V for Violet (8 page)

But it’s too late. ‘Off you go then, Violet. I’m locking up now.’ Miss Read’s not even bothering to whisper any more. It’s getting dark outside. I thrust my hands in my anorak pockets and head down Lavender Hill and back on to the High Street. All the shops are closing now. I imagine Norma leaving Fine Fare, waving her goodbyes to the other till girls, buttoning up her coat, pulling on her gloves and hanging her handbag over her arm. She’ll be wondering about what Mum wants and worrying about what Raymond’s going to do for his tea, but she’ll be click clacking along the pavements and checking her stockings for ladders at the same time. She’ll go mad when Mum tells her the news. Norma can’t cope with anything shocking; even bright colours give her a headache. Whatever happens, it’s not going to be pretty, that’s for sure.

I walk as slowly as I can. The last thing I want to do is bump into Norma. A couple of motorcycles whine past me, up the High Street. I immediately hope that one of the riders is Beau, but of course it isn’t. I watch their backs as they disappear around the corner at the top of the street. They’re not even wearing leather jackets. I try not to be disappointed. Beau could be anywhere. He doesn’t have to walk, or wait for buses or trains. He can just jump on his bike and go wherever he likes. I wonder if he lives in Battersea and what his house is like and if I’ll ever get to see it. He must have a family and … a life. What does he do when he’s not stealing girls from chip shops and taking them halfway across London to see the view?

I’m home before I know it. There’s a scribbled note stuck to the shop window that says,
Closed due to unforeseen circumstances. Open as usual tomorrow.
A man and a woman are walking away, grumbling to each other. ‘Great. Bloody eggs on toast again then.’

I take a deep breath. It’s time for Mum to reveal her
unforeseen circumstances
. Time for her to drop the bomb and blow our lives to pieces. I open the gate, but before I can walk through it, Norma comes clacking up to me. ‘Violet,’ she gasps, as though she’s run all the way from Fine Fare, ‘what’s all this about then? What’s going on? Why’s the shop shut?’

I shrug. ‘You’d better ask Mum all that.’

‘But, everything is all right, isn’t it? It’s not like Mum to come and see me at work. And she wouldn’t say anything. Just bought a packet of tea and told me to come straight here after I’d finished. Well, it’d better be quick, whatever it is. Don’t want Raymond coming home and finding me not there. He’ll be worried sick.’ She pauses for breath. ‘Oh God! That’s it, isn’t it? Someone’s sick. Is it Dad? Is it Mum?’ Her voice starts to quiver.

‘Nobody’s sick,’ I tell her, as I follow her through the gate and round to the back door. ‘We’re here now. Just let Mum tell you.’

She pushes open the door. ‘Mum?’ she shouts. And then she stops, her hand still on the door knob. She’s blocking the way in. I can’t see past her. But I can hear the silence. It’s like the world has stopped. Then Norma starts murmuring, ‘Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.’ She drops her handbag on the floor and rushes into the kitchen. I step in after her. My heart’s pounding and for an awful moment I expect to see blood splattered everywhere and Mum lying dead on the kitchen floor with Dad standing over her holding a dripping knife.

But instead, I can’t make any sense of what I do see. Mum’s alive, sitting at the kitchen table with a weird look on her face, like she’s half laughing, half crying. Dad’s nowhere to be seen. But, like a scene from some mixed-up, crazy nightmare, Donkey Jacket Man is sitting at the kitchen table too and Norma is clinging on to him for all she’s worth, still sobbing, ‘Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.’

It’s Mum who finally says something. Norma is beyond talking. She’s gulping and hiccoughing and wiping snot from her nose on to one of Mum’s tea towels. Donkey Jacket Man is smoothing her hair and whispering, ‘I know, I know. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’

Mum holds her hand out to me. But I don’t move. I just keep staring. ‘Violet,’ she says gently. ‘Violet. This is your brother. This is Joseph.’

I stare at the man sitting at the kitchen table. The same man that I saw Mum canoodling with in the park. The one I thought she was going to run away with. He’s my brother? My dead brother Joseph? I can’t make any sense of it.

‘Violet?’ says Mum. ‘Aren’t you at least going to say hello? Joseph’s been looking forward to meeting his baby sister.’

Donkey Jacket Man untangles himself from Norma and looks across at me. ‘Hi, Violet,’ he says. ‘It’s good to meet you.’

I can’t speak. Just because Mum’s telling me this man is my brother doesn’t mean I can suddenly love a stranger, or even
like
a stranger. He’s still just the man in the park.

