The Girl From Barefoot House (52 page)

He laid his hand flat on her stomach. ‘Pleased to be of service, ma’am.’

Since Dinah had gone, she had missed having someone there with whom to discuss the events of the day. Ben was particularly soothing to be with. They had been together three months, and he was a perfect companion, utterly reliable. She would have trusted him with her life. If Ben said he would telephone at six, or arrive at seven, he would keep his promise to the dot. He looked up timetables for her, met her off trains, made sure her car was serviced and filled with petrol, kept an eye on when insurance premiums were due, found things she had lost. He even brought her tea in bed each morning, and generally looked after her in a way no one had ever done before. She felt dearly loved and very precious.

They were virtually living together in Huskisson Street, though he hadn’t properly moved in. He returned to his flat in Princes Park to change his clothes, do his washing, keep the place dusted and tidied. He wanted to move in permanently, but Josie had put him off. ‘Not just yet, let’s leave it a while,’ she had said gently.

‘Hmm. That’s nice.’ She sighed dreamily when he began to rub his hand in a circle on her abdomen. Closing her eyes, she immediately began to worry that she was using him. At the back of her mind there was a feeling that the relationship wouldn’t last, which
was why she hadn’t wanted him to move in, give up his home. He knew she didn’t love him, not in the way he loved her, but it still felt wrong.

Dorothy Venables turned up in a leather jacket and well-worn jeans. She was in her fifties, thin and lanky with dark, burning eyes and a badly scarred chin. She looked as tough as old boots. A cigarette dangled from her narrow, unpainted lips. Having been forewarned by Lynne, Josie had booked a table in a restaurant that didn’t have a dress code.

Books were one of the few subjects not mentioned throughout the meal. Dottie – Josie had been told to call her Dottie – smoked between courses, slagged off the government, the aristocracy, royalty, the stock exchange, banks, building societies and any other bastions of the establishment that came to mind, using the sort of language that never appeared in her novels. Unmarried, her most scathing criticism was directed at men, most of whom she unreservedly loathed. Josie found it incredible that such tender love stories could have been nurtured in so cynical a mind. Even so, she liked down-to-earth Dottie Venables very much. Lynne was right. Josie just knew they would become great friends.

Josie and Lynne had come by train, and would make their own way home. Lynne went to see her mother in Brent, and Josie to the West End to do some shopping, then to Holborn to meet Dinah after work.

Her daughter emerged from the high-rise office building carrying a briefcase, looking anxious and flustered. ‘I don’t like leaving so early,’ she said.

‘Early!’ Josie looked at her watch. ‘It’s twenty-five to six.’ She thought Dinah looked rather pale and much too thin.

‘Yes, but everyone works all the hours God sends, Mum. I felt dead conspicuous, being the first to leave. I hope no one noticed, else it’ll be a black mark against me.’

‘People should live to work, Dinah, not work to live.’ Josie took her arm and ushered her inside the first reasonable-looking restaurant they came to. ‘I’m sure not everyone works as hard as you say,’ she said when they were seated, ‘otherwise they’d have no home life.’

‘Well, no, not everyone,’ Dinah conceded, ‘but I’m the youngest assistant editor there, and the only one who didn’t go to university. I have to put in more effort than the others if I’m to get anywhere.’

‘And where exactly is it that you want to get, luv?’

‘I’ve told you before – to the top,’ Dinah said promptly. ‘Some of the senior editors fly all over the world, meeting writers. I’d like to work in the States one day, become an executive, edit a top magazine. I want to get
on
, Mum.’

‘Well, while you’re getting on, I wish you’d eat properly. You look as if you haven’t had a decent meal in ages.’

‘I’m too busy to eat,’ Dinah muttered.

‘I suppose you’ll be too busy to come home for your birthday.’ Dinah would be twenty-one in a fortnight’s time. It was a long while since she’d been to Liverpool. ‘We can have a party,’ Josie said coaxingly.

‘I can’t see me managing it, Mum.’

Josie would have liked to discuss the matter more, but Dinah rushed the meal. She pointed to the briefcase and said she had stacks of work to do at home.

The journey back seemed to take for ever, and Josie worried about Dinah the whole way. There’d been a hardness about her daughter that she hadn’t liked, yet
beneath the hardness had been an air of vulnerability that touched her mother to the core. And she was admirable in her way. She could have had a cushy, secure job at Barefoot House, but preferred to make her own way in the publishing world. Josie sighed. Perhaps she was old-fashioned, but she felt a young woman of twenty should be out and about having a good time, not working herself to death in an office, skipping meals.

