Farewell to the East End (2 page)
Read Farewell to the East End Online
Authors: Jennifer Worth
Against the second outside wall stood a double-sized gas stove, and the coke stove, which had an oven attached and a flue which ran up the wall and disappeared somewhere near the ceiling about fifteen feet above. The hot water for the whole convent was dependent upon this boiler, and so Fred, the boiler-and odd-job man, was a very important person indeed, a fact even Mrs B was obliged to concede. Fred and Mrs B were both Cockneys, and a guarded but fragile truce existed between them, which now and then erupted into a slanging match, usually when Fred had made a mess of Mrs B’s nice clean kitchen, and she would go for him hammer and tongs. She was a large lady of formidable frontage, and Fred was undersized even by Cockney standards, but he stood his ground and fought his corner manfully. The exchanges between them were rich, but Mrs B knew that the Sisters couldn’t do without him, so reluctantly they settled down to another period of truce.
Mrs B certainly had a point. Fred certainly was messy. The main problem was his squint, the most spectacular you have ever seen. One eye pointed north-east, the other south-west, so he could see in both directions at once, but not in the middle. Not infrequently, when he was shovelling his ash, or tipping his coke, it would go in the wrong direction, but he would sweep it up willy-nilly, and often whatever he was sweeping, particularly the ash, would go the wrong way also. Ash could be flying all over the place, at which point Mrs B ... well, I need not go on!
We settled down to our bread with cheese and chutney, and dates and apples, with a few pots of lemon curd, jam or marmalade. We really appreciated our food because we had all been war-time children, brought up amid strict rationing. None of us had seen a banana or chocolate until we were in our mid to late teens, and had been brought up on one egg and a tiny bit of cheese that was to last a whole week. Bread, along with everything else, had been strictly rationed, so Mrs B’s delectable provender brought murmurs of delight.
‘Bagsie the crust.’
‘Not fair, you had it last time.’
‘Well, we’ll split it, then.’
‘How about cutting the crust off the other end, as well?’
‘No, it would go stale in the middle.’
‘Let’s toss for it.’
I can’t remember who won the toss, but we settled down.
‘What do you make of Fred’s puzzle?’ I asked.
‘Don’t know,’ said Chummy, her mouth full. She sighed with contentment.
‘It’s a load of rubbish if you ask me,’ said Trixie.
‘It can’t be rubbish, it’s a question of arithmetic,’ I replied, cutting another wedge of cheese.
‘Well, you can think of arithmetic, old sport, I’ve got better things to think about. Pass the chutney.’ Chummy had a large frame to fill.
‘Leave some for Cynthia,’ I said. ‘She’ll be coming in any minute, and that’s her favourite.’
‘Whoops, sorry,’ said Chummy, spooning half back into the jar. ‘Greedy of me. Where is she, by the way? She should have been back an hour ago.’
‘Must have been held up somewhere,’ said Trixie. ‘No, it’s not arithmetic. I passed my School Certificate with merit, and I can assure you it’s not arithmetic.’
‘It is. Three nines are twenty-seven – that’s what they taught me at school – plus two makes twenty-nine.’
‘Correct. So what?’
‘So where’s the other shilling?’
Trixie looked dubious. She didn’t have a quick answer, and she was a girl who liked quick-fire repartee. Eventually she said, ‘It’s a trick, that’s what it is. One of Fred’s low-down, wide-boy Cockney tricks.’
‘Nah ven, nah ven, oo’s callin’ me a low-down Cockney wide-boy, I wants to know?’
Fred entered the kitchen, coke-hod in one hand, ash bucket in the other. His voice was friendly, and his toothless grin cheerful (well, not quite toothless, because he had one tooth, a huge yellow fang right in the centre). From his lower lip hung the remains of a soggy Woodbine.
Trixie didn’t look abashed at having insulted the good fellow; she looked indignant.
‘Well, it
is
a trick. It must be. You and your “three men went into a restaurant” yarn.’
is
a trick. It must be. You and your “three men went into a restaurant” yarn.’
