Her Victory (58 page)

‘I left it outside for the unexpected guest.'

She smiled at such formal generosity. ‘That's a funny idea, though a nice one. But who are we hoping will call?'

‘If Elijah passes, he sees the wine, and if he feels inclined, he comes inside.'

‘Is that the custom?'

‘It's the custom.'

She still wore the coloured headscarf that had protected her hair from dusting and cleaning. The novelty of a party for such reasons as he gave was hard to resist enjoying. ‘I should change into my best clothes, then.'

‘You're in them already. To our life!'

She drank to life. The wine was icy. Being sweet, it should have been warmer, but its slender cold shaft went down. He tapped off the shells of two boiled eggs and sprinkled them with salt. ‘We must eat, as well.'

She took some dry flaky biscuit, and a spring onion. It was good with the wine. His brown eyes glowed. She didn't know why he was so happy, but smiled and felt glad to be alive with him. ‘I will,' she said, ‘and then I'm going to change my clothes. I hope this celebration includes that activity.'

He sat down in the armchair, legs crossed as he looked at her. ‘Anything you say. We're out of servitude.'

With food spread, they came to the table, a solitary candle lit. He was right. Some line had to be crossed, so much left behind. His celebration defined it, a festival to make and mark a new beginning. ‘It's a feast for family, group, tribe, nation, or for the whole world if ever it became so enlightened. My grandmother would have approved. It's quite possible that yours would, though it lacks the finer points. But it's all we can do at the moment. It affirms our getting out of slavery, and living properly with each other. Most people live in self-imposed servitude, or in the slavery they allow those nearest to impose on them. They feel comfortable in the House of Bondage, and don't want to come out and face the terrors of the unknown, which to them is the strongest barrier there is. But it's really the Great Knowing, because when you step into it the fetters fall away. We can find love, respect, work, adventure, and we can thank God for giving us the Jerusalem of the spirit, and the Israel of our strength and consciousness. I say this out of love for you, and love for myself. You look back on servitude and think it was a safe and orderly life, and imagine that the way you're living now has no future, but in servitude the future was blank and the certainty dead, otherwise your suffering spirit wouldn't have brought you to me, who wants you by me for as long as we live.'

She was afraid of his weird outpouring on an evening that was not like any other. The only time she was unafraid was when he lay between her legs and buried deeply in, his hands under her buttocks and her recalcitrant orgasm building up almost against her will and she thought she wouldn't come though was dying to, and sometimes she didn't but at other times she decided not to care and then it rose within her and she clutched him, out of control and as far in love as she thought it possible to be.

Thank God he had stopped talking. She couldn't stand it. She liked him. She loved him. She looked at him. If only he would fuck her, and not talk. She was ashamed at such a thought, and felt herself flushing in a torment of self-reproach. Every day he was different. She didn't know him. Then she looked, and for a few moments knew him better than she knew herself, which made her despise herself, then feel sorry for herself, then love herself more than she ever had, then wonder who she was and where she was, till she finally grew calm in the exhaustion which followed, then held his hands and pressed them, and looked at him for minutes that seemed like years, while she fought back tears whose significance she did not want to know.

‘When I came up the stairs a few weeks ago and saw the danger you were in from your husband and his brothers,' he said, ‘I felt that the Angel of Death was close. I reverted immediately to the raging bull, and would have killed to get you free. But I felt the Angel of Death pass over us, and was able to do what I could which, thank God, turned out to be sufficient. Both of us were blessed at that moment, by being released. When we came down here, I knew that we had left our troubles and started our wanderings together.'

‘We haven't come far, my darling.'

He poured more wine. ‘We'll leave the country soon.'

‘I'll be seasick!'

‘Haven't you ever been on a ship?'

‘When I went to Spain, I flew.'

‘With me you'll go by boat.'

She sat stiffly. ‘And if I want to go by air?'

‘Don't you want a new experience?' he laughed.

‘Depends where we go.'

‘Where do you want to go?'

‘I can't think of tomorrow, let alone next week, or next month. Do you mind?'

