Just Around the Corner

by Gilda O'Neill

  ‘So do I, love,’ sniffed Nora, dropping back on to her chair. ‘So do I.’

  Stephen had been gone for nearly three months and Nora still hadn’t resigned herself to the fact that he wasn’t coming back. She hadn’t really had one decent night’s sleep since he’d left, but the oppressively hot August nights were making her even more restless. The weather had been in the eighties for over a week now, and, from how sticky it was, it felt as though there was going to be yet another thunderstorm.

  It was half past three when Nora looked at the clock. It was no good lying there staring up at the ceiling, she told herself, she might as well make herself a cup of tea. So as not to wake the boys, Nora slipped into the kitchen in her bare feet and set the kettle on to boil.

  She was draining her third cup and wondering whether to freshen up the pot again, when she heard a loud banging outside in the street.

  Grabbing her coat from the banister and throwing it on over her nightdress, Nora cautiously opened the street door. It took her a moment to focus in the dim, pre-dawn light, but then she saw what all the row was about.

  It was the police – two carloads of them – and they were bashing on the Miltons’ front door. Nora wouldn’t have been surprised if it had been the Lanes’ house they were trying to get into, but whatever would they want with the Miltons?

  In the time it took for Nora to run next door to fetch Pat and Katie, all the doors in the street were open and everyone was on their street doorsteps to witness the sight of Mr Milton being dragged away by the police, while Ellen screamed at them not to take her Edwin away.

  ‘Edwin!’ they all heard Phoebe yell at the top of her voice. ‘No wonder he never told no one his sodding name.’

  Edwin Milton was thrown into the back of one of the cars and the police drove him off into the night.

  Katie turned and looked up at Pat. ‘I’ll have to go over there and see if I can do anything.’

  ‘Too late,’ said Pat. ‘She’s gone back in and shut her door.’

  ‘Perhaps it’d be better in the morning, eh?’ Nora said with a sad shake of her head. ‘The poor girl probably wants a bit of time to talk to her kids.’

  But when Katie went over to number three the next morning there was nothing she, or anyone else, could do. The house was empty; Ellen Milton and her children had disappeared.

  Phoebe, of course, had the solution to the mystery. ‘That weren’t no normal moonlight flit, you mark my words. She’d got a load more gear off the tally man, so’s I heard,’ she said, leaning against the wall as Katie squinted through the window into the empty front room. ‘After she’d paid off all that other lot. But she only made one payment on all the new stuff, then pawned the lot and went and sold the pawn ticket.’

  Katie rapped on the door again. ‘D’you have to speak ill of everyone?’ she asked over her shoulder.

  ‘Why not? They ain’t bleed’n dead, are they?’ Phoebe snorted.

  Sooky, breathless from the effort of dragging her flabby body along at more than a snail’s pace, came gasping to a halt beside them. ‘Guess what I just heard down the market? I went down there special to see if anyone knew anything,’ she added proudly. ‘It’s something to do with Laney.’ She rolled her eyes in the direction of number six. ‘He’s only gone and grassed Milton to the law to save himself. They was involved in some big—’

  ‘I ain’t standing here listening to your poison,’ Katie interrupted her. She looked the two women up and down, turned on her heel and left them to their gossip.

  Katie winced as though she had been struck across the face when she heard Phoebe call after her: ‘Dunno what she’s so cocky about, Sook. Drove her own father away, she did. Hard-faced cow.’

  17

  IT WASN’T ONLY the Miltons’ misfortunes, and now Stephen Brady’s disappearance, that hung over the little community of Plumley Street. There was also something less tangible, a feeling many people had that maybe those better times they’d been praying for weren’t going to be just around the corner after all. If anything, things seemed to be getting worse, life getting harder. Even the weather seemed to have turned against them.

  September brought floods, followed by gales in November and, by December 1935, a bitter freeze had set in. It might have looked picturesque, and was even fun for those who could afford to enjoy it, as all the pictures in the papers testified; taken at night, they showed literally thousands of happy people skating on a frozen reservoir by the light of bonfires dotted round the shore. But for the Mehans and their neighbours there were more pressing concerns than smiling for the camera. Concerns such as how they could afford to keep even one room in the house warm enough to be able to bear taking off their outdoor clothes when they got in from work, if they were lucky enough to have work. And knowing that just going to bed and getting up in the morning, in rooms with windows covered in frost as thick as that on the pavements outside, was a misery to be dreaded.

