An East End Girl

by Maggie Ford

  The next ten days were spent at Aunt Lottie’s bedside at every available moment. His father had to work to keep the money coming into the house. Eddie, needing only to pay his mother for his keep, asked his employers for a bit of time off, unpaid of course, to keep his mother company during her daily vigil at the hospital with no one else to sit beside her, apart from a fleeting visit by a kind customer or two. Aunt Lottie had no children, no husband and no siblings but her sister, and Eddie felt duty bound to let his aunt see that someone else cared. Not that she saw much, lying in drugged stupor.

  His employers were obliging. There were many out of work watermen waiting for a few days’ work, or even a long three nights without a break, so long as it brought in a bit of money. For Eddie, at least it helped take away some of the loss of Cissy’s inexplicable departure.

  On the Tuesday of the second week after Cissy’s leaving, another telegram arrived. His aunt had passed away in the night – peacefully, it stated. At the hospital they were told that she’d been in no pain, and, a nurse observed with good intention, perhaps it was a mercy she had gone quickly and quietly. No one could dispute that.

  It fell to Eddie to notify the Registrar of Births, Marriages and Deaths and find an undertaker, the body lying in the hospital morgue until needed. In all this, Eddie felt the opportunities for going off to search heaven knows where for Cissy were receding further and further. From her there was no word. No word at all.

  He went to see her workmate, Daisy Evans, who said she had been just as surprised as he by the suddenness of her friend’s going. She said she didn’t know who the man was – had never met him. She admitted to having been told his name on one occasion but had completely forgotten it – couldn’t begin to think what it was. She also admitted to Cissy’s talking about going off to France with him but hadn’t believed she’d go that far, and again didn’t know where in France she had gone.

  ‘But I wish I had her spirit,’ she observed wistfully. ‘I’ve always wanted to go on the stage, you know. One day I will. That’s why I went to Madam Noreah’s to take singing lessons while Cissy did her elocution. I’m still trying to pluck up the courage to tell my parents I want to leave Cohens and try the stage. I’m sure I could make it. I’m sure.’

  Sick at heart after what seemed like hours trying to pump some tiny bit of memory out of Daisy Evans’s brain from what Cissy had said to her, Eddie came away just as unclear as he’d been before he went.

  Chapter Eleven

  ‘What do we do about the café?’ Clara Bennett said, she, her husband Alfred and her son Eddie, sitting in the front room after the last of the few funeral guests had left.

  The table still lay spread with the debris of the lunch: a pile of sandwiches curling at the edges, half the fruit cake she’d made, its crumbs littering the paper doily and staining it brown in places, and the half-empty pickle jar. There were several sausage rolls still left too. She had done far too much food for the small gathering there had been.

  Quite a few around the graveside though, mostly her poor sister’s customers who hadn’t come back to the house but respectfully left after the funeral. They had liked her. Clara swallowed back tears.

  The day, for September, had been warm and sunny – not quite right really, she thought. Funerals should have properly suitable weather, dull and miserable, sort of compensation for those who have departed this world. Not a fine sunny day with the promise of a wonderful sunset which didn’t somehow seem much like any sort of compensation to the poor dear departed no longer able to appreciate such wonders.

  ‘It’s bin closed ever since she went into ’ospital,’ her husband said, knocking out his pipe on the empty fire grate. ‘Might as well stay closed till we ’ear what the solicitors ’ave to say.’

  Lottie had left a will. Her only living relatives, being her sister Clara and her nephew Eddie, had been asked to attend the offices of Hodges, Hughes & Hughes, in Commercial Road tomorrow morning at ten. It probably didn’t entail much except for the café.

  ‘I mean,’ Clara said, ‘what if it’s willed to me? What’ll I do with a café? I ain’t got no idea ’ow to run a café.’

  ‘We’ll ’ave ter sell it, that’s all. If it comes to you, which I expect it will. It might bring in a tidy little sum.’

  Clara winced visibly. ‘Oh, Alf…it sounds so money-grabbin’. I really don’t want none of ’er poor money what she worked ’erself into the grave for. I don’t want to profit out of me poor sister’s death, God bless ’er. I really don’t.’

