The two women stood there, glaring accusingly at one another, both all too aware that they were dangerously close to saying things that could change their relationship for ever, things that could all too easily put them on the first steps of a very slippery slope that led to an even worse mire than that in which they were already floundering.
So intent were they both on controlling the situation, because despite their show of boldness, neither of them could face the choice which presented itself – the end of the last bit of family security that either of them felt they had, namely each other – that they were genuinely shocked when the next voice they heard wasn’t either of theirs but Sammy Clarke’s.
‘Cis? Cissie?’ they heard him call along the passage. ‘Can I come in? I think I’ve come up with an idea for yer.’
* * *
‘It was obvious all along really. I dunno why I never thought of it before. Profit and loss,’ Sammy concluded, with a lift of his hand. ‘It’s what all businessmen understand. Money.’
Cissie glanced nervously at Lil, who, not wanting to miss anything had sat herself, still grimacing angrily, in the corner like a bulldog with a wasp sting on its nose.
‘So you reckon I’d really be able to convince ’em?’ Cissie asked doubtfully. ‘I mean, why should they care about what the likes of me’s got to say for meself?’
‘Don’t start knocking yerself again, Cis.’ Sammy smiled reassuringly. He really wanted to reach out and take her hand, cover it with tender kisses and tell her everything would be fine, but with Lil sitting there like the bad fairy at the christening, it was even more out of the question than usual. ‘And anyway, it’s a good business proposition,’ he continued. ‘They’d be mad not to listen. And with a clever girl like you explaining it to ’em, why wouldn’t they?’ He leant across the table and looked directly into her eyes. ‘Yer’ll be able to convince ’em. You’d be able to convince anyone of anything, you would.’
‘Huh!’ exploded Lil. ‘If she was so flaming clever, she wouldn’t be sitting here listening to your old nonsense, Sammy Clarke. She’d have her best frock on, a bit o’ lipstick, and she’d be round that Big Bill Turner’s gaff like sticks o’ cracking. She’d be fluttering her bloody eyelashes and holding out her hand, waiting for him to pay all the bleed’n bills. But what is she doing, this clever girl? She’s sitting in a back kitchen in Linman Street listening to a sodding grocer talking a load o’ shit.’
Sam felt his already pink cheeks flare scarlet with embarrassment. ‘Maybe I should get going, eh, Cis?’
‘No,’ Cissie said, staring steadily over his shoulder at Lil. ‘You don’t have to go, Sam. But I think if Lil’s so obviously overtired, maybe she should go to bed. I mean, when you get to her age, it’s like being a kid, ain’t it? Yer get all bad-tempered when yer need yer sleep and start saying all sorts o’ stupid things yer don’t mean.’
* * *
‘So, yer gonna tell me what yer’ve been up to then?’
Moe Turner stood there in the office towering over Turner. It was late at night and there was no one else in the building in the Mile End Road except her and her husband.
She was dressed expensively in a neat charcoal-grey costume, a narrow-brimmed black hat with a spotted veil, and matching kid gloves. Her arms were folded tightly across her broad, matronly bosom, and she was tapping her foot impatiently.
She was actually a good foot shorter than her husband when they were both standing, but when he was pressed down into his big leather chair as he was now, it was as if he were a child with an adult looming over him.
‘Well?’ she demanded. ‘I’m waiting.’
Turner spoke in a strange quavering falsetto. ‘After this deal goes through, there’s gonna be plenty o’ spare dough about. So I’ve definitely thought about setting her up in the flat.’
‘You’ve what? You’ve thought?’ Moe bellowed, her eyes flashing with fury. ‘I don’t think I’m hearing you right, am I?’
Turner shrunk even further into the chair; his body trembled with anticipation of what, if the game went the way he hoped, the way it always did, would come next. ‘No,’ he corrected himself, looking up at her through deferentially half-lowered lids, ‘I don’t think. I’m sorry. What I meant to say was I took your advice and did as you said.’
Moe lifted her chin and stared down her heavily powdered nose at him. ‘I don’t like it when I have to remind you to show me respect,’ she said. ‘It was my idea. Right?’
