‘I don’t – shivah?’ she said, trying to organize her thoughts. That people like her father, her brothers, everyone who lived in Leinster Terrace, indeed in almost the whole of her London, should despise and sneer at Jews was understandable. It had always been thus; she had heard so many veiled – and not so veiled – sneers about ‘the chosen sort’ and ‘the money-lenders’ and ‘Hebraic types’ that inevitably she regarded that attitude as normal. But that Jews should despise people like herself and her family – that seemed a very odd thing.
She cast her mind back to the one or two Jews her father had brought to visit her. They had not been like Kid Harris, brash and bouncy and exciting, with cockney voices and nasal intonations and glittering gold chains and rings. They had been as citified as Papa, as soberly suited as Papa, as fascinated by his dreary business talk as Papa, and far from despising him and his family and his household had seemed at some pains to cultivate his acquaintance, even though he often behaved with a most unpleasantly patronizing air towards them. Yet now Kid was telling her that his mother – she shook her head in the darkness and contented herself with a repetition of her question while she tried to reorganize her thoughts.
‘Shivah? What is that?’
‘Mourning,’ he said after a moment. ‘When a person dies his family sits for a week on low chairs in clothes they’ve torn to show their grief and their friends and neighbours say the prayers for the dead over them. That’s what shivah is. And when a person marries out of the faith, then they do that. And after the week of their mourning they never think or talk about the person again. As if they really was dead.’
She sat in shocked silence. ‘Just because a person marries someone of a different religion?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s disgusting! I mean, I can understand families being upset. I had a cousin who married a Roman Catholic and there was a great deal of fuss. It was years ago and I’ve never seen her since, I do admit. But no one pretended she had died!’
‘Well, Jews do. And now someone – and if it was Ruby, I’ll destroy him – now someone has told my mother I’m going round with you and –’
She sat bolt upright in the corner of the cab and said loudly, ‘I am not going to marry you!’
‘I ain’t asked you, as I recall.’
‘There’s no question of it!’ She was aghast. ‘Friendship is one thing, going out and about is one thing but – this – this idea is ridiculous – I never heard of such a – it really is too much! Take me home at once! Turn the cab about and take me home!’ She was becoming more agitated by the minute and leaned forwards and took his sleeve in her hand and shook it, and he put his own hand on top of hers and made an odd little crooning sound in his throat.
‘Now, don’t get yourself so gefrunzled! No need to get upset! No one’s saying any different from what you are. No need to go running away. O’ course you’re not going back yet. In good time, we go back. Right now, we sort out this business with my mother. The thing of it is, I want we should go and see her. Yes, I do. So you can tell her she’s to stop getting in such a fuss herself and it’s all right and she can stop making a megillah every time she sees me. And then, when she knows you, and she feels comfortable with you – then, we shall see.’
‘See what?’ she demanded. ‘We shall see nothing because I shan’t be there. I am not going to be looked over like some – some prize animal brought from market. To be introduced as your friend would be pleasant. To be regarded as a – some sort of –’ She actually shuddered she was so angry. ‘It’s the outside of enough! I wish to go home.’
Her agitation seemed to have calmed his for he was now in a much better humour and just patted her hand and laughed.
‘What a fuss! Now, do stop! I dare say I explained it all wrong anyway. I dare say I was getting worked up over nothing. She just wants to say hello, give you a bissel cake and coffee, and then we can go to the music hall for the last house, what do you say? No need to get all excited is there? O’ course not! The thing of it is, Ruby’s been making mischief and I can explain. So – that is what we’ll do – see Momma and then go on out –’
He began to whistle tunelessly between his teeth, as happy as he had been gloomy and she could have shaken him in her fury, but he just grinned at her as the cab made one more turn and went rattling over a rather rutted road surface and came to a stop.
‘Number seventeen, you said, squire?’ The cabbie had leaned over and was shouting in through the window. ‘Number seventeen Myrdle Street? Here we are.’
8
Once again, it was smell that affected her most powerfully. She allowed him to shepherd her in through the front door of the small house, unable to do anything else, and stood in the narrow hallway, her head up a little defensively and very aware of all that assaulted her senses.
