An East End Girl

by Maggie Ford

  ‘Hello,’ Noelle said dutifully.

  ‘Oh…Noelle,’ it sounded like someone in pain and then she found herself suddenly snatched up and held close. ‘Oh, Noelle, I’ve missed you so much. I never thought I did, but I have. I have.’

  Eddie stood watching the two being reunited, mother and daughter, and found himself pushing away an uninvited prickle of jealousy. How could he have expected otherwise, blood being thicker than water every time? True, Cissy loved their Edward with equal abandon, but there was something painfully poignant in those kisses and cuddles. Leaving Cissy to her reunion, Daisy going to join in, the two of them falling into deep discussion while they both caressed and cuddled the child, he took Theodore to one side.

  ‘I ’ope you don’t think me as taking charge, Mr Helgott,’ he began. ‘But we’ve got some ’ard thinking ter do. I saw some ole gel…woman…in ’er garden watchin’ us. I didn’t like the way she was watching.’

  ‘I too saw her,’ Theodore said, his dark brows drawn into a frown.

  ‘It might be best to leave as early in the morning as we can.’

  ‘Not too early. Such haste could draw suspicion.’

  ‘Yeah, I see what you mean.’

  On the far side of the room, they went into deep discussion. Their plan of action finally resolved, they returned to the women, bringing them out of their happy absorption with the four-year-old Noelle.

  ‘Tomorrow morning,’ Theodore informed them, ‘we go to Switzerland. Tonight, we’ll each pack a medium- sized case, tomorrow wear our holiday clothes. There is a bus to Dusseldorf at eight forty-five. This we will board, making a lot of happy noise for our neigbours to think we are going on a small weekend trip. This is most important.’

  Lying beside her in the room they’d been given, Eddie seemed to her to be cold and aloof, his body rigid, a little removed from hers.

  Preoccupied, she thought, with the prospect of tomorrow. It was going to be a bit dramatic, almost like acting out a play, though this wasn’t going to be any play. She still couldn’t grasp the immediate seriousness of it all. Life in England bore no resemblance to this, yet it was hardly believable that this was all happening to her. She almost wanted to burst out laughing, but it would be nervous laughter, springing from a sense of eeriness that wouldn’t take any definite shape or form.

  She turned over towards Eddie, a need to have him cuddle away the strange unformed feeling, but felt him move even further from her.

  ‘What’s wrong, love? It will be all right tomorrow, I’m sure it will. Don’t worry.’

  But he didn’t reply, and later she heard him snoring softly.

  He was his old self again by the morning, noticeably tense before the journey ahead of them, maybe feeling a little responsible for everyone, but his peculiar coolness last night in bed was gone.

  Cissy wished she knew what had made him so cool towards her, as though she had done something wrong. But in the throes of getting ready to leave, eating a quick breakfast of moist dark rye bread and some smoked cheese, the leftover perishable foodstuffs consigned to the garden waste tip as anyone would going away on holiday, a final look round to see if anything had been left undone, she dismissed it.

  That was until just before setting off, she picked Noelle up and cuddled her. The child made no attempt to wriggle free, even put her little arms about her. Slender, dark-haired, eyes bright blue, and her face oval but not as oval as that of most four-year-olds, promising the high cheekbones and firm cheeks of good bone structure; the child of her father, with his handsome looks – she was already beautiful.

  But Langley was in the past. Noelle was now, and was hers. Holding her close, savouring the moment before putting her down ready to be off, in her heart regretting the years away from her, Cissy glanced towards Eddie. His brown eyes were watching her, taking in the scene. They were dark and brooding, and then she knew what was eating into him. So he hadn’t entirely forgiven her. Or was it not that he hadn’t forgiven her, but felt left out now? Was he jealous? Was it of the man whose child she held or the child herself. She couldn’t tell.

  Quickly she put Noelle down, smiled at him; receiving an answering smile. A little stiff perhaps, but a smile, and at least he hadn’t turned away. She vowed that she must be more careful about Noelle in his sight, make her errors up to him as best she could, keeping away from her as much as possible. But it was going to be so hard, the way Noelle had fitted so naturally in her arms after all those years away from her, she believing neither of them capable of being close.

