Birmingham Rose (46 page)

Rose nodded, squeezing her arm. A little further on she said, ‘Grace, if he’d asked you – back in the early days – would you have married him?’

Grace kept her eyes down, looking at the dry twigs and pine needles along the path. ‘You know I would. And not just then either. Any time. Right up to the end.’

Then she looked round at Rose with a most wistful smile on her thin face. ‘But it was only you he had eyes for. Ever. You know that, Rose.’

And then she stroked her sister’s arm as Rose finally began to break into sobs beside her.

For months after Alfie’s death Rose felt tired to the very core. It seemed a huge task just to get to work in the morning. Through the end of the winter and the lightening days of spring she dragged herself around feeling only half alive, as if Alfie had taken a part of her with him, her own youth seeping away gradually through his illness.

She missed him more than she had ever imagined possible. One thing had been certain, ever since she moved to Moonstruck House: that Alfie would always be there. Whenever she came down in the morning or in from a class or work, there he was, almost as she had left him. Wakeful and watching her, providing as much conversation as he could manage, or dozing, semiconscious – but there. Now, just as certainly, the room was empty of him.

But like a gift, from somewhere within her, her vitality and zest were returning. She had other things to think about. George for a start. And, with a certainty which increased with each summer day, she knew what she was going to do with her money from Catherine Harper-Watt. One of the things that she had thought most unattainable, that Laurence Abel had talked of yet still sounded like a fantasy, was now within her grasp. Italy. She would go back, and she probably even had enough money to take Hilda.

‘It’s a barmy thing to do,’ she thought to herself, almost giggling with excitement. It was a baking hot Saturday. On the sunny side of Court 11, near the brew-house, Rose was standing bent over an enamel bucket, swilling through some of Hilda’s clothes. A few children were listlessly playing marbles in the shade. ‘I could do up the house, move out even. I could buy us all new clothes or furniture, or just put it away for a rainy day. But I’m damned if I’m going to!’

Italy was her dream now, and Catherine had prescribed the money for a dream. She could go and visit Margherita and Francesco. She still received cards from them at Easter and whenever they had had another child, always with entreaties to visit. It was clear to her that this was what she must do. Just as her idea of what she could do for Grace had come to her with equal force a couple of months earlier.

As June approached, coronation fever had struck the court, the city, the entire country and, of course, Grace, who showed the kind of excitement that only a royal occasion ever brought out in her.

‘A queen!’ she cried. ‘Oh, isn’t it going to be lovely to have a queen for a change! Elizabeth the Second. Doris at work says it’s going to change everything. Things’ll never be the same again. Oooh, what I’d give to live down London!’

For weeks beforehand the talk and activity all centred round bunting and flags and plans for street parties and big celebrations with brass bands and fireworks.

‘What if you could go?’ Rose said to Grace one day in May. ‘You know, go down and really see it, in London?’

‘I’d give my right arm,’ Grace replied. ‘But we’ll hear it all. And we might get a sight of one of them televisions somewhere. And all the pictures’ll be in the papers.’

‘No,’ Rose told her. ‘You’re to go. Down to London, on the train. It’ll be my treat.’ She blushed at sounding like Lady Bountiful with her sister. ‘Look – you’ve done nothing but help me over the past few years. I’d like to pay you back a bit. One way I can think of anyway.’

Grace’s face had gone pink with excitement. ‘But – you can’t afford that, can you? It’d mean the price of the train and . . . and new stockings, and . . .’

Rose grinned. ‘That’s all right. Listen. No one else need know about this, but when Mrs Harper-Watt came she gave me a bit of money. It doesn’t matter how much, but take my word for it, it’s enough for you to have a new frock and your rail ticket. And I’ll stand you taking Doris as well if you like.’

Grace was flabbergasted. ‘But why don’t
you
come? If you’ve got enough money for the two of us?’

‘I’m not that keen really, you know that. Go on – go with Doris and get into the spirit of it. You’ll have much more fun with her.’

So Grace went, feverishly excited and wearing a new peach-coloured frock. She and Doris sat out all night in the Mall with a flask of tea and their sandwiches with all the other thousands of people breathless to catch a glimpse of the new monarch. And she came back brimming full of it all: the procession and the flags and trombones and all the aeroplanes flying over, and how the woman next to them had shared her ham sandwiches with them because they’d run out, and how everyone cheered and cheered when she came out of Westminster Abbey and stood there for hours with their little flags despite all the showers.

