Number six was towards the middle of the terrace. It was exactly the same as all the others, with a plain green door and one plain green-framed window on the ground floor and two identical green-framed windows on the floor above.
‘But that’s a house,’ Flossie protested. ‘I thought we was living with you an’ Ethel.’
‘No,’ Gideon said, putting on the handbrake like the end of an argument. ‘You’re not. So don’t even think it. Two rooms over the shop! There’s barely room for us.’ And he climbed out of the van.
‘I can’t live here,’ Flossie repeated, making no attempt to follow him out. ‘Not with my nerves. I shall be all on my own.’
‘Oh come on, Flossie,’ Gideon said, walking round to the back of the van to open the rear doors. ‘It’s a fair rent. There’s no bugs. Nice clean house. You got the girls for company. What more d’you want? Out you get, girls. You’re here.’
The three girls stepped out into the sunlight, blinking like owls.
We’re in London now and no mistake, Peggy thought as her feet touched the cobbles, and excitement bloomed in her mind like an opening rose. She could smell it was London. All that lovely soot and smoke in the air, and horse-dung and dust and leather and old clothes, and the familiar reek of trams, hot oil and brass polish and dusty steel. There was even a faint whiff of the river somewhere nearby.
Smoke rose from the chimneys like ribbons of tattered brown gauze to drift and waver before it melted into the blue of the sky, and above the tall roof of the pub at the end of the road she could see the top of an elaborate church tower, white and outlandish as a wedding cake. But best of all was the noise of the place, the rumble and clatter of traffic, a train chuffing, woodsaws buzzing, dogs barking and lots and lots of busy London voices. Oh it was lovely!
Their arrival had gathered the usual crowd of rubbernecks, women in grubby aprons, a horde of tatty children and half a dozen mongrels, all tremulous tails, tense paws and inquisitive noses. The sooner I get this poor cat indoors away from that lot, she thought, holding the box close to her chest, the better.
Then she noticed that there was a face nodding at them from one of the upstairs windows of number six, a round amiable face with a snub nose, false teeth, small dark eyes behind a pair of round, iron-grey glasses and two rows of sausage-shaped iron-grey curls encircling a head as neat as a skull-cap.
‘Mrs Geary,’ Uncle Gideon explained, hauling the trunk towards the open doors. ‘She’s sub-lettin’ to your Mum. House is hers by rights. She lives in the front bedroom.’
‘D’you want a hand with that, mate?’ an elderly man offered, settling his grey cloth cap back on his head after he’d wiped the sweat from his forehead with it.
‘Very good of you,’ Uncle Gideon said. ‘Ta.’
‘Needs four,’ the man said, signalling to two of the boys in the crowd. ‘Name of Allnutt. Two doors up. Come on lads. Lend a hand.’
The head above them was smiling and nodding, its double row of curls bouncing vigorously. ‘Come on up,’ it called. ‘Where’s yer ma?’
So they came on up, which was easy enough because the house was small and compact and built to a very simple plan with a scullery, a narrow hall and two rooms on the ground floor and two similar rooms above. The staircase rose precipitately through the middle of the house and parallel with the street, and having no direct light it was almost as dark as the stairs in Grandpa’s cottage.
The front bedroom was the best room in th house, with two windows where the other rooms only had one, and an excellent view of the street. Besides being the best lit it was also the biggest, being over the front parlour and the hall. As soon as they stepped inside, the three girls could quite see why Mrs Geary had taken it.
It was a complete home, entire of itself, full of furniture and heavily curtained. A red baize draught excluder smothered the door, there was faded chintz at the windows, a green chenille cloth on the table and a brown chenille cover on the mantelpiece, danging a row of impoverished tassels. The grate below it was beautifully polished and had three separate hobs for kettles and irons and saucepans, and enough fire-irons for all the fires in the house. There was a chest of drawers with shelves above it on one side of the chimney and a brass bedstead on the other, there was a sideboard sitting on its haunches and sagging with unmatched china a mere six inches from a gateleg table set for tea, there were two elderly wicker chairs beneath one of the windows and a battered armchair beside the second, there was a washstand and a treadle sewing machine and a bookcase full of books and the walls were covered with prints and pictures and faded photographs.
Their new landlady was sitting in the armchair in the midst of all her possessions. ‘Come in. Come in,’ she said. ‘Make yourselves at’ome. I’d get up only I got these legs you see.’
