‘The way I look?’ Cissie sounded baffled.
‘Use your loaf, Cis, it was bad enough when you was a married woman, but with a pretty face like your’n… Well, now you’re a widow, some women just don’t like it, do they? You being available like.’
‘Gladys! How can you even say that?’
‘I’m not saying it, am I? I told you, I’m just telling you what other people are saying. I mean, just think how they talk about her next door.’
‘Elsie Collier?’ Now Cissie was really confused. ‘What’s all this gotta do with Elsie bloody Collier?’
‘Are you stupid or something?’
‘I reckon I must be. There’s no harm in Elsie. She’s a nice sort of a woman.’
‘That don’t stop ’em, does it?’
‘I ain’t got a clue what you’re on about, Gladys.’
‘You know what I mean. Her gentlemen. The old bags round here love it, don’t they? All their nasty little hints and whispers. You’d think she was running a bloody knocking shop in there instead of having a few lodgers.’ Gladys shrugged. ‘And even if she is, which she might be, I suppose, she don’t interfere with none of us, now does she?’
‘So what’s that gotta do with me?’
‘Blimey, have I really gotta spell it out for yer?’ As Gladys spoke she tapped her finger on the table to emphasise her point. ‘They’re jealous of you, Cissie Flowers. You’re a good-looking young woman who, up until now, has had things a whole lot easier than most round here. And who ain’t really seemed to care what happened to no one else. So, if you let yerself go under, they’ll all be ready to have yer. To jump on yer like a pack of starving dogs after a bone. So yer wanna pick yerself up, pull yerself together and get yerself going again, before it’s too late.’
‘Why’re you saying these things to me, Glad?’
‘Cos yer me friend, that’s why.’
Cissie stood up. ‘It don’t sound much like a friend talking to me.’ She reached out and took Joyce from Gladys’s lap and stood her on the floor. ‘It sounds more like yer just wanna have a go.’
‘Hello, girls.’ They both turned round to see Ernie standing in the kitchen doorway. ‘Them kids’re having a right old game out there with that hose. Wonder who them Godwins nicked it off, eh?’ He winked at Joyce who was smiling up at him from behind her mum’s skirts. ‘Bloody soaking they are. Little buggers!’
Gladys was now also on her feet. She went over to Ernie and looked into his eyes. ‘Yer didn’t get it, did yer?’ She wrapped her arms around him. ‘I’m sorry, love.’
‘Me and all, girl,’ Ernie said with a shrug. ‘Me and all.’ ‘I’d better be going,’ Cissie said flatly.
Ernie reached out and chucked Joyce under the chin. ‘Don’t let me drive yer away. Sit down and finish your cuppa.’
‘Thanks all the same, Ern, but I’ve gotta be off.’ She turned round to face Gladys. ‘Me and Glad’ve been having a little talk, and she’s said a few things I wanna think about.’
‘Honest, Cis, drink your tea. I was gonna pop over to fetch Nipper from over old Ted Johnson’s anyway.’ He laughed. ‘I put a bet on for Ted yesterday on me way back from the Labour Exchange. And I wanna slip him his winnings before that girl of his gets home.’
Gladys smiled fondly at her husband. ‘You’d better hurry, that Sarah’s got a right sharp tongue on her. I think she’s got a bit of a screw loose at times, the way she shouts at her old dad.’
Cissie couldn’t stop herself: ‘What d’you expect?’ she snapped. ‘Having yer fiance killed in the trenches, it’s enough to drive anyone mad, losing the bloke yer love.’
‘Yer right, girl,’ Gladys admitted. ‘Sarah would probably have been a different woman now if her Jimmy hadn’t have copped it. And who knows, if he had lived, Myrtle and Arthur might not be the miserable bleeders they are now either. I mean, it must be as bad losing a son as losing a fiance.’
‘What would you know about it?’ Cissie demanded so loudly that Joyce started crying again. ‘What would you know about anything?’
With that, Cissie scooped Joyce into her arms and ran from the kitchen.
‘I’m sorry,’ Gladys and Ernie heard her call from the street door. ‘It’s just that I miss him so much.’
Gladys went to follow her but Ernie held her back.
