Farewell to the East End (17 page)
Read Farewell to the East End Online
Authors: Jennifer Worth
Sister Evangelina and I entered by the pub door, which was the only entry to the landlord’s living accommodation upstairs. The public bar was about twenty feet square, high-ceilinged with a wooden floor. A few cheap wooden tables and chairs stood around the place, with the bar itself to one side. An unshaded electric light bulb, around which flies buzzed continuously, hung from the centre of the ceiling. The walls and ceiling were a dirty yellowish brown and were spotted all over with fly-stains. A single picture hung on a wall, but it was so dingy and faded that one would have been hard pressed to say whether it was a seascape or a hunting scene.
It was 12.30 p.m. when we arrived – opening time – and the pub, which at that time of day should have been humming with life, had only one customer: a solitary man of indeterminate age staring at the wall and sieving a pint of beer through his moustaches. The silence was oppressive.
A woman stood behind the bar, half-heartedly wiping a few glasses with a grimy cloth. She was old, far too old to be a barmaid. Her grey hair was scooped into an untidy bun at the back of her head, and wisps hung across her face, which was lined and grey. Her eyes seemed dull and lifeless, and her lips lacked any colour. She was small and thin and had no teeth. She looked up as we entered.
‘You wants ’a see Mr Lacey, I s’pose? I’ll take you to ’im.’
She turned towards the man with the moustaches.
‘Look to ve bar a bit, will yer, Mr ’arris? If anyone comes in, call me, will yer?’
She had an apologetic, deferential air about her, and her voice echoed bleakly in the bare room. The man grunted and continued sieving his beer, as he watched us over the rim of his glass.
We followed the woman up a dark, uncarpeted stairway. ‘Vere’s no light,’ she said. ‘Watch yer step.’
We entered the rooms above the bar, and she led us to the bedroom. A large, fat, pink man lay on a bed in a fair-sized room also swarming with flies. A bar-table covered in fag-ends and a rough wooden cupboard were the only other furniture. It was summer time, and a thin army blanket was thrown over the man’s stomach, apart from which he was naked. The light was dim, because the sunlight struggled to penetrate the dirt on the windows.
‘Is that my beer, Annie?’
‘No, John, it’s ve Sister’s.’
‘You idle, useless, woman, I told you ’a get me a beer. I don’t want no bloody Sisters.’
Sister Evangelina strode across the room.
‘Don’t you call me a “bloody Sister”, and I’ll thank you to keep a civil tongue in your head. What are you doing in bed at this time of day? Sit up.’
‘Who the hell are you?’
‘I’m the “bloody Sister”, now sit up. Go on.’
The man looked at her in astonishment and struggled to a sitting position, keeping the grey blanket carefully over his middle. The woman crept into a corner and stood there, meekly fingering her apron.
‘That’s better. Now what’s wrong with you that a good dose of salts wouldn’t clear?’
‘I’m ill.’ He groaned and raised his eyes to Heaven.
‘Rubbish. You’re fat. That’s what’s wrong with you. When did you last open your bowels? What you need is a good clear-out. ’
‘No, I’m ill. I’m in agony.’ He groaned again and rubbed his hands over his chest and stomach. ‘It’s no use. You’re too late. I’m dying.’ He leaned back on the pillows and sighed weakly.
‘Good riddance, if you ask me.’
The man jerked his eyes open. ‘What?’
‘You old fraud. You’re no more dying than this young nurse here. Now what’s wrong with you?’
‘I got die-betes.’
‘Is that all? Millions of people have cancer.’
‘I’m dying, I tells ya.’
‘Rubbish. Now get up. I want some of your pee to test for sugar.’
‘I can’t get up. I tells ya, I got DIE-betes. I’m dying yer see?’
‘You’ll do as you’re told, and no arguments. Is there a lavatory in the flat? Right, go and fill a pot of pee. I don’t want the stinking stuff, but I have to test it for sugar. Now off you go, quick. I haven’t got all day.’
More from astonishment than compliance the man struggled to his feet, pulled the blanket across his middle and shuffled out of the room, his bare buttocks wobbling with every step. When he had gone Sister turned to the woman.
‘Is he always like this?’
‘Not never no different.’
‘Never gets up?’
‘No.’
‘Humph. A good dose of salts and an enema up the arse is what he needs.’
‘’e wont like vat, ’e wont.’
‘Clear his system, it would. He’s all clogged up, that’s the trouble with him. I don’t hold with all this new-fangled medical clap-trap. Staphluses and coccuses and viruses and what have you. A good strong dose of salts and a good hot soap and water enema is all he needs to clear his system. Then there wouldn’t be any more of this nonsense about being ill and dying.’
The man shuffled back into the room, groaning and rolling his eyes in a touching affectation of exhaustion. He put the chamber pot on the table and flopped into the bed.
Sister took the blood-sugar-testing equipment from her bag. With a pipette she counted ten drops of water and five drops of urine into a test tube and dropped a tablet into it. The tablet fizzed and bubbled, and the liquid turned bright orange.
‘It’s high in sugar, not surprising. You’ll have to stop the beer and have an injection every day, twice a day.’
The man gave a howl of anguish.
‘Not ve needle, oh no! I couldn’t stand no needle. Never could stomach needles. I shall faint. Faint, I tells yer.’
‘Well, you faint, then. Every day if you like.’
‘You’re ’ard,’ he murmured, weakly.
Sister drew up a syringe and came towards him. The man screamed, leaped out of bed with the agility of a mountain goat and stood stark naked in the corner, whimpering. Sister advanced on him, and as he could not retreat any further, she plunged the needle into his leg and the injection was over in a second.
I heard a stifled sound from the other corner and turned. For the first time the woman’s features relaxed and she giggled. I caught her eye and winked.
