At the Break of Day (17 page)

Rosie nodded. ‘Yes, Grandpa.’ But she couldn’t.

‘Those foggies could play tricks, you see. They could say them nails weren’t a proper job. Give you less for them but charge nailmaster the same. They could bore a hole in the weight. Weigh up your nails light, so you gave him too many. They were smart. They made money. They were hard.’

Rosie patted his hand. ‘Sshh now.’

There were screens round the bed next to Grandpa’s and a doctor had gone in.

‘But I want you to see how he made his money.’

Rosie looked at him. ‘Who made his money, Grandpa?’

‘Barney, the boy with the nail through his ear. Your grandma loved him, you see. That’s why we came to London. He moved down here.’ He was panting, leaning forward. His shoulders were so thin beneath his jacket. ‘He moved with the money he’d made. That was when she wanted to come down here. It wasn’t me at all. But he was married when we got here.’

Now Rosie couldn’t see the screens, she could only see Grandpa’s face as he picked hops in his beloved hills, his body easy, his eyes at peace. And then she thought of Grandma, whose eyes had seemed devoid of warmth. Could a woman like that ever have felt passion, love?

Grandpa was coughing again and it was longer before he could catch his breath this time and while he did she smiled and said, ‘Oh no, Grandma loved you. You know she did.’

Grandpa lay back, his eyes closed. ‘Maybe you’re right.’

‘Anyway, Grandpa, she was married when she met this Barney, wasn’t she?’

‘She met him the week after we’d wed. After she’d come over from Dudley, and somehow the light went out of her face, if you know what I mean.’

Rosie could say nothing because suddenly she saw Maisie and knew exactly what Grandpa meant.

His hand was clasping hers now. ‘You must marry someone you love, someone who loves you, Rosie. You wait for that person and don’t you settle for anything less. Do you hear me, Rosie?’

The screens were being moved back now and the visiting bell was ringing.

‘Do you hear me, Rosie?’ His grip was firmer than it had been since he had come in here.

‘I hear you, Grandpa, and I promise. But she loved you, you know.’

She kissed him, smoothing the sheeting around him, brushing his hair to the side with her fingers, smiling into his eyes.

He watched her walk up the middle of the ward, waited for her to turn and wave. She always waved, she always smiled and thought he couldn’t see her tears. But he saw them, all right. He had seen them when he had taken her to Liverpool. He had seen them as she had walked up the gangplank and he had felt her gas mask in his hand and had wanted to run after her, push everyone else away and take her back with him.

But she had needed to be safe. That was what had been most important, that the children were safe. He lay back on the pillows, looking out into the yard, at the pruned rose trees. He remembered the children waving from the portholes, singing ‘Roll Out the Barrel’ as the tugs eased the ship out into the fairway.

He had still heard them singing as the ship moved away. He hadn’t heard for four weeks whether she was safe and then each day, each week, each year had been empty without her. He loved her, like the air he breathed, like he’d loved Martha, like he’d loved Nellie, and Norah. He’d been down to Somerset to see Norah every three months but she’d been ashamed of him and had no more love for him than she’d ever had. She was her grandmother’s child and had learned all her bitterness at that woman’s knee and now there was no love left in him for Rosie’s sister, none at all.

On 20 November Ollie said he would visit Grandpa while Rosie slept out overnight along the Mall with thousands of others to cheer as the King and Princess Elizabeth drove to Westminster Abbey.

Jack arrived at midnight and they lay side by side on old blankets and newspapers and it was good to hear him breathing so close and to drink steaming tea together from thermos flasks as dawn came.

She wrote it all down, the bitter cold, the woman who sang ‘Knees Up Mother Brown’ at dawn and toasted the Royal couple with stout. She toasted Jack and Rosie too.

‘Because, God bless us,’ she said, ‘I like to see some love in this bloody awful world.’

Jack’s kiss had tasted of tea, his lips had been soft, and now, as she peered over the heads of the crowd and snatched a view of the Irish State Coach escorted by the Household Cavalry in their scarlet uniforms and riding black horses, she could still feel his body alongside hers.

She wrote of the tulle veil which hung from a circlet of diamonds and the coupons which had been needed. She wrote of Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten who had been born in Corfu, the son of a Greek Prince, and would now be known as Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.

