Shameful Secrets on Coronation Close, page 27
Jenny nodded. ‘He found the stolen item in one of their bags. At first, Robin thought Roy had broken in, but the glass lay outside the window not inside.’
‘Little horrors!’
‘He thinks Doreen put them up to it. She wants to cause trouble between me and Robin – and she has done. I’m not sure I can forgive him for blaming Roy. There was no reason for it except… Robin being biased against him.’
Bert was talking to someone up at the bar, giving Thelma time to decide about telling Jenny that she’d seen Charlie. She decided that she would, it might raise her spirits.
‘I saw Charlie the other night.’
Jenny’s drink had been halfway to her mouth. It remained there, untouched as her mouth hung open. ‘Charlie? Where?’
‘I was heading for the bus.’ She decided not to mention that he’d thought she was being followed. ‘He asked after you.’
Jenny shook her head, though could not hide her small smile of triumph. ‘I think I made the right decision there. Perhaps Roy is right. It’s best to wait until the girls are older.’
‘You’ll be too old for men then,’ Thelma laughed.
‘Perhaps. Then I’ll buy a rocking chair and take up knitting.’
Thelma laughed along with her at the prospect of both of them knitting for grandchildren. In Thelma’s case it was a certainty. In Jenny’s place merely a possibility.
Jenny sipped at her drink before asking if Thelma had passed on the wool she’d bought to her friend.
Thelma nodded. ‘Yes.’ Divulging anything would ultimately lead to questions about Sam Hudson. Only George and the expected grandchild mattered. To that end, she said, ‘I think I should take up knitting in earnest for my grandchild. Can’t wait,’ she squealed. ‘I just can’t wait. Here’s to new life – and Coronation Close.’
‘Coronation Close,’ said Jenny. ‘The best thing that ever happened to me.’
33
It was around eleven o’clock in the morning in early October when the new tenants began moving into Mrs Partridge’s old house.
Like all the others in the close, Mrs Partridge’s old place had just three bedrooms. It hardly seemed large enough for the family who were to move in. Jenny counted five children.
Their belongings formed a pyramid shape on the horse-drawn cart. On top of it sat a small boy, his face half hidden thanks to the overlarge woollen hat he was wearing.
Behind the horse-drawn vehicle, a man and woman bent their backs into pushing a handcart loaded with more of their belongings. So, seven people in the house. It wasn’t that unusual but did make her wonder how they would all fit in. She surmised that some of the children would be top to tail, just as her girls had been back in the days when they’d lived in Blue Bowl Alley.
The neighbours watched, some tutting in disapproval at the sight of the newcomers and the noise they brought with them. Raucous voices and choice words rang out as the new arrivals tramped in and out of the house carrying bits of furniture and household items.
Cath came knocking on the pretext of borrowing a cup of sugar. From the front doorstep, they both scrutinised the new arrivals, Cath whispering under her breath that they looked like gypsies, Jenny shushing her and telling her not to be rude. In response, Cath snorted indignantly and went home.
Their clothes looked as though they’d seen better days, their hair was matted and wild. The man had a shiny head and wore a red muffler around his neck. The wife wore a battered hat perched on top of a mass of untidy curls, hair clips hanging from wispy strands around her face.
To be neighbourly, Jenny decided to pop round and offer a cup of tea.
‘You two can come with me,’ she said to the girls.
‘Why?’ asked Tilly, wrinkling her nose in disgust.
‘You always question,’ said Jenny as she put the kettle on.
‘I don’t think I want to,’ said Gloria. Her nose wrinkled in the same disapproving manner as her sister. ‘They’re scruffy. They’ll smell.’
Jenny rolled her eyes. It seemed both needed a good talking-to about being kind and the advantages of charity.
‘They’re just poor. Now come on. Let’s take out a tray. I’m sure they’ll appreciate it.’
Balancing a tray of cups and saucers, she headed out of the house feeling she would be doing her new neighbours a great service.
Reluctantly, the girls trailed behind her, Gloria carrying a sugar bowl and Tilly a plate of biscuits.
The woman saw them coming, stopped what she was doing and stared as though they were wielding a machine gun not a tray of tea and biscuits.
Jenny fixed a smile on her face. ‘I thought you might like a cup of tea.’
Frowning, the man came to stand beside his wife, looking as though he was ready for a fight. The children gathered round, their faces wary until they spotted the plate of biscuits. Grubby hands dived fiercely onto the plate, grabbing what they could and sending Tilly backwards into the hedge.
‘Mind yer manners,’ shouted their father, arms whirling like a windmill and accompanied by a thwacking sound as his heavy hands landed clouts around heads and they fell back to avoid more blows.
To Jenny’s surprise, he didn’t turn to her to apologise but snatched the plate from Tilly, who looked as terrified as his own children.
‘Bloody ’ell, Ada. They ain’t left a crumb.’
Ada, the woman in the battered hat with straggly hair, looked down at the plate and shook her head. ‘You ain’t left us a bleedin’ crumb. You little beggars,’ she shouted, lashed out and landed a few whacks herself.
