Unforgettable

by Jean Saunders

  ‘No, But I’m sure you’re about to tell me.’

  ‘You always sell yourself short. You ain’t learned yet that you’ve got to fight for what you want, and you won’t do that skulking behind net curtains.’

  ‘Is that what you think I do? I could tell you a thing or two about fighting for what I want—or rather, what I don’t want,’ Gracie said, more viciously than she intended. But she should have known it would bring a glint to Dolly’s eyes.

  They had had the foresight to beg some biscuits, a packet of tea and a bottle of milk from Mrs Warburton, and by now they were sprawled out on the armchairs in the sitting-room, drinking tea and dunking biscuits.

  ‘What’s really decided you to move back to the Smoke, then? I reckon it’s summat more than losing your ma and pa. Is there summat else you’re not telling me? I know you practically see yourself as the Virgin Mary, so don’t tell me sailor-boy Davey tried it on with you one dark night.’

  She was laughing as she spoke, but Gracie was suddenly incensed. Good God Almighty, Dolly had just gone through hell because of some lout trying it on, yet she could joke about such things as if yesterday had never happened. It might be the only way for Dolly to deal with it, but right then, Gracie was enraged.

  ‘You’re an insensitive pig, aren’t you, Dolly?’ she said furiously. ‘I know you don’t love anybody but yourself, but I loved my mother dearly, and my dad too, despite everything, and unlike some people I can’t brush off certain things in my life as if they were of no importance.’

  ‘Blimey, I didn’t mean to upset you, Gracie! And it’s not true I don’t love anybody but myself. You know I don’t go in for all that soppy stuff, but I think of you as a sister, and I did love Jim—or thought I did.’ She swallowed hard as she said the last words, her eyes filled with angry tears.

  Gracie tried to calm down. Dolly could be brash and uncaring, but however she was behaving now, swinging from one mood to the next, the fact was that her body had gone through a horrible experience yesterday. There was no denying, either, that right from the start she had fallen for Jim, hook, line and sinker.

  ‘You know you have to put it all behind you now, Dolly. Do you really think you could pick up with him again now and not tell him what’s happened?’

  ‘I suppose not,’ Dolly mumbled. ‘I ain’t given it much thought.’

  ‘Well, think about it now,’ Gracie went on relentlessly. ‘Is he the fathering kind? Would he get upset because you got rid of his child, or knock you about for what you did? If he was the marrying kind he’d have asked you before he did what he did. I’m not saying he didn’t fancy you, but in the end he only wanted you for one thing, Dolly. He thought you were easy.’

  ‘All right,’ Dolly almost shouted. ‘You really know how to put the boot in where it hurts most, don’t you, Gracie?’

  ‘It’s worth it if it’s getting through to you. Is it?’

  Dolly let out a ragged breath. ‘Yes. He’s a rat and I’m a pig, and never the twain shall fornicate. Ain’t that the posh word for it?’

  ‘It’s one word. It would be hard though, seeing the difference in size.’

  Dolly looked at her in astonishment and then burst out laughing.

  ‘Why, Gracie Brown, I do believe there’s a smutty sense of humour lurking beneath that saintly exterior. So are you going to tell me what really happened in Southampton to send you scuttling up here again when you had a whole house to yourself to set up in business?’

  She sighed. ‘If I don’t, I don’t suppose you’ll ever let it go.’

  ‘No,’ Dolly said, folding her arms. ‘So what’s the gossip?’

  When she had been told, her eyes widened.

  ‘My Gawd Gracie, how old is this landlord, and what’s he like?’

  ‘He’s middle-aged, paunchy, slimy and horrible, and I wouldn’t fancy him in a million years, so now that I’ve told you, can we please forget it?’

  The memory of Percy Hill’s pawing hands groping beneath her skirt could still make her shudder and feel physically sick.

  ‘You’ve been through a hell of a lot in these past few months, ain’t you, mate?’ Dolly said quietly.

  ‘We both have. But life can only get better from now on, can’t it?’

  ‘That’s the spirit! So when are you moving in?’

