Trinidad Street (19 page)

‘I like to get around, Aunty Alma. London’s a big place, you know. There’s music halls and pubs and posh shops and parks. No point in staying here on Dog Island when there’s so much more to see. Some of the people round here’ – he gestured at the cheerful Saturday-night crowd – ‘they don’t leave the place from one week’s end to the next. Home, work, drink, all just around the corner. A trip up Chrisp Street with the missus on the Saturday afternoon’s about the furthest they go.’

‘Yeah.’ Alma thought about it. These last few years since she came to live in Trinidad Street, she’d been like that, going only as far as wherever she was working. It was getting so that the land outside the Isle of Dogs was foreign territory to her. Mostly she liked to stay where she knew everybody and they knew her, but now, talking to Harry and thinking about the fun he must have, she was fired with a sense of restlessness.

‘It’s all very well for you – you’re a young lad, and a lighterman. You can do what you like. Different for the likes of me.’

‘Ah well.’ Harry had that mysterious smile about his eyes again. ‘Lightermen are the best, of course. And here’s one more.’ He stood up and waved, and a stocky man in his forties came over.

It did not take Alma more than a couple of seconds to realize what was going on. She was ready to be highly affronted that her young nephew should set her up like this, but then she looked at his friend and decided she liked what she saw. He had the weathered face of a riverman, creased into lines of good humour, and that same air of independence and authority that Harry wore.

‘Come on over, Ernie.’ Harry clapped him on the back. ‘Aunty, this here’s my pal Ernie Foster. Ernie, meet my Aunty Alma, Mrs Billingham.’

‘Pleased to meet you,’ Ernie said, stretching out a huge hand. ‘I’ve heard a lot about you from young Harry here.’

‘Well, you’re a jump ahead of me there, ’cos he ain’t said nothing to me about you,’ Alma told him. But that old stir of interest and excitement inside told her that she wanted to find out.

She couldn’t believe her luck. He was two years a widower, with five children – four married and the youngest, a daughter, still at home and looking after the house for him. He had a permanent job, and it was common knowledge that lightermen were well paid. On top of this, he was cheerful, entertaining, a good talker and a listener in his turn. And he liked her. She could tell. His eyes never left her face and he responded to her smallest remark. They talked away nineteen to the dozen, finding similar tastes.

‘The halls? Oo, I love the halls,’ Alma said. ‘I ain’t been for months, though. My boy Gerry takes me sometimes. I like Harry Lauder – real scream, he is.’

‘You do? So do I! Seen him only last week down the Old Vic. And George Chirwin – you seen him?’

Alma admitted that she had not.

‘Oh, you oughta hear him sing ‘Blind Boy’. Wonderful! And I like the girls, of course – Vesta Tilley, what a voice!’

She almost forgot that Harry was there until he stood up.

‘I got to go and see a man about a dog,’ he said.

Both of them pretended disappointment. Harry bid them goodbye with the air of a man who had been proved right.

The evening flew by. It was gone midnight and the crowd in the bar was beginning to thin out.

‘You fancy a plate of jellied eels, Mrs Billingham?’ Ernie asked.

‘Why, thank you, Mr Foster. That’d be very nice. Nothing like a plate of jellied eels to help the drinks go down, I always say.’

‘Me too. Can’t beat ’em.’

It was nearly one o’clock before they arrived back in Trinidad Street. They stopped at Alma’s door.

‘I ain’t enjoyed myself so much in ages,’ Ernie told her.

Alma had learnt enough over the years not to give it all away at once. Not when it was important, like this one.

‘Yeah, it’s been quite nice, ain’t it?’

‘I was wondering . . .’ He hesitated, looked down.

‘Yeah, what?’

‘Well, I was wondering if you’d like to come to one of the Sunday

League concerts with me. At the Alhambra.’

‘Oh.’ Alma had to stop herself from jumping at it. She said coolly, ‘That’d be nice, one day.’

‘How about tomorrow?’

She let herself be persuaded. They parted with a decorous shaking of hands. Alma went inside and leant against the door. Her knees were shaking. She took a long deep breath. A great cry of happiness gathered inside her, welled up and burst from her throat. This was it. She had done it. This was the one.

