The Longest Fight (16 page)

‘I’m just saying, no need to be narked. It ain’t my fault –’

‘Nothing’s ever no one’s fault.’

She was only an arm’s reach away, her chest rising and falling with short, shallow breaths. Being with Georgie was no good; she could never fix anything: she could never be Rosie.

‘You’re nothing but an ugly sow.’

Jack pushed himself out of the chair and across the room; he opened his hand. Georgie’s head turned to deflect the coming blow, but she didn’t pull away; she didn’t flinch because she was expecting it. Jack’s hand fixed in mid-air; it was as if someone held a flame to each of his remaining nails,
making his hand curl, the joints crack. Georgie righted her head until it was squarely on her shoulders, and with the back of her hand she smoothed her eyebrow into place.

‘Why don’t you piss off?’ Jack took out a cigarette.

He had to use both hands to strike the match; the orange flame flickered and nearly died, but he couldn’t keep his fingers steady.

‘It’s the shock. She’s not a baby no more. That’s what you’ll tell me when you come grovelling, anyhow.’ Georgie turned to Pearl slumped in the chair. ‘He’ll come round, don’t you worry. I’m giving you a week to make this right, Jack.’

Her brown eyes were sharper now; he almost thought they were watering slightly but she didn’t wipe back any tears. Georgie touched Pearl’s shoulder as she left. She was gone: no blood, no contract, to make her stay.

‘Go after her, Jack.’

He wanted to dig his nails into Pearl’s skin, scratch down until he found a layer of her that had to be able to feel something. But she would never understand what it felt like to have burning pain pierce her skin, to feel herself flayed open and pinned out by the memory of a kiss. That was what love did, in that house anyway. Always that house. The greens and browns of the room spread towards him like flowing mud. And he would be soaked up by the rotting furniture and moth-eaten fabrics, trapped forever as nothing but a shadow in that house.

The chair creaked as Pearl stood up.

‘You’re wrong if you think I can’t feel. I know what the pain is doing to Frank. You’re breaking him down piece by piece. It’s what you always do. You might as well stub cigarettes out on him too.’ She sounded distant and small, as if she was in another room. ‘If you don’t let him go, you’ll lose me.’

‘Stupid cow.’ Jack kicked a broken square of blue pottery across the room. ‘Some things can’t never be put back together.’

She closed the door on his words. Frank was never going to be part of their lives; outliving his usefulness. Jack stared at the blackout curtains as they flapped in a draught. He went over to the window and bit the edge of his thumb, peeling back the skin with his teeth. It made him laugh to think of taking Georgie up town to Bobbie Black’s; she was a south-of-the-river piece of skirt. Good enough for a bit of jolly, but the fun couldn’t last. He didn’t need her burrowing any deeper into his life. The clop-clop of her heels had echoed in the room as she walked away, but it was only a trick of the rising smog. His teeth chewed skin until he tasted blood. He didn’t care, was getting bored anyway, waking up next to her fat body, keeping his hands out of the way.
Don’t mess up me hair, don’t smudge me make-up.
He didn’t care: plenty of better things to do with his time. He didn’t care: they all left him in the end anyway.

‘H
urry it up.’ Rosie draws him closer.

Jackie’s thighs bang against the dresser and the row of enamel mugs clink against each other; the good plates and glasses are shut up inside the cupboard – his mum thinks it will keep them safe if no one uses them. Rosie works at the buttons on his shirt, smiles as the Bible Factory ink smudges off on her fingers. Jackie feels the breath of the factory men still on him.

‘Maybe I should wash first.’

‘No, stay here.’ Rosie glances at the door. ‘I miss you.’

He can’t help holding still, swallowing his breath in case he hears footsteps in the alleyway. He slides her dress up. The whiteness surprises him for a moment, soft and pallid as a block of soap. The baby is six weeks old but his mum still makes them keep separate beds. Rosie’s smell is unfamiliar: sour milk and something musky like the stink of fight-swaddling.

‘What?’ She puts her hand on his shoulder. ‘I told you your mum’s gone down the butcher’s, won’t be back for ages.’

