Gladys’s street door was, as usual, wide open. From where she was standing, Cissie could hear the sound of laughter coming from the kitchen. It was the younger Mills children and their dad, Ernie. It sounded so happy, so normal in there, that Cissie didn’t think twice.
‘All right, Ern,’ she called in greeting as she walked down the narrow passageway. She poked her head round the kitchen door. ‘It’s only me.’
Ernie was sitting in a carver chair by the stove, supposedly reading the paper, but, in reality, acting as a monkey climb for his three youngest who weren’t yet school-age.
‘Hello, Cis,’ he said with his usual friendly grin. ‘Come on in, girl.’ He lifted the kids on to the floor with one sweep of his big, labourer’s arms. ‘I was just minding these little monsters.’ He shrugged apologetically. ‘While Gladys is out, like.’
Cissie smiled, knowing Ernie was embarrassed to be at home while his wife was out working. ‘Right handful at that age, ain’t they?’
‘Yeah.’ Ernie nodded self-consciously. ‘Here,’ he said standing up, ‘I’m forgetting me manners. Let me stick the kettle on the hob and I’ll make us a cuppa. Yer’ve got the time, ain’t yer?’
‘That’s something I’ve got too much of lately, Ern.’
Cissie sat at the table and watched as Ernie moved around the cramped little room, filling the kettle, getting the cups off the shelf over the sink, and warming the pot. He did it so naturally; Davy, as far as Cissie was aware, hadn’t even known where she kept the milk.
But then Davy had always been the breadwinner.
Cissie rubbed her hands over her face.
‘You all right, girl?’ Ernie asked putting the pot down on the table in front of her, and then slipping the worn, knitted cosy on top.
‘Yeah, I’m all right. I was just, you know, thinking about things.’ Cissie dropped her chin to hide the tears that were threatening to flow again.
Gently, Ernie patted her shoulder with his dinner-plate- sized hand. ‘I know it ain’t easy, love.’
‘Oi!’ a woman’s voice demanded cheerfully from the kitchen doorway. ‘You leave my old man alone, if yer don’t mind, Cissie Flowers.’
Cissie looked up. ‘Glad,’ she sniffed miserably. ‘Aw, Glad, I just dunno what to do.’
Gladys held her arms out to her friend. ‘Come here,’ she said, signalling with a jerk of her head for Ernie to make himself and the kids scarce. ‘Come and tell me all about it.’
* * *
‘No thanks, Glad,’ Cissie said, putting down her empty cup. ‘I won’t have no more. Lil’ll be wondering where I’ve got to with their breakfasts.’ She sighed distractedly. ‘And I don’t need her going on at me. I can’t help it, just the sound of her voice gets on me nerves.’
‘Lil’d get on a bloody saint’s nerves, Cis. So yer don’t wanna go blaming yerself, and getting yerself all worked up over that.’
‘But it ain’t only that.’ Cissie hesitated. She had never been in the position of having no money, not since the day she married Davy. And she hated it.
‘So what is it? Yer can tell me, Cis, yer know that. And it won’t go no further than these four walls, I promise yer.’
‘I know, Glad. It’s just, well, to tell yer the truth, I’m skint.’
‘You?’ Gladys asked incredulously. ‘But I thought yer said yer was all right for money. When I asked yer about selling the truck—’
‘I was lying.’
Cissie turned her empty cup slowly round and round in her hands. ‘See, Davy did leave a bit of money, well, more than a bit really, just laying there in the dresser drawer it was. But during these past weeks, I’ve just sort of spent it.’
‘What, all of it?’
Cissie nodded wretchedly. ‘Every brass farthing of it. I’ve never had to worry about where the next few quid was coming from before, see. So I didn’t sort of realise how quick it goes.’
‘It’s all right for some,’ said Gladys more wistfully than unkindly.
‘And anyway, I always thought there was the emergency money to fall back on.’ Cissie leant back and reached into her apron pocket for her purse. She opened it and tipped the single half-crown spinning on to the table.
Both women watched the coin turn round until it stopped and fell flat on its side.
‘Me emergency money,’ said Cissie flatly.
‘Is that it?’