‘Violet!’ Mum hisses. ‘Don’t be so rude.’

‘It’s okay,’ says Donkey Jacket Man. ‘It’s a shock. I know it is.’ He smiles at me. It’s an awkward sort of smile, like he doesn’t know if he should be doing it or not. I don’t smile back. My face won’t let me. There’s a thousand questions racing through my head, but the first one I ask is, ‘Where’s Dad?’

Mum nods towards the front room. The glow disappears from her face for an instant. ‘He’s in there,’ she says. Then she puts her hand on Norma’s shoulder. ‘Come on, love,’ she says. ‘Sit down and have a cuppa. Calm yourself down a bit. I know it’s the biggest shock ever. But look …’ She cups Donkey Jacket Man’s face in her hands and loudly kisses the top of his head. ‘He’s here. He’s really here. Our Joseph has come back to us. He’s come back from the dead.’

A shiver runs through me. Not a creepy shiver. He’s obviously not back from the dead. He’s not Jesus, is he? It’s more of a ‘this is too weird’ shiver. A ‘how do they know it’s him’ shiver? That it’s
really
him? He looks nothing like the nineteen-year-old boy in the photograph on the mantelpiece. The one who’s been dead for nearly seventeen years. The man sitting at the kitchen table has much darker hair for one thing. It’s long and scruffy and he has a beard to match. His face is ruddy too, like he’s spent his life working in the fields. He’s broad and hard, nothing like the soft-looking boy in the photograph. And how can he not be dead, when there’s a letter from the War Office to prove it?

I turn my back on them all and walk through to the front room. I need to see Dad. I need to know why he’s not in the kitchen with everyone else. First thing I see when I walk in the room is that the photograph has gone. The mantelpiece is bare. Dad’s sitting in his chair with his head in his hands. ‘Dad?’ I touch his shoulder. ‘What’s going on? Is that really Joseph in there?’

He doesn’t answer for a moment. He rubs his face in his hands and groans, then he draws his hands up over his face and pushes them through his hair. He sighs and slumps back in his chair with his eyes closed. I see then that he’s got the photograph in his lap. ‘Dad?’ I say again. I shake his shoulder this time. ‘Dad? Tell me what’s going on.’

‘For God’s sake, Violet!’ he bellows.

I jump back.

‘Can’t you just … for one minute … just leave me …’ He thumps the arms of his chair so hard that the photograph falls from his lap and lands on the floor. There’s a crack and the sound of splintering glass. Dad bends down and picks up the photograph frame. He turns it over. The image of Joseph, so smart in his battledress, is now lost underneath the burst of shattered glass. ‘That,’ says Dad, stabbing his finger at the photograph, ‘that is my son Joseph. That is the war hero.’ His voice is quavering with anger. ‘But, him in there …’ He points towards the kitchen. ‘He’s not my son! He’s a coward. And a deserter!’ He spits the words out with such hate that flecks of his spittle land on my arm. ‘How dare he come back here. How dare he show his face.’ He’s talking to himself now. He’s forgotten that I’m here. But I’ve heard enough anyway. I’m beginning to understand.

A deserter. A deserter. The words echo around my head. My brother, the hero, is a deserter. My brother, the hero, didn’t give his life for his country. My brother, the hero, didn’t die in a plane crash over the French countryside. Parts of him aren’t buried and rotting away in fields of corn. He didn’t die at all. He wasn’t ever a hero. He just ran away.

I slip back into the kitchen. Mum and Norma are huddled up close to Joseph, like they’re scared that if they move too far away he’ll disappear again. Mum looks up at me. ‘How’s Dad doing?’ she asks grudgingly.

‘Don’t know,’ I say. ‘Not too happy though, is he?’

Mum’s face hardens. ‘Him and his stupid pride. How can he do it?’ Her voice rises to a wail. ‘How can he put his pride above his own son?’

Joseph leans in to pat her on the arm. ‘It’s okay, Mum. It was never going to be easy. I knew that. Just give him time. He’ll come round.’

It’s the strangest thing. To hear this stranger call my mum, Mum. He doesn’t have the right to call her Mum. He lied to her for nearly seventeen years. He let her think he was dead. And for all that time she’s been dead inside too, because of him.

‘You’re a deserter,’ I say to him. ‘Doesn’t that mean you’ll get shot?’

‘Violet!’ Norma gasps.

