Put Out the Fires (9 page)

The people who came, most of them, also seemed to want something from her, a friendship, a sort of chummy neighbourliness.

May Kelly, for example, who’d been the first to come, had wanted to invoke the spirit of the old days, when they were both girls and occasionally played together in the street. May had grown stout with the years, and her hair had already turned iron grey.

“They were fine times, weren’t they, Ruth?”

“I suppose so,” said Ruth, who’d never liked the woman—the girl—and couldn’t recall the times as being particularly fine. May, she was told, had never married and neither had her brothers, Fin and Failey. They still lived in Number 18.

“Anyroad,” May said enthusiastically, “we must get together for a jangle now ‘n’ again, talk about the old days. Remember when you were courting our Failey?”

“I only went out with him the once,” Ruth said stiffly.

They’d gone to a Beethoven concert given by the American pianist, Gregory Malvern, at the “Rotunda” in Scotland Road, but Failey had made no secret of the fact he was bored silly and would far prefer to be propped up against the bar of the nearest pub. There’d been no question from either side of them going out again, and Ruth felt mystified as to why she’d gone with him in the first place.

“I’ve brought you a little present,” May said, “a quarter of tea, so you’ll have plenty for your visitors.” She winked, tapped the side of her broad flat nose, and added tactlessly, “I’ve a pig soaking in the bath, so if you want a few slices of bacon you know where to come.”

“Thank you very much, but we don’t eat pork.”

Ruth gave her father the gift after May had gone and he wrinkled his face dramatically, though at the same time looked pleased. “I hope you don’t mind drinking black market tea.”

“Is that what it is, black market?” Ruth was shocked.

Jacob nodded. “The Kellys were criminals before the war, in and out of gaol for shoplifting. They’ve transferred their talents to the black market, but they’re no better at that than they were at thieving. You can get virtually anything from the Kellys—cigarettes, food, batteries—and if you go along with a hard luck story, you can get it for nothing!” He grinned. “I reckon they pay out more than they take in. They’ll be the first black marketeers in the country to go bankrupt.”

“Is that what the pig in the bath is all about?”

He nodded. “Fin and Failey raid the farms at night.

They probably rustled it, like cowboys do in the pictures.”

Ruth watched through the window as the woman went into her house. It was incredible to think May was still living in the place where she was born, whilst she, Ruth, had become a wife and mother and spent half her life in another country. On the other hand, there was little difference between them now; Ruth was back, living in the house in which she was born, and as for the husband and children . . .

A young woman carrying a shopping basket came out of the house next to May’s, a sad-faced girl with pretty blonde hair.

“That’s Eileen Costello,” her father, watching beside her, said eagerly. “I look after her little boy, Tony, when she works afternoons.”

“She looks very unhappy,” remarked Ruth, noting the drooping shoulders.

“It’s strange, but she’s been that way ever since her husband was discharged last month from the Army, yet Francis is one of the finest men you could ever meet. A great chap, you’re sure to like him.” Jacob Singerman, who still had an eye for a pretty woman, remembered the day of Annie Poulson’s wedding, when Eileen Costello had positively radiated happiness and he could scarcely take his eyes off her dazzling face.

“I don’t see anything strange about it,” Ruth said flatly.

“She obviously doesn’t want her husband back.”

This was something Jacob had begun to suspect himself, but fond of Eileen though he was, he was more concerned with his own flesh and blood at the moment.

Throughout the two years during which he’d received no word from his daughter, he’d been on tenterhooks, expecting to hear she was dead, her husband was dead, as well as the grandchildren he’d never met. Even worse would be to hear nothing at all, to die himself without ever learning what had happened to his Ruth and her family.

Jacob knew all about the Fuhrer’s concentration camps, even if the British Government tried to pretend they didn’t exist.

Now, miraculously, Ruth was back and at least one of his prayers had been answered. But although Ruth’s body might be there, her spirit was somewhere else. She was cold and uncommunicative. It wasn’t so much that she refused to answer his many questions, she simply ignored them. It was as if he hadn’t spoken when he asked about Benjy and the children. His heart ached for the bright-eyed girl who’d left to stay with his brother in Graz, and ached even more fiercely for the woman who’d come back.

What terrible things had happened to his dear Ruth?

