Beggar Bride Read online

  They didn’t use contraception then, and they still don’t. Billy just whips it out. She’d expected to die in childbirth, she’d known so little about it. She hugs little Jacob more tightly in her arms. He’s got sticky eyes this morning.

  No, no, she couldn’t possibly have got rid of Jacob, even if his birth has turned them into the socially irresponsible. They gather here with the feckless poor, the parasites, the scavengers that drain society. Well, she and Billy hadn’t meant it to be like this, no, far from it.

  Billy moved into Ange’s bedsit two weeks after they met in the Grapes last year. She was working in the kitchens, doing a secretarial course at night and living on Sugar Puffs, he was a waiter serving the diners, mostly businessmen with bloated bellies in for a beer, a quick ploughman’s or a pasty. He was a runaway, she a child of the state, in care since she can remember, they even used her picture on a poster once to encourage fostering nationwide.

  She found it hard to believe that Billy could happily get on a train to London and abandon the home and family that were his own. Some people don’t know they are born but he’d felt suffocated, he said, and hopeless stuck down there at Weston. ‘Have you ever been there?’ he’d asked her.

  ‘Well, it’s the arsehole of the world. If you want a nervous breakdown go to Weston-super-Mare.’

  ‘How can that be, if people go there on holiday? I’m sure I’ve seen posters on stations and there’s palm trees. There’s even donkeys.’

  ‘Probably there since before the war.’ Billy shrugged. ‘And what people go there for Christsake? Coachloads of crusties for bingo and candy-floss in the arcades, they sit on the sand in their deckchairs with knotted handkerchiefs over their heads and vests on… still! In this day and age. Shit! While the wind whips past them and carries their litter away. And they buy the sort of tat you wouldn’t believe, sad tossers. There’s only work in the summer, in the winter it’s a desperate place. Bleak. Run down. Grey. Always raining. Nothing happens.’

  ‘But you ought to let your mum know…’ If Ange was his mum she would want to know, especially when he got married. There’s an innocence about him, a childishness in his eyes and his hair and the back of his neck that appeals for protection. His mother must still love him, he is like a lost dog that badly needs stroking.

  ‘Sod off, Ange. You know nothing about it at all.’

  ‘So you came here to make good? That’s funny! That’s why you don’t want to phone her, isn’t it? You don’t want to admit that it’s worse here…’

  ‘It’s not worse! Believe me! It’s not worse.’

  ‘Well, you’ve got me, I suppose…’

  And he made a rueful face.

  ‘You’ve got me, babe,’ she sang. ‘And together we’re going places!’

  ‘Leave it alone, Ange.’

  Oh yeah, she was kidding, but she felt something serious stirring behind the joke.

  It was OK when there was just the two of them. You felt you could achieve anything, when the time was right. They sunbathed in the park, they drew on pavements partly for money and partly because it was fun, they were beating time, larking around, having a good time while they could, shutting their eyes to the mayhem and madness, that was all. Something ace would happen one day. And then she fell pregnant with Jacob… and turned needy, one of the world’s rejects, turned into one of the people here.

  What’s this?

  ‘I just can’t believe it,’ Ange cries out with joy, jogging the lively Jacob so he stretches his little elastic legs and dances a baby jig on her knee. A roof over her head at last, the first proper home she’s had since she left her bedsit and made herself homeless. ‘I never thought…’ She grins at Billy, prettier than ever and animated by her excitement. ‘See, it was worth it. I said we had to persevere!’

  You can see that Billy is thrilled as well, although he tries to be manly and keep his feelings under control.

  ‘Oh, Mr Fell,’ says Ange with great warmth, ‘I’m so relieved I can’t speak.’

  ‘Well, yes, Mrs Harper, you have been lucky, especially as you are not strictly homeless at present. One of the chosen ones… partly because of Jacob’s fragile health and the committee were influenced by Sandra Biddle, your social worker.’ Mr Fell attempts a joke, ‘You came highly recommended.’

  Ange laughs with him. She would do almost anything with him this morning because she feels so grateful. He’s not half as ugly as she originally thought, a bit pock-marked, but he means well! He is not just a man doing an extremely difficult job. A flat! A two-bedroom flat, available from tomorrow if they want it.

