Sons and Daughters (2 page)

‘I don’t know I was ever able to say no to you,
Boots,’ said Ma. A natural gent, that was how she saw Boots, a credit to his mother and his Walworth roots. ‘Mind, they’re tuppence ha’penny each, five for a bob. Penny oranges, well, they’re like Queen Victoria, gone for good.’

‘There are compensations,’ smiled Boots, ‘such as the happy fact that you’re still with us. Now,’ he said to the children, ‘who’s got the shopping bag?’

‘Me,’ said Paula. ‘I,’ she said correctively. Not being certain, however, she retracted. ‘Me,’ she said.

‘Eyes right,’ said Boots. At least, that was what the children thought he said, and so they all turned their heads, perhaps in anticipation of seeing an organ-grinder and his monkey. Organ-grinders and their performing monkeys were a disappearing feature of London’s streets. Kids, accordingly, didn’t like to miss the chance of spotting one of these popular combinations.

What these Adams children saw, however, was an advancing blonde lady of pleasant looks and fulsome figure. She was comfortably dressed in a blouse and skirt, and wore a close-fitting hat. She came to a startled halt at suddenly finding herself under the survey of four staring children. Her fine blue eyes blinked. However, since she was only one more woman among the many in the market, the three girls and a boy turned their eyes back to Boots after a mere second or so.

‘Uncle Boots,’ whispered Paula, ‘why did we have to look at her?’

‘Yes, why did you?’ asked Boots.

‘Because you said “Eyes right”,’ whispered Paula.

‘No, I said, “I’s right”,’ explained Boots.

‘Yes, eyes right,’ said James.

‘Well, never mind now,’ smiled Boots. He glanced at the woman, noting her looks. She was now awaiting her turn at the stall, while keeping her distance. ‘Open up the shopping bag, Paula, my poppet.’

Paula did so, and Ma Earnshaw put eighteen shining oranges inside it. The fruit was from Israel, the independent post-war homeland of the Jews, including many of those who had managed to survive the concentration camps.

‘That’s three and sevenpence ha’penny,’ she said. ‘It’s a shocking price for oranges, Boots, and I can’t say it ain’t, but it’s what winning the war’s done for us. Like it did last time, in 1918. Makes a body wonder if we’d be better off losing the next one. See what I mean?’ she went on as Boots offered four silver shillings and a smile. ‘All that much for eighteen oranges. It hurts me customers and me as well.’

‘Cheer up, Ma,’ said Boots, ‘the kids won’t feel any pain, and you can give the change to your grandson. So long now.’

‘Been grand seeing yer, Boots,’ said Ma, and off he went with the girls and the boy, the well-built blonde lady watching him with interest before advancing to the stall.

‘Oh, hello, Mrs Kloytski,’ said Ma Earnshaw. ‘How’s yerself and Mr Kloytski?’

‘Ah, him?’ said the blonde lady in thickly
accented English. ‘He is very good. Yes, all the time. “I am very good,” he always says.’

‘He means in good ’ealth, I expect,’ said Ma. ‘Well, it’s nice you’re both settling down, like all the Polish people that’s living in London these days.’

‘Better than in Communist Poland, yes?’ said Mrs Kloytski. ‘Ah, who was that man with the girls and a boy?’

‘Oh, that was Mr Adams that used to live off Browning Street,’ said Ma. ‘His fam’ly was always reg’lar customers of mine.’ She cast a knowing smile. ‘If you fancy him, ducky, well, so ’ave a lot of ladies in their time.’

‘No, no,’ said Mrs Kloytski, ‘it is only that I thought I might have seen him somewhere. Somewhere in London, I think.’

‘Well, London’s where he lives,’ said Ma. ‘Now, what can I serve yer with?’

‘Ah, yes. Two pounds of your best apples, please, four pounds of potatoes, one red cabbage and one white cabbage.’

‘My, you and Mr Kloytski do like your cabbage, eh?’ said Ma amiably, and began weighing up the apples.

‘Was he in the British Army?’ asked Mrs Kloytski.

‘What, Mr Adams? Well,’ said Ma, ‘he wasn’t in any French or German Army, it was our Army all right, where he got to be an officer. Very high-ranking, me old man said.’ Ma weighed potatoes, then selected two large crisp cabbages, one red and one white. ‘There y’ar, Mrs Kloytski, two pounds of
me best apples, four pounds of spuds and the cabbages. That’s two shillings and eightpence.’

‘Oh, I am obliged, Mrs Earnshaw, yes,’ said Mrs Kloytski. She paid up and left, walking very brisk and graceful, Ma Earnshaw thought.

Boots took his twins and Sammy’s two girls to a stall selling knick-knacks and toys at bargain prices. There, he invited them to select a toy each. Paula chose a girls’ annual, Phoebe chose a painting book, and Gemma and James indulged themselves by taking their time.

