Martha sighed. It was the same every time she tried to talk to the girl. She knew her daughter was desperately unhappy and still loved Harry, but she could not break through that stubbornness. She did not know what to do for the best. Other women along the street assured her complacently that it would all come out in the wash, but Martha was not so sure. When Ellen made her mind up, she was the very devil to shift.
The one person who never said a word about it all was Gerry. Up at the market, Ellen could escape from the constant speculation, make an attempt at being as cheerful as usual for the sake of trade and pretend to the outside world that everything was all right. Gerry talked to her about his deals, about characters at the market, about his plans for the future. Neither Harry nor Siobhan was ever mentioned. It was as if they did not exist. It was balm to Ellen’s battered heart, giving her a chance to rest and recuperate. They took to going for a drink after packing up, so that by the time Ellen got home in the evening she ate a very late tea and went straight to bed. The fact that Gerry relied on her gave her something to get up for when morning dragged round again.
It was six weeks or so after the fateful day that Siobhan stopped Harry in the street.
‘I got to talk to you,’ she told him.
‘I don’t think there’s anything to talk about,’ he said, making to pass on.
But she caught him by the sleeve. There was none of the usual challenge in her face today, just a deadly earnestness.
‘Oh but there is, and ’tis very important,’ she insisted. ‘Do you want me to spill it here in the street or shall we go somewhere quiet?’
Something in her voice stopped him from brushing her off.
‘All right, all right. I’ll meet you down by the river in half an hour. By Tyson’s quay.’
He deliberately arrived late, expecting her to do the same since she was so adept at playing games, but found to his surprise that she was there before him.
It was a dull autumn day with a hint of drizzle in the air, the sort of day that reduced all colours to shades of grey – light grey sky, steel-grey water, dark grey buildings, brown-grey mud. She stood on the weed-infested piece of ground beside the quay, with the panorama of the river behind her – a bright figure in green and yellow against the monochrome background.
Harry stopped short, looking at her. Whatever it was she was up to, he decided he was not playing. But even as he thought it, he remembered that that was what he had thought last time.
‘Well?’ he said.
She stood for a moment, holding herself aloof.
‘There’s no need to take that tone with me,’ she told him. ‘You’re responsible for this just as much as I am.’
‘Responsible for what?’ he asked, while half a dozen possibilities flashed through his mind.
‘For our baby.’
For several seconds, he stared at her. It had been said in a such a matter-of-fact way that it did not fully sink in.
‘Our what?’
‘Our baby. Yours and mine.’
‘But . . .’ He snatched at the obvious way out: ‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course I’m sure. I’ve missed twice.’
‘But what makes you think it’s mine?’
She gave him a cold look. ‘You’re not suggesting I’ve been with anyone else, I hope?’
That was just what he was suggesting.
‘Come off it. I wasn’t born yesterday. You never learnt tricks like that without a bit of practice.’
She looked mortally offended. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I was taken advantage of, I was. I went to speak to you, one neighbour to another, and before I knew what was happening, you had my skirts over my head.’
Her outraged tone grated on him. He spoke to her as he would never dream of speaking to a woman.
‘Balls. You were no bloody virgin. I know it and you know it, so don’t try that one on me.’
It was no use, though, since he had no proof. He stared back at her with loathing as the implications of what she was saying became plain. They were both of them unmarried, and the whole street knew they had been together. Maybe they did not know what had happened that time, but Siobhan would soon make it clear to everyone, and then he would be made to take up his responsibilities. He was trapped. There was only one thing he could do. He was going to have to marry her.
‘Pity there were so many people got to know about it. From your point of view, that is. You might have been able to wriggle out of it otherwise,’ Siobhan said.
‘I’m not trying to wriggle out of it,’ he said.
She smiled then, a hint of the old teasing challenge back in her eyes.
‘There’s no need to look so put out. There’s a lot of men as would be very glad to be in your shoes, Harry Turner. Very glad indeed.’
