A Better World than This (32 page)

Jimmy, who could run along the top of the backyard wall with the deftness of a squirrel, but who always managed to fall down the last three stairs to land in the hall with a thump. Jimmy, who stepped out of his clothes and left them lying there; Jimmy, who could tell fibs to music, who stole crayons from school and used Florence’s lipstick to write a rude word on a newly painted wall. Jimmy, who had asked why Florence had no bosoms sticking out the front of her blouses, just as Daisy was up-ending a steamed sponge pudding from its basin. Jimmy, who swore that he was the only boy in the school not allowed to stay up till midnight and take a bottle of fizzy lemonade to bed with him when he finally decided the time was right to go. Jimmy, who had eaten two packets of Bird’s Jellies and denied it with indignation flaring his nostrils, and who had come downstairs only last week at a quarter to twelve to tell an exhausted Daisy that he was Pontius Pilate in a play and needed a costume plus real-looking beard to take with him to school the very next morning.

Daisy was truly her mother’s daughter when it came to enjoying the company of children. With them she became a child herself, caring not a jot for losing her so-called dignity, the maternal streak in her obvious for anyone to see. Glamour she might dream of, passion she might crave, but at heart she was an earth mother who should, as Martha had realized on the very day she died, have been married to a good kind man who would have given her the babies she needed to fulfil her life.

‘My little love. …’ Daisy’s arm tightened round the sleeping child. ‘My own little love,’ she whispered, believing for the moment that it was true.

*

She awoke from long habit at just before five, turned over on her back as Jimmy stirred beside her.

‘Go back to sleep, love,’ she whispered. ‘You don’t need to get up for a long time yet.’

But Jimmy was in the mood for conversation. Making the child’s swift transition from sleep to wakefulness, he flopped over on to his back to lie with his snub nose pointing to the ceiling, snug and cosy, loth to have her leave him.

‘My dad told me you can balance a glass full of water on the radiator of Mr Evison’s car, and it doesn’t spill even when he’s driving it fast,’ he said as a hopeful opening gambit. ‘My dad was in the desert in the war.’

‘He never told me that,’ Daisy marvelled. ‘Your father wasn’t even in the war.’

‘My dad said some officers fighting in the desert raced some rotten Germans and caught them. ’Cos our side was driving a Rolls-Royce and not a rotten old car like the Germans.’ The hoarse little voice deepened with enjoyable relish. ‘A Rolls-Royce car goes faster than
anything
– faster than an aeroplane. My dad said they caught that rotten old German car and blew it up. Into little pieces. And the rotten old Germans as well, I bet. My dad says he’s going to buy a car like that when he’s rich. Are you rich, Daisy?’

‘Not rich, no, but not poor, either. Somewhere in between. Why?’

‘Have you got any jewels?’

‘Not
real
jewels. You’ve seen my coral necklace. That’s real. That came from the bottom of the sea.’

‘The Queen’s got a lot of jewels.’

‘Yes, I suppose she has.’

‘My mum’s got two rings.’

Daisy got out of bed. ‘Go back to sleep now. I’m going to take my clothes down to the bathroom and get dressed in there. Okay?
Okay
, Jimmy?’

‘My mum’s gone on her holidays.’ Did the hoarse voice waver a little? ‘I bet she comes back soon.’

Daisy sat down again on the side of the bed. ‘I’ve got a
surprise
to tell you. I was keeping it secret, but I’ll tell you now. In two weeks’ time your dad is coming to see us. In just less than fourteen days he’ll be here.’

‘Will he bring me lots of presents? D’you think he might bring me a bike? A boy in my class has a watch that goes. His dad got it from Woolworth’s and it broke so he took it back and they gave him another one that went. Then he broke that one, so this boy’s dad. …’

‘Try to sleep. You’ll be fit for nothing if you don’t try.’ Daisy tiptoed to the door. ‘I’ll give you a penny to take to school.’ She made her escape.

Leaving Jimmy lying with hands folded on his chest pleasurably anticipating the differing ways he could spend the penny to its fullest advantage. Four giant gob-stoppers that changed colour as you sucked, two long liquorice pipes, a bar of chocolate, or maybe best of all
two
bags of sherbet to suck up through a Spanish straw. His brow furrowed into genuine anxiety. What about
sixteen
aniseed balls?

He snuggled down into the warm hollow left by Daisy’s body and closed his eyes, as his legs and arms grew heavy with sleep. What about jelly babies? He could bite all their heads off, and save the black ones till the last.

