On Mother Brown's Doorstep (13 page)

‘Susie, you really bought me a bike?’ asked Freddy, blissfully agape.

‘Mr Greenberg’s deliverin’ it tomorrow,’ said Susie, ‘with one for Sally as well. A lady’s bike, and both nearly as good as new, with bells.’

‘Oh, Susie,’ breathed Sally in rapture.

‘Bless you, Susie love,’ said Mrs Brown.

‘Seconded,’ said Will, and Mr Brown looked affectionately proud of his one and only elder daughter. Sally jumped up and gave Susie a hug and a kiss. Freddy said he’d do all Susie’s wedding errands for her, and what’s more, he said, I won’t come to the church in me shirt tails, I’ll wear me new suit.

‘What a blessin’,’ said Sally, ‘we’re all honoured, ain’t we, Dad?’

‘’Ighly,’ said Mr Brown.

‘I’ll wear me bicycle clips as well,’ said Freddy.

‘Not in the church, lovey,’ said Mrs Brown.

‘Well, all right,’ said Freddy generously. ‘Susie, we goin’ to ’ave “Knees Up, Mother Brown” in the Institute?’

‘Sammy says you can’t have a Walworth weddin’ without a knees-up,’ smiled Susie.

‘That you can’t,’ said Mr Brown.

‘It occurs to me,’ said Freddy, ‘was—’

‘Crikey, listen to ’im,’ said Sally, ‘fancy anything occurrin’ to ’im.’

‘Yes, was “Knees Up, Mother Brown” wrote for our mum, Dad?’ asked Freddy.

‘Funny you should ask that, Freddy,’ said Mr Brown. ‘It was the Sunday our Susie was christened, and we ’ad a bit of a do afterwards. Me and yer mum did a lively dance, and a bloke in a posh suit and a bow tie come up as yer mum was showin’ ’er knees. ’E complimented ’er and asked me would I mind if ’e wrote a song in ’er honour, and what was ’er name. Seein’ she’d become a mother, I said you can call ’er Mother Brown. ’E said ’e was much obliged, then went an’ sat in a corner and wrote the song there an’ then. Then ’e played it on the joanner. “Knees Up, Mother Brown”, that’s what it was, and everyone did a dance to it, and ever since everyone in Walworth’s danced to it.’

‘Dad, you scream,’ said Susie, ‘you just made all that up.’

‘You ask yer mum,’ said Mr Brown.

‘Well, I do remember some saucy bloke comin’ up and sayin’ he liked me knees,’ said Mrs Brown, ‘but I don’t remember him writin’ a song about them. Well, I boxed ’is ears.’

Susie laughed. She listened as her dad talked about how he felt he’d had one over the eight when he first met their mum. She was that pretty he was sorry none of them had been there at the time. Freddy tried to puzzle that out while his dad went on to say that for the first time in his life he’d felt inebriated without a single drop of what you fancy having passed his lips. Susie listened to Sally pulling his leg, and to her mum announcing that Will had treated her to a lovely tin of biscuits after getting back from the hospital. It was a relief, she said, that the doctors had told
him
his asthma might only be temporary, and that they’d given him some special tablets to take, specially if it got temporarily chronic.

‘Aspro, I reckon,’ said Mr Brown, ‘they give yer that for everything.’

‘Yes, Henry the Eighth’s wives were given a couple each after he had their heads chopped off,’ said Will, ‘but it didn’t cure their headache.’

Susie laughed again. Will could be really funny, and he was letting his sense of humour make light of his condition. The evening sunshine was going, but its light was still lingering on the grimy rooftops of Walworth and touching the kitchen. It was a lovely old kitchen to Susie. She could rarely sit at the table in the evenings without thinking of the previous tenants, the Adams family. Sammy and his sister and brothers had all grown up here. She often felt that she and her family were an extension of the Adams. Sammy said life was all about families, that loyalties began with the family, and that if you didn’t have loyalties you didn’t have anything worthwhile to hang on to when you started slipping. She and Sammy would have a family. Two boys and two girls. That is, Sammy had said would she mind doing him the honour four times and come up with two of each. Susie said would he mind giving her a little help, since she didn’t think she could manage everything by herself. Sammy asked if she’d write down exactly what he had to do, as he was dead ignorant about that sort of thing. So am I, said Susie, but we can practise together. What, now, in your parlour? said Sammy. No, when we’re married, said Susie, so leave my legs alone. Now? said Sammy. Well, not exactly now, said Susie, not immediately.

It was definitely cold meat and bubble-and-squeak for
Gaffer
Ford and his family. Annie had had to see to the washing, which Nellie and Charlie had collected from a bagwash on their way home from school. It had all needed to be sorted out and hung on the yard lines. Still, the bubble-and-squeak, crisply browned, was a treat any Monday.

