At the Break of Day (40 page)

‘But Jake is almost there. He’s getting better every day,’ Luke protested, and Rosie nodded, looking at their clothes, looking at Joe’s. But no matter how slick he was, he was wrong.

‘He’ll make it. I’ll stake my reputation on it. I’ll pull in favours from Uncle Bob,’ she added quietly.

Joe put the glass back on the table, and looked towards the group who were edging their way back through the tables.

‘Look, Luke, you’re a commodity. Bob can package you but you’ve got to get rid of the weak link. There’s no room for feelings in this game.’ He turned to Rosie. ‘This is business. You need to toughen up, Rosie.’

Rosie stared at Joe, then at Luke. She waited.

‘No,’ Luke said getting to his feet. ‘Thank you, Joe, but no. We all go, or no one goes. No package without Jake.’ His smile was ironic.

Joe shrugged. ‘I think you’re wrong.’

Rosie put up her hand to stop Luke. She could fight for Luke now that he had made his decision. And she would fight because there was more than one way of doing business. You didn’t have to be hard, just fair, and Joe could be fair. He had shown her that this afternoon.

‘He’s not wrong. Bob thinks of his bands as people. You’re wrong, Joe. Think of the group who played at the barbecue, Bob nurtured them. Jake needs confidence, that’s all, and a little time.’ She wanted to shout at him, but she kept her voice calm. ‘Bob wouldn’t thank you if you passed this group over and they made it elsewhere, because they will.’

She watched him as he crossed his legs, picked at a thread on the sleeve of his jacket, rolled it between his thumb and forefinger. His nails were short, clean and square.

‘Have you a lot invested in these guys?’ Joe asked her quietly, leaning forward, talking behind his glass.

‘A lot of time, a lot of effort, a lot of pleasure. Why not give them until you leave England? See what happens.’ Why did he equate everything with money? She thought of his family. How could he be otherwise? But he could learn. She remembered his hand on her child. She still held on to Luke’s jacket.

Joe looked at her and grinned. ‘Why not? Bob’s in no rush. OK. You got a deal. Just one condition.’

Rosie felt Luke relax, she let her hand drop from his jacket, feeling the relief surge in her too. She nodded. ‘What?’

‘I’ve got to write a feature for Frank on the Festival. You’re expected to send one back too. Show me round. Let’s have some fun.’ He was smiling, his voice was lazy again as it had been on the beach by the lake.

She didn’t want to celebrate while Jack was fighting, but she nodded. He knew about Lucia. He was going to report to Bob and he had been fair. There was no choice, but they wouldn’t be alone. She would take Lucia, Jack’s child.

But before she went anywhere, with Joe or anyone else, she took Lucia to Middle Street one morning when Norah would be at work. She pushed the back yard gate open, and picked up Lucia, taking her to Grandpa’s roses, their fragrance heavy on the mid June air.

She walked along by The Reverend Ashe, took a matchbox from her pocket and tipped out the ladybird she had found, easing it with her finger on to the underside of the bud where too many greenfly were flourishing. Poor Grandpa.

‘This will never do, will it, Lucia?’ she said softly, bending to kiss the head of the sleeping baby. She heard the back door open and turned. Norah wasn’t at work, she was standing in the doorway with a mouth like a sparrow’s bum. Nothing changed.

‘Hello, Norah.’

Her sister looked her up and down and then the baby in the fine white crocheted shawl which Mrs Eaves had made.

‘I heard you’d had it.’ She stood with her arms crossed over her breasts.

Rosie moved closer. ‘I thought I would bring her to see Grandpa’s roses, and now to meet you.’

Norah shook her head. ‘I don’t want to see your by-blows and now you’ve fiddled with the roses you can go. That fool Harold spends enough time on them as it is.’ Her face was tight.

Rosie gently brushed away a bee that was hovering over Lucia. No, nothing changed. ‘I’m sorry I bothered you.’

She reached out and picked the dark red rose from the raised bed. It was loosely budded. She smelt it, put Lucia back in the pram, and laid the rose on her blanket. Before she left she turned. ‘There have been no letters for me then? No news for Ollie about Jack?’

Norah shook her head. ‘He won’t come back for you. You’re on your own now.’

