‘You saying that it was your old man’s fault? That he . . .?’ Katie was confused; she’d been so sure it was Stephen.
‘I’m gonna leave him, yer know.’ Irene lifted her chin and turned to face Katie. ‘Soon as I get meself a job.’
Katie reached out again; this time she folded her arms round Irene and pulled her close. ‘Yer might have a long wait if that’s yer plan, love.’
Irene gave a little shuddering sob and then stepped away from Katie. ‘I’d better go.’ She sniffed daintily. ‘He’ll be back soon and he don’t like it if he don’t know where I am.’ She raised her hand and waggled her fingers in a babyish gesture of goodbye. ‘See yer.’ Her words sounded more like a question than a farewell.
‘Yeah,’ Katie smiled at her. ‘See yer.’
With the coming of 1936, Plumley Street witnessed a flurry of activity and comings and goings that were all directed at making sure that the Gibson family – or any other family in the neighbourhood for that matter – would never have to go without again. Aggie had gone to everyone to ask what they could do to help. It had always been taken for granted, of course, that people in their community would always help one another, but during such difficult times, Aggie knew that it wasn’t so easy to give to others when you had so little for yourself. That was why she decided it woul4 be easier if the helping was shared around a bit.
Whoever could manage it gave clothes and food to tide the Gibsons over until they were back on their feet, and those who couldn’t give things contributed in other ways, maybe putting the broom round Eileen’s kitchen for her, or doing some of the Gibsons’ laundry in with their own weekly wash; any good turn that would make life more comfortable for Plumley Street’s newest residents.
It hadn’t actually taken much effort on Aggie’s part to get nearly everyone to rally around. People had been only too keen to do what they could, although their motives for doing so did vary somewhat.
Phoebe and Sooky, for instance, had insisted on doing their share for two reasons: first, they couldn’t bear to think of being left out of a project that involved practically everyone else, including Irene Lane – the flighty bit from number six as Phoebe referred to her when she mused out loud how, for the life of her, she couldn’t figure out how that one had got involved. And secondly, it gave them a chance, under the guise of polishing the Gibsons’ front room, to have a good old nose round the newcomers’ home.
But, whatever their motives, the residents of Plumley Street had pulled out all the stops and they had every right to feel proud of themselves, even if, as Sooky insisted on reminding everyone, Mags Donovan’s elevation of her recently returned daughter Margaret to the status of sainthood was a bit exaggerated, seeing as all she did was look after the Gibson toddlers alongside her own new baby for a few hours every day.
In just a couple of weeks, the Gibsons were almost flourishing: Ted was back at work, the older children were back at school and Eileen, Aggie swore, had actually put on a little bit of weight. The family still had their share of worries and concerns, of course, but nothing exceptional.
But, as Jimmo Shay said to Albert Tucker, as they sat in the Queen’s one miserable evening in late January, it wasn’t only the poor who were suffering for once. Not only had old King George died, the rest of the world was having its ration of troubles too. There was Italy; Africa; and as for Germany, well, Jimmo could barely find words to express his feelings about what was going on over there. And now there was even talk, though most people dismissed it as scaremongering or barmy pessimism, that there was a very real threat of another war breaking out and gas masks were soon going to be distributed to every household in the land.
But, as always, with the coming of longer days and the summer sunshine filtering through the grimy London air to warm bones long chilled by winter, even the most hardened of pessimists couldn’t help but feel that things were perhaps getting just a little bit better, and maybe those good times really were just around the corner after all.
It was the end of a balmy June day, and Katie was humming tunelessly to herself as she and Nora cleared the dirty plates from the kitchen table.
‘Right,’ said Katie, dumping her pile on to the draining board and sticking her hands on her hips. ‘Anything more, Pat, before I get on with this lot?’
Pat leant back and patted his stomach. ‘No thanks, girl, I couldn’t eat another bite. That was flipping handsome.’ He yawned loudly, making himself laugh. ‘Blimey, I’m gonna have to watch meself. I reckon I’m going soft. I get the chance to do a full week’s work for a change and I’m worn out.’ He pushed back his chair and went over to the dresser to fetch the evening paper. ‘Still, mustn’t complain, eh? It’s good knowing I’ll be picking up a proper wage packet tomorrow.’
