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Chapter Fourteen

‘You said you was goin’ away ’cos you was joinin’ up.’

‘Well, I ain’t. I’m goin’ away to train ’orses. Can help fight the war that way ‘n’ all. Transport’s as important as soldiers.’

The two brothers locked eyes in combatant stares across the table in Kenny’s café in Blackstock Road.

‘What are you going to tell Mum ‘n’ Dad?’ Geoff hissed at Danny. ‘All hell’s gonna break loose when they find out. They’re relying on you putting in the pot.’

Danny shrugged. ‘Don’t know yet what I’ll tell them. But I’m going back home to Essex. That’s definite. Sophy’s coming too, ’cos there’s a job for her ‘n’ all in me boss’s house.’ He glanced at Sophy and she smiled encouragement at him.

‘They won’t let you go,’ Alice warned her sister. Sophy’s soppy love-struck expression was making her feel as needled as Geoff sounded. ‘When Mum finds out what you’re planning she’ll go crackers. Anyhow you don’t know anything about working as a servant in a big house.’

‘Soon learn,’ Sophy returned obstinately. ‘Danny says that Peter’s sweetheart didn’t know about working in service either. She’s a shop girl. But she got took on all the same.’ She paused. ‘Anyhow, s’long as I send them a bit of cash now ‘n’ again Mum ‘n’ Dad won’t worry. If anything I’ll be doing yers all a favour. Could do with a bit more room about the place what with Stevie ‘n’ Bobbie always under all our feet.’

Alice looked dubious but fell silent. She still felt dazed by what she’d just learned from Danny and Sophy. Their infectious enthusiasm for the new life they were planning, far from London, had failed to excite Alice. She could see only trouble ahead caused by their abrupt determination to move away to Essex together to work for a well-to-do family.

A sudden fierce resentment trembled through Alice as she brooded on the fellow who’d brought it all about. Peter Slater had worked in the market with Danny before joining up. Prior to that he and his fiancée had been on the point of starting afresh out in the Essex countryside. Peter’s boss had dozens of costermonger stalls and shops around the city but he also had a big house and a farm, close to the coast in Essex, where he reared livestock. Horses were needed for the war in France and Peter Slater had been due to go to the farm to learn to train the animals before they were ferried abroad for the military.

But Slater had got a bit too merry and patriotic one dinnertime in the pub and, full of Dutch courage, he’d gone to the recruiting office and joined up. Soon he’d be on his way to France. At Danny’s request – and to keep his boss sweet in case he needed him again – he’d recommended Danny as his replacement for the training job in Essex. Danny had been keen to have his ticket back to the county he classed as home. From the moment he’d arrived in Campbell Bunk it had always been his intention to escape and return to his roots.

‘So you two are courting again then, are you?’ Alice asked abruptly.

‘Sort of …’ Danny said bashfully and slid a glance at Sophy.

‘You’d best make sure you don’t do anything stupid this time,’ Alice warned Sophy. ‘Ain’t going through all that chaos again!’

Sophy mumbled something beneath her breath and averted her red face.

‘Well, thanks very much,’ Geoff snapped sarcastically at Danny. ‘You scarper and leave me stuck working me fingers ter the bone providing fer ’em all. You selfish bleeder!’

‘Ain’t nuthin’ preventing you from scarpering too when your time comes,’ Danny replied defensively. ‘You stick it for another year then it’s your turn to leg it.’

‘What they all supposed to do then?’ Geoff ’s expression was thunderous with disbelief. ‘You know Dad’ll never pull enough in collecting pots in a pub to keep them all.’ Geoff leaned closer to his brother and spat through his teeth, ‘He’s a bleeding cripple in case you’ve forgotten! He ain’t ever going to get a good paying job. And you know Mum can only take in washing while she’s got kids hangin’ on her skirts.’

‘I ain’t letting that worry me!’ Danny roared with equal ferocity. ‘Sod the lot of them! It’s me chance ‘n’ I’m takin’ it!’

‘So am I,’ Sophy said and flicked at Alice a defiant look.

‘You’d best make sure you do send something back then out of your wages,’ Alice retorted. ‘’Cos if you don’t, I wouldn’t put it past Mum to come and get it off yer.’

