A Ration Book Childhood

by Jean Fullerton

  Thanks to her monthly trips to the hairdresser Pearl was still blonde but she was now platinum with a hint of blush, and although the waves on her shoulder looked like a cascade of curls they were in fact held rigidly in place by setting lotion. Her smooth complexion and youthful blush owed more to Max Factor than fresh air and the red lipstick flashed like a warning sign across the centre of her face.

  Unlike Ida who had carried and delivered five children, Pearl’s solitary brush with motherhood hadn’t altered her shape at all. Unsurprising really, considering she’d kept her girdle on the tightest notch for most of the nine months and had never put the child to her breast.

  She was wearing a full-length mink coat over a navy suit, her wide-brimmed hat trimmed with a spray of feathers.

  Behind her sister Ida could see her neighbours pausing in their workday chores to stare across at her unexpected visitor. She didn’t blame them. After all, Pearl was dressed for a visit to an ancestral pile in the country rather than a stroll through the bombed wreckage of East London.

  Pearl studied Ida for a moment then flung her arms wide.

  ‘You poor, poor thing,’ she yelled, engulfing Ida in a perfume-soaked embrace. ‘I came as soon as I heard.’

  Ida untangled herself from her sister’s clutches. ‘Heard what?’

  ‘About Jerimiah and—’

  ‘You’d better come in,’ said Ida, noting the people in the street, sensing some drama in the offing, gathering closer.

  Grabbing her sister’s arm, Ida pulled her through the door and slammed it shut behind them. ‘I’d rather not have the street know our business.’

  Pearl raised a pencilled eyebrow. ‘Seeing how I heard in deepest, darkest Leytonstone about what your husband’s been up to, I’d say it’s a bit late for that.’ She jabbed a nail-polished finger at Queenie’s door. ‘Is the old bat in?’

  ‘If you mean Queenie,’ said Ida, ‘no she’s not so why don’t we go through.’

  Shrugging off her fur coat, Pearl handed it to Ida then swept into the parlour. Hooking her sister’s coat, which probably cost more than the entire family’s wardrobe, on the hall stand, Ida followed her into the snug back room, closing the door behind her to keep in the heat.

  Ida forced a smile. ‘The kettle’s just boiled so would you like a drink?’

  ‘Only if it’s Nescafé and not that vile Camp stuff,’ said Pearl.

  ‘I’m afraid there hasn’t been any coffee in the shops around here for weeks, so I can only offer you tea,’ said Ida.

  ‘I won’t bother, then,’ said Pearl. ‘I don’t want Gypsy-Lilfrom-over-the-Hill nosing through the grouts when she gets back.’ A mawkish expression settled on her sister’s powdered face. ‘Is my precious boy around?’

  ‘He’s at school,’ said Ida flatly.

  ‘What time is he home?’

  ‘About three,’ Ida replied.

  ‘Pity,’ said Pearl. ‘Lenny’s got to be in Hackney by then so he’ll be picking me up at two. He’s got a new car, you know, a Ford Pilot. Top of the range.’

  ‘That’s nice,’ said Ida.

  ‘I bet Billy’s shot up since I last saw him.’

  ‘Yes, he has,’ said Ida.

  Her sister sighed. ‘I can’t believe he’s almost ten.’

  Billy was, in fact, eleven, but you couldn’t expect Pearl to remember that. After all, since she’d squeezed him from her body in a toilet in Liverpool Street Station, her only contribution to his upbringing was a ridiculously lavish present at Christmas and on his birthday if she remembered it.

  ‘Why don’t you take the weight off your feet?’ said Ida, wishing not for the first time she’d been an only child.

  Taking a lacy hanky from her suit pocket Pearl flicked it over one of the upright chairs and perched on the edge.

  ‘Oh, that’s better. These might come from Bond Street,’ she said, indicating her red patent stilettos, ‘but they do pinch. Now,’ she continued, crossing one leg over the other and resting her elbow on her knee, ‘tell me all about Jerimiah and his bit on the side.’

  ‘Jerimiah hasn’t got a bit on the side,’ said Ida.

  Pearl frowned. ‘Are you sure? I mean, they say the wife is always the last to know.’

  ‘Well, you’d know more about that than me,’ said Ida.

  Pearl shot her a sharp look but continued: ‘Well, the way I heard it was that your Jerimiah’s been over the side with some woman who’s had a kid who looks a dead ringer for him.’

  Pain shot through Ida so ferociously it must have shown in her face because Pearl’s mascaraed eyes stretched wide.