  ‘Who d’you think should ’ave it, then? The cat’s ’ome? Look, Clara, she’d’ve wanted you to ’ave it.’

  ‘What about Eddie, ’ere? Maybe she wanted ’im to ’ave it?’

  Alf Bennett rose and put his cold pipe in its rack on the shelf above the fireplace, eased his trouser braces away from his chest with his thick thumbs and stretched his back.

  ‘If it goes to Eddie, then good luck to ’im. ’E needs a bit of luck at this moment – that cow of a Cissy Farmer leavin’ ’im in the lurch like that. An’ all the weddin’ bin thought out, too. You could do with something lucky coming your way, son, and good riddance to bad rubbish is what I say.’

  Eddie’s lips tightened. He’d listened in silence to the discussion going on over his head, finding no interest in it, no desire to join in, his thoughts centred not on the funeral but on Cissy. He was sick at heart. There seemed little left in life to be happy about with her gone. For her to walk off as she had, she couldn’t ever have loved him and the knowledge felt like a physical pain, as though he were being strangled from the inside out. But he wasn’t going to rise to his father’s besmirching of Cissy. He wasn’t going to even mention her.

  ‘I don’t want to trade off Aunt Lottie’s dying, Dad. If she was to’ve left anything at all to me, I’ve got no use fer it. Not now.’

  His father gazed down to where Eddie sat on the edge of his chair, leaning forward on his elbows in a sort of gesture of despair.

  Eddie was aware of the scrutiny, but what reason was there to lean back like someone with the world at his feet? The only time he felt anywhere near like leaning back in a chair was from sheer exhaustion after a long day working on the river. He hadn’t put his heart into his work all that much since Cissy went, yet what little he did do seemed to leave him completely worn out. Without her, nothing was really worth while. Certainly there was nothing to strive for, nothing to make his muscles leap and ripple from the sheer joy of living.

  ‘You can forget about…’ his father began, then stopped himself, to say instead, ‘we’ll just wait an’ see what your aunt’s will ’as ter say, that’s all. Weren’t much of a life for ’er, workin’ all hours God sent without a man at ’er side. Killed ’er in the end. Well, I’m orf ter bed. Up at four tomorrer. We’ve bin busy lately. Would’ve bin on a two, three nights stretch ’ad it not been fer the funeral. Got ter make up some time now, two of us bein’ orf today, me and Eddie. No need fer you ter get up with me tomorrer, Clara. Yer’ve ’ad a rotten day of it. Sorry about Lottie.’

  It seemed to Eddie that he was talking for the sake of it, to fill up the void Eddie’s own attitude had provoked. His father’s hand came on his shoulder as he passed, and Eddie knew with a pang of gratitude that he was feeling for him, even while against Cissy for her action.

  ‘See yer on the water, son. ’Ave a good sleep.’

  To which Eddie nodded wordlessly.

  Mr Oliver Hodges laid the stiff, neatly handwritten parchment of his client’s last will and testament before Mrs Bennett and her son to see more clearly.

  ‘As you see, my late client has bequeathed her estate to Mr Edward Bennett, your son, apart from two hundred pounds and all her jewellery which she specifically wished you to have, Mrs Bennett. I did beg her at one time to leave a proportionately larger portion of her estate to yourself, her sister, but she said you and your husband would be at a loss what to do with a business. She refused to be swayed, and said it was for t
he best that it go to her nephew, Edward Bennett, as he is young and would have far more understanding of business. May I offer you my congratulations, Mr Bennett?’

  Eddie gave him a look that said he wanted no congratulations, but immediately smiled politely. Solicitors had no tact as far as he could see, though he knew little about them; having never sat in one’s office before.

  ‘I didn’t expect any of this.’

  ‘I quite understand. A thousand pounds and a going business thrust on one is quite a deal to take in.’

  ‘I never dreamed she was worth so much. I never dreamed she’d leave it to me, lock, stock and barrel.’

  ‘Hardly lock, stock and barrel. Your mother is also included in the will. But I see what you mean.’