It smelled warm and rich and in an odd sense affectionate. It wasn’t just the heavy odours of food, though there was plenty of that. It was like the fried fish restaurants he took her to sometimes, but there was more than that. There were sweet as well as savoury smells and coffee and tea smells, and beneath them there was the scent of cleanliness, of hard yellow soap and soda and beeswax polish. And when she looked around she could see evidence of the ferocious battle against dirt that was clearly waged in this small house.
The floor was covered with brightly squared linoleum in shrieking yellows and reds which shone with soap, only losing its lustre in places where it had been worn down almost to the canvas. The staircase, which ran steeply upwards on one side of the small hallway, bore a narrow strip of red twill in the centre of each tread, carefully held in place with glintingly polished iron stair rods, and the wood left visible on each side had been rubbed to a deep gloss with beeswax. Ahead of her, just a few feet along, the passageway, which was lit by a single gas mantle in a blackleaded holder on which even the chains which controlled the gas supply had been polished to within an inch of their lives, ended in a door on which the upper panes had been replaced by glass which was shielded with a carefully arranged net curtain. She looked at the door and the light that shone through it from the other side and saw the shadow of a person standing just behind it, and suddenly her heart lurched in her chest. She felt real alarm and shrank more closely to Kid, who was just closing the front door.
‘I would really rather not –’ she whispered, not taking her eyes from the glass-fronted door, perfectly aware that someone was standing close behind it with an ear pressed against the net curtain, but Kid took her elbow in his comforting grasp, and said loudly, ‘No need to worry, believe me! Momma! It’s me!’
At once the figure on the other side of the door disappeared and he grinned down at her, and made a little face, and as though he had spoken she heard his words. ‘What can I do? That’s Momma!’ and again she tried to hang back. But he was much more determined than she, and she felt herself propelled the few steps along and then Kid’s hand came over her shoulder and opened the door.
‘Well, Momma, here I am, and brought a friend you should say hello to!’ he said heartily and she felt the tension in him for the first time since they had left the cab. He was, she discovered, as nervous as she was, and that seemed to help. She stopped hanging back and stood still and straight, her head up.
The room was a little larger than she would have expected from the narrowness of the passageway, but so crowded with furniture that it seemed unlikely that anyone could move about in it with any ease. A large central table, covered in a red plush cloth and bearing a big copper samovar on a crocheted mat, stood in the centre; a broad kitchen range with a grated fire and ovens on each side, blackened to a luscious ebony that reflected every spark and lick of flame from the coals glowing behind the bars; an overmantel draped with the same red plush as the table but bearing so many vases and ornaments and knick-knacks that it was almost invisible; a glass-fronted wall cupboard in which china and glass and dishes of all kinds were stacked high, with large garishly coloured cups hanging on hooks; a very large and shiny
brown horsehair-stuffed sofa, embellished with polished brass-headed nails and several tapestry cushions; a window draped with more red plush, this time trimmed with yellow braid and tassels, and a bewildering number of chairs of varying sizes, all with flat embroidered cushions on them.
And in the largest chair to the right of the hearth a small woman. Even sitting down she looked tiny, with fragile bones and the scrawniest of skins and a face from which every atom of excess flesh had been worn away to show the sharp bones of cheeks and nose and chin, and the darkest and most glittering eyes Mildred could ever remember seeing.
The small mouth opened slowly and the voice that emerged was high and piercing. ‘I should say hello? So all right. Hello.’
‘This is Miss Amberly, Momma.’ He was pushing her forwards gently, a hand on the small of her back. ‘Miss Mildred Amberly, my friend.’
‘So, your friend.’ The woman peered upwards at Mildred and then, suddenly, her mouth opened wider and stretched sideways and she was cackling. ‘Pssht, I never saw such a lange locksh!’
‘Momma, be quiet!’ Mildred felt him go hot behind her as great waves of embarrassment engulfed him. ‘You should be –’ He stopped and swallowed. ‘Please, Momma. I told you, this is my friend! You should be nice!’