One floor down Daisy bolted the bathroom door behind her and leaned against the new white porcelain wash basin. That dear little lad. That poor little love, fretting for his mother and father up there alone in the middle of her bed. How little we know of what goes on in the mind of a child. Sighing, she pulled her nightdress over her head and ran the water for a good wash-down.

Or there were always coconut mushrooms, Jimmy fretted on the very edge of sleep. But then they were dearer and you didn’t get as many. … Or dolly mixtures, but he was getting to be a bit old for those. …

SAM WASN’T ABSOLUTELY
sure whether the woman he had seen out of the corner of his eye as he opened the door of the Rolls for Mr Evison was Daisy’s peculiar friend or not. By the time he had reversed the car into the main street she had vanished into thin air.

If it
was
her, what was she doing in the town, for heaven’s sake? He tried to remember what Daisy had told him about Florence, but it didn’t amount to much. Apparently she had a father living not all that far from the pie shop, an unsavoury character from all accounts. A nut-case probably. Sam was sure the lanky Florence wasn’t quite right in the head. He frowned, tapping his strong white teeth with a pencil. So, in that case, she could have been visiting her old man. It was feasible, he supposed.

To cover himself he wrote a letter to Daisy, telling her what was more or less the truth, goddammit. He had intended to work at his books all the weekend, just as he had said, but urgent business had come up for Mr Evison and they’d made a brief visit up north with no time to contact her. It had been heart-breaking knowing how near he was to Blackpool, but there was nothing he could do about it. He knew she would understand.

That should simplify things, whether the fleeting vision of the tall woman in the voluminous swagger coat had been Florence or not. There was no point in upsetting the
apple-cart
. Jimmy was better off where he was at the moment, time enough to fetch him back when things were right. If ever they were going to be. He had to treat Aileen like a piece of delicate china at the moment. One false move and they were back where they started.

He saw me after all, Florence thought, when Daisy showed her Sam’s letter. He’d had no intention of saying he was up here if he could have got away with it. The conniving rotter. She wouldn’t trust him as far as she could throw him, that dago with the teeth and dimples. She was going to say something nasty till she saw Daisy’s trusting face.

‘None so blind. …’ she muttered as she turned away. If Shakespeare hadn’t said that, he should have. It was just the kind of thing the Bard in his infinite wisdom
would
say. She would ask Joshua to look it up for her that evening. Dear Joshua; very dear Joshua. He had looked so weary these past few days, going up to his room after the meal to listen to his wireless and play his records. Teaching backward children must be so wearing. He had even snapped at Daisy when she tried to press a second helping of ginger steamed pudding on him. Not like Bobbie Schofield who must have hollow legs considering the amount of food he put away. How he managed to dance the light fandango every night stuffed like a Christmas turkey she couldn’t imagine.

‘What about,’ Bobbie said one evening, polishing off a second helping of spotted dick pudding bristling with currants and shiny with custard, ‘what about you two gorgeous creatures coming dancing with me?’

Daisy, coming in with the tea – both men preferred tea to coffee to round off their meal – almost dropped the tray.

‘We can’t dance,’ she said at once, answering for both of them. ‘There was never the chance, was there, Florence?’

‘
I
can.’ Florence stopped clearing the two tables. ‘I used to go to that little place almost opposite the park on my night off, with Mona Hargreaves out of Ribble Street. Don’t you remember, Daisy?’

‘So you did.’ Daisy tried to imagine Florence dancing, and failed. ‘You go with Bobbie. There won’t be the time when the visitors arrive next week.’ She caught Joshua’s eye and wondered if she was imagining the wink. ‘I think it’s a marvellous idea.’

‘You must come too, Joshua.’ Florence looked flushed and excited. ‘The break would do you good. All work and no play, you know.’ To Daisy’s astonishment she wagged a teasing finger, smiling coquettishly. ‘Oh, let’s be devils. Just for once.’

Asking permission first, Joshua began the laborious process of lighting his pipe. ‘Daisy’s the one who needs a break. I’ll stay with Jimmy.’

‘Mrs Mac!’ Clasping her hands together, Florence made for the door. ‘She’s always offering to come in and see to Jimmy. I’ll go and ask her. Oh, what fun! What a lark!’

Daisy stared after the amazing sight of Florence skipping from the room like an Angela Brazil fourth-former, all girlish enthusiasm. Florence was
never
girlish, for heaven’s sake. Florence had been born as sensible as a cross-over pinny. What was
wrong
with her?

