In a previous conversation Yvette had told Fifi that it was hell living right next door to the Muckles. Her kitchen window was overlooked by theirs, and she heard and saw the most hideous things. Fifi hadn’t yet managed to get the woman to divulge any details, not just because there had been no opportunity, but because Yvette appeared to be as frightened of the Muckles as Mrs Jarvis.
‘Probably not, but I’m going to do it anyway,’ Fifi said defiantly. Yvette made a gesture with her hands implying she thought such action was foolhardy, then she turned and walked away.
Fifi settled Angela in a chair holding some ice cubes in a bag over her eye, then indicated to Dan he was to come outside on to the landing with her.
‘You must go to the police and report Alfie,’ she whispered, turning on the cold tap so Angela couldn’t hear what they were saying.
‘We can’t go grassing them up,’ Dan said, shaking his head.
‘Why ever not?’ Fifi exclaimed. ‘Surely you don’t agree with a grown man punching a small child?’
‘No, I don’t,’ Dan said, looking concerned. ‘What he needs is a good kicking. But if the police go round there Alfie will make sure Angela tells a different story and nothing will happen to him. Then he’ll lay into her again.’
‘So what do you suggest we do?’ Fifi asked with heavy sarcasm. ‘Just patch her up and send her home? Then curse ourselves later when we hear more screaming?’
‘I didn’t say I wasn’t going to do anything,’ Dan said. His face darkened and his eyes glinted in a manner Fifi had never seen before. He was always so gentle with her, but she suddenly felt she was seeing a more dangerous side of him he’d kept hidden from her.
‘You aren’t going to hit him, are you?’ she said in alarm. She knew that with his background, Dan was unlikely to walk away from a fight.
‘No, I’ll warn him,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ll tell him I’m on his case and if it happens again he’ll be sorry. There’s only one way to deal with scum like him and that’s to put the fear of God into him.’
He didn’t stop to see if Fifi agreed or disagreed, he was off down the stairs taking them two at a time. Fifi felt a little sick; she’d heard so many stories about Alfie Muckle getting back at anyone who opposed him, and some of them at least had to be true.
Going back into the living room with a glass of squash for Angela, she looked out of the window. Dan was banging on the Muckles’ door, and as she watched Molly answered it. Even though the window was open, Fifi couldn’t hear what Dan was saying, but then his voice was soft and deep. But she did hear Molly bellow out for Alfie, and a second or two later he appeared beside her in the doorway. He had his braces over a grubby-looking vest, and the expression on his face was one of surprise to see Dan on his doorstep.
Fifi could hear Dan’s voice now, but not what he was saying, and Alfie backed up into his hall as if afraid of being struck. He appeared to be protesting, perhaps denying he hit Angela, and Molly had got in behind him, her stance one of someone poised for flight.
Whether there was any substance to Alfie’s fearsome reputation or not, next to Dan he looked pathetic. Dan was a good eight inches taller, fit, powerfully built and over twenty years younger. He looked capable of tearing Alfie apart, but he had said on many an occasion that he despised men who resorted to brutality to make a point. Yet on the other hand Fifi knew he felt very strongly about cruelty to children, because he’d been subjected to it himself. So when she saw him lunge forward and grab Alfie by the shoulders she involuntarily covered her face with her hands.
Hearing no shouting or sounds of fists, she peeped through her fingers and was astounded to see that Dan was merely shaking Alfie, their two faces close together. Then he let him go, and turned on his heel to return home.
The Muckles’ door was immediately slammed shut, and Fifi flew back across the room and down the stairs to meet Dan in the hallway.
‘Shush!’ he said putting one finger to his mouth. ‘We don’t want Angela frightened.’
‘What did you say to him?’
Dan shrugged. ‘Just that if I ever see another injury on the kid again I’ll break his neck.’
‘But he’ll take it out on her when she goes home!’ Fifi exclaimed. ‘You’ve made it worse for her.’
‘No, I haven’t. I know his sort, I meet them every day on the buildings, bloody bullies picking on people who can’t defend themselves. But put them up against someone who can fight back and beat them and they shit themselves. He knows I’ll have him if he lays another finger on Angela. He won’t take the risk.’
