A Little Death (24 page)

I know we walked about for a bit, but I couldn’t tell you where we went. We were talking and laughing a mile a minute when a terrible fear got hold of me that William had a wife and family—he’d asked me if I was married, but I hadn’t thought to ask him. Because if you’d seen him, you’d never have believed that some girl hadn’t managed to net him. I was shaking inside when I asked him, I don’t mind admitting it, but I thought: well, I’ve got to know. So I came straight out with it: ‘Are you married?’

I’ll never forget the way he looked at me when he said ‘No’. Then he said, ‘We’ve got a lot of things to talk about, haven’t we, Ada?’ I understood his meaning
well enough and I must have turned red as a poppy. I’m sure that’s very charming if you’re a schoolgirl, but when you’re going on for fifty it’s ridiculous. I looked away for a moment to recover myself—there was a stand with a man selling flowers, so I looked at them. William said, ‘Well, we can talk about them next time, can’t we?’ I still didn’t trust myself, I just kept on looking at the silly violets, or roses, or whatever they were. Then William said, ‘Will there be a next time, Ada?’

‘Oh, yes, I’d like that.’

So we made an arrangement to meet, then I had to catch my bus. William said to me, ‘Wait a minute,’ and he bought me a bunch of roses from the stall. When he held them out to give them to me, he said, ‘Bought and paid for, fair and square,’ and I knew he was talking about when he’d given the roses to me and Ellen, and I’d asked how he’d come by them. You could have knocked me down with a feather, because that was how many years ago? I never thought a
man
would remember a thing like that, but he had.

I suppose I might have cried, because no man had ever bought me flowers before, but I’d have been crying tears of joy, not sadness. They were red roses and I was holding on to them tight all the way home on the bus. I was just going up the road towards Hope House when I saw Miss Georgina with Master Edmund, driving out of the big gates. Master Edmund stopped the car to talk to me: ‘Such lovely flowers, Ada, a present from an admirer?’

Well, I might have told him if
Madam
hadn’t said her piece: ‘Don’t be mad, Edmund. Ada doesn’t have admirers, do you, Ada?’ I never said anything, I was too angry. I’ve told you my face wouldn’t win any prizes, but there was no need for that. Well, they went off, and
I stood there with my flowers and thought: that’s all you know about it.

Because Miss Georgina always thinks she’s the one with the secrets, but this was one she didn’t know. Like with that funny language she’s always speaking with Master Edmund. I was telling William about that— because I did meet him again after that and not just the once, either—and he said, ‘What does it sound like?’ So I told him how it was words muddled up and back-to-front and all that, and he said, ‘Oh, the men at the market do that.’ I asked him what he meant, and he said that the butchers and greengrocers and everyone spoke certain words backwards like a sort of code, and that if they were talking fast you couldn’t make head or tail of it. I laughed fit to burst when I heard that. There’s Miss Georgina thinking she’s so special and it’s only what they do in the market. When Master Edmund and I made up our own things we used to say, Miss Georgina didn’t like that at all. It was in the last war, before Master Edmund bought the wireless for me, and he fixed up their wireless down in my sitting room. We used to listen to ITMA and all the shows we liked—
she
said it was vulgar, but some of the things they got up to on the wireless, it was enough to make a cat laugh. I used to put my head round the door and say to Master Edmund, ‘Can I do you now, sir?’ like Mrs. Mop. Miss Georgina would give me such a look.

Well, now William was
my
secret. His hair was a little grey, he was a bit heavier round the middle and there were some lines on his face, but I’d say he’d changed more in his character than in his looks. When William was a young man he was very vain of himself, but that had gone and, best of all, I didn’t feel that he was laughing at me, not the way he used to. I thought that he must care about me, at least a little bit. But
women look old sooner than men, don’t they? I saw my reflection in the bus window on the way home that evening and I thought: Whatever does William see in me? I’d got my own teeth—still have, believe it or not— and my hair was still nice, but like I said, I was no beauty queen, even as a girl. No one ever looked round in the street after me, except William. I’ll never understand why, but he did.

I arranged to meet William at the station at Hampstead the next time, and we went for a walk on the Heath and had our tea. I said I must pay for the tea, or I wouldn’t go. William didn’t like that one bit, but he had to let me. We did talk about
those things
—not in the tea-shop, of course, but on the Heath. I said to him, ‘I could have had a baby, you know.’

