Читать книгу Silvertown: An East End family memoir - Melanie McGrath - Страница 10

In the years before the first war, the Fulcher family concerns are the concerns of respectability – nits, bedbugs and the price of marg. They’re not on the rise, exactly, but they’re not on the fall either, and there is a pleasing steadiness to life. Frenchie is bringing home most of his carpenter’s wage and Sarah is able to top it up with the few shillings she makes from taking in the mending for James Looke’s laundry in Ullin Street. Not so far away, not so far at all, there are families whose children go about barefoot and shit in pits in the cellar; families whose lives are reduced to a matter of other people’s pockets and what might be in them; families who might go under altogether if it weren’t for Sally Army soup. Not the Fulchers. The Fulchers all have boots (with cardboard soles fitted periodically by Frenchie), and each is in possession of his or her own outer garment. The Fulcher children only have nits when they catch them from other children, and there is bread and marg at every mealtime. No Fulcher child has ever had to dip for a living, and not a drop of Sally Army soup has passed Fulcher lips.

Not all the families in Ullin Street are so lucky. Among these are the Jorrocks who live at number twelve. Matty and Tom Jorrocks have to collect the horse shit off the roads to sell to the families with vegetable plots, and their mother Mary has been seen standing in the soup kitchen queue. Matty and Tom have boots, though they are taken from different pairs and Matty’s toes explode from his. Between them they share a ragged twill which they take it in turns to wear, Matty every morning on the way school and Tom on the way back. Their destinies are already set. At the age of fourteen they will leave school and if they are lucky they’ll find work in the docks, the factories or the sweatshops. Others will take their emptied places and so it will go on.

All the children of school age living in Ullin Street are obliged to attend the same school, just a few roads away in Bright Street. The Bright Street School is a hulking, optimistic construction of red brick sandwiched between a terrace of houses and a forest of pubs, within whose damp walls the children of East Poplar are daily expected, by some mysterious means, to obtain an education.

Mathematics: three times six is eighteen.

Religion: the Seven Deadly Sins: greed, lust, gluttony, covetousness, etc.

History: the Tudor monarchs: Haitch, He and Me. That’s Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward V, Mary I and Elizabeth I.

Politics: the sun never sets on the British Empire.

At eight o’clock every morning the doors of Ullin Street open and the children tumble out and make their way towards Bright Street. It is no more than a five-minute walk but for the Fulcher children it is the longest five minutes of their day because Matty and Tom Jorrocks have made it their young lives’ work to torment the Fulchers. The only Fulcher Tom and Matty never tease is Rosie and that is because Rosie is thirteen and pretty.

Plain Jane. Plain Janey Foolshit, shout Matty and Tom at the gaggle of miserable Fulchers. Mouldy Maudie Foolshit, Johnny Pongy Bastard-Foolshit.

Sometimes a stone will soar into the air and land thump on the back of one of the Fulcher children. Once, a dead rat comes at them. Another time a clump of horse shit. Banned by Sarah from talking to the Jorrocks, the Fulcher children have little choice but to carry on along Ullin Street, but nothing seems to discourage Tom and Matty.

Foolshit. Plainey Janey.

Mum, why do they call us names? asks Jane.

Because they’re common.

Why? says Jane.

Her mother smiles at her girl and winks and shakes her head.

Blimey, the questions you ask! C’m ’ere and drink your tea.

Jane is an average student in every lesson with the exception of writing. Twice a day a single slate comes around the class and the children are expected to inscribe on to it whatever the teacher demands. However hard Jane toils over the slate, her right hand will not write. The left produces perfect scrolls, beautiful lines and slashes but the right is like a wayward child. Very often she can get nothing from it but squiggles and odd little polka dots.

Only witches and imbeciles write with their left hands, Jane Fulcher, says Miss Whiting, the teacher. Which are you? Now, right hand, please. What are you waiting for?

I can’t do it, Miss.

A long sigh, eyes raising to the roof. How old are you, Jane?

Ten, Miss.

And you still can’t write your own name? What does that mean, Jane Fulcher?

I don’t know, Miss.

It means you are insubordinate and lazy, Jane Fulcher.

Righty-ho, Miss.

Miss Whiting sweeps from her desk clutching a ruler and, rushing forwards, brings it down on the knuckles of Jane Fulcher’s left hand. Sometimes she will use a buckled belt or a shoe. Every now and then Miss Whiting will add in the backs of Jane’s knees and elbows for good measure, reciting her indictments with each blow. Insubordinate. Whack. Lazy. Whack. At the age of ten, Jane’s left hand is a five-fingered callus, the right a ghost afraid of its own shadow. The right-handed children break into titters of relief and contempt. They fear the hand impairment is contagious. Whenever Jane goes near them they tend to peel away.

When they arrive home of an evening Rosie will say, Never mind, Janey, I love yer, and Jane will feel better for a while, even though she knows that Rosie can afford to be nice because she is pretty.

Janey got done in writing class again today, Rosie will tell their mother, fetching some salted water to bathe the stinging hand.

I never needed no writing nor nothing and it never bothered me, Sarah will say, and giving her daughter’s hands a little kiss she will wrap them in a pair of old mittens so that Frenchie won’t be bothered by the sight of them.

To avoid Matty and Tom, the Fulchers begin taking a different route to school, one that puts them in the way of the confectionery store of Mrs Selina Folkman on Zetland Street. To Jane, the store is a sugar palace. In the window are bricks of pink and white coconut ice sitting on a paving of cream fudge with cherry-spotted nougat arches.

