Terry nodded eagerly. He reached out and grabbed Joyce almost before Cissie had set her down on the pavement beside him. He was being put in charge – well, as good as – and he liked the feeling.
‘We’ll all be all right, Mum,’ he reassured Gladys, getting Joyce in a grip firm enough to have held a dog chasing a rabbit. ‘And don’t worry,’ he added in a whisper, ‘I’ll keep an eye on ’em all.’
‘And no collecting up no strays on the way,’ Gladys called after them.
With much hooting and hollering, the children sped off along the pavement in the direction of home.
‘Right, that’s them taken care of,’ puffed Gladys, linking arms with Cissie. ‘Now we’ve got a bit o’ privacy, yer can tell me all about this secret o’ your’n.’
Cissie licked her lips and began. ‘Yer know I’ve been running the stall, Glad?’
‘No!’ Gladys exclaimed. ‘You never have! And there was me thinking yer was going out at the crack o’ dawn every morning to pick up sailors down the docks.’
‘Cheeky mare!’ grinned Cissie, elbowing her friend in the side. ‘I just don’t know where to start, do I? It’s sort of, well, difficult.’
‘Well, I know quite a lot about yer already, girl, so I reckon yer could start straight in with this secret, whatever it is, and,’ she added, laying her hand dramatically on her chest, ‘I promise yer, I won’t be shocked.’
‘Yer might be actually, Glad.’ Cissie halted, pulling Gladys to a stop beside her. ‘Sammy Clarke’s only asked me to marry him.’
‘‘He’s done what?’
Cissie looked round anxiously. ‘All right, Glad, don’t go shouting it so’s everyone can hear.’
‘Sammy Clarke.’ Gladys shook her head in amazement. ‘Here, is that what was going on just now? You two walking along all cosy together and him proposing!’
‘Yeah.’ Cissie nodded. ‘Yer know I couldn’t believe it. I thought I was hearing things at first.’
‘He’s always fancied you though, Cis. Everyone knows that.’
Cissie frowned. ‘Do they?’
‘Course they do.’ Gladys rolled her eyes at her friend’s naivety. ‘So how did he, you know, ask yer then?’
Instead of answering straightaway, Cissie pulled out her cigarettes and she and Gladys both lit one as they began to move slowly along the street.
‘Well?’ Gladys prompted her.
‘It’s all gotta do with the stall.’ She flicked a sideways glance at Gladys. ‘That’s what I was trying to explain. Anyway, it looks like I’m gonna lose the pitch.’
‘Aw, Cis, no, that’s terrible.’
‘I know. They’re pulling down the factory, see, and putting up offices with poncey little shops under ’em. The bloke what’s doing it offered me one. But there was strings attached, if yer know what I mean.’
‘I know what yer mean, all right, dirty bastard. They want it chopping off, some fellers.’
‘Yer right there, Glad. Anyway, so I told Sammy and he said maybe losing the pitch wasn’t such bad news, and that I could marry him instead.’
‘He never!’ This time it was Gladys who pulled them to a halt. ‘That’s gotta be the most unromantic, rotten way of proposing I’ve ever heard in the whole o’ my life.’
Cissie snatched a nervous drag on her cigarette. ‘I’m making it sound horrible, it wasn’t like that at all, it was… Anyway, I’ve only been a widow for six months, haven’t I? What does he expect?’ Cissie tugged anxiously at her fringe. ‘I dunno, Glad. What do you think?’
‘D’yer wanna know the truth? The honest to God, on my Ernie’s life truth?’
‘Course I do.’
‘Well, I think, Cissie Flowers, that you would be stark, staring, raving, flipping bonkers if yer didn’t jump at the chance. Say yes, girl! Don’t let this chance get away from yer.’
Gladys closed her eyes and threw back her head. ‘Being married to a grocer! It’s a sodding dream come true. Never having to worry about where the next meal’s gonna come from, or if yer can afford to make another pot o’ tea.’ She moaned ecstatically. ‘Bleed’n bliss! Marry him girl, and yer’ll never have to worry again.’
Cissie sighed wearily and blew a stream of smoke through her pursed lips, narrowing her eyes as she tried desperately to put her confused thoughts and churning feelings into words.
But all she could come up with was, ‘Yeah, Glad, but Sammy Clarke?’
