I loved Paulette’s rooms and would use any excuse to go up to see her. There were mirrors everywhere, even on the ceiling in her bedroom. There were frills and fringes and satin all over the place. The air smelt of smoke and Evening in Paris.
The really special thrill came when she let me dress up. Both of us would get wildly excited as we turned over drawers and rummaged in the wardrobe looking for the outfit. Once dressed in one of her satin dressing gowns or a frilly petticoat, with a pair of gold stilettos engulfing my tiny feet, I would search through boxes and drawers looking for the right jewels. Long dangly earrings would soon glitter at my earlobes, bright bangles would adorn my upper arms and ropes of twinkling beads or fake pearls would be wound around my neck.
Next, I would perch on the little gilt and velvet chair in her bedroom and she would make me up. On would go powder, rouge, eye shadow, lipstick and, as finishing touches, an eyebrow pencil ‘beauty spot’ and a liberal dousing of perfume. Then I would strut my stuff with a wobbling, mincing step and put on an impromptu show for her. She would clap and laugh and yell ‘Bravo!’ and ‘More, more!’
Sometimes, if things were slack, Madame Zelda and Sharky joined my audience. At Christmas and birthdays I was whisked up to Paulette’s rooms and dressed, ready to give a command performance for Auntie Maggie, Uncle Bert and everyone at the knees-up in the cafe. I have always been a terrible show-off.
It would take what felt like hours of Auntie Maggie’s scrubbing and tutting to get me clean after one of these sessions, but it was worth it. Still, on this particular Saturday the mood was sombre and tense and even I realized that dressing up was out of the question. Paulette solemnly decanted some of Dave’s precious whisky into a spare bottle.
Impulsively she bent down and hugged and kissed me. ‘Good luck, sweetheart. It’ll be OK, you’ll see.’
The next stop was Madame Zelda’s place to pick up the brandy. Her flat was identical in layout to Paulette’s but two floors down, Sharky’s office being wedged between the two apartments. Madame Zelda’s consulting room was almost as good as Paulette’s as far as I was concerned, but in an entirely different way. Madame Zelda went in for drama and plenty of velvet. The walls were stiff with moons, stars and astrological symbols painted in gold. But my two favourite things were the endless caches of sweets in coloured glass bowls that crowded every surface and the stuffed, moth-eaten monkey that climbed the standard lamp, whom I loved. The light was always dim in there and the sweet smell of incense warred with the heavily medicinal smell of Madame Zelda’s foot cream.
Madame Zelda carried one of the bottles down for me. The stairs were dark and steep and the front-door lock was high. She saw me to the door of the cafe, which was now closed, and waited with me until our knock was answered by Uncle Bert.
‘Do you want me to look after the little ’un, Bert?’ she asked. ‘I can always take her to the cartoons in Piccadilly Circus if you like.’
Uncle Bert stepped back to let us in and relieved us of our respective bottles. ‘Hang on a tick, I’ll ask.’
We waited in silence and listened to his footsteps on the stairs and the murmur of voices. Then we heard his footsteps again, coming closer this time.
‘Maggie says that would be very kind, Madame Zelda, very kind indeed. P’raps you could give us a couple of hours to get her ladyship cleaned up a bit and to settle her stomach. She’s heaving at the minute. Not nice for the kid to see that.’ He turned to me. ‘You go with Madame Zelda, Rosie, and see some cartoons. Her ladyship should be feeling a bit better in an hour or two.’
We stuck our heads in next door to yell up the stairs to Paulette to ask if she wanted to come. She did, so we waited for a bit until she was ready and then we walked round to Piccadilly Circus.
I was worried about what was happening at home. Maybe Auntie Maggie and Uncle Bert wouldn’t be able to get the Perfumed Lady to sign. Would she take me away with her? I didn’t want to go. I wanted to stay where it was safe and familiar. I wanted Auntie Maggie. I was so miserable the cartoons were a blur, and it didn’t even occur to me to wonder where Paulette disappeared to in the middle and why she was counting money when she came back.
By the time we got back to the cafe, Auntie Maggie, Uncle Bert, Luigi and a rumpled Sharky were gathered round the corner table. Nobody appeared to be speaking as Madame Zelda rapped on the cafe door to get their attention. They all glanced towards us and Auntie Maggie got up heavily and waddled across the room.
