Jubilee (Book 1 of The Poppy Chronicles)

by Claire Rayner

  ‘I don’t want to see no letters,’ he said harshly. ‘I told you. I’m not good with letters. Just tell me. Where did she go?’

  ‘Do you think I didn’t try to find out? As soon as I got the letter, I went straight there, to Leather Lane, and there she was, gone. The house empty, nothing left there at all. The neighbours said she’d sold all the furniture, the lot, and gone. I found the woman she’d sold the business to – not that there was much to sell. Only a list of her customers and how she dealt with ’em – and that was it. It was like she’d melted, phht! Nothing else – and the boobalah gone too –’

  Lizah stared at her, his forehead creased into its familiar pattern. He looked frightened now, and his upper lip was pearled with sweat.

  ‘And now you’re going too.’ It wasn’t a question.

  She shrugged. ‘What’s to stay for? I got nothing and nobody. For all I knew, you wouldn’t be back. You know what you are, Lizah!

  You do what you want, when you want, how you want. What do you care about anyone else, except when you need ’em? You can’t say different. You didn’t write to Momma or me from South Africa – yeah, yeah, I know. You’re no hand with letters. But for Gawd’s sake, three lines, hoping to find you as it leaves me, or something of the sort! All I had was Momma, after poor old Poppa died, and that boobalah. I lived for her, you know that? To see her, to listen to her chatter – I tell you that kid’s got such a head on her, such a tongue – she’s so clever, it’d scare you. It was all right when I knew I could see her sometimes. Not as often as I liked – Millie was funny, but what could I do? If I wanted to see her at all, I had to do what Millie said. And I understood, you know. I really did. She had a bad time, Millie, what with that stinking family of hers, and you. Oh, don’t look like that! You treated her bad and you know it! She should have had a home, someone she could trust to lean on, to look after her when she had that baby! If you’d done the right thing she’d be living here yet, and the baby with her. As it is, what have I got? Nothing and no one. So I’m marrying Nate Braham. He at least wants me –’ And she began to weep, but not as noisily as he had. She just sat there with tears sliding silently down her face.

  ‘Christ almighty!’ he shouted and jumped to his feet, almost toppling sideways as he did, for he had forgotten for a moment to watch his new balance. But he recovered his posture and shouted it again. ‘Christ almighty, what could I do? I was boracic, right on my uppers and up to my neck in trouble, and she gets herself in the club! What could I do? Another few months’d have made all the difference –’

  ‘What difference?’ she jeered. ‘What difference? Look how long it was before you came back to me, and no better off than when you went away – you treated her bad, Lizah. You should have packed in all that boxing lark, got a job, worked while you got straight – but not you. You just ran off.’ She straightened her back and shook her head. ‘Ah, what’s the use of talking. It’s over now, dead water. All I know is she’s gone, and I don’t know where. So I’m going too –’

  He sat there silently staring at her, and then she got to her feet and smoothed her dress over her hips. It was as red as all her dresses were, but somehow it seemed to lack lustre. It wasn’t the glowing crimson it usually was; or perhaps she wasn’t glowing as she usually did and it was that which detracted from her. She looked tired and ageing and far from happy.

  ‘So,’ she said after a minute. ‘Aren’t you going to wish me a mazel tov? I told you. I’m getting married again.’

  ‘Mazel tov,’ he said mechanically. ‘I wish you every joy –’ And then his blank gaze cleared and he looked at her sharply. ‘America, you said? Why America?’

  She shrugged. ‘Why not? He’s got people there. A sister married into a big delicatessen family. They got openings for him, they say, in Baltimore. So we’re going. Why not? It’s a good place to bring up kids, they say. You should know – you’ve lived there, haven’t you? And please God, I’ll have kids. My own kids. Then no one can take ’em away from me –’ And she looked fierce and bereft at the same time and again her eyes filled with tears.

  But he didn’t seem to notice. He was staring round the kitchen with eyes dark with anxiety.

  ‘And where shall I go? What shall I do?’

  She gazed at him and now her expression changed. There was affection there and concern, but even more there was exasperation and a sort of contempt. ‘What do you want to do?’