‘We'll stay a bit longer, then.' He lifted his glass: ‘To those beautiful blue and oblique eyes of a queen! – and to all else about you.'

She sipped, then had an impulse to embrace him, but didn't. She held back, not knowing why. For no reason – not wanting to make things too easy for him, but most of all not easy for herself. Everything was wonderful, but it didn't seem right. She was happy, yet felt oppressed. The weight was impossible to bear. She felt as if she belonged to the world, and was no longer afraid, but the very idea of fearlessness frightened her. She wanted to go to bed, yet wanted to walk in the streets with him. She wanted to go to Nottingham and sort things out with George before coming back here for good. She wanted to do nothing but what she was doing, which was rushing to his arms and kissing him with a passion that burned them both.

He pushed the headscarf back, and moved from her lips to kiss the damp skin and hair that had been covered by the headscarf since before dusk.

13

The sea rose like a hillside when she looked back. Bitter cold had teeth, wind trying to eat the empty streets, so the parking space at the station was empty. They had bought a car. Choose a colour, he said. She nodded at white, a serviceable estate model for five thousand pounds. We'll go a long way, as long as there's petrol. She was almost afraid to step into it, wanted to put newspaper down for when there was rain.

A door banged open against the carriage before the train had properly stopped. Sam jumped on to the platform. Hilary was not so daring. A satchel roped to her back, she had the replica machine-gun which nearly pulled her arms to the concrete, as if she had to pick up a golden coin before running to the barrier. A dark young man flinched, and walked quickly away from her. The ticket collector patted her head and advised her to wait for her ma, but she told him to leave her alone or she would phone the police, then pushed through and went skipping towards the newspaper stall. He shouted: ‘Hey, where's your ticket?' He asked Judy as she went through: ‘Are them kids yours?'

She shivered after the heat of the train, and showed him a ticket. ‘They're bloody not. They've been terrorizing everybody all the way down. They should be done away with, the little bastards.' She pointed to an elderly woman in furs coming along the platform, a chauffeur carrying her luggage. ‘I expect they belong to her.'

‘I'm glad you were able to come,' Tom said.

‘I'd have taken any chance of a trip to Brighton.' She looked full of cares, but her eyes smouldered with haughtiness and resentment. A mischievousness about the shape of her mouth set her apart, and might warn anyone to keep out of her way. She wore slacks, and a three-quarter coat. Pam thought she looked more mannish than when they had last met. ‘I don't see why I should pay anything for those two little drag-bags. They're going to enjoy it too much to have their fares paid as well. They ran in at Victoria, and ran out here. If a collector gets on the train going back, they can jump off and thumb a ride home. Got to learn what life's all about. When it happened before, they came home in a police car. They'd been given tea and cakes, a mouth-organ and a doll. I clouted them as they came in the door, and told them not to get lost again – even though it had taken some initiative. I nearly died of worry, I said. I'm not sure whether the copper was convinced, but for the next few days they were threatening to leave me and go and live at the police station.' She turned, shouting in a voice which, Pam thought, must have carried for miles: ‘Come back here, or I'll tear your goldens off!'

There was a car to get into, so they rounded themselves up without trouble. ‘Listen to the seagulls.' Sam snatched at his sister's machine-gun which was pointed at their noise. ‘Don't shoot 'em!'

‘We'll go to the flat first,' Tom said. ‘Not much opens till midday.'

The children settled in the back with Judy. ‘I want to see the sea,' Hilary called.

‘It won't run away,' Tom said, ‘not very far, that is.'

Sam leaned forward, and said into his ear: ‘You mean that the tide'll be out. How far does it go?'

‘We'll look at a book of tables that tells you all about it.'

‘I want to be a sailor,' Hilary said. ‘Will you take me on a ship, Tom? I want to go to Australia on a ship with sails.'

He laughed. ‘They have engines now.'

‘With an engine, then.'

‘Women don't go on ships,' Judy said. ‘Unless you whore yourself out to the captain, or work on a liner as a skivvy.'

‘You'll get sea-sick,' Sam jeered.