Rosie wrote of the cheers from the crowd after the service as Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh travelled to their wedding breakfast at Buckingham Palace, cutting the five-hundred-pound wedding cake with Prince Louis of Battenberg’s sword.

She knew this because she and Jack had moved along to the Palace and she had listened to the reporter in front of her. Jack had laughed and said she’d go far with ears that could flap that well. Rosie turned to laugh with him and as she turned she thought she saw Maisie at the back of the crowd. The light was back in her face and she was looking up at a big man with red hair who stooped and kissed her mouth.

Rosie typed up the story that night and sent it to Frank, then visited Grandpa and wouldn’t let herself think of Maisie, or Grandma and the fogger. She wondered whether to tell Jack but she couldn’t bear to see the pain in his eyes return and besides, she might have been mistaken. Yes, that was it. It was a mistake. It wasn’t Maisie, the crowds had parted and then closed, it could have been anyone.

At the end of November Frank wrote and said he loved the piece and it would be used. He also said that the Russians had tested an A bomb which was putting some members of the town into a total sweat. But do they seriously think anyone would use those bombs? he wrote. Rosie didn’t know because the world seemed crazy enough to do anything and she held Jack tighter that night as they walked back from visiting Grandpa because he would have to register for National Service in April.

A letter from Nancy arrived at the beginning of December, when there had been a flurry of sleet which had frizzed Norah’s perm.

Lower Falls
November 26th, 1947

Dearest Rosie,

We think of your grandpop every day and wonder how things are. You know we send our love to you all and only wish we could be there to help.

Great things are happening in Lower Falls. Our Local Administrator is becoming positively peacockish with importance and self-righteousness. A deadly combination. The big boys of the film industry have blacked ten Hollywood writers and producers who were cited for contempt of Congress after allegations that they were Commie sympathizers.

They have said that none of these will be re-employed until ‘he is acquitted or has purged himself of contempt and declares under oath he is not a Communist.’ Many liberals feel that in America we should not have to declare anything at all. This should be a free country.

I guess I lie awake at nights now because all that work Frank did in the war to encourage people to support the Britishers against the Nazis is beginning to look as though it is going to cause him pain. It somehow makes him an automatic Red. He is very tired, very strained. But I can’t believe that any of this can go on for long. Sanity will prevail, as my old mom used to say. I have to go. The old boy has bitten through another pipe. We will write soon.

Nancy

The next evening Jack and Rosie went to Soho, to walk down the street and hear the music pitching and soaring because she had dreamed all night that the jazz had become silent and the buildings were derelict brownstones.

They stopped to listen to banjos, pumping tubas, foursquare rhythms. They leaned against railings and drank in the Chicago-style jazz which was drifting up from a basement window, closing their eyes at the solos with their riff backing, squeezed between snatches of the theme.

Later, back in Middle Street, they kissed in the yard and Jack stroked her breasts and kissed her neck, her shoulder, the soft rising flesh, and Rosie didn’t feel the cold which had earlier chilled her. Then they held one another close, so close, because they were both new to such passion, such longing and wanted more, much more.

On 20 December Rosie took paper and glue to the hospital and together she and Grandpa cut and stuck paper chains. They gave some to the ward and some she took home, and could not forget those swollen hands which could barely hold the paper together as it stuck.

The next night they just sat and there was snow in the yard, settling on the rose bushes, and Rosie said that in no time at all the spring would be here.

‘Not for me, my little Rosie,’ Grandpa said as a nurse walked past with the old man who still picked at the air. ‘Not for me.’ But Rosie wouldn’t listen because she couldn’t imagine a time when he wasn’t there and so she talked of the jazz which had played in Soho and Lee who wanted a cart for Christmas. She talked of the pram in the shed which she and Jack had raced on and Grandpa just sat and smiled and listened until she fell silent, watching the clock, wanting to go, but not wanting to ever leave.

‘It’s because of Barney and your grandma that we got the house. I want you to know because you’ll need to understand this when I’m gone.’

He shook his head as she interrupted. ‘No, Grandpa. It’s Christmas …’

‘Rosie, listen to me.’ It was the voice he had used when he was younger and firmer, and she knew she must listen, and so she did, holding a handkerchief to his mouth as he coughed, again and again before he could begin.