He said, ‘No you couldn’t. I took care of that.’

I said, ‘What are you talking about, you took care of it?’ He saw I didn’t understand him, so he explained it to me. I thought I should have died with the embarrassment! He meant, where he’d wet my legs. Well, I hadn’t known what it was at the time, but hearing him say those words, I couldn’t believe my ears. It was shocking to hear William talking about the facts of life as if it was something you could just talk about. I did learn something I hadn’t known before, but fancy learning it like that from a man! But whatever anyone says,
I
say it’s more shame that there I was nearly fifty years old and still in ignorance about certain matters. But imagine if someone had overheard!

William was quite upset with himself, so I said, ‘Well, it was a long time ago, so we won’t worry about it now,’ because I thought it was time to change the subject.

But he said, ‘My God, Ada, I’m so sorry. It must have been hell, thinking you were going to have a baby.’ He
kept shaking his head. ‘It was my fault. It should never have happened.’

Well, that wasn’t fair, so I said, ‘It takes two.’

He said, ‘But you can’t tell me you enjoyed it, Ada.’ Well, if I’d been scarlet before—
enjoyed
it? Well, I dared not say anything to that, it would have led to goodness knows how much more embarrassing talk. ‘I always seem to be making you blush.’ That was what William said. ‘Pink cheeks suit you.’

Then he put his hands on my shoulders and gave me a kiss. Just a peck on the cheek, that was all he ever did, he never took any liberties with me, except only that one time when we were young. He said, ‘I’m glad you never cut your hair. It’s like looking into a fire.’ Wasn’t that nice? It had just started to go grey then, but there was still plenty of the old colour left.

I said, ‘Well, better make the most of it while it lasts.’

William said, ‘I don’t care if it turns green.’

We went out every other week after that. Sometimes we went to the pictures, but what I liked best was if the weather was warm, we’d buy some fruit and eat it in the park. Once when we were there, I asked William, ‘Do you remember Master Freddie that was killed?’

‘That was a bad business. You couldn’t forget a thing like that.’

‘Do you remember the girl they took away, the simple one?’

‘Jenny? I remember sitting in the yard with you the day they came for her. There was a fair old fuss about it, wasn’t there?’

‘I never thought she’d done it.’

‘What do you mean? ’Course she did it.’ I was a bit taken back when William said that.

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘I always thought you didn’t reckon it was her, either.’

‘Well, if it wasn’t her, who else was it? There wasn’t anyone else there.’

‘Well, I always thought it was a tramp or something. But anyway, there were other people, there was the governess, she was outside with the children.’

‘Yes, but why would she want to thump one of them on the head? There’s no reason to do a thing like that. You’d have to be mad, or an imbecile. Besides, do you remember Jenny had a turn? Well, I helped carry her into the house and there was blood on her dress and apron.’

‘Well, she fell down on the ground, didn’t she? She might have rolled in it.’

‘Didn’t look like rolling to me. More like a splash. I saw it, Ada.’

‘But she could have tried to lift Master Freddie up or something.’

‘You liked Jenny, didn’t you?’

‘Yes, that’s why I thought it was so unfair, picking on the weakest one because she couldn’t stand up for herself.’

‘Listen, Ada. When I was in the army, we had one like Jenny. Bert Morris, he was called. Fat chap. If any of the men got a parcel of food from home and didn’t keep his eye on it, Bert Morris would pinch the lot and scoff it. There was a row about it every time and Bert would promise not to do it again, but he always did. To his mind, he was hungry and he couldn’t see no further than that. Jenny was the same—didn’t think what would happen next.’

‘But everyone knows what happens if you whack a five-year-old child on the head!’

‘It must have been her, Ada. It doesn’t make sense otherwise.’

He said it ever so gently and I suppose I felt I’d been a
bit stupid, thinking Jenny was innocent. I mean, William had seen this blood on her clothes and what he said was so sensible that I thought: Well, I’ve been wrong all along. But I’ve always had this strong feeling that what happened to Jenny wasn’t right. It’s queer, really, because I’m not a fanciful sort, not like Ellen. But still, I can’t help it. Daft, but there it is.

