Soldier's Valentine (7 page)

Normally, Mary Anne wouldn’t have taken much notice. Biddy was entertaining and usually made her laugh, but not today; her body was telling her things weren’t quite the same and it worried her.

Fixing her mind on the subject of conversation helped overcome her queasy stomach. So did looking at the top of Biddy’s peroxide blonde head rather than her feet.

‘I’ve tried Penny Royal and senna pods, plus half a bottle of gin; I even rode our Lizzie’s bike over the cobbles, but that didn’t work either.’ Wincing at the memory, she rubbed her backside. ‘And I’ve still got the bruises.’

Biddy chortled, her face reddening with the effort of laughing and still trying to straighten her seams.

Even now in the midst of her trouble, Mary Anne touched the moss-covered brickwork with something akin to reverence. The washhouse was far more than somewhere to boil the bed sheets. It was a sign of defiance, of independence. Its damp bricks made her fingers tingle like the high note of a chilly tune.

Biddy pursed her bright red lips. Even when she wasn’t going anywhere, she never forgot her lipstick.

‘Not a good time to get in the pudding club – not with a bloody war looming.’

‘And not at my age,’ added Mary Anne, trying hard not to stare at the bristles lining Biddy’s upper lip. She shook her head in exasperation. ‘It’s just so … so …
embarrassing
.’

Biddy looked at her as though she could well understand why her old man, Henry Randall, had found her hard to resist. Mary Anne hadn’t run to fat like a lot of forty-plus women around, certainly not like Biddy whose belly sat like a blubbery doughnut on her equally flabby thighs. ‘You’re good fer yer age, Mary Anne.’

Mary Anne barely stopped herself turning bright red. The years had been kind. The reflection she saw every day in the mirror had wide-set greyish-green eyes, a neat chin and shoulder-length hair a few shades duskier than the gold of her youth, and a glorious complement to her smooth complexion. Her legs were long, her waist trim and she walked as though the best years were still ahead of her and ripe for the taking.

Reading the look in Biddy’s eyes, Mary Anne touched the pinpoints of crimson erupting on her cheeks despite her attempts to control them. ‘I didn’t entice him, Biddy. I believe in acting my age, and so should he.’

Biddy mumbled as she placed her pudding of a foot back on the ground. ‘Fat chance you got of getting him to do that. My Alf certainly don’t act ’is age. He’s just a bloody, big kid who thinks he’s Kent Street’s answer to Rudolf Valentino.’

Mary Anne smiled though her thoughts tapped like nervous fingers in her head. Snatches of conversation she’d had when counting out coins into a desperate hand in exchange for a pledged item – a nice piece of china, a clock, even a wedding ring; everyone was desperate at some time or another, some for the same reason as she.

‘I hear there’s a woman in Old Market …’

‘Mrs Riley! Oh, yeah, she’ll get rid of it for you all right, but mind,’ said Biddy, one well-bitten finger held up in warning, ‘she do know how to charge, by Christ if she don’t!’

‘I can pay.’

Biddy sniffed as her gaze wandered around their shabby surroundings. The bare bricks of the washhouse wall were green with moss and mould, natural in a place continually absorbing the steam from a wash load of boiling sheets. Her eyes finally came to rest on the set of cupboard doors set into one wall. They were big and bare of paint, but Biddy knew what was behind them. Mary Anne ran a thriving business – thanks in part to her.

Married to a bloke who put a third of his wages over the bar of the Red Cow didn’t make for an easy life. For years, Mary Anne had scouted round for ways in which to make ends meet. At first she’d bought clothes at jumble sales, washed, pressed and sold them to needy neighbours in the area. From there it was a skip and a hop to pawnbroking.

The business had started three years ago. Biddy had been in need of money. The pawnbroker – a proper shop complete with the three balls hanging above the door – was shut.

‘I need a shilling for Fred’s tea and “uncle’s” is shut,’ she’d wailed, brandishing a pair of children’s boots. ‘The Sally Army gave ’em to me. They’re almost new.’

Mary Anne had eyed the boots enviously, wishing the Salvation Army had given them to her. Not much chance of that, she thought with a mix of regret and pride. She wasn’t as poor – or as careless – as Biddy, thank God.

Stanley, her youngest, had been without a pair at the time. Her thoughts had turned to the little bit of money inherited from a penny policy her mother had paid into all her life. So far she’d managed to keep the windfall secret from Henry, but had not quite decided what to do with it for the best. Biddy had given her an idea.

