Between the Regions of Kindness

by Alice Jolly

  I’m trying to find out why my son would do this – that’s what the mother had said. Oliver knows the answer. It’s because the boy lives at the extremes, at the edges, where there is only hope or despair. He can find no middle ground. It’s so hard to find the middle ground, there is so little of it and one is pulled to the edges all the time. All this has nothing to do with me, Oliver tells himself. Nevertheless, he supplied the boy with hope and that is crime enough.

  12

  BEFORE

  Rose – Coventry, June 1939

  The day is sunless but swathed in damp heat. The sky is a low fluff of grey. The Saturday crowds in Broad Street move slow as treacle – women push prams, fathers shepherd small children. A man plays a mournful Irish jig on a violin. Rose sits behind a table strewn with leaflets with Mrs Watson beside her, smoking a cigar. Mrs Watson has removed the pinstripe jacket she usually wears and pulled her braces down off her shoulders. Frank, Arthur and Mrs Bostock are handing out leaflets explaining the details of the Military Training Act. Mr Bostock addresses the crowd from a kitchen chair, sweating in his suit and wiping at his horn-rimmed glasses with his handkerchief, his voice slow and momentous.

  War has never solved anything and it will not solve anything now.

  Rose undoes her sandals and releases her swollen feet while Mrs Watson pours lemonade from a flask. Above her a yellow and green Peace Pledge flag hangs limp. A banner reads – War will cease when men refuse to fight. What are YOU going to do about it? Through the crowds she sees a tram passing and the façades of the building opposite – Owen Owen and the Provident Insurance. A boy pushes his sister and is cuffed by his father. The air is greasy and swells with the sound of bicycle bells and the jangle of an ice-cream van. Rose nudges Mrs Watson, indicates a man in a tweed jacket with thick glasses who has just arrived. He claims to be a PPU supporter but everyone knows he’s a detective. Detectives have been watching them now for several months, turning up at meetings and hanging around the office. Detect the detective is a game which has kept them all amused.

  The capitalist system is pushing the people of Germany and this country towards a conflict which neither wants.

  Mrs Watson puffs on her cigar. Even if there are Germans stamping down the street with their jackboots I’m not shiftin. I’m getting under me bed.

  I thought I might do better on the bed, Rose says.

  Mrs Watson throws back her head and guffaws, revealing blackened teeth, then dissolves into a bubbling cough. Rose looks around, checking that Mrs Bostock hasn’t noticed. The Bostocks are concerned that no one should bring the Peace Pledge Union into disrepute and Rose has been reprimanded before for inappropriate levity. Frank has turned to look at her so she gives him a bland smile. Ever since that day on the stairs at 34 Warwick Road, Frank has been looking at her. Even at the factory he comes to stand nearby asking questions about nothing. Does he need her approval for handing out leaflets? Rose knows it isn’t only about leaflets and enjoys her power.

  A nice piece of flesh, Mrs Watson says. I’ll say that for him, I certainly will.

  Sssh. Rose kicks at Mrs Watson’s leg. It’s quarter to two and her stint ends at two. Frank finishes then as well and they’re going to see Violet who is stuck at 34 Warwick Road because Mr Whiteley is too ill to be left. Rumour has it that he’s lost his mind, can’t tell his own daughter from a hatstand. Someone said they went round there and he was shouting obscenities – but probably that was the parrot. Rose watches Frank, sees how even his perfection is melting wax-like in this heat. His shirt is soaked with sweat, the top button undone, his waistcoat creased. The dull blond of his hair is dusty, his sullen lips cracked, the mauve shadows around his eyes darker than ever.

  Mind you, my thought is he’d be easily thrown off balance that one, Mrs Watson says. But you enjoy yourself while you can, love. The time is short enough.

  Oh do be quiet, Rose says, but she’s laughing.

