‘What’s the problem?’ he asked. ‘Got something to hide?’
Charlie glared at him, facing him out, but when he spoke again he was on the defensive.
‘’Course not. I just don’t like you poking your nose into my business, that’s all.’
‘Fair enough,’ Gerry said carefully. But still he could not let it go at that. Knowing he would regret it, he said, ‘You better take them down to Mum to be washed. Looks like they got river mud on ’em. And other things besides.’
That wary look came into Charlie’s eyes again, but Gerry’s comment did not throw him.
‘So? I been working down there, ain’t I?’
‘Have you? You never said.’
‘You never bloody asked. Now shut your face. I’m sick of you and your questions.’
Charlie stood glaring at him, waiting for him to leave. ‘Go on, push off.’
Reluctantly, despising himself, Gerry went. He walked slowly down the stairs and paused in the parlour. From the kitchen came the sound of his mother talking. It was Sunday afternoon and too cold for chatting on the doorstep so she had invited somebody in. The choice was a bit limited at the moment, since her performance the other night with the sailor had outraged all the more straightlaced women in the street like Mrs O’Donaghue, but there were still plenty who enjoyed his mother’s company and found her drunken fits amusing. Whoever it was, he did not feel like facing them at the moment.
He let himself out of the front door and set off down the street. The kids were still out, those who had not been packed off to Sunday school. Sunday afternoons were the only time some couples had alone together, what with the number of people crammed into each bedroom. A lot of children playing now at shops or football had been conceived on a Sunday afternoon. He passed the Johnsons’. He wanted to stop and ask after Tom, but the burden of suspicion he now carried stopped him.
The West Ferry Road was sunk in its Sunday quiet. Even its rows of small shops could not inspire him today. Usually he felt a lift of hope and ambition, looking at all those little businesses. He was going to own something like that one day – for a start.
He stood in the road, wondering where to go. Then it came to him: the Torrington Stairs. He would go and see where Tom Johnson had been thrown in the river.
Under the overcast sky, the water was grey and sullen. Small waves coated with scum lapped at the foot of the weed-covered steps. A horribly bloated rat floated past, belly up, and revolved slowly in the eddy caused by the steps. Gerry watched with fascination as it went round and round, the four clawed feet stiff above the distended body. Eventually the main current claimed it again and it bobbed away towards the line of sailing barges and lighters moored to the London Wharf.
Gerry sat down at the top of the steps. He and his brother used to come here as boys, mudlarking. When the tide dropped and the black mud with its thin cover of dirty shingle was exposed, there was treasure to be found. Stripped naked in summer or barelegged in winter, they slid and dug in the stinking silt for coins, coal, old rope, bits of canvas, scrap iron, timber offcuts – there was hardly anything they could not find a use or a sale for.
He had learnt about trading then, and screwing good rates from scrap merchants and dealers. But Charlie, what had he learnt? Gerry thought back. Charlie was always happier to let others do the work and pinch their findings from them, or give a pasting to anyone who tried to do the same to him. It had been like that at school. Once, Gerry persuaded a gullible child that his marbles were a fit swap for the pebbles Gerry had found in the alley. Proudly he displayed them to Charlie, boasting about his wonderful possessions. He took them out at every opportunity and gloated over them, gazing for ten minutes at a time at the fascinating whorl of colour within the clear glass. Charlie wanted some too, but there was never enough money in their household for food, let alone luxuries like toys. Then two days later Charlie came home with some marbles. He said he had done a swap as well, but Gerry knew otherwise. Either he had stolen them, or terrified some smaller child into giving them up. He had seen him do it many a time.
‘Mum’d tan your hide if she knew,’ Gerry told him.
‘Yeah, but she ain’t going to know, is she?’ Charlie answered.
‘Who says?’
In reply, Charlie took hold of Gerry’s arm and twisted it up behind his back until he squealed out in pain.
‘I says,’ Charlie hissed in his ear. ‘Savvy?’
Gerry nodded. Charlie gave one last wrench.
