Apple of My Eye (3 page)

Half a dozen smaller boys played football in the street. Seven-year-old Peter scored a goal and was congratulated by his teammates. Mabel Cooper stood outside her shop, talking to Emily Hopkins. Mabel gave Anna a cheerful wave. Emily did not. She was Harry’s sister and had opposed his involvement with Anna from the start.

As she walked on, Anna thought of Kate and Mickey spending their evening watching a Robert Mitchum picture before eating fish and chips on the way home. Hers would be spent making the supper and doing whatever chores Vera decreed.

But that was how things were. She had made her bed. It could not be unmade now.

A cry disturbed her thoughts. Ronnie was running down the street, his feet moving so fast they barely touched the ground. His shorts, handed down from Peter, were still too big for him. His socks hung around his ankles. Flinging his arms around her, he began to tell her about his day; words pouring out of him like a torrent so that she could barely make sense of them while Stan stood by, watching them both with a smile.

As she gazed down at him love consumed her, burning away regret like a blast furnace devouring a sheet of paper.

On Saturday evening Ronnie knew it was his turn to have a bath.

Each member of the household had an allocated bath night. Auntie Vera bathed on Monday, Uncle Stan on Tuesday, Thomas on Wednesday, Peter on Thursday, Ronnie’s mother on Friday and Ronnie on Saturday. On Sunday the bath remained empty because even though the house in Moreton Street was bigger than the one they had left in Baxter Road and Uncle Stan was earning more now, Auntie Vera didn’t believe in wasting money on hot water if it wasn’t absolutely necessary.

There was a red line drawn on the side of the bath. A limit on the level to which it could be filled. Ronnie wished he could fill his bath right to the top but on this, as with everything else in 41 Moreton Street, Auntie Vera’s word was law.

His mother knelt by the side of the bath, measuring out shampoo. Only half a lidful per head. Yet another rule. ‘Shut your eyes, darling,’ she told him before massaging it into his hair. He lay back in the water while she washed it out, then sat up again.

‘Did Ophelia have dirty hair?’ he asked.

‘Ophelia?’

‘In the picture book.’ One that she had borrowed from the library about famous painters. A man called Millais had painted a girl called Ophelia lying in the
water with her hair spread out like a halo. That was the picture he had liked best.

‘Probably, but not as dirty as yours.’

He climbed out of the tub. ‘Who’s a clean boy now?’ she asked, while drying him with a towel.

‘I am,’ he replied. Her hands were soft and gentle.

After he had cleaned his teeth, using the ordained amount of toothpaste, she led him across the hallway to the back bedroom they shared. From downstairs came the sound of Thomas and Peter arguing while Auntie Vera shouted for quiet so she could hear her big band programme on the wireless.

It was the smallest bedroom in the house, though bigger than the one they had shared in Baxter Road. His mother had a single bed by the door while he had a camp bed by the window that looked out on to the back garden and the ridge that led up to the railway line. Kneeling beside it, he said the prayer she had taught him.

‘God bless Mum and Auntie Vera, Uncle Stan, Thomas and Peter. God bless Granny Mary, Grandpa Ronald and Uncle John in heaven. God bless my dad and keep him safe wherever he is. Thank you for my lovely day. Amen.’

He climbed into bed. She plumped up his pillow. ‘Tell me about our house,’ he said.

‘One day, when I’ve saved enough money, I’ll buy us a lovely house of our own. You’ll have a big room and can cover all the walls with your pictures. We’ll have a garden so huge it will take a man a whole day to cut the grass. And you’ll have a dog and …’

He watched her face. Though she was smiling, her eyes were sad. She worked as a secretary at Uncle Stan’s factory but wasn’t very good. That was what Uncle Stan told Auntie Vera. Sometimes Mrs Tanner, who ran the typing pool, shouted at his mother. Auntie Vera said that his mother was lazy but that wasn’t true. She did her best and one day he would go and shout at Mrs Tanner and see how she liked it.

‘When I’m bigger,’ he told her, ‘I’m going to help you with your work.’

She stroked his cheek. ‘Of course you will.’

‘And then, when we’ve got our house, my dad can come and live with us.’

Momentarily her smile faded. ‘Perhaps. But if he can’t we’ll still be happy, won’t we.’

‘Yes.’

‘What shall we do tomorrow? Go to the park and play on the swings?’