Turner nodded, the movement of his head barely perceptible.
‘You know how I like to have you tell me all them little stories. And you know I like to choose the girls you’re gonna tell me about. But I really don’t like having to remind you to show me respect.’
She began peeling off her gloves, and walking slowly around the desk towards him. ‘It makes me angry when that happens,’ she breathed. ‘Very angry indeed.’
Chapter 17
Following Sammy’s advice, not so much because she thought it was good advice, but more out of desperation, because, when all was said and done, it was all she had, Cissie set out early on Monday morning to set up the stall.
She didn’t usually bother working on a Monday, trade at the beginning of the week hardly made it worthwhile, but part of Sammy’s suggested plan was that she should do everything she could to make the stall seem as viable a business proposition as possible. And every little helped, every penny she could show the stall earning would help her to state her case more convincingly.
After making sure that Fat Stan was keeping an eye on her stock – thieving hands didn’t only come attached to the arms of ragged street urchins, City gents were just as liable to let bunches of roses slip up the sleeves of their expensive, cashmere overcoats – Cissie put the next stage of the plan into action.
Taking her courage in her hands, she went along to the telephone box by the station entrance and dialled the number on the business card that the silent man had given her on the previous Friday. As she waited for someone to answer, Cissie’s hands shook, but not nearly as much as her voice shook when she had to speak.
‘Hello,’ she stammered. ‘Is that Mr Clayborne? Mr Peter Clayborne?’
It was.
‘Aw…’ She paused, closed her eyes and swallowed hard. Remember what Sammy had said, she told herself. Come on. Remember.
‘Are you still there?’ the voice on the other end asked.
‘Me name’s Cissie Flowers,’ she blurted in reply. ‘I wanna come and see yer. Please. If yer’ve got the time, like. I wanna talk to yer about me pitch outside the factory. In Aldgate.’
That wasn’t how she had meant it to go at all, but, astonishingly, Clayborne didn’t seem to mind that she sounded like a jibbering idiot. He was actually agreeing, without any question, to see her in his office that very afternoon.
As she replaced the receiver, Cissie didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
‘Yer look like yer’ve been pole-axed, girl,’ Fat Stan kidded her good-naturedly, as she stepped out of the telephone box. He had grown almost fond of young Cissie Flowers in a funny sort of way. She was a bloody nuisance to him, but he had come to accept her as being the innocent party in all this. After all, he didn’t suppose it was her fault that Turner had taken a shine to her – she certainly hadn’t thrown herself at him, not like most of the silly little tarts he took up with.
When Cissie didn’t respond quick as a flash with a saucy bit of backchat, Fat Stan frowned. ‘Everything all right?’ he asked solicitously.
‘Yeah. I think so.’
She wandered along from the kiosk to the newspaper stall, a vague expression clouding her face, and, taking Stan by the arm, she pulled him out of earshot of Bernie, whom, although she wasn’t sure why, she still didn’t trust.
‘Stan,’ she whispered, pulling him down closer to her. ‘Guess what? I’ve got an appointment to go and see that property developer bloke this afternoon.’
Fat Stan raised a single furry eye
brow. ‘Have yer now?’ he said, flashing a look over her head towards Bernie. ‘The property developer, eh?’
Cissie was so nervous about the impending meeting that, for the rest of the morning, she scarcely took any notice of the few customers who stopped at the stall. What she did notice, all too plainly, was how the time dragged. She could have sworn that the church bells had been deliberately slowed down, just to make her feel worse. All she wanted to do was go and see this Clayborne bloke, say her two penn’orth, and get out of there. She wasn’t feeling very optimistic about her chances of persuading him of the value of Sammy Clarke’s plan, and so she just wanted the bad news over and done with.
The only thing which distracted Cissie from her clockwatching was practising the little speech which Sammy had written for her to recite to Clayborne. She went over and over the words in her head, repeating them as though they were a prayer of supplication. Sammy had insisted on her being word-perfect, explaining how important it was for her to know exactly what she was going to say, so that she wouldn’t get herself all confused and wind up wasting the opportunity by failing to make her point.
