ON A GLORIOUS Sunday morning at the beginning of July, nearly a month after Danny and Liz had announced their engagement, a topic other than The Wedding was occupying the residents of Plumley Street: the annual Catholic Procession from the Church of Saint Mary and Saint Joseph.
Katie, Nora and Molly, like many other women in that part of Poplar, had been up since first light preparing their houses, making sure that they were clean both inside and out, fit and in readiness for the shrines they had been getting ready to set beside their street doors.
Katie was giving her inside windows a final polish before rehanging the freshly washed lace curtains, while Molly was energetically scrubbing the pavement with a wet, long-handled broom, and Nora was engrossed in washing her street doorstep before she gave it a thorough whitening – and woe betide anyone stupid enough to put even the sight of a foot within half a yard of her efforts, she threatened.
Nora stood up. ‘Glad to see yer with the colour back in yer cheeks, Molly love,’ she said, handing her granddaughter the bucket so she could empty the dirty water into the gutter for her. ‘Sorted out the problems yer was having with this feller o’ your’n then, I suppose?’
Molly’s mouth fell open. She couldn’t believe that her nanna knew about her trying to give up Simon – nor that she could be that indiscreet. As she looked round in hasty alarm to see if her mum had overheard her through the window, Molly spilt the bucket, completely soaking her dress and legs with the mucky water that was meant to have gone down the drain. ‘Now look what yer’ve made me do, Nan,’ she wailed.
‘I knew I was right.’ Nora smiled triumphantly, ignoring the state of her granddaughter’s dress. ‘Yer can’t fool yer old nanna.’
‘Nanna, please, don’t. Mum’ll hear yer.’ She lowered her eyes. ‘And yer know what she’d say if she knew about him being . . . you know.’
Nora took the empty bucket from Molly and whispered loudly, ‘So, it’s the Jewish feller still, is it? I did wonder when yer never went out the other Sunday.’
Molly flashed an anxious look towards her mother, who was frowning at them from the other side of the windowpanes. ‘Please, Nanna, don’t do this.’
Nora bent forward, leaning close to her granddaughter. ‘I’ve said it often enough to yer, but I really would like to meet him one day. And I could help yer get round yer mother. You know me, I’ll be able to talk her into taking a liking to him before she knows what’s hit her. He could be one of them Lascar fellers off the ships and she’d still love him by the time I’ve finished with her.’
Molly was still standing there dripping, too flabbergasted to know even how to begin answering her nanna, when Katie emerged from the gloom of the passageway. ‘What’s going on out here?’ she demanded. ‘Look at yer, yer wringing wet, yer daft mare.’
‘It’s nothing, Mum. Is it, Nan?’ Molly said, looking pointedly at Nora. ‘Just me being clumsy, that’s all.’
Nora shook her head at Molly and tutted. That’s right, Katie,’ she sighed, ‘it was nothing. Just this leggy great daughter of yours being clumsy.’ She picked up her bucket and then turned to face Katie. ‘Pat changed his mind yet, has he?’
‘No. It’s no good. He won’t budge.’ Katie glanced across the street to see if Phoebe or Sooky were out earwigging. But she was safe; unusually for that neighbourhood, neither of the two women’s families were Catholic, so they had no reason to be up so early on a Sunday morning. ‘You all reckon I’m the stubborn one,’ she went on. ‘Well, I’m telling yer, I reckon Pat could give me lessons. He’s all right, ain’t he, saying he’s too busy to march with us, but he can find time to watch Father Hopkins bless our shrine. I know what’s really up with him: he reckons this is all women’s business.’
Pat appeared in the passageway behind her. ‘I don’t think that, Katie, and I never said it neither, and well you know it. What I actually said was that I had me own business to attend to – important business – so don’t go telling lies, all right?’
Katie stepped out on to the pavement and turned to face him. ‘So what exactly is this business that’s more important than the Procession then?’ Katie stuck her fists into her waist and stared at him, challenging him to answer that if he could.
‘If yer really interested, I’ll tell yer,’ he answered, equally forcefully. ‘I’ve got some of the blokes from work coming round this afternoon for a meeting, like. We wanna get things straight about how far we’re gonna go if the guv’nors try pulling any more o’ them strokes what they’ve threatened.’ Pat bashed the side of his fist against the wall. ‘Cutting the rates and taking on non-union men. It ain’t right and we won’t put up with it. But we’ve gotta be in agreement about any action. We can’t let ’em divide us.’ He paused, then looked at Katie. ‘Satisfied?’
Katie knew Molly was standing there behind her, and she hated having cross words with Pat in front of any of her children, but she had set her heart on his going on the parade with her. ‘You’ve been on the march every other year.’
Exasperated, Pat threw up his hands. ‘Well, we ain’t been in this much shtook every other year, have we?’
She lifted her chin defiantly. ‘And yer really think it’ll make any difference what you and a couple of mates decide in our back kitchen, do yer?’
‘Look, Kate,’ he said quietly, ‘I know yer disappointed about me not going with yer, but can’t yer keep yer voice down a bit? It can’t be helped. A man’s gotta earn a living to keep his family, and that’s final.’
