‘I’m twenty-three.’
‘Good.’
‘What’s good about it? You mean you fancy older women?’
‘I mean I like you. What about going out with me, on Thursday?’
Hell, Mr Carter was standing at the parlour door, glaring.
‘Oh dear. I’m busy Thursday.’
‘Friday?’
‘Friday?’ She hesitated.
David said. ‘I get off at eight. I could meet you anywhere you like.’
‘All right. There’s a pub in Margaret Street, called The Crocodile. Can you find it?’
‘I’ll find it.’
‘What’s your name?’
‘David.’
‘I’m Eugenie.’
No you’re not, thought David. You’re Marigold. My Marigold.
Eugenie thought it might be wise to take a different route home from work that week. She didn’t want this boy pestering her.
On Friday lunchtime she had her hair done at the School of Hairdressing round the corner from her office. It only cost £2 if you let a student do it and some of them were really very talented. After her hair-do she went to Fenwicks and bought a new dress. It was sleeveless, in a silkily pretty spring-green, scattered intermittently with pink, blue and white ribbon stripes.
Just after six, she paused by David. ‘Still all right for tonight?’
‘Oh. Yeah. You okay?’
‘Eight fifteen, at the Croc. And don’t be late.’
*
On her way to the Crocodile, Eugenie wondered what she was going to talk about to her new boyfriend. All her other men were older, usually married. They did most of the talking, mostly about themselves. Eugenie wasn’t militant about this. If they had led varied lives, it meant they had interesting things to say. If she just shut up, she learned a lot.
But on Fridays they tended to disappear for the weekend into holes marked Family, where sulky, expensive wives and fractious children claimed their attention. Weekends could be barren territory for Eugenie, especially as she regarded it as, well, not quite the thing, to go Saturday shopping, or out on Saturday nights. It was what other people did, came ‘Up West.’ But she lived Up West and she didn’t want people thinking she was a day- tripper.
Turning into Margaret Street, she saw David waiting outside the pub. He had changed into a greyish-blue cotton jacket, a white shirt and grey slacks. She hoped he liked her new dress, but he didn’t say, he was busy getting her through the throng just inside the door.
The Crocodile was packed with young revellers, letting off end-of-the-week steam. But also seemingly upholding a tradition they couldn’t remember, that Friday was pay-day so Friday night you went out and got slaughtered. They couldn’t remember this because, these days, most educated people were paid monthly, and were proud of the kudos. Eugenie, typically breaking the mould, had chosen to be paid weekly so she could walk out of the job when something better came along.
There was nowhere free to sit in the pub, but David took off his jacket and spread it for Eugenie on the torn carpet.
She found it arresting that his name was Plantagenet.
‘Yeah, there’s a few of us in the phone book.’
‘Do you have reunions, talk over past regal times?’
‘Nope. What for? I do history at school because I have to, but it’s the future that matters, not the past. Know what someone said? History is an account of what didn’t happen, written by someone who wasn’t there.’
And to think I was worried, Eugenie reminded herself, that he wouldn’t have anything interesting to say.
She told him a bit about her job and how Gloria – Glo – in her office had a running-away fund so she could leave her husband. ‘But every time she gets a tidy amount saved up in her granny’s old tea caddy, one of her kids comes and raids it.’
‘We all need dream money,’ said David. ‘Money I get for flogging ice-cream, I’m saving up to go round the world.’
‘How awful if you bumped into my mother. She’s on some junket with Reg. He’s her appalling boyfriend.’
‘Where are they going?’
‘I don’t know exactly, except Reg is convinced he’ll know how to shoot an elephant. I can imagine him standing over the poor thing, saying, Oh bad luck, old bean.’
David laughed. ‘Does he really talk like that?’
‘No, it’s how he’d like you to think he talks. Anyway, why do you want to go round the world?’
‘Because so far all I’ve known is school, and Stupples Road and flogging ice-cream in Oxford Street. I’ve never been anywhere. But I can’t go for ages yet. Got my A-Levels to do first.’
‘What are you taking?’
‘English, History, Geography, French and Spanish.’
