‘I could die now,’ Ellen murmured. ‘I have everything.’
‘My love.’ Harry cradled her head more closely under his chin and pulled her blouse over her shoulders to keep her warm.
But reality came creeping back, nibbling at the edges of their bliss. Ellen shivered; Harry stirred to avoid the stones digging into his back. With a dragging reluctance, they came back to an awareness of their surroundings. The shadows were beginning to lengthen.
Ellen swallowed, and finally gave voice to the dreadful truth.
‘We got to go.’
They clung together a little longer, trying to hold on to the moment, but already the magic was slipping away.
‘I suppose,’ Ellen ventured, ‘I suppose we could stay.’
Neither of them dared look at the other as they played with the idea. It was too dangerous. They both knew there was really only one answer. Harry sat up and gathered items of clothing together.
‘Come on,’ he said gently. ‘Arms in.’
Ellen drew in a deep breath, and complied.
They scrambled out from the bushes and brushed each other down. Ellen did the best she could with her dishevelled hair. She smiled feebly.
‘Now I know what they mean about going through a hedge backwards.’
Harry held her in his arms as they took one last look at the place where they had discovered heaven.
‘We’ll always have this to remember,’ he said. ‘Whatever happens, this day will be ours.’
PART V
1911
1
IN THE STREET, the children were playing off-ground touch. There were shrieks of excitement and the scrape of boots as boys and girls leapt for the safety of steps and window ledges. Women who had slaved over scrubbing yelled at them to get off, lending force to their words with well-aimed swipes at legs and ears. The children just laughed and played on. Annoying the grown-ups was part of the fun. When the women started to bring their husbands in with threats of belt-ends, they simply shifted away down the street.
Harry, watching idly through the parlour window, was struck with a fierce nostalgia for the simple rules of childhood. You pushed the adults as far as you could, and if you stepped over the line, you got a clip round the ear. It was the same within the gang. By common consent, the strongest and cleverest boy was leader. You knew exactly what was allowed and what wasn’t, and if you broke one of the laws, you were out. It didn’t matter how popular you were, how good at fighting rival gangs or playing dares, if you told on a pal or beat up a little kid or stole something off one of the gang, that was it.
His gaze focused on his aunt Alma’s place across the road. In some ways, it was still the same now he was an adult. If you broke the rules, you were out. The difference was that you might get away with it if you kept up a good enough pretence. There behind the brown-painted door, Ellen carried on as if nothing had happened between them on that golden day back at the end of last summer. She worked to keep the house clean and bring up the children properly, and supported Gerry as he struggled to get his money problems straight. And all the while, inside her, the fruit of their love was growing.
He was sure it was his baby. She had refused to say, on the one occasion he had managed to get her alone for long enough to ask.
‘I dunno. How am I supposed to know? Could be.’
‘But you must know. You’re the only one who can. You know what – goes on inside of you.’
She glared back at him, eyes hot and defiant. ‘Well I don’t, so just don’t ask, see? Don’t ask.’
He knew from the set of her mouth that he would get nothing from her. It was part of the unspoken agreement between them. As long as she did not actually admit it out loud, they could live with it. But he knew, and he was sure that she knew, what the truth was.
The trouble was, it got harder rather than easier to bear. As the months went by and her belly began to swell, he wanted to be there by her side to watch over and protect her. To be forced to stand by like this, pretending no more than a vague neighbourly interest, galled him beyond belief. He could not suppress a growing antagonism towards his cousin. Gerry did not deserve her. Gerry did not look after her properly. Every time he saw Gerry, the resentment and jealousy nearly choked him. He had to stop himself from deliberately picking a quarrel, and keep his fists in his pockets so that he could not smash them into Gerry’s anxious, apologetic face.
‘Harry?’
He turned away from the window. Florrie was outlined in the doorway.
‘What you doing in here? Gave me a turn, you did, standing there in the half-dark, all quiet.’
‘Just thinking.’
‘Ah.’ For a moment it seemed as if she was going to comment, but she changed her mind. ‘Well, go and call Bob in for us, would you? Tea’s ready.’
Glad to be distracted from the insoluble problem, he went to the door and yelled at his young brother.
There was the usual Saturday wrangle over who was going out and where, who with and for how long. Ida sulked over the necessity to be in by ten o’clock.
‘It isn’t fair! Johnny’s three years younger than what I am and you don’t tell him to be in then.’
‘You’re a girl. I always had to be in by ten, and so do you. Makes ’em respect you if you got family what wants you back at a decent time,’ Florrie told her.
Ida pouted. Across the table, Johnny gave an irritating grin.
‘I’m going out with my pals,’ he said.
‘Well, mind you don’t get into no trouble,’ Harry warned.
‘What about you, love?’ Florrie asked her husband. ‘You going up the Puncheon?’
‘I will if you come too.’
Florrie shook her head. ‘No thanks, I’m too tired.’ She smoothed a hand over her vast belly. The baby was due in a couple of weeks.
‘Then I’ll stay with you, if you like. Bob can go up the Puncheon and get us a jug of mild.’
‘Only if I can spend the change.’
‘I’ll make sure there ain’t no blooming change, if you’re not careful.’
