A rock could stand up to the storms of life. Harry didn’t need her. He had more than proved that. You could even take away his job, his family, his friends, and he would still be strong. She looked at Gerry, at his kind face, his anxious eyes. Gerry loved her. More than that, he needed her.
‘I dunno, Gerry, I can’t make my mind up just like that.’
‘You don’t have to,’ he assured her. ‘Not right away. I’m not asking that. I’m not asking you to marry me now, not with things like what they are. Oh no, it’s got to be done proper, when I’m back on my feet again and I can afford to rent us a place of our own. Look – I’ll ask you again in six months. How about that? In six months, you can give me an answer, yes or no. That sound all right to you?’
Relieved at being let off the hook, Ellen agreed.
It was less than six months later that a house unexpectedly fell vacant in Trinidad Street.
‘Do nicely for you and Gerry,’ Martha remarked, as she stood ironing sheets. ‘Mind you, I dunno what you young people are coming to these days, needing a whole place of your own before you get wed. When me and your dad got married we just had a back bedroom at his parents’ place. All you need to start with. Still, you could have a couple of lodgers to help with the rent, like. Always someone needing a room.’
‘Mum!’ Ellen was horrified. ‘I always thought you was on my side.’
‘Your side? Of course I’m on your side, lovey. What on earth do you mean?’
‘I mean about marrying Gerry. Everyone expects me to, but I ain’t said nothing, now have I?’
Martha gave an indulgent laugh. ‘You don’t need to, do you? It’s plain as the nose on your face that you’re only keeping the poor sod hanging about. You’ve had long enough to make your mind up, God knows.’
‘I know.’ Ellen sighed. ‘Trouble is, I can’t make my mind up, and that’s a fact.’
Martha sat down and gave her daughter her whole attention. ‘You’re not still carrying a torch for Harry Turner, are you?’ she asked shrewdly.
‘Well . . .’
‘I thought as much. Trouble with you, my girl, you believe all them books you keep reading. All very nice, I’m sure, but you got to live in the real world, ain’t you? If you wanted Harry, you should’ve gone and made it up with him ages ago, like what I told you to, not gone on working with Gerry and going out with him in the evenings. That’s not fair to anyone, now is it? Least of all Gerry. He’s all right, he is. Bit on the fly side but his heart’s in the right place. You could go a lot further and fare a lot worse than Gerry. You think about it, or you might find that chance slipping through your fingers and all.’
‘I do think about it. I lie awake at night thinking about it. But it don’t seem to do no good.’
‘Well, I’ll tell you something what might get your brain working. That Siobhan’s come back.’
As always, the very sound of her name gave Ellen a sick feeling. And it was mentioned quite often now she had returned from her tour.
‘I know. She’s doing the London halls again.’
‘No, I don’t mean just back in London, I mean back here, in Trinidad Street.’
‘She’s never!’
Dismay was followed rapidly by anger. She had never forgiven Siobhan, and she never would. While she was out of sight, Ellen managed to keep her more or less out of mind, but here in the street she was nothing less than a threat to everyone, and especially to Ellen.
‘You mean she’s staying? What does Mrs O’Donaghue say to that? She’s not stopping with them again, is she?’
‘I dunno, love. She only come this afternoon. Just turned up out of the blue, all dressed up to the nines’ – she paused for effect – ‘in a cab.’
‘A
cab
?’
‘First time I ever saw one down our street. Caused quite a stir, it did.’
‘Yeah, I bet it did.’
If Siobhan had come back for Harry, Ellen could not bear it. If he were to marry anyone else she could accept it, with great difficulty, as long as she was good enough for him. But not Siobhan.
‘If she so much as looks at Harry, I’ll tear her eyes out,’ she said. And she meant it.
It was ten days later that she actually saw Siobhan again. She was at the door of the now vacant house – number forty-five, right next to the Turners’. Fuelled with the darkest suspicion, Ellen marched over the road to accost her.
‘Didn’t think we’d see the likes of you back here again,’ she said.
‘Oh? Why ever not? This is where my family is.’ Siobhan gave her a look of innocent surprise.
Ellen felt as if her head was about to burst. ‘Moving back in then, are you? I’d’ve thought you was used to flasher places than this by now. Can’t see you sharing with all the O’Donaghues again.’
