Just Around the Corner

by Gilda O'Neill

  Molly felt sick; unlike her dad, she knew exactly from whom Danny, the brother she had always idolised, had got these terrible and frightening ideas. They were all too familiar. She could hear Bob speaking in her head, as clearly as though he were standing there next to her, when he had accused her of speaking to a Jew; she could feel his hands gripping her, hurting her . . .

  Nora couldn’t care less where her grandson had got his ideas from, she just knew she had to make him shut up. ‘You,’ she shouted, standing up and pointing at Danny, ‘are a complete disgrace to yer mother’s table.’

  Danny lowered his gaze, unable to face his grandmother, but his words were still defiant. ‘I’m only saying what I know’s true.’

  ‘True?’ demanded Katie. ‘I won’t have this sort of talk in here. And yer won’t be giving up no job neither. D’you hear me?’

  Danny shrugged moodily.

  ‘And another thing, what’s all that about the Miltons? You know better than to turn on people, especially people what ain’t as fortunate as yerself. Us Mehans help people, we don’t kick ’em when they’re down.’

  ‘Yeah, Dan,’ Michael butted in, his mouth full of potatoes and gravy. He gave a sly sideways grin at Timmy, who was sitting next to him, wide-eyed with alarm, wondering if this latest scrap would mean that Father Christmas’s visit would really be cancelled this time. ‘Just think,’ Michael went on, nearly bursting from the effort of stopping himself from laughing out loud, ‘how Phoebe Tucker always goes on about how Mum helps Mr Barber.’

  Pat shoved back his chair and stood up. ‘I’m going over the Queen’s. I’ve had enough.’

  Katie glared at Michael, then at Danny. She could have bashed their heads together. If Pat reckoned that he’d had enough, how did he think she felt? But she didn’t want any more trouble, not at Christmas, so instead of hollering at her husband, she said quietly, ‘How about yer meal, Pat?’

  ‘I ain’t hungry,’ he said stiffly, pulling open the kitchen door and letting in an icy blast from the passage. ‘You go and find one of yer friends from round the church to give it to. I’m sure they’d appreciate it more than me.’

  Forgetting her resolve to keep the peace, Katie hollered at him as she chased him out into the passage, ‘And who did you have in mind, eh?’

  Pat didn’t answer; he pulled open the street door, slamming it back on its hinges.

  ‘I’m talking to you, Pat!’

  He turned round very slowly and looked at her. ‘I can’t take much more, Kate,’ he said slowly.

  ‘You can’t?’ she shrieked. ‘I’ve had it with you. You and yer accusations. D’you know something, it’d be your fault if I ever did go off with someone, ’cos you’ll drive me to it, the way you’re going.’

  ‘You bitch,’ he breathed.

  ‘Don’t you dare speak to me like that.’

  ‘When yer say things like that? Why shouldn’t I?’

  ‘’Cos if you do, you can get out.’

  ‘I’ll do exactly that if you push me any harder, Kate, I swear I will.’

  ‘Well, go on then, bugger off!’ screamed Katie at the top of her voice. ‘Yer’ve threatened it enough times lately. Why don’t yer just do it?’

  When Katie came back in the kitchen, Michael giggled nervously, nudging Timmy in the ribs to join in.

  Katie turned on Michael. ‘And as for you!’

  ‘Me?’ asked Michael, a picture of puzzled, injured innocence. ‘What have I done?’

  ‘You’re old enough to know better, that’s what.’ Katie bit the inside of her cheek, doing her best not to cry in front of her children.

  Timmy wasn’t so successful in hiding his tears; his bottom lip trembled as his mind whirled, and he tried to think of something, anything, that might salvage the situation and guarantee his Christmas stocking being filled.

  ‘Now, all of yer, get on with yer dinner,’ sniffed Katie, waving her fork at her children.

  ‘It’s lovely, darling, just right,’ said Nora gently.

  They ducked their heads and returned quietly and without appetite to their food, but the silence was shattered as Timmy, an idea suddenly coming to him as to how he might take his mum’s mind off the row, yelled excitedly, ‘I never give yer this!’ He leant back in his chair and dug deeply into the pocket of his shorts. ‘I forgot. It’s been in me pocket for ages and ages.’ He handed her a screwed up piece of paper across the table.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Katie.

