The Factory Girl (36 page)

She felt a fraud sitting here. But Alan's eyes when he returned with two mugs reflected the fact that he wasn't regarding her in that light, that he saw her fears were real to her and that he was ready to do all he could to allay them.

‘Now,' he began after taking a sip or two of the dark brown, almost undrinkable brew. ‘D'yer feel like telling me what's bothering you, Gerry? Only if you want to of course.'

It felt the most natural thing in the world to slowly unfold all those anxieties that had been eating into her for so long. But hearing them coming from her own mouth they seemed to her to be dreadfully trivial: still pining the loss of her baby after all this time and taking second place to Tony's work even though she'd thought that herself being in the shop would bring them closer, but how close did she expect to come? He took her out and about, they went on fabulous holidays together, had a vast number of wealthy friends, he always paid her compliments, saw to it that she was nicely dressed, gave her presents of jewellery, clothes, flowers, chocolates – what more did she expect? What if he was often away, she ought to expect that if she wanted to live well. Perhaps not so trivial was her wish for another baby, one that Tony pushed aside time after time. And even more important, that his work – his
other
work – could be leading him into danger.

She was chary about telling Alan too much about this last grievance but it was precisely this that had him sitting up, looking at her.

‘You really suspect he's in trouble?'

‘Not in trouble,' she prevaricated. ‘Just that I get worried sometimes.'

‘With cause,' he said so succinctly that she couldn't escape.

‘It's just what I've been told.'

‘So it must hold some substance, mustn't it?'

The elderly woman had got up, was shuffling out. Geraldine let her eyes follow the woman's departure and for moment wondered vaguely where she lived, more like existed.

‘You must think it holds some substance?'

Tony's repeat of the question dragged her mind back to him and she nodded miserably. That woman who'd been in here taking a little comfort from a mug of practically undrinkable tea, what were her fears? Maybe she didn't have any beyond the uncertainty of how long before she died of cold, or for want of food or from some illness, or probably she was too dim even to give it a thought but lived from day to day no more than an alley cat or a stray dog roaming the streets might. Who was the luckier? Quickly she shrugged off the dreary thought. There was no comparison. She pulled herself together and looked at Alan. ‘I'm just being silly.'

He held her gaze as though physically compelling her to look at him. ‘You're not being silly. What your husband is doing is bloody dangerous. Not just because of
what
he's doing, though that comes into it, but because of the people he's in with. And you could be too. You're his wife. You assist in his shop. You could be seen as knowing everythink he does. If somethink went wrong, Gerry, all sorts of things could 'appen. To him, to you.'

‘Nothing's going to happen.'

‘Then why are yer so scared?'

‘I don't know.' She dragged her gaze away from his and concentrated on slowly pushing her still almost full mug of tea from her. Then she turned her gaze to him again, this time adopting a look of confidence, even a little smile. ‘I'm all right, Alan, really. I just feel a bit down in the dumps. End of summer, I suppose. Only winter to look forward to.'

‘With parties and celebrations and loads of socialising and Tony to buy you everything you want?' It rang of scepticism, he fully aware she was putting on this act, avoiding reality. He sounded almost angry. ‘Don't give me all that rubbish, you're bloody scared stiff,' he rushed on savagely, then suddenly mellowed, leaning towards her, his hand reaching out and covering hers. ‘Look, I don't blame you fer feeling like that. I would be too. And I've got a feeling your Tony is too but he won't let you see it. I bet he's bluffing it out all the time, but underneath …' He let the rest go unsaid, then with his fingers tightening about her hand, he went on slowly, ‘Listen to me, Gerry. If ever you felt the need to get in touch with me, you know where I live. If things ever get a bit dicky, don't ever hesitate fer one second to let me know, you understand?'

He was being so earnest that Geraldine at last found her voice. ‘I don't know what you could do,' she said lamely.

‘Neither do I. But I'd do something. I'd never sit back and say, oh, what a pity she's in trouble, I wish I could 'elp. I'd do
something
!' His tone lowering so considerably that she could hardly hear it, he added, ‘There ain't nothing I wouldn't do for you, Gerry, no matter what it was. Please remember that.'

