New Arrivals at Mulberry Lane

by Rosie Clarke

  Peggy didn’t really believe that Laurie would ever do what Rose’s father had done, but it had made her wonder for a moment. His decision not to visit on leave showed her that she was not forgiven. For the moment, he considered it best to stay away and perhaps he was right – but he would return one day.

  Peggy thrust the thought from her mind. The future could take care of itself; she had enough to do bringing up her twins and running this pub. At least she had the money Able had left for her. She remembered her brief visit to the lawyer’s office.

  ‘You can access the funds whenever it suits you, Mrs Ashley. There is no hurry whatsoever. I understand Captain Ronoscki also had some property in America, which would come to you through the terms of his will – but seven years needs to pass before you could claim it. The law considers that missing does not mean dead until seven years without a sight or a word from the person has passed. I understand his American lawyer is taking care of his affairs until such time as he is officially declared dead.’

  Peggy had hesitated, then, ‘It’s just that I keep thinking Able might have been injured and lost his memory or something… don’t you think? I know it happens…’

  ‘It is always possible,’ the lawyer had agreed, but she’d known by the tone of his voice that he believed Able was dead. Yet Mike had suffered a terrible accident at sea and been thought dead – and then he’d returned, although fatally injured. Peggy tried not to think it, but it might have been better had Mike not returned at all.

  Sighing, Peggy put the unhappy thoughts from her and went upstairs. She could hear yelling from the twins’ room and it was time she brought them down after their nap. She must concentrate on her twins. She had to accept that knowing Able had been a wonderful moment in her life, something to remember with a smile, but it had gone and she must move on. Hearing Fay scream as she entered the bedroom, she went over to the cot and found her daughter having a tantrum. Freddie was looking at his twin warily, tears on his cheeks.

  Picking Fay up, Peggy saw a red mark on her arm. It looked as if she’d been pinched or bitten… But what would cause such a mark? Peggy kept their bedding and clothes scrupulously clean so it couldn’t be a flea…

  She shook her head. Rose would never hurt the children and Nellie certainly wouldn’t; she loved them. Her gaze narrowed as he saw the guilty look in Freddie’s eyes.

  ‘Did you pinch Fay, Freddie?’ she asked, but he shook his head in denial and his eyes filled with tears.

  Peggy sighed. It seemed it was time she put them in separate cots. For a long time, they’d found comfort in being together, but if one was inflicting harm on the other, she would have to find another cot from somewhere.

  Chapter 4

  Tom wasn’t sure why he’d overslept that morning. He was never late up, even if he’d worked long into the evening at one of his little jobs, as he called the decorating and small repairs he did in the lanes. These days it seemed that there was always someone at the door asking if he could just come and fix a tap or unblock a sink or clean a chimney, mend an electric kettle or fix a window.

  Jack of all trades that’s me.

  He’d told his father in the latest letter he’d written. Tom wrote long letters to his dad, because he knew that he liked to hear all the news of Mulberry Lane.

  Ma would say I was master of none, but I’m getting quite good at some things. Peggy says I don’t charge folk enough, but it only takes a few minutes to do some jobs and I tell them a couple of bob will do. Sometimes, I don’t charge at all…

  The previous evening, and several before it, he’d been up late helping Alice, his neighbour, do up her small bedroom. A widow, who found it hard to manage on her meagre pension, she’d been harbouring her junk there for ages and some of it was saleable.

  ‘I reckon I can take in a lodger if I get this room clear,’ she’d told Tom. ‘If yer take them old brass and iron bedsteads to Bert at the junkyard he’ll give yer a few bob fer ’em and then yer can paint the room fer me.’

  ‘Yeah, all right, Alice,’ Tom said. Alice was a favourite with him and he didn’t mind what he did for her. Every morning throughout the previous winter he’d fetched her coal in for her first thing and chopped kindling, but he never charged her for the little jobs he did, though she always tried to give him a bob or two. Alice often cooked enough dinner for two and fetched him round when he’d finished work at the shop to eat his share and he was glad to help her out.

