Trinidad Street

by Patricia Burns

  ‘Hundreds.’

  But she was not giving anything away to this stupid creature. A word from her wide reading came to her: simpering. Vi was a simpering miss.

  Someone stopped and asked about plates. Almost relieved, Ellen turned her attention away. Yet when Harry bade her goodbye, she felt as if a piece of her had gone with him.

  It was halfway through the evening before she got home, but the street was still busy. Being Saturday night, nearly all the unmarried young people were out, and most of the men and some of their wives had gone to the pub, but the young mothers and the elderly and the children were enjoying the fresher air after the hot day. Ellen greeted neighbours as she walked wearily home, and kissed her mother, who was sitting on a kitchen chair outside the front door.

  ‘Had a good day, lovey? You must be tired. There’s some tea left for you. I’ll get it.’

  Ellen put a hand on her shoulder to stop her getting up. ‘You’ll do no such thing. You sit there and I’ll make you a cup and bring it out.’

  She washed the day’s dust and grime off herself, ate the pie and peas her mother had saved for her, then carried two cups of tea outside and sat on the step drinking it while her mother filled her in on all the latest news about what was going on.

  ‘Maisie’s expecting again. Come and told me this morning, she did. Mind you, it wasn’t a surprise to me. I suspected it a couple of weeks ago. Tears all over the place. I don’t know how she’s going to cope. She can’t manage now. That little Tommy, he’s getting to be a proper little terror. She don’t know how lucky she is, having all healthy babies like that. Next one’ll probably be just the same. I’d of loved a bigger family.’

  Ellen put a hand on her knee. They both thought of the last little boy, the one she had so dearly wanted.

  ‘Tommy’s all right with me,’ Ellen said. ‘And Florrie. He minds what we say.’

  ‘Well, there you are, then. It’s just her. Weak as water.’ Martha vented her sorrow on Maisie, listing her inadequacies for some time before conceding that she did try to be a good wife to Will, then going on to the next subject.

  ‘That Theresa O’Donaghue went by a while back, all done up to the nines. Must be going out with some lad.’

  ‘I suppose so. I never heard nothing about it, though. If there is someone, it’s a big secret.’

  ‘Yeah. That’s true. I ain’t heard nothing, neither. Perhaps she’s just seeing a bunch of her girlfriends.’

  ‘Mm.’ Ellen thought about it. ‘She must be. If she was going out with a bloke, she’d want to show off about it, would Theresa.’

  She sipped her tea and half listened to her mother, trying to let her body relax after the strenuous day. Usually she found it soothing to sit and hear about everything that was going on, to pass the occasional comment and watch the children playing, but this evening was different. She kept seeing that girl Vi standing holding Harry’s arm as if she owned him.

  ‘. . . very quiet today. You’re not sickening for something, are you?’

  ‘No, no. I’m all right. Just tired, that’s all.’

  ‘That’s the trouble with this job of yours. I know you like it a lot better than Maconochie’s, and you get paid better, but it ain’t right, young girl like you, working till this hour of a Saturday and too tired to go out and enjoy yourself. You ought to be off walking with a young man. Not that I want to get rid of you, mind. It’s nice having you here to talk to. But it ain’t natural. All the other girls are out on a nice evening like this. You ought to be parading up and down in you best dress with Florrie Turner.’ She hesitated, then added carefully, ‘I always thought you and Harry Turner might get together. He seemed very interested in you at one time. Look at the way he got you to carry on with your reading. There’s not one man in a thousand would do that.’

  It was true. She owed Harry a lot. If only she had not had that row with him.

  ‘Yeah, well, I saw him today, up the market. With some girl called Vi.’

  ‘Oh, her.’ Martha’s tone was scathing. ‘You know who she is, don’t you? One of them Cades from down Manilla Street. Common lot, they are. Not Harry Turner’s type at all. Do you know . . .’ She went on at length about the shortcomings of Vi’s family. But somehow it did not make Ellen feel any better. They would be more than glad to get a catch like a Freeman of the Company of Watermen.

  The evening faded into darkness and the air grew chilly. Ellen and Martha went in. Daisy came home, arm in arm with a friend and giggling fit to burst, Jack arrived from roaming about with his pals, and Tom from a political meeting in Poplar.

