On Mother Brown's Doorstep (2 page)

Looking at Will, the motherly body said, ‘She can’t just sit there on the pavement.’

‘I know,’ said Will, ‘but she’s against standing on one leg.’

The girl looked as if she didn’t think that very funny. Another woman hurried up.

‘What’s ’appened?’ she asked. Happenings were meat and drink to Walworth’s motherly bodies.

‘Me pushcart accidental ’it the girl’s knee,’ said the boy, who wanted to get home himself for a bit of tea.

‘Oh, ain’t that a shame? Oh, yer poor dear,’ said the second motherly body to the girl, ‘that’s just what ’appened to me niece Ivy, she done ’er knee in two days before ’er weddin’ and ’ad to walk up the aisle on crutches. Is it painful, ducky?’

‘Oh, no,’ said the fed-up girl, ‘it’s only cripplin’ me.’

‘That’s what it done to me niece,’ said the second motherly body. ‘What’s ’er soldier friend doin’ about it?’ she asked the first woman.

‘Well, ’e’ll ’ave to do something,’ said the first woman.

‘He’s not my soldier friend,’ said the girl.

‘Couldn’t you carry ’er to ’er home?’ suggested the second woman to Will.

That was out as far as Will was concerned. He’d been advised to avoid that kind of exertion, and he certainly didn’t fancy having an attack before he got the girl home. He’d be no help at all to her then. All the same, he couldn’t walk away.

‘Where’d you live?’ he asked her.

‘Blackwood Street,’ she said. Blackwood Street was off the market.

‘All right,’ he said, making up his mind that he’d got to give it a go, ‘up you come and I’ll carry you.’

The girl, taking in his lean manly look, didn’t fancy him carrying her at all, not at her age.

‘I ain’t bein’ carried,’ she said. ‘I’ll lose all me dignity, I’ll get catcalled by the street kids. I’m seventeen, I am.’

‘Better to be carried than to stay here gettin’ trodden on,’ said Will, who felt it would all have had its funny side if the girl’s knee hadn’t been so obviously painful.

‘Excuse me,’ said the girl, whose dignity was already suffering, ‘but I’m not bein’ carried. I’ll ’ave to hop on one leg.’

‘Yes, you got to get ’ome somehow, ducky,’ said the second woman. ‘Me sister fell over down Petticoat Lane one Sunday, an’ got trod on till she was nearly ill, and it didn’t do ’er back no good, either.’

‘’Ere,’ said the boy, ‘can’t yer put ’er in me cart, mister, an’ push ’er home? I’ll come with yer so’s I can take me pushcart off yer. I’ll be late for me tea an’ get a clip, but it won’t ’urt. Me mum don’t believe in knockin’ me ’ead orf. There y’ar, mister, wheel ’er home in me cart.’

Bright idea that, thought Will, it solves everything.

‘Right, up you come, Daisy Bell,’ he said. He stooped again, and the girl gasped and grabbed at the hem of her frock as he lifted her.

‘Oh, I won’t – you’re not to – me in a pushcart at my age? I won’t – oh, me legs, I don’t believe it!’

Resistance was all too late then. Will lowered her into the pushcart bottom first. It was a solid wooden crate on bicycle wheels. Her knees were up, her legs showing.

‘There we are,’ said Will.

‘Yes, she fits in quite comfy,’ said the first motherly body.

‘You’ll be all right now, love,’ said the second, ‘the soldier’ll get you ’ome. ’E seems a decent chap.’

‘Decent?’ gasped the girl. ‘Look what he’s done to me, put me in this cart with me legs showin’ – I’ll die in a minute.’

‘Off we go,’ said Will. He turned with the cart and proceeded to retrace his steps, the can running easily over the pavement, the boy following. ‘What’s your name?’ he asked the flushed and outraged young lady.

‘Oh, you ’ooligan,’ she breathed, ‘I don’t give me name to ’ooligans that’ve put me in a kid’s cart. Well, it’s Annie Ford, if you must know, and I hate yer.’

‘I’m Will Brown. Nice to meet you, Annie. Sorry about your knee, but with luck, it’ll only be bruised.’

‘Never mind me knee, what about me dignity?’ said Annie, dreading street kids. Sure enough some appeared. They goggled at her. A fat one sang out.

‘Where did yer get that gel, oh, yer lucky feller, If I get tuppence from me mum, would yer like to sell ’er?’

‘Oh, I’ll kill him,’ gasped Annie. ‘Oh, look at people lookin’, they’ll think I’m only ten years old.’

‘You look like a young lady from here,’ said Will, pushing the cart on towards the Lane. The East Street market was known as the Lane.

‘Oh, don’t mind me,’ said Annie bitterly, ‘just keep lookin’. I like bein’ in a pushcart with me knees up and me legs showin’, don’t I?’

