Queen of the Mersey (48 page)

‘What about Harvey’s across the road?’ Jo suggested. ‘It’s a bar and a great place for parties. They don’t close till two and Harvey gives a special price if you bring a crowd. Dave’s can supply the food; bagels, cookies, donuts and stuff. I’d have to bring it over, so I could shut this place down and stay awhile. Excuse me, folks.’ She got up when a woman came in carrying a tiny dog.

‘I’ve got a customer.’

‘I’m glad that’s sorted.’ Steven gave a satisfied smile. ‘Who’s going to pay for everything?’ Hester demanded. ‘I can’t afford to.’

‘Yours truly. It’ll be my present. And Queenie said to give you fifty dollars for a new frock, she’s sending a cheque to cover it.’

Hester felt as if she should resent Steven and Queenie – and Jo – for organising her life, but felt secretly pleased that people cared enough to arrange a party on her twenty-first.

The frock she bought was red. It was the first time she’d worn such a vivid colour. It was sleeveless with a deep, frilled V-neck that she sewed together a few inches so her breasts didn’t show.

On the night, Harvey’s was packed. The bar was in a basement, darkly lit, smelling richly of a mixture of tobacco and whisky. The well-worn leather seats and scratched tables looked a hundred years old, and one of the walls was covered with signed pictures of major movie stars whom Steven said had used the bar when they’d first come to Hollywood, young and hopeful.

Steven had invited most of the guests and Hester had no idea who they were.

She’d asked a few of the actors, male and female, familiar faces by now, who hung around Elfreda’s in the hope of finding work, and a couple of girls, Hope and Emma, more would-be actresses, whom she’d met at another party and sometimes went to the movies with. Also, Chas O’Reilly, a writer who lived on the same floor as her at the Wellington and kept asking her out. Sometimes, she felt tempted to accept, because he had an interesting face and she rather liked him.

But she wasn’t quite ready, not yet, to go out with other men.

She hadn’t been expecting presents, but pretty soon a table in the corner was piled high with extravagantly wrapped parcels, which she intended to open later, touched and grateful for the generosity of people who didn’t even know her.

The night flashed by in a daze. She’d never been hugged and kissed so many times, told how beautiful she was, a genuine English rose. Her voice was admired. ‘It’s so soft and gentle, honey. I could listen to it for hours,’ a woman said stridently.

Music was coming from somewhere, dreamy and romantic. They were songs from the thirties, the decade in which she was born; ‘Lovely To Look At’, ‘Smoke Gets In Your Eyes’, ‘Cheek To Cheek’. People started to dance and Chas asked Hester, holding her very close, but she didn’t mind because everyone was doing it.

Anyway, she was just a little bit drunk on champagne.

‘You’re a great-looking girl,’ Chas whispered in her ear. ‘Why don’t you try to get into movies?’

‘I can’t act, I can’t sing, I can’t dance.’ She giggled. ‘They’re just three reasons.’

‘Yeah, but you look like an angel. That’s reason enough.’

‘I’ll think about it,’ she promised. Tonight, she felt as if she could do anything.

Later, she went to the Ladies – the Americans called it, ‘the powder room’ – and looked at herself in the mirror. Her eyes shone like stars, her cheeks were flushed, her blonde hair as smooth as satin. The red frock went well against the tan she had acquired sunbathing on Santa Monica beach with Steven and a crowd of friends – one of them had a sort of minibus that was big enough for a dozen passengers.

Did I ever look like this for Duncan? she wondered, and realised it was the first time she’d thought about him all night. Yet, if things had gone as expected, they’d be married by now. In England, it would be early morning, she and Duncan would be on their honeymoon, just waking up. They hadn’t made up their minds where to go when Mary had revealed she was having his baby. Right now, Hester wasn’t totally sure if she’d sooner be with Duncan or here, in Harvey’s bar.

She looked at her face again. It hadn’t changed. Her eyes were just as starry.

Perhaps I’m over him, she thought exultantly. I’ll think of him again, of course I will, but it won’t make me cry, it won’t make me feel sad. One of these days, I might even be glad we didn’t get married. She wasn’t sure ifshe didn’t already feel that way.

Two weeks later, she slept with Chas O’Reilly and felt quite certain.

Chas was a slight, not very tall young man, with pale brown hair and green-brown eyes. His face was very thin and intense and he had a wonderful smile. He wrote screenplays, thrillers. He gave her some to read and she said she thought them very good.

