All The Days of My Life (62 page)

“What's all what?” asked Molly.

“I wouldn't want you mixed up with any of that lot,” said her mother. “They're the worst – gambling drink, one wife in the constituency and one in London. They're like sailors – a wife in every port. Half of them make Johnnie Bridges look like a plaster angel.”

“How do you know all this?” asked Molly.

“Jack,” said her mother succinctly. Then the doorbell rang, she got into her mini-cab and left.

The next day Shirley also packed up and left for Greenford, looking more depressed than ever. “Ivy's right, you know,” Molly said. “It's only a case of planning your escape better next time. It's just that no one can think what to do to help you.” But Shirley only cried and Molly only felt more guilty.

In March Molly passed her tests very well and got a job with the managing director of a firm of dress shops. She ordered
The Times
and began to study the political news, with particular reference to Joe Endell. The photographs of Molly and Endell never appeared in the
Daily Mirror.
Molly believed this was the result of her angry conversation with the features editor, and her threats of taking legal action. The chief reason, though, was the conversation between Endell and Harriet, in which he, without putting the matter into words, implied that if she did not make an honest effort to stop the publicity, he would not see her any more. Harriet backed off. Her lack of enthusiasm and Molly's phone call deterred the news editor. Harriet, however, was resentful and suspicious. She filed the photographs carefully with her other information about Molly Flanders' past. And Endell, disliking what she had done, and his own part in stopping her, began to see less of Harriet. It seemed almost accidental. He was always busy, she hardly less so. Their schedules often conflicted. But Harriet was under no illusions. “It's that little tart, Flanders,” she reported to her best friend. “And there isn't anything I can do about it because he doesn't know what he's doing himself.”

Molly was in the Marquis of Zetland with Sid one evening when Endell strolled in. He sat down with them for a little while. They talked about Jack, whom Endell had met at the weekend. “There's a bye-election pending over in Battersea, and it's no secret now that they're putting up Jack. Safe seat, too.”

“Then he can put up big skyscrapers all over Battersea,” Molly remarked sourly.

“She's a bit of a reactionary, isn't she?” Endell said to her father.

“One thing you can say for skyscrapers,” Sid remarked neutrally, “when the roof leaks only one family gets wet.”

“How's the job?” Endell asked Molly.

“I'm leaving,” she replied.

“After a month?” exclaimed Sid. “That's no way to go on. I've been in the same job over thirty years. Through the Blitz.”

“Well, Hitler wasn't a married man who kept on grabbing you all the time and saying why not come out to dinner because his wife's got no sparkle,” replied Molly. This was the reason for her sourness. An honest working life was beginning to resemble the days when she was fending off Arnie Rose. She was disillusioned.

Endell was outraged. “Can't you stop him?” he demanded.

“He's the boss,” said Molly. “He thinks I'm one of the perks that goes with the job. What annoys me is that he's a driver – first he corners me by the filing cabinet in the outer office, then he starts demanding the thousands of letters he's wanted typed. He doesn't see the joke.”

“Hit him with something and walk out,” Sid told her. “Then phone head office.”

“That's what I'm going to do,” Molly said. “Then I'll find a job with a woman boss.”

“That's my girl,” said Sid. “Never lets anything get her down for long,” he remarked to Endell. Then, standing up, he told them, “I'm going back to the delights of Beckenham, now.” He left, shouting cheerios to his friends. “I'll bring you one of my home-grown cabbages next time,” he told Ginger, who was behind the bar.

“Fancy a stroll along the canal?” Endell asked her.

“I've got to go home. Sid brought Josephine. She's all by herself,” replied Molly.

“It's only eight-thirty,” objected Endell. “She'll be watching TV. Come on – a breath of fresh air will do you good.”

Molly yielded. She remembered leaving the pub with Johnnie
Bridges so long – more than ten years – ago.

Endell took her hand as they walked. She knew she should not let him do it. She remembered her Johnnie in 1953, in his sharp, gangster's suit. She remembered his overconfident smile – she had seen no need to hold back then, had not even considered it.