‘I suppose Harry’s going somewhere exciting up West,’ Ida said, with envy in her voice.
Up to that moment, Harry had not had any definite plans. But the cosy togetherness of his sister and her husband was too stark a contrast with his own bleak situation for him to stick around the neighbourhood for the evening. He certainly could not stand the thought of hanging around in the Puncheon, chewing over the doings of the week with the rest of the men from the street. There had been a loose agreement between some friends at work to go out. He decided to take it up.
‘Yeah, I’m meeting some mates and going up the Old Vic,’ he said.
‘Not fair,’ Ida complained. ‘I bet you wouldn’t let me go to a hall with my friends.’
‘For God’s sake, stop whining,’ Harry told her. ‘Get that bloke of yours to marry you, and you can both stop out as long as you like.’
That effectively silenced Ida.
An hour or so later, as he walked towards the pub where they were all supposed to be meeting, Harry found himself going slower and slower. He hardly knew why. He needed a good night out; it would make him forget things for a while. He loved the atmosphere of a music hall – the warmth, the jokes, the songs. He liked to have a drink or two, to sing along, to have a laugh with his pals. So why was it no longer the same? He stood still, frowning down at his feet. It was his friends. There was only one of the old crowd left. The rest were all younger than him. The men he used to go about with were married, many of them with two or three children. They took their wives out of a Saturday night, while here he was, twenty-eight years old and still acting like some kid of eighteen.
Around him the cheerful crowds swirled, all intent on a good evening out, all with somewhere to go, someone to go with. He felt lost, disorientated. People bumped into him. He could not decide what to do. He did not want to go home. He did not want to go on to the meeting place. He was tempted just to go int
o the nearest pub and get drunk, but he had sense enough to realize that that was to start down the same road as his father. While he stood there, he thought he heard a woman’s voice call his name.
‘Harry? Harry Turner!’
He ignored it. He did not want to talk to anyone, especially a woman.
‘Harry, it is you.’
She put a hand on his arm. He was about to shake her off when something in the voice made him look at her.
‘Theresa?’
She looked dreadful. Not even the heavy make-up could disguise the ravages of her hard life. She gave a bright, false smile.
‘I been looking for you. Months and months I been looking. Now I found you. You got a minute?’
He groaned inwardly. Another problem. But he had promised to help her, that last time they had met.
‘Yeah. Yeah, of course.’
‘Can we go and have a drink? I’m gasping.’
‘Yeah, right.’
Harry watched her as she downed two double gins, one after the other. In the bright lights of the pub, she looked even worse than she had outside. Her hands were like claws, her face haggard, her hair thin and straggling. There were sores all round her scarlet-painted mouth. It was hard to believe that she was only a year older than himself. She looked closer to forty.
‘How you doing, then?’ Harry asked. He knew as soon as the words left his lips it was a stupid question.
‘Not so bad.’ She shrugged.
‘So what did you want to see me for?’
‘Get us another, Harry. Please – for old times’ sake?’
He sighed and stood up.
‘Make it two.’
With two more doubles inside her, the harsh lines of her face relaxed a little. She tried to talk to him about himself, but he did not want to say anything. Finding she was getting nowhere, she soon gave up and asked about the street. Harry filled her in with the news of births, marriages and deaths. She nodded, muttering and commenting on each piece of information.
‘And Charlie? Charlie Billingham? What’s happened to him?’
‘I thought you had it in for him?’
She put her hand on his arm, her bony fingers gripping him until it hurt. She leant across the table so that her face was within inches of his. He recoiled from her bad breath.
‘I got to see him again, Harry. Can you arrange that, eh? Can you? I got to see him alone, like.’
‘Well, I dunno . . .’
‘Come on, Harry. You said as you wanted to help me, didn’t you? Said I only had to ask. Well, now I’m asking. You’re not going to go back on what you said, are you?’
‘No, of course not.’
He wanted to help, but it was not as easy as all that. He thought it through, anticipating the problems. It was not like getting Will to meet up with Siobhan again. He and Will did sometimes go out together, so Will had not been the least suspicious, and when they got to the hall it had seemed to be just a coincidence that Siobhan happened to be performing there. But with Charlie it was different. He had very little to do with his cousin, beyond the casual meetings in the street or up at the Puncheon. If he suddenly tried to organize something, Charlie would smell a rat. He tried to explain this to Theresa.
‘You’ll think of something,’ she said.
Harry wished he had as much confidence in himself.
‘He don’t go out with the same people as the rest of us. He might go up the Puncheon during the week sometimes, but Saturday and Sunday he’s off with his own mates. I think he goes up Poplar way.’
Theresa latched on to this. ‘You find out where, and tell me.’
‘I thought you didn’t want to come anywhere near home?’
‘Poplar’s not home, is it? I would never come near the Island, but I don’t mind Poplar – not if I can get that Charlie Billingham.’
‘What’ve you got planned?’ Harry asked. He had no respect or liking for his cousin, but family was family.
‘Planned? Nothing! I just got things I got to say to him, that’s all.’ An expression of pained innocence sat incongruously on her ravaged face.