‘I’m going to draw you another picture.’

‘I’ll take it to work and hang it on the wall and when people ask who did it I’ll say that it was my son Ronald Sidney and one day he’s going to be a famous artist and everyone in the world will know his name.’

She bent down to hug him. Her skin smelled of soap and flowers. He hugged her back as hard as he could. Once Peter had twisted his arm to make him say that he wished Auntie Vera was his mother. He had said it but his fingers had been crossed. He wouldn’t change his mother for a hundred Auntie Veras.

When she had gone he opened the curtains and
stared out at the summer evening. It was still light and in the next door garden Mr Jackson sat in a chair, reading the paper. Auntie Vera said Mr Jackson gambled on horses. Auntie Vera thought gambling was bad.

Soon it would be dark and the moon would slide across the sky. It was just a thin sliver but in time it would grow as fat and round as the apples Mrs Cooper sold in her shop. His mother had taught him about moons and the constellations of stars. Auntie Vera probably thought moons and constellations were bad too.

A train rattled past, pumping clouds of steam into the air as it left London for the country. It was full of people. A woman saw him at the window and waved. He waved back.

One day he and his mother would be on that train. His father would come and take them away to a beautiful house of their own, and Auntie Vera and her rules would be left far, far behind.

April 1951.

‘Bastard,’ whispered Peter.

Ronnie shook his head. The two of them were sitting under the kitchen table playing with Peter’s toy soldiers. Ronnie thought soldiers were boring but none of Peter’s friends was around so he had been dragooned into taking their place.

‘It’s true,’ continued Peter. ‘Everyone knows.’

Ronnie wasn’t sure what a bastard was but he knew
it was something bad. More importantly he knew that it meant something bad about his mother, so he stuck out his chin and said, ‘It’s not true.’

Peter grinned. He had his mother’s heavy build and bad temper. ‘Where’s your father, then?’

‘He’s been fighting the war in his plane but he’ll be here soon.’ Ronnie was sure this was true. His mother had told him his father might be in heaven but he didn’t believe that. At Sunday school he had been taught that God was kind and generous. Granny Mary, Grandpa Ronald and Uncle John were already in heaven and Ronnie was sure that a kind and generous God wouldn’t be so greedy.

‘The war finished years ago, stupid.’ Peter began to chant under his breath. ‘Stupid bastard Ronnie. Stupid bastard Ronnie.’

It was five o’clock. Uncle Stan and his mother were still at work. Thomas was upstairs doing his homework and Auntie Vera was in the living room talking to her friend Mrs Brown. When they had lived in Baxter Road they had been allowed to play in the living room because the floor was covered only in a rug. But the new room was carpeted and Auntie Vera was terrified of marks and stains.

‘Stupid little cry-baby bastard,’ continued Peter, punching Ronnie on the arm. Peter liked making Ronnie cry. A year ago it had been easy to do but Ronnie was five and a half now and learning to fight back.

‘What’s seven times four?’

Peter looked blank. Ronnie smiled. His mother
was teaching him his tables. They had actually gone as far as the six times table but he was keeping that in reserve.

‘Maths is for girls,’ Peter told him. Peter who hated school and whose reports made Uncle Stan sigh and Auntie Vera shout.

‘It’s twenty-eight. I’m younger than you so who’s stupid now?’ Ronnie began to mimic Peter’s chant. ‘Stupid ugly Peter. Stupid ugly Peter.’

Peter punched Ronnie even harder than before. ‘Least I’m not a bastard,’ he hissed before sliding from under the table and going out into the garden, inadvertently treading on some of his soldiers as he did so.

Ronnie remained where he was, rubbing his arm, while in the living room Auntie Vera laughed at something Mrs Brown had said. The soldiers lay scattered. They were kept in a tin box. Auntie Vera did not allow toys to be left lying out so he began to put them away.

Peter’s favourite soldier was a Napoleonic grenadier. It was lucky for Peter that it had not been broken in the scuffle. But Peter didn’t know that so Ronnie snapped it in two before closing the lid.

Auntie Vera’s hobby was reading. ‘I love Dickens and those wonderful Bronte sisters,’ she announced to her new friends in Moreton Street. Perhaps she did, but Ronnie’s mother told him that Auntie Vera much preferred the cheap romance novels with shiny covers that Uncle Stan brought her from Boots and which she
hid in a kitchen drawer when any of her new friends came to visit.

