‘Not that I need to worry,’ said Alwyne. ‘Smoking’s the best protection. Kills the germs, you see. You should be taking it up, young man.’ He proffered the packet. ‘No time like the present.’
‘I can’t,’ said Ralph. ‘My mother …’
‘I think your mother would prefer you to live. Anyway she’s in her room, getting dressed up for hubby. Go on, be a devil.’
There was, in fact, something devilish about Alwyne – the black wings of his eyebrows; the coaxing voice. He had a lisp, too, which made his words thicker and somehow more suggestive.
Besides, why not? Ralph felt a rush of rebellion. He took a cigarette, lit it and inhaled.
His throat closed up. A searing pain blocked his lungs. He bent over double, choking. Alwyne chuckled.
‘Persevere, my boy. You’ll get the hang of it in the end.’
Through his tears Ralph heard the sound of a motor engine. Not many of them were heard outside his house, which was two streets away from the main road and something of a backwater. A horn sounded.
Upstairs his mother screamed.
Ralph stubbed out the cigarette. He was out of the room in a flash. His mother was thundering downstairs, buttoning up her blouse.
‘Mother!’ he cried.
She grabbed his arm. ‘Ralph! Come here!’
‘Are you all right?’
‘Come and look!’
The dog was barking. She pulled Ralph along the hallway and flung open the door.
She stood still and whispered. ‘Oh my goodness.’
A motor car was parked outside their door. In it sat Mr Turk, wearing a leather cap and goggles. He parped the horn again. Along the street, doors opened and people appeared.
Brutus bounded out and started snapping at a tyre. Mr Turk pulled off his goggles and gazed at his wife.
‘Well, my dear?’
He leaned over and opened the passenger door. Eithne flew across the pavement in her stockinged feet, jumped into the car and threw her arms around him.
Ralph flinched, as if he’d been struck. How could his mother do that, in front of the neighbours? She was kissing the man on the lips! A pair of reechy kisses.
A hand touched his arm ‘What’s the commotion?’ Alwyne had arrived, and stood at his side.
‘Mr Turk is sitting in a motor car,’ said Ralph. ‘It’s sort of purple, with the hood pulled back. He looks awfully pleased with himself.’
The motor car belched clouds of petrol smoke from its nether regions. Through the haze appeared Mrs Spooner, home from work. Her face was grey with exhaustion; she looked like a ghost, in the smoke. She glanced up at the top window, as she always did when she neared the house.
‘Mrs Spooner,’ called Eithne. ‘Look what Mr Turk’s bought! He says it’s called a Wolseley.’
Mrs Spooner gathered her wits. She turned slowly to gaze at the motor car.
‘Go and get your daughter!’ called Neville. ‘I was expecting a welcoming party.’
His face was pink with triumph. He sat there, one arm draped around his wife’s shoulders.
‘Hop in, young lad!’ he called to Ralph. ‘I’ll take us for a spin.’
Ralph struggled with his conflicting emotions. On the one hand, it was undeniably exciting. He had never sat in a motor car before. Perhaps Mr Turk would let him sit at the wheel and steer it!
Winnie and Mrs O’Malley came out of the house, edging him aside. They gasped. Lettie pushed through them; with a quick glance at her mother, she ran across to the motor car and jumped in the back seat. Ralph realised, with surprise, how the past two months had transformed the girl. Once she had looked half starved. Now she had fattened up; her face was rosy with health. She even talked more. Mr Turk’s food had performed that miracle. And here Ralph was, thinking that he could have taken care of them. How deluded he had been, how pitifully babyish, to imagine that he could be the man of the house.
‘Room for one more inside!’ called Mr Turk.
A crowd had gathered by now. Small boys, their feet bare, gazed at the motor car. They gazed at its polished flanks, its shiny chrome. Even Mr Crocker, the man whose nightshirt had risen up when the Zep appeared, came out of his house to stare.
Mrs Spooner looked up. Despite the noise, with her sixth sense she had heard a sound. Ralph glanced up too. On the top floor the sash was pushed up. Mr Spooner’s white face appeared at the window. His wife’s face broke into a smile. All this for a motor car! Indeed, Ralph’s own heart was beating faster. It was simply so beautiful, so new. It made the very houses look tired.
