‘We ought to be going. I'm getting a bit concerned about this weather.’
‘Can we get the material for my tutu before we go?’ I ask.
‘Next week. There's no rush.’
I want to argue with her, and if Bill hadn't been there I probably would have.
‘You go to ballet, do you? How long have you been going?’ Bill asks as if he can sense my disappointment.
‘I started last summer.’
‘Do you have your ballet lessons at school?’
‘No, I go to Hatherington Road Hall to Kilips Dancing School.’
‘I know Hatherington Road. I suppose you go after school? It’s a bit of a way for you to go on your own.’
‘Mum takes me. She knits while she waits.’
‘I can imagine that,’ Bill smiles. ‘What night do you go?’
‘Tuesdays.’
Mum begins making a clicking sound between her tongue and her teeth which means she’s getting irritated. ‘What is this, the Inquisition?’ she snaps.
Bill answers casually, ‘Just interested, Lil.’
We finish the shopping and slither back to Bill’s van. I sit in the back on a lumpy cushion but I still love it. Bill drives very slowly. I’m not sure it’s because of the icy roads or that he wants to spend as long with us as he can. Perhaps it’s both. I especially like it when, in between talking to Mum, Bill sings snatches of songs, and asks Mum if she remembers them. His voice is like his face: friendly and easy-going. I thought the only time a man sang to a woman was in films. When Bill sings to Mum, I think it’s the loveliest sound I’ve ever heard.
Mum won't let Bill drive us to our flat. She says we can walk from the baker’s. When Bill asks us what street we live in, she replies, ‘Just round the corner,’ and glares at me like she did before.
‘It's been good meeting you again, Bill,’ Mum says, stumbling up the kerb. At the same time, she grabs the shopping bag Bill offers her. ‘Thanks for the lift.’
‘It's been good catching up with you, too, Lil, and you, Paula. Let's hope it won't be so long before we meet again.’ Whistling, Bill walks around the van, jumps in and with a wave is gone, while Mum looks more flustered than I’ve ever seen her.
‘Have you known Bill for a long time?’ I ask as we turn into Blountmere Street, and I try to keep up with Mum.
‘All my life. He lived a few doors away. I went to school with him and his sisters.’
‘Did you play together?’ I wonder if they were like Tony and me.
‘Sometimes, when neither of us was busy. It wasn't often. Most days after school and at weekends Bill helped Jack Moody with his rag and bone business.’
Old Jack Moody’s got a shack on a bit of bombsite between some houses half-way down Blountmere Street. His yard’s littered with old clothes and furniture, sinks and cracked chamber pots. He’s got a horse and cart and he rides along the streets ringing a bell, calling in a sing-song voice, “Rags and bones. Bring me your rags and bones." Outside his junkyard are two pig bins, where Mum sends me with our food scraps.
Jack Moody smells and spits. Worst of all, he blows his nose between his fingers straight on to the ground. I hate going to the pig bins. I hate it almost as much as having to follow Jack's horse when it leaves a pile of steaming manure in the road. It’s the only time Dad gets excited. "Quick you two," he orders Mum and me, "Get that bucket and shovel". He pushes us out the front door. Then he stands with his arms folded while we scoop up the treasure.
I wrinkle my nose. ‘Fancy working for Jack Moody.’
‘Look here, my girl, he had no option.’ Mum speaks forcefully. It surprises me.
‘Bill’s father was killed in the First World War and he had to keep his mother and sisters. I never knew anyone who worked as hard as Bill Masters. I suppose I did too, although I only had my mum and dad to look after. Bill had his whole family.’
Mum often speaks about her childhood, although she’s never mentioned Bill. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have to regularly delouse yourself and your parents like Mum had to when she was a young child. I couldn’t cook and keep house like she had to. And I have no idea what it would be like to wear tattered hand-me-down clothes and have no underwear or shoes. I suppose that’s why Mum’s potty about my clothes and keeping the house clean.
I think the thing that upset Mum the most was being forced to leave school at fourteen to work in a pickle factory. “I'll never let that happen to you,” she promises me almost daily. “I'll work ‘til I drop to give you the education you deserve.”
