Just Around the Corner

by Gilda O'Neill

  Her eyes had to become accustomed to the gloom inside the crowded little shop, but she didn’t have to focus to know that in front of her would be the dark, polished wood counter on which packets of this and tins of that stood in artfully displayed pyramids, alongside the proudly presented china stand which held the damp muslin-covered slabs of best butter. And behind the counter, reaching right up to the ceiling, were the shelves jam-packed with everything from packets of corn plasters and boxes of liver pills, to jars of red and yellow sugar-coated pear drops and of dull orange barley sugar twists.

  In front of the counter were yet more goods: glass-lidded tins of biscuits; drums of chick meal, wrinkled beans, split peas and dried lentils – supposedly for soaking to stretch a stew to feed a family, but, during the annual fad for pea shooters, just right for ammunition. And finally, as familiar as any other fixture in the shop, there stood Edie Johnson, with her hair caught up in a neat knot on top of her head and her customary, pure white, thick cotton apron stretched tight across her broad middle, presiding over all of it, ready to serve her customers and to pass the time of day with them.

  ‘Morning, Ede,’ Katie said with a smile.

  ‘Morning, Kate.’ Above Edie’s head, a curling flypaper dangled like a forgotten Christmas decoration, but anyone who knew her wouldn’t have to examine it to know that it would only recently have been hung there; being a stickler for what she referred to as ‘hygienics’, Edie changed her flypapers more regularly than was strictly necessary, and was proud of it.

  ‘Bert’s out the back boiling some fresh beetroot – lovely and sweet, they are. Good price and all. Want me to put a few by for yer, Kate?’

  ‘Lovely,’ said Katie, with a nod.

  ‘Right, I’ll call in one of the kids to fetch ’em for yer when they’re done.’

  ‘Save a couple for me and all please, Edie. Beetroots’re my Bill’s favourite. Lovely in a nice sandwich with a slice of corned beef.’

  Katie turned round and smiled again. Peggy Watts, Liz’s mum from number nine, had just come into the shop.

  ‘All right, Peg?’ she asked.

  ‘Not so bad, Kate,’ said Peggy, settling herself on the chair by the counter.

  ‘Now,’ said Edie Johnson, ‘apart from the beetroots, what can I do for yer, Kate?’

  ‘Bar of laundry soap, please, Ede.’

  Edie busied herself wrapping the heavy slab of soap in a sheet of newspaper.

  ‘Honestly,’ said Katie, ‘I dunno where the flaming washing comes from. If I didn’t know better I’d swear my Pat was taking it in from the neighbours to earn a few bob on the side.’

  ‘It’s them four boys o’ your’n,’ said Edie, handing Katie the soap. ‘I’ll bet they’re murder to keep in clean clothes.’

  Katie rolled her eyes in agreement. ‘Yer can say that again. But, honestly, my Molly’s the one lately. Wears something a couple of times and then expects it to be washed.’

  ‘Typical of girls that age,’ said Edie, smiling fondly. ‘They’re growing up, so they wanna look their best, don’t they? Yer can’t blame ’em, can yer? Yer know what it’s like.’ Edie had no children of her own; some said it was because of the poor health suffered by her husband, Bert, who, when he was no more than a boy, had been invalided out of the army after being seriously injured in the trenches in France. Others said it was Edie’s problem as, although she was still a relatively young woman, they reckoned that she had had trouble ‘down there’ for years. But, whatever the reason for her having no children, Edie Johnson looked on the youngsters of Plumley Street with probably more indulgence than their own, more realistic mothers.

  ‘Yer right there, Edie, if my Lizzie’s anything to go by,’ said Peggy. ‘You should hear her. She ain’t stopped talking about your Danny lately,’ Kate.’

  Kate looked sceptical. ‘Our Danny and your Liz? Daft. They’re more like brother and sister, them two.’

  Edie chuckled. ‘More like brother and brother the way your Lizzie carries on at times, Peg. Frock tucked in her knickers and up and over that wall again she was on Saturday night. I don’t reckon she realises what a good-looking girl she’s turning into.’

  ‘I think she does, Ede. Honestly, they grow up that fast nowadays. I didn’t have a clue when I was sixteen.’ Peggy turned to Kate. ‘Ain’t yer noticed nothing different about your Danny? He goes all soft when he talks to our Liz.’ Seeing the blank look on Katie’s face, Peggy jerked her head towards her, while saying to Edie, ‘I reckon she’s in a right dream, don’t you, Ede?’

