by Juliet West
‘Back, smack. Back, smack,’ Alice chants. ‘You done a rhyme!’
I know Jen will be looking at me through the scullery window. Something about Jen’s way with the children always makes them see sense. I swear they save all their playing-up for me.
‘I ain’t telling you again.’ My teeth are clenched and my head feels tight, like someone’s lifting my scalp with a fork. The vandal root winks up at me from my buttonhole. Good for the nerves? What a joke. ‘Give it back now.’
Alice throws the puppet onto the cobbled ground near the privy. It lands on a patch of moss, yellowed after the dry summer. Teddy breaks away from my knees and toddles across the yard, lunging at the puppet so that he tumbles right onto it. ‘Daddy,’ he says, screwing up his small hand and putting it inside the sock. He lies on the ground, rubbing Ducky against his cheek, but his eyes are open all the while, watching Alice, guarding.
The rain starts, just a few blustery drops that blow in on the wind, smelling of autumn. Half a mile away, children are shouting and singing in the playground at St Luke’s, a peculiar ghostly sound. Alice is still stuck in the nursery class, mornings only. She’s longing for January, when she goes up to the infants.
‘I’m ’ungry, Mummy,’ she says, then springs her skinny legs up against the yard wall in a handstand.
‘Play nicely and I’ll get you some bread and sugar.’
‘Or you’ll have your uncle Alec to answer to.’
I hadn’t heard Alec come into the yard. He’s like that. Always creeping up.
I spin round and attempt a smile. ‘That’s right, Alice. Your uncle Alec don’t want to come home to a racket.’
Alec is standing close behind me now, so close I can hear the wheeze of his chest.
‘And it’s ever so dark in the coal ’ole,’ Alec says, winking and blowing a stream of fag smoke past my ear. ‘Don’t make me put you in there, little Alice.’
Alice doesn’t say anything. She’s still upside down, toes pressed against the brick wall. Her dress has fallen right over her head so that her drawers are on show. She’ll be poking out her tongue underneath that skirt; I’d put money on it.
I turn to go inside, but Alec is blocking my path to the back door.
‘Letter from George, is it?’ he asks, nodding down at my hand.
‘I haven’t read it yet.’ From the look on his face I reckon he expects me to open it there and then, read aloud so he’s first in the picture. Nosy beggar. ‘I’m saving it for the evening,’ I say, ‘once the kids are in bed.’
‘Saving what?’ calls Alice from under her dress.
‘Never you mind.’
There’s nothing for it but to brush past Alec. As I step towards him, though, he stands aside, bending low in a fancy bow like I’m some grand lady of the house and he’s the footman.
‘After you, madam,’ he says, and though he keeps his hands to himself, I know he’s looking at my backside. Sizing me up.
Alice and Teddy are tucked into bed. I stand against the bedroom door, watching them now they’ve finally dropped off: little Teddy flat on his back with his arms clasped behind his head, snoring. He’s the spit of George, with his high forehead and wide mouth, the bottom lip protruding in that gormless way George has. Alice is on her side, spine arched towards Teddy and a tangled curl draped over her cheek. There’s a small palliasse on the floor where Alice is supposed to sleep, but she won’t stay down there. ‘Lumpy and cold,’ she says. ‘Spiders under the floorboards.’ I want to tell her that spiders ain’t the half of it, but best to keep my trap shut. So every night I find myself sharing the creaking iron bedstead with the two of them, squashed along one edge of the mattress. It’s a good job the war has turned me so skinny. Can’t even keep my wedding ring on my finger these days. I ought to nip in the waistband of my skirt, tighten the seams of my blouse, but I like my clothes loose. Loose means less for Alec to stare at.
Through the bedroom window I can see the banks of Bow Creek, thick mud gleaming in the September dusk. A rowing boat rocks on the water as an old man leans over, scooping up flotsam for winter firewood. If he leans any further, he’ll be in the creek. He stretches slowly for a jagged plank, grasps it and bends his body back into the boat. Delicate, measured. He’s an expert, this old boy. Understands the weight of things, the art of balance.
