Trouble In Paradise

by Pip Granger

  The damage was done, though. The merest hint of Charlie was enough to make my heart turn to lead and sink rapidly to my footwear. Even the sunlight seemed to dim. I walked home very slowly that afternoon, dreading what I might find there.

  10

  Charlie wasn’t home when I got in, but I knew he’d been there because he’d cut a hunk of bread and slathered three-quarters of my margarine ration on it – and on to the table as well. More evidence came in the crumbs that had mingled with the dirty washing spewing from his kitbag, which he’d dumped in the middle of the kitchen table. I salvaged the bread from the grip of a sweaty sock and glared at the unsavoury pile, then found the bucket in its place under the sink and dropped socks and underwear into it with some small bits of old soap. After boiling a kettle and pouring the water into the bucket, I topped it up with a spot of cold and refilled the kettle ready to tackle the shirts.

  I sighed heavily, thinking it was a pity he hadn’t left his dirty washing wherever it was that he had spent the night. It was even more of a pity he hadn’t thought to let me know he was coming back. But that was Charlie for you, never one to let a little common courtesy stand in the way of his natural born selfishness. I blamed his mum for not introducing him to the idea of manners, but then I blamed his mum for a lot of things; taking up with his dad being one, and giving in to the natural urges that had led to her dropping Charlie on an unsuspecting world being another.

  I’ll say one thing for getting stuck into that washing: even though it was on a Sunday when I ought to have been dwelling on holier things, it helped me not to worry about what might happen. I just concentrated on rubbing the collars, cuffs and stubborn stains up and down on the washboard in the sort of mindless rhythm that numbs the brain and allows it to drift off to God knows where for a while.

  Before the war I’d rarely been on my own with peace enough to simply waft away. I’d always been in the middle of family life, even sharing a bed with my sisters until they married, then I was wed as well and had a husband to look after and to sleep with. As luck would have it, Hitler hadn’t heard about our nuptials and so Charlie’s leave had been mercifully brief; he was soon back in his barracks at Catterick, a good long way away in the north. It was only then that I found myself living alone for the first time in my whole life. And I loved it!

  I didn’t sit and mope, not knowing what to do with myself, the way some girls did. I made the most of it. I didn’t want to go out on the town, I wanted to stay home and wallow in the luxury of doing things that I wanted to do, when I wanted to do them. I got the flat just the way I liked it, making do with what came to hand. It was wonderful what a lick of paint or a bit of fabric could do to cheer up clapped-out fourth-hand furniture, old orange boxes and bare floorboards. Before long, there were cheerful rag rugs scattered throughout the flat to make it cosy.

  I even had some second-hand lace curtains, from Terry Rainbird’s gran’s parlour after she passed away, to hide the crisscrossed tape stuck on the window panes to prevent flying glass and to give daylight relief from the drab blackout curtains. The lace was really pretty, with flowers and butterflies worked into the design. Terry said his gran had made them herself when she was in service. I was amazed she found the time, knowing just how hard domestic work could be. My own gran had stories about being ‘a tweenie’, which was a maid of all work apparently, before the Great War. She’d flogged herself half to death as she worked her way upstairs and down, with mop, bucket, duster, polish and broom, when she wasn’t humping coal to the many fires or rushing about with jugs of hot water for the washstands in the bedrooms.

  Once Charlie was back at his camp, I was in heaven. I’d swanned around that flat like Lady La-Di-Dah, with all that elbow room and no-one else to please and no-one else to clear up after, for most of the war – apart from Charlie’s leaves that is. Now Hitler had chucked in the towel, all that lovely freedom would be over. I would have to get used to the idea that I was married to Charlie and I’d better get on with it.

  I was brooding deeply over the scummy sink full of tepid water when I heard the downstairs door slam and the clatter of Charlie’s hobnails on the stairs. I braced myself as I pulled the plug and listened to the grey, soapy water gurgle away, taking what was left of my spirits with it. The flat door was thrown open and a familiar voice said, ‘Come in, come in, do. Zelda, there you are love, get the kettle on, we’re parched.’

