The House by Princes Park (26 page)

‘Who the hell are
you
?’ she replied spiritedly. ‘How dare you break into my house!’

‘Break in!’ The man clumped downstairs brandishing a key. ‘
Your
house!’ he snorted. ‘This house belongs to Mrs Beatrice Hart, but not for long, ’cause I’m going to buy it.’

Ruby tossed her head haughtily and hoped she didn’t look as shaken as she felt. ‘She hadn’t told us it was to be sold.’

The visitor frowned. ‘Why should she?’

‘Because she writes to me from Colorado,’ Ruby lied. ‘She’s been living with her sister. Mind you, I haven’t heard from her in a while. She said we could live here for the duration. Her son, Max, stayed with us for a time. Do you know where Max is?’

‘Never heard of him.’ The man’s frown faded, though he still looked suspicious. ‘Why didn’t she say the house was occupied when she wrote and told the estate agent to sell?’

‘I’ve known her for years, she was always very forgetful. Did you say she was
selling
the house?’

‘Yes. She’s got married again and she’s staying in America. ‘I’m surprised she didn’t write and tell you
that
!’

‘I expect she will.’ They glared at each other. His eyes were brown, his cheeks hollow, lips thin and stern. There was something hungry about him, and she suspected he’d been raised in poverty worse than she’d ever known. To her horror, a little excited shiver coursed down her spine, shocking her to the core, because he wasn’t a bit attractive.

‘Anyroad,’ he said bluntly, ‘as soon as the final contracts are exchanged, you can scram sharpish. How many live here?’

‘Me and my two children. There’s also my friend and her little boy, but they’ll be leaving soon. How long will it be before the contracts are exchanged?’

‘A few weeks.’

Ruby nodded. Suddenly, the idea of leaving the house in which everyone had been so happy, despite the war, made her feel inordinately sad. She touched the wooden banister and sighed. ‘It’s a lovely house,’ she murmured. ‘You’ll like living in it.’

‘I’m not going to live in it. I’ve already got a house. I’m a property developer. Here’s my card.’

His name was Matthew Doyle according to the badly handwritten card. ‘You’ve spelt property wrong,’ Ruby pointed out. ‘It only has one “p” in the middle.’

‘Thanks for telling me,’ he sneered, but looked embarrassed.

‘I hope you’re not going to pull the place down.’ She sighed again. ‘It would be such a shame.’

‘I will, one day, when the time is ripe. Until then, it’ll be rented out.’

‘What’s happening to everything in it?’

‘You mean the furniture and fittings?’ He made an attempt to look knowledgable and superior. ‘It’s being sold as it is. I’ll keep some stuff and sell the rest.’

‘I see.’ She wondered where he’d got the money from to buy the house. And why wasn’t he in the Forces like most men of his age? There was something despicable about speculating, buying up property, while there was a war on and other men were risking their lives. Her lips curled in disgust.

‘Why are you covered all over in paint?’ Matthew Doyle enquired.

‘I’ve been decorating an old lady’s house.’

He chuckled. ‘I’ve just bought a whole row of bomb-damaged houses. When they need painting, I’ll get in touch.’

Ruby looked at him directly, hating him. ‘Don’t bother. I do it for nothing, something I doubt you’d understand.’

He flushed angrily. ‘You know nothing about me.’

‘I know enough. How much rent will you want for the house?’

‘More than you can afford,’ he replied, blinking at the sudden change of tack, ‘seeing as you work for nothing, like. Unless you’ve got a husband who can pay what it’s worth.’

‘My husband died at Dunkirk. I’m a widow.’ She knew he would never let her have the house which she couldn’t possibly afford, but was hoping to get under his skin, make him ashamed, though doubted if he was capable of shame.

To her surprise, he didn’t answer straight away, but seemed lost in thought. She watched him, hands stuffed in the pockets of his ill-fitting suit. There was something almost pathetic about such a badly dressed individual who couldn’t spell passing himself off as a property developer. She’d like to bet the estate agents he dealt with laughed like drains behind his back, yet he could probably buy and sell the lot of them. She neither respected nor admired him, but there was something to be said – she couldn’t think what it was just now – for someone who’d so clearly pulled himself up by his bootstraps to get on.

‘You could turn it into a boarding house,’ he said.

Ruby’s jaw dropped. ‘I beg your pardon!’

