The Lights of London (20 page)

‘I’m sorry, Albert,’ she began slowly, ‘but you see …’

Before she could say another word, Albert shoved her out of the way, leaped past her like a scalded cat and was making his way up the street as though the seat of his pants was on fire and he was looking for a horse trough to douse the flames. What on earth was going on? Not realising what a coward the man actually was, Marie couldn’t begin to think what might be able to scare Albert Symes.

‘Does your mother know you’re out, miss?’

Jumping at the sound of the strange man’s voice, Marie turned and found herself squinting directly into the glare of a constable’s bull’s-eye lantern.

A copper. That was it. Albert must have seen him coming.

‘Yes, officer,’ she croaked. Even though she wasn’t known around this way, she still had the prostitute’s fear of being pulled in and getting stuck with yet another stretch inside, or a fine she had no hope of paying. If he was just playing with her and had actually seen Albert standing with her in the doorway, he’d just presume she’d been doing business and she’d really be for it.

‘It was me mum what sent me out. To fetch some milk from a neighbour,’ she began. ‘But I …’ She started to sniffle miserably. ‘I, I dropped the jug and I’m scared to go home ’cos I know she’s really gonna tell me off.’

‘Well, better that than hanging around dark streets at this time of night, young lady. You don’t want to go getting yourself in some sort of a scrape, now do you?’

The constable, Martin Leigh, was a man with daughters of his own and knew what type of trouble young women nowadays were capable of getting themselves into. Wasn’t Mrs Leigh always telling him? Over and over again …

‘Now off home with you, before you go getting yourself mistaken for a …’

‘For a what, sir?’ Marie asked innocently.

‘Never mind that,’ he blustered. Why couldn’t he have come across something nice and simple like a burglar? ‘Just trust me, you’ll be better off getting a tongue lashing from your mother than hanging around here.’

‘Why sir?’ Marie wasn’t just taunting the man for the sake of it – although it did give her a certain amount of
satisfaction to aggravate someone who would more usually be giving her a hard time – but she was giving herself time to make sure that Albert was well out of the way. She almost laughed to herself; this had to be a turn-up for the book, her trying to keep a copper talking. Wait till she told the girls about it. ‘I don’t quite get your drift.’

‘And you don’t want to neither,’ he snapped. ‘Let’s just say there’s hanky-panky what goes on round here and you don’t want to know about it. Now go on, off home.’

With that he shooed her away as though she were a cat reluctant to venture out on a frosty evening.

Constable Leigh shook his head and clapped his hands over the sides of his head. He must need a squirt of Mrs Leigh’s special jollop down his ears. He could have sworn that the little girl he had just packed off home to her mother muttered something about him buggering himself.

Jack decided to be quick off the mark. The idea of letting them have a room was obviously the right bait. Even Kitty, who had, up until then, remained entirely aloof from the conversation, had widened her eyes at the mention of having a place of their own. ‘Come with me, lasses, and I’ll show you.’

He led them next door to the narrow three-storey building that butted directly on to the slightly higher wall of the Dog, an almost derelict house that had been part of the deal when he’d bought the pub.

He took a few moments opening the rusty lock, then gave the door what he thought was a surreptitious kick. With a drawn-out creak it fell slowly off its hinges. ‘I’ll get that fixed,’ he said, hurriedly lifting it to one side. He stepped into the hallway, turned up the wick in the
lamp he was carrying and led them in single file – there was no room for more than that – up a flight of stairs.

‘This it?’ Tibs asked, her obvious disappointment hanging in the air like a bad smell on a hot day.

‘I’ll admit the downstairs is a bit rough, like, but this room on the middle floor,’ he shoved open a peeling, wonky door, ‘isn’t too bad. Not too bad at all. I was thinking of doing up the whole place as lodgings, when I get the time.’ And the money, he thought. ‘But I reckon you two lasses could make it very cosy.’

‘Cosy!’ sneered Tibs, flashing a surreptitious look at Kitty, as she ushered her into a cobweb-ridden, dust-coated space of about twelve feet by twelve. ‘It’s a rat trap, that’s what it is.’ She pulled her skirt up to her ankles. ‘Listen, you can hear ’em scuttling about all round the place.’

The three of them listened.

Fisher pulled off his battered felt hat and scratched his head. ‘You could get a cat in. There’s always plenty of strays about the streets.’

