‘Crikey, but what a terrible shock for Pa if when he comes out there’s no insurance under the piano pedal.’
‘He’ll have to do what Ma wants him to,’ said Nick.
‘And what’s that?’
‘He’ll have to drive a coal cart.’
When Saturday arrived, damp and misty, the Rovers were sadly off form. They played like wet celery. Well, that was what Fanny said, and young though she was, Fanny knew her stuff as a critic. The Rovers lost for the first time this season. Dumpling was devastated, and her dad, who’d refereed the match, could only say cheer up, Dumpling me pet, Christmas is coming. I’ll be dead by Christmas, said Dumpling – of a broken heart.
She spoke her mind on the tram going home.
‘Ain’t you blokes ashamed?’ she said. ‘I could’ve beat that lot from Deacon Street playin’ on me own with Fanny in goal. I never thought I’d live to see the day when Browning Street Rovers would perform like a left-over rice pudden.’
‘I’m hurtin’ down to me boots, Dumpling,’ said Starving Crow.
‘Yes, but you ain’t near to dyin’ of mortification like I am,’ said Dumpling.
‘I’m sufferin’ with yer, Dumpling,’ said Danny.
‘So you should be,’ said Dumpling, ‘and Nick as well. Oh, me sad ’eart, imagine our captain playin’ like the mornin’ after the night before.’
‘Must be in love,’ said Charlie Cope.
‘’Ere, mind what you’re sayin’,’ admonished Dumpling, ‘it’s bad enough our captain playin’ like a drain, without ’im gettin’ as soppy as the rest of yer. Nick, you ain’t thinkin’ about daft kissin’ and cuddlin’, are yer, when you still got years of football in front of yer?’
Regrettably, Nick’s mind had wandered a bit during the game. A soccer match usually made him forget everything outside of football, but this afternoon that girl had kept creeping into his thoughts. Her colourful image had taken no notice of the occasion, it simply leapt over the doorstep of his mental dwelling and presented itself repeatedly to his imagination. It hadn’t even knocked. It entered uninvited.
‘What’s that you said, Dumpling?’ he asked.
‘Oh, me gawd, ’e just ain’t with us this afternoon,’ said Dumpling.
‘Never mind, Dumpling, I’m ’ere,’ said Danny.
‘Don’t talk to me,’ said Dumpling, ‘I ain’t in the mood. Blimey, eleven blokes, and not one pair of footballin’ legs among the lot of yer this afternoon. I might just pass away in bed tonight from the shame of it.’
‘Can I come and pass away with yer, Dumpling?’ asked Danny.
‘My life, in her bed?’ said Starving Crow.
‘What a way to go,’ said Charlie Cope.
Dumpling ignored the daft lot.
She was not only disgusted with her beloved Rovers, she was cross as well. When Danny came round that evening to ask if he could take her to the pictures or sit in the parlour with her, she said no, you can’t, and bashed the door shut. It nearly did irreparable damage to his good-looking hooter.
On Sunday morning, Nick was in the passage when Mr Lukavitch came down, complete with his black bag. Nick asked him if he was actually doing a carrying job for a doctor too busy to do it for himself.
‘Eh?’ said Mr Lukavitch.
‘Well, is there a baby in your bag?’ grinned Nick.
‘Eh?’ said Mr Lukavitch, and Nick explained that English kids were brought up to believe babies arrived in doctors’ black bags. Or were found under gooseberry bushes. Mr Lukavitch roared with laughter. ‘You’re a funny young man, Nick,’ he said. ‘No, no, I carry my beads and other little gifts in my bag, as I have told your family.’
‘To markets like Petticoat Lane?’
‘Ah, I like Petticoat Lane, yes, that’s the place, Nick. I have said I don’t get rich, but I get happy meeting fine cockney women. Cockney women are ruddy tophole, don’t you think, eh?’
‘As good as Polish women?’ said Nick.
‘Ah, Polish women all bloody Catholics,’ said Mr Lukavitch.
On Wednesday evening, at the committee meeting, Dumpling spoke her mind once more about the Rovers’ first defeat when the match came up for discussion. I don’t know that any of the team deserves to be picked for next Saturday, she said, but we can’t just field the reserve and me. I suppose you all know what the street kids have been saying about the Rovers, she said. They’ve been saying you all ought to go in for knitting.
