Trust Me (2 page)

Dulcie
was
an anxious child and it was quite out of character for her to suggest slipping out to the park while their mother was out, or to do anything as reckless as playing in the river. Normally she was a timid and obedient girl, and took responsibility for the safety of her younger sister seriously. But today’s warm sunshine after months of bitter weather had caused latent feelings of resentment towards her mother to boil over. She couldn’t see why she and May should be expected to stay indoors on such a nice day while
she,
who couldn’t even be bothered to make them something for dinner, went off to the hairdresser’s.

Dulcie wasn’t prone to thinking she was hard done by. She knew that everyone in England had had to endure severe hardships all through the long, bleak winter. Animals had frozen to death in the fields, old people had died of cold sitting in front of an empty grate. Food rations had been cut again, lower even than during the war years, and the heavy snow prevented much of the food from being distributed.

Young as she was, she appreciated that her family were lucky to have a decent place to live, for many people were still struggling to repair bomb-damaged houses or living in temporary accommodation. Dulcie had grown used to having to wear a coat and hat in class during the winter – her teacher had explained that coal for the boilers was difficult to get hold of – she didn’t even mind that she and May often had to get into bed as soon as they got home for the same reason. She had put up with chapped thighs, feet and hands and conditioned herself to ignore the rumblings of hunger in her stomach, but what she couldn’t accept or understand was her mother’s apparent total lack of regard for her family.

Anne kept on buying new clothes for herself instead of food. She sat around all day painting her nails and reading magazines instead of cleaning up. It was perfectly understandable to Dulcie that Dad got mad when he came in from work and found there was no dinner, or when he had to wash and iron their school clothes because Mum hadn’t done them. Like him, Dulcie had come to the conclusion that Mum didn’t care about him or her children, and night after night when she had to bury her head under the pillow so she wouldn’t hear the bitter rows, she almost wished Mum would make good her constant threats to leave – at least then they’d get some peace.

Just that morning in Lewisham, Anne had bought another new dress for herself. Dulcie had pointed out that both her own and May’s shoes were pinching their feet, but she’d snapped at them and said they must put up with them for another few weeks. On the way home Dulcie had asked if she’d take them to the park in the afternoon because someone at school had said there were baby ducks on the lake. But Mum had just clouted her round the ear, said she was always asking for something, and anyway she was going to the hairdresser’s.

Dulcie knew it was pointless asking if they could go alone. Dad didn’t allow it, and he wouldn’t let them play in the street either. She understood why. Dad had been a street urchin himself and he always said he wanted something better for his girls. Besides, he was fair, he was never too tired to take them to the park or up to Blackheath when he was home. Even if he’d planned to do something else, if it was a nice day he’d drop it for them.

That was why Dulcie decided to defy her mother. It was a protest against her selfishness, coupled with a desire for adventure and freedom.

She wished she hadn’t now. Her shoes were wet through and covered in mud, and May was in an even worse mess with mud all over her skirt and cardigan. If the park-keeper caught them, goodness only knew what he’d do to them, and Mum would go mad when they got home.

At last Dulcie saw the park-keeper moving away. He was pushing his bike with one hand and holding one of the boys by the ear with the other. Once she was satisfied that he was too far away to see them, the girls crawled out of the bush and Dulcie said they must go home.

‘But I don’t want to go,’ May said petulantly. ‘We haven’t even seen the ducks yet. Mum won’t be back for ages.’

Dulcie sighed deeply, hoping May wasn’t going to have one of her tantrums as she often did when she didn’t get her way. She was reluctant to go herself, she’d wanted to see the ducks too, but she had no idea what the time was, and it was imperative they got their clothes and shoes cleaned up before Mum came in.

‘We can’t stay now, Parky will get us,’ Dulcie said, taking her sister by the hand and almost dragging her towards the gates.

‘What would he do to us?’ May asked. She looked intrigued rather than frightened.

Dulcie had no real idea. As she’d never been to the park before without an adult watching over them, all she knew about Parky was hearsay from other children. They said he clouted children, whipped them with a stick for picking flowers, one girl at school claimed he’d taken her into his shed and forced her to hold his willy. Dulcie didn’t really believe
that
story, but the way he’d shouted at them earlier and the way he’d dragged Stephen off suggested he could be very nasty.