  Frank is here every Saturday now and he helps deliver Peace News in the evenings as well, raises funds for the victims of German fascism. Rose is glad because the Peace Pledge Union needs all the support it can get – but was she responsible for this change in Frank? At first she had thought so but now she isn’t so sure. She feels mildly offended. She’d thought it was only that Frank was sweet on her, she didn’t think he was seriously interested in politics. She’d also assumed that Violet would be furious but she doesn’t seem much troubled. Perhaps if Frank’s busy with politics he doesn’t have time to get his hand up her skirt.

  A man with neatly trimmed hair and a ginger moustache is asking questions – Do the PPU care nothing for the plight of the Jews in Europe? Is it not the case that people like Mr Bostock – while doubtless well intentioned – are actually serving to weaken the British armed forces? Surely activities of this kind can only serve to strengthen Hitler’s position?

  Helmut and some of the other German refugees who work as volunteers for the PPU are restless, their strings pulled tight. Soon they’ll be accused of being German spies, again. Mr Bostock silences Helmut and his threadbare friends, and from the height of the kitchen chair makes his usual replies – The peace treaties of one war contain the seeds of the next war. If the British government were prepared to reconsider the question of their colonial possessions, and their economic policy, then peace could still be possible.

  Next time we want to position ourselves outside the Employment Exchange on a week day, Mrs Watson says. Catch ’em as they go in to register.

  Rose nudges Mrs Watson and indicates the two policemen standing near the door of the Council House. They’ve been there now for a while, watching Mr Bostock with their arms folded, their faces insolent. Of course, they could have Helmut and the other refugees thrown out of the country but they won’t. For a moment, it looks as though they might move forward but then they settle back into their former position. The detective in his tweed jacket looks towards them, nods his head. Rose finds all this ridiculous. Could they not at least be a bit more subtle?

  They’ll not dare, Mrs Watson says. Not with so many people around.

  There’ve been scuffles before. The police don’t dare object to the leaflets, or the speeches, although they can always clear people away on the grounds of public nuisance. So far it hasn’t happened much in Coventry but it’s happening in London and Manchester. Refugees have been sent back for making public statements against the Reich.

  A group of young men are crowded around Arthur. It’s not legal, is it? Men just won’t agree to do it. They’ve got no right. The government can’t force us.

  That’s what everyone thought but the Act went through a week ago and now any man between the ages of twenty and twenty-two has to go for six months’ military training. Rose wipes sweat from her face and dreams of iced water. A young man is boiling over, rolling up his shirt sleeves, yelling, caught somewhere between violence and grief. It’s like this everyday now. The air is tight with hysteria, people laugh, scream or cry for no reason. Spies are everywhere – in garden sheds, attics, posing as standard lamps with large fringed shades covering their heads. At the boarding house where Rose lives a jug jumped off its shelf one morning and smashed to the floor, quite of its own accord. Beryl at the factory tells of a child bitten by a fox in the middle of the street and hordes of rats chasing across the floor of the council chamber. And Win comes into work every morning with stories from her sister who works at the hospital – a baby born with six fingers, another with a tail.

  Rose doesn’t believe any of it. She watches Arthur calm the weeping young man. Why does he always seem so much older when the difference is only a few years? At least that means he won’t be called up, although no one would want him anyway because of his gammy leg. Frank won’t turn twenty-two until July so he’ll have to go. All week the Peace Pledge office has been full of young men asking questions about what will happen if they refuse but no one knows the answer. Most of them will sign up in the end. It’s only training and it won’t come to anyt
hing, they say. But Rose understands that this is how war starts. A few rocks shifting on the high slopes, the landslide long and slow.

  Bloody murdering bastards, Mrs Watson says. They’ll not be the ones that die. You mark my words. It’ll be the poor buggers like us that gets it.

  Frank pushes his way through the crowd towards Rose. Are you coming then?

  Rose gathers up her bag and says goodbye to Mrs Watson, waves to Arthur and Mrs Bostock through the crowd. Others are arriving now to take over but Mrs Watson says she’ll stay, as she’s nothing better to do. Rose gives her a peck on the cheek. She wonders if Violet is right about the head lice. Mrs Bostock is beckoning to Frank who pushes his way back towards her. Frank is a great favourite with the Bostocks. Of course, they favour him because he’s a grammar school man and so can be relied on not to indulge in inappropriate levity.

