The Bells of Bow (21 page)

Evie flicked her hair over her shoulder. ‘I can’t help being gorgeous.’ Then she stuck her hands on her hips. ‘So are yer gonna hang around here gassing all day, Babs, or are yer coming to work with me?’

Babs looked at her watch, then pulled a shocked face at Blanche. ‘Blimey,’ she said, ‘we’re gonna be on time, two days in a row. Mr Silver’ll think his luck’s changed.’

Evie and Babs settled down at the work bench and picked up the first of the heavy front panels of the army greatcoats they were now working on at Styleways.

Lou looked blissful as she eased the thick khaki cloth of a collar under the foot of her machine. ‘I love doing these,’ she said happily. ‘I ain’t never been so well off.’ She laughed as she threw the finished collar onto an already toppling pile. ‘And me mum likes it and all. I ain’t hardly mumping off her at all now.’

‘Well, I think the bloody things are a right sodding nuisance,’ Ginny moaned as she heaved another completed sleeve onto the pile that was next to her seat. ‘As if soldiers need these bloody heavy old things in this weather.’

Evie carried on with her machining as though Ginny hadn’t spoken, but Lou and Babs rolled their eyes at each other. ‘Flipping missog,’ Lou mouthed at Babs so that Joan, who was sitting next to her, couldn’t hear what she said. At the far end of the bench, Maria, who was sitting next to Ginny, said in her quiet, unassuming way, ‘Some of the places where the soldiers have to fight might be very cold. I bet they’re glad of coats like these.’

‘What did you say?’ Ginny asked incredulously.

Maria repeated what she had said, then added, ‘I like to think that the coats are keeping some brave soldiers warm.’ She held up a piece of paper and looked at it shyly. ‘I put these little notes in the pockets, saying I wish ’em all well and that.’

Ginny shook her head in disbelief and turned to Joan who was sitting on the other side of her. ‘I did, I heard her right the first time.’

Joan giggled.

Ginny turned back to face Maria. ‘I really thought that I must have heard yer wrong ’cos, honestly, I just couldn’t fathom out how yer could actually say them things.’ Her voice and her expression were savage as she leaned close to Maria. ‘You just don’t understand, do yer, yer stupid bloody Eytie. As if they’d wanna have notes in their pockets from the likes of you, the bloody enemy. No better than the Jerries, you mob.’

Evie was on her feet before Ginny had finished speaking.

‘You wanna pick on someone, Ginny, you try me for size.’

‘
You
ain’t a dirty foreigner, are yer?’ Ginny still sounded cocky but she didn’t look so confident.

‘Nor’s she, not that it’s got anything to do with it,’ said Babs, joining Evie behind Ginny’s chair.

Ginny kept her head down as she spoke. ‘Her old man’s dad was an Eytie, weren’t he? That’s the same as being a foreigner.’

Now Maria was standing up as well. ‘My grandad was Italian, yeah, but he lived over here since he was two years old.’

Evie put her arm round Maria’s shoulder. ‘Yer don’t have to explain yerself to that mean-minded, hatchet-faced old tart,’ she said. ‘And
you
don’t have to side with her neither,’ she said, looking at Joan.

Joan gulped and started working on making up a stack of pocket linings.

Ginny poked Joan on her flabby arm. ‘Yer know there was all fighting up Clerkenwell way again last night, don’t yer? And in Soho, my dad reckons.’ She turned back to Maria. ‘They’ve been smashing up all the Eytie shops and cafes ’cos of them joining up with Hitler in that Axis lot.’

Joan looked round. Evie and Babs were still standing behind Ginny’s chair. Joan might have let herself be easily led by Ginny but she wasn’t stupid; she knew when the odds were against her. ‘I don’t think people should be horrible like that,’ she ventured. ‘Not to people they know. They ain’t all bad.’

Ginny glared at Joan, furious at her disloyalty, then turned her stare back on Maria. ‘What do you think, Axis?’ she demanded, but she didn’t give her the chance to reply. ‘Course, they don’t smash up the places what’ve got protection from crooks and gangsters,’ she went on, glancing slyly under her lashes at Evie. ‘There’s a lot of blokes making plenty o’ money out of protection, so I’ve heard.’

‘That’s it,’ fumed Evie. ‘I’ve had enough.’ She drew back her fist and was just about to let Ginny have it on the nose when Mr Silver walked in.

‘Not working, ladies?’ he asked, perfectly calmly.

‘You don’t know how lucky you were,’ Evie hissed at Ginny as she and the others returned to their seats.