‘Did Bill have to leave school at fourteen?’
‘It was even worse for him. He left at twelve. His first job was as a runner for a bookie. He certainly wasn't an upholsterer then. I wonder where he learnt that trade? But, then, Bill was always resourceful.’ Mum’s pace slows. ‘With his first week's wages he bought me a bunch of flowers. Carnations, pink and white and smelling of paradise.’
‘Were you and Bill courting?’
‘Not really. Not at first, anyway. We were both too busy looking after our families. Then when I started work I travelled everyday on the underground. I caught the workmen’s train at half past four every morning. It was cheaper, you see. Would you believe, come rain or shine, when I got to the station there was Bill already waiting for me. I was in that job three years and he never once missed a morning.’
‘He must have loved you a lot.’
‘He's the only person who truly ever has, apart from you. I couldn't tell him I wanted anything, because if I did he'd scrimp and save and work day and night to buy it for me.’
‘Why didn't he ask you to marry him?’
‘He did, every morning at the underground station for three years. I always said no.’
‘Why? Didn't you love him?’
‘I was never sure whether I loved him or not. It was just that he ... I don’t know … he loved me too much.’
We reach our flat, but now Mum’s begun talking I can tell she doesn’t want to stop, and we linger outside.
‘I couldn't cope with him always doing everything for me. Buying me everything I wanted, spoiling me. I was the one who did the giving. I couldn't accept it from anyone else. I was born to look after, not be looked after. Silly, I know, but I knew if I married Bill I’d end up despising him.’
Suddenly recollecting where she is and that she’s saying things to me that she shouldn’t, Mum bustles up the path. ‘I'm daft at times,’ she says as she inserts her key in the keyhole. ‘And there's no need to say anything to your father about any of this.’
All afternoon Mum’s as restless as one of the zephyrs Mrs Colby’s been telling us about at school. blowing from one room to another. She picks up several recipe books, only to put them down no sooner than she’s opened them. She gets out her sewing and puts it away again, untouched. She tries to iron but scorches a blouse. Finally, she dresses in her best pink woollen dress and curls her hair. She puts on some lipstick and powder and dabs lavender water behind her ears. The perfume hovers about our flat. Dad doesn’t notice.
‘Are you going out?’ I whisper when I don’t think Dad’s listening. I can only remember Mum going out in the evening once, when she and Aunt Min went to see Showboat. Afterwards Dad had sulked for three weeks.
‘I just want to look nice, that’s all,’ she whispers back.
My throat tightens. She’s so beautiful. ‘You look like a film star,’ I tell her.
Mum is usually careless about her appearance. All her efforts are spent on me. Now her hair, the colour of conkers, curls round her face and her skin reminds me of the creamy pink standard rose in the middle of our garden in summer.
How could I not have seen how beautiful she really is; not just said it when I snuggled into her lap at night. During those times perhaps I saw another sort of beauty. All I know now is that no other woman in Blountmere Street is as slim or as striking. No-one else's mother could ever look like mine looks tonight.
‘Don't
you think Mum looks lovely?’ I ask Dad. If only he’ll say she does I know Mum will look beautiful forever. But all Dad does is grunt.
Chapter Four
On our way to Hatherington Road Hall, Mum and I might as well be travelling across the tundra, which is something else Mrs Colby’s been teaching us about at school. The houses are almost invisible and the wind is raw.
‘We're mad to even think about going to ballet in weather like this.’ Mum is clearly thinking of turning back.
‘We're nearly there now.’ My lips are so numb I’m finding it difficult to speak.
‘I wouldn't be surprised if they've cancelled it. Nobody else would be stupid enough to turn out on a night like this.’
Quite a few, however, have braved the weather. Inside, the hall is warm and smells of stale tobacco smoke and beer. It resounds to an out-of-tune piano and high pitched voices.
I take off several layers, pull off my boots and put on my ballet pumps. I tie the ribbons into bows as best as I can with fingers that still can’t feel anything, and pad my way to the middle of the hall.
