‘I’ll think about it.’ I don’t like Elvis much, although that doesn’t matter. It’s a protest against something; an opinion I can express. ‘I’ll definitely think about it,’ I say, although I doubt I’ll have the courage when it actually comes to it.
Angela sits herself on Tony’s bed. It’s still covered with the same pre-war blanket, as if removing it will banish the last vestige of hope that he’ll come back.
‘What d’you think of these?’ Angela whispers beginning to unbutton her blouse and finger the red-blue marks on her chest.
‘What’s wrong with your skin? It looks terrible.’
‘There’s nothing wrong, stupid, and keep your voice down.’
‘If there’s nothing wrong, what are those things?’
‘They’re love bites, Dozy Dora,’ Angela replies, exasperated at having to give an explanation.
I’ve heard the girls at school talking about them. I’ve seen a couple on Ruby Tolston’s neck, but the ones on Angela’s creamy breast skin look different, more dramatic. Ruby had said her current boyfriend had given them to her. She said she had even given him some back. She said you get them from sucking someone’s flesh until you almost draw blood. It sounds painful to me, especially if it’s on your breasts. ‘Who did it to you?’ I ask.
‘Now that’d be telling, wouldn’t it?’ Angela looks smug
‘I didn’t know you had a boyfriend.’
‘You don’t know everything about me, clever clogs.’
I can never think of what to say when Angela calls me names. It brings back memories of Angela chasing me on my way home from Blountmere Street School, when I’d been powerless to respond to her taunts.
I’d debated taking Angela with me to buy a bra. I was frightened she’d question my need for one, or laugh. She did neither.
‘What about this one? It’s got wire under it so that it pushes you up and over. It might even give you a cleavage,’ she says, eyeing me doubtfully.
‘I only want it plain.’ With the money Dad’s given me, I can only afford a couple of basic brassieres. Anyway, I want to get the whole thing over as quickly as I can. I certainly don’t want some smarmy shop assistant enquiring if “Modom has found what Modom is looking for”, all the time casting sideways looks at my flat chest.
‘This one will do.’
‘Are you sure you don’t want one with a bit of padding that’ll make you look as if you’ve got more than you actually have? Anyhow, shouldn’t you try it on – make sure the cup size is right and that?’ Angela asks.
‘This’ll be fine.’ It’s the smallest one on the rail, isn’t that enough? The label says it’s a size twenty-eight A cup. ‘Anyway, we’ve got all the shopping to do yet.’
‘Please yourself.’
‘Personally I like something frilly,’ Angela continues afterwards, and as we make our way around the market, that’s pungent with rotting fruit and raucous with Saturday shouts.
‘Why? Nobody’s going to see it.’
Angela sniggers. ‘What d’you mean, nobody’s going to see it? Of course, somebody’s going to see it.’
‘Well, I suppose someone will if I hang it on the line, or the girls at school might see it when I do gym.’
‘I’ve left school.’ Angela waves her arm about in a dismissive sort of way.
‘Who are you bothered about seeing your bra, then?’
‘Boys, of course.’
‘Boys! You show your bra to boys?’
‘I show them more than that.’
‘Angela, how could you?’
‘You’re a real goody goody aren’t you?’
I squirm. “Goody goody”, “Coming down with the last drop of rain”, “As green you’re cabbage-looking”, “Sheltered” are all words others have used to describe me at one time or another. One of the teachers at Grigham Road recently described me as being “demure”. Not demure! “Tough” – yes. “Knowing a thing or two” - yes. The trouble is I don’t know the meaning of the word “tough” and when you get to the core of things I don’t know “a thing or two” either.
‘D’you mean to say you haven’t thought about boys touching you and that?’ Angela asks me.
‘Not really,’ I look down at the pavement. That isn’t true. Recently I’d begun to think about boys kissing me. Boys like Herbie Armitage, especially Herbie Armitage.
My first brassiere day is also our first television day.
‘What d’you think?’ Dad runs a duster over the HMV television’s nine-inch screen. ‘They’re coming back to fit a bubble glass to make the picture bigger,’ he says.
