by Barbara Tate
‘Me?’ I thought for a bit. ‘Well, I suppose I might go straight too.’
‘Cor, strewth! You must be mad !’
She was so outraged by my suggestion that she pulled herself together and, as if to absolutely refute it, made enough for the rent in two hours flat. The vision she’d glimpsed of herself as a happy housewife had shaken her. After that, things returned almost to normal.
My twenty-third birthday came, and Rita and Tom gave me a slap-up supper. They also gave me a lovely coffee-set, whose cups, when held to the light, revealed a Japanese lady’s face hidden in the porcelain at the bottom.
‘Don’t worry, they’re new: they’re not nicked,’ Rita assured me.
Not long after that, after much conjecture, consulting of calendars and, finally, the onset of actual symptoms, Rita came to the conclusion that she was pregnant.
‘I’d have an abortion if it wasn’t Tom’s baby, but I suppose it’s time my kid had a brother or sister. I’ll go on working for another couple of months and then stop until after the nipper’s born. What are you going to do? Myrtle round the corner would have you like a shot – but I’d want you back after, mind.’
‘I don’t really know what I want to do yet,’ I told her. ‘There’s plenty of time to think about I. Anyway, I might take a holiday too.’
Life, in its perplexing and unpredictable way, was sweeping me inexorably forwards, towards new horizons and new choices. If Rita left the game for a few months, would I really start work again for a girl I cared little for? Or take a holiday? In which case, how to use it?
I didn’t think much about the situation, just took things day by day. Sooner or later the decisions would come, and I was content not to hurry them.
Thirty-Four
The following Monday, after only a couple of minutes in the street, Rita came hurrying back looking agitated. She’d seen a policeman laid out by a drunk with a beam of wood and didn’t want it known that she had witnessed it, ‘or there’ll be all the argy-bargy of making statements and attending court’.
It was the following day – as though the spirit of violence was hovering in the air – that we heard that Mae had been stabbed. At first, rumour had it that she was dead; then that she had nearly died but was hanging on by the skin of her teeth. We were shocked and shaken and couldn’t work for thinking about it.
‘Cor. Makes you bleeding think, don’t it?’ said Rita. ‘You going to see her?’
‘Well, you know how things are between us,’ I answered. ‘She may not want to see me. I’ll wait a bit, I think.’
A few mornings later, Mae’s maid phoned to say she’d been asking about me and wanted to know whether I would go to visit her. She was at the Middlesex Hospital.
I went immediately and found her propped into a half-sitting position with masses of pillows. She looked very white and immobile. I laid my bunch of flowers on her lap and, to break the ice of our estrangement, said, ‘I’m glad it didn’t have to be a wreath: they’re so bloody expensive.’
She was obviously pleased to see me. Putting out a hand to take mine, she said in a feeble voice, ‘I didn’t think you’d come. I was rotten to you. Give me a kiss and say you forgive me. Nothing’s been right since you went – and I have found out all about that bitch Lulu.’
I kissed her on her forehead – carefully, for she seemed so fragile – and told her that I’d long since forgiven her. She squeezed my hand in answer; there were bright tears in her eyes. Wanting to give her time to collect herself, I went off to find a chair.
‘Now, tell me what happened,’ I said, when I was finally seated. I pointed to her torso, which was bandaged almost from her neck to her waist. ‘Did you prick yourself sewing?’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, don’t make me laugh,’ she said, with something like her old giggle. Then she proceeded to tell me about the ‘closest shave’ she’d ever had.
She, her maid and a couple of the maid’s friends were playing cards. Mae went out for cigarettes, leaving her maid to play her hand. On her way out, she noticed a man wandering about in the street. He was still there when she came back.
‘You know me: never want to go up the stairs empty-handed. Funny-looking geezer he was: hat turned down, coat collar turned up and his hands stuck in his pockets. Right miserable-looking, too. I said to him, “Come on, love, let’s cheer you up.” ’
They had gone straight into the bedroom. Engrossed in her card game, the maid hadn’t even realised Mae had brought someone up.
