Lizzie of Langley Street

by Carol Rivers

  Lizzie looked back at the crowd and waved.

  She was now, officially, Mrs Frank Flowers.

  The Reverend soon departed from the Methodist hall and the atmosphere lightened. Now the serious drinking was underway along with a knees-up.

  By nine o’clock Bert had consumed his fill. A trickle of guests began to leave the hall. Most of them were travelling back to their homes on foot. They stumbled into the night, arms joined and singing, reluctant to end the evening.

  Bert smiled to himself as he puffed on his cigarette, sitting on the brick wall, breathing in the crisp night air. He’d been a bit miffed about Doug giving Lizzie away, but Doug was a good mate. Lizzie looked on him like a father. Seeing as their own father couldn’t or wouldn’t attend the wedding, perhaps things had worked out for the best.

  A bank of thick grey cloud drifted across the moonlit sky. Bert finished his cigarette and put in an appearance. The market lot were the last to leave. Sitting at a table in one corner were Elfie Goldblum, Bill Flowers and Dickie Potts, all three with waistcoats exposed and ties removed.

  Bert pulled out a chair and sat down. A little sorrowfully he said, ‘It ain’t gonna seem right without our Lizzie at ’ome.’ He had to raise his voice; Fat Freda was belting out the tunes on the hall piano.

  ‘Ain’t she going on ’oneymoon?’ Elfie leaned forward, his wrinkled brown face close to Bert’s.

  ‘Nah.’ Bill Flowers wiped the froth of the ale from his mouth. ‘The bastard would have none of it. Said he’d take her away when we weren’t so busy at the shop. But the God’s truth is he wanted to get her down them airey steps before the gel could change her mind.’

  ‘They make an ’andsome couple,’ Dickie remarked, changing the subject.

  ‘Going up in the world is our Frank.’ Bill took another gulp of his beer. He looked quickly at Bert as he smacked his lips. ‘If it weren’t for your sister, the sod would’ve had me out on the street without a farthing, as skint as the poor beggars down the Sally Army.’ He nodded slowly. ‘But give him time and he’ll undo all the good now he’s got her where he wants her.’

  Bert hadn’t realized how much the old man disliked his son. He wasn’t surprised. Frank was an easy man to dislike. That’s why he was staying with Pa at number eighty-two and not going to live at Ebondale Street. Better than being around Frank all the time. Not that he’d admitted as much to Lizzie. He was relieved when Pa had dug his heels in over the move. Bert thought of all the times Frank made him work in the storeroom for hours on end or out the back unloading the cart in the pouring rain. When Lizzie was around it was a different matter, he’d be allowed in the shop or given a mug of tea. As soon as she had gone, though, Frank would send him out again, telling him to keep his ugly mug out of sight.

  Suddenly Fat Freda stopped playing. A hush descended on the room. All three men cast a look of disbelief at the two women who had just entered the hall.

  ‘Ain’t that your Babs standing at the door, Bert?’ Elfie muttered.

  Bert nodded in astonishment.

  ‘Bit late to arrive, this time of night, ain’t it?’

  Under their crêpey folds of skin, Bill’s eyes looked like a lizard’s. His usually straggly grey hair was plastered back over his head and disappeared under his grubby collar. ‘Now we’ll see the sparks fly,’ he mumbled. ‘You know who the other bit of stuff is, don’t you?’

  Elfie Goldblum nodded. ‘Lena from Limehouse.’

  Bert stared at the two women. Babs had piled on the make-up. Her red hair was short and frizzy. The other woman, whom Bert had seen hanging around the airey, wore a tight red skirt and was laughing loudly.

  ‘Would you believe it,’ muttered Bill, ‘Frank’s tarts coming here! Bloody cheek.’ Bill shook his head slowly. ‘Just look at that, will you?’

  Babs, striding over to the table where some of the other men were sitting, linked her arms round Frank’s neck. She sat on his lap, her purple dress sliding up over her knees.

  ‘There’s trouble there, my friends,’ said Elfie darkly.

  The old coster nodded. ‘I’m sorry to have to say it, Elfie, but you’re right. Lizzie don’t know what she’s let ’erself in for. I always thought she had her head screwed on right and she’d suss the smarmy bugger. But I was wrong. And whatever else you might say about him, he’s finally pulled it off.’

