Coronation Summer

by Margaret Pemberton

  ‘Any old rags, bones or l . . . u . . . u . . . mber?’ A couple of voices gigglingly cried out in imitative manner of a rag-and-bone man.

  Billy’s head whipped in the direction the voices were coming from. Two girls Daisy’s age, and dressed like Daisy in Blackheath High uniform, were walking up the slope from the pond a half dozen yards or so away from them.

  ‘Any old iron? Any junk? Any rubbish?’ The girls were laughing so much they were hanging on to each other in an effort to remain upright and then, in case either Daisy or Billy hadn’t realized they were the object of their ridicule, one of them called out, ‘I thought you’d promised Miss Bumby you weren’t going to be a street-totter’s wife when you left school, Daisy Emmerson! I thought you were going to go to Oxford? Are you going to go on the back of your boyfriend’s scrap-metal lorry? Is he going to park it outside the Bodleian?’ Shrieking with laughter and clutching each other for support, they continued on up the slope. ‘Any old iron?’ Daisy and Billy could still hear even though the girls now had their backs towards them and the distance between them was growing. ‘Any old junk? Any old l . . . u . . . u . . . mber?’

  If the two girls had done nothing more than infer that being a scrap-metal dealer was little different from being a rag-and-bone man, Billy would have been unperturbed. He was used to being teased about his chosen line of business and, as it was a lucrative business, treated such derision with easy-going contempt.

  The bit about Daisy having promised a teacher she wasn’t going to become a street-totter’s wife when she left school, though, was a different matter. Had Daisy had a conversation with a teacher about him? Was that why she didn’t like him dropping her off at school, or meeting her at school, in his lorry? Because she’d promised the Miss Bumby person she wouldn’t be seeing him again once she went to Oxford? He turned his head away from the girls’ retreating backs and looked towards Daisy. She was so visibly upset he felt as if a fist had been punched hard into his chest. It was true! When she went away to university, she was going to do so without any intention of eventually marrying him. She intended marrying someone clever – a doctor or a lawyer or an architect. That was why she didn’t want anyone seeing them together – Daisy, his Daisy, was ashamed of him!

  ‘Jesus!’ he said in a stunned voice, struggling to his feet and looking down at her with pain-filled incredulity. ‘You ’ave bin talking about me to yer teacher, ’aven’t yer? Yer don’t really think any different to yer two silly schoolmates, do yer?’

  Daisy blinked. Her classmates’ ridiculing of Billy made her feel so sick at heart she could hardly think straight. Wounded to the quick on his behalf, she stared at him bewilderedly. ‘What do you mean, I don’t think any differently to my two classmates?’ she said, struggling for understanding. ‘Of course I think differently to them! How could I not do? They’re nothing but ignorant idiots!’ She began scrambling to her feet.

  ‘But yer’ve talked about me to yer teacher, ’aven’t yer?’ If Daisy wasn’t thinking straight, Billy wasn’t listening straight. He felt as if he’d been hit by a bolt of lightning. Things he’d never been able to understand now seemed perfectly clear. Of course Daisy didn’t want their friends and neighbours in Magnolia Square to know he thought she was his girlfriend! Not when she didn’t intend anything serious coming of it!

  The knowledge was so monstrous, he felt as if he was being crushed alive. He couldn’t bear such pain and he certainly didn’t know how he was going to live with it!

  Daisy, striving to set things straight, said dazedly, ‘Miss Bumby did speak to me about you dropping me off at the school-gates and . . .’

  ‘No wonder you won’t come with me to the fight! Your precious Miss Bumby wouldn’t approve, would she? Going to a fight would be far too common for a girl who’s going to go to Oxford and drink in posh pubs like the Bodleian!’

  For Daisy, the conversation was becoming more and more surreal. ‘The Bodleian isn’t a pub,’ she said, struggling for clarity, ‘it’s a library.’

  ‘I don’t care if it’s a bleedin’ pawnshop!’ Billy knew if he stayed with her for even a second longer he’d be in tears. Jesus, but he’d never thought Daisy would look down on him just because he’d had the balls to get a business of his own off the ground! What did it matter if it was a scrap-metal business? There was money in scrap-metal. And when he made sufficient money he would branch out into something else. Like his idol, Jack Robson, he’d be an entrepreneur! And if Daisy wouldn’t go with him to the fight, he’d take some other girl who wouldn’t give a damn about being seen in the cab of his lorry!

