The Orphans of Halfpenny Street

‘You’ve a good daughter there, Mrs O’Hanran,’ he’d said when he came to visit. ‘Respectable and devout, she’ll make a wonderful nurse.’

Ever since she was Mary Ellen’s age, Rose had dreamed of becoming a nurse one day, and the recent terrible war which had ended only two years earlier had made her even more eager to take up the profession.

‘When I see men fresh home from the war, with legs missing and awful scars, some of them so weak that they will never recover, I want to help them,’ Rose had told her young sister. ‘I only wish I had been old enough to go out to the Front – somewhere the fighting was at its worst – to help nurse the men. I could never work in an office or a dress shop when there is something more worthwhile to be done. Hitler is beaten, and London will recover from the Blitz in time, but the injuries some of those men received will never be healed.’

Rose wanted to help sick people, but she hated the slum area they’d been forced to live in after Pa died, and Mary Ellen knew she wanted to become a nurse so that she need never come back here. She was ashamed of their home and wanted something better. Mary Ellen didn’t care about such things, she just wanted to be at home with her mother … but after today she would be sent away and she wouldn’t be able to see or touch Ma …

Mary Ellen had often sat unseen on the stairs in the evenings and listened to her mother and sister talking in the kitchen. At nights, Ma lit the gas lamps and made a pot of tea, which they drank together, discussing subjects that they considered her too young to comprehend, but life hadn’t been easy since Pa died, and Mary Ellen understood grief all too well. She heard things that worried her, though she often made sense of only a fraction.

Yet she knew that Britain was still struggling to pay back its war debts and there were not enough decent jobs for able-bodied men, let alone those who could not do a full day’s work.

Everyone had hoped rationing would end with the war, but instead it seemed that every month they were told there would be less of something else. ‘Only one ounce of bacon per person per week now, and three pounds of potatoes,’ Ma complained when Rose came home with whatever she could find. ‘We shall all starve before they’ve done – and what was it all about, that’s what I’d like to know.’

‘Governments falling out like spoiled children,’ Rose said in a harsh tone. Ma sometimes complained that Rose was becoming a radical and too critical of politics and things that were best left to men, but that just made Rose toss her head and retort, ‘You’ll see, Ma. Women are going to have more to say in the future. It’s time ordinary people had enough to eat and decent homes to live in – it’s time women were equal to men, in wages and everything else.’

Ma would laugh and warn her that pride came before a fall, but Mary Ellen thought that her sister was right. Why shouldn’t women have more say in their lives? And it wasn’t right that people went hungry. Yet when she said so both Ma and Rose told her she was too young.

‘It’s not really the Government’s fault,’ Ma said. ‘There isn’t enough of everything to go round and things haven’t got going yet after the war.’

‘And who is to blame for all the shortages, the way the shops are empty even though the war has been over for months and months; more than two years? Who says we have to go on being rationed? No one has enough to eat, Ma. I can’t even buy a decent pair of shoes for work. What did all those men fight for if it wasn’t to make life better for us all? If those fat idiots in Westminster stopped rabbiting on and sorted things out perhaps we shouldn’t have to put up with all this austerity. With a country to rebuild there should be plenty of work for everyone and money to live decently – but it’s still hard to find work for most of the men, even though it may not be as bad as it was after the first big war.’

Mary Ellen sort of understood, because she was good at listening to people talking and because she was small and quiet they didn’t always realise she was there. She heard Mr Jones the butcher talking about the fact that he couldn’t get supplies of lamb from his usual suppliers.

The big freeze in January and February had made it seem that life in Austerity Britain could not get worse. And the floods in April with the resulting catastrophic loss of livestock, with millions of sheep drowned and arable crops flooded, had only aggravated the situation.

Yet here in the East End, which had taken much of the damage during those terrible nights of war when waves of bombers flew like great birds of prey over the city, disease and poverty still haunted the streets. Life had always been hard for these people and somehow they endured, though they never stopped moaning about the bloody Government. Moved by the pity and despair she saw in the faces of wounded men, returned to a life without work and precious little to eat, Rose was fired with a zeal to do what she could to put things right, to make life better for others as well as herself. A nursing career was the only way she knew to leave the poverty of the East End behind her and find the kind of life she wanted: a way of forgetting the drabness of life in Austerity Britain.

