The Flower Girl

by Maggie Ford

  She was soon back with half an old crate stinking of rotten cabbage. She’d stamped it into splinters to make carrying easier. With that and a few bits of paper she’d found she quickly got a fire going, igniting the paper with a candle that was all the woman had for light, the gas lamp on the wall unlit, probably with no coin for the meter.

  All the time Mrs Lovell was saying, ‘Yer a good gel, luv. Yer an angel, yer really are.’

  While she’d been out, the woman had sat the girl on the floor beside her and now held the baby whom she was suckling, her breast looking like some huge, pasty half-deflated football. Emma averted her eyes, not because she was a prude, but that the size and shape was almost offensive to look at, and as Mrs Lovell grinned her thanks, revealing a gap in her not too clean front teeth, Emma nodded.

  ‘I’ll be away then,’ she said.

  The little girl was beginning to retch again. Mrs Lovell hastily put her baby back into its wooden drawer, the little mouth jerked off her breast with a sucking sound. Bending over the girl, she pushed her head down over the basin. Emma again averted her eyes as yellow bile spewed into the bowl of water. Her own bile rising, she fled.

  Mum had heard her coming up the stairs. ‘Yer a bit late, Em. I was getting worried. Just as well Ben ain’t in yet.’

  Rebellion caught hold of Emma. ‘Why? Should it worry ’im? I was with Mrs Lovell – her girl’s sick. Anyway, he ain’t ’ome.’

  ‘If he was, he could turn awkward.’

  ‘So can I.’

  Struggling out of her short coat, grown tighter around a bust that in the last six months had developed quite nicely, she yanked the hatpin from her boater, took it off and viciously jabbed the pin back, dropping it on the sofa and sinking down beside it. ‘Why should you worry about him?’

  ‘I don’t like rows, luv. Everyone around ’ere listening to it.’

  ‘There’s enough noise and arguments go on round ’ere for no one ter notice ours,’ Emma retorted.

  ‘We never ’ad rows when yer dad was alive. Now Ben’s taken over …’

  Emma stiffened as if she’d sat on the hatpin. ‘Ben ain’t taken over, and he never will. He only thinks he ’as. He’s only me brother no matter what he says. I can give back as good as what he can dish out.’

  ‘Please don’t, luv.’ Mum wasn’t normally one to plead. She was as strong-willed as any and had always had her pride, but life had dealt her so many blows these last few years that it was whittling away her spirit. It worried Emma the way she was beginning to flag.

  ‘All right, I won’t say nothing. But if he raises his ’and to me, mine’ll be raised to ’im, no matter what. I’m sorry, Mum, but I ain’t going ter be browbeaten by the likes of ’im.’

  But by the time he got home they were in bed so he had no idea how long she’d been out, not that it was his business anyway. She was still awake at midnight when he finally fell in through the door, cursing and swearing at something that was in his way. She’d been thinking about Barrington and how she had been so fooled by him. She would go there to see him one last time, maybe in January, and give him a piece of her mind.

  She heard Ben stumble into another obstruction, swear vilely before throwing himself down on his creaky sofa. He was muttering away to himself and she caught the words, ‘I’ll get ’er, yer see if I don’t,’ as he made himself comfortable. After that all went quiet but for his stentorian snoring.

  It wasn’t such a bad Christmas after all. Mum, having religiously sacrificed a penny each week despite all other hardships, had been given a somewhat scrawny goose from the Goose Club Dad used to pay into when he was alive and doing well. A typical survivor, she made that carcass last for days.

  Nothing from Ben, who was mostly out with his mates, but Mum still had that money from his fight and she knew how to make it last as January bought its hardships. The rest of the meal came from the Watney Street and Crisp Street markets, vegetables too suspect to sell at proper prices. With coins in the gas meter and a bit of coal on the fire, all warm and cosy, Emma put aside thoughts of Barrington, though being duped like that still rankled.

  It was three weeks into January before she finally succumbed, even though she knew she ought not to. ‘I can’t ’ave ’im get away with it,’ she told Lizzie. ‘The cheek, him having me on like that. It’s no use, if I don’t ’ave it out with him, I’ll go potty.’