The man was whingeing and rubbing his leg.
‘You’re ’ard, I tells yer, ’ard. No pity on a man wha’s never done you no ’arm.’
Sister Evangelina was unmoved.
‘Cover up your balls and bits, get dressed and get on with your work in the pub.’
‘I can’t. I’m ill. Annie, get me a beer. I’ve ’ad a nasty shock.’
‘Oh no, you don’t. You’ve got to cut out the beer.’
He gave her a sly, shifty look.
‘If I cuts out ve beer, will you cut out ve needle?’
‘Perhaps, in time, when your blood sugar is lower.’
‘Then p’raps, in time, I’ll cut out ve beer.’
‘You old weasle. You may be lazy, but you’re not daft. Have it your own way. Kill yourself, if you want to, but don’t expect any pity from me.’
With that, Sister stomped out of the room. At the door, she said, ‘Expect the nurse, every morning and evening, for the needle.’
Bullies are always cowards. Sister Evangelina had, as usual, struck exactly the right note with her patient on the first visit. I had the thankless task of injecting Mr Lacey twice daily with insulin, and although he whined and whinged every time, he did not resist. In fact, after a few days, he assumed a heroic stance, telling me that not many men could bear such pain, and he ought to be in the medical books. With each injection, he screwed up his face into an expression of noble endurance, and when it was done he sank back on the pillows, a heap of exhausted suffering. He took himself absolutely seriously. He was both comic and contemptible.
Daily visits to the pub enabled me to get to know Mrs Lacey. Whatever time of day I called, she was always working. She did everything necessary to keep the pub running. She received the barrels of beer on delivery days, when they were rolled down the hatch into the cellar, then single-handed she rolled them across the floor and fixed them to the pumps going up to the bar. She carried crates of bottles up and down the narrow stone stairs from cellar to bar, and the crates of empties into the street for collection. She cleaned the bar room, scrubbed the tables, washed the glasses. She emptied the spitoons and cleaned the outside lavatory. She served behind the bar during opening hours when a few men sat sullenly, drinking beer. She did it all with a slow, methodical dullness as though she expected nothing else. She always looked tired, she always looked spiritless, she seldom spoke. She just carried on working, eighteen hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.
The only time Mrs Lacey left the pub was to go shopping. Then she would cook a meal and take it up to her husband in bed. I had seen her cooking and told her that he must have no sweet things.
‘I daren’t cross ’im,’ she whimpered. ‘’e must ’ave ’is puddings. Won’t do wivout ’em.’
It was pointless trying to reason with her. The poor woman clearly lived in fear of her husband.
The same applied to his beer consumption. Visiting twice a day enabled me to see just what went on. He would thump on the floor and scream out, ‘Fetch us a beer and look lively,’ and she would run upstairs with a pint. The doctor, Sister Evangelina and I all told him it was making him worse, but he sneered. ‘If I gets worse it’s all your fault. You’re supposed to get me better.’ I tested his urine twice daily and kept a careful chart of his blood-sugar levels, but they were always high, and sometimes dangerously high.
Mrs Lacey looked at least twenty years older than she was. She had a cringing, apologetic way of talking, quite unlike so many Poplar women who were full of breezy self-confidence. She called me ‘madam’ and ‘lady nurse’ and asked if she could carry my bag upstairs. When I refused she said, ‘But it’s too heavy for a lady like you. I’ll take it.’ And she did. When I thanked her she looked surprised and said, ‘It’s good of you, madam, real kind. I don’t expect no thanks. Real kind, I says. I ’preciate it, I do.’ Up in the bedroom her husband shouted to her ‘Put ve bag on ve table, you lazy slut, an’ ge’ out. I’m the one who’s got to suffer ve needle to keep me from dying. Now ge’ ou’.’ If I had been carrying a 4-inch intramuscular needle with me that day, I would have rammed it deep into his fat buttocks and been glad to do so!
Down in the bar I said to her: ‘You shouldn’t let him talk to you like that.’
‘Like wha’, madam?’
‘Calling you lazy. Telling you to get out.’
‘I don’ notice nuffink.’
Poor woman. She did not notice all the insults, but she had noticed a word of thanks.
The next time I called she was in the cellar, struggling to get a great barrel of beer across the floor to the pump taps. I went down to give her a hand. She was deeply troubled.
‘Oh, no, no. A lady like you can’t be movin’ barrels o’ beer. It’s not righ’, not fittin’ like. I can do it by meself.’
I ignored her.
‘You take one side, I’ll take the other. We’ll have the job done in no time.’
And we did. She sat down on the barrel sweating.
‘It takes me twen’y minutes ’a get a barrel fixed up by meself. An’ we done it in two. Oh, madam, I’m vat grateful, I am. I wish I ’ad a daughter. Every woman needs a daugh’er as she gets on.’
‘Have you any children?’
‘I got a boy. A lovely boy, ’e is. Bob. ’e’s in Americky. ’e’s doin’ well, doin’ nicely. I’m proud on ’im. Loves ’is ol’ mum, ’e do.’ She gave me a bleak smile.
We climbed the treacherous stone steps from cellar to bar and immediately heard continuous banging on the ceiling. Upstairs in the bedroom Mr Lacey was in a frenzy of rage.
‘You idle, useless woman,’ he shouted. ‘What ’ave you been doin’ all vis time, eh? Sitting around, drinkin’ tea an’ gossipin’, that’s wha’! When me, your lawful ’usband, wha’s sufferin’ an’ dyin’, wants yer. Now listen ’ere, you stupid wench, them letters you brought up. Well one of ’em is from Bob. ’e’s comin’ ’ome. In three weeks. Sailin’ from New York, ’e is. Says ’e’s got a surprise for us.’
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