The band played a selection of rousing patriotic songs; Land of hope and glory and Jerusalem, then a good smattering of popular songs, though nothing that would outrage older listeners on a Sunday morning, and, to end with, some traditional sea shanties. Dolly nudged Gracie as the concert ended.
‘I reckon they played them sea shanties just for you, gel, to remind you of your Davey. What’s he like, anyway? Tall, dark and handsome?’
‘Oh yes. Valentino to the life,’ Gracie said, heavy with sarcasm. ‘As a matter of fact he’s quite good-looking, but when you’ve known somebody practically all your life, you hardly notice it, do you?’
‘So when are you seeing him again?’
‘I don’t know! When he’s home on leave, I suppose, that is, if I’m still around. If I’ve moved back here, I won’t be seeing him at all, will I?’
‘Never mind,’ Dolly said giving her arm a squeeze. ‘You’re a lovely writer, Gracie, and I bet he likes getting letters from you.’
‘I daresay. So can we shut up about him now?’
And despite what Dolly might think, she had no romantic feelings towards Davey Watkins and never would have.
* * *
She left London early on Monday morning, having decided that she didn’t need to look around for a place to rent just yet. There would be time enough for that when she had sorted out everything at home.
Her parents’ life insurances had been paid out promptly and thanks to her mum’s foresight in paying into the funeral club each of them had been given a decent send-off. But there were still papers and letters to sort out in what Queenie always called her business drawer.
Mick had always scoffed at it, saying she was getting above herself making such a fuss about keeping every bloody receipt as if they were gold dust—but Queenie had confided to Gracie long ago that if she didn’t keep money for the gas and coal bills and suchlike away from his prying eyes, he’d booze the lot away. And keeping receipts had always been a matter of pride to her, to prove that the Brown family could pay their way.
After the deaths, although Gracie had dealt with the necessary insurance policies, she hadn’t had the heart to empty the drawer properly, but she knew it had to be done. She couldn’t break the final ties with home until she did so. She also realized that there could be unpaid bills. Because of the pain and the drugs her mother had been forced to take during her last weeks, Queenie had been vague about so many things. The only thing she had insisted on with what little animation she could summon up, was that her daughter shouldn’t stay in Southampton.
Once Gracie had returned to the house she opened all the windows to rid it of the stale smell of being unoccupied, even for so short a while. Not that the varying smells that wafted from the dockside were any too savoury, either, and it was soon preferable to close the windows again. But not before more than one person had noted that the Brown girl was back.
Much later, having unpacked and made herself a sandwich and a pot of tea, she opened the business drawer purposefully. There were no surprises, just the rent book and the large envelope that said simply ‘Bills and Receipts.’
Gracie tipped them out on to the parlour table, startled to discover that they went years back. Uneasily beginning to agree with her dad she saw that this had become something of an obsession, though some of them made interesting reading. Halfway down the pile she found another envelope. The sight of nothing more than her own name on it made her heart jolt and then start to beat painfully fast.
Queenie hadn’t been an educated woman, and if this was going to be what was called a letter from the grave Gracie wasn’t sure she could bear to read it. But how could she not? It had been meant for her, and written some time ago, she guessed. So perhaps Queenie hadn’t written it in her last months when she knew she was dying, but a long time ago.
The thought made it easier for Gracie to slit open the envelope, and then stare in complete disbelief at the contents.
‘Cooee, is anybody home?’
Without waiting for an answer Mrs Jennings came bustling into the house after a peremptory knock on the door, as she had always done while poor Queenie was alive. She’d seen no reason not to do it now.
With one swift movement, Gracie covered the contents of her mother’s letter with the larger envelope and managed to stuff the whole lot back into the drawer before she turned with as natural a smile as she could manage.
‘My goodness, you gave me a fright, Mrs Jennings!’
‘I’m sure I never meant to do any such thing, duck. I was just wanting to make sure you was all right after your jaunt to London, and to bring you a dish of mutton stew and dumplings for your dinner.’