Chapter 19
While Cissie and Gladys walked along slowly behind them – each deep in thought as to what marriage to Sammy Clarke would mean – the children got on with their much speedier and far more erratic journey home. Authorised bursts of running ahead of their mothers were interspersed with sudden halts, predetermined by Terry, at street corners where they were not only in danger from any passing traffic, but where they might also disappear from sight and get up to no good, meaning that Terry would be in trouble with his mum for letting them.
But once they’d turned into Linman Street the younger ones, apart from Joyce, all raced on ahead of him, heedless of his shouted instructions, warnings and threats, and threw themselves into the boisterous game of British Bulldog which the Godwins, and assorted other children from the surrounding neighbourhood, already had well underway. And which, despite her living at the other end of the street, Myrtle Payne had found reason to complain about, and was voicing her displeasure at a volume that was causing far more disturbance than all of the kids could manage between them.
It was this scene – Myrtle bellowing at the heap of sprawling children, including Terry, whose efforts at containment and order had been abandoned to the seductive thrills of knocking his mates flying across the rough surface of the tarry blocks and into the middle of the road – which confronted Cissie and Gladys as they turned into Linman Street.
Matty was the first to spot them coming round the corner, and was up on his feet and running towards them before they had even passed the shop.
‘All right if Terry comes indoors and sees me soldiers, Mum?’ he yelled, intent on cementing his alliance with such a grown-up kid as Terry Mills, a move that would definitely bring him honour in the playground. ‘I said he could but I had to ask you first.’
Relieved to see her son, who had been so serious lately, in such carefree high spirits, and determined to demonstrate to Myrtle that some adults actually approved of children having a harmless bit of fun, Cissie ruffled Matty’s hair and smiled down at him. ‘Course it is, babe, and tell yer what, why don’t yer take the rest of ’em indoors and all, and I’ll see if Sammy’s got a farthing’s worth of odds to share out between yers and all, shall I?’
Whoops of pleasure from the gang of kids disappearing into number seven were Cissie’s only answer, as she watched, with a sinking heart, as the Godwins, and a couple of other youngsters she knew by sight but not by name, all presumed that the invitation had been extended to them as well. She made a mental note to get out the nit comb before she put her two to bed that night – the Godwins being notoriously cooty – but refused to call them all back out as Myrtle was still standing there as though she was on guard duty.
‘I like to see kids having a good time,’ Cissie said loudly and pointedly, for Myrtle’s benefit, then added under her breath to Gladys as she pushed open the door to the shop, ‘Might as well try and keep the poor little so-and-sos happy while I can, eh, Glad? Cos I ain’t gonna be able to afford no luxuries like sweets when the stall’s finished.’
‘Blimey, Cis,’ Gladys whispered, as she followed her friend into the shop doorway, ‘you’re a bit bold coming in here so soon, ain’t yer? You ain’t made yer mind up already surely, have yer?’
Cissie’s eyes opened wide with realisation. ‘Aw Christ! I wasn’t thinking,’ she hissed back. ‘Mind.’ Cissie went to turn round to escape, but Gladys blocked her way.
‘Too late now,’ Gladys grinned, pushing her right inside. She followed her friend in and looked around the shop, shaking her head in wonder at such rich
es. ‘All this. Just look at it, Cis. All of it. You can have every single thing. A farthing’s worth of odds’ll be nothing. Yer’ll be able to have a quarter o’ pear drops or half a pound o’ barley sugars whenever yer feel like ’em. How can yer even think about turning him down?’
‘Gladys!’ Cissie spluttered, all too aware of Sammy’s chubby pink face beaming at her from across the counter, and of Ethel, arms akimbo, glaring at this interruption to her shopping. ‘Will you be quiet?’
‘Hello, Cissie. Glad,’ Sammy greeted them, keeping his eyes fixed on Cissie.
‘Oi!’ the elderly woman exclaimed, slapping her hand on the counter. ‘D’you want me custom or not, Samuel Clarke? Cos if yer don’t, there’s plenty of other shopkeepers round here what do.’
Very calmly, Sammy folded his arms across his aproned chest and addressed Ethel in a slow, unflustered way. ‘Well, Ethel,’ he began, ‘of course I do. In fact, I value your custom very highly indeed. I mean, I can’t think what I’d do to get by if I was to lose the price of a quarter o’ tea, a stale loaf, and a slab o’ marge every couple o’ days. But,’ and here, he gave a low, gentlemanly bow, ‘the choice of where you shop is, madam, entirely yours.’
