by Pip Granger
Bandy raked her hair and mumbled something like, ‘Thank God for that!’ before raising her voice again. ‘She wouldn’t be bloody frozen if she’d remained tucked up in her bed, now would she?’
I could see she was working up to another outburst, so I changed the subject. ‘Where’s Sugar?’ I asked, innocently.
‘How the fuck should I know?’ Bandy exploded. ‘The bloody man’s never here nowadays. Your guess is as good as mine.’ She was about to say something more but got as far as, ‘He’s probably off with that fucking …’, thought better of it and clamped her mouth shut.
‘Oh bugger!’ sighed Freddy, when I related the encounter to him and Antony back at the shop that afternoon.
‘Seconded!’ said Antony. ‘We’ve been longing to find out about Sugar’s amour for simply yonks now.’
The rest of the afternoon was relatively uneventful, unless you count Cassie panting in just before closing to grab ‘her’ deposit back.
‘So much for her hanging on to the millionaire.’ Freddy sniffed. ‘Now what the hell will we do with her frock? Did you cut it out, Antony?’
‘No need to get your nerves jangled,’ Antony sang out happily from the back of the shop. ‘I decided to err on the side of caution and stay my scissor hand until I saw the whites of Cassie’s eyes at the fitting. Always a wise move when it comes to that one.’
Freddy clapped in delight. ‘Oh well done, Ant! I convinced myself her millionaire would turn out to be a keeper, but there you are. As you say, you can never tell with Cassie.’
As I made my way home, I could not help reflecting on how a person’s mood can be turned upside down in the course of a day, sometimes several times. I’d started so desolate that morning, but I had wound up laughing with my bosses and looking forward to the next instalment of life in the flat above mine, where there was rarely a dull moment.
In fact, I could hear a full-scale row going on in Bandy’s flat as I arrived home. Peace was sitting on the landing outside my front door. She smiled shyly, not sure she would be welcome for a second time in one day. I smiled back at her, to assure her that she was. In fact, she was very welcome indeed.
‘Hello again, dear,’ I said. I didn’t need to be bright to work out why she was waiting for me: she was a refugee from the war in progress in the flat above. We both jumped as a plate or something hit the door with a resounding crash. I pulled a face and whispered, ‘Some people do carry on so, don’t they? Let’s have a nice cup of tea, shall we?’ I settled Peace down at my kitchen table while I took off my outdoor things and put them away, then I put the kettle on. I fished my slippers out from under the dresser and put a pinny over my work clothes.
I thought of the lonely chop on its plate in the larder and wondered what to do. I could hardly tuck into it in front of the girl and leave her out, but on the other hand, one chop is one chop and there’s no way to make it look like two. Having decided disguise was impossible, I settled on a recipe that’d stretch it to two if necessary and be fine for one if not. I made a pot of tea and left Peace to pour her own while I laid the little chop in a small casserole dish and surrounded it with onions, peeled and chopped potato, carrot, turnip and some diced swede. I added a dried bay leaf, salt, pepper and some water and popped it in the oven. Dinner could cook itself while I took care of my guest, who hadn’t said a word as she watched and listened to me chatter about nothing while I prepared the meal.
Now I could afford to relax. ‘Let’s go into the other room,’ I suggested. ‘It’s more comfortable in there and it’ll be warmer once the fire’s on.’ I lit the gas fire, which hissed then popped as the flame caught. At full blast, my tiny living room would be toasty in minutes.
We sat down. I noticed tears glinting in Peace’s eyes as the muffled shouts and banging continued. She sniffed, and I handed her a handkerchief. She blew her nose.
I waited, but nothing was added to that small blow. I was a bit at a loss; to probe or not to probe, that was the question. I knew that Peace was a very private girl. It was not her way to chatter, gossip or to talk much at all. Come to think of it, neither did her aunt. Even when in a temper, Bandy didn’t give away personal information. Sugar had sworn to me that Peace turning up and calling her ‘aunt’ was the first he had heard that Bandy had sisters at all, let alone that the Bunyan family had been based in China for most of Bandy’s childhood. Naturally, the girls had come back to the old country for schooling, hence Bandy’s cut-glass accent and lofty manner.
‘She never talks about it, though,’ Sugar had said. ‘There’s no childhood stories about Great-Aunt Augusta singeing the cat or anything interesting like that. Can’t have been much fun for poor old Bandy.’