‘It’s very kind of you—’
‘Think nothing of it. You could do with a bit of filling out, and you young girls don’t do much cooking for yourselves, do you? So did you have a good time with your friend, and ain’t you glad to be back from all the noise and the smoke?’
She paused for breath, but at least her rambling had given Gracie a chance to catch her own breath while still mulling over her discovery. Never in a million years had she expected her mother to have done something like this without Mick’s knowledge. And one thing Gracie was sure of. It was definitely without her father’s knowledge.
‘It was very nice to see my friend again, Mrs Jennings,’ she murmured in answer. ‘And good of you to bring me in the stew. I’ll enjoy it later, I’m sure.’
She hoped the neighbour would take the hint that she wanted to be alone, but she might have known it was too much to ask. Eyeing the brown earthenware teapot on the table, she asked Gracie if there was another cuppa in the pot.
‘I’m sure there is,’ she said with a sigh, telling herself not to be ungracious in wanting the woman out of here as quickly as possible. But it was another half-hour before Mrs Jennings was replete with two cups of tea, brushing down her apron for biscuit crumbs, and leaving her alone.
Gracie turned the key in the front door behind her, not wanting to be disturbed again until she had got over the staggering amount of money inside the envelope marked ‘Gracie’. It wouldn’t be huge in many people’s eyes, but it was to her, and would have been to Queenie. Quickly, having been unable to do so when she had been interrupted she scanned the letter folded around the notes.
I been saving this over the years for you, Gracie love, she read. Your dad don’t know nothing about it, and I know you’ll open this before he does. So do what you like with it, and remember, it’s for you and not for him.
Your loving mother.
Her eyes were blurred with tears when she came to the end of the poignant little note. Perhaps Queenie had had some long-ago premonition of dying before her husband, and she hadn’t wanted him to get his hands on the little nest-egg she had hoarded for her daughter. As fate had turned out, Mick had died before Queenie, and now they were both gone.
It took a while for Gracie to get over what she had found. She took the precious envelope of money upstairs and hid it under her mattress, as if she thought she was about to be robbed in broad daylight. Which was ludicrous, because when had Gracie Brown ever had anything of value to steal? Besides, the daylight was fading now, and she would soon draw the curtains and shut out the night, and decide what this new-found wealth was going to mean.
A rap on the front door made her jump again. She peered out of the bedroom window but couldn’t see anyone. It was probably Mrs Jennings coming back to reclaim her dish, but Gracie had been too keyed-up to eat any of the mutton stew yet, and wasn’t at all sure that she could have faced the heavy dumplings.
She ran downstairs and opened the door, knowing that the woman wouldn’t go away until she did so. Wanting to feed her up, thought Grace with a rueful smile. The smile faded as soon as she saw who was standing there.
‘Well now, Miss Brown, we were forgetting something last weekend, weren’t we?’ came Percy Hill’s oily voice.
She knew at once what he meant. She had forgotten the rent money, and
she should have given it to Mrs Jennings to pay him while she was away.
‘I’m sorry, I’ll get it for you now,’ she said, flustered and turned away.
He was right behind her. She could feel his breath on the back of her neck. The words seemed to ooze out of him.
‘Things can’t be easy for you now, my dear, but if you’re having trouble paying, there’s always another little arrangement.’
Before she could think, he had pulled her back towards him. His arms were around her body and his hands seized her breasts greedily. They squeezed her tight, tweaking her nipples between his fingers and thumbs until she gasped out with shock and pain. And then one of his hands slid downwards, yanking up her skirt and thrusting his hand up her leg towards her inner thigh. She opened her mouth to scream, but he was too quick for her. While his right hand probed, his other one left her breast and fastened itself over her mouth like a vice.
‘Now then, my beauty, don’t tell me you ain’t been angling for this ever since you came back,’ he panted. ‘And don’t tell me you don’t know what it’s all about, neither. I always wondered what you got up to in London, and I wouldn’t mind betting you learned a trick or two to whet a man’s appetite.’
