by Pam Weaver
There was a sound outside in the corridor and her mother came to life. ‘Quick, my bag, my bag.’ She leaned towards the cupboard beside her bed and tried to open the door.
Grace rushed around to help her. ‘It’s OK, Mum. I’ll get it.’
The old familiar bag was right at the back behind her cardigan and a book. Grace placed it reverently on the bed beside her. Freda worked the clasp eagerly until it opened and then she fell exhausted against the pillows. Grace couldn’t bear it.
‘What is it, Mum? What are you looking for?’
‘The letter,’ she gasped.
Grace tipped the contents of the bag onto the bed. Lipstick, a comb, a battered purse, some pictures of her father as a young man, some till receipts, assorted pens and miscellaneous items tumbled onto the counterpane. Her mother pushed her hand through them quickly and picked up a small, tired-looking en-velope. She handed it to Grace with a conspiratorial look.
‘Take it back now,’ she said, her voice coming in ragged gasps. ‘Go and see them. Waiting for you.’
Grace glanced at the envelope but still didn’t fully understand. All she knew was her mother’s sense of urgency. She pushed it into her pocket. Together they put everything back in the bag and Grace placed it back in the bedside locker.
It was then that Freda noticed the garden posy. ‘Oh they’re lovely!’ she cried.
‘Mum …’ Grace began again, but instinctively she knew the time for conversation was over. Her mother’s eyes closed and she relaxed on the pillow.
The letter burned in Grace’s pocket. Eventually she took it out.
The envelope was limp with age and dog-eared from much handling. Grace stared at her own name and address written in a beautiful copperplate hand. She fingered the old-fashioned stamp, King George V, as she squinted to see the postmark: 1924, the year John was born.
Silently she let the letter slide out of its envelope and glanced back at her mother. She still had her eyes closed. Grace looked back at the piece of paper in her hand but she could only bear to read the heading. Clifton and Sons Solicitors.
She sat there for a full fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes with a piece of paper which could have changed her life forever had she known of its existence. As she slid it back into the envelope her mother let out a long sigh and Grace knew she was gone.
How long she sat there looking at her mother’s face, she never knew, but when Grace came to herself, her cheeks were wet with tears. She had never felt quite like this before. Not even when Michael died. Her mother, the one who had brought her into the world, was gone. As old as she was, Grace felt like an orphan and it wasn’t a pleasant experience. She began to shake and before long her body was racked by silent sobs. She had pressed her handkerchief to her mouth in a vain attempt to keep all the sound in. Thank God that she and Freda had made their peace. Grace blew her nose. ‘Oh Mum, I love you. I’m going to miss you.’ Something made her look up and she noticed something quite remarkable. All the lines and wrinkles in her mother’s face had gone. She looked as if she was sleeping and, more importantly, she was young again.
Grace stood up, leaned over and kissed her mother’s forehead. ‘Good night Mum,’ she said, her throat still tight with emotion. ‘See you in the morning.’ She paused for a moment to wipe her eyes and blow her nose and then, with head held high, she left the room to find one of the nursing staff.
When Rita came home, she was overjoyed to see Emilio was back. He looked pale and he’d lost weight, but he was as handsome as ever dressed in a white shirt, open at the neck and with a red and white spotted kerchief around his neck. Liliana was away visiting her sister so Salvatore let them use his sitting room.
‘I’ve missed you,’ Rita said shyly. ‘Are you all right?’
Emilio had made some tea and they sat at the small table by the window. Rita would have far rather been sitting with him on thesofa.
‘Fine.’
You don’t look it my darling, she thought. You look as if you could do with looking after. ‘Where did you go?’
He didn’t answer but instead stared out of the window. Rita was suddenly concerned. ‘Emilio, what is it?’
‘I have to go back.’
‘Back, where?’
‘To Italy.’ He hung his head and his hair flopped onto his forehead.
Rita was horrified. If he went back to Italy, she would never see him again. Her eyes filled with tears. How could she bear it?
