‘Hop in,’ she said to Flossie.‘That’s all nice and comfortable now.’
‘You’re a good girl,’ Flossie said leaning forward out of her chair to kiss her. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you an’ that’s a fact.’
But it was poor consolation for the ending of her first ‘pash’.
For the next three weeks Peggy struggled on, doing the housework and the shopping, cooking the meals, washing the clothes, and waiting on her mother hand and foot. On 4 August her birthday came and went unremarked. Occasionally Baby would offer to help with the washing-up or the ironing or the mending, but Joan was no help as all. She was rarely in the house except to sleep and eat her meals. She left earlier than usual in the morning and as soon as supper was over and the dishes were done she was off out again.
‘Got a young man,’ Mrs Geary said nodding sagely. ‘That’s what it is. You mark my words.’
But Peggy didn’t think that was the explanation. There was something hard and determined about her sister these days that didn’t fit in with a girl who was being courted.
‘We’d know if it was that,’ she said.
‘How would you know?’
‘She’d be happier.’
‘Not necessarily,’ Mrs Geary said, biting off her thread. ‘Love’s a funny business. Takes people all sorts a’ ways. Don’t it, Polly?’
‘Bugger, bugger,’ the parrot agreed. ‘Star-new-standard!’
‘He’s a caution,’ Mrs Geary said. ‘You coming to the ding-dong termorrer?’
‘If Mum’s up to it.’
‘She’ll be all right,’ Mrs Geary said.’We can nip up an’ down. Yer uncle can sit with her fer a bit. He said he’d be coming. You’ve missed three weeks on the trot now an’ last Saturday was a corker.’
But in the event they didn’t nip up and down to Flossie that Saturday evening, because Joan arrived about an hour after the singing began, arm-in-arm with a stocky young man, and once she’d gathered eveyone’s attention she had an announcement to make.
‘This is Sid Owen,’ she said, and to Peggy’s eyes her expression was hard and bold and rather alarming. ‘We’re going to get married.’
The news caused an immediate stir. Nonnie Brown staggered across the room, spilling half her brown ale on the way, shook Sid’s hand for such a long time that they wondered when she was going to stop, and then insisted that Cyril should play the wedding march in their honour. And while it was being sucked to tunelessness, the rest of the ding-dong flocked to congratulate them.
The four O’Donavan girls were shining eyed with the wonder of it. ‘Will you wear white, Joanie?’ the eldest asked. ‘Are you having bridesmaids?’
‘Gosh!’ Baby said. ‘Fancy you getting married, our Joan. I’ll be a bridesmaid won’t I?’
Gideon was delighted. ‘I love a good wedding,’ he said. ‘When’s it going to be?’
It was all worked out, Joan told him, ‘Sid’s got a job as assistant baker in the Deptford branch,’ she said proudly. ‘Starting September. Assistant baker with two rooms over the shop.’
‘Lucky you,’ Lily Boxall said. ‘So will it be September?’
‘Third Sat’day,’ Sid told her. He looked very full of himself, like a tightly-blown balloon, and he felt very full of himself too, now that he’d got his nerve back. On that amazing evening when Joan first told him she’d like to get married he hadn’t known what to do or say.
They’d been up on the common, necking the way they usually did, and he was just letting his hands wander in a hopeful sort of way, when she caught hold of them and squeezed them and gave him one of her bold grins.
‘D’you know what, Sid Owen,’ she said, ‘I think we ought to get married.’
He was so surprised his mouth fell open and he forgot to shut it again. ‘What?’ he said.
‘Married. You know, wedding-bells, bride and groom, confetti.’
‘What you an’ me?’ They were much too young. They couldn’t get married yet, could they?
‘Why not? You’ve got a new job, I’ve got a bit put by. I’ll bet you could get a couple of rooms over one of the shops, a fine baker like you.’
‘Well… ’ he wondered.
‘Be a cut above the rest of ’em,’ she urged. ‘Married man, home of your own. You think. An’ I bet he’d give you a raise an’ all if you was to ask for it.’
The idea took hold, a wife, a raise, a home of his own. ‘Are you perposin’ ter me?’ he said. ‘Didn’t you ought ter wait for me ter perpose?’
