Just Around the Corner

by Gilda O'Neill

  ‘Can I help till she gets here, Mum?’

  Mags nearly dropped the ham at the sound of the voice she had been longing to hear. ‘Margaret!’

  By two o’clock, the time the party was due to begin, the sun was shining, and the street was full of people, most of them wearing some combination of red, white and blue. Even Phoebe and Sooky, still sitting outside their houses on their kitchen chairs and still wearing their slippers and rolled down stockings, had made a bit of an effort. Both of them had spent the night with their hair wound tightly round metal crackers and Phoebe was even sporting a smear of scarlet lipstick – her loyal flash of red especially for the occasion.

  Mags had organised all the other women from Plumley Street to help her carry the food out to the tables. Edie had been right about Irene Lane: she seemed only too pleased for the opportunity to join in. Making an odd partnership with Nutty Lil – who was sticking to Irene like a limpet after setting her eyes on Irene’s dazzling blue and silver lamé outfit – she tottered in and out of the Queen’s back kitchen on her red spiky high heels, carrying plates and bowls of food with the rest of them.

  And there was plenty to carry. Apart from the money that Katie, Mags and Edie had collected over the weeks from friends and neighbours, the few who could afford to had produced plenty of little extras that they had made or bought, and others like Pat, who had somehow just come into a bit of ‘luck’, had brought their spoils along too, so that by the time the convoy of women had finished going back and forward to the pub, the tables were groaning with food. There were not just sandwiches, but pies and pickles, cheeses and shellfish, jellies and trifles, cakes and biscuits – and another two crates of brown ale and one of lemonade that Harold had brought out as an afterthought – just in case, he had assured Mags. But now that their Margaret and her husband Paul were there to share it all with them, Mags certainly wasn’t complaining. Harold could have emptied the whole cellar for all she cared.

  After everyone had sat down at the long row of tables and eaten their fill – then just a bit more, rather than see such bounty go to waste – the tea urn that Nora had commandeered from the church was set up outside the shop. Then, while the grown-ups settled down to get over their blowout, the older kids lifted the tables to one side and organised their younger brothers and sisters into teams to play a boisterous, unorthodox game of cricket with the stumps chalked in their traditional spot on the high wall at the end of the street.

  But Molly – so well known for her powerful swing at the wicket that Pat had once claimed if she’d been a boy she would have been the perfect replacement for Jack Hobbs when he’d retired – just wasn’t interested in the game today. No matter how hard her little brothers tried to cajole her into taking her turn at bat, or any amount of her dad’s good-natured coaxing, she just couldn’t be persuaded to play. Instead she sat on the kerb, sipping moodily at her cup of tea, staring into space, preferring to be left alone with her thoughts.

  Molly’s absence was soon forgotten as the game got underway, and both sides were enthusiastically running up and down the turning as though their lives depended on it. When the two sides reached a draw, it was decided by the grown-ups – well used to how these things could get out of control and develop into a full-scale battle when kids from more than one street were involved – that the match was over and it was time to start on the next part of the celebrations, the part that included opening some of Harold’s assorted bottles and barrels.

  The remains of the food and the tea things were cleared away into the saloon bar of the pub for later attention, the first barrel was tapped, and with a glass of ale in his hand and the promise of plenty more, to follow, Jimmo Shay was soon persuaded to give them all a tune on his concertina.

  Jimmo only played the silver and mother-of-pearl-studded instrument on high days and holidays, but he prided himself on the fact, as he was never tired of telling anyone who would listen, that he had never ever pawned it, not once, had not even been tempted to, no matter how bad things had got. His old dad had left it to him as his inheritance, and he would never have forgiven himself if he had taken it round uncle’s.

  Jimmo emptied his glass in two gulps, and with a shout of, ‘Right then, let’s be seeing a bit of dancing here,’ he launched into ‘The Isle of Capri’ and they were off.

  Liz dragged Danny away from the beer and was just steering him towards the part of the street that had become the dance floor when she spotted Molly still sitting alone on the kerb.

  ‘Come on, Dan, let’s see if we can cheer her up a bit.’

