by Annie Murray
‘D’you like the look?’ Cissy said.
‘Oh, yes – you look like a film star!’ Melly said. And she did.
‘Well, I’d never get away with this lipstick with my real colour,’ Cissy said. She patted the silk scarf covering her hair. ‘And Teddy loves it.’
‘Gentlemen prefer blondes,’ Melly said and Cissy giggled. ‘And this car’s yours?’
‘Teddy bought it for me – early present for my twenty-first!’ Cissy shouted back. ‘It’s the new Daimler. Course, Teddy likes a go in it as well. But he’s got his Jags.’
Melly nodded. Teddy seemed to her an old man of tweed and leather and smoke, while at the same time childish, a boy no older than Cissy.
‘So how’re you, littl’un?’ Cissy yelled as they roared out of Coventry.
‘All right,’ Melly said. She didn’t want to go into any detail while she was having to shout over the buffeting air as Cissy tore along. They were out of the city and in green lanes between hedges and fields; cows swishing their tails back and forth.
Soon, Cissy turned into the drive of Rawson House, the white, four-square building with four acres of land stretching around it which, to everyone’s continuing astonishment, was her marital home.
‘Teddy said he’s sorry not to see you,’ Cissy said as she braked at the front of the house. A twisting wisteria, all mauve bells of bloom, stretched itself across it.
‘Not to worry,’ Melly said. She didn’t mind not seeing Teddy, though he was affable enough. She had spent a long time at the beginning looking for something suspicious about him, some dark motive in him for marrying a girl like Cissy, so many years his junior, who he had plucked out of the city. But she could not find one. Teddy just plain adored Cissy. In fact, he seemed to be happy with his monied life, his bits of work in the firm here and there, his golf, his passion for model aeroplanes and good cigars – and a pretty wife on his arm. There was really no more to him than that.
Melly had waited for Cissy to get bored with titivating the house and herself. Everyone had almost given up speculating about when they were going to have a baby. But Cissy did not seem bored. She was just like Teddy, Melly realized. They were made for each other. It also made her see how much more she wanted herself – a life with more challenge and things to do.
Cissy climbed slowly out of the car. Melly, who had nipped out in her lithe way, thought, my, she’s turning into a middle-aged woman.
Cissy led her through the front door, into the capacious hallway, its parquet floor covered by modern rugs in bold blocks of reds and green, its mock-antique furniture. The panelled walls were hung with paintings of ships and aeroplanes, all modern and in bright colours. Melly looked at them and thought, as she had thought every time she visited, well, I wouldn’t want them on my walls.
‘He’s got a new one, I see.’ She pointed at a picture high up, above another painting.
‘Oh, yes,’ Cissy said fondly. She pulled the scarf off, turned to a little ornate framed mirror on the wall and patted her blonde hair which curled up at the ends. ‘His Spitfire. He loves it. Anyway – come and see the kitchen. Mrs Rogers isn’t here today, so I’ll make you some dinner. Soup all right?’
‘Yes,’ Melly smiled, knowing how hopeless Cissy was in the kitchen. She had never much liked cooking, or any work. Now that she had a housekeeper and several gardeners to tend to all the land that Teddy owned, she could sink back happily and not bother.
Melly followed Cissy, with her white high heels clicking along the floor. She felt rather drab in her blue-and-white floral dress, compared with Cissy’s bright, striped one. But she had always felt drab in comparison with Cissy. She minded a lot less now. She liked her own life.
‘Oh!’ she exclaimed as they went into the large kitchen. ‘Blimey, Ciss – this is different!’
The old-fashioned kitchen and range had been swept away. She had never seen a kitchen like this one! At home they had old handmade wooden cupboards and the white sideboard with the flap that came down. Mom did have a refrigerator, though, which was quite something. The Morrisons had a lovely big kitchen in Moseley, but it was cosy and old-fashioned with a big scrubbed table and all Dolly’s pans hanging from hooks. The only other kitchens she knew were the old house in Aston and the kitchen in the nurses’ home, with its tiled floor and big black range.