  If they want it? Who wouldn’t want it? Are there really people who would turn this sort of opportunity down?

  ‘Go and look at it today,’ says Mr Fell benevolently. ‘And let them know at the desk so they can start filling in the papers. Keep the keys, and come in again tomorrow morning.’

  Ange gives Jacob a big fat kiss. She smoothes his fluffy black hair. Funny how he takes after her, there’s hardly any of Billy in him except for a glitter in the eyes, and that impish grin, of course.

  ‘We’re going to go home, pretty babe,’ she coos all smiles. ‘You’ll have a proper front door and a doormat…’

  ‘And a visit to the social services to arrange a loan for essentials… basic furniture, cooker, fridge…’ Mr Fell is trying to be practical.

  ‘Right. It’s like Christmas, Billy, it really is, it’s just like Christmas!’ and she squeezes his hand, knowing how glad he is, seeing the proprietorial way he holds the keys between his fingers and there’s no giveaway metal label attached to these ones, with the Prince Regent monogram stamped like an accusation of failure on the front.

  ‘Well, I’m just glad to be able to help you,’ says Mr Fell. How tired he looks, Ange never noticed before. But that’s his problem, at least he is safely employed.

  On their way out Billy whoops and slaps her on the head with a rolled up copy of the Sun.

  The sour and grim realities of life.

  Is this it then?

  Jacob is grizzling. His teeth must be hurting.

  They have climbed three flights of concrete steps to arrive at the top level of an oblong building, one of a series of six set out close and uniformly as pieces of toast in a toast-rack. To the right and the left are other toast-racks, each with a small yard between for parking. There’s a patch of grass beside the entrance with some empty flowerbeds the colour of wet cement mixed with burnt toast crumbs.

  ‘Sod this,’ says Billy, red faced, as if this is his fault, unable to wipe his shame away, or hide it. He is carrying Jacob because they left the cumbersome pushchair downstairs.

  ‘Come on then,’ says Ange, looking round, still upset by the lewd comments made by a group of yobs who were lurking on the second landing, nothing better to do, and directed, she knows, more at Billy than her, trying to get him riled. But Billy’s too sensible to be provoked by tossheads like them and Ange laughed in their stupid faces.

  There is room for them to walk side by side along the open-fronted balcony, which they feel they need to do for comfort, and Ange tries not to notice the boarded up windows and the cracked glass in so many front doors. Well, they hadn’t expected South Kensington after all, and beggars can’t be choosers. With the curtains drawn and the gas fire going they can forget where they are, they can pretend they are anywhere. And now they are council tenants they can swap…

  With this determined positive attitude Ange unlocks the door and it’s lovely! Pigeons on the balcony. The strong smell of fresh paint assaults the nostrils, the carpets feel warm and soft to the feet and the view from the window’s not bad, not if you raise your eyes and look over the rooftops into the distance. Fair-sized rooms, too, after their time at the Prince Regent they are going to value this space… and an airing cupboard… and a neat little galley kitchen, that’s what they call them when they’re long and thin, isn’t it?

  It might be a far cry from Eileen Coburn’s refined elegance, sofa
s and chairs buttoned and plump, pictures from floor to ceiling, fragile bric-a-brac, everything polished and dusted and neat, but it’s home and it’s hers. She looks back at Billy and gives him a small, tight smile. Will she be frightened, living here?

  ‘We can make it ace,’ she says. ‘You see. Put him down and kiss me. You should have carried me over the threshold really!’

  The last threshold they crossed was into the room at the Prince Regent. She’d arrived in some style by ambulance last August. She went there immediately after Jacob was born, overriding Billy and his wild assurances that their next squat would be brill, running water and electric still connected.

  ‘Just have a look at it, Ange, please, before you decide!’

  No she would not. Not this time.

  She suspected Jacob’s premature arrival and his halting progress were all to do with the life they led during her pregnancy but she never said so to Billy, never even suggested it could be his fault that Jacob was an ailing baby. He’d always tried so hard, see, to look after Ange, he was always scavenging around looking for a better place, somewhere they could settle a little bit longer, somewhere with some privacy, some washing facilities.

