Christmas Wish (11 page)

In times past when Reuben had controlled her life, Winnie might have agreed to the plan. As it was she had of late been nostalgic and regretful about that time. If only her daughter had lived. If only Reuben hadn’t been the man he was. If only the doctor hadn’t refused to come – except for an exorbitant fee.

So many ‘ifs’ she thought. So many things that might have been.

In her dreams she saw the young woman that her daughter would have grown into. Dark haired, flashing eyes – perhaps grey eyes – like her own.

Magda was so like her.

‘Mrs Brodie …’

‘Bridget.’

‘Mrs Brodie. I hear what you say, but I find it difficult to understand. You are offering me a member of your family into a life that is – for those of us who take it up – the start of a road to nowhere. It’s a hard, cruel life Mrs Brodie, yet you are willing to hand me Magda knowing full well what will happen to her; the softness, the youth hardened with experience into nothing more or less than a cynicism about life.’

Bridget folded her arms and fought to understand what Winnie was saying. She was offering her a sure-fire hit with the men that visited over the road. Why didn’t she name what she was prepared to offer?

‘So let’s cut to the bargain; how much are you willing to pay me for her?’

Winnie shook her head. ‘Let’s you and me get things straight, Mrs Brodie. I will repeat again in case you’re not hearing it straight; women come to the oldest profession in the world, not out of their own choice, but as a last resort. Some are made promises never kept by the men they thought loved them. Once they’ve fallen into the trap, there’s no climbing out – not easily anyway. But Magda has a choice in life. If she comes to me of her own free will, then that’s a different matter. Good night, Mrs Brodie,’ she said.

Bridget Brodie stumbled as Winnie pushed her roughly aside.

‘I beg your pardon,’ yelled Bridget.

Winnie cared not a jot for being rude. How could a woman so callously sell off a member of her family? How could she?

She’d disliked the Irishwoman even before she’d entered that gloomy house. She disliked her even more now.

As she re-entered her own establishment, one of the girls asked if she was all right.

‘You look as though you’ve seen a ghost,’ the girl remarked.

Winnie mumbled a wordless response. Her feelings and thoughts had turned inwards. If seeing a ghost meant feeling as though the past had come back to haunt her, then indeed she had. Tonight she would toss and turn in her bed with dreams that were memories and memories that turned into dreams. The baby, the daughter she’d lost, would drift through her dreams, though as a young woman on the threshold of life – and that young woman would be Magda Brodie.

At the dog track James Brodie took great delight in buying Magda jellied eels and boasting of how he knew a man who knew a man who knew everything there was to know about racing, most particularly dog racing.

‘He gave me a formula, he did. That’s a way of working out which animal is going to win.’

Seemingly the formula only worked for the friend of a friend, not for her uncle.

‘Never mind. Enjoy your jellied eels. Tell me what you’re going to do now you’re soon to be a young lady and leaving school.’

‘I’m not leaving. Not exactly. I’ve won a scholarship.’

‘Well, there’s a wondrous thing. So tell me about this school of yours.’

She told him about her one true friend, a girl called Susan Barnes who had ginger hair and a freckled face.

‘I wish I could do more for you,’ he said once she’d finished. ‘Now wouldn’t it be a fine thing if I could lay a few pounds on the next race and give the proceeds to you to put towards your future. Trouble is I’ve got the dreams of a toff and the money of a pauper. In fact I’ve only got two bob left.’
He eyed the single coin sitting in his sweaty palm.

‘How about if I were to place a bet?’ Magda suggested.

‘You can’t. You’re too young.’

‘But you could put it on for me, couldn’t you?’

‘Of course I could. A tanner will do if you’ve got that.’

‘I’ve got a bit more than that.’

She pulled out the half a crown Aunt Bridget had picked from her husband’s pocket and given to her.

‘Half a crown. Can I choose the name?’

‘Well,’ he said laughing. ‘Why not? You can’t be doing any worse than what I’ve been doing.’

He took her to where the dogs’ names for the next race were listed on a chalk board.

Magda looked down the list. ‘That one,’ she finally said. ‘Fruit Fancy.’

‘Any particular reason for that?’

She shook her head. ‘Not really, except that I do know somebody who runs a greengrocery barrow in the square. Or used to rather. He moved away.’

