by Clare Harvey
She must have heard the footsteps before he did, turned her head. He noticed the flick of her eyes and the frown that passed over her face. ‘Meet me at the end of the shift,’ he muttered into her hair as they pulled apart. ‘Come back to mine.’
The light was already seeping from the opening door as she replied. ‘I’m so sorry, I can’t. I promised Violet Smith I’d do something with her first thing.’
‘Later then. I know you’ve got a shift free and I can re-arrange my schedule. We can go to dinner.’
‘It’s the hostel hop, remember.’
‘Damn!’ he said as the door swung open.
‘Everything all right, boss?’ The smudged figure of Alfie Perkins appeared in the doorway. He paused, peering through the storm at them both. Zelah stepped away through the wall of water, catching the closing door and thanking Alfie for holding it open for her, as if he’d paused on the threshold out of politeness, rather than curiosity.
‘I got them to save you some apple crumble,’ Alfie said as he reached the shelter. George cleared his throat. It mustn’t look as if he were chasing after Miss Fitzlord, but he needed to catch her, needed desperately to . . .
‘Thank you, Alfie,’ he said. ‘Well, I’d better be off then.’ He ignored Alfie’s questioning stare and strode across to the door, letting it bang behind him as he took the stairs two-at-a-time, down-down-down, but it was too late. He heard the downstairs door slam. She’d be back on the factory floor already, with the noise and the nosy girls and the demands of Dame Laura. Damn. Damn. Damn. He kept running, even though he knew it was too late, swinging through the doorway and into the main corridor.
What was it Alfie had said about crumble? George wondered, passing the canteen door. No matter. He had no appetite now. He walked on down the corridor towards his office, passing all the posters about production targets and the propaganda pictures: Factories of Freedom, said one, with pictures of men and woman doing various ordnance roles, grouped round an anti-aircraft gun. A factory of freedom? At the moment it felt like a prison, stopping him from having the chance to spend time with Zelah. They couldn’t carry on like this, furtive moments of snatched passion like swarf on the factory floor, swept to one side and forgotten.
He walked along to the mezzanine level, pausing to look down. He could see her down below, wiping the lathe down with a rag, nodding at something her co-worker was saying. He could see Dame Laura’s canvas in front of them, small as a postage stamp from his vantage point, the two pinkish blobs of the girls’ faces and the grey-painted gun barrel between them. He watched as Dame Laura appeared from the other end of the shop floor. How much longer would she be here, he wondered? And how long until the McLaughlin girl returned and regained her place on the night shift? Zelah had said it wouldn’t be long. And then what? She’d get back to her day job as welfare supervisor, and he’d see even less of her.
As if she could sense him watching her, she looked up from the lathe, her face tiny and far below. He saw the swift flash of a smile. She lifted a hand in a half-wave, and lowered it before anyone else noticed. He lifted his hand in response, and the insufficiency of the gesture angered him. He turned away.
It wouldn’t do. How often in life did one get second chances? He didn’t want to let this one slip between his fingers. It was time to take charge of the situation.
Chapter 17
Zelah
‘Up there,’ Violet said. Zelah looked up the paved alleyway. Drizzle was damp against her cheeks, seeping through her coat. She could see the figure of a dumpy woman opening up the shop. There was a dull glitter from the shop windows as shutters lifted like eyelids, making a grinding noise as they rose. Above the door hung three brass globes.
‘Ey oop,’ the woman said, giving the shutters one last nudge with the pole as they approached. She turned towards them. ‘Coming in, ducks?’
Zelah nodded.
‘Are you sure?’ Vi muttered.
‘Of course. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?’
Zelah’s shoes slithered a little on the wet flagstones as they walked up the alley. Jeweller’s, said the faded gold writing on the peeling black paintwork on the left-hand window. Pawnbroker’s, said the other side. The woman had gone on ahead of them into the shop. Zelah let Vi go in front of her. It wasn’t the first time she’d been to a pawnbroker’s. The first time must have been before they moved to The Grange, she thought, remembering:
‘It’s an original,’ Mother says, but after that Zelah stops listening because she and the shopkeeper are going on and on, talking about money, and Zelah is more interested in the white cat that’s curled up on the red plush seat of the chair next to the grandfather clock, sleeping in the shaft of sunlight that’s shining in through the shop front.
