Less than a quarter of an hour later, as Lil heard the front door open, and Cissie call out hello, she put her newly hatched plan into action.
* * *
‘Wherever did yer get that?’ The sticky heat, Big Bill Turner, and her worries about the two strange men at the pitch temporarily forgotten, Cissie goggled at the sight of her mother-in-law sitting at the kitchen table putting pound notes and ten-shilling notes into two separate piles. Admittedly they were very small piles, but they were piles nonetheless.
‘Yer never gonna believe this,’ Lil beamed, stroking the ten-shilling pile as though it were a much-loved pet, ‘but I found all this lot on the coconut mat in the passage.
Someone must’ve stuck it through the street door for us.’
Totally bewildered by this sudden stroke of good fortune, Cissie dropped down on to the chair opposite Lil. ‘How much is there?’
‘Twenty pounds! Just think what we can do with twenty pounds!’
Cissie shook her head in bewilderment, then suddenly slapped the flat of her hand on the table. ‘I know who’s done this,’ she said, solving the puzzle.
‘Who?’ Lil demanded.
‘It’s Sammy Clarke, innit?’
Lil scowled. Not bloody Sammy Clarke again. ‘What would he wanna go giving us money for?’ she asked suspiciously.
Cissie felt her cheeks burning. ‘He’s been very good to us lately, Lil. In fact, we wouldn’t be getting by without him.’
Lil didn’t look very impressed, the last thing she wanted was Sammy Clarke coming on the firm and confusing matters. ‘He’s a right old woman that one if you ask me. I mean, what sort of life’s that for a bloke, serving in a corner shop? He’s a right pansy.’
Cissie stood up. ‘Well, I think he’s a really decent bloke, and I’m gonna go over and thank him.’
Cissie walked over to the kitchen doorway and paused. She swung round, frowning. ‘Here, where’s the kids?’
‘They’re all right. They’re playing,’ said Lil distractedly. This was getting complicated. She needed time to think. ‘You get yerself over Clarke’s if yer going.’
* * *
When Elsie Collier – the woman from number six who took in lodgers – finally left the shop with one of her ‘gentlemen’ in tow to carry all her bags, Cissie was, at last, alone with Sammy.
‘Come on, Cis,’ Sammy beamed, ‘tell me all about it. I’ve been dying to know all day. How’d yer get on at the market this morning? Get yerself some decent gear, did yer?’
Cissie smiled back at him, touched by his concern and his humility. He’d just given her twenty pounds and he wasn’t even going to mention it. Most people would be broadcasting such an act of generosity.
‘It was you, wasn’t it, Sam?’ she said gently. ‘Yer knew I’d probably mess it all up at first, and wind up broke again.’
‘I never thought yer’d mess up nothing. Yer a clever girl, Cissie Flowers, always have been. Yer used to run rings round the rest of us lot at school. So why should I think that?’
‘Yer mean yer really think I’ve done it?’
Sammy leant on the counter and jerked his head towards the customer’s chair. ‘Why don’t yer sit yerself down and tell me all about it?’
‘There ain’t much to tell.’ Cissie lifted her fringe off her face, brushing it back with her fingers. ‘I got the flowers all right, well I reckon I paid a bit over the odds, but at least I got ’em. Trouble was, when I got to the pitch, there was these two blokes there already.’
‘What, with a stall?’
She nodded. ‘Yeah.’
‘That ain’t right, surely. Davy had that spot for years.’
‘I must have known deep down, yer know, that he was involved with something bad,’ she said more to herself than to Sammy. ‘We had things too easy.’
‘Bad, yer say?’
‘Yeah, and now I’ve gotta start paying for it.’
‘But how d’yer mean, bad?’
‘They was—’ Cissie hesitated, considered what she was about to say, then thought better of it. She’d said too much already. She had no business involving Sammy in the world she had glimpsed today. Even talking to him about it could bring him trouble, she wasn’t sure how, but she felt it, deep inside.
‘They was what? You ain’t making no sense.’
‘No, I ain’t, am I? I’m tired out, I reckon, and rambling on like a nutcase. Just ignore me, Sam. Anyway, what I really come over for wasn’t to start me moaning again. I come over to thank yer for that twenty quid.’
