Sons and Daughters (8 page)

‘Button your bleedin’ lip,’ said Large Lump to Jimmy.

‘That’s not friendly,’ said Jimmy.

‘It’s what Mr Ford wants,’ said Large Lump.

‘Oh, well,’ said Sammy, ‘let’s go looking for allowable stuff, Jimmy. Come on, Eli.’

They went looking. The bales of nylon were all on the bottom tier of shelving, together with rayon and very poor quality cotton. Sammy told Jimmy to pencil in certain numbers, and Jimmy did so, using a notebook. The Fat Man moved ponderously around, his wheezy breathing audible among the noise of dealers conferring with each other up above and down below. You bid for those, I’ll bid for these. That sort of thing.

Large Lump was nowhere to be seen, but from the top tier of shelving a bale of rayon, all of a hundredweight, lost its place and came bounding down. Mr Greenberg, a wily old bird who always kept an eye on what he considered suspect, gave Sammy a hefty shove, and the bale thudded to the concrete floor well short of Sammy’s feet.

Sammy controlled reactive shakes and said, ‘Well, who did that, I wonder?’

‘An accident, Sammy, ain’t it?’ said Mr Greenberg.

‘It would’ve been, if it had landed on my loaf of bread,’ said Sammy.

Dealers were looking on with startled eyes. The Fat Man was breathing heavily. Up rushed one of the men from the desk.

‘What the bloody hell happened?’ he bawled, as Large Lump materialized beside the Fat Man.

‘That bale fell off the shelf,’ said Jimmy.

‘Ah, vas it falling or vas it pushed?’ murmured Mr Greenberg.

The bloke from the desk, muttering, inspected the bale, then looked upwards at the top tier. There was an empty hole where the bale had rested, but that was all.

‘Don’t make sense,’ he muttered. ‘Still, no damage to the goods, gents, and by the way, all bids in before two o’clock.’ He returned to the desk.

Sammy looked at the number on the fallen bale of rayon.

‘Twenty-seven, Jimmy,’ he said.

‘Eh?’ said Jimmy.

‘Twenty-seven,’ repeated Sammy very clearly.

‘Oh, right, got you, Dad,’ said Jimmy, and made a note of the number. The Fat Man and his Large Lump looked on from the other side of the shed.

Dealers milled. Sammy, Jimmy and Mr Greenberg slowly traversed the place in a tour of inspection, Jimmy with his notebook at the ready. Now and again, it looked as if Sammy was quoting a rayon bale number.

‘Eli old cock,’ he murmured after a while, ‘accept my gratitude for saving me from going home flat.’

‘My pleasure, vasn’t it?’ said Mr Greenberg.

‘I think someone’s declared war,’ said Jimmy.

‘Well, Jimmy,’ said Sammy, ‘that kind of war happened before we got clouted by Hitler, and somehow the Fat Man was always close by. Now that he’s risen up from what I thought was the welcome departed, watch the Walworth store in case a Molotov cockroach comes flying in.’

‘Cocktail, Dad,’ said Jimmy.

‘Not for me, Jimmy, and they don’t sell ’em here,’ said Sammy.

‘I mean Molotov cocktail,’ said Jimmy.

‘Same thing,’ said Sammy, ‘they’re both ’orrible. And God bless Eli for saving me from a Molotov hundredweight.’

‘Ah, Sammy,’ said Mr Greenberg, ‘but vhere vas God vhen Himmler vas gassing and burning my people in his murder camps?’

‘Ask me another,’ said Sammy.

‘Weeping with His angels?’ suggested Jimmy.

‘I’ll go along with that,’ said Sammy, ‘and put down number forty-one, Jimmy.’ Reaching the end of their floor-level inspection, he added, ‘I don’t think we’ll go upstairs in case we fall through a trapdoor. We’ve got all the numbers I’m willing to bid for.’ He took the notebook from Jimmy, consulted it, whispered numbers to Mr Greenberg, slipped something into his hand, then said, ‘So will you have a word, Eli?’

‘So I vill, Sammy, von’t I?’ said Mr Greenberg.

‘At the usual commission,’ said Sammy.

‘My pleasure again, ain’t it?’ said Mr Greenberg, and he made his way through wandering dealers to
the men at the desk, where he quoted certain numbers, but not twenty-seven, then made a proposition and, on reaching immediate agreement, handed over a large cash deposit. He then rejoined Sammy and Jimmy, and they all left.

‘Fill me in, Eli,’ said Sammy, as they walked to his parked car.

‘Your deposit, Sammy, vas happily received on account of how much it vas. I vill go back at three, vhen the highest bids vill be honoured.’

‘Honoured?’ said Jimmy. ‘Is there honour in the black market, then?’

‘Ah, there is some, Jimmy my boy, you may be sure,’ said Mr Greenberg, ‘or – ah – accidents happen.’

