And she meant it.
They all assembled on Fresh Wharf in the shadow of the Monument, a loud gathering of people in their best clothes, all talking at the tops of their voices and out to get every last ounce of pleasure from the day. Mothers stood with babies on their hips, grabbing at toddlers as they made a break for freedom; older children ran about shrieking while their fathers, self-conscious at being with the whole family, either ignored them or made heavy-handed efforts at discipline. Young people stood in strictly segregated groups and eyed each other from the safety of the herd. The few old folk shook their heads and told anyone who cared to listen that it had all been different in their day.
Alongside was the steamer, their steamer, Clacton Belle, long and slim and elegant with her black hull, gleaming white superstructure and tall yellow funnel. They waited in the ‘fore cabin queue, the cheaper one, but, as they all told each other, it was so much healthier than saloon class. They were all dressed for the day in their best, in many cases the same clothes that had come out for every wedding and knees-up for the last five years or more, fresh out of pawn with maybe a new scarf or a bunch of flowers on a hat. Not everyone had made it, in the end. One family of children was down with a summer fever that everyone hoped was not diphtheria, Granny Hobbs, after years of perfect health, had succumbed to an ulcerated leg, and one of the fathers had had an accident at work. The rest of his family was there, though, thanks to Harry’s emergency fund, and there were plans to bring back rock and picture postcards for those forced to stay at home. Only one of the trippers was unaccounted for.
‘Where’s that blooming Siobhan, then?’ Alma asked, craning her head to see if she had missed the girl in the crowd.
Milly gave a little shrug. ‘Suits me if she don’t turn up. She’s done enough mischief to my family to last a lifetime.’
Alma looked at her in amazement. For Milly, that was a strong speech.
‘Blimey, girl, you’re speaking your mind at last. Keep it up,’ she said.
Milly went pink and nodded.
‘It’s this trip, ain’t it?’ Alma said. ‘Even the thought of a bit of sea air puts new heart into you.’
She certainly felt a new woman herself today. With her best red dress and her new shawl shouting with bright pink and yellow roses and her hat with the waving blue and purple feathers (only slightly bent) she knew she looked a picture. Nobody, she decided, would think she was over forty. Who knew what might happen on the trip? She looked over the passengers who weren’t from their party. There were plenty of men but it was difficult to make out whether they were with someone or not. Then her eye fell on Gerry and Ellen, and she experienced the familiar contradictory mix of emotions. There was little Jessica, looking over Ellen’s shoulder, her clear eyes round beneath a frilly sunbonnet.
‘Ah, the little love,’ she said out loud. She adored that child.
But at the same time came the nasty jolt: a granny. She was a granny. She was old, a has-been. She might as well give up on her own life now and just live through her children and grandchildren. It gave her a dreadful sinking feeling, as if she was being dragged down into a muddy pit.
‘No,’ she said.
‘What?’ Milly asked.
‘Nothing – just it’s going to be a fine old day, ain’t it? A real beano. Like we used to have when we was girls.’
Nothing was going to spoil today for her. She still had her figure, and plenty of it. She still had quite a lot of her teeth. And she still knew how to have a good time.
‘There she is,’ Milly said.
There was a stir in the Trinidad Street contingent as others spotted her as well: Siobhan O’Donaghue, dressed all in white.
‘White! Think of the washing!’ Milly gasped.
‘Don’t you tell me she’s a blooming virgin,’ Alma said sourly. ‘I think we all know better than that. Beats me why that Clodagh O’Donaghue lets her back into the bosom of the family, what with her high principles and all.’
‘Ain’t nothing proved, is there?’ Milly said. ‘First she was going to marry our Harry, then she made off. Nothing but his word and hers. No baby.’
Siobhan certainly looked like a princess as she moved towards them. The crowd naturally parted to let her through. Alma was suddenly struck with total discontent over her own dress, for Siobhan’s spoke Fashion. It was cut in the latest soft line with the higher waist and the wide kimono sleeves, making Alma realize that hers was out of date. The pure white cotton was trimmed with a wide band of broderie anglaise all the way down the front, and there was a single pink rose pinned to her breast to match the pink roses and white veiling on her straw hat. She looked fresh and young and, it had to be admitted, virginal; a ripe luscious strawberry, ready to be picked.
