Bye Bye Love (20 page)

‘Please, Jonathan—don’t go—I can’t bear it—’

‘It’s no good, Scarlett.’

‘Just—don’t leave like this. Stay a while, please. Tell me what you’re doing.’

‘I shouldn’t.’

Nothing was going to make it better. And yet when she pulled at him he followed her and sat down with her on a rickety bench at the end of the garden. He knew it was dangerous, sitting there just inches away from her.

‘When…when did you get back?’ she asked.

‘Six weeks ago.’

‘You look very brown.’

‘Yes, well, it was hot there.’

This was bizarre, making conversation like this, as if they were chance acquaintances.

‘What are you doing now?’

‘I’m working at the Dorchester for the time being. It’s a big hotel in London.’

‘Do you like it there?’

‘Yes, they’ve got French staff so they understand good food. It’s nice to get back to restaurant cooking after doing all that bland stuff for the army hospital. And they’re a good crowd. We have a few laughs.’

‘Good, I’m glad. That you’ve found somewhere you like, I mean.’

There was so much he desperately wanted to ask her—when had she met this Ricky? Did she love him? What was so bloody wonderful about him? Above all, why hadn’t she waited for him? He would have waited for her till the end of time.

He stood up.

‘Oh, yes, don’t bother to worry about me. I’m just fine. Hunky-dory.’

Scarlett gasped. She looked as shocked as if he had slapped her face.

‘Jonathan, please—’

‘It’s no use, Scarlett. I shouldn’t have come. I won’t—’

‘Hello, and who have we got here?’

He heard Scarlett gasp again as he turned towards the newcomer. A young man a couple of years older than himself was strolling across the grass with his hands in his pockets. Everything about him was fashionable, shiny—and cheap. So this was the man who had taken Scarlett away from him. All his hatred seemed totally justified.

‘Oh—Ricky—you’re early—I wasn’t expecting—’Scarlett twittered. ‘This—er—this is Jonathan. A—er—a family friend.’

Ricky nodded. ‘Afternoon, mate. Scarlett’s not mentioned you before.’

‘I’ve been away. National service.’

‘Oh, right. It’s a bugger, ain’t it? Happiest day of my life when I got out. Did you get caught up in that Suez stuff?’

‘No, I was out in Malaya by the time it started up.’

‘Malaya?’ A nasty smile spread over Ricky’s face. He tipped his head back, looking Jonathan up and down. ‘So you’re the boyfriend who was in Malaya. Well, mate, I’m sorry but you’re a bit too late. She’s spoken for.’ He reached out for Scarlett, putting an arm round her waist. ‘My dinner ready, babe?’

Something snapped inside Jonathan. He hit out with all his force, punching Ricky square on the jaw. Then he turned and walked away, leaving them both in confusion.

S
CARLETT
woke up. It was pitch-dark and cold. She listened for the sound of the baby breathing. Yes, everything was all right. She was about to turn over and go back to sleep again when a thin wailing started up from the cot. Scarlett lay rigid. Would Joanne settle if she ignored her, or should she get up now and pick her up before Ricky woke up? Before she could make her mind up, the wailing escalated and Ricky stirred. Scarlett slid out of bed and made her way over to the cot.

‘Shh, shh, it’s all right, Mummy’s got you.’

She hauled the baby out of the cot and cuddled her. She was hot and fretful and snuffly.

‘Bloody hell, Scarlett, can’t you keep her quiet? She’s been awake all night.’

‘She can’t help it, she’s teething.’

Scarlett rocked the baby to and fro. It was freezing out here with only a nightdress on and she was desperate for sleep. She shuffled back to bed with Joanne in her arms. Maybe she would settle if she was in bed with her.

Ricky groaned. ‘No, not in here. You know what happened last night. She kept both of us awake. I got to go to work in the morning and I got a gig in the evening. I need my sleep.’

Scarlett needed her sleep too. Her body was crying out for it, so much so that she didn’t have the energy for yet another fight.

‘All right, I’ll put her in the pram,’ she said, raising her voice to be heard above Joanne’s.

‘If your flaming father wasn’t here, she wouldn’t be in with us, she’d have a bedroom of her own.’

‘Yes, well—’

‘I’m stuck here with a screaming kid and a bleeding alcoholic, and I’m supposed to feed them both!’

‘For God’s sake—stop whining and go back to sleep!’ Scarlett snapped.

She grabbed her dressing gown from its hook behind the door and went out into the hallway with Joanne still struggling and crying on her shoulder. Without putting the light on, she lay the baby in the pram, where she screamed even louder, then manoeuvred it backwards through the living room door. There was still a hint of warmth left in the remains of the fire, enough to give a faint comfort. Scarlett stood as close as she could to the grate and rocked the pram on its bouncy springs as she sang
Bye Baby Bunting
over and over again.

For what seemed like half the night she stood there, shivering and rocking and singing, until at last the exhausted baby fell asleep. Not daring to stop moving the pram, Scarlett leaned over and made sure she was properly covered up. Then she gradually reduced the rocking. She stopped, and waited. There was a snuffle from Joanne.

