The House by the Brook

by The House by the Brook (retail) (epub)

  ‘That and you causing her to be kicked out of her home!’ Geoff’s voice was sharp.

  ‘Yes, that too.’ Ivor was shaking and Geoff knew he had to be less harsh with the man. He was on the edge of a precipice.

  ‘I won’t mention it again, I promise you that, but you have to. She has the right to know.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘You’ve handled things so badly. Mainly by not trusting your wife. You’ve betrayed her love, haven’t you?’

  ‘All right! Don’t rub it in!’ In his distress, Ivor was shouting.

  ‘Do something, man, before someone else tells her. But believe me, Ivor, it won’t be me.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Geoff restarted the engine but Ivor opened the door. ‘I’ll walk from here.’

  Geoff watched him go: a stooped figure with a stumbling walk that was taking him towards a family in trouble, who needed him to be strong. He wondered whether he had helped or made things worse.

  *

  Ivor went in and began sorting out brushes and all the other items they would need for the decoration of the flats and, for the first time for weeks, Marie felt hopeful of a way out of their difficulties.

  They began at the weekend, going down on Saturday evening while the boys, obedient in their anxiety, looked after their sister. Ivor worked fast and with surprising efficiency.

  Stripping the walls of two rooms was accomplished that evening, the walls washed and the paintwork sanded for painting. Marie felt very hopeful, but when Geoff came to help the following morning, armed with paint for the kitchen, Ivor glared at him and walked out.

  Four

  Marie didn’t know what to do. Should she run after Ivor and plead with him to come back? Or ignore his behaviour and accept the willing assistance of Geoff? With a hardening of her heart she realized that, of the two, Geoff was the most likely to really support her. If she told Geoff to leave she knew Ivor wouldn’t see the job through. She faced weeks of hard long hours of work and couldn’t do it on her own, with no thanks, only criticism. And, she reminded herself, causing her brow to crease in a deep frown of anger, it was Ivor’s debt!

  Geoff sensed her dilemma. ‘Shall I go?’ he asked. She didn’t reply, her mind still filled with anger and frustration at this predicament that was not of her own making.

  ‘Perhaps, if I walk away, let Ivor see me leave, pacify his resentment, I can come back later. I should be able to get the undercoat on these rooms this evening.’

  Marie stared at him, his words slowly penetrating, only half heard. ‘Please, Geoff, please don’t leave. I really need help, and Ivor was just looking for a reason not to give it. He’s found his excuse and he’s off! This is his mess and he won’t even help me to sort it out.’

  Geoff said nothing more. He had a picture in his mind of Ivor going to meet the frail, confused man in the wood. However Marie worried, he couldn’t tell her what he knew. That was for Ivor to explain. By talking about it now, he would be setting himself against Ivor, and that might alienate Marie when she needed a friend.

  Sanding done, he began to wipe the skirting boards with a damp cloth. They worked for three hours with hardly a word spoken. Marie knew that if a hint of sympathy were offered she would burst into tears. Geoff knew that unless the day ended with some sign of progress she would give up.

  It was ten o’clock that night when they washed their brushes and put everything away for the following day. Marie began to thank him but he waved her words aside.

  ‘No need for thanks, we’re friends and friends help without question. Right?’

  When she reached home, she hesitated to open the door. Music was playing, so the boys were still up but was Ivor with them?

  She stepped into the kitchen and called, ‘I’m home,’ and there was a scuffle from the living room and the record that was playing was hurriedly changed for another. When she opened the door, the twins were listening, ironically, to ‘My Heart Belongs to Daddy’ and Violet was asleep, still dressed, on the couch.

  ‘Royston, Roger, why didn’t you send her to bed?’ she demanded, throwing off her coat and bending over her sleeping daughter.

  ‘Got fed up with arguing with her, didn’t we?’ Roger moaned. ‘It’s not fair leaving us to look after her.’

  ‘She said you’d told her she could wait up for you,’ Royston added, leaning pointedly closer to the gramophone to show his irritation at her interruption. The pile of records slid across the couch and Marie saw two that were indisputably new.