  They sat toasting their toes by Lizzie’s fire, her parents down the pub and the younger children amusing themselves on their bed in the corner. Lizzie was the eldest, the others ranging from seven to thirteen years, the gap explained by two others dying between times.

  Lizzie held her hands out to the warmth, not looking at Emma. ‘I think yer’d be an idiot ter go back there. Yer don’t know what designs he might ’ave on yer.’

  Emma had told her about the money he’d given her, and the visitor he’d had and the hostility there’d been between them.

  ‘What made yer go after a bloke like that?’ Lizzie said, making it sound as though Emma was down to scraping the bottom of the barrel where lads were concerned. But Emma knew Lizzie’s tendency to nurse envy. If only she’d smarten herself up, pull her hair back, put a smile on her lips, the boys would be interested in her. She could make herself quite pretty if she tried.

  ‘I’ve not gone after ’im!’ she retorted and saw Lizzie smile. ‘I just lent an ’elping ’and to ’im that one time,’ she said defensively.

  ‘And then went back the second time. If that ain’t going after a bloke, I don’t know what is.’

  ‘Well, perhaps I did get a bit too involved,’ Emma conceded, staring into the fire. ‘But nothing wrong went on.’

  ‘Except ter earwig into ’is private business with that friend what had come visiting ’im.’ She looked away from the fire to train a judgemental gaze on her friend. ‘Yer should of left when yer realised it was private.’

  ‘Yer can’t just walk out.’

  ‘And then find he’s got money after all. He was leading you on, Em.’

  It was Emma’s turn to look at her, sharply. ‘He wasn’t leading me on. It wasn’t none of my business anyway. He didn’t boast at all about what he’d got and what he hadn’t got, so he wasn’t leading me on. Anyway, it’s done with now.’

  ‘Except that you want ter go there and give ’im a piece of yer mind. Why should you worry? He’s forgotten all about yer.’

  Perhaps he had. The talk drifted to other things, and she came away determined to forget Mr Barrington and his strange existence. It was all too complicated to bother her head about.

  Lizzie felt pleased with herself after Emma left. Em always got the boys while she stood in the background, overlooked, ignored. It did her heart good to hear about this old man – he was an old man compared to the two of them – and money or not, Emma must be hard up for boys all of a sudden to go running after someone like that. And a street musician! Still, Em peddled her wares in much the same way, so she should feel at ease with the likes of that sort. Lizzie felt suddenly superior. Her own family was poor, everyone was poor around here, but at least what she did was honest work, working in a factory for proper wages, such as they were.

  What had Em been thinking, wanting to go round to see him again? Perhaps she had her eye on the hidden wealth he was supposed to have. Lizzie could just see her batting her eyelids and sticking out her threepenny bits to make herself look older. For as long as she’d known her, Em had daydreamed of one day being rich; talked about the well-off who passed by her tray of paper flowers as if she was on speaking terms with them. Stupid. No one around here ever got rich. That was how life was. When you were poor you stayed poor unless you were a thief, and they nearly always got caught.

  But a street musician! Tempting her with money. Blimey! The next thing, she’d be in the club! Even so, she didn’t want Em to come a cropper. She’d have to warn her again, and keep warning her, about the dangers.

  From The Flying Swan with its gaslight piercing the wintry d
arkness, came laughter and the raucous, musical plea for ‘Bill Bailey to please come home’.

  In the gutter outside came the jangling, ringing, disjointed strains of ‘In The Good Old Summertime’. But it wasn’t the hurdy-gurdy playing, but a barrel organ.

  Emma hurried on, her heart beginning to thud in the knowledge that she was going to visit Mr Barrington in his room. She knew it was wrong and Lizzie Wallis’s warning buzzed in her head. But he might be ill again. What if he lay inside that miserable room, stone-dead and not a soul there to find him? She glanced at the barrel organ. The hurdy-gurdy man could be somewhere else. Buskers moved around. But if he was ill …

  No light was coming from his window. Lights from others, blurry with dust, made his look as though it indeed harboured death. Emma stretched up and put her face to the tiny pane of dirty glass. Pitch-black inside. Then for a moment the snowy clouds parted and a full moon threw brief light into the room. No hurdy-gurdy lay on the table. He was out. He was all right. She could go home with an easy heart.

