Cockney Orphan (11 page)

‘Have you given any more thought as to what you’re going to do if no one comes forward?’ Vic asked after a while.

Connie felt a flutter of fear. Was he hinting, like Mum, that Lucky was too much for her? ‘I don’t like the thought of him being sent to an orphanage.’

‘A baby is a big tie for a young girl.’

‘I know.’

‘You’re very fond of him, aren’t you?’

‘Yes, I am.’ Panic filled her. Was he going to make her choose between them, she wondered? She looked into his eyes. ‘But I can’t expect you to feel the same.’

Her heart stood still. She knew if she lost Vic, she would be devastated. Could she give up Lucky if he asked her to?

He took her hands and held them, a small frown pleating the inch between his eyebrows. ‘At school, Connie, I was always bashing a ball around, showing off, trying to make you notice me.
Looking back I cringe to think of how I behaved. Well, now I’ve got a second chance and, believe me, I’m not going to throw it away. The way you’ve taken Lucky under your wing
only makes me respect you more. You’re a beautiful girl and I haven’t a clue what you see in me, but I hope to God you go on seeing it.’

Connie felt as if a bright, warm light had filled her. So this was what it was like to feel as though you were the luckiest, happiest person to walk the planet!

‘Oh, Vic, you’ve said some lovely things.’

‘I mean them.’

‘Do you think the authorities would make me give him up?’

He paused for a moment before he spoke. ‘Why should they? You’re providing him with a good home, something a lot of kids haven’t got in wartime.’

‘I’d like to register him properly, you see. There’s lots of things he’ll need, such as orange juice and cod liver oil, and something will have to be done about getting
an identity.’

‘Sounds like a visit to Poplar and the town hall. I’ll drive you up, if you like. And whilst we’re on the subject of kids, Pat has been on at me to ask you over. You can meet
Doris again and Laurie, Pat’s husband.’

Connie felt very flattered. ‘I’d like that.’

‘Good. Well now, it’s almost teatime.’

‘Are you on duty tonight?’

‘Yes and I’ll try to call by. Make sure Billy’s put in an appearance.’

Connie wasn’t certain if he used Billy as an excuse or if he took the opportunity whenever he could to see her. But she didn’t care why he called, only that he did.

‘Mum told me to ask you if you’d like some tea. She queued for some nice sausages yesterday.’

‘I don’t need asking twice.’ Vic grinned.

It was heaven just being by his side, with his arm around her, Connie thought as they strolled home. And now Lucky was sitting up in the pram he looked a real little boy. Under his bonnet there
was a soft and downy patch of fair hair poking through. She thought with pride how this ugly little duckling was turning into a beautiful swan. She felt so proud of him.

How lucky could a girl get?

Billy sat in Taffy Jones’s house in Poplar High Road, staring at a big shaggy dog that had just cocked its leg on the fender and ambled lazily off. The puddle it left was
quickly splashed by the foot of one of a dozen children filling Taffy’s front room.

Over the mantel, under which lay the neglected ashes of a fire, hung a large, crumpled poster. The illustration was of a young fighter, mildly representative of Taffy, with one front tooth
missing as he posed, smiling, at the photographer. The muscular arms and proud naked chest were definitely no longer evident on Taffy’s present-day physique. Billy cast his eyes to Taffy,
sprawled in an armchair, lost under a corpulent belly and sagging breasts. Round circles of sweat formed in his armpits and discoloured his shirt. The face, though, was definitely that of Taffy
– at least two decades ago.

‘See, son, I was the pride of the valleys,’ Taffy hastened to explain as he looked reverently up at the display. ‘Put all the bastards down in under four, never an exception.
Got meself a real reputation, boyo.’

Taffy, who normally spoke as cockney as the next East Ender, now lapsed into a strange concoction of accents. Billy tried to decipher it as endless streams of children ran wildly in and out of
the room. They were filthy, shoeless and noisy, tripping over the assortment of winged fowl that strutted across the bare lino. A large black fluffy cat appeared, swiped a paw at the birds, and
seated itself on Taffy’s knees.

‘I was just sixteen then, with the world at me feet,’ Taffy continued. ‘And if it hadn’t been for the leg, I’d have gone on to great things.’

‘What happened to your leg?’ Billy looked down at his employer’s stained brown trousers. Other than never having seen Taffy in any others, they seemed unremarkable.

‘I’ve an inch off the right one, so I have.’

‘You’d never notice.’