  But Billy was not a child and Ange was tired of boosting up his childish confidence. He kept on and on about getting a van and going to live in the country. They’d have given her a place earlier, knowing she was pregnant, but Billy couldn’t stand the thought of B&B hotels, he imagined they’d be like hostels, with rules, and populated by dirty old pissheads stinking of urine.

  ‘It’s quite plush,’ he’d said, surprised, when entering the little room.

  Anything would be plush compared to the sort of crap they’d been putting up with lately.

  In fact it was pathetic. Dingy and drab and demoralising and once the cot was inside there was hardly room to swing a cat. But at least the mattress was not on the floor and the blankets were clean and you had your own key. At least there was water on tap and a telly to watch.

  A step up the ladder.

  There’s a bolt and a safety chain on the door as well as a complicated system of locks, it’s reassuring to know that once they’re inside they’ll be safe. ‘Are you pleased, Billy? D’you like it?’

  ‘Your bedsit was better than this,’ he says dully.

  ‘But not inside, Billy. The area was better, and there were gardens, I know, but anyway, they were for single people only.’ They’d been chucked out once the landlord sussed that Billy was going there most nights and Sandra Biddle said if she gave the room up the social services wouldn’t be able to help her. Ange’d be on her own, she said, if she took up with Billy and left West Hampstead. Billy had been living rough since he left home, made out he chose to do so, enjoyed the anonymity, he said, and Sandra disapproved of their relationship. Ange tried sleeping rough, but although it was summer she’d hated it. There was nowhere to bath, nowhere to do your washing or clean your teeth except in a public lavatory and the looks people gave you when you started begging, and then the gangs came and moved them on.

  Billy’s dream was to buy a van and join the travellers.

  Could that still be his dream? The open road, like Mister Toad? Ange doesn’t ask him.

  Billy, hands in his jeans pockets, leaning against the bedroom wall, finally admits without enthusiasm, ‘It’s a step up from the sodding hotel I suppose.’

  ‘Of course it is! You can’t compare them! We’ll take it, we’ll have to take it. It doesn’t mean we’ll stay here forever, but it’ll do just fine for now. Come on,’ she encourages him, ‘you ring them and tell them we want it before they offer it to somebody else.’

  What a day. Full of important matters to organise and arrange.

  And it’s not until evening that they settle Jacob, turn on the telly and lie together on the hotel bed holding hands, satisfied and with a brand-new sense of achievement.

  The furniture and the other bits and pieces they chose from the warehouse will be delivered tomorrow afternoon. They arranged to be there to receive them!

  Oh God… it’s amazing! This is the chance they’ve been waiting for and to top it all, Billy’s applied for this job in a garage, valeting cars.

  The football is on so Ange picks up Billy’s discarded copy of the Sun. Sir Fabian Ormerod. Boring. Never heard of him. Could be a politician but no, he’s one of those money dealers and Ange has never understood exactly what it is that they do. But Christ, is that what he earns? She nudges Billy, ‘Hey, you could give away the whole of the lottery jackpot if you brought home half as much as this guy.’

  Billy’s not interested. West Ham must score in a minute and he’s full of demented advice for the players so Ange reads on as her plan comes back into mind. Wow, this bloke would have been just right, and he’s available. What can he spend all that on? What can he do with it all? Ange dreams on, intrigued because she knows the building where he works in the City, she once got a job with a cleaning firm and sometimes went there in the evening. Two hours a night she did, one of an army who spent their time cleaning places that were spotless already, running a Hoover over miles of carpet, cleaning the lavvies and spraying fresh air. She left when the manager got too familiar… a situation she knows only too well. Some men seem to think if you look good you’re a whore as well.

  But this one’s not just a city slicker, he’s gentry, from the sounds of it. Born with a silver spoon in his mouth, handed his fortune on a plate with a place in the country. How deferential Eileen Coburn would have been, how fawning, how sickly and how defensive if anyone attempted to criticise. ‘We need people at the top, people the lower classes can look up to and respect. It’s lack of respect that has brought this country to its knees today.’ And she’d look pointedly at Ange, as if she was part of the whole conspiracy, and say simply, ‘There are standards.’

