Lizzie of Langley Street (27 page)

‘Lil knew I was coming over.’

‘I ain’t looked outside,’ said Bert. ‘P’raps Doug’s having a jimmy riddle. Maybe Pa’s in the yard too.’ He turned and walked down the hallway and
out through the kitchen.

Lizzie heard the back door open and, a few moments later, close. Bert walked back into the room and shook his head. ‘Not a soul.’

In the quiet hallway the summer breeze floated gently around them from the open door. Lizzie shivered. Lil had been expecting her. Only something important would have caused her to be absent.
And where was Pa? He couldn’t go far in his wheelchair.

‘Look who’s coming over.’ Bert nodded across the street. ‘She must have seen the cart.’

Vi Catcher was running across the road. Her great bosoms bounced up and down under her pinny. A mountain of fat propelled itself over the threshold, shaking and shuddering. ‘Oh my God,
gel, oh dear, oh dear! I bin in such a state,’ wheezed Vi, red in the face. ‘I should never have thought I would live to see this happen. First them tarts driving out your poor Pa and
Bert and then making themselves at home like they have! That house was sacred to your mother. Like a brothel it’s been! Yes, that’s the word for it – I can’t say less
– like a brothel’ – she took a breath, her head nodding and twitching – ‘and with all this – I never thought I’d hear the like. Never!’

They watched as she stumbled breathlessly into the front room. Her eyes went from side to side as she took out a handkerchief and gave her big nose a blow.

‘What’s happened, Vi? Where is everyone?’

‘Oh, love, I don’t know how to tell you.’ Vi collapsed on a chair. ‘Lil. . . told me to say . . . she said “Tell Lizzie we don’t know nothing for sure. Tell
her we’re down at Barrel Wharf, tell her that’s where the chair was found.”’

Lizzie’s stomach churned. ‘Chair? What chair?’

‘Your father’s, love. It was early this morning. He never slept on the mattress, never bedded down in the sheets, from what Lil could tell. He’d got out somehow – just
gone – gone! And then someone came knocking at the door and said they’d found a chair down by Barrel Wharf. But there weren’t no one in it, gel. No one.’

Vi took in a breath that whistled down the tunnel of her throat. She looked up at them. ‘They think he’s gone off the side, love. They think he went down in the water.’

Each day for five days a Port of London police boat was tied alongside the jetty of Barrel Wharf. A small crew prepared a diver for his search on the river bed.

For each of those days Lizzie watched and waited. The diver sank below the water in his rubber suit and weighted boots, his large brass helmet disappearing into the blackness. A stream of
bubbles gurgled upwards as the air line trailed in his wake. The search was slow. The diver’s task was hindered by the rotting timber that fouled the thin tubing of the air line, his only
means of survival.

On the last day, Saturday, the market traders joined her. By now, the police said, a body would have washed away with the current. Unless it was snagged deep down on the river bed.

Lizzie stared into its depths. She had loved the river all her life. The sun was setting, the surface spangled gently in its light. Here, on the mossy steps, many summers ago, she had sat with
Babs and Flo, their toes dangling in the water.

She couldn’t believe Pa was down there. She couldn’t accept it, that he’d thrown himself in. No one knew what to say to her. What other answer was there than that Tom Allen had
ended his life?

The diver was hauled up for the last time. When the helmet came off he shook his head. A policeman came over to Lizzie. ‘I’m sorry,’ he told her. ‘We’ve found
nothing.’

‘Ain’t you gonna search tomorrow?’ Lizzie begged.

‘We’ll search by boat along the river.’ He spoke quietly, as though it was all over. ‘Go home now. We’ll send a constable to your house if we find
anything.’

Darkness began to fall. The river turned into a lake of ink. Lizzie shivered. It was May, but the nights were still cold. The coming of spring deepened her grief. Spring was when life blossomed,
not died.

‘Looking back,’ said Dickie, trying to be of comfort as he stood beside her, ‘we didn’t realize what a bad way he was in.’

‘If only he’d come to live at Ebondale Street.’

‘And leave his little patch?’

‘So I left him.’ The thought had been tormenting her night and day.

‘Don’t talk daft,’ Dickie told her sharply. ‘He could’ve moved in with you and Frank if he wanted. But he was a stubborn old sod. Langley Street was his
home.’

She leaned forward, gazing into the dark water. Nothing anyone could say would make her feel better.

