The letter that had plopped through the letter box had the bank’s insignia on the envelope. Ella stared down at it – she could no longer avoid the truth.
As she bent to pick up the brown envelope, nausea came over her, confirming what she feared – her monthly was three weeks overdue. Leaving the letter on the cork mat, she dashed outside, only just making it before projectile vomiting left her gasping for breath.
When the spasm passed, she leaned against the wall. Oh no. Not now. How will we cope?
It was almost two months now since Christophe had died, and each day, with the new medicines, Paulo had become stronger in his body, and they had both become stronger in mind and emotions. They’d talked of getting jobs. Paulo felt sure he could manage a desk job and they had contacted Miss Embury, who had promised to help.
Ella had thought to try the local shops to see if they had a vacancy, and had even talked to Miss Embury about volunteering at the Salvation Army. Miss Embury had given them an update on Reginald. He continued to make progress, and he and his family were happy. They still had support, food and milk distributed to them by the Sallies. Ella had hoped to be involved with them once more, if she was accepted as a volunteer. Now most of what they had planned would be thwarted.
But it wasn’t only that. Fear rested in her. What if their second child had the same affliction as Christophe? She couldn’t bear to lose another child; she couldn’t.
Besides all this, they were already overdrawn at the bank, she knew that, without reading the sinister letter in the frightening brown envelope that she’d left on the mat; but she feared what repayment demands the bank manager had laid down in its contents.
After throwing buckets of water to clean down the slabs, Ella went inside to face the dreaded news.
It was worse than she thought. Their account was suspended! And she’d already issued cheques to the grocer for the last month’s deliveries and to the baker for a week’s bread delivery. Oh God! What am I going to do?
Three hours later, Ella left Banks and Partridge, Solicitors, having procured their services in mortgaging her apartment to the bank – a condition laid down as the only way the bank would allow any further credit.
What Paulo would say, she didn’t know, and how would she tell him? The bank manager had made it clear that one missed payment on the outstanding debt would mean that he would foreclose. The thought was unbearable. But at least for the moment they had funds and the cheques she had written would be cleared. It was a relief to know, too, that Dr Warner could be paid for the medicines and oxygen that were to be delivered later today.
As she neared home, Ella made up her mind not to tell Paulo just yet. Let him get established in a job first, and then there would be time enough to tell him everything. She would also keep quiet about her pregnancy, too. If she told him, he would stop her getting a job, and there could be months when she could work without any problems. After all, when she carried Christophe, no one really knew she was pregnant, right up to the seventh month.
With this settled in her mind, Ella strolled along, feeling increasingly nervous about their situation, mixed with relief that her immediate problems were taken care of. Her thoughts turned to Poland. If there was a way of making a claim on her mother’s money, she needed to go there in person. I must go to Poland, and soon. Maybe it is more important to do so than to look for work?
The news in the papers was a little better. The Polish army was winning its defence of Warsaw, and none of the fighting had reached Krakow, although some unrest had spread there. Surely I would be safe?
The excitement on Paulo’s face, when a week later he was ready to leave their home for a week’s trial in the Red Cross ‘distribution of aid’ office, was a picture to see.
‘Have you got everything, darling?’
‘Yes. I’m ready, mon amour. I just hope the taxi is on time. Oh, I wish I could get there by other means, as the cost of the journey each morning and evening is going to take a lot of my pay.’
‘It’ll work out, you’ll see. And, darling, I’m so proud of you. I know they will give you the job. Thank goodness for Miss Embury.’
Ella could detect nervousness in Paulo when he kissed her. She wanted to hold him to her and tell him not to go, but they were so desperately in need of income.
The office was on the ground floor, as it was attached to the stores, and Paulo would be booking out every item that left the premises, and reordering stock as it was needed. ‘Not a massively busy job,’ Miss Embury had said, ‘and one that will be so suitable for Paulo. I will personally see that he has a comfortable chair, and we have positioned his desk so that the toilets and little kitchenette are right next him, so with his sticks, he’ll manage well. And we are happy for him to have an oxygen cylinder there, for emergency use. He’ll be fine.’
Buying a second cylinder of oxygen, so that Paulo didn’t have to lug one backwards and forwards, was what had put them in financial jeopardy. When Ella had steeled herself and visited the bank, she’d found they were already twenty pounds in the red, before she’d paid Dr Warner’s last bill. All in all, she was in debt to sixty pounds – an enormous sum – and now, with what the bank had debited from her account, coupled with the interest they had charged, she had nearly double that tied up in a mortgage on the house.