‘Birth defect,’ Taffy said in a conspiratorial whisper. ‘Gives you a disadvantage as you grow. And I was still growing then. Lovely lad I was too. Potential was there. But
swinging an inch off target, you begins to make mistakes. By the time I was twenty it was all over. See that there, the Cardiff Cup? The big one to the left? That was my best trophy. A beauty,
ain’t she?’

Billy nodded vigorously, although he couldn’t quite distinguish the model Taffy was referring to. There were at least a dozen battered and misshapen cups, surrounded by a plethora of
beribboned badges, war medals and a large three-legged horse tipped on its side, all arranged on the shelves of a glass case the panes of which were broken or splintered. Billy didn’t know if
its contents were silver or gold, or even precious, but like the children there were many.

‘Now, listen to me, son,’ said Taffy, dispatching the cat. ‘You’re young and you’ve got ambition and I reckon we can make something of you. But the thing is, you
can’t win all your fights by biting off your opponent’s ear.’

‘I never won the fight,’ Billy reminded him as he tried not to inhale the smell of cat pee on his chair. ‘I got thrashed.’

‘Yes, you did.’

‘I had to do something.’

‘If you play your cards right next time, you’ll keep out of the way, wear your opponent out, as most of them round here are all show. Three rounds in and they couldn’t walk up
a hill without a crutch.’

‘So there’s gonna be a next time?’ Billy asked eagerly.

Taffy wrinkled his brow. ‘You got to learn, lad. You got to use your noddle,
think.
Keep that trap of yours shut, not waste your breath on insults.’

‘I was angry.’

‘Make your anger work for you. Be crafty, sly like. Look out for your opportunity. Come under their punches and catch them off guard. Now come with me.’

Taffy led him through a dark corridor and out into daylight. The rear yard contained a shed. Taffy slid the bolt, beckoning Billy after him. ‘Now, this, laddo, is me sanctum of
sanctums,’ he announced as they stepped in.

Billy stared round in surprise. Hanging from the roof was a leather punch bag. Pictures of muscular young fighters, all with their fists raised, were pinned on the wooden walls.

‘Top left is Teddy Baldock, Bantamweight Champion of the World, 1927,’ Taffy explained. ‘Defeated Archie Bell, bottom right, at the Albert Hall.’

‘Was he from round here?’

‘Local lad from Poplar no less.’

‘Champion of the world . . .’ Billy breathed incredulously.

‘His fight went down in the history books,’ Taffy continued. ‘Took more than fifty buses to carry his supporters to Kensington Gore for the event. See that bag there?’
Taffy puffed out his chest. ‘It was strung up in the yard of the Dock House pub. There was just enough room for a boxing ring and a row of chairs either side. Wag Bennett, Ernie Jarvis, the
Softleys, Tom Cherry and young Baldock, they all gave it a right bashing in their time.’

Billy reached out to touch the hallowed leather. He looked up at the big photograph in front of him. ‘That’s Joe Louis! I seen his picture in the paper.’

‘Aye, the Brown Bomber,’ Taffy sighed. ‘Did you know his right cross is as lethal as his left hook? That one of his punches only has to travel six inches to rearrange an
opponent’s features?’

Billy was flabbergasted. ‘He ain’t from the island is he?’

‘Course he’s not. But I had the photograph signed, see – had it sent over from America special like.
To Taffy, mitts up!
What an honour! Do you know, he risked his
crown against Schmeling the Hun in ’38? Louis scored a KO in the first round. Schmeling didn’t even see it coming.’ He nudged Billy’s arm softly. ‘Now, if you can pull
one out of the bag like that, then we’ll all be happy.’

‘Yeah, but I got pulverized, didn’t I?’ Billy digressed on a wave of serious doubt.

‘That’s experience for you, son. They all started at the bottom of the ladder. Take Tammy Jarvis, another local boy. He was your weight and just as green. Then one day he upped and
went to America. Won his fight and came home with a Stetson on his bonce. Bought a greengrocer’s in Westferry with his earnings. Now, what do you think of that?’

Billy was awestruck. He was looking at seriously famous fighters, who had amounted to something in their lives. America! That’s where he wanted to go too. He’d make amends for what
he’d done in the past. One day he would amount to something.

Once more he looked up at the photograph of the Brown Bomber. Joe Louis had come up the hard way, just like him. Billy smiled to himself. Lady Luck was with him now.

He could feel it in his bones.