  ‘Yer’ll have a bloody hard job,’ Danny muttered grudgingly, as he followed her. He liked a dance, and would happily have had a few turns round the floor with Liz, even though it meant missing swallowing a few glasses of free beer, but when it came to listening to his sister moaning, that definitely wasn’t on his list of what he fancied doing at a party. He could do that any day of the week.

  ‘All right, Moll?’ Liz asked her gently.

  Molly shrugged. ‘Yeah. S’pose so.’

  Liz silently signalled for Danny to leave her alone with Molly. He opened his mouth to complain that she’d just dragged him over there, but Liz hurriedly shook her head and flashed her eyes towards Molly, warning him to keep quiet. So Danny just shrugged and headed back to where the men were gathered by the booze and where he at least would have a clue as to what was going on and what was expected of him.

  Satisfied that Danny was out of earshot, Liz smiled down at Molly. ‘That’s him off to get another glass of ale. Still, who needs fellers, eh? Tell yer what, fancy coming to have a dance?’ She laughed encouragingly. ‘We’ve practised in me bedroom enough times over the years to be champions, you and me.’

  Molly exhaled slowly. ‘It’ll be two years in August, Liz.’ She looked up at her friend. ‘Did yer know that? Two years, and we’re still hiding round corners.’

  ‘You really are fed up, ain’t yer, Moll? You ain’t even mentioned him to me for ages.’ Liz sank down on to the kerb beside her and touched her tenderly on the arm. ‘I hate to see yer like this. You was always laughing and joking, and now look at yer. Yer look like yer’ve got the weight of the world on yer shoulders.’

  ‘See, the more I think about him, the more I know I’m really stuck on him. I can’t help it. I just can’t get him out of me head.’

  ‘But it’s no good, is it, Moll, you getting yerself all upset?’ She paused, not quite sure how to put her thoughts into words. ‘Have you ever,’ she began slowly, ‘thought that yer might be better off finding yerself someone else? Someone yer could eventually settle down with?’

  ‘Don’t yer think I would have done if I could? It ain’t as simple as that, Liz.’

  ‘I know. I know.’

  They sat there for a moment, Liz now as glum-faced as Molly. But Liz suddenly brightened up. ‘Here, look, Moll. There’s that feller from Sussex Street looking at yer again.’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘That feller. You know, Maureen Murphy’s big brother. He can’t take his eyes off yer.’ Liz was on her feet, heaving Molly up from the pavement. ‘Come on, you and me’re gonna go over and talk to him. And you, Molly Katherine Mehan, are gonna dance with him.’

  ‘Yer wasting yer time, Liz.’

  ‘Yer like dancing, don’t yer?’

  ‘Yer know I do.’

  ‘So what’s the harm? One little dance.’

  Pat was helping Harold pour drinks at the bar they had set up outside the Queen’s, when Katie came rushing up to him through the crowd, seemingly not caring about the safety of the tray of used glasses she was carrying.

  ‘You seen our Molly?’ she asked Pat excitedly. ‘Look, she’s dancing with Bridget Murphy’s boy.’ She looked round, checking that her eyes hadn’t deceived her. ‘I’m that glad, Pat. I’ve been so worried about her.’

  Pat reached across the bar and chucked his wife under the chin. ‘We’ll have a dance in a minute, shall we, girl?’

  ‘
Don’t mind if I do,’ said Katie, emptying her tray on to the temporary bar. ‘But yer’ll have to hang on a minute, I’ve just gotta collect a few more glasses or there’ll be none left for you and Harold to fill at the rate that mob are drinking.’

  ‘Yer right there, Kate,’ said Harold, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, before slapping a much smaller hand that was trying to filch a bottle of pale ale from behind his back. ‘It’s flipping murder. My Mags is too busy chatting to our Margaret to do anything here, but I told her, if she don’t give us a hand soon, I’ll wind up in Colney Hatch at this rate.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Harold, I’ll get Joe to take over when I go and take me wife for a turn round the dance floor.’ Pat smiled the smile that still had the effect of making Katie feel like a young girl again. ‘But she’d better not take too long fetching them glasses, or I just might have to go and ask Phoebe for a dance instead.’

  Katie set down the tray and stuck her fists into her waist. ‘If that’s how yer feel, Padraic, I’d better go over and warn her off yer, hadn’t I? No woman’s gonna get her hands on my old man.’ She leant forward and whispered so that only Pat could hear her. ‘Especially not a woman with a nose like a strawberry, ’cos I know how yer like a bit of soft fruit.’ With a saucy wink and a flick of her apron, Katie picked up her tray again and flounced over towards Phoebe and Sooky.

