by Maggie Ford
Cissy took a great bite of her sandwich. ‘That’s not fair!’
‘I’d be game if you were.’
Cissy chewed slowly. ‘Wait until after Christmas. Then we’ll see.’
Since her two dances with Langley Makepeace five Saturdays ago, she had hoped the experience might have been repeated. She daydreamed of being swept off her feet and in quiet moments made up little scenes of him proposing to her, declaring his undying love – she the cool femme fatale, one hand nonchalantly extended to push him aside, her painted eyes averted like the heroines on the silver screen, Gloria Swanson, Theda Bara, Pola Negri. He would beg her favour. Finally she would give in and on his arm be conducted to the best seats of theatres, the best tables in plush, chandelier-lit restaurants; all eyes would watch her lithe figure as Langley Makepeace held her close at tea dances. She would be the belle of the ball and at his grand family home his father would announce their engagement. Lavish wedding plans would be made, and she, a humble girl from the East End, would keep her secret safe.
But the smart little dance floor in Kensington with its mirrored wall to make it look larger, where she had met him, had not produced him again. She had persuaded Daisy to go there with her on three other occasions, daring Daisy’s raised eyebrows, but Langley Makepeace had vanished completely.
‘We’ll see after Christmas,’ she said despondently and Daisy gave a disparaging snort.
It seemed there was nothing he could do right this evening for Ethel. Bobby knew what it was. She in one of her moods, saying that he didn’t care for her any more, that all he wanted was her body and now he had it he didn’t care how she felt, that she’d cheapened herself.
‘You ain’t cheapened yerself,’ he coaxed as they walked through the cold December evening, she huddled in her slightly threadbare winter coat with its motheaten rabbit-fur collar yet refusing to cuddle close to him for warmth. ‘I love you, Ethel.’
‘No you don’t. You got what you wanted. Three times now. And now you’re only saying that.’
‘I’m not only saying that!’ he retorted impatiently. ‘I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it.’
But the truth was, he was only saying that. Lately he was beginning to feel a bit tired of her constant worrying.
After that first time going together, he’d had a job to persuade her that everything was all right, that he loved her dearly. And he had at the time. The second time they’d gone together, this time in the recreation field, it was colder and more uncomfortable as the November fog came down. The ground felt clammy and his overcoat, on which they’d both lain, was muddy in places so that he’d had to wash it quickly in the sink before going to bed – that second time he had still been in love with her. This third time, he wasn’t so sure.
Now it was Christmas, a thin skim of snow lay on the ground. If only they could find somewhere warmer. Pressing her against the recreation ground railings, with Ethel complaining they were cold and hard on her back, her skirt pulled up and her knickers down, somehow the romance had gone out of it. Not that he didn’t love her so that it burst out of him as the moment of his climax came, but as it went so did the overwhelming throb of love.
They walked home in the cold. She was still shivering after baring her flesh to the elements as well as him, yet refusing to let him put his arm around her to keep her warm, he began to feel not love but irritation. A man could stand only so much nagging and moaning.
‘What the hell’s the matter with you?’ he burst out at last.
She sniffled in misery, clutching her coat closer to her. ‘I don’t think you love me at all, Bobby Farmer.’
At that point all patience fled. ‘All right! If you want me to say it. I don’t. I just wanted your body. Does that satisfy you?’
The answer was a thin wail. ‘I…knew…it.’
Before he could stop her, she was off, running like the wind. He started to follow, but something made him stop. All that whining on the way back from the recreation ground. She was cold. He was cold. She obviously felt disillusioned. He felt disillusioned too. Where had the romance gone?
He stood still, gazing at where the darkness had swallowed up her small figure. She was only a street away from home. He wouldn’t catch her now. Disconsolately he turned and wandered away in the direction of his own house. He didn’t think he would be seeing her any more.
Christmas in the Farmer household was like a gathering of the clans. Each family had its own Christmas dinner. That done, they put on their glad rags, locked the door of their own homes behind them, and made a beeline for Charlie’s, this year being his turn to have everyone. By six o’clock, the tiny tenement in Fords Road was trying to accommodate not only his brother Robert’s family and those of his sisters Amy and Lottie, but Doris’s side too – her sister, two brothers and each of their families. If the walls could have bulged they would have been given a hefty push.
