The Doorstep Child

by Annie Murray

  Evie hesitated, wanting to clear the air. She was excited that Jack had taken a fancy to her, but she didn’t want to spoil her friendship with Carol.

  ‘I’m not treading on your toes or anything, am I?’

  ‘Oh . . . no. I mean, he’s a cool cat, that one,’ Carol said, in her sweet way, though, Evie thought, trying just a bit too hard to sound as if she didn’t care. ‘But no, he’s too much of a cool customer for me. And anyway, it’s you he’s after, isn’t it?’

  Hearing it put like that, Evie felt a happy excitement swelling in her for the first time in a very long time.

  Thirty

  She met Jack the next Friday evening. The arrangements were made through Carol and the other girls at work all got to hear that Evie was going on a date and kept teasing her as they stood in a row along the workbench, feeding the steel rods into the spinning machines. Go on, what’s he like, Evie? Carol says he’s a proper looker . . .

  ‘Ooh, aren’t you scared?’ Carol kept saying. ‘I’d be a bag of nerves, meeting him!’

  Evie shook her head, trying to be mysterious. ‘Not really,’ she fibbed.

  All week her heart kept speeding up each time she remembered she was meeting Jack Harrison. She kept forcing her mind back to work in the room’s dingy light. If she wasn’t careful, she was going to get her fingers caught in one of the vicious machines. She lay in bed every night that week, imagining how the meeting would be, what she would say and trying to predict Jack’s responses. She could picture him clearly, with his lean, chiselled features. He made you feel there was really someone in the room, a person whose presence you could sense, like an animal that gives off a roving energy.

  They had arranged to meet in town outside the cathedral, which was easy for both of them as they would be coming in on different buses. Evie hoped she would be there first so that she could calm down and prepare herself. So that she could see him walking towards her.

  But it was pouring with rain that evening and her bus crawled along the Moseley Road. I’m going to be late, damn it, she thought, peering out through the streaming windows. At least I’ve got an umbrella. But it was not a good start. She was almost running most of the way from the stop to the cathedral and arrived feeling sweaty and flustered. She wondered for a moment how she was going to find him in the ill-lit gloom, but almost immediately she saw a slender figure step forward from a doorway on Colmore Row, where he had been sheltering. He had the collar of his coat up, shoulders hunched, but he strode towards her, with that energy she remembered. She could see the orange tip of a cigarette.

  ‘Here,’ she said, raising the umbrella. ‘Come under here.’ Being the first to speak made her feel bolder.

  ‘Ta.’ He ducked under and she tried to hold the thing higher but he was several inches taller than she was. ‘Here, you’d better have it,’ she said.

  He took the umbrella in his left hand, let the cigarette fall from his lips and trod it into the pavement. To her astonishment, he brought his right arm around her back and pulled her close to him.

  ‘Oh!’ she said, then felt silly.

  Jack laughed, looking round at her, eyes full of amusement. ‘Only way to walk under one of these, in’t it?’

  ‘I s’pose so,’ she said. In seconds, Jack Harrison had his arm round her! She imagined telling Carol when they were at work on Monday.

  ‘Let’s get inside,’ Jack said. ‘Kardomah all right?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said breathlessly, trotting through puddles to keep up with his energetic stride.

  They didn’t talk much, not until they were inside the steamy atmosphere of the coffee house. As they walked in, there was a tune playing which she could not name but it brought Ken back to her with a shock of pain such as she had not felt in a while. Drawn by the music, things spilled into her mind – home, Ken, Gary – but she forced them all away and smiled at Jack as they found a table near the front window. She hung her coat on the chair.

  Jack fetched coffees and she watched him, the clipped hair, the set of his shoulders in his work jacket. He looked neat and strong and somehow right. The music changed and she felt better, seeing Jack carrying the two cups and saucers back to her, slowly, trying not to spill them.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said. Jack sat down, searching inside his jacket for his cigarettes and flinging a packet on the table. He smoked Senior Service, not the cheapest, Woodies or the Park Drive ones she tended to buy. Class, she thought.