  Katie was too busy finding empty glasses and Pat was too busy filling them up again to notice that as soon as Molly finished her dance with Bridget Murphy’s boy, she thanked him politely and then ran home to cry in the privacy of their back kitchen.

  Katie was just straightening up from collecting the row of empties that Phoebe and Sooky had lined up beside their chairs, when she saw Nutty Lil dance past, proudly displaying to the two miserable old women the blue and silver stole that Irene Lane had given her.

  Irene was insisting that Lil take the wrap she so obviously coveted, when Arthur Lane had come puffing along the street, shouting for Irene to shift herself, as he’d got them a cab and it was waiting for them at the end of the street with the meter running, and he didn’t intend paying out good money for her to take her time.

  ‘It was nice of that Irene, giving her that, wasn’t it?’ Katie said as she watched Lil go weaving through the other dancers, the stole spread out across her arms like blue and silver wings. ‘I don’t think she wanted to leave, yer know. She looked like she was enjoying herself being with everyone. Still, ne’mind, Lil looks happy anyway, don’t she?’

  ‘Happy?’ Phoebe was scandalised by the very idea. ‘Pissed more like. And just look at that hat of her’n, will yer? Stuck on her head like a sodding flowerpot. Looks just like she got it with a pound o’ tea, it does.’

  Katie went to speak, but Phoebe had paused just long enough to draw breath.

  ‘And while we’re at it,’ she went on, arms folded and chins wobbling, ‘will yer look at that Milton feller over there? Bold as brass he is. Wearing that fifty-bob suit of his again. Parading about in it like he’s the pox doctor’s bleed’n clerk. And I hear as how they’ve paid the tally man off.’

  Sooky nodded wisely. ‘That’s what I hear and all.’

  ‘And have yer seen all the torn she’s taken to wearing, that Ellen Milton? Even more’n that bloody Laney’s old woman had on. Rings, earrings and a chain round her scraggy neck, if yer don’t mind. Bit different to how it used to be, having to dress off o’ the barrows. And look at her boat and all: she’s got enough powder slapped on them skinny chops of her’n to cover a dozen babies’ arses I reckon.’

  Katie could hold her tongue no longer. ‘And I reckon it’s smashing seeing people having a bit o’ luck in these hard times.’

  ‘Luck? Luck?’ Phoebe was incredulous. ‘You seen that kettle he’s got on that bleed’n chain across his weskit? Gold hunter it is.’ She turned to Sooky. ‘Bit like that one Bert Johnson had to sell to Laney now I come to think of it.’

  ‘I thought even you’d have a day off for the Jubilee, Phoeb.’ Katie shook her head wearily. ‘I reckon if someone had a new pair of drawers on, you’d turn out to have a nose in case the wind blew their skirt up.’

  Phoebe as usual was immune to anyone criticising her, too dedicated to her mission of judging others to bother with nonsense like that. ‘You just wait and see,’ she went on. ‘I’m telling yer now, it’ll all come out. He’s probably turned that dirty hole of their’n into a sodding knocking shop, with his old woman doing the business upstairs. They could bring all sorts of blokes along that back alley behind the shop and no one’d ever know.’

  ‘You spiteful, wicked-minded old—’ Katie began, but there was no stopping Phoebe when she was in full flow.

  ‘I’m telling yer, you just watch. She’ll wind up having all sorts of troubles . . .’ she dipped her chin, and stared in her lap ‘. . . down there, and saying she don’t know what’s wrong with her. Well, we’ll know, won’t we?’

  ‘Why can’t you keep your nose out of nothing?’ Katie snapped. ‘If you was a younger woman, Phoebe Tucker—’

  Sooky tutted in alarm. ‘That’s it, go on, have a go at an old girl what can hardly move what with that rain this morning bringing on her screws.’ She turned to her old neighbour. ‘You just ignore her, Phoeb.’

  Katie was saved from working herself up any further by someone behind her coughing loudly in an effort to attract her attention. She turned her head to see Pat standing there; he was bowing theatrically.