  ‘So, it’s true,’ she laughed. Unclipping her handbag, she took out a silver cigarette case. ‘Your old man’s got his fancy woman up the duff and now she’s making him own up to it.’

  ‘It’s not like that,’ said Ida, cutting across her sister. ‘And it was only once.’

  ‘That’s what he told you,’ scoffed her sister.

  ‘And I believe him,’ snapped Ida, realising that she actually did. ‘Jerimiah didn’t even know Michael existed until a few weeks ago.’

  Pearl’s powdered face pulled itself into an excessively sympathetic expression. ‘You poor thing. Of course’ – she drew deeply on her cigarette then blew a lungful of smoke upwards. Her mouth pulled into a bud as she gave Ida the once-over – ‘if you’d looked after yourself a bit more he might not have developed a wandering eye.’

  ‘Is that a fact?’ Ida snapped.

  ‘It stands to reason,’ Pearl replied. ‘No man wants a woman on their arm who doesn’t look after herself, do they? I know you haven’t got much grey but if I were you I’d treat myself to a trip to the hairdresser and have a more modern style. One with a bit of bounce in it; men like that. And let’s be honest. Having kids has taken its toll, hasn’t it?’

  ‘It’s what happens, Pearl,’ said Ida.

  Her sister placed her manicured hands on her stomach. ‘Which is why you need to get yourself a girdle: to pull it all in.’

  Holding on to her rising temper, Ida gave her sister a brittle smile. ‘Well, thanks for the advice.’

  ‘Glad to be of help.’ Standing up, Pearl tapped her ash into the ashtray on the mantelshelf. ‘Who is this woman, anyway?’

  ‘Ellen Gilbert,’ said Ida. ‘Dooley as was.’

  Pearl pulled a face. ‘That skinny girl from Planet Street you used to knock around with?’

  Ida nodded.

  Pearl’s top lip curled. ‘Well, she always had a bit of a soft spot for your wild gypsy rover. I suppose she’s come back cos she’s after some money.’

  ‘No, she’s not well . . .’ Ida told her about Ellen’s condition.

  ‘So now she’s about to snuff it, she wants you to bring up her snotty tin-lid,’ said Pearl. ‘Bloody liberty.’

  ‘It’s what any mother would want in the same situation,’ said Ida. ‘To know their children will be properly looked after.’

  ‘Well, I hope you told her to sod off,’ said Pearl.

  Ida shifted in the chair. ‘Not exactly.’

  Her sister’s unnaturally red mouth dropped open again. ‘Ida!’

  ‘It’s bad enough that the poor little lad is going to lose his mum let alone being sent to live in some godforsaken orphanage,’ Ida replied.

  ‘But you can’t just take in any old waif and stray off the streets,’ said Pearl.

  ‘It’s lucky for you that I did,’ said Ida. ‘Or your “precious boy” would be in an orphanage.’

  Pearl gave her a look that had they still been children would have been swiftly followed by a tear-inducing bout of hair-pulling.

  ‘This is different,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, this time we know who the father is,’ Ida replied.

  ‘Yes.’ Pearl jabbed her nicotine-stained finger at Ida. ‘It’s that bastard husband of yours!’

  Although she’d called him that and worse over the last few days, anger flared in Ida’s chest.

  ‘Me and Mum never liked
him,’ her sister went on. ‘We tried to warn you about getting tangled up with the likes of Jerimiah Brogan, with his drunken father and barmy mother.’ She blew a stream of smoke from her freshly lit cigarette towards the ceiling rose. ‘Dazzled you were, dazzled by his “grand curly hair” and “strong arms”, as I recall you telling us. Dad was a waterman and we were thought highly of along the river, so you could have done so much better for yourself than a grubby tinker, Ida, had you listened to me and Mum. But no. And now here you are: the talk of every street corner because your Irish scum of a husband has—’

  ‘Well, by the devil himself, look what the cat dragged in,’ said Queenie, standing in the kitchen doorway, arms akimbo and eyes blazing.

  She was wearing an ankle-length skirt, one of Jerimiah’s old jumpers and her cloche hat with a felt rose over each ear. It had been raining earlier so she had put on her hobnail boots which were now mud-caked while her lisle stockings gathered in wrinkles around her spindly ankles. Like Pearl, the old woman was wearing a fur coat but instead of a chic mink, Queenie’s was a moth-eaten beaver with a shredded lining, three sizes too big and almost as old as she was.

