The Street

‘Alright, gel?’ he greeted Tilly.

She mumbled a response, her eyes flashing dislike at him.

Jimmy smirked and unconsciously flexed the muscles in his naked arms. He knew Tilly despised him yet it didn’t stop him preening. Such was his conceit that he thought every woman must find him irresistible. He’d plenty of time on his hands to keep himself in shape by sparring with the lads at the YMCA in Pooles Park. His eyes lingered on Tilly, running over her top to bottom. He was just waiting for the right opportunity to impress on her once again he was a bloke you didn’t mess with. He’d done so once before,. She’d deserved another lesson on numerous occasions since. It might have been a while ago but he hadn’t forgotten the way she’d showed him up in the street when he’d been caught out with Nellie. His pals still ribbed him over it and made him feel a bloody fool. He was more careful with Nellie now. They’d had to make use of alleys and dark corners instead of her room along the road.

But Nellie was pulling in a good few quid a week from working the streets up west and sometimes Jimmy thought he might be better off moving in with her. He didn’t see why he should knock himself out acting as Jack’s labourer doing painting and decorating, or helping Billy the Totter for a few measly bob a day, if he could act as Nellie’s manager and take a bit of commission off her.

‘Oi, daydreamer . . .’ Jack called and started Jimmy from his brooding. He undid the rope that had lashed the piano to the cart.

‘Where d’you get this fucker then, Jack?’ Jimmy enquired past the drooping dog-end in his mouth.

‘Off old man Bailey. He said he’d give me first refusal on it. He kept to his word. Been put by since Christmas.’

‘You give him a deposit?’ Tilly demanded shrewdly. She knew that Victor Bailey had a secondhand furniture store in Holloway Road. She knew too that he wasn’t generally soft-hearted. He was a wily businessman.

Last Christmas things had been tight for money and the kids had had just one stocking, filled mainly with bruised fruit and a few liquorice sticks, to share between them. If she thought for one moment that money that could have been well spent had been put down on a piano and left there for six months she’d put a hammer through the poxy thing right now.

‘I didn’t give him nuthin’,’ Jack soothed, knowing the way his wife’s mind worked. ‘He kept to his word ’cos I did him a favour and mended the lock on his door when he was burgled.’

Tilly’s acceptance of that explanation was limited to a jerk of her chin. She watched as the two men proceeded into the house lugging the piano between them. She glanced around to see that they had drawn a few spectators. She threw back her fiery head and gave a loud chuckle. ‘What’s up? None of yers seen a bleedin’ piana before?’ she bawled out, spinning on the spot in glee. Then gripping her skirts she followed Jack and Jimmy in to the house.

‘Mum . . .’

Tilly gathered up the old sheet in her arms then spun about to look at Alice. She narrowed her eyes on her daughter. ‘What’s that look fer? What you after?’

Alice chewed her lip. ‘Don’t go mad . . . but . . .’

‘Spit it out, girl,’ Tilly said and folded her arms with the sheet bundled against her chest. ‘I ain’t got all day to stand about.’

They were in the bedroom that Alice shared with her sisters. Tilly had got hold of a decent sheet off Billy the Totter to replace the threadbare scrap that had covered the dirty mattress the girls slept on. Alice had just helped her mother put the new one on the bed whilst trying to pluck up courage to ask the favour that had been playing over in her mind. Oddly she thought she had a good chance of her mum agreeing to what she wanted. She could be awful in some ways but nice in others.

‘It’s about Sarah . . . she’s got in right trouble again.’

‘Oh, yeah?’

‘Well, you know I said she’d moved round the corner to stay with her dad ’cos Louisa won’t leave her alone and keeps hitting her over that blouse?’

‘Yeah . . .’ Tilly said in a drawn-out way.

‘Well, she can’t stay with her dad no more ’cos he’s moving to Bethnal Green to get a job and if Sarah goes she’ll have to go to a different school and she don’t want to ‘n’ nor do I want it ’cos she’s me friend.’ Alice drew breath to renew her appeal. ‘She can’t go home ’cos of Louisa and also ’cos her mum’s took in Louisa’s friend who pays rent. There’s no room there now.’

‘And?’

‘Can she stay here for a while? Just till . . .’

‘Just till what?’ Tilly asked, but she gave a rare smile. ‘You’re too soft, my gel. It’s gonna do you no favours when yer older.’

‘So can she stop here for a while? Till the lodger moves out?’