‘You never talk about your own childhood, Sugar,’ I pointed out, ‘so that’s the pot calling the kettle black right there.’
‘Mine wasn’t much fun either,’ he said shortly.
Soho had taught me that it didn’t do to pry into people’s backgrounds. The castaways that washed up in that small district of London generally told you what they wanted you to know and nothing more. It was safer that way and easier to stay lost, if that’s what they wanted. And they often did.
Despite being a reluctant informant, Peace began to talk a little about her fears for her present and her future. What it boiled down to was that she simply didn’t know what either held, although she was determined never to go back to St Matilda’s – that much was certain.
‘They are cruel, Aunt Liz, very cruel and I will not endure it. But Aunt says that I cannot stay here for ever with nothing to do. She says that she is not the stuff of which mothers are made, even stand-in mothers, and that is true.’
‘What does Sugar say?’ I asked her, fairly certain his attitude would be gentler.
Peace smiled a small smile. ‘He is very kind to me. He has let me have his room and he sleeps on the sofa. He says that as Aunt is my guardian, it is her job to make sure that I am safe, happy and well cared for. Aunt is very angry with him for not taking her side, I think. She is also angry because Mr Sugar does not like Mr Malcolm.’ Peace’s smile faded. ‘I do not like Mr Malcolm, either; he looks at me in a funny way. Mr Sugar has also noticed this. I think that is what started the argument they are having now.’
I had my mouth open to ask more questions when the noise above ceased abruptly. The door slammed and large feet thundered down the stairs, followed by those of another, lighter person, who stopped at my landing and hammered on my door. Peace and I gave each other a startled look, like rabbits in a spotlight, then I went to answer the knock. Bandy was standing on my doormat.
‘Come in,’ I said and in she came.
‘Time you stopped pestering Elizabeth, Peace. Come on home.’
‘But you tell me it is not my home, Aunt, and that I am a temporary guest. I have no home.’ Peace’s words held such terrible sadness that, for a moment, Bandy seemed lost for words.
‘Yes, yes,’ she rallied. ‘Well, we’ll talk about it later. Say thank you to Elizabeth for her kindness and we’ll go.’
‘Have you and Mr Sugar stopped fighting?’ Peace asked pointedly.
‘You, young lady, are bordering on the verge, the very verge of cheek,’ Bandy told her niece severely. ‘But yes, we have stopped our … er … discussion. I’d prefer to call it a frank discussion.’
‘Talking doesn’t break china, Aunt, but fighting does.’ I looked hard at Peace. The tearful child I had been talking to had been replaced by a miniature Bandy, but without the nose and the wild hair. It was quite extraordinary.
I could hear the two of them bickering all the way up the stairs, right up until their front door slammed. I turned back into my flat, closed the front door quietly and leaned against it and listened: there was no other heartbeat in the vicinity, no one breathing, no sounds of movement. I was alone again – just me and my solitary chop.
9
On one Saturday in three, I got the morning off. This was my Saturday and I was luxuriating in a lei
surely start at the cafe. We never worked Saturday afternoons, just ten until one, but that three hours really cut into the day. I was sitting at the corner table with some of the regulars, enjoying my second cup of tea and the full fry-up – egg, bacon, sausage and fried slice. I’d been paid and it was a ritual treat. What’s more, the whole day stretched in front of me, mine to do what pleased me. All I had to do was decide what that was. Running through the possibilities in my mind was at least half of the fun. I could be dutiful and catch up on cleaning my flat and top it off by doing some much-needed mending. Or I could squander my time by idling at the cafe, gossiping, with a trip to a cinema in Leicester Square in the afternoon for a treat. Or I could simply feed the ducks on the Serpentine. My thoughts were interrupted by the conversation at the table.
‘So what do you reckon then – will they ever put a bloke on the moon?’ Luigi asked no one in particular.
‘I reckon, eventually,’ said Bert. ‘Do you suppose there’s life out there somewhere?’
‘I don’t see why not,’ Madame Zelda mused. ‘There’s life after death, after all. I’ve got my spirit guide, Chief Running Water, to prove it, so why not people out there?’ She waved her arm vaguely in the air, indicating way beyond the cafe’s smoke- and steam-stained ceiling, to the heavens invisible.
