Keeping My Sister's Secrets Page 21

  Kathleen only hoped her face wouldn’t be too flustered from the heat of the boiling jam. Miss Bainbridge had put her and Nancy in charge of cooking up one of the vats of strawberry jam. The whole factory was packed to bursting with strawberries. It was one of Kathleen’s favourite times of year because it marked the start of summer and the warmer weather to come.

  ‘What are you going to wear tonight, then?’ she shouted across the factory floor to her friend, knowing full well that Nancy had nothing as good as she did in her wardrobe.

  ‘Haven’t decided yet,’ said Nancy, with a little pout. ‘Maybe that black dress with a fishtail frill on the bottom of it.’

  ‘Didn’t you wear that last time you went there, though?’ said Kathleen, smiling to herself. She just couldn’t resist teasing Nancy a bit.

  Nancy muttered, ‘Yes, I suppose I did’ under her breath. She turned her back on Kathleen and picked up a huge bag of sugar and chucked the contents into the vat.

  ‘Oh, you dozy lump!’ shouted Kathleen. ‘I already put the sugar in five minutes ago!’

  ‘You should have told me!’ wailed Nancy.

  They both stared into the boiling pot of red liquid.

  ‘What’s going on here?’ It was Miss Bainbridge, who had a horrid knack of turning up when she was least wanted.

  Kathleen looked at the floor and Nancy shuffled her feet about and said nothing.

  ‘You’d better tell me what is going on,’ said Miss Bainbridge, folding her arms and giving them her hardest stare. That look was enough to freeze water.

  Kathleen’s mind was racing.

  ‘It was my fault, miss,’ she said. ‘I poured a whole load of sugar into the pot because I didn’t realize Nancy had already done it.’

  Miss Bainbridge clapped her hand to her forehead. ‘Oh, you silly girl! That is all we need. A whole vat wasted. I will have to tell Miss Kendrick about this!’ And she marched off to report to management on the third floor.

  Nancy clasped her friend’s arm. ‘What did you go and say that for? You know it was my fault . . .’

  Kathleen looked at her friend, who had tears in her eyes. ‘It don’t matter, Nancy. You know I’m leaving next month anyway. I have got Albert to look after me now. It’s just not worth the bother, you getting into trouble.’

  At the end of her shift, Kathleen was called into Miss Bainbridge’s office and handed her cards. Just like that, after five years of hard graft. She was going to miss out on the works’ annual beano to Margate on the charabanc, too, which made it harder to bear.

  ‘I’m sorry to let you go, Kathleen,’ said Miss Bainbridge. ‘You are a hard worker. I can give you a reference if you like . . .’

  Kathleen stuck her nose in the air. ‘No need, miss, I’m going to be Mrs Ives soon, so my factory days are behind me now.’ And she turned on her heel and left.

  The final pay packet would have come in handy to put down as a deposit on a little flat for her and Albert but he was doing well for himself. He had left the jam factory and was working as an electrical fitter: a proper trade, as her father had told her, with some satisfaction. He was probably earning better money than George Harwood now, who had left his job on the buses and was working as a packer in a book printers up Gray’s Inn Road. He wanted to be closer to his beloved books, probably, because that was all he talked about these days.

  In any case, the last thing Kathleen wanted was to have to go and live at Albert’s parents down in Vauxhall. They were nice enough. His dad was retired but his mum and sisters ran a fruit stall and wouldn’t have a word said against their Albert. It wasn’t that Kathleen ever found fault with him, but it was just the idea that Albert could do no wrong which irked her. She’d been brought up with brothers and she knew blokes could be a pain and there was no harm in saying so, was there? Albert didn’t like her teasing him either. She’d try and change that, once they were married. Married! Just mentioning the word gave her butterflies.

  Kathleen imagined herself walking down the aisle at St Patrick’s Church in Cornwall Road, with the bells ringing out, the sun shining, and Albert, so tall and handsome, with his dark hair swept back and his green eyes looking into hers as they kissed. In reality, they planned to wed in the register office because Albert didn’t want the fuss of a church wedding, but she could dream, couldn’t she? A honking horn brought her back to reality as she turned in to Howley Terrace. It was the tallyman, in his new van, of which he was very proud.

