Trinidad Street (2 page)

The man took a pull from the bottle of beer he had tucked down the side of the cart and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.

‘And where might that be?’

‘Trinidad Street.’

‘Done it.’

‘Oh.’ She was disappointed. It was more fun watching your own knife being sharpened. Not as good as the rag-and-bone man – you could bargain with him – and certainly not as good as the barrel-organ man, but still fun. ‘Oh well, my mum’ll be pleased,’ she said.

The man grunted in reply, bent his stooped shoulders to grasp the handles of his cart and went trundling on.

Overhead the air was smutty with smoke from the multitude of steam engines running round the quays and warehouses of the docks. Mixed with it was the grey dust of the cement works and a reek of chemicals and oil and burning fat from dozens of factories. Ellen coughed. Like many of the Islanders she had a permanent cough, but she hardly noticed the smells. They were part of the Island, always there, like the ships’ sirens, the masts and the cranes, the trams and trains and the endless procession of horses and carts on the main roads to and from the docks. The docks dominated their lives. Behind the high walls of the warehouses to her right lay the Millwall dock. Looking down the length of Alpha Road, she could see tall masts and spars of sailing ships rearing over the chimneypots, together with the red and blue funnels of a liner. They were tied up in the West Indias. Her dad was up there, at the West Indias. When he came in, she would ask him about going to Millwall Central.

She played games, defying fate.
If it’s an odd number of windows to the corner, they will let me; if it’s an even number, they won’t
. Counting along the row, not letting herself cheat by looking ahead and working it out.
If I can hopscotch all the way up to the shop, they’ll let me. If three McDougal’s vans pass me before I get home, they’ll let me
. Twice she won. McDougal’s let her down.

She turned the corner by the Rum Puncheon into Trinidad Street. Home, her territory. She knew everyone in these houses. They might argue and squabble at times, but when it came to the push they would always stick up for each other against any outsiders. She was safe here. It wasn’t posh like Mellish Street, where the ministers and schoolteachers lived, but neither was it rough like Manilla Street, where there were fights nearly every night. It was just right.

‘’Evening, Ellen!’ An old man dragging a little trolley piled with scavenged pieces of wood raised a hand in greeting.

‘’Evening, Mr Bright! Good day?’

‘Mustn’t grumble, girl, mustn’t grumble.’

Two rows of flat-fronted two-up and two-down houses faced each other in unbroken lines across the cobbled road, the tops of their windows slightly curved, their front doors letting straight out on to the pavement. One plane tree struggled to survive just about at the point where the Irish end gave way to the English. Ellen walked past a noisy group of boys playing football, their boots skidding and clumping on the cobbles. She looked at the places belonging to her particular friends. Here was the Turners’, over there the O’Donaghues’, by the tree her big brother and Harry’s big sister, newly married, lodged with Harry’s aunty Alma. Past Granny Brown’s and Peg-leg Gibbons’ and Loony Mike’s. Last year, on the Queen’s jubilee, they had all dragged tables and chairs into the street and had a party. Smiling to herself at the memory, she pushed open the door of number thirty-two.

‘Wipe your feet!’ Mum’s voice boomed through from the kitchen.

Ellen carefully erased all traces of dirt from boots a size too big for her narrow feet. Inside, it was almost dark. She negotiated the black islands of the put-you-up and table and hung up the tam-o’-shanter with her coat under the stairs, touching it with grateful fingers. She hesitated. Tell her now, straight out? Or wait for later and tell both of them together? She could not decide. Light and voices came through the kitchen door. Still dithering, Ellen went in.

The black range was alight, giving out a comfortable fug. Daisy and Jack were already sitting drinking mugs of tea at one end of the scrubbed table while Mum, massive in the cramped room, was ironing at the other end.

‘You took your time. Others’ve been back ten minutes.’

‘Oh –’

‘Always in a dream. Come here.’

Ellen nestled into the warm squashy body. Mum smelt of cooking and steam and Fairy soap.

‘Been a good girl today?’

Ellen nodded against the pillow of her mother’s bosom. Now was the moment, now. She opened her mouth but only a squeak came out.

‘That’s my chick.’ Mum released her and exchanged the cooling flat-iron for the one on the range. She spat on it, was satisfied with the sizzle and thumped it down on the shirt laid out on the table. ‘Pour y’self a cup of tea, lovey.’