  ‘So he has, William,’ Elfie agreed. ‘The signs are not good, my boy.’

  Bert looked for Lizzie. She was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps she was with the other women in the room out the back. He didn’t know what to do. Should he find her and warn her? Or should he wait in the hope that trouble would go away? But he couldn’t believe that. Why should Babs come here tonight? Why had she brought Lena with her? Was what Bill had said true? Looking at Frank now, laughing and joking with the two women, Bert feared it was.

  Lil appeared from the side door, her arms full of crockery, her gaze landing on the drunken party. The look of horror on her face added to the weight of misery that filled Bert’s stomach as Lizzie came to stand beside her.

  Lizzie stood in the bedroom, her body stiff, her fear and confusion mounting. Doubts cancelled out the hope as the pictures revolved in her mind of Frank and Babs and the other woman.

  She closed her eyes and put her hands over her mouth. She mustn’t cry. That would only bring Frank into the room. And she needed time to think, to put right in her mind what was wrong.

  But the door opened and Frank stood there. ‘Well then, gel, what’s up?’ His shirt was open at the neck and his feet were bare. They had arrived back from the hall and while he had poured himself a drink she had come to the bedroom.

  ‘I’m not undressed yet, Frank.’

  ‘No need. I’ll do that for you.’ He stared at her, his eyes roving hungrily over her wedding gown, the pale silk glowing like a candle in the gaslight. She had removed the rosebuds from her hair and it fell loosely around her shoulders in long rippling waves. He walked towards her and took her in his arms.

  ‘Frank, no . . .’

  ‘I’m burning for you, don’t you know that?’

  ‘We . . . we have to talk.’

  ‘There ain’t nothing to talk about as far as I’m concerned,’ he breathed heavily. ‘All this time, all this time . . . I’ve waited.’ He pushed his fingers roughly into her hair. ‘What’s this, then? You’re my wife now.’

  ‘Why did you behave the way you did tonight? Frank, it was our wedding day!’

  ‘What way?’

  She pushed her hands against his chest. ‘You humiliated me.’

  He laughed loudly. ‘If you mean that bit of horseplay with your sister – what else was I supposed to do? She came over and sat on me lap. We was just mucking about, that’s all, having a joke.’

  ‘It didn’t seem like it was a joke to Babs.’

  He stopped laughing then, his eyes hardening. ‘What the bloody hell are you going on about? You should be thanking me for patching up things between you and yer sister. You’ve done enough whining to me about never seeing her – then when I do me best to make her feel at home, I get this.’

  ‘It wasn’t just that, Frank, it was that other woman too. She wasn’t invited to the wedding – I didn’t know her . . . but you did. Who was she?’

  ‘I dunno, do I? Just a friend of Babs’, I s’pose. Didn’t stop to ask her for particulars, did I? Blimey, I was just enjoying meself, gel, that’s all. It don’t mean nothing, giving someone a peck on the cheek when you’re merry. I was only being friendly. What the ’ell you getting so worked up for?’

  ‘Because I saw—’

  ‘Saw what?’ he demanded angrily. ‘Me and me mates having a few drinks and a good time? What’s there wrong in that? I was celebrating. I’m a married man now and you’re me wife. It’s that bloody Lil, ain’t it? You been talking to her. She puts all these ideas into yer head. Now, you can tell her from me to piss off.’

  He took her face in his hands and pulled her lips close to his.
She smelled the drink, and for a moment she swayed as his mouth came down on hers. His kiss was long and hard, his hands going down over her shoulders, pulling her against him. She felt the roughness of his beard against her skin as he lifted her in his arms and carried her to the bed.

  Perhaps she was wrong to condemn him for what happened tonight? But she had been shocked when she had watched him with Babs and that other woman. Was she jealous? Seeing Babs kissing him had been bad enough, but when he had danced with that girl, her arms all over him, she hadn’t been able to watch any longer. She’d fled into the small garden at the back of the hall and burst into tears. Lil was close behind and, taking her wrist, she had told her not to be a silly cow. Though Frank had suggested it was Lil who had put ideas into her head, it wasn’t. Lil had said that the blokes were all drunk and it was just a bit of rough and tumble. Lizzie had never seen Frank drunk before and she wondered if Lil was right. In which case, she had been jealous for no reason and, if Lil and now Frank were to be believed, there had been no real harm in what had gone on.

