All The Days of My Life (18 page)

There was no light in the hall outside. She crept out and went towards the stairs. The door of the other bedroom was open. She peered in. The bed was made up – and empty. She crept down. There was no light coming from either of the closed doors on the ground floor. She opened the front door and held out her hand for her shoes. Jim handed them to her mechanically. The snow still swirled round and round, landing on the heads of the boys, making little caps on their heads. It was very quiet. Even the traffic noise from the nearby big streets was muted.

“You lunatic,” said Jim. “What did you think you were playing at?”

“Anybody in?” whispered Harry.

“Don't think so,” said Mary.

“Might as well step inside and get warm, then,” said Harry. “We can always say we saw the door swinging open and stepped in to make sure everything's all right.”

“You bloody fool,” Jim whispered angrily.

“Oh, come on, Yellowstreak,” said Mary. She turned, in her black, tightwaisted coat, her blonde curls bouncing, her shoes in her hand, and led the way in.

Harry opened the closed doors. “Nobody here,” he said. “Cor – look at this kitchen. Bit of a back door there – I'll just slip back the bolts so we can get out fast if anybody comes.”

“You done this before, Harry,” Jim told him.

“Might have done,” said Harry.

“Mary – I wish you'd come home,” Jim said. Mary led them into the sitting room and turned on a lamp.

“Oh, look at this,” she said, falling into the depths of a well-stuffed sofa in the small but trim living room. “Wish we had something like this. Look at that – swords – on the wall.”

“Twenty-one inch TV and all,” said Harry. He lifted the lid off a small box on a carved table and leaped back.

“Musical box,” said Mary as the tinkling sound filled the air. She must have half-recognized the tune, which was French. She said, “Put the lid back on. Shut it up.” The music stopped.

“I feel funny,” she said.

“Ill?” enquired Jim.

“No,” she said, throwing off the uneasy feeling. “Here –” and she pranced out into the hall, returning in a curly brimmed bowler hat and carrying a walking stick.

“I'm Burlington Bertie,

I rise at ten thirty

And saunter around in the park –” she sang.

“Don't make all that noise,” Harry told her.

Tugging at the top of the silver-topped cane she produced a sword.

“Sword stick, eh?” said Harry. It was fashionable for well off young men at that time to wear the curly brimmed bowlers, tight-waisted coats and to carry the swords their supposed aristocratic ancestors might have had. “Well, whoever the owner is, he's quite the squire.”

“Let's have a drink while we're here,” said Jim, nodding at the decanter on the table.

Mary poured them all a whisky and said, handing Harry his glass, “And you can take that knick-knack out of your pocket what I saw you pop in, Harry.”

“Suppose so,” said Harry reluctantly, removing a silver snuff box and putting it back on the table.

They crept upstairs and opened the wardrobe in the main bedroom, which had Regency striped wallpaper and a huge bed. Inside were many suits, tweed, pinstripe and a full set of dress clothes. There was one long evening dress and a smart ladies' housecoat in maroon, with black froggings.

“He leads a gay life,” observed Harry, finishing his drink. Mary was lying on the bed, which had, she discovered, black satin sheets. “This is the life,” she said. “Satin sheets – God!” Her eye had caught the photograph, in a silver frame, on the table beside the bed. It was of a couple, the man in a black bow tie and dinner jacket, the girl in a tight black evening dress with a fashionable red mouth, raised chin and naughtily plucked eyebrows. “She must be a model,” murmured Mary, whose eye had been caught first by the girl. Then, taking a closer look at the man she said, “Oh, my Gawd – it's Charlie Markham. I could swear it.” He had changed little. His pale brown hair had darkened but he still had the same heavy face, ruddy complexion and bright blue eyes. If nothing else had reminded her, she would have recognized him by the little V of hair which grew down in the middle of his forehead. It was a man's face, now, although it still carried the boyish look of good fellowship. She jumped to her feet.

“Who's he?” asked Jim.

“Relation of the people where I was evacuated,” Mary explained. “If this is his place I'm leaving. He was a right bully as a kid. No wonder he's got a sword stick.”

“Don't get flustered,” said Harry.

“Might as well go now, anyway,” said Jim. “What's that?” he said, in a low voice.

