London Pride (26 page)

In the end, of course, she did what she'd always known she would do. She begged her mother for special treatment,
choosing her moment carefully when Flossie had just got home from the pictures and Joan and Peggy were still at work.

‘Mum,' she said, as they were setting the table for supper. ‘Must I go into service?'

‘Where else would you go?' Mum said, laying out knives and forks.

Encouraged by the question Baby began to wheedle, remembering to drop her head and pout prettily and lisp a little because that always worked with Mum. ‘Please don't send me into service,' she said, squeezing out a few tears. ‘I couldn't bear it. I really couldn't. I shall die if you send me into service.'

‘My dear child!' Flossie said, caught up by her daughter's emotion. ‘What is it? Tell your old Mum. Don't keep it to yourself.'

So Baby spilled out all her hopes and fears, with considerable artifice and no restraint, stressing how frightened she was of working in a strange house on her own, and confessing that she thought she might be going to have nerves, ‘just like you Mum', and finally describing the sort of job she really wanted, in rose-tinted detail.

To her relief, when Mum had listened and sympathized and wiped away her tears, she agreed to do something about it.

‘Don't you worry, darling,' she said. ‘I won't send you into service if you don't want to go. I couldn't do that to my darling, now could I?'

The poor child really wasn't strong enough to be a servant, as she told Mrs Roderick when they went marketing together the next morning. A position as a shop assistant would be altogether better. Mrs Roderick agreed with her, saying it was very suitable and offering to keep her ears open for possibilities. And after two weeks a possibility was found. Baby could be taken on as a shop assistant and trainee telephone operator with Dodds, the ladies' outfitter. She would only get a nominal wage of five shillings a week for the first four weeks while she was training but Flossie said they could manage that, with Joan and Peggy working. And Baby was only too happy to agree to it.

The only difficulty that remained was how to tell Joan and Peggy about it.

‘Perhaps it would be better not to say anything ‘til you start,' Flossie said. ‘Just in case they get a bit shirty.'

‘Oh dear,' Baby said, assuming her pathetic face. ‘D'you think they will?'

‘Probably,' Flossie said. ‘Nasty jealous natures the pair of them. Never mind. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it, eh?'

Baby could see the sense in keeping quiet but that didn't stop her wanting to brag about it, especially when the others were nasty to her, or the weather was rotten. Like it was on that chilly May morning as she made her solitary way home from school. She was cold and lonely and she knew she'd feel ever so much better if she could do a bit of swanking.

Mrs Geary was looking out of the upstairs window. Actually standing up and leaning on the sill with her head sticking right out of the window.

‘You seen your Ma?' she called.

‘No,' Baby answered. ‘Why?'

‘I don't know what she'll say,' Mrs Geary chortled. ‘Wait till you see.'

‘See what?' Baby asked. But Mrs Geary had put her head back inside the window.

Intrigued by the thought that something was up, Baby quickened her pace. The front door was ajar so Mum had probably popped down to the corner shop, but Peggy was already home and it sounded as though she'd brought Megan back with her, which she often did when it was their half-day. Baby could hear them both giggling in the kitchen.

‘'Lo Peggy,' she called. But the words froze on her lips when she entered the kitchen for Peggy and Megan were standing in front of the mirror admiring their reflections, and they'd both had their hair bobbed. It made them look entirely different, plumper somehow and more womanly, which was only natural considering they were both seventeen. But Baby had never thought of them as young women before that moment. It quite took her breath away.

‘What d'you think?' Megan asked, turning to face her.
‘I done hers and she done mine. Ain't it stunning?'

Stunning was the word. They not only looked grown-up but very fashionable, with their short hair bushed out on either side of their faces and curly fringes covering their foreheads. It even made their old dresses look modern too. Or had they altered them? Now that Megan worked for a tailor she made all sorts of alterations to her clothes.