Sammy scratched his head. ‘Are you talking in some sort of code, Cis? Cos honest, love, I ain’t following none of this.’
Cissie narrowed her eyes. ‘Are you saying you never went over home this afternoon and stuck some money through me letterbox?’
‘It weren’t me.’ Sammy looked put out by the thought that Cissie might have another benefactor. ‘But I can let you have more if yer need it, girl,’ he added hurriedly, stabbing his finger on the brass till keys and opening the drawer with a loud ring. ‘You know that.’
‘Thanks all the same, Sam, honest.’ Cissie held up her hand to refuse his offer. ‘But I owe yer enough already.’
‘Don’t you worry yerself about that.’ He considered for a moment. ‘So, who d’you think did it?’ he asked, his jaw rigid. Someone was trying to buy their way into Cissie’s affections and Sammy didn’t like it. He didn’t like it one little bit. There wasn’t much he could offer Cissie but a bit of financial help, and now it looked as though she didn’t even need that.
Cissie lowered her eyes, her voice trembling as she spoke. ‘The other day, I went and asked some o’ Davy’s old mates for help. They was a bit, you know, funny in front of one another. Acting all tough. But I reckon they’ve come up trumps. He was a popular feller yer see, my Davy. He had a lot of friends. Good friends. I should’ve known they wouldn’t let me down when it come to it.’
Cissie pulled out her hanky and wiped her eyes. ‘I’ll see yer later, Sam.’
* * *
Back across the street at number seven, Cissie had another surprise waiting for her. As she stepped inside the front door, there was an envelope addressed to her on the coconut mat.
‘When did this come?’ she asked Lil, tearing it open, as she went into the kitchen.
Lil, who was standing at the sink washing her hands under the single cold tap, looked over her shoulder. ‘I dunno,’ she said defensively. Surely Frank hadn’t been back already. ‘I’ve been out the back in the lav. Show us. Who’s it from?’
She wiped her hands hastily on her apron and rushed to Cissie’s side as another thought occurred to her. ‘Here? It’s not more money, is it?’
‘No, it’s a letter.’
Lil had the horrible taste of bile rise in her throat. That bloody interfering Frank Bentley!
She watched closely as Cissie, her lips moving as she silently read the letter to herself, scanned the page.
‘So, who’s it from then?’
Cissie looked up. ‘It’s from some bloke called Jim.’
‘Jim? Who the sodding hell’s Jim when he’s at home?’
Cissie ran her finger through the words, finding the place, then she read:
‘I am a wholesale flower seller at Covent Garden who used to have a trade with Davy. I was sorry what happened to him. He was a mate. I want to let you know I will be glad to have a trade with you if you are keeping the stall on. You can find me most mornings in Portelli’s cafe having my breakfast. Any time up until half past four or so when we start dealing. I thought a lot of Davy and will do anything I can to help his family.’
Cissie lowered the letter and looked at Lil. ‘I bet it was him what put the money through the door,’ she said excitedly. ‘Yer must’ve missed the letter, Lil, when yer was picking up the twenty quid. It probably got stuck behind the mat or something.’
‘Yeah,’ Lil agreed readily. ‘That’ll be it. Stuck behind the mat. Fancy that eh?’ Lil could have kiss
ed this Jim, whoever he was.
Cissie sat down at the table and stared at the letter and the two piles of money. ‘D’you know what, Lil? I reckon that after everything I’ve been through these last couple of months, I really think things are taking a turn for the better at last. And if this Jim is as nice as he sounds, he might be able to help me with another little problem I’ve got and all.’ Lil went across to the overmantel and began applying a thick coat of lipstick to her narrow mouth. ‘Problem?’ she asked through stretched lips.
‘Yeah, with the stall. Yer see—’
‘Aw, the stall,’ Lil interrupted. ‘Right, yeah.’ She wasn’t the least bit interested in what Cissie had to say, she was too busy patting her hair, studying it in the glass. ‘I could do with another perm, yer know, while there’s a few quid about.’
Cissie said nothing.
