New Neighbours for Coronation Close, page 6
Gladys spat on her palm before picking up the coins. With greater energy than she’d so far exhibited, she lifted her skirt, exposing a pair of knee-length bloomers. The money disappeared into one of two pockets sewn into each bloomer leg. The skirt fell like a curtain over the secret stash, a secure cash register that few would attempt to rob.
A big puff of smoke rose into the air by way of celebration.
‘I’ll ’ave Robin bring it round this afternoon. He’ll be there like a rat up a drain when he hears who it’s for.’
Although taken slightly aback by Gladys’s description of how Robin would react, Jenny left the shop with a spring in her step.
4
On the way home, Jenny bought one pound of pigs’ liver and some bacon scraps from Reynolds the butchers at the bottom of Union Street.
Abe Reynolds was on top form, a twinkle in his eye for any woman under sixty who came into his shop.
‘You look pleased with yourself,’ he said.
She laughed. ‘I didn’t know I was.’
‘Looking happy is the best way of staying happy,’ he said.
‘I feel happy. Yes. I feel happy.’
So true. The bed had brightened her day. And Robin Hubert would be delivering it. Even that seemed something of a bonus, taking her as it did back to old times before she was married, even before she’d met Roy Crawford. What a happy time that was, or at least from a distance it seemed that way.
The butcher wrapped her purchases up in white paper and was about to add another layer with a sheet of old newspaper but stopped. ‘Whoops. Can’t do that. Can’t wrap a pound of pigs’ liver in something with mention of the king’s name on the front page. It wouldn’t be right.’
With studied respectfulness, he folded the newspaper in four and laid it to one side.
For some, he was the only king they’d ever known. Some had been small children when he’d ascended the throne back in 1911. They were now in their twenties.
On the way home, she passed a board outside the newsagents and paused to read the headlines. She’d always liked reading. The books she’d brought to her marriage had been sold long ago, the money gone on things more necessary for a home, bedding, children’s clothes. They grew so fast. Roy had sold the few books that had survived. Protesting had been useless. When Roy had decided they had to go, that was it. They were gone.
She stopped and considered buying a copy. Roy had specifically said that she wasn’t to throw money away. Would he regard a newspaper as a luxury? Yes. Of course he would.
Even so, she hesitated. A quick glance at the headlines didn’t tell her much. They mostly related to the royal family, preparations for the coronation and what the new king was up to.
On closer inspection, she espied an article and photo of a local march by Oswald Moseley sympathisers. Closer perusal revealed that fights had broken out between the Blackshirts as Moseley’s followers were termed, and members of the communist party.
On a sudden urge, she pulled out a few coppers and bought the midday paper. Roy, who today had drawn the day shift, wouldn’t arrive home until around six, so hopefully would be none the wiser. She certainly didn’t want him there when Robin delivered the bed. He knew they’d been childhood friends and even though it was a long time ago, Roy wouldn’t see it that way. What was he doing in his house? Was something going on? What were they doing alone there together?
She ran up the winding staircase to the top floor. The sooner Robin had been and gone, the better.
Hunger gripped her stomach, reminding her that she’d ate nothing since early that morning. On went the kettle, out came a loaf of bread and a bowl of beef dripping. Tea without sugar and a thick slice of bread scraped with dripping and dribbled with salt wasn’t much of a meal but was all she had time for. She had a bedframe to take apart and once that was done all she needed was a pair of strong men to take it down the stairs. Isaac, with his bad legs, couldn’t possibly make it. With Robin’s help, she would manhandle it down the twisting stairs and broken treads.
Briefly, eyes fixed on the sky beyond the window, her thoughts went back to how it had been in the sweet years when Roy had first come to work for her father. He’d been the apple of her eye although at first he ignored her. Her mother had called it puppy love. Her father hadn’t really noticed. He’d carried on with the business as best he could, though some days he just sat in the corner, noticing nothing including Roy not doing anything if he could help it. Not that Jenny had really noticed. She’d liked his rebellious nature, comments about the war and those that had been in charge.
