Coronation Day

‘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.’

CHAPTER THREE

‘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.’

‘I’ve said the same thing to him, and we always end up having a row about it, Mrs Keiver.’

‘Call me Matilda, we’re neighbours after all, and if you change yer mind I know of a woman down Tufnell Park way who’s looking fer a cleanin’ lady. I know she’s alright ’cos I used to do a bit of charring for her mum, in me time.’

The baby coughed and mewed plaintively and Matilda leaned forward to look in the pram. ‘Want to get that little ’un along to the doctor, don’t you …’

‘She’s fine … she teeths with a bit of bronchitis, that’s all it is,’ Noreen said quickly. ‘I have linctus at home.’

They turned into Whadcoat Street and ambled along in amiable quiet. As they drew close to the shop Matilda said, ‘Better go ’n’ pay something off me tab at Smithie’s. Miserable old git’ll be after me otherwise. You take care of yerselves …’ Having ruffled Kathleeen’s hair Matilda set off across the road.

‘Ain’t you had enough of hanging around in this stinking hole all week?’

‘You don’t have to hang about here if you don’t want to.’ Christopher ignored his friend’s scowl and blew into his cupped palms to warm them. Despite the approach of spring a light sleet was descending and treacherously coating the pavement so he trod carefully in his smart leather shoes and stuffed his hands into his pockets to protect them from an icy breeze. He came to a halt in front of his aunt’s dilapidated house. Once the door had been painted bottle green but now only a few flakes of colour clung to the splintery wood. Christopher turned to Ted Potts. He’d tried to shake him off earlier so he could visit his aunt on his own. ‘Why don’t you go and knock Vic up.’ He jerked his head, hoping to hurry Ted on his way. ‘I’ll meet you both at the dog track at about seven o’clock.’

‘Nah … ’s’alright.’ Ted gave a martyred sigh. ‘I’m here now, ain’t I. I’ll stick around with you.’ He didn’t relish going into this fleapit to see Christopher’s great-aunt, yet neither did he want to go to Vic’s home. If Vic’s wife were about he’d get an ear-bashing for luring Vic off out. Deirdre kept tabs on Vic and, considering that they’d only been married two years, and Vic had already been caught out with another woman, it wasn’t surprising.

‘Go on …’ Christopher twitched his head again. But his friend seemed content to slouch against the doorjamb and fiddle with a penknife. Once he had it open he started idly cleaning his nails. Christopher scowled and raised a hand to hammer on the door. A window above was shoved up and he stepped back to grin at the wrinkled face, edged by two plaited grey buns, peering out.

‘That you, Chris? Come on up. Door’s open,’ Matilda called down. ‘See you’ve brought yer mate with yer.’

‘Alright up there, Mrs K?’ Ted Potts called in greeting, a wonky fag wagging between his lips. ‘Brass monkeys out here, it is.’

‘Got the kettle on,’ Matilda informed them before ramming home the sash in its frame.

The two young men proceeded into a dingy damp hallway and up some perilously rickety stairs. Very few of the spindles remained and the handrail shuddered when touched. On the first-floor landing a door stood open and Christopher and Ted filed into Matilda’s home.

It never failed to amaze Ted why anyone would choose to continue living here now that the Council was clearing the street and re-housing people elsewhere. But Christopher had told him that his aunt would hang on in her first-floor room till she was forced out. Chris had said in an odd way he understood Matilda’s hankering to grip onto her past.

At present Matilda was the only person occupying this particular tenement house and Christopher had urged her to spread out a bit and make use of a couple of the other rooms too. The rent would be the same for one room or all nine of them. Mr Keane, the landlord, was glad to get paid anything at all. Over half of the properties in the street were now empty and producing no income for their owners. The worst examples had been abandoned completely by the freeholders.

But Matilda’s view was that it was easier, in the winter months, for a person living alone to keep cosy in a small space. So she lived, slept, ate in a single first-floor front room, much as she had for a good part of her life. Fortunately, in a road of derelict houses she’d found one that was slightly better than the rest. Most had never been connected to electricity but she’d managed to get a property where she could plug in her precious wireless that had been a Christmas gift from her nephew, Rob.

‘Kettle’s just boiled,’ Matilda said. ‘Who’s fer tea?’