Magnolia Square

by Margaret Pemberton

  Carrie suppressed a spurt of irritation. Despite her long and apparently happy marriage, Mavis had always been an outrageous flirt and – if the rumours were true – worse, and turning forty hadn’t cured her.

  ‘If he is, he’ll be fifteen years too young for you,’ she said unkindly.

  Mavis chuckled, laughter lines crinkling the corners of cat-green eyes. ‘That’s what you think, our Carrie. If he’s twenty-five, I think he’ll be just the right age!’ Still chuckling throatily, she walked off down the High Street, not the focus of quite as many masculine, head-turning glances as she had once been, but still the object of a good many.

  Carrie shook her head in despair. How Ted, her quiet-spoken brother-in-law, endured his rackety home life, Carrie couldn’t even begin to imagine.

  ‘Three pahnds o’ carrots, dearie, and ’alf a stone o’ spuds,’ a customer said, opening her shopping bag so that Carrie could tip the veg straight into it off the scales. ‘Was that your Mavis I saw you chatting to a minute or so ago? What’s she done with ’er ’air? Permed it? I’ve never seen so many curls on a grown woman before. She’ll be able to play Goldilocks in the next Christmas panto, won’t she!’

  With an effort, Carrie summoned a laugh and agreed with her. She didn’t truly feel like laughing, though. Mavis couldn’t possibly have known it, but her remark about her becoming frumpy had hit home very hard. That morning, for the first time ever, her husband Danny had addressed her as if she wasn’t his wife but his mother. It was something lots of south-east London men did, of course, but usually only after they were well into middle age. Her own father nearly always referred to her mother as ‘Ma’, rarely as Miriam. ‘Put the kettle on, Ma,’ he would say lovingly to her. ‘Me stomach finks me froat’s bin cut.’ Daniel Collins, her father-in-law, was just the same. ‘I’m off down to The Swan for a couple of jars, Ma,’ he would say to Hettie in his breezy, genial manner. ‘Do you want me to bring some fish and chips in on my way home?’

  Until now, Carrie had never really given it much thought. Her mother and Hettie were both well in their sixties, and somehow their husbands referring to them by the all encompassing ‘Ma’ didn’t seem odd. But she wasn’t in her sixties! And she didn’t want her husband referring to her as if all sexuality had gone out of their relationship and only loving mateyness remained. Across the pavement from the Jennings’ family fruit and vegetable stall were the large plate-glass windows of Marks & Spencer’s, and, as the stream of pedestrians passing up and down lulled, Carrie could see her reflection quite clearly. She chewed the corner of her lip. Was she beginning to look like her mother? She was big, certainly, but then she’d always been big, and the capacious leather cash-bag she wore for her daily stint at the stall didn’t help. Tied around her waist, it was so bulky it would have made a ballerina look as ungainly as an elephant. ‘But at least you’re not fat, Carrie,’ her best friend, Kate Emmerson, always said to her whenever she bemoaned her size. ‘You’re just splendidly Junoesque.’ Carrie folded her arms and, with her head a little to one side, studied her reflection. It was quite true that she wasn’t fat in the way many contemporaries of hers and Kate’s had suddenly become fat, but then she hadn’t had the number of children most of their old schoolfriends had had. A nasty miscarriage some years after Rose was born had ensured there’d been no more babies, though she had dearly wanted more.

  A light May breeze tugged at her hair. Coal-dark and thick, with a strong wave to it, she wore it as she had worn it ever since she was a young girl, untidily loose and jaw-length. Sometimes she clipped it back, but only rarely, and she certainly never experimented with it the way Mavis did hers, following every hair fashion that came out and, in-between times, copying the style of whoever was her favourite film star.

  ‘I said, a bunch o’ radishes and two boxes o’ cress,’a customer said irately, rattling her carrier bag for Carrie’s attention. ‘Cor blimey, gel, but you ain’t ’alf wool-gathering! An’ if those lettuces are fresh an’ there’s no slugs in ’em, I’ll take two.’

  For the rest of the day, until her father came to pack up the stall at five-thirty and to clear up all the debris that had accumulated around it, Carrie did her best to rise above the depression she was feeling. People didn’t come shopping down the market to be served by someone with a long face. They came not only for cheap, fresh produce, but for a smile and a cheery word as well.

