BY SUNDAY AFTERNOON, Molly was glad that Danny and Liz had been in the front room; it had given her the chance to think more carefully about whether she should write to Simon after all. And she had eventually come to the decision that she shouldn’t. She was still going to finish with him, but, with him meaning so much to her, she wasn’t going to be a coward, she was going to tell him to his face.
But as she neared the corner of Jubilee Street, where they had arranged to meet, Molly was already worked up into a real state as to how, now the time had come, she was actually going to tell him that it was over.
She was close enough to see Simon clearly: he was standing, arms folded, watching for her to come along Commercial Road.
When he caught sight of her, he levered himself away from the wall and started walking quickly towards her, a relieved smile on his handsome face.
She dreaded the moment when that smile would vanish.
‘I always imagine you won’t turn up,’ he began, ‘like that other time.’
There, it had happened, his smile had disappeared.
‘Molly? What’s wrong?’
‘There’s something I gotta say to yer, Simon. Mind if we go and sit down somewhere?’
‘All right,’ he agreed uneasily. ‘Let’s go and find a coffee shop.’
They walked along in the direction of Aldgate until they found a café that was open.
Already uncomfortably warm from walking in the strong afternoon sun, Molly felt as though she would melt as she stepped through the narrow doorway into the close atmosphere of the tiny crowded room. Like many of the cafés in that area, it was full of elderly men, many of them Jewish, shouting and arguing about politics and all claiming that only they had the true solution as to how to put the world to rights, while they drank their way through gallons of steaming black tea and coffee.
‘I don’t know if this was such a good idea,’ she said nervously, realising how much harder it was going to be to talk to Simon surrounded by an audience. But he had already found them a seat.
‘Mind if we share your table?’ Simon asked a grey-haired man who was loudly hectoring his equally noisy companion.
The man didn’t look round, he just pulled out the chair next to him and carried on speaking at full volume to the other man.
Simon beckoned Molly over from the doorway and then went to the counter to get them some tea, while she settled herself uneasily next to the man.
‘Thanks,’ she said quietly.
Simon gave Molly her drink and sat down opposite her. Even though the tea was scalding hot, Molly sipped at it, preferring to burn her tongue rather than use it to speak the words that she knew would choke her.
‘So what is it you have to say to me?’ Simon was trying to make light of it, but it was obvious that he was worried. ‘Is it about your father?’
She shook her head, her eyes fixed on the bare wooden table top. ‘No. It’s not me dad, it’s us. I ain’t gonna see yer no more.’
‘No. We’ve gone through it all before. I’ve told you, I won’t listen to you when you talk like this.’
Still Molly couldn’t meet his gaze. ‘A year we’ve been carrying on like this, Simon,’ she told the table top. ‘I don’t want it no more. I wanna normal, straightforward life like Lizzie and Danny’s. I wanna walk along the street and not be afraid to be seen with me boyfriend.’
Simon reached across the table and took her hand. ‘Come out with me tomorrow. It’s Bank Holiday, we can spend the whole day together.’
‘I was gonna write to yer,’ she said, as though she hadn’t heard him, ‘but I reckoned it’d be better if I told yer to yer face.’
‘So why don’t you?’
She looked up at him. ‘Why don’t I what?’
‘Tell me to my face.’
Molly hesitated for just a moment then said, ‘I ain’t gonna see yer no more.’
‘I’m not listening to this. I’ll be waiting for you by the foot tunnel, this side of the river, tomorrow, twelve o’clock.’
‘I won’t be there. I—’ Molly felt a tap on her shoulder. She looked round. It was the elderly man sitting next to her.
‘So why’re you doing this to the poor boy?’ the man asked. ‘Can’t you see how much he thinks of you?’
Molly stood up, sending her chair crashing to the floor. ‘I’m sorry,’ she sobbed and ran from the café.
Simon stood up to follow her but the man stretched across the table and pulled him down again. ‘You’ve got a lot to learn about women, son,’ he said. ‘Now you sit there and finish your tea. Let her cool her heels a bit. Then go after her.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Women, who does understand ’em? Not me. But I know it doesn’t do to try and reason with ’em when they’ve got an idea stuck in their heads.’
‘But—’
‘Don’t worry. You can pop round her house later on. Give her a nice big kiss.’ He smiled, his old face crinkling into folds and layers of olive-coloured skin. ‘And when you do, give her a kiss from me as well. She’s a good-looking girl you’ve got there.’
Simon couldn’t even begin to explain to the man how impossible any of that would be.
Molly was out of breath but still she kept running. She had to get away before Simon caught up with her. She had done it at last and she had to be strong.
She was just about to cross Back Church Lane, pausing only to glance hurriedly left and right to make sure it was safe to do so, when what she saw, at the top of a narrow alley leading behind the houses, was enough to stop her dead in her tracks. A crowd of young men were blocking the way of an elderly man, taunting him as he tried to get past them.
She watched, frozen to the spot, as one of the jeering crowd shoved the old man hard in the chest, sending him sprawling backwards along the alley. It wasn’t only the brutality that shocked her, it was the fact that she recognised them as the gang that Danny had been knocking around with when he was still mates with Bob Jarvis.
One of them darted forward and grabbed the battered shopping bag that the old man had been carrying, holding it up to his mates as though it was a glorious trophy. He looked inside it and sneered. ‘Bloody muck,’ he said, tipping out bagels and ajar of rollmop herrings from the bag and into the gutter behind him. ‘Why can’t yer eat proper food?’
Another man moved forward; with a jerk of his thumb, he signalled for the others to get back and give him more room.
‘Leave him to me,’ he snarled. ‘The stinking old Jewish bastard.’
Without further warning, he started slamming his boot into the defenceless man’s side, kicking at him with such brutality, that the elderly man’s body jerked around as though he was a marionette being worked by a drunken puppeteer.
Molly could stand back no longer. She started running along the street towards them without even a thought as to what use a seventeen-year-old girl would be against a mob of frenzied thugs in a narrow alley.
But before she reached them, one of the gang had started shouting for the attacker to stop.
‘Not in broad daylight!’ he yelled, grabbing at the man’s jacket. ‘Are you barmy?’ He turned to the others. ‘Give me a hand to pull him off, for Christ’s sake, before someone hears and calls the rozzers.’
It took three of them finally to drag him off and two of them to keep hold of him as, panting and sweating with excitement at what he had done, he strained to get back to finish off the old man.
‘You bloody bastards!’ hollered Molly, looking around desperately for someone to help her.
The man who had shouted at the attacker darted a nervous look over his shoulder. ‘Shit! There’s only a sodding girl over there been watching us. Let’s get out of here. Quick, come on! Move!’
Apart from the one who had been dragged off of the old man, they all poured out of the alley and ran off along Back Church Lane in the direction of Cable Street. The attacker himself, however, was far more cool; he turned round slowly, interested to see what sort of a girl would dare challenge him.