  He lit up and offered her one, which she took, feeling better for something to do with her hands. She had put on her black dress which she knew looked good against her pale hair. A touch of lipstick – not too much; a good flick of mascara on her lashes. She felt acutely aware of everything physical about herself, her chest pushing at the close-fitting material of the dress, the spread of her hips on the chair, as if her skin were suddenly sensitive all over. And she was acutely conscious of him: the wet hair, one strand pressed flat against the side of his forehead, his thin face with prominent cheekbones, the blue, searching eyes. It was as if everything was turned up, more brightly coloured.

  ‘So . . . you work with Carol?’ he said, smoke clouding from his lips as he spoke.

  ‘Yeah.’ She held her hands out, marked with little red cuts. ‘Very glamorous.’

  He nodded, drawing on the fag again.

  ‘Carol says you live with a landlady,’ he said. ‘What’s she like?’

  ‘She’s all right.’ Evie flicked ash onto the grimy brass ashtray. Evidently he had been asking about her. This pleased her. ‘There’s her and there’s Barbara the secretary. Miserable, she is – hardly says a word. But Mrs Hardy’s all right. She’s got no one else so she likes the company.’

  Jack looked levelly at her. ‘Haven’t you got a mom and dad?’

  Evie’s eyes met his. In those split seconds she struggled to decide what to say. The story she had given Carol was that they were in Manchester. But this was different. She didn’t want to start – because it felt as if something was starting – by telling fibs. And it felt safe talking in here, cosy behind the steamed-up windows, most of the tables full, the place alive with chatter and the clink of spoons and the hissing coffee machine behind the bar.

  ‘Yeah,’ was all she said, looking at the cigarette in her hand.

  ‘Yeah?’ Jack sat back, watching her, as if gauging her. ‘What does “yeah” mean?’

  ‘Let’s just say we don’t see eye to eye.’

  He nodded, seeming reassured. ‘Got out from under my old man the minute I could,’ he said. ‘I ain’t been back there in years.’

  Evie’s pulse speeded up. Someone else who knew . . . Not like Carol who would never understand why you would just leave your mom and dad and never go back. She decided it was her turn to ask questions.

  ‘Why? What’s he like?’

  Jack took another sharp drag on the cigarette. Not looking at her, he said, ‘Oh . . . you know.’

  ‘Do I?’ She laughed. But she did know, or could guess.

  He flicked ash. She thought he wasn’t going to say any more. But then he sat back.

  ‘Our mom, she was scared ever to do anything but take his side. Ted, my brother, went into the army, soon as he could. My sister got out, married a man she should never of but there you go. Then I went, came down here.’ He shrugged. ‘Serves ’em right.’

  ‘Where do they live?’ she asked.

  ‘Wolverhampton.’ Another flick of the cigarette. ‘They can be in cowing Australia for all I care.’

  Her snort of laughter seemed to startle him and he grinned slowly.

  ‘Why’re you laughing? Most people, if you say that, they go, “Oh dear. Oh that’s awful . . .”’ He mimicked expressions of concern. ‘“Don’t you think you should go and try to make it up with them?” All that sort of happy families claptrap.’

  Evie sipped her coffee as he spoke. It was weak but hot. She wiped a curve of froth from her upper lip with her finger, feeling him watching her.

  ‘Go
on then,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Tell me. About yours – where are they?’

  Truth spilled from her. ‘Promise you won’t tell Carol?’

  His shoulders inched up and down dismissively. ‘Yeah. Course.’

  ‘Ladywood. I told her they were in Manchester.’

  ‘Ladywood? What, and you never see ’em? When d’you last see ’em?’

  This was hovering too close to details she would not go into. Ever.

  ‘Oh . . .’ She slid into vagueness. ‘Months. I don’t get on with our mom.’ She flicked ash savagely. ‘She’s never liked me. She’s all right with my sisters – Rita and Shirley. But me . . .’ She tried to brush it off, make it funny. ‘I dunno. I think I was born with a curse or summat, like Cinderella.’

