Birdcage Walk (12 page)

Much to his irritation, Ted didn’t catch sight of George for a week or so. He’d been asked to do a few extra shifts at work and though he’d complained to Annie about it, and wanted her sympathy, she had made it very clear that he would agree to do them. The extra money could go towards a better Christmas than the year before, Annie had said, clasping her podgy hands together in anticipation. Ted had consoled himself with the thought of a few good whiskies down the pub before she could squander all his money on presents for a baby who wouldn’t know the difference.

It was on the first day he’d been let out in time to have dinner in his own house that he finally saw George. He was trudging ahead of Ted, going in the same direction, his shoulders hunched and still narrow like a boy’s from the back. Ted, who rarely did anything at speed in case it betrayed interest or enthusiasm, quickened his pace to catch him. The paper had forecast rain but the atmosphere was still bone-dry that evening, making the cold air feel brittle, as though you might reach out and snap it like scored glass. Ted waited till he was close before he spoke out. George, deep in thought, started at the deep voice suddenly so near.

“Penny for your thoughts?” asked Ted.

George shook his head and managed a weak smile. He calculated that he had another quarter of an hour to endure alone with Charlotte’s brother-in-law, with no convincing excuse to hand that would allow him to dart off down a side street. Ted Matthews lived less than a hundred yards from him and for the first time since he’d caught sight of Charlotte he regretted it. He felt like a different breed to Ted, and wondered if that meant he was in some way deficient; not a proper man. Ted seemed to have plenty of friends, as well as an impressive capacity for the drinks he shared with them. That, and a large repertoire of dirty jokes that George had to smile at appreciatively, when inside he had often felt shocked at the words and images they evoked. As the two men walked along, Ted allowing the silence between them stretch out into a yawning gap, George struggled for a topic of conversation that wouldn’t invite the older man’s contempt.

“Annie alright then?” he asked finally. “I mean, Mrs. Matthews. I hope she’s well.” George was glad the sharp air had already made his cheeks ruddy.

“Last time I looked she was alright,” said Ted, chuckling, and once again George felt as though he was missing the point of something. He’d never felt as green as he did when he was with Ted, and didn’t welcome it. Frustration swelled in his chest but he continued to turn his face towards him in an impression of confidence.

“Seen much of our Lottie recently?” Ted suddenly asked, turning to look George in the face for the first time.

George lowered his gaze to the street again. “Not too much in the last couple of weeks, no. I’ve had things on, extra shifts at the print I couldn’t say no to without my sister getting on at me.”

That earned him a clap on the back, and he had to concentrate not to lose his footing and stumble off the curb.

“Do I know all about that,” said Ted ruefully. “I’ve been worked to the bone this last week, doing every shift going so Annie can buy the biggest joint down the butcher’s for Christmas dinner. Meanwhile she’s at home in the warm with her feet up. Don’t seem fair, do it?”

George despised himself for being pleased he’d said something that Ted approved of.

“Has Charlotte got herself some work?” he asked. “I know she was trying to get some hours at Freeman’s again.”

Ted smiled. “You’re her feller, you should know. Besides, I hardly see Charlotte from one week to the next.”

“She been going out then?” George battled to keep his voice light.

“Well, I’ve been getting in late myself. Passing ships, you know. She’s a sociable one, Charlotte, not like her sister. Annie wouldn’t mind if our house, with me, Eddie and her sister in it, were the whole world. That’s probably why I married her.”

“I didn’t think Charlotte had many friends round here yet,” said George. “She didn’t like the girls she worked with at Lipton’s, said they were all stuck up. She’s spent most of her time with me since she moved here.” He knew he was speaking too fast, and giving too much away. “It’s good that she’s got other friends, girls to chat to, though,” he said, his voice tailing off.

“Well, you can’t blame the girl for going out if you’re ignoring her,” said Ted. “You know what women are like if you don’t make enough fuss of them. They don’t hang around forever, do they?”

George felt the beginnings of nausea creep around his empty stomach. He’d only been gone a week or two, and that had just been to clear his head, work out how he might make something of the connection he’d had the luck to forge in Highbury. He hadn’t missed Charlotte much, it was true, but he’d been distracted, instantly besotted with the image of a better existence. He hadn’t counted on losing her though, however riled with her he’d felt recently.

