‘That’s not true,’ Mrs Mitchell replied unconvincingly, avoiding her daughter’s eye.
‘Oh, yeah,’ Vicki returned, rolling hers in incredulity.
‘Victoria, please sit down, will you?’ her father interrupted in a measured voice, ‘and calm down.’
‘Why should I?’ Vicki replied a touch childishly.
‘Sit down and shut up!’ her father barked authoritatively, his look severe. Fiona lowered her eyes but failed to hide the hint of a smirk while doing so.
Vicki was seething but her father’s command took the wind out of her sails and, after a moment’s hesitation, she pulled back a chair and joined her family at the table. Her father deliberately waited another minute before beginning to speak, pouring himself a coffee in the meantime. He hoped that a period of silence might calm his daughter down. ‘Now, that’s better. Let’s all talk about this sensibly.’
‘What do you mean by this? He has got a name, you know. It’s Rhys, if you haven’t forgotten.’
Mr Mitchell trod carefully, like a day-old lamb. ‘What we mean by this is your relationship with Rhys. As you can imagine, your mother and I were somewhat taken aback when we found out you were moving in together. You could have told us first.’
‘Well, I was just waiting to find the right time, that’s all,’ Vicki replied unconvincingly.
‘Why the need to wait? You could have told us as soon as you’d decided. We’re not old fashioned, you know that. We understand these things,’ Mrs Mitchell butted in.
But before Vicki could reply, her father did so for her. ‘It’s because you knew we might not approve of him. That’s it, isn’t it?’ Vicki’s silence and fixed stare at the table top confirmed her father’s opinion. The silence stretched out, so much so that Fiona began to fidget uncomfortably in her chair, but at least an air of serenity had descended on proceedings. But this did not last for long for Mr Mitchell was determined to air all his views, however brutal. He had not risen to his position in life by being a shrinking violet. ‘And to be frank, we don’t approve.’ Vicki’s guts churned, and even Fiona trembled, for they were now getting to the heart of the matter.
‘And why’s that?’ Vicki retorted stiffly. ‘Is it because you disapprove of people who are kind, generous and understanding?’
‘Don’t be silly, Victoria. I’m sure Rhys is all of those things but if you want to get on in life and make something of yourself, you need … more.’
‘Oh, you can be such a snob sometimes, Mum,’ Vicki exploded, flinging a hand dismissively in front of her. ‘It’s all about background and money with you at the end of the day, isn’t it?’
‘That’s not true, Victoria, and I resent that! How can you say such a thing? Look at your father; he started from nothing. It’s not about background, or money, it’s about ambition and wanting to get on in life. Your father worked twelve hours a day in Billingsgate but still got his qualifications from night school. Look at him now.’
‘Jeremy’s got lots of qualifications,’ Fiona threw in smugly and unhelpfully. She earned herself a tirade of abuse from Vicki.
‘Oh, why don’t you shut up, you fat cow?’ Vicki screamed, her face twisted in fury, resembling a Turneresque storm. ‘And why won’t you accept he’s fucking every girl he can get his hands on, you stupid old bag?’
‘VICTORIA! That’s enough. Apologise to your sister,’ Mrs Mitchell broke in angrily. Her father looked daggers at her.
‘Why should I? She knows I’m right.’
Fiona possessed the hide of a rhinoceros, however. She remained seated and appeared the most composed person in the room. She replied measuredly but cuttingly at the same time. ‘You’re just jealous, that’s all. Only because Jeremy earns oodles of money and owns a big house in Kensington while Rhys is some country bumpkin who barely knows how to hold a knife and fork properly. You’re the one who won’t accept the truth.’
An enraged Vicki stood up, lips pursed, to aim a slap at her sister, who cowered away in anticipation, but then thought the better of it. She sat down, but her stare towards Fiona remained murderous.
‘Let’s all calm down,’ Mrs Mitchell broke in, ‘and let’s leave Jeremy out of this.’
The kitchen returned to silence but the atmosphere was sulphuric.
‘Good morning, Mrs Mitchell, Mr Mitchell, Victoria, Fiona.’
