The House by the Brook Read online

  ‘Usual, about half past nine,’ Belle replied. ‘Poached egg on toast all right?’

  ‘Leave mine till I come in. I might be late. Lucy and I might go to the pictures.’

  ‘I thought you were looking after Vi, so Marie could go out?’

  ‘Oh no! I forgot! I’ll have to cancel. She won’t mind, she was only going to the pictures with Judy Morris and they see each other all the time at the shop, don’t they?’ Jennie shut her mind to her mother’s mild disapproval and ran upstairs to get dressed. Twenty-eight she might be but she was still young enough to enjoy a bit of fun.

  She and Lucy had a double date with two RAF boys they had met at the Saturday dance. A good laugh they’d been. The promise of a few drinks, a dance, followed by supper somewhere, had filled her mind all day. As if she’d give up on this to sit with boring little Vi! Fat chance of that!

  She hurried down the road, pulling an unseen face at Watkins the ex-air raid warden as he strolled with his pompous walk through the streets. He had been unable to discard the cloak of importance the war years had given him, and people teased him, something of which he seemed unaware. Waving frantically at the approaching bus, she pushed her way to the front of the queue, then settled down to dream of the hours ahead.

  She was a pretty young woman with fluffy blond curls, the result of hours of discomfort sleeping on curlers, and regular perms and treatments at the shop where she worked. She had heard, and firmly believed, that gentlemen preferred blondes and one day, when she was too old for fun, a gentleman was what she hoped to find. Rich, of course, and with eyes only for her.

  The bus stopped at the town hall and she was first to alight, pushing her way through the other passengers as though it was her right, ignoring the few who complained and smiling sweetly at those who did not. Lucy was waiting, huddled up in an imitation fur, high heels tapping an impatient tattoo as she approached.

  ‘Late you are, Jennie Jones, and there’s me standing here like a tart waiting for you.’

  ‘Sorry, Lucy, but I had to make myself presentable, didn’t I?’

  ‘Your hair’s nice,’ Lucy said grudgingly.

  Chattering and planning their evening, they went into the dance hall and straight to the ladies’ room. Lucy took off the scarf she had been wearing and waited for Jennie’s comments.

  ‘Not bad. Here, let me open out a few of those sausages at the front. Soften it a bit.’ She fiddled and eased the heavy rolls, which were exactly as they had been when taken out of the dinkie curlers, and moulded them skilfully into a nest of tiny curls. Lucy thanked her. ‘A marvel you are, Jennie Jones. A real marvel.’ Silently she wondered whether Jennie would ever fail to criticize her efforts or she would ever be able to disagree. Their friendship was based on admiration given by one and accepted by the other.

  It was some time before they found their dates. As they walked in, two young men in navy uniform asked for a dance and the girls – Lucy coaxed by Jennie – accepted. They had been around the floor several times before seeing their dates waving. ‘Don’t want them to think we’re desperate,’ Jennie said as she insisted on them dancing a second dance with their partners.

  ‘They’re a bit young for you, aren’t they?’ one of the sailors remarked.

  ‘Say that again – if you want your face slapped,’ Jennie said, a smile taking the sharpness from the words. She spread her arms as much as the crowd allowed and greeted their dates with, ‘Here we are, you lucky lads, your dreams come true.’

  Laughing, they allowed themselves to be led onto the dance floor for a lively foxtrot.

  As the evening wore on, and the melodies became slower and more romantic, Jennie began to feel a little uneasy. The way her partner was pressing himself against her, and the words he uttered in her ear, were giving a clear warning. The young men had bought them a few drinks, and had promised supper – always a treat – but there were expectations of a payment she was unwilling to give. She signalled to Lucy and pointed to the ladies’ room.

  ‘I have a feeling they want more than a goodnight kiss.’ she whispered when they were touching up their make-up.

  ‘Me too. Pity, mind. I was looking forward to going out for supper.’

  ‘Perhaps we can have supper then belt for home before they realize we’ve gone?’ Giggles and whispered plans kept them there for longer than planned and when they went outside the swing doors both their dates were waiting.

  ‘We thought you’d gone home,’ one of them said.