  ‘I’m off!’ he said, his lean body so taut with tension he felt as if it was going to explode. ‘Yer’d better get back to your schoolwork Daisy! Yer’ll ’ave plenty of time for it now!’ Fighting back the tears that were threatening to shame him at any moment, he spun on his heel, sprinting up the slope, heedless of the havoc being caused to his carefully combed quiff.

  ‘Billy? Billy!’ Daisy stood immobile for one stunned second and then broke into a run, trying to catch him up. It was impossible. Billy had had a lot of practice, when a youngster, of high-tailing it at speed from the clutches of irate adults and exasperated policemen. When Billy sprinted, he really sprinted.

  Long before she crowned the summit of the steeply rising slope, she came to a defeated halt, tears streaking her face. What had her argument with Billy been about, for goodness sake? How could he even begin to think that she thought about him as her two classmates did? It didn’t make any sense. Like a lot of other things in life at the moment, most especially Matthew’s running away, it didn’t make any sense at all.

  ‘Course it makes sense,’ Zac said to Carrie when, having asked one of her fellow stall-holders to keep an eye on the Jennings’ fruit and veg stall until such time as Albert arrived to close up, promising him free entry to his next fight for his pains, he sat beside her on the upper deck of a steamer ploughing its way down the Thames to Southend. ‘Everyone should have a day off every now and then. Your dad won’t mind. If what your mother says is anything to go by, he’s always sliding off and enjoying himself, isn’t he?’

  He was, but somehow Carrie didn’t think the fact was going to count for much when he arrived to pack up the stall at five-thirty only to discover that she’d scarpered off several hours earlier with Zac Hemingway!

  ‘And I need to talk to you and have you to myself for a bit,’ he said, grinning at her as if virtually kidnapping her was the most normal behaviour in the world, ‘and I can’t do that when you’re knee-deep in apples and pears in Lewisham market, can I?’

  ‘It isn’t the season for apples and pears.’ With great difficulty Carrie tried to hold on to at least a shred of pretended outrage. ‘It’s all spring veg at the moment. Broccoli and broad beans and early lettuce.’

  He shouted with laughter, his arm resting on the back of their shared seat, his hand clasping her shoulder. Why the devil were they discussing fruit and vegetables when they could at last kiss to their hearts’ content? ‘I’m crackers about you, Carrie Collins,’ he said as, still chuckling, he cupped her chin with the thumb and forefinger of his free hand, tilting her face to his.

  Reading the intent in his eyes, Carrie tried to push herself as far away from him as she was able. It wasn’t far. It wasn’t even a centimetre. ‘No!’ Her protest was a whispered croak. ‘Please don’t, Zac! I’ve made up my mind about us and—’

  He, too, had made up his mind about them and the decision he had come to was one far different to hers. ‘You’re wasting time and effort on a losing battle, sweetheart.’ His voice was thick with desire and supreme self-confidence. ‘It’s going to be just you and me, Carrie. You and me forever.’

  It wasn’t. Even as his mouth closed on hers and her lips melted burningly beneath his, Carrie knew that it could never be the two of them forever. Today, though, was different. Today it could be just the two of them; today it already was. It was as if, out of nowhere, a day had been conjured t
hat had nothing to do with her real life. A day special and set apart. A stolen day. A magical day. A day she would lock in her heart and remember forever.

  ‘Sarf end!’ a voice aboard the steamer shouted as Southend and its mile-long pier and its funfair came into sight. ‘An’ don’t miss your last boat back!’

  In happy isolation from their fellow passengers, and not having seen an inch of the unspectacular scenery on their trip down-river, nearly all mud flats on the Essex side of the Thames and low, uninteresting hills on the Kent side, Zac and Carrie finally drew far enough apart to be able to grin at each other. Southend. There would be no one they knew in Southend, not on a weekday.

  ‘We should have brought a picnic,’ Carrie said as, arms around each other’s waists, they disembarked. ‘Fish-paste sandwiches and tomatoes and slices of home-made cake.’

  ‘We don’t need a picnic.’ The heat of his hand on her ribcage seared through the thin cotton of her dress. ‘Not for the way we’re going to spend the afternoon.’

