Gull Island (28 page)

Why did today matter so much? If she pretended it was a Sunday without the chore of the morning papers it would be easy. Just the
luxurious
joy of a day without work. But she wished she could go to the shop and rearrange the shelves. After the last hectic hours of Christmas Eve, they were in a mess. But she couldn’t. Not today. She had no strong religious beliefs but that was something she couldn’t do. To treat it like an ordinary day would have been seen as sacrilegious. Tomorrow, perhaps, another precious day of freedom.

It was a pity she had quarrelled with Richard. She hadn’t even thanked him properly for the work he had done in the new shop. He and Monty had made a second card display, and sent one of the carpenters around to fix some squeaky doors and add some extra shelves. She had been most ungracious.

Yes, she decided suddenly. She would go round to the Careys’ after dinner and thank Richard, even stay for tea if she were invited. She would also try not to react when his remarks seemed condescending. She would really, really try. Then she thought that Kate and Idris would be there and perhaps Hattie too. Best she stayed away. She would delay her meal until later, and read, and listen to the wireless and – This was ridiculous, she chided herself. Surely a day off isn’t something to be used up like a
punishment
?

A knock on the door at four o’clock startled her. It was Richard, it must be. But it was a neighbour asking if she had a couple of shillings for the gas meter as their chicken wasn’t cooked and the gas had run out. Disappointed, she handed over some coins and returned to her living room. She checked on her meal, which was still uncooked, the meat looking smaller than ever, the potatoes greasy and unappetizing. She slammed the oven door and ate a biscuit.

This won’t do. What was she thinking of, sitting here like this? Refusing all invitations then hoping someone would come and persuade her to change her mind. She was pathetic! She donned a coat and a headscarf and went down the street, heading for the beach, and bumped into Idris.

‘Kate asked me to see if you’ll change your mind about coming to Mam and Dad’s place.’

‘Thank her, will you? She’s very kind, but I’m having a lovely time just resting. A day off is a novelty when you work every day, remember.’

‘Richard will be there.’

‘Wish him a Happy Christmas for me.’

‘Shall I come in for a drink?’

‘No, I don’t think so. I’m just going out as you can see.’

She walked to the car and got in, tempted to offer him a lift back to his parents’ to ease her loneliness for a few minutes, but decided it wasn’t worth the risk. She could smell drink on him and didn’t want the
embarrassment
of giving him another slap.

She drove around the block and gave him time to leave, then returned to the flat. Richard was sitting on the doorstep, a wrapped bottle of wine in his hand.

‘Been somewhere nice?’ he asked as she searched for her key.

‘I drove around the block to get rid of your brother,’ she said in her usual sharp tone.

‘Kate sent him. He wasn’t trying to – well, you know.’

‘I’m glad to hear it!’

He didn’t move from the step although he had stood up when she approached. She looked up at him, silently asking him to move so she could open the door. Something in his expression made her heart flip. His eyes had darkened and he was staring at her with undisguised desire.

He followed her in and his presence filled the small room and she was aware of his need of her and of her own failing resistance. The coat he wore was too large, its belt hanging to the floor. She pulled at it to prevent him tripping over and even the cloth of the shabby garment seemed electric, a part of his powerful, sensual aura.

He removed the coat and she saw with half of her mind that he was wearing a new suit. Inconsequentially, as if on a different plane to the here and now, she wondered if he had bought it for their aborted celebration. He was extremely tense and since removing his overcoat he hadn’t moved. Perhaps she had been mistaken about his overwhelming need of her and there was something wrong. Panic rose in her. Thank goodness she hadn’t run to him. What a fool she would feel if it was trouble and not love.

‘Is everything all right?’ she asked. He turned to look at her, his eyes so deep set they were almost invisible in the light of one table lamp on a gloomy afternoon.

He pulled her to him and kissed her. She was startled, yet the kiss had been inevitable from the moment she had opened the door and invited him inside. She relaxed in his arms and felt the embrace soften the very bones of her.

‘Everything is perfect,’ he said before kissing her again.

It was several hours before they opened the wine.

The pork was a cinder and the meal before them was a joke. Richard raised his fork to his lips then threw it down and took her in his arms again.

‘Marry me, Rosita. I loved you when you were a girl and I love you now as a woman. I’ve never loved anyone else. All my life, even at my most lonely times, I was waiting for you to come back into my life. It’s a miracle that you did, and were still free. My darling, we’ll be so happy.’

Rosita was filled with a joy so intense it blanked out everything except the sight of his face so close to her own. Richard. Her beloved Richard was telling her he loved her. They would marry. She would have someone of her own. Someone to love and to love her. Her heart sang with happiness so his next words took a moment to penetrate.

