by Carol Rivers
‘You just told it yerself, you silly moo,’ Kate sighed. ‘You know the story word for word by now.’
‘Not the way you tell it, I don’t.’ Lizzie really did love hearing all the old family stories. There was only Kate to learn from.
Kate looked down at her mug of tea. After a while she sat back, smiling to herself. ‘I met your father whilst I was in service – as you well know. He was at sea and, like hundreds of young women of my time, I was in the employ of a very wealthy family. Occasionally, I got a weekend off from Lord and Lady Arnott’s. Then I would come back to the island from Surrey to visit yer gran.
‘And that’s when you met Pa?’ Lizzie prompted, eager for the flow to continue
Kate looked at Lizzie with a frown. ‘I dunno why I’m repeating meself like this. I must have told you a hundred times before.’ Lizzie was relieved to hear her mother continue despite raising her eyebrows and sighing again. ‘Anyway, Granny Watts knew Granny Allen, who lived at the back of this house on March Street, so it was only natural I should bump into yer father when he was home on leave. Well, I left the Arnotts at the same time as yer father come off the merchant boats and transferred to the Port of London Authority. That was when he asked me ter marry ’im.’
‘And you said yes.’
‘And I said yes.’
‘And what happened then?’
‘Blimey, gel, I’ll get an ’oarse throat at this rate!’
‘I’ll pour you another cuppa—’
Kate reached out and took her arm. ‘Sit down, gel. I ain’t finished this one yet.’ Kate took a long slow gulp of tea and licked her lips. ‘We lived with Granny Watts, who was a widow – me dad died whilst I was in service. I had a bit of training that ’elped me to keep a clean house and yer father worked hard, never losing sight of ’is promise not to drink.’
‘He must have loved you, Ma.’
Kate nodded slowly. ‘Yes, my love, he did. And I loved him too.’ The smile slowly faded and was replaced by an expression of sadness. ‘Anyway, the war came along and knocked all the romance out of our ’eads.’
Kate closed her eyes and rested her head against the high wooden back of the rocking chair.
‘Why don’t you go to bed, Ma?’ Lizzie whispered. ‘I’ll wait up for the boys.’
Kate opened her weary eyes. ‘I dunno. The buggers might roll in pissed. I don’t want yer father disturbed again.’ She rubbed her chest slowly. ‘But me indigestion is playing up a bit. I could do with an early night.’
‘I’ll wait up for them,’ Lizzie assured her mother.
‘You’re a good girl, Lizzie Allen. A real treasure.’ Kate kissed her on the forehead. ‘Tell those two when they come in, if they make so much as a squeak I’ll have their guts for garters in the morning.’
Lizzie watched her mother go slowly along the passage. The door of the front room opened and closed gently.
It was half an hour later when Babs came in. Lizzie put a finger to her mouth. ‘Shh! Ma’s gone to bed.’
‘Shush yerself,’ said Babs with a scowl. ‘I got eyes in me head, ain’t I?’
‘You’d better get upstairs to bed.’
‘You ain’t me mother.’ Babs swept out of the kitchen, tossing back her auburn curls. Lizzie sighed. Babs was getting worse. One day, it wouldn’t stop at words.
Lizzie sat up in the rocking chair. She must have fallen asleep. The wooden clock on the kitchen shelf said it was almost eleven. She heard a noise at the front door and got up to see who it was. A hand came through the letterbox and pulled up the string. Two figures entered. She thought she was dreaming when she saw who was with Bert.
‘Danny! What are you doing here?’
They all went into the kitchen. Danny shut the passage door behind him.
His voice was hushed. ‘I’ll tell you in a minute.’
Bert asked anxiously, ‘Vinnie back yet?’
‘No, he ain’t. I thought he was with you. You said you were going up the pub.’
‘Is everyone in bed?’ Danny asked.
She nodded, looking from one to the other. ‘Bert, you’re filthy! What’s that over your jacket?’
Danny nudged him. ‘You’d better go and wash yer hands and face, Bert. I’ll have a word with yer sister.’ His big shoulders drooping, Bert walked out into the yard. ‘Don’t be too hard on him,’ Danny said quietly. ‘He ain’t quite himself.’
‘I can see that, Danny. What’s going on?’
‘You’d better sit down. I’ll tell you all I know. But it ain’t very much, I’m afraid.’
