Tara (4 page)

'Don't you worry, my little flower,' George said after they heard one of the nurses mention pneumonia almost casually. 'She'll be fine, I know she will, and Uncle George will look after you until your mum's better.'

Anne knew George wouldn't willingly relinquish her and Paul, but she also knew that he might have no choice if the worst happened and her mother died. George was called out for questioning several times, both by nurses and police. Through the reeded glass she could see him gesticulating wildly, and on several occasions his voice rose in anger.

'I won't give any assistance to find that animal. Why d'you think I brought her here, rather than the 'ospital in Whitechapel?' she heard him shout. 'D'you really think she'd be comforted by seein' his face? I know he's their father, worse luck, but they've bin through enough!'

For years now Anne had daydreamed about escaping from their father. They were childish, silly dreams of finding a suitcase full of money, or wicked thoughts like hoping Bill would get run over and killed. But not once had she imagined life without her mother.

There was a horrible smell, George said it was disinfectant, but it seemed to get right down in her lungs so she could smell it with every breath. There were scary noises, too – clanging sounds, rubber wheels on the lino floors, sudden screams of pain and rushing feet.

Paul drooped against Harry and finally slid down until his head was on his knee, his small bruised body curled up on the seat. Anne noted the hole in the sole of his shoe, his bony legs covered in old scars and bruises and the way his eye was turning black where Bill had hit him. Down the passage she heard a man shouting.

'It's OK.' George held her tightly. 'It isn't Bill, just the usual Saturday night drunks. He won't show his face here, darlin', if he did he'd be arrested and you gotta believe you're safe with me and 'Arry.'

Finally Anne blurted it out. 'She's going to die, isn't she?'

George didn't answer immediately, just held her even more tightly.

'She's managed to hang on this long,' he said eventually. 'That's a good sign. And she won't willingly leave you two behind.'

The unasked question about her future hung in the waiting room along with cigarette smoke. Harry had been almost asleep but he opened his eyes and looked right at Anne.

'You'll come home wiv us whatever happens,' he said gently. 'It ain't much, Anne, but we'll look after you both.'

It was daylight when a nurse came in. Anne's stomach lurched with fright and instinctively she covered her ears so she couldn't hear what she feared was coming.

'It's all right, Anne.' The dark-haired nurse knelt down before her and removed her hands. 'Mummy's on the mend now. She's been very poorly but she's going to get better. You can have just one quick look at her and then I want you to go home and get some sleep.' She looked up at George and smiled. 'You too, Mr Collins, you can't look after two kids if you're exhausted.'

Anne was too sleepy to notice anything much when they arrived at George's house in Bethnal Green. She was aware she had arrived in Paradise Row, a terrace of tall thin houses standing back from Cambridge Heath Road, backing on to a high railway line, but took in no detail other than a sudden warmth and a great many stairs. One moment she was swaying on her feet looking at a rose coloured satin eiderdown, the next she was tucked in beside Paul.

It was George's bed, she could smell him on the sheets, and the last thing she remembered was hoping Paul didn't disgrace them by wetting.

'Well, sweetheart, how do you feel?'

Weak January sun flooded in through the lounge window and lit up the vivid orange carpet with its autumn leaf pattern. Anne could only stare at it, terribly afraid she was going to cry.

'Funny,' she whispered. She wanted to thank George for the new clothes that had miraculously appeared by the bed, for the feeling of safety when she woke. But she couldn't find adequate words.

When things had been bad back in Whitechapel, Anne had often resorted to daydreams as comfort. When she and Paul were woken by George around two, it was like stepping into one of them. The smell of roast lamb coming up the stairs, soft carpet under their bare feet, and that tension she'd lived with for so long fading.

How could she explain what it felt like to be in a blue tiled bathroom with hot fluffy towels on a heated rail, when all she'd ever known was the public baths? To wash every inch of her skin knowing the hated smell of fish and chips or mildew was going for good. To lie under the water after she'd washed her hair listening to the echo of the dripping tap, knowing that today she wouldn't hear her father yelling at Paul, that her mother was safe in hospital.