  Katie frowned. ‘What?’

  Edie folded her arms and said wistfully, ‘It must be hard for yer Kate, bringing up a growing family like your’n, wondering what they’re all up to all the time.’

  ‘Maybe I should be taking a bit more notice,’ Katie said, her voice subdued.

  ‘Leave off, Kate,’ said Peggy, flapping her hand. ‘No one’s trying to have a go at yer or nothing. Yer’ve got more than enough on your plate without finding yerself even more things to worry about. If Danny and Liz wanna see each other, I dunno about you, but I couldn’t be more pleased. He’s a good boy. Liz’d have to go a long way to find one as nice. When yer see some of the hooligans round here, I reckon yer’ve done a right good job bringing him up.’

  Katie shrugged non-committally, obviously not convinced by her neighbour’s attempt to reassure her. ‘I just feel that I have to keep running just to stay on the spot lately. D’yer know what I mean?’ She picked distractedly at the corner of the newspaper wrapping the soap. ‘My Danny’s growing up and I ain’t even noticed.’ Katie let out a long slow breath. ‘Some flaming mother I am.’

  ‘I’ve spoken out o’ turn,’ said Peggy, standing up and putting her hand on Katie’s arm. ‘Don’t take on, girl. It’s easier for me. For a start,’ she said, trying to sound jolly, ‘yer know how girls talk more about that sort of thing.’ She smiled at Edie and sat back down on the chair. ‘Can’t stop ’em once they’ve started. And then I’ve only got the one at home to worry about while you’ve got five still, and Lizzie’s hardly a baby no more, is she?’

  ‘Don’t matter how grown up they reckon they are,’ said Edie. ‘And no matter how many smart haircuts they get, they’re still kids, ain’t they?’

  ‘I ain’t so sure about that.’ Peggy leant forward in the chair and said in a loud whisper, ‘You should hear the questions my Liz’s been coming out with.’ She looked round, checking for eavesdroppers. ‘All sorts, she’s been asking about.’

  ‘What?’ asked Edie, momentarily forgetting her ‘hygienics’ and resting her elbows on the polished counter.

  ‘You know.’ Peggy nodded wisely. ‘Things.’

  Edie nodded back at her. ‘Aw. Things. That’ll be her age and all.’

  Now Katie looked really depressed. ‘I’ll have to find time to have a little talk with my Molly. She was really sensible when I told her about her, you know . . .’ she nodded downwards ‘. . . her monthlies. But that’s as far as I got. Gawd knows what sort of ideas she’s got in her head about the rest of it. I ain’t really explained much at all.’

  ‘She’s a good girl,’ said Edie comfortingly. ‘She won’t let yer down.’

  ‘I know,’ said Katie, ‘but I’d still like to feel that I could talk to her. I know my mum did her best with me but I was so dim. Yer wouldn’t believe some of the ideas I had.’

  Peggy grinned. ‘Yer wouldn’t believe some of the ideas my Bill had when we first got married.’ She pressed her lips together to stop herself giggling. ‘Practically needed a target, he did.’

  The three women burst out laughing at the thought of Bill Watts looking for the bull’s-eye, but, at the sound of someone else coming into the shop, they stifled their laughter and turned to see who it was. And they were all glad they had; it was Phoebe Tucker, Plumley Street’s answer to the bush telegraph.

  Phoebe knew, or at least claimed to know, just about everything that went on, with whom, how and why, and more often tha
n not, why it, whatever it was, shouldn’t have happened in the first place. And, even if she didn’t know, she’d make it up anyway, because she could never let old Sooky Shay, her next-door neighbour, get the idea that she had more information about someone or something than she herself did.

  Phoebe stood in the shop doorway eyeing her three neighbours suspiciously. As usual she had a lighted cigarette stuck in the corner of her mouth, slippers with the backs trodden down on her feet, and, even in the summer, fire-scorched, blotchy legs. With a great display of daintiness, Phoebe dotted her cigarette ash into her apron pocket, coughed bronchially and stepped inside. ‘I heard yers laughing,’ she said accusingly, ‘from right outside.’

  ‘It’s this smashing weather, Phoeb,’ said Edie, with a wink at Peggy. ‘Makes us feel like youngsters again, don’t it?’

