‘Evie,’ said Babs, then added hurriedly, ‘No, I mean she’s Evie.’
Maudie chuckled. ‘It’ll make it easier to tell you apart.’
‘Like it, do yer, Miss Peters?’ Evie asked, turning her head from side to side to give her a better look.
‘Very much, Evie. In fact, as always, you both look a picture.’
‘Ta,’ the twins said in happy unison.
‘Have a nice time, girls, must get on.’ Maudie Peters returned her attention to her window ledge and her wiping down.
‘She ain’t bad when she smiles,’ said Babs under her breath as she and her twin walked towards the open end of Darnfield Street where it joined Grove Road, the main thoroughfare that stretched from Victoria Park to Mile End.
‘Yeah, she’s a funny one though,’ Evie said, glancing back over her shoulder at Maudie. ‘Never seemed like she fitted in round here somehow.’ She shook her head in puzzlement. ‘Bit of a frump really but still knows when someone looks good. I reckon she could be a bit of a looker herself if she made an effort. Nice though, in her way.’
‘Yeah, I like her. How old d’yer reckon she is?’
‘Dunno,’ said Evie, screwing up her face as she tried to work it out. ‘Late thirties? Forty maybe?’
‘Don’t,’ protested the seventeen-year-old Babs, a look of dread in her eyes. ‘I hate the thought of getting as old as that.’
‘I’m never gonna get old,’ Evie said firmly.
‘Dozy mare.’
‘No, I mean it. I’ll always be young at heart, me, no matter how old I am in years. You just wait and see.’
‘Prove it then,’ Babs dared her, and dragged her sister over to a group of chanting girls who were playing skipping games in the middle of the street with a length of old washing line.
‘Give us a go, kids,’ said Babs, rubbing her hands eagerly together.
‘Here y’are then,’ chirped one of the youngsters, pushing a smaller girl out of the way to make room for the twins.
Without another word, Evie and Babs dropped their handbags onto the kerbside and ran and jumped straight into the path of the turning rope. Holding their skirts down with one hand and their hats on with the other, they both skipped while the kids sang out at the tops of their voices:
Underneath the spreading Chestnut Tree
Neville Chamberlain said to me
If yer want to get your gas mask free
Then join the bleeding ARP!
Across the road from the Bells’ house, Minnie Watts and Clara Thomas, two fine, large late-middle-aged women who lived in the upstairs rooms of number five, stood on their street doorstep enjoying the warmth of the late evening sun, laughing with pleasure at the sight of the twins skipping so enthusiastically.
‘Wish we was still young enough,’ one of the women called to the twins, tucking her meat-plate sized hands under the front of her enormous cross-over apron.
‘And who said yer wasn’t, Min?’ Evie called back to her as she bounced up and down on the spot in time to the twirling rope. ‘Come on. Come over and have a go.’
Minnie and Clara looked at each other. Clara shrugged then nodded. With a chuckle, the two big women waddled over to the laughing youngsters.
Babs and Evie ducked neatly out from the path of the turning rope, making room for Minnie and Clara.
‘Yer’ll have to slow down while we get in,’ instructed Minnie, positioning herself at the ready, her fat, pink tongue stuck between her lips. ‘We ain’t as young as we used to be.’
Then, laughing and puffing, she and Clara threw themselves into the game.
Babs and Evie clapped and cheered as the two women, huge bosoms bouncing, heaved themselves over the slowly turning rope while the kids recited ‘Salt, mustard, vinegar, pepper’.
‘We’ve gotta go now, see yer,’ Babs yelled over the shrill children’s voices. ‘Enjoy yerselves.’
‘Yeah, see yer, gels,’ gasped Minnie, staggering away from the rope. ‘Have a good time.’
Clara, whose tightly waved steel-grey hair hadn’t shifted an inch, raised her hand to wave goodbye to the twins. ‘Come on, kids,’ she wheezed as she joined her friend. ‘Me and Min’ll turn the rope for you young’uns while you have a go. We’ve done all the jumping about we can manage for one day.’
Evie and Babs waved back and bent down to pick up their bags from the kerb. As they stood up they were nearly knocked over by two scruffy little boys who darted out from behind the baker’s shop and raced past them before disappearing over the wall of the Drum and Monkey, the pub which stood on the opposite corner.
‘Jenners?’ asked Evie, looking towards the pub wall behind which the boys had vanished.
