Rock a Bye Baby (15 page)

‘Have you got some kind of instinct that tunes you into a bloke you fancy? Is that it?’

‘My dreams always come true,’ Rita said smugly. ‘Witches run in our family.’

Marcie’s first thought was of her grandmother and her herbs and superstitions, but then she cast a curious glance over her shoulder to where Rita’s mum was spreading out food and drink on a grey army blanket.

Rita saw where she was looking. ‘Not that old cow! I mean my real mother.’

‘Your real mother!’ Marcie couldn’t believe what Rita had just said. ‘Are you having me on?’

Rita shook her head. ‘No. Course not. My mum died. Dad married Steph when I was really little because he thought a girl should have a mother figure. It was alright early on, but now she’s just a pain in the ass.’

An instant thought came to Marcie that witches weren’t the only thing running in Rita’s family. Rita told tall stories. And she didn’t like being outdone. Strange as it might be, Marcie not having a mother was something to be equalled, or even bettered.

On the other hand Stephanie not being Rita’s real mother explained a lot. It was Alan who took full responsibility for his daughter. Stephanie only put her oar in now and again, though her advice was rarely heeded.

The day was too perfect. Marcie decided not to spoil it and to take what Rita had said as the truth.

‘Do you ever think how it might have been if she was still around? Your real mother I mean,’ said Marcie.

‘Yeah. I fancy having somebody to go shopping with and have secrets with.’ Rita said it a little sadly. ‘But then,’ she said, her face suddenly wreathed in smiles, ‘I wouldn’t be able to twist me dad round me little finger then, now would I?’

‘I wish my mother was around,’ Marcie said wistfully. ‘I wonder where she is. I wonder what she’s doing.’

‘Does she ever get in touch?’ asked Rita.

Marcie shook her head. The act of mulling over the question had left what felt like a lump of lead in her throat. ‘No. Never. You’d think she would, though, wouldn’t you.’

‘Depends,’ said Rita. ‘Might have a new family or be living in some other country. Like America! I’d like to live in America,’ she said throwing back her head and looking up at the sky. ‘It seems a lot more exciting than Sheppey.’

Marcie squinted against the harsh light shining from the sea. Rita wouldn’t know that what she said
had hurt her. She didn’t like the thought of her mother having a new family. How could she possibly think more of them than she did of her? And she must think more of them seeing as she never enquired after her daughter. There’d been a film on at the local fleapit where a woman had lost her memory and couldn’t remember that she’d once been married and had a child. Perhaps her mother had lost her memory too and didn’t know who she was. It was a thin hope and yet Marcie wished desperately that it was true.

She voiced her desire out loud. ‘I wish I knew where she was. I’d go and see her.’

‘But you don’t, so that’s that.’

Rita’s exclamation sounded so final, so curt. Marcie was having trouble dragging her thoughts back from a dark void that she couldn’t quite see into. She wanted to see her mother again. She wanted her mother to want her. She sighed. There was no cure for the feeling of emptiness she sometimes felt. All she could do was forget the past and live in the present.

Meanwhile, they’d changed into their swimming costumes. Marcie threw off her towel.

‘Race you!’

She dashed off before Rita could get up from the wall they’d been sitting on. Her kicking feet left a shower of grit and pebbles in her wake.

The water was cold. On first contact it took her breath away. There was a swimming platform some
way out, perhaps 300 feet. Marcie prided herself on getting there first. Rita followed but was puffing and blowing by the time she made it.

A group of boys were already there along with two or three girls. The boys were lean and had the first beginnings of contoured muscles. The girls pretended not to be self-conscious. Through the wetness running down her face, Marcie recognised Suzy, one of the bike girls she’d met at the Crown.

‘Nice day,’ said Suzy.

‘Yeah. Real nice,’ said Marcie.

It occurred to her that Suzy was far too staid to be a leather girl – or whatever it was the girls called themselves. Suzy was wearing a red bikini. Marcie wished she had a bikini – her black one-piece that she’d worn for swimming lessons at school seemed so old-fashioned in comparison.

Someone wearing a pair of blue swimming trunks crouched down beside her. A kiss she recognised landed on her cheek.

Her heart skipped like a thrown pebble. Johnnie was here!

He grinned, looking pleased with the fact that he’d taken her by surprise. ‘You made it.’