‘No, love,’ he said firmly. ‘Yer’d better—’
Gladys didn’t let him finish, she pulled herself away from him and ran along the passage.
She caught up with Cissie just as she was about to cross the street.
‘Look, Cis, I didn’t mean to row with yer,’ she said catching hold of Cissie’s arm. ‘I know you’ve had a right basinful, but if yer don’t do something soon, people are gonna start getting right fed up with yer.’
‘Why should I care what anyone thinks of me?’ she yelled, shaking off her friend’s hand.
‘Don’t you care what I think?’ Gladys asked her quietly.
‘No,’ Cissie said with a brisk shake of her head. ‘I don’t give a bugger what you think.’
Gladys stood and watched as Cissie dashed across the road to number seven without so much as a wave to young Matty, who had stopped playing with his mates and the hose to watch the unprecedented spectacle of his mum and Auntie Glad rowing.
Chapter 6
The next morning, Cissie woke at the first ring from the alarm. Despite having had an exhausting night of disturbed sleep and terrible dreams, she was filled with a determination so strong that she felt she could tackle anything.
When she had left Gladys standing in the street after their row the previous evening, she had gone indoors and cooked tea for Lil, Matty and Joyce; had taken the children up to bed; and then had sat down in the kitchen to spell out very clearly to her mother-in-law that for the next few weeks at least – until she sorted out something more permanent and suitable – that she, Lil, would be responsible for the children during the day whilst Cissie was working on the stall.
She hated having to depend on Lil, but she had no choice as she could hardly have asked Gladys to mind them after what had happened. And so, for once, when Lil had demanded to know why she had to put herself out, Cissie had not crumbled under her mother-in-law’s barrage of moans and complaints, and, rather than giving in to her for the sake of an easy life, she had remained resolute. Lil would have to pull her weight and that was final. There was too much at stake for Cissie to let Lil’s whingeing stand in her way.
Cissie was washed, dressed and ready within minutes. The bed was made, the curtains drawn and her room tidied, not very thoroughly maybe, but she’d made a start, just as she had planned. And she was ready to face the world.
Before she went downstairs, she peeped into the children’s room and was comforted to see that they were still sleeping soundly. After all the ructions they had witnessed yesterday they had both had as much trouble settling down as she had done. Only Lil had gone straight off to sleep. The several pints of stout she’d cadged in the pub had seen to that. The role of the grieving mother was still standing Lil in good stead when it came to mumping free drinks from boozily sentimental drinkers in the Sabberton Arms.
As she skipped lightly down the stairs, Cissie ticked off the next job on the mental list she had written and rewritten in her head as she lay alone and lonely in the darkness of the early hours – she was off to the corner shop to see Sammy Clarke.
‘Hello, Sam,’ she said, relieved that no one else was in there yet.
‘Morning, Cissie. Don’t usually see you about at this time o’ the morning.’
She blushed at her deserved reputation for not being an especially early riser – something that made her not far off being a streetwalker according to some of the more elderly residents of Linman Street. ‘P’raps I’m turning over a new leaf, eh?’
‘Don’t get me wrong, Cis,’ Sammy hurriedly reassured her. ‘If I didn’t have to sort out the stock, set this little lot out, and then be open and ready for me customers, I�
�d have a nice lie-in of a morning and all.’ He noted the doubting look on Cissie’s face and decided he’d said enough on that particular subject. ‘Anyway,’ he went on, ‘this won’t do, will it? Me rambling on about meself. Now, what can I get for you?’
‘I’m gonna ask you a favour, Sam,’ Cissie replied warily. ‘A right big one.’
‘Anything I can do, Cis, you know that. I’ve told you enough times.’
‘I need to put some more gear on the slate,’ she said bluntly. ‘But I promise it won’t be for long, and I promise I’ll pay yer back every single penny what I owe yer as soon as I get meself straight again. I’ll pay interest on it and all, if yer like. Whatever you say.’
She ran her fingers nervously through her thick black fringe. ‘See,’ she went on, ‘I’ve been thinking, thinking really hard, and I’ve realised that if I’m gonna sort meself out, I’m gonna need help. It ain’t easy asking, but I’ve gotta do it for Matty and Joyce. They’re more important than my pride.’