Lil swung around to face her. ‘I’d love to stay and listen to yer, girl, but I think I’d better pop down the Sabberton for a drop of something to steady me poor old nerves. All this excitement’s fair given me palpitations it has.’
Cissie opened her handbag. ‘Here, Lil,’ she said handing her a two-shilling piece. ‘I don’t reckon we can afford money for no hairdos, but go on, take it. Treat yerself to a couple o’ drinks.’ She put her elbows on the table and rested her chin on her hands. ‘I sold the lighter my Davy give me. That’s what’s left.’
‘Well, I hope yer got a good price for it,’ sniffed Lil, putting the coin in her pocket with the five one-pound notes already nestling there. ‘Don’t wait up, will yer?’
Lil unhooked her handbag from the back of the chair, and walked out to the passage.
‘Hang on!’ Cissie called, rushing after her. ‘I dunno what I’m thinking of.’ She grabbed Lil’s arm. ‘You said the kids was playing. So where are they?’ She stuck her fists into her waist. ‘If you’ve let them go up the road to play in that dookie Godwins’ house…’
‘No, I bleed’n ain’t.’ Lil flapped her hand impatiently. ‘They’re over Glad’s, ain’t they.’
‘Glad’s got them?’
‘That’s what I said, didn’t I?’ Lil snapped.
Cissie rubbed her hands over her face, hiding her shame. ‘She’s a good ’un, that Gladys. Even though we’ve had words, she ain’t taken it out on the kids. Not like some women would.’ She dropped her hands to her side and looked at Lil. ‘What, did Matty and Joyce ask if they could go over there?’
‘No.’ Lil shook her head and continued casually, ‘I took ’em over after their dinner. Joyce kept being sick and I couldn’t settle—’
‘You did what? Joyce’s ill and you’ve let me stand here…’ Cissie barged past Lil and ran frantically along the passage.
‘Charming!’ Cissie heard Lil snort as she flung open the door and raced across the street.
* * *
‘Glad! Glad! It’s me, Cissie, where’s Joyce?’ Cissie yelled from the street door of number four.
‘In here,’ Gladys called back.
Cissie skidded into the kitchen, taking the passage runner with her.
In the corner she saw Nipper, Ernie’s elderly grandfather, sitting talking to an attentive semicircle of youngsters made up of his younger grandchildren, and Matty. Joyce was curled up on his lap, sucking her thumb, listening intently.
‘But Lil said—’ As she spoke, it dawned on Cissie that Lil had been up to her old tricks again: telling all sorts of stupid lies just to get herself out of doing anything that might require a bit of effort on her part.
‘What did she say?’ Gladys asked, looking up from her ironing.
Cissie rolled her eyes. ‘She told me some tale about Joyce being sick.’
Gladys chuckled and spat on the iron to test the heat. ‘She don’t change, that Lil, does she? Joyce’s right as rain, ain’t yer, darling?’
Joyce looked round. Seeing her mum, she scrambled down from Nipper’s lap and launched herself at Cissie. ‘Mummy! Look, Matt, Mummy!’
Matty gave his mum a wave and a smile, but didn’t move from Nipper’s feet.
Gladys jerked her thumb at her grandfather-in-law. ‘He’s had the lot of ’em spellbound all afternoon. Telling ’em tales about when he was in the army out in Africa of all things. And there’s all that lovely sunshine out there and all. They should have been out getting their little knees brown. But he could’ve been talking double Dutch and they’d all still be sitting there, I reckon. The kids all love him. We’re lucky yer know having him living here with us.’
Cissie shifted Joyce on to her hip, reached out and took Gladys’s hand. ‘And I’m lucky to have such a good friend, Glad, even if I ain’t always been clever enough to realise it.’
And, Cissie thought to herself, as she carried Joyce back across the street to number seven, I’m lucky that Davy had friends as decent as this Jim, whoever he was. There weren’t a lot of fellers who’d take the time to write letters and send money to a mate’s widow. But Davy was the sort of bloke who’d inspire that sort of loyalty in a friend. Davy was a good ’un all right.
She smiled wistfully to herself as she stepped inside the passage. She knew it, she’d been right all along. Davy would never have been involved in anything crooked. He wasn’t the sort. And as if he wouldn’t have told her all about it if he had been. They’d never kept secrets from one another. Never.