  He’d found several bits of brass and iron and had taken them to the junkyard, along with some broken wooden chairs, a big copper kettle with a hole in it and an old metal tea urn. After some haggling, Bert had given him two pounds, which was enough to purchase the paint for Alice’s bedroom and more besides.

  It wasn’t a large room and he’d asked her whether it was big enough to let. She’d grinned at him and tapped the side of her nose, and then laughed.

  ‘It’s fer a mother and child,’ she said. ‘I’ll get a cot and a chest of drawers in ’ere all right, and there’s room for toys or a little table and chair, and the mother will ’ave the room you used. I went and asked down the council if they’d got anyone waiting for somewhere to live and the woman in the office told me it’s the mothers and young babies they have trouble fixin’ up. Lot of folk don’t want ’em ’cos of the cryin’, but it will suit me, long as they’re decent…’

  Tom suspected that Alice might be feeling a bit lonely. He’d stayed with her for a while when Knocker James had wrecked his home searching for stuff his brother Sam had taken from the bombsites, and he thought that’s what had given her the idea of taking a lodger. Besides, Alice had very little money and often had to pop her silver teapot at Uncle’s when the money was tight, though she always bought it back again, at so much a week.

  When she’d asked him to clear and decorate her room, Tom had spent several evenings working on it and he’d stayed up late to finish the previous night, so perhaps that was why he’d overslept and was in a hurry as he left for the shop that morning.

  He was fishing for his keys in his trouser pocket when the girl came up to him. He heard her before he saw her, asking if he was going to open that morning.

  ‘Peggy has run out of margarine – and she needs some jam, flour and golden syrup if you have it…’

  ‘She’s in luck…’ Tom’s voice died away as he looked into a pair of smoky grey eyes and his heart gave the oddest leap in his breast, leaving him breathless with shock. He swallowed hard and forced the words out, ‘Maureen got a dozen tins yesterday and told me to put two by for Peggy…’

  ‘Oh, she will be pleased,’ the vision said. Surely she was the prettiest girl Tom had ever seen? ‘I know she wanted to make a big treacle tart today. It’s one of her customers’ favourites – though I think her apple pie is wonderful…’

  Tom managed to concentrate enough to get his key into the lock and open the shop door. He stood back to let the girl enter and followed her in, putting up the shades on the glass half of the door so the light flooded in, but he didn’t switch on the electric lights, because the government had asked everyone to save fuel. He took his jacket off and put on his white apron, giving her time to gaze about her. This was the first time she’d been into the shop, and though Maureen had told him Peggy had someone new working for her, Tom hadn’t seen her in the lane.

  ‘I’m Tom Barton,’ he said. ‘Are you Rose? My boss, Maureen, said she’d met you…’

  ‘Yes, she’s popped in to see Peggy a couple of times,’ the girl said and smiled. ‘I’m Rose. Nice to meet you, Tom.’ Her smile widened. ‘I’ve heard that if anything goes wrong round here, everyone comes to you…’

  ‘Well, I’m asked to fix a lot of things,’ Tom said, ‘but I’m not sure I could fix everything… Fuses, leaking taps, a slate off the roof and decorating are all pretty easy, but I’m not sure I could fix a gas geyser or rewire the electrics of a house…’

  ‘Who taught you to do all those things?’ Rose asked as Tom gathered the ite
ms on her list and put them on the counter.

  ‘Dad showed me some of them,’ Tom said, ‘but most are just a matter of common sense and working it out for yourself.’

  ‘You must be very clever…’

  ‘I wouldn’t call it clever – just good with my hands…’ Tom was aware that his cheeks felt a little warm. He’d never met a girl like this and she had him in a tizzy. ‘How are you getting on workin’ for Peggy? She certainly needed some help after Janet went to stay with her friend down in Devon.’

  ‘Yes, it’s a lot to do running a pub and looking after twins. They’re a handful, especially Fay. She’s got such a temper on her. Peggy’s had to buy another cot, because they were pinching each other.’

  ‘Kids always do that, don’t they?’ Tom said, remembering how Sam had liked to punch him when he was little and could get away with it. Tom had never been able to retaliate because Sam was his mother’s favourite and ran to her crying if he gave him one back.

