A Lesser Evil Read online

  She realized now what a mistake that had been, for they could have been allies. Almost all their mothers were friendly with hers, and if they’d liked Dan, they would’ve talked Clara round. But by cutting herself off from everyone she’d inadvertently created the impression that there was something suspicious about Dan.

  Yet even though Fifi knew she alone was responsible for losing her friends, now that she was feeling miserable, she found herself blaming Dan because he hadn’t been welcoming one night when they all called round to the flat.

  It was just after they’d got married, and a whole gang of them, including Carol, the friend Fifi’d stood up the night she met Dan, turned up drunk, late one night after the pubs closed.

  She and Dan were just about to go to bed, and the flat was a bit of a mess. Dan said her friends were rude, and that it was obvious they’d only called round to check him out. He was curt with them because they were all staggering about, knocking things over and making a great deal of noise. Fifi was embarrassed when Dan asked them to leave, and she’d heard them making sarcastic comments about him as they lurched off down the stairs. She hadn’t seen any of them since.

  Even Patty didn’t drop by now. While Fifi knew full well that this was only because of the bad weather, not through ill-feeling, it still made her feel entirely marooned and friendless.

  Two weeks crept into three and four, still with no sign of Dan being able to start working again. Fifi found herself thinking wistfully about her old home, of Sunday roasts, of having her clothes washed and ironed for her. In bad moments she even found herself regretting rushing into marriage.

  Towards the end of February, after Dan had been off work for seven weeks, he had a letter from the building company telling him that they no longer wanted him when work resumed on the site. They stated that the long layoff had resulted in them needing to make cutbacks and the most productive way to do this was to offer their more senior men overtime when work commenced again.

  Dan was savage about it. ‘Bastards!’ he exclaimed. ‘I could’ve got a job working in a warehouse or something all this time. What am I supposed to do now?’

  ‘Get a job in a warehouse?’ Fifi suggested without any sympathy.

  ‘I’m a bricklayer,’ he snapped at her. ‘And a bloody good one. I don’t want to be loading lorries or sweeping floors.’

  ‘This bad weather can’t last much longer,’ she said hopefully, although the forecast was that it was here to stay for a while yet. ‘With spring coming on, all building work will start again soon.’

  ‘And meanwhile I’ve got to live like a pimp on your wages,’ he ranted, red in the face with anger. ‘I can’t even afford to buy a television or go and have a couple of pints. Your parents will be delighted to be proved right about me.’

  All at once they were rowing. Fifi snapped at him and said she was sick of him moping when none of this was her fault. Dan said she was like a spoilt child expecting that everything should be like fairyland. At every retort they got nastier to each other, bringing up anything they could think of, Dan bringing home junk, and Fifi’s lack of housewifely skills.

  ‘You’re so untidy and messy,’ Dan shouted at her. ‘You think you’re so high and mighty because your father’s a sodding professor, but if it wasn’t for me cleaning up we’d be living in a pig sty.’

  ‘That would be the right place for you,’ she hurled back at him. ‘You eat with your mouth open, your elbows all over the table. You can’t even hold a knife and fork properly.’

  She was shocked at herself for saying something quite so vicious, but he didn’t give her a chance to take it back.

  ‘Well, I’m sorry if I offend you, Little Miss Perfect Manners,’ he hurled at her, his eyes blazing, ‘but while you were learning all that at your cosy little tea parties, I was having to work in the children’s home’s laundry and out in the grounds. You’ve lived in cloud cuckoo land all your bloody life, never had one day’s hardship.’

  That night was the first time they went to bed without kissing goodnight. Fifi lay curled up with her back to Dan, seething with resentment that he had dared to criticize her. She fully expected that he’d apologize and cuddle her, and when he didn’t she became even more resentful.

  She hadn’t been able to buy herself any new clothes or get her hair done. She was fed up with having no television, not even a trip to the pictures. She’d given up everything for Dan, and this was how he repaid her.

  The next three weeks were so miserable that Fifi even thought of going home. Dan was out all day looking for work, and when he could find nothing, not even a warehouse job, he got steadily more morose and sullen. There were more rows and angry silences, and they even stopped making love.

