IT WAS SATURDAY evening, and, in just a few hours’ time, Katie, Nora and the two youngest boys would be leaving Plumley Street to make their way to London Bridge Station. There they would buy their cut-price tickets for the hoppers’ special train, which would carry them away in the pre-dawn half-light, to the hop fields in the heart of the Garden of England.
Pat was sitting outside on the back kitchen step busily nailing Blakeys to the soles and heels of Timmy and Michael’s boots, making them ready for the wear and tear of racing around the countryside. Pat knew the sort of punishment a pair of boy’s boots could suffer down in Kent. He had climbed more than his fair share of trees and had forded enough streams during his own boyhood years, when he had gone with his mum on the annual cockney pilgrimage.
The sound of Pat laughing out loud to himself, as he remembered all the strokes he had pulled as a lad in his efforts to get out of helping his mum strip the hop bines, made Katie look across at him in surprise. It made a welcome change; there hadn’t been much laughter in her kitchen during the past few weeks.
‘What’s tickling you, Pat Mehan?’ she asked, squinting down at her youngest son’s head as she inspected his scalp for nits.
‘Just remembering going hopping when I was a kid,’ said Pat, as he expertly fixed another metal crescent moon to the heel of one of the boots that was more patch than original leather.
‘Nice to hear yer in such a good mood,’ said Katie, smiling to herself as she got on with her job of searching through Timmy’s head.
Like most East End mums, Katie had, over the years, become something of an expert on nits. She knew all about having to make sure they never got a hold in her family, even if she couldn’t stop one of the little ones sometimes coming home from school a bit cootie.
She sat on a kitchen chair, with Timmy held tight between her knees on the floor in front of her, his head bent forward over a sheet of newspaper, while Katie went through every strand of his hair looking for signs of the dreaded head louse. She was using the fine-tooth comb that, if the boys saw her with it before she’d grabbed hold of them, was the signal for them to leg it as fast as they could, and to lie doggo until either she had forgotten all about it, or she was too busy torturing some other poor victim.
But this time, Timmy hadn’t done a runner; he knew that it was all part of the preparations for hopping, and if he wanted to go to Kent it was no good his trying to get out of it. It still didn’t make it any less painful or stop him moaning and complaining, even though he knew his mum would give him a sharp tap on the side of the head with the metal nit comb, making it twang against his ear as she told him to be quiet and to stop being such a baby.
Having his hair wrenched out by the roots wasn’t the only reason that Timmy, in any other circumstances, would have had to feel humpy. The humid weather seemed set to go on and on, and had started to get people down. It was the beginning of September and yet there was no sign of a break in the hot, sultry sunshine, not even a shower to bring a hint of relief from the dusty heat that had at times become almost unbearable.
It was so uncomfortable, in fact, that although Timmy and Michael were meant to be going back to school on Monday, Katie for once had no qualms about what stories Pat would have to tell the school board man about their absence. This year, she was more than happy for him to say that his wife had taken their boys down to the green countryside of the Kent farm, where she and her own mum had been going since Katie herself had been no more than a babe in arms.
As for Timmy, with the prospect of running wild in the woods and fields instead of having to go back to school before him, it could have been thick fog and snowing for all he cared. Head torture apart, he certainly wasn’t complaining.
Sean would usually have been as excited as the little ones about going hopping, but this year he just wasn’t interested. Like Molly and Danny, it was the first time that he wasn’t going with his num and his nanna to Kent, and, no matter how hard Katie tried to persuade him otherwise, he wouldn’t budge. She promised him that she would try to get him a few hours’ work from the farmer pole pulling in the hop gardens, but he still wouldn’t listen. He was convinced, or so he told her, that he had more chance of finding a job at home in Poplar, because all the hop-pickers’ unemployed husbands would be sure to have asked the farmer about any work that was going and, with that sort of farm work at least, a man was paid for what he did rather than according to his age.
Katie had tried not to show it, but she’d been hurt when he said he wouldn’t be going with her. Still, she knew that with his attitude lately, arguing would get her nowhere except into yet another shouting match. And, as she was doing her best to make it up with Pat before she left, the last thing she wanted was for Sean to start leading off and causing yet more rows. All that apart, it didn’t make it any easier for her to stop worrying about him. It would have been different if, like Danny and Molly, he had a job to go to: a proper reason for staying at home with his dad. Deep down, Katie felt that Sean was making excuses, that there was some other reason he didn’t want to go with her, but what could she do about it?
As Katie twisted Timmy’s head round to the light so that she could see better, she sighed, thinking about how quiet and empty the hop hut would seem without the bickering and laughter of her three eldest children. Still, she couldn’t tie them to her apron strings for ever, and, with a flash of her old optimism, she told herself that she had every right to be proud that the three of them were at least trying to make their own way in the world. And she’d be bound to see them at the weekends when all the men and the grown-up children travelled down to the hop and fruit farms to visit their mums and their grannies. Maybe Sean would surprise her and bring some good news down with him about finding himself a job. She had always said that better times were just around the corner, and with the way things were going, she could only hope and pray that they were.
She gave Timmy’s hair one final, punishing rake-through and then patted him on top of the head. ‘Right,’ she said brightly. ‘That’s you all clean and paid for. Now go and call yer brother in for me. And if he says “in a minute” tell him I’ll be out after him.’
With his agonies over and the happy prospect of his brother having his turn to come, Timmy scampered from the room and started hollering for Michael.
Katie heard Michael shout back from the street, then the sound of the boys running along the passage towards the kitchen.
Michael stuck his carrot-topped head round the kitchen door. His expression froze when he saw the comb in his mum’s hand.
‘Down here, Michael,’ she said, pointing her thumb to the space between her feet.
Before Michael had a chance to either do as he was told or to kick up a fuss, Timmy came dancing into the room and jigged around in front of his brother. He poked out his tongue, stuck his thumbs in his ears and wiggled his fingers. ‘Nerr, nerr, nerr-nerr, nerrrr. Mine’s a-a-a-ll do-o-o-ne!’ Timmy mocked.
‘You little—’ Michael began, furious at being duped into coming indoors for this.