‘I don’t need to share with them,’ Siobhan told her with a patronizing smile. ‘I’ve a few bob of my own now, and, as you say, I’m used to something better. But family’s family, after all.’ She opened a gloved hand to reveal a sturdy door-key. ‘I’m thinking of taking this place.’
‘You’re
what
?’
The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. She flushed, furious at herself for sounding at a disadvantage.
‘I thought it might be quite nice,’ Siobhan was saying, obviously enjoying herself. ‘The stage is such a strange life. People come and go, you see too much of them for a short while then nothing at all for months. It’s best to keep a hold of your old friends, don’t you think?’
‘Well, you can’t have this house,’ Ellen heard herself saying. ‘It’s spoken for already.’
‘That’s not what they said at the landlord’s office.’ For the first time, Siobhan looked slightly put out.
‘You must’ve been talking to the wrong person.’
‘How come you know more about it than they do?’
‘’Cos I’m the one what’s taking it.’ She did not know what had made her say it. It just seemed the only way to keep Siobhan out.
‘You? You and who else?’ The smile became pure poison. ‘You and Harry?’
If she hoped to wound, she succeeded. But Ellen was not going to let her know that.
‘Harry?’ she said, as if it were some sick joke. ‘Oh no, you done me a favour there, Siobhan. I’m real grateful to you. It’s not Harry, it’s Gerry. Me and Gerry are moving in here – it’s all fixed. So you better let me have that key.’
To her deep satisfaction, Siobhan was silenced. She held out her hand, and Siobhan placed the key in it.
‘Thanks,’ she said, and walked off home without a backward glance.
‘FUNNY,’
MAISIE SAID,
sticking a pin through her hat to anchor it to her hair, ‘I never thought Ellen would go and marry Gerry. I always thought her and our Harry would get together in the end.’
Will grunted. He was fed up with this wedding before it even started. People seemed to have talked of nothing else for the past month.
Maisie carried on regardless. There were very few high spots in her life and she was out to make the most of this one.
‘My mum thinks she’s only doing it for his money,’ she said.
‘Your mum would,’ Will snapped.
He was knotting a tie under his one and only stiff collar and he knew it was going to give him gip.
Downstairs Albert and Lily started scrapping, and Tommy, with all the authority of eight years, was telling them off. Maisie sighed and wailed down the stairs.
‘Leave off, you lot, you’ll wake the baby.’
If they heard her at all, the children took no notice.
‘I’ll be bloody glad when this is over,’ Will muttered, still trying to get his tie looking right. ‘Go and shut them kids up, for God’s sake.’
Maisie sighed again and left the bedroom. Will looked morosely at his reflection in the tarnished mirror. Nothing about this wedding pleased him. It was because of his stupid sister that Siobhan was not after all going to come back to Trinidad Street. And Harry bloody Turner was still free, which meant he could still end up with Siobhan after all. There was not even the remotest chance of Siobhan turning up for the ceremony, since the O’Donaghues were still on the outs with the Billinghams. The only saving grace of the day was the opportunity to get totally pissed in the pub in the evening.
The noise downstairs seemed to be increasing. Peter had joined in with the row. Will swore and wrenched his tie into place. Times like this, he could not think why it was he had not gone with Siobhan that night. In fact, there was not a day when he did not regret it.
At the Turners’ house, the atmosphere was hardly any better. Archie Turner disliked weddings on principle, Milly, Johnny and even little Bob were such partisans for Harry that they did not want to go at all, but had to because Maisie was married to a Johnson and Gerry was their cousin. Florrie and Ida had mixed feelings, but did not admit to them. Both of them felt that their brother had been slighted, but they were looking forward to the social side of the day. After all, there was nothing like one wedding for bringing on another, and they each had their eye on one or other of the young male guests.
‘If you ask me, Harry’s far better off without her,’ Ida said, as she and Florrie tweaked at each other’s dresses and made last-minute adjustments to their hair.
Florrie smoothed her skirt over her narrow hips. ‘I dunno,’ she said. ‘I still wish Ellen was marrying him. She’s been my friend ever since I can remember. It would’ve been nice.’
‘Can’t see how you can stay friends with her.’
