Room for a Stranger

by Ann Turnbull

  “She wouldn’t.”

  “I’ll tell her she can’t come.” But he looked unwilling.

  “Don’t bother,” said Doreen.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Rhoda and Lennie left at twelve the next morning, as soon as Lennie got home from work.

  “’Bye, Doreen,” said Rhoda in a small voice. She looked sheepish. Doreen guessed Mum had had a word with her last night.

  “Have a good time,” she said sarcastically.

  Mum sighed and shook her head. She began clearing the table.

  Doreen heard Lennie and Rhoda talking as they walked across the yard. Then she heard the sound of the shed door opening. She sprang to her feet.

  “My bike!” she said.

  “Doreen—” Mum began. But Doreen was already out in the yard.

  Lennie’s bicycle was propped up against the shed wall and he was bringing out the other one: a lady’s, with a basket on the front.

  Doreen threw herself at him. “She’s not having my bike!”

  “It’s not yours. It’s Mary’s.” Lennie felt the tyres: squashy; he unclipped the pump.

  “It’s mine for now.”

  “Yours and Mum’s,” said Lennie. He was pumping steadily.

  “I asked your mam,” said Rhoda.

  Doreen glared at her. “You never asked me! And you’re not having it.” She grabbed at the handlebars, knocking Lennie off balance.

  “For heaven’s sake, Doreen,” he shouted, “don’t be so babyish!”

  Mum had come out. “Doreen, I told Rhoda she could take the bike. It’s Mary’s bike, not yours. Now leave Lennie alone.”

  Doreen gave the bicycle a hard shove towards Lennie and ran inside.

  Everybody was against her. She hated them all. She stormed upstairs and into her bedroom. The two beds confronted her; hers unmade, Rhoda’s neatly covered with its floral quilt.

  She hated Rhoda.

  She began to drag out the screen from behind the dressing-table. Mum came up, alarmed by the noise.

  “What are you doing?

  “I want the screen up.”

  “You’re being silly.”

  “I’m not!” Doreen was close to tears. She got the screen into place and retreated behind it, to her own bed.

  Mum followed her. “I told Rhoda she could have the bike. I know she was wrong to let you down, but refusing her the bike wouldn’t have made any difference.”

  “It might have stopped her going.”

  “And how would she have felt, then? She still wouldn’t have wanted to join in with you.”

  “It’s not fair,” said Doreen. “She gets everything.”

  “She doesn’t. I treat you all the same.”

  “I didn’t mean that. I meant…people. Lennie. Aunty Elsie.”

  “Elsie does seem to like her,” Mum agreed.

  “She used to like me.”

  “Oh, Doreen! She loves you. You can love more than one person, you know. It isn’t rationed – not like butter.”

  Doreen plucked at the patchwork quilt – the one Aunty Elsie had made her. “That Rhoda – she pushes in,” she muttered.

  “Perhaps no one takes much notice of her back home,” suggested Mum. “If you could share Lennie and Aunty Elsie with her, while she’s here…It won’t be for ever.” She stood up briskly. “Why don’t you go and see Barbara?” Mum liked Barbara. “You might even feel like doing the show. I’ll turn up any road. I’ve got my ticket.”

  “I don’t know,” said Doreen.

  But she went to Barbara’s. Barbara was sitting on her back doorstep shelling peas. Her cat, Tiggy, was on her lap, struggling to get comfortable and nudging the colander out of his way.

  “Get him off me, Dor,” said Barbara.

  Doreen picked up Tiggy and held him on her own lap as she sat down, but he was soon back on Barbara, pressing and purring.

  “I’ll have the colander.” Doreen popped open a pea pod and brushed the row of peas into the bowl. She tasted one. It was crunchy and fresh.

  “I can’t stop eating them,” said Barbara.

  The sun was warm on their heads. Doreen popped pea pods and stroked Tiggy and ate fresh peas and slowly the anger melted out of her. Barbara didn’t talk much except to say, “Ugh! A wormy one!” or “Get off, Tiggy!” But after a while she asked, “Are we doing the show, then?”

  “Yes, let’s do it. We don’t need her.”

  “Will Rosie come?”

  Doreen pulled a face. “Bound to. I told her it was cancelled but that wouldn’t stop Rosie.”