‘Yeah, but not good enough,’ he said gloomily. ‘They always come back straight away. I’m not even sure if they’re read.’

‘If they’re not read, then how can you be sure they’re not good enough?’

‘Jeez, Hes,’ he sighed. ‘I dunno.’

He was a tender, thoughtful lover, more experienced than Duncan, though she tried not to compare them. This wasn’t a romance, merely a relationship. She liked Chas, might grow fond of him, but was determined not to fall in love or let him change her life. Steven, she went out with as often as before. It would be horrid to drop him just because she had a boyfriend.

‘I’m surprised,’ Steven said, when she told him about Chas. ‘I thought your heart had been permanently broken.’

‘It’s mended now, so it can’t have been permanent.’

He grinned. ‘If I’d known that, I’d have made a move myself.’

‘You wouldn’t!’

‘I would,’ he assured her, still grinning. ‘You’re a sweet girl, Hester. I fancied you from the start, but I’ve been treading on egg shells, trying not to show it in case you were upset.’

‘Well, you certainly don’t look upset that I’m going out with Chas.’

‘Not much point, is there?’ he said, shrugging.

‘Well, one thing’s certain, Steven Vandos, no woman’s ever going to break your heart.’

Hester had loved Hollywood before, but after her party, she loved it even more.

All of a sudden, she found herself very popular, and in receipt of loads of invitations to dinner, parties, the theatre, and a variety of other functions, including the occasional film premiere. She felt obliged to buy a couple of evening outfits, and wrote home, asking her mother to send the nicest of the frocks she’d left behind.

A few days later, early one morning, Steven brought a letter postmarked Liverpool up to her room while she was getting ready for work. It was too soon for her own letter to have arrived. ‘I found this in your box downstairs when I was on my way out. Thought you’d like it straight away.’ He sat on the bed.

‘When you’ve read it, we can have breakfast together in Dave’s.’

‘It’s from Daddy.’ She opened it quickly. Daddy’s letters were usually very amusing. She’d never noticed so many funny things happening in the house in Crosby when she’d lived there.

‘Oh,’ she gasped, after reading the first few lines. ‘Crikey!’

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing’s wrong.’ She could hardly believe it. ‘It’s just that my mother’s expecting a baby.’

‘A bit old for that, isn’t she?’

‘Not really. She’s only thirty-seven, but she was getting on so well at school.

I told you she’s a teacher, didn’t I? It’s due at Christmas. I wonder why I wasn’t told before? I was going home then, anyway. I’ll have been away nearly a year.’

‘You’re not going for good, are you?’ Steven said quickly.

‘Lord, no. Only a fortnight. I’ve been saving my holidays for exactly that. I don’t think Elfreda approves of holidays, but she’ll just have to like it or lump it.’ She doubted if she could ever bring herself to leave Hollywood for good.

Laura had never known Roddy so angry as when she told him she was pregnant. It was the day she’d had lunch with Queenie. ‘But I’m thinking of having an abortion,’ she added.

‘You’re what?’ He looked horrified.

‘I’m pregnant.’

‘I heard that much. It’s the other part I’m not sure of.’

‘I’m thinking of having the baby aborted,’ she said nervously. ‘It will play havoc with my career.’

His face was like thunder. ‘That’s murder, Lo.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Roddy. Women do it all the time. At least two girls at school have had abortions.’

‘How, when it’s against the law?’

‘There’s places that do it, quite respectable places. There’s one in Southport, a nursing home. They don’t even ask your name. You just pay your money, and it’s done. You’re out the next day.’ The telephone number was in her bag and she intended calling tomorrow to arrange a date. She wouldn’t have told Roddy, had she not had to stay the night.

‘So, it’s that easy to murder a child!’ He got up and banged his fist on the sideboard. Inside, the bottles and glasses clinked furiously in protest.

‘Since when have you cared about things like that?’ she asked in an icy voice, no longer nervous, but annoyed. ‘You’re not exactly religious. It’s not as if you go to church. You don’t even believe in God.’

‘Just because I don’t believe in God, it doesn’t mean I’d go along with the killing of a child – my child, just as much as yours, I might remind you.’

‘No, but you won’t have to give up your job to look after the damn thing, will you?’

There was a long silence. Laura realised she’d gone too far. Roddy was watching her, such a strange, puzzled look on his face, that it made her go cold.

‘What on earth’s got into you lately, Lo? You’ve not been yourself for months.

