by Pip Granger
‘Now get away from my door, before I see you off myself. It shouldn’t present much of a challenge, you being the runt of your mother’s litter. Now away with you before I chase you.’
I heard the door slam with a resounding thud that shook the house and then Charlie’s voice bellowing from outside. ‘You wait, Zinnia fucking Makepeace! I’ll get you for this if it’s the last thing I do.’
Zinnia opened a window and roared back, ‘And it will be, Charlie Fluck, it will be. Now away with you, before I set my pussycats on you. Only they’d spit you out, you scrawny wee man.’
I didn’t see Charlie again on that leave, but the neighbourhood was buzzing by nightfall about the flea Zinnia had shoved in his ear. I don’t suppose the ragging he took for being sent packing by a middle-aged woman improved his attitude one little bit. He’d never liked Zinnia much, but after that afternoon he must have fair hated her. I was worried about the threat he’d made, but Zinnia wasn’t.
‘Ach, hen, he was talking through his beer as usual. It’s one thing to beat up your wife – there’s a school of thought that would see nothing wrong in that – but a helpless old spinster is a different matter entirely.’
I just hoped she was right.
14
I was confined to Zinnia’s house and garden on Sunday, partly from embarrassment, partly to dodge Dad, but mostly to make sure Charlie was safely on his way north before I set foot outside my sanctuary. It was peaceful there and I loved it. Zinnia had set up breakfast in her glass room, so we ate our toast with honey donated by a grateful Reverend Cattermole, whose chilblains had been held at bay by Zinnia’s magic hawthorn ointment and a brew laced heavily with ginger. Zinnia did not believe in rushing meals, and so we were on our third cup of tea before we got on to the subject of what I should do next. ‘You’ll have to make a plan, hen, as to how to proceed. It is one thing to be castigated in a foul tongue, and it is quite another to be beaten and kicked.’
I almost choked. There were times when you could really tell that Zinnia wasn’t from around Hackney way, especially when she talked like the Bible. ‘What can I do, though, Zin?’ I asked. I couldn’t see a way out.
‘You could leave him,’ she said, shaking me to the core and showing that she didn’t think like the Bible, where that kind of thing was expressly forbidden, as far as I understood it. We all knew that respectable women didn’t leave their wedded husbands, and if they did, they were shunned by everyone. So they lost everything: their children, home, friends, family and even familiar streets, because they would be forced to move a good long way away if they wanted any kind of life at all.
‘I’m not sure I’m up to it,’ I wailed. ‘It would mean starting again from scratch.’ It was like a bloody great yawning crater opening up at my feet, and I was terrified to take another step because the hole had no bottom that I could see.
‘What would I do? Where would I live?’ Everyone knew the housing situation was desperate, what with all the bombing and blokes coming home hell-bent on indulging in the kind of activity that founded dynasties. It stood to reason, them being starved of their women for long stretches of time. More kids would mean that the call for homes would become even more urgent. What chance did some lone female stand of getting a place, especially one on the run from her husband?
‘Well, be that as it may, you never really know when an opportunity may present itself. Meanwhile, lassie, it behoves you to make a plan, and to start saving your money. You’ll need it.’ Zinnia had a good point, but the fly in that particular ointment was that Charlie had already cleaned me out. I’d have to borrow left, right and centre just to get through the week, and then I’d be paying everyone back for months.
‘Aye, well, start as soon as you can and make sure you keep it in a safe place, where Charlie can’t get his unscrupulous hands on it.’
I found the whole subject so frightening, I decided to head off on another tack altogether. It felt safer. ‘I had a natter with Tony the other day and it gave me an idea,’ I said, thinking aloud, really – I hadn’t realized I’d had an idea until that very moment, when I really wanted a diversion. ‘You know we said he needed a direction, rather than more punishment, to mend his wicked ways?’
‘Aye, I remember fine,’ Zinnia assured me. ‘I’m not senile yet, thank the Lord.’
‘Well, I had a thought. How about his singing? Why don’t we try to do something with his singing? He is good.’
‘It’s an idea, Zelda. Funny thing, I know a singing teacher. Maybe he can help.’ Zinnia sounded thoughtful and miles away from Hackney in 1945. ‘I’ll write to him and ask how we should proceed. He may be able to make some useful suggestions.’
