The War Widows (26 page)

‘Look at me, this is how you do it. Miss Lip-rot says I am number one robin. I go first and when you lie down I cover you with leaves, very slowly, and then I bring in all the baby robins. Miss Lip-rot says I’m a star. I have note for my mummy.’ She looked at them, producing a piece of paper from her pocket.

‘Is this true?’ said Maria to Rosa, who was jumping down the steps as fast as she could.

‘Yes. Joy is first robin because she’s fat and robins have round tummies,’ said Rosa with a sneer.

‘Shush. That is not kind,’ Maria said, trying not to smile at the truth of her words.

Ana looked at her with raised eyebrows.

Later that week Maria sat with Marco in the wings of the theatre, watching the dress rehearsal as the lights flashed around the stage and her child tiptoed through the make-believe forest in a flurry of bright pink satin edged with cream lace. It was Rosa’s Cousin Angelika’s first communion dress, cut down, dyed and trimmed with lace stained in tea. Rosa looked a little angel. It had taken all of Marco’s strength to climb the stairs
to watch the rehearsals. They held hands as tears rolled down their cheeks, tears of pride. Rosa was so young and yet so confident on stage. They saw no other child but her.

‘One day she will be a star,’ Marco whispered. ‘Santini girls can be as good as boys, you’ll see. I’ll give Rosaria what she needs: sequins, bouquets and encores. Then everyone will be proud, yes?’ he said, smiling.

Maria nodded and kissed his cheek. ‘You are so right,’ she replied, knowing it would take all of her hard work to make this dream come true.

If Levi patted her bottom one more time she would whack him like Auntie Betty used to beat the
mali
from the veranda. Ana had warned about his wandering hands but Su was never quick enough to swerve away.

‘Oops,’ he mocked. ‘You are such a tiny lass but in proportion. No wonder our Freddie took a fancy to you.’ His eyes were sludgy grey, nothing like Mister Stan’s blue sapphires.

How silly and naïve she felt, so gullible like some stupid loose woman. Why did she stay on in this cold country and take these insults? She realised now that Stan had never intended them to marry. He was like all the other
thakin
who kept their mistresses happy with false promises, lengths of silk, but now it was as if he had never existed and in his place was this fool.

I am the daughter of a British man with a proper English name, she thought. No one can take my passport from me, but still she was treated as some foreigner.
Customers gaped at her but she would never give them the satisfaction of seeing her discomfort.

She liked the stall and the bustle of the market, the smell of the potions and herbs, and the foreign-sounding names on the boxes of herbs reminded her a little of the great markets of Burma with spices all the colours of the rainbow. In a town of soot and engine oil, fish-and-chip fat and fog, their stall smelled of sunshine and faraway places.

She had a good eye and ear, and was quick to improve her knowledge; what to give to whom and how much and when to ask for help. Levi knew his herbs from his roots and spices, but he was cheating Daw Esme and that worried Su.

There was a box of dried leaves on the top of the store cupboard that they were not allowed to bring down for dusting or to serve. It was a box regularly emptied and refilled but no accounts of its sales were ever kept in the books. Levi insisted that he alone must dispense this remedy and she wondered what sort of powerful medicine it was. They were allowed to portion it out into tiny packets so it must be very efficacious.

‘What’s this for?’ she had asked Lily one Saturday.

‘It must be one of Winstanley’s cure-alls, a secret recipe handed down from father to son, I expect.’ Lily sniffed at it, turning up her nose at the smell. ‘Something soothing and cooling, I expect, or something to loosen the joints. We get a lot of call for rheumatics round here…’ she added.

‘It may be a special potion for floppy dicks,’ Su
whispered. ‘That is why only a man serves it. Business is good for it.’

‘Susan!’ Lily was blushing and giggling. ‘It’s the cold that’s bringing in customers.’

‘So why doesn’t the sale go down in the book?’ She was curious how much Lily knew.

‘Levi has his own system with special customers and his regulars, and is very particular about serving them. You’ll soon recognise them,’ Lily smiled, and turned back to her packaging.

His regulars were a strange bunch, not the sort of customers who usually came to the herbal store: smart ladies in large brimmed hats, wanting remedies for headaches, constipation, skin complaints and neuralgia, ‘old biddies’, as Levi called them, with swollen ankles and bunions, who needed tonics and remedies for flatulence and bladder control. Then there came vegetarians, who bought special tins of nut cutlets and vitamin drops, and old men in mufflers wanting tonics for chests and aching joints.