Ignoring his appeal to calm down, Katie, her face tight with temper, yelled, ‘And you’re doing such a good job of that, ain’t yer? That’s all you can do, ain’t it, rabbit on about rights and unions and Gawd knows what else. All that old bunny really puts shoes on the kids’ feet and food in their bellies, don’t it? Go out the back yard and have a look, go on. I can’t shut that meat safe out there for all the grub yer keep putting in it.’ She jabbed an accusing finger at him. ‘Yer just making excuses, Pat Mehan, that’s what yer doing. Yer just don’t wanna march with me. Why won’t yer admit it?’ Now she was in full flow, Katie wasn’t concerned with whether she was being fair or making sense, nor was she about to let her husband defend himself. She barely paused for breath before continuing, ‘Well, there’s plenty of men round here what will be marching. Men what ain’t scared to be seen with women and kids. Mind you, they know they’re men. They’ve got nothing to worry about. They ain’t pathetic excuses for . . .’ As soon as the words had passed her lips, Katie regretted them; immediately she came to her senses and realised where this could lead them. She held up her hand in a feeble attempt to stop whatever it was she had said from doing any harm, but it was too late, Pat’s face had blanched and his shoulders had dropped.
‘So that’s how yer feel is it?’ he said, almost to himself. ‘I thought we’d got over all this.’
‘Pat . . .’
Nora stepped forward and touched her daughter’s arm. ‘Katie,’ she said firmly, ‘that’s enough. No more.’
Katie shook her away; her hands were trembling. ‘Pat, I never meant . . .’
Innocently unaware of the drama that was being acted out on the pavement, Timmy and Michael came bouncing out of their nanna’s house, carefully avoiding the newly cleaned step.
‘Mum!’ Michael yelled, his voice at full volume even though he was standing right in front of her. ‘Farvee said that Dad ain’t marching. Is it true? Is it?’ He didn’t wait for her to answer. ‘So can we just watch and all? We could stay here with Dad, couldn’t we? We’d be ever so good.’
It was Pat who answered his son. He spoke slowly as though he was having trouble saying the words. ‘Don’t be so cheeky, Michael. You do as yer mother says. Yer gonna march and that’s the end of it.’
‘But, Dad,’ groaned Michael, ‘all the kids’ll be there from the other schools, all them right hard kids from round Mathias Street and Wade Street. Dad, they’ll really—’
Before Michael could say what exactly it was that the hard kids would do, Nora had grabbed hold of him and Timmy by the backs of their shirts and was whisking them roughly towards number ten.
‘I’ll skin that Stephen,’ Nora muttered darkly as she hoisted them backwards. ‘And I’ll skin you as well, if I have to listen to any more of this nonsense, Michael.’ She shoved first him and then Timmy into the passageway. ‘Sure, haven’t I told yer both enough times already, the parade’ll be good practice for the wedding.’
With her grandsons safely, if ignominiously, out of the way, Nora turned her attention to Molly, who was standing watching her parents with a look in her eyes that made her seem more like a bewildered child than a feisty young woman who wouldn’t take any nonsense from anyone.
‘And you, Molly,’ Nora said firmly, doing her best to keep some sort of control of the situation, ‘you get in here with me. I need a hand with me jobs. And I’m sure,’ she continued, flashing a meaningful look at Pat, ‘that yer mum and dad have got plenty they need to do indoors as well.’
Shoulders slumped just like her father’s, Molly went without protest into her nanna’s, her skirt dripping around her, while her mum followed her dad into next door to finish their row in private.
Katie was almost in tears as she stood facing Pat in the kitchen. ‘I’m sorry, Pat, I never meant nothing, it’s just ’cos I’ve got meself all upset that you ain’t coming, that’s all. Why don’t yer change yer mind, eh? Just for me. It ain’t too late.’
‘Why should yer want me there? I’m useless, ain’t I?’
‘No,’ Katie snapped, her blood rising to her cheeks, ‘yer just flaming stubborn.’
‘Me? That’s a laugh.’
‘I suppose yer can at least manage to come to Mass with us this morning.’
‘No. No, I don’t think I can. I’m gonna sort out what I wanna talk to the blokes about later on.’
‘You liar! You just made that up, didn’t yer? Just to get me going.’ Katie circled him as he stood there by the table, clenching and unclenching his fists. ‘You think yer so clever. Well, it’s you what’ll rot in hell for yer lies, Pat Mehan.’ She stopped moving and stood there in front of him, chin in the air. ‘It’s meant to be Sunday,’ she said, playing her final card. ‘Father Hopkins won’t like it, you not going to church. Especially today of all days.’
‘Well, that’s hard luck. He ain’t got no family to feed, I have. Even if yer do reckon I’m useless at it.’
With that, Pat shoved her out of the way and threw open the back door. He looked over his shoulder and said stonily, ‘Now, if I have yer permission, I’m going out to the lav for a bit of peace.’
Katie sat down and stared at the table. Why had she wound him up like that? Why couldn’t she just keep her big mouth shut?
She rubbed her hands over her face. It was all her mum’s fault. She was the one she’d learnt it from – opening her gob first and thinking after. She laughed mirthlessly.
‘Thanks, Mum,’ she said to herself.
The Sunday dinner was a very restrained affair, with the boiled bacon and pease pudding being eaten in almost total silence. Stephen had made one or two attempts to cheer things up a bit, by joshing the two youngest a couple of times, but with the threat of the Procession and the hated white satin shirts and stiffly pressed shorts hanging over them, even he couldn’t raise a smile from Michael and Timmy.
As for Pat, Danny, Molly and Sean, they never said a word between them; Nora chatted a bit in a general sort of a way, and Katie complained a bit, mainly about elbows on the table and the rudeness of people who stretched across without saying excuse me to others, but there was nothing that could in any way pass for the usual mealtime banter around the Mehans’ kitchen table. There wasn’t even a row.