Gracie tried desperately to clamp her legs tightly together, but she could already feel the hotness of his probing fingers. She sobbed in terror, punching back at him with her elbows, but when she opened her mouth to scream, his fingers were instantly inside it, pumping in and out in a mockery of fornication.
He was thickset and bulky and she knew she couldn’t get away from him unless she did something desperate. If she hadn’t been too far away from the drawer with the kitchen knives in it, she knew she would have done for him.
At last she managed to struggle free. She let her hand drop to where she could feel the great ugly thing inside his trousers prodding at her. Without a second thought she grabbed it hard and twisted. He howled with pain as he staggered back. She rushed to the wall and banged on it, screaming and yelling for Mrs Jennings.
‘You bitch!’ he shouted, doubled up with pain and clutching himself. ‘You bloody whoring little bitch. You won’t get away with that!’
Seconds later Mrs Jennings’s outraged voice came at them both as she stormed in through the front door.
‘What the bleedin’ hell’s going on in here?’
It only took one look at Gracie’s terrified face and at the uninvited visitor. She didn’t need to say any more. Without waiting for an answer, she grabbed the teapot from the table, and threw it and the contents at the landlord. As it hit the floor it smashed to pieces. Percy Hill was left spluttering and hollering with hot tea and tea leaves streaming down his face and clothes.
‘Maybe that’ll cool you down, you bastard,’ Mrs Jennings yelled at him.
‘You bloody madwoman. I’ll get you out of this street before I’m done,’ he screamed, turning on her furiously.
‘You and whose army! I’ll see you up before the magistrates if you try turning me and my old man out. I’ll make sure the neighbours know what you did to this little maid, and you can whistle for your bleedin’ rent money.’
The two women watched him blunder out, and as Gracie stood silently sobbing she realized Mrs Jennings was laughing.
‘Don’t worry, my duck. Everybody knows what he’s like, and they’ll all have heard the rumpus. They’ll take one look at him as he gets off home and they’ll know what’s been happening. He won’t bother you again.’
As she finished speaking, they could hear the catcalls and hissing in the street, and Gracie knew the woman was right. She was still too shocked to get any enjoyment out of it, though, and she saw Mrs Jennings look at her sharply.
‘He didn’t really hurt you, did he, lovey? You know what I mean. You don’t want the doc to come and take a look at you, do you?’
‘No, it’s not necessary. I think I hurt him though.’
The memory of his howling flashed through her mind, and she gave a trembling smile.
‘That’s better. Now, I won’t take no for an answer, Gracie. You didn’t want me stopping with you the night your ma died, but I’m stopping here tonight. I can sleep on the sofa perfectly well. No arguments, all right?’
‘I’m not arguing,’ Gracie mumbled, and then her legs turned to water, and she was enveloped in the neighbour’s arms.
11
Before she went to bed, Gracie scrubbed herself until her skin felt raw, to rid herself of the taint of Percy Hill’s pawing. Her nerves were in shreds, but she was weirdly comforted by the regular sound of Mrs Jennings’s snores from the parlour below. She had left London that morning, undecided about her future movements, and now two things had happened to decide it for her.
In the sleepless hours of the night, when every small unexpected sound could make her jump with fright, she kept her mind occupied by thinking about anything but the memory of that hateful man, knowing he would probably have succeeded in his vile intention but for the intervention of Mrs Jennings.
Weak tears ran down her cheeks. The neighbour had warned her about Percy Hill, but she had never expected such a vicious attack in her own home. She had never taken the warnings seriously; now she knew how foolish that had been.
The other, totally unexpected happening was the amount of money her mother had been squirrelling away for her all these years. The money that would enable her to get out of here, find a decent place to live, and start her own business. She tried to think positively about that future.