‘Surely there must be a way of staying here. I don’t understand. Who says you must go back?’
‘The government,’ he said, his voice breaking with emotion. She placed her trembling hand over his. Rita had never heard of such a thing. The British always seemed so welcoming to foreigners. Hadn’t the Empire Windrush docked in Tilbury with nearly 500 passengers from Jamaica just last June? Nobody made a fuss about them and the passengers had even been offered cheap fares.
‘I have no ties, no family. They say I must go, Rita.’
‘There’s no restriction on members of the British Empire,’ she said stoutly.
‘Italy doesn’t belong to the British Empire,’ he pointed out with a shrug of his shoulders. ‘And we lost the war.’
‘But you have Salvatore,’ said Rita. ‘Can’t you tell them he’s your uncle?’
Emilio shrugged again. ‘Is not enough.’
Rita caught her breath. ‘But what if you had a wife?’ she began cautiously, not wanting to appear too fast. Her heart was beginning to thump. ‘What if you were married? Would you be allowed to stay then?’
He looked up with a puzzled expression. ‘I have no time to find a wife,’ he smiled.
Oh Emilio, Emilio, she thought, look at me! But he resumed his stare out of the window. Rita chewed her bottom lip anxiously. ‘I’ll do it for you if you like?’
‘What?’
‘Marry you so that you can stay.’ Her heart was pounding in her chest and she dared hardly breathe.
His hand covered hers. ‘You would really do this for me?’
Her eyes danced with excitement but she still had the presence of mind to nod modestly.
‘But you are too young, Rita,’ he said. ‘Your mama, she sayno.’
‘There is a way,’ said Rita, suddenly feeling the wonderful romance of it all. ‘We could always go to Gretna Green.’
Salvatore was overjoyed when they told him. Later, much later when Rita had gone back home, the two men shared a bottle of wine and a plate of spaghetti together.
‘Hai dovuto persuaderla?’ (Did you have to persuade her?)
‘È stato facile.’ (It was easy.)
Salvatore gripped his nephew’s arm. ‘Ti prendi cura di lei. È una buona ragazza.’ (You do right by her. She’s a good girl.)
Back at her mother’s place, Rita found some letters on the mat. One was from Bob. ‘On my way home at last,’ he wrote. ‘I hope you will come dancing with me.’
Rita stuffed the letter back into the envelope. ‘I’m afraid I can’t,’ she said aloud. ‘By the time you come through that door, I shall be a married woman.’
Bonnie was happy. She’d spent the afternoon wrapping Christmas presents for the children in the nursery as well as some for Shirley. The girls had decorated the nursery the night before and now paper chains hung across the rooms and all the Disney cartoons festooned the windows: Dumbo, Bambi, Pinocchio, Snow White and Mickey Mouse. She wasn’t very good at cartooning, but with a picture in front of her, Bonnie found that she could make a reasonable stab at a likeness.
Shirley enjoyed painting too. Bonnie had several of her splodge paintings hanging in her bedroom. Most of them were on a corkboard she had bought from Woolworth’s but the others were Sellotaped directly onto the walls. They looked a lot better than the holes where previous pictures had been and one effort in particular covered a fairly large place where the plaster had fallen away.
Tonight Bonnie had been invited to go out with some people from the local church when they went carol singing in
the streets. She was looking forward to that and for the first time since she’d left home, Bonnie felt she was going to enjoy the festive season.
The car door opened and a figure dressed all in black got in.
‘Is it safe to stay here?’ Norris asked.
‘Nobody saw me,’ said his passenger. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out some papers. ‘There is another shipment on the way.’
Norris kept his hands on the steering wheel. His passenger flapped the envelope impatiently.
‘I can’t do this any more,’ said Norris. ‘It’s too dangerous and I have too much to lose.’
‘That has never stopped you before. In the beginning you liked the danger.’
‘I did, but things change. Since that George Matthews business, I don’t have the stomach for it any more.’
‘It’s all blown over, hasn’t it?’ snapped his passenger. ‘His father has gone back to South Africa.’
