‘All the family’s here.’ Mrs Moore looked vaguely behind her for support. ‘Here’s Wilf and Tess, and my husband – you remember Jo Abinger, don’t you dear?’ she asked him nervously, hoping he would not remember why he remembered Jo.
‘Rather,’ he said, the name conveying nothing to him, and shook hands as heartily as Jo’s languid finger tips allowed.
‘And Colonel and Mrs Parrott.’ They said how do you do, Mrs Parrott went on with her darning, and Colonel Parrott lowered himself the bare half inch he had risen, and said: ‘Humph.’
They were quite old and dowdy; nothing to fear from them. Nothing to fear from Tess either; she had not progressed as Jo had progressed. Her hair was still dumpily cropped and her clothes unsuccessful. She still had the eager, open face that made her look as if anyone could take her in.
Jo accepted a cigarette, and sat on the sofa, not nervously on the edge like last time, but well back with her legs crossed and her skirt riding up.
No need to be nervous. She was as good as anyone in the room. Imagine ever having looked up to the Moores! She might almost look down on them now. None of them had ever had clothes like this. She had been to places they had never seen.
‘We were just going to have some bridge,’ said Mrs Moore. ‘Do you play?’
‘No, I don’t really,’ said Jo. ‘I’ve always said’to myself I ought to learn. I don’t mind trying now if you like.’
Colonel Parrott said ‘Humph’ again. Captain Moore, who had been getting out the cards, put them away again hastily.
Mrs Moore changed the subject. ‘You must have some coffee, Jo, or perhaps you’d rather have a drink. Wilf will get you something.’
‘Whisky, brandy, sherry?’ Wilfred, who had grown into a quiet, tidy medical student, went to the cupboard. He always did the butling. He mixed a better cocktail than anyone, and on Sunday nights, cooked and served the supper, and washed up with science and speed. He would make a wonderful husband, girls told him, adding ‘for someone’, to make it clear they did not mean for them.
‘I don’t mind a whisky,’, Jo said, relieving Wilfred’s qualm that she might ask for a small white port.
‘Soda, water, or ginger ale?’
‘Straight please,’ swanked Jo.
‘Shocking habits for a girl of your age,’ said Wilfred, handing her the glass. ‘You ought to see what it does to your liver.’
Jo shuddered delicately. ‘I don’t care for it drowned,’ she said, quoting Felix McOsterburg. She sipped at the whisky, praying it would not choke her. Conversation languished. Mrs Parrott darned like an automaton. Captain Moore fidgeted, wanting his bridge. Colonel Parrott looked at his watch.
Mrs Moore started a few stillborn hares and then said helplessly: ‘Wilf, tell Billy to come in from the balcony.’
‘Oh, is he at home?’ exclaimed Jo, feigning surprise. ‘I have come on a lucky night then, haven’t I?’ She sat up still straighter and adjusted her skirt.
‘Oh, Mum, but Billy and – ’ Tess began.
‘Never mind. He must come in and see Jo.’ Billy would relieve the strain. He always knew what to say to everyone.
Captain Moore got the cards out again and began to set up the card table. Billy could talk to this whoever she was, while they had their rubber.
Billy stepped through the curtains, bending under the window. He came into the room grinning. ‘Well, well, well!’ he said, and if her appearance surprised him, he did not show it. ‘How’s the old playmate of my criminal youth?’
His father swung round. Was that who she was – the grocer’s daughter, who had nearly landed his family in jail? Well, there you are. He had always said she would go wrong, and now look at her. He had half a mind to order her out of the house. He would have in the old days, but as he grew older, he found himself shirking scenes.
Jo had expected Billy to be in uniform. But this was even better – a dinner jacket, and double-breasted too, as the craze was nowadays. His ungreased hair still rose in a crest on his round head. He was still as brown as he had been at Sea-combe. His teeth were as white and his eyes as clear; that pale blue which Mrs Moore had always compared unfavourably with Jo’s when they were children, saying that her cornflower eyes made his look faded.
He still had the same clear, carrying voice that had made Norman sit on his head when he raised it in the hut. He still had the same look of confidence that the world was no worse for his being in it.