Except one armchair for Doris’s old mother of eighty-two, out went the three-piece suite into the garden to be covered by a tarpaulin. In came orange boxes with planks to lay across them to be placed around the walls of the front and back rooms, supplementing the six kitchen and four elderly dining chairs.
With the old piano going, a couple of dozen crates of beer got from a general whip-round by the men, a few bottles of whisky, maybe one of rum and another of brandy if Charlie had been lucky with lightering and a couple of bottles of port or sherry for the women, who could ask for more of a Christmas party?
The women turned their hands to sandwich making; ham, tongue and tinned salmon, going down well with pickled onions and gherkins. Then there were mince pies and sausage rolls, a large basin of shrimps, another of winkles and enough pins to go round, with Doris’s Christmas cake as the pièce de résistance, taking pride of place at the centre of it all.
Upstairs, the kids pinched the dregs of beer glasses and littered the beds with cake crumbs, rolled all over the coats strewn across the main bed, dressed themselves up in their parents’ hats, and helped break each other’s Christmas toys. The noise they generated went unheard for the shrieks and guffaws of laughter downstairs and the singing as the piano was wreaked havoc upon by heavy-handed, untutored fingers.
No neighbour came to complain of the noise of singing and dancing. If the neighbours weren’t having similar parties, they were at someone else’s house sharing theirs.
Boxing Day was a much quieter affair with the need to get over the previous day. Doris, still hoping Cissy and Eddie would eventually get closer together, invited him to share the Boxing Day meal of cold, left-over chicken, mashed potatoes, pickles, and the remains of Christmas pudding warmed up with hot custard.
Cissy wasn’t most pleased. ‘He might have had better things to do on Boxing Day,’ she hissed to her mother as she helped wash up.
She received a querying stare. ‘What better to do than to see you, luv? He jumped at the chance when I suggested it to ’is mum. It seems a shame, you not being able to see ’im, being with ’is own people all over Christmas. I thought it would be nice.’
‘What if I didn’t want him to come?’
‘Oh, you silly! Of course you wanted ’im to come. I could see it in your face all yesterday. And besides, you two ’ave been goin’ out regular once a week fer ages, when ’e takes you to the pictures.’
‘That’s all we ever do,’ Cissy said bitterly, squeaking her wiping-up cloth around a wet beer glass, ‘go to the pictures.’
‘That’s because he’s saving, dear.’
‘Saving?’ Oh, no, not saving again, went the thought.
‘Fer when you two get married. I know ’e wants ter marry you, but don’t say I said so when ’e does get around to popping the question. His mum said ter me that this time next year he’ll ’ave enough ter put down on a little rented ’ouse for you two and you could get married.’
‘Nice if I was asked first.’
Her mother looked at her with surprise. ‘Hasn’t ’e asked yet?’
�
��He makes noises. I think that’s what he’s trying to ask.’
‘He’s a shy boy, luv. Ain’t that easy for a young man to propose. It takes a lot of courage. It’s up ter you, Cissy, to ’elp a bit. You ’ave ter give ’em a bit of encouragement. I did with yer dad.’
‘I don’t think I’d want to go that far.’
‘Now what d’yer mean by that – you don’t want to go that far?’
‘If he hasn’t the courage, then he’s not the man for me.’
Her mother gave a small indulgent laugh. ‘That’s silly talk, Cissy! He’s in love with yer. It’s just shyness – that’s all.’
‘I want someone who’s sure of himself, Mum.’
‘Eddie’s sure of ’imself, just shy about asking you to be ’is wife. It’s understandable.’
‘Well, I don’t want to understand. And until he does propose, I’m not ready to push him in that direction.’
Her mother stopped washing up, stood with her hands in suds, gazing at her. ‘You’re a funny girl sometimes, Cissy. If you ain’t careful, your Eddie’ll get tired of you. You’ll end up too late to marry. You don’t want to end up an old maid, do yer?’