  ‘Where did they come from?’ she asked. She sifted through them and saw several more that looked new, the slip covers crisp and clean. She picked one up and waggled it in front of Roger’s face. ‘Where have these come from? Have you been stealing again? Tell me the truth!’

  ‘Mam! Of course they aren’t nicked. Borrowed they are, from Arthur Malin. Said we could borrow them till his father comes home on Sunday week.’ Marie looked at his guileless face, big eyes with an air of offended innocence. Marie stared at him, but his gaze didn’t waver. She was almost certain the records were stolen, but she was too weary to investigate.

  ‘Wait till your father gets in. He’ll get to the bottom of it.’ Fortunately she failed to see the amused glance exchanged between the boys.

  ‘Go to bed. Now, this minute,’ she demanded, and lifting Violet from the couch without waking her she struggled up the stairs and put her in her bed.

  When at last she fell into her own bed she felt as though all her bones had softened and her muscles had hardened in their stead. Every movement hurt. Despite her exhaustion anger kept her awake. Anger at her own stupidity for getting into this situation. She had taken on the role of family saviour when she should have done nothing at all except to wait for Ivor to get them out of the mess he had caused.

  She switched on the bedside torch, which was in fact an old bicycle lamp, and saw that it was almost two a.m. Where on earth was Ivor? He couldn’t be playing cards – the usual reason for a late return. So far as she knew he had no money and no one was likely to lend him any.

  She tiptoed downstairs and made a cup of tea. With the inexplicable hope of encouraging his arrival, as people at a bus stop will when their bus is late, she walked to the corner and looked along the road. The night was still. No moon, yet her eyes accustomed themselves to the darkness until she could gradually make out the nearby houses and the ghostly shapes of trees and bushes that imagination could form into strange beasts. There was no sound of footsteps and she went back inside, as wide awake as ever, and tried to read for a while.

  Instead she found herself thinking about the flats. It was something she would have to do. Martyr or not, overworked idiot or not, if she did not there was little hope of paying the arrears and there was only one outcome to that situation. They would be out on the street.

  She didn’t hear Ivor come home that night even though she sat up, dozing, listening for the sound of his footsteps, or the door opening. At half past six she lit the fire, and as she began preparing breakfast he came in, looking neat and tidy, except for needing a shave. It was another woman, it had to be. She sliced the loaf for toasting, unable to see clearly for the tears in her eyes.

  Ivor helped himself to a cup of tea from the teapot and, carrying it in one hand and a kettle of hot water in the other, he went straight upstairs to wash and change into the suit he wore for work. He hated this filthy situation. Last night he had washed in a freezing cold brook in an attempt to rid himself of the smell. Even after that, and although he had changed clothes and hidden the others in a hollow tree, the smell remained, seemingly trapped in the pores of his skin.

  *

  Another two evenings and the wall papering and painting of two rooms was finished and the floors sanded and varnished. Once the kitchen and bathroom were painted she’d be able to ask for part payment. In one hand and out with the other. There were three more flats to be done and she looked ahead to days in the shop and evenings and half the nights decorating,
and wondered how long she could keep going. With Geoff it was possible. With only Ivor she would fail. Her over tense mind drifted through the possibilities – and probabilities – for the future. Even at best they would continue to live hand-to-mouth with a man who had become incapable of supporting them. At worst they would be homeless, separated from each other and treated like rubbish, worse than the tramps who wandered around the countryside in increased numbers since the end of the war.

  She went to bed light-headed with tiredness, on the edge of tears, her mind jumbled with a dozen questions to which there were no answers. She finally slept and didn’t hear Ivor creep in at five a.m., his pockets empty and a few more IOUs in other people’s pockets.

  *

  The following lunchtime, Marie gathered the suspect gramophone records and handed them into the shop on the high street, explaining that she had found them on a park bench. The manager smiled stiffly as he thanked her and then apologetically told her that her sons were banned from entering the shop. ‘Nothing to do with your kindness in returning these records you “found”, Mrs Masters, indeed not. There was an – er – an incident here last week and, well, we think it’s best they stay away. Sorry I am to tell you, and you on a mission of kindness, too.’

