‘Right. I’ll do it.’
By the time she left the room, twenty minutes later, it was all arranged.
IT WAS UNSEASONABLY
warm for March, and the women were out on their doorsteps.
‘Mary O’Donaghue as was is expecting,’ Milly Turner said, nodding down towards number twelve.
‘She never is! Blimey, these Irish. At it like rabbits,’ Ethel Croft commented.
Alma Billingham settled her hands comfortably over her stomach and prepared for a nice long gossip.
‘Well, at least they got the wedding ring on first. More than can be said for Theresa. And just look at Siobhan,’ she put in.
They all shook their heads in pious disapproval.
‘That Siobhan was a wild one. Right little stirrer. Mind you, I wasn’t surprised when she made off. It was Theresa what shocked me. I’d never have thought she was one to play around,’ Ethel said.
Alma bridled at what she fancied were prim looks from the others.
‘And it weren’t my Charlie, so there’s no need to take that expression. He never had nothing to do with her. It was her tried to pin it on him. Not that Clodagh O’Donaghue believes it. She ain’t so much as looked at me, let alone spoke to me, since the day that girl left.’
‘Clodagh ain’t never been the same woman since Theresa went. Really knocked the stuffing out of her, that did,’ Milly added.
‘Well, it would, wouldn’t it? Bad enough for anyone to have your daughter shame you like that, but it’s worse for them Catholics. Burn in Hell for it, they do, or so they believe. Daughters! Dunno what girls are coming to these days. Nothing but a big worry. You’re lucky you ain’t got none, Alma,’ Ethel said with a superiority that belied the words.
‘Sons are bad enough,’ Alma replied.
Milly sighed. ‘Don’t I know it!’
‘Your Gerry’s doing all right, though,’ Ethel pointed out.
‘Yeah – not so bad. Well, tell you the truth, he’s doing very nicely.’ Alma could not resist the chance to boast. Her other little chick was
reaching out. ‘Going to open a little shop, he is, on the West Ferry Road. Household goods, like the stalls, only they’ll have to be a bit over market prices, on account of the overheads.’
The other two women looked impressed.
‘Don’t it worry you, Alma, him taking on all that credit? He must be doing it all on tick, surely? Keep me awake at night, it would.’
‘No, not any more, it don’t. Used to. But he’s got his head screwed on, has my Gerry. Ain’t never got into trouble yet. Just you wait! He’ll be a big man round here by the time he’s thirty.’
Ethel gave a sly smile. ‘Reckon young Ellen Johnson’s got her head screwed on an’ all. Stuck to your Gerry like glue, ain’t she?’
‘Ellen’s a good girl,’ Alma maintained. ‘Not afraid of work, neither, and honest as the day’s long. I’ll not hear a word against her.’
Milly looked sceptical. She said nothing in the presence of two such strong personalities, but she had her own opinion of Ellen Johnson, born of Ellen’s treatment of her son. She was nothing but a gold-digger, giving up on Harry at the first excuse and hanging on to Gerry Billingham and his money for all she was worth. What made it worse was that Gerry was her sister’s son. Once, she would have been glad of a daughter-in-law like Ellen; now she felt distinctly cool towards the whole Johnson family. If it wasn’t Ellen, it was Will. She had found her Maisie the other day in floods of tears. She’d been clearing out the cupboard in the bedroom and come across a pile of music-hall posters hidden right at the back. Every one of them had Siobhan O’Donaghue’s name on it. No, she did not trust the Johnsons. As if summoned by her feeling, Martha could be seen coming out of number thirty-two with a bucket and brush. She saw the group of women, nodded, put down her cleaning things and made to come over.
‘I got things I got to do indoors,’ Milly said, and shuffled off.
‘I see she’s got bruises on her again,’ Alma commented.
‘Well, they all do it, don’t they? Wouldn’t know my old man loved me if he didn’t give me a black eye every now and again,’ Ethel said.
‘Oh yeah, they all do it, but not like what hers does. He half kills her. Mind you, she does ask for it. She may be my sister, but I have to say it. It’s that hangdog look of hers what does it.’
Martha joined them.
‘Nice day. Thought I’d do a bit of spring cleaning. Get them curtains down.’
‘Getting ready for a wedding, eh?’ Ethel asked.
‘What?’
