Read She's Leaving Home Online
Authors: Edwina Currie
She's Leaving Home (64 page)
The four friends had assembled as usual for bridge. None had suggested otherwise – the game had been cancelled in the past when one or other had suffered a personal bereavement, but Kennedy was hardly a relative. Annie, tired after the afternoon, had laid out supper and retired early to bed. The children were in their rooms reading.
Yet within twenty minutes it was plain that the card-players’ regular pleasure could not be summoned up. Simon missed two tricks and Maurice had to be reminded to bid. At last Mannheim folded his cards and laid them face down.
‘I cannot,’ he said. ‘I am too touched by sorrow. I feel I should be in
schul
offering prayers
for the dead.’
‘It’s like sacrilege,’ Maurice Feinstein agreed. ‘My Nellie is in floods of tears. She’s used up a whole box of Kleenex. She wanted to shut the shop this morning but I told her life goes on, we gotta earn a living. But the customers stood around saying how terrible it was and not spending money, so we didn’t gain much.’
Daniel rose and fetched the Scotch and two more glasses. He topped up Maurice and Simon’s drinks and without asking poured for himself and Mannheim. He raised his glass.
‘We should drink to – to what? To his soul, and to the good he has done,
olversbalom
. God bless and keep him.’
The quartet solemnly drank. Daniel pushed the bottle into the centre of the card table. Mannheim refilled their glasses.
For a moment they were alone with their thoughts. Simon swirled the liquid in his glass. ‘Surprising coming from you, Danny. I thought you didn’t believe in the eternal soul and such? You didn’t come to the commemoration this afternoon.’
‘Not an eternal soul, correct. No life after death, heaven and hell and that rubbish. But there is something about a man – call it spirit if you like – which drives him to do good, I suppose, or evil if it goes wrong. I do believe in free will. We aren’t predetermined. We can choose whether to spend our lives well or not. I reckon, for all his faults, John Kennedy made that choice. So I admire him.’
‘People like us don’t have the same choices, do we?’ Maurice was content to pursue a subject away from the assassinations. The atmosphere in the kitchen behind the shop was leaden and tragic. He leaned back in his chair. ‘I mean, nobody we know is going to be President of the United States.’
‘Mr Wilson is likely to be Prime Minister soon and he’s one of our local MPs. Yorkshireman, yes?’ Mannheim reminded them. His watery eyes crinkled briefly in a halfsmile. ‘Nothing special about his background.’
‘Maybe it could’ve been you, Danny,’ Simon teased. ‘D’you remember? You had dreams once.’
Daniel dismissed them with a wave of his hand. ‘Load of nonsense. My Annie says people like us don’t do things like that. She’s right.’
‘But the young people today – they have chances we never had.’ Simon jabbed a finger. In the absence of bridge a lively discussion would be some consolation. He would be stolidly argumentative. ‘An education, grants, scholarships. How’s your Helen getting on? Any decisions yet?’
‘She’ll go to university here in town and stay home. That’s best.’
Maurice frowned. ‘I thought you had bigger expectations for her, Danny. Cambridge, wasn’t it?’
‘Not me. She had plans for herself. Went for interview. But she didn’t get anywhere with it. Or at least, we’ve heard nothing since.’
‘She will leave, your daughter,’ said Mannheim quietly.
She fill leaf
. ‘You will not keep her. Your son Barry, yes. He will never go far from home. Nor will Jerry – he likes Liverpool, isn’t that right, Morrie? But beautiful Helen will fly the nest.’
All eyes turned to the old man. ‘What do you mean?’ Danny tried to keep the irritation out of his voice. He feared that sides were being taken, against him.
Mannheim spread his hands. ‘Maybe we are not the settling kind, we Jews. We are restless. We wander. We seek challenges, we are too intelligent to accept the status quo without question.’
Vizzout qvestion
. ‘We are kept down by terror of being hurt, but when no such danger exists –’
‘There is danger out there,’ Danny said shortly. ‘Look what happened to you when you were beaten up. If she seriously believes she’ll be made welcome in the
goyische
world, she’s got another think coming.’
‘And she would not leave her heritage behind, surely,’ Simon joined in the protest. ‘She came
top of the
cheder
class in Jewish studies a couple of years ago – I presented her with the prize myself – and she has an O level in Classical Hebrew, which is more than any of us. She’s been well prepared for her future. She won’t abandon the faith, you’ll see. Maybe for a short while, but she’ll return to it. They all do.’
‘She will leave,’ Mannheim repeated ominously. ‘It might hurt you, my dear Daniel, to say so, but deception in the end will hurt you more. There is nothing to stop her, nothing to keep her. The wide world beckons.’
