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Chapter Six

‘I’m arresting you lot if that fire’s not out by the time I come back.’

‘You ’noose army, rozzer?’

Constable Bickerstaff took a threatening step towards the bonfire, fingers stroking the truncheon on his hip. Through a mirage materialised two men’s faces, their grins highlighted by fierce flames.

‘Aw, c’mon, mate … just roastin’ me chestnuts …’ one of the men lewdly implored for lenience.

‘You know rules are no street fires; now put the bugger out,’ Twitch bellowed. ‘It’s hot enough tonight as it is without you making it worse than it needs to be.’

As though to reinforce his argument Sidney Bickerstaff peeled his serge collar away from his sticky skin and wiped it with a handkerchief. He took a glance about. It was ten o’clock on a Saturday evening in late summer and dusk had settled long ago. It might have been three o’clock in the afternoon. Campbell Road never slept. At any time of day or night you might find it bustling with people young and old, and reeking of unwashed humanity and indeterminate rotting debris. At the height of summer the stench and noise was just so much worse. The domestic cacophony escaped through windows and doors flung wide in the forlorn hope of letting in fresh air. It wasn’t unusual at this time of year to see people sleeping on carts in the street to escape the stifling conditions in the overcrowded houses.

Sidney Bickerstaff and Ralph Franks had just passed a grizzled old fellow playing a barrel organ and stopped a group of louts from tormenting him and his monkey. The boys had scattered, shouting abuse, but Twitch knew if he turned around he’d see them peeping round the corner of Paddington Street at him. They’d simply wait till he disappeared into Seven Sisters before looking for mischief again. He knew too the street gamesters who’d hared off, after grabbing up dice and cards and coins that’d been strewn on the pavement, would reconvene on the corner outside the doss house as soon as the coast was clear.

‘I’m sweltering here,’ Constable Ralph Franks complained as he sought his older, stouter colleague as lee from the illegal bonfire. ‘We’re not coming back this evening, so might as well turn a blind eye.’ He turned to squint at the blaze. ‘Leave ’em be. With any luck they’ll burn the whole bleeding street down and do everyone a favour.’ He broke off grumbling as he glimpsed the girl he found attractive. She’d seen him too and was casting sideways looks his way while chatting to another girl. The one he fancied was a definite looker whereas that lump of lard standing next to her was ugly enough to put a bloke off his beer.

As the young constable turned away from her Connie Whitton smiled and wondered what coppers got paid and if that particular copper had a wife or sweetheart. If he did, it wouldn’t stop her. It wouldn’t stop him either; the randy git couldn’t keep his eyes off her when they met. If she took up with him, or any copper, she’d get the cold shoulder round here. That wouldn’t worry her. She was itching to get away from the lot of them. Her mother was driving her mad, taking all her wages, then collapsing on the couch she used as a bed. She never stopped drinking and moaning. Her sister Louisa stank the place out because she sweated so much and never bothered to wash. She looked across the road and saw her sister Sarah sitting with the Keiver kids on the steps outside their house. Sarah had been living away from home for months and it didn’t seem to bother her younger sister one bit to be away from her family. Connie knew how she felt.

On noticing the two policemen were heading off in Sarah’s direction, Connie sauntered over to say hello to her sister and put herself in the young constable’s way again.

‘What d’you want?’ was Sarah’s blunt reply to her sister’s cheery greeting.

‘Party goin’ on in there, is it?’ Connie cocked her head to listen to the unmistakeable sound of a piano being thumped and some raucous singing accompanying it.

‘What if it is? You ain’t invited, anyhow,’ Sarah flatly told Connie.

‘No need to be like that, Sar,’ Connie complained. ‘Ain’t my fault Louisa set about you and started it all off. Ain’t my fault either that Dad moved off to Bethnal and left you behind.’

‘He didn’t leave me,’ Sarah muttered. ‘I wanted to stay behind.’

‘What’s all that racket?’ Twitch asked, earning his nickname twice in rapid succession. He’d crossed the street to stand and glare up at the open window out of which, at that precise moment, sailed an empty brown bottle. It narrowly missed Alice’s head and smashed on the pavement. Alice jumped up and scraped shards together with her foot.

‘Just me mum ‘n’ dad ‘n’ a few friends having a singsong,’ Alice cautiously told Twitch, still shifting broken glass. She knew, as did everyone in these parts, that you had as little as possible to do with the law. She sat down again and one of her hands dived into the newspaper containing the chips she was sharing with Sarah. They’d been sitting on the pavement for some while talking about this and that and every so often going indoors to jig about on the fringes of the adults or snatch a drink of lemonade. But this weekend the temperature had soared and it was too crowded and hot in there for the youngsters to want to stay too long. They got crushed and elbowed by adults boozing and swaying and roaring out songs.