  He stepped out, twiddling with the ends of his little moustache. ‘I hear congratulations are in order! Could I interest you in anything for your bottom drawer?’

  ‘Not today,’ she said airily. ‘I have got everything I need already, so I won’t be getting anything on tick, thanks.’

  The Café de Paris was every bit as impressive as Kathleen had hoped. She glided down the staircase on Albert’s arm, knowing full well that they were the best-looking couple in the place. Nancy followed with Roy, her painter boyfriend, who was always a great laugh. A waitress showed them to their table, right next to the circular dance floor, and they ordered some drinks. A huge chandelier hung above their heads and there were sumptuous drapes and gilt everywhere, which in the candlelight made it seem as if they were on a film set.

  The band were already in place, in their tuxedos. As they struck up a tune, Bert Firman, dapper in his tails, looked around the room, which was already filling up, and smiled at Kathleen. ‘I think he wants us to dance, Albert.’ He didn’t need to be asked twice. In a split second, they were on their feet, making their way around the dance floor in a foxtrot, like Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. Another couple joined them, then another, and soon the whole place was whirling around the little dance floor.

  They barely sat down all evening after that. Roy and Albert paid for all the drinks but Kathleen noticed that for every glass she drank, he had two. At the end of the night, Bert Firman addressed the room. ‘Now, I know there’s a song you’ve all been waiting for . . . Shall we do it?’

  He turned to the band, who shook their heads, prompting a cheer from the crowd: ‘Come on!’

  The first few bars had everyone crowding onto the dance floor, elbowing their way in to make space. Kathleen squeezed Albert’s hand and giggled, ‘Oh, I think they are playing our song!’ Everyone from the milkman to the costermongers were whistling and singing it these days and it made Kathleen happy to hear it in this posh club too. Albert smiled at her and threw his jacket back over his shoulders and linked arms with her, as people started to step out in a line behind them, singing along. ‘Any time you’re Lambeth way, any evening, any day, you’ll find us all, doin’ the Lambeth walk, Oi!’ They all slapped their knees and fell about laughing as the band played on. ‘Everything’s free and easy, do as you darn well pleasey . . .’ They twirled each other around the cramped floor.

  A short fella with sticky-out ears leaned over to Kathleen. ‘Here, I reckon you’re a dead ringer for that Carmen Miranda. I have been dying to tell you all night . . .’

  Kathleen laughed nervously as she caught the look in Albert’s eye. ‘Are you chatting up my girl?’ he said.

  ‘No, mate, no,’ the man replied. The fool was half-cut, Kathleen could tell that, from the glazed look in his eyes. He didn’t get the chance to say much else, because Albert walloped him one, right in the face. He staggered back, falling on top of a dancing couple, who screamed and protested as they were knocked into a table. Kathleen froze with horror as she watched the scene unfold around her. She was powerless to do anything. She hadn’t wanted any of this fuss, the whole thing had just got out of hand and it was beyond her control. More pushing and shoving followed and soon the management had put the lights up and some bouncers were wading into the crowd, pulling the little chap with the big ears to his feet and dragging him up the stairs, ignoring his protests, as the band played on.

  ‘Come on, let’s go,’ said Albert, his jaw set firmly.

  The cold night air and abrupt end to her evening sobered Kat
hleen up instantly. Nancy and Roy didn’t seem to mind. They must have seen Albert throw the first punch, but they didn’t say anything and seemed more interested in necking each other in a doorway.

  ‘Why did you have to go and do that, Albert?’ she whispered.

  He turned to her. ‘I can’t have other blokes messing with my property, Kathleen, you know that. It’s only because I love you.’ Kathleen thought about that in the cab on the way back across the river. He was so possessive, it was romantic, really.

  Trust Hitler to go and spoil her wedding by starting a bloody war. London had changed almost overnight, from a fun place with bright lights, to a blacked-out miserable city of sandbags, with air-raid wardens running around like busybodies, yelling at everyone. Mother had taped up the windows in their Walworth Road flat and Peggy had worked overtime sewing blackout curtains for everyone with her sewing machine.

