All The Days of My Life (52 page)

“I don't want to involve him,” said Molly and went back to the hotel feeling depressed and frightened. She realized that if she wanted to avoid the Roses she would have to leave Brighton. She could not make up her mind whether to seek them out and face them or keep on running away. And if she kept on running where could she go? And how long would she have to stay away? Even Framlingham was not safe. She might have to go further – she might have to get Simon Tate to give her the name of someone to go to in Kenya – just to get away from the Roses?

She fell asleep, with the sound of the sea in her ears, dreaming, uneasily, of the Roses pursuing her, of Ferenc Nedermann's ghost. She
was trapped in one of his terrible houses. There were patches on the walls which grew and expanded, the windows were broken, she ran across rotting floorboards – She awoke, saying aloud, “He wasn't happy enough.”

And, “Who wasn't happy enough, Molly?” asked a familiar voice.

She sat upright, terrified. Arnie Rose was sitting in a chair by the window, looking at her mildly. Molly's heart thudded.

“Who let you in?” she cried.

“Lady downstairs,” he told her. “I said you were my wife – we'd had a little matrimonial disagreement. She seemed happy to help.”

“You paid her,” said Molly. “What do you want, Arnie?”

“You know what I want, Moll,” he remarked peaceably. “Nedermann robbed my family. You robbed Nedermann – had to be you, didn't it? All I want now is what rightly belongs to us. You know I can't let you off the hook. It's discipline. You know,” he said in a different tone, “you aren't half a restless sleeper. Tossing and turning all the time. You need a bloke in that bed to quiet you down.”

He was not as frightening as she had thought he would be. She said, “Arnie – I've got nothing –”

“Come on, Molly. You done the safe. You forgot to close it after you. And there has to be a lot of jewellery. I'm not one to take away a lady's ornaments but, like I say, it's got to happen.”

“I only took what Ferenc would have left me if he'd made a will,” claimed Molly.

“Well, it wouldn't have been his to leave, would it, my dear?” Arnie replied.

“How did you find me?” she asked.

“Found your sister, Shirley, in some Baptist Chapel singing hymns in a little beret. She looks shocking these days, Moll. She used to be nice-looker. It must be the hymns and that ginger streak of misery she's married to. Anyway, she didn't want an argument in front of the neighbours –”

“Oh – Shirley,” Moll moaned in despair. “Oh – Shirley.”

“She didn't enjoy it,” Arnie told her. “In fact, do you know, she's the sort you could tear the fingernails off of – if you weren't a gentleman, I mean, and she wouldn't say a dicky bird. Swear to you, Moll, she'd lay down her life for you – only thing she couldn't stand was getting into trouble from that po-faced lot down the chapel. Take my word for it. That's true. But you see,” he said in the same reasonable tone, “none of this is getting us any further forward in the little matter we have under
consideration. The situation is – I won't mince words – that I have to know what you took out that house in Orme Square and make a deduction. So first you have to tell me where it all is. I give you to the count of five – then I have to turn the place over. Then if it's not here I have to ask where it is. And if you don't want to tell me I have to go on asking – know what I mean?”

Already Molly saw a look in his eye which meant that, now he had begun to think of how he would get the information from her, he was beginning to relish the idea. His talk of Shirley's fingernails had frightened her too.

She said, “All right, Arnie. There's £200 in the bottom drawer of the chest of drawers. It's all I got. And out of that I'll have to pay the hotel. There's some jewellery at the Midland Bank – not a lot. I gave half of it back to Ferenc when the business started going bad.” She looked him in the eye and tried to make him believe her. She had not mentioned the diamond ring or the deposit at the other bank. Arnie glanced at her rapidly, decided she was telling the truth and said, “OK, Moll. I believe you. On the other hand, if I ever hear anything that makes me think you haven't been telling me the truth –”

“All right, Arnie,” Molly said briskly, getting out of bed. “We'll go to the bank and get the jewellery. Now get out so I can get dressed.”

“Sure you don't want me to stay?” he said, as he looked her over.

“Not with poor Ferenc hardly cold,” Molly told him. “Have a bit of respect.”