But Auntie Vera’s real hobby was shouting. When in a bad mood, which was most of the time, any family member was fair game, but because Ronnie was alone with Auntie Vera when the others were at work or school he was the one she shouted at most.

It wasn’t easy being alone with Auntie Vera. Of all the rules he had to live by, the most important was that when in Auntie Vera’s care he was not to bother her with anything. Instead he was to play silently in his room or in the garden. At noon she would leave him a sandwich and a glass of milk on the kitchen table and he had to eat and drink in silence too before washing his plate and cup in the sink and returning to his solitary games.

When Auntie Vera had guests Ronnie was under strict instructions to stay in his room, but on this particular afternoon thirst drove him downstairs. The kitchen could only be reached through the living room. Auntie Vera was sitting on the sofa, drinking tea with Mrs Brown. She was wearing a short sleeved blouse, revealing arms that were fleshy and covered in freckles. ‘What is it, Ronnie?’ she asked, adopting an exaggerated smile and speaking in the careful, clipped voice she always used when one of her new friends was visiting.

‘Please may I have a drink of water?’

‘Of course you may.’ Auntie Vera gestured towards the kitchen.

Mrs Brown put down her teacup. ‘How are you, Ronnie?’

‘Very well, thank you, Mrs Brown.’

She offered him her cheek. He brushed it with his lips, holding his breath to avoid the smell of stale perfume. She was older than Auntie Vera and buried her wrinkles beneath heavy make-up. Her husband was a deputy bank manager and she lived on the other side of the street where the houses were bigger and the noise of the trains less intrusive. Auntie Vera was proud to have a deputy bank manager’s wife as a friend.

As he filled his cup, he heard them discuss him.

‘Nice manners,’ said Mrs Brown.

‘I insist on them. After all, manners maketh man.’

‘Nice looking too. Takes after his mother.’

‘As long as he doesn’t take after her in brains and morals.’

He gulped down his water. Mrs Brown was smoking a cigarette. Auntie Vera did not like the smell of cigarettes and Uncle Stan had to smoke in the garden even if it was raining. But Uncle Stan was not the wife of a deputy bank manager.

‘She’s lucky to have relatives as understanding as you and Stan. My cousin’s daughter fell pregnant to a soldier and he threw her out of the house.’

‘Stan wanted to do the same but I wouldn’t let him. After all, she is family.’

‘You’re a good woman, Vera Finnegan.’

‘I try to be.’

‘Perhaps she’ll get married one day.’

‘I doubt it. There aren’t many men who’d want to raise another man’s bastard.’

Ronnie rinsed his mug and put it back in the cupboard. Mrs Brown said that she had to leave. Auntie Vera said that she was going to treat herself to another chapter of a book by someone called Jane Austen.

Back in his room he opened the drawer of his mother’s bedside table and took out the photograph she kept there. A tiny black-and-white snapshot of a man in a pilot’s uniform. A man with a strong jaw, a handsome face and a birthmark on his neck. His father.

His mother told him that he was her sunshine. Her little Ronnie Sunshine who made her happy when skies were grey. He wanted her to be happy always but sometimes, in spite of her smiles, he knew that she was sad. He wished his father were here to help make her happy. He hated it when she was sad.

The front door closed with a bang. Mrs Brown had left and Auntie Vera was summoning him downstairs. The clipped tone was gone now. Her voice was harsh and angry.

Before obeying, he stared out of the window. Above the railway line the sky was a beautiful blue. In his head he saw his father, sitting in a shining plane, carrying bombs to drop on Auntie Vera’s head.

September. In a crowded classroom, Miss Sims studied the rows of five-year-olds and indulged in the game she played at the start of each school year.

In time these children would face an eleven-plus examination that would determine whether they finished their schooling in the grammar or secondary modern
system. The former offered a bright child the chance of qualifications, university entrance and exciting new horizons. The latter gave the less academically gifted vocational training and a more modest career path. Though she knew little of each child’s aptitude, still Miss Sims liked to look into their faces and try to predict the route each would follow.

Pretty Catherine Meadows in the front row was discounted. Catherine’s father was a stockbroker and could afford a private education for his daughter.

Alan Deakins whispered to his neighbour in the back row, his eyes alive with mischief. An intelligent but impish face. The class troublemaker who might have grammar school potential but not the requisite application.