‘You better, or it’ll be the worst for you.’
After a while, Gerry learnt to turn a blind eye to his brother’s thieving. In exchange, Charlie sometimes handed over a token of favour – an orange or some sweets. Gerry never really liked accepting them. If they had come off a stall, that was a bit better; not like stealing off your mates. But all the same, he rarely ate them, preferring to trade them on. Somehow, that did not seem so bad.
But had Charlie and his gang attacked Tom Johnson? Gerry desperately hoped not. There wasn’t much to go on, after all: some bruised knuckles, a pair of dirty trousers. Charlie was always getting into fights, and he might well have been working at one of the wharves. He took up jobs here and there, wherever there might be useful pickings, because he didn’t care for the drudgery of regular work.
Gerry considered the consequences if it was true. His mother would be heartbroken. The family would be ostracized. They would have to move right away from Trinidad Street. If it was proved, and brought to court, Charlie would be sent down for a very long time, maybe even hanged.
He got up, cold and stiff, and walked briskly back home to get the blood pumping round his body. No, it could not be true. Deliberately he pushed the remaining niggling doubts to the back of his mind as he went past the Johnsons’ again.
When he got in, Charlie was in the kitchen with his feet on the table, drinking beer out of a bottle. His mouth stretched in a smile that did not reach his eyes.
‘Drink, bruv?’ He nodded at the row of bottles ranged along the wooden draining board.
Gerry hesitated, then accepted.
‘Don’t mind if I do. Thanks.’ He helped himself, unscrewed the stopper, sat down on the chair by the range and took a long pull.
Charlie was watching him.
‘I could put more o’ them your way, if you want ’em.’
‘How much?’
‘To you, sixpence a dozen. But that’s only because you’re my brother. See?’
Gerry saw only too clearly. They had been knocked off. And if Charlie had plenty more then it was not just a case of a few bottles out of a pile of crates round the back of a pub. He and his gang must have done a proper break-in job. Slowly, he shook his head.
‘Thanks, but no,’ he said.
Charlie shrugged. ‘Suit y’self. But you’re missing a bargain,’ he said.
Gerry looked at the bottle, and put it down.
‘I’d rather not touch any of your bargains,’ he said.
4
THE FRONT DOOR banged open.
‘Anyone at home?’
The Johnsons looked up, every one of them eager for a break from the grindingly boring task of sewing hooks and eyes on to cards.
‘It’s Will,’ Daisy said.
‘We’re in the back, love. Come through,’ Martha called out.
Will clumped into the kitchen. Despite cheeks red from the cold outside, he looked dejected. His shoulders were hunched and his face doleful.
‘Guess what!’ he said, slumping down at the table. ‘I thought I better come and tell you before you heard it from anyone else. The strike’s over. The gov’nors have got blacklegs in to clear that acid.’
He looked from face to face, expecting sympathy, but only Jack was roused to insult the powers-that-be with a couple of choice swearwords. Martha cuffed him round the ear.
‘The ship’s cleared, is it?’ Ellen asked.
‘Cleared, turned round, now loading up.’
They were all silent
, taking in what this meant.
Martha sighed. ‘So who’s going to break it to your father?’
None of them wanted the job.
‘It’ll break his heart,’ Ellen said.
‘I know, lovey.’
Will began to bluster. ‘Well, don’t blame me. I did my best. I been going round talking to people, like he said.’
Daisy looked up at him. The ends of her fingers were sore from holding a needle. Her pinafore was grubby because they could not afford to heat water to wash the clothes. She spoke for all of them.
‘It’s all right for you. You’ll be going back to work now. Dad ain’t. He’s stuck in the hospital, and all because of the blooming strike.’
‘Leave off, Daisy. Anyone’d think it was my fault he was in hospital –’ Will said, then broke off suddenly.
Nobody looked at him.
In the uncomfortable silence, Will shifted the box of cards around.
‘You’d best go and tell Maisie,’ Martha advised. ‘She’ll be glad you’ll be working again. It ain’t easy managing when you got little ones around.’
