‘But I ain’t a kid, am I? I should have realised. I could’ve been a bit more, I dunno, understanding about how other people was having to get by.’
‘I’d have been the same if I was in your position.’
‘No yer wouldn’t, Glad, and you know it. Still, all that’s gonna change. I know what it’s like now, having to earn me living, don’t I?’ She laughed happily to herself. ‘Makes yer sodding knackered, don’t it!’
Before Gladys had the chance to agree, a sudden, violent clap of thunder had them clasping wildly at each other. ‘Bloody hell, Glad, that’s God after me for bloody swearing!’
The rain started coming down in big fat drops, drying on to the baking-hot paving stones almost the instant it fell.
‘Come on, Cissie, run!’ Gladys shouted, dragging her along by the elbow. ‘We’re gonna get soaked.’
‘Tell yer what,’ puffed Cissie, jerking her friend to a halt outside the Star of the East, ‘let’s sod the pictures, eh? Let’s go in here and have a drink.’
Gladys, eyes wide at the thought of going into a pub without Ernie, and in the Eastern of all places, held her hand up to her mouth. ‘We can’t, Cis.’
‘Go on. Course we can.’
Casting caution to the wind, Gladys grinned. ‘All right. Why not? But not this near home. Let’s find another one, eh?’
‘Yeah, come on then.’ Cissie grabbed her hand. ‘Here, wouldn’t Lena love to see this? Us roaming the streets looking for a boozer!’
As though they hadn’t a care in the world between them, Cissie and Gladys started running along in the pouring rain, laughing and giggling like a pair of schoolgirls.
* * *
The door to Turner’s office opened. No one had knocked. It was Moe, Bill Turner’s wife. She eyed Bill and Bernie suspiciously.
‘Don’t let me stop yer talking. And don’t pretend yer wasn’t neither. I could hear the pair of yers chatting away nine to the dozen when I was coming up them stairs.’
Bernie shuffled backwards towards the door, not fancying the idea of waiting around for Moe’s reaction if she had actually heard that they were talking about Turner’s latest bit of stuff. She was a woman with a spiteful reputation. And while Bernie played away as much as any other feller, more than most when he came to think of it, he didn’t hold with broadcasting it when his wife could hear. In fact, it wasn’t the sort of thing he thought a feller should talk about at all. That was women’s business, talking.
‘What’s the matter with yer, Bernie?’ Turner snapped. ‘Take Mrs Turner’s coat for her. Can’t yer see she’s wet through?’
Bernie moved across the room to do as he was told. Either Turner was convinced Moe hadn’t heard them, or he was playing it very casual. He must be barmy either way. Everyone knew what Moe Turner could do when she got the mood on her, and no one would dare even defend themselves, let alone retaliate. It was a real mystery to most people – discussed only when Turner was well out of earshot, of course – why he put up with the old cow. Suggestions ranged from the practical, to do with money and the like, to the downright obscene stories about his and Moe’s little ‘games’ which circulated amongst some of the more loose-tongued members of Turner’s workforce.
But Bernie had never got involved with that sort of talk. It wasn’t his concern. Thank goodness. And right now he was too busy, trying to take her coat off her without offending her, even to be bothered wondering what attractions she held for Turner. But taking the coat wasn’t an easy task. Moe Turner could be upset very easily, and she wouldn’t stand still; she was pacing about like a caged cat.
‘It’s coming down out there like it’s the sodding Flood,’ she fumed, waving her arms about and spraying the desk with raindrops. ‘I only walked up the path from the motor and look at me.’ Moe glared accusingly at Turner. ‘Them blokes of your’n ain’t got a brain between them, Bill. Not one of ’em had a sodding umbrella ready for me. What do they do down there all day? Pick their teeth?’
Bernie dodged around behind her, eventually managing to slip her coat from her shoulders without too much fuss.
Moe didn’t thank him, she just sat herself down by Turner’s desk, took a cigarette from the silver art deco box standing next to the ivory humidor, and waited for Bernie to light it.