‘I just wanted to let you know the news I’ve just heard.’ He paused, took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. ‘Paris has fallen. We’re all going to have to do our very best in whatever way we can. It seems like the war’s getting nearer every day.’

Everyone was silent, shocked; with news like that, even Ginny didn’t have the heart to make a sarcastic or clever-dick remark.

Two days later, when Georgie was crossing the street on his way to his regular Sunday morning session in the Drum, he almost ran into Maudie Peters as she made her way to church.

‘Good morning, Mr Bell,’ Maudie said with a shy dip of her head.

Georgie nodded. ‘Morning, Miss Peters.’ He felt the colour rise in his cheeks as he remembered that the last time he’d seen her was three weeks ago when she’d been in the pub on the twins’ birthday. He smiled sheepishly. ‘Ain’t seen yer around for a while,’ he said, taking off his cap.

Maudie smiled. Georgie was surprised at how nice it made her look.

‘Well, I suppose I’m like everybody else at a time like this, Mr Bell, I’m doing what I can to help. Nothing much, just things through the church. Sending parcels and going to comfort families whose sons or husbands are away.’ She flashed her surprisingly girlish smile at him again. ‘In fact, I’m on my way to church now. It’s the National Day of Prayer for those poor, suffering people in France. You’d be very welcome to join me.’ She looked away and added softly, ‘If you’d like to, I mean.’

Georgie wrung his cap round and round in his hands. He didn’t know what had got into him, he was blushing like a schoolboy. ‘I’d love to come,’ he stuttered, ‘but I’ve got a lot on at the minute.’

‘Of course,’ Maudie said hurriedly. ‘I wasn’t thinking. It must be so demanding bringing up two girls all alone. I’ve often thought what a good job you’ve made of such a difficult task, Mr Bell. You must be very proud of them.’

Georgie nodded dumbly.

‘I must be going now, I hate being late.’ Maudie straightened her already perfectly placed hat. ‘Perhaps you could join me at church some other time.’

Georgie nodded again. ‘I’d like to, thanks,’ he mumbled, barely audibly.

As he stood and watched Maudie walk away from him along Darnfield Street and then turn into Grove Road, he shook his head, totally bemused with himself. Why had he said that?

The next evening, Monday, at nine o’clock, the news that everyone had been dreading was finally broadcast on the wireless: France had surrendered to Germany. In the baker’s the following morning, it was all that Minnie and Clara could talk about when they went to buy their bread from Rita Chalmers.

‘Hitler?’ said Minnie in a cross between a sneer and a gulping sob. ‘Don’t talk to me about that crafty-looking, swivel-eyed rotter.’ She folded her arms across her broad, aproned front and tapped her toe as though impatient to be let loose on the object of her hatred. ‘I know what I’d do with the greasy-haired rat if I got hold of him.’ She jerked her head in what she thought might be the general direction of the Continent – which was actually more towards Bethnal Green way – then sighed sadly and said, ‘All them poor sods over there in France. Terrible, it is. Terrible. Fancy having to surrender to that no good, ugly-headed worm.’

Rita nodded her agreement as she sliced up a large slab of bread pudding that Bert had just carried up from the basement in a big, blackened tray. ‘I have to say that I …’ she began, but a sudden rush of assorted little Jenners bursting through the shop doorway stopped her.

‘Got any broken biscuits, missus?’ piped up the tallest of the tiny troupe.

‘Yeah, I have,’ Rita sighed, waiting for the inevitable retort.

‘Well mend ’em then!’ they screeched in gleeful unison and darted out of the shop, shrieking and squealing like little piglets.

‘Them kids,’ said Clara kindly.

‘Yeah, they’re all right, bless ’em,’ said Minnie with an indulgent smile.

‘Yeah, nice to see ’em enjoying ’emselves,’ said Rita, who was actually more preoccupied with sniffing appreciatively at the bread pudding than worrying about the youngsters and their games. ‘Yer know,’ she said wistfully, ‘if he wasn’t me husband already, I’d propose to that Bert o’ mine tomorrow, this smells that good.’ She smiled happily to herself as she wrapped two hefty chunks of the dark, greasy confection in a piece of stiff, waxed paper. ‘Plenty o’ currants and spice in that,’ she said with a wink, handing the parcel over to Minnie to put in her string bag. ‘Nice and tasty with a cup o’ tea for yer.’

‘We’ll have that this afternoon,’ said Minnie, hooking the bag over her plump forearm. ‘After we’ve finished all our cleaning jobs, me and Clara get indoors, put the kettle on and like to have a little sit-down before we get on with our bit of knitting.’ Minnie looked at her friend. ‘We’re both doing loads of knitting, ain’t we, Clara?’

