Trinidad Street (56 page)

‘What’s this?’ Ellen was not very impressed.

‘It’s where the gardeners keep their stuff. But they ain’t here today. It’s Sunday, remember.’

‘Ah.’ Ellen was beginning to understand. She let him take her hand and lead her round the back of the hut, and then followed him as he scrambled under the dusty bushes.

When they were completely surrounded by privets, Harry stopped, kneeling with some difficulty under the branches to strip off his jacket. He laid it over the fallen leaves that covered the baked earth.

‘There. Not exactly comfortable, but it’s well hidden.’ He patted the space beside him. ‘Make y’self at home.’

Ellen hesitated. She knew that she should not, and yet – and yet she loved him so much, and needed him so much, and they might never get this chance again.

‘Come on, love.’ He held out a hand to her.

She looked into his blue eyes, and all resistance slid away. She could not refuse, not when she wanted the same thing herself. She sank down, and melted into his arms. It felt so right, it was like coming home. Their lips met in a long, hungry kiss.

‘Ellen, Ellen.’ He crushed her to his hard body as if he would never let her go. ‘You don’t know how I needed that.’

‘I do.’

As they spoke their lips brushed, their hot breath mingling.

‘If I thought you was happy, you and Gerry, I could bear it. I’d never even have thought of bringing you here.’

‘Forget Gerry. Just for today. He never made me feel like you do, not one little bit. You’re the only one I ever wanted. I see you and it hurts all over that I can’t have you.’

They kissed again, lips and tongues searching and demanding. The outside world ceased to exist, leaving just the two of them, and the love they had kept hidden for so long. Ellen felt as if she had opened a door into a new world. She no longer had to pretend. She no longer had to hold back. All the passion and longing that had been damped down could flare up without restraint. She could be her true self. She trembled and moaned with pleasure as Harry’s hands caressed her body, awakening breasts and thighs and belly to a burning need. She pressed against him, wanting more, wanting all of him.

‘Oh, Harry.’

She tugged at his shirt, eager for the feel of his warm skin and wiry hair beneath her hands, and thrilled at his reaction as she kissed his naked chest. He reached down to gather up her skirt, his hands sending tongues of fire through her as he travelled over calf and knee and found the soft skin of her thigh. She cried out as he lingered, teasing, and again in an agony of pleasure as at last his fingers slipped
between her legs. She lay writhing, helpless in the exquisite joy until the need of him became too much to bear and she reached out to touch him. And then they could wait no longer, kissing and biting and tasting as they pulled at their own and each other’s clothing in loving desperation. Harry rolled on top of her and she opened to him, rising to meet him as he thrust into her, gripping him as he went deeper, borne on waves of desire that grew higher and higher until they burst in unison into a fountain of ecstasy. They clung to each other, gasping, laughing, sobbing and gradually floating down into a warm golden sea of bliss.

Ellen drew a long, shaking breath. ‘I never knew anything like that,’ she whispered.

Harry smiled down at her, tracing the line of her cheek with his finger.

‘That was good,’ he agreed, ‘but it was too quick. We was both a bit desperate.’

‘Just a bit,’ Ellen admitted It was so wonderful to be able to talk like this without embarassment. She moved against him so that she could feel the length of him inside her, and found to her delight that she wanted him all over again.

Harry turned over so that she was on top of him.

‘Sit up,’ he said, ‘I want to look at you.’

She complied with difficulty, laughing as her hair tangled with the twiggy bushes. Harry reached up and undid the remaining buttons on her blouse, eased it off and dropped it to the ground. Her corset and chemise followed. Ellen stretched her arms out in a glory of abandonment. She had never felt the air on her body like this before. Sunspots coming through branches played on her naked skin. Harry cupped her breasts in his hands, fondling and caressing.

‘You are so beautiful,’ he said, wonder in his voice.

Slowly they explored each other’s bodies with eyes and lips and fingertips. For Ellen it was a new and wonderful world where part of her that had always been submerged could at last find full expression. She opened like a flower to Harry’s loving touch, and revelled in the chance to discover what gave him special pleasure.

‘You know what it is?’ she said. ‘You make me feel like a proper woman.’

