On Mother Brown's Doorstep

by Mary Jane Staples

  ‘Don’t do that, Polly.’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ breathed Polly, ‘why shouldn’t I?’

  ‘I’ll break your leg if you do,’ said Boots.

  ‘You’ll what?’ Polly stared at him. He actually looked as if he meant it.

  ‘Sorry, my mistake,’ said Boots, ‘it’s none of my business. See you at the house this evening.’ He went back to his office through the shop, leaving Polly almost giddy. Suffering pangs of love, she thought, he cares, he actually cares.

  Chinese Lady’s special little gift to Rosie was a silver locket. She had already paid the Camberwell jeweller a deposit on it. She paid the balance and it became Rosie’s. She could place heart-shaped cut-outs from family snapshots inside it, one of Emily and one of Boots. Rosie was rapturous. She did the cut-outs as soon as she got home, and fitted them into the locket. One was a head and shoulders of Boots, the other of Emily and herself, their heads close together. Then, when she closed the locket, she and Emily were both kissing her daddy. Rosie felt blissful about that.

  Henry Brannigan spent the evening with Madge in her new flat. He arrived with a bunch of flowers for her, which touched her considerably. But she still felt confused and uncertain, she still felt there must be a catch in the arrangement. She knew men well, of course. There weren’t many who would give on a generous scale to a woman and ask for nothing in return. Henry had said company was enough for him. He didn’t seem to quite realize exactly what he was doing for her. First and foremost he was relieving her of the wretched necessity of going out at night to pick up men in pubs. For three nights now she hadn’t had to do that. The pleasure of keeping her body to herself surprised her.

  She asked him where he lived. He told her.

  ‘You’ve just got one room in yer sister’s place?’ she said. She had the fire alight and they were sitting in front of it. She wore the short skirt and teasing petticoat he had said he liked. ‘Henry, that’s daft, you livin’ in one room when you could easy afford a flat. Does yer sister cook for you of an evenin’?’

  ‘No, I always eat a good meal midday,’ he said.

  ‘But you ’ave to ’ave something of an evenin’,’ said Madge.

  ‘Well, I frequently pick up fried fish when I’m out walkin’.’

  ‘You shouldn’t ’ave to do that,’ said Madge. ‘I’ll do a light supper for both of us every evenin’.’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to ask that of yer,’ said Henry Brannigan.

  ‘You ’aven’t asked,’ said Madge, ‘I’ve offered. You come ’ere at seven every evenin’ and we’ll eat supper together. You like company, you said—’

  ‘I like your company.’

  ‘Well, I like company meself.’

  ‘You’re a good woman,’ he said.

  ‘I was once, I ain’t able to call meself that now.’

  ‘Perhaps you ain’t been all that respectable, but that don’t mean you’re not a good woman.’

  ‘Well, it’s downright kind of you to say so, Henry.’ Madge eyed his gaunt look. ‘’Ave you been sufferin’ on account of losin’ yer wife?’

  ‘It’s been on me mind,’ he said.

  ‘Still, you’re lookin’ a bit better since I first met yer,’ said Madge. His eyes weren’t so dark and brooding. He looked more satisfied with life. ‘Didn’t you ’ave any children?’

  ‘No, no children,’ he said. ‘Nor you, of course.’

  ‘No, nor me,’ she said. ‘Missed out on that, didn’t I?’

  ‘Now don’t let it worry you,’ he said. ‘What you didn’t ’ave an’ what me an’ Matilda didn’t ’ave won’t be missed. There’s too many perishin’ kids, anyway. They get under yer feet ten at a time in some places.’

  ‘Henry, you can’t blame kids for bein’ born,’ said Madge, ‘and it would please me to ’ear you talk less uncharitable about them.’

  ‘What’s this? Givin’ me orders, are yer, lady?’

  ‘As if I would,’ said Madge.

  ‘Only jokin’,’ he said. ‘Now, ’ow about a walk and pickin’ up some fish an’ chips?’

  ‘You don’t ’ave to break me arm, not over fish an’ chips,’ she said. ‘I’ll be pleasured to walk to the shop with yer, Henry.’

  ‘We’ll watch the lines, eh?’

  ‘Henry, we don’t ’ave to do that all the time, only when we’re in the mood. I’ll ’ave to take yer mind off doin’ it all the time, or you’ll get too serious about it.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll put me ’at an’ coat on,’ said Madge.

  They enjoyed a nice companionable walk down to the shop, and she went along with his wish for them not to tread on visible lines.