‘There’s plenty of tea,’ said Jenny.
They glugged the tea in one gulp. The kids did the same, though only once they were sure of avoiding their father’s heavy smacks.
Once the tea was gone, they went back to ferrying the last of their possessions from carts to house. Jenny’s tea plate went with them but she did manage to retain her cups, saucers and three teaspoons.
‘Let’s go indoors.’
All three sighed with relief once they were back inside.
‘Told you so,’ said Gloria, wrinkling her nose in the same fashion as before. ‘They smell.’
Tilly had nothing to say, absorbed as she was in making a sugar sandwich whilst the basin was within sight.
On Thelma’s return from work, Jenny mentioned what had happened. Together they observed the scene from Jenny’s living-room window.
‘I don’t think the Arkle family like our new neighbours in Dorothy Partridge’s old place.’
Thelma grunted her agreement. Beneath the muted glow of the street lights they watched as the scruffy Arkle children were facing off the new arrivals from number one.
‘The Arkle kids have been out there most of the day and so have the new lot,’ said Jenny.
‘They should be in school,’ declared Thelma.
‘The school inspector is going to have his work cut out. Two families now instead of one. He’s always coming round to see why the Arkle kids aren’t in school. Not that he gets anywhere. Mr Arkle shouts at him to shove off and Mrs Arkle, if she’s there by herself, shakes her head and tells him she doesn’t speak English. Though she does.’
She went on to tell Thelma about Robin seeing Mrs Arkle and the kids selling bunches of flowers at Arnos Vale Cemetery.
‘So that’s where all the flowers have gone from Mrs Partridge’s garden!’ Thelma sighed.
‘And the vegetables from the back garden. I didn’t have the heart to say anything. Mrs Arkle cooking them up is better than seeing them rot.’
‘I never thought I would say this, but come back Mother Partridge. All is forgiven.’
‘Is it?’
‘Everything changes. People move on. Or die.’
They fell silent. Dorothy Partridge had been standoffish and difficult, but for good reason and all thanks to a terrible war. As for her husband Harry, they both spoke of him, wondering where he was and hoping he was all right. Living as a woman for all those years in order to avoid prison must have been difficult. But at least they’d been respectable and kept a tidy garden. The new family that had taken over her house were of the same ilk as the Arkles. In time, they might get used to them, though might was a very big word.
Jenny said it out loud. ‘We’ll get to know them in time and they’ll get to know us.’
‘Right,’ said Thelma. ‘And we do have Bert to hand.’
Jenny smiled. ‘When he’s not sculpting and painting nude women.’
Thelma laughed. ‘Just one woman. Nude or otherwise.’ She looked at Jenny, her eyes shining. ‘He’s asked me, Jenny. He’s asked me. For his next project.’
‘Will you?’ Jenny asked.
Thelma folded her arms and took a deep breath. ‘It could lead to me being Mrs Bert Throgmorton? He don’t mind that I’m going to be a grandmother.’
They stood for a while watching the horse and cart move away from the kerb, the empty handcart now tossed in the back, rumbling off into the darkness.
‘I feel sorry for them,’ said Jenny.
Thelma nodded. ‘The family name is Warren according to Bert. They were living in a caravan in Leigh Woods but somebody set it on fire. He wasn’t sure if they’d done it themselves. There but for the grace of God and all that.’ She sighed. ‘They could do with our help – a few bits and pieces.’
‘Just as you did me.’
‘There’s a jumble sale down in St Stephen’s church hall in town. We’ve got three new salesgirls at Bertrams to take on the Saturday afternoon shift so I’ve got this Saturday afternoon off. Fancy going?’
34
Autumn was golden and hung on into late October even at Filwood Broadway.
Robin’s business was going very well and Jenny was enjoying working there, though after the incident with the silver baby’s rattle she kept a close eye on his children.
They did seem more subdued after Robin had paid Doreen a visit and told her there would be no more maintenance if she put them up to stealing again.
‘You should be ashamed of yourself, encouraging our kids to be thieves. Who knows where they could end up?’
Doreen had been her usual belligerent self, shouting and swearing, but on seeing he was adamant and terrified at the thought of losing part of her income, she backed down.
At least for now, thought Jenny. She’d support him all she could after all he was the main man in her life nowadays. It was rumoured that Charlie Talbot had left the area, off up north to stir things on behalf of the working man, though in all honesty the working class didn’t seem that aware of it.
It was a long way off but Thelma was already planning a welcome home for her son and new daughter-in-law.
‘I’ve been asking about council houses. George hasn’t said he wants to settle down in Bristol, but it is his hometown isn’t it? Stands to reason doesn’t it?’
Jenny didn’t contradict her but did ask if she was already knitting things for the forthcoming birth.
Thelma shook her head. ‘No.’
‘You’ve been going to the wool shop a lot.’
‘For a friend,’ said Thelma in a muted tone. She went on to tell Jenny how she’d been visiting Beryl Hudson, the incapacitated woman who had the misfortune to be married to Sam Hudson, the man she hated most in the world.
Jenny looked at Thelma with astonishment.
