With Lil’s fingers digging into her flesh, Cissie stood there and watched as the mourners filed past the grave, each taking some of the earth from the vicar’s shaking hand and scattering it over the coffin.
Despite her grief, Cissie was still aware enough to take note of just how many people there were politely awaiting their turn to take her hand and to offer their sympathy at her time of loss. Her husband had been a popular man – there were always visitors popping in and out of number seven – but she really hadn’t expected quite so many to be at his funeral. She was proud that there were all these people who cared for him. She recognised neighbours and men from the market, of course, but that by no means explained all of them.
She frowned. She was confused by her grief, yes, but she was also puzzled by the affluent-looking men and their expensively, if showily, dressed female companions who stopped briefly, touched her hand or her arm and paid their mumbled respects. They didn’t look like the type of people Davy would know. And she certainly didn’t recognise any of them. So what were they doing here?
Next in line came a tall, broad-shouldered man in a black overcoat, the man whose approval the vicar had so anxiously sought. As he took her hand in a grip that was surprisingly gentle considering the size of him, Cissie lifted her eyes to meet his.
She recognised him immediately. It was the infamous Big Bill Turner, a man known by sight and reputation if not personally to practically everyone in the East End.
He took off his hat and inclined his head deferentially. ‘I’m sorry for your trouble, Mrs Flowers,’ he said.
Cissie watched him walk away towards the cars. What was he doing here? But she wasn’t distracted by him for very long. Her gaze was inevitably drawn back to the dreadful hole in the ground before her.
What did it matter how many people surrounded her, who they were, and why they were there? All that mattered was that she felt completely and terribly alone. None of them could make up for the absence of the two people who, apart from her darling Davy, Cissie wanted to be there with her more than anyone else in the world.
Cissie wanted Ellen and Frank, her mum and dad.
Her parents hadn’t liked Davy for some reason, and even though it wasn’t their way to run anybody down, where Davy Flowers was concerned they had made an exception. They were determined that Cissie should change her mind about marrying Davy and did everything they could to get her away from him. But she wouldn’t listen. Even when they had resorted to pleading with her at least to consider what she was doing before she married him and wait for a few more months before she said yes, Cissie would have none of it.
It wasn’t as though they had anything specific to say against the handsome young man who had come wooing their daughter with his arms full of flowers and a continual round of good times and fun. All they would say was that they didn’t think he was right for their Cissie. She was only nineteen and, if only she would take her time and think, she would get over him and find herself someone else. Someone decent.
In what had seemed to their neighbours almost insane desperation, Ellen and Frank had, just two weeks before their daughter’s wedding, packed up all their possessions and left their cosy little house in Devons Road, where they had lived since their own wedding day, and had moved into a couple of rooms in Charles Street, Stepney – a real bug hole by all accounts, but all they could get at such short notice according to Ethel Bennett. Ethel had also told everyone that they had thought Cissie would go with them,when they had got her away from the area she’d meet new people. A new boyfriend even. But they had been wrong. The day they moved to Stepney was the last time Cissie had said a single word to either of them. She had moved into number seven, unmarried, as bold as brass, and in broad daylight. Not giving a damn about who saw her or what they thought.
During the next six years, Cissie had made no attempt at reconciliation with her mum and dad. She was in love with Davy, swept off her feet, and wouldn’t listen to anybody who questioned or even doubted anything about him. She loved him totally.
Just once, four years ago, the day Matty had been born, she had almost sent Davy to fetch them, wanting them to see their first grandchild, but the flash of memory of her dad calling Davy – what was it? – a bad lot who would bring her nothing but unhappiness and trouble, had stopped her and, as time had passed, she had become all the more determined that Davy was all she needed.
But now, as she stood alone with her children, she wished with all her heart that things could have been different.
She looked down at Matty and Joyce. They looked so small, so lost. The way she herself felt. She thought about how much she and the children had missed by not seeing her mum and dad. If only things could be different. Maybe she could send them a note? Maybe. But it was probably too late now. She’d made her bed…
‘Are you coming or what?’ snapped Lil. ‘They’ll all be halfway back to the Sabberton Arms by now and you’re standing here like a bleed’n statue.’
