Bye Bye Love

‘Joannie!’

Victor crouched at the other side of her, patting her cheek, shaking her arm. His face was as flushed as hers was pale.

‘Joannie, what is it? Come on, Joannie, speak to me!’

Joan’s eyes were staring. Jagged groans tore from her mouth as she struggled to breathe.

‘What’s up? What’s wrong?’

People were leaning over the bar.

‘Joan’s had a funny turn.’

‘Get her into the fresh air.’

‘Get a doctor.’

One of the regulars lifted the flap and joined them behind the bar.

‘Come on, Vic, let’s get her out the back.’

In an agony of worry, Scarlett followed. She grabbed a cushion from one of the chairs to put under her mother’s head as the men lowered her mother gently to the floor, then Scarlett crouched beside her, holding her hand and feeling utterly helpless. What could she do? She wanted so desperately to help her mum and didn’t know how.

A woman came in. ‘Can I help? I’m a nurse.’

Scarlett felt a rush of relief. Here was someone who could advise them.

Victor welcomed her in. As she knelt by Joan, a man put his head round the door.

‘Someone’s gone for Dr Collins. How is she?’

‘Thanks,’ Victor said. ‘I don’t know. She’s—’

‘Ring for an ambulance,’ the nurse cut in. She looked at Scarlett. ‘You’ll be the quickest. Run over to the telephone. Do you know how to do it? Ring 999 and tell them it’s a heart attack.’

Fear clutched at Scarlett’s entrails. A heart attack! Her mum was having a heart attack! Wordlessly, she nodded and sprang to her feet. She was out of the back door, round the side of the pub and across the village green in seconds, running faster than she had ever run in her life. Her lungs heaving, she wrenched open the heavy door of the telephone box on the far side of the green from the Red Lion, picked up the receiver and dialled 999. She struggled to control her breathing so that she could speak clearly.

‘Ambulance—my mum—the nurse said she’s having a heart attack—’

A calm female voice on the other end of the line took the details and assured her that an ambulance would be with them as soon as possible. Scarlett replaced the phone and stepped out into the summer evening again. Everything was carrying on as if nothing had happened. Houses were bright with flags and bunting for the big celebration. Across the green, the door of the Red Lion stood open and children were still playing outside. Someone cycled past and called out a greeting to her. It all felt unreal, as if she were watching it on the cinema screen. This couldn’t really be happening, not to her. It was all too much, too fast. One moment she had been serving a customer, the next she’d been telephoning for an ambulance. A heart attack. It wasn’t right. Men had heart attacks, not ladies, not her mother.

‘Mum!’ she cried out loud. ‘Oh, Mum!’

She set off across the green again, ignoring the shouts of the children as they chased round her. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed two other figures hastening towards the pub. Something made her look again, and then she veered over to meet them.

‘Oh, Dr Collins, thank you, thank you—it’s my mum—’

‘I know, I know—’

The doctor was an elderly man, past retirement age. Already he was out of breath, and the man who had gone to fetch him was carrying his bag for him. Like the rest of the village, he must have been celebrating, for he was wearing evening dress and Scarlett could smell drink on his breath. He put a heavy hand on her shoulder as he hurried along.

‘Don’t worry, young Scarlett—’

Scarlett hovered by his side in an agony of impatience. She knew he was going as fast as he could, but he was so slow, so slow! She wanted to drag him along.

‘Come round the back,’ she said as they reached the Red Lion.

She knew as soon as she and the doctor went through the door. She knew by the way they were standing, by the way they turned as she entered the room. She knew by the look on their faces.

‘Mum?’ she croaked. ‘She’s not—? Please say she’s not—’

There was a ringing in her ears. Everything was blurred, everything but the woman lying on the floor, the dear woman who was the rock of her life, the one dependable point upon which everything else was fixed.

‘Mum!’ she wailed, running forward, dropping to her knees. She grasped one of the limp hands in hers, clasping it to her chest. ‘Mum, don’t go, don’t leave me!’

Hands were restraining her, arms were round her shoulders. She shook them off.

‘No, no! She can’t be dead, she can’t!’

Dr Collins was listening to Joan’s chest, feeling for a pulse in her neck.

‘Do something!’ Scarlett screamed. ‘You’ve got to do something!’

