Chrissie's Children (21 page)

They fell into each other’s arms. There was no need for apologies. They were friends again and that was sufficient. Then Helen explained how her father had left her and how, lowering her
voice, she had used her dead sister’s birth certificate to become a nurse.

Sophie told her, ‘I’m going away.’

‘A holiday, you mean?’ Helen questioned, still smiling.

‘For good.’ Sophie was not smiling.

‘Oh, no.’ Helen was serious now and listened sadly as Sophie told how she had joined the band as a singer, forged the notes and been found out.

‘I know what I want to do. The only way I can do it is to leave home, so I’m going.’

‘Are you sure?’ Helen shook her head in dismay. ‘It’s a big step. I know I couldn’t have left Dad, in spite of the way he treated me, and he wouldn’t hear of
me going into nursing. I just couldn’t.’ Then she remembered something else and asked, ‘What about Peter?’

‘I broke it off.’

‘How did he take it?’

‘He said there were more fish in the sea.’ Sophie added unhappily, ‘But I think he was upset, and you were right, he was more serious than I was.’ She looked at her
watch. ‘I’ve got to go now.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘Promise not to tell Mummy if she asks?’

‘All right.’

So Sophie gave her the address, they embraced once again, and Sophie hurried away. Helen watched her go, feeling the tears come to her eyes. She had found her friend again but immediately lost
her.

Chrissie found the note on the table in the hall when she returned home from the hotel in the evening. It was addressed: ‘Mummy’. It read, ‘I love you and
Daddy dearly but I want to run my own life. Don’t worry about me. I’ll write.’

Chrissie thought, Don’t worry? Good God!

She ran out to the car and drove down into the town. She was too early at the dance hall again. The man who had been in the paybox was cleaning the entrance with a bucket and a mop. He told her,
‘There’s none o’ the band here yet and won’t be for another half-hour.’

Chrissie had to wait, sitting in the car, her stomach churning and anger mounting. Thirty minutes later Tony DeVere sauntered along the pavement, an open raincoat over his dinner jacket. In the
daylight it was stained and shiny with age. He was whistling cheerfully, but that died away when Chrissie threw open the car door and stepped out in front of him.

She demanded, ‘Where is she?’

Tony answered quickly, ‘Not wi’ me.’

‘Where?’

‘How should I know?’

‘If you won’t tell me you can tell the police.’ Chrissie turned back to the car but he reached out a hand to pull at her sleeve. She faced him. ‘Let go of me!’

The look in her eyes was enough. He snatched back his hand as if he’d burned his fingers. ‘No need for the pollis. I’m telling you the truth. She came to see me a few days ago.
I didn’t want anything to do with her but she said she wanted an intro to a band in Newcastle and I gave her one.’ He didn’t say that he had done so to spite Chrissie, but she
guessed as much.

Chrissie drove home, ran up the stairs to Sophie’s room and found it in a state of chaos. It was obvious that she had left in a hurry. Chrissie sifted through the clothes, the books and
papers, looked into the drawers and in one of them found the bundle of letters Martha Tate had written to Sophie. Chrissie made a note of the address on the latest and replaced the bundle. Then she
tidied the room, working with furious energy, and left it neat as a new pin. She told herself wrily that her old skills had not deserted her.

Jack came home that evening tired. He was stunned and disbelieving when she gave him the news, then hurt and enraged when it sank in that his daughter on whom he doted had run away. He was all
for setting out that night to find her and bring her back but Chrissie would not have that: ‘I’ll go tomorrow, on my own. I think this is something I should do.’ He was finally
persuaded. Neither of them slept well.

Chrissie found the address in Newcastle the next day. It was one in the middle of a long terrace of narrow-fronted houses, separated from the pavement by small gardens.
Children played a game of rounders in the middle of the street. They stood back and stared curiously as she drove slowly through. So did a few women who stood in their aprons, curlers in their
hair, gossiping at their front doors.

Chrissie parked the Ford outside the door she wanted, crossed the pavement and put a finger on the bell push. She heard it ringing deep in the house and then there came a shuffling of feet
inside and the door opened.

‘Aye?’ The woman was fat, wore a soiled apron over a greasy black dress and slippers on her feet. Her watery brown eyes wandered over Chrissie and took in the smart costume, the neat
court shoes and kid gloves that marked her out of place there.

Chrissie asked, ‘I’m looking for Vesta Nightingale. Doesn’t she live here?’