The greeting expressed from the door by their long-standing cleaning lady startled everyone. She had let herself into the house a few minutes earlier without anyone noticing and, on hearing all the raised voices in the kitchen, decided to start work in the living room first. She needed access to the Pledge and duster in the kitchen, however, so took advantage of the temporary lull to gingerly make her approach.
‘Oh, good morning, Maria. I didn’t hear you come in,’ Mrs Mitchell replied. ‘If you need to grab anything, just go ahead.’
Maria busied herself in a couple of cupboards as quickly as possible and hurried out, closing the door behind her. She knew all about tension in the air, for her own Italian family was always in such a state.
Mr Mitchell tried to bring some decorum back to proceedings. ‘Let’s keep our voices down and talk sensibly about this. Victoria, before you say another word, just listen to what I have to say. Your mother and I have only got your best interests at heart. You’re a very bright girl and we’re extremely proud of you. When I heard you’d got a first, it was one of the happiest days of my life.’ Vicki lowered her eyes, a touch embarrassed, but warmed on hearing her father’s kind words. Fiona looked glum. She didn’t like praise being lavished on her sister and knew that she was unlikely to match her academic achievements. ‘You’re starting a new life in London in an excellent company and the world’s your oyster, but we worry that your involvement with Rhys will only hold you back.’
‘Why, what do you mean? You think you know him but you don’t.’
Vicki’s reply was as sharp as a paper cut and the brief ceasefire was on the point of breaking down. Mr Mitchell was determined to remain composed and to sound as wise and persuasive as possible, like when gently requesting his staff to reconsider their over-optimistic sales forecasts. But before he could carry on, his wife interrupted him, tossing a hand grenade into the battlefield and making matters worse. ‘It’s important to have a good man at your side, Victoria.’
‘But Rhys is a good man! How can you say such a thing?’ Vicki fired back with the force of a cannonball, her cheeks crimson.
Mr Mitchell rolled his eyes at his wife’s crassness and experienced the damp, seeping unease of despair like rain in a leaking shoe as the vitriol returned. The voices became raised once more and no one cared whether Maria could hear them or not. Fiona looked down, smirking. It was at moments like these when being the only male in the household made Vicki’s father feel impotent as reason flew out of the window to be replaced by high emotion.
‘You just won’t listen, will you, Victoria? Go on then, throw your life away and get involved with that blithering idiot of yours for all I’m concerned. I don’t care, it’s your life.’ Mrs Mitchell had snapped and brushed her husband’s hand away as he tried to calm her down. Vicki just stared incredulously at her, open-mouthed. Even Fiona was shocked. ‘What’s he got going for him? Nothing!’ Mrs Mitchell yelled. ‘Three ‘O’ Levels, that’s all.’ Vicki averted her look, remembering the lie she had told her mother a few weeks earlier. ‘And what does he do? He packs boxes in a warehouse. Wow! You must be proud of him. Of course, he is moving up in the world. He’s going to be a post boy at Marks and Spencer,’ she continued sarcastically. ‘And no doubt when you give up work to start a family one day, he’ll really be in a position to support you, won’t he? Use your head, Victoria, for God’s sake.’
‘Dad started at the bottom. Why can’t Rhys?’
‘Your father’s one in a million. Can’t you see that? And, by the way, what’s wrong with Jeremy? He’s hard working, intelligent and ambitious, just the type you should be looking for.’
> Fiona looked up with a contented grin like the fattest of cats who’d just found the creamiest of creams poured over the tastiest of mice.
‘And you’re the one who said to leave Jeremy out of this! You make me sick sometimes.’
‘How dare you speak to your mother like that!’ Mrs Mitchell screamed back. Her husband was convinced he could see steam pouring out of her ears. ‘And don’t think we didn’t notice you running your hand up his crotch last night like some cheap whore. Your father told me all about it this morning.’
Maria dusted away diligently in the living room, shocked at the shouting in the kitchen. And she thought her family was mad.