‘That’s it. Everything there is.’ Cissie shrugged, angry and ashamed at herself for being such a fool. ‘Lil’s poured the rest down her gullet in the Sabberton.’
Gladys reached out and took Cissie’s hand. ‘I’m sorry yer in this state, darling.’
‘Me and all.’ Cissie stared down at the single silver coin. ‘Glad,’ she said quietly, ‘will you help me?’
Gladys squeezed her hand. ‘Course I will, daft.’
Cissie looked up at her friend, her big blue eyes full of hope and tears. ‘How much can yer lend me?’
Gladys let go of Cissie’s hand. ‘No, love, sorry. I don’t mean I can help yer with money. Yer know Ernie ain’t worked for months on end now, and I’ve got him, Nipper and the five kids all to feed and clothe out of the miserable few bob I bring in each week.’
Cissie lowered her eyes again. ‘Aw,’ she said, her voice now so quiet, it was barely audible. ‘So how can you help me then?’
‘I could put a word in for yer up the City. Like I said before, even in times like these, there’s always work for cleaners. It might not be much to start with, just a few hours, say from four till eight of a morning, but once they see you’re a willing grafter, the word soon gets round and you can pick up a good few extra hours a day.’
Gladys topped up her cup, giving Cissie a chance to speak, but Cissie said nothing.
‘So, what d’yer reckon?’ Gladys prompted her.
‘Look, Glad,’ said Cissie eventually, picking up the half- crown and putting it back in her purse. ‘I don’t wanna sound ungrateful or nothing, but I don’t think I’m that desperate yet.’
‘Thanks very much!’
‘Look, Glad, I didn’t mean—’
‘No, I know. It is a poxy, rotten job, but, like they say, beggars can’t be choosers, can they?’
Cissie stood up and slipped her purse into her pocket. ‘I’d better be getting on. Lil and the kids, you know.’
‘Don’t forget, Cis, if you change your mind about the cleaning…’
‘I won’t, but thanks for the tea.’
‘Any time.’
* * *
As Cissie walked the few steps from Gladys’s door to the shop, she wished with all her heart that she hadn’t set foot in her friend’s kitchen. How could she have been so stupid as to think that Gladys would have had money to lend her? It made her feel that she’d been as selfish as Lil at her very worst.
And now Gladys knew she was broke. It was all so humiliating.
Clutching the purse in her pocket, and without even a glance at the piles of goods on offer on the pavement outside the shop, Cissie pushed open the door of Clarke’s General Store. The half-crown would have to do.
The bell tinkled its familiar welcome and Sammy Clarke, the young, fresh-faced owner, who had run the shop single-handed since the death of his parents, smiled warmly at her from behind the counter.
‘Morning, Cissie,’ Sammy greeted her, his pink cheeks shining.
Ignoring Lena, who had just followed her into the shop and was now standing between her and a drum of chicken food, arms folded, watching her every move, Cissie returned Sammy’s smile. ‘Morning, Sam.’
‘Let her go first,’ Lena cut in.
Momentarily surprised by such uncharacteristic generosity from Ethel’s daughter who, although she was barely out of her thirties, looked almost as old and sour as her mother, Cissie turned to thank her. But when she saw the predatory look in Lena’s eyes, Cissie didn’t bother. Lena had obviously pounced on the opportunity for picking up a bit of gossip. With a woman like Lena Dunn, even the contents o
f a neighbour’s shopping bag could give her ammunition for spite. Someone could as easily be condemned for profligacy if they dared spend more than Lena approved of, or of meanness if they didn’t. Lena had them either way.
But today Lena was actually interested in something far more intriguing than the items on Cissie’s grocery list. She, like everyone else in the neighbourhood, knew that Sammy Clarke fancied the young widow Flowers something rotten, and had done so ever since they were both kids playing Knock Down Ginger and High Jimmy Knacker up and down St Paul’s Road where they had both gone to school.
Everyone knew he fancied her that is, except Cissie herself, but then she had only ever had eyes for Davy. Still, the idea that boring, chubby, pink-faced Sammy could ever compete with Davy Flowers had given a lot of them a good laugh. But now Cissie was by herself, who knew what developments might occur. Yes, it was definitely worth Lena hanging around to see what unfolded.
