The Bells of Bow (51 page)

Babs dropped her chin and stared down at the scrubbed tiled floor. ‘Since, you know, the way I see her ignoring the little one,’ Babs whispered and nodded towards Betty, ‘I’ve really had it with her. I feel like I’m more of a mum than …’ Babs’s words petered out as the shop door opened with a jangle of the bell. ‘Hello, Ethel,’ she said.

Rita stepped back behind the counter. ‘Don’t usually see you this early on a Saturday, Ett. Whatever’s up with yer? Yer look like yer’ve had a kick up the bum.’

Babs lifted Betty off the seat and stood her in the corner with the remains of her cake while Ethel Morgan sat herself down on the chair.

‘I ain’t slept all night,’ she said gravely. ‘It’s my Frankie.’

Rita’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘Aw no, Ett, he ain’t …?’

Ethel shook her head and laughed mirthlessly. ‘No, I’ll never get shot of the dozy old bugger that easy. He’s like a bad penny, that one, he’ll never come to no harm. No, it was what he told me when he got in last night that’s upset me.’

‘What?’

‘You heard about that terrible business down the Tube at Bethnal Green, didn’t yer, Reet?’

‘What, that happened a couple of nights ago to them people what was sheltering?’

Ethel nodded.

Rita looked at Babs. ‘Did you hear about it? Awful it was. A bomb rolled down the steps and killed every single one of them.’

‘No, it wasn’t a bomb, not according to the warden what told my Frankie about it.’ Ethel shook her head in disbelief as though she couldn’t comprehend what she was about to tell them. ‘This feller who was telling him, like, he reckons it was getting on for about half past eight, in the evening like. All pitch dark. And they went and let off these new guns they’ve got in Victoria Park. Massive great things he said they are. Special anti-aircraft, like. Well, the noise carried and them people over in Bethnal Green panicked. Thought it was Jerry bombs gonna fall on ’em. So they all started running for cover, didn’t they?’ Ethel took out her handkerchief from her bag and wiped the palms of her hands. ‘Yer know the station there at Bethnal Green’s the main shelter for them parts?’

Babs and Rita nodded.

‘So, it was the obvious place to go, wasn’t it? And that’s where they headed.’ She paused again to wipe her hands. ‘But the shelter’s only got the one entrance, see? Down them steep stone steps. It only took one to stumble.’ She bowed her head. ‘Frankie said there was a hundred and seventy-three killed.’ She looked from Babs to Rita then back to the floor. ‘A hundred and seventy-three. Can you even start to think about it? Plus gawd knows how many badly hurt.’

Rita leant against the counter. ‘Just up the road really, ain’t it, Bethnal Green? I ain’t never heard nothing like it. Everyone who’s come in the shop’s been sure it was a bomb.’ She hugged herself and rubbed her arms as though she was cold, sending little puffs of flour dust floating off into the warm air. ‘So how comes it’s only out now about what really happened?’

Ethel shrugged. ‘I asked my Frankie the selfsame question. He just said, they can’t just tell us the truth, can they? They’re too worried about people getting downhearted if they knew all that was going on all the time.’

‘Getting downhearted,’ said Rita scornfully. ‘That’s a good word for it.’ She paused. ‘But I suppose they’re right in a way. I mean, this bloody war’s getting to all of us as it is, without having news like that, that we’re all so sodding scared it don’t even need bombs to kill us.’

‘Yeah,’ said Babs. She spoke so quietly that Ethel had to lean forward in her chair to hear her. ‘But when yer don’t know the real truth about something, that’s when yer get all these rumours starting, don’t yer? And that hurts people even more. Lies never help.’

Ethel looked up at Babs. ‘The truth can hurt and all, girl,’ she said. ‘And you of all people should know that, coming from your family.’

Babs bristled. ‘I think yer’d better explain what yer mean, Ethel.’

Rita drew in her breath and said quickly, ‘Poor buggers. Terrible, terrible thing to happen.’

‘Yeah,’ Babs agreed, keeping her stare fixed on Ethel. ‘And it makes silly little family worries seem a bit pathetic, don’t it?’

Ethel narrowed her eyes. ‘Not when they’re family worries about your own sister and her carryings on.’

Babs turned to Rita. ‘Sounds like Alice Clarke’s been opening her big gob again.’ She grabbed her loaf from the counter and stuck it in her string bag. ‘Come on, Betty. Time we was getting home to do Granddad’s breakfast. I mean, we stand here gassing instead of getting on with our jobs and yer don’t know what rumours might get started about us.’