  The inquest on the young Bermondsey girl was held on Friday. Boots attended, with Mr Brown. It was merely a question of the parents confirming what day it was when their daughter went out for a walk and never returned, and of Mr Brown confirming how the body was found. That, together with the post-mortem report, proved enough to bring in a verdict of murder by a person or persons unknown.

  The Saturday newspapers published details of the inquest. Mr Brown, whose name was mentioned, collared the family’s newspaper when it plopped on to the mat and took it to work with him. He did not bring it home with him. Saturday, anyway, wasn’t a day when too many people sat down with their dailies.

  Mrs Mason did mention the matter to her lodger, Mr Ponsonby, on his way out of the house, however.

  ‘What, what?’ he said.

  ‘The pore gel, Mr Ponsonby, down Bermondsey way. Murdered, she was. It says so in the paper.’

  ‘Dear goodness, what are we coming to, Mrs Mason?’

  ‘Found in a scrap yard, ’er body was, by some workmen an’ the yard manager. ’Orrible. I ’ope they catch the brute that done it.’

  ‘What a day, what a day,’ sighed Mr Ponsonby. ‘What can be done to such people?’

  ‘Hang ’em,’ said Mrs Mason.

  ‘Yes, indeed. Ah, now I’ve forgotten where I’m going.’

  ‘Down the market,’ said Mrs Mason.

  ‘Ah, so I am, so I am.’ Mr Ponsonby beamed at his landlady. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Don’t forget to come back,’ said Mrs Mason.

  It was mid-afternoon, and Mr Ponsonby, having found his way to the East Street market, was about to inspect the rosy apples on a fruit stall when he came face to face with the unpleasant person whose path he’d crossed some days ago. Certainly, he was dressed more acceptably, in a trilby hat and suit that looked new, but Mr Ponsonby recognized him immediately with his dark eyes and dark features. And, as before, they were in each other’s way. Mr Ponsonby at once brought up his rolled umbrella to hold the fellow off.

  Henry Brannigan stared at him.

  ‘What’s up with you?’ he asked.

  ‘Mind your manners, sir, I shall not give way,’ said Mr Ponsonby.

  ‘Eh?’ Henry Brannigan gave the silly old sod a surprised look before realizing there was something familiar about him. His memory placed him among the many people with whom he’d had pavement confrontations. And that led him to recognition. ‘Oh, it’s you, you barmy old bugger,’ he said.

  ‘Stand off,’ said Mr Ponsonby.

  ‘’Ello, ’ello, ’ello,’ said the stallholder, ‘you gents set for a ding-dong, are yer? Well, don’t get in the way of me customers or me bananas.’

  Henry Brannigan, his life much less bedevilled by fantasies since finding a woman who was a kindred spirit, pushed the brolly aside quite good-temperedly.

  ‘No ’ard feelings, mate,’ he said. ‘It’s only on pavements that I don’t like people gettin’ in me way.’ He made a little detour, brushing Mr Ponsonby’s shoulder unaggressively as he went by him.

  ‘What an ugly fellow,’ murmured Mr Ponsonby to his umbrella. ‘Ought to be hanged, ought to be hanged. I must tell Mrs Mason. Now, what was I doing?’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ‘WELL, JUST LOOK at our Annie,’ said Charlie.

  Sunday din
ner was over and everything tidied up. The Gaffer was ready to relax with The People, and Charlie, Nellie and Cassie were thinking of going to Ruskin Park, Cassie in the hope that the Prince of Wales would be there, when she could ask him if he’d mind giving her father a job guarding Buckingham Palace on a horse. As for Annie, she’d just come down from her bedroom in a pure white cotton dress with a scalloped hem that lightly danced around her knees. With it she wore a long string of beads and a round straw hat that sat on the back of her head like a crisp yellow halo. The dress, the beads and imitation silk stockings turned her into a fashionable flapper.

  ‘That’s our Annie?’ said the Gaffer.

  ‘Ain’t she something, Dad?’ said Nellie. ‘Crikey, look at yer frock, Annie, I never saw that one before.’

  ‘Oh, I’ve had it ages,’ said Annie. She’d bought it yesterday, in fact, at Hurlocks by the Elephant and Castle during her short midday break. Twenty-four hours could be called ages by any girl not wanting to be accused of dolling herself up on account of a certain young man. ‘Mind, it’s the first time I’ve worn it. D’you like it, Dad?’

  ‘Looks a treat, Annie,’ said the Gaffer. ‘Must’ve cost a packet, though.’

