An East End Girl

by Maggie Ford

  He decided to hang on for a couple of hours more, his broad face stubborn with his refusal to give in, but growing colder by the hour, finally even his resolve began to waver. Ebb tide, there’d be no more ships to come up, even humble jobs like dredging, freighting sludge down to the estuary in drop-bottom hoppers, all taken. Men would work on them for as long as they were wanted, winching up the huge doors after fifty tons of cold wet mud had slurped down like thick porridge. It was a filthy cold job in this weather and with just straight pay at the end of it no doubt; didn’t matter how many hours a man worked, employers were less generous with overtime these days when there were so many waiting to take over, men grateful for what they could get. It made an employer greedy when work was like looking for gold dust. Nothing more would come in now. Bobby turned away from the dwindling group.

  He couldn’t face going home just yet, Ethel’s nagging driving him silly, always the same if no work had come his way: how did he think she was going to feed the three of them, him, her and little Jean, if he didn’t bring in any wages? As if mass unemployment was his fault. No, he couldn’t face her, so he went round to his parents’ place instead.

  In the warmth of Mum’s kitchen he sat over a cup of tea with his father. Fifty now, his father was more or less unwanted, younger men chosen to work, if at all, by employers. Whenever Bobby visited, his father always looked the same – dispirited and at a loss what to do with himself. He’d never had a hobby, always been too busy on the river. Now there was nothing to take up his idle hours.

  But Sidney was a young man and he was out of work too. Harry, coming up to fourteen, had nothing to look forward to either at the end of his last term at school. May at twenty still had a job, doing what Cissy used to do, machining. Not much of that, and she was on short time, her employer having managed to keep on his best girls in case things got better. She was almost the sole breadwinner these days, so there was no money for herself and she seldom went out except to hang around on street corners wishing some boy, hopefully in work, might snatch her up and marry her. But there were few of them, even though she was pretty enough for anyone to want to snatch up.

  ‘Do Ethel know you’re here?’ Doris asked, her small face ruddy from making toast by the fire for her family’s midday meal. She began to spread the toast with plum jam. No point putting margarine on as well, which could be saved for another day. Jam tasted quite nice on its own sinking into the toast without a barrier of margarine.

  Bobby waved away the slice she put before him. ‘No thanks, Mum. I’m having something to eat when I get home. I’ll be going soon.’

  ‘You should’ve gone straight there, Bobby. Not going ’ome, she’ll be wondering if you got yourself a bit of work.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t, and I don’t fancy ’er going on at me because I didn’t. I just wanted to pop in ’ere first for a break.’

  ‘Bloody cold out there today,’ Charlie put in gruffly. ‘Meself, I don’t see no point catchin’ me death waiting around the pool for nothing.’ He seemed so despondent, Bobby looked at him encouragingly.

  ‘It’ll get better in time. Soon. You wait.’

  ‘Bin waitin’ fer a year. It’s just gettin’ worse.’

  ‘What you got for dinner tonight, then?’ Bobby quickly changed the subject, looking up at his mother as he pushed away the plate she was still trying to offer him. ‘Honestly, Mum, I ’ad a decent breakfast this morning. I ain’t hungry.’

  She smiled, relented, and put the slice on his father’s plate. ‘Dinner? We’ve got a nice bit of scrag. Well, we ’ad it yesterday and I’ve put the bones back and a few more veg. And for afters, a bit of suet pudding. Well, we had some of it yesterday. What’s left is nice fried in a bit of marg, and we can put jam on it.’

  ‘Sounds good.’

  ‘And what’ve you got tonight?’

  Bobby gave a wry grin. ‘Bread an’ grumble, I reckon. Ethel’s gonna give me the length of ’er tongue when I get ’ome. It’s a wonder her mouth don’t ache sometimes.’

  ‘She ain’t so bad, Bobby. We’ve got ’ard times. Any woman would moan over it now and again.’