Outside, the sky is blue and the clouds are chasing each other and there will be white horses on the sea. When the weather is like this, Zelah sometimes sees other children with paper windmills on wooden sticks, twirling and whirling like dizzy flowers. Zelah wants one. More than anything. But she knows there is no money, knows better than to ask.
Above the cat the air sparkles with dust motes. Zelah thinks of the song they have to sing in Sunday school: ‘A sunbeam, a sunbeam, Jesus wants me for a sunbeam . . .’ Zelah thinks about the words. Why would Jesus want her to be a sunbeam? The cat stretches in the pool of light. Zelah shifts across the floorboards towards it.
The grown-ups are still talking. ‘I daresay, but there’s not much call for art round these parts,’ the tall man says in his scratchy voice, and Mother’s feet move as if they’re trampling down an invisible sandcastle.
Zelah is close to the cat, now. She has always wanted a cat. She has wanted a cat even longer than she’s wanted a windmill. Well, a kitten. What would be better, if there was a choice? A kitten or a windmill?
The air smells of spit and polish, Zelah thinks. The cat opens its eyes and they are as blue as the sky outside the shop window. Zelah knows she should ask before she pets animals. She looks across at Mother, but Mother is busy, taking a small painting out of her handbag. It is the painting of the pretty woman in the yellow dress that sits on the mantelpiece in their room. Why has Mother brought it here? Mother is saying ‘renowned artist’ and Zelah does not know what ‘renowned’ means. She has three questions for Mother now: Can I stroke the cat? Why is our picture here? What does ‘renowned’ mean? But Mother has that look on her face like she doesn’t want to be asked anything: closed up and hard.
The tall man holds out the painting at arm’s length. The woman in the painting has curly hair, like Mother’s, and she’s looking out of a window. Beyond the window there is a beach, and waves. Zelah thinks of another question for Mother.
Zelah moves closer to the cat. The cat blinks at her and Zelah begins to stroke his warm fur, very gently, along his flank. She sees the tip of his tail twitch.
‘Mother,’ Zelah says, but Mother doesn’t appear to hear. ‘Mother,’ Zelah says in a louder voice, still stroking the cat. The fur is soft under her fingers.
‘What? What is it, Zelah?’
‘Who is the lady in the painting?’ She looks up at Mother as she asks, and the cat suddenly hisses and claws. Zelah snatches her hand away, but the sharpness is blood-wet.
‘Nobody,’ Mother says. ‘Nobody you know. Now will you stop bothering that poor creature. It’s time we went.’ Mother is nodding her thanks at the man and fiddling with something on her finger.
Zelah sucks at the place on her hand where the cat scratched. It is metal-tasting. She watches as Mother puts on her gloves, even though it’s quite warm outside in the sunshine, not really a day when you need to have your hands covered, Zelah thinks.
‘Come on, Zelah.’ Mother reaches out. Zelah grasps the gloved hand and lets herself be pulled away from the angry cat. The shop door jangles as they leave.
The door jangled as they entered. It was darker than outside, even with the electric lamp. The woman lifted the hinged end and slipped behind t
he counter. ‘Buying or hocking?’ the woman said, plump hands spayed out on the glass.
Zelah heard a rustle as Vi pulled out a cigarette. ‘Hocking,’ Zelah said. Vi struck a match. The woman grunted an acknowledgement. Zelah looked at her: yellow-grey curls and face like an un-plumped cushion.
‘Let’s ’ave a look at what you’ve got me then, duck.’ One of her front teeth was grey: rotten and ready to fall.
‘You don’t have to do this for me, Zelah,’ Vi said, her smoke misting the space between them and the woman. Zelah glanced sideways at her. Vi was frowning, sucking on her fag, a chimney of ash already formed at the tip.
‘But what choice do we have?’ Zelah said, reaching up and feeling for the ribbon at her neck.
‘There is no “we”. I’m on my own in this.’
‘When we were in the church I promised to help you. And I keep my promises. Besides, how else are you going to get the money?’
The woman stared on, impassive at their exchange. She must have witnessed hundreds, maybe thousands of conversations like this over the years, Zelah thought, her fingers fiddling with the slippery ribbon.