Ella hoped, with all her heart, that Paulo would be fine. It was a miracle in itself that he was even well enough to think of holding down a job, let alone actually securing one and setting off on his first day. And they so needed his wage, which was to be in the region of one hundred and thirty pounds a year. Not a princely sum, but one that would enable Ella to meet the payments the bank was going to charge her and, together with Paulo’s pension, would be enough for them to live on, albeit frugally. If she was able to get a job, too, that would be a bonus.
The house seemed empty, once Ella shut the door on Paulo. Being alone wasn’t a comfortable feeling. Too much time to think – and worry. Thank goodness he was only going to be doing half-days at the beginning.
Going to the bureau that stood under the window, Ella set about the task of writing her long-overdue letters. The first was to Flors, which was so difficult. She wouldn’t tell her all that had happened – not her financial worries, of course, for these were not to be shared with anyone, but she penned everything else. It was cathartic to tell Flors about her time in France, meeting and marrying Paulo, and his health issues; and about her lovely friendship with Paddy. Tears fell from her eyes as she wrote about losing Paddy, then Nanny, and making friends with dear Rowena. Finally she could no longer avoid the most painful topic of all, and she wrote about her son and losing him, and how she was certain that she was pregnant again.
By the time she’d finished, Ella felt drained, her head too heavy to hold up. Resting her arms on the drop-down desktop of the bureau, she laid her head on them and let her body sob out her anguish and her pain. Oh, Flors, I’m in despair – complete and utter despair.
The front door closed with a bang and Rowena called out, ‘It’s only me, honey. I thought you might be in need of some company— Oh, my sweet child,’ which had Ella rising and running towards her.
It felt good to be encased in Rowena’s arms. To feel like a child again, and that someone was going to take care of her. Rowena smelt of the spices she used in her cooking, and which permeated her home. Her huge, soft, squidgy body oozed love and cushioned Ella’s pain.
‘I don’t have to ask, honey child, what this is all about. You get it all out of your system, Missy Ella.’
Between sobs, Ella told Rowena that it wasn’t all about one thing. ‘It’s about the ripples of my life – the ebb and flow of loving people and having them taken from me, or getting on with their lives without me, as my family have done. No one has ever stayed and been there for me, and I cannot even look forward to that happening with Paulo. Dr Warner has warned me that Paulo’s new-found health is solely due to his treatment, but eventually it won’t work any more. His lung condition is so bad that the strain on his heart, and the lack of oxygen to his organs, will mean . . . Oh, Rowena, I can’t bear it, I can’t.’
‘The Good Lord only sends us what we can bear, child, though he seems to think some of us can stand more than others. But it is as my ma used to say, that a lot of what happens to us does so because of our own actions.’
Ella could see that, although forces outside her control had contributed to the course of her life. If that nineteen-year-old young man hadn’t assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand on a sunny Sunday morning in Sarajevo, she would probably never have set foot in Belgium or France. The war had completely shaped her life.
‘Tell me about your life, Rowena. Do you have other family?’
‘Me da brought me and me ma to this country in a huge ship. “We’re going to make our fortune in the Motherland, girl,” he told me, but instead he died of the cold, and me ma of the coughing sickness, leaving me in an orphanage. More of my folk came over and got me out of that place. I have a big family here now, though only three cousins live nearby. And we all take care of each other. They still live around Stepney; it’s a way from Brixton, where Flora and Pru ended up, and me and my old man now live, but they come and visit and we have big parties, and the menfolk all have jobs. Them’s only cleaning jobs and kitchen work, but them’s jobs all the same. My old man works in the kitchens of the Savoy Hotel, and he brings home a wage that would keep us for a year back home in Jamaica.’
‘Oh, you’re Jamaican!’
‘Yes, I’m from lovely Jamaica, where everyone is happy, though a mite poor. Where singing and dancing go on, no matter what we are doing, and where the world is colourful – the clothes we wear, and our houses, all are splashes of lovely colour. The sun always shines – ha, except for the rainy season; and the sea is blue as it caresses the white-as-salt sand. Palm trees sway to the music, and children squeal with delight as the men play the tin drums with a rhythm that gets your heart beating.’
The wistfulness in Rowena’s voice made Ella feel sad. She knew what it was to be living in a country that wasn’t your own. ‘What do you miss most about Jamaica, Rowena?’
