Tomorrow, Jerusalem

by Tomorrow, Jerusalem (retail) (epub)

  Charlotte watched, as did everyone else, unwillingly fascinated. It took no imagination to guess how painful that docker’s grip on the narrow shoulder must be, but the girl grinned derision and showed no sign.

  ‘I told you to shut it, Sal.’

  ‘Why, so yer did,’ she agreed tranquilly. ‘Taken over the place, ’ave yer? Sellin’ licences ter sing? I wouldn’t put it past yer, Jackie lad. We all know yer’d sell anythin’ else. Yer got any sisters left?’

  His face was brilliant with rage. The grip on her shoulder tightened. The smile faded from the girl’s face, and unable to keep up her show of nonchalance she lifted her chin, tightened her mouth and stared defiance.

  ‘Thunder and lightning!’ Cissy said. ‘When will they learn to behave?’ And with no hesitation all five feet of her stalked into the arena, ignoring the charged atmosphere of violence that had caused others, more wise in the ways of the streets, to shuffle backwards and to leave isolated the two young people in the centre of the room. ‘Young man,’ Cissy said very sharply, a governess, knowing her authority, speaking to a recalcitrant child, ‘I think you had better leave. And as for you—’ she swung upon the brown-haired girl, who ignored her, her eyes still bright and challenging on Jackie’s angry face, ‘if you wish food for yourself and for the child then I suggest you keep very quiet.’

  The girl turned cool, unimpressed eyes upon her. Jackie’s hand released the thin shoulder. The young man turned his head, looking first at Cissy and then across the room at Charlotte. Anger and pride flamed in the handsome face, lit the lucent eyes like fire upon water. Somewhere deep in Charlotte a small, wild flame lifted in answer and died, swiftly and furiously quenched.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Cissy said firmly, ‘but we really cannot tolerate such disruptive behaviour. You will have to leave. And without your soup.’

  He turned fully to face her, towering above her. Jackie Pilgrim wasn’t here for soup; two weeks earlier he had followed one pretty face into the kitchen and stayed to eye another. ‘Sod your soup, little lady,’ he said pleasantly enough, his anger dying as quickly as it had flared, a hard smile in the eyes that he lifted once more to look directly at Charlotte. ‘Now what in the world makes you think I came for soup?’

  Charlotte, embarrassed, her face on fire, tried to withdraw from the strange, powerful clash of their glances and could not. For a fraction of a second she stood quite still, transfixed by that blue fire, helpless. Then with a smile and a derisive flip of his fingers to the peak of his cap he was gone, striding tall and arrow-straight into the sultry warmth of the afternoon. His going left a small, tense silence. A low buzz of conversation broke out and Cissy turned and clipped briskly back behind the table, her skirts swishing. ‘The impudence of that young man! Who is he, do you know?’

  Charlotte ladled soup and shook her head.

  ‘Too flash by half, that one. Heading for trouble as sure as eggs. I know the type. Mind you,’ Cissy flashed a sly look at Charlotte, ‘he’s a good-looking devil, isn’t he? Quite a tom-cat amongst the pigeons – oh, Charlie, now look what you’ve done! There’s more soup on the table than in the bowl! Here, let me. Why don’t you be a darling and start to wipe over the tables? We’re nearly finished and – it’s so very hot – I’d really like to get away on time today.’

  Half an hour later the two girls, dressed identically in what Charlotte termed privately their ‘do-gooding uniform’ of mannish, crisp white shirts and serviceable dark skirts, their small boaters decorously trimmed with plain ribbon, their black buttoned boots dusty from unswept pavements and their hands encased in the inevitable white kid gloves without which even in this sticky weather and even in the swarming – and uncaring – streets of Poplar no young lady would be seen, were walking through caverns of grimy buildings that trapped the heat of the June day like an oven without allowing any stray finger of sunlight to penetrate their depths. At ground level only the heat spoke of summer – that and the brilliance of the sky that sparkled above the grim, dirty windowed buildings and told of a lovely day that in country or park or well-tended garden would be scented and sweet and full of promise, whilst here the sultry heat simply shortened tempers and bred disease.

  ‘You’re very quiet?’ Cissy, bouncing briskly along by Charlotte’s side, turned brightly inquisitive eyes upon her friend. ‘Penny for them?’ Her voice was lifted against the ear-splitting rattle of the teeming traffic that rolled and bumped along the rutted road – hand-carts and donkey-carts, great wagons from the docks, the occasional hansom.