He still had the same unintentional cruelty. When she said: ‘I’ve always wanted to explain why I wasn’t at Seacombe when you came back,’ he said, without waiting for her explanation: ‘It didn’t matter. I couldn’t have taken you anyway,’ and turned back to the window.
A fair pale girl was stepping through, a girl who was plainly but beautifully dressed, with hair that swung like a smooth yellow tassel. A girl whose eyes smiled when she looked at Billy, a girl with whom he had been out on the balcony in the dark.
Jo’s voice rose to steeper heights of gentility. She began to act, leading the conversation, bringing in Felix, whom she spoke of as ‘My Friend’, quoting his opinions.
Unconscious rebuke for forgetting that Norman was supposed to be her friend came from Tess. ‘What happened to those two boys, Arthur and Norman, we used to play with? I’ve often wondered. They were so poor. Perhaps we could have helped them in some way.’
‘Oh Tess!’ The family laughed at what was evidently a familiar joke. Tess could never see a newspaper story about an ill-treated child or dog, or pass a shuffling old man in the street without wanting to adopt the child, or buy the dog, or bring the old man in for a hot meal and a pair of shoes.
‘Awful tykes they were,’ Billy said. ‘Remember, Wilf? The eldest was always fighting me,’ he told the fair girl. ‘By God, I’d like to meet him again now. I’d knock the daylight out of his verminous head.’
‘Pair of blackguards,’ said his father. ‘Both safely in jail by now, you bet. Let’s get this bridge going. Margery, come on. Dora and Jack, rouse yourselves. Wilf, you don’t want to play.’ It was an order rather than a question.
Jo was struggling on the sofa with a desire to stick up for Norman. Their talk of him evaporated her own criticisms. All her feeling for him rose up in a wave of offended loyalty, but her small voice at its lower natural pitch was lost in the hurly-burly of Captain Moore organizing his card game.
In a moment, her first impulse past, she was glad she had not been able to champion Norman. If they spoke like that of him, how would they speak of her when she had gone? She wanted to think of them exclaiming to each other in admiration knew she would go far. She wanted that fair girl to be jealous and ask Billy who she was. She wanted him to call her Josie before she left.
It must be the whisky that was making her eyes prick and smart. She was not enjoying herself. She would go, and let them get on with their silly cards; let Billy get back to the balcony with his silly girl, who ought to darken her eyelashes and have a perm.
‘Whoever would have thought,’ mused Tess, when Jo had gone, ‘that she’d turn out like that? Remember, Mummy, last time she – ’ Mrs Moore kicked her gently with a sandalled foot and made a moue towards her husband.
‘I wonder why I always say the wrong thing,’ said Tess, with interest.
‘Want to go out again?’ Billy asked the fair girl. ‘Sorry about the interruption, but you know our family. We’ve got all kinds of odd friends.’
‘I thought she was rather sweet,’ the girl said. ‘You’re a bit of a beast you know, Bill. Can’t you see the poor little thing is desperately in love with you?’
The family roared with protesting laughter.
Jo did not feel like going to Denbigh Terrace. She felt strung up, unsettled, comfortless. She suddenly wanted to see her mother.
She was glad that her father was out with Kitty, but when they came in, very jolly, she railed at them for leaving Mrs Abinger alone.
‘Hoity-toity,’ Mr Abinger said. ‘You’re a fine one
to talk, for all you come near the place. Your half-day to-day and you don’t turn up till nearly ten.’
‘I couldn’t come,’ Jo said. ‘I’ve been to Lorrie’s wedding. It was ever so lovely Mum. At the synagogue they stood under a kind of gold tent thing, and drank out of a glass and smashed it.’
‘That was careless, dear, in church,’ said Mrs Abinger.
‘No, no.’ Jo was irritated at her misunderstanding. ‘On purpose. It’s part of the ceremony.’
‘And who,’ asked Mr Abinger, who had been working up this little speech, ‘who gave you permission to enter the malodorous portals of a Hebrew Temple?’
‘No one can’t tell me what to do,’ Jo smouldered at him. Kitty put her head on one side, and looked from one to the other of them delightedly, like a child at a side show.
‘You know I’ll have no truck with that kind of thing,’ he said, ‘nor shall any child of mine. Gold tents, smashed wineglasses – faugh!’ His gesture unbalanced him, and he sat on the edge of the bed.
