He pulled her into a shop doorway and held her tightly until she stopped crying. ‘I meant what I said earlier,’ he whispered. ‘I love you, Rosie. If it came to choosing between you and my mum, I’d choose you.’
Rosie felt too miserable to ask why he hadn’t stuck up for her. All she could think was that her happy dreams had gone down the pan, and that spending two pounds on a new dress and her train fare had been such a waste of money. But Gareth kept cuddling her, whispering endearments in her ear, until the anger and hurt began to fade.
‘Don’t go home till the last train,’ he begged her as they walked to the bus stop. ‘It’s not till nine, so we can go up West for a bit and look around.’
The top of the bus was almost empty. They sat in the back seat, and as it trundled slowly through the traffic towards the West End, Gareth tried to explain about his mother. ‘She hates London,’ he said. ‘You see, when Dad brought us up here she had to leave all her family behind – she had five sisters and three brothers all in the same village, and then there were all their children and her parents too. She wasn’t too bad when Owen and I were little, she had plenty to do just keeping us clean; you can imagine what it was like living in a coal yard. And during the war people were friendlier too, neighbours popped in and out, they helped each other. But once Dad bought that house and first Owen went off to do his National Service, then me, she was all alone. Dad doesn’t help much, he stays out of her way when she’s having her funny turns. See, he thinks she should be happy just having a nice house.’
‘But if she’s lonely, why isn’t she pleased to see new people?’ Rosie thought that Mrs Jones was a candidate for a loony-bin. She agreed entirely with Gareth’s father: she couldn’t see how anyone could be unhappy if they had enough to eat and a nice house and garden. She thought the woman should be grateful she had so much.
‘If I knew the answer to that, perhaps I could cure her,’ Gareth sighed. ‘I really thought she’d warm to you. I’m sorry, Rosie.’
It wasn’t Rosie’s first experience of victimization. As a child most people had avoided speaking to her because of her father and brothers; Mrs Bentley hadn’t liked her, neither had Matron. She thought Mrs Jones was every bit as nasty as the other two women, and she wouldn’t lose any sleep about never seeing her again. But she didn’t want to lose Gareth.
‘I’m sorry too that I was rude to her.’ Rosie leaned her head against his shoulder wearily. ‘She just made me so angry.’
‘Let’s forget it,’ he said. ‘She might be my mother, but you’re my girl and it’s you who is really important to me.’
The West End looked very different from how it had been at New Year when she came with Linda and Mary. There were still huge crowds, but by daylight without the neon lights it wasn’t so magical. She recognized the pub they’d been in that evening and to her surprise it was called the White Bear, the same pub Heather said she’d gone to for a drink with Cole the night he asked her to be his housekeeper.
They window-shopped in Regent Street, then went back down to Piccadilly and sat in the window of a cafe eating egg and chips, watching the people go by. There was a different atmosphere to the area now the shoppers and office staff had gone home. Every few minutes a throng of people would suddenly erupt out of the stairways from the tube below: groups of girls in strappy cocktail dresses, stoles around their shoulders, with carefully made-up faces and every hair in place, making for the Empire in Leicester Square; young men in smart lounge suits, and with Brylcreemed hair, stopped on the corner to have a cigarette and watch the girls. There were couples wandering hand in hand, just as she and Gareth had been doing, and taxis sped around Eros providing only the briefest glimpse of more elegant, older people on their way to theatres.
‘I wish it was dark so I could see the lights again,’ Rosie said wistfully, then went on to tell him about her evening out with the girls in the West End.
‘I’ll bring you up here again when the nights draw in,’ Gareth said. ‘There’s all sorts come out, not just the crowd we see now who are off to the dances, but actors and actresses, gangsters, ladies of the night.’
‘Really? How do you know?’
‘Owen and I used to come up here a lot just after the war. I was only fourteen then, and Owen was sixteen.’ He grinned wickedly. ‘Owen always wanted to find a girl, but he never had the nerve to go up to one. We used to spy on them and follow them when they picked up a man. Then one night when Owen was just about seventeen, he offered a girl two shillings. Know what she said?’