  Jack was watching her intently. He didn’t say anything for a moment, just reached forward and stubbed out his cigarette, leaned his elbows on the table, hands clasped under his chin. Suddenly he was quite close to her.

  ‘Why would she be like that to you?’ he said, seeming genuinely puzzled.

  ‘Oh, she wanted me to be a boy – something to do with my dad and some other woman,’ Evie told him. ‘That’s what she said anyway.’

  ‘I’ve been out with a few women,’ Jack said. Evie was taken aback by this turn in the conversation, as if everything had shifted. ‘I won’t pretend I haven’t. But the minute I saw you, I . . .’

  She was touched at seeing how uncertain he was suddenly, and by the force of what he was saying. She looked down in confusion, into the cup of greyish coffee.

  ‘Evie?’

  She only just heard him in the racket of the room and looked up. ‘You know I’m only eighteen?’ she said.

  Jack sat back, sucking in air. ‘I must admit, I thought you was older than that. I’d’ve put you at twenty or more. But what’s it matter? You’re just . . . well, you’re lovely, you are.’

  Evie felt a blush rising through her, as if her body was responding to the almost insane excitement she felt at the longing she could see in him. He wanted her.

  ‘I’ll be nineteen in a few months,’ she said.

  Jack laughed suddenly. ‘Yes, I s’pose you will.’ He pointed at her cup. ‘Want another one?’

  They sat chatting all evening, Jack telling her about his job making hydraulic equipment, his ambitions. He said he wanted to go and work abroad. Canada, he said.

  ‘Why?’ she asked. ‘Why Canada?’

  ‘There’s loads of people going over there – ’cause of the oil. Lot of jobs going; good money. And it’s different over there. More space, more opportunities. Not like this tatty bleeding hole.’

  ‘Would you really go and live over there?’ she said.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ he replied. He gave her a challenging look. ‘Wanna come?’

  She smiled slowly. ‘Maybe.’

  Evie had never met anyone who said things like this before. He had ambition and drive and she felt taken along with it – not like with Ken when she had always felt he would leave her behind.

  After, she talked a bit about places she had worked, stretching the time a little to cover her missing months, so that it sounded as if she had moved from the Tower Ballroom to where she was now without any gap. Julie . . . No, she could not talk about her. She would never be able to talk about her without flooding the table with the tears dammed up inside her.

  Outside, it had stopped raining, though the roads were full of puddles and the sound of dripping from gutters, lamps and trees.

  ‘I’ll walk you back to your stop,’ Jack said.

  Feeling more at ease now, he put his arm round her again, even though they had no need of the umbrella. Within yards of the coffee shop, he stopped on a corner and turned her towards him. He said nothing, but even in the dark she could feel the force of his eyes on her and his arms pulling her close. She turned her head up, loving being held, longing to be kissed. His kiss was a surprise. Her lips remembered Ken, a nervous beginner; other men’s fumblings since. But this was different, more urgent, filling her with excitement. She felt Jack’s hand at the back of her head, fingers exploring her hair as they clung together.

  When they separated, it was like being woken from a dream.

  ‘I s’pose we’ll have to go,’ he said, sounding resentful.

  Within yards they had stopped and were kissing again. In this fashion, they made their way slowly to the bus stop.

  ‘Look, there’s one there!’ She started to run, pulling on his arm, trying to fish for change in her pocket as she did so.

  Jack tugged her to a halt outside the bus. ‘Tomorrow? Come out with me?’

  ‘Yes!’ she cried. And leapt aboard.

  The driver, a middle-aged man, looked witheringly at her, but she beamed back at him. Her whole world was lit up by Jack Harrison!. She already knew that the future would contain him, that everything had changed.

  IV

  Thirty-One

  May 1964

  ‘There. Last one.’

  Evie clicked shut the latch of the suitcase, stood it next to the others and sank down on the bed. Their rooms, in this house in Smethwick, were bare of almost all their belongings and instead there stood this row of new black cases.