They pulled out the chairs and sat next to each other. ‘There was a fire at a timber yard up at Limehouse tonight,’ Danny told her. ‘As far as I can make out, Bert and Vinnie was in it.’
‘Oh, no!’ Lizzie jumped up again, her hand clamped to her mouth.
Danny pulled her down gently. ‘Hold your horses, gel. Bert thinks Vinnie must have got out.’
‘He thinks?’ Lizzie closed her eyes. When she opened them, Danny was squeezing her arm. ‘You all right, gel?’
She nodded. ‘I don’t understand. What were they doing at a timber yard?’
‘Beats me. I found Bert up Poplar. I’d done a few late deliveries for me dad. It was dark, and when I spotted Bert. . . thought he’d had one over the eight. He was sort of stumbling along. I told him to hop up on the cart. He looked bloody awful, all dazed, like. And he stunk of smoke. He kept saying there had been a fire at this timber yard, that he couldn’t find Vin.’
Bert came back in, then. His face and hands were cleaner, but his clothes were still filthy. ‘Well, whatever your excuse is, Bert Allen, you’d better not let Ma see that jacket,’ Lizzie said, her voice shaky. Why couldn’t Bert stay out of trouble? She had warned him enough times. And where was Vinnie? If he had got out of the fire, why hadn’t he come home?
Bert slowly took off his jacket and rolled it up. ‘I’ll give it a scrub in a minute.’
Lizzie couldn’t be angry with him for long. He did look in a state. ‘Sit down,’ she told him, ‘and I’ll make you a cup of tea. You’d better tell me what happened.’
Bert poured it all out. Chalk Wharf, the timber yard, the crates of booze which he’d thought were china and the three men. Finally he told them how things had gone wrong and the warehouse had caught alight.
‘What makes you think Vinnie got out?’ Lizzie asked as she pushed a mug of steaming tea towards Bert.
‘He was standing by the crates. Someone bashed me over the head and I was out cold for a bit, but when I came to there was smoke everywhere. I crawled on me hands and knees until I found the crates. I’d stake me life he wasn’t there. Nor was the other geezer with the crowbar.’
‘You got a lump on yer head the size of an egg,’ Danny said.
Bert lifted his hand and rubbed his scalp. ‘I don’t remember much.’
‘What happened to the other blokes? Do you remember that?’ asked Danny.
‘Nah. Only that I lost me temper when I saw the crowbar. I tried to get to Vin. Then it felt like the place was coming down round me ears.’ Bert looked at Lizzie. ‘I didn’t want to come ’ome without our Vin, gel. I swear, I looked everywhere. I went back in but the ’eat and smoke was too much.’
‘Bert, that was dangerous!’
‘I ’ad to ’ave another look.’
‘You shouldn’t have gone out in the first place,’ Lizzie said sharply. ‘And you lied to me, Bert, you said you was going up the pub.’
‘To give Bert his due,’ Danny intervened, ‘I think you’ll find Vin didn’t give him much of a choice.’ Danny glanced at Bert. ‘Ain’t that so, Bert?’
Bert said nothing, loyal to the end.
‘What are we going to do?’ Lizzie asked. ‘What if Vinnie doesn’t come home?’
Danny looked at Bert. ‘We’ll give him another hour, then we’ll go up to Limehouse. We’ll take a gander at the wharf, see what’s happening.’
Bert nodded, but Lizzie knew they were all think
ing the same. That Vinnie wouldn’t turn up in an hour. That he might never turn up at all.
Chapter Six
Lizzie glanced at the clock. It was one o’clock in the morning. For the last two hours they had been drinking tea and talking in whispers.
Danny stood up and drew his cap from his pocket. ‘Well, Bert. No sense in hanging round any longer. We’d better get up to Limehouse.’
Bert looked crestfallen. Lizzie had tried to wash the stains from his jacket but the rough tweed had turned a muddy colour. There was a ring of black round his neck and his hair was singed.
But Lizzie opened the kitchen door just as four filthy fingers poked through the letterbox. The string was drawn up, a key inserted and the front door opened.
‘Where the ’ell ’ave you been?’ Bert gasped as he stared at Vinnie.
For one moment Vinnie looked shocked to see Bert. Then he strode down the passage and into the kitchen. ‘I might ask you the same.’
