10. Smelly Wind at Night

A Chapter by Peter Rogerson

A WIDOW WOMAN Part 10

Jane liked Empire Road from the moment she moved into it. There were only ten houses, five pairs of semi-detached steel houses painted in clean cream and all with front gardens and a concrete path leading up to the front door, separated from the road by a small but adequate gate.

The house next door, the other half of her of her semi-detached home, was occupied by a family of four, the father still being very much alive and kicking as opposed to her George, who was about half a mile away in the cemetery. The two children were very much the same age as her own and, when she saw them, she could see no reason why her offspring shouldn’t become friends with them. Then she met the parents and she realised there would be a division of faith. They were staunch Roman Catholics and she knew in the pit of her belly that Jonah’s inevitable visits would mark her as an enemy, because, custard or gravy stains and all, he was very much C of E.

But the remainder of the street was just fine. There were childless families, the Jones sisters, for instance, in the house directly opposite her own. They were middle-aged, maybe just a few years older than herself, and their own home had been damaged irreparably by an indirect hit during the war and they had been housed in a very temporary Nissen hut left unoccupied by the army until Empire Road was built. Next to them was a single man, an elderly gentleman who looked as if he was retired from work but who went out every morning at eight-thirty precisely, carrying a rolled umbrella no matter what the weather might be. That was Mr Dimbleby.

Next door to Jane on the detached side, was Mrs Hewitt and her elderly mother who spent a great deal of every day in an ancient wheel chair watching the world go by and dribbling when she wasn’t holding an intense whispered conversation with herself.

The only other family of note was the Spencers, on the corner site diametrically opposite number nine, and their son Leslie, a sandy tousle headed boy was about the same age as Betty. He would spend ages in the rubble that would soon become the front garden of his home, especially on Sundays when his parents forbade him to go onto the street because it was the Sabbath and should be kept holy, though what was holy about being confined to a plot of rubble was beyond Jane’s understanding. But Leslie was to figure for a while in their lives, though she wasn’t to know that straight away.

The first crisis on Empire Road, was the evening when Mr Dimbleby fell over, flat onto his face. The pavement had been completed and there was no way he could have tripped over because the workmen who had completed it had been careful not to leave so much as a hair’s breadth where the flag stones joined. But he made quite a noise when he tumbled, accompanied by a loud ouch and a louder that bloody hurts…

It was Jane who rushed across the road first to see what was wrong, and before she reached the prostrate man she knew one of the ingredients in his fall from the aroma of alcohol that rose from him.

“Are you all right?” she asked, knowing that he wasn’t.

“I tripped. Bloody pavement. Bloody street lights.” he whimpered.

“It’s not even dark,” protested Jane, because, being early autumn, it wasn’t. Betty and Roger weren’t even in bed yet, Betty reading a favourite book from a favourite series of childhood adventures, curled up on the settee, and Roger was carefully drawing his teacher and her huge skirt in pencil and crayons, lying flat out on the peg rug in front of the fireplace where a small fire, enough to heat a tank of water, was burning.

“Bloody dark enough!” he shouted, “bloody dump this is, needs bombing.”

“Here, let me help you up,” she suggested as helpfully as she could.

“Bloody get up on my own. Bloody can,” he shouted, and proved by the kind of movement a blinded spider might make that he was incapable of doing anything if the sort.

She grabbed him by one upper arm and yanked, and after a considerable amount of uncontrolled floundering he managed to find his feet.

“Bloody woman!” he snarled into her face, “bloody interfering hag!”

“Here, I’ll help you into your house,” she assured him, ignoring his insults.

And he let her. Holding him firmly by one hand she led him to his front door and then waited whilst he searched every pocket twice before he found his key. Then he opened the door and left the key sticking out of of it as he pushed his way in and, were it not for Jane, might well have slithered onto his backside on the polished floor of hie hallway.

She edged him into his front room and slowly into a chair. It was still light enough for her to see what was what, but she switched his light on anyway.

“There you are,” she said.

“Bloody woman!” was his offensive response.

“That’s thanks enough,” she retorted tartly, and looked around.

His front room was clean and well ordered yet sparsely furnished, the floor covered in linoleum which had a cheerful pattern in in. The fireplace was laid and ready for a fire to be lit, and everything was so clean that half of her mind wondered whether he kept a woman as a servile slave. She knew he didn’t, of course, but he was a man and her experience of men precluded the kind of order and cleanliness she could see all around her.

“It’s nice in here,” she said.

“Bloody… bloody…” he groaned, and then he yawned and slumped to one side.

A loud snore announced that he had fallen to sleep.

She left him at that, and returned home.

“Where have you been?” asked Betty, who had finished the book she’d been reading.

“Mr Dimbleby. He fell over, and I went to help him up,” Jane told her daughter.

“Drunk, was he?” asked Roger, which surprised Jane because she was unaware that her children knew anything about the effects of alcohol.

“Something of the sort,” she said ambiguously, “now come on, you two, it’s time for bed or you’ll not be fit for school tomorrow.”

“Do you fancy him, mum?” asked Betty.

“Pardon? Fancy who?” she asked.

“Mr drunken Dimbleby, of course,” smiled Betty. “After all, you need a man to help you, and we need a dad!”

“No I don’t!” retorted Jane, “now off you pop, or I might get cross.”

“We need a bed for Roger,” Betty told her as they made their way to the stairs.

“Jonah’s got one and he’ll arrange for someone to bring it soon,” Jane told her, “anyway, I thought you liked sharing with your brother.”

“He trumps,” Betty said with a frown, “and sometimes his trumps smell really bad!”

“Then I’ll see Jonah tomorrow and tell him. He might know a cure for wind,” smiled Jane, “now off you go, the two of you, and I’ll tuck you in very soon. Goodnight!”

“Goodnight, mum…” chorused her children, and they clomped up the stairs.

“That’s what I need to see about, stair carpet,” yawned Jane, and she switched the radio on, hoping it wouldn’t be classical music but something a bit more lively.