Rose of Ruby Street

by Carol Rivers

  'Wasn't I in me mum's dreams then, like Callum's in Auntie Ethel's?'

  Lizzie hesitated, for Polly was no fool. 'You were, my love. But your mum had her own path to follow.'

  Polly looked curiously at Lizzie, a small frown on her forehead. 'Uncle Danny came back from Australia to see you, didn't he?'

  Lizzie smiled. 'And he brought Tom with him, too.'

  ' 'Cos Tom didn't have no parents, so Uncle Danny adopted him.' Obligingly, Polly completed the story she had heard many times before. 'He calls Uncle Danny his dad, so why do I call you Auntie Lizzie?'

  'It doesn't really matter what we call each other,' Lizzie tried to explain. 'It's what you feel that counts.'

  'I know,' Polly agreed in her grown-up fashion. 'Mrs Price says that even if Uncle Frank was a commie once and tried to blow up our shop, he's probably not a commie now. And even if Auntie Flo and Uncle Syd and baby Nelson are called Millers, it doesn't mean to say Nelson is gonna turn out bad like all the other Millers.'

  'Mrs Price said that?' Lizzie questioned.

  'She says some of the Miller kids went to our school. They burned down the caretaker's cottage. Mind, it was a very old cottage and the caretaker got a nice house instead.'

  'Mrs Price seems to know a lot.'

  'She's a bit of a gasbag.'

  Lizzie giggled. 'Who taught you that word?'

  'Uncle Frank.' Polly went pink. 'When I told him Mrs Price said he was a commie, he said she was half right, 'cos in winter he wears coms under his trousers.'

  This set them both laughing and Lizzie affectionately brushed a lock of hair from Polly's eyes. 'Did Uncle Frank explain what a communist is?'

  'No, he just said he ain't one.'

  'That's true.'

  'Uncle Frank makes me laugh. But I miss Uncle Danny and Tom. They used to come by a lot.' Polly blushed deeper as she held Callum close to her chest, looking mischievously up at Lizzie. 'Do you want to know a secret?'

  'Well, it won't be a secret if you tell me.'

  'Don't matter. I've got lots of others.'

  Lizzie laughed.

  'Tom and me was in the playground at school. He said the lady that looks after him and Uncle Danny, said to call her Aunt April.'

  'That's very nice of her.'

  'She's really bossy.'

  'Oh, dear.'

  'Tom reckons if you was to ask Uncle Danny to get married, he'd leave Mrs Williams and come to live with us.'

  'What am I missing?' Ethel asked as she came into the room and gently took Callum from Polly's arms.

  'News on the grapevine,' Lizzie answered discreetly.

  'What's a grapevine?' Polly threaded her thumbs through the braces of her dungarees. With a frown on her forehead, she rocked back and forth in her lace-up boots.

  'Branches where grapes grow,' Lizzie explained, quickly glancing at Ethel.

  'Do we sell grapes in the shop?' was the next enquiry.

  'You'd better ask Uncle Bert.'

  Polly skipped to the door. 'Is Granda coming over?'

  'He'll be here any minute to look after the shop while I go to the pub.'

  'Good. I like helping Granda. He gives me a tanner to sell the mouldy stuff off cheap.'

  Lizzie smothered a grin. Polly looked forward to the pocket money she earned on Saturdays. Her grandfather, Bill Flowers, father to Danny and Frank, wasn't the energetic young coster he used to be, but he still kept an interest in the business.

  'Bye Callum, bye Auntie Ethel.' Polly ran from the room. Her tiny footsteps echoed on the wooden stairs leading down to the shop.

  When all was quiet, Lizzie and Ethel exchanged glances.

  'So, what's all this about grapevines?' Ethel asked curiously.

  'I gather Danny's landlady has told Tom to call her Aunt April. It hasn't gone down well.'

  'Don't Tom like her?' asked Ethel as she sat on the nursing chair.

  'Polly say he thinks she's bossy.'

  'Well, Tom is growing fast, too. Perhaps he needs a firm hand.' Ethel glanced down at her son. 'I never had much trouble with Rosie and Timothy. But I have a feeling this one might be a rascal.'