  ‘What, and miss the best part of the evening?’ Jennie said with a wink.

  ‘Let’s go now, there’s no need to wait till the end.’

  ‘Supper first, mind. Where are you taking us?’ Lucy asked.

  ‘The Spinning Wheel is open till eleven, we’ll have to hurry.’

  ‘That suits me,’ Lucy said, with a glance at Jennie.

  The meal was simple but to the young people it lacked nothing. An omelette using dried egg and filled with an assortment of vegetables followed thin soup, and the meal ended with a serving of stewed apple rings and watery custard.

  The bill paid, the two men, excited after several hours of teasing and hints of the best yet to come, stood and asked for their coats. Lucy took hers and Jennie’s under her arm and pointed to the ladies’. ‘Won’t be long.’

  ‘Oh come on, you’ve already been there twice,’ one complained.

  ‘Don’t be impatient, boys,’ Jennie said, smiling a promise.

  Laughing, they ran to the door that led to the lavatories and also to the back entrance, now standing open as rubbish was being placed outside ready for the morning’s collection. They walked quickly, keeping to the shadows until they reached the bus stop, then leaped on the bus that had just pulled in and ran up the stairs.

  ‘Lucky they don’t know where we live.’ Lucy panted.

  ‘Oh that was a fantastic evening,’ Jennie sighed. They began singing one of the melodies to which they had danced. Passengers smiled tolerantly at their high spirits.

  ‘Keep your head down,’ Lucy warned, ‘they could be out there looking for us.’

  They alighted from the bus, and from a car parked behind the bus two men got out.

  ‘Hello, girls, did you think you’d lost us?’

  ‘Oh, hello again.’ Jennie knew her voice sounded trembly.

  ‘Sorry, but we just realized the time. It was awful late, and—’ Lucy began.

  ‘We girls have to be in before midnight,’ Jennie said.

  ‘Girls! Too old for that title. Old slags more like. Tarts like you can’t afford to be choosy. Old floozies. Fit for nothing better than what we had in mind. Don’t pretend that isn’t what you do.’

  As the bus disappeared and they were left in the silent empty darkness, the two women began to be afraid. Arm in arm, they tried to walk away. Both were grabbed roughly and at once the men began to hit them. Insults hissed through tight lips, and the words became one continuous sound, the pain of each blow melding into a panic-filled agony. When they were dragged and dumped into a shop doorway, they lay for several seconds, disoriented and stunned.

  ‘Have they gone?’ Jennie asked in a voice she didn’t recognize as her own.

  ‘There’s a toilet down the next street, we could clean ourselves up before we go home,’ Lucy whispered, through split lips.

  Arms around each other they made their way to the stale-smelling building and, avoiding the mirror, washed their bruised faces.

  ‘How old are you, Lucy?’

  ‘Twenty-eight, same as you.’

  ‘It’s time something changed. I don’t want to live like this any more.’

  ‘Nor me.’

  ‘When I think of the chances I let slip by, of marriage and a home, well, I’m not going to let another chance pass me by.’

  ‘Nor me.’ Lucy began to cry softly. ‘But who’d have us? Got a reputation we have.’

  ‘I don’t know why. We’ve never done – that – have we?’

  ‘No, but i
t was fun pretending we had, to shock a few people. And now we’re paying for it.’

  ‘I’ll wait a while so Mam and Dad are asleep,’ Jennie said, stifling a sob. ‘The fewer people who know the better.’

  ‘I’m so cold.’

  ‘Here, come and cwtch up to me.’ She opened her coat and they sat there, on the cold cement floor, in the sour-smelling building for an hour, before rising stiffly and walking towards home.

  *

  Marie lay unable to sleep. She was angry with everyone at that moment, but mostly with her sister. Once in months she had asked her to stay with Vi and she had let her down. Something had to change. For a start she would tell Jennie exactly what she thought of her and the idle way she lived. She knew her resentment towards Jennie wouldn’t last, she loved her and that would never change, but having a target for her anger soothed her, and, once she had imagined all she would say, sleep gradually overcame her.