The friends fidgeted with their glasses and cards and avoided each other’s eyes. Daniel fetched the plates of cake and cheese sandwiches and busied himself clumsily with side plates and paper napkins.
‘The best ones leave,’ Mannheim continued slowly. ‘The brave ones. Like emigration – it is the most far-sighted, the most determined and ambitious who are keenest to pack their bags. The foolhardy stay behind. Sometimes they are murdered.’
‘Sometimes it is the brave who are murdered, like Kennedy,’ Morrie pointed out, gently. Mannheim’s lined face told the company that unhappy memories had been stirred. ‘But if you are correct then Judaism is under threat as never before. Death from kindness, from comfort, from ease.’
‘From lack of terror.’ Simon had his mouth full. ‘And that’s wonderful. God forbid we return to the old days. Give me Liverpool any time. Our community will survive provided the children keep the faith. That means not intermarrying, of course.’ He stopped dead and his eyes swivelled to the grocer.
‘We will not be getting married, so you needn’t worry about that,’ Morrie answered with dignity. ‘I love my Nellie, I don’t mind admitting it. If I’d met her when I’d been younger then yes, marriage would have been a possibility. But not now. And I must say I’m glad my Jerry is engaged to Roseanne Nixon. She’s a nice Jewish girl, a
balaboster
, though there’s not much else to commend her. But her family’ll make a big
simchah
and we’ll both be pleased to get the youngsters safely off our hands.’
Simon nodded in agreement. ‘Don’t worry, Danny,’ he soothed. ‘Your daughter will do the same. It’s merely a question of her finding a suitable chap. From Leeds or Glasgow. The lure of the unknown.’
‘My Jerry’s future aunt Sylvia Bloom will be delighted to assist, I’m sure.’ Maurice chuckled good-naturedly. He had entertained the group with Sylvia’s antics and some of Vera’s, though the intimate detail had been omitted. The final showdown still made him blush with hot shame. ‘But Jerry said she already has a boyfriend. An American, isn’t it? From the USAF base. You’d be well in there, Danny, with a rich son-in-law.’
‘No-o, I don’t think so. Or at any rate, she’s said nowt.’ Danny looked thoughtful. He pushed away his plate. He had almost forgotten the phone call, or when he woke up believed he had half imagined it. Suddenly he had it. A broad-shouldered young man in a leather jacket on a holy day. An illicit cigarette on a windy street corner. Helen’s white face. Was that –?
‘I admire your Helen. A great deal goes on in that pretty head of hers.’ Mannheim raised his glass. ‘I give you a toast. To the young ones. May they have happier and easier days than we had.’
Glasses were clinked. Mannheim glanced sideways at Morrie. ‘The next generation won’t have your scruples. They will marry out. They won’t see why not, and they won’t care.’
Maurice shifted uncomfortably. He was not about to tell his friends that the woman he lived with was not free to marry. ‘I can understand,’ he said at last. ‘If my boy brought home a
shikse
– a nice girl, mind – and said they were engaged I don’t suppose I’d throw either of them out.’
‘Thank God I’m never going to be faced with that choice,’ Simon muttered.
‘Why, what would you do?’ Maurice challenged them all. ‘You can’t cold shoulder your own kith and kin. What other people think doesn’t matter – at least, not as much.’
Simon shook his head. Mannheim leaned forward-His skin was unusually flushed after two glasses of whisky. ‘In the old days in the
shtetl
when a son or daughter married out the father would hold a funeral service. For a girl especially because she takes with her her ability to bear Jewish children. They would offer the prayers for the dead as she walked away.’
A chill fell on the group. Simon turned in curiosity to Daniel. ‘You wouldn’t do that, would you? I mean: supposing what Morrie says is so and some of the gossip is true. Supposing she does have an American airman for a boyfriend. Like your cousins at the end of the war, it’s not so strange. But unlike theirs he’s not Jewish. A respectable boy. How would you react?’
Daniel stood up suddenly and his chair fell over with a crash. He reached for the card table to steady himself. ‘No,’ he whispered. ‘It couldn’t be like that.’
Morrie shrugged. ‘’Course it could. If you’d told me ten years ago I’d be shacked up with a
shikse
I’d have hit you in the mouth. But here I am, and I’m happy.’ The alcohol had made him garrulous. ‘They’re made the same way, you know. Same bits in the same places. Not an alien species. Same hearts. Same – souls. Nicer than our own people, often.’
‘You can’t stop her,’ Mannheim warned, but his voice seemed to come from a great distance. ‘She will go her own way. You’re her father, Danny, but she has left you far behind. So what will you do if it is true? Will you declare her
persona non grata
? Will she be dead for you?’