  A middle-aged woman behind them turned to her browbeaten other half, saying acidly, ‘Disgusting, that’s what it is, behaving like that in public. They never left each other alone for a minute aboard the boat and now look at them! His hands are all over the place and she isn’t a silly young girl not old enough to know better! If that ring on her finger is anything to go by, she’s a married woman, but if the Tarzan she’s with is her husband, I’ll eat my hat!’ Her other half wished she would. It would shut her up for a bit.

  Oblivious of the malicious interest they were arousing, Zac and Carrie continued to walk, arms entwined around each other, not towards the amusement arcades and the funfair and the whelk and candyfloss stalls, but away from them all, heading out to the loneliness of scrubby dunes and ribbons of estuary sand and shingle.

  ‘You said you had a lot to tell me,’ she said, her head resting against his shoulders as, thigh to thigh, they walked out by the estuary, leaving the noise and carnival-like atmosphere of Southend far behind them.

  He turned his head, his lips brushing her hair, not slackening his long, easy stride. ‘I have,’ he said, enjoying the freshness of the sea breeze against his face. ‘And I will. Afterwards.’

  She knew what he meant by the word ‘afterwards’ and, weak with longing for him, caution and conscience thrown to the winds for this one, never-to-be-repeated day, she didn’t care. She wanted him just as he wanted her. In another lifetime, a lifetime that didn’t already encompass Danny and, most of all, Rose, she would have been his her whole life long. ‘I love you,’ she said, knowing it was true; knowing he was her soulmate; that with Zac she would never feel unfulfilled, or dowdy or tediously ordinary.

  His hand tightened on hers as he broke into a run. The dunes were now mounds of dark sand studded with tufts of sea-grass, and it was amongst these, in a small hollow, that he came to a halt, flopping down and tugging her down with him.

  ‘People will be able to see us from the water,’ she protested not very convincingly as he tugged his T-shirt over his head, revealing a muscled physique that would have tempted a nun from virtue.

  ‘Let them.’ As far as Zac was concerned, the boats ploughing in and out of the estuary were too far distant to be a source of concern. Their hollow was cosily sheltered from the breeze and only the keenest, binocular-slung voyeur was likely to espy them. He was undoing the buckle of his belt and as he did so Carrie’s fingers began hastily fumbling with the buttons of her carnation-patterned dress. Despite the light breeze, it was getting hotter. Her fingers were trembling so much they wouldn’t function.

  ‘Here, let me . . .’ his voice was hoarse, his body hard on hers as, imprisoning her beneath him, he unbuttoned her dress, revealing the heavy, lush curves of her breasts, her skin flawlessly pale in the bright afternoon light. ‘Christ, Carrie! You’re beautiful! So beautiful.’

  Her nipples were darker than he had imagined, wine-red and silky. As he lowered his mouth to them she groaned, her legs curving round him, her skirt pushed high.

  There was sand everywhere. It clung to their sweat-sheened skin, was between their toes, in their hair and then, as he entered her and she cried out beneath him, sand and sea-grass and the vast sky above them cartwheeled together, somersaulting and spinning in gaudy patterns of blurred, reflected light.

  Later, as she lay in the curve of his arm, her head against his chest, her tumbled hair soft against his flesh, he said, ‘And so I shall be leaving for New Zealand as soon as possible, sweetheart. When I’ve got mates and a job waiting for me there, it’d be daft not to, wouldn’t it?’ He hadn’t told her about the money. She was so shiningly and transparently honest that when it came to doing so, he shied from telling her of his years in Parkhurst. Instead he emphasized the strong bond between himself and his Kiwi mates, mates who had returned to their homeland and wanted him to join them. The job was complete fiction. There would be time enough, when she was in New Zealand with him, to tell her that he had no need of a job, that he had money enough without one.

  Carrie lay very still, glad that her face was against his naked chest and that he couldn’t see her eyes. New Zealand. It was the other side of the world. So far away that, once he went there, she would never see him again. It was for the best, of course. There could never be anything else between them after today. Danny didn’t set her heart on fire like Zac did; he wasn’t the other part of her, as she was certain Zac was; but he’d been part of her life for as long as she could remember, and she couldn’t cut him out of it. She and Danny were married. They would always be married. As for Rose . . . Even if circumstances were different between her and Danny, how could she leave Rose in order to build a new, fulfilling, exciting life in New Zealand with Zac? It wasn’t possible. It could never be possible. New Zealand would suit Zac. There were blue-hazed mountains and glittering rivers and wide, open spaces there.

