Magnolia Square

by Margaret Pemberton

  ‘Well, they won’t get much lovey-dovey sharin’ a ’ouse with ’er dad,’ Danny said, a wealth of feeling in his voice. ‘We don’t get much bloomin’ lovey-dovey living with your mam and dad, do we? And I don’t suppose even you can talk Carl Voigt into troopin’ dahn the river for the rest of the arternoon!’

  ‘I’ll have no need to,’ Carrie said with the serenity of certain knowledge. ‘Like the Vicar and Charlie, he’s got himself a lady-friend. She lives in Greenwich and that’s where he is now. Would you like to take Bonzo down the river with you? He could do with a walk.’

  ‘No, I blinkin’ wouldn’t!’ Indignantly he swung Luke high up on to his shoulders, took Rose’s hand in his, and said to Daisy and Matthew, ‘Come on, let’s be goin’ before we end up lookin’ like a circus with every dog in the bloomin’ Square ’angin’ on our ’eels!’

  Nellie, who never missed a trick, watched from the depths of her armchair as Danny led his little troupe out of the Square in the direction of the river. Carrie wasn’t going with them, which meant she was probably going to go after Christina and have a comforting word with her. It had certainly looked to be a fair old argy-bargy between Christina and Mavis. She grunted, uncomfortably aware that she’d been unintentionally responsible for it.

  On the far side of the Square the front door of number four slammed hastily shut behind Kate and Leon and then, seconds later, a bedroom window was slammed down on the noise of the party and the curtains hurriedly closed. Nellie’s currant-black eyes gleamed. What with Charlie Robson popping the question to Harriet Godfrey, and the Vicar deciding to re-marry, and Kate and Leon so obviously making up for all the years they’d been apart, passion was certainly alive and kicking in Magnolia Square. The question was, when was any of it going to come her way? She cackled at the very thought. It would take a strong man – a very strong man indeed! Happily content at the thought of all the weddings that were to come, she let go of her balloon, watching as it gaily sailed high over the rooftops in the direction of the Thames.

  Chapter Three

  ‘Where we goin’ to live when we’re married, ’Arriet?’ Charlie Robson, Christina’s father-in-law, asked Harriet Godfrey, Queenie padding at his heels. ‘Your ’ouse or mine?’

  Magnolia Square’s street party had come to a happy, exhausted conclusion. Hettie Collins’s piano had been trundled back into her parlour. Bob Giles, the Vicar, had scrupulously picked up all the litter that had drifted on to St Mark’s grassy island. Mavis had helped her mother and Hettie clear the trestle tables, and Daniel Collins and Albert Jennings had moved them away, stacking them in the church hall.

  Charlie and Harriet were now walking hand in hand over the Heath towards Blackheath Village and Charlie’s next-to-favourite pub, The Princess of Wales. The Swan, tucked tidily away at the bottom end of Magnolia Hill, was his favourite pub, but The Swan was a no-nonsense workmen’s pub and not the kind of watering-hole into which he could happily take Harriet, an ex-headmistress.

  Charlie’s question was one Harriet had been mulling over for several months, long before Charlie had even plucked up the courage to ask her to marry him. Her house, at the top end of Magnolia Square, was immaculate. No children had ever scuffed the furniture or frayed the carpets. Original watercolours hung in narrow gilt frames on cream-papered walls. A walnut drawleaf table that had been her mother’s graced the dining-room, smelling pleasantly of beeswax. A marquetry display cabinet that had been her grandmother’s held pride of place in her sitting-room. Her bedroom furniture was carved mahogany, her bed-linen and bedspread a pristine, lace-edged white.

  Charlie’s home, in the bottom, less salubrious half of the Square, was nearly as battered as the Lomaxes who lived next-door-but-one-to him. The dining-room was home to Charlie’s bicycle and the array of tools needed to keep it roadworthy. The sitting-room possessed a moquette-covered three-piece suite with sagging springs, a framed picture of King George and Queen Elizabeth in their coronation robes, and a wireless. The kitchen was the heart of the house, with its black-leaded fire and oven, its deal table, well-worn rag rugs and thick, blue-and-white striped crockery. Charlie, however, loved his home dearly, just as she loved hers. And Harriet knew that Charlie would find it as hard to feel at home living in her house as she would do living in his.

