Goodbye to Dreams (18 page)

‘I think New Year’s a time for getting things sorted,’ Phil went on. ‘So, if you will take her shopping, Van, I’ll foot the bill and we can start thinking about who to invite.’

‘Phil, I don’t think—’

‘You don’t need to, love. It’s Van and me to do all the thinking. Just try this for size.’ He handed her a jeweller’s box which he opened with a flourish, grinning at Van. Inside was a ring nestled on blue velvet. ‘There, that’s a beauty, eh, Van? Try it on, Ada, and don’t start weeping, for heaven’s sake. I haven’t got a hanky. Lend her yours, will you, Van, love?’

‘I can’t think of another person who would propose with an audience,’ Ada said.

Phil hugged her and Van, squeezing them both against his small body. ‘Asked you plenty of times when we were alone, and a fat lot of good it did
me. No, with Van by my side I thought we’d surprise you into saying yes. Go on,’ he coaxed, ‘say it good and loud so Van can be my witness if you deny it.’

‘Yes, Phil. Oh, yes.’

For Dorothy the end of 1934 and the beginning of 1935 was not a happy time. She went to bed soon after ten o’clock, refusing to treat it as other than an ordinary Tuesday evening. But she was still awake when the ships in the docks nearby began sending out their chorus of hooting and piping as 1935 dawned. Cars passing in the street sounded their horns and
somewhere
close she could hear singing.

Turning on her side, she covered her head with blankets and tried to blot out the celebrations. If Annette were here they would have stayed up late as always or joined others to see the New Year in but without her daughter and living in Slope Street so far from the rest of the family, it was too much of an effort.

After finding Annette with the stable boy, as she always referred to him, she had quickly arranged for her to be sent to work in service, at a town twelve miles away. At Barlow House, she would be kept busy and on a very tight rein. There was no possibility of her ever seeing Willie Morgan again. But she missed Annette dreadfully and never more than with a new year opening out before her, certain to be as gloomy as the one just passed.

Leaving Owen in the care of Annette had made it easy for her to further her career, not having to worry about anything at home, where it had all been in Annette’s capable hands. Now she had to hesitate before agreeing to an out-of-town invitation that would delay her at the home of Uncle Ben Prothero and his second wife, Maggie, who rather reluctantly kept an eye on Owen when he was not at work. Owen was seventeen now and needed no one to look after him, but he hated waiting for his meals and Auntie Maggie was a good cook.

Owen worked for Waldo Watkins, Dorothy having insisted on him learning the grocery trade for the time when he would inherit his
grandfather’s
shop. Dorothy had hated him leaving school at fourteen, she had been reluctant to give up the dream of him going to one of the universities and bringing vicarious success through his brilliant career. Now, Owen’s shop was her only hope and this way he would at least be expert when the time came for him to take over from Cecily and Ada. Thank goodness she had prevented Cecily and Gareth marrying. The plans for Ada and Phil had been delayed too. After all this time they must surely have abandoned the idea. No, there was no one but Owen inheriting. Van, being illegitimate, would surely have no claim.

Another change had taken place in her life besides losing Annette. When Bertie had learned of her vicious interference that had led to the
cancellation
of Cecily’s wedding, Bertie had refused to offer any help with the move or in finding her an alternative house. She had found this smaller, less convenient house not far from one of the docks entrances where, from her windows, she could see girls walking up and down waiting for the sailors to come off the ships. ‘The monkey parade’ the locals called it and Dorothy hated being so near. She kept the curtains permanently closed on that side of the house.

With the shortage of work in the town there were plenty of houses to rent, but only in these poorer areas, never in the better class roads where she would like to live. It angered her immensely to be told by Cecily that Willie Morgan owned his house and was buying a second. It seemed an infernal cheek on his part to be in a better position than herself, a fashion saleswoman for the largest department store in the town.

Tormented with regret and frustration, she tossed and turned and watched as a grey dawn filtered through the curtains before finally dozing, only to be woken soon after by the strident call of her alarm clock.