  Lizzie's thoughts went to Vinnie, her older brother, who had become a tearaway at Tom's age. A boy needed a father, no one knew that better than her. Before the war, the Allens had been a close-knit family; Bert, Vinnie, Babs, and Flo – the Allen tribe as they were known on the Isle of Dogs. Mucking about on the river, mud-larking and jumping the barges were part and parcel of their everyday life. Pa had been strong and healthy then. He'd ruled his five children with a rod of iron yet he had always been fair. But after the war he'd returned a half-man from the trenches of Flanders. Without his legs he had grown bitter and angry with life and all those around him. Their mother, Kate, must have known that he was slowly dying from gangrene. Valiantly, she had tried to hold the family together, just as Lizzie had tried after her death. But without parents to guide them, the Allens, like many bereaved families in the country, had broken apart.

  'Did Polly ask about Babs?' enquired Ethel, bringing Lizzie back to the moment.

  'I told her the usual.'

  'That Babs went off to follow her dreams?'

  'What else can I say?'

  'How about the truth? That her mother slept with your husband and after screaming blue murder while having his baby, she promptly disappeared and left you to care for Pol,' was Ethel's unsympathetic reply.

  'Ethel, that's very harsh.'

  'My point is, Polly needs to know about Frank's part in all this. At the moment, he has a halo around his head. And it's you who has helped to put it there.'

  Lizzie sighed deeply. There was little to say in Frank's defence. But he had sworn to reform, which of course, no one believed for a second. Polly adored him and for good reason. Frank could be charming and agreeable when he tried and in a sort of bewildering way he was doing his best to win Polly's affection.

  'Sorry,' Ethel apologised as Lizzie lapsed into silence. 'Babs is your sister after all. And Frank your husband, albeit a rotten one. Perhaps it's my own guilt that's talking.'

  'Guilt over Callum?'

  'And Richard, too.'

  'You weren't responsible for Richard's death. Ethel. It was an accident. Richard was in the wrong place at the wrong time. No one can blame you for that.'

  Ethel's voice was husky when she replied. 'My kids must blame me or else they'd be here right now. Rosie told me straight. It was like she was saying goodbye, as if it was the end when I left Cora's.'

  Lizzie knew Ethel was going through torture and it was heartbreaking to witness. 'Rosie is just a normal teenager,' Lizzie tried to console. 'When you are sixteen, you don't know what you want or how to get it. You develop a new body and step into another world.'

  Ethel nodded. 'That's why I want her with me.'

  'Callum's thriving, Ethel. Thank God for that. Rosie will come 'round in her own good time. Callum's going to need all your love now.'

  Ethel smiled sadly. 'Loving him is so easy. In my eyes he's beautiful, perfect even. But I know it's going to be very hard for him when he realizes he's a different colour to other kids round here.'

  'Then why not write to Cal?'

  A spark of life came into Ethel's empty eyes, but the light soon went out. 'What would I write? What could I say to change the past? He left me, remember?'

  'No, he left England because he had nothing to stay for. You'd cold-shouldered him Ethel.'

  'He didn't try very hard to change my mind.'

  'He would be here today if he knew about Callum,' Lizzie protested.

  Ethel squeezed her eyes shut. 'Out of duty or sympathy perhaps. But our affair was wrong. So wrong. How could we ever be happy after what we did?' She lifted Callum to her shoulder and stood up. 'I'll put him down for his nap. You'd better get off to the pub.'

  Lizzie watched her friend lay the baby in the cot and pull over the covers. She wanted to assure her there was nothing to fear. But whenever the subject of Cal came up, Ethel re
fused to listen.

  Lizzie walked to the door. 'Your mum and dad will be dropping by later.'

  Ethel suddenly shook herself and looked up. 'I know I'm a bloody liability to you. I'm sorry.'

  'That's a daft thing to say.'

  'I'll go to Mum's soon.'

  'Do you feel ready to leave?'

  'Rosie and Timothy might call on Mum. She is their other gran after all.'

  Lizzie dredged up a smile. 'Yes, there's always that chance.'

  As she left the bedroom, Lizzie's heart was heavy. Rosie and Timothy's return to Langley Street was unlikely. But Ethel held on to hope.

  Just as I do for Danny, Lizzie reflected wistfully.

  Chapter 9

  'Tom, wear these tonight,' said April Williams, indicating the long grey trousers folded neatly over her arm. 'And when we eat dinner at Mrs Murdoch's be sure to use your napkin. We don't want a clean tie spoiled, do we?'

