22 Britannia Road - Amanda Hodgkinson [111]
‘In bed, is he?’
‘Yes. He’s sleeping in his clothes. I forgot to bring pyjamas.’
‘I think I’ve got some. In a box around here somewhere. Woolworths cotton flannel. I can have a look.’
‘It doesn’t matter tonight.’
Tony steps towards her and wraps his arms around her. He lifts a stray strand of her hair from her cheek, and she feels the tenderness in his touch. It makes her legs shake. Kindness is the last thing she must have. Her heart twists and aches. Does she love two men? Is that possible?
‘Tony, do you think he heard us?’
‘Who?’
‘Aurek. Do you think he heard what I said to you? In the flat?’
Tony sighs. ‘No. He couldn’t have. Look, I’ll have to go to Ipswich tomorrow. I always have Sunday lunch with my parents-in-law and I need to see Peter. I’ll come back in the evening. I’ll get you settled in, but I will have to go back to Ipswich on Monday afternoon. I haven’t got enough petrol to keep toing and froing. I can be here Friday night. In the meantime, if anybody does speak to you, if the neighbours ask you what you are doing here, I think it might be best to say you are a housekeeper. Best for you. Just to begin with.’
‘Housekeeper?’
‘Yes. Sounds a bit more respectable, doesn’t it?’
She thinks back to the ship that brought her to England. The two choices women had. To be a housewife or housekeeper.
‘More respectable than what?’
‘Silvana, you’ve left your husband. People know me round here. They know I live on my own. I don’t want you to be gossiped about. I want to keep you safe, that’s all.’
Oh, she thinks. Oh. Then it dawns on her that he is afraid of people believing she is his mistress. She begins to cry, and he hands her his handkerchief.
‘It’ll be all right,’ he whispers. ‘Come on now, don’t cry. It’ll all be all right. You know I care for you.’
They listen to the radio, Tony cocking an ear towards it, repeating lines and laughing as if he is alone and not sitting in a room with somebody else’s wife. She can see he has the habits of someone used to living alone. When it ends, they sit in silence for a while. Silvana looks around the room.
‘All these boxes. I had no idea …’
‘That I was a black marketeer? No, I’m not really. I get asked for certain things and I supply them. Once rationing ends, I’ll do something else. Lucy’s father got me into it. He was offered some cheap rum from the navy stores at the docks. He’s a member of a gentlemen’s club in Ipswich and the club agreed to buy the rum. He couldn’t do the deal himself – he’s a magistrate, after all. So I stepped in and we split the cash. That’s how it all started. Once you know the right people, it’s easy.
‘Everybody’s doing it. There’s a man at the Food Office in Ipswich who forges purchase permits for grocers. So, for instance, Mr Blake at Lipton’s gets tenfold the amount of sugar he should get. The surplus he sells on to me. I sell it off ration. And that’s the tip of the iceberg. Like I say, everybody’s doing it.’
Tony gets up and goes into the kitchen. ‘All these boxes will be gone in a day or two,’ he calls out. ‘Don’t you worry about them.’
He comes back with two mugs of cocoa.
‘This’ll make you feel better,’ he says, handing her a mug. ‘I’ve put a dose of whisky in it. It’ll help you sleep.’
She is aware of his eyes upon her. They have a softness in them that could trip her up.
‘I’m usually on my own in the evenings,’ he says. ‘In the flat above the shop. I used to think of you and wonder what you were doing. And now here you are. Right here with me.’
‘I won’t be staying long,’ she says quickly, and sees the sudden alarm in his face, the way the colour changes in his cheeks. She straightens her back, drinks her cocoa and summons all the contrariness she has left in her character.
‘It’s very kind of you to help us in this way, but we will go home soon.’
She gets up, takes his mug from him and walks into the kitchen. Tony follows her, standing behind her while she washes up in the