There was no question of dodging work the next day, fat lips and sore ribs or not. I needed the money, and I wouldn’t earn it sitting around on my bum at Zinnia’s. We also decided that Zinnia would make sure Charlie had returned to Catterick, and if it was safe, I’d go home on Monday night, after tea at her place.
Sunday wasn’t a quiet day. First Mum and Vi came to have a look at me after church and to cluck over the damage. Mum slipped me ten bob, bless her, with the instruction that I wasn’t to dream of paying it back. I almost cried. Vi stuffed a packet of ten Woodbines in my bag when I wasn’t looking. I knew how much her fags meant to her and to part with a packet was a sacrifice indeed.
They’d just left, to get the Sunday dinner sorted at Arcadia Buildings, when Doris turned up, twins in tow, with a brown paper bag containing a twist of tea and another of sugar, ‘to tide you over’. She’d heard about Charlie and my purse. News could travel in the air, like smoke, in our family. It wouldn’t have surprised me if Bill and Jimmy, our surviving brothers, knew all about Charlie as well, and one of them was in a submarine. I was touched all the same.
We’d just settled down again, with a view to getting our dinner down us while the getting was good, when Tony and Reggie turned up. I sighed. So much for blaming the cellar stairs and keeping my secret.
‘Uncle Charlie was round at Brian’s this morning, before church. He must’ve stayed over. He was doing his nut over Auntie Zinnia and you, Auntie Zelda. The trouble is,’ Tony said ruefully, ‘things were just getting interesting when Ma saw me and slung me out.’
‘What were you doing round at the Holes’ so early anyway?’ I demanded. First things first.
Tony rolled his eyes at me. ‘Nothing.’
‘Don’t give me that, Tony Gunn. Nobody goes round to Ma Hole’s for nothing.’ I glared at him as best I could with a black eye and fat lips.
‘Don’t keep on, Auntie Zelda,’ Reggie advised. ‘He ain’t going to tell you. He won’t even tell me, so you might as well save your breath. The point is, Uncle Charlie had the right hump, according to Tone. Tell her, Tony.’
‘I don’t know what he’d had to say about you, Auntie Zinnia, but whatever it was, it wasn’t good. Ma was ranting on about how you’d interfered in her family business once too often and how you had no right to keep a man away from his wife. Uncle Charlie was fit to be tied and Ma was winding him up something rotten. Kept on about him getting some control over his wife and keeping her away from the influence of Scottish hags. I’m sorry, Auntie Zinnia, but that’s what she said. She don’t like you much.’ Tony’s eyes were enormous as he relayed his information and, for once, he was pale. ‘Then she threw me out and I didn’t hear no more.’
Zinnia and I looked at each other solemnly for a moment, and then she smiled rather a thin smile. ‘It looks as if Mrs Hole is about to declare a war in Paradise Gardens,’ she said mildly. ‘A pity. I thought we’d have a little peace for a while.’
15
It was a peculiar week altogether. On the Monday I went to work as usual. Mrs Dunmore was horrified by the state of me. I don’t think she believed for one minute that I’d fallen downstairs, but there wasn’t a lot she could do about it, except keep me in the kitchens where I couldn’t put the punters off their grub.
If she’d sent me hom
e, she would have had to graft herself, and despite her name, Mrs Dunmore did considerably less of that than the rest of us. She preferred to stick to the office work, of which there was plenty. Virtually every crumb, saucepan, spoon, dishcloth or mop needed at least two forms, done in triplicate, to ensure supply – except it did no such thing. Having submitted the half-ton of paperwork, another half-ton came back saying why they’d sent a bucket and a box of soda instead of the mop requested. Then we were told that we couldn’t have any toilet paper, as paper was in such short supply.
Because Mrs D. had stuck me in the kitchens to pearl dive (or wash up, to the uninitiated), scrub down the cookers and generally act as skivvy, she had to wait on tables herself, which is how she came to meet Charlie’s pal, Percy Robinson. Everyone knew Octopus Robinson, he of the desert disease – wandering palms – except Mrs Dunmore, but then she was new to the area. He was a right con artist, could charm your granny out of her own dentures and then flog ’em back to her, no trouble at all.