She took a long drag and blew a plume of lavender smoke up towards the ceiling. ‘Right,’ she said, staring up after it, ‘piss off, you, I wanna talk to me husband. And mind you hang that coat o’ mine up properly. Cashmere that is, not some old bit of schmutter from down the Lane.’
As Bernie quietly closed the door and crept off down the stairs, the thunder cracked as though the sky were about to split open, so he didn’t hear Moe come over and lock the door behind him. Even if he had, he couldn’t possibly have envisioned the strangeness of the scene that was about to take place inside the office.
Without a word, Moe came round and took Turner’s place at his desk, lowering her bulky frame into the big leather chair, while he went round the other side and stood, head bowed, in front of her.
The hard-headed, violent-tempered Big Bill Turner lifted his chin a little and spoke, in a high, faltering voice, the opening lines of his confession about his desire for Cissie Flowers.
Moe rose slowly to her feet again, keeping her eyes fixed on his.
Turner’s whole body began to shudder with anticipation; he was now ready, ready to begin the game, ready to be punished for misbehaving…
Chapter 13
During the next couple of months, Cissie not only found herself getting better at running the stall, but she also found herself beginning to find a real pleasure in being able to do something positive and useful for her family. And she was proud of herself, proud of what she had learnt and what she had achieved. It hadn’t been easy, but she had done it.
She’d learnt which flowers her customers preferred; that Thursday and Friday, with their wage packets and bonuses, were good days with plenty of custom, but that it wasn’t even worth setting up on a Monday; and she’d learnt that Saturdays could be really variable, because the offices and local sweat shops were mostly closed, and even with the passing trade, it still didn’t amount to enough to merit her being apart from the children for another day.
Cissie had even tried setting up on a couple of Sundays, but had soon found out that there was too much cut-price competition from the wide boys in the nearby Lane, selling off their bright, if overblown, blooms, to warrant even thinking about it as a sensible proposition.
And then there was the Covent Garden market. The lesson Cissie had learnt there was that it was important not only to put up with the banter and ribbing she was nearly always subjected to – even if at such an early hour she felt more like yawning and scratching than chatting and having a ready smile – but that she might as well look forward to having a laugh with the other flower sellers and wholesalers, and even enjoy a bit of a flirt with them. Because that was what made the world of the market turn around, and her taking part in it helped her to be accepted as ‘one of the lads’ rather than as a ‘snooty cow’ who couldn’t take a joke.
Her new-found wisdom about joining in with the wisecracking wasn’t always a complete success, however. There was one morning when she could have kicked herself for being quite so quick with her witty answers. Jim had turned up unexpectedly, leaving his stand to see how she was getting on; she would normally have been delighted to see him, but he had appeared at the very moment when she was exchanging a particularly saucy bit of backchat with one of the porters. When Jim tapped her on the shoulder and she turned round to see that it was him standing there, she’d blushed like a schoolgirl on a first date and had started stammering out some old nonsense about what she thought she was up to, her explanations only serving to make matters worse.
She really hated the idea of Jim seeing her fooling around like that. She wanted him to take her seriously, to like her as a person, not as a loud-mouthed tart, chatting up barrow-boys.
He
r feelings towards Jim made her so unsettled. There they all were, all the old feelings, buzzing around her head and her body, all coming bubbling back to the surface. Feelings that told her, and warned her, that she could really get to like Jim, like him in an even stronger sense than her initial physical attraction to him had warned her of. But, she constantly had to remind herself, Jim was married, out of bounds. And even if he didn’t get on with his wife, he still wasn’t single. And he had kids.
But it wasn’t as straightforward as that, things never were. The trouble was, she was beginning to miss having a husband in many more ways than one. In ways that made her blush to think of.
