A Sister's Shame (42 page)

Vesta hugged her again. ‘Help me outside.’

‘Are you sure you want to get up?’

‘I ain’t staying in bed. And I’m not keeping this thing on my head. It don’t look very nice.’

Marie smiled. ‘At least you’re thinking about your looks again.’ She helped her on with her dressing gown.

‘I wonder what the noise is all about.’

When they got to the front room, everyone crowded round Vesta. Marie knew that they were all still in a state of shock. No one could believe what had happened last night.

Just then, the door flew open and Hector stood there. He had dressed hurriedly and the tail of his shirt was hanging out. Like Bing, he had a slight beard, and his moustache, usually so neat,
was hanging down either side of his mouth. ‘I can’t believe it,’ he blustered. ‘I can’t bring myself to hope . . .’

‘What?’ everyone cried at once.

‘There’s been a fire,’ he spluttered.

‘We know that,’ said Elsie impatiently. ‘Where?’

‘It was so big, they had to use the emergency engines from the island they usually use for the docks.’

Everyone stared at him.

‘Well, where the heck was it?’ Elsie demanded again.

Hector looked at Vesta and Marie, his eyes wide. ‘It’s the Blue Flamingo and the Duke’s. They burned to the ground in the early hours of this morning.’

It was later in the morning when the news was confirmed that the two clubs, the Blue Flamingo and the Duke’s, and a number of warehouses had all gone up in flames. Marie
and Vesta watched from the window as Hector went out to the street again to join the group of neighbours who were discussing the fire. Carts and horses stopped by and the drivers leaned down to
give the latest news. But it was Bing who drove to Poplar at midday and returned in the afternoon with news that shocked everyone.

‘It’s true,’ Bing told them as they gathered in the front room. ‘There’s just a big black skeleton of a building, bits of charred wood soaked in water and piles of
ash where the clubs used to be. The bobbies are keeping people away so they don’t traipse over the evidence.’

‘What evidence?’ Marie asked.

‘Of what caused it and how the bodies inside met their end there.’

Vesta gave a little gasp. ‘You mean someone’s dead in there?’

Bing nodded. ‘Maybe five or six, they reckon. And the rumour was, that one of them was small, very small, hardly bigger than a kid. And there was something else. A skull. And it
wasn’t no human skull, either.’

‘An animal?’ Ada breathed.

‘Looks like it.’

‘A cat or a dog?’ Elsie asked, but it was Marie who said what they were thinking.

‘Or a monkey.’

They all went quiet.

‘Doors were all locked, but there weren’t no keys in ’em,’ Bing said after a while. ‘Someone had it in for the Scoresbys and trapped them in there like rats. Has
anyone been upstairs to Wippet’s or Nina’s?’

Elsie shook her head. ‘Nina never came back after that day she left. But I’ll go and see if Wippet’s there.’

A few minutes later, Elsie returned. ‘He ain’t.’ She caught her breath. ‘Nor is Kaiser.’

‘And Kaiser never goes out,’ Vesta murmured. ‘He just stays in his cage.’

‘Well, he ain’t there now,’ Elsie sighed.

‘Wasn’t he with us last night when we came in?’ Bing frowned.

Marie nodded. ‘Everything happened so fast after that I don’t remember seeing him again.’

‘He must’ve been watching,’ said Elsie. ‘He must’ve seen it all and . . .’ Her voice trailed away.

‘It was Saturday,’ Vesta whispered, sinking down to the couch. She held the bandage on her head. ‘The brothers would have been there late into the night. Teddy would have gone
there . . . he would have . . .’

Hector sat beside her. ‘We don’t know yet who perished.’

Marie looked at Bing. His face told her all she needed to know. The remains that were left must have been Teddy and the Scoresbys.

Vesta looked up with bleak eyes. ‘I hated him, but I didn’t wish him dead.’

‘Afraid I can’t agree,’ said Elsie fiercely. ‘If it is him that’s gone, there ain’t gonna be many who’ll mourn him.’