‘Danny and Bert were just coming to look for you,’ Lizzie said.
Vinnie took off his hat and threw it on the table. It and his overcoat were streaked with black marks. ‘Well they won’t have to bother now, will they? I s’pose you’ve heard all about tonight from him.’ He nodded at Bert.
‘I been looking for you everywhere,’ Bert replied slowly. ‘Where ’ave you been all this time?’
‘Where do you think? Someone had to go and tell Mik, didn’t they?’
‘But we’ve been worried,’ Lizzie told him. ‘We didn’t know if you’d got out of the fire—’
‘No thanks to him I did.’ Vinnie glared at Bert.
‘What do you mean?’ Bert said hollowly.
‘You were the silly bugger who started the trouble,’ Vinnie accused angrily. ‘I was handling the deal until you did a bunk.’
‘You said what was in those crates was legit china,’ Bert replied in a hurt voice. ‘But it was all knocked off.’
‘And you wouldn’t have known a bloody thing about it,’ Vinnie returned quickly, ‘if you’d kept yer big nose out of me business. I told you to keep quiet, but you couldn’t, could you? One thing I know for sure is I won’t be taking you with me again.’
‘Bert did his best to look for you,’ Lizzie intervened. ‘The least you could have done was come straight home and tell him you were safe.’
Vinnie’s dark eyes narrowed. ‘Who asked you for an opinion? This ain’t got nothin’ to do with you, it’s between me an ’im.’
‘I found yer brother up Poplar,’ Danny said, walking round the table. ‘He went back in that warehouse when he couldn’t find you outside. Goin’ back into a furnace like that takes some doing.’
‘Trust you to stick yer oar in,’ Vinnie snapped. ‘Look, I just told her to mind her own business. Now I’m tellin’ you to do the same.’
‘No problem,’ Danny said evenly. ‘I don’t think any of us want to know what was in them crates, Vin.’ The two men stared at one another, dislike in their eyes.
‘Ain’t it about time you were leavin’?’ Vinnie muttered.
Danny nodded. ‘I’m going all right. I don’t intend to wear out me welcome.’
Lizzie caught his sleeve. ‘Come on, Danny. I’ll see you out.’
‘Just you keep what you heard tonight to yerself, Flowers,’ Vinnie yelled after them.
Lizzie quietly opened the front door. She was worried that her parents would hear. Outside in the street, the fog had cleared. A deep blue sky was full of stars and a white frost touched the windows and roofs of the houses in Langley Street. Danny put his hands gently on her arms. ‘He’s right, you know. What he gets up to is his own affair and no one else’s. He ain’t a kid any longer.’
‘But what if he’d been caught tonight with all that drink?’
‘There ain’t nothing you can do, gel. You probably don’t know the half of what’s goin’ on, either. At least there wasn’t no life lost in the fire.’ He tipped up her chin. ‘You gonna be all right? Vinnie ain’t likely to cause you trouble?’
She shook her head. ‘I just hope no one wakes up.’
‘Well, if you need me, you know where I am.’
It was wonderful to be cared about, Lizzie thought as he took her in his arms. Under the starry sky he kissed her. It was the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to her – like the wings of a butterfly softly touching her lips.
He grinned. ‘You can slap me face if you want.’
She didn’t want to slap his face, she wanted to be kissed again. When his lips had touched hers, all her troubles had melted away.
‘See you up the market on Saturday?’
She nodded. ‘Danny, thanks for everything.’
‘Better get a move on, or Benji’ll be frozen stiff, poor bugger.’
She watched him hurry across the road to where the scruffy old grey horse stood. Benji raised his head as he saw Danny approach. In the silence of the night, Danny clicked his tongue as he jumped up on the cart. Only the sound of Benji’s horseshoes rang out in the early hours of the winter morning.
‘What time did you two roll in last night?’ Kate Allen bawled at her sons the following morning.
Bert and Vinnie sat at the breakfast table with long faces. Neither was speaking to the other. Kate knew there was something going on. But this morning she felt so queasy she realized she didn’t want to know what. She had slept deeply and only woken once when she thought she’d heard voices. It must have been the boys coming in, she realized. Thank the Lord Tom hadn’t woken.