  She got up and went to the window, her steps echoing on the boards now the room was empty. Yanking up the sash window, she rested her elbows on the sill and looked out at the now familiar street. It was a warm spring morning, the breeze carrying the usual whiffs of oil and industrial grime, tinged with brewery smells and refuse. She could hear the ragged blare of a trumpet somewhere nearby, signalling that the scrap metal man was coming round. She looked across with sudden fondness at the soot-begrimed bricks of the houses, the scruffy old slates covered in moss and dirt, things sprouting through in places. There came another elephant-like blast on the trumpet. A car passed below in the quiet street, slowly, as if the driver was looking for something.

  Soon, they would be far, far away, she and Jack, this man to whom she had pledged her life. Far away in a strange place. The dream, his dream to which she had joined herself, in this moment filled her with grief. She had never known anywhere but Birmingham, and now Smethwick. Birmingham was home – its factories and shops, pubs and people. They must be mad to leave and throw away everything they knew! But she asked herself how many close friends she really had. Now her job had changed and she and Jack had moved over here, she hardly saw Carol and her family. A twinge of regret passed through her, closely followed by panic and the queasiness which had possessed her for the past few days.

  She laid a hand on her belly. The sick feeling was familiar. If it were not for that, she would have put it down to nerves about the journey. But she was becoming sure it was something else. Could it be? This was not something she was going to tell Jack – not until she was really sure. But it made the new life she was facing just a little less fearsome. Because maybe, soon, in the strange, new place they were heading to, there would not just be the two of them. They would be three; they’d be a family. And there was nothing in the world she longed for more than that.

  Everything had changed for Evie when she met Jack Harrison. Jack, full of energy and drive, slender, fresh-faced, handsome and older than her. From the start, she had looked up to him, was so proud to be seen out with him. She saw girls look at Jack all the time, but he seemed to be mad about her, gazed at her with those intent blue eyes of his as if he could not drag them away from her. She had never had anyone pursue her with such force and determination. And she felt exactly the same about him.

  ‘You’re the most gorgeous wench I’ve ever seen,’ he’d say, pulling her close to him. She liked him calling her ‘wench’, half joking and half as if this was just the kind of woman he wanted – not a dolly bird, or a fragile little thing, but a proper woman, broad, strong and capable. It reminded her of her father in his occasional good moods when he had noticed her, patted her head and said, ‘There’s a good wench.’ A thought like that could give
her a pang as well, the old pang of longing for love. But she didn’t need Dad now – or any of them. She had Jack. The way Jack kissed her, urgently, holding her as if she was a rock he had found to save him, and his dazzling gaze into her eyes, made her forget everything else.

  They soon began spending every possible moment together. Jack seemed quite happy to come over from Smethwick night after night, on the bus or his bike. He would meet her after work. Every time she saw him waiting on the corner of the Moseley Road, tall and handsome in his work clothes, a bag slung over his shoulder, giving off that energy which he seemed to transmit, she was filled with gratitude and excitement. She would run to meet him, not seeing anyone else who was on the street, flinging herself into his arms. They often forgot completely about their tea and Mrs Hardy would present her, huffily, with a plate of something-or-other congealed under gravy when she finally got in.

  The age gap which at first she had been conscious of melted away. It didn’t seem to matter. Jack made no secret of the fact that he could not stand his parents and said he had left home and was never going back.

  ‘My father’s a copper,’ he said, on one of their first nights out when they were getting to know each other. They were in the Old Moseley Arms in Tindal Street, tucked away in a corner. Even as he mentioned his dad she could hear the tightness in his voice. ‘Some blokes can go either way, I reckon. You become a criminal or you join the police. He’s a head case. Dunno if it was the war or what. He was in Palestine. Never talks about it, so . . .’ He shrugged. ‘Anyway, Mom just dances round him. Scared of him. Never goes against anything he says or does, even if it means . . .’

  ‘Did ’e lamp yer?’ she asked, moved by what she could see in his eyes. Lost boy, like Gary.

  ‘Just a bit,’ Jack said, with iron in his voice and a look which made her want to put her arms round him and comfort him.

  ‘I used to do anything I could to try and please him,’ he said. ‘Make him stop. In the end I could see that whatever I did, it would make no difference.’