  ‘But Eileen,’ argued Ange, ‘what have they done to earn that respect? How can you possibly respect someone for just being born in one particular bed?’

  Eileen Coburn, a stickler for tradition, would sniff and not answer. She’d had high hopes for Ange once. There was even loose talk of adoption. But Ange was no longer the pretty little schoolgirl she’d taken in three years ago, no longer a lump of docile flesh she could mould. Ange was a threat, with a figure, and views of her own, and they’d both seen the lascivious look that took time to dawn in Mr Coburn’s rheumy eye. They’d all agreed, on her sixteenth birthday, that Ange would be better going it alone if a suitable bedsit could be found.

  ‘Oh, Sir Fabian, do not touch me…’ Ange hums to herself.

  And he’s not only rich, but his looks are distinguished, he’s not obese and debauched-looking as so many businessmen are—has she seen him before somewhere? He seems familiar. One of the highest paid bosses in Britain, and with private means of his own. Jeez.

  It would be fascinating to find out. When she was small Ange soon realised she could use her looks to wheedle and flatter and please. Men and women, both were susceptible then, to a small girl’s charms. After a certain age the way she looked caused her nothing but trouble, she’d only once deliberately flirted with a man since then and that was Billy. She’d never fancied anyone else.

  She smoothes out the paper on the candlewick bedspread and stares at the crumpled face on the front while brooding over her fantasies. My God! Yeah. He was the guy she saw in the back of the Rolls this morning! So he’s not just a fantasy person, he’s real! With a fatherly face. A responsible, serious, caring face. Hah. This man would be a challenge. Many women, over the years, would have cast their nets in his direction and yet it says here that he’s only been married twice. One divorce. One tragic death. The inquest brought in an open verdict… spooky, they couldn’t make up their minds how his second wife died.

  West Ham scores and the room is instantly in uproar. Billy shouting, Jacob wailing and Ange just drifting off to sleep.

  She leaps up in alarm. ‘For Christ’s sake… now look what you’ve gone and bloody well done and they�
��ll be knocking on the door in a minute!’

  ‘Shit, Ange! I just didn’t think!’

  ‘Well that’s your trouble, Billy, isn’t it! You never think! It’s always me who has to think…’

  ‘Shut it, Ange, you sound just like my ma!’

  ‘Boring? Yeah, well there’s nothing wrong with being sodding boring. Heat the bottle while I cuddle Jacob, quick, quick, Billy, or he’ll scream all night.’

  How different, she thinks to herself, dismayed. How different it would be if she was this man’s wife. There’d be a nanny in the nursery, and Ange would probably be downstairs at this hour, not thinking of going to bed but greeting her guests. Nothing to worry about except if the avocados were ripe or if the salmon mousse in the fridge had set. And she’d be wearing a new dress, a designer dress from Liberty’s, and real pearls round her neck and Jacob wouldn’t be frail and underweight, he’d be a big, bouncing boy with a silver spoon in his mouth, like his dad and his dad before him.

  Freedom and power.

  But no, she mustn’t think this way, not now, not now they’ve a future before them, a third-floor future in Willington Gardens, she’d have given her eye teeth, yesterday, to be in the situation she’s in now. Why is she never satisfied? The rich man’s in his castle and the poor man’s still waiting gormlessly at his gate. Why does nothing ever turn out as she imagines it’s going to be?

  Oh come on, come on. After all, Willington Gardens or Knightsbridge, what’s in an address for God’s sake?

  4

  ‘YES, I THOUGHT EVERYONE knew Mummy was murdered.’

  Thus Pandora confirmed to her best friends, Courtney and Lavinia, at the lecture about speech-impaired children last night, not only the fact that her mother was murdered but that the reason no one was caught was because of her father’s influence. This behind-the-hand discussion was continued later in the dorm of Rubens House, in hushed tones for fear of interruption by the sharp-eared Miss Davidson-Wills.