Florrie did not answer. Sharp in her mind’s eye was the picture of her younger self on a winter’s evening in the street, rigid and burning with murderous hatred while Ida and Johnny clung to her, cold and frightened. Ellen had been there, trying to help, trying to give comfort. You did not turn your back on friendships like that.
‘How do I look?’ she asked, changing the subject.
‘Nice,’ Ida said loyally. ‘I’ve always liked that dress. Suits you.’
‘Mm,’ Florrie said. She looked down at herself and wished she had an hourglass figure like that Siobhan O’Donaghue instead of a skinny body hardly different from her brother Johnny’s. Men did like something to get hold of. ‘You look lovely,’ she said.
Ida smirked. Like her mother and Maisie, she had a surface prettiness that was now coming into its short flowering. She had great hopes of this wedding. She had fancied Jack Johnson for ages and this was a good chance to catch his eye.
Down in the kitchen, Harry was also getting ready, with such an air of aggressive isolation about him that the entire family gave him a wide berth, insofar as that was possible in a tiny house inhabited by seven people. With meticulous care, he slicked down his blond curls, tied his narrow blue and red tie and brushed the shoulders of his navy suit. He tried not to think of the reason for all this careful preparation. It was just his cousin, getting married. That was all. He had a well-built wall about his emotions now, and he was not going to let anyone see it breached today. He had not been at home when the confrontation between Ellen and Siobhan had taken place next door, but
naturally there had been plenty of kind people ready to fill him in with the details. So Siobhan had done Ellen a favour by coming to the Masons’ place that day. Fine. If that was the way she saw it, then it was a favour to him too. Gerry was welcome to her.
At number forty, Alma was already close to tears. She was still in an old dress with her hair in a plait down her back, and she was twitching around the kitchen in a state of high nervous tension, picking things up and putting them down.
‘I still can’t see why you can’t come and live here,’ she said.
Gerry sighed. They had been through this a dozen times or more.
‘Mum, I know there’s room enough here, but I just wanted us to have a place of our own.’ He cast about for something new to say, something that would really convince her. ‘It’s like proving I’ve
got
somewhere, that I’ve made it.’
‘But everyone knows you got somewhere. Who else round here has got a market stall? I just don’t see why you got to move out.’
‘
Mum
, I’m only going across the road!’
Ellen had sagely said that his mum was bound to feel like that, since she was losing her baby.
‘Baby!’ Gerry had cried, laughing. ‘I’m twenty-five!’
‘You’re still her youngest, though, and the youngest of only two. Of course she doesn’t want you to go.’
‘That’s just stupid,’ Gerry had said.
But now he remembered what she had said and with an effort at patience, put his arm round his mother.
‘I’m only going across the road, Mum. I’ll see you every day, don’t worry. And you know what they say: you’re not losing a son, you’re gaining a daughter.’
‘Yeah.’ Alma looked unconvinced. ‘But –’
‘No buts. You go and get your glad rags on. Don’t want them Johnsons outshining us, do we?’
‘No, no, of course not.’ His mother went off upstairs.
Gerry stood looking after her. There was one very good reason for moving out that he had not brought up: Charlie. He did not want Charlie listening to every movement on his wedding night or any other night. He could just see his brother grinning at him in the morning and leering at Ellen, making suggestive remarks and drawing him on one side to ask how Ellen was.
What was making it much worse was the fact that he was not at all confident about the part he had to play tonight. It was not a thing he
could get advice about. He could not possibly admit to his mates that he was still a virgin and ask them for a few tips.
He stood in the small kitchen, dressed in brand-new clothes from top to toe, on the day he had been planning for years, and broke out in a cold sweat. What if he wasn’t up to scratch?
A few houses away at the Johnsons, it was Tom who was expressing the doubts.
‘I dunno,’ he said to his wife. ‘I’d’ve been a whole lot happier if it was Harry Turner.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with young Gerry,’ Martha said, just a trifle too emphatically.
‘I know there ain’t nothing wrong with him. He’s just not the man Harry is, that’s all.’
‘There’s plenty of girls as’d like to be in our Ellen’s shoes today, I can tell you.’
‘Yeah, yeah, I know that an’ all. But be honest, Martha. You know our Ellen. Who do you think she ought to be marrying? Who’s best for her, eh?’