A cool breeze came across the canal. The branches overhanging the cemetery wall on the other side were already tinged slightly with green.

“I've got to tell you,” said Endell. “Those pictures will be in the
Mirror
tomorrow – and more. I tried to stop it.”

“Oh, fuck,” said Molly, dropping his hand. “Oh, my God. Josephine'll have to face it out at school – I'll have trouble getting another job – and now it'll definitely have to be a woman. With all that I'll be fair game for any man boss – husband hanged, gangster's moll. What am I going to do?”

“It's worse than that,” Endell told her. “I've got to tell you – I'm responsible. I mentioned you to my girlfriend – my ex-girlfriend. It was a long time ago, when I first met you. She works on the
Mirror.
I tried to stop her.”

“Oh, sod it,” Molly exclaimed. “You might be the people's friend, Joe Endell, but what good are you to me? God help this country if it's run by men who can't even stop their girlfriends from doing what they want. Didn't you tell her what it would do to me and my family, having all that raked up again? Don't tell me she couldn't have dreamed up something else to help her career.”

“The trouble is,” Endell said painfully, “she got angry when she saw the pictures. This is by way of a reprisal. Revenge.”

“What?” Mary said. “What do you mean?” Then she understood. “Oh – you mean she thought there was something going on between you and me. Didn't you tell her there wasn't?”

“I tried,” he said.

“Ivy was right,” declared Molly.

“How?” asked Endell.

“Told me politicians were up to any game with women,” retorted Molly.

“Hm,” said Endell, uncertain of what strategy to adopt. He took her hand again and moved in front of her, to face her. “Let's go away,” he said, “tomorrow – to France. I can arrange it. You shouldn't be going to your job anyway. You needn't see those pictures –”

Molly stared at him. She burst out, “We can't do it. You can't afford me.” Then she flung her arms round his neck and kissed him. She
meant to go immediately afterwards. Instead she stayed. Dropping her head towards Endell's shoulder – he was barely taller than she was – she said, “I can't hold out any longer. You'll have to take your chances.”

“There isn't anything to worry about,” he told her.

She pushed back the tuft of reddish brown hair which always stuck up on the top of his head and told him, “For a clever man, you're very stupid.”

“I'm clever enough to get what I want,” he said, kissing her again.

They sneaked in to Meakin Street, since Molly did not want to spend the night at his flat because of George and Josephine. By then George was lying flat out on his couch in the front room. Josephine had taken the mattress from George's bed and was asleep on the floor of his room. Endell and Molly, very quietly, made love. He was gentle and considerate, whispering to her to find out how she felt. Then they talked and laughed, then made love again. This time Molly said, “I'm not a lady, you know.” And this time Endell, whose senses had been trained by another woman, was urgent, exultant and generous. He said, “I love you. I've loved you for a long time. I want you to marry me.”

Molly feigned a greater sleepiness than she felt and murmured, “I love you, Joe.” They muttered on for a little while but after he fell asleep Molly reflected that she could not marry him. And even felt that even if she had not known that her existence as his wife might damage him politically she might still have hesitated. A marriage might provide a more respectable background for her teenage daughter but did she really want to be married? It might make her Endell's in a way she did not want. And yet – she was happy.

Next morning Joe went out for the paper. He and Molly sat, each with their own copy, studying it. There was Molly, pregnant, in a black dress on the step at 19 Meakin Street just after Jim Flanders had been condemned to death – Molly in the nightclub snap with Johnnie Bridges and the Rose brothers – Molly and Steven Greene, both in evening dress, looking smart in their smart flat above the club in South Molton Street. There was Molly with Nedermann. There was a picture of one of Nedermann's slums. There was the story of Molly's imprisonment.

To her surprise when she looked at Endell across the table he was wiping away tears with a big blue handkerchief. “Joe!” she exclaimed. “What is it!” For a horrible moment she thought he was regretting that
he would have to tell her they had to part. He said, “It's this picture of you in your teens, pregnant, after they sentenced that poor little bugger to death. It tells a story, that one.”

