BY BREAKFAST TIME the next day it would have seemed to an outsider that, superficially at least, most things in the Mehan household were back to normal, and that it was just another summer Monday morning, with squabbles and smiles in about equal proportion. But it wouldn’t have taken a very close inspection to realise that all those sitting around the kitchen table were wrapped up in their own concerns, and it would have been clear to anyone that something or other was going on.
For a start, Pat had left for work even earlier than usual, Katie not even having realised he had gone until she woke up to find the cold cup of tea he had brought her on the bedside cabinet. And then there was Katie herself – she might have been blustering around as though it was a normal Monday morning, but she was preoccupied, hardly bothering to tell anyone off for their bad manners or for taking liberties with one of the others, as she usually did. And if she had been taking more notice, Katie would have had a word or so to say to her daughter, for Molly was acting decidedly shifty. Molly kept flicking furtive glances at her family, convinced that at any minute her nanna would come in from next door and start blabbing – why had she told her? – or that any one of the others sitting around the table would somehow guess what was going on inside her head, and would blurt out to the rest that Molly had a terrible, guilty secret: she had two boyfriends at the same time!
If any of them had been interested enough to try to see into Molly’s mind, it certainly wouldn’t have been Sean. He was sitting there, slumped in his chair, self-absorbed, mopey and uncommunicative, behaving like a typical fourteen-year-old, in fact.
Unusually, Michael and Timmy were keeping just as quiet as Sean that morning, but they were far more content with their lot. They were happily taking advantage of their mother’s rare preoccupation, by not eating any more of the dreaded porridge that had in the past only been inflicted on them as an occasional economy measure, but during the last few months had become the family’s breakfast staple. One bowl of the stuff was definitely more than enough for either of them.
The porridge was also the reason for Nora’s absence; since the sad day of the regular introduction of the awful sludge to the table of number twelve, she had taken to having a lie-in until half past eight and only then, when she was sure the so-called breakfast had been finished, would she come in from next door to help her daughter with whatever chores were to be tackled that day.
Even Danny, who was ordinarily as reliable as the kitchen clock, had altered his routine that morning. As soon as he was washed, dressed and shaved – strictly speaking, and dark as he was, shaving was still only a twice-weekly affair for him, but he had taken to going through the daily masculine ritual of it lately – Danny had nipped round the corner to Chrisp Street to buy the early morning paper.
Katie had protested that he shouldn’t be wasting money like that, and that his father would be bringing in the Star after work if he was so desperate for a read. But Danny had insisted that he was only taking an interest in things as his dad had told him, and that Katie should be pleased instead of complaining.
Too distracted to bother to argue with her eldest son, or even to tell him off for being so saucy, Katie had let him go and waste his money, and now he was sitting there at the table, head buried in the paper as though it had been his breakfast habit of a lifetime.
He didn’t realise how fortunate he was, sitting there safely hidden behind the news, for Katie, to the alarm of her two youngest, was holding up the porridge pot to offer round the grey goo for a third, threatening time. To their almost overwhelming relief, the boys were saved from having to eat any more of the horrible muck by an unexpected rapping at the front door. It was a surprise to everyone, not only because it was barely eight o’clock, but because whoever it was hadn’t just walked in along the passage with a cheery ‘Don’t worry, it’s only me’ as regular visitors did.
Katie put down the pan on a square of folded newspaper, put there especially to save the table top from burns, and pointed to Molly. ‘See if any of this lot wants any more before them two little ’uns dive in and scoff the lot, will yer, love?’
As her mother checked her hair in the overmantel mirror and then went out to the passage to see who was there, Molly tapped Danny’s newspaper, lifted the big wooden spoon from the pot, and pointed it at him, letting it drip with glutinous porridge.
Looking round to make sure that his mum wasn’t within earshot, Danny shook his head firmly. ‘No fear, Moll. What d’yer think I am? Just look at it, it’s like flipping cement. Now, if it had been a nice bit of streaky, or a couple of slices of black pudden . . .’
‘How about you, Michael? Tim?’
Wide-eyed, they both shook their heads as firmly as their big brother. ‘No thanks!’ they said in unison.
‘Mum must think we’re barmy,’ added Michael, made brave by his mother’s absence, ‘if she thinks we’d eat any more of that dog poop than we have to.’
