East End Jubilee (7 page)

‘They ain’t got no other kids, then?’

Rose shook her head. She was always a bit touchy where the subject of her sister’s marriage was concerned. There was something she didn’t quite understand about their relationship
herself. Fourteen years separated Em and Arthur; it was a big age gap.

‘Anyway,’ Anita continued, searching her bag for her cigarettes and not finding any. Rose knew she had given up smoking but still went through the motions. ‘What will you do
tomorrow?’

‘I’m hoping that Eddie will walk in the door and we can sort all this out.’

Anita passed no comment. ‘Have you told the girls?’

‘No. Only that he’ll be home.’

‘Well, that’s being positive.’

‘What else should I be? Eddie’s innocent.’

Anita heaved herself up, drinking her tea as she stood. ‘I gotta go, girl. Benny’s back tonight.’

‘Thanks for looking in.’

After her friend had gone Rose sat down in the front room. The two girls were over at Sally’s house until six. It was only five. How would she fill the hours till tomorrow? The minutes
were weighing heavily. She didn’t know anything about legal procedures; would Eddie want her there tomorrow? But what could she do? Besides, it was impossible to attend court with two little
girls.

Rose found herself gazing at the big walnut radiogram sitting squarely against the wall. How her father had loved that old relic. But the veneer still looked quality even though it was the devil
itself to shift and too cumbersome to move unless she leaned her back against it and wriggled it across the floor. She smiled. She remembered when Eddie had once prised up the loose floorboards
beneath to hide a few trinkets. His hidy hole he called it . . .

On sudden impulse, Rose stood up and went over. She leaned her back against the cabinet and pushed. Perhaps a little housework would distract her mind. But finally, after a lot of pushing and
shoving, she gazed down at perfectly clean floorboards. A moment later she lifted one of the boards. In the recess below there was a shoebox.

Carefully, she slid back the lid. Rose gasped aloud, unable to believe her eyes. A bundle of notes was tied up with string. Swimming at the bottom of the box was a sea of loose change: pennies,
halfpennies, shillings, threepenny bits, farthings, shiny half crowns. With trembling fingers she untied the string. Even more carefully, she separated the notes.

Over five hundred pounds in total.

Rose woke with a start next morning.

Was the shoebox a dream? Slowly the events of yesterday filtered back and she knew the money was real. Five hundred pounds – surely sufficient for Eddie’s bail! What was happening to
him at this moment? Was he in court? And should she be in attendance? But there was Marlene and Donnie to consider.

She dressed quickly and went to look at the radiogram. It was still standing over the loose floorboards, of course. When had Eddie hidden the money? she wondered curiously. Rose turned the knob
as though she might receive an answer from the machine itself. But the announcer’s voice was miserable. America was testing a nuclear bomb five hundred times more powerful than the one that
had destroyed Hiroshima. She switched the gram off again quickly.

Rose turned her thoughts to breakfast. As the girls were off school this week, she had bought extra eggs as a treat. How many eggs would five hundred pounds buy? she wondered ridiculously. The
rent was a hundred and twenty pounds for a whole year, gas and coal was less than fifteen; her thoughts were revolving so fast she didn’t hear Marlene behind her.

‘Mummy, when’s Daddy coming home?’

‘I told you, soon. Now are you ready for breakfast?’

‘I don’t want any.’

‘Look, I’ve made soldiers.’

‘Don’t want them.’ Her daughter ran up the stairs. Rose called again and both girls came down looking subdued. When the gloomy breakfast was over, they went out to play. Rose
accepted there was no way she could have gone to the hearing this morning.

She watched the girls through the window. She never worried where they were. If they went to someone’s house or backyard, they always told her first. Sometimes they dressed up and did
little shows. Rose loved that. Marlene was a natural actress and always took the lead. Donnie, as usual, operated from the wings.

Rose sighed softly and went in the yard. Beside the wash-house there was a patch of worn grass that never needed mowing. It saw too much activity to grow. A deep hole was beside it where the air
raid shelter had been. The corrugated iron roof was now the fence that divided them from the Mendozas. On the opposite side the house was boarded up, virtually derelict.

Rose looked across the corrugated iron fence hoping to see Anita. All was quiet. The Mendozas were out.

