Everybody's Somebody

by Beryl Kingston

  He ran his hands through his hair and scowled quite terribly.

  ‘It’s late,’ she said. ‘Let’s sleep on it.’

  It was late. She was right about that. It was late and they were both tired. ‘All right then,’ he said. ‘We’ll go back to this flat a’ yours, if that’s what you want, an’ we’ll think about it in the morning. I can’t say fairer than that.’ And he headed off for the tram to the Borough. He didn’t hold her hand or offer her his arm and didn’t seem to notice when she ran to catch up with him and walked beside him.

  It was a silent journey to Newcomen Street and a silent arrival in the empty shop. The key clicked as she opened the shop door and she was so tense the little sound made her jump. But he didn’t speak to her. And when they’d walked through the shop and up the stairs to the flat, he just kept on going until they were in the bedroom.

  He was frowning so terribly she took her nightdress out of the cupboard as quietly as she could and tiptoed downstairs to put it on in the bathroom, taking her lovely bouquet with her so that she could put it in water. She heard him come down to the WC while she was brushing the rose petals out of her hair. Then she too went to the WC and followed him upstairs.

  He was already in bed, wearing his shirt instead of a nightshirt and with his eyes closed as if he was asleep. When she crept into the bed beside him, he turned his back on her. It was the saddest wedding night she could possibly have imagined, and she didn’t get to sleep for a very long time.

  Chapter 14

  When Rosie woke the next morning it took her a few seconds to work out where she was. She knew she’d slept late, the light told her that, and she knew it was Sunday, because the bells were ringing, but the rest of her brain was taking its time to catch up with her body. Then she realised with a frisson of shock that there was somebody coming up the stairs and she scrambled out of bed at once and went to see who it was. It was quite a relief to discover that it was Kitty, who was standing in front of the fireplace, taking off her hat. She’d put Rosie’s old bag and Ma’s old basket on the table and was arranging her clock and her row of knick-knacks on the mantelpiece.

  ‘Morning, slug-a-bed,’ she said, grinning at Rosie’s tousled head. ‘I brought yer things for you an’ Jim, look, an’ Tess sent you the last a’ the pie an’ some lettuce all fresh from the garden an’ a jar a’ Mrs Taylor’s pickle. She thought we might like it fer dinner. Go an’ get dressed an’ wake his nibs up an’ I’ll set the table. Your landlord’s in the shop selling the Sundays so we might get a copy. Whatcher think? I don’t suppose you got any beer ’ave yer?’

  Rosie went back upstairs wishing Kitty hadn’t come home so soon and feeling guilty to be thinking such a thing. But if she’d stayed in Binderton just a little bit longer, and she and Jim could have been on their own, she could have tried to talk to him about their miserable first night and explain why she simply had to rent this flat, and that wasn’t possible with his sister in the room. So she gave him a shake to wake him, told him Kitty had arrived and then just got on with the day and let it carry her along.

  Jim was in a dour sort of mood when he finally joined them in the kitchen, but he went downstairs to buy a Sunday Pictorial and out to get some beer when Kitty hinted that that was what she wanted. Then they made a leisurely meal out of the leavings and talked about the wedding and managed to keep everything on a more or less even keel. And when they’d finished eating, they left the dishes to soak in the sink and took a walk along Borough High Street to London Bridge. The Thames was sparkling with sunshine and instead of its usual muddy fawn was sky blue and olive green. They stood in the middle of the bridge and watched the barges and the great cargo ships coming and going and Jim cheered up a bit and said he was looking forward to getting back to work.

  ‘Time I brought in a bit a’ cash,’ he said. ‘Can’t be idle all me life. ’Specially now we’ve got this great rent ter pay. At least there’s a lot a’ new ships in. That’s a good sign.’

  ‘Will you go tomorrow?’ Rosie asked.

  He nodded, watching the riverside. It would be better once he was back at work. He wouldn’t feel such a kept boy then.

  Rosie was thinking along the same lines. Going back to work would perk him up and it might make him feel better about the flat. It might even be better for us tonight. We’ve had a good day.

  It was a faint hope. That night, he kissed her, once but without any passion, and then turned on his side and settled to sleep. Well if that’s the way he’s going on, she thought, it’s just as well we’re all back to work tomorrow. He needs something different to pull him out of this or he’ll just get worse and worse. I don’t want him going back to where he was in that awful hospital.