Cissie had agreed with him about that, she had agreed with him about all of it. Not because she thought it was all such a great idea, but, as she had already acknowledged, she hadn’t been able to come up with a better one.
This really was her last chance.
Sammy had printed the speech, neatly and clearly for her, on a sheet of lined paper torn from the back of one of his ledgers, and, by nine o’ clock Friday evening, Cissie had it off pat, she knew the speech by heart. But Sammy had said he wanted to be really certain and, much to Lil’s loudly voiced disgust, he had been in and out of number seven to practise it with her, reappearing in their kitchen at all sorts of inconvenient times during the weekend, even snatching the odd five minutes whenever the shop was quiet.
Lil had fumed and spluttered, tutted and sighed, while she watched Sammy coaching and encouraging Cissie as though she were a schoolgirl learning verse for a recital competition. In Lil’s opinion, Sammy Clarke had nothing of any interest or use to offer anyone in their household, and she would have preferred it if he had kept away from all of them.
By Sunday evening, Cissie felt she could have repeated the words in her sleep. But, with her nerves in such a state, she had to make really sure there would be no mistakes, and that was why she was going over it, time and again, as she stood at the stall, counting the long hours until her appointment with Clayborne.
In the end, she became so mesmerised by the sound and rhythm of the words that, if it hadn’t been for Fat Stan hollering along to her to get her skates on, she would have missed the meeting altogether.
Less than ten minutes after Stan’s reminder, Cissie found herself hovering shakily in the doorway of a sparsely furnished, windowless office situated above a printer’s shop in a dank, cobbled courtyard close to Fenchurch Street station.
When she had first pushed open the door, Cissie had been shocked to find that there was no one else in the room except the silent one of the pair who had so upset her on the previous Friday.
‘Come in, Mrs Flowers. Sit down. Or do you prefer to be called Prentice?’
The man had a surprisingly cultured voice; nothing like his roughly spoken companion who had done all the talking on Friday.
‘Flowers’ll be fine,’ she said, warily. ‘And you’re… ?’
‘Clayborne. Peter Clayborne. Now won’t you sit down? Please.’
He was so polite. It didn’t make sense. Not after the way the other man, who had had so much to say for himself at the stall, had spoken to her.
And why wasn’t he there? Or even some sort of assistant, or secretary, or someone? And him mentioning her actual married name, rather than Davy’s nickname; it all had the effect of further unsettling Cissie, as if she wasn’t nervous enough as it was.
She hesitated, then feeling ashamed of her childish reticence, she hurried across the office, aiming for the single vacant chair set at the side of Clayborne’s desk. But before she could reach her goal, she tripped over the mean square of mat that provided the only floor covering in the entire room, and went crashing into the side of his desk.
Clayborne shot out a steadying hand, but it was too late. As if in slow motion, Cissie slipped gracelessly to the floor.
She cursed herself under her breath. She had to compose herself, present herself as someone with a good business idea, an idea that was so good, he would feel he was really losing out if he passed it up. But here she was, acting like a gawky twelve-year-old, having to be helped to her feet after falling arse over elbow, and flashing her stocking tops at him into the bargain.
With a strained little smile, Cissie let go of his hand, noting, even in her confusion, how soft and smooth it felt against her wrist – more like a woman’s than a man’s – straightened her hat, and lowered herself demurely on to the chair.
‘Are you all right?’
Cissie nodded dumbly. Her cheeks were burning.
Clayborne eyed her quizzically. ‘You seem quite flustered, Mrs Flowers. I hope I’m not the reason.’
‘No. No,’ she insisted, shifting herself forward to the very edge of the chair. ‘I ain’t flustered.’
‘Make yourself comfortable, please,’ he said, his expression turning to one of barely concealed embarrassment as she wriggled around, pulling her skirt decorously over her knees.
‘So,’ he continued, with a gulp, ‘you wanted to see me.’