‘We treated ourselves to new hats an' all,' Peggy said. ‘What d'you think a' that?' And she picked a blue hat from the table and lowered it onto her head. Unlike her old cloche that covered all her hair and hid most of her face, this one had a brim that was turned back to reveal her face and her forehead and her pretty new fringe. Baby thought it was lovely and immediately wanted one herself.

‘Will you cut my hair too, our Peggy?' she asked.

‘No,' Peggy said, flatly. ‘You're too young. Wait till you've left school and you're out at work.' It had annoyed her that Mum was allowing Baby to stay on until July. Let the horrid little thing wait. It would serve her right for being a spoilt brat.

‘Oh come on, our Peggy,' Baby began to wheedle. ‘It wouldn't hurt you.'

‘What wouldn't hurt who?' Mum said, coming into the kitchen behind her. ‘Good gracious, Peggy! What
have
you done to your hair?'

‘D'you like it?' Peggy said, and there was just a hint of a challenge in the question.

‘It'll take a bit of getting used to,' Mum said diplomatically. It wouldn't have done to say anything too critical with Megan standing there listening. And most of the girls were cutting their hair these days, so it was only to be expected. But really! ‘Don't go getting silly that's all.'

‘Can I have mine cut too?' Baby asked.

‘No you can't,' Flossie said firmly, venting her ill temper on the next possible target. ‘You're too young. Why isn't this table laid?'

Right, Baby thought, noticing the triumphant glances that passed between Peggy and Megan as she threw the cloth across the table. If that's the way you're going to go on, I shall tell you about my job, and then you'll be sorry.

‘When I leave school… ' she began.

But Mum interrupted her with a really dreadful scowl. ‘Where's Joan?' she said.

‘Gone up the park,' Peggy said. ‘She's not coming back for dinner. She told us breakfast-time, don't you remember?'

‘Again?' Mum said, carrying her shopping bag into the scullery. ‘That's the third time this month. If she goes on at this rate I shall begin to think she's left home. Well I hope she has the sense to get herself something to eat that's all. All this gadding about won't do her any good. It might be spring but it's jolly cold still. Come and help me dish up this pie, Peggy. Are you staying, Megan? It's only hash but you're welcome to it. You can have Joan's share since she's took herself off.'

‘When I leave school… ' Baby tried again.

‘We don't want to hear that,' Mum said firmly. ‘Come and eat your dinner.' And she gave Baby another scowl, directing it at her for several seconds and with a force that showed she wasn't going to allow any argument.

Oh! Baby thought, she's going to get shirty. It's not fair. She ought to let me tell, with them having their hair cut and buying themselves hats and everything. But the scowl had to be obeyed. At least that left Joan as the principal source of irritation. Mum'll be ever so shirty with
her when
she comes home.

Her mother would have been more than shirty if she'd known exactly where her eldest daughter was at that moment. And furious if she could have seen who was accompanying her.

At twenty-one Joan had grown into a competent young woman with a mind and a will of her own, although she was very careful to keep both of them hidden from everybody except Peggy. Short rations at work and at home had kept her very skinny but being slim suited her, making her sandy hair look thicker and her brown eyes seem enormous in her long pale face. In fact, although she wasn't aware of it, she was much the best looking of the Furnivall girls.

She still worked for Miss Margeryson and her awful brother, but in the five years since they'd first hired her, they had aged considerably, and that was a great help to her. Now they were both very short-sighted and Miss
Margeryson was more than a little deaf, although she never admitted it to anyone and especially not to her servant. But it meant that she no longer saw dust on every surface and she couldn't eavesdrop on any of Joan's conversations with the tradesmen at the kitchen door. Consequently the housework didn't need to be anywhere near so thorough, and now and then it was possible for Joan to order a little extra milk, or a lamb chop, or a currant bun or two for her own consumption. All of which made life marginally easier. And there was better to come.