The television seems altogether too modern in our kitchen, sitting on a make-do table between our walnut sideboard and Mum’s curly-legged sewing cabinet.
‘It’s lovely.’
Now Mum isn’t around to make sure we stay ahead of everyone in Blountmere Street at least half our street has a television set. Sometimes when the girls at school talk about programmes, I wish we had one. In the evenings, though, after Dad and I have done the chores and I’ve finished my homework, I’m content to lay in bed and dream of Herbie Armitage while I listen to Radio Luxembourg crackling on the wireless Dad’s put in my bedroom.
Dad continues to rub the screen. ‘I know it’s not been easy for you, with your mother and that.’ He dabs at a speck he seems to have found. ‘You’ve done all right what with everything, and winning that award for being the most promising scholar at Grigham Road.’ He pushes a button on the television, and a blurry test card appears, accompanied by a noisy buzz. ‘I’ll need to get the aerial sorted out.’ He steps back contemplating the screen, making sure no dust has attached itself in the few seconds since he last dusted it.
‘By the by, I was there at your prize giving – just happened to be passing - stood by the door.’ He moves forward again, and, bending, peers into the back of the television set.
As if wearing a bra is inviting womanhood to visit me all at once, a week later I begin a period. The dull ache in my back I’ve been experiencing for a few days gets worse and moves to my stomach, making me feel nauseous. Despite having witnessed the evidence of Mum’s menstruation during our camping holiday, the red-brown discharge in my knickers jitters me.
After months of keeping her distance, Aunt Min has resumed her weekly visits, though she says she’s “still disgusted a sister of hers should have acted in such a wicked way”.
“Lily should pull herself together and get on with life,” Aunt Min says drawing her shoulders back and pushing out her chest.
Neither Mum nor Dad had mentioned anything about her absence. In all likelihood Mum had been unaware she’d stopped coming. As for Dad, he’d probably considered himself better off without her fussing, telling him he had to do something about his wife, and coddling me.
Just the same, I’m glad Aunt Min has begun visiting again, even if Mum isn’t there to scold her for spoiling me, and to cook us our favourite stewed eels with parsley sauce.
Every week, wearing a black overall that reaches to the floor and looking as if she’s about to dissect something or someone, Aunt Min progresses from room to room clearing up what she calls “the mess”. In the process she moves things that Dad later swears about not being able to find, creates more dust than she actually removes and leaves a lingering smell of onions.
‘I’m ashamed a sister of mine should have gone and left her family like this,’ she murmurs. ‘And what’s going to happen to my poor little loveykins now? No child should ever have to see her mother in a madhouse.’
‘Are you feeling all right?” Aunt Min asks today as she spits on her fore finger then rubs at a dirty mark on the kitchen door. ‘Missing that wicked mother of yours, I’ve no doubt.’ Aunt Min shakes her head, her eyes shooting heavenwards once more.
‘No … well, yes. I just don’t feel well, that’s all.’
Aunt Min’s eyes return, sparkling, to earth. Here’s a sickness for her to diagnose. It’s Aunt Min’s calling. The reason she
’s been placed on this planet is to diagnose ailments, to accurately diagnose ailments; the first person all sicknesses should be referred to.
‘Tell your old Aunt your symptoms, then. Headache? Sore throat? Acid in the tummy? Diarrhoea? Constipation?’ She pauses to gulp in air. ‘Ear ache? Tooth ache? Back ache? Stomach ache?’
‘Yes.’ I fiddle with the back of my brassiere. It feels as if a piece of string is being wound tighter and tighter around my chest.
Aunt Min stops abruptly. ‘Yes to what?’
‘I’ve got a bit of a back ache.’
‘A bit of a flat ache in the back, is it?’
‘I suppose it was, but now it’s worse in my stomach.’
Aunt Min rubs my middle with circular movements, then waggles her head up and down, ‘Ah, ah, ah!’ Getting closer to me, so that her breath almost sucks mine away, she whispers, ‘Got a little stain in our panties, have we?’
I flinch, both from Aunt Min’s breath and the question.