‘I think I know about accidents,’ said Jimmy.

‘Vhen I go back at three, I vill, of course, find out vhat are the average highest bids for nylon bales.’

‘Won’t they be announced?’ asked Jimmy. His dad and Mr Greenberg looked at him. ‘Silly question,’ he said.

‘But I vill find out.’ Mr Greenberg’s little chuckle emerged but lost itself in his beard. ‘That vay your papa von’t be cheated, and vill add ten per cent to the highest bids made on the bales he vants, vhich the gentlemen at the desk vill make known
to me. Then I vill have to pay any balance. In cash, Sammy.’

‘Which I’m confident I can supply from my wallet,’ said Sammy.

‘I presume,’ said Jimmy, ‘these kind of transactions are always in cash.’

‘Granted, a supply of the readies is always necessary,’ said Sammy, ‘but your mother needn’t know.’

Jimmy grinned. He was beginning to understand that business was business whatever.

‘The bales must be collected tomorrow, vhich collection I vill do for you, Sammy, vith the help of my two sons.’ His stepsons, actually. But he was a fond father to them. There had been three until the eldest, serving with the Royal Navy, had been drowned when his ship, torpedoed in the Atlantic, blew up and sank. ‘I vill also deliver to your factory, Sammy, von’t I?’

‘Not in your open cart, Eli old cock, or the bales might get nicked by Dick Turpin,’ said Sammy. ‘Now let’s find a cafe and see if they’ll do us a light lunch of ham and eggs, except no ham for you, Eli. Kosher bangers instead?’

‘Vhat cafe will do kosher, Sammy?’

‘No idea,’ said Sammy. ‘I’m a foreigner here. So let’s go looking.’

‘Vell, Sammy, I think I know just the place,’ said Mr Greenberg. ‘In Lower Fore Street.’

‘Take note, Jimmy,’ said Sammy, ‘that if you want to know anything about London that you don’t know, our old friend Eli will supply you with the works.’

‘That’s a kind reference, Sammy, ain’t it?’ said Mr Greenberg, who sometimes woke up in the night and said a grateful prayer for never having been in danger of finding himself in a Nazi concentration camp.

‘By the way,’ said Sammy, as they reached the car, ‘cost of commission, collection and delivery, might I ask how much?’

‘Sammy, Sammy, vould I ask more than vhat you think is fair?’ said Mr Greenberg.

‘Half the shirt off my back, that’s fair,’ said Sammy, happy to have six bales of nylon for his factory, plus Mr Greenberg’s promise of pointing him at a reconditioned stocking-making machine.

‘Yes?’ said the woman on answering a knock on the front door of her house in Manor Place, Walworth.

‘Good afternoon,’ said Miss Lulu Saunders, who felt this must be the five hundredth house she’d called at, but knew it couldn’t be because she still had a large number of leaflets in the satchel. ‘You’re a Labour Party voter, of course? Good, I—’

‘What d’yer mean, good?’ said the woman.

‘Your husband’s a worker?’

‘So am I, I’ve got four kids and they’re all terrors.’

‘You’re a prime worker,’ said Lulu. ‘You’re all benefiting from our Labour government. Want that to continue, don’t you?’

‘Leave off, I’m still doing me week’s washing,’ said the woman. ‘Kindly hoppit.’ She shut the door. Lulu stuffed a leaflet through the letter box.

Her day so far hadn’t been joyful. Only a relatively few people had cared to discuss politics with her. Most didn’t want to discuss anything except something like why was meat still rationed considering there was plenty of live beef plodding about in the countryside. And others weren’t at home.

She knocked at the next house. The door was opened by a rugged-looking bloke in trousers, shirt and braces. He had a half-eaten slice of cake in his hand.

‘Afternoon,’ said Lulu.

He looked her over.

‘Afternoon,’ he said, ‘what can I do for you?’

‘You’re a Labour Party voter?’

‘I’m nobody’s voter. I hate politicians.’

‘Such as the Tories?’ said Lulu.

‘All of ’em.’

‘You need talking to about the Labour Party,’ said Lulu, favouring the possibility of converting the bloke.

‘Right,’ he said, ‘come in and have a cup of char and a slice of cake, and I’ll lend you my ear.’

That was the first time Lulu had encountered a real welcome.

‘Pleasure,’ she said.

Ten minutes later she was on her way out. What had been on offer was not just tea, cake and a willing ear, but also his bedroom, and the pleasure of rolling in the hay with him, since he had a thing about females in glasses. But he made it clear that her mauve dress didn’t suit her, so let’s get rid of
it, you sexpot. Lulu floored him at the moment when he had her dress nearly up to her knickers, the saucy cowboy. She used the satchel, heavy with leaflets. She left him on the floor, seeing double.