‘I miss everything, but when my family come a-calling, we sing till the sun rises, though me neighbours can be a bit huffy about it. I used to sing all the time when I lived in Stepney. Them folk around there are all in the same boat – poor and downtrodden – but we used to party. Sometimes I would sit on me step at night and just sing me heart out. No one tut-tutted, as me neighbours do now. It’s one thing I have learned in life: being poor can bring you happiness, if you are among your own. For they pull together and make a community – a place where they can all feel safe and help each other. Where I live now there is kindness, but it isn’t the same.’
‘Oh, Rowena, I’m sorry. I bet Flors thought she was doing the right thing for you, by moving you to her house.’
‘And she did. I’m warm and cosy, me roof doesn’t leak and, as we live rent-free, we have plenty of money to live on. But you folk as have been brought up proper don’t seem to know how to have fun. Spontaneous fun, where you throw all caution to the wind and spend next week’s rent on a crate of rum, and sing and dance as if you were a rich person.’
Ella laughed. But with irony, as Rowena hadn’t a clue just how poor she was, and how she too worried about how she was going to find enough money to live on. Even to the point of sending her sick husband out to work.
‘Now you’re doing it again, honey child. Yous looking all solemn. We should have a sing-song. I’d like to bet that there piano in the corner has never had its lid opened. Do you play?’
‘I do; not very well, and I haven’t done for ages, so I’m rusty.’
‘Well, come on, let’s sing some songs. Let’s get rehearsed, so that when Paulo comes home from his first day at work we can lighten his load by performing for him.’
Ella couldn’t believe what happened next. She found herself at the piano, playing what she called ‘honky-tonk music’, with Rowena banging out a tune on the dustbin lid with two metal serving spoons. The music filled her with joy, as did the song that Rowena sang, a kind of poem that was more chanted than sung:
‘Oh, we take our cares to the river dam
And there we washes our lovely yam
For we are to make a curry hot
So as to feed our hungry lot.’
Before she’d finished, Ella was in fits of laughter. ‘Oh, Rowena, you made that up as you went along.’
‘No, honey child, that be one of the songs we sang. But our mas did make them up. They sang about life. A life that was hard, and poor, and often meant their bellies were empty, but they didn’t mope, they sang.’
At this, she burst into song again:
‘Oh, we watch how the river flows
Rippling and shimmering as it goes
Bringing life to our community
And even watches us as we pee . . .’
‘Oh, Rowena, you didn’t sing that! Oh, my stomach hurts – stop it . . .’ Tears that were different from those she’d shed in anguish tumbled down Ella’s face. She doubled over with laughter.
Rowena’s own laughter filled the room, a huge sound that was accompanied by a little snort as she took a breath. This made Ella laugh all the more.
‘Oh, Rowena, I love you.’ And she knew she did. She loved this jolly, soulful woman with all her heart and knew that, in her, she had found a precious friend. ‘Why don’t we have a party? A party to celebrate all that is good in our life.’ Ella laughed again at this as she added, ‘I’m sure we can find something that’s good.’
‘We can. We have our health, our dear ones, a roof over our head and, to top that, Missy Ella, we have the wolves at the door!’
This set Ella off again. When she calmed down, she looked at Rowena. ‘What a wonderful way you have of seeing the world, Rowena: counting your blessings, not your woes. I’m going to try to be like you. I am. You have made me see that, no matter how bad things get, there is always something to be thankful for.’
‘There is, Missy Ella. Even the saddest things that happen to us happen because we have known love. Things that are bad are only so because something we had that was good has gone wrong, but we did have the good in the first place.’
‘Yes, I can see that. I had so much love and good things with Nanny, and my friend Paddy. And I had goodness beyond measure with my little Christophe. That’s a lovely way of looking at life, and I’m going to make sure that, from now on, I appreciate what I have while I have it.’
Her thoughts turned to Paulo. Yes, he was goodness itself in her life, and while she had him, she would make sure he was happy and she would start by arranging a party to celebrate all they had had, and still had.
‘We will have that party, Rowena. Tonight. I’ll get Paulo to rest when he comes home, so that he can cope with it. You go and invite all of your family – it will be wonderful.’
‘I don’t think your neighbours will think so, Missy Ella.’
‘I’ll invite them. It’s a lovely late-summer day, and we’ll have it in the garden – all welcome. Oh, let’s do it, Rowena. I so want to have the memory of a party with my Paulo . . .’
For a moment they were silent. And Ella felt a dread descend on her. Yes, she needed to build memories; memories she could keep and that would make her smile. Like the day at the seaside, and her wedding day. Lovely memories, and the building of them would fill her days more than she would allow her pain and fears to.