The Bells of Bow (9 page)

‘Just get on with your work.’ Silver walked towards the doorway then stopped. ‘We’ll have to get this blouse order finished quick as we can,’ he said to them. ‘Then we can sort out converting to the heavy-duty machines.’

With the knowledge that their jobs were safe, the warehouse workers readily followed their boss back down the iron stairs to get on with their duties and the machinists set about polishing off the blouse order with renewed enthusiasm. But even with all the machines going full pelt, they could all still hear Ginny’s moaning voice above the noise.

‘I don’t understand that Silver,’ she said sharply. ‘He’s such a mean old bastard. He’s never give us nothing, yet he give all that gear away to the refugees last month and now he’s doing uniforms and giving out bonuses when he don’t even have to.’

‘Well, I don’t think he’s mean. He’s always seemed very fair to me,’ Evie said, raising her eyebrows at Babs.

‘More than fair,’ Babs agreed.

‘Aw, yeah,’ sneered Ginny. ‘I’m sure you two do think he’s fair. And I’m sure fellers always are fair to the likes of you and yer sister, Blondie.’

Evie laughed disdainfully. ‘I’ll ignore that, Trappy.’

Ginny’s machine stopped. ‘Who you calling “Trappy”?’

‘Dunno,’ Evie answered airily, and tossed another almost completed blouse onto her pile. ‘They don’t label rubbish.’ She leant forward and called along to the far end of the row. ‘Here y’are, Maria. Another bundle for yer.’

Maria pushed back her chair and stood up.

Babs looked at Ginny then at Evie – they were both glaring as though daring each other to say something else.

‘Why shouldn’t Mr Silver give stuff to the refugees if he feels like it?’ Babs said as she watched Maria move along the row towards them. ‘They’re his own people, ain’t they? It’s only right to help yer own.’

‘Tell that to the Italians,’ jeered Ginny.

Evie slammed her hand down on the bench. ‘Can’t you just
shut up
for five minutes?’

‘Yeah, shut yer row and get on with yer work, Ginny.’ Babs winked at Maria who had stopped between her and Evie to collect the pile of blouses. ‘Yer giving me a headache.’

‘Take no notice of her.’ Evie touched Maria gently on the arm. ‘She’s jealous ’cos yer so pretty and ’cos of that lovely figure of your’n.’

‘Yeah,’ agreed Babs. ‘She’s just a jealous, hatchet-faced old bag.’

Maria picked up the blouses and smiled wanly at the sisters and walked slowly, head down, back to her place.

Ginny snorted with disgust and got back to her machining.

Evie nudged Babs to get her attention and then she rocked her chair onto its back legs, poked her tongue out and stuck her fingers up behind Ginny’s back. Not caring if Ginny had seen what she had done, Evie turned back to Babs. ‘Here, look what I’ve brought in.’ She held up a tightly rolled parcel of black material that she produced from her bag.

‘What yer doing with them?’ Babs sounded flabbergasted. ‘They’re the bloody blackout curtains.’

Evie rolled her eyes. ‘Aw, ain’t they pork chops? And I was gonna do ’em for dinner and all. What we gonna have now?’

‘So what yer brought ’em in here for?’ Babs frowned. ‘Oi, Eve, you ain’t gonna make a dress or nothing out of ’em, are yer?’

‘No.’ Evie sounded indignant. ‘The way you talk to me sometimes. If yer must know, I’m gonna line ’em with a bit of that flowery stuff we’ve been using for the blouses. Might as well have the house looking pretty inside, eh?’

‘Don’t you let Silver catch yer.’ Babs looked warily over Evie’s shoulder. ‘Not after what he said.’

‘Shame, I was gonna ask him to help me do the hems and all,’ Evie said as she expertly pinned pieces of the floral material to the inside of the curtains. ‘I told yer, Babs. I ain’t stupid.’

‘I dunno sometimes.’

Evie ignored her sister’s concern and got on with machining the brightly coloured backing to the dull blackout cloth, accompanying herself as she did so with a tunefully boisterous rendition of ‘Roll Out The Barrel’.

Lou nodded towards Evie, her ginger curls bobbing. ‘She’s happy.’

‘Still with her new bloke, ain’t she.’

‘Yer don’t sound very happy about it.’ Lou frowned in surprise at Babs. It wasn’t like the Bell sisters not to support one another, no matter what either of them had got up to. They could have a tiff over something, and they often did, but it never lasted and was never, ever serious. And there had, up until now, been an unspoken rule that the twins would never speak ill of one another, even in a joke, to any outsider, no matter how well they knew them.