‘How do you do, Mrs Harris,’ Mildred said, and her own voice was rather higher than usual as a slow anger began to glow in her. ‘May I ask what a – what was it? Lange – It’s not a word I know.’
‘She expects she should know Yiddish, now!’ Mrs Harris said, never taking her eyes from her son’s face. ‘Such an expert! You should tell her what is a lange locksh, Lizah!’
‘So, Momma, how about a cup of tea, a bissel strudel maybe? Miss Amberly has come a long way, already –’
‘So tell her,’ the old woman commanded, still staring at her son, and Mildred thought – she hasn’t looked at me at all, apart from that one glance. She’s behaving as though I was a piece of furniture or a dog to be talked about and at and around, but never to, and she lifted her head even higher and said loudly, ‘I would prefer you explained, Mrs Harris. If you wish me to know what it means.’
There was a little silence as Mrs Harris remained staring at her son, and then she allowed her eyes to shift slowly so that she was looking at Mildred at last.
‘A long cold drink of water,’ she said at length. ‘A lange locksh. A person who is too high for her own good. And thin –’ And her eyes flicked down towards Mildred’s feet and again it was as though she could hear unspoken words. The sneer at her flat chest and meagre hips, which remained anything but voluptuous despite so many months of eating the Kid’s good food, was loud in the small room.
Kid laughed, a strained sound that was swallowed up by the heavy curtains and the looming furniture. ‘Such a jokester, my Momma! Always busy with the jokes.’
‘Oh, was that meant to be funny?’ Mildred said coolly.
‘Sure, it’s funny!’ Mrs Harris said. ‘Ain’t you seen what you looks like next to my Lizah? A lange he ain’t. He comes up to your pippick! And you want to know what a pippick is? A belly button! That is what a pippick is! Believe you me, you and him, this is a joke!’
She got to her feet, hauling herself out of her chair with some effort, and now Mildred could see that her appearance was deceptive. She was small in height and her upper body was indeed fragile and bony, but from the waist down she was as solid and stocky as her son. She stood now with her fists on those thick hips which were enveloped in a heavy blue stuff gown covered with a very white apron, and grinned. Her teeth were long and rather yellow but suddenly there was a glimpse of the girl she had once been, and of a likeness to her son.
‘So, you’ll have some tea, Lizah. And some plaver. Strudel I ain’t got. Plaver there is.’ And she turned and went a little creakingly to the door on the other side of the horsehair sofa and went down a couple of steps into the ill-lit scullery beyond to start banging about with dishes.
Mildred stood still, a little nonplussed. The hostility that had been in the room seemed to have dissolved somewhat and the anger that had begun to rise in her muttered and subsided, although it did not go away entirely.
‘Why is she –’ she began to whisper to him but he shook his head and, pulling on her arm, took her to the table and pulled out a chair for her.
‘Listen, Millie, understand, please,’ he said in a low voice. ‘She’s a – a forthright lady, my Momma. If it’s in the mind it’s on the lip, know what I mean? But she means no harm. You always know where you are with her. She says what she says, and then it’s over. No hard feelings. Please, don’t get gefrunzled – upset.’
‘It would help if people didn’t keep speaking to me in a foreign language,’ Mildred hissed at him, watching the shadows in the scullery as Mrs Harris moved between the gaslight and the door. ‘It doesn’t exactly make a person feel welcome.’
‘You’re welcome,’ he said, still murmuring. ‘Believe me, there’d have been no offer of tea and cake if not – tell her the plaver is wonderful. She’s a good cook and –’
Mrs Harris came back into the room carrying a heavy tray and set it down on the table with a clatter and then took the pot across to the grate where a large black kettle was muttering quietly to itself on one side of the fire.
‘You’ve eaten, Lizah?’ she demanded. ‘I got fried fish, and I got chopped herring and bagels. She wants some?’
‘My name is Mildred, Mrs Harris.’ Mildred said, fixing her with her gaze as the old woman came back from the fire, her tea pot now full.
‘So?’
‘So call me that!’ she snapped and now Mrs Harris looked at her and then at Kid and jerked her head back in Mildred’s direction.