Ashamed of her own cowardice, Ellen lifted the heavy brown teapot with its frilly cosy of multicoloured wool, added a drop of precious milk and two spoons of sugar.

‘Mum –’

‘But
why
can’t I go out and play football?’ Jack interrupted.

‘You know very well why. You tore all up the back of your jacket yesterday. I got better things to do than mend your clothes every day.’

Jack, nine years old but looking younger, kicked at the table leg. His thin face with its almost colourless eyes took on a mutinous look.

‘Ain’t fair.’

Daisy and Ellen exchanged a covert grin, waiting for the explosion. Mum thumped the iron down on the range. Arms akimbo, she glared down at him.

‘Fair? What’s fair? Me wearing my eyes out mending for you? And you can take that look off of your face, my lad. Any more trouble from you and your dad’ll have something to say when he comes in. When you’ve finished that tea you can go and fetch some more coal in for me.’

Scowling, Jack obeyed. He picked up the bucket and disappeared out into the yard. The back door slammed behind him in protest.

‘I’m a good girl,’ Daisy said self-righteously. ‘I got a merit mark today, I did.’

‘Did you, lovey? What for?’

Ellen sipped the scalding tea as Daisy chattered on. The warmth of the room seeped into her, making the chilblains on her fingers itch. On the range a pot bubbled, sending a delicious smell of stew into the room. It was mostly vegetables and barley by now, with just a trace of Wednesday’s neck of lamb, but it made her stomach lurch and growl. Home, familiar and secure, enfolded her. Resting her chin on her
hands, she went over the morning’s momentous events again. Miss Evans calling her out in front of all the class, sending her to see Mr Abbot. The shame and the fear, wondering what she had done, wondering what crime she had committed. The walk down the brown-tiled corridor to his office was the longest she had ever taken. Then standing outside the door, plucking up courage to knock, wondering whether to make a run for it, where she could go all day until home time. She dreaded the smart of his withering tongue, so much worse than the sting of the cane. And then the amazement when she finally went in and saw he was smiling. Smiling! Mr Abbot!

‘. . . Ellen?’

She came back to the present with a start. Mum was looking at her, iron in hand.

‘Wake up, girl, do. Light the candle, I can hardly see.’

The room took on a homely glow, the feeble light heightening the cosiness, hiding the cheapness of the few possessions, the lack of colour, the damp patches.

Jack banged back in with the coal bucket, making the candle gutter in the draught.

‘Anyway,’ he declared, thumping it down beside the range, ‘Ellen got sent to Mr Abbot today, so there.’

‘You never?’ Mum stopped folding up a shirt and stared at her. ‘What you bin and gone and done?’

It was out. Ellen did not know whether to be relieved that the subject was in the open or angry that Jack had pushed her into it.

‘Nothing bad, Mum, honest!’ she said, gazing back earnestly at the accusing eyes.

‘I should hope not. You may be a dreamer but at least you never get into any trouble at school. What did he want?’

‘It was about this exam, Mum, this test. Mr Abbot said . . .’ Ellen took a deep breath, spoke more slowly, considering each word as it came out. ‘He said you can take this exam when you’re eleven, and if you pass it, you can go to Millwall Central. And he said he was sure I could pass it, and then he would be
pleased
to rec-recommend me. But you got to agree to it first, you and Dad.’

‘Millwall Central?’

The way the mother said it, she might have been saying Buckingham Palace. The dream receded, became hazy and distant, a castle in the clouds.

‘Yes.’

‘Cor, posh,’ Jack commented.

Ellen waited, heart thudding, for the verdict. The silence seemed to stretch to hours, years. Her mother was frowning, iron cooling slowly in her hand as she put her thoughts in order.

‘Don’t that mean staying on till you’re sixteen?’

‘Yes,’ Ellen admitted.

Again she thought of Harry leaving the day he was fourteen, like everyone else, going straight out to work. To stay on at school another two years seemed gloriously, impossibly selfish. School work she could do, she was good at. She was no good at drawing or sewing; people never picked her for their teams – she dropped balls and was last in races – but reading, writing, sums and learning by heart came easily to her. To be allowed two further years of it was a priceless gift.