Fifi wanted to believe him, but if it was that easy to make Alfie Muckle toe the line, why hadn’t someone done it before?
Dan must have picked up on her disbelief. He put his arms around her and kissed her nose. ‘Stop worrying. I told him Angela was staying with us for the rest of the day, so let’s feed her up, play with her and give her a nice time. I’ll take her home later and I promise you he won’t lay into her.’
Dan took Angela home just after six. They’d had the picnic Fifi had planned in the flat, sitting on the floor, because Angela was in no fit state to be taken out. Later Fifi washed her hair for her and put it up in bunches with blue hair ribbons. They’d played snap, and Dan had put four nails into the end of a cotton reel and showed her how to do French knitting with some wool because they had no toys, children’s books or even coloured pencils for her to use.
But Angela seemed happy just to be there. She didn’t speak much but she snuggled up to Fifi and grinned shyly at Dan.
With clean, well-brushed hair she looked a lot better, but Fifi was appalled by the way she ate. She was like an animal, tearing at the food and stuffing it into her mouth which remained open as she chewed. Fifi wished she could bathe her and wash her filthy clothes for there was a sour smell wafting from her that made it hard to cuddle her.
Dan didn’t seem to notice any of this. But as he said after he’d taken her home, ‘She isn’t so different to me at the same age.’
He said that Molly had been quite pleasant. She admired Angela’s new hair ribbons, asked if she’d had a good time, and then in an aside to Dan claimed that Alfie hadn’t meant to hurt his daughter. She said he was burned by the hot tea and lashed out involuntarily.
Yet Fifi found Dan very subdued that evening, hardly saying a word. He rarely talked about his childhood, but he had once told her that right up till he was about ten, he believed that his mother would come looking for him one day. He said that he would drop off to sleep every night thinking about how pretty and kind she would be and the wonderful life they would have together. Fifi guessed that the day’s events had reminded him of that, and perhaps other things he’d never told her.
She didn’t want to upset him further by trying to get him to talk about it, but she hugged him tightly.
‘I was really proud of you today,’ she said. ‘You were so considerate of Angela’s feelings. And so controlled with her parents.’
‘It took me a long while to learn how to do that,’ he admitted. ‘Right up till after I’d done my National Service, I used to lash out with my fists at anyone who upset me, and it didn’t take much. It was my first boss, after the Army, the bricklayer I was apprenticed to that got me out of it. He took me to a boxing club and let me loose on a punch-bag. He was a really tough man, brought up in the slums of Glasgow, so he knew what he was talking about.’
‘A father figure,’ Fifi said reflectively. ‘According to Mrs Jarvis, Alfie Muckle learned all his nasty ways from his father. I wonder what Angela will turn out like?’
‘Her mother,’ Dan said sadly. ‘She’ll go off with the first man who asks her, almost certainly another vicious animal like Alfie, and she’ll bring another brood of unloved and neglected kids into this world.’
‘Don’t!’ Fifi exclaimed, tears springing to her eyes. ‘You didn’t end up like that, so it isn’t a foregone conclusion.’
‘If it hadn’t been for my old boss and other men
I worked with, I probably would’ve,’ he said dourly. ‘They were all hard men, but they were proud of their building skills and believed that nothing was of value unless they’d worked for it. They loved their wives and families too, I saw a softness in them when they boasted about them. So I began to look up to them rather than wide boys who lived on their wits. Then I met you, and all at once I felt as if I was the luckiest man alive.’
Fifi thought of her parents and their feelings about Dan. She supposed that if they could see Dale Street and people like Molly and Alfie Muckle they’d be even more convinced that he was intent on dragging her down.
‘The luck was all mine,’ she said, smiling, and kissed his cheek again. ‘You are the best thing that’s ever happened to me.’
The following morning, while Dan was out getting the Sunday papers, Yvette Dupré called unexpectedly carrying two cushions.
‘I ’ope I am not intruding,’ she said. ‘But I wanted to geeve you these as a little welcome present.’