‘Lost yer tongues have you?’ She wagged the bread knife at her sons. ‘Well, from now on if you both want to live down the pub and drink yerselves to death then go ahead, but don’t think yer coming home to this house afterwards. From tonight onwards, that front door’s locked after ten. The string’s coming off and you’ll have to kip on the doorstep.’ She looked hard at them both. ‘Understood?’
Bert and Vinnie stared at their bread and dripping as if hypnotized.
‘Understood?’ she said again, louder.
Her sons nodded slowly. As they ate their bread in silence, Kate made a vow to herself. Things were going to be different from now on. If the rest of the household could keep decent hours, then so could these two lazy buggers.
Bert and Vinnie ate their bread and drank their tea. They left the kitchen in silence. Not one word between them. Kate turned to Lizzie as they cleared the dishes. ‘What’s up with them two?’
‘Dunno, Ma.’
Kate raised her eyebrows. ‘Something’s up.’
‘They’ll be as right as rain tonight. Don’t think early mornings suit them.’
‘Well, they’ll have to get used to it,’ Kate said firmly. ‘If Flo can get herself off to school and Babs up to the House by eight o’clock in the morning, then they can too. ‘And tonight they can clean out their room. Smells like a bloody match factory up there.’ Kate dried her hands, went to the cupboard under the stairs and took out the boots.
‘Now, I’ve something I want you to do for me, gel,’ she said, placing the boots in her shopping bag.
Lizzie turned from the sink. ‘It ain’t the boots, is it, Ma?’
‘See if you can get fifteen shillings from old Bloome for them.’
‘But, Ma—’
‘You remind the tight old sod that I bought ’em ’specially for your Pa to wear when he came home from the war.’
‘But they ain’t new anymore, Ma. Mr Bloome told me last time, don’t you remember? I got ten and six and he was hard pushed to give me that.’
‘I know you don’t like going to Mr Bloome’s, ducks,’ Kate sighed. ‘But I gotta put something in everyone’s stomach. I ain’t goin’ down that cocoa tin, not if it kills me. Your father don’t approve, I know, but it’s either me washing that goes to the pawnbroker or the boots. Anyway, he won’t find out, if no one tells him.’ She laid a cloth over the top of the boots in the basket. ‘I don’t like asking you to do it for me, you know that, but I’ll have a n
ice piece of hot bread pudding waiting for you when you get back. Now go and get yer coat on, there’s a good girl.’
Kate wished she didn’t have to send Lizzie, but there was no other way. Just then Vinnie walked down the stairs. ‘Where do you think you’re off to?’ she demanded as he came into the kitchen, dressed in his cap and outdoor jacket.
‘To work, Ma.’
‘You call what you do work? Kate hated the thought of her son as a bookie’s runner. It was never mentioned in the house, but she knew for a fact it was what he did. ‘One of these days you’re going to run up against the wrath of the law, my son.’
‘No chance, mother. I keep on me toes. See you tonight.’
‘Just you be careful.’ Kate called after him.
When he’d gone out the front door, Kate went to the bottom of the stairs. ‘Ain’t it about time you were off an’ all, Bert? There’s gotta be a job going somewhere on this bloody island.’
‘Yeah all right, Ma. Just comin.’
Kate was about to tell him to get a move on when the indigestion struck. She swallowed, coming out in a cold sweat. That was all she needed. The bloody pain back again.
Lizzie came down the stairs in her coat and scarf. ‘Bye, Ma. I’ll be back soon.’
Kate opened the front door. ‘Keep yer collar done up, love.’ She watched her daughter walk down Langley Street until she was out of sight . . . the daughter whom she loved beyond words, her first girl child.
Bert was next down the stairs. ‘Blimey, what’s happened to yer jacket?’ Kate gasped. ‘Looks like you put it through me wringer.’
‘Yeah, well, I tried to give it a bit of a clean up.’ Bert was going red.
Kate raised her eyes and sighed once more. ‘I’ll have to see if I can get you something up the market. The sleeves are too short on that one, anyway.’
Bert leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Cheerio, Ma.’
She inhaled a strange smell. ‘I don’t know how long ago it was you had a wash, me boy, but you ain’t going to win any prizes smelling like that. Tonight we’ll bring the bath in. You and Vinnie can have a bloody good soak.’
‘Yeah, all right, Ma.’