‘I took his money and shoved it in a pot until afterwards. I started to take my skirt off, but I saw he was just standing there with his hat and coat still on. I said to him – joking like – “Come on, love, aren’t you even going to take your hat off?” And I went up to him to help him undress. Just as I was unbuttoning his coat, he brought a knife out of his pocket and just stuck it in me. I was too surprised to scream; all I can remember is thinking, This is it, Mae. The knife had gone through my lung and nicked my heart and it really was a bit dicey, they tell me.’
She said this with a faint hint of relish, and then added, with a little twisted grin, ‘But they can’t get rid of me that easy, can they, love?’
I was appalled by the narrowness of her escape, but with a professional’s assessment, I was also critical of the maid. I could not believe she had been unaware of the man’s presence, and she should have made herself known to show him Mae was not alone.
Mae broke into my horrified abstraction: ‘Anyway, ’nuff of that. How are you getting on with Rita?’
‘Oh, fine.’ I told her. ‘A real rest cure, after you.’
‘Why don’t you come back to me when I get out of here?’ she said suddenly. ‘If I could get rid of that sod Rabbits, I’m damn sure I could get rid of this one.’
‘I couldn’t leave Rita just like that,’ I protested. ‘She’s a good sort and I wouldn’t want to let her down.’
I didn’t tell her that Rita was going to have a baby and was going to dispense with my services soon.
Mae was looking at me from under her eyelashes, flirting with me.
‘You’d come back if I asked you nicely, you know you would. You know you love me.’
Once more – and against my better judgement – I felt myself drawn towards this infuriating creature. There was something magical about her, something fascinating, like quicksilver, and addictive.
‘You’ll be the death of me!’ I laughed. ‘I’d better go.’
The place was beginning to sprout impatient-looking nurses wielding bedpans. Before leaving, I asked Mae if there was anything she needed or anything I could do.
‘Well, there is one thing that’s worrying me a bit,’ she said. ‘I’ve got two little kittens at the flat now. They’re ever so sweet – I call them Tiger and Blackie – but the maid doesn’t know much about animals. Would you have a look at them to see if they’re all right? Tony’s found a temporary girl for the flat, so it is open.’
Good old Tony – always up to scratch, I thought. I told her I would have a look at the kittens after finishing work that night.
‘Give my love to Rita,’ she said as I bent down to kiss her goodbye.
‘I will,’ I told her. ‘Oh and by the way, she goes without rubbers, too.’
She grabbed at her side, trying not to laugh. Then her face took on a rueful look.
‘I am sorry, love,’ she said.
I was determined to be brisk and bright. ‘Ta-rah,’ I said.
‘Ta-rah. Be suing you. Come and see me again, won’t you?’
‘I will,’ I replied. ‘You can’t get rid of me that easily, either.’
I waved back from the doorway and she returned the wave with a weak flap of her hand on the counterpane. She was grinning widely.
As I had promised, I went straight to Mae’s flat to check on the kittens. The elderly maid immediately began talking about the near tragedy.
‘Oh, it was terrible,’ she said. ‘I didn’t even know she had a man in ther
e with her until I heard him rushing off down the stairs. Then I shot out of the kitchen to see what was happening and heard her moaning. I tore in and there she was on the floor, with blood all over her. I can’t think how she let it happen – with all her experience.’
I agreed, but said that I supposed really it could happen to anyone, at any time. She clutched eagerly at that; she had obviously been wondering how much she was to blame. She offered me a cup of tea, and I accepted.
‘How are the kittens?’ I asked.
‘Oh, they’re moping,’ she answered. ‘I think they miss Mae. They won’t eat, and I got them some lovely steak today.’ She pointed towards a dinner plate on the floor piled with enormous lumps of raw meat.
‘Can I have a look at them?’
‘Sure, they’re in a box in that cupboard.’
She busied herself with cups and saucers while I knelt to inspect the kittens. They were no more than six or seven weeks old, one tabby, one black, and they were huddled together in a tight little ball. I reached my hand in and found that their ears were icy cold and their noses hot and dry. I peered closer and roused them so that I could see their eyes. The third eyelids were almost halfway across. It was obvious that they were very sick.