The legs in question were propped up on a tapestry stool. They were wrapped in grey bandages and looked rather like two gigantic salami sausages. ‘Can’t get about,’ Mrs Geary explained,‘otherwise they give me gyp. Where’s yer ma?’
Joan looked out of the window. ‘Bringing in our china,’ she said.
‘Let’s ‘ave a look see,’ Mrs Geary said, unhooking a walking stick from the back of her chair. There was a long double mirror standing between her chair and the window. ‘Everything to ‘and,’ she said, pushing the two sides into new positions with her stick. ‘Ah yes. There she is with yer uncle. You must tell ’er ter come up an’ get acquainted when she’s ready. D’you like me parrot?’
The room was so crowded none of them had noticed that there was a birdcage in it too. Now they couldn’t take their eyes away from it, for the parrot who perched monumentally in the middle of it was a magnificent bird, huge and silver-grey with a fine red tail.
‘Gosh!’ Baby said with admiration. ‘Does he talk?’
‘Not much,’ Mrs Geary admitted. ‘Do yer, mate? Swears though. Swears fit ter bust.’ The parrot’s ability to swear had made him an indispensable companion. Mrs Geary considered herself too much the lady to descend to foul language, so the bird swore for her, taking its cue from the tone of her voice, and adapting the volume and obscenity of its utterances to suit her mood. It was an arrangement that suited them both very well indeed, the parrot because he was invariably rewarded with monkey-nuts, Mrs Geary because she’d been able to give vicarious vent to her feelings.
‘It’ud warm the cockles of yer heart to hear that bird swear, I’m tellin’ yer,’ she said. ‘Whatcher got in that ‘atbox?’
‘A cat,’ Peggy admitted, realizing a little too late that this new landlady of theirs might not approve of cats and that perhaps she ought to have asked permission before she brought it in.
But Mrs Geary put her mind at rest straight away. ‘Oooh lovely,’ she said. ‘Let it out quick. I must see. I love cats. Used to ‘ave a tortoiseshell once.’
‘What about the parrot?’ Peggy hesitated.
‘Lor’ love yer, he won’t mind,’ Mrs Geary said. ‘He likes company.’
So they opened the cat-box, and the cat was revealed, distressed and panting, with its fur stuck together in spiky clumps, too frightened to cry or swear. Peggy lifted it out of the box as quickly and gently as she could but it crouched to the ground in fright, and when she removed her hands it slunk across the room on its belly and hid itself behind the washstand.
‘Poor thing,’ Mrs Geary said. ‘That’s the journey done that. They don’t like travellin’, cats. Leave it here with me while you unpack, eh? I’ll keep an eye on it. What’s its name?’
Peggy hadn’t thought of a name for it until that moment, but there was no doubt what it should be. ‘Tabitha,’ she said. ‘Tabby for short.’
‘It’s a female then,’ Mrs Geary said. ‘We might get some kittens.’
‘Oh yes,’ Peggy said. ‘I do hope so.’
Mum was calling them. ‘Peggy! Joan! Where’ve you got to?’
‘We’d better go down,’ Joan said.
‘Which one of you is Joan?’ Mrs Geary asked
, looking at them brightly.
‘I am.’
‘I couldn’t just get you to put a match to that fire, could I, Joan dear?’ Mrs Geary wheedled. ‘And then if one of you could just bring me a jug a’ water next time you’re up I could make us all a cup a’ tea. That enamel jug by the door, see. I could do with a cup, couldn’t you?’
‘Yes,’ Joan said. ‘Course.’
‘I’d get it mesself, only I got these legs,’ Mrs Geary explained.
So Joan lit the fire and when it had taken they all went clattering downstairs to the sparsely furnished rooms they were now renting. Flossie was in the front parlour surrounded by the contents of the trunk.
‘I don’t know where to begin,’ she said. ‘It’s too bad of your uncle.’
‘Where is he?’ Baby asked. Unwisely.
‘Gone,’ Flossie said, complaining at once and bitterly. ‘He couldn’t even help me unpack. That’s all he thinks of his sister. How am I supposed to manage with all this? I don’t know where to begin.’
‘I’ll fill this jug,’ Peggy said to Joan, ‘and then we’ll get cracking.’
‘Everything’s so dirty,’ Flossie complained. ‘You should see the state of the dresser.’