Levi’s specials were younger men in long mackintoshes and no hats, sometimes wearing berets and bicycle clips, ex-soldiers with war wounds and scars, the coloured man who played drums in Toni Santini’s billiard hall and American bar off Mealhouse Lane. There were toughies with cold fish eyes, who undressed her with their stares.

They came only when Levi was on shift. Money was exchanged and packets were handed over and not a penny of it went in the till. Her curiosity was aroused until one day she asked him outright, ‘What is this stuff?’

‘A special tobacco to ease the joints,’ he answered, not looking at her for once when he spoke.

‘Shouldn’t it go in the book?’ she continued, trying to catch his eye.

‘No need for you to bother your pretty little head with any of this. I’ll deal with it in my own way. I like to deal with these customers direct. It is strictly my business so no more questions,’ he said, dismissing her curiosity.

One afternoon when Levi was out at one of his endless meetings and she was alone on the stall, she found the wooden steps that folded into a chair and climbed up to examine the shoebox more closely. She sniffed the herbs, inhaled and shut her eyes. There was something in the distinctive odour that took her back to that troopship journey to England, to the back streets and music clubs of Rangoon where men chewed roots and grinned, the sort of dens of iniquity that the headmistress of her school warned her girls never to go near but all had risked a peek in, nevertheless.

It didn’t look like tobacco but it was dried and crushed, hidden up there for a reason. Perhaps it was a potent concoction, as Enid had said, highly prized and efficacious, subject to strict rationing. It was not fair that Levi gave it only to his men friends, so she pulled out two packets and stuffed them in her overcoat.

Maria’s mother-in-law had a terrible backache. Why should she not have some relief from
her
pain? How could he be so mean as to ration it only to men?

If Daw Esme only knew about his cheating heart it
would ‘upset the applecart’, as she often said. Daw Esme was a fair woman, distant, strict. A mother deserved more respect from her son but as the proverb said: bone in chicken, relatives in man, that one can’t avoid.

There were so many secrets in the household. Division House, it should be called, not Waverley. How the two lodgers and their daughters were closer relatives than everyone thought, how Lily’s wedding day never came, how she, Susan, had kept her own store of pure gold bangles hidden from prying eyes to buy extra treats for Joy, how they must always lock the bathroom door from Levi’s Tom peeping. Nothing was as it seemed but as the proverb said: ‘You can stop speaking to someone but you can never stop being related to them.’

Ana was training to be a real nurse, thanks to kind Diana and Eva. Maria spent more time now in Lavaroni’s with Queenie, but the gang always met up at dancing class to watch their girls blossoming into star turns. Joy was a little slower than the others but Su was teaching her to dance Burmese style and one day Miss Liptrot would give her a solo spot in the big display. She would have to wear the full
pwe
costume and that would cost money.

If Auntie Betty, God protect her eternal soul, could see her standing like some common servant here, she would be shocked. But it would do for now until that great day when Joy Liat would make them all proud. She must be educated to marry well and then she would repay her mother for all her sacrifices by producing many grandchildren in the big house with many chimneys. That was what was keeping Susan smiling.

Everything she was doing was for Joy. Only the best school, the best clothes, the best chance for her to shine would justify all her sacrifices.

She did not trust the Winstanleys to help her achieve this goal. Only foreign mothers shared the same dream. Su, Ana and Maria would make a good team if they stuck together.

She smiled to herself, thinking of all the ammunition she had about Levi’s devious scams: the false accounting, private prescriptions and the obnoxious attempts he made to seduce her. If only he knew how repulsive he was to her, a mere shadow of his brother’s handsome features.

Levi was a big bellied man with a flabby mouth. How had Ivy ever managed to kiss such a horror. He reminded her of one of the gargoyles grinning from the roof of the ancient parish church, lewd-eyed, bold and grotesque. Yet there was something compulsive in looking on such a sight, if only to mock it. This made all his fumblings bearable.

His weaknesses made her feel strong and strangely superior. I am smart biscuit lady, she thought. I will watch you and bide my time.