‘I’ll give you a shilling against them,’ she’d said after a closer inspection. ‘Your Cyril grown out of them already?’

Biddy had shrugged and held out her hand. ‘He’s used to going without boots.’

Biddy’s youngest was eight years old, smoked butts he picked up from the gutter, and swore almost as much as his father. Alf Young worked on the docks when he could, weighing-on like a lot of men, sometimes working and most days not, depending on whether his face fitted with the foreman. In Mary Anne’s opinion, quite understandable in a way: he had an ugly face. God knows what Biddy had ever seen in him.
And
he drank too much!

Her own thoughts pulled her up short suddenly.

Well, that’s the pot calling the kettle black!

She’d laughed at the thought and called herself a fool. Who was she to speak? Look at Henry. Look what he’d turned into, not that he’d always been that way. Their marriage might have been different if she’d kept her mouth shut and the truth to herself, but at the time he’d been overjoyed to have her. The First World War had taken the life of her sweetheart, Edward. Henry had been her parents’ choice and she’d been happy to go along with it at the time, but she’d misjudged him badly. His character had changed after she’d told him she’d given birth to Edward’s child before they were married. The child had been adopted, and she’d explained that Edward had been killed. It was then that he’d seen through her parents’ collusion and felt duped, his pride hurt and his affection for her vanishing overnight.

Adjusting to the new circumstances of their relationship she had doted on her family, making sure they had the best of everything she could give them. Loving them helped compensate for Henry’s shortcomings and eased her guilt.

In the process of paying for the boots, Mary Anne had rolled up her skirt and rummaged in the pocket sewn on the leg of her knickers.

Biddy had eyed the lace-edged pocket.

‘I might sew on one of they meself. Keep my Alf’s hands off it. Does it work with your Henry?’

‘Safer than the Bank of England. It’s not my knickers he’s after – it’s what they cover!’

Biddy laughed. ‘Men! Like bloody animals they are!’

Mary Anne handed her the money. ‘I lend you a shilling, you pay me back one shilling and thruppence or I sell the boots.’

That was how it had started. Biddy never did pay back the money and Mary Anne kept the boots, only selling them once Stanley had grown out of them. But there were other times and other neighbours needing a loan to tide them over, and so her business had grown. She’d turned a good profit.

The whole neighbourhood – or at least the women in it – had got wind of what she was doing and as her rates were cheaper than the real pawnbroker and it wasn’t so far to go, she didn’t have a bad little trade.

‘You’ve got a good business ’ere,’ said Biddy. ‘And yer kids are grown up. Love ’em as you may, babies can cramp yer lifestyle. They certainly did mine, and as we get older, well …’

‘I’ll send her a note,’ said Mary Anne. ‘I’ve got a stamp somewhere.’

‘You could send a note with Muriel Harrison’s husband,’ suggested Biddy.

Mary Anne shook her head. Muriel’s husband was a bus driver used to taking notes a bit wide of his route – not that Old Market was any problem. He was on that route – Knowle West to Eastville. All he’d have to do was pull up, say he was off to take a leak and nip round the back of Old Market to where Nellie Riley lived.

‘I prefer to keep my business to myself.’ She threw Biddy a warning look. ‘And I’d prefer you to do the same if you don’t mind.’

Biddy threw up her hands as though astonished that Mary Anne could possibly suspect her of doing otherwise.

‘I won’t breathe a word. Everything will be fine. Give it a fortnight and you’ll be right as rain. Her concoctions don’t taste all that grand, but they do work – I’ve heard hundreds say so, and anyway, even if it don’t, she’s got other methods, if you know what I mean.’

Mary Anne tried to ignore the last comment. The thought of having to resort to anything other than drinking one of Mrs Riley’s brews was anathema and she shivered at the thought of it.

‘I hear she’s discreet,’ she said thoughtfully, pulling on her boots so she could return to digging up potatoes from the garden for dinner. She liked gardening, was proud of her busy little plot, but only grew things that could be eaten. Rows of cabbages divided potatoes from peas, runner beans climbed up canes and raspberries, gooseberries and blackcurrant bushes stood shoulder to shoulder against the fence.

‘She is, but don’t help to give her directions. After all, you’re the one paying. Up to you how you wants things done.’

‘I’ve got Stanley to think of.’

‘You mean if he has a good day, he might be wandering about.’