  She was glad he wasn’t there. Mum was under the weather with an awful cold. She should have gone straight home after selling what paper flowers Mum had managed to make, struggling through her tightened chest to do so. Sneezing and sniffling and continually wiping her nose with a hanky sewn from old sheeting, she’d stoically waved away Emma’s concern that she was straining her streaming eyes making the delicate petals.

  ‘It’s only a blessed cold. Don’t wonder, the winter we’re ’aving. But yer got ter keep going. The last thing I want,’ she said through a blocked nose, ‘is ter end up ’aving ter stuff mattresses or glue matchboxes tergether fer starvation wages. I’ve still got me silk work, and when it comes in, the wages is still better than stuffing blessed rotten mattresses.’

  Emma was doing the shopping, after a style. Juggling with pennies but without Mum’s instincts to find food others had overlooked. Wood could be got from the council rubbish heap, scores of other women doing the same, picking it over like crows.

  Burying her pride, Emma dedicated herself to collecting up bits of coal fallen off coal carts; the place had to be kept warm, especially with Mum’s cold. The money Ben had given her before Christmas was down to the last few pennies. Since then he’d brought in virtually nothing, and there was still the rent to be met or it would be out on their ear from this place too. Their only salvation was what she earned selling, but with Christmas behind them, few people were interested in buying. After stamping her feet for hours in bitter cold, she’d return home with just a handful of coppers.

  She did the cooking, Mum protesting that if only she felt well enough she’d rather do it. Not that there was a lot to cook, really, with only her money coming in. Ben too had a cold, and that for him meant being ill enough to huddle in front of the fire and not work. He’d not been near the docks for over a week, any job he might have got was leaped on by someone else perhaps equally under the weather but still forced to stand with hundreds of others for whatever job was handed out, meaning a difference between starving and surviving.

  He lay on the sofa, sneezing and spitting into a handkerchief. She hated washing those hankies. When they had money, Mum would take their stuff to the public wash-house attached to the bath-house in Bonemakers Row on the far side of the railway arch. It was noisy, steam-laden and full of chatter across the low-sided cubicles, but for Mum it was a chance to meet other people.

  She always came back rosy-cheeked, and not only from the heat and steam – but not lately. Washing done at home saved three-ha’pence. The hot water heated on the fire, Emma would grit her teeth as she bent over the fluted wooden scrubbing board and wielded the scrubbing brush on the slimy squares of material Ben had used. They made her heave, even after their soaking in salt water for ages to help get the worst off.

  As for washing herself, the public bath-house had to be given a miss. For tuppence, bring your own soap and towel, she’d sink into a bath full of hot water and for an hour feel like a duchess. Lying there, she’d dream of what it must really be like to be one, or at least have money to have your very own bathroom, all warm and steamy.

  Such musing brought thoughts of Theodore Barrington, Theo as the young man had called him. How could anyone turn their back on money and profession to walk the dirty streets of the East End? The man had to be mad. She was well rid of him.

  It was two weeks before her mother was well enough to do for herself, while Ben with youth on his side was up in a week, finally forced to look for work, missing his pint and game of cards. Mum, for once, was angry enough to refuse him even a few pennies.

  ‘He can borer off ’is mates if he needs a drink that bad,’ she said to Emma. ‘I ain’t goin’ ter finance ’im any more.’

  To his face she said, ‘Find yerself work if yer broke.’

  His answer to that was for her to shut her mouth. ‘I ain’t no bloody kid, so don’t try ter tell me what ter do.’

  He knew well enough that sooner or later he’d have her dipping into her purse for the odd sixpence or so out of what Emma brought in. Put it on a game of cards, with a bit of luck scooping a decent pot, and when he was properly fit again, a few successful rounds with some so-called prize-fighter, and he’d be back in funds.

  ‘I can make enough dosh without working. I’m bloody nineteen an’ I know what I’m about,’ he told her, as if nineteen years of age made him the pinnacle of manhood.

