Listlessly, she picked up the wooden spoon from the pot. ‘Still, this won’t get no boots mended, will it? I’d better get on with this before the boys and yer dad are in with their tongues hanging out, ready for their teas.’
Molly felt confused; not only had she upset her mum, but she was shocked to discover that she felt sorry for her as well. How could she feel sorry for her mum, who was always so strong and capable, and the one who everybody turned to if they needed help?
‘Can I do anything for yer, Mum?’ Molly asked quietly.
‘Yer can mix up a bit of flour and water thickening and then—’ Katie began, but was interrupted by a commotion outside in the passageway. ‘What now?’
Timmy and Michael came spilling into the kitchen accompanied by a furious bashing on the street door.
‘There’s some old girl to see yer out there, Mum,’ said Timmy, ‘and she’s got the right hump.’ With that, Timmy and Michael slipped through the back door, ran out into the yard and scrambled over the wall, well away from whatever it was that was going on out the front.
‘Katie Mehan!’ a woman’s voice bellowed along the passage. ‘Are you coming out here to face me or have I gotta come in there after yer?’
‘For Gawd’s sake,’ said Katie. With dead-eyed, practised accuracy she aimed the long-handled wooden spoon into the greasy bubbling stew, untied her apron and hung it on the nail behind the kitchen door.
The bellowing started up again.
‘All right,’ Katie shouted back, ‘hang on, will yer? I’m coming as fast as I can.’
Molly followed her mother from the kitchen, waiting halfway along the passage while Katie went to the street door to find out who it was who wanted her so urgently.
On the step stood Timmy’s so-called ‘old girl’, a woman in her early thirties; she had her chin in the air and her arms folded aggressively across her chest.
‘Hello, Vi,’ said Katie to the woman, who came from nearby Ida Street. ‘What can I do for yer?’ Katie was trying to sound pleasant, as she had the uncomfortable feeling that this was going to be something to do with one of her boys and that it wasn’t going to be about their doing anyone a good turn.
‘What can yer do for me?’ asked Violet incredulously. ‘I’ll tell yer what yer can do for me. Yer can explain why I’ve just had my Percy come home and tell me he ain’t got the money from pawning his dad’s suit this morning, that’s what. And, while yer at it, yer can tell me how I’m gonna get through the week till pay day without it. So go on, clever, tell me that if yer can.’
Katie frowned. ‘I’m sorry about that, Vi, but what’s it gotta do with me if young Percy ain’t got yer pledge money?’
Violet said nothing, she just threw her hands up in wonder.
‘I could lend yer a couple of bob if yer like,’ suggested Katie. ‘I ain’t got much but yer welcome to what I have got, if yer really short.’
‘Of course I’m sodding short!’ bawled the woman at the top of her voice, bringing both Phoebe and Sooky out on to their street doorsteps as if they were the mechanical figures on a town hall clock that had just struck one. ‘And it’s all your bleed’n Sean’s fault. As if yer didn’t know.’
‘I’m sorry to disappoint yer, Vi, but I ain’t got the foggiest what yer on about.’
‘He’s been down the wood yard again, ain’t he? With that sodding mongrel o’ your’n.’
Katie looked over her shoulder to see if Molly maybe had any idea as to what the woman was talking about, but Molly only shrugged and shook her head in reply. Katie turned back to face Violet. ‘So it’s our dog’s fault your boy’s not got the pledge money?’
The woman gasped in exasperation. ‘No, I never said that, did I?’ she hollered. ‘It’s your Sean taking bets on how many sodding rats the flaming dog can muller. And my stupid bastard, Percy, lost all the pledge money to your conniving little cowson and that bloody louse-ridden hound o’ your’n.’
‘Bets? Our Sean?’ Molly stepped out of the house on to the pavement next to her mum, who was slowly rolling up the sleeves of her blouse. ‘I don’t think so.’
With two Mehan women to contend with, Violet suddenly seemed less confident about her accusations.
Katie flicked a glance at her daughter. ‘Our Sean’s got no money for gambling.’
‘That’s right, Mum,’ agreed Molly. ‘He ain’t.’
