Coronation Wives (12 page)

A line from the Bible that was also very well advertised on the side of a tin of Lyle’s treacle, skipped unbidden into Charlotte’s head.
Out of the strong came forth sweetness.

She smiled her most sugary smile and leaned towards him as though he was a film star and she was his greatest fan. Her voice was pure treacle. ‘I do apologize, but I thought I might enquire how the two men are, the ones that were fighting the other day.’

He flashed her a sharp look before gathering up more bits of paper and rolls of drawings. Obviously he was preparing to leave the office and get her off the site.

‘You weren’t the man who broke them apart, were you?’ she asked with an air of genuine concern.

‘No. I was not.’ He glared at her with open hostility. Charlotte continued to smile although her jaw ached. Her
handbag was looped over one arm. Her white-gloved fists were tightly clenched. She had a strong urge to punch him on the nose.

‘So how are those poor men?’

He came round from behind the desk, grabbed her elbow in a pincer-like grip and propelled her to the door. ‘They’re OK. Just two men fighting. Happens all the time. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got work to do.’

Charlotte kept talking. ‘Were they foreign? I couldn’t help thinking they were. It was their voices, you see. They sounded so different.’

She fancied his grip loosened and a wary anger simmered in his eyes.

‘Lady,’ he said, poking a finger at his sweat-stained trilby so it sat further back on his head, ‘I wouldn’t like to say. You wouldn’t believe the kind of language the men use on this site. And quite frankly, I don’t think you should stay around to hear it.’

She stumbled slightly as he guided her out of the door and down the three rough steps. Once firm ground was reached she started to fumble in her handbag.

‘If any men on your site do get hurt, perhaps you could get in touch. My husband is a doctor.’ She passed him a neat little black and white card she’d had printed which stated,
Dr and Mrs D.L.E. Hennessey-White
. The cards were mainly for handing out at social gatherings, far better than rummaging in a handbag or pocket for pen and note-paper.

He took it but continued to guide her physically and forcibly towards the entrance, the pavement and the crowds of shoppers walking and laughing in the warm summer sun.

‘Well, goodbye, Mr … ?’ she said, once her feet were on less pitted ground. ‘Goodbye!’

He turned smartly away, his broad shoulders rolling and his
stride lengthening like some down-market John Wayne. Her dismissal was absolute.

She studied him thoughtfully as he went back up the steps and into the office. His surly behaviour made her even more suspicious than she had been. She made herself an instant promise. As soon as she had the time she would satisfy her curiosity. Life was too busy at the moment, what with sorting out work and accommodation for the people in her care, plus finding time for David, who was never well nowadays. Thank goodness Geoffrey was away studying in Cambridge and that Janet had a good job and
seemed
happy enough, though she did worry at times that she was seeing less and less of her.

Between refugee, community and hospital work, she would approach Brookman again, ask his opinion and see if there was any way he could investigate matters.

It seemed a satisfactory way forward. As she walked into the crowds she chanced to glance back. A shiny black car had pulled into the kerb. Curious, though she couldn’t quite say why, she stood and watched as the driver got out, went round to the passenger side and opened the door. A tall, well-made man got out. He paused, eyed the entrance with a look of serious intent, then fixed his hat firmly on his head.

Charlotte’s heart beat like a drum. The man in the double-breasted suit again! Some memory from the past attempted to resurface, but didn’t quite make it. The feeling that she knew him from somewhere would not go away. Much as she racked her brain, his name and the place she’d first seen him refused to come to mind.

The foreman on the building site flicked the card she’d given him between his fingers. The man who had just arrived listened attentively to him, his driver standing close to his shoulder.

‘A snooper,’ he said. ‘Doctor’s wife according to this card.’

‘And she saw us break up the fight between Stanislav and Kubenchski?’

‘Yes, Mr O’Hara.’

The man called Mr O’Hara took a deep breath. At first he looked as though he would throw the card away, but suddenly seemed to change his mind.

‘I know her from somewhere.’

‘Is that right?’ said the foreman. His eyes fixed expectantly on O’Hara’s face in the belief he was about to get an explanation.