Alwyne leaned close. ‘Know what the date is?’
Ralph thought for a moment. ‘The twenty-eighth of June.’
At that moment the dog jumped into the motor car and sat in the back seat. He waited expectantly, as if he did this sort of thing every day. Lettie put her arm around him.
‘Four years ago, on this day, remember what happened?’ murmured Alwyne.
Ralph was confused. ‘What?’
‘A man called Gavrilo Princip shot the Archduke Franz Ferdinand as he was sitting in his motor car. Shot his wife too. You know about that, don’t you?’
‘Oh yes,’ Ralph lied.
Alwyne chuckled. ‘That’s what started this whole damn business.’
Chapter Six
The treatment of Servants is of the highest possible moment, as well to the mistress as to the domestics themselves. On the head of the house the latter will natually fix their attention; and if they perceive that the mistress’s conduct is regulated by high and correct principles, they will not fail to respect her. If, also, a benevolent desire is shown to promote their comfort, at the same time that a steady performance of their duty is extracted, then their respect will not be unmingled with affection, and they will be still more solicitous to continue to deserve her favour.
Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management
Over the next weeks a transformation took place. Mrs Turk became a woman of fashion. A dressmaker came to the house and fitted her with new gowns – shot-silk dresses of midnight blue, of deepest green trimmed with ochre braid that picked up the chestnut lights in her hair. Blouses were delivered in boxes tied with ribbon, lace blouses shrouded in layers of tissue paper. Copies of Weldon’s Ladies’ Journal appeared; after she finished with them she gave them to Winnie, who hoarded them in her room. Mr Turk picked her up in his motor car and drove her to the West End, to department stores whose names were as exotic as the stars in the sky – Debenham and Freebody, Swan and Edgar. She returned bearing hats, and kid gloves as soft as babies’ skin.
In the evenings the two of them disappeared to official functions – banquets in the City guildhalls, where they hobnobbed with aldermen; dinners with local notables at the Clarendon Hotel. She brought home the menus – quails in aspic, lobster thermidor. ‘They’ll give you ideas for supper,’ she said, swinging round and inspecting herself in the mirror.
Gone were the days when she rolled up her sleeves and helped Winnie with the housework. Their closeness during the dark years of her widowhood was all but gone; she was a married woman now and there was a shuttered look to her as if she were guarding a secret that Winnie could never hope to understand. In fact, mindful of Mr Turk, she sometimes spoke sharply to Winnie, running her fingers along the top of the picture frames and ticking her off. Winnie missed the old days; despite the hardships, she and her mistress had pulled together. During her first marriage there had been a bond between them: a shared, unspoken irritation with her sweet but ineffectual husband whose existence was now the faintest of memories.
And the work had become heavier. Alwyne complained that Winnie had no time to read to him but there were not enough hours in the day. Even the ironing now took up the best part of a morning – the goffering and crimping, the delicate pleats and lace, the rows of tiny, tiny buttons. One night Winnie was so tired that she fell asleep while saying her prayers and woke at dawn, still kneeling at her bed, her head laid on the blanket. All da
y she had a cricked neck.
She had a mind to blame Jesus for this but to tell the truth He had long since gone from her life and she was only going through the motions. He had disappeared the day they took the horses away. During her previous sorrows – even during her mother’s last illness – Jesus had kept company with her, holding her hand. But now He seemed to be gone for good. Winnie told nobody this, not even Alwyne who would no doubt be gratified, what with being an atheist. ‘Christianity is a conspiracy,’ he said. ‘It’s created to keep you working classes in your place, in the ludicrous belief that all will be happy in the next life if you knuckle under in this one.’
Maybe his ideas were seeping through. For Winnie was feeling a small stir of dissatisfaction. She was used to the lodgers’ demands, however odd, and had always gone out of her way to help them – Mrs Spooner in particular, whose life was very hard. Indeed, their habits were so familiar that Winnie seldom had to be summoned by one of their bells ringing in the kitchen. However, when she saw DRAWING ROOM jangling, she felt a stab of irritation. Mr and Mrs Turk were the largest and healthiest adults in the house. Couldn’t they come down and fetch whatever they wanted themselves?