‘Go on then,’ she dared him.
‘Well all right,’ he said. ‘I suppose we might as well.’ But despite the reward of her kiss it all seemed very unlikely.
He was very surprised when everything fell into place exactly the way she’d predicted, and now, standing here in the midst of their admiration, full of importance and desire and pride of ownership, he was pleased to think he’d made his decision. He’d be twenty-one in September, twenty-one and an assistant baker and a married man. Better than any of this lot, and a bloody sight better than his miserable father.
‘You’ll give me away, won’t you Uncle Gideon,’ Joan said.
‘Glad to,’ Gideon said. ‘What’s yer Ma say about it, eh? I’ll bet she’s tickled pink.’
‘We ain’t told her yet,’ Joan confessed. ‘Have we, Sid? We thought it’d be nice if we all went down tonight and saw her together. A sort of family party, me an’ Sid an’ you an’ Aunt Ethel.’
‘Cours,’ Gideon agreed, understanding what she was up to, but keeping his thoughts to himself. ‘After the next song, eh? When I’ve finished me pint.’
None of them noticed that the only person who hadn’t rushed forward with congratulations was Peggy. She’d been sitting on the stairs when Joan came in, and the news had surprised her despite Mrs Geary’s warning, so she’d stayed where she was, hidden by the shadow of the half wall. But when the next song began, which was ‘Knees Up Mother Brown’, naturally, to match their high spirits, she threaded her way quietly through the bouncing mob to put her arms round her sister and give her a hug.
‘Hello Peg,’ Joan said, hugging her back. ‘He’s just gone to get a drink. What d’you think?’
‘Have you known him long?’ Peggy said, speaking close to her sister’s ear. She didn’t shout because Mrs Roderick was sitting on her bench immediately behind them, listening for all she was worth, and she didn’t want Mrs Roderick to know their family secrets. But the question had to be asked nevertheless. She couldn’t believe that their sensible Joan would have made a decision like that in a rush. She must have thought about it.
‘Since Christmas,’ Joan said into her ear.
‘And you kept it secret all that time.’
‘Till I was sure. Yes.’
‘And you’re sure now?’
‘Yes,’ Joan said. But there was no happiness in the word. It was just a flat affirmative, spoken without feeling, dropped into the babble of the song like a pebble in a pool.
‘Do you love him?’ Peggy ventured when the next great roar of song gave her the necessary cover.
That was answered almost flippantly. ‘He’ll do.’
It wasn’t very reassuring, but by now Peggy couldn’t think what to ask next.
‘Tell you what,’ Joan said, putting her head close to her sister’s ear again and speaking quietly. ‘Come September I shall be my own boss, my own house, money for my keep. Think a’ that. I shan’t have to go to work no more, shan’t have to watch Mum spending my wages on Baby, nothing like that.’ And now there was passion in her voice and her eyes were gleaming.
‘You deserve it,’ Peggy said affectionately, ‘after – all that – you know – in Tillingbourne.’
Sid was elbowing his way back towards them with an overflowing glass in each hand. There were other things that had to be said before he reached them.
‘Don’t say nothing about it to …’ Joan began.
‘Course not,’ Peggy reassured. ‘As if I wo
uld.’
‘There y’are,’ Sid said, giving them both the benefit of his daring eyes. ‘One for you an’ one for your pretty sister.’
To Peggy’s surprise Joan changed from her serious mood into instant teasing. ‘How d’you know she’s my sister?’ she said.’You ain’t been introduced.’
‘She is though, ain’t she?’ he answered. ‘You’re Peggy, aintcher? Have a beer.’
‘No thanks,’ Peggy said. ‘It’s very kind but you have it. I got mine on the stairs.’
The song and dance had bounced to a halt.
‘Come along then, Joan,’ Uncle Gideon said, looming upon them red-faced and glistening with sweat. ‘Time fer yer Mum. Coming with us, Peggy?’
‘Well … ’ Peggy said. She didn’t want to witness this meeting at all but she couldn’t think how to extricate herself.
‘Time to cut off an’ get the shrimps, Peggy,’ Jim Boxall said, squeezing into the space beside her.