‘Donkeys leading lions – and from miles behind the front lines.’
The bedstead came apart easily giving her a little more time to put her feet up. Toast and tea hot and ready, she sat down in their one and only armchair, flicked the newspaper flat on her lap and began to read.
The headlines regarding the proposed coronation of the new king took precedence. There were pictures. Some were from his father’s funeral. Others were more recent. To her mind, he didn’t look very happy in any of them. In one of them, he was waving his hat at the crowds. Only in that picture did he show the trace of a smile. Perhaps the prospect of all that responsibility was too much to bear. Perhaps Roy was right. Everyone had thought him fun-loving though little was known except that reported in the press and on the wireless. Good-looking, fashionable, keen on golf and partying and ‘caring for his people’s welfare’. She wondered if that was true and then went on to wonder if there was a sweetheart in his life. None had been mentioned, but princes and kings were born to marry princesses whether they loved them or not. That must be hard, she thought and mused on her own marriage. Would things have been different if she hadn’t married the man she’d thought herself in love with?
There were a few articles inside the paper that caught her eye. Pledges of loyalty from important people, suggestions about how best to celebrate the new king’s ascension to the throne – after a suitable period of mourning of course.
She was about to throw the newspaper into the gate before Roy saw it when she spotted the headline and photo of a Blackshirt rally. Faces twisted with hatred had been caught by the photographer. Fists were flying as were hats and caps. The faces beneath them could have been of men she knew, working men of every description like those who’d marched in the General Strike in 1926. She’d been a new bride back then, had read about the working man’s determination to fight for better wages for all.
She wasn’t sure what Oswald Moseley’s Blackshirts stood for but did know their opponents were socialists and communists.
As a child, she’d seen the hollow faces and sombre looks of her father’s friends in the front parlour of their house in Berkeley Street, Eastville. She’d also overheard them saying that a quarter of the population were unemployed, that one hundred and fifty people a day were dying from malnutrition. Things had improved, but poverty was still widespread. Her mother had marched with others, including Gladys Hubert. They’d been vigorous campaigners against deprivation.
‘Listen to me,’ she’d said to the young Jenny. ‘When money is scarce, love flies out of the window. Being poor brings nothing but heartache.’
Gladys had hinted at much the same.
Jenny’s gaze returned to the photograph of the fighting Blackshirts. One face amongst the expressions of hatred stood out. She couldn’t be sure. There was so much going on around it: gargoyles, not the faces of men, but still, was that Roy amid all that violence?
The prospect of him seeing it scared her. Page by page was screwed up into a tight ball and thrown onto the fire where it burned, blackened and was reduced to ashes.
It was around four in the afternoon, later than promised, when Robin arrived with the pony and cart, the brass bedframe glinting like gold in a sliver of sunlight that managed to pierce the leaden sky and touched its errant brightness.
After bringing the cart to a halt, the skewbald pony shook its head before hiding its muzzle in the nose bag Robin took from beneath the driver’s seat.
Whilst he was thus occupied, she noted his broad shoulders and brimming confidence. Once the horse was taken care of, he turned his attention to Jenny. Their eyes met. Shared affection, a remnant left over from their childhood attraction, brought smiles to both their faces. His was so broad, it seemed to split his face in two.
‘Mrs Crawford. How are you doing today?’
She touched her hair a little self-consciously, knew it was clean and glossy because she’d washed it only the night before.
‘I’m fine. And how are you, Robin?’
He tipped her a wink. ‘Jenny, if you weren’t already married, I’d think I was in with a chance.’
‘Saucy devil. Anyway, you’re married yourself.’
His smile lessened and a haunted look came to his eyes. ‘Aye. That I am.’
She wondered at the brief flash of something in his eyes. Disappointment?
‘Is your family well?’
‘My kids are growing up. Billy and Emily.’
She saw happiness at mention of his children. She didn’t know his wife, Doreen, very well so didn’t ask after her. Neither did he offer any information.
They bantered as old friends do. Some might call Robin brash, but his bright and breezy attitude was harmless enough, his banter welcome.