  It was during the very worst of the weather that a new family, the Gibsons, moved into the Miltons’ old house. Although mystery still surrounded what had happened to the Miltons and whether they would ever return, it hadn’t stopped the landlord renting out the place as soon as the police had satisfied themselves that number three held no potential evidence in the case they were apparently trying to bring against Edwin Milton.

  The Gibsons were not unlike the Miltons. They were a youngish couple, with a brood of wary-looking kids whose clothes looked more suited to the rag-and-bone man’s barrow than a child’s back. The man, Ted, did have a job; he was a skilled cabinet-maker according to Bill Watts, working for a firm Bill used to do business with. But from the look of him, old and worn out long before his time, Ted was working long hours for not very much pay.

  The Gibsons had been living in Plumley Street for almost three weeks when Aggie Palmer went along the road to see Katie on a cold Thursday afternoon. The old year was almost at an end and it certainly felt as though they could all do with a taste of something new.

  ‘I don’t wanna stick me nose in, Kate, yer know me,’ Aggie said, fiddling with her headscarf.

  ‘Is something wrong, Agg?’

  ‘Yeah, there is.’

  ‘Well, come in a minute. Have a sit-down, and I’ll make yer a cuppa. Then yer can tell me all about it.’

  ‘I won’t stop, if yer don’t mind, Kate.’ Aggie sounded, and looked, distracted, as she kept glancing over her shoulder across the street. ‘Look, Kate, yer know how I’m up all hours, seeing to me animals and taking Duchess out for a run with the trap and that?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Katie wondered what on earth all this was about, and wished Aggie would get on with it. She could just imagine all the heat from the Kitchener flooding along the passage and escaping out of the open street door. But then a horrible thought occurred to her and her worries about the heat disappeared like smoke up the chimney. ‘Here, it’s not my Danny, is it? He ain’t been hurt? There ain’t been no accident with the truck?’

  ‘No, honest, it’s nothing like that. It’s the Gibsons. I ain’t seen a sign of life over there for two whole days now. I’m worried about ’em.’

  Katie was back down the passage, had grabbed her coat and was halfway across the street before Aggie had the chance to say another word.

  ‘I don’t know why, I just thought it’d be better if two of us went over. Less nosy like,’ Aggie said, trotting after her, her breath forming clouds in the icy air.

  They both knew that Aggie’s concern wasn’t really to do with the niceties of calling on their new neighbours, it was the thought of what she might find in there that was really worrying her. She was a very tender-hearted woman, always sensitive to others’ sufferings, and had told Katie once that she had never really got over seeing Edie sobbing as she cradled Bert’s body in her arms.

  Katie leant back and gave the front of the house a quick once-over. ‘Least the curtains look like they’re open.’

  ‘They have been since yesterday. That was one o
f the things what worried me.’

  Katie went to the street door and started banging on it with the flat of her hand.

  ‘It’s no good, I tried that earlier. That’s when I got really . . . you know . . .’

  Katie moved to the front window. She leant forward, cupping her hands round her face and pressed hard against the icy glass.

  She stepped back. ‘Look in there, Agg,’ she said grimly.

  Aggie squinted through the window. Her hand flew to her mouth. Inside was a huddle of frightened-looking children, three of them not much more than toddlers, squatting in front of an empty grate, hugging big shapeless coats round their skinny little frames. There was no sign of either Ted or Eileen, their parents. ‘Poor little loves!’ Aggie gasped.

  ‘Mind, Agg.’ Katie eased her shocked neighbour to one side. She somehow pinned a smile to her lips before tapping gently on the glass. ‘Hello,’ she said brightly.

  None of the children moved.

  She tried again, louder this time. One of the older ones, a girl, looked round.

  Katie drew in her breath at the child’s eyes: they were dull, indifferent. She had a look about her, not of a little girl, but of someone much older who had seen too much and who had just given up on life.

