The Boy with the Latch Key

‘Feel like a shuffle round the floor?’ Billy asked as she finished her coffee.

Mary Ellen was on her feet straight away. They’d both learned to jive at the youth club, and Billy was really good. Because he was tall and strong, he could toss her over his shoulder and round his waist with ease, and the way he pulled her through his legs and then threw her in the air and caught her usually drew a crowd of watchers, who often applauded when they’d finished. Billy was unusual in that he’d learned the steps properly; his kicks and flicks were sharp and fast and he bounced high in time to the music. Mary Ellen was always out of breath by the time they finished, but Billy never seemed to turn a hair. It wasn’t surprising that he had a following of young women who eyed him longingly.

‘Listen,’ she said as they sat down again. ‘They’ve put a Guy Mitchell record on now –“My Heart Cries for You”. Oh, I love that, Billy. Come on, dance this one with me please.’

‘It’s not Rock ’n’ Roll,’ Billy objected, but Mary Ellen was on her feet, offering him her hand, and he couldn’t refuse. She moved into his arms and they did a slow rhythmic shuffle around the floor, her face pressed against his shoulder and his touching her hair. ‘You smell lovely. I really love you, Ellie – you know that, don’t you?’

Mary Ellen looked up at him and smiled, feeling the warmth of her happiness spread through her as she saw the expression on his face. ‘Yes, I know. I love you too, Billy.’

‘I want us to be married soon,’ Billy said. ‘If I could afford a place of our own, would you say yes?’

‘You know I want to,’ she said, the happy feeling fading. ‘Rose just won’t let us. You know what she is like.’

‘Yes, she hates me …’

‘She doesn’t hate you,’ Mary Ellen denied quickly. ‘She just thinks I’m too young, Billy, and perhaps I am – but in a year or so she’ll get fed up saying no. I’ll keep on at her until she just wants to get rid of me …’

Billy laughed, bent his head and kissed her. ‘This is almost like making love in public,’ he remarked softly as she responded by pressing herself against him. ‘We’d better be careful or Peter will throw us out …’

Mary Ellen laughed, because they weren’t the only ones smooching, and many of the couples would be going outside for a kiss and maybe more before the evening was over. A lot of the girls had difficulty in fighting off their boyfriends’ eager hands, but she’d never had that trouble. Billy sometimes told her he wanted her and kissed her passionately, but he didn’t try to persuade her into doing anything silly.

‘I don’t want us ending up in a slum tenement,’ he’d told her once when she’d been reluctant to break up their embrace. ‘I love you, and I want you – you don’t know how much, Mary Ellen – but I want us to be married properly, because we want to, not because we have to get married in a rush. If you have a baby at seventeen, you’ll never have any fun …’

‘Oh, I don’t know, it might not be such a bad idea. Rose couldn’t say no then, could she?’

‘She would never forgive us,’ he said shaking his head. ‘No, your sister has some daft ways, but she’s respectable and I want her to know I am too. I’m not going to get you into trouble, Ellie love.’

When he called her Ellie like that Mary Ellen’s stomach went all funny and she felt like melting. Several of the girls she’d known at school were already married and had a child, and sometimes she envied them – and yet somewhere buried deep inside her was the determination to make something of herself, to be more than just a girl who worked in the rag trade.

‘I’m going to night school,’ she announced when they sat down at their table again with the fresh coffees Billy had bought. ‘I’m going to try and sit my GCEs so that I can train as a teacher …’

Billy looked stunned for a moment, then, ‘Is that what you really want? To be a teacher? You know it will take ages doing it that way, don’t you?’

Mary Ellen nodded, the doubts already beginning to crowd in on her. She wasn’t sure why she’d suddenly made up her mind to do it, though she’d been thinking perhaps she might for ages.

‘I might not be good enough, but I think I should try – don’t you?’

For a moment he didn’t answer and her heart sank. Rose was going to be against her, and if Billy also said it was daft she didn’t think she would be strong enough to proceed on her own.

‘I think if it’s what you really want you should try,’ Billy said a little reluctantly. ‘It means I shan’t see so much of you …’

‘I’ll only go twice a week,’ Mary Ellen offered, but she knew it wasn’t just the evening classes. She would have to study hard if she wanted to pass the exams she needed to for teaching college. If Billy had objected she would probably have given in immediately, but he nodded and looked sad.

‘I wish I could get the sort of job that would support us both through you going to college and all of it,’ he said. ‘If I’d got that job with the railways …’

‘Sister Beatrice said you had to take an apprenticeship, and the railway wouldn’t offer you anything, because you were too young,’ Mary Ellen reminded him. ‘Rose was the same with me. They think they know best and they make us do what they want … and it isn’t fair …’

‘No, it isn’t,’ Billy agreed. ‘This is 1955 and we’re young. We’re the future, Mary Ellen. I may not get to be a train driver, but I don’t see why you shouldn’t train as a teacher if you want.’

‘Really?’ She looked at him earnestly. ‘You won’t get angry and throw me over if I can’t always do what you want?’

‘I’d never do that, Ellie. Surely you know there’s never been anyone else for me?’