  ‘It’s a problem, isn’t it?’ she said, slowing her naturally inclined strides down so that she didn’t outpace him. A big man, Charlie never strode. He ambled. He never looked pin-neat either, as she did, though over the years she had managed to persuade him to wear his trouser belt through the loops provided for it, and to occasionally fasten a collar to his collar-stud. She looked across at him lovingly. She didn’t give tuppence about his shambolic appearance. He was generous-hearted, compassionate and kind, and she thought herself the luckiest woman in all the world that, having lived all her life as a spinster and after being retired for more years than she cared to remember, she was now on the verge of becoming his wife.

  ‘My house is too formal for you to feel comfortable in, and your house is too casual for me to feel comfortable in.’

  Charlie nodded agreement. Harriet had a wonderful way of summing things up. It came of her being educated.

  ‘And so we’ll just have to compromise,’ Harriet said, choosing her words carefully. ‘If I come to live with you, you’ll have to let me make a few changes. I wouldn’t want your bicycle in the dining-room for instance, and I’d want to re-decorate the sitting-room. And if you come and live with me I’ll put all my bone-china away and we can use your blue-and-white-crockery and—’

  ‘But where’d I put my bicycle, ’Arriet?’ Charlie asked as they skirted one of the Heath’s gorse-covered gravel-pits, and Queenie raced down one side of it and up the other. ‘I can’t put it in the shed. My pigeons are in the shed. And I can’t leave it propped in the back garden ’cos Billy Lomax will have his ’ands on it if I do.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Harriet said thoughtfully, her tweed skirt flapping a few inches above her sensibly brogued feet, a pearl necklace adding a touch of elegance to her raspberry-coloured twin-set. ‘And there’s another snag, Charlie.’

  Charlie looked alarmed. It wasn’t like Harriet to admit there were snags. Harriet didn’t hold with snags. Snags were something she always speedily sorted out. ‘What’s that, petal?’ he asked nervously. ‘It’s not the pigeons, is it? I wouldn’t want to part with my pigeons.’

  ‘Of course it isn’t the pigeons,’ Harriet said truthfully. ‘It’s something a little more awkward than that.’ She hesitated and then said gently, ‘It’s your Jack.’

  ‘Jack?’ Charlie’s craggy face was pathetically bewildered. ‘But Jack ain’t ’ome, ’Arriet. ’E’s in the Commandos!’

  ‘But he’s coming home, Charlie.’ Harriet steered him across the road flanking the Heath and towards the pub. ‘And soon he won’t just be home on leave. He’ll be demobbed and home for good. And if he comes home to find I’ve moved in he might not like it.’

  It was an understatement and Charlie knew it.

  ‘And then there’s Christina,’ Harriet said adroitly, moving in for the coup de grâce. ‘She and Jack will want to be setting up home together and they can’t do so at the Jenningses. Their house is packed to the rafters as it is.’

  ‘Jack wouldn’t live at the Jenningses!’ Charlie said, indignant at the very thought. ‘Why should ’e when ’e’s got a ’ome of ’is own?’

  This was exactly the conclusion Harriet had been steering him towards. As she seated herself at their favourite table near the door, and Queenie lay docilely down at her feet, she said reasonably, ‘And so Christina will be moving in with you and Jack, and if I move in as well, we’re going to be nearly as crowded as the Jenningses.’ She tucked a straying strand of hair back into her bun, saying tentatively, ‘And so it might be best if you moved in with me and let Christina and Jack have the house to themselves. I know they’d appreciate that, Charlie. And I would make my house as comfy as possible for y
ou. After all, if we share the house it will be yours just as much as mine. And it’s always been a lonely house. With you in it, if won’t be lonely any longer.’

  Charlie looked down at her, a lump in his throat. Lonely? Had his Harriet really been lonely before she met him? It was hard for him to credit. She was so organized, always sitting on committees and such like. And yet it was he who had transformed her life. Him. Charlie Robson, ex-illiterate and ex-criminal. Well, thanks to her patient teaching he was illiterate no longer. And he wasn’t a criminal any longer, either.