Alwyne said it was like that in the trenches. His unit had rebelled against their cowardly sap of a CO and the barriers had broken down. ‘When the war’s over, the battle will commence,’ he said, wagging his nicotine-stained finger. In fact it had already started. Winnie’s friend Lily worked in a stocking factory down the Whitechapel Road. Formerly a timid girl who wouldn’t say boo to a goose, she had come out on strike over wages and turned into quite the militant.
This slippage in Winnie’s loyalties was alarming. She blamed it on Mr Turk. Despite his jovial spirits, there was something about the man that made her uneasy. I don’t trust him, Alwyne had said, and Winnie was inclined to agree. That he had further plans for the house was not in any doubt. She had seen him sizing up the rooms with the speculative look she had seen in Lord Elbourne’s face when a dealer brought him a new hunter. Something was brewing. It made her uneasy in a way she had never felt when Mr Clay was in charge. Mr Turk could sack her and bring in more staff; he could sell up and kick her out into the street. These four walls were not as safe as they looked and she was utterly in his power. Sometimes she envied Lily, and even Elsie with her canary face. They laboured hard for their twelve shillings a week but at six o’clock they were released, as free as birds.
Winnie was thinking this as she served the three of them dinner, one day towards the end of July. Mr Turk was talking about an American soldier they had met in Brighton.
‘He was a bright young lad,’ said Mr Turk, his eyes darting to Ralph. ‘Know what he had? Plenty of get-up-and-go.’
‘I wish he’d remembered his photograph,’ said Mrs Turk. ‘I hope he’s all right.’ She turned to Ralph. ‘He reminded me of you.’
Mr Turk raised his eyebrows. ‘Bit more oomph to him, wouldn’t you say?’ He spooned the potatoes on to his plate. ‘Mark my words, that young man’ll go far.’
‘If he gets out alive,’ said Mrs Turk.
Ralph cleared his throat. He turned to his stepfather.
‘Why haven’t you joined up?’ he asked.
There was a silence. Winnie nearly dropped the serving-dish.
‘Ralph!’ hissed his mother.
Mr Turk’s eyes twinkled. ‘That’s all right, my dear. Perfectly natural question.’ He turned to Ralph. ‘I’ve got a Certificate of Exemption, young man. Want to see it?’
Ralph blushed. The spots on his chin glowed livid red.
‘Want to see it?’ Mr Turk stood up, his chair scraping. ‘I’ll fetch it right now.’
‘Neville!’ said Mrs Turk. ‘Sit down.’
‘The lad doesn’t believe me.’
‘Of course he does!’ She turned to her son. ‘What do you think you’re doing, asking a thing like that?’
Ralph swallowed. His Adam’s apple moved up and down. ‘I was just asking,’ he muttered.
Neville lowered himself back into his chair. ‘No offence taken.’ He shot a look at the boy.
Mrs Turk turned to Winnie. ‘Lots of people haven’t been called up, have they, Winnie? Two of your brothers, for instance.’
Winnie nodded. ‘They’re in a reserved occupation.’
‘Exactly,’ she said. ‘They work on a farm. And Neville works in a shop. He runs a shop.’
Winnie moved to Ralph. She felt sick, as if she had betrayed him. She longed to say You’ve asked what nobody else has dared. Ralph helped himself to some mashed swede. He acted unconcerned but she could see his reddening neck.
Mr Turk tucked his napkin into his collar and started to eat. His eyes darted around the table as he put a piece of pork into his mouth. Winnie thought: he looks like a pig. Pink face, little piggy eyes. Except she was fond of pigs.
*
It was Sunday afternoon. The house slumbered in the oppressive heat. Ralph’s final exams were the next day: Advanced Book-keeping Level 3. He tried to concentrate but the figures danced around on the page. What was the point of adding things up? None of it made sense anyway. Mr Turk said Ralph could work in his shop. He could sit in the cash desk and take the money. Ralph had no intention of doing this. He wanted to work in an office for thirty shillings a week and bring home a wage for his mother. You’re my little trooper, she would say. He would sit on the arm of her chair and stroke her hair. At night they would lie in their beds, the doors ajar. She would say Night-night, sleep tight and he would reply, Don’t let the bedbugs bite, the cat a weight on his legs, the dog beside him on the floor, twitching as he chased rabbits in his dreams. The next day they would pack sandwiches and take the train to Box Hill where Brutus would chase real rabbits and Ralph would pick up snail shells and show his mother the wonder of them, the wonder she had never appreciated when his father was alive. All his father’s love for them would come back in a rush.