But Michael never finished cursing his brother. Katie stood up, grabbed hold of his collar and was hauling him over to her chair before he realised what was going on.
She shoved him down on to the lino in front of her. ‘Such a fuss for a boy of your age. What an example in front of yer little brother.’ She jerked her head over to where Pat was still tapping away at the boots. ‘And what’ll yer dad think of yer?’
‘Mum!’ Michael moaned, shrinking his head down into his shirt. ‘Don’t. Yer hurting me.’
‘What, d’yer wanna show me up?’ Katie asked, parting his hair as she set about her examination. ‘Yer know them snotty-nosed home-dwellers all think we’re lousy.’ She glared at the still grinning Timmy. ‘And you, young man, you can get next door into Nanna’s and take yerself up off to bed for a few hours’ kip before we go.’
Timmy was indignant. ‘But it’s not right dark yet, Mum, and all the other kids are still playing out.’
‘If all the other kids stuck their heads in the gas oven, would you?’
Timmy opened his mouth and closed it again. He knew he was beaten. His mother did it every time, saying things like that, things that he could never quite figure out what they had to do with what he was saying. Things that he never knew how to answer. He turned, neck hunched into his drooping shoulders, and made his way slowly from the kitchen.
‘Night-night, baby,’ jeered Michael. ‘Make sure the bogey-man don’t get yer.’
Michael was silenced by his mum stinging his ear with a quick swipe of the comb. ‘That’s enough of that,’ she said briskly. ‘And you, Timmy, you can come and say goodnight to yer dad before yer go.’
Timmy slouched back into the room and over to the back doorstep where Pat was sitting. ‘Night-night, Dad,’ he mumbled.
‘Night-night, God bless, son,’ said Pat, ruffling his youngest boy’s hair. ‘Here. Hang on.’ He leant back and dug his hand deep into his trouser pocket and pulled out a handful of coins. He sorted through them, picked out a shiny sixpence, held it out to his son and winked. ‘There’s a sprazey anna for yer. You treat yerself when yer away, but not all on the first day, eh? Don’t want yer getting the bellyache from too many sweets or yer mum’ll be after me. Now go on, do as yer mum says and get in next door for some kip.’
‘Cor, ta, Dad.’ With his eyes gleaming at his good fortune, Timmy waved the sixpence in his brother’s face and then skipped out of the room.
‘Don’t forget yer prayers,’ Katie called after him, without looking up from her search through Michael’s hair. ‘That was good of yer, Pat,’ she added gently. ‘But yer don’t wanna go spoiling him.’
‘I can’t help the way I am, girl,’ said Pat. ‘I care about me family, and I don’t reckon yer can spoil no one by loving ’em.’
Katie’s hands suddenly stopped their exploration of Michael’s scalp.
‘Right,’ said Michael, trying to scramble to his feet. ‘That me done and all?’
‘Eh? No, no.’ Katie sounded preoccupied. ‘I was just thinking.’
With a loud sigh, Michael dropped back down on to his bottom, gritted his teeth and waited for the dig of the comb. But it didn’t come. Instead his mum started talking again.
‘Yer a good man, Pat Mehan,’ she said.
Michael groaned quietly with embarrassment. He hated it when his mum and dad acted all soft. He’d thought that they’d got over all that, now they’d started rowing with each other all the time, but here they were, at it again. He was just glad that they were indoors and none of his mates could hear.
‘And I’m a lucky man and all, being married to you, Kate.’
‘Yer will look after yerself when I’m away, won’t yer, Pat?’
‘Course I will.’
‘Yeah, course he will, won’t yer, love?’ said Nora, stepping into the kitchen. ‘’Cos yer a good ’un, aren’t yer, Pat? I’ve always said so.’
‘Just what I was saying meself, Mum,’ Katie agreed, smiling up at her mother.
‘Hello, Nanna,’ said Michael eagerly, knowing his grandmother was always a potential accomplice in any battle against other adults.
‘Hello, me little darling,’ said Nora, winking at her grandson. ‘And how are you?’
‘I think I’m really tired, Nanna,’ Michael whined, playing his trump card in his efforts to escape the nit comb. ‘I reckon I should go in next door to bed.’
Nora raised an eyebrow. ‘Really? Well, that shows what a grown-up lad you’ve gotten to be, now doesn’t it? Ten years old and yer taking yerself off to bed without being told. Soon as yer mam’s finished, yer can go right in.’
‘Cup o’ tea, Nanna?’ said Michael, trying another, less promising, tack.
‘No, yer all right, Michael. I just popped in to let yer mam know that I’ve put young Timmy in my bed instead of upstairs in your room,’ she paused for effect, ‘’cos the poor little mite seems worried about some old bogey man what someone was scaring him with. I wonder where he got them silly ideas from, eh?’
Michael ducked his head, but was still caught by the inevitable sting round his ear.
Nora folded her arms and looked wistfully at the wall that divided her kitchen from her daughter’s. ‘Yer should see him in there, all propped up on my feather pillows, looking though a comic, he is. With that little angel face of his, he looks like a baby prince in a fairy tale, sure he does.’
Michael snorted derisively at the image conjured up by his grandmother, but was soon hushed by another crack of the nit comb.
‘Sure yer don’t want no tea, Mum?’
‘No, thanks, Katie, or I’ll be in and out to the wotsit all night. I just wanted to say me goodbyes to Molly and the boys.’
Katie glanced over at the clock. ‘They shouldn’t be long. They said they’d make sure they’d be back nice and early to see yer.’
‘Good, good.’
Pat hoisted his big, muscled frame from the step in one easy movement. ‘There,’ he said, holding out the two pairs of boots for everyone to see. ‘That’s done.’
‘A good job jobbed,’ said Nora, nodding her approval. ‘Now, Katie, I won’t leave Timmy next door by himself. Will yer send the kids in to me when they get home?’
‘Course I will.’
‘Right.’ Nora went over to Pat, reached up and touched his bristly cheek. ‘You’re a good feller, Pat Mehan, and there’s not many as can say that about their daughter’s husband.’ She dropped her hand but still looked up into Pat’s dark brown eyes. ‘I’ll see yer in a while, but I’ll leave yer for now with yer wife.’ She turned and held out her hand to her grandson. ‘Come on, Michael. Nanna’ll finish scalping yer next door.’