Cissie stepped back from the counter. ‘You’re all right,’ she said lightly. ‘You go first.’
‘I insist,’ Lena barked rather than said, and hauled her basket further up her arm to indicate that that was an end of the matter.
Cissie tried again. ‘But—’
‘Look, me boys are both at school. Reg is at work. I ain’t got nothing to rush home for. Not like you with them poor little kiddies o’ your’n.’
Having decided that she had fired her winning shot, Lena sat herself down on the chair by the counter, tucked her hands inside her apron front in the way the older women like her mother did, and prepared herself to take mental note of the proceedings.
Sammy raised his eyebrows in incomprehension, baffled by the apparent brainstorm that had transformed Lena into this caring, considerate neighbour. He might have served women in the shop every day of the week except Sundays for all his adult life, but, being single, the opposite sex and their doings were as much a mystery to Sammy Clarke as what went on in Timbuktu – wherever that might be.
‘Now,’ he said, smiling until his pink cheeks shone, ‘what can I get for yer, Cis?’
Having never had to consider the price of her shopping before, Cissie hadn’t worked out what she could afford, so she looked about her and thought for a moment. From the chalked signs on the little blackboards stuck into the sacks and piles of goods, she soon realised that she couldn’t afford very much at all. And she had promised Matty a fry-up of all his favourite things.
‘Sam,’ she said quietly, beckoning him closer.
Sam leant across the counter towards her. ‘Yeah?’
‘It’s like this,’ she breathed, her neck and face burning. ‘I’m a bit short at the minute, see. But there’s quite a few bits I need and…’
Cissie might have thought that she and Sammy were speaking in whispered confidence, but, as he filled her basket and insisted that she pay him whenever she was ready, Lena’s acute meddler’s hearing picked up every single, gossip-worthy word. She could hardly suppress her glee at such a tasty titbit.
By the time Cissie had finished cooking, it was nearly half past twelve, a bit late for breakfast, but she didn’t care; she was just relieved to be able to put the half-crown back in the tea caddy on the overmantel, and to fill her cupboard with the food Sammy had let her have on the slate.
Lil wasn’t so impressed by her daughter-in-law’s efforts to provide for them.
‘This it?’ she demanded. With a sneer of disbelieving contempt, Lil glared at the fried eggs, streaky bacon and buttered toast that Cissie had put in front of her.
Matty, his toast soldier inches from his mouth, stopped eating and looked up at his mum. ‘I like it,’ he said.
Joyce banged her hands on the tray of her high chair in happy agreement, and opened wide for Cissie to spoon in another mouthful of runny yolk.
‘You should be feeding yourself, young lady,’ Cissie teased her daughter, deliberately ignoring Lil’s complaints. ‘And you get on with your food, Matt, there’s a good boy for Mummy.’
Lil didn’t take kindly to being ignored, especially not by her clueless daughter-in-law. ‘When my Davy was alive, we had decent grub on this table. Grub that could line your stomach and build you up. Not this muck.’
She shoved the untouched plate away in disgust. ‘What have we got for our dinner then? More o’ these bacon scraps and some rotten veg? And how about our teas? What do we get then? Dry bread and water?’
‘Have you finished?’
‘If yer mean have I finished with that shit,’ Lil said, curling her lip at the slowly congealing breakfast, ‘then yes I have. But, if yer mean have I finished with you, then you ain’t so lucky, my girl, cos I ain’t finished with you by a long chalk.’
Very calmly, Cissie smiled reassuringly at her children, then she stood up, walked around the table to where Lil was sitting and, bending down so that only Lil could hear her, Cissie began speaking.
‘You might not reckon yer finished with me, you vicious old bag, but you wanna watch yourself, Lil. Cos I might just be finished with you. And you wouldn’t wanna lose yer meal ticket, now would yer? Even if it is only – what did you call it? Shit?’
Cissie straightened up and, smiling happily for the benefit of the kids, she reached across to the overmantel and took down the tea caddy.