“Well, I’ll make sure I call on her soon,” he said finally. “I wouldn’t like her to think badly of me, or that I’ve forgotten her. I can get her a nicer present for Christmas if I do a few more shifts.”

Ted laughed again. “You’ll have to work more than a few extra shifts to get her a ring she likes better than her garnet.”

When George looked up, confused at the reference, Ted was looking back at him intently. “Garnet? In a ring? Is it one of her ma’s that she left her?”

Ted shook his head. “You must have seen it. Little silver band with a red stone, too big for her ring finger so she wears it on her middle one. Never used to take it off, though I’ve not seen it for a few days, now that I think of it.” He did his best to look perplexed.

George cast his mind back and a blurred memory slid obediently to the forefront of his mind. Their first outing: when they’d wound their way through the streets to the river, just walking and chatting, their initial awkwardness forgotten and the wick of passion already catching light inside George. He’d reached for her hand at one point, squeezing it too tight in his eagerness and she’d cried out, half laughing and shaking her injured hand, saying he’d bruised the flesh around the metal of the ring on her middle finger. A slender ring with a slash of deep red, held fast by tiny claws of silver. He hadn’t noticed it again, it must have become as much a part of her as her eyes or her mouth.

He looked up at Ted, whose face was unreadable. “I’ve seen it, but she didn’t tell . . . I’ve never asked her about it.”

“No, well you wouldn’t. I thought she’d put it away when you come along, to be honest, but she never did.”

“What you getting at, Ted? I wouldn’t mind her wearing a ring if she wanted to. Why would I?”

“Even if it were from another feller? You’re a better man than me, George. Not that Joe is in the picture anymore or nothing but still, it would bother me. Of course, what’s past is past.”

Without realising it, George had stopped dead in the street. Ted came to a standstill himself and looked back at the younger man, whose brow was now plainly furrowed with doubt and pride.

“Who’s Joe then? I’ve never heard of any Joe.” George’s voice shook, which made him feel furious.

“She must have told you about Joe,” said Ted easily. “He’s a soldier, out in South Africa fighting them Boers. Charlotte used to step out with him, till he enlisted. Got his orders quicker than he thought and he bought her that ring as a leaving present.”

“She never said.”

George forced his feet to move but kept his head down, knowing his face would betray the shock he felt. He was a fool for it but he’d hardly thought about whom Charlotte had known before him. When she’d appeared in the Hoxton streets he’d known all his life, it was like she’d been conjured out of the air, come to brighten his days. She’d told him about times with her mother, when she was a child, and the succession of stepfathers she’d endured or, occasionally, loved and then missed when they left. But Charlotte as a grown woman had entered, fully formed, on the morning he’d seen her amongst the rushing crowd, as still as a statue with her face tilted up to the sun.

“She wouldn’t say though, would she?” continued Ted. “She’s a woman, ain’t she? Even Annie has her secrets, things she stops talking about when I walk into the room, things that have the tears flowing on some days and the dirty looks flying on others.”

“Charlotte isn’t like that, though,” said George, but even as he spoke he saw her closed face, a secretive face. Though he had never experienced the sensation, he felt as he imagined it would feel to have a wave break over his head, to be knocked clean off his feet, and have the world turn and heave and become unrecognisable.

“If you say so,” Ted replied.

He could see the effect his words had already had on George. He scarcely needed to say more but thought he might anyway, for good measure. See what happened; see if George could turn any more ashen-faced.

“Anyway, Lottie’s your girl now,” he said, feigning reassurance. “She never mentions Joe, hasn’t for months. That ring gets worn out of habit, that’s all. In fact, I’d clean forgotten about Joe Bruce until that letter come the other day.”

They had reached Avebury Street by now, and George wanted to break away and cover the rest of the distance to his door, where the thought of his dad’s silence and Cissy’s mild presence was, for once, a balm. The anxious feeling in his chest made his heart flutter and he shifted from foot to foot, betraying his desire to flee. When Ted spoke on, he had to force his hands into his pockets so he didn’t stop up his ears.

“Joe’s still got all his arms and legs, apparently, which is more than you can say for a lot of them boys out there. Coming home for Christmas too, so that’ll be nice for his ma, as Lottie said. Let’s hope for your sake he hasn’t brought her something exotic from Africa. There’s not much down Cheapside market that’ll compete with that.” He laughed, George’s silence no hindrance to his own amusement. When he stopped, Ted gestured over his shoulder at his own front door, a new idea dawning on his face.