What she saw now was an array of cupboards fitted all around the walls, some high up and all with sugar-pink doors. The window curtains and even the cooker were pink. There was a small table in the middle with a pink-and-white checked cloth and at one side, beneath a row of overhead cupboards, a strip of bright white surface, with two white plastic chairs on moulded stems, almost like wine glasses, pushed underneath.
‘D’you like our breakfast bar?’ Cissy giggled, pointing. ‘It’s the new thing. We love it!’
‘It’s . . .’ Melly could hardly take it in. ‘It’s ever so modern, Ciss!’
‘But d’you like it?’ Cissy pressed her, her hands clasped together. ‘I said to Teddy that if it was going to be a colour it had to be pink.’
‘Yes – it’s lovely!’ Melly said, almost truthfully, though privately thinking it was a good thing Cissy had dyed her hair blonde instead of ginger. Her scarlet clothes were an eye-aching enough clash.
Cissy rummaged in one of the cupboards and pulled out two tins of Campbell’s soup concentrate.
‘Here we are – chicken or mushroom?’
Melly was almost too hungry to care either way. She seemed to have an enormous appetite ever since she started nursing. ‘Mushroom, please,’ she said.
‘We can eat in the dining room,’ Cissy said, laughing in her good-natured way. ‘Sorry I haven’t got anything better. Mrs Rogers does so much I still haven’t learned to cook.’
‘Never mind, Ciss,’ Melly said. ‘I s’pose we can’t all be beautiful and practical.’
The dining room, at the back of the large Edwardian house, had deep red flock-patterned wallpaper and glass doors opening out to the garden, its beds at present blooming with flowers.
‘I’ll open the door,’ Cissy said, laying two places at the end of the long, mahogany dining table which would seat at least twenty guests. There was a silver candelabra in the middle of the table and glass-fronted cabinets arranged at the edge of the room full of porcelain and china ornaments.
Goodness, Melly thought. I’d be afraid to move in here.
A quiet lay over the place, except for a banging every now and then, as if someone was knocking in a post somewhere in the distance. The faint buzz of bees and scent of flowers came in on the breeze. Cissy left the room and Melly looked out at the carefully arranged beds of roses and other beautiful flowers which she could not name in white and pale mauve, pink and blue. What a lovely place it was!
Cissy returned with half a loaf of bread, a pat of butter and a lump of what looked rather mousetrap sort of cheese.
‘I thought there was some better stuff but I can’t find anything,’ Cissy said. She sank down at the table as if exhausted. ‘Hop in and pour the soup for us, will you? It’s bubbling.’
Melly brought the greyish soup in and set the bowls in their places on the white cloth Cissy had laid at their end of the table.
‘You all right, Ciss?’ she asked as she sat down. Cissy was looking rather pale suddenly.
‘I will be, when I’ve had a bit to eat,’ Cissy said. She looked up coyly at Melly. ‘I haven’t told you my news – and you haven’t even noticed. Look!’
Pushing her chair back she stood up and smoothed the soft material of her dress close down over her belly. Only then, Melly noticed the round bulge of it. She looked at Cissy, who was beaming at her.
‘I’m getting on for five months!’
‘Oh, Ciss – that’s lovely!’ To Melly’s surprise she found tears in her eyes. ‘Have you told Nanna Peggy?’
‘Not yet. I wanted to be really sure, you know . . .’
‘Well, I’m happy for you,’ Melly said. ‘You know, we
all began to wonder, with Teddy being so much older and . . .’ She stopped, realizing how tactless she was being.
‘These things can take time,’ Cissy said. She blushed, looking down into her soup.
‘Sorry, Ciss.’ Melly reached to touch her arm. ‘I didn’t mean to be nosey. The main thing is, the baby’s on the way! I’m so glad for you.’
‘I can’t wait!’ Cissy beamed, before taking a ravenous bite of bread, thickly buttered.
They both ate hungrily and talked about the baby and how Cissy and Teddy were having a room decorated and Cissy was buying clothes and a cot and everything new.