Rosie shook her head. ‘Tell me.’
‘She said, “For two bob you can just about afford one of the old crows up Berwick Street. A nice-looking boy like you should be able to get it for free anyway.” Owen was so embarrassed he never wanted to come up here again.’
‘Would you pay someone for that?’ Rosie asked. She really wished she could see one of these girls; the thought of it made her strangely excited.
‘Never,’ he said, looking astounded that she felt the need to ask. ‘When I was in the army some of the other lads did, but not me. Sex isn’t anything unless you love someone.’
Rosie smiled. She wanted to ask if he’d loved anyone else enough to try it. But she didn’t. She didn’t want to know about other girls in his life.
The time went by quickly, and suddenly it was half past eight. They rushed down into the tube station but it was ten minutes before a train came. They had to change at the Embankment, and then to their horror the train stopped in the tunnel between Westminster and St James’s Park. Minutes ticked by.
‘I’m going to miss the train,’ Rosie said in alarm. ‘What am I going to do?’
‘It’ll be all right,’ Gareth insisted. ‘It only takes a couple of minutes to get up into the mainline station. We can run.’
They did run, like the wind, up the stairs two at a time and across the station to platform three, but the gates were just closing and the guard was waving the flag.
Gareth begged the man to let Rosie on to the platform, but he would have none of it, and as they watched helplessly, the train pulled out. Rosie burst into tears.
‘It’s okay, we’ll go back to Mum’s,’ Gareth said, cuddling her.
‘I’d sooner spend the night here on the station than at your mum’s,’ she said through her tears and meaning it. She’d trusted Gareth to give her a good weekend and she felt he was responsible for everything that had gone wrong. ‘This whole day has been a disaster.’
Gareth just held her for a moment. ‘You could come home to my digs,’ he suggested eventually. ‘It’s not very nice, but it’s better than trying to sleep on a bench.’
‘But your landlady?’ she sniffed. Gareth had said in his letters that she was a dragon.
‘On Saturday nights she always goes to the pub,’ he said. I could easily get you in my room and she’ll be too drunk when she gets home to worry about me. She never gets up till gone eleven on Sundays either. We could slip out before she wakes up.’
‘But where would I sleep?’ Rosie said nervously.
‘In my bed, of course. I can sleep on the floor.’
‘But-’
Gareth put one finger on her lips. He was smiling and his eyes twinkled. ‘I’ll be a real gentleman, I promise you.’
‘Are you sure?’ she asked.
‘Cross my heart and hope to die,’ he said, making a slashing gesture across his throat. ‘I told you earlier that I love you, Rosie. I want you for ever, not for just one night.’
Those words rang in her ears as they caught the train to Clapham Junction. Even the sound of the train wheels seemed to be repeating them over and over again. It was dusk now, the sky a brilliant fiery red, and with Gareth’s arm around her she felt safe.
Paige Street in Clapham was every bit as grim as Gareth had said. Worse even than a slummy part of Bristol she’d wandered into once by mistake. Even the glorious sunset and the deepening dusk couldn’t mask the aura of poverty that slipped out of every open
door in the soot-blackened terrace. There were no front gardens here, no trees or flowers. Babies were crying, the smells of drains and frying chips wafted past them, and the few children who played ball in the street looked thin and pale.
‘This was what it was like in Kentish Town,’ Gareth said, holding on to her hand as if he thought she might turn tail and run. ‘I hated it when I first came here, but you can get used to anything. At least the people are friendly – that’s more than can be said for the neighbours in Mill Hill.’
Rosie could see he was very embarrassed. He really thought she had never seen poverty or dirt before. But she made no comment; this was not an appropriate moment to try and describe how she had been brought up.
Number 41 was near the end of the street, no worse or better than the other houses. Gareth opened the front door with a key, paused in the narrow hall to listen, then beckoned her in.