She found herself nodding her assent. ‘I'll remember,' she murmured, suddenly aware that she had an ally at last, that she could go to him with anything that might be worrying her and he would listen.

She went home with a far lighter heart and something else besides. Was it knowing she had someone she could trust in this world of mistrust she seemed to live in? In this make-believe world where those she mixed with were basically false, cultured like some of the pearls Tony sold to those not able to afford the real thing – peal away the layers to find just a thin nacre about a man-induced piece of grit in the oyster – Alan was an anchor. Or was it something more. Love? She could have loved Alan, quite easily.

Despite Tony's obvious reluctance, Geraldine insisted that Christmas Day would be spent with her family.

‘I don't want to spend it with a lot of strangers,' she burst out, on the verge of an argument about it when he told her he'd already planned to go to this huge house party in Chelsea and that everyone would be there.

‘They're not strangers,' he shot back, his voice impatient as he put down his pen from the accounts he'd been doing. ‘They're our friends.'

‘Your friends.'

‘
Our
friends. Mine
and
yours. We've been invited and I've promised now. I can't break it. I can't let them down.'

‘Then
you
go!' Fear as well as anger made her shout.

It was only a party after all. They wouldn't be missed. But the very words ‘promised' and ‘can't let them down' sent shivers up her back. ‘Can't' she interpreted as ‘daren't', as though he was obeying an order rather than an invitation, as if he was in the grip of these people he called friends. Yet she always found them nice, enjoyed their company when she was there. It was only afterwards, or when invited to join them that she'd experience this vague sense of dread. No doubt she was being silly but in her mind she could still hear Kate Meyrick's oblique warning.

This time, however, she pushed disquiet aside for the more needful determination to have her way. ‘I don't mind if you want to go off with your own friends but I intend to be with my family on Christmas Day.'

‘Why don't you stop saying
my
friends?' he snarled. ‘They're not
my friends
!'

She looked at him thinking, you've said a mouthful there, my dear, even as, going back to his account books, he added sullenly, ‘They're
ours
.'

Tony had capitulated. He'd telephoned the hostess who'd invited them and made his apologies and now this Christmas night sat in a corner of Mum and Dad's crowded front room, showing off as it were, looking visibly bored, declining conversation, except perhaps with Wally, drinking too many whiskies – and her parents ill able to afford someone taking more than his share of drink even though Dad may have come by a few extra bottles.

To her earlier annoyance, he'd hardly said anything at both the dinner table with its chicken, stuffing, pork and all the vegetables with Christmas pudding and custard for afters, or later at the tea table with its slices of cold pork, pickled onions and gherkins, the usual shrimps and winkles, its fine Christmas cake, mince pies, jelly and tinned fruit, much of that saved over the year from what Dad brought home from time to time.

The meal table had been quite a squash, Tom and Mavis and their kids, Evie, Fred, Wally and Clara, her baby mostly in her arms so that she had to eat one-handed for much of the time, Mum, Dad, Granny Glover who always had her Christmas here, Tony and herself. Despite Tony's unsociable attitude she meant to enjoy herself and ignoring the looks, be herself for once, dropping aitches to her heart's content.

By evening more family turned up as well as Evie's new boyfriend, a few of Fred's friends, a couple of them girls, and close neighbours Mum had known for years as friends, they now with no immediate family, no children, both sons lost in the war. The place was soon full of people. So was the kitchen where the beer was kept, bottles and a small barrel balanced on the draining board that kept a constant stream of men supplying themselves with beer or whisky, sherry or gin for the womenfolk; while with backs tight against the milling menfolk in that tiny space, several women helped to cut bread to spread with marge, and fill with pressed ox tongue or more cold pork for sandwiches with pickles to be washed down with a drop of drink, and later as the small hours crept up, fortifying cups of tea for the weary.