  He stared back at her and then shrugged, and looked down at his empty sleeve. ‘What can I do?’ he asked piteously. ‘You tell me, what does a boxer do with only one arm?’

  ‘He thinks,’ she said tartly. ‘He thinks sensibly, he don’t sit and feel sorry for himself, and cry nebbish, the world owes me a living. So, you were a soldier? It was your idea, be a soldier. And you paid for it. It’s a terrible thing to lose a limb –’ And she carefully didn’t look at the empty sleeve, for she knew if she did she would weep even more than she had. And knew deep inside that would be a disaster for him. The last thing he needed was pity. ‘But the end of the world it ain’t. Think – what do you want to do?’

  He lifted his brows. ‘Do you think I haven’t? Do you think I didn’t lie awake night after night thinking and listening to the bloody insects sawing away, and in the fever with my arm hurting like it was the devil with pincers working on it? Do you think I didn’t think?’

  She managed a grin then. ‘I doubt it. You was never famous for thinking, Lizah. Talking and noshing and shmoozing round the girls, this you was famous for. But not for thinking.’

  Amazingly, he managed to grin too, a thin and uncertain grimace, but a grin for all that. ‘All right, so I’m not a big brain. It’s no crime. But I have been thinking. A gym, I thought for a while. Maybe I ain’t a fighter no more, but I know how fighting is. I can still teach –’

  She shook her head. ‘It won’t work. I may not be a great maven when it comes to boxing but I know about men. And they won’t show you the respect –’

  ‘Do you think I don’t know that? I tell you, I thought, that was all. I didn’t decide. I thought a lot of other things as well – but then only yesterday –’ He stopped then and blinked. Only yesterday? It seemed a hundred years ago. ‘I thought yesterday that people like to talk, to hear of things that have happened, they like a drink, a nosh or two – I’ll get a pub. Yesterday, the way people wanted to talk to me about the war and all – it made me realize. A pub. I’ll stand there behind the bar and they’ll come and talk to me and I’ll make a nice living and –’

  She shook her head dubiously. ‘And how long do you think they’ll go on being interested? Right now everyone cares about the war and battles – no one’s talked of anything else round here for weeks. You should have seen last night, Whitechapel Road – they went crazy! But that was last night, maybe tomorrow night – but every night?’

  ‘You’re a misery, you know that?’ He had flushed up sharply. ‘You ask me what I’m going to do, and I tell you and all you can do is throw cold water.’

  ‘I don’t mean to do that,’ she protested. ‘Believe me, I’m delighted you’re trying to make good plans. But I don’t want you to catch a cold and be no better off than you are – and what about money? It takes money, don’t it, to start a pub?’

  ‘The brewers – they’ll arrange it all!’ He sounded lofty. ‘From where should you know? Tomorrow I’ll go down to Truman’s and maybe Whitbread’s, and see what’s what. They’ll see me, a man like me, back from the war – you’ll see, they’ll grab at me. I’m quick to learn, you know that. I’ll get it all worked out in no time – I can do it –’

  ‘I wish you all the luck in the world, dolly,’ she said and came round the table to hug him and kiss him. ‘All I ever wish for you is the best of everything. I wish I could stay here and look after you – to make you a home, it’d be a pleasure. But I got to think of the future. You, you’ll settle down, find a wife, and then what about me? Just the old sister, and who wants to know? Nate wants me
and I’m not getting any younger –’

  ‘I’ll manage,’ he said and glowered a little as he stared down at his sleeve again and the very obvious pin that was holding it in place. ‘I’ll manage, I’ll get lodgings for a while, look round, see what I can do –’

  ‘You want me to help? I know people round here, in Jubilee Street –’

  He shook his head violently. ‘No! No, I don’t want to live here. I want – oh, I don’t know what I want. I mean, I do – but – well, you’ll see. Listen, get on with your packing. I don’t want to get in your way. When do you go?’

  ‘The people who’ve taken this place, they move in next Friday. I’m going over to Nate’s sister Lizzie, just till the ship goes. We’re getting married at the synagogue in Commercial Road, first Sunday in June. You’ll be there?’

  ‘Of course! Who else have you got to stand up for you?’