‘Hard times is hard times,’ said Molly, dropping the spoon back into the pot with a shudder of distaste. ‘Now come on, you lot, let’s get this cleared away and save Mum a job.’
Sean shoved his chair back and stood up. ‘If yer so keen, you do it.’
Before Molly had the opportunity to protest, Sean had snatched the surprised Rags from under the table, where he had been hoping that someone might slip him some unwanted morsels, had tucked the little dog under his arm, and was out in the yard, clambering up and over the back wall.
‘You little sod,’ mouthed Molly, as he disappeared from sight. ‘And where d’yer think yer taking that flaming dog?’ she hollered.
While this was going on at the back of her house, Katie was standing at the street door, smiling encouragingly at Mrs Milton, while silently cursing her kids for showing her up in front of a neighbour with all the row they were making.
‘Why don’t yer come in for just a minute, eh Ellen?’ she said invitingly. ‘There’s a pot of tea just been made, and it’ll only go to waste.’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘’Cos by the sound of it in there, the kids’ll be off out any minute.’
‘That’s very nice of yer, Kate, but I’ve only come over to return yer stewpan. It was ever so good of yer. Ta.’
‘Don’t be daft,’ said Katie, doing her best to smile convincingly at the pathetic little bundle that the hollow-eyed woman was holding in her arms. The baby looked nearly as poorly as its mother, as it screwed up its drawn little face and let out a high, thin cry. ‘Yer can say what yer like, Ellen, I ain’t taking no for an answer. And I just can’t wait to have a cuddle of this one.’ Katie jerked her head along the passage towards the kitchen. ‘Come on.’
‘It ain’t that I don’t wanna, Kate,’ Ellen said wearily. ‘I’d love to sit down and have a cuppa with yer, but yer know how things are. I wouldn’t be able to ask yer over mine. Yer’ve been so good to us, I’d hate yer to think I was mumping.’
‘Whatever gave yer that idea?’ said Katie, hoping she sounded more enthusiastic than she felt. Reaching out, she took the baby from its mother’s arms and strode purposefully along the passage, knowing that Ellen Milton would be dragging herself along behind her. The baby was only three months old and wherever it went, so would the little scrap’s mother. Katie looked over her shoulder and, sure enough, there she was.
When she reached the kitchen doorway, Katie saw Molly was about to scrape the remains of the porridge pot into the bucket that Nora kept by their back door to collect scraps for her chickens. ‘Moll,’ Katie snapped. ‘Leave that.’
Molly straightened up. ‘I was only going to—’
‘Never mind you was going to, you and Danny get yerselves off to work, and you two little ’uns, you get yerselves out in the fresh air, look how pasty-faced yer looking. Go and get some sun on them knees o’ your’n.’
Seeing the determined look on their mum’s face, and more than happy to escape both the porridge and the screeching baby, they all did as they were told. As they filed past out into the passage, they all mumbled good morning to Mrs Milton and then hurried past as quickly as they thought their mother would consider polite in front of company.
Timmy, who was the last to make his escape, was hoiked backwards by his collar. ‘Hang on, you,’ said Katie. ‘Where’s our Sean?’
‘He’s gone out already, Mum.’
‘All right,’ said Katie letting him go. ‘And no fighting. Right?’
Katie held the baby tightly to her shoulder and pulled out a chair for her neighbour. ‘Right, that’s that mob out of the way. School holidays, eh? They’ll be the finish of me, I swear they will. Tell yer what, if them old schoolmarms had kids at home to put up with, they’d soon have ’em back in class. Still, thank Gawd we’ve got a bit of time to ourselves, eh?’ Katie was carrying on patting the baby’s back and jiggling it up and down, but there was no distracting the poor little thing. ‘Mum might pop in later,’ Katie said brightly, trying to pretend that the yelling wasn’t piercing her eardrums, ‘but no one else’ll disturb us. You take her a minute, love, and I’ll get us that tea.’
As Katie handed the baby back to its mother, she saw a look of quiet desperation cloud Ellen’s haggard face. ‘Me milk’s nearly dried up,’ she said, her voice barely more than a whisper. ‘I dunno what I’m gonna do.’
‘You just sit there a minute.’ Katie went over to the stove and lit the two front gas rings. She put the kettle on one set of jets and held a slice of bread carved from the remains of a loaf on the end of a toasting fork over the other.