When his eyes met Molly’s it was difficult to assess which of them was the more surprised: the man when he realised that the girl was Molly Mehan, or Molly when she realised that the brute was none other than Bob Jarvis.
It took only a moment for Jarvis to regain his composure. He lifted his chin and looked down his nose at Molly. ‘Ain’t seen yer around for a while,’ he said, as casually as though he had just bumped into her during the Saturday night Monkey Parade.
Molly didn’t answer him, she simply walked over to the nearest front door and hammered on it with her knuckles, not stopping until a young boy came to see what she wanted. Jarvis was still watching her, an amused grin on his face, as she spoke to the child.
‘Tell yer mum yer’ve gotta run down the nick as fast as yer legs can carry yer,’ she told him. ‘Yer’ve gotta fetch a copper ’cos an old man’s been hurt. And make sure yer tell ’em we need an ambulance and all. Understand?’
The boy nodded, but, thrilled by the idea of a bit of excitement, he ignored Molly’s instruction to tell his mother, and instead took off along the street at a gallop – the first time he had ever willingly run towards the police station in Leman Street.
‘What? Turn on yer own, would yer?’ Bob sneered. ‘I never had yer down for that sort. If yer know what’s good for yer, yer wanna clear off before the law gets here and starts asking questions.’ With that he gave Molly a raised hand, stiff-armed fascist salute and trotted off after his mates.
Molly felt sick at the thought that she had once let somebody so vile actually touch her, but she couldn’t waste time on self-pity, she had to help the old man.
She took off her cotton cardigan, rolled it up and knelt down beside him. Suppressing her distaste for the metallic stench of the blood that was pouring from his nose and mouth and the stale ammonia smell of urine where he had wet himself during the attack, Molly gently moved his head, intending to slip the makeshift pillow between him and the hard cobbled floor of the alley.
His eyes flicked open in terror as she touched him.
‘It’s all right,’ she soothed him, as though she was a mother reassuring a frightened child. ‘I ain’t gonna hurt yer, I promise. I’m just gonna make yer a bit more comfy till the police get here, that’s all.’
He screwed his eyes tight and his face contorted as a new wave of agony surged through his body.
‘What’s going on?’ asked someone behind Molly.
She looked over her shoulder. It was a woman of about her mum’s age.
‘Some slag kicked this poor old man in the guts,’ Molly said.
The woman shook her head. ‘Bastard,’ she said, picking up the discarded shopping bag and the bagels. She kicked the shards of glass from the shattered herring jar down the grid over the drain and then knelt down beside Molly. ‘Aw, Gawd love him,’ she said, her hand flying to her mouth. ‘It’s only poor old Mr Zuckerman. They’ve been having a go at the poor old bugger for weeks now. Been torturing him, they have.’
Mr Zuckerman groaned and a thin trickle of blood ran from his ear.
‘He’s in a bad way,’ the woman said. ‘I’ll run and fetch the doctor.’
Molly took a deep breath to steady herself, then shuffled sideways on her knees so that she could rest the man’s head on her lap – anything to try and ease the pain he was suffering. ‘It’s all right,’ she said, using the hem of her dress to staunch the blood. ‘Some kid’s gone already.’
Molly had never seen anyone die before, but she knew, even before the policeman arrived and could confirm it, that Mr Zuckerman was dead. And she also knew what she had to do. She had been born and bred in a community where it was accepted that people didn’t grass on one another, but this was different; she couldn’t allow Bob Jarvis to get away with it.
When the ambulance had taken Mr Zuckerman away, and the crowd that had gathered to watch and pass comment had finally dispersed, Molly braced herself to speak to the policeman.
She not only gave him details of everything she had seen, but she also identified the person who had done it. Yes, she assured the officer, she was sure his name was Bob Jarvis, she had heard the others call him that.
When the policeman said that it was a bit strange, them using his full name, Molly had become flustered, but luckily the policeman put it down to shock, and said that who knew how thugs like that would act.
When the officer asked for her name and address, Molly stumbled over her words again in her efforts to make up something convincing. The last thing she wanted was for the police to turn up in Plumley Street asking all sorts of difficult questions. And anyway, how could she have admitted that she had once been the girlfriend of such a creature?
The walk home went by in a blur, but she was still sensible enough to know that clambering over the high wall at the end of Plumley Street, and walking past all the houses wasn’t a very good idea. Her clothes, her hands, and, she suspected, her face, were spattered with Mr Zuckerman’s blood, and the last thing she felt like doing was explaining to Phoebe and Sooky what she had been up to.
So she walked along East India Dock Road, ducking into shop doorways whenever she thought she saw anyone she knew coming towards her, and then slipped into Chrisp Street. Being a Sunday, there was no market and everything was much quieter than usual, so no one saw her as she darted along the alley that led from the back of the Queen’s to the back of Joe and Aggie’s place.
Still unobserved, she shinned up over the wall into the yard of number twelve, completing Timmy and Michael’s favourite escape route in reverse. But, as she stepped into the kitchen, the sight of her coming through the back door, covered in blood, was enough to make Liz, who was doing the teatime washing up with Danny, drop the saucer she was wiping dry. It smashed on to the lino, breaking into what looked like a thousand fragments.
‘Moll!’ she gasped. ‘Whatever’s happened to yer?’
‘Where’s Mum?’ Molly asked, dropping down heavily on to one of the kitchen chairs.
Danny grabbed her hand. ‘She’s up having a lay down, upset about Dad again. But that don’t matter, where you hurt, Moll?’
‘I ain’t. This blood ain’t mine.’ She turned to Liz; for some reason her friend looked as though she was about to start crying. ‘Yer couldn’t get us a drop o’ water, could yer, Liz?’
‘Yeah. Yeah. Course.’
Molly nodded her thanks as she raised the drink to her lips, then she gulped it down in one go and handed back the empty cup. ‘I’ve just seen Bob Jarvis kill some old bloke,’ she blurted out.
‘You what?’
‘You heard, Dan. He kicked him to death, right in front of me.’
Danny shook his head, trying to make sense of what he had just heard his sister say. ‘But you ain’t seeing him no more.’
‘No, course I ain’t. I just bumped into him.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘It’s simple, I told yer. He kicked a bloke to death and I saw him do it. And that’s exactly what I told the police and all.’
‘You what?’
‘You heard, Dan. I told ’em everything.’
‘I don’t believe you. Yer do know who yer messing with, don’t yer, Moll?’
‘Yeah. I went out with him, remember?’
Danny looked round at Liz, but she just got down on her hands and knees, and started collecting the shards of china in a sheet of old newspaper. ‘I hope this wasn’t one of yer mum’s best saucers,’ she said, keeping her head down.
