The Golden Fury

Chapter 33

Chapter 33

“Luckily, I used paper,” she said, raising a triumphant eyebrow at her colleague.

Miss Walker pored over the names. “Oh yes,” she said. “This is my aunt and uncle. They lived at number 61 for years. My dad’s brother and his wife. We lived the other side of the South Circular—over in Charlton.

But I lived at number 63 Howard Street for a few months—in the eighties.”

“Wow,” Joe said. “So you must know all of these people on the list.”

Aldira sat back and watched. He was doing well.

Miss Walker read slowly, her hand straying to pat Shorty at her side.

“Well, I knew all of the families in the terrace from visiting my auntie. Used to go most Sundays for tea when I was young. And a couple of the tenants’ names ring bells, but they came and went so quickly you didn’t really get a chance to get to know them.”

“Are you still in touch with any of the people on the list, Miss Walker?” Aldira asked. “We’d love to talk to them about the area as it was then. They may know something.”

“Oh, well. My aunt and uncle died a long time ago. And they didn’t have any children. The Smiths had a son who was older than me, but they all moved north as far as I know. There are Speerings and Bakers who still live round here. I see June Speering in the Co-op most weeks.

And her daughter, Sarah.”

Joe was scribbling the names in his notebook.

“Who owned the houses in the seventies, Miss Walker?” Aldira asked.

“When they were flats and bedsits.”

“Please call me Barbara, dear,” Miss Walker said. “A horrible man bought them. He was full of himself. Boasted how he knew everyone who was anyone. Mr. Soames, he was called—like in the Forsyte Saga.”

“Not a fan then, Barbara?” Aldira asked.

Miss Walker blinked. “No,” she said, her voice tight. “He was vile.

Thought he was God’s gift. He came round regularly. Chatting up the girls in his bedsits. Pretending to be Mr. Charming. But he sent his blokes round to collect the rent every week. God forbid you got behind with payments. They used to break up your furniture. And worse.”

“Sounds appalling,” Aldira said. Bet he’ll have lists of tenants and their details, she thought.

“Where is he now?” she asked.

“God knows. Dead, I hope,” Miss Walker said.

“Goodness. What did he do to you?” Aldira said.

“Nothing, nothing,” Miss Walker said nervously. “Anyway, he sold the houses before the prices went up. I bet he’s furious he didn’t wait,”

she added.

Aldira looked at her watch. “We’d better get off, Barbara—got lots to do.”

“Thanks, Barbara,” Joe said. “You’ve been a great help. Must be funny living at the center of the story.”

“Yes. And we’ve had sightseers. A woman who came and stared through the fence was the first, but there’ve been others.”

“I bet,” Joe said, putting on his coat.

“Come anytime,” she said as they left. “I enjoy a bit of company.”

She hadn’t gone out for a couple of days. She felt adrift from reality, as if in a dream. She needed to find an anchor. Collect her thoughts.

Needed to think. To make sense of this news.

Jude put on CDs of her favorite albums—the vinyl originals long gone—and ignored the frantic thumps on the wall from the flat next door. The music helped her remember. It was the soundtrack of her youth. Of her twenties. Of her love affair with Charlie.

She’d met him when she was twenty-eight, living in London and working for a publishing house. She hadn’t kept any photographs—she’d got rid of them when Emma started asking about her father, thinking, stupidly, that removing the evidence would solve the situation—but she could still conjure up that face.

He was a musician, feckless but beautiful, and she’d fallen for him like a ton of bricks despite warnings from friends that she would get hurt.

She was a sucker for a pretty face, she told them. And anyway, she was lonely.

She’d thought London—and publishing—would be full of exciting, clever, creative men, and at first glance, they were, in their King’s Road uniforms. But it turned out being hip was a facade. Beneath the sharp jackets and drainpipe trousers, they were still children of the postwar era, tied to the apron strings of their mumsy-mums at home. Turned out they were looking for a woman to make the bed as well as jump into it, and she wasn’t interested.

She’d kept the s****l wolf from the door with one-night stands and willing men friends before she met Charlie. He was only five years younger than her, but he seemed to come from a completely different era

—and he definitely was not looking for a mother figure. He was living in a squat in Brighton and she’d met him at a pop concert in Hyde Park.

The Rolling Stones just after Brian Jones died. She’d been queuing for a drink and there he was, long hair, lopsided smile, beautiful hands, and, if she was honest, not that interested in her. Definitely a challenge and, so, irresistible. She had to have him.

She’d become obsessed with him. Spending money on him, paying his fares up to London, dressing him like a mannequin, taking him to the theater, lending him books by Mailer and Updike, and hanging on his every drawled word.

Of course, Charlie was, as predicted, unfaithful. All the time. It went with the territory of musicians, apparently. Didn’t mean anything, he said. So, girls and groupies. But Jude stuck to him like glue.

“He makes me laugh, he makes me feel good,” she’d told friends.

“He’s fun and I love him.”

And she did love him. He was the first man since Will at university who’d made her feel alive.

But she didn’t take him home to meet her parents. She didn’t need their disapproval to sour her happiness. She’d tell them when she was ready. When everything was settled.

Because she’d decided to marry Charlie whatever it took. Her biological clock was ticking and she needed to bind him to her—that was all. He needed to appreciate what he’d got in Jude.

She knew Charlie thought marriage was square—“It’s what old people do. We’re free spirits, Jude,” he’d said, but, after a year, she decided to force the issue. Get pregnant. Forget the shame. He’d marry her.

She’d dropped her contraceptive pills down the sink each morning, and when she missed a period, she told him he was going to be a father.

He looked as if he was about to cry.

“Pregnant? How can you be? You said you were on the pill,” he’d said.

She’d lied easily, telling him that she must have forgotten to take one or had an upset stomach. And she’d told him she was happy about the pregnancy. She’d hoped he would be, too. But it wasn’t that simple for Charlie.

He’d looked as if he was about to bolt for the door, saying he wasn’t sure if he was ready. He’d even suggested that she could get rid of the baby.

She’d burned with indignation at the thought and shrieked:

“Absolutely not. I’m keeping this baby.”

For the hundredth time, Jude wondered what her life would have been if she’d followed Charlie’s suggestion. If she’d got rid of her baby then. If she hadn’t talked him round, telling him he’d make the most brilliant father and kissing him into submission.

Too late for all that what-if, she told herself. She’d won the initial battle with Charlie and had to live with the consequences.

He’d taken a while to get used to the idea, but there were days when he stroked her stomach and joined in her chatter about names and the future. But he went away more and more. On tour, he said. She wasn’t sure if he was lying but decided she didn’t want to know. He always came back to her, and she was convinced he’d settle down when the baby was born.

Ifeel stronger this morning. Better than I’ve felt for weeks. I don’t know why, but I reach for the phone and ring Jude to tell her.

“Hello, Jude,” I say.

“Oh, I am honored,” she says. “You sound good.”

She doesn’t.

“Is everything okay with you?” I say. I don’t really want to hear about her problems. I don’t want to lose my high.

“Yes, yes,” she says. “So, why are you so chirpy?”

“I just feel happy today,” I say. I don’t mean to, but I find myself going straight to the news that has lifted my mood.

“You know that baby I told you about, buried in Howard Street? It’s been identified as a little girl who went missing forty years ago,” I say.

“Alice something . . .”

“Irving. Alice Irving,” Jude says. “Yes, I heard on the news. She went missing before we lived there.”

“Oh, do you remember the case? I couldn’t believe it when I heard it on the radio.” I’m sounding manic. I try a deep breath.