  * * *

  On the train home on Monday morning, Gracie realized she had nothing to keep her there now, except to say goodbye to friends and neighbours, and check with the saleroom on the sale of her things. It might have been reckless to pay a month’s rent in advance on the new flat, but she daren’t risk losing it, and the Fosters obviously approved of her.

  They would be good landlords, Gracie thought thankfully, and now she had to think about her future properly.

  Dolly had decided to go back to work on Monday, rather than raise eyebrows at the boarding-house. She was a good worker for all her scatty ways. Apart from the dark shadows beneath her eyes it was as if nothing had happened.

  Gracie wondered if anyone could really forget such a traumatic event. How would she feel if it had been her, knowing that what you allowed an abortionist to do resulted in the death of a child?

  She shuddered, glad to her core that such a thing had never happened to her—and never would, she vowed. She might appear to be the Virgin Mary in Dolly’s eyes, but when she gave herself to a man, it would be in love and marriage. She still couldn’t forget the romantic dreams of a man she would probably never meet again, remembering that in one blissful evening, when she had danced in someone’s arms, she had felt admired, if not loved …

  The train rattled on its way, and she immersed herself until the journey’s end in reading the magazines she had bought on a stall at Waterloo station. Once there, she went straight home from the station, opened all the windows in the house to air it, and then knocked on Mrs Jennings’s door. Her neighbour wasn’t in the least surprised at her news.

  ‘Well, it had to come, my duck, and there’s no point in prolonging the agony. It was what your mum wanted, so good luck to you. Do you want me to tell old fart-face?’

  ‘No thank you,’ Gracie said with a grin, not pretending she didn’t know whom she meant. ‘I’ll have pleasure in telling him myself, but please keep it to yourself for now, Mrs Jennings.’

  ‘You can rely on me, love.’

  Which probably meant it would be all down the street in no time, Gracie thought ruefully, but what did it matter? She had told the Fosters to expect her to take up residence in a few days’ time, and she meant it.

  First though, she went to the saleroom to collect her dues from the sale of the furniture. She was reasonably satisfied with the amount. It wasn’t much for a lifetime of memories, but it would help to swell the coffers, and the salespeople promised to collect the few remaining things as soon as possible and send a postal order on to her new address in London.

  She couldn’t deny her thrill just to say it. It also gave her the courage to go to Percy Hill’s house and knock on his door, despite the way her knees were knocking when she did so.

  His eyes narrowed when he saw her, and if he intended asking her in, Gracie forestalled him by standing firmly beyond the doorstep.

  ‘I’ve come to tell you I’ll be moving out at the end of this week. Mrs Jennings will have the rent money up until then, and after that you can do what you like with the place. I’ll be glad to be rid of it.’

  He blustered, his face darkly red with anger.

  ‘And I’ll be glad to be rid of ungrateful tenants who don’t know when they’re well off, Miss high-and-mighty. But you know damn well you’re supposed to give me notice.’

  She looked at him coldly. ‘I’m giving you all you’re going to get from me. If you want to make a fuss, you’ll have to find me first, but I’m sure the authorities would be interested in knowing how you tried to take advantage of a recently bereaved tenant, especially a young girl under the age of consent.’

  As his colour deepened even mor
e, she turned on her heel and stalked away with her head held high. Let him call it blackmail if he liked. She doubted that he would ever take it further, especially with Mrs Jennings to back her up—and with every other neighbour in the street knowing what he was like.

  But now she was uncertain what to do next. She had done the necessary with Percy Hill and good riddance to him. She realized she was walking aimlessly, and that she had come to the dockside where her dad used to work.

  The docks were alive with workmen, creating a pungent mixture of odours and sweat, the sea-water lapping greedily against the concrete walls. The smells were familiar and distasteful, reminding Gracie poignantly of the way her dad had met his end. Nobody deserved that, whatever their failings.

  For all his hard-drinking ways, she knew her dad really had cared for her mum in his own clumsy way. It was a pity he hadn’t been able to control himself enough to ease her passing, though, and her brief sympathy swiftly disappeared. But before she left Southampton she had to say goodbye to them both, because she doubted that once she left for London, she would ever come this way again.