‘Just for a while till she gets it all sorted out. I’ll take Beth in our bed fer a bit. Sarah can kip in with you ‘n’ Sophy. But you tell her that if she’s gonna expect a bit of grub Ginny’d better stump up the necessary. You tell her or I will.’

Alice rushed to her mother and hugged her about the waist. ‘Thanks, Mum.’

‘Get off with you.’ Tilly elbowed herself free. ‘Now let’s get on. Yer dad’ll be back soon and wantin’ something to eat.’

Chapter Six

‘I’m arresting you lot if that fire’s not out by the time I come back.’

‘You ’noose army, rozzer?’

Constable Bickerstaff took a threatening step towards the bonfire, fingers stroking the truncheon on his hip. Through a mirage materialised two men’s faces, their grins highlighted by fierce flames.

‘Aw, c’mon, mate . . . just roastin’ me chestnuts . . .’ one of the men lewdly implored for lenience.

‘You know rules are no street fires; now put the bugger out,’ Twitch bellowed. ‘It’s hot enough tonight as it is without you making it worse than it needs to be.’

As though to reinforce his argument Sidney Bickerstaff peeled his serge collar away from his sticky skin and wiped it with a handkerchief. He took a glance about. It was ten o’clock on a Saturday evening in late summer and dusk had settled long ago. It might have been three o’clock in the afternoon. Campbell Road never slept. At any time of day or night you might find it bustling with people young and old, and reeking of unwashed humanity and indeterminate rotting debris. At the height of summer the stench and noise was just so much worse. The domestic cacophony escaped through windows and doors flung wide in the forlorn hope of letting in fresh air. It wasn’t unusual at this time of year to see people sleeping on carts in the street to escape the stifling conditions in the overcrowded houses.

Sidney Bickerstaff and Ralph Franks had just passed a grizzled old fellow playing a barrel organ and stopped a group of louts from tormenting him and his monkey. The boys had scattered, shouting abuse, but Twitch knew if he turned around he’d see them peeping round the corner of Paddington Street at him. They’d simply wait till he disappeared into Seven Sisters before looking for mischief again. He knew too the street gamesters who’d hared off, after grabbing up dice and cards and coins that’d been strewn on the pavement, would reconvene on the corner outside the doss house as soon as the coast was clear.

‘I’m sweltering here,’ Constable Ralph Franks complained as he sought his older, stouter colleague as lee from the illegal bonfire. ‘We’re not coming back this evening, so might as well turn a blind eye.’ He turned to squint at the blaze. ‘Leave ’em be. With any luck they’ll burn the whole bleeding street down and do everyone a favour.’ He broke off grumbling as he glimpsed the girl he found attractive. She’d seen him too and was casting sideways looks his way while chatting to another girl. The one he fancied was a definite looker whereas that lump of lard standing next to her was ugly enough to put a bloke off his beer.

As the young constable turned away from her Connie Whitton smiled and wondered what coppers got paid and if that particular copper had a wife or sweetheart. If he did, it wouldn’t stop her. It wouldn’t stop him either; the randy git couldn’t keep his eyes off her when they met. If she took up with him, or any copper, she’d get the cold shoulder round here. That wouldn’t worry her. She was itching to get away from the lot of them. Her mother was driving her mad, taking all her wages, then collapsing on the couch she used as a bed. She never stopped drinking and moaning. Her sister Louisa stank the place out because she sweated so much and never bothered to wash. She looked across the road and saw her sister Sarah sitting with the Keiver kids on the steps outside their house. Sarah had been living away from home for months and it didn’t seem to bother her younger sister one bit to be away from her family. Connie knew how she felt.

On noticing the two policemen were heading off in Sarah’s direction, Connie sauntered over to say hello to her sister and put herself in the young constable’s way again.

‘What d’you want?’ was Sarah’s blunt reply to her sister’s cheery greeting.

‘Party goin’ on in there, is it?’ Connie cocked her head to listen to the unmistakeable sound of a piano being thumped and some raucous singing accompanying it.

‘What if it is? You ain’t invited, anyhow,’ Sarah flatly told Connie.

‘No need to be like that, Sar,’ Connie complained. ‘Ain’t my fault Louisa set about you and started it all off. Ain’t my fault either that Dad moved off to Bethnal and left you behind.’

‘He didn’t leave me,’ Sarah muttered. ‘I wanted to stay behind.’