  ‘Oh, a bit out of me savings,’ said Annie.

  ‘Well,’ said the Gaffer solemnly, ‘if you’d ’ad a bit more savings you could ’ave ’ad a bit more frock. I recollect there was an uncomfortable occasion when you were ’ighly embarrassed by the shortness of one of yer other frocks.’

  ‘Dad, I told you never to mention that again,’ said Annie. ‘Didn’t I tell you?’

  ‘So yer did, Annie.’

  ‘Well, I don’t want to ’ave to tell you again, Dad, nor anyone else in this fam’ly. D’you all hear me?’

  ‘Yes, Annie,’ said Nellie.

  ‘You Charlie,’ said Annie, ‘what’re you grinnin’ at?’

  ‘Me?’ said Charlie.

  ‘Yes, you.’

  A knock on the front door made Nellie dart.

  ‘I’ll answer it,’ she said.

  ‘I bet it’s ’im,’ said Charlie.

  Nellie, finding Will on the doorstep, brought him through to the kitchen. The day being surprisingly balmy, he wore an open-necked cricket shirt, blue jacket, flannel trousers and no hat or cap. He said hello to everyone and took the opportunity to meet Annie’s father and to shake hands with him.

  ‘So you’re the bloke,’ said the Gaffer, taking a naturally long look at the young man who had wheeled Annie home in a pushcart.

  ‘The bloke who what?’ smiled Will.

  ‘Who—’

  ‘Dad, Annie said you’re not to say,’ warned Nellie.

  ‘Oh, about the pushcart?’ said Will.

  ‘Oh, ’e’s been an’ said it,’ breathed Cassie.

  ‘Askin’ for a wallop from Annie, that is,’ said Charlie.

  ‘Where is she?’ asked Will.

  ‘Mister, she’s just there,’ said Cassie.

  ‘Strike me pink,’ said Will, casting an eye over Annie in her pristine white, ‘that’s Annie? I thought it was someone’s bridesmaid.’

  ‘No, that’s our Annie,’ said the Gaffer.

  ‘Don’t take no notice of ’im, Dad,’ said Annie, ‘he’s always talkin’ daft. I don’t know what ’is mum ’as done to deserve a son like him. Nor do I know what I’m doin’ to be goin’ out with him.’

  ‘Might I have the pleasure of takin’ her to Hyde Park, Mr Ford?’ asked Will.

  ‘You’re welcome, Will,’ said the Gaffer, smiling.

  ‘I’ll see he gets ’ome all right, Dad,’ said Annie. ‘I don’t want ’is mum to worry about ’im. I expect she worries a lot about him bein’ barmy. I’ll ’old his hand for ’im when ’e gets off the bus.’

  Will grinned. So did the Gaffer.

  ‘Like the Army, do yer, Will?’ he asked.

  ‘On and off,’ said Will.

  ‘Well, we won’t keep yer,’ said the Gaffer, ‘off yer go with Sergeant-Major Annie.’

  ‘Oh, you just wait till I get back, Dad,’ said Annie.

  ‘Crumbs,’ breathed Cassie, ‘is Annie goin’ to wallop our dad, Nellie?’

  ‘Not till she gets back,’ said Nellie, giggling. She and Cassie went to the front door to see the couple depart. They watched them walking up the street, Annie’s light dress fluttering, her legs shining.

  ‘Don’t they look nice?’ said Cassie. ‘I expect they might meet Lord Percy in the park.’

  ‘Who’s Lord Percy?’ asked Nellie.

  ‘I don’t know, I just read ’is name somewhere,’ said Cassie dreamily.

  The rowing-boat moved in a slow jerking fashion over the sunlit waters of the Serpentine. Will was exerting himself economically on the oars. Other boats skimmed or floundered according to skill or lack of it. Annie was in charge of the rudder. It was her first time in a rowing-boat, and there was water, water everywhere, plus the challenge of steering. She liked a challenge, however. Will had explained how to use the ropes, and she took up her fearsome responsibility with resolution. So far, they’d only collided with one boat after narrowly missing another, which she thought their fault, anyway, not hers.

  Will was enjoying the outing, the March day was really warm, the Serpentine a pond-like playground. Laughter, yells and recriminations were constant on all sides.

  ‘You Cissie, you’ll drown us in a minute.’

  ‘’Erbert, stop splashin’ me, d’you ’ear?’

  ‘Blimey O’Reilly, some mothers do ’ave ’em, Alice, but fancy yours ’aving one like you.’