Ben had been primed as to when the train would arrive, and was waiting at Lime Street station. ‘I’ve had some great news,’ he said joyfully. ‘I had a letter today from Cuba. Our Peter’s coming home for Christmas. I haven’t seen him in over two years.’

Twelve people sat down to dinner that Christmas in Huskisson Street: Josie and Ben; a very tense Dinah; Peter Kavanagh, now a lovely bronzed young man, the image of Imelda; Francie O’Leary and his two little boys; Esther, Josie’s secretary, still alone; and Colette, Ben’s daughter, with her husband, Jeremy, and their twin daughters, Amy and Zoe. They were staying in Ben’s flat.

‘Bloody hell!’ Josie swore, as she struggled with pans of vegetables and a giant turkey in the steaming kitchen. ‘I can’t believe I wanted a big family. I would have had this lark every sodding year.’

‘Need a hand?’ Francie poked his head around the door.

‘No, that’s the problem. You’re not the first to offer help, but I don’t know what to give people to
do
! Colette’s set the table, Ben’s organising the drinks.’

‘Can I peel a potato or something?’ He sidled into the room.

‘I did them last night, idiot. Can you see the white dish I was going to put the sprouts in?’

‘Is this it?’

‘I think so. I need one like it for the carrots.’

‘What’s wrong with your Dinah? I think this might be the carrot dish.’

‘Ta, Francie. She’s working too hard, that’s what.’ She suddenly noticed Francie’s bizarre outfit. ‘Why have you come to Christmas dinner at my house wearing a nightshirt?’

‘It’s the latest fashion, Jose.’ He did a little twirl. The long white shirt almost reached the knees of his black velvet trousers. ‘Hey, I knew you and Ben were seeing each other, but I didn’t realise you were such a close item. I’m dead envious. If I’d known he was going to make a move, I’d have proposed to you at Lily’s funeral.’

‘Oh, Francie. You only say things like that to shock. If you’re not careful, I’ll find someone else to print me books.’

‘I let you go once, I’m determined not to let it happen again.’

She snorted. ‘It’s a bit late. Anyroad, Mr O’Leary, it was the other way around. It was
me
that let
you
go.’

‘Whatever.’ He waved his hand. ‘Seriously, Jose, Ben’s a decent guy, but I hope you’re not going to marry him or anything daft like that. He’ll bore you rigid after a while. Here, let me help you with that.’ Together, they lifted the sizzling turkey out of the oven. ‘Me, now, I’m a different proposition altogether, but you already know that. And we were great together when we did the bed bit.’

‘Shush!’

There were footsteps outside and Ben appeared. ‘I thought you might need some help. Will dinner be long?
It’s chaos back there. The twins are starving, Simon and Alec are squabbling over something out of a cracker, Esther’s worried dinner might be so late she’ll miss the Queen’s broadcast, and our Peter and Dinah are having a flaming row about Fidel Castro.’

‘I think I might treat meself to a holiday,’ Dinah said somewhat surprisingly over breakfast on Boxing Day. Ben had left early for Princes Park to see Colette, and Peter, who was staying in Josie’s spare room, had risen at some unearthly hour to go for a walk. ‘I’ve enough money saved. I’ve never been abroad. We never managed to get to Los Angeles, did we?’

‘No, luv.’ Josie sighed. ‘But what about work? You can’t just take time off without telling anyone.’

‘Oh, I’ll give my boss a ring,’ Dinah said carelessly, which was even more surprising.

‘Would you like me to come with you?’ Josie offered. ‘Cathy Connors and her husband have gone to the Seychelles for Christmas. She said the weather’s perfect this time of year.’

Dinah blushed. ‘Actually, Mum, I’m going to Cuba.’

‘Cuba!’ Josie’s face burst into a delighted smile. ‘With Peter Kavanagh?’

‘Yes, but there’s nothing in it. He said it’s a wonderful place, and I said I didn’t believe him. It’s a dictatorship, however benign. He invited me to come and look for meself. I’m only going for a fortnight.’

Josie couldn’t have been more pleased. ‘I hope you have a lovely time.’

‘I doubt it,’ Dinah said darkly. ‘Peter’s a dead irritating guy. He has these really peculiar opinions. All we do is argue.’