He glances up at the ceiling.

‘She’s sleeping like a baby, that’s what she does. If you don’t want to, you could’ve just said.’

Rosie shifts along the top of the dresser. Jackie puts out his hands and stops her. ‘I always want to. Only I’ve been thinking. I have to go and register the birth soon. Wondered if you’d decided on a name for her?’

‘I’ve already said what I want.’

‘But Mum’s been talking about the name Joyce.’

‘She’s our daughter, Jackie. What do
you
want to call her?’

‘I want what you want. Pearl it is. Had to stop calling her “the baby” some time.’

Their faces are level: a bridge of freckles crosses her nose and runs under her eyes – the only sign left of summer sun.

‘Come here.’

She holds him to her chest, rubs her cheek along the side of his face. She kisses and cradles him as if he is the child, not the tiny pink bundle of Pearl upstairs. He feels protected in Rosie’s thin arms.

‘I’ll get you anything you want, I promise.’ His voice softened by the folds of her cardigan.

‘I’ve lost my ribbon down the back of the dresser. You can start by getting me some more tomorrow.’ She taps his head.

‘Easy. Anything else?’

‘Promise me we’ll get out of this house, Jackie.’

She squashes his face in her hands, noses touching. He nods and pushes his lips against hers. She keeps talking but he doesn’t hear the words; he swallows them inside himself, feels buoyed up with the air she exhales. The dresser top creaks under their weight but they can’t stop; a splinter lodges into the soft skin at the top of his thigh but they can’t stop. She keeps her hand pressed to the back of his neck; they stare into each other until he feels that he is seeing with her eyes, facing his own reflection.

Rosie stands at the stove, clouds collecting about her. Jackie imagines her in only the steam, no brown cardigan, no faded blue skirt. He leans back in the chair to get a better view. His mum points a knitting needle at him; Pearl is draped on her shoulder and the yellow wool trails over her on to the table.

‘What have you got to smile about?’

‘I’m saving up for us to move out.’ He rocks on the back legs.

‘Break that, you pay for it. Perfectly good home here for you and Joyce.’

Jackie bangs the chair down on all fours. ‘Her name is Pearl, you know that. This is my family, Mum. You don’t want us getting in the way, having to share your bed with Rosie.’

He winds the end of the wool around his finger. It rubs against Pearl’s hand and she flinches, eyes screwing up as if she is about to cry.

‘There’s not enough houses out there for those that really need them, let alone ones who’ll rent to children. You’re not like the Winnies moving to the country, out Guildford way. Not like Tommy and Bill off serving King and Country. No, you belong here, John, with me.’

‘I’m sixteen now.’ He puts his hands behind his head, stretches out.

‘What about my Joyce? Better for everyone to think she’s mine, and the council would have something to say about an unmarried –’

Rosie clangs the spoon against the side of the pot.

‘Who’d believe you? You can’t even get her name right. It says in black and white she’s Pearl. Jackie filled in the papers today.’

‘Want to watch that mouth of yours, girl? Before someone watches it for you.’ His mum points the needle across the table at Rosie.

‘There’ll be nothing for dinner if I let the tongue boil dry.’ She pokes the pink lump with the back of the spoon.

Pearl’s head wobbles to the side as she yawns. Everyone stops to watch; his mum rubs her hand over the baby’s spine. Rosie pours more water into the pot; it hisses angrily.

‘John, fetch up J… Pearl’s blanket from the front room.’

But he only goes as far as the stairs in the hallway; he has taken to lingering in doorways whenever his mum sends him on an errand. Jackie likes to know what lies she is dropping in Rosie’s ear. He sandwiches himself between the door and the wall, the rose pattern scratching his hands.

‘I know my son. He’s all big plans and grand ideas now. How do you expect him to find time for his fighting, with you and the baby always needing something? He was going to be a name, make it big. But he don’t stick to things, that’s his problem. Now his brothers, they’re in the Army, my brave boys. There might even be another war.’ She shakes her head. ‘Just wait until it gets difficult, wait until money gets tight. And it will. He won’t mean to but he’ll turn on you. Family, rent, food to get? Ain’t you all better off here, where I can help?’

