London Pride (18 page)

So Joan and Peggy set off to find the market, which was easy enough because all they had to do was to follow the crowd. They passed the church, which turned out to be really enormous, big enough to be a cathedral, and found themselves facing a wide crossroads where four sets of tramlines met and intermeshed, and there on the opposite side of the street was an archway made of stone with the words ‘Greenwich Market' carved on the keystone. They struggled through the traffic still following the crowd, passed the pawn shop beside the arch where two racks of old coats and trousers had been wheeled out onto the pavement to attract custom, walked down a short narrow passage way between dank brick walls, and arrived.

And what a warm racketty place it was, all under cover and with so many stalls they couldn't count them, vegetable stalls piled high with potatoes and cabbages and onions, with bunches of new carrots fringing every canopy, fruit stalls heaped with redcurrants and gooseberries and neat little punnets of raspberries, stalls selling every kind of china from egg cups to chamber pots, stalls for fish and stalls for meat and one small barrow filled with eggs, raucous voices offering everything you could possibly ever want, nails and screws and ha'penny balls of string, straw hats for thruppence, bracelets and necklaces at a tanner a time, saucepans and flat irons, shoes and stockings, pens and paper, even day-old chicks, staggering and cheeping in long cardboard boxes. Oh it was a lovely place and naturally they took as long as they could to make their purchases. Particularly as Mum was in a peculiar mood.

But when they came home again, carrying the heavy shopping bag between them, Baby was playing out in the street and Mum was in the kitchen giggling and flirting her eyes at one of their neighbours.

‘This is Mr Allnutt,' she said gaily. ‘He's offered to put up some new shelves for us. Isn't he a darling? Oh yes you
are, Mr Allnutt. An absolute darling. I won't have you deny it.'

The absolute darling was an elderly grey-haired man, busy at the kitchen table measuring planks. ‘'Ave 'em up in a jiffy, Mrs Furnivall,' he said. ‘Don't you worry.'

‘What a kind man!' Peggy said as she and Joan carried Mrs Geary's shopping upstairs for her.

But Mrs Geary made a face when they told her what he was doing. ‘Oh lor'!' she said. ‘I should ha' warned yer. Still, shelves ain't so bad I suppose. Don't go putting nothink on 'em, that's all. Not till you been down to number two. Wait till 'e's finished an' gone back home, then cut along. Bertie'll see you right. D'you get my King Edwards? Oh yes. They'll do a treat. Was there any change?'

It was all very mysterious, but they didn't like to question her any further when she'd obviously closed the subject. They unpacked her vegetables and put them away for her in the corner cupboard and then they went downstairs again to see how Mr Allnutt was getting on. By this time the kitchen was full of wood shavings and Mum was making him a cup of tea.

‘Be lovely to have enough shelves,' she was saying. ‘I shall put the saucepans up there. Set the fire will you, Joan.'

It took him all the afternoon with a pause for a bacon sandwich. Joan said she'd never seen anybody work so slowly. ‘It takes him half an hour to measure a plank,' she said, as she and Peggy were washing up. ‘He'll be here till midnight.'

‘'Specially if Mum will keep feeding him and calling him her knight in shining armour,' Peggy agreed.

But at last the job was done and the knight in shining armour gathered up his tools and departed, glowing with praise.

‘Mrs Geary says not to put anything up just yet,' Joan warned as Mum bounced towards her new shelves, saucepans in hand.

‘Oh what nonsense!' Mum said, plonking both saucepans down on the top shelf. ‘Why ever not?' And the top shelf fell off the wall.

Both her daughters were out of the house and halfway down the road to number two before she could say a word.

‘If you please,' Joan said when a small pale woman opened the door, ‘Mrs Geary says could you come down to our house. Mr Allnutt's put up some shelves and …'

She didn't need to explain any further, because a stocky young man had appeared and was already pulling a tool bag out of the hall cupboard. ‘I'll come right down, lovey,' he said. ‘Gone home has 'e?'

‘Oh yes,' Joan assured him. ‘Mrs Geary said to wait till he went home.'

‘That's all right then,' he said cheerfully as they all trotted back to number six. ‘He's a dear old thing, you know. That kind-hearted you wouldn't believe. Always means well. It's just he's cack-'anded, that's all. Nothink broke, was there?'

Mum was still gazing at the wreckage when they got back into the kitchen.