‘Good heavens. Are you all as brainy as that at your school?’
He shrugged. ‘My friend Art, he’s just doing two. Art and Art History. He’s aiming for the Slade. Reckons he’ll only need two to get in.’
She learned that he was at Wembley Boys’ Grammar. He lived in Stupples Road, next door to Art and Mr Carter. Stupples Road, Eugenie gathered, was short on houses, since a good stretch of it was occupied by Mr Carter’s premises.
David and Eugenie moved on to talk about music. She liked musicals. He didn’t.
‘I get in a right rant when you read some rubbishy song took him ten minutes to write, and earned him ten bloody thousand.’
David finished his second pint and, emboldened, said, ‘These men you go out with. Do they take you out for lunch as well?’
‘Sometimes. But usually Glo from the office, and me, we go to a little place opposite. We have mushroom omelette, chips, two cups of tea and it’s only three and six.’
‘And these guys. Is there a rota? Is it always the same one on Wednesdays?’
‘It just makes it easier for them. If they know they’re seeing me on a Wednesday, they don’t have to make the effort to remember. It’s habit. Why, d’you want to join up?’
‘I don’t think I’d fancy being one of many.’
‘You’d just have to take your chances.’
At this point a beefy young guy tripped on the worn carpet, and spilled his pint right over Eugenie.
David shot to his feet, grabbed the guy round the neck and threw him through the door into the street. Recovering, the lout swung a loose punch at David. ‘Four eyes! I bet you were the one in the milk-bottle glasses at school!’
‘Never stopped me seeing!’ David shouted, and fisted the guy in the face.
‘Oy!’ yelled the landlord. ‘None of that outside my pub! Clear off, or I’ll call the Law.’
Eugenie appeared, carrying David’s jacket and vainly trying to wring the beer from her dress.
‘Oh Marigold. Your dress! Your lovely dress.’
‘It’s okay. It’ll wash,’ she said hopefully. ‘But I ought to get home. Get it off. This beer. I must stink.’
‘I’ll walk you back,’ David said, anticipating an opportunity to put his arm protectively round her. Would she let him kiss her? Should he ask, or just do it?
Eugenie was saying, ‘It’s okay. I’ll be quite safe. And shouldn’t you be getting your train home?’
‘Can’t. There’s a rail strike. Didn’t you see the placards?’
Eugenie had. RAIL STRIKE TONITE. But like most people who didn’t have a train to catch, she didn’t give a thought to people who did.
As they turned off the Marylebone Road into the drive of Medway Mansions, where she lived, Eugenie said,
‘But where will you sleep, David? If you can’t get home?’
‘I’ll be all right. At the ice-cream parlour, there’s a kitchen out the back, with an easy chair. I can kip there.’
Eugenie gave in, and invited him in.
Once inside the apartment, she pointed to the left. ‘That’s the bedroom. Why don’t you slip into bed while I go and get this dress off.’
She’d already decided, in the lift, there was no point in messing
about.
In her bathroom, she threw the beer-stained dress into the linen basket, stripped off her underwear and had a quick wash. She wasn’t used to this. She didn’t invite the boyfriends back.
But David was still at school. Obviously, he couldn’t afford to take her to a hotel.
Living on her own, Eugenie didn’t possess a choice of glamorous cover-ups with which to impress David. She had a white fluffy towelling robe, and a flowered silk one. The towelling one made her feel like a prize-fighter. The silk one clung revealingly, and was definitely not a garment she would answer the door wearing. If she had unexpected visitors, that is, which of course she didn’t.
She chose the towelling robe, and made plans. Best to give him a big glass of brandy and finish him off to sleep, quick.
Returning to her bedroom, she found David in bed with his clothes neatly arranged on a chair.
‘Where are your glasses?’ She had expected them to be safely on her bedside table.
‘I put them in my shoes.’
Eugenie wondered where he’d learned a trick like that. She snapped off the main light, and the bedside light. Abandoning the robe, she slid into bed beside him. She wasn’t expecting much. He wasn’t even seventeen yet, just a kid for heaven’s sake. Most of the boyfriend brigade were at least thirty, experienced, accustomed to taking the lead.