Another shock awaited her. Going home from work one day she found the door opened and the place ransacked. There wasn’t much of any value but the treasured pieces, memories of her husband, trinkets belonging to her parents, they were irreplaceable and she cried with dismay as she cleared the mess the intruders had left, and listed those that were missing, She hid her tears from Owen, who couldn’t see what the fuss was about, and asked should he go for some chips.

The burglaries on the town were regular for a while, then they stopped and everyone relaxed, then after a gap of a month or two, another spate of entries, usually during the day, would happen and the police could find no clues. Beside Dorothy’s, three other houses were robbed and then, as before, the break-ins stopped, as though the perpetrator had stayed a few days then moved on. Repairs to the damaged door were carried out, Dorothy added extra locks and bolts, and told Owen how glad she was to have him there to look after her. Owen looked bored and asked what was for supper.

‘We aren’t selling the vegetables we used to,’ Cecily complained one day as she and Ada were putting the baskets out to display their goods. ‘I bet it’s that Jack Simmons.’

‘I thought Willie made him promise not to trade around here?’

‘He has affected us, wherever he’s selling. I haven’t seen him for a while though, have you?’

‘I have, miss,’ the young red-haired David said shyly. ‘Goes about in the evenings he does, selling cheap from his barrow.’

Jack Simmons was the small, underweight boy with a reputation for fighting, who always looked as if a good feed was his greatest need. His movements were quick and his mind equally agile and he was the kind who never complained about any unpleasant trick life threw at him, but tackled it head on and licked it. He was what he looked like: a bantam fighter who always fought to win.

When he lost the job at Waldo Watkins’, he spent little time bemoaning the fact but at once borrowed a donkey and cart. He hired it by the day from a man who used it occasionally and usually at night, to assist those who needed to get their belongings out of a house during the hours of
darkness
, to avoid creditors and a landlord to whom they owed rent, in a moonlight flit.

Jack went to the wholesalers late in the afternoons and filled the cart with leftover poor quality fruit or vegetables or anything else he could buy cheaply and sell quickly. At the end of his rounds, he paid the wholesaler and the man who owned the donkey and what was left was profit. It was a simple business and it was only rarely that he came home without a pocket jingling with coins. One day it might be bananas, fallen from their stalks and beginning to blacken, another it might be cabbages or some potatoes starting to smell a bit sour, which he would pick over and clean up to sell at a low price to women with large families, to fill their children’s bellies.

In this way he had gradually built up a small amount of cash and a few weeks before 1934 had ended, he had decided to branch out. It was his old adversary with whom he discussed his plan.

‘See, Willie,’ he had explained, ‘I can see how you got to take chances in life if you want to get on, like, and get out of the hole you were born in.’

‘I wasn’t born in a hole.’ There was a warning note in Willie’s voice, preparing for argument if Jack uttered one word of criticism about his mother.

‘Not you, boy. It’s me we’re talking about here. Me, who started off with the pavement rubbing my feet sore and with no arse in my pants. Me! Going to get on, I am. I’m opening a shop, see, tell my customers where to find me and how I’ll be selling cheap. Want to come and have a look-see?’ he invited.

The shop to which Jack led Willie was little more than a ruin. The front wall was crumbling and the window of the front room shattered, leaving a pile of jewel-like shards outside the loose bricks that had once been a wall.

‘Needs a bit of sorting,’ Jack said cheerfully. ‘Soon get it tidy.’

‘When are you taking over this emporium?’ Willie chuckled.

‘Tomorrow. I’ve told all my customers.’

‘What!’

‘Well, it’s only a bit of tidying that’s needed.’

‘Come on, I suppose I’d better give you a bit of a hand.’

Willie picked up a shovel and a large brush, which seemed to be the only tools Jack had at his disposal, and together they swept up the worst of the mess and rubble. After visiting a builder’s yard and scrounging some cement from a broken bag, they managed to re-set the bricks and arrange a counter of sorts from wood bought at the wood yard where he and Danny bought their requirements. The window would be absent for a while.

