Dream On

by Gilda O'Neill

  Contents

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by Gilda O’Neill

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Book One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Book Two

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Copyright

  About the Book

  Ginny has a dream. Of getting on and getting out. But trapped in a loveless marriage to Ted – handsome, charming and a violent bully – and trying to survive in a shell-shocked, post-war East End, she sees little chance of it.

  Then she meets the glamorous Leila in a West End club and is introduced to a brave new world. A world she never knew existed. And Leila shows her how – if she plays her cards right – she could make her dreams come true.

  About the Author

  Gilda O’Neill was born and brought up in the East End. She left school at fifteen but returned to education as a mature student. She wrote full-time and continued to live in the East End with her husband and family. Sadly she died on 24 September 2010 after a short illness.

  Also by Gilda O’Neill

  FICTION

  The Cockney Girl

  Whitechapel Girl

  The Bells of Bow

  Just Around the Corner

  Cissie Flowers

  Playing Around

  Getting There

  The Sins of Their Fathers

  Make Us Traitors

  Of Woman Born

  Rough Justice

  Secrets of the Heart

  Lost Voices

  Lights of London

  NON-FICTION

  Pull No More Bines: An Oral History of East London Women Hop Pickers

  A Night Out with the Girls: Women Having Fun

  My East End: Memories of Life in Cockney London

  Our Street: East End Life in the Second World War

  The Good Old Days: Crime, Murder and Mayhem in Victorian London

  East End Tales (Quick Reads)

  Dream On

  Gilda O’Neill

  For Tanja Howarth

  All too many writers gush their thanks to their agents and their publishers as almost a knee-jerk reaction, but seeing as my agent (and dear friend) Tanja Howarth was clever enought to get me published by Louise Moore, what else can I say but thanks?

  As with all my previous novels, Dream On is set in a real place during a real time, but I have created the characters and some of the street names especially for the story.

  Book One

  Chapter 1

  1945

  ‘GINNY? GIN? IT’S only me.’

  Dilys Chivers was shouting at the top of her voice as she barged, uninvited, through the open street door and along the narrow passageway of number 18 Bailey Street.

  ‘Come on, you lot,’ she went on, throwing her coat over the end of the banisters, ‘if you don’t get a move on, you know what’ll happen. That greedy mare from number 20 will have stuffed all the grub. She’ll be dancing with all the fellers. And you’ll all still be—’

  As she stuck her head round the kitchen doorway, Dilys quite uncharacteristically shut her mouth and stood stock still in puzzled silence.

  Sitting in the kitchen, hunched over the little scrubbed table, nursing a cup of tea, was a miserable-looking middle-aged woman. ‘All right, Dilys?’ she muttered.

  ‘Whatever’s the matter, Nellie?’ Dilys, recovering her composure, pulled out a chair and sat herself down opposite the woman. It looked as though there might be a story to glean here and, young and pretty as she was, Dilys was as partial to a bit of gossip as any of the elderly battleaxes of Bailey Street.

  ‘Honest, Nell,’ she went on, pulling off her hat and tossing it on to the table between them, ‘you look just like you wanna go for a’ – she flashed her eyebrows – ‘you know. But you’ve gone and lost the key to the lavatory door.’

  ‘It’s this party, ain’t it?’ Nellie answered, her lips pursing in self-pitying anger. ‘I can’t go, can I?’ She tilted her head to one side and stared sorrowfully into the middle distance over Dilys’s shoulder. ‘And after surviving all them years of war an’ all. Putting up with the Blitz, and what with the doodlebugs . . .’

  Dilys might have relished a bit of scandal, but putting up with Nellie Martin’s tale of woe was a price she wasn’t prepared to pay. Dilys had never been a patient sort of person, and while she wanted the full story, she didn’t fancy the boring moaning bits that looked like going with it.

  ‘You just forget all about them bad memories, Nell,’ Dilys said briskly, slapping her palms on the table. ‘You just tell me what this is all about.’ She paused, then added firmly: ‘Briefly, like.’