  Disappointed with the dead end, Phoebe tried another approach. ‘I see you had that Ellen Milton at yer street door this morning,’ she said to Katie.

  Katie put her soap on the counter, leant back, folded her arms across her chest and looked Phoebe up and down. ‘Yeah, that’s right. So?’

  ‘It’s good of yer making time for the likes of her.’ Phoebe smiled insincerely, showing her uneven teeth made brown by strong tea and even stronger tobacco. ‘And yer seem to be finding plenty o’ time for that Frank Barber and all.’

  Katie shuffled her feet and paused just long enough to alert Phoebe to the fact that she might be on to something. ‘So?’

  ‘Well, I think it’s very good of yer.’ Phoebe flashed a look at Peggy and Edie, gauging their reactions. ‘What with him being a widower and everything.’

  To keep herself from wrapping her hands around Phoebe’s crepey neck, Katie snatched up her soap from the counter. ‘If people spent more time helping others than they did gossiping,’ she said through clenched teeth, ‘I reckon the world’d be a sight better place.’

  Phoebe smiled triumphantly. ‘I only speak as I find,’ she said. Having finished with Katie, she now launched into an attack on Edie. ‘Here, it ain’t true what they’ve been saying, is it?’

  Edie rolled her eyes heavenwards. ‘Probably not,’ she said wearily.

  It wasn’t clear whether Phoebe was ignoring Edie’s sarcasm or whether she was oblivious to it. Either way, she wasn’t put off. Brushing roughly past Katie and practically knocking Peggy off her chair, Phoebe thrust her heavy, drooping bosom across the counter and hissed at Edie, ‘I’ve heard tell how Aggie Palmer’s gonna be working in here.’

  Edie looked down her nose defiantly at Phoebe. ‘Yer know, for once something yer’ve got to say about someone actually is true.’ She looked to Peggy and Katie, wanting the support of their understanding before carrying on. ‘My Bert, he’s been a bit peaky, finding things hard. So I asked Aggie if she fancied doing a few hours for me.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘You got any objections, have yer, Phoeb?’

  ‘You do know her old man’s half pikey, don’t yer?’

  Edie threw up her hands in wonder. ‘Gawd above, yer don’t say so, Phoeb. And there was me thinking he was the Prince of Wales. Now I’ve gone and wasted all that money on buying meself a tiara for nothing.’

  Before Phoebe had a chance to think of a reply, Katie had tapped her on the shoulder.

  The old gossip twisted round to face Katie. ‘What?’

  ‘I’d watch me mouth if I was you, Phoeb,’ Katie said. ‘Joe Palmer’s been good to my Danny and I won’t hear nothing said against him. All right?’

  Phoebe’s wrinkled face broke into a victorious sneer. Looking from Peggy to Edie and then back to Katie, she said with slow viciousness, ‘Yeah, he’s kept him on and all, ain’t he? Wonder how yer got him to do that? Funny how all these blokes—’

  ‘You what?’ Katie demanded.

  Peggy grabbed her arm. ‘Ignore the old trout, Kate, she ain’t worth it.’

  Katie shook off Peggy’s hand, and in a menacing gesture, uncharacteristic of her usually dismissive attitude towards the spiteful elderly woman, she held a shaking finger really close to Phoebe’s puggy little nose. ‘Yer wanna remember how that girl brings them dinners over to you and Albert, you wicked old cow. If it wasn’t for Aggie Palmer yer wouldn’t have nothing to stick in that wicked gob o’ your’n or to fill yer rotten, fat belly.’

  Phoebe gulped and, with primly pursed lips, stepped backwards, pressing herself tight to the counter to avoid Katie’s threateningly close hand. ‘What’s that gotta do with you?’

  ‘Nothing. But yer wanna watch yer mouth. They’re good, decent people. Yer should be grateful to ’em, not running ’em down.’

  ‘They shouldn’t give us nothing if all they want is thanks,’ Phoebe snapped cockily. ‘That ain’t the right way to go about things.’

  Katie was trembling with fury. ‘Aw, but it’s all right you taking their grub so’s your old man can spend every penny he gets down the pub or on the dogs, is it?’

  ‘Do something, Peg,’ Edie mouthed.

  Peggy nodded. ‘Come on, Kate,’ she said. ‘This won’t get the washing done now, will it, girl? Yer know how Nora likes to get it all done before dinner time. I’ll bet she’s going spare over there waiting for yer.’