Pat sat back down at the table and began idly flicking through the pages of his paper.
‘Can me and Timmy go out and play now, Mum?’ Michael asked.
‘Yeah, go on, but yer to come in the minute I call yer, right?’
The two youngest didn’t need telling twice, they were out of the room before Katie had the chance to change her mind.
‘You seen this?’ Pat held up the paper to Katie. ‘It’s beyond me, the way kids behave these days. Yer can hardly believe it.’
‘What’s that then, love?’ Katie asked him over her shoulder.
‘They arrested some razor gang last night. And in Hyde Park of all places, if yer don’t mind. And some of the kids was as young as our Sean.’
‘I ain’t no kid.’ Sean glowered across the table at his father. He scraped his chair back across the lino, stood up and loped over to the back door.
‘Sean . . .’ Katie began, but he was gone: out of the back door and off over the yard wall. Still, she told herself, getting back to her washing up, she didn’t have to worry about him too much any more. Irene Lane had promised to keep an eye on him, to stop him hanging around Arthur. And even though he hadn’t got himself a proper job yet, he was still earning a bit of pocket money, doing odds and ends for the stall holders in Chrisp Street. He’d be all right.
‘Razor gangs,’ Pat repeated with a disgusted shake of his head. ‘Whatever’s the world coming to?’
‘Can I see that when yer’ve finished, Dad?’ Danny asked.
‘Here, have it now, son. I’m going over the Queen’s to whet me whistle.’ He handed Danny the paper. ‘Fancy coming over, Kate?’
‘What? On a Thursday?’
‘Why not? Come on. We’re gonna be flush tomorrow, and it’s been a while since we’ve treated ourselves.’
‘But I’ve gotta do all this.’
‘No you haven’t. You go on,’ Nora said, looking pointedly at Molly, who was sitting slumped listlessly at the table. ‘We can finish this, can’t we, Molly?’
Molly rose wearily to her feet. ‘You go with ’em and all, Nanna. I’ll do it. I ain’t got nothing else to do.’
Nora untied her apron and handed it to Molly. ‘Well, I wouldn’t mind just a drop o’ stout,’ she said, squeezing Molly’s cheek between her finger and thumb. ‘For the iron in it, o’ course. Good for me old blood.’
Molly put on her grandmother’s apron and started the washing up. She didn’t say a word as she scoured and rubbed and rinsed, but, the moment she heard her parents and nanna leave the house to go over to the Queen’s, she rounded on Danny. ‘Don’t help, will yer?’ she snapped, flicking the wet dishcloth at him.
‘Oi! Watch it.’ Danny ducked behind the paper. ‘I’m trying to read.’
‘Nice if yer’ve got the choice.’
Danny finished the rest of the article he was reading, and closed the newspaper. Then he got up and went over to the sink where Molly was still up to her elbows in greasy suds. He leant back against the draining board. ‘I’m going over to see Liz in a minute,’ he said casually. ‘You doing anything tonight, are yer?’
‘What would I be doing on a Thursday night with no money and no one to go out with?’
�
�So you ain’t seeing no one then?’
‘Me?’ A hint of caution had entered her voice. ‘No. I’m not seeing no one.’
‘Don’t lie to me, Molly. I know you are.’
Molly went to say something but Danny didn’t give her the chance.
‘Still that feller we saw yer with, the one over the fair, is it?’
‘Has that Lizzie Watts been telling stories about me?’
‘No, course not.’
‘She better hadn’t.’
‘Look, Moll, I ain’t interfering, it’s just that stuff in the papers . . .’ He rubbed his hand over his chin, just as his dad always did when he didn’t know how to say something. ‘I’ve heard talk. Talk that Bob Jarvis has had something to do with them razor gangs.’
‘Bob Jarvis?’
‘Yeah, and I just wanna make sure that if he starts hanging around again, that yer’ve got a bloke who’ll look out for yer.’