  ‘Are we ready then?’ Theodore said, taking one last look about the house he had bought for Daisy.

  Daisy gave a little sniff, and he put a brief arm about her waist, one that was visibly beginning to thicken under her loose-cut summer dress. ‘One day we will return here, when this is all over, mein liebling, my darling.’

  Daisy sniffed even more audibly. ‘I don’t ever want to come back to Germany. All I want now is to go back to England. And stay there!’

  His arm dropped away from her, but he smiled sadly. ‘As you wish, my dear. As you wish. Perhaps you are right.’

  With Noelle’s hand in hers, Cissy deliberately making no attempt to approach the child, they filed out of the house some few minutes before the autobus into town would be due.

  ‘Look happy,’ Theodore warned as he pocketed the main door key. ‘We are to look pleased to be going away on a few days joyous vacation.’ And he smiled at a woman, a slightly known neighbour, passing them, her gaze curious.

  ‘Guten morgen, Frau Schmitt,’ he said affably as she paused, her interest aroused, continued in German, ‘an old friend of my wife, and her husband, have come to visit us for a holiday. We are taking the weekend to show them around. We will be returning on Monday.’

  The woman, taken a little aback by his candour, muttered, ‘Nimm dich ja in acht,’ bidding them to take care, and continued on her way, apparently satisfied.

  Cissy wondered what all the trepidation had been about as they boarded the train south. They hadn’t been challenged. No one took much notice of them except, hearing English spoken, someone asked where they came from. Eddie said London, then fell to talking to Cissy to avoid the inevitable enquiries about his country.

  The journey proved pleasant as they travelled south, dozing, eating sandwiches and drinking flasks of coffee brought with them, disdaining to pay out for lunch on the train, enjoying passing views of orchards, blossom gone, fruit not yet formed, the uniform trees lovely to look at just the same; then nearing Stuttgart glimpsing the Bavarian Alps on the horizon to the south-east, the Black Forest to the west. Finally at Stuttgart, they found the cheapest decent lodgings they could for the night, boarding a train for Switzerland next morning. They could have been ordinary holidaymakers.

  Anxiety came at the Swiss border, the inevitable German guards clambering aboard to examine passports, starting at either end of the train. Sitting quiet, tense, Cissy could hear carriage doors opening and closing, the sounds drawing closer like pincers slowly tightening, all the way along the crowded train carrying mostly summer holidaymakers at this time of year.

  She blessed their good thinking in choosing the centre of the long train, trusting the tedious repetition of opening doors and going through each crowded compartment examining and stamping passports would promote some sloppiness by the time their turn came.

  The time arriving, Cissy and Eddie presenting their visitors’ ones, then as Theodore held out their joint passport, Daisy let out a piercing cry holding her side, words tumbling out in her best Cockney.

  ‘Ooh…Teddy…I’ve got such an ’orrible pain! Ooh, cripes…it’s the baby! Oo-er!’

  Her stomach stuck out as far as she could get it, she fell sideways into his arms so that he had to catch her. Cissy, on cue, took the passport from him, half presented it, then distracted by another cry, bent over the whimpering Daisy offering comfort.

  The guard was looking alarmed, most likely with visions of having to de
liver a child on the spot. His face florid, he asked in German if there was anything he should do to help.

  Neither Cissy nor Eddie genuinely understood him. Theodore was too taken up with his wife’s plight to reply, while Daisy gave another screech and swore colourfully in Cockney.

  ‘Bleedin’ ’ell! Oh, bleedin’ ’ell. Oh, ’elp!’

  Whether the guard understood English or not, much less Cockney, the sentiments were plain enough. But he had his job to do. Quickly he stamped Theodore’s passport, hardly glancing at it except to see it was a German one.

  ‘I’m taking my visitors to Switzerland for the weekend,’ Theodore explained hurriedly between efforts to support the writhing Daisy, ‘before they return to Germany to spend the rest of their holiday.’

  The guard nodded, handed back the passport, glanced at the four-year-old child with them, also crying and trying to pat the distraught Englishwoman’s hand, and again asked if there was anything he could do. But Daisy was recovering, was sitting up, face flushed, eyes brimming tears.

