The Bells of Bow

by Gilda O'Neill

  ‘Did you manage to bring anything with yer, Blanche?’ Babs asked, spluttering the words as she tried to keep a straight face.

  Blanche squeezed Archie’s arm. ‘Only me old man and me kids. That’s all I need.’

  ‘I brought me knitting.’ The tiny voice that came piping from near where Evie was squashed on the floor with the kids came from Ted Jenner’s old granny who’d lived with her grandson since he’d got married.

  ‘Gran loves her bit of knitting, don’t yer?’ Ted said gently.

  ‘I grabbed this off the table,’ laughed Archie and pulled a quart bottle of pale ale from under his jacket. ‘Wanna swig, chaps?’

  Ted Jenner gladly accepted the offer but Nobby, after a sharp, tight-lipped glare from Alice, reluctantly refused.

  ‘I didn’t think to bring nothing with me,’ said Babs with a shrug.

  ‘I brought this.’ Evie held up the photograph of herself and Babs. ‘I just grabbed it off the wall as we run out.’

  Babs picked her way between the children and, squatting down next to Evie, kissed her on the cheek. ‘Yer a soft hap’orth,’ she said affectionately.

  Evie frowned as she wiped the dull surface of the picture. ‘Dunno what’s happened to it, though. Could do with some new glass.’

  ‘I never thought to bring nothing neither,’ said Ethel thoughtfully. ‘When I heard my Frankie shouting the odds and ordering everyone to either get in here or back indoors, I went to the street door to see what all you lot was doing.’

  Alice sniggered. ‘What, didn’t your Frankie make sure you was all right first then, Ethel?’

  Ethel was indignant. ‘He told me exactly what to do, just like in the instructions he’s been given. I told yer, I was just seeing what everyone else was up to.’

  ‘Yeah, right. Course he did.’ Alice looked knowingly at her neighbours. ‘I can just imagine Frankie being bothered or brave enough to hang around to tell you what to do.’

  Evie winked conspiratorially at Terry and Mary Simpkins. ‘Here, Ethel, I wonder where he is now. Wonder what he’s up to while you’re stuck in here with us.’

  ‘Ssshhh, shut up, can’t yer, Eve,’ said Babs and found just enough room to elbow her hard in the ribs. ‘Aw, sorry,’ she hissed sarcastically at her sister. ‘Cramped in here, ain’t it?’

  ‘Bloody cramped,’ complained Alice. ‘If we had decent gardens instead of them piddling bits of back yards we could all have our own Anderson shelters. It’s all right for some.’ She sighed loudly. ‘Still, me and Nobby’d even have to share that with them upstairs.’

  ‘Where are Minnie and Clara?’ It was the first time that Maudie had spoken.

  ‘They wanted to stay indoors,’ said Alice with a sneer. ‘Said they was gonna shelter under their bed. Gawd knows how they think they’ll get under it though. Pair of bloody great porpoises.’ She leaned towards Maudie, her skinny claw of a finger jabbing the air to emphasise her point. ‘They might have been married once upon a time, the pair of ’em. But they’ve lived together for years, they have, if yer know what I mean. And we have to have ’em living upstairs, decent people like me and Nobby.’

  ‘You big-mouthed old bu –’ The rest of Evie’s words were drowned in a sudden, loud, high-pitched monotone which came droning from the street outside.

  ‘Here, ain’t that the all clear?’ Ted Jenner stood up, bashing his head on the Tilly lamp. ‘Yeah, it is. Listen. Listen, it is!’

  Within a few seconds the shelter was empty and the neighbours were standing around aimlessly in the road as though unsure what they should do next.

  ‘That it then?’ asked Alice. She sounded disappointed that events hadn’t been more dramatic.

  ‘Well, I dunno about the rest of yers,’ Georgie said. ‘But I need a drop of something.’

  ‘Yer on, Dad.’ Evie turned her nose up at Alice and took Georgie’s arm. ‘Come on, Babs, I’ll treat us all to a drink.’

  ‘I’ll just go and knock for Minnie and Clara,’ said Babs, with a defiant look at Alice. ‘I’ll be with yer in a minute.’

  Five minutes later Babs walked into the Drum with Minnie and Clara clinging weakly to either side of her.

  ‘I thought we’d find him in here,’ Babs laughed and nodded towards Frankie Morgan who was holding court at the bar. ‘Left Ethel all on her tod, the old devil.’