‘Well, it’s true, isn’t it? Deserting the army is a crime, isn’t it? You’ll go to prison at least.’

‘Stop it, Violet!’ Mum glares at me.

‘No. She’s right.’ Joseph leans back in his chair. The empty chair, I realise. The chair that has always been waiting for him. ‘It was a crime,’ he says. ‘It still is, I suppose.’ His voice has an odd burr to it. It’s like a Battersea voice with an added ingredient. ‘But good old Winston Churchill pardoned us all. All of us who chose disgrace over the grave, he found it in his heart to forgive us.’ He says all this with a sneer, as though he never wanted to be forgiven. ‘Twenty-fourth of February, 1953. The day I stopped being a criminal.’

‘But that was eight years ago,’ I say. ‘Why didn’t you come back then?’

‘I couldn’t,’ he says. ‘It’s hard to explain. It’s complicated. But I just couldn’t.’

‘Violet, please,’ Mum says. ‘Don’t make him explain himself again. It’s enough that he’s back with us now. Give him some space.’

I look at her in amazement. ‘So he can just waltz back in here after all these years, a brother I’ve never met, and I can’t ask him where he’s been?’

‘In time, Violet. In time,’ she says.

In time? I want to say. Hasn’t seventeen years been long enough? Haven’t I got a right to know where he’s been and why? But I’m tired all of a sudden. And so angry. All the unanswered questions are giving me a headache. ‘You’re all crazy,’ I shout. ‘The lot of you. You’re all bloody crazy.’ Then I slam out of the back door and before I know it, my feet are taking me along the pavement towards Jackie’s house. It’s the only place I’ve got to go.

I pause outside her gate. There’s a light on in the front room, yellow and hazy behind the nets. I stare at the window. I know every detail of that room in there, like it was my own home. There’s the battered green sofa with lace antimacassars covering its back and arms, there’s the china cabinet in one corner full of Brenda’s flowery plates and cups and saucers that she keeps for best but never uses and there’s the little wooden table with the wireless on it. There’s the brown tiled fireplace with a mirror hanging over it and the brown and green rag rug in front of the grate with its dozens of scorch marks made by fallen coals. Then in pride of place in the other corner is the television set that Jackie persuaded Brenda to rent from Radio Rentals.

I miss being in that room. I miss squashing up on that sofa next to Jackie to watch our programmes.
Coronation Street
is her favourite,
Dixon of Dock Green
is mine. I’ve always fancied myself as a copper. I think I’d be really good at solving crimes with my knack of knowing what people are thinking and feeling. But fat chance of that ever happening.

Jackie always kept me up to date with the storylines when I missed the programmes because of working in the shop. I’m way behind now though and Dad would never get us a television set. Waste of money, he’d say. What’s the point when we’ve already got a wireless?

There’s shadowy figures moving about behind the nets. I imagine Jackie and Benda settling themselves on the sofa with a plate of biscuits. Would it be so bad if I went inside and joined them? I’m burning to tell someone about Joseph, and Jackie’s the only one who’ll understand that this is the most amazingly awful thing that’s ever happened. She won’t think I’m boring now. She’ll want to know me again. She’ll want to be in the thick of it all and when people find out about Joseph, she’ll want to be able to say, ‘Well, of course, I’ve known about it for ages.’

As I walk around to Jackie’s back door, I feel like I’m dreaming. It’s all so unreal. But even though I’m angry and upset and really pissed off, there’s a part of me that’s really glad this has happened. Because, the one good thing about my brother coming back from the dead is that Jackie will want to be my best friend again.

‘You’ve got to be joking?’ Jackie’s all agog, just like I knew she’d be. She puts her half-eaten custard cream back on the plate and shuffles sideways so I can join her and Brenda on the sofa. ‘I can’t believe it,’ she says. ‘He’s turned up, just like that? After all this time? Where’s he been for seventeen years?’

‘Oh, love!’ says Brenda. ‘Your mum must be beside herself!’

‘I don’t understand,’ says Jackie. ‘Where
has
he been? What’s he been doing all this time? Did he lose his memory or something?’

‘He didn’t lose his memory,’ I say. ‘And I don’t know where he’s been. All I know is he’s sitting in our kitchen right now, large as life.’

Brenda puts her hands over her mouth. ‘Well I never.’ She shakes her head in wonder. ‘It’s a bloody miracle. A proper bloody miracle!’ There’s silence for a minute as news of ‘the miracle’ sinks in. But then Brenda whips her head round and looks at me sharply. ‘But why are you here, love? You should be home with your family at a time like this. Or was there something you wanted? Is there anything we can do?’

