At the Break of Day (25 page)

The doctor came the following week and now Frank was able to walk down the block, and drive into work for a few hours, and he came home with Joe, who stayed to dinner, his shirt white, his teeth white, his hair bleached. They talked of the jobs Frank had given to two of his blacklisted friends and Joe frowned as he drank from the crystal glass.

‘I guess we should be seen to be even-handed,’ he said. ‘There should be a leader column alongside yours taking a more normal view. We’ll be closed if we take too much of a liberal stand.’

Rosie put her own glass down. ‘Frank’s paper is even-handed.’ Her voice was sharp.

Frank laughed. ‘He’s got a point. I haven’t been publishing any of the crazy letters. I guess we’ll let them roll. Maybe it’ll shake some of these burghers up, make them see what’s going on outside their picket fences. And maybe it’s time Joe had a column. We’ll give it a shot.’

They moved to the sofas and sat in front of a fire which flickered and swept heat into the room, and Rosie thought of the small banked fire, the queues, and Jack. She looked at Joe. He was so big. She wanted to be back in England, to feel Jack’s arms around her, his lips on hers, to feel safe. There had been no letter from him last week, or this week, so that night in bed, she read all that she had received and slept with them beneath her pillow.

There was no letter from him the next day either but there was one from Maisie.

California
USA
7 Sept. 1950

Dear Rosie,

You will see from the letter that I am in America too. I couldn’t manage any longer. I love him you see. He came over for me again and this time I had to go back with him. Lee is Ed’s boy. Forgive me. Jack left, you left. Ollie is a good man. I’ve hurt him so much. It was never his fault, always mine. Jack loved Ed too. I wrote to Jack but he didn’t write back. Go to him.

Maisie

She left that day, throwing clothes into her cases, kissing Nancy and Frank, saying she’d come back. She had to be with Jack. She flew. The ship was too slow. Frank paid. She didn’t mind. She had to get back to Jack and all the time she cursed the red-haired man and the woman who smelled of lavender because they would bring pain back into Jack’s life and he might blame her.

She took a taxi down the narrow streets. They had still not rebuilt the houses round the rec. Why hadn’t Maisie written? She would have come back. Rosie had known the man was Ed. Deep down she had known.

She jumped from the taxi, paid, tipped, and ran down between the houses to the alley, her cases banging into her legs. She dropped them in Jack’s yard. He wouldn’t be there, but Ollie would.

Ollie was sitting at the table, drunk. His face was unshaven. He smelt of stale beer. There were dishes in the sink. Lee’s toys were heaped in the corner of the room, broken and hacked apart. Maisie’s clothes were with them. There was no fire in the grate and it was cold.

Rosie walked over to him, putting her arms around him, holding him, rocking him, but he didn’t cry, he just moaned.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Rosie whispered. ‘I’m so sorry, Ollie.’

He was silent at last, then pushed himself away from her, turning back to the beer, pouring it into his glass, drinking again. She stooped to pick up the clothes, the toys.

‘Leave it. I’m going to burn them.’ His voice was cracked like an old record.

She moved to the fire then, cleaning out the grate, emptying the ashcan into the dustbin, feeling it in her eyes and throat. She laid wood, then coal, lit it. Held a paper to draw it, heard the crackle then felt the heat.

She boiled a kettle, washed the dishes, made tea. Came and sat at the table with him. She poured him a cup, and one for herself. It was hot and strong. He didn’t drink his. He didn’t even look. He just drank his beer. She should have stayed in England, but how could she? How the hell could she?

‘I knew it was that GI,’ he said as Rosie poured another cup. ‘Bastard.’

He pushed his chair away, kicking at the toys, standing there, his hands limp by his sides.

‘I just knew,’ he repeated then he walked into the yard. Rosie followed.

‘I loved her, you see. It drove me mad. If I’d been kinder maybe she’d have stayed. But it burned inside me. She wouldn’t let me touch her, not after she met him.’

Rosie held his arm. It was dark now. There were lights in Norah’s house.

‘The boy was his. I knew. It was the hair. They both had the same hair. I used to buy ham off him. I liked him. Trusted him, but only in the beginning. Now they’ve gone.’ He turned and looked at the house.