  ‘I dunno. Teacher give it to me.’

  ‘When? When did you see your teacher?’

  Timmy couldn’t think back beyond what he had been doing that morning. ‘I ain’t sure.’ He frowned with the effort of trying to remember. ‘It must have been before we broke up.’

  ‘Course it must, stupid,’ sneered Michael. Then a horrified look of realisation came over his face. ‘You big girl,’ he hissed at his brother. ‘That was when the nit nurse come round the school, wasn’t it? I told yer to chuck it away. I told yer.’

  ‘Timmy?’ Katie confronted him. ‘Is this true?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Timmy nodded gloomily as he too realised what he had done: his hoped for distraction from the row had become just another nightmare. ‘I’m cootie. She said I had to have me head shaved, but I run off while she wasn’t looking. And ’cos it was the last day—’

  Timmy never had the chance to finish his tale of how he had escaped the nit nurse’s clippers.

  ‘Right,’ said Katie, snapping into action, ‘dinner’s over. Molly clear that lot away. And you two,’ she pointed at Timmy and Michael, ‘yer not going out to play, right. Yer gonna help me fill that bath up and I’m gonna scrub yer from head to toe and I’m gonna go through every one of them red curly hairs o’ your’n with that steel comb.’

  Sean couldn’t be bothered to sit through any more of this; without saying a word, he stood up, tucked Rags under his arm and walked out of the back door. Timmy started crying again and Michael, looking as though he was ready to kill his little brother, was whispering something threatening to him under his breath. Molly and Nora began clearing the table. Only Danny sat still, apparently calmly finishing off his lamb.

  ‘That’ll be mixing with them Miltons,’ he said, sopping up the fatty gravy with a piece of dry bread. ‘Dirty buggers, they are. Yer can see how they live. Just like pikeys. And I’m sure that Milton’s a foreigner.’

  Katie sighed, a mixture of tiredness, anger and sadness almost overwhelming her. She had been hoping, praying, for a nice quiet Sunday and it had seemed, for just a while, that she was going to get it. She had been so confident that Pat had got over all his nonsense about Frank Barber at last, and that maybe even Sean was beginning to grow out of the miserable, horrible phase he had been going through. But now, without warning, Danny had caused all this – Danny, whom, out of all of the boys, Katie had thought would never cause her any trouble.

  She stood up and took her apron down from the nail behind the door. ‘You seem to have forgotten, Danny,’ she said, her tone cold as ice as she wrapped the strings twice around her and tied them in a tight, waist-pinching bow, ‘yer own grandparents were foreigners. People in trouble they were, and made welcome in this country when they needed a place to go to.’

  ‘They wasn’t foreigners,’ grimaced Danny. ‘Them Jews, they’re the foreigners.’ He looked about him, gesturing with his hands as though he were addressing a meeting. ‘Ain’t none of you lot heard how they treat decent English girls what work for ’em in them sweat shops? They want kicking out of this country, the lot of ’em.’

  ‘They pay good money, so I’ve heard,’ Nora answered.

  ‘Me too,’ said Molly, quietly.

  Danny opened his mouth to speak, but Katie would have no more of it. She slammed her hand down on the table. ‘Just shut up, can’t yer? All of yer. And you, Danny, you get out of my sight before I do something I’d regret.’

  ‘I’ll be glad to.’ He scraped his chair back across the lino. ‘I wanna be with pe
ople who talk sense, not through their arses.’

  Katie dropped her chin, but she just didn’t have the energy to reply. She waited until she heard the front door slam, then said with as much dignity as she could muster, ‘Timmy, you help Molly and your nanna with that clearing up, while I fetch the bath in from the yard.’ She pulled open the back door, ignoring the freezing wind. Looking over her shoulder she added, ‘And don’t get yer head near yer sister’s, we don’t want her getting ’em and all. And you, Michael, you can get out here and chop some kindling for the copper.’

  Katie dragged the big tin bath inside the kitchen and manoeuvred it past the table, positioning it in front of the Kitchener. Then she straightened up, tucking a curl of her thick auburn hair behind her ear.

