Tuppence to Tooley Street (4 page)

The young cockney looked hard at the cabbie. Danny sensed an unpleasant seriousness and aggression in the cabbie and he was not prepared to be insulted. He took the mug away from his lips and his eyes hardened. ‘No. I work the ’alls,’ he said quietly.

‘You on stage then?’

‘That’s right.’

The cabbie looked down again at Danny’s suitcase. ‘You a magician or somefink?’ he smirked, looking at his silent friend for support.

Danny’s eyes glinted. ‘Matter o’ fact I’m a ventriloquist,’ he said. ‘Trouble is, I’ve ’ad me dummy nicked. You wouldn’t like ter earn a few bob, would yer?’

The stall-owner turned and roared with laughter as he banged the hot pie down on the counter. ‘Got yer there, didn’t’e?’ he rasped.

The cabbie’s round face flushed and he looked away from Danny’s challenging stare. ‘Poke yer pie,’ he sneered as he turned on his heel and walked away from the stall. Danny exchanged a smile with the other cabbie as he moved off to catch up with his friend.

Sid looked at the young cockney. ‘Are yer joinin’ up, son?’ he asked quietly.

Danny put the mug down on the counter. ‘No, I’m goin’ back ’ome. I was at Dunkirk.’

Sid’s crossed eyes lit up. ‘’Ere, son, you ’ave this pie on me. Best pies in norf London, straight.’

Danny took the hot pie and fished into his trouser pocket for some change. ‘I can pay. I’ve got money,’ he said.

‘Nope, I insist yer take it. Me an’ my ole Dutch cried when we’eard about it on the wireless. Must ’ave bin terrible out there.’

Danny nodded and bit into the steaming pie. A few customers came up to the stall and Sid became very busy serving tea and shovelling fresh pies into the metal box on top of the tea urn. Danny thanked him and picked up his suitcase. As he walked away Sid turned to his customers and said knowingly, ‘’E was at Dunkirk. ’E only looks a kid.’

Danny walked along the busy thoroughfare until he came to King’s Cross Road. A few yards down he saw a bus stop where a queue was beginning to form in the early evening coolness. Danny had been waiting about ten minutes when a number 63 bus came into sight. The queue shuffled forward anxiously as the bus squeaked to a halt. The conductor leant out from the platform and counted the passengers on. ‘No pushin’. There’s anuvver one behind,’ he shouted authoritatively. He pressed the bell as Danny stepped on the platform. ‘Put yer case under the stairs, son. Full up inside. Yer’ll ’ave ter go on top.’

Danny climbed to the upper deck and found the last remaining seat beside a dapper-looking man in his sixties. He had a well-trimmed goatee beard and wore a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles. The bus jerked away from the stop, accelerating quickly as it moved down the King’s Cross Road. Danny saw the long queue outside the working men’s hostel waiting for their chance of a bed, and the second-hand book market traders packing away for the day. Farringdon Road was heavy with lorries, taxis and horse-drawn carts, and to his left Danny caught a glimpse of the now deserted Smithfield Meat Market. The bus passed under Holborn Viaduct and reached Fleet Street before it stopped. The hustle and bustle of the City had always fascinated Danny, but it now seemed there was a strangeness in the way people hurried by. Everyone seemed to have a serious expression, and nearly everyone was carrying a newspaper under his arm. There were no smiles, and no one was standing still. As the bus got under way again and started over Blackfriars Bridge Danny saw the exodus from the City as crowds flowed along the pavements overlooking the river.

The little gentleman next to Danny chuckled and tapped the window. ‘Look how calm that River Thames is down there beneath all those frantic people,’ he said.

Danny smiled cautiously. The bus had reached the centre of the bridge, and down below the grey water sparkled in the evening sunlight. Barges were moored up for the night, crane arms were secured against the closed and bolted warehouse loop-holes, and the ebbing tide lapped lazily against the mud-streaked stanchions.

‘That is the greatest river in the world, young man,’ the man continued. ‘There are longer rivers and wider rivers, but where else is there one with such character? It’s our heritage,’ he said with conviction, his small eyes glaring at Danny through his spectacles.

‘You’re right there, pop. It wants some beatin’,’ Danny grinned.

The old man nodded his head. ‘I know I’m right. And yet those crowds we just passed, they seem to walk over that river without even noticing it.’

‘Well, I s’pose they see it every day. They mus’ get fed up wiv the sight of it,’ Danny said.