  Eleven-year-old Tom Flowers took a step back, as if the trousers might bite him. He hated it when Aunt April made him wear such formal clothes and he looked to his father for support.

  'Dad, I like me short trousers best.'

  'Do as Aunt April says, Tom.'

  'But they're too big. And they scratch my knees.'

  'Tom,' Aunt April said patiently, 'they are the right size. It's just that you've grown accustomed to sloppy clothes. A proper school like St Augustine's requires a good uniform.'

  Tom wrinkled his nose in disgust at the suggestion. 'Them straw hats are for sissies. I like me cap and shorts.'

  'You're not a child,' Aunt April insisted. 'At St Augustine's, long trousers are regulation wear for boys of your age.'

  'Dad!' Tom implored his father who sat in the fireside chair reading a newspaper. 'I don't want to go to St Augustine's.'

  Danny glanced up and smiled reassuringly. 'It's a good school, son.'

  'But all my friends are at Ebondale Street.'

  'You'll make new ones, don't worry.'

  'Not like Polly I won't,' Tom argued. 'She's me best mate.'

  'Now, my dear,' soothed Aunt April, pressing the trousers firmly into his hands, 'don't cheek your father. He's only doing what's best for you.'

  Tom had to pinch himself sometimes to see if his life was real. His dad had changed and in ways that Tom couldn't understand. But he knew Aunt April had a lot to do with it.

  He studied his father's new image; a dark suit that had been measured, cut, and hand-stitched at a tailor's with great care and expense. A black tie folded into the shape of a bow under his chin. Cufflinks that glittered on his shirt sleeves.

  Tom had thought this quite funny at first. He'd only ever seen his father wearing overalls or working clothes. But now he had a new garage in Euston - showrooms, he was supposed to call it. And Aunt April seemed not to be their landlady now, but another sort of person altogether. She had even persuaded his dad that it was time to send him to another school. That evening they were going to visit a big house in London. Aunt April's friend, Mrs Murdoch lived there. She had a son who was a boarder at St Augustine's. Ralph wore long trousers and a boater, so Tom had been informed. Tom was beginning to wonder if life would ever be normal again.

  He looked at Aunt April and saw the gravity of her expression. Her features were no longer kind and caring but tight and pinched. Curiously they matched up to the woolly, scratchy trousers he refused to wear. Once she had never minded that him and his dad had come home all oily and greasy from the workshop. She'd washed their clothes and talked to them about football. But now she favoured rugby and cricket. Tom vowed to himself that he would rather join the Navy than ever be sent to a boarding school.

  He forced down the urge to run as fast as he could out of the house. Back to the dilapidated garage and workshop at Chalk Wharf where his dad had once worked with Cal. In summer he'd scoot down to the River Thames and watch the tide run fast down the estuary. With mud-caked legs, he'd collected slivers of wood and shiny black nuggets of coal and if he was lucky, a halfpenny encrusted with tar.

  Later he'd climb down the ladder to the workshop where Cal would be working. They'd study his finds, getting their hands so black and dirty that Cal would paint streaks on their faces with his fingers. They'd pretend to be in the outback and chase the swamp monster. Half croc, half dog, the bunyip would rise from the billabong and snap you up. 'So, if ever you catch him down on them mudflats,' Cal would warn, 'run like the Yowi!'

  Tom shivered with excitement at the memories; sun-burned days helping his dad and Cal in the garage, star-filled nights around the camp fire. But that was before the garage got burned down. Before his father and Cal almost perished at the bottom of Leonard Savage's well. Before Aunt April turned into the bunyip.

  'Tom, are you listening?' Aunt April's brow was caught in an impatient frown. She held out the long, woolly trousers. To his deep dismay, a stiff white collar now accompanied them.

  'Tom, do as your Aunt April says,' his dad urged from over the top of his newspaper.

  'I've polished your nice new leather shoes, too,' Aunt April said with a smile.

  He looked pleadingly at his father but there was no help forthcoming.

  In under an hour the transformation was complete. Tom stood stiffly to attention with his father at the bottom of the staircase, waiting for Aunt April to appear in her very best camel coat, fox fur collar and leather gloves.

  Tom stifled a groan. The tight-fitting collar scraped his chin. The trousers grated on his knees. The new shoes were tight across his toes.