‘Bugger the saucer,’ hissed Danny. ‘I wanna know what she thinks she’s up to.’
Molly rose shakily to her feet. ‘And what should I have done, eh?’ she demanded, daring him to contradict her.
‘I think I’d have thought what Jarvis might do to me before I started mouthing off to the law.’
‘Aw yeah? Your old mate Bob a bit of a nutter, is he?’
Danny didn’t know what to say. Not only was he scared for Molly – he had seen what Bob Jarvis was capable of at the rally – but he was still unable to come to terms with the fact that he’d been taken in by someone who could even think of doing such terrible things. Danny was sickened by the thought of how close he himself had come to being just like Bob Jarvis. In his confused state of mind, it was the fury he felt at himself, rather than any anger he felt with his sister, that made him flare up at her.
‘Yer know what’s wrong with you, Moll?’ he asked, his eyes narrowed. ‘Yer’ve turned on yer own.’
Molly levelled her gaze on Danny. ‘You sound just like Jarvis.’
‘Running to the law.’ Danny shook his head contemptuously, but he was quaking inside, thinking of what Jarvis was capable of. ‘Name one family round here what don’t pull some sort o’ stroke or other to make a few extra coppers.’
‘Are you taking the piss, Dan? I ain’t talking about a bit of thieving or fencing. I’m talking about murdering a defenceless old man.’ Molly turned to Liz. ‘You tell him.’
‘Don’t look at me, Moll,’ she said, putting the wrapped china in the rubbish bucket. ‘I ain’t getting involved.’ She quietly fitted the lid back on the pail. ‘I know we’re mates, and I hope we always will be, but I can’t take sides.’
Danny went over to the back door. He grasped hold of the frame and stared out at the dusty back yard.
‘Did I hear someone break something in here?’ It was Katie; she was standing in the kitchen doorway. She looked terrible, but any thoughts of her own problems were instantly forgotten the moment she saw her daughter’s blood-stained clothes. ‘Molly?’
‘It’s all right, Mum, this ain’t my blood. I saw an accident.’ She dropped back down on to her chair. ‘I helped an old man what had been knocked over.’
‘Flaming traffic!’ fretted Katie. ‘Even on a Sunday. What’re things coming to?’ She lifted Molly’s chin in her hand, checking for herself that her daughter wasn’t hurt. ‘Was the old boy all right, love?’
‘I dunno, Mum,’ Molly answered her, flashing a wary glance at Danny’s back. ‘I left as soon as someone fetched the doctor. I didn’t want yer to worry about me being late.’
‘Yer a good girl, Moll,’ said Katie, going over to the sink. She ran the tea towel under the tap and then busied herself, using it to wipe away the smears of dried blood from Molly’s face. ‘Danny,’ she snapped over her shoulder, ‘whatever’s the matter with you, boy, standing there staring out the back yard when yer can see the state yer sister’s in? Put the kettle on, will yer, and make her a cuppa tea.’
‘I was just making one, Kate,’ said Liz, interrupting before Danny had the chance to put his foot in it. She picked up the kettle by way of proof and, with a shaking hand, she lit the gas and started setting out the cups and saucers. Liz was used to the Mehans hollering at one another all the time, especially since Pat had been gone, but she had never seen Danny and Molly fall out really seriously before, not like this. It made her nervous. And the thought of Bob Jarvis, and what she had now gathered he was involved in, made her feel a lot worse than nervous. She had never liked Jarvis, not after he had grabbed hold of Molly that first day they had all met up, but Danny had kept telling her that she was wrong about him, that he was a good mate, so she hadn’t thought it her place to say how he had given her the creeps.
‘Ta, Liz,’ said Katie, examining Molly’s face for any other stains. ‘Yer a good girl.’
As Liz spooned tea leaves into the pot, she cast around for something to say, anything to try to lighten the atmosphere a bit, and prevent Danny and Molly starting on each other again. She dreaded even to think what would happen if they did, especially in front of their mum. What would she have to say if it came tumbling out what had really happened and that Danny had been mates with the likes of Bob Jarvis, and that Molly had actually been seeing him?
Despite her mounting panic, inspiration struck. ‘I know, Moll,’ Liz said, reaching up to put the tea caddy back on the dresser, ‘why don’t yer come out with me and Danny tomorrow? For the Bank Holiday, like. It’ll do yer good, take yer mind off it.’
‘No thanks,’ Molly said levelly, looking over her mum’s shoulder at Danny. ‘I’ve already made plans of me own.’ She gazed up into her mum’s careworn face. ‘You be all right if I go out, will yer, Mum?’
‘Course, darling,’ Katie said, wearily dropping down on to the chair next to her daughter’s. ‘You don’t have to stay in on my part.’
The next day, after a night disturbed by nightmare visions of Mr Zuckerman dying in her arms, Molly was glad to have a reason to get up and out of the house. And, stupid as she knew it probably was, she was glad that the reason was Simon Blomstein. She just hoped against hope that he would be there after what she had said to him yesterday.
But it hadn’t been so easy leaving the house.
When Molly went downstairs to the kitchen to wash, Katie was sitting at the table in her night things, nursing a cup of tea. From the look of her, she had been there all night.
‘You all right, Mum?’
Katie didn’t look up. ‘Yeah, I’m all right.’
‘You sure there’s nothing wrong?’
She smiled weakly to herself. ‘Nothing that robbing a bank and having yer dad come home wouldn’t fix.’
‘I won’t go out. I’ll stay here with you.’
She lifted her head and looked at Molly. It took Katie a moment to focus, but as the memory of Molly sitting there covered in blood sharpened in her mind, she stood up and folded her arms around her daughter.
‘I don’t want you to stay with me, love. I want yer to go out and have a good time with yer friends. Try and forget all about yesterday.’
‘Yer sure?’ Molly asked, leaning back so that she could see her mother’s face.
‘Course I am.’
‘But won’t yer be lonely? Yer know, it being Bank Holiday and everything.’
‘Lonely? With that lot next door to worry about and drive me mad?’ Katie made a feeble attempt at a smile and shooed her daughter upstairs to get ready.
By the time Molly reached the entrance to the foot tunnel – fifteen minutes early but still out of breath from running all the way in the midday August sunshine – Simon was already there.
The moment he saw her, he grabbed hold of her and kissed her on the mouth.
‘Simon! Get off!’ Molly pulled away from him. ‘Have you taken leave of yer senses?’
He stepped back from her. ‘I would have done if you hadn’t turned up.’
Molly smoothed her dress down as though he had crumpled it into a rag. ‘Will yer just look at me.’
‘You look beautiful.’
Molly glanced nervously about her. ‘We’d better get going before you do something really barmy.’
He stepped to one side, letting Molly through the doorway and on to the cast-iron spiral stairway that led down to the tunnel. ‘I was awake all night wondering if you’d come,’ he said, as he trotted down the stairs to catch up with her.
