All The Days of My Life (49 page)

“My mother has been up at six o'clock every morning of her life,” he
told her stiffly. “And she is alive and in good health and respected by her children.”

Molly groaned. “Bet she wishes she was bloody dead, though,” she muttered.

Ivy, who had, again in the traditions of Meakin Street, spent many years calling her daughter a slut, was shocked when she visited Orme Square. “Spit and polish everywhere,” she remarked disapprovingly, looking round the sitting room. “It looks lovely, I don't deny it – I don't mind hygiene but you feel you ought to clean your shoes and have a bath before you come in. Who keeps it like this?”

Molly, pouring tea from a silver teapot into bone china cups said, “I do.”

Ivy was astonished. “You do?” she said. “I used to have to scream for a week to get you to make your bed. You do all this?”

“Every bleeding bit of it,” said Molly. “From washing the tins before I put them in the dustbin to hoovering under Josie's bed – every day.”

“Oh, my good God,” said Ivy. “Well – hand us that cup, unless you think I'll break it.” She got up and wandered to the window. “Nice view,” she said, looking over the pretty square beyond. “Pity about the main road.”

“Park's opposite – that's a compensation,” Molly said.

“Oh, it's very nice, you can't deny it. And our Josie looks as if she'd been washed, starched and hung out to dry.”

Josephine was sitting on the rug, reading a book. Her socks were clean, her shoes brightly polished and her brown curls had been pulled back to form a neat bunch at the back of her head.

“She's quietened down,” observed her grandmother. “She used to be a real handful. Off in a flash and all over the place. I used to tell her I was going to buy a chain and chain her up.” Josephine flashed her grandmother a saucy grin and turned over a page.

“Ferenc says a little girl should behave like a little girl,” Molly said.

“I could never see much difference,” Ivy observed. “It's hard work to make a normal little girl into a nice little girl. I never had much success at it. I suppose he thinks a woman should behave like a woman, too. All this charring and so forth. Still,” she observed in a more rational tone, “I must say he's looking after you well.”

“That's a fact, mum,” Molly told her.

“Be married soon, I daresay?” questioned Ivy.

“That's right,” Molly agreed.

The only other visitor of whom Nedermann approved was Simon Tate. Simon always refused invitations to meals, pleading that his work at the club kept him busy at those hours, but he frequently dropped in during the afternoons to see Molly when she was alone. He insisted on having drinks. As he gazed around one day he observed, “Well, Molly Flanders, you're doing very well. Very tasteful. Nice clean modern lines and just enough of the traditional to add solidity and hint at some links with the past. Who's this?” he asked, gesturing at a portrait in the alcove. “Would that be Graf von Nedermann, member of Bismarck's cabinet? Or could it be the ninth Lord Water-house?”

“Oh – don't be such a snob,” Molly said.

“Sorry,” Simon told her. “It all looks very nice and I'm enjoying it. Did you arrange the flowers?”

“Who else?” said Molly. She was trying to be lighthearted but Simon noticed she was gulping her gin. She stood up to get another one.

“The only thing baffling me is the reading material,” he told her, pointing to the books on the floor.

“Better get rid of them,” Molly said, scooping them up. As she bundled them into a sideboard and turned the key on the cupboard door she added, “Ferenc can't stand me sitting about with a book in my hand.”

“So you spend the afternoons secretly reading Graham Greene and the collected works of Bernard Shaw?” asked Simon, who had spotted the titles.

“Not bloody likely,” grinned Molly, still knocking back the gin.

“What's it all about?” Simon asked.

“Well, if you really want to know,” Molly told him, “I remembered what Steven said about how I should take an interest in things and improve my mind. He said once without that I'd end up nothing but a burden to everybody. I started getting bored in the afternoons. There's only so much haute cuisine and going to the hairdressers you can do without going mad. To tell you the honest truth I thought I was getting depressed. So I thought, well, if I read one book and understand it Steven will know, wherever he is, if he's anywhere, that somebody once took him seriously. So I got this book, about a highwayman and a girl in a low-cut dress, and I read it. But it was rubbish – I mean, all that can't have been that different from what I've seen, even if it was years ago, and I never noticed anybody like Arnie Rose in that book and you
can be sure that whenever it all happened there'd be an Arnie Rose in it somewhere. Anyway, I knew really that kind of book wasn't what Steven meant. So I joined the library and I took out a few books and I got quite interested in reading, I've been reading these thrillers by Graham Greene – they're good. The Shaw book's just a joke. Steven use to tell me about Professor Higgins while he was trying to turn me into a lady. He even took me to the play, so I thought I'd read it –
Pygmalion.
But plays are too hard to read.”