  ‘Rae and Joe’ll be there, of course –’

  ‘Rae!’ He dismissed his older sister with a wave of his hand. ‘Her, the misery! Much she cares about you or me. She’s all Vinosky now, got more love for her bloody misbocher than she’s got for us –’

  Jessie lifted her brows and shrugged. ‘So? She’s got to live with her in-laws, ain’t she? Her and Joe, they owe them money, getting the business set on its feet. You can’t blame her. But she’s standing up for me, under the wedding canopy. I’d like to see you there too.’

  ‘I’ll be there,’ he said gruffly. ‘And listen, Jessie. I wish you all you wish yourself. You got a right, I suppose. Nate’s not a bad fella –’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not bad.’

  ‘And me, I’ll manage well enough. Don’t you worry about me. I’ll manage.’ And he went and kissed her and then went up to bed, taking the blankets and sheets with him. He had a lot to do, but first he needed a day and a night’s sleep. And then – then he had to put his whole plan into action. And it involved more than persuading a brewer to give him a pub to run.

  39

  ‘Well, well,’ Ruby said and leaned back in his chair. ‘After all these years, Kid! It’s good to see you.’ But the look on his face wasn’t entirely of welcome; there was pity there too and Lizah felt a dull flush lift in his cheeks as he recognized it. For two pins, he told himself wrathfully, for two pins I’d walk out of here and never see the bastard again. Who did he think he was, for God’s sake, sitting there like some bloody duke behind that desk and looking at me, Lizah Harris, with pity? But he needed him and that meant he had to bite his tongue.

  ‘So tell me,’ Ruby went on. ‘How’s the world been treating you? I heard a long time ago you’d had a bit of a problem with Jack Long’s lot and gone off for a bit of a holiday, like, and then I heard no more –’

  ‘Army,’ Lizah said briefly and lifted his left shoulder so that his chest moved and the pin on his folded black sleeve winked in the light. ‘But that’s not important. Listen, Ruby, I want you to do something for me. For old time’s sake, you know?’

  ‘For you, Kid, anything,’ Ruby said heartily. ‘Believe me, I owe you a lot. I learned a lot round you in the old days when I was a lad. Thought the sun shone out of your toochus, you know that? When you sat down the light went out for me.’ And he laughed fatly, pleased with his joke.

  ‘It wasn’t that long ago,’ Lizah said tartly. ‘You’re not much more’n a lad now. How old are you – nineteen, twenty?’

  ‘What’s age got to do with it?’ Ruby said and grinned. ‘Yeah, I ain’t doin’ bad. You must’ve known I’d be all right, though. You knew me well enough in them days when you was winning all your fights.’

  ‘I’d be winning them now if it hadn’t been for going to fight for Queen and country –’ Lizah began.

  ‘Sure, sure, you would,’ Ruby said soothingly. ‘Sure you would. An’ I dare say you’ll get on top again, one way or another. You’re a goer, Kid Harris, you always was.’ He leaned forwards across his desk. ‘I admired you, you’ll never know how much. I saw you as what I wanted to be. A big one, a success, right? Well, okay, maybe I got on a bit faster than some might have thought and maybe I’ve sort of overtaken you. You’ve had some bad luck, after all. But I swear I owe it to you. You was my model in those days and that’s why I’m where I am now. Not bad, eh?’ And he leaned back and waved his hand expansively to take in the room they were sitting in.

  It was indeed a room worth looking at. Everywhere there was an aura of money lavishly spent. The desk and the chair behind it on which Ruby sat were of mahogany, heavily polished and inset with the best green leather, and against one wall was a heavily decorated mahogany sideboard on which several crystal decanters stood winking in the morning sunlight which came pouring in through the long window past green velvet curtains. There were several other well-upholstered chairs dotted about on the thick green carpet and every inch of the flower-papered walls were covered with posters for theatrical productions, each and almost every one of them proudly headed ‘Reuben Green presents!’ and then bearing the names of some of the best known variety acts in the music hall business.