Please, please, go to sleep! Scarlett pleaded silently.

The snuffling stopped.

Scarlett crept to the door. It was no use going back to bed. The moment she got there, Joanne was sure to wake up again. She felt for her coat and Ricky’s on the pegs in the hall, took them down and went back into the living room. Then she curled up on the sofa with the coats on top of her and fell immediately into a deep sleep.

The next thing she knew, something was poking at her. Reluctantly, she swam upwards into groggy wakefulness. Ricky was digging her in the shoulder with his finger. She tried to focus on his face. He didn’t look pleased.

‘Come on, shift y’self. Get the breakfast on.’

Scarlett couldn’t believe it. Joanne had slept right through to half past seven. She hurried out to the kitchen and put the kettle on for tea and Ricky’s washing and shaving water, but no sooner had she lit the gas than Joanne woke up.

The next hour was a nightmare of trying to feed and change the baby and make Ricky’s fried egg and beans and toast all at the same time. As Ricky went out of the door at twenty to nine, neat and smart in his working suit, he turned and looked at her.

‘You really oughta smarten yourself up, babe. You look a right mess.’

‘Oh, thank you so much,’ she said, refusing to be squashed in front of him.

But when he had gone she went and looked at herself in the bedroom mirror. A pale, puffy face with dark smudges under the eyes looked back at her. Her hair straggled down unbrushed, and she was still wearing a crumpled nightdress and a well-worn dressing gown with a streak of baby sick down it. She had to admit that Ricky was right. She did look a mess. But she was only halfway through getting dressed when Joanne started crying again. And then there were the nappies to boil up and the fire to sweep out and re-lay.

She had just about managed to get herself looking tidy when she looked at the clock and realised that her father should be up by now. She went and banged on his door.

‘Dad! You awake? You’ve got to get a move on, it’s nearly ten o’clock!’

When shouting failed to get any reply, she went in. Her father appeared to be deeply asleep. She shook his shoulder. It was essential he got to work. If he lost this job he might never get another.

‘Dad, wake up.’

Victor groaned and shook her off, turning over so that his back was towards her. It took a lot more shaking and persuading to make him sit up and put his feet to the floor. He sat on the side of the bed with his head bowed, bracing himself upright with his arms. He looked dreadful. Scarlett felt awful, making him get up when he was plainly feeling bad, but she knew that if she gave in this once, he would soon take to lying in bed until he needed to get out and buy some drink. She lit a cigarette for him and put it in his mouth.

‘There you are, Dad. I’ll heat you some water for washing and make you a cup of tea, right? It’ll be waiting for you on the table.’

From the living room, she could hear Joanne grizzling. She hurried back to see to her. The baby was sitting up in her pram with plenty of toys and rattles to keep her amused, but she didn’t seem to be interested in any of them. Her cheeks were bright red where her teeth were breaking through. The moment her mother came into the room she starting crying in earnest.

Scarlett picked her up and jiggled her in her arms.

‘The only thing that’s going to keep you quiet is going for a walk, isn’t it?’ she said to her. ‘But we can’t do that yet. We’ve got to get Grandad off to work and put your nappies out on the line and by the time we’ve done that we’ll have to get Daddy’s dinner on. And I don’t know when I’m going to get to tidy this place up. It looks like a bomb’s hit it.’

Her father finally shambled in and drooped over his cup of sweet tea. Scarlett had long ago stopped offering him even a slice of toast for breakfast. All he could face in the morning was tea and whisky, or whatever alcoholic drink he could get hold of. Lately he had taken to British sherry, presumably because it was cheaper. Scarlett chivvied him into his coat and hat and out of the front door. Outside, it was raining.

‘You wouldn’t send a dog out on a day like this,’ Victor said, giving her a resentful look.

‘It’ll be warm and dry at work,’ Scarlett told him.

‘You’re heartless,’ Victor accused, and started up the street, hands in pockets, shoulders hunched, leaving Scarlett feeling wicked.

When Ricky came in at dinner time he was in a foul mood. ‘There’s ten bob missing from my wallet,’ he said.

With a sinking feeling, Scarlett guessed where that had gone.

‘Are you sure?’ she asked, serving up large dollops of mashed potato to go with the sausage and onion.

‘Of course I’m sure. You don’t just lose that much.’

It was no use suggesting he might have forgotten where he’d spent it. Ricky was very careful with his money.

‘No,’ she said. ‘How much gravy do you want?’

‘Lots.’ Ricky wasn’t to be distracted. ‘You know who’s had it, don’t you? Your bloody father, that’s who. He’s a bloody parasite, Scarlett. And you make it easy for him. You run around after him, you give him subs out of the housekeeping. I bet these are bloody beef sausages and not decent pork ones, ain’t they? We can afford pork sausages if you don’t go giving your father money to piss away all the time.’

The trouble was, Ricky was right about the money. It was very hard managing the housekeeping and giving her father money so that he didn’t borrow it from other people.

‘He pays his rent. We wouldn’t be able to afford this place without him paying for his room,’ she said.

She picked up the plates and walked through to the living room. Ricky followed her, still talking.