  The knock on the front door woke her almost immediately. Who could it be? She lit a torch and shone it on the alarm clock. One o’clock in the morning. Something terrible must have happened. Mam? she wondered. Or Dad? She slid out of bed and, reaching the landing and closing the bedroom door, she switched on the torch and went softly down the stairs.

  ‘Who is it?’ she hissed, her hand on the latch.

  ‘Oh, Marie, open the door, it’s me, Jennie.’

  Alarmed, Marie opened the door. ‘What’s happened? Is it Mam?’

  ‘Oh, they’re fine. Let me in can’t you? I’m in trouble.’

  ‘And I’m supposed to be sympathetic? When did you care about me and my troubles?’ Woken from sleep and following a hour of imaginary argument with her selfish sister. Marie was in no mood to be concerned about Jennie’s concerns.

  ‘Put the light on,’ Jennie whispered, her voice strangely muffled.

  ‘We’d better go into the kitchen.’ Feeling her way in the darkness, Marie reached for matches and lit the gas light in the small cluttered kitchen where the table was neatly laid for breakfast. ‘What is it? Tell me quick, I have to be up in about five hours,’ she snapped. Then she turned to look at her sister, who was slowly removing a scarf from her face, and she cried out in horror.

  ‘Jennie! What happened to you?’ Jennie’s face was already swelling from the man’s fists, and dried blood that had trickled from her nose and distended lips made her face into a grotesque mask.

  Confused, shocked, Marie turned and lit the gas under a kettle then turned back to her sister. ‘We’ll get that face washed first, then a cup of tea, I think, while you tell me exactly what happened. I want the truth, mind.’

  ‘Flirted and ran off once too often, didn’t we? Me and Lucy met these airmen, see, and when we thought they were expecting more than a goodnight kiss, we got them to pay for supper and a few drinks then ran off. They caught up with us and…’ She began to cry. ‘They said we looked like a couple of tarts, and it was obvious how we earned our living.’

  With difficulty, Marie declined to retort that that was what many people believed, and hugged her instead. ‘What will you tell Mam and Dad?’

  ‘I don’t know. I thought of saying I fell. Lots of people have tripped over kerbs and fallen down steps. But if they see Lucy in the same state they might not believe me.’

  ‘They’ll believe you.’ Marie tried to avoid sounding cynical, but failed.

  ‘What d’you mean? You make it sound as though I lie all the time and I don’t! So of course they’d believe me! I’m honest about myself and what I am! And I never pretend to be Miss Holyness like you do. Miss Perfect, with a wayward husband, two idle and useless sons and a daughter who’s scared of her own shadow. I’m not ashamed of what I am!’

  More tears, and, as they subsided, Marie asked, ‘Aren’t you, Jennie?’

  They stared at each other until Marie stood to turn off the gas under the furiously boiling kettle. She made tea, then prepared a bowl of water to wash Jennie’s ravaged face. She pulled some cotton wool off the roll but Jennie snatched it from her and threw it to the floor. ‘I don’t need your help. I can manage, thanks!’

  Ignoring her, Marie pulled off another wad and this time Jennie allowed her to wash away the blood.

  As though seeing the scene in her head, Marie said slowly, ‘You and Lucy saw a fight starting. You didn’t want to be involved so you tried to get out through the back door but had to push your way through an angry mob of drunks. Thinking you were part of the argument they attacked you. Right?’

  Tearfully, Jennie nodded. ‘You’ll have to go and see Lucy, mind, to make sure she says the same.’

  ‘I’ll go on the way to work,’ Marie promised.

  ‘I’m sorry I came here and woke you,’ Jennie said, as she took the tea her sister offered.

  ‘Where else would you go? I’m your big sister and I love you.’

  ‘It’s got to stop. I can’t continue carrying on like a—’

  ‘Eighteen-year-old prostitute?’

  ‘But I’m not! You know I’m not! We never did more than flirt and make promises. Promises we never intended to keep. I couldn’t risk having a baby, could I? Mam and Dad put up with a lot from me but I’d be on my own if that happened. No. I’m taking this as a warning of what could happen if I don’t change my ways. They could have…’ Her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘God ’elp, Marie, we could have been raped.’ She tried to sip her tea, twisting her lips to avoid the damaged area. A tear slid down her cheek spreading mascara in its wake.

