The Fall and Rise of Lucy Charlton (35 page)

‘I think we should just wait,’ Mr Palmer said that morning when they were drinking tea and sitting about over the stove. It was a cold wet day and a howling gale burst under the doors of the building.

‘For what?’

Mr Palmer didn’t answer that at first but when he did he looked clearly at Joe. ‘What if it doesn’t work?’

‘It will work – it’s just a question of finding somebody who really knows about these things to get us in, to help us.’

‘I’m a miner from nowhere,’ Mr Palmer said.

‘Miners from nowhere have always done new things, have gone forward, have always been there. Think of what the miners did during the war, how hard they tried, how much they achieved and what you did. Do you think this is going to more difficult than fighting a war?’

He won from Mr Palmer a slight smile and a shake of the head.

‘You have nothing to lose,’ Joe said.

‘I’m quite happy with my life here. I feel comfortable and so does my missus. I don’t think she wants jewellery and a big house and stuff like that.’

Joe laughed. Mr Palmer really believed that they were going to get rich. He was the first man Joe had met who didn’t think it would be so good. In that, he thought, Mr Palmer showed rare wisdom. So many men had thought everything could be bought.

‘It probably isn’t going to work out anyway,’ Joe said, ‘it’s a very dubious thing to do. There are lots of people out there in little garages like ours all over the country doing the same thing, so at the moment it doesn’t matter. We don’t have to make any decisions. All we are doing is trying to contact the people who can help and if it doesn’t work out it doesn’t matter.’

Mr Palmer looked at him.

‘It does matter though,’ he said.

He was right too – it was a race to find the first car of its kind: small, neat, utilitarian. The men who did it would make a fortune, but they all had different ideas, Joe suspected, and people were drawn to big shiny motor cars which moved quickly. This was an entirely different machine. He thought in the future the two would come together but for now the car’s usefulness would be its main selling point. Also he was thinking not as the Americans had done, that a man would buy a car and keep it for life, but that there was a whole industry ready for turnover, for cars to last so many years and then be superseded by something just that little bit better, with that little piece more interesting. Different gadgets and different paint jobs until the look of it became so involved with the machine that the two were as one. That was when everybody would want a car and he was determined that it would be his.

When Mr Palmer went out to look at some car over in Hexham, Mrs Palmer, who usually went with him on these occasions, came to the office.

‘Don’t take any heed of him, lad,’ she said. ‘He wants this just as much as you do but he’s scared.’

‘He’s come through a lot worse.’

‘You an’ all,’ she said, ‘but sometimes that can be off-putting. You get yourself to London and do what’s necessary and I’ll take care of him.’

‘He didn’t think you wanted it.’

‘He’s right, I don’t care about things like that, but I know him. He’s going to be very disappointed if this doesn’t come off so do what you can,’ she said.

*

Joe asked Emily to go to London with him. They would stay with Toddy. He wasn’t sure whether it was a wise decision but he offered and Emily accepted. Joe was going there for three days, two nights – perhaps that would be enough for her. London was so unlike Durham and she hadn’t been there since she was a small child, she’d told him, so perhaps the way that it was faster and less caring and less intimate would make her wish she was back in Durham with Edgar and the prospect of his and Lucy’s marriage.

Joe had tried not to think too much about it since Lucy had smacked his face and run away. She was right, he acknowledged now, and that was hard. As time went on he thought more and more that the girl he loved so very vitally was no longer there for him in any way. He just wished he could have had some news of her which would be positive. Anything would do rather than worrying about whether she was dead or admitting that if she were alive she would have got in contact long before now. Why wouldn’t she?

The visit to London was nothing like he had thought it might be. That was typical. He was trying to convey to Emily that London was vast and impersonal, whereas in reality it was a set of villages, just like most other big cities.

Mr Barrington was having a party the first night they got there and it was champagne and canapés all the way, the attendees people in politics and the arts. There was no sign of his brood of children who had no doubt been taken early to bed by a nanny and the atmosphere in his large and gorgeous house was so jolly. Emily looked about her admiringly.

