East End Jubilee (22 page)

Rose wondered if she’d heard properly but as she was digesting the most recent and, as yet, the most shocking of all Em’s revelations, Will walked in.

‘Hello, love,’ Anita said, swift to regain her composure. ‘We was just having a drink in celebration of something.’

Will looked at his mother. ‘Ashley wants me to go round his house.’

Em stood up shakily and very carefully made her way across the kitchen. ‘All right. As long as you don’t go anywhere else.’

‘Can I take me ball?’

‘Yes. Don’t break any windows though.’ She gave a high-pitched giggle but her son didn’t seem to notice and ran out into the yard. The next moment he appeared with his
ball under his arm.

‘’Bye then.’

‘’Bye, dear.’

Em carefully negotiated her way back to the chair and sat down. She looked at Rose. ‘The church was very unforgiving when it all came to light, which seems to me to be very uncharitable.
Arthur put a lot of time into St John’s.’ Rose was still struggling to come to terms with what she had just been told as Em said softly, ‘I’m so glad Will is able to mix
with children again. For the last six months we’ve been living in a kind of bubble.’

‘But you and Arthur had a baby, Em,’ she blurted suddenly.

‘Yes. Will’s conception was the only occasion we ever made love.’

‘Struth!’ Anita knitted her eyebrows. ‘And he’s ten!’

‘So all these years—?’ Rose persisted.

‘Yes.’

Anita leaned forward. ‘How did you find out about his, you know what?’

‘Someone came to the house.’

‘What, from the church?’ Anita gasped.

‘No, from London. He was much younger than Arthur, a boy really.’ She sniffed as tears welled in her eyes. ‘He wasn’t the first to call and I realized, after a while, the
younger the better really. One of them went to the vicarage and spoke to Reverend Small. It was only his word, of course, against Arthur’s, but by that time someone at the Town Hall had
complained too.’

‘At Arthur’s office?’ Rose asked incredulously.

Em nodded. ‘Arthur had begun to be careless or just . . . greedy, perhaps.’

Rose and Anita sat in silence. Rose looked into her sister’s face and couldn’t imagine the hell she must have been through. She also couldn’t imagine not making love with the
man you married for ten whole years. What had possessed Em to continue the relationship if there was no love involved, which there obviously hadn’t been?

Em sniffed again. ‘I know what you’re thinking. How was it I didn’t know or suspect something earlier? Well, I simply don’t know. I stuck my head in the ground, I
suppose, like the proverbial ostrich. You see, Arthur was always very good to me. He gave me everything I wanted and I didn’t have to work. He was so respectable. A real gentleman. And he
never pestered me in that way.’

‘But blimey, girl, didn’t you want it?’

Em thought for a moment. ‘Well, the one time it happened was rather . . . well, disappointing.’

‘And you ain’t ever had another bloke since?’

‘Oh no,’ Em said affrontedly, ‘I wouldn’t –
couldn’t
. I was married.’

Anita and Rose looked at one another then watched Em reach across the table to lift Rose’s full glass. She gave two hearty gulps of it and closed her eyes. ‘It’s funny but I
feel very tired all of a sudden.’

Rose sprang to her feet. ‘Em, dear, watch out!’ Rose caught hold of her sister just as she slid from the chair. ‘Anita, help me, she’s passed out.’

‘Crikey, the poor cow,’ Anita said as she staggered to assist Rose.

‘Let’s get her to bed.’ They pulled an arm each around their shoulders and very slowly took her through the hall.

‘It’ll be a miracle if I can get up them stairs,’ Anita slurred as she missed her footing and Rose shouldered all Em’s weight. ‘Sorry, love, everything’s
double.’

‘Perhaps we could lay her on the couch,’ Rose hesitated, she didn’t want Will to see his mother like this.

‘No, I’ll make it,’ Anita muttered, steadying herself against the wall and still managing to hold on to Em.

Some while later, the stairs negotiated, they lay Em on the big double bed and Anita flopped down beside her. ‘Phew, that sherry had a kick in it. Did I really hear that Arthur was as
queer as a three-speed walking stick?’

‘Yes, I’m afraid so.’

‘And she never said before?’

Rose slid off Em’s shoes and drew up the cover. ‘No, never.’

‘Always thought he was a bit iffy,’ Anita muttered, unable to disguise her contempt. ‘And yet she stuck up for him. Did you hear? Respectable, I ask you. Well, it’s
obvious why. He needed a good front and she was it, bless her.’