  Charlotte smiled, vaguely and shook her head. ‘They aren’t worth a penny actually. I wasn’t really thinking of anything in particular.’ Which was a downright lie; she had been thinking of something very particular indeed. She had been thinking of the quite extraordinary, not to say disturbing, emotions that the recent scene between the young man called Jackie and the girl he had called Sal had aroused in her. Embarrassment she had identified immediately and easily; no gently reared young lady dutifully fulfilling her obligation to assist those less fortunate than herself should be subjected to such an outright and arrogant challenge as she sensed had been flung at her by the wantonly handsome Jackie Pilgrim before he had stalked off like an insulted young prince. Anger, too, rooted in much the same cause. But jealousy?

  Yes, she had to admit it, jealousy. There had been something between those two, something that smouldered beneath the surface, something more than an impudently sung music-hall song and an almost casual insult. Offence had been taken far too quickly, and defiance had been too strong and only thinly disguised by the apparently feckless mischief making. Charlotte – and surely everyone else in the room? – had sensed the violence between them, the violence and – something else. Something the thought of which now, as she hurried with Cissy through the heavy summer air of the squalid East End streets, brought an uncomfortable flush of warmth to her face and an odd and not very pleasant creeping of the hairs on her skin; a strange, small frisson of danger and of excitement.

  ‘Charlotte?’ Cissy touched her arm.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  Cissy laughed, good naturedly. ‘For heaven’s sake – where are you today?’

  ‘I – I don’t know. I have something of a headache. It’s the heat I expect.’

  ‘I asked you what you were doing at the kitchen today? It isn’t your day, is it?’

  ‘No. But Hannah had a meeting – or a rally – oh, something, I’m not sure what. So she asked me to come instead.’

  ‘Good old Hannah. Still running the world, eh?’

  Charlotte smiled, more than a little wryly. ‘Something like that.’

  ‘What is it this time? The Women Against Sweated Labour Committee? A trade union march? A suffragists’ meeting?’

  ‘Lord knows. Any or all of them in one afternoon perhaps. I’m sure she could manage it. She really can be quite exhausting at times.’

  Cissy glanced sideways at her and then with an odd sympathy in the gesture she slid her hand into the crook of Charlotte’s arm. ‘You aren’t altogether happy, are you?’ she asked shrewdly. ‘With the Pattens?’

  For the space of half a dozen steps Charlotte did not answer. How could she honestly answer such a question when she was herself so hopelessly confused? Had anyone but Cissy asked it she would not have tried, would have brushed it aside with a swift denial and changed the subject. But Cissy was the closest to a best friend she had ever had and deserved better than that. ‘I – I wouldn’t exactly put it like that. Doctor Will’s an absolute love, he’s been as much a father as a godfather to Ralph and to me since Papa died, as you know. I don’t know what we would have done without him. Ralph was, after all, only seventeen and I sixteen. I truly think he loves us as well as he does his own children. And Hannah is really very kind, and Peter is fun—’

  Cissy cocked a ginger, inquisitive head in that characteristic, enquiring, birdlike way. ‘And Ben?’

  Charlotte shrugged. ‘Ben’s all right. Though sometimes h
e seems a hundred years old to me. You’d never think he wasn’t thirty yet.’

  They had turned a corner into a quieter street. Cissy glanced around her at the crowded tenements, at a group of children, half-clothed and filthy, who played, voices raised to shatter glass, in the dry and foul-smelling gutter, at a woman whose brood they must be, though she ignored the blood battle in which they appeared to be engaged, who sat upon a broken chair, her back against the wall watching the world dull-eyed whilst the child at her flat, grimy breast whimpered plaintively. ‘It can’t be easy being a doctor around here.’