There and then Rose made up her mind. If Eddie wasn’t home by this afternoon she would go to a public call box. She didn’t want to bother Joan again. There was a box up Poplar by a
small park. Whilst she used it the girls could play on the swings.

‘Why aren’t you eating dinner?’ Donnie asked as they sat at the kitchen table at one o’clock.

‘I ate while I was cooking.’ Rose trailed the thick gravy over the stew on their plates. She was too disappointed to eat. Eddie hadn’t shown up.

‘What are we doing this afternoon?’

‘We’re walking to Poplar.’

‘I don’t like long walks.’ Marlene pushed her spoon away.

‘Walking is good for you. It’ll be nice to see somewhere different.’

‘What are we going to do in Poplar?’

‘I’m telephoning about Daddy.’

Both girls looked up. ‘Can’t we use Mrs Wright’s telephone?’ Donnie asked.

‘Once was enough to ask a favour.’ Rose looked sternly at their plates. ‘Now, finish your dinners before they go cold.’

They ate in silence, which Rose knew was a bad sign. Dinner times were always noisy and fun. After she’d washed up and the girls had scrubbed their hands in the big white sink in the
kitchen, Rose went upstairs and changed. She put on a cotton dress and cardigan and brushed her long brown hair, then pinned it into a roll behind her head. By two o’clock they were ready.
Rose couldn’t wait to get there.

They passed The Lock and Key at the top of a short uphill road and, as the children skipped ahead, eager to play in the park, Rose wondered if Eddie was the topic of
conversation in the public bar. A frequent user of the pub, he was known to most of the regulars. The market traders congregated there, as did the scrap metal dealers who were enjoying, as Eddie
put it, ‘the life of Riley’. After the war scrap had become a lucrative business as the metal was melted down and sold for good money to the building trade. Rose loved the sight of the
brightly painted pub. During the war so many pubs, churches and schools had been blown apart or damaged and many of the grimy, smoke-covered houses they passed were uninhabited.

Rose recalled the war years with mixed emotions. The sudden death of her parents had been devastating, but Rose had found herself a job and put to use the typing and bookkeeping she’d done
at school. Although she hadn’t been a very fast typist at first, by the time she left Horton’s she was.

Rose watched Marlene and Donnie as they skipped under the plane trees. Once they had been plentiful on the streets, now they looked grey and sparse even though it was summer. Perhaps they
remembered the war too when the bombs had fallen and left craters where a profusion of lovely tall trees had once grown.

Further on they came to more terraced houses. These backed on to the docks where the cranes, boats and bridges were all in working order again. The island was experiencing a new lease of life.
It was wonderful to see the barges and ships move effortlessly down river. She never tired of watching the sun rise or set at night, knowing that just over the rooftops the Thames was changing into
a wild ribbon of orange.

Rose loved every square inch of the island. It was a survivor, just as she was. Even the smell of the dustbins that stood by the doors as the kids played round them was familiar. All the
children looked happy. Rose knew that most of them had been given, officially or not, the rest of the week off.

‘Where’s this park?’ Marlene was dragging her heels. ‘Me feet are tired.’

Rose ruffled her red hair. ‘They weren’t tired just now when you chased that cat.’

‘I only wanted to stroke it.’

‘More like pull its tail,’ Donnie grinned. ‘Just like you do with Sooty across the road.’

‘I never!’ Marlene was bright red.

‘You do. You make it hiss.’

‘It’s always hissing.’

‘Yes, because you always pull its tail.’

Rose pointed across the road. ‘Look, there’s the park.’ She looked for the bright red telephone box. It was on the other side of the road.

‘Can we play on the swings?’

‘Yes, but stay together.’

‘Are you going to speak to Daddy?’

‘I hope so.’

Once they were occupied, Rose made her way to the telephone box. She pulled open the heavy cast iron door. Inside it smelt of cigarettes and beer. Placing her pennies on the shelf, she lifted
the heavy Bakelite handset, reading aloud the numbers she’d written on a piece of paper when she’d used Joan’s telephone.

‘I’m Rose Weaver,’ she said when she heard the deep voice of the policeman. ‘My husband, Eddie Weaver, was due to appear at central London magistrates’ court today
at nine o’clock. I’d like to know what happened.’

After a long silence, the man said, ‘Hold on.’