‘He’d lock us up in his shed, then he’d get Dad,’ she guessed.

Just the mention of her dad made them both really frightened. He wasn’t a cruel man, he never, ever belted them like some kids’ dads did, but he would be very angry that they’d slipped out without permission.

Dulcie was an observant and thoughtful child, and when they visited Granny in Deptford, she could see why her dad wanted something better for her and May than he’d had. Deptford was a slum area, with nasty old tenements and dirty streets, and many of the dilapidated little terraced houses like Granny’s housed several families. Dad had once told her that most of the boys he’d played with as a child had become thieves and rogues, and the reason he’d always worked so hard when he was young was so he could get away from there. Dulcie supposed that he’d married Mum for much the same reason, because she was beautiful and she had a posh voice.

Yet that didn’t always make sense. Mum was always saying cruel things about how rough and uneducated Dad’s family were. Dad usually struck back by saying hers were mean-minded snobs and they hadn’t equipped her for real life. Dulcie often wondered what on earth had made them get married in the first place if they disliked each other’s families so much.

As they turned into Leahurst Road, to Dulcie’s horror she saw that their dad’s bicycle was in the front garden. Either it was much later than she thought, or Dad had knocked off work early. He was a builder, at present working on a site in the Eltham Road, and normally he didn’t get home before six on a Saturday. But now they would be in serious trouble. Mum would probably only have given them a clout, she wouldn’t have told Dad what they’d done because he would have been mad with her for leaving them on their own. What on earth were they going to do?

‘Dad’s home,’ Dulcie said fearfully to her sister who hadn’t yet noticed his bike. ‘We’re in for it now.’

May pulled a couldn’t-care-less face. ‘It’s not my fault. It was your idea to go.’

Dulcie felt like slapping her. It was quite true it had been her idea, but then May always wriggled out of any blame. ‘Well, at least don’t go and say we went in the river,’ Dulcie said. ‘We’ll say we fell over on the muddy grass.’

May stopped in her tracks. ‘But that’s a lie!’ she exclaimed, opening her blue eyes very wide. ‘You’d have to confess it!’

Dulcie had taken her First Communion and perhaps unwisely had told May all the sins she was supposed to tell the priest in the confessional.

‘It’s only a very tiny lie,’ Dulcie said. ‘And it’s a kindly meant one because Dad will be very upset if he thought we were playing somewhere dangerous. I will confess it in church, but don’t you dare tell on me.’

May gave her a sly look. ‘I won’t if you give me half your sweets.’

Dulcie sighed at this blackmail. If she didn’t agree, May would go out of her way to get her into worse trouble. Dad always brought them home sweets on a Saturday, but they wouldn’t get them tonight anyway, they’d probably get sent to bed without any tea, so half of nothing wasn’t much to give up. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘But don’t you ever ask
me
to help you when you’re in trouble!’

They walked on then, Dulcie’s heart thumping loudly with fear. Dad had never given her a good hiding before for anything, but maybe he would for something as serious as this.

Dulcie didn’t use the key to the door, Dad would think it even more sneaky if he knew they’d taken that. She rang the bell and a few seconds later heard his footsteps coming down the stairs.

‘Not today, thank you,’ he said as he opened the door and saw them standing on the step. He closed the door again.

This was one of his little jokes, pretending he didn’t know them, it showed he was in a very good mood, and he probably thought they’d run ahead of their mother. Usually when he did this, Dulcie would say, ‘Let me in, little pig’ through the letter-box, and he’d reply, ‘Oh no, Mr Wolf, not by the hair of my chinny, chin chin, I won’t let you in.’ But Dulcie couldn’t bring herself to play out this game today.

She took a deep breath and lifted the flap of the letterbox. ‘Let us in, Daddy, we’ve been naughty, we went to the park when Mummy told us to stay home.’

The door opened immediately and there he was, looking down at them with a frighteningly stern expression on his face.

Reg Taylor was a big man, six foot two with shoulders like a barn door. He had the kind of tough appearance that made other men nervous of getting on the wrong side of him, fair hair cut very short on top, cold, pale blue eyes, pitted skin and a strong jaw-line. As his neighbour Edna had observed, he did look like a thug, that was until he smiled and showed the warmth of his real character. But anyone, even his children, was inclined to back away when he looked as he did now.

