At the Break of Day (15 page)

At twelve-thirty they rushed to queue for lunch because the food was put on the tables exactly on time and yesterday it had been cold but that hadn’t mattered to Rosie, because she hadn’t had to buy it, or cook it, or wash up afterwards. Rosie wrote a postcard to Grandpa and Jack sent him one of a fat lady and a thin man doing something with a banana and Rosie was glad Grandpa needed new glasses.

Ollie didn’t win the Knobbly Knees Competition, a sandy-haired young man with a moustache did. He was on holiday with his mother. Jack gave him a wolf whistle and Rosie gave Jack a slap.

They swam again though it was cloudy and cool but she liked to feel the water around her.

‘Do you remember the stream at the bottom of the hop-yards?’ Jack called over from the other side.

Oh yes, she remembered it. The pebbles beneath her feet, the water lapping around her calves, Jack lying on the grass, his hair hanging over his forehead, his sleeves rolled. Oh yes, she remembered it.

She put make-up on that evening, wearing lipstick for the first time. It felt sticky and tasted of peppermint. She wiped it off again. They went to the Tyrolean beer garden before dinner, singing along to an accordion player. Jack bought Ollie a beer while Ollie went to phone the local pub back in London, where Maisie had said she would be.

He was angry when he came back, throwing his jacket on the back of the chair, furious that she hadn’t been in the bar.

‘You said you’d ring Monday and Friday, didn’t you? Maybe she got muddled. Or maybe Grandpa’s cough’s not so good?’

‘Maisie said she’d ring us here if he wasn’t, didn’t she?’ Norah said, looking over Jack’s shoulder at the sandy-haired young man, primping her hair, pulling out her mirror and checking her lipstick, which had smeared on to her teeth.

Rosie looked at Jack, then at Ollie who was sipping his beer, his eyes dark again, his foot tapping beneath the table, on to the tiles, clicking, clicking.

‘No, only if he was very bad. She’ll be there on Friday night.’ She wanted to slap Norah because Jack’s eyes were darkening now and she remembered the months following her return, the shouting, the pain and anger in the boy she loved.

The accordion player was near them now, playing ‘Roll Out the Barrel’, and Jack bought another drink and they talked of how they used to collect tat for the rag and bone man and keep it in the old barrel at the bottom of Ollie’s yard, but the laughter in Jack’s voice was forced.

‘You remember, don’t you, Dad?’

Rosie watched as Ollie looked up from his beer, wiping the froth from his upper lip.

‘You remember the tat, don’t you?’ Jack repeated and Rosie watched the accordion squeezing in and out, the fingers pressing the buttons and keys. Where the hell was Maisie?

‘Yes, I remember.’ And now at last Ollie was smiling. ‘What about you two finding those dog-ends and selling them? Bloody cheek, that’s what it was.’ He was laughing now.

Rosie remembered the saliva-limp ends which Jack had made her tear off and which made her feel sick. She remembered the man on the train on her way back from Liverpool, stamping out his cigarette end. She remembered the Lucky Strikes Maisie had been smoking in the hop-yards. She looked at her hands.

Ollie had stopped laughing and was just staring into his beer. Rosie spoke again because she wasn’t going to let Ollie and Maisie ruin Jack’s holiday. They’d already hurt him enough.

‘We sold them for twopence. Pinched your cigarette paper too.’ She paused as he looked up. ‘I bet Jack never told you that.’

Now Ollie laughed again and Rosie looked at Jack, who smiled, but his face was still tighter than it had been. She took his hand and as they hurried to dinner with the rest of the campers she said, ‘It’ll be all right. She got the time wrong. We’re together. We’re safe together. Forget about everything. Now come on, catch me.’

She dodged ahead of Norah, weaving in and out of the people streaming to the dining-room, doubling back round the rose bed and then up to Norah again. He hadn’t caught her, though it had been close and he was really laughing now.

After dinner they sat in the ballroom and shook hands to left and then right as the compère directed. The young man with knobbly knees was on their right, sitting with his mother. Norah shook his hand, and Rosie watched as she smiled, her head tilted, her mouth pursed.

‘Good evening,’ Norah said.

His reply was lost in the chorus of ‘Hi-di-hi’ from the campers to the compère. What would the Lakeside Club think of all this? Rosie thought, laughing, happy, free. Frank and Nancy would love it.