She would need to live in a decent part of London if she wanted a good clientele. An area where there were children of moneyed parents who would pay well for well-made clothes for their offspring … and her interest in making them had definitely been stimulated by her recent commission. She tried to concentrate on those thoughts, and by the time a pearly dawn light had begun to filter through the darkness, she knew the time had come. She fell into a deep, exhausted sleep, and awoke with a start when Mrs Jennings brought her a cup of tea.
‘Oh, whatever time is it?’ she mumbled, disorientated.
‘Never you mind the time, duck. You just stay there and drink your tea. I’ve got a saucepan of porridge warming nicely in the kitchen, summat to stick to your ribs and make you feel better.’
‘Thank you,’ Gracie said weakly, not sure whether she felt like laughing or crying at the image it created. Lizzie was watching her carefully as if she was a piece of precious porcelain, and she realized she was starting to feel somewhat better—even without the porridge sticking to her ribs.
‘I’ll drink my tea and get up,’ she said. ‘Then I’d like to talk over a few things, Mrs Jennings, unless you’ve got to go.’
‘Bless you, no. Jennings can take care of himself for a few hours. You just think of me as the next best thing to your ma, if it’s not impertinent to say so.’
‘It’s not at all,’ Gracie said huskily.
Half an hour later, feeling more like herself, she went downstairs and forced the dish of porridge down for politeness’ sake.
‘Now then, gel,’ Mrs Jennings said, leaning forward, arms folded; the concerned neighbour—and a prize gossip, Gracie reminded herself.
Gossip would be useful for letting the rest of the street know what a rat Percy Hill was, but presumably they all knew that. But Gracie didn’t want everyone knowing about the money she now possessed. So she had to be cautious.
‘If I give you the rent book and the money that’s owing, would you see that Mr Hill gets it, Mrs Jennings?’
‘’Course I will, lovey. If you want to let me keep the book and let me have the money each week, I’ll pay him with ours, then you won’t have to see the toerag at all.’
‘Thank you. And you know Mum wanted me to move back to London sometime, don’t you?’
‘Don’t let that bastard scare you out of your own home, Gracie!’
‘He’s not,’ she said quickly. ‘But there’s nothing to keep me here now. I’ve got friends in London, and my old job
is always open to me,’ she invented quickly. Though it wasn’t really an invention. The option was there if she wanted it.
‘Oh well, I suppose you know best, but I’ll be sorry to lose you, Gracie.’
‘I know,’ Gracie said, swallowing the lump in her throat, ‘but life has to go on, so I’ll give you the rent book and the money, and then I’ve got things to do.’
And good neighbour though she was, Gracie hoped she would take the hint, and stop looking as though she was a fixture for the day.
* * *
Later that morning Gracie walked purposefully to the homes of her best clients. Although they all showed surprise at her request, none of them refused her.
‘I shall miss your cheerful smile as well as your expertise, Miss Brown,’ Mrs Farthing said;, ‘but I wish you every success in your venture.’
It was the same everywhere, and Gracie was flushed and embarrassed by the time she had finished. But by then she had a small collection of references signed by some of the most reputable ladies of the town. Whether she would need them she didn’t yet know, but they were always useful to have.
Her next call was at the newsagent’s where the card advertising herself as a skilled London Outworker was still in the window. She asked him to remove the card now, and bought a London newspaper instead.
Reading it minutely at home, she felt a surge of nostalgia at the photographs about the Empire Exhibition, due to close at the end of October. That day in London had been so perfect, and Wembley was growing and becoming a fashionable area now. It would attract people of quality. It was where anyone who wanted to make a success of life might do well to start a new business.
The tingle of excitement inside her grew. She turned quickly to the pages at the back of the newspaper. There were advertisements of houses for sale and rooms to let, and she studied them carefully, pencilling a circle around anything that looked suitable for her needs, and eventually she sat back, with her head spinning. So what now? All the adverts had box numbers, a few details about the furnished rooms in question, and stating that the property was in the Wembley area. So she had to write some letters to request more details.
Unforgettable Page 12