  I turned round and there was Charlie. His funny, odd-coloured eyes, one blue, one brown, were glittering the way they did when he had a pint or two on board, or was in the mood for a fight, or both. My cousin Mavis stood sheepishly in front of him, grinning toothily, and beside her were Lenny Hobbs and Percy Robinson. My heart gave a relieved lurch. I wouldn’t be alone with Charlie for an hour or two if I played my cards right! I smiled back at Mavis and Lenny and then, more reluctantly, at Charlie and Percy. The relief of seeing the others with Charlie was so great that everything went wobbly for a moment or two, even my voice.

  ‘Hello, Charlie,’ I said. ‘Hello, you lot. Take a seat, do. I’ll have the kettle on in a jiffy.’ I turned to get on with it. ‘Did you have a good trip down, Charlie?’

  ‘The usual, love. Stop start, stop start all the way. Had to change in the middle of bleeding nowhere because the engine conked out. We was stuck there for ages before they found another one. Still, I won ten bob in a game of brag with some squaddies from Crewe, so it weren’t a total waste of time.’ He grinned. ‘It paid for a bevvy or two at the King’s Head.’

  ‘That’s good,’ I murmured, my mind on pouring the tea and not slopping it in the saucers as I passed the cups round. ‘How long are you home for, Charlie? Have you been demobbed?’ I tried hard to make the question sound hopeful. It wouldn’t do to show the dread I felt at the answer.

  ‘Can’t wait to get on with married life, eh?’ Charlie winked at our guests and slapped my bum playfully as I walked past him to join them at the table.

  I didn’t know what to say to that, so I smiled weakly and turned to my cousin. ‘And how are you, Mavis?’ I asked politely, heartily grateful that she was in my kitchen on that Sunday afternoon, which was not something I’d normally be able to say. We weren’t close. I didn’t dislike her or anything, it was just that she was one of Vi’s cronies really, and we’d had little to do with each other over the years.

  ‘Not bad, thanks. And you, Zeld, keeping well are you?’

  ‘Fine, ta,’ I answered. I didn’t seem to be able to think of anything else to say. I turned to Lenny. ‘All right are you, Len?’

  ‘I’m always all right, thanks, Zelda. I’m pretty much the same as when you saw me last week.’

  ‘And your mum? Did her hair ever grow back after that peroxide? It was nasty that, the poor thing.’ It had been, too; she’d lost it in great, brittle clumps. All Zinnia could do for her was give her soothing scalp washes made from chamomile and suggest she prayed it would grow back, while wearing a bad wig in the meantime.

  ‘It’s much better, ta. She’s got a bit of hair now and her head ain’t red and peeling any more.’ Lenny grinned his amiable grin. ‘Nip down the shop with me after this tea, Zeld. I’ve got some dripping and a couple of marrow bones put by for you. I was hoping to see you yesterday, but I didn’t, so you’d better pick up the bones at least, while they’re fresh.’

  The late afternoon was warm and the scent of Mavis’s Evening in Paris seemed to take up all the available air in the little kitchen. My head was throbbing. It was a relief when Lenny swallowed the last of his tea with a smack of his lips and suggested I went to the shop with him to pick up my bones. I could hardly wait to get down the stairs and into the air.

  ‘So, where did you pick Charlie up?’ I asked once we were in the street. ‘And what’s Mavis doing tagging along? She with Percy?’ She obviously wasn’t with Lenny, seeing as he’d left her behind at the flat.

  ‘I bumped into him at the King’s Head. He was having a jar with Percy and some of Ma Hole’s lodge
rs and insisted on strolling home with me when I left. Mavis sort of appeared out of the Ladies and joined us. Whether she’d been with them before I turned up, I couldn’t say. But it looked like it. I s’pose she dropped in for a quick one with one of the lads. Hang about, let me find me key. I’ll soon get this door open, then you can get back to your old man.’ I didn’t like to tell Lenny that there was no rush.

  The whole of the tiny flat still reeked of Evening in Paris when I got in. Mavis could certainly slosh it on. It made my head ache again, but Mavis and Percy had gone and Charlie was in a good mood, so I tried to relax my hunched shoulders a bit. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad, if Charlie was happy. I just wished I knew how long he was stopping this time. I decided to try to get a straight answer to a straight question. It wasn’t easy to do with Charlie, because sometimes the bugger was so twisted that he could hide behind a corkscrew. Other times, he could be good company and a great laugh, charming the old ladies at church teas into giving him extra dollops of jam on his bread or a second rock cake. Unless, of course, the old lady in question was my gran, who saw straight through him.