‘Oh yes,’ she said gratefully. ‘I did promise, didn’t I?’ It was the first she’d heard about cutting off to get shrimps but she told the lie easily and Joan accepted it.
‘See you when we all get back then,’ she said as they went their separate ways from the doorstep.
The street was in semi-darkness, patched with shadow between the golden blooms of gaslight at each end of the terrace and the pulse of light and sound from Mr Allnutt’s raucous front room, their flat-fronted houses reduced to monochrome by the half-light, yellow bricks grey, green paintwork black. But above the little white dome that topped the spire of St Alphege’s church the sky was still pale green with light, and when Peggy looked back over her shoulder to watch the deputation jostling into number six, she found she was looking straight into a blaze of colour. The western sky was streaked with fire and burned red and orange and rich gold above the shabby dullness of the long slate roof of the terrace.
The savagery of such a sky on this particular, peculiar evening was disturbing. Life had been so muddled since Mum took ill. That awful screaming fit had been savage too, like an explosion. It was as though it had broken them all open, wrecking the order of their nice ordinary lives, making a nonsense of what they thought they knew. She felt she’d been picking up the pieces ever since, and none of them made sense. Just at the very moment when she’d been planning to get herself a better job she had to stay at home and look after Mum. She didn’t complain, of course, because someone had to do it, but it was hard just the same. And it was hard to understand all sorts of other things too. It was summer and yet there were men lurking on the street corners looking cold and depressed. Three million men on the dole according to Mrs Geary’s Daily Herald, ‘bright young things’ spending more on one party than she could earn in a year, shops going bust when they were full of things people would rush to buy if they only had the money, Mum keeping to her bed when she wasn’t ill, Joan marrying Sid when she didn’t love him. And Sid himself.
‘Penny for your thoughts,’ Jim said as they walked companionably up the street towards the Mitre and the shrimp stall.
She didn’t know what to say to him. She couldn’t lie, not to Jim Boxall, and it would be disloyal to tell him she was thinking uncharitable thoughts about her sister’s young man.
‘You don’t like him,’ he said easily, striding along beside her.
That surprised her. ‘How do you know?’
‘It was written all over your face. That’s why I rescued you.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Thanks.’
‘What are friends for? So go on, admit it, you don’t like him.’
‘Well no,’ she admitted, ‘I don’t really. Not much.’
‘Why not?’
She thought for a while before she answered. ‘He looks as if he’s got a temper,’ she said. ‘As if he could hurt you if he wanted and he wouldn’t care.’ It was the arrogant tilt of that square head, the way he bunched his fists. Then she corrected herself. ‘No, that ain’t fair. I don’t know nothing about him. I didn’t ought to say things like that.’
‘That’s the sort he looks to me,’ Jim said. ‘We got a bloke at the works just the same. Punch you soon as look at you. Oh well, let’s hope we’re wrong. What does your mum think?’
‘She ain’t met him yet,’ Peggy said. Then she realized that was no longer true and she wondered what was being said back at number six. And that stopped the conversation because, once again, she couldn’t say what she was thinking without being disloyal. So she walked on in silence. One of the nice things about Jim Boxall was that you didn’t have to talk if you didn’t want to. I’ll bet Mum has an attack of nerves, she thought, as they turned the corner together.
In fact, having been provided with an audience Flossie was taking the news quite well.
When her visitors first arrived in her sickroom, she was tossed through a succession of conflicting emotions, blushing embarrassment at being caught in bed, irritation at Joan for bringing Gideon along without warning her, anger because it was such a smack in the eye to be presented with a fait accompli. ‘We’re going to get married’ indeed! The effrontery of it.
But just as she was drawing breath to say something biting, the young man made eyes at her and told her she was even prettier than her daughter, and that mollified her and helped her to keep control of herself in front of Gideon and Ethel. It was nice to be admired, and specially by such a handsome young man. It made her feel better in herself than she’d done for days. Oh much better.