‘Do
you
want to go, Joshua?’ Daisy passed him the big glass sugar-bowl. ‘I mean Florence does seem to be taking it for granted.’

Joshua gave her an extraordinary look – a frivolous look. As if he were
drunk
, Daisy thought. ‘Why not? Let’s
all
be devils,’ he said, thanked her for the meal and left the room.

‘That’s it then.’ Bobbie glided after him on the balls of his small feet, swaying from the hips. Like Rudolph Valentino about to ooze into a tango, Daisy decided. What was
wrong
with them all? Had they gone mad or something?

She began to clatter cups and saucers together on the tray.

The ballroom reminded Daisy of a Hollywood scene in a film set in a baronial palace in Vienna. When they first went in she stood transfixed, unable to believe the evidence of her own eyes.

Tier upon tier of cream and gold curves rose to the lavish
frescoes
of the vast ceiling, with the dazzling chandeliers suspended in glittering beauty. Because this was a special evening at the very beginning of the season the band was on stage, grouped round the enormous organ, saxophones wailing, clarinets droning. In front of the band a tiny bald man with a small tenor voice was crooning, ‘You’re lovely to look at …’, with his eyes closed and his shoulders hunched as if he was trying to force the words up from a sore throat.

‘I bet his mother’s proud of him just the same,’ Daisy whispered to Joshua, catching his eye.

‘Those colours suit you,’ he said, as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘What kind of stuff is your frock made of?’

‘Macclesfield silk.’ Daisy stared down at the panelled skirt of the dress she had made from a pattern in her mother’s
Woman’s Weekly
magazine. ‘Now this is the colour I wanted for the lounge curtains!’ She pointed to one of the peach-shaded stripes. ‘I should have worn this when I went for the material.’

‘Yes,’ Joshua said, patting the pocket of his jacket as if searching for his pipe.

‘Shall we dance, Florence?’ Bobbie, svelte of waistline, spotted tie carefully matching spotted handkerchief, swept her on to the floor.

‘Crowded in here, isn’t it?’ Joshua gloomed at the dancers trotting, side-stepping and twirling in foxtrot rhythm, swinging and turning at the corners, the more ambitious executing intricate twiddles when they found a space big enough. ‘And this is nothing to what it will be when the season starts. They say you can end up dancing with a complete stranger unless you’re zipped fast to your partner.’

‘I take it you don’t like dancing?’

‘I’ve been told that dancing with me is no more than walking backwards to music.’ Joshua leaned back against a pillar and folded his arms.

‘I’ve
never
danced,’ Daisy confided. ‘Only with the yard brush when no one was looking.’

‘You wish you hadn’t come, don’t you?’ Joshua gave her a
peculiar
thin-lipped smile. ‘I’ll take you back if you want to go.’

‘No. I find it fascinating.’ Daisy pointed to a crowd of girls at the end of the ballroom, opposite to the stage. ‘A whole bed of wallflowers.’ Her eyes glinted with mischief. ‘Why don’t you go and ask one of them to dance with you?’ She narrowed her eyes, trying to get into clearer focus the sea of rouged faces, tightly-curled hair, and the flashes of cheap jewellery on the girls’ flowered dresses. Glamour, she thought wryly. Partnerless they might be, but at least they’ve got glamour. She smothered a yawn as Joshua ignored her question with the contempt she had to admit it deserved. There was one thing to be said in favour of going out dancing, she told herself. It was going to make stopping in every night in the near future seem like one big laugh!

The whole of the floor seemed to be revolving in front of her as more and more couples began to dance. Girls danced with girls, elderly women with husbands as straight and erect as in the days of their soldiering. A child, kept from her bed far too late, jumped and skipped along on the perimeter of the floor, holding fast to her mother’s hands. Joshua’s head sank lower on to his chest.

All at once, through a gap in the whirlpool of motion, Daisy saw Florence gliding by, holding the regulation dancing-class three inches away from Bobbie Schofield’s chest. Her head thrown back and her eyes closed, she surrendered herself with total abandon to the rhythm of the slow-slow, quick-quick-slow tempo. Florence was dancing, as she did everything else, with thoroughness and intensity, her long feet in their sensible shoes slithering along in perfect unison with her partner’s black patent pumps. Her fawn shantung dress was cut cleverly but mistakenly on the cross, and outlined her angular figure in an unflattering way. As she passed by she opened her eyes for a moment, the large lids lifting to emit a pale blue gleam.