The entire house was silent and it smelled of fried onions. Perhaps it was as well Gareth didn’t switch on a light. The banister felt gritty under her hand and the stairs were just covered with oil cloth or lino.
His room was right at the top, at the back of the third floor. Rosie had braced herself for squalor, so she was quite taken aback when he switched on the light. It was a very small room but clean and tidy. A single bed covered with a pale blue counterpane, a chest of drawers and one easy chair. The window was open wide, there was a rug on the floor, and even the blue and white striped curtains were decent and looked as if they’d been starched.
‘It’s a nice room,’ she said with some surprise, looking at his well-ironed shirts hanging from a small rail fixed to the wall. She guessed his mother still washed them for him. ‘I imagined something much worse.’
He seemed bowled over that she approved. ‘Mum thought it was awful when she came here once. We had a row about it.’
‘It’s clean and comfortable,’ Rosie said, sitting down on the bed experimentally. ‘What more could she want?’
‘For me to live at home,’ Gareth grinned. ‘Mrs Kent made the mistake of telling Mum she liked a drink. That’s what really did the damage. She thought I was going to be led astray.’
Rosie knelt on the bed and looked out of the window while Gareth went down to the kitchen to make them a cup of tea. Darkness had finally fallen and blotted out the ugliness. This house was taller than the one behind it, so she had a panoramic view of thousands of lights. After Mayfield it was very noisy: music coming from several different directions, people shouting and laughing, and the sounds of train doors slamming and guards calling out from the station where Gareth worked.
She remembered then how back at Carrington Hall it had seemed so important to become a real Londoner. She wasn’t sorry she’d moved to Mayfield, she loved it there, yet a small part of her still longed to widen her experience, satisfy her curiosity and explore every part of the city.
Linda had often spoken of the East End. Sometimes she made it sound like one big party where everyone knew everyone else; at other times she spoke darkly of the filth in the slums, the overcrowding and the stink of the docks. As Rosie looked out on all the lights she realized that this area, Linda’s East End and the West End were the real London, and if she was ever to find out what really made the city tick, she had to study them and the ordinary people who lived there. Places like Hampstead, St John’s Wood and Highgate were not the city’s heart.
This afternoon Gareth had given her glimpses into that heart. He’d spoken of the pubs, greyhound racing and football matches. All his workmates lived around here – some in this house – they went out together at night, and it sounded like great fun.
She was just trying to picture herself living in a little room like this, getting dressed up smartly to work in an office, going up to the West End on Saturday nights to a dance with a crowd of other girls, when Gareth came back, interrupting her thoughts. He was carrying two mugs of tea and a plate of sandwiches.
‘Good old Mrs Kent,’ he said, smiling broadly. ‘She might be a boozer and a dragon when you cross her, but she always leaves us lads a snack.’
By eleven they had turned out the light. Rosie was in bed in her nightdress, with Gareth, still fully dressed, lying on top of the covers cuddling her. It had begun to rain again and it was growing a little quieter outside. It felt so good to be along together, holding each other.
‘Are you sure Mrs Kent won’t come up here?’ she asked sleepily. Gareth had shown her where the bathroom was on the floor below, but she hadn’t lingered in there for fear of being caught. She just hoped she wouldn’t need to use the toilet during the night.
‘She can’t manage one flight of stairs when she’s been drinking, let alone three,’ he laughed softly, kissing her neck. ‘Besides, she never comes up at night, not unless someone’s making a noise. We’re quite safe.’
A little later a door slammed. ‘That’s her now,’ Gareth said. They both half sat up to listen and heard her stumbling down the passage towards the kitchen. There was a rattling of china, some running water, then the back door opened and she went outside.
‘She uses the outside lav when she’s like that,’ Gareth chuckled. ‘One night she fell asleep out there. It was a good job she left the whistle on the kettle – I heard that and went down and woke her up.’
‘What does she look like?’ Rosie asked. She liked to picture people.