‘Listen,’ Dickie told her sternly. ‘Your Pa pushed himself all the way down here. He let himself out the house in the dead of night. He knew Lil and Doug wouldn’t
discover him gone for hours. He planned it, gel, for whatever reason. This is what he wanted. His choice. And to tell you the truth, that’s the way I’d want it too, only I dunno if
I’d have the courage. Your father was a brave man. You’ll always have that to remember him by.’

The police launch chugged by in the darkness. Dickie put his arm round her shoulders. ‘I’ll walk you home.’

They turned away from the river. It felt as though all its coldness had seeped into her bones. What must it be like down there, under the surface? What if the police never found a body? If Pa
was alive somewhere, why had he abandoned his chair? He couldn’t go far without it. How long would it be before she would know what had happened to him?

At Lil’s house, Dickie said goodbye and hurried away, a small, bent figure in a tatty old mac. Even Dickie, her father’s oldest friend, couldn’t believe that Tom was still
alive.

Lil, Doug and Bert were waiting in the front room.

Lizzie shook her head. ‘No news.’

‘Take off yer coat, gel. Sit down and warm yerself up.’

‘I won’t stay long. Flo’s at home.’

‘How’s she taken it?’

Lizzie shrugged. ‘I don’t think it’s dawned on her yet.’

‘I’ll make a quick cuppa.’ Lil patted her arm and hurried out to the kitchen.

‘What did the police say?’ Doug asked as she sat down on a chair, warming herself in front of the fire.

‘The boat is still searching, but the diver’s stopped.’ Tears filled her eyes and ran down her cheeks.

Doug pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and gave it to her. She mopped her eyes and blew her nose. In silence Bert stood up and put his big arm round her.

‘I know he wasn’t happy, Bert,’ she sobbed. ‘But to do this!’

‘Yeah,’ mumbled Bert. ‘I know.’

‘He wasn’t the old Tom Allen,’ Doug reminded them gently.

‘If I hadn’t have moved to Ebondale Street, he might be alive today.’

‘You can put that idea out of yer mind,’ Lil interrupted as she came back from the kitchen with a tray of tea. ‘Your father wasn’t himself long before you left that
house. I know what yer going through. Doug and me both felt responsible when that kid came knocking to tell us they found his chair down the wharf. All sorts of things go through yer mind. But in
the end it boils down to one thing, and that is it was yer dad’s choice to do what he did.’

Lizzie knew what Lil was saying was true. She hadn’t thought much about how Lil and Doug felt. What it must have been like for them on that awful morning. Her only thought had been to turf
out those women next door; she hadn’t dreamed something much worse was about to happen. After Vi’s appearance she had been in a kind of stupor. Then she’d seen Lil and Doug in the
middle of a crowd with white, anguished faces. The disbelief she had felt when she’d looked at the empty chair – it all seemed like a bad dream that she couldn’t wake up from.

‘Drink yer tea, gel.’ Lil sighed. ‘No one’s to blame. It’s just one of them terrible things that happen in life.’

They drank in silence. Even Lil had run out of conversation. Lizzie noticed that Doug didn’t bother to light his pipe, just held it limply in his hand. They were all still in shock.

There was a knock, and with a sigh Lil got up to answer it. A few minutes later she was back. Dr Tapper removed his black hat as he walked into the room.

‘What’s wrong?’ Lizzie sprang to her feet. She thought the police might have found her father.

‘There’s nothing to be alarmed about.’

Bert and Doug looked up anxiously. The doctor went over to the hard wooden dining chair by the window. ‘Is there any news from the wharf today?’ he asked as he sat down rather
breathlessly.

‘No. None.’

‘Are they continuing the search?’

‘Only with the boat, down river,’ Lizzie explained.

‘I see.’ When they were all seated, he spoke again. ‘As there is no news, I think I must share some information – confidential information – with you. Your father,
Lizzie, was insistent I reveal this to no one. But now that the likelihood is. . .’ He held up his hands in a gesture of resignation, ‘I think what I have to say might help ease your
minds.’

Everyone stared at the old man. Lizzie’s heart began to pound heavily.

‘Do you want me and Doug to go, if it’s personal?’ Lil asked.

Lizzie shook her head. ‘No, Lil, course not.’

‘Very well.’ Dr Tapper drew himself up and looked straight at Bert. ‘You recall, Bert, some months ago, you came to the surgery on your father’s behalf?’

‘Yeah,’ Bert said in an unusually quiet voice.

‘You didn’t tell me.’ Lizzie frowned at her brother. She wondered how many other things Bert had hidden from her.

‘Pa said not to bother,’ he stammered, going red. ‘It were only for his rheumatism pills.’