  ‘Yer can tell Danny I’ll be dahn the club tonight to watch this new bloke spar,’ Albert Jennings said, relieving her of the day’s takings and paying her handsomely out of them, as he always did. ‘It’ll be interestin’ to see ’ow ’e shapes up. Jack seems to think ’e’s got ’imself a real winner.’

  Jack was Jack Robson, local rogue; owner of Lewisham’s Embassy Boxing Club; Danny’s boss; their neighbour and, ever since she and Danny were school kids, their friend.

  ‘Well, if Jack thinks he’s the bee’s knees, he probably is,’ Carrie said, not overly interested. She picked up her raspberry-pink swing-back coat from off a stool, slipped it on and kissed Albert on his leathery cheek. ‘See you in the morning, Dad,’ she said, grateful that it was he, not her, who trekked up to Covent Garden in the early hours for produce and who always set the stall up. ‘Ta-ra.’

  As she walked off down the High Street towards the clock tower, she wondered if her lack of enthusiasm about what was going on at the club wasn’t, perhaps, part of her problem. To Danny, the club was his whole life. He was both manager and coach and had been ever since the day the club had first opened its doors. It meant that not only did he spend most of every day there, but nearly every evening, too.

  ‘Cheer up, Petal,’ a familiar voice shouted from the opposite side of the road. ‘It might never ’appen!’

  Carrie grinned and waved to old Charlie Robson, Jack Robson’s dad.

  ‘Are yer goin’ up town next month for the coronation or watching it on me and ’Arriet’s new telly?’ he persisted, bawling across the road like a town-crier, his gnarled thumbs hooked behind his braces as he stood on the edge of the pavement, making no effort to close the gap between them. ‘Only we’ll need ter be knowin’ ’cos I fink we’re goin’ to ’ave an ’ouse full and ’Arriet’ll need to know ’ow many sausage rolls to make.’

  ‘I’m going up town on Coronation Day, Charlie,’ Carrie called back, beginning to cross the road towards him. She stood still for a moment to let a Ford Anglia nip past her and then sprinted to safety.

  ‘Yer won’t see all of it like you will if yer watch it on the telly,’ Charlie said, put out. He was proud of his and Harriet’s new telly and wanted to show it off. ‘Yer’ll be able to see everyfink wot’s ’appening inside the Abbey, as well as outside, on the telly.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ Carrie was unhappily aware that she was disappointing him, ‘but the atmosphere won’t be the same, will it? And I want to see the colours of the uniforms and regalia and flags and . . . oh, I don’t know, Charlie . . . I just want to be a part of it all.’

  ‘’Avin’ to sleep on a pavement the night afore to get a place to see ain’t wot I’d call atmosphere an’ colour,’ Charlie grumbled good-naturedly, ‘but if that’s wot you want, Petal, then I ’ope you enjoy every minute of it.’

  ‘Ta, Charlie.’ Carrie grinned at him affectionately. Like most of the neighbours in the square where she lived, Charlie was part and parcel of her life, and had been ever since she could remember.

  ‘An’ tell your Danny I’ll be dahn the club ternight to see this boy wonder my lad’s signed up. If ’e’s anything like this Rocky Marciano bloke the Yanks ’ave, we’ll all be on our way to a tidy fortune.’

  Carrie’s grin died. She knew that, apart from the legal fights Jack promoted, there were also other fights which didn’t get talked about quite so publicly. Fights where large sums of money were placed. Fights where what should have been her housekeeping money from Danny often went down the Swannee. Thoughtfully she watched Charlie amble away from her. Even in old age he was a bea
r of a man, and there were lots of stories locally about how, when he was young and in his prime, he’d been a criminal par excellence, the bane of every police constabulary for miles around.