‘I didn’t get much sleep either.’
‘Good!’
Molly said nothing until she reached the bottom stair, then she turned round and said to him, ‘I couldn’t sleep, because . . .’ She paused, took a breath. ‘Look, come over here a minute, there’s too many people about.’
They moved into a dark corner, away from the lift that was just dispatching the less energetic tunnel users into the mouth of the big pipe that would take them beneath the river.
‘I didn’t get no sleep ’cos, after I left you yesterday, something really terrible happened.’
‘Your dad?’
She shook her head sadly. ‘No,’ she said quietly.
‘He’s still not back?’
She shook her head again.
‘Let’s see,’ said Simon, smiling gently down at her. ‘You saw what life would be like if you didn’t have me around to love you?’
Molly looked away; she couldn’t bear to face him when she told him what she had seen. She took a deep breath and began her story.
Only when she had finished describing the whole, horrible incident and the mess she had got herself in with the police and Bob Jarvis and her brother, did Molly look at him once more. ‘Well?’ she breathed, dreading, yet needing his response.
‘Well,’ he echoed her. His tone was measured, his face tense. ‘I think they’re bastards, him, Jarvis, especially. I think you did the right thing. I think you’re really brave. And I know I love you more now than I ever would have thought possible.’
She bowed her head. ‘Even though I used to see him when I was seeing you?’ she whispered, her words barely audible. ‘And even though me own brother was once one of ’em?’
‘You’re not seeing Jarvis any more?’
‘Course I’m not. Not since Christmas time.’
‘And your brother doesn’t sound as though he’s a bad type, not like them. He was stupid maybe, but at least he saw sense.’
Molly kept her head down. ‘I still don’t reckon he’d like me seeing yer.’
Simon lifted her chin with his finger, so that she had to look at him. ‘I think we both know that it goes without saying, there are plenty of people who wouldn’t like the idea of us seeing each other.’ He held out his hand to her and laughed sardonically. ‘After what you’ve told me, holding hands doesn’t really seem so very terrible, does it, Molly?’
They walked through the tunnel hand in hand, oblivious of the noisy families and the boisterous groups of kids who pushed past them, their manners forgotten in their eagerness to get to Greenwich and the delights of the Bank Holiday fair that awaited them on Blackheath.
As they emerged on to the south bank of the river, Simon squinted up at the bright summer sky. ‘The weather looks like it’s going to hold,’ he said, ‘so I’ll tell you my plan.’ He smiled and shook his head at his own foolishness. ‘One of my plans,’ he corrected himself. ‘I’ve got all sorts of others worked out, in case you don’t like this one.’ He scratched his head, embarrassed at what he was about to say. ‘Because, Molly, I have no intention of giving you any excuses for not wanting to spend the whole of the day with me.’
Molly smiled weakly back at him. ‘Yer a caution, you are, Simon.’
‘That’s good is it?’
‘I reckon.’
He nodded. ‘Well, let’s see if you like my plan as much as you obviously like me. Now, you sit there.’ He put his hands about her waist and lifted her easily on to the wall that ran parallel to the river bank. ‘And, if you don’t mind, I would appreciate your full concentration on what I have to offer.’
Molly did her best to keep her smile in place as, in complete contrast to his usually reserved self, Simon pranced around, acting the fool, doing his best to cheer her up and make her laugh.
He held out his hand and counted off the proposed activities on his fingers. ‘First, we have something to eat.’ He bowed in a gesture of mock formality. ‘I know that you, Miss Mehan, like me, can always fit in a bit of something tasty. Then we go to the park; have a walk, maybe a sit-down.’
‘And an ice cream?’ she asked, helping Simon with his pretence that they didn’t have a worry in the world between them.
He hesitated, considering the idea. ‘We’ll see,’ he said eventually, then grinning, he jumped back before she could reach out and flick him round the ear. He gestured behind him with his thumb. ‘Then we stroll up towards Blackheath, have a little something for our tea maybe and then . . .’ he waggled his eyebrows at her ‘. . . this is where I become all masterful. I show off my skills and win you armfuls of prizes at the fair. And then we wander home in the twilight, happy, contented, and, of course, stuffed full of ice cream. How about that?’
‘I think that sounds smashing,’ Molly said. What she didn’t say was that it would need a lot more than a day out to make her feel happy and contented ever again.
But, by early evening, as they walked up the hill towards the sounds and lights coming from the fair on Blackheath, Molly had begun to relax a little. She loved being with Simon so much, and he had made such an effort to make her forget her troubles, that it was no longer so much of a pretence. She really was beginning to enjoy herself.
As they reached the edge of the temporary, miniature city of tents, stalls and rides, flanked by the show people’s caravans, carts and trucks, they found themselves crossing a line where everyday, mundane reality ceased and a new reality of gaudy, heightened sensations began; a make-believe world, where, for a few magical hours, the commonplace could be forgotten.
The air was heavy with the cloying smell of hot engine oil mingled with the prickly scent of burning sugar. Every colour imaginable shimmered about them, and was reflected back from the huge gilt-framed mirrors set all around the extravagantly decorated rides. Sounds of laughter and squeals of pleasure were counterpointed by a cacophony of competing mechanical organs, churning out their jangling discordant tunes.
Digging his hand into his trouser pocket, and pulling out a handful of money, Simon ushered Molly forward onto the parched, brown grass. ‘We,’ he said, ‘are going to spend every brass farthing I have on me. So, whatever madam wants, her humble servant will be glad to provide.’
Molly looked at him and smiled, and this time she didn’t have to pretend.
‘So?’ he asked. ‘What do you think?’
‘I think I wanna do it all, Simon. I wanna have a right laugh and forget everything. Come on.’
Molly grabbed his hand, dragging him past a glittering red and gold pipe organ, with cheery, painted figures jigging and prancing to its whirling, swirling music. She guided him neatly around a huge steam engine, whose fiercely burning furnace was being fed by sweat-covered, bare-chested men wielding great black shovels so it could continue to generate the power for the rides and for the strings of bulbs draped around the stands and stalls like the loops of a bead necklace.
On they rushed, dodging in and out of excited knots of people gathered by each new wonder, until they reached the steam Gallopers, a magnificent carousel with thirty flared-nostrilled, snorting steeds pawing the air, awaiting their riders.
‘This first,’ she shouted above the music, steering Simon towards the glass-sided pay booth. ‘I went on it once when I was little with me dad.’ She paused, then added, ‘I hope he comes home soon, Simon.’
‘He will. Now come on.’
Before the roundabout had even come to a halt, Simon hauled Molly up the curving wooden steps after him. ‘Quick, I want us to go on this one. The one with the blue saddle.’