The lesson begins. I concentrate on getting the six positions right, especially the sixth one. It hurts my feet to twist them in a direction they don’t want to go. I turn back to Mum. She gives me an encouraging nod. She must have massaged some life back into her fingers because she’s begun her knitting.
Half the lesson is used to arrange the show The Kilip School of Dancing is putting on and which Miss Kilip is calling “a spring extravaganza”. If it wasn’t for the photos on the walls of a much younger and slimmer Miss Kilip in various dance routines, I couldn’t imagine anything less than a crane to lift her. Her bosom seems to enter the room minutes before the rest of her, and her legs are at least four times the size of mine.
‘A squirrel, I think,’ she says, eyeing me for the part as if she’s seeing a bushy tail and small paws holding acorns.
A squirrel! I swivel round to mouth my part to Mum, but she’s engrossed in conversation with Bill Masters.
‘Your Dad, is he?’ the girl next to me asks.
‘My uncle. Mum’s brother,’ I reply.
Bill’s gone by the time my lesson’s finished. Mum says he was passing and popped in to say hello. When I comment on the coincidence of Bill being in Hatherington Road at exactly the same time as us, Mum replies that stranger things have happened. She walks the rest of the way home without talking.
‘Bleedin' weather! One day it warms up, the next it freezes,’ Dad rants at Mum as he shaves in the kitchen. He douses his face with water from a chipped enamel bowl, while she fries him two eggs and three rashers of bacon as she does every morning, even when we’re pretty short of money.
‘You’d better get it into your head here and now, I’ve got no more than two weeks’ housekeeping left so get on your hands and knees and pray for a bleedin' miracle.’
His yelling can probably be heard in heaven, anyway.
With no lasting break in the weather and Dad still unable to work, Mum somehow manages to save enough for my next ballet lesson.
‘With things as they are, you shouldn't be going at all. But because you've been chosen to be a squirrel you can go this week. If the weather doesn't improve then, squirrel or not, you won't be going until it does,’ she warns.
Bill is waiting outside the hall when we arrive.
‘Don't tell me you just happened to be passing,’ Mum's reply is a mixture of irritation and amusement.
‘Something like that,’ Bill replies, smiling first at Mum, then at me.
‘You'll have everyone talking if you keep coming here like this,’ Mum grumbles.
‘Why should anyone talk? I've only popped in to have a chat.’ Then softly he continues, ‘You know I’ve always loved your company, Lily.’
Whenever I look, Mum and Bill are having such an interesting conversation Mum’s forgotten to take her knitting out of her bag. From time to time, Bill's laughter booms across the hall. Miss Kilip frowns and Mum nudges Bill as if they’re naughty children. Even from several yards away I can see that Mum’s become a film star again.
When my lesson’s finished, Bill seems as if he doesn’t want to go. Several times he says he must be off. Then he finds something else to say.
‘The roads are icing up. You'd better go, Bill.’
Mum says “Bill” in the same way she says “Paula” when she cuddles me on her lap.
‘I'll see you next week, then.’
‘I told you, if the weather isn't any better we won't be here next week.’
‘Then I'll see you when you are here.’ He pauses. ‘And don't forget what I said.’
‘What did Bill say?’ I ask, as soon as he’s left.
‘Never you mind,’ replies Mum, wrapping my ballet shoes in tissue paper before she puts them into her shopping bag.
I jam my hands into my pockets to pull out my gloves. Why is it adults say and do things they refuse to make clear?
‘Ouch!’
‘Now what's the matter?’
‘There's something in the finger of my glove.’
‘Give it here.’ Mum grabs the glove and turns it inside out. At the end of one of the fingers are a sixpenny coin together with a shilling one.
‘Where did they come from?’ I ask.
‘There's only one person who would have put them there and he's just gone.’
‘Bill? But why?’
‘It’s for your next week’s ballet lesson, I imagine.’ Flummoxed, Mum puts the money in her purse. ‘What a stupid thing to do,’ she mutters.
‘I think Bill likes you just the same as when you were both young.’ I begin to pull on my gloves again. At the same time I watch Mum’s face. It reminds me of a bud that’s already withered before it’s had time to flower.
‘Maybe, but it's too late now.’