‘Your granddad and me bought these two houses. Things were all right then. Now I’ve got nothing and he’s dead.’ He was looking at her now, in the light from the kitchen. ‘It’s you bloody Yanks. You knew, didn’t you, and you never said. Maisie told me. You bloody Yanks, you stick together. Well get out of here. You don’t belong. Just get out.’ He was shouting, moving towards her, and Rosie backed away from him, out of the yard, because he was right. She had known and there was nothing she could say. But then he called, ‘There’s a letter here for you. From Jack.’

She stood at the gate, the latch was rusty, there was a slight fog, the dampness made her cough. Why was Jack writing to her here?

Ollie went into the house, came out. The letter was white in his hand. He thrust it at her, then pushed the gate shut. It was dark, too dark to read. She walked to the end of the alley, to the lamppost where Jack and she had swung. She ripped it open.

Rosie,

Norah told me someone called Joe wrote to you. Who the hell is Joe? Is that why you went? Is that why you left Maisie? You promised. You said if I wasn’t there, you would be, but one letter from a man I’ve never heard of and you’re rushing back to the Wallens. Was Frank really so ill?

I trusted you and all the time you knew about Ed. She’s taken Lee. He was Ed’s. You Yanks think you own the bloody world. Go to hell. Go back, you seem to like it so much. Don’t let me see you again.

Jack

Rosie spent the night at Norah’s. Not speaking to her, or to Harold. She couldn’t. She couldn’t sleep, eat, think. All she could do was feel.

She travelled to Yorkshire the next morning, her mouth dry. She must see him, talk to him. She must make him understand. The leaves were down from the trees, the wind buffeted the train. There was a view of Harrogate screwed to the wall. What had happened to the one that Jack had taken and sold in Somerset? What had happened to her world?

She turned from the glass-framed picture, from the man who sat reading his paper, blowing his nose. She stood, left her paper in her place and walked up and down the corridor to dull the pain. Everything was dark. There was no colour. He couldn’t leave her. He was her life. He was her childhood, her future.

She leaned her head against the window, letting it bang against the glass as the train rushed through long sweeps of countryside, watching the rain jerk down the pane. Yes, she’d known. But she couldn’t tell. It would have made it worse. Or would it? She didn’t know, for Chrissake. She didn’t know. All she knew was that she had promised Jack, and Maisie too, and there was anger added to the pain. Why couldn’t people live their own lives? Why reach out and destroy hers? Why, Maisie? For God’s sake why?

She changed trains, buying a roll which she couldn’t eat from a kiosk, buying stewed tea, feeling it coat her teeth; feeling despair. She had to wait two hours for a connection. This part of the journey was slower, and she wanted it to roar and rush. She had to talk to him.

The camp was large. Squat buildings lined the roads. Nissen huts stood behind barbed wire. White notice boards held stencilled letters. The taxi took her to the duty room. It was six p.m. He was out.

‘Where?’

They wouldn’t tell her.

She held the taxi, gripping the door as though it would drive off, asking each soldier who passed, ignoring the winks, the whistles. No one knew. But still she waited. Still she asked.

‘In the pub, in the village,’ a boy with a shaved neck told her. He looked a child.

‘Which pub?’ She still held the taxi door. The meter was ticking over.

He didn’t know. But it was one in Little Somerton.

They drove there along unlit roads. Sheep were huddled on the moors and the trees were stunted and crouched before the wind. Faster for Chrissake, she thought, but she said nothing.

She paid the taxi, standing in the centre of a village which was more like a town and watching it leave. It was dark and cold. The grey stone of the buildings funnelled the winds in off the dales. There were soldiers in the streets and girls who smiled, their lipstick bright in the light from the street lamps and the windows of the houses. There were railings, sharp pointed, newly painted. She could smell it.

Rosie walked up the street, looking at the men, and they looked back, walking towards her, but they were not Jack. She moved on, shaking her head. There were catcalls.

‘Give us a knee trembler then.’

She pushed open the door to The Red Lion. It was crowded, full of smoke. Soldiers were playing darts, the juke box was loud. There were girls at the tables, their laughter high, too loud. A man in front turned, he was drinking beer with a cigarette in the hand which held the glass. There was froth on his upper lip. He grinned at her, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

‘I’m looking for Jack Parker.’

He shook his head. ‘Never ’eard of him. What about me?’

