Swan River (8 page)

Deborah stood up and walked to the window. ‘Let's do something, tomorrow. Go up the river to Temple or Hurley. Have a picnic.'

She had never said so, but I knew she liked the river, the birds and boats and locks, and the backdrop of hills and woods, as much as I did. ‘OK, as long as it isn't raining.' I stood up to go and peered again at La Frascetti. ‘It's so good. You couldn't do another one just like it…for me?'

She smiled. ‘Maybe. I might.' She raised her eyebrows and shrugged. ‘Might not come out right, another time.'

The night was cold and damp. Particles of condensation floated in the air around the streetlights; the headlights of a lorry glowed down by the bridge. I walked past the shops. I was conscious of an unusual sadness, and wasn't sure whether it was within my control, whether I could halt it voluntarily. I was looking at the shops as if I might never see them again: Coster's, the tobacconist, with its exotic smells and bowls of pipe tobacco with handwritten labels; Maison George, where I had had my first proper haircut, sitting high up on a special cushion and marvelling at the back of my head repeated endlessly in a tunnel formed by two mirrors; Milward's, the shoe shop where I had put my feet into a machine containing X-rays and seen my toes hazily silhouetted against an eerie green light inside new pairs of Clark's sandals; W. H. Smith and Lloyds Bank, where some of the assistants and clerks recognised me and knew who my parents were. The Home and Colonial Stores, Woolworth's, Keen's the camera shop, Aldridge the greengrocer, Martin's the electrical store, Platt's Garage, the florist called Pinkney's Nursery, the ironmonger around the corner whose name I couldn't recall. It was said to be a market town, and to me much of its identity came from its shops and the people I saw, inside them and in the streets.

I turned into Station Road, my street. It was darker there, and I could see the stars through a thin film of cloud. A constellation that I recognised, but couldn't name, hung above the woods beyond the river at the end of St Peter's Street.

* * * * *

I heard my father shouting as I arrived at our gate. I walked silently up the path to the kitchen window. The curtains were open and the lights were on. I could hear my mother's voice, an agitated murmur, as I stood in the shadows close to the window.

The murmur died away and my father shouted again. I could hear nothing for a few moments. Then my father's voice again, louder still. I was frightened. I knew this mood. I knew that there was spit at the sides of his mouth, that his eyeballs were popped forward in their sockets, that he was breathing heavily and glaring at her like a deranged dog. I knew that at any moment he might pick up the nearest object and, just possibly, hit her.

There was more silence. Then an angry bellow – ‘You're mad' – followed by words I couldn't catch. Then ‘God
strewth
!' More shouting, a stream of words that sounded like one long snarl, and another silence. My mother seemed to be dealing with the onslaught, as she usually did, by saying nothing, but I wasn't sure; she never shouted like he did. ‘Paaaah!' The long drawn-out guttural syllable that I detested penetrated the tightly closed window – his unique expression of exasperation that always made me think of an angry snake poised to inflict its venom.

When I was younger I used to cower behind the door, and listen, amazed and terrified. Just once, years before, he had raised his arm to hit me; he had a full milk bottle in his hand. ‘Paaaah!' I was five years old and held my arm in front of my face. Just in time he stopped, gazed at the bottle as though he hadn't known it was there, lowered his arm and crept slowly away. Now, I knew, with some certainty, that if I walked in there would be no violence; I was no threat to him physically, but my presence would trigger his shame.

I turned the handle and stepped in. For a few seconds neither of them noticed me. He was standing in the doorway of the dining room, glowering at my mother, who was sitting at the table with her back to me, head bowed, looking down at her hands. He was shaking, his face red, his eyes and cheeks bulging, his hands held out in front of him, palms upward in a gesture of contemptuous supplication. His voice rose, angry and beseeching, ‘God help us!' His mouth was contorted and ugly, his hands clenched into fists. Then he saw me. He shut his mouth and gulped, turned to one side, licked his lips, slowly unbent his hands and put them in his pockets. My mother turned, saw me, stood up, glanced at me and looked down at the floor. My father walked to the sink, filled a glass with water and drank it down. He stared out of the window for a moment, then turned and said in his normal voice, ‘Your mother has been wondering whether you really want to go to that school. She – '

‘I'm going to the bloody school, so there's nothing to talk about.' I was shivering. I didn't look at either of them. I walked between them into the dining room, through the hall and up the stairs to my room. I turned on the light and stood in the doorway, listening. The shivering soon stopped, but the tingling, the pulse of fear and anger that must have entered me as I stood listening outside, remained.