With his help she heaved herself up onto the platform.

Droplets of water dripped from his wet hair and into her eyes. She laughed as he yanked her more
vigorously forward and into his arms. Again she felt his lips on her cheek. He only briefly moved to her lips.

‘People are watching,’ she whispered. ‘Rita’s parents are on the beach.’

They sat with their legs in the water. Rita had found Pete. He’d tried pulling her aboard like Johnnie had pulled her. Twice he tumbled into the water before both he and Suzy dragged her on.

Rita’s shrieking laughter caused Marcie to glance over in time to see that Pete had yanked open the front of Rita’s costume and was peering inside. If Johnnie did that to me I’d be mortified, she thought. But Johnnie hadn’t.

‘They’ll end up getting married if they carry on for long like that,’ observed Johnnie.

Marcie wasn’t so sure and said so.

‘If he gets her up the duff, they will,’ Johnnie pointed out. ‘Her old man is bound to make sure of that.’

‘You could be right. Alan’s a very kind person. My dad would have killed you if it wasn’t for him.’

‘Nah!’ said Johnnie shaking his head. ‘I’m too fast for your old man. Open the throttle and I was gone!’

‘OK, show off. But you’re right. Alan would make sure Rita was taken care of if she did get pregnant, and that includes making the bloke marry her.’

‘Is that so?’

‘Definitely.’

‘Would you marry me?’ he asked suddenly. ‘Even if you didn’t have to,’ he added.

She felt herself colouring up, laughed and tossed her head so that fronds of wet hair flicked across her face. ‘Now there’s a question to ask a girl you’ve only just met.’

‘We’ve met a few times,’ he countered, sounding quite hurt.

‘Not that many.’

‘You still haven’t answered my question.’

‘Which was …?’

‘Would you marry me – even if you didn’t have to?’

‘I’ll think about it.’

His smile disappeared and a dark almost wild look chilled his dark-blue eyes. ‘It doesn’t matter much. I wasn’t really being serious.’

She sensed by the sudden petulance around his mouth that he hadn’t liked her answer. Johnnie was used to girls fawning over him, agreeing to anything he said. She was under no illusions – they mostly said ‘yes’ to him no matter what it was he was asking.

Deep down she knew she was no exception. That was the way Johnnie got to you. He was like Brando in
The Wild Ones
, good looking, petulant and a challenge to tame. No girl could resist.

Marcie tried. She told herself that she wasn’t
besotted, so why did she want to please him? Why did she so readily speak the words she thought he wanted to hear?

‘I knew you were only joking. If I’d thought you were being serious I would have said yes.’

She laughed and his look brightened. Marcie suspected that women would pander to Johnnie’s every need all his life. Any girl who did marry him would have a lifetime of other women wanting him.

Jealousy was not a familiar emotion, but still it came. Deep down she realised that if she wanted him she’d have to live with it. Johnnie was irresistible to women and what was more, he knew it!

Stephanie Taylor watched the young people out on the swimming platform through red-rimmed sunglasses.

‘They’re with boys,’ she observed.

Alan merely grunted.

Stephanie adjusted her sunhat. She hated to burn. In case the sunhat wasn’t enough to keep her pale and interesting, she was sitting beneath a large pink and white sunshade.

‘That boy Rita’s with is taking a few liberties.’

‘Only natural,’ murmured Alan against the rim of his hat. Unlike Stephanie he adored the sunshine. Luckily he browned easily and knew he looked good with a tan. A brown skin emphasised his white teeth – and made him look like Alan Ladd, he always thought.

He was lying flat out on a blow-up lilo bed, his straw Panama pulled over his face, arms folded behind his head.

‘What are you going to do if Rita gets knocked up?’ Stephanie asked him.

‘Deal with it.’ Alan shifted his body as though what she said had made him feel uncomfortable. ‘Now cut the rabbit, will you? I’m trying to get some kip.’

He was only pretending to sleep. The sight of Marcie in that short skirt and white boots was the stuff of fantasy. He’d been pretty discrete watching her as she peeled her kit off and revealed the swimming costume beneath. The end result had been worth waiting for, though to see her in a bikini would have been even better.