‘You must think I only go as far as Thursday.’ Tibs snorted derisively. ‘You’d need something more than a stray to sort these buggers out. They sound like they’re wearing hobnailed sodding boots.’

‘I’d throw in a bit of money for the cat’s meat.’

Tibs said nothing, she just looked at Kitty and shook her head for her to do likewise.

It was a bit of an impasse, as Jack too held his tongue, not wanting to sound too eager.

But he couldn’t keep it up. He had to hook them and reel them in. ‘Five days’ cat’s meat each week, I’d pay for,’ he said casually. ‘You two will have to cough up for the rest.’

‘And look at this,’ Tibs went on, flicking aside the tatty sheet suspended on a length of twine that
separated the room into two separate compartments.

Jack sighed, a defeated man who’d played his final card, foolishly believing he’d been holding a trump. ‘If you’re not interested …’

‘I never said that,’ Tibs consoled him. ‘Bit of fly paper, a bedstead and a mattress. A nice
clean
mattress,’ she emphasised. ‘And who knows. It might do us.’ ‘There’s not much storage space,’ she added, kicking at the orange box and the single upended market basket that served as furniture.

Jack Fisher put his hat back on his head, handed Tibs the lamp and said flatly, ‘I’ll leave you two to think about it.’

As they listened to him making his way down the stairs, Tibs and Kitty looked around at the peeling, lurid, green-distempered walls. There wasn’t a hint of cheer about the place. A sudden gust of wind came whistling down the chimney, sending a heavy swoosh of thick, damp soot spilling into the hearth and out on to the bare floor-boards at their feet.

‘There’s dust and dirt everywhere,’ said Tibs loudly. ‘Filthy! And, like I said, nowhere to store anything.’

She paused, waiting until she heard Jack step out into the street, then she leaned close to Kitty and whispered, ‘What d’you think?’

‘I can’t believe it,’ she breathed back.

‘Nor can I. It’s bloody wonderful, ain’t it? And I reckon he’ll be a right soft landlord.’ Tibs went over to the window, wiped the grimy pane with the hem of her underskirt and peered down at the street below.

‘A place of our own.’ Kitty sighed, joining her. ‘It’s like a dream.’

‘I just hope Albert don’t find out about it.’

‘Is he really that bad?’ asked Kitty.

‘Worse, darling. Far worse.’

Although Albert had spent the past forty-eight hours searching the streets and alleyways of the East End for Lily Perkins it was, ironically, as he was running away from a portly, middle-aged copper – and if Marie told anyone about that he’d give her a hiding she’d never forget – that he ran smack bang into her as she came stumbling out of a gin palace in the Bethnal Green Road. ‘Lily!’ he roared.

Her hand flew to her mouth, but she immediately dropped it to her side, knowing that she had to look bold, at ease, had to pull herself together. ‘Hello, Albert,’ she wheedled, stretching out to touch his cheek.

‘Shut up.’ The words came out flat and cold, just like the first blow.

He waited until he had pulled her into the pitch darkness of a disused building used only by vagrants – all unconscious with meths and such-like by this time of night – before he struck her a second blow, this time using a piece of lead pipe wrapped in a length of foul-smelling sacking.

If she hadn’t opened her mouth and started that bloody screaming, maybe he wouldn’t have hit her again. And again ….

He paused just long enough to catch his breath – the fat cow had struggled, of course, but at least she hadn’t bled very much – then he stepped out on to the street. He took a deep lungful of air, wiped his hand on the sacking and threw it on to a pile of rubbish in the gutter.

He straightened his shoulders and re-tied the worn silk scarf at his neck. He was well pleased with his evening’s work. That was one overripe old trollop who’d be off the streets for a few weeks; that’d teach her a lesson. Now it was the other little whore’s turn to get a bit of discipline.

But as he strode off into the night he was in no hurry to get to Tibs; he was more interested in finding himself something to eat and he’d need a few days to collect up his earnings. Then he would rest up for a while, have a bit of a think about things, about how he could make the most out of the situation. That’s what he’d do. He’d bide his time. Do it right and let her worry for a bit. Tibs knew he wasn’t happy with her and must be really fretting about when he’d finally decide to pay her a visit.

It made Albert smile just thinking about it.