  ‘Found Archie Turner at the corner of the street,’ Tom said. ‘Dead drunk again. Me and Bill Croft had to carry him home.’

  ‘Oh dear.’ Martha looked worried. ‘Do you think I ought to just pop across?’

  ‘I shouldn’t bother. Spark out, he is. Won’t be no trouble to them.’

  ‘All the same, I think I better.’

  ‘I’ll go,’ Ellen volunteered, and was out of the house before anyone could argue with her.

  She slipped across the street and tapped on the Turners’ door. ‘Hullo? It’s me, Ellen.’

  There was muttering on the other side, then the door opened. Florrie stood there, as pale and thin as ever. The approach of womanhood had given her hardly any extra curves, just made her face look rather more in tune with her years. Ellen glanced past her into the dimly lit room.

  ‘You all right?’ she asked.

  ‘Yeah, yeah. Just listen to him.’ There was a world of contempt in her voice.

  Ellen listened. Gurgling snores were issuing from somewhere behind her friend, along with the smell of alcohol.

  ‘Bleeding pig,’ Florrie said. ‘Thanks for coming, though.’

  Ellen was about to turn away when she caught sight of Harry coming round the corner. He saw her and broke into a run.

  ‘What’s up?’ he called from halfway down the street. ‘Is he . . .?’

  ‘No, no, it’s all right,’ Ellen called back. ‘Don’t worry.’

  Harry stopped by her side on the doorstep. He seemed very large and solid and vibrantly alive.

  ‘He’s dead to the world. Mr Johnson and Mr Croft got him home,’ Florrie told him.

  ‘Pity,’ Harry commented. ‘They should’ve left him where he was.’

  ‘I just come over to make sure,’ Ellen explained.

  He reached out to squeeze her arm, turning her bones to jelly. But as he moved, a faint whiff of cheap scent came from him. All the jealousy of the afternoon surged back.

  ‘That was real kind of you, Ellen. I appreciate that,’ he was saying.

  She hardly heard it through the bitterness.

  ‘Don’t mention it,’ she managed to say, shrugging him off. ‘I was only being neighbourly. Hope you had a nice evening. ’Bye.’

  She stalked off across the street and let herself into her own home, banging the door behind her.

  8

  TRINIDAD STREET WOKE late on a Sunday. The devout amongst the Catholics at the Irish end went to early Mass. The Nonconformists went to their services a little later. But the vast majority, who expected the Church to be there only when they wanted to be married or buried, looked on Sunday as what God intended it for – a day of rest. They needed it, after the labours of the week.

  Ellen was the only one up to hear the knock at the door. She had given up trying to sleep and instead had heated some water and washed her hair. Now it hung down her back in a shining brown curtain. She put down her brush and went to answer the door.

  On the step was Harry.

  He was the last person Ellen expected to see at that hour of the morning. She stood and gaped at him, speechless.

  ‘’Morning, Ellen. I came to thank you properly for looking in on my family last night.’

  ‘Oh.’ She could not stay angry with him, not when he was standing there with his white smile and his blue eyes. ‘That’s all right. It was nothing.’

  ‘It meant a lot
to me. Can I come in?’

  ‘Er – yeah. Yeah, of course. Come on. I’ll put the kettle on.’

  She could feel his eyes on her as she moved around, making the tea. It made her clumsy. She tripped on a chair leg and twice nearly dropped things. She was acutely conscious of the fact that she was wearing an old patched blouse and faded skirt, both still damp in places from when she had washed her hair. Why couldn’t he come when she was looking nice?

  ‘Is everything all right over at your place this morning?’ she asked, carrying the teapot to the table with extra care.

  ‘So far. He’s still asleep. He’ll be in a foul mood when he gets up, but with a bit of luck he’ll be feeling too ill to do much more than lie around groaning. We’ll just keep out of his way.’

  Ellen nodded. It was not easy keeping out of anyone’s way in these tiny houses.

  ‘Good thing it’s a nice morning,’ she said.

  She sat down opposite him, cradling her cup in her hands and avoided his eyes.