Molly could have laughed out loud. She had really thought that Danny was going to try to warn her off of seeing Simon and here he was wanting him to act as her bodyguard! ‘Bob Jarvis hanging around me?’ she said. ‘What, after I grassed him? He’d hardly be interested in me no more, now would he?’
‘It ain’t funny.’
‘Am I laughing?’
‘Look, Moll,’ Danny grabbed his sister by the arms, not caring that she was dripping water all over him, ‘he thought you was his girl. He told everyone, bragged about it. And he ain’t the sort of bloke to forget it when he reckons someone’s turned on him.’ He let Molly go and rubbed his hands over his face again. ‘I wish I’d never got yer involved with him.’
‘Why are yer going over all this now? It’s two years since he did that old boy in.’
‘Yeah, and he still ain’t been caught, has he? Blokes like him have places to hide. And they’ve got dangerous friends. There’s even been talk lately that he’s back round here, that someone’s been hiding him.’ Danny screwed up his face as though he was in pain. ‘I’ve just got this horrible feeling that he could cause a lot more trouble.’
Molly shook her head and made a sarcastic little tutting sound with her tongue. ‘I dunno why yer getting yerself all upset about nothing, Dan. It’s just a stupid rumour. Bob Jarvis wouldn’t dare show his face round here.’ Her words might have been brave, but deep down, Molly feared that Danny might just be right. ‘And I don’t know what yer mean about me seeing someone,’ she added lightly, mentally promising Father Hopkins that she would go to confession for lying at the first opportunity. ‘I don’t need no bloke, thanks very much.’
But Molly did need a bloke, she needed Simon Blomstein; and, in the three years she had been seeing him, Simon had become the most important person in her life.
It was Sunday afternoon, and Molly, as usual, was going to meet him. But this was to be no ordinary Sunday meeting, it was 4 October 1936, the day that Mosley and his British Union of Fascists had marked for their long-threatened march that was to lead them through areas of the East End populated by Jewish families and their businesses.
For weeks now there had been whitewashed slogans, handwritten posters and printed leaflets appearing all over the East End declaring ‘They Shall Not Pass’. The warning was clear: regardless of what it took, the Blackshirts were going to be stopped.
Also during those weeks leading up to the Sunday of the march, Molly had refused to listen to Simon’s continual insistence that it would be far too dangerous for her to join him at the anti-Mosley protest. She was determined, no matter what, that she was going to stand by his side.
But it was a feeling of gut-churning terror, rather than her usual dread of being found out, that gripped Molly’s stomach as she attended early Mass then rushed off straight after Sunday dinner – supposedly to meet a friend from work – without even helping her mum to clear the table.
As she neared the place where Simon would be waiting, Molly realised that it was going to take her quite a while to find him. Their agreed meeting place was Gardiner’s Corner, the busy junction of Commercial Road, Commercial Street, Whitechapel Road, Whitechapel High Street and Leman Street; it was also the site of the anticipated clash between the demonstrators and marchers as the BUF approached the East End from the direction of Tower Hill.
Neither Molly nor Simon had imagined how many people were going to be there; there were so many, in fact, that some of the side streets were already impassable, and a number sixty-five tram on its way to Blackwall Tunnel had actually been trapped on its rails right in the middle of the junction, its path blocked by milling hordes of protesters.
At least Molly could move forward, if only at an agonisingly slow pace, as she was going in the same general direction as the crowds. But she had to hold her arms up around her body to protect herself, and keep twisting away from the unintentional pummelling she was getting from her fellow demonstrators. Molly was neither particularly short nor skinny, but, as far as she could see, she was the only female in the crowd and just about everyone else was taller and heavier than she. And, as was clear from their banners and posters and yells, the crowd was too set on its one intention of forming a solid line of defence to bother about who they were pushing or shoving out of their way. They had been gathering since first thing that morning and were now more than ready for action.