Once she got the door open, she took one look at my face and gathered me into her arms. Oh, the relief of it! All the tension seemed to leave me as I melted into that soft bosom and got a whiff of her familiar Auntie Maggie smell. I began to cry as she carried me to the table and set me down gently. I clambered on to her lap and the only sound was the odd sob that escaped around the thumb in my mouth. Paulette and Madame Zelda pulled up some chairs and joined the group.
The sound of the toilet being flushed drifted down to us, footsteps sounded on the stairs and the Perfumed Lady appeared in the doorway and walked across to the table. She sat down. She was dressed now, her hair was brushed and there had been some attempt at make-up, but her eyes were still black and puffy. Her lovely clothes had been pressed but nothing could disguise the fact that they were torn in places. As her long fingers wrapped themselves around a glass of brandy, I noticed that her red nail polish was badly chipped and her glass shook. She took a long gulp and looked at me above the rim of her glass. Her lovely eyes filled with tears. She set her glass down among the cups, plates, bottles and the brimming ashtray, reached across and gently stroked my hair.
‘So, sweetheart, I understand you have been upset, and that you are afraid that I will come and take you away with me? Would that be such a terrible thing?’ Her voice was husky and sad. She didn’t wait for an answer, but carried on talking as if there was no one else in the room, just her and me.
‘Yes, I suppose it would be. Cruel, really, after all these years. You’re happy here. I know you’re happy here and that is all that really matters.’ At this, the tears that had been welling up slowly spilled over her lower lids and ran down her face. She made no attempt to wipe them away, as they gathered under her small, pointed chin and dripped on to the table and got lost among the clutter. She let her hand fall from my hair and took another gulp of her brandy.
‘Sharky, have you got that agreement?’ She seemed to be having trouble breathing and her voice grew harsher. ‘Better get it over with, before I change my mind and convince myself the poor little sod can save me. I’m not the stuff of which decent mothers are made. God knows, I should know that. I can’t even look after myself.’
She reached over and took the paper and the pen that Sharky offered. Madame Zelda cleared her a space on the table, and she began to read the paper silently, tears dripping steadily on to it, smudging the ink. When she finished she looked first at Sharky, then at Auntie Maggie and Uncle Bert and then at me.
‘I will be able to see her though, won’t I, Maggie, Bert? You’ll let me see her from time to time, won’t you?’ She was pleading, and her voice, which had changed again, was almost too soft to hear.
‘Of course, love. Of course you will see her. Nothing’ll change. It’ll be just the same as it’s always been. This is only to make Rosie feel more settled, like. Not to hurt you. We don’t want to hurt you, do we, Mags?’
I felt Auntie Maggie nodding vigorously and looked up to see that she was crying too. ‘You have my word on it,’ she said, and then let out a loud tearing sob and squeezed me hard.
With shaking fingers the Perfumed Lady signed and, almost before her hand had finished moving, Sharky had whipped the sheet of paper away and flourished some more.
‘Sign these two as well. They’re copies. Maggie, Bert, you sign too, and then Paulette and Madame Zelda can be witnesses. Luigi, you’re too young, not being twenty-one yet.’
Everyone was busy writing and Luigi got up and ambled over to the counter and fetched some clean glasses. He sloshed some fizzy orange into one and brought them all over on a tray and poured the last of the brandy into the rest. Then he walked round the table and put his arm around my mother. She turned her face into his narrow chest and, like Auntie Maggie, began to sob loudly. He held her for a long time while we all watched silently, then when at last the crying slowed and finally stopped he patted her gently on the back and fished out a snowy white handkerchief from his pocket.
‘Here you are, love, have a good blow and a good wipe round. You know you’ve done the right thing for Shorty and for you. Drink up, you’ll feel better. Shorty, pass the drinks round. It’s like a bleeding morgue in here.’
Everyone seemed to let out great shuddering sighs, and Madame Zelda, Paulette, Auntie Maggie and Uncle Bert all wiped their eyes, joined in an orgy of nose blowing and settled down with their drinks.
Madame Zelda’s voice broke the silence. ‘You’ll never guess – Paulette only went for a quick knee-trembler with one of her reglars right in the middle of Mickey Mouse. Shoulda bin Donald Duck if you arst me.’
The room exploded into hysterical laughter and the tension vanished.
Paulette spluttered into her drink, her face red as she shrieked, ‘Ooh, you sod, Madame Zelda. Fancy letting out my trade secrets like that. Anyway, you shouldn’t talk so dirty in front of little Rosie here.’