‘Want some help?’ The woman leant across the counter. Zelah heard her grunting breath, felt her pudgy fingertips worrying the knot free. She saw Vi’s hand tipping ash into the rusty ashtray on the counter top. ‘There, let’s take a gander.’ Zelah’s neck felt empty without the circle of ribbon, with George’s ring, which now swung from the pawnbroker’s hand like a fortune-teller’s divination pendulum. Suddenly the woman slung it up, popped it in her mouth and bit down on it. ‘Feels real,’ she said. ‘Wedding band?’
Zelah nodded. George’s wedding ring: a symbol of his commitment to her. And now here she was in a pawnbroker’s on a nondescript spring morning, hocking it so she could help pay for a woman to get rid of her unwanted baby. What she was doing was wrong, wrong, wrong.
But . . . She put herself in Vi’s place. An accidental pregnancy, the father dead, no money, no other means of support. The only other option was letting her go the same way as Mary McLaughlin, off to the ‘sluts’ home’ to give up her ‘bastard child’ and live with the pain and shame for the rest of her life. Letting that happen would be wrong, too, wouldn’t it? Zelah sighed, and looked over at Vi, who had her half-finished cigarette to her lips again.
The woman had put the ring on the jewellery scales now, made a note of the weight of it, and then taken a closer look, through some kind of magnifying monocle, her saggy face all scrunched up, breathing like a bulldog.
They had to get this money to Mrs Kirk and get Vi sorted, because if they left it too late – how many women left it too late, botched it, ended up in the sepsis ward at hospital, or worse? It was too awful to contemplate. No, she would think of George’s ring not as a love token, but as a means to an end, just for now, just until Laura finished the painting and paid the sitter’s fee – which must surely be any day, mustn’t it? And as soon as the painting was complete, they could come straight back here and reclaim the ring.
Zelah watched the woman pop the ring back on the ribbon and put it in the till. Then she counted out the notes and coins so Zelah and Violet could see, and sealed them up inside a manila envelope, together with the hocking slip. She locked the till afterwards with a key from the bunch that she kept in the pocket of her pinny.
It was done, now.
George would never need to know.
George
It was fate. What else could it be? Usually he went straight to bed after his shift, getting up and making himself scarce for an hour or so in the afternoon, just to give Mrs Packer a chance to tidy the place up a bit. But when he arrived home today he knew the futility of attempting sleep. He’d come straight out into town, with a view to putting his plan into action.
The air was still drizzle-thick as he strode down Angel Row towards Old Market Square, his hat low over his eyes to keep out the chill dampness. A trolley-bus rattled in front of him and he paused to let it pass, shifting from foot to foot, impatient at the hold-up. He knew what he needed to do. He just wanted to get on with it.
The trolley-bus passed and the expanse of the empty market square spread out in front of him, white-grey paving slabs the same colour as the low-slung clouds. The spray from the fountain spattered his cheek as he passed and the new Town Hall building lurched up ahead like the white cliffs of Dover. Figures criss-crossed in front or behind, scurrying to work or to beat the shopping queues. Buses chugged slow circles around the marketplace. The air tasted of petrol fumes. Pigeons fluttered half-heartedly away from his stride as he began to veer to the right, just below the Town Hall steps, close enough to see the expression of disdain on the marble lions’ faces.
Just before it happened, his mind was away and somewhere else, remembering the day the old Prince of Wales had come to open the Town Hall, back in ’29. It had been in the papers and on the newsreels, the future King looking like a schoolboy forced into detention. Which in a sense he was, George thought. Perhaps he’d lost that petulant frown now he was able to be with the woman he loved, despite her shameful past. George didn’t blame him one bit – love wasn’t a rational choice, was it? Apparently it had been a shockingly poor speech, though.
It was just at that moment, striding past the imperious right-hand lion, thinking muddled thoughts about love and royal scandal, that he caught sight of a woman in a wine-coloured coat walking down Poultry Lane. He hadn’t even noticed the other woman with her when he shouted her name.
