‘I’ll be fifteen in February,’ she said, worried that she might think her too young to be going out with Martin.
‘Martin’s birthday’s in February, the second. I can’t believe he’ll be seventeen next year.’
‘Oh, mine’s not ‘til the end of the month – the twenty-eighth.’
The doorbell rang once more and the baking tray clattered to the floor, throwing fairy cakes everywhere. ‘Oh, no, look what I’ve done now, the tray just slipped out of my hands.’
‘I’ll pick them up for you.’ Jenny bent down and began picking up the cakes that lay scattered like pebbles under the kitchen table.
‘I can’t throw them away. They’ll have to be alright.’
‘They’ll be fine, Mrs Barretti, they’re in their cases. I’ll put them on the plate,’ said Jenny, concerned that she might be blamed for chatting to her.
‘What’s going on out here?’ Martin leant against the doorpost smiling. ‘Two women in the kitchen; always a bad idea.’
It’s just me being clumsy,’ said his mother in a shaky voice. ‘Anna!’ she shouted.
*
‘Did you enjoy this afternoon?’ Martin asked later as he closed the back door behind them.
‘Yes, it was great,’ said Jenny.
‘What, even with Anna throwing a tantrum, and her friends screaming and running wild?’
‘Yes, even with Anna and her friends. It was fun.’
Martin pulled her towards him and kissed her softly. Jenny wished that moment could last forever.
*
The following weekend Martin was waiting by the gate to the farmyard that adjoined Hangleton Church. Jenny braked and stood down from the pedals.
‘Do I get a kiss then?’ Martin grinned.
Jenny hesitated and then leant towards him and pressed her lips to his. She drew back, unsure how long she should keep them there.
‘He’s a big boy, isn’t he?’ Martin nodded in the direction of a bull with a ring through its nose that was standing in a patch of shade in the yard.
‘Yes, he is.’ Jenny squinted at the animal, his tone made her think he wasn’t referring to the animal’s bulk. ‘I’ve brought some lunch for us.’
‘I thought we might take the track of the old railway to the Dyke, what do you think?’ Martin kicked his pedals round and threw his leg over the saddle.
‘As long as we can go to Poynings afterwards – I like it there. Don’t forget you’ve got gears, and I haven’t. You better wait for me on the hills.’
‘I might, or I might not,’ he turned and grinned.
Breathless, they stopped at the top of the hill. To their right lay the hamlet of Saddlescombe. A pair of tile-hung cottages fronted the road, behind them sat a large pond. The muddy brown water had shrunk from the cracked edges to form a shallow puddle in the middle. A few ducks waddled and quacked in the midday heat.
‘We can have our lunch over there.’ Jenny pointed to a grassy bank opposite the pond.
The tall grass was interspersed with light blue scabious flowers. Jenny reached into her saddle-bag and with a flick of her wrists patted the check cloth as flat as she could on the grass.
Jenny passed Martin a sandwich wrapped in greaseproof paper. ‘They’re cheese and tomato, hope you like them?’
‘I eat anything. I’ve even been known to eat cardboard.’
‘I don’t believe that.’
‘True – you can ask my mum.’
They sat side by side eating. A lone swallow skimmed over the water chasing a meal. ‘I’ve brought two apples to finish off with, or we can save them for later,’ said Jenny.
‘Let’s save them for later.’ Martin leaned back in the grass, his arms folded to support his head. ‘You – you are my girlfriend, aren’t you Jenny?’ his voice wavered.
Jenny brimmed with happiness. ‘Yes.’
‘Good, I can really talk to you. Not like some of the other girls at the club. I knew that as soon as I saw you. It’s just that…’
‘Just what?’ asked Jenny, immediately thinking he must have another girlfriend.
He pulled her back beside him. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘No – tell me.’
‘I’ll tell you later. I’m not going out with anyone else,’ he said, as if reading her thoughts.
Jenny relaxed and shielded her eyes from the rays of the sun that pulsed down. Half a dozen swifts circled above, like tiny anchors cast adrift in the sky. ‘They’ll be gone soon,’ she said.
‘What will?’
‘The swifts, I hate it when they go.’
Martin slid his arm under her neck and shoulders; his fingers briefly touched the swell of her breast. He quickly pulled his arm away and sat up. ‘Let’s look around. We can leave our bikes here.’