  ‘Fancy yours not chuckin’ you back under the gooseberry bush, Danny.’

  Will liked Annie as a spectacle of early spring. Her self-confidence tickled him. She was sure other boats were at fault when a bump looked likely. She sat upright, hands holding the rudder ropes, her eyes alight. Will, pulling gently on the oars, smiled at her.

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Annie, ‘but would you mind lookin’ where we’re goin’?’

  ‘Annie, you’re the one who has to look where we’re goin’,’ he said. ‘I can only look at where we’re comin’ from.’

  ‘You sure that’s where you’re lookin’?’ asked Annie, all too aware her legs were right in front of his eyes. ‘I suppose you haven’t got lookingitis, have you?’

  ‘Is it my fault you’re only wearin’ half a dress?’ grinned Will.

  ‘Listen,’ said Annie, ‘this dress is highly fashionable.’

  ‘Highly? Shortish, I’d say.’

  ‘Still, I’m pleasured you like it – here, watch yourselves, you two!’ Annie raised an indignant voice to a boat bearing down on them. Will turned his head.

  ‘Pull with your right hand, Annie,’ he said.

  Annie pulled. The boats collided. Her legs went up in the air.

  ‘’Ere, mate,’ said a young gent in a Hackney accent, ‘would yer mind tellin’ yer lidy driver to watch what she’s a-doin’ of?’

  ‘How’s your own driver?’ asked Will, keeping the boat steady with his oars.

  ‘Glad you asked, mate,’ said the young gent, pulling with one oar and pushing with the other. ‘She’s keen, I tell yer that. Yer keen, ain’t yer, Clara?’ he said to his girlfriend, who was pretty, plump and fairly sporty.

  ‘Well, a girl can only get drowned once,’ she said, and the young gent eyed Annie, who was right way up again, but considerably put out.

  ‘Like to swop drivers, mate?’ he asked Will.

  ‘What’s he mean, swop drivers?’ demanded Annie.

  ‘He means he fancies you,’ said Will. ‘How about you?’ he asked the plump and sporty girl. ‘D’you feel like swoppin’?’

  ‘Well, you look all right,’ she said, ‘but can I trust yer? I can’t trust Nobby; ’e squeezes me in all the places I didn’t know I ’ad.’

  ‘I don’t know if Annie would go for that,’ said Will, with the boats paddling around each other.

  Annie, hardly able to believe what she was hearing, said, ‘I certainly
wouldn’t. What d’you think I am?’

  ‘You look a bit of all right from where I’m sittin’,’ said the young Hackney gent.

  ‘You’ll be sittin’ in the Serpentine in a minute,’ said Annie. ‘You’re common, and clumsy as well. You shouldn’t be allowed in a boat. Will Brown, kindly start rowin’.’

  ‘So long,’ said Will to the matey couple, and rowed away.

  ‘What d’you mean talkin’ about that fat girl and me swoppin’?’ asked Annie.

  ‘Just passin’ the time of day with them,’ said Will.

  ‘Did you bump into them on purpose just to get my legs up in the air?’

  ‘I’ll be frank,’ said Will, rowing without pushing himself. ‘I like a bit of a treat. You don’t get to see too many legs in India. Cows’ legs, yes, but they’re not much of a treat, except to bulls, I suppose. By the way, the bump happened because you pulled on the left rope, not the right. Where’re you takin’ us now?’ He turned his head again, then pulled hard on his left oar to avoid another collision. Annie tugged on a rope. By the grace of God it was the correct one, and they floated by the oncoming boat. But Will’s sudden muscular pull brought on a familiar warning. He gritted his teeth. Of all things he didn’t want an attack to turn him into a wheezing old man in front of a healthy young girl. Sod it, he thought, I’m going to be a sorry case for the rest of my life if I can’t even row a slow boat round the Serpentine. He eased on the oars, paddling with them, waiting for an attack to follow the warning. Much to his relief, his breathing remained normal. He paddled on, towards the boat park.

  Annie asked if they were going in. Will said they might as well, their time was nearly up and he fancied a little walk to the refreshment rooms. Would she like some tea? Annie’s response was happily in the affirmative.

  The tea rooms, always well patronized on fine Sundays, were crowded, but they found a table, and Will ordered a pot of tea, buttered fruit buns and slices of fruit cake. Annie enjoyed the occasion tremendously, and told Will he was being really nice to her. Will said so why had she poured him only a half-cup of tea? Annie said it wasn’t good manners to have full cups in places like this.