Chrissie's Children (15 page)

Paco scowled at her. ‘What for you want more money? I have give you the housekeeping money. Is enough.’

That would have silenced Helen a few months ago when she was at school and her mother was alive to hush her, but now she was nearly sixteen, running a home and she had buried her mother. She
stood her ground, though her stomach churned with fright, and insisted, ‘I want some money of my own. I’m not a child. I need to buy clothes and I want to go out now and then. I think
it’s only fair.’

Paco shrugged that off. ‘I don’t think so.’ He reached for the evening paper, the discussion finished as far as he was concerned.

But Helen was not finished. ‘I want five shillings a week. I think that’s the least I should have for looking after this place. I could make a lot more than that if I got a job
outside.’

‘Five shilling!’ Paco slammed down the paper. ‘Five shilling! Is impossible.’

‘No, it isn’t. You can always find ten bob to lend to Juan when he’s broke on a Monday, so you can find it for me.’

‘I tell you, no!’ her father shouted, shoving up out of his chair and lifting his hand.

Helen retreated as far as the kitchen door and held it open ready to flee into the passage. As he strode towards her she stood fast there and warned him, ‘If you try to lay a finger on me
I’ll scream for the neighbours and the pollis.’

That stopped him dead. Paco had never been completely sure of his rights as a citizen in this country where he was still a visitor – he had never become naturalised. The word
‘pollis’ was to him full of menace, threatening arrest and possibly deportation. And then there were the neighbours. Paco liked to think he was a respected figure in his neighbourhood,
head of his family, man of the house. But if his young daughter shrieked for help and proclaimed his tightfistedness . . . For once he was uncertain how to deal with her.

Helen saw it, wanted to make up the row, hug him and tell him she loved him, but knew that would do her no good. She had to obtain his respect before she could hope for his love. Now she said,
more quietly but still firmly, ‘I’m going to have that money if I have to take it out of the housekeeping. I earn it, I need it and I deserve it as much as Juan.’

Paco gave in. ‘A’right.’

Helen persisted, determined to establish the principle, ‘Now. And every payday.’

‘A’right!’
he shouted, and dug into his trousers pocket. He pulled out two half-crowns and threw them at her feet.

Helen bent and picked them up. ‘Thank you.’ She closed the door behind her and walked off down the passage. Her hands were shaking and her knees wobbled. She wondered if it was worth
it for five shillings.

A month later she was glad she had fought as she had. Sophie Ballantyne came seeking her, asking, ‘Come over and see the new place they’re working on,’ and
because of the money Paco threw at her every payday Helen had a new dress. She had bought it at Binns, the big department store in Fawcett Street, for three shillings and sixpence. The two girls
walked across the bridge into the town and found the old Wiley’s building full of workmen. They had to pick their way through gangs of men building new dividing walls, others plastering walls
already completed, electricians running out miles of wiring, plumbers putting in more miles of piping.

They were stopped more than once by busy men in overalls demanding, ‘Here! Where do you two lasses think you’re going?’

Sophie would answer, ‘To see my mother, Mrs Ballantyne. Isn’t she here?’

Then they were grudgingly allowed to go on. ‘Aye, she’s up on the second floor. But mind how you go. This is no place for lasses like you.’ Then the men would watch them,
Sophie looking older than her nearly-sixteen years, sauntering long legged.

Helen hissed at her, ‘Stop it! They’re all looking at you!’ Sophie only tightened her lips to keep the giggles in and went on posing.

Chrissie repeated the men’s warnings when the girls ran her to earth. She was in consultation with the architect and the builder whose men were carrying out the work, their heads bent over
plans. Chrissie eyed the girls with disapproval. ‘This is no place for you.’

Sophie answered cheerfully, ‘I just wanted to see and I brought Helen along.’

‘Well, you’ve seen. Now stand here till I’ve finished and you can go out with me.
Don’t
wander off on your own. Buildings like this can be dangerous if you
don’t know what you’re doing.’

Chrissie turned back to the architect and builder but as she resumed their conversation she could see Sophie out of the corner of her eye. After some minutes she broke off again with a word of
apology to the two men: ‘Excuse me a moment.’

She stepped over to where Sophie was strolling back and forth, smiling at the men who were working near by. Helen stood gazing into the distance, pink cheeked. Chrissie seized Sophie by the arm,
spun her round and hissed, ‘Stop that!’