As soon as the knives and forks had been set down on the empty plates, Katie stood up. ‘Me, Molly and Mum’re gonna get the boys and ourselves ready and the shrine set up,’ she said, addressing Pat without looking directly at him. ‘So, if you can manage it, and you don’t think yer mates from work’ll laugh at yer if they turn up early, I’d appreciate it if yer could clear the table for me. Yer never know,’ she added, glaring at Sean, Danny and Stephen in turn, ‘yer might even get a bit of help from someone.’ She pointed at Michael. ‘You sit there while I go up and fetch yer outfits from me wardrobe. Then we’ll go next door into Nanna’s.’
With that, Katie marched out of the kitchen. She had just reached the bottom of the stairs when she paused, her hand hovering over the banisters. ‘And, Michael, don’t you dare go out that back yard and try and have it away over that wall,’ she called back along the passage.
Despite Michael and Timmy’s reluctance and their increasingly wild pleas for mercy, they, their mum, nanna and sister were, at Katie’s insistence, amongst the first to arrive at Saint Mary and Saint Joseph’s in Canton Street. But the crowds soon began to gather, and soon the churchyard and the pavement outside were packed with people eager to set off on the Solemn Procession in honour of Our Lady that was due to begin at four o’clock.
But even with all the milling about, there was still no hiding place for Michael and Timmy; Katie was keeping an eagle eye on the pair of them. It was because she was concentrating on not letting the boys out of her sight that she didn’t notice Frank Barber come up behind her.
‘Afternoon, Katie,’ he said.
Katie turned round and smiled at him. ‘Hello, Frank. Yer made me jump.’
He returned her smile and said quietly, ‘I was wondering if we could join yer. It used to be, yer know, someone else who used to do all this. Theresa’s mum. I just used to wait at home with the shrine.’ He paused, embarrassed. ‘Tell yer the truth, I’m a bit out o’ me depth.’
‘Course yer can stand with us. Yer more than welcome, Frank.’ Katie smiled down at Theresa who was wearing the white dress and little muslin veil of a first communicant. ‘It’s good to see a man spending time with his child. Tell yer what, I’ll see if Father Hopkins’ll let us march together and all, how’d that be?’
Nora shook her head. ‘I don’t think I’m hearing this,’ she muttered to herself. ‘Won’t that girl ever learn?’
Frank nodded his thanks, as Katie, her surveillance of her boys apparently no longer important, went off to speak to the priest. She was back in less than five minutes, her face wreathed in smiles of victory, with the priest by her side.
‘It’s all arranged,’ she said. ‘Father Hopkins here was keeping it a secret until the last minute but he’s been planning a special treat for the boys.’ Katie couldn’t stop herself beaming with pride, even though she knew it was a sin. ‘As a reward for all their hard work in the nativity play,’ she said slowly, savouring every words, ‘Father Hopkins is giving our Timmy and our Michael the honour of carrying the two ends of the big flower wreath what spells “Jesus”. Right at the very front of the Procession they’ll be, just behind the Cross Bearer. And he said that we can walk along behind them, didn’t yer, Father?’
Timmy and Michael were not pleased by this revelation, in fact, they were totally scandalised by the idea. Carrying flowers! It was the final humiliation. Michael was desperate; those kids from Upper North Street would never let him forget this. They’d beat him to a pulp.
‘But Father Hopkins,’ he said, his brain whirling with the effort of trying to come up with a plan of escape, ‘don’t yer think . . .’ As he frantically searched about him for a scapegoat, his eyes lit on Frank Barber’s daughter. ‘Don’t yer think it’d be really nice if Theresa carried the wreath?’ Then, with an inspired afterthought, he added the whispered clincher, ‘What with her not having a mum or nothing.’
Father Hopkins clapped his hands together in delight and said, ‘What a wonderful child you have there, Katie.’ The priest patted Michael on the head. ‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do, young Michael. I’ll let you and Timmy share carrying it with her. She can stand between the pair of you. Now how would that be?’
Michael was fit to collapse with the shame of it. Flowers, and with a girl in a white frock and veil. He would have to think of something, or he might as well go and chuck himself straight into the Cut and get it over with there and then.
Katie was obviously unaware of her son’s real intention. Her face glowing with pleasure and her eyes sparkling with tears of motherly adoration, she bent forward and kissed the top of his plastered down red curls. ‘And just think, Michael,’ she cooed. ‘Me, yer nanna, Molly and Frank’ll all be walking along right behind yer. We’ll be able to watch yer every step of the way.’
Nora was as horrified by all this as her grandson, but for reasons of her own. She could only wonder at her daughter’s apparent death wish; she was actually going to parade around the streets alongside Frank Barber. Whatever was she thinking of?
‘Won’t that be cosy?’ she mumbled to Katie through gritted teeth. ‘I can’t wait to see what Pat’ll have to say when he comes out to see the blessing.’
‘You really think he’s gonna be there?’ Katie hissed back disbelievingly, so that Frank couldn’t hear her. ‘Anyway, even Pat couldn’t be stupid enough to see anything wrong with me walking alongside a neighbour in the Procession.’
The whole experience turned out to be even more awful than Michael had feared; if only it had rained as it had yesterday, but no such luck, the sun shone, the skies were clear, and every inch of every pavement of the route was lined with people, all eager to watch his humiliation.
And what a route it was. There was nothing discreet about the Annual Solemn Out-Door Procession. It had obviously been designed, Michael was convinced, to show him off in all his disgrace to the maximum number of people in the district.
They set off from the church in Canton Street, went through Pekin Street, then out on to the East India Dock Road. Via a long circuitous route to visit the shrines of the church congregation in every possible street, the Procession returned eventually to the church for the Solemn Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.
