At the Break of Day (7 page)

‘Oh well, that’s nice.’ The woman was moving towards the door. ‘Perhaps we can move you into the snack bar when we get one. You seem like a good girl. Start tomorrow, why don’t you.’

Rosie walked out of the office into the hub of the store. The Andrews Sisters were singing ‘The Three Caballeros’ and she wondered how Albany Street would take to Bix Beiderbecke. She walked past Norah and smiled – after all they were not children feuding any longer. Norah had been unfairly treated and Rosie must damp down the anger.

‘I’m on records,’ she said.

‘Well, don’t be late. Grandpa needs his lunch. There’s a nice bit of Spam in the meat-safe.’ Norah turned away, then back again.

‘I suppose you’re meeting that Jack. Well, not until you’ve done the chores, you’re not.’

‘One day, you’ll find yourself being pleasant and it will be as much of a goddamn shock to yourself as it will be to the rest of the world.’ Rosie walked away, leaving Norah to close her open mouth, and all the way home she was glad she had let the anger out. It helped her to lift her head, but from now on she must rein back in.

She opened a tin of American ham for Grandpa instead.

‘This is our celebration,’ she told him. There was no ice-box so Rosie drank lukewarm milk, then sank the bottle into the pail of water again. She stood a bowl in water and left half the ham in it for Norah’s meal that evening. It was only fair.

She and Grandpa ate tinned peaches which slipped on the spoon and were easy to eat. Juice trickled down both their chins and they laughed as they had done before she left.

It was only when he was asleep and the floor was washed, the dishes too, when the cooker was cleaned and her arms were black from the grime, when the beds were made, that she left, wondering how Norah could sleep with those fox’s eyes glinting on the back of the door. But what did it matter? She was going to see Jack, but then she heard her grandfather calling. She turned. He was in the doorway, waving to her, leaning on his stick with the other hand.

‘You forgot your matchbox.’

For a moment Rosie paused and then she remembered the ladybirds which she used to catch in a matchbox she always carried when she went out. She called, ‘No I didn’t, I’ve got one in my pocket. Don’t worry, we’ll keep the roses clear of greenfly.’

He smiled and waved again and turned back into the house. Rosie stopped at a tobacconist, bought a matchbox and tipped the matches out into the bin. He mustn’t know that she had forgotten.

Malvern Lane was too narrow to receive much sun and Rosie watched as Jack moved backwards and forwards in front of his stall, holding a flowered teapot high above his head, laughing with one woman, nodding to another who picked up a saucer and turned it over in her hands. She dropped money into his left hand and pushed the saucer deep into her shopping bag.

‘Come on then, ladies. Don’t let the rationing get to you. Look, it’s a lovely day up there above the clouds, let’s have a smile, shall we?’ He was laughing now and the crowd laughed with him, Rosie too, but he hadn’t seen her yet and she was glad. She wanted to stand here, listening, watching, trying to ease into London just for a moment. Trying to push away the thought of the intersections, the streetcars, the ice-cream parlors.

‘Just look at this.’ Jack pointed to the teapot which he still held high. ‘When did you last see a splash of colour like this then, eh? Can’t buy it now, can you? Certainly not. Only white can be made the chiefs have said.’ He looked round at them all. ‘Well, that’s as may be, but today is your lucky day. Here –’ Jack turned and gestured to the back of the stall – ‘I have just a few little treasures so who’s going to give me five bob for this then?’

It went on like that for half an hour and by that time all the coloured china had gone, as Rosie knew it would, and as the crowds thinned he saw her and called across.

‘Did you remember your matchbox, then?’

The woman in front of Rosie turned. Her cheeks were red and her smile broad. ‘He’s a one, that lad. Could charm the bleeding birds out of the trees.’

Rosie laughed and held up the box. She didn’t want to speak, to drawl. She didn’t know if the woman would stop smiling.

‘Be with you in half an hour. The gang’s coming,’ Jack called again, then he laughed as a woman came and slapped his arm, giving him money for two plates and telling him she’d take another if he threw in a kiss with it. He looked at Rosie again and pointed to his watch. It wasn’t gold, his skin wasn’t tanned. Was Joe playing tennis now? Was Sandra?