We liked our times in the park so much that I’d got into the habit of taking some sandwiches and buns wrapped up in paper so that we didn’t have to bother with a tea-shop. So there we were, sitting on a bench, and William was telling me about his job. He could have gone on and done very well in service, I’m sure of it, but he’d been given a job as a driver when he enlisted and he’d learned about mechanics. Well, he found he liked it, so he got into that trade when the war ended and he was all set up in a garage of his own just near where I met him in Finchley, and he had a man working for him. He told me this and then he said, ‘I was such a fool!’ I asked him what he meant and he said, ‘Oh, I thought I was something all right, I thought I was love’s young dream.’ My heart felt as if it was trying to climb up and jump out of my mouth. I looked at the sandwich I was eating and I thought: I’m not going to manage any more of this. Don’t ask me how I knew what he was going to say, but I did. What he said was, ‘Do you reckon we could make a go of it?’

Now, do you remember I told you that Cornford’s pickles don’t agree with me? Well, that’s when I found it out. I wasn’t sure what would come out if I opened my mouth, otherwise I would have said yes straight away. But William saw me hesitate and he said, ‘Why don’t you think about it?’ And after that, I thought: Well, perhaps that’s the proper thing to do, not to give an answer for a week and then say yes. So I nodded that I
would. And I felt glad I’d never said yes then and there, because it might have seemed… well, forward. Especially after what happened. I’m sure that must sound very funny to someone who’s used to being courted by men, and having lots of proposals and all the rest of it, but it was new to me; all I knew was what I’d read in books.

That was the happiest week of my whole life. Thinking about how I would say it to William—not that I was going to say anything fancy, just ‘yes’—imagining how it would be when we were married—oh, I was over the hills and far away, that week. I thought: I’ve worked hard all my life; when I get married, it’ll be like a holiday. Because I didn’t think of that as work, not looking after William, not in our own house. I’d like to say I didn’t let it go to my head, but the truth was, I’d been living for those afternoons with William and I wasn’t paying as much attention as I should to other things. But there wasn’t only William distracting me, there was my sister Winnie as well. Because at that time things were getting bad for a lot of people. Not people like Miss Georgina and Master Edmund, but working people and their families.

My sister Winnie married again in 1920, after her first husband was killed in the war. Her second was a man called Frank Peel. He’d had a good job as a foreman at a factory where they made boots and shoes, but they’d laid them all off and he couldn’t get anything else. He was a big, strong man, but he got so low and bad he’d sit and stare into the grate, and this was all day, every day, mind you. It got on Winnie’s nerves to see him brooding and bringing nothing in, but what could she do? Poor Winnie. She was forty when Frank married her and she never expected any children from it, but she got them: twins! Frankie and Peter their
names were, but of course they were still at school and she’d got nothing coming in from them but the odd few coppers. Better-off people said the children didn’t get enough to eat because the women were bad managers, but it wasn’t like that—I’d like to see some of them that said it trying to manage on nothing and then they’d see how they liked it. Winnie’d been quite ill when the twins were born and I don’t think she ever got back to her old self, not really. I’m not saying Frank wasn’t a good provider when he was earning, but he was a selfish man at the best of times.

If there wasn’t enough meat, which was most days, it all had to come on his plate. Nobody begrudged him, but it was the way he did it. He’d sit up at the table with his eyes going all round, and if he thought one of the kiddies were getting more than their share, it was ‘I’ll have that’ and it would be straight off their plate and on to his. His reasoning was, he brought in the money, he must have the best. Fair enough. But then when he couldn’t bring in the money, that was terrible to him. Because they’ve got to feel that they are a man, haven’t they? And losing the job takes it away from them. Oh, he used to drive Winnie mad, trailing about after her: ‘Let me have a bit of bread, I want a bit of bread.’ Like a baby. Well, the day came when there was nothing to eat in the house and Frank knew it as well as the rest of them, but he kept on and on at Winnie, ‘Give me some bread,’ and in the end she picked up her big knife and went for him. The twins had to pull her off else she’d have killed him. He was out cold as it was. They had to fetch a neighbour and put Frank in a handcart and wheel him the mile to the hospital, which can’t have been easy, two boys and an old woman—because Winnie said, ‘I’m not coming with you, I don’t care if he
pegs out’—and Frank must have weighed seventeen stone.