  One evening, the night before Fifi’s payday, the electricity went off soon after she got in from work. Neither of them had any money for the meter; they couldn’t heat up the leftover stew from the night before for their dinner, or make a cup of tea. Without heat or light they were forced to go to bed.

  Fifi began to cry because she’d spent her last few shillings on some stockings and a couple of magazines that lunchtime. She felt guilty now that her selfishness meant Dan had to go to bed hungry and would have to start the next day without a cup of tea, or even hot water to shave. She blurted this out to him and said how sorry she was.

  When he cuddled her and said it didn’t matter, she was surprised to find his face was wet with tears too. ‘It’s not your fault,’ he said. ‘I’ve lived this way most of my life, but now it seems I’m making you live that way too.’

  He held her tightly, smoothing her hair and telling her how much he loved her. ‘But look what I’ve done to you! Your family and friends have cut you off; you’re keeping me. I’m useless.’

  Fifi said that wasn’t true and that she’d rather be with him, even if they were penniless, than with anyone else in the world.

  ‘There’s nothing for it but to go to London to work,’ he said dejectedly. ‘I saw work there advertised at the Labour Exchange today. I’ll go and get the details tomorrow first thing.’

  Fifi said she couldn’t bear that, but he stopped her with a kiss.

  ‘Look, Fifi,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to do something before things get even worse. Let’s face it, nothing’s worked out since we got married.’

  ‘It’s only the job that’s gone wrong,’ she said.

  ‘It’s not and you know it,’ he said softly. ‘You miss your folks terribly, and all those friends who’ve dropped you. I could say that none of them are worth a light if that’s how little they really care about you, but that would only start another row.’

  ‘You aren’t trying to say you’re going to leave me?’ she asked in panic.

  ‘Don’t be daft. I’d even put up with your mother sleeping here in our bed rather than lose you. But we’ve got to find a way out of all this. What if we both moved to London and started all over again?’

  ‘I couldn’t go. There’s my job,’ she protested.

  ‘A legal secretary would get more money in London,’ he said. ‘And I’ll be earning more too. Just suppose I went up there alone and found us a flat, then you joined me when you were ready?’

  Fifi thought about it for a moment. The thought of moving to London was very appealing. It was busy, exciting and with so much more going on than there was in Bristol. Once she might have been afraid to leave her friends, but they’d all vanished anyway, and away from here she wouldn’t be reminded about her parents so much either.

  ‘It would be an adventure,’ she said eventually. ‘Imagine us walking through Hyde Park on a summer afternoon, or going to Petticoat Lane on a Sunday!’

  ‘It’s dirty, noisy and fast,’ he reminded her. ‘They call people from the West of England “Swedes” and think we go about in smocks with straws hanging out of our mouths.’

  Fifi giggled. ‘They couldn’t think that about you. They’re more likely to ask where your bow and arrow is.’

  ‘So will you think a
bout it?’

  ‘I have,’ she said. ‘Yes, we’ll go. Just as soon as you’ve found somewhere for us to live.’

  Suddenly it didn’t matter that they were lying in the dark unable to even have a cup of tea. It didn’t matter either that her family didn’t approve of Dan. He was here lying next to her, his skin as silky as a child’s, and she loved him. They would go to London and make a wonderful life for themselves. And to hell with everyone.

  Chapter four

  Fifi walked slowly up the stairs of 4 Dale Street, looking with trepidation at the horrible orangey-brown varnish on the doors, and wallpaper so old it was impossible to see a pattern. Dan was bounding on ahead, enthusiastically listing the advantages of Kennington. These seemed to be mainly that it was so central, just a couple of stops on the tube to the West End.

  Fifi could see that it had once been a very good area, judging by the many imposing large houses on the main road. But just as St Paul’s in Bristol had once been a good address until the middle classes moved out, the same seemed to have happened here. The big houses were now very dilapidated, their front gardens full of rubbish, and judging by the number of people lounging around on the front steps, they were mainly divided up into rabbit warrens of small flats and bedsitters.

