Tara (17 page)

'You mean you tell lies?' Somehow she wasn't entirely surprised.

'Not exactly lies, just a bit of embroidery. I went to India as a young lad, just a clerk in a shipping company. I won't go into it all now, let's just say it gave me ideas and taught me things I'd never have learned here. I came back and joined the Army. I was in France, of course, but not as an officer.'

He told her how his widowed mother had become a housekeeper for a doctor in the East End of London when he was small. Later the old man, who had become fond of him, coached him and got him a scholarship to a boarding school in Essex.

'I mixed with boys from good homes.' He grinned. 'I was good at sport, a bright spark, and it didn't take much to get invited to their homes. It was the father of one of my friends who got me the post in Calcutta.'

Mabel listened with growing admiration. She could see nothing wrong with wanting a life better than the one you'd been born into, and even when he admitted the so-called sabre slash on his neck had actually been acquired in a fight over a game of cards she could only giggle.

'But how do you make money?' She thought how much that dinner at the Cafe Royal must have cost, his suits, cabs and even this hotel.

'I gamble.'

Mabel knew about old men playing dominos for ha'pennies, bets placed on horses and even bridge and whist where money changed hands, but she'd never heard of anyone making a living at it.

Later, as he got into bed and turned out the light, he told her more. He wanted to make love to her but, in the light of her injuries, talking was all they could do. He spoke of poker games, roulette, horse racing, even dog fights and boxing. He painted a world that seemed only to exist after sunset, full of gentlemen and racy women, fine clothes, grand hotels and Champagne.

Losing the baby at five months was the first of the bad times, an indication of what was to come.

They had married a few weeks after Mabel arrived in London, in a register office with a couple of Arthur's shady-looking friends as witnesses. It wasn't the wedding she'd dreamed of, but she adored Arthur, and when they moved on to a smart hotel on the sea-front in Brighton she couldn't have been happier. But it wasn't long before they had to do what Arthur called a 'flit' after he lost most of his money at the races, and they moved into a squalid room in Kentish Town.

'Only a temporary setback,' he'd said as he stamped on a cockroach. There were bugs in the bed and Arthur showed her how to whip back the covers and catch them on a piece of damp soap. The lavatory was out in the yard, serving at least a dozen other tenants, and they had to light a fire just to boil water to wash.

A week later she tripped on the rickety stairs and fell down a whole flight. She lost the baby later that night and the only person to help her was a woman from the room below who had lice in her hair.

Arthur promised, with tears in his eyes, that he would stop gambling and find a real job. But that day a doctor told her she was unlikely ever to have another child and Arthur not only got drunk but disappeared for four days, till she thought he'd left her for good.

But he came back, like the proverbial bad penny, with pockets full of money and a taxi to take her away from that terrible house. Soon she was shopping for new clothes in Marshall & Snelgrove; they stayed in a hotel in Mayfair, and he seemed to have forgotten his promise.

Up or down, she loved him. He infuriated her with his fecklessness, saddened her with his disregard for her need for a proper home, astounded her with his resourceful nature and made her laugh more than was good for her.

But it was the loving that made her stay. Sometimes she felt like a slut, she wanted him so much, but he had only to kiss her, to press his body against hers, and she forgave him everything.

All through the Twenties Mabel saw both sides of the era. One week they were at clubs and parties with other bright young things, dancing the Charleston, listening to hot jazz and thinking tomorrow would never come. The next they were doing another flit, pawning her jewellery, even selling their clothes to pay the rent in some hovel.

He said they would go to America, or Canada, but each time the fare was gambled and lost. Once they had got together enough cash to buy a small boarding house, but three months after moving in she discovered he'd lost the deeds in a poker game.

Again and again it was her painting that saved them from starvation; a delicate water-colour here, a design for a greetings card there. Though she was offered several jobs that might have started her on the road to success as an artist, Arthur always had plans that involved moving on.

Finally they arrived in Durward Street.

They had only the clothes on their backs, that icy January day. Mabel in a brown second-hand coat, a battered felt hat hiding hair that was too bright for such a place; Arthur in cloth cap and a working man's jacket, with a muffler taking the place of a tie.