Gerry closed the door of the shop with a bad-tempered bang. He was tired of running other people’s businesses, especially when he knew he could do it so much better himself. And there was an opening, if he could just see the way to grab it, but he needed to raise a loan. He tramped back home, hands in pockets, trying to see a way forward.

‘Evening, Gerry.’

He looked up, jolted out of his preoccupation.

‘Oh – evening, Ellen.’ Automatically, he put on his smile and produced a compliment. ‘You’re looking as pretty as ever. How’s your family?’

‘All right. You know – much the same.’

Gerry nodded. Things were not so grand in the Johnson household.
Ellen was the only one in regular work, and as a girl, her wages were not half enough to support them. Everyone else did their bit, but it was not the same as having a proper breadwinner. Although Tom was out of hospital and back trying to get work, there was a conspiracy amongst the foremen at the docks. They would take Tom on for maybe two or three days a week, just enough to keep him alive, and keep him under.

‘Wouldn’t it be better if your dad looked for work elsewhere?’

‘Oh no, he’d never do that. That would be giving in. He won’t let them beat him.’

‘Well, that’s that, I suppose.’ Gerry would not have gone to such lengths because of a principle. He would have cut his losses and run long ago. Jobs might be short at the West Indias at the moment, but there was other work about. Tom Johnson did not have to wait each day behind the chain for foremen to deliberately overlook him.

They reached her door, but he did not want her to go in yet.

‘My mum’s having the time of her life at the moment.’

‘Yeah.’ Ellen’s weary face lit with pleasure. ‘I heard. Do you like her gentleman friend?’

‘He’s all right. Well no, I tell a lie. He’s straight as a die, salt of the earth. She’s crackers about him, and him about her. Takes her out every Saturday and Sunday night he’s not working. You should hear her! Expert on the halls now, she is. Knows them all, knows the songs. Well, she always was cheerful, no matter what, but now she’s singing away like a linnet all day long.’

‘But she’s your mum and you don’t like her having a gentleman friend?’ Ellen said.

Gerry was amazed at her perception. That was it. She had hit the nail right on the head.

‘Well – yeah, I suppose so.’

‘She deserves some happiness, your mum. That’s what my mum says. But what about you, Gerry? You anywhere nearer getting your market stall?’

He could not resist the chance to talk about his own affairs.

‘There’s a space coming up in the Chrisp Street market. Heard through a pal of mine. Just right for me, and they know I been waiting for Lord knows how long to get a licence. Only problem is raising the wind. No good having a stall what’s only half full. You got to have it piled high. Bring the customers in.’

‘I see. Yeah, I suppose you’re right. Well, I hope you get it, Gerry.’ She put her hand on the door.

‘Wait . . .’

He had not asked her before. She had so much to cope with, what with her father being ill and her mother poorly after the baby and everything. But that quality of sympathy in her voice drew him on. Here was someone who was really interested in his doings.

‘How about you and me going out somewhere? Little trip up to Poplar, see a bit of life?’

‘Oh – no.’ She shook her head and began to open the door. ‘Thanks, Gerry, but I couldn’t. I got too much to do.’

‘You can’t be helping out your family every night. Just once won’t do no harm. Do you a lot of good. You look like you need a break, need a bit of taking out of yourself. What do you say, eh? We could take a tram, get you off the Island and see what the rest of the world is doing.’

But she was adamant. ‘No, Gerry. I can’t. Thanks all the same. ’Night.’

She slipped inside.

Gerry walked slowly up the street to his house. He was not going to accept defeat. He’d ask again. But first he’d find some way to get that stall.

It was just as he was going into his place that he realized exactly why he had not asked her before. It was not just because she was so tied up with her family, but because it was too important. She wasn’t just any girl. He would make a success of himself, then he would ask her again. By the time he reached the kitchen, he had Ellen all fitted into his plans for the future.

His mother was chirruping away, blithely out of tune, as she sewed frills on to a blouse.

‘’Lo, darling. Your tea’s nearly ready. I just got to finish this.’

He kissed her cheek. ‘Going out again, Mum?’

‘Yeah, just out for a drink, nothing special.’

‘Charlie not in yet?’

‘He come in, and he went out again. You know Charlie.’