Beyond the creek rise the chimneys of the treacle refinery and the ironworks, black as the swelling tide. George is wrong. I’ll never get used to living in Canning Town. I’m stranded out here, the wrong side of the water.
Downstairs, the front door slams. That’ll be Alec, out to the pub. Now Jen will spend the evening getting the scullery straight; then she’ll go up to bed with a warm milk if there’s milk spare and a copy of the Pictorial. She’ll blow out the candle when she hears Alec sway back home, steel herself for her husband, because if there’s one thing she wants more than to be left alone, it’s a baby.
Alice stirs as I shake creases from her pinafore and fold it over the end of the bedstead. I undress as quietly as I can, slip on my damp nightgown and pull it close around me to warm the cold cotton with my skin.
In the corner of the room is an upturned barrel that serves as a washstand. I’ve put George’s unopened letter in an old toffee tin underneath the barrel. It’s not much of a hiding place, but it’s the best I can find. I don’t think for one minute that Jen or Alec haven’t unearthed that tin and had a good old poke around.
There’s enough daylight to read by. I take the wash things off the barrel and slide the tin out. You can still smell toffees when you open the lid. George’s letters are at the bottom, under my herb book with the flower remedies and the copy of Barter’s Guide to Beautiful Handwriting. George promised he’d look at Barter’s, but he never did, not once, so I always have to read his writing a few times before I can work out his peculiar spellings and the tiny letters that he squishes up so close. When I open this latest letter, a couple of fag cards for Teddy drop out and a purple ribbon, which I guess is meant for Alice. Where he gets hold of these things in a war I couldn’t say.
There’s been a flare-up, George says, but it’s all settled now. Nothing to worry about. Hot sunshine and plenty of rashons, he says. The lads are a smashing bunch.
2
The whore in the room next door is noisy tonight. Anyone would think she was enjoying herself. The thought intrigues him, which leads to the next thought, and then he can’t help himself. Afterwards he washes in the freezing water that is still standing in the bowl from this morning. The cloth catches on a chip in the china and water sloshes over the sides. Now there are murky pools on the old wooden stand. He uses his cloth to wipe up the spill, though the washstand is already covered in watermarks and scratches: the carelessness of tenants past.
He is naked, but not cold, and the flush of his cheeks is still visible in the pocked oval mirror that hangs from the picture rail. The landlady was particularly proud of the mirror when she showed him round the room. ‘Only two rooms has got a looking glass,’ said Mrs Browne, stroking the curve of the oval so that the mirror rocked gently on its string. ‘You can wash and brush up beautiful with this. Not that you need any help, fine-looking feller like you,’ and then Mrs Browne appeared to wink.
The murmur of voices from the whore’s room, the sound of a door closing quietly. He stands at the window to watch her customer leave the house. There is something confident in the soldier’s step as he strides across the road, past the public baths and the bronze statue of a long-dead philanthropist patting his pet dog. The soldier’s arms swing loosely by his sides; they are not drilled into coat pockets or wrapped around his body as if to deny the pleasure he has just taken. No, this punter may as well be whistling.
Gaslight shines on dewy cobbles. A cat picks its way across the road, pausing when it reaches the other side, its back arching so that he can see the silhouette of inky fur, raised in matted spikes. The cat twists down an alley near the railway station, its body so close to the blac
kened bricks that he soon loses sight of it.
The whore is now singing to herself. Sonia, was it, her name? Terrible tuneless voice, she has. He can’t make out the melody. He wonders whether he should knock on the partition wall. Knock on her door, even? She’d make him welcome; he’s sure of that. Sonia doesn’t seem to be anyone’s doxy; she is a free-trading tart, if such a thing exists. He counts out his money and doubts it will be enough. Another night, perhaps.
He takes his nightshirt from the back of the chair and shakes it. A large spider drops out and scuttles into a crevice between the skirting and the floorboards. Bad time of year for spiders. So many creatures coming in from the cold.
The candle is very low now, but there should be enough light to read for an hour, perhaps two. Then it will be dawn, and if he still cannot sleep, there will be light from the window. Next to his bed is a stack of tattered volumes: books he has bought or bartered; books he has been given by Lady Tolland; books he has borrowed but intends to return.