Sammy, Jimmy and Mr Greenberg were on their way home, the transaction having been completed over an exchange of whispers and the inaudible rustle of a sheaf of the readies. If whispers were synonymous with the black market, the readies were what kept it going. Sammy had principles, of course, but could stretch them for the sake of his business.

What was pleasing as much as anything was the way good old Eli had handled the transaction, thereby doing the Fat Man in the eye without Sammy himself being present at the final exchanges, and accordingly avoiding being trodden on by Large Lump.

The lady customers of his various shops were going to be made very happy when nylon stockings became available to them. Lady customers were nearly fanatical about nylon stockings, and most wouldn’t even ask how much they were.

‘Eli, my old mate,’ he said, ‘I’m totally admiring of your valuability.’

‘My pleasure, Sammy, ain’t it?’ said Mr Greenberg.

Jimmy smiled.

Miss Lulu Saunders was back at Paul’s office before four, dumping the satchel on the floor and plonking her bottom on the edge of her desk.

‘You’re early,’ said Paul.

‘You’re lucky I’m still alive,’ she said. ‘Had doors slammed in my face. Nearly had my nose flattened once or twice. And some oversexed bloke nearly had my dress off.’

‘While you were on his doorstep?’ enquired Paul.

‘While I was in his kitchen,’ said Lulu.

‘By invitation?’

‘Said he’d lend an ear to my politics. Over tea and cake. What a swine. He had bed in mind. Had to knock him blind with the satchel. Hope he’s still hurting.’

‘Next time you get an invitation from a bloke to step inside,’ said Paul, ‘sum up your prospects before you accept.’

‘Don’t worry, I will,’ said Lulu. ‘Listen, what’s the point of my preaching to the converted? Walworth is eighty per cent Socialist.’

‘Any leaflets left?’ asked Paul.

‘Bags of ’em,’ said Lulu.

‘Try going farther afield tomorrow,’ said Paul. ‘Get yourself among the lower middle class and see if you can convert them. Take a bus, and we’ll pay any fares out of the petty cash.’

‘Now you’re talking,’ said Lulu. ‘Making converts is more my style. Especially middle-class converts. Any tea going?’

‘The kitchen’s along the corridor,’ said Paul. ‘There’s sugar and milk. Make a pot for two and I’ll have a cup with you.’

‘You’ll be lucky,’ said Lulu. ‘Dead lucky. I’m nobody’s skivvy.’

‘All right,’ said Paul, getting up from his desk, ‘I’ll make it myself. I’m thirsty.’

‘I’m worn out,’ said Lulu.

‘D’you take sugar?’

‘No sugar. Ta.’

Paul, going to the kitchen, thought about the oversexed bloke trying to get her dress off. That was no laughing matter, no, not a bit.

All the same, he was grinning as he filled the kettle.

That evening, Boots was doing one or two jobs on his old but still reliable Riley car. With Saturday’s journey to Cornwall in mind, he had the sparking plugs out and was cleaning them, much to the fascination of James. Gemma, however, thought nothing of soppy things like plugs, and much more about sandy beaches.

‘Daddy, are we going to have buckets and spades for sandcastles?’ she asked, hovering close.

‘Going to?’ said Boots. ‘You’ve got them.’

‘Daddy, mine’s got a rusty bottom,’ said Gemma.

‘Rusty bottom?’ Boots, using a little wire brush on a plug, smiled. ‘Sounds painful.’

‘Yes, and it’ll fall out, I should think,’ said Gemma.

‘Well, I’ll have a look at it, and if its condition is serious, we’ll buy you a new one when we get there,’ said Boots.

‘Crumbs, you’re a sport, Daddy,’ said Gemma, piquant features shining with pleasure.

‘And he knows about cars, don’t you, Daddy?’ said James, rag in his hand and ready to give each cleaned plug a finishing wipe.

‘A little,’ said Boots.

‘I’m going to drive racing cars when I’m old enough,’ said James.

‘So am I, then,’ said Gemma.

‘You’re a girl,’ said James.

‘Yes, and I’m nice too,’ said Gemma. ‘Aren’t I, Daddy?’

‘You’re a poppet,’ said Boots, handing a plug to James.

‘Girls don’t drive racing cars,’ said James, wiping the plug with the rag and with serious concentration.

‘But I won’t be a girl for ever,’ said Gemma, ‘not when I’m grown-up.’

‘She’s daft,’ said James, but not without a hint of affection. He and Gemma had their arguments and their yelling moments, but woe betide any misguided kid who upset James’s twin sister in one way or another. He would wade in, fists flying in defence of her.

‘But I won’t be a girl for ever, will I, Daddy?’ said Gemma.

‘Not when you’re eighty,’ said Boots, handing another plug to James.

‘Crumbs, I don’t want to be eighty,’ said Gemma, ‘well, not yet I don’t.’