Since Jack had brought home the piano it had been a regular occurrence on Saturday evening to have a get together – and it went on for as long as limited space and sobriety would allow. Usually by the early hours of Sunday the guests who were still standing had stumbled off home and an uneasy peace was to be had till morning.

Twitch continued to gaze at the window with his hands clasped behind his back. It was a racket, no doubt about it, but if Bunk residents stayed on their own patch it meant he and Franks encountered fewer disorderly drunks while on the beat. And Tilly Keiver was one of the most difficult drunks to deal with. About to share that observation with his colleague, Twitch realised Ralph had wandered off and was talking to the pretty Whitton girl.

‘You’re fairly new around here, ‘n’t yer?’ Connie struck up conversation and lowered her eyelashes. Close to he wasn’t bad looking at all for a flatfoot.

‘Yeah …’ Ralph said. ‘And I wish I wasn’t.’

Connie glanced up from beneath her lashes. ‘Stay long enough you might just find something about The Bunk you like.’

‘Like what?’ Ralph eyed her calculatingly. ‘You know of some sort of compensation for me being stuck in the worst street in North London on a Saturday night?’

‘Yeah … might do … might know of something …’ Connie pouted. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Ralph Franks.’

‘I’m Connie … Connie Whitton. I live up the other end a bit; better end, you might call it.’

‘I might,’ Ralph said sarcastically. ‘But I doubt it.’ He moved away from her, conscious of his colleague’s ears flapping.

‘Well, might see you again … when you come back for your compensation,’ Connie added slyly.

‘Ready to go then, are we?’ Twitch asked with a very old-fashioned look lifting his brows beneath his helmet. ‘Able to march back to the station, are you, with your balls on fire?’ he added with acid amusement as they plodded on towards the corner that turned into Seven Sisters Road.

Franks scowled and said nothing but his restless hands plunged a little deeper into his pockets.

‘So … found something desirable about the place, have you?’

‘She’s probably on the game … hard to know with any of that lot what they get up to.’ Ralph frowned into space.

‘If she was on the game, son, she wouldn’t be hanging around here on a Saturday night. She’d be up west somewhere earning a fortune with those looks.’

‘Are they trouble?’

‘Who, the Keivers? I wouldn’t mess with them for no reason.’

‘Nah. The Whittons.’

‘The Whittons.’ Twitch grunted a laugh. ‘Now let me see. What you’ve got there is one mad old mother, a father who’s had sense enough to have it away on his toes before he goes crackers too, a son dead of disease and three daughters. Lenny died of something or other when he was just about old enough to go to work. I think that’s what sent the mother into a decline … the thought of his lost wages. As for the girls … you’ve got a fat ugly one, a skinny schoolgirl and the novice tart you just spoke to. So, all in all, I suppose you’d have to say they’re a pretty average mob for around here.’

‘Come ‘n’ play us a tune, Al,’ Jack called to Alice as she tried to slip past him in the crowded room. Jack pulled her onto the stool beside him and affectionately ruffled her dark hair.

‘Don’t know any tunes, Dad,’ Alice said with a grin but she plinked and plonked up and down on the ivories, making some inharmonious noise while her dad took a break from performing. He flexed his fingers then supped from the pint glass on top of the piano. The other men might drink straight from the bottle but her dad liked to take his ale with a bit more style.

‘Come on, Jack, get goin’ again while I’m in the mood,’ Jimmy Wild yelled before swigging from the bottle in his fist.

Alice swivelled on the seat to look about. Her eyes met Jimmy’s and he gave her a wink. Not so long ago she would have shared the private moment and winked right back. But now, since he’d got her in to trouble with her mum over that half a crown, she felt differently about him. She was beginning to understand that Uncle Jimmy wasn’t as nice and friendly as he liked people to think. She was coming to believe that perhaps it wasn’t half a dozen of one, six of the other when he and Aunt Fran were going at it hammer and tongs. And perhaps Bobbie and Stevie hadn’t misbehaved enough to deserve the bruises she’d seen on them at school. She suspected that her uncle just needed to be in a bad mood over something to act mean.

He’d been mean to her. He must have known that she’d get a wallop off her mum for taking his half a crown. She’d thought that a little secret existed between them yet he’d told on her straight away. His wink and that secret stare now made an odd feeling squirm in her stomach. She half-smiled at him but looked away quickly, her eyes flitting about the cramped room.