  Elsewhere Fifi had noticed yawning gaps where houses had been bombed during the war, and instead of being rebuilt the sites had become dumping grounds for old furniture and mattresses. She had also observed that although there were many shops, they all looked grubby and tired. She thought the council might as well have erected a sign saying ‘Only the poor live here’, for there were no quality shops, just a depressingly large number of fish-and-chip places, pubs and second-hand shops.

  But even if parts of Kennington appeared to have had a more elegant past, Dale Street didn’t. It looked as if it had been designed in Victorian times to house as many people as possible in the smallest space. The houses didn’t even have front gardens.

  ‘Here we are!’ Dan said unnecessarily as he reached the last flight of stairs. ‘It’s almost entirely self-contained. I think the other tenants are quiet all the time, I didn’t hear a sound the time I came before either.’

  Fifi had been looking down at the worn sisal runner up the stairs, wondering how long it had been there. The house was clean, in as much as there was no dust or rubbish anywhere, and, as Dan said, very quiet, but to her it was little better than a slum.

  At his words she looked up, and there on the landing, at the top of the last run of stairs, were an ancient cooker and an equally old sink with a small geyser above. This, she had to assume, was her new kitchen.

  ‘I can put up a cupboard on the wall for all our pots and pans,’ Dan said happily. ‘I thought maybe I could fix up a fold-down table-top too, for a surface to prepare food. Then a towel rail and a small shelf for our washing things.’

  Fifi came up the last few stairs and caught hold of his arm. ‘I am not washing myself in a kitchen sink,’ she exclaimed indignantly.

  ‘No one will come up here but us, and I could build a folding screen from here to there,’ he said, putting one hand on the banisters and the other on the wall. ‘We’d be quite private then.’

  ‘It would still be a kitchen sink. It’s for dirty dishes and straining cabbage,’ she retorted. ‘I’m sorry, Dan, but I can’t possibly live here.’

  Dan’s face fell. ‘I know it’s not what you’re used to, Felicity. But it was the best I could do.’

  He only ever used her real name when he thought she was being a snob, and mostly it was with a teasing note. But this time it was with real reproach.

  ‘Oh, come on, Dan,’ she wheedled. ‘I know it’s cheap, and that flats in London are like gold dust, but look at it! You really can’t expect me to live somewhere as squalid as this.’

  She didn’t even want to look at the two rooms. What she’d seen already was more than enough to make her want to run out.

  ‘Please just try to look at it with magic eyes,’ Dan pleaded, reaching out to smooth her cheek, the way he always did when he was trying to get round her.

  Fifi’s spirits dropped even lower, for she knew now that when something needed Dan’s magic eyes most normal people would turn it down flat.

  ‘I’m trying,’ she said wearily. She supposed as it was the top flat no one would be coming up the last flight of stairs but them. ‘But don’t you dare tell me we’ve got to buy a tin bath, and the lav’s outside.’

  ‘Of course there’s a bathroom,’ Dan grinned boyishly. ‘Would I expect Princess Felicity to go without one? It’s downstairs, and the only reason I said about washing up here is because we have to share it with the other tenants.’

  ‘Well, I just hope there aren’t dozens of them,’ Fifi retorted, for she’d seen at least six doors on the way up through the three-storey house.

  Dan had left for London during the last week in February to start work on a large housing development in Stockwell. The weather was still every bit as bad then, the whole country still in the grip of ice and snow, but it seemed the foreman knew a good worker when he saw one, and he gave Dan other work inside the almost completed houses because he didn’t want to lose him. He even arranged digs for him near the site, and paid his train fare home at weekends.

  Fifi hadn’t minded being alone during the week at first. She’d meet up with Patty one night, go to the pictures with one of the girls at work on another, and the remainder of the time she spent reading, making food for the weekend and doing chores. She was so excited at the prospect of moving to London, day-dreaming about all the things they could do there, and each weekend she expected Dan to arrive home with news that he’d found a place for them.