One day he would go over the top and she would be waiting then to show him up for what he was. She had the family name to think of, she had the ear of his mother and the Olive Oil Club to back her up. He would get what was coming to him in spadefuls for all he had dumped on to her in the past.

When Lily came to collect Joy for her dancing class, Susan slipped the packets in her pocket for Maria.

‘Tell her to give this to Nonna Valentina for her bad back. It is a very special herb to give good relief. She must brew in tea or put it in a pipe and smoke it, I think. Let me know how it works. There is more where that came from,’ she laughed.

‘If it’s that good, I’ll take some for Walt to try out. His back’s been playing him up again.’

It was a week later that Maria rang the house and asked them to stay for supper after dancing rehearsal and babysit while she had another session with Sylvio. ‘I can’t ask Nonna. She thinks it not right for married woman to go out alone at night.’

‘How’s her back?’ Lily asked.

‘I need to talk to you about that,’ Maria said. ‘But not over the telephone.’

Su made a note to slip some more packets of the potion into her bag and when they arrived at the flat, bringing Rosa back with them, Maria was chopping onions, tears rolling down her face.

‘Watch out, your mother-in-law’s talking about you,’ laughed Ana, who had Greek sayings for every occasion.

‘Not me…not me, but Susan. Nonna Valentina lives in praise of your wonderful remedy. She has had the best night’s sleep in years but sadly I told her there was no more. Do you know what that stuff is?’ She turned her black eyes, red-rimmed with crying and laughing.

‘It is Winstanley’s Wonder Weed.’ Su winked at Lily. ‘You like it? I have some more here,’ she smiled, pulling a packet out of her bag.

‘Put it away! You want we all go prison and lose our girls?’ cried Maria, crossing herself. ‘It’s hashish!’

‘What you mean, hash…How you know?’ cried Ana, crossing herself as well.

‘I give my mother-in-law the packet to make tea but that greedy woman grabs one of the Santini boy’s pipes and mixes with tobacco and smokes it. Suddenly she is not dragon but sweet smiling lady full of joy, and then she falls asleep. Then Toni comes in and shouts. “What’s that stink?” and look at me with dagger eyes. “Where you get this?” he screamed, and threw the packet on the fire. I said it was a gift, that you gave it to her in all innocence, but he started laughing and told me that it was not something to give his beloved mamma ever again.’

‘So what is so special about it, then?’ Su asked.

‘Susan, it is marijuana, hemp, dope…not allowed. If they find I smoke dope I will lose my job, we’ll lose café. Where did you get it from? Not your shop? Get rid of it or you and Lily will be in heap of trouble.’

‘Not before I try it for size. If it is so special I want to know what the fuss is about,’ Lily answered, making to take the bag. ‘Let’s have some and see for ourselves.’

‘Not in my flat you won’t. The smell can drift down the stairs and anyone in the parlour might recognise it. I warn you, it’s not the stuff to smoke around babies or children. If the police get hold of your source, Winstanley Health and Herbs will be history,’ Maria said, wagging her finger.

‘We could make herbal tea,’ Su offered, but Maria was having none of it.

‘Toni and Angelo know you’ve got it. They think you all make fool of Mamma. I tell them you innocent girls,
just trying to help Mamma. Just get rid of all of it, for everyone’s sake. You are holding a grenade in your bag. It go off and we are all in trouble.’

‘What shall we do, Lily? If Daw Esme finds out what Levi’s up to, she will close down the stall and there will be no job and no money for you. She will blame us and I will lose my job too. I am sorry,’ Su cried. ‘I wish we had never looked, but we wanted to give Nonna Valentina some relief. If she has no pain, she is kind to you and will let you have your own life. I’m sorry.’ Su suddenly felt a wave of panic at the piles of hash in the shoebox. ‘Levi is a crazy man.’

‘No, he is clever man. What better cover for a drug than to put it on a shelf in a herbal shop? Who would ever suspect?’ said Maria. ‘You’ll have to get rid of it.’

‘How?’

‘We’ll think of something.’

All the way home Lily wrestled with this terrible discovery. What should she do? If the police found out what Levi was up to, they’d close down the stall, and with no business there’d be no money. What a disgrace if it all ended in the courts!

‘So sorry, all my fault,’ wept Su from the back seat of Gertie. ‘I want to help everybody and now I bring shame on Daw Esme.’