Elsa’s odd behaviour was really beginning to worry Frankie. In the last few days he had watched her write an extraordinary amount of letters and he had no idea who they were all to. It puzzled him that she never gave them to him to post.
By the time they reached number 19 Hadleigh Villas, Elsa was quite breathless, so Frankie had to open the street door for her. But before she went inside, she stopped to ask him yet another curious little question.
‘Tell me, Frankie. Do you remember that cold, foggy November night? The night when you played that silly game and knocked on my door?’
Frankie shrugged his shoulders. ‘Of course I remember,’ he replied. ‘’Ow could I ferget it? It was my lucky night.’
Elsa smiled. ‘Yes, but did you ever think at the time how much that knock on my door would change your life – and mine?’
Frankie didn’t have to think about that. Yes, knowing Elsa had changed his life. It had entirely changed the way he had used his mind; it had changed his relationship with his own mum and dad, so that for the first time in his life they could sit down and actually talk to each other, and share one another’s problems. It had given him the strength and courage to help his sister Helen at a time when she needed advice and support. And it had shown him how to love and be loved, and how to think for himself. But most of all, Elsa had changed his life that night by just being there when he knocked on her door, for his call was not only a silly game of ‘Knock Down Ginger’. It was a cry for help . . .
In those few brief seconds, Elsa too, considered how her life had changed since she first pulled Frankie into her hall. How had it been possible for this young boy, who had hardly known how to put two words together, to help her live with her past? How was it possible for him to give her the energy to fight Jack Barclay and his attempts to take the shop away from her? And why was it that the only person in the world she could trust was a teenage boy from a back street in North London? It was because somewhere inside Misster Frankie Lewis there was a quite beautiful flower that was just waiting to come into bloom. Oh, thought Elsa, sadly, if only I could have lived long enough to see the flower grow . . .
‘I’d better be goin’,’ Frankie said. ‘I’ve gotta ’elp Mum and Dad finish the paintin’.’
Elsa turned to smile at him. Then she did yet another curious thing, something that she had never done before. She stretched out her hand and traced the outline of his face with the tips of her fingers. Then, with a warm smile on her face she leaned forward and gently kissed him on the forehead. ‘Goodnight, Misster Frankie Lewis,’ she said simply. ‘Goodnight, Winston.’ And she gave him one last stroke behind his ears.
‘’Night, Elsa.’
Frankie paused a moment to watch her go into the house. Only when she had closed the door did he and Winston start to make their way back home again, this time along Seven Sisters Road.
Frankie hadn’t even got the key in the door of number 1 when he heard Bert Gorman’s voice calling to him from the front garden gate behind.
‘Don’t go in, Frankie!’
Frankie and Winston both turned with a start.
Bert Gorman was standing there with his brother Mike’s wife Edie, who was crying. ‘I’m sorry, boy. I’ve got some bad news for yer . . .’
Ten minutes later, Frankie was sitting with his father in the waiting room of an Emergency Unit at the Royal Northern Hospital.
Chapter Thirty
It was after four-thirty the following morning when Frankie and his father got back home. The walk back along Manor Gardens from the Royal Northern Hospital only increased their feeling of desolation, for the back streets were dark and deserted. There was also still quite a stiff breeze blowing, and when they turned into Windsor Road an empty tin of garden peas was dancing up and down the pavement as though it was desperately trying to find its lost contents.
Waiting in the hospital all night had been a grim experience for both Frankie and his father. When Gracie arrived at the Emergency Unit she was still unconscious, and it wasn’t until after the operation in the early hours of the morning that she showed signs of coming to. The doctors were non-committal in everything they reported about Gracie’s condition. All they could say was that she had clearly had a very nasty accident, for apart from the bruises which covered her body, the X-Rays had shown that her spine had been fractured in two places. Although she had at least survived the ordeal, she was still on the critical list and it would be a long time before they would know what Gracie’s future prospects of full recovery were likely to be.
