The Girl from Cotton Lane (59 page)

From that day on the group of men gave the bench seat a wide berth, and whenever they sat together in the pleasant gardens of the church Albert Swain felt obliged to say, ‘If ever I fall asleep on this bench, wake me up straight away, fer Gawdsake.’

It was during the hot summer of ’34 that Broomhead Smith made the biggest decision of his life. He felt that it was even more momentous than agreeing to give up his independence and marry Alice, and that was saying something. Broomhead had decided to retire once and for all. He sat alone in the public bar of the Kings Arms late one morning, a pint of porter at his elbow, and suddenly all the reasons why he should not retire crowded into his mind. They made the idea of taking up his pipe and slippers seem a lot less attractive and the Bermondsey totter felt depressed. Retiring was not for the likes of him, he reflected. Every morning he would have to get up and face Alice, curlers and all, without the comforting thought that he would soon be on his rounds. Every day he would get under Alice’s feet and before long she would no doubt get him to do the dusting, or put the washing through the wringer. Then there were the windows. Alice always kept them clean and with him around she would most certainly delegate the job of doing them. Then there was the front doorstep.

‘Oh my Gawd!’ Broomhead said, addressing his glass of porter: Broomhead Smith, a local businessman and a well-respected member of the community, on his hands and knees whitening the doorstep. No, there was a limit to what he could be expected to do, however much it upset Alice.

Broomhead took a large draught of his beer and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He knew that he had to face the facts. He was now seventy-four and almost ten years beyond the normal retiring age. Getting up into the seat of his cart was becoming more and more difficult and carrying pieces of lumber down flights of stairs was now an agonising task. He did not have the strength to manhandle those wringers out of the houses and on to his cart anymore, nor the inclination to haggle over the price of things. His eyesight was not too good now either, he had to admit. Many a time he had urged his nag out into the main roads when there was traffic coming and if it hadn’t been for the good sense of the animal the pair of them would have been maimed or even worse. Well, there it was, he told himself. It was going to be the pipe and slippers, Alice’s sharp tongue and the prospect of becoming a doddering old fool in next to no time at all. Still it had been a good innings, and he had made a good number of friends over the years, and a few enemies too.

Broomhead finished his pint of porter and ordered another. The thing that upset him the most was Alice’s change of heart when he told her he was thinking of retiring. At one time she had insisted that he look after the horse and make sure it was properly fed, even demanding that he plait the animal’s mane and tail and add a few extra brasses to the harness. Now she had become callous and insensitive, and the elderly totter growled to himself as he sipped his beer. ‘Yer can’t be soft,’ she had told him in no uncertain terms. ‘It’ll be better if yer take it ter the knackers’ yard. Yer should get a few bob on it, an’ the cart should raise a shillin’ or two. Clear out the stable an’ sort out that pile o’ rubbish as well before yer pack up. Burn the lot, it’s not werf anyfing.’

Selling the cart was all right, he thought, but there were a lot of sentimental items that he had hoarded over the years. Parting with them all would be a sad thing to do. As for taking the horse to the knackers’ yard - that was the most terrible thing Alice had ever said. All right, the nag wasn’t up to it anymore, but it was only feeling its years, the same as him. It had pulled that cart around the streets for quite a few years now and it didn’t cost much to feed. Alice had been adamant though. The horse must be turned into glue.

Broomhead sat back in his chair and shook his head slowly. Alice had become a hard bitch, he thought distastefully. She had listened while he told her about the cost of transporting a horse to the knackers’ yard and then she had suggested that he pole-axe the animal himself and sell the carcase to the local cat’s-meat man. Well, one thing was for sure, he told himself, the nag was not going to suffer. It had a right to a dignified end the same as humans did. Maybe he should have pole-axed Alice there and then and sold
her
to the glue factory.

When he had finished his beer Broomhead left the pub and walked to the tram stop.

‘Ain’t yer workin’ terday?’ a voice greeted him.

Broomhead looked at the big woman and shook his head. ‘Nah, I’m retired,’ he replied.

‘It must be nice ter sit around the ’ouse instead of ’avin’ ter go out in all weavvers,’ she remarked.

‘Yeah, it is,’ he said without any enthusiasm in his voice.

‘I bet Alice is pleased,’ the woman said, grinning at him.

‘Yeah, I s’pose she is,’ the totter growled.

The arrival of the tram prevented Broomhead from upsetting the woman with the rest of his reply, and as he climbed aboard he made sure that he sat down as far away from her as he could.

When he finally arrived at the small stable behind the Tower Bridge Road after first making a call to the cat’s-meat man Broomhead fed and watered the horse and mucked out the stall. The nag looked at him with its baleful eyes and Broomhead gave it a little tweak on its ear. ‘Yer not goin’ ter suffer, ole mate,’ he said. ‘Yer bin a good pal ter me over the years even though yer just a lazy, scruffy, flea-bitten ole nag.’

The horse stamped its hoof and got on with munching into its nosebag while Broomhead took off his coat and trilby and searched amongst the bits and pieces in one corner of the stable. He pulled the old horse collar out and tossed it to one side, then he dragged out the heavy padlocked box and bent down to pick up the thick, heavy pole that was lying against the wall. It had once served as a shoemaker’s last, with a socket at the narrow end to accommodate the different shoe irons, and it was banded with iron along its length. ‘This’ll do nicely,’ he said aloud as he tested the weight of the pole.

The nag blew into its nosebag and tossed its head in the air as Broomhead prepared himself. ‘Yer know, I’m gonna miss yer, ole pal,’ he said, glancing at the animal as he spat on his hands and then clasped the pole firmly, raising it high above his head.

