After the War is Over (36 page)

‘You’d better not, or my mum will scratch your eyes out.’

‘If I were a lesbian, I could fall in love with her too. She’s terribly pretty for an older woman. How old is she?’

‘Forty-three.’

‘My mum’s older than that; she’s in her fifties, and my dad’s ancient. He’s going on for sixty. What’s the matter?’ she asked, alarmed. ‘Why did you pull that awful face?’

‘I got a twinge in my tummy.’ Grace sat gingerly on the end of the bed. ‘It really hurt. I hope I’m not coming down with something. It can’t be my period, I’m not due yet.’

‘Whenever you’re ill it starts in your tummy. It might be flu. Loads of people have got flu. Would you like some medicine?’ Louise opened the drawer that served as a medicine cabinet. ‘We’ve got Beecham’s Powders, cough medicine, aspirin, and some dirty bandage.’

‘A Beecham’s Powder, please.’ Grace had gone quite pale.

‘When you’ve had it, I’ll make some tea. I’ll put sugar in and it’ll help settle your tummy.’

Grace said she felt better after the powder and the tea. Both girls struggled into jeans. Although they adored high heels and lace stockings, the sight only drove some of the male customers to distraction, and the girls were inundated with unwelcome advances. Jeans, training shoes and a loose sweater was not only the most comfortable outfit for a barmaid, but the safest and most sensible too.

They took a taxi to the Green Man – Phyllis had given them the authority – and arrived to find long queues outside the doors. Customers anticipated spending the entire evening there, some getting drunker and drunker until they hardly knew who they were.

Grace and Louise looked at each other and shrugged, then linked arms and marched through the staff door together.

Things were hectic from the minute the doors opened and the customers poured in. Huge crowds formed at the bars. Although the staff worked tirelessly, the crowds never seemed to get smaller. As soon as people were served, more joined the queue, and by the time they had been seen to, the people served first were ready to order again.

Christmas songs blared from loudspeakers overhead, everyone was forced to shout at the top of their voices, the smell of beer was gradually taken over by the smell of perspiration, and numerous sprigs of mistletoe were held over the girls’ heads and desperate attempts made to kiss them.

Grace noticed that a rather nice-looking blond chap with an enviable tan had stationed himself in front of Louise and seemed to have no intention of budging.

‘He’s an American and his name is Gary,’ Louise managed to tell her when they were both waiting by the optics for vodka. ‘Oh lord, Grace, are you sure you’re okay?’

One of the barmen managed to catch her friend before she hit the floor after fainting dead away.

Phyllis called a taxi to take her home. The house in Islington was completely quiet; everyone must be out. Grace removed her jeans and shoes and got into bed. She supposed she could have got in touch with her mother in Soho and asked her to come round, but it hardly seemed fair on Christmas Day. Anyway, Mum would fuss no end and blame the pains on working in a bar, say it was due to the unhealthy atmosphere or something.

Oh, but she would love a hot-water bottle to put on her aching tummy. For the first time she wished she wore pyjamas, as her legs were freezing cold.

‘Oh Mum!’ She sniffed dejectedly and listened to the silence until eventually she fell asleep.

Louise didn’t come home until after three o’clock. It was the sound of the door being unlocked that woke Grace. She looked blearily at the clock and sat up. ‘You can put the light on,’ she said. ‘I’m awake and I’d love a cup of tea.’

But the light didn’t go on. Instead, Louise said dully, ‘Oh Grace, something terrible has happened. That man, the American, he raped me.’

Chapter 16

Somewhat miraculously, Grace felt better. She didn’t exactly leap out of bed, but managed to get out and make her way to the light and switch it on. She led Louise to a chair by the table and sat her down. Next, she filled the kettle and put it on the tiny gas ring. It was important that Louise, and she herself, had tea. Making tea was the first thing her mother did in a crisis.

Leaving the kettle to boil, she went to the table, sat down, and put her arm around her friend’s shoulder. ‘What happened?’ she asked gently.

Louise’s tragic face aside, the rest of her was remarkably tidy. Her clothes weren’t torn and her hair was only slightly mussed, though she was shaking badly. ‘That chap, that Gary,’ she said in a rushed whisper. ‘He invited me back to his hotel. It was dead posh. We sat in the bar and he bought champagne. I think I drank half the bottle . . .’