  ‘It’s goin’, the pain. Gawd, what a pain that was. Must’ve bin somefink I et. Gawd, that’s better. Much better. Gawd…’

  ‘No need to overdo it,’ Cissy whispered, still bending over her as the guard moved off. ‘You’re not on the stage now.’

  It was all she could do to control a giggle as fellow passengers ranged along the opposite seat looked on, each face a picture. But Daisy, sitting up and fully recovered, managed a smile for them.

  ‘It must’ve bin a false alarm. I really fought I was ’avin’ a miscarriage. I really did.’

  ‘You’ve said enough,’ Cissy warned again, but she was smiling too. Daisy, always a caution as the Cockney saying went, had done well, though she did look a bit shaken. In her condition it couldn’t have done her all that much good.

  Cissy took charge of the still whimpering Noelle to give Daisy a little respite in which to recover.

  ‘Is Auntie not well?’ Noelle sniffled.

  ‘She is fine now,’ Cissy told her and took her on to her lap, soothing and cuddling her. It felt so natural that she didn’t put her down back on to her seat beside Daisy, and finally Noelle fell asleep in her arms.

  Feeling comfortable with her, pleased with herself that she should be, Cissy gave Eddie a smile, surprised that he looked away immediately to glance down at his watch. She’d bought it for him just after their wedding. He still wore it, mainly unable to afford any other. Then he glanced through the window at the frontier buildings, avoiding her gaze. But she needed some response from him.

  ‘Why couldn’t we have gone straight through into France? It would have saved an awful lot of money.’

  ‘You know why,’ he said, looking away from the window but not directly at her. ‘It was too obvious. No one goes to France from Germany for ’oliday. They go to Switzerland or Bavaria.’

  She nodded, shaken and a little angry at the uncalled for sourness of his tone, and didn’t further the conversation.

  The train was moving, trundling across the frontier, boarded again by guards in a different uniform and with a totally different manner, calling for anything to be declared. Then on again, through countryside that took Cissy’s breath away. Her first ever close-up view of mountains, she wasn’t prepared for them. Snow glittering on their peaks they didn’t so much appear big, as the houses beneath took on a toylike look, even those near at hand – an optical illusion if ever there was one, she thought. And yet the air was so clear that each peak seemed near enough to touch. It gave her a strange feeling watching them go by slowly, majestically. It was only when she caught sight of one rearing through an already high cloud, its peak protruding above it as clear as crystal, that their true height suddenly overwhelmed her sense of proportion, making her feel quite dizzy.

  ‘How small we all are,’ she whispered, pointing out the optical illusion to Eddie. ‘Us with our petty worries and fears.’

  ‘Our petty worries and fears are real enough to us,’ he returned quietly but morosely, and again she fell silent, feeling even more angry with him, and stayed that way until they finally piled off the train into the warm Zurich afternoon sunshine.

  Zurich was no more than a brief overnight stay in a modest hotel, breakfast, then a train going to Basle where the borders of Germany, Switzerland and France met. Nor was it a pleasant stay. Eddie was quiet and sombre, seemed to have gone into himself even more, not joining the light-hearted atmosphere that now existed between the four of them, feeling safe. His only response to her goodnight kiss in bed was a grunted reply before he turned over, his back to her.

  Once she asked what was wrong but he mumbled, ‘I’m tired. Been a long day,’ leaving her to lie awake, questions running through her own weary brain until finally she concluded that of course he was tired. She was tired. They were all tired. Noelle grizzling for much of the time had borne out the weariness in all of them.

  It hadn’t been like going on a real holiday with everyone knowing that on arrival, only fun and games lay ahead. There had been tension all the way and still more to come – still a long journey to make. She could forgive – had to forgive – Eddie his peevishness. Even so, she was glad when they left next morning and he seemed refreshed.

  The rest of the journey was uneventful – a little fraught maybe, aware how near Basle was to Germany, but it went smoothly.