Mr Barrington was the perfect host and introduced Emily to a great many people. Joe felt guilty for Edgar but he could
not help being glad that Emily was laughing and talking, though she always did that, but he thought he saw something in her eyes to show that she was having the evening she wanted to have above all others.

The following day Joe had two meetings with men from different car companies, Mr Rogers and Mr Eve. Both had their headquarters in north London and their factories in less expensive parts of the area, in the south. Both were eager to see what his design was like and both showed him around their factories. He was very impressed with them; they were so organized and their factories made Joe’s heart beat a little faster. He could see his car there, his and Mr Palmer’s design being built, but he had to be shrewd too and not give them everything or they might run off with his ideas and build their own.

Mr Eve also had a factory in Birmingham and he said he was going up there soon and that he would come to Durham and look in on Joe and Mr Palmer. Joe was slightly concerned that the premises they had were tiny and he had nothing with which to impress Mr Eve except the car itself. He worried that he had overestimated their invention.

He worried more when Mr Rogers said that he had been approached by several other people, all with what he said was the same idea. He told him that the car he decided to back would have to be exactly the right one so he could promise Joe nothing.

Joe offered to put Mr Eve up at the County Hotel while he was in Durham but Mr Eve smiled and said he would be happy at Joe’s house. Joe thought that Mr Eve was keen to see how he lived. Considering it was a tower house with two
old ladies, three cats and a dog, he didn’t think Mr Eve was going to like it, but he couldn’t think of any way in which to refuse without being rude when Mr Eve showed such enthusiasm.

That evening he took Emily to have dinner with the Toddingtons and everyone was very polite.

‘Miss Bainbridge is hoping to spend some time in London and get to know people here. I thought that you might be kind enough to help her since she knows no one and you know just about everyone.’

‘My only brother is marrying and I want to do something for myself,’ Emily said.

‘So you should, my dear.’ Lady Toddington nodded approvingly at Emily. Joe could see that the older woman had taken to the younger one and he didn’t have to work at this any longer.

They went home the following day but Emily’s expression was so much lighter. She said that Lady Toddington had invited her to stay with them, and had said she would launch her into London society if that was what she wanted. Joe interpreted this liberally since Lady Toddington knew a great many people in the arts world who would accept Emily for who she really was. It would no doubt set her off on the route she wanted to follow. Joe was grateful to Lady Toddington because he knew how the family felt about him, but no doubt she could see what a lovely woman Emily was.

Edgar watched the children. They were sitting on the grass in the backyard and Gemma was hanging out the washing. He was surprised that she looked so well when her husband had been dead for such a short time. She was singing. He knew that she liked her work now that she had got used to it, that she was pleased to bring money into the house. There was something about her which was a puzzle. He wasn’t sure quite what it was. He had said to Lucy that he thought they should wait a year out of respect for Guy’s death, but she said that the chances were that her father would die then and they would feel obliged to wait for another year. Didn’t he think they should do something joyful?

It seemed a reasonable answer and the truth was that he didn’t want to wait. He was tired of sleeping by himself in a big house. He had spent a great many nights wishing that Lucy was there; he wanted her so badly, but the first time that he took her into his arms and kissed her properly she pushed against him until he let her go. He gazed at her. There was a wild look in her eyes which went in an instant, but he saw it. She said she was tired, but Edgar had been a solicitor for too long not to be concerned about what went
on in people’s faces. Each time he tried to put the worry from his mind it came back.

Now, seeing her sister reaching up to hang out the clothes to dry in the midday pale sunshine with a cold wind behind it, he was not sure what he felt. He had come to Newcastle on impulse; they had not said they would get together that day, but all Gemma knew was that her sister had gone out early and not said where she was going.

He thought she was probably at her father’s office. She liked going there and it was not necessarily to work – she just liked being there. But that day he didn’t want to pursue her. If she had gone there it was because she wanted to be alone.