It took them the rest of the afternoon and a visit to the corner shop for soft soap and caustic soda to clean shelves and cupboards to her satisfaction and then to unpack. Mrs Geary banged on the ceiling to signal that the tea was ready before they were even half finished.
‘What’s that?’ Flossie said, glancing up apprehensively. And when Peggy explained she looked even more apprehensive.
‘I don’t want tea,’ she said. ‘Not with a stranger.’
‘She ain’t a stranger,’ Joan said. ‘She’s nice. You’ll see.’
For the second time that afternoon Mrs Geary forestalled complaint before it could be uttered. As soon as her new tenants entered her room she swung her bandaged legs onto the floor, unhooked her stick from the back of her chair and hobbled across the rag rug to Flossie.
‘Mrs Furnivall,’ she said, holding out her hand in greeting. ‘You don’t know how glad I am to see you.’
‘Oh!’ Flossie said, rather nonplussed.
‘The minute your brother said a widow with three girls I knew you was the ones for me,’ Mrs Geary beamed. ‘An’ such nice girls. We’ve met al-a-ready. A credit to you, Mrs Furnivall. A credit. Tea’s all ready. I’ll bet you’re gasping. I know I am.’
Somehow or other she ushered them all into position around her table as she was talking, Flossie and Joan on the wicker chairs, Peggy on the footstool, Baby on a dirty clothes basket, herself in the armchair.
‘Theatricals I ‘ad the last time,’ she said as she poured the tea. ‘Dirty beggars! They was chronic, I can tell you. An’ I couldn’t get down to clear up after ’em proper on account a’ these legs. I’m ever so sorry. I’ll bet you’ve had ever such a job.’
‘Yes, well, it was dirty,’ Flossie admitted. ‘We’ve had to scrub all the shelves.’ It was the first thing she’d intended to complain about.
‘I knew it,’ Mrs Geary said, as if she’d been vindicated. ‘The dirty beggars, An’ they did a moonlight. You can’t trust theatricals. I am glad you’ve come, my dear. We shall get on like a house a-fre. Come on then Tabby, d’you want to get up again do yer?’ For the cat, now clean and dry and quite herself again, had appeared beside the armchair and was looking up hopefully. ‘She’s been on my lap all the while the kettle’s been boiling, dear little thing.’
‘You’ve got a cat then?’ Flossie said. ‘As well as a parrot.’
Messages flashed quickly from Mrs Geary’s sharp black eyes to Peggy’s anxious hazel ones.
‘Oh yes,’ Mrs Geary said easily. ‘Dear little thing. Your Peggy says she’ll help look after her.’
Why, she’s an ally, Peggy thought. And she drank her tea with real gratitude.
After such a start Flossie decided she might as well get on with her new landlady and the two of them embarked on a long conversation about theatricals and what mucky beggars they were and how some people didn’t know how to keep their houses clean. On the second cup of tea, they turned their attention to their ailments and Mrs Geary told Flossie what awful trouble she had with her legs and, not to be outdone, Flossie replied with a graphic account of the torments she suffered with her nerves, and the parrot, responding to the querulous note in their voices, produced a sudden volley of oaths which delighted Mrs Geary and made Flossie blush.
The cat, finding Mrs Geary’s legs more active than they had been earlier in the afternoon, took herself off and settled on Peggy’s lap instead. And when all the tea had been drunk, and Flossie was sighing that she supposed they’d better get back to work, Mrs Geary asked Peggy whether she wouldn’t mind taking the little animal downstairs into the garden to ‘do her business’. And of course Peggy didn’t mind at all.
The garden was little more than a backyard, since well over half the space at the rear of the house was taken up by an outhouse containing the scullery, the coalshed and an outside lavatory. There was a flowerbed of sorts although there weren’t any flowers in it and the earth looked sour and black and lifeless, and a scrubby patch of trodden grass with a clothes line strung above it and three broken flower pots lying on their side, which Tabby investigated disdainfully before strolling off to sniff the earth.
You wouldn’t grow many vegetables here, Peggy thought, remembering the well-kept vegetable patch behind Grandpa’s cottage, and she was just stirring the dead earth with the toe of her sandal when she heard a most peculiar noise. It came from the garden next door and it sounded as though someone was sobbing or groaning. There was a tin bath lying beside the outhouse wall, so she dragged it to the fence and climbed up on it to see what was the matter.