  Katie composed herself; with her smile pasted back in place, she spoke as loudly as she dared without alarming the child. ‘I’m Mrs Mehan,’ she cooed encouragingly. ‘A friend of yer mummy and daddy. I live over the road. You know, on the corner over there. Where the two boys, Michael and Timmy, live.’

  Still no response, other than the heartbreakingly blank stare.

  Katie thought for a moment. ‘Tell yer what, if yer let me and Mrs Palmer in, we can make yer all something to eat. Get the fire going for yer. How’d that be?’ She crinkled her eyes. ‘All nice and warm.’

  One of the little ones began to cry. The older child, the girl who had been silently watching Katie, turned to the younger one and said something. Then she dragged herself listlessly to her feet and trudged out of the room.

  ‘I think she’s gonna do it,’ Katie said, as much to herself as to Aggie. ‘Come on, girl, open the door. Please. Come on.’

  Katie’s wish was granted.

  The child peered through the tiny crack she had made between the door and the jamb. ‘You really Timmy’s mum?’ she rasped. By the look of her puffy eyes, Katie guessed that her throat was raw from sobbing. ‘He said I could come over and play with him one day.’

  ‘Course yer can, love. Yer welcome over home any time.’ Katie could scarcely hold back her own tears. ‘What’s yer name, then?’

  ‘Mary Ann Joan Gibson.’ The child gulped, having to close her eyes at the effort of swallowing with such a sore throat. ‘I’m ever so hungry, Mrs Mehan. And our David’s got a dirty bum, but there ain’t no clean napkins left.’

  Katie and Aggie exchanged brief, anxious glances.

  ‘Right,’ Katie said, adjusting her expression back to a smile. ‘Now, where’s yer mummy and daddy?’

  ‘They’re upstairs,’ Mary mumbled into her chest. ‘They ain’t very well.’

  Katie nodded. ‘Now, I want you all to wait here with Mrs Palmer. I’m just going up to have a little word with ’em.’

  Katie was upstairs for only a few minutes.

  ‘Right,’ she said, all jolly smiles as she stepped back into the freezing room. ‘I’ve spoken to yer mummy and she said it’s all right for me to take yer all over to my mummy’s house. Yer know, to Timmy and Michael’s nanna’s house next door to mine? And she can sort out David’s napkin for him. Use a nice clean towel. How about that?’

  Mary nodded and her dirty, tear-stained face relaxed; someone was going to take care of them.

  ‘Then me and Mrs Palmer are gonna make sure yer mummy and daddy feel better. All right?’

  ‘You all get them coats on yer nice and tight,’ Aggie said, coaxing one of the littlest one’s arms into the sleeves of the oversized jacket he had wrapped around him. ‘Now, you all got shoes?’

  There were nods all round.

  ‘Make sure yer’ve all got ’em on then.’

  While the children did their best to organise themselves, Katie put her arm round Aggie’s shoulder and whispered to her, ‘They’ve got a fever, the pair of ’em. Weak as kittens they are. And the place is in a bit of a state. I reckon she, you know, Eileen, ain’t been well for a while. Hungry probably.’ She sighed. ‘Same old story, eh, Agg? Giving whatever there is to her old man and kids, and going without herself.’

  As Katie and Aggie were just about to go back inside number three, after ferrying the children across to Nora, Irene Lane called to them from her street doorstep. Although it was now late afternoon, she was standing there wrapped in a fluffy candlewick dressing gown, but her yellow, bleached hair looked as though it had just been styled and she was wearing full make-up.

  ‘Everything all right?’ she asked in her girly, high-pitched voice.

  Katie looked her up and down. Well, things were obviously all right for some people in the street. She silently reprimanded herself; she shouldn’t be like that, it was none of her business if people had nothing better to do than sit about titivating all day. And, much as she felt like snapping Irene Lane’s head off for that business with Sean, Edie had said how she’d been good to her after Bert had died, so Katie did her best to control her voice as she answered her. ‘Eileen and Ted – Mr and Mrs Gibson – they ain’t too well.’

  ‘Can I do anything? To help, I mean.’

  Katie turned to Aggie, who just shrugged.

  Katie considered for a moment. ‘What yer like at cleaning?’

  ‘Try me,’ Irene said eagerly.