‘That’s bollocks. He’s costing us more than he pays. We could get a proper lodger in that room, and then we’d be quids in.’

Fear gripped Scarlett. What would happen to her father if Ricky turned him out? He couldn’t look after himself. He’d end up on the street. It didn’t bear thinking about. She plonked the plates down on the table and whipped round to face Ricky.

‘He’s my father, right? He’s family, and families stick together, and that’s an end to it.’

‘Bloody ain’t an end to it, not when he’s nicking money out of my wallet. I tell you, Scarlett, it’s got to stop. It’s shape up or ship out for your dad.’

He sat down and started eating his meal. Scarlett was so angry she couldn’t face hers.

‘If he goes, I go,’ she stated.

Ricky gave her a cold look, his jaws chewing on a large piece of sausage. He swallowed. ‘Please y’self,’ he said.

At that point the baby started crying again. Scarlett picked her up and went into the bedroom. Her head was throbbing. What was she going to do about her father? She couldn’t see a way out.

When Ricky slammed out again and went back to work, the silence of the flat seemed to close around Scarlett. Outside, it was still raining, but even going out in the rain seemed better than staying in. She dressed Joanne warmly in several layers of cardigans, a knitted bonnet and mittens and strapped her into the pram, where she peeped over the top of the rain apron with round brown eyes and looked happy for the first time that day. Then she put on her own mac and a pair of wellies and set out, marching up the road to keep warm. At once she felt better. She could breathe out here.

Without really thinking where she was heading for, she crossed over the London Road and kept going. It was only when she saw the Thames estuary between the houses that she knew where she wanted to be. The sea front. Soon she was hanging on to the pram as they went down the steep slope to the esplanade. She breathed in the salt air. It was a pretty dismal prospect. The tide was out, leaving a mile of grey mud, beyond which was the gleam of grey water. The rain was so heavy you could hardly see the hills of Kent on the other side. As it was winter, nearly all the small boats were laid up and every one of the little shops and kiosks was closed. But still the feeling of openness lifted Scarlett’s spirits. Overhead a seagull soared, squawking. Scarlett smiled up at it.

‘This is more like it, isn’t it, pet?’ she said to Joanne.

The baby smiled and gurgled back at her and batted at the plastic ducks on her pram with her mittened hands. They were almost the only people braving the weather. There were a couple of dog-walkers and an old man wheeling a bike, but everyone else seemed to have had the sense to stay at home. Scarlett marched along, telling Joanne about the carnival and reliving her memories as she did so. It all seemed a very long way off now, that first wonderful summer with Jonathan. It was difficult to imagine sunshine and colour and crowds of noisy people in this grey December landscape.

‘Soon it’ll be Christmas,’ she told the baby. ‘Your first Christmas. We’ll have a tree and everything. I suppose we’ll have to go to your nana and grandad’s for Christmas dinner, but at least it’ll put your daddy in a good mood. He likes your nana’s cooking much better than mine. And I suppose it’s better than having them all sitting round criticising what I’ve done.’

And then her mind went off on a different train of thought. December. It was the first week of December and she hadn’t had her period. She’d not really got back to being regular since Joanne had been born but, thinking about it, she couldn’t actually remember when she’d had the last one. She tried to pin it to an event, and could only come up with Ricky’s birthday in October. She’d had one then, and he’d been really fed up about it. Surely she’d had one since? The more she thought about it, the more worried she became. There had been other signs, but she had thought they were just the result of being tired all the time with Joanne teething, plus she had recently stopped breast-feeding. But what if it wasn’t just that? What if she was pregnant again? She did some sums in her head. There would be less than fifteen months between them. How on earth was she going to manage? Just the thought of boiling and drying two lots of nappies made her feel quite desperate. But, most of all, whatever would Ricky say if she told him she was having another baby? He didn’t seem to like Joanne much, resenting the way she took Scarlett’s attention away from him. He would be much worse if she had two babies to care for.

‘It’s not Scarlett, is it?’

She was so engrossed in her own worries that she hadn’t noticed the young man on the dinghy rack. He was making sure that one of the small boats on the wooden platform above the beach was securely covered against the rain. Scarlett stopped short and looked at him. It was one of Jonathan’s sailing friends.

‘Graham! You gave me quite a turn. I was miles away. How are you?’

She felt a flush of embarrassment rising up her neck and face. How much did Graham know? He was sure to take Jonathan’s side.

‘Oh, fine, fine. I’m working for my dad now, but I just came down to make sure the boat was all right.’

They both paused, silenced by the presence of the pram and the fact that, the last time they had met, Scarlett and Jonathan had been inseparable.

Scarlett swallowed. ‘Have—?’ she started. Her voice came out as a squeak. ‘Have you seen Jonathan?’

‘Not recently.’

She just had to know. ‘Is he all right?’

Graham was stony faced. ‘What do you think?’

Scarlett bit her lip. ‘Is he still working at the Dorchester?’ she persisted.

‘No, he’s gone back to Paris again. To the place where he was before.’

‘The Ortolan?’

‘Yeah, that was it.’

‘Will you—do you think he’ll be home at Christmas?’