Suddenly Ralph missed his father so much it stopped his breath. How could his father have left him to the mercy of this impostor who sat at the table, his big thighs planted apart? His father had died for them while this man stayed safely at home, chopping up defenceless creatures and totting up the profits with his bloodstained fingers.
Ralph was glad that he had tackled Mr Turk on this subject. The man had definitely looked shifty. Certificate of Exemption, indeed! Ralph had never heard of such a thing. His only regret was that Alwyne hadn’t been there to witness his triumph. Alwyne hated bloated plutocrats and said they would soon become extinct. There was one law for the rich and another for the poor but world events were fast overturning this iniquitous state of affairs. The workers would triumph, as they had done in Russia. Of course, Mr Turk himself could be considered a working man, but Alwyne would have an answer for this. Ralph had full confidence in the fellow.
He had grown closer to Alwyne during the past few weeks. Alwyne, a veteran of one war, understood that another sort of battle was raging in the house – a silent, bloodless battle, that sucked up energy like the vacuum cleaner. It festered in the airless rooms. As for Winnie, Ralph suspected that she, too, was on his side but they had scarcely spoken recently. He hadn’t been able to help her as much as he should, due to studying for his finals. When he did speak to her, she seemed distracted. No doubt she hated Mr Turk as much as he did, but anxiety about her job stopped her from confessing such a thing. This made Ralph sad; their old closeness seemed to be another casualty of the hostilities.
Today, however, was Winnie’s day off. She had gone to Woolwich, where her friend Elsie was in hospital with the lyddite poisoning. She had got it from packing the shells with explosives. Ralph’s mother and Mr Turk had gone boating on the Serpentine.
Ralph put down his pen. He couldn’t concentrate on his revision. He knew the reason, of course. The blood had drained away from his brain, it had drained down to the usual place where it throbbed and burned, tormenting him. The heat made it worse. Did every boy his age go through this tortu
re?
Ralph stood up. Now was his chance, with the three of them out of the house. He opened the door. Not a sound; the house was sunk in somnolence. The lodgers were either out or having a snooze.
Ralph went downstairs, down to the basement. He tapped on Winnie’s door, for form’s sake, but he knew the room was empty. She wouldn’t be back until the evening.
He felt like a trespasser but he told himself Winnie wouldn’t mind. After all, he was only going to borrow one of her magazines for an hour – Weldon’s Ladies’ Journal, if possible. She would have no idea of the use to which he would put it.
The problem was, he had run out of stimulating material. Apart from an engraving of a lady receiving a letter, the house contained no images of the female form. Boyce’s book of photographs had been packed up with his other belongings, when Ralph was out of the house, and sent home to the chap’s mother. Ralph cursed himself for not predicting this and retrieving the book – indeed, stealing other mementoes with which to remind himself of his beloved friend. But it was too late now and he could no longer even go near the top room, contaminated as it was by Mr Turk’s furniture.
He stepped into Winnie’s room. There was something virginal about its narrow bedstead and single chair. The walls were bare; nothing hung on them except a crucifix. Her little sanctuary was so pure that Ralph felt his very thoughts were corrupting it like a lewd smell. It was the room of a woman doomed to celibacy.
Ralph felt sad. Winnie was plain – remarkably plain. There were no two ways about it – her hefty shoulders, her lantern jaw. He loved her, of course, but not in that fashion and it was doubtful that anybody ever would lust after her with the carnal hunger he all too frequently experienced himself. The brutal fact was that after four years of war there were so few young men left that those remaining could pick and choose, and they wouldn’t choose Winnie.
This seemed so sad that Ralph sat down on the bed. His lust evaporated. He looked at her fireplace. Even this was tiny, as if Winnie were of too little account to need as much heat as anybody else.