Family of Women (47 page)

‘I’m getting out of order now. There was a lot more road to walk before I got to this bit. Reeny and I kept each other going. She had her little house, kids upstairs, and I used the front room, nights, took trea p
andsquhe punters back there. The daytimes were another world – all kids and Reeny and me playing happy families and Kev at school. Clean, and nice.

‘And then I met Humphrey . . . I’m running out of fags. This is my last one – I’ll have to nip out and get some more . . . Anyway, this bit I’m ashamed of. It’s different when it comes to friendship, see. I let Reeny down. Let her down bad. She forgave me, but that doesn’t make it any better. Humphrey was this posh geezer. Not like the others. I never took old Hump back to Reeny’s. Hump had money –
real
money. He had a wife and couple of kids. He was some top-notch city type – worked high up in a bank. Reserved occupation and all that and plenty of lolly to splash about. Only he had a taste for . . . well, let’s call it lower life than what he was used to. Wanted his nose in the gutter – it gave him a thrill. I met him when I was working the corner and he came and started the chat-up bit. Ugly sod he was really – one of them with a round face, looks about twelve years old still, all chin and no cheekbones.

‘“I can take you somewhere nicer than this,” he said, all posh. “How much for the evening?” Well, I thought I’d up the score so I said “Ten quid” – well, what I really said was, “That’ll be ten pounds to you, sir,” trying to speak posh for him.

‘He took me back to his place – over in Kensington. Lovely little flat, top of one of them big houses on a square, all trees in the middle. It became a fixture – every Tuesday night, all night. God knows where wifey thought he was, I never asked, poor cow. Or perhaps she didn’t care. Thing was, Hump was fond of me. Sort of fell for me, in his way. Dunno if that sort can fall in love, exactly. Public school, sent away when he was four and all that. Always looked as if his shirt-button was done up too tight at the top – even when he was starkers!

‘I met him – when was it now – sometime in 1941. I know it was pretty cold the night he came up to me and he had a nice little electric fire in the flat. I’d never seen such a nice one. And he asked me to move in there. “I want to think of you here, even when I’m not here. You won’t be given any trouble – I’ve an arrangement with the landlady.”

‘“I can’t,” I said to him. “I’ve got a boy, not a year old.”

‘“Well,” he says, “I don’t mind that – so long as he’s not there when I’m there. Thing about me is, Rosy, I don’t like competition. I like to have my woman all to myself.”

‘And to my shame I went. I mean you should have seen the place! Me living in Kensington, all posh! Me and Clarkie, except for the times Hump was there – and that wasn’t all that many – and Reeny had him then. I thought I’d arrived. I’d left Reeny, pretty much – after all she’d done for me. Told her it was an investment for the future. Course I kept meaning to go back and see her more often, but it was a treat, living it up in Kensington. I felt like a lady and didn’t want to think about what else I was. Not until I got lonely, anyway. Humphrey was hardly ever there and when he was, he wasn’t much company, not really.

‘We kept it up all through the summer. He kept saying, “I&rsquem" p
the, ao;ll come and take you out for a day. We’ll take a boat on the river.” I liked the idea of that – even with him. I mean he wasn’t that bad – quite easy to please really. Course he never did, though – take me out in a boat, I mean.

‘Anyway, you’ve guessed – he was Vivianne’s father. He got me up the duff. I told him, soon as I knew, and waited for him to run. I s’pose I just wanted to get it over with. That was men. I never expected anything of them – not by then. The soft bit of me that expected had all dried up with Michael. Everything hurts more when you’re young. Course, he did run, but my God, Linda, he was all right, really, Hump was. He cried, you know, when I told him, went on about how he couldn’t understand his children – they had two already – and he was a hopeless father and husband, unfaithful and no good to anyone and now he wasn’t going to stay with me either. I mean I ended up feeling quite sorry for him, poor bloke. He seemed as if he was locked in a box and couldn’t get out and I thought well, at least I’m not as bad as that.

‘I went back to Reeny and asked her to forgive me. She was all right, she understood, she said. She’d’ve done the same. She wouldn’t, though. She’s more loyalty than that.

‘Thing was, though . . . Old Hump waved me goodbye as if he’d never have another thing to do with me. Oh well, posh bastard, I thought. That’s how it goes, and you’ve had your fun, Rosy. Then one night I’m back at my post on the corner and back he comes, hat pulled down over his face.

‘“I want you to know,”’ he says, and he sounded quite tearful. Made me feel really sorry for him. ‘That you’ve been a real light in my life, Rosy. You’re all the things I’m not – courageous, strong, amusing. And I don’t want you to remember me as a . . . as a complete cad . . .” was what he said, I think! “So I want you
to have this.”

‘He gave me this envelope and kissed me on the cheek and off he went.

‘Well, business wasn’t looking good that night anyway and I went back to Reeny’s and opened the envelope. And what d’you think was inside? There was a note, saying,
You’ll need to set yourself up. This is for you and the child. With love from H
. He’d written me a cheque for
five grand
! Yes – well, I gasped even louder than that at the time! Reeny and me toasted him with champagne all that week, I can tell you.

‘But I’ve got a good head for money, when I’ve got hold of any. I wasn’t going to fritter it away. This was my main chance and I took it.