‘You’re the only woman for me.’ Harry drew her head down and kissed her.

A renewed excitement began to run through them, mounting by degrees until they were climbing peak after peak of drawn-out
pleasure. And just when Ellen felt she could hardly hold so much joy, they flooded with a final molten ecstasy.

For a timeless age they lay locked together, hardly knowing where either began or ended. They slept and woke and sighed, immersed in complete happiness.

‘I could die now,’ Ellen murmured. ‘I have everything.’

‘My love.’ Harry cradled her head more closely under his chin and pulled her blouse over her shoulders to keep her warm.

But reality came creeping back, nibbling at the edges of their bliss. Ellen shivered; Harry stirred to avoid the stones digging into his back. With a dragging reluctance, they came back to an awareness of their surroundings. The shadows were beginning to lengthen.

Ellen swallowed, and finally gave voice to the dreadful truth.

‘We got to go.’

They clung together a little longer, trying to hold on to the moment, but already the magic was slipping away.

‘I suppose,’ Ellen ventured, ‘I suppose we
could
stay.’

Neither of them dared look at the other as they played with the idea. It was too dangerous. They both knew there was really only one answer. Harry sat up and gathered items of clothing together.

‘Come on,’ he said gently. ‘Arms in.’

Ellen drew in a deep breath, and complied.

They scrambled out from the bushes and brushed each other down. Ellen did the best she could with her dishevelled hair. She smiled feebly.

‘Now I know what they mean about going through a hedge backwards.’

Harry held her in his arms as they took one last look at the place where they had discovered heaven.

‘We’ll always have this to remember,’ he said. ‘Whatever happens, this day will be ours.’

IN THE STREET,
the children were playing off-ground touch. There were shrieks of excitement and the scrape of boots as boys and girls leapt for the safety of steps and window ledges. Women who had slaved over scrubbing yelled at them to get off, lending force to their words with well-aimed swipes at legs and ears. The children just laughed and played on. Annoying the grown-ups was part of the fun. When the women started to bring their husbands in with threats of belt-ends, they simply shifted away down the street.

Harry, watching idly through the parlour window, was struck with a fierce nostalgia for the simple rules of childhood. You pushed the adults as far as you could, and if you stepped over the line, you got a clip round the ear. It was the same within the gang. By common consent, the strongest and cleverest boy was leader. You knew exactly what was allowed and what wasn’t, and if you broke one of the laws, you were out. It didn’t matter how popular you were, how good at fighting rival gangs or playing dares, if you told on a pal or beat up a little kid or stole something off one of the gang, that was it.

His gaze focused on his aunt Alma’s place across the road. In some ways, it was still the same now he was an adult. If you broke the rules, you were out. The difference was that you might get away with it if you kept up a good enough pretence. There behind the brown-painted door, Ellen carried on as if nothing had happened between them on that golden day back at the end of last summer. She worked to keep the house clean and bring up the children properly, and supported Gerry as he struggled to get his money problems straight. And all the while, inside her, the fruit of their love was growing.

He was sure it was his baby. She had refused to say, on the one occasion he had managed to get her alone for long enough to ask.

‘I dunno. How am I supposed to know? Could be.’

‘But you must know. You’re the only one who can. You know what – goes on inside of you.’

She glared back at him, eyes hot and defiant. ‘Well I don’t, so just don’t ask, see? Don’t ask.’

He knew from the set of her mouth that he would get nothing from her. It was part of the unspoken agreement between them. As long as she did not actually admit it out loud, they could live with it. But he knew, and he was sure that she knew, what the truth was.

The trouble was, it got harder rather than easier to bear. As the months went by and her belly began to swell, he wanted to be there by her side to watch over and protect her. To be forced to stand by like this, pretending no more than a vague neighbourly interest, galled him beyond belief. He could not suppress a growing antagonism towards his cousin. Gerry did not deserve her. Gerry did not look after her properly. Every time he saw Gerry, the resentment and jealousy nearly choked him. He had to stop himself from deliberately picking a quarrel, and keep his fists in his pockets so that he could not smash them into Gerry’s anxious, apologetic face.

‘Harry?’