Two strong hands were holding the tops of her arms now.

‘Now, then, that’s enough,’ a firm female voice was saying.

Scarlett ignored her. She was staring wildly at her mother, at the doctor, willing him to perform some miracle of medical science. But he just gave a sad little shake of the head.

‘I’m sorry, Scarlett—’

‘No!’ Scarlett howled. Her chest was heaving with sobs, tears welled up and spilled over in a storm of weeping. Her father was there, kneeling beside her, pulling her into his arms. Together they rocked and wept, oblivious to the people around them.

‘She was the best woman in the world,’ Victor croaked. ‘A gem, a diamond—’

Scarlett could only bury her face in his broad chest and cry and cry. It was like the end of the world.

After that came a terrible time of official things to be done. However much Scarlett and Victor wanted to shut out the world and mourn the dear woman who had gone, there were people to see, forms to sign, things to arrange. The funeral was very well attended. The Red Lion was a centre of village life. Joan had been there behind the bar all through the terrible war years and the difficult days of austerity afterwards. Everyone missed her round smiling face and her sympathetic ear.

‘She was a wonderful woman,’ people said as they left the church.

‘One of the best.’

‘Salt of the earth.’

‘She’ll be much missed.’

Standing by her father’s side, Scarlett nodded and shook hands and muttered thanks.

‘You’re a good girl,’ people said to her. ‘A credit to your mother, a chip off the old block.’

And all the while she wanted to scream and shout and rage against what had happened. This couldn’t be true, it couldn’t be happening to her. Her mother couldn’t really have gone and left her like this.

But she had, and there was worse to come.

CHAPTER THREE

ONE Saturday about three weeks after the funeral, Scarlett walked into the lounge bar to find her father sitting on a stool at the bar counter staring morosely at a letter. He looked dreadful. There were bags under his eyes, a day’s growth of stubble on his chin and he hadn’t bothered to brush his hair.

‘We’ve got to get out,’ he said.

Scarlett stared at him. ‘What do you mean, get out?’

‘The brewery wants us gone. They’ve been holding the licence for us since your mum—’ He hesitated. Neither of them could bring themselves to say the word died. ‘But they won’t go on doing that for ever. They want a licensee on the premises to deal with any bother.’

Long ago when Scarlett had first learnt to read, she had asked why only her mother had her name above the pub door as licensee. She had been told that the brewery preferred to have a woman in charge and, since the brewery’s word was law as far as they were concerned, she had never really thought to question it.

‘But surely they wouldn’t mind having your name up there now,’ she said. ‘You’ve been here for years. Everyone likes you. They all say what a good landlord you are. The brewery must know that, surely? And I could help as much as possible. We can keep it going between us.’

‘It’s not as easy as that,’ her father said.

‘What do you mean?’

Victor sighed. He dropped his head in his hands and ran his hands through his hair, making it stick up on end. Fear wormed through Scarlett’s stomach. This was her dad. When things went wrong, her dad was always there with his cheery manner, making it all right again.

‘Oh, we don’t have to bother ourselves about a little old thing like that,’ he would say. ‘Worse things happen at sea.’ Or, ‘It’ll all come out in the wash.’ And generally he was right. Up till now, whatever life had thrown at them, they had coped. Surely he could solve whatever was worrying him this time?

‘I can’t hold a licence,’ he admitted.

Scarlett stared at him. ‘Why not?’ she demanded.

‘Because I can’t, all right?’

Fear fuelled the anger that had been simmering in her ever since her mother had died.

‘No, it isn’t all right! You say we’ve got to leave here, leave the Red Lion, because you can’t hold a licence? I want to know why.’

‘Look, it’s best you don’t know.’

The anger boiled over, all the irrational resentment at what had happened, even at her mother for going and leaving them when they needed her so much.

‘I want to know! I’ve got to leave my home because of whatever it is. I’ve got a right to know!’

Victor rubbed his face and looked up at the ceiling. ‘Because—’ his voice came out as a croak ‘—oh, God, Scarlett, this is so hard. Worse than telling your mother—’

‘Go on!’ Scarlett raged.

Victor still wouldn’t look at her. ‘Because I’ve got a record,’ he admitted.