Such awkward moments apart, Cissie was really beginning to act like her old self again. Even with autumn taking hold, and the mornings growing darker and damper by the day, she still leapt out of bed, raring to go. Some mornings she actually found herself throwing off the eiderdown and looking forward to what the day had in store for her, before she even remembered what had happened and felt the familiar pain of seeing the empty pillow beside her.
Gladys had been right. It was getting better, day by day. She would never lose the pain, Cissie was sure of that, but she would find it easier to deal with. Just as she was sure that no matter what another man had to offer, he would never ever be able to replace what she felt for Davy.
Cissie had a lot to be grateful for. Particularly for being lucky enough to have a friend like Gladys, who had played such an important part in her making so much headway in getting her life sorted out. She had proved to be an invaluable help, having really come up trumps with the children, and now Matty had started school, and Gladys’s older ones could escort him back and forth, the arrangements were even simpler.
Lil, never a woman who could be described as having a sunny disposition, was still a bit of a fly in the ointment, usually managing to find something or other to complain about when Cissie came home in the afternoons, but Cissie now felt strong enough just to put that down to Lil being Lil, and to accept that there was nothing she, or anyone else, could do about it.
Cissie’s only concern, as far as she was concerned, was the matter of the occasional visit from the two men who had tried to take over the pitch on behalf of Mr Plains – a man she had since heard from one of the porters was definitely not someone to be messed with.
But even they seemed to present no real problem, not with Fat Stan and Bernie being there. Also, Stan seemed to have a group of friends, all built like Bernie and just as scary-looking, who appeared as if by magic whenever things looked as though they might prove a bit tricky. That way, any threats or skirmishes were soon dealt with and Cissie was left to sell her flowers and get on with her life, safe in the knowledge that she had good friends looking out for her.
Cissie was a fortunate woman, and she knew it. She’d got herself some high-spending regular customers and was now bringing home enough to pay herself almost as much as Davy had given her for the weekly housekeeping. She was not only making ends meet, but was now in a position where she could insist that Gladys should take something for her help.
Gladys had, of course, refused point-blank when she had tried to give her the envelope with the three pound notes in it, just as she had refused the thirty shillings Cissie had tried to give her before. But Cissie knew that things in the Mills’ household weren’t improving – if anything, they were getting worse. Gladys had even talked about following Elsie Collier’s example and taking in lodgers, but what with having five children and old Nipper living with them, there was barely enough room to sleep the family let alone to make room for strangers.
So Cissie had insisted on paying Gladys what she genuinely saw as her debts – just as she had insisted that Sammy Clarke should start taking a weekly amount from her so that she could pay back what she owed him as well.
Sammy had been as adamant as Gladys that Cissie had no reason to pay him anything, but Cissie, in her newly found role as a working woman, had become someone who didn’t relish being in debt to anybody. She would take help, and be grateful for it, but she would pay her way.
She had taken particular pleasure in paying Brownlow every single copper she owed him, and had just stared down her nose contemptuously at him when he had made more of his filthy remarks and suggestions.
Over the weeks, Cissie had done her best to try to find out who had given her the twenty pounds that she still believed had appeared anonymously on the doormat, wanting to pay them back too, but no one would admit to knowing anything about it.
It had probably been Sammy after all, she had decided, no matter how he protested that it wasn’t, and so had added the twenty pounds to the total that she was gradually repaying him as she slowly got herself back on her feet.
It still would have been nice, she couldn’t help thinking, to have earnt just a little bit more. She knew she shouldn’t have thought like that, especially when she compared her life to that of so many others who were having to scrape by. But it wasn’t for luxuries. Both the children were growing fast and clothes and shoes didn’t come cheap. And what with winter on the way, there were winter coats and coal to be bought. Then there was Christmas to start thinking about, and, although trade was more than reasonable for the time of year, flowers were getting expensive, even at wholesale prices.
It was with all that in the back of her mind that Cissie could, at first, hardly believe her latest bit of luck when, one chilly October morning, a big, shiny car drove slowly past and then pulled in at the kerbside outside St Botolph’s Church. The driver got out and came over to speak to her.