  Kathleen had felt the joy being sucked out of her with every passing day as a deep gloom settled over Lambeth that September. She’d managed to find herself a little job as a football pools clerk, checking the entries collected by the agents at corner shops. It was pin money but at least it gave her something to do and took her mind off her fears about the Nazis invading. She spent her evenings glued to the wireless, listening out in case the announcer said ‘Cromwell’, which meant that the Germans had landed.

  Her brother Jim had received his call-up papers within a few weeks of war being declared and they were all worried sick about him. Frankie, her younger brother, was on the wrong side of the law as a deserter after Mum threw his papers on the fire and said she couldn’t bear to lose him and so God only knew where he was. Peggy was on her own, too, because George and his brother Harry had been among the first to sign up in the area, keen to fight Fascism. That was all well and good but George had left Peggy with a bun in the oven. She had been going to be matron of honour at the wedding but she looked like the back end of a bus and was ready to pop at any moment, so she said she’d better not. She didn’t mind really. It gave Eva and Nancy a chance to shine.

  Kathleen had stayed the night at the flat in Walworth Road so that her mother and Nanny Day could help her get ready on the morning of the wedding. She’d spent so long dreaming about what this day would be like that when she woke up to a grey London sky, Kathleen almost wanted to shout to the world that it wasn’t fair, but there was a war on, so she thought better of it. Everyone wanted it to be the perfect day and Albert was her Prince Charming, so she would do her best for him, and for everybody, to be his princess.

  As she made her way into the kitchen to get a reviving cuppa, she could hear Nanny Day bustling about, getting Eva into her outfit.

  ‘Always the bridesmaid, never the bride, Eva!’ said Nanny Day. ‘Maybe you’ll be next, my girl.’

  ‘Not if I can help it,’ muttered Eva under her breath as Nanny buttoned up her bridesmaid’s dress.

  Nancy let herself in without bothering to knock – she was as much part of the family as anyone, really. Nanny always said that Nancy could talk the hind legs off a donkey but on this occasion she could barely speak, because she had to squish herself into the bridesmaid’s frock that Kathleen had worn for Peggy’s wedding. There was no polite way of saying it: she was a bit broader around the beam nowadays.

  Kathleen was surprised to find that, as she did her make-up, carefully applying some rouge and lipstick, her hands were shaking. Her mother noticed as she handed her a little posy of flowers. She kissed Kathleen’s cheek and told her, ‘Just be yourself, Kathleen, because you are beautiful just as you are.’

  All her hopes for the future were tied up with this day, the day she would become Mrs Ives. She wasn’t just the girl from Howley Terrace who liked to sing and dance and play the piano. She wasn’t the girl from the jam factory; in fact, she wasn’t a girl any more. She would be a woman, a married woman whom people would tip their hat to as she went shopping down the Cut.

  Albert was waiting for her at the register office, his green eyes sparkling, his wavy chestnut hair brushed back to reveal his handsome face. His mother was standing over his shoulder, like a little black cloud on the horizon. Albert beamed with pride as Kathleen walked towards him. Everyone said she looked breath-taking in a full-length white silk dress with lace sleeves and a little puddle train. Once they had said their vows and exchanged rings, they stepped outside into the weak autumn sunshine and Eva and Peggy pelted them with rice for luck, while everyone cheered. Grandad was in a wheelchair now because his leg was troubling him too much too walk but even he cracked a smile.

  Just as they were making their way to the pub to enjoy a wedding breakfast of potted salmon sandwiches and a slice of cake, Albert’s mother leaned over to Kathleen and whispered in her ear, ‘You look lovely today but you’ll never be good enough for my Albert, just you remember that.’

  22

  Eva, November 1939

  It was nice to have somewhere new to go shopping. Eva and Gladys got up early to get down to Kingston-upon-Thames before Bentall’s threw open its doors to the public, to make the most of their day out. Bentall’s was known as England’s Wonder Store and, judging by the size of it – a sprawling building which dominated the main shopping street – Eva could see why. She couldn’t wait to get inside and go to work.