‘What if Grace Follett tells him her daughter was there?’
‘Don’t be daft! If she does that, she implicates the girl, doesn’tshe?’
Norris stared at his fingernails. ‘The locket has gone.’
‘Gone? What do you mean, gone?’
‘She must have taken it from the safe.’
His passenger stared at him and then lashed out, raining blows over Norris’s head. ‘You bloody idiot,’ he shouted. ‘That was my way out of here.’
Norris didn’t retaliate, rather he curled himself up and tried to take the blows on his arms. When it was all over, they sat in shocked silence, the only sound in the car being heavy breathing.
A man rounded the corner of the street and walked briskly towards them. His passenger pulled his coat collar up and his hat a little further down. ‘If you were worried about being seen with me, you were a bit daft parking so close to the street lamp,’ he grumbled.
‘What if the boy’s father makes waves?’ said Norris. ‘What if he and Grace put two and two together?’
The man beside him didn’t answer but Norris felt his body stiffen.
‘The police may want to reopen the case,’ he pressed.
‘Then put the frighteners on her,’ said the man. He put the papers onto Norris’s lap. ‘You’ve done it before. Do it again.’
‘You’re not listening,’ said Norris. ‘The locket has gone. I’ve got nothing to bargain with. I’m telling you. I want out!’
‘Now listen to me, matey,’ snapped his passenger. ‘You’re in this up to your neck. When it gets this far, it can’t be turned back. I’ll pass on your concerns to headquarters but for now it’s business as usual.’
The pedestrian had crossed the street and it was empty again.
‘I never thought it would go on for so long,’ said Norris.
‘Yeah,’ said the man, getting out of the car, ‘and Hitler never thought he’d lose the bloody war, did he.’
Twenty-Seven
Grace threw her bag onto the table and put her suitcase by the stair door. It was good to be home again. She felt as if she had been away forever. Her mother had passed away three weeks ago and she had travelled back from Yorkshire for the last time.
She had stayed long enough to bury her mother and to clean and clear out her house. It was all very quick and very final. Her mother had died on a Monday, been buried on the following Monday (Rita couldn’t come because she had her final exam) and Grace had posted the keys through the landlord’s door the Monday after that.
In the lonely days before her mother’s funeral, Grace had done a lot of thinking. She couldn’t understand why she never stopped to work things out long before now. Life had dealt her some difficult cards but instead of asking why, she’d just got on with it.
Since reading her mother’s letter she’d realised that so many of her problems were down to Norris Finley. He’d taken her baby, when she’d been given provision to keep him. He’d pressured her mother into silence and that guilt had blighted their relationship for more than twenty-four years. Her children had been denied a real relationship with their grandmother because Freda had felt compelled to move up to Yorkshire rather than betray her promise to Norris.
Ever since she could remember, Grace had lived in one of the many properties Norris had scattered around the town, with no rent book and the fear of rising rents looming over her head every week. And then there was the blackmail. Keeping Bonnie’s locket in exchange for favours was revolting but now that she was thinking straight, Grace was sure she wasn’t the only victim. When she’d picked up the little envelope, it felt heavy. She’d tipped the contents into her hand, and found Bonnie’s locket but she’d also glimpsed a gold watch. She’d thought and thought about it. Could it have been the gold watch Kaye had been accused of stealing? She would probably never know because the poor girl had been so upset, she’d taken a bus to Beachy Head and never come back. Did she do that rather than sleep with Norris? Had she chosen death rather than dishonour?
Snowy wasn’t much for writing but she had mentioned once again that Polly was looking increasingly thin and that she was a bag of nerves. It wouldn’t surprise Grace if Norris hadn’t forced the girl to do something she was ashamed of. Every time Grace thought about Polly, she grew angry. She was only a kid. Somebody had to stop Norris before yet another young girl in the first bloom of her life went over the cliff. There were more ways than one of being a monster.