As Babs slammed the shop door behind her, Rita folded her arms and said to Ethel, ‘That wasn’t called for, Ett.’

Ethel stood up and tucked her handkerchief in her pocket. ‘I was only speaking the truth. No harm in that.’

‘After all you just said about being careful with telling the truth? And about making people downhearted?’

Ethel curled her lip contemptuously.

‘And anyway, you hardly get the truth by listening to Alice Clarke.’

‘I ain’t had to listen to no one,’ Ethel said, striding over to the door. ‘I’ve got the evidence of me own eyes. I live next door to the little whore, remember. I see all her carryings on for meself, thank you very much.’

It was a lovely early June evening, a week after the twins’ twenty-first birthday, and Evie was doing her best to work her old trick, perfected over the years, of charming Babs into being friends because she wanted something from her. But it wasn’t going very well. Babs hadn’t been such an easy touch lately, and it was beginning to get on Evie’s nerves; she wasn’t used to not getting her own way.

Like most of their neighbours in Darnfield Street, the sisters were sitting out on the pavement on kitchen chairs, making the most of the sunshine. Betty and Janey were playing happily on the step with Betty’s building bricks, and the front window of number six was pushed up so they could hear the music on the wireless while they ate the strawberries that Evie had somehow procured, with the sole intent of using them to ingratiate herself with Babs when she got in from work hot and tired.

‘It’s only for a couple of hours, I promise,’ said Evie, sorting through the colander for the darkest red fruits she could find and handing them to her sister. ‘And I’ll be back well before eleven. And if I can’t go, it’ll be rotten because there’s no way I can get in touch with Gina to tell her, and she’ll be left standing there like a right peanut.’

Babs nibbled thoughtfully on one of the luscious berries, licking her lips to savour every last drop of juice. ‘How come you said yer’d go out with her in the first place if yer didn’t have no one to mind Betty?’

For a brief moment, Evie forgot that she was trying to persuade Babs by being charming, and snapped angrily at her, ‘I didn’t
say
I would go. Weren’t you listening?’

Babs calmly raised her eyebrows at Evie, then bent sideways to put another handful of strawberries onto the plate the children were eating from as they carried on with their building game.

Evie exhaled slowly. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to shout. All right?’ She raked her fingers dramatically through her blonde hair. ‘It must be the strain of being stuck at home all day that’s making me so edgy.’

‘Stuck at home? You?’ Babs suppressed an incredulous laugh. ‘So – you were explaining about Gina.’

‘Aw yeah. Gina. Well, she pushed this note through the letter box—’

‘You were out, you mean? Not stuck at home?’

‘I have to go out sometimes.’ She gestured agitatedly at the fruit. ‘How d’yer think I got them?’

‘I was wondering that. Where did yer manage to get ’em?’

Evie knew when she was on dicey ground and she hurriedly changed the subject back to one that suited her. ‘Anyway, this note. It said how I should meet her. Tonight. And ’cos I was cooking yer tea I didn’t have a chance to go round and tell her I couldn’t go, did I?’

‘Let’s see.’

‘What?’

‘The note.’

Evie hesitated. ‘I can’t remember what I did with it.’

‘There’s a surprise.’ Babs held up a strawberry. ‘And this is me tea, I suppose?’

Evie dismissed Babs’s cynicism with a shrug and a little wrinkle of her nose. Then she tried a different approach. ‘Listen to that,’ she said pointing to the open window. ‘“Besame Mucho” your favourite.’

‘Is it?’ Babs looked surprised.

‘Yeah, yer know yer love it. Come on, let’s have a dance.’

‘What, out here in the street?’

‘Why not?’

Evie got up from her chair and pulled Babs after her into the road. ‘I’ll lead,’ Evie said with a wink. And spun Babs round by the arm and into a rhythmic Latin two-step. She knew that music was one thing that Babs could never resist.

Janey and Betty watched the adults from their seat on the step, and clapped with delight at grown-ups acting so daft.

‘Blimey, will yer look at them, Clara,’ Minnie called out from across the street. ‘It’s Fred and Ginger!’

Evie tossed her head back as she and Babs swayed past them. ‘Come and join in, girls.’

Minnie grabbed Clara by her hand and the big, buxom women were soon pirouetting around like a pair of youngsters less than half their age.

When the song finished, Minnie and Clara were puffing, their big bosoms heaving from the effort.

‘Fancy a few strawberries?’ offered Evie, banking on Babs being more amenable if they had company.

Minnie and Clara both nodded.