In the end, with many misgivings, he promised to meet her again next Saturday and tell her what he had found out. Satisfied, Theresa stood up.
‘Can’t sit around here all night gassing to you. I got a living to earn.’
They had not discussed her life at all, so that this barefaced statement caught him unawares.
‘Wait, Theresa.’
‘What’s up? Fancy a bit, do you?’
It turned his stomach. ‘Pack it in, Theresa. That ain’t funny.’
‘Suit y’self.’ She shrugged. ‘I could get you a nice young girl, if you like. You could have it on the house.’
‘Shut it, will you?’
‘All right, all right. See you back here next week. Promise?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You’re a real pal, you are, Harry. A brick.’
He watched her as she threaded her way through the noisy bar. Theresa O’Donaghue, nice Irish girl from a strict home. Theresa O’Donaghue, draggled-tailed whore, not even young or attractive any more. He doubted whether she would find many clients round this part of town, except if they were very drunk. It would not be long before she was fit for nothing but the Ratcliff Highway. He was filled with a sick anger. If it really was Charlie Billingham who had been the cause of her downfall, then he deserved anything that Theresa had in mind. Somehow, he would do what she asked.
She knew him the moment he stepped out of the pub. She saw him against the lighted doorway, recognized the figure she had carried in her mind for all these years, first with pain, then with hatred. All this time, she had waited for a chance for revenge, waited without any clear plan beyond the knowledge that somehow, sometime, she would ruin him as he had ruined her. It was only within the last few months that she had realized she had the perfect method at her disposal. And now, at last, the moment was at hand.
She shifted out of the cold alleyway she had been lurking in these past two hours or more and began to walk towards him, keeping to the shadows. He was with friends, which made it difficult, but he was drunk – they were all drunk. She heard them laughing and hooting, saw them staggering about. She was in luck. He tripped and almost fell, then reeled against a wall and leant there while he got his balance. The others, not noticing, went on. Theresa went into action.
‘Hullo, darling.’
His first reaction was to push her away, but Theresa was used to that. She knew how to make a customer out of a man with a skinful. She ducked under his arm and wrapped himself round him, her hand reaching unerringly for his crotch.
‘Get out of it!’ He grabbed at her arm but she resisted, working expertly at him.
‘What’s the matter? Don’t you like it? ‘Fraid you can’t get it up?’
They could still get nasty at this stage. It had happened often enough in Theresa’s career. She had been punched and kicked and beaten countless times. She had given them what they wanted then been laid out and not paid. But it was not payment she was after this time. Just him. She pushed all her weight against him as he leant on the wall, her breasts rubbing invitingly. She kept her head down so that all he could see was the top of her hat with its gaudy feathers, while her fingers undid his buttons and slid inside, at last getting a sluggish reaction from him.
‘That nice? You like that, don’t you? You want it, don’t you? Come on, it’ll cost you a tanner.’
He was far too weak to resist. She managed to get him along to the graveyard she had chosen earlier, holding him up and steering him as he wove unsteadily along. They collapsed on to the rank grass, which was cold and wet from a week’s rain. Nearly there. No longer afraid of being recognized now that they were in the dark, her only fear was that he was going to be incapable. She used every trick she knew, a cold excitement growing in her as he responded. Crowing with triumph, she rode him.
It was all over in no time at all. He was too drunk to keep going. For
a moment she panicked, rigid with fury, not knowing if it had been long enough to achieve her purpose. She kept him there for as long as she could, just to make sure, even when he was just lying there making great drunken snores like some wallowing pig. A wild, malicious laugh broke from her. She had done it, she had fixed him. Now he would know what it was to despair.
When she finally could not hang on any more, she got off him, and as an afterthought, went through his pockets. Nothing, absolutely nothing. Suddenly the revenge she had wrought did not seem enough. She had paid him off for what he had done to her, but there were all the others, all the men who had used and humiliated and injured her over the years, all the others who had had what she sold and not paid for it. They had to be seen to as well. She started with his shoes, then, as he was dead to the world, pulled off his trousers and underpants. Even the chill air on his exposed skin failed to wake him. Her mouth stretched in a vindictive grin as she removed his jacket, dragging it carefully from under him. It was only when she tried to take off his shirt that he stirred and grunted in protest. Swiftly feeling around in the darkness, she gathered up his clothes.
‘What – whazzermatter? Who . . .?’
Before he could realize what had happened, Theresa made off, with the bundle clutched to her body.
Charlie Billingham was left nearly naked in a Poplar graveyard at half-past twelve of a March night.
‘Charlie in yet?’ Alma asked.
‘No,’ Ellen said. ‘Tea?’
‘Please, lovey.’
Alma sat down heavily on a kitchen chair. She had not been able to enjoy this evening, not with the worry about Charlie at the back of her mind. It had been the shock of her life last week, when she’d had to go and fetch him back from Poplar police station, taking some clothes with her. They’d brought him up from the cells wearing nothing but his shirt. Thank God it had been his best one, not the old patched thing he wore for every day. He’d not thanked her for it. He’d been right grumpy all week, snapping at her whenever she spoke. But then that was only natural, really. Enough to give anyone the pip, being left like that when you’ve had one too many.
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