‘Crikey,’ said Phoebe after a while, ‘are we going to be here all day instead of getting home in time for lunch?’

‘Looks like it,’ said Paula, and glanced around. ‘Bless me, Uncle Boots, there’s that lady again.’

Boots turned his head and saw the fulsome blonde woman on the other side of the market. Their glances met, and again he noted her looks. Curiosity surfaced as she turned away, moving to examine a stall selling jellied eels, still a favourite with many of Walworth’s cockneys. Something stirred Boots’s memory, but it was too faint to pull any image into being, and Sammy joined them at that moment.

‘What’s going on?’ he asked.

‘Oh, only Gemma and James taking all day to choose a toy each,’ said Paula. ‘Daddy, Uncle Boots is treating us. I’ve got an annual and Phoebe’s got a painting book.’

‘And who’s got a bagful of oranges?’ asked
Sammy. ‘Ma Earnshaw said she’d sold you eighteen of the best.’

‘Me,’ said Paula. She looked up at Boots. ‘I mean I’ve got them, don’t I, Uncle Boots?’

‘Quite right,’ said Boots, ‘so you have.’ He gave her a smile. He had an easy affection for young people, especially those of the Adams family. ‘I’s right, Paula,’ he said.

‘Oh, now I see what you mean,’ said Paula.

Gemma and James made up their minds then. Gemma chose a pack of bright crayons, and James a tin box of paints. Boots settled, and they all went on their way. The eyes of Mrs Kloytski followed them.

Mr and Mrs Kloytski lived in a house in Wansey Street, off Walworth Road. Wansey Street’s well-built terraced houses had always had a superior look, and still did, for they’d escaped any bomb damage. The Kloytskis had very friendly near neighbours in Mr and Mrs Hobday, and Cassie and Freddy Brown.

Mr Kloytski was about to say goodbye to a visitor. Mr Kloytski, a handsome man in his thirties, looked pleased with life. His visitor, a soberly dressed man in his forties, looked as if he had known better days than this one.

‘No, I’m afraid I cannot let you have the negatives as well as the photographs, only my promise to keep them securely locked away,’ said Kloytski. His English was excellent, but there was an accent identifying him as no native of England.

‘Existing on a promise of yours isn’t my idea of how to be happy,’ said the visitor, scholarly features expressing disgust and disillusion. ‘You’re a swine, you know, and your wife, quite frankly, is a bitch.’

‘Come, come, my friend, is that the way to talk
about a woman who has given you sweet pleasure?’ said Kloytski.

‘That sweet pleasure has turned humiliatingly sour.’

‘We needed you and what you could do for us,’ said Kloytski, ‘and since your feelings and inclinations are sympathetic, a decision was made to take advantage of your – ah – sexual urges. Surely your times with my wife were preferable to your times with women you picked up in Soho, yes?’

‘My infatuation with your scheming wife is costing me far more than all the women of Soho.’

‘Your pride, you mean?’ Kloytski’s smile did not reach his eyes. It rarely did. ‘Or your integrity? Oh, you’ll adjust, I’m sure, and as soon as you have any information for us, let me know through the agreed channels. Then either my wife or I will arrange to collect it.’

‘Damn you for your blackmail.’

‘Sometimes it happens,’ said Kloytski. ‘As this is a beginning for you, I’ll give you a month to make your first delivery. We can now part as friends and comrades?’

‘That’s a bad joke.’

‘Perhaps it is at the moment,’ said Kloytski. ‘Ah, yes, and by the way, remember you will be known to us only as Victor.’

‘So you said ten minutes ago, an even worse joke,’ remarked ‘Victor’ acidly. ‘Idiot would have been a more suitable code name.’ He departed in an angry but resigned mood. What he was about to become was not altogether against his political
convictions, but he felt furious and humiliated at the way his recruitment had been contrived. His weakness for women willing to perform unconventionally had been his undoing.

Approaching the corner of Wansey Street, he saw a woman turning in from Walworth Road. She was carrying a shopping bag. They glanced at each other and stopped. Victor bit his lip, and a slight flush tinted his cheeks.

‘Ah, hello, good morning,’ said Mrs Kloytski.

‘Allow me to inform you you’re a reincarnation of Jezebel,’ said Victor.

‘But everything is now arranged?’ smiled Mrs Kloytski. ‘We are now all in the same ship?’

‘Boat,’ said Victor curtly. He eyed her fulsome figure as a man who had come to know it intimately. ‘If I had my way I’d throw you overboard.’

‘Tck, tck,’ chided Mrs Kloytski, ‘after such happy times together?’

‘With a hidden camera keeping us company?’ said Victor in disgust. ‘Goodbye, madam.’

