As to the last, Toby too had strong feelings, and for his own reasons single-mindedly set about making certain that this particular threat would not materialize. Tea at the Dicksons’, a few days after Hannah Patten’s visit to Sally, was a near-complete disaster.
Toby misbehaved from the start, deliberately Sally was certain, despite his later fervent denials. Josie’s father, Bill, a big man like both of his sons, with the massive shoulders and square, heavy face of the docklands held his tongue before the pleading eyes of his daughter, but no one could miss the clear itch in him to clip the recalcitrant child’s ear, and hard.
‘Tobe, fer God’s sake be’ave yerself!’ Sally said in desperation. ‘Put that thing down an’ come over ’ere.’
With great delicacy, Toby replaced the china cat he had been holding not quite squarely upon the narrow mantelpiece. Before anyone could move to save it, it teetered and fell with a splintering crash on to the tiled hearth.
Thunderous, Bill Dickson half-rose in his chair. No boy of his had ever been allowed to behave so, he’d made certain of that, and while the heavy belt that had knocked his two into order was still to hand he saw no reason why this too-clever-by-half young whipper-snapper should be allowed to run rings around his elders and betters—
Josie slipped between them. ‘Oh dear! Never mind. I never did much like that cat.’ She dropped to her knees, picking up the shattered pieces. Sally looked pure murder into a pair of raised, defiantly innocent blue eyes. ‘Come ’ere!’ she ordered, perilously quiet.
Face mutinous, he obeyed. Wally cuffed him lightly as he passed. ‘Clumsy little beggar!’ but his tone was tolerant and his hand light. Dan, quiet in his corner, watched not Toby but – as she was too well aware – Sally as she caught the lad’s wrist in a rough grip and pulled him to her side. ‘Be’ave!’ she hissed furiously into his reddened young ear, ‘or I swear I’ll skin yer!’
The child sat through tea scowling, managing to drop his buttered crumpet upon the floor, splash his tea upon Josie’s snow-white tablecloth and apply a good deal more jam to his face and fingers than he did to his scone. The conversation, despite all Josie’s and Wally’s best efforts was stilted, with Sally like a cat on hot bricks each time Toby moved or opened his mouth. When at last Josie broached the subject of their moving in temporarily with the Dicksons she shook her head sharply, ‘No – really. We couldn’t. You ’aven’t got the room.’
Bill Dickson, his eyes on Toby, did not disagree.
‘There’s plenty of space in Josie’s room for an extra bed.’ Slow-spoken Dan crumbled a piece of cake in a huge hand, ‘An’ we can easily stick a truckle in the kitchen for the lad. It’s only for a bit. Until you get on your feet.’
She cast an almost despairing look at him. His broad, good-natured face was as close to pleading as it could possibly come. On the tram that had brought them from Poplar he had spoken, quietly stubborn, of their staying at Bolton Terrace, had phlegmatically refuted every argument she had mustered against the plan. He sat now, steadfastly refusing to look at his father, an obstinate refusal to be budged written all over his face. He wanted Sally Smith here, under his eyes and within his reach. Then, surely, he could convince her how much she needed a good steady man, a strong arm, a decent home of her own, a couple of her own kids at her skirt.
‘It’s puttin’ you to too much trouble.’ When it came to stubbornness Sally was in there with the best of them. ‘I’ll find work soon – we can easily find a room then. P’raps round ’ere somewhere,’ she added weakly, a sop to the open disappointment and hurt she read in his broad, uncomplicated face.
‘It wouldn’t be any trouble,’ he said doggedly. ‘Josie says you’ve been really sick. You mustn’t try to work yet.’
She flashed him a glance of wry amusement at that. ‘’Oo d’yer think you’re talkin’ to, Dan? Lady Muck? Since when did the likes of you an’ me take to our beds an’ stay there?’
He grinned at that, as did the others. The atmosphere eased a little.
Toby knocked his cup and the tea slurped on to the now well-stained cloth.
‘There’s another meal in that cloth, Josie,’ her father said, eyeing the child repressively, ‘if yer put it through the mangle.’