Cissie said nothing; she just stood there, rooted to the spot, staring at the two men who were now filling in the grave, shovelling heavy spades of crumbling earth on to her Davy.
The words came back into her head: If only things could be different. If only. One moment everything had been wonderful then, with no warning, everything had been lost.
‘Cis?’ Gladys Mills placed a hand tenderly on her shoulder. ‘Shall I take the kids with me, love?’
Slowly, Cissie lifted her head and looked at her blankly. ‘What?’
‘Look, Cis, you take it from me, honest, things’ll get better, darling.’
Gladys slipped her arm around Cissie’s shoulder. ‘You won’t think so now, but you’re young. You’ll be happy again one day, you just see if you ain’t. And I’ll be here for yer until then, I promise. Whenever yer need me, girl.’
Lil shoved forward, pushing her grandchildren and Gladys out of the way. She grabbed hold of Cissie’s arm again. ‘You should watch that mouth o’ your’n, Gladys Mills,’ she snapped. ‘Marriage is the last thing on Cissie’s mind on a day like this.’
Gladys looked mortified. ‘But, Lil, I never meant—’ she began.
But Lil had no interest in what Gladys meant. ‘What the hell does the likes of you know about anything anyway? Don’t you listen to her, Cissie, or yer’ll wind up in the same state as she is. And a right shit life she’s got, ain’t she? Getting up at half past four every morning to go bloody scrubbing steps up the City, while that useless old man of hers lays about all day. He ain’t had a day’s work in two years to my knowledge. So yer wanna listen to her, I don’t think.’ Lil gripped Cissie’s arm even tighter. ‘Now, if yer don’t mind, Gladys, just get out of our way and let us get back to that motor.’
Gladys stepped aside without saying a word. Everyone knew Lil was a spiteful old cow, but that didn’t stop her words from stinging. Lil always knew exactly how to hurt people. Although her Ernie certainly wasn’t a lazy man, his failure to find work was really getting to both of them. Not just because it was making it increasingly difficult to feed and keep their five children and Nipper, Ernie’s elderly granddad who lived with them – never mind finding money to feed and clothe themselves – but Ernie was coming to see the situation as a personal failure. A failure to be a good husband, father and grandson. The physical strain of doing the badly paid, early morning cleaning was nothing to Gladys compared to the pain she felt watching her dear Ernie suffering.
But actually, for once, Lil was no longer interested in being cruel to Gladys, Ernie, or anyone else for that matter. The reason she wanted to hurry Cissie away from the graveside, to join the crowd of mourners who were making their way to the pub, was because she had spotted Ellen and Frank, Cissie’s parents. They were standing by themselves at a tactful distance from the graveside, so as not to cause a scene, partly hidden by the elaborate Gothic monuments and headstones.
Lil had no intention of letting them even talk to their daughter, let alone try to make their peace wi
th her, because, despite her disparaging remarks about Ernie’s supposed idleness, doing nothing was a way of life that Lil herself treasured. She hadn’t willingly done a day’s work since she’d been born and didn’t intend to start now. Davy’s dad, up until his death, and then Davy himself, had, in turn, been her meal ticket and, now they were both gone, Lil had decided that her good-looking daughter-in-law was going to have to fill that role. There’d soon be another bloke on the firm, she was confident of that. Lil might have been lazy, but she wasn’t stupid, and she also knew that if she allowed Cissie to start getting all pally with her mum and dad again, she might also get all sentimental and daughterly and start giving the old buggers some of her money. And Lil didn’t much fancy that, she didn’t much fancy that at all, because whatever there was, Lil intended to have it all.
Chapter 2
Cissie sat in the Sabberton Arms, oblivious of her surroundings, which was probably not a bad thing, as most of the people there were acting more like guests at a wedding breakfast than at her husband’s funeral. They were eating, drinking, chattering loudly, even singing and laughing at one another’s feeble jokes. It was as though they were intent on marking and celebrating their own good fortune at being alive, at not being planted six feet under as Davy Flowers had just been.
