New Neighbours for Coronation Close, page 23
The latest dress Thelma had given to Jenny was of dark grey wool. The second-hand and dated item had been updated with the addition of white piping around the neckline and the cuffs of the long sleeves.
Jenny was so impressed with her reflection that she deftly remodelled her hair into a chignon, patted on face powder and liked her reflection even more. Even though it was broad daylight and she wasn’t going anywhere, she added mascara to her eyelashes and softened a red lipstick with a smear of Vaseline.
Humming softly to herself, she began dancing around the bedroom. In her mind, she was at a dance and her partner had just told her how beautiful she looked.
‘Thank you,’ she whispered and curtseyed.
The daydream ended abruptly with the sound of someone knocking at the front door.
Seeing as Thelma had left for work earlier that morning, she presumed it was Cath or even Maude.
‘Coming,’ she called. Flushed of face, she looked forward to seeing what Cath thought of her new outfit. Thelma also made things for Cath, most of which were rarely worn. Cath liked keeping everything for Sunday best, though she didn’t venture far on any day of the week.
The sight of Charlie Talbot standing at the door took her breath away.
‘Charlie.’
‘My word,’ he said after taking his trilby hat off and looking her up and down. ‘You look terrific. Are you off somewhere special?’
Lost for words, she shook her head. ‘No.’ She shook her head some more, desperately trying to regain her composure. ‘I was just…’ She gasped then laughed. ‘I wasn’t expecting anyone. I was just trying on this dress. One of my new neighbours gave it to me.’
He looked her up and down again before his eyes fixed on hers. ‘It looks incredible.’ He rolled the brim of his hat between his fingers. ‘You look incredible. I wouldn’t have recognised you as the same person, back there in the Pithay. Living here must be agreeing with you.’
She opened the door wider. ‘You’d better come in. I’ll put the kettle on. I’ve got tea or coffee,’ she said as she busied herself filling the kettle and setting out the crockery. She took down the tea caddy and a bottle of Camp coffee.
As she waited for the kettle to boil, he stood in the doorway between kitchen and living room, staring at her, almost as though he was seeing her for the very first time.
‘Shall I take your hat and coat?’
‘No. I can’t stay long. I came to tell you that Isaac and his wife have moved to a ground-floor flat in Lawfords Gate. It means he can get a bus to St Nicholas Market. He’s determined not to give up his job.’
‘I think getting up early and working there keeps him going. But I’m so pleased they’ve got a new flat. Does it have indoor facilities?’
Charlie grinned. ‘If you mean an inside toilet and bath, yes it does. They’re both over the moon. That’s why I’m here. Jacob did consider writing, but forgot to ask for your new address. And Ruth being as she is… I said I would arrange to pick you up and take you to visit them. Would that be possible? Not necessarily today, but at your convenience.’
‘Oh, Charlie. Of course I will. Right away if you like. I’ll get my coat.’
He grabbed her arm before she could dash to the hallway. ‘I think we’ve got time to drink our tea or coffee first.’
‘Coffee or tea?’
‘Coffee if you don’t mind. What are you having?’
‘Coffee,’ she said with a smile. ‘My friend Thelma converted me. It’s quicker too. No more waiting for the teapot to brew.’
They pulled out a pair of dining chairs in the living room.
‘Sorry I can’t offer you a biscuit. The girls ate the last. I need to go shopping.’
‘I’ve got the car outside. I can drop you off.’
‘You have a car?’ Her eyebrows arched with surprise. Only wealthy people had cars, though she reminded herself that Robin had bought himself an old van, but that was different. Vans carried goods. Cars only carried people.
He nodded. ‘Yes. My father bought it for me.’
Jenny swallowed as she tipped a teaspoon of coffee into each cup. Anyone having a father who could buy their son a car was very wealthy indeed.
‘That’s nice. Milk? Sugar?’
He declined both.
Their conversation was muted. During everything that was said, he held her gaze, flattering though a little disconcerting.
