Dressmaker (11 page)

‘Marge,’ said Nellie sharply, ‘help clear the salad dishes.’

In the scullery she was fierce with her. ‘Pull yourself together! What’s got into you?’

‘He’s no good,’ Marge said, slapping the best plates into the bowl with gaiety.

‘He’s a nice enough lad.’

‘Get off. He’s no good.’ And she rammed the tap of the cold water full on, drowning Nellie’s protests. Margo felt as if she
had been drinking, she found his company so unsettling. She was tired to death of them all being so polite to each other.

‘Now, Ira,’ she said, when she had rinsed the plates and the bowls, ‘I’m sure Nellie and Jack are anxious to know how you
live in America.’ And he smiled at her, slow and casual, lounging back on the settee with Rita huddled beside him, her face
solemn with pride and ownership.

Nellie thought he was a nice boy: remote and shy perhaps, but that was better than him being brash as she had feared, flinging
his weight about and playing the conqueror. Jack said they were invaders; they followed a long line beginning with the Vikings.
Instead of the
longboat they used the jeep: roaring about Liverpool as if they were the SS. But Ira wasn’t like that. It would be easy to
steer Rita from him. He wasn’t a threat to mother’s furniture.

‘I believe your dad has a business in Washington,’ she said; and he said he reckoned he had. He wasn’t a show off. He didn’t
elaborate. God knows how Marge knew, but she said his dad was in real estate.

‘That’s right, Mam, I guess he’s in real estate.’

He helped himself to another round of bread. Jack had always maintained that they fed their army like pigs for the market,
but he was wrong. Ira seemed starved of homely food, the sort his mother might put on the table.

‘Have you any brothers and sisters, Ira?’

‘Two brothers and four sisters.’

Up came Rita’s head as if hearing it for the first time.

‘Are you Catholics?’ asked Jack, and Nellie waited with baited breath because she knew what Jack felt about Romans, but he
said no, they weren’t anything special, and Jack relaxed and sat back on his chair fumbling for his tobacco.

‘My word,’ said Margo, ‘that’s quite a family.’

She had a certain yellowish pallor that irritated Nellie, a melancholy look in her eyes that gave her the air of a tragedy
queen. She was always putting herself in the limelight. The young man never took his eyes off her. He kept his hands away
from Rita. He never put his arm round her. Nellie had been at the Manders’ earlier in the week and seen the way Chuck behaved
with Valerie. Valerie knew how to take care of herself, of course, but
it was dreadful the way he couldn’t keep his hands off her – sitting on the sofa, imprisoning her in his arms, with everyone
looking, and Mrs Mander smiling and looking through the pattern books as if it was something to shout about.

Jack wavered between hatred and pride – pride in his daughter that she had got herself a young man, and hatred of the blond
stranger in his tell-tale uniform, a product of a race of mongrels, the blood of every nation in the world mingling in his
veins – nothing aristocratic, nothing pure. It was astonishing he hadn’t a touch of the Jew or the black in him. And that
drawl of his – bastard English, with its lazy vowels and understatement. Jack didn’t care for the way he looked at Marge –
familiar, as if they came from the same back yard. He was probably only pretending not to be the least bit interested in Rita,
to throw them off the scent. He hated to to think what he was like when he was alone with her. He wished Rita’s mam could
be here. She would know how to cope with it. He had a dim recollection of her determined sickly face, peppered with freckles,
her sharp eyes that missed nothing, watching which way the wind blew.

Marge was telling one of her stories about her experiences in the factory.

‘—you wouldn’t believe what some of them get up to. In the explosives room behind the main building. It’s a regular thing—’

They all watched her, drained by her vitality, the tea finished with, all the bread used up and the jam in its bowl.

Rita wanted to be down town with him, kissing in the pictures. He was so far away from her, sitting on the sofa next to her,
listening to Aunt Margo. She had been surprised how easy it had been getting him to come home for tea. He hadn’t telephoned
– she lied, she said he had; she had fled to the station with her heart in her boots in case he should not be there under
the clock. The trouble the family had gone to, the tins of food, the polishing of the front-door knocker, the pressing of
clothes ready for his arrival. Fancy having all those brothers and sisters. She daydreamed they were married, going up soon
to the little back bedroom together with everyone’s blessing – no raised eyebrows, or telling them to be back before dark.
They wouldn’t go up to do anything dirty – just lie there under the eiderdown with Nigger stretched out across her feet. It
wouldn’t be like it was now. They’d be more like friends. They’d like each other. She hated the way he watched Margo. As if
she was something special.