As they crossed the railway bridge and turned into Durward Street she knew they had reached the last step before the gutter. A huge square four-storey coffee mill and warehouses created permanent dusk in the narrow cobbled street. A terrace of tiny houses, uniformly soot-ingrained, seemed to cower under the shadow of their taller neighbours. Many windows were broken, stuffed with old rags and cardboard, and the gutters were blocked with debris.

Later she was to learn that this street had once been called Buck's Row, and Jack the Ripper had slaughtered one of his victims there thirty odd years before. It was provident she didn't know at the time, or that this would be her home for the next twenty-five years, or she might have turned tail and run.

She pawned her wedding ring to pay the shilling rent, and all they had were a few faded photographs to remind them of happier days. That first night they had to break up old chairs and orange boxes to make a fire and as they huddled together on a filthy mattress Mabel told Arthur she was expecting another baby. Eight months later, Amy was born.

Chapter 7

'Oy, bacon bonce!'

Paul stopped and looked around the narrow lane, but he couldn't see the owner of the voice.

Something wet hit his bare arm – a great glob of spit.

'You wanna keep your eyes open!'

He looked up and to his amazement a boy just a little older than himself was lying along the branch of a tree above him, virtually invisible.

Paul wiped his arm on the seat of his shorts, deciding discretion was the greater part of valour, and grinned nervously up at him.

"That's a good place to hide,' he said, wishing he had the nerve to climb any tree, let alone creep along a branch as thin as that one.

'You're the kid at Bridge Farm, aren't you?' The boy moved, held the branch in his two hands and lowered himself till he dangled three feet from the road, then dropped as silently as a cat. 'Can you do that?'

'I'm not much good at climbing,' Paul said apologetically. 'But I do live at the farm and you can come and see the calves if you want.'

For a second the boy just stared. He was dressed almost identically to Paul, in grey flannel shorts and shirt, but his pullover was bottle green instead of Paul's navy. He was sturdy yet quite small, with mousy hair in need of a cut and a sprinkling of freckles across his snub nose. But he had an open, guileless face, and his hazel eyes registered curiosity rather than malice.

'Is the old woman summat to do with you?' The boy looked just a little apprehensive.

'She's my gran.'

The boy made a sort of whistling noise between his teeth and the expression on his face showed that on a one-to-ten scale of shock, Paul had managed to hit him with a ten.

'Gran? Cor!'

They had been at the farm a week now, and this was the first child Paul had seen close up, let alone spoken to. Both he and Tara were due to start at their respective schools on Monday, something Paul was very nervous about.

'Why d'you say it like that?' Paul knew quite well, but he desperately wanted the boy to like him.

'She's nuts, everyone says so.'

To deny this may be to lose prestige.

'She's OK once you know her ways,' Paul said carefully. 'Come home with me now and see.'

For the first time in his life, Paul felt secure. Even at Uncle George's he had still jumped at shadows and imagined his father coming crashing through the door. His gran was a bit weird, but he liked her for all that, and what was even better, she liked him, even more than she liked Tara.

'She waves a stick at kids that go into her yard.' The boy looked doubtful. 'She threw a sugar beet at me once and it made a bump on my forehead.'

'You'll be all right with me,' Paul insisted. 'I expect she'll even give you some lemonade and gingerbread.'

Gran made the most wonderful lemonade. She said she hadn't made it since Amy was a little girl, but she certainly hadn't forgotten the recipe. She put it into some stone bottles in the pantry and said they could help themselves whenever they wanted.

'What's your name?'

'Paul Manning,' Paul said. 'I'm eight and a bit. My sister's called Tara.'

'I'm Colin Smart, I'm ten.' The boy grinned. 'I've seen your sister, she's getting tits.'

Paul wasn't sure how to take this. Not only had he not noticed this phenomenon, but he didn't think it was the sort of thing brothers were supposed to talk about. Instead he ignored the remark and walked down the lane with Colin, back towards the farm.

Tara didn't like it here. She turned her nose up at the little shops, she didn't like the farmyard smells, or the taste of the milk straight from the cows. But young as he was, Paul knew she was cross because she wasn't in charge any more.