‘I’m sorry,’ Dulcie whispered. ‘But it was so nice outside and we just wanted to see the baby ducks.’

Reg looked the pair of them up and down, noting the mud on their clothes and shoes. He realized immediately that they had been in the river. ‘Come on in,’ he said. ‘Take your shoes off and leave them there, I’ll sort them out later.’

He walked on back up the passage towards the stairs while they took their shoes off, but stopped suddenly to look back. ‘Where’s your mother?’ he asked.

Dulcie gulped. Whenever her dad used the word mother instead of mummy it was a sure sign he was cross with her. ‘At the hairdresser’s,’ she said.

He gave a sort of grunt and disappeared up the stairs. The girls took off their shoes, placed them neatly on the mat and holding hands, nervously crept up too.

The flat consisted of three rooms, a bathroom and kitchen. When they’d moved here eighteen months earlier from just two rooms in New Cross, they’d all thought they were in heaven. Back in New Cross the stove and sink were on the landing, they had to share the outside lavatory with several other families and go to the public baths. It was so exciting watching as Dad painted and papered, turning a gloomy, dirty place into a real home, to go with him to choose furniture, to see Mum sewing curtains and cushion covers. It didn’t matter that the furniture was secondhand, or that there was no stair carpet. Dad kept saying that they were on the way up.

Everything had seemed so perfect then. Dad had joined up in the army at the start of the war and had been away in the fighting for almost all of Dulcie’s early years, but now he was home for good, taking up building work again and coming home every night. Lee Manor School was right across the street from their flat, there were nice shops down the road by Hither Green station, the park and the library to go to. But best of all was that Mum had been so very happy, dancing around, singing, laughing and cuddling Dad. Dulcie had thought it was going to be that way for ever.

But it didn’t stay like that for long. Soon Mum gave up laughing and singing and lay around in her dressing-gown, chain-smoking the way Dulcie remembered she had so often done during the war. She stopped cleaning the flat, the washing and ironing mounted up, she didn’t seem to care about anything other than how she looked when she went out.

‘Come on in here,’ Dad called out once they’d reached the landing outside the living-room.

They slunk in to find their father sitting on the couch. It was a large room with a bay window overlooking the street. At night when the curtains were drawn, a tablelamp lit and the fire roaring away, the cream wallpaper with gold scrolls looked so very posh. It looked nice too in the mornings when the sun came in, but the sun was gone from the windows now, and in the gloomy light the room looked as sad as her father’s expression.

Dulcie realized almost immediately that he had been home for some time. He had changed out of his work overalls into his grey trousers and a clean shirt, and he’d cleared the grate of last night’s ashes and laid it with kindling ready to relight later when it got cold.

‘I’m not going to ask why you disobeyed your mother,’ he said, looking at them with cold eyes. ‘I know why. But I want you to think what would have happened if you had been run over by a car, or fallen in the river.’

Both girls just stood there, hanging their heads.

‘That’s why I make rules about you not going out alone,’ Reg went on. ‘You see, if either of those things happened I wouldn’t know where you were. Can you imagine what it would be like for me and your mother if you just didn’t turn up? How would I know where to look for you? Little girls sometimes get taken by bad men, that’s why it’s important we always know where you are.’

He held out his arms to them, and the girls, realizing he wasn’t going to smack them after all, ran to them willingly. He pulled them on to his knees and cuddled them tightly.

‘You must never, ever do that again,’ he said with a strange kind of croak in his voice, his cheeks rough against their smooth ones. ‘You two are the most precious things in the world to me, and I’m only strict with you because I want to keep you from harm.’

‘Are you going to spank us and send us to bed without any tea?’ May asked, her voice trembling.

‘Not this time,’ he said, and Dulcie heard the faintest hint of amusement in his voice. ‘But if you do it again I will, make no mistake about that. As it happens I’ve been home for over an hour. If you’d been here I would have taken you to the park myself, and we might have had an ice-cream too. But there’ll be no ice-cream or sweets this weekend now.’