‘I’m not lookin’, said Will.

Annie, who was facing him, gritted her teeth. People were looking and gawping, of course. Oh, the shame of it, at her age. It was worse when they reached the market, where Will turned left. She was sure everyone in Walworth was there.

‘Oi, Tommy Atkins,’ said some grinning middle-aged man, ‘did yer buy them goods off a stall?’

‘Yes, five bob the lot,’ said Will, and Annie fumed.

‘Five bob?’ said the interested party. ‘You should’ve ’ad ’er wrapped up in fancy paper for that, an’ tied with ribbon as well.’

Will grinned and pushed on, crossing the street.

‘Did you hear that, did you hear what ’e said?’ demanded Annie.

‘I expect you’d look nice in ribbon,’ said Will, trying to cheer her up.

‘Oh, you saucy devil, you didn’t ought to be a soldier, you ought to be locked up till you can treat a girl proper.’

‘How’s your knee?’ asked Will, the boy still behind him.

‘Oh, thanks for askin’,’ said Annie.

A passing woman said, ‘Givin’ yer sister a ride, are yer, soldier?’

‘Not so’s you’d notice,’ said Will, ‘she’s just a new friend of mine, and we’re getting to know each other.’

‘I wouldn’t be his sister or his friend, not if he gave me a sackful of diamonds,’ fumed Annie. ‘He’s a demon, he is.’

‘Cheer up,’ said Will and pushed on.

‘Look, I don’t want you to think I’m not grateful,’ said Annie, ‘but how would you like to be wheeled ’ome in a pushcart?’

‘Won’t be long now,’ said Will.

‘Oh, blessed agony,’ breathed Annie. He had turned into Blackwood Street. ‘I know what’s goin’ to ’appen now, all the kids are goin’ to look.’

Kids were there all right. They stopped their street games to stare. Recognizing Annie, they came running up.

‘Crikey, look at you, Annie!’

‘What’s the soldier wheelin’ yer in that can for?’

‘Is that yer knees showin’?’

A girl darted from an open door and came to a halt in front of the pushcart. She addressed Will indignantly.

‘’Ere, that’s our sister you’ve got in there, mister.’

‘She hurt her knee,’ said Will, ‘so I’ve given her a ride home.’

‘Crikey, me an’ Charlie wondered why she was late,’ said fourteen-year-old Nellie Ford. ‘’Ave yer really ’urt yer knee, Annie?’

‘Yes, and me pride as well,’ said Annie.

‘You kids, push off,’ said Nellie, like Annie in her looks.

‘Can’t we see ’er knee?’ asked a small girl. ‘I never seen an ’urt knee except me own. I seen a bunion, me mum’s got one—’

‘Push off,’ said Nellie. The kids backed off for about a yard.

‘Right,’ said Will, ‘I’ll carry Annie indoors. You lead the way,’ he said to Nellie. ‘Up you come again, Daisy Bell.’

‘She ain’t Daisy Bell, she’s Annie,’ said Nellie.

‘Well, she’d look just like Daisy Bell if she had a boater and a bicycle,’ said Will. He lifted Annie. She clutched the hem of her frock. ‘Thanks for the loan of your pushcart, young tosh,’ he said to the boy, who at once made off with it before foreign street kids could get their hands on it.

‘This way, mister,’ said Nellie, and Will followed, Annie up in his arms, legs dangling, frock rucked.

‘Crikey, Annie,’ called a precocious boy, ‘I think yer knickers is showin’.’

Annie gave a tight little scream as Will carried her indoors.

THE FORD FAMILY
, renting their house in Blackwood Street for twelve bob a week, consisted of Mr Harold Ford, a forty-two-year-old ganger on the LSER, his three daughters Annie, Nellie and Cassie, and his son Charlie. His wife, unfortunately, had developed pneumonia during the last year of the war. It proved fatal, as pneumonia nearly always did. She lay in the South London cemetery now, under green turf and a headstone. The vicar of St John’s Church had approved the wording.

‘RUTH ANNIE FORD. Born 1888, died 1918. Wife of Harold Stanley Ford and mother of Annie, Nellie, Charlie and Cassie. OUR MUM.’

Annie was her dad’s right hand now. She had any amount of spirit and as much bossiness as was necessary to get the better of twelve-year-old Charlie. She wasn’t averse to chasing him with the brush and pan. The back of the brush was good for whacking his bottom, and the pan good for giving his head a thump. Charlie complained she’d knock it off one day. She told him he wouldn’t miss it.

‘Course I would,’ said Charlie, ‘I couldn’t even walk about without me loaf of bread, nor see where I was goin’, neither.’

‘Dear oh lor’,’ said Annie, ‘what a shame.’