Will banged out again.
Wearily, the family returned to work, Jack picking the hooks and eyes out of the box and passing them to each hand as it was held out ready, his mother and sisters sewing them onto the cards. They had been tired and cold and bored to death with the things before Will came in with the news. Now a leaden gloom settled upon them.
‘So it was all for nothing,’ Daisy said.
‘Not to Dad it weren’t. It was a matter of principle. Like when he got slung off the preference list. He’ll still think it was worth fighting for, even though they have lost,’ Ellen said.
Martha said nothing, but the lines round her mouth tightened.
They worked on in silence.
‘Can’t we stop?’ Jack whined. ‘I’m tired and I’m starving hungry.’
‘So are we all,’ Daisy snapped.
‘We got to get these done tonight or they’ll not let us have any more work,’ Martha explained for the tenth time.
‘Good,’ Jack muttered.
The deft fingers moved, stiff with cold but still functioning. Eyes grew sore and gritty trying to sew by the light of one candle. Ellen sat wrapped in her own thoughts. There were three pages of arithmetic she was supposed to be doing for homework, to be given in tomorrow, but it didn’t matter any more. She had long ago gone through all the permutations of calculation she could do with the hooks and eyes – if it took five minutes to make up one card, now long would it take three people to make a thousand? How long would it take if they did not stop at all and how much longer if they slept and ate? Would the time taken to teach Jack to sew be worth it in extra cards or was he more useful passing to the rest of them? How many cards equalled a slice of bread? How many hours of work equalled four ounces of cheese? It had kept her brain going for a while, but after three hours she found her thoughts were just going round and round on one track, always coming back to the same place.
At last, Martha shifted uncomfortably in her seat and glanced at Jack.
‘You go up the shop now, son. Take a saucer and get us three farthings’ worth of marge. We got just over half a loaf left. That’ll do.’
Jack, usually slow in doing any errands, jumped up with alacrity. A trip to the shop was a treat after passing hooks and eyes.
‘It’s not fair,’ Daisy complained. ‘He always gets the best jobs. Just because he’s a boy.’
‘Stop your moaning and take the teapot next door. Ask if we can boil a kettle on their range.’
Delighted, Daisy did as she was told. Going next door meant getting warm in their kitchen. Their dad worked down the foundry, so he was bringing in a wage, pitifully small, but regular.
Ellen and her mother were left alone in the cold room, still sewing.
‘Mum?’
Martha put her card down, sensitive to the tone of her daughter’s voice.
‘What, love?’
‘Was it all for nothing?’
Martha was silent for a moment, considering.
‘Well, like you said, love, your father won’t think so. Matter of principle, like.’
‘But what do you think?’
‘Does it matter? What’s done’s done. Got to make the best of it.’
‘But it does matter. If there was a reason, then it ain’t so bad. Even Dad being in hospital ain’t so bad.’
Martha pressed her lips together again. She sewed on another couple of hooks.
‘That is so, ain’t it?’ Ellen insisted. It was very important that she sorted it out.
‘I dunno, lovey. Don’t ask me. All I know is, we got no coal, ain’t got enough to eat and we’re going to be hard put to keep up the rent on this house.’
‘Dad is going to get better, ain’t he?’
‘So they say up the hospital. Please God they’re right.’
‘But it’s going to take a time, ain’t it?’
‘’Fraid so.’
‘And you’ll have the baby and him to look after.’
Martha said carefully, ‘That’s right. So what are you trying to say, lovey?’
‘Just that I went and got a job at Maconochie’s. I start on Monday.’
‘Ellen! What about your schooling?’
‘I told them today I was leaving.’
‘That’s not what I meant. You was supposed to be staying on and getting an office job.’
‘I know.’ Ellen frowned down at the table. It blurred before her eyes. She tried desperately to keep the catch out of her voice. ‘But I can’t, can I? Not now. How can I stay on when I’m fourteen and there’s Jack and Daisy doing as much to earn as I am? It’ll be bad enough as it is. They’re only paying me six and sixpence. But it’s better than nothing and I can still do the envelopes and anything else we get in when I get home.’