  ‘She said once that what she had would be mine. But I really never believed…’

  Eddie’s words failed him as he again focused his eyes on the neat, calligraphic endeavours of some solicitor’s clerk by which wills were written. A deep feeling of sadness came over him that he would never again sit in Aunt Lottie’s café, have her wink at him as she handed him his egg and sausage, his two slices and tea. The next time he climbed a ladder to paint a ceiling would be for himself. He didn’t want to touch another paintbrush on his own account. Poor Aunt Lottie, never to hear her grating voice saying that it was all right, he could keep his money, that he did enough.…It was almost too miserable to think about. He swallowed painfully and looked up at the solicitor through suddenly misted eyes, nodding wordlessly.

  ‘You don’t ’ave to manage that café,’ his mother said, as they left after shaking the solicitor’s soft hand.

  ‘I don’t want the place anyway,’ he told her. ‘I think you should take it over, Mum. You and Dad. Dad could get off the river and take things easy. It was always a nice little earner. It must be for Aunt Lottie to’ve saved all that money.’

  ‘But I don’t know nothing about running cafés. I said that before.’

  ‘But you’d learn.’

  ‘And run it down’ill while I am,’ she said glumly.

  ‘But you’ve got it for nothing. Would it matter if you did run it down a bit? It’d soon pick up once you’ve got the ’ang of it.’

  ‘I couldn’t face all them rough watermen what comes in.’

  ‘If Aunt Lottie did it, you can.’ He took her arm encouragingly. ‘Think about it, Mum. It ain’t my sort of life. I like the river too much.’

  ‘What I think you ought ter do is sell it.’ She hadn’t really been listening. ‘With the money you could buy what you often used ter talk about. A tug. You always said you wouldn’t ever ’ave enough money fer such an ’ope. Now you ’ave. You could buy yerself a tug and go into the towage business proper. A thousand quid! You could buy two tugs and really do business. You could become a man of real good standing. Someone to look up to and be respected. That’d show that Cissy Farmer. When she comes crying back to you, yer could tell ’er what you think of ’er, and you’re a man of means and can ’ave your pick of anyone.’

  He didn’t want to tell her that he didn’t want his pick of anyone. He wanted Cissy. But if he could only show her that he could offer her the world on a plate – his plate, then perhaps she would want him again.

  But how could he show her when he had no idea where she was and not the least notion where to look for her?

  Daisy was jealous. More, her nose had been put out of joint. All the times she had boasted how she would leave home and go on the stage; the times she’d laughed at Cissy for being weak-kneed and putting obstacles in the way when it came to going off to seek a better life than the one they had. And now it was Cissy who’d done it and she who had been left behind. She almost hated Cissy as she went off to work in the mornings alone, to sit at her bench with some other face across the way in Cissy’s place – the job had been filled that very day her note had arrived in old McCreedy’s office. It never took long to fill vacancies in the dress-machinist trade.

  Daisy consulted Madam Noreah on her chances of finding some sort of opening as a singer. In response, Madam Noreah inhaled deeply.

  ‘My dear, why else have you been coming to me these past two years if not to find the ultimate goal for your excellent voice?’ Coming up for breath, she continued, ‘There were times I feared you would fall by the wayside as so many of my young pupils do, opting for the easier life of marriage and security, allowing all to go to waste.’

  A look of supreme self-satisfaction sent rays across her podgy face and her pregnant-looking bosom rose and fell. She lifted a dramatic hand to embrace the air about her face.

  ‘I never married. My career came first. Always. I had my suitors, you understand. In my youth I was quite fetching, and had men flocking around me, waiting at the stage door with flowers, and wonderful boxes of chocolates, and offers…Ah, yes, the offers! Wonderful offers.’

  Her pale eyes that had held a faraway look refocused upon Daisy.

  ‘And you, my dear – you will have similar offers…As you climb. Ah yes, as you climb. And then…Ah, then will your life begin. You may marry – in time. Perhaps to some distinguished titled person. Or even to a European count – who knows? And married to such, you may still continue your career. With your voice, my dear, as it develops, as it must with dedication, you can scale the very heights. Of course, you must continue your studies – though not under my tuition, I fear.’

