The Bells of Bow (14 page)

Doubting hisses and boos were the general response from all round the bar to Frankie’s pessimistic warning.

But not from Clara. She rose unsteadily to her feet, her eyes full of tears and said loudly to everyone, ‘But yer should listen to him. He’s right. There was bombs over London. People got killed and all, so what does me Sunday dinner matter?’

Minnie put her glass down on the table and stood up also. She put her arm round her usually quiet friend. ‘Don’t get yerself upset, Clara. Yer don’t really think they’d attack
us
, do yer, love? Not us here in Darnfield Street?’

The bar suddenly went very quiet and everybody seemed to be staring into their drinks.

What with the glorious September weather and the absence of any bombs, it was as though the panic caused that morning by the first air raid warning of the war had never happened. As on any other ordinary warm September evening in Darnfield Street, and most similar turnings all over the East End, street doors stood wide open, men strolled down to their local, women sat by their steps on kitchen chairs chatting, knitting and mending, and children dashed about, playing riotous games of Outs and High Jimmy Knacker or got up to no good down by the canal.

‘Yer there, Babs? Eve?’ Babs heard someone call along the passage.

‘Hold on, coming.’ Babs went to the door to find Blanche Simpkins standing there. A good-looking woman in her early thirties who always had a smile for everyone, despite the effort needed to keep her brood in order, today she looked unusually serious and, even more strange for her, she didn’t have Janey, her two-year-old, hanging on to her skirts.

‘Fancy a cuppa?’ asked Babs, jerking her thumb back towards the kitchen. ‘I was just making one.’

‘No ta, Babs, I ain’t stopping. I’ve got a lot o’ things to sort out indoors. I just come to ask a favour.’

‘Course.’

Blanche looked up and down the turning, making sure that no one could overhear. Her eyes fixed on the house opposite where Alice Clarke was perched on a squat stool shelling peas for the next day’s dinner. ‘I’ve been talking to Archie,’ she said quietly, then took a deep breath and opened her mouth as though she was about to say something else, but she apparently changed her mind and instead sat down on the stone step.

Babs sat down next to her. ‘Yeah, what is it, Blanche?’

‘Me and Archie’ve been talking about this evacuation lark.’

Babs nodded. ‘Yer said they’d written to yer.’

‘Yeah, we’ve even got a place all sorted out for us and everything. Through someone me little sister Ruby knows from work.’

‘But yer not going? Yer said yer wouldn’t.’

‘I know I did. There was no way I was gonna leave my Archie by himself, but I mean, Babs, since that fright this morning, I dunno what to think no more. It’d be all right if it was just us two but we’ve got the kids to think about.’

Babs shook her head. ‘I thought you was determined not to go.’

‘I was, but Archie thinks different.’

‘What’s Archie got to say about it?’

‘Yer know him, never refuses me nothing if I’ve set me mind on it, and I’m that stubborn he wouldn’t have much chance to anyway. But there’s no telling him this time about what I do or don’t wanna do. In fact I can hardly believe it’s him, Babs. Once that warning went this morning, that was it. He’s been right firm. Told me I’ve gotta go, and I’ve gotta take all the kids with me and all.’

‘Even the big’uns?’

Blanche nodded. ‘Day after tomorrow.’

‘Bloody hell, Blanche. That soon? What do Mary and Terry reckon about it?’

‘Well, to be honest, our Terry hates the idea, thinks he’s too grown up.’

‘He’s thirteen now, ain’t he?’ Babs frowned. ‘Here, do they let ’em go that old?’

‘If they’re with their mums and the billeting people say there’s room they do. And there’s plenty o’ room in this place Ruby’s organised. I wish she’d have kept her flaming bright ideas to herself instead of telling Archie. Cornwall or somewhere, it is. Back of bleed’n beyond. Never heard of the bloody place.’

‘So, will Terry go?’

‘Don’t think he’s got no choice the way Archie’s dug his heels in. But I’ve promised Terry that if he’ll come with me and stay just for a while, then soon as he’s a bit older he can come back and work in the market with his dad.’ Blanche picked at the stitching on the bottom of her cross-over apron and laughed feebly. ‘That’s all he’s ever wanted to do, that one, have a stall of his own down the Roman, just like his dad.’ She rubbed her red, work-worn hands over her face. ‘But I can’t kid our Mary like that, she’s nearly fourteen already, and stubborn just like me. Or like I usually am.’

‘And she’s a pretty girl, just like her mum, and all,’ said Babs, trying to cheer her up.

‘I dunno about me being pretty,’ said Blanche tucking a stray hair under her turban, ‘but being pretty’s half our Mary’s trouble. Her and that Alice’s grandson, Micky, right fancy each other, they do. That’s all I hear about, Micky this, Micky that, Micky the bloody other.’ She shook her head. ‘I can just imagine what Alice would say if she found out.’

