, larking around on the beach and watching the carnival. And now this. Scarlett was locked in her room, probably crying, and he was here feeling like a complete monster, trying to find a way through.
He held his head in his hands, digging his fingers into his scalp. This was all so confusing. He’d known roughly where his life was going and suddenly Scarlett had come along and everything had been turned upside down. If this was what they called love, then it wasn’t at all like all the songs and stuff. He still hadn’t worked it out when seven o’clock rolled round and he had to go downstairs.
Both bars were heaving. Men were three deep trying to get served and every seat and practically all the standing room was taken. The air was already thick with cigarette smoke and the noise was tremendous.
‘There you are, son,’ his father boomed above the racket. ‘’Bout time too. Get your arse in gear and clear those tables.’
‘You said seven,’ Jonathan shouted back at him, and dived through the melée to grab the glasses from the nearest table.
His hands full, he scurried along the dank passage leading to the toilets and into the small storeroom behind the bar area that had been fitted with a sink and draining board for just such busy times as this. Scarlett was already there, drying a trayful of pint jugs. She stiffened as he came in, but didn’t turn round.
‘Scarlett,’ he began, placing the dirty glasses in the sink, ‘please try and see it my way—’
‘Why should I?’ she retorted. ‘You don’t see it my way. You don’t care that I’m going to be left here all alone.’
‘Of course I do. I don’t want—’
Scarlett thrust the finished tray at him.
‘You’d best take these through. I’m not allowed.’
Jonathan sighed and carted the jugs into the bar.
It was frantic in the serving area. Irma and a temporary barmaid were in the lounge bar, Mr Smith and another temporary in the public bar area and his parents were moving between the two, keeping a watchful eye on the whole pub and serving more than the other four put together.
‘Seventeen and eightpence, not tuppence,’ he heard his father correct Mr Smith, as he pulled a pint for the round he was serving. His dad was good at that, adding up someone else’s round and his own at the same time and getting both of them right. Bar staff found it unnerving, but it made them concentrate harder on being accurate, even when it was as busy as this. Jonathan unloaded the jugs and dived under the flap to collect some more.
The evening rolled on with no slackening of the pace. Jonathan collected glasses, emptied ashtrays and fetched supplies up from the cellar. Every time he took empties in to Scarlett he tried to reason with her, but somehow they never got further than a few sentences. Either one of the barmaids would come to fetch a clean trayful, or his mother or father would shout for him to come and do something. Once when he came through the passageway he ran into Scarlett’s father. He was leaning against the wall swigging from a flat quarter bottle of Scotch. When he saw Jonathan he hastily screwed the top on and thrust it in his pocket.
‘I bought it myself,’ he said.
‘Yes, of course,’ Jonathan replied, but a lifetime of listening to his parents discussing the shortcomings of bar staff made him wonder. Maybe Mr Smith had bought the original bottle from an off-licence. They didn’t sell them at the pub, after all. But it would be easy enough to refill it from the optics. A squirt here and a squirt there wouldn’t be missed in the volume they sold on a busy day but, if his parents did find out, there would be hell to pay. It was yet another thing to worry about.
He took the latest lot of empties through to Scarlett and, as he did so, the sound of angry voices could be heard above the general level of noise in the public bar. Then there was a crash and howls of rage.
‘Fight,’ Jonathan said, standing in the doorway through to the bar and craning his neck to see.
Unable to resist the drama, Scarlett came to his side, wiping her hands on her apron. Together they watched as Jonathan’s father waded in and separated the combatants. Jonathan could feel the warmth of Scarlett’s arm against his, could hear the intake of her breath. As his father threw the troublemakers out into the street, he put his arm round Scarlett’s shoulders and pulled her away from the doorway so that they couldn’t be seen from the bar. He gathered her resisting body to him and spoke into her dark hair.
‘I’m sorry, Scarlett. I don’t want to leave you, really I don’t—’
Her fists were clenched against his chest. ‘I couldn’t bear it here without you.’
He felt as if he were being physically torn apart. ‘I’ve got to do it, can’t you see? It’s my whole future. When I’m a trained chef, I shall open my own restaurant. We could run it together, you and me. It’d be terrific.’
‘But that’s years and years away,’ Scarlett protested.
Inspiration struck him.
‘You could come and join me, once you’ve left school. I could find you a job. We could both live in Paris. It’d be wonderful, Scarlett. Just think, both of us in Paris together!’
The stiffness went out of her and she looked up at him, her great dark eyes drowned in tears.
‘Do you think we could?’
‘Of course.’
Right at that moment he could do anything—anything at all. He could conquer the world. He bent his head and did what he had been longing to do almost from that first day she’d burst into his life. He kissed her sweet lips.
CHAPTER SEVEN
SCARLETT loathed Jonathan’s father almost as much as she loathed his mother. He was a big, heavy-set man with a massive balding head and a belligerent manner, very different from her own gentle dad. But worse than that, there was something about the way he looked at her that she hated.