I
t was early in October when Connie noticed the stranger. She was walking briskly to work, her mind on what had happened the previous day –
her visit to the council offices with Vic – when the man stepped across the road, pausing to light a cigarette as he examined the remains of a ruined house.

She lost sight of him as she joined the small groups of women she met every morning, hurrying to the dock factories and warehouses. He caught her attention again the following day, reading a
newspaper as he stood on the corner of Kettle Street, the brim of his hat pulled over his eyes.

The next time she saw him was a week later, outside Dalton’s gates. Once inside the factory grounds she looked back, but he’d disappeared. As she entered the shipping department, Ada
came hurrying towards her. ‘The wharf outside our office had a hole blown in it,’ she explained hurriedly. ‘We’re being moved along to the next office. Mr Burns told me to
find as many boxes as I could to put our paperwork in. There’s some in the cupboards downstairs.’

‘I’ll hang up my coat,’ Connie said at once. ‘How bad is the damage?’

‘There’s glass and dust everywhere and a gale blowing in off the river. It’s bloody freezing. Mind, it’s October now, so I suppose it’s to be expected. Lucky for
us, the office next door hasn’t been used for months, not since the fruit boats stopped coming. You’d think those U-boats would have better things to do than sink a load of
flamin’ bananas.’

‘Well, I expect we’ll have to clear the mess up, won’t we?’

‘Len asked a couple of the young boys on the shop floor to help us.’ She gave Connie a little push. ‘I’ll come with you to the cloakroom.’

‘Ada, have you seen a bloke in a mac and trilby hanging around the gates lately?’ Connie asked her friend as they hurried down the staircase and into the small room provided for the
female office staff.

‘No, why?’

‘I’ve noticed this man, once on the corner of Kettle Street, another time in Westferry Road and now outside Dalton’s.’

‘There’s lots of strangers about,’ Ada conceded as she scrutinized her make-up in the small square of chipped mirror above the hand basin. ‘What with the demolition and
rescue squads and blokes tearing up railings for the war effort.’

‘Yes, but he wasn’t a workman.’

‘Might be a snoop! The papers say spies aren’t only in Whitehall, but could be anyone on the street.’ She turned quickly to Connie. ‘What with Mr Burns putting me on
weigh-ins, I haven’t had a chance to ask if you went to the council about Lucky.’

Connie nodded as she combed her hair, adjusting the grip on the side of her head that held back her tumble of curls. They were all over the place this morning as she hadn’t had a chance to
pin up her hair. She’d slept late after a noisy night and climbed out of the hammock in a daze. By the time she’d washed in the house and got Lucky ready for Nan’s, she
hadn’t even had time for breakfast. ‘I went to the Public Health Department for Maternity and Child Welfare who said normally a certificate from the doctor or midwife attending the
birth had to be sent in to get coupons, but of course we don’t know anything about his beginnings.’

‘Did Vic go with you?’

Connie nodded. ‘I wasn’t half glad he did too. We had to go to all these departments and then back to our doctor to ask for a letter to confirm that I was a suitable person to care
for a baby.’

‘Course you are, can’t they see that?’

‘Well, I could be anyone, couldn’t I? Dr Deakin asked me a lot of questions about how I would manage. I told him about Nan and Lofty taking care of Lucky in the day. He also hinted
that there shouldn’t be much opposition as the government are trying to accommodate over 400,000 city kids already. And there’s still thousands more in the pipeline to evacuate.
I’ll probably be classed as a war nanny.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Someone who cares for non-evacuee children.’ Connie replaced her comb in her bag and snapped it shut. ‘But when we went back to the council offices, this clerk put the wind up
me. He said I should think very carefully about taking on the responsibility of a baby. He said evacuation was the course of action to take.’

‘Bloody cheek!’ Ada cried. ‘What’s it got to do with him?’

‘Vic reminded him that only last month the
City of Benares
evacuation ship was torpedoed on its way to Canada. Only thirteen out of the ninety kids survived. He asked this chap to
put it in writing that Lucky would be guaranteed survival after being removed from my safe keeping.’

‘Good for him.’

‘Then we were sent to see a Mrs Burton, who turned out to be really nice. After we’d been through the story again, she said the government don’t like moving bereaved children
from the area too quickly as it’s caused a lot of mix-ups. Lucky’s dad might turn up or a relative even. As long as I can prove I’m assisting the war effort, there won’t be
any objections, for a while anyway.’