  “June’s still coming. But her mum won’t let her bring another rabbit.”

  Doreen was stroking Tiggy. She looked up, and smiled. “I’ve got an idea. About your cookery demonstration.”

  Barbara hung her head. “It’s awful.”

  “No, it’s not. But listen.”

  The garden shed was full. Barbara’s mother was there; and June’s. Mum had brought Mrs Richards from up the road and Miss Wingfield, who’d been passing by. There was an old man, Mr Ross – a neighbour of the Lees – and his collie dog, and Barbara’s sister Sylvia who was on shift-work and had her curlers in, ready for bed. Doreen, getting her props together behind the screen which Mrs Lee had provided, totted up in her head: three and six already, and then there was to be the raffle.

  She turned to Rosie. “Will your mum come?”

  Rosie wiped her nose on the back of her hand. She always had a runny nose. “She never goes anywhere,” she said.

  Doreen thought of Mrs Lloyd, moaning to Mum over the washing lines about the state of her insides. Nobody had much time for Mrs Lloyd – or Rosie.

  I ought to be kinder to Rosie, Doreen thought. But it was hard.

  Doreen had swiftly rearranged the programme with Barbara. June was on first with her juggling. That pleased June, who felt honoured, but Doreen knew it was better to be last; she intended to finish the show herself with two songs.

  The audience was restless. “Oi!” called old Mr Ross. “Let’s be having you then!” A chorus of giggled “Shushes!” from the women followed this.

  “Let’s start,” whispered Doreen.

  She held up the dustbin lid and produced the drum roll. The dog began to bark. Doreen darted out from behind the screen and announced, “High Street Entertainments Committee presents a Grand Summer Show!”

  June did her juggling act. She was good, but she did drop one ball; the collie made a dash for it. Doreen, peeping through a crack in the screen, saw the dog sitting in front of June, eager for another one.

  June was pink with suppressed laughter when she came off. “I nearly dropped the lot.”

  Doreen went out again. “Miss Rosie Lloyd!”

  Rosie was lost without Rhoda. She had done all her rehearsals with Rhoda directing her, and now she blundered through the routine, ended in a brief flurry of taps, and came off looking bewildered. Doreen heard the audience clapping. She said, “That was good, Rosie!” and was rewarded with one of Rosie’s rare smiles.

  Doreen’s magic was next; but there were problems backstage. Doreen could hear a persistent miaowing: Tiggy, who was being restrained in a box. The dog began to growl, and Doreen was aware of Mrs Lee and Sylvia whispering together, “What’s Barbara doing to that cat?”

  Doreen’s problems with the scarf and the marbles went largely unnoticed; far more interesting were the increasingly frantic miaows and sounds of scrabbling and shushing behind the screen.

  Doreen realized that things were getting out of hand. She cut her act short and announced the cookery demonstration.

  Barbara brought on a table, a mixing bowl and spoon, a pie dish, and some cream-coloured cloth. The back stage miaowing was muffled now; Doreen held Tiggy while she watched through the crack. Barbara was blushing bright pink, but she managed to say her lines. “In this time of austerity we cooks have to make do with whatever comes to hand. Rabbit is not always available, but have you thought of tempting the family with cat? Cats are abundant
and very tasty. I will now demonstrate how to make a nourishing cat pie.”

  This was Doreen’s cue to release Tiggy, who shot onstage. The collie broke into a frenzy of barking, and Mr Ross grabbed his collar. “Steady on, old lad,” he said. “You can have him when he’s cooked.”

  “First, catch your cat,” puffed Barbara, as she chased around between the chairs. She pounced and caught Tiggy and brought him to the table, where she wrapped him in the cream cloth to look like pastry and put him in the pie dish. Tiggy was outraged. Bits of him kept emerging from the pastry: an ear, a paw, two paws, his head and shoulders. The audience rocked with laughter.

  Tiggy burst free of his packaging and hurtled backstage. The dog was frantic. Barbara, no longer embarrassed, smiled at her audience and said, “On the other hand, you may find that a leek and potato pie is far less trouble…”

  Doreen was calming Tiggy behind the screen. Now she had to sing. As she had guessed, the audience was in tears of laughter, so she began with a funny one: “The Quarter Master’s Stores”.