“Oh – come on, Moll,” he said and Molly smiled the smile she had offered Lord Clover and Sir Christopher Wylie – and submitted to Arnold Rose. He was a slow and slightly brutal lover, a smacker, a hair-puller, a neck-biter. Molly's only surprise was that he was not worse. There was, in any case, no point in worrying about it. The Roses always got their price. “You're a lovely girl, Moll,” he told her afterwards. “Never seen a finer and this just proves it more. I hope we're going to see a lot more of each other.”

“Ferenc –” Molly murmured.

“I can see that, Molly,” he replied. “But you can't go on mourning forever.” A couple of days would be nice, though, Molly thought to herself. Fortunately, at that moment Arnie declared, “Well, then, to business. We'd better get ourselves down the bank and see what they've got.”

“Good heavens above,” he said later, as they sat in a shelter on the windy promenade, looking at the contents of the brown paper carrier
bag in which Molly had put the jewellery. “Oh dear, oh dear – this wouldn't improve the look of the Christmas tree much, would it?” He stared her in the eye and asked, “Are you sure you've been telling me the truth, Molly?”

There was nobody about. Mist hung low over the promenade. Molly, knowing she had the ring tucked away in another bank, decided that she would not give it up. She launched into details of what Ferenc had given her and how she had later given it back. “By the time the mortgage had to be paid on Chepstow Villas there was nothing to pay it with – it was a private mortgage, from Arthur Simpkinson and he kept on ringing up. So bang went the diamond earrings – Ferenc kept trying to make me have them back. In the end I nipped down to Asprey's myself and sold them, and a string of pearls, and gave him the money, in cash. After that,” she continued, “there we were with hundreds of houses and thousands of pounds of rent coming in and still nothing for Josie's school fees – what could I do? Something else had to go – this time the bracelet –” Arnie interrupted her and shook his head, “Tsk, tsk, tsk,” he said. “What a silly girl you've been. Didn't Ivy teach you never to part with the jewellery?”

“Can't say she did,” Molly replied, pleased that he had not found out about the ring.

“Well, take my word for it,” Arnie told her. “In hard times jewellery's all a woman's got. Diamonds are a girl's best friend.” He patted her knee and told her, “We'll have to see about replacing some of the tom, then, at a later date, won't we? Let's get out of this wind and have some lunch.”

At a large restaurant on the front they ate oysters and drank champagne. Molly discovered she was quite enjoying herself. The past few days had been terrible. Now Arnie had taken the jewellery and left her the £200 in cash, which was a relief. He spoke well of Ferenc Nedermann so the occasion was respectful. She couldn't help thinking that Arnie and his brother had helped to push Nedermann into his heart attack but it was consoling to be able to speak of him at all.

He said, “Basically I liked Ferenc, very much. He was good company, Ferenc, and a clever businessman. All right, he made some mistakes but there's nothing to say that he couldn't have sorted all that out, if he hadn't died so tragically early. How old was he?”

“Forty-eight,” Molly said.

“Forty-eight – I ask you. No age at all. In his prime,” Arnie said. “There it is – I suppose none of us knows when we're going to be
taken.” He put a large piece of steak into his mouth and chewed. “Course I'm sorry I had to go after him like that but I had no choice. I couldn't let him get away with robbing my sister's boy, could I? Course not. If he'd only come to me like a gentleman –” he mused. “Still, water under the bridge, Moll, that's what it is.”

Molly nodded and said, knowing he was about to start pressing her, “I can't get over it. One minute he was all right – the next, there I was trying to wake him up. My one consolation is that he couldn't have felt any pain. I don't think he knew anything about it. I'm wondering when they'll release the body after the autopsy –”

“Don't worry about all that, Moll,” Arnie said. “The firm'll take care of the arrangements.”

“He was a Jew,” Molly said.

“That a fact?” Arnie said in surprise. “Should have guessed I suppose. Anyway,” he persisted, “that's not what you should be thinking about just at this moment. You have to think of the future – you've got a kid to bring up. Now, I don't want to offend you. You're sensitive and at a time like this – never mind, some things have to be said – I want to tell you what I think about you, Molly. As I see it, you've got a lot of class, a lot of class – and a lot of personality. Now – I respect your grief, it's only natural and right, but a woman can't go on grieving forever and there you are, a good looker, a good dresser and all the rest – you need a man to protect you. What's a woman without a man, when all's said and done? And I could be good to you, Moll.”