‘You ain’t making none of that for me, are yer, Kate?’
‘Course I am. Us mums need a bit of something before we start grafting for the day.’
‘No buts.’ Katie blew on the toast to put out a flame that had caught the corner of the thick hunk of bread. ‘There, stick some marg on that and get it down yer. And yer can give that precious bundle back to me.’
Katie took the baby from her exhausted neighbour and pulled the cover back from the child’s angry, contorted little face. ‘I bet this one’d go mad over a sugar tit,’ she said. ‘All right if I do her one?’
Mrs Milton nodded weakly. ‘Ta. It might quieten her down a bit.’
‘It ain’t that, is it, darling?’ Katie cooed at the infant as she sat at the table and crossed one leg over the other. Then she lay the shrieking baby on her lap, its head supported in the crook of her knee. ‘I just wanna give her a little treat, don’t I, sweetheart?’ With the practised hands of a mother of five, Katie took a clean handkerchief from her apron pocket, then she scooped a spoonful of marg and a spoonful of sugar into the centre of the cloth, kneaded the two together with the back of the spoon, rolled the hankie tight and, with the baby cradled in her arms, offered the cotton teat to its bawling, puckered mouth. At the first taste of the sweet concoction the baby, forgetting its fury, fastened its lips hungrily around it and her little body relaxed into easy, rhythmic sucking.
‘There,’ said Katie, touching the back of her finger to the child’s cheek. ‘That’s better, ain’t it, little ’un? Now, let’s make me and yer mum a drop of tea before that kettle boils its head off.’
Half an hour later, when Katie’s mother had come in to help her daughter start the laundry, Ellen Milton became flustered and, for fear of outstaying her welcome, wanted to leave immediately. But Katie would only hear of Ellen going if she agreed to allow Katie to top up the remaining half-pot of porridge – the breakfast that Molly had almost sacrificed to her grandmother’s ever greedy hens – with a couple of big dollops of condensed milk, and pour it into a clean basin so that Ellen could take it back home for her kids.
Despite all Ellen Milton’s protestations that she couldn’t possibly, Katie Mehan, as usual, refused both to take no for an answer or to listen to any thanks. In Katie’s understanding of how the world turned, there was no need to thank a neighbour for lending a helping hand. As she saw Ellen and her now peacefully sleeping baby to the door, she looked across the street to number eleven, Frank Barber’s place, and thought about how trying to help him had caused so much trouble, but she quickly dismissed the thought from her mind. Pat would have to sort himself out about his jealousy; he might have a lot of worries, but so did she, not the least of which was all the washing she had to do. There were piles of the stuff, and that was more than enough to occupy any woman’s mind on a Monday morning.
Nora rested the copper stick across the tin bath full of rinsing water and rubbed the back of her suds-covered hand across her forehead. ‘It’s no good, Katie, love,’ she puffed, arching her aching back. ‘There’s not enough soap left to wash another single sock, let alone the rest of these sheets. And we could do with some more Reckitt’s blue and all.’
She stepped out of the little lean-to scullery that housed the copper, the tin bath, the rubbing board, the mangle, and all the other paraphernalia associated with washday, and wiped her hands dry on her crossover apron. ‘Is Michael or Timmy around? One of them can run over to the shop and get some.’
Katie took the dolly peg from her mouth and stuck it firmly over the wet pillow slip, anchoring it securely to the line. ‘No, leave ’em, Mum. I’d rather go meself.’ She looked over her shoulder at Nora. ‘They’re all right out there playing. Yer know what they’re like once they’re indoors. They’ll be under our feet and we’ll never get done.’ She squinted up at the clear, summer sky. ‘It’d be a pity to waste this lovely sunshine.’
She bent down and picked up the blue-rimmed, white enamelled bowl that had held the wet washing ready for pegging, and handed it to her mother to put in the scullery ready for the next lot of rinsed, blued and mangled laundry.
‘I’ll be two minutes.’ Katie untied her damp apron and threw it over the line to dry out while she was gone, then fetched a chair from the kitchen. ‘There y’are. Take the weight off yer feet for a bit.’
‘What weight, yer saucy mare?’ said Nora happily, as she dropped down gratefully on to the chair. ‘I’ll have you know I’m the weight today I was on the day I married your father.’
‘Must have been a big frock,’ laughed Katie.