I’m not too sure about that. You sometimes hear of people who get divorced. There were the Verdons who lived at the bottom of our street with two children called Connie and Sidney. They got divorced. And sometimes there are things in the News of the World about people who get divorced. I know because I read bits of it when Mum and Dad aren't around.
I can't imagine living with Bill and Mum, instead of Mum and Dad. Dad’s strange and bad tempered and I wish more than anything he was like Bill, but I wouldn’t want Bill instead of him. Anyway, what if Bill didn't want me, and persuaded Mum to leave me behind?
Still the weather refuses to improve for more than one out of the next seven days. Dad’s work on the sidecar has come to a standstill, presumably because he hasn’t any money to spare on anything that isn’t absolutely necessary. He still works his daily eight hours fixing anything that looks as if it might, now or in the future, need to be repaired. He even polishes our furniture and the brass. I wish he wouldn’t, because all the time he does it, he grumbles about how filthy Mum’s let everything become and what a slovenly housekeeper she is.
Since my last ballet lesson, I’ve twice walked in my sleep and Mum’s begun asking me questions about what’s happening at school and if I’m getting bullied. I don’t know why she’s asking me now. I always get bullied. I hope I haven’t mentioned Bill's name in my sleep. Mum hasn't said anything. My dream is always the same; with an old woman who looks like Miss Kilip making Mum choose between me and Bill. Mum always chooses Bill.
The more morose Dad becomes, the more worried I become. Mum needs someone who’s kind, and generous, and will make her laugh. If only Dad was just a tiny bit like that, there wouldn't be any need for Bill Masters.
Because I’m their only child, I’m the only one who can do anything about it. I’m responsible for keeping Mum and Dad’s marriage together.
I begin by trying to draw Dad’s attention to Mum. It doesn’t matter what he’s doing; whether he’s buried in his newspaper, polishing and swearing, putting in a screw and swearing or whatever else he’s doing and swearing, I prattle on about Mum’s housekeeping and dressmaking skills. ‘Mum’s got skin to match he
r name, don’t you think?’ I ask Dad. ‘And her hair’s always so glossy,’ I continue, but Dad never answers me. I tell him little jokes he never listens to. In desperation, I try tickling him which finally provokes a response. ‘Get this kid out from under my feet,’ he yells at Mum.
I wish I could talk to Tony about it all, but it’s still too cold to sit outside and with the mood Dad’s in, I don’t think it’d be good to invite Tony to our place. Anyway, I think Tony spends most of his time with Mr Stannard.
‘Still got enough to take the girl to ballet,’ Dad grumbles as he polishes a horse brass with Our Monty – From El Alamein to Berlin written on it. ‘We can’t starve ‘cos she’s got to go to ballet.’
‘I’ve eked the housekeeping out this week. We’ll have enough, don’t worry.’ Mum looks away as she hangs her handbag over her arm. I’m impressed at how well she’s lied. Just the same, I wonder if she’s got those horrid spots on her tongue she tells me you get when you lie.
‘I don’t have to go,’ I whisper as we close our front door. I’ve been thinking about leaving ballet. I mean, what if Dad was to find out about Bill? All it would take would be for someone to say something to him about Mum always being there with her brother. She hasn’t got a brother.
Mum’s firm. ‘That's not necessary. We've got the money, even though we didn't ask for it. Mind you, I'll pay it back as soon as things sort themselves out.’ She tilts her chin upwards as if to emphasise her intention. ‘You have to practise your role as a squirrel. You've been peaky all week and mooching around the place. It'll do you good.’
As he usually is, Bill’s waiting outside when we arrive. ‘How are my girls?’ He asks tussling my hair before taking Mum’s bag in one hand and her arm with the other as if it’s a natural thing to do. I wait for Mum to say something about us not being “his girls”, or to pull her arm from his but she doesn’t do either. Instead she murmurs, ‘Thanks for the money. I’ll give it back to you in a couple of weeks.’
‘No need. My treat.’
‘No, Bill. Les and I have always paid our way.’
The Best in Blountmere Street (The Blountmere Street Series Book 2) Page 3