  She gave a great sigh. ‘The time has now come for you to leave me and to move on to those who can teach you far more than I am able. I have felt for some time that you have outgrown my limited abilities to teach you. Now you must spread your wings, my dear, and fly away, or it will be such a waste. Such a cruel waste. Such a sacrilege. I wish you luck and great joy of your talent, dear Daisy. Now go. Go and find yourself, child. Find yourself.’

  Exhausted by Madam Noreah’s exuberance, as much as the woman was herself, Daisy brought the tone down to earth. ‘How do I start?’

  Her tutor smiled, utterly undaunted. ‘I shall write you a letter of recommendation which you shall take along to the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden. I shall do it this very minute and you must go there as soon as you can. I would waste no time delaying, were I you.’

  Enthusiasm bubbling up in the woman like an artesian well, Daisy watched her feverishly seek pen and ink and a sheet of notepaper from the cat-scratched bureau that squatted to one side of the ancient black grand piano. Her podgy hand moved rapidly across the notepaper.

  ‘Ask for Signor Vittorio Citti – an old acquaintance of mine who will be happy to listen to your voice. He will grant you an audition, as a favour to me, and I am sure he will agree that yours is a truly beautiful pure soprano and a promising coloratura.’

  Daisy wished she could share the enthusiasm Madam Noreah was displaying. Opera had never been her aim. Something much less heavy would have been more suitable, giving her time to enjoy herself rather than be forever practising scales and the arias which opera demanded. But she held her tongue and took the note Madam Noreah folded into a discoloured white envelope she managed to fish from the bureau.

  Armed with her letter of introduction, Daisy went home to face her family with her promising good fortune, expecting disapproval.

  Instead, her mother looked awed and said, ‘Royal Opera House – well I never!’ While her father, not one to bother himself what happened to his children, merely grinned and muttered, ‘Bloody load of rubbish if yer arst me.’

  It was tantamount to receiving both their blessings, yet it was with misgivings that, in her best dress, coat and hat, she made her way to the address on the letter, the huge, square, dark-bricked edifice of the Royal Opera House standing like a potentate amid the stink of decaying cabbage leaves and rotting vegetables that only the Covent Garden Fruit and Veg Market could create after it was done for the day.

  It was surprisingly easy to see Signor Citti. The doorman in his little glass cubicle gave Daisy’s note a cursory glance and picked up the phone to speak to someon
e, repeating the introductory name Daisy had quoted, then directed her to follow the narrow corridor until she came to the last door on the right at the very end, and then to knock on it.

  The corridor was a corkscrew of a place, turning left and then left again, finally terminating at a door marked ‘Props’. Tapping on the one on her right, as directed, although it had no name, she was bidden by a hoarse voice with a faint Italian accent to enter.

  Opening the door cautiously, she found herself looking at a broad-faced man whose wealth of black beard, well splattered with grey, contrasted with his balding head. He looked like the sort of operatic baritone Madam Noreah might once have known very well in their youth, but had, like her, seen the best of his operatic days, possibly following the company these days more in a coaching capacity.

  Clad in rust-brown trousers and waistcoat, a striped collarless shirt with a red kerchief at his neck, he beamed at Daisy, advancing upon her with one hand, whose thick fingers carried an assortment of gold rings, held out for the letter she had brought. Still beaming at her, he opened the envelope swiftly, then lowered his somewhat bulging brown eyes to read.

  When he lifted them again, his gaze was more businesslike. ‘Your tutor writes to say that you possess a remarkable voice.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Daisy said, even more nervous than before.

  ‘I should like to hear for-a myself. Please, take off your coat, signorine. I regret there is no piano. I would appreciate to hear a scale. Whichever you choose.’

  He listened, bending a critical ear towards her as she complied, still nervous. Listening intently, he moved her voice up through the range so that she was reaching top C, her confidence returning, then requested she sing something easy, something she was familiar with, something she had learned with Madam Noreah.