Women on the Home Front (85 page)

‘Amen to that,' the woman said and closed her eyes.

‘Matilda Keiver?'

Matilda heard her name faintly called and pivoted about in surprise. Having looked this way and that she suddenly noticed a woman's face and neck stretching to gaze over a sea of hats. Matilda bobbed her head to and fro to try and guess the identity of the woman now waving at her. She squinted and then her lips parted in an astonished smile. ‘Friend of mine's over there. Better go and say hello,' she told the well-to-do lady. ‘Toodle-oo …' Her companion's sable sleeve got a pat before she departed. A moment later she was edging her way through the throng.

‘Shirley Coleman!' Matilda exclaimed when she was standing next to the woman. ‘Not seen you since …' Her eyes veered heavenwards as she calculated the years. ‘Must've been 1941 when I last clapped eyes on you.'

‘September 1941 I moved out of Crouch End,' Shirley confirmed. ‘'Course the kids had gone a bit earlier to Surrey. Got evacuated there, didn't they.'

‘That's it, I
do
remember,' Matilda said. ‘How've you been keeping?'

‘So-so,' Shirley returned, mouth drooping down at the corners. ‘Sad business about the king, isn't it?'

Matilda nodded sadly. ‘Was only gonna come and stay for a little while, but now I'm here …' She glanced about. ‘Looks like nobody else wants to go home neither. S'pose it's the only way people like us can show how grateful we were fer what he did, and the queen 'n' all. Just saying to a lady over there …' Matilda jerked her head to the left. ‘Could've hid during the Battle of Britain, couldn't they, but braved it out like the rest of us.'

‘Yeah,' Shirley agreed. ‘Got to show appreciation and respect.' She suddenly looked around. ‘Grace is here somewhere. She came with one of her workmates but I think her friend's gone to catch the tube home.'

‘You lot back living in London then, Shirley?' Shirley and her family had never been neighbours of Tilly's in Whadcoat Street but she'd got to know the family quite well.

‘Grace and me are back. My son Paul is married and living Dorset way with his family. We've been back a year now. Wilf passed away, you wouldn't have known that.'

Matilda placed a woolly-gloved hand on her friend's shoulder. ‘Sorry to hear that, Shirley.'

‘Came back from Japan a very poorly soul, he did.' Shirley grimaced. ‘Died in 1949, and after he'd been laid to rest, Grace and me carried on in Surrey for a while but then decided to come back to London. She's a typist, you know. Got a good job in an office in the City.'

‘Sorry about Wilf,' Matilda repeated in a murmur. ‘So whereabouts in London are you living?'

‘Tottenham. Just off White Hart Lane. Close to where I grew up. Don't think you ever knew my mum, Ada Jackson, did you, Til? She's still about and not in bad health, all things considered.'

Matilda grinned. ‘Never met her, Shirley. But I know that area well. My Alice ain't far from there. She lives Wood Green way on the big council estate. Got a lovely little place, she has.'

‘Bet you've got grandkids too, haven't you, Til?'

‘Big family we are … grandkids, great-grandkids …' Tilly chuckled proudly. ‘How about you, Shirley? Your Grace married, is she?'

Matilda knew that Shirley's children were a lot younger than her own because Shirley was more the age of her daughter Alice. But despite the age gap, Tilly had become quite friendly with Shirley because her great-nephew, Christopher, had grown up with the Coleman children.

Christopher had spent a good deal of his childhood being looked after by Matilda while his father was at work so his great-aunt had been acquainted with his friends, and some of their parents.

‘Grace isn't married, but got grandkids all right. Paul's got three boys. But don't see a lot of them being as they're so far away. Grace …' She grimaced. ‘Grace was engaged, but he was a wrong'un.' She shook her head, her expression turning ferocious. ‘Did the dirty on her and went off with a widow who was nearly old enough to be his mother … oh, shhh … here she is. She doesn't like me talking about it,' Shirley whispered. She beckoned her daughter closer.

Matilda smiled at the pretty young woman who'd squashed a path through the crowd.

‘You remember Mrs Keiver, don't you, Grace?'

Grace frowned and bit her lip, not wanting to appear rude.

‘You know, young Christopher Wild's great-auntie … lived down Campbell Road … or Whadcoat Street as it turned into some years ago as I recall.'