‘Live downstairs and let the upstairs rooms. Take lodgers. Make their meals, do their washing, and they’ll pay more.’ He smiled sarcastically. ‘Or is being a landlady too good for you?’

‘Oh, Rube! That’s wonderful news,’ Beth cried when she came home.

‘Is it?’ Ruby loathed every aspect of housework and regarded with horror the idea of looking after a houseful of lodgers. But it seemed she had no choice. Matthew Doyle wanted eight pounds a week rent. If she let the upstairs rooms for four pounds each, she’d be left with eight pounds for herself. It sounded a lot, but there’d be
mountains of food to buy and tons of washing powder. It seemed she was destined to wallow in domesticity for the rest of her life.

No! No, she wouldn’t. Ruby tightened her fists and gritted her teeth. She’d hang on to her little nest egg, add to it week by week,
buy
a house if she couldn’t find one to rent. Somehow, in some way, she’d
do
something with her life, no matter how long it took.

At twenty to eight that night, it was announced on the BBC that the following day was to be a national holiday.

The war in Europe was over.

They took the excited children to a street party by the Malt House, where bunting was strung from the upstairs windows, where the tables were laden with a feast that made young eyes glisten and mouths water. Ruby had been saving food for this momentous day and arrived with two dozen home-made fairy cakes, a jelly sprinkled with hundreds and thousands, a tin of cream, two bottles of ginger beer, and mounds of sandwiches filled with cress she’d grown herself.

It was a mad day, crazy. Total strangers flung their arms around each other and hugged and kissed as if they were the greatest friends. When the children finished eating, the grown-ups sat down to what was left over, by which time half the men were as drunk as lords. They sat on the pavement outside the pub, hugging their ale, reliving the war, fighting the battles all over again, savouring the victory, which they claimed they’d expected all along, having forgotten the dark times when everything seemed to be lost and Hitler was winning.

After tea, they danced; the hokey-cokey, knees up Mother Brown, the conga. Ruby and Beth waltzed together, and Beth said longingly, ‘Don’t be hurt, Rube, but I don’t half wish I was dancing with Daniel. There’ll
never be another day like today. It would have been nice to have spent it together.’

Ruby felt a little knot of envy. What would it be like to fall in love, she wondered?
Properly
in love, not the childish love she’d felt for Jacob, or the hopeless way she loved Jim Quinlan. Would she ever know what real love was?

Jim was around somewhere. He looked withdrawn, a bit lost, not joyful that everything was over but he
was
still alive. Perhaps he felt that death had cheated him, that he had no right to be there, celebrating, when his friends were dead. Ruby had already decided to give up on Jim Quinlan, though he would always retain a special place in her heart.

Still, she had her girls. She looked up to see where they were. They were whizzing round in a circle with Jake, laughing helplessly, as if they, too, were drunk. The girls would miss Jake. He was their brother, although neither she nor Beth had ever felt able to tell them. It was hard to imagine the future without Beth. They’d lived through the war together, shared every single thing. Even Jacob, she thought with a smile.

Connie and Charles arrived. ‘We decided you were the only people in the world we wanted to spend tonight with,’ Connie cried. ‘We’ve been to the house and guessed you might be here.’ She embraced Ruby affectionately, then Beth.

Charles kissed them both. ‘You’ll always be part of our memories,’ he said huskily. ‘You took strangers into your house and made them feel at home. I’ll always be grateful.’

He took them into the packed Malt House for a drink, where Martha was working frantically behind the bar. Above the din, Ruby managed to convey the news that she’d found somewhere to live. ‘In other words, I’m staying put. Some chap’s buying the house, a Matthew Doyle.’

‘Matt Doyle!’ Martha screeched. ‘You’ll have to be
careful there, Ruby. He’s nothing but a dirty, rotten spiv. He could get you anything on the black market – at a price.’

Dusk was falling when they went outside. The exhausted crowd started to sing, sitting on their doorsteps, lounging against the walls, happier than most had ever known. The moon came out, and then the stars. And still they sang, until a few began to drift away, and then more.

Ruby and Beth walked back through the lamp lit streets, the weary children behind, dragging their feet. Mrs Hart’s house came into view. Ruby had switched on the lights before they left, feeling extravagent and very daring. But it was worth it to see every window in every room brightly lit, welcoming them home, a sight never seen before in all the years they’d lived there.

Beth took Ruby’s hand and squeezed it, as if in farewell. In another few weeks, she and Jake would be gone.

