The Best in Blountmere Street (The Blountmere Street Series Book 2) (14 page)

I continue on, past Izzy’s, Motsel’s the greengrocers, Wake’s the sports shop, and Dealy Electrical Appliances.  How long before they too are swept into the kingdom?

Bill has already seen me skirting the pond and is standing outside his shop when I get there.

‘Is everything all right?’ he asks.  ‘Your mother!  What’s wrong?’

‘Everything’s fine.  I just fancied a walk, and while I was here it suddenly occurred to me your shop was nearby and that I should pop in and say hello.’  I should have realized my sudden visit would cause Bill to think the worst.  It was the same years ago when, without warning, I’d turned up at his workplace and he’d dealt with my childish fears and helped prepare me for womanhood.  Suddenly I realise I’m here to see if he notices any difference in me, if he recognises the woman he told me some day I’d become.

Bill exhales.  ‘That’s a relief.  Come and tell me what you think of my little shop.  Then I’ll close up and we’ll go upstairs and have a cup of tea.’  He hesitates, ‘If that’s all right with you.’

‘I’d like a cup of tea, thanks.’

The shop is part of a three-storey house facing The Common.  Decades ago it had probably been owned by someone wealthy.  My grandparents or even my great grandparents might have worked in it as kitchen maids, cooks or butlers. I’ve inherited too much of Mum to believe they might have achieved a higher status. 

The shop is no tidier than the one I’d visited in Peckham, with chairs and sofas piled on each other like upholstered towers.

‘It’s nothing great, but it earns me a living, added to which I’ve managed to buy both the upstairs flats.  I live in one and when I get organized, I’ll rent the other one out.’  Bill smiles in his modest way, transforming him from man to boy.  ‘I never thought I’d own any property, and business is going well.’

He flicks the sign hanging on the door to “Closed”.  ‘I doubt I’ll get any more customers at this time in the afternoon.  I might pop down later and finish what I was doing.  I sometimes work a bit in the evenings.  It gives me something to do.’

I watch as Bill bends to lock the shop door and select the key to his flat.  He’s lonely.  I can tell.

In his kitchen, Bill fills the kettle.  Taking some cups and saucers from a cupboard painted maroon and cream, he places them on a wooden table in the centre of the room.  The linoleum is patterned with maroon triangles and oblongs. Mum would have said it was all very contemporary.

‘I’ve got a packet of biscuits somewhere.  I keep them for important visitors.’

I wonder how many important visitors Bill receives. 

He rummages beyond tins of baked beans and spaghetti.  ‘I don’t live entirely on these.  I can at least boil an egg.’

I look around the room.  On the whole, Mum would have approved.  It’s clean and tidy, Mum’s prerequisites for any house.  Like Bill, it’s practical and unpretentious, but with here and there touches of style.  Yes, Mum would have given it her grudging assent, but whether she would have detected the emptiness in it that echoes the need for companionship, I’m not sure.

‘Let’s go into the front room.  The sun shines directly into it at this time of the day.’  Bill leads me from the kitchen to a room radiant with afternoon light, so that I have to blink away the blackness in front of my eyes.

‘I know, I know, don’t say it – there’s more here than in my shop.’  Bill indicates the chairs in three circles, so that there’s no room for any other furniture.  ‘While some people collect art or china, I collect chairs.  It’s just that I can’t bear to get rid of them when people don’t want them any more, so I mend and recover them and somehow they end up here.’

‘Don’t you sell them?’

‘Sometimes, but, well,’ he glances almost shyly at me.  ‘You’ll think this is strange, but each one of the chairs here is a person I know or knew, and I cover them to suit that person’s personality.’  He hesitates as if he’s deciding whether to go on.  ‘Would you like me to tell you who some of them are?’

He points to the largest of all the chairs, with huge cushions filling its craters.  ‘That one’s my father’s, solid, but deep and difficult to know.  And that blue one; it’s comfortable and fits into a corner.  It’s my mother’s.’  Bill pauses.  ‘Some of these others are for friends and family you wouldn’t know.’

We ease our way through the chairs.  ‘Would you like to see yours?’

‘I’ve got one?’

‘You certainly have.’

It’s small and covered in yellow-gold chintz daffodils and roses.  ‘A beautiful spring garden.’  Bill smiles.  ‘Actually I’ve got another one in the shop that I might cover for you.  One for you now that you are well, … growing into a woman.’

He knows!  I try to study him without moving my head, but he’s moved to the next chair.

‘I’ve even covered one for that young friend of yours upstairs, the one we visited in the orphanage, poor young fellow.  How is he?  Back with his mother and sister, I hope.’

‘No.  He’s being fostered somewhere.  We don’t know where.  He’s with a really good family and doesn’t want to come back.’  I stroke the woollen fabric of the chair next to mine.  It’s green, the colour of The Common.  Tony would have been pleased with it.

I know the exquisite chaise longue swathed in pink damask on its own in the centre is Mum’s before Bill tells me.

‘For a film star,’ I whisper.

‘For a film star,’ Bill repeats, then continues, ‘How is she?’