‘You’re still visiting her?’
‘Yes. When I can. Thing is I can’t be nasty to the poor woman. I’ve been there a couple of times now with bundles of wool. Sometimes he’s locked her in the bedroom and sometimes I get to take tea with her. Mind you I’m quick to wash the cups up afterwards.’ She shuddered. ‘I certainly don’t want that rotten sod finding me there or know that I visited. We’d both be for it.’
They both agreed they lived full lives and thoroughly enjoyed helping people who needed it – even the two new families who’d moved into the close.
Both Thelma and Jenny managed to go to a few jumble sales where they bought some things for themselves and some for the new lot at number five. At first, the Warren family had been wary and sometimes downright surly. In time, they’d swallowed their pride and even invited them into the house.
The interiors of their house had been as untidy and dirty as they’d expected, but they were poor, they told themselves. They couldn’t help it.
Thelma and Jenny had declined having a cup of tea after seeing Mrs Warren wiping out a teacup with a dirty dishcloth. But at least the ice was broken.
What remained was a festering feud with the Arkle family. Nobody could quite understand why. Both families were as poor as church mice, but they’d taken an instant dislike to each other. Surely poverty should have been the levelling factor between them?
Thelma wisely pronounced that as long the feud didn’t affect them, there was nothing they need do about it.
‘Besides, I’ve got my own family to think about.’
‘You mean George and his bride, plus a new arrival!’
‘I can’t wait.’
‘It’s a while yet.’
‘I can’t help it,’ Thelma retorted. ‘A new baby. Who would have thought it.’
Jenny didn’t remind her best friend that there had been the prospect of another baby earlier in the year. The thought saddened and angered her. She knew the same was true for Thelma. The attack shouldn’t have happened, but the baby was not to blame. A baby never was.
On their way to the bus stop and home, Thelma and Jenny walked arm and arm saying nothing but mutually cosy with warm thoughts.
A flock of mallards, male with green necks, quacked voraciously and took off as a barge on the river blew its horn.
Thelma’s attention was diverted to the boat and the water. She was thinking about George and the year to come when he would be home and introduce her to his new wife.
‘George and getting married,’ she said suddenly. ‘It wasn’t anything to do with her being Italian, Jenny. I knew you thought that, but it isn’t true.’
Her lips spread in a wide smile, Jenny tossed her head. ‘I know. It’s because you love him and worry about him.’
‘Hmm. That’s what Bert said.’
‘Bert’s a wise man.’
‘And you’re a wise woman, Jennifer Crawford.’
‘Jennifer! It’s been a long time since anyone called me that.’ She laughed at the very thought of it. Roy had never called her Jennifer. Her mother had only called her by her full name when she’d done something wrong. It always sounded as though she was shouting it out in capital letters.
They fell into the easy comfort of two friends. Sometimes they talked a lot. Sometimes they didn’t need to, their silences as meaningful as their words. There was understanding between them.
Thelma was first to break the silence. ‘Seems a long time since you moved into the close.’
‘It was quite a year when I first came here and got to know you. The old king died and the new one, who now calls himself Duke of Windsor, let you down.’
‘All turned out for the best though didn’t it.’
Jenny agreed with her. ‘Oh yes. Everything turned out for the best. I lived a lonely life until I moved into Coronation Close. Except for having my kids, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. It’s good to have friends.’
Thelma nodded and gave the arm she held tight to her side an affectionate squeeze. ‘You can say that again. Plus we got a new king and whole family who look to be worth their salt.’
‘I think you’re right.’
They both had obstacles to face and overcome in the coming year, but living in Coronation Close was something to celebrate whatever fate might throw at them.
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Chapter One
Slight of stature, dark-haired and dark-eyed, fifteen-year-old Maisie Miles was currently engrossed in a world of her own. Though the newspaper sellers and the wireless shouted warnings of war to come, it meant nothing to her.
The world, her surroundings and everything else, was blanked out by the letter she’d almost snatched from the postman’s hand. She’d bobbed out of that front door ten times at least that morning, waiting for him to come so she could grab the letter before he had chance to shove it through the letter box. Hopefully it would be her ticket out of York Street, the Dings and the larger area that was St Phillips’ Marsh.
The envelope was blue, the paper of a quality she’d never encountered before. The letter inside matched the envelope both in colour and quality.
Her brown eyes glowed and her creamy complexion burst into pinkness as she read the letter for the third time.
Dear Miss Miles,
In response to the reference I received from your teacher Miss Smith, and the fact that since leaving school you have experienced some domestic work in the kitchen of the Royal Hotel, in Bristol, I am delighted to offer you the position of kitchen maid at Priory House, Long Ashton, which, as I am sure you know, is just outside the city of Bristol and not far from Ashton Court…
Feeling sublimely happy, Maisie closed her eyes and held the letter to her heart. Bliss. Green fields and trees. She’d never been to Ashton Court, but the redoubtable Miss Smith had told her that the sumptuous mansion had been built with the proceeds of a vast sugar plantation on the island of Jamaica.
The letter had come from the housekeeper who was known personally to Miss Smith.