O’Hara was explaining nothing. Hell, he thought, eyeing the neatly printed name and address. I
do
know that dame. He smiled as he slid the card into his trouser pocket. ‘Let me know if the lady comes sniffing round again.’

‘Do you want me to warn her off?’

O’Hara eyed the foreman as though he had more chance of becoming Miss Weston-super-Mare than taking care of Mrs Hennessey-White.

‘No. That’s my department.’

After the business was done and money – a lot of money – had changed hands, he got back in his car. As his chauffeur drove, O’Hara looked out of the car window, his lips drawn in a laconic smile. My, he thought, but there was a lot of rebuilding going on in Europe. It was so easy to make money if you didn’t do it by the book. And wasn’t it great being a big fish in a little pond? That’s what Bristol was compared to Chicago or New York. He’d known the latter cities well before the war. His business had been less than legal there too. The war had intervened and, along with a lot of other city boys, he’d been shipped to Europe and managed to spend most of the war in England.

Under normal circumstances he should have gone back home once the war had ended. New York and Chicago were
cities where men like him could make money just by ensuring the right union was paying the right dues to the right people. New York had become rich on wartime business. Labour had been at a premium and had continued into the post-war period. But he couldn’t go home, and although he sometimes felt bitter about it, he consoled himself with the fact that he was doing pretty well in England.

He was a respectable businessman, though respect ability was not an issue for Mickey O’Hara. He’d paid good money for a fake passport, ration and identity papers, and best of all he had paid for the fact that Mickey O’Hara had never committed a crime.

Charlotte needed Colin’s help but, as always, she didn’t want to ask him for it outright. She also thought she might snatch a moment with Edna, perhaps test the water before deciding to hand over the letter.

‘I’m going to take you on a trip and then for tea and buns,’ she said, having bumped into Edna in Whiteladies Road where she was shopping for new shoes for her energetic and shoe-destroying son. ‘I’ll pick you up at ten o’clock on Saturday morning and I won’t take no for an answer.’

So here they were standing beneath the ceremonial crown that stood in the middle of the Centre. The crown’s four sturdy legs were decorated with flags and paper flowers and straddled the wide path that formed a cross between walled flowerbeds where blooms of red, white and blue danced in the breeze.

‘Ships used to tie up here,’ Colin explained to the children.

‘There’s no water,’ Peter wailed.

‘No,’ Colin remarked sardonically. ‘Them that planned this preferred concrete and their own glory to water. Shame! They took no account at all of Bristol’s maritime history.’

‘A bit like ripping out its heart,’ said Edna sadly.

Colin smiled at her equally sadly and stroked her hair.

‘I’m inclined to agree with you,’ Charlotte remarked. She kept her gaze fixed on the crown, feeling a little uncomfortable at their public show of affection. It was not something she and David indulged in – even in private. She went on, ‘Perhaps one day a more enlightened corporation might reinstate the water and have the boats mooring again as far as Colston Avenue.’

Colin’s pale complexion turned pink as he burst out laughing. ‘Have you ever come across an enlightened corporation in your career as a professional busybody?’

Edna sucked in her breath. ‘Colin!’

Charlotte waved the remark aside. Colin liked goading her. ‘You’re probably right, Colin. At some time in the future they’ll probably replace it with an even worse concrete construction – despite busybodies like me.’

‘I hope I won’t be around to see it,’ said Colin. ‘Bloody corporation!’

Charlotte shook her head and smiled. She enjoyed Colin and Edna’s company and admired their resilience in the face of Colin’s disablement. Normally, she’d be exuberant, talking louder, running around the flowerbeds with the children, but the existence of the letter lay heavy. What if she disclosed its existence and their marriage broke up as a result? Anything could happen. She shivered.

‘It’s much larger than I expected,’ Colin exclaimed, breaking into her thoughts, his head tilted back, face turned upwards to study the underside of the elaborate construction. ‘Good job the Queen, bless her, didn’t wear anything this big on her head.’

‘She could live in it,’ said Edna, gazing up at it from underneath.

‘Is it a house?’ asked Susan.

‘No. It’s a crown,’ Edna explained.

Charlotte and Edna stood on either side of Colin looking up intermittently and ready to catch him should he lose his balance though he was using the handle of Pamela’s pushchair to keep him steady. Edna held the hands of the older children.