  A nerve in Pearl’s right eye started to twitch. ‘Mrs Brogan, I didn’t hear you—’

  ‘I’m sure you didn’t but I heard you,’ said the old woman in a pleasant sing-songy voice.

  A crimson flush crept up Pearl’s throat.

  ‘“Grubby tinker”, wasn’t it?’ Queenie continued in the same friendly tone. ‘And Irish scum?’

  ‘Didn’t anyone ever tell you that it’s wrong to eavesdrop?’

  ‘And didn’t anyone tell you it’s wrong to be tupping another woman’s husband?’

  Pearl’s neck went from red to purple.

  Crushing her half-smoked cigarette in the ashtray she looked at Ida. ‘I’ve got to go. Lenny will be waiting for me.’

  ‘How is Lenny’s wife keeping?’ asked Queenie, a sharp glint in her black eyes.

  ‘It was good of you to come,’ said Ida, for want of anything else to say.

  Picking up her handbag from the table, Pearl opened it. ‘Me and Lenny are going to stay with friends in the country for a few weeks—’

  ‘Anywhere near his wife and kids at Southend?’ chipped in Queenie.

  Ignoring her, Pearl took out a ten-shilling note from her purse. ‘Could you get Billy something nice for Christmas from me,’ she said, handing the note to Ida. ‘But remember, only the best for my darling boy.’

  ‘Is this the same “darling boy” you tried to poke out of you with a knitting needle and then abandoned when he was two days old in Bancroft workhouse?’ asked Queenie.

  Ida glanced at the money then screwed it up in her fist. ‘I think he’d like a cowboy outfit.’

  ‘I’m sure you know best,’ said Pearl, giving her a condescending smile. ‘But make sure you wrap it in new paper not that creased stuff you’ve saved from last year.’

  Snapping her bag shut, Pearl glanced around the room and gave an exaggerated shudder. ‘Honestly, Ida, I don’t know how you can live in this junk yard.’

  Fury like a firecracker shot across Queenie’s wrinkled face for a second before being replaced with her sweetest little-old-lady expression. ‘Sad as I am that you’re going so soon,’ she said, ‘sure, let me fetch your coat for you.’

  She went into the hallway and returned a second or two later carrying Pearl’s luxurious mink.

  ‘’Tis a fine coat,’ said Queenie, smoothing her gnarled hands over the rich pelt. She rubbed it against her cheek. ‘And so soft. Bet it cost Lenny a king’s ransom.’

  Pearl looked smug. ‘Well, it wasn’t cheap.’

  Queenie maintained her gummy smile for a couple of moments then her face turned into that of an enraged gargoyle.

  ‘Which is more than could be said of you, Pearl Munday,’ she screamed. ‘You fecking gobshite.’

  Queenie threw the mink on the floor then, like a child leaping into a puddle, the old woman jumped on to the middle of the garment with both feet. With her eyes fixed on Pearl’s horrified face she wiped her muddy boots across the glossy pelt a few times then stepped off.

  Dragging the coat across the floor behind her, Queenie stormed out of the room, down the hallway and opened the front door.

  ‘You want your coat, do you?’ she shouted, marching into the street and pricking up the ears of the neighbours. ‘Well, fetch it, you fecking cow.’

  Swinging the now filthy coat around her head like a lasso, Queenie hurled it into the middle of the road.

  Pearl screamed and dashed after it but couldn’t reach it before it landed in a pool of rainwater with an oily slick swirling on its surface.

  ‘You want to be calling names, do you?’ yelled Queenie as Pearl snatched her coat from the cobbles. ‘Well, I’ll give you a few to be taking with you: tart, trollop, slut. That’s what you are, Pearl, and everyone knows it.’

  ‘How dare you?’ screamed Pearl, clinging to her ruined fur.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Ida noticed a couple of neighbours whispering behind their hands while casting amused glances across at her.

  ‘You come swanning around here all la-di-da when the world and his wife know you’ve been dropping your knickers for every Tom, Dick and Harry since you had fuzz between your legs,’ Queenie yelled. ‘There can’t be a man this side of the Aldgate pump who hasn’t had his hand on your ha’penny, Pearl Munday.’

  An ugly expression contorted Pearl’s face, vividly reminding Ida of her many unhappy encounters with her sister as a child.

  ‘I’ll get my Lenny on you, you old bat,’ shouted Pearl, her expensive hat losing its anchorage and slipping forward.