There were voices downstairs. “– left the door open,” said a man's voice.

“Of course I didn't,” said another.

“Christ,” said Jim. “What are we going to do?”

Harry looked round him. Although the bedroom window was not very high above the cobbles below it was too high to risk jumping. “Bluff it out,” he said, unconvincingly. Meanwhile the voices downstairs were getting louder.

“Someone's been in here – look. There's my hat and stick.”

“Anything missing?”

“Doesn't seem to be.”

“Why didn't you let us leave the ladder up, Mary?” whispered Jim.

“Oh – shut up,” Mary hissed back. “Look – we'll have to try another window.”

Downstairs, in the hall, a voice hiding nervousness said, “Don't go charging upstairs to investigate, Adrian. Not without the trusty Purdy from under the stairs.”

“You would, wouldn't you, Charlie Markham,” muttered Mary Waterhouse, once again the pinched, pummelled child of Allaun Towers.

“What?” asked Jim.

“He's coming up with a shotgun,” she told him. “Quick – we'll have to try the other room.”

So the three crept along the landing while, below, the two men in the hall pulled something heavy out of the cupboard under the stairs.

“Bloody stupid place to keep a trunk,” said the one who was not Charlie Markham. The scraping and banging masked the sound of their opening the door of the second bedroom. Inside the clear light produced by the snow outside showed the shapes of a bed, a wardrobe, a dressing table. Mary opened the window quickly.

“Flat roof below,” she whispered.

“Right, Charlie,” said one of the men downstairs. He sounded determined.

“Right, old man,” said Charlie Markham. Mary recognized the tone. She was over the window ledge and on to the roof below in a flash. The two boys came after her. They all crouched below window level in the snow.

“Over that parapet and on to the next bit of roof,” Harry Smith said.

Inside, they heard the door of the big bedroom open. “Light's on,” said Adrian in astonishment. “D'you leave the light on, Charles?”

“No. I didn't leave the wardrobe open, either,” he said.

“Try the other room,” said the other.

“Hang on. I've got to check something,” came Charlie's voice. There was the sound of a drawer being opened.

“Come on, man,” urged Adrian. Mary, Harry and Jim got over the low parapet on to the next roof and ran to the other side.

“Got to get on that scaffolding,” Mary said. She pointed to the scaffolding on the next building.

“We can't reach,” Harry told her. The light went on in the small bedroom they had just left. It glittered on the snow of the roof they had just left.

“Hurry up,” said Mary. “They'll see our footprints.” As she leaned forward to try to reach the bar of scaffolding she had to grip so that she could climb down to the ground she had a clear memory of Sir Frederick firing his shotgun at a rabbit. She saw the rabbit stop on the grass, saw it leap, saw it drop limp on the ground. She felt furious with Harry and Jim – Jim had been excused the obligatory two years military service because he had contracted rheumatic fever as a child and had a heart murmur. Harry Smith had dodged National Service by some means known to the Smith family, whose boys never went away to do their duty. Only she knew firsthand what a shotgun could do – worse than that, only she knew what Charlie Markham was. She threw herself on to the scaffolding and began to scramble down. She whispered angrily, “Come on – he'll shoot you –” and she was on the ground, toppling, because one of her shoes had fallen off on the way down. She found it lying sideways in the snow and rammed it on just as Jim landed beside her. He fell over and scrambled up. She pushed him back into the shadows of the half-constructed building. It began to snow again. Mary heard Harry come off the scaffolding – then push in beside them. Squinting up she saw two heads in the open window.

“They got on to the next roof,” said the fairer of the two. The other's head went up. He scanned the mews. It was Charlie all right, Mary saw. Older, of course, but with the same pugnacious jaw.

“Can't see 'em,” he said. “They must've done a bunk.”

“Go out and scout round for them?” suggested Adrian.

“No fear – not in this,” said Charlie. “Nothing's gone. Let's go and
have a drink.” And the heads went in and the light went out.

“Hang on for a bit,” said Harry. “They could change their minds. Could be a trick.”

Mary began to feel cold. She shivered.

“Your stupid idea,” said Jim bitterly.

“Serves us right for listening to a tart,” Harry said. “That's a sure recipe for disaster.”