  She worried about him all next day, while she took orders and served meals and cleared tables and remembered to smile. It felt like a very long day and as she rode home on the tram that evening, she knew it had taken the spirit out of her, because she felt weary and not like her usual energetic self at all.

  Kitty was already home and had the kettle on ready to boil but there was no sign of Jim.

  ‘He can’t still be at work,’ she said. ‘Surely to goodness. It’s gettin’ dark. I’ll bet he’s gone up the boozer.’

  ‘We’ll give him another half hour,’ Rosie said, feeling cross, ‘an’ then we’ll cook our supper an’ if he’s not back, we’ll eat ours an’ keep his warm for him.’

  But they’d eaten theirs and washed the dishes and set the kitchen to rights and he still wasn’t back. It was closing time before he put in an appearance and then he was so drunk he couldn’t see straight and had a job to stand upright.

  ‘What sort a’ time d’you call this?’ Kitty said, heading for the cooker and attacking at once.

  He sat on his chair at the table, wearily and as if he didn’t know where the edges of it were. ‘Don’t start, Kit,’ he said but he didn’t look at either of them.

  His face was so drawn and haggard that Rosie knew something bad had happened. ‘What is it, Jim?’ she said. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Wha’s up?’ he said angrily. ‘Wha’s up. I got no job. Tha’s wha’s up. Said I was a cripple, fer Chrissake. Don’t hire cripples, they said. I knew it was mishtake ter take this place. Now what’ll we do? We’ll ’ave ter move out. I got no money. I’m finished. I should ha’ died in the bleedin’ trenches wiv all the others.’

  She pulled up her chair and sat facing him, reaching across the space between them to hold his hands, which she did even though he tried to shake her off. ‘You’re not finished,’ she said. ‘There’s other jobs. You’ll find something.’

  ‘I’m a cripple,’ he said, dropping his head and refusing to look at her. ‘Finished. On the scrapheap. A cripple an’ a bleedin’ kept boy. Who’s gonna hire a cripple? Tell me that.’

  She knew what she had to say to him, in a flash, like sunlight. ‘I can tell you one man who would,’ she said. ‘He wouldn’t call you a cripple neither.’

  He was too down to entertain the hope she was offering. ‘You ain’t listenin’,’ he said. ‘Finished. On the bleedin’ scrapheap.’

  ‘No you ent,’ Rosie said, giving his hands a little shake, ‘an’ I’ll tell you for why. Mr Feigenbaum’ll have you like a shot. He wouldn’t call you a cripple. He’s a good man.’

  ‘Feigenbaum?’ Jim said thickly. ‘Fred’s dad?’

  ‘That’s the one.’

  ‘He won’t want me,’ Jim told her, scowling. ‘He’s got Fred.’

  Rosie caught her breath because her flash of sunlight had turned into a bayonet. It was time to tell him the truth and she had to do it, even though she knew it would upset him. ‘Listen to me, Jim,’ she said, holding his hands firmly. ‘I got somethin’ to tell you.’

  He listened, grudgingly, and she was aware that Kitty was listening too from her post by the cooker. ‘Fred was killed,’ she said. ‘I didn’t like to tell you before, when you was so down, but you need to know it now.’

  ‘Killed?’
he said, looking at her for the first time since he came in. His face was haggard with emotion. He was drunk and ashamed and pushed so far down by this hideous, unending, dragging despair that he couldn’t make sense of anything and now she’d given him this terrible grief on top of everything else. ‘He can’t be.’

  ‘He is,’ she said sadly. ‘I’m sorry, Jim, but that’s a fact. Mr Feigenbaum told me himself.’

  He was crying, although he didn’t seem to be aware of it, tears rolling down his cheeks and spilling onto their hands. ‘Poor sod!’ he said. ‘Poor bleedin’ sod. He was a good bloke, our Rosie. Never oughter’ve died.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘None of ’em should. So you can see why I suggested his pa, can’t you? He’ll need someone to help him now. Someone who knew his Fred.’

  He didn’t answer so she pressed on. ‘So you’ll go an’ see him tomorrow, won’tcher?’

