Trust Me (3 page)

He sent them to their bedroom then to change their clothes and put on dry socks. As they left the room Dulcie saw him going over to the table and picking up all the bottles of nail varnish and other cosmetics their mother had left on it this morning.

A long narrow passage ran from the living-room past the stairwell, Anne and Reg’s bedroom, the kitchen and then the bathroom before reaching the girls’ bedroom right at the back of the house. They loved their room, even though the double bed they shared took up most of the space. There was pretty paper with pink roses on the walls and a pink eiderdown on the bed. They could look out on the gardens that belonged to the ground-floor flats, and their bedroom’s distance from the living-room meant they could play noisy games without their parents complaining. Afternoon sun shone through the window and it was invariably warmer than the living-room as old Mrs Gardener who lived downstairs kept a fire going in the room below them.

After changing their skirts, cardigans and socks, they stayed in their room to play, climbing up on the bed with their dolls. May seemed completely untroubled, chatting to her doll Belinda as she pretended to feed her with a toy bottle. But Dulcie still felt very anxious for she knew that once Mum came home a row between her parents was inevitable and she was ashamed that this time it would be all her fault.

She didn’t have long to wait. Just after the clock chimed four-thirty along in the living-room, Mum came up the stairs, her high heels clicking on the painted boards.

‘I’m back, girls,’ she called out.

May went to jump off the bed and go to her, but Dulcie stopped her. ‘Wait until Daddy’s spoken to her,’ she whispered.

They heard Dad say something sarcastic about her hair, then they must have gone into the living-room together and closed the door because the girls couldn’t hear their voices any more.

Dulcie gradually relaxed when the expected shouting didn’t begin. She picked up the Enid Blyton book she’d borrowed from the library, lay back on the bed beside May and began to read.

‘Why didn’t you arrange to have your hair done when the kids were at school?’ Reg asked Anne as he handed her a cup of tea and sat down opposite her in an armchair. He didn’t want to start yet another row with her, but when he’d told her what the girls had done she had merely laughed as if it didn’t matter. ‘It was hardly fair to expect them to be shut in here on a nice sunny day.’

‘It’s you who insists they can’t play outside,’ she said haughtily, lighting up yet another cigarette. ‘Besides, I needed my hair done today, I’m working tonight.’

Reg bristled at this piece of news. Just the way she sat, so poised and elegant, her legs crossed, one shoe swinging loosely from her foot, irritated him intensely. Yet irritated as he was, as always he was struck by her classic oval face, features as perfect as a china doll’s, the big speedwell blue eyes and soft, sensual mouth.

She had been merely pretty when he first met her at a dance at the Empire, Leicester Square in December of 1937. Just seventeen, all eyes and soft blonde hair. She had made him think of a baby deer, and he’d felt so big and ugly next to her. Even now that he knew how heartless, selfish and cruel she could be, he was still awed by her beauty.

So many young mothers had lost their good looks during the war – the hardships, danger, anxiety and lack of nutritious food had turned them into drab, worn, prematurely middle-aged women. But not Anne. She was more curvy now, her soft floaty hair had been styled into Hollywood glamour, the pretty but bland features had matured into striking beauty, and there was a bold, challenging look in her eyes. Even though he bitterly resented her constantly buying new clothes, cosmetics and getting her hair done, he did feel proud that she kept herself looking so good.

‘Working tonight!’ he exclaimed. ‘I told you I was going to take you all to the pictures.’

She merely shrugged and puffed on her cigarette. ‘We can do that another night. You didn’t tell the girls we were going.’

‘Would it have made any difference if I had?’ Reg said, his voice rising. ‘Since when did you care tuppence about letting them down? I agreed you could work at the pub lunchtimes. Not bloody Saturday nights.’

‘Tosh needs me there, and besides, I need the money,’ she said, her tone more defensive now.

‘Oh, Tosh needs you there, does he?’ Reg said sarcastically. ‘It doesn’t matter that your husband and children have to spend the evening alone. And it makes a lot of bloody sense to spend what you’d earn for one night on having your hair done. Dare I ask what we are having for tea tonight? Or are we to go hungry because you are swanning off to work behind a bar?’

