The Adventures Of Una Perrson

  'In the army?'

  Mrs Cornelius guffawed. 'Wot d'you fink?'

  'I thought he was called up.'

  'Well, yeah, but 'e left, didn't 'e? I suppose that's why 'e didn't come 'ome. There was some chaps from the army come rahnd. You know, arskin' after 'im.'

  'When was this?'

  'Baht a monf ago.' Mrs. Cornelius chewed at a piece of pastry. 'When did you git back?'

  'Week before last.'

  'That's it, then. A monf.'

  'And Jerry?'

  'Come off it!' Mrs Cornelius spluttered with mirth. Trob'ly workin' for the bloody Germans.' There was a certain pride in her tone. 'I told yer all this, Caff.'

  Catherine's memory had become very hazy of late. 'Oh, yes. I remember.'

  Mrs. Cornelius gave the suit her appraisal. 'Not bad. Very up-to-date. We don't age much in our family, do we?'

  'I suppose we don't.' It was hard to see anything in the long frame-less fly-specked mirror. She shook out her perm and patted at it. 'That's better.'

  Mrs. Cornelius was rooting about in the junk on her mantelpiece. 'There was a postcard from Jerry. From France.'

  'What, recently?'

  'Nah! Two years ago! 'E'll turn up, jest like you. When the war's over. Wiv nowhere ter stay but 'ere.' Mrs Cornelius abandoned the search. 'It was a nice pee-see, though.' She sighed and waddled to her chair. 'Cor! It takes it aht o'yer, dunnit?'

  'What?' Catherine carefully turned her lipstick a fraction of an inch above the case and began to apply it.

  Mrs. Cornelius shrugged. 'Life.' She began to leaf through a copy of Lilliput, looking at the pictures. 'Blimey! It's disgustin'. Feel like puttin' the kettle on fer a cuppa. Caff?'

  'Yes, all right.'

  Catherine finished making up and went to fill the kettle. Through the dusty window she could see all the way across to the ruins on the corner of Ladbroke Grove and Elgin Crescent, where the bomb had landed. 'What's disgusting?'

  'These nude pitchers.' Mrs. Cornelius dropped the magazine to the pile beside the chair. She yawned. ' 'Ow's it goin', then? Up at the pub?'

  'Not bad.'

  'Must see a lot of fellers in there, eh?'

  'They're mostly old. Mum. There's a war on, you know.'Catherine lit the gas and put the kettle on the ring.

  'Soljers on leave, though.'

  'Some. I don't fancy soldiers.'

  'You're not like me there. I never could resist the buggers.' Mrs Cornelius fidgeted in the chair.

  ‘They go off and get killed, don't they?'

  'Well, some of'em do, yeah.'

  'So there's no point in marrying one, is there?'

  'Didn't say there was.'

  'Oh, I thought that was what it was all about.'

  'You ought ter fink abaht it, though, Caff.' Mrs Cornelius was serious. 'I was first married at sixteen.'

  'And deserted by the time you were eighteen. With three kids.'

  Her mother smiled reminiscently.

  Catherine looked at her wrist-watch. It was half-past ten. She was due at the pub just before eleven. She preferred the lunch-time hours. It was often busier, but much less confused. Sammy had got her the job last week. The pub was just across the road from his pie shop. Over the years Sammy had found employment for all the Cornelius family in the district, but none of the jobs had ever lasted long and some of them had turned out to be decidedly dodgy. But he had given Frank his first real start, selling imperfect clockwork toys off a stall in the Portobello market. From that Frank had gone on to cut-price frocks and invested his profits in stolen booze to relabel and sell to the posh pubs around South Ken. The army must have interrupted a steady upward movement in his career. He would be in the black market by now. A spiv. It was funny that someone as doggedly honest as Sammy had so many contacts in what you might call the benter side of the wholesale-retail trade. Poor old Sammy, she thought. She heated the teapot over the steam from the kettle, warming the leaves that were still in there. Tea was short. Her mother rarely benefited from Frank's business ventures. She half-filled the pot and stirred the brew round. She put the lid on the pot.

  'There you are. Mum. I'll let it stand a bit, shall I?'

  'Better.' Mrs Cornelius was leaning over the arm of her grease-spotted chair, searching amongst her magazines for one that was not completely read through. She extracted a yellowed copy o^Red Letter and began to look at the first story, rubbing at a flea bite on her neck as she concentrated.

  'I don't know how you can tell those stories apart,' said her daughter. 'The plots are all the same.'