Darkness interfered with their work but they were satisfied with what they had achieved during the few hours and for the cost of ten shillings. Willie put the finishing touches to the new premises of Jack Simmons, fruit and vegetable merchant, by writing a sign and placing it neatly where the window should have been.

‘Damned draughty that’ll be,’ Willie said. ‘We’d better get that glass as soon as we can.’

The shop which Jack was now renting was at the corner of the lane which led to Owen’s stable and back entrance. The run-down area was home to a variety of characters making a precarious living from their wits. The two young men often saw Horse, so called because of the strong smell of liniment that hung around him, which he used to ease the pain of many broken and badly mended bones he had suffered during the war. With his wife he sang hymns on street corners and cheerfully admitted they were paid more often to leave than for their musical abilities. They lived in a series of places; a room when they could find the rent then moved on to whatever shelter they could find.

Willie and Jack heard them as they were packing up for the night and they crept closer to listen. Horse and his wife were always good for a laugh. On the streets where they begged pennies for survival, they conversed through their singing, sometimes arguing and all the time fitting their abusive comments about each other to the tune, so passers-by, unless particularly astute, failed to realize.

As Willie and Jack watched, some kind soul threw a couple of coins in the hat in front of the singers. Horse sang, ‘What did she give us?’

‘Only a penny.’

‘Mingy old trout, she could have give more.’

‘Shut up you fool there’s somebody coming.’

Together they sang, ‘We are so happy, Jesus is lord.’

Willie and Jack were laughing and after throwing a couple of coins, moved away from the floating miasma of liniment, wondering how anyone could get near enough to drop money into the hat. ‘What with the stink and their voices, it’s an effort to pass even on the opposite side of the street,’ Jack spluttered, but they both threw a couple more coins.

‘Besides the smell, the language they use when they’re quarrelling would make your old granny faint.’

To their dismay, the unsavoury couple followed them back to inspect the new premises. They stopped to admire their work and Jack gave them a few bananas. They thanked him and promised their business to him.

Jack looked at Willie. ‘Best we leave the window out, if that’s a sample of my new customers!’

Willie thought Jack’s customers were hardly going to make him rich but Jack was confident. ‘Everybody’s got to eat. They’ll buy what’s cheap and fill up on it whether it’s turnips, spuds or bananas.’

‘Is that what happens when you eat too many bananas?’ He pointed to where Horse leaned against the wall, his legs curled like the fruit, their
stiffness
preventing him from falling.

‘I’ll straighten him up later with some rhubarb,’ Jack promised.

Buying as before, offering low prices to clear unwanted goods from the wholesaler and bringing it back on a wheelbarrow, Jack began to attract trade. He spent a lot of time cleaning the poor quality stuff and what he put on display looked appetizing enough to convince the poorest families around the lanes to come and buy. That he succeeded was shown in the diminishing sales at Owen’s, not far away in the more favourable area.

‘Damn me.’ Peter Marshall was amused when Cecily told him about Jack Simmons’s venture. ‘You should have employed the man
yourselves
. And your Willie helping him too! Fancy that. Who told on Willie?’

‘Willie told us himself. There’s nothing wrong with helping a friend and Jack’s shop certainly helps the poorer families around the lane.’

Sundays were precious to Willie. He set off very early to cycle the twelve miles to Barlow House to see Annette. It had been difficult at first as the girl was not allowed any time off except one afternoon during the week and Willie could only make the journey on Sundays. But Annette had persuaded her employers that she wished to go to Sunday school in the nearby village, and they allowed her to do so.

They met at a barn on the road reached by crossing two fields and the
church she purported to attend and they both usually managed to bring food. Whatever the weather they would picnic in the shelter of the ancient walls and with the rubber-coated mackintosh Willie carried and the extra coat Annette struggled to wear, they were warm and cosy.

Making love was a continuous joy and Annette avoided pregnancy following the advice of the cook, who had seven children and insisted she might have had seventeen, and the parlour maid who’d never had a boyfriend.

‘Only two months to go,’ Willie said as he kissed her goodbye one
blustery
march day. ‘Come May and we’ll be together and no one will be able to stop us.’