She looked past him, at the man behind, the men to the left and right, all of them, but none was Jack.

She turned and left. The man followed, holding open the door, calling after her.

‘Come on, sweetheart, I’ll buy you a drink.’

She didn’t turn, she just walked on. She had to find him, had to talk. She couldn’t live without him. She couldn’t live with this despair. It made her breath shallow, her skin clammy.

In the second pub there was the same smoke, the same juke box music. Lights pulsed from it, on the men, the women, the ceiling, but not on Jack. He wasn’t there.

In the third pub there was no music. There was a pool table down one end and dominoes too. There were girls at the tables, soldiers right up to the door.

She pushed through them, looking, asking. Their khaki was rough and damp. It smelt. Was that the smell Jack had meant when he told her about pressing his clothes?

A man caught her arm. She pulled away. He spilt his beer.

‘Bloody ’ell,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘I’m only trying to tell you, Jack’s over there.’ He jerked his head behind him and she gripped his arm.

‘I’m sorry, so sorry.’

Then she was past him, sliding through another group, smelling their beer, their sweat, and he was there, sitting at a table flicking a beer mat over and over, his arm round a girl with blonde hair and black roots, and it was as though she was split apart, jagged and bleeding, as she heard a moan. It was her. It was like the noise that Ollie had made.

But no one else heard. No one saw her. No one was looking. Not the men round the table, not the girl who was leaning into his neck, not Jack whose lashes were still too long, whose face was still too pale, too drawn, so sad.

She didn’t hear the others, see the others. Those that pushed her, jostled her, those that sat around his table. They were laughing. Their mouths were open, their shoulders were heaving but she couldn’t hear them.

‘Jack.’ It was her voice. It sounded the same, not as though it came from the pain which was slicing through her body.

She watched as he looked up, his face changing. He moved, then stopped. His face became set, his arm gripped the girl. He turned from her. But for a moment he had loved. She had seen it.

She moved closer. ‘Come and talk to me, Jack.’

He was turning to the others, his shoulder towards her, then his back. The girl looked over him, to Rosie, and laughed. There was lipstick on her teeth.

‘Talk to me, Jack.’ Rosie leaned forward, picked up a glass of beer that the Lance-Corporal who sat opposite him had just put back on the table. It was three quarters full.

‘Talk to me,’ she shouted and the laughter stopped around the table. But Rosie couldn’t hear anything other than her own voice. Now he turned. ‘Come outside and talk to me or I throw this goddamn beer over him.’

She nodded to the Lance-Corporal who sat still, doing nothing, saying nothing. There was quiet all around them. She could hear that now. The glass was heavy, and wet. The beer was sticky. The hops had made her hands sticky too.

She said, ‘Remember the bines, Jack? Remember how sticky the hops are? How the dust gets beneath your nails? Come and talk …’ She did not need to go on because he rose.

The girl caught at his hand. He shook her off.

Rosie kept the beer in her hand until he had passed and then she handed it to the Lance-Corporal, but wanted to throw it over the girl. Into her eyes, her hair, her mouth, because Jack had held her and she had leaned into his neck where the smell of him was strong.

She pushed through the crowds, those who were still talking, those who hadn’t noticed. The rest opened a path for her, not looking, their eyes busy, and everywhere there was the smell of damp khaki.

She opened the door. It was cold, dark. Jack was down the street, leaning on the wall, his foot up against it, a cigarette in his hand then his mouth. He had done this when she had come home the first time. But then it had been different, he had wanted her.

He watched her come. Her walk, her hair, curling around her face, her neck. Her eyes which were heavy with pain, her lips which were trembling and he wanted to reach out and hold her, love her, but she had gone away. Joe had written and she had gone. Maisie had gone. Rosie had known about Ed, all that time. And now the love washed away and the anger came again, as it had done every day since Maisie had left, frightening him by its savageness.

He turned and walked on, hearing her footsteps behind him, just behind, never at his side because he walked too fast. She would never walk beside him again.

He would never let her. He had trusted her, loved her above all else. But she had rushed to Joe, to Frank, to America, and because of that Maisie had gone to Ed. His heart was full of pain, his eyes too, but she mustn’t see that. No one must see his pain again. He pushed it away until only the anger was left.