Pride of Walworth

by Mary Jane Staples

  ‘How would you like a smacked bottom?’ asked Nick.

  ‘How would you like your face pushed in?’ countered Annabelle.

  ‘Call it quits,’ said Nick. ‘I’ve been wondering if you’ve any idea why your great-uncle put me in the way of this new job.’

  ‘Well, he said nothing at all to me about it,’ said Annabelle. ‘Will it make any difference?’

  ‘To what?’ asked Nick.

  ‘Oh, come on, you blessed stick-in-the-mud,’ said Annabelle, ‘you know what I mean.’

  ‘I’ll talk to you later on,’ said Nick.

  ‘How much later on?’ demanded Annabelle. ‘I’m only asking to be friends with you.’

  ‘Well, in a year or so—’

  ‘Don’t make me laugh,’ said Annabelle.

  Boots made himself heard then.

  ‘Ready to go, Annabelle?’ he called.

  ‘Yes, ready, Uncle Boots.’

  Boots came into the parlour, coat on, hat in his hand.

  ‘Had a good committee meeting?’ he asked.

  ‘Famous,’ said Annabelle.

  ‘Good,’ said Boots. He’d thanked Ma and the girls for putting up with him and making him feel at home. He’d made use of the time to sum up the family, and he’d come up with one or two interesting conclusions. It was all on account of being intrigued by what was happening to Lizzy’s elder daughter.

  ‘Thanks for bringing Annabelle, Mr Adams,’ said Nick. ‘Would you know what it was that turned her into a terror?’

  ‘Oh, they’re all terrors by the time they’re five, Nick,’ said Boots.

  ‘Oh, don’t mind me,’ said Annabelle.

  ‘Still,’ said Nick, ‘she’s a very entertaining terror.’

  ‘Oh, how kind,’ said Annabelle, ‘it’s such a pleasure to meet a gentleman. Good night.’

  ‘So long, Nick,’ said Boots, ‘you lost, did you?’

  ‘I’m lucky I survived,’ said Nick, and watched them walk to Boots’s car.

  ‘So,’ said Boots, as he turned into the Walworth Road with the evening misty, ‘that’s the young man you can’t make up your mind about.’

  ‘Yes, did you notice what a stinker he is?’ said Annabelle.

  ‘What’s the answer?’ asked Boots. ‘Boiling him in oil?’

  ‘Oh, come on, Uncle Boots, what did you really think of him?’

  ‘I think your mother will like him,’ said Boots.

  ‘Oh, help, I think I do have serious feelings,’ said Annabelle.

  ‘Sure?’ said Boots.

  ‘Well, it’s no joke, I can tell you.’

  ‘Right, no joke,’ said Boots.

  ‘I’m not actually desperate,’ said Annabelle.

  ‘Right, not actually desperate,’ said Boots.

  ‘Uncle Boots, I’ll hit you.’

  ‘Understood,’ said Boots.

  ‘He’s so funny,’ said Annabelle, ‘and I teased him dreadfully. He looked once or twice as if he was going to blow up. Well, he shouldn’t have told me I couldn’t be his one and only. I mean, why can’t I? All that business about not wanting to be asked to tea for eighteen months, that was just a way of telling me to hoppit. I don’t know how anyone can be like that when I’m so sweet and lovable – oh, what d’you think, growling old Uncle John has put Nick in the way of a much better job, which he’s starting in March.’

  ‘Is that a fact?’ said Boots. ‘Now why would he do that?’

  ‘I’m sure I don’t know,’ said Annabelle. What she did know was that just before Christmas she had told her great-uncle to stop calling Nick a pipsqueak, and that if he didn’t she’d never come up and have lunch with him any more. He asked her why she had to say a thing like that. Because Nick’s going to be my young man, said Annabelle. A muted roar was her great-uncle’s response to that. It was a little later, in the teashop, that Nick shocked her by telling her he had a girlfriend.

  Boots mused at the wheel. If there was one thing he’d found out during the evening, it was that Nick’s dad had never been in the Navy. Just a few questions, asked out of interest alone, had brought replies that would have told anyone with any knowledge of the Services that Mr Harrison had never been an able seaman. Fighting pirates in the China Seas for years on end? Not a chance. And Mrs Harrison had said something very odd, she’d said her husband wouldn’t be home for nearly another eighteen months. That amount of time rang a bell. Something wasn’t quite as it should be with the Harrison family, something that could be seen as the reason why Nick was holding back from committing the best part of his social life to Annabelle. A pity, for his mother was a typically perky and resilient cockney woman, his sisters likeable and engaging.