Rosie nodded. ‘I’m not on my own any more, Norah.’ She looked at Lucia, then pushed her from the yard, towards the rec where she sat on the swing with Lucia in her arms and watched the children playing, the mothers sitting knitting, talking. Thinking of Lee and of herself. Of Jack, of Norah. Listening to the echoes.

Norah sat in the kitchen, stirring her tea. The door was shut against the sun and those bloody roses. Shut against the sight of her sister with the baby that she and Harold seemed unable to produce.

Yes, there had been a letter from Jack. She had destroyed it. Yes, there had been a letter to Ollie informing him that Jack was a prisoner of war. She had told Ollie that Rosie had been informed.

She sipped her tea, looking at the space where Grandpa’s chair had been, at the shelves devoid of books. How dare she take things from this house? How dare she have a child and a new white shawl? How dare she be loved, because Norah had read Jack’s letter before she had burnt it. How dare she be loved when Harold no longer sat opposite her in front of the fireplace, and instead went out rubbing brasses or pruning roses. How dare she?

It was a hot day when Joe and Rosie went to the Festival, and as they approached the South Bank and the Skylon that seemed to hang in the air above them, Rosie said, ‘I wonder if this isn’t some sort of paternalistic exercise in educating the masses. There are so many exhibitions here which seem designed to present British Society as a family divided, not by class, but by a rift between the imaginative and the practical.’

Why was she talking like this? she wondered. Lecturing and pointing towards the twenty-seven acres which lay between County Hall and Waterloo Bridge.

‘Casson and the other architects have laid it out like a miniature wonderland. It’s crazy when there’s still so much hardship, so much ruin. There’s still so much fighting in Palestine and Africa and Korea.’

That was why she was lecturing. Because she was with another man and that man was pushing her child. He had been kind, and it was good to have someone with her, but it should have been Jack.

There were thousands of others strolling with them, stopping, investigating here, by the red, white and blue awning, the role of the British in exploration and discovery. Over there, by the yellow stand, was the geology of the country. Over there by the brown was the history of the monarchy.

‘This is some kind of a pat on the back, is it?’ Joe said, cupping his hand round the cigarette in his mouth, protecting the match from the wind which lifted his hair. He stood with his back to the crowds, one of whom nudged him. He dropped the match. Began again.

‘Yes, I suppose so. We deserve it. You just have to look around.’ Rosie pushed Lucia on. ‘You haven’t got this kind of damage back in the States, have you? You don’t have to queue for basic foodstuffs. You just call in your loans.’

Joe laughed, drew on his cigarette, flicked the match into a litter bin. ‘Point taken. But this really is quite something.’

He was taking photographs now, of the piazzas, the terraces, the murals and modern sculptures. Rosie looked in one pavilion, saw the new design in furniture, the chairs with spindly legs and the spidery staircases rising into the air. They looked as though they would take no weight.

An exhibitor smiled and called her over. ‘Come on, madam, try the chair.’

She looked at Joe, who nodded. ‘Go on then.’ He took a photo and she pulled a face and then another and he was clicking all the time and then they were laughing.

They looked at the plan of the exhibits, following the red dotted line with their fingers, and Joe said they must retrace their steps and start at the beginning or they wouldn’t get any sort of an article out of all this.

They began then at The Land of Britain and Rosie took notes on how the natural wealth of the British Isles came into being. She told Joe that she was going to slant her feature by comparing the new architecture – the piazzas, the modern sculpture – with damaged Britain, utilitarian Britain, the Nissen huts, the pill-boxes. He called her a ‘goddamn pinko’. They laughed and she waited but he didn’t tell her how he was going to write his feature.

They moved along, listening, looking, writing, talking, and he told her that Frank was well, much better than anyone had hoped.

‘More important, though, are the circulation figures. They’re right up again now that he’s started using a pseudonym. The money’s rolling in again.’

Rosie looked at him, at his smiling face, his assured manner, the hands which carried his notepad. A woman was in the way of the pram and Rosie stopped, waited.

‘Excuse me, ma’am,’ Joe called. ‘We’re trying to get through here.’

The woman turned. Rosie smiled. ‘Don’t hurry, we’re looking too.’

She was embarrassed that Joe had wanted to force his way through. They had all day, there was no panic. She looked at the small models of the Skylon, the symbol of the Festival, which a trader was selling. Rosie bought one, and put it on the end of the pram, and the woman came over, looked at Lucia and smiled.

