Dream On (19 page)

‘I don't think I'll ever be able to fit in nothing nice again neither.'

‘You'll feel better once you've had a nice cup o' tea. I'll just sort this out first.'

‘Shall I go down and make it, Pearl?' Ginny asked.

‘If you don't mind, darling. Then I can get this finished up here.' Pearl wiped her hands down her apron and reached out for the baby. ‘Let me take this little angel off you and I'll get her settled down next to Dilys.'

Just as Ginny was about to open the bedroom door, she pulled back in alarm at the sound of someone crashing up the stairs and coming to a skidding halt outside on the landing mat.

‘Pearl?' It was George on the other side of the door; he sounded frantic. ‘I found the doctor for you. But he's gonna be at least another hour. What shall I do?'

‘Why don't you come in for a start?' Pearl answered him.

‘You sure?' he asked warily.

‘Course I am, love. All the worst is over now.'

Dilys was about to say speak for yourself, but the look on her dad's face as he stepped gingerly into the room and had his first glimpse of his grandchild was enough to silence even her mean mouth.

George, a great lumbering docker who had spent all his working life heaving weights up to shoulder height that most men would barely have been able to lift, tiptoed over to his wife and grandchild with the lightness of a gossamer-shod ballerina.

Tears streamed down his weather-beaten cheeks as he looked down at the tiny infant in his wife's arms.

‘Here's your granddaughter, George. Here's Susan Elizabeth.'

The expression of love, pride and wonder on her mum's and dad's faces – never mind the sheep's eyes on Ginny – cheered up Dilys considerably. It wasn't her own maternal love and pride that was being uplifted, it was the fact that she now knew she had no worries whatsoever about being thrown out and no problems at all with having someone to mind the baby.

With a bit of luck she'd be back to normal and out on the town again with Ted before anyone even realised it, or, from the soppy look on their faces, before they even cared.

Dilys had great hopes for Susan Elizabeth: she was going to be a very useful claim on Ted Martin and a very convenient distraction.

IT HAD BEEN
a glorious summer's day and Dilys had been sitting on a kitchen chair outside number 11 all afternoon, waiting for Pearl to come back from the Roman Road. It was now getting on for six o'clock and her mum was still not back from the market. She'd told Dilys that she was only going for a few veg and a bit of fruit and maybe to pick up something pretty for the little one, and yet she'd been gone for hours – since just before dinner-time, now she came to think about it.

Dilys was not very happy, in fact she was becoming really agitated. If her mum didn't get back soon, she wouldn't be able to get away; Ted would be left waiting for her by Mile End station, then he'd think she wasn't coming and clear off without her. Her whole evening would be ruined.

Dilys folded her arms and tutted indignantly to herself. It just wasn't good enough. Where the hell was she? It wouldn't have been so bad if her dad had been around to give her a hand with Susan, but he was off with his mates as usual. That's all he seemed to be interested in now he'd retired: hanging around talking to the other old boys about flipping football, and pigeons, and greyhounds. Everyone was so flaming selfish; it really got on Dilys's nerves.

Susan, who was now twenty months old, had also grown impatient with waiting. She liked to toddle around on the floor and play, but Dilys, not wanting to be bothered with keeping an eye on her, had had different ideas and had strapped her firmly into the big carriage-built pram that Sid and Micky had bought for her when she'd been born. With nothing more to amuse her than a crust of bread and the fringing round the hood, Susan had dropped off to sleep.

Before finally giving up and closing her eyes, she had made a feeble attempt at whining for attention, but, young as she was, Susan had already learned that it wasn't easy to get a reaction from her mummy. Her nanny and Auntie Ginny were a very different matter, they were always ready to pick her up, to talk to her and play with her, but they weren't here. So sleep had been her refuge.

It might have been better if Dilys had also had a nap, maybe then she wouldn't have been in such a foul temper. As it was, she was fuming. She was so angry that she was actually about to get off her backside and do something for herself for once. She was going to go indoors and fetch her coat, and start walking round to the Roman Road to see if she could find Pearl. But she hadn't even stood up, when her salvation appeared on the corner of the street – Ginny Martin, striding along on her way home from work, a bag of shopping swinging from each hand.