‘Don’t she know?’ asked Babs.

‘Yer kidding, ain’t yer?’ said Blanche. ‘And there’s our Terry. He worships Micky and all. Yer know what they’re like at that age. Just ’cos Micky’s fifteen, Terry thinks the sun shines out of him. Micky ain’t a bad kid, I like the way he’s always round here helping his nan and grandad, but I wish my Archie had never let him work on the stall. Mary’s seeing too much of him for my liking.’

‘Look, Blanche, yer don’t wanna fret about that, yer know what young girls of her age are like. Soon as yer go down wherever it is yer going she’ll have met someone else in a couple o’ days, you just wait and see.’

‘I wouldn’t bank on it. I was her age when I met Archie and no matter what no one said I wouldn’t change me mind, I knew he was the one.’

‘Well, she can’t stay here without yer, can she?’

‘Can’t she?’ Blanche sighed. ‘Remember when we saw you and Evie in the pie shop?’

‘Yesterday, yer mean?’

Blanche shook her head. ‘No … Yeah. Hang on, wait a minute.’ She thought for a moment. ‘I suppose it was yesterday. Seems longer ago, don’t it, with everything what’s happened?’

‘Yer right there,’ said Babs, running her hands through her thick, dark brown hair. ‘A lot of things have happened since then all right.’

‘Anyway, that Len o’ mine, he might only be nine years old but he’s got a right old man’s head on his shoulders, figures out all what’s going on, he does. Now yer mustn’t blame yerself, Babs.’ Blanche hesitated, nibbling her lip while she thought how to put what she had to say. ‘Yer see, Len told Mary all about you offering to ask about a job for her at Styleways.’

Babs screwed up her face. ‘Aw, Blanche.’

‘Yeah, and now that’s all I’ve had out of her since this morning. “I’m getting a job with the twins.” It was only me warning her to shut up in front of her dad that she never started on about it when she saw yer both in the shelter this morning.’

‘Aw, I’m really sorry.’ Babs clasped Blanche’s hand in hers. ‘I wouldn’t interfere or nothing for the world, yer know that.’

‘I know and I told yer, it ain’t your fault, it’s Len’s. But it don’t matter anyway. She ain’t got no choice, at least not for another few weeks till she’s fourteen. After that we’ll just have to see.’

‘How about Len, does he wanna go?’

‘I told him it was in the country and he said he’ll go anywhere if there’s gonna be animals. Yer know him. He’d have a barn yard out the back if I’d let him. And Janey’s too little to argue. She don’t know no better, so she’s all right. But, to tell the truth, Babs, it’s Archie I’m really worried about.’

Babs smiled encouragingly. ‘It’ll be a lot quieter without you lot. He’ll think he’s on his holidays.’

Blanche didn’t smile back. She turned to Babs but then dropped her gaze and started picking at the hem of her apron again. ‘Babs, would you keep an eye on him for me?’

‘How d’yer mean?’ Babs sounded really shocked. ‘Here, yer don’t think he’d muck around while yer away, do yer, Blanche? Not your Archie.’

For the first time since she’d sat down on the doorstep, Blanche smiled as if she meant it. ‘No, yer daft cow, course I don’t.’ She put her hand over her mouth to stop herself laughing out loud at the very thought of it. ‘Can yer imagine?’ she spluttered. ‘My Archie with a girl friend.’

‘Not really.’

‘What I meant was could yer make sure he don’t starve or nothing? Yer know what blokes are like.’

‘If yer want an expert on blokes …’ came a voice from behind them.

They looked round to see Evie standing in the passage, dressed up to the nines and striking one of her favourite glamour girl poses that she got from the films.

Blanche laughed. ‘It wasn’t that sort of expert I was after.’

‘Move over.’ Evie squeezed between her sister and Blanche and, despite her new outfit, sat down on the narrow stone step.

Blanche touched the bouncing waves of Evie’s hair. ‘Yer know, I still can’t get used to you being blonde, Eve.’

‘No, but yer know the difference between us now, don’t yer?’

‘I always knew the difference between you two,’ she laughed.

‘What, I’m the madly glamorous one, yer mean?’ asked Babs, affecting a deep sultry voice.

‘No, stupid, you’re the ugly one,’ said Evie nearly falling backwards into the passage as Babs shoved her in the ribs.

Babs narrowed her eyes at Blanche. ‘If you say I’m the one who usually wears the pinny …’

‘Or, I’m the one who’s got the fancy man …’

‘Yer both wrong,’ said Blanche triumphantly. ‘It’s yer dimples, they’re on different sides, ain’t they?’