  ‘Never trust a charmer, they’ll nick your purse before you’ve got your drawers back on, that sort,’ she warned. ‘You mark my words, girl, you mark my words.’ And I did, but much too late.

  ‘Come over here, love, and give your old man a little cuddle,’ Charlie said as I came through the door with my bag of bones and dripping.

  I tried really hard to smile and look enthusiastic but I knew what ‘a little cuddle’ meant and my stomach turned over at the prospect. I was absolutely terrified of getting pregnant again. My knees turned to jelly and Charlie virtually had to carry me to our bed in the cramped bedroom.

  11

  Charlie’s leave lasted a whole week, and gave me a taste of what my life was likely to be like once he was demobbed and home for good. It wasn’t all bad. True, I really missed pleasing myself and had to remember the way Charlie liked things done, and that was hard, because he was touchy about mistakes. But his friends were in and out all the time, not having seen him for a while, and Charlie was nearly always in a good mood when we had company, so I managed to relax a bit at first.

  We even had some laughs, especially when Dilly and Ronnie came round with some GI-issue V discs Chester had lent her. The music was fabulous and we danced and laughed the night away. Woody Herman, Fats Waller, Lester Young, Tommy Dorsey, Peggy Lee, Lena Horne, Count Basie, Louis Armstrong, Hot Lips Page and the rest seemed to knock Vera Lynn and our other home-grown favourites like Billy Cotton into a cocked hat somehow. They seemed too homely to have any glamour at all. A bit like Jack Warner versus Humphrey Bogart at the pictures. I mean, there was no contest there either.

  Charlie had been really good company that night, telling jokes, serving drinks and dancing with me and Dilly by turns. He was a good dancer; being neat and small, he could move well. He was strong, too, and had no trouble hurling us around in the more lively numbers.

  So, the first part of the week went smoothly enough. Of course, I was more tired than usual because I was cooking, cleaning and performing my wifely duties half the night, then lying awake worrying about getting in the pudding club for the other half. Needless to say, Charlie snored contentedly, with no apparent care in the world. The war was over, and as he was one of the first into the army, he’d be one of the first to be demobbed. Most nights, he went out with his mates until closing time and he visited friends and family during the day while I was at work. So we muddled along; I was jumpy, but tried hard not to show it because that only irritated him, especially in company.

  In a way, work at the canteen was a relief; even though you could say it was more of the same – waiting on men hand, foot and bloody finger – it kept me out of Charlie’s way. I didn’t want to push things while his good mood lasted, but there was no telling what would set him off, so out of the way was a good place to be. It also gave me time to think if I wanted to, over vast sinks full of washing-up.

  I reckoned that if Charlie stayed the way he was, I could manage to rub along all right with him. But in my heart, I knew that was about as likely as Brian Hole becoming a vicar. I tried not to think too hard along those lines. Luckily, if I wanted to take my mind off my troubles, there was enough company for me to chat to and not think too much about anything. After all, all the brooding in the world wasn’t going to change things one tiny little bit. Only action could do that, and I was blowed if I could think of a single thing to do. I was a married woman, and unless a handy number 8 bus widowed me, I was stuck with it. In that way, I managed to get through almost the whole week without anything or anyone blowing up in my face. The nights were the hardest part, but I found if I gritted my teeth and thought of England, it was soon over.

  * * *

  On Friday I had a rotten day at work. The chip pan caught fire, which was no joke because there was not enough fat to refill it. This set the punters to grumbling and moaning all day. They liked their chips. As if I didn’t know! I told them they had to make do with bubble and squeak, and think themselves lucky to get that. I was just about to add, ‘There’s a war on, you know!’ in that snotty, self-righteous tone of the seriously hard-done-by doing their best under Blitz conditions, when I realized that there wasn’t a war on any more. That cheered me up for a minute, until Mrs Dunmore set me to cleaning up the greasy scorch marks left by the ‘conflagration’, as she called it. Mrs Dunmore was new and reckoned she was a cut above. At least one.