  “There was Brenda, Brenda, fixing her suspender

  In the stores, in the stores…”

  As she sang, she heard her mother saying in a horrified voice to Mrs Lee, “I don’t know where she learned this one…”

  Rhoda had been going to finish the show with “We’ll Meet Again”, and Doreen had thought: I’ll sing it; that’ll teach her. But it didn’t feel right, and at the last moment she went back to her original choice, “Run, Rabbit, Run.”

  The audience loved it. Doreen saw them all swaying as they joined in and knew she’d done the right thing: she didn’t have to try to be Rhoda.

  Mr Ross won the raffle: a bottle of Aunty Elsie’s elderflower wine. The girls totted up. “Three and six, plus four and eight for the raffle: that’s eight shillings and twopence.”

  Doreen gave the money to Miss Wingfield, who knew where it should be sent.

  The group began to break up. Sylvia went to bed, and Miss Wingfield drove off in her car. Mr Ross went home with his dog and his bottle of wine. But everyone else stayed and sat on the grass, drinking tea.

  The girls played jacks. Doreen tossed the pieces, caught three on the back of her hand, tossed again, and picked up one while the other was in the air. She was deft at this, and her turn lasted a long time. When June took over the pieces Doreen moved back, and overheard her mother saying, “…a bit of a tiff…”

  She’s talking about me and Rhoda, Doreen thought.

  Mum and Mrs Lee spoke in low voices, their heads close together. Doreen listened.

  “…never a word from her … returned marked ‘gone away’…”

  “You’d think she’d get in touch.”

  “…nothing new. Miss Wingfield says she never visited … only child … must be an encumbrance…”

  “It makes you wonder…”

  The voices sank lower, but Doreen caught the words “father” and “unsettled”, and “drifting”.

  Mum leaned back and her voice came more clearly. “Well, it’s not for us to criticize, but…”

  “Doreen!” Barbara interrupted. “It’s your turn again.”

  Rhoda and Lennie came home at six o’clock, sunburnt and tired.

  Lennie said, “We went right over to Wendon.”

  “You must be starving,” said Mum.

  Rhoda chatted to Mum as they got the dinner; she avoided Doreen’s eye.

  Later, upstairs in their room, Doreen said, “We did that show – in case you’re interested.”

  Rhoda went pink. “Did it go well?”

  “Great. Everyone enjoyed it. We made eight and twopence.” She would have liked to share with Rhoda the fun that her cat-pie idea had created and tell her which songs she’d sung, but she couldn’t; she and Rhoda might be on speaking terms but they weren’t friends.

  Rhoda fiddled with her hair slide. She said, “I’m sorry I let you down.”

  “I suppose Mum told you to say that?”

  Rhoda turned with a flash of anger. “Look, I’ve said I’m sorry.”

  “It’s OK,” said Doreen. “We didn’t need you.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “I’m going to Aunty Elsie’s after mass,” said Rhoda. “Do you want to come too?”

  She spoke from behind the screen. It was a week since their quarrel, but Doreen still wanted the screen in place. She was determined to stay angry with Rhoda.

  “I’m not bothered,” she said.

  Rhoda’s bedsprings creaked as she sat up. She’d be unpinning her hair and brushing it into curls. “I’m taking the babies out if it’s fine. Their mams said I could.”

  Doreen wanted to go. She wanted to push the babies out in the second-hand pram the WVS had provided. She wanted to see Aunty Elsie and be made a fuss of. But Rhoda was trying to get round her, and she wasn’t having it.

  She got up. Behind the blackout curtain she could hear rain pattering. All week the weather had been wet and cold, trapping them indoors. She and Rhoda had been unable to avoid each other. Doreen had taken to reading more than usual, partly because she liked reading, but also because it was a way of shutting Rhoda out. She had noticed that Rhoda never read books. When Doreen and Lennie were both reading, Rhoda would pace about restlessly, trying to catch the eye of one of them, eager to break in and talk.

  Rhoda went off early to church, wearing the blue raincoat Mum had bought for her at the WI jumble sale. Anne-Marie still hadn’t sent any money for clothes, and there had been no reply to Mum’s letter, not even a postcard.