‘Like my stupid brother-in-law, you mean?’ he said bitterly.
‘Will? Oh, he would never make the grade. I have very high standards, I have. Not many men are good enough for me.’
And not many women were good enough for him. She certainly wasn’t.
‘You set this up, didn’t you?’ he accused.
She was a good actress, he had to give her that. She looked a picture of pained innocence.
‘I did not! I might remind you that I have a career on the stage. I don’t have to go forcing men to marry me just to get a roof over my head.’
‘Well, you can forget about your precious career now,’ Harry told her with grim satisfaction. ‘I’m not having no woman of mine prancing around showing her legs off to all and sundry. You’ll stay in the home where you should be and have my tea ready on the table when I come in.’
‘Yes, sir.’ She gave a mocking little bob.
With a swift movement, he snatched her waist and pulled her close.
‘You’d better believe it,’ he said. ‘You’ve walked on stage for the last time. If you want me to give this baby a name, it’s on my terms. Got it?’
For several seconds she tried to hold out on him, looking up into his face with an irritating smile on her lips, but slowly her expression changed, her eyes slid away, her shoulders slumped.
‘Got it?’ he repeated.
‘Yes,’ she agreed, in a small, sullen voice.
It was very small compensation for what he had taken on.
Outwardly, everything went on as usual. Ellen did not need her mother’s advice to keep her pride and act like she did not care; she had already decided on that course. However much she wanted to put her head under the bedclothes and give up on the world, she managed somehow to get up and get dressed. Everything seemed a huge effort, even lifting a brush to do her hair properly. It was a great temptation just to bundle it up any old how.
‘That’s right,’ her mother approved, fussing round her, straightening her collar, brushing her shoulders. ‘Never let yourself go. Once you do that, you’re finished. Got your hat? That’s it, put it on right. Needs something doing to it, that does. Treat y’self to a bit of ribbon or something, fancy it up.’
Grim-faced, Ellen jabbed a large pin through the hat to anchor it to her head.
‘I’ll not bother with ribbon, I’ll get another blooming hat,’ she said.
Martha gave her a brief hug. ‘That’s my girl. Off you go, now. Chin up!’
Outside, kids were off to early-morning jobs, a couple of men on early turn were setting out to work, and Loony Mike was scrubbing his mother’s doorstep with a sulky indifference that was going to earn him a clip round the ear when she saw it. The main rush to the factories had not yet started, for which Ellen was grateful. She did not want to talk to anyone. Gerry came out of his door, dapper as usual, with a bright red scarf knotted round his throat, a cheerful smile on his round face.
‘Wotcher, Ellen! Nice day for it.’
‘Yeah, lovely.’
The first lie of the day.
‘Got to go over Hoxton way later, see a bloke about some stuff. You be all right to carry on on your own?’
‘Yeah, fine.’
It was all right at the market. Nobody there knew that Harry Turner was about to marry Siobhan O’Donaghue. Nobody commented archly on the swiftness of the arrangements, the sour look on Clodagh O’Donaghue’s face, the wrangling over whether it was going to be a Catholic or a Protestant ceremony. Nobody there discussed the likelihood of the couple’s happiness. She was able to keep the mask on at work. It was going back to Trinidad Street again that was the hard part.
Street life was always in full flood when she got home. The craze at the moment was for swinging round the lamp post. Someone’s dad had brought home a length of old rope, and an older boy had shinned up the post and tied an end to the crosspiece. For once, both boys and girls were playing together, taking it in turns to run, grab the free end and swirl round with screams of excitement.
Involuntarily Ellen stopped short at the corner, looking at the kids. A few weeks ago, when she was happy, she would have run and joined in, raising shouts and whistles from the onlookers. But not now.
Gerry scuffed at a cobblestone with his toe. ‘What you doing tonight then, Ellen?’