“I expect you will want to play the piano,” he said hopefully, “though I’m afraid it’s terribly out of tune.” He was longing to hear her play something, but she hadn’t touched it, not that there’d been much time. He lifted the lid and struck a few notes. “C sharp is completely off key.”.

“Why don’t you get a tuner in?” she asked in an uninterested voice.

“I keep meaning to.” Even tuned, the piano was nothing like the one she was used to, he thought miserably. She’d had a Steinway, a baby grand, at home in Austria.

Jacob Singerman felt wretched that he could offer his precious daughter so little. What sort of home was this to come back to after 143 Blumenstrasse, a double-fronted house with a big garden and a garage for the cars? There was a snapshot of the house in the album he’d begun to keep when he realised she wasn’t coming home. It was a rare day he didn’t look through the pictorial history of her life, starting with a photo when she was two, then older at the piano, her wedding, numerous snapshots of Simon and Leah growing up. There was even a photo of the cook, Gertrude, in the album. After all, Benjamen Hildesheimer was a professional man, a dentist, patronised by the great and the good of Graz.

“I’m sorry,” he said brokenly.

“For what?” Ruth wondered why he looked close to tears.

“This!” He spread out his arms. “This is not much to comeback to.”

“There’s nothing wrong with it. Though I find it odd nothing has changed.”

“What was there to change?”

Ruth shrugged, feeling as if the conversation was going nowhere. He was staring at her soulfully and she sensed he wanted to take her in his arms and comfort her, or possibly for her to comfort him. Their only physical contact had been a perfunctory kiss on the cheek when she first arrived. She’d escaped from his embrace then, and felt the same urge now to get away from his grief stricken face.

She left the room, saying, “Let’s have a cup of tea. Ever since I arrived in England, the old desire for tea has returned, yet I scarcely drank it at home. We preferred coffee.”

Ruth filled the kettle, though it took forever to boil on the range in the living room with the fire being so low. “Is there any more coke, Dad? I don’t feel like waiting half an hour for my tea.”

“I’ll put the last bit on. I need to buy some more.”

“You’d best get some groceries in, too. Surely you’re allowed more than this on rations?” When it came to fresh food, there was merely half a loaf and a small piece of cheese in the larder and nothing at all in the meat safe.

They’d had fried bread for breakfast.

He looked slightly uncomfortable. “I’ll do some shopping later on.” He went out into the yard and came back, puffing slightly, carrying a shovel of coke.

“Who lives next door?” Ruth asked. “They had a terrible row last night. It must have been midnight before they finished shouting. It sounded like a foreign language.”

“That’s Ellis and Dai Evans,” he explained. “They have what you would call a stormy relationship and fight in Welsh. Dai works on the docks and drinks his wages.

They have two daughters and poor Ellis has a struggle to live on what is left, though things are a little better now the eldest girl is working.”

“How old are the girls?”

“Dilys is fifteen. Do you remember the Adelphi, the big hotel in town?”

When Ruth nodded, Jacob continued, “That’s where Dilys works as a chambermaid. Myfanwy is still at school and the apple of her mother’s eye, but for some reason no one has been able to identify, Dilys gets nothing but the lash of her tongue.”

“This Ellis sounds horrible.”

“She’s not so bad,” he shrugged. “It’s just her way of staying alive.”

Ruth was standing over the fire, waiting for the kettle to boil. Her glance strayed impatiently to the mantelpiece.

“I remember this!” she exclaimed. She picked up the little musical box which had stood in the middle of the mantelpiece since the day Jacob had moved in. “I used to play with this as a child and you were always worried I would break it.” She opened the box and the The Blue Danube tinkled out.

“Your Uncle David sent that from Austria as a wedding present. It ‘was always your mother’s favourite possession.’

Ruth examined the pink and blue enamel box with its fancy gold trimming. “The gold looks real. It’s probably worth something.”

“Is it?” he said, slightly amazed. “Well, David was a far better businessman than I was. I suppose he could afford to send gold.”

Jacob Singerman knew if he closed his eyes, he would be able to see his dear wife, Rebecca, standing with her ear to the box as their daughter was now. Rebecca had died within an hour of Ruth’s birth. He recalled fondly that in the past, opening the box had been a signal to talk about Rebecca, to describe her funny little habits, the way she dressed, how she’d never quite got the hang of English and made embarrassing mistakes, how once in a shop she’d requested, “Black buttons for my goat”.