Martha reached out and put a hand over hers.
‘Oh, Ellen. I am sorry. I know how much it means to you. But I can’t say as how it won’t be a weight off my mind. That bit extra’ll make all the difference. We’ll be able to pay the rent, for a start.’
Ellen nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Her mother did not really understand how much it meant. None of them did. They could not comprehend the pleasure she got from using her head, the escape she found in stories, the satisfaction of adding up a string of numbers and getting the right answer.
‘And it’s not so bad working there, you know. Lots of girls there from around here. You’ll have a few laughs, I’m sure.’
‘Yeah.’
How could she explain the sense of failure, of having to admit that, after all, she was just like all the rest? For she could not say to her mother that she had always felt she was different; not better, just different. Going to the Central had confirmed it. There was an escape from the life that everyone in Trinidad Street led. But it had all been a dream. She was going to Maconochie’s just like everyone else.
Everyone else was glad.
‘I knew you’d see it right. Ellen. You got to do your bit for your family, ain’t you?’ Aunty Alma said.
‘All that book learning. Never did anyone no good. Never did that when I was a girl. Went out to work when I was nine, I did,’ Granny Hobbs told her.
‘We always knew you was one of us really. You coming up the Girls’ Club with us Friday?’ Theresa and her friends asked.
It had made them uncomfortable and envious that someone might be doing something better than them. Now she was back on their level and they need not think about a different way of life any more.
But she still thought about it. She was thinking about it as she sat hunched up at the top of the Torrington Stairs one Sunday afternoon early in the new year of 1902. It was a damp, dreary day, no weather to be sitting out, but there was no fire on at home and the place was crowded with people. The four walls had seemed to be closing in on her, the familiar refuge had become a cage. At least here there was space. She sat hugging her legs, her
chin resting on her knees, watching the greasy surface of the Thames slide endlessly by.
She jumped and looked round nervously as footsteps approached. It was Harry.
‘They said you might be here. Can I sit down?’ he asked.
Ellen shrugged. ‘Suit y’self.’
Since the day of the coronation party, they had avoided each other. She could not forgive him for going off with Siobhan the moment her back was turned. It still hurt that he had so obviously been waiting to get rid of her.
Harry took that for an invitation and sat beside her.
‘Aren’t you cold here?’
‘No more than anywhere else. I like it here. I like to be by myself sometimes.’
He ignored this none too gentle hint. ‘I know what you mean. I like to be by myself out on the river.’
They were both silent for a while, staring at the thick water in which no fish could live. Dead water, for all that it seemed to have a life of its own.
‘How are you liking it at Maconochie’s?’ Harry asked.
‘It’s all right.’ It was a lie. She hated it. Hated the noise, the steam, the smells, the forewoman who seemed to have it in for her. Most of all she hated the grinding boredom of doing the same tiny process over and over again, until her mind seemed to go round in circles like a treadmill.
‘It’s a bit boring,’ she added.
‘I can imagine. It’d drive me mad, factory work. Out on the river, you might have bad foremen or foul weather or eighteen hours on the job without a break, but at least on the boat you’re master. It’s up to you to get the stuff to where you’re going whichever way seems best to you.’
Ellen sighed. It sounded like bliss. Room to move, new places, new faces, new challenges. Not like Moconochie’s.
‘You are lucky,’ she said.
‘I know.’
The thing that was bothering her most rose once more to the top of her mind.
‘Was it all for nothing, do you think?’
‘All what?’
‘The strike, Dad’s accident – everything. All for nothing.’
‘No.’ Harry was emphatic. He spoke slowly, thinking it out. ‘No, it wasn’t. It don’t matter that the strike collapsed and the ship was turned round. What matters is that someone made a stand. If your dad had just stood by and let those men be exploited without saying a word against it, then he would have lost. That would have been acting like a white slave. As it was, he spoke up for what he knew was right, like a free man. Yeah, that’s it. He acted like a free man should.’
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