Lover (25 page)

‘Look, if you want to go, or… Rene, I feel terrible, I honestly didn't mean to upset you—'

‘Harry, it's all right. I'll be fine in a minute. Just let me get fixed up, that's all.'

He picked up the apron and retreated into the bedroom while I blew my nose and powdered it. After a few minutes, he put his head round the door. ‘All right now?'

‘Yes, thanks. Much better.'

‘Are you…do you want to go now?'

‘What, without eating this cake? Not likely! Don't know when I last saw a Victoria sponge. How did you get it?'

‘I made it.'

‘You
made
it? But how did you get the… I mean, that's your whole sugar ration.'

‘Not quite.' Harry tapped the side of his nose. ‘Ways and means, you know.'

‘I won't ask. It's perfect. Much better than I could do.'

Harry blushed.

‘There I go, embarrassing you again. I don't mean to. But you shouldn't think badly of yourself. You're a good man, Harry. Anyone can make a mistake. Look at me.'

Harry opened his mouth, then shut it again, and I thought, oh, well, in for a penny, and I said, ‘There's no point denying I've made mistakes, Harry, or I wouldn't be where I am now. I don't do it because I enjoy it.' It came out more harsh than I meant. Harry looked a bit awkward again, so I said, ‘I'm sorry if I spoke out of turn, but you said, before, well, you said I was a nice woman, and I just wanted you to know…' He didn't reply, and I thought, oh, I've really gone and done it now, so I said, ‘Look, perhaps I should be going, I'm sure you're busy, and—' I'd got up out of my chair, but he took my hand and pulled me down again.

‘No, there's something else, something I want to say. My grandmother, she…well, she was…like you. Her husband died, you see—an accident—and she'd got seven children and no money and she didn't want them all in the workhouse, so… I didn't know any of this, but my mother told me, oh, years later, after my grandmother'd died. She said that one day she was out in the street with her and a neighbour started abusing her, calling her names. My mother didn't know how my grandmother was making ends meet—none of them did—so she didn't understand why this woman was saying such terrible things. But when she was grown up she was talking to her cousin, about the old days, and when she mentioned this the cousin said, “Oh, that must have been when your mother…” you know, when she'd gone on the streets, to keep the family together. So I do know how it happens. It's odd, though, because I've got a photograph of her, and she doesn't look particularly…'

‘Like a prostitute?'

Harry looked taken aback. ‘I didn't mean that, exactly, just not very… Well, a bit stern. I wouldn't have said she was very… appealing, that's all.'

‘Do you think I look like one?'

‘No! I didn't mean—'

‘Oh, ignore me. I don't know why I said that. I didn't mean to put you on the spot.'

‘I think you look lovely. Especially when you do that.'

‘What?'

‘When you smile like that.'

‘Well,' I said, ‘it's been quite an afternoon for confidences, hasn't it?'

‘It has a bit. Now, I've got a suggestion. How about some fish and chips before I go back to the post?'

I said I'd like that, and on the way to the place I told Harry about the policeman who'd come in the morning, and after we'd eaten, he walked me home, arm in arm, like before. When we got to my door, I said, ‘We did it the wrong way round, didn't we?'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Well, it should have been the cake
after
the fish and chips. What a pair we are!'

Harry said, ‘Yes, aren't we?' Then, after a moment, he said, ‘What I said this afternoon… I hope you didn't mind'

‘Not at all. I'm glad you told me.'

‘Would you mind…if I kissed you?'

‘Oh, Harry, I'd love it if you kissed me. But not in the street—don't want to get into trouble.' I opened the door and we went into the hall, and he kissed me. I could have gone on like it all evening, just standing there with our arms round each other—it was lovely. He broke off once, and touched my face and asked, ‘Do you do this when…?'

‘With them? No. Never. This is special.'

‘Yes,' he said. ‘It's special.' And he kissed me again, and I wanted it never to stop. But he had to get off to the post, so I saw him out and went upstairs to my rooms.