  Mrs Cornelius grunted, turned two pages rapidly and set the Red Letter aside. 'I've read it,' she said. 'Wot?'

  'Shall I get you another on my way home?'

  'Book?'

  'What d'you want?'

  ‘Peg's Paper'll do.'

  'They're not printing it any more.'

  'Bloody war.' Many of Mrs Cornelius's favourite weeklies had disappeared because of the paper shortage. 'Well, get me wot you can, Caff.' She considered this. 'Don't get me nuffink like Picture Post, though. I've 'ad enough o' the war. All they seem ter do . . .'

  ‘I'm with you there,' said Catherine. 'You want to forget about it, don't you? While you can.'

  'We could all go up tomorrer.' Mrs. Cornelius spoke with some satisfaction. 'I might drop in for 'alf a pint, if I go aht. If I do, I'll get me own book.'

  'Okay.'

  'But arsk Sammy abaht that pork.' .,

  'If you come in, I'll go straight on from work,' said Catherine. m

  'Where ya goin'?'

  'West End. Pictures.'

  'You be careful. Wot's on?'

  'Some comedy. With Cary Grant.'

  'Good, is 'e?'

  'He's all right.'

  'Goin' on yer own?'

  'No.' She was deliberately mysterious.

  'So you 'ave got a feller!'

  'No!'

  'Oo yer goin' wiv, then?'

  'Girl friend.'

  'Oh. Do I know 'er?'

  'No.'

  'Where d'ya know 'er from?'

  'I met her up the labour exchange. You know—just after I got back.'

  'So she's local.'

  'Portland Road.'

  'Wot's 'er name?'

  'Rebecca.'

  'Rebecca wot?'

  'You're not really interested, Mum.'

  'I am. Honest.'

  'Her name's Rebecca Ash.'

  'Maybe she's got a boyfriend—oo's got a friend.'

  'Her boyfriend was killed. He was in the RAF. Battle of Britain.'

  'Oh. Poor fing.'

  'So you can see why I don't want anything to do with anyone who's in the war.'

  'Were they engaged?'

  'Due to get married. He was shot down a week before the wedding.'

  'Oh, dear!' Mrs Cornelius was fascinated. Her eyes gleamed. It seemed to Catherine (and perhaps it was unfair of her) that this story was a good substitute for Peg's Paper. Maybe that was why so many fiction magazines died during a war. There was plenty of drama going on in real life. 'Were they young?'

  That's enough, Mum. I don't like to talk about it. Neither does Rebecca. She's had a lot of tragedies. She's got relatives in Germany. In the concentration camps.' Catherine wished she hadn't offered this information. It was whetting her mother's appetite.

  'She Jewish, then?'

  'Her mother was. Her father was Polish. He got wounded in the Spanish Civil War.' Catherine was proud of her new friend's romantic ancestry and she continued in spite of her better judgement. 'He was in Russia during the revolution, but he escaped.'

  'An aristocrat?'

  'They had a castle and land in Poland. They lost everything. Her real name's something like Aserinski, but they changed it when they settled in England.'

  Mrs. Cornelius had come to life. 'You ought to bring 'er rahnd, Caff. Poor kid. What 'appened to 'er mother?'

  'She died of TB.'

  'Tut-tut,' said Mrs. Cornelius sympathetically, a
vidly. 'And 'er dad?'

  'He started getting these dizzy spells. He was run over by a bus.'

  'Poor fing.'

  Catherine adjusted her turban on her head and ran her tongue round her red lips. 'Must go, Mum. Shall I pour you a cup?'

  'There's a love . . . '

  Catherine took one of the new Woolworth's cups she had bought and measured milk and sugar into it before she poured the tea on top. 'There you are.'

  ‘Tanks, Caff.' Her mother stirred the tea. 'Probably murdered, eh?'

  'Who?'

  'Yore friend's dad.'

  'Why?'

  'Russians. They never let anyone go.'

  Catherine shook her head. 'Likely. Or maybe it was the bus company found out he hadn't paid his fare from Shepherd's Bush.'

  'Don't joke about it, Caff. Ya never know.' Mrs Cornelius relaxed with her tea, her mind full of fantasy.' 'Ow terrible, though . . .'

  Catherine Cornelius left her mother with her dreams. She had now made it completely impossible for Rebecca Ash ever to meet her mother. It would be altogether too embarrassing.