Their host, standing, looked from one to another, his cheeks drained of colour. His hand groped for his empty glass as if it were a link to reality. ‘No, no,’ he said again, almost to himself. ‘She would not do that to me. Not after all we’ve done for her.’ His eyes swivelled wildly. ‘Walk out on us? Pack her bags and leave? With some goy in tow? Reject us in favour of
that
? No, no. We keep the rules in this house. We always have.’ He shook his head, a bewildered expression on his face. ‘But dead? God. Dead?’
Simon banged his hand on the table. ‘You hold prayers for the dead for your Helen, Danny, and you can count me out. I won’t come. Lovely girl, just like her mother. She will do you proud some day, you’ll see.’
‘Nor me,’ Morrie agreed brusquely. ‘Nellie’d kill me. But you’d get some to do it. Religious fanatics. The rabbi’d lead the prayers. In this very room. You’d be honoured.’
‘There have been enough dead.’ Mannheim rose slowly to his feet and balanced carefully, fingertips spread out on the green baize. ‘Enough. If she leaves, if any of them leave, we wish them a long life. A prosperous life. With our blessing.’ For a moment he held Danny’s eye, then peered around. ‘Where is my coat? I have no more taste for cards tonight.’
Daniel stepped forward and remonstrated but the old tailor pulled his scarf around his face, insisted on going for the bus and made it clear he could not be prevented. It was early yet, he would be home by ten. With a leaden manner Daniel showed his guest out into the gloom then returned to the main room. Simon and Morrie had their heads together over the remnants of cake and another Scotch and were whispering, but abruptly fell silent when he entered. Then Simon spoke.
‘So, Danny. The world turns, things are not the same as yesterday. If it is true, what will you do?’
It was dark, must’ve been about nine. I’d meant to stay alert but I’d dozed off on the sofa. When I heard the noise behind me I opened my eyes. The television was still on, its black and white images flickering but no sound. A variety show with dancers. I switched it off and watched as the tiny dot shrank and disappeared. I wished I could go with it, and vanish into the ether.
I felt drugged and groggy from sleep. And hungry again. I’m forever hungry now – the baby I suppose. Eating for two.
For a minute I lay back in the dark. I didn’t want to put the light on yet, but I
wanted not to be dizzy when I stood up. Then I heard again the noise which had disturbed me. I remembered my Dad was in the hall with my diary and the liquor. It must have been him.
‘Colette?’ His voice was grating but soft.
‘Colette? You there?’
I stood up then and peered around the door. ‘Here, Dad. What is it?’ I could see my bag packed under the bed on the far side of the hall. My coat was on the hook on the front door. My gloves were in the pocket and I had my shoes on.
‘Colette.’ His tone was wheedling but there was menace in it. He had been slumped across the hall but now was upright, though he had to lean on the door jamb for support. He switched on the light. The bottle was in one hand. Empty. The exercise book was in the other, his dirty thumb keeping his mark. He’d read a lot of it. He’d read it. I could tell from his face.
My heart was thumping so loud you could’ve heard it. That disturbed baby who began to kick. My mind was distracted and I struggled to think. It seemed safest, though, to act casual. I turned my back on him and went into the kitchen. I felt wobbly with hunger; if I was to make a run for it now or later, I was too weak without something to eat. I didn’t want to fall over as I ran down the staircase – it’d be quicker than waiting for the lift to get up this far. And I could run faster than him, with a pint of whisky inside him. Of that I was sure.
The loaf was on the table and the bread knife where I’d left them. I picked up a crust and chewed it slowly. It reminded me of earlier. The wren would have nested though starlings were scrapping around outside, fighting over perches. There’s so much light in these flats they get confused and think it isn’t night yet, when it is. I hoped my Dad could not see that my hands were trembling. I couldn’t help it.
He staggered a bit and lurched into the doorway of the kitchen. Then he made an effort and squared his shoulders. He plonked the bottle hard on the table but it did not break. His eyeballs were reamed with red veins and his mouth was wet and smelled of sour drink.
Then he seemed distracted. He never could concentrate on much for long. ‘God, I need a fag,’ he said. There was a packet of Woodbines and matches on the table and I pushed them over to him.
While he lit up and appeared for a moment to forget what he’d meant to say I opened the fridge. Margarine and a bit of ham. That’d have to do. I started to cut the bread, keeping my head down. I didn’t want to look at him.