  ‘I thought yer’d forgotten our dance,’ he said, and held out two bottles of milk stout to Phoebe and Sooky. ‘Get that down yer, girls,’ he said to the two women. ‘But yer wanna watch yerselves, there’s a baby in every bottle o’ that gear. That’d surprise yer old man, eh, Phoeb?’

  ‘Bleed’n would and all,’ she said, snatching the bottles from Pat’s hands. She jerked her head in the direction of the pub where Albert was trying to stop Jimmo playing his music. ‘Just look at him, the silly old bugger. Pissed as a pudden. I know exactly what he’s gonna do.’

  ‘What’s that then, Phoeb?’ Sooky asked, as she poured her stout into a glass she’d retrieved from Katie’s tray.

  ‘One of his bleed’n recitations. I knew he would. And if he does that really rude one . . .’ Phoebe shook her head and had an expression on her face that was the nearest thing to shame that Katie had ever seen in her. ‘Last time he dared do that was Armistice night. And I bent a bottle right over his bonce for his trouble and all. If I wasn’t settled just nice on this chair—’

  Pat roared with laughter. ‘I’d love to see yer do that again, Phoeb. It’s about time we all had something to smile about.’

  ‘Dunno what you’re laughing about, Pat Mehan. The smile’ll be on the other side of everyone’s faces soon,’ droned a sour-looking elderly man who was leaning against the wall behind Sooky. He had a pint in one hand and a short in the other. ‘Them Germans – we’re gonna be in trouble with ’em again. You mark my words.’

  ‘Who’s he?’ asked Katie, trying not to giggle.

  ‘From round, you know, Ida Street way,’ sniffed Phoebe, looking him up and down with unconcealed contempt. ‘Dirty old bleeder.’

  ‘Oi! Who you calling a dirty old bleeder?’ demanded a grimy, but flashily dressed man in his forties. ‘That’s my old dad, that is.’

  ‘Well, yer should be ashamed of him,’ snapped Sooky, surprising everyone with her vehemence. ‘I’ve had my eye on him. He’s tried to have his hand up nearly every girl’s skirt since he started pouring that Scotch down his throat.’

  ‘He’s what?’ demanded Pat.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Sooky, warming to her role of informer. ‘He wants to piss off back home; we don’t like that sort of thing round here.’ She twisted round to point directly at the man she was accusing, but he had moved away further along the street. ‘My good Gawd, will yer look at him now. I don’t believe it.’

  Pat, Katie, Phoebe and the man’s son all turned to look in the direction
Sooky was pointing, just in time to see him trying to drag Nutty Lil into the passage of the house where she and the Barbers lived.

  Pat shoved his glass at Katie and took off down the road after him. ‘Ain’t yer gonna stop him?’ he shouted back over his shoulder to the man’s middle-aged son.

  ‘Leave off. Leave him alone,’ he yelled, racing after Pat. ‘She don’t even know what’s happening. I had a feel meself earlier on.’

  Pat stopped in his tracks and spun round. ‘You what?’

  The man laughed. ‘I thought every one had their turn with her.’

  Pat said nothing more, he just swung his arm back and lifted the sneering man right off his feet with a sharp upper cut that connected neatly with his chin. As the dazed man struggled to his feet, Pat followed it with a left cross that sent him sprawling backwards into the gutter.

  By now there was a crowd clamouring for a look: a fight was always a big draw at a street party.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Stephen asked Danny.

  He just shrugged; he had no idea what was going on, but he wasn’t surprised it had come to this, not with all the free beer that had been sunk. He stood by his grandfather and watched as Pat with his back to number eleven, crouched over the man, waiting for him to get to his feet.

  Behind his dad, Danny saw Frank Barber appear in the doorway. He had hold of the old man with one hand and Nutty Lil with the other.

  ‘Does anyone know what’s going on here?’ Frank asked, indicating his two prisoners as though they were exhibits in a court case. ‘I came out of me lav and found these two staggering about in me back kitchen.’

  Pat turned to face Frank. ‘You wanna ask him,’ he scowled, jerking his head towards the old man. ‘And his no-good dirty bastard of a son.’

  At that, the man’s son hauled himself to his feet and launched himself at Pat again.

  Pat ducked to one side, easily avoiding the man’s punch.