He patted her cheek, grinned, shook his head and ambled off to place her bet.

Magda tucked into the last of her food.

‘Fancy your chances, girl?’

She looked up into the face of Bradley Fitts. He was older than her so naturally taller. He also looked more like a man, his clothes natty and not bought off the Jewish tailor who had a stall in the market where he took orders and showed off his cloth.

He was eyeing her as though seeing her for the very first time – and liking what he was seeing.

‘I’m here with my uncle.’

Even to her own ears she sounded nervous. She knew that was not the way to sound with Bradley Fitts. You had to front
him out; not easy when he was that much taller, that much broader and flanked by the Sheldon boys.

Bradley flipped two fingers under the brim of his hat, which sent it further back from his face.

‘You’ve certainly grown into a looker, Magdalena. Lovely looking in fact.’

His eyes swept over her before lingering on her face.

Magda felt her face getting hot.

Bradley leaned closer. ‘I don’t like you being ’ere, Magdalena. And I don’t ever want to see you ’ere again. Unless you’re with me that is. Got it?’

Bradley Fitts wouldn’t know it, but his manner reminded her of Aunt Bridget. From the moment she’d arrived beneath that roof, she’d been bullied, starved, slapped and intimidated. But that was when she was younger.

Her eyes flashed, her temper flared and she stood up close to him, her anger spitting up into his face.

‘Just you listen to me, Bradley Fitts. You have no right telling me what I should or should not do, and who I should be with. You do not own me and you never will. Now get out of my way. I want to see who’s won the last race.’

Her legs were shaking as she pushed past him to find Uncle Jim, but she felt big and brave.

Behind her the eyes of Bradley Fitts burned with indignation, following Magda Brodie until she disappeared in the crowd.

‘One hell of a brush off,’ said one of his friends.

Bradley threw him a warning glare. ‘Nobody brushes off Bradley Fitts. I’ll show her who’s boss, just you wait and see. All she needs is a slap or two to show her who’s in charge.’

‘Uncle Jim. Do you know where the twins are?’

‘Twins?’

‘My sisters. Venetia and Anna Marie. And Michael. My ba …’ She stopped. Michael wouldn’t be a baby any longer. ‘My brother too. Do you know where any of them are?’

‘Sure. Well, your sisters I do. They’re with my parents in Ireland. Did you not know that?’

‘Oh!’

Magda could hardly believe she was hearing this.

‘Oh!’ she said again, her eyes brimming with tears of joy and her hand covering her open mouth.

‘How would it be I write the address down for you?’ he said.

Magda was aware of her aunt’s hard scowl, but she didn’t care.

‘It would be very well. Very well indeed!’

She fetched him a piece of paper and a pencil.

Uncle Jim licked the end of the pencil. ‘Now let’s see …’

He wrote painfully slow, forming each letter as a child just learning to write might do.

‘There,’ he said, eyeing his efforts with pride. ‘That’s the address of my folk – your grandparents in Ireland.’

‘And Michael?’

He shook his head sadly. ‘Now that I don’t know. Only your father knows that.’

‘This stew’s done. Now get everything off the table.’

Aunt Bridget brushed everything aside, crumbs and bits of screwed-up paper falling to the floor.

Magda managed to grab the piece of paper and for a moment studied the address. Happiness welled up inside her; she now had an address for grandparents she’d been told by her aunt were dead. The twins were there. Uncle Jim assured her they were.

That evening he told her tales of his travels and the adventures he and her father had had as boys.

‘Right scrapes we got up to.’

Aunt Bridget had sat there gloomily, pretending to knit a tea cosy. She’d been knitting that same tea cosy for years, brought out to make her look industrious every time Uncle Jim came home.

It was close to midnight by the time he’d finished, talking twenty to the dozen between bottles of brown ale.

Eyes heavy with tiredness, Magda dragged herself up to bed.

Jim Brodie left for sea in the early hours of the morning.

Magda heard the front door slam and the thud of his boots gradually diminishing as he left home and wife behind him.

Seeing as it was so early, she lay dozing for a while, thinking how kind he was and how wonderful that he’d given her the address where her sisters were living.

The piece of paper! Where was it?

She got washed and dressed for school quickly, and then rushed downstairs thinking she was late in lighting the fire. It wouldn’t get lit if she didn’t do it.