‘Oh, aye. Come in.’ The woman turned and waddled back along the passage, feet shuffling in the slippers. She stopped at the foot of the stairs and shouted, ‘Vesta!
Vesta
! Somebody to see you!’

A voice came faintly from overhead: ‘What?’

‘Somebody to see you!’ The watery eyes wavered to Chrissie again. ‘A lady!’

‘Righto, darling.’ There were sounds of movement on the floor above.

The fat woman stood aside. ‘Go on up.’ Chrissie climbed stairs that creaked under her, conscious of the woman below watching her back, turned at the half-landing and went on to the
top. She was out of sight of the woman below now but knew she was still there, listening.

There were two doors on the landing where she stood. The voice came from behind the nearer: ‘Who is it?’

‘Chrissie.’

‘Bloody hell!’ Now the door opened and Martha Tate emerged. She had not bothered to prepare herself for the public, as the visitor was only her daughter. Like the women in the street
she wore curlers in her hair. She was fastening a worn, imitation silk négligé, beneath which showed a cotton nightdress. Her face was bare of make-up, the skin pallid and blotchy.
‘I might ha’ known you’d turn up,’ she grumbled. ‘You’d better come in here.’ She led the way to the second door, opened it to let Chrissie through then
followed, closing it behind her.

She folded her arms then. ‘Not that you’re welcome, not after the way you treated me the last time we met, but I’m not talking to you with that fat old cow flapping her ears
downstairs. Now, what d’you want? Though I can probably guess.’

Chrissie had taken in the room in one sweeping glance as she entered. There was a dead fire in the grate and a half-empty bucket of coal standing in the hearth. A table covered with a flowered
oilcloth, cracked and peeling in places, stood in the centre of the room, four straight-backed chairs around it. There were two armchairs at one side of the fire, a small couch on the other. All
the furniture was old and well worn, as was the linoleum on the floor and the rectangle of carpet before the fire. The window looked out on the street and the net curtains were yellow with age,
grubby from the coal fire. Sophie’s suitcase stood by the couch.

Chrissie thought, Furnished rooms with use of kitchen and the tin bath hanging outside in the yard. Probably ten shillings a week rent. She said, ‘I want to see Sophie.’

Martha glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. ‘She’ll be here soon. Said she’d bring something back for our dinners.’

‘I don’t want this life for her.’

Martha smiled, lips tight, then said, ‘Depends what she wants, doesn’t it?’

‘Sophie is still only sixteen.’

‘That’s old enough in this business. What were you up to when you were sixteen? You weren’t at some posh school, I’ll lay a bet on that.’

At sixteen Chrissie had been running Lance Morgan’s house for him and helping out in his pub. She thought now that it was not a bad life; she had been happy most of the time.
‘That’s not the point.’

The front door opened and closed and then they heard feet ascending the stairs. Martha listened, head cocked on one side, still smiling thinly at Chrissie. She called, ‘We’re in
here, darling.’

Sophie entered, paused in the doorway watching her mother and said, ‘I saw the car, knew you were here.’ Her gaze switched to Martha. ‘I got some chops, potatoes and
veg.’ She put a loaded brown paper carrier bag on the table and a handful of coins. ‘There’s your change.’

Martha complained, ‘You should ha’ got some fish and chips and saved me having to cook.’

‘I’ll cook them.’ Sophie went on quickly, ‘I’ve got a job.’

‘With the band?’

Sophie shook her head then defended her failure. ‘He has two singers already and he can’t take on another one.’

‘So where’s the job?’

‘Woolworth’s.’

‘That’ll do till Solly finds you something.’ Martha crossed to one of the armchairs and sat down, grinned up at Chrissie. ‘Solly Rosenberg’s my agent. He got me all
this work in the clubs when the panto finished. He’ll fix up Sophie, you’ll see.’

‘I don’t want her fixed up.’ Chrissie turned on Sophie ‘I’ve come to take you home. Your father is very upset. So am I.’

Sophie shook her head. ‘I’m not coming. You might force me to go back but you won’t keep me there. I’m going to be a singer.’

Chrissie looked from one to the other: Martha gloating and triumphant, Sophie cockily determined. She saw something of her own ambition and drive in her daughter, and knew Sophie had spoken the
truth, that she could not keep her at home against her will. Chrissie asked herself, what could she do? And then supplied the answer: do nothing.

