The Credit Draper Episode 36

Celia tucked a stray curl back under her headscarf. “I’ll lie about my age. Men lie to be in the war. Or I’ll work in a factory. “Girls of sixteen are working in factories. Making shells. Some are even fourteen.” The doorbell rang.

“Avram,” she said firmly, with a nod to the hallway.

At first, Avram didn’t recognise the young woman standing in the doorway. She was hatless, her blonde hair wet and dripping.

One hand was flat against the door jamb while with the other she clutched her chest beneath her coat, trying to calm her breathing.

“It’s Mr Kahn,” she managed between gulps for air.

Avram recognised her now. Sadie, from Papa Kahn’s shop. He heard a gasp from behind him, then Celia’s voice, suddenly shrill.

“What’s happened to him?”

“He collapsed, Miss. Mrs Wallace wants to call a doctor. Please come, Miss. She don’t want to do it without yer permission. The cost and that. Please come.”

“Avram. Get Mary to come down and look after Nathan.”

Darkness

Celia snatched her coat off the hallstand. “Then come down to the shop.”

“Take an umbrella, Miss. It’s coming down something rotten.” But Celia had already disappeared out of the close.

Avram raced upstairs to Uncle Mendel’s flat. He didn’t ring or knock but went straight in.

The darkness of the hallway brought him to a stop as he tried to figure out which would be Mary’s room.

Even though Uncle Mendel had been away for months, the smell of pipe tobacco still lingered. He saw light where a door was slightly ajar.

He meant to knock but the door swung open when he touched it. What he saw at first confused him. The sheets were in a sprawl upon the floor.

On the bed, there was the bare back of a dark-haired man and the tangle of naked limbs. Mary was underneath, her red hair fanned out on the pillow, her eyes squeezed shut but her mouth slightly open, breathing out a moan.

As soon as the door was full wide, Mary’s eyes opened and she saw him. She pushed off the body from on top of her, made to yell at him but something changed her mind.

He could see it in her expression as her lips moved into a strange smile. He had seen that smile before.

He had seen it before in her wine-sodden kiss, he had seen it tell him there would be no more football.

“So look who it is.” Mary made no attempt to cover up her nakedness. “Get him out of here,” the man shouted. “No, I want him to see this.” She rose from the bed. Her whole body was covered in freckles except for the thatch of hair between her legs.

She stepped towards him but he couldn’t move. She came close enough for him to smell an odour he had never smelt before. Close enough to feel the warmth radiating off her so white skin.

“It’s Papa Kahn,” he shouted. “He’s collapsed in the shop. You’ve got to come.” “Yer lying.”

“It’s true. Celia’s gone to him already. We need you to look after Nathan.”

“Jesus Christ!” she hissed. She turned to the man who was busy putting on his underwear by the side of the bed.

The mound of a crumpled uniform lay at his feet. “For Christ sake, Brian. Get me a robe.”

Avram turned and ran out of the flat. As he sped down the steps and out into the rain all he could think about were Mary’s breasts. Round nipples the colour of her hair.

Hollow chest

Avram arrived at the shop to find Papa Kahn slouched sickly on a rickety wooden chair, his blood-shot eyes open, staring vacantly at the floor.

The man’s collar hung loose, his shirt unbuttoned to reveal a hollow chest gulping air in a series of wheezes.

Cuttings of different coloured cloth clung to his shirt like medal ribbons. Celia and Mrs Wallace clustered on either side of him.

“Please, Avram,” Celia called. “Come over here.”

Her voice was steady but he could see the anxiety pinched tight in her eyes. He went round beside her. She put an arm around him, drew him in, dropped her head on to his shoulder.

She had taken off her headscarf, her hair was lank and wet against his cheek. Her shoes looked sodden through.

Underneath her coat, she was still wrapped up in her pinny. She was shivering. He knew he should be feeling anxious about her father.

Instead, he felt glad to have her close like this, to be able to protect her.

“What happened?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she sighed.

“But the worst seems to have passed. He was still on the floor when I came. Sadie’s gone for the doctor.”

As she spoke a hansom drew up sharp outside the shop window.

Dr Drummond was a plump, red-faced man with full mutton-chop whiskers who entered blustering and breathless under Sadie’s hastily erected umbrella.

Cool and dry

Avram could see it in her expression as her lips moved into a strange smile. He had seen that smile before

He opened his bag, brought out a stethoscope, shooed everyone away from around his patient.

Avram felt Celia take his hand. It was cool and dry and he worried how his own palm must feel, still hot and sweaty after the running.

He tried not to think about it as he watched Dr Drummond make several placements of his hearing device on Papa Kahn’s chest.

The doctor tapped his patient’s back a few times, requested a couple of deep wheezy breaths.

“There is pain?”

Papa Kahn shook his head.

“Tell me what happened.”

Avram could not hear the response. He could only see the terrible dullness in Papa Kahn’s jaundiced eyes as the man strained to speak.

More tomorrow.

The Credit Draper is the first in a trilogy by J. David Simons. He has written five novels and is published by Saraband. His work can be purchased at saraband.net.