  ‘Why can’t we be a family like we used to be?’ she asked. ‘I know times are hard, but ain’t that all the more reason to stick together?’ She snatched up the kettle from the stove. ‘Let’s get to the tap, Mum,’ she said to Nora, reaching across her. ‘I mean, just look at them Miltons. What have they got? Nothing. Potless. But you don’t hear them rowing all the time, do yer?’

  ‘They had the school board man round before we broke up,’ Michael piped up as he came back into the kitchen carrying a bare handful of sticks that he held out to his mum for approval. ‘All staying off school again, they was.’

  Katie set the filled kettle back on the gas stove and, taking the kindling from Michael, she shook her head disgustedly. ‘Don’t you start sounding off like Danny. The only reason them poor little devils never go to school is ’cos their boots’re always in pawn.’ She carried the pathetic bundle of sticks over to the back door. ‘I’m going out to light the copper now and when I get back in here I don’t want another word out of any of yer ’cos I mean it this time, any more rows and all the bits you was gonna get for Christmas are going straight over to the Miltons. This is yer last chance. Yer very last chance.’

  As she pulled the door to, she said to herself, ‘Now there’s a bunch of kids who’d appreciate getting something for Christmas, let alone the stuff this lot expect.’

  She shivered and pulled her cardigan round her shoulders as she ducked inside the little flagstoned scullery and bent down to set the wood under the copper. It felt cold enough for snow. ‘It’s my fault,’ she went on to herself as she fiddled with the matches. ‘I’ve ruined them kids o’ mine.’

  Later that afternoon Molly gingerly opened her bedroom door and poked her head out on to the narrow landing.

  Hardly daring to breathe, she listened for sounds from her parents’ room. She couldn’t believe how long it had taken them to stop shouting at each other after they had gone upstairs, when her dad had got back from the pub.

  For a while she had really thought she would have to miss seeing Simon, and just leave him standing waiting for her outside Stepney East Station. But, if her dad’s snores were anything to go by, they had exhausted themselves at last, and were having a Sunday afternoon sleep.

  Molly was just about to close her bedroom door and sneak off when a loud crash at the back of the house made her nearly stumble backwards down the stairs.

  ‘What the hell was that?’ she whispered to herself. She threw down her bag on the floor and crawled across her bed to look out of her bedroom window. She pushed the frame up to the top of the sash and stuck her head outside into the cold air.

  ‘I might have known it was you two,’ she said at the sight which confronted her – Timmy and Michael climbing out of the back bedroom window of their nanna’s house on to the ice-covered, corrugated iron lavvy roof.

  ‘Yer’ll wake everyone up in here. And yer’ll be skinned alive when Mum catches yer.’ Remembering she was dressed to go out, Molly whipped off her hat and hid it behind her back. ‘Yer know she told us all to stay in our rooms till tea time.’

  Michael grinned saucily. ‘We won’t tell on you if you don’t tell on us.’

  ‘What d’yer mean, tell on me? Yer cheeky little bugger!’

  ‘Here, listen to her language, Tim,’ grinned Michael. ‘Mum’d love that, and she’d love yer sitting in yer room with yer hat on and all. Or maybe yer was thinking about going out somewhere?’ With that, the boys waved to their sister and skidded down the lavvy roof on their backsides, and disappeared over the wall.

  Molly could have spat; that bloody kid from Upper North Street, had he seen or said something else?

  Whether he had or not, it was too late to worry about that now; if she didn’t get going right away she might as well not bother going at all. Without even stopping to check in the glass if it was straight, Molly stuck her hat back on her head and rushed down the stairs. When she eventually arrived at Stepney East Station, Simon was standing there waiting for her, shivering like a half-set jelly. She looked round to make sure that there was nobody passing by who knew her, then she pecked him hastily on the cheek.

  ‘It was easier meeting in the summer, wasn’t it?’ she said, clapping her gloved hands together. ‘One of us is gonna freeze to death at this rate.’

  ‘I know a way to keep warm,’ said Simon, his dark eyes shining out from beneath the snap brim of his hat.

  She raised an eyebrow. ‘Aw yeah, and how’s that then?’