They played cards after tea. He didn’t really get the hang of it; he said he’d never played rummy before.

‘You just collect one of three and two of three and one of four and so on,’ explained Rita.

But he held the cards in his hand as if he was blind. Jack thought it a point in his favour, he wasn’t the gambling type.

‘Let him keep the score,’ said Nellie, fetching pencil and paper.

But he was loath to do it. In the end Jack ruled lines and wrote their names upon the paper in his beautiful copperplate.

Valerie Mander came at nine o’clock, holding her white arm out above the table, fluttering her fingers to show off her engagement
ring.

‘Oh, how lovely,’ cried the aunts, catching her hand and taking a closer look at the small white stones. Rita didn’t introduce
her to Ira; she wished she hadn’t called. She looked so beautiful standing there in a blue costume with her long red nails
and her ring that proved Chuck cared for her.

Chuck was going to buy them a fridge.

‘A what?’ said Nellie.

‘For food,’ explained Valerie, ‘to keep it fresh, like.’

‘What food?’ said Margo comically; and they all laughed, thinking of the meagre rations inside the coldness of the lovely
new machine come all the way from America, sitting round the table, sharing her good fortune, as if it was normal to have
a crowd in on a Saturday night – drinking tea, dropping cake crumbs on the carpet with a fine display of carelessness. The
light began to fade from the room; the yellow drained out of the beige wallpaper. From next door’s yard came the grieved sounds
of pigeons calling.

Rita was restless and unhappy again. She took the milk jug and pretended it needed refilling, going away from the voices and
the clattering cups into the scullery, leaning her head against the back door. She could hear Marge’s voice, full of vivacity
and nerve.

‘When we were guarding the Cunard Building he said he could never get on with his wife. If you ask me—’

As she ended the story her voice rose in raucous vulgarity: a storm of hilarity, little trills of noise from the women, a
man tittering strangely – not Uncle Jack – like a sheep running across a field. With shock she realised it was Ira. She had
never heard him laugh before. It wasn’t even a conversation, it was a monologue, the demanding tones of a giddy girl being
the centre of attraction. And she wasn’t a girl any more. Auntie Margo was an old woman with hollow cheeks and little veins
that bled under her skin.

Uncle Jack came into the scullery looking for matches. He wore a delighted grin; he was good-humoured with the jokes and the
company. He saw Rita against the door, her head on the stained roller towel, her face turned to him with the eyes wounded,
like some animal at bay.

‘Ah, chickie,’ he said softly, ‘come on, what’s wrong?’

He was distressed by the sight of her. It was easy to comfort her; she was like a little child again.

‘I’m not going back in there.’

‘Don’t be a silly girl. You don’t want to be upset by your Auntie Marge.’

The urgency of the situation made him sensitive. He did see in a flash what ailed her.

He unbolted the back door and took her out into the yard, mellow with the last rays of the sun. They might have been in the
country, the soft clouds in the sky, the cooing of the pigeons. He put his arm about her shoulder, leading her up and down
the slope of the yard. He surprised himself, pacing the slate squares with the lupin plant wilting at the wash-house wall.

‘You’ve got to take into account the fact that your Auntie Marge was a married woman. You’re a big girl now, you’re not a
little lass – you know what I’m getting at—’

His fingers stroked her shoulders in the black dress with the white collar. ‘The little maid,’ Nellie had called her, but
she did suit it. It gave a dignity, a simplicity that you couldn’t help noticing. A little collar like a cobweb – cream lace,
and cuffs to match. She was like something in a picture frame, an echo of the past. He was moved by her suffering, he wanted
to pass on experience. He hadn’t lived that long; he hadn’t been through much, beyond death, his wife, and the hell of the
trenches.

‘What’s she going on at Ira for?’ wailed Rita, tired of his meanderings.

‘She’s not, our Rita,’ he said. ‘You don’t understand.’

He could see Nellie peeping at them through the lace curtains, her face puzzled, not knowing what he was doing, walking Rita
up and down the yard.

‘He keeps looking at her.’