  But as the weeks passed and Dan still hadn’t found a flat, she began to feel they would be living apart for ever. It wasn’t that Dan didn’t try. He bought the Evening Standard every day, and rushed to see all the flats in their price range that same evening. But all too often the flat would be gone before he got there, and those that were left either had landlords who didn’t want a married couple, or were so awful that Dan had to turn them down.

  He had his name down with countless letting agencies too, but he got the idea that landlords discriminated against men with jobs like his. Perhaps, too, they didn’t really believe he had a wife, and thought he would have a succession of women coming in and out. As the weeks went by Fifi had seen him getting more and more dejected at his failure to find a home for them.

  It was now early May. Spring had finally arrived with much-longed-for sunshine, and when Dan had rung her earlier in the week and jubilantly said he’d found a place at last and could borrow a van at the weekend to move her and their belongings, Fifi was overjoyed. She spoke to the landlord and her boss at the solicitors the very next day, and although the landlord insisted she gave him another week’s rent in lieu of notice, her boss was really nice about it and said she could finish up at the end of the week.

  Dan had admitted that Kennington wasn’t the best of areas, and the flat was a bit crummy, but always the optimist, she had assumed that all it would need was a bit of cheering up with pictures and perhaps a lick of paint.

  But she had burned all her bridges by giving up the old flat and her job, so she knew she really didn’t have any choice. She had to accept this was her new home.

  Dan opened the door of the living room. ‘After you, Princess,’ he said, making a comic, sweeping bow.

  Fifi stifled a gasp of horror and desperately scanned the room looking for some attractive feature that she could praise. But there was nothing. Twelve square feet of scruffy patterned lino, hideous old floral wallpaper, and the kind of worn-out furniture people left out for the dustman.

  ‘I know it’s pretty grim,’ Dan said, his voice subdued and troubled. ‘But I didn’t want us to be apart any longer. We can make it nice. Can’t we?’

  Fifi’s heart melted just as it always did when he looked at her with imploring spaniel eyes. ‘Look, it gets the afternoon sun,�
�� she said, trying very hard to do magic eyes. The faded orange curtains didn’t even reach the sill of the dirty window, but she could replace those. ‘Once we get our things in here it will look quite different.’

  Dan smiled in relief and moved over to kiss her. But as his arms went round her, an angry shout from the street below made them both move over to the window.

  A girl of about seven was running up the road, hotly pursued by an overweight woman with her bleached blonde hair in curlers.

  ‘Come back ’ere, yer little bleeder!’ she yelled angrily.

  The child stopped running. She was crying and looked terrified. The woman reached her, caught her by the shoulder and slapped her round the face so hard that Fifi winced.

  ‘’Ow many times’ave I got to tell yer?’ the woman ranted, dragging the girl back down the street by her ear. ‘You do’s what I tell you or else.’

  As they reached the house opposite Dan and Fifi, the woman gave the child another thump around the head, then pushed her in through the front door, kicking her up the backside as she went.

  The front door slammed behind them and Fifi looked at Dan questioningly, deeply shocked by what they’d witnessed.

  ‘I expect she’s a little sod,’ Dan said thoughtfully. ‘But I hate it when people lay into children.’

  Fifi thought such blatant brutality needed reporting, but she was too stunned to comment. Her parents had never resorted to hitting her or her brothers and sister. They might be punished by being sent to bed, or having their pocket money docked, but never by anything physical.

  ‘I hope that isn’t an indication of what we can expect here,’ Fifi said quietly, still looking out of the window. Dan had often said she was entirely ignorant of what life was like for people living on low wages, in poor housing, but if that was how they behaved she’d rather stay in ignorance.

  The view from the window held no cheer. It was of a cul-de-sac, ending in a coal yard behind big gates, with seven three-storey terraced houses on each side. Even though it was a sunny day, the houses were too tall and the street too narrow to let in much sunshine. From her vantage point on the second floor, Fifi could see behind the gates into the coal yard, where a man was shovelling coal into sacks held open by a young boy. It was almost a Dickensian scene, for they were both as dirty as chimney sweeps, and she noted that all the brickwork in the street had become black with soot over the years.