‘Goodbye,’ responded Mrs Kloytski. ‘Victor,’ she added, with another smile, and they went their separate ways. Mrs Cassie Brown, coming out of her house with her son Lewis and her daughter Maureen, received Mrs Kloytski’s next smile. It was of the kind disillusioned Victor would have called glutinous. Certainly, it parted Mrs Kloytski’s full lips wide and revealed shining white teeth. It could make susceptible men think of sweet sugar. ‘Ah, hello, Cassie, hello, childer.’ She meant children.

‘Hello, Mrs Kloyst,’ said eleven-year-old Maureen,
known as Muffin. Kloyst was as much as her young tongue could manage.

‘Nice to see you,’ said Cassie, as exuberant at thirty-four as she had always been. Life was still well worth living to Cassie. If gloom happened to be lurking about, she vanquished it. She sometimes thought about vanquishing this Polish woman. Mrs Kloytski was inclined to get too close to Freddy, much as if she had illegal designs on his person. Not to Cassie’s liking, that, no, not a bit. Freddy’s person was personal to her alone. He’d served with distinction in the hellhole of Burma, making sergeant and turning himself into the kind of man who, at thirty-four, could catch the eye of busty blondes like Mrs Kloytski. At the moment he was at his work. Saturdays were full days for him.

‘Your little ones are so sweet,’ said the fulsome lady. ‘And Freddy, how is Freddy?’

‘Safe at work,’ said Cassie.

‘Safe?’

‘Oh, from – from –’ Cassie thought of a phrase she’d come across in a novel of dark doings. ‘From the forces of evil.’

‘The forces of evil?’ Mrs Kloytski looked astonished. ‘They are here, in our community?’

Cassie went all melodramatic. She looked around, here and there, and whispered, ‘Pssst, Mrs K., they’re everywhere.’

‘No, no, I cannot believe you,’ said Mrs Kloytski, and laughed.

‘Oh, they’re not easy to spot,’ said Cassie, ‘especially when they’re wearing a smile.’

‘Oh, come on, Mum,’ said nine-year-old Lewis. Except for his happy mum and his playful dad, grown-ups didn’t count much with Lewis. Well, they were old and a bit bossy, like the teachers at St John’s Church School. Crumbs, he said to his dad once, them teachers are more old and bossy than anyone.

‘Got to go, Mrs K.,’ said Cassie, ‘I promised Muffin and Lewis I’d take them to the park to fly their new kites now that we’ve had our lunch. Goodbye.’

‘Goodbye, Cassie,’ said Mrs Kloytski, and walked on to her home. When she reached it, Mr Kloytski greeted her with a matter-of-fact statement.

‘He has joined us.’

‘Yes, I saw him,’ said Mrs Kloytski. They spoke in their own language. ‘He was very abusive. I’m afraid he no longer likes me.’

‘Natural, yes, in a man who has just seen photographs of himself on a bed with you,’ said Kloytski. ‘But as I pointed out to him, it was his reluctance to be recruited that compelled us to use the camera. Our friends will be pleased he’s now one of us.’

‘Our friends, yes. Good,’ said Mrs Kloytski. They were referring to people who had helped them during the immediate post-war upheaval in conflict-torn Europe, when Germany’s liberated slave labourers of many different nationalities were crowding the roads in all directions, and so were refugees and Jewish survivors of concentration camps. Murder could happen over possession of a
shabby coat, and summary executions could take place when Russians or the Allies shot suspected war criminals out of hand.

‘He’ll accept his role with grace soon enough,’ said Kloytski. ‘It fits his sympathies.’

‘Yes, but let me speak of something else,’ said Mrs Kloytski. ‘I saw someone in the market I think we both know.’ She went into details about the man who had three girls and a boy in tow, and she spoke of where and how they had originally encountered him.

‘God Almighty, that swine?’ said Kloytski. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes, I’m sure,’ said Mrs Kloytski. ‘He said something to the children, and they all turned to look at me.’

‘You think he recognized you?’

‘If he didn’t, why would he have said something to the children that made them look at me?’

‘No, no, he’d have done more than mention you to his children,’ said Kloytski, ‘he’d have confronted you. Perhaps he only thought he’d met you somewhere, perhaps that was all he said to the children.’

‘Yes, and perhaps he’ll begin to think of exactly where,’ said Mrs Kloytski, ‘and if he remembers, he’ll try to trace me, and if he succeeds in that, he’ll find you as well. Then the confrontation will happen, a serious confrontation.’

‘It’s a possibility, I suppose,’ murmured Kloytski. ‘But where, I wonder, would he begin his search for you?’

‘He’ll return to that market stall and ask Mrs Earnshaw about me,’ said Mrs Kloytski.