Sally glanced around the tiny, neat room, cluttered now with so many in it, and shook her head. ‘It’s kind of you – but no – there isn’t the room, Jose. Yer dad’s got the right to come ’ome to a tidy ’ouse after a day’s work. ’E don’t want us fillin’ the place. Do yer, Mr Dickson?’
Caught, as she had intended, unawares by the direct question, Bill Dickson frowned ferociously. ‘I – er—’ he cleared his throat, his ruddy face suddenly afire.
‘Dad!’ Josie said.
Dan’s face dropped.
Sally covered Josie’s hand with hers. ‘I’ll find us a room somewhere close. I promise. But we got to be on our own, Jose. You do see that?’
The battle well and truly lost, Josie nodded with good grace. ‘All right. I suppose so.’ She would not look at her much-loved older brother’s tongue-tied disappointment. With wry exasperation she dumped the last large piece of fruit cake on Toby’s plate. ‘Here, Toby. Make a pig of yourself with that.’
‘Thanks fer your ’elp,’ Sally said drily to Toby later as they walked through the busy streets to the tram stop, Sally having adamantly refused Dan’s eager offer of escort, ‘but I could ha’ done very well without it. I don’t want to live there either.’
Toby glanced unrepentantly at her face, gauging her mood. ‘Where we going ter live, then?’ he asked tentatively.
‘Like I said. We’ll find a room.’
His face dropped.
She slanted a narrow glance at him. ‘Yer don’t like the idea?’
He was silent.
‘Tobe?’ Her voice was very quiet. ‘We’ve always bin all right on our own before. ’Aven’t we?’
‘Course.’
‘So – what’s changed?’
He shrugged.
She stopped walking, turned him to face her, oblivious of the hurrying crowds about them, the noisy, slow-moving traffic. ‘Toby? Tell me. You want ter stay with them instead of comin’ with me?’ There was no need to be more specific she knew.
His head shot up like a startled young animal’s. ‘No! No, Sal! Course not!’ He hesitated then, his young face troubled, ‘At least—’
‘What?’
‘Oh, Sal – can’t we both stay? Mr Ralph says we can.’
She shook her head. ‘No.’
‘But why not?’
‘Fer the same reason we’re not goin’ ter the Dicksons. You ’ave ter stand alone in this life, Toby lad. If yer don’t – if yer trust too much – if yer let people take yer over – you’ve got nothin’ left. Believe me. I know.’
‘But – you an’ me – we trust each other.’
‘Yes. Well – we’re different, aren’t we?’ Her voice was crisp. ‘You an’ me against the rest, eh? That’s the way it’s bin. Why change it?’
The child sighed.
She took his hand again. ‘Right then. That’s settled. But before we find a new ’ome,’ they dodged across the road, skipping behind a clanking tram, ignoring the bad-tempered whip-flourishing of the driver of a cart stacked with strong-smelling fish boxes, ‘we’re goin’ ter get our things back from the old one.’
* * *
The girl Betty, slovenly in a stained robe that gaped to show drooping, naked breasts, gawped at her visitors. ‘Gawd! It’s Sally, isn’t it? ’Eard tell you were dead!’
‘Just goes ter show yer shouldn’t believe all you ’ear. You goin’ ter let us in?’
The girl glanced uncomfortably over her shoulder and drew the door to behind her. ‘Well – it’s awkward yer see—’
‘What the ’ell yer doin’, Bet?’ A man’s voice, hoarse, irritated.
Betty shrugged, half-apologetically. ‘See what I mean?’ Her voice was low. ‘Sorry, Sal – you’ll ’ave ter go—’
&n
bsp; ‘Not without me things.’
‘Things?’ The girl looked vague. Her hair was like a bird’s nest and she smelled of stale perspiration and cheap gin.
Sally put a purposeful foot in the door. ‘Yes, Bet,’ she said pleasantly, ‘things. The things yer took from the room upstairs when the poxy landlord threw them out. Ter keep for me, so I was told.’
Betty shot a murderous look at Toby. ‘Oh, yeah. Them things.’ She hesitated a moment longer. ‘Wait a mo. I’ll get them.’
