The Bells of Bow (48 page)

Babs didn’t hesitate when Harry nodded towards the packed dance floor; she let him take her in his arms and was soon gliding into a smooth, easy quickstep.

Evie and Alf joined them. The twins were in their element, as both men were happy to dance to every single tune. The girls swapped partners a couple of times but by the time the lights were raised and the band had stopped for their break, Babs had made sure that she was back in Harry’s arms for three out of the last four tunes.

‘Same again, girls?’ asked Alf, holding his hand up in a mime of drinking from a glass.

They both nodded. ‘Please.’

‘Let’s nip down to the bar downstairs,’ Alf suggested to Harry. ‘We’ll never get served up here.’

While the men went to fetch the drinks, the twins went into the Ladies to check their hair and make-up.

‘Glad yer come?’ asked Evie, shoving her way to the front of the huddle of young women all vying for a space in front of the single mirror over the sink.

‘Yeah. I’ve gotta admit it, Eve, I am enjoying meself.’

Evie took her comb from her bag and handed it over her shoulder to Babs. ‘Do the back of me hair for me.’

As Babs smoothed down the thick blonde waves, she smiled at Evie’s reflection. ‘It’s just like it used to be, ain’t it?’

Evie looked down her nose at a short, skinny girl who was trying to push in front of her. ‘Yeah,’ she said haughtily. ‘All the fellers gawping at us and all the girls dying of jealousy. I dunno why they bother. They can hardly compete with the Bell twins, can they?’

The short skinny girl cringed back into the crowd.

Babs stopped combing and frowned into the mirror. ‘Bell? What’s all this then? Ain’t you a Denham no more?’

Evie waggled her left hand. There was no sign of her wedding ring. ‘Seeing Queenie this afternoon decided it for me. If I never saw that old bag again it’d be too soon.’

Babs nodded, the thought of Queenie’s performance was all the explanation that she needed. Then she said, ‘About these two fellers, Eve. I can’t really figure it out.’ She handed Evie the comb and turned round so that she could have her own hair tidied up. ‘You with either one of them specially like? As a couple or anything, I mean.’

‘No.’ Evie ran the comb briefly through her sister’s hair and then put it back in her bag. ‘Why?’

‘No reason.’

‘Babs?’

‘Well, I think Harry seems quite nice.’

‘Do yer?’ Evie grinned.

‘Yeah, and Alf,’ she added quickly, for she knew what a tease her sister could be. ‘They both seem really nice.’

Evie’s grin widened. ‘Yeah, right dishy, ain’t they? I told yer they was all right. So, let’s get back to ’em, shall we?’ She looked at the group of young women pushing and shoving around her. ‘Excuse me,’ she said bossily and, with a lift of her chin, she made her way gracefully from the lavatory and back to the hall as though she was strolling through the lobby of an exclusive hotel rather than a dingy corridor in an East End pub.

Harry and Alf beckoned to them from the table they had bagged.

While they sipped their drinks, the four of them laughed and chatted away as though they had known each other for years and Babs was filled with a happy, easy warmth that she had almost forgotten.

The band returned to the stage and the lights were dimmed again. Babs held out her hand to Harry and jerked her head towards the floor. ‘What d’yer reckon?’ she said with a happy smile.

‘I reckon I’d love to,’ he smiled back and took her in his arms.

But the music didn’t begin immediately. First the trumpeter made an announcement: the next dance was to be a ‘blackout special’, which everyone knew meant that the lighting would be turned down until it was almost pitch dark and there would be far more kissing and cuddling going on than dancing.

When the lights went out and the band struck up the first potent notes of ‘I’m Always Chasing Rainbows’, Babs drew in her breath as she felt Harry pull her even closer to him and covered her mouth with his in the tenderest of kisses.

He was kissing her just as she had hoped he would. He wasn’t rough or all over her but was sensitive and caring, his lips soft and gentle.

When the lights came on again, she blinked and smiled up at him shyly. ‘I’m having a really good time, Harry.’

He leant back and looked down at her, his eyes searching hers. ‘I’m glad.’ He smiled and drew her close to him.

She rested her head on his shoulder as the music began again and whispered into his chest, ‘It’s like I’ve forgotten everything else, even the war, and I’m just here with you.’

Babs was pulled from her reverie when Evie cut in again. Babs had the next couple of dances with Alf but she made sure that she had the last waltz with Harry, even though it meant her tapping Evie on the shoulder and insisting firmly, albeit in a bright and playful voice, that they should swap partners for the final tune.