‘Yer not too big for a slap, yer cheeky madam,’ grinned Nora. ‘I’m still a fine figure of a woman.’
‘Fine figure of two women, more like,’ Katie said, skipping neatly over the back step and into the kitchen, well out of reach of her mother’s raised hand. ‘Anything else we want, Mum?’ she asked, checking her hair in the glass.
‘Two bob’s worth of five-pound notes,’ called Nora, closing her eyes and tipping up her face to be warmed by the blazing sun.
While Nora dozed contentedly, her mind filled full of glorious childhood visions of green Irish fields and fishing boats bobbing in the harbour, Katie walked to the blocked off end of the street, then stopped to examine a cardboard box outside the shop.
It was full of men’s slippers and had a notice pinned to the side, explaining that they came in size seven only but would stretch with wear. For a brief moment, Katie considered buying a pair for Nora, but the moment soon passed; new slippers were a luxury for times easier than these. But slippers weren’t the only things piled on the pavement outside Edie and Bert Johnson’s shop to tempt her. There was a towering stack of galvanised buckets, just one of which would make emptying and filling the zinc bath easier than the leaky effort she had to make do with on bath night. Then there was a double row of wooden boxes full of fruit and vegetables, balanced on barrels brimming with pigeon and hen food; and a regiment of different length mops and brooms that would help her whisk her way through the never-ending housework in half the time.
But even these attractions only gave the smallest clue to the astonishing amount and variety of goods actually sold by the Johnsons. Once across the threshold, it would have taken a determinedly difficult shopper whose needs could not have been met. As Katie stepped inside the dark interior, her nostrils twitched in recognition. There was the sharp odour coming from the big cans of disinfectant vying with the robust tang of the huge wheel of crumbly, mature cheddar; and then there was the musty aroma of teas, competing with the mouthwatering saltiness of delicious boiled ham ready to be carved into great pink slabs straight from the bone for those who could still afford the occasional luxury. All these were mixed up with other less assertive, yet still identifiable scents and smells that, when they were all added together, made up the familiar, scintillating combination which not only made Katie’s nose tingle, but her mouth water.
Her eyes had to become accustomed to the gloom inside the crowded little shop, but she didn’t have to focus to know that in front of her would be the dark, polished wood counter on which packets of this and tins of that stood in artfully displayed pyramids, alongside the proudly presented china stand which held the damp muslin-covered slabs of best butter. And behind the counter, reaching right up to the ceiling, were the shelves jam-packed with everything from packets of corn plasters and boxes of liver pills, to jars of red and yellow sugar-coated pear drops and of dull orange barley sugar twists.
In front of the counter were yet more goods: glass-lidded tins of biscuits; drums of chick meal, wrinkled beans, split peas and dried lentils – supposedly for soaking to stretch a stew to feed a family, but, during the annual fad for pea shooters, just right for ammunition. And finally, as familiar as any other fixture in the shop, there stood Edie Johnson, with her hair caught up in a neat knot on top of her head and her customary, pure white, thick cotton apron stretched tight across her broad middle, presiding over all of it, ready to serve her customers and to pass the time of day with them.
‘Morning, Ede,’ Katie said with a smile.
‘Morning, Kate.’ Above Edie’s head, a curling flypaper dangled like a forgotten Christmas decoration, but anyone who knew her wouldn’t have to examine it to know that it would only recently have been hung there; being a stickler for what she referred to as ‘hygienics’, Edie changed her flypapers more regularly than was strictly necessary, and was proud of it.
‘Bert’s out the back boiling some fresh beetroot – lovely and sweet, they are. Good price and all. Want me to put a few by for yer, Kate?’
‘Lovely,’ said Katie, with a nod.
‘Right, I’ll call in one of the kids to fetch ’em for yer when they’re done.’
‘Save a couple for me and all please, Edie. Beetroots’re my Bill’s favourite. Lovely in a nice sandwich with a slice of corned beef.’
Katie turned round and smiled again. Peggy Watts, Liz’s mum from number nine, had just come into the shop.
‘All right, Peg?’ she asked.
‘Not so bad, Kate,’ said Peggy, settling herself on the chair by the counter.
‘Now,’ said Edie Johnson, ‘apart from the beetroots, what can I do for yer, Kate?’
‘Bar of laundry soap, please, Ede.’