  ‘I’ll be waiting for him.’ Queenie licked her index finger. Closing one eye, she pointed at Pearl. ‘Waiting to curse him so his balls dry up and his fecking teeth fall out.’

  Pearl glared at Queenie and Queenie glared back for a moment, then shaking out her dripping coat, Pearl folded it carefully across her arm.

  She looked at Ida. ‘Make sure you spend all that ten bob on Billy.’ Her gaze slid across to Queenie. ‘Mental. Bloody mental!’

  Straightening her hat, Pearl turned and walked away, under the scrutiny of the Mafeking Terrace residents who were standing on their doorsteps.

  Queenie watched her defeated adversary depart for a moment or two then turned and walked back towards Ida.

  ‘You look pretty grim there, Ida,’ said Queenie, as she stopped in front of her.

  ‘Do I?’ asked Ida, watching her sister negotiate the cobbles in her high-heeled shoes.

  ‘That you do,’ said Queenie. ‘And don’t you be thinking you can berate me for slinging your sister out—’

  ‘I wasn’t,’ Ida cut in. ‘I was just thinking I wish I’d been quick enough to wipe my feet on her coat, too.’

  Chapter Seven

  ‘GRAN . . .?’ said Billy.

  Queenie looked up from the racing page of her newspaper and peered at him over her half-rimmed spectacles.

  ‘How is it you know so much about the horses?’

  He was sitting next to her eating the jam sandwich she’d made for him when he got in from school fifteen minutes before and was still in his uniform.

  It was the second Friday in November, and just after three o’clock. Music While You Work was in full swing and there was still an hour and a half until the blackout curtains had to be drawn, securing the population of London into their miserable dark world.

  Billy hadn’t lingered after school and Queenie couldn’t blame him. The overnight puddles had been thick with ice when she went out for the family’s bread that morning and had remained solid all day. Mind you, even though it was cold enough to rot spuds in the ground, it was as warm as a summer’s day when compared to the glacial temperature between Ida and Jerimiah.

  ‘Do you write it all down?’ He indicated the dog-eared notebook at her elbow.

  ‘Sometimes,’ said Queenie. ‘But mostly it’s all up here.’ She t
apped her head.

  ‘Eddy Browne’s brother says you know the form of every horse,’ said Billy, his eyes wide with admiration.

  ‘Well, maybe I do.’ Queenie shook out the paper.

  ‘Will you teach me about the horses, Gran?’ he asked, spraying crumbs as he spoke.

  ‘You’re too young for such things,’ said Queenie.

  ‘Please . . .’ Billy whined. ‘So I can win lots of money so I can look after Mum and Dad and the rest of the Brogan family.’

  Queenie studied the boy’s freckled face. If truth be told, Billy didn’t have a drop of Brogan blood in him and would have to be told the truth about his birth at some point, perhaps when he was a year or two older. It didn’t matter to Queenie, because although Billy was not her grandson by blood, he was in all the ways that mattered.

  ‘All right, lad,’ she said, smoothing the newspaper across the kitchen table. ‘I’ll show you how easy it is to win lots of money.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Gran,’ he said, with a grin. ‘When I’m rich I’ll look after you too.’

  Queenie suppressed a smile.

  ‘All right, lad, let’s see if there’s a nag who can make our fortunes in the one o’clock at Newmarket,’ she said, adjusting her half-rimmed glasses on the end of her nose.

  Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, Billy rested his elbows on the table and leaned over the racing page.

  ‘Well, Mason Melody looks promising,’ Queenie said, glancing down the list of runners and riders. ‘He’s lasted two races over the distance and been placed in all but one of the previous six.’

  ‘So he’s fast,’ said Billy.

  ‘He is and Dicky Mullins, who weighs no more than a couple of feathers stuck together, is on his back,’ continued Queenie. ‘And on top of it all, Mason Melody ran the hooves off the odds-on favourite last time out.’ She pointed at the minute BF alongside the horse’s name.

  Billy studied the letters and numbers for a second then looked up.

  ‘So he’s a good bet?’ he asked.

  ‘There’s worse,’ Queenie agreed. ‘And he prefers firm to hard.’ She tapped the letters f and h under the horse’s name. ‘And I’d be guessing with the weather being such as it is, Newmarket’s track will be as unyielding as a pair of nun’s knickers. Your man, Fat Tony, was offering five to one for Mason Melody, and judging by his form, I for one wouldn’t have argued with those. So what do you think, lad? Will you chance your pocket money?’