As they stepped from the warmth of the crowded pub and into the street, Babs shivered; the icy wind made it feel more like December than March, but she was soon glowing when Harry put his arm round her and pulled her to him.

‘How are you girls getting home?’ asked Alf, pressing Evie against the wall and leering suggestively at her. ‘If you’ve got too far to go, we could always go back to the boarding house where I’m staying. I’m sure I could find room for a little cracker like you.’

‘Cheeky bugger,’ said Evie and pushed him away from her. She took a cigarette from her bag, turned to Harry and waved it in the air, waiting for him to light it for her.

Harry let go of Babs, took his matches from his pocket, cupped his hands and struck one. As the yellow light flared in the blackout it illuminated his dark, handsome face. Evie moved close to him, keeping her eyes fixed on his as he held the flame to her cigarette.

When Alf saw what Evie was up to, he didn’t lose any time; he sidled up to Babs and put his arm round her instead.

Babs didn’t object, she was too preoccupied trying to figure out what Evie was up to.

‘Ta,’ said Evie, when her cigarette had caught. She was still staring up into Harry’s big brown eyes as she blew a stream of smoke from the corner of her mouth. ‘Yer on leave for a week, didn’t yer say?’

Harry nodded and smiled down at her. ‘That’s right.’

‘Fancy coming round to out place tomorrow?’ Evie didn’t shift her gaze for a moment. ‘Come for tea if yer like. You can meet Babs’s little girl. I look after her while Babs is at work.’

Babs blinked in bewilderment. ‘What?’ She was too taken aback to notice how quickly Alf had dropped his arm from round her shoulder.

‘It’s ever so sad,’ Evie went on. ‘Her husband was taken prisoner. He’s in one of them camps. Terrible it is. She goes to work to take her mind off it.’

Alf did up the top button of his overcoat. ‘Blimey, that the time?’ he muttered. In his mind there loomed the horrific prospect of getting stuck with some poor sod’s wife and kid. ‘I’d better be off, mate. See yer.’ And with that, he was gone.

‘He left a bit sharpish,’ Evie said innocently. ‘What was up with him?’

Harry jerked his head towards Babs. ‘Don’t fancy being beat up by someone’s old man, even if he is locked up. These tales have a habit of getting back to women’s husbands.’ He shook his head at Babs. ‘He didn’t mean nothing personal, love.’

‘Babs wouldn’t be unfaithful to her Ron, would yer, Babs?’

‘Evie!’ Babs was pale with anger.

‘Look, I hate to leave yer like this, Eve, but I’d better get after him, he ain’t got a clue about finding his way round London. Give us yer address and I’ll see yer tomorrow, eh?’

He took Evie’s hastily scribbled note and disappeared along the street after Alf.

Evie pulled her coat collar up round her neck and said, as though nothing had happened, ‘Yer coming, Babs?’

‘Am I coming? What the bloody hell d’yer think you’re playing at, telling all them lies about me?’

Evie looked surprised. ‘What’s it to you?’

‘You’re Betty’s mother, that’s what.’

‘Having a kid ain’t gonna cramp my style.’

‘And another thing.’ Babs was now too angry to notice the cold. ‘I thought you said that you didn’t care which one of them you wound up with.’

‘I didn’t.’ Evie looked confused by her sister’s rage. ‘I just thought Harry was a bit better looking, that’s all. Never really fancied fair blokes that much. And now I’m a blonde I think I look better next to someone with dark hair, shows me off more.’

‘I honestly don’t believe you.’

‘What? Here, yer didn’t fancy Harry or something yerself, did yer? Yer should have said.’

Babs swallowed hard and stared down at her feet. ‘Would it have made any difference if I had?’

‘Dunno,’ said Evie with a bored shrug. ‘Didn’t really give it a thought. Anyway, I’ve had enough of all this. Come on, I’m freezing. Let’s get the bus.’

The next morning, at the sub-station, Georgie and Maud were working alongside the other firemen and women assembling wireless equipment in one of the converted classrooms. There had been hardly any major raids for several months but they were keeping themselves busy, whilst at the same time doing their bit for the war effort.

Georgie dropped his screwdriver down on the bench and rubbed his eyes hard with his knuckles. ‘I know this is all for a good cause, Maud, but do you fancy coming out and doing a bit more work on the vegetables? I’m going boss-eyed doing these screws and wires. And these great big hands of mine definitely ain’t cut out for fiddly jobs like this.’

‘I think going outside’s a really good idea, George.’