  Auntie Lizzie let Polly wear what she liked. And Auntie Lizzie didn't correct him for not sitting up straight or not using a napkin. Uncle Bert ate his chicken with his fingers and slopped bread around his breakfast plate. He made great drain-like noises when he drank his tea, just to make them giggle.

  Tom manfully held back his tears. His dad didn't seem to notice they were trapped in this parcelled-up life. It reminded Tom of the time he and Polly had gone to market and watched the demonstration of a pair of laced corsets. To their amusement the trader had wrapped them around himself and pulled the laces so tight they'd stuck and he'd gone beetroot red in his face.

  Exactly how Tom felt now.

  Chapter 10

  Wearing her trademark working gear, Lizzie was seated behind the driving wheel of the Wolseley. A subdued red wrap-over jacket and ankle length skirt hid the top of her laced leather boots. Her jaunty red beret was kept in place by her black hair pinned up in her customary style. One glossy wing fell gently across her forehead and softened her overall appearance. She drove the car with confidence, thanks to Danny who had helped her to cut her teeth on motorised vehicles many years before. She wasn't afraid of the new world and its challenges and was confident of negotiating the maze of East End backstreets.

  She glanced briefly at Bert who sat beside her, unusually quiet. Like her passengers in the rear, he had been silent since they left the shop. Elmo and Fowler, too, wore their working clothes; reinforced metal toe-caps and heavy trench coats wide enough to hide the voluminous pouches sewn into their interiors to house their weapons of choice.

  If nothing else, she was a realist. Elmo and Fowler had a job to do. The hefty men weren't going to maintain their reputation – or her business – by swatting the many contenders to her turf with a feather duster.

  Bert shifted restlessly and drummed his powerful fingers on his outstretched knees. Lizzie knew her brother might look a battle-scarred bruiser, but was in fact, a gentle and caring man. Though since he had found himself, together with Danny and Frank, bound and gagged in Leonard Savage's Chancel Lane hostelry last year, a shotgun poised at his temple, his character had hardened somewhat. For the East End was not the place it used to be and Bert was homesick for the past.

  'Don't like leaving Bill in the shop on his own,' Bert fretted.

  'This won't take long,' Lizzie replied though with more conviction than she felt.

  'Frank should've sorted this aggro,' Bert complained. 'Th
at's what we pay him for.'

  'We'll see what the score is when we get there, but you're right. He should have had a man, if not two, on the door.'

  Lizzie knew she he had to impress on Frank that he was being given no slack. She expected him to take care of business in every respect. With her help - and as manager of the Mill Wall - she saw no reason why he couldn't turn the business into a legitimate earner. And to be fair, Lizzie thought generously, he had grown closer to Polly over the past year. And it was this relationship that mattered most to her.

  Avoiding the horse-drawn traffic, the trams and lorries making their way to and from the docks, Lizzie breathed in the scents of docklands through the open window. The air was thick with the river's breath; the brine and the tar and the rain washed from the filthy roads into the gutters to join the capital's sewage.

  The tang of street trading was comfortingly familiar; the muffin and bagel sellers, the toffee apple and shellfish traders, the rag-and-bone men and their stinking carts, the knife and scissor grinders casting sparks above their treadles, grinning toothlessly at the spinning metal.

  Dragging herself back from her thoughts, she frowned at Bert. 'Tell me again what Whippet said.'

  'The kid told me Frank had trouble in the snug,' Bert repeated. 'Some pimp after his due. Had a knife on his woman by all accounts.'

  'Just a loner, then?'

  Bert shrugged. 'I didn't get more out of the lad. The little runt had the mouth to demand a tanner before he spilled the beans.'

  'I hope you coughed up,' Lizzie replied with a rueful smile as she turned the car into a Poplar side street. 'He's a handy little sort.'

  'You're a soft touch, gel,' Bert said gruffly. 'But you wanna have a word. He's getting bolshie.'

  Lizzie had grown fond of the fourteen-year-old street kid everyone called Whippet. Homeless and starving, he'd tried stealing the fruit from the shop. One day, Bert had grabbed him by the collar. The boy had kicked and punched at the air, his shoeless feet dangling above the ground. To cool him off Bert had dumped him in the yard trough where the icy water had soon put a stop to his cursing.