‘I'm his son,' the second Mr Allnutt said. ‘From number two. Name a' Bertie. I'm ever so sorry about all this, missus. I'll put 'em up for yer proper. We should ha' warned yer.' 'E means well you know.'

‘It fell down,' Mum said weakly.

‘Always does,' Bertie said, getting out his screwdriver. ‘Can't do a thing right. Poor old Dad. Always the same. He ain't got the hang of it. Still never mind. I'm 'ere now, missus. Soon ‘ave it right, eh?' He was working as he talked, his hands deft and quick, lifting shelves, unscrewing nails, examining the state of the plaster. ‘That wants fixing with a nice little wooden plug, that's what that wants.'

He was as quick as his father had been slow, briskly carving wooden plugs for every nail hole. ‘There you are,' he said when he'd finished. ‘That'll take the weight lovely.'

‘Well,' Mum said in some confusion. ‘I don't know what to say. It's ever so kind of you, Mr Allnutt.'

‘Don't say nothink to the old man,' Bertie Allnutt said, smiling at her like a conspirator. ‘'E likes ter feel useful, you know.'

What a lovely man he is, Peggy thought, watching him
as he packed up his tools and walked into the hall. He must love his father ever so much to cover up for him like this. Like I loved Dad.

‘See you at the ding-dong,' he said, as he stepped out into the street.

‘What's a ding-dong?' both girls asked as Mum closed the door after him.

‘Best part a' the week,' Mrs Geary said from half-way down the stairs. To the girls' surprise she was dressed for the street in a hat and coat and white gloves. Or almost dressed for the street for they noticed she still wore her carpet slippers. ‘You jest wait an' see. Now then, you ready for this meat?'

‘Are you going to the market?' Mum asked, her eyes rounded in amazement. Really this place was one surprise after another. ‘Can you walk that far?'

‘If I take me time, I can,' Mrs Geary said. ‘One foot after another you know.'

And one foot after another she hobbled down to the town. ‘Wouldn't miss me Sat'day night fer worlds,' she confided, as she and Flossie and all three girls walked through the arch and into the evening crowds. ‘Now then Charlie,' she said when they reached the first butcher's stall, ‘what sort a' rotten ol' cag-mag you got this evening?'

‘Fer you, Mrs Geary,' the butcher said, ‘nice bit a' silverside, two an' tuppence.'

Mrs Geary surveyed the silverside guardedly. ‘That'll come down,' she said to Flossie, when the butcher was attending to someone else. ‘We'll ‘ave that for a shillin' later. ‘Nother twenty minutes they'll start sellin' off. Let's go an' see the fish.'

The fishmonger she chose was offering two herrings for thruppence. ‘There y'are darlin',' he sang. ‘Lovely fresh 'errin'. Four a tanner.'

‘Fresh!' Mrs Geary called back. ‘With them eyes! Do me a favour.'

‘Can't ‘ave everything darlin',' the fishmonger said. ‘They're lovely fish.'

‘They're on the turn, that's what,' Mrs Geary said, bending down to sniff them.

‘Fourpence,' the fishmonger said, slapping the fish into
a pile of newspapers. ‘Shall I wrap 'em for yer?'

‘Might as well,' Mrs Geary agreed. ‘Someone's got ter take 'em off yer ‘ands.'

‘I'm a fool ter mesself,' the fishmonger complained, ‘the prices I charge. Now then. Who else?'

‘I'll ‘ave fourpennorth,' Flossie said, entering into the spirit of the thing.

‘I shall be ruined,' the fishmonger said.

Peggy was so entertained by all this that she didn't notice that there was a boy helping out at the stall. She'd been vaguely aware of two red hands getting the herring but that was all. So when the hands pushed a bundle of dirty newspaper towards her she moved out of the way instinctively.

‘It's fer the cat,' a voice whispered. ‘Fish 'eads. Take 'em quick, ‘fore 'e sees.'

It was the boy next door.

‘Ta,' she said, sliding the package into her mother's shopping bag.

‘Meat!' Mrs Geary said, hobbling away.

‘See you at the ding-dong,' the boy called after them.

‘Who's that?' Flossie said.

‘Jimmy Boxall from next door,' Mrs Geary explained. ‘Poor lad.'

‘He don't look particularly poor to me,' Flossie said. ‘Good strong healthy-looking boy, I'd say.'