‘Yeah,’ Babs nodded. ‘Another two. Seem to breed overnight, that family.’
‘How many they got now?’ Evie pondered as she repositioned her hat and fastened it securely with the long, pearl-topped pin.
‘Dunno,’ Babs said, shaking her head in wonder. ‘I’ve lost count and yer hardly ever see her to get the chance to ask. Probably too busy with all them kids.’
‘I think it’d be funny having more than the two of us, don’t you?’ Evie mused, linking arms with Babs. ‘I never wanted any more brothers or sisters.’
Before the girls had moved more than a couple of steps, the heads of the two tousled-haired boys reappeared over the wall. ‘Guess what, gels?’ one of them whined pathetically. ‘There ain’t no empties to nick over here, not a single one.’
‘Nellie’s probably got ’em all hidden away from thieving little toerags like you two, that’s why,’ laughed Babs, turning round to face them.
‘We was gonna get ourselves fish and taters with the money and all,’ snivelled the other boy. ‘We’re really starving.’
‘Yeah, yer look hungry,’ said Evie, staring at the rosy-cheeked, chubby-faced child.
‘Chuck out yer mouldies for us, twins,’ he pleaded. ‘Go on. Please.’
‘Take this for yer cheek, yer pair of villains,’ laughed Evie. Taking a couple of coppers from her bag she flipped them towards the boys.
The boys scrambled back over the wall to retrieve the shiny treasure. ‘Cor, ta, twin!’
Now Babs was laughing too. ‘Twin! I dunno. We’ll have to wear labels round our necks till everyone knows which of us is the blonde one.’
‘I’d have thought that was quite obvious,’ snapped a short and bony elderly woman. Her narrow lips pursed, she moved towards them like a pint-sized sergeant major leading the troops on a parade ground. Trailing several yards behind the woman was an even shorter thin-faced ferret of a man who, apart from his wrinkled old man’s face, looked for all the world like a reluctant child being dragged back to school after the summer holidays by his bullying mother. The two were husband and wife, Nobby and Alice Clarke, the couple who lived downstairs from Minnie and Clara at number five.
‘Obvious, is it?’ asked Babs, hands on hips. ‘All right then, which one am I?’
‘Don’t yer start yer old nonsense with me, my girl,’ snapped Alice.
‘Bloody hell, twin,’ beamed Nobby, as he caught up with his wife. ‘What yer gone and done to yerself now?’
Evie flashed him a dazzling, dimpled-pierced smile. ‘Like it, do yer, Nobby?’
‘Yeah, not half.’
‘She’s had them crackers in her hair again, Nobby. And bleach this time. Just look at her,’ fumed Alice.
‘I am, Alice, I am.’ Nobby was too busy gawking at Evie to notice Alice’s hand come round with a sharp wallop on his ear.
‘Oi!’ he complained, his face screwed up with pain.
Alice’s response was to tut loudly and to grab the unfortunate Nobby roughly by the arm. ‘I dunno,’ she spluttered as she propelled him towards number five. ‘Throwing money away on them Jenner kids like it comes off trees and then blonding and waving their hair. Whatever next, eh? Tell me that. That Georgie Bell had better keep an eye on them girls of his or they’ll turn out just like their no-good mother.
You mark my words if they don’t. What a family.’ Then she turned back towards the end of the street and, letting go of her husband, she tucked her fists into her waist and bellowed, ‘And now where’s that Micky got to?’
As if on cue, Micky Clarke, Alice and Nobby’s fifteen-year-old grandson, turned into the street at a fast trot. But at the sight of Evie, he pulled up dead and let out a long low whistle.
‘Cor!’ he said with an enthusiasm as unwisely undisguised as his grandad’s had been. ‘What a sight for sore eyes.’
Evie winked at him and blew him a kiss. ‘Like it?’ she asked, flicking her thick bobbed hair back over her shoulder.
With his mouth wide open and his eyes fixed on Evie, Micky stumbled forward, tripped down the pavement and went careering into his nan’s arms. ‘Blimey, twin,’ he breathed, ‘you ain’t kidding I like it. I thought it was Veronica Lake standing there.’
Evie glowed while Babs sighed, ‘We ain’t never gonna get to see no film at this rate.’
‘Right bloody smashing,’ said Micky, still transfixed by the glorious sight of Evie posing before him. ‘Bloody smashing.’