‘Aw no?’ said Violet, taking a strategic step backwards before she continued. Well, that ain’t the half of it. There was fighting and all. Wound up a full-scale battle, it did, over who owed who what. That rotten toerag o’ your’n can’t even take a bet honestly. Dustbin lids, sticks – terrible fight there was. And my Percy’s got a right shiner to show for it, and all.’
Nora put her head round the street door of number ten. ‘You all right out there, Katie, girl?’
‘No, not really, Mum. Violet here reckons our Sean’s been causing trouble.’
Nora folded her arms and strolled menacingly towards the woman. ‘I can’t see our Sean being in no trouble, Vi. Sure, he’s an angel of a boy, so he is.’
‘And you can keep out of it,’ said Violet, backing away further still. She pointed accusingly at Nora and said to Katie, ‘And another thing, you ask that mother o’ your’n why your two youngest never went to school the Friday before last.’
Katie looked at Nora. ‘Mum?’
Violet nodded vigorously. ‘I saw her. Coming out of the flea pit with ’em, she was, bold as brass, right in the middle of the afternoon.’
‘Mum?’
Nora jerked her head towards the woman. ‘Not in front of strangers, Katie, if yer don’t mind.’
Katie nodded for Molly to go indoors, grabbed her mother by the arm, yanking her inside the doorway of number twelve, and then flapped the woman away. ‘I’ve no time for all this, Violet. I’m busy getting me husband’s tea ready. And so should you be.’ With that she slammed the door firmly in the woman’s face, leaving her to Phoebe and Sooky, who, if they were on their usual form, would no doubt let Violet give her complaints a good airing, and add a few of their own for good measure.
With the door safely closed against prying eyes and ears, Katie turned on Nora, her voice quaking. ‘Even you, Mum, even you’re a bloody nuisance to me. How could yer?’
‘Talking like that to your own mother,’ said Nora indignantly, ‘and such language. Whatever next? And anyway, what’s wrong with my boys having a little secret with their nanna? They was breaking up from school that afternoon anyway, so what did they miss? Nothing, that’s what.’
Katie was speechless. She covered her face with her hands and took long, deep breaths, trying to calm herself.
Nora signalled urgently with her eyes for Molly to say something.
‘You know what the boys are like, Mum,’ Molly said hurriedly. ‘Don’t blame Nanna. They’d lead a saint astray, them pair.’
Nora nodded victoriously. ‘And so they would, the little devils. Especially the age they’re getting to. Look at Sean.’
Molly gestured for her nanna to keep quiet before she made things worse, then guided her mother gently back into the kitchen. ‘They’ll all grow out of it soon enough, Mum. Remember how cheeky our Danny was? He drove yer barmy.’
‘It don’t have to be like this.’ Katie slumped on to one of the hard kitchen chairs. ‘You was a real good little kid when you was their age, Moll,’ she sighed. ‘Never lied or got into trouble. Nothing.’ She glared at Nora who was nosing around the stove, inspecting what her daughter had made for their tea. ‘Won books for good attendance at school and all, yer did. And as for secrets, this family’s never had no secrets from one another. Never.’
Molly swallowed; her mouth felt as dry as if it had been filled with sawdust from the butcher’s shop floor. Visions of Simon kissing her hard on her mouth came so vividly into her mind that she was sure her mum could see them, just as though they were being projected on a screen at the pictures.
But Katie was too worn o
ut with everything else that was going on to notice her daughter’s discomfort. ‘Yer know,’ she said, staring down at the table, ‘I never used to feel like this, but I feel like I’m ninety years old lately.’ Katie pulled away as Nora tried to put her arm round her shoulders in a gesture of reconciliation. ‘If only that father of your’n was more help instead of moaning and shouting at me all the time. God alone knows what’ll happen to this place while me and your nanna are down hopping.’
Molly had never heard her mother talk that way before. Never had she said a bad thing about Dad; she’d shouted at him, yes, but never criticised him behind his back.
‘Yer know how he’s worried about work and all the blokes down the docks getting laid off. He does what he can, Mum.’