‘Oh not that way,' Mrs Geary said. ‘ 'E's strong enough. Too many brains that's the trouble. Cleverest boy in the school he is. Took a scholarship to Roan's, easy as pie, so ‘they say. Only his ol' man wouldn't let him take it. Poor kid. Cut to bits 'e was.'

‘Oh,' Flossie said, losing interest. Brainy people put her at a disadvantage so she avoided them when she could.

‘Wicked waste if you ask me,' Mrs Geary said. ‘You got brains you oughter use 'em.'

So that's what it was all about, Peggy thought, trailing along behind them. Fancy winning a scholarship and not being able to take it. I think I'd have cried about that too. He must be clever because only very clever people went in for scholarships.

‘Now for that silverside,' Mrs Geary said.

It was getting dark by the time they left the market and by then their baskets were full of bargains and Flossie was so pleased with herself that she invited Mrs Geary to have supper with her. ‘We'll have those chops,' she said, ‘seeing he was so good as to throw them in for nothing.'

‘I got the mint this morning,' Mrs Geary said. ‘We'll ‘ave mint sauce.'

So Flossie took the frying pan down from her new shelves to fry the chops, while her daughters peeled the potatoes and shelled the peas and set them to boil, and Mrs Geary sat at the kitchen table and chopped up the mint, and they made a very good meal together. And afterwards, while Tabby was chewing the bones and Joan was washing the dirty plates and setting the saucepans to soak, Mrs Geary combed her hair ready for the ding-dong.

‘Best bibs and tuckers, gels,' she said. ‘They'll be starting in a minute.'

‘Are
we
invited then?' Flossie said.

‘Lord love yer,' Mrs Geary said, laying her comb down beside the salt cellar. ‘I should ‘ope so! ‘Course you are. The whole bloomin' street's invited. Everyone goes to the ding-dong.'

Old Mr Allnutt was the only person in the street to possess a piano. It was ancient and beer-stained and its tone was decidedly tinny but he lavished attention upon it, keeping it tuned, as well as he could, and polishing it every Saturday afternoon ready for their evening of mutual glory. Because everybody knew that without jerry Allnutt and his Joanna there wouldn't be a ding-dong, and without a ding-dong Paradise Row would hardly keep going.

The ding-dong was the highlight of the week, when work was over and working pockets were full, when the men gathered for their first leisured pint of the weekend, and the women put on their make-up and their best togs, and the kids were allowed to stay up late. Two by two, family by family, they gathered in old Jerry's front room at number four to share a pint and to sing the old familiar songs in the old familiar way. And the first person in the room was always John Cooper the pianist.

As a young man John Cooper had been a docker, proud of his strength and cockily aware that his Irish good looks could win him any girl he wanted. When the Great War began he'd volunteered in a moment of drunken patriotism and because his current lady friend was urging him on.

‘Great strong feller like you,' she'd said. ‘Just what Lord Kitchener wants. Soon put the fear a' God into them Huns, you will.'

But the great strong feller she sent out in 1914 came home in 1917 with both his legs blown away, and from then on he'd spent his days in a wheelchair, first in various hospitals, then with various relatives, and finally in the downstairs back room with Mr and Mrs Allnutt, who besides being his landlords, were also two devoted nursemaids, feeding him and cleaning for him, helping him in and out of bed and his chair and the lavvy. In the afternoons and evenings Mr Allnutt wheeled him down to the Hippodrome Cinema in Nevada Street where he was employed to play the piano accompaniment to the pictures, and every Saturday Mrs Allnutt wheeled him into the front room for the sing-song. He had never had a music lesson in his life. That was a luxury reserved for the rich and the well-to-do. But he had a quick ear for a tune and during the long painful months of his convalescence he'd learned to vamp chords with his left hand on the piano in the ward, so now he could at least earn a living of sorts, and beside that, he was the darling of the Saturday street, greeted with a thump between the shoulder blades and kept well-oiled with beer all through the riot of the evening.

‘There he is!' his neighbours would cry. ‘Good old John. Give us a tune, John.'

And he would give them a tune. Always the same one. ‘The more we are together.' What could be more suitable? ‘The more we are together, together, together, the more we are together the happier we shall be.' It was the signature tune of the evening and the singers gathered, beaming and bellowing. ‘Good old John!'