‘Your Ellen and Alma’s Gerry. ‘Bout time they tied the knot, ain’t it?’
Martha bristled. ‘What you trying to say? That they got to? My Ellen’s not like that O’Donaghue lot.’
‘No, no. Don’t be so blooming touchy. I just thought they’d been going together for long enough to make their minds up, that’s all. It’s no more than anyone else is saying.’
If she did but know it, it was just what Gerry himself was thinking. He had realized that Ellen was the one for him practically since the coronation party, when she was only fourteen. The problem was Ellen herself. Her attitude towards him had never changed. She was a good friend and a first-rate helper, willing to work hard, able to discuss his business dealing with a sharp understanding, seemingly happy to share his free time. On the face of it, they were ideally suited. But still he hesitated. Despite their close association and all the evenings out, their friendship was still just that. She kept a certain distance. She never made the first move. She did not let him take more than a swift kiss on the doorstep before parting.
It was their joint future he was thinking of as he showed her the shop on the West Ferry Road.
‘Seems a nice enough place,’ she commented. ‘Decent size and everything. Needs a good clean, but it’s nothing a few buckets of soap and water can’t do. And the back room comes with it, does it?’
‘Yeah, that’s the real beauty of it. A proper stockroom. So if I see a real bargain, I can buy the stuff and store it until I can sell it again.’
And there was the flat upstairs. At the moment, it was occupied by a middle-aged couple who sub-let the two rooms up in the attic to a family with four children, but they might be persuaded to move on, in which case the accommodation would be ideal for himself and Ellen and their children. If he could just attain that dream, he would be a happy man.
‘That’d be handy,’ Ellen was saying.
She was wandering around, peering at the shelves, poking under the counter, generally getting the feel of the place. Gerry could just see her there, a nice white apron on, serving behind the counter. It was just right for her.
‘What I was thinking was . . .’ he began.
‘Mm?’ Ellen was looking in the cramped display space of the shop window, wrinkling her nose up at the cemetery of dead flies and the little heaps of flaked paint and dirt. ‘This needs more than soap, it needs a good going-over with something stronger – Lysol, maybe – to
get it really clean. I know we’re not selling food, but a place does need to smell nice. Puts me off shopping in a place if it’s rancid.’
‘Yeah, yeah, you’re right there, we’ll do that. Look, Ellen – what I thought was, you could be in charge of the shop –’
‘Me?’ Ellen stopped short in her tour of the premises to give him her full attention. ‘But this is what you always wanted, ain’t it, to be boss of your own place?’
It had been, but his ambitions had moved on since then.
‘Yeah, but I’m best at doing the deals, getting the stuff. And it’d be much nicer for you here than in the market, out in all weathers. I don’t like it when you have to stand all day in the rain or the fog. It ain’t right. You’d be nice and snug here, whatever it was like outside. Yeah, this is the place for you, and I’ll go out and about just like I am now.’
‘Well . . .’ She was biting her lip, considering.
He knew just what was going through her mind. Gossip on the street already assumed that since they were in each other’s pockets all day, they must be carrying on together. If she took the shop on, pressure for them to get married would be almost irresistible. Which was what Gerry was counting on.
‘I dunno, Gerry. I like the market, all the people passing and the other traders to talk to. It’s like one big happy family. It’d be lonely here.’
‘You could always sit and read here, if there was no one in the shop,’ he said slyly, knowing her strange passion for sticking her nose in a book.
‘Yeah, I suppose so. No, I don’t think so, Gerry, if it’s all the same to you. I think I’ll stick with the stall.’
He argued for a long time, but he could not shift her. It did not occur to him that, in his capacity of employer, he might tell her to take it or leave it. Perhaps he was afraid that she might leave it. All his customary self-confidence failed him when it came to believing in their relationship. But he did not give up altogether. Come the winter, or even the height of summer if it got really stinking hot, she might yet be glad of an indoor job. In the meantime, there was stock to be bought for his new venture.
It was the talk of the street for weeks. Nobody from their part of the world had ever risen to the heights of shopkeeper before. They all went to admire the place when it opened and were without exception impressed. They told their workmates about it, boasting that this bloke in their street had opened that new place on the West Ferry Road, taking some of the reflected glory upon themselves. Those who
could afford it bought things; more did not; but nearly all shared the opinion that Gerry Billingham had really overreached himself this time.