  ‘Now and again!’ He gave a low bitter chuckle, but something made him think of Cissy. She had always been so lively. Even when he and she did have their differences, as all brothers and sisters do, she had not been one for holding a grudge, not like Ethel and her never-ending nag, nag, nag. Except that something must have been gnawing at Cissy that day she had upped and walked out, and no word since. Going off with some man? There had to be more to it than that. And then last October someone telling Mum that she’d been seen locally, Cissy still hadn’t contacted any of them.

  May, on short time, had come round one afternoon just after that to tell him what Mum had heard. He’d had no work that day and Ethel in one of her tantrums had snatched up Jean and gone off round to her mother’s to work it off on her. With her out of the way, May had felt it opportune to air her concern about Dad having put his foot down upon any effort to go in search of Cissy, even though she was so near.

  ‘She must’ve really hurt Dad, going away like she did,’ May had said. ‘He won’t let Mum talk about her, go and find her or have any dealings with her at all. Mum understands how he feels, but it has upset her terrible, as you can well imagine.’

  She had told him not to say anything to Ethel about it, as it would be all around the neighbourhood. ‘You know what Ethel’s like.’ Yes, he knew well what Ethel was like. ‘And if it got back to Dad’s ears, I’d really be in hot water. And I don’t think it would help one bit for any of us to go looking for her. I’d like to, but it could cause an awful lot of trouble if any of us did that behind Dad’s back. As nice as he is, I don’t want to get into his bad books – not over someone that walked out on all of us like that. I’m not really sure I can forgive her. At least she’s near home now and it’s really up to her what she does. She’s grown up enough to make her own life. I’ve told you because you’re the only one of us what didn’t know yet.’

  He had honoured her confidence, apart from telling Eddie’s father. He knew then that he’d been wrong, but it couldn’t have got to Eddie’s ears after all because nothing had come of it. Perhaps it had all been for the best. And then Eddie’s father had died, which made it seem all for the best. He’d have liked to go and find her for himself, out of curiosity, but, as May had said, it could cause more trouble. Anyway, it was none of his business. He and Cissy had grown miles apart – brothers and sisters didn’t always keep close together as books and films would have it. Yet at this moment he was again curious. Odd to think of her so near and yet no contact made.

  Forgetting Dad was sitting there, the thought was out of his mouth before he could stop it. He could have bitten off his tongue.

  There was a moment of profound silence, his father’s broad face looked as though it had turned to stone in the act of chewing his toast, and when his mother finally spoke, her voice was unnaturally brittle, as though she had rehearsed the words just for this occasion and for her husband’s ears.

  ‘I don’t want nothing to do with it. She’s gone ’er own way, that’s all I know an’ all I want to know.’

  ‘But she’s near here.’ He should have shut his silly mouth there and then, but he couldn’t, not now he’d started it. ‘She’s probably too proud to come creeping back.’

  ‘Proud?’ The word broke from his father’s lips as though he had spat, and little half-masticated crumbs of toast shot onto the tablecloth. ‘What call’s she got to be proud? A tart!’

  ‘No, Dad, you’re wrong. Cissy wasn’t no tart…’

  ‘Bobby…’ The pleading cry from his mother stopped him. ‘Bobby, it’s ’ard for us. We didn’t ask to be treated like she treated me an’ your dad. It ’urt us both. She’s made ’er bed.’

  He was about to argue but the expression on both their faces was not to be borne. He couldn’t add to their agony with more argument. All he said was, ‘Eddie don’t know, does he?’ very
softly.

  Doris shook her head. Her voice trembled. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘He should be told she’s around ’ere, at least so he can make up his mind what to do.’

  Neither of them answered. His father went back to eating his toast and his mother bent her head to pour another cup of tea, now somewhat less than lukewarm and well stewed. Normally she would have made fresh had she needed it, and no one needed any more, but she poured herself one anyway, added a touch of condensed milk and began to sip the half-cold bitter stuff, a far-away look on her face.

  Bobby made his farewell soon afterwards. He had made up his mind. He would tell Eddie Bennett about Cissy. Whether it was kind or not, he wasn’t certain. But it was right that the man should know, or so he thought. He should have told him long ago.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Eddie’s brown eyes were dark with reproach and disbelief, certainly not with the excitement Bobby had expected to see there.