I second that, said Cassie. She was in attendance again, as the supporters’ official representative and as a girl who was dead against being on the outside edge of anything that interested her.
‘Cassie, if you don’t stop seconding and proposing,’ said Nick, ‘I’ll get Freddy to take you out into our backyard and dump you in our dustbin.’
‘Some hopes,’ said Cassie, ‘he’d go home with a leg torn off. Besides, I’m not here to do a lot of proposin’, I’m here to give you some ’elpful criticism. I’ve been asked by Alice and all the other supporters to tell you that after the way you played last Saturday, you ought to be pensioned off. Fanny said it’s your age, that you’re a bit past it. She said you were all right while you were still twenty, but since you’ve been twenty-one you’ve got a bit old in the legs.’
‘Gawd ’elp us,’ said Danny, ‘yer own sister and all, Nick. That’s serious, that is.’
‘It’s serious all right,’ said Dumpling, ‘specially as you looked past it yerself on Saturday.’
‘Me?’ said Danny.
‘Yes, you,’ said Dumpling, whose bouncy cheerfulness had taken such a beating over the defeat that even her jumper had a deflated look, which posed the possibility that gloom had actually made her lose weight. ‘It seems to me, Danny, that all that daft cuddlin’ and kissin’ you go in for ’as put years on you. I’ve ’eard that that sort of thing can make a bloke old before ’is time. I noticed on Saturday that yer legs ’ad gone a bit stringy, like me grandad’s.’
‘Turn it up, Dumpling, I ain’t Nick’s age yet,’ said Danny.
‘Well, something made you play as if you was ninety,’ said Dumpling. ‘Nor was Freddy much better.’
‘Yes, we ought to think about droppin’ Freddy from the team,’ said Cassie, ‘only I like ’im in his shorts and showin’ his knees. You do ’ave quite handsome knees, Freddy.’
‘Nice of yer to say so, Cassie,’ said Freddy. ‘I’ll admit I’m old before me time meself, but not on account of kissin’ and cuddlin’. More on account of certain problems I’m always up against.’
‘Well, I notice you’re not up against me much,’ said Cassie. ‘I was only sayin’ to me dad yesterday that I could die of neglect sometimes.’
‘All cough,’ said Nick, and all coughed except Cassie and Dumpling.
Dumpling said, ‘What’s Cassie mean?’
‘Don’t look at me,’ said Freddy, ‘I’m tryin’ to believe this is a committee meetin’.’
‘Well, it is,’ said Dumpling, ‘and it’s all about some of the Rovers playin’ like my grandad, only I don’t think that’s the trouble with Nick. I mean, look at ’im. You can ’ardly say ’e’s got whiskers.’
‘It’s love,’ said Cassie, ‘he’s got a girl somewhere.’
‘Yes, that’s what’s so ’orrible,’ said Dumpling gloomily, ‘our captain gettin’ this chronic complaint. He could’ve waited till ’e was forty. At that age, any bloke could be past it.’
‘Past what?’ asked Freddy, grinning.
‘Football, of course,’ said Dumpling.
‘Thanks for that bit of relief,’ said Freddy.
‘’Ere, Nick, who’s the girl?’ asked Danny.
‘Search me,’ said Nick, and brought the meeting to order. At least, he tried to, but last Saturday’s defeat and Dumpling’s conviction that it was caused by too many of the blokes doing too much soppy stuff with girls, kept intruding. However, when he announced that neither Ronnie Smith nor Frankie Hughes could play on Saturday, on account of family commi
tments that included a burial, Dumpling sat up straight – well, roundly straight – and her jumper that had looked deflated filled out.
‘Oh, crikey Moses,’ she said, ‘that means we’re one man short, Nick, and that you’ve got to give me a game.’
‘Yes, so be a good bloke, Dumpling,’ said Nick, ‘and stop gnawing at old bones. Get your footballing legs ready for Saturday. You’re taking Ronnie’s place.’
‘What, centre forward?’ gasped Dumpling.
‘That’s it,’ said Nick.
‘I second it,’ said Cassie.
‘I’ll ’ave a lie down meself,’ said Freddy.
‘Might I congratulate yer, Dumpling?’ said Danny, nobly putting aside trepidation.
‘Oh, I never been more complimented,’ beamed Dumpling. ‘Oh, ’elp, though, I don’t ’alf feel sick at all I been sayin’ about you, Nick. I can’t ’ardly believe the honour you’ve just done me. Me, centre forward for Browning Rovers, it’s me dream come true. I’ll be grateful to yer till me dyin’ day.’