‘Zelah!’ She looked round blindly, not seeing him at first, pausing in the middle of the pavement. It was only then that he saw the woman in beige beside her. ‘Zelah!’ He broke into a run. The woman in beige pointed at him. He saw Zelah’s right hand fly to her lips in surprise.
It was fate, bumping into her now, at this time, in this place, with all he’d planned for today. What else could it be?
He saw her pass a brown envelope to the other young woman – Violet Smith, wasn’t it? – as he approached. He wished Zelah was alone. Evidently she was of the same mind. He saw her say something to Miss Smith, who nodded and began to walk away.
‘Morning, Mr Handford,’ Miss Smith said, passing him on the pavement as he came to a halt in front of Zelah.
‘Morning,’ he replied, touching the damp felt of his hat in her direction. George saw Zelah watch her go. A frown passed over her brow, before her eyes met his.
‘I’m so pleased I bumped into you,’ he said, leaning forward. He meant to kiss her, but something in her expression made him stop short. Perhaps it was better not to, here, in such a public place. After all, they hadn’t made their relationship official. Not yet, at least. ‘Zelah, I’ve been thinking,’ he said. And she opened her mouth as if she were about to interrupt, but he couldn’t let her, because, after all, it was serendipitous, meeting her here.
‘Please let me finish,’ he said, getting down on one knee, the paving slabs hard and damp through his trouser leg. He took off his hat with his left hand, and with his right took her gloved hand in his. He looked up into her face – those intelligent eyes and lips he could never tire of kissing – and before she could interrupt he said: ‘Zelah Fitzlord, will you marry me?’
Odd, how she seemed to rock backwards on her heels. He grasped her hand, tethering her. She hesitated, just for a moment, biting her lip. Then, ‘Yes,’ she said. Relief engulfed him. He got up and they embraced, kissing again and again.
When they parted, laughing a little in embarrassed joy, he explained that he was just on his way out to get her a ring when he saw her. ‘It’s fate,’ he said. ‘Now you can choose it yourself.’ She seemed to falter, so he kissed her again, then grasped her hand and began to lead her up the hill, back in the direction she’d come from. ‘Come on, there’s a jeweller’s just up here.’
Zelah
‘That one.’ Zelah touched the glass with the tip of her gloved finger as she spoke. There, behind the smeared pane, in a blue velvet display box, lay the perfect
ring. It was quite plain: a gold circlet with an oval stone set in a twisted setting. The stone was apricot-scarlet with rainbow flecks – the colour the dawn sky above the Exe Estuary had been as she’d seen it through the train window on the day she left Plymouth forever.
George stood close; she could feel the warmth of him beside her. ‘The fire opal?’ he said. Zelah hadn’t known the name of the stone, just that it was beautiful. ‘You’re sure?’
‘I’m sure.’ She turned to kiss him and her chest squeezed so tight she felt she couldn’t breathe. ‘But we don’t have to get it now. I mean, there’s no rush – you could come back later.’ It was one thing standing outside the jeweller’s and choosing an engagement ring, but to go back inside, so soon after she’d been here with Violet – what if the woman said something? What then?
‘Darling, what are you saying?’ He kissed the spot just under her ear, where her hair fell to her neck. She shivered and leant in – his breath, his lips, the feel of him. But then she remembered that the red ribbon was missing from her throat; what if he noticed, asked questions? She twisted free. ‘Not getting cold feet, I hope?’ he said.
‘Cold feet? No, of course not, but—’
‘But what? Come on, let’s go inside and you can try it on.’ He tugged her hand, pulled her towards the shop doorway.
‘Marry in haste, repent at leisure,’ she said, holding back.
‘You’ve been listening to Matron too much.’ He looked at her in that way he had, his dark forelock escaping from beneath the brim of his trilby. How could she respond? She wanted him, all of him, now and forever, and she didn’t want to wait one more second. Because how often in life do second chances come around?
So she laughed, then, as if she were just joking, and let herself be led through the jangling door and inside the shop.
It was empty. Zelah gulped a breath. Perhaps the woman had gone on a break and someone else would serve them. It was the best she could hope for, now. George was saying something about how he hoped they took cheques, otherwise he’d have to go to the bank. Zelah stood beside him, gripping the edge of the counter, breathing. The musty air tasted like the girls’ dormitories during the school holidays.