Moments later, I heard my father walk across the hall to the living room and shut the door behind him. He turned the television on, very loud; I could hear Tony Hancock's voice through the floor, followed by the deeper monotone of Sid James. After a minute he turned it down. I wandered into my room and stared unseeingly at the map of Great Britain on the wall. The tingling feeling was subsiding.

I thought about my mother, alone with him after I had gone away to school.

And then the doorbell rang. I heard my father open the front door and say, ‘Hello, he's in his room I think.'

Richard came bounding up the stairs. ‘You all right? You look a bit funny.' He sprawled on my bed and started turning the pages of Sis's diary for 1888.

I told him about the row I had walked in on. He was sympathetic and called my father a nutter, at which I nodded grimly. He suggested we go for a walk. ‘We could even get Adam and try the milk bar again…I don't think.' He grinned.

My father was still in the sitting room watching television with the door closed. My mother was in the dining room reading the arts page of the
Daily Telegraph
with Louis Armstrong singing ‘Mack the Knife' on the record player. I told her we were going out for a while, that I wasn't hungry and would eat later.

We walked towards the High Street. Richard handed me a lit cigarette. I sucked hard on it, blowing the smoke straight back out. It was good to be outside again. We crossed the High Street and went on into the park, taking the lighted path towards the river. Near the towpath, we met a group of boys coming the other way carrying fishing rods. Patrick and Dennis were among them.

‘Great goal!' I shouted at Dennis and waved my fist.

‘My hero!' called Richard, bowing extravagantly.

‘Yeah!' he shouted back. ‘Easy!…Good bloke, your dad… See ya.'

‘See ya.'

‘See ya.'

I stood by the river with Richard. He picked up a flat stone and spun it out into the darkness. We could hear the plips as it bounced. I stared at the swaying reflections of the lights from the few houses on the other side; through the gloom I could make out a swan standing alone on the further bank. I began to relax. There were always days, and usually weeks or months, between my father's rages; I knew my mother was safe, for a while, anyway.

7

At the Cab Rank in the Strand

On the last day of 1888 thirty-seven people dined, sang and danced at 59 Norfolk Road, Dalston. All but four of them were related to my great-grandfather Old George. Sis had invited Stanley; Ernest had invited his current belle from the music halls, a small, athletic young woman called Violet Henderson; and Old George's oldest friend, a dapper solicitor called Lew Johnson, had come with his statuesque and flirtatious wife, Ada.

As the eldest of eight siblings, Old George had hosted a party every New Year's Eve since 1872, the year he moved into the house. This year both of his late wife's sisters and all seven of his own brothers and sisters – even his rich and arrogant youngest brother, Charlie – were there; and all except spinster aunt Sue had brought spouses and children.

With the exception of Charlie who was a stockbroker and Uncle Coleman, a slow-witted retired policeman who pretended to be more deaf than he really was, all the men of the family, blood relations and in-laws, were small businessmen. They included a bookmaker, a tailor, a watchmaker and jeweller, and Old George's brother Bill who owned a butcher's shop but described himself as a ‘general dealer'. Again with the exception of Uncle Charlie who had moved out of London to a large house in Barnet, all of them lived in east London within an arc stretching from Stoke Newington to Hoxton through Hackney and Bethnal Green; and all of them, including Charlie, met up with one another frequently.

The evening provided endless fun, although some – such as Uncle Coleman and Aunt May Stickalorum, an austere sister-in-law to Old George who came from a family of prosperous undertakers of that astonishing name – had less than others; and one – the alcoholic, and famously smelly, spinster aunt Sue – had more.

When the eating was over and the Alices and the three servants hired for the evening had removed the debris, the piano became the focus and the occasion seesawed from singsong to knees-up, most of the women and many of the men taking their turns at the keyboard.

Ernest's versatile friend, Violet, thrilled almost everyone. She had even Uncle Coleman in tears with a perfectly timed rendition of ‘Take care little Mary', and danced solo to Young George's up-tempo version of ‘The Belle of New York'. Sis recorded that when Violet's skirts flew up so that those who were sitting down could glimpse her knees, Aunt May Stickalorum's gasps of disapproval caused a wave of hysterical giggling which started with the young cousins surrounding Ernest and rippled around the room and up through the generations until Lew, Old George and the bright-eyed Ada were mopping their faces and slapping their knees.

As midnight approached the children – who had been read to upstairs in Sis's bed – were persuaded to reappear on the promise of ‘Four little ducks in a pond' performed by Old George, his two sons, and the urbane Lew Johnson; the smaller children and Aunt Sue then screamed with terror when Uncle Joe turned down the lights and sang the morbid ‘True, true till death' in an eerie bass with a candle held under his chin.