The regular waitresses ignored the Robinson smarm, knowing, as we did, that he was very much married to the dockyard boss’s daughter. However, that little consideration never stopped Percy from trying it on as a matter of course with any female between the ages of nineteen and ninety. My mate Ronnie said the sheer weight of numbers ensured he got lucky sometimes, a bit like blanket bombing. Rumour had it that he had several kids, but none of them by Mrs Robinson.
Nobody really understood how old Perce managed it. He was no looker, having ears like jug handles and hair so thin on top that he had to grow some side bits long so that he could comb a few strands over his shiny dome. It fooled no-one, except perhaps Percy. But charm, however transparent, evidently works on some people, judging by all those rumoured kids and the way Mrs D. fell for it.
Watching Mrs D. fall for Percy Robinson was the first peculiar thing that week, but it didn’t stop there. On Wednesday, I went to the allotments to do a bit of watering after work and perhaps a bit of hoeing if I could stand it after spending a hard day on my feet. Zinnia showed up looking a bit bewildered, slightly amused and perhaps a tad worried, but not very. I asked her what was up.
‘Come and look at this,’ she said. We walked into her house and she led me round the ground floor. It took me a moment or two to cotton on and then it hit me: she’d swapped the parlour with her workroom. Her sofa, armchairs and stuff now sat in the room where her desk and her enormous dresser used to sit, and vice versa. I was nonplussed, because I couldn’t see why she’d gone to the trouble after all those years of having it the same way. Or, indeed, how she’d managed to move that damned great dresser. Perhaps she really, really wanted a change of scene, I thought.
‘Er, very nice, Zinnia. Felt like a change, did you?’ Then I noticed something: she hadn’t cleaned where the dresser used to be. It had stood in that very spot for many, many years; surely she’d at least give the area a dust, if not a damned good brush and scrub with hot water and plenty of soda and soap, which is what it needed. All she’d done was put the sofa where the dresser had been, and the dirt showed up clearly. Also, the wallpaper was different from the rest of the room, but perhaps she was going to decorate. However, it wasn’t like her not to clean up as she went along.
‘Do you want a hand with the scrubbing?’ I asked, my heart sinking. I seemed to have been scrubbing all my life and it wasn’t as if I liked it.
‘No, hen, you don’t understand. I didn’t do this. I went out this morning and I’ve just got back and I found it like this.’ She seemed more mystified than anything.
‘Is any stuff missing?’ Not that it sounded like your usual robbery. As a rule, if thieves were going in for furniture moving, they removed it good and proper, and flogged it to a dodgy dealer quick. They didn’t just shunt it from room to room and leave it at that. It was very odd.
Zinnia shook her head. ‘Not a thing, as far as I can tell. I suppose it must be some kind of practical joke. They’ve even changed the curtains and the pictures around. But who’d do such a thing?’
I really couldn’t say who or, indeed, why.
‘Ach, well. I’d better round up some strong lads to help me put it back again. One thing’s certain: it has nothing to do with Brian Hole and his pals, they’d have cleaned me out. Maybe I’ll have a wee scrub first, before I put things back, as it seems I’ve been pushed into yet more spring-cleaning.
‘Do you want a cup of tea, Zelda? I have something to tell you.’
‘I always have time for a cuppa, Zin, You know that.’ I could see she was still rattled by the idea that strangers had wandered into her house for a spot of furniture shifting. I’d have been rattled too.
‘It’s about my friend, Digby Burlap,’ Zinnia began, surprising me.
‘Who is this man, Zin? How come I’ve never heard of him before?’
I swear Zinnia blushed to the roots of her hair. ‘He’s an old friend, that’s all. I met him when I first came to London and we keep in touch.’ And that’s all she would say about her friendship with him.
‘I see,’ I said, but I didn’t, not really. Fancy old Zin having a secret male friend. It was very odd and quite out of character. Zinnia had never shown the slightest interest in men. Well, not in the secret admirer kind of way. I was willing to bet that even my mum didn’t know about this chap.