  She thrust the records into his hands and walked swiftly away. A strong desire to hit the twins and their father, to hurt them, filled her heart. The boys for their foolishness and their father who thought their behaviour was a joke. She bumped into several people as she rushed blindly back to the shop.

  *

  Jennie and Lucy had found a flat, and, in her usual confident way, Jennie asked Mr James for his opinion before she and Lucy signed the agreement. The flat was in fact two rooms in a house near the park and consisted of a basement room and one room up a flight of stairs, part of the ground floor of the house which the owners had furnished as a bedroom. They would have use of a bathroom, and the kitchen was a corner of the living room with a cooker and a sink and very little besides, hidden by a curtain.

  ‘It isn’t much, we know that, Mr James,’ Jennie said. ‘It’s our first strike towards freedom though, and we love it. We just wondered whether you, with your experience, could see any problems we haven’t noticed.’ The flattery was blatant as she went on, ‘You’re a businessman and clever enough to look below the surface of things, if you know what I mean. We’d really appreciate you looking at it, wouldn’t we, Lucy?’

  ‘We’d be ever so grateful, Mr James,’ Lucy said, nodding earnestly.

  The house was owned by a nurse and her family and she left them to make up their minds while she went back upstairs. Mr James looked around, checked the walls and under the floor coverings for signs of damp, and declared it sound. ‘You’ll need to keep the place warm, mind. It could get damp being a basement, and that can bring health troubles. We don’t want you ill, do we?’ He was looking at Jennie when he spoke but turned to encompass Lucy, adding, ‘I need to look after you both.’

  ‘I don’t expect a lot of noise,’ the nurse told them. Deliberately misunderstanding, Jennie said brightly. ‘Don’t worry, we aren’t the sort to complain.’

  ‘I meant from you. I don’t like noise.’

  ‘We’ll be able to play our gramophone, won’t we?’ Jennie looked aghast. ‘Mr James, we couldn’t live without our music.’

  A few moments of reassurance from Mr James that his employees would be exemplary tenants and the matter was settled. The girls would move in the following week. ‘Bill will help you move your things,’ Mr James promised. ‘I’m sure he won’t mind.’

  Bill did mind, and, rather than disappoint the girls, Mr James came instead, using his car to transport their belongings, including their collections of records, to the flat.

  Jennie’s goodbye to her parents was tearful. Belle and Howard had come to the flat with gifts on the day they moved in, and left after much hesitation, waving to their daughter as if she were off on an Arctic expedition or to face dangerous animals in a distant jungle. She sobbed with them but as soon as they were out of sight she shrieked with delight and danced around to music, until Mrs Roberts upstairs banged on the floor and shouted. Their laughter was almost as loud as the record.

  ‘What are we going to eat?’ was Lucy’s first question. ‘I’m starving.’ Belle had packed them some food ‘to get them started’, and they tucked into meatless pasties and fatless cakes with gusto. ‘Tomorrow it’s chips,’ Jennie said, munching happily. ‘Isn’t this great?’

  *

  With help from Geoff and offended criticism from Ivor, the flats were finally finished and Marie went to pay off the arrears. Filled with relief, she almost ran to the office to pay off the full amount.

  The clerk was nervous and he kept glancing around as though hoping someone would come to his rescue. ‘Too late, Mrs Masters, sorry I am, real sorry. But it’s been allocated to an ex-soldier and his family. We have to do our best for the men who went to fight, you can see that I’m sure. You have to vacate the property on – er—’ he glanced at a piece of paper on his desk as though he’d forgotten, ‘on the twenty-fifth of September.’ He went around the counter and guided her to a chair as she had begun to shake.

  ‘Less than two weeks? But I thought we had until December.’

  ‘We tried to tell you that had changed. We’ve sent you two letters, Mrs Masters, I wrote them myself. You must have received them. I put the second one through your letter box on my way home to make sure there was no delay. Worried I was, you not replying, like, and I wanted to make sure you got the warning.’

  Ivor must have found the reminders and hidden them. What was he playing at?