Bert winked at Maggie. ‘I thought you got the idea for his name after a cheese sandwich and pickled onion supper, Zelda. It kept you awake half the night and dreaming nightmares for the other half. You said it was the gurgling of the pipes as the khazis flushed in the other flats that got you to thinking about running water.’ He laughed and Madame Zelda tutted.
‘You’re a bad man, Bert Featherby. You know that ain’t true. I did have dreams after a cheese supper, that bit’s true, but the rest isn’t and you know it.’ I knew Madame Zelda had to say this, as there were several of her clients in the cafe. It didn’t do to cast doubts into their minds. Madame Zelda’s purse depended on their faith remaining unsullied.
Bert laughed. ‘Only teasing, Zeld, only teasing. If there are spirits on the other side, why shouldn’t there be spirits everywhere? And where there’s spirits there has to be your actual live ones, before they become spirits. It stands to reason, that does. Don’t it, T.C.?’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about, Bert,’ said a voice behind me, ‘but I’ll take your word for it. Any chance of a bacon sandwich and a cup of tea?’
I turned round. T.C. smiled and made to sit beside me. ‘I hope you don’t mind?’ he asked, hand holding the back of the chair, ready to pull it out and sit down. T.C had the kind of smile that crinkled the corners of his blue eyes, thick, coarse, fair hair that would have curled if he’d grown it long enough and a strong, wiry build. I suppose he was the better part of six feet tall. He had a pleasing face; warm and friendly, but with deep grooves beside his mouth that testified to years of unremitting strain.
I had a mouthful of sausage, so simply nodded, then shook my head, confused. I choked slightly, righted myself with an inelegant swig of tea and managed to splutter out, ‘Of course not,’ before convulsing in a fit of coughing. I was mortified. When I finally came to a stop, T.C. had sat down and I was red in the face, with my heart hammering in my throat, like a trapped bird battering its wings against a window. Or that’s how it felt to me.
‘Morning all,’ T.C. grinned, sounding just like Jack Warner as Dixon of Dock Green.
‘Morning T.C.,’ Luigi answered pleasantly. He was a nice boy, that one. All Mamma Campanini’s children were well-mannered; she made a point of it, she said.
‘I’ll get your sandwich,’ said Bert, getting to his feet.
‘And I’ll get your tea.’ Maggie followed Bert to the counter.
‘Morning, T.C.’ Madame Zelda also got to her feet. ‘It’s not that you smell or nothing, but I’ve got a client in five minutes. Got to limber up the old Third Eye and all that.’ She chortled and left.
Luigi took a final swallow of his coffee and grinned, ‘Sorry folks, I gotta go, too.’
Suddenly it was just T.C. and me at the table. He eyed me warily. ‘You’re not going to make your excuses and leave too, are you?’
I shook my head. ‘Not on your life. I’m only halfway through my fry-up.’
‘Good. I was beginning to feel the general exodus had something to do with me. Policemen have that effect on people, even ex-policemen.’ His lovely smile was rather sad, I thought.
‘Well, I’m always pleased to see you,’ a voice announced. It was Rosie. She flung her arms around T.C.’s neck and planted a kiss on his beaming face. I was struck again in that moment by just how much Rosie looked like her father. The curls, the merry blue eyes, long eyelashes and the compact shape were all his. She could do worse. What went to make up a pleasant enough looking man, made for a very pretty girl. It was the eyes and hair that did it. That and the fact she’d inherited her mother’s pointed chin and little, elvish face. The eyes looked huge in that face.
Laughing so that the corner of his eyes stayed creased, T.C. held his daughter at arm’s length. ‘Morning Rosie, my love. Stand back and let’s get a good look at you.’ He looked her up and down, then gathered her in for another cuddle, saying, ‘My, you’re a sight for sore eyes this morning. Fresh as a daisy, that’s you; fresh as a daisy.’
Rosie squirmed and was released. ‘Morning, Dad. You can put me down now, because I’ve got to meet Kathy round at Mademoiselle’s for our lesson, then we’re meeting the others at the milk bar for a shake. What’re you doing today?’
T.C. paused before answering, obviously at a bit of a loss. I knew he was finding it hard to fill his time with no work to go to, but he didn’t want to tell Rosie that, because it didn’t do to burden children with adult troubles. Once again, I took pity on him.