  ‘I’ve never seen children’s toys in a grocery shop before,’ Rose said and Tom saw sadness in her eyes as she looked at them. Was she thinking of a child who would like a toy?

  ‘They’re made by a soldier who has to use a wheelchair to get around. He can’t do hard manual work now, but he’s clever with his hands. He showed me some of his things and Maureen said he could put a few bits here on the shelf. We take a small commission and we’ve sold quite a lot of pieces for him, especially just before last Christmas…’

  ‘Those puppets look fun,’ Rose said, ‘and the trinket boxes are pretty. It was just a surprise to see them.’

  ‘It’s the war – we can’t fill the shelves some weeks,’ Tom admitted. ‘Maureen was lucky this week, bought quite a few tins and things, but it’s hard to get toothpaste at the moment. Most people say they use salt, but it’s horrible…’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ Rose agreed. ‘I’d love some silk stockings – or better still some nylons. I know girls who have American boyfriends sometimes get a pair or two from them. I wear little socks or nothing these days. I don’t like staining my legs with tea leaves, and a line of eyebrow pencil down the back of my leg is worse, because it wears off in places and then looks awful.’

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ Tom said and grinned. ‘I’ve seen the girls going down the dance hall on Saturday night and when they come back home, the line’s gone all fuzzy…’

  Rose laughed and paid him for her groceries. ‘I can see you like to look at the girls’ legs, Tom,’ she teased. ‘Thank you for the golden syrup – Peggy will be pleased…’

  ‘No, I don’t…’ Tom felt himself blushing as she went out. He’d fallen right into that one! But no self-respecting man could resist looking at the girls’ legs these days. The dresses they were wearing were so short! It was regulation to save material of course, but it did show off the girls’ legs.

  Now she would either think he was a lecher or a silly boy, Tom thought ruefully. He didn’t know how old Rose was, but he imagined eighteen or nineteen. She would think a lad of seventeen was just a kid – but Tom had grown up fast. He’d had to take on the responsibilities of a man after his father went to prison. Even when he’d been ill, after the bombsite explosion that had killed his brother Sam and injured him, his father hadn’t been able to stay at home for long. He’d been given a choice of a return to prison or the Army – and naturally Jack Barton had chosen the Army. So with his mother fading away in the infirmary, Tom was on his own. He considered himself a man and his feelings for Rose were certainly not those of a boy. He fancied her something rotten already but knew he was just dreaming imagining her in his arms or thinking about the scent of her skin.

  He grinned as he dismissed the thoughts as nonsense. He’d been thinking of asking her to the pictures until she laughed and said he obviously liked looking at girls’ legs. Her remark had made him feel a bit foolish – which had saved him from making a proper fool of himself. Rose wouldn’t want to go out with a lad like him; she could get any bloke she liked, so it was just as well he hadn’t asked.

  *

  ‘No, you’re not making the curls smooth enough,’ Ellie said to the young girl she was training as her apprentice. Her name was Irene and she was fifteen, straight out of school. They’d had another apprentice named Janice and she’d just begun to cut the clients’ hair really well and then she left to get a job with the Wrens when she was eighteen. ‘Look, I’ll show you again. Take your tail comb and select a small section, just a little square like this – and comb it right through to the tip, holding it with your left hand, and then you curl inwards with your right hand, but keep it very flat, and then pin it with these clips. Now you try…’

  Irene took the comb back and selected the next small section of hair, curling it into an excellent flat curl before pining it.

  Ellie smiled and nodded. ‘Yes, that’s right, Irene. The smaller and flatter you make your curls, the longer the set will last for the customer. What do you do when you’ve finished that line?’

  ‘I take the curls back the other way, alternating them line by line…’

  ‘Yes, well done, Irene,’ Ellie approved and nodded to Irene’s mother. ‘She’s learning, Mrs Wright. I’m very pleased with her…’

  ‘I should like a nice auburn rinse next time I come – shall you do it or will you let my Irene have a go?’

