A Winter Love Song

by Rita Bradshaw

  ‘No, I didn’t have time.’ Which was true enough.

  ‘Ee, lass, no wonder you’ve come over queer. Here, get that down you.’ So saying, she thrust a brown paper bag holding two great wedges of bread and a half-inch-thick slice of ham between them at Bonnie. ‘I ate first thing but I always bring something along in case I get peckish. I’m going to see me old mam an’ da and take ’em some bits to see ’em through for a week or two. One thing about marrying a farmer, you don’t want for good grub. As you can see from the size of me.’ She chuckled. ‘I was a skinny little bit of nowt when I met my William, believe it or not.’

  Bonnie felt acutely uncomfortable. ‘I can’t take your food. Although it’s very kind of you—’

  ‘Go on with you,’ the farmer’s wife interrupted. ‘Do I look as if I’m wasting away? Get it down you, lass.’

  Bonnie got it down her and felt the better for it. Her new friend continued to chat about the farm, her husband and bairns – five boys and three girls – and how she was trying to persuade her aged parents to leave the town and come and live with her on the farm. She asked for no more than a nod and a smile now and again which suited Bonnie. She couldn’t have faced making conversation, nice though the woman was. She felt raw between her legs and ached all over, and her head was throbbing painfully, but it was the feeling of shame that had her clenching her hands and inwardly moaning. She should have stopped him. Somehow she should have been able to stop him, shouldn’t she?

  When the farmer’s wife left the train a few stations later, it took all Bonnie’s will to force her mind from the self-destructive cycle of recrimination and humiliation. She had to make plans, she told herself, and use this time on the journey south to get her story straight. With the right clothes and a new hairstyle she could pass for eighteen, and she had more than enough money to rent a room while she looked for work.

  She had sat down under a giant oak in a grassy meadow once she had put some distance between herself and the campsite, and there, by the light of first dawn, she had counted the contents of the cashbox emptied into the knapsack. The size of Margarita’s hoard was staggering. The notes, consisting of six large white five-pound notes and a number of ten-shilling and pound ones, had added up to forty-five pounds, and in addition to this the little velvet pouches had held guineas, sovereigns and half-sovereigns, as well as half-crowns, florins and smaller coins. Nearly sixty-five pounds altogether. A small fortune to Bonnie.

  She had sat staring for some minutes at the money spread out on her lap, battling feelings of guilt before telling herself that the sale of her father’s living wagon and dear old Rosie would have made up a good portion of the cash, and although she didn’t know exactly what she herself had earned over the past few years, she knew it was a goodly amount. She had heard Ham refer to her as a ‘little goldmine’ to her grandma. No, she wouldn’t let herself be beset by doubts. Not now, not ever.

  As she made her plans to the accompanying drone of the train’s wheels, she felt her eyes beginning to close. Settling in her seat with the knapsack clasped to her chest, a deep heaviness claimed her body and soul. Her last conscious thoughts were not of her grandma and the money, nor of Franco and what he had done to her, but of her father. What would her da say if he knew she intended to make her living singing? He had told her to sing out of joy and happiness, like the birds when they welcomed the sunrise. But even the birds had to eat.

  She was going to leave the old Bonnie behind for good and become someone else, someone she wanted to be. And she would sing; wherever she could earn her living, she would sing. In public houses, in cafés, in clubs, it didn’t matter where. As yet she had no idea how she was going to make this happen but again, it didn’t matter. She had a head on her shoulders and she would learn, regardless that she had no one to advise or help her. She could do anything she put her mind to, she just had to believe . . .

  Chapter Six

  It was late afternoon when Bonnie stepped down from the train in London’s King’s Cross station clutching her knapsack and feeling very tiny and alone. The station was a hive of activity and the crowds were overwhelming; everyone seemed to know what they were doing and where they were going and moreover they were doing it very quickly. She exited the station simply by following her fellow passengers and doing what they did, having no real idea where she was, beyond that she had arrived in the capital and it seemed as far away from her grandmother as the moon.