‘Dunno. Read a book, I expect. I got one to finish. Due back tomorrow.’ Though at the moment even fiction was losing its magical power to transport her into other worlds.
‘How about you and me going out somewhere? We could go up West if you like, see how the other half live.’
‘Oh, I dunno, Gerry. I’m too tired.’
‘Go on, do you good. Have a change.’
Along at number twelve, the door opened and the priest appeared, accompanied by Mrs O’Donaghue. Ellen came to a snap decision.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘You’re on.’
Sidney Spruce was spitting feathers.
‘No artiste of mine has ever, ever failed to turn up for an engagement, not in all the years I been in the business. You know why? Because I only work with professionals, that’s why – artistes who got the stage in their blood, artistes who’ll go on even if they got a broken leg, artistes who know what side their bread’s buttered. They don’t not turn up just because they don’t feel like it. There’s paying audiences out there, girl – people what’ve slaved all week to go to the hall for a good night out, people what’ve been looking forward to seeing all the acts, and you, you go and let them down. You can’t do that if you want to stay in the business.’
Siobhan was not even bothering to look him in the face. She stood there with a hand on her hip and an insolent twist to her mouth, waiting for him to finish.
‘I don’t,’ she said.
But Sidney did not hear her. He was in full flood now.
‘Hours I spent on the telephone, clearing up after you. Hours! Smoothing them down, buttering them up, convincing them you was a good bet for next week. Sweated blood, I have, keeping your engagement open for you. Anyone else would’ve given up on you, given you the push. D’you know where you’d be then? Out, that’s where – out in the cold. People’d soon get to know why I dumped you, and nobody else’d take you on. If you’re unreliable, they don’t want to know. You’d hear nothing but the sound of doors slammed in your face. And that’d be the end of your stage career. It’d be back to the factory for you, seven till six, six days a week, just like all the other East End girls.’
He paused for a few seconds, expecting to provoke some sort of response from her. Remorse, tears, promises of good behaviour, gratitude for his continuing interest – anything would do. He had not exaggerated very much when he said he had sweated blood to keep her spot open. It had taken a lot of very persuasive talking on his part and a calling-in of favours he would have preferred to keep on ice for more important deals. All he asked in return was something back from the girl, proof that she appreciated the trouble she had caused and the effort he had taken. But there was nothing.
‘Well, that’s where you’re wrong,’ she said calmly.
‘What?’ He thought he had not heard her correctly.
With exaggerated patience, she repeated, ‘Well, that’s where you’re wrong.’
‘What d’you mean, that’s where I’m wrong? What have you been up to behind my back? You gone and signed up with somebody else? You can’t do that, you’re on my books, you belong to me.’
‘I don’t belong to nobody – yet,’ she flashed back at him. She studied her nails, first one way, then the other. ‘As it so happens, I’m getting married.’
‘You’re what? You can’t be. You’re joking.’
‘I’m not.’
‘But why?’ As soon as it was out of his mouth, he realized it was a silly question. She was getting married for the money. Some fool with more money than sense had fallen for that innocent-little-girl act and she had been holding out on him until the day was set. It was the oldest trick in the book.
‘How old is he?’ he asked cynically. ‘In his sixties? Nice dicky heart? Leave you a rich widow in a few years, eh? Very nice too. I hope I get invited to the wedding, seeing as you’d never have met if it wasn’t for me.’
‘Wrong again.’ She showed her even white teeth in a mirthless smile. ‘He’s my age, strong and handsome.’
‘So why ain’t you carrying on working? Don’t stop most artistes.’
‘He don’t want me to. Besides, I’m expecting.’
To his own surprise, Sidney experienced a slight feeling of shock, of betrayal. He knew he had been the first, and he was inordinately proud of it.
‘But – I thought – you said I was the only one.’
‘You are,’ she told him. ‘But what use is that to me when I’m up the bloody spout? Can’t come to you with it, can I? You’re not going to leave that wife of yours and give the kid a name, are you? I got to do something about it myself, so I have.’