He sleeps, finally, and dreams of Esther. Her hair has turned wavy in the rain, and she is standing in Lady Tolland’s garden, rocking the third baby. He calls, but she seems not to hear, and then she wades into the lake, the autumn-brown reeds catching on her skirts, her sleeves, the baby’s feet, as they disappear under the surface.
3
On Wednesday I walk over to Poplar to call in on Mum and Dad. Jen’s keeping an eye on the kids. Dad’s not so good and Mum doesn’t like the children to see him when he’s ill.
They live in a tenement block now, on the fourth floor. It’s only half a mile from where we grew up, but it feels a world away from the Ellesmere Street terrace with its sunny backyard where Dad would grow vegetables and flowers in half-barrels filled with earth. Sometimes Mum complained about the barrels – they took up too much room, she said, got in the way of the washing when it was drying on the line – but she loved the flowers all right, dainty snowdrop posies in February, daffodils in March and by August the brazen sunflowers growing taller than the privy roof.
My breath starts to catch as I reach the fourth floor. I hate to think of Mum and Dad perched up here with so many stairs to climb. There’s danger in these tall buildings; you only have to look at the rusting banisters, the rough plaster over the stairwell cracks. They have their own front door at least. It’s quieter than usual on the landing, only the drip of a pipe from the communal tap.
‘Mum,’ I call, soft as I can, because Dad might be sleeping.
The key turns in the lock and Mum appears, an index finger pressed to her lips. She steps out onto the landing.
I glimpse Dad through the half-open door. He’s curled in his bed under the tiny window, his back to me. It’s only a week since I last saw him, but he looks shrunken. On top of his blanket is the rag rug from the floor. He must have felt cold in the night. This person, it isn’t really my dad. It’s a kind of dumb creature, something wounded you have to care for. It’s not even a proper ailment – rheumatism or heart trouble or the gallstones that killed Dor’s dad. ‘Nerve weakness’ was old Dr Evans’s diagnosis. Then there was the fancy doctor who had a fancy name for Dad’s condition but no cure either. ‘Circular insanity,’ Mr Bloor-Stephenson said, and that’s all we got for our two pounds.
‘Shocking night,’ whispers Mum. ‘“The crows,” he kept saying. “The crows. They’re leaving the tower.” And he was trying to get out of bed, crawling over to the door. I had to hide the key in the end. He’s asleep now, thank God.’ She fingers the gold chain round her neck. ‘It’s no good, Hannah – I’m going to have to take him down there again.’ With the back of her hand she wipes her eyes; they seem to have sunk even further into her face, red-rimmed, with oil in the wrinkles where she’s rubbed in her ointment. ‘But it’s jam-packed down there, I’m told. Full of soldiers. Some of them don’t recognize their own mothers. Do you remember Ciss from Ellesmere Street, Hannah – Ciss with the piano? Her boy Peter is in a terrible way. I saw her on the tram and she was half mad herself with the worry.’
It upsets me to think of it. I was fond of Peter before I went up west. When I was barely fourteen and he was a couple of years older, he winded me with a snowball the year of the heavy snow. He put his arm round my shoulder till I got my breath back and for months I would conjure him in my daydreams, imagine him playing piano for me, his delicate fingers on the keys. It’s terrible to picture him in that hospital, the bright white walls that hide so much darkness. And then I think of George. If he came back touched, I have no idea how I’d manage, what sort of a wife I’d be.
‘Peter was always a nervy sort,’ says Mum. ‘Not like your George. You heard from him?’
‘There was a letter on Monday. He seems to be all right. Hot sun and plenty of rations, he said.’
‘Well, let’s be thankful for that.’
‘And I’ve just got a job, Mum, in a cafe down Cubitt Town. Called in Monday and went back yesterday and they offered it to me there and then. Waitressing and kitchen work, meals included . . .’
She’s staring off into the distance beyond the railings. There’s no view to speak of, only the rows of greasy windows and the shifting grey laundry of the tenements opposite. I’m not sure if she’s heard a word I said about the job. Her hands are clasped together, crooked and knobbled from working the Singer.
‘Mum? Waitressing work. So there’ll be a bit more money coming in. I can help you and Dad out.’