Whenever Sis played or sang, Stanley stood by admiringly; when she danced, waltzes and quicksteps, he was her partner; and when she led the conga around the drawing room, across the hall and into her father's bedroom, he held her waist and brushed his face against her hair. When midnight struck and glasses were raised, he pulled her behind the drawing-room door and kissed her lips and then her nose; and when Young George played three verses of ‘Auld Lang Syne' with increasing ferocity and rococo flourishes, Stanley managed to be opposite Sis in the huge circle of children and adults and made sure that they regularly collided.

Carriages called for the wealthier guests. Others departed in groups on bicycles and on foot; Ernest and Violet undertook the sisyphean task of moving a hiccuping Aunt Sue the half-mile from Norfolk Road to her rancid bedsit in Mare Street; two families with small children spent the night at the Norfolk Arms on the corner. Sis's favourite aunt, Kate, and her husband, the watchmaker Uncle Gibson (Old George's in-laws were called by their surnames), stayed over, sleeping on camp beds in the breakfast room with their baby girl.

Stanley was the last to go and made his hansom cab wait while he and Sis took a short stroll in the unkempt garden. Sis held Stanley tight around the waist and laid her head against his shoulder; as they kissed, she was surprised, but not dismayed, to find Stanley's hand covering her breast.

* * * * *

The extended Thompson family, except perhaps Aunt May Stickalorum, approved of Stanley, and soon began whispering of marriage. By the time the freezing winter of 1889 ended, sometime in March, he was spending most of his evenings at Norfolk Road. He would arrive at about seven o'clock and leave when his cab called soon after eleven. He sat with Sis in the kitchen while she bossed the servants and indulged in her favourite hobby, making clothes from patterns printed in fashion magazines; he played bezique and picquet with her on the big table in the breakfast room; and in the drawing room they played duets on the piano, read aloud to each other and sat talking interminably. Stanley never went above the ground floor; decorum did not permit him to enter Sis's bedroom.

However, for a young couple with, as yet, no formal relationship they enjoyed unusual freedom. This was partly because Sis had no mother, but also because Old George was a liberal and, perhaps, a little naïve, and more importantly was away a great deal; Ernest's new job as a booker at the Hoxton Britannia meant he was rarely home before midnight. Young George became an unofficial and informal chaperon, but there was soon an occasion when he too went out, to spend the evening with his new friend, Marie Potts, at her parents' home in Amhurst Road – where, Ernest frequently reminded him, the swells of Dalston lived.

Left alone in the house with just Little Alice, who would appear only if summoned, Sis and Stanley stoked up the fire, sat on the sofa and held hands. Stanley put an arm around Sis's shoulder and her cheek fell against his; gently he kissed her face and lips and hands and hair; less bold, she kissed his hand, his cheek, his forehead. It was by no means the first time they had kissed, but to be at home with her man in front of the fire, instead of standing in a draughty street, was a new and delicious pleasure.

At first, when he was at home, Old George would sit with them, talk and sometimes join in their games; but, with Stanley almost ever present, he reverted to his long-held habit of retiring to his bed surrounded by candles at about nine o'clock – not that he didn't like the man, he did; it was simply that, as Stanley became more familiar, the need to be hospitable and to keep an eye on him and Sis receded.

The door of Old George's room would be left open so that, sitting up in bed wearing a cream cotton nightshirt, he was available to whomever cared to visit, or whomever he cared to invite. The room was large and furnished with armchairs, a sofa and, for nine months of the year, if Old George was at home, a well-stoked coal fire. Friends, as well as relations, knew that the best time to have a chat with Old George was between nine and eleven in the evening as he lay against several pillows, reading and portentously smoking his pipe. Family conferences with his brothers, sisters and children were frequently conducted in this setting.

Stanley would often sit with Sis in the candlelight talking to her recumbent father about science, furniture, politics and murders. Old George was slow to accept new people, but by the summer of 1889 he saw Stanley as a friend and not just as the young man who would soon marry his daughter.

On Friday or Saturday evenings the couple would go to the theatre. Occasionally they would go to the music hall, usually on Ernest's recommendation, even though Sis mildly disapproved of much that went on there; she had a trace of snobbery not present in her father or brothers, and found certain people and activities vulgar. On Sundays, in good weather, they would walk up to Hackney Downs and pay for seats by the bandstand, or take a train with Young George and Marie from Dalston Junction to Epping Forest for a picnic in the woods – Marie's parents had been persuaded, with Old George's help, that mutual chaperoning was acceptable.

It was clear to all that Sis and Stanley were in love and well-suited, but in July Sis began to worry: Stanley had made no attempt to introduce her to his family, though he had mentioned a mother and two sisters living in Hertfordshire, and a brother who was in the navy. In August she recorded that, despite all that had passed between them, he had not made even an oblique reference to marriage. She confided her concerns to her Aunt Kate.