  There was a lot of chit-chat in the queue about the war, of course, with most folks complaining that it was a phoney thing, because there was no sign of Jerry anywhere and now food was being taken off their plates by rationing. That didn’t really bother Eva one bit. She was a picky eater at the best of times and had grown up without much food in the house so she barely noticed, and petrol rationing only really affected those rich enough to afford a car. The blackout was a nuisance, she supposed, but it also made moving stolen goods from one place to another a bit easier, at least. She kept her thoughts to herself as she peered at her reflection in the shop window.

  Gladys pointed out a lovely blue angora coat on the mannequin in front of them.

  ‘That’d suit you,’ she said, smiling conspiratorially.

  Eva looked smart with her long black hair pinned back into a neat little bun but the sleeves of her coat were fraying a bit. She could do with a new one. She might buy that blue coat with some of her hoisting money. It was a matter of pride not to wear the stuff she nicked. She enjoyed going shopping for nice things and paying for them, with the money she had earned. Handing out gifts to the family was different but hoisters liked to buy their own clothes.

  Alice had given her strict instructions to get as many luxury items as she could in case clothes rationing started. ‘It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good,’ she had told her. ‘Clothing coupons will mean I can put my prices up.’ Eva planned to nick a good haul of silk stockings too, as they were so easy to conceal.

  The doors opened and Gladys and Eva took their time working their way through the shop, checking out the stairwells and corridors where they could pass goods off to each other. Once they’d checked the place out, they made their way up to the lingerie section. Gladys tried to create a bit of kerfuffle, dropping satin nightgowns all over the place and pulling things off their hangers so that the shop assistants would follow her, rather than Eva, who had sidled up to the hosiery display. She’d already pocketed half a dozen pairs of silk stockings and was going for another lot, when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

  ‘I know you have been stealing,’ said the man. He had such a kind, round face, Eva thought it would be a shame to have to punch it.

  ‘No, I haven’t,’ she said, putting on her poshest accent. ‘You are very much mistaken.’

  ‘But I am not, am I?’ he said, pulling open her coat to reveal the stockings, poking out of pockets in the lining of her coat. In an instant, two other blokes were at his side and they seized her.

  ‘We realize the temptation to steal, now there is a war on, but I’m afraid I am going to have to call the police, young lady. Come with me.’

  As she was frogmarched
off to the manager’s office, she spotted Gladys, hurrying away to the exit before she was caught. Realizing she couldn’t run or fight her way out in a town she didn’t even know, Eva decided to play the innocent, just as Alice Diamond had taught her.

  ‘Most blokes hate it when a woman cries, so be sure to turn on the waterworks if you get caught,’ she’d told her. ‘It might just persuade them to let you go.’

  Eva thought back to when her little brother Frankie got run over by a lorry when he was a kid. That always brought tears to her eyes. She began to sob. ‘Please, I’m sorry. It’s all been a mistake. I just wanted to help buy some stuff for my family. We’re poor, you see . . .’

  The kindly faced man didn’t look so kind any more. He turned out to be the store manager. ‘A likely story. I’ve met your type before. I can’t have thieves pilfering my best stock. There are people out there fighting for King and Country while you are lining your pockets, young lady!’ His mouth set into a thin, hard line. ‘I have had enough of it!’ He slammed his hand on the desk.

  Everything happened in a blur. The police came and Eva tried it on with them, telling them it was her first time, she had just let temptation get the better of her, but they weren’t having any of it either.

  She was arrested and taken to the police station, where she was charged with theft. As the cell door clanged shut and the lights went out for the night, Eva realized she was alone, more alone than she had ever felt in her whole life. The tears she cried now were real. There was no way out, no Alice to rescue her, no Maggie with her hatpin. She willed herself, in that moment, to be back in Howley Terrace, tucked up in bed with her annoying sister Kathleen, and Peggy on the other side of the room with her nose in a book. Those thoughts kept her going until morning, when the door was pulled open and a policeman told her, ‘On your feet. You’re up in front of the beak.’