She wandered off, down the lane, moving out round a heap of yellowed cabbage leaves whose smell followed her on down past the potatoes, the lettuce, and drowned the scent of the pinks tied in small bunches and left to stand in a tin jug.

There was a tea stall and she bought a cup, sipping it, hearing the past all around her, the noises, the voices, breathing in the smells which had faded and vanished with the years. But they were here again, all here.

So, the gang was coming too. She didn’t remember them, not their names or their faces. It was only Jack she had pictured over the years and the miles. Would Joe and Sandra forget her too?

When she returned Jack was waiting, his old leather money apron now tied around the waist of his father, Ollie, who had run the stall for as long as Rosie could remember. She started to walk towards Ollie but Jack caught at her arm.

‘Leave it for now.’

They walked to the rec where they had scuffed the ground with worn plimsolls on hot days as they pumped themselves higher and higher on swings already raised by being thrown over the bar. They didn’t talk as they walked through the streets, and Jack had to lead the way because she had forgotten. He sauntered, hands in pockets, his two-tone shoes worn, his hair hanging down over his forehead.

She remembered her shoes, and the sweater she had worn back to front as all Lower Falls girls did, but they were in her room, on the shelf below the Cougar pennant and she mustn’t think of that.

They crossed wasteground which had once been three houses. The rec was across the road from Oundle Street where there were houses with black-tarred casement sheets instead of glass. They were all deserted and two were ripped apart; just as she felt.

She remembered the park with railings but they were gone and now Jack told her how his mum had written to say that they had been taken away by men with oxyacetylene cutters to build Spitfires.

‘How’s your mum?’ she asked. ‘It was so quiet today.’

His eyes were dark as he turned, then looked past her. ‘Race you to the swings.’

He ran, catching her arm, running with her across worn asphalt where weeds were breaking through, running faster than her, goddamn it, and so now she spurted but he was still ahead and the breath was leaping in her throat as the swings drew nearer. But he was first, throwing himself on to one, pushing back with his feet, lifting them high and then surging forward, up into the air.

She sat on hers and looked at the sign that said, ‘
12 YEARS AND UNDER ONLY
.’

‘Hey, we’ll be done.’

She heard his laugh. ‘Come on, Yank. We’ve just been through a war. No one’s going to stop me swinging if I want to.’

She pushed off now, feeling the air slicing through her, half pain, half pleasure. The links were rusty and stained her hands and then there was only the squealing of the chain and their laughter. She leaned back, the sky was blue. It was the same sky over America. Maybe it wasn’t so far after all, but she knew that it was.

Afterwards they talked, still sitting on the swings, Jack’s legs gently moving his, his shoulders leaning hard into the chain, his hands between his knees.

He told her then that Ollie was drinking, snarling. Sleeping a little. Working a little. That Maisie seldom laughed now.

‘But they were so different. Was it the war? What about Lee? Hasn’t he helped?’

There were two small children standing by the swings now and Jack winked at them, standing, nodding to them.

‘It’s all yours,’ he called and they ran past him and Rosie, who stood too and watched as they scrambled on to the swings.

‘Give us push, mister,’ the boy with red hair said.

Jack did and Rosie watched as his broad hands pushed and caught, pushed and caught the swing.

‘I’m OK now,’ the boy said and they walked over to the bench. The dark green paint was flaking. Rosie brushed the seat with her hand, rubbing the paint off as she sat.

‘Didn’t Lee help?’ Rosie insisted, watching the two children, hearing their yells clearly across the intervening space. She didn’t want to hear of Ollie snarling, of Maisie silent. She wanted to hear of laughter, of bread and dripping, of earrings jangling.

Jack shrugged. He reached down, pulling at a dandelion which had lifted the asphalt. ‘He seems to have made it worse and he’s a lovely kid. It can’t have been the war either. Dad didn’t get called up. It’s his chest you see, collapsed lung. He built the new airfields, that sort of thing. Did a bit of dealing.’ He smiled slightly but his eyes were so angry.

Rosie smiled, looking away. ‘I just bet he did.’

‘I wasn’t there, you see. The kids that came back after the first evacuation went away again with the Blitz, like you did.’ He flicked the shredded dandelion at her. ‘She was good to me though, Mum was. She came down visiting, you know. All the time. It was good fun.’

‘Was your dad jealous of that?’