  If there was a skeleton in the family cupboard, they could keep it to themselves as far as Boots was concerned. His own family had something to hide, the fact that his stepfather had been a German spy during the war. The secret wasn’t too difficult to keep, for only he and his stepfather knew it.

  ‘I don’t think Nick was telling you to hoppit, Annabelle,’ he said, ‘I think you should ask him again.’

  ‘Uncle Boots, I can’t,’ said Annabelle, ‘I just can’t let him feel I’m running after him.’

  ‘Fair point,’ said Boots. ‘Did you resign from the committee?’

  ‘No, I didn’t. I thought, why should I?’

  ‘Well, of course, if you did you couldn’t turn his committee meetings upside-down, could you, you tease?’

  ‘It’s fun,’ said Annabelle. ‘We nearly drove him potty this evening, Chrissie, Cassie and me, by talking about Chrissie having become engaged to Danny. It made him bawl at us. And the more he bawled, the more I wanted to—’ Annabelle checked.

  ‘Wanted to what?’ smiled Boots, as they crossed the junction at Camberwell Green.

  ‘Oh, you know,’ said Annabelle.

  ‘I think you’ll win,’ said Boots, not for the first time that evening.

  ‘I’ve got to,’ said Annabelle, ‘or I’m sure my life will be ruined.’

  Boots laughed. He took her home and had a word with Lizzy on the side, telling her not to worry about the bloke in question, that Annabelle’s first serious feelings were directed, in fact, at a very likeable young man with a very acceptable family.

  ‘Well, why doesn’t he come and show himself?’ asked Lizzy.

  ‘I’ve a feeling he thinks he’s too hard-up to see himself as a prospect for a girl like Annabelle,’ said Boots.

  ‘Oh,’ said Lizzy, who frankly wasn’t in favour of Annabelle being kept in rags as a wife. ‘Oh, that’s very awkward, Boots. I mean, we’re not stuck-up, but we wouldn’t want Annabelle to live a poverty-stricken life.’

  ‘Well, that’s only the present position,’ said Boots. ‘He’s starting a better job in March.’

  ‘Look,’ said Lizzy, ‘I’m not too sure exactly what Annabelle’s real feelings are. D’you know what they are?’

  ‘Yes, serious,’ said Boots.

  ‘Oh, lor’,’ said Lizzy.

  ‘Keep smiling, old girl,’ said Boots.

  Chapter Nineteen

  ANNABELLE INTENDED TO go to Saturday’s football match, since everything relating to Nick’s team was fascinatingly funny. Further, there was the ongoing little war she was conducting with Nick, something that was exhilarating in its way, even if she did feel like kicking him at times. But a phone call from one of her boyfriends on Friday evening was a reminder that she had a previous engagement, a Dutch auction at her old primary school near King’s College Hospital. She and a whole group of friends had committed themselves a month ago. The proceeds were for the hospital, which existed mainly on voluntary contributions.

  So instead of watching Nick and his team, in company with her new friends, Annabelle spent the afternoon at the school, helping to make a success of the event. It upset her just a little to find that her new interests were making her grow away from old interests. The boys of seventeen or eighteen years were all as much fun as they’d ever been, but they simp
ly didn’t quicken her pulse rate, which had got into the habit of jumping about each time she saw Nick.

  Oh, blessed saints, she thought, I’m not done for, am I? Of course I’m not. How could any young working woman of seventeen be done for, just because someone excites her a little? I’m not going to fall in love until I’m twenty, when I’ll be old enough to put up with the pangs.

  All the same, although the Dutch auction was a lively and successful affair, she kept wishing she was with her new friends, watching the footballers and listening to unbelievably comic stuff from Cassie, who was a scream of a girl, and from Chrissie, whom the team called Dumpling. Most of all, of course, she wanted to be in the same place as Nick.

  Oh, help, is it really serious with me?

  If Annabelle’s thoughts were all mixed up that weekend, Dumpling’s were very clear, and fixed on the certainty that married life with Danny really was going to muck up all her footballing interests. He came round on Sunday afternoon to sit in the parlour with her, this being his automatic privilege now that he was engaged to her. Mrs Evans saw to it that none of the kids disturbed the happy couple. The happiness, of course, was all on Danny’s side, and he was keener than ever on a cuddle, and so on. If a cuddle was soppy enough, so on was even worse. But Dumpling didn’t yell for help. She knew it was no use to, not now Danny had official entitlements.