Dilys leapt to her feet and waved frantically; she would have shouted but she didn't want to wake Susan. Not that Dilys was worried about her daughter's rest being disturbed, it was just easier when she wasn't wanting attention all the time. That could wait until someone else was looking after her.

Within a matter of minutes Dilys was indoors washing and primping herself, and Ginny, delighted that her friend was going out for a few hours with her new mystery boyfriend again – the GI was still sending money over from America apparently, but that didn't stop Dilys from needing company – was only too pleased to keep an eye on Susan for her.

Ginny had popped over home first to let her mother-in-law know she was back from work and to give her the ham she had had freshly sliced off the bone for her tea. Nellie hadn't been very impressed by the idea that she was expected to boil herself a few potatoes and wash her own lettuce, and had gone on and on about her daughter-in-law's terrible behaviour. Ginny, as she usually did now, just ignored her and got on with putting away the rest of the shopping.

Being bold enough to deal firmly with Nellie wasn't the only thing about Ginny that had changed; since Susan had been born, her life had been turned around. She now felt content, complete almost, in a way she would never have imagined possible. Susan was, after all, the child of a friend, not even related to her, but the fact that Dilys was Susan's mother didn't seem to matter somehow. Ginny and Pearl spent far more time with the child than Dilys ever did and it seemed to suit them all.

Ginny smiled to herself at the thought of the happy hours and some of the unforgettable moments that she had spent with Pearl and Susan: the day the little one's first tooth had finally come through after miserable days of fretting; the first excited steps she had taken when she had tottered across the kitchen to be scooped up in her proud grandmother's outstretched arms; the wonderful feeling Ginny experienced as Susan relaxed into sleep in her arms, as she and Pearl shared a pot of tea and an afternoon's easygoing chatter about whatever came into their heads.

It was as though Ginny, who had had so much taken away from her, was being given a second chance to be part of a proper family once more. Sid and Micky often teased her, as they rushed in after work to get ready to go out with their latest girlfriends, that she spent more time in number 11 than they did and they were probably right.

Ginny almost couldn't have been happier. She no longer hungered for the crumbs of affection that Ted might let fall from his table to nourish her. She had no need of such condescension. Even the fact that he had been missing again was almost of no consequence. Maybe he was still up to his old tricks. But so what? She now had Susan to fill her time and her thoughts; a little girl she loved and who Ginny knew loved her in return.

While Dilys was indoors getting ready, Ginny sat outside the house in the fading evening light, with Susan no longer in her pram but settled comfortably on her lap, watching the children from Bailey Street and their mates from the surrounding neighbourhood playing at being in the Olympics. With all the wireless and newspaper coverage about the run-up to the great event that was to happen in August when the games were coming to London, ‘playing Olympics' was all that most of the kids in the East End had been interested in for weeks.

Ginny smiled and nodded at the enthusiastic sprinters, jumpers and relay racers as they tore up and down the road. They were without the skills or the equipment of their adult idols, it had to be said, as most were dressed in ill-fitting home knits and patched and darned hand-me-downs, but they had as much passion as any internationally renowned athlete. Ginny would usually have cheered them on, willing them on towards the winning tape – a rough chalk line sketched between the pub and the bomb-site – but this evening she restricted her support to silent nods and encouraging smiles, as Susan was still fast asleep.

But the little girl's peaceful slumbers were rudely shattered as a great holler of incensed protest went up from the far end of the turning.

The older boys, using all kinds of ingenious items ‘borrowed' from backyards and kitchens, had just added the triumphant finishing touches to a makeshift hurdle track, when Sid had come charging round the corner from Grove Road as if he were being chased by Old Nick himself, scattering supports, and cross bars flying in all directions.

‘Oi you! You've spoilt our game, you rotten bleeder!' was one of the more polite hollers from the chorus that echoed after Sid as he skidded through the wreckage of their course.

Susan opened her eyes with a start and let out a whimper of fright at all the noise.

Sid seemed not to hear or even notice the protesters as he continued his wild flight along the street, crashing towards Ginny and Susan like an out-of-control steam engine.