  The embarrassed clerk stood nervously beside her, then began to explain about repaying her debt. ‘You still owe the money, Mrs Masters,’ he reminded her gently. She clutched her handbag as though suspecting him of trying to rob her. ‘That won’t be cleared by your vacating the premises,’ he went on softly, as though talking to a child. ‘But I can arrange for you to pay it off real slow, a few shillings a week. Best I can do. Will that be all right?’

  She thanked him vaguely and, still gripping her handbag with fingers white with pressure, rose from the chair like an old woman.

  Half a dozen times she stopped on the way home to rest on benches and garden walls. The money in her handbag seemed unreal, heavy, weighing her down. All that work and it wasn’t enough. Instead of going home, she went to Geoff’s shop and knocked on the side door. When he came out she handed him the money she had intended to use to pay off her debts. ‘Look after this for me, will you? If Ivor knows I’ve got it he’ll wreck the house trying to find it.’

  He took it without a word.

  She didn’t go back to the shop that afternoon. Instead she went to the woodyard office and told Ivor what had happened.

  ‘We can’t talk about it here, Marie. Go home and wait for me there. I’ll get things sorted, I promise.’

  ‘Your promises aren’t worth anything. How can you sort this when we owe months of rent and are being thrown out into the street?’

  ‘Hush, love, I don’t want our business touted all round the town.’

  ‘Too late to worry about that. Everyone will know when our furniture is piled up on the pavement.’

  He calmed her down and walked her home after a hurried word with his boss, explaining that his wife was worried about the boys, and his sympathetic employer told him he could take the afternoon to sort it out.

  After seeing Marie into the house and making her a cup of tea, he left, after repeating his promise that he would sort it out. But instead of going back to work he went to the bus stop and, dragging the suitcase from its hiding place, changed into the filthy clothes with a shudder of disgust.

  *

  Jennie and Lucy decided to have a party.

  ‘So long as everyone brings some food,’ Jennie stipulated. ‘I don’t want the worry or expense of feeding people.’ Lucy agreed, and besides some of their dancing friends, they asked Bil
l James if he’d like to come.

  ‘Sorry, but I don’t feel very sociable,’ Bill excused.

  ‘You can’t give up,’ Jennie coaxed, ‘Life goes on. You got over Gloria, remember, and you’re still young enough to find someone else.’

  ‘Don’t talk like some women’s magazine! I loved Emily. It isn’t easy to recover from losing her.’

  ‘You loved Gloria too, and that funny little girl before her. The one that disappeared so suddenly, remember?’

  ‘Don’t try to make me sound shallow, unfeeling.’

  ‘I don’t think you’re shallow,’ Jennie said as though surprised. ‘I’m reminding you that grief isn’t for ever, that’s all.’

  He gave her a penetrating look which she matched and then allowed to dissolve into one of her special smiles. As she smiled she was thinking, pompous ass, he’s worse than his father. Old before his time.

  Bill came and the party was a success, with too many guests crowding into the small space and somehow managing to dance to the records of Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey and Ted Heath. The noise increased as more and more people arrived, and the records were played louder to be heard by the dancers. Bangs on the floor from Mrs Roberts above went unheeded. Jennie danced with Bill several times, opening the door to the garden – which Mrs Roberts had insisted was her private domain – and kissing in the darkness, an experience Jennie found far from unpleasant.

  The following morning they had a visit from their landlady, who stood at the door, glaring at the trodden-in food on the floor and the slithering pile of records against the wall.

  *

  Unwilling to tell the boys or Violet about their dilemma, and with only a couple of weeks before they had to leave the house, Marie began packing surplus china. Begging boxes from the shops and using the piles of newspapers put out for the ashmen, she worked until she could hardly move a muscle. Then she gathered the boxes and piled them as well as she could in the corners of the living room. Pictures came off the walls, garden tools were tied together with string. The contents of cupboards were stacked into yet more boxes, and when the children asked what she was doing she told them she was spring cleaning. As she was scrubbing out each cupboard as it was emptied, they seemed to believe her. Ivor said very little and seemed unaware of the turmoil.