  ‘I bought this for you,’ Harry said.

  He reached across and placed a little object wrapped in white paper in front of her.

  ‘Oh.’ At first she could only stare at it. ‘But – what’s this for?’

  He shrugged. ‘Just everything. Aren’t you going to open it?’

  She picked it up. It was hard and bumpy. Bubbles of excitement began to stir inside her. She glanced up at Harry, smiling, and found that he was smiling back at her, enjoying her surprise. Slowly, prolonging the pleasure, she unwrapped the scrap of paper.

  There between her shaking fingers was a brooch, a butterfly about an inch across in a silvery metal with sparkling stones in its wings.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ she breathed. ‘Just beautiful. But why?’

  ‘Put it on,’ Harry said.

  She pinned it to her blouse, where it rose and fell with her breathing, like a live thing. She stroked it with her finger.

  ‘It’s the prettiest thing I’ve ever had.’

  ‘I saw it yesterday, at the market, and I knew it was right for you,’ Harry explained.

  Yesterday, at the market, when he was with that Vi Cade. Her heart twisted in a complex tangle of jealousy and hope.

  ‘Oh yeah?’

  ‘Yeah. It was then that I realized Vi wasn’t in the same class as you. I gave her the old heave-ho last night.’

  ‘Did you now?’

  She felt strangely breathless. She fought to keep a huge grin from spreading all over her face.

  ‘I’ve known it all along, really. There’s something about you that makes girls like Vi, and even Siobhan, look – fast, cheap.’

  She managed to pretend offence. ‘You mean I’m boring?’

  ‘No, not at all. They’re boring. There’s nothing much to them. But you – I’ve known you all my life but you still surprise me.’

  Ellen fingered the brooch again, watching the stones sparkle as she moved it.

  ‘Like going to work for Gerry, you mean?’

  He burst into laughter. ‘All right, you win. I was wrong about you and Gerry. He’s a good bloke, is Gerry. Wouldn’t take advantage of a girl.’

  ‘He asked me if I’d go out with him, but I said no,’ Ellen told him. ‘I like him as a friend, but not anything else. I told him, if we got to work together, that’s how it’s going to be.’

  Harry reached across the table and covered her small hand with his large one.

  ‘That’s that settled. So how about coming down the Island Gardens with me this afternoon, then?’

  It took a moment or two for it to sink in. When it did, a great warm wave of joy swept through her. She wanted to jump up, to sing and dance around the room. But with an acting ability worthy of Siobhan, she simply shrugged.

  ‘Yeah, all right. Might as well. Might be quite nice.’

  After he had gone, she sang and danced and hugged herself.

  Island Gardens, at the very end of the great bend in the Thames that formed the Isle of Dogs, was crowded with people out to enjoy the Sunday afternoon sunshine. The grass was yellowing and worn from hundreds of feet and the trees had a tired, late-summer look to them, but after the drab grey of the factories and the terraced houses, it was a little oasis of green in a leafless brick desert.

  Ellen and Harry sat on a bench facing the river and the Greenwich shore opposite. The glorious panorama of the Royal Naval College lay before them, with its classical symmetry of colonnades and twin-domed towers, between which could be seen the white perfection of the Queen’s House. Rising up behind the buildings in great steps of grassland and avenues of trees was Greenwich Park, topped by the Royal Observatory.

  ‘Some chap back in history called it “Bella Vista”,’ Harry said. ‘That means beautiful view.’

  ‘He was right there,’ Ellen said.

  She listened as Harry pointed out the various buildings, sometimes adding comments of her own. They watched the river traffic going by, the pleasure steamers coming and going from Greenwich Pier, the other visitors to the Gardens as they strolled past, everyone done up in their Sunday best. They ate ice cream from the hokey-pokey man. But most of all they talked – of their shared past, of the present, but avoiding the future – until the sun began to dip and the shadows grew long. Harry stood and held out a hand to pull Ellen up, tucking her hand under his arm to keep her close by his side.

  ‘We’ll come back next week,’ he decided. ‘If your mum agrees, we could go over to Greenwich and have a picnic in the park. What do you think of that?’

  Ellen thought it was the most wonderful idea in the world.