Could George possibly know how it felt to pat 'Soir de Paris' silky talcum powder on her skin? How did a widower with only one son know to buy her white soft underwear with lace trimming?

As she put on the new Black Watch kilt with a matching green jumper she wanted to dance with joy. Yet at the same time she felt guilty. Surely it was bad to be revelling in such luxury when her mother was so ill? And shouldn't she have a bit more pride than to accept all these nice things so eagerly?

She managed a wobbly smile.

'Me and Paul haven't ever been anywhere as posh as this, Uncle George.'

'Posh!' Laughter made his belly quiver and he sat down sharply on the white fur-covered settee, waving his hand around. 'Posh, sweetheart? Look at the mess. It's like a bloomin' slum!'

Paradise Row was a Georgian terrace built originally for the middle classes. With four floors and a basement the houses may have degenerated between the Wars as the wealthy merchants moved further out of London, and each room became home to an entire family, yet they retained their old-world quaintness.

Overlooking a narrow strip of grass between its cobbled street and the busy main road, the old railings had been put back, the steps up to its front doors were scrubbed again and developers anxious to flatten it and raise council flats were being held back by conservationists.

Anne knew nothing of architecture, but she could sense the house's graceful proportions. Vast by her standards, its high ceilings, fancy roses round the lights and sense of elegance fired her imagination.

She could see by the new carpets, curtains and furniture what George was trying to achieve, but his home also had an air of neglect, revealing the absence of a woman's touch. Piles of clean washing were dumped on chairs. A car engine lay in the lounge, only a thin sheet of newspaper underneath it protecting the bright carpet. Pictures were propped up against walls, boxes of china for his stall, spilling straw, stood everywhere.

The kitchen was dull under a film of grease, burned saucepans had been left soaking and the floor couldn't have been washed for weeks. But it was lovely and warm. They had central heating, which only rich people had, and fabulous gadgets she'd never seen close up before – a toaster and refrigerator, even a Bendix washing machine like the ones they had down the launderette.

'I 'ad 'igh 'opes when I bought this place a couple of years ago.' George grinned cheerfully round at the mess. 'Me and 'Arry planned to make it a palace, maybe let out a few rooms. We got the heatin' and the bathroom done, we decorated it all, but we ran outta steam.'

Anne knew George's wife had died of tuberculosis when Harry was about two and he had brought up his son alone. She also knew what long hours he worked.

'I can clean up for you.' Anne felt bolder now and sat down next to him. Harry was out in the kitchen seeing to the dinner and he'd taken Paul with him. 'Would that pay for our food?'

George looked stunned for a moment, then spluttered with laughter.

'You're a little worry-guts. Money don't come into the picture when it's old mates. This is your 'ome now, until your mum decides otherwise.'

'But school. . .' she protested. 'And Paul wets the bed sometimes, Uncle George.'

'Neither of you are fit to go back to school just yet.' George slid his arm round her shoulders.' 'Any used to wet the bed, too, after his mum died. I know all about sad little boys.'

Anne felt as if all her life until now she'd been crawling along a narrow, dark shelf. Isolated from others, yet able to sense they didn't share the same kind of miserable life she had. But now through the open kitchen door she could hear Harry talking to Paul about clearing out a spare bedroom for them both, and his words showed her a sun-filled world, where she and her brother had a chance.

'I know you're going to miss yer mum,' Harry said, 'but I'll take you both down to see her every day, Paul, and meanwhile you'll be like my little bruvver and sister and we'll share all the chores, like.'

She wanted to understand so much.

'Why was Harry so upset about Mum?' she asked.

'She was kind to him when he was a little 'un.' George smiled and patted her knee with his plump hand. 'I'll be straight wiv you, Anne. Both of us saw her as more than just a customer. Nuffin' improper, mind! Just maybe wishful thinkin'.'

Anne felt a bubble of pleasure rise inside her.

'Like I used to wish you was my Dad?'

'Just like that, Anne.' George beamed down at her, his bulbous red nose and fat jolly face suddenly handsome. 'And now we got a crack at it, ain't we! So we'd better be feedin' the pair of you up and gettin' this place ship-shape for Amy when she comes 'ome!'