  Frank’s hands were going over her dress trying to find the buttons. She heard them snap from the material. Suddenly she was terrified. Then he was astride her, his hard palms pushing down on her shoulders.

  Somewhere in the back of her mind she recalled her conversation with Ethel. Was gratitude reason enough to marry? And now, looking up into her husband’s face, she knew it wasn’t. But she had chosen to marry him. This was now her life.

  He loosened himself above her.

  ‘Please, Frank,’ she begged, ‘not like this, not our first time . . .’

  He stared at her damp hair spread out over the bedspread, at her flushed cheeks and the look of terror in her eyes. As he took her, she watched the veins at his temple stand out like tiny threads of silver, like the cotton she had used to sew the pearl buttons on to her wedding dress.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  May 1926

  Flo grimaced at the tray of freshly made brandy balls placed in the centre of the table. ‘It’s Saturday,’ she complained as she stood in her nightclothes. ‘I don’t want to work in the shop. I want to go swimming.’

  Drawing her arm over her hot forehead, Lizzie pushed the copper-lined pan that had contained the boiling toffee sugar back on to the range. ‘One day a week helping me isn’t much to ask, Flo.’ She lifted a tray of freshly coated apples with sticks piercing their cores from the wooden draining board and placed them on the table. ‘I rely on your help on Saturdays.’

  ‘But I go to school all week. Saturday’s me only day off’

  ‘It’s only for a few hours—’

  ‘I don’t see why I have to stay at school,’ Flo interrupted grumpily, ‘just so you can get twenty-five bob every month.’

  Lizzie lifted each toffee apple with a spatula, easing them from the tin tray as the toffee hardened. ‘The twenty-five bob is an allowance to help with your education. You passed your exams – you’ve a brain on you, Flo. When you leave at Christmas you’ll get a nice job. In an office, with good pay.’

  ‘I don’t want to work in an office.’

  ‘Well, you’re going to and that’s the end of it.’

  ‘Me friends from me old school ain’t done too bad for themselves.’ Flo pushed back her short brown bob and turned the kiss curl of fringe with her finger. ‘They’re earning good money.’

  ‘What, peeling and bottling onions all day?’ Looking up from her work, Lizzie said, as she had many times before, ‘That ain’t a proper job and you know it.’

  ‘Yes it is. I could start now if you let me. They took Jane Skinner on last week and she’s only fourteen.’

  ‘Listen, Flo, I’m not arguing with you. You are not going to work in a pickle factory and that’s that. Now, get dressed and help me with these.’

  ‘I don’t want to,’ cried Flo, almost in tears. ‘I don’t get any time off, ’cept Sundays and then I have to go back to Langley Street with you to see Pa and Bert. It ain’t no fun anymore, I have to help you cook the dinner and make all the beds.’

  At six thirty in the morning, Lizzie had been up since four, cooking. She was in no mood for an argument with Flo. ‘We don’t go back ho—’ she began, stopping abruptly as she avoided referring to the old house as ‘home’. Eight months after their move from Langley Street and Flo was still complaining. She hadn’t really wanted to move into the airey. She maintained that if Pa and Bert were staying put, so could she.

  ‘We don’t go back to Langley Street every Sunday,’ Lizzie answered shortly. ‘We haven’t visited for a fortnight. Now put on your clothes.’

  But Flo remained where she was, her brown kiss-curl looped over her forehead. ‘I suppose you’re taking it out on me ’cos he didn’t come home again last night.’

  Lizzie almost dropped the spatula. ‘What did you just say?’

  ‘Well, it’s true ain’t it?’ Flo cried as tears plopped over her lashes.

  ‘It’s no concern of yours what time Frank comes home,’ Lizzie snapped. ‘Now get dressed.’

  ‘Bet you don’t know where he is, though.’ Flo’s tears had vanished.

  ‘And neither do you, so don’t start.’

  ‘You don’t want me to enjoy myself. You hate my friends.’

  ‘I don’t like one or two. And you know who they are.’

  ‘Sydney Miller’s all right. He isn’t a bit like what you think.’ Flo’s cheeks were red. ‘He ain’t a hooligan like everyone says, he’s a—’

  Lizzie’s mouth fell open. ‘So you are seeing him, then?’

  Flo’s expression was defiant.