Gladys didn’t quite register Sammy’s meaning for a moment, but then it clicked, and she threw back her head and burst out into loud, uninhibited laughter. ‘That told her, Sam!’
Ethel was fuming. ‘I’ve never in all my life—’
‘Aw, ain’t yer?’ squealed Gladys, now almost uncontrollable with laughter. ‘So where did your Lena come from then? Out o’ the cabbage patch?’
‘That’s it, I don’t have to come in here to get insulted.’
‘So where d’yer usually go for your insults then, Ett?’ Gladys snorted.
Catching Cissie’s stony expression out of the comer of her eye, Gladys thought that maybe she’d pushed things too far, so she bit her lip and did her best to stop herself from saying anything more, although her shoulders still shook with suppressed laughter.
Sammy, on the other hand, still had the devil in him and, knowing how Cissie had always enjoyed a lark, he carried on the joke. Eyes twinkling, he made a great show of wrapping Ethel’s purchases and then presenting them to her with a flourish as though they were the finest provisions from an exclusive West End emporium. ‘Madam,’ he pronounced solemnly, ‘your groceries.’
Gladys squeezed her lips tightly together as Ethel snatched up her things and strode across the shop to the door, with her chin in the air, and an angry, ‘I’ll pay you later, Samuel Clarke.’ Then she stood there in the doorway, waiting for any further cracks from any of them, muttering darkly about what Sammy’s mother and father would have had to say about such carryings on.
‘He did all that just to make you laugh, Cis, you do know that, don’t yer?’ Gladys whispered to Cissie behind her hand. ‘Yer know, I reckon he’d do anything to impress you. Give you anything yer wanted, he would.’
‘I dunno what’s got into you, Gladys, but I wish yer’d keep yer trap shut,’ Cissie spat back at her.
From her position in the doorway, Ethel narrowed her eyes at the two women whispering animatedly behind their hands. Going by her own standards they would be saying bad things about her, and she didn’t like it, but, as she had no allies there in the shop to support her, she stepped backwards to leave them to it. She would repay them later – with interest.
However, to add to her indignation, Ethel’s supposedly dignified withdrawal from the shop was ruined. Her exit was blocked by the sudden explosion of a bundle of youngsters all cannoning through the doorway at once, sending Ethel stumbling back into the shop.
‘Matty! What d’yer think you’re doing?’ Cissie demanded. She might not have had any time for the likes of Ethel Bennett but Cissie wouldn’t put up with that sort of behaviour from her children. ‘Now, you let Mrs Bennett out o’ that door at once!’
The sound of such determined authority in an adult’s voice was enough to chasten all of the children to a silent, respectful halt. They stepped to one side and let the now puce-faced Ethel leave with what little dignity she had left.
When the shop door was closed behind her and the little bell had stopped its jangling, Cissie spoke to Matty again. ‘Whatever’s got into you, child? Pushing past an adult like that. And I don’t know if I’m going to get them sweets I promised yer now. Not after that show-up,’ she added, wagging her finger at him. ‘And how about yer soldiers? I thought yer was all gonna play nicely together.’
Shamefaced at being the cause of his mother’s displeasure, Matty swung his shoulders from side to side and stared down at the sawdust-strewn floor. ‘Nanna Lil’s talking funny, and she told us all to get out.’
Cissie swallowed hard and flashed a sharp look at Gladys. Talking funny. They both knew what that meant. Lil was pissed again. Cissie felt like going straight over to number seven and wrapping her hands around Lil’s bloody throat and shaking her till she sobered up.
‘Glad, would you mind keeping an eye—’
Gladys didn’t let her finish. ‘We never finished that story that Uncle Ernie started earlier, did we?’ she said, taking Joyce by the hand.
‘He’s not Uncle Ernie,’ chipped in Gladys’s youngest. ‘He’s our dad.’
‘That’s enough of that, thank you very much.’ Gladys opened her eyes wide in warning, silencing him immediately.
‘Here, Sam,’ Cissie said, putting down a thru’penny piece on the counter, ‘weigh ’em out some sweets, will yer?’