Knowing his nanna’s more lax attitude towards nits, Michael was up and out of the door with a hurried, ‘See yer later,’ before anyone had the chance to change their minds.
Nora followed him at a still lively, but slightly more dignified pace, leaving Pat and Katie in the kitchen by themselves.
‘Tea?’ asked Katie, carefully screwing up the newspapers to make sure that no creatures, if there were any, could escape into her clean kitchen.
‘I thought we might have a glass of something,’ said Pat. ‘There’s that quart bottle of light ale I brought back from the Queen’s last night and never started.’
Katie shoved the newspaper into the bottom of the rubbish bucket outside the back door, and sat herself at the kitchen table, while Pat poured the foaming ale into two thick glass tumblers from the set Katie had bought in Woolworth’s at a time when sets of glasses hadn’t been an unthinkable luxury.
‘Shall I take yer a chair out the front?’ Pat asked, handing her her drink.
‘How about if we sit out in the yard instead?’ Katie felt oddly shy with her husband. It had been so long since they had been nice to one another, what with all the money worries and the bad atmosphere since he had flown off the handle about her helping Frank Barber, she didn’t quite know how he’d take things.
She smiled with relief when Pat said, ‘Good idea, girl,’ and, with one hand, grabbed the back of two of the bentwood kitchen chairs and lifted them out over the back step.
Katie took off her apron, hung it on the nail behind the door, went outside and sat down in the warm night air. She sipped at the tepid beer and looked round the dusty little yard with the patch of scruffy pot marigolds that had grown there since she had helped Molly plant them when she was a toddler. It really wasn’t like her, but Katie found herself at a loss as to what to say.
‘Penny for ’em?’ Pat said, stretching his long legs out in front of him.
‘Eh?’ she answered, surprised by the sound of his voice. ‘Sorry, I was miles away.’
‘Worrying about what we’ll get up to while yer down hopping?’ he asked with a chuckle.
‘Yeah, that’s right.’ Katie nodded and took another mouthful from her glass. ‘Especially our Sean.’
‘He’ll be all right. I’ll ask around again next week, see if anyone’s heard of anything going. And, who knows, he might be in luck. The way they’re laying off all the older lads, they might be after a bit of cheap young labour.’
Katie sighed. ‘Wonder if Mr Milton’s got himself fixed up with anything yet.’
Pat shook his head. ‘No. Joe said he saw him lining up outside the labour exchange again on Thursday. Arse practically out of his trousers, poor feller. Said he looked too weak to do anything even if there was a job for him.’
Katie stared down at the pale golden foam on top of her beer. ‘I know times are hard, Pat, but we should be grateful, yer know. We’ve got so much when yer see how other people have to manage.’ She hesitated, then added quietly, ‘That’s why I always do what I can for other people. It seems only right. And I know how yer get, Pat, but honestly, I never meant to upset yer about Frank Barber. I really was only helping him with his little girl.’
Pat didn’t answer, he just lifted his glass and silently swallowed the rest of his beer.
‘I don’t wanna start nothing with yer, Pat, I just wanted to clear the air before I go.’
When he still didn’t respond, she stood up and went inside to fetch the bottle from the kitchen. She refilled Pat’s glass, draining out the last drop, stood the empty by the back door, ready for someone to take back to the Queen’s, and then sat down again. ‘I’d better get meself shifted soon,’ she said, ‘or it’ll be time for us to go and I won’t have nothing ready.’
‘You sit there for a while, girl,’ Pat said. ‘I’ll help yer in a minute.’
Katie ran her fingers through her thick auburn hair, pulling it away from her face and neck. ‘It’s that hot, I don’t think I could sleep tonight even if I had time.’
‘Kate,’ Pat said.
‘Yes, love?’
‘I’ll miss yer, yer know.’
Katie reached out her hand and stroked the back of her husband’s great rough paw. ‘I know,’ she whispered.
Pat stood up, took his wife by the shoulders and pulled her towards him. Leaning back against the door jamb, Pat kissed her urgently. ‘Katie,’ he gasped, tipping back his head, ‘please, let’s go upstairs.’
Katie nodded and reached up to kiss him again. Their lips had just touched, when they heard Molly’s voice calling from the passage. ‘We’re back, Mum. And even our Sean’s on time.’
Pat let his hands fall to his sides.
‘I’ll make it up to yer, Pat,’ Katie whispered. ‘When yer come down and see us. I promise, I will.’
Sunday had come at last – just. It was half past two in the morning and Joe Palmer was manoeuvring his pride and joy – a recently purchased flat back truck – out of his yard at number eight Plumley Street.
He pulled up on the corner outside the Mehans’, where Katie and Nora were waiting for him with all their gear packed in the two tea chests and assorted bundles and parcels that were piled up around them on the pavement.
‘I knew we should have got Joe to take us all the way by lorry,’ Katie was saying to her mum. ‘I dunno why I let them boys kid me to go by train. What we gonna do with all this lot at the other end if the farmer ain’t there with his wagon? We’ll never be able to hump it all the way to the farm by ourselves.’
‘He’ll be there, Katie,’ Nora assured her. ‘Don’t you go worrying yerself about that. Sure doesn’t he need his hops picked? And what would the feller do without us to pick ’em for him?’
‘I can still drive yer if yer like, Kate,’ said Joe, jumping down from his cab and going round the back to let down the tailboard. ‘Don’t make no difference to me.’
Katie looked anxiously at Pat as he clambered up on to the back of the truck. ‘What d’yer think? Should Joe drive us all the way?’
Pat shook his head as he took the first of the tea chests from Joe. ‘Yer know the boys’d be choked if they didn’t get their train ride.’
Katie’s frown softened into a smile. ‘Yeah, I suppose yer right.’ She turned to Joe who was swinging another parcel up to Pat, and her smile broadened into a grin. ‘It’s your fault, Joe Palmer,’ she joked. ‘If yer didn’t let ’em hang around that yard o’ your’n and have goes in yer truck all the time, they’d have been making me promise to let ’em go by flaming lorry.’