But so, it transpired, was David Plantagenet.
He astounded her with his inventiveness, not to mention his sheer staying-power. The boyfriends had the sulky wives, fiendish children and business worries to dampen their ardour. David, unfettered by any of this, just concentrated on having her again, and again and again.
‘Sorry. Am I being a pest?’
‘No.’
‘It’s just, I’ve wanted you for so long, Marigold. I’ve thought about you. Just imagined, you know, how it would be.’
Feeling he should have a rest, Eugenie fetched two glasses of brandy. David downed his in a gulp.
‘David, have you had many girlfriends?’
‘No.’
‘So how old were you when you first…’
‘Thirteen. The girls’ school was just down the road.’
‘So the girl was thirteen as well? That’s illegal.’
‘Yeah. No. She, the one I – she was one of the teachers. Somehow, she just took a shine to me. We never went out together. Couldn’t be seen together. I just used to turn up at her digs and she’d have some bottles of cider. Merrydown it was.’
‘Merrydown? That’s very pokey.’
‘Certainly got you in the mood.’
‘And that teacher. You still involved with her?’
‘No. She left eighteen months ago. Rather suddenly.’
And suddenly, Eugenie’s new lover was asleep. Gently, Eugenie laid her hand on his cock. Roll on morning, was her last thought. I could certainly do with some more of that. The older woman, the teacher, whoever she was, she certainly taught you well.
In the morning, David’s clothes were gone from the chair. Eugenie shot out of bed, slung on the towelling robe and found him, dressed, in the kitchen.
‘Good morning.’ He kissed her as if they were married. He’d obviously been rehearsing this. She suspected that he’d follow up by calling her ‘dear.’
‘Hey, you’ve got two bathrooms! Some people in my road only got inside toilets for the Coronation.’
‘What do you mean?’ She knew Reg referred to the toilet as the ‘throne room.’ Was this some sort of Reg-type joke?
‘My mum told me. People felt, for the Coronation, they should give themselves a treat. So they got inside toilets and a telly. I didn’t know which of your bathrooms – so I used the one next to the bedroom.’
‘Yes, that’s mine. The other one used to be my mother’s, but now it’s for guests.’ The guests she didn’t have. But now she’d got one, a man, standing in her kitchen. Oh dear, she just wasn’t used to this. It was so much easier, just pleasing yourself.
They hadn’t eaten last night. She supposed she should get him some breakfast. In films, women in this situation cheerily rustled up freshly squeezed orange juice, a choice of cereals, unburnt toast and something cooked that was, in fact, a plate of hot fat.
Half-heartedly, Eugenie opened the fridge. ‘We must get you fed. I haven’t got much. Would bacon and egg be all right?’ This was phrased carefully to indicate that, actually, she only had one egg.
‘Yes! But I’ll do it. I do it a lot at home. We have bacon and eggs all the time. Every meal.’
‘Every meal?’
‘Yeah. My mum cooks it for my breakfast. I wolf it down, ‘cos I’m usually finishing some homework. Then I have a school dinner, or just half if it’s semolina, and then when I get home I do bacon and eggs for our tea.’
Eugenie found him a frying pan. ‘Don’t do any for me. I’ll have some toast.’
Bread. Did she have any bread?
Her bread bin revealed the end of a loaf, enough for two slices of toast. What if he wanted fried bread as well?
She sliced the bread and put on the kettle for tea. She felt as though she’d been up for hours, days, weeks, years.
‘Have you got any dripping, Marigold? I usually use dripping to fry it all in.’
‘How do you get dripping when all you eat is bacon and eggs?’
‘Sundays, Frieda does a roast for us all round Mr Carter’s. Then she gives a bowl of dripping to my mum.’
Beef dripping. On toast. Eugenie hadn’t indulged in that for years.
‘Doesn’t matter.’ David was examining the packet of bacon. ‘You’ve got streaky. That’ll be fat enough.’
