The Dressmaker - Beryl Bainbridge [32]
‘What city?’ asked Mrs Mander mercilessly and Margo said it was Washington, near the White House, and was afraid she had made a fool of herself and that the White House was actually in New York.
‘That’s nice,’ said Mrs Mander. ‘You know, with the lovely figure our Valerie’s got, it’s a crying shame to have a jacket.’
‘That’s true,’ Margo said, and wished she would go away quickly before too many things were said. She had known all along that Rita was being secretive, coming home with her stockings ripped to pieces and going down town on a Saturday night and returning drenched to the skin and worn out. That’s why she’d had her nightmare. The deceit had preyed on her mind. She herself had tried to keep things from Nellie all her life. She didn’t blame Rita, but she was hurt that the girl hadn’t confided in her. She felt resentful to be shut out from excitement and intrigue. She had tried in her fashion to shield Rita from Nellie’s influence, to add a little gaiety to the narrow years spent in the narrow house.
‘I’ll take the books back with me,’ said Mrs Mander. ‘Tell Nellie I called.’
And she was off out through the door, rushing back to the lovely Valerie to tell her that Rita hadn’t let on at home she was meeting a soldier.
Margo might have told Jack if she had known more herself about the lad in the wardrobe. She longed to be able to tell him that Rita had confided in her. It would make her seem mature in Jack’s eyes: it was always to Nellie that he turned for advice.
Jack kept complaining of a stomach ache. Nellie made him a glass of hot water to sip before going up the road to congratulate Valerie.
‘Are you going now?’ asked Margo, alarmed. She didn’t want Mrs Mander blurting it all out to Nellie.
‘If I have your permission,’ said Nellie sharply, tucking her hair under her hat.
‘Don’t you think,’ said Margo, when Nellie had gone, ‘that we had a rum childhood – I mean, thinking about it—’
‘Rum,’ said Jack, not understanding.
‘Restricted. The way Mother was – all them rules, going to church.’
‘What rules?’
‘Don’t you think we were damaged?’
‘Don’t talk daft.’
He sat up, clutching his belly, filled with irritation at the way she carried on. Whenever Marge started to talk in this fashion it made him angry: he was defending someone, something, but he didn’t know what. It was like when Lord Haw Haw had been on the wireless – he wanted to jump to his feet and wave the flag.
‘We were never given a chance,’ said Margo. ‘Never. All that church-going and being respectable – you can never get away from it.’
‘Church never did anyone any harm,’ he said hotly.
‘You haven’t been inside a church for donkey’s years.’
‘It never did any harm,’ he repeated doggedly. ‘It might have been better if you had listened to what the good book said.’
‘I did listen – I did nothing else. Always being told what to do, always being got at. Doing what Mother said was best.’
‘Mother was a wonderful woman,’ he cried, looking at her with hostility. ‘She brought us up never to owe a penny, never to ask anybody for anything.’
‘She asked Nellie for plenty. It was Nellie that did all the work. She walked in Mother’s shadow. She still does.’
‘Oh, get off,’ he said, hating the sight of her: the naked face with the eyes like an actress on the stage, the mouth spitting rubbish.
‘And what about Rita?’ She knew she was annoying him – the trick he had of twisting his head sharply as if someone had fired an ack-ack gun behind his ear – but she had to say it. ‘She’s just like Nellie, really. Keeping herself to herself, never saying anything important, just being proper.’
She hoped it was true: she couldn’t bear to think of Rita getting into trouble – the shame of it, the gossip in the street.
‘If our Rita is half the woman Nellie is, she’s got nothing to be ashamed of.’
‘But it’s different times,’ Margo cried. ‘It’s the war. People aren’t the same. That sort of person isn’t needed any more. The past is gone, Jack. Things are different now.’
‘What sort of person?’ he asked