I sat down on my bed for a moment, just to remember it, but then I came back to myself—what with all the talk and the fish and chips, I was late to start work. And thinking of that, all the warm, safe feeling I'd had from Harry seemed to melt away and instead I felt frightened. Sick, almost, thinking about going out, and I found myself dawdling about when I should have been changing my clothes, spending twice as long on the make-up when all it needed was a quick once-over, fiddling with my hair. Making excuses for myself about why I wasn't already out there.

I kept thinking, it'll get better, it'll wear off, but the next few days were dreadful like that, and I never saw Harry, even in the shelter, and I was starting to think, well, he's thought better of it, and I couldn't blame him for that. After all, there's plenty of decent women out there, so what does he want with me? And sometimes I'd be angry, thinking, oh, he's like all the rest, just after something for nothing. But then I'd remember our kiss, and how nice it was, and it made me want to cry, remembering how lovely it was to be in his arms like that, and then I'd get impatient with myself for being soft.

Last night when I went down, I looked round the corner the way I always do, just out of habit, and there was a dark-haired woman standing there, in the dusk, with a look of Lily, and for a moment, I thought… I almost called out, but then she turned and of course it wasn't Lily, but a stranger, and it brought tears rushing into my eyes. I had to go and stand in a doorway and count to ten, all sorts I did, to try and stop the feeling.

I didn't recognise the woman. She must have thought she'd get in quick or someone else would have it. Not that I blame her entirely, a good beat is hard to come by, and if you don't go out regular someone'll take it off you, and then you're in trouble.

Not much business at first. It's funny, sometimes you can stand for three hours and get nothing, then you'll make ten or twelve pounds in the next two. But I've got so I can't bear to take any of them back—it's a knee-trembler or nothing, if they want the full business. Which I don't like, mind you. It's harder to spot if they're diseased in the dark, and I won't touch anyone who's bad like that…and if you end up bargaining with them, you've got to drop the price. I had one wanted to give me ten shillings! He was with his chum, tipsy, the pair of them: ‘I want to rent it, not buy it!' and they both laughed fit to burst.

I said, ‘Well, you can rent it somewhere else, can't you?'

He said, ‘Oh, we can suit ourselves, there's better than you.'

It was nothing out of the ordinary, really, because you get these characters all the time and think nothing of it, but my stomach was churning something rotten, and when I'd flash my torch and a man would come up, well, usually, I'm seeing them as a job, you know. Don't really look at them as people, just as a way of getting money. But now I was looking right at them, at their faces, their eyes, thinking if they could be a maniac. I mean, if Ted turned out a murderer, who can you trust? And as for poor Edie… It seemed like everyone I saw, I thought, you could be that man, with a rope in your pocket, or a knife. And seeing these shadowy faces, parts of faces that seem to come at you—stained teeth crammed up inside a mouth, grime on a collar, hooded eyes that don't blink, hair sprouting inside ears and noses, and others that seem like corpses, collapsed jaws and cheeks and grey skin. Everything seemed distorted by the torchlight and the sky flaring up at intervals—the sirens went at eight—so that the faces seemed to jerk and jump at you. I kept telling myself not to be foolish, they're just
men
, but after a while I began to think, if any of them so much as lays a finger on me, I'll scream, and I knew I wouldn't be able to carry on.

It's not like me to be frightened, but I tell you, I was standing there doing everything I could just to keep myself on the spot, thinking about Tommy, Dora, Joe… I can't have words with Joe about hoarding the money, it isn't my business, and besides, he is looking after Tommy, giving him a name and putting a roof over his head. If he and Dora weren't there I don't know what I'd do, because he couldn't live with me.

The bombers started getting louder around eleven, and that made me even more nervous, but I said to myself, I'll see if I can get another ten shillings, at least. Then a man came up, and I thought, here we go, because he didn't look too bad, but he gave me the once-over and said, ‘I don't want you, I feel like a blonde tonight.'