Mary Anne nodded. Stanley had a bad chest at the beginning of the year and she’d been sick with worry. He was puny for a ten-year-old and caught any coughs, colds and sneezes that were going around. So she protected him, some said too much.

‘I’ll send her it by post,’ said Mary Anne. ‘I want to keep it a secret. I don’t want Henry to find out.’

Biddy sipped at the tea slowly going cold in the cup balanced on the boiler. ‘Of course you don’t, love.’

Before closing the cupboard door, Mary Anne glanced over her shoulder. Biddy was a gossip; a little bribery, she decided, wouldn’t go amiss.

‘No. Here,’ she said, handing her a pair of silk stockings. ‘I don’t know who pledged these but it was over six months ago. Can you make use of them?’

Biddy’s eyes grew round as she fingered the fine silk. ‘Ooow! They’re nice. If you’re really sure …’

‘Go on. You might as well have them.’

‘Thanks, I will.’ After rolling the stockings into a ball, Biddy shoved them down her cleavage.

Mary Anne shook her head. ‘Haven’t you got a pocket?’

‘Not in this frock. It’s like a second skin. Must ’ave shrunk in the wash. You know ’ow it is.’

Mary Anne moved a pile of washing from chair to boiler lid in order to hide her smile. Biddy had a good appetite; her body had got larger, not the dress smaller.

The rolls of fat resettled in different positions as she got up to leave. ‘Well I ’ope I’ve been of some help. Best of luck with Mrs Riley. And thanks for the stockings.’ She looked like the cat that got the cream.

Mary Anne smiled. ‘What are friends for?’

Biddy sighed with satisfaction and swigged back the last of the cold tea.

If she knew the stockings were a bribe, she didn’t let on. Biddy might be a friend, but she gathered and gave out gossip quicker than the milkman delivered two pints of gold top. Mary Anne hoped she had given her enough for her silence.

Michael Maurice handed his passport to Mr Abner Crombie of Crombie, Benson and Spyte, Attorneys at Law in Small Street. He sat rubbing his hands together, uncomfortable in alien surroundings in a building as dark as his thoughts.

The office walls were panelled in dark oak and the floorboards squealed underfoot as though being tortured. Lead-paned windows opened out over the cobbled street outside where costermongers sold fruit from barrows and barrels from a brewery dray thundered into the cellar of the Assize Court pub next door.

Mr Crombie raised his eyebrows. ‘A British passport?’

‘I was born here.’ Michael spoke slowly and precisely, anxious to impress by clear pronunciation that he had indeed been born in England.

‘Mr Rosenburg was your mother’s brother-in-law.’

‘That is true.’

Mr Crombie nodded without taking his eyes from the black and white photograph of a serious-looking Michael taken three years previously.

‘And you have lived in Amsterdam for most of your life.’

Michael nodded. ‘That is true.’

The lie rolled easily off his tongue. He’d decided it was sensible not to mention having lived in Germany since he was twelve years old. He was in England now and anti-German feelings were running high.

Mr Crombie gave him a direct look, blinked and said, ‘I see.’

It occurred to Michael that the solicitor knew the truth. He swallowed the fear that rolled into his throat like a ball of wire. He couldn’t know. It wasn’t possible. The letter had come to him via a cousin’s address in Amsterdam. His cousin had known that the family had moved on from Holland but had not divulged the truth to this solicitor, a fact for which Michael was grateful.

The smell of dust and drains drifted through the window. Michael refrained from wrinkling his nose. He did not want to cause offence.

For his part, Mr Crombie, though not appearing to, studied Michael Maurice more intently than he would have before war was declared. He was not at all what he had expected, too young in his opinion to be left any business at all. His uncle had been swarthy, dark and very stout. The dark blond locks of the man sitting in front of him curled over his coat collar.
No Englishman would wear his hair that long, thought Crombie, who had an inherent distrust of anyone who didn’t conform to his own, musty and very old English style. Although he admitted Michael Maurice had an open face, such faces, in Crombie’s experience, could be deceiving. On top of that, he didn’t like being scrutinised quite so intensely. An Englishman wouldn’t study another person to such an extent, certainly not until they’d met on a number of occasions. That didn’t mean, however, that he couldn’t do exactly the same thing and form an instant opinion. His opinion was that Michael Maurice had what he termed ‘presence’. Deep-set blue eyes gazed steadily at each movement he took. His shoulders seemed tense, though perhaps they were just muscular, if so, they matched the strength in his face.