‘Can’t say I am very happy about it.’ Babs spoke so that Evie could hear what she was saying. ‘But I don’t suppose it’s nothing to do with me.’

‘Yer right, Babs.’ Evie smiled sweetly as she guided the curtain material forward. ‘It ain’t. And nor has the fact that I’m going out with him again tonight either. And tomorrow night.
And
probably the night after that and all. Yer wanna get yerself out more, Babs, yer must be bored silly sitting in every night by yerself. Yer getting a right little stay-at-home.’

Babs’s cheeks reddened; she had missed going out with Evie and they both knew it, but it hurt her to hear Evie say it so bluntly, and in front of Lou.

Lou bent her head towards Babs so that Ginny couldn’t hear. ‘I know, Babs,’ she said quietly. ‘Let’s me and you find ourselves a couple of chaps to take us to the pictures tomorrow night. What d’yer think? I ain’t got nothing to do and I don’t fancy sitting in on a Saturday night. Specially not with me dad going on about war all the time and me mum moaning about all the money I owe her. What d’yer say?’

‘I’m not sure if I feel like it,’ Babs said noncommittally. She didn’t want to prove Evie right quite so easily.

‘Go on, that good-looking Freddy from down in the warehouse right fancies you, Babs, yer can see it all over his face. Tell yer what, we’ll go down and see him after work and tell him to bring that mate of his for me.’ Lou, increasingly warming to the idea, beamed at Babs then closed her eyes and, with a sigh, slowly shook her head. ‘Cor! What a pair of lookers them two geezers are.’

Babs looked at Evie who was feigning ignorance of the conversation between Lou and her sister. ‘Go on then. Yer on.’ Babs said it reluctantly but she, too, was smiling now. ‘I’d like that, and yer right, that Freddy is a bit tasty. But you’re gonna have to go down there and sort it all out, Lou. I’ve gotta get off home sharpish tonight to sort out this stupid blackout stuff.’

‘Can’t you help her get it done, Evie?’

Babs looked at Lou as if she was mad and Evie just carried on singing as though she had heard nothing.

Lou got the sisters’ message loud and clear. ‘Sorry. Daft question.’

Evie folded up the finished blackout curtains and slipped them back in her bag. She ended her song as she started working on making up a sleeve. ‘Lou,’ she said casually.

‘Yes, Eve?’

‘When yer go down the warehouse to see Freddy later on, don’t let Tiddler hear yer making no plans to go out, will yer?’

‘Eh?’ she said, winking at Babs. ‘I didn’t think you’d heard me and Babs having our little chat.’

‘Leave off, Lou. I mean it. Yer know how the poor sod gets himself all upset ’cos he ain’t got no one. And he’s a decent bloke.’

‘All right, Eve.’ Lou chuckled and said to Babs, ‘That twin o’ yours is a right softy underneath, ain’t she, Babs?’

‘She ain’t a bad old cow really,’ Babs said affectionately.

‘What, me?’ Evie put her hands to her chest and pulled a face of mock horror. ‘Yer both wrong there, girls. Right hard case, I am.’

‘Yeah,’ smiled Babs. ‘Course you are.’ She nudged her sister playfully. ‘Come on, Evie, how about another song? Tell yer what, I’ll do all the girls a favour and join in with yer. My voice’ll cover up your rotten squawking and give their ear’oles a rest.’

Babs stood on the pavement outside number six, her hands on her hips and her head tilted to one side, staring at the front window. ‘I dunno,’ she said to herself. ‘It still don’t look right.’ She went back inside and called up the stairs: ‘Can’t yer come down and help us just a minute, Eve?’

‘I told yer once,’ Evie called back and stepped out from the bedroom onto the upstairs landing. She was wearing only her underslip, and had a hairbrush in one hand and a mirror in the other. ‘I did my bit when I lined the curtains this morning.’

‘And yer didn’t even do that right ’cos yer rushed ’em. Typical o’ you. Yer start something all nice then get bored with it and wind up mucking it all up. The upstairs ones are fine, they’re hanging just right, but them downstairs ones, the ones that really matter, they’re all rucked up in one corner. The light’s gonna come right through and Frankie Morgan’ll just love that.’

‘Does it really matter? You said yerself it was all a waste o’ time.’

‘I know that, and you know that. But Frankie Morgan knows he can fine us if we don’t do it right.’

‘Yer finished?’ Evie shook her head. ‘Gawd, Babs, ain’t yer got nothing better to worry about?’ She tutted loudly and went back into the bedroom. ‘Now just leave me alone,’ she shouted. ‘Albie’ll be here soon and I ain’t even got me frock on yet.’