  The August evening was baking hot and devoid of any breeze; even the weather seemed different, along with the sights and smells of the big city. No one paid her any attention; she could have been invisible, which was comforting in a strange sort of way. She had been feeling as though she stuck out like a sore thumb but that clearly wasn’t the case, and as she wandered along, her knapsack over her shoulder, she felt her confidence creep back.

  In spite of her soreness and bruises she found she wanted to walk for a while after the long train journey, and the more she did, the hungrier she became. Apart from the farmer’s wife’s offering she had had nothing to eat or drink all day. She stopped at one of the street vendors’ stalls which dotted the pavements here and there, buying herself a bag of chitterlings, a meat pie and a bottle of lemonade, which she consumed as she walked. Her earlier panic had subsided; she found she was actually enjoying the hustle and bustle and the noise and even the traffic which was so much more than she had encountered before. It all confirmed that she had escaped, that she was free; her back straightened and she felt altogether lighter as she walked on. Franco had hurt her but she wouldn’t let him and her grandma win. She pushed the memory of what had happened to the back of her mind, telling herself she would deal with it when she felt better. For now the first priority was finding somewhere to stay.

  She discovered she was walking along a street called the Marylebone Road and decided to turn off it into the grid of residential streets bordering it. In one of these, a long road of terraced houses where children were playing on the pavement and swinging from a rope they had thrown round a lamp post, she saw the sign ‘Fairview Boarding House’ and underneath, ‘Vacancies within. No dogs, no Irish.’

  Well, she hadn’t got a dog and she wasn’t Irish, Bonnie thought, a natural smile touching her lips for the first time that day. Although where this fair view was, she didn’t know. The street was less than salubrious as far as she could see and the only view was of more terraces. She stood hesitating, wondering whether to walk on, but she was tired and within an hour or two it would start to get dark.

  One of the boys swinging on the lamp post, a cheeky-faced urchin of indeterminate age, saw where she was looking: ‘You thinking of lodging at Ma Nichols’s?’ he said chirpily, his broad cockney accent making him even more of a character. ‘Me mum says Ma Nichols runs a good house, not like some round here.’

  ‘Does she?’ Bonnie smiled at the little lad who was filthy and wearing no shoes; she wondered what his own home was like. ‘Thank you.’

  He nodded at her, and when she still stood there, said, ‘Aren’t you going to knock then?’

  The highly polished brass door knocker was in the shape of a goblin sitting on a toadstool. She’d no sooner rapped three times than the door opened and a small plump woman in a flowered overall peered at her. ‘Yes, dear?’

  ‘The sign says vacancies? I’ve come about a room.’ Even standing on the doorstep she could smell lavender furniture polish and the lino in the hall was gleaming.

  ‘Is that so? Well, you’d better come in a minute while we see what’s what. I like to know a bit about someone who might live in my house before I let them have a room.’ She stood aside for Bonnie to pass, saying, ‘Go in the front room, dear. I’m Mrs Nichols by the way. Now sit down and tell me what a young woman like you is doing in the big city. That’s a northern brogue, isn’t it?’

  The front room was as clean and neat as a new pin and the smell of furniture polish was even stronger, the highly starched white nets at the window and stiff u
pholstered suite immaculate. An embroidered fire screen depicting a picture of a thatched cottage and a garden full of flowers stood in the black leaded fireplace, and on the mantelpiece a large wooden clock ticked sedately. Bonnie had the feeling this room was rarely used. Gathering her thoughts together and mindful of the story she had decided on earlier, she cleared her throat. ‘Aye, I’m from the north.’ It would be useless to try and say otherwise. ‘But I’m looking for work here and –’

  ‘Looking for work? You mean you haven’t got a job?’

  ‘Oh, I can pay for a room,’ Bonnie said hastily. ‘I’ve been saving for years with the idea of coming to London and I’ve got plenty of money to keep me going until I find something.’ It was true, in a way. It was just that her grandma had been holding on to what she had earned singing, along with the money from her da’s wagon.

  ‘And what sort of work are you looking for, Miss . . . ?’