Marie felt as Elsie did. She remembered all too clearly the day that Vesta had almost died. In that attic room, the so-called nurse whom Teddy had told Vesta to go to had almost ended
Vesta’s life. Teddy hadn’t cared then. Instead he had just used Vesta, as he’d used other young women and sold them to others. She had no sympathy for him. Unlike her twin, she
felt that, if it was he who had met such an end in the flames of the Blue Flamingo, then justice had been done.

Bing slid his arm around Marie. She knew that he, too, felt the same.

‘
If
it was Wippet and Kaiser who set the place alight,’ Elsie continued, ‘they done a good job, in my opinion. If I’d known that one day Kaiser would use them fags
he dropped all over the place to rid us of that bit of evil we was talking about, I would have bought him a packet or two meself.’ It was said lightly, but, as Marie looked at her mother and
father, her twin sister and Bing, she saw the deep sadness in their eyes. They had all loved Wippet and Kaiser. The pair had not deserved to die, and yet perhaps it was the death Wippet had chosen.
He and Kaiser were inseparable. For either one of them to be left alone would have been an agony. Wippet’s heart had already been broken by what had happened to Nina. If he had tried to
avenge her, then he’d succeeded.

Marie thought of him now and, beyond her sadness, she felt that he might be smiling his smile with his beloved friend chattering beside him. No one would mourn the Scoresbys or Teddy if they had
perished. There would be other families who, like the Haskinses, would be set free.

And could live their lives in peace again.

Christmas Day 1937

‘Say plum pud, lads!’ Bing shouted, as Marie fought to keep both her sons safe in her arms. John was the most mischievous, at twenty-two months old, but his twin
brother, Herbert, had his moments, and was now struggling to be free as Bing steadied his new camera.

‘Smile for Daddy, boys, or we’ll have to do it all over again.’ Marie began to laugh as Herbert pursed his fat lips and blew bubbles in answer. It wasn’t long before John
was doing the same, until Bing grasped the moment and took the picture with a satisfied whoop of delight.

Marie lowered her sons to the floor, reflecting that they were outgrowing their summer sandals, now used as slippers. She had bought serviceable shoes for the winter but with the rate they were
growing, they would soon be out of their sailor suits, bought in October. Not that her twins were impressed with their new white-and-blue outfits! When in his father’s care this morning, as
Marie had put on her new dress and coat and tried to arrange her hair whilst listening to the laughter erupting from the front room, John had managed to investigate the coal scuttle and the result
had been a great source of amusement, especially to Bing, who applauded almost every action his sons made.

‘Hurry up now,’ Marie reminded her husband as she captured Herbert. ‘It’s already two o’clock, and if we’re not quick, Mum will have served up the chicken
before we get there.’ She wrestled Herbert’s coat on and sat him in the big perambulator kept in the passage. It was equipped with twin hoods and two pairs of reins that kept the
misbehaving twins in check. It had been a gift from Elsie on their birth in February of 1936. Now, of course, it was nearing the end of its use. After she’d fastened Herbert in his seated
position, it was left to Bing to secure the reins around John.

Marie watched her husband with pride. She was a fulltime mother and wife now, her days at Ellisdon’s long gone. Bing was a doting father and his sons were his pride and joy.

‘Right, Mrs Brown, let’s be off before these terrors escape,’ Bing said, interrupting her thoughts. Slipping his new camera on the tray beneath the pram, he grinned.
‘There’s a party round at your gran and granddad’s. Your Aunty Vesta is bringing her young man to meet us today, so behave yourselves, right?’

Marie smiled, too, at the cheeky grins the twins gave their father. Herbert had taken Hector’s middle name, and John, Bing’s dad’s. Neither of the boys could sit still for
long. They had inherited her blue eyes, but with their burnished golden locks that stood wilfully on end they were a mirror image of their father.

‘Have we brought a change of clothes for these rascals?’ Bing asked as he pushed the pram through the front door and out into the frosty winter’s day.

Marie followed, nodding to the big space in the bottom of the pram. ‘And our presents and a bottle of port too.’

‘Everything but the kitchen sink,’ grinned Bing as she fell into stride beside him. He bounced the pram several times, making the twins laugh. ‘Look at ’em,’ he
said, ‘you’d think butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths.’