Aggie Palmer, her hair in metal curlers, was leaning out of the upstairs window of the flat she and Joe lived in above the yard, watching them load up.
‘You sure yer don’t want Joe to take yer, Kate? I don’t mind.’ She started laughing. ‘Keep him down there with yer for the picking and all, if yer like. Your Danny can do all the work here and I’ll have a rest from Joe’s snoring.’
‘Cheeky mare,’ laughed Joe fondly, handing the final parcel up to Pat who stacked it with the other luggage hard up against the back of the cab. ‘Right. That’s that lot done. Now, let’s be having the passengers.’
‘No!’ shouted Nora, making everyone jump. ‘Sure, how can I go when I don’t know what I’ve done with me handbag?’
‘Mum,’ Katie shushed her, looking anxiously up and down the street at the curtain-shaded windows. ‘Yer’ll have everyone awake.’
‘Well,’ said Nora, ‘I need it.’
‘Why? We ain’t going to church, we’re going hopping.’
Nora leant close to Katie, scowling at her daughter’s foolishness. ‘Sure, hasn’t it got me penny policies in it. I want to make certain that Pat pays ’em for me while I’m away.’ She looked over her shoulder to check that no one could hear her private business. ‘What would it look like if something happened to me and I couldn’t even pay for me own funeral and I had to be buried on the parish?’
‘Mum! Don’t go talking like that.’
Nora straightened her already upright frame until her back was like a ramrod. ‘It’s all arranged,’ she said proudly. ‘I’ve told the insurance man to come of an evening instead of in the afternoon.’
Nora turned round and spoke to Molly, who was standing hollow-eyed with tiredness, her coat thrown on over her nightdress for modesty’s sake, waiting to wave goodbye. ‘Would yer do a favour for yer old nanna?’ asked Nora needlessly.
‘Course,’ yawned Molly.
‘Go inside and see if yer can find me handbag for me, love.’
Stifling another yawn, Molly nodded and began to move slowly towards her nanna’s house next door.
‘And send them boys out here and tell ’em to fetch the dog and all, while yer at it, please, love,’ Katie added.
Timmy and Michael appeared on the doorstep. They had slept in their clothes so that they would be ready for the early start, and, as they staggered out on to the pavement, it showed. With their creased shorts and shirts and their hair standing on end like cock fowls, they looked like two bundles of rags ready to be sorted through on a toot stall.
‘Muuuum,’ wailed Michael, rubbing his eyes. ‘Molly’s gone and dragged us out of Nanna’s bed, and she’s really hurt me.’
‘Don’t you dare start,’ said Katie, wagging her finger at him. ‘It was you two what wanted to go on the hoppers’ special in the first place. Now go and get Rags, and make sure he’s done his business before we get in Joe’s truck.’
Michael made no attempt to move, he just stood there looking dejected.
Timmy appeared every bit as dishevelled as his older brother, but he was wide awake. ‘I’ll go and fetch Rags, Mum,’ he said, taking a running kick at a stone, sending a satisfyingly bright spray of sparks from his boot as the Blakeys made violent contact with the pavement. ‘Cor, look, Mick,’ he said, the dog forgotten as he experimented with different effects. ‘It don’t half look good in the dark.’
‘It won’t be dark for much longer,’ said Joe, squinting at his pocket watch. ‘And trains don’t wait for yer, yer know. Now are you lot coming or what?’
As Katie busied herself with fussing around the boys: first chasing them indoors to get Rags, and then settling the three of them on an old blanket on the back of the truck, Molly was searching for her grandmother’s handbag. She eventually appeared in the doorway, holding it aloft.
‘There y’are Nanna,’ she said, handing over the battered brown bag. She lowered her voice. ‘It was out the back in the lav.’
‘Thank you, darling,’ said Nora with a grin. She sorted through the papers that were its only contents and set about issuing Pat with instructions as to how he was to make the payments to the insurance man.
Pat was perfectly familiar with the bowler-hatted, bicycle-clipped Mr Randall, who, being the nearest thing to a professional that most of the neighbours ever saw, spent much of his time touring the area on his sit-up-and-beg bike, dispensing wisdom as to the state of the world, writing letters explaining school children’s absences, and even settling disputes. But it still took Pat a while to assure his mother-in-law that he had managed to grasp the principles involved in paying her weekly premium. When he finally succeeded, he turned his attention to saying goodbye to his wife, while Nora turned her attention to her granddaughter.
‘See anyone last night?’ she enquired. ‘A feller maybe?’
‘Nanna,’ protested Molly, pulling her coat primly round her shoulders, ‘keep yer voice down, can’t yer? Everyone’ll hear yer.’
‘Not if yer don’t go shouting yer head off with yer complaints, they won’t,’ said Nora with a sly grin. ‘Now, come on, you can tell yer nanna.’
Molly swung her shoulders from side to side. ‘I might have done,’ she said, staring down at her bare feet.
Nora’s grin broadened. ‘Nice is he? This one?’
‘Yeah. He is. Bit sort of bossy sometimes. He likes to sort of take control. But I don’t mind ’cos he’s really, you know, a bit of all right.’
Nora’s grin disappeared. ‘Jesus, Mary, Joseph!’ she exclaimed. ‘I never thought I’d hear a granddaughter of mine say a thing like that.’
‘Like what?’ Molly demanded indignantly. She could have kicked herself; why had she said that?
‘Like yer don’t mind him being a bit bossy, that’s like what. For God’s sake, girl, where will that lead yer, eh?’
Remembering the need to keep her voice down, Molly moved closer to Nora and said almost inaudibly, ‘We’re all different, Nanna. And we all like different things.’
‘Not that different, I hope,’ said Nora sharply. ‘You wanna watch yerself, my girl. A feller telling my granddaughter what to do. Whatever next?’
‘But I didn’t say that, did I?’
‘Didn’t yer? That’s what I heard.’
‘No. And anyway, he’s a mate of our Danny’s, and he wouldn’t let no one take a liberty with me, would he?’
‘He’d better not.’ Nora was bristling.
Molly chewed at her lip, trying to decide whether what she was about to do would get her out of the mess she seemed to be in, or whether it would make it a million times worse. Stupid as she thought it might be, her impulsive nature got the better of her. ‘Can I tell yer something Nanna? Without yer raising yer voice and shouting and going barmy?’