‘There’s no hurry, but you might as well advertise the shops
straightaway
. They’ll soon find a buyer. You’ve done a good job of improving them. Monty and I will soon be on our feet now so there won’t be any financial problems.’

‘Sell my shops.’ It was said calmly and wasn’t a question, just a dull reprisal of his words.

‘Of course, my lovely Rosita. You won’t need them now.’

‘What will I do?’ she asked in a whisper.

‘You’ll be at home, my darling, waiting for me.’

‘Richard, I can’t.’ Happiness evaporated and she stepped back from his embrace and stared at him, almost in tears.

‘You can invest your money in my business if you like. We’ll make you a partner. Monty is bound to agree. There, how d’you feel about that?’ He sounded like an uncle giving a child a stick of rock, she thought numbly.

‘A sleeping partner, of course.’

‘Of course. I don’t want you to have a single worry in that beautiful head of yours.’

She was tempted. Oh, how she was tempted by the oldest trick in the world. She loved him and wanted him desperately, but how could she trust even Richard Carey with her happiness and her future? He didn’t know her at all, failed to recognize her needs and abilities. Even Richard, whom she had loved all her life, couldn’t make her happy for more than a few months. She had to have more than love. Why couldn’t he understand?

‘No, Richard,’ she said in her emphatic voice. ‘No, I won’t marry you. A businesswoman isn’t a fancy dress I wear, a businesswoman is what I am. Accept that, or there can never be a future for us.’

W
HEN
R
ICHARD RETURNED
to his parents’ house, Hattie could see he was upset. That was good. Cheering up men was something she did well. Smiling, she poured him a drink of the whisky that was the annual purchase in celebration of Christmas and sat beside him. There was an attempt at sympathy in her eyes as she said, ‘Quarrelled, have you? There’s awful, with it being Christmas an’ all.’

‘No, we haven’t quarrelled. Just a difference of opinion, that’s all.’

‘What’s in a word, eh?’ she said in her slow, sing-song voice. ‘Cold or cool, stubborn or determined, a quarrel or a difference of opinion.’

‘As you say.’ He was disinclined to talk, the words he and Rosita had exchanged tearing into his thoughts.

Hattie allowed the silence to grow then said, ‘I admire Miss Evans, don’t you? Getting on so well and her a woman. She must have had family who helped, mind. She couldn’t have done it all on her own.’

‘She had no one. She knew what she wanted, made up her mind to get it and went for it with all the strength and determination she could muster.’

‘Well I never! Determined, or obstinate, which would you say?’ She took his empty glass and stood up. ‘Come for a walk, get some fresh air, is it? Do you good it will.’

‘Some other time.’ He walked away and after saying goodnight to the family who were playing crib and whose faces were red with perspiration and a surfeit of alcohol, he went to bed.

Hattie stood for a while nursing the empty glass then turned to watch Idris. He was wickedly handsome. Pity her dull sister got to him first, but that wasn’t the end of anything, not these days. Not if a wife didn’t know how to look after a husband proper. Kate had gone home with the children, leaving Idris all alone, poor man. Men like Idris shouldn’t be left alone.

She smiled as he groaned and put down his hand of cards. She waved the glass. ‘Drink, Idris? Or d’you fancy a nice walk? Cool you off nice, a walk will.’ See what you want and go all out to get it. That was Miss Evans’s attitude and she could do worse than follow the same rule.

Rosita opened a third shop in a poorer area of the town in early spring 1951. It was little more than a room, with other rooms above and behind it rented out to a family. She asked Betty Sweeny, who had helped out once or twice, if she would consider managing it and Betty agreed at once. The shop took less than either of the others but Rosita had found the challenge was too good to miss and it had come at a time when she needed a challenge to remind Richard who she was. The rent was low and the bank manager and her accountant agreed it worth the risk. Betty nicknamed it ‘the kiosk’ as it was so small.

After closing the place, Rosita usually hurried home to help Kate enter the figures in the daily books and close the Station Row shop, it being the busiest. It had always stayed open later than the others, mainly to
accommodate
the men and women on their way home from the six o’clock finish in other businesses in the area.

As Kate was putting on her coat, Rosita said, ‘I hear your sister Hattie is still staying with you?’

‘Yes. She and Mam aren’t getting on very well, and Hattie thought a break and a little independence might be a good idea.’

‘Can you cope with looking after another person, Kate? You have plenty to do working and looking after Idris and the girls.’