An era was over and a new one about to begin.

Heather O’Hagan sat on the bed and watched her sister in her frothy pink party dress get made up in front of the dressing table mirror. ‘That lippy doesn’t suit you,’ she said critically. ‘It’s too dark.’

‘D’you think so?’ Greta put her head on one side and studied her reflection. ‘I thought it made me look glamorous.’

‘It makes you look like a tart. Fair-haired women should wear pale lippy.’

Greta pouted. ‘You’re always saying that, sis, but Marilyn Monroe doesn’t, and
she
looks glamorous.’

‘No, she doesn’t. She looks like a tart.’

‘Oh, all right.’ Greta rubbed the offending lipstick off with her hankie and applied a lighter shade. ‘What’s that like?’

‘Much better.’ Heather smiled, having got her way. For as long as she could remember, she’d felt responsible for Greta, who could very easily make a complete mess of things without her help. She never seemed able to do things right. Say she’d worn that horrible maroon lippy at her party! It was all right Mam saying, ‘People learn from their mistakes,’ but they could learn better and less painfully with good advice.

Ruby opened the bedroom door. ‘Greta, it’s eight o’clock and your first guest has arrived.’

Greta quickly dabbed scent behind her ears, then tipped
the bottle against a piece of cotton wool which she tucked inside her bra. She jumped to her feet. ‘Who is it?’

‘I don’t know, love. It’s a he, and he’s very handsome. I told him to put some records on the gramophone.’

‘It might be Peter King.’ She rushed out of the room.

‘Don’t let him see you’re interested,’ Heather called.

‘I think that’s up to Greta, don’t you?’ Ruby said pointedly.

‘But he’s a drip, Mam. He’s already got a girlfriend.’

‘It can’t be all that serious if he’s come to Greta’s party on his own.’

‘I don’t want her to get hurt, Mam.’ She’d sooner be hurt herself, any day, than let Greta suffer a broken heart.

Ruby’s face softened. ‘I know. But you can’t protect her for ever. Oh, there’s the doorbell. Answer it, there’s a love. I’ve sausage rolls in the oven that need seeing to and sandwiches still to make.’

‘All right.’ Heather stood and smoothed the hips of her plain black skirt, glancing briefly at her tall reflection in the mirror. With the skirt, she wore a white, tailored blouse, and her long, black hair was pinned back with a slide. The whole effect was deliberately severe because she didn’t want to overshadow her sister on her twenty-first.

Frankie Laine was singing ‘Jezebel’ and everywhere smelled of a strange mixture of baking and scent – June, the girls’ favourite. There was a lovely atmosphere, heady, excited, as if the walls of Mrs Hart’s house knew there was going to be a party. Ruby still thought of it as Mrs Hart’s house, even though it had belonged to Matthew Doyle for twelve years – twelve long, very tedious years, she thought, making a face as she took the sausage rolls out of the oven. The lodgers lived upstairs and the two downstairs reception rooms had been turned into bedrooms, one for Ruby, the other for the girls. The rather dark room at the back, where the party would be held, was their living
room. Fortunately, the kitchen was big enough for the lodgers to eat in.
Un
fortunately, it meant she had to keep it scrupulously clean, or at least she tried.

Every time she thought she had enough saved for a deposit on a house of her own, houses had gone up another few hundred. It was like being in a race she stood no chance of winning. She’d probably end up the oldest landlady in the world.

The doorbell rang again. ‘Will someone get that!’ she yelled.

‘I’ll do it.’ Mr Keppel appeared at the kitchen door. ‘I’m just on my way out.’

‘Thanks. Have a nice time.’

‘It’s the dress rehearsal tonight. I’m a bag of nerves.’

‘I hope it goes well.’ Mr Keppel had only been living upstairs a few months. He worked in a bank and his spare time was taken up with amateur dramatics. Ruby was going to the play’s first night at the Crane Theatre on Monday. She was glad Mr Oliver and Mr Hamilton were away for the weekend, leaving only Mr Keppel, who was no trouble, and Mrs Mulligan, who was a pain.

A few seconds later, Martha Quinlan came into the kitchen, a shopping bag in each hand. ‘This is the cake,’ she puffed, putting one bag on the table. ‘And the other’s a couple of bottles of wine, for us, not the kids. D’you fancy a glass now?’

‘I wouldn’t say no. I’m a bit nervous, Martha. I’ve never thrown a party before.’