‘Granted,’ said Nick.
The die was cast. Dumpling was going to play centre forward against Rodney Road United, another of the Rovers’ deadly rivals.
* * *
Over breakfast the next morning, Nick asked Ma if she could remember exactly what Pa had done after arriving home on the day he’d gone in for a jewel snatch. Ma said she didn’t like Nick using common words about Pa, and what did he want to know for? Out of interest, said Alice. Well, said Ma, Pa didn’t do anything special, and he certainly didn’t say anything about what he’d been up to. After a while he went into the parlour to write a letter, and he didn’t have time to do much else because suddenly the police knocked on the door just when he was enjoying a nice cup of tea with her.
Alice glanced at Nick. Nick winked. Alice winked back. They didn’t think Pa had spent his time in the parlour just writing a letter.
Brother and sister were one in keeping the secret of Pa’s insurance policy under their hats.
Boots took some invoices along to Annabelle for posting. His sister’s eldest daughter jumped a little as he walked into her own cosy office.
‘Sorry,’ he said.
‘What for?’ asked Annabelle.
‘For waking you up,’ smiled Boots.
Annabelle, assistant bookkeeper in the busy concern run by Boots and his brother Sammy, said, ‘Uncle Boots, that’s almost a libel, I wasn’t asleep.’
‘Slander,’ said Boots.
‘Well, slander, then, which sounds worse.’
‘What’s on your mind?’ asked Boots.
‘Oh, help, is it showing?’
‘Something is,’ said Boots, ‘but I don’t know what.’
‘I suppose I ought to tell someone in the family,’ said Annabelle. ‘Mum and Dad both suspect I’m up to something.’
‘And what are you up to?’ asked Boots.
‘You’re not to laugh,’ said Annabelle.
‘Promise,’ said Boots.
‘I’ve met someone.’
‘Well, who’s going to laugh about that? It happens to all of us all the time.’
‘Once in a lifetime, you mean,’ said seventeen-year-old Annabelle.
‘I see,’ said Boots, looking solemn. ‘That’s different, of course. I think you mean fate has struck.’
‘It could have,’ said Annabelle, ‘but I’ll make allowances for not knowing everything yet.’
‘I’ve got five minutes unless my phone rings,’ said Boots.
‘Well, bless you, Uncle Boots,’ said Annabelle and told him about Nick in rather extravagant detail. It brought in her doting great-uncle, of course.
If Boots could hardly believe his ears at this recounting of Annabelle’s precocious goings-on, his good-humoured expression did not change. He knew how self-assured Annabelle was, and how she could twist infatuated boys around her little finger, treating none of them with any seriousness. Life and boys were a game to her, which wasn’t unusual with some girls. Some girls of sixteen or seventeen saw boys of their own age as friends, not prospects, and probably had an instinctive preference for young men. Annabelle had found one very much to her liking and was having a game with him. What it was doing to him, Boots could imagine, for Annabelle was as lovely as Lizzy had been at her age. Lizzy’s looks and personality had fascinated Ned. But she had never played a game with him, he had been her one and only real boyfriend, the one who put dreams and stars into her eyes. Annabelle was using the awesome authority of her great-uncle to bring this young man, Nick Harrison, within range of her whims and impulses, most of which were playful five-minute wonders.
‘You like him, do you, Annabelle?’
‘Yes, of course, he’s grown up,’ said Annabelle, ‘and he’s fun.’
Boots felt fun was exactly what she had in mind. Well, life should be fun for young people, but sometimes a game of fun could be played in the wrong way and with the wrong person. The young man Nick, knowing she was the great-niece of the company chairman, would probably be feeling slightly dizzy about Annabelle’s attentions. Annabelle had him at a complete disadvantage. Boots believed in a more open and natural development of a relationship.
‘Why don’t you tell your parents about him so that you can simply invite him to Sunday tea and dispense with this business that ends up in the teashop once a month?’
‘Oh, I couldn’t be as forward as that,’ said Annabelle.
‘Not much,’ said Boots.
‘But I couldn’t,’ protested Annabelle. ‘A girl can’t make the first move.’
‘Who’s making all the moves now, then?’
‘That’s different,’ said Annabelle.