She closed the door. Sally and Toby stood in silence. The door opposite – Jackie Pilgrim’s door – stood shut. Toby pressed a little closer to Sally. His eyes were huge in the semi-darkness of the landing. Sally wondered how in so short a time she could have forgotten the vileness of smell spewed up by the tenements.
‘’Ere you are. All I could salvage.’ Betty’s door opened and unceremoniously she dumped a small bundle into Sally’s arms.
‘This all?’
‘Yes. I swear, Sal. The bleedin’ landlord kept the rest. In lieu of rent. I swear. You’re lucky I saved anythin’.’ Her voice was injured.
Sally watched her pugnaciously for a moment, then shrugged. ‘All right. Thanks.’ She turned to go.
‘Hey – Sal?’
Sally waited.
‘’Oo was the ’eavy that saw ter Jackie?’ Betty jerked her frowsty head at the closed door opposite.
Sally frowned. ‘Saw to ’im?’
Betty grinned, revealing wide-gapped, incredibly dirty teeth. ‘I should say. Not the toff ’e was, our Jackie. Ruined ’is pretty face ’e did—’
‘’Oo did?’
‘The lad that came after ’im. Big feller. Built like a barn. Reddish ’air. Everyone reckoned ’e must be a mate o’ yours. You don’t know ’im?’
Very positively Sally shook her head. ‘What ’appened?’
‘Like I said – ’e wiped the floor with Jackie an’ threw ’im out. Told ’im in no uncertain terms what’d ’appen if ’e tried ter crawl back. Our Jackie ain’t bin seen since. Can’t say I blame ’im.’ She grinned again, indicating with a long-nailed thumb over her shoulder the occupant of the room behind her, ‘The new lad’s moved in. Not half bad.’
Right on cue the hoarse voice called, ‘Bet!’
‘I’m comin’! Keep yer ‘air on!’ She turned back to Sally. ‘So – this bloke – the one that saw ter Jackie – ’e wasn’t a pal o’ yours?’
‘No.’
‘Ah. Thought ’e might be. But then again, might ’a bin somethin’ ter do with that other business – the girl, yer know? ’Cos ’e might ’ave looked like a prizefighter, but ’e surely didn’t talk like one. Talked real posh ’e did. Didn’t come from round ’ere.’
‘Betty!’
She raised eyes to heaven, lifted a hand. ‘See you sometime, p’raps?’
Sally nodded. Watched as the door closed.
Big. Built like a barn. Reddish hair. Talked posh. The description so fitted Doctor Ben Patten that she almost laughed aloud. It couldn’t be. Not possibly. But funny to think that somewhere loose in the East End of London was someone like enough to him who was capable of roughing up Jackie Pilgrim—
Laughing still she hitched her meagre bundle under her arm, took Toby’s hand and marched down the stairs.
* * *
She laid her plans firmly. She wanted no arguments, no recriminations. She would leave the Bear, and no one would stop her. Needless to say the last precious pennies of her savings had gone from the bundle she had collected from Betty, but still there was one good dress and a spare pair of shoes, and she had too the clothes that the Pattens had given her. Abie Mendleshon the pawnbroker would see her through on those with enough for a room and a couple of meals. Then she’d find work – any work. There was always a way to turn a penny if you were really desperate. She wouldn’t die of it. They’d be all right.
‘No,’ Toby said.
Sally stared at him, her heart suddenly slowing in a strange, sickly way. ‘What?’
Miserably the child stood, tears sliding down his fair, rounded cheeks. ‘Sal – please! – I don’t want to go! I want to stay here!’
She swallowed. ‘We can’t always ’ave what we want, Tobe.’
‘But we can have this! They want us to stay!’
‘No!’ The word was fierce. ‘They want you ter stay, yer little fool! Can’t yer see that? They don’t want me! Why would they? It’s you they want. They want ter put yer in school. They want ter take you away from me, Tobe. I’m what they’d call a bad influence on a kid like you.’ Her voice was bitter.
‘No,’ he said desperately, pleading. ‘No, Sal.’