  ‘You’re right, ’Arriet,’ he said, happy to bow to her superior judgement. ‘Jack and Christina need to set up ’ouse together, and though the government’s promised ’omes in plenty for men being demobbed, there’s precious few ’omes for ’eroes being built yet. And I reckon me and Queenie could settle anywhere just as long as I ’ave a pint mug for my char and Queenie has a bed that ain’t in a draught.’

  At his mention of Queenie, and at the thought of dog hairs on her Turkish carpets, a spasm almost of pain crossed Harriet’s face. It was quickly vanquished. Queenie was a well-behaved animal and she had known, right from the beginning of her friendship with Charlie, that where he went, Queenie went too. Making the ultimate sacrifice, she said, ‘Queenie can have her basket in the kitchen, next to the Aga. And now I think I’d like a dry sherry, Charlie. It’s been quite a day, hasn’t it? And the best bit was seeing Kate and Leon so happy together. It did my heart good just looking at them.’

  ‘It was wonderful to see Kate and Leon together,’ Kate’s father’s middle-aged lady-friend said as they sat drinking mugs of hot cocoa in her little terraced house in Greenwich. ‘I expect there’ll be a wedding now, just as soon as one can be arranged.’

  Carl Voigt nodded, his rimless spectacle lenses glinting in the light of the small gas-lamp she had lit when dusk had fallen. ‘Though it won’t be a white wedding,’ he said with a small, sad smile.

  Ellen Pierce’s eyes widened slightly. Carl had never spoken to her of Leon’s West Indian blood, and it was totally unlike him to make a dry joke of it, especially when the joke hung on the hook of his daughter’s wedding.

  ‘Does it matter so much to you?’ she asked in deep concern. ‘Because if it does, you must remember that it could have been far worse. Leon might have been a black American serviceman, not a black British serviceman, and then where would you have been? He would have taken Kate to America, and she and the children would be living in Pennsylvania or Virginia or Alabama—’ She broke off, aware that he was staring at her in blank perplexity. ‘It was Leon’s skin colour you were referring to, wasn’t it?’ she asked, suddenly unsure and feeling desperately awkward.

  ‘His skin colour?’ Carl frowned, trying to remember exactly what it was he had said. ‘Why should that have any bearing on Kate being unable to wear white on her wedding day? I was thinking about the fact that she’s already a mother. A mother twice over.’

  Ellen flushed deeply. Carl was a quiet, cultivated, sensitive man to whom any sort of coarseness was anathema. ‘It hasn’t any bearing on it,’ she said hurriedly, hoping he wouldn’t realize in what way she had misunderstood him, ‘and you’re quite right, it is a pity that a girl as young as Kate should be unable to have a white wedding with all the trimmings.’ She put her mug of cocoa down on the tiled hearth of the fireplace. ‘That is, it’s a pity if it really is impossible. Under the circumstances, Matthew’s father being killed before he even knew Kate was having a baby, and Leon being a prisoner from before Luke was born, I don’t think Mr Giles would mind too much. I mean, I don’t think he would refuse to marry Kate if she decided she wanted to wear white.’

  ‘Probably not,’ Carl said, doubt in his voice, ‘but even if Bob Giles didn’t object, the local matrons would have plenty to say! It would be asking for unkind comments, and there may be enough of those, from people who don’t know Leon well.’

  Ellen remained silent, not knowing quite what to say. She knew that this time he really was referring to Leon’s skin colour and was nervous that anything she said might sound wrong. If she said Leon’s skin colour didn’t matter, Carl might take the view she wasn’t being aware enough of the difficulties Kate and Leon would undoubtedly face in the years ahead of them. If she agreed there would be unkind comment, Carl might assume she not only thought such comments to be expected, but that she had a glimmer of sympathy with them.

  She clasped her hands tightly in her lap, torn by an agony of indecision. Why, oh why did she constantly feel so apprehensive of what was the proper thing to say or do? Was it Carl’s natural reticence that made conversational intimacy between them so difficult? Or was it just her own deep-seated sense of insecurity? And why was she so insecure? She was forty-two for goodness sake! She had a good job, good health, and owned her own home. And she was terrified of losing Carl Voigt’s affection. Terrified that he would one day realize she wasn’t his intellectual equal.

  ‘Whatever Kate wears, she’s going to be a beautiful bride,’ she said, knowing with relief that this statement at least was utterly true, and utterly safe. ‘It’s going to be a joyous wedding. The most joyous Magnolia Square has ever had.’