I said, ‘Well, please yourself,' and I was just thinking I might go back after all, when I heard a swoosh and a whistle, and then a crash and the pavement started to tremble, so I rushed to the nearest doorway and stayed there. I was shaking so much I couldn't tell if it was me or the building, but I heard windows crack above, and the panes dropped straight down in front of me. When I finally plucked up the courage to make a run for it, there was smashed glass everywhere, glittering like snow on the pavement, and crunching under my feet. I pelted back to my flat to collect a few bits and pieces and made for the shelter before anything else happened.

The place was packed to bursting, more than I've ever seen it. You couldn't see the floor for people. It was like a human carpet, with arms and legs sticking out all over the place so it was a job to walk between them. There were prams, people on deckchairs taking up far too much room, and all the old girls wrapped in shawls and blankets as if they were in burial clothes and someone had propped them against the wall in a row, mouths still open like black, gaping holes. Men dozing, with hats tipped over their faces, or playing cards, and the noise going on and on, swishing and droning and then that awful r-i-i-p of a high explosive every so often, and inside, the woman next to me clattering away with knitting needles all night, and people arguing, and Ale Mary, drunk as a fiddler's bitch, telling everyone who'd listen about how she'd been praying for Hitler, that he'd see the error of his ways and come to the right path.

Well, I thought, if she's been doing that, we haven't got a hope. But all the same, I've never been so glad just to be with other people, even if they did pong a bit. I got settled eventually, and managed a couple of hours' sleep. Just before I got off, I heard this little voice saying, ‘Mum, my arse is numb,' which gave me a chuckle. I woke at nearly six, very stiff and uncomfortable, and decided to get along home even though the All-Clear hadn't gone. A lot of others were doing the same, everyone pale, red-eyed and moving slowly as if they were dazed with tiredness. I suppose I must have looked like that, too.

Outside, everything smelled of smoke, and there were lots of rescue squad men about, and ambulances. Someone said there were a couple of houses down in Dean Street, so I thought I'd walk round to have a look. One of them must have taken all the force of the blast, because it was just a lot of debris, all smashed and splintered, with a sort of cave in the middle and men digging their way into it, passing out baskets of rubble. The next door was just a shell with no roof or windows, and the top storey had smashed down into the one below it.

I picked my way across the rubble to see if it was anyone I knew, but apart from the rescue men there was only a woman in a nightdress, hunched between two wardens, small and frail, covered in dust so she looked like a lost little ghost. I suppose they must have dug her out of the ruins. She had her back to me but I could see she was clasping a hat to her head with one hand, and there was blood trickling from underneath it, down the side of her neck. I felt bad for staring, so I turned to go, but then I noticed a bit of metal, what looked like a pair of spectacles, sticking out of a little pile of debris. I thought they might belong to the woman, and I picked them up but when I pulled them free, I saw there was a metal piece sticking out from the middle.

It was almost flattened, but I knew right away what it was: Mr Mitten's false nose.

I stood there for a moment, just staring at, this thing in my hand, and then there was a terrible cry behind me, a howl like a wounded animal. The woman in the nightdress came staggering towards me, and I realised it was Mrs Mitten, still clutching on to her hat. She grabbed the nose away from me with her other hand and clutched it against her chest, and her eyes, the anguish in her eyes was more than…oh, anything. That look of pain—I can't describe it. Then a nurse came with a blanket to put round her, and the wardens started to lead her away to the ambulance, but she suddenly stopped and turned back to me. Her voice was barely more than a whisper, but she said, ‘Him on the corner… The man… Tell him I shan't be needing a paper. Will you tell him?'

‘Yes…yes, of course. I'll tell him.'

I stood there staring after her, like an idiot. The things people think of! Then one of the rescue men came out from the next door house, so I asked him what happened.

‘What, the man in here? We found him—well, what was left. Proper jigsaw for someone. There's a girl in there—' he pointed to the house he'd just come out of ‘—she's trapped by the legs, and the mother underneath her.' He sat down on a heap of bricks and pulled out a packet of cigarettes. ‘Want one? I got plenty, now—we got a fair few out of the shop here.'

‘Thanks. Will they be all right?'

He shook his head. ‘Can't say. We got the dog out, though. Pekinese, it was.'