Not that affection wasn’t there. Annie had a characteristically warm cockney heart under her scolding exterior, and was very fond of her family, especially her dad. But someone had to keep them in order, her dad as well.
Sometimes
on Sundays she’d make them all go to church with her.

‘You too, Dad,’ she’d say.

‘Well, Annie, I was thinkin’ about mendin’ the chair that’s—’

‘No, you weren’t. Go and put your Sunday suit on. And you, Charlie – here, where you off to, Cassie? Come back here. Sit on ’er, Nellie, till we’re ready. Charlie, you goin’ to put your suit on, or do I ’ave to belt you one?’

Charlie, strong-willed, was a holy terror who needed belting occasionally. Annie made do with thumping him and applying her own will, which was just as strong as Charlie’s. So whenever she said they’d all got to go to church with her, Charlie went too. Annie could fashion hurtful beds of nails for defaulters.

Her dad gave her a hand with meals at weekends, but he was always home too late to be a help on weekdays. Still, he never failed to do full justice to what she set before him. Everyone had to wash their hands before they sat down to a meal. Annie was nearly ten when her mum died and could remember how particular she’d been about clean hands at meal times. She remembered lots of things about her lively pretty mum, nice things, and Annie meant never to let her down. She could never quite understand why the Lord had taken her when she was only thirty. Nellie asked a question on those lines once, and their dad said he supposed the Lord often took the ones He liked best while they were still young. Nellie said she didn’t want the Lord not to like her, but she didn’t want to be liked so much that she’d have to go to an early grave. Wouldn’t it be better if the Lord took people like Mrs Potter? She’s not young, said Charlie, she’s ninety and she’s got whiskers. Still, age before beauty, said Nellie. Not when it’s got whiskers on, said Charlie. You Charlie, said
Annie
, don’t you talk like that about kind old ladies.

Annie could sort Charlie out fairly well most times. Ten-year-old Cassie was a different problem. She was a dreamy girl with a vivid imagination that took her into the realms of never-never land far too often. A neighbour would stop Annie and say something like what’s all this I hear about your family being invited to tea at Windsor Castle next Sunday afternoon? Or, Annie love, I can’t hardly believe your dad swam the Channel last week, there wasn’t nothing about it in the papers. Or even, fancy your Charlie saving a girl from drowning in the Serpentine last week and being given a gold medal by the King.

It could all be traced back to Cassie, and Cassie would get a talking-to.

‘Now, you Cassie, you’ve been tellin’ stories again.’

‘Me, Annie?’

‘Yes, you. I saw Alice Miller down the Lane. What d’you mean by tellin’ ’er Dad’s goin’ to get a job at Buckingham Palace?’

The Royal Family and much of what was associated with it featured prominently in Cassie’s inventive mind.

‘Annie, I only said Dad might. Well, ’e might one day. The King and Queen ’ave to ’ave men doin’ jobs there, they couldn’t do them themselves, they ’ave to sit on their throne mostly. I bet Dad could do a good job at Buckingham Palace.’

‘Cassie, you little ’orror, the best job Dad could do would be to stop you tellin’ all these fancy stories about us. You even told Mrs Woodley last week that Dad used to be a sea captain. If you keep on like this, you’ll never go to ’eaven.’

‘Well, I don’t want to go yet, Annie, honest, not before Mrs Potter.’

If Charlie could be thumped for being a bit of a
tearaway
, there wasn’t much that could be done about Cassie and her imagination, except hope that she’d grow out of it. All their dad did about it was to cough a bit. Annie told him he could cough as much as he liked, but none of it would cure Cassie. No, but it’s a help to me, said her dad. What sort of help? It stops me falling about, said her dad.

Cassie, Nellie and Charlie were all attending school. Annie had a job from ten until four with a grocer near the Elephant and Castle. The grocer, Mr Urcott, was a really kind bloke, he let her work those hours so that she could see to the family in the mornings and get home in time to make a pot of tea and do some bread and marge for herself and her brother and sisters. Supper came later.

Banging her knee against that pushcart meant she had failed them today. It also meant she’d arrived home in a mortifying way for a girl her age, even if she knew she couldn’t have got there by herself on one leg. She’d never live that pushcart down. Neighbours would ask if she really had been wheeled home in it by a soldier.

Will sat her down on the edge of the kitchen table. With its solid legs and square deal top, it was the kind of table seen in most Walworth kitchens, and the kitchen itself, with its oven range and its window facing the back yard, was like a thousand others. The range fire was alight, burning very slowly, the coals covered by a pinky-white ash. China filled the dresser shelves and cups hung from hooks. Will thought the kitchen had a homely look similar to his mother’s. He didn’t think Annie and her family were too hard-up. Her sister’s gymslip and white blouse had quite a new look, and the blue frock she herself was wearing was quite pretty.