‘What’s all that racket?’ Twitch asked, earning his nickname twice in rapid succession. He’d crossed the street to stand and glare up at the open window out of which, at that precise moment, sailed an empty brown bottle. It narrowly missed Alice’s head and smashed on the pavement. Alice jumped up and scraped shards together with her foot.

‘Just me mum ‘n’ dad ‘n’ a few friends having a singsong,’ Alice cautiously told Twitch, still shifting broken glass. She knew, as did everyone in these parts, that you had as little as possible to do with the law. She sat down again and one of her hands dived into the newspaper containing the chips she was sharing with Sarah. They’d been sitting on the pavement for some while talking about this and that and every so often going indoors to jig about on the fringes of the adults or snatch a drink of lemonade. But this weekend the temperature had soared and it was too crowded and hot in there for the youngsters to want to stay too long. They got crushed and elbowed by adults boozing and swaying and roaring out songs.

Since Jack had brought home the piano it had been a regular occurrence on Saturday evening to have a get together – and it went on for as long as limited space and sobriety would allow. Usually by the early hours of Sunday the guests who were still standing had stumbled off home and an uneasy peace was to be had till morning.

Twitch continued to gaze at the window with his hands clasped behind his back. It was a racket, no doubt about it, but if Bunk residents stayed on their own patch it meant he and Franks encountered fewer disorderly drunks while on the beat. And Tilly Keiver was one of the most difficult drunks to deal with. About to share that observation with his colleague, Twitch realised Ralph had wandered off and was talking to the pretty Whitton girl.

‘You’re fairly new around here, ‘n’t yer?’ Connie struck up conversation and lowered her eyelashes. Close to he wasn’t bad looking at all for a flatfoot.

‘Yeah . . .’ Ralph said. ‘And I wish I wasn’t.’

Connie glanced up from beneath her lashes. ‘Stay long enough you might just find something about The Bunk you like.’

‘Like what?’ Ralph eyed her calculatingly. ‘You know of some sort of compensation for me being stuck in the worst street in North London on a Saturday night?’

‘Yeah . . . might do . . . might know of something . . .’ Connie pouted. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Ralph Franks.’

‘I’m Connie . . . Connie Whitton. I live up the other end a bit; better end, you might call it.’

‘I might,’ Ralph said sarcastically. ‘But I doubt it.’ He moved away from her, conscious of his colleague’s ears flapping.

‘Well, might see you again . . . when you come back for your compensation,’ Connie added slyly.

‘Ready to go then, are we?’ Twitch asked with a very old-fashioned look lifting his brows beneath his helmet. ‘Able to march back to the station, are you, with your balls on fire?’ he added with acid amusement as they plodded on towards the corner that turned into Seven Sisters Road.

Franks scowled and said nothing but his restless hands plunged a little deeper into his pockets.

‘So . . . found something desirable about the place, have you?’

‘She’s probably on the game . . . hard to know with any of that lot what they get up to.’ Ralph frowned into space.

‘If she was on the game, son, she wouldn’t be hanging around here on a Saturday night. She’d be up west somewhere earning a fortune with those looks.’

‘Are they trouble?’

‘Who, the Keivers? I wouldn’t mess with them for no reason.’

‘Nah. The Whittons.’

‘The Whittons.’ Twitch grunted a laugh. ‘Now let me see. What you’ve got there is one mad old mother, a father who’s had sense enough to have it away on his toes before he goes crackers too, a son dead of disease and three daughters. Lenny died of something or other when he was just about old enough to go to work. I think that’s what sent the mother into a decline . . . the thought of his lost wages. As for the girls . . . you’ve got a fat ugly one, a skinny schoolgirl and the novice tart you just spoke to. So, all in all, I suppose you’d have to say they’re a pretty average mob for around here.’

‘Come ‘n’ play us a tune, Al,’ Jack called to Alice as she tried to slip past him in the crowded room. Jack pulled her onto the stool beside him and affectionately ruffled her dark hair.

‘Don’t know any tunes, Dad,’ Alice said with a grin but she plinked and plonked up and down on the ivories, making some inharmonious noise while her dad took a break from performing. He flexed his fingers then supped from the pint glass on top of the piano. The other men might drink straight from the bottle but her dad liked to take his ale with a bit more style.

‘Come on, Jack, get goin’ again while I’m in the mood,’ Jimmy Wild yelled before swigging from the bottle in his fist.

