Ginny shook her head sheepishly and perched herself on the edge of one of the armchairs. ‘No . . .’ she said slowly. ‘Not exactly. See, I was just . . .’
This was ridiculous. Dilys always did this to her: she wasn’t the one who was in the wrong, yet here she was, ready to apologise. Well, she was damned if she was going to, not this time.
‘Look, Dilys, I think you’ve gotta start thinking about other people.’ She nearly said ‘thinking about Susan’ but immediately thought better of it; the point of this wasn’t to provoke a row. ‘See, while you might be all right – and I’m pleased for you that you are – you probably haven’t noticed, but things haven’t been exactly easy for most of the rest of us.’
Dilys didn’t appear to be getting the point at all, so Ginny decided to elaborate – but still without actually mentioning her worries about Susan being left alone and her fears that she was a little girl growing up without knowing a mother’s love.
‘Out there,’ Ginny began cautiously, waving vaguely towards the window, as she stalled for time, trying to think out what she should be saying. ‘In the real world like.’
Dilys nodded towards Ginny’s cigarettes and wordlessly held out her hand.
Ginny took one for herself then threw the packet and her box of matches into Dilys’s lap.
Dilys lit one and settled back on the sofa to study the smoke as she blew it down her nostrils.
‘You see, Dil, the thing is, there’s a lot of problems for everyone at the minute. What with the meat ration being cut again. And all the shortages and everything. And the terrible weather we had all winter, and the price of coal and coke. I mean, blimey, it’s enough to get anyone down. And that’s without all this stuff you hear on the wireless about what’s going on with this Korea lark. I mean, that’s enough to scare the pants off you, innit? Especially with these bombs they’ve got now. So it’s obvious we all need a bit of fun.’
‘That it? You finished?’ Dilys picked a strand of tobacco from her lip, examined it, then flicked it on to the half-moon-shaped hearthrug.
‘I suppose so.’
‘Well, Ginny,’ she said, with a loud yawn, ‘I ain’t got a sodding clue what you’re on about, except that last bit, that bit about needing a bit of fun.’ Resting her elbow on the arm of the sofa, she fluffed her fingers through her thick, dark, wavy hair and frowned from the effort of thinking straight. ‘So why don’t you shut your moaning gob, go out and have a few laughs and stop coming round here and giving me sodding earache?’
Ginny gulped. Stop coming round here. That’s what she’d said. If Dilys had meant it, then she wouldn’t be able to see Susan. And Dilys could be so pig-headed; once she’d made up her mind about something there was no shifting her. Ginny had to put it right before it was too late.
‘You’re right as usual, Dil,’ she said, pasting on a smile. ‘I always did take things too seriously. You always said so. Tell you what, I was thinking about going over the river, to see that Festival of Britain thing. Everyone’s saying how good it is. Fancy coming?’
Dilys opened her eyes wide and puffed in astonishment. ‘You trying to have a laugh? No thanks. I’ve got better things to do with me time than hanging around poxy concert halls.’
‘But there’s a lot more to see than that. There’s—’
‘You ain’t got a clue, Gin.’ She belched loudly. ‘You understand nothing. My feller likes me always to be here.’ She stabbed her finger towards the floor. ‘Ready and waiting. Available like. And I ain’t gonna go upsetting a bloke what keeps me so nice, now am I? I mean, look at this place. It’s a little palace.’ She took in the messy, but well-furnished room, with a sweep of her arm. ‘So if he wants to go out, I’m here, all done up, ready to hook my arm through his and make him proud of me.’
Ginny leapt in: ‘You know I’ll always come round to mind the little ‘un, don’t you, Dil? I know how hard it must be, to be on your own with a kiddie.’
Dilys curled her lip in an unattractive snarl. ‘Aw yeah? And how would you know what it’s like to have a kid? You threw away your chance of being a mother. Round Jeannie Thompson’s. Remember?’
Ginny lowered her chin. She took a deep breath to swallow away the pain, then said in a low monotone. ‘I could take Susan to the Festival if you like. I bet she’d love the Pleasure Gardens.’