  Minnie smiled feebly. ‘Not surprised, the ruckings he gets off her. Still, who can blame her, he’s such a flipping nuisance. And, speak as I find, I’ve never heard her moan at no one else.’ Minnie suddenly went very pale and held her hand to her forehead. ‘I think I’d better sit down, Babs.’

  Babs settled the two large women at a table and went to fetch them a drink.

  Georgie had already downed a couple of Scotches and was halfway down a pint of half and half while at the same time busying himself acting as potman, a job that Jim and Nellie Walker let him do for a few shillings a week and to pay off his slate. They were nobody’s fools but they tolerated Georgie’s drunken unreliability, letting him get away with more than enough, because of their fondness for the twins. They’d never had children themselves and since the girls were small they’d had more than a soft spot for them.

  ‘I think it’s nerves, but Clara seems more worried about their dinner getting ruined than any bombs falling on her,’ Babs said as she slipped into the space at the bar between Rita and Bert from the baker’s. ‘Yer made ’em turn the gas off, didn’t yer, Frankie?’

  ‘Bloody right I did. It’s me duty.’

  Bert, his hair white with the flour that he never quite managed to brush from it entirely, called over to Minnie and Clara, ‘Yer know yer always welcome to put yer Sunday dinners in me ovens, girls, don’t yer? Life’s gotta go on, eh? Can’t have me two favourites going without their grub, now can I?’ He laughed good-naturedly, his round cheeks glowing like apples, and took a swig from his pint. ‘Just so long as Jim’s beer don’t run out, eh? Then we’ll all be happy.’

  ‘Don’t you worry yerself, Bert,’ Jim answered him back as he handed Babs the drinks for Minnie and Clara. ‘I’ll just put a bit more water in than usual.’

  Nellie the landlady shoved her husband Jim unceremoniously out of the way and leant across the bar to where Evie was standing. ‘Got yerself a new chap, I see.’ She touched Evie gently on the side of her face. ‘Nice motor and all. Good luck to yer, darling. Pretty little thing like you deserves the best. And look at yer lovely blonde hair and all.’

  ‘Yer’ll have to get yerself a nice geezer sorted out, twin,’ Jim called over to Babs as she sat down with Minnie and Clara. ‘Can’t have yer letting the brunettes down, now can we?’

  ‘I dunno why everyone sounds so bleed’n cheerful,’ Frankie complained. ‘But then I don’t suppose none o’ you lot remember the Zeppelin raids.’

  ‘Blimey, yer sound just like me old granny.’ Archie winked at Nellie. ‘Watch it, or he’ll frighten all yer customers away, Nell.’

  Frankie wasn’t put off by either Archie’s sarcasm or everyone else’s laughter. ‘Terrible, it was, the Great War. Dropped bombs right out o’ the sky on ordinary people, just like us.’

  ‘Don’t be soft,’ Jim said as he pulled Georgie another pint. ‘All this won’t come to nothing, you just wait and see. Bit of a ruck between the politicians and that’ll be that. Anyway, why’d the Germans wanna bomb ordinary people like us?’

  ‘Yer could ask why they wanted to bomb them poor sods in Spain a few years back,’ said Frankie, nodding wisely to himself. ‘Front line we’ll be here, you just wait. Too near the docks and the City for our own good, you mark my words. I shouldn’t mention it, but it’s what they’ve been saying down at the ARP centre for months.’

  Doubting hisses and boos were the general response from all round the bar to Frankie’s pessimistic warning.

  But not from Clara. She rose unsteadily to her feet, her eyes full of tears and said loudly to everyone, ‘But yer should listen to him. He’s right. There was bombs over L
ondon. People got killed and all, so what does me Sunday dinner matter?’

  Minnie put her glass down on the table and stood up also. She put her arm round her usually quiet friend. ‘Don’t get yerself upset, Clara. Yer don’t really think they’d attack us, do yer, love? Not us here in Darnfield Street?’

  The bar suddenly went very quiet and everybody seemed to be staring into their drinks.

  6

  What with the glorious September weather and the absence of any bombs, it was as though the panic caused that morning by the first air raid warning of the war had never happened. As on any other ordinary warm September evening in Darnfield Street, and most similar turnings all over the East End, street doors stood wide open, men strolled down to their local, women sat by their steps on kitchen chairs chatting, knitting and mending, and children dashed about, playing riotous games of Outs and High Jimmy Knacker or got up to no good down by the canal.

  ‘Yer there, Babs? Eve?’ Babs heard someone call along the passage.