‘Well, I like it,’ said Jo, ‘and if I was going to marry Norm, which I’m not even sure that I am’ – she ignored her mother’s cry of protest – ‘I’d like to have a wedding like that. I wish I was a Jew.’
‘Don’t ever say that in my house again,’ said her father, staring sadly at the floor.
‘I wish I was a Jew,’ repeated Jo promptly.
‘Tents, top hats,’ he grumbled. ‘Smashed wineglasses.’ He could not get over that. ‘Superstitious mumbo-jumbo. When you get to my age and wisdom, perhaps you’ll see through it and understand why I’m proud’ – he sat up straight and clapped a gingerly hand to his chest – ‘to be an Atheist. Tents, smashed wineglasses – why you might as well be a Papist and have dirty little Irish priests swinging charcoal burners at you all over the place.’
‘I wouldn’t mind,’ said Jo. ‘People seem to like being Roman Catholics. I went into Brompton Oratory once. It was nice. The ceiling’s a long way off; a person could think in a place like that.’
Mrs Abinger held her breath and looked fearfully at George.
‘If I catch you going there again.’ he began slowly, ‘I’ll – ’
‘Oh yeah?’ said Jo, scornfully. ‘What will you do? You never do anything, but talk, talk, talk. I never saw such a washout. I’m off.’ She slung on her fur, and bent over the bed to kiss her mother. ‘Good-bye, Mum. Sorry I spoke, but you never say boo to him, and he needs it now and then.’ They talked of him as if he were not there.
Mrs Abinger shook her head. ‘You shouldn’t speak to him like that.’
‘He doesn’t mind. ‘Bye, Dad. Don’t let it get you down.’ He did not look up. He sat on the edge of the bed, sagging the old springs, chewing over his grievances with a slight grinding of his teeth.
‘Little birds in their nests agree!’ chirruped Kitty. She put out a hand to stroke Jo’s fur, with a soppy look on her face, ‘nice pussy. Pretty pussy then.’
‘Oh get out,’ said Jo. ‘If you must stroke anyone, stroke Dad. I’m sure he’d love it.’
‘That girl,’ nattered Mr Abinger, when she had gone, ‘is getting too big for her boots. Who does she think she is, coming lording over us as if she came from another planet, instead of – well I’ve half a mind to tell her where she does come from.’
‘George, be careful what you’re saying.’ Mrs Abinger glanced fearfully at Kitty.
‘Oh it’s all right,’ Kitty said, ‘I know all about Jo. Don’t mind me.’
‘You know? Who told you then?’
‘Abbie did of course. Now don’t look cross, dear; silent as the grave, that’s me. You know you mustn’t excite yourself. You must lay quiet there, and Kitty will go and fetch you a cup of tea and a ginger biccy, eh?’
Mrs Abinger hated to be talked to as if she were a child. ‘George,’ she said, when Kitty had gone out to the kitchen, ‘I’m really vexed with you. You promised you’d never tell a soul.’
‘Nonsense,’ he said. ‘Kitty’s like one of the family; there’s no harm. The harm is, to my way of thinking, in you having made such a mystery of it in the first place. If Jo had known who she is, we’d never have had her setting herself up, and coming it over us the way she does.’
‘A promise is a promise,’ Mrs Abinger said heavily. ‘It’s the only thing I’ve really begged of you seriously. You might have studied my wishes in this.’
‘I’ve studied them long enough,’ he said, getting up. ‘The next time she comes here with her “Stroke Dad”, and “washout”, I’m going to tell her the truth, straight I am, Ellie.’
‘George, I beg – ’ Mrs Abinger put her cards on the table – ‘don’t you see that we may lose her if you do? She’s slipping from us as it is. If she learns there’s no real tie, she may – George, she may never come near us again!’
Her vulnerable, tragic face made him uneasy. ‘Mountains out of molehills, Ellie,’ he said. ‘And you’ll never keep it dark for ever. There’s old Loscoe knows, for one. She’d tell, as soon as look at you, if she thought it would advantage her. Talking of which,’ he changed the subject thankfully, for Mrs Abinger looked near tears, ‘I haven’t seen the old girl this many a day, not since she was in the shop treating poor little Kitty very funny about the liver sausage for her cat. I passed by her place to-day and there was milk bottles going sour all down the area steps.’