Edie busied herself wrapping the heavy slab of soap in a sheet of newspaper.
‘Honestly,’ said Katie, ‘I dunno where the flaming washing comes from. If I didn’t know better I’d swear my Pat was taking it in from the neighbours to earn a few bob on the side.’
‘It’s them four boys o’ your’n,’ said Edie, handing Katie the soap. ‘I’ll bet they’re murder to keep in clean clothes.’
Katie rolled her eyes in agreement. ‘Yer can say that again. But, honestly, my Molly’s the one lately. Wears something a couple of times and then expects it to be washed.’
‘Typical of girls that age,’ said Edie, smiling fondly. ‘They’re growing up, so they wanna look their best, don’t they? Yer can’t blame ’em, can yer? Yer know what it’s like.’ Edie had no children of her own; some said it was because of the poor health suffered by her husband, Bert, who, when he was no more than a boy, had been invalided out of the army after being seriously injured in the trenches in France. Others said it was Edie’s problem as, although she was still a relatively young woman, they reckoned that she had had trouble ‘down there’ for years. But, whatever the reason for her having no children, Edie Johnson looked on the youngsters of Plumley Street with probably more indulgence than their own, more realistic mothers.
‘Yer right there, Edie, if my Lizzie’s anything to go by,’ said Peggy. ‘You should hear her. She ain’t stopped talking about your Danny lately,’ Kate.’
Kate looked sceptical. ‘Our Danny and your Liz? Daft. They’re more like brother and sister, them two.’
Edie chuckled. ‘More like brother and brother the way your Lizzie carries on at times, Peg. Frock tucked in her knickers and up and over that wall again she was on Saturday night. I don’t reckon she realises what a good-looking girl she’s turning into.’
‘I think she does, Ede. Honestly, they grow up that fast nowadays. I didn’t have a clue when I was sixteen.’ Peggy turned to Kate. ‘Ain’t yer noticed nothing different about your Danny? He goes all soft when he talks to our Liz.’ Seeing the blank look on Katie’s face, Peggy jerked her head towards her, while saying to Edie, ‘I reckon she’s in a right dream, don’t you, Ede?’
Katie frowned. ‘What?’
Edie folded her arms and said wistfully, ‘It must be hard for yer Kate, bringing up a growing family like your’n, wondering what they’re all up to all the time.’
‘Maybe I should be taking a bit more notice,’ Katie said, her voice subdued.
‘Leave off, Kate,’ said Peggy, flapping her hand. ‘No one’s trying to have a go at yer or nothing. Yer’ve got more than enough on your plate without finding yerself even more things to worry about. If Danny and Liz wanna see each other, I dunno about you, but I couldn’t be more pleased. He’s a good boy. Liz’d have to go a long way to find one as nice. When yer see some of the hooligans round here, I reckon yer’ve done a right good job bringing him up.’
Katie shrugged non-committally, obviously not convinced by her neighbour’s attempt to reassure her. ‘I just feel that I have to keep running just to stay on the spot lately. D’yer know what I mean?’ She picked distractedly at the corner of the newspaper wrapping the soap. ‘My Danny’s growing up and I ain’t even noticed.’ Katie let out a long slow breath. ‘Some flaming mother I am.’
‘I’ve spoken out o’ turn,’ said Peggy, standing up and putting her hand on Katie’s arm. ‘Don’t take on, girl. It’s easier for me. For a start,’ she said, trying to sound jolly, ‘yer know how girls talk more about that sort of thing.’ She smiled at Edie and sat back down on the chair. ‘Can’t stop ’em once they’ve started. And then I’ve only got the one at home to worry about while you’ve got five still, and Lizzie’s hardly a baby no more, is she?’
‘Don’t matter how grown up they reckon they are,’ said Edie. ‘And no matter how many smart haircuts they get, they’re still kids, ain’t they?’
‘I ain’t so sure about that.’ Peggy leant forward in the chair and said in a loud whisper, ‘You should hear the questions my Liz’s been coming out with.’ She looked round, checking for eavesdroppers. ‘All sorts, she’s been asking about.’
‘What?’ asked Edie, momentarily forgetting her ‘hygienics’ and resting her elbows on the polished counter.
‘You know.’ Peggy nodded wisely. ‘Things.’
Edie nodded back at her. ‘Aw. Things. That’ll be her age and all.’