Alice swivelled on the seat to look about. Her eyes met Jimmy’s and he gave her a wink. Not so long ago she would have shared the private moment and winked right back. But now, since he’d got her in to trouble with her mum over that half a crown, she felt differently about him. She was beginning to understand that Uncle Jimmy wasn’t as nice and friendly as he liked people to think. She was coming to believe that perhaps it wasn’t half a dozen of one, six of the other when he and Aunt Fran were going at it hammer and tongs. And perhaps Bobbie and Stevie hadn’t misbehaved enough to deserve the bruises she’d seen on them at school. She suspected that her uncle just needed to be in a bad mood over something to act mean.

He’d been mean to her. He must have known that she’d get a wallop off her mum for taking his half a crown. She’d thought that a little secret existed between them yet he’d told on her straight away. His wink and that secret stare now made an odd feeling squirm in her stomach. She half-smiled at him but looked away quickly, her eyes flitting about the cramped room.

She’d left Sarah on the pavement and only come in to get them a drink of pop . . . if any was left in the bottle. If not she was going to ask her dad for a bit of money so they could get some from the shop. Since her dad had got a good job with Basher Payne money hadn’t been so tight and being cheeky and asking for a few coppers didn’t naturally get you a clip round the ear. Her dad had waylaid her and she’d stopped where she was rather than slipping back outside because she enjoyed having his attention.

‘Come on, give us a little tune, Monkey,’ her dad fondly invited her, using the pet nickname he had for her.

‘Alright, Freckles,’ she teased him back and rubbed a tickling finger over the speckled skin on his jaw. ‘Glad I’m not a Freckles,’ she said provocatively.

Jack touched the mark. ‘It’s me beauty spot,’ he said, as he always did when ribbed over the blemish. ‘I know you’d like one just like it really.’

Alice chuckled and picked out a simple chord that he’d taught her when they’d first got the piano. Her dad accompanied her lightly, encouraging her to try again when she hit a wrong note. Finally Alice gestured she’d had enough and looked around for her mum. She was squashed up against the mantelpiece with Aunt Fran. Both of them drinking whiskey by the look of it. Aunt Fran’s best skirt barely outlined the little mound of her pregnant belly. Most of the people who had lodgings in the house were either crammed into the room or were out on the landing. Even old Mr Prewett from the landing below – who was known to be a bit of a misery guts – was sitting on the bed edge, tapping his good foot in anticipation of her dad soon starting to play a new tune.

Margaret Lovat bent her head close to Alice’s and shouted over the rollicking din, ‘You seen my Danny, Alice?’

‘He’s just outside on the pavement with all of us,’ Alice answered.

‘Tell him to nip next door ‘n’ see to the little ’uns, will you, in case Geoff’s gone out.’

Alice got up from beside her dad and slipped out and into the back room. Mrs Lovat had just reminded her that her baby sister might need her attention. It was usually her job to make sure that Bethany and Lucy were taken care of while the adults enjoyed themselves and got drunk. Not that her mum asked her to do it. She was probably too under the influence to even remember she had kids some of the time. She just assumed Alice would look out for the younger ones.

By the light of a tiny flame in an oil lamp balanced precariously on the seat of a chair Alice could see Bethany was dozing on the bed next to Lucy. The room stank and the unmistakeable sound of flies could be heard buzzing. Alice turned up the flame. She looked down at Lucy. She was awake and smiled at her despite the fact that a fly crawled in the milky sick on her chin.

Alice flicked it away and found what she needed to clean her up. She wiped her face with a rag then attended to her bottom end. Alice felt herself gag as the stench intensified. Quickly she bundled the filthy nappy onto the floor and cleaned Lucy’s bottom. She then put a clean scrap of cotton on her and picked her up.

‘When I go . . . I’ll take you with me,’ she promised her. ‘I’ll always be around if you need me,’ she whispered against her soft, musky cheek. She put her back down on the bed close to Bethany then, picking up the stinking nappy, she took it out, hoping that most of the flies would follow.

‘Lucy’s nappy,’ Alice said by way of explanation as Sophy wrinkled her nose at her. Alice had tried to rinse her hands under the tap on the landing but the place was so packed it was hard to get to the water and wash properly. She felt a little embarrassed and annoyed at Sophy for miming she stank in front of Danny. ‘Anyhow, your mum said you’ve got to go ‘n’ check on the little ’uns,’ she told Danny.