  Arthur pours himself some lemonade. The sweat on his face makes the pockmarks and the port-wine stain more obvious. He fixes Rose with those small, mocking eyes. You and Frank off to Violet’s then?

  Rose nods. Arthur hasn’t been invited. Now that Mr Whiteley is sick, Violet decides who is and isn’t invited to the house.

  Well – take care, won’t you.

  Care of what?

  Arthur raises his eyebrows. Rose feels fire rise to her cheeks.

  Oh really, Arthur. Surely you don’t listen to gossip.

  Don’t be silly, Rose. You know me better than that.

  What then?

  Just – you underestimate Frank. Like the pendulum of the clock. If it goes very far one way, then it must swing back the other.

  Arthur, nothing’s happened. Frank has got interested in politics.

  Beware the weak man who finds a cause.

  Frank has returned and, as Rose follows him through the crowds, she looks back at Arthur but he’s disappeared. Why would he say that when he and Frank are such close friends? Rose and Frank find their bicycles and sidle away down Meadow Street, slow with the heat. The crowds ease and the air seems to stir a little. Rose feels it move against the stickiness of her skin. She can’t think of anything to say to Frank, although usually they talk easily enough.

  I need to go home and change my shirt, Frank says.

  That’s all right. I’ll head to Violet’s and see you there.

  Yes. All right. Fine. Yes.

  Rose turns to go.

  Or you could walk with me – since the weather is so good.

  Rose stops, looks at him, calculates. Then she shrugs her shoulders and agrees. After all, it’s up to him. She’s not going to worry, not on a day like this. She chats to Frank about nothing but inside her head she’s calculating her happiness. She’s been in Coventry for a year now and she earns three pounds and ten shillings a week at the factory and often she had two extra shillings for working an evening or a Sunday. She also has two shillings for singing at the Folly Club. She has had her hair done in a permanent wave. She owns three wool skirts, two pairs of new shoes and several pairs of silk stockings, which Violet had bought for her.

  Not bad really when she’d never even intended to come to Coventry. Climbing into the back of that potato truck, she’d thought it was headed for Lincoln. When she heard she was in Coventry, she expected smoke and grime and machinery so it surprised her, that first evening, to walk through a green and leafy city. She loved the higgledy-piggledy streets around the cathedral and marvelled at the hundreds of small workshops operating from courtyards and alleyways. She leapt aside as crowds of bicycles rushed past, their bells ringing. And later she saw the crowds of new houses springing up all the time around the outskirts of the city.

  Frank asks her about her family. Rose knows that he’s only asking to be polite and because he doesn’t want to look like a snob. Rose tells him the usual story of bucolic rural life back home in Lincolnshire, happy children and happy families making the hay in summer and cuddling up by the fire in winter. Every time she tells this story she embellishes it but she’s always careful to remember each new detail. It’s important to tell consistent lies. Something brushes against Rose’s face. She raises a hot hand to wipe it away.

  No wait, Frank says and she looks down, sees that a butterfly is caught in the front of her dress. Its wings – russet decorated with white spots, edged with black – flap gently but it doesn’t move. She raises her hand towards it but although its wings rise and fall it doesn’t fly away.

  Frank props his bicycle against his hip, leans in towards her. His blue-white hands are clumsy, they fumble against her chest. The butterfly moves but settles again, lower down. Frank leans in close, she feels his breath on her forehead. His hand touches against her again and then the butterfly is gone. Rose straightens her dress, laughs awkwardly. Frank’s bike falls and he jerks his hand down to catch it. Rose looks for the butterfly, hopes to see it fluttering above but there is no sign of it. She can still feel the place where Frank’s hand touched her.

  They walk on, pushing their bikes. The silence is determined, taut. Soon they enter Fitzmaurice Street. The house of Aunt Muriel Fainwell is solid and tidy, red brick with a half-timbered gable. Standard rose bushes are clipped in the front garden and two bay windows shine brightly on either side of the dark green front door. A wisteria twists up from the porch, wrapping itself around ornate balconies on the first floor.