  She began walking again, continuing on down the High Street until she reached the point where it ended, at the foot of Magnolia Hill. Was Jack Robson a chip off the old block? Did Jack also run outside the law and, if he did so, did he sometimes take her Danny with him? It was a disturbing thought and it wasn’t the first time it had occurred to her. She turned right into Magnolia Hill. Usually she enjoyed her walk home towards Blackheath, for the houses in Magnolia Hill were all elegant, nicely kept Edwardian houses with nearly every garden boasting one of the magnolia trees that had given the hill its name. The problem was, she reflected as she walked on, that she and Danny rarely had serious talks about anything any more, and bringing up a subject as touchy as whether or not all Jack’s business dealings were strictly kosher wouldn’t be easy. She wondered whether she should speak to Kate about her worries. Kate’s husband, Leon, though not employed at the club, was nearly as involved in it as Danny. He was a black ex-seaman, and during his naval days he had won medals galore for competitive boxing. And one thing was certain: Leon Emmerson wouldn’t be involved in any shady dealing. He was as straight as the proverbial arrow.

  She paused at the top of the hill, at the point where it opened onto a spacious square, debating with herself whether to go immediately home or to call in at Kate’s. From where she was now standing, her home was only yards away, the first house on the left-hand side of the square’s junction with the hill. The house on the immediate bottom right of the square was the house she was born in, and her mother and father and elderly gran still lived there. The first house going up the square on the right-hand side was Mavis and Ted’s house, conspicuous for its lack of paint and air of general dilapidation. Next to that was an empty gap where a house had been bombed to smithereens in the war. Then there was Jack Robson’s house. Like herself, he was born in Magnolia Square, and, despite the fact that he was obviously now doing very well for himself, he showed no signs of wanting to move away. There were then another three houses before, at the top end of the square, the houses changed character, becoming almost as large and gracious as those in Magnolia Hill. It was in one of these houses that the Emmersons lived.

  Carrie dithered for just one second longer and then made her decision. Rose would be home from school and well into her homework by now, but Danny would be home, too, waiting for her to come in and begin making him something to eat before he began his evening stint at the club. Carrie resolutely began walking past her old home. Tonight, if Danny wanted something to eat, he’d jolly well have to stop behaving like a man with two broken arms and make it for himself.

  There came the sound of an upstairs window being rapped, and Carrie looked upwards to see her gran waving at her. She waved back, mouthing and signalling that she hadn’t time to come in, that she was on her way to see Kate, but that she’d call by on her way home. Leah Singer made a typically Jewish, typically disparaging gesture. Carrie grinned. Her gran was bed-bound and, despite the constant visits of neighbours and grandchildren, always behaved as if she were a neglected prisoner in a medieval tower. It didn’t stop her getting to know all the gossip, though, and she would now be wanting to know all the latest about Jack Robson’s new boxer.

  Carrie glanced across the square, made elegant by the small Anglican church that graced its grassy centre island, to the house where Jack’s new protégé was going to take up lodgings. There was no sign of activity there, no youngsters hanging around, so presumably he hadn’t arrived yet. She gave a wry smile, aware that she was probably the only person in the square so uninterested, for the Embassy Boxing Club was viewed with affection and pride by Magnolia Square residents. Nearly all of them had helped Jack to get it off the ground in the early days after the war.

  Leon had volunteered all his considerable expertise, Danny had done likewise, on a cash basis. Elisha Deakin, landlord of The Swan, had offered Jack the use of empty rooms above the pub. Her mother, Miriam, who cleaned St Mark’s Church twice a week, even though she said she was now too old to stand on her feet all day at the market, kept the new-found premises spick and span. Her mother-in-law and father-in-law, Daniel and Hettie Collins, had put a sizeable amount of their hard-earned life savings into it, as had Jack’s ultra- respectable, elderly stepmother. St Mark’s vicar, the Reverend Bob Giles, had given the club his blessing by saying he hoped it would be the means of keeping a lot of local tearaways off the streets and out of trouble, and the young doctor who had moved his practice into number seven in the spring of 1950 had offered his services to Jack free of charge.

  She turned in through Kate and Leon’s gateway. A magnolia sieboldii graced the small front garden and was in full flower, its delicate blush-coloured flowers heart-stoppingly beautiful. Like all the houses in the top half of the square, a flight of wide, shallow stone steps led up to the front door. At the side of each step was a small pot thick with lavender, rosemary or thyme, and the air was heavy with fragrance and the hum of bees. She didn’t bother to knock on the door. She’d been walking in and out of number four as if it were her own home ever since she’d been a toddler.