But although they were acting that way with one another, most of those present seemed far more reluctant to include Cissie in their antics, or even to go over and speak to her. It wasn’t that they were deliberately ignoring her, or even trying to escape the embarrassment of not knowing what to say in such a situation, no, it was more to do with them getting the message that it wasn’t their place to do so. It was being made very clear, what with the interest Big Bill Turner was so obviously showing in Cissie from the other side of the pub, that they were not important enough to intrude on the young widow. Turner, everyone knew, always took precedence in such a situation.
But sitting there alone with her two little ones didn’t seem to bother Cissie Flowers. In fact, she hadn’t even noticed. Apart from a peremptory nod in recognition of each brief paying of respect from her neighbours before they hurried back to the bar for another free glass of whatever took their fancy – an opportunity definitely not to be missed, even if they didn’t have a clue as to how Cissie would be footing the bill – she seemed to be a million miles away. She just held on to her children’s hands, apparently feeling, hearing and seeing nothing, the shock of burying her husband having sent the usually laughing, outgoing Cissie into a hollow-eyed trance.
Lil, on the other hand, was taking the whole thing in a different way entirely. Either she wasn’t shocked in the least at having just buried her son, or, if she was, she was certainly making a very good job of hiding the fact.
‘I don’t mind if I do,’ Lil twittered as she took a cigarette from the broad-shouldered man with a scar across his cheek who had been standing beside Big Bill Turner at the graveside. ‘I’ll just have a little pinch of me snuff for now, and I’ll have this later on,’ she added, tucking the Player’s Navy Cut behind her ear.
On the other side of the lounge bar, Matty was gently peeling Cissie’s icy fingers from around his hand. He kissed her warily on the cheek and said softly, ‘I’m just gonna see Nanna a minute, Mum.’
He might have been only four and a half years old, but Matty was as bright as a button; he was desperate for the lavatory but understood that he shouldn’t disturb his mum.
He wasn’t sure why or what, but he just knew that something was wrong, more wrong even than when his puppy had got knocked down in St Paul’s Road and the man had taken it away to make it better, but had never brought it back to him.
Cissie nodded blankly as Matty scrambled down from the bench that ran along the length of the pub wall. The roughly patterned upholstery scratched the back of his bare legs as he slid to the ground, making him wince, but he said nothing. Instead, he smiled reassuringly at his little sister, who was sitting tucked into her mother’s side, anxiously sucking her thumb, then, quietly, he began struggling to make his way through the sea of adult legs in his effort to try to find Lil in the crowded pub. All the time he repeated over and over in his head, ‘Nan’ll know where to go. Nan’ll know where to go.’
Matty eventually found his grandmother wreathed in a fug of smoke and whisky fumes. She was leaning across the polished wooden counter complaining to the barmaid about Ethel and Dick Bennett, two of her next-door neighbours from Linman Street.
Lil wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. ‘Typical of that pair,’ she sneered. ‘Couldn’t manage to find their sodding way to the cemetery to see my boy buried, could they? No, course they couldn’t. But the Sabberton Arms? Well, that’s a different matter, ain’t it? They could find this place all right. Find it in the bleed’n dark with their eyes shut and a bag over their heads. Crafty rotten bleeders.’
The barmaid, brought in especially for the funeral, had had Davy’s family all pointed out to her by the landlord so she knew who Lil was, but she wasn’t sure who this Ethel and Dick Bennett were that Lil was going on about. ‘Elderly couple, are they?’ she asked without looking up from the glass she was drying, her voice professionally friendly.
Lil gulped down another mouthful of scotch and rolled her eyes. ‘Not that much older than me if yer must know.’
‘Well, p’raps it was too far for ’em then, eh?’ the barmaid suggested with a recklessness that came from not knowing Lil’s reputation. ‘I mean,’ she went on, ‘it’s a fair old trot down to Southern Grove for someone of your age, ain’t it, dear?’
‘You cheeky bloody mare!’ Lil began, but the barmaid was saved from the full benefit of one of Lil’s famous tongue-lashings by Matty arriving on the scene.