Molly smiled at him and said, “Arnie –”

He went on, with some anger, “I'm good to women. Look at what I done for that slag Wendy Valentine – I don't like speaking ill of women but, let's face facts – she was a right little scrubber. But never mind that, while I was with her she had the best of everything – big cars, fur coats, plenty of sparklers – the lot. And that was for little Wendy, a real Blackwall Tunnel, to put it crudely – sorry, Molly, I'm not a crude man usually, but we all know about her. Not that there was any of that while I was about, of course, but before and after – oh, my God, what a careless girl. Gone right down now, I hear. Black, white or yellow, she doesn't bother. On the skids, good and proper – but, like I say, if I done all that for her, you can imagine what I'd do for you. Because I respect you, Moll. You've had a hard time and done your best for the kid and that's what a woman's judged by in this world – how she treats her kid. And you've always done right by Josie.” He paused. “How about it, Moll?” he said. “I'll treat you well. I guarantee it.”

An idea shot into Molly's head. She captured it rapidly and pinned it, like a butterfly to a board. She realized she was twenty-eight and wanted to do something for herself. She did not want another man, for the time being at any rate, having a hand in shaping her future. She saw that if she took up with Arnold Rose, or anyone else for that matter, she would never be able, as she put it, to call her soul her own. She was also horrified by the idea of Arnie Rose, the man and his life. On the other hand, she was afraid of offending him. She put her knife and fork together on the plate and told him, “I'm very shattered, Arnie. You're right. I'm sensitive. Perhaps I'm oversensitive. But I do need some time, maybe even a month or two, to put my heart together again. You're a fine man, but at a time like this, I haven't anything to bring you.”

Pouring some more wine into her glass, he said, “Fair enough, Molly. I thought you might say something like that. Only right – I respect your feelings.” He patted her hand with his own large one. There were black hairs growing on it. He had a diamond ring on his little finger. Molly squeezed the hand in reply and said, “That's very understanding of you.”

“How about some sweet?” he asked. “And – why not – a little drop of pink champagne to help it down.”

“Thank you, Arnie,” Molly said, glad to be off the hook, but knowing that it was only a temporary escape. He drove her back to London and dropped her in Meakin Street.

That night, in the now-neglected house at the end of the street Mary lay sleepless in the brass-knobbed bed where once she had lain in joy with her lover, Johnnie. She was thinking hard.

She had two hundred pounds under the mattress and one hundred in the Post Office and, all too soon, Arnie Rose would be coming courting in Meakin Street. It was inadvisable to refuse either of the Rose brothers what they wanted. Arnie's sentimentality could turn easily to violent rage, as if he were a child. She was reasonably safe for a time, while she kept up her pose as a grief-stricken widow under the protection of Sid and Ivy, whom Arnie and Norman's system of loyalties forbade them to offend. Moreover she had, that afternoon, applied for a place for Josephine at the local grammar school. She would get in, Molly guessed, but more money would be needed to pay for the uniform.

She lay there, with a tangle of financial and emotional ideas running round her head. Here was where she had first slept with Johnnie in the days when they had both been more innocent than either of them seemed to be today. Perhaps she should have married Ferenc and obtained some legal right to anything left over when the confusion was sorted out. But then, she thought, would she feel justified in taking it? She had had his child aborted. He would have died a happier man if she had been a proper wife to him, and undertaken to bear him a child. And, she thought, she had known, by now, too much death – Jim, Steven Greene, even Ferenc, had died before their time.

Finally, Molly slept and then awoke, from a nightmare about Ferenc's death, where she could have brought him back to life but could not remember what to do. In the yard outside there was a funny noise. Inside her head a voice said, “Take a shorthand and typing course.” She got up to investigate the noise and, on the way down –
stairs, saw the advantages of the scheme. Firstly, she would be qualified for a better job if she could do shorthand and typing. She saw herself in a white coat, in an office, acting as a doctor's receptionist. Secondly, while she was taking the course she would be out a lot of the time. When she was in she would be studying. This, she thought, would deter Arnie Rose from making unexpected visits and put him off while he was in the house.