Fifi was so touched and surprised she hardly knew what to say. The cushions were simply beautiful, pale green ruched silk, the kind she’d only ever seen in glossy magazines.
‘They are so lovely, what a kind thought,’ Fifi gasped, running her fingers over the intricate ruching. ‘Did you make them yourself ?’
‘Why, of course,’ Yvette said with a faint blush of pleasure. ‘I like to do this, it is, how you say?, my ’obby. I ’ope the colour is right for you.’
‘I haven’t got much of a colour scheme yet,’ Fifi said, and invited Yvette into the living room. ‘I’ve been intending to replace those awful curtains, but I haven’t seen any ready-made ones yet that I like.’
‘If you find some material I will run them up for you,’ Yvette said, wrinkling her nose at the hideous orange curtains. ‘You must not spend much time looking at these, they are so ugly.’
Fifi said she couldn’t trouble Yvette to sew curtains for her. Yvette said it would be a pleasure, even whipping a tape measure from her pocket and measuring the window.
Fifi offered her a cup of coffee and they chatted for a few minutes, then Yvette asked what had happened about Angela.
Fifi told her the gist of it, then finished up saying that Dan seemed to think Alfie wouldn’t dare hurt her again.
‘I think it is Dan who must watch out,’ Yvette said warningly. ‘Alfie is a bad man, and Molly, she is worse. They find it good to hurt people. You both must take good care.’
Fifi was in a very serene and happy mood as Dan had woken her with lovemaking, so she gently ribbed Yvette and asked if she wasn’t over-reacting.
‘I leeve next door to them.’ Yvette reproved her with a stern look. ‘I ’ear things I do not want to ’ear, all the time. You are young and pretty, your Dan is strong and handsome, they would take pleasure in spoiling the ’appiness you ’ave. Move away, Dale Street is not for you.’
Fifi could not take this seriously, it sounded such a melodramatic thing to say. But she was delighted to have Yvette visit her, and she wanted to know more about her, so she agreed she’d talk to Dan when he came home.
‘Your concern is very touching,’ Fifi said sincerely. ‘But tell me about your customers. I see you in the window sewing at nights and I’m really curious about who wears the clothes you make.’
‘They are grand ladies,’ Yvette said with some pride. ‘I used to work for a fashion ’ouse in Mayfair and I get to know some of them there. I do a little sewing and alterations on the side, but soon many ladies ask me to make clothes for them. So I leave the fashion ’ouse and now I make clothes only for them.’
‘Have you got the whole ground floor?’ Fifi asked. She knew perfectly well she had, as she made it her business to discover such things, but she hoped the question might make Yvette ask her over.
‘Yes, it ees much like Frank’s. The front room where I work, then there are double doors through to the bedroom at the back. Behind down the passage is the kitchen. I ’ave the garden too. But I cannot use it, not with them next door.’ She paused, grimacing. ‘I too should move away to a better place, but it is hard to make a move on my own.’
‘How long have you lived here?’ Fifi asked as they sipped their coffee.
‘I come just before Christmas in 1946,’ Yvette said. ‘Eet was a very long, cold winter in 1947, I think sometimes I will die of the cold and I am so lonely because I know no English. But the Ubleys, the Jarvises and other people who have gone away now were kind to me. I even theenk then that Molly Muckle was my friend.’
‘What did she do to you?’ Fifi asked.
Yvette shrugged. ‘She use me, and rob me. When I will not let her come into my flat any more she insult me. But I ’ave said enough, I must go now. Just you take care, even little Angela will steal from you if you let ’er in ’ere again. Molly will make ’er.’
Fifi did not tell Dan any more than that Yvette had made them the cushions as a housewarming present. She knew that he would not take her warning seriously. He would probably laugh and say Yvette was in need of a good rogering. That was his prescription for all troubled or neurotic women. Besides, Fifi couldn’t really take it seriously either, Yvette was well-meaning but she spent too long on her own, and perhaps that made her brood on things other people would barely notice.