  ‘Hold on, coming.’ Babs went to the door to find Blanche Simpkins standing there. A good-looking woman in her early thirties who always had a smile for everyone, despite the effort needed to keep her brood in order, today she looked unusually serious and, even more strange for her, she didn’t have Janey, her two-year-old, hanging on to her skirts.

  ‘Fancy a cuppa?’ asked Babs, jerking her thumb back towards the kitchen. ‘I was just making one.’

  ‘No ta, Babs, I ain’t stopping. I’ve got a lot o’ things to sort out indoors. I just come to ask a favour.’

  ‘Course.’

  Blanche looked up and down the turning, making sure that no one could overhear. Her eyes fixed on the house opposite where Alice Clarke was perched on a squat stool shelling peas for the next day’s dinner. ‘I’ve been talking to Archie,’ she said quietly, then took a deep breath and opened her mouth as though she was about to say something else, but she apparently changed her mind and instead sat down on the stone step.

  Babs sat down next to her. ‘Yeah, what is it, Blanche?’

  ‘Me and Archie’ve been talking about this evacuation lark.’

  Babs nodded. ‘Yer said they’d written to yer.’

  ‘Yeah, we’ve even got a place all sorted out for us and everything. Through someone me little sister Ruby knows from work.’

  ‘But yer not going? Yer said yer wouldn’t.’

  ‘I know I did. There was no way I was gonna leave my Archie by himself, but I mean, Babs, since that fright this morning, I dunno what to think no more. It’d be all right if it was just us two but we’ve got the kids to think about.’

  Babs shook her head. ‘I thought you was determined not to go.’

  ‘I was, but Archie thinks different.’

  ‘What’s Archie got to say about it?’

  ‘Yer know him, never refuses me nothing if I’ve set me mind on it, and I’m that stubborn he wouldn’t have much chance to anyway. But there’s no telling him this time about what I do or don’t wanna do. In fact I can hardly believe it’s him, Babs. Once that warning went this morning, that was it. He’s been right firm. Told me I’ve gotta go, and I’ve gotta take all the kids with me and all.’

  ‘Even the big’uns?’

  Blanche nodded. ‘Day after tomorrow.’

  ‘Bloody hell, Blanche. That soon? What do Mary and Terry reckon about it?’

  ‘Well, to be honest, our Terry hates the idea, thinks he’s too grown up.’

  ‘He’s thirteen now, ain’t he?’ Babs frowned. ‘Here, do they let ’em go that old?’

  ‘If they’re with their mums and the billeting people say there’s room they do. And there’s plenty o’ room in this place Ruby’s organised. I wish she’d have kept her flaming bright ideas to herself instead of telling Archie. Cornwall or somewhere, it is. Back of bleed’n beyond. Never heard of the bloody place.’

  ‘So, will Terry go?’

  ‘Don’t think he’s got no choice the way Archie’s dug his heels in. But I’ve promised Terry that if he’ll come with me and stay just for a while, then soon as he’s a bit older he can come back and work in the market with his dad.’ Blanche picked at the stitching on the bottom of her cross-over apron and laughed feebly. ‘That’s all he’s ever wanted to do, that one, have a stall of his own down the Roman, just like his dad.’ She rubbed her red, work-worn hands over her face. ‘But I can’t kid our Mary like that, she’s nearly fourteen already, and stubborn just like me. Or like I usually am.’

  ‘And she’s a pretty girl, just like her mum, and all,’ said Babs, trying to cheer her up.

  ‘I dunno about me being pretty,’ said Blanche tucking a stray hair under her turban, ‘but being pretty’s half our Mary’s trouble. Her and that Alice’s grandson, Micky, right fancy each other, they do. That’s all I hear about, Micky this, Micky that, Micky the bloody other.’ She shook her head. ‘I can just imagine what Alice would say if she found out.’

  ‘Don’t she know?’ asked Babs.

  ‘Yer kidding, ain’t yer?’ said Blanche. ‘And there’s our Terry. He worships Micky and all. Yer know what they’re like at that age. Just ’cos Micky’s fifteen, Terry thinks the sun shines out of him. Micky ain’t a bad kid, I like the way he’s always round here helping his nan and grandad, but I wish my Archie had never let him work on the stall. Mary’s seeing too much of him for my liking.’

  ‘Look, Blanche, yer don’t wanna fret about that, yer know what young girls of her age are like. Soon as yer go down wherever it is yer going she’ll have met someone else in a couple o’ days, you just wait and see.’