‘Yer know what, Blanche, yer a bloody marvel. I thought it was only me and Babs what knew about that.’

‘And a couple of blokes we tried to con once,’ Babs reminded her sister.

‘It comes from being a mum, yer see,’ Blanche said with a shrug. ‘It was easy, yer notice all sorts of things about kids.’

‘Kids? Bloody liberty!’ Babs nearly exploded. ‘We’re gonna be eighteen in May.’

Blanche pinched Babs’s cheek. ‘Yeah, but yer still young’uns to an old married lady of thirty-two like me.’ Blanche’s gaze was drawn to the end of the turning. She put her hand up to shade her eyes from the still bright evening sun. ‘Talking about marriage, here comes your feller in his motor car, Eve.’

‘Marriage?’ Evie got up from the step and brushed the dust off the back of her pale blue crepe dress. ‘Yer’ve gotta be kidding, ain’t yer? I’m only out for a good time.’

Blanche grinned. ‘It gets us all in the end, girl.’

Babs said nothing, she just sat there as the gleaming black Riley drew to a smooth halt at the kerb beside them, knowing that all eyes in the street were directed at number six.

‘Well, I’ll love yer and leave yer,’ said Evie, bending down to plant a kiss on her sister’s forehead. ‘And—’

‘Yeah, I know,’ Babs interrupted her. ‘Don’t wait up.’

Evie winked and clicked her tongue. ‘Got it!’

Babs looked up into her sister’s face, seeing herself in the familiar mirror image of her twin but also seeing something new in Evie’s expression, something she hadn’t seen before. It was a sort of toughness, and it excluded her because she didn’t understand it. ‘Yer will be careful, Eve, won’t yer?’

‘It’s all right, Babs,’ said Evie, rolling her eyes at Blanche. ‘I’ve got me gas mask with me.’ She held out the stiff card box that was slung on a cord across her shoulder. ‘It’s a new one, right pukkah and all. Albie got it for me.’

‘It wasn’t gas attacks I was worried about.’ Babs’s face was grim.

‘I thought we’d sorted all this out,’ said Evie wearily.

‘I know, and I don’t mean to go on again, but be careful. For me. I’m serious.’

‘Well, I’m not.’ Evie poked out her tongue and sashayed over to the Riley where Albie was sitting waiting, her high heels clicking on the paving stones. ‘Fusspot,’ she called over her shoulder.

Blanche leant back with her arms folded and watched Evie climb into the luxurious interior of the car. ‘What would yer give to go for a ride in something like that?’ she said wistfully.

‘She’s giving more than enough, I reckon,’ Babs muttered under her breath. ‘And it’s changing her.’

‘What did yer say?’ asked Blanche, enthusiastically returning Evie’s wave of farewell.

‘Nothing.’

Blanche laughed as the younger children gathered in a huddle on the pavement to watch Albie turn the car round.

‘Look at them,’ she said fondly. ‘They all love motors, don’t they?’

Babs didn’t answer.

‘What’s the matter with you?’

Babs shrugged.

Blanche patted her knee. ‘Yer wanna get yerself a new bloke, Babs. That’s your trouble. I ain’t seen yer out with no one regular for quite a while now, have I?’

Babs shook her head as she watched Albie steer the car out of the turning and off into Grove Road. ‘No, no one regular.’

‘I thought yer was keen on that Percy Bennett from round Haverfield Road, wasn’t yer?’

‘He’s all right. I go out with him now and again.’

‘Nothing more? Nothing gonna come of it?’

Babs sat up very straight, staring after the Riley as it pulled out of the turning. ‘He always wants to see me again,’ she said flatly, ‘but I think of him as more of a mate. It was going to school with him, I suppose.’

‘He’s nice though, ain’t he?’

‘Yeah.’ Babs’s voice was clipped. ‘Really nice feller, but …’ she paused, trying to find the words to express what she felt. ‘There ain’t nothing special, nothing that makes me … I dunno. Just ain’t my type maybe.’

Blanche glanced sideways at Babs, noting the tension that was making her lovely face as rigid as a mask. ‘Evie went out with his mate Joe for a while, didn’t she?’ she asked casually. ‘Like, yer know, the four of yer together?’

‘Yeah. That’s right.’ Babs stood up and made much of stretching and yawning. ‘We always used to go out in foursomes.’

‘Before Albie Denham come along.’

Babs looked down at Blanche. ‘I’d better be getting on,’ she said with a tight-lipped smile. ‘I bet Evie’s left a right mess in there.’

Blanche stood up and sank her hands into the deep pockets of her apron. ‘I’ll be over to see yer before we leave, to say goodbye properly.’