He did. That was the trouble. His mother had always been blind to Charlie’s faults, and Charlie had always taken care that she should not have the opportunity to catch him out. Well, if Gerry was honest, she thought the sun shone out of both their backsides, his and Charlie’s. But it had always been Charlie she refused to hear any ill of. It was as if she draped a curtain over everything she did not want to face and simply denied its existence. On top of that, at the moment she was so tied up with her Ernie Foster that she would not have noticed if the roof fell in.

Gerry did not tell her what his brother was up to – not about the stealing or his suspicions that he had worked Tom Johnson over – because if she believed him she would be so disappointed in Charlie, and anyway Charlie would take his revenge. And he did not point out that Charlie had no regular job at all, and when he did work it was for men with very shady reputations, so the money he put into the housekeeping must come from thieving. There were no two ways about it: his brother was a small-time thief and bully, stealing not from the rich, but from the weak and those who had very little more than he did. But if he opened his mother’s eyes, she would be heartbroken, and Charlie would do him over. So he said nothing.

Ernie Foster came to call for his mother. Gerry shook hands politely. As they left, he considered once again what it would mean if they got married. His mother would go off and live at Ernie’s house, he and Charlie would be left here together and their little family would be broken up. One thing was sure, he was not staying here with his brother. He would get lodgings somewhere. Perhaps the Johnsons would take him in. Certainly they could do with the extra money.

The little house felt very quiet. Once his mother left, the heart went out of it, and he hated being on his own. Gerry decided to go down to the Rum Puncheon for a drink. He was just about to go out of the front door when his brother came in at the back.

‘Oi, Gerry!’ Charlie dumped a small canvas bag on to the kitchen table with a clatter. ‘Got something here’d interest you.’

Instinct told him to leave it alone, but his acquisitive nature got the better of him. One whiff of a deal and he was hooked.

‘Yeah?’ He acted unconcerned, leaning against the doorframe with his hands in his pockets.

‘Yeah. Right up your street, this. Something for you to sell.’

Gerry stayed where he was, though his fingers itched to open the filthy bag.

‘You interested or not?’ Charlie demanded.

‘Might be. Depends.’

Charlie glared at him from under his eyebrows. ‘What you see here goes no further than these four walls, right?’

Gerry knew he should leave now, but the temptation was too strong. There was that opening going at Chrisp Street.

‘Right.’

His brother opened the bag and tipped it up. On to the table spilled a jumbled collection of cutlery, rings, watches and necklaces. Despite himself, Gerry was drawn forward. He reached out and picked up one
of the knives. It was tarnished and dirty, but when he turned it over, there was the hallmark. Real silver. It was the same with the rings, a heavy man’s signet, a couple of thin wedding bands and a small dress ring set with pearls and a garnet. All of them were gold. He held one of the watches in his hand, staring at the black Roman numerals. If felt round and satisfyingly heavy. He wound the little knob at the top and the second hand began to turn.

At last he looked at his brother. Charlie was regarding him with a mirthless smile.

‘Knew you’d be interested.’

‘Where’d you get all this?’ Gerry burst out, though he knew the answer: the grocer in Cubitt Town.

Charlie just tapped the side of his nose. ‘Ask no questions, my son, get no lies.’

‘And you expect me to flog this lot for you? What do you think I am, a bloody fence?’

Again there was that calculating smile from his brother. ‘Split it with you. Fifty–fifty.’

Gerry was caught, and he knew it. Here in his hands lay the way forward, his future. Here was money without having to take out a loan, a start for his market stall, a whole barrowload of stock. In his fertile imagination he could see it already, bright and shiny, with a queue of customers. More than that, he could see Ellen Johnson looking at him with admiration: Gerry Billingham, street trader. She could not help but be impressed.

He tried to close his mind to the stark fact that these were stolen goods. After all, they had been stolen before the man in Cubitt Town got them. They had been passing from hand to hand for weeks, or, more likely, months. They certainly weren’t hot any more. His thoughts ran inexorably on, refusing to look at the tricky issues of right and wrong. What else was there to do with them? If he took them back to their last owner, they wouldn’t reach the people from whom they had been stolen, and handing them to the police was out of the question. It would bring all sorts of unwanted attention upon them. The last thing he wanted was that. So somebody might as well get something out of them, now that they were here.