You’re nervy, jumpy, short-tempered. Gus and I are scared to open our mouths in case we say something wrong. Have you taken on too much at school, darling?’ he said gently. ‘Evenings, weekends, all you seem to do is mark books. If you’re not doing that, you’re getting lessons ready for next week.’

‘I love school, I like being busy. It takes my mind off things.’

‘What things?’

‘Things like my daughter’s in America, and my husband and my son would prefer to spend their weekends on a stupid boat rather than with me!’ Laura knew she was making things worse, but couldn’t help it. She wanted to be awkward, get under his skin, even when she knew it wasn’t fair.

‘Did it not cross your mind, darling, that Gus and I felt in the way? Frankly, I thought you preferred us out of the house. You seemed too busy to notice us when we’re here.’

‘That’s stupid and you know it,’ she snapped, when really she should have said, ‘I’m sorry, darling. I love you and Gus with all my heart.’ What had got into her? She’d felt so much for Hester when she’d been jilted. It had brought back her own feelings of desolation and despair when Roddy had done, more or less, the same thing to her. What was to stop him doing the same thing again? Life was so precarious, unsure. You couldn’t be certain of anything. It was fatal to plan for the future, like tempting fate. She’d lost all her faith in human nature. No one could be trusted, no one. There was only school, where she would always be needed, where nothing would change, only small, unimportant things on the periphery. She couldn’t give up school to have a baby, lose the only certainty she had.

Roddy ran his fingers through his hair. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what to say. If you like, once you’ve had the baby, I’ll give up work and look after it. You don’t earn much less then I do. We could live quite easily on your wages.’

‘Don’t talk daft, Roddy,’ she said contemptuously.

At that, he lost his temper. ‘It’s not daft. It’s what I’d do to save the life of our child. I’ll tell you this much, Laura, if you get rid of that baby, I’ll …’ He paused and shook his head in perplexity. ‘I don’t know what I’ll do.

All I know is things would never be the same between us again.’

They hardly spoke to each other for the rest of the week. He slept in Hester’s bed, but Laura didn’t care. She felt quite reckless, gaining a certain amount of satisfaction out of not caring. She’d rung the nursing home and they were expecting her on Monday. When she told Roddy, he just shrugged and turned away.

On Saturday morning, he came down in the old corduroy trousers he went sailing in. ‘Where’s Gus?’ he asked shortly.

‘Gone to the library. He’ll be back soon.’

‘Once Gus gets in the library, he loses all sense of time. I’ll pick him up on the way past.’

‘What time will you be back?’

‘I’ve no idea. Anyway, what do you care?’

‘Roddy?’ She took a step towards him.

‘What?’ There was a glimmer of hope in his eyes.

But the words wouldn’t come. ‘Nothing,’ she said.

He went out without saying goodbye and could be heard coupling the boat on to the hook at the back of his car. Laura stood at the front window, waiting for him to appear, she didn’t know why. Only the car, a dark blue Morris A40, was visible; the boat was kept at the side of the house. Eventually, Roddy came and opened the car door. Laura gasped, overwhelmed by the same thrilling, heart-stopping sensation she’d had when she first saw him in the book shop in Tunbridge Wells. Men were rarely described as beautiful, but Roddy was. His features were perfect, his hair still fell in the same careless quiff, his eyes were the same cornflower blue.

As she watched the boyish figure climb into the car, she wondered what he saw in her. He looked so much younger than his age, yet she looked so much older. She’d never been much of a one for make-up, but she’d always dressed smartly, looked after herself. Now she was letting herself go. The other day, Queenie had dropped a rather heavy hint, telling her about the clothes Freddy’s were getting in for autumn. She’d buy herself a couple of new outfits, a lipstick, let her hair grow – the last time she’d had it cut, Gus had said she looked like a Nazi.

Yes, she’d do all these things, but realised it would have no effect whatsoever, not where Roddy was concerned, not if she got rid of the baby. But she was determined to go ahead. If it wrecked their marriage, it was just too bad. She’d still have Hester and Gus, but not even her children could provide the certainty she so desperately needed. Only school.

Roddy had been gone about an hour, she was marking books, her head throbbing, when a gust of wind shook the house, making the windows rattle in their frames and the trees outside rustle angrily. She looked out at the garden; the trees were still swishing to and fro in the aftermath of the wind. When a second fierce gust caught them, the slender eucalyptus bent almost double. It had scarcely had time to straighten up when it was bent double again by another tremendous gust.