‘So it is mine?’ he insisted. He had to know; it was very important to him.
‘Of course it’s yours. It’s all your fault – everything’s your fault. I was a virgin before I met you. Now look what’s happened – and I know you won’t lift a finger to help.’
He saw everything fragmented before him: their intimate little meetings stopping for ever, her earning potential disappearing. And just when everything was going so nicely, too. He had taught her everything he knew in the way of sexual tricks and hinted that he liked something new every now and again, and sure enough she came up with new ideas to amuse and titillate him. She was quite a nice little asset on the income side, too. Not a top earner – far from it – but he was hoping to arrange a provincial tour for her that could well establish her name. But not any more, not now she had dropped this bombshell.
Then he gathered his wits together. Ever the survivor, he was a quick thinker.
‘So you’re cuckooing this kid on some poor sod, are you?’
‘He’s not a poor sod, he’s a strong man. He’ll look after me proper.’
‘Yeah, make you cook and clean and clear up for him, and give you a new baby every year. You’ll have lost your figure and half your teeth by the time you’re thirty. Wonderful prospect!’
He could see by the look in her eyes that this had gone home, but she was not admitting it.
‘I suppose you’ve got something better to offer, have you?’ she said sarcastically.
Now it was his turn to play for time. He took a cigar out of his case, rolled it between his fingers, sniffed it, cut off the end and lit it. He took a satisfying puff.
‘As a matter of fact, yes.’
Siobhan said nothing. She simply looked sceptical.
‘How about a tour of the Midlands – Leicester, Nottingham, Derby, the Potteries, Birmingham? Get your name known, get some experience of different places, different audiences, then see about a nice summer season at the seaside. Clacton, maybe, or Yarmouth, or Skeggie. Might even get you Blackpool or Brighton. Set you all up ready to come back to the Smoke as a top performer. What d’you think?’
There was undisguised longing in her face now, followed by a childish anger and disappointment at having
such a treat snatched away.
‘I can’t, can I, you stupid bastard. Not with this kid.’
He had got her.
‘Get rid of it.’ Sidney shrugged. ‘Then I’ll start on setting the tour up. I’ve only got to do a bit of telephoning, pull a few strings, and we’re halfway there.’
‘Get rid of it?’ she repeated.
‘Yeah. You must’ve thought of it, surely?’
‘Yeah, but . . .’ She bit her lip.
The hardened artiste had gone, leaving the little Irish girl straight off the boat. For a moment he thought she was going to go all religious on him. But no, she was only thinking of herself.
‘You hear all these stories. Girls bleeding to death,’ she objected.
‘No – old wives’ tales. All put about to scare you girls off.’
Hope lit in her face. ‘Is it possible then – I mean, safely?’
‘How far gone are you?’
‘Three months, maybe more.’
‘Safe as houses,’ he lied. ‘Put you in touch with someone, if you like. Mind you, it’ll have to be quick, soon as possible. And it’s not cheap, but I’ll stake you for it. Nothing but the best for my artistes.’
She was staring into nothing, thinking. He could practically see all the pros and cons running round in her head.
‘And after, you’ll fix this tour up for me?’
‘It’s a promise.’
Still she hesitated. ‘I can’t go back. I can’t tell him.’
‘Don’t then,’ Sidney told her. ‘Once you got the – problem seen to, you can go into lodgings, then off round the Midlands. Easy.’
Her expression cleared. She gave a decisive nod.
‘Right. I’ll do it.’
By the time she left the room, twenty minutes later, it was all arranged.
3
IT WAS UNSEASONABLY warm for March, and the women were out on their doorsteps.
‘Mary O’Donaghue as was is expecting,’ Milly Turner said, nodding down towards number twelve.
‘She never is! Blimey, these Irish. At it like rabbits,’ Ethel Croft commented.
Alma Billingham settled her hands comfortably over her stomach and prepared for a nice long gossip.
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