  ‘Cunningham. Bernice Cunningham. But everyone calls me Bonnie.’ She’d thought it best to change her name but she hated the idea of losing Bonnie. ‘And – and I’m a singer.’ It was the first time she had said it out loud and it brought a little thrill of pleasure that soon disappeared when she saw Mrs Nichols’s face.

  ‘Not another one thinking the streets are paved with gold.’ Hilda Nichols sighed. ‘I dare say you can sing, dear, but so can plenty of other girls just as pretty as you, and don’t these club owners and the like know it. You’ll find yourself on the casting couch quicker than you can say Jack Robinson.’

  Bonnie had no idea what a casting couch was and it showed.

  Mrs Nichols tutted. ‘Oh, my word, as innocent as they come. They’ll eat you alive, dear. Have you done any singing, professionally that is?’

  ‘I’ve been with a touring company in the north.’ At a pinch you could call the fair that.

  ‘And how old are you if you don’t mind me asking?’

  She’d been expecting this. ‘Eighteen,’ she said firmly. Before leaving the train she had put her hair up in the same style she wore when she sang in the big tent, and she was tall for her age. She saw no reason why she couldn’t pass for eighteen.

  ‘Eighteen?’ It was doubtful and Bonnie felt offended, regardless of the fact that Mrs Nichols had every right to be sceptical. ‘Well, this touring company must have kept you wrapped up in cotton wool, dear, that’s all I can say. You might look eighteen but you’re not wise to the ways of the world, are you?’

  ‘It was a family company.’ Which again was true in a way, she consoled herself, finding it was much easier to think up lies than actually voice them. ‘They were protective of me.’

  ‘And they told you that you could make your living singing in London, did they?’

  ‘I’ve been earning my living singing for a long time and I was always very popular with the audiences.’

  This had the ring of truth to it and Hilda’s eyes narrowed. There was something she couldn’t put her finger on here but the girl seemed nice enough and certainly respectable, as her puzzlement regarding the casting couch had proved. ‘So you were a child performer?’

  Bonnie nodded. ‘I started very young.’

  ‘And your parents approved of this? I presume they also performed in the company?’

  ‘My da – my father did. My mother died shortly after I was born.’

  ‘And your father is happy for you to leave and come to London by yourself?’ Hilda’s voice dripped disapproval.

  ‘He died a little while ago and it wasn’t the same once he was gone. I’ve got no brothers or sisters, just a grandma and some other more distant relatives. It seemed the right time to make the move. There’s nothing to hold me in the north any more and I wanted to get away. To make a new start and see how I did here – or I thought I’d regret it in the years to come.’

  ‘I see.’ Hilda’s intuition, which was finely honed after nearly thirty years of taking in lodgers, was telling her she hadn’t heard the full story. She had been a young wife and mother of two small boys when her husband had come home from work one day complaining of feeling ill. He had gone upstairs to lie down for a while before the evening meal, and when she had gone to wake him half an hour later, she’d thought at first he was in a deep sleep. It was when she’d shaken his shoulder that she’d realized the truth. She had run screaming to her neighbour whose husband had fetched the doctor. A massive heart attack, the doctor had said. He wouldn’t have known a thing. Which was a blessing surely? She had looked at the doctor in his three-piece suit and trilby hat and wondered what planet he was on. Nothing about being left a widow with two little ones under five and no income was a blessing. But that night, even through the shock and grief, she had vowed she would keep her home and that her sons would be clothed and fed, and by taking in lodgers and working eighteen-hour days for more than two decades she had accomplished just that. Both her boys were happily married, and shortly after the youngest had left home she’d finally paid the last instalment on the mortgage. So Hilda understood about making dreams come true. And when her home was bought and paid for she had scaled down the number of lodgers, reclaimed the front room and furnished it exactly how she wanted, and made sure once she’d had her tea at night that she put her feet up, had a glass of stout while listening to the wireless, and did nothing more that day. Her idea of bliss.