His shirtsleeves were rolled up to the elbows, exposing his hairy arms, his waistcoat hung open. Dark curls escaped from beneath a corduroy flat cap set at a jaunty angle. White teeth flashed when he smiled. As a child, he’d told her his grandfather was Italian. She was unsure whether it was true or not.
‘I might need a hand getting this up that spiral staircase,’ he said, giving the bedframe a slap. ‘Nightmare they are. Could put a strong young bloke’s back out.’ He smiled as he rolled his shoulders to emphasise the point, when in fact it did precisely the opposite. Thanks to all the moving and lifting of furniture, it was unlikely to be the truth.
She laughed at his showing off. ‘Not with them muscles, Robin Hubert.’
He glanced up at the crumbling façade of number five Blue Bowl Alley. ‘The old man around to give me a hand?’
She shook her head and rolled up her sleeves. ‘If you want a good man to do a job, get a woman. That’s me. I can help you get it upstairs and the single bed you’re to collect is already in pieces.’
He drew his chin into a disbelieving yet admiring look. ‘You sure?’
She folded her arms across her chest. ‘Robin Hubert, you should know me well enough to know that I’m far from being a weak and feeble woman and don’t you forget it. Now come on. Let’s get on with it.’
It took almost an hour to manoeuvre the head, foot, side frames and bedspring base of the new bed up the narrow twisting staircase. The mattress was the easy bit. The bedsprings, even though they folded up, were the bulkiest, therefore difficult to get round the sharp turns in the stairs.
Jenny heard Robin swearing under his breath as he tugged at one end and she pushed from the other.
Leaving flakes of plaster behind them where they’d bumped against the wall, they finally made it.
Once in the bedroom, Jenny paused to catch her breath, sweat on her forehead and hands resting on her waist.
Robin barely paused for breath but nodded at the bits of the single bed. ‘That’s ’andy. Thank your old man for doing that.’
Jenny folded her arms across her chest, cocked her head to one side and fixed Robin with a matter-of-fact look. ‘Yeah. I would do, only he didn’t,’ she said. ‘I did it. I’ve never been helpless you know.’
Shoving his cap back further on his thatch of dark hair, he grinned at her. ‘Much appreciated. Old man too busy then?’
‘He’s been weighed on a lot of late. You know how it is down the docks. If you’re in favour, milk it for all it’s worth.’
‘Good fer ’im. Some of them dock gaffers can be right… nasty.’ Both he and she knew he’d been about to use the word that inferred gaffers were born out of wedlock.
She offered Robin a cup of tea. Would he know something that she didn’t? Would he tell her?
He declined the tea. ‘Too busy, love. I’ve strict instructions to get this bed frame back before seven thirty. There’s a customer waitin’ for it.’
He declined her help getting the bits down the stairs.
‘It’s only a single. I can do it in two trips.’
‘Go carefully.’
‘I will do,’ he shouted back.
There was only emptiness once he was gone. It was a bit like seeing the past escape from before your very eyes.
She longed for that gap to be filled, for him to return and say he’d changed his mind about taking tea with her.
The bell in a nearby church chimed five. Tilly and Gloria came racing in, grabbed a slice of bread and dripping each then ran out again.
Alone again.
‘Cooee!’
The clumping of footsteps accompanied the wavering cry.
Brenda Armitage cleaned the public bar of the Bunch of Grapes in King Street just off the city centre. She was around fifty years of age had no teeth and iron-grey hair. Her hands were red with hard work.
She smiled a snaggle toothed smile. ‘The hens are laying. I brought you round three eggs. Thought you could make use of them.’
‘Are you sure?’
Brenda kept chickens in old orange boxes with bits of wire over the front. Jenny reckoned she had a dozen at least. Some of them were cockerels that crowed first thing in the morning. Goodness knows what the neighbours must think.
‘I got loads,’ she said. ‘They’re laying well lately.’
Like her friends Grace and Polly, Jenny sometimes ran into Brenda down at Bakers buying bacon bones to make broth. She’d broadly confided a few pointers as to what men said when there were no women around.