But Ruth was examining the box as if it brought back no memories at all, Jacob noticed sadly, looking at it with the cold eye of a pawnbroker offered a pledge.

The following day, her father was out shopping and Ruth was in the house alone when there was a knock on the door. She considered briefly not answering, but supposed she must. So far, she’d hadn’t been outside the house, so everyone in the street knew she was in. They seemed to know everything about everybody, as if they were a large extended family, not thirty entirely separate households.

Eileen Costello, whom Ruth had by now met, stood outside holding a brown paper bag.

“I won’t come in,” she said quickly, as if sensing she wasn’t welcome, “it’s just that I’ve been baking this morning and your dad’s always partial to a bit of bunloaf.

Mind you, it’ll probably taste like concrete, what with only one egg and half the fruit.”

“Thank you very much,” Ruth said with less enthusiasm than she felt. In fact, she was starving and the bunloaf was more than welcome.

“Are you settling back in?” Eileen asked politely.

“Sort of.”

“I hope our Tony’s not being a nuisance. If he talks too much, just tell him to shut up.”

“He’s no trouble.” In fact, Tony was the only person whose presence Ruth didn’t mind. He asked no questions and expected nothing from her except her occasional admiration when he won at cards.

“I expect you’ll be looking for a job of work soon?”

Eileen said.

Ruth frowned and wondered what the woman was talking about. She said coldly, “Why should I?”

Eileen, aware of the coldness, pulled an embarrassed face. “I’m sorry! It’s nowt to do with me, is it? I’m always poking me nose into other people’s business. Anyroad, I’d best be off. Tara!”

She was about to leave, when Ruth called, “Eileen?” She didn’t like the first-name intimacy, but only a few of the older people were referred to as Mr or Mrs. “Why did you ask if I’d be looking for work?”

“As I said, it’s nowt to do with me. I wouldn’t have brought the subject up, except we need women in the factory where I work.”

“But I’d like to know.”

“Well,” Eileen shuffled her feet uncomfortably. “It’s just that your dad has enough struggle living on the rent from his ould tailor’s shop, I didn’t see how the two of yis could manage.” She bit her lip. “Look, it’s your dad’s place to tell you this, not mine.”

“I’d prefer you did,” Ruth insisted. “I promise I won’t say we’ve talked.”

Eileen shrugged. “There’s nowt else to tell. Your dad never has two ha’pennies to scratch his arse with. That’s why I have him in our house so much, so he can sit in the warm and listen to the wireless. Not that I don’t love having him,” she added hastily. “Look, I’ll have to go, else I’ll miss me bus.”

“Thanks again for the cake,” Ruth said, closing the door.

She went slowly back into the house, feeling slightly stunned. After a while, she began to root through the drawers of the sideboard, then in the cupboard underneath, until she found what she was looking for: a rentbook, a building society pass book and a little pad of receipts, all kept together in an elastic band.

It didn’t take long for Ruth to establish her father’s financial situation. It had been failing sight that caused him to sell the tailor’s business just before she went away, and the pass book showed the 150 pounds he received for the goodwill. But almost immediately more than half had been withdrawn. Her fare to Austria, she realised with a shock, her spending money, the new clothes. The trip had been her twenty-first birthday present - “I want to show you off to my brother and his wife.”

Thereafter, his capital had been taken out in tiny dribs and drabs until five years ago, when there was nothing left at all. Fortunately, he’d had the good sense to retain the lease of the shop. The receipts showed he received fifteen shillings a week rent. On the other hand, he paid nine and sixpence for the house, which meant he was left with a few shillings a week to live on! Yet he’d never said anything in his letters. She’d always assumed him to be relatively well off.

The key sounded in the door and Ruth hastily put the books back, just as Jacob came bustling in with his shopping bag, looking a trifle self-important she thought.

“I’ve got some nice steak and kidney,” he said breathlessly, “though the queue was a mile long, and they’d just got Brussels sprouts in the greengrocer’s, so we can have a Sew with some potatoes, I even managed to find coffee.” He smiled happily. “We can have a feast today. Put the kettle on, love, and we’ll have a cup of coffee straight away.”