As she chewed things over, other people came to mind. People she hadn’t thought of for years. What really happened to that girl whose husband had accused her of going with another man? She had worked in the factory and when her husband … Desmond, that was his name, Desmond Peterson … came home on leave, Dolly had ended up in hospital. She was never the same again. The beating he gave her did something to her brain. Everybody hated Des for what he’d done and he’d been sent to prison. Quite right, everyone said, but now Grace remembered how he’d protested his innocence all along. Did Norris have a part in that too? Who had knocked her down when the Thrift Club money was taken, if not one of Norris’s thugs? Or … could it have been Norris himself ? How else could she explain the torn and empty envelopes and her bag in his safe?
Whatever happened when she got home, Grace was determined to expose Norris somehow. He mustn’t be allowed to ruin anyone else’s life.
There was little to bring back. Most of her mother’s things were too far gone to be much use to anyone, but her furniture still had a bit of life in it. She had shared the big things around the neighbours, and been content to give them as gifts.
‘Surely you want summat for it, lass?’ one of them said but Grace shook her head. ‘Mother would have wanted you to have it.’
She had boxed a few things up and brought them with her on the train. Right now they were in the porter’s room at Worthing station because Manny Hart had promised to bring the box with him on his way home.
‘You heard from that girl of yours yet?’ he’d asked.
Grace shook her head. The question coming so soon after she’d arrived back home cut her to the quick but she was grateful as well. At least Bonnie wasn’t totally forgotten.
It was late. Grace was shattered; she’d been travelling all day. She looked around. Everything was neat and tidy, and sparkling clean. Snowy had been working very hard. It was only then that she noticed the Christmas decorations. Snowy wouldn’t have bothered with them. Her heart skipped a beat. Hadn’t Bonnie always said how much she hated the old decorations? She’d promised to put up new ones two Christmases ago. Could it be …? She heard a footfall upstairs and her heart leapt.
‘Bonnie? Is that you?’
‘No, Mum,’ came a voice. ‘It’s me. Rita.’
Grace stood for a second, her hand on the rail while she steadied herself and swallowed her disappointment, then she bounded up the stairs as quickly as her tired legs would allow.
‘I wasn’t expecting you home until tomorrow,’ she said, her face wreathed in smiles. She wished she hadn’t called Bonnie’s
name. Poor Rita. She must have been hurt. Mother and daughter hugged and kissed each other.
‘I’m sorry about Granny. How was the funeral?’
Grace was surprised to find her eyes immediately filling with tears. ‘All right. All the neighbours came.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Rita, hugging her again.
As they separated, Grace fumbled for a handkerchief and blew her nose. ‘What’s that you’ve got in your hand?’
Rita held up her diploma. ‘Da-daaa.’
‘Oh Rita,’ Grace beamed. ‘Let me look.’
The piece of paper was impressive. This is to certify that Rita Elizabeth Rogers has successfully completed a shorthand and typing course …
‘And before you ask,’ she went on, ‘I already have a job.’
Grace took in her breath.
‘I went for a job in the office at Southdown buses but then I saw Bob Dawson. He drives one of the buses and he told me they’re desperate for conductresses. Mum, it was £2 3s 11d rising to £2 15/- after a three-month trial.’
‘But all that hard work with your shorthand and typing,’ Grace protested.
‘Please don’t let’s fight about it, Mum.’
Grace hesitated and then cupped her daughter’s face in her hands. Grace didn’t want to fight either. She felt the past year had been a waste, but what could she do? She could tell by Rita’s face that she was utterly determined and it was, after all, her life. ‘When do you start?’
‘In the New Year,’ said Rita, ‘which means we can enjoy Christmas and the New Year together.’
‘Oh darling,’ said Grace. ‘I’m so glad for you. It’s time things started to go right for you.’
‘They are, Mum,’ said Rita sitting back down on the bed. ‘Emilio is coming back after Christmas.’
Grace looked away. ‘Perhaps you shouldn’t spend so much time with him,’ she said carefully. ‘Find yourself a nice boy and settle down.’
‘I don’t want another boy,’ said Rita. Her voice had an edge to it.
‘Rita …’