There was music in the two small main rooms. An uncle, as usual, was playing his squeezebox, to which his wife loved to sing in an uncertain soprano, not always on key on the high notes but which went unnoticed as all joined in, each priding their voice over others.

Interspersed with the music were games, some a little rude, such as Kiss The Blarney Stone with each of the unsuspecting young friends of Fred, certainly the girls, cajoled into being blindfolded in the passage and led into the room to kiss the ‘stone'. To gales of laughter a boy would roar, a girl squeal, as the soft, cleaved flesh was felt by searching lips and, whipping off the blindfold, would reveal a man completing the pulling up of his trousers. In reality it had been the crack his forearm formed when doubled up to his upper arm, the girl finally relieved to be told the truth, shrieking happy indignation at those who'd duped her. There was Buy the Donkey, again using the innocent, led in to bid for someone on all fours under a sheet, who when bought, was given the string to lead it away, but the string was attached to a chamber pot hidden under the ‘donkey' and drawn into view with its ‘contents', everyone in fits to the degradation of the buyer, the contents merely a cooked chicken neck in light ale, but in its container most unsavoury-looking. The same was used for Find the Treasure, a blindfold girl's hand guided to the ‘treasure', her horror as fingers closed around it, the object often violently flung across the linoleum to shrieks of amusement.

More music from the squeezebox, the talented airing their tonsils or indulging in lengthy Rudyard Kipling monologues or a saucy piece of poetry, even a funny joke or two. Geraldine lapped it all up as though it would be her last time. By now Tony's disapproval of it all no longer bothered her. But she was glad to see him several times engaged in chats with Wally who, with quite broad interests, could talk to anyone no matter who they were on quite a few subjects.

In his spare time, what little there was for him working as a stevedore, Wally had taken to studying, according to Clara.

‘He's always reading books from the library on all sorts of things, science things about birds an' animals an' about the Earth an' that sort of thing an' what he calls astromony or somethink. He knows the names of all the stars.' A brief look of pride faded. ‘Then he starts giving me lectures about it. Honestly, Gel, it bores me stiff – goes right over me head. Just lately he's got interested in how to run a business. Gawd knows why. I don't want ter know. All I want is to get on with me life and look after 'im and this little'un.'

She bent her face to bury it in her daughter's fair, curly locks. ‘Why should I want ter know about business and things? We ain't never going ter 'ave one. So why's he reading stuff like that, wasting 'is time?'

Listening to her, Geraldine wondered vaguely if her brother harboured that secret wish. After all, Tony was in business, and young Fred was doing so well in the newspapers, in collar and tie and a nice suit, never getting his hands dirty.

Clara was still rabbiting on. ‘He was talking to Alan Presley the other day. You know him. He often comes ter see Mum. He's still on his own, yer know – never got married again. It must be lonely sometimes, just 'is mum and dad. He don't even live with them. Got 'is own place. It do sound like a miserable life, stuck in a place all on yer own. But as I was saying …' she paused to take a sip of her sherry. ‘Wally was talking to him the other day. He runs his own business, yer know, a builder's yard. He even employs a couple of blokes though Wally says he works alongside them 'imself selling building stuff. Wally said it'd be nice if we did somethink like that instead of him having ter go ter work before it's even light and working all hours fer the sort of wage he gets.'

‘You've got to have capital before yer can start a business,' Geraldine broke in knowledgeably. ‘That's not easy. It'd take years to save up enough.' She avoided adding ‘on what Wally earns', instead continuing with what she knew. ‘Then you might have to go to a bank in the end ter borrow money to help yer get started, and you have to have collateral so as to convince 'em.'

She was aware of Clara looking at her as though she were speaking a foreign language, the word collateral no doubt going right over her head, though Wally would have understood. Clara had probably never been in a bank in her life, nor probably had Wally.

It was, however, as if she hadn't spoken a word as Clara picked up exactly from the point where she'd been interrupted.

‘I expect he's spending today with his mum and dad. By now I'd of thought he'd of been spending it with a wife and a family. Funny life fer a man if you ask me, living all on 'is own all these years.'