But Cissy only shrugged and went on wiping up, wondering how soon she could get rid of Eddie for the night so she could go on with her daydreams.
Eddie had sat talking to Dad most of the evening when he wasn’t sitting next to her on the sofa, which had been brought back indoors with the rest of the furniture, the crates and planks taking their place in the back yard until Dad could get them back to Briggs & Co.
Eddie had tried to hold her hand, but she had extracted it gently from his grasp. His touch made her tingle, but if only he had taken her hand and pulled her forcefully from the room despite her parents’ horrified stare. If he had taken her to some quiet corner of the house and there had kissed her with passion, bending her over backwards like Valentino or Navarro did with their women on the screen.
But he’d just sat, allowing her to withdraw her hand, his only reaction to look a trifle sad and disappointed, as he carried on talking shop to Dad, discussing tonnages and cargoes and timber going by the standard rather than the tonnage, the pair of them swapping tales. Eddie related a rather nasty collision that happened last week, a sidewinder from a towed barge coming downriver from under London Bridge and the consequent argument with the driver of the tug responsible. Cissy sighed. Surely there had to be something better in life than this?
‘I tell you what,’ Daisy said, as they made their way to work one Friday. It was early February, cold but dry and sunny. Spring was in the air and Cissy’s hopes were up.
‘I tell you what,’ Daisy repeated, ‘let’s not go to Madam Noreah’s tomorrow. Let’s go up West for the afternoon. Take our dance shoes and our dresses. Have a real day up there. Have lunch and a tea. And then we can go on to Kensington, to that dance place you liked so much before Christmas. We haven’t been there for ages.’
‘I haven’t got enough money for all that,’ Cissy said, prematurely counting her pay packet due this evening.
‘I have.’ Cissy looked at her in amazement. ‘My dad won on the dogs yesterday. A real good win. He came home drunk as a lord last night and – you know what he’s like. He was so soppy as usual. He gave Mum a quid for herself and one each for me and Sam, but there were two pound notes stuck together and he didn’t notice when he gave me mine. I said nothing. So we’ve got two quid to spend as well as our wages. What do you think of that?’
Cissy thought; felt excitement building up inside her.
‘I think it’s absolutely marvellous!’ Her arm through Daisy’s she gripped it tight. ‘Let’s do it.’
‘Let’s,’ Daisy echoed, giggling as they turned into East India Dock Road for their tram stop, neatly sidestepping the gypsy who scuttled towards them from the doorway of the Red Lion like some skinny black spider.
‘Tell yer fortune, young ladies? Buy a bit o’ lace ter bring yer luck, dears?’
Slender Cuban heels clicking fast, they tripped hurriedly past, chins down into their turned-up rabbit fur collars and eyes thankfully hidden by deep-crowned cloche hats, pretending they hadn’t noticed her.
‘They give me the creeps,’ Daisy said as they escaped, the black eyes gazing in their wake.
Cissy could feel them boring into her back even as she put distance between herself and the woman. It was imagination, of course. What would the woman have told her had she paused? She might have discovered if she were destined to meet that Langley Makepeace again. There was half an urge to turn back, as if she were being drawn. She could still do so. They were only fifty feet further along the road. She still could. Yet something inside said she would hear tidings rather not known. Why she felt that, she wasn’t sure.
Risking a glance over her shoulder as they joined the queue at the tram stop, she saw the dark eyes still gazing after her where normally the woman would have shrugged and gone on to plague some other passer-by.
The tram was coming. Quickly they boarded it. Even as she settled in her seat, the tram whining off, a glance revealed the swarthy face still turned in her direction, as though the woman knew exactly where Cissy had sat. A shiver went through Cissy’s body.
Daisy was chattering away, unconcerned, the gypsy long since swept from her mind. But Cissy, just enough aware of Daisy’s chattering to nod in the right places, was thinking of Langley Makepeace.
She should have gone back to that gypsy woman; she might have learned something of her future, yet she had been afraid. Perhaps of the woman herself, accosting her with her lace and promises?