Dilys didn’t answer, instead she rose shakily to her feet and stumbled across the room, her tight dress and her unsteady gait accentuating her sensuous curves. ‘Fancy a drink? I’ve got a few bottles in the kitchen.’
Biting back what she wanted to say, Ginny said quietly, ‘Just a small one. Ta.’
Dilys paused in the doorway and twisted round to face Ginny. ‘Me boyfriend gets the booze for me,’ she said, then added with a flash of her eyebrows and her voice heavy with innuendo, ‘he gets me all sorts.’
She wobbled out of the room, intending to go to the kitchen but somehow, losing her train of thought, she wound up in the lavatory.
She pulled down her expensive imported silk knickers and sat down on the wooden seat – the novelty of having a warm, indoor, fully-plumbed-in bathroom forgotten already – and thought about Ginny’s offer to look after Susan while she went out.
As far as Dilys was concerned, the more chances she had to be shot of the demanding little madam, the better; she was always wanting something. A drink, or food, or clean clothes. It drove Dilys to distraction. She was four and a half years old and was still as much of a nuisance as she’d been when she was a baby. But, despite her drunken state, Dilys could still focus on why she had to resist the temptation of having someone looking after the kid for her: Susan was getting older, she was seeing things. Noticing things. Asking questions. Dilys couldn’t risk her blowing the gaff. She’d already had to threaten her not to open her whining gob to Ted about being left at home by herself, and to say that nice Auntie Milly was coming round to sit with her. What he’d have to say if he knew Susan was alone, or worse still, that she was being left alone with Ginny, Dilys could only imagine. He’d warned her enough times: if Ginny was there, Dilys had to be there too, to mind what the kid said, because he’d told her, if Susan ever let on to Ginny about him always being round at the prefab . . .
Dilys pulled the chain and sighed. If it was up to her, she would have told Ginny about her and Ted herself, and let her stick that in her pipe and smoke it, but she knew Ted wouldn’t have it. He still wanted her around the place to look after Nellie. And if she ever did find out about Ted and her, Dilys reckoned that even a right mug like Ginny would be off like a shot.
Because that’s all she was, a bloody mug. Ted didn’t even bother to give her any money any more, let alone presents like he used to. She worked her fingers to the bone in that shitty factory all day, then ran round after a mother-in-law who couldn’t give a toss about her. Dilys wouldn’t put up with that sort of bollocks from anyone. Well, from anyone but Ted. He was different, he was worth it. He treated her all right – most of the time – but she knew just how far she could go with him; and what she’d get if she started upsetting things.
She stood up, smoothed down her skirt, belched once again, then started giggling. Living in Bailey Street with Nellie wasn’t exactly the life that that dozy mare Ginny had dreamed about when they were a pair of wide-eyed, open-mouthed kids sitting in the front row of the pictures. Some flipping Scarlett O’Hara she’d turned out to be!
In the sitting-room, Ginny heard the lavatory cistern flush and, a few minutes later, she watched Dilys return with two glasses and an almost full bottle of port.
‘Well, what d’you think?’ Ginny asked pleasantly.
‘Eh?’
‘About me taking Susan to the Festival.’
Dilys shook her head. ‘No. I don’t think so.’
The look of disappointment on Ginny’s face actually made Dilys feel a bit sorry for her. Ginny really didn’t have much of a life now, not if all she had to excite her was the thought of taking a kid out for the day
.
And to think Dilys had once actually been jealous of her and her pretty blonde looks. Now she was as dingy and as badly dressed as all the other idiots who didn’t know how to get hold of a bit of gear, or who had no one interested enough to buy it for them.
‘Why don’t you ask Nellie to go with you?’ she asked, more out of pity than as a genuine suggestion, as she handed Ginny the glasses and poured them both a full measure of the dark ruby wine.
Ginny stared up at Dilys as though she’d gone stark raving mad. ‘Have you taken leave of your senses, Dil? I’d rather go with old Florrie’s bulldog, and you know how that bugger stinks.’
Dilys threw back her head and burst into loud, drunken laughter.
Despite her earlier anger, Ginny couldn’t help joining in with her. In fact her whole body shook with great sobs and gulps of laughter. It was as though she was releasing herself from all her pain, from all her loneliness and from her unspoken fear that life was rapidly passing her by.