‘Gladys’ll be knitting for you as soon as she knows,’ Melly said. ‘Or finding all sorts of stuff for you off the market.’
‘Ah, yes,’ Cissy said, looking a bit pained. ‘I suppose she will. I’m not sure that . . .’
‘Don’t offend her,’ Melly said. ‘She loves babies and she’s known you since you were knee high. Just take what she gives you and say thanks – she won’t know if you use it much, will she?’
‘Yes – course.’ Cissy smiled. ‘Dear old Auntie. How is she? How’s everyone?’
‘She’s all right, I think,’ Melly said, sawing off another slice of the soft white bread. ‘Says she’s stiff these days. She’s hanging on in Alma Street still – they haven’t knocked the old place down yet, but it’s sure to happen. She’s putting a brave face on it all. She said Stanley Gittins’s got bad, though. Lil’s barely managing. But I don’t see much of anyone at the moment.’
‘Of course!’ Cissy gasped. ‘You’re doing your . . . Being a nurse! Oh, what’s it like? Ooh, I could never do what they do.’
Melly, glad to be asked, was just launching into a description of her life in Selly Oak when, from the garden, a voice, moving closer, called out low and teasing:
‘Hello-o-o? Hello there – Miss Cissy. Where’s my little pumpkin got to then?’
It was a deep male voice, with a strong country accent.
Cissy dropped her spoon, splashing soup on the cloth, and dashed to the door.
Melly saw a tall, robust-looking man, dressed in working clothes and a rather crushed brown trilby hat, appear close to the doors. His face, so far as she could see, had a ruddy, healthy look to it. Cissy, hurrying down the step to the garden, went over on one of the high heels and had to recover herself. The man caught her as she staggered forward.
‘Eh – careful with yourself, my lovely!’ he said. ‘Don’t want our little Petey coming a cropper, do we?’
‘For God’s sake,’ Melly heard Cissy hiss at him. Her lips moved closer to the man’s ear and she added something else that Melly could not hear. A second later the two of them parted and Cissy came back in. She was making obvious attempts to look nonchalant, but her hair was rumpled by her tripping and she looked flushed and tense.
‘Really,’ she said crossly, sitting back down. With both hands she tried to settle her hair again. ‘Sometimes having staff is more trouble than not!’
‘Oh, dear,’ Melly said, not sure what else to say. She was not yet thinking very clearly, except that what she had just seen happen seemed mighty odd. She just looked at Cissy.
Instead of carrying on eating, Cissy put her hands in her lap and hung her head.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ she said.
‘Do you?’ Melly said. She wasn’t sure what she was thinking herself.
‘He’s . . .’ She looked up with a kind of desperate defiance. ‘He’s the same colouring as Teddy, almost exactly. Teddy’ll never know. He can’t, you see. Can’t seem to give me a baby, and . . .’ She put her hand over her face for a moment, and then drew it away again. ‘But now he thinks he can. That it can just take that long. He’s so pleased. It’s made him younger again just thinking of it.’
Melly stared at her, the pieces of this puzzle only just beginning to join up in her head.
Cissy leaned towards her in deep earnestness. ‘You won’t say anything, will you? Please, Melly.’
Melly was reeling with astonishment. She had still had so little to do with men that all this felt beyond her. This lie of Cissy’s – such a big, awful lie. And then she thought, what would happen if Teddy knew, if everyone knew? Would it help, or make anything better? She looked at Cissy’s pleading face. What on earth other answer could she give? It wasn’t her business to interfere.
‘Course I won’t, Ciss,’ she said. She took Cissy’s hand and squeezed it.
Thirty-Four
October 1960
Tommy bent over the lavatory, retching up a tan gush of tea.
He had got up at six, having hardly slept. He was so charged up with nerves that he knew he would need time to steady himself for the day to come. Creeping down to the kitchen he had put the kettle on and sat sipping scalding tea, hoping it would take away the queasiness, but he had had to hurry out to the lav, downstairs at the back, and only just made it.
He flushed the lavatory and washed his mouth out over the basin. For a moment he leaned against the wall, breathing hard. A chill spread through him, but at the same time he could feel that his new shirt was already clammy with sweat.