  It was late afternoon the next day when Christina walked up the Voigts’ garden path and the short flight of shallow steps that led to their immaculate, primrose-painted front door. She knew she wouldn’t be intruding on Kate and Leon because she had seen Leon striding down the Square towards Magnolia Hill, Luke astride his shoulders, Matthew and Daisy skipping along at either side of him. Even from inside number eighteen she had heard the children’s happy laughter. Wherever Leon was, there was always happiness and laughter.

  As she let the polished bronze knocker fall in a light tap against the door, she felt a spasm of envy. Kate and Leon were such an uncomplicated couple. There were no hidden depths to either of them, or none that she had ever been able to discern. It was impossible to think of Kate tormenting herself because Leon was, in ways she couldn’t quite define, a stranger to her. And it was impossible to think of Leon causing Kate jealousy.

  She gave a slight, almost Gallic shrug of her shoulders. What on earth was the point of feeling envious? Even if she could have Leon as a husband she wouldn’t want him. Likeable as he was he could never, in a million years, set her heart racing and her pulse pounding as the mere thought of Jack did. And once Jack was home for good, he would no longer seem like a stranger to her. And she would make utterly, utterly sure that she had no cause for jealousy. None at all.

  ‘Come in!’ Kate called out, from what Christina judged to be the kitchen, ‘the door’s on the latch.’

  She opened the door to be nearly bowled over by Hector. ‘Down!’ she commanded, fending off his friendly overtures, wondering why it was the British thought no house a home unless it contained a dog. Leah had a whippet. Her father-in-law had an Alsatian. Ellen Pierce, Kate’s father’s lady-friend, had three dogs, all of which she had taken in as bombed-out strays.

  ‘I’m making some fairy cakes for the children’s tea,’ Kate said, greeting her with a wide, sunny smile. ‘Hettie’s given me the icing sugar left over from the cake she made for the street party. She must have had the packet since before the war – it was so lumpy I had to take a rolling-pin to it!’

  Christina’s answering smile was unintentionally as enigmatic as the Mona Lisa’s.

  ‘Why can’t Christina smile properly?’ Hettie Collins had once demanded of Jack Robson. ‘Why can’t she show her teeth like other people do?’

  ‘Because she isn’t other people,’ Jack had said irritably. ‘She’s beautiful, and beautiful women don’t grin. They have pussycat smiles instead.’

  She said now, clasping her hands together on top of the table, ‘There’s something I want to talk to you about, Kate. Something important.’

  Kate iced the last fairy cake, dropped the knife into a sink of soapy water and turned to look at her, her eyes apprehensive. Was it about Mavis and Jack? Was Christina going
to admit that it was a relationship deeply troubling her? ‘What is it?’ she asked, hoping fervently that her guess wasn’t going to be proved correct.

  Christina waited until Kate had seated herself at the table opposite her and then said thickly, ‘It’s about my family, Kate. I can’t stop thinking about them. I can’t help wondering if, by some miracle, they might still be alive.’

  Kate’s eyes widened. In all the years she had known Christina, she had never discussed her family with her. She said hesitantly, ‘Have you any reason to think it a possibility? I always understood your brother and father had been shot, and that your mother and grandmother had been taken to a concentration camp.’

  Christina’s beautiful face was pale, and there were faint blue shadows beneath her eyes. Revealing her feelings and emotions had never been easy for her, and even now, after nine years, she was totally unable to speak of the deaths of her brother and father. She said instead, ‘My mother and grandmother could still be alive. I never knew which camp they were taken to, or even if they were taken to a camp. I only knew that the Nazis regarded our family as being an enemy of the state and were intent on stamping it out.’

  Kate blinked. She had always assumed Christina’s family had been murdered and hounded simply because they were Jews. Was there more to it, then? Had they been actively plotting against Hitler and his government at a time when the British government was still trying to read pacific intentions into Hitler’s aggressive actions? In 1936, Nazi troops had occupied the Rhineland. British politicians had expressed the view that Hitler was ‘only re-occupying his own back yard.’ Later in the year, Hitler had signed a pact with Mussolini. Though it was obvious to anyone who had eyes to see, that the two dictators would now terrorize and hunt as a pack, the British Ambassador in Berlin had been a guest at the ceremony.