‘The first time, is it?’
I nod.
‘Oh that my sister should have deserted her daughter in her hour of need!’ Aunt Min cries to the ceiling. ‘Never mind, loveykins, your old Aunt’s here. I’ll never forget you giving me that vase. I dust it everyday.’ And leaving her cleaning rags and polish in a pile on the floor, Aunt Min rushes off to Boots for the “supplies”, as she puts it.
When she returns, she announces to Dad in a drawn out hallowed voice, ‘Today your daughter has become a woman,’ causing Dad to flush and flee into the garden.
‘I’m building a cabinet to put the telly on,’ Dad says that afternoon after Aunt Min has gone, and he’s carrying wood and dropping sawdust along the passage. ‘The table we’ve got isn’t high enough. I’ll put a couple of cupboards underneath while I’m at it. It’s about time I made something.’
I wouldn’t have cared if Dad never made anything ever again. I hate it when he makes things.
After spending the minimum of time measuring, Dad begins sawing, using one of Mum’s best chairs to balance the wood on.
I wander along the passage to my bedroom, pull my bed from the wall, lift the linoleum and retrieve Bill’s card. I flatten the lino, push the bed back against the wall, take a cardigan from a drawer and open my door. ‘I’m going for a walk. Won’t be long,’ I call to Dad.
‘You stay right here, my girl, in case I want a hand. I’m going to need you to get me some nails.’
‘Sorry, got to go.’
‘Now, just you wait!’
‘See you later.’ I tug at the front door, fly down the path, through the gate and across the road. I won’t stay there for Dad to yell and throw things at me, as he had Mum.
‘Get back here,’ Dad hollers, but I’m already rounding the corner.
The flats that are replacing the bombsite now rise a storey high and are destined to go much higher, like a developing kingdom. Soon hundreds of people will live there; be born; get married; have children; die. None of them will know they’re living on our land, Tony’s and the Gang’s, and mine. Our memories might blur, but all the time we can bring the landscape as it was to a gauzy recall, it will be ours.
I continue on, past Izzy’s, Motsel’s the greengrocers, Wake’s the sports shop, and Dealy Electrical Appliances. How long before they too are swept into the kingdom?
Bill has already seen me skirting the pond and is standing outside his shop when I get there.
‘Is everything all right?’ he asks. ‘Your mother! What’s wrong?’
‘Everything’s fine. I just fancied a walk, and while I was here it suddenly occurred to me your shop was nearby and that I should pop in and say hello.’ I should have realized my sudden visit would cause Bill to think the worst. It was the same years ago when, without warning, I’d turned up at his workplace and he’d dealt with my childish fears and helped prepare me for womanhood. Suddenly I realise I’m here to see if he notices any difference in me, if he recognises the woman he told me some day I’d become.
Bill exhales. ‘That’s a relief. Come and tell me what you think of my little shop. Then I’ll close up and we’ll go upstairs and have a cup of tea.’ He hesitates, ‘If that’s all right with you.’
‘I’d like a cup of tea, thanks.’
The shop is part of a three-storey house facing The Common. Decades ago it had probably been owned by someone wealthy. My grandparents or even my great grandparents might have worked in it as kitchen maids, cooks or butlers. I’ve inherited too much of Mum to believe they might have achieved a higher status.
The shop is no tidier than the one I’d visited in Peckham, with chairs and sofas piled on each other like upholstered towers.
‘It’s nothing great, but it earns me a living, added to which I’ve managed to buy both the upstairs flats. I live in one and when I get organized, I’ll rent the other one out.’ Bill smiles in his modest way, transforming him from man to boy. ‘I never thought I’d own any property, and business is going well.’
He flicks the sign hanging on the door to “Closed”. ‘I doubt I’ll get any more customers at this time in the afternoon. I might pop down later and finish what I was doing. I sometimes work a bit in the evenings. It gives me something to do.’
I watch as Bill bends to lock the shop door and select the key to his flat. He’s lonely. I can tell.