  When she got to the corner of Blenheim Crescent and Kensington Park Road she saw that Sammy's shutters were still up and there were no fresh smells of cooking, though the stale ones lingered. She banged on the door. 'Sam!' She still had plenty of time to get to work for the pub was a couple of seconds away, on the opposite corner. The Blenheim Arms. The day was cool and grey. She wished that she had brought her mac. She heard a sound from the back of the shop.

  'Sammy!'

  Carpet slippers shuffled on the tiles of the floor. The blind was raised. Sammy stood behind the glass. He was wearing his apron already, over a roll-neck pullover and corduroy trousers. He smiled at her.' 'Ullo, young Cathy.' He unbolted the door at top and bottom, turned the key. 'Wot can I do fer you?'

  'Morning, Sammy. Mum wondered about the pork.'

  He tapped the side of his nose. 'Don't worry. 'Nuff said, eh? I'll drop it round. Or shall I pop it across to you at the pub?' He wiped a fat, greasy forehead which had been tanned by years of exposure to his pans and his gas-jets. 'An' I'll bring you over a fresh pork pie, eh?'

  'Well,' she said, 'I might not be going home after I leave work.'

  'Fair enough. I'll get the lad to take it down. 'Ow you keepin', Cathy? The job okay?'

  'Fine thanks, Sam.'

  'You ought to be doin' better, though,' he said, as if he had failed her. 'Receptionist or secretary or somethin'. What'd they say up the Labour?'

  'It's war work mostly. Factory jobs.'

  'Oh, you're too good for that.'

  'I'd do it if I had to,' said Catherine, 'but the job at the pub gives me free afternoons. That's something.' She glanced across the street. 'Well, they're opening up. See you, Sammy.'

  'Take it easy, Cath.' He shut his door and drew down the blind.

  Mrs Hawkins was already behind the bar. 'Cold enough for you?' she said as Catherine came in.

  'Not half,' said Catherine. 'Where do you want me today?'

  'Better stay in the private bar, love. I'm sorry about last night.'

  'He was drunk,' said Catherine. 'He didn't mean any harm.'

  'The way he grabbed you! Filthy old devil.'

  Catherine grinned. 'He wasn't really up to much else, was he?'

  Mrs Hawkins folded her thin arms under the breasts and roared. She was a pleasant, sensitive woman. Mr Hawkins was inclined to be as drunk as his best customers by the end of an evening and she was used to helping him to bed, often before the pub shut. He was a sweet-natured man and Mrs Hawkins didn't seem to resent his habits. 'Want a little something to warm you up, love?'

  ‘I'd better not,' said Catherine. It never does me much good during the day.'

  'I know what you mean.' Mrs Hawkins raised the hinged section of the bar to allow Catherine through. I don't think he'll show up for a day or two, though. Not after what you gave 'im!' She roared again. 'A real touch of the Knees Up Mother Browns, eh?'

  Perhaps because of last night's trouble the pub was not as busy as it normally was and Catherine spent most of her time polishing glasses and, when her mum came in at about half past one, chatting.

  ' 'Ad ter get a Woman s Weekly in the end,' said Mrs Cornelius, settling herself on a stool at the corner of the private bar and sipping her half of bitter. There's only a few stories in that. Mostly it's 'ints.'

  'How to make a pie out of two bits of gristle and some mouldy turnips,' said Mrs Hawkins, coming through to get some bottles of light ale for the public bar. 'It makes you laugh, doesn't it, Mrs C?'

  'Not 'alf.' Mrs Cornelius drained her mug. 'Or 'ow ter get the caviar stains out o' yer mink stole!'

  They all enjoyed this joke.

  'All right!' called Mrs Hawkins, detecting a murmur of impatience from the public bar, 'just coming.' She winked at Catherine and her mother and left with an armful of light.

  'Give us anuvver, Caff,' said Mrs Cornelius holding out her glass mug.

  As Catherine pulled the handle of the beer pump, her mother said: 'I saw Sammy. 'E reckons we can both go rahnd to 'im fer Chris'mas. Watcher fink?'

  'Nice.' She put the half pint on the bar. 'Only I might not be home over the whole of Christmas.'

  'Wot? Workin' 'ere?'

  'No. I sort of partly promised Rebecca that I'd spend Christmas with her. At her flat.'

  'Oh.'

  'She'll be on her own, you see.'

  'Yeah.' Mrs Cornelius reached for her drink. 'So will I be, won't I?'

  'Not if you're with Sammy /

  'Well, Sammy's not family, is 'e? Not really.' ^

  'Maybe Frank'll turn up. Or Jerry?'