There was no shortage of beggars in London. Kerbs still harboured the unfortunate flotsam from the Great War – even after six years – pathetic victims heaving along on crutches, sometimes with half a leg, sometimes a whole leg missing. Just a sleeve pinned to the breast was reason enough for the card slung about the neck on string proclaiming ‘Ex Soldger with Wife and 6 Children to Surport’.
She couldn’t help thinking sometimes, uncharitably, even as she was compelled by pity to drop a penny into a tin, that the crippled war veteran was more capable of producing children than pennies.
Some were more talented than others, the ones with all their limbs but no job moved along the gutter in threes and fours, making music with cornet and sax and clarinet. Some sold matches, some shoelaces. They far outnumbered the professionals; the one-man band, the spoon player, the barrel organ with his dressed-up little monkey and hordes of children gathering around to dance to his tunes. But none of them worried her as much as the predatory woman outside the Red Lion this morning. Yet still she felt drawn to encountering her again. What had life in store for her? Washing clothes and raising children with Eddie Bennett or living the life of luxury with Langley Makepeace?
Somehow she felt she should know already, without consulting any gypsy. Resolutely, she turned her attention back to a still chattering Daisy.
*
Sidney had toothache. It was a back tooth and kept Doris on her toes most of the night. This wasn’t the first time Sidney’s back tooth had played him up.
‘You’ll have to go to the dentist in the morning,’ she told him, which produced a drawn-out wail and an assertion that the pain had abated considerably. But it didn’t last long and she enforced her vow as she made up a hot salt-bag to press against the offending molar.
‘It’s no good goin’ on like this, luv. It’ll ’ave to come out. I’ll take you off to the dentist first thing in the morning. See what ’e thinks.’
Sidney, reduced to a cold sweat, knew only too well from previous experience that unless you had the money for gas, a child’s tooth was considered a small thing, yanked out in a tick without it. If it needed only a bit of drilling, that too was considered too easy a job on young teeth to warrant a jab of cocaine or a sniff of gas – unless your family was rich enough to pay, and Mum, as loving as she was, thought the same way as the dentist. No point throwing money around when it wasn’t all that
easy to come by. It would be over in a jiff. To Sidney it would be an eternity.
Despite all his efforts to bite his lip, his moans grew louder until all, except Dad, who, after asking what was going on had turned over and left Mum to deal with it, were woken.
Harry, angry at being woken up, had hit his brother with a pillow, making his cries even worse. May, who shared Cissy’s bedroom, began tossing and turning, complaining enough to disturb Cissy. But Cissy was already having a disturbed night, dreaming of gypsies.
Bobby’s night wasn’t so pleasant either. For him there could be no sleep after what Ethel Cottle had told him. He had gone out with her a few times since Christmas, unable to bring himself to tell her that he wanted to break with her. She was hanging on to him so, he hadn’t the heart. But he had steered clear of the recreation ground in preparation for telling her.
Then this evening, she had dropped her bombshell. ‘Bobby, you’ve got to help me. I didn’t see my…you know what…last month, and now I’ve missed again. Bobby, I think I’m pregnant!’
The last had been a wail, as great as Sidney’s in the bed next to his. ‘What am I going to do? My dad’ll kill me. Bobby, we’ve got to get married!’
He lay in bed assailed by the dilemma. He supposed he did still love Ethel when it came down to it. She was exciting, so long as she didn’t start moaning about little inconsequential things. She had a lovely figure and a beautiful elfin-shaped face and deep blue eyes a man could drown himself in. There wasn’t a girl around here to match her, except perhaps for Cissy, but Cissy was only his sister and she didn’t count.
He couldn’t even pretend that, if she was pregnant, it was someone else’s. Say what you like, Ethel was a loyal girl and hadn’t looked at another chap since she and he had been going out together. It might have been better if she had, then he might have felt a little easier. As it was, it looked as though wedding bells would be chiming within the next couple of months to keep things looking right. He had just begun to reconcile himself to the idea not being such a bad thing, drifting off, when Sidney’s crying woke him up to start the whole round off again – damn Sidney.