“Don't start saying that's why I went to the bad,” Molly said. “That was only part of it. I enjoyed being like I was – I liked the clothes, the bright lights and the excitement. Don't think I was happy before, shut up in that little flat with Jim – I wasn't. Pound to a penny, if he hadn't been hanged, I'd have skipped anyway.”

“You don't look like skipping anywhere in that picture,” Endell said. “You look puffy-faced and bewildered, like a child at a parents' funeral. All right – you wanted more than an early marriage and a baby you hadn't intended to have. But you didn't have much chance, really, did you?”

“Oh – it's nice of you to be kind about it,” Molly said. “But no law stopped me from concentrating on my schooling, like Shirley. Or forced me to get myself in the club at fifteen years old. All right – if I'd been the daughter of a duke someone would have sorted it all out for me. But I was only a bus inspector's daughter, as the saying goes, and I wasn't careful enough.”

“It's wrong,” Endell said.

“Tends to happen, doesn't it?” replied Molly. “I don't mind – it's Josie I'm worried about. It won't help George with his friends, either.”

“Take them out,” advised Endell. “I'll get Sam Needham to bring a car round. We'll all go over to Ivy's.”

“Haven't you got a car?” asked Molly.

“I keep on failing the test,” sulked Endell.

“How many times?” asked Molly.

“Three,” he lied.

“I'd have thought they'd pass you anyway,” she said. “With you being an MP.” Then she asked, “Shouldn't you be working on some papers, and that?”

He shook his head, “I'm in love,” he pointed out. They were kissing in the kitchen, which was scattered with the mingled pages of two
Daily Mirrors,
when Josephine came in wearing her dressing-gown. She was chilly as she made herself a cup of tea and some toast. “I don't know what George is going to say about all this,” she remarked to the grill. Then she asked, “Are you getting married?”

“That remains to be seen,” Molly said with dignity. “And while you're making faces at your own mother I'm afraid there's worse.” She pointed at the newspapers saying, “My glorious career.” But
Josephine, pouncing on the papers, was not embarrassed. “Oh, look – there's me,” she cried, pointing at the bulge in Molly's dress. “Ooh – Meakin Street – did you really know all these gangsters? What was Wendy Valentine really like?”

“Isn't this going to embarrass you at school?” asked Molly.

“Shouldn't think so,” Josephine said. “It makes me look quite trendy. Have you got any of this jewellery left over?”

“You're eating it,” Endell told her.

“I suppose it helps to be blonde,” the girl said, with a look at her mother.

They all went over to Sid and Ivy's. Jack was there, by himself. He and his wife were getting on badly. Ivy was distraught. “There's Shirley – now there's Jack,” she wailed at Molly and Endell. “Both marriages all over the place – where have we gone wrong? I suppose people won't put up with each other these days, like we had to. Too much choice, that's the problem.”

“Can't have too much choice, Mrs Waterhouse,” remarked Endell.

“Are you sure?” Ivy said grimly.

“I'd marry her like a shot, Mrs Waterhouse,” Endell told her. “The problem is – she won't have me.”

“Can't see why not,” Ivy said comfortingly. “She'll change her mind in time.”

“I am here,” Molly reminded them.

“I'll talk to you later,” Ivy said.

“Ask Jack, then,” Molly said, as Jack and Sid came in from the garden.

“Ask what?” said Jack.

“Why I can't marry him,” Molly said, nodding at Endell.

Jack considered. “Be tricky,” he told his mother finally. “Very tricky. You see, no matter what pop stars do – no matter what they do next door – the public's still conservative about how MPs behave.”

“Somebody organized this trip down memory lane,” Sid remarked acutely, tapping the copy of the
Daily Mirror
under his arm. “Done it just to make sure there'd be a stink.”

“A previous girlfriend,” Endell admitted.

Sid offered him a beer. Josephine went angrily out of the room. “They're narrow-minded at that age,” Ivy told her daughter. “Come on – I need some help with the dinner.”

But in the kitchen she helped herself to a sherry and sat down heavily at the table.