The garden next door was full of rubbish, bits of broken ladder, old wheels, rusty tins, a mangled bicycle frame, half a mattress leaking stained horsehair and sagging springs, and standing amongst it, banging his head against the lavvy wall was a dark-haired boy about the same age as she was. He had the palms of both hands pushed against the bricks and he was groaning, ‘Oh! Oh! Oh!’ as though he was in pain.
‘What’s up?’ she said. ‘Are you hurt?’
He stopped groaning at once and turned his head to glare at her. His eyelids were red with weeping and all his eyelashes were stuck together like black spikes. ‘Clear off!’ he said.
‘Well that’s nice!’ she said. ‘I only asked.’
‘Well don’t,’ he said. His eyes were very blue, as if crying had washed them clean.
‘I thought you was hurt,’ she said. What a horrid boy. He didn’t have to be so rude.
‘Well I’m not, so clear off.’
‘You was crying enough,’ she said, feeling quite cross with him.
He dashed the remaining tears from his cheeks. ‘I wasn’t,’ he said. ‘And anyway, if I was it ain’t none a’ your business, so you can just keep your long nose out of it.’
‘Cry all you like!’ she said, thoroughly cross with him now. ‘See if I care.’ And she got down off the bath and went to find her cat. What a horrid boy!
Fortunately there was so much to do, unpacking and cleaning and jollying Mum along and running up and down stairs with things for Mrs Geary, that she couldn’t stay cross for long. It wasn’t until late that night, when everything had been unpacked and put away, and they’d all had fish and chips for supper, which was a real treat, and she and Joan and Baby were squashed up together in the lumpy double bed in the back bedroom, trying to find positions that were comfortable enough to sleep in, that she remembered the boy and how rude he’d been.
‘I like Mrs Geary,’ Joan said. ‘I wonder what the other neighbours’ll be like.’
‘The boy next door’s horrid,’ Peggy said and told her what he’d said.
‘Still at least you got your cat,’ Joan said. They’d found an orange box for their new pet to sleep in and now she was curled up very peacefully beside their b
ed, just within reach of Peggy’s caressing fingers.
‘There’s lots a’ kids in the street,’ Baby said happily. ‘There’ll be ever such games tomorrow I’ll bet. D’you think Mum’ll let us play out?’
But there was no knowing what Mum would be like in the morning. They could hear her crashing about in the front parlour putting up the camp bed and grumbling to herself.
‘We’ll have to wait an’ see,’ Peggy said sleepily, stroking the cat’s soft head.
The next day was the busiest and noisiest of the week for, as they soon discovered, their short street was part of the direct route to Greenwich market, so on a Saturday it was perpetually full of people either briskly on their way to market or gossiping back. Mrs Geary seemed to know them all. She sat by her open window all morning with her parrot beside her, both of them shouting down to the passers by. ‘How’s your Tommy? I seen ‘im go along.’ ‘Aark! Aark!’ ‘Mornin’ Mrs Jones!’
‘You been to market yet?’ she said to Peggy when the child came upstairs in answer to her knocking summons.
‘No,’ Peggy said. ‘Not yet. We been putting the clothes away.’
‘I’d cut off pretty sharpish if I was you,’ Mrs Geary advised. ‘The best fruit an’ veg goes ever so quick. Tell yer ma not to buy any meat till closin’ time. She’ll get it half-price then, tell ’er. I’ll come down with you tonight, if you like. Show you the ropes. Meantime if you’re going that way this morning could you just be a dear an’ get me a couple a’ pounds a’ spuds? King Edwards for preference. An’ a pound a’ peas, an’ a bunch a’ carrots. Save me poor ol’ legs. Oh an’ a sprig a’ mint. ’E’ll throw that in for free, only you got to ask for it.’
So Joan and Peggy set off to find the market, which was easy enough because all they had to do was to follow the crowd. They passed the church, which turned out to be really enormous, big enough to be a cathedral, and found themselves facing a wide crossroads where four sets of tramlines met and intermeshed, and there on the opposite side of the street was an archway made of stone with the words ‘Greenwich Market’ carved on the keystone. They struggled through the traffic still following the crowd, passed the pawn shop beside the arch where two racks of old coats and trousers had been wheeled out onto the pavement to attract custom, walked down a short narrow passage way between dank brick walls, and arrived.
London Pride Page 13