  She bought some flowers from a stall and set out purposefully for the churchyard where they were buried together, according to her mother’s wishes. Gracie laid the flowers carefully on the mound of soil on the grave, which had only a wooden cross to mark it out. There was no money for anything more elaborate, and Queenie had insisted that she shouldn’t waste any of it on fancy gravestones. Gracie knew it hardly mattered. What mattered more, she thought with a shiver, was that they were together for all eternity now.

  ‘I wanted to tell you what was happening, Mum,’ she whispered, glancing around in case anyone thought her crazy to be talking to a wooden cross, but the churchyard was deserted except for herself.

  ‘I’m doing what you wanted, Mum, and moving to London. I’ve found a place of my own, and first thing next week I’m going to buy a new sewing-machine and then I’ll be all set. Dolly thinks I should advertise my skills, to let people know I’m a willing worker.’

  She swallowed. ‘In one way, it will be sad to leave the house, but I’ll be taking my memories with me. I may not be talking to you here for a while, Mum—and Dad,’ she added guiltily, ‘but I reckon I can talk to you wherever I am, so this is goodbye for the present.’

  She pressed a finger to her lips and then on to the wooden cross. A small, warm wind blew across the churchyard, ruffling the petals on the flowers, and she felt a small sense of comfort, as if it was her mum giving her silent blessing.

  ‘Is that you, Gracie Brown?’ she heard a woman’s voice call out, and she jerked her head around, annoyed at the intrusion into her thoughts.

  Davey Watkins’s mother came bustling across the uneven ground of the churchyard, her face clearly disapproving. She paused beside her, red-faced and panting, her hand pressed to her chest. At this rate, thought Gracie uncharitably, she’d be the next one for a wooden overcoat.

  ‘How are you, Mrs Watkins?’ she said automatically. ‘How’s Davey?’

  ‘I didn’t think you cared how he was, but never mind about that. What’s all this about you having a bit of fuss with that landlord of yours? If you take my advice, you’ll get away from there. Young girls living alone like you are a temptation for the likes of him. Of course, if you was married, or engaged, it would be a different matter, because then he’d have a man to deal with, even if the husband wasn’t around all the time.’

  She paused for breath, and Gracie almost laughed out loud at her transparency.

  ‘A husband who might be a sailor, I suppose?’

  ‘You could do a lot worse,’ the sailor’s mother said tartly.

  And a lot better, Gracie added silently.

  The other’s tone grew more spiteful. ‘You should keep in mind that mud sticks, my girl. A landlord with a loud voice is just as likely to spread the word that you were easy and encouraged him.’

  Gracie could hardly believe what she was hearing, and then rage took over.

  ‘I certainly did not encourage him. The man should be arrested for what he tried to do to me …’

  Too late she saw the gleam in the woman’s eyes. Gossips like her … what they didn’t know, they surmised or invented, and they didn’t need the added ammunition that Gracie had just given her.

  ‘Please excuse me, Mrs Watkins,’ she said, turning away. ‘I’ve really nothing more to say on the subject.’

  ‘Well, excuse me, miss!’ Mrs Watkins said, clearly miffed at this response.

  As the woman marched angrily away, Gracie knew she was about to get the reputation now of being hoity-toity and above herself. But to hell with Ma Watkins or anybody else, she thought angrily. She’d soon be well away from here, and the sooner the better. She gave one last look at the wooden cross above her parents’ grave.

  ‘You were so right, Mum. I do have to go, don’t I?’

  She straightened up and strode away from the churchyard with shoulders squared. She had already begun to realize it wasn’t just the need to get away and start a new life any more. There was an awakening ambition inside her she never really knew she had until now. Making something of yourself was one of her old schoolteacher’s favourite sayings, while never really expecting her class of uninterested students to have any idea of what it meant. Well, now Gracie knew exactly what she meant. And it wasn’t settling for marriage with someone she had known all her life, thank you very much, just for the sake of holding up her head and being a respectable married woman to please the busybody conformists.

  She found herself laughing, not even knowing where such a fancy word had come from or how it had popped into her head just then. Swallowing a bleedin’ dictionary, as Dolly would have said.