  'Some 'opes. Ah, well.' Mrs Cornelius was genuinely trying to hide her disappointment with the result that Catherine, in turn, felt genuinely guilty.

  'The only family she's got is probably in Germany, you see. Mum. In a concentration camp. They might not be alive at all. So ... '

  'Oh, yeah. I can see that. Well, that's the time for charity, innit? Chris'mas. So you won't be arahnd fer Chris'mas dinner, even?'

  'Well, I'll try to get over.'

  'Wish y'd told me a bit earlier.'

  'It's not December yet, Mum.'

  'No, but there's all the arrangements. Y'know 'ow it creeps up on yer.'

  'There is time to change the arrangements.'

  'Yeah.' Her mother finished the beer and began to slide her bulk from the stool. She buttoned up her moulting fur collar. 'Okay, then, Caff. See yer later. Cheerio.'

  'Cheerio, Mum.'

  Catherine felt depressed after her mother had left. She would have been glad of a few more customers to serve, to take her mind off her guilt. Instead Mrs Hawkins came back at a quarter past two.

  'You might as well get off now, Cath, if you like. Still going to the pictures?'

  'Yes.'

  ' 'Ope it's a good 'un.'

  'Cary Grant,' said Catherine.

  'Is 'e the one with the moustache? Gone With The Wind? Or the other one?'

  'The other one,' said Catherine. 'Thanks, Mrs Hawkins.' She would go straight to Rebecca's, even though it had begun to drizzle outside. She couldn't face going home to pick up her coat. She got her bag from where she kept it under the bar and swung the strap over her shoulder. 'Well, bye-bye, then. See you this evening.'

  'Bye-bye, love.' Mrs Hawkins winked at her. She probably thought Catherine was going to meet a boyfriend.

  Catherine walked hurriedly down Blenheim Crescent, crossed Ladbroke Grove, went down the the rest of Blenheim Crescent, the posher bit with its big trees and front gardens, into Clarendon Road and then round into Portland Road. Rebecca actually owned the little terraced house and had done it up beautifully, with the number in brass figures, 189, on an apple-green door. The area railings were also painted apple-green and the window frames were a sort of peach colour. Rebecca lived on the ground floor and basement and rented the rest to a couple, both musicians with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, who had two chil
dren. Rebecca had inherited the house from her parents.

  Catherine rang Rebecca's bell.

  'You're a bit early.' Rebecca opened the door. She was wearing a long pink quilted housecoat. 'Come in.' She had thick black curly hair and large black eyes. Her eyebrows were high and plucked thin. She had a long face, with full lips and a large, broad nose. She often described her features as horsey, but Catherine insisted that she had the classical beauty of an ancient Greek goddess. She looked a little bleary, as if she had just woken up. She had been, until recently, a cellist in a string quartet, until the two male members had been conscripted for war work in the pits. Now she sometimes filled in for another cellist who lived in the country and couldn't always get to London.

  Rebecca led the way down to the basement. Originally it had been two separate rooms, but now about a third of it was a kitchen and the other two thirds were a sort of bed-sitter. She scarcely ever used the two rooms upstairs, unless she was practising.

  A record was playing softly on the big cabinet electric gramophone. It was piano music. Catherine thought it was probably Mozart, who was her favourite composer. She sat down on the wide divan opposite the gramophone. That's beautiful. Is it Mozart?' She felt diffident about music in Rebecca's company.

  Rebecca nodded. 'Coffee? It's fresh.'

  ‘Thanks.'

  Rebecca took the aluminium coffee-maker off the stove and placed two large breakfast cups on the table. The flat was as neat as usual. Even the divan, which was also her bed, had been made up. 'I had a job last night,' said Rebecca. ‘Filling in for Stephen, as usual. So I was late getting in.' She yawned, as if to emphasize her remark. 'How are you, dear?'

  Catherine found that she was also yawning. 'I was all right up to about an hour ago. Then my mum came into the pub.'

  Rebecca was sympathetic. She brought the coffee over and sat down with Catherine. 'That's the new suit, is it? It's smart.' She fingered the material of the skirt. 'Oh, it's lovely.' She kissed Catherine on the cheek, adding softly, 'Nice to see you, love.'

  Catherine squeezed her arm. 'I've missed you. It's been two days.'

  'Seems a lot longer.' Rebecca stretched and put her coffee on the Indian rug at her feet. 'What was the row about? With your mum.'

  'Oh, nothing. It wasn't really a row . . .'