Kitty, with an unusually cheerful expression on her face, was standing by the now clean window of the room that she and Tibs had been sharing for a whole week. She was looking down on to the busy street scene below. ‘It’s such a lovely afternoon, Tibs. Chilly still, but really bright. Why don’t you get up and enjoy what’s left of the day, before it gets dark?’

Tibs rolled over, pulling the covers up to her chin. ‘I know how pleased you are, Kit, us having this place, but do you have to chirrup and twitter away like a sodding skylark all the time? I need me sleep.’

‘It’s not just having this place, Tibs. It’s …’

Tibs sighed loudly. ‘What?’

‘I can’t really explain it.’

‘Well, while you’re trying to figure it out d’you mind being quiet? If I’m gonna do me best for this new act tonight I’ve gotta be rested.’

Kitty nodded silently and returned to her observation of the bustling business of Rosemary Lane.

There were a few tarts hanging around and trying their luck – mostly unsuccessfully, but their work would pick up later. For now it was the supposedly respectable trades that were busiest, although for the inhabitants of the tough dockside neighbourhood respectability came a long way down the list of what they considered important in life. Many of them had a second, or even a third string to their professional bow and were usually involved in something that was at
least a small step towards the wrong side of the road.

But despite the varied opportunities which could present themselves in such an area, and all the ingenious connivings that went on to take advantage of them, times were still hard in the East End and there were some who would never manage to make much of a living for themselves, no matter what they were prepared to do.

Kitty watched sadly as one tiny girl, weighed down by a big wicker basket full of watercress, thrust out her hand to passers-by, imploring them to buy her wares. Her heart really went out to the poor child, as she thought how desperate she herself had been only a short while ago. Life could be so unfair at times.

She had just about made up her mind to run downstairs and give the child some of the food that Jack had got Archie to bring in to them when a smile slowly appeared on Kitty’s face. She had realised what the child was up to.

She was deliberately seeking out specific people to approach – sailors fresh off the ships. While they had no obvious use or need for salad vegetables, their sentimentality, fuelled by long months at sea away from their own wives and families, meant, more often than not, that she was given at least a shiny farthing for her trouble. Sometimes she was given far more. And she kept the cress.

Kitty’s smile expanded into an impressed grin. Tibs was right, they obviously learned how to survive at an early age in this uncompromising part of the world.

So taken was Kitty with the antics of this enterprising young scrap that she didn’t even notice the man pushing a high-wheeled cart with a huge, belt-driven whetstone strapped on to it. But she heard him all right.

‘Knives to grind!’ he hollered at the top of his
tobacco-thickened lungs. ‘Fetch out your knives to grind!’

This was followed by a piercing, rolling blast on a set of bamboo pan pipes, recently acquired from a Lascar seaman, whose alarmingly long, curved dagger the grinder had honed to murderous sharpness.

Tibs groaned pathetically and pulled the bolster over her head. As if that din weren’t bad enough, a handbell now joined in the general crashing and clattering from below.

‘Muffins for sale!’ the handbell ringer proclaimed. ‘Nice fresh muffins for sale! Get some in for your tea!’

‘What the bloody hell …’ Tibs flung the pillow to the floor, scrambled out of bed, shoved Kitty to one side and flung up the window making the box sash rattle. ‘Will you shut up down there, you noisy bastards. Can’t you see I’m trying to get me beauty sleep?’

Tibs threw herself back on the bed. ‘I’m fagged out, Kit,’ she wailed. ‘Like an old, worn-out dish rag, I am. Practising the new act night and day for a whole sodding week, and now this bleeding row. Our big night tonight and I have to put up with this. Why don’t they all just shut up?’

Ignorant of her pleas, the bells of nearby St George’s rang out their five o’clock chimes, making Tibs scream with fury. ‘Is this a bloody plot against me or something?’

Kitty laughed out loud, a rare, surprisingly pretty sound, which had Tibs sitting up in bed so fast it was as though someone had pulled her lever. ‘Don’t you start and all, Kitty Wallis.’

‘Now you’re wide awake, Tibs, you might as well get up. And it wouldn’t hurt if we had just one more practice, would it? I don’t want to go getting it wrong and risk losing this lovely place of ours.’

Fifteen minutes later Tibs still wasn’t up exactly, but she was at least sitting on the edge of the bed and her earlier grumpiness was entirely forgotten. She was watching, fascinated, as Kitty pulled on her soldier’s uniform and then stood herself in front of the cracked and speckled full-length glass that Archie had found for them, admiring the results.