  Charlotte stopped so suddenly that Cissy had taken a couple of steps on alone before she realized it. ‘But – that’s the point, isn’t it? They don’t have to be doctors around here! They could do what my father did – what your father does! He doesn’t turn away a poor man who can’t pay his fees, does he? Of course not! He gives his services to the charity hospital. He sits on the Board of Guardians. He’s as socialist as Doctor Will is – as Ben is – as Papa was! But he doesn’t make you all live in Poplar, does he? There’s nothing wrong in living and practising somewhere decent and giving your services when and how they’re needed elsewhere, is there? The Pattens have got money – as we have – no fortune, but enough. They don’t have to live here,’ she repeated just a little wildly, the pent-up frustrations of months in the words, ‘live in that ridiculous, rambling,’ she paused, casting about for a word, ‘uncouth building – all nooks and crannies and spiders’ webs! They don’t have to take personal responsibility for every orphaned child, every sick man, every starving woman between Stepney and the Isle of Dogs!’ She stopped, and drew a breath, shook her head ruefully. ‘Oh, Lord, that’s so unfair, isn’t it? I know it. They’re wonderful people. And they do truly believe in what they’re doing.’

  ‘And you don’t?’ Cissy’s pale eyes were shrewd but not unkind.

  Charlotte made a small, impatient gesture, ‘But yes! You know I do. We were none of us brought up to ignore or condone the injustice around us, were we? We’ve all been taught from the cradle of the price our country has paid for commercial success and the blessed Empire!’ She threw up her hands in half-comic emphasis. ‘We were weaned on oppression, the rights of the common man, votes for all regardless of property, paid MPs. You and Wilfred, me and Ralph, the Pattens! The Three Musketeers they called our fathers in medical school, didn’t they? All for one and one for all – up with the Charter and down with oppression. And of course I know they’re right. Of course I agree that we must fight. Of course it’s outrageous that a man – or a woman! – shouldn’t be paid a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work. Of course the children should be in the schools and not in the sweatshops. Of course decent food, fresh water, clean air should be there for all, not for the privileged few who can afford to pay their cost! But Cissy – for goodness’ sake! – I can’t be earnest about it all the time! I’m eighteen years old! I want to live somewhere nice, like you do! Have some pretty clothes, go to parties, like I used to. I’m not Hannah! I won’t grow old attending meetings and organizing committees!’

  ‘She must be all of twenty-one?’ the nearly twenty-year-old Cissy said, mildly.

  Charlotte shook her head impatiently, ‘Oh, Cissy don’t be so tiresome! You know what I mean. She could be forty! Look at the way she dresses – the same old skirts and blouses, the same old hats! She never goes anywhere nor does anything that isn’t in a good cause. And they all expect me to be the same. No,’ she corrected herself, ‘even that isn’t true. Expect is too strong a word. It never occurs to them – not even to my own brother – that I might want something else. I mean, Hannah will never get married, will she? How will she ever meet anyone!’

  Cissy slanted a quick look at her, grinning.

  Charlotte almost stamped her foot. ‘Don’t laugh at me Cissy Barnes! I’m serious!’

  Cissy tucked her hand back into the crook of Charlotte’s arm and more slowly they resumed walking. ‘I know you are, darling. I’m just not sure it’s Hannah that you’re so concerned about “not meeting anyone”. And – oh, Charlotte you’re as blind as a bat sometimes – I don’t think that it bothers your Ralph one little bit the way Hannah dresses.’

  ‘Oh, Ralph! He’s as bad as Doctor Will and Ben. Worse! Living with the Pattens this past two years has made him more one of them than they are themselves! Why, he’s talking about—’ Charlotte stopped, thunderstruck, incredulity on her pretty face as the underlying meaning of Cissy’s words belatedly caught up with her. ‘Cissy! What can you mean?’

  Cissy was laughing outright now. ‘Charlie, you must have seen the way he looks at her? Everyone’s noticed it,’ she giggled again, ’except possibly Hannah herself. Ralph’s been tagging along behind her for a full year now—’

  ‘But – he’s known her all his life!’

  ‘So? What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘I – don’t know. Nothing I suppose.’ Charlotte walked on in a very thoughtful silence for a moment or two, then made a small, disbelieving sound, half-laughter. ‘Oh, Cissy – are you sure?’

  ‘Certain. And so is Mother. She thinks it a very suitable match.’

  As she had made no bones about showing that she would think a match between her own son and dear dead Gwendoline’s pretty daughter Charlotte – Charlotte hastily steered the conversation away from Mrs Barnes’s matchmaking plans, which had plagued her quite enough over the past months, especially as she had good reason to believe that Wilfred did not find them quite as absurd as she did.