Mary Ellen admired her sister. Rose was dark-haired and beautiful, with her pert nose, full red lips and firm chin. She was also one of the most determined people that Mary Ellen had ever come across.

Mary Ellen finished chalking the squares for her game of hopscotch and then selected a flat stone from amongst the filth in the gutters. Her chores finished for the day, she’d come out to play while Ma had a rest on the bed, and they waited for Rose to return home from work with food for their tea.

Mary Ellen threw her stone into the first square and hopped into the one after it. She was preparing to perform a hop, skip and jump before turning to go back and pick up her stone when a voice spoke from behind her and made her start and lose her balance.

Turning, she saw a boy of similar age to her own. He was a little taller, dressed in long trousers that had been cut down from an old pair of his brother’s, a washed-out shirt and scuffed black boots. His dark auburn hair was tousled and unwashed, his nose red and dripping and there were streaks of dirt on his face where he’d rubbed it with his filthy hands. As she watched he wiped his nose on the back of his hand and then, to her disgust, slid his hand down his trousers. Ma might be ill and they might be poor, but Mary Ellen was clothed in an almost clean cotton pinafore skirt and blouse her mother had made before she became ill, and she had better manners than to wipe snot on her dress.

‘That’s rude, that is, Billy Baggins,’ she said. ‘What did you make me jump for? I shall have to start again now.’

‘I didn’t mean to, Mary Ellen,’ he answered meekly. ‘Can I play?’

‘You’ll have to find a stone,’ she said, looking at him curiously but without malice. Billy Baggins had no mother and his father had recently been killed in an incident on the Docks. Mr Baggins had been a bully with a loud voice, who hit both his sons whenever he was drunk, but at least he’d kept the family together and they hadn’t starved. Since his death, Billy’s elder brother had cleared off to no one knew where, and Billy had been collared by the authorities who had said he was going to be put into care.

Mary Ellen had felt sorry for him, because he might look unkempt and his manners were rough, but she knew he was kind and generous. When her own father had died, Billy had been the only one who understood how she felt, sharing his sherbet dip with her as they sat on the doorstep and she battled with her tears. He was her one real friend in these lanes and she’d missed him when he’d gone off to stay with his nanna. She knew how bad he must feel now that his own father was dead and all he had was an old lady and his rogue of a brother. ‘I thought you’d gone away?’ she said now.

‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘I’ve been stayin’ with me nanna in Whitechapel, but she was taken into hospital sudden and I came home ter see if Arfur had come back.’

‘Has he?’ Mary Ellen asked sympathetically, but with little expectation of a good outcome. Everyone knew that Arthur Baggins was a bad ’un.

‘Nah, didn’t fink he would’ve,’ Billy said. ‘Came ter make sure ’cos the bloody council bloke will ’ave me in a home afore you can sneeze if I don’t watch it.’

‘That’s bad, that is,’ Mary Ellen said, feeling her eyes sting with tears she would never dream of letting Billy see. They weren’t just for him, because it was going to happen to her too – and she hadn’t got anyone else she could go to, because her grandfather hadn’t even opened the door to them when Ma had tried to tell him she was ill. She hated the thought of leaving her home and being with people she didn’t know, and her voice wobbled as she asked, ‘What are you going to do?’

‘Don’t know,’ he said and pounced on a stone with glee. ‘This is a good ’un, this is.’ He showed it to Mary Ellen, who nodded her agreement. Because she was feeling sorry for him, she told him he could have first go. He grinned, showing a gap in his bottom set of teeth. ‘You’re the best friend I’ve got. I wish I could stay wiv you and your ma.’

‘Ma’s not well.’ Her heart felt as if it were being squeezed, because she was afraid of what was going to happen to her. ‘She’s got to go away … and that means I can’t stay here.’

‘Why ain’t your Rose ’ere then, if yer ma is bad?’

‘She’s going to be a nurse. She’ll work in a hospital and live in the home for nurses. She’s too busy to look after me, she said so.’

‘That’s bad fer yer then, Mary Ellen.’

