At the Break of Day (11 page)

By the middle of October she was moved back to records and played Duke Ellington for Jack and he touched her face when he walked in and heard. He stood still, listening to the piano as it beat its rhythm.

Norah was on spectacles and would stand waiting while customers read the printed card with the letters that diminished in size. Her nails clicked on the metal frames that she held in her hand while she waited, her face long as she fitted them around strange ears.

Rosie played ‘I’ll Be Seeing You’, and smiled across as Norah scowled, but then regretted that she had done it, because the bridge between them had not yet been rebuilt.

October became November, and though there was still grief in the quiet hours of the night, she no longer kept her bedroom door open. There was hope, there was fun, there was Jack.

They danced and they kissed but still lightly, gently, and his hands didn’t slide beneath her blouse nor his tongue probe her mouth and she was glad. She didn’t tell him about Joe though, even when he told her of the girlfriend he had had in Somerset, the one he had kissed in the apple orchard. She said instead that it was only another five months until her exams and that she must work until midnight again.

She said this too when she wrote to Frank and Nancy but she also told them of the rationing, and the wind which grew ever more cold. She told them how Maisie called over the fence every Sunday and passed bread and hot dripping and how she and Grandpa ate it on the bench, wrapped in scarves and coats.

She told them how she, Jack and Ollie had helped Mrs Eaves’s sister move into an old Army barracks north of London along with two hundred other squatters. They had pushed an old barrow with some furniture down the road from the flat she shared with her son and his wife and three children – a flat which had only one bedroom.

She told them how the people were taking over these empty buildings because there was nowhere else for them to live. How the Local Authorities were accepting them and connecting water and electricity, for what else could they do? There were no houses available. She told them that these were the things that she would write about when she started her proper job in the summer.

Frank wrote back asking why Mrs Eaves’s sister hadn’t moved into one of the prefabs they had been hearing about. If she didn’t know, she should find out, get the complete picture, start thinking like a journalist.

Rosie asked Grandpa as they sat in front of the coal fire while the rain teemed down as it had done for the last seven days. Jack had collected some wood from a flooded bomb site and this was stacked on its end to one side. There was a smell of wet dust from it which crept through the whole house, but it would make the coal last longer.

‘There aren’t enough. They’re having lotteries in some Local Authorities, though why anyone would queue to live in one of those I don’t know,’ said Grandpa, flicking the ash of a Woodbine into the fire. He coughed. The damp November air was making his chest thick again and his tan was fading, but he had had no accidents for months.

‘Well, I can,’ ground out Norah. ‘A nice clean bungalow with a neat garden, a nice sort of neighbour. A nice new town away from London’s mess. I’d want it.’

Rosie looked round the room, at the books either side of the fireplace, the American oilcloth on the table, bought from Woolworths. She thought of the house by the lake, the house in Lower Falls, and knew now that all three were home. At last all three were home.

As Christmas drew near she sewed cotton sheeting into two small pillowcases and filled them with hops, sending one to Frank and Nancy, hiding one for Grandpa. She bought a Duke Ellington record for Jack and Evening in Paris perfume for Maisie, Californian Poppy for Norah (because Norah needed all the sweetness she could get, she told Jack).

She bought Ollie paint brushes because he was always talking of doing up the house, but there were so few materials available. She bought Nancy a Union Jack brooch which was left over from the war. It was luminous ‘so Frank will be able to track you down wherever you are’, she wrote as she put their card in with the parcel.

She told them that her typing was still improving, the Palais was still fun. She did not tell them how Jack kissed her good night or that, as she crossed off the days to Christmas, her grief was deep and dark again because she remembered Lower Falls and the times they had spent together.

Instead she sat by the fire with Grandpa on 20 December until ten p.m. colouring, cutting and sticking paper chains together as they had always done.

‘I’ve missed this,’ he said, his hands folding the strips slowly, holding the ends between thumb and finger while they stuck together. ‘I’ve missed our Christmases.’

‘So have I, Grandpa,’ she said. But she was not thinking of paper chains. She was thinking of the thick snow where here there was rain. Thick snow which had turned the world into a Christmas card as they had travelled by tram on her first American Christmas to the main shopping centres which were decorated with lights, and with streamers and garlands, snowmen and Father Christmas. The air had rung out with carols and there had been a Father Christmas on each floor, wilting in the central heating.