So it went on for days and weeks after. Rose was never in any doubt as to whether she’d made the right choice.

Things with George, though, were getting worse and worse, and Grace’s excursion brought things to a head.

‘So who paid for that, then?’ he demanded.

‘I did, if you must know.’

‘Where d’you get the money from?’ he asked in his usual sneering tone.

‘Some of us do a job of work if you remember.’

She watched her brother with loathing that day as he sat smoking, as usual. Fag after fag, flicking the ash towards the fireplace and missing half the time. All the sympathy she had mustered for him had evaporated over the past few months. God knows she had tried. But he had given her no respite, and not an ounce of help or sympathy. He sickened her. He couldn’t even be bothered to come to her husband’s funeral. Things she had hoped never to say tumbled out of her mouth.

‘I used to think it might be worth helping you out,’ she spat at him as he sat staring indifferently at the floor. ‘But you’re a useless sod if ever there was one. Other people have problems and get on with their lives, but not you. Poor old George. You sit on your arse and wait for everyone to run round you. And then you turn round and go back to thieving and wasting your stupid, useless life away.’

George’s head whipped round savagely. ‘Who says I’m thieving?’

‘Well, aren’t you? You’re up to something. Out all hours and mixing in with God alone knows who. Anyone out at the time of night you come in is up to no good. And you’re not stony broke are you? So where’s it all coming from if you’re not nicking it?’

‘Leave me alone, you silly cow!’ George yelled at her. ‘Stupid nagging bitch. You’re all the bloody same!’

Rose watched her brother’s face, its expression of pure malice. His grey eyes were the coldest she had seen for a long time. Shuddering, she thought of Mr Lazenby.

‘I tried with you,’ she said more quietly. ‘I’m the only person who’s even tried.’

‘Only so everyone could tell you how bloody marvellous you are. You thought I’d come in here and be your dogsbody, looking after that cripple of a husband of yours, and your stupid kid. But now people can start doing the running for me for a change.’

‘What d’you mean?’

George sat down again, nipping his cigarette nervously between his lips. ‘Never you mind – sis,’ he said contemptuously. ‘You just go on being a good little girl and working for your nice law man. I s’pose he’s giving you one, is he?’

‘Get out. Take your things and get out of my house.’

George turned to her with mock casualness. ‘Going to make me?’

Thinking back over this now as she wrung out the clothes, Rose could feel the rage rising in her again. Things had settled down for the moment, it was true, but sooner or later she was going to have to face up to it. She pegged out the clothes and flung the water down the drain. She had to do something about George. She simply could not stand the sight of him.

*

In September everything changed at work. She reached town rather late that morning, trying to hurry in her tall slim heels through the usual sounds of thumping and drilling and all the dust and mess that signified the resurrection of the city. She hoped Ella Crosby would not notice she was late.

Climbing the stairs up to the Abel and Waters offices, she became aware of more crashing about and shouting from inside. What the hell’s going on? she thought, hurrying even more. It sounded as though the offices were being ransacked.

She cautiously pushed the door open and was greeted by an incredible sight. Near his closed office door, as if trying to take refuge from it all, stood Mr Abel.

‘No – please!’ he cried as if that was the last straw. ‘Not the typewriter, please! They’re so expensive! Ah Rose – Mrs Meredith. Thank goodness you’re here!’

Across the room was strewn what looked like the entire contents of Miss Crosby’s desk. There were shorthand pads open and spread over the floor, files and typed letters and crumpled sheets of carbon paper, wodges of new stationery with sheaves of envelopes fanning out across the carpet, and against the wastepaper basket the blotter stood tipped up at an angle. A typewriter ribbon lay unravelled in black coils across the layers of paper.

Ella Crosby still seemed to be searching for things to throw, a snarl of fury trapped for the time being in her throat.

‘What’s happened?’ Rose asked. ‘What on earth’s going on?’

‘It’s . . .’ Mr Abel tried to explain.

‘The stupid, selfish, miserable old—’ Ella Crosby finished the sentence with a screech of fury. She thumped her fist down on the desk and the sight was so melodramatic that Rose wondered for a second whether she was putting it all on.