‘Bloody hell,’ Alma muttered. ‘Will you look at their faces? Can’t hardly keep from slobbering.’
Every man’s eye was upon her.
‘Well, that’s the end of any chances them girls had for the day. Your Florrie and your Ida ain’t going to be too pleased, are they?’
‘They’re younger,’ Milly pointed out.
But there was no such comfort for Alma, a forty-four-year-old granny. The young lads whom Florrie and Ida admired might not dare to aspire to Siobhan, but the older men certainly did.
‘Oh, sod it,’ she said. ‘When are they letting us on this blooming boat? I could do with a drink.’
As if by magic, the crowd began to move forward. Up the gangway they went, laughing and chattering, to spill out on to the deck. Alma’s naturally cheerful spirits began to rise again. After all, a trip was a trip, to be enjoyed. Blow that blooming Siobhan.
‘Come on,’ she said, grabbing her sister’s arm. ‘Round the other side and find a nice sheltered place by the cabins, and some deckchairs. We can make a little camp, and then anyone who wants can go strolling round the deck or whatever and we’ll all know where to find each other.’
The others fell in with her. Milly and Maisie and a selection of Maisie’s children, Gerry and Ellen with Jessica, Tom and Martha Johnson all sat down in a broad semicircle with their bags and coats and paraphernalia, testing the deckchairs, looking about for offspring, assuring each other that this was the life. Archie disappeared straight into the bar. Will fiddled around with the deckchairs, sat down, stood up, looked around, a picture of indecision. Alma soon sorted him out.
‘Why don’t you go and help your dad-in-law with the drinks? Mine’s a port and lemon. What you having, Maisie love?’
Will had no choice but to comply. But such was the goodwill engendered by the day that when he came out again twenty minutes later, Archie was still with him, and what was more, he was bearing drinks for all the family. Milly went quite scarlet with pleasure.
The young people were off at once to explore the boat and see who else was on it, while the older children gathered on the sponsons above the paddle wheels, peering over into the murky Thames for the first stirrings of action. The volume of smoke pouring out of the funnel increased, the ship’s officers shouted orders and the deckhands let go the lines. Simultaneously, the siren tooted and the children shrieked ‘We’re off!’ With a shudder, the great steam engines woke into life and the paddle wheels began to turn, only slowly here in the crowded river, but magnificent in churning cream and brown water.
Alma settled back in her deckchair and watched the teeming wharves and warehouses of the south side slip by. With the infuriating Siobhan pushed temporarily out of mind, a breeze just beginning to touch her face, and a nice fresh port and lemon in her hand, all was well with her world. She raised her glass.
‘Here’s to us!’ she cried.
One of the deckhands turned and grinned at her.
Up on the top deck, Siobhan was holding court. She was sitting just forward of the funnel with her old escort of Pat and Declan on either side and a cluster of males old and young all around her. The novelty of seeing their own river bank from the new perspective of the water was lost on them. They saw not
hing of the historic sights slipping by on either side. All they wanted was to get a little of this fascinating creature, to breathe the same air, to catch her eye. Not only the Trinidad Street crowd, but other men on the boat could not keep away. Siobhan’s perfectly controlled figure and exquisite face were quite apart from the more natural and well-known attractions of their own women.
Harry leant his back against the rail and looked at them, then at the cluster of disgruntled young girls gathered at the other side of the deck. His unmarried sisters were looking in Siobhan’s direction with faces as sour as lemons, and it did not take a genius to discover why. Both Jack Johnson and Jimmy Croft were caught up in the fringes of Siobhan’s admirers. Jack he decided to leave to his fate. He was only a lad and, besides, having Maisie married to a Johnson was enough. He did not need any more ties with that family. Jimmy was a different matter. Florrie did not say much, but Harry got the impression that she was really in love with him, and if there was one person he did not want to see hurt, it was Florrie. He knew that, like himself, she was not the sort to fall in and out of love easily. There was a quiet deep passion hidden inside her frail-looking body that she very rarely revealed. He strolled over to the edge of the group and stood alongside Jimmy Croft.