Gaffer Ford thought of something.

‘Seen any more of the soldier bloke that wheeled your knees ’ome in a pushcart, Annie?’ he asked.

‘You done it now, Dad,’ said Nellie.

‘Done what?’ said the Gaffer.

‘You’re not to say that word,’ said Nellie.

‘No-one ain’t,’ said Charlie, ‘and I got orders to bash any of the street kids that talk about it.’

‘No, you ain’t,’ said Nellie. ‘Annie didn’t give you no orders to do any bashin’. You just said you would, it’s yer ’ooliganism that makes yer want to go around bashin’ people.’

‘Charlie,’ said the Gaffer, ‘I ’ope I ain’t goin’ to have to take me belt to yer one day, which I’ve been recommended to by certain neighbours. Anyway, what word ain’t I to say?’

‘Pushcart,’ piped up Cassie.

‘Cor, she’s said it,’ groaned Charlie.

‘Cassie, you know Annie’s forbid it,’ said Nellie.

‘Yes, I don’t want it ever mentioned again,’ said Annie, ‘not by any of you – Dad, is that you laughin’?’

‘Bless yer, Annie, not me,’ said the Gaffer.

‘It’s bad enough him always laughin’ – no, never mind that,’ said Annie, ‘just get on with your suppers.’

‘Who’s ’im?’ asked the Gaffer.

‘Pardon?’ said Annie.

‘The one that’s always laughin’,’ said the Gaffer, who knew the answer.

‘Betcher it’s ’er soldier,’ said Charlie.

‘If you must know,’ said Annie, ‘he came into the shop to buy a tin of biscuits for ’is mum, and I just happened to serve him.’

‘Then what?’ asked the Gaffer.

‘What d’you mean, then what?’ asked Annie.

‘Did ’e come on ’orseback?’ asked Cassie.

‘’Ow could ’e come on ’orseback for a tin of biscuits?’ asked Charlie. ‘’Orses ain’t allowed in grocers’ shops.’

‘Small ’orses are,’ said Cassie.

‘Cassie,’ said Annie, ‘stop givin’ your meat to that cat.’

‘It’s only the bits of fat,’ said Cassie.

‘Did yer soldier ’ave a chat with yer, Annie?’ asked the Gaffer.

‘Well, he did walk down the Walworth Road with me on me way home,’ said Annie, ‘when I spoke to him about makin’ a joke of what I suffered.’

‘Cor, I bet ’is ears ’urt,’ said Charlie.

‘The Queen went down the Walworth Road once,’ said Cassie dreamily.

‘What for?’ asked Nellie.

‘Well, she ’ad some shoppin’ to do,’ said Cassie.

‘What shoppin’?’ asked Charlie.

‘Oh, jellied eels an’ pie an’ mash, I think,’ said Cassie. ‘Yes, it was that, I remember now, they don’t ’ave any in Windsor Castle, only liver an’ bacon an’ fairy cakes with pink icing. And plums an’ custard,’ she added, after a brief but thoughtful pause.

‘Cassie,’ said Annie, hiding a smile, ‘I just don’t know what we can do with you and all your fancies.’

‘We could turn ’er upside-down an’ shake ’em out of ’er,’ said Charlie.

‘No, we couldn’t,’ said the Gaffer, ‘not our Cassie, she’s one of me sweet’earts.’

‘We could turn Charlie upside-down and make an ’ole in the floor with ’is big ’ead,’ said Nellie.

‘Yes, time we ’ad some ’oles knocked in the floor,’ said the Gaffer. ‘Anyway, so yer soldier walked you ’ome, Annie, did ’e?’

‘Yes, and he asked me to go for a row on the Serpentine with ’im next Sunday, if it’s fine,’ said Annie.

‘Annie, did yer say yes?’ asked Nellie.

‘I ’ad to be gracious and forgivin’,’ said Annie. ‘You can’t be church-goin’ and not forgivin’.’

‘You’ll look nice in yer best Sunday frock, Annie, while you’re standin’ on yer dignity in a rowin’-boat,’ said the Gaffer. ‘I couldn’t be more pleased for yer.’

‘Ain’t it nice, Annie’s soldier bein’ romantic about ’er?’ said Nellie.

‘Romantic’s daft,’ said Charlie.

‘Annie, I’ll come as well, if yer like,’ said Cassie, ‘there might be a circus with lion tamers in the park.’

‘Cassie, you can’t go, you silly,’ said Nellie.

‘I could take Tabby,’ said Cassie, ‘’e’s really a circus cat.’

‘First I’ve ’eard of it,’ said Charlie.

‘Well, ’e can do circus tricks,’ said Cassie, ‘like puttin’ ’is tail up in the air an’ standin’ on one leg.’