‘Oh dear,’ Mrs Abinger was worried. ‘I wish you’d go round there, George, and see if she’s all right. She might want a doctor fetching to her or something. I’d go myself, but he said another week in bed after that last go. Please dear,’ she begged, as he grumbled and grizzled. ‘She is my friend, after all; she’s been good to me in her time. Look how she helped me over getting jo.’
‘Worst day’s work she ever did in the whole of her useless life,’ he said, escaping before she could chide him.
Mrs Abinger kept on at him, until at last he went to the basement flat where Miss Loscoe had lived alone since her mother died. The smell on the area steps made him wrinkle his nose as he went cautiously down, feeling his way as if he expected a booby trap. There was neither bell nor knocker on the door. Only a torn scrap of paper, faded with damp.
‘Go AWAY,’ he read.
Obediently, he started back up the steps, but turned at a sound from within the house. Might be a cat shut up in there. Cats were the only animals Mr Abinger liked. Dusk was gathering outside, and it was already night in the basement-room. He peered through the window, but at first could see nothing but newspapers scattered everywhere, and a dark mass against the far wall, which he finally made out to be a jumble of piled-up furniture.
It looked as though the flat were abandoned, but the sound came again. This time, unmistakably, it was Miss Loscoe’s voice, but much more like the mewing of a cat than her usual grating tones. He squinted again through the window, and as his eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, he could see something moving among the furniture. Something white – a hand, waving like the drowned hand which held Excalibur, between the legs of an upturned chair.
‘Who’s there?’ she was calling.
‘Mr Abinger,’ he said, then shouted: ‘Can I come in?’
‘No,’ came the answer, and the hand disappeared.
He pushed at the window, but it was fast. His instinct was to turn and run, but he would never hear the last of it from Ellie. He tried the door, and rattled the handle to no purpose.
A head in curl papers looked out of an upstairs window, and called: ‘She’s gone away.’
He looked up. ‘That’s where you’re wrong,’ he began, but the window had been slammed down again.
He banged on the door. Shut up in there, the old girl might be dying, or gone mad. Probably both. Best get the police. But he did not like the police, and if he fetched them, he would find himself giving evidence in Court, and having some wrong-doing pinned on to him, the way they did.
He put his shoulder to the door. To his surprise, the rusted lock gave way, and he stumbled into
the dark, reeking passage. His foot touched something soft. It was Miss Loscoe’s cat, shut in and starving, which had crawled as near to freedom as it could, to die.
Ugh! He kicked it disgustedly to one side. He was not as fond of cats as all that. Groping his way along the wall, he found the door of Miss Loscoe’s room. It was not locked, but it was barricaded on the other side and would only open an inch.
‘Miss Loscoe!’ he called through the crack. ‘Miss Loscoe! Open the door. It’s Mr Abinger. Ellie sent me. You know Ellie,’ he wheedled, humouring her.
‘Go away,’ was all she would moan. ‘Go away.’ She did sound really queer. Encouraged by his success with the other door, he put his shoulder to this one. Something creaked, slid, toppled, and the door opened far enough for him to step in over a broken chair and a drawer stuffed full of old rags and corsets.
The air in here was fouler than the passage. As he groped his way across the room, the newspapers clung about his legs like autumn leaves. He kept calling to her nervously. He would not feel so scared if only she would speak and let him know where she was. He touched a table. Peering between the legs of the chair perched on top of it, he felt something warm on his face.
Warm air. It was breath, Miss Loscoe’s feeble breath, and her eyes were only a few inches from his.
With a yell, he sprang back, a sweat coming on his skin like Cheddar cheese in summer. ‘What’s the game?’ he croaked. ‘Are you ill or something? Here – ’ He began to feel his way backwards to the door, watching the pile of furniture. ‘I’m going. You can rot for all I care. I’m getting out of this.’
Now she spoke through the legs of the chair, a little old voice, half sigh, half whisper. ‘I’m in hiding,’ he thought she said. ‘I’m hiding from Them.’
‘From who?’ he said his grammar slipping with his morale.
Joy and Josephine Page 25