She straightened, her face bleak. With difficulty and an enormous exercise of will she suppressed the churning of her stomach and the sudden, defeated urge to give in, to bring a smile back to Toby’s face, to keep what little she could of him for as long as she could. ‘Well,’ she said tonelessly, ‘looks like they’ve done it, doesn’t it? It ’ad ter ’appen, I suppose, some time.’
‘You’re still going? Without me?’ He could not believe it.
‘Yes. Like I said. Tomorrow morning. First thing. With you or without. It’s up ter you. Five o’clock, Tobe. Not a minute later. If you don’t come, I’ll go alone.’ She bent, suddenly and swiftly, to kiss him. Sobbing he clung to her. Through her own tears, ‘Stop snivelling,’ she said, ‘this is me only decent blouse.’ She propelled him, stumbling, towards the door. ‘Five o’clock,’ she said, sniffing hard. ‘If yer want ter come. Don’t forget. And Tobe—’
He turned a tear-stained face to her.
‘—not a word. You hear? Not a single, solitary word. To anyone. Or I’ll wring yer neck. All right?’
He nodded. She jerked her head roughly. He turned and ran from the room.
She walked to the window, face clenched against a storm of tears that once broken would defeat her entirely. She’d be better off without the little blighter. On her own and fancy free. One mouth was a damn sight easier to feed than two—
* * *
He did not come. She waited as the light strengthened and noise began to seep from the streets. He had, perhaps, overslept. But no. Her own night’s sleep had been troubled; she doubted if the child’s had been much better.
Ten minutes. Twenty minutes.
She was then, on her own again. Mouth set she picked up her bundle, glanced around the room, suddenly and alarmingly reluctant to leave. Then she slipped through the door, down the corridor and out into the chill morning air of the courtyard.
She was half-way down the street before he caught up with her, sniffing ostentatiously, wiping his cuff across his nose. He was carrying a small bundle and a spare pair of boots were slung around his neck, the laces tied together.
She swallowed hard.
He neither spoke nor looked at her. Nor, as he usually so naturally did, would he take the hand she offered. His narrow shoulders were hunched, his head bowed. In his right hand he held his bundle. The left was shoved firmly in his pocket. They walked several paces. Obstinately he kept his face averted.
‘So. Yer decided ter come after all?’
He nodded.
‘Cat got yer tongue?’
He plodded on, refusing to answer, refusing to lift his head and look at her.
She stopped. The street was empty apart from a skin and bone cat that scavenged the gutter with single-minded patience and an ancient horse and cart that ambled by piled high with sacks, its driver, swathed in a moth-eaten blanket fast asleep at the reins. ‘Toby?’
He lifted his face at last. It was the very picture of misery. The bright eyes, reddened and drowned in tears, were sunk dark into shadows, the small and usually rosy face pinched and fragile-looking. His soft lips quivered uncontrollably.
She stood for a long moment looking down at him, her face expressionless, her eyes narrowed, until the green and amber gleam of them all but disappeared behind the dark lashes. Then, with a sigh half exasperation half resign
ation she leaned and twitched the bundle from his unresisting hand. ‘All right, Toby Jug. You win. But listen – we stay fer just as long as it takes fer you to find out you’ve made a bad mistake, right? Then we’re bloody off. You ’ear me?’
He nodded, the woebegone little face suddenly utterly transformed.
She took his hand, turned around. ‘Yes,’ she said very firmly and quite evidently as much to herself as to him. ‘Only till then. Then we’re bloody off.’
PART TWO
1907
Chapter Five
I
Rachel Patten was born on a chill and overcast April day in 1907, and was, grudgingly to be sure, admitted by the midwife to be quite the prettiest newborn babe she had ever seen. Exhausted and not attempting to fight the waves of black depression that already threatened to swamp her, Charlotte Patten took one look at her daughter’s damp black curls and deep, brilliant eyes and turned away. She would never have believed she could endure such agony. The labour had been long and difficult: the memory of the last days and nights appalled her, the thought of its ever happening again was a nightmare she could not bear to contemplate. And for what? To produce this scrap for whom she felt nothing and in whom she knew with certainty she would never see anything but a reminder of humiliation, of shame and the waste of a life. Her life.
‘Come along, Mother. Don’t you want to hold the little one?’
Tomorrow, Jerusalem Page 14