‘Yes,’ Mary Ellen agreed unhappily, moving from one foot to the other. ‘Rose said they’re going to put me in St Saviour’s. I heard them talking about it the other night. I think Ma might go away to the hospital … somewhere a long way off …’

‘That’s rotten luck,’ Billy said. Then he threw his stone, did the feet-apart jump and the hopping motions, as he went up the squares and down again to retrieve his stone without a fault. ‘I reckon that’s where they might send me, St Saviour’s. I wouldn’t mind being sent there if I thought you would be there an’ all …’

‘No,’ she replied doubtfully, watching as he threw for the next square and set off again. He performed the actions perfectly. She wasn’t going to get a turn for ages at this rate. ‘What do you think they do to you at that place? Is it a house of correction? I don’t know what that is but I heard someone say they ought to send your Arthur there when they thought he broke into the corner shop …’

Billy looked anxious, because his brother had been in trouble with the police over that years ago, but no one could prove he’d done it and so he’d got away with the crime.

‘Nah,’ he said and threw his stone, which missed. He swore, a word that would have earned him a cuff round the ear from Mary Ellen’s mother. ‘It’s your turn. Proper put me off, that did – but St Saviour’s ain’t a punishment house. Those places are for bad boys, not orphans. Not that you’re an orphan, yer ma is still alive. Still, sometimes they put yer in a home even if both of ’em are still around. I heard as they’re all right at St Saviour’s – not like some places where they treat yer rotten. Nanna told me I should go there. She warned me she was too old to have the care of a young lad, and I reckon it’s the worry of it wot’s made her bad.’

‘I put you off; you can throw again,’ Mary Ellen offered, because he looked worried about his nanna, but he insisted it was her turn. She threw, hopped up the squares and executed a perfect turn, coming back to balance on one leg as she picked up her stone. ‘I reckon we’d be all right there together – it wouldn’t be as bad as if we were on our own and didn’t know anyone.’

‘All right,’ he said and gave her a wide grin. ‘If they say that’s where I’m goin’ I’ll let them put me there. I can always run orf if I don’t like it.’

‘Where would you go?’

‘Don’t know; I’d probably just hang about the streets until I could find Arfur. There’s plenty of bombsites wiv ’ouses half standin’ where you can hide. Me bruvver won’t have left the East End and he might let me stay wiv him if I asked,’ he said hopefully.

‘It would be better than living on the streets alone, I suppose.’ Mary Ellen didn’t much like Billy’s brother. He was mean and vicious and made her feel nervous when he looked at her. ‘Besides, you’re nine, aren’t you? How long can they keep you at places like that?’

‘If Dad was alive I should’ve gone to work down the Docks as soon as I was twelve, that’s wot he told me. I ain’t sure if it was legal but he said he’d be damned if he kept me any longer than me twelfth birthday. He was an old devil but I wish he was still around.’

‘You’ve only got three years until you can work then,’ Mary Ellen said with a sigh. ‘I’ve got ages more before I can train to be a nurse like Rose.’

‘Work’s a waste of time if yer ask me,’ he said, watching as she completed a second turn. ‘Arfur says he can earn more in one night than me farvver made in a month.’

‘What does Arthur do?’

‘I dunno,’ Billy said, but Mary Ellen thought he was lying. She could always tell, because his ears went red and so did his neck. Rose said Arthur was a thief for certain, but she couldn’t say that to her friend. She threw for a top square and missed, and Billy chortled, stepping in to throw his own stone. This time he landed it exactly where he wanted and set off up the squares. He was on his way back when Mary Ellen saw her sister coming down the lane and knew it was time to call a halt. Before she could speak the delivery boy screeched to a stop beside her.

‘Wotcha, Billy,’ Bertie Carter called. ‘I ain’t seen yer for a while. Where yer been?’

‘To stay wiv me nanna,’ Billy said, his attention turned. ‘What yer doin’, then?’

‘Got a job delivering sausages,’ Bertie said. ‘Me bloody pa’s drunk all his pay again so ma told me to get out and find a job.’

Mary Ellen saw Rose glaring at her and knew she would be annoyed to see her talking to two boys she would describe as being rogues.

‘I’ve got to go, Billy,’ she said. ‘It’s time for my tea now.’