In his kitchen, Bill fills the kettle. Taking some cups and saucers from a cupboard painted maroon and cream, he places them on a wooden table in the centre of the room. The linoleum is patterned with maroon triangles and oblongs. Mum would have said it was all very contemporary.
‘I’ve got a packet of biscuits somewhere. I keep them for important visitors.’
I wonder how many important visitors Bill receives.
He rummages beyond tins of baked beans and spaghetti. ‘I don’t live entirely on these. I can at least boil an egg.’
I look around the room. On the whole, Mum would have approved. It’s clean and tidy, Mum’s prerequisites for any house. Like Bill, it’s practical and unpretentious, but with here and there touches of style. Yes, Mum would have given it her grudging assent, but whether she would have detected the emptiness in it that echoes the need for companionship, I’m not sure.
‘Let’s go into the front room. The sun shines directly into it at this time of the day.’ Bill leads me from the kitchen to a room radiant with afternoon light, so that I have to blink away the blackness in front of my eyes.
‘I know, I know, don’t say it – there’s more here than in my shop.’ Bill indicates the chairs in three circles, so that there’s no room for any other furniture. ‘While some people collect art or china, I collect chairs. It’s just that I can’t bear to get rid of them when people don’t want them any more, so I mend and recover them and somehow they end up here.’
‘Don’t you sell them?’
‘Sometimes, but, well,’ he glances almost shyly at me. ‘You’ll think this is strange, but each one of the chairs here is a person I know or knew, and I cover them to suit that person’s personality.’ He hesitates as if he’s deciding whether to go on. ‘Would you like me to tell you who some of them are?’
He points to the largest of all the chairs, with huge cushions filling its craters. ‘That one’s my father’s, solid, but deep and difficult to know. And that blue one; it’s comfortable and fits into a corner. It’s my mother’s.’ Bill pauses. ‘Some of these others are for friends and family you wouldn’t know.’
We ease our way through the chairs. ‘Would you like to see yours?’
‘I’ve got one?’
‘You certainly have.’
It’s small and covered in yellow-gold chintz daffodils and roses. ‘A beautiful spring garden.’ Bill smiles. ‘Actually I’ve got another one in the shop that I might cover for you. One for you now that you are well, … growing into a woman.’
He knows! I try to study him without moving my head, but he’s moved to the next chair.
‘I’ve eve
n covered one for that young friend of yours upstairs, the one we visited in the orphanage, poor young fellow. How is he? Back with his mother and sister, I hope.’
‘No. He’s being fostered somewhere. We don’t know where. He’s with a really good family and doesn’t want to come back.’ I stroke the woollen fabric of the chair next to mine. It’s green, the colour of The Common. Tony would have been pleased with it.
I know the exquisite chaise longue swathed in pink damask on its own in the centre is Mum’s before Bill tells me.
‘For a film star,’ I whisper.
‘For a film star,’ Bill repeats, then continues, ‘How is she?’
‘A bit better, I think. She’s not counting so much … since she’s been at the … the … hospital, she counts all the time, you see. Sometimes she gets into the tens of thousands. But I don’t think she hears the voices so much.’
We lapse into silence.
‘Do you still play the piano?’ Bill asks at last.
‘No, we haven’t got a piano anymore.’
Another silence.
‘Everything all right at home?’
‘Fine.’
‘Good.’
The sun warms my back, while my bra cuts into it.
‘I know I’ve said this before, but if you need anything. Well, you know.’
‘Thanks, but Dad and I manage quite well.’
‘Good.’ Bill strokes the pink damask. ‘You look just like her when she was your age’ He disappears and returns with a sepia photograph of Mum when she was probably a year or two older than me. ‘I keep it by my bed. Not that I need to be reminded of what she looked like. She’ll always be beautiful to me.’
Chapter Sixteen
Herbie catches up with me as I pass Izzy’s on my way back from Bill’s.
‘You in practice for the Olympics?’ he asks, panting.
‘I always walk fast.’
Mum used to say that people who walked slowly were time-wasters.
‘Have you had any more trouble from those kids?’
The Best in Blountmere Street (The Blountmere Street Series Book 2) Page 14