  ‘People think the worst of you because you’re behaving as though you’re ten years younger. Eighteen-year-olds have fun teasing men and they get away with it because it’s part of growing up, but you’re old enough to make people think the worst.’

  ‘My life’s a mess.’

  ‘You’re able to start again. My life is in a mess too, but I don’t know how to change it for the better.’

  ‘It’s different for you, you’re married. As you say, I can start again, alter things, but you can’t. You’re stuck with it.’ Sympathy was intended but the words came out wrong. She touched Marie’s hand affectionately.

  The bald truth was a shock, but Marie knew Jennie was right. ‘I know. I’ve thought about it, but there’s nothing I can do unless I leave Ivor and the twins, and I can’t do that. Even if I did find the courage to move out, where would I go with Vi? Just nine she is. It’s certain Mam and Dad won’t help. Everything was wonderful until last June. Three months and everything’s changed. I’m so tired of fighting to keep a roof over our heads, all alone, no one to support me. But what can I do except continue in the same miserable way?’

  She glanced at her sister, who was staring at herself in a handbag minor and applying powder to the shining bruises. She wasn’t interested. She wasn’t even listening. Sadly she realized that the one remark about her situation, stating the impossibility of her changing anything, had begun and ended the discussion on Marie’s problems. For Jennie there was only herself. She couldn’t help it, that was the way she was. Her face was hardly recognizable, lumps enlarging and bruises already showing colour. She reached over and put an arm on her sister’s shoulder to comfort her.

  A knock on the back door startled them both out of their reveries. Jennie leaped from the table and shrank back behind the half-open door leading to the hall. ‘It’s them! They followed me. Oh, Marie, don’t let them in.’

  Marie went to the door, but before she could ask who was there their father’s distressed voiced called, ‘Let me in. For heaven’s sake open the door, Marie. It’s your mam, she’s fallen and hurt herself.’

  Jennie didn’t reveal herself at once. Her thoughts were still on her own injuries and the excuses she would give. She had decided to slip out through the front door and run home and into bed. She could pretend to be asleep and leave explanations till morning. But her father’s words changed her mind.

  ‘You’ve got to come,’ their father almost shouted. ‘She went outside looking for Jennie, who’s very la
te home, and she fell down the steps. The doctor’s been and she’s broken her arm. ‘Worried sick about Jennie she was. Gone midnight it was and no sign of her. Where can she be?’

  ‘I’m here, Dad.’ Covering the worst damage to her face with her scarf she stepped out from behind the door.

  He didn’t notice her injuries at first. ‘Thank God you’re all right. We were so worried.’ Then she opened the scarf a little and he gasped. ‘What the – how the – Jennie, love, what happened?’

  ‘Quite a night for accidents, eh, our Dad?’ In a childish tone, interspersed with sobs, she went on. ‘Lucy and I were leaving the dance and got involved in a fight. Marie has bathed the damage and I’ll be all right. Don’t worry about me. I’ll—’

  ‘Forget your bruises, Jennie! What about Mam?’ Marie’s sharp tone startled Jennie into silence.

  While Marie wrote a note for Ivor, and they discussed what had happened, Jennie sat and thought about the future. If she wasn’t careful she’d be stuck with looking after her parents until she was too old to have a life. A broken arm meant that Mam would need a lot of help. What a night this had been. But it had taught her something. She would have to get married and leave home before it was too late. Leave the caring to Marie, it was what she was good at. Today was the turning point. She was happily unaware that the same decision was filling Marie’s mind.

  Two

  With no one to open the hairdressing shop apart from themselves, Jennie and Lucy braved the comments about their ravaged faces, prepared their lies and opened as usual. Mr James was horrified when he saw the full extent of bruises already showing a variety of colours. They told their prepared story tearfully, Jennie adding embellishments to the more prosaic descriptions from Lucy, thereby receiving more sympathy.

  ‘Don’t ask us to go to the police, Mr James, we’ve had all that from our parents and we aren’t going to make ourselves look fools. We were going out through the back door, through the kitchens, see, to get to the bus stop first, and it isn’t allowed. So it’s our own fault really.’