He turned away from the window. Florrie was outlined in the doorway.

‘What you doing in here? Gave me a turn, you did, standing there in the half-dark, all quiet.’

‘Just thinking.’

‘Ah.’ For a moment it seemed as if she was going to comment, but she changed her mind. ‘Well, go and call Bob in for us, would you? Tea’s ready.’

Glad to be distracted from the insoluble problem, he went to the door and yelled at his young brother.

There was the usual Saturday wrangle over who was going out and where, who with and for how long. Ida sulked over the necessity to be in by ten o’clock.

‘It isn’t fair! Johnny’s three years younger than what I am and you don’t tell him to be in then.’

‘You’re a girl. I always had to be in by ten, and so do you. Makes ’em respect you if you got family what wants you back at a decent time,’ Florrie told her.

Ida pouted. Across the table, Johnny gave an irritating grin.

‘I’m going out with my pals,’ he said.

‘Well, mind you don’t get into no trouble,’ Harry warned.

‘What about you, love?’ Florrie asked her husband. ‘You going up the Puncheon?’

‘I will if you come too.’

Florrie shook her head. ‘No thanks, I’m too tired.’ She smoothed a hand over her vast belly. The baby was due in a couple of weeks.

‘Then I’ll stay with you, if you like. Bob can go up the Puncheon and get us a jug of mild.’

‘Only if I can spend the change.’

‘I’ll make sure there ain’t no blooming change, if you’re not careful.’

‘I suppose Harry’s going somewhere exciting up West,’ Ida said, with envy in her voice.

Up to that moment, Harry had not had any definite plans. But the cosy togetherness of his sister and her husband was too stark a contrast with his own bleak situation for him to stick around the neighbourhood for the evening. He certainly could not stand the thought of hanging around in the Puncheon, chewing over the doings of the week with the rest of the men from the street. There had been a loose agreement between some friends at work to go out. He decided to take it up.

‘Yeah, I’m meeting some mates and going up the Old Vic,’ he said.

‘Not fair,’ Ida complained. ‘I bet you wouldn’t let me go to a hall with my friends.’

‘For God’s sake, stop whining,’ Harry told her. ‘Get that bloke of yours to marry you, and you can both stop out as long as you like.’

That effectively silenced Ida.

An hour or so later, as he walked towards the pub where they were all supposed to be meeting, Harry found himself going slower and slower. He hardly knew why. He needed a good night out; it would make him forget things for a while. He loved the atmosphere of a music hall – the warmth, the jokes, the songs. He liked to have a drink or two, to sing along, to have a laugh with his pals. So why was it no longer the same? He stood still, frowning down at his feet. It was his friends. There was only one of the old crowd left. The rest were all younger than him. The men he used to go about with were married, many of them with two or three children. They took their wives out of a Saturday night, while here he was, twenty-eight years old and still acting like some kid of eighteen.

Around him the cheerful crowds swirled, all intent on a good evening out, all with somewhere to go, someone to go with. He felt lost, disorientated. People bumped into him. He could not decide what to do. He did not want to go home. He did not want to go on to the meeting place. He was tempted just to go into the nearest pub and get drunk, but he had sense enough to realize that that was to start down
the same road as his father. While he stood there, he thought he heard a woman’s voice call his name.

‘Harry? Harry Turner!’

He ignored it. He did not want to talk to anyone, especially a woman.

‘Harry, it is you.’

She put a hand on his arm. He was about to shake her off when something in the voice made him look at her.

‘Theresa?’

She looked dreadful. Not even the heavy make-up could disguise the ravages of her hard life. She gave a bright, false smile.

‘I been looking for you. Months and months I been looking. Now I found you. You got a minute?’

He groaned inwardly. Another problem. But he had promised to help her, that last time they had met.

‘Yeah. Yeah, of course.’

‘Can we go and have a drink? I’m gasping.’

‘Yeah, right.’

Harry watched her as she downed two double gins, one after the other. In the bright lights of the pub, she looked even worse than she had outside. Her hands were like claws, her face haggard, her hair thin and straggling. There were sores all round her scarlet-painted mouth. It was hard to believe that she was only a year older than himself. She looked closer to forty.