I wrapped them up in woollen sweaters and took them to a branch of the PDSA. It was really for people who couldn’t afford vets’ fees, but I didn’t know anywhere else that would be open at that time of night. The vet was staggeringly drunk and had to steady himself against the table whilst he examined the kittens.
‘Enteritis,’ he said, and tottered off to get a hypodermic syringe.
He injected Blackie without too much trouble, but when he tackled Tiger, he hadn’t screwed the needle in properly and it was left sticking in the kitten’s leg, while the fluid flooded out over his fur.
‘Oops,’ he said as he made a more successful attempt on the squealing kitten.
As I left, I put two pound notes in the little wooden collecting box and observed, as tactfully as I knew how, that perhaps he shouldn’t drink quite so much when he was on duty.
He flew into a towering rage and, making a wild gesture towards the collecting box, said, ‘I could report you to the authorities. If you can afford that much money, you should have gone to a proper vet.’ With that, he slammed the door on me.
I got the kittens home, where Tiger immediately went into a fit. Not knowing what else to do, I treated it as hysteria and gave him a sharp little slap. Surprisingly, it did the trick. After giving them both some warm milk, I took them to bed with me. Blackie curled up against my neck inside my hair and, finding the lobe of my ear, began sucking it. Amused, I carefully hoisted little Tiger up and proffered the other ear lobe – with the same results. Drowsing off, my final thought before falling asleep was, ‘Yet another pair of earrings from Mae.’
As time passed, Mae’s health improved. The kittens were getting better too – rushing around and enjoying themselves by wrecking my bed-sitter. If I kept then any longer, it would be a hard wrench to part with them, so I took them back to Mae’s maid. I gave her enough suitable food to last them for a few days and instructions on how to look after them. Then I went to the hospital to see Mae.
She was almost her old self by now, wearing make-up and one of her own pretty nightdresses in place of the hospital gown she’d had on on my first visit. From what I could hear, she was the life and soul of her ward.
‘Have you got everything you need?’ I asked her.
‘Well, I could do with a bit of money,’ she said. ‘Trying to get any out of Tony is like getting blood out of a stone. I just need enough for a newspaper when the boy comes round or something off the trolley.’
I felt in my handbag and, taking out a five-pound note, gave it to her. She seemed very grateful and slipped it under the bedclothes, but then became jokingly accusatory.
‘A little bird told me that Rita’s going to have a baby,’ she said. ‘So now there’s nothing to stop you coming back to me, is there?’
I stared at her and burst out laughing. ‘You’re a terrible woman,’ I said. ‘What makes you think I could put up with all your shenanigans again?’
‘Oh, I’ll be ever so, ever so good,’ she said in a baby voice.
I found myself really weakening. Then I glanced up the ward and saw Tony swaggering towards us. I just could not stay and be affable.
‘I’ll leave you alone for a bit, so that you can talk,’ I told Mae.
Giving Tony a nod as I passed him, I went outside into the corridor. He was with her for a mere five minutes, and then he left. As he reached me, he paused, smiling, and lifted his hand to flaunt my fiver. Then he tucked it ostentatiously into his breast pocket. His expression was one of malicious pleasure as he stood facing me for a moment before sauntering off.
I was appalled by the way Mae had used me. Whatever powers of persuasion she’d had, I resolved they would have no effect on me any more. I was done with her. I looked through the little glass panel in the door leading to the ward. She was leaning back, her face silhouetted against the white pillows. I gazed for a minute or so at that Nefertiti profile, committing it to memory. Thinking it likely that I would never see it again, I turned and left the hospital.
I felt bereaved, but also cleansed – ready to move on. In a strange way, I was pleased.
Thirty-Five
In the week before Rita’s ‘maternity leave’, Myrtle from round the corner and Betty, her maid, arrived carrying an old brown carrier bag. With some reverence they placed it between them, then both started speaking at once. They had just had an elderly client who’d been recently widowed. Carrying the bag, he had walked backwards and forwards past Myrtle, as though sizing her up.