Babs fumed silently as she stomped into the front room and climbed onto the kitchen chair she’d been using as a stepladder. ‘Bloody things,’ she complained to herself and began unpicking the offending seam. She worked quickly and skilfully and, when she had finished resewing the cloth, she stuck the needle through the front of her apron for safekeeping and went back outside into the street to see if the curtains were now hanging properly.

‘Taped yer windows, I see.’ It was old Alice Clarke from over the road. She was sitting on a kitchen chair by her street door, her short skinny legs dangling, her narrow little shoulders hunched and her scrawny arms folded tight across her chest. She was in her customary ‘on duty’ position from where she could take note of all the comings and goings in Darnfield Street.

‘Yes, Alice, I’ve taped the windows,’ Babs answered her, but she didn’t turn round to face her. The last thing she wanted was to give Alice the opportunity to get started on the neighbours and their misdoings.

‘Looks like rain.’ Alice tried again to engage Babs in conversation. ‘Reckon this fine weather’s over.’

‘Yeah,’ Babs said, and went to go back indoors.

‘Yer’d do that a lot quicker if yer dad and sister helped yer.’ Alice shouted the words just as Babs put her foot on the street doorstep.

Not wanting to get involved in a row that could, if Alice’s past form was anything to go by, go on for weeks, Babs decided it was best not to be outright rude to Alice, but to hover in the doorway just long enough for Alice to have the chance to say at least part of her piece before she went inside.

‘Our young Micky come round to help Nobby put up our blackout, yer know. Good boy, he is. Always helps his nan. Always—’

‘Very nice, Alice,’ Babs interrupted her. Having agreed that Micky was indeed a wonderful grandson, she’d intended to dash inside before Alice had the chance to start pumping her, but she should have known better. Long years of gossiping on street corners had made Alice a formidable interrogator, and before Babs even moved a step Alice had launched into her questions.

‘Ringer and yer sister too busy to help you, I suppose. Better things to do than help you, have they? Out somewhere or other, are they? All right for some, eh? Don’t it give yer the hump, you staying indoors grafting while them two are out and about?’

Babs knew that if she was ever to get away from Alice, she had to offer her at least some nugget of information that she could pass on. If she didn’t, Alice would only make up her own stories about them. Babs sighed loudly, wild with herself for ever getting into this. ‘If yer must know, Alice, Evie’s indoors. She’s upstairs getting changed and Dad’s popped out for a bit.’ Babs folded her arms and stared at the nosy woman. ‘As if you didn’t know most of that already.’

Satisfied that she now had Babs’s full attention, Alice got into her stride. ‘I
thought
I saw yer dad go in the Drum, must have been, what, nearly two hours ago – about five o’clock? But yer’ve still gotta do this blackout stuff proper, yer know, whether yer’ve got help or not, ’cos when that bloody Frankie Morgan starts on the prowl tonight,’ she jerked her head towards number eight, Frankie and Ethel Morgan’s house, ‘yer’ll never hear the end of it from that one if it ain’t done right. I mean, he’s enough of a know-all as it is, but now they’ve give him that tin hat and blinking armband of his, he’ll drive us all mental. That’s the trouble when yer give a know-all like him a uniform, goes to their heads, yer see. Here, that’s a good’un, goes to their heads, and he’s got a helmet!’ As Alice laughed, her thin lips practically disappeared altogether, exposing her dark pink gums and the few teeth she still had left.

Babs didn’t join in with her laughter, she just stood there, a glazed expression on her face while Alice got on with talking at her from her perch across the street.

‘What with that tin hat and his stories about what a blinking hero he was in the trenches. Load of old toffee, if yer ask me. I’m telling yer, girl …’ Alice was suddenly distracted by something far more interesting than the veracity of Frankie Morgan’s famous wartime stories – the arrival in Darnfield Street of a shiny black motor car.

‘Here, twin, ain’t that Albie Denham?’ Alice got up from her chair and craned her neck to get a better look at the driver. ‘Yeah, I’m sure that’s Queenie’s boy. I’ve seen that car round here a few times lately, ain’t I?’ She dragged her gaze away from the car and flashed a quick look at Babs. ‘Well? Is it him?’

Babs didn’t bother to answer Alice’s question. The moment Albie tooted the car horn to announce his arrival, she turned on her heel and disappeared into the passageway of number six. She might not be able to stop Evie seeing Albie Denham, and she’d come to the conclusion that she probably had no right even to try, but that didn’t mean she had to speak to him or even acknowledge his existence, for that matter.

‘Oi, mind yerself, Babs, yer in a bloody dream.’ Evie ducked neatly past Babs as they nearly collided in the narrow passage. ‘Don’t wait up,’ she added as she skipped nimbly over the step and out into the street.