She said, ‘Your home will be there when you come to your senses,’ and walked out, turning her back on her mother, who now gaped disbelievingly, and passing her daughter who blinked
in uneasy surprise. She ran down the stairs, strode quickly along the passage and into the street. She was in the Ford again before she could change her mind. For a long moment then she hesitated,
but finally shook her head and drove away.

Jack was incredulous then angry. ‘You didn’t bring her back? Are you out of your mind? You left that child with your mother after all you’ve said about
her
?’

Chrissie had had time on the drive home to let her own anger die and so recover from her distress, and she had stopped for a while to cry. Now she answered calmly, ‘She’s not the
adult she thinks she is, but she’s not a child, either. I was thrown out in the world long before her age. It’s better for her to find out about my mother for herself. Sophie knows
where we are when she needs us.’

But she cried again that night, and wondered if Sophie could be right.

Chrissie drove down into town to the hotel that Sunday to catch up on her desk work. Tom put his head around her door in the evening as she bent over her papers. Tall and dark,
as time went on he looked more and more like Jack. Chrissie marvelled at the resemblance as he said softly, ‘So long, Mother.’

She thought, not for the first time, Thank God for Tom. She warned him, ‘Take care.’ Shipyards were dangerous places.

‘I will.’ Then he was gone, striding off up the passage, on his way to catch the train to Newcastle. He had to clock in at the yard early the next morning.

Sarah Tennant, working at a trolley of bedlinen and hidden behind the grand staircase, saw him go and smiled. Their paths had not crossed and she had not seen him for six months or more. He did
not see her now.

When he opened the front door of his lodgings with the key his landlady had given him he found her son, Robbie, standing in the hall. Tom had met him a few times when Robbie had called to see
his mother, bringing his wife and children with him. He was a thickset man who worked in one of the yards on the Tyne. Now he said, ‘Sorry, Tom, but me mother was taken bad on Saturday. She
had a stroke and she’s in the hospital. They say she has to take it easy, so when she’s a bit better and they let her out she’s coming to live with us.’

Tom murmured his condolences and said, ‘Will you tell her I was asking after her and give her my thanks? She was good to me.’

‘Aye, I’ll do that.’ Robbie nodded his agreement then went on, ‘It was a bit short notice but we asked around and we’ve found some people that’ll take you in.
It’s not far away, either, so you’ll still be handy for the yard. If you’ll pack up any things you’ve got upstairs I’ll give you a hand to shift them round
there.’

He was as good as his word and carried one suitcase while Tom humped the other. Tom’s new lodgings were only a couple of streets away in a house similar to that which he had left. The
woman who answered the door was tightly corseted and big bosomed, her hair permanently waved. She wore a fixed smile as Robbie introduced her: ‘This is Mrs Simmons.’ They exchanged
greetings then Robbie shook Tom’s hand and strode away.

Tom went on into the hall and put down his cases. Mrs Simmons said, ‘Come into the parlour and I’ll make you a cup of tea.’ She ushered him into the front room off the hall and
said, ‘This is Mr Simmons.’ He stood up from his armchair, a balding man with a drooping moustache. The jacket of his dark blue Sunday suit was unbuttoned to show his waistcoat with its
watch and chain, but he wore carpet slippers on his feet. His wife went on, ‘And this is our Dolly. Her proper name is Dorothy but you call her Dolly like we do.’

Her daughter looked to be Tom’s age and he found out later she was just two months past eighteen, nearly as old as himself. She was taller than her mother but her hair was also permed and
her bust well developed. She would grow more like her mother in time, but now was pretty. She smiled at Tom, shy but assessing.

Her mother said, ‘Now I’ll get you that cup o’ tea and a bite o’ supper – and Dolly can show you your room. She’s just next door to you.’

October 1937

After Peter was rebuffed by Sophie he told himself he didn’t care – for six long months. When he finally weakened it was still only so far as to return to haunting
the High Street outside the Ballantyne Hotel, where he believed she worked and lived. He did not see her, nor Helen Diaz, though he looked out for her, too. But he caught glimpses of Sarah Tennant
in the foyer on several occasions. He knew her as the girl who worked some evenings in the club where he trained for boxing. Before the break-up with Sophie he had often exchanged a cheerful
greeting with Sarah if he met her on those evenings and had once said, ‘You work in the Ballantyne Hotel with Sophie, then.’