  ‘Right,’ said Katie, ‘I’ll leave the door on the jar.’ She stepped into the passage of number three, paused and turned round. ‘Aw yeah, and yer can bring a couple of buckets of coal over and all while yer at it.’

  Aggie couldn’t resist a little chuckle. ‘That’ll bugger up them lily-white hands of her’n.’

  But Irene surprised them both when, less than five minutes later, she appeared in the Gibsons’ kitchen with the coal.

  ‘Right,’ she squeaked, putting the two brimming buckets down by the hearth. ‘I’m ready for action. You just tell me what to do and I’ll get stuck in.’

  Both Aggie and Katie instinctively raised their eyebrows as they appraised Irene Lane’s cleaning outfit. She had her hair tucked away under a bright, spotted scarf that she had fastened at one side like a pirate’s bandanna, and was wearing a pair of matching trousers, glamorously draped, silky evening ones, just like the film stars wore on the newsreels. But, Katie grudgingly admitted to herself, at least she was showing willing.

  Within two hours, the three women had the house almost back in shape, a fire going in the bedroom grate, some pea and hambone soup taken up on a tray to Ted and Eileen, and two bags of shopping, most of it paid for by Irene Lane, the rest donated by Edie, put away in the cupboard. They were just finishing off before they left, doing a few final jobs to make the place ready for when Ted and Eileen felt well enough to get up again, which probably wouldn’t be long now they had some decent food inside them.

  Aggie was bundling the dirty washing into a bed sheet, ready to take home to do in the morning; Katie was balancing on a chair giving the kitchen window a quick rub over – she knew how she’d feel if she had to come down to grimy windows – and Irene was putting away the dishes she had just finished washing and drying.

  ‘When I took the soup up,’ Katie said, rubbing at a stubborn mark in the corner of one of the panes, ‘Ted was asking if someone could get a note round to his work. He don’t want ’em to think he’s cleared off or nothing.’

  Aggie straightened up from knotting together the corners of the bulging bed sheet. ‘Shoreditch way, ain’t it?’

  ‘Hang on. I wrote the address down.’ Katie dug into her apron pocket and pulled out a bit of cardboard that looked like it had been torn from a cigarette packet. ‘Bethn
al Green. If my Sean was about I’d send him, but he’s helping someone round the market today. Thank Gawd.’ Katie rolled her eyes towards the ceiling and crossed herself. ‘That lark with the dog-fighting mob shook him up good and proper. Did him good in a funny way.’

  Aggie shuddered at the thought of such cruelty. ‘How about if I shot off home, got my Duchess tacked up and went round there now in the trap?’

  Katie looked over her shoulder. ‘It’d be a weight off Ted’s mind, I reckon, Agg.’

  ‘That’s what I’ll do then. Give us the address here, Kate, and if I move meself, I’ll catch ’em before they close.’ Aggie hoisted her bundle on to her shoulder and hurried out.

  With Aggie gone from the kitchen, the atmosphere between Katie and Irene became less easy.

  ‘Nearly done here now,’ Katie said stiffly. ‘You might as well get yerself off home.’

  Irene nodded, looking round the room to make sure that there was no other little job she might do. Not being able to find one, she walked towards the kitchen door. ‘Yer a good woman, Katie,’ she said abruptly.

  Katie hesitated a moment before answering. ‘Only doing what anyone else would.’

  ‘It wasn’t me what encouraged Sean to come indoors, yer know.’ Irene was standing in the doorway with her back to Katie, staring down at her feet. ‘It was him, Arthur, what started it. He likes having young people round him, see. Doing things for him. Makes him feel tough having someone to order about. But don’t worry, he always paid him and it was only ever errands. Never nothing, you know, nasty.’ She bowed her head even lower. ‘He’s got me for that.’

  Katie bit her lip and sighed to herself as she climbed down off the kitchen chair and walked over to Irene. ‘Don’t upset yerself.’ She reached out to put her arm round the young woman, but, just before she touched her, she withdrew her hand. She couldn’t bring herself to do it.

  ‘I know what yer must have thought when Sean got involved with them dog-fighting geezers,’ Irene whispered to the floor, her voice sounding more childlike than ever. ‘Well, I want yer to know that I hated the bastard for doing that. I would have killed him if I wasn’t so scared of him.’