‘All right,’ he agreed but looked disappointed. ‘It was nice seein’ yer, Mary Ellen. Don’t forget, if they put me in that home I shall be there waitin’ fer yer …’

‘I’m orf,’ Bertie said. ‘Yer can come wiv me, Billy. I’ll get a bag of chips on me way home and you can share ’em.’

‘All right,’ Billy agreed.

Whistling, he ran off after Bertie, the pair of them reaching the end of the lane just as Rose came up to Mary Ellen. She stared after him with a look of annoyance on her pretty face. ‘Was that that Baggins boy?’

‘Yes. His nanna’s gone into hospital and he came to see if his brother is back, but he isn’t – and they’re going to put him in a home.’

‘In my opinion they should have done it long ago,’ Rose said. ‘If he’s left to run the streets he will turn out just like that good-for-nothing brother of his …’

‘Billy isn’t like his brother.’

‘Ma told you not to have anything to do with him, Mary Ellen, and now I’m telling you. He comes from bad blood and we do not want you getting into trouble because of him. Go in now and wash your hands. Then you can help me set the table and get the tea on …’

‘I thought we were going to have ham and tomatoes tonight?’

It was Friday night and before Ma got ill they’d always had ham for tea, because it was pay day, but now there wasn’t enough money for treats like that unless Rose brought them.

‘There was no ham left by four this afternoon, and Mr Brown wouldn’t cut a new one until tomorrow. I bought a bit of fish and I’ll mash some potatoes to go with it.’

Mary Ellen pulled a face behind her sister’s back. She didn’t like fish and she’d been looking forward to a slice of ham all day, because all she’d had at midday was a slice of bread and dripping. Rose could be mean sometimes, finding fault with Billy for no reason, and then bringing fish for tea when she knew Mary Ellen hated it.

She would rather have a piece of bread and jam and if Rose hadn’t brought a fresh loaf, she would make toast of the old bread and put the last of the strawberry jam on it.

TWO

‘Angela, this is a welcome surprise.’ Mark Adderbury rose to his feet, offering his hand as his guest entered the study of his old, rambling, but rather lovely house, which adjoined the surgery attended by his private patients. Situated at the edge of the small but charming Sussex village where they both lived, its appearance was testament to his status as a respected and expensive psychiatrist. He’d come down for a long weekend and did not return until the following day. ‘What may I do for you?’

‘I haven’t come as a patient,’ Angela said with the sweet smile that won hearts but these days did not quite reach her eyes. Mark understood the sadness that lay behind those expressive eyes, because when her husband John had been killed in the war, he too had felt the sharp pang of loss for his best friend. It had been then that Angela had drawn closer to him, glad of his sympathy and understanding. ‘I wanted to ask your advice.’

His eyes moved over her, noting the style of her dress, the New Look which Christian Dior had introduced that April, with its longer full skirt and shaped waist that gave women’s figures that hourglass shape. The rag trade in London had copied it within hours, getting cheaper versions into their shop windows to tempt women who were sick to death of the Utility dresses that were all that had been available during the war. However, by the look of Angela’s dress, she had probably bought it in Paris when she stopped there on her way back from Switzerland, where she’d been on behalf of some patients; military personnel with private means, whose families had sent them for a rest cure after their traumatic experiences.

In her capacity as an administrator for the military hospital in Portsmouth, she’d sought Mark’s advice when it was deemed necessary to find a clinic which might just be able to mend the minds of some badly damaged war heroes. Yet Angela had known only too well that it wasn’t just their minds that had been damaged; in many cases they had lost a leg or arm, sometimes both, but there was help for amputees these days. It was the men with faces so severely burned that they looked like something from a horror film that Angela had felt for the most, skin blistered, eyes damaged, sometimes sightless – and some poor devils didn’t even have a nose. Yes, there were wonderful surgeons ready to reconstruct a face, but it would mean endless pain and operations. She’d told Mark afterwards that she believed a lot of men would rather be dead than endure the look in the eyes of friends and family … and he knew she’d broken her heart over the hopeless cases.

He’d told her about the clinic, of which he was a co-owner, and she’d managed the rest herself, though she’d complained bitterly because she wasn’t able to offer the same service to deserving soldiers who didn’t have private means. He suspected that she’d paid for one or two of her lame ducks to have the special treatment out of her own pocket; he’d often done the same himself and thought that having money to spare came in handy sometimes.