The ones who had come with their various political, religious and union associations, had first assembled at temporary campaign headquarters set up in houses, shops and cafés, and had received orders and gone over plans. The less organised supporters of the protest – mainly cockneys from neighbourhoods further east of the City – had just turned up with their friends and neighbours; regardless of their affiliations, they were united in their disgust at Mosley and his followers’ violence, and were determined to do whatever was necessary to stop the march getting a single foothold in the East End. There were youngsters there too, gangly, long-legged adolescents of about Sean’s age, who didn’t seem to have much of a clue as to what was actually going on but knew the prospect of a good bundle when they saw one, and also knew that if the numbers so far were anything to go by, this definitely looked like the sensible side to support.
There were other groups of men whom Molly was doing her best to avoid as she pushed her way through the crowds searching for Simon. They were the heavies, the hardnuts, the ones who, so the whispers went, worked for an infamous local gangster. They were there in a show of honouring the tithes, the insurance money, that they collected each week from the Jewish businesses in the area in return for ‘protecting’ them from any trouble or accidents.
As well as the demonstrators there were observers and sightseers, some women amongst them, who dangled and strained from every high window available, in their efforts to ensure a comfortable seat, but more importantly a good view, for what was promising to be quite a show.
Molly had just reached the stage when she was making bargains with herself about how much longer she would give it, or how many more times she was prepared to be jostled almost off her feet again, before she would just give up looking for Simon and go home, when she caught a glimpse of him in the crowd a few yards in front of her. ‘Simon!’ she hollered. ‘Simon! I’m back here.’
With many mumbled apologies, Simon heaved himself back towards her through a knot of complaining men who told him in no uncertain terms that they were meant to be moving forwards.
‘Molly, I didn’t think I’d ever find you.’
‘Well, yer’ve bleed’n well found her now, mate,’ one of the men shouted at him, ‘so why don’t yer get her off home. This ain’t no place for no girls.’
Simon slipped his arm protectively round her waist. ‘He’s right, you know. You really shouldn’t be here.’
If there had been room, Molly would have pulled away from him. ‘Ain’t yer glad to see me then?’
‘Of course I am. But I’m worried about you. I couldn’t bear you to get hurt.’
Satisfied, she smiled happily, even though they w
ere now being dragged forward again and she was nearly being lifted off her feet. ‘Have I missed much?’
‘Funny way to put it, but yes, you have I suppose.’ Simon staggered sideways as a group of oversized men carrying a banner proclaiming them to be ‘Dockers united against the fascists’ came barging past. ‘Look, let’s go down there or else we’re going to get crushed by our own side. We can stand by that wall.’
‘I think that’s a good idea,’ she said, thinking it probably best not to add that one of the big men with the banner was her dad’s work-mate from the dock and she didn’t much fancy him seeing her there. Gladly, she let Simon grab her firmly by the arm and begin to guide her back along Commercial Road, although she found it much tougher struggling against the increasingly agitated and excited crowds as two o’clock, the time of the march, grew closer. So she could have kissed Simon, no matter how many people were watching, when he tugged her after him, away from the main crush, along Back Church Lane, and then jerked her to an undignified halt near the corner of Cable Street and Leman Street.
Puffing from exertion and relief, Simon wiped his forehead with his sleeve and leant back against the rough brick wall. When he had got his breath back, he told Molly about the skirmishes and violent clashes that had already taken place between the police and the protesters before she had arrived; and how the mounted police charges had only been halted when the senior officers realised that at least ten extra men were needed as escorts every time they had to get a single arrested demonstrator past the jeering crowds and to the nearby police stations.
Molly’s eyes had grown wide. ‘So the coppers ain’t on our side?’
‘It’s not that, darling,’ a gruff-voiced man, who had stopped to have a cigarette, informed her. ‘It’s just that they’ve had orders to get them bastards through so’s they can have their poxy march.’ He touched his cap in apology. ‘’Scuse me language, love.’ He ground the cigarette butt out under the heel of his boot. ‘I’d be getting off home if I was you, miss. They’ve got thousands of coppers, on horse and on foot, just waiting up between Tower Hill and Whitechapel for the signal to start charging us again, and this time they’ll really mean it.’
Just Around the Corner Page 40