Sophie protested, ‘Stop what?’

‘You know very well.’

‘It’s only a bit of fun,’ Sophie complained at her mother’s vice-like grip. ‘And you’re hurting me.’

‘I’ll hurt you a damn sight more if I have to. It may be a game to you but other people might want to play differently. Now behave yourself.’

Sophie looked into her mother’s eyes and obeyed.

That night Chrissie recited the incident to Jack and sighed, ‘She’s acting just like her grandmother – my mother.’

Jack asked, ‘Do you know where she is now?’

‘The last I heard she was in London.’ Then she added, ‘And I hope to God she stays there.’

September 1936

A month later the old Wiley’s building, changed almost out of recognition, opened as the new Ballantyne Hotel. Matt took Pamela Ogilvy along to the celebration opening
and wore his best dark blue, double-breasted suit on his mother’s instructions. He explained as he ushered Pamela in through the swing doors, ‘There are two bars, a residents’
lounge, reception and offices on this ground floor. Then upstairs there’s a dining-room, function room and kitchen. And on top of that there are two floors of bedrooms.’ Then he
realised his pride in his mother had led him into boasting and he stopped abruptly and asked instead, ‘Fancy a drink?’ There was a buffet for the invited guests, local dignitaries and
press.

Pamela asked, ‘Can I have a gin?’

Matt stared at her. ‘Are you kidding?’

Pamela tossed her head. ‘I’ve had gin before.’

‘Maybe you have but you won’t get it from me.’ Matt grinned at her. ‘Dinsdale Arkley’s running this bar and he won’t serve me with beer, let alone gin. How
about a lemonade?’

Pamela grumbled, ‘Oh, all right.’ Left to herself she stared around at the spacious foyer with its deep carpet, the magnificent staircase leading up to the dining-room, trying to
calculate the worth of it all. When Matt returned, edging through the throng with two glasses of lemonade, she asked him, ‘Why don’t you go into the hotel business?’

Matt laughed at the idea. ‘Not on your life. Anyway, I’m studying to be an artist.’

‘I don’t think it’s funny.’ Pamela’s wealthy father had made a number of jibes about her starving in a garret if she kept up her acquaintance with Matt.

Matt still grinned. ‘I do. Me, run a hotel? I wouldn’t know where to start.’

Pamela gave up for the time being and sulkily sipped her lemonade.

Chrissie saw the tousled head of her younger son in the crowd and noticed how he resembled Jack in height and breadth of shoulder, though he still had a few inches and years to grow. She also
recognised the girl with him and sighed. Matt seemed to look for trouble.

Tom, talking now with Jack, while an inch or two shorter than Matt, was more like Jack in character, decisive and clear minded as to where he was going. She wondered if this was just an
extraordinary coincidence or imitation, the most sincere form of flattery – albeit unwittingly.

Sophie and Helen Diaz suddenly appeared out of the crush, Helen in her cotton frock and Sophie wearing a ‘junior miss’ dress that had cost three times as much. She carried a folded
raincoat over her arm and smiled at her mother. ‘We’re just off. Going to the pictures.’

Helen blinked, startled, because Sophie had not mentioned any proposed visit to the cinema.

Chrissie said, ‘Well, don’t be late.’ As she watched them go she thought sadly that her daughter was not flattering
her
by imitation. Sophie was not like her at all.

Some of the guests came to thank Chrissie on leaving and she laughed and joked easily with them, elated by the success of this opening. She had pushed through the refurbishing – nay, the
transformation of the old Wiley building into the Ballantyne Hotel – in record time. All her guests had been favourably impressed and the resulting publicity would be good. She had been
showered with congratulations all evening and was suffused by a warm glow of success.

Then she saw Jack edging through the crowd towards her and she remembered he was leaving again this evening, this time for France, still seeking a contract for another ship. She knew he was
worried, was always worried these days about the survival of Ballantyne’s yard. She started to move to meet him but then the architect and the builder got in her way. They were celebrating
and wanted her to join them. She laughingly tried to put them aside but had to stay to be introduced to their wives and accept their congratulations, too. She saw Jack raise a hand to wave to her,
unsmiling, then he turned and walked away. The last she saw of him was his broad back disappearing through the door.