He clenches his fists, bites down on his bottom lip.

‘I’m grateful you’ve taken us in, but you ain’t getting us for keeps. Jackie will…’ The rest of Rosie’s words are lost in the sizzle of water hitting the stove ring.

‘He’s only a boy, I say, and don’t think you’re taking my Pearl –’

Jackie strides into the kitchen, cuts her off. ‘We’re getting married. We’ll be a proper family. Understand me?’ He leans over the table, hopes his mum feels small sat on the chair.

‘John, son. You can’t do this without me.’ She smiles and strokes her hand over his. ‘Who’s looked out for you all these years?’

‘Rosie is my family now.’

Rosie hugs an arm around herself, half turns to smile at him.

‘You can wipe that smirk off your face. My Pearl will be married before you are, young girl. Your sort don’t marry.’

‘Mum…’

Pearl moans and his mum’s hands shoot up to pat her back. ‘Shh, you’ll wake the baby shouting like that. I was right about her being a girl. I’m right about lots of things.’

‘Not this. When Jackie asks me to marry him, I’m going to say yes. Then you, the council, the Church, the whole city can piss off.’ Rosie waves the spoon in the air.

His mum pretends she can’t hear, shushing and cooing over the baby. He can’t stand the hurt look in his mum’s eyes,
the one she uses each time now when she feels betrayed: if he raises his voice, if he disagrees with her, that wet-paper look. She holds up her white apron, covering the baby.

‘I’m going for a lie-down. I probably won’t be able to get up for supper. Tell
her
not to wake me when she comes to bed.’

‘Maybe
you’ll
get out the right side tomorrow.’ Rosie watches her leave.

Jackie closes the door behind his mum. Saturday night, and smog is bumping against the panes. He pulls Rosie away from the stove and on to his lap as he sits at the table. She stares into the yard.

‘Summer’s late in coming but it’s not far off. The family’ll already be set up for the first fairs of the season.’

‘We could go and see them.’ He gathers her hair into a bunch.

‘We need to save the money.’

She sucks down on the end of a curl. He shifts in the chair and she drops a little deeper into his lap.

‘Can’t hurt to check the trains. We’ll do it tomorrow.’

‘I’m not sure they’d take too kindly to Pearl.’ She indicates the ceiling with her thumb.

He listens to the footsteps, the closing of doors and banging of drawers. It goes quiet at last.

‘Next year, I promise. I’m doing good at the factory – it’ll be enough to get by for now, but things will look up when I can get some real fights.’ He can’t help whispering.

‘She was right about Pearl being a girl, that’s all.’ Rosie sighs.

‘Well, you said it yourself, she’s wrong about the rest.’ He wraps his arms around her waist.

‘Then let’s get married now.’

Rosie clutches his sleeve in her fist. The shirt stretches tight across his shoulders; none of his clothes fit any more. Upstairs in the wardrobe hang a suit and two good shirts but they don’t belong to Jackie and he is never going to wear them,
not even if he bursts at the seams: dead man’s clothes. The pot rocks; peeling tongue rises and bursts on the surface.

‘I want to do it proper, Rosie. Make it nice for you. Can you let me do that? Give me a few more months.’

Rosie stands up to face him. She nods and her breasts wobble; she sees him looking and loosens the woollen cardigan a little. What they did earlier, it wasn’t like lying in the grass and feeling the sun tickle his back. The baby has sucked some share of life away from Rosie – her eyes, her soft curls, her skin – but everything that is left is his: a family.

He walks down Lomond Grove; the rain can’t dislodge his smile but it has washed the smog away, leaving a stale bonfire smell, and by the time Jackie gets home the stench is lodged deep inside the folds of his clothes. He is late but Rosie will forgive him when he shows her what he has been to collect. It took nearly a year but he has finally saved enough, more than enough. He rubs the little green box in his pocket: something to make Rosie laugh and clap her hands. He opens the back door and steps into the light of the kitchen. His mum and Pearl are there; they always are. It smells of coal and stewed tea but there isn’t any sign of food. He pays his own way now but it all goes on that house: the baby, Rosie. They didn’t even have the money to visit her family; she misses them in a way he can’t understand. But he knows how to make it up to her.