  The problem now was money, rapidly running out. No sandwiches brought from Theodore’s home to supplement the expense of eating bought ones, they filled up on coffee and croissants, she and Daisy taking it in turns to nurse a fractious Noelle, wanting ice cream and sweets, and sooth her natural yearning for something more.

  Eddie was quiet, and Theodore thoughtful, perhaps thinking of the homeland he was leaving behind. The two days going through France began to feel more like a week, with yet another overnight stop in Paris.

  Raining slightly, the cobbled back-streets where they found rooms at a reasonable rate were dark, slippery and badly lit. Cissy thought of the brilliance of the Champs Élysées, white lights of shops and lamps reflected in the wet pavements like endless arrays of dancing silvery columns. But no one had money to waste on sightseeing.

  First thing next morning they were on their way again, to Dieppe for the cross-Channel boat to Newhaven – a longer but far cheaper crossing – and home.

  It was an uncomfortable night, tossing and turning in chairs using jackets for pillows. Cissy with Noelle fast asleep on her lap felt her legs going to sleep too, so that she had to hand her to Theodore, the two of them taking turns at nursing her, Daisy, worn out by her ordeal in her condition, sleeping like a log, snoring gently.

  Eddie was still withdrawn – though as far as she could see there was no cause to be now that the worst was over – and spent the crossing mostly walking the deck. She would have followed him, tried to delve into what was bothering him, but something said she should leave him alone to come round in his own time. She had long ago become accustomed to these bouts of surliness of his, but sometimes they bewildered and hurt.

  No one ate any breakfast apart from a cup of tea and a piece of cheap cake for Noelle to stop her whimpering.

  ‘There’s just enough money left to get us ’ome,’ Eddie said, totting up what they had, ‘with about three quid left over. We should ’ang on to that if we can, in case of emergencies.’

  Eight o’clock that evening, after what had been a hot July day, even for England, the small group of travellers made their way from the bus stop at Canning Town, turning into Woodham Road where Eddie’s mother lived, those last few hundred yards feeling like the very worst. Utterly worn out, famished, in need of a good wash, each holding their small suitcase as though it weighed a ton, they looked and felt like refugees.

  Eddie had thought it best to go first to his mother’s rather than to Daisy’s parents, giving them a chance to wash and brush up and have a decent bite to eat before going on. ‘Fish and chips,’ he suggested, adding, ‘cheap and cheerful and good for
the sole.’ Theodore had looked a little askance at the odd joke but could only nod in agreement.

  ‘Fish and chips…nice to be nearly home,’ Cissy couldn’t help remarking and got a wan smile from Daisy.

  Noelle had ceased her intermittent whimpering. Too worn out for even a miserable snivel, she dragged on her mother’s hand. Hers, not Daisy’s, Cissy was gratified to note as they trudged those last few yards to Eddie’s mother’s door. It had been settled on the train to London – Noelle was to go with her mother and Eddie. Daisy had something other to look forward to now.

  ‘What do you think about it?’ Cissy had turned to Eddie as the decision was made between her and Noelle’s erstwhile foster parents, but he had merely given an indifferent shrug.

  ‘It’s all right with me, I guess,’ he’d murmured. ‘You do what you think best – she’s your daughter.’

  She hadn’t known which way to take the remark but had been too tired to query it. Now she had hold of Noelle’s hand, encouraging her those last few steps. ‘You’re going to see your nanna,’ she encouraged, ‘and she’ll have some nice cake and perhaps sweets. That’ll cheer you up, won’t it?’ And she felt Noelle’s step grow a fraction lighter.

  After the clarity of Switzerland, the heat of France, Canning Town didn’t just seem drab, it was drab. But oh, the relief to be here and feel the security of its dull, featureless look.

  It wasn’t just her, she could see it on everyone’s face, shining like a beacon in the dingy street as their steps quickened towards the narrow two-up-two-down terraced house, undistinguishable from its neighbours but for its number and perhaps a different pattern of cheap lace curtains.

  How Eddie’s mother was going to accommodate them all in her tiny front room before Daisy and Theodore left for Daisy’s parents’ home, she didn’t know. She could visualise the squash and the thought hit her with a bubble of amusement. She chuckled and had Eddie glance questioningly at her.