‘So there you are,’ said Charlotte in the same sort of voice she used when giving a talk to the Townswomen’s Guild, ‘a wonderful tribute to our new Queen. I promised to walk underneath it with you and I have.’

Colin eyed her speculatively, a hint of a smile playing around his mouth. ‘But I have seen it before, Charlotte. Me and Edna do have a car now, you know. So come on, what’s on yer mind?’

A blushing Edna tapped his arm in admonishment. Charlotte saw the gesture and almost blushed herself. Of course she had an ulterior motive and rebuked herself for underestimating Colin’s astute nature. The blush retreated in the face of her usual self-control and she laughed. ‘How clever of you. You’ve found me out. How did you guess?’

Colin grinned, winked and tapped both his tin legs. ‘I’ve got built-in radar.’

‘Colin!’ Edna’s blush inched over her jaw and down her neck.

‘It’s all right, Edna.’

It never failed to amuse Charlotte that Edna thought her vulnerable to Colin’s challenging sense of humour, as though people from Clifton with plummy voices never laughed or told rude jokes. She asked, ‘Can I buy you tea? The Civic Restaurant’s open.’

They made their way to one of the wartime facilities that had not as yet faded away with the last of the rationing. Civic restaurants had been around almost since war was first declared and seemed likely to linger – perhaps as long as the prefabricated houses. The latter were fast approaching their
ten-year dismantlement date. Charlotte thought it a shame. For the first time a lot of people had inside bathrooms, a big improvement on an outside lavatory and a tin bath hanging on the back wall.

‘I thought, you could help,’ Charlotte began as they drank tea served in thick china cups and bit into hot teacakes smothered in precious butter and real raspberry jam. ‘As you know, I am doing work for the Bureau of Displaced Persons. These people are unable to return to their own countries. Most would be killed if they did. A large number of them came over during the last decade when things were in turmoil after the war. Since the Iron Curtain came down we’re seeing more and more people applying to live in this country. Our aim is to find them adequate accommodation and jobs. At present they are being restricted to the most labour intensive and menial of jobs – mining, steel-making, road-digging. But there are those of us who think this unfair. Some of these people are highly qualified and deserve better than that. We are going to put it to our superiors that there are more skilled jobs needing to be done. I thought you, Colin, might be able to help with this.’

Colin eyed her intently, a knowing smile playing on his lips. Colin was clever at seeing through people and turning comments on their heads. She didn’t want him to do too much of that today. She wanted him to be serious.

‘Where are they from?’ asked Edna, her face clouded.

Charlotte answered, ‘Some are Ukranians, Lithuanians, Yugoslavs – even a few Germans among them. The majority are Polish.’

‘Are they skilled?’ Colin asked.

Charlotte sighed regretfully as if having a skill or profession was some kind of drawback. ‘Yes. That’s why we feel they’re being wasted, but’ – she shrugged and shook her head – ‘I’m afraid that if they wish to settle in this country they are only
allowed to take certain jobs. We’re getting enough accusations that they’re taking jobs from our own people. Everyone wants to forget the war, but the problems it left us with won’t go away just like that.’ She shrugged again. ‘I wish it were otherwise.’

Colin met the steady gaze she gave him over the top of her teacup. He grinned and lifted one of his legs with both hands to get it into a more comfortable position. ‘And you’d like me to help you break the mould.’

Her spirits rose. She knew that look, but pretended she hadn’t noticed, sipped her tea and looked round at the place they were in as if it had lately acquired a certain ostentation rather than being pretty basic and smelling of fat fried many times over and still sitting in the pans.

‘So,’ said Colin, ‘if I agree to take some of these people on, you then have to persuade your bureau—’

‘Actually the Home Office,’ Charlotte corrected.

‘ … The Home Office,’ Colin went on, ‘that the jobs I am offering are very menial.’

Charlotte nodded. ‘Yes. At least, to start with.’

They all fell silent as they picked the last crumbs left on their plates. It was all too thought-provoking for words.

‘Funny old world,’ said Colin at last, his eyes following his wife’s gentle movements as she adjusted her daughter’s pillow to accommodate her sleepy head. ‘What do you think then, Edna?’