  Which reminded Emma that she’d be sixteen, next month. Properly grown up. She could hardly wait.

  Chapter Seven

  It was her birthday, the twenty-seventh of February. Sixteen at last – a world removed from being fifteen. In a single day, it seemed she had leaped from feeling herself a child to being suddenly all grown up.

  Not that today was any more special than any other. She still went out selling, returning home by omnibus, but the sun had shone all day as though especially for her. There would be no other celebration, no cake, no special tea. Money didn’t stretch to such luxuries. One thing, however, had been out of the ordinary – this morning, quite out of character, Mum had given her a peck on the cheek and said, ‘’Appy birthday, luv,’ as she went on twisting the last few stems to lay in her daughter’s tray.

  Ben had forgotten altogether. She expected that. But two weeks back Mum had handed her a silver sixpence to spend on herself.

  ‘Better take it now,’ she’d said. ‘I might not ’ave it by the time yer birthday comes round.’

  She had intended to hang on to it in case there’d be need to hand it back if things got tight. Instead she and Lizzie had gone to see a pantomime at the Queen’s Music Hall in Poplar, threepence in the cheapest seats with a good view despite that, and lots of fun. So she could count the sixpence as being a well-spent birthday present.

  Now she was sixteen, she dearly wanted it to be seen as special, and as she turned into Church Row, it came to her that she could go and show off to the hurdy-gurdy man. He looked on her as a child, it was time he saw her as an adult. Though he might not even be there any more after all this time. Even so, she made a quick detour to the Swan.

  He hadn’t gone away. His music floated to her even before she saw him. Jolly music, like a birthday greeting, and it lightened her footsteps. The glow from the pub showed a cheerful ring of onlookers. They were clapping in time to the rhythm. There came a thought that with so many onlookers he must be raking it in. Then she remembered the money he already had, the house he owned, keeping it secret, and the joy she had felt for him immediately turned sour. Shouldering her way through the throng, she planted herself at the front.

  ‘Oy!’ A woman with a feather boa gave her a shove. ‘What d’yer fink you’re at?’

  Emma turned on her. ‘I’ve got as much right as you!’ she retorted.

  The lively music had faltered as the player saw her before resuming his playing. One or two people who’d begun to do a knees-up paused then resumed prancing, and the onlookers gave an appreciative applause while a couple
of boys let out a few cat-calls at the sight of women’s legs as, their skirts held clear, they stamped up and down. One of the boys was immediately cuffed by a bystander. The boy ducked and made a rude gesture before moving off with his three mates, arms linked across each other’s shoulders.

  ‘Oy, you!’ A voice suddenly bellowed from the Swan’s public bar door.

  Barrington didn’t stop playing but looked up as the publican waved an arm towards him. ‘Yus, you, mate, on yer way! Yer keepin’ me customers out o’ me pub.’

  Barrington ceased playing, his humour light. ‘I shall be spending a little in your pub later, so what harm?’ he returned calmly.

  ‘Yer won’t be spendin’ as much as me regulars do, Mr La-di-da wiv yer fancy-talk. A bloomin’ busker, like the rest of ’em, yer takes yer money and ’ops orf ter somewheres else. Go on, be orf, an’ let me do a bit o’ trade too, if yer don’ mind.’

  The landlord’s words reminding them that throats needed quenching, the small audience began to disperse. Barrington didn’t appear too put out. Picking up his coin tin, he began gathering up any coins that had missed their mark as Emma approached.

  ‘Not too bad at all,’ he remarked as she reached him. ‘I would like to buy you a glass of lemonade, if I may, my dear?’

  Though the offer was tempting and in its way would have been a sort of birthday treat, at sixteen something stronger like a port and lemon would be more suitable, and she was still a bit irked and she had to get home.

  ‘I can’t,’ she said tersely. ‘I’ve bin out selling all day and me mum will be waiting for me.’

  ‘I suppose you are right,’ he said. ‘I will leave as well. I shall not grace his worship’s pub after that little show of temperament. I shall take his advice and have my tipple elsewhere.’ He was smiling as he unscrewed the stand from the hurdy-gurdy. He straightened up to look at her. ‘So, what brings you here this evening?’