That observation wiped some of the confidence from Sophy’s face. It was no idle threat. She knew her mother was capable of anything; even travelling to Essex to take her wage packet off her if she believed herself entitled to it. She’d wrestle it from her new boss if necessary.

Geoff gave his brother another filthy look then without a word he pushed back his chair and stalked off. Alice shot her sister a scowl then got up too and followed Geoff out into Blackstock Road. She caught up with him in a few seconds. For a minute or two they walked side by side in silence.

‘Can’t really blame ’em,’ Alice eventually said on a sigh. ‘Truth is, I think I’m a bit jealous.’ She glanced up at Geoff but his profile remained set in hard lines, his lips clamped together. ‘We’ll get our turn,’ she said quietly, ‘I know we will.’ She touched his arm but he shook off her empathetic fingers.

Suddenly Geoff crossed the road, leaving Alice stranded on the pavement alone. ‘Where you going?’ she called after him. She had assumed they were heading home to The Bunk.

‘Nowhere,’ he snarled and kept on striding along.

With a tut of exasperation Alice ran to catch up with him. ‘No use sulking over it.’ She suddenly realised that the more Geoff fumed on it the more she accepted, in a resigned sort of way, what Sophy and Danny had done.

Her sister was going away … moving on …

Alice had always known that someday it would happen. Hadn’t they at night, whilst huddling beneath the coats to try and keep warm and muffle the noise of drunken arguments preventing them sleeping, shared whispered hopes and dreams of just such escape routes as the one Sophy was set on taking? Sophy’s time had come and she’d found the courage … and the person perhaps … to help her snatch at her new life. But her sister’s good luck had come too suddenly. It had startled her into feeling resentful because now she understood how much she relied on Sophy’s friendship, and how much she would miss her when she was gone.

But it wasn’t Alice’s way to be envious for long. It was her way to make sure that she worked towards the same opportunity. And if fate were to be less kind to her than it had been to Sophy, she’d make her own luck.

Abruptly Geoff sat down on a low brick wall that fronted a small rectangle of grass. Alice retraced a few steps and plonked herself down beside him.

‘I’m going for a new job,’ she told him, as much to take his mind off their families as to get his opinion on what she planned to do. She realised she did value Geoff’s opinion on such things.

‘Where’s that?’ he asked, without looking at her but sounding vicious. ‘Timbuctoo?’

‘Don’t be daft,’ Alice said with a giggle and punched his arm. ‘I heard that a new factory is opening round in Isledon Road to make stuff for the war. Soldering weapons like hand grenades and so on. It’s more money than I get now. Me ‘n’ Annie’s going for jobs there next week.’

‘How d’you know you’ll take to soldering?’

‘Don’t know,’ Alice admitted truthfully. ‘Don’t need to like it that much if it’s more pay. It’s worth a try.’

‘Yeah … it’s worth a try …’ Geoff echoed, staring off into the distance.

‘Don’t be mad about it,’ Alice said quietly. ‘You can’t blame them for what they’ve done. I’d do it … so would you, y’know you would.’

‘Too right I would!’ Geoff gave a hollow laugh. ‘Just wish it’d been me heard about the job back in Essex.,’ He grimaced in disappointment. ‘He don’t know nuthin’ about horses. I do.’

‘Do you?’ Alice asked interestedly.

‘Used to work with the stable boys at the local pub back home. They’d let me groom the horses and sweep out the stalls ‘n’ feed ’em. Got to take a look in some fine carriages wot pulled in there.’

‘Get paid much?’ Alice asked, ever practical.

‘Nah!’ Geoff chuckled. ‘Didn’t get paid nuthin’ at all. Got tips off the customers sometimes. Couldn’t have been more’n about seven when I started hangin’ about round there just to see and touch the horses. Love ’em, I do.’

‘You should join up for the cavalry then,’ Alice said with a grin.

‘Yeah … or the mounted police,’ Geoff suggested dryly. ‘I’m sure the constabulary’d like havin’ a kid out The Bunk on the police force.’

They exchanged a look and both burst out laughing at the farce of it. Acting the clown, Geoff fell backwards off the wall and kicked his legs in the air. They noticed a middle-aged couple strolling arm in arm along the pavement stare at them. Their obvious disapproval served only to set them off guffawing again.