‘“When a man is tired of London he’s tired of life”,’ the man said, his eyes twinkling. ‘I worked in the Royal Mint for more than twenty-five years, young man. Do you know where that is? Well let me tell you, I walked over Tower Bridge twice each day for all that time. I never once got fed up with the sight of Old Father Thames. It
is
London. Without that river this city would be nothing. London would dry up like a desert. It’s your heritage, young chap.’

The bus stopped at the Elephant and Castle junction and the old gentleman bid Danny farewell. Danny eased up against the window and the vacant place was taken by a large lady who puffed noisily as she sat down. He stared out of the window, excitement building up inside him as he recognised the familiar sights of South London. At the Bricklayers Arms he got off the bus and walked towards the river. The evening was cool and clear, and starlings were chattering noisily in the leafy plane trees. The quiet thoroughfare had taken on a cloak of war. Windows were criss-crossed with brown paper strips and sandbags were piled against factory entrances. He saw the shelter signs, the war posters, and the arrow that pointed to the first-aid post. He noticed the splashes of white paint on the kerb stones, and around the boles of the large trees. He glimpsed the iron stretchers strapped to the roof of a passing car, and up ahead the huge imposing mass of Tower Bridge.

He could now smell the Thames and the docks, the spices and fruit, and the pungent smell of vinegar as he walked past a quiet factory. At Tooley Street he turned left and saw the familiar wharves and warehouses to his right. Small streets led off opposite the large buildings and it did not take him long to reach Clink Lane. The next turning was his street.

The slanting hitching post was still leaning towards the wall and the little houses on both sides of Dawson Street still looked as he had remembered them. The railway arch at the end of the turning had been given a coat of paint, and Granny Bell’s front step gleamed as white as ever. Danny saw the Brightman children swinging around a lamppost on a piece of fraying rope, and ginger-haired Billy, the Birkitts’ youngest, sitting in the gutter slowly counting a pack of cigarette cards. Billy Birkitt stared at Danny with a fixed grin. Danny smiled back, but he did not know that young Billy was only displaying the gap where his two front teeth had been. He spotted Crazy Bella who was standing arms akimbo in her doorway. She gave him a stare and then went in.

Nothing seemed to have altered in the months he had been away. His own front door was closed; it still had the same cracked knocker-pad and the withered weather-board. Number 26 Dawson Street was like every other house in that tumbledown turning: the windows were clean, the front step was whitened, and the street door sorely needed a lick of paint. Danny stood outside his house for a few seconds before he knocked. Apart from Crazy Bella and the children no one had seen him. He raised the knocker and banged it against the plate. His mother opened the door and stood staring at him.

‘’Ello, Mum,’ Danny said. ‘Well ain’t yer gonna let me in?’

Alice Sutton looked up at the mantelpiece and noticed that the clock had stopped. She got up and put on her glasses before opening the glass door of the chimer and moving the minute hand around to the half-hour. Still the clock did not start ticking. She fished out a key from beneath the ornate stand and wound up the twin springs. A sharp tilt woke up the pendulum, and the clock started again. Alice could have sworn that she had wound the thing that very morning. It was supposed to be a seven-day timepiece, at least it had been when it was given to her and Frank as a wedding present more than thirty years ago. It’s getting old, like the two of us, Alice thought.

‘Good job Dad didn’t see yer do that, Ma,’ Connie laughed. ‘Yer know ’ow ’e fusses over that clock.’

Alice grinned and sat down amidst her three daughters. Tonight she felt happy and contented. For the first time since last October, when Danny had gone off to France, the family were all together–all except the two grandchildren, who should be in the land of nod by now, she thought. Tomorrow she would be spoiling the kids. Tonight it was the turn of her grown-up children to be fussed over, and she got up again to gather up the tea things.

‘Stay put, Mum. I’ll make us a fresh pot,’ Maggie volunteered.

Connie got up and followed Maggie out into the scullery. The back door was ajar and voices could be heard coming from the small yard, where the men of the family were gathered for a quiet drink.

Alone in the parlour with Lucy, Alice turned to look at her daughter, eyes filled with concern. Lucy had seemed rather quiet at tea time, she thought. It was a pity, because everything had gone off so well. The large rabbit stew had been ample and the plum duff with treacle was scraped clean from everyone’s plate. The little wooden table looked nice with its linen tablecloth and best dinner plates. She had squeezed seven places around the table, and Connie had helped out by eating her dinner sitting in the armchair. Even Frank looked well scrubbed and sober, although he had stopped off on his way home from work for a couple of pints, as was his usual custom on Friday nights. Alice had noticed that Danny struggled to finish his meal, but she would soon get him used to her big meals again and get some meat on his bones.