‘Hattie isn’t a problem, in fact she’s a help. Between you and I she’s an awful cook, mind, but she’ll get the occasional meal and she always gets the vegetables done and the table set. She’s found a job in a factory, piecework on a bench making machine parts. I don’t expect she’ll stay long.’

‘Your husband, he doesn’t mind?’

‘Idris? Mind? He’s got someone else running around after him, waiting on him now.’ She laughed. ‘He doesn’t mind at all. In fact, they seem to get on very well.’

Rosita hid her worries. She wondered if having a word with Idris, warning him off, would do any good, but decided not. When people
interfered
in the marriage of others, they were usually the one left feeling stupid as the couple closed ranks and put them firmly on the outside.

The business in the kiosk, was slow but it soon began to show an increase with a very enthusiastic Betty Sweeny in charge. Improvement in its appearance would increase the number of customers who came for their morning papers and gradually other sales would grow.

Betty had bought herself a small car to enable her to get to the shop for the early start and was well content with the generous wage Rosita paid her. She was a war widow still in her twenties and, without children, was free to concentrate on her job.

Kate fitted well to the Station Row shop, easily making friends with new customers. She had a long walk home but seemed not to mind. Occasionally Idris would meet her and walk her home, preferring that to fetching the girls from the neighbour who looked after them until their mother arrived.

Rosita continued to enjoy the school shop. Richard had fixed extra shelves and she had added children’s books to the stock. The school brought in a lot of customers as mothers called to browse while waiting for their children but the most surprising aspect of that shop was, for Rosita, horse racing.

The public house on the opposite corner to the shop attracted a lot of horse-racing enthusiasts. Before the first race and between subsequent ones, a small, wizened ex-jockey left the pub and went to deliver the bets he had collected to the local turf accountant. The halfway stop for many of his transactions was Rosita’s shop. Monty had found the shop was only a few minutes out of his way as he travelled to work and he became a regular customer both for his newspaper and cigarettes, when available, and the race tipster guides.

On the shelf close to the till were small sealed packets containing the day’s forecasts of the likely winners. The regulars bought one, opened it and read it then pocketed it with a hopeful gleam in their eyes. The bookie’s runner would take their hastily scribbled bets, coins would change hands and the backers would go to the pub to await results. As they got to know Rosita, her shop became a regular meeting place for the Horsey Gang, as she began to call them. They met in her shop and discussed the weights, handicaps of the runners, the successes and failures of the jockeys.

The jargon, at first so confusing, revealed its secrets and she began to understand about each-way bets and odds-on favourites and doubles and trebles. She became used to discussions on whether the going was rough and if certain horses were better or worse on hard-going. When the pub closed at two o’clock, they would stand in her shop, buy more newspapers and read and smoke, discuss the latest results and slide into her back room to listen to the broadcasts of the meetings on her wireless.

Cheers or groans would come from the room and she didn’t need to ask about the success or failure of their chosen mounts – she could read it in their faces. Occasionally one of them would have a good win and once, Monty handed her the sweet coupons and the money to buy chocolates, which he gave to her as a share of his good fortune.

It became rather good fun, although she was never tempted to hand over money of her own. That was as stupid as marrying a man who said he loved you but wanted to change you into something he wanted you to be.

In April 1951 London was getting ready to celebrate the Festival of Britain, to declare the end of the melancholy of war, open the doors to a brighter peace, and show the rest of the world that prosperity in Britain was on the way. Rosita did some celebrating of her own. She bought a fourth shop.

It was too soon after taking on the kiosk, the accountant warned her of that, but like Richard, she wasn’t a person to sit and wait patiently until everything was secure; the risks were a part of the enjoyment. Besides, The Kiosk was only rented – the business was hers but not the building. The rent was easily found from the takings after paying Betty and there was a little to put aside.

As usual, when there was something to celebrate, it was to the Careys she went. Hoping Richard wouldn’t be there, hoping he would be, hoping he wouldn’t be mentioned, hoping she would have news of him and hoping, so nervously, that he hadn’t found someone else.

She was so confused about her feelings for him that when they met she either treated him coolly, like a casual friend, or was so intensely aware of her love for him that she created a quarrel. Her most dreaded thought was that he had found someone and was planning to marry. This was on her mind every time she stepped into the Careys’ home.

Uncle Henry Carey was in his usual place by the door, where he would chat to passers-by and read his comics in peace. He gestured with a thumb after greeting her and told her Auntie Molly Carey was inside and half demented. ‘She’s got something to tell you,
fach
.’

Rosita saw excitement on her friend’s face and feared the day had come and she was about to be told about Richard’s new love but she was quickly reassured.