Eugenie went to the sitting room, fetched an olive green cloth from the sideboard and threw it over the oval dining table in the window. She laid the table with her white plates and Viner’s cutlery, and went to make the tea. David was taking a packet of butter from the fridge.
‘Butter dish!’ she said. ‘I’ll get one.’
‘Doesn’t matter.’
‘Of course it does. I have got one.’ Where on earth was it? Must be somewhere in the sideboard, it had come with her white breakfast set, for the meal she never had and the guests who weren’t there.
And a butter knife. Had she got a butter knife? God, this was never-ending.
The smell of the bacon was overwhelmingly tempting. She hoped it was all right. She’d bought it a month ago.
Finally, after what to Eugenie seemed like years, she and David were seated at the table and she was insisting he ate up her toast.
‘My God! Who’s that?’
He was staring towards the sideboard, at a framed photograph of a woman dressed dramatically as a matelot.
‘That’s my mother.’
‘No kidding? She looks like a film star. Not like other mothers I’ve met. Not a bit like my mum.’
‘Well be glad you haven’t got a mother like mine. What’s your mother like?’
‘I don’t know … she’s just like… like a mum. What’s her name, your mum?’
‘Marisa.’
‘My mum’s Nell.’
‘That’s nice. Probably short for Eleanor.’
‘Don’t know. I call her mum, and Mr Carter calls her Mrs P.’
‘What happened to Mister P?’
‘Went off with Mrs Carter. It’s a bit like that in Stupples Road.’
‘And this Frieda, does she work at the ice-cream parlour?’
‘Too grand for that. When she first took up with Mr Carter she told him she was Personal Private Secretary to a haulage contractor. Turned out she works the switchboard. ‘Heobsons Heorlidge. Can ai help yew?’
‘And what time do you have to be at work today?’
David shook his head. ‘Art said he’d stand in for me.’
‘I see. That confident, were you?’
‘That’s right. Like I fixed the rail strike, too. But I ought to get along. Flog the ice-cream. Give Art a hand.’
He was dying to tell Art how he’d s
cored. Scored big.
As he stood up, David said, ‘Marigold, I can come again, can’t I?’
‘Yes. You can come next Friday.’
‘Oh I get it. I get the Friday slot on the rota.’
‘You get the weekend. Bring a change of clothes.’
She stood at the window. She watched him walk down the drive, past the plane trees that shielded the mansion block from the racket of the Marylebone Road. Then he was gone, and she felt strangely bereft. She had expected him to be all over her this morning. What was he up to? Trying to play hard to get?
Eugenie picked up the portrait of her mother. ‘Get this, mummy. I am never, ever going to tell you he said you look like a film star.’
Chapter Two
When Eugenie was sixteen, she was walking home from school – thankfully alone, as it happened – when she spotted her mother.
Eugenie could tell with half a glance that it was Marisa because of the dashing black matador hat she was sporting. Marisa never left the apartment without a large hat.
‘It’s my trademark, darling. Everyone knows. It’s my style.’
Marisa had added a white ruffled shirt and a swirling scarlet cloak. She had completed the ensemble with black breeches and shiny knee-high boots. Moreover, she was striding right down the middle of the Marylebone Road.
Since she was making it impossible for traffic to move safely, the hooting and wolf-whistling and yells from men hanging out of buses and lorries, was deafening.
And, to Eugenie, embarrassing. Why couldn’t she have a mother like other mothers? Women who stayed safely at home, making fairy-cakes and playing bridge.
Eugenie ran back to the apartment and tore off her school uniform. The Marylebone High School girls had been allowed to choose their summer uniforms. Having plumped for navy blue cotton sprinkled with white stars they all, needless to say, hated it.
Eugenie was comfortably into jeans, hacking at the Hovis for a sandwich, when her mother burst in.
‘Did you see me?’ she demanded, striking a pose by the kitchen door. ‘I stopped the traffic! I stopped the traffic in the Marylebone Road. Did you see me?’
‘No.’
Instantly, Eugenie heard her mistake. Instead of a flat, ‘no’, a more realistic response would have been a shake of the head and ‘See what? When?’
In Bed with Mr. Plantagenet Page 2