Ernest was the only one to ask her openly about Stanley, teasing her frequently and mercilessly in front of her father and brother. His jokes about questions being popped and his silly suggestions for wedding presents – he promised her his new xylophone on finding her playing it in his attic room – perhaps had a serious intent; he may have wanted to help his sister by bringing the matter into the open. At first his teasing embarrassed rather than worried her. Stanley didn't like to rush things, she felt; but as time passed Sis's happiness became increasingly blemished.

* * * * *

On Thursday 13 September, the day after he received a concerned letter from Kate, Old George returned early from work and persuaded Sis to walk up to Hackney Downs with him – Thursday was early-closing day in Dalston and therefore band night on the Downs. He told her that he had arranged to meet his brother Bill and aunt Lil Sparrowhawk at the bandstand.

They set out soon after five o'clock; it was a cool evening with a breeze piling the leaves against the high kerb on the east side of Norfolk Road. As they turned into Downs Park Road, Old George put his arm through his daughter's and remarked that it was a shame that Stanley was not coming that evening.

Sis told him that she would be seeing Stanley the next evening and that on Saturday they would be going to the Alexandra where Henry Irving and Ellen Terry were in a play together and, after that, he would be taking her out to supper. Sis was very excited about this and old George was understandably startled. People of their class – lower-middle – didn't eat out, except perhaps at the music hall, unless they were away from home; they were too cultured to join the lower orders in the pie and fish shops, but – even if they could afford better – were shy of the toffs and swells who filled the smart hotels and restaurants of the West End.

Sis and Stanley hadn't been out to dinner – or to a post-theatre supper – together in the eighteen months they had known each other; Old George was even more astonished when Sis told him that Stanley had reserved a table at Romano's. Neither he nor Sis knew anything of Romano's, except that it was in the Strand, shockingly expensive and one of the fashionable places of the decade.

Asked by her father whether there was any special reason for this display of extravagance, Sis replied, ‘Who knows…? Maybe…?' She laughed and hugged him.

There was no doubt that Sis was expecting Stanley to propose, and she asked her father whether he would mind. He told her he would be delighted, and said, ‘Don't you think I've seen it coming?' He added that she and Stanley would be welcome to live with him and George and Ernest at Norfolk Road.

This suggestion didn't surprise Sis. Among her peers it was commonplace for a newly married couple to live with one or other set of parents, and she had even discussed the possibility with her aunt, but this wasn't what she wanted. She was devoted to her father but, despite the conventional side of her nature, she had long found it irksome that she was expected to look after him while her brothers had freedom to go out, to find friends and fun and jobs. Her dream was to get away and set up home with Stanley, but she told her father graciously that they would have to wait and see.

Uncle Bill and Aunt Lil Sparrowhawk didn't turn up for the rendezvous at the bandstand, but father and daughter spent a happy forty minutes in the second row, leaving as the light faded and the band played its final number, ‘Goodbye Dolly, I must leave you'.

On Saturday evening Old George broke his usual routine of retiring to bed at nine and, instead, sat up late and alone in the drawing room waiting for Sis to return. Around midnight Ernest returned from work, and they sat together drinking port. Their late-night vigil was to become a family legend.

Ernest asked his father what Sis had worn for her big evening out. His younger son's interest in clothes and the fripperies of life sometimes irritated old George, and when he was irritated his voice took on a low rumble, described by my father as like a small, smouldering volcano. On this occasion, concerned as he was for his daughter's happiness, he rumbled like Mount Etna. He told Ernest that it didn't matter what she was wearing, what mattered was her happiness and that it was time Stanley proposed; if he didn't propose that night, there was something seriously wrong. A little later he relented and said that she had looked glorious, like Ernest's mother departing for her honeymoon, and that she had been wearing something blue.

At a quarter to one the two men heard the clop and rattle of a hansom cab stopping outside; a minute later Sis entered the room – wearing a red silk dress. Both men could tell immediately that she had been disappointed. She made a big effort, telling them how marvellous the play had been and how elegant Romano's was; that the Prince of Wales had been there with a party that included Lillie Langtry; that the waiters wore grey uniforms with gold epaulets and spoke with Italian accents; that she and Stanley had a cosy table in a corner.

She couldn't go on. Ernest complimented her on her dress, but she broke into tears. Her father sat with her on the sofa, concerned and attentive. She said that Stanley had said nothing that mattered. In the end she had asked him about his future, had even dared to say ‘our future'. Stanley had said that he couldn't decide anything then, that she must wait and trust him. Between her tears, she told her father that she did trust him, that she would wait. Then she kissed her father, embraced her brother and went upstairs to her room.