“You'll stand for Parliament next,” Simon said.

“You shouldn't laugh at me,” Molly said seriously. “It's people like you laughing at people like me that holds us back. Well, you go and laugh at Ivy and Sid – that's all right because they're used to it and they know they can't do anything. But don't try it on with Jack or Shirley, because they've had more chances and they're always passing exams. That's how I know I can't be that stupid – because of Jack and Shirley being bright. That's the difference between you and Steven Greene – whatever else he did, he had a bit of respect for other people.”

“Ferenc wouldn't like it if he heard you talking like that,” Simon said.

Molly shrugged and stood up again. “Another drink?” she asked.

“You're knocking back the gin a bit this afternoon,” he said. “It's not like you.”

“Bored housewife, aren't I?” Molly said shortly. “Are you having a drink or not?”

“Thanks,” Simon said, holding out his glass. “Actually, Moll, if I'm spiteful it's because I'm embarrassed. I'm getting on badly with Norman and Arnie and I'm bored to death with the Club. Could you put in a good word for me with Ferenc? I fancy joining the organization.”

“Oh Christ,” exclaimed Molly, turning round with the drinks in her hand. “You wouldn't last five minutes. You'd throw up if you had to work for Ferenc. It's a rotten game – all rats and evictions and rotten bloody fires through overturned oil heaters. You couldn't stomach it, not for a second.”

Simon looked round, at the copper bowl of flowers on the elegant table under the oil painting, the watercolours on the walls, the thick-pile carpet. He stared at the crystal glass in his hand and put it down.

“That's where all this comes from?” he asked.

“Where did you think? We haven't got a private gold mine in the
back garden,” snapped Molly. She added, “You might as well finish that drink. It's poured out now and if you don't have it it'll only go down the sink.” She hesitated. “Look,” she said, “I know I'm a kept woman, living on dirty money. And when we get married it won't be better. It'll be worse because I'll have agreed legally that I don't mind.” Pausing again, she said, “Change the subject – what happened to Johnnie?”

“He got two years – it might have been less but one of the girls was under age. I don't think he knew that, though.”

“I don't envy him in jail,” Molly said.

“That's right,” Simon agreed. He added, “Well, I'm sorry to have asked you, Molly. If what you say's true, it's obvious I'd better stay put. I'll think about something else. I just can't stand the Club, the punters or anything about them. Also, I'd like to see daylight more often and get weekends off like normal people. Tom Allaun and Charlie Mark-ham are back – they dropped a thousand each last Saturday night and Sunday morning. While other people are out at parties I'm having to absorb spite from men like that – it isn't good enough. They're rotten winners and even worse losers. And Charlie can call on the family firm to make good his loss but I don't know what Tom's going to do.”

“His father'll sell off another farm,” said Molly, whose connection with the property market had taught her a good deal. Then she stood up, swayed, murmured something about Mrs Gates and a gypsy – and fell down.

Simon rushed over and picked her up just as she regained consciousness. “Molly,” he said in a concerned voice. “Are you all right? When did you start drinking?”

“Not the gin,” she said weakly, as he ladled her into a chair and went to get her a glass of water. “Not the gin – I'm in the club.”

“What about the club?” he said, returning and handing her the water.

“Not that club,” she moaned. “The other club – I'm pregnant. I thought as much. I can't get stuck like this.” She drank the water, while Simon stared at her in bewilderment. “I can't get stuck like this,” she said more emphatically. “I won't have it. I won't have this baby.”

Simon stared at her. “You'd better think it over,” he advised.

“How long for?” demanded Molly. “Nine months? This isn't anything you can afford time to think about. You'll have to help me.”

“What? How?” asked Simon, still startled.

“Ask around,” Molly said desperately. “Find out who women go to
and how much it costs. I want a posh abortionist and no fuss. And Ferenc mustn't find out.”