“I enjoyed it,” said Mary. “Anyway – I got you out of it, didn't I?”

“Can't you belt her, or something?” Harry asked his friend.

“Some hopes,” replied Mary.

“Let's go,” said Jim. They walked casually up the mews in the driving snow.

In the taxi home Mary smiled. “What a laugh,” she said. “Eh – what a game.” She felt elated. The excitement of the rooftop escape was still with her. “And fancy that being Charlie Markham's place. I should've left him a note.”

“And that's all,” said Harry Smith. “Nice, tasty stuff he had there.”

“Oh – you,” said Mary, giving him a push in the ribs. She could tell, now, that he wouldn't mind her being his girl. But she didn't want to be Harry's girl and, if she was truthful with herself, at that moment she didn't want to be Jim's, either. She was too excited. She wondered what else she could do to get away from Meakin Street, and Sid and Ivy, and her dull job in a shop. What could she do to get an interesting life, with fewer restrictions and more fun? She'd try for it, she thought to herself. She'd try.

But she never got the chance. When she and Jim got back to Meakin Street they found Jack snoring on his makeshift bed downstairs and Sid, Ivy and Shirley gone. Mary remembered they had gone over to Wapping, to spend the night at Ivy's brother's house. So it must have been that night when she and Jim lay in her narrow bed together, whispering so that Jack would not hear. And it must have been that night when she became pregnant. The next day the King, George VI, died. Ivy cried but Mary took no notice. She was in a daze.

The summer after the exploit in Charlie Markham's flat, and a month after her wedding, Mary sat alone in her two rooms at number 3 Meakin Street. Thoughts of the night of the snowstorm drifted through her head. There was nothing left of the nimble, adventurous girl who had enjoyed climbing into Charlie Markham's house. Now
she was thick-bodied, tired, clumsy and numb, as if she had, strapped inside her, a huge parcel she could not get rid of. She often stood up and started to move as if she were not pregnant, only to find herself slowed and impeded by the parcel. She tried, furiously, to walk as if she were not carrying it – only to find herself settling back into a slower, more lumbering walk, still bearing it in front of her. Even if she could forget it for a little while someone – Jim, Ivy, a stranger on a bus – would soon remind her. “Here – take my seat, love. You need all the rest you can get.” “Don't start trying to put in light bulbs, Mary – you'll twist the cord round the baby's neck.” “A pint for me and a lemonade for the wife.” Of course, they'd asked her to give up her job. “The customers don't feel happy being served by a girl in your condition – sorry, it's company rules.” Mary had few very clear thoughts about her pregnancy but various feelings and sensations began to dominate her. Like an animal, she was afraid, miserable and trapped. Like an animal, she looked for escape – but there was none.

She stood up. “Better get something for Jim's tea,” she thought. She took her shopping bag from the hook on the back of the kitchen door, put her purse and keys in it and went out. In Mrs Hamilton's shop opposite the pub she met Ivy, in a fluster. “I was making a nice casserole for your dad. He's on late shift. Then I find I'm out of salt. What're you having?”

“Tin of stewing steak in a pie,” said Mary glumly. “Few chips.”

“Here – have a tin of peaches on me,” Ivy said generously. “Let's have a tin of peaches, Mrs Hamilton.”

“Got to feed the brute,” said the fat woman, reaching behind her for a tin of peaches. Mary looked down at the broken biscuits in the glass-fronted case in front of her.

“Got a fancy for some biscuits, Mary?” Ivy asked her encouragingly.

“No,” said her daughter.

“I was a devil for pickled onions, myself,” said the shopkeeper.

“It was tinned fruit with me,” said Ivy. “I'd've robbed shops to get it. Funny, isn't it? There must be a reason.”

Mary thought that now they were under way with their anecdotes about pregnancy and birth she would never get her steak. Rudely, she said, “Any chance of a tin of stewing steak, Mrs Hamilton? I don't want to stop here till the baby's born.”

Outside the shop Ivy said, “Really, Mary. You weren't half rude in there. It must be your condition. And it's time you started thinking
about what kind of pram you want. Your dad and me have agreed to pay for it. You'll want a nice one.”