As Molly mounted the carved wooden beast and slipped her feet into the gold painted stirrups, she felt like a little girl again, or at least, the young, headstrong girl of just a year ago, the one who would scramble over the high wall at the end of Plumley Street with the best of them, not caring about who did or didn’t see her legs.
Simon grasped the thick candy-twist pole from which the horse was suspended and clambered on behind her.
They rode around and around, their hair blowing back from their faces, concentrating on nothing but the speed, and the motion, and the closeness of each other’s bodies.
Molly insisted they had another two goes before she was prepared to move on to see what other pleasures were on offer.
They did it all: they whirled high above the ground on the chairoplanes; gasped for breath as they sailed back and forth on the swingboats; took pot shots at the coconut shy and the hoopla; tried their luck aiming at apparently dart-proof playing cards. Then, when they both needed a breather, they went in to see an exotically attired fortune-teller, who rather spoilt the effect of what could have been a romantic, if slightly delicate moment when her prediction of five children – two dark, three redheads – and a long and happy life of non-stop enjoyment for them both, was interspersed by her puffing continuously on a corn-cob pipe and swigging from a quart bottle of brown ale.
‘If we’re gonna have this houseful of nippers,’ spluttered Molly, as they left the dimly lit tent, each of them aching with the effort of keeping a straight face, ‘I reckon yer’d better win ’em some cuddly toys. It’ll be nice for ’em, having something to play with while we’re busy spending all our time enjoying ourselves.’
Stopping only to buy two lurid pink puffs of candyfloss, they giggled their way over to the shooting range, where, amidst much sticky laughter, they still seemed doomed to win none of the tawdry tat displayed so proudly by the stall holders on their prize winners’ shelves.
‘If you don’t win me them armfuls of prizes what yer promised me, and if yer don’t do it very soon, mate,’ Molly warned Simon with a little prod in the chest, ‘know what I’m gonna do?’ She jerked her thumb over her shoulder. ‘I’m gonna lug yer over there to that little stage and make yer dance with me, in front of everyone. That’ll give ’em all a good laugh. Two left feet, I remember yer telling me that day.’
Simon visualised the moment, as he so often did, when he had held Molly in his arms in the middle of the freezing cold street and had kissed her. He lowered the cork-loaded rifle from his shoulder and laid it in front of him on the counter. ‘If that’s what you really want, Molly, I’ll learn to dance. At one of those schools.’
‘Daft ’apporth,’ she said, nudging him playfully. ‘What’d be the point? Anyway, I bet it’d take more’n a few lessons to get you dancing!’ Molly held her candyfloss to one side, leant forward and touched her sugary lips to his cheek.
‘Now look what I’ve done,’ she said, seeing the sticky mark her mouth had left on his skin. ‘I’ve got a hankie in here somewhere.’
She opened her bag and began to search through all the bits and pieces she habitually carried around with her. When she found her handkerchief, she looked up at him. ‘Aw, Simon,’ she said, seeing from his expression that something was wrong. ‘I’ve done it again. I’ve opened me big gob and insulted yer about not being able to dance, ain’t I?’
Simon shook his head; he was signalling to her urgently with his eyes that it was something behind her that was wrong, very wrong.
Molly twisted round to see what it was.
Coming towards her, no, it couldn’t be – it was, it was Danny and Liz.
‘Hello,’ Molly said feebly, springing away from Simon as though he was emitting an electrical charge. ‘Didn’t expect to see you two here.’
Simon nodded, warily polite. ‘Hello.’
Danny said nothing.
‘Yer losing yer candy floss,’ said Liz, stepping forward and lifting Molly’s hand to prevent the drooping confection from slipping off the end of its stick.
‘Ta.’
They stood there in edgy silence: Danny and Simon staring at each other; Liz grinning like an idiot at each of them in turn; and Molly, her eyes fixed on the discarded paper targets from the rifle range strewn about their feet by unsuccessful punters, praying that an earthquake, or at the very least a thunderstorm, would interrupt her agony.
‘You wanted to go to that fortune-teller, didn’t yer?’ Danny said suddenly.
‘Yeah,’ agreed Liz, slipping her arm back through his. ‘D’yer wanna go then?’
‘Yeah.’ Danny strode away, trailing Liz behind him like a reluctant puppy new to the lead.
‘See yer,’ she called, with a hesitant little wave, grimacing over her shoulder at Molly.
‘Blimey,’ Molly groaned, leaning back against the rifle stall. ‘That’s done it.’
‘Are you all right?’
She shook her head. ‘No. It was all just a dream, wasn’t it, thinking we wouldn’t worry about who sees us?’
‘I’ve told you, Molly, you’re too important to me to let that get in our way. I’ll think of something.’ He took the rifle from the counter. ‘Right,’ he said, doing his best to recapture the mood. ‘I’ve got four corks left. Let’s see about winning one of those ugly-looking dolls up there.’
Simon had just taken aim, when Molly snatched at his sleeve. ‘Can we go, Simon? Now. Please?’ Her voice was urgent.
‘If that’s what you want.’ Simon handed his rifle to one of the young boys who were standing around watching the older lads shooting.
‘Cor, ta, mister!’ the child gasped.
‘It’s not what you think,’ Molly said, shepherding him down an alley between two of the tents. ‘I thought I just saw someone else coming towards us; someone who I definitely don’t wanna see.’
In the dark shadows between the canvas walls, Molly couldn’t see the strain on Simon’s face, but she could hear it in his voice. ‘It’s time we started home anyway.’
‘Yeah,’ she answered dully, ‘maybe it is.’
Simon stood back while she went ahead. ‘I wouldn’t want you to be embarrassed.’
Molly went to say something, but changed her mind.
They walked back in the direction of Greenwich Park, both of them tight-lipped and tense. The further they got from the jangling music and bright lights of the fair, the uneasier things became between them.
They finally reached the edge of the heath, and paused, side by side, but slightly apart, at the roadside, waiting for a gap in the busy Bank Holiday traffic making its way back to London from the Kent coast.
The stream of tired yet happy faces of the passengers flashing past in cars, carts and charabancs was relentless; the day-trippers’ pleasure mocking Molly and Simon in their misery.
‘Molly,’ he said suddenly, ‘why don’t you just admit it? You’re ashamed of me, aren’t you?’
‘That’s rich, coming from you.’ She waved her arms angrily about her, trying to get an imaginary audience on her side. ‘Here he is, a bloke what’s kept me a secret from his family for a year and he has the cheek to say that I’m ashamed of him.’
‘Now you’re talking rubbish.’
That was it; with her face flaming, Molly stepped from the pavement to get away from him. What sounded like a hundred hooters and horns screeched at her as Simon lunged forward, seized hold of her dress and yanked her back to the safety of the kerbside.
They stood staring at each other, both all too aware of just how close Molly had come to being crushed.