Katie looked up at her daughter with such fury in her eyes that Molly felt as though she had slapped her. ‘And so do I, but I don’t complain, do I? I just carry on and manage the best I can. I’m fed up with him moping about. Where’s the life he used to have in him, eh?’ She paused and then added quietly, ‘What’s happening to this family? One minute it’s tearing kids’ coats off their backs, then it’s taking money off ’em for bets.’ She got up from the table and took her apron down from the nail. When she’d tied it round her waist she dug around in the pocket and pulled out her handkerchief and an envelope. She dabbed at her eyes, blew her nose loudly and then waved the envelope in the air. ‘I got this, this morning. Our hopping letter.’
‘That’s nice,’ said Molly warily.
‘Yeah, it is,’ sniffed Katie. ‘I can’t tell yer how glad I’ll be when September comes so I can get away from here.’ She grabbed the wooden spoon from her mother’s hand and began viciously poking at the bubbling sausage stew. ‘More’s the pity I’m not going by meself.’
‘Sure, yer don’t mean that do yer, Katie?’
‘No, course not. I’m sorry, Mum. I’m just all wound up like a clock spring. I don’t know what I’m saying.’
Nora pointed her finger at Molly. ‘And don’t let me catch you upsetting your mam like that again.’
‘Nanna!’ Molly was indignant. ‘It weren’t nothing to do with me.’
‘And don’t you cheek me neither, miss,’ said Nora. ‘Now, you can make yer mam and me a nice cup o’ tea. Or better still,’ she added, smiling winningly at her daughter, ‘perhaps yer mam’d like yer to fetch us both a little drop o’ something from over the Queen’s to steady our nerves.’
8
IT WAS SATURDAY evening, and, in just a few hours’ time, Katie, Nora and the two youngest boys would be leaving Plumley Street to make their way to London Bridge Station. There they would buy their cut-price tickets for the hoppers’ special train, which would carry them away in the pre-dawn half-light, to the hop fields in the heart of the Garden of England.
Pat was sitting outside on the back kitchen step busily nailing Blakeys to the soles and heels of Timmy and Michael’s boots, making them ready for the wear and tear of racing around the countryside. Pat knew the sort of punishment a pair of boy’s boots could suffer down in Kent. He had climbed more than his fair share of trees and had forded enough streams during his own boyhood years, when he had gone with his mum on the annual cockney pilgrimage.
The sound of Pat laughing out loud to himself, as he remembered all the strokes he had pulled as a lad in his efforts to get out of helping his mum strip the hop bines, made Katie look across at him in surprise. It made a welcome change; there hadn’t been much laughter in her kitchen during the past few weeks.
‘What’s tickling you, Pat Mehan?’ she asked, squinting down at her youngest son’s head as she inspected his scalp for nits.
‘Just remembering going hopping when I was a kid,’ said Pat, as he expertly fixed another metal crescent moon to the heel of one of the boots that was more patch than original leather.
‘Nice to hear yer in such a good mood,’ said Katie, smiling to herself as she got on with her job of searching through Timmy’s head.
Like most East End mums, Katie had, over the years, become something of an expert on nits. She knew all about having to make sure they never got a hold in her family, even if she couldn’t stop one of the little ones sometimes coming home from school a bit cootie.
She sat on a kitchen chair, with Timmy held tight between her knees on the floor in front of her, his head bent forward over a sheet of newspaper, while Katie went through every strand of his hair looking for signs of the dreaded head louse. She was using the fine-tooth comb that, if the boys saw her with it before she’d grabbed hold of them, was the signal for them to leg it as fast as they could, and to lie doggo until either she had forgotten all about it, or she was too busy torturing some other poor victim.
But this time, Timmy hadn’t done a runner; he knew that it was all part of the preparations for hopping, and if he wanted to go to Kent it was no good his trying to get out of it. It still didn’t make it any less painful or stop him moaning and complaining, even though he knew his mum would give him a sharp tap on the side of the head with the metal nit comb, making it twang against his ear as she told him to be quiet and to stop being such a baby.