  Nellie’s lips twitched. ‘It’s her, ain’t it?’

  It took Dilys a moment. ‘D’you mean Ginny?’

  ‘Yeah,’ spat Nellie, unable even to speak her daughter-in-law’s name.

  ‘What on earth’s she done to get you into this state?’ Dilys’s forehead pleated into a frown; this was getting really confusing.

  While there wasn’t exactly any great love lost between Nellie and Ginny, they usually managed to rub along well enough together. With Ginny keeping her mouth shut and doing as she was told by her husband – Nellie’s son – and with Nellie not giving a bugger about anyone but herself, in its way, the household functioned. So all this upset, especially on a day like today, well, it just didn’t make sense.

  ‘If you must know, she’s shut herself in the bloody front bedroom and won’t come down, that’s what.’ Nellie spread her hands in wretched supplication. ‘How am I meant to go to the party by myself, Dilys, eh? You tell me that. I’ll be a laughing stock. Everyone’ll have their families with them – except me. And I can just see that Florrie Robins . . .’

  Nellie paused for a moment, visualising the woman who was her oldest friend and, therefore, her oldest rival. ‘I know her. She’ll be sitting round there at her daughter’s street party in St Stephen’s Road, with all her grandchildren round her, acting like flaming Lady Muck, while they all wait on her, and fuss over her, and make sure the old cow’s got everything she wants.’

  Nellie’s face puckered in on itself until she looked exactly as though she was sucking a lemon. ‘And you know what everyone’ll be saying, don’t you? I can just hear ’em. But I swear on my life, Dilys, he never so much as touched—’

  ‘Hang on, Nell,’ Dilys interrupted, ‘why’re you so worried about Ginny not going with you? You can go with your Ted, can’t you?’

  ‘Him!’ sneered Nellie, astonishing Dilys by showering her son’s name with almost as much venom as she would probably have trowelled on to her daughter-in-law’s – had she allowed her name to pass her lips. ‘You wanna ask her about him.’

  Nellie lifted her chin and stabbed her thumb ceiling-wards. It was a gesture reminiscent of the one that the minister from the local evangelical hall used when he admonished the sinners, telling them they should be listening with their hearts to the Lord of Heaven, and not with their throats to the landlord of the Prince Albert. But it would have been obvious, even to the unbeliever, that Nellie’s reference was not exactly reverential.

  ‘Go on,’ she hissed, ‘you go up and see if you can get any sense outta the snivelling little mare, ’cos I’ll be buggered if I
can.’

  ‘Gin. Gin, it’s only me, babe.’ Dilys’s voice was tender and wheedling as she tapped gently on the door. ‘Come on, girl, let me in, eh?’

  A muffled sob came from inside the bedroom.

  Dilys stuck her ear to the door. ‘What was that?’

  There was another low whimper.

  ‘What?’ Dilys knelt down and squinted through the keyhole, as though it would help her hear more clearly. ‘Speak up, Gin. I mean, I can’t help you if I can’t hear you, now can I?’

  Ginny blew her nose loudly, then croaked in a tear-sodden voice: ‘Leave me alone, Dil, please. Just leave me.’

  ‘As if I’d do that, you dopey cow.’ Discarding the softly-softly approach, Dilys gave the doorknob a good rattle. ‘Now you either open this door, Ginny Martin, or I’m gonna go along to Tommy Fowler’s and borrow his ladders. And then I’ll stick ’em up against your front wall and I’ll climb in through the bloody bedroom window. How’d you fancy that!’

  She paused, listening for a response. ‘I mean it, Ginny. You know me.’

  Ginny did indeed know Dilys – for as long as either of them could remember, in fact – and Ginny also knew that once Dilys Chivers had made up her mind about something, there was no stopping her. And Ginny didn’t much relish the idea of having her clambering up the outside of the house and messing up all her VE-Day decorations. Especially not in full view of the neighbours, who had all been out in the drizzle-slicked cobbled street getting the party ready since first light.