His whole body seemed to sag in defeat.

Scarlett did not understand at first. She gazed at her big strong dad, who used to throw her up in the air and catch her, who could move the heavy beer casks around the cellar with ease, who could down a yard of ale quicker than anyone. All at once he seemed somehow smaller.

‘A record? What do you mean? What sort of—?’ And then the truth dawned on her. ‘You mean a police record?’

She couldn’t believe it, wouldn’t believe it. It just wasn’t true. Her dad wouldn’t hurt a fly. He was everyone’s friend. He could not possibly be a criminal.

Victor reached out to her. Instinctively, Scarlett went to the safety of his arms. She was folded into the comforting familiarity of his scratchy jumper, his pubby smell. She felt his voice vibrate through his chest as he struggled to answer her honestly.

‘That’s about the size of it, yes.’

Scarlett felt as if she had been kicked in the stomach. Her whole view of the world lurched, shifted and rearranged itself into a darker, more frightening picture.

‘What did you do?’ she whispered into his neck, as visions of robbery, of murder rose in her head. Desperately, she drove them down, hating herself for even entertaining such horrors.

‘Breaking and entering.’

A burglar. Her father was a burglar.

‘You went into someone’s house and—and stole things?’ she asked, appalled. ‘How could you? How could you do that?’

Wicked people did that. Her father wasn’t wicked. He was the kindest man in the world. She reared her head back, needing to see his expression. Victor looked stricken.

‘You think I don’t regret it?’ he countered. He held her by the shoulders now, his eyes boring into hers, willing her to understand. ‘There’s not a day doesn’t go by when I don’t wish I’d said no, but I was young and stupid, Scarlett. You got to remember that. It was wrong, I know it was wrong, but you got to think about what it was like then. Times were hard. It was back in the thirties, in the depression. Work was hard to come by and what jobs there was around wasn’t paid well. I’d just met this girl, a corker she was, and I wanted to impress her—’

‘My mum?’ Scarlett interrupted.

‘No, no, this was before I met your mum. But this girl, I wanted to take her out, show her a good time, and I hadn’t any money. Then this mate of mine, he said he was doing some decorating at this old girl’s place, and she had more money than sense and she wouldn’t even notice if we took a few bits. But she did, of course. And we got caught, and I got sent down—’

He paused. Scarlett’s heart seemed to be beating so hard it was almost suffocating her.

‘One stupid mistake and I ruined my life. My family cut me off. My mother died while I was inside and my brother said it was from shame over me and none of them have had anything to do with me since. And of course when I came out nobody wanted to give me a job. Who wants a man with a record when there’s plenty of others with a clean sheet? I was on my uppers by the time I met your mum. She turned everything round. She believed in me. She was a wonderful woman, your mum. The very best.’

Scarlett couldn’t take any more. She twisted out of his grasp, marched out of the building and went for a long walk, turning everything she had just learnt over in her head. None of it made any sense. She finally found herself back home again with everything still surging around inside. It was midday opening and there were a few customers in the bar. Not wanting to speak to anyone, she ran upstairs, grabbed Gone with the Wind from her bedside table and hurried down to the far end of the garden. Neither of her parents had been keen gardeners, so the patch had gone wild since the days of digging for victory. Down at the far end, beyond the apple trees, was a hidden sunspot. Scarlett lay down in the long grass with the sun on her back, opened the book and escaped into her namesake’s world. A little later she heard her father calling her name. She kept silent. Then she heard him scrunching down the gravel path at the side. It sounded as if he was going out. Scarlett read on, immersing herself in the burning of Atlanta.

Hunger finally drove her back inside. She walked down the garden with that faintly drugged feeling that came from living vividly inside another person’s life. The back door was open, of course. Her father had locked the front of the pub but nobody ever even thought of locking their back doors. As she went into the kitchen she glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. Six o’clock! Opening time, and her father wasn’t back. She put the kettle on, made a cheese sandwich and wandered into the serving area behind the bar, munching. Should she open up? She checked the till—yes, there was enough change. She ran an eye over the stock—yes, there was more than enough for the poor trade they were doing at the moment. But open up on her own—? In the kitchen, the kettle was boiling. Just as she was pouring the water into the teapot, her father walked in at the back door.