‘How dare you? How dare you say something like that to me? You should be ashamed of yourself!’ Vicki was beside herself with anger and stood up abruptly, tipping over a glass of orange juice as she pushed hard at the table. Fiona had to jump smartly out of the way to avoid it. Her father attempted to put his hand on Vicki’s arm to sit her down but she punched it away with all her might and ran to the door. Before exiting, she turned round, screaming. ‘Well, there’s nothing you can do about it! I love him and we’re moving in together next week and that’s that. You can all go and fuck yourselves for all I care.’ And with that, Vicki burst out of the kitchen, slamming the door behind her, and ran up the stairs to her bedroom.
‘VICTORIA! How dare you use language like that to your mother and father! Go on then, run off with that Midnight Cowboy of yours,’ Mrs Mitchell snorted, like a horse after a gallop, recalling the unsophisticated hunk from the recent film of the same name, ‘and see what I care!’ She was fuming and shouting so loudly that the noise would have sent a family of howler monkeys whimpering for cover. Incandescent, she did not even react to the orange juice dripping onto the glazed Sicilian tiles she had so painstakingly imported from Italy to grace her kitchen floor. Her husband turned the glass up and dabbed at the dripping with some kitchen roll before putting his hand on his wife’s shoulder. No one moved a muscle, like Renaissance statues. Fiona stared downwards in complete shock at what she had just heard. She couldn’t wait to tell Jeremy. This was an experience she had to share with someone.
Vicki threw herself onto her bed, having slammed yet another door behind her. She lay on her back, seething, and locked her eyes on the ceiling. Tears quickly formed and she fingered them away. How could they be so nasty? she asked herself. She had never seen her mother in such a state. And Fiona, the stupid cow! She hoped Jeremy would break her heart and teach her a lesson.
As the minutes ticked by, Vicki’s heartbeat returned to something closer to normal and she regained her composure. Worryingly, however, for it had never crossed her mind for one nanosecond before, she wondered whether what her parents had said contained more than a degree of truth.
CHAPTER 7
‘Wait!’ Rhys’s sharp command stopped Vicki in her tracks. She had just turned the latch key in the Yale and half-opened the door. The wood of its frame was markedly rotten and the British Racing Green paint of the door itself peeling badly. When Rhys had first seen the flat, he wondered whether it had been a job lot flogged off by Lotus. They had just collected the key from the letting agent, handed over their deposit and first month’s rent, and were in a high state of excitement. Even the climb up three flights of stairs to the top floor of the once grand Victorian town house, carrying two heavy suitcases each, failed to dampen their mood.
‘Why, what’s up?’
‘Nothing, but I think we should do this properly,’ and, before Vicki could say another word, Rhys scooped her up into his arms. ‘Isn’t this the way it’s done, crossing the threshold for the first time, like?’
‘Usually after you get married,’ Vicki replied with a wide smile.
‘Is that a hint?’ Rhys returned curiously. Vicki did not answer but the lingering smile told Rhys everything he needed to know and it was certainly not discouraging. He smiled back and gave her a quick kiss on the lips. ‘Here goes,’ and with that, he stepped over the threshold and into the gloomy narrow hallway, so narrow in fact that Vicki, still lying across Rhys’s arms, had to tuck her head and legs in to avoid scraping them against the walls.
After only a few strides, they arrived in the living room. Besides the bedroom and bathroom, it was the only other room in the flat. In one of the corners, the landlord had fixed a cupboard above a free-standing gas cooker with grill. Alongside it was a flimsy wooden table, beneath which sat a pedal bin. Next to this was a sink unit with Ascot boiler above. The corner of the living room was the kitchen.
In the centre of the room, a two-seater sofa in a blotchy, burgundy velour fabric was positioned next to an armchair which was covered in a worn, faded cotton fabric printed with large white water lilies. When she first saw it, Vicki had jokingly referred to it as their Monet armchair. Rhys had not had a clue what she was on about, and still didn’t. The fabric down its back was badly shredded, no doubt caused by the claws of a previous occupant’s cat. Vicki and Rhys had been explicitly told by the agent that pets were strictly forbidden. Perhaps this was why the previous occupant left, Rhys mused, as, after setting Vicki down, he pushed the sofa and armchair against a wall to create more space, leaving faint meandering lines across the original stripped floorboards which had been stained amber gold.