Sammy lifted the flap in the counter and stepped through to the customers’ side of the shop. He wiped his hands down the front of his white apron, then reached out and touched Cissie gently on the arm. ‘You just let me know what you want, Cis, and I’ll get it all packed up in a box for you. And I’ll bring it over to the house as soon as I get a minute. And don’t even think about no daft ideas about interest. You can have as much credit as you like, for as long as you like.’
Cissie dropped her chin until it was almost touching her chest. ‘Ta, Sam,’ she said quietly. ‘I really appreciate it.’ She pulled a piece of paper from her pocket and held it out to him. ‘If it’s all right with you, I wrote down a few things.’
She looked up and met his gaze. ‘I’ve put the ones I really need at the top, and then the rest are bits that I could, you know, sort of use, if it wouldn’t be taking too much of a liberty, like. But I’d understand if yer thought I was stronging it.’
Sammy took the note and held it up high between them. ‘There ain’t nothing in this whole shop you and the kids couldn’t have if you wanted it, Cis. Nothing.’
Suddenly aware that not only had he overstepped the mark but, worse still, that Myrtle Payne had just appeared in the shop doorway, Sammy sprang back from Cissie and hastily returned to his place behind the counter.
‘That looked cosy,’ Myrtle said nastily, positioning herself between Cissie and Sam. ‘Offering a bit of sympathy to the young widow woman, was yer, Sammy Clarke?’ Ignoring her insinuations, Sammy looked straight past Myrtle. ‘You just leave this with me, Cissie. All right?’
‘All right, Sammy. Ta.’
As Cissie left the shop she heard Myrtle sneering. ‘Unbelievable. Just look at her, her and her flowery frock. Disgraceful, I call it. Young women nowadays. I was in black for a full twelvemonth when my boy Jimmy was taken away from me, God rest his soul. But I suppose you think she can do no wrong, just cos she’s got a pretty face.’
Cissie didn’t hang around to hear Sammy’s reply; she had things to do.
* * *
By the time Lil eventually roused herself, Cissie had given the children their breakfast; had swept and dusted the whole house – apart from Lil’s room – from top to bottom; had pegged out the hand-washing she had had in soak since she got back from Sammy’s; and had put on a sausage stew with onions and boiled potatoes for dinner time. All Lil had to do was keep an eye on the little ones, take in the washing if it looked like clouding over, which it didn’t, and add a bit of flour and water thickening to the saucepan of stew ten minutes or so before they were ready to eat.
But despite all Cissie’s efforts, Lil still found reason to moan.
‘What d’yer mean, you’ve gotta go out on a bit of business? What business? And why ain’t Gladys minding the kids for yer?’
Cissie flashed a warning look at Lil and nodded towards the children who were playing on the floor in their favourite place under the kitchen table.
Lil either didn’t understand Cissie’s signal or wasn’t bothered by her daughter-in-law’s concern that they shouldn’t be discussing such things in front of the children, because she carried on questioning her regardless. ‘I said, what business? And why should I be minding ’em?’
‘Don’t you ever listen, Lil? I explained all that last night. Gladys and me have had words,’ Cissie said levelly. ‘And, as for the business I’m going on, it’s about the stall.’
‘You ain’t still on about that, are yer? Yer’ll never be able to run that stall.’
‘Yes I will,’ Cissie said determinedly. ‘I’ve decided that I’m gonna make a right go of it. I’m gonna have to find out how to do it proper. All right, there’s more to it than I thought. But I’m gonna go and see Davy’s friends. Get a bit of advice, like.’
Lil immediately brightened. ‘Now that is a good idea. You can go and see Big Bill Turner. He knows anyone who’s anyone, that bloke. He’ll be able to give yer all the advice yer need. And, with a bit o’ luck yer’ll be able to forget all this nonsense about selling flowers. I mean, you heard him yerself,’ she winked knowingly at her daughter-in-law, ‘he said he’d be only too pleased to help yer.’
‘I said I was gonna ask Davy’s friends,’ said Cissie, with a derisive sneer. ‘Turner was hardly that.’