‘What the heck have you done?’ she demanded of Mr Abel.

‘Not me!’ Laurence Abel squeaked. ‘God in heaven, not me! It’s Mr Waters.’

‘He’s only gone and died, hasn’t he?’ Ella shouted. ‘He’s gone and damn well died on us!’

‘It was a heart attack,’ Laurence Abel explained. ‘Last night. Someone found him this morning lying on the floor downstairs.’

Rose walked cautiously over to Ella Crosby, who had sunk down on her chair and was sitting sobbing at the desk.

‘Miss Crosby,’ she said gently. Somehow she did not dare touch the woman. ‘You’ve had a shock. Why don’t you go home and have a bit of a rest? Take the day off?’

Ella Crosby looked round at her slowly, rather stunned. ‘But I’ve made such a terrible mess. I’m so sorry. I should clear it all up at least before I go.’

‘No. You’re all right, I’ll do it,’ Rose told her. ‘Go on. We’ll see you in the morning.’

Slowly Miss Crosby picked herself up, wiping her face with a handkerchief, and went out of the door.

Ella Crosby applied for another job. Laurence Abel was left with the sole running of the practice, and Rose stayed on with him. It took several weeks before things began to settle down.

‘I’ll be able to pay you a bit more now,’ he told her. ‘You’ll be doing more work for a start.’

‘Well, I’m not going to complain about that,’ she told him.

‘But,’ he went on, ‘come hell or high water I’m going to take the time off that I’d planned. Complete folly of course in the circumstances, but I can get someone to stand in for me and do at least the basics for a fortnight.’

Rose smiled at him without the sense of wistfulness that she had always felt before whenever he mentioned his trips to Italy. It was her secret. She was going to go as well! It didn’t matter how soon, but she was going.

She realized that Laurence Abel was looking at her with unusual intentness.

‘I’d have thought you must be in need of a holiday too,’ he said. She noticed that his cheeks were turning pinker as he spoke. ‘You could – er – come with me. I mean, don’t get me wrong, Rose. I know how much it’d mean to you to go. I’d be happy to pay for you.’ He laughed nervously.

Rose was so startled she could for a moment think of nothing to say. What was it he was actually asking her? He had been extremely kind and understanding to her during the last weeks of Alfie’s life. But now she was back to being a single woman, was he trying to push things further? She wanted to believe the best of him, but she found her old mistrust flaring up again.

She sat staring down at her typewriter, her cheeks burning. She could feel his own discomfort even though she was not looking at him.

‘I’m sorry. Don’t take that the wrong way, will you? I wasn’t expecting . . . anything of you. I’d just enjoy the company.’

She wanted to believe him. She looked up shyly at him. ‘Thanks. But I couldn’t just go, anyway. I’ve my daughter to think of.’

When Laurence Abel returned from his trip in November, it sharpened even more her own longing to go.

‘Hilda,’ she couldn’t resist saying one night as she pulled the bedclothes up round the little girl, ‘how would you fancy coming away on a little trip with me?’

‘To Weston?’ Hilda asked eagerly, half sitting up.

‘No, not Weston. But we might see the sea.’

‘Ooh yes!’ Hilda said, and wriggled with excitement. Then she wrinkled up her nose. ‘Would Uncle George have to come with us?’

Her uncle had been losing his glamour as the months passed and all his promises failed to come true. Since Alfie died, she had clung increasingly to Rose, the one really reliable person she had left, and they had grown much closer.

‘No, not Uncle George,’ Rose said. ‘We don’t want him along with us, do we? It’d just be you and me.’ With a sudden rush of affection she leaned over and kissed Hilda’s warm cheek. ‘Now you go to sleep and dream all about it, eh?’

As she made herself a cup of tea she resolved that before she and Hilda went anywhere, she had to get George out. She sat down, kicking off her shoes and stirring sugar into her tea.

She hadn’t seen him for two days. Perhaps she could threaten him with the police? Call his bluff? She had absolutely no proof that he was doing anything, but she knew him too well and he had to be up to something. She couldn’t just throw him out. She had tried that. She began to think of something that would work. Money. She could bribe him. She put her cup and saucer down. Give him some cash for a clean pair of heels? Perhaps she could spare some of Catherine’s money. That would mean she would have to delay her plans a little, but it would be worth it. She could save the rest up gradually.