‘Going up to London we are!’ was Mrs Carey’s greeting. ‘Our Idris and our Richard are treating us. Me, your Uncle Henry, Kate and the children! A trip to London to see the Festival!’

‘How marvellous. When?’

‘Now soon! Next month, would you believe? Richard is getting the tickets and booking a hotel and everything. Won’t it be lovely? Never been to London. They say it’s quite big.’

‘It is, rather.’ Rosita smiled, sharing the elderly woman’s excitement. Then the smile faded as Mrs Carey added, ‘You’ll stay here and mind the house and look after Richard and the dog, won’t you, love?’

‘Stay and look after—’ Rosita laughed. ‘Richard doesn’t need minding, Auntie Molly Carey! I’ll take the dog though. He can stay with me and come to the shop every morning. He’ll like that.’

‘Richard works long hours and I’d like to think someone is looking after him, see he has a decent meal every night.’ She turned a crafty eye on Rosita. ‘I can’t go if he isn’t looked after. Sorry to my heart I’ll be to miss it, but I can’t leave Richard without—’

‘Someone to look after him,’ Rosita finished with a chuckle. ‘All right, I’ll wash his socks, get a meal ready for him somehow and make sure he eats all his cabbage. All right?’

‘And there’s Idris too.’

There was something in the woman’s voice that made Rosita curious. ‘Won’t Hattie be there to make a meal for him?’

‘No, we’ve … chosen … a week when she’ll be away too. Going to a caravan in Weston, she is, with some friends from the factory. So Idris will be on his own, see.’

The words were deliberate. They had
chosen
a week when Hattie would be away. Mrs Carey didn’t trust her golden boy any more than Rosita did. She didn’t trust Hattie, Rosita’s half-sister, either!

‘Perhaps Richard and Idris could share for the week?’

‘No,
fach
. Never could agree, them two. They’ll manage, of course they will, but if you’d keep an eye—?’

‘Of course I will.’

They discussed the forthcoming trip for a while, deciding what clothes would be needed for a May holiday, then Mrs Carey looked at Rosita and saw the simmering excitement. There was a gleam in her dark eyes, a
fraction
more colour in her cheeks. Although she was as neat as always, with her hair smoothly styled and her dress immaculate, there was a relaxed expression on her face and she looked less controlled and formal than usual.

‘Was there a special reason for the call, love? Not that you need one, mind. Or did you just come for a chat?’

‘I called to tell you that the finance is arranged and I’m soon opening another shop.’

‘And there’s me gabbling on and never giving you the chance to tell me your news! Congratulations, girl. I’m so proud of you. Pity it is that …’ She hesitated, then went on. ‘Pity your mam doesn’t know any of this. She’d be proud too, for sure.’

‘Maybe. But it was when I was five I wanted her to be proud of me. Perhaps if she had been, she would have shared in my success now.’

‘I know where she is, mind. I have her address.’

‘You haven’t told her about me, have you?’

‘I kept my promise, love. Although I don’t agree with you. She’s your mam and whatever she did, she must have thought she was doing the best for you.’

‘For herself more like! How could sending me away from her be the best for me? It was Graham Prothero she should have kicked out, not me.’ The wound was still raw, Mrs Carey realized with sadness.

‘So thrilled with you she was. You were born in our room, you know. Her not willing to—’ She quickly changed the subject. No need to remind the poor girl that her grandfather had rejected her too. ‘And you were such a beautiful baby. Although you cried non-stop for months on end, she never lost patience, loved you and adored you she did. I can see her now, looking down at you in that gentle way of hers.’ She glanced at Rosita to see if her words were having any effect and saw the familiar closed-in expression.

She sighed and changed the subject completely. One day Rosita might listen, but this was not the time. ‘Right, then. Tell me about this new shop of yours.’

When the shop had been described and Rosita had explained her plans for it, the conversation returned to the London visit.

‘What shall we go and see? Richard gave us a guide book.’ She looked around vaguely. ‘I dapped it down somewhere.’ She found the book and opened it randomly at the list of street markets. ‘Love a street market, I do. Has London got any good ones?’

‘A few.’ Rosita smiled affectionately at the excited woman.

Rosita was leaving when Richard arrived. He was wearing a donkey jacket and the trousers of an old suit tucked into large Wellingtons, which he removed at the door. Cement splashes covered his clothes and spotted his face.

‘That’s right, I don’t want half the building site in my kitchen,’ his mother said in mock annoyance. ‘Sit down,
bach
. Rosita, make us all a cup of tea, will you? You can tell Richard your news while I go to the shop across the road for some biscuits.’