‘He may have told you they were for rheumatism,’ said Dr Tapper slowly, ‘but the medication I prescribed him was for the alleviation of pain.’

Once more everyone was silent, until Lizzie burst out, ‘Pa was in pain?’

‘I’m afraid the gangrene had . . . accelerated.’

‘Oh, Gawd,’ gasped Lil, her hand going up to her mouth.

‘You mean . . . you mean . . .’ Lizzie began, her words tumbling out, ‘it was his stumps . . . they were . . .’

‘Lizzie, your father requested that I keep his condition – and treatment – secret. As his physician, I had to comply.’

‘You mean . . .’ Lizzie tried again, forcing herself to ask, ‘he was . . . he was . . . dying?’ Lizzie swallowed as a big tear rolled down her cheek and fell on to her
hand.

Again the doctor paused, then nodded slowly. ‘Laudanum appeared to provide the only relief.’

Lizzie put her hands over her face. As she sat there, sobbing, Lil put her arm round her. ‘I didn’t have no idea it was that bad,’ Lil said in a shocked voice.

‘Poor old Tom.’ Doug had tears in his eyes.

Lil pressed a clean handkerchief into Lizzie’s hands.

‘I’m sorry if I have upset you, my dear.’ Dr Tapper lifted his drooping shoulders. ‘But doubtless you have questions as to why your father might have taken his own
life.’

‘And you think he might have gone down the river that morning to . . . to . . . ?’ Lil didn’t finish.

‘It’s quite likely, quite likely.’

Lizzie could hardly bear it. Something was being ripped out of her. It felt like her soul, pulled out of her body by some dreadful force. She couldn’t get the terrible words from her mind.
Pa had been dying and in pain. And she hadn’t known. She hid her face, fighting against the misery inside her. Oh, Pa, she wailed in her head, if only you had told me. I would have stayed
with you.

‘Lizzie, there was nothing you could have done. Nothing anyone could have done,’ the doctor assured her.

‘Will the police want to know?’ Lil asked him in a shaky voice.

‘Yes, it may help with the investigation.’ Dr Tapper added softly, ‘There were many times when I thought it would have been kinder to everyone concerned to know the truth. But
the last thing he wanted was pity. You must remember that, Lizzie. It will help.’

Somewhere at the back of her mind she had always known Pa had locked himself away from the gaze of others to avoid their pitying glances. But, even so, it was like a knife plunged into her heart
that his life had ended in this way.

When Doctor Tapper had left, Lizzie went into Lil’s kitchen and blew her nose. Lil followed, sitting beside her at the table.

‘At least there’s a reason now, gel,’ Lil said in an empty voice.

‘It don’t seem to help much,’ Lizzie sniffed.

‘Your dad wouldn’t have wanted . . . well, if the stuff old Tap was giving him hadn’t helped . . . he would have done what he did whilst he was able to. Sorry to be blunt, but
it all adds up, don’t it?’

‘He could have told me, though.’

‘Yeah, and worried the life out of you.’

‘Do you think that’s what he thought?’

‘He loved you, gel. I know he had a bloody funny way of showing it, but he did.’

Lizzie didn’t want to talk about it anymore or the tears would never stop. She scrubbed the mugs in the sink, then the teapot. She could hardly see what she was doing for the tears welling
in her eyes.

Lil dried the china in silence, then suddenly said, ‘What you gonna do about next door?’

Lizzie shrugged. ‘I ain’t thought much about it lately.’

‘Does old Symons still come to the shop each week for the rent?

Lizzie nodded, placing the shining teapot upside down on the draining board. ‘It used to be regular as clockwork on a Friday. Funny thing is, I ain’t seem him since the end of March.
I got the rent waiting for him in me bag.’

‘That’s queer. He never missed a week with yer poor old mum. She never let him down, neither. The rent was always there in the cocoa tin, come rain or shine.’ Lil dropped the
towel to the draining board, her intake of breath loud. ‘Blimey, you know the answer, don’t you? He’s been paid already!’

Lizzie looked round at Lil. She didn’t understand. ‘What do you mean, Lil?’

‘Vinnie’s paid him, ain’t he?’

‘But I’ve got the rent book.’

‘But you’re not living there.’

‘Neither is Vinnie,’ Lizzie spluttered.

‘Yeah, but it’s only your word against his. With yer Pa gone and you up Ebondale Street . . .’ Lil’s face was white. ‘No wonder we seen a bit of Vinnie round here
lately. He’s staking his claim, ain’t he?’