  ‘Oh . . .’ For a moment she was almost lost for words.

  ‘Don’t you think you’ll be able to?’

  ‘Yeah – no – I mean, I’m sure my mum’ll let me.’ She looked across to the park once more. ‘Do you know, when I was a little girl, I used to think that Heaven must be like Greenwich Park.’

  And it truly would be like Heaven on earth to go there with him.

  He smiled down at her. ‘I hope it won’t be a disappointment, then.’

  ‘Oh no, I’m sure it won’t. It will be wonderful. A picnic! I ain’t had a picnic for – well, I can’t remember. Must’ve been when I was ten or eleven. Yeah, eleven, when we went to Epping with the Sunday school. That was lovely, but going to Greenwich will be –’ She broke off, not wanting him to think she was being forward, like Siobhan or Vi Cade.

  ‘Just you and me, eh? For the day. That’s my idea of Heaven.’ He touched her cheek with his fingers.

  She stood gazing up at him, drowning in his words. ‘Me too.’

  They caught the Penny Puffer back to North Millwall, sitting jammed together on the dusty bench seat. The carriage was crowded with screaming children, harassed mothers, other courting couples. The air that blew in was hot and laden with smoke. Ellen was intensely aware of Harry there beside her, his arm and his thigh pressed against hers. There was an excitement building between them that grew with the clatter and vibration of the train, quickening Ellen’s breath and pulsing through her body. Harry’s foot brushed against hers, sending the nerves quivering all the way up her leg. Of one accord, their hands moved to clasp together and his thumb caressed her palm, slowly, sensuously. All the while they spoke together, making stilted remarks about the drab landscape through which they were passing, another conversation altogether was taking place between them, an unspoken need and anticipation. By the time they got to their station, the tension was almost unbearable.

  They walked along the dirty streets, silent now, not needing to talk, Ellen’s arm tucked securely under Harry’s arm, his long stride shortened to match hers.

  They took a short cut through an alleyway. The dank darkness between the tall warehouses was friendly and welcoming after the brassy glare of the street. Harry stopped and folded Ellen into his arms. She sighed with overwhelming pleasure. It felt so right, her body close to his, as if her whole life had been leading up to this moment. She raised her face. He
r eyes closed as his lips met hers, tender and gentle, kissing her slowly and with infinite skill until she hardly knew who or where she was. Their mouths parted briefly to look with dazed wonder into each other’s eyes, before meeting once more with growing strength and urgency, probing and tasting, straining ever closer. Ellen was melting, spinning into a dizzying void where time and place had no meaning and there was only the two of them and this shining newfound joy in each other.

  Harry held her head between his hands, tracing along her cheekbones with his thumbs. He smiled down into her eyes.

  ‘Ellen Johnson, you are a most surprising girl,’ he said.

  ‘I am?’

  ‘You are too. I always knew you had warmth. What I didn’t know was you had – fire.’

  Of their own accord, her lips curved into a knowing smile, but she said nothing, just reached up to kiss him again.

  For she had not known it herself, until that hour.

  It did not take long for the news to get to Gerry. It was up and down the street that very afternoon. Harry Turner and Ellen Johnson had gone off down the Island Gardens together.

  He felt sick.

  He had always thought that working together would bring them closer. Despite what Ellen had said about it being strictly business, he nursed the belief that one day she would come to see him in a different light. All that he did, all his ambitions, were now centred on her. Where once he had worked to get away from the spectre of poverty, now it was for a neat house, nice furniture, a bunch of kids – and Ellen.

  Charlie came slouching into the kitchen to eat before going out for the evening.

  ‘Saw Ellen Johnson and Harry Turner coming along,’ he said, leering at Gerry. ‘You been well and truly cut out there, bruv. Couldn’t get a knife between ’em.’

  Gerry said nothing.

  ‘Yeah, you should’ve got in while you had the chance,’ Charlie went on, watching to see the effect his words were having. ‘All this time you’ve had her there working for you. You should’ve made a move. Easy, no Mum there watching what you ‘n’ her’s getting up to, nice lock-up to take her to. Couldn’t be better. You could’ve had her any time you wanted. Too late now, though. Old Harry’s got in there first.’