A sweet smile parted Grace's lips. ‘Oh yes, of course I remember you …' She did remember too. Nobody who had visited Campbell Road, or The Bunk as it had been nicknamed thanks to its proliferation of doss houses, was ever likely to forget it. Neither would Grace ever forget the couple of times her friend Christopher had taken her on visit to his auntie, despite the fact it had been over a decade ago.

Her parents had constantly warned her to give Campbell Road, and the people who lived there, a wide berth. But when she'd found out from Christopher where his great-aunt lived she had, with the inquisitiveness of youth, begged him to take her there. She'd been astounded to discover one of Christopher's relatives lived in a dirty hovel. Christopher and his father had lived close to Grace's family and, while it certainly wasn't luxurious in Crouch End, their terraced homes were adequate in most respects. Grace recalled she had been about ten or eleven at the time of her secret visits to The Bunk, but even at that tender age she'd been thrillingly shocked that such a slum existed and it had left an indelible mark on her memory.

‘Well … nice to see you both, but I suppose I should be making tracks.' Matilda glanced about. ‘Bleedin' cold night, ain't it. I'm gonna be off and catch the bus back.'

‘We'll walk with you to the bus stop.' Shirley and Grace settled into step beside her. They walked in silence for a short while, huddled in their coats, shoulders hunched up to their ears, hats pulled low, to protect against the drizzle.

The two Coleman women settled into a slower pace as they noticed Matilda walking with a slight limp.

‘Got arthritis bad in one side,' Matilda brusquely explained. ‘Damp don't help.'

‘Wilf suffered with arthritis something chronic in the winter,' Shirley remarked. ‘Young man too he were when he first got afflicted.'

‘Had a bad accident a long while ago,' Matilda offered up. ‘Never been right since.'

‘Oh … ?' Shirley said curiously.

‘Don't talk about it,' Matilda answered bluntly.

‘So where you living now then, Tilly? Did Reg come back from the war? I remember he went off to fight early on.'

Tilly shook her head. ‘Died in 1943. Should never have gone. Told him he were too old. Lied about his age, didn't he, to get hisself enlisted.'

‘Brave man …'

‘Stupid man.' Tilly begged to differ, but with a soft smile twisting her lips.

‘Two husbands you lost to the Germans then,' Shirley said sympathetically. She knew that Jack Keiver, Matilda's first husband, had been killed fighting on the Somme. She knew too that Matilda and Reg Donovan, although living as man and wife, hadn't taken a trip to the Town Hall to say their vows.

‘Yeah,' Matilda confirmed with a wry grimace. ‘Long, long while since I lost my Jack, God bless him.'

‘So where you livin' then?'

‘Same place,' Matilda replied a touch brusquely. She tended to be defensive when asked her address. People always followed that first question with another that began why … ? while gawping at her as though she'd lost her marbles.

Grace inclined forward to peer past her mother at Matilda. ‘You're still in Campbell Road … I mean Whadcoat Street, Mrs Keiver?' Her voice was pitched high in surprise.

‘Yeah … but not for long,' Matilda replied with a sour smile. ‘Slum clearance has started up one end.' She dug her hands further into her pockets. ‘So gonna be re-housed at some time. Don't know where.' She slanted a look sideways at her companions. ‘You'd be surprised, there's still a good few people living there in the street. Remember the Whittons and the Lovats and old Beattie Evans? Some of them that are still alive are still about.' She gave an emphatic nod. ‘Still got enough friends and neighbours left around me.'

‘Bleedin' 'ell …' Shirley breathed, her astonishment causing her to revert to language she hadn't used in a long while. Having lived in Surrey, Shirley liked to think she'd travelled up in the world. ‘Never would have guessed it. Thought you'd all be long gone from there. You must've lived there a time, Til.'

‘Nearly all me life … over seventy years, bar a few years here and there, before I turned twenty, when me parents moved about London a bit. But we always come back to Campbell Road … usually 'cos it was the only place we could afford to kip, it's true.' She sighed. ‘But had some good times in amongst the bad. Me 'n' Jack settled there just after we was married. Had all me kids there, with old Lou Perkins' help.' She broke off to grin. ‘She's still about Islington somewhere, too. I intended to be carted off from The Bunk in me pine box but seems like the Council's got other ideas for me.'

Grace exchanged a furtive look with her mother.