  There’s no one home, Frank says. My mother’s gone to visit my brother.

  I’ll wait here.

  Frank and Rose leave their bikes against the wall. Frank goes through the gate and it swings shut, but still they talk over it, babbling about anything. Frank swings the gate open and shut, open and shut, as though he might invite her in. Rose puts her own hand on the gate, near to his, and rocks the gate as he does, until gently she begins to push it further and further open. For a moment they stop and look at each other. And Rose remembers that she really mustn’t do this because Frank is going to get married to Violet. But together they hold the gate open and Rose follows him up the path.

  Much better to wait in the shade of the hall, Frank says.

  I’m hoping to go to the cinema with Violet tonight, Frank says. The house is still, the air heavy and smelling faintly of bleach. I’m very fond of Violet, of course.

  Yes, of course. I’m very fond of her as well. Of course.

  The hall floor is polished parquet. A watercolour of an English landscape hangs slightly crooked above a walnut desk. Frank’s mother’s gloves are lying on a chair. Aunt Muriel Fainwell who refers to Rose as the common little friend. Aunt Muriel who has apparently already bought her hat for Frank and Violet’s wedding. Frank says something about tea. The pale skin of his face is red and mottled, the shadows under his eyes darker than usual. He hovers at the bottom of the stairs, muttering about changing his shirt. Rose thinks of Violet. How can she love Violet so much and yet feel such a desire to damage her? Or maybe she is doing Violet a favour?

  Come on then, Rose says and stretches out her hand. Frank turns, and heads up the stairs, his feet whispering on the carpet, and Rose follows. Frank’s bedroom is full of old school photographs, cricket bats and the smell of clean sheets and linseed oil. The furniture is dark wood and polished so that Rose can see their reflections move on the chest of drawers. Three pairs of his shoes, neatly polished, are lined up beside a trouser press. He has a Thorens Excelda portable gramophone. Rose has only seen one once before and bends now to examine the tiny machine, no bigger than a large book and shaped like a Kodak camera with a gramophone arm sticking up out of it. The case has a green crackle finish and a little leather carrying handle. Frank shows her the shield he won at school for playing tennis, then pulls open the wardrobe door and takes out an ironed shirt.

  Can I put this on? Rose says, looking through records.

  Yes, of course.

  Rose slides a record from its cover, positions it carefully, drops the needle. A thump, a rustle, a squeak and then the voice comes clearly. Paradise here, paradise close, just around this corner. The pl
ace happiness is for me. The music turns the air in the room to silk. Frank is flustered, moves towards Rose, starts to stretch out his hand, then stops and turns aside.

  I might see if Violet wants to play tennis later, he says.

  Rose considers the bed – it’s narrow and will almost certainly be lumpy.

  This is a beautiful house, she says, do you mind if I look around? She heads back to the landing. The house is conspiratorial, can be trusted with secrets. It whispers behind cupboard doors, watches from clock faces and the glinting glass of pictures. Her feet are muffled by the yielding carpet; she pushes open a door. Aunt Muriel Fainwell’s bedroom is broad and spacious with a bay window looking out over the back garden, nodding trees, an ornamental pond, glimpses of other gardens beyond.

  Rose feels heat rise inside her and shivers. She’s aware of her body moving under her dress. The room is flowered wallpaper, a matching quilted bedspread, a dress hanging shapeless from the wardrobe door, photographs in silver frames on the tall chest of drawers. Some devil in her wants to desecrate this house. Frank comes into the room wearing a clean shirt, and stands awkwardly by his mother’s bed. Yes, he says, it is rather a nice house. We are lucky.

  So hot, Rose says, puts her foot up on a button-backed chair, undoes the buckle of her shoe. Frank is icy white, drips with sweat. She unclips the top of her stocking, peels it off, measures her feelings for Frank. Curiosity, that’s all, really. But it’s impossible not to want to touch Frank, to share some part of his perfection. Impossible not to want to know what it would take to break him.