  ‘Hello there!’ she called out as she stepped into the hallway, adding unnecessarily, ‘It’s me, Carrie!’

  Kate Emmerson came down the stairs with a squirming child tucked under one arm, a large tin toy truck caked with garden dirt under the other. She didn’t look remotely harassed. Her hair was a deep natural gold and she wore it plaited and coiled into a bun. Instead of making her look older than her thirty-five years, the unfashionable style only served to emphasize her innate elegance and gracefulness. ‘I left him playing with it in the garden,’ she said wryly, obviously referring to the truck as the dusky-skinned, curly headed ‘him’ in question continued to struggle furiously, ‘and the next thing I know there’s a trail of dirt all the way up to my bedroom.’

  ‘Gawage!’ her youngest son bellowed indignantly as she at last deposited him on his feet. ‘Not a bedwoom, a gawage!’

  ‘I don’t know how you cope,’ Carrie said, secretly wishing she had the same problem and trying not to feel envious. ‘Is it true a policeman caught Luke playing in the disused prefabs on Wednesday?’

  Luke was the present culprit’s eleven-year-old brother: an engaging rascal who looked as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth and yet was never out of trouble.

  Kate put the truck down on to a floor of highly polished linoleum and led the way into the kitchen. ‘Yes, it is true, and yes, Luke knew the prefabs were off-limits.’ She grinned ruefully as she began filling a kettle with water. ‘That was the attraction, I suppose. Honestly, Carrie, you’d never believe the difference there is between bringing up a child who lives at home and goes to a local school and gets into mischief every second your back is turned, and one who is safely parked at prep school.’

  Despite the dejection that had brought her to Kate’s, Carrie grinned back at her. There weren’t many people who would be quite as aware of the difference as Kate, but then, there weren’t many people who had such a socially and racially mixed bunch of children.

  Daisy, Kate’s eldest child, was adopted and, if her pale creamy skin, dark-blue eyes and dark hair were anything to go by, had a generous amount of Celtic blood in her veins. Matthew, twelve years old and three years younger than Daisy, was born illegitimately after his fighter pilot father’s heroic death at Dunkirk. Matthew’s father had come from a wealthy family and Matthew, at his father’s family’s expense, had always enjoyed a privileged education, going away at seven years old to the same exclusive preparatory school his father had gone to.

  Luke, her first child by Leon Emmerson, was born a little over a year after Matthew and was nearly as dark-skinned as his half West Indian father, and then, four years later, Jilly was born, and another four years later, Johnny.

  ‘Want a gawage!’ Johnny said now, e
xasperatedly. ‘Twucks need gawages!’

  ‘Why don’t you use the garden shed, pet lamb?’ Kate suggested, putting the kettle on to boil and then taking two cups and two saucers down from a nearby cupboard. ‘After all, trucks can’t go upstairs, can they? So the bedroom really wasn’t a suitable place. And if you garage the truck in the garden shed, you’ll be able to wash it down in there, just like the men do in real garages.’

  Johnny, a strap of his home-made dungarees slipping off his shoulder, regarded her thoughtfully for a long, silent moment. ‘A hose,’ he said at last in the tone of one who knows he’s pushing his luck but thinks there’s an outside chance he might just get away with it. ‘Can I use Daddy’s hose, Mummy?’

  ‘Not unless Daddy’s with you,’ Kate said imperturbably. ‘Now have a chocolate biscuit and go and play and let me have a quiet couple of minutes with Carrie.’

  The thought of playing with both water and his truck engaged Johnny’s attention. He might not be able to play with the garden hose on his own, but he could fill the watering-can from the garden tap and play with water that way. And it wouldn’t be naughty because his mummy didn’t say anything about not playing with taps and watering-cans. He accepted the biscuit Kate was proffering him and trotted obediently outside, a little angel bent on mischief.

  ‘So what’s brought you round at this time of day?’ Kate asked her lifelong friend as they waited for the kettle to boil. ‘Danny’ll be waiting for his tea, won’t he?’