  With weary resignation, Ginny decided she had no choice. ‘Hang on, Dil,’ she sniffled, ‘I’m coming.’

  ‘I knew you would.’ Dilys grinned in self-satisfied triumph as she straightened up from the keyhole. She smoothed the silky fabric of her new dress down over her thighs, tossed her head and patted her dark, shiny, permanently waved hair back into place with a little sigh of contentment.

  The bedroom door opened and Ginny stood there, her head bowed and her arms dangling loosely by her sides.

  ‘Blimey, Gin, will you just look at yourself,’ chirped Dilys without a trace of compassion in her voice. ‘You look worse than Nellie and that’s saying something. Whatever’s got into the pair of you?’

  Without even pausing for a reply Dilys executed a neat little pirouette on the tiny lino-covered landing, flung out her arms in best pin-up style, dropped her chin and peered seductively through her lashes. ‘Well?’ she demanded. ‘Ain’t you gonna say nothing about me new frock, then?’

  Before Ginny had the chance even to wonder how Dilys had managed to get something as expensive-looking as that – when they both knew she’d used up all her clothing coupons ages ago – Dilys was shoving her back into the bedroom.

  ‘So,’ she whispered conspiratorially, rolling her eyes and jerking her head towards the door in the general direction of the stairs, where Dilys presumed Nellie would be standing earwigging – just as she would have been doing in her position – ‘what’s been going on with her down there, then?’

  Ginny slumped on to the double bed she shared with her husband and started picking at a loose quilting stitch on the pink satin eiderdown.

  ‘Come on, Gin, you know you can tell me.’

  Ginny shrugged. ‘I dunno, Dil, do I.’ She shook her head, making her soft blonde curls bounce around her face. ‘I really don’t.’

  ‘For Gawd’s sake, Ginny, pull yourself together girl. You’re like looking at a bleed’n’ wet weekend. Even Violet Varney’s making more effort than you.’ Dilys gestured dramatically towards the window and the street beyond. ‘That woman was out there last night till all hours doing up her front with a bit o’ bunting.’

  ‘So was I.’

  Dilys huffed dismissively. ‘Yeah, but her old man’s in a bloody prisoner of war camp.’

  Ginny looked up at her pitifully. ‘At least she knows her Bert’ll be home soon.’

  ‘Whatever you on about now?’

  Ginny turned her head so that Dilys couldn’t see her tears. ‘Look, Dilys, I know how much Nellie’s looking forward to the party and I really hate letting her down, ’cos I know it ain’t her fault, it’s mine. And I feel terrible. But I can’t go out there. I just can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  A sob shuddered through her body. ‘It’s Ted. He’s not been home.’

  ‘He’s what?’ Dilys sprang up from the bed and stuck her fists into her waist. ‘The rotten, stinking, swivel-eyed, no-good cowson of a . . .’ Her fury got the better of her tongue and Dilys ran out of insults.

  Ginny covered her face with her hands. ‘Don’t say them things, Dil. Like I said, it’s my fault. No one else’s. I must have upset him somehow. But I’ve been sitting here racking me brains—’

  ‘I’ll kill him,’ Dilys fumed. ‘I’ll bloody well kill him.’

  Ginny dropped her hands and looked up at her friend. ‘You’re a good mate, but it’s down to me to sort it out.’

  She turned her head away again and said in a voice so small that Dilys could only just make out the words: ‘You and your mum are really important to me, Dilys, you know that, but since losing my own mum and dad . . .’ Her shoulders shook as she rubbed the tears roughly from her cheeks with the back of her hand. ‘. . . Ted and Nellie are all the family I’ve got. And I just don’t know what I’d do if Ted left me. I do try to make him happy, but sometimes I just seem to get on his nerves. He gets so wild with me. Now he’s started staying out all night. What am I gonna do?’

  ‘That’s it. I’ve heard enough.’ Dilys took Ginny firmly by the arm and pulled her over to the polished walnut dressing-table, which took up almost the whole wall beneath the window of the cramped front bedroom in the little terraced house.