  ‘Who’d have thought it, eh?’ Ruby said. ‘There was I, all set to make a living like you, a boxer, but then you had a couple of not so good fights – remember, when the Welsh boy got you in the fourth round? – what was his name, Beaver Bevan, that was it. Remember that? Well, that was when I thought – there’s no percentage in this, not in the long term. Better to promote than to do. And then you went off and me, I had to do something and I tried to set up a few fights but it never got me nowhere. No one’d take me serious, you see. Thought I was just a kid. Well, I was, o’ course, but only on the outside. In here –’ And he tapped his beautiful moleskin waistcoat, with the gold chain looped across it, with one well manicured finger. ‘In here, I was already a mensch, a real doer, you know? So I looked around and I thought – everyone likes to eat and drink and laugh. That’s where I’ll make a place for myself. So I got me a coffee stall, took a bit of villainy, you know how it is, but I managed. And I set it up by the old Britannia theatre stage door, and made a few bob. But better still I got to know the performers – they all loved my hot pies and the eels and mash I did – Harry Randall, he was crazy about ’em. And then there was R.G. Knowles – remember the way he used to sing that number of his – “Brighton”? – and Eugene Stratton and Albert Chevalier – oh, they was all my customers. So I sort of drifted into that business. Put on my first night at the Britannia for charity – a Sunday night show it was, for Father Jay’s place, and they all turned out, all the stars, for their hot eels and mash boy! And it was a great evening, great. And out of that I raised a bit o’ cash –’ He laughed then. ‘Father Jay got his share, believe me, but me, I didn’t do so bad out of it either. And there I was, all set to go. Been getting bigger and bigger ever since. Three girls I got out there working for me.’ And he jerked his thumb towards his outer office. ‘I won’t take fellas. They get fancy ideas, trying to cut in on you, wanting to be the guv’nor themselves. Girls you can keep where they belong. So here I am! Not bad for a street arab, eh?’

  ‘Not bad at all,’ Lizah said and wished he could feel better about his protégé’s success. It shouldn’t have made him feel so sick, but it did. ‘So you’ll be too busy to help me, then?’

  ‘It all depends,’ Ruby said and made his face look businesslike. It was a thinner face than it had been, and now that it was faintly blue-shadowed across the jaws and had a thin moustache on the upper lip had taken on a sharpness that was much less attractive than the boy’s face had been. But his eyes were still large and dark and lustrous and he looked now at Lizah with a watchfulness that made him move uneasily in his chair.

  ‘Remember Millie?’ Lizah said at length. ‘That girl from –’

  ‘From up West,’ Ruby said at once. ‘Yeah, I remember her. You took a lot to her, didn’t you? You used to hang around with her. I remember seeing you with her at the old Brit sometimes. Whatever happened to her?’

  ‘That’s what I want to
know,’ Lizah said. ‘She lived with my sister for a while, when she had her kid –’

  Ruby whistled. ‘You a father, then? There’s a turn up for the book!’

  ‘And why shouldn’t I be? Is it so terrible?’

  ‘Not at all!’ Ruby sounded hearty. ‘Just a bit – I supposed I reckoned you was cleverer than that.’

  ‘I wanted it,’ Lizah growled. ‘So don’t you go thinking I was caught or anything. I wanted it.’ And he stared Ruby straight in the eyes, to prove to him – and to himself – how truthful he was being.

  ‘I believe you!’ Ruby said soothingly. ‘Thousands wouldn’t, but I believe you. So, all right. What about Millie?’

  ‘She’s sloped off,’ Lizah said. ‘There I was, away in the army and I come back and she’s hopped it.’ He let his eyes slide away from Ruby’s now; whatever else he’d been, he’d always been a tolerably truthful man. It wasn’t easy to lie like this. ‘I mean, I hadn’t seen her for a while before I went. You know how it is with women. They get notions. And she got one – well sort of. The thing of it is, though, now I want to find her. I’m changing my style, Ruby, and that’s the truth of it. A man gives all he can for his country, and then he has to sort out his life as best he can. I gave up a lot – but I ain’t finished yet. Want to make a new start, you understand? I’m getting a pub to run, and I need a family. A man needs a family, right? ‘Course he does. So I want to find Millie. She went off with the kid and never said where. My sister don’t know. My mother, rest her dear soul, I can’t ask, so how can I find out? I didn’t know what to do, and then I remembered you. If anyone can find her, I thought, Ruby will. So I asked around for Ruby Grühner and got told you was now Reuben Green. Very fancy!’ And he managed a laugh.