  But that was the point. You never knew what you were capable of until you tried, and right now, with her spirits bubbling up, Gracie felt as if the whole wide world was opening its arms and beckoning her inside.

  * * *

  She didn’t feel quite so euphoric on the day she finally left, when she went through every room in the house where she had been born, pressing her hand against the faded places where pictures had hung, the scullery sink where her mother had toiled for so many years, the bedroom where she had dreamed her childish dreams. She breathed in the atmosphere of all that had gone before, willing it all back, and knowing that she had to let it go. Such a mixture of memories and emotions: the love, the bitterness, the rows, the pain, the sadness … but above all, the love. She always knew she had been loved, and that love had existed here above all else.

  She swallowed deeply, said a silent goodbye, then picked up her suitcase. She closed the door behind her for the last time and walked purposefully towards the railway station without ever looking back. Some wise person had written that.

  Don’t ever look back or try to change things that can never be changed—and nor would she.

  * * *

  The euphoria returned as soon as she stepped off the train at Waterloo station and hailed a taxi to take her to the new flat. This was the beginning of a new era, and fame and fortune awaited her. Well, perhaps not quite, she thought realistically, but with luck and a following wind, at least a comfortable living doing what she liked best. If all else failed, she could always return to Lawson’s Shirt Factory … and that thought alone was enough to stiffen her resolve.

  She hadn’t expected it to feel so different, walking into the flat and knowing that this was now home. Even though she had been here several times before, she was now seeing it through different eyes. These were her chairs, her table, her bedroom. Hers—and she was accountable to no one but the kindly couple downstairs who were her landlords—and a world away from the rotten apple in Southampton. Gracie gave a shiver, remembering, and then put him out of her memory for good.

  By the end of that first day she had rearranged the furniture and made the place look her own, with photographs and pictures and her own little knick-knacks and mementoes of her mother. Tomorrow she would look for a sewing
-machine, and then see about an advertisement to let people know she was here.

  She had been so full of optimism, but for the first time, a tiny element of doubt crept in. What if no one ever answered her advertisement? What if they thought it presumptuous of a factory shirt-stitcher to set herself up as a skilled maker of children’s clothes?

  At the same instant, she felt angry at her mental dithering. Everyone had to start somewhere, and if she was going to fall apart at the first hurdle, she wasn’t going to get anywhere.

  She was still composing the words for the advertisement, and had discarded a dozen pieces of paper, when there was a knock on her door. Her first visitor! Common sense told her it would probably be Mr Foster from below, asking if she had everything she needed. She threw open the door, smiling.

  ‘It ain’t exactly New Year’s Eve, but I thought I’d come first-footing. How’re you settling in, gel?’ said Dolly’s cheerful voice.

  ‘All the better for seeing you!’ Gracie exclaimed, meaning it. ‘You can come and help me tell the world how wonderful I am without feeling a fraud, and knowing I should be a lot more modest about it.’

  ‘My Gawd, Gracie, you are a bit of a dummy, aren’t you? Of course you’ve got to tell people you’re wonderful, or how the hell will they ever know it? Blow your own trumpet a bit—or even your own saxophone, which should be much more to your liking.’

  ‘Have you seen him?’ The words were out before she could stop herself.

  Dolly shook her head pityingly.

  ‘You know the best thing you can do, don’t you? Find yourself another chap p.d.q. and get Charlie-boy out of your mind. What’s happened to Davey the sailor, anyway?’

  ‘Nothing, and I’m not thinking of any chaps right now. All I want is to get these words right, so are you going to help me or not?’

  ‘All right, keep your hair on.’ Dolly grinned. ‘But you can’t fool me, Gracie Brown. You’re still carrying a torch for that saxophone player, and it’s a waste of bleedin’ time if you ask me.’

  ‘I know, and I didn’t.’ But secretly, she knew damn well that Dolly was right. She simply couldn’t forget Charlie Morrison. He was as much a part of her as breathing—which the logical side of her told her was plain daft since she hardly knew him. But who ever took any notice of logic when they were in love? And now that the events of the past months were fading and she had a breathing-space to think about him, she knew he was as unforgettable as ever.