Nora said nothing, she merely raised her eyebrows imperiously.
‘Know that secret I told yer, Nanna? The one I told yer to keep to yerself?’
‘When have I ever not kept a secret yer’ve told me?’
Molly knew that her nanna had never let her down, but she also knew that this was one secret that she really didn’t want to risk her spilling to anyone, and she knew how impetuous her grandmother could be – didn’t everyone say that that was where she got her own wild nature from? But she plunged in regardless, wanting to make it clear to her nanna that she wasn’t a fool letting boys use her. ‘Remember that other boy I said I liked and all? The one that I was going to see?’
Nora’s grin returned.
‘Well, I’m sort of, well, still seeing him and all.’
Nora was triumphant. ‘Two fellers still on the go, eh? That’s more like what I want to hear from my Molly.’
‘Sssshhh, Nanna! I told yer, it’s a secret.’
Nora spat on her palm and held her hand out to Molly. ‘Still our secret,’ she reassured her granddaughter. ‘Now, tell me all about it, but be quick, or that lot’ll be dragging me on to the back of that lorry and I’ll be going mad with not knowing till I see yer next week.’
‘I’m seeing him this afternoon,’ Molly whispered. ‘His name’s Simon. And I think he’s smashing.’
Nora let out a contented sigh. ‘Two fellers, eh? Must be, what, a month yer’ve been seeing ’em now?’
Molly nodded. ‘Yeah,’ she said, unable not to look pleased with herself.
‘Maybe I should meet ’em when I get back? See what I think of ’em both?’
Molly gulped. She really hadn’t thought this through. ‘Well, I might not still be seeing ’em, Nan. I might—’
Nora shook her head and pulled her handbag further up her arm. ‘Like I told yer before, you just make sure yer keep ’em both on a string till yer know what yer want, darling,’ she said wisely. ‘Sure, God didn’t give us our good looks for us to just throw ourselves at any Tom, Dick or how’s yer father who comes along and flashes a smile and waves a handful of ten-bob notes in our face.’
Molly’s mouth dropped open. Even by Nora’s standards that was a real piece of don’t-do-as-I-do-but-do-as-I-say double-talk. Everyone in the family knew that that was exactly what Nora had done when she had run off and married Stephen Brady, a chancer from Cork City, with roaring good looks and an even more impressive line in Blarney. He had whisked Nora away from under the very nose of a decent farming lad from Wicklow – to whom she was engaged to be married – and had brought her over to London, and, so the story went, before he had even made an honest woman of her.
But even if Molly had been bold enough to argue the point with her nanna, she had missed her chance. Phoebe and Sooky had appeared on the scene and, even with the amount of indignation Molly felt, there was no chance of her questioning her grandmother’s integrity in front of anyone, let alone those two old gossips.
They came strolling across the street as though it was the middle of the afternoon. Both were dressed up in coats and hats, and were being followed, somewhat grudgingly it looked, by their hapless husbands, Albert and Jimmo, who were struggling to carry an assortment of bundles wrapped up with bits of knotted string and creased brown paper.
With a sour-faced silent gesture, Phoebe directed Albert to hand her parcels to Joe Palmer and then for Jimmo Shay to do likewise.
‘What’s all this about?’ asked Joe. His question wasn’t strictly necessary, as he knew all too well what it was about.
‘Yer going to London Bridge Station, ain’t yer?’ snapped Phoebe accusingly.
‘Yeah.’
‘Well, so are we.’
‘So you ain’t going with that lot from Chris Street in the back of Neaves’s van, then?’
‘Does it look like it?’
‘No.’
‘That’s right. We thought we might as well go on the train for a change. So get that lot stacked on the back of yer motor, Joe Palmer. Proper mind, we don’t want nothing broke. And yer can keep it away from that tripe hound and all.’ She sniffed and glared through narrowed eyes at Rags and the boys, who peered back at her from under the blanket on the back of the truck. ‘Then yer can give me a hand up as well. And yer do know a woman o’ my age’ll have to be travelling up in the cab, don’t yer?’ She jerked her head towards Nora and Katie. ‘Not on the back with that mob. The screws in me knees wouldn’t take it.’
‘Screws in her neck more like. Look at her, just like Boris Karloff in that Frankenstein film,’ said Michael, leaning over the side of the lorry; his cheek earning him a grin from his dad and a quick flip round the ear from his mum.
Joe didn’t bother to argue with Phoebe, he just beckoned to Pat to help him load up. As they slung the parcels on to the back of the truck, Joe had a look of complete resignation on his face, but he was muttering darkly to himself. ‘Just five minutes and we’d have been away and these two old trouts would’ve had to have gone in the back of Neaves’s van with that lot from round the corner. I told ’em to hurry up, but would they listen? No. Now they’re gonna be stuck with ’em on the train, and serves ’em bleed’n right and all, if you ask me.’
Phoebe, arms folded, stood herself on tiptoes and cast a critical eye over Pat and Joe’s loading techniques, making several suggestions about rearranging things, which they pointedly ignored. But Phoebe wasn’t one to put up with such disrespectful behaviour. ‘Look at that Joe’s face, will yer? Miserable bastard,’ she said loudly, jabbing her finger at him. ‘Yer can see he hangs his fiddle up when he gets home.’
Molly rolled her eyes at Nora. ‘Yer’ve struck lucky, Nanna. You and Mum’re gonna have Phoebe and Sooky bending yer ear’oles all the way down there.’
‘We can handle them, love. Sure, we won’t even notice the battered old cows.’ But Nora had spoken too soon.
Phoebe had repositioned herself, this time in front of Katie. ‘I’ll bet that Frank Barber’ll miss you,’ she said, with a nasty smirk on her face. ‘And all the – what is it yer call it now – help, what yer’ve been giving him.’
Nora stepped between her daughter and her vicious-tongued neighbour. ‘Yer lucky my son-in-law wasn’t standing here to listen to yer filthy tongue,’ she fumed.
‘It don’t matter, Mum,’ Katie said coldly. ‘Ignore her. She ain’t got nothing better to do with her time.’