‘I’m going to the Serpentine later, to feed the ducks, seeing it’s such a fine day. You could join me if you fancy it.’ I blushed, suddenly embarrassed by my suggestion. I hoped it didn’t look as if I was being too forward.
‘What an excellent idea. I’d love to come with you.’ T.C. sounded enthusiastic and just a touch relieved. I could understand why: being suddenly single again, for whatever reason, left weekends wide open and not always with opportunity. Sometimes, as I knew only too well, that gap seemed like a gaping great hole.
I noticed a flash of uncertainty cross Rosie’s face as she looked from her father to me and back again, then she smiled widely. ‘Have fun with the ducks then. See you later, alligator.’ Rosie waited a moment and then rolled her eyes. ‘Dad, you’re useless! You’re supposed to say “In a while, crocodile.” I’ve told you and told you.’
‘I know, but I’m just too old and too square to catch on. You’ll have to make do with plain old “Cheerio”, I’m afraid. I’ll try to do better next time.’ T.C. fumbled in his pocket and found a shilling. ‘Here, put this towards your milkshakes.’
Rosie looked at the shilling and then shot a glance towards the counter and her Auntie Maggie, who turned her mouth down and shook her head very slightly. Rosie nodded just as slightly and flashed an enormous grin at her father. ‘Thanks, Dad, but I’ve got my pocket money and Auntie Maggie says I must learn to live within my means.’ She leaned forward and whispered, ‘And she’s watching. I’ll get into trouble if I take it.’ She plopped a kiss on T.C.’s forehead, smiled at me and was off.
T.C. watched her go with a proud but bemused look. ‘How on earth did Cassie and I manage to make such a little smasher?’ He paused. ‘But of course, we didn’t. Maggie and Bert did. Well, we may have made her, but they turned her out.’
‘Let’s just say it was a joint effort and leave it at that, shall we,’ Maggie suggested as she arrived at our table with a tray of tea things and a bag of bread crusts for the ducks. ‘So what’s this I hear about World War Three breaking out round at Bandy’s then?’
I thought back and remembered Peace’s miserable face. ‘Bandy was in a bad mood because Peace’s school had telephoned her a
sking when they could expect the girl back. Sugar was also missing when he was needed, and she was cross about that, so I suppose she was a fight looking for an opponent when he finally walked in late last night. And from what I could hear, Bandy was already engaged in a fairly heated exchange with poor Peace. Sugar took Peace’s side and then war broke out in earnest.’
‘Have they made it up yet?’ Maggie asked tenderly. She was fond of them both.
‘I don’t know, Maggie. All was quiet when I left this morning. But I’m seeing Sugar tomorrow for our sewing circle, so I’ll gather the details then. He’s asked if we can hold it at my place, so things are obviously still not comfortable at home.’ I paused. ‘Of course, he really doesn’t like Bandy’s new chap, either. He tends to make himself scarce when Malcolm’s there, which is most of the time.’
‘Hmm. Can’t say I blame him. It’s a mystery what she sees in that Malcolm. The attraction’s not obvious to outsiders. It’s probably something to do with’ – she looked around to make sure there were no young ears about, but spelt the word anyway and mouthed – ‘b-e-d. It usually is when it’s that hot and heavy. It’ll burn itself out soon enough,’ she said comfortably.
T.C. and I had a smashing time in the park. It was bitterly cold and the poor ducks skidded across ice to get to their crusts, but they were grateful, we could tell. After the ducks, we walked for a while, not talking much as the cold air took our breath away. We walked through to Kensington Gardens and found a place for tea in the High Street. Once we were sitting in the warm, it became easier to hold a conversation.
We explored the weather, our friends and related topics, and we were on to our second cup of tea and the remaining halves of our Chelsea buns when T.C. suddenly asked, ‘How do you manage – you know, moving from family life to living by yourself?’
It was an enormous question. ‘Well, at first, I didn’t manage all that well,’ I began cautiously; the wounds were still tender. ‘But I had a new job with Freddy and Antony and with it, new friends, and they’ve been wonderful to me, absolutely wonderful.’ I stopped again, realizing that I had just placed a very large clodhopper right on one of T.C.’s tenderest spots. He had no job and hadn’t had one since he’d parted company with the police force.