‘Blimey.’ Mum’s voice was sharp. ‘You must think we’re made of money.’

A lurch of disappointment hit her in the stomach. They couldn’t afford it.

So that was that. No money. And yet she could not give it up just like that. She opened her mouth to plead, good reasons for staying on crowding her mind: the honour, making them and Mr Abbot proud of her, and more importantly the better job she would be able to get at sixteen.

But before she could get so much as a word out there was a thumping at the front door, uneven, desperate, and the words died on her tongue.

‘Martha – Martha!’

The street door handle rattled.

For a second all four froze. Then Mum moved across the room, surprisingly fast for such a large woman, negotiated the semi-darkness of the parlour with practised ease and opened the door. The three children sat motionless in the kitchen, listening.

‘Martha, thank God . . .’ The words were blurred with tears.

‘All right, Milly, all right, come in now, that’s it.’

They all knew the voice. It was Harry’s mother. They could all guess why she was here. Jack’s face took on a ghoulish interest.

‘What’s he done to her this time?’ he hissed.

Ellen felt queasy.

Mum came back into the kitchen, manoeuvring with difficulty through the door. She was supporting a thin woman who sagged inside her encircling arm, her breath rasping in great sobs. Ellen could not help staring. Milly Turner’s hair was half loose and straggling
down. One eye was closed and swollen, blood poured from a cut on her lip and splattered the front of her soiled apron. She sank into the chair that Mum pulled out for her and doubled over, arms clutched round her stomach, groaning.

Over her head, Mum fixed the three pairs of wide eyes with a warning look and indicated the door with a thrust of the chin that said
Out
more plainly than words. Silently, they obeyed, Ellen swiftly, pulling Daisy and trying not to look at the abject woman, the dark welling blood. Jack followed reluctantly, dragging his gaze with difficulty from the fascinating sight.

The footballers were gathered in a bunch round the door, a dozen boys aged from eight to twelve or so, all bursting with interest, eager for the next stage of the entertainment.

‘What’s he done?’ one demanded.

‘Is she bad?’

‘What’s your mum said?’

‘She’s real bad, all blood.’ Jack mimed Milly’s posture, exaggerated her groans, working it up into a real performance. ‘Oh God, oh help me, I’m dying.’

The boys shrieked with glee.

‘She never!’

‘Go on!’

‘She did, she did. Bleeding all over the place, all down her front, all over the floor. Moaning and groaning. I think she’s dying. I think he’s killed her this time. Aaagh – aagh –’

Ellen could not bear it. She rushed at him, pushing him, beating him with her fists. Her brother laughed and dodged. The other boys danced around, imitating her in squeaky voices.

‘Stop it, stop it, you’re horrible!’

Jack leaned over and groaned one more time, then ran off up the darkened street.

‘Come on, let’s play football. What’s the score?’

‘Horrible boys,’ Ellen muttered. ‘I hate them.’

‘Yeah, they’re pigs,’ Daisy agreed.

The pair of them stood in the doorway, shivering. They had come out in such a rush they had not collected their coats. Ellen was just wondering whether she could creep back in and get them, whether she even wanted to go in and perhaps hear something upsetting, when she saw the three youngest Turner children. Five doors down, they were huddled together in a defensive bunch. Without further thought, she hurried towards them.

‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘My mum’s looking after her. My mum’ll see she’s all right.’

In the middle of the little group, Florrie nodded dumbly. A year younger than Ellen and small for her age, with a narrow chest and dark-ringed eyes, she stood with one arm round six-year-old Ida and the other round little Johnny. Both younger ones were whimpering.

‘You all right?’ Ellen asked. ‘He didn’t hurt you?’

Florrie shook her head. There was something frozen about her. Instead of speaking, Ellen sat down on a step and tried to pull Johnny on to her lap to comfort him, but he squealed and clung to his sister, burying his face in her thigh. Florrie’s hand caressed his tousled head, but she did not look at him. Her mouth was tightly clamped, her eyes hard and bright in the half-light. Her silence was disturbing. Ellen shivered. The cold was penetrating.

‘Come and sit down,’ she urged. ‘Keep warm.’ She patted the step beside her. All Trinidad Street steps were scrupulously clean, scrubbed each morning by women with calloused knees and rough red hands. Daisy complied immediately, plumping down beside her and nestling close.