‘Lovely,’ said Clara politely, patting her chest as she tried to steady her breathing.

‘Not half,’ said Minnie, shoving Clara forward.

‘We’ll fetch yer chairs over for yer,’ said Evie, beckoning Babs to help her.

The four of them settled down by the step outside number six, where the children had returned to their game.

Minnie bit into a strawberry. ‘Mmmmm,’ she murmured approvingly. ‘The last time I had these was when me and Clara went fruit picking down in Kent. Before the war, it was. Stayed the whole summer and then for the hop picking. Happy days.’ She gestured with the hull end of the berry at Janey. ‘How’s the little one’s mum getting on?’ she mouthed. ‘She any happier lately?’

Babs leant forward. She checked that Janey was absorbed in her game and then whispered, ‘Blanche is still hoping for news, but there’s been nothing. She’s hardly eating and she looks worn out all the time.’

Minnie turned to Clara. ‘We ain’t seen nothing of her lately, have we, Clara? We asked her a week or so back if there was anything she wanted, or that we could do to help, like, but she said no.’

Clara nodded. ‘Yeah, yer wanna help but yer don’t wanna stick yer nose in where it’s not wanted.’

‘So long as she knows we’re here if she does need help.’

‘She knows, Min,’ said Babs. ‘And Mary and Terry are good kids for her. They’re doing what they can.’

‘But it don’t make up for not knowing where Archie is, does it?’ said Clara sadly.

Babs shook her head. ‘No, Clara, it don’t. And she’s started taking loads of time off work and all. Staying at home brooding like that can’t be no good to her.’

‘Yer right,’ said Evie, seeing her cue. ‘It ain’t no good to no one staying at home by yerself all the time.’

Neither Minnie nor Clara had any idea that Evie was trying to bring the subject round to her own problems. Minnie was completely spoiling her plan by continuing to ask about Blanche Simpkins.

‘How about the army, can’t they help her?’ she asked, keeping an eye on Janey in case she realised what they were talking about.

Babs shook her head again. ‘Not so far. She says they’ve gone through the lists of prisoners being held in North Africa but he ain’t on any of them. When she’s being a bit hopeful she admits they ain’t got details of everyone and he still might be being held somewhere. But at other times, yer know, when she’s really down, she don’t actually say it, but yer can tell she reckons he might be, you know …’

‘It ain’t right,’ Evie suddenly piped up, doing her best to turn the conversation back to her. ‘Decent people getting killed.’

Minnie and Clara nodded their agreement, but Babs narrowed her eyes suspiciously.

‘Then there’s that old bag, Albie’s mother, who’s never done a good turn for no one in her entire life and she’s as fit as a fiddle and as strong as a bloody horse. And, you watch, she’ll be going strong for bleed’n years. I hate her. She’s round here every five minutes when I’m indoors by meself all day, won’t sodding leave me alone. Drives me barmy. I wish she’d copped it with her no-good son.’

‘Yer shouldn’t speak like that, Eve. Not about no one, but especially not about her. She’s a nasty bit of work. Yer wanna try and keep on the right side of her.’

‘It’s all right for you to say that, but you ain’t stuck at home having to put up with her coming round and having a go at yer all the time, are yer? Yer should hear her telling me what to do with Betty all the time. I really need a break from it all, Babs. She really is driving me barmy.’

‘She’s Betty’s nan, Eve. And if yer ain’t careful, she’s gonna really start throwing her weight around. Yer know what she’s like.’

Evie was getting angry with Babs; she just wouldn’t take the bait and now she had the cheek to have a go at her about bloody Queenie – it’d be a different matter if it was Babs having to listen to her nonstop complaints. ‘Course I know what she’s like. It’s you what ain’t got a clue.’

Babs turned her head. ‘Have another strawberry, Min, Clara,’ she said.

As Clara took another strawberry, the scrawny figure of Alice appeared behind her chair. ‘They look nice,’ she said with an artful sigh. ‘I’ve been sitting across the road watching yer all enjoying yerselves dancing and eating. And I thought how lovely it must be having something nice and tasty for a change.’

Evie snatched the colander from Babs and held it up to Alice without a word.

Alice stuck in her bony fingers and pulled out a handful. ‘I mean,’ she said, her mouth stuffed full of fruit. ‘Yer just don’t know what to cook from one day to the next. There ain’t nothing in the shops, is there?’

‘Yer right there,’ Minnie said with as friendly a smile as she could manage when looking at Alice Clarke. ‘What yer doing for tea tonight?’