‘How much for everything yer’ve got?’ he asked, pointing carelessly in the general direction of the stall.
Cissie hesitated. But even after thinking for a moment, all she managed to say was: ‘What, everything?’
The man repeated himself.
Raising her hands in a gesture of total bewilderment, Cissie swung round and surveyed her stock. ‘What, everything?’
‘Blimey, you a bit slow or something?’
She turned back to face him again. ‘I’d have to add it all up.’
‘Well go on then,’ he snapped impatiently.
‘You sure you mean everything?’
‘For Gawd sake, woman.’ The man stepped round her and jabbed his finger at a bucket of mop-headed bronze chrysanthemums. ‘Start with them. How much for that lot?’
Cissie Was so flustered, she couldn’t think straight. ‘I’d only ever sold ’em by the bunch before.’
The man slapped his forehead with his palm. ‘Well how many bunches are in the sodding bucket?’ His voice was growing louder.
Cissie was beginning to feel alarmed. Why was this man shouting at her?
She glanced sideways, checking that Fat Stan was there by the station entrance. Relieved to see that he was, and that he had Bernie with him, Cissie flashed a thin smile at her potential customer; he might be strange, but she couldn’t turn her nose up at the sort of money he was talking about. And if she did flog him everything, she could get off home early and save Gladys having to cook tea for the kids.
‘If yer don’t mind waiting a minute,’ she said politely, ‘I’ll get some paper. I’ll write it down, and work it all out proper like. Would that be all right for yer?’
‘Yeah.’ The man snatched a quick look in the direction of the car. ‘But yer’d better make sure it is only a minute. I’m in a hurry.’
‘One minute,’ Cissie assured him and dashed across to Stan.
‘Stan,’ she whispered urgently. ‘Quick, give us a bit of paper to write on. Anything’ll do. I’ve got a real live one over there. Only wants to buy all me flowers, don’t he!’
‘Good for you, sweetheart,’ Stan congratulated her, tearing a sheet of paper from a small note-pad and handing it over.
‘Ta, Stan, you’re a mate,’ she said, practically snatching it from him. She was in so much of a hurry that she didn’t notice the surreptitious look that Fat Stan and Bernie flashed at one another then at the ca
r.
As she rushed back to her customer – surely, the customer of all time? – Cissie was sure she heard Bernie laugh and call after her something about betting slips, but she was too concerned with keeping the big spender happy to stop to ask him what he meant.
‘Right,’ she smiled, puffing as much from excitement as from the effort of running the few yards between her and Fat Stan’s pitches. ‘Let’s get this written down.’
She rested the paper on the edge of the flower stall and smoothed it out, ready to begin her reckoning. Her smile vanished. ‘Here, you ain’t got a pencil, have yer?’
‘What’s going on over there?’ someone called from behind them. ‘Can’t you even run a little errand? I only wanted the bleed’n flowers.’
Cissie and the man both spun round.
It was Big Bill Turner. He was standing by the open rear door of the big black car, leaning on the wing. His arms were folded and he looked fed up and angry.
‘We was, er, having a bit of trouble like, working out the price,’ the man explained.
‘Just get yerself back in that motor, Jack,’ Turner said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder as he walked over to the stall. ‘Go on, move yerself. Before I lose me temper. And send Chalkie over here.’
Jack seemed only too pleased to do as he was told. He quickly disappeared into the driver’s seat and slammed the door firmly behind him.
Another man slipped out of the front passenger door, and went to stand silently by Turner’s side.
Turner took his wallet from the inside pocket of his overcoat without even acknowledging the man’s presence. He counted out fifteen large white notes. ‘Seventy-five quid fair, d’yer reckon?’
‘I don’t understand.’ Cissie instinctively backed away from him until she was pressed hard against the stall. ‘Why’re yer doing this?’
‘Are these flowers for sale or ain’t they?’
‘Yeah, but why d’yer want ’em? Why d’yer want so many?’
The Flower Girl Page 18