  ‘So that’s what he meant,’ Eddie heard him whisper to himself.

  Filled now with guilt at having burdened this man with what he had thought would be helpful news, Bobby looked away, not understanding or wanting to question the remark.

  Eddie sat at the desk twiddling a pencil between his long strong fingers with a delicate manipulation, his eyes still on his visitor. ‘When did you say you told my father?’

  ‘Around October, November, not long after me mum ’eard it.’

  ‘He never told me.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I thought he would. But I’m not surprised he didn’t. I wondered when I phoned whether I was doing the right thing. I admit I was relieved when it was your dad I spoke to and not you. By the way, I was sorry to hear about him. He was no age really to…’

  His condolence was waved away. Eddie put the pencil down and got up to walk about the office with its two narrow dingy windows looking out onto the Thames just visible between a couple of other warehouses on the wharf. He stopped pacing suddenly and turned to face Bobby.

  ‘This person who told your mother…did she say where she’d seen her – Cissy?’

  ‘All I know is, someone told her, and someone told them that her old elocution teacher bumped into ’er in Bethnal Green Road. The old teacher seemed to think she was living somewhere in that area, not far from where she met ’er.’

  ‘What made her think that?’

  Bobby looked anxious. ‘I don’t know. I only know what me mum said.’ He waited for some reaction, but Eddie had turned away, his attention apparently taken by the filmy view through the window. He stood there so long, saying nothing, that Bobby finally rose. It was all getting rather embarrassing and now he wanted to be away.

  ‘Look, Eddie…I only came because I took it your dad couldn’t have passed on me message. I thought, if he’d told you, you’d ’ave been round to us before now to find out a lot more about it.’

  ‘Yeah,’ came the distracted reply. Bobby fidgeted.

  ‘Look, I’ve got to go.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Eddie said again. He seemed miles away, in a world of his own. Leaving him still standing gazing out of the window onto the strip of Thames between the warehouses, Bobby let himself out.

  *

  In the wide Bethnal Green Road, buzzing with traffic and Saturday shoppers, littered with rubbish carelessly dropped, filled by shouts of stallholders, while the heat of an afternoon May sun wafted up in waves from the pavement, and poured down to penetrate the shoulders of his best blue suit, Eddie stood uncertain which direction to take.

  She could be living in any one of these turnings off the main road, down any alley, above any shop. All he could do was walk up and down in hope that he might see her going along. He had been doing that for four hours. His feet in best shoes, tight from lack of use, had begun to ache. He was hot and bothered and hungry, the succulent smells from cafés and butchers’ shops heightened. It had been a stupid move, a wasted effort. Dad would have called him a silly sod, and he’d be right.

  It had taken the best part of a month to make up his mind to come here. So many obstacles standing in his way: the worry of a business not going as it should; his own apathy, still there over the death of his father, even after five months, fighting to overcome it and run the business efficiently. Then there was his mother. Bereaved and needing a shoulder to lean on – after their initial promises to keep an eye on her, that they would be there if she wanted for anything, Dad’s people had melted away like butter on the tongue. It was left to him to support her, do what he could for her. There was little coming in from the business to keep himself much less supplement her ridiculous widow’s pension. Dad having sunk most of her nest egg in the tug business, now not even bumping along the ground, he could only do his best for her with what little he had. His mind was more taken up with all that rather than going hunting for Cissy, he told himself.

  Even though she was reputed to be in England, there was no proof that she was still here. Even if she was, would she thank him for coming looking for her? She’d made her choice long ago. She wouldn’t want him coming round now, interfering in her life. If she had wanted him, she would have sought him out. All this was reason enough. But the one true reason, one he tried to evade most of the time, was that if he did find her, what had he to offer? All those dreams of one day laying a thriving business at her feet – phuh!