During the following week Fifi often saw Angela outside in the street during the evening. The swelling had gone down on her eye, but it was still very badly bruised. She looked listless, often just sitting on the kerb watching other children playing. But there were no other obvious injuries.
Two weeks later, however, Fifi had something more to worry about than what her neighbours were doing. Her period didn’t arrive, and as she had always been regular, by the time she was a week late she was absolutely certain she was pregnant.
Having a baby was not part of their plan. They had talked about having children in the future, but not for a few years until they had a secure place to live and some money saved. They had always been so careful too. Dan had often joked that he ought to buy a gross of Durex at one go as they got through so many. But there had been a couple of times since they moved here when they’d got carried away and forgotten to take precautions.
Fifi viewed it as a calamity at first but she didn’t tell Dan because she couldn’t be absolutely certain. As the days ticked past and still nothing happened, she swung between dread and delight. It had been hard enough to find this flat, but to find one suitable for a baby would be ten times harder.
But then sometimes she found herself imagining walking a baby in a pram to the park, holding its hand as it took its first steps. She found herself looking in baby-shop windows and even observing heavily pregnant women with real interest.
But whether it was dread or delight she felt, she was afraid of giving up the life she had now. It was good working in Chancery Lane, the other secretaries and typists were fun, they went out shopping together in the lunch hour or sat gossiping in the sunshine. In the evenings she and Dan often went to the pub after their dinner and on Saturday afternoons they went off exploring London, usually eating out. On Sundays they stayed in bed until later. All that would end with a baby.
Then there were her parents. Would this heal the rift or make things even worse?
Chapter six
‘Pregnant?’ Dan repeated. His expression was one of deep shock.
‘I knew you wouldn’t like it,’ Fifi said, and promptly burst into tears. She had waited a full month to make absolutely certain before telling him, and every day had been miserable for her.
‘Who said I wouldn’t like it?’ he said, getting up from his chair and pulling her into his arms. ‘I was just surprised, that’s all. Give me a few seconds to take it in and I’ll lead you in a joyful tango around the room.’
‘You can’t do a tango,’ Fifi sobbed. ‘Can you?’
‘How hard can it be? You just lean the girl over like this,’ he said, bending her backwards. ‘And hold a rose between your teeth. I’ll have t
o pop out for one of those.’
Fifi’s sobs turned to a giggle.
She had felt sick almost all day, and that was what finally made her blurt the news out to Dan the minute she came in from work.
‘That’s better,’ he said, holding her face between his two hands and showering kisses all over it. ‘So we’re going to have a little Reynolds. When will it be?’
‘Early next March, I think I’m just on seven weeks,’ she said. ‘Aren’t you cross?’
‘Cross!’ he exclaimed. ‘Why should I be? It’s great news, the best ever. I always wanted a son and heir.’
‘It might be a girl and we’ve got nothing for him or her to inherit,’ Fifi reminded him.
‘Except our looks and brains,’ he said, and his smile grew ever wider as he looked at her.
‘But we can’t have a baby here. Imagine having to pull a pram up all those stairs,’ she said anxiously. ‘And how will we find another place we can afford?’
‘Old worry-guts,’ he said with affection. ‘We leave the pram in the hall in the time-honoured tradition of slum dwellers.’
Fifi looked stricken.
‘I was joking.’ He laughed. ‘We’ll find somewhere else. If I work all day Saturdays we’ll soon have enough for a deposit on a house of our own. A bloke at work said he only put down two hundred. We could scrape that together.’
Fifi leaned into his arms. For a whole month she had been so worried and scared. But now Dan knew and seemed happy about it, she felt inclined to be that way too.
‘We’ll have to tell your parents,’ Dan said thoughtfully as he held her. ‘With luck it might even make them accept me.’
Fifi looked up at his words. He never mentioned her parents any more, but she realized then that he had been brooding about them. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said softly, suddenly seeing that she only ever considered how situations affected her, and rarely thought about how it was for him.
‘Don’t be,’ he said, kissing her on the nose. ‘I don’t suppose I’ll be too happy if my daughter wants to marry a guttersnipe either.’