‘First thing I did was buy us a house, number twenty, the one you’ve just seen. The flat didn’t come till later. But Reeny and me and the kids had a bigger home and I ran my little business from downstairs. Vivianne was born in 1942 and that put me out of action for a bit, but Reeny was working – regular work, I mean, in a shop – and we managed. I bought the flat after the war. The kids were old enough then to notice what was going on around them and I wasn’t having that. I can remember the day the war ended, everyone dancing and the tugs blowing their hooters along the river, V for victory! And dear old Winnie up there on the balcony with the Royals – we were there, Reeny and me. We too. T p
dasvingk the kids. And as we stood there and everyone was drunk with happiness, I thought, I’m going to make a future for my kids. Whatever it takes, it doesn’t matter about me, but they’ve got to have something better. Oh dear – where’s my hanky? Soppy old thing aren’t I, really? See, they don’t know what I do, to this day. They go off with their little boaters on to their nice school and life’s sunny and happy. Their dad was killed in the war, that’s all they know. Their mum works for a firm and she often has to work late. But there’s Reeny, you see. She’s like a second mom to them, always has been. Happy as Larry they are, trips out and about, me all dressed up and coming along to the do’s at school.

‘They don’t even know about Richie. He’s my bloke – and he doesn’t know about them. Proper Jekyll and Hyde, me, ain’t I? Richie’s not the sort I want round my kids. He’s a love really, deep down, only he’s got a temper and he’s not the family sort. I just like to have a man about – for me and for the house, just in case, you know. I don’t love him – nothing like that. I’m past all that. He’s my night life, if you like. Only – I dunno. Coming to Brum, seeing you all, I was frightened. I admit it. I didn’t want things brought together. Didn’t want to admit that the left hand doesn’t know what the right’s doing. Yes – you’re right, Linda. Sooner or later Clarkie and Viv are going to ask more questions . . . and honest to God, I don’t know how I’m going to answer them.’

They sat in Mario’s café all afternoon.

‘I don’t want to take you back to the house,’ Rosina said. ‘You shouldn’t be in a place like that – not a kid your age. Next time, you come home, properly, when Clarkie and Vivianne are here. You’re cousins, after all!’

Later on she slipped out to buy more cigarettes and on the way back in joked with Mario and asked him for ‘a nice bun or something’, and he brought toasted teacakes to them, with butter and jam. Linda had barely digested the huge dinner, but she tucked in anyway, while Rosina continued to smoke endlessly, one cigarette after another. The whole afternoon passed for Linda as if bathed in light. She was overwhelmed by Rosina, shocked and impressed by what she had seen in her of steeliness and tears. And the feeling that she had always known her, not just the familiar dark eyes from Bessie’s picture, but that she had always known that she would be like this, that she would feel familiar.

‘What d’you do with yourself?’ Rosina asked, sitting back and drinking yet more tea.

‘I’ve got a job – in a bakery.’

Rosina stared shrewdly at her.

‘Any boyfriends?’

Linda moved a blob of butter round with her knife on one half of the teacake. ‘Sort of.’

‘What d’you mean, sort of?’

She found herself spilling it all out, Alan, the accident.

‘Cold today, isn’t it?’ Violet said loudly. She was doing a wash and set for old Mrs Busby and had to speak up or the lady didn’t hear a word. ‘Feels like winter already, doesn’t it?’

‘Don’t say that,’ Rita said, pushing a trolley of rollers, pins and combs past her. As usual she had on the highest pair of heels you could find, in a bright shade of green to match her skirt. ‘Gets you down thinking about it. One of these days I’m going to go and live somewhere where it’s always hot and sunny.’

‘Nice to have dreams!’ Violet quipped, rolling a section of the lady’s thin hair round a fat roller.

The girl Rita now employed to clear up and do some of the washes was sweeping up bits of hair round her feet. Violet stepped aside for her, feeling a sense of satisfaction. Not long ago that had been her job, salon skivvy, before Rita had made her a kind of apprentice, and now they were partners in their own little business! She eased her shoulders back, standing straighter in a gesture of quiet pride. For the first time in her life she was getting somewhere, being someone for herself!

‘Cuppa tea, Vi?’

‘Ooh, yes please – I couldn’t half do with one. D’you want me to do it?’

‘Nah – you’re in the middle of Mrs Busby. I’ll get it.’

Rita disappeared out the back and as she did so Violet saw a familiar figure hurry past. Like everything else outside, she was stained yellow by the protective film hanging behind the windows to mute the sunlight. They looked out on a surreal, yellow world.

It was Joyce, with Charlie on her hip. She seemed flustered and pushed her way in through the door. Violet twisted round, still pushing pins through Mrs Busby’s roller. Joyce looked pale, sickly. She had announced a couple of weeks back that she was pregnant and she wasn’t feeling very well with this one and was none too pleased about the fact.

‘Hello, babby – Charlie boy! What’re you two doing here?’

‘It’s Nana,’ Joyce panted. ‘Danny’s just had Clarence on the telephone – from the phone box. Nana’s had another bad turn . . . Marigold’s with her but . . . He said I should get you.’

‘Well, how bad is she?’ Violet, immediately tense, snapped out the wound qqqqqqpleas get it.rds.