She screamed into his face: ‘Yah, yah, yah – and I'll spew all over you!' She unclipped the magazine, and ammunition thudded on to the floor. Her legs in the air were reflected in Tom's rear mirror, shaking around while she found the bullets. Then she came up, fitted them in, and levelled the gun at a car behind. ‘I don't want to whore. I'll dress up as a man. I'll borrow your trousers, mum.'

‘Maybe by the time you grow up it'll be different.' Tom was encouraging. ‘A woman could do any job on a ship if she was trained.'

It amused him to imagine a crew of women and men, and said so.

‘I expect there'd only be as much fucking around as there is with an all-man crew,' Judy laughed.

‘Less,' Sam said, looking at the seafront.

Hilary lowered her gun. ‘More, I'd say.'

‘What do you little mistakes know about it?' Judy asked.

‘You haven't lived,' Sam told her solemnly. ‘I go to school, don't forget.'

‘You'll go to a fucking orphanage if you don't shut your fat little trap. I didn't come down here to bicker with kids on the facts of life. Just look at the wind and listen to the sand, then you might learn something.'

The boy groaned. Hilary laughed, but they sat quietly. Tom winced with disapproval at her swearing. She would make a rough sort of captain, he thought, and no doubt keep any crew in order.

Hilary ran up the stairs with the gun, inspired by the liberty of being able to enter an unfamiliar building. Sam followed, and it seemed to the adults coming behind as if they were a storming party to get terrorists out. ‘They eat too well, and too often,' Judy said when milky coffee and a plate of cakes were set before them. ‘The town won't be safe today.'

The dining-room table had five places laid. Yesterday had been for shopping, and today getting the meal ready. A soup was to begin, and a trifle to end. Tom peeled potatoes before breakfast, scrubbed carrots, cut cauliflower, and washed for three different salads. A piece of beef was on a low light. He bought cakes, bread, chocolates and half a dozen cheeses, enough to feed twice as many. The larder and refrigerator were stocked as if they were on a ship about to steam across the world, or as if a catastrophe would force a long siege on them.

He wondered how long it had been since the noise of such mayhem had bounced from wall to wall. They leapfrogged up the corridor and down again, and chased each other in and out of the kitchen. Probably never. There had been no children here except himself as a boy on parole from the orphanage, and his voice had never been audible from more than a few feet. He had a vision of himself as a trapped insect, afraid even to jump. Shameless. He rubbed it away.

Judy sipped black coffee. ‘I hate the sight of 'em, though I wouldn't be without 'em. You might not believe it, but they're doing well at school, after I gave 'em a good talking to. “If you want to beat the system,” I told them, “pass your tests and exams better than anybody else. Do it for me. Learn all you can. If you don't work for me, I won't work for you. You'll have to live on bread and water then”.'

She expected to be complimented on her determination and sagacity. ‘You're a good mother,' Pam said.

‘Not really, love. I'm only their guardian till they're big enough to fend for themselves. Then, it's out into the snow – the deeper the better.'

Tom thought they were lucky. Judy knew that life was a battle, and was teaching them to fight in a world which, contrary to what everyone thought, got harder and rougher. But everything had its price, and the contest seemed to be wearing her out. He only hoped that her philosophy of living off the land didn't encourage such bright children to go too far, and get into trouble with the police.

He led her and Pam into the main bedroom, and showed them the wardrobe of Clara's clothes. Judy stood back at the heavy taint of mothballs, then went forward and ran her hand along the dresses. ‘They look gorgeous.'

‘She was about your size, in her heyday,' Tom said, ‘so help yourself.'

‘You mean it?'

He nodded.

Hilary pushed through: could she have a skirt and a blouse? Judy held her. ‘Maybe I'll get a stall, and sell them on the market.'

He had intended throwing them out, he said. ‘But if you can make some money on them – fine.'

Judy looked at Pam with an expression hard to fathom, a smile that was an invitation. To what, Pam didn't know – unless it was simply to be without the kids for half an hour, a desire she could well understand. ‘Why don't you take the children to the beach?' she said to Tom. ‘Then Judy can try one or two dresses on. I'll stay with her.'