‘Do yourself a favour, mate – give it a miss,’ he said.
‘What?’ Jimmy only half looked at him. He did not want to be distracted.
‘All you stand to get from that is burnt fingers.’
‘Oh, come on, Harry. I mean, look at her – you know what I mean. After all, you and her was –’
‘Listen, mate,’ Harry said. ‘You ever had a nice shiny apple, all rosy red skin and not a spot on it, and bitten into it and found yourself looking at half a maggot?’
He had all his friend’s attention now. Jimmy was gaping at him, the expression in his eyes gradually changing as the meaning of this little parable slowly sank in. An involuntary twitch of revulsion pulled at his mouth.
Harry let him get on with his own thought processes.
‘Me, I’m going over to our girls,’ he said casually. ‘Reckon they’ll welcome a bit of the old chat.’
He broke into the group at the forward rail and put an arm round his sister Ida’s waist.
‘Enjoying it, are you? There’s old Dog Island. Looks different from the water, don’t it? Which of you girls works at Maconochie’s? I wave to you lot when I go past here, but none of you ever waves back. Too blooming stuck up, that’s what you are.’
He was beginning to raise a few smiles. He worked a little harder, telling them how all the lightermen knew that the prettiest girls were hidden away behind the prisonlike walls of the great factory, and how he’d nearly collided with other boats many a time when they were out on the quay eating their dinners at midday.
‘And here’s the dear old Island Gardens coming up,’ he pointed out. ‘See the trees, and the dome of the tunnel? How many of you got happy memories of the Gardens?’
It was out before he could stop himself. Some of his own happiest memories were of afternoons spent under those plane trees, but they were not ones he cared to take out and look at these days.
With relief, he found that he was getting a reaction.
‘– Wouldn’t mind going down that tunnel with you any day, Harry.’
‘When you going to take me ship-spotting, eh?’
He flirted with all of them, showing them places of interest along the river bank, telling them tales of funny incidents and close shaves amongst the watermen. Their giggles and retorts kept him afloat.
He became aware of another male presence, a rival for all this undivided attention: Jimmy Croft.
‘Wotcher, Jim!’
And if the fool did not go for Florrie, he did not deserve her. He kept up the act, letting events take their course, trying not even to glance at them. But out of the corner of his eye he saw Jim in between two of the younger girls and Daisy Johnson. Daisy was looking up at him sideways with a come-hither smile, saying something. Bloody Johnsons. Florrie was standing to one side, ignoring him. He wanted to shout out to her, to give her the hint: Just show him a sign, girl. Not a lot, not all over him, just a little signal, like. But she was too far away and he had his own part to sustain.
Down the river the paddle boat steamed, cutting her way between great iron cargo vessels, grubby little coasters, stately sailing ships with brightly painted figureheads, flocks of barges and lighters and tugs. Past the acres of brick where hundreds of thousands of people lived out their lives in cramped houses and treeless streets, past the forests of smoking chimneys and the bleak factories, went the Clacton Belle, a bright little oasis of pleasure, filled with people escaping from the treadmill. On the decks and in the cabins they strolled about and flirted, laughed and joked, smoked, ate and drank and watched the everyday world slip by them. Some of them, the lucky ones, were on their way for a whole week’s pleasure at Clacton or Walton or even as far afield as Yarmouth. Others, like the Trinidad Street party, had only the one day. But all were out to wring every second of fun from the voyage.
Once they were into the lower reaches, and the houses retreated and marshes opened out at the sides of the river, Harry made some excuses and eased away from the gang. It was a mixed group now, still more young women than young men, but a whole lot jollier than when he had first joined it.
‘Come straight back,’ the girls called out to him.
‘Yeah, yeah,’ he said, but he left them to it.