‘So how is Christopher doing, Mrs Keiver?' she blurted. She was a sensitive young woman, not one to deliberately cause offence to another, and she knew Matilda had spotted the glance, clearly questioning her sanity.

‘Yeah … he's doing alright. Works in his dad's building firm as a foreman. In fact their firm, Wild Brothers it's called,' she informed them proudly, ‘is doing the demolition work that's started at the top end of Whadcoat Street.
Whadcoat Street
,' she repeated derisively. ‘Daft name. It'll always be Campbell Road to me.'

Matilda halted as they reached the bus stop. ‘Well, nice to see you both after all this time.'

‘We'll keep in touch,' Shirley said quickly. ‘Would you mind if I sort of popped by?' She had a morbid curiosity to see whether Matilda's hovel was better or worse than the one she remembered.

‘Come any time. Sometimes go out for a little drink round the Duke, but that's it.' Matilda smiled. ‘You'll be bound to catch me in.'

‘You look like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.' Matilda tapped Kathleen Murphy's cold nose playfully with a finger.

‘Hello, Mrs Keiver.' Noreen Murphy gave Matilda a smile. ‘It's bitter today, isn't it?' She pulled her daughter's hat down further over her ears then adjusted the collar of Kathleen's coat in an attempt to shield her cheeks from the sharp breeze.

‘About time we had a bit more sunshine to warm us up now it's April,' Matilda said, clapping together her gloved palms. She'd been shopping for vegetables in the market when she'd spied Noreen pushing a pram and had ambled over to talk to her. Asleep inside the pram, swaddled to the chin with a woollen shawl, was baby Rosie. Little Kathleen was sitting on top of the coverlet, holding onto the handle to keep her balance, her little legs, bare above her socks, mottled purple with cold.

‘You off home now?' Matilda asked. She'd noticed that a bag containing a very few potatoes was pegged on the pram handle, but Noreen seemed to be heading back in the direction of The Bunk.

Noreen nodded.

‘I'll walk with you. I'm done here too.' Matilda fell in step with her neighbour. ‘Has your husband had any luck finding a job?' Matilda had bumped into Noreen earlier in the week and discovered that Kieran Murphy was scratching around for work. Noreen had told her that since they'd turned up in The Bunk he'd only managed to pick up a bit of poorly paid casual labouring but wanted something permanent.

‘He's out looking now,' Noreen sighed. She slanted a quick look at Matilda. ‘Don't think I'm being cheeky, will you now, Mrs Keiver, but I remember you said your nephews were working on the demolition in the road, and I was wondering whether they might need an extra hand? Kieran's a good hard worker.' She praised her husband.

‘Not sure if they do, luv, but it's always worth havin' a word. Tell Kieran to ask for Stephen or Christopher, they're the foremen in charge.' In fact Matilda knew her nephew, Robert, who owned the firm, considered Wild Brothers to be already overstaffed. She'd heard him grumbling about his lack of profits and too many wage packets to be found at the end of the week. ‘How about the Irish gang working along there? Has your Kieran asked them for a shift or two?'

‘He thinks they're up to no good, and I do too,' Noreen said quietly, wiping little Kathleen's runny nose with a hanky. ‘We've heard them talking … troublemaking …' She broke off to rub at her daughter's chapped knees as Kathleen whimpered she was feeling cold.

‘I reckon it's wise to give 'em a wide berth 'n' all,' Matilda agreed with a nod. ‘But being sensible don't help put grub on the table, do it?'

Noreen grimaced wryly at that.

‘You thought of getting yourself a little job of some sort?' Matilda asked kindly. She guessed Noreen Murphy was about Christopher's age: mid-twenties. She was an attractive young woman with the same long black tresses and large grey eyes as her eldest daughter. But she made no effort with her looks. Her hair was simply scraped back into a straggly bun and her pretty features were pale and permanently set in an expression of exhaustion. Matilda guessed Kieran was probably the same age as his wife yet he looked equally haggard and a decade older.

‘I think about a job a lot, but that's all I do.' Noreen gave Matilda a skewed smile. ‘Kieran's not keen on me finding work. He thinks it's his place to provide for us.'

‘Yeah, well, that's all fine and noble but it's an attitude that don't feed and clothe kids. Sometimes it takes the two of yers pullin' in a wage to make a decent life. If he ain't having any luck finding work, perhaps you might do a bit better.'