Just before Christmas the baker's roundsman was taken ill with bronchitis and for two days the van arrived at the door driven by the master baker who was quick and cross and not given to conversation. But on the third day a different knock heralded the arrival of a new roundsman, and this one was young and brash and had the rough good looks of a ploughboy or a miner or a sailor. He was short and stocky with broad shoulders, solid limbs and short-fingered hands, and his face was broad too, with high cheek bones and small dark eyes, and shaggy, uncombed hair tumbling over his forehead. There was something arresting about him, something bold and self-satisfied, a dark dangerous masculinity, cocky and with a hint of ruthlessness, as if he knew he would get whatever he wanted if he made a play for it. He made Joan think of the black tom-cat that came howling for Tabby.

‘Good morning to you, pretty lady,' he said, giving her the eye in the most impudent way. ‘What can I do fer you this morning?'

‘Cottage loaf,' she said, and as he was making her feel daring, ‘and a ha'penny bun.'

‘Fer you or the old gel?' he asked, saucing her.

She answered in kind, grinning at him, ‘None a' your business.'

‘Tell you what,' he said, ‘I got an iced bun here. Ought ter be a penny be rights. You can have it fer ha'penny, fer being a pretty lady.'

‘You'll get the sack you go on like that,' she said, accepting the bun and the compliment.

‘Wouldn't do it fer anyone though would I, darlin'?' he said.

‘
I
don't know what you'd do,' she said. And there was more truth in the words than she'd intended. The dangerous quality about this young man was really most attractive.

‘See yer tomorrow,' he promised, swinging his basket over his arm. And he was gone, leaving the strong smell of his new-baked bread behind him.

All through that day Joan found herself remembering him. The encounter had bucked her up. There was no denying it. To be saluted as a pretty lady was good for her self-esteem, even if he said it to all his customers and didn't really mean it.

The next day she tidied her hair and checked her appearance in the mirror before his arrival. Soon she was looking forward to his visit as the best part of her otherwise wearying day.

He was always so cheerful, even in March when the weather was miserably cold and they had four days of incessant snowfall. On the second day of it he looked so cold that she invited him into the kitchen and made him a cup of tea to thaw him out. She'd just settled Miss Margeryson in front of the fire in the parlour with a rug over her legs and a book for company, so she knew they wouldn't be discovered. And besides, she couldn't bear to see his nose so red. It quite spoilt his looks.

He was excellent company, poking fun at all the people in the street, imitating the la-di-da way they spoke and mocking the impoverished state of their kitchens.

‘Load of old bats they are!' he said, holding the cup between his mittened hands. ‘Stingy! My eye you wouldn't say so! Ain't got two ha'pennies fer a penny and they give 'emselves airs you'd think they was royalty. “I'll have two loaves my man.” “Mind where you're putting your feet.” An' then you gets round the back an' they ain't got enough grub in the kitchen to feed a sparrer. Empty jars everywhere. Makes yer sick.'

He stayed for nearly a quarter of an hour and the memory of his company spiced the rest of the day and quite made up for the chill of the house.

By the time the bad weather was over and the first warm air of spring was urging Miss Margeryson to mutter
about spring cleaning, they had got into the habit of taking tea together at least once a week. But now that the old lady was on the prowl again it was a little more difficult.

‘Tell yer what,' he said, one particularly pleasant morning when his usual invitation wasn't forthcoming. ‘Why don't you an' me go to the pictures.'

It was a decision, not a question, but she dithered. ‘I don't know,' she said.

‘Why not?'

‘Well, for a start I don't know your name.'

‘Sid. Sid Owen. Neighbour a' yours if you did but know it.'

‘Are you?'

‘Thames Street,' he said, pushing his cap to the back of his head, dark eyes flashing, daring her. ‘Right then. Meet you at the park gates half past one.'

‘When?' she said weakly.

‘Well Wednesday a' course. Your half-day.'

So she agreed. And ever since then they'd gone to the pictures every Wednesday afternoon. They'd taken the first steps towards the process known locally as ‘walking out', but they kept it a secret for the time being because neither of them were at all sure how their relations would take it, she because of her shameful past, he because he was only twenty.

On that afternoon in May they were walking in Greenwich Park and he had just stolen his first kiss, grinning at her in triumph as they drew apart.

‘Now you're my gel,' he said.