An Elizabethan farmhouse lay behind the pond. It was built of flint, but part of the frontage had been faced with grey concrete; underneath a large gable, was a clock, its hands stuck at six thirty-five. Jenny wondered if it had been morning or evening when time had stood still. She wished that time would stand still today. She had never been so happy. They wandered hand in hand past the house, lingering as a dozen brown and white Sussex hens scratched in the dry earth, supervised by their ever-watchful cockerel.
‘We’d better go if we’re going to make Poynings,’ said Jenny.
*
They paused on the brow of the hill to eat their apples; the twin towns of Brighton and Hove spread beneath them, with the sails of the windmill a tiny cross in the distance.
‘I love this view,’ said Martin. ‘Look, we don’t have to go back to Hangleton, we can go back down Snaky Hill, if you like. We’ll be closer to your place then.’
Jenny looked at her watch – five-thirty – her parents should be indoors. Mum would be preparing tea. ‘Good idea; but let’s stay here a bit longer.’
Fifteen minutes later they stood under the windmill, and leant their bikes against the barn doors. Martin took hold of Jenny’s hand. ‘I’ve got something to tell you. I’ve been putting it off. I didn’t want to spoil our day out.’
‘What is it?’ She felt cold, although the sun was still burning her bare arms. His assertion that he hadn’t got another girlfriend had pushed his earlier words from her mind.
‘I’ve got to go away for a while.’
‘Go away? What do you mean?’
‘It won’t be for long. Just for a while. That’s why I wanted to know if you were my girlfriend.’
‘Why?’
‘My mum’s got a twin sister. She still lives in my grandparent’s house just outside Southampton. She’s not married and she’s ill. Apparently it’s serious. That’s what Mum said, cancer I suppose. I heard Mum whispering to her on the phone, she’s been doing that a lot lately, she only told us yesterday.’
Jenny stared at him; his words bouncing inside her head. There was a pricking at the back of her eyes.
‘She’s got to go down to look after her, and me and Anna have got to go with her. Dad will stay here for a while because of the café. I kept telling her that I didn’t want to go, that I could stay with Dad, but she wouldn’t have it, said she needed me there to help them. I said what about my job, I’ve only just started. She said that I can get a transfer to a branch in Southampton. So I’m going to have to ask at work on Monday. Anna had a terrible tantrum. Tears and screams all last night and this morning. She doesn’t want to leave her friends. Mum said she’d been thinking about going down for a while, but was waiting ‘til the summer holidays, so Anna can start school down there in September. Jenny, I don’t want to go, but I’ve no choice. I’ve got to help Mum. It won’t be for long; then I can come back. You’ll wait for me won’t you? We can still see each other ‘til I go.’
Tears trickled down Jenny’s cheeks. Martin picked up the edge of his tee-shirt and wiped them away. Her chest felt tight. She couldn’t breathe. How could she carry on seeing him? Each meeting would bring them closer, only for it to be snatched away, leaving
her lonelier than before. It would probably be for weeks – even months. No, she couldn’t do it; best to leave now. She grabbed her handlebars.
‘What are you doing?’
In a mist of tears she kicked the pedals into position and pedalled away.
‘Jenny! Jenny – what are you doing? Come back!’
When she was sure she was out of his sight, she stopped. Panting, she leant over the handlebars and rested. Then, when she had recovered, she pushed her cycle home.
*
‘I don’t know what’s come over you lately,’ said Alice. ‘You’re always disappearing into your room. Not speaking to me or your father. You pestered us to let you go to that youth club, and now you don’t want to go. I give up trying to understand you, I really do.’
‘Well don’t bother. You never did anyway,’ said Jenny slamming the bedroom door behind her. Gail didn’t understand either. She didn’t tell her about Martin going away, it was too painful. She kept pestering her to go to the club, saying that Martin was asking where she was. But she always made an excuse.
9
March 1961
Jenny was not looking forward to being a bridesmaid. She thought she ought to, but she couldn’t see what there was to celebrate about staying in every evening with the same person for the rest of your life. However, it was not worth the effort of rebelling. She would suffer in silence; the token family bridesmaid.
‘All your family will be there, arguing and showing off,’ Alice said to Charlie when the invitation arrived. ‘As for Doris, I just feel sorry for Jim.’
‘She’s alright, Gal,’ said Charlie.
‘Yes, alright when she’s getting her own way.’
‘I don’t know why you’re so hard on her.’