‘It’s hard to believe this is only their second Christmas,’ Marie sighed. ‘And it’s two and a half years since the fire.’

‘A lot’s changed in that time.’

‘Elsie was right. No one cared about Teddy or the Scoresbys. They died in debt for all their high living. The papers said that all the bodies found were buried in paupers’ graves.
Including the barman.’

‘All except Wippet,’ Bing reminded her.

‘It was only right that everyone put together to give him and Kaiser a good send-off. It’s nice to think he has a proper headstone over at Blackheath where he’d worked in the
fair.’

‘They reckon it was his fairground tricks that got him inside the Blue Flamingo and locked it tight as a drum,’ Bing said reflectively. ‘I know we’ve all talked this over
before, but I think he’d been planning it.’

‘But did he have to die too?’

‘It was what Wippet would have wanted. He’d lost Nina and she was his life. When he saw that Teddy had shot Vesta, he must have decided he’d do the deed then.’

John turned round and blew a large raspberry. Herbert did the same. Bing and Marie burst into laughter. ‘I hope you don’t do that to Vesta’s young man, Eric,’ Marie
teased. ‘Grandma is hoping you’ll be on your best behaviour.’

‘They ain’t got none, that’s the trouble,’ Bing chuckled. Then pausing he added, ‘Do you think Vesta is really sweet on this Eric?’

Marie smiled. ‘She talks about him all the time.’

‘What does she say?’

‘This and that.’

Bing rolled his eyes. ‘Do you think they’ll get hitched?’

‘We’ll have to give him the seal of approval first.’ Marie looked up at her husband. ‘But one thing I can tell you, she says he’s not a charmer like
Teddy.’

‘That’s all right then. And if he’s a porter, he’s got a good job. Sounds like a regular bloke.’

‘Vesta says he is.’

‘Do you think she learned her lesson?’

‘She says so.’

‘Does Eric know the full story?’ Bing frowned.

‘He knows she can’t have a family. But he don’t seem to mind about it. And he’s very supportive of her dressmaking business.’

‘Well, I suppose that’s a start.’

Herbert took hold of his brother’s cap and pulled it down over his face. A big scream erupted and John tried to do the same.

‘Now, now, you perishers, sit still.’ Bing stopped the pram and took hold of his sons, seating them properly once again. They both sat quietly.

‘You make a very good father,’ Marie whispered as Bing returned beside her.

‘And you make a very good wife.’

Suddenly there were screams again. They all looked up into the sky. Little specks of white were falling down and bouncing on the roofs.

‘Bing, it’s snowing!’

‘You’re right, it is.’

‘Do you think it will settle? I hope so. The boys haven’t seen it before. Just look at them.’

John and Herbert were gazing up, suddenly silent as little flakes settled on their faces.

Bing slid his arm around Marie’s waist as they stopped in the silent street. It was Christmas Day, Marie thought, and her life was full of happiness.

Before she could speak Bing kissed her with warm and passionate lips. In that moment she knew that, whatever the future held in store, the Brown family of Manchester Road, East London, would
make their very own mark on the world. The fire that had claimed Wippet’s life had meant they could all start afresh and each had been given a second chance. Her mum and dad had their
grandsons to cherish, and perhaps a new son-in-law next year. Vesta had turned her love of clothes into a new skill, and with it, found a man to love her. Marie herself and Bing had been blessed
with a family and, despite their sons being rascals, they worshipped them.

Bing held her close, but the twins soon ended their moment. Crying out at the snow, they bounced up and down in the pram.

‘Talk about getting your money’s worth!’ Bing laughed. ‘I mean, if we can do that, we can do anything!’ He cupped her chin in his fingers. ‘What counts is,
that we’ve got each other. To quote the old songs, it’s love that makes this world go round. And we’ve got buckets full of the stuff.’

She was tempted to tell him that in six months’ time those buckets could be overflowing. She had marked the days off the calendar carefully. It would be in June of next year that the new
addition to their family would arrive.

But as Bing began to reorder his sons again, she smiled. She would save that special news till later. When they were at home this evening, locked in one another’s arms, with the long night
stretching before them.