‘Come on …’ Alice urged him finally, wiping her eyes. ‘’Fore we get in trouble. They don’t like Bunk kids round here. They might call the coppers to get rid of us. I’ve had a bucket of water thrown on me before to clear me out of it down Seven Sisters. Shouldn’t go about monkeying around, the rozzers tell us.’

Geoff brushed himself down and shook his head to clear it. He then stood looking at Alice, his expression slowly becoming quite solemn. ‘If it had been me got that job with the horses in Essex, would you have come with me?’

‘What … to work in a big house?’ Alice gave a thoughtful frown and a final scrub at her clumpy wet eyelashes. She stood quietly, seriously considering it. ‘Might not like being a servant and fetching ‘n’ carrying all the time. Don’t mind keeping things clean though. I like things clean and tidy. I like gardens too.’

‘So … you would’ve come, then?’

‘Might’ve.’ She raised her eyes to meet his. ‘Suppose anything’s better’n sticking around here.’

Geoff continued to claim her gaze until Alice fidgeted and said, ‘Come on, let’s go. It’s getting late and they like me to see to the kids before the neighbours turn up for the Saturday night singsong.’

Suddenly Geoff bent and pressed his lips hard to Alice’s, making her skitter back in surprise. It was her first proper kiss.

‘What’s that for, you daft ha’porth?’ she said, squinting up at him. She wasn’t sure whether to laugh it off or give him a slap.

‘You would’ve come with me, right? We’d have been courting. That’s what you do, Alice, when you’re courting.’ He sounded quite casually amused by her flustered reaction.

‘How do you know what courting couples do?’ Alice scoffed as they started to walk on. ‘How much courting have you done, Geoff Lovat?’

‘A bit.’ Geoff didn’t sound amused any more.

Alice looked up, about to find something crushing to say, but as their eyes met she found the little jibe died on her lips. Instinctively she knew that Geoff’s knowledge of what went on between men and women was far greater than hers, and she wasn’t sure why knowing it unsettled her, or made her mouth pulse as though his still moved against it. For a moment they walked in silence. ‘You know what’s really annoyed me about those two?’ Alice said, having shaken off her odd mood.

‘No … what?’

‘I left me cake. I never got to eat me cake or drink much of me tea, and I’m starving, and I paid for it.’

‘We can go back past the fish shop,’ Geoff suggested. He pulled out a few coins and counted them out. ‘We’ll have to share the fish.’

Alice grinned up at him. ‘Thanks. When I get me new job soldering I’ll treat you to a fish supper, promise.’

‘Don’t work like that when you’re courting.’ Geoff grinned back at her. ‘I always got to treat you ’cos I’m a real gent.’

‘Shut up about courting, you daft sod, or someone’ll hear and think you mean it. Then there’ll be trouble. And I reckon we got enough of that comin’ our way when our parents find out about … Oh, here they come,’ Alice said as she took a glance behind and saw Danny and Sophy catching up with them.

‘As they’ve had our grub in the caff, they can shell out for the fish ‘n’ chips,’ Geoff said.

‘Don’t work like that when you’re courting and you’re a real gent.’ Alice impishly echoed his words back at him then turned and scampered off, laughing.

‘I’ll be sorry to lose you, Alice. You’re a good worker and if things don’t come right for you round in Isledon Road I’d take you back if I had a vacancy.’

‘Thank you, Mr Wright,’ Alice said. ‘I’ll remember that.’

‘We’ve had lots of orders come in because of the war. Kiddies like to play with toy soldiers at such times. We’ll be as busy as the new factory. Overtime might be available …’ Simon Wright dangled the carrot, in his own way trying to make her change her mind about leaving. Oddly he’d miss her, he realised, and her sweet, mischievous way. He’d never forget the sight of her marching into his office on her first day at work with the vacancy notice tucked under her thin little arm.

Alice waited for Annie and they went out into the muggy evening together. Alice felt oddly nostalgic yet excited too on knowing that her final shift was behind her. At the gate she and Annie stopped and turned to take a look back at the building.

‘Ain’t sad to see the back of that place,’ Annie said flatly.

Alice looked up at the wall where the notice had been pinned. She remembered how months ago Geoff had got it down for her and she’d gone in, quaking, to plead for her job. She wasn’t glad to be going. She’d liked working there. But it had just been her start; it had never been where she’d finish.