He didn’t mind very much. Mrs Charlton had made individual steak pies and he consumed several of these with beef tea poured over them and carrots, turnips and potatoes. The family sat at the table, the children too, and although they made a bit of a mess nobody took any notice. Since they were hungry they ate everything.

He thought they were lovely children. He hadn’t known Guy at all, but the children both looked exactly like Gemma, with startling red hair and huge green eyes and creamy skins. They had blushed cheeks and dimpled hands and they talked all the time. He couldn’t understand most of what they said, but it didn’t really matter. He thought it was charming.

After the meal Gemma made them sit down for a while and she asked Edgar to read to them. He was rather taken with the idea, and they sat at either side of him, watching the picture book carefully and taking in every word he said
so attentively. Edgar, who had never been listened to like that except professionally, enjoyed it.

Later Gemma said she was taking them to the park, so he went with them. It was a fine, bright, bitterly cold day. The twins were too little to do much except run about which took all their concentration. They had to be helped; they kept plumping down on the ground and crying from frustration when they couldn’t get up or wanted help.

Edgar had never pictured himself in such a role. He began to think that when he and Lucy had children he might turn out to be reasonably good at this. A girl and a boy, twins, having to go through such a thing only once perhaps, but then some people had a dozen children – not something, he thought, which he could look at with any degree of equanimity. It would cost a fortune to bring up so many.

Lucy didn’t come home, even after Mrs Charlton had asked him to stay for tea and he had thought he should go, for he didn’t want to impose. But she said in what had become a jolly way that he was about to be a member of the family shortly, so there was no point in him standing on ceremony.

She too seemed reasonably happy considering how ill Mr Charlton was but she talked to her husband as though he took in every word. Mr Charlton slept a lot, so that Edgar thought Lucy must have been right and her father would not last much longer. That would be sad, but he sensed that it would also be a kind of release for this family; they had been through such a lot lately. Lucy was right about this too – there was no reason why they should not be married.

Mrs Charlton and Gemma talked a good deal about the wedding. That bored him; he wasn’t interested in times and
cakes and flowers but he sensed that it was the thing which gave them most pleasure at the moment. He stayed for tea and was glad he had done so when his hostess delivered a huge portion of ham, two eggs and a hill of thick fat chips onto his plate. She told him to dig into the bread and butter, pouring him huge cups of tea thick with sugar and rich with milk.

He waited on into the evening. He didn’t want to stay when Lucy wasn’t there but somehow he didn’t want to go home either. It was as though Emily had already left and even if she was there he felt as though he was counting the days. He would have given a great deal for her not to go. The house felt so empty.

*

‘Where were you on Saturday?’ Gemma asked her sister. ‘Were you avoiding us? Have you told Edgar what Guy did?’

Lucy shook her head. She didn’t want to look at her sister. They were alone, that was rare, and she had hoped they would not have this conversation, but somehow it had happened. They had hung out the washing in the back garden, slight and cool though the day was. It was not yet time for the midday meal and the children were with their grandmother.

She had hidden that day, she didn’t quite know why, only that she could not go back to the house, that she didn’t want any of the complications. So she had taken herself off and for once ignored her responsibilities. She’d been glad of it.

‘Don’t you think you should?’

‘What if I tell him and he doesn’t want me because of it?’

‘I think he’s too decent for that.’

Lucy had told herself the same thing over and over again, but somehow she didn’t believe it. She had stayed at the office.

‘But what if he isn’t?’ she said.

‘Better now than to find out on your wedding night. You have thought about your wedding night?’

Lucy sighed.

‘I try not to. At the moment every time he comes near me I jump. What if I can’t do it?’

‘It won’t be like that.’

‘How do you know? It has to be like that to some extent, doesn’t it, and it is a horrible thing for a man to do to a woman. I have nightmares about it. Do you think you would ever marry again?’