‘You don’t know? Well you should do. Ernie will be flashing his money around, and we all know where he gets it from. He doesn’t fool me with all his talk about doing well with his taxi. You don’t get what they’ve got from fares to the West End and back, and the rest of them will be drinking as if there’s no tomorrow.’
Charlie’s elder step-brother Stan was a compositor in Fleet Street, and the only one of his brothers and sisters to resist the diaspora and still live with his family in Bethnal Green. The East End was in flux. Slum clearance had relocated the poorer families to either high rise blocks nearby, or council estates in Harlow and Basildon. Full employment meant that many families could manage to save the deposit to buy a small semi in Essex. There was an unwritten rule that if you had been brought up north of the Thames you never moved south of it, and visa-versa. Although his parents were content to remain where they had been born, his son Leslie and fiancée Carol had grander ideas. They planned to start married life in a rented one-bedroom flat nearby, but would move north as soon as possible. In March 1961 they took the first step on their journey.
*
‘Stand still Jen. I can’t fix this if you keep fidgeting.’
Jenny marvelled how Carol’s mother, like her own, could speak and not swallow the pins that were stuck like metal cigarettes between her teeth. She decided that it was a skill that came with middle-age like moaning. Once the blue dress had been adjusted to fit tightly over her figure, it was removed and hung on a hanger until later. She was then squeezed into a taxi between Carol, and Yvonne the other bridesmaid. At Luigi’s in the Mile End Road, Jenny’s dark hair was teased, tweaked, smoothed and then backcombed into the latest bouffant style. Finally, it was enveloped in hairspray until it became a solid mass incapable of independent movement.
The wedding ceremony was at St. John’s Church, where Stan and most of his siblings had been married a generation before. As the first of the cousins to marry, all Leslie’s relatives – with the exception of Doris – were at the church. Ernie was dressed in a bespoke Italian suit, with his wife Betty – who all the family agreed, was a dead ringer for Elizabeth Taylor – draped on one arm. A grey fur stole warmed her shoulders, and her collarbone was hidden by two rows of glistening diamonds. Everyone loved Betty, saying that ‘she had no airs and graces’, and ‘had a lot to put up with being married to Ernie’. She had brought up three young boys, having had to cope on her own when Ernie was ‘away for a while’. Talking to Betty was Jean, Eric’s widow from Dagenham. Their son had grown up never knowing his father, who watched him from a wooden frame that stood on his bedside table. Every night before sleeping, John would whisper the day’s events to the smiling young man in uniform.
The buffet reception was held in a large room above The Crown public house, and no expense had been spared in order to put on a good show. After the guests had eaten, the chairs and tables were pushed back along the edge of the room. A black and white clad five-piece band was in full swing when Doris, Jim and Alan arrived. Jim was soon running to and fro to the bar, providing his wife with a never-ending supply of dry Martinis, while Doris took to the dancefloor.
‘I wonder how many practice sessions she’s had with her lodgers,’ Jenny overheard her mother say to Jean who was sharing their table.
‘Doris has always enjoyed dancing though, hasn’t she?’ said Jean.
‘Yes, amongst other things.’ Alice put her glass of stout on the table, her lips disappearing, as she threw a look of disapproval towards the dancefloor.
‘I think I’ll go and sit with Yvonne and the others,’ said Jenny, picking up her glass.
‘Yes, you should be over there with the other young people, not with us oldies,’ said Jean. ‘It’s lovely to see you again Jenny, it’s been so long.’
Jenny pulled back a chair and sat between Yvonne and Leslie’s younger brother Keith. She fingered the stem of the glass; her first Babycham. Alan sat opposite smoking. He ignored her, preferring to brag to the other boys. Jenny thought he was trying too hard to impress. The last time she had seen him he was in short trousers, now he was sixteen with acne. Keith introduced her to his friend, Phil Goldstein, who Jenny thought was the image of Elvis, and wondered if he played the guitar. He leant back in his chair, a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other and blew smoke rings into the air.
‘Another drink?’ Phil asked as soon as she placed her empty glass on the table. ‘Same again?’
‘Yes please,’ she said, flattered that he had spoken to her. Her heart quickened as she watched him amble over to the bar.
‘So, are you another cousin then? I haven’t seen you around here before; I would have noticed,’ he said, placing her drink in front of her.