‘Yes, of course I do,’ she said and clasped his hand, her fingers entwining with his. ‘I love you so much, Billy. I just feel we have to do something with our lives. Do you remember what Miss Angela used to tell us about looking up and reaching for what seemed beyond our reach? We were so eager when we had our teams and earned stars for a trip to the zoo or the flicks. I felt as if I’d lost something when I had to start working in the factory. Oh, I like Sam; he’s a dear and almost like a father to us girls, but I want something better for us – and our children.’

Billy’s eyes were fixed on her face. Their colour seemed intensely green rather than the greenish hazel they usually were; she’d noticed before that they changed colour when he was passionate about something. He had so much life, so much eagerness in him, that she knew he must be frustrated in his job too.

‘I want it too, Mary Ellen,’ he said and his voice sounded guttural as if emotion caught at his throat. ‘I get so mad at times because I can’t do the things I want – can’t give you the life you deserve …’

‘I don’t want things,’ she tried to explain, but knew he didn’t really understand. Mary Ellen didn’t want to better herself because of the money; it was for self- respect, for making life fuller and richer. ‘It’s just that … oh, I suppose it’s a better world for everyone …’

Billy nodded, but she knew he still didn’t see it the way she did. A better world to Billy meant a decent house, good wages and kids that didn’t have to go to school in bare feet and trousers with their backsides hanging out. For Mary Ellen it was more, but she couldn’t explain the mixed-up feelings inside her. She laughed suddenly. What was she thinking? She already had a better life than her mother’s, but there was something inside her that questioned. Surely after the terrible war they’d all endured there should be something more …

After seeing her safely home, Billy was thoughtful as he left Mary Ellen. He kicked at an abandoned pop bottle, feeling moody and unsettled. It was all his fault for letting himself be pushed into a dead-end job. Mary Ellen was right when she said she wanted a better life for them and their kids. He wanted it too, but he didn’t know how to achieve it.

‘Where yer goin’ then, Billy?’

The voice made him pause and then turn reluctantly, because he recognised Stevie Baker from school. He wasn’t one of St Saviour’s kids; his father worked on the Docks and his mother was a waitress in a greasy spoon café. Stevie had left school at fourteen and started work as a labourer for the council. Yet as he looked at his one-time school friend, he saw that Stevie was wearing clothes that proclaimed him as a Teddy boy and, by the look of his jacket, smart drainpipe trousers and thick-soled suede shoes, he’d paid a small fortune for what he was wearing. His jacket was blue, the trousers black and the shoes dark blue. The thin tie he wore with his frilled shirt was also black; like a girl’s hair ribbon but held by a silver clip. His hair had been brushed together at the back in a DA and he could’ve passed for one of Billy’s Rock ’n’ Roll heroes if he hadn’t known him.

‘Home,’ he said in answer to Stevie’s question. ‘I’ve been down the club and now I’m going home.’

‘You still livin’ at that dump?’ Stevie sneered. ‘I should’ve thought you couldn’t wait to get out of that place. It gives me the creeps just to look at it – more like a prison than a home. Mum says it used to be the old fever ’ospital, where they sent folks to die …’

‘It’s all right inside,’ Billy said, defending the home that had given him sanctuary. ‘I can’t afford a room on what I earn as an apprentice – not if I want to save for the future.’

‘More fool you then,’ Stevie crowed. ‘You want ter come down the Blue Angel if you want to see life – and they’re always after blokes to help chuck out the rough element. Ask for Tony and he’ll give yer a job, mate.’

Billy knew about the nightclub and its unsavoury reputation. He’d always steered clear of places like that, but now he was curious. ‘Is that where you earn your money then?’

‘Yeah, that and other places,’ Stevie said, avoiding his eyes. ‘Think about it, mate. I can help yer get some money if you’re willin’ ter work fer it and keep yer mouth shut.’

‘I’m not my brother, and I don’t steal,’ Billy said. ‘I wouldn’t mind an honest job, though.’

‘Plenty of stuff goin’ if you’re not too fussy – I don’t mean thievin’ either.’ Stevie grinned at him. ‘I’ll see yer around then, Billy. One of these days you’ll realise the bastards grind us all down unless we stand up for ourselves …’

Billy stared after him as he walked away. He might envy Stevie his smart clothes and wish he could afford something similar, but he wasn’t willing to do anything dishonest. Arthur had gone down that road, and Billy had vowed he never would. No, he just had to find himself a better job … and soon …

CHAPTER 4 (#u03c152e8-2afa-5cba-8aba-68f69720a496)

‘What’s up, young ’un?’ Billy asked the next morning when he saw Archie Miller disconsolately kicking a tin can in the street outside St Saviour’s and recognised him as one of the recent arrivals. ‘Shouldn’t yer be at school?’

‘We got a day orf,’ Archie said. ‘I was goin’ down the nick ter see me mother but Sergeant Sallis ain’t there and the other old misery guts wouldn’t let me in.’

‘Does Sergeant Sallis let you visit her?’

‘Yeah, he’s all right,’ Archie said and Billy nodded.

‘I get on good with him,’ he said and grinned. ‘Supposing we nip in the phone box on the corner and give him a ring – ask him to phone the station and tell them to let you in for a few minutes?’