It was Marlene who warned her.
‘Don’t let the Guv’nor get you in a tight place by yourself. He don’t know how to keep his hands to himself. And if the Missus catches him at it, it’ll be you what gets it in the neck. I seen it happen lots of times. Me, I make sure there’s always someone else around.’
‘Right. Thanks,’ Scarlett said.
It was yet another thing to worry about, along with her dad’s health, starting at her new school and, hanging over it all, Jonathan’s departure to Paris in the autumn. Top of the list at the moment was buying her new school uniform.
‘But you got a school uniform,’ her father said when she raised the subject one morning.
‘I’ve got one for my old school. It’s no use for the new one, it’s the wrong colour,’ Scarlett explained, handing him his cup of tea to drink in bed and locating his matches. Surely he must understand that? ‘It’s only the white shirts that are the same, and anyway the ones I had last year are too tight.’
It was a pity about the shirts. They were perfectly all right for another year, but they no longer did up over her swe
lling breasts. What she needed as well was a bra, but she couldn’t possibly tell him that. The yearning for her mother came over her yet again. It would have been so nice to go shopping for bras with her mum.
‘I need a skirt and a jumper and a tie and a mac and a beastly beret,’ she said, blinking back the threatening tears.
‘Oh, dear. That’s going to add up to a pretty penny, isn’t it?’
‘But I’ve got to have them, Dad. I can’t go to school without the uniform.’
It was going to be horrible enough starting somewhere where she didn’t know anyone at all and everyone else had their own groups of friends. At her last school she had known everyone in her own year and quite a few of the older and younger girls.
Victor felt in the pockets of the trousers he had hung over the bedhead. He produced some grubby notes and a handful of silver.
‘See how far that goes, love, and if it ain’t enough, I’ll see if I can get a sub off the Guv’nor.’
As he handed her the money, she caught a whiff of alcohol on his breath. It wasn’t the first time.
‘You been drinking, Dad?’
He avoided her eyes. ‘No, no. I had one or two last night, that’s all. Now, off you go and see what you can buy, there’s a good girl.’
‘You could come with me,’ she said. ‘It’s your day off today, isn’t it?’
Victor rubbed the back of his neck.
‘Ah…well…now…I’d like to, love, but I’m really tired, you know? Trekking round the shops, it’s hard on the feet. I was thinking of catching up with the shut-eye.’
‘That’s all you ever do,’ Scarlett grumbled.
It was always a terrible job getting him out of bed in the mornings and, when she wasn’t out all day herself, she would find him back in bed again between midday and evening opening times. What was more, he always had a Scotch or two then before closing his eyes. She sometimes had to take the bottle out of his limp hand and set it on the table.
Victor gave an apologetic smile. ‘Your poor old dad’s not as young as he used to be, you know, love. This place—it’s a bit different from the dear old Lion. On the go all the time. And it’s hard taking orders after being the boss.’
‘I suppose,’ Scarlett said.
She realised that he was having to work a lot harder. Instead of having her and her mum running round doing all the donkey work, he was having to graft himself. And his hours behind the bar were quite different too. There was no leaning on the bar or sitting on a stool yarning with the regulars, it was non-stop serving. He did look tired. The film star looks that her mother had fallen for had collapsed into a lined and weary face. The carefree air had disappeared. Just looking at him made Scarlett feel anxious, but she didn’t know what to do to help him. She fell back on her mother’s fix-all remedy.
‘Would you like another cuppa?’ she offered.
Victor patted her hand.
‘That’d be lovely. You’re a good girl, Scarlett. Take after your mum. You know—’ he paused and sighed, staring up at the flaking grey paint on the ceiling ‘—I just miss her so much. I don’t know what to do without her, and that’s a fact.’
‘I know,’ Scarlett agreed.
Nothing could fill the gap left by her mother, but at least she did have Jonathan. It wasn’t the same, but it was wonderful and exciting. Sometimes she felt as if she could spread her arms and fly. She had all that, and her father didn’t. No wonder he was tired. She gave up making demands on him and went to get the money she had earned from several washing-up sessions. She had been saving it to get some smart clothes for the winter and a farewell present for Jonathan, but starting school in the wrong colour was unthinkable, so that had to come first.
It was as they were walking back down the High Street with carrier bags full of stiff new clothes that she realised that Jonathan was unusually quiet.
‘What’s up with you, don’t you like shopping?’ she asked. After all, it was supposed to be a women’s occupation. Other girls had been out with their mothers choosing things.
‘No, it’s not that. At least—I’m not keen usually but it’s different with you. Everything’s fun when we do it together.’
Scarlett glowed with pleasure. ‘That’s just how I feel,’ she said.
They squeezed each other’s hands and smiled. But she could see that something was still troubling him.
‘Come on, spit it out,’ she said.