Now Katie looked really depressed. ‘I’ll have to find time to have a little talk with my Molly. She was really sensible when I told her about her, you know . . .’ she nodded downwards ‘. . . her monthlies. But that’s as far as I got. Gawd knows what sort of ideas she’s got in her head about the rest of it. I ain’t really explained much at all.’
‘She’s a good girl,’ said Edie comfortingly. ‘She won’t let yer down.’
‘I know,’ said Katie, ‘but I’d still like to feel that I could talk to her. I know my mum did her best with me but I was so dim. Yer wouldn’t believe some of the ideas I had.’
Peggy grinned. ‘Yer wouldn’t believe some of the ideas my Bill had when we first got married.’ She pressed her lips together to stop herself giggling. ‘Practically needed a target, he did.’
The three women burst out laughing at the thought of Bill Watts looking for the bull’s-eye, but, at the sound of someone else coming into the shop, they stifled their laughter and turned to see who it was. And they were all glad they had; it was Phoebe Tucker, Plumley Street’s answer to the bush telegraph.
Phoebe knew, or at least claimed to know, just about everything that went on, with whom, how and why, and more often than not, why it, whatever it was, shouldn’t have happened in the first place. And, even if she didn’t know, she’d make it up anyway, because she could never let old Sooky Shay, her next-door neighbour, get the idea that she had more information about someone or something than she herself did.
Phoebe stood in the shop doorway eyeing her three neighbours suspiciously. As usual she had a lighted cigarette stuck in the corner of her mouth, slippers with the backs trodden down on her feet, and, even in the summer, fire-scorched, blotchy legs. With a great display of daintiness, Phoebe dotted her cigarette ash into her apron pocket, coughed bronchially and stepped inside. ‘I heard yers laughing,’ she said accusingly, ‘from right outside.’
‘It’s this smashing weather, Phoeb,’ said Edie, with a wink at Peggy. ‘Makes us feel like youngsters again, don’t it?’
Disappointed with the dead end, Phoebe tried another approach. ‘I see you had that Ellen Milton at yer street door this morning,’ she said to Katie.
Katie put her soap on the counter, leant back, folded her arms across her chest and looked Phoebe up and down. ‘Yeah, that’s right. So?’
‘It’s good of yer making time for the likes of her.’ Phoebe smiled insincerely, showing her uneven teeth made brown by strong tea and even stronger tobacco. ‘And yer seem to be finding plenty o’ time for that Frank Barber and all.’
Katie shuffled her feet and paused just long enough to alert Phoebe to the fact that she might be on to something. ‘So?’
‘Well, I think it’s very good of yer.’ Phoebe flashed a look at Peggy and Edie, gauging their reactions. ‘What with him being a widower and everything.’
To keep herself from wrapping her hands around Phoebe’s crepey neck, Katie snatched up her soap from the counter. ‘If people spent more time helping others than they did gossiping,’ she said through clenched teeth, ‘I reckon the world’d be a sight better place.’
Phoebe smiled triumphantly. ‘I only speak as I find,’ she said. Having finished with Katie, she now launched into an attack on Edie. ‘Here, it ain’t true what they’ve been saying, is it?’
Edie rolled her eyes heavenwards. ‘Probably not,’ she said wearily.
It wasn’t clear whether Phoebe was ignoring Edie’s sarcasm or whether she was oblivious to it. Either way, she wasn’t put off. Brushing roughly past Katie and practically knocking Peggy off her chair, Phoebe thrust her heavy, drooping bosom across the counter and hissed at Edie, ‘I’ve heard tell how Aggie Palmer’s gonna be working in here.’
Edie looked down her nose defiantly at Phoebe. ‘Yer know, for once something yer’ve got to say about someone actually is true.’ She looked to Peggy and Katie, wanting the support of their understanding before carrying on. ‘My Bert, he’s been a bit peaky, finding things hard. So I asked Aggie if she fancied doing a few hours for me.’
‘No!’
‘You got any objections, have yer, Phoeb?’
‘You do know her old man’s half pikey, don’t yer?’
Edie threw up her hands in wonder. ‘Gawd above, yer don’t say so, Phoeb. And there was me thinking he was the Prince of Wales. Now I’ve gone and wasted all that money on buying meself a tiara for nothing.’