  He laughed ironically. ‘It wouldn’t be my first choice, but how about if I take you for a slap-up tea.’

  Molly sighed and clutched her heart dramatically. ‘I suppose that’ll have to do.’

  They didn’t link arms as they walked off in the direction of Aldgate, where they knew they would find plenty of cosy little coffee shops and cafés open on a Sunday, but walked along side by side. They never discussed it, they just had the awkward understanding that they kept their distance when there was any chance of being seen by anyone they knew.

  That afternoon, as they had done so many times before, they talked almost non-stop, pausing only to swallow cup after cup of stewed brown tea to wash down thick sandwiches of hot salt beef and mustard, and quivering slabs of sultana-dotted cheesecake. They always had so much to say to one another, that the hours just slipped away, and, all too soon, it was time to go.

  As Simon walked Molly back towards the corner where he would leave her, they were still talking.

  ‘You’ve given me so many things to think about, since I’ve met you, Simon,’ she said. ‘And you always give me the feeling I wanna know more.’

  Simon smiled. ‘I’m glad.’

  ‘Some people . . .’ she began, thinking of the scene around the dinner table, with Danny shouting the odds, and about what Bob would have to say if he could see her now. ‘Some people say some really stupid things. But I reckon it’s not always because they’re bad. I reckon sometimes it’s because they’ve just listened to the wrong people and haven’t had the chance to know any better. I reckon anyone could learn to think the right way if other people took the time to explain things to them, don’t you?’

  Simon nodded. ‘I think you’re right. But in the end, we all have to make up our own minds about things, no matter what other people say.’

  She thought for a moment. ‘I’ve been thinking about joining the library in Poplar High Street. There’s some things I wanna get straight. To understand more.’

  ‘Good idea. I was going to join one myself but my uncle stopped me. He won’t let me use the public library.’

  ‘Why not? You love reading. That’s what gave me the idea to join.’

  ‘My uncle says the books are contaminated,’ Simon said sheepishly. ‘You know, not knowing who’s been touching them.’

  ‘He sounds a bit barmy to me. Or a right snob more like.’ Molly stopped in her tracks and her hand flew to her mouth. ‘I’m sorry, me and my big gob. That just sort of slipped out.’

  ‘Don’t worry. Anyway you’re right.’

  ‘What, he’s barmy? Or he’s a snob?’

  ‘Let’s just say he’s not barmy. And he’s not really a snob either. He just has very set ideas about what’s right and he sticks to them. He likes thin
gs to be the way he thinks they should be.’

  ‘What, like Jewish boys having Jewish girlfriends?’

  Simon laughed sardonically. ‘Come on, time’s moving on.’

  He placed his hand on Molly’s arm to guide her forward, but she didn’t budge. Instead, she dipped her chin and said quietly, ‘I do love being with yer, yer know, Simon.’

  ‘I’m glad.’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘But?’

  She lifted her eyes and looked directly at him. ‘Do you honestly think we can go on like this?’

  ‘I knew this would happen.’ He pulled off his hat and ran his hands distractedly through his hair. ‘I suppose I should just be surprised it’s taken this long. Look, Molly, I’m not making any excuses for my uncle, it’s just that I owe him so much. I don’t know what would have happened to me if his family hadn’t taken me in.’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’ Shivering, Molly pulled her collar up around her ears. ‘And that’s why it’s never gonna work, is it? He’s never gonna approve of me in a million years.’ She hesitated, half turned away from him. This was her chance to sort it all out. ‘I don’t think I should see yer any more, Simon. I mean, there’s people round here who don’t like what we’re doing, people who stop us from even having a cuddle, ’cos we’re scared they might see us. People who could hurt yer, Simon.’ She started sniffing. ‘I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to yer.’

  ‘Molly, don’t, please.’ He looked up and down the cold street. In the miserable half-light of the late winter afternoon he could see that apart from the two of them and a man rushing past with his head down against the icy wind, it was deserted.

  Simon swallowed hard, pulled Molly towards him and kissed her full on the mouth.

  Molly reeled backwards. ‘Blimey.’

  Simon looked grave, not at all like a young man who had just acted so impetuously. ‘Now, is there anything else you feel you’re missing out on when you’re with me?’