Fred looked at her with his north-east eye and rubbed the side of his nose. He rolled the Woodbine from one side of his mouth to the other and sucked his tooth, then gave a sly wink.
‘Oh yeah? You reckons as ’ow it’s a trick. Well you work i’ ou’ Miss Trick – see? You jest work it out.’
Fred slowly kneeled down at the stove and opened the flue. Trixie was furious, but Chummy came to the rescue.
‘I say, old sport, go and look in the big tin, see if there’s any of that cake left. She’s a gem, that woman Mrs B, a jewel. I wasted two years at the Cordon Bleu School of Cookery, fiddling about stuffing prunes with bacon and filling figs with fish, soppy things like that. But no one there could come up with a fruit cake like Mrs B’s.’
Trixie calmed down as we tackled the cake.
‘Leave some for Cynthia,’ said Chummy. ‘She’ll be here in a minute.’
‘Aint she come back yet? Ve quiet one? She should be ’ere by now.’
Fred, as well as being a tease, frequently showed a protective instinct towards us girls. He rattled the rake in the flue.
I still wasn’t satisfied that Trixie was right about Fred’s story being a trick. I had been puzzling about it on and off all day, and now that Fred was here I wanted to get to the bottom of it.
‘Look here, Fred. Let’s get this straight. Three men went into a restaurant. Right?’
‘Right.’
‘And they bought a meal costing thirty shillings?’
‘Straight up.’
‘So they paid ten shillings each. Correct?’
‘You’re a smart one, you are.’
I ignored the sarcasm.
‘And the waiter took the thirty shillings to the cashier – yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘... who said the men had been overcharged. The bill should have been twenty-five shillings. Have I got it?’
‘You ’ave. Wha’ ’appened next?’
‘The cashier gave five shillings change to the waiter.’
‘No flies on you, eh? Musta been top of ve class a’ school.’
‘Oh, give over. The waiter thought, “The customers won’t know,” so he trousered two shillings and gave the men three shillings.’
‘Naugh’y naugh’y. We all done it, we ’as.’
‘Speak for yourself.’
‘Ooh, ’ark at ’er. Miss ’oity-toity.’
Trixie intervened.
‘That’s where I don’t get it. Each man took a shilling change, so that means each one had paid nine shillings instead of ten.’
We all chorused, ‘And three nines are twenty-seven plus two in the waiter’s pocket makes twenty-nine. So what happened to the other shilling?’
We all looked at each other blankly. Fred carried on raking and shovelling and whistling his tuneless whistle.
‘Well, what happened to it, Fred?’ shouted Trixie.
‘Search me,’ said Fred, ‘I ain’t got it, copper.’
‘Don’t be silly’ – Trixie was getting irritated again – ‘You’ve got to tell us.’
‘You work i’ ou’,’ said Fred provocatively as he gathered up his ash bucket. ‘I’m goin’ to empty vis, and you three smart girls’ll ’ave an answer ’afore I gets back.’
Novice Ruth and Sister Bernadette entered at that moment.
‘An answer to what, Fred?’
‘Vem girls’ll tell yer. They’re workin’ it ou’.’
While the Sisters attended to their supper, we told them the conundrum. Novice Ruth was a thoughtful girl, and she paused, knife in hand. ‘But that’s crazy,’ she said, ‘it doesn’t work. Where’s Cynthia, by the way?’
‘She’s not in yet.’
‘Well she should be by now, if she had only her evening visits to do.’
‘She must have been delayed.’
‘I suppose so. This is delicious bread. Mrs B does have a magic touch when it comes to bread. The secret’s in the kneading, I think. Knowing just when to stop.’
Trixie had got out pencil and paper.
‘We’ve got to work this out. A shilling can’t vanish.’