Finally she set down her cup. ‘I’ll get my coat.’
He followed her out to the hallway, where she retrieved coat, hat and bag.
‘I meant what I said. You look wonderful,’ he said as he opened the passenger door at the front of the car.
She felt herself blushing. Her gaze flicked over the houses of Coronation Close. One or two faces looked out from between the curtains. Cath and Maude were standing outside their houses at the far end of the cul-de-sac. They both waved as the car followed the road around the central green and headed off. She envisaged questions being asked later. For now, she wouldn’t even think about what might be asked but centred on Charlie Talbot.
‘You haven’t asked me about my husband.’
‘I presume he’s left.’
‘He’s got a new job. It takes him away from home.’
She sensed a quizzical look from him, but he said nothing. It occurred to her that he might know more about Roy than she did. Although they were at opposite ends of the political spectrum, she thought it likely that they kept tabs on each other.
Lawfords Gate had four floors of two-bedroom and three-bedroom flats. Built back in the twenties, it had a homely look, its warm red brick and large sash windows a compromise between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
‘I have a bathroom,’ Ruth exclaimed, a spark of interest lifting the dullness in her eyes ‘You must see it. Isaac. Show Jenny our bathroom.’
The old couple gave her a warm welcome and as directed by his wife, Isaac took her on a tour of their new home.
‘We got this thanks to Charlie. He knows how to put a strong case,’ said Isaac, a beaming smile splitting his face.
‘And once we were moved in, he offered to call on you at your new home and let you know where we were. And now he brings you here! How wonderful is that?’
Jenny agreed that it was indeed wonderful. She smiled knowingly at Charlie. He’d said they’d specifically asked him to let her know.
‘Now let me have your address and I can write to you. It gets boring here without anything to do. I like writing letters.’ Ruth still had a brightness to her eyes, though her face and form were thinner, her complexion sallow.
‘Of course I will.’
Charlie hooked a used envelope from out of the inner pocket of his jacket, plus a pencil. The paper was still warm. Because his heart is beating just beneath it. If only she could lay her hand over it, feel its beat, feel its heat.
Bent to the task of writing down the address, it was easy to hide the mixed emotions that played over her face. On the one hand, she was ecstatic at being with Charlie. On the other hand, she was devastated by Ruth’s appearance. How long, she wondered, how long?
When Ruth laid her head back and closed her eyes, Jenny suggested it was time they left.
‘I think we’ve tired her out.’
‘A good tired,’ said Isaac as he accompanied them to the front door. His kind face sagged with sadness.
Silently, Jenny walked with Charlie back to the car.
‘Do you still need me to drop you off at the shops?’ he asked her.
She thought about it. The neighbours had seen her get into his car. Cath and Maude were probably wondering who he was. At least if she came back without him and carrying a bag of shopping, the message would be clear. He was nothing to her. Just a friend. Another friend. But he wasn’t. She didn’t want him to be just a friend, but for now she needed to think things through.
‘I’d prefer it if you dropped me off at the bus stop in Bedminster if you don’t mind.’
‘Whatever you want.’
She saw the disappointment in his face, the tightly clenched jaw, the way his eyes faced firmly ahead. He’d prefer to take her all the way, but she’d made up her mind.
There was only a small queue at the bus stop. He parked the car and insisted on going with her. As it began to rain, they stood back from the queue, finding shelter in a doorway. Jenny glanced at the bus queue, fearing some familiar face might be looking her way. She saw no one she recognised.
The doorway was a fitting place to shelter from the rain. Nobody would notice them here. Nobody could overhear their conversation or notice how closely they were standing.
Up until now, their meeting up had been light-hearted, yet she perceived something deeper was going on beneath the surface.
Time was ticking on. She could see the hands on the clock outside the hippodrome, like black arrows ever flying with time.
‘Where do we go from here?’ he said suddenly.
‘With regard to Isaac and Ruth?’