‘A bit better, I think. She’s not counting so much … since she’s been at the … the … hospital, she counts all the time, you see.  Sometimes she gets into the tens of thousands.  But I don’t think she hears
the voices
so much.’

We lapse into silence.

‘Do you still play the piano?’  Bill asks at last.

‘No, we haven’t got a piano anymore.’

Another silence.

‘Everything all right at home?’

‘Fine.’

‘Good.’

The sun warms my back, while my bra cuts into it.

‘I know I’ve said this before, but if you need anything.  Well, you know.’

‘Thanks, but Dad and I manage quite well.’

‘Good.’  Bill strokes the pink damask.  ‘You look just like her when she was your age’  He disappears and returns with a sepia photograph of  Mum when she was probably a year or two older than me.  ‘I keep it by my bed.  Not that I need to be reminded of what she looked like.  She’ll always be beautiful to me.’

Chapter Sixteen

Herbie catches up with me as I pass Izzy’s on my way back from Bill’s. 

‘You in practice for the Olympics?’ he asks, panting.

‘I always walk fast.’ 

Mum used to say that people who walked slowly were time-wasters.

‘Have you had any more trouble from those kids?’

‘No.  No I haven’t.’  I keep my eyes directed on the pavement, in case Herbie can read the impure thoughts I have about him.

‘I meant what I said.  If they have a go at you again, tell me and I’ll sort them out.’

‘Thanks.’

A pause.  Perhaps he wants me to say how strong I think he is, but I don’t have the right words.

‘I don’t suppose you’ve heard anything from Tony?’

‘No.  Mrs Addington reckons he’s probably up north somewhere, even Scotland.’

‘Wherever he is, he must really like it.  I can’t understand why he hasn’t been in touch with anyone, not even his family.’  Herbie hoists his satchel higher.  His shoulders are twice as wide as mine, and he’s a head taller.

As we pass, Izzy’s gives way to the bombsite-cigar box kingdom.

 ‘We’ve applied to move into one of these flats once they’re built.’  Herbie looks up at the scaffolding.

‘Do you really want to live in one?’

‘Why shouldn’t I, especially if it’s on the top storey.  It’ll have a good view and we’ll have a bathroom with an inside lavatory.  No mice; what more could you ask?’

‘And you wouldn’t mind not having a garden or living with all those people around you?’

‘Why should I?  Anyway, all the houses in Blountmere Street are going be pulled down.  Everyone in the street will be rehoused in these flats eventually.’  Herbie answers arrogantly, and his walk has become more of a strut.  I suppose it adds to his hero status with the girls at school.  Why do girls, women for that matter, like men who swagger like James Dean?  Or who are aloof and treat them as a mere convenience, as Dad did Mum.  Why don’t they go for nice boys, like the kind of boy Bill must have been?  I’m no different from the girls at school.  I just keep all that burning and churning inside me.

‘I have to admit,’ Herbie speaks with a private school accent.  I suppose I would have spoken like him if I’d gone to Riversham.  ‘It’ll be strange living where the bombsite was, as if we’re somehow being unfaithful to it.’

I raise my eyes and take in his skin, the colour of milky tea and his even teeth, like Mum’s “whites” after their weekly boil in the copper on wash day.  I’ll see his every feature when I go to bed tonight.

‘There’s a good flick on at The Majestic, fancy going?’ Herbie asks suddenly, and in an off-hand manner, I reply, ‘All right.’

‘Tuesday at seven outside The Majestic?’  Herbie turns away from Blountmere Street and towards Kentlyn Avenue.  ‘I’d better go.’  He raises his arm in a half-wave.  I do the same. 

That night, I hurry through the chores and my homework so that I can get to bed; to
Radio Luxenbourg
and my fantasies.  This time, they’re not entirely fantasies.  Herbie Armitage has asked me out!  I suppose it’s a date.  I have a date with Herbie Armitage!  Almost immediately I’m overcome by fear that douses all my other emotions.  How can something I’ve wanted so much be turning into something I don’t want at all?  There are times when I simply don’t understand myself.  Most of the time.

Tuesday arrives like a steam roller that won’t be slowed down.  I pull my coat to me, clasping the front of it in a bunch to my chest, as I force myself to round the corner of St Kits Avenue, into the High Street.  Opposite, between David Greigs, the grocers and the Bata Shoe Shop, stands The Majestic Picture House.  I’ve always thought it was a magnificent building.  Now it might as well be a prison. Herbie, still dressed in his school “longs” topped with a red jersey matted by too hot a wash, is waiting outside studying the
Coming Attractions
.

Why had I come?  Why hadn’t God answered my prayers and somehow struck me or Herbie down - in a way that didn’t hurt, of course.  Doesn’t the hymn we sing at school say God works in mysterious ways. His wonders to perform? 

As I’m about to turn back, Herbie sees me and raises his hand.  I wave back, tremulously touching my hair as I do so.  I shouldn’t have used Mum’s curlers.  It had been a mistake.  They made my hair stick out like the chocolate finger biscuits we used to have as a special treat at Christmas.  As for my face – there’s no other word to describe it but ugly.   If I’d worn lipstick and high heels, I would have felt more confident and grown up, like Angela when she totters across the road on her way out with her friends from work. 