Gideon was being very jolly, talking about the wedding and where it was going to be and how he’d have to give the bride away, and Joan and the young man were laughing and teasing and saying they really wanted a quiet wedding – the very idea! – so Flossie didn’t need to say anything very much. But as the cheerful banter went bubbling on, it suddenly occurred to her that this news was a heaven-sent opportunity. Ever since she’d had what she called her ‘little fit’ she’d hidden away indoors, too ashamed to face her neighbours after making such an exhibition of herself, and the longer she hid the more difficult it was to contemplate getting out and about again. Now she had an excuse.
‘I can see I shall have to get better in double quick time now,’ she said to Sid.
‘Don’t you do no such thing,’ he said, feigning distress.‘I wouldn’t want that on my conscience. Well I mean ter say, what’ud my mates say if they knew I’d been the cause of dragging a pretty lady out of her bed? I’d never hear the last. Into it maybe. Out of it! Never!’
‘You bad boy,’ she pretended to scold. ‘What a thing to say to an old, married woman!’
‘Never old!’ he said gallantly. ‘Old I won’t have, not with your pretty face an’ all. No, no, you stay where you are, Mrs F. We can’t have you running round after us, can we, Joanie?’
‘I shall get up for dinner tomorrow,’ Flossie decided. ‘Then we’ll see how we go on.’
It was an excellent excuse, and what was even better it brought her the instant and gratifying status of a martyr.
‘Such a good woman,’ Mrs Roderick told their neighbours. ‘She was that ill you’d never believe – brain-fever you know – oh yes, terrible – and yet here she is working all hours for this wedding and never a word of complaint. Such a good woman.’
‘Well you have to make an effort, don’t you,’ the good woman said with modest self-deprecation. And her opinion was applauded too.
Actually apart from sending out invitations to her family and Sid’s father, who seemed to be the only relation he possessed, poor boy, she wasn’t doing very much. All her neighbours rallied round with offers of help. Mrs Roderick was making the bride’s dress and two beautiful bridesmaids’ gowns for Baby and Peggy, Mr Cooper would provide the music, and she could get lots of cheap booze from the Earl Grey. Old Mr Allnut said he’d run up a few trestle tables, and young Mr Allnut promised to check them on the quiet. ‘Can’t have the food collapsing on us, can we, Mrs F?’, and she had so many offers of help with sandwiches and jellies she could hav
e fed a regiment. Even Mrs O’Donavan offered, poor woman, although with all those kids of hers, and another one on the way, they all know she’d never have the time to do anything. Still, as they all said, it’s the thought that counts.
There’d only been one sticky moment and that was when Mrs Roderick discovered that Gideon was giving the bride away.
‘Gideon Potter?’ she said in disbelief. ‘That awful butcher!’
‘I’m afraid so,’ Flossie confessed, looking shame-faced. ‘I don’t see how I can avoid it. He’s – um – related to them you see, so naturally…’
‘Ah!’ Mrs Roderick said. ‘That accounts. I wondered why they would keep calling him uncle. It’s not just a courtesy title then?’
‘No,’ Flossie said. ‘So you see … ’
Mrs Roderick decided to be charitable. ‘Ah well,’ she said, ‘if he’s their uncle there’s not very much you can do about it. We have to stick to protocol when it comes to weddings and we can’t be held responsible for the shortcomings of our in-laws. I daresay there’s some good in the man. He’s always seemed very fond of your girls.’
‘Oh yes,’ Flossie agreed, much relieved to be let down so lightly. There was no need to explain exactly who Gideon was. ‘He’s a rough diamond but he’s got a heart of gold.’
‘Quite,’ Mrs Roderick said.
So Gideon was accepted and now it was only Peggy who was being rather a disappointment to her. And that was because that wretched Megan Griffiths had led her astray again. She’d come giggling round to the house early one Monday morning just as Mrs Geary was filling the scullery with her washing, and off they’d both gone in those silly hats of theirs, chattering like monkeys and leaving her all on her own. And nearly two hours later they’d come giggling back to tell her that they’d both got jobs at Aimee’s, the posh haberdashers in Nelson Road, and they were starting that afternoon.
‘Whatever did you want to go and do that for?’ she said when Megan had gone home for her dinner. ‘I’d have thought there was quite enough work for you here without looking for more.’
London Pride Page 22