‘Jack Fudge reckons being a pub landlord behind that bar is like being a priest in a confessional. He gets to hear everything.’
Jack Fudge was a burly man with a thick moustache and bushy sideburns. A profusion of tattoos acquired during his days in the merchant navy ran up each arm.
Jenny wasn’t a great one for going in pubs unless it was with Roy and that didn’t happen much nowadays. Anyway, she was unlikely to hear much if she went in there asking questions. Jack Fudge favoured the ringing of his cash register. The last thing he was likely to do was upset his customers’ secrets.
Jenny had pretended to be amused at Brenda’s eavesdropping. She’d exclaimed, ‘Some saucy stuff, I bet!’
They had been in the queue at Bakers corner store when Brenda had told her all this. She’d kept her voice low so low that Jenny had to urge her to speak up.
‘I can’t catch what you’re saying.’
‘Got to keep me voice low,’ Brenda had replied. ‘There’s a lot of ears wagging in this queue.’
Brenda had leaned in close. Her breath was warm and wet against Jenny’s ear.
‘There’s a bit of trading goes on in the Bunch of Grapes, I can tell you. Stuff that’s fallen off a lorry – only there ain’t any lorry. Nicked stuff straight from the docks.'
Jenny had arched one eyebrow in feigned surprise. Married to a docker, she knew full well what went on. Roy had once brought home a piece of meat carved from a frozen carcase and shared out between the gang working the ship that day. She guessed that thieving and sharing a bit with the gaffer was one of the reasons Roy had more regular work nowadays. Sometimes it was a bottle of spirits from a broken crate – bottles of port or sherry for a start. Jenny and her daughters had tasted raw chocolate from West Africa. It had resembled brown stones, not like refined chocolate at all. She’d also watched as Roy had sat at the table and rolled out golden leaves of Virginia tobacco. She’d smelt the rich aroma as he’d sliced the fine leaf with a cut-throat razor or sharp carving knife. The resultant tobacco was stored in a tin along with a packet of cigarette papers.
‘You tell no one,’ he’d said to her when he’d caught her staring. That was the first time he’d brought home tobacco stolen from a broken crate.
‘Won’t you get into trouble,’ she’d asked as she’d watched. ‘What if somebody tells the police?’
‘And who’s going to tell them?’
He’d sprang so swiftly that the chair he’d been sitting in fell over backwards.
Jenny had stepped back and crossed her arms across her face. ‘I was only watching. Hit me anywhere, but not my face. Please!’
Perhaps if Tilly hadn’t suddenly appeared in the doorway, he might have slapped her around the head just because she’d asked him not to. He was contrary like that.
‘Mum? Are you all right?’
Jenny’s heart had lurched at the sight of her daughter’s frightened expression.
The last thing Jenny wanted was for her daughters to be affected by her fractious marriage. She had a mask for such occasions, a bright smile meant to convey that everything in their world was lovely – when, of course, it was far from that. A bright voice too.
‘I’m fine, love.’
To his credit, Roy never hit her when their daughters were present.
She had grasped the opportunity to escape, placed an arm around her daughter’s shoulder and gave her a reassuring hug. ‘Are you hungry? Fancy some bread and jam?’
Tilly had eyed her father warily.
‘Go on then, love,’ he’d said to her. ‘Get yerself some bread and jam.’
A tainted look of understanding had passed between them. The last thing she wanted was for Roy to take his temper out on either of their children. It hadn’t happened so far, but Tilly was growing up. There’d always been defiance in those liquid brown eyes. As knowledge increased so would defiance.
Brenda was speaking now, bringing Jenny back to the moment. One comment struck a raw nerve and made her wonder.
‘Had a right show the other week. A tart named Julie Giles came in mouthing about being owed money by one of the customers. “I gave ’im what ’e wanted and ’e scarpered without paying. I wants me money and I wants it now.” Right hullabaloo it was. Turned out the bloke who owed ’er ’ad got on a ship and shoved off. Was a docker with a wife and four kids. Didn’t stop ’im from paying for women though. Not that ’e’s the only one. Far from it…’