All that talk, the hints and suggestions, about things Davy’d been involved in, it was all just spiteful-minded gossip and jealousy. Big Bill Turner was just trying to take advantage of her. And the blokes at the pitch were just trying to scare her so they could take it over. After all, Davy had proved what a good little earner it could be.
But she’d show them all, she didn’t need help from the likes of Turner, not with friends like Gladys and Jim on her side.
Chapter 11
First thing the next morning, Cissie climbed into the truck and headed back to Covent Garden market. She was going to find Jim Phillips, the man who, since she had first read his letter the previous afternoon, Cissie had come to see as her hope and benefactor. She couldn’t stop herself from putting all her trust and hope in this person she had never met, and, she had decided, the more she thought about it, the more reasonable it seemed for her to do so.
Firstly, she’d never been in a position before where she had had to make the decisions and pay the bills, as there had always been a man there to do that in Cissie’s life. Her dad, then her husband. And that, if she was honest, was one of the things she had missed most since Davy had been killed – someone being around who would take on all those things that she had never in the past had to worry about, the things that now tormented her in the early hours when she couldn’t sleep, or when she woke up sweating, in a complete panic about how she would pay Brownlow when he came sniffing around and she still hadn’t figured out how to sell the stupid flowers off the rotten stall. Jim would, she sincerely believed, be able to fill that role for her.
Secondly, Cissie liked the feeling she had when she read Jim’s letter. Even though she’d not so much as clapped eyes on him yet, she just knew that he was decent, and he’d be kind – a man who was genuinely concerned to do the right thing by his friend’s widow, rather than acting the big, flash man who was more interested in what she would look like hanging on his arm like an ornament as he walked into a bar.
Sammy Clarke had been kind to her of course, and she’d never forget that, but, much as she hated to agree with Lil, he was a bloke who ran a corner shop. A grocer. Hardly the sort of man to set a woman’s heart racing by sweeping her off her feet and by making her feel that everything would be all right just because he was there.
Davy had been that sort of man. A real man. Strong, able to sort anything out. And that’s what Cissie wanted again, that kind of strength and support. And Jim sounded as though he might just fit the bill.
She smiled happily to herself as she eased the truck on to the East India Dock Road and joined the sparse early morning traffic heading towards
the City and the West End. She knew she had every good reason to feel optimistic.
And things were looking up at home too. Last night, Gladys had promised Cissie that as soon as she got home from her early morning cleaning jobs she would go straight over to number seven and take the children back to hers, leaving Lil to ‘rest’. As for the children, they were only too pleased to hear about the new arrangements. Joyce – who wasn’t even sickening for something, let alone ill – was looking forward to playing with Gladys’s youngest; and as for Matty, he had gone to bed thrilled by the idea of hearing more of old Nipper’s wartime exploits.
She was still smiling as she manoeuvred the truck off of the Strand and into the outer edges of the market.
Everything was going to be all right.
When she found Portelli’s cafe – the place where Jim had said she could find him – Cissie’s run of luck seemed to be continuing. Although, even at such an early hour, the place was crowded with men eating enormous fried breakfasts, the very first person she asked was able to point Jim Phillips out to her. Nothing was going to spoil Cissie’s day, she just knew it.
‘Oi, Jim! There’s someone over here to see yer,’ the helpful man yelled over the din of noisy chatter, clashing cutlery and hissing urns. He stabbed his fork, complete with dripping egg yolk, towards Cissie. ‘I hope your Iris don’t find out. Look at her, right little beauty, ain’t she?’
With her cheeks flushed pink from a combination of embarrassment, the heat of the cafe, and the already warm morning air, Cissie edged her way through the maze of chairs to a table near the counter, where a fair-haired man in his thirties was beckoning to her.
He looked nice, she thought, as he waved a friendly, warning fist at the source of one of the more ribald remarks as she squeezed past a table full of leering breakfasters.
‘Mrs Flowers innit?’ Jim asked her, bobbing up in welcome.
Cissie nodded. ‘That’s right. But call me Cissie.’
The Flower Girl Page 15