Dilys, her moment of guilt about her supposed friend’s plight forgotten as suddenly as it had arrived, smirked as Ginny wiped the tears of almost hysterical laughter from her eyes.
She chucked Ginny roughly under the chin. ‘We don’t have to worry about you, do we, Gin? You can go on your own. I mean, you should be used to it by now.’
Ginny turned her head; she didn’t want Dilys to see the now bitter tears spilling down her cheeks.
They were right, Ginny decided: the Festival of Britain, with its pavilions and halls sparkling and gleaming on the South Bank site, where, just a short time before, a mass of Blitz-blown rubble had stuck out like an ugly scar, was indeed a miracle of achievement. A genuine, there-it-was-in-front-of-your-face miracle. Dreams really did come true.
Despite her disappointment at not having been allowed to bring Susan, Ginny was completely caught up in the wonders surrounding her. She felt just like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz; as though she had left behind the black-and-white existence of the past and had entered the future, a world of glorious Technicolor. Never before had she seen anything like it.
She walked around the Festival, amongst the bustling crowds, her every sense aroused. Even the jostling was part of the fun. She smiled at other people’s happy chatter, joined in with their gasps of astonishment and echoed their exclamations of delight. She marvelled with them at the Dome of Discovery; shared their appreciative laughter every time she heard the same old joke that the amazing Skylon symbol hovering high in the air was ‘like Britain, because it had no visible means of support’; and even felt a genuine, if surrogate, pleasure as she watched dewy-eyed couples dancing in the open air as though they were part of a film made in a far sunnier place than England.
Although she had no partner to dance with, Ginny didn’t feel so alone any longer, she was part of something big and important. It felt like being a child caught up in the wonder of Christmas and towards the end of her day at the Festival she determined that somehow, no matter what it took, she would persuade Dilys to let her bring Susan along to see it all. She had to share this with her.
Then, as she was taking one last look at her favourite part of the whole Festival, she heard someone say something so shocking, it threatened to bring it all tumbling down around her. She felt as though she’d been smacked full in the face with a wet kipper.
There she was, in the pavilion designed to show ‘contemporary living created by and for the British family of today’ – contemporary! that was the style she wanted, what a wonderful word! – admiring the fantastic kitchen that made even Dilys’s smart little prefab look dowdy, when she overheard the most astonishing conversation.
‘Honestly, Shirley, will you just look at it,’ sighed a tall, slim, elegant woman who, despite the warm May afternoon was wearing a luxuriously thick fur wrap draped around the shoulders of her beautifully cut emerald-green shantung two-piece costume. ‘They should be ashamed of themselves, trying to fool people into thinking that these goods are something special.’
‘Well, Leila,’ her similarly elegant, though slightly less glamorous, companion sighed back in an equally bored tone, ‘I suppose some people aren’t used to the finer things of life.’
Ginny was furious. She hated snobs at the best of times, but ones who didn’t seem to care if they spoiled what had been the best day she could remember in years were enough to raise her usually mild temperament dangerously close to boiling point.
‘Excuse me,’ she said as politely as her dry mouth would allow, ‘but I think you’re wrong. I think this kitchen’s lovely. It’s all right for the likes of you. You can probably have anything you want, whenever you want it. But people like me dream about having something like this one day.’
The woman who had been referred to as Leila looked Ginny up and down with an unashamedly appraising eye, taking in every inch of her from her neatly polished but shabby shoes to her naturally pretty but home-trimmed hair. ‘So could you, sweetie, if you knew how to go about it,’ she said with an amused lift to her smoothly cultured voice.
‘Leila!’ her friend hissed. ‘You’re not going to start, are you?’
‘Don’t be such a fusspot, Shirley.’ Leila smiled at Ginny, showing white, even teeth. ‘The name’s Harvey,’ she said, extending her gloved hand. ‘Leila Harvey. And this miserable person is my friend, Shirley Truman. Fancy a little drink?’
Ginny, completely taken aback to be asked to accompany such stylish, well-to-do women, didn’t know how to reply.
‘My treat, darling,’ purred Leila, ‘and you can tell me all about these dreams of yours.’