Then he grabbed my arm. ‘Colette. Our kid. What’ve you got hidden in there?’ He poked my bulge. He’d ignored it till now – though he should have noticed. But then we never talked much. ‘Got a little bastard, have you? A baby, no less. That’s what it says.’ He indicated the exercise book. ‘An’ you think it’s mine, do ya?’
I didn’t answer. I held on to the loaf to stop myself from falling. My hair came forward and hid my face.
‘Answer me!’ He gave me a shove. He was scared: he blew he was in trouble too. ‘It can’t be mine. I’m your father. It can’t be. You shouldn’t say such things. It’s probably some other bugger. Somebody you can’t even remember, most like.’
I stayed silent but he began to shout. Then I spun round and confronted him. The bread knife was still in my hand. ‘Of course it’s yours, Dad,’ I told him, as calmly as I could. It was like in a dream, like slow motion. ‘I haven’t been with anyone else.’
‘You have. You must have. It’s not natural, a girl like you.’ He tried to keep his
voice down. The walls are paper thin. He didn’t want the neighbours to hear.
‘It’s yours, Dad. And I’m going to have it. I’m going to the convent. It’s all arranged. Don’t worry, it won’t cost anything.’
His eyes opened wide. ‘You’re goin’ where? You been telling them nuns about me? You given them my name? Why, you bitch. We’ll see about that –’
And he gave me another vicious shove, but this time it was aimed at my belly. I stepped back.
‘Don’t, Dad,’ I pleaded. ‘I want to have this baby. I’ll have him adopted, he’ll have a decent home. Then I can take my exams and – well, that’s for the future. And I haven’t told anybody about – that it was you. Not a soul on earth, I swear. But it’s my baby as well as yours, and he has a right to be born.’
‘No he hasn’t he spat at me, and drew back his arm. He was going to punch me hard, I know he was. I tried to slip out of the line of fire. He yelled at me and threw the book on the floor and stamped on it. His eyes were down, his body hunched. He was going to destroy the evidence. He was going to kill the baby. He was, and he wouldn’t have cared much if he’d killed me in the process. He had that crazed look about him, of a man about to do a terrible act.
I put my arms before me and backed off, trying to put the table between us. He was in my path if I wanted to run out now, between me and the door. I had the big bread knife in both hands, held tight, pointing at him. In front of my baby, to protect us both. It wasn’t very sharp, but it was all I had.
‘I’ll sort you out, miss, once and for all,’ he ranted, and launched himself at me. A kind of charge, it was. I suppose he expected me to drop the knife but I didn’t. I don’t know why, I just held on to it for dear life.
The table was light, it didn’t stop him. He knocked it aside and came at me headlong, fists up. But I stood still and closed my eyes and held on tight.
Then it happened.
There was a noise of tearing cloth and a jerk as the blade hit bone, then a slight hiss, as if the knife had slid into a yielding joint of fresh meat. I could feel the fabric of his shirt jammed hard and wet against my knuckles. I opened my eyes and he was stopped a few inches from me, his mouth opened wide, his tongue lolling, a gape of complete astonishment on him. His eyes bulged and turned purple. He struggled but he was stuck, impaled on the knife. He must have hit the point dead on. As he twisted he screamed. Then blood came out of the cut, dark red, not a spurt but a glutinous flow. It fell down his front and stained his shirt. It covered my hands. He coughed, and a trickle of brighter blood came from his mouth.
I yanked the knife away and he half fell on me. ‘Colette – what have you done?’ he croaked, and held his hand to the wound. When he lifted it the palm was covered in his own blood. I tried to hold him up and away from me. His face went pallid and he began to gasp. Then suddenly he heaved himself upright and shook his bloody fist in my face.
‘You fucking bitch! You piece of dirt! What have you done? My God, I’ll sort you out. And your fuckin’ bastard. Come here –’
And he began to stagger towards me. The veins in his throat swelled like ropes. The knife clattered to the floor. He yelped and picked it up. ‘Right, miss. Now it’s your turn.’
He had strength from somewhere. He put one foot in front of another, clutching his stomach, the foam on his lips flecked with scarlet. He meant to destroy me. I had nowhere to go. I could not get past him. I took a couple of steps backwards and found myself on the balcony.
Around my head the starlings flapped in angry protest. They scrabbled furiously about, sweeping low as if they would carry me off. Away from here. Away from the
cold-faced
nuns. Away from my father, father to my child, grandfather to his own son.
To a better place. There has to be a finer place than this. There has to be.
He was in the lighted doorway, his face livid. Then he lunged.
And I was in the air, not falling, but flying, over the ledge ten floors up, not falling at all, but flying, me and my baby, free as the birds who swooped and cried about my head and body. Free at last of pain and fear. Free to be together.
Free, free, for ever.