Cissie said nothing, the words just wouldn’t come. What had Sammy told her? Seem shrewd, positive. That’s it. That’s what she had to do.
She nodded enthusiastically, demonstrating the cheerful ease that Sammy had suggested would present a good impression for the meeting. In fact, she nodded very enthusiastically indeed, far more so than she’d actually intended. Her head wagged up and down like a demented chicken pecking for com. God she felt a fool. Why couldn’t she just do it like they’d planned? The way Sammy had told her to?
‘And it was about… ?’ Clayborne prompted her. He now looked almost as alarmed as she felt.
She nibbled the inside of her cheek and tugged anxiously at her fringe. She had to stop nodding.
‘About the stall,’ she eventually managed to mumble.
It was as though saying those three words triggered something in Cissie and prompted her into action. Quite suddenly she was transformed from being a bumbling idiot into a jabbering one. She just couldn’t stop the words pouring out of her mouth.
‘It’s like this, yer see,’ she began, waving and flapping her hands to emphasise her babbling. ‘Flowers are never gonna be a thing of the past, are they? I mean, people are always gonna want beauty in their lives. They always have and always will do. Even when they’ve got almost nothing in their purses, they’ll always find a few coppers for a little bunch o’ sweet violets. But I know what yer said, well what yer mate said, about things being modern and smart and that, so I’ve thought about that. And I reckon I could be a real credit to yer outside that place. I could go for the posher sort o’ trade, see. Where there’s plenty o’ money, even in these hard times.’
She laughed wildly. ‘Who ever heard of a poor posh person, eh?’
As she spoke, Cissie shifted even further on to the edge of her chair – it was a wonder she hadn’t slipped off altogether.
‘I get some good regular orders already, yer know.’ She had now bent forward, and was pointing at him. ‘And I could do orders for all sorts of places. Offices, hotels even. I’m full of ideas. There’s loads o’ ways I could make that stall look really classy. And flowers! I know more about flowers than—’
Cissie stopped as suddenly as she had begun. She had run out of words.
So, that was it. The best she could do. Now it was up to him.
She sat bolt upright and waited, staring at Clayborne, willing him to tell her that everything would be all right after all. And that even if she had made a complete fool of herself, h
e knew it was only because she was so nervous, and that he didn’t know why he hadn’t realised before what a brilliant asset to his offices it would be if he let her keep her flower stall pitched outside.
But Cissie wasn’t stupid, even if she had just acted as though she was. She knew it wasn’t going to be like that. It was all over. She’d had her chance to say her piece and she’d messed it up. She could see from the look on his face that Clayborne thought she was barmy. Why hadn’t she just said the words she’d practised? The words about profit and costs and overheads. The words that Sammy had explained to her and helped her with.
Clayborne shook his head, he had a grim, sorrowful expression on his thin, pallid face. ‘I’m sorry to disappoint you, Mrs Flowers. Very sorry. The stall obviously means a lot to you—’
‘Not just to me, Mr Clayborne,’ she cut in urgently. ‘It’s what I do to earn me living. For me family. I’ve got two little kiddies at home. They depend on me. I’m a widow. Then there’s Lil, that’s Davy’s mum…’
Clayborne pushed back his chair and stood up. He walked to the far end of the long, narrow room and stood by a door in the back wall that faced the door through which Cissie had entered.
He leant against the door-frame and began speaking in a slow, firm voice. ‘I would like you to listen to me, Mrs Flowers.’
‘What?’ Cissie demanded angrily. ‘Listen to you telling me yer gonna take away the only chance I’ve got of feeding me kids? Listen to you telling me yer gonna ruin me?’
‘No,’ Clayborne said bluntly. ‘Not ruin you.’ He shifted slightly to one side as though he were making himself more comfortable against the door jamb.
‘What are you saying then? Tell me that, eh?’
He raised his hand authoritatively. ‘If you’ll just hear me out, Mrs Flowers. Please.’
Cissie shrugged feebly, she was tight-lipped with helplessness. ‘What choice have I got?’
The Flower Girl Page 22