The band played Glenn Miller numbers most of the night and Rosie tapped her foot to ‘Little Brown Jug’. At the Ladies’ Excuse Me she watched Norah, who stayed in her seat, her neck rigid, her eyes lowered. The young man had not yet asked her to dance.

Rosie nudged her sister, who ignored her but turned to Ollie and said, ‘I think I’d like to try one of your cigarettes please, Ollie.’ Her mouth was rounded, her vowels careful.

Ollie turned, his hands red from clapping to the music, his forehead sweating in the heat.

‘Eh, what’s that?’ he said.

Rosie stood, walked round the table and tapped Knobbly Knees on the shoulder, drawing him to his feet. Norah’s neck became even more rigid.

‘Well, hi there.’ Rosie’s voice was more of a drawl than it had ever been. ‘Sure is a great little dance hall.’

She was leading him on to the floor now. His hands were sweaty, his nose was too and the pores of his skin were big. His glasses were steel-rimmed and glinted beneath the chandelier. She stood with him, her hand on his shoulder, waiting for the beat, feeling Norah’s eyes drilling through her, to him.

‘Say,’ she said, ‘I guess this dance is way beyond me. You come on over and we’ll get Norah to show me how it’s done.’ She pulled him behind her. He still hadn’t spoken.

‘Say, what’s your name?’

‘Harold Evans.’ His voice was high-pitched.

They were almost at the table now and Norah turned from them. Jack was looking down at his drink.

‘So, Norah,’ Rosie said. ‘This is Harold Evans. We can’t seem to get the hang of this dance. How about helping us out?’ Rosie pulled at her arm, hauling her up.

‘Harold Evans, this is Norah Norton. Naughty Norah for short. That’s Jack and Ollie Parker. Now off you go, before you miss the music.’

Rosie stepped round them, walking off to the bar to buy a cool drink, not watching to see if they danced. She had done her bit. It was up to them.

Jack was still laughing when she got back, his head down, his shoulders shaking.

‘I didn’t recognise him with his trousers on,’ he said. ‘And where do you get the brass nerve?’

Rosie sipped her drink, winking at Ollie. ‘I just pretended I was Nancy. I didn’t want Norah’s long face all week anyway and it would be nice for her to have someone. I have.’ She touched his hand.

The dancers wouldn’t leave the floor that night, even when midnight had been and gone, so the Redcoats formed a crocodile and danced them out in a conga and had to do that each evening from then on.

The next day Norah met Harold and sat on the deckchairs around the pool, watching as others swam. His mother sat with them, knitting, but Norah looked happy.

‘He’s a clerk in a bank,’ she had told Rosie the previous night. ‘An office worker, not just someone selling things off a stall.’

‘I expect he likes prefabs too,’ Rosie had said, not showing her anger.

Rosie went to the gymnasium on her own, Norah was too busy sitting round the pool. She met Jack and Ollie and they walked to the fairground and shot at pitted yellow ducks which flapped up and down on a revolving belt. Jack and she pulled ropes in swinging boats and the wind rushed through her hair and Jack whistled as her skirt blew up. Ollie laughed and went to watch the Beauty Competition.

Jack and she sat on the ghost train. She screamed when the cobwebs dangled in her face and she remembered the Polyphemus moth and screamed again, glad that it was Jack’s arm around her, not Joe’s. Glad that it was his lips which touched hers, clung to hers, and his hand that now stroked her breast, but gently on top of her blouse.

They looked ahead as the train burst through the rubber doors, out into the daylight, past laughing campers, past a Redcoat who called ‘Hi-di-hi’.

‘Hi-di-ho,’ Rosie yelled back and Jack too and they looked at one another as they walked away, their hands touching. His closed round hers and squeezed and now they smiled. ‘I love you,’ they said together.

They stopped again at the yellow ducks. Jack shot three down out of four. He tried again and shot down all four.

The Redcoat behind the counter handed him a pink teddy bear.

‘When your turn comes, you should do well on the ranges. I was bloody hopeless.’ He was fair-haired and hazel-eyed. Jack handed the teddy to Rosie.

‘What was it like?’

‘Not so bad if you like being kicked around a square, having no sleep, and peeling spuds until your arms drop off.’ The Redcoat picked up his cigarettes from the counter, flicked one out to Jack who shook his head. ‘Just put one out.’

The man laughed. ‘You’ll be smoking sixty a day before you’re through your first week.’

Rosie knew what he meant and she gripped Jack’s arm. She had forgotten about National Service. She had forgotten that Jack would go.

‘It’s not dangerous though, is it?’ she asked.