  Then there was a power cut for over three hours. The canteen was gloomy at the best of times, what with the windows being filthy, still blacked out and way up near the roof – which was why the blackout hadn’t come down. The original owners of the warehouse hadn’t seen a lot of need for light. So there we were, charging about by candlelight and tilley lamp, trying hard not to drop anything or crash into each other. It turned out there was an unexploded bomb a few streets away; they’d gone through the cables trying to get at it. We heard a dull ‘whump’ and the china rattled when they exploded it.

  By the time I dropped into the Lloyd Loom next to my mum in Zinnia’s garden, my dogs were howling and my nerves were in tatters. My dear old mother looked at me hard and said, ‘Gordon Bennett, gel, what happened to you? You look like you’ve done a couple of rounds with Genghis Khan and his heathen hordes. You all right?’

  ‘Nothing a cup of rosie won’t cure, and a bit of a sit. My poor feet weren’t built for days like today, that’s all,’ I told her, rubbing my aching, throbbing feet in turn to ease the pain.

  That wasn’t the whole story of course. I didn’t tell her I was dodging Charlie. I just needed half an hour’s peace and quiet before I faced the barrage of ‘Enie, get this’ and ‘Enie, get that’ from the moment I got through the door until he buggered off out at opening time. I now knew why Mum had never complained when Dad went out boozing, even though it often left her short of money to feed and clothe us: if he was in the pub, he wasn’t at home bothering her. Judging by the number of kids she’d had, that had come later, after chucking-out time. It seemed best not to mention all that, though.

  I was so tired I could have wept. The flat had always been my refuge until Charlie came home. After that it wasn’t. My eyes filled with tears of self-pity. I blinked rapidly and had a furtive sniff. Best not to dwell, it did no good.

  ‘Aye, well. You rest a wee while there and I’ll get the primus on. I see you’ve been busy with your sewing machine again. Is that a new skirt?’

  As Zinnia puttered about making the cup that cheers, I explained that three of us at work – cook, Beryl and me – had brought in the clothes we were fed up with and swapped. A few minor alterations and we were all happy.

  It was a real challenge to ring the changes to your wardrobe. Even those of us who hadn’t been that bothered by clothes and fashion became obsessed with the whole thing once rationing, coupons and austerity took a grip. We were sick to death of khaki, brown, black, grey, and even navy blue. We
longed for fine fabrics in pretty colours. I, for one, would have given one of Charlie’s arms to have enough silk chiffon to make a garment that would allow me to waft about the way they did in the Hollywood pictures. A hemline to the ground would have been something. Even civilian clothes had more than a touch of the armed forces about them, which was a novelty to begin with, but wore thin as the years dragged on. Skirts were short to save fabric; the cut was usually tailored for the same reason.

  Those Hollywood girls had a lot to answer for. There was a whole nation of women who were green with envy. Oh for decent wedding dresses, evening frocks and stockings! An endless supply of stockings. Those of us who were on the brink of womanhood when the war broke out had rarely, if ever, experienced such luxuries and we were absolutely certain it was our turn.

  Sadly, the authorities didn’t agree. It was beginning to dawn on us that even with the war over, shortages would continue for quite a while yet. I think if we’d realized just how long they were to go on, some of us would have rioted, but luckily, we didn’t. Instead – at the canteen at least – there was an orgy of swapping, unpicking and remaking. Some garments had been unpicked and resewn so often, the poor things were limp with exhaustion. Not unlike me that day.

  I had something else on my mind too. I was really worried that Charlie’s fumblings would lead to another baby, however quick he was about it. He said he knew what he was doing, but I didn’t think that he did, even when he was stone cold sober; being fuddled with beer made the whole thing even more hit-and-miss. The funny thing was, everyone seemed to take it for granted that I would be bursting to have another baby, to ‘replace’ the one I’d lost, as if that was possible. But I wasn’t. I never had been keen on the idea, and time had made no difference. I realized very quickly that Charlie was not the kind of bloke to change his habits and that I would have to earn any money I needed.