They sat down on a bench at the top of Pier Hill. The last of the summer trippers were flooding down the pier from the steamers, everyone dressed up and cheerful despite the grey day and the threat of rain in the air.
‘Look…er…this is a bit difficult,’ Jonathan started.
A sinking feeling of doom formed in Scarlett’s stomach. Last time he had spoken like this, it had been to tell her that he was going to France.
‘Go on.’
‘Well…Mum and Dad, they have these downs on people. It doesn’t really mean anything, but…well, at the moment they seem to have their knife into your father. They keep going on about his timekeeping and stuff—’
‘That is so unfair!’ Scarlett flared and, even as she said it, she knew that it was nothing of the kind. She was always having to remind him to go and start work.
‘I know, but…well, it’s not just that. It’s…well, there’s been quite a run on the Scotch and Mum marked the optics and someone’s been using them out of hours—’
The feeling of doom was making her quite queasy.
‘I hope they’re not saying my dad’s taking it?’ she said, fear making her aggressive. It all added up. She hated herself for even thinking it, but he had been drinking Scotch, and there was that business of the old lady’s money. ‘That’s slander, that is. My dad’s not a thief!’
‘I’m sure he’s not. But if you could just…it’d be terrible if he was to get the sack, Scarlett. We wouldn’t be able to see half so much of each other.’
‘I’ll tell him. So that he can be on the lookout for whoever it is. It’s probably one of the part-timers,’ she said, with far more conviction than she felt.
‘Right. Yes, I’m sure it is. I just thought you ought to know,’ Jonathan said.
‘Well maybe you ought to—’ Scarlett retorted, and stopped short.
‘Ought to what?’
Ought to know that his dad was no saint. It was on the tip of her tongue. But she had no proof. It was just a feeling.
‘Nothing.’
‘No, go on. If you want to say something, then say it.’
There was just the same edge of aggression in his voice that she had used. She guessed it was for the same reason. He couldn’t be sure of his father either.
‘It’s nothing. Just something Marlene said, that’s all.’
‘Marlene’s got a big mouth and a chip on her shoulder. You don’t want to listen to what she says.’
‘Right.’
They both stared at the pier. They’d managed to keep the family loyalties and they’d managed not to row over their parents, but still it put a shadow over the rest of the day, blighting some of the very little time they now had left.
The first few days of September flew by. Scarlett started at her new school and, although it wasn’t quite as bad as she had anticipated, still there was a lot to get used to. It helped that Jonathan came to meet her each day and walked home with her.
The illuminations were now switched on all along the sea front. There were strings and networks of coloured lights and all sorts of fantastic set pieces that appeared to move as the bulbs flashed on and off. Fountains spurted, fish jumped and splashed, plants grew, animals trotted, all in arrangements of coloured bulbs. Along the cliff gardens, trees and shrubs glowed blue, red and orange, while the Never-Never Land was a magical place of lights and fairy tale models. The summer season extended into September as trippers came down from London in their thousands to wonder at it all, and stayed on to visit the Kursaal, eat fish and chips and drink in the sea front pubs.
On busy evenings Jonathan and Scarlett were required to help out. Even Jonathan’s mother had conceded that Scarlett was quick and efficient, and employing her meant that bar staff could be where they were needed most. For her part, Scarlett enjoyed quite a lot of the job. The actual washing up was dull and tiring, but she was earning some money, Jonathan was in and out of the little room all the time and it was good to be part of a team that was keeping up with the public’s insatiable demands. Her father and the barmaids would use a trip to bring glasses out as an excuse for a quick break, and would stay for a few moments to have a joke with her or tell her what was going on in the bars.
On the last Saturday in September, the Trafalgar was crowded once again and Scarlett was up to her elbows in soapy water.
‘They’re good tippers out there tonight. That’s the sixth one that’s bought me one for myself,’ Marlene said, whipping out her lipstick and powder compact and giving her make-up a quick once-over.
‘All right for some. Nobody gives the washer-upper a tip,’ Scarlett said.
Marlene squinted at herself in the little mirror, patted her hair, gave a satisfied nod and snapped the compact shut.
‘All in good time, darling. You’ll be pulling it in when you’re old enough.’
‘I’m not going to work in a pub.’
‘Ooh, hoity-toity! You think you’re better than all this then, do you?’
‘No. I just want to do something different.’
‘We’ll see.’
Marlene looked over her shoulder in a theatrical fashion and lowered her voice. ‘Best have a word with your old man, dearie. The Guv’nor don’t mind the odd drink or two, but he’s had more than that. If he can’t keep up because he’s pissed, there’ll be hell to pay. All right? Don’t mind me saying, do you?’
And she made off, leaving Scarlett cursing.
Jonathan came in with his hands full of empties. ‘What’s up?’
‘Oh, just Marlene being Marlene.’
Jonathan put the glasses in the sink and gave her a hug. ‘Ignore her.’
Bye Bye Love Page 7