‘Here, Lil, here’s half a crown. The Sabberton’ll be open by now.’ She thrust the coin into her astonished mother-in-law’s hand and hissed under her breath, ‘And if you’ve got any brain at all in that thick head o’ your’n, you’ll keep well out of my sight until I figure out how I’m gonna get us out of this mess.’
Matty sat in watchful silence as Lil, the money clasped tightly in her hand, stomped out of the kitchen and, by the sound of the street door slamming, left the house. Only then did he speak.
‘Mum,’ he began slowly.
‘Yes, love?’ Cissie replied, the relief at Lil’s absence obvious in her voice.
‘You know it’s me birthday soon?’
‘Course I do,’ she said, ruffling his hair.
‘Well, now we’re poor, does it mean I can’t have that football yer promised me? Cos I told the Godwin kids they could play with me when I got it. And they’ll think I’m a right little liar.’
Cissie managed to reach her bedroom before she started crying.
She threw herself on to the bed and sobbed into the pillows. She couldn’t let Matty down. There was nothing else for it. Keeping the truck was a luxury; she would have to sell it, whether it had been Davy’s pride and joy or not.
She rolled on to her back and stared up at the ceiling. It made sense to sell it, she told herself. And it wouldn’t be a problem, there had to be plenty of flower sellers or market traders who’d be only too pleased to pay a fair price for an almost brand-new vehicle.
She’d be able to pay Sammy back what she owed him, wipe her slate clean, and still have enough to live off while she worked out what to do next. She was stupid not to do it yesterday, when she’d first thought of it. The market would be closed over the weekend, but she would drive the truck to the flower market first thing on Monday morning.
She smiled sadly at the memory of Davy panicking every time she crashed the gear lever because she’d forgotten about the double declutching. He’d always wince in pain as the cogs and wheels groaned and squealed in mechanical protest.
Cissie suddenly pushed herself up on her elbows.
The flower market…
She blew her nose noisily and brushed her greasy hair away from her face.
Slowly, a much broader smile appeared on her lips. Why hadn’t she thought of it before? She would run the flower stall. She would take over where Davy had left off. It was such an obvious solution.
A kaleidoscope of ideas danced in her mind.
Admittedly, she hadn’t been near the stall for years, not since their courting days, in fact. And even then she and Gladys had only paraded up and down the street, passing back and forth past the old factory building near Aldgate station where Davy
had his regular pitch, so that Cissie could flutter her eyelashes to try to catch his attention – and it had worked, she thought to herself with something almost like a laugh of pleasure.
She could do it. She could run the stall. She wasn’t stupid, what she didn’t know she could learn. Anyway, there couldn’t be that much involved in it. Much as Cissie loved Davy, she’d be the first to admit that he was no genius, even he always acknowledged that she was the clever one in the family, yet he’d always made more than a good living for them all, even during times that everyone else seemed to agree were the worst they could remember.
She’d have to make arrangements for the children, of course, but she was sure that Gladys and Ernie would help her out. Anyway, Matty would be starting school before long, and if the worse came to the worst – and it would be the worst as far as Cissie was concerned – she would blackmail Lil into getting off her lazy arse to keep an eye on them while she went out to earn their living.
For the first time in weeks, Cissie felt genuinely hopeful. Davy would have been proud to see her back to her old self.
She jumped off the bed and raced downstairs to the kitchen to wash her hair. She was young, strong and single-minded, and the mother of two kids she would die to protect. And if Matty wanted a football for his birthday, then he would bloody well have one.
And, if it made him happy, she’d even let him take it along the street to play with the dookie Godwin kids from number one.
Chapter 5
Cissie did her best to keep an expression of careless ease on her face as she stood by Ernie Mills’s side while he energetically worked at turning the truck’s starting handle.
‘I really appreciate this, Ern,’ she said to the back of his head. ‘I could’ve kicked meself, struggling with the bloody thing like that in front of Ethel and Myrtle. I felt a right idiot knowing they was lapping it all up.’
‘That’s all right, girl. It’s just a knack, that’s all,’ Ernie said, wiping the back of his hand across his sweating brow. ‘Any time, you know that. Whatever I can do to help. Anyway this ain’t women’s work. You should’ve come over and asked me earlier.’
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