  ‘That’s wonderful for you,’ she said, meaning every word, her throat so tight she could scarcely believe she had managed to speak.

  He moved, shifting himself up on to an elbow and, with his free hand, hooked a thumb beneath her chin, turning her head to his. ‘It’s going to be wonderful for both of us.’ His eyes held hers, daring her to correct him.

  She couldn’t do so. Not yet. She wanted to pretend for just a little longer. Just until the day was over. ‘It’s going to be wonderful for both of us,’ she said, feasting on the sight of his corn-gold hair and hard-boned face, knowing she would never forget the sensuous, arousing curve of his mouth and the intriguing cleft in his chin. ‘Make love to me again,’ she said huskily, sliding her arms once more around the narrowness of his waist. ‘Make love to me until it’s dark, Zac. Make love to me until it’s time for us to go.’

  Mavis looked around The 21 with pride. Tomorrow was the official opening and she’d called in, alone, to give everything a last minute check. Mirrors shone, glasses gleamed, the bar was fully stocked. Jack Solomons had promised to pay the club a visit, which meant the equivalent of an official seal of approval where the boxing fraternity was concerned, and it was the boxing fraternity, with its show-business hangers-on, that Jack was intent on attracting. She walked over to the heavily draped windows and pulled a curtain aside, looking down into Dean Street. Gaudily lit neon signs winked and blinked, light spilling out from restaurant and club doorways. It was ten at night and Soho was alive and kicking, and would be until the wee small hours.

  The 21 was only licensed as an afternoon drinking club, but neither she nor Jack anticipated such an irritation cramping their style. They weren’t in the market to vie with strip clubs or jazz clubs. As long as they could succeed in breaking the gaming laws, their afternoon fight-game punters would give The 21 all the edge it needed.

  She chewed the corner of her lip thoughtfully, debating with herself whether or not to try on again the tailored evening jacket that was hanging on the back of the ladies’ powder-room door. She had bought it at Harrods that afternoon with money Jack had lavishly pressed u
pon her. ‘Staff uniform,’ he had said with his impudent grin. ‘An absolutely legitimate business expense the Tax Man will find himself stumping up for.’

  Whether the Tax Man would, one day, stump up for it, Mavis doubted very much. A sizzling midnight blue, and beautifully cut, it had sequin-studded revers and pockets, and would transform any one of her many pencil-straight skirts into a sumptuous outfit, especially when worn with sheer black stockings and dizzyingly high, stiletto-heeled shoes.

  Her hand tightened on the curtain as a large black Humber eased into the busy street, slowing to a halt suspiciously near to The 21’s narrow doorway. She knew from Jack exactly what kind of a car Archie Duke was driven around in, and her stomach muscles tensed. Why would Archie be visiting the club now, before it had officially opened? Intimidation needed an audience to be truly successful: punters who’d be scared off and who would spread the word that the club was too dodgy to risk patronizing.

  That the Humber was Archie’s was now beyond doubt, for he and four companions were spilling out of the car and on to the gas-lit pavement. She frowned, perplexed. If Archie wasn’t visiting the club in order to raid it, why was he visiting it? Was he hoping to find Jack in it, and on his own? Was he hoping that another word with Jack might be enough to change Jack’s mind where the question of protection money was concerned?

  Angry with herself for not having the forethought to lock The 21’s street entrance-door behind her, she let the curtain fall and walked swiftly in the direction of the stairs, intent on meeting Archie and his friends on them and fearlessly informing them that if they were looking for Jack, they’d have to look elsewhere.

  Archie was most certainly not looking for Jack. He knew very well where Jack was, and that was in The Embassy. If he hadn’t been, Archie would not now be about to turn his boys loose on a wrecking-spree in Jack’s Soho spieler. Though not much of a thinking man, it had occurred to him quite some while ago that tangling with Jack, as he tangled with other recalcitrant benefactors, might not be to his advantage. For one thing, Jack was in the fight game and he, Archie, didn’t particularly want to make enemies in that quarter – not when he was all set to make a wad of money backing Arnie in illegit pirate fights.