‘Scarlett! There’s my lovely girl, and the tea made too. What a little treasure she is.’

Scarlett regarded him. He was looking more cheerful than he had done ever since Joan had died. Almost elated. Despite everything she had learnt that day, hope surged inside her. Perhaps everything was going to be all right after all.

‘Where’ve you been?’ she demanded.

‘Southend.’ He spread his hands in an expansive gesture. ‘No need to worry any more, my pet. I’ve solved all our problems.’

‘You have?’

‘I have. I’ve got a job at one of those big places along the Golden Mile. The Trafalgar. And, what’s more, there’s accommodation to go with it. We’ve got a home and money. We’re going to be all right.’

Scarlett didn’t know what she felt—relief, anger, disappointment—it was all of these. On the face of it, her father had done just as he claimed. He had solved all their problems.

‘But we’ve still got to leave here,’ she said at last. ‘We’ve got to leave the Red Lion.’

Victor’s whole body seemed to deflate. ‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘Well, there’s nothing I can do about that.’

Someone was thumping on the front door.

‘Anyone at home? There’s thirsty people out here.’

Victor ignored it. ‘Look, I don’t like it any more than you do, leaving all this—’ He waved his hand to take in the kitchen, the bars, the rooms upstairs. ‘I love it too, darling. Best years of my life have been spent here. But at least we got somewhere to go. That’s got to be good, now, hasn’t it, pet?’

Scarlett just shook her head. Up till now, some irrational part of her had held on to the hope that something might come up, that they might be allowed to stay. Now she knew it was really true. They were leaving.

‘If you say so,’ she said. ‘Don’t you think you’d better open up?’

Defeated, Victor went to unlock the door, leaving Scarlett to brood on their change of fortunes and all that it meant. It was only later that a faint feeling of guilt crept into her resentment. Her mother would not have reacted like that. Her mother would have congratulated him on his success in finding work and a roof over their heads. Sighing heavily, she made a cheese and pickle sandwich and a cup of tea and took it into the bar as a peace offering. Victor gave her a hug and turned to the little gang of regulars leaning on the bar.

‘Ain’t she just the best daughter in the world? A man couldn’t ask for more.’

Scarlett hugged him back and then turned to pick up the empties. As long as they still had each other, they would be all right.

The next couple of weeks passed all too quickly. Before they knew where they were, Scarlett and Victor found themselves in the delivery van belonging to Jim, one of the regulars, being driven into Southend-on-Sea with all their worldly goods packed into boxes and suitcases in the back. There wasn’t a lot. Hardest of all had been deciding what to do with Joan’s personal possessions. Neither of them could bear to give away her clothes and of course they wanted to keep her books and ornaments, but it was things like her comb with strands of her hair still in it that had broken their hearts. In the end, they had put everything into boxes and brought it with them.

They drove along the main road towards the town, then turned down a grand avenue with big houses on either side that led eventually to the High Street. In spite of herself, Scarlett began to take an interest. There were lots of shops with shiny big windows and displays of tempting goods. There were throngs of people, many of them obviously visitors in their seaside clothes. And there, at the end of the street was the sea, or rather the Thames estuary, grey-green and glittering in the summer sunshine.

‘Oh!’ Scarlett said out loud.

Their chauffeur grinned. ‘Pretty, ain’t it? Nothing like the sea, I always say. You seen the pier before?’

‘Of course,’ Scarlett said.

She’d been to Southend before, lots of times, and you didn’t go to Southend without seeing the pier. But still Jim insisted on acting as her tour guide.

‘Royal Hotel on your right here, Royal Stores pub on your left, and there it is, the longest pier in the world. Longer even than anything in America.’

‘Lovely,’ Scarlett said, as something seemed to be expected of her. And indeed she couldn’t help a traitorous lift of interest. The pier was an exciting sight, stretching out before her into the sea with its flags flying and its cream and green trams clanking busily up and down and its promise of fun and food and entertainment at the far end.

‘Do you think you’re going to like it here?’ Victor asked hopefully.

‘I don’t know,’ Scarlett said.

It was all very different from their village. It might be exciting, but it was alien. It wasn’t home.