‘He doesn’t. Don’t be daft. Listen, your Auntie Marge is a remarkable woman.’ Till he said it, he didn’t know it himself.

‘She’s not like Nellie and me; she’s a different cross to bear. I can only surmise—’

It was a lovely word, he dwelt on it, turn about turn up the brick yard, till Rita said, ‘What do you mean?’ plaintive like
those damn birds next door.

‘When she was little, she wasn’t like your Auntie Nellie
and me. It was more difficult for her. She had a hell of a time. She never took what Mother said for gospel. If Mother told
her to do anything she had to know why. Nellie and I used to think she was daft. She questioned everything. She made it difficult
for herself. You’re like her, pet.’

And again with the utterance, he felt it to be true.

‘I’m not, I’m not,’ she said, shouting the words like someone demented.

God knows what the people next door thought. They’d probably seen the American arrive and thought the very worst. Rita in
the family way and he trying to make sense of it.

‘You haven’t done nothing with him, have you?’ he asked, but she didn’t seem to hear.

‘Why am I like her?’

‘Well, she wouldn’t accept what was right and proper. I used to think she put it on, just to be awkward. But it’s real enough.
Nellie understands her, you know. You mustn’t take any notice of their upsets. Marge has got more feeling than the rest of
us.’

‘What feelings?’ she asked weakly, like a lamb left out in the snow.

‘She always thinks the best is yet to come. It isn’t. She never gives up.’

‘She does.’ Her voice was spiteful, but he continued: ‘She doesn’t mean to bewitch your Ira. It’s just her way.’ He stumbled
over the phrase; he felt he was echoing what she already feared. Bewitched was such a bold word: it had overtones. ‘When we
were little she caught on
quicker than the rest of us. I don’t want to burden you, but I could tell you things about when we were little that would
curl your hair.’

‘What’s up, Jack? What’s going on?’ Nellie was at the back step.

‘Nothing, woman. We’re just chatting.’

She went away unconvinced. He knew she would be upset, leaving their guests that way.

‘What things?’ Rita was puzzled by him. The weight of his arm across her shoulders bore her down.

‘It was strict then. It was different those days. Spare the rod and spoil the child. I was beat on me bare flesh with a belt.
Marge was beat regular. You don’t realise. I didn’t.’

He took in the window of the house alongside Nellie’s, the fall of a curtain as somebody hid from view. All along the street,
the curtains tight drawn across the windows although it wasn’t yet dark – a row of boxes bursting with secrets.

‘But your Auntie Marge would never learn. She wouldn’t give in. She wanted to get married again, you know, when you were little.’

‘She gave him up.’

He didn’t think she had remembered. ‘She didn’t want to. We made her. It didn’t suit your Auntie Nellie and me. She didn’t
want to be on her own with you. I didn’t want her living with me. Not then. I’d grown used to it.’

‘Used to what?’

‘Being on me own. When your mam died and your
Auntie Nellie took you in, I got used to it. After a bit. It wasn’t my fault. I’d been chivvied by women all me life.’

‘I want Ira to love me,’ she said, as if she hadn’t heard one word he’d uttered.

‘It’s not what it seems,’ he said.

‘I don’t want him looking at Auntie Margo.’

‘Talk sense.’ It was ridiculous what he was trying to do. She wasn’t of an age. She wouldn’t understand love was mostly habit
later on and escape at the beginning. He couldn’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. ‘Just wait here, our Rita.’

He had got out of his depth. Something in her stubborn face, her sad eyes, had shaken him outside the confines of his relationship
with her. He couldn’t continue. It wasn’t for him to explain; only time could make it plain for her.

‘Wait on,’ he said, ‘wait on, chickie.’ He went forcefully into the kitchen, seeing Valerie Mander’s white throat flung back
in abandon, Nellie smiling like a clown, the young American with his eyes glued to Marge as if he was mesmerised. ‘Ira, Rita
wants a word with you.’

They went all quiet, but he had to go. He knew that much. He felt powerful when he was alone with the three women – superior,
as if he had touched the heights.

‘You don’t want to encourage him,’ started Nellie; and he said: ‘Hush up, Nellie, I know what I’m at,’ scratching the skin
behind his suspenders that held up his green socks. A midge must have bitten him, though God knows
it was unlikely, the rotten summer they’d had. It was the bloody cat. Flea-ridden thing.