Michael would have fainted if he thought he could have got away with it but, every step of the way, he could feel his nanna’s, mum’s and sister’s eyes boring into his back. Not only was every street packed, but they were all decked with bunting in the blue and white of Our Lady and the yellow and white of the Papal flag flapping in the gentle summer breeze – all in mockery of Michael Mehan, the rotten flowers, his stupid white shirt and his plastered down hair. It wouldn’t have been so bad if he could have been hidden away somewhere near the back, but no, he had to be right up there behind the Cross Bearer. It was mortifying.
The admiring crowds obviously didn’t agree with Michael. They bowed their heads and crossed themselves, murmuring appreciatively, as the parade passed by, which it took quite a time to do, because coming up behind him, his brother and Theresa, weren’t only his mum, sister, nanna and Frank Barber, but a whole long succession of groups and individuals all taking part in the spectacular event.
There were men from the East End Catholic clubs, groups and guilds, carrying flower-decked statues of their patron saints high above their shoulders so that everyone could see and revere them. From the bases of the statues, ribbons and garlands stretched out to rows of accompanying children: tiny, smiling maids of honour in pretty pastel dresses, and not-so-happy-looking boys in neatly pressed shorts, white shirts and coloured sashes – who held the ends in little hands scrubbed clean by mothers determined not to be shown up by grubby knuckles. Then there were the acolytes, the servers, the choristers, and, of course, the clergy, all in their starched and laundered best. And there were the clusters of nervous young first communicants: the girls in pure white dresses and miniature bridal veils and the boys in their much-hated scaled-down sailor suits or the even more loathed white satin shorts and tops, carrying sheaves of green wheat and bunches of grapes to symbolise the Eucharist. The older pupils from the Catholic schools in the area marched along the edges of the Procession, their job being to keep the littler ones in some sort of order and to hold out collecting boxes to the crowds.
There wasn’t even the chance that anyone might sleep through the whole thing rather than witnessing Michael’s disgrace, not unless they were stone deaf, because every shaming step he took along the way was accompanied by brass bands playing dignified, but very loud religious music, their gleaming instruments shining in the hot afternoon sun, signalling their arrival, as they made their way through the dusty grime of the London streets.
Despite what Michael felt about the experience, he, like everyone else who was taking part, looked his very best. For the honour of taking part in the Procession, money was found from somewhere, even if it meant pawning the very sheets from the bed or the square of ragged mat from the front room floor.
By the time the Procession reached the top of Plumley Street, Michael was in such a daze of disgrace and red-faced humiliation that he had gone beyond trying to hatch a plan of escape. He didn’t even take the opportunity to try to run indoors when the priest stopped to bless the shrine that stood between numbers ten and twelve that Nora, Katie and Molly had fixed up between them after they had finished their cleaning.
The three of them had carefully arranged the delicate lace table cloth, the sole item of dowry that Nora had brought with her from Ireland, on the gate-legged table, which usually stood under the window in Katie’s front room, and had topped it off with a wooden crucifix, a plaster statue of Our Lady and the aspidistra in the elaborately painted china art pot that Pat had brought for Katie in Club Row at Christmas time. But there was no sign of Pat himself standing by the shrine, only Stephen and Danny.
‘Dad’ll be in the kitchen with his workmates,’ Molly whispered to her mum.
Katie nodded. ‘Of course,’ she said, doing her best to hide the disappointment and anger that was making her mouth dry.
As they waited for the other shrines in Plumley Street to be blessed, Katie watched without really seeing as the priest crossed the road and stopped outside number eleven where Nutty Lil was standing proudly by a table with a framed print of the Sacred Heart that Frank had set up for her before he and Theresa had left for the church. Then he moved on to number nine, where Liz and Peg Watts were standing by their more elaborate efforts which involved vases of bright summer flowers that Peg had bought specially from Chrisp Street the night before. At number eight, Aggie and Joe Palmer had backed the truck into the gateway of their yard and had covered its flat back with a big white sheet, on which they had set a pair of brilliantly polished brass candlesticks, complete with burning candles, and a gold-framed picture of the Virgin Mary. Even the Miltons had done their best with a rickety table topped with a cloth and a vase of flowers given to Ellen Milton by Edie from the corner shop who, still being in mourning for her Bert, hadn’t felt much like having a shrine of her own.
Not being Catholic, Phoebe and Sooky hadn’t decorated outside the fronts of their houses, but like Mags and Harold from the pub, and even Irene, Arthur Lane’s lairy young wife, they were outside anyway watching the proceedings. But where Mags and Harold and Irene Lane were admiring the efforts of their neighbours, Phoebe and Sooky had another purpose altogether.
As they sat by their street doorsteps on their chairs, slippers on and stockings rolled down to their knees, they were having a good eyeful of what their neighbours had on display. Their intention wasn’t to praise their efforts, but to criticise them, and also to make sure that they didn’t miss anything that would prove the basis of a good bit of gossip. And when they saw Katie and Frank Barber in the Procession, standing together bold as brass behind the three children carrying the wreath, while the priest walked up and down waving his holy water, they couldn’t have hoped for more. That was really something into which they could sink their mouldy, tobacco-stained teeth.
‘Have a look at that, will yer, Sook. They’ve got that fancy lace cloth out again,’ Phoebe quite unnecessarily informed her next-door neighbour, who could see it for herself. ‘Times is meant to be bad down the docks but she ain’t had to put that in uncle’s, now has she? And I wonder where she got the dough to get that wreath with what her boys are carrying and all. And can yer see who they’re carrying it with? Just have a butcher’s, go on. Frank Barber’s kid, that’s who. Them flowers must have cost a flaming fortune. Her precious Pat doing bad down the docks? Don’t make me laugh. But if he is, it makes yer wonder where she got the money for that little lot, don’t it? Brazen, just like that red hair of her’n. No wonder her old man’s not here. He’d be ashamed to see her with her fancy man.’