A fortnight passed, and Dinah didn’t come back from Cuba. She wrote to say she had telephoned the company she worked for to say that she’d left, and had no idea when she would be home. She’d got a job in a hospital and was learning to speak Spanish. Peter had turned out okay after all, and they were sharing a flat. The Americans were shits, the way they treated the Cubans. Would Josie mind driving down to London and collecting her belongings from the flat? She’d given the landlord a month’s notice. The dishes were hers, the pots and pans were the landlord’s. In the oven there was a lovely casserole dish which she didn’t want left behind.

‘Why the hell should she give a damn about a casserole dish when she’s in Cuba?’ Josie wanted to know. ‘Your son has a lot to answer for, Ben Kavanagh.’

‘You don’t mind, do you?’ Ben said anxiously.

‘Of course not. He’s a lovely lad. Though I wish he lived a bit nearer.’ Josie smiled wistfully.

‘So do I. I wonder if our children ever miss us as much as we miss them?’

‘I doubt it.’

As soon as it became known that Dorothy Venables had transferred to Barefoot House, the company was deluged with women’s sagas. Josie engaged two more editors, an assistant for Richard in Publicity, and another secretary, by which time space had become a problem. There were too many desks in too few rooms. She could have afforded to move into a spacious office block in town, but preferred the more intimate accommodation of Huskisson Street. She solved the problem by giving up her lovely lounge and elegant dining room for offices, and moving up a floor. The attic was ruthlessly emptied, decorated and turned into a bedroom, and Josie slept
with Ben in a room identical to the one she’d lived in with Mam, just four doors and more than forty years away.

The following year, Josie and Ben went to the Odeon in Leicester Square to attend the premiere
of Miss Middleton’s Papers
. Great Britain was at war in the Falklands, but war was far from the minds of the expensively dressed guests that night as they strolled across the red carpet into the cinema.

Ben looked dead handsome in the evening suit hired for the occasion. ‘Distinguished,’ Josie declared. ‘I feel quite proud to have you as me escort.’ Her own frock was a blue crêpe sheath with long sleeves – she felt convinced the tops of her arms were getting fat. She hoped it looked worth the extravagent amount of money it had cost.

She found the evening very pretentious, the way people fell upon each other and called each other ‘darling’. She rather traitorously wished Francie O’Leary were there instead of Ben, because he’d have poked fun at everyone and made her laugh. Ben was very much in awe of the well-known faces, very reverential when people spoke to them. There were times when she wouldn’t have minded swopping Ben for Francie. Just for a week or two!

In another month she would be fifty. Fifty! She looked at Ben, aghast. ‘I can’t believe it! I’ve been alive half a century. It doesn’t feel nearly that long.’

He suggested she throw a big party, invite her staff and all their friends, but Josie demurred. ‘I’m not sure I want the staff to know I’m fifty.’

‘Have a little dinner party, then. Get caterers in. We’ll
ask Francie and his latest woman, our Marigold and her husband, that peculiar friend of yours, Dorothy. How many’s that?’

Josie counted on her fingers. ‘Seven with us, but Daisy and Manos are due home shortly for a few weeks, and I’d like to ask Terence Dunnet, me accountant, and his wife, Muriel. I hardly see them these days.’

‘That’s eleven. Twelve would make a perfect number. We need another man to partner Dorothy.’

‘She’d prefer a woman.’

Ben’s eyebrows raised in surprise. ‘I didn’t know she was that way inclined.’

‘She’s not. She prefers women’s company, that’s all. Men are only allowed to do their duty in her bed.’

‘Ugh!’ He pulled a face. ‘Some things are beyond the call of duty. Anyroad, Jose, dinner for twelve. I’ll pay, it’ll be half my present.’

‘What’s the other half?’ she asked greedily.

Ben went over and switched off the television, which she found slightly irritating as she’d been waiting with the sound turned down for
EastEnders
. ‘I thought you’d like a ring,’ he said. ‘A wedding ring.’

If it had been Francie, she would have said, ‘Turn the bloody television back on, and we’ll talk about wedding rings when
EastEnders
has finished.’ But you could never say things like that to Ben. Even when they were little, she’d had to be careful because his feelings were so easily hurt. Oh, God! She still felt annoyed that he’d proposed just as one of her favourite programmes was about to begin. She remembered he was still waiting to know if she’d like a wedding ring.

‘I’d sooner continue as we are,’ she said lamely.

‘In other words, you don’t want to marry me?’ His voice was icy.

‘I never said that.’