‘Fat, forty and bleached blonde,’ he said. ‘Mum thinks she’s a bit of a floozy, but she isn’t. She’s just a bit lonely. Her husband was killed in the war.’
Mrs Kent came back indoors and they heard her speak to someone else who’d just come in.
‘That’s Steve. He’s on the first floor,’ Gareth reported. ‘He works for the railways too.’
It was after one before the house finally sank into silence. Until then there had been doors banging, the toilet flushing and someone coughing. The rain was lashing against the window and it was very snug in the bed as they lay there whispering to one another.
‘Can I get right under the covers? I’m cold,’ Gareth said.
‘Of course you can,’ Rosie replied without any hesitation. She had been a bit cramped with the covers pinned down by his body, and besides he’d been as good as his word and hadn’t attempted to take any liberties with her. He took his clothes off, all except his pants, and crept in beside her.
Rosie realized the moment she felt his bare chest that it wasn’t going to be so easy to prevent any intimacy now that his skin was touching hers. They just seemed to melt into each other as they kissed, and each kiss was longer and more passionate than the one before.
When his hand stole under her nightdress to fondle her breasts, she did attempt to stop him but it was half-hearted, for she was getting as carried away as he was. Next the nightdress came right off and he moved down the bed to kiss and suck at her nipples.
She felt as if she was being drawn into another world, where nothing but his lips on hers, the touch of his hands and the pressure from his body counted. She had lost all will to stop this game, even though she knew it was dangerous. When he pulled off her knickers and touched her there, all she could think of was caressing him too to make him feel as good as she did.
She felt no shame when his fingers probed deep inside her. It was like a thirst which had to be quenched no matter what. She put her hand round his penis and they rocked together, pleasing and teasing each other at the same time. Nothing had ever felt as good as this before and she wanted it to go on for ever.
Until now Rosie had always believed that sex before marriage was instigated and probably forced by the male, and she had no real sympathy for girls weak enough to let it happen. But as she found herself fondling and exploring Gareth’s body, her own writhing beneath his in equal passion, she lost all her inhibitions. She wanted him so much that all reason was gone.
It was Gareth, not her, who stopped short at the point of entering her.
‘We mustn’t,’ he panted. ‘You might have a baby.’
>
The word ‘baby’ was enough to cool her down, bringing with it memories of Heather and her father. Her legs closed involuntarily.
‘I want to, so much,’ Gareth whispered, his penis as hard as a rock against her. ‘I never wanted anything more. But we have to wait, at least until we’re engaged.’
Rosie held him to her tightly, loving him even more because of his strength of character, and more than a little ashamed of herself at letting things go so far.
Exhaustion made them sleep eventually, and Rosie awoke to find the room full of sunshine, with Gareth leaning up on one elbow just looking at her.
‘You look so beautiful,’ he whispered. ‘I get a lump in my throat just looking at you.’
Rosie giggled. She didn’t believe she was beautiful. She thought he was. His brown curls were damp with perspiration, his blue eyes like the periwinkles out on the moors; even the dark shadow on his dimpled chin was oddly attractive.
‘What time is it?’ she asked.
‘Nearly eight. We ought to get up before anyone else does.’ He pushed the covers down and looked at her breasts. ‘I wish we could stay here all day.’
It seemed funny that during the night Gareth had explored every inch of her body, yet now she felt embarrassed by him looking at her. She blushed and reached over the side of the bed for her nightdress and hurriedly put it on.
‘One day when you’re really mine I’ll take all your clothes away and keep you naked all day!’ he said with a smile.
Rosie was scared when she was washing in the bathroom. Someone tried the door and she froze, thinking that perhaps they were waiting outside. But whoever it was had gone by the time she got out, and she hurried back to the comparative safety of Gareth’s room.
It was just before nine when they crept downstairs. The house wasn’t as bad as Rosie had imagined last night in the dark: it was clean and bright, though a little stark. Snores came from behind the closed doors and with every step Rosie was sure Mrs Kent would appear at the foot of the stairs.