Ginny stood up, hugging Susan to her shoulder, ready to give Sid a piece of her mind, but he didn't even slow down; he just ran straight past her and into the house, nearly knocking her off her feet, and Susan with her.

Clinging to the banister rail, trying to get his breath back, Sid shouted up the stairs, ‘Dilys. I know you're up there. Where's Dad? I've gotta find Dad.'

‘Shut your mouth, you,' Dilys yelled back at him from upstairs. ‘You'll wake the bloody baby.'

Ginny was now right behind Sid. She stood on tiptoe and shouted in his ear. ‘She's already awake, Dil. No thanks to this big lump. Half frightened her out of her little wits, he has.'

Sid turned around, still panting, and reached out to ruffle his little niece's shiny dark hair. ‘Sorry, sweetheart,' he breathed. ‘Uncle Sid didn't mean to scare you.'

Ginny frowned disapprovingly and held Susan closer. ‘I dunno what's got into you, Sid. First you go upsetting all them kids out there, and now—'

‘Look, Gin, do us a favour, just tell me where me dad is.'

‘No good asking me,' she said primly. ‘He wasn't about when I got in from work and that must have been a good half-hour ago.'

Sid bowed his head. ‘I've gotta find him, Gin. I dunno what to do.'

Ginny set Susan down on the floor. ‘Go and see if your dolly's in the kitchen, babe,' she said gently, guiding the serious-faced toddler in the right direction, then she straightened up and turned back to Sid. ‘Are you in trouble, Sid Chivers?'

He didn't reply, he just kept staring down at the floor.

‘Dilys,' Ginny called up to her. ‘Come down here. Just for a minute.'

‘Leave off, Ginny. Can't you see I'm getting ready?' Dilys appeared on the landing at the top of the stairs, waving her mascara brush in the air by way of proof. She was just about to step back into her room, when Sid called after her to stop.

‘You'd better come down, Dil,' he said flatly. ‘It's Mum, she's been knocked down by a trolleybus in Grove Road.'

Dilys was down the stairs in a flash. ‘Where is she?'

‘They took her away in an ambulance.'

‘They what?' Dilys rolled her eyes in enraged disbelief. ‘If she's in the hospital, then who's gonna sit with the baby?'

She shoved her brother to one side so that she could see Ginny. ‘You ain't gotta go home just yet, have you, Gin?' she wheedled.

Before Ginny could answer, Sid grabbed Dilys by the shoulders. ‘You'd better sit down, Dil,' he said, pushing her on to the stairs. ‘Mum ain't in the hospital. She's in the mortuary.'

Ginny shook her head in disbelief and pulled Sid round so that he was facing her. ‘No. You're wrong. She can't be. It must be someone else. It must . . .' Ginny suddenly felt unbearably cold; the blood drained from her face and, as if she were a rubber balloon being deflated, she crumpled slowly to the floor.

‘He wants to watch himself,' snapped a miserable-looking old woman, as George Chivers accidently brushed her arm as he edged past her on the way back from the bar. ‘He might have just buried his wife, but that ain't no excuse to go knocking people's drinks out of their hands.'

‘You're right there, Florrie,' agreed Nellie, who was standing with her. ‘Ignorant as shit, some people.'

If George heard the women's complaints he certainly didn't show it. He kept his eyes lowered and his head down as he made his way back to the table in the corner of the Prince Albert, the base from which he had plied backwards and forwards to and from the bar, gradually getting more and more drunk, but still feeling stone-cold sober.

He had no need to fetch his own drinks, there were more than enough of the mourners – some genuine, some, like Nellie's elderly companion Florrie Robins, only there for the free food and drink – who would have been more than willing to fetch them for him, but George hadn't listened or said a word to anyone since the funeral cars had come to the house that morning.

He plonked down onto the bench seat and knocked back the scotch he had in one hand, then downed half of the pint of bitter he had in the other in a single swallow.

‘George.' Ginny, her eyes puffy and red-rimmed from weeping, touched his arm gently. ‘Can I get you a sandwich or something? You should eat just a little bit, you know.'