Reg knew by the way she looked shiftily away from him that this was in fact true, and the last of his good humour left him. ‘You’d better have bought some food, Anne!’

‘Oh, calm down, Reg,’ she said, getting up from the couch. ‘I just didn’t have time to get anything for tea. I’ll send Dulcie down for fish and chips.’

It was the way she was making for her handbag which made Reg suspect she had something more to hide. He leaped up and reached it before she could, snatched out her purse and spilled the contents out on to the table. All there was were two half-crowns, a two-shilling piece, a sixpence and a couple of coppers.

‘I gave you eight quid last night,’ he said, his voice trembling. ‘What have you spent it on?’

When he got in from work he’d gone into the kitchen to make himself a sandwich, and all the kitchen cabinet contained was half a stale loaf, one egg, a tiny piece of cheese, milk and margarine.

‘I bought some beef for tomorrow,’ she said defiantly.

Reg caught hold of her arm and dragged her out to the kitchen to prove this. There was a tiny piece of beef in the meat safe, but Reg knew by its grey appearance it came from the market and would be as tough as old boots. ‘So what are we supposed to have with it?’ he said sarcastically.

‘I’ll get vegetables tomorrow,’ she said, trying to get free of his hand. ‘The kids were playing up and I forgot about getting them.’

‘Show me what you bought for yourself,’ he commanded, hauling her by the arm along to the bedroom.

‘Oh Reg, don’t be like this,’ she pleaded, starting to cry. ‘I just had to have a dress. I’ll pay back the housekeeping out of my wages and I won’t buy anything again, I promise.’

‘Show me!’ he said, pushing her towards the wardrobe.

She brought out a blue dress and even though Reg knew little about fashion he knew it was an expensive one by the embroidery which ran down the bodice and across the front of the skirt.

It was too much for Reg. He knew the girls both needed new shoes, their underwear was threadbare too, and for the first time ever he slapped Anne hard across the face.

‘You vain, selfish bitch,’ he hissed. ‘You’d let your children wear shoes too small for them and go hungry just so you can show off in that pub.’

She just looked up at him, big blue eyes full of shock that he’d struck her, and it made him feel like a maggot.

‘I didn’t mean to hit you,’ he said hurriedly. ‘But my God, you deserve it, Anne! Stay in here. Get yourself tarted up for bloody Tosh, he’s just about your level. I’ll feed the children and take them to the pictures on my own.’

He turned on his heel and walked out, slamming the bedroom door behind him.

Anne
was
severely shaken by the slap Reg had given her, so much so that she lay on the bed with the eiderdown wrapped around her, shaking like a leaf as she listened to him getting the girls’ coats and shoes on to go out. Part of her wanted to get up and go and apologize, say she wouldn’t go to work tonight and promise faithfully she’d never spend the housekeeping money on herself again. But the other part wouldn’t let her.

It was always like this for her. Part of her was happy enough just to be a wife and mother, grateful she had a sober, hard-working husband, a nice home and the security of being loved. Yet the greater part resented the mundane chores, living on a tight budget, trapped in a life that never changed. This wasn’t what she’d expected when she fell in love with Reg, she thought he’d take her to a world completely different to the one she’d grown up in, and instead all he was doing was trying to make a replica of it.

Anne’s parents were over forty when she was born. Their only other child had died of meningitis when he was two, and they had all but given up hope of ever having another. Throughout her childhood Anne had been all too aware that she was everything in the world to them, and she felt stifled by their over-protective ways. She never got to play with other children, instead her parents played with her, board-games every night, jigsaw puzzles and reading books. They took her to the circus and the seaside, on walks and for boat rides, but all she really wanted was to be allowed to run around with other children, to join the games of rounders in the street, to walk along the high street and look in the shops on her own.

Their house was a semi-detached one in Eltham, in a quiet, tree-lined avenue, and all their neighbours were as genteel and restrained as her parents. Anne’s father left for his office in the City at exactly eight every morning, wearing his bowler hat and dark suit and carrying his furled umbrella. She and her mother kissed him goodbye at the door and greeted him again when he came in at six in the evening. He would ask over tea how their day had been, and as young as seven or eight Anne could remember wondering why he always asked because each day was almost identical. Taken to school and collected later, half an hour’s piano practice, laying the tea table, and that was all.