‘And that’s enough of that talk, thank you very much,’ Alice snarled and cuffed her grandson round the back of his head even more soundly than she’d walloped her husband.
‘Oi, Nan,’ Micky complained, rubbing the sting away, ‘that bloody hurt, that did.’
‘Good, it was meant to. And I mean it, any more of that talk and I’ll wash yer mouth out with soap and water, you just see if I don’t. And I’ll tell yer mother of yer, just for luck.’
‘Nan,’ whinged Micky, his cheeks flaming from the embarrassment of knowing that the twins were standing there watching the whole shameful pantomime. ‘Leave off, Nan. Let go of us.’
With a little lift of his chin, Nobby smiled grimly at the twins. ‘Kids, eh?’ he sighed for want of something better to say.
‘D’yer want a bit of tea?’ Alice growled at her grandson.
‘No thanks, Nan, not till I’ve seen Terry,’ Micky answered quietly, still squirming as he tried to release himself from his grandmother’s humiliating clutches. But his efforts were in vain; little and old she might have been, but Alice Clarke’s grip wouldn’t have disgraced an eighteen-stone stevedore.
‘And yer can keep away from that sister of his and all,’ she snapped.
‘Blimey, Nan, what’s wrong with Mary Simpkins all of a sudden?’
‘Never you mind, me lad. And what did I just tell yer about that mouth o’ your’n?’
‘Sorry, Nan.’ Knowing he was unlikely to get the better of his grandmother, Micky gave in without another word.
‘I don’t know,’ Alice tutted and, shaking her head, pushed Micky away from her in the direction of number four, the Simpkins’s house which was across the street next to the baker’s. ‘Honestly, the way the world is nowadays. It wasn’t like this when I was a girl, I’m telling yer. We had a bit of respect for our elders and betters. And, when I was thirteen, ‘I didn’t have a chest on me like that Mary Simpkins has got on her. Disgusting, I call it, bosoms all over the place.’
Micky tried to muster a little dignity as he crossed the street, but he couldn’t resist looking back over his shoulder at his grandad. Micky and Nobby bravely chanced rolling their eyes at one another, and then Micky really took his life in his hands by flashing a crafty wink and a wave at the twins as they turned out of Darnfield Street and into Grove Road.
‘I can see yer, Micky,’ the twins heard Alice bark at her grandson. ‘I won’t let this drop, yer know. I’ll be telling yer mother on yer, you just see if I don’t.’
‘Poor kid,’ Evie said with a chuckle as they headed towards the Mile End Road. ‘Fancy having yer nan showing you up like that.’
‘It’s your fault, Evie. Yer should know better. Yer shouldn’t encourage him.’
‘What, me encourage young Micky?’ Evie grinned to herself.
‘Yes,’ replied Babs flatly. ‘You. You should leave him alone. He’s a good little kid, despite his nan.’
‘Yeah, he’s all right. So might as well let him dream, eh? Dreaming never hurt no one.’
‘No? Well, how about young Mary? It might hurt her all right.’
‘What yer on about?’
‘Mary Simpkins. She’s another good kid, and yer know she’s keen on Micky. But how can she hope to compete with you, the bloody blonde bombshell, flirting with her sweetheart?’
‘Blimey, Babs, it was just a bit of fun. Why’d yer always have to take things so seriously?’
‘And why do you always have to think everything’s just one big lark?’
Evie pouted at her sister’s reprimand. ‘I don’t.’
‘Aw, come on, Evie, don’t get a gob on yer.’ Babs affectionately linked her arm through her sister’s. ‘We’ve wasted enough time without you showing off. All the blokes’ll have gone in as it is. And I bet we’ve missed the first film. And if we don’t get a move on, we won’t even get a seat, let alone see the main feature.’
As they dodged across Grove Road through the sparse Saturday evening traffic, Evie tossed back her hair as it tumbled from beneath her little brown felt hat, making it bounce around the wide shoulders of her matching linen swagger jacket. ‘It looks all right, don’t it, Babs,’ she stated more than asked. ‘Really suits me.’
‘They seem to think so,’ her sister answered, nodding back across to the other side of the road.
‘Who? Who yer talking about?’
‘Them two blokes over there.’
Evie turned and looked over to where Babs was now pointing discreetly, towards the high brick arch that carried the railway line over Grove Road. Two young men, nattily turned out in dark grey suits, white shirts and nifty black trilby hats, were waving at them.