‘Yes, we live in Brighton. We don’t come up here as much as we used to. Not many of our relatives live around here anymore.’ She twirled the cherry around the bowl of the glass causing more bubbles to surface.
‘Your aunt’s a bit of a goer, isn’t she?’ He sat down opposite and nodded to where Doris was twirling a barman around the floor.
‘She’s only enjoying herself. That’s what people are supposed to do at weddings, isn’t it?’
‘Take it easy. I didn’t mean anything,’ he grinned. ‘Mind you, I like girls with a bit of fire.’
As if realising she was the subject of discussion, Doris came and sat down on the empty chair next to Jenny. ‘I didn’t recognise you with that hair-do.’ She waved Jim over. ‘Look at our Jenny, she’s a bridesmaid. Go and get me another Martini will you?’ She nodded towards Phil. ‘I think he likes you. You can always tell by the way they look at you.’
Jenny blushed.
‘Have you got a boyfriend?’
‘Not at the moment.’
‘Well, you will have soon, I’m sure. Let me give you some advice. They might look casual, but inside they’re just as nervous as you are; more so probably. It’s hard for them always having to make the first move. Not that I waited. I didn’t care. If I liked someone I made sure they knew; none of this playing hard to get nonsense. You’ll find they don’t often turn you down. Mind you, you’ve got to be careful. Enjoy yourself, but make sure you don’t get into trouble. That’s the important bit.’ She downed the last few dro
ps of her Martini and whispered in Jenny’s ear, ‘I expect your mum’s told you everything, now that you’re a teenager.’
‘Told me what?’ She stared at her aunt, then deciding that she meant the facts of life, blushed, and added, ‘Oh, yes.’
‘We’ve got a special bond you and I, haven’t we?’ Doris slurred, patting Jenny’s arm as she stood up.
Feeling braver, she held Phil’s gaze as she sipped her third drink.
‘It’s a bit stuffy in here, d’you fancy a walk?’
Jenny glanced at her watch – nine-fifteen. She looked over at her mother who was still talking to Jean. Over at the bar, her father was surrounded by his brothers. He had a beer in one hand and was waving the other around expressively. He’s probably halfway up the Khyber Pass by now.
‘Why not?’ she said picking up her bolero from the back of her chair. She lifted her dress as she followed Phil down the stairs and through the fug and noise of the packed saloon bar. Meeting the evening chill, she caught her breath, and crossed her arms across her chest.
‘This area’s changed so much in the last few years. A lot of my friends have moved away. We’re moving soon. I work in my dad’s shop in Roman Road. He’s buying another one out at Chingford, and we’re going to live above the shop. It will be much nicer for us than round here. I’ll miss Keith though. We’ve been mates since infant school. How old are you?’
Jenny wondered whether to say sixteen, as she guessed he was about eighteen.
‘I’ll be sixteen in a few months.’
‘Have you got a boyfriend?’
‘I did have last year, but he moved away.’
‘What did he do that for?’
‘He had to, there were family reasons.’
‘They would have to be pretty serious to leave you behind.’ He grinned at her.
‘They were.’
As they crossed the bridge over Regent’s Canal, Jenny discovered that he didn’t have a guitar, and that his hand was sweaty. But she didn’t mind. They continued alongside the railings that surrounded Victoria Park. When they reached a tree that spread its branches low over the pavement, Phil suddenly stopped, and pulling her towards him, kissed her hard on her lips. Manoeuvring her against the railings, he forced his tongue into her mouth. Gail had told her about French kissing, and Jenny had wondered why anyone would want to do something so unhygienic. She found herself responding, and wondered if she was supposed to do anything. She decided there was no need, as Phil seemed to know what to do; anyway she might do the wrong thing which would be embarrassing. She remembered to keep her eyes closed, as that was what girls did in films. Phil’s breathing became heavier as he rubbed his hands over her breasts. He tried to push his fingers inside the bodice of her dress, but Carole’s mother’s adjustments defeated him. He pressed his body against her and she felt his hardness. The iron railings dug into her back and head. Phil drew his head back and looked to either side. Jenny copied him. ‘There’s no one about,’ he said, bending down and putting his hand under her dress. He stroked her bare thigh above her stocking top. His fingers crept under her knicker elastic until one was inside her. She didn’t stop him, and no longer felt cold. His breathing changed as he removed his hand and she heard a zip unfasten. He looked around, lifted her dress once more and tugged at her knickers.
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