‘Course I will,’ Sammy replied, reaching down and chucking Matty under the chin. ‘But I don’t need no money. This is my treat.’
With that, he flipped the coin back to her in a glittering arc, right across the shop.
As Cissie caught it, she also caught Gladys’s ‘I-told-you-so’ expression. The sight of her friend winking so knowingly had her fleeing from the shop faster than if she’d had Old Nick himself on her tail.
‘D’yer mind telling me how yer got the money to pay for this?’ Cissie asked.
She walked over to the kitchen table, snatched up the half-empty bottle of gin and weighed it in her hand.
Lil peered up at her through bloodshot, unfocused eyes. ‘It was another little surprise, weren’t it?’ she mumbled happily.
‘A surprise?’ Cissie asked, backing away from the blast of Lil’s alcohol-tainted breath. ‘How d’yer mean, a surprise?’
Lil smiled wonkily. ‘Money. Found it on the mat, didn’t I? Shoved through the letterbox it was, just like that other lot.’
Cissie dropped down on to the chair opposite Lil’s. ‘Give it here,’ she said slowly and deliberately.
‘What?’ asked Lil, her mind befuddled with the drink.
‘The rest o’ the money.’
Lil shrugged non-committally. ‘Don’t know if there is any more.’
‘Stop sodding around, Lil, or I’m gonna get the hump. Now, just hand it over.’
Cissie pocketed the two five-pound notes that Lil eventually surrendered to her, and then went over to put on the kettle, to start the process of sobering up her mother-in-law before the children came back from Gladys’s.
She sighed wearily to herself as she took down the tea caddy from the dresser. Lil was such a bloody nuisance. If only she hadn’t been Davy’s mum she would have booted her out of the house so fast her feet wouldn’t have touched the ground. But she was Davy’s mum and so she had to put up with her.
Anyway, she was lucky in other ways. She hadn’t even given Sammy his answer, but he’d still come straight back from walking along with her and had put the money through her door, just because he knew she was worried about losing the stall. He probably wouldn’t admit it though, just like last time, but Cissie knew it was him. There was no one else it could be.
He was a good feller. Really kind. But if only she could think of him as a man rather than as good old Sammy Clarke. If only he was a bit more like Jim Phillips…
* * *
By the time Cissie had managed to get her mother-in-law to swallow almost the whole contents of the teapot and to coax several slices of buttered toast down her throat, Lil was considerably less incoherent, and was even looking reasonably presentable. Not wonderful, but she would do for when the children returned from Gladys’s.
Cissie topped up the empty pot with a couple of spoons of tea leaves and some freshly boiled water and poured them both another cup.
‘There’s something I wanna talk to yer about before the kids get back,’ Cissie said carefully.
‘Aw yeah,’ Lil replied, stirring a heap of sugar into her tea. ‘Gonna tell me off for trying to forget me pain, are yer? That’s why I do it, yer know, to forget.’
‘Yeah, yeah, all right.’ Cissie rubbed her hands over her face. ‘But that ain’t what I wanna talk about – not this time anyway,’ she added bluntly. ‘I wanna talk to yer about something that’s gonna affect us all. Me, you, and the kids.’ Lil tore her gaze away from the gin bottle that Cissie had stood on the draining board, so tantalisingly close to her grasp, and looked across at her. ‘What yer talking about? Affect us all?’
‘Sammy Clarke’s asked me to marry him.’
‘He’s what?’ Lil screeched.
‘Calm down, Lil, I ain’t said I will or nothing.’
‘I should bloody well think you ain’t,’ she fumed.
‘I know it must hurt, Lil,’ Cissie said, staring down at the tabletop. ‘Davy being yer only son. But I’m a young woman. I don’t like even to think about it, but I’m probably gonna get married again one day, and so—’
‘This ain’t nothing to do with Davy,’ Lil snapped.
Cissie raised her eyes and looked at Lil who was almost vibrating with temper. ‘How d’yer mean?’ Cissie asked carefully.
‘I couldn’t give a bugger who yer marry, or when yer marry for that matter,’ she sputtered. ‘In fact, the sooner the better for my part. I’m fed up skivvying round here while you swan about all day. But what the hell does a good looker like you wanna waste yer time with a no-hope, sodding grocer like Sammy Clarke for?’
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