Phoebe turned to Sooky. ‘Just look at these two, Sook,’ she said, tipping her head towards Nora and Katie. ‘Stop a clock, their faces would.’
Nora and Katie seethed at the insult but both knew that they couldn’t start anything, not with Pat around. They’d have to bide their time.
Molly wasn’t feeling quite so controlled about it all, and it was only Joe Palmer insisting that if they didn’t go there and then, he would go back to his bed and the lot of them could walk to London Bridge Station for all he cared, that a row was prevented from breaking out.
The indignant-looking group clambered on to the truck, called a chorus of tense goodbyes and waved stiff farewells to their loved ones as Joe, with not inconsiderable relief, pulled away out of Plumley Street.
‘Just say one word about being tired or cold, Michael Mehan,’ Katie warned her son through gritted teeth, ‘just one word, and, I promise, I’ll skin yer.’
When Pat came home from work to Plumley Street the next evening it felt strange, cold: his kids weren’t playing out in the street, the house wasn’t full of the noise and the bustle of women talking and laughing while they got the tea ready, and Rags wasn’t jumping all over him, begging Pat to scratch him behind his ears. Even though he should have been used to it by now – Katie went to Kent almost every autumn, after all – the house, as he stepped inside the passage, had an emptiness that would never seem right to him. And, though it was hard to admit it, he knew why. It reminded him too much of when he had been a little kid himself, and he had come home from school and his mum had been missing yet again. Young as he had been, he had known she had gone off with some new man, and would be away until she got fed up with him and was ready to come home and face the rows and the violence which would inevitably start . . .
He tried to bury those memories somewhere deep inside him, to stop them hurting him, and usually he succeeded, but at times like this when he felt so alone, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t stop them rising to the surface to torment him. It was just like the blackness that overwhelmed him whenever he saw Katie talking to another man. He knew it did no one any good, but he just couldn’t help himself.
He looked around the empty kitchen and rubbed his hands roughly over his face, dragging his fingers down his weather-beaten cheeks. With his wife miles away from him, and after the day he had had at the docks, Pat Mehan was feeling not unclose to weeping.
He walked over to the tap and filled the kettle. He’d have a cup of tea. That would make it feel a bit more like home. He took off his cap and flicked it on to the draining board. Immediately he checked himself – Katie would never have allowed that if she was there – so he picked it up and took it out into the passage and hooked it on one of the coat pegs in the glory’ hole under the stairs.
Then he went back into the kitchen, sat down at the table and set about rolling himself a cigarette, while he waited for the water to boil, and thought about his day.
Even for a Monday it had been dismal down at the docks, but usually, no matter how quiet things had been, Pat managed to get at least a couple of hours’ paid work under his belt. He was a stevedore who was well-respected by men and management alike, known for his reliability, his strength and his willingness to have a go at any job no matter how demanding; and he had always made sure that the union, regardless of how tough their demands, had played fair with the governors, and they had always looked after him in return. But not that day. It had been dead down there, and even Pat had been told, sorry, there was nothing doing, they might as well all go home.
He had been so fed up that he was tempted when one of the other blokes, whose wife had also gone hopping, had asked him to go for a few jars rather than straight home to their empty houses, but had decided against it. Not only were visits to the pub something he couldn’t afford if he wasn’t earning even a few hours’ pay, he had his Molly, Danny and Sean to think about. Pat might have been a big, powerful-looking man, but he cared as passionately about his children as he did his wife, and he wasn’t ashamed of it either. In fact, he was one of the only men ever to have been seen pushing a pram along Plumley Street, he had been that proud of becoming a dad. So, it was with no excuses that he had said thanks all the same, but not today, to his workmate’s offer, and had taken himself off home to make a start on the tea.
It wasn’t only that Pat felt responsible for his children, he was also keen to see that they were eating properly, so he could reassure Katie, when he saw her at the weekend, that her precious chicks were having at least one decent meal a day. He knew what youngsters could be like, and he knew how Katie worried about them. In fact, if he had had a few bob to spare he would gladly have bet it all that Sean would have gone through the whole day with nothing more passing his lips than the two slices of bread and scrape he’d shovelled down himself at breakfast time.
Pat looked over at the gas stove. The kettle was steaming like a train. He ground out his dog-end in the pickle jar lid that served as an ashtray, took off his jacket and rolled up his shirt sleeves. He’d have a cup of tea later, when he had got himself organised. It shouldn’t be too difficult making a bit of tea for his three eldest, he’d had some practice over the years seeing to his own supper when Katie and the kids had been hopping, after all. Admittedly, in the past, he only had himself to see to, and had tended to stick to bread and cheese or visits to the eel and pie house or the chip shop, but Katie had left a list of instructions and enough stuff in the larder to get them through the first few days so they wouldn’t have to resort to eating cold food or fish and chips just yet awhile.
Unfortunately, Pat was a willing rather than a skilful housekeeper and when Danny and Molly came home from work they found him in the kitchen surrounded by every saucepan, pot and dish they owned, and enough sausages, mash and fried onions to feed at least a dozen people. Even when he had dished up their helpings and had put a pile on to a plate for the absent Sean, there was still a mountain of it left over.
Pat scratched his head and stared at the heaped up plates. ‘I can’t think where all this came from,’ he said. ‘I didn’t think I was peeling that many spuds.’
‘I think yer must’ve used up the whole week’s worth,’ grinned Molly, sprinkling salt over her mound of food.
‘D’yer reckon?’ Pat frowned at the drifts of peelings snaking all over the draining board. There had been no instructions on Katie’s list about how many potatoes he should peel, just ‘enough for the four of you’, it had said. What was that supposed to mean?
‘Look, when we’ve had ours I’ll nip over to Mrs Milton’s with the rest. Them little ’uns of her’n won’t let it go to waste.’
‘Right. Good girl,’ said Pat, handing Danny a plate piled so high it was more like a serving dish than a single portion. ‘Get that down yer, son.’
‘Ta,’ Danny said flatly.
Pat sat down at the table with his own equally enormous supper, picked up his fork and pointed it at his son before digging it into the mashed potato. ‘You’re quiet, Dan. Nothing wrong at work, is there?’