‘No. With regard to us. We were attracted to each other from the very first. I saw the way you looked at me and you must have noticed the way I looked at you.’
Responsibility took hold. She was not a happily married woman, but all the same, she was married. For better or worse. She took a deep breath.
She shook her head vehemently. ‘I’m sorry, Charlie. I can’t. I admit I was attracted to you from the first, but I’ve a family. I also have a husband. Do you have a wife?’
‘No. I do not.’
She sighed and tried to ignore him and concentrate on the crowds, the traffic, the women pushing prams and loaded with shopping. All married. Just like her. But happily? She couldn’t tell. Nobody could tell from the outside what a marriage was like.
He took out a packet of cigarettes, lit up and began to blow clouds of smoke out of his mouth and nostrils.
She said nothing whilst he did so, then he said, ‘Will you allow me to make the running, not just a suggestion, but explain how I’m feeling?’
She wasn’t quite sure what he meant but made out that she did. ‘Yes. I suppose so.’
He took hold of her hand – just as Robin had, though on this occasion she responded differently. Was it her imagination, or could she hear her pulse in her ears?
‘Right.’ He pulled her close to him and held her hand between both of his. ‘I’ve never believed in love at first sight or didn’t think I did.’
‘Do you believe now,’ she asked him.
‘Yes. I believe I do. I saw not just the person you are on the outside but also how you are inside. Your character. I saw how kind you were with the old couple. That’s when I told myself that I could love someone like that for the rest of my life.’
She could hardly believe what she was hearing. If only she could hear this for the rest of the day, the rest of the week, the rest of her life. The spectre of Roy was still too strong, yet she’d believed herself in love, dared to do so in fact.
She closed her eyes and wished the moment could last forever. But it wouldn’t. It couldn’t. This was no fairy tale. Reality broke in.
‘I’m a married woman, Charlie, and you’re a few years younger than me. I have children. I have responsibilities.’
He nodded and, to her surprise, rested his chin on her head. It was comforting. Sweet. Her mind was in turmoil. ‘I keep telling myself that you belong to someone else and I have no right to want you. Then I reckoned it was not about belonging. Love knows no boundaries and can happen in a split second, so why do we torture ourselves with such lies? I cannot ignore how I feel. I don’t want to own you. I want to love you.’
Strands of hair were flung from her neat chignon as she shook her head vehemently. ‘This is crazy. We can’t. We barely know each other.’
‘And yet… We want each other. We want to love each other.’
He said it so easily and with outright conviction. Loving someone wasn’t about names on a wedding certificate. It was meant to be written in the hearts of the people concerned.
‘That’s it,’ he said at last. ‘That’s all there is.’
No barrier prevented her from kissing him, from letting him kiss her. Hidden by the doorway, it was hard to let go, but let go they did.
‘Next week,’ he said. ‘Same time, same place. Can you make it?’
The right words came out, the only words she could find to say. ‘It’s too soon. Can you give me time to think about it?’
‘Two weeks’ time then.’
This time she didn’t hesitate. ‘Yes. I can make it.’
Once on the bus heading home, she changed her mind. She was going home to her world. He was going to his. They were worlds apart with little chance of the gap ever being narrowed.
30
DECEMBER 1936
Frost coated the grass and silvered the bare bones of the privet hedges that enclosed each garden of the red-brick houses of Coronation Close. It sparkled in the light from the streetlamps where the muffled-up kids were keeping warm playing chase in the pool of light amongst the darkness.
In the back gardens, everything was total blackness except for an oblong patch of amber thrown from kitchen windows and the glazed half of the back door.
It being a Monday, Jenny had put out a line of washing that morning. Six in the evening and everything was stiff and frozen solid. Shirts, dresses, blouses and skirts looked like a row of people waiting in a queue.
Cath Lockhart had come to borrow a cup of sugar and was now helping her get in her washing.