  ‘I need a piddle,’ he said, struggling to his feet. They watched as he stumbled to the door and went through it, closing it behind him with elaborate and inaccurate caution.

  Kitty was looking cross. ‘What sort of answer was that?’ she asked.

  Rosie defended him as well as she could. ‘I think it was to give himself a bit a’ time to think,’ she said.

  ‘Will he go to this Mr Feigenbaum’s then?’

  Rosie wasn’t at all sure. ‘Let’s hope so,’ she said.

  They could hear Jim stumbling up the stairs, muttering to himself as he went.

  ‘Time to turn in,’ Kitty said. ‘I don’t know about you, but I’ve had a day an’ a half an’ there’s nothin’ more to do here.’

  ‘I’ll just set the breakfast things,’ Rosie said. ‘Then I’ll be up.’ There was no point in rushing. If she was any judge, Jim would be asleep by the time she got upstairs. As he was.

  I know I promised for better or worse, she thought, as she lay down beside him and pulled the covers under her chin, but I never thought the worse bit would come first. Oh God, if you’re out there, can we have a bit of better stuff tomorrow?

  Jim was the first one up the next morning, heading off to the bathroom to wash and dress as if it was an ordinary day. And as soon as they’d finished breakfast and Rosie and Kitty were clearing the table, he put on his cap and said, ‘I’m off then, since I got to.’

  He was gone so quickly they didn’t even have time to wish him luck.

  ‘Now what?’ Kitty said.

  ‘Now,’ Rosie told her, ‘we wait.’

  It was another long day but when she and Kitty got home, Jim was already back and sitting in his chair, reading the Evening Standard. ‘You’re right about Mr Feigenbaum,’ he said to Rosie. ‘’E’s a good chap. Took me on fer a week’s trial. Started this mornin’.’

  Both his women gave an audible sigh of relief.

  ‘I’m not sayin’ it’ll work mind you,’ Jim said. ‘But I’ll give it a try. Can’t say fairer than that.’

  By the end of that first week it was obvious to all three of them that Jim was going to be kept on and that he was doing his best to cope in his new line of work, although he was still very down. Now, Rosie thought, trying to be hopeful, with any luck we ought to see some changes. And sure enough small changes began. On Sunday, he and Kitty went back to Parish Street to collect their things and give in their notice. On Monday, he set off to work whistling, and on Saturday, he brought home some ‘specks’ that ol’ Manny had given him for free and Rosie made an apple pie. But the secret change she yearned for still didn’t happen. They lay in bed like brother and sister and there were nights when she didn’t even get a kiss. He seemed to be stuck in that horrible gloom of his and she didn’t know what to do to tease him out of it. Until one sultry night at the beginning of July.

  They were lying side by side on their bed with the windows open and only a sheet to cover them, when he turned his head and gave her an odd little smile. It was little more than half a smile really, but it encouraged her. She propped herself up on her elbow and leant towards him. ‘Give us a kiss, Jim,’ she coaxed.

  What happened next was so upsetting that at first, she didn’t know how to respond to it. He turned his head away from her and began to cry.

  ‘I can’t, Rosie,’ he said. ‘It’s not… I ain’t… Now when all them fellers are dead an’ gone. Good fellers, they was. I been thinkin’ about ’em all day long, off an’ on, talkin’ about ’em with Manny. Poor sods.’

  She felt so rejected she spoke without thinking. ‘Don’t you love me no more?’ she asked.

  ‘It ain’t that,’ he said. ‘I mean, yeh, course I do. It’s jest… Oh Rosie you should ha’ seen ’em. They was blown to bits. Hanging on the barbed wire they was, shot to bits. Jest hanging there, as if they was on their knees praying and they was dead.’ Tears were rolling down his cheeks, but he hardly noticed them. ‘It was bleedin’ awful.’

  She put her hands on either side of his face and tried to wipe his tears away, but he shook her off. ‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘It’s too bleedin’ awful.’ Now that he’d start talking about the horrors he had to go on. He had to tell her. To make her understand. ‘Got knocked off me feet once by some poor bleeder what’d just been hit. He jest fell backwards like a ton weight and knocked me off me feet. Didn’t have no face. Shot away it was. He was making a noise like a duck quackin’. Poor sod. Strugglin’ fer breath, he was, and makin’ this awful noise. It ain’t right Rosie to do such things. Them bleedin’ generals should ha’ been put up against the wall an’ shot.’ The memory was making him ache, but he had to go on. He told her about the wounded men he saw in the ambulance and the dreadful state they were in and how brave they were, and about the men lying out in no-man’s-land calling for help and dying on their own in the mud. He was shaking with anger at the things they’d had to endure. And she held him as though he was a child and let him rave. Eventually he wore himself out and fell asleep in the middle of a sentence.