  ‘He tried to set fire to the school, Flo.’

  ‘It wasn’t him, it was someone else,’ cried Flo indignantly.

  ‘And how would you know?’ Lizzie demanded. ‘I’ve forbidden you to see him.’

  ‘He ain’t no worse than Frank! He ain’t done half what Frank’s done!’

  Lizzie swallowed hard. ‘Don’t talk rubbish—’

  ‘It ain’t rubbish, it’s true. He walloped you the other night. And don’t say he didn’t, ’cos I heard everythin’.’

  ‘Flo—’

  ‘And it ain’t the first time neither,’ Flo spluttered. ‘I hate him!’ Flo was shaking, her white flanelette nightdress clutched in her hands.

  Lizzie walked round the table. She wanted to put her arms round Flo and tell her everything was all right. But everything wasn’t all right and Flo knew that. She must have heard all that had gone on when Frank came home drunk. Nothing that Lizzie had been able to do or say had prevented the quarrels. She couldn’t lie to Flo. Instead she said quietly, ‘Flo, listen to me. Frank has provided us with a home, food in our stomachs and decent clothes. We want for nothing. You go to school dressed properly in a uniform, unlike some of your friends. Yet you mix with the likes of Sydney Miller—’

  ‘Now I know why Babs left home,’ Flo yelled. ‘You drove her out, that’s what you did. You turned into a right bossy cow after Ma died. Babs couldn’t stand it and neither can I.’

  ‘Stop it.’ Lizzie wasn’t going to let Flo see how much her accusations had hurt. ‘You’re growing up and there are rules to obey. Ma would have told you the same. Sydney Miller is trouble.’

  ‘Vinnie says he ain’t,’ burst out Flo, her tone defiant.

  Lizzie stared into Flo’s face. ‘Vinnie? When did he say that?’

  ‘I dunno. I can’t remember. But he said it.’

  ‘When did you see him?’

  ‘It . . . it was one day – on the street . . .’

  ‘You didn’t tell me.’

  ‘Why should I?’ Flo turned away, but Lizzie pulled her back.

  ‘When did you see Vinnie?’ she demanded.

  ‘You don’t understand,’ Flo sobbed miserably. ‘But Vinnie does.’

  ‘All right, I don’t understand.’ Lizzie was loosing patience. ‘Now, are you going to tell me the truth?’

  ‘I went up his house – a real nice one in Poplar,’ Flo
admitted spitefully. ‘He took me there. He said I could take Sydney too.’

  ‘You mean that bookie’s place?’ She couldn’t believe it. Flo had gone inside a brothel. ‘Flo, don’t you know what kind of house that is?’

  ‘Our Vin and Babs live there,’ Flo hurled at her. ‘Me brother and me sister. And they don’t treat me like a kid, neither.’

  ‘I don’t want you going there again.’

  Tears of frustration slid down Flo’s cheeks. She ran out of the kitchen and the bedroom door slammed.

  Lizzie sank down at the table. Flo – at the house in Poplar! She closed her eyes, trying to block out the thought. How could she stop Flo going there?

  For the first time she felt a real dislike for her brother and sister. The determination she had always had to hold the family together was now gone; it was Flo who mattered – whom she must protect. Vinnie and Babs had gone their own way.

  Lil Sharpe stood in the shop with her shopping bag open, four fruit cakes inside it. ‘How many do you want?’ she asked Lizzie, lifting them out one by one on to the counter.

  The Saturday morning frenzy was over. Boxes of fresh fruit and vegetables had been rummaged over, bargained for and nearly all sold. Bert was sorting the remainder. His big hands turned over the apples and pears, the cauliflowers and cabbages, dropping the damaged ones into a box at his feet for halfpenny bundles.

  Lil’s homemade cakes were always popular. Together with the brandy balls and toffee apples, they were displayed in the glass-fronted cabinet at the back of the shop.

  ‘I’ll take all four, Lil.’ Lizzie inspected the cakes, which were carefully wrapped in greased paper. ‘Can’t seem to get enough of these fruit ones.’

  ‘You’re welcome, gel. How much are you charging for each slice?’ Lil’s frown was speculative.

  ‘Tuppence. I keep the prices down. The kids can buy chocolate bars at a penny from the sweet shop up Manchester Road. But you get more with the cake.’