  Now, looking at Bonnie, she came to a decision. The girl was keeping something back sure enough, but she seemed a nice young woman. Furthermore she would rather such an innocent lodged with her than with some of the types hereabout whose boarding houses were little more than brothels. They’d have such a pretty young thing on the game before the girl knew what was what.

  Clearing her throat, Hilda said briskly, ‘The room’s at the top of the house on the second floor. The lady who occupied it until recently had been with me fifteen years but she’s gone to live with her sister in Kent, after the sister’s husband passed away. The other room on that landing is rented by Miss Parker, a schoolmistress. The bathroom’s on the floor below. A young married couple have one of the rooms on that floor and I sleep in the other one, except, that is, for when my youngest son and his wife pay a visit. He moved to Southampton when he married her so she could be close to her parents.’

  Hilda gave a sniff at this point and Bonnie got the impression she wasn’t over-thrilled about the situation.

  ‘It’s twelve bob a week payable a month in advance, and that includes a cooked breakfast. I used to do an evening meal for my lodgers when I was younger but I like the evenings to myself now, and there’s plenty of cafés round here. You’ll have your own key but I don’t keep a late house – I like my lodgers in by eleven at night unless you tell me otherwise. You can make yourself a hot drink in your room but I don’t allow no alcohol on my premises. And no visits from members of the opposite sex, no pets, no smoking.’

  Bonnie blinked. Her head was spinning.

  ‘Well, do you want to see the room?’

  ‘What? Oh, yes. Yes, please.’

  ‘Where’s the rest of your luggage?’

  This caught Bonnie off guard. Stuttering slightly, she said, ‘I – I’m having it sent on. When I’m settled. I did-didn’t want to have to lug it about while I looked for somewhere to live.’

  Hilda nodded, the while thinking, having it sent on my backside! The girl had had a falling-out with someone or she’d eat her hat. ‘Come along then.’

  Bonnie followed her new landlady out of the room and into the hall. The stairs were steep, with just a narrow piece of carpet in the middle of them, and the second landing, like the first, consisted of highly polished floorboards, the smell of furniture polish tickling her nose. They walked past one shut door to a second one, and after inserting a key into the lock, Mrs Nichols opened it and allowed Bonnie to enter in front of her.

  The room wasn’t large but neither was it small and like the rest of the house she had seen thus far it was neat and clean. Either side of a single bed with a bright patchwork coverlet s
tood a mahogany wardrobe and a chest of drawers, and above the bed an embroidered tract had the words, ‘When I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep,’ entwined with ivy leaves. A big rug made from cuttings of material stood at the end of the bed on the shining floorboards, and a small armchair was set at an angle to this next to a tiny black-leaded fireplace. Bonnie walked across to the window and saw a vast panorama of hundreds of rooftops beneath a darkening sky outside. For a moment she felt like a little bird that had made its way safely home to its nest.

  Fighting a flood of emotion that had her wanting to cry, she said shakily, ‘It’s lovely, Mrs Nichols. Beautiful.’

  Clearly gratified, Hilda smiled. ‘I don’t know about beautiful, dear, but you won’t find bedbugs or any other type of creature in my house. Now here’s your key –’ she handed Bonnie the key to the bedroom door – ‘and I’ll give you one for the front door downstairs while I sort out a rent book. I bet you’d find a cup of tea welcome, eh? You come down to the kitchen at the end of the hall when you’re ready, all right?’ So saying, she bustled out of the room, shutting the door behind her.

  Bonnie sat down on the bed, her knees suddenly weak. As if in a dream, she gazed about her. This was her little home and she had her own key to it. She opened her fingers and looked at the key in something approaching wonder. After what Franco had done to her it seemed strange that she could feel glad about anything, but she did. Her eyes were drawn to the curtains at the window, which were green and covered in hundreds of tiny flowers, like the meadows she had often walked in as a child with her da.

  The tears had been held in all day and now, as she buried her face in her hands, they were uncontrollable. She wanted her da, how she wanted her da. She would give the rest of her life for one day with him, to see his face and hear him laugh and know he would always look after her, that he loved her more than anyone else, that she was his darling.