Gerry himself tried to close his eyes to it. It would all work out right, he reasoned. Everyone worked on tick – that was how it was done. Once people started buying at his shop on a regular basis, he would be all right. There was nothing to worry about.
Towards the end of July, he heard of a bargain he could not resist: a consignment of kettles being knocked down at a giveaway price to whoever had the readies.
‘But we got a huge load of stuff here already,’ Ellen argued, when he told her about it.
‘Not kettles, we ain’t. We’re real short on kettles.’
‘I don’t like it, Gerry. Things are ever so slow at the moment. People don’t seem to be buying.’
‘They will, they will. Give ’em time.’
Time was just what he did not have, and well he knew it. The interest on the loan he had taken out was mounting up and he had not paid for half the stock he was selling now. But the kettles would do it. The profit on them would save him.
‘You got to speculate to accumulate,’ he said grandly.
Ellen sighed. ‘You’re the boss. But I still think you’re going to get your fingers burnt.’
‘Not me, sunshine. I’m going to be a rich man. Just you wait and see!’
He had always believed that, and people had always been prophesying his downfall. So far, he had proved them all wrong.
Three months later, even he was getting worried.
‘Gerry, I can’t sell any more of these blooming kettles,’ Ellen told him. ‘They’re rubbish. People keep bringing them back and complaining. It’s getting us a bad name.’
‘Tell ’em they got ’em cheap, and what do they expect for that money,’ Gerry said.
‘I can’t look them in the face and say that. They’re not just cheap, they’re rubbish. They go into holes the moment you put them on the range.’
He knew it. People had come into the shop with the same complaint and it was obvious that they were not just trying it on. The kettles were still in their original shiny condition, just a little blackened round the base from their one use, and leaking water. He had to admit it, he had been well and truly done.
‘The bastard must have shown me a couple of good ’uns. I didn’t check the rest,’ he said. He should have known better.
‘What you going to do with ’em, Gerry? They’re littering the place up here. You can’t move for flaming kettles.’
‘I dunno.’ For once, he was stumped. ‘Sell ’em on to some other mug, I suppose.’
But it would have to be somewhere well out of his territory – south of the river, maybe, or even out of London altogether. He did not want any comebacks. While he thought on that one, he had a pair of unwelcome visitors. They came into the shop just as he was shutting up one evening, a smallish, ferret-like man and a huge bloke with a slab face and hands big enough to crush rocks. Gerry did not need to be told what their line was. The moment he saw them his guts crawled. But, ever the optimist, he tried to brazen it out.
‘Evening, gents. What can I do for you?’
The little man came and leant on the counter. ‘Plenty, my son, plenty.’
His companion wandered round the cramped space. Gerry wanted to tell him to stand still. He was so big and clumsy-looking that Gerry was afraid he would knock something over.
‘Nervous?’ the first man asked. ‘Nothing to be nervous about, as long as you got the money.’
‘What money?’ Gerry asked, playing for time.
The man tutted and shook his head in mock sorrow. ‘Dear me, that won’t do at all. No good playing stupid with me. Nor with Mr Praed, neither. He don’t like people playing around, Mr Praed don’t.’
So it was Praed who had sent them. There were two people Gerry owed the most money to, and he was one of them.
‘Oh, that money,’ he said. ‘That’s coming. I got a lot of bad debts, I have. Lot of money owing to me. You know how it is, the sods hold on to it. I can’t get it out of them. But it’s coming. I’ll have it ready by next week.’
‘Next week’s not good enough. Mr Praed don’t like being kept waiting. He’s tired of waiting for you. Ain’t that right, Jimmy?’
The bruiser ambled over to the counter. ‘That’s right,’ he agreed, staring at Gerry as if he were a troublesome fly that needed swatting.
‘I – I’ll see what I can do,’ Gerry promised.
The small man tutted again. He picked up a little china figure from the counter, a pretty girl in a pink dress with bright yellow hair.
‘Nice,’ he commented. He gave it to his large sidekick. ‘Much too nice to be lying around. Could get broken.’
Unwisely, Gerry tried to snatch it back. Jimmy merely held it up out of his reach, then deliberately opened his fingers and let it drop to the floor. It shattered into several pieces. Gerry winced.