That night she didn’t sleep at all. The next day when she walked home from work, there were no lighted trees in the windows, no people on skis and horse-drawn sleighs, no sparkling snow. There was nothing of the excitement she had known in Lower Falls for Lee, who was looking out into the street, his face pressed against the window. It wouldn’t goddamn do.

At home there was a small piece of fatty bacon to boil along with carrots and potatoes. She did this but didn’t talk. She poured Grandpa’s tea, smiled at Norah and then went in to Maisie, wrapping Lee up warmly, taking the pushchair, going to the market, talking to Jack who nodded and asked Ollie to mind the stall.

They went by bus up West, and walked down the streets where there were some decorations, but not many and no Christmas lights. They saw the tree in Trafalgar Square, a gift from the Norwegians, then went into an Oxford Street store, up in the lift, Lee looking, laughing, touching, until they reached the grotto.

They queued, Jack’s arm about her waist, holding the folded pushchair with his free hand. She held Lee, kissing his face. His skin was soft and warmer now than it had been in the street. He pulled her hair and she laughed.

‘You should have kept your plaits,’ Jack said. ‘He could have swung on those.’

He leaned the pushchair against his leg, and took Lee from her, holding him up, turning him round in the air, laughing as he laughed, dropping him down against his chest, blowing on his neck.

‘I love him,’ he said, looking at Rosie.

She nodded. ‘Silent Night’ was playing on the gramophone. The record was scratched but it didn’t matter. She wanted Lee to see and feel the magic as she had done because it would help her own grief this Christmas; her first away from Frank and Nancy.

She told Jack of the sleighs, the Christmas tree they had put up in the front garden, the garlands that hung on every wall and from every ceiling. She told him of the trams which had flattened the nickels she and Sandra had laid on the tracks when they were eleven. Jack blew again on Lee’s neck, then bent and kissed her cheek.

Lee cried when Father Christmas took him on his knee in the dimly lit grotto, but Jack dropped down beside him and the crying stopped. The present was wrapped in red paper and Lee tore at it as they left. It was a wooden car. Blue and red, with wheels which spun.

Rosie remembered the bald tyres which Frank had heaped into the boot of the car during the war in case the worn ones he was using punctured. There were no new ones available.

There were plenty now, though, and new cars too, but here, in England, new cars were to be sold abroad to help the national debt and people patched up their old ones and made do. In America they were pitching into a boom, Frank said. Over here they were trying to pay for the war which had bled them dry.

‘I don’t mind queuing. I don’t mind being rationed, or being cold,’ Rosie said as they walked back down Oxford Street. ‘It’s time I had my share of that. But I wanted Lee to see another world, just for tonight.’

That night she slept, at least for a while.

On 23 December Jack called as she was settling Grandpa by the fire, his newspaper on his lap, his Woolworths glasses catching the light from the flames. The coal was wet, hissing and smoking. As Jack came in she put a sheet of newspaper to the fireplace.

‘Leave the door open for a moment, Jack. Let’s get a bit of a draught.’ She held the paper with her fingertips as the fire roared suddenly, blazing red, browning the paper, which she snatched away, the heat hurting her face.

‘That’s great.’

She dug into the coals with the poker.

‘There you are, Grandpa, that’s a bit better.’ She turned to Jack. ‘Are we going up the Palais?’

She was reaching for her gloves, catching the coat which Jack tossed to her from the back of the chair.

Jack looked at Grandpa and winked. ‘What d’you think, Grandpa? Shall we go up the Palais? D’you reckon this girl could take a change?’

Grandpa looked at Rosie. He rubbed his hands together, then picked up the paper. ‘I expect she can. It sounded a good idea when Maisie told me.’ He looked over the top at Rosie. ‘Just put the guard up, there’s a good girl, and don’t hurry back.’

Rosie looked from one to the other. The guard was warm, she pushed it up against the fireplace, pulling the hearth rug well back.

‘What are you two goons talking about? What’s wrong with the Palais? It’s the special Christmas night.’

She was pulling her coat on now. The buckle was cold as she threaded the belt through. Jack pulled up her collar.