Clara nodded with a self-effacing smile. ‘Yeah, we are. Loads.’

‘It’s our way of doing our bit, yer see.’ Minnie’s voice had a catch in it as she continued, ‘Makes us think about the last war and how we tried to help by doing our bit then, don’t it?’ Minnie patted Clara’s arm affectionately and said to Rita, ‘Not a day goes by when we both don’t say and think something or other about our husbands, does it?’

Clara shook her head.

‘They say time heals, but I ain’t so sure. It still hurts me to think about my Fredrick, and I know Clara feels the same about her Alf, God rest their souls.’

‘That’s right,’ sniffed Clara.

‘Yer know, Rita,’ Minnie said, trying to be brave, ‘I’ll bet there’s plenty of other widows what was left from that terrible time who feel exactly the same as me and Clara, but it don’t make it no easier to know that you’re not the only ones.’ She stood there silently for a moment, lost in her heartbreaking thoughts. Then, briskly pulling herself together, she patted her tight, steel-grey perm, leant across the counter to Rita and said in a loud, exaggerated whisper as though what she had to say was a state secret: ‘We’re giving all the socks what we knit to Miss Peters so’s she can take ’em round the church and then they send ’em abroad to all our boys over there.’ She acknowledged the existence of the Continent – and abroad generally – with another vague nod, this time in the direction of Victoria Park. ‘Or wherever they are. You know.’

Rita smiled, showing that she did indeed know.

Minnie pointed up to the photograph of Rita and Bert’s son in his RAF uniform, which was pinned in pride of place on the back wall of the little shop. ‘You just let us know where your young Billy’s stationed and we’ll send him a few pairs, special like, made out o’ nice soft wool so’s his feet won’t rub in them big boots they have to wear.’

Rita struggled to keep smiling as she thought of her only child all those miles away from her, going through who knew what deprivations and dangers. ‘That’s very nice of yer,’ she said gratefully. ‘I’m sure he’d appreciate it. And I know I would.’

‘Who’d appreciate what?’ The familiarly suspicious voice of doom came from Alice Clarke as she entered the baker’s shop, her sharp, red-tipped nose ready to sniff out any hint of a story that might try and escape her inbuilt radar for a bit of juicy gossip.

Rita rolled her eyes at Clara while Minnie rounded on Alice. ‘What we’d
all
appreciate,’ Minnie snapped, with only a hint of the sarcasm she felt actually showing, ‘is people being pleasant to one another and not running no one down.’

‘How can you expect people to be pleasant in these times?’ Alice threw up her arms in despair as she positioned her scrawny backside on the wooden chair left beside the counter for customers to rest on. ‘I’ve got more than enough to put up with without having to worry about other people and their bloody problems.’

As Alice set about listing her personal hardships, Rita, Minnie and Clara flashed disbelieving looks at one another. ‘What with marge and cooking fat on ration now as well, not to mention tea.’ She waved her ration book threateningly at Clara. ‘I mean, a quarter a week between me and Nobby. How we meant to get by on that, eh? You just tell me that. Go on, tell me.’

Clara blinked, not knowing what to say.

But Minnie knew all right, Alice couldn’t intimidate her. ‘So how d’yer think Rita and Bert manage?’ she demanded with a querulous raising of her eyebrows. ‘Or me and Clara?’

‘You two are a different case, two women living together.’ Alice looked Minnie and Clara up and down with a distasteful shudder. ‘And I’ve got me grandson to think about. Not that you pair’d know anything about normal families with grandchildren, but whenever our young Micky comes round he always wants a bit o’ grub. That’s what youngsters are like, yer see. Can’t fill ’em up. Terrible, it is, how I’m having to manage like I am.’

Minnie and Clara shook their heads in wonder at Alice’s gall, but it was left to Rita to voice the feeling of disgust that all three women felt for Alice’s sneering prejudice. ‘Yeah, course, we forget you’re the only one with a normal family, Alice, and how you’re suffering’s far more serious than them poor buggers in France having to surrender to the Germans.’

Apparently oblivious of their scorn, Alice pursed her lips and continued with her grouching. ‘I dunno about no Frenchies,’ she snorted, tightening her already closely-knotted turban, ‘but if this hot summer goes on like I bet it will, I dunno how I’m gonna cope. Yer know, I reckon it’s hotter indoors over there in number five than it is in your ovens. The heat’s terrible. I dunno how I’m managing at my age.’

Minnie was tempted to point out that she and Clara were only a couple of years younger than she was and that they actually lived upstairs in number five where it was much hotter anyway, so they did indeed know about the discomfort, but she thought better of it. She had more important things to do than get into arguments with Alice.