‘
Louise!
Oh, if only I’d been there.’ If she had, they would have come home together. ‘Louise, we always swore we would never go out with a chap when our shift was over, not even if he looked like Warren Beatty.’ She recalled that the American in the Green Man earlier had been exceptionally attractive.

Louise started to cry. ‘He seemed so nice,’ she wept. ‘After the champagne, I felt quite sick and he took me up to his room. I think I lay on the bed. It must have been the drink that made me fall asleep. When I woke up, I had hardly any clothes on and neither had . . . had he, and I just knew I’d been raped. He’d taken advantage of me, Grace. I was hurting and bleeding.’

The kettle boiled. Grace made two mugs of tea and returned to the table. ‘Drink this,’ she said, her voice still gentle, but terribly shocked at her friend’s behaviour. It really wasn’t like Louise to act so irresponsibly. ‘Would you like me to telephone the police?’ she asked. There was a phone with a coin box down in the hall.

‘
No!
Oh God, no,’ Louise gasped. ‘I’m too ashamed to tell anyone apart from you. I’d sooner die than tell a policeman. Anyroad, I’m still all in one piece. He wasn’t rough or anything.’ She picked up the tea, and Grace had to help hold it to her lips because her hands were so unsteady.

‘Would you like to have a bath? Though the water’s not likely to be hot at this hour.’

‘No thank you. I’ll drink this and get washed in here with a flannel, then go to bed.’ There was a sink in the corner. ‘I’ll take some aspirin, too.’ Her voice and her hands were becoming steadier.

Grace fetched the tablets and shook two out of the bottle and another couple for herself. Her tummy had begun to hurt again. She helped Louise out of her clothes and into a nightdress, noting that none of the clothes had been torn. ‘How did you get home?’ she asked.

‘He asked my address and put me in a taxi. He must have paid because the driver didn’t ask for money when I got out.’

‘Well at least he had the decency to do that.’

Grace helped Louise into bed and tucked the eiderdown around her shoulders. She sat on the edge and stayed until Louise’s breathing became steady and she was asleep. Then she got into her own bed, but it was a long time before she fell asleep herself.

Next day, neither girl got up until after midday. Grace made tea, and Louise sat up in bed to drink it. She looked a bit dead-eyed, but that was all. ‘I never want to go back to the Green Man,’ she said with a shudder. ‘That chap could come back again any time – he might even be there tonight.’

‘If you’ll be all right on your own, I’d like to do my shift tonight, but I’ll give my notice in and we’ll get jobs in another pub in another part of London.’ It was Boxing Day and Grace didn’t like letting Phyllis down, not at such a busy period. She didn’t feel terribly well, but it was probably due to lack of sleep.

‘What if Gary comes here? He knows my address, remember.’

‘Yes, but he doesn’t know what room you’re in. Keep the door locked and I’ll be back as soon as I can.’

Phyllis Goddard’s office was lined with dark wood and hung with elaborate metal shields and swords with jewelled handles that were actually made out of plastic. Although her age was supposedly fifty, she was rumoured to be well into her sixties. Today, she wore a tiger-print jersey dress stretched tightly over her curvaceous bosom.

She looked up impatiently from behind a beautiful old desk when Grace entered her office, and appeared to be highly annoyed when her barmaid told her she was handing in her notice. ‘What about your friend?’ She was hopeless with names; understandably, as staff left and new people started by the minute.

‘Louise was – well Louise was raped last night.’ Quite unexpectedly, Grace burst into tears. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, wiping her eyes. ‘It’s really upset me, but Louise was upset enough herself, I couldn’t very well start crying too.’

To her astonishment, Phyllis got up, opened a cocktail cabinet with marquetry doors, and poured a small whisky.

‘Here, drink this,’ she said kindly. ‘And tell me what happened.’

Grace described Louise’s experience the night before.

‘Stupid girl!’ Phyllis snorted. ‘I warned the pair of you about doing anything as silly as that when you started. What got into her?’

‘I have no idea,’ Grace confessed. ‘Absolutely no idea.’ She’d tried, but couldn’t think of an explanation for Louise’s behaviour.

‘How do you feel?’ Phyllis enquired. ‘Didn’t you faint or something last night?’

Grace nodded. ‘I had stomach ache.’

‘Is it better?’

‘Not really, but,’ she added hastily, ‘I’m well enough to work my notice out.’