‘Blimey’ said Cath, holding out a one of Jenny’s nightdresses up for inspection. ‘Looks like it’s gonna come walking in by itself.’
Being careful not to slip on the icy path, the two of them eased their way along the washing line, unpegging each item of clothing in turn. The blue dress that Thelma had made for her was stiff as a board and refused to fold. So was everything else. Hugging the larger items in an unwieldy embrace, they gradually made their way into the house, where each item would end up leaning stiffly against the gas stove. There was a bread pudding in the oven and a saucepan of stew simmered on one of the gas rings. The smell of food cooking mixed with that of damp laundry. The smell of laundry would overtake that of cooking once the clothes defrosted.
Cath made her excuses to leave. ‘Got to get me own stuff in now. I bet my Bill won’t be putting on ’is long johns any time soon. Enough to freeze ’is bits off, I shouldn’t wonder.’
Jenny thanked her and proceeded to get things arranged around the gas stove. The larger clothes made her giggle. Stiffly rigid, they looked almost lifelike, a gathering of chilly mortals trying to warm themselves up after coming in from the cold.
She tapped the shoulder of one of Roy’s shirts that he hadn’t taken with him. It felt solid even without an arm to fill it. Like a piece of cardboard.
Giggling to herself, she tapped the shoulder again. ‘Can I have this dance?’
There was no reply of course.
‘No need to be shy.’
She took hold of the stiff shirt, holding onto its sleeves, and did a little waltz, just a few steps around the kitchen before putting it back in place.
Underwear and other smaller items were still out on the line. There was no prospect of them drying out there. Everything needed to come indoors. In the morning, she could see what had dried and what might benefit from a turn through the mangle before being hung out again.
Out into the dark garden and up the icy path yet again to fetch the rest.
Halfway up the path, a voice cut through the cold night air. ‘Is your drawers as stiff as mine?’
The speaker was Betty Brown from next door, who was close on forty years old and worked at the tobacco factory. She was also out collecting stiff laundry from a washing line that stretched the full length of the garden. A cigarette bounced at the corner of her mouth as she did so. Betty always had a cigarette in her mouth.
She was fond of saying that she couldn’t live without her fags and a good cough in the morning. Besides Thelma, she was the only other married or widowed woman in Coronation Close who went out to work.
A patch of light fell out from her kitchen, giving a bit of extra illumination for her to see her way – identical to the one that fell from Jenny’s kitchen.
‘I’m not sure I’ll get everything dry indoors by morning.’
‘Yeah. Look at these long johns.’ Betty held up a pair of her husband’s full-length underwear. They were the old-fashioned kind that covered a man from neck to ankles.
‘They must keep him very warm,’ Jenny remarked with a laugh.
The glow from Betty’s cigarette jiggled around like a firefly. Smoking and talking were often carried out in tandem. ‘They’ll need some warming before ’e puts them on, or he’ll freeze ’is bits off. Don’t want that, do we!’
They both laughed in the comfortable but mocking way that women do when they spoke of their spouses.
Bit by bit, every dolly peg was prised from each item of laundry, most making their way into a peg bag, some hanging from their mouths like giant incisors.
Jenny spit the line of dolly pegs from her mouth into the peg bag.
A single expletive came over the hedge from Betty.
‘You all right, Betty?’
‘Caught my tongue in between one of these pegs. I bought them from that gypsy woman who came ’round the door. She wanted a shilling for a dozen. I told ’er no, it’s sixpence or nothing. She weren’t pleased but took the sixpence anyway. She told me I ’ad a glib tongue. I reckon she put a curse on a peg to catch me tongue.’
‘She was a gypsy, Betty, not a witch.’
‘The same thing. All gypsies are witches.’
Jenny doubted it.
Someone came out of the door of number one, then went in again.
‘Funny pair, them two. Causin’ you any trouble, are they?’ Betty asked.
‘Not really. I speak and if they don’t want to reply, that’s all right by me.’