‘You can say and do what you like, Molly,’ Simon said slowly, trying to calm himself, ‘but, please, don’t be stupid.’
‘I must be stupid putting up with this,’ she sniffed.
‘Right. If you’re so fed up with everything, maybe we should break up.’
‘Good. That’s suits me just fine. Just fine!’
‘Molly.’ Simon pulled her towards him, and held her head close against his chest. ‘Please,’ he breathed into her hair, ‘don’t cry. Please.’
With the traffic roaring past, Molly and Simon never heard the steps running along the path towards them.
‘Oi! You! Jew boy. Get yer dirty stinking hands off her.’
Simon blinked, confused as to who it was saying those things.
‘I said, get yer hands off her.’
But Molly knew immediately who it was – Bob Jarvis. She had been right, it was him she had seen back at the fairground. Struggling to free herself from Simon’s arms, Molly turned on their tormentor. ‘You leave us alone, you no-good bastard.’ She spat the words out at him, leaning forward, challenging him to defy her. ‘And if yer don’t make yerself scarce, yer gonna get nicked.’
For just a moment, the cocky expression almost slipped from Jarvis’s face. ‘What, Jew boy here gonna run off and tell the rozzers I’ve upset him, is he? Or is he gonna get you to go for him, ’cos he’s pissed his pants?’
‘Come on, Molly, let’s go. Don’t waste your breath on him.’ Simon tried to pull her away. But she wouldn’t budge.
‘No,’ she said, shaking her arm free. ‘No one’s going for the rozzers. They don’t have to ’cos they’re already looking for yer. I had a word with ’em, see.’ She looked him up and down with a disdainful sneer. ‘I told ’em what you done yesterday.’
‘You what?’ Jarvis’s face twisted into a hideous mask of pure hatred.
It immediately dawned on Molly what she had just done: she had told Bob Jarvis she had grassed him. She stepped back.
He threw his head forward and spat at her feet; flashed a look of scornful hatred at them and then ran off, disappearing back into the crowded fairground.
‘That was him, wasn’t it? The one who killed the old man. And it was him you saw just now in the fairground.’
‘I ain’t gonna talk about it. I just wanna get home,’ she began calmly, but, unable to bear it any longer, she collapsed into Simon’s arms and sobbed into his jacket. ‘What are we gonna do, Simon? What are we gonna do?’
Molly wasn’t the only Mehan who was feeling at her wits’ end; back in Plumley Street, in the kitchen of number twelve, Katie was feeling just as desperate as her daughter, and she was sure that if she didn’t talk to someone soon, she would go mad with the strain of it all. So, with all her children out, supposedly enjoying the Bank Holiday, and Stephen over at the Queen’s with Bill and Joe, Katie had asked her mum in to have a quiet cup of tea, and to take the opportunity to have a talk with her.
That had been the plan, but Katie hadn’t been able to bring herself to actually say what it was that was on her mind, and was instead fussing around, filling up the kettle yet again.
‘Jesus, Mary, Joseph, whatever’s the matter with yer, girl? I like a cuppa tea as much as the rest o’ them, but if I have to drink one more mouthful of the stuff while I wait for you to tell me that you want me to go round and fetch Pat home for yer – at last, and not before time, I might add – I swear yer’ll have to pour me into me bed tonight.’
Katie turned off the tap and said bluntly, ‘It ain’t that. I’m expecting.’
Nora rushed over to the sink and wrapped her arms around her daughter. ‘God love yer.’
Katie twisted away from Nora and fiddled around with her apron, retying the strings and straightening the shoulder straps. ‘Me nerves have been that bad lately, I’ve not known where to turn.’
‘Will yer just stop yer fretting and sit yerself down at that table?’ Nora steered her daughter over to her chair and settled down opposite her.
‘I love him, see, Mum,’ Katie told the table, ‘and I want him back.’
‘Course yer do, darling, course yer do. And he’ll be back now, you see. Soon as he hears the news!’
Katie wasn’t listening. ‘I couldn’t keep pushing him away, could I, just ’cos I was scared I might fall again? And then it happened. I fell. And I’m that worried about how I’m gonna manage.’ Katie wiped her eyes on the hem of her apron. ‘He’ll never wanna come back now. I should have gone to that Married Women’s Clinic.’
‘Katie, sure yer don’t mean that! It’s a blessing, a new baby in the house.’
‘But it’s bad enough as it is, what with the boys all upstairs in your’n and you having to sleep down in the parlour.’
‘We’ll get by. Sure one more won’t even make any difference till the little love’s a year old or so. And then, if we’re blessed with another girl it can sleep in here with Molly, and if it’s a boy we’ll have to budge up a bit next door. You see, it’ll be all right.’
‘I don’t want Pat knowing. Not yet,’ she sniffed.
Nora leant back in her chair and flapped her hand at her daughter. ‘Why ever not? He’ll be as chuffed as a dog with two tails.’
‘I want him to come back because of me, not because of the baby.’
‘Katie, surely yer—’
‘And I’m scared he’ll make me give me job up.’
‘I should think so.’
‘No, Mum, I can’t. It ain’t gonna be easy as it is.’ She hesitated. ‘That’s the reason I got the rotten job in the first place – so’s I’d have a few bob to put by.’
‘Yer mean yer’ve not just found out?’
‘No. I’ve known about it for a while now.’ Katie stood up and finished filling the kettle. ‘I’m over three months gone.’ She set the kettle on the stove and lit the gas.
Nora started counting on her fingers. ‘It must have been about the time yer dad was going over to cheer up poor old Bert Johnson, God rest his soul.’
‘It don’t matter when it was, I just don’t want yer going round and telling Pat, all right?’ She reached up and put the matches back on the shelf. ‘I mean it. I’ve gotta stay at that laundry as long as I can. It’s the only way.’
‘No it’s not. We’ll manage. Sure the kids can give yer a bit extra.’
‘Danny already gives me what he can, and yer know how hard he’s trying to save for him and Liz. I couldn’t ask him for no more. They’re gonna have to wait long enough as it is. And as for Molly, hard as she works, her wages’re hardly worth counting. And Sean . . . well, you know as much as I do about what he’s up to and what he’s got in his pocket.’
‘Come on, sit down. I’ll finish making the tea.’
‘No, yer all right, Mum.’
‘I could try and get some work, cleaning, like I used to when you was little.’
Katie poured the boiling water into the teapot and set it down on the table. ‘You know there’s girls out there a quarter o’ your age fighting for every job what comes up.’
‘But, surely—’
‘But nothing, Mum. Just drink yer tea, and let’s forget it for now, eh? You ain’t going to work, and that’s it. We’ve always kept yer, and nothing’s gonna change now.’ Katie looked up at the clock on the mantel shelf. ‘The kids’ll all be home soon, and I don’t think I could stand another scene.’