  However, she did appear in the kitchen after a little while looking slightly flushed.

  ‘Chrissie, you ’aven’t left Danny to ’imself, ’ave you?’ said Mrs Evans.

  ‘No, I’ve just come out for a bowl of cold water and a flannel,’ said Dumpling, going into the scullery.

  ‘What d’you want cold water and a flannel for, love?’

  ‘Danny’s ’ad an accident,’ said Dumpling.

  ‘’Ow could he ’ave an accident in me parlour unless ’e fell over the fender?’ asked Mrs Evans.

  ‘No, ’e didn’t fall over the fender, Mum, and it’s nothing fatal,’ said Dumpling, ‘it’s just that ’e’s got a black eye.’

  ‘How’d he get that?’ asked Mr Evans.

  ‘I give it to ’im,’ said Dumpling, carrying the bowl of water and the flannel through the kitchen and on to the parlour.

  ‘That girl,’ said Mrs Evans to her old man, ‘don’t she know girls don’t start givin’ black eyes to their fiancés till they’re married to them?’

  ‘Never mind, she’s got the right instincts,’ said Mr Evans, ‘she’s doin’ a bit of minist’ring just like a wife already. That cold water’ll keep Danny’s eye from swellin’ up too much.’

  ‘Bless ’er, we’ll give ’er a nice weddin’,’ said Mrs Evans.

  ‘And a fair drop of the best port,’ said Mr Evans. ‘That’ll ’elp.’

  ‘It’ll make ’er drunk,’ said Mrs Evans.

  ‘That’s what I mean,’ said Mr Evans, ‘it’ll ’elp Danny, save ’im gettin’ two black eyes on ’is weddin’ night.’

  Monday

  Pa, feeling as free as the air and wearing a suit for the first time since he’d arrived at Marsham Gaol, reached Charing Cross Station at eleven in the morning. All he needed now to get him home was a bus. Hold on, he thought, ‘I’m supposed to be in the Navy. Ma’s been working on that one for over three years. It’s a shop in the Caledonian Road for you, Albert Harrison. You can’t go home in a suit, you need a uniform and a kitbag. And you need to get this plaster off.

  Off he went to Finsbury, watering place of a bloke he knew well, a struck-off doctor. He caught him before he went out to enjoy his liquid lunch. For the price of a couple of whiskies, he obliged Pa by removing the plaster, using a fearsome-looking pair of cutters that were out of the Ark. He congratulated Pa on the healthy look of his arm. Pa paid up and there were no further comments. Then he made his way to the Caledonian Road, whistling as he went.

  The shop in the Caledonian Road was like a cavernous emporium. It was stocked to the ceiling with second-hand clothes of every kind. Pa, with a few quid in his pocket, found exactly what he wanted, an able seaman’s uniform in excellent condition that fitted him perfectly. The cap, however, was one size too large, and he was against sartorial sloppiness. No problem, said the proprietor, there’s several more in the basement, if you’ll hang on a tick. As soon as he disappeared, Pa thought a lining of newspaper would make the cap fit, and after all, the whole lot could be chucked away in a day or so. A quick exit would relieve him of the necessity of paying. With the uniform and cap bundled into a kitbag the proprietor had also supplied, Pa made for the door. He stopped halfway.

  ‘One step out of line, Harrison, and you’ll be back here.’

  Pa did the wise thing. He changed his mind. The proprietor reappeared with four other sailor caps, one of which fitted as if it had been made for Pa’s noble head. Its band bore the name ‘HMS ARETHUSA’. He settled the bill and departed, taking himself by public transport to Waterloo Station. The day was cold but bright, and the London scenes exhilarated him. He made use of the Gents in the station to change into the uniform. Out he went with his kitbag, and he bought a bunch of flowers from a straw-hatted lady vendor, telling her she ought to be on the stage because she was the image of Chili Bouchier, the revue star. The flower lady said you’re a one, you are, Barnacle Bill. Pa gave her a wink, then caught a bus to Walworth.

  Into the shop run by Gran Emerson he went to buy boxes of chocolates for his girls, all three of whom never failed to show their fondness for him.

  ‘’Ello, sailor,’ said forward Ivy, ‘’ow’s yer luck, then?’

  ‘Not bad,’ said Pa, ‘how’s yours?’

  ‘Dunno yet,’ said Ivy, ‘but I’ve got ’opes. I like sailors.’