‘When I got him up to the flat, he dumped the carrier bag in front of me and said, “That’s for you”,’ Myrtle said.
She bent down and opened the bag dramatically. It was full of banknotes.
‘How much?’ Rita whispered.
‘Five thousand quid,’ said Myrtle and Betty in awed unison.
Myrtle continued, ‘When I’d got over the first shock, I said to him, “What’s this?” and he said, “I’ll tell you what it is: it’s twenty-eight years of bloody scrimping and saving, twenty-eight bloody horrible years.” Then he asked me to go out for a drink with him, so I locked Betty in the flat with the money and went with him.’
The man had told her that from the beginning, his wife had demanded his wage packet intact and had given him just enough to get him to and from work every day. She’d said that she needed the rest for housekeeping. According to her, he hadn’t earned enough for smoking, drinking, holidays or evenings out. He had accepted the frugal meals and the spartan lifestyle, and even believed her when she told him her doctor had forbidden her to have sex. He had lived, as he termed it, ‘like a bloody monk’.
Then his wife died, and hidden amongst her belongings, he found nearly fifteen thousand pounds.
He told Myrtle: ‘I just sat around feeling sick. I didn’t know what to do with the money. Then I decided I’d do the most stupid thing I could: something that would make her go mad. I do hope there’s an afterlife and that she knows just what I’ve done.’
After Myrtle and Betty had gone on their way rejoicing, Rita was morose.
‘Makes you sick, don’t it? I knew I should have had that abortion. Makes you realise how much money there is sculling around, and we won’t be here when it’s ready to drop into our laps. I could bleeding spit.’
I couldn’t help laughing. ‘Well, it’ll still be around when we’re dead, too – and we won’t be able to do much about that either,’ I said.
‘That don’t make me feel no bleeding better,’ she replied truculently. She glowered at me. ‘I don’t know why you can’t take your turn on that bleeding rotten bed in there, and let me be bleeding maid.’
I treated what she said flippantly. ‘I’m not as mean as you,’ I said. ‘I’d get myself a new bed.’
She wasn’t smilin
g.
‘If I thought you meant that, I’d put a deposit on one tomorrow. If you played your cards right, you could have your arse hung in diamonds.’
She put some more lipstick on, preparing to go out. As a parting shot, she said, ‘Now think about it, mate. I’m serious.’
So I was left thinking about it. She was gone for about twenty minutes; that twenty minutes was my Moment of Truth: the little patch of time that shaped my future more than any other.
I had no doubt that Rita was serious. From her point of view, it would be a very convenient arrangement for the duration of her pregnancy. She had accused me of doggedly hanging on to my virginity, but it was not quite like that. I was not primly retaining it for any specific reason; it was merely that I had never got round to losing it.
As for my mental virtue, that had gone long ago. I saw nothing at all wrong with prostitution on moral grounds. For me, it had become a bona fide business, albeit one that continually irritated me with its poor standard of service. I had seen so many girls working in so many different ways that I had it in my power to become the perfect whore. It was a shock to realise it, but it seemed a pity to waste my expertise.
I could save enough money for a really good hustling flat of my own. I would decorate and furnish it to a standard none of the other girls thought they needed. It wouldn’t be necessary to go out looking for clients; with the right maid, they would come to me. I would be a wealthy woman before I reached thirty.
During that twenty minutes, I came within the breadth of an eyelash of deciding to take up Rita’s offer. I mentally planned my campaign and made my fortune, and then, in a moment, I lost it.
It would be nice to report that it was an innate sense of virtue that won through – or even that I didn’t wish to go back on the promise I’d made to the nice policewoman two years earlier. But in fact what made the difference was a strange feeling that life wasn’t meant to be that easy. Along with the feeling came memories of things that held far greater potency for me than either righteousness or wealth would ever do: the pungent smell of turpentine and linseed oil, the almost erotic pleasure of dipping a good brush into rich paint, the gently responsive sensuality of a canvas and the magical joy of alchemy – of transmuting the basic and crude colours on the palette into a picture.