Less than a month had gone by since the Bank Holiday when Katie and Molly had both been so unhappy, but now, early on a grey, showery, September Saturday morning, the contrast between Molly’s and Katie’s moods couldn’t have been more marked.
Molly was still upstairs in bed, exhausted after another bad night. Over the past weeks she had become withdrawn and morose. She was still seeing Simon, but for briefer and briefer snatches of time on a Sunday afternoon. They would meet up okay, but within minutes the strain would begin to tell and they would start sniping and picking at one another. Molly would burst into tears and swear she would never, ever see him again, and Simon would say that was fine by him. Then, come the next Sunday he would be waiting for her, not caring that he would have to go through the whole miserable process again.
Katie, on the other hand, had been up and about for hours, humming tunelessly to herself, as she pottered about the kitchen, scouring the already gleaming butler sink and scrubbing down the spotless wooden draining board. She was feeling so much better, not happy exactly – how could she be with her husband gone from the house for nearly ten weeks and the kids missing him so desperately? – but there was an optimism about her that made her feel that everything really might sort itself out after all, just as her mum had said it would. And, best of all, she had started to feel the stirrings deep inside her that reminded her so intensely of the joys of holding a newborn baby in her arms.
Maybe, just maybe, she thought, as she shook more scouring powder on to her dishcloth, the time had come for her to go and see Pat and to tell him the good news.
‘Lord love us,’ said Nora, throwing off her damp coat and putting down the bacon that Stephen now regularly, if rather mysteriously, provided for the family’s weekend breakfasts, ‘I thought it was a songbird trapped in here.’
Katie looked over her shoulder at her. ‘Still got it in me, eh, Mum?’ She pushed back a stray curl from her forehead with the back of her damp hand.
‘So’s Pat from the look of it,’ Nora laughed, nodding at Katie’s gently curving belly.
‘Sssh!’ Katie pinched at her apron with her finger and thumb, pulling it forward to make it hang more loosely over her middle. ‘Keep yer voice down, will yer? There’s Molly’s door just opened.’
Nora rolled her eyes. ‘Yer not gonna be able to keep that little darling a secret for much longer,’ she said, taking a plate down from the dresser to put the bacon on.
They heard Molly come stumping along the passage.
‘Hello, Nanna,’ she said, brushing Nora’s cheek with her lips, then going over to Katie. ‘Morning, Mum.’
Katie frowned. ‘Yer look whacked out.’
‘I’m all right. I just didn’t sleep too good.’
‘Again?’ Katie dried her hands on her apron, reached out and felt her daughter’s forehead with the flat of her palm. ‘Yer not hot or anything.’
‘Don’t fuss, Mum,’ she moaned, dragging her cardigan round her.
‘She needs a bit o’ fresh air to liven herself up, that’s all,’ pronounced Nora wisely. ‘It’s being stuck in that factory all week.’ She put her arm round her granddaughter’s shoulders and led her over to the table. ‘Made any plans for tomorrow afternoon, have yer, love? I know how yer like to get out of a Sunday.’
Molly drew away from her nanna with a warning flash of her eyes to keep her mouth shut in front of her mum.
‘If yer really want some air, yer could nip over the shop for me,’ Katie said, too busy rinsing the sink to have even noticed the exchange between Molly and Nora. ‘I’ve only got a piddly bit o’ lard left, and yer know how you all like a fried slice with yer rashers.’
‘I’ll be glad to, Mum,’ Molly answered primly, with another glare of caution in Nora’s direction.
Katie looked over to the clock. ‘Edie’ll be open by now. Take me purse, it’s on the side there. And don’t forget the umbrella. I don’t want you catching yer death.’
With a final mouthed warning at her nanna, Molly took her mum’s purse and fetched her coat from under the stairs. She didn’t bother with the umbrella that stood in the old, chipped vase behind the street door. Instead she pulled the coat over her head like a hood and made a dash across the rain-slicked street.
As she stepped into the shop doorway, she shook herself like a damp puppy on to the pavement. ‘Don’t look like yer gonna be able to put all yer gear out today, Ede,’ she said, looking up at the darkening sky.
‘That’s what I thought,’ said Edie, coming from behind the counter and joining Molly in the doorway. She was still dressed in deepest black mourning, Bert having been dead just three months.
She peered up at the ominously low clouds. ‘If it ain’t cleared up by now, I don’t reckon it’s gonna.’ She ushered Molly inside. ‘My Bert always looked on the bright side, God love him,’ she said fondly. ‘“It’ll clear up soon, girl,” he used to say. And, d’you know, it usually did and all.’ She lifted the flap and took up her place behind the counter again. ‘That’s the way to be, eh? Looking on the bright side.’
‘Why?’ asked a gruff woman’s voice from the doorway.
‘Because otherwise this weather’d get yer down, Phoeb, that’s why,’ Edie answered her pleasantly. ‘My Bert always used to say, “Look on the bright side, Ede. There’s better times awaiting if only we knew it.”’
‘I dunno about that, I’m sure.’ Phoebe brushed the rain from the shoulders of her dull black serge coat, the effort of raising her arms making her chins quiver. Then she pushed her way in front of Molly without so much as a word of acknowledgement.
Edie and Molly raised their eyebrows at one another in silent amusement.
Phoebe sat on the bentwood chair that stood beside the counter and, placing her bag between her feet, she folded her arms and settled herself back until her bulky frame found a comfortable position. She would, after all, be there for some time, as, whenever it was raining, the corner shop replaced Chrisp Street market as Phoebe’s preferred place for earwigging and for the passing on of all the latest gossip.
‘So,’ she said, eyeing Molly slyly, ‘yer dad’s still amongst the missing then?’
Molly snapped open her mum’s purse and slapped a shilling piece down on the counter. ‘Half o’ lard, please, Ede,’ she said through gritted teeth.
‘Yes, love,’ said Edie, deliberately ignoring Phoebe’s remark.
Phoebe ploughed on regardless. ‘They still ain’t got hold of that bloke what done in that old man down Back Church Lane. Police still looking for him, so I hear.’
Molly felt a sickly fluttering in her stomach.
‘The talk is that it was that Bob Jarvis what did it.’ Phoebe thoughtfully scratched the side of her puggy, blubbery nose. ‘He was some sort of mate o’ your Danny’s, weren’t he? That’s what my granddaughter told me.’
‘Well, your granddaughter wants to mind her own business, don’t she? Spreading rubbish like that,’ Molly said, spinning round to face her.
Phoebe didn’t even blink. ‘Apparently no one’s seen him about,’ she went on, ‘not even none o’ them mates of his what’ve been causing all that trouble up Whitechapel way.’ She paused. ‘Beating up Jews and that.’
Molly took the lard from Edie. ‘I won’t bother to wait for the change now, Ede. I’ll be over for it later,’ she said, turning on her heel and making for the door. ‘Mum said to get this straight back for our breakfast, see.’