  Eddie gave a small explosive sound of self-derision. He had nothing – was back to that one original tug now, the Cicely, nicely equipped and willing to work, but competing with big companies that could still survive the Depression – all he’d built up was slowly going downhill. It was true what they said – money came to money, the moment it began to dwindle less and less money came in. He was slowly grinding to a halt. So here he was, a man with no set idea, trying to find someone who might not even be here, and if she was, how could he in his poor financial state ever dare to dream of claiming her back?

  He began to move on, without purpose, unaware he was following the path his father had taken five months before. He too noted the sign above one particular shop selling knitting wool, patterns and such, and wondered for a moment. But in his case, with the sinking but still bright sun directly in his eyes, it wasn’t possible to pierce the shop’s comparatively darker interior. Besides, it was six o’clock and the shop was closed. There was nothing to make him pause and he walked on.

  Reaching Shoreditch, his feet weary and nothing achieved, his only thought was to hop on a bus home. At the appropriate stop he settled himself to waiting the ten minutes for the next one. He was hungry but there was no question of spending good money in a café when there was a lovingly cooked tea at home. Expecting him when she saw him, taking it that he’d been working late as he often did, his mother would have kept something hot for him, a marvel with the meanest food.

  Cursing the lengthening wait, he looked across at the stop on the opposite side where buses bore people into the City. It had been a long time since he’d gone into the West End; he had no reason to and it would be a long time probably before he ever did. A knot of hopefuls stood there by the red flag-shaped sign on its pole like patient cattle, just as those on his side were doing. Yet another person joined them, settling with her weight on one leg more than the other, hip pushed out, gloved hands clasped loosely, an envelope handbag securely held against her by one arm. With nothing much else to do, Eddie let his gaze wander idly over the slim-fitting black suit, the tiny black and white hat with a pencil feather and a short veil set jauntily on her head, the high-heeled shoes completing the elegant look of her. She had such fair hair too, softly waved…

  A shock like a discharge of electricity shot through him. Was his vulnerable state playing tricks with him? It was her. It was Cissy. He could be wrong…It might not be her. But already he was halfway across the road, dodging the traffic. From the corner of his eye he saw the bus looming that would take her away from him. It towered as he made a leap for the kerb. It was closer than he had thought.

 
He heard the deep-seated screech of brakes, the driver’s incensed yell, ‘You silly born bugger!’ But he was on the pavement, thrusting his way through those jostling to board, ignoring the angry driver.

  ‘Cissy! Cissy!’

  Her foot on the running board, she turned, looked over his head.

  ‘Cissy!’

  Her scan came down to his level and she saw him. Her face blanching, she remained statue-like, one foot still on the running board, one hand gripping the central steel safety pole. People were pushing past her.

  ‘Come on!’ came the conductor’s irritable command, seeing a pile-up of passengers. ‘Come on…On or off?’

  Struggling with those late arrivals hurrying to board, Eddie pushed further towards her.

  ‘Stop bloody shovin’, mate. Give the women a chance, will yuh?’

  This from an older bonneted woman in a threadbare coat, but he hardly noticed. Cissy was getting down from the bus, and that was all that mattered.

  Cissy was in his arms, the last of the passengers had boarded the bus. The bus was pulling away. But Cissy was in his arms.

  For a while neither said anything, merely held each other as though frightened that, should they let go, the moment would prove to be no more than an illusion and each would be alone.

  It was Eddie who spoke first. ‘I’ve been searching. I didn’t know where you were. I was told you were home, but I didn’t know where.’

  At the sound of his voice, Cissy leaned away from him. They hadn’t kissed, yet she leaned away as if they had and she hadn’t expected it. Her eyes were wide and clearest blue as they stared into his in wavering uncertainty.

  ‘Oh, Eddie…I didn’t want you to find me.’

  It was his turn to look uncertain. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because…because I left you. I went away.’

  ‘But you came back, didn’t you? You should’ve come to me.’

  Her face had grown hard. ‘What, to ask for forgiveness?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I didn’t…I don’t expect you to forgive me. I never wrote to you or contacted you.’