‘I see,’ said Boots, ‘you’re waiting until he’s head over heels and is begging to show himself to the family, are you?’
‘Crikey,’ said Annabelle, ‘d’you think such a smashing young man could fall for me head over heels, Uncle Boots?’
‘If he does, treat him gently,’ said Boots.
‘What d’you mean?’ asked Annabelle.
‘Well, you might find it’s no longer fun to him,’ said Boots, ‘you might find young men can be serious.’
‘I’ll be thrilled,’ said Annabelle. Boots shook his head at her and went back to his office.
Annabelle talked to her parents about Nick that evening, and when Lizzy learned that he lived in Walworth, she thought immediately of down-at-heel scruffs, street corner characters and headlice. She’d always had a horror of the lice that could infest the heads of Walworth schoolchildren and emigrate to the heads of adults. She expressed doubts about Nick. Annabelle laughed, and said he was a clean-looking young man who couldn’t ever have been a street urchin or a ragamuffin. Lizzy said well, she and Ned would like to meet the young man and see for themselves what he was like. Lizzy felt he couldn’t be as good a prospect for Annabelle as a doctor. Ned felt that he and Lizzy should base their reactions first of all on Annabelle’s feelings, although, like Boots, he suspected Annabelle was simply enjoying one of her enthusiasms.
Annabelle said that as soon as the young man was obviously madly keen on her, he’d want to be invited to meet her family, and she’d encourage him to ask.
‘You’ll just make do with having tea and crumpets with him until then?’ smiled Ned.
‘It’s fun,’ said Annabelle.
‘We didn’t do things that way when I was a girl,’ said Lizzy.
‘I bet you still had fun,’ said Annabelle.
‘So we did,’ said Ned, and Lizzy laughed.
Mrs Emily Adams slipped into bed. It received her kindly. They were old friends. She stretched blissfully, her hair flooding the white pillow with dark fiery auburn.
Boots, undressing, said, ‘I think Annabelle’s found a young man.’
‘What, on top of all the boyfriends she’s collected?’ said Emily.
‘I think she’s gone off boyfriends in favour of the young man,’ said Boots.
‘Well, unless he’s a bit clever
,’ said Emily, ‘he’ll still get twisted round her little finger.’
‘I’ve a feeling from what she says that she’s playing games with him but isn’t having matters all her own way,’ said Boots.
‘Well, we all know Annabelle,’ said Emily, ‘everything’s a game to her. But she’s a lovely girl, just like Lizzy was at her age.’
‘I’m intrigued,’ said Boots, looking comfortable in his dark-blue pyjamas. ‘I think Annabelle’s smitten. I’d like to meet this young man.’
‘Well, I suppose Lizzy and Ned will invite ’im to Sunday tea some time,’ said Emily.
‘It’s the usual thing in this family,’ said Boots. He turned out the light and slid into bed beside Emily. The bed and his wife both received him kindly. His wife turned and cuddled up. He smiled in the darkness, knowing what cuddling-up meant.
Chapter Twelve
ALICE, AMY AND Fanny had been sisterly enough not to send their brother barmy by having hysterics about Chrissie Dumpling playing centre forward in her own jersey and shorts.
‘He’s not a bad old bloke,’ said Amy during a chat on the matter with her sisters.
‘Yes, ’e can’t help bein’ our brother,’ said young Fanny, ‘he was born that way, poor old codger.’
‘And he did take us to the pictures,’ said Alice.
‘And treated us to choc’lates when he ’ad his rise,’ said Amy.
‘Besides, if we start laughin’,’ said Fanny, ‘he might do one of his tickling jobs on us.’
‘He takes his borin’ old football very serious,’ said Amy.
‘It’s not borin’,’ said Alice, ‘it’s manly.’
‘Oh, chase me, Charlie, what a thrill,’ said Amy.
‘Besides, not bein’ able to have a girlfriend on account of Pa, Nick’s got to have a serious interest like football,’ said Alice.
‘Molly Palmer’s sister Ethel wouldn’t ’alf like to be his best interest,’ said Amy. Molly Palmer was a school friend of hers, and her eighteen-year-old sister Ethel was a notable Walworth female cuddle.
‘Well, she’s not goin’ to be,’ said Alice. ‘She’d eat him as soon as she got ’im on her parlour sofa.’
‘Anyway,’ said Amy, ‘I think I’ll come and watch Chrissie playin’ centre forward.’
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