‘Evening, Mum.’

She looks up then goes back to wiping the corners of Pearl’s mouth with the edge of her apron, leaning against the heavy wooden draining board. Her wiry hair is slicked back against her head from the steam rolling out of the boiling nappy pan. Jackie holds his breath as he crosses the kitchen and goes into the hallway.

‘Rosie, I’m home. Where are you?’

He can’t wait any longer, wants to show her the jewellery box, what’s bedded inside. He has been planning it since
Christmas. It doesn’t matter who else sees; the whole street can witness it for all he cares. He taps his fingers on the door-frame.

‘Shh, or you’ll wake Pearl.’ His mum stokes the fire.

Jackie never understands how she manages to do something else when Pearl always occupies one arm. Every time he is allowed near her, it takes up every hand and thought, struggling to stop her from falling into the grate or rolling away across the floor. He moves into the hallway.

‘Rosie?’

He has worked hard, and now they can do as they please. No more lying about Pearl; get a home of their own, he can afford it with his new apprenticeship at the Bible Factory. Jackie rubs the hard cover of the jewellery box in his pocket; that gold-plated ring will make everything right. He grips the banisters and sings her name up the stairs. ‘Rosie.’

Jackie holds on to the poles and leans backwards so he can see into the kitchen. ‘I had to call in somewhere after work. Is she angry because I said I’d take her out?’

‘There’s no point asking me what the girl thinks. She inherited that face from her people. They’re not called barefaced liars for nothing.’ His mum smacks her lips.

‘Leave Rosie alone.’ He goes back in to the kitchen.

‘You don’t see what she’s like every day, that nasty tongue. Barely even looks at the little one.’ She kisses Pearl’s head. ‘And I know she caused that crack in the dresser. I told her to dry it proper after washing it down.’

‘Is Rosie in the lav?’ The anger is rising, his throat constricts around the words.

The plates rattle on the dresser beside him, and he runs his finger along the crack in the surface.

‘She ain’t out there.’ His mum smoothes Pearl’s wisps of hair.

‘Where is she?’ He plants himself in front of her, one hand on the sink.

‘She’s gone.’

‘Gone where?’ He holds back the stone growing in his throat. Scum from the soaking baby clothes in the basin collects around the sides, crawling towards his fingers.

‘I gave her the train fare. And told her the truth – there ain’t going to be any marriage. You haven’t even asked me for your grandmother’s ring. I only said what she already knows. We don’t need her.’ His mum tightens the ties of her apron, her body spilling over the sides.

‘I won’t let you drive her off like you have everyone else. I’ll fetch her back.’

He wants to get out of the house, away from that street just to find some air. The cold of the rain has worked its way down to his bones, and he will never be able to get warm in that kitchen.

‘She took all her things.’ His mum blocks his way to the door.

‘Pearl’s here.’

Jackie wants to grab his mum and shake the words out of her, push his hand over the baby’s snuffling face to stop it from taking all her attention. And perhaps it was his mum who had driven his dad for all those years, sharpening him to a point until he had no choice but to run them all through.

‘She’s not coming back, John.’ She shifts the baby to her other hip. ‘We’re better off without that slovenly tart. Pearl’s better off.’

Jackie doesn’t hear her; he is riding high on the swing chairs again, so high that he can see his mum and Pearl like a distant pinprick. The kitchen is miles beneath his feet. His whole body shakes with the effort of tugging on the ropes. He holds his breath. He waits for the sickening plummet, knows if he doesn’t leave now he will never be able to find the strength to drag himself up and make that rope tight again. He scoops up Pearl, slams the door behind them. He runs down the alley, the yellow blanket slapping against his shoulder, splashing into the darkness of the street.