  Doreen remembered Rhoda’s collection of postcards. They had looked at them all one evening, not long after she first came, and Doreen had been fascinated by the photographs of different towns and the romantic-sounding postmarks: Blackpool, Southport, Colwyn Bay, Rhyl. There was never much written on the back: “Lovely audiences, mainly servicemen, full houses”; and once, back in May, “Bombing all night. Fires, searchlights, sirens. You should see the bags under my eyes! Hope you’re being a good girl. Love and kisses, M.”

  “She puts M,” Rhoda had said. “She doesn’t like ‘Mam’.”

  For the first time Doreen wondered whether Rhoda minded about her mother not writing. I’d mind, she thought. But perhaps it was different if your mother was famous.

  And other people wrote to Rhoda: Sister Ursula, from her old school, and Bernadette O’Farrell, who did Anne-Marie’s dressmaking. Not Rhoda’s boyfriend, though.

  “Mum,” she said, “Rhoda’s boyfriend never writes to her.”

  Mum was filling the copper and sorting the dirty washing into heaps on the floor.

  “If she’s got a boyfriend,” she said.

  “She has! I told you: he’s twenty-two and he used to live next door to them in Anfield and he’s in the army.”

  “Oh, I’m sure he exists,” agreed Mum. “I just wonder…you mustn’t take everything Rhoda says literally. I mean, he may not think of her as his girlfriend.”

  Doreen was puzzled. Rhoda had been so positive.

  “Perhaps his letters aren’t getting through,” she said. But Jim, Phyl’s husband, was in the army, and Phyl was always getting letters from him.

  Mum put the wireless on. It was time for the Sunday Service and she liked the hymns.

  “O worship the King all-glorious above;

  O gratefully sing His power and His love…”

  They both joined in.

  Doreen wanted to smile and sing at the same time. She was happy; she had Mum to herself and they were singing together again.

  When the prayers started she said, “Let’s practise your songs for the concert.”

  Rehearsals for the concert were already underway, with the church hall booked for the sixth of September. Mum was planning to sing “It’s a Lovely Day Tomorrow” and “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”. She switched the wireless off and they began.

  “I wish I could be in the concert too,” said Doreen.

  She longed to be part of it all. Mum would be si
nging, Aunty Elsie playing the piano, and she wanted nothing so much as to be up there with them on the stage. She’d wear her Sunday dress and Rhoda’s black patent shoes, and perhaps Phyl would lend her that hair slide with the twinkly bits…

  Mum was sympathetic. “But Miss Forrest says if she starts letting children in she’ll get all the little ones. She wants it to be professional.”

  “I am quite professional,” said Doreen.

  At dinner-time Rhoda came in, wet through, her hair in rats’ tails. She hadn’t been able to take the babies out. Doreen was glad.

  It rained all day. After dinner Lennie went to the pigeon loft and Rhoda turned to Doreen. “Do you want to play something? Chess?”

  Doreen liked chess, and Rhoda knew it.

  “It’s OK,” said Doreen. “I told Rosie she could come round.”

  It wasn’t true, but, having said it, Doreen felt obliged to make it true. She endured an afternoon with Rosie, playing snakes and ladders because Rosie wasn’t clever enough for chess. Rhoda went out to the loft to talk to Lennie, and later Doreen heard her chatting and laughing with Mum upstairs as they put clean sheets on the bed. She wondered, jealously, what they were finding to talk about.

  Rosie, once in, was always difficult to get rid of; but Doreen was ruthless. “You’ll have to go now – we’re having our tea.”

  Rosie wiped her hand across her nose. “I can stay to tea.”

  “No, you can’t.”

  She hustled Rosie out into the yard.

  “We could have given Rosie a bit of tea,” Mum said later.

  “I don’t want her here.”

  “You shouldn’t ask her round, then.”

  Doreen didn’t reply. She suspected that Mum knew why she had asked Rosie round.

  Rhoda was still upstairs.

  Mum said, “Rhoda went to confession last week.”

  Doreen shrugged.

  “I think she’s really sorry for what she did.”

  “I wish it would stop raining,” said Doreen. “Then I could get away from certain people.”

  Doreen’s wish was granted. The rain eased on Monday, and for the next week or so it was fine enough between showers to stretch a skipping rope across the street or go to the woods with Barbara and June and, sometimes, Rosie.