He went down to the main deck to join the rest of his family. He bought them a round of drinks and made sure his father was not yet the worse for wear, but the togetherness of the married couples and the demands of their small children made him feel excluded. He made his way down to the lower decks and for a while watched the engines working; it was a different world, of steam and oil, shining brass and huge pumping steel pistons. Some of the Trinidad Street boys were there, so he explained to them how coal and water were transformed into the power to push the Belle along. They jumped up and down, excited by the sheer raw energy, and admired the engineers crawling unprotected among all that moving machinery with oilcans and rags. He left them running backwards and forwards over the hump above the driving shaft, and went up on deck again. He was leaning over, watching the hypnotic curve of the bow wave forever falling over into the green water when a figure in white joined him at the rail.
‘All alone?’
‘Looks like it.’ He did not look at her.
‘Where have all your admirers gone?’
‘Same place as yours,’ he countered.
She placed a hand on his arm, a white-gloved hand. In spite of himself, he felt a stirring of interest.
‘They’re a bunch of jackasses,’ she said.
Her fingers moved on his arm in a mere suggestion of a caress. To counteract it, he answered more sharply than was necessary.
‘Well, I’m better off than you, then. My friends are a good lot of girls – nice girls, the sort that’d stick by you when you’re in a hole.’
She gave a merry little laugh at that. ‘My, you’re the grumpy one, so you are. I didn’t think you were the kind to harbour grudges, Harry Turner.’
‘I’m not.’
‘That’s all right, then.’
She threaded her arm through his and leant against him. The body beneath the virginal white was as full and promising as ever. He had to fight against the natural reaction to pull her closer.
‘So we’re still friends?’
That saved him.
‘Wrong.’ He placed her hand back on the rail and put a good foot of clear space between them. ‘We never was friends. Just – lovers. Briefly.’
She was silenced. He stole a quick glance sideways and saw that her mouth was set in a hard line.
‘I take it there never was a baby,’ he said.
‘There was a baby.’ She sounded devoid of emotion. ‘I lost it. Miscarried. You know what a miscarriage is?’
He knew that well e
nough. His mother had suffered from several, often after his father had knocked her about.
‘Yeah.’
There was a plaintive sniff beside him. ‘It does something to you, losing a child. You’re never the same person again.’ Her voice was thick with unshed tears.
But he did not even have to fight against it. He knew her for what she was.
‘Very convenient for you, losing it just when you thought you might have to leave the stage. Would have been a wrench for you, wouldn’t it, giving up all these – jackasses dying for a word from you.’
‘You’re very cruel.’ It was a near sob this time. ‘You can’t understand how I feel. No man could.’
‘What I can’t understand is why you came on this trip. You must have plenty of young toffs ready to take you out, so long as you hold out the promise to pay them.’
‘What the devil do you mean by that? What are you saying?’ The pose of bereft mother was abandoned. Real anger sparked off her tongue.
Harry ignored her questions, letting the jibe sink in. He carried on with his train of thought.
‘All I can think of is that you want to show off, let everyone get an eyeful of you. You don’t want your family to know you’ve really gone the way of your poor cousin Theresa, do you? So you put on this pretty dress and these white gloves and you act pure as the driven snow in front of them and all the rest of the street. Well, maybe you’ll fool your family, because they want to be fooled – ’specially your aunt Clodagh. But the rest of us know you for what you are. We may not dress like the people you go around with now, and we don’t talk posh, but we’re not stupid. We know a whore when we see one.’
He left her at the rail and went up to the top deck, where the air was fresher.
The banks of the river grew steadily further apart. Farmland and distant woods and churches replaced the relentless brick. They passed the new docks at Tilbury and the ancient town of Gravesend and now there were fleets of little fishing boats moored in the shallows. On the skyline to the south was the ridge of the North Downs, to the north lay the Essex marshes, bounded by the Langdon Hills. Past the walls of Canvey Island, the estuary opened up. There were real waves, and the steamer lifted just a little to them, as if they were really at sea. The girls squealed in pretended fear and clutched whoever was handy, the men braced their legs and looked sturdy and heroic, the children ran madly about or had to be pulled down off the rails, where they were playing at dares. Hats had to be held in the wind and unguarded newspapers fluttered overboard. A sense of adventure invaded the boat. They were travellers, battling with the elements. They waved to passing shipping as if they too were bound for the other side of the world. People spoke to complete strangers and instant friendships were struck up.
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