‘It was my fault, son.’ Reg was sitting at the back parlour table, resting his head on one hand and smoking a fag with the other. ‘I should never ’ave let ’er go up that ladder. I always knew the bloody fing was a deff-trap!’
Frankie came in from the scullery bringing two cups of tea. ‘It’s got nuffin’ ter do wiv the ladder, Dad.’ His voice was weary, but bitter. ‘If yer wanna blame anybody, blame that bastard, Jack Barclay.’
Reg tried to sip the hot tea, but he was still too distressed, and preferred to pull at his fag. ‘We was only just beginnin’ ter start livin’ our life tergevver – fer the first time since we got married, yer muvver ’an I ’ad got so much goin’ fer us.’ He paused briefly to wipe his already swollen red eyes with the back of his hand. ‘If anyfin’ ’appens to ’er, I wouldn’t wanna live.’ His voice suddenly cracked and, for the third or fourth time that night, he broke down.
Frankie rushed across to comfort him. ‘Don’t keep goin’ on like this, Dad. Nuffin’s gonna ’appen ter mum. She’s gonna come fru’ this wiv flyin’ colours, you’ll see.’ He put his arm around his father, and held him tight. ‘Come on now, drink yer tea. Mum wouldn’t like ter see yer like this.’
After he made sure that his father had got to bed, Frankie switched off all the lights and went to his own room where Winston was half-asleep on his rug, probably wondering why everybody wanted to stay awake all night.
For the next half-hour or so, Frankie just lay in bed, eyes wide open. In the next room, he could hear his father sobbing his heart out, clearly blaming himself over and over again for all the wasted years he had spent not caring for Gracie. The sound tore Frankie’s heart apart. But gradually, as his eye-lids grew heavier and heavier, he was consumed with fury about the real cause of his mum’s accident. If he saw Jack Barclay in Merton Street just once more, he would probably punch him right in the face . . .
Eventually his eyes closed, and he fell into a deep, deep sleep.
Frankie woke up to find Winston on the bed beside him, licking his face to remind him that dogs require an early morning walk followed by a substantial breakfast if they are to be of any use to their masters during the course of the day. It was seven o’clock, and Frankie had had exactly two hours’ sleep.
He took his father a cup of tea at eight-thirty. He had already decided that he wouldn’t go in to the shop until after he and his father had been back to the hospital at nine o’clock.
When they got there, they found the Emergency Unit jammed with people. Overnight it seemed as though the entire population of Islington had either cut themselves, had a road accident, or swallowed a fish bone. The Receptionist told them that Gracie had been transferred to the main orthopaedic ward, but when they got there she was still too ill to have visitors. Reg decided that he wanted to wait around until he was certain that Gracie was no longer in danger, so Frankie went home to collect Winston, then, after calling on his dad’s boss, made his way to the shop. When he got there he was surprised to find the door locked, and the CLOSED sign still in the window.
After he had opened up and turned on the shop lights, Frankie lit the paraffin heater and made himself a cup of tea. As he waited for the kettle to boil, he became more and more uneasy. This was the first time that he could remember that Elsa had not been in the shop on the stroke of nine. Something was terribly wrong, and it worried him. However, it was important that the shop be kept open, and so, yawning from his lack of a night�
��s sleep, he set about his daily tasks – dusting the displays, going through the paperwork for the previous few day’s earnings, unpacking newly arrived secondhand clothes from cardboard boxes, and chatting up any customer who wandered in.
His chance to go and see Elsa came at lunch-time, when he decided he could safely shut up shop for one hour. First of all, though, he gave Winston his usual bowl of biscuit-meal covered in hot Bisto, then they both left for Hadleigh Villas.
Frankie could hardly believe that it was only the evening before that he and Elsa had strolled along this same route. Somehow it seemed like an eternity since they had stopped in Berriman Road where Elsa had scolded the kids for smoking a fag. Life, thought Frankie, had such a peculiar way of carrying on – and, at the present moment, he didn’t much care for it.
Frankie entered number 19 Hadleigh Villas with his own key, but the moment he did so, he knew something was not right. For one thing, although it was the middle of the day, all the house lights were on.