As soon as she could detach herself from the laughing group she hurried out of the hotel, dodged between trams to cross the street to the station and ran down the stairs to the platform. She was
only in time to see the last carriages of his train pull away. Chrissie walked back to her hotel despondently.

‘Where are we going?’ Helen put the question as she followed Sophie up the curving stairs to the top deck of the tram.

Sophie only answered, ‘You’ll see.’ The conductor yanked on the cord that looped along the ceiling above his head. It rang the bell by the driver who set the tram moving. The
conductor came along the aisle, swaying to the motion. The girls paid their pennies and took the tickets he punched and handed to them. Sophie went on, ‘I had to say we were off to the
pictures. Mum doesn’t mind me going there so long as I’m not too late home. I will be tonight, though, so when I get in I’ll tell her I stayed talking to you.’

Helen protested, ‘I’m not telling lies to back you up.’

‘I’m not asking you to. I doubt if she’ll check up on me, anyway.’

‘Why can’t you just tell the truth?’

‘Because Mum would be dead set against it.’

‘Against what?’

‘Singing.’

‘
Singing!
What sort of singing?’

But Sophie only replied again, ‘You’ll see.’

The tram rolled across the bridge, turned down towards the sea and the two girls got off at Church Street then walked down the hill towards the river. They came to a pub called the Frigate, and
Sophie recalled her mother telling her that she had worked there as housekeeper some thirty years ago – when she was just Sophie’s age now.

Sophie led the way down its passage to the ladies’ toilet. She went into one of the cubicles while Helen waited outside. When Sophie emerged Helen saw what the raincoat had been hiding.
Now Sophie wore a new pair of high-heeled court shoes she had bought herself and kept hidden from her mother. They had replaced a pair similarly bought and secreted a year ago. Her dress was not
the ‘junior miss’ she had worn to that evening’s function but one that belonged to her mother – as did her sheer silk stockings. Now she applied lipstick and powder and
asked, ‘How do I look?’

Helen answered, startled now besides being worried, ‘All right, but what . . .’

‘Come on, then, or we’ll be late.’ Sophie led on again, out of the Frigate and through the lamp-lit streets to the club. Helen followed, but when they came to the club she
stopped. Sophie paused on the steps to urge her, ‘Don’t hang about. Let’s get in.’

Helen shook her head firmly. ‘Not likely. I live just down the street. There’ll be all kinds of people in there that know me. If I went in there tonight me dad would hear about it
tomorrow and I’d get a belting.’

Sophie stared at her, at first disbelieving. ‘Would you?’

‘Aye, I would. I don’t know what you’re up to, but . . .’

Sophie glanced at her watch and said quickly, ‘I’ve got to go in now. I’ll let you know how I get on.’ She hesitated, nervous at entering this male stronghold. She needed
someone . . . A young man in worn and baggy grey flannels, a collarless shirt and darned woollen pullover started up the steps. He was barely taller than Sophie on her high heels but broad in the
shoulder and deep chested. Sophie put out a hand to catch his sleeve. ‘Excuse me.’

He paused and asked shyly, ‘Aye?’ This blonde, blue-eyed girl, or rather young woman, was poised, attractive, well dressed. The girl with her looked a year or more younger.

Sophie gave him a wide smile. ‘There was an advert in the
Echo
about a talent contest in here tonight. Do you know who I have to see to go in for it?’

Peter Robinson said, ‘Aye – well, I think I do. It’ll be the entertainments secretary, I suppose. Do you want me to show you?’

‘Yes, please.’

Peter held the door open for her and Sophie passed through. Helen stared after her for a moment then sighed, shook her head and walked home, wondering.

‘This is the entertainments secretary.’ Peter introduced Sophie ‘This – er – lady wants to go in for the talent competition.’ He stepped back then,
reluctantly, and said, ‘I’ve got to meet a feller.’ Joe Nolan was waiting for him in the gym. ‘I hope I’ll see you later on.’

‘I hope so.’ Sophie smiled at him, then she was left with the entertainments secretary, a short, thickset man with a wide, flat face and a pair of Woolworth’s spectacles
perched on the end of his nose. He held a pen in fingers that looked like a bunch of bananas and asked, ‘What name is it, lass?’