‘I never seen ’im standin’ on one leg,’ said Nellie.

‘’E did it once, I saw ’im,’ said Cassie.

‘Then what ’appened?’ asked the Gaffer.

‘Well, ’e fell over,’ said Cassie dolefully.

The family yelled with laughter. Cassie couldn’t think why.

‘You’re a real scream, you are, Cassie,’ said Nellie.

‘She’s our little coughdrop,’ said the Gaffer.

‘Who wants some marmalade tart?’ asked Annie. They all wanted a slice of one she had made on Saturday evening.

‘Can I ’ave mine ’ot?’ asked Charlie. Annie said yes, put it in the fire for a minute. The family yelled with laughter again, and the Gaffer was certain of one thing then.

And that was that a man’s kids were the best thing in his life when he’d lost his wife.

Mr Brown was at the Bermondsey yard again on Tuesday morning. Not that there was anything he could do. The police had said don’t touch. He sent his assistant off to the Olney Road yard, which was busy and could use a bit of help. The police had appeared early. They were going to take away the boards that had lain above the corpse and give them a minute examination. Mr Brown asked why, and was astonished to hear them talk about fingerprints. Fingerprints on floorboards that had been walked on ever since that poor girl had been buried there? On the underside, said the police. It’s smooth planking.

Mr Brown asked if the girl had been identified. The police said they were working on it, using a list of missing persons. Did they know how old the girl had been? Not yet. The pathologist would come up with that information pretty soon. Had they got any helpful information from Collier and Son? The reply made Mr Brown infer that Collier and Son had let their business go to the dogs on account of too much time spent in pubs. The father and his son had had no employees at this yard, they worked the business themselves. On and off. And mostly off during the last eighteen months. Mr Brown drew another inference, that the CID were investigating father and son. He asked if he could get rid of the stacks of timber. He’d taken down the notice on the gates after the body had been uncovered yesterday. The police said they’d be obliged if he left everything just as it was. Finally, he asked if they wanted to speak to Mr Sammy Adams, managing director
of
the firm that had bought the yard and the business just a week or so ago. The police said they had no plans to at the moment.

That was something, thought Mr Brown.

One of the closed double gates was pushed open and Boots entered the yard, raincoat over his arm. The day was showery.

‘Morning, Jim,’ he said, and introduced himself to the police. He spoke to them and received from them the same kind of information they’d given to Mr Brown, no more and no less. Mr Brown couldn’t help noting how easily he conducted himself. He never seemed to let people bother him, whoever they were and however awkward they could get. Mr Brown knew him for a man to whom the fact of being alive in God’s world was far more important than the attitudes of people. People seemed to amuse him, and he nearly always looked as if a hint of amusement was lurking in his eyes, even his almost blind one. He might not be amused at the moment. He wasn’t. You could see that, you could see a steely light, and Mr Brown knew he was thinking of the man who had murdered that poor young girl and buried her body under a scrap yard shed.

Mr Brown knew his background, that he was the eldest of his redoubtable mother’s four children, that he’d been born and bred in cockney Walworth, won a place in a grammar school, made himself temporarily famous as the most important defence witness at an Old Bailey murder trial and soldiered in the trenches of France and Flanders before being blinded on the Somme. He’d married the girl next door while he was still blind, and now he was the general manager of his brother Sammy’s business. Mr Brown thought that for all its complications, Boots did the job standing on his head. Unlike Sammy, however, he did not seem ambitious. He seemed a contented man, although
his
wife, Emily, once said there was a lot more to him than met the eye. His adopted daughter Rosie adored him. And, according to what Mr Brown had heard from Sammy in an unguarded moment, so did Miss Polly Simms, daughter of General Sir Henry Simms. Miss Simms had been an ambulance driver during the war, and although she had never met Boots while in France, Sammy said she complained bitterly that Emily had pinched Boots while her back was turned. But keep it dark, Jim, said Sammy, or there’ll be ructions and my dear old Ma will start boxing ears all round. Not that Boots can’t handle the situation. He’s a family man.

The police, ready to depart, requested that Mr Brown and Mr Adams leave with them. They locked the gates and went on their way, the relevant floorboards wrapped in an old sheet. Boots took a stroll with Mr Brown.

‘Good of yer to come,’ said Mr Brown.

‘Just wanted you to know it’s not your problem or your worry,’ said Boots, ‘and that the scrap yard in Kennington is short of a manager. He’s off sick. Would you care to take over, Jim?’

‘That’ll suit me, Boots.’

‘I need to get back to the office,’ said Boots.

‘I’ll push off to Kennington,’ said Mr Brown. ‘By the way, I’ve kept all this to meself.’

‘So have I,’ said Boots.

‘I didn’t want me fam’ly to know, specially Susie.’