The little boy tugged warily at the skirt of his grandmother’s black dress. He had never been inside anywhere like the Sabberton Arms before, and especially not on a confusing day like this. It was bad enough being desperate for the lav, but the smell and the press of so many bodies all towering above him was making him feel sick as well.
‘Nan,’ he whispered, ‘please, I really wanna wee. Can yer take me? I wanted to go when we was at that other place before. I told Mum, but she must’ve forgot.’ He wriggled with discomfort. ‘I think she’s a bit sad. But I’ve really gotta go, Nan.’
‘Don’t bother me now, boy,’ Lil snapped without looking down at him. ‘Can’t yer see yer nanna’s busy?’
Lil held out her glass to the barmaid for a refill, still without even bothering to meet her grandson’s anxious stare. Her glass replenished, Lil disappeared into the smoky throng leaving Matty to get on with it.
Matty squirmed, he was going to wet himself, he just knew it, and in front of all these people. His face crumpled. He would die of shame.
Shaking her head in disgust at Lil’s callousness, the barmaid wiped her hands on the glass cloth, lifted the flap in the counter, and stepped round to where Matty was standing sniffling quietly to himself.
‘Come on, love,’ she said kindly, ‘you come with me eh? I’ll take yer to the one out the back.’ She dabbed at Matty’s cheeks with the hem of her apron and looked into his sad blue eyes. ‘You’ve got smashing eyes, yer know, little ’un. Just like yer mum’s. Cissie Flowers is yer mum, ain’t she?’
Matty nodded miserably as the barmaid ushered him behind the bar.
‘Yer mustn’t take no notice of yer nan,’ she said without much conviction, leading him by the hand through to the back kitchen. ‘She’s upset, see. It’s one of them days when people get themselves all worked up and don’t know what they’re saying. But she’ll be all right later on, you just see if she ain’t.’
‘I wish me dad was here,’ Matty whispered, as much to himself as to the barmaid, as he closed the lavatory door modestly behind him.
The barmaid was glad the poor little kid had shut himself in the dingy, cramped cubicle. Maybe the door would muffle the sound of his grandmother’s raucous shouts and laughter that were now echoing through
from the bar.
‘My Davy was a right little bugger, Gawd rest his soul,’ Lil was yelling at Ted Johnson, another one of her neighbours from Linman Street, the whisky making her even louder and more aggressive than usual.
‘I might have gone mutton when I was in the trenches, Lilly Prentice, but yer don’t need a sodding foghorn,’ Ted replied, leaning as far back from her as the crush would allow. ‘The whole of bleed’n Poplar must be able to hear yer, the way yer hollering and hooting. Now why don’t yer get yerself over to that table, get a bit of grub down yer to sober yourself up, then go and sit with that daughter-in-law of your’n? She looks in a right old state, poor little thing.’ With a sneer of contempt at this man who was daring to tell her what to do, Lil went off to bother someone else.
She was just squeezing by the door when it burst open and a scabby-kneed boy of about nine years old launched himself past her into the bar. He was waving the strips of printed paper carrying the latest dog-racing results that he touted around the local pubs.
‘Dog-inner! Dog-inner!’ came his familiar abbreviated yell. And, just as familiar, came the reply from one of the wags propping up the bar: ‘No, son, there ain’t no dog in ’ere.’ He looked around, making sure he had an audience. ‘He’s outside having a piss, ain’t he!’
‘Blimey, I ain’t never heard that one before, mister,’ the boy snapped back sarcastically, backing away just in time to avoid the empty cigarette packet the man had aimed at his head. Peals of drunken laughter reverberated around the room. The boy felt humiliated. It was bad enough putting up with abuse from the usual afternoon gaggle of old men and miserable-looking victims of the slump, nursing their warm half-pints of mild, but being confronted by a pub full of rich-looking blokes and fancy women, all laughing at him as though he was some sort of sideshow was too big a price to pay for the few coppers he earned from his round. They could stuff the results if that was their attitude.
The Flower Girl Page 2