Get a move on, Janey, you can’t have none, says Rosie, each time Jane’s footfall slows as she reaches Selina Folkman’s store. But it’s no good. Within days, Jane can think of nothing else. Bit by bit the sugar palace consumes her. Rowntree’s Treacle Toffee, Fry’s Chocolate Crème, Mclntyre’s Toffee Tablet, Maynards Rum ’n’ Raisin. In her mind the names become exotic friends. Mr Treacle Toffee, stern and rather bitter; Miss Crème, delicate, soft and yielding; Mrs Rum ‘n’ Raisin, sweet and old and as drunk as Mrs Jorrocks. Her confectionery characters take up residence in Jane’s heart.

On the first Friday of every month Frenchie comes home with a twist of brown paper bought from an Indian toffee seller who stands on a busy crossroads on Frenchie’s way home.

Who’s after a bit of toffee? cries Frenchie.

Me! Me!

The children cram around.

Only a penny’s worth mind, says Frenchie, and you’ll have to work for it. Righty-ho, name four ships, says Frenchie.

Patonga, Port Vindex … The words roll around the children’s mouths.

His Majesty’s, says John.

Uruguay Star, Leeds City …

Frenchie fetches the stub of a cigarette from behind his ear, lights it and leans back luxuriantly, the smoke playing in curls around his face, while his children throw anxious glances at one another, the fruit box table, their mother.

I don’t know why you have to put them through it, says Sarah.

If you don’t know the names of things, how you gonna call on nothing? Frenchie says.

Sarah stares at him and shrugs, returning to her mending while the children sit bolt upright on the bed, imagining the feel of the toffee, the smell, the long, sensuous melt. Their father draws again on his stub.

What kind of name is His Majesty’s anyway?

It ain’t a name at all, says Rosie.

Correct, says Frenchie reaching for the twist of brown paper in his pocket.

And what do they make from tin, Janey?

Tins? says Jane.

Voila! says Frenchie. Now, who’ll be having a bit … ?

Just after Jane turns eleven, a dirty-skinned, yellow-haired girl appears in Miss Whiting’s class. In itself, this isn’t much of an event. Children come and go. A bitter winter is enough to take off one or two. All the same, there is something about this particular girl which attracts Jane. Perhaps it is her confidence, the sure set of her jaw. Perhaps it is the faint smell of violets she gives off, recalling violet crèmes and violet dragees and violet lozenges. Perhaps it is the vague sense of familiarity. Perhaps it is a thousand things. All Jane knows is that it is.

The yellow-haired girl senses this too and at the end of the second day she is waiting for Jane at the school gates.

Who’s this then? Rosie asks.

Guess, says the yellow-haired girl.

Can’t, won’t and shan’t, says Rosie, pulling her sister out into the street.

The yellow-haired girl follows them across Bright Street and out into St Leonard’s Road, singing in a jangly voice: Poplar is popular but Wapping is topping.

At the crossroads Jane turns and says, So, why pick on us to tell?

Pretty soon the party reaches Ullin Street and there, ahead of them, standing beside the alley that runs along the church, are Matty and Tom, gazing at something lying in the mud.

What you got then? asks the yellow-haired girl.

The matted body of a black and white cat looms from the shadows, still alive but with the legs splayed at unnatural angles. The eyes are out and its mouth oozes blood mixed with an ill-looking foam.

We din do the eyes, says Tom. They was done already.

There is a moment’s pause while all parties take this in.

Wanna look? asks Tom. At that moment the creature lifts its head and slowly begins to drag itself towards the deepness of the alley.

That’s disgusting, says the yellow-haired girl.

Gis a penny or we’ll stamp on it, says Matty.

Drop dead, says the yellow-haired girl. Matty Jorrocks raises his boot and grins.

The poor thing, says the yellow-haired girl and, reaching for a broken piece of brick on the pavement, she darts in front of the Jorrocks boys and brings the brick down hard on the creature’s head.

There, she says, brushing the brick dust from her hands as Tom and Matty tumble down the street. Jane and the yellow-haired girl find themselves alone above the body of the cat, each taking the measure of the other.

How’s about we play ginger? says the girl.

In ginger you tie the one doorknob to its neighbour, ring the doorbells and speed off to the nearest vantage.

My mum says ginger is common, says Jane, sensing a surge of bad feeling running through her belly.

Please yerself, says the girl, drawing herself up, the yellow hair falling across her face like sunlight. I don’t care anyway.

And that, over the years, is what Jane Fulcher finds most thrilling about her friend Dora Trelling. Dora Trelling really doesn’t care.

Jane begins meeting Dora after school. They walk together to Mrs Folkman’s emporium on Zetland Street and discuss the relative merits of sweets they have never tasted.

Cough candy, now, there’s a nice little tablet, says Jane.

They fall silent for a moment, imagining the crust of sugar on the outside, the damp, welcoming interior.

Dor, wha’s your all-time favourite sweet?

They scan the rainbow piles in the shop window.

I ain’t never had none of ’em. Wha’s yours?

Lemme see, says Jane, running her mind across imaginary tastes. Liquorice comfits or montelimar? Fruit gems or marshmallow? Tell the truth, Dor, I’m a little bit partial to the lot but all considered, I think montelimar gets it.

Liar, liar, says Dora. Liar, liar, pants on fire.