I can’t do it, he thought, staring at the tooth-coloured enamel of the basin. All these years he had led a protected life, surrounded by family or Carlson House. Today he was expected to venture out into the world, to travel right across town and start work. A proper job. What if he couldn’t manage any of it? But his next thought was, I’ve got to. What else am I going to do? I can’t stop at home all my life.
Some of the welfare workers at Carlson House had visited firms in the city to find out who would be prepared to take on disabled employees. When it turned out that Tommy had passed five O-levels and that they were told his disabilities were not nearly as severe as those of some children, he had been one of the first to be offered a job.
He was to go to the offices of Joseph Lucas’s in Hockley. What he would do when he got there he was not sure. Whatever it was, he found the prospect terrifying.
By the time Mom came down to get the others off to school and make breakfast, he was already dressed and ready to go.
‘You’re up early,’ she said.
‘Umm.’ He was sitting at the table in the work clothes they had bought: black trousers, white shirt, jacket, all strange and crisply new on him.
Mom sounded nervous and it made him want to seem as if he wasn’t. Carlson House and the Midland Spastic Association clubs and socials had become her little world as well. It had protected both of them.
Dad came down and ate standing up, a wedge of bread, slurping tea. Tommy felt the atmosphere of awkwardness coming from him that was always there when he had to do anything with his eldest son – uncomfortable, trying too hard.
‘You had your breakfast?’ Danny asked in a gruff voice.
‘Yes,’ Tommy lied. ‘Ready – when – you are.’
Dad was to drive him for the moment. For a start he needed to know the way. But someone from the Midland Spastic Association had told him that there was now an organization from where you could get motorized tricycles for invalids. He was excited and nervous about the thought of being able, at last, to get about by himself.
‘One thing at a time, love,’ Mom had said. ‘Let’s get you settled in the job first. See if it works out.’
He heard in her voice the thought that it might not.
Rachel stood outside, waving them off in the old Standard. Tommy gave her a brief wave, then faced the front, dignified, not even looking at her. She had tucked him into the car, overdone it, she knew that. Even now that her eldest son was setting out to begin his first job, she found it hard not to baby him. A job – Tommy! – it was the miracle they never thought would happen.
She stood with a white cardigan draped over her shoulders, watching the car slide away down the street, and gave thanks for Carlson House, for the years of kindness and attention, of speech therapy and lessons and all the care that went into trying to help childre
n like Tommy have the best they could manage in life. Tommy, as it turned out, had become a star pupil there, actually passing national exams. The cleverness of her children amazed her. She had never thought herself anything special.
Yet as the car disappeared, she shivered. The road was quiet, a breeze blowing little clouds across the sky, and a cold, empty feeling came over her. She was not needed any more – not by Tommy, to whom she thought she would be tied for life. And while there was a lightness, a relief, she found she felt bereaved.
Melly was gone – she came home once a month or so and seemed happy as anything with her new nursing life – and now her little Tommy too. The two children who had been her whole life throughout the war years, when she was barely older than Tommy was now.
She stood for a moment, close to tears. Then she reminded herself that her job was not over yet. There were plenty more children still to look after and that Alan was inside the house getting up to who knew what! She hurried indoors.
Tommy and Danny did not talk much in the car.
‘You’d best watch the route, son,’ Danny said as they set off. ‘You need to know where you’re going.’
Tommy nodded and watched queasily out of the window as they made their way across town, to Hockley. He had been once before, for a brief interview, but as Dad braked near the imposing factory buildings in Great King Street, he felt once more overawed and scared. Lucas’s was one of the great, famous Birmingham firms, started by ‘Old Joe’ Lucas as he was fondly known, who had started out in the nineteenth century selling paraffin from a barrow. Once he started manufacturing oil lamps, the company grew and grew.
Tommy stared up at the buildings, wishing he could see through the walls to the lathes and presses, the engineers and workers, and all the machine parts pouring out of the factory. Now, he was to be one of the tiny cogs in the Lucas machine.