Having his hair wrenched out by the roots wasn’t the only reason that Timmy, in any other circumstances, would have had to feel humpy. The humid weather seemed set to go on and on, and had started to get people down. It was the beginning of September and yet there was no sign of a break in the hot, sultry sunshine, not even a shower to bring a hint of relief from the dusty heat that had at times become almost unbearable.
It was so uncomfortable, in fact, that although Timmy and Michael were meant to be going back to school on Monday, Katie for once had no qualms about what stories Pat would have to tell the school board man about their absence. This year, she was more than happy for him to say that his wife had taken their boys down to the green countryside of the Kent farm, where she and her own mum had been going since Katie herself had been no more than a babe in arms.
As for Timmy, with the prospect of running wild in the woods and fields instead of having to go back to school before him, it could have been thick fog and snowing for all he cared. Head torture apart, he certainly wasn’t complaining.
Sean would usually have been as excited as the little ones about going hopping, but this year he just wasn’t interested. Like Molly and Danny, it was the first time that he wasn’t going with his num and his nanna to Kent, and, no matter how hard Katie tried to persuade him otherwise, he wouldn’t budge. She promised him that she would try to get him a few hours’ work from the farmer pole pulling in the hop gardens, but he still wouldn’t listen. He was convinced, or so he told her, that he had more chance of finding a job at home in Poplar, because all the hop-pickers’ unemployed husbands would be sure to have asked the farmer about any work that was going and, with that sort of farm work at least, a man was paid for what he did rather than according to his age.
Katie had tried not to show it, but she’d been hurt when he said he wouldn’t be going with her. Still, she knew that with his attitude lately, arguing would get her nowhere except into yet another shouting match. And, as she was doing her best to make it up with Pat before she left, the last thing she wanted was for Sean to start leading off and causing yet more rows. All that apart, it didn’t make it any easier for her to stop worrying about him. It would have been different if, like Danny and Molly, he had a job to go to: a proper reason for staying at home with his dad. Deep down, Katie felt that Sean was making excuses, that there was some other reason he didn’t want to go with her, but what could she do about it?
As Katie twisted Timmy’s head round to the light so that she could see better, she sighed, thinking about how quiet and empty the hop hut would seem without the bickering and laughter of her three eldest children. Still, she couldn’t tie them to her apron strings for ever, and, with a flash of her old optimism, she told herself that she had every right to be proud that the three of them were at least trying to make their own way in the world. And she
’d be bound to see them at the weekends when all the men and the grown-up children travelled down to the hop and fruit farms to visit their mums and their grannies. Maybe Sean would surprise her and bring some good news down with him about finding himself a job. She had always said that better times were just around the corner, and with the way things were going, she could only hope and pray that they were.
She gave Timmy’s hair one final, punishing rake-through and then patted him on top of the head. ‘Right,’ she said brightly. ‘That’s you all clean and paid for. Now go and call yer brother in for me. And if he says “in a minute” tell him I’ll be out after him.’
With his agonies over and the happy prospect of his brother having his turn to come, Timmy scampered from the room and started hollering for Michael.
Katie heard Michael shout back from the street, then the sound of the boys running along the passage towards the kitchen.
Michael stuck his carrot-topped head round the kitchen door. His expression froze when he saw the comb in his mum’s hand.
‘Down here, Michael,’ she said, pointing her thumb to the space between her feet.
Before Michael had a chance to either do as he was told or to kick up a fuss, Timmy came dancing into the room and jigged around in front of his brother. He poked out his tongue, stuck his thumbs in his ears and wiggled his fingers. ‘Nerr, nerr, nerr-nerr, nerrrr. Mine’s a-a-a-ll do-o-o-ne!’ Timmy mocked.
‘You little—’ Michael began, furious at being duped into coming indoors for this.
But Michael never finished cursing his brother. Katie stood up, grabbed hold of his collar and was hauling him over to her chair before he realised what was going on.
She shoved him down on to the lino in front of her. ‘Such a fuss for a boy of your age. What an example in front of yer little brother.’ She jerked her head over to where Pat was still tapping away at the boots. ‘And what’ll yer dad think of yer?’
Just Around the Corner Page 14