‘Aw wasn’t he now? So why d’yer think he was at the funeral?’
‘There was plenty of people at the funeral. Plenty. People who probably only ever met Davy when they bought flowers off him.’
Cissie turned away from Lil and ducked her head to catch her reflection in the overmantel mirror. She fiddled around unnecessarily with her hat which was already set perfectly straight. ‘Davy must have known hundreds of people,’ she added as she slipped her black swagger coat around her shoulders.
The linen coat was part of the costume Cissie had worn to the funeral. As much as she would have hated to admit the fact, Myrtle’s words about mourning had stung her to the quick.
‘Hundreds and hundreds of people,’ she went on. ‘Friends and businessmen and all sorts.’
‘But Turner’s—’ Lil began.
‘Look, Lil, I ain’t got no time to argue with yer,’ Cissie said, bending down to kiss the children. ‘Now you both be good for Nanna, and we’ll go over and see if we can get some sweeties off o’ Sammy later on. All right?’
‘Sammy Clarke!’ snorted Lil. ‘Yer over there talking to that bloke a bit too often if you ask me.’
‘Do what?’ Cissie asked, disbelievingly. ‘He runs the flipping corner shop. Why shouldn’t I go over there?’
‘D’yer really need me to tell yer?’
Cissie stuck her fists into her waist. ‘I reckon I do.’
‘Yer know how he gets all smarmy with yer.’ Lil shuddered. ‘I can’t understand why yer bother with the likes of him when Turner’s interested. He’s a waste of space, the great soft sod.’
Cissie wanted to say that Lil was out of her mind and that Sammy was just a friend, and a very good friend at that. And that Lil was happy enough to eat the food he’d let them have on tick. And that was before she even started on putting her straight about Turner. Again. But, even if she wasn’t in a hurry to get out and get on with her plans, and even if there had been any point trying to make her mother-in-law see sense, Cissie was fed up with rowing. And, apart from that, she needed Lil’s help with the children. So rather than giving her a piece of her mind, she just bit her tongue instead.
But one day she’d really tell Lil her fortune…
* * *
Cissie took a deep breath and then pushed open the heavy wood-and-etched-glass door. Going into a pub by yourself wasn’t what a respectable woman did, even if it was the local her late husband had always used. But the Sabberton Arms was the place where Cissie reckoned she had to begin if she was to find Davy’s friends, so, that’s where she was going.
‘Morning, Mac,’ she said. She had intended to sound bright and cheerful, but her voice cracked with anxiety as she made her way ac
ross the bar towards the counter.
It was only half past eleven but the place was already busy and full of smoke. It was so warm in there, she wished she had the courage to slip off her coat, but she was embarrassed enough as it was walking through the room full of men, without showing them her bare forearms into the bargain.
‘Hello, darling,’ the landlord said with a surprised smile. ‘Don’t usually see you in here.’ Then it occurred to him. ‘If yer looking for Lil, Cis, we ain’t seen her yet today.’
Cissie shook her head; her cheeks were burning with embarrassment. ‘No, Lil’s back home with the kids. It was Davy’s friends I was looking for.’
‘Aw yeah?’ Mac took down a wine glass from the rack above the bar. He held it out to her. ‘Drop o’ port and lemon, love?’
‘No, not for me, thanks, Mac.’
‘It’s on me, darling,’ he added enticingly. ‘Go on, have a drop, on the house. It’ll do yer good.’
‘No, honest, thanks all the same, I won’t, but it’s that warm out there, I’d love a glass o’ lemonade.’
‘Then lemonade it shall be.’ The landlord poured her drink, passed it across to her and then rested his arms on the counter. ‘Now, these friends yer looking for.’
‘I need to find ’em to see about the stall, Mac. See, I’ve decided to give it a go. To see if I can run it meself, like.’
‘Have yer now?’ He sounded impressed, if a little dubious, with the idea.
‘Yeah. I have.’ She smiled, pleased with the effect she was having. At least he hadn’t laughed at her. ‘But I’ll need some advice. So, can yer tell me how to find ’em? Davy’s friends, I mean.’
The Flower Girl Page 9