‘Elsa!’ he called, and his voice echoed around the large hallway. ‘Where are yer, Elsa? Are yer all right?’
The first thing he did was to go into the sitting room. But she certainly wasn’t there, for the fire was out and the room freezing cold. That, for a start, was unlike Elsa. She hated to be cold.
He came out into the hallway and called again. ‘Elsa! It’s Frankie!’ He waited a moment. There was no response. So he went into the kitchen at the back of the house.
Frankie was surprised to find the light on in there, too. And even more alarming was that one of the gas burners had been lit, with no kettle or pan on top of it. But at least it had warmed the room.
Frankie was now becoming anxious, so he hurried out into the hallway again, and quickly made his way up the stairs, calling as he went.
‘Elsa! Are yer up there? I’m comin’ up!’
It was only when he reached the first-floor landing that his stomach started to churn over.
‘Elsa!’ As he approached the door to one of three rooms, his voice was sounding more and more tentative.
He knocked on the door of the first room, and called out gently. ‘Elsa! It’s me – Frankie. Are yer all right?’ He knocked again. ‘Can I come in, please?’
There was no response, so he went in.
It was a small bedroom that had clearly hardly ever been used.
Frankie came out and approached another door. Once again, he knocked gently. ‘Elsa? Are yer there? May I come in, please?’
Again there was no response, so in he went.
This, however, was quite clearly Elsa’s bedroom. It had several of her personal possessions scattered around the place, and a dressing-table crammed with boxes and tubes and tubs of makeup. But Frankie’s attention was soon distracted from everything in the room.
‘Elsa?’
At first he thought that she was fast asleep, for she was sitting in a comfortable armchair beside her bed, with her head resting to one side. As he approached, however, he saw that her eyes were open, but were quite lifeless. ‘Oh God, Elsa – no!’ His initial alarm now turned into grief.
He slowly knelt down in front of her. There was nothing he could say, nothing he could do. She was gone. And the only words he could hear were from the evening before, on the steps outside the house: ‘Goodnight, Misster Frankie Lewis.’ He remembered the wonderful warm feeling he had had when Elsa touched his face with her fingertips. Now, he wanted to do the same to her. Just one last time. But as his own fingertips lightly touched Elsa’s forehead, it felt as cold as ice, and the thick rouge on her cheeks made her face look like wax. In death, Frankie thought Elsa looked utterly beautiful. There were no lines on her face now, and her complexion looked as it might have looked when she was a young girl at the Synagogue in Germany all those years ago. But the biggest revelation of all was her hair. Frankie had never had any idea that Elsa’s ginger hair wasn’t her own. And yet here he was seeing her for the first time with her own natural growth, a few wisps of silvery white hair protruding out of a perfectly shaped head. For Frankie, it was an extraordinary experience, and one that he would not forget for the rest of his life. But then, Elsa was the most extraordinary person he had ever met, and he would never forget her.
As he knelt at her feet, he laid his head on her lap. Then he found himself talking to her as if they were still having a cup of tea together over the paraffin heater in the shop.
‘Oh Elsa. This is a fine fing ter do ter me. ’Ow d’yer fink I’m gonna manage now, eh? ’Ow’m I gonna get customers if yer’re not there to nag me? It’s your shop, Elsa. It’ll always be yours. An’ yer know why? ’Cos yer’ve always loved the place so much, that’s why. Wot was it yer said ter me? We all need love in some way or anuvver. Wivout it, ’ow can we feel wanted?’ He paused for a moment, then stood up again. ‘G’bye, Elsa . . .’
Then he turned, and left the room. There was moisture on Elsa’s delicate hands, tears which had come from Frankie.
It was the first and only time he had ever wept in front of her.