One hour later a van pulled up outside the stable and the driver alighted from the cab wearing a leather apron. He walked into the stable and nodded to Broomhead. ‘Are yer ready?’ he said.

The totter blew into his red-spotted handkerchief and put it back into his trouser pocket. ‘It was a good ’orse. I couldn’t see it suffer,’ he said sadly.

Money changed hands and then the driver glanced at Broomhead. ‘Let’s get it loaded then,’ he said.

‘I’ll do it,’ the totter said, sighing.

‘Please yerself.’

Broomhead removed the nosebag and led the animal out to the van. ‘Yer’ll be ’appy on the farm, ole pal,’ he said aloud as the van pulled away.

Before he left the stable for the last time Broomhead kicked the splintered box into the corner. It had held the money he had saved over the years, money that Alice did not know about, which had provided for the horse’s retirement. The key to the padlock had been lost years ago but he had slipped a regular amount of money through a gap in the lid every week.

‘Cat’s-meat indeed,’ Broomhead said with distaste, as he closed the stable door and walked to the Horseshoe public house to drink to his horse’s happy retirement.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Red Ellie Roffey had been unsuccessful in her attempt to get a seat on the Bermondsey Borough Council but she was still very active in campaigning for the maligned and hard done by in the riverside community. Everyone knew her, or of her, and Ellie’s fame and infamy grew. Tales abounded, and her exploits became topics of conversation in the pubs and around family dinner tables and firesides. Ellie had seven children, someone reported. Ellie had been in and out of Holloway Prison in her younger days, another storyteller related. The woman had known Peter the Painter and was one of the plotters who escaped from Sidney Street during the siege, yet another far-fetched tale would have it. In fact, Ellie Roffey was much more maligned than she deserved, and it served to affect the progress of her campaigning. Some folk simply saw her as evil, a wicked woman whose sole aim was to bring down the government and send the workers out on to the streets in an orgy of terror and destruction.

In reality Ellie was the mother of two grown-up children whose father had died when the youngest was born. Ellie had scrubbed floors, worked on stalls in the markets around Bermondsey and slaved in factories to provide for her children. She had drifted into the Communist Party after listening to a series of speeches in Hyde Park one summer which condemned the ruling classes and urged the workers to take their rightful place in modern society. To Ellie it seemed a sensible argument, although she could not agree with the more outrageous calls for violent confrontation between the classes. Ellie was a warm-hearted woman beneath her abrasive front and she had made good friends amongst the women in Page Street. Her efforts in getting repairs done to the houses in the riverside turning had not been forgotten, and when next Florrie and her friends asked Ellie to mediate on their behalf no one could have possibly forecast what would happen, while for Ellie the outcome was something she would remember vividly for the rest of her life.

In the spring of ’35 things had come to a head between the rag sorters in Page Street and the families who lived in the turning. During the mild April rats were seen coming from the sorters’ yard, and one or two of them found their way into the little houses. Florrie killed one with her broom in her back yard and Sadie’s husband Daniel killed another in the street outside his house. The council sent ratcatchers and poison was spread about the sorters’ yard but still the rats remained. Maudie Mycroft was reduced to a nervous wreck and Florrie Axford raved that she was going to get the rag sorters’ premises burned down if nothing was done to get rid of the rodents.

When one of the children in Page Street was taken to hospital with a fever Florrie called a meeting. ‘All right, I’m not sayin’ that the rats caused the poor little mite’s illness, but yer never can be too careful where children are concerned,’ she declared.

Sadie Sullivan was vociferous. ‘If any o’ my Billy’s kids get ill I’m gonna burn the place down meself,’ she told the gathering in no uncertain terms.

‘Well, I fink we should get somefing done about this, gels,’ Florrie said, taking out her snuffbox and tapping the lid.

‘What can we do?’ someone asked.

‘There don’t seem a lot we can do,’ another woman said, stroking her chin.

‘Oh yes there is,’ Florrie told her. ‘I reckon we should get Red Ellie ter see if she can stop it. After all she did get that ole goat Galloway ter do somefing about our ’ouses.’

There was a silence while Florrie went through her ritual, and after she had sneezed loudly Maisie Dougall leaned her forearms on the parlour table. ‘We can’t keep expectin’ Red Ellie ter fight our battles, Flo,’ she said. ‘I reckon we ought ter go over an’ see the guv’nor again. All of us tergevver.’

‘What’s the good o’ that, Mais?’ Florrie replied. ‘Me an’ you went over there a few weeks ago, an’ what ’appened? We got a lot o’ promises an’ nuffink’s bin done. Mrs Allen saw a rat comin’ out the yard the ovver mornin’ when she was goin’ ter work an’ ole Marie What’s-’er-name reckoned she saw a line of ’em in the kerb outside ’er ’ouse. Mind yer, though, yer can’t always take what Marie ses as gospel. She is inclined ter put a bit on it.’

Maudie was sitting huddled up at Florrie’s table, her eyes darting around the room as though she expected an army of rats to march in at any minute. ‘I’m scared ter death of ’em,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I’d die if one of ’em came inter my place, I know I would.’

‘Shut up, fer Gawdsake,’ Florrie said contemptuously.

‘Well, it’s all right fer you, Flo, you can kill ’em. I can’t,’ Maudie moaned.

Sadie Sullivan banged her fist down on the table sharply. ‘I say we get Ellie Roffey in ter see what she can do.’

Florrie tapped her silver snuffbox again. ‘Right, gels, leave it ter me,’ she said. ‘I’ll give ’em a message at the fruit stall. Ellie said I could always leave a message there.’

It was late summer when Carrie heard news of Joe. She had just finished going over the wages with Jamie Robins when the phone rang. The woman’s voice on the other end of the line sounded hesitant. ‘Am I speaking to Mrs Carrie Bradley?’