I keep moving forward.  My beige flatties pinch my toes.  Herbie waves again.  I feel so nauseous, I eye the gutter in case I have to be sick into it.  I swallow hard, but it doesn’t stop the trembling or the nausea.  What do I know about boys, about what they do when they take you to the pictures? And what they do after they’ve taken you to the pictures?  All I know is what the girls at school talk about, and I don’t want that at all.

I continue on towards The Majestic.  I look in the shops, then at the road, anywhere but at Herbie.

‘Hi,’ he calls.

‘Hi,’ I call back, still not looking at him.

The gap between us lessens, at least distance-wise.

‘Did you have any trouble getting out?’ Herbie asks.

‘No … no it was all right.’  I’d told Dad I was going to see a school friend.

‘They say
The Incredible Shrinking Man
’s a really good flick.’

‘Yes.’  The film’s of little consequence to me.

‘I hear it’s quite frightening in parts.’

That’s what Angela and the girls at school told me boys always say about films.  It’s a way they can get to touch you.

‘I’ll get the tickets,’ Herbie offers.

‘All right.’  I fiddle with the coins in my pocket, uncertain whether to give them to him.  Angela and the girls at school say you never pay for yourself when you go out with a boy.  You only “
go Dutch
” when you’re going steady, and then not always.  Angela says it makes boys feel manlier when they pay.  I wonder if Herbie feels manly. 

The cockerel on the Pathe News crows as we squeeze our way along the row to our seats.  I deliberately keep my gaze from the back row and the embracing couples.  I’m glad Herbie and I aren’t sitting in the back row.

‘I’ve bought you some liquorice allsorts,’ Herbie thrusts the packet at me.

‘Thanks.’  I clutch the box praying the ordeal will soon be over.  When it is, I swear I’ll never go out with a boy again.  Never! 

Thankful for the dark and the flickering images that keep us from having to talk, I’m conscious of Herbie’s arm touching mine.

‘Ooh, I’m frightened, Terry.’  A girl’s voice, together with a rustling sound comes from behind.

As the film progresses, the characters get smaller, while everything around  them gets larger and larger, until a spider, like some giant prehistoric creature, prowls across the screen.  A man who is a hundred times smaller, wields a pin in self-defence.   From behind comes more rustling followed by a throaty groan.

‘Are you frightened?’ Herbie whispers.

I don’t answer.  I’m frightened, but not of the film.  With a swift movement of his head, he looks at me.  Then, as if he doesn’t know he’s doing it, he slides his arm around my shoulder, where it rests like a yoke.  I keep looking ahead, pretending to be intent on the action.  Does he want me to touch him, to encourage him further?  If I was Angela or one of the girls at school, I’d know exactly what to do.  Instead, I clench my teeth and try to control my trembling.  I beseech God that there’ll be nothing more, just Herbie’s hand around my shoulder, clutching and unclutching me.

His pullover, redolent of Sunlight soap, prickles my neck.  From behind, the groaning is becoming louder, while the man on the screen is diminishing in size.  Compared to him even a matchbox looks like a gigantic fortress.  Herbie begins pulling me towards him, at first tentatively and then with more urgency.  I resist and feign a deep interest in the film.

‘Come on,’ he coaxes. 

I’m a child, a silly little child.  He’s a boy-man.  But the boy-man is becoming more insistent and as the character on the screen disappears into infinity, I allow myself to be turned and Herbie’s lips to slide towards mine.  Half finding them he sucks my skin.  His hands caress my shoulders.  The music comes to a crescendo, the lights flare, and Herbie lets me go.  There are sighs and movement from behind. 

‘Ooh, Terry that was lovely,’ the voice says.

‘D’you want a choc-ice?’ Herbie askes.   His eyes are glassy.

‘I’ve got to go.’

‘But there’s another film to come.’

‘I’ve got to catch the bus to my Aunt’s.  I’m staying there tonight.  It goes soon.’

‘You never said.’

‘I’ve got to go.’  I begin to push my way along the row.  Then I stumble up the stairs and into the foyer trying to dodge arriving picture-goers.

‘Hey wait,’ Herbie shouts after me.

A bus is at the stop outside The Majestic.  I jump on it and I’m already running up the stairs as it pulls away.  Glancing back, I see Herbie standing on the pavement looking perplexed.

I imagine I hear a knock at the door for days after and when I answer, it will be Herbie asking me if something’s wrong.  He doesn’t come, and I’m glad of the darkening Autumn evenings so that I can hide in the shadows on my way home from school. 

Then the worse thing possible happens.  We come face to face at the baker’s.  He looks at me as if he is about to say something, but I swivel towards the shop window to study the cakes.  To my relief, he walks away without buying anything. 

Now I know beyond doubt, I’m not like other girls.  I’m different.  I’m a freak, abnormal.  I can’t even cope with a kiss.  I’ve made Herbie Armitage feel unmanly.  I’ve got a mad mother.