I shake my head. ‘I just wanted to let you know,’ I say. ‘And to be honest, it’s been such a shock, I just had to get out for a while.’

‘Oh, love. Of course,’ says Brenda. She stands up and brushes biscuit crumbs from her apron. ‘Of course it’s been a shock. I’m sorry, love. I’m so sorry.’ She bustles to the kitchen. ‘A drop of brandy is what’s called for, I reckon. A drop of brandy all round.’

As soon as Brenda’s gone, Jackie grabs my hands. ‘Oh my God, Violet! This is crazy. I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it!’ Her face is flushed and her eyes are all huge and glittery. ‘What’s he like? she whispers. ‘Is he all handsome and heroic? Can I meet him? I bet it’ll be in the papers, won’t it? I bet it’ll be front-page news!’

I shrug. ‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘It’s probably best if it’s not in the papers. It’s probably best if nobody knows he’s back, actually.’

‘But, why? It’s amazing. It’s unbelievable. Like Nan says, it’s a miracle!’

‘I suppose so,’ I say. But it doesn’t feel like a miracle. It feels all complicated and messy and confusing. ‘Could you do me a favour?’ I ask her. ‘Could you keep it a secret for now? Just between you, me and your nan? I don’t think Mum and Dad would want anyone knowing just yet.’

Jackie nods, seriously. She’s always loved secrets. ‘Of course,’ she says. She mimes zipping up her lips. ‘Me and Nan won’t say a word.’ She leans over and hugs me. She smells sweet, of burnt sugar and hair lacquer and custard creams. ‘I’ve missed you, Vi,’ she says. ‘But, I’ve just been so busy. Life’s a whirl these days, isn’t it?’

Brenda comes back carrying a tray with three little glasses of amber liquid. ‘Here you are, girls,’ she says. ‘Get this down you.’ We clink glasses. I shudder as the brandy burns my throat. But soon it begins to warm my insides and the familiar cosiness of Brenda’s front room wraps itself around me. Brenda swallows her brandy and sighs. ‘That’s better. Nothing like a drop of the good stuff for shock.’ She shakes her head. ‘Still can’t believe it, though,’ she says. ‘I remember him being called up like it was only yesterday. So proud of them all, we were. All those young men going off to fight for us.’ She sips some more brandy. ‘And so many of them never came back.’ Her eyes glisten. ‘Your mum must be over the moon. It’s like all her prayers have been answered.’

I nod, thinking of how young and girlish Mum has seemed lately and how I thought it was all because of a man and because of love. And I was right in a way. She’s got her first love back. She’s got her perfect son back, when she thought she’d lost him for ever.

‘And you really don’t know where he’s been?’ Brenda asks. ‘Or why he hasn’t come home before now?’

‘No,’ I say. ‘And like I said to Jackie, if you could just keep it all to yourselves for now … you know … until Mum and Dad sort things out …’

‘Of course,’ she says. ‘You can trust us, Violet. You know you can.’

I smile at them both and they smile back with bright eager faces. I feel like I’ve given them some sort of unexpected gift. Something they didn’t know they wanted but are really happy to have.

‘So …’ I say to Jackie. ‘How’s things at Garton’s?’

She curls her feet up under her bottom and stretches her arms above her head. ‘Same as always,’ she says. And, just like that, things are back to how they used to be. Brenda switches on the television set and gets out her knitting and me and Jackie slope upstairs to her bedroom.

She shows me her new Dansette record player. It’s bright red and cost her a whole month’s wages. We lie side by side on her bed and listen to Billy Fury, The Everly Brothers, Ricky Nelson and Helen Shapiro. Jackie rolls on to her front and hangs over the edge of the bed to reach underneath it. She brings up a packet of Embassy cigarettes, a box of matches and an ashtray. ‘Want one?’ she says, waving the packet in front of my face. I slide a cigarette out and wait for Jackie to light hers before I lean in towards the match. I manage to inhale without coughing this time and it makes me think of Beau and how he laughed at me and called me a virgin.

Jackie tells me that she’s been seeing a fella called Colin Trindle. He works in the packing department at Garton’s. ‘He’s ever so nice,’ she tells me. ‘He kisses like a dream and earns seven pounds a week!’ She lowers her eyes. ‘If I tell you something, promise you’ll keep it to yourself?’ she says.