Back in London she made decisions – what to have for tea, where to buy it, where to go to escape from their dad. Mum relied on her for almost everything back then, especially when Dad had given her a slapping. And Tara always took Paul to school to prevent anyone bullying him.

Everything was different here. Mum and Gran weren't always very friendly, and sometimes it seemed as if they were on the point of hitting one another, then Mum would go all quiet and broody. Tara hated it, she said they should stop harping on about the past and remember she was here too.

But Paul loved it. The old farmhouse with its beams and odd nooks and crannies, the ancient furniture that Mum had polished till it shone like conkers. He liked climbing on the bales of straw in the barn, petting the calves, feeding the piglets and collecting eggs. Everything here was magical, from looking for crayfish in the river to watching the water wheel at the old mill and seeing the men haul up huge sacks of grain on a hoist.

'Can you ride a bike?' Colin asked as they made their way down the hill.

Paul shook his head, deeply ashamed.

'Can you swim?'

Again a shake of the head.

Colin gave him a withering look.

'But I'll learn if you show me,' Paul volunteered.

'OK.' Colin grinned. 'I'll be your best friend if you want.'

An hour or two later Paul was deliriously happy. Gran had dug out an old bike from the shed. Stan the cowman had lowered the seat, oiled it and blown up the tyres and now Colin was teaching him how to ride.

'I've got hold of the saddle,' he shouted as they went careering down the narrow rutted lane at the side of the farmyard. 'Just steer and pedal. I won't let you go.'

He had claimed he wouldn't let go a dozen times already and Paul had fallen off into the stinging nettles twice and skinned his knee, but he was determined to master it.

'That's right, keep going,' Colin bellowed, too far behind to be holding the saddle now. 'You've done it, bacon bonce!'

Paul came to the end of the path, wobbled and fell off, but his grin spread from ear to ear.

'I can ride it,' he shrieked. 'Let's go and tell Gran!'

Riding into the yard was the proudest moment of his life. He wobbled a bit, he still couldn't use the brakes and had to use his feet instead, but already he could see new horizons opening up to him.

Colin ran up the lane, huffing and puffing. Gran sat on a small wooden bench in the sun, plucking a chicken between her knees, and his mother was hanging sheets on the line.

'I can do it,' Paul called out proudly. 'Look at me!'

Amy laughed, standing there with her hands on her hips, but Gran dropped the chicken on the floor and came over to him.

'You clever, brave boy,' she said, clapping his little face between her hands.

He wasn't wild about her kiss. She didn't have her top teeth in again and she had prickly hairs round her upper lip, but it was good to bask in her admiration.

Between them they'd cleared the yard and many of the rusting old farm implements had been dumped round the back of the barn by Stan. Paul liked Stan, too, he had an even redder face than Uncle George, which Gran said came from drinking cider, and he had bowed legs that looked too thin for his big body. Paul had thought he was even older than Gran because sometimes he talked about Great-grandfather Brady, who he'd come to work for when he was just a lad. But Gran said he wasn't more than fifty and she called him 'a gurt lazy dollop, with the brains of a mangel wurzel'.

'Can you ride a bike, Mum?' he called out, flushed with excitement, standing with the ancient bike between his legs.

Amy put on a rueful look and shook her head. The sun had caught her nose and cheeks and she looked so pretty he wanted to hug her.

'I never got the chance,' she said. 'Maybe you can teach me, too!'

'You'll have to teach Tara first,' Gran said quietly, turning towards her granddaughter who stood in the kitchen door looking white and spiteful. 'It's a long walk to her school, much better by bike.'

'I'll teach her now,' Colin offered, still out of breath from his run. 'I'll give Paul a "backy" round to my house to get my bike, then we can take it in turns.'

Tara didn't answer; she just folded her arms and looked away defiantly. She knew she should thank Colin and praise Paul, she was glad really that he was so happy. But she felt so terribly alone.

She'd never had any real friends, but in London she hadn't been so aware of it. There were children she'd talked to at school and played with in the park but, because of her troubled home life, that's where they stayed. She would be thirteen soon, too big to play yet not old enough for adult company.