‘All right, love,’ said Edie, ‘see yer later on.’
It was only the memory of her Bert’s belief that everyone deserved polite service, no matter who or what they were, that prevented Edie from tipping Phoebe right off the chair, putting her boot up the old cow’s backside and kicking her out of the shop.
‘Here’s the lard, Mum, and yer purse. Edie was a bit busy so I’ll fetch yer change later.’
‘All right, sweetheart.’ Katie slipped her purse into her apron pocket. ‘But don’t worry about the change, I’ll send one of the boys over. You really don’t look well to me. Yer proper peaky. Why don’t yer go back to bed?’
‘Please, don’t fuss, Mum.’
Nora stood up from the table. ‘I reckon it’s you could do with a rest, Kate.’ Much to Katie’s irritation, Nora gave her a broad knowing wink. ‘Sure, weren’t you up with the lark this morning. Now, I’ll tell yer what. I’m going to go in next door and get the boys out o’ their beds, and then I’m going to make their breakfasts for them in there. And Stephen’s. And you can come in for yours when yer ready. So there’s no excuse for you not to put yer feet up. Right?’
‘Mum,’ Katie protested.
But Nora paid no heed; she peeled off enough bacon from the plate for the crowd next door and put it on another plate. ‘Now, Molly, d’yer wanna come in next door with me and help me with the breakfast while yer mam has a sit-down?’
With Phoebe’s words ringing in her head, Molly readily agreed – anything to escape her mother’s scrutiny. ‘Course I’ll help yer. And Nanna’s right, Mum, you’ve been working that hard at that laundry. You put yer feet up and have a quiet cuppa.’
Katie smiled. At least Molly hadn’t cottoned on to the real reason for her having been so tired out recently. ‘Fat chance of me sitting down for a quiet cuppa. But I would appreciate yer keeping that mob in there for their breakfasts, Mum. Then I can catch up with a bit o’ that washing I’ve got piled up.’ She laughed wryly. ‘Washing on a Saturday, eh. I dunno, I’m working in that flaming laundry all week long and I don’t find no time to do none o’ me own.’ She went over to the kitchen window and ducked her head to catch a glimpse of the sky between the buildings. ‘Let’s just hope this rain clears up.’
‘There’s no need to do it straight away, girl,’ Nora said, taking her coat from the back of the chair and slipping it round her shoulders. ‘You just sit down for a bit, and remember, when yer ready, you come in for yer breakfast. Then me and Molly’ll come back in here and help yer with the washing. How’d that suit yer?’
‘That’ll suit me fine, Mum.’
But no matter what Katie had said, as soon as Nora and Molly left her alone, she opened the back door and ran out in the rain to the scullery, not even bothering to put her coat on first. She always hated putting off even a little job if she didn’t have to, so the sight of all that washing spilling out of the basket in the corner of her kitchen was like an accusing finger pointing at a houseproud woman like Katie Mehan.
Despite the damp, she had the fire lit under the copper and the water heating up nicely in no time. Now, all she had to do was go indoors to the kitchen and fetch the basket, put the whites in to boil, and then she could sit down and have a cuppa, while she worked out what she would say when she went to see Pat.
But Katie never got as far as the kitchen.
As she made a dash for the back door, her feet slipped from under her on the rain-spattered flagstones in the scullery doorway and she found herself hurtling forward.
She threw out her hands in front of her to stop herself crashing into the big iron-framed mangle, but it was too late. As she crumpled to the rain-sodden ground, Katie felt a searing pain, like fire in her guts, as the metal-reinforced wooden handle of the wringer rammed into her side.
The next thing she knew was her head was filled with the sound of someone screaming. At first she thought it must be her, roaring with the terrible pain, but as she slowly opened her eyes, she saw it was Molly yelling like a mad thing for Nora.
‘Nanna! Quick!’ she was hollering over the wall. ‘Quick!’
As Nora poked her head over the wall to see what all the fuss was about, her hand flew to her mouth. ‘No!’ Her eyes had fixed on the dark stain spreading out on the ground beneath her daughter.
‘Quick, run and tell Joe to fetch yer dad in his truck. Hurry!’
On her side of the wall Nora hurriedly dragged the tin bath from her scullery and set it on its side as a makeshift step, to help her reach her daughter. In her panic, it didn’t occur to her to run round to the street door.
As Nora scrambled up the wet, slippery wall, with her dress tucked up round her thighs, and balanced unsteadily on the top, making ready to tip over into the yard of number twelve, the tin bath went crashing back onto its base, fetching Michael running out from the kitchen to check on what excitement he might be missing.
‘Blimey, Nanna!’ he exclaimed through a mouthful of bacon, the sight of his grandmother’s unsuspected acrobatic talents making him forget both his language and his manners. ‘What you up to?’
‘It’s all right, Michael, love,’ Nora said slowly. ‘Yer mam’s just not very well, so go and . . .’
Before Nora could finish, Michael was hanging on top of the wall peering over at his mum lying on the ground. ‘Is that blood, Nanna?’
‘Get yerself indoors, Michael,’ she ordered him quite unnecessarily as he ran back indoors to fetch his brothers and his grandad. ‘Tell ’em to bring blankets,’ she called, then swore under her breath as her knees jarred as she dropped down beside Katie.
‘I’m here, darling,’ she whispered, kneeling beside her daughter on the soaking wet ground. She tore off her cardigan and held it over Katie, trying to protect her from the rain. ‘And Molly’s fetching Pat. They won’t be long.’
Katie tried to lift her head, her eyes swimming in and out of focus as the pain tore through her. ‘Don’t let Pat fetch the doctor, Mum. Please. We can’t afford it.’
A pile of blankets, closely followed by the boys, then Stephen, came flying over the wall.
Danny, ashen-faced, knelt beside his nanna as she covered his mum with the blankets.
‘What shall I do?’ he asked, the fear in his voice making him sound like a little kid.
‘I don’t know if we should move her,’ Nora whispered to him.
‘She can’t stay out here.’ Stephen ran his fingers distractedly through his hair. ‘I’m gonna fetch the doctor.’
‘No,’ groaned Katie, and she passed out again.
Katie’s eyes fluttered open for a brief moment and she whimpered as she felt herself being rolled onto her back. It hurt, it hurt so much. She could hear someone speaking. It was Molly. She was babbling away nineteen to the dozen, going on about being worried when she hadn’t come in for her breakfast, and how she had gone in a truck to find someone.
Then she heard her mum speaking. ‘Ssssh now, Molly,’ she was saying. ‘Let’s just get yer mam up to her bed, eh, darling?’
Then Katie felt herself being lifted into the air.
Pat carried his wife indoors, all the while sobbing that he was sorry, oh so sorry, and grimacing with the pain that was tearing his heart out.