  ‘You like anything ’andsome in trousers,’ said Gran. ‘What can we do for yer, Captain Nelson?’

  Pa bought three boxes of chocolates, which made Gran and Ivy give him second looks, especially as he had a kitbag and a bunch of flowers.

  As he placed the chocolates in the kitbag, Gran said, ‘Excuse me askin’, but might yer name be ’Arrison?’

  ‘I’d be surprised if it wasn’t,’ said Pa genially, ‘seeing it’s my born monicker.’

  ‘Well, I’m blessed,’ said Gran, ‘we know yer fam’ly, yer wife, son and daughters, and they’re a lovely lot. ‘Ome on leave at last, are yer?’

  ‘Home for good,’ said Pa, ‘my time’s up.’

  ‘I see yer been servin’ on the Arthusa,’ said Gran, making the best attempt possible to pronounce it. ‘My, all them Chinese pirates and all, they been a real ’eadache to Mrs ’Arrison.’

  ‘Ruddy treat, missus, I can tell you, getting away from them,’ said Pa.

  ‘See yer around,’ said Ivy, giving him a wink, and Pa left smiling.

  Dumpling’s mum was standing at her gate, a warm shawl over her shoulders. She was talking to a neighbour about Dumpling getting married at Easter, and that the lucky bloke was Danny Thompson.

  ‘Does ’e know ’e’s lucky?’ asked the neighbour.

  ‘Danny’s ’ighly appreciative of our Chrissie,’ said Mrs Evans, ‘which ’e should be. Well, there’s a lot more of Chrissie than there is of most other girls – ’ello, who’s this sailor comin’ down the street?’

  The neighbour, taking a look, said, ‘Well, ’e don’t belong to anyone I know.’

  ‘He’s got a kitbag and flowers,’ said Mrs Evans. ‘Bless us, could ’e be Mrs ’Arrison’s sailor ’usband, the one that’s been out in the China Seas? There, look, ’e must be, ’e’s turned in at ’er gate.’

  ‘My, my,’ said the neighbour, ‘she’ll be overcome.’

  ‘She’ll be that all right,’ said Mrs Evans, ‘’e’s been away for years, and you know what sailors are.’

  Pa, at Ma’s Walworth abode for the first time, entered by using the latchcord and went through to the kitchen. It didn’t take him long to realize Ma wasn’t at home, which was a mite disappointing to him. Someone was in the house, however. The lodger. Pa heard him moving over the landing o
n the top floor. Introducing himself could wait. Ma was probably only doing a bit of shopping.

  Meanwhile, the grapevine had long been busy spreading the news that Knocker Harrison had got parole on account of saving the life of a screw. Knowing that, Pa went out and used a public phone box to call Mister Horsemouth at his office in Hackney, where he conducted a moneylending business that meant worry and sorrow for borrowers who fell behind with their weekly cash repayments. He also ran a bookmaker’s business. Both businesses had been an effective cover for his other activities over a period of several years. The local coppers reckoned they might get him one day for stepping out of line as a moneylender or for proving he used illegal runners to collect bets. It never occurred to them he was frying bigger fish. Well, he was friendly to every copper in the district, and contributed to police charities.

  He expressed himself happy to know Pa was home. Welcome back, Knocker, he said, just heard you were out, having done a life-saving job. You’re a bleedin’ hero, he said. Something like that, said Pa, except it was a bit against the grain. Well, there was a lot of weeping, I heard, said Mister Horsemouth, on account of the screw not finishing up as flat as a pancake. Forgot myself for a sec, said Pa. Don’t apologize, said Mister Horsemouth, I’d have done the same meself if I’d known it was going to open the gates for me. Kind of you, said Pa, and then asked if he was now due for his cut in respect of the job he’d been sent down for. Mister Horsemouth said of course, except there’s a large deduction on account of all the advances made to Mrs Knocker, and also it wouldn’t be wise to divvy up the balance yet. You don’t want word to get about that you’ve suddenly come into a useful lump of oof, Knocker, it’ll land the cops on your doorstep. All right, said Pa, I’ll wait a while. Three months, say, said Mister Horsemouth. Oh, and get Toby out of your place immediate, he said, because now you’re home the flatties might decide to see if you’ve got the loot stuffed up your bedroom chimney. In any case, they’ll be watching you, to see if you start getting flush. Tell Toby to pack up his stuff and to meet me this evening in the Black Bess, you know where.