It was unfortunate for Phoebe Tucker that Stephen had been following Father Hopkins and his attendants, watching him as he made his way round the shrines, and was just passing her and Sooky, when she was mouthing off about his daughter.
‘Oi!’ he spat into Phoebe’s ear, making her almost fall off her chair.
‘You talking to me, Stephen Brady?’
‘Yes I am, yer wicked-mouthed old cow.’ Stephen ducked down, making sure that he was hidden from Nora and Katie behind the crowd, and that he kept his voice low. He didn’t want anyone else in the Procession to hear what he had to say as they stood waiting patiently at the end of the turning for the priest to do his rounds. ‘I just caught you nice,’ he breathed. ‘And, not that it’s nothing to do with either of yers, but if yer don’t mind, me daughter’s husband is in the back kitchen discussing business. Important business. Trying to work out ways to save decent men’s jobs. Now, d’yer want me to fetch him out here so’s he can hear what yer saying about his wife, yer spiteful old hens?’
Banking on the fact that she would be safe from Stephen actually clouting her, what with the crowds of people in the turning, Phoebe remained bold. Taking her cigarette from her mouth and taking her time to dot her ash daintily into her apron pocket, Phoebe looked up at him and said with a disbelieving raise of her eyebrows, ‘Too busy with his work to be out here to see the Procession, is he? And him a good Catholic and all. I am surprised.’
She turned to Sooky and gave a sneering grimace, which, on her face, passed for an amused smile. Then she jerked her head towards the corner where Katie was standing chatting to Frank Barber, apparently ignoring her mum and her daughter who were on the other side of her. ‘More like he don’t fancy the idea of what he might see out here, if you ask me.’
‘Well no one is asking yer,’ snapped Stephen. ‘The only ones who don’t like what they see out here are you two, you vicious old bags. May God forgive the pair of yer.’
With that, Stephen straightened up and went back across the street to where Danny was waiting by his family’s shrine. ‘So what was all that about then, Farvee? You don’t usually have nothing to do with them.’
‘I dunno what yer talking about, Dan,’ said Stephen, still glaring across at the two sniggering women.
Danny laughed to himself. ‘I don’t think Nanna’ll accept that as much of an answer, Farvee. She was nearly breaking her neck trying to see what yer was up to.’
‘Aw bugger,’ cursed Stephen. ‘She saw me then?’
‘That’s right,’ grinned Danny, rocking back on his heels and giving a little wave to Liz, who was smiling at him from across the street where she was still posted by her own family shrine with her mum. ‘I reckon yer gonna be answering plenty o’ questions when they get back from church later on.’
‘No, boy,’ said Stephen, shaking his head. ‘Yer nanna won’t get nothing out of me.’
‘A tosheroon says she does.’
‘Yer on!’
Danny won his half-crown from Stephen with no trouble at all. As soon as Nora, Katie, Molly and the boys had made their way back to Plumley Street, after having gone to the church to receive the final Holy Blessing from Father Hopkins, Nora made sure that she got Stephen by himself at the first opportunity. And, despite his earlier resolution that he would tell her nothing, Stephen had soon told her not only practically word for word what Phoebe had said, but also what she had insinuated about Katie and Frank Barber.
‘Right,’ said Nora, pushing up her sleeves.
‘Sure, yer not going out to cause a scene now, are yer, Nora?’ Stephen knew only too well how the women in his family could let fly when they got into one of their moods and he hated to think he’d be the one responsible for a woman getting a bloody nose or losing what few teeth she had left, even if it was only Phoebe Tucker.
‘No, I ain’t going out to cause no scene,’ said Nora, striding out of her kitchen. ‘But,’ she called from the passage, ‘I’m going in next door to put that daughter o’ mine right about one or two things.’
Nora tapped on the frame of her daughter’s kitchen door.
From where they were sitting at the table, spreading marg on a pile of bread ready for the Sunday tea, Katie and Molly looked up in surprise.
‘So what’s all this knocking lark in aid of, Mum?’ Katie asked, wiping her hands on her apron. ‘Is something up?’
‘I just wanted to be sure that I wasn’t disturbing Pat and his workmates.’
Katie’s expression stiffened. ‘Yer all right, they cleared out as soon as we got back. Went round one of the other blokes’ houses to drive his old woman mad instead.’
She started slicing angrily at the rest of the loaf, tossing each slice in Molly’s direction as she cut it. ‘Good job and all, if you ask me. He’s still got the right hump. The boys took one look at him and they was off over the back wall like sticks a’cracking.’
Nora took a butter knife from the dresser drawer, sat down opposite her daughter and began helping Molly with the spreading. ‘It’s Pat I wanna talk to yer about, Kate. I don’t wanna speak out of turn, but yer’ve gotta know.’
‘Shall I go in next door with Farvee?’ Molly asked warily.
Nora stared at Katie, leaving the decision up to her.
‘I ain’t got no secrets,’ Katie said primly.
Nora raised a doubting eyebrow and then looked over Katie’s shoulder, checking that the boys hadn’t reappeared in the back yard. Satisfied that no one except Katie and Molly could hear her, Nora continued, ‘There was talk about Pat not being there this afternoon.’
‘I should think there was,’ Katie sniped, slapping down another slice of bread on the kitchen table. ‘How d’yer expect people to act when he couldn’t even be bothered to step outside the street door to see his own children in the parade?’
‘But, Mum, yer know his meeting was important.’ Straight away, Molly knew she should have kept her mouth shut.
‘So, yer on his side, are yer? Typical. I’m always the one at fault in this house. I thought I could at least count on me own daughter to support me, but obviously I can’t.’