Just as before, there was a series of clicks. Rose wondered when her money would run out. She wished she’d brought some more of the coins from the bottom of the shoebox. She had only ever
used a public telephone to call Em before and that was not very often. Dialling and pushing the money in was a frantic business.

The voice returned. ‘Edward John Weaver was remanded in custody this morning. Bail was refused.’

Her mouth fell open. ‘But why? I was told he would get bail!’ Rose couldn’t believe it.

‘The police opposed bail. All I can tell you is he was remanded in custody until a later date.’

‘But . . . but when can I see him?’ she managed to ask as she sagged against the glass panes.

‘That’s not up to me.’

‘Who is it up to, then?’

‘The prison will send you a visiting order.’

Rose gasped. ‘What prison?’

‘You’ll be notified in due course.’

She couldn’t take it all in. Eddie was in prison. They weren’t going to let him come home. Suddenly the pips went and the line went dead again.

‘Did you speak to Daddy?’ Donnie was breathless as she ran over from the swings.

‘No, to someone else.’

‘A policeman?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is Daddy coming home?’ Marlene joined them.

‘I don’t know when exactly.’ Both girls stared at her, waiting for more. Rose couldn’t tell them their daddy was in prison. ‘He sends you his love.’

‘How do you know that? Did the policeman say?’

Rose nodded. ‘Do you want to play on the swings a bit longer?’

‘I need a push.’ Marlene wiped her dirty fingers across her face.

Rose didn’t want the girls to know how worried she was. Luckily they forgot to question her as they enjoyed their rides on the swings and played with some other little girls.

When they were occupied she sat down on the park bench. Eddie was in prison. What prison? And when would they send her a visiting order? She had never been inside a prison before. She recalled a
family, the Dobsons, who had lived at the end of the street but had now moved away. The father and three sons were in constant trouble. She had pitied Elaine Dobson who had tried to live a decent
life despite the frequent incarceration of her husband and sons.

Had she looked down on that woman, indeed on anyone who suffered in the same way? she asked herself. Well, she herself was now in that same situation and like Elaine Dobson she had to face the
street. It was up to her to show everyone the Weavers were still a close family.

On Friday morning, Anita called round. ‘Sorry I couldn’t get in yesterday. Me father-in-law had one of his turns and we was out till late.’

Rose was washing up at the sink. She hadn’t stopped thinking about Eddie. She hadn’t slept and had no appetite. ‘Is your father-in-law all right?’ she asked vacantly.

‘As right as he’ll ever be. It’s his heart, you see. One of those thirsty ones. Needs a lot of filling up.’ Anita rolled her eyes. ‘Benny maintains it’s the
Argentine blood. More like the bottle, I say. Anyway, enough about us,’ she finally looked at Rose. ‘Well, where’s Eddie?’

Rose dried her hands on the towel. ‘Let’s go in the front room.’ The girls were playing in the street as usual and Rose sat on the couch, looking at them out of the window.
‘Eddie’s in prison.’

Anita gasped as she sat beside her. ‘What!’

‘He was remanded in custody. The police wouldn’t agree to bail.’

Anita looked confused ‘But he ain’t murdered anyone. What right have they to keep him in?’

‘I’d like the answer to that meself.’

Anita snorted. ‘How bloody ridiculous! You know what I think? Them coppers wanted a result when they searched your house. They must have thought that something was hidden here to have gone
to all the trouble. I don’t like to think it, but maybe someone’s trying to fit Eddie up.’

Rose’s chin wobbled. ‘You think someone would do that?’

‘It’s not out of the question, is it? A business rival, or some mean sod spilling beans to the coppers and putting the finger on Eddie – well, it would account for a lot of
what happened, wouldn’t it?’

‘Yes, but it seems so far-fetched.’

‘So does what’s happened over the last few days and I ain’t talking about the Coronation.’

Rose let out a long and shaky sigh. ‘Who would hate Eddie that much?’

Anita patted her arm. ‘Now, I’m only throwing around a few ideas here,’ she said as she saw Rose’s worried expression. ‘When can you see him?’

‘I have to wait till I hear from the prison.’

‘How long will that be?’

‘I don’t know. And I couldn’t just go knocking on a prison door, I suppose, even if I knew which one it is.’ Rose stared at the radiogram. Should she confide in Anita
about the shoebox? It was weighing heavily on her mind.