‘Don’t do that, Eve. Don’t wave back,’ Babs hissed, horrified by her twin’s uninhibited reaction. ‘Yer do know who that tall one is, don’t yer?’
The taller of the two men took out a cigarette case from his inside pocket and offered it to his companion, all the while keeping his gaze firmly fixed on the twins.
‘Course I do,’ Evie answered her sister, but she was concentrating her smile on the one with the cigarette case. ‘It’s that Albie Denham. Come on.’
‘Evie!’ protested Babs. ‘Don’t be so stupid. We don’t wanna get hiked up with the likes of him. And just look at his mate. From the size of them shoulders, he should be in a cage. Built like a bloody gorilla, he is.’
‘Suit yerself,’ said Eve with a shrug. ‘If yer don’t wanna come, I’ll catch up with yer later.’
Reluctantly, Babs, as they both knew she would, followed her twin back across the road.
‘Hello, girls,’ said Albie casually. He drew hard on his cigarette and slowly released a cloud of blue-grey smoke into the still warm evening air. ‘Me and Chas here was just going off to maybe have a bit of a dance.’
Evie swung her shoulders from side to side and stared up at him. ‘Aw yeah?’ she said. ‘Hear that, Babs? The boys here’re going dancing.’
Babs took a deep breath and said quietly but very deliberately through her teeth, ‘We’ll miss the film, Eve.’
Evie either didn’t hear her sister or else she chose to ignore her. ‘Dancing, eh?’
‘That’s right,’ Albie said, grinding out the barely smoked cigarette under the heel of his highly polished black shoe. ‘So. D’yer fancy it, then?’
‘Fancy what?’ asked Eve, all wide-eyed innocence.
‘Dancing, of course,’ he said, and grinned at his mate. ‘Or did yer have something else in mind?’
‘Yer out o’ luck, I’m afraid,’ Evie sighed with a sad little smile. ‘Yer see, me and me sister here are going to the Troxy. We love going to the pictures, don’t we, Babs?’
‘Yeah,’ Babs readily agreed. ‘We do. We love it. That’s why we’re going tonight.’
‘See?’ Evie’s voice was full of mock remorse. ‘Can’t be helped, but I’m sorry, n
o. Anyway, I don’t think some crummy little dance’d interest us, do you, Babs?’ She turned to face her sister and they both giggled.
‘No, I don’t think some crummy little dance’d interest us at all. Thanks all the same.’ Babs lifted her chin and smiled triumphantly at Albie Denham. ‘Seems like yer gonna have to dance with yer mate. Shame, innit?’
‘Yer right, that really is a shame, ain’t it, Chas?’ Albie turned to his friend and tutted with disappointment, his arms held wide to show his deep regret. ‘Yer see, me and Chas wasn’t planning to go to no bug house, was we? We was going up West to a little supper club. Have a dance, a nice little bit to eat. Something a bit fancy. Aw, yeah, and we’re going in the Riley. Ain’t that right, Chas?’
‘Yeah,’ answered Chas in a gruff, toneless voice. ‘In the Riley.’
‘Riley, eh?’ Evie said slowly, then flashed a sly look at Babs who, in silent reply, raised her eyebrows just enough to show that she had cottoned on to her sister’s meaning.
‘Yeah, it’s a Riley Kestrel, if yer must know.’ Chas said it proudly as though the vehicle belonged to him.
‘That’s a motor car, ain’t it?’ Evie asked carelessly.
‘Certainly is, darling.’ Albie curled his fingers over and studied his nails. ‘Parked just round the corner in Cordova Road, as a matter o’ fact. Not twenty-five yards from this very spot.’
‘What yer doing round here then?’ Babs asked with her most charming, dimpled smile; the idea of a ride in a motor car suddenly made Albie and his goon of a mate seem worth at least a little bit of effort.
‘Apart from looking for pretty gels like you two, yer mean?’ Albie said with a wink. ‘Me and Chas here have been making calls on one or two of me mum’s customers, some people what had a few debts to settle.’ Albie reached into his trousers pocket and produced a fat roll of money. ‘So I got plenty of loose change for a night out.’
Without another word, Evie let Albie put his arm round her shoulders and guide her towards where the car was parked. Babs walked behind them, with Albie’s dim mate, Chas, at her side.
‘Been in a motor before, sweetheart?’ Chas asked Babs.
‘Once or twice,’ lied Babs.
The Bells of Bow Page 2