Chapter 2

The ringing sound woke Anne. She leaned up on her elbows in the dark and listened.

She found it hard to distinguish between the telephone and the front-door bell, as both were luxuries she hadn't encountered till arriving at George's house, but the continual ringing suggested this was the phone.

'What time of night is this to bleedin' call?' George muttered as he padded barefoot down the stairs.

George and Harry joked a great deal about being foster-parents, but Anne knew their humour was intended to hide how nervous they were. They wouldn't leave her or Paul alone in the house, not even for a moment, and they checked out visitors before opening the door. George thought she didn't notice the rigorous locking-up before bed, or that he had blocked up the letterbox.

When Harry drove them to see their mother at the Middlesex hospital he was always on his guard. They were hurried into the car, after the road had been checked, shopping was done miles away and George kept telling them they weren't strong enough yet for school. But it was the absence of any mention of her father that convinced Anne they were hiding something. Bill MacDonald was a man everyone always talked about, even if only how drunk he'd been or who he'd thumped. Harry and George knew something, and they weren't telling!

But despite this niggle of anxiety, the three weeks they'd been, in Bethnal Green with George had been the happiest time Anne remembered in her short life.

Good food, warmth and the secure, calm atmosphere were a great part of it. Not a day passed without Anne noticing amazing improvements in Paul. He had put on weight, his bruises had faded, he was less nervous, sometimes he even managed to ask a question or comment on something of his own volition.

Pleasing though Paul's happiness was, Anne's great delight was in suddenly finding herself able to look ahead. She had always been good at household chores; cleaning the cooker, scrubbing the floor and polishing furniture were second nature to her. But the challenge of turning George's house into a home appealed to her creative side.

The stall's stock was now up in a spare room on the top floor, the car engine out in the back yard and the piles of shirts ironed and hung up in wardrobes. But while Harry and George were impressed by her housekeeping skills, they praised her talents at drawing and sewing still more.

Harry bought her a box of expensive paints and George brought home remnants of material and even a wonderful teenage doll with long blonde hair, so she could make it clothes. Sitting at the table in the lounge armed with scissors, reels of cotton and scraps of lace, she could immerse herself in a fantasy world of high fashion.

There was noise here like there was in Whitechapel, traffic at the front, trains at the back, but it was subdued, just a comfortable hum in the background. Beyond the net curtains she saw the trees, the strip of grass where old men sometimes sat in the sunshine to chat. Across the busy road was the park George called 'Barmy Park', named because the library had once been a lunatic asylum. St John's Church on the corner of Roman Road made her think of the palaces she used to build for Paul out of building bricks, a big, plain square church with only a small dome on top to give it a bit of dignity.

'You could be a designer,' Harry said one day as he picked up her doll, now dressed as a bride. 'All that smart gear up in Regent Street starts off like this.'

Her father had never shown any interest in her hobby. More than once he'd swept her bits and pieces off the table and told her to do something useful, like getting the coal in or making him a sandwich. Harry and George both loved clothes and they applauded Anne's talented attempts at dressing her doll.

'Your mum used to make fabulous frocks back before you was born,' George told her. 'I remember seein' her standing in the window of Modern Modes up in Aldgate, just after the War ended. She was only about sixteen then, as pretty as a flower, dressing a dummy. It was a red evening dress, all beads and stuff; she told me that she was the one who did all the fancy work.'

'Yeah, she used to do it at home, too,' Harry chimed in. 'I went to see her one day when your Dad was in nick. She was sewing hundreds of sparkly things on to this frock. I never saw anything so lovely.'

Anne knew that her mother was a first-class needlewoman; Amy often told her stories about her days in the workshop. But until now Anne had never considered that she herself could actually make a career out of doing something she loved.

'How do you get to be a designer?' she asked Harry.

'Dunno' exactly.' He grinned, his blue eyes twinkling at her. 'I guess you go to art college, or maybe get an apprenticeship wiv one of the top shops. Just you keep on drawing and sewing, Anne, and remember to think big.'