It was a pity that the job of hospital administrator had been her last, because she had excellent managerial skills. The hospital had been loath to lose her but Angela’s mother had wanted her to come home, and since she was recovering from a severe bout of flu and seemed very low, Angela had obliged her – perhaps because she too needed to rest and recover her spirits.

Mark saw the signs of strain in her face and the dullness of those eyes that had once seemed to glow with life and vitality. Only five years ago she had been considered beautiful, with her dark blonde hair, azure eyes and sensual mouth, the only daughter of middle-class parents, her father a much respected family lawyer. Angela had been expected by her parents – some would say required – to make a brilliant marriage, and indeed she had, though rather later than had been hoped. For years she had led a butterfly existence, playing at being her father’s secretary and enjoying the social whirl, despite her mother’s frequent hints that it was time she settled down. Even though she was presented to several eligible men, Angela just hadn’t found anyone she could bear to think of as a husband and stubbornly refused to give way to her mother’s urging, even though they argued often. However, after meeting Captain John Morton, a handsome and charming Army officer, at a Young Farmer’s ball at the age of twenty-nine, she had fallen madly in love, been swept off her feet and married him within a month. Much to her mother’s displeasure, she had chosen a quiet wedding without any fuss and drama. Angela told her closest friends that her mother had never forgiven her for cheating her out of a big society wedding, but as she had also been fond of saying, ‘With a war going on we just didn’t have time to waste, besides, it would have seemed wrong when everyone was suffering.’

‘You know you can count on me as your friend,’ Mark said now, giving her his comforting smile, which, he was well aware, his wealthy patients declared was worth every penny of the exorbitant fees he charged for consultations. ‘You are feeling less tired now, I think?’

‘Yes, absolutely,’ Angela replied. ‘In fact I have so much energy that I am bored to tears. I just cannot live at home and help my mother with her charity work or I shall go mad …’ She laughed softly, and his heart caught because it was a while since he’d heard her do so – not since John was killed. ‘Not literally. I’m not going to have a breakdown or anything. I just want something to do with my life – something worthwhile. I’ve had enough of endless society engagements and dinners with my mother’s friends. Besides, Mother wants to find me another husband and I can’t … I won’t let her bully me into another marriage.’

‘I agree that three years is too soon for you to think of anyone else, because you were so much in love with John,’ he said, although he wished it were otherwise, because he would have liked the chance to offer her love and a reason to be happy again. ‘Do you want me to speak to her for you?’

‘No, thank you. I need work, proper work that takes me away from here – away from my comfortable life. I want to live in the real world rather than Mother’s. I find most of her friends shallow and selfish and I want to help those in need. I’m not hysterical, even though Mother looks at me as if she thinks I am when I say something like that. She thinks she helps people because she sits on the board of a charity and raises funds for her pet projects but she has no true idea of what goes on.’

‘A little unkind, wouldn’t you say?’ Mark raised his brows. ‘Your mother does help others less fortunate in her own way; she just doesn’t wish to get her hands dirty. That’s what you’re after, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’ Angela’s smile was rueful. ‘It sounds awful put like that – as if I’m a middle-class do-gooder trying to earn my Brownie points.’

‘Have you considered that that is how you may appear to people who truly have to get their hands dirty to survive? If I were to find you a job – or at least point you in the right direction – you would almost certainly come up against prejudice because of your background.’

‘Do you know of something that might suit me? All I want is a chance … something to make it worthwhile getting up in the morning. Something to take away this emptiness …’

Her eagerness touched him, the sudden glow in her eyes making him realise that she was truly in earnest. Although the perfect beauty she’d once enjoyed had gone, she retained the clean symmetry of good bones, her face a little angular these days, but perhaps more arresting because it told of her suffering – and she had the best ankles Mark had ever seen on a woman. It couldn’t hurt to help her on her way. She might change her mind once the reality of hard work came home to roost, but there was no harm in letting her try. He realised now that it had been in his mind to ask her for a while, because she would be perfect for the role of the new Administrator of St Saviour’s – and of course it would give Mark the perfect excuse to see her more often. He smiled inwardly, because he knew his own feelings had played their part in his decision.