Vic Johnson laughed. ‘You two must be potty. Going out in all that mud when yer could be sitting in here in the warm.’ He shivered. ‘No thanks.’

Maudie gave him a friendly pat on the back. ‘Well, I’m still a country girl at heart, Vic. I love a bit of digging in the mud. Does me the power of good and blows away all the cobwebs.’

‘You’re welcome, girl.’

Georgie followed Maudie outside to the patch of ground that had once been the school garden. He opened up the little shed that Vic had built with timbers they had collected from the bombsites and took out the tools. He offered Maud the hoe, but she refused with a grin and took the less delicate, long-handled spade from him instead.

‘It was good of yer looking after the little’un with me last night.’ Georgie rested the hoe against the shed while he rolled up his sleeves. ‘She’s right fond of yer, yer know.’

Maudie picked her way carefully along the rows of vegetables. ‘I’m glad,’ she said, stooping to examine the leaves of a cabbage. ‘I’m very fond of her.’

Georgie began poking the hoe gingerly at the weeds that had sprouted between the plants – the memory of his ‘weeding out’ a whole row of recently planted onions was fresh in his mind and was making him particularly cautious. ‘Did you ever want kids of your own?’ he asked matter-of-factly.

Maud, who was still bent double, looked through her legs at him. ‘Yes,’ she said, and then straightened up to face him. ‘But it wasn’t to be, was it? Not for an old spinster like me.’ She shrugged. ‘So, I’ve had to accept it.’

Georgie pulled at a ferny looking leaf, hesitated, then tugged a bit harder. The whole plant came clean out of the ground and he held the resulting prize up for Maudie’s inspection. ‘Weed?’ he asked hopefully.

She laughed. ‘This time, yes. But be careful. I don’t want you destroying any more crops.’

He tossed the plant onto the gravel path. ‘Yer good at this, gardening.’

‘I suppose it’s because I enjoy it so much.’ She moved further along the rows, looking critically at the plants and their development.

‘Yer said something earlier to Vic. It made me think.’

‘What was that?’

‘About being a country girl.’

Maudie stopped at the end of the rows by a section of bare earth that had been marked out with pegs and string. ‘I did live in the country for a while.’ She plunged her spade deep into the ground and panted from the exertion of turning the heavy clay soil.

‘I always knew you wasn’t from round here.’

Maudie didn’t say anything, she just moved forward, stuck the spade in again and repeated digging and turning the sodden earth.

‘So, how did you turn up here then? In the East End.’

Maudie rested her forearm on the handle of the shovel. ‘That’s a long story, George. A very long story.’ She returned to her digging. ‘With enough elbow grease, we’ll turn this place into a right little farmyard before the summer comes. I’ve thought about maybe getting a few hens.’

From his experience of previous attempts at finding out more about Maudie’s past, Georgie knew that that was the end of the matter – for now at least.

That evening, when Georgie arrived home at number six, Harry was just leaving the house.

‘You must be Mr Bell,’ Harry said, stretching out his hand. ‘They’re three lovely ladies yer’ve got indoors.’

‘Glad you approve, son,’ Georgie answered, his pride momentarily overcoming his curiosity. He shook Harry by the hand.

‘I’ll be back later on tonight, to take Evie out. If that’s all right with you.’

Georgie frowned. ‘Yer don’t mean Babs?’

Harry frowned back at him. ‘Evie is the blonde one, ain’t she?’

‘Yeah, that’s right. That’s Evie.’

Harry relaxed. ‘Yeah, that’s what I thought.’

Georgie let himself indoors. He could hear Babs and Evie talking in the kitchen. It sounded as if they were rowing again.

He stood in the kitchen doorway a moment, trying to figure out what was going on this time. ‘Evening,’ he said.

They both looked round. Neither of them spoke.

‘I met that young feller in the street, Eve.’

‘What, Harry? Did yer?’ She glanced sideways at Babs.

‘Yeah. He seemed all right. Polite enough.’

‘Aw, he’s that all right.’ Babs folded her arms and tapped her foot impatiently on the dull red lino.

‘Look, Eve,’ Georgie said. ‘I know things ain’t been easy for yer, but you mind what yer letting yerself in for, eh, getting mixed up with another feller so soon.’

‘Yeah, and try and keep Harry from getting too confused with all the lies yer telling him and all,’ snapped Babs.

‘I don’t know what’s going on between you two,’ Georgie said. ‘But I don’t think I like coming home to all this bad feeling. All right?’ He looked first at one daughter then the other. ‘I said, all right?’