‘Got a good opinion of herself, eh? Wants to be everyone’s friend, does she?’
‘Momma, stop it!’ He sat down with a thump beside Mildred and glowered at his mother. ‘Listen, what do you want of my life? You go on and on at me, I’m to bring Miss Amberly to see you. I take no notice, but you go on and on about it, so, punkt, I bring her! And what do I get? Insults to my friend. It’s not right and it’s not nice and you ought to know better.’
‘And you ought to know better than to go shlapping around with shicksahs!’ she flared at him. ‘You been brought up to be a decent boy, and now you go running around with –’
‘I am not a boy, Momma. I’m a man with a life of my own and I choose my own friends, whether you like it or not.’ Mildred felt her anger bubble away and took a deep breath in relief. That was what had been the most unpleasant part of the situation: Kid Harris’s apparent willingness to let his mother say what she wanted and to behave as she liked no matter how she might make Mildred feel. Now he was resisting she felt much better, and she leaned a little closer to him, staring at his mother with her brows slightly raised.
‘So, you’re being rude to your mother now? You think you’re such a man you can insult your mother and –’
‘If you insult my friends, Momma, then I won’t put up with it. You said you wanted to meet Miss Amberly. You’ve met her. Now behave right or we go away. End of argument. Do you hear me? End of argument.’ And he sat very still, watching her.
There was a little silence as Mrs Harris stood and stared back at him and then slowly she shifted her gaze to Mildred.
‘I insulted you? I meant no insult. I say what I find, and there it is. But if I insulted you then all right, I’m sorry.’ She looked now at her son and said, ‘So now you’re happy? No insults.’
She’s frightened, Mildred thought, suddenly seeing the old woman more clearly. She’s scared of upsetting him. And she looked at Kid who was now sitting grinning again. Why is she frightened of him? And for a moment she remembered the way he had been the first time she had met him in the cellar room. He had seemed menacing, a heavy man with violence in him, a man who could hurt people and control them with fear of that hurt, and she felt herself shrink away from him, alarm coming to replace the anger.
‘Th
at’s better!’ he said heartily. ‘Much better! Now we can be friends, eh? You and me and my friend, Miss Amberly. Now Millie, this you got to try.’ He reached for the tray and seizing the knife cut a large slice from the sponge cake that was set on a plate in the middle. ‘It’s the lightest, the moistest, and the sweetest plaver in the whole neighbourhood. Momma, a cup of tea for Millie and for me as well, and we’ll be comfortable together.’
She hesitated only for a moment and then did as she was told, pouring tea and handing it to them and Mildred took it with a murmured ‘thank you’ and began to sip automatically. The cups were thick and heavy and she had to concentrate on what she was doing and that helped. She didn’t want to think about what had happened in that brief moment, didn’t want to look at the fear that had come back. There had been so much pleasure these past months, so much that was rich and exciting that she had managed to forget the origins of their peculiar friendship. Now that memory was pushing against her, trying to warn her, and she put her cup down with a clatter and thought – what am I doing? How did I ever let this happen? How can I be sitting here in this tiny place with a woman who so obviously hates me? I must be mad. I have to go home. I must go home and stop all this nonsense and –’
Kid Harris had been talking steadily, as the two women sat on each side of him in silence, apparently unaware of the fact that neither of them was actually listening to him and now he repeated a sentence, more loudly, ‘Momma, where is it?’
‘Eh?’
‘The diploma, Momma. The diploma they gave me at the school, when I won my first fight. Where is it?’
‘Upstairs. In the back bedroom,’ she said and he got to his feet at once. ‘Millie, this I must show you. I was seven years old. Would you believe? Seven years old and I got this diploma for boxing. I tell you I was like a – well, I’ll fetch it, you’ll see.’ And he went clattering out of the room and they heard his footsteps go charging up the stairs.
There was a tense silence, crowded with their thoughts, and then Mrs Harris leaned towards her suddenly and grasped her arm in a bony hand. It was a surprisingly hard grip and Mildred thought – did he inherit that from her, too? He holds on to me like this sometimes –
Jubilee (Book 1 of The Poppy Chronicles) Page 9