‘I ain’t on no one’s side, Mum. Yer know I ain’t.’ Molly dropped her chin to hide the tears gathering in her eyes, tears that were as much for the confusion and fears she felt about her own life as for what her mother had just said to her. ‘I never thought I had to be. I thought we was all on the same side in this family.’ She shoved her chair back, lifted her chin and looked at Katie, the tears now running down her cheeks. ‘I’m going out later on,’ she sniffled. ‘So I’ll go up to me room and start getting ready, if yer don’t mind.’ With that, she ran out of the kitchen and up the stairs to her bedroom.
‘I think yer’ll find yer arguing with the wrong ones, Katie,’ Nora said flatly.
‘I’ve gotta be grateful when they cheek me, have I?’ Katie asked illogically.
‘Don’t be deliberately stupid, girl. If yer stopped fighting with everyone and just listened for once . . .’ Nora sighed despondently. ‘It’s like the way yer treat yer father. Do you know that that man stood up for you out there when those two sharp-tongued old biddies from across the street were running you down?’
‘So I’ve gotta be grateful to him and all now, have I?’
‘Don’t yer even want to know what they was saying about yer?’
‘No. But I can guess.’ She looked defiantly at Nora. ‘Something to do with me standing within ten yards of Frank Barber, was it?’
‘I’ve not lost my temper with you since you was a little girl sticking yer fingers in the jam pot, Katie, but I mean it: yer pushing me that far; yer pushing all of us too far—’
‘Why don’t you just leave me alone? I’m fed up with the lot of yers. I’m fed up with trying to make ends meet. I’m fed up with worrying about what the kids are up to. And I’m fed up with being told who I can and can’t talk to. I’m fed up with all of it. Every rotten stinking bit of it.’
‘Well then,’ Nora replied, as she strode over to the kitchen door, ‘I suppose yer’d better do something about it then, hadn’t yer?’
The next day, Pat and Katie barely said two words to one another during breakfast. Pat didn’t even ask why, on a Monday morning, his wife was all done up in her decent dress, the one she kept for church and other important occasions, the one, in fact, that she had worn yesterday for the Procession. And, when he arrived home from work much later that day, tense and weary as he usually was of late, Katie never bothered to ask him how he had got on with the meeting with the guv’nor as she always would have done in the past. But she did explain why she had been wearing her good frock.
She poured Pat his cup of tea, but instead of putting it down on the kitchen table, she said, ‘Let’s go in the front room, Pat, there’s something I wanna say to yer without the kids hearing if they come in.’
Pat took the tea and went through to the parlour without saying anything.
She followed him in, shut the door behind them and sat down on the arm of one of the easy chairs that stood either side of the hearth. ‘I’ve been out today.’
Pat didn’t answer. He just sat down on the armchair opposite her and sipped at his tea.
‘Look, Pat, I said things to yer yesterday morning that I had no right to. I know yer bringing home all the money yer can, but we need more just to make ends meet. And what with the boys growing like Gawd knows what, and food definitely ain’t getting no cheaper—’
‘You think yer telling me something I don’t know?’
Katie put her teacup down on the hearth and bent forward, her red hair falling over her face. She rested her wrists on her knees, letting her hands dangle. ‘Please, Pat, I don’t wanna row. I’ve been feeling that rough.’
‘Ain’t we all? You should try doing what I have to do every day. I’m down that dock every hour God sends, waiting for them bastards to do me a favour and give me and the blokes a bit o’ work just to have it thrown in me face that I’m not needed, not wanted.’
She lifted her face and looked directly at him. ‘That’s why I went and got meself a job,’ she blurted out. ‘In a laundry in the Commercial Road.’
‘You what?’
‘It’s only mornings.’
‘If you think I’m gonna let a wife of mine go out to work—’
Katie was on her feet. ‘That’s typical of you, ain’t it? Yer don’t care about me and my worries, all yer care about is what other people’ll think of you, always you.’
‘It ain’t that.’ Now Pat was standing too.
Katie shoved her fists into her waist and stared up at him, challenging him. ‘What, frightened there might be some blokes working in the laundry, are yer?’
She turned away from him, bent down and picked up her teacup, not caring that she was slopping it in the saucer, and marched over to the door. Wrenching it back on its hinges, she looked over her shoulder and said slowly and clearly, ‘All women ain’t like your mum, yer know. Just ’cos she was an old—’
She didn’t see Pat raise his hand, she just felt the sting as it slashed across her face.
Pat sprang back from her as though he had touched a burning ember. ‘Kate, I didn’t . . . I always swore I’d never . . .’ He could find nothing more to say. He pushed past her, spilling the remains of her tea all over the worn runner that covered the passage floor, and slammed out of the street door, leaving Katie to clear up the mess.
It was late on a hot and dusty Friday afternoon in August. Katie was sitting with Nora on the street doorstep of number ten, staring down at the potatoes she was peeling into the bowl she had balanced on her lap.
‘Look,’ said Nora, waving her knife at Katie, ‘he’s sending yer money round regular, so it’s not as though he’s just disappeared, now is it?’
Katie said nothing. It was difficult enough sitting there, knowing she was the object of so many people’s pity – ‘Poor Katie Mehan, did yer hear? Her old man’s left her. A right shiner she had. He must have really clocked her one’ – but she couldn’t let herself be kept indoors; she had to face people and carry on.
‘And he’s used to a clean home,’ Nora went on. ‘He won’t be able to stand them lodgings down by the docks much longer. He’ll be back.’ Nora laughed unconvincingly. ‘His old mum always came back. Like a regular little homing pigeon, that woman was. And he’ll be just the same. You see.’