  ‘I wouldn’t bank on it. I was her age when I met Archie and no matter what no one said I wouldn’t change me mind, I knew he was the one.’

  ‘Well, she can’t stay here without yer, can she?’

  ‘Can’t she?’ Blanche sighed. ‘Remember when we saw you and Evie in the pie shop?’

  ‘Yesterday, yer mean?’

  Blanche shook her head. ‘No … Yeah. Hang on, wait a minute.’ She thought for a moment. ‘I suppose it was yesterday. Seems longer ago, don’t it, with everything what’s happened?’

  ‘Yer right there,’ said Babs, running her hands through her thick, dark brown hair. ‘A lot of things have happened since then all right.’

  ‘Anyway, that Len o’ mine, he might only be nine years old but he’s got a right old man’s head on his shoulders, figures out all what’s going on, he does. Now yer mustn’t blame yerself, Babs.’ Blanche hesitated, nibbling her lip while she thought how to put what she had to say. ‘Yer see, Len told Mary all about you offering to ask about a job for her at Styleways.’

  Babs screwed up her face. ‘Aw, Blanche.’

  ‘Yeah, and now that’s all I’ve had out of her since this morning. “I’m getting a job with the twins.” It was only me warning her to shut up in front of her dad that she never started on about it when she saw yer both in the shelter this morning.’

  ‘Aw, I’m really sorry.’ Babs clasped Blanche’s hand in hers. ‘I wouldn’t interfere or nothing for the world, yer know that.’

  ‘I know and I told yer, it ain’t your fault, it’s Len’s. But it don’t matter anyway. She ain’t got no choice, at least not for another few weeks till she’s fourteen. After that we’ll just have to see.’

  ‘How about Len, does he wanna go?’

  ‘I told him it was in the country and he said he’ll go anywhere if there’s gonna be animals. Yer know him. He’d have a barn yard out the back if I’d let him. And Janey’s too little to argue. She don’t know no better, so she’s all right. But, to tell the truth, Babs, it’s Archie I’m really worried about.’

  Babs smiled encouragingly. ‘It’ll be a lot quieter without you lot. He’ll think he’s on his holidays.’

  Blanche didn’t smile back. She turned to Babs but then dropped her gaze and started picking at the hem of her apron again. ‘Babs, would you keep an eye on him for me?’

  ‘How d’yer mean?’ Babs sou
nded really shocked. ‘Here, yer don’t think he’d muck around while yer away, do yer, Blanche? Not your Archie.’

  For the first time since she’d sat down on the doorstep, Blanche smiled as if she meant it. ‘No, yer daft cow, course I don’t.’ She put her hand over her mouth to stop herself laughing out loud at the very thought of it. ‘Can yer imagine?’ she spluttered. ‘My Archie with a girl friend.’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘What I meant was could yer make sure he don’t starve or nothing? Yer know what blokes are like.’

  ‘If yer want an expert on blokes …’ came a voice from behind them.

  They looked round to see Evie standing in the passage, dressed up to the nines and striking one of her favourite glamour girl poses that she got from the films.

  Blanche laughed. ‘It wasn’t that sort of expert I was after.’

  ‘Move over.’ Evie squeezed between her sister and Blanche and, despite her new outfit, sat down on the narrow stone step.

  Blanche touched the bouncing waves of Evie’s hair. ‘Yer know, I still can’t get used to you being blonde, Eve.’

  ‘No, but yer know the difference between us now, don’t yer?’

  ‘I always knew the difference between you two,’ she laughed.

  ‘What, I’m the madly glamorous one, yer mean?’ asked Babs, affecting a deep sultry voice.

  ‘No, stupid, you’re the ugly one,’ said Evie nearly falling backwards into the passage as Babs shoved her in the ribs.

  Babs narrowed her eyes at Blanche. ‘If you say I’m the one who usually wears the pinny …’

  ‘Or, I’m the one who’s got the fancy man …’

  ‘Yer both wrong,’ said Blanche triumphantly. ‘It’s yer dimples, they’re on different sides, ain’t they?’

  ‘Yer know what, Blanche, yer a bloody marvel. I thought it was only me and Babs what knew about that.’

  ‘And a couple of blokes we tried to con once,’ Babs reminded her sister.

  ‘It comes from being a mum, yer see,’ Blanche said with a shrug. ‘It was easy, yer notice all sorts of things about kids.’