  ‘Now you listen to me, Ginny Martin. You sit yourself down on that stool. Go on. Do as you’re told. And you get your war-paint on. You’re going to this sodding party whether you want to or not. We’ll show bloody Ted Martin that he can’t get away with this; he’d better start watching his step or he’s gonna be in for a nasty surprise, a very nasty surprise indeed. ’Cos if he ain’t careful, the bastard’s gonna have me to deal with.’

  As Ginny reluctantly stepped out of number 18, with the help of a push from Nellie and a shove from Dilys, she actually found herself smiling – she would have had a hard heart not to – because, just like every other ordinary little turning in the East End, Bailey Street in Bow had resolved to put on its finest for its VE-Day party. And, in the watery afternoon sunshine, despite the debris left from the bomb damage where the rocket had fallen in nearby Grove Road, and the houses that were boarded up, and the tarpaulin-covered roofs, Ginny saw a street where the residents had done themselves proud.

  Each one of the remaining terraced houses was festooned in every conceivable shade of red, white and blue. They were draped with swags of home-made bunting; handwritten banners declaring Britain’s greatness and the East End’s allegiance to the King; and strung up high, right across the street, on cords stretched between upstairs windows, were tattered but loyal Union Jacks, flapping in the still damp, but now warmer, afternoon breeze.

  Along the middle of the road stood a line of ill-matched kitchen tables, transformed by a covering of assorted patched and darned bedsheets into a single long dining-table. Although letting your neighbours have a close-up look at your repaired sheets certainly wasn’t what most people in Bailey Street would have considered proper behaviour, it didn’t matter today, because it was a day unlike any other. All that was important was the mountain of food piled on top of them; food which despite the rationing had been victoriously, if rather mysteriously, procured for the great event.

  There were plates of sandwiches – none, it had been agreed by common consent, made with the usually unavoidable tinned pilchards – trays of pies and tarts, bowls of trifle, dishes of jellied eels, mounds of winkles and cockles, jugs of orange and lemon squash and, stacked next to a gleaming urn that someone had managed to ‘borrow’ from the church hall, tottering stacks
of cups and saucers.

  As if all that wasn’t enough, outside the Prince Albert, the pub on the corner of the street, there was a row of beer barrels, topped with a double layer of crates of light and brown ale, ready and waiting for the festivities to begin. And there was certainly plenty to feel festive about.

  There would be no more bombs and no more rockets; dragging yourself out of bed and down to the shelter was a thing of the past; and, with a bit of luck, rationing would soon be nothing but another bad memory – just like the Blitz and Utility underwear. The East End was ready to celebrate all right and no one would be able to accuse the families who lived in Bailey Street of not doing their best to show everyone how it should be done.

  ‘Over here!’ Pearl Chivers shouted from across the street, waving both arms at Nellie, Ginny and Dilys.

  Pearl, Dilys’s mum, was standing outside her house, number 11, supervising her husband, George, and her two teenaged sons, Sid and Micky, as they battled with her beloved piano, trying to manoeuvre it out of the house, over the doorstep and into the street without damaging it.

  ‘Come and help me organise this idle mob, will you? Just look at ’em.’

  She turned to point at the impromptu removal crew. ‘Oi! Watch my walls, you dozy lot. That passage was only decorated last year.’

  ‘I know, sweetheart. Sorry,’ replied George good-naturedly. He knew better than to try and argue with his wife. He loved Pearl with all his heart, and everyone knew she was a genuinely good woman – as Ginny would have been the first to testify – but she was also the possessor of what George described as a ‘strong type of personality’ and had more energy than a dozen normal people. Like her daughter, Dilys, Pearl Chivers wasn’t one to be messed around with.

  ‘I was the one what painted and papered the flaming thing,’ George added under his breath.

  ‘Oi! I heard that!’ Pearl grinned. ‘Tell you what, girls, let’s leave the fellers to it and go and help with the food instead. By the looks of it, they need some sorting out up there or it’ll never get finished. Just look at ’em. You’d think they was doing it for a guv’nor instead of for ’emselves.’