Katie was hardly listening as her mother carried on talking, doing her best to jolly her daughter along; Katie felt too exhausted to listen. She had been at the laundry for nearly four weeks now – the same length of time that Pat had been away – but it wasn’t just doing the work and still having to see to the house that was draining her, it was the emotional fatigue, the agony of not knowing what would happen with her and Pat, not knowing what she even wanted to happen, and her almost complete lack of sleep since he’d been gone.
‘Will yer look at them?’ Nora shouted to her daughter, to make herself heard over the unintelligible calls and loudly jangling handbell of the rag-and-bone man who was pushing his handcart past the top of the turning. She waved her potato knife towards Michael and Timmy, who were racing up and down the street with a crowd of other kids from the neighbourhood. This week they were all playing at being contenders in the British Empire Games at the White City, the craze that had taken over from the last fad of playing tennis with bits of wood and an old deflated football after Fred Perry had won at Wimbledon. ‘The little loves. Sure, won’t they look just like little angels in their pageboy outfits?’
Stephen emerged from the passage where he had been standing behind his wife. He edged between her and his daughter, who remained sitting on the street doorstep, and leant on the wall, savouring the heat of the sun-warmed bricks. He fiddled around with his pipe for a few moments, getting it lit just the way he liked it.
‘The rate that Michael’s growing,’ Stephen said, his pipe bobbing up and down as he spoke, ‘he’ll be too big to be a pageboy by the time that pair finally decide they’ve saved enough to get married. And young Timmy’s not far behind.’ He puffed thoughtfully, sending up a cloud of blue, pungent smoke. We never bothered ourselves with that sort of thing, did we, darling?’
Nora chuckled. ‘No we did not. We got married with the clothes we stood up in. The lace tablecloth left to me by my old aunt, God bless her, was me only possession. Did we ever tell yer about that, Katie?’
When Katie didn’t reply, Stephen looked at Nora and shrugged helplessly. Nora shrugged back at him.
Stephen tried again. ‘Look,’ he said enthusiastically, ‘here’s our Molly home from work.’
Katie raised her eyes and saw Molly and Liz just coming around the corner.
‘Molly!’ Nora called. ‘Hello, me darling.’
Molly waved back to her nanna, but instead of smiling and crossing the street to see her, she paused outside number nine, listening solemnly while Liz Watts finished saying something to her.
Nora shook her head, her smiles replaced by a look of concern. ‘For goodness’ sake, will yer look at that girl? She looks that miserable lately. And restless! I just wish she’d settle herself. She’s worrying me that much. I’ve never seen such fidgeting and fussing, even in a girl of her age.’
‘Yer not wrong there, Nora,’ said Stephen, jabbing the stem of his pipe at her. ‘I was watching her yesterday.’ He nodded meditatively. ‘She was up and down from that table like a whore’s drawers on Boat Race night, so she was.’
Nora tried tutting disapprovingly at such coarseness, but it was no good, she couldn’t help laughing, Stephen had that effect on her.
‘It’s good to hear yer happy, Nora,’ Stephen said, looking pointedly at Katie. ‘It’s attractive in a woman, a sense of fun. I just wish that you and that granddaughter o’ mine would laugh a bit more, Kate. Just look at the pair of yers. Faces like a wet weekend, so yer have.’ He suddenly flapped his hand in Katie’s direction. ‘Sssh, don’t say nothing, here she comes.’
Katie gasped in disbelief at her father. ‘For Gawd’s sake, I didn’t even open me mouth. It was you. And how d’yer expect us to feel?’
Nora frowned at her daughter. ‘All right, Katie, I know yer’ve not been feeling yerself lately, but there’s no need to be rude to yer dad. And anyway, perhaps yer should be saying something to Molly, instead of just feeling sorry for yerself all the time.’
‘Hang on a minute,’ she snapped. ‘What d’yer mean, “not feeling meself”? Me husband’s left me.’
Nora shook her head, signalling that this wasn’t the time to talk about such things, as her granddaughter had crossed the street and was now standing in front of them. ‘Hello, Molly, love,’ Nora said, smiling up at her. ‘How are yer?’
‘All right, Nanna,’ she answered, without any enthusiasm. She bent forward to kiss first Nora, then her mum on the cheek. Then she straightened up and kissed her granddad. ‘I’m going in to have a wash. I feel like I’m lousy. It was that flaming muggy in the factory this afternoon.’
‘I’ll help yer fill the bath up if yer like,’ Nora offered. ‘How’d that be?’
‘No, yer all right, Nanna. I can’t be bothered with all that. I’ll wait till tomorrow night and have me bath like everyone else.’
Molly gave the three of them a strained smile and went in next door. But, as she stepped inside the passage of number twelve, the thought of dragging herself out to the back kitchen just to have a wash, even though she was hot, sticky and uncomfortable, was too much for her. So, instead she hauled herself up the stairs to her bedroom, grasping the banister as though it were a lifeline. She closed the door behind her, dropped her handbag on the floor and flopped down on to the soft eiderdown. That was all she was fit for: lying on the bed and closing her eyes.
Thank goodness everyone else was outside, she thought to herself as she listened to the muffled sounds from the street below; even the idea of her mum and nanna coming indoors and talking downstairs in the kitchen was too much for her to contemplate, never mind what the boys crashing about would have done to her already jangling nerves. She had had enough noise and chattering for one day.
She sighed wearily; she knew that her friend was only trying to take her mind off things, but she was fed up to the back teeth with Liz’s non-stop prattling on about wedding preparations.
Even her beloved dad staying in that horrible lodging house in Limehouse wasn’t what was really upsetting her.