“While you’re here, why don’t you come in for a cuppa? Say hello to Charlotte. She’ll be glad to see you, I’m sure she will.”

“No, no. I can’t,” said George, shaking his head, his voice low. “I’m expected back for my tea now and Cissy’ll be missing me. I’d best be off. Tell Charlotte I’ll see her soon.”

He raised his hand in an awkward farewell and then hurried off towards Wiltshire Row. Instead of going straight in, Ted lit a cigarette and leaned against the frigid bricks of the small house he rented, savouring each drag.

Through the upstairs window above him, the glass frosted by condensation from Annie’s damp washing, Charlotte watched George disappear round the corner. Letting the blanket drop back into place against the glass, she felt a cold dread sluice through her.

The first real downpour of the winter had commenced as the last of the light had dwindled from the day. It was not until the first heavy drops had fallen that George realised how long it had been since he had felt rainwater permeate the rough fibres of his winter jacket, weighing it down and releasing a suddenly familiar smell of damp wool, sour and musty. The unseen clouds above made the temperature less perishing than it had been during the last weeks but the deluge had emptied the streets just as effectively. Turning up Avebury Street, he started at a thin figure sheltering under the entrance to the stick factory. In the gloom, he could at first only see her eyes, elongated in her small, pinched face, glimmering from out of the dark.

“You’re late tonight, George,” she said softly, reaching out a hand to his wet lapel. “I’ve been waiting ages. You doing overtime at the print this week as well?”

“Why are you waiting for me at all?” he replied, drawing back from her grasp. “We didn’t say we’d meet.” His tone was sharper than he intended and she dropped her hand quickly, withdrawing further into the shadows. Shielding his hands around it, he lit a cigarette as the silence between them widened and yawned.

“Do you want one?” he asked, finally, his gaze blindly searching the black space where she had retreated to.

“Why are you so sharp with me?” she asked shakily, coming back into view and taking a cigarette from his proffered packet. He lit it for her, their heads close together to keep the lit match from being extinguished by the rain. “I just thought I’d get away from that screaming kid for a minute and wait out here for you. There’s no call to be angry with me, George.”

He muttered a short apology and turned to go. Charlotte put her hand out once more and, more forcefully this time, took hold of his lapel and pulled him back towards her. Kissing him on the mouth, she tasted muskily of cloves and the cigarette she’d just pulled deeply on. He kissed her back for a long moment, pressing her hard into the sodden bricks and then stopped abruptly, turning to go once more.

“Aren’t we going to the pub then, George?” she cried after him, feigning triumph with a short laugh. “In case you forgot, you said you’d come to the pub last Friday. But you never did, I looked out for you all night. And you were nowhere to be seen on Saturday, did Cissy tell you I called round? So I thought you might make it up to me tonight instead. I’ve hardly seen you for a fortnight.”

She stood dead centre in the street, her silhouette sharp in the dim light.

“Well, George, do you want to or not? It’s not like you not to want to, if you know what I mean.” She laughed, and the sound was brittle as it echoed off the bricks.

Two men had rounded the corner into Avebury Street as she called out, and George cringed to think that they’d heard her crude words. Once they were past, one of them looking at him curiously, he turned back to Charlotte and spoke reluctantly.

“Right, fine, we’ll go if it stops you shouting our business in the street, but I can’t come for long.”

“Whatever you like,” she replied and, grinding out the last feeble sparks of her cigarette with the heel of her boot and blowing smoke and warm breath up into the cool air, she emerged from the dark.

As they drew nearer to the Rosemary Branch, they could hear the dull hum of men’s voices, pierced occasionally by a high-pitched female scream of laughter. Charlotte’s victory in getting George here seemed hollow among the happy throng in the pub, but she prattled on about her day, sounding desperate even to herself. George remained strangely silent as they pushed through the door into the crowded room, a gentle steam rising from so many damp, warmed clothes.

“What are you having?” he asked, looking towards the cramped bar.

“I’ll have a gin with a drop of water, please,” she replied. He found that he hated how she drank spirits like that, barely diluted, and without even the sweetness of sugar. She was hard like that, Charlotte, and could put away more drink than him. He looked around for her when he had paid for her drink and his pint and saw that she’d squeezed into a corner booth that was slightly obscured, the lights above not quite reaching the far corner where Charlotte now sat.