  ‘Well. It’s their business I suppose. What a thing! Hannah and Ralph!’ The preposterous thought was so diverting that with a characteristic butterfly swing of mood she had all but forgotten her ill temper of a moment ago. She laughed genuinely, a clear peal of girlish amusement. ‘Hannah and Ralph! Oh, no – I can’t believe it! Oh, Cissy – imagine – do you think they kiss?’

  ‘Charlotte!’

  ‘Well, people do, you know!’

  ‘And other people – well-brought-up people – don’t talk about it!’ Despite herself, Cissy was laughing too.

  ‘Well, I can’t think why not. Tell me – tell me truly – have you ever been kissed?’

  The silence that greeted the question opened her clear, forget-me-not eyes very wide indeed. ‘Cissy Barnes! You have! Who? Oh – you must tell me who!’

  Cissy’s face, the fine pale skin already flushed with the heat had suddenly under the small brim of her boater turned a shade to rival her hair.

  Charlotte, face alight with childish mischief, affected to think, then raised a small gloved finger. ‘I know! David Batty! At the musicale – you took a turn around the garden—’

  Cissy shook her head.

  Charlotte frowned a little. ‘Oh? Who then? Oh, Cissy, not that awful brother of his, surely? What’s his name? Robert?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then who?’

  ‘It really isn’t your business, Charlie.’ But the protest was weak, and Charlotte pounced on it like a kitten upon a ball.

  ‘You’re dying to tell me! You know you are! Come on. I shall pester until you do!’

  ‘Well—’ Cissy chewed her lip for a moment, her face still painfully fiery, ‘you wouldn’t tell? You promise?’

  ‘Oh, of course not!’

  ‘As a matter of fact it was Peter. Last Christmas. When we went carol singing.’

  There was a small, startled silence. Then ‘Peter?’ Charlotte said, in astonishment that could not have been assumed. ‘Our Peter?’

  ‘Yes.’ Cissy was defensive. ‘Why not?’

  ‘But – Peter? He’s – he’s younger than you – he’s only a year older than me—’

  ‘He’s fourteen months older than you and that makes him just eight months younger than me. Lord, Charlotte – you make me sound like Methuselah!’

  ‘Oh, no, I didn’t mean that – of course I – didn’t.’ Charlotte was all but choking with graceless laughter. ‘But – oh, Cissy – Peter? Ouch!’ S
he rubbed her arm in injured surprise. ‘You pinched me!’

  ‘I’ll do worse than that.’

  Charlotte giggled again. Composed herself. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘So I should think.’

  And they both within seconds were in such unladylike gales of laughter that they clung to each other for support.

  ‘What was it like?’ Charlotte asked when some degree of breath and sobriety had returned. ‘Do tell me. Was it nice?’

  Cissy swung her small embroidered hand bag carelessly and lifted her chin. ‘As a matter of fact it was. Very nice indeed.’

  ‘Cissy Barnes! You’re positively swaggering!’

  Cissy grinned.

  ‘Would you – want to do it again?’ Charlotte’s curiosity, once aroused, was relentless.

  The other girl nodded. ‘Certainly.’

  ‘With Peter?’

  A narrow shoulder lifted, a mite too casually, ‘I might. Why not?’

  Charlotte really had stopped laughing now, her fair, pointed face was imprinted with an expression of pure puzzlement. Peter Patten, graceless young gadabout that he was, had for as long as she could remember been as much a brother to her as had Ralph. The idea that a sensible girl like Cissy might find him kissable – which she quite demonstrably did – astounded her.

  Cissy at that point considered it politic to change the subject. Not for the world would she answer the questions she saw dawning in her friend’s inquisitive little face. ‘Did you know the Gipsy Fair’s coming this weekend?’

  Charlotte was distracted at once as Cissy knew she would be. ‘No? Where?’

  ‘On the waste ground behind Fulton’s Hardware, by Villa Street Chapel. There’s a notice up.’

  ‘Oh, Cissy – do let’s go! It was such fun last year! Do you remember the acrobats? And the girl in the red dress who danced?’

  Cissy nodded. ‘Why don’t we all go? Ask Hannah, and Ralph and – oh anyone who’d like to. You could all come back to supper or something afterwards. Mother would love to see you, I know.’

  So engrossed in her own excitement was Charlotte that she completely missed the significance of the name so carefully not mentioned. ‘Will the fire-eater be there, do you think?’