‘He teaches singing, stagecraft, that kind of thing. He’s the singing teacher to a lot of the West End show people. He’s been at it for years. He does a lot for radio too.
‘The point is, he’s agreed to see Tony on Saturday and to see what he thinks of his voice and his chances for making a career in music. If he thinks that Tony has promise, he’ll advise us on what can be done for the boy. Anyway, hen, I thought perhaps you could come, too, and we could make a little outing of it. You could do with a wee trip, it’ll perk you up.’
‘I’d love to, Zin.’ Try and stop me, is what I thought. I just had to see this Burlap person, now that he had surfaced.
‘Good, then present yourself with Tony prompt at ten. We’ll have our meal in town. My treat.’ And she wouldn’t take no for an answer.
Dilly presented the week’s last little mystery. She’d told Chester all about Al’s dance for the Yanks returning to America and he hadn’t said a word, just changed the subject. ‘I thought he hadn’t taken it in at first, Zeld, so I brought it up later and he changed the subject again. He started talking about some singer called Billie Holiday. Anyway, Chester ignored it again just as we were saying good night. Instead of saying anything about the dance, he kept on about how I had to hear this Billie person. Funny thing, this Billie Holiday’s a girl, not a chap like you’d imagine. What do you think, Zeld?’
‘Well, I suppose if you want to call your daughter by a bloke’s name, it’s up to you,’ I answered.
‘No, silly, not about her name, about the fact that Chester keeps changing the subject when I talk about the dance.’
I didn’t know what to think, so we carried on mending her summer coat instead. It had ripped under the arm, and the lining was a mess as well.
‘Zelda …’ Dilly began, trying hard not to look at my bruises, which were fading. ‘What are you going to do about Charlie? You can’t let him go on hitting you. He’ll do for you one of these days, then where will you be?’
‘The cemetery?’ I suggested.
‘Don’t even joke about it, Zeld. It ain’t funny.’
‘I know, Dills. But if I don’t joke, I’ll cry, and what good will that do? The truth is, I don’t know what to do. Zinnia reckons I should think about leaving him, but I don’t know. Where would I go? How could I leave all my family and friends? What would I do for money? It all needs a lot of thinking about. The trouble is, the minute I start thinking, the worse I feel. It all seems so hopeless.’
I snivelled a bit there and stopped talking. I only got upset if I talked about it. What’s more, I couldn’t get used to all these people in the know. Up until the last beating, Charlie’s temper h
ad been our little secret. If you can call it little.
I did try telling another of my friends early on, but all she said was, ‘What, Charlie? Don’t be daft. He’s a laugh, is Charlie, and underneath it all, he’s a right old softy.’ Which showed what she knew. ‘You can’t be treating him right. Try and spice up you-know-what.’ She winked. ‘You know, the bedroom,’ she mouthed, thinking I might be too stupid to understand. I understood all right. I understood that, despite being pals all our lives, she didn’t want to know my troubles. The minute I told her about Charlie, she started cutting me dead in the street. I never really knew why, exactly, except perhaps that I reminded her of her own situation in some way. Her marriage can’t have been a happy one. She was stuck with a man a good bit older than her, who had a nasty squint and managed to dodge the army and any other paid work. He spent a lot of time whining about his lot in life and hardly any time at all trying to do anything about it. Maybe he hit her as well; he certainly called the shots in every other department. She made me realize, though, that Charlie losing his rag and beating me was not the sort of thing most people wanted to hear about. Worse, they were likely to think it was all my fault, that I was a lousy wife.
I had never talked about it again, not until Charlie’s last leave, and even then only reluctantly. Looking back, I can’t for the life of me think why I felt so ashamed. I only know that I did. By rights, it should have been Charlie who felt shame, but he always maintained that I asked for it. But he never told me how, so that I could stop.
16
Mrs Dunmore was unusually scratchy on Friday morning. Nothing and nobody pleased her. She kept us hard at work for every second; we didn’t even have time for the usual fag break. Mrs D. was a nervy sort, thin with sharp features. Her movements were fast and jerky, but often appeared to be without much of a purpose – besides checking up on the rest of us and cracking the whip, that is; she excelled at that.