Jack jogged her arm. ‘Come on, don’t be daft. We’ve got loads of time anyway.’

Rosie didn’t move. ‘But it isn’t, is it?’ Because they were talking about Jack and this was important.

‘No, you have to volunteer to go to the hot spots. Most of the time.’ He nodded and winked at Jack. ‘Go on, have a free go.’

Jack picked up the air gun. ‘You sure?’

‘Well, can’t nick any money with these jackets coming down over me trouser pockets so you have the perk instead. Even have to keep me fags on the counter so I don’t need to reach in me pockets.’ He shrugged. ‘Go on. Won’t hurt anyone.’

Rosie paid anyway and gave Norah the second teddy.

The weather held up all week and Rosie wouldn’t think of him leaving her. It was so far away. Conscription might be stopped by then. By Friday her tan was deeper and his lips were on hers and nothing else mattered.

That night Harold sat with them and told them about his brass-rubbing weekends. He told them how he travelled round churches and was always losing his cycle clips. Norah laughed, her finger dabbing at the corner of her mouth.

‘Yes, fascinating hobby. I used to do some in Somerset.’

Jack spilt his beer and Norah frowned at him.

‘We have some very old churches near us in Middle Street, you know,’ Norah continued. ‘I should think you might find some rather nice things to rub.’

Ollie coughed, then stood up. ‘Must go,’ he said hurriedly, ‘need to phone.’

Rosie said, ‘Why don’t you come over, Harold? You live near Putney, don’t you? Could be a change of scene for you.’ She was shaking Jack’s leg. ‘That would be nice, Jack, wouldn’t it?’ It would be lovely, she replied to herself. It would be ‘real swell’ to have Norah happy and away.

They rushed to dinner as usual and Jack said that Norah had never been near a brass in her life, let alone rubbed it.

Ollie didn’t come for his meal. They found him in the Tyrolean Bar when they had kicked their legs out in the last conga, singing, whistling out of the dance hall with streamers draped round their necks, and hats lopsided on their heads.

He was drunk. Maisie had not been in the local as they had arranged and his anger was frightening.

When the charabanc dropped them Maisie came to the front door and pushed aside Ollie’s hands which were shaking from the beer of the night before. She pushed aside his muttered oaths and questions and took hold of Rosie who had been bracing herself for the row that would come, wanting to shield Jack from the tensions of these two.

Rosie watched Maisie’s lips, heard her words, then dropped her bag, turned and began to run, up the road, past the grocer’s down First Street, then Wellington Avenue, past the glue factory and through the smell which always hung so thickly in the air.

‘Grandpa’s very ill,’ Maisie had said. ‘He wouldn’t get the doctor. It was too expensive. He made me get medicine from the chemist but it wasn’t enough. The doctor came in the end. I fetched him. It’s his chest and his heart. He’s in St Matthew’s. He’s never going to come home, Rosie, but he wouldn’t let me bring you back. He wanted you and Jack to have that time together.’

He’s never going to come home, come home, come home. Her feet were beating it out now and the breath was harsh in her throat. He must come home. He’s Grandpa. He mustn’t leave me. She was dodging round people, leaving them staring. One man pulled at her arm. She shook him off.

‘It’s me grandpa. He must come home,’ she shouted at him. ‘He mustn’t leave me.’

Then Jack was with her, running alongside.

‘It’s all right. It’ll be all right,’ he said, his voice coming in bursts as he ran, but how could anything be all right now? she wanted to scream at him. I left him alone and now he’s dying. But there was no breath left and at last she had to slow down and walk, bent over, the stitch digging into her side, her mouth dry, her shoes scuffed and dirty from the street dust. Then she was off again as it eased, Jack alongside. Norah hadn’t come and she was glad.

There were long tiled corridors in the hospital with green ceilings and notice boards on chains, like the swings in the park.

‘But they’re not rusty,’ she said, walking quickly, her shoes clipping along the floor, hearing the squeak of the swings, remembering the smell of rust, the scent of summer.

Jack pulled her back. ‘Slow down, calm down.’ But she pulled away. Grandpa was in here, alone. Didn’t he understand? She had left him and now he was in here, alone.

They found his ward but the Sister stopped Rosie at the doors, her cap starched and upright, her face thin.

‘Visiting hours are between three and four or six and seven,’ she said. She held a clipboard in one hand and her watch was upside down. Why was that? So that she could see it of course. There was another sign hanging outside the ward,
WARD
to. Would that squeak?