‘And I thought I had troubles.’ Rose bent down and kissed her sister’s forehead. Gently removing her turban she brushed her dull fair hair over the pillow with the tips of her
fingers. ‘Oh Neet, her life must have been so unhappy. She never said a thing in her letters.’

‘Would you?’

Rose had to agree she probably wouldn’t.

‘That bloody Arthur.’

Rose nodded. ‘It was like keeping her a prisoner.’

Anita made no comment except to sigh, ‘She’ll have a snorter when she wakes.’

Rose drew the heavy curtains. ‘Come on, I’ll make you a cup of tea.’

‘Yeah, I’d better sober up before me old man comes home.’ Anita giggled. ‘We polished off the bottle, you know.’

Rose softly led the way downstairs. She needed that cup of tea now.

‘I did it, Mum, I did it!’ At four o’clock Donnie was bursting with news. ‘I did what you said. I stood up to Diane Balls.’

Rose felt her heart thump. ‘You did?’

‘We was in the playground and Diane came up and poked me in the shoulder.’

‘What did you do?’ Marlene queried as they all gazed at Donnie.

‘I poked her back as hard as she poked me.’

‘Lummy,’ Will gasped looking impressed. Rose had brought him with her so that Em could rest undisturbed.

‘She thought I’d run away,’ Donnie said with a toss of her head.

‘But you didn’t?’ Rose asked.

‘No. I just stood there. I was scared stiff really, but I remembered David and how he stood up to the giant.’

‘What giant?’ Marlene demanded as Rose urged the three children along the busy pavement.

‘Come along, Donnie can explain on the way home.’

‘Goliath of course,’ Will said decisively as they went. ‘He was nearly seven feet tall and really ugly.’

‘And David was just an ordinary person,’ Donnie continued. ‘But he had a catapult and five little stones. He aimed one of them at Goliath’s head and it hit him right in
the centre of his forehead, killing him dead.’

‘How do you know that?’ Marlene frowned.

‘It’s in the Bible,’ Will said simply.

‘I don’t like the Bible,’ Marlene objected moodily, ‘it’s got too many long words I don’t understand.’

‘Well, you should look at the pictures then. There’s lots of lovely colour ones in the Bibles at school.’

‘I ain’t a baby,’ Marlene replied, blushing.

‘Anyway, you were telling us about Diane,’ Rose interrupted in order to return to the subject of Donnie’s triumph.

Donnie nodded, her face grave. ‘Then she called me a bad name, a very, very bad name and everyone started to laugh.’

Rose sighed. ‘Oh dear.’

Donnie went red. ‘So I called her one too and said if she hit me again I was going to hit her back even harder.’

Rose stopped in the street. ‘That was very brave of you.’

‘Like David,’ Donnie said cheerfully.

‘Yes, like David.’

‘Sally Piper said she ain’t ever heard me speak like that before.’

‘What was the name you called Diane?’ Marlene asked interestedly.

‘I mustn’t say it again, must I, Mum?’

‘No.’

Donnie’s face glowed. ‘I didn’t run away. I just stood there and looked her in the eye and all she did was kick the railings.’

Rose was close to tears. What a world! Her poor Donnie. But she’d won the first round of a lifelong battle.

‘Can we go to the sweet shop?’ Donnie asked shyly.

Rose smiled. ‘I think you deserve a treat.’

‘Have we got any lemonade bottles at home?’ Marlene asked expectantly.

Donnie nodded. ‘Two.’

‘We’ll save the bottles,’ Rose intervened quickly, since she didn’t want to disturb her sister. ‘I’ll give you sixpence each.’ The offer was very
extravagant but she still had some of Em’s grocery money in her purse. Instead of stopping for groceries she’d make do with sardines tonight.

‘I’m gonna buy some brandy balls,’ Marlene decided at once.

‘I think I’ll have me favourite,’ Donnie said thoughtfully. ‘Sherbet dabs. They melt in your mouth.’

But Will was silent until Marlene demanded his choice.

‘Do they sell wine gums, Auntie Rose?’ he asked cautiously.

‘Yes, dear. They sell just about any sweet you could possibly think of.’

‘I’ve changed me mind,’ Marlene interrupted noisily. ‘I might have two ounces of them chocolates with toffee insides. Or I might have a bag of gobstoppers.’

‘They never stop your gob,’ Donnie giggled and they all burst into laughter including Marlene.