  She lifted his head tenderly and pushed his pillow underneath it to support his neck. Then she lay down beside him and tried to make sense of the things he’d been saying. My poor Jim, she thought. He’s right. Those stupid generals should ha’ been shot. It was monstrous making men suffer like that. I don’t think this is ever going to change, she thought miserably, not now.

  But the change she wanted did come eventually, when she’d almost given up hoping of it. He came home one balmy August evening with a copy of the Standard under his arm and in quite a perky mood. ‘What d’yer say we go to the flicks ternight?’ he asked. ‘They’re showin’ ’em in the theatres now according to this. Mr Feigenbaum took his ol’ lady an’ he says they’re ever so good.’

  ‘Not ternight,’ Kitty said. ‘I’m going to a restaurant with Mr Matthews.’

  ‘Are you though?’ Jim said and now he was wearing his teasing face. ‘Oh well then, Rosie, it’ll jest be you an’ me. Whatcher think?’

  So they went to the pictures and sat in the back row, cuddled together, and very nice it was. Rosie was so happy she hardly paid any attention to the film which was very long and rather confusing, and Jim spent more time gazing at her than he did looking at the screen. When they emerged from the relative privacy of the dark back row into the noise and bustle of Leicester Square, they both felt a bit off balance.

  ‘Come on,’ Jim said, taking her hand, and he set off at a brisk pace, despite his limp, but instead of walking south, as she expected, he headed west.

  ‘Where are we going?’ she asked.

  ‘Piccadilly Circus,’ he said, grinning at her in almost the old way, ‘an’ then up Piccadilly. I want ter see if our ol’ tree’s still there.’

  That made her laugh. ‘’Course it’ll be there,’ she said. ‘Trees don’t walk about.’

  And of course it was there, as private and magical as they remembered, standing with its sheltering branches spread ready for them. They kissed as if nothing had happened since the last time they were there and kissed again and again and again until he was groaning and she was t
rembling.

  ‘I do love you, Rosie,’ he said, his face taut and pale in the darkness. ‘You do know that, don’tcher?’

  ‘Let’s go home,’ she said, and she was thinking, it might be better this time.

  It was. But when he was lying blissfully asleep beside her, looking quite leonine again, she lay quiet and wondered. Should it have hurt her like that? Surely not. It hadn’t hurt him. She was sure of that even though he’d groaned. Oh, she thought, if only I had a woman friend or a relation I could ask about it. But Ma was dead, and the others were too young. Not that Ma would have been much help to her even if she had been alive because she never spoke about marriage and what you had to expect from it except to say, ‘T’ent a bed of roses, I call tell ’ee that,’ which was uninformative then and would have been less than useless now. She turned on her side and sighed. Maybe, she thought, trying to be philosophical, it won’t hurt so much next time.

  They were late getting up next morning and Kitty was already in the kitchen laying the table by the time they came yawning down. She seemed to be in a very cheerful mood.

  ‘I got sommink to tell yer,’ she said, putting their loaf on the breadboard and setting the margarine dish alongside it. ‘I couldn’t tell yer nothin’ yesterday on account of I wasn’t sure about it, but I can now.’

  They looked at her and waited.

  ‘You ain’t the only one ter lose yer job, our Jim,’ she said. ‘Mine’s gone an’ all now some of the men are back. They told me yesterday.’ She seemed perfectly cheerful about it and was grinning at them as if it was a good thing.

  ‘Oh dear,’ Rosie said, glancing at Jim.

  ‘It’s orl right,’ Kitty told her. ‘I got another one. That’s why I went out with Mr Matthews. He said he’d got plans for me and he’d tell me what they was when we was in the restaurant. Which he done an’ it’s orl right. I’m to work in the sorting room. On more money.’

  ‘Thank God for that,’ Rosie said. ‘You had me quite worried.’