But she was stuck, for Julius never sent her any money, and she couldn’t afford to move out into private accommodation, so she reckoned she’d just have to make the best of things. The elderly man next door, who said he’d retired from the merchant navy, but who had no stories to tell — real or invented — of adventures he had experienced, or far-flung places he had seen, was forever taking the heel of his shoe and banging on the wall and complaining that the kiddies were making too much bleeding noise. At first she took it personally, imagining it to be a vendetta that was aimed at her, until she met flashy Pamela at the rubbish chute and discovered that she lived on the other side of the retired seaman, and being a single mother with a nine-year-old daughter, she too was receiving the same treatment with, no doubt, the heel of the same shoe.
By the time she had manhandled the boys into the flat and closed in the door behind her, Ben was once again moaning about how hungry he was, and so she reached into her bag and pulled out the sandwich, which she thrust into his grateful hands. It wasn’t until she had got Tommy out of his coat that she realized the flat was cold and the pilot light to the boiler must have gone out again. For the past fortnight she had arrived at work each morning and immediately called the council office and asked them to send somebody to fix the boiler, but their excuses were becoming increasingly abrupt, and she had now accepted that she would just have to wait until they were ready. A box of matches lay on the kitchen countertop for exactly this situation, and as she removed the glass panel and struck the match, she wished, above everything else, for somebody to help her out, for she knew that things couldn’t go on like this for much longer.
On the third match she managed to light the damn thing, but by then something had broken inside of her, and she stopped and stared into midair.
“Mam, what’s the matter?”
She looked down at Ben and smiled.
“Is something the matter again, Mam? Are you alright?”
“Your mother’s just tired, that’s all. You just go and squeeze up next to your little brother and give him a warm, there’s a good lad. I’ll put the kettle on.”
She heard the impatient clatter of the letter box, and as she moved to answer the door, she pointed Ben in the direction of Tommy.
“Go on, give him a quick rub.”
“Alright, Monica,” said Pamela, in her overly familiar way as she pushed her daughter forward and into the flat. The walkway was covered, but it had started to pour now, and the wind was sweeping the rain in towards the flats so that it made a light tapping noise as it struck the walls and windows. Monica closed in the door and then turned to face her neighbour, whom she might normally avoid, but on this wretched late Saturday afternoon she was glad for the company.
“The kettle’s just on. Do you fancy a cup of tea?”
“Well, I’m not stopping, but if you’re having one. It’s been a bugger of a day.” Pamela cast a quick glance at Lucy, whose mouth was smeared with chocolate. “Now,” she said, “I don’t want to hear you using any rude words.”
“I don’t know any rude words.”
“No, you don’t, and let’s keep it like that. Go and play with Ben and Tommy.”
But Tommy immediately bent over and picked up the toy train that he had inherited from his brother and clutched it to his chest, clearly aware of what might happen next.
“Well, Ringo Starr’s been giving it with the drumming on the walls again, so I went round and gave him a gobful, but you’ll never guess what he tells me. The cheeky bleeder says he’s reporting me to the council because I have too many visitors late at night. Like who? I said, not that it’s any of his business, but he just kept insisting that we understood each other, gormless sod. I was steaming, but I couldn’t just sit in the flat, so I went to the bingo with Lucy, and we were dead jammy and we won. Two quid. Amazing, isn’t it? I keep telling you, you should come with me. Perhaps we’d get lucky and win some money, and then maybe we could go on holiday together.”
She handed Pamela a cup of tea with a saucer, and then sat opposite her at the kitchen table.
“So where have you been all afternoon?”
“I took the boys down to the park by Stanhope Lane.”
“But it’s always so crowded down there, and it sometimes smells funny, don’t you think? Bloody thousands of them. But you know I don’t mean anything by it, don’t you?”
Pamela’s idea of a conversation was to occasionally draw breath and ask if Monica agreed with her before continuing to talk.
“Look, I’ve got an idea. I’m famished, so why don’t we all have tea together? I’ll go down the chippy and get us some fish-and-chips with the winnings, and then we can sit here and cheer each other up.”
“Are you sure?” Monica tried to remember where she’d left her bag. “But we don’t need to spend your winnings. We can pay for our own.”
“I know you can, but you won’t. It’s on me.” Pamela finished her tea and stood up. “Just excuse me a minute, will you?”
When Pamela came back from the bathroom, it was apparent that her neighbour had touched up her eyes and tidied up her “Autumn Sunset” hair, and she knew immediately that Pamela must have used her makeup and comb without asking. She didn’t understand why Pamela had to dress the way she did in a narrow miniskirt, with nylons that tended to rasp when she moved, and a tight cream blouse that showed the bones of her bra. She was always dolled up like she was about to go out somewhere, and Monica knew that it was only a matter of time before she would discover Ben staring at Pamela, and maybe then she would be forced to say something to her friend.
Ben had his ear glued to his tiny transistor, but Tommy was sitting on the living room floor with a restless Lucy, who, much to Tommy’s evident disapproval, was jumping up and down and switching the television set from one channel to the other and then back again.
“Now then, Tommy, don’t you be a maungy tyke. Lucy’s just trying to settle on something you’ll both enjoy.” But Tommy said nothing to his auntie Pamela, who turned instead to Monica. “He’s a good lad, isn’t he?”
Monica wished she could say the same about Lucy, but Pamela’s daughter was a mean-faced little sprite with pursed lips who took no notice of anything her mother ever said. Then again, Pamela always made a big show of talking to her daughter in a loud, firm voice when out in public, but she suspected that behind doors Pamela dispensed with the talking and knocked the lass about with the flat of her hand. Which, of course, is why Lucy played up so much when she was out, for she knew she wasn’t going to get hit.
“The boys will share a portion, right?” As ever, Pamela’s question was delivered as a statement. Monica wanted to ask her to bring the boys a portion each, and if they couldn’t finish theirs, then she would eat any leftovers, but she smiled gratefully and nodded.
“A portion between them will be fine.”
She knew that Pamela would get Lucy a full portion and eat whatever her daughter couldn’t manage, but that’s just how Pamela was. Outside, they both heard a rumble of thunder, and then the rain began to sizzle against the balcony.