Lucy was staring down at the empty grate and Alice leaned back in her chair and folded her arms. ‘Well, out with it, girl. What’s troublin’ yer?’

‘Oh it’s nothing, Mum. Really it’s not.’

Alice pulled a face. ‘If there is somefink worryin’ yer, I wanna know.’

Lucy sighed and looked into her mother’s lined face. ‘It’s Ben. The tribunal is on Monday and I’m worried about the outcome. We’ve talked about this before, Mum. Ben said it’s no good us thinking of getting married until this thing is sorted out. Ben might have to go to prison, or be sent on war-work somewhere. It’s so worrying.’

Alice stared at her daughter. Lucy was in many ways different from the rest. She had been very bright at her lessons and had attended the central school. She had even learned to speak in a way that was different from the others. Lucy sounded her aitches, which had, at first, caused problems with the others until Alice put her foot firmly down. ‘If she’s gettin’ a good education it’s nat’ral fer ’er ter speak proper. She’ll get a good job one day, an’ I don’t wanna ’ear any more mickey-takin’ from any of yer. Is that understood?’

Everyone in the Sutton family paid attention to their mother when she spoke up, and the mickey-taking ceased. Now, as the latest of Lucy’s problems emerged, the matriarch was ready with a sympathetic ear and good advice.

‘Listen, my girl, you’ve chosen yer partner. One day, God willin’, yer’ll ’ave ’is children, but in the meantime yer gotta face up ter fings. There’s a war on, people are dyin’, an’ a lot more will go before there’s a peace. Your Ben ’as decided ’e ain’t gonna kill anybody, even the bloody Germans. All right,’e’s got ’is point o’ view, same as all of us. Trouble is, there’s a lot in the papers an’ on the wireless about those anti-war people, like Mosley an’ ’is crowd o’ Blackshirts. Then there’s the Communists, an’ all those uvver bloody aliens. People tend ter lump ’em all tergevver. It reminds me o’ that ole Irish chap me an’ yer farver saw up on Tower Hill once. ’E was speakin’ to a crowd, an’ ’e said. “Those who are not fer us, are agin us”. That’s what yer up against, me girl. That’s what Ben is up against. ’E’s gonna find it ’ard an’ it’s gonna get ’arder. People in the pubs an’ on the street are gonna shun ’im. They’re gonna call ’im a coward an’ all the uvver names they can lay their tongues to. It won’t be easy, but yer gotta be prepared fer it. If’e’s really the feller yer want, then stan’ by ’im. Oh, an’ anuvver fing. Yer gonna get some nasty letters, mark my words. They did it in the last war. People used ter send white fevvers frew the post. Anyway, if yer prepared, it won’t be so bad. Just you remember, whatever ’appens round ’ere, Ben’s always welcome in this ’ouse. Neighbours can turn funny if they like, but this family stays tergevver. We’ve always bin a close-knit family, an’ that’s the way it’s gonna stay.’

Lucy’s brown eyes filled with tears and she hugged her mother.

Out in the backyard of 26 Dawson Street, four men sat in the darkness. The night was cool, and stars were shining down from a clear sky. The black-out regulations were being enforced rigidly, but the back door was kept ajar, letting just enough light out to illuminate the crumbling stone floor and the crate of ale. Danny sat in a broken-down armchair, his father squatted on an upturned bucket, and Ben and Maggie’s husband Joe shared a bench made up of a plank of wood stretched over empty tubs. Ben was the only one who wasn’t drinking. Danny sipped his glass of beer and found that he wasn’t enjoying it. The meal had seemed huge and the events of the evening had tired him. The greetings from his sisters had been tearful and he had felt embarrassed. Joe and Ben had pumped his hand, and his father had hugged him tightly until his chest hurt. Their questions too had been fast and furious. Danny wanted to forget his recent experiences, but the questions opened new wounds and made him feel shaky. He shivered although the night was warm.

Joe Copeland was talking. ‘The ships ’ave bin turnin’ round quicker than ever lately. We’ve bin doin’ late shifts fer the past fortnight.’

‘Careful, Joe,’ Frank piped in. ‘Yer can get an ’eavy fine fer careless talk.’