‘No, I don’t think so. He didn’t change until later. When he came to see me first he was fine. Took back a few hams, sold them well. Even did a bit of dealing with the GIs who were camped in the village.’ He paused and looked up at the sky, and his voice became angry. ‘But then, all of a sudden like, he stopped coming. Didn’t see Mum much come to that after D-Day. Busy, I expect, and then there was Lee. He’s got red hair too.’ Jack flicked a piece of grass off his trousers, nodding towards the boy he had pushed on the swing. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong. It’s just wrong. I wanted to tell you before you came. I didn’t want you upset.’

His face was red now and he didn’t look at her. She wanted to reach across and hold him as he had once held her when she cut her knee and needed stitches. But they were children then. They were grown now and there was a difference somehow.

He looked at her now and the anger had gone, there was just tiredness, like hers. ‘Come anyway. They want to see you but it’s funny, me dad doesn’t like Yanks.’

Rosie looked at her hands. ‘He’s not the only one.’

‘Oh, I reckon it’s this rationing, you know. Makes people crabby.’

There were voices behind them now, calling, shouting, and a football bounced behind them and over them and Jack looked at Rosie. ‘Remember the gang? I thought it would help you settle back in.’

She did remember when they were all around, touching her clothes, laughing at her tan, at her voice, asking about Lower Falls and New York and the skiing. Telling her about Somerset, where they had all been evacuated. She looked away, wishing she had been with them, wishing that she belonged as she had once done.

It was Sam, the old second-in-command, his hair in a crew cut, who showed her that for him at least she no longer did.

‘So you came back. Slumming, eh?’ he said, not looking away when Jack told him to shut his mouth. His pale eyes held hers as he bounced the ball, then threw it to Ted, then Jack. Then bounced it again.

Her eyes were blurred but it was tiredness, she mustn’t think it was tears. She remembered Sam all too clearly now. He had tied her to a lamppost when they were nine and fired arrows at a potato he stuck on her head. She hadn’t cried then and she wouldn’t now.

There were laughs and jokes, and always the ball was on the move. She watched, listened, smiled, waited and then Sam threw the ball to her, hard. She had known that he would and batted it straight back at him with a clenched fist as Frank had taught her. He caught it and threw it again, talking to Ted as he did so, but looking at her all the time.

She threw the ball to Jack. He looked at Sam, then back at her. There was a question in his eyes and she knew he had brought them together deliberately, to face up and get it over with. She shook her head. She was angry now and she would deal with this herself. This was her rec too, her gang, and nobody was going to take it away from her. They’d taken enough already.

She hurled the ball hard at Sam, and nothing more was said as they caught and threw, caught and threw, just the two of them. Her arm was tired and she was hot, but it didn’t matter. Frank had trained her well.

It was Ted who broke the silence. ‘So, how’s po-face taken to you coming back?’ he asked.

Rosie kept her eye on the ball, waiting for it to come again, feeling the stinging in her hands, seeing the two small boys running over from the swings, leaving a space beside her for them to join in. Waiting, too, for Sam. The ball came. She hurled it back. He caught it; she heard the slap of skin against leather. She needed her leather mitt.

‘You can’t blame Norah, she had a lousy time, like the rest of you,’ she panted.

She caught the ball again, then batted it back but Jack intercepted and passed it on to the small red-haired boy. Rosie felt the throbbing in her hands, but she wouldn’t look at them. She looked instead at Sam. What would he do now?

‘No way that old bag had a bad time. Come on, let’s sit down,’ Dave called.

Sparrows were sitting in the clubbed trees around the rec, singing and flying. Jack walked to the bench and the others followed. Sam took Woodbines from his pocket, shaking his head, looking at Rosie, his eyes still cold. His hands were red, like hers. Did they throb like hers too?

‘Your Norah should have gone too. Bloody unfair, I call it.’

Jack looked up at Sam, then at Rosie and she shook her head again.

Ted said, ‘That’s a load of rubbish. She was billeted with the doctor over in the next village. Had a life of old Reilly, never even had to flick a bleeding duster.’

They were sitting and leaning on the bench now, cigarette smoke drifting up into the air, watching the two small boys kicking the ball from one to another, hearing the thuds. Rosie said nothing, not yet.