“Sit next to me,” she said when he reached her, patting the stained plush seat. “It’s no good you being opposite, I can’t get to you.”

She laughed as she spoke though her eyes were watchful. George swallowed a feeling of repulsion mixed with guilt that threatened to make him set down the drinks and walk out wordlessly, back into the damp air. Seeing the unidentifiable emotions flit across his face, she tried again.

“Come on, George,” she coaxed, “I won’t bite or nothing.” He finally sat down, resolutely facing forward, and concentrated on drinking down half a pint in one go. “Cor, thirsty, aren’t we?” she said, as she gently moved the hand that had stayed on the seat to his thigh instead. He jumped and tried to cover it quickly but she had sensed it and said a softer, wheedling tone.

“Come a bit closer, will you? It’s too cold tonight to be so unfriendly.”

In fact, the air of the pub seemed close and fusty after their walk. Condensation forming on the tall, etched windows bulged into drops that ran down to soak into the men’s coarse jacket sleeves that were propped against the glass. In the fug of smoke and damp heat, Charlotte moved her hand carefully upwards and George forced himself not to move. Involuntarily he placed his elbows on the table, shutting out his view of Charlotte’s face, and drank off the rest of his pint, wiping his mouth free of the last of it. He looked down at her small hand, now almost in his lap, but he could feel the heat of her eyes almost as much, those strange hazel eyes, with flecks of yellow scything through the deep brown background of the iris. He found he couldn’t remember the rest of her face even though she sat right beside him, touching him. He set down his glass and stood, asking her if she wanted the same again, still without looking directly at her.

“Yes, please, another of the same, George, if you’re sure.” He went to the bar and bought himself a double gin this time, along with hers. Then he drank it off and bought another before going back to the table. At last he could feel the alcohol flood his bones and heat his cheeks, and the noise around them grew more uniform, more like the hum he’d heard from the rain-sodden street. When Charlotte replaced her hand on his leg after a couple of minutes of silence he didn’t move it. With the second double gin in his stomach he closed the door on the image of Charlotte with a man in uniform that he’d scarcely been able to banish from his mind’s eye for days and moved, almost imperceptibly, towards Charlotte and the wall. She didn’t look at him, he saw out the corner of his eye, but moved her hand slowly upwards until it lay on his crotch. Then she unwound her shawl with her other hand and placed it over their laps. She could hear that his breathing had changed, and was coming short and fast, instead of the silent control of before. She wished he would lean over and kiss her or even look at her, but he’d put his elbows back up on the table, the hands balled into fists at his temples the only visible signs that she had aroused him.

Abruptly he got to his feet, colliding with the table and making their drinks slosh over the brim. Without a word or a backwards glance, he strode towards the door and threw it open, banging his way through it so that people turned to look. Retracing his steps with their eyes, they came to rest at the now solitary girl, alone at the table, and vainly trying the mop up the spilled gin with her sleeve. Her cheeks hot with shame, she withstood the stares for another minute before downing the remains of both glasses and rushing out of the pub herself.

George could not face the prospect of going straight home and meeting Cissy’s questions, which he would rebuff so that, for the rest of the night, the three of them would sit, hunched together in a stultifying silence. He turned towards the north and into the fine, soaking drizzle and thought about the peace of Highbury Fields, where he could sit on a bench undisturbed, and close to the white house. The expanse of green would be empty at this time, and in this weather, and he could sit and think, or not think, whatever he wished. He set off, turning right into the New North road, enjoying the feel of the pin-sharp rain in his face as the wind picked up in strength. He hadn’t gone far when the tinny sound of light, fast footsteps echoed in the street behind him. He stopped without turning.

“George, wait for me. Please, wait,” he heard, as he knew he would. She caught up with him and leaned over, catching her breath. When she had recovered she spoke softly.

“What did I do wrong? What made you go off like that, I thought you liked it?”

He had expected her to scold, work herself up into a fit of hysterics, screeching like a fishwife and embarrassing him, though they were quite alone in the wet street, where the glow of the gas lamps now shimmered in the pools of water filling the ground’s deep ruts. Her quiet voice doused his temper.