‘You’re a lucky couple, she’s lovely.’

Rosie nodded and Joe flushed. ‘I know,’ Rosie said and it was only later as they were looking at the photographs representing the wide range of British manufacturers that she said gently, ‘You said that the circulation figures were more important than Frank and that the money is rolling in. I hardly feel that either of these things is more important than Frank. Now I must find somewhere to feed Lucia.’

She looked around. There was a tent for lost children with a red pennant on the top. Her breasts were full and heavy, they were aching. She was angry with Joe.

She pushed the pram into the tent, sat on a folding chair, put Lucia to her breast and thought of the woman who had looked at the baby and said how lucky
they
were. And though she had been angry with Joe it had been so good to pretend for that short moment that she was one of a pair. She looked at the ring on her finger. Was she always going to be alone, or would he come?

They ate sandwiches and tea at a stall and Joe said, ‘I didn’t mean to say that the paper was more important than Frank. I guess you must know that.’

Rosie ate the moist bread, the Wensleydale cheese.

‘Do I?’ she replied. ‘I’m not sure that I know anything any more.’

Joe put down his cup and asked for coffee because he couldn’t drink the tea. It was ninepence. ‘Gee, that’s a lot.’

He took it and turned back to her. ‘It’s just that it’s everything he’s worked for. He loves that paper. I love it. I work real hard now. It’s coming up good. It’s going to be a good investment.’

‘And what about McCarthy? Do you write against that poison, Joe? Do you shout that it’s wrong to victimise innocent people?’

Joe bought another coffee and they moved away to let others near. ‘Frank writes against it. That’s enough.’

They finished eating, then walked further but Rosie was tired and there was something wrong. She was still angry and she didn’t understand why.

‘I must get back now, Joe. I’ve some calls to make, some details for Luke’s tour to tie up and the other bands too.’

He nodded, pushing a path through the crowds. ‘You shouldn’t have to work like this, not with a baby. It needs two.’

Rosie shrugged. ‘I’m doing just fine.’

‘You sure are but it’s a lot to handle. You’re just swell.’ He leaned over and propped the Skylon upright, but it fell over again as she mounted the kerb on their way out.

‘Is it still OK for this evening?’ he asked.

Rosie nodded. They had planned to go with Luke and Sandy downriver to Battersea Park to see the open air sculptures and then on to the fun-fair. She hadn’t wanted to go alone with Joe.

Mrs Orsini looked after Lucia that evening and they took a cab to Battersea Park which exuded so much light that it bounced off the clouds and for a moment Rosie was with Frank and Nancy in New York again.

As they arrived fireworks soared high into the air. They heard the bangs and the whizz and Joe said, ‘Guess they knew we were coming and this is the welcome mat.’

Tonight he was different somehow, he talked of Frank’s expertise, his kindness. He said how much he respected him, how empty life would have been if anything had happened to him, and Rosie looked at him and smiled, her anger dying.

‘I’m glad you feel the same as I do.’

They linked arms with Luke and Sandy and marched in step to the fun-fair singing ‘Roll Out the Barrel’, and by the time they arrived Joe knew the words.

They sat on painted horses, clutched the spiralling poles, and couldn’t talk because the music was so loud, but they laughed. They all laughed and then they swung in boats, the ropes slipping between their hands. They shot ducks and she wouldn’t think of Jack. They threw darts and she won a teddy bear and Joe carried it for her. They laughed, sang, drank and she felt young again. So young and the lights were on the river and it was as though she was by the lake. She felt Joe’s arm around her, felt his kiss on her cheek.

‘It’s sure good to see you again, Rosie,’ he murmured, and she smiled.

‘Yes, it’s good to see a friend from America. It’s been so long. You were kind to tell me about Frank, and send my ticket over. I shall always be grateful to you for that.’ She touched his face. ‘Thank you.’

Luke grabbed her, pointed towards a striped tent. ‘This we have got to see.’ He dragged her off and she laughed and touched his cheek too. It was good to have friends.

They tried to guess the weight of the fat woman in the striped tent and ate candy floss which stuck to their faces in melted strands. They stood and watched the horses again, then had another go, and another. In the hall of mirrors they pulled faces, stuck out their legs, lifted their arms, and laughed until they ached.