Rose took the road that led to Amethyst Way, joining in their happy chatter. Her cares were temporarily forgotten and she wondered if she would see Bobby Morton in his shop. Perhaps she would
look in as they passed by. Not that she had any intention of displaying any interest in a washing machine, even if she had warmed to the idea lately. It was a luxury someone like her couldn’t
possibly afford, not unless you had four hundred and thirty-five pounds hidden under the floorboards at home!

Rose inhaled the aroma of frying onions permeating the small waiting room. This was once Dr Harding’s parlour and was now Dr Cox’s waiting room. Up until two years
ago, Dr Harding’s patients had squeezed on to six hard-backed wooden dining chairs lined like skittles in the draughty hall. But now Dr Howard Cox was installed and the arrangement had
changed.

Rose had mourned the loss of the family doctor who delivered both of her girls at home. With the assistance of the midwife he had brought Donnie and Marlene into the world with very little fuss
on his part and not very much more on Rose’s. She’d had complete faith in him, instilled from childhood and the happy visits she’d made to the gentle, smiling practitioner. Dr
Harding had made a joke at every one of them, tickled her under the chin and very rarely prescribed anything unpleasant to swallow. Looking back she wondered if this was because she was rarely ill
or because he really was a saint of a man whom the whole neighbourhood had loved and admired.

Islanders, a generally friendly bunch, had few words to say on the new doctor. Rose knew their silence was more a testament to their feelings than outright criticism. Dr Cox, a much younger man,
guessed at being somewhere in his late thirties to early forties, had brought with him a wife and four young children, all crammed into the three-bedroomed house that comprised living quarters,
surgery and waiting room. Sitting in the dull little waiting room and staring up at the pagoda-shaped lampshade that dangled an unequal fringe around its base, she noticed the mauvish cloth-covered
flex adorned with a fly paper. She didn’t like to think of the tiny dead insect bodies struggling there and averted her eyes to the picture rail. This had once sported Dr Harding’s
chosen photographs; the children he’d delivered, the women and men he had treated, his own wife and family and other portraits and landscapes of the island community that he had served for
over forty years. These were all now banished and only their outlines remained like pale ghosts clumsily masked by Dr Cox’s stark white certificates confirming his medical training.

Rose also noted the rose decorated wallpaper was beginning to peel at the corners. Also, the six original wooden chairs on either side of the room had lost their patina, once so lovingly
polished by Mrs Harding. Rose considered the oblong table in the centre of the room. It boasted chromium legs and a green painted top, an addition made in the hope it would revive the spirit of the
room. But instead it looked dreadfully mismatched, as did last year’s spring editions of
Punch
and
Life
magazines lying neatly untouched on its shiny surface.

Rose had always enjoyed browsing through Dr Harding’s dog-eared copies of
Woman’s Own
and
My Home
. Indeed any tattered offering from the Companion Book Club had held
his patients spellbound as had the toppling piles of knitting, cooking and sewing magazines. For the children there had been
Tom Sawyer
and
Ivanhoe
or the much-loved
Anne of Green
Gables
, minus its dustjacket.

It was clear to see that Dr Cox had made a clean sweep. Sacrificing his living room for his patients, he had made an attempt at modernization, but there was nothing left of the reassuring
atmosphere, Rose decided with dismay.

A woman exited from the white-painted door labelled afresh in large hand-written capitals, SURGERY. Rose beamed a smile as she hurried off, but her head was bent and her walk brisk.

Rose was beginning to feel a fraud, having convinced herself her trouble was not an ulcer, but an anxiety problem. Doctors had so much more to do these days with their practices extending as Dr
Cox had informed them his had. Would he think she was wasting his time?

‘Mrs Weaver?’ Dr Cox beckoned her. She quickly assessed his appearance as being very professional. A white coat under which he wore a dark suit, light brown hair cut so short that
his sideburns were almost nonexistent and his skin had a very clean, washed look, as though he’d scrubbed himself thoroughly after each patient.

Rose saw that inside the consulting room there was a marked change to the decor. Steely white walls reflected the doctor’s own high standard of hygiene, which, Rose thought, should in some
way have bolstered her confidence. Instead it had the effect of making her more apprehensive as she sat down on the chair by the desk.

‘I’m a little at twos and threes still,’ Dr Cox apologized as he drew out a folder from his shoulder-high file cabinet and studied the contents. ‘I don’t appear to
have your notes to hand.’