‘No. Nothing’s wrong at work. Not exactly.’ Danny cut into one of the shiny, dark brown sausages, making it pop as the skin split, sending a spurt of hot grease into the air. ‘I was thinking about something I saw in Joe’s evening paper just now.’
Pat swallowed his food and nodded approvingly. ‘Been reading the paper, have yer? Good on yer. So, what was it yer saw?’
Danny took his time answering; it was as though he was weighing up the best way to put it. ‘It’s all this stuff . . .’ he began slowly, drawing his fork backwards and forwards through the mass of potato his father had presented to him.
‘What stuffs that then, son?’ Pat encouraged him.
‘This stuff about how Hitler’s meant to be treating Jews so bad. And how he’s meant to be a warmonger. I can’t believe how they’re trying to make him sound such a villain.’
Molly flinched as Pat smashed his knife and fork down on the table, sending the salt pot flying and the mustard jar crashing to the floor and spinning off across the lino. Hurriedly she scrambled under the table as much to get out of the firing line as to retrieve the condiments.
‘Sound such a villain?’ Pat echoed his son disbelievingly. ‘Are you off your head, boy? Are you a complete idiot?’
‘No, I ain’t,’ said Danny defiantly. ‘Everyone knows Hitler’s the best thing what could have happened to Germany. He’s gonna sort that country right out, you just see. They’ll all be in work over there, and everyone’ll have plenty. And what’ll be happening in this stupid country? We’ll have nothing, that’s what. Right laughing stock, we’ll be.’
‘I can’t believe this – a son of mine talking like them no-good bastards what stand on street corners, giving out them stinking leaflets. What yer gonna do next? Start smashing old people’s windows?’
Molly gently put the mustard jar and salt pot back on the table and sat down. She picked up her knife and fork, but she didn’t start eating again, she was too engrossed by her brother arguing with their dad in a way she would never have believed he would dare.
‘You reckon you know it all,’ Danny went on aggressively. ‘Well, if you’re so clever, how comes yer doing so bad for yerself? Couldn’t even get yerself a few hours work today, could yer?’ He leant back in his chair and smirked. ‘And you reckon I’m the idiot.’
Pat clenched his fists so tightly that his knuckles stuck out sharp and white against his sun-tanned skin; he was struggling against an almost irresistible urge to raise his hand and strike his son hard across the face. He closed his eyes and, in a voice trembling with temper said in a barely audible whisper, ‘Gawd, I wish yer mother was here to sort you out. I can’t trust meself to keep me hands off yer, yer stupid little sod.’ He opened his eyes, shoved his chair back and stood up. ‘I’m going out for a drink and some fresh air.’
Pat must have said he wished Katie was at home in Poplar at least a hundred times during the first week that she was away in Kent. Not only because he was missing her – and he was, badly – but also because he needed her to help him sort out the nonsense that Danny had got stuck in his head. And Sean needed something more than the talking to that he could give him as well. Pat genuinely hadn’t realised just how much work it took to keep the kids in order. Whenever there was any trouble with them, Katie and Nora put it down to their age, but that excuse – and it was an excuse Pat was convinced, because he was never like it as a boy – could only really apply to Sean. Danny was eighteen, a young man, not a kid, and he definitely should have known better by now. Pat just counted himself lucky that at least there were no problems with Molly, or he really wouldn’t have known what to do then.
Actually, Molly did have problems, but she was a bit more skilled than the boys at hiding the fact from her dad.
Molly was becoming increasingly troubled that things weren’t going how she had planned. She had presumed that her dad would be going down to Kent to see her mum and nanna and the little ones at the weekend, and that she would be left at home with the boys, probably on the understanding that she cooked their meals and kept the place in order. Then she would have the freedom to meet Simon and Bob and to come home whenever she felt like it, the idea behind her plan being that it would be the perfect opportunity to get to know them both a bit better and to decide which one she preferred. It had been all very well at first, seeing the pair of them, but things were becoming a bit complicated. She didn’t like lying, well, not lying exactly, but having to cover up all the time was against her usually open nature, so she had decided that she would sort it all out once and for all. But it hadn’t turned out like that.
Come the first weekend of her supposed liberty, her dad had plans of his own – and unfortunately they involved her. Pat had supposed that, unlike the performance he had with the boys, having to issue threats, in order to get them to go with him, Molly would be thrilled at the prospect of getting away from Poplar and spending Saturday and Sunday in the countryside with her mum and nanna. But it hadn’t worked out like that at all.
All of his three oldest children, Molly included, had made his life such a misery, particularly during the return journey and for the five days afterwards when their mother wasn’t around to hear them, that, come the second weekend, Pat had turned up outside Katie’s hop hut alone. He was worried enough about how he was going to tell her that he had only had two days’ work again, without bothering himself with those three and their moaning. But Katie had dismissed his money worries with a flap of her hand and a sharp telling off about his overreacting as usual. No, she was far more exercised with what her absent children were getting up to. The more she thought about it, the more frantic she became, until she finally worked herself up into a real lather, demanding to know what he had done to make them want to stay away, and yelling at the top of her voice about her husband’s irresponsibility in leaving her babies to fend for themselves.
Pat didn’t have the inclination, or the energy, to row about it, and had half-heartedly retorted that they were big enough and ugly enough to look after themselves. He thought it wise not to mention that he had had just about enough of the three of them and he was delighted that they had stayed back in Poplar. All he did add, and it was the truth, was that Molly had said she wanted to stay at home to clean the house out from top to bottom as a surprise for her mum’s homecoming, when hopping finished at the end of the next week. What he omitted to tell his wife was that their precious daughter had said she would do the housework as a way of saying she was sorry as she had been such a little mare to her dad about not going to Kent with him.
But when Pat arrived back in Plumley Street on Sunday evening, there was no sign of Molly or the house having been given even the briefest flick over with a duster, let alone the thorough going-through with a mop and bucket that she had promised. Nor was there any sign of Danny.
The only person who was at home was Sean; he was sitting in the kitchen, picking at a hunk of unappetising-looking bread and a piece of greyish cheddar that was more rind than cheese. He appeared totally unaware of the fact that he was surrounded by flies and the debris of what looked like every drink and meal the three of them had eaten since Pat had left for Kent late on Friday night.