On summer nights she would lie awake in bed hearing children’s voices in the distance. She knew they came from the nearby council estate, and from what her mother said they were all under-fed and neglected, but it seemed to her that they had much more exciting lives than she did.

At sixteen she was sent to a private secretarial college in Catford, and all at once she was travelling alone on the train each day and not having to wear a school uniform. That was almost enough in itself, but to her delight it led to making new friends that for once her parents approved of. Most of the other girls had parents who were wealthier and further up the social scale than her own, and she was invited home to tea and even to stay overnight at these girls’ homes. Ironically, her parents’ trust in professional people was misplaced, for they couldn’t really care less what their daughters got up to as long as they kept out of their hair. So while Mr and Mrs Hobbs smugly imagined Anne was mixing with the elite and being carefully chaperoned, she was in fact learning to put on make-up, making eyes at boys, trying alcohol, and out exploring the West End.

It didn’t amount to anything very wicked, just wandering around giggling when boys tried to pick them up – the farthest they went was a few kisses before catching the last train home. But by the time Anne was seventeen it was autumn and too cold to spend evenings outside. She had soothed her parents into complete trust so that they no longer constantly checked up on her when she said she was staying with someone overnight. So when one of the girls suggested going dancing at the Empire in Leicester Square Anne was only too eager.

It was just the third time she’d been to the Empire when she met Reg, and she fell for him right away. He was as opposite to the kind of man she knew her parents would approve of as it was possible to be – he was a builder not an office worker, his accent was strong South London, he wore a sharp, hand-tailored suit, the kind spivs wore, and his face looked as if it had been moulded by fists. When he took her in his arms to dance, for the first time in her life she suddenly knew what desire was. There was something animal and raw about him which made her feel all weak inside, and even though one of her friends drew her aside later and warned her he was too old for her and probably dangerous, she didn’t listen.

He walked her and her friend Marianne to Charing Cross station later to catch the last train to Petts Wood. Just before the train came in, he caught her up in his arms and kissed her with such passion that she knew she’d keep the date they’d made for the following Monday, even if she had to lie to her parents to do it.

Anne got up after Reg had left with the children. She ran a bath and held a cold flannel to her inflamed cheek while she waited for the bath to fill.

‘I’m only twenty-seven,’ she said aloud to her reflection in the mirror. ‘Surely I’m entitled to more than this?’

Later, as she lay back in the bath, her hair protected by a scarf, she looked down thoughtfully at her naked body. Not a stretch-mark, her breasts as firm as they’d been at seventeen.

‘If only I hadn’t got pregnant,’ she murmured.

It wasn’t persuasion from Reg that pushed her into making love, it was she who instigated it. He wanted to wait until they could be married, but kissing and petting wasn’t enough for Anne, just as meeting him in secret wasn’t either. Perhaps it was as her mother claimed, that she knew the only way her parents would tolerate him was through disgracing herself.

Anne winced as her mind went back to that ugly scene on a summer’s evening in 1938 when Reg had come to the house to share the responsibility of telling them the news.

Her father had remained standing for the whole time, his back to the fireplace, his mouth set in a straight line of disgust.

‘She’s having your baby!’ he exclaimed. ‘You must have raped her, my daughter wouldn’t allow an animal like you to touch her willingly.’

Her mother was even worse. She sat on the couch weeping as if she’d just been told her child had been savaged by a mad dog.

Yet Reg was wonderful, he kept so calm and insisted they heard him out.

‘I know you disapprove of me because I’m ten years older than Anne, a mere builder from Deptford, and you wanted a lawyer or a doctor at least for your daughter. But I love her, she loves me, and we want to get married right away.’

Her father ranted and raved, her mother wept and insulted Reg by saying he was a common upstart. Yet still Reg stayed calm. ‘Give me a chance to prove myself,’ he said. ‘I will take care of Anne and our baby. She will never want for anything, but meanwhile just give Anne permission to marry me if you don’t want the disgrace of having a little bastard in the family.’