‘Well you’re not going to.’ Phyllis removed a tin cash box from the drawer beside her and took out a handful of notes. ‘Here is double pay for this week as promised, but your friend can have her usual wages. I hope for her sake she hasn’t caught something disgusting. As for you, you look as pale as a ghost. I am grateful that you are willing to work while feeling ill – not many people would and I appreciate loyalty – but I’d sooner manage without you. If I were you, I’d see a doctor about that stomach of yours.’ She shook Grace’s hand. ‘Just let me know if you need a reference. And good luck.’

William supposed that the best way to describe the Christmas spent with his mother and half-brothers was musical. Apart from when everyone was asleep, music in one form or another filled the house every minute of the day, whether it was from the record player, the wireless, the television or played by Quinn and Kevin with himself rattling a tambourine.

Nell stated quite solemnly that Red would be looking down on them from heaven, tapping his foot or clapping his hands or possibly even playing a sublime fiddle. Her faith was so sure, so rock solid, and so was that of her lads, that William himself almost became convinced that Red was spiritually involved in the proceedings being enacted in his old home on earth.

‘He’ll be pleased you came to stay with us for Christmas,’ Nell said with quiet satisfaction.

William gave her an emotional hug. He wanted to say ‘I love you’, but felt too embarrassed.

Before returning to London, he felt bound to drop in on his old family in Balliol Road. When he called the day after Boxing Day, the house was deathly quiet. Tom had reopened his surgery after the Christmas break and had been inundated with patients so couldn’t be there; Dorothy and Clare, William’s former sisters, had gone to the pictures in town, and Iris was in the house alone.

‘Hello, William.’ Her lips twisted in a tired smile.

‘Hello.’ He brushed his cheek against hers; it was the least he could do. He felt overcome with guilt: that he hadn’t stayed at his old home for Christmas, that it was due to him that Louise had gone to live in London, that he was responsible for breaking up his family. But it was
them
, Iris and Tom, who had betrayed
him
, he reminded himself. It was Iris and Tom who had torn his life apart, so that he didn’t know if he was coming or going – or who exactly he was – for quite a long time, though he was all right now; well, more or less.

‘How is Addy?’ he enquired.

‘Poorly,’ Iris said with a shrug. ‘We went to see her yesterday, but she wasn’t up to making anything to eat. Tom thinks she’ll have to go in a home quite soon.’

William resolved to stay another night and visit his grandmother in the morning. He’d take her flowers, which reminded him that he had presents in his coat pockets for everyone.

He gave Iris a paperback copy of the latest novel by Margaret Drabble.

‘
Jerusalem the Golden
!’ she exclaimed. ‘I’ve been longing to read this.’ She stroked the front of the book and said to him shyly, ‘Fancy you remembering that Margaret Drabble is my favourite author.’

‘I doubt if it’s something I shall ever forget,’ he said with his best smile. After all, she had been his mother for twenty-one years. From another pocket he produced a box of cigars for Tom and fancy pens for Dorothy and Clare.

‘I’m sure they’ll love them,’ Iris said when he told her what the small parcels contained. ‘They talk about you all the time, William.’

When he knocked on the door of Addy’s house, there was no reply. A woman from across the road came and told him that an ambulance had arrived early that morning and taken Mrs Grant away.

‘The people next door have been keeping an eye on her,’ she explained. ‘She was unconscious when they went in earlier. They called her doctor and it was him who sent for the ambulance.’

Addy was dead by the time William arrived at the hospital.

‘Old age,’ Tom said gruffly when he and William came face to face. ‘She had a good stout heart, but it just got tired of beating.’

Uncle Frank was there –
ex
-Uncle Frank. William had never liked him – not many people did – but he seemed devastated by his mother’s death. They shook hands and he held William close for a few seconds.

‘I’ll never understand life,’ he remarked. ‘One morning you wake up and without warning everything has changed. I doubt if I’ll ever get used to not having a mother.’

‘I remember Adele Grant,’ Aunt Kath remarked when William returned to London and told her what had happened. ‘She was a really sweet person, ever so kind and quite left-wing without realising it. Are you going to the funeral?’

‘If you don’t mind me taking the day off, it’s next Tuesday.’

‘Of course I don’t mind. How could I possibly refuse to let you go to a funeral?’