Molly knew she was being selfish when her mum was so distressed, but she couldn’t help it. She had been over and over it all in her mind so many times that it had become almost an obsession. And still she didn’t know what to do about Simon.
She loved him, she was sure of that, but she was also sure that if her mum found out about him, that would be the end of it. Catholic girls did not have Jewish boyfriends. She would never be able to be with him again, not in the way she wanted. She now realised what she had felt for Bob was a stupid, childish infatuation compared to the way she felt about Simon . . .
The trouble was, what with both Lizzie and her nanna knowing, her mum could so easily find out about him. Not that either of them would hurt her deliberately, but it was only too easy for her to imagine how they might let her secret slip.
Perhaps she should just tell her mum before anyone else had the chance. Get it over with and stop the torment.
She could just picture it: there they’d be, sitting at the kitchen table and she’d say – ‘I’m sorry that Dad’s still away, Mum. Aw, by the way, I’ve been seeing this boy. For quite a while now. Simon, his name is. What’s that? Why haven’t I told you before? Aw, he’s Jewish, see. More tea?’
Maybe it would be for the best. Anyway, what could her mum do, kill her? She probably would, knowing her. And the fact that it had been going on for so long – a year now, when she thought about it – hardly made it any easier. It was like having a job to do and leaving it because you didn’t fancy getting down to starting it, and then it got worse and worse, and bigger and bigger, and, before you knew where you were, you’d never be capable of even trying to tackle it.
Molly rubbed her hands over her face, groaning to herself, as though she were suffering eternal torment. She rolled on to her side and stared at the wall. She remembered staring at the wallpaper when she was a little girl. The big cabbage roses that she had thought were so pretty were always the last things she had seen at night before she closed her eyes and drifted off into the easy, innocent sleep of childhood, the sort of sleep that came when you hadn’t a care in the world to disturb you. The roses had faded over the years and were now the palest of pinks.
Briefly her mind wandered and she imagined what it would be like to be able to afford new wallpaper – just because you felt like it. She felt a tear trickle out of the corner of her eye and run down towards her ear. But she wasn’t crying for faded wallpaper, she was crying for faded dreams.
With a supreme effort, she hoisted herself up on to her elbows and sniffed loudly. She couldn’t carry on like this. She had to do something, and she knew exactly what it was. She would go down to the front room, dig out the writing paper from the sideboard, and write Simon a letter, putting an end to her misery once and for all. It was either that or drive herself crazy.
As she ran down the stairs, her energy restored a little along with her decision to put her life in order, she heard voices coming from the kitchen. Thank goodness the writing paper was in the front room, she thought as she pushed open the door. She must look a right state, all red-eyed and snivelling.
‘What d’you want?’
Molly froze. The angry question had hit her like a brick wall.
It was Danny. He and Liz were squashed together on one of the front room armchairs having a cuddle.
‘Sorry,’ she stammered. ‘I didn’t realise anyone was in here, Dan.’
‘Blimey, Moll,’ he went on, sighing dramatically, ‘it’s bad enough the two little ’uns peeping round the door and giggling whenever me and Liz wanna be a bit private.’ He wriggled around, making a bit of space and somehow managed to shove his hand into his trouser pocket. He brought out a fistful of coppers and held them out to his sister. ‘Tell yer what, Moll,’ he said, with a wink at Liz, ‘here’s a sprazey to go to the flicks, so’s me and Liz can get a bit of peace. Yer could go and see that Tom Mix in Cement.’
‘Very funny,’ snapped Molly. ‘I ain’t never heard that one before. How on earth d’yer think of ’em?’
Trying to regain a bit of dignity, Liz pulled her skirt down over her knees, nudged Danny hard in the side, and clambered up from the armchair.
‘Why don’t you leave her alone, Dan?’ she said quietly, her pretty eyes flashing warnings at him. ‘You don’t have to be so sarcy, do yer? Can’t yer see she’s upset?’ She went over and stood beside her friend, gently touching her on the arm. ‘What’s up, Moll? It’s yer dad, ain’t it?’
Molly shook her away. ‘Yer don’t have to worry yerself about me, Liz.’ She stepped backwards out of the room and pulled the door shut behind her.
As she stumbled along the passage towards the kitchen, her vision blurred by yet more tears, she could hear Liz telling Danny his fortune in no uncertain terms. She gave up a silent prayer of thanks. At least Liz was still on her side and protecting her secret – for now anyway.
Molly almost skidded to a halt when she reached the kitchen doorway and saw that her mum and nanna were in there getting ready to dish up the tea.
Nora turned round to see who was there. ‘Whatever’s the matter?’ she asked, dropping the cutlery with a loud clatter on to the draining board and rushing over to her granddaughter. ‘Who’s upset yer, darling?’
Molly bit her lip, not daring to speak for fear of breaking down into uncontrollable sobs. She turned round, and ran back upstairs to her room.
‘I don’t like it, Katie,’ Nora said, looking along the passage as though she could still see her granddaughter.
‘What’s that then?’ Katie asked as she set down the plates on the table. She didn’t look up and her voice was distant.
‘Molly. There’s something wrong with her.’
‘There’s something wrong with every one of this family,’ Katie said flatly.
‘I don’t understand you.’ Nora was angry. ‘The girl’s got a problem and you just stand there.’
Katie spun round and faced her mother. ‘I’ve got problems too, yer know.’
‘Katie, I know yer have, love.’
‘No yer don’t. Yer don’t know nothing.’
Nora walked slowly across the little room and stood in front of her daughter. ‘You need some sleep. There’s dark rings under them pretty eyes o’ your’n.’ She reached out and brushed a heavy stray curl of thick auburn hair away from her daughter’s forehead. ‘He’ll be back, love. I know he will.’