“You didn’t do nothing. I felt ill all of a sudden, like I couldn’t breathe. That’s all. I’m sorry I left you.” He wouldn’t tell her anything about either the Highbury house or this Joe Bruce character, he’d said to himself that he wouldn’t.

Charlotte exhaled, her face visibly relaxing.

“It’s fine, George, it’s fine. I just thought . . . I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going on in that head of yours these days, that’s all.”

She wished he would look at her in that soft way he had sometimes. All she could see clearly was his profile, jaw set.

“Has someone said something to you, George? This is hard for me.”

“For you? What’s so hard for you?”

“It’s hard knowing how to get you back, how to, I don’t know, make you look at me again.”

“I’m looking at you right now,” George barked a short laugh and folded his arms across his body.

“No, that’s not what I mean. I can’t explain it, I just feel like you may as well be a hundred miles away these days. I can’t get to you anymore.”

“You’re talking daft now, I’m right here with you, ain’t I?”

She kicked at the crumbling pointing of a brick wall.

“No. Yes, you’re here. Where’re you going though? What’s up this way?”

She suddenly looked up at him with a new intensity burning in her eyes. Her small hands curled into fists at her sides.

“You going to see someone, George?”

He felt his temper rise as he watched hers increase. What was it to her where he went?

“It’s none of your damn business where I’m going,” he said, struggling to keep his voice low.

“Well, I want to know,” she said, her voice cracking on the last syllable, her body visibly beginning to shake. She attempted a laugh, which came out wild and strangulated. “You got another woman or something? Is that it? You off to see some tart now you’re bored of me?”

Watching her small frame shudder with emotion, George felt the familiar fingers of guilt creep over him, and like a breath of wind to a fire it made him furious. He slammed the palm of his hand into the brick wall to the side of Charlotte’s head, making her gasp.

“Yeah, that’s exactly where I’m going,” he spat the words, leaning in close and tipping her face up to his with a hard finger under her chin. “I’ve met someone else.” It wasn’t true, but he wanted to be cruel and felt exhilarated by it.

She seemed to crumple at that, her whole body sagging against the dripping bricks, a runnel of rainwater from a leaking drain soaking through the material of her dress and spreading from her shoulder like the dark stain of a wound.

“I knew it,” she whispered. “Who is she?”

George was surprised, despite his own hurt and anger. He was the injured one, finding out about her previous sweetheart from Ted in that way, and yet here was Charlotte acting like she’d been wronged, not him. But if that was what she’d got in her head, perhaps he wouldn’t disabuse her of the notion.

“Why should I tell you?”

As he spoke he found he wanted, quite desperately, to speak aloud the address of the white house, and the names of the people who lived there. Of course Charlotte would think it was just about him taking a fancy to a new girl, she would. But it was something quite different, and a great deal more important than that. If Charlotte knew who he knew there, she would think he’d taken a fancy to Miss Drew. Clemency. But she was above those sort of mucky thoughts, and he had never even considered her in that way. He changed tack, not wishing to let her believe she’d been wronged, when it was he who had been.

“If you really want to know, there isn’t any other woman I’m carrying on with, Charlotte. Someone like you would think that, would think everything has to be about that. Well, you’ve got it wrong and you wouldn’t even understand what it’s about. I’ll tell you though, see what you make of it.”

She raised her head in surprise, every nerve straining to catch the words.

“There is a girl there but you can forget your grubby little ideas about her and me. She’s a different sort to you. I would never . . . “ He broke off, shaking his head before resuming.

“There’s a house I’ve been to, a big white house up Highbury. If you must know, I go and help out, do odd jobs. I don’t get much money for it but the lady there, she lets me look at the books in the study.”

“What, and you were going up there now? At this hour? You must be wrong in the head if you think I’m going to believe that. You, looking at a pile of books? It don’t sound right to me. I don’t believe a word of it. I know there’s someone else.” Her anger returned briefly at that, like a leaping flame in a sudden draught.

He moved away from the wall at her spat words, and then turned back to look at her.

“But I don’t care what you think no more, Charlotte Cheeseman, so you can save your breath,” he said, as though he’d often spoken the line in his imagination.

He turned and set off in the direction of north. She called after him but her voice, grown weak, was drowned out by a passing cab, its lanterns flickering and the horses’ reins clinking as it sped south, the wheels sending up an arc of dirty water which sprayed over Charlotte’s skirts.