Ginny was mesmerised by the woman’s easy, confident manner. She thought for another moment then, almost before she realised what she was doing, replied impulsively, ‘I’d really love one. In fact, I’m gasping. And as for a sit-down, well, I could murder one of them an’ all. Me feet are steaming like saveloys in an urn. But I dunno what the chances are.’
Shirley’s eyes rolled at the vulgar turn of phrase, but Ginny didn’t notice, she was too busy trying to control the urge to ask Leila where she got her handbag from – it was real crocodile, Ginny would have laid money on it, just like the ones Ted had brought home that time, beautifully made and reeking of quality. He had unloaded them up West in no time, probably to husbands or boyfriends of women just like Leila.
She could see the bags now, as Ted stuffed them into the gloryhole under the stairs in Bailey Street. He had offered Ginny one for herself, said she deserved a little treat, but she had refused, thinking it far too nice for the likes of her. She could even remember the day; it was less than a month after all her family had been buried and Ted was still being really nice to her, and somehow crocodile bags had always made her feel cared for, loved. It was a feeling she missed.
She suddenly realised that Leila was staring at her in expectation. Her cheeks flamed.
‘I’m not quite with you, sweetie. Would you like to join us for a drink? Or not?’ Leila asked.
‘Yeah, but, you see,’ Ginny stammered, stabbing her thumb over her shoulder in the direction of the exotic Regency Tea Pavilion, ‘I tried getting in for a cuppa just now, before I started making me way home like, thought I could do with a bit of a reviver, but there was queues like you’d never believe.’
Leila turned to Shirley and grinned broadly. ‘Isn’t she a poppet!’
Twisting back to face Ginny, she flashed her expertly made-up eyes. ‘I meant a proper drink. For God’s sake, it must be six o’clock soon, I feel like I’ve been here for absolutely hours. So. Time for cocktails, don’t you think?’
Riding in the taxi back across the river with Leila and Shirley made Ginny think again about how it had once been with Ted. He had sometimes hailed taxis for them after they’d been out for the evening, had enjoyed splashing his money about. But that was a long time ago; a time when she hadn’t had to fret constantly about making ends meet, She’d never experienced quite the style of these two of course, but she certainly hadn’t had to worry a
bout things in the way she did now.
Ginny’s stomach lurched and her hand went to the run in her stocking, as the taxi drew to a halt outside an impressive-looking, white stucco hotel, hidden away at the end of a quiet Mayfair side-street.
‘I’ve never been round here before,’ whispered Ginny as they sat down at a highly polished table, the feet of which were sunk deep into the thick pile of a sumptuous dark-blue carpet. She wasn’t sure why she was whispering but it seemed appropriate; maybe it was because the church in Limehouse where she and Ted had been married, and the picture palace in the Commercial Road, were the only similarly opulent places she had ever visited – and in those places you had to keep your voice down.
‘Haven’t you, sweetie?’ said Leila, dropping her wrap carelessly over the back of her chair. ‘I’m thinking about buying myself a little flat near here, actually. Security for my old age.’
Deliberately ignoring Shirley’s desperate signals to keep quiet, Leila took a cigarette from her handbag and screwed it into what Ginny was sure was a real gold holder.
As Ginny watched, fascinated by the poise of her every movement, she was suddenly distracted by the appearance of a dark-suited man behind Shirley’s chair.
‘Good evening, mesdames,’ the softly spoken man said, with a bob of his head. ‘May I fetch you something?’
Conscious of how dowdy she must have looked compared with the other two, Ginny screwed herself down into her seat, trying to hide her threadbare skirt and tatty stockings under the table.
‘Three champagne cocktails, Richard,’ Leila said without even consulting the other two. She lifted her chin, treated him to a flap of her lashes and a dazzling smile, then turned her beam on Ginny. ‘How about a little bite of something?’
Ginny was in shock at the thought of champagne cocktails. How could she think about food? But she had to say something, she couldn’t just sit there like a dummy in a shop window. She was scared of how her voice was going to sound. Coughing loudly into her hand to fill the silence, she nodded vigorously and peered wide-eyed at her hostess through her fingers. ‘Can I have some crisps?’ she eventually managed to croak. ‘If that’s all right.’
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