‘You know that man Jones. The one who owns the warehouse. He owned our houses too. He was going to sell. To kick us out. Ollie and me and all the families.’ Grandpa coughed again and Rosie poured a drink, holding the glass for him, then wiping his chin. There was still stubble and his hair was too long.

‘We needed to buy the house and your grandma told me to go to Barney. To borrow enough and for Ollie too. I had to go with me cap in me hand. I can remember twisting the brim so much that I couldn’t wear it again. The words sort of stuck in me throat but he lent us the money and that was what was important. Nothing else. Nothing else at all.’ He was coughing again and Rosie didn’t want to listen. She didn’t want to see the tears smearing over his cheeks. This was her grandpa, and she didn’t want to see him like this but she had to.

‘Your grandma always said it was her house. Barney did it for her. She was right. I tried to think it was because I took him off the doorpost but it wasn’t. He told me so. He said he’d had her on the foggers’ floor. That she’d loved him, followed him to London. But he didn’t love her. So he owed her something. He laughed, you know.’

Rosie wiped his face. ‘Don’t, Grandpa, please don’t. It was probably just words, to hurt you. He was jealous that you’d got Grandma. That’s all.’

‘But you’ve got to understand that it was your grandma’s house really. And you mustn’t blame me. I’ve made sure you’re all right.’ He was gripping her hand now. ‘Promise you understand. Go on, promise.’

‘Sshh. It’s all right. I promise.’ But she didn’t know what she was promising and before she left she said, ‘But why did you go to him? Why not just find somewhere else to live?’

He was lying back now, his jaw slack, breathing through his mouth, his eyes following the movements of the nurse behind Rosie. He said nothing for a moment and then lifted his head, wiping his mouth with a clumsy hand.

‘Your mum and dad were dead. How long would we live? I had to work hard and pay it off so you always had somewhere to live. It was for you children. It didn’t work out quite like I wanted, but you’ll be all right. I promise.’

Grandpa didn’t die that night, or the next, but on Boxing Day, after Rosie had kissed him, and held him, then left. There had been the peace of Herefordshire on his face all evening and so she was not surprised, but that did not make it any easier.

Rosie stood in the churchyard, hearing the vicar but not watching him, hearing Maisie’s sobs, but not watching her, or Norah, Ollie, Jack. Instead she looked above the heads of all of them to the trees which lined the cemetery. There were no leaves, there was no sun. There was no Grandpa any more but she still could not believe that.

She picked up the handful of earth and dropped it on the coffin but it meant nothing. The vicar’s words meant nothing. He was gone. That was all. He was gone.

At the solicitor’s office she sat with Norah on raffia-seated chairs. A strand was broken and dug into her leg. It meant nothing.

In his will Grandpa left the house to Norah, in pursuance of his wife’s wishes, the solicitor intoned. With Rosemary to have residence for so long as she required. The nailer’s penny and his books were to come to Rosie, along with the letter which was now handed to her. It all meant nothing. Because he had gone.

Rosie walked with Norah towards Maisie’s for sandwiches and tea and to accept the condolences of the neighbours. She listened to her sister, saw her smile, felt the letter in her pocket which she would read alone, because Grandpa had said that people needed their privacy.

They walked past the torn houses but she didn’t feel torn, she felt nothing. When they reached Maisie’s she smiled at Ollie and the people who kissed her with sweet tea on their breath and kindness in their faces. She drank sweet tea herself. She didn’t take sugar. Had Maisie forgotten? But what did it matter? She didn’t eat though. Even with the tea her mouth was so dry, her eyes were dry, her heart was dry.

She put down her cup, carefully, still smiling, still nodding, still thanking Grandpa’s friends for their kindness as she walked out through the yard, past Jack, who didn’t stop her because he knew she had to be alone. But there was love in his face and grief too.

Grandpa’s yard was empty. The rose trees were stunted from her autumn pruning. She touched The Reverend Ashe, running her fingers along its thorns, remembering its summer scent mingling with the creosote of the shed, seeing the roses which she had left in the hospital yard to bloom for someone else.