She started writing down figures, but it got her nowhere, and she began to get cross again. Then she had a bright idea. ‘Let’s use matches instead of shillings.’ She took the box from the gas stove and emptied it out. ‘We three will be the three men, and Novice Ruth can be the dishonest waiter, and you, Sister Bernadette, can be the cashier.’
She pushed a pile of matches towards Chummy and me.
‘Now you, Novice Ruth, you’re the waiter – put a tea towel over your arm. Come up to us with the bill, that bit of paper will do, and ask us for thirty shillings.’
Novice Ruth joined in with the spirit of things. We each counted out ten matches and gave them to her, and she collected them up.
Sister Bernadette had made herself a sandwich and was watching us quizzically.
‘Now you’re the cashier, Sister. Go and sit over there.’
Sister Bernadette gave Trixie an old-fashioned look and moved her chair to the end of the table.
‘No. That’s not far enough – go and sit by the sink.’
Sister picked up her sandwich and moved her chair to the sink.
‘Now,’ said the stage director, ‘waiter, you must take the bill and the money to the cashier.’
The waiter did as she was told.
‘Cashier, you must add up the bill and find it is wrong, and say to the waiter ... go on, say it ...’
Sister Bernadette said, ‘This is wrong. The bill comes to twenty-five shillings, not thirty. Here is five shillings change. Give it to the men,’ and she handed five matches to Novice Ruth.
‘Good,’ said the director condescendingly, ‘very good.’
Trixie turned to Novice Ruth.
‘Now what do you do, waiter?’
‘I see the chance to earn a bit on the side,’ said the pious novice slyly as she tucked two matches into her pocket.
‘Yes, that’s correct. Proceed.’
Novice Ruth returned to the table and gave us three matches. We each took one.
‘Good show,’ cried Chummy. ‘I’ve only paid nine shillings for my meal.’
‘And so have I,’ I said. ‘What have you paid, Trix?’
‘Well, I’ve paid nine shillings. I must have done, because, because ... oh dear, that’s where it all goes pear-shaped,’ cried Trixie in real anguish, because usually she had an answer for everything. ‘Three nines are twenty-seven and ... look, we must have gone wrong somewhere. Let’s start again.’
Once more we shook out a random pile of matches. ‘You be the dishonest waiter again, Novice Ruth.’
At that moment Sister Julienne entered.
‘What on earth are you doing with all those matches? And what did I hear about Novice Ruth being a dishonest waiter?
As Novice Mistress of Nonnatus House I cannot approve of that,’ she said, laughing.
We sorted out the second lot of matches and told her Fred’s riddle.
‘Oh, that old chestnut! Fred comes out with that one for all the girls. He’s just doing it to stir you up. No one’s worked it out yet, so I doubt if you will be able to. I came here to see Cynthia. Has she gone upstairs?’
‘She’s not in yet.’
‘Not in! Well where is she? It’s nearly nine o’clock. She should have finished her evening visits by six thirty or seven at the latest. Where is she?’
We didn’t know, and suddenly we felt guilty. We had been stuffing our faces and worrying over a silly old riddle, when really we should have been worrying over the fact that Cynthia was not with us, time was passing, and no one knew where she was.
Fred had come back into the kitchen and heard this last bit of conversation. He went over to the stove as we all looked anxiously at one another. His voice was reassuring.
‘Don’t choo worry, Sister. She’ll be safe as ’ouses. Somefinks made ’er late, but she won’t ’ave come to no ’arm, you’ll see. You know ve old Cockney sayin’, “A nurse is safe among us.” Nuffink will ’appen to ’er. She’ll turn up.’
Novice Ruth spoke. ‘I think it’s very likely that she was delayed at the Jessops, Sister. The baby is a fortnight old, and Mrs Jessop went for Churching today. The women always have a party afterwards, and I expect Cynthia was invited to join them.’
Sister Julienne looked somewhat relieved but nonetheless said, ‘I feel sure you are right, but the bell for compline will sound any minute now, and it would ease my mind if you, Nurse Lee, would cycle round to Mrs Jessop’s whilst we are saying our evening office.’
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