Vicki loved the floor and it was the main reason why she had reluctantly gone along with Rhys’s view that they should take the flat. Sensing this reluctance at the time, Rhys had agreed to Vicki’s request that they should stay for a short period only, perhaps a year or so, during which time they would build their savings and find a better place. Rhys was happy to accommodate her, though he personally loved the flat.
While Rhys was pushing back the sofa, Vicki had taken two steps to the room’s only window and looked down onto Latchmere Road. A steady stream of cars, vans and buses flowed up and down the hill, for their flat was positioned on the gradient of the road close to where it joined Lavender Hill. Rhys had been excited beyond words to know that he was going to be living near the road which carried the name of one of his favourite films, The Lavender Hill Mob, and it was the first thing he told his mother when he rang her that afternoon to confirm their accepting the flat. She, too, had been excited, joking with Rhys whether he was able to see Alec Guinness and Stanley Holloway walking along the road from his window. Vicki had joined in the merriment but soon put a dampener on it when reminding them that they had probably never set foot in the area in the first place as the film had been made in Ealing.
The view from the grimy window was hardly compelling and neither were the pillar-box red walls Vicki saw when she turned round, which only made the flat look gloomier in her eyes. Rhys had promised to paint over them as soon as they moved in, a condition the landlord had agreed to, so long as they paid for the materials themselves. The landlord isn’t Peter Rachman, I hope, Rhys had said to Vicki at the time and, to be fair, the flat could not be classed as a slum like those owned by the notorious Notting Hill property tycoon, but it wasn’t far off. Like Lotus, Rhys had wondered whether the Post Office, too, had ventured into selling paint and he joked with Vicki that he would contact the Royal Navy next to see whether they had any cheap battleship grey on offer.
‘Just get white, please,’ Vicki replied and then repeated, worried that Rhys might actually look into it.
But none of this mattered to Vicki as she followed Rhys out of the living room into the hallway and back outside onto the landing to fetch the suitcases. She was simply beside herself with joy at moving into a property of her own with the man she loved. Ever since she had been a young girl, she had dreamt of such a moment. Yes, the flat was minuscule, a kaleidoscope of ugly colours and clash of different styles, but most of that could be changed easily enough, she reasoned, and they wouldn’t be there for long, anyway. What was more durable was her love for Rhys, her love of London and the promise of an exciting new job.
They re-entered the flat, dumped the suitcases and shut the door behind them. A
s Rhys pushed at the bedroom door, it banged into a hard object on the other side before it was even half open. So small was the bedroom that the double bed dwarfed it, and, once they were both inside, the gaps between the outer frame of the bed and the wardrobe and chest of drawers were so narrow that they had to shuffle sideways to get round to the opposite end. Fortunately, an original built-in cupboard gave them additional space for their belongings.
‘I don’t know about not being able to swing a cat in here, I think you’d struggle with a mouse,’ Rhys joked with a smile which turned into a grimace when he noticed a patch of black in the corner nearest the window.
Vicki was more concerned at the mattress which was sagging, threadbare and included a number of stains. ‘That’s going straight away!’ she exclaimed, crinkling her nose. Rhys agreed, though it didn’t look too bad to his eye. After another cursory glance around, he stood full square to Vicki and took her in his arms, hugging her with all the love and affection he could muster. She reciprocated, leaning her head into his chest.
‘Well, this is it, the start of a wonderful new life together,’ Vicki declared.
‘Absolutely. I’m just so excited,’ Rhys concurred, stroking the palm of his hand lightly up and down her back.
‘Me, too,’ Vicki replied and, though Rhys could not see her face, he felt her smile against his chest. He smiled, too, before indulging in a bit of mischief.
‘You know, Vick, we’ve talked so much about loads of stuff these past few months but I don’t think I ever asked you whether you were religious or not.’
Vicki moved her head back and looked up at him with a befuddled expression. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, as this is our first day, we’re gonna have to christen the flat, aren’t we?’ Rhys explained with that glint in his eye which Vicki knew meant only one thing. The feel of his erection against her confirmed it.
Decade Page 9