Before Phoebe had a chance to think of a reply, Katie had tapped her on the shoulder.
The old gossip twisted round to face Katie. ‘What?’
‘I’d watch me mouth if I was you, Phoeb,’ Katie said. ‘Joe Palmer’s been good to my Danny and I won’t hear nothing said against him. All right?’
Phoebe’s wrinkled face broke into a victorious sneer. Looking from Peggy to Edie and then back to Katie, she said with slow viciousness, ‘Yeah, he’s kept him on and all, ain’t he? Wonder how yer got him to do that? Funny how all these blokes—’
‘You what?’ Katie demanded.
Peggy grabbed her arm. ‘Ignore the old trout, Kate, she ain’t worth it.’
Katie shook off Peggy’s hand, and in a menacing gesture, uncharacteristic of her usually dismissive attitude towards the spiteful elderly woman, she held a shaking finger really close to Phoebe’s puggy little nose. ‘Yer wanna remember how that girl brings them dinners over to you and Albert, you wicked old cow. If it wasn’t for Aggie Palmer yer wouldn’t have nothing to stick in that wicked gob o’ your’n or to fill yer rotten, fat belly.’
Phoebe gulped and, with primly pursed lips, stepped backwards, pressing herself tight to the counter to avoid Katie’s threateningly close hand. ‘What’s that gotta do with you?’
‘Nothing. But yer wanna watch yer mouth. They’re good, decent people. Yer should be grateful to ’em, not running ’em down.’
‘They shouldn’t give us nothing if all they want is thanks,’ Phoebe snapped cockily. ‘That ain’t the right way to go about things.’
Katie was trembling with fury. ‘Aw, but it’s all right you taking their grub so’s your old man can spend every penny he gets down the pub or on the dogs, is it?’
‘Do something, Peg,’ Edie mouthed.
Peggy nodded. ‘Come on, Kate,’ she said. ‘This won’t get the washing done now, will it, girl? Yer know how Nora likes to get it all done before dinner time. I’ll bet she’s going spare over there waiting for yer.’
Katie took a deep breath and straightened up. Then keeping her eyes fixed on Phoebe, she took her purse from her skirt pocket. ‘How much do I owe yer, Ede?’
‘Don’t worry about that now,’ said Edie, obviously relieved that Katie wasn’t going to let fly in her shop. ‘Yer can settle up with me later on, when I send the beetroot over with the kids.’
Katie nodded. ‘Ta,’ she said, then turned on her heel and began walking stiffly out of the shop with Peggy steering her forward.
‘Aw, so she gets tick, does she? What makes her so bleed’n special?’
Peggy only just avoided being walloped by Katie’s elbow as she spun back round to confront Phoebe. ‘You old bag!’
‘That’s nice talk, I don’t think. Churchgoer and all.’
Edie ran her hands over her face. ‘Phoebe, do us all a favour. Shut up, will yer?’
A small door at the back of the shop opened and Bert, Edie’s husband, stuck his head through.
‘Hello, ladies,’ he said, smiling pleasantly, obviously unaware of what he was interrupting. ‘Just wanted to let you know, Ede, them beetroots’ll be cool enough to handle soon.’ He limped through the doorway, dragging his game leg painfully behind him and leant against the counter next to his wife. ‘I’ve just gotta nip over to see Arthur Lane a minute, about a bit of business. Won’t be long, love.’
Bert, a gentle, unassuming man, was totally innocent as to the new ammunition he had just handed to Phoebe. He winked affectionately at his wife, lifted the flap in the counter and hobbled his way out of the shop.
Open-mouthed, Phoebe moved with surprising speed over to the shop doorway and watched him as he made his way slowly across the street to see Arthur Lane.
Lane was a moneylender and, so it was rumoured, a fence, who lived with Irene, his brassy, much younger wife, over the road at number six, between the Queen’s, which was important and big enough to have two numbers, and the Palmers at number eight.
With a look of undisguised glee, Phoebe walked back over to the counter. ‘Going over to see Laney, eh? What a pair they are. I was saying to my Albert, I wouldn’t be surprised if him and that so-called wife of his was living over the brush. I mean, she turned up there a bit sudden, didn’t she? Right out of the blue. And I never heard nothing about no wedding. And she must be, what, at least half his age? Dirty old bastard.’ She peered up into Edie’s face. ‘So what’s your Bert doing going over there then?’