  ‘Colours are a big step forward,’ Ellie told her, hesitating. ‘Are you willing to risk it? I’ll be supervising of course…’

  ‘Well, if I don’t, we can’t expect your customers to let her experiment on them, can we?’ Mrs Wright laughed, her double chin wobbling. She was a big lady but had a lovely nature and Ellie nodded, because Irene was an easy-going girl too and she was lucky to have her.

  ‘All right, let Irene book it in for you before you go – I shall have to charge you cost price for the colour, of course, but the set will be free as usual. Guinea pigs don’t have to pay!’

  Mrs Wright chuckled and was told to keep her head still by her daughter.

  Ellie turned away as her next client came in. Mrs Bull lived in Commercial Road and had passed at least two hairdressers on her way here, but she liked the way Ellie did her hair.

  ‘You’re having a perm today,’ Ellie said, glancing at her appointment book and her client nodded, taking off her warm jacket and sitting down in the chair in front of the washbasin.

  Ellie ran her fingers through her customer’s hair, pulling it this way and that as she decided what it needed. Mrs Bull had grey hair, which she liked to have dyed ash blonde, and that meant it was only possible to do a very soft perm, because anything too strong would cause the ends to break off.

  ‘I think I’ll do a first cut but leave it a little bit longer in case we get any breakage. Your hair is slightly too brittle, Mrs Bull. I’m going to condition it first, but you know the perm will take a lot of the colour out.’

  ‘Can’t we colour it today?’

  ‘It’s a bit risky on top of the perm,’ Ellie told her doubtfully. ‘I’ll do a cut and we’ll see what it looks like when the perm is finished…’

  ‘Well, you know best, but I’d like my colour as soon as possible,’ Mrs Bull said and smiled trustingly at her. ‘My hair has never been as good as it is now you’re looking after it.’

  ‘I like to make sure my clients’ hair is healthy and that means taking extra care,’ Ellie said. ‘That’s why I’m going to condition it before I do the perm.’

  ‘Lovely…’ Mrs Bull settled down, prepared for a long session. ‘Have you heard from your husband yet? My son is coming home tomorrow and he has three weeks’ leave… He says it’s because they’ve had a rough time. I think he was wounded, but he’s alive and that’s all I care…’

  ‘Yes, nothing else matters.’ Ellie avoided the question about her husband. She didn’t want to think about Peter and what would happen when he came home to discover that she hadn’t given her baby away, ‘You’ll be glad to have him home at last,’ she said and combed the hai
r right through, glancing at her apprentice.

  ‘Do you want me to help you, Ellie?’ Irene asked.

  ‘If you’ve finished your mum’s hair, you can come and hold the lotion for me now,’ Ellie told Irene. ‘Watch what I do as I curl the hair round the rollers. I always wrap the ends in these little papers. Not everyone bothers to do that, but I find it gives a much better result…’

  Irene nodded, watching as Ellie applied the lotion and curled each section until the whole head was covered with the thin rollers, finally applying the machine that lent heat to the process. Irene’s mother was ready to come out of the dryer by then and Ellie supervised as her apprentice finger-combed the hair, pressing in the nice deep waves and fluffing up the curls at the bottom before giving it a light spray of hair lacquer from the bottle they kept for salon use.

  ‘Now, you can see why we alternate the lines of pin curls,’ Ellie said. ‘It gives far more bounce. Yes, that looks lovely… well, done.’

  ‘Yes, it does look nice,’ Irene’s mother said. ‘Thank you, love – and you too, Ellie, for showing her.’

  Irene’s mother left the shop and Ellie told her apprentice to pop next door and buy them a pound of sugar and a packet of biscuits from Jackson’s.

  ‘I should like some chocolate ones, but I doubt they’ve got any,’ she said. ‘Tell Tom it’s for us and he’ll see what he can do – I know he puts a few bits under the counter…’

  ‘All right. Shall I take the money from the till?’

  ‘No, that’s not ours. We’ve got money in the cash box…’ Ellie showed her where it was kept in the desk drawer and gave her five shillings. ‘That should be more than enough – but if you want a small bar of chocolate you may have it…’