‘You’ll do no such thing,’ she says, facing me now. ‘You’ll keep every penny for those children. I won’t have them going short.’ She shivers and pulls the rolled-up sleeves of her blouse back down to her wrists. ‘You’d better come in for a cup of tea. Dad’s bound to wake up soon and he’ll want to see you.’
I wonder if that’s true. Last week he barely seemed to know me. But I follow Mum inside. The room is tidy – Mum is forever fussing around – but however hard she works at keeping the place decent, somehow the squalor blows in. Newspaper is laid over the floor to keep the draughts down. Mould creeps from a corner near the window. Behind the front door, piles of finished shirts are folded neatly into tailors’ boxes. She’s been busy, trying to keep up the rent on this wretched room.
Mum strikes a match for the gas and Dad starts awake. He sits up in bed and wipes a dried crust of saliva from his mouth. He blinks at me. ‘Beatrice?’ he says. ‘Whatever are you thinking of?’
4
Dor calls round on her way back from work. Says she can’t face going home because her mum’s in an evil mood and the little ones are driving her spare. She’s the eldest of seven – two girls and five boys – and no dad because of the gallstones.
‘Spare any milk?’ she says. She’s never shy to ask for anything, but that’s one of the best things about Dor. She knows how to stand up for herself. She wasn’t afraid to stand up for me either when we were at school. I was the smallest in the infants’ class, only came up to Peg Riddle’s armpit, whereas Dor could stare Peg down any day of the week.
I pour half a cup of milk into a glass. Alice and Teddy crowd round Dor in the scullery. They’re hoping she’ll twirl them round or make them laugh with one of her daft rhymes, but I tell them to hop it because it’s time for bed.
‘It’s still day!’ moans Alice, dangling a cat’s-cradle string from her thumb.
‘And soon it will be night. Now toddle off and leave us in peace.’
Dor has gulped her milk before we’ve even sat down in the parlour. Jen looks up from her mending and manages a smile. Dor opens her mouth as if to say hello, but a loud burp comes out. She’s always burping. She eats too quick, drinks too quick, talks too quick. ‘Pardon me,’ she laughs, patting her chest through the brown overalls. Her hands are the colour of custard. Dor notices Jen staring.
‘It’s the dynamite,’ she says, holding her hands out and turning them over, like she’s wearing an expensive engagement ring we’re supposed to admire. ‘At least it don’t bring me out in a rash, though. Some of the girls are
suffering terrible. What about me ’air, then?’ She takes off her cap, pulls the pins from her hair and shakes it loose. There are bright yellow streaks all the way through.
‘I like it, Dor, very glamorous,’ I say. Her hair does look pretty. Makes up for the strange tint to her skin.
‘Good, ain’t it? Not so good if you’re grey, though. Grey hair turns green.’
‘So I’ve heard,’ says Jen.
‘But as for ginger, I ain’t sure, Jenny. I’ll keep me eye out and let you know.’ Dor burps again.
Jen stiffens and folds her mending into the basket. She never has warmed to Dor, not since the family became neighbours in Ellesmere Street all those years ago.
‘I’ll leave you to it,’ says Jen, and disappears into the scullery. There’s a loud clanking as she takes the dirty pans out to the yard.
‘I’ve never known backache like it,’ says Dor, sinking down into Jen’s chair and circling her shoulders so that you can hear little cracking noises in her bones.
I sit on the hearth rug.
‘You found a job, then?’ asks Dor.
‘Waitressing in Cubitt Town three days a week, meals included.’
‘You’ve struck lucky there, Hannah. Shame you couldn’t get anything closer, though.’
‘I don’t mind the walk. Clears my head after I’ve been cooped up with the children.’
‘Know what you mean,’ she says, rolling her eyes. But she doesn’t know what I mean. You can’t truly know about children until you’ve had your own. Brothers and sisters are all very well, but it’s not the same. I can’t help envying Dor sometimes, all the freedom she has. It seemed like the end of the world when Len threw her over – on a postcard from the training camp like that too – but now I reckon she’s well rid. She doesn’t have to worry about Len being blown to pieces in France, or coming back gaga, or spending the rest of his life with stumps for legs.