She did not have long to admire the pier. The van plunged down Pier Hill to the sea front, and here they were surrounded by noise and colours and smells. There were ice cream parlours and pubs and amusement arcades and shops selling buckets and spades. There were families and big groups of men all dressed up for a day at the sea. Through the open windows of the van came music and laughter and shouting, dogs barking and children crying, together with wafts of candyfloss, fried onions, cockles and whelks. There was no hint of austerity here. Everything shouted, It’s a new beginning; let your hair down, enjoy yourself!

They drove along the Golden Mile. Victor was looking eagerly out of the window.

‘There it is,’ he said. ‘The Trafalgar.’

Scarlett followed his pointing finger. Their new home was a big yellow brick Victorian building between two amusement arcades. Two sets of double doors, closed at the moment, let on to the pavement and over the larger of them swung the sign, a painting of Lord Nelson’s famous ship, the Victory.

‘Best go round the back, I suppose,’ Victor said.

They drove on past the pub to the corner where the Kursaal stood, with its dome and its dance hall and its famous funfair. Round they went and up a small road that ran behind the sea front buildings. It was quieter here. There were back fences and bins and washing and a general morning-after feel. They stopped by a stack of crates full of empty beer bottles.

‘I’ll go and see what’s happening,’ Victor said, and disappeared into the back yard.

He came back with a young woman with a thin, over-made-up face and hair an unlikely shade of auburn.

‘This is Irma,’ he said.

Irma looked at Scarlett. ‘So you’re the kid, are you? You’re lucky. Missus don’t normally like kids living in, but we’re short of a cellar man and it’s high season, I suppose. Bring your stuff and don’t make a noise on the stairs. Missus and the Guv’nor don’t like being disturbed when they’re having their afternoon nap.’

Scarlett decided then and there that she didn’t like Irma and she wasn’t going to like her father’s employers. Glaring at Irma’s back, she picked up her bag of most treasured possessions and, together with Victor, followed her through the yard. It was a concrete area, dark and damp and smelly, totally different from the back garden at the Red Lion. The building towered over them, tall and forbidding. There was broken furniture in a heap on one side and a pile of kegs waiting to be returned on the other. A skinny cat slunk away at their approach.

‘The Missus says you’re to have the top back,’ Irma said, leading the way through the back door and along a dark passage that smelt of damp and stale beer and cats.

After a couple of turns and sets of steps and longer staircases, Scarlett was bewildered. How big was this place? How was she ever going to find her way around it? Irma stopped outside a door that looked just like the three others on the landing. She handed Victor a pair of keys tied together with a length of hairy string.

‘There y’are then. This is yours and that’s hers,’ nodding at the next door along. ‘Guv’nor wants you down at five to show you the ropes, all right?’

‘Right, yes, fine. Thanks very much, Irma,’ Victor said.

Irma clattered off down the lino-covered landing.

‘Well, then,’ Victor said. ‘Let’s see what’s what, shall we?’

He unlocked the door and stepped into the room. The faded cotton curtains were drawn and in the dim light they saw a single bed, a dark wardrobe, two dining chairs by a small rickety table and a chest of drawers with a cracked mirror above it. None of the furniture matched and the walls and lino and dirty rug were all in depressing shades of green, brown and beige.

‘Well—’ Victor said. ‘It’s got everything we need, I suppose.’

‘It’s horrible,’ Scarlett said.

She stepped over to the window and drew back the sagging curtains. They felt greasy. The view from the dirty window was of the back street they had come in from. She could see Jim there, still waiting by his van. She longed to rush back down and beg him to take her back to the Red Lion.

‘Want to see your room, pet?’

Scarlett sighed. ‘S’pose so.’

He unlocked the other door. This room was much smaller, hardly more than a boxroom, with just enough space for a single bed, a small wardrobe and a chest of drawers all set in a line along one wall. There was no rug, no wallpaper and the curtains didn’t quite meet in the middle. Scarlett hated it.

‘Better get our stuff in. Mustn’t keep Jim waiting any longer out there.’

Scarlett’s whole body felt heavy and listless. How was she going to bear living in this horrible place? Reluctantly, she followed her father down the maze of stairs and corridors to the back door. They unloaded the boxes into the back yard, thanked Jim, and lugged everything upstairs. By the time they had got it all in, Scarlett did at least know the way.