Danny muttered beneath his breath but got to his feet.

‘I’ll come with you,’ Sophy immediately volunteered.

A significant look seemed to pass between the two of them. ‘Nah . . . ’s’alright,’ Danny mumbled. ‘Geoff might be in there. Not seen him go out. Not that he’s any bleedin’ use with the kids. He’s probably akip.’

‘You two been making plans then?’ Alice asked when they were alone. Sarah had gone off to the shop with her sister Connie to get some sherbert.

Alice knew that Danny had just started a new job down the market helping on a costermonger’s stall. Despite having boasted months ago he wouldn’t be taking dead-end errand-boy jobs, that was what he’d started off with. To save face he said he’d taken it because he got a bike to use for deliveries. He’d bring the bike home at dinnertime and give the Keiver kids and his brothers and sisters lifts on the cross bars up and down the road. But misuse of the bike wasn’t why he’d got the sack. The grocer had got suspicious about the amount of stale loaves and broken biscuits that went missing rather than being sold on at a discount. Of course, he couldn’t prove that Danny had had them . . . but he reckoned it’d seemed odd that Mrs Lovat never seemed to need to buy bread to go with her margarine and jam.

Chapter Seven

‘I’m going to ask you a straight question and you’d better give me a straight answer.’ Tilly was talking to Sophy but she suddenly shot a frown at Alice. ‘Wait outside.’

Alice did as she was told and descended the stairs. She loitered first in the musty hallway then, when the sensation of debris, blown in by the wind, fluttering against her feet began to irritate, she went to breathe in the sweeter atmosphere of a dull and misty mid-November morning. She stuffed her hands in her pockets and shivered against the chill whilst her mind began turning over possible reasons why her mum would want a private talk with Sophy. From several painful experiences Alice had learned that usually no good reason prompted their mother to get you on your own.

She heard a clattering of footsteps on the stairs and saw her cousins Bobbie and Stevie emerge from the murky hallway. Alice noticed that one of Stevie’s cheeks looked red.

‘Your dad clouted yer?’ Alice asked him sympathetically.

Stevie sniffed and cuffed at his nose. ‘Nah . . . got it off me mum,’ he said.

‘He wet the bed again,’ Bobbie said and dodged as his brother swung out at him. ‘He’ll get a belt off dad ‘n’ all tonight if he smells piss on the sheet.’ Bobbie started trotting down the road.

‘Why don’t you shut yer gob,’ Stevie snarled after him before he slunk past Alice.

Various people were coming out of the tenement houses: adults going off to work, children on their way to school. Alice returned a simple greeting to people who hailed her whilst her mind still brooded on what was going on upstairs. She gazed up at the battered sash window as though wishing to peer in it and ease her curiosity. It seemed she’d been waiting ages for Sophy. Slowly her faraway vision dropped, focused on Sarah Whitton who was on her way down the road towards her.

Sarah had lodged with the Keivers until last month. Then Tilly had said enough was enough. She’d wanted Beth out of her bed and again in the back room with the other girls. So Sarah had had to return home. Sarah had wanted to stay but Alice had been oddly relieved and had only half-heartedly backed her friend’s pleas to stay. Since the piano had arrived and taken pride of place in the front room their home was even more cramped than usual. But it certainly had been well used and even her mum had grudgingly said it had been worth shelling out for.

‘What you hangin’ about for?’ Sarah asked as she drew level with Alice. ‘Be late if you don’t get going.’

‘Waiting for Sophy. Mum’s got her upstairs . . . talking to her,’ Alice added darkly.

‘She in trouble?’ Sarah asked with a grimace.

‘Dunno . . . hope not,’ Alice replied and sent another look up at the top-floor window. She suddenly realised that she needed to get rid of Sarah so that when Sophy eventually appeared she could find out what’d gone on. Sophy would clam up in front of Sarah. Their mum had drummed into them enough times that you never let anyone, including your friends, know too much about your family’s business. ‘You’d best be getting off or you’ll be late. Don’t hang about waiting for us.’

Sarah gave a shrug as though indicating she wasn’t too bothered about being late for registration but, after a few silent minutes, she sensed Alice’s withdrawal and mumbled a farewell. Alice watched her friend go and then took a few paces towards the desolate hallway. She wondered whether to creep back in and listen on the stairs to try and find out what was going on. She decided not to bother. If her mum were in any sort of paddy she’d be able to hear all about it just where she was.