The rain that had started on the Monday after the trip to the beach continued through Tuesday. Wednesday saw it pausing for breath and a glimmer of sun peering from behind the thick clouds that rolled in like coal dust from the North Sea.

Marcie arrived home at six and went straight through to the kitchen. After shaking the rain from her coat she hung it behind the back door to dry off.

The two boys were sitting at the big square table in the middle of the kitchen, eating bread and jam.

‘Where’s Gran?’

‘Down with the chickens,’ said Archie between bites of jam sandwich.

The stew simmering on the gas ring left a steamy haze over the kitchen window. Marcie rubbed at the misted pane and looked out. She could see a small figure leaning over the chicken run and heard the squawking and flapping of the birds.

Babs came in from work looking disgruntled. Her bouffant was plastered to her head in a sticky mass like a broken pancake. Her mascara ran in black rivulets down her cheeks.

‘Bloody rain,’ she muttered.

Once her coat was shaken and had joined Marcie’s behind the door, she turned her attention to the children.

Baby Annie was strapped firmly into her high chair. There was raspberry jam around her mouth and a sticky pink goo was running down her chin. The reason for this was that Arnold was letting her take turns to suck a large pink gobstopper which he held between finger and thumb.

Babs fetched him a belt around the ear. ‘Oi! Stop that! She’s only a baby. You’ll choke her, you silly sod.’

Alarmed by the sudden loud voice, the baby started crying and slid to one side. Babs gave her a bottle. ‘Drink that.’

Marcie started to get the plates out plus a large tin loaf ripe for slicing into thick doorsteps.

Her dad came in just as she was stirring the soup. He was working for Alan Taylor. ‘Charge hand,’ he responded when asked what his job was. ‘Like a foreman. I’m in charge of other blokes,’ he explained when Arnold had pressed him.

Marcie felt her father’s eyes on her.

‘Going out tonight?’ he asked.

There it was again, that forced good humour that set her teeth on edge. It was so false. Not like Alan who really meant what he said and had her best interests at heart.

‘Might be,’ she replied in an absent-minded manner.

‘Should go out, girl,’ he said.

He’d been doing his best to make amends for his former behaviour, for slapping her. Marcie remained reticent.

His mock joviality failed to impress and he knew it. She didn’t care if he looked crestfallen when she continued to freeze him out. Her father had let her down. His feeble attempts at making up merely left her cold. There was also that nagging question at the back of her mind: where was her mother? Was he telling the truth about her going off? The trouble was she couldn’t quite bring herself to ask him outright and couldn’t work out whether it was because of how he might react or her fear of the truth.

He tried again. ‘Here. I’ve got ten bob in my pocket. You can have it. Go out. Enjoy yourself.’

His eyes followed her hand as she reached for the bread knife. ‘What you going to do with that?’

‘Slice bread. Gran’s busy.’

‘Where is she?’

‘She’s out killing the chickens,’ young Arnold interceded. ‘She’s taken her chopper, the little one she uses to chop the chickens’ heads off.’

‘Bags I get a butcher’s at that,’ cried his bright-eyed younger brother. His skinny legs had been dangling from a chair while he stuffed a doorstep-sized jam
sandwich. Archie loved food but remained as skinny as a rake.

His father grabbed him. ‘Not so fast, son. What the hell is your gran thinking of, out killing a chicken just before we have our meal?’

Arnold took on a self-important look as he explained. Shoving the gobstopper over to one side of his mouth where it bulged against his cheek, he said, ‘She’s doing away with all the chickens and their house, and reckons she’s going to grow peas and beans. I don’t like vegetables very much, especially beans. Do you think we could dig a big hole when the chicken house is gone and have a nuclear shelter instead, like Mr Ellis? We could if she burns it down like she says she’s going to.’

‘Bloody good job,’ Babs sniffed, most of her attention fixed on filing her thumbnail.

Tony’s dark features stiffened. ‘What the bloody hell …’

No one really understood why he wrenched the back door open so forcibly, sending it crashing against the wall.

Marcie was curious and made a move to follow. Babs got to the door before she did.

‘Don’t go out there. Take my advice: never get between mother and son. You’ll only live to regret it.’

There was no way Marcie was going to take orders
from her stepmother. She wrenched the door from her grasp. ‘Don’t tell me what to do!’

She dashed out.

‘Wilful little cow!’ Babs shouted after her.