Gasping at her neighbour’s audacity, Katie went to say something, but Edie stopped her.
‘It’s all right, Kate. I can handle this.’ Edie stepped round from the other side of the counter and stood very close to Phoebe. ‘Not that it’s anything to do with you, or anyone else for that matter, Phoebe Tucker, but my husband, God love him, is in a lot of pain, and he’s going to see how much Arthur Lane can get him on his old dad’s gold hunter watch, so’s he’s got a bit of spare cash should he ever be lucky enough to find a doctor what can do something for him. If that’s all right with you, of course. ’Cos I’d hate to think we was doing something yer didn’t approve of.’
Phoebe wasn’t one to be distracted by something as simple as another human being’s misery. ‘Selling his watch, eh? Bad leg? More like times not being so good in the shop, if you ask me. But it’s yer own fault. It’s giving the likes of her too much credit,’ she said, jerking her head towards Katie who was still standing in the doorway. ‘And talking about Laney’s “wife”,’ she went on, with a disapproving shake of her head, ‘have yer seen her lately? I dunno, young women today.’ She turned and looked Katie up and down. ‘They’re all the same. No self-respect, see. All dressed up like bleed’n ham bones, they are. It’s like that frock she had on the other day – tits hanging out all over the place they were. It fitted where it bloody well touched. And I do hear talk,’ she said, lowering her voice, ‘as how someone saw her going into that Married Women’s Clinic what them posh old tarts have set up near the Town Hall. Not that I reckon she is married but . . .’ she gave an exaggerated shudder of distaste, ‘. . . using things to stop babies. Whatever next? It ain’t natural, I’m telling yer. No better than she ought to be, that one, just like that Mrs Fortune from round by the school. I mean I ain’t never seen someone bring home so many so-called uncles to meet their kids. I ask yer. Want a good larruping from their old men, the pair of ’em. And then there’s—’
‘See yer, Edie,’ said Katie. ‘Coming, Peg?’
‘Oi!’ bawled Phoebe. ‘I was talking.’
‘Aw, was yer, Phoeb?’ Katie said contemptuously. ‘Sorry, I thought it was yer guts rumbling.’ With that, she and Peggy walked out of the shop.
Phoebe was livid. She ran to the door and shouted after them, ‘And the way your two girls have been getting ’emselves done up, them and their haircuts. Disgusting, that’s what it is. Girls their age! White slavery, that’s what’ll become of them, I’m telling yer. I’ve said it often enough. White slavery. My granddaughter’d never be seen dead got up like them two. Never. She’s been brought up right though, she has.’
‘If she only knew half the stories going round about her darling granddaughter, eh, Kate?’ Peggy whispered.
‘Yeah, but I’ll bet none of them stories are true,’ said Katie shaking her head. Then added with a chuckle, ‘’Cos, although yer’d never believe it, Peg, there’s actually people what get pleasure from spreading lies and gossip.’
They were still chuckling, as much from relief to be away from Phoebe as anything else, when they reached Peggy’s house at number nine. Katie went to cross the street over to hers, but Peggy stopped her with a touch on her arm.
‘I really will be glad if our Liz takes up with Danny,’ she said, ‘’cos, much as I hate to admit it, Kate, Phoebe’s right about one thing: girls are a right worry, ain’t they?’
‘I know I got meself all worked up just now, Peg, but I don’t think we’ve really got nothing to worry about with our kids.’
‘No, I ain’t saying we have, but it’s who they get mixed up with, ain’t it? I don’t wanna sound like Phoebe, spreading stories, but did you hear they found another baby dumped in the lake over Vicky Park? Some other poor cow what got caught out and couldn’t manage.’
Katie sighed. ‘How do they get ’emselves in that state, eh girl?’
Peggy shrugged. ‘Ain’t too difficult, I don’t reckon. That’s why I hope something does come of this business with my Lizzie and your Dan. Least I won’t have to worry about who she’s out with, will I?’
Katie smiled reassuringly. ‘And I hope so too, Peg, I really do. And not just ’cos I’m right fond of your Liz, but ’cos I feel for you and all. Having to see yer little girl turning into a young woman must be so hard. I’m just glad my Molly ain’t started getting herself involved with no blokes yet. I’ve got enough to worry about indoors, more than enough, without any o’ that lark.’