“Do you think this is quite fair on him?” Simon asked. “He'd be a devoted father –”

“Fair on him?” Molly half-shouted. “What about fair on me? I'm not even bloody married. I've had one fatherless kid. I'm in the running, now, for another. Do you think I want to go through all that again?” Her voice dropped to a threatening whisper. “You just ask around, Simon, and find out what to do. Is Mrs Jones still in charge of the ladies'?”

“Yes,” Simon said gloomily.

“Then you ask her,” Molly demanded. “She's the one to ask – she's bound to know. Say it's your sister. Do it today.” She was nearly shouting again. Simon was alarmed. He said, in a low voice, “All right, Moll. I'll do it.” He added, on an inspiration, “I'll do it now.” He was looking for a chance to leave immediately. An embarrassing conversation with Mrs Jones seemed a small price to pay to get away from this hysterical woman who, it seemed, might do anything at any time – throw a glass at a mirror, faint again or begin to scream.

Molly spotted his game and said sulkily, “You do that, then. Go now.”

Simon went to the door. “All right,” he said. “Are you sure you'll be all right on your own? Would you like me to get Josephine from school for you?”

“I'll get Josephine,” Molly said grimly. “You just find Mrs Jones. Then ring me.”

“All right,” he said.

“But listen,” she told him, springing upright in her chair. “If you ring and I say – what shall I say? – yes, if I say “I'll drop in tomorrow and collect it from the club,” you shut up. That'll mean Ferenc's here.”

“Right,” Simon said and, guiltily, left. In the end it was he who drove Molly to Wimpole Street for her interview with the smart abortionist who had two psychiatrists sitting in his basement rubber-stamping the documents asserting that his clients were so unstable that the birth of an unwanted child might cause them serious mental damage. This meant that the abortion, when carried out, was perfectly legal. A few days later Simon drove her to the clinic just outside London where the operations were conducted and came back in the evening to collect her. In the meanwhile Ivy had telephoned Ferenc to tell him that Molly had fainted while on a visit to her house and that
she had been put to bed upstairs as a precaution. Molly did spend the night at Meakin Street, after the abortion, and returned next day to Orme Square.

It was a week later when the grey photostats proving the death of Mrs Nedermann arrived. This was perhaps why, as they lay beside the silver coffee pot and the cooling rolls, heated by Molly in the oven every morning, they seemed so much like the evidence of a contemporary crime. Nevertheless, she felt no direct remorse about the abortion of Nedermann's child.

I wasn't happy, not really happy, with Ferenc but I was content, which is something to be grateful for, I suppose. I wasn't flogging Lord This or sucking off Sir That. I wasn't selling aspirins in Boots and trying to make ends meet for me and Josephine. And Josephine got her education off to a good start at school. The private school was better than Wattenblath Elementary School, or whatever they were calling it by that time. And I liked Nedermann and I was sorry for him, though I can't say I loved him, whatever that might mean. The truth is he was so repressive I felt irritable with him half the time. He had these high domestic standards and he banned practically everybody I knew from the house. He had to put up with Ivy because she was my mother, after all, but when he came home after she'd gone he used to prowl about the room, saying her cigarette smoke was too strong and opening up the windows and fussing about like an old hen. I couldn't really complain too much – after all, he was paying for everything, including Josephine's ballet lessons and the posh school and the uniform and all that. Still, I suppose I wouldn't have stayed if I hadn't been fond of him – I often used to think of life in Meakin Street, even if it was a bit rough and ready, it would have been a damn sight easier and more fun than living with Ferenc Nedermann. And it wasn't too easy to forget how he got those funds – he had us, Josephine and me, as captives and he had those poor bloody tenants of his in the same state. He was a natural jailer, that was the truth. He got his security from knowing he had everybody under his thumb. There were times when, seeing him carrying on like the Mayor of Scarborough, all watch-chain and haemorrhoids, I felt just like screaming out loud. But there you are, he was kind, he needed me – I couldn't see for crying when he died. They shuffled him off to his grave in the end. He would have died of horror if he could have seen his own funeral. It preyed on my mind for
years and in the end, when I had the money, I got everybody together that had known him and I had a great big ceremony, in the cemetery where he was buried, with a proper address by a rabbi and, afterwards, a big party. Then I had a huge, marble tombstone put up for him. Well, I thought it was the least I could do for the poor old bugger.