Peg heard the door open. It was the old woman. Imposing and practical. Reassuring and kind. Brought her food, sat with her, even washed her. Just arms and face and feet but it felt so pure and generous and Peg’s tears ran, and the old woman said good words that rang as true as those ancient bells.
On the fifth day, Peg went out. Before the market early. She ran down the stairs and moved about the city as a ghost. She took as her fixed point the river, as she always had, and she walked east.
The walk revealed the pain of solitude that had not only lain central in her lifetime but in her mother’s and her mother’s mother, too. No education, no money, only men. A cycle of repetition so ridiculous that it needed only organ music and a scattering of plastic horses to be that predictable fairground ride.
Her beauty had been her currency. Always had been. No one talked about when the bank ran dry as it inevitably would. All those books she never read. All those museums she’d rubbished as brain-box boring. Cressy said it took effort to turn a page. Takes patience and care, Peg. Takes a leap of grace to say I don’t know.
Sex, though, was what she was good at. She could turn a twenty-year-old boy into a man, and a middle-aged man into a twice a night. Mother was a drinker who couldn’t stop. Mother had boyfriends who couldn’t stop. Thought her dad was Bill but found out too late it was George. That was a hard one to live down. The street found her out by the canal, stony-eyed with a mouth full of bluster and a fag between her lips that she’d cadged from a decent barge man. Take me away, she’d asked him. When you’re old enough, he’d said. See? Decent. Men who wait.
And Eddie? As the clouds gathered overhead and the morning turned dark, she realised London in wartime had been the star of that fateful show. Love and sex came fast and danced with the nearness of death and my God did it make life golden. Made it giddy and immediate. They clung to one another because the essence of life itself had been revealed to them, and it was as simple as a Californian orange grove with the sound of bees, and blossom, and heat as heady as existence itself. Eddie always looked at her as if the future was ripe. Ted looked at her as if the fruit had fallen.
Peg sat and took off her shoes. Her feet were tinged mauve. She rubbed them and they didn’t look like hers any more. And in the mud on the foreshore as the rain began to fall, she grieved it all. Mother, Ted, Eddie, Alys. The uncompromising inevitability of it all. That one-way ticket to this. How she cried.
It was Evelyn who found her. With hair plastered across her forehead and mouth open in silent pain. Evelyn said, We will find your soul, Peg, and bring it back to you. And she wrapped Peg up in a mac that smelt of rubber, that had clementines in the pockets.
Col’s last night was spent in Michele’s, and no one expected Peg to turn up. But in she walked, holding tight to Evelyn’s arm. Lippy in place and a touch of the swagger and there was a roar of greeting. Took Peg back a bit and she did look surprised, but it was like an infusion of blood straight to the heart. All that love, Cress would have said. Can’t fake that, Peg. Alys organised the budge-up and Peg settled between Cress and Ulysses and both men took a hand each and kissed it. Nothing more said after that. Peg was treated like the Peg of old and the night stayed forward-looking.
Col lobbed Peg a fag and Ulysses poured out the wine and Pete got up to the piano because he felt an impromptu rendition of ‘Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered’ coming on. Silenced the restaurant, that did, and by the last verse everyone was humming. One of those nights, Evelyn wrote to Dotty. The haunting aspect of devotion. Hard to describe.
Time to order and Giulia stood in front of Ulysses, pencil poised and smiling.
Polpettone all round? said Ulysses.
Yes! they all said.
What’s polpettone? said Col.
Meatloaf, said Cress.
No meat for me, said Col and they all laughed.
No, I’m being serious, he said. No meat.
You ill? said Pete.
Why do I have to be ill to stop eating meat?
’Cause you only eat meat, said Ulysses.
Sometimes straight from the wrapper, said Cress.
Once. That was only once. Anyway, I’ve seen the light, said Col.
What’s her name?
Don’t you start, Temps.
I knew a man who stopped eating meat, said Cress.
Oh, here we go, said Col.
Benny Fedora, said Cress.
Weren’t he that whistler down the market?
The very same, but hold that thought, Pete. Benny Fedora was a big carnivore. Benny Fedora— We know his bleedin’ name, Cress! said Col. Benny Fedora Benny Fedora …