The fire in the grate burned feebly except for one single piece of paper turning black then blue with flame.

Aunt Bridget was eyeing her with a look of triumph in her beady black eyes.

‘No need for you to light the fire. I did it.’

Her dark hair flew around her face. She knew what her aunt had done.

‘My grandparents’ address! You burned it.’

‘Oh, did I now!’

‘Yes. You did.’

‘Well, there’s a shame! Now you won’t be able to go over there and see them. Just as well, though. You’re old enough
now to get out and find a job. It’s time you brought something into this house.’

‘You are a nasty, conniving, jealous old woman,’ said Magda, measuring her words in time with the slow, firm steps she was taking towards her aunt. ‘Some day you’re going to burn in hell for what you’ve done, Bridget Brodie.’

Her aunt raised a threatening finger and wagged it at her.

‘Don’t you dare talk to me like that. Don’t you dare!’

Her voice petered away. Her finger folded back into her palm and her hand fell to her side.

‘I do dare,’ said Magda, taking more steps so that her aunt’s back was finally against the wall. ‘I’m not a child any longer, Aunt Bridget,’ she said, now looking down at a woman who had been taller than Magda, bad and wickedly intimidating from her greater height. Now it was Magda who was the taller one.

‘You! You! With your dark looks and them witches’ eyes. You’re just like your mother. The devil’s daughter, tempting the sons of men to lie with her, to fornicate like a dog and a bitch on heat …’

‘Stop that! I will be reunited with my sisters, Aunt Bridget. Their address is up here,’ she said, tapping the side of her head. ‘And you can’t destroy what’s up here!’

‘You’ve no money to go there. No money at all.’

‘Then I will get some,’ Magda shouted back.

With that she swung out of the house, slamming the door so hard that the panes in the windows threatened to fall out.

All the way down the road she held her head high, though her heart was breaking.

On her way to school she cut through Victoria Square. The costermongers were wheeling their carts into position and setting up their stalls.

As she had every time she entered the square, she
looked towards the place where Danny Rossi used to juggle pears and apples, laughing and singing and telling her she could have whatever fruit she managed to grab from his juggling.

He wasn’t there of course. He was probably away training to be a policeman. Their days sitting on the bench eating cheese sandwiches seemed a lifetime away. He’d never written, or if he had Aunt Bridget had got to the letters first before she had chance. In all likelihood she would never see Danny again.

Despite what she’d shouted at her aunt she hadn’t had enough time to memorise the address and Ireland was a pretty big country.

Winnie One Leg eyed Bradley Fitts and thought how like his father he was; just as arrogant, just as cruel. Both had also shown weakness for a woman – even if only for a while. Bradley was obsessed with Magda Brodie. Reuben had once loved Winnie – or so it had seemed at the time.

Eyes that had once burned with the passion of youth now regarded Reuben’s son with a shrewdness resulting from experience.

She knew men very well, and she knew Reuben Fitts very well indeed. In a short-lived fit of guilt he had given her money and set her up in this place. It was her job to run the business and she had. The lump sum he’d given her following the dreadful labour she’d endured had been gainfully invested. The thing about men was that no matter they be rich or poor, many were at the mercy of their lower regions.

It had always amazed her how many upper crust wives regarded sex within marriage as a duty, not a pleasure for both to enjoy. Sad marriages. Sad men.

On account of this, some very influential men visited her establishment. Thanks to their advice she was a very rich woman, rich enough to plan for imminent retirement.
She’d told Reuben this in writing, in the letter just handed to Reuben’s son, Bradley. The envelope was sealed. This was a matter between her and Reuben alone.

…
I trust you’ll have no objection to me retiring
…
in view of our shared experiences
…

He’d know what she meant. He couldn’t voice an objection because she knew too much about him. He could probably guess that she’d held on to some pretty incriminating evidence that he would never, ever wish to be revealed.

She’d already purchased a nice little cottage in Prince Albert Mews, a place in the West End of London where she could live the rest of her life in peace under an assumed name. Alone of course, but that was the sad fact of her life. There had been no more pregnancies after that first child. There couldn’t be. Intensely able in her analysis of men, she studied this young cock that was Reuben’s son, child of a far younger woman whom Reuben had chosen to marry.