  Katie took a deep breath and straightened up. Then keeping her eyes fixed on Phoebe, she took her purse from her skirt pocket. ‘How much do I owe yer, Ede?’

  ‘Don’t worry about that now,’ said Edie, obviously relieved that Katie wasn’t going to let fly in her shop. ‘Yer can settle up with me later on, when I send the beetroot over with the kids.’

  Katie nodded. ‘Ta,’ she said, then turned on her heel and began walking stiffly out of the shop with Peggy steering her forward.

  ‘Aw, so she gets tick, does she? What makes her so bleed’n special?’

  Peggy only just avoided being walloped by Katie’s elbow as she spun back round to confront Phoebe. ‘You old bag!’

  ‘That’s nice talk, I don’t think. Churchgoer and all.’

  Edie ran her hands over her face. ‘Phoebe, do us all a favour. Shut up, will yer?’

  A small door at the back of the shop opened and Bert, Edie’s husband, stuck his head through.

  ‘Hello, ladies,’ he said, smiling pleasantly, obviously unaware of what he was interrupting. ‘Just wanted to let you know, Ede, them beetroots’ll be cool enough to handle soon.’ He limped through the doorway, dragging his game leg painfully behind him and leant against the counter next to his wife. ‘I’ve just gotta nip over to see Arthur Lane a minute, about a bit of business. Won’t be long, love.’

  Bert, a gentle, unassuming man, was totally innocent as to the new ammunition he had just handed to Phoebe. He winked affectionately at his wife, lifted the flap in the counter and hobbled his way out of the shop.

  Open-mouthed, Phoebe moved with surprising speed over to the shop doorway and watched him as he made his way slowly across the street to see Arthur Lane.

  Lane was a moneylender and, so it was rumoured, a fence, who lived with Irene, his brassy, much younger wife, over the road at number six, between the Queen’s, which was important and big enough to have two numbers, and the Palmers at number eight.

  With a look of undisguised glee, Phoebe walked back over to the counter. ‘Going over to see Laney, eh? What a pair they are. I was saying to my Albert, I wouldn’t be surprised if him and that so-called wife of his was living over the brush. I mean, she turned up there a bit sudden, didn’t she? Right out of the blue. And I never heard nothing about no wedding. And she must be, what, at least half his age? Dirty old bastard.’ She peered up into Edie’s face. ‘So what’s your Bert doing going over there then?’

  Gasping at her neighbour’s audacity, Katie went to say something, but Edie stopped her.

  ‘It’s all right, Kate. I can handle this.’ Edie stepped round from the other side of the counter and stood very close to Phoebe. ‘Not that it’s anything to do with you, or anyone else for that matter, Phoebe Tucker, but my husband, God love
him, is in a lot of pain, and he’s going to see how much Arthur Lane can get him on his old dad’s gold hunter watch, so’s he’s got a bit of spare cash should he ever be lucky enough to find a doctor what can do something for him. If that’s all right with you, of course. ’Cos I’d hate to think we was doing something yer didn’t approve of.’

  Phoebe wasn’t one to be distracted by something as simple as another human being’s misery. ‘Selling his watch, eh? Bad leg? More like times not being so good in the shop, if you ask me. But it’s yer own fault. It’s giving the likes of her too much credit,’ she said, jerking her head towards Katie who was still standing in the doorway. ‘And talking about Laney’s “wife”,’ she went on, with a disapproving shake of her head, ‘have yer seen her lately? I dunno, young women today.’ She turned and looked Katie up and down. ‘They’re all the same. No self-respect, see. All dressed up like bleed’n ham bones, they are. It’s like that frock she had on the other day – tits hanging out all over the place they were. It fitted where it bloody well touched. And I do hear talk,’ she said, lowering her voice, ‘as how someone saw her going into that Married Women’s Clinic what them posh old tarts have set up near the Town Hall. Not that I reckon she is married but . . .’ she gave an exaggerated shudder of distaste, ‘. . . using things to stop babies. Whatever next? It ain’t natural, I’m telling yer. No better than she ought to be, that one, just like that Mrs Fortune from round by the school. I mean I ain’t never seen someone bring home so many so-called uncles to meet their kids. I ask yer. Want a good larruping from their old men, the pair of ’em. And then there’s—’

  ‘See yer, Edie,’ said Katie. ‘Coming, Peg?’