Pat exploded with anger about the state of the place but Sean had nothing to say in his or anyone else’s defence. He just got up, leaving his bread and cheese on the table, and disappeared out of the back door and over the yard wall.
When Molly eventually came home, Pat was standing at the sink wringing out a dishcloth. He glanced over at the clock on the mantel shelf. It was a few minutes off a quarter to ten.
With very controlled movements, he folded the cloth into a neat rectangle and draped it over the now shining single brass tap. ‘Well?’ he asked, turning to face his daughter. ‘What’s yer story?’
Molly’s face flushed scarlet. ‘I went to the park with me friends. I didn’t expect yer back till later.’
Pat still sounded calm. ‘Yer was in the park till this time of night?’
‘I didn’t realise how late it was. Yer know what it’s like when yer get talking.’
‘And how about the promise yer made about doing out the house? A way of saying yer was sorry, wasn’t it?’ He leant back against the sink and folded his arms across his chest. ‘D’you know how long it’s taken me just to get this kitchen straight? It’d be nice, wouldn’t it, for yer mother to come home to this pigsty next week?’
Molly, if it was possible, went even redder. She pulled off her hat and threw it on the table, then took down her mother’s apron from the nail behind the door. ‘I’ll do the front room and passage now and I’ll do the rest every evening after work,’ she said, tying the strings tightly round her waist. ‘I really promise, Dad.’
Pat filled the kettle and set it on the stove. ‘So, who were yer with? And don’t tell me Lizzie, ’cos I went over the Wattses’ to see if yer was there.’
Molly dipped her chin. ‘I met a boy.’ Was she stupid? Why had she told him that?
Pat smacked his hand hard on to the draining board. ‘You just wait till yer mother hears about this.’
‘She was my age when she was seeing you.’ Molly gulped; why hadn’t she just kept quiet?
‘But she didn’t lie to her mother about what she was up to, did she?’
Molly said nothing.
‘Now, who is this boy? Do I know him?’
What could she say? Molly had seen Bob Jarvis the night before and had then spent all Sunday with Simon. Her throat was so dry she could scarcely get the words out. ‘Just a boy. I only just met him with some girls from work and we was all talking and . . . You know.’
‘Are you lying to me, Molly?’
‘No, Dad.’ Molly snatched the broom from the corner by the hearth. ‘I’ll get started on the front room.’
‘No, you don’t . . .’ Pat began.
Molly was sure that it must have been her silent prayers, because at that very moment, when she was sure her dad was prepared to throttle the truth out of her, they heard the front door crash back on its hinges and the sound of someone stumbling along the passage.
‘What the bloody hell’s happening now?’
Danny appeared in the doorway. He had an idiotic grin on his face. His usually neat collar was awry, his dark curly hair looked as though it’d been combed with a lavatory brush and there was a smear of blood at the corner of his lip. The stench of stale beer and tobacco was all about him.
Pat ran his hands through his hair. ‘Thank Gawd yer mother ain’t here to see this,’ he said distractedly. ‘Now, get out of my sight, the pair of yer. I’m gonna kip in next door, and when I come in here tomorrow morning, all I can say is that you two had better be ready for work, and this place had better be in a state fit for decent people.’
Molly waited for the sound of her nanna’s street door being slammed shut, then she hauled her brother up the stairs and shoved him on to her parents’ big double bed. Then she ran back down to the kitchen to get a bucket in case Danny was ill in the night.
As she pulled off her brother’s shoes she had two reasons to be grateful for the state he was in: not only had he taken his father’s attention from what she had been up to, but he was in no condition to ask her any awkward questions either. With a bit more luck, if she got stuck into the cleaning now and made sure that she had a decent breakfast on the table first thing, her dad would calm down a bit and she would have had the chance to get her story straight.
Danny suddenly opened his eyes. They were bloodshot and puffy from drink. He blinked slowly, then grinned. ‘I’ve been out with Bob,’ he slurred. ‘Me best mate, that feller.’
Molly didn’t say anything, but was thankful for the information; now she wouldn’t make the mistake of saying she was with Bob Jarvis when her dad asked. She wiped the blood roughly from Danny’s lip with her hankie, then pushed him on to his side as she struggled to get him out of his jacket.
‘Thinks the world of you, Moll,’ Danny mumbled, barely audible from where Molly had turned his face into the pillows. ‘He’s been telling everyone that you’re his girl.’
Molly cringed as she visualised what Danny would have to say if he found out she was two-timing his mate. She rolled him on to his back again.
‘There’s a bucket by the side of the bed,’ she said to him, folding his jacket.
As she put it down on the brocade-covered stool, she looked at the collection of framed photographs of the family that her mother displayed so proudly on her dressing table. Molly felt her cheeks burning again as a pale, monochrome image of her mother smiled out at her with such tenderness and love. Molly swallowed hard, determined, dreadful as she felt, that she wouldn’t cry.
She closed the door to her parents’ bedroom and stood on the dark landing. Everything was such a mess. Why hadn’t she done what she’d been planning for weeks? Why hadn’t she sorted it all out when she’d had the opportunity?
She knew why: she didn’t want to. She liked them both, Simon and Bob. How could she be expected to make up her mind when they were so different?
There was Bob, so arrogant and full of himself. He didn’t seem to care what she thought about anything, but he could thrill her with just a look, and when he actually touched her . . . She shuddered with pleasure at the memory of his fingers playing up and down her cheek.
And then there was Simon, so gentle and kind. He was interested in everything she had to say, and he wasn’t exactly slow when it came to kissing either.
She went into her own room and closed the door behind her. She couldn’t even think about starting the clearing up now. No, she’d have a good night’s sleep and then she’d get up really early and start on the housework tomorrow first thing. That’s what she’d do.
She let her clothes drop to the floor where she took them off, tugged her nightgown roughly over her head, then climbed between the sheets and pulled the eiderdown up under her chin.
With a slow sigh, she closed her eyes and reassured herself that things had a way of sorting themselves out. They always did. Everyone knew that. Didn’t they?