She’d left Sarah on the pavement and only come in to get them a drink of pop … if any was left in the bottle. If not she was going to ask her dad for a bit of money so they could get some from the shop. Since her dad had got a good job with Basher Payne money hadn’t been so tight and being cheeky and asking for a few coppers didn’t naturally get you a clip round the ear. Her dad had waylaid her and she’d stopped where she was rather than slipping back outside because she enjoyed having his attention.

‘Come on, give us a little tune, Monkey,’ her dad fondly invited her, using the pet nickname he had for her.

‘Alright, Freckles,’ she teased him back and rubbed a tickling finger over the speckled skin on his jaw. ‘Glad I’m not a Freckles,’ she said provocatively.

Jack touched the mark. ‘It’s me beauty spot,’ he said, as he always did when ribbed over the blemish. ‘I know you’d like one just like it really.’

Alice chuckled and picked out a simple chord that he’d taught her when they’d first got the piano. Her dad accompanied her lightly, encouraging her to try again when she hit a wrong note. Finally Alice gestured she’d had enough and looked around for her mum. She was squashed up against the mantelpiece with Aunt Fran. Both of them drinking whiskey by the look of it. Aunt Fran’s best skirt barely outlined the little mound of her pregnant belly. Most of the people who had lodgings in the house were either crammed into the room or were out on the landing. Even old Mr Prewett from the landing below – who was known to be a bit of a misery guts – was sitting on the bed edge, tapping his good foot in anticipation of her dad soon starting to play a new tune.

Margaret Lovat bent her head close to Alice’s and shouted over the rollicking din, ‘You seen my Danny, Alice?’

‘He’s just outside on the pavement with all of us,’ Alice answered.

‘Tell him to nip next door ‘n’ see to the little ’uns, will you, in case Geoff’s gone out.’

Alice got up from beside her dad and slipped out and into the back room. Mrs Lovat had just reminded her that her baby sister might need her attention. It was usually her job to make sure that Bethany and Lucy were taken care of while the adults enjoyed themselves and got drunk. Not that her mum asked her to do it. She was probably too under the influence to even remember she had kids some of the time. She just assumed Alice would look out for the younger ones.

By the light of a tiny flame in an oil lamp balanced precariously on the seat of a chair Alice could see Bethany was dozing on the bed next to Lucy. The room stank and the unmistakeable sound of flies could be heard buzzing. Alice turned up the flame. She looked down at Lucy. She was awake and smiled at her despite the fact that a fly crawled in the milky sick on her chin.

Alice flicked it away and found what she needed to clean her up. She wiped her face with a rag then attended to her bottom end. Alice felt herself gag as the stench intensified. Quickly she bundled the filthy nappy onto the floor and cleaned Lucy’s bottom. She then put a clean scrap of cotton on her and picked her up.

‘When I go … I’ll take you with me,’ she promised her. ‘I’ll always be around if you need me,’ she whispered against her soft, musky cheek. She put her back down on the bed close to Bethany then, picking up the stinking nappy, she took it out, hoping that most of the flies would follow.

‘Lucy’s nappy,’ Alice said by way of explanation as Sophy wrinkled her nose at her. Alice had tried to rinse her hands under the tap on the landing but the place was so packed it was hard to get to the water and wash properly. She felt a little embarrassed and annoyed at Sophy for miming she stank in front of Danny. ‘Anyhow, your mum said you’ve got to go ‘n’ check on the little ’uns,’ she told Danny.

Danny muttered beneath his breath but got to his feet.

‘I’ll come with you,’ Sophy immediately volunteered.

A significant look seemed to pass between the two of them. ‘Nah … ’s’alright,’ Danny mumbled. ‘Geoff might be in there. Not seen him go out. Not that he’s any bleedin’ use with the kids. He’s probably akip.’

‘You two been making plans then?’ Alice asked when they were alone. Sarah had gone off to the shop with her sister Connie to get some sherbert.

Alice knew that Danny had just started a new job down the market helping on a costermonger’s stall. Despite having boasted months ago he wouldn’t be taking dead-end errand-boy jobs, that was what he’d started off with. To save face he said he’d taken it because he got a bike to use for deliveries. He’d bring the bike home at dinnertime and give the Keiver kids and his brothers and sisters lifts on the cross bars up and down the road. But misuse of the bike wasn’t why he’d got the sack. The grocer had got suspicious about the amount of stale loaves and broken biscuits that went missing rather than being sold on at a discount. Of course, he couldn’t prove that Danny had had them … but he reckoned it’d seemed odd that Mrs Lovat never seemed to need to buy bread to go with her margarine and jam.