‘Keep that up, it’s cold enough to freeze the balls off that monkey in Elm Street.’ He pushed her towards the front door. ‘Bye, Grandpa,’ he called. ‘Be good. And if you can’t be good be careful.’

Rosie heard Grandpa laugh and said, ‘If I’d said that he’d have lathered me.’

Jack marched through the yard, past the hard-pruned roses, out down the alley to the Tube station where people were rushing, their faces pinched. Rosie was tired, cold. Presents had arrived from Frank and Nancy for them all this morning. She had asked Norah what she had sent to the doctor and his wife in Somerset. What had they sent her?

Nothing, Norah had replied. They have their own children. There was nothing in it for me. Everything will go to the kids. All they offered was college, like yours did. I don’t want that, too much hard work. Why keep in touch?

Rosie told Jack now what her sister had said.

‘I don’t know why she can’t love or why she’s so bitter,’ she added.

Jack shrugged. ‘She always has been. When will you realise that? Nothing will change her. It’s in her bones. She’s just getting more like your grandma every day. Nothing is ever enough. Nothing is ever right, but I think she misses your grandma too. It was always the two of them against you and your grandpa.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s made her more spiteful. Maybe she’ll change when she gets a boyfriend, someone of her own.’

The Tube train lurched and swayed through the tunnels and Jack held her hand. He never wore gloves.

‘I’m hot,’ she said, removing her own, because she wanted to feel his skin against hers.

‘Nearly there,’ Jack said, standing up as the train stopped in Bond Street station.

‘Nearly where?’ she asked as she was pulled along behind him, still holding his hand but jostled now by the crowds surging up from the train into the evening air.

‘Nearly reached your Christmas treat,’ Jack said, turning and grinning at her as they reached the pavement, slowing until she was up with him. ‘You’ve been looking as though you’ve been hurting, deep inside. Can’t have that, can we?’

He wasn’t looking at her as he said this. His cheeks had flushed. ‘Thought this might help. You gave Lee a treat. This is yours.’

They were south of Oxford Street now, in Soho. They were strolling along with many others and Jack told her that Soho had been the hunting cry of the Duke of Monmouth and that he had built a rather ‘super’ house on one side of Soho Square.

Rosie laughed. ‘This is my treat, is it? A guided tour of Soho?’ She dug him in the ribs.

‘That’s right, but there’s more, my dear girl. Just you wait and see.’

They were walking past an accordionist who held his cap between his teeth. There were two sixpences in it. Jack gave him another and then they turned into a pub, past two tarts who stood either side of the door.

‘Not tonight, ladies,’ Jack said.

‘Too young anyway, ducks,’ the blonde with black roots called back. Rosie flushed but Jack laughed.

Inside it was dimly lit but warm … There were sailors at the far end, sitting with civilians, all men.

Jack ordered a beer and a ginger beer for Rosie. Rosie stood back in case they were thrown out because they were too young. Jack was grinning, chatting, and he was served with a beer after all. Charm the bloody birds out of the trees, Rosie echoed the woman in the market.

She moved towards the end where the sailors sat, and Jack pulled her back as he sipped the froth and edged her towards a table nearer the other end.

‘That’s a pick-up,’ he said, nodding towards the sailors.

Rosie looked again. ‘But they’re all men.’

Jack smiled and leaned his head back against the dark wood panelling.

Rosie looked at her own drink. ‘I haven’t seen this in the States,’ was all she said.

‘Or this.’ Jack nudged her, pointing to the onion seller who wore his strings of onions over his shoulder. One woman sneaked up behind and cut a single one off, disappearing into the crowd. No one said anything.

Rosie remembered the cherries she had put over her ears in Frank’s back garden. Rich red shiny earrings and they would be having Christmas over there without her.

They finished their drinks and moved out past the tarts again.

‘A little older but not enough,’ the blonde said again, rubbing her shoe up the back of her leg. ‘It’s a bit bloody cold.’

‘You’re right there,’ Jack said, steering Rosie past them, strolling with her along the street. The restaurants were busy, holly hung from the ceilings and the white-bibbed waiters looked like the dippers which flew in bursts around the hop-yards. Rosie felt the tears gather in her throat because it was dark and cold and she was a long way from Lower Falls, a long way from Herefordshire.