On the following Thursday, Elsa was buried in Finchley cemetery, in the same grave as her husband. It turned out to be a lovely day, and the few mourners who were there, including the two Gorman brothers and Mike’s wife, Edie, Mrs Mitchell from the newsagents shop in Hornsey Road, brought daffodils and other spring flowers to put on the grave. Frankie and Maggs, however, had a special wreath made with Elsa’s favourite red and white tulips. Gertrude Rosenberg brought along a Rabbi, who said a few words in Hebrew over the grave, despite the fact that Elsa hadn’t been to a synagogue in years.
The great surprise came after the funeral service itself, when Frankie discovered that Gertrude was Maggs’ godmother from Swiss Cottage. It was also a revelation to Maggs that this godmother, whom she hadn’t seen since she was a small child, was Elsa’s best friend. When Frankie had talked about the New Year’s Eve dinner he had spent with Elsa and ‘this crazy friend of hers’, he had never actually mentioned Gertrude by name, and so Maggs had never for one moment imagined that Elsa’s ‘friend’ and Auntie Gertrude were the same person.
Neither Elsa’s brother-in-law, Jack Barclay, nor his wife, Celia, attended. Jack sent a message to say that, as he was deeply attached to his late sister-in-law, he would find it far too painful to attend her funeral. The truth of the matter, however, was that Frankie Lewis’s presence would pose a real threat to the Barclay’s veneer of concern. Jack Barclay was also only too aware of the hostility the boy was feeling towards him, especially after what had happened to Gracie Lewis following his last visit to number 1 Merton Street. No, an ugly scene at Elsa’s graveside would not be helpful. It was essential he maintained the utmost dignity throughout this period of mourning – or at least, until he had had the chance to claim his natural inheritance as Elsa’s only next-of-kin.
After everyone had left the graveside and returned to the two funeral cars, Frankie asked Maggs if he could stay behind on his own for a few minutes. Maggs understood perfectly, and went off to walk with her godmother . . .
Frankie stood on the edge of Elsa’s grave and looked down at her tiny coffin. The last time he had stood in the same position, he had been with Elsa herself, and he looked back to that wonderful day when he had watched Elsa from the distance as she talked to her husband’s grave as though he was having a cosy chat with her. How different it was now, thought Frankie. There she is, reunited with the man she loved. Until that moment, the impact of Elsa’s passing had not really sunk into Frankie’s mind. Now the tears came freely, trickling down his cheeks and on to the soil that would soon be covering his old friend’s remains. But although she had gone, she had left her mark of guidance and wisdom on him forever . . .
Chapter Thirty-one
A week later Frankie received a letter from the RAF to say that, following his recent medical examination, he had been classified as A4. This meant that, because of his asthmatic condition, he would not be called upon to do his two years’ National Service.
Frankie was grateful that he would not be parted from either Maggs or Elsa’s shop.
The past week had been one of the most traumatic of Frankie’s life and perhaps the worst part was knowing that it was more than probable that his mother would never walk again. But it was astonishing to see how the tragedy had given Reg Lewis the will and determination to support his wife.
At ten minutes to nine on the same morning, Frankie, with Winston on his lead, left home to walk the short distance to the shop. Before he got there, he stopped at the newsagent’s shop to buy the current week’s edition of the Picturegoer magazine.
‘So what’s goin’ to ’appen to the poor old jumble shop now?’ asked the amiable Mrs Mitchell. ‘Now it’s bin closed down, I suppose that means that sooner or later we’ll all end up on the rubbish dump?’
Frankie was surprised by what she said. No one had told him anything about what was going to happen to the shop, and, until they did, he was going to keep on running it. ‘It’s not closed down, Mrs Mitchell. Not as far as I’m concerned anyway.’
‘Really?’ Mrs Mitchell went to her window and looked out to the kerb outside. ‘Then what’s goin’ on out there?’
Frankie joined her at the window. To his horror he saw Jack Barclay’s car parked at the kerbside right outside the jumble shop. Winston immediately started snarling.
Frankie rushed out of Mrs Mitchell’s to find Barclay pacing up and down the pavement immediately in front of Elsa’s shop. ‘Ah! There you are!’ Barclay’s face lit up the moment he saw Frankie. ‘Good morning, young man.’
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