East End Angel

‘Right ’n’ all … I made one when I married you,’ Nick said, but not nastily. ‘It weren’t ever right between us and you know it. It ain’t ever going to be right between us, and you need to accept that, Blanche. Find yourself somebody else,’ he added quite gently. ‘Don’t pin your hopes on me changing me mind, ’cos I never will.’

Blanche ripped her arm out of his clasp. ‘You’re me husband.’ Her mouth was set stubbornly as she whipped past him, diving into the pub to find her father before Nick could say anything else to upset her.

Tony sighed as he saw his daughter storming towards him. ‘Ain’t having any of it, is he?’

Blanche ignored her father’s pessimism, polishing off her gin and orange, sniffing back angry tears.

‘Anyhow, why aren’t you at work?’ Tony asked. ‘Ain’t your afternoon off.’

‘Old Emo gave me the day off ’cos I had bellyache.’ Blanche worked in a dress shop in Whitechapel High Street and her boss was the Jew who employed her mother as a machinist.

‘Yeah, you had bellyache all right,’ her father mocked. ‘You think that crafty old git ain’t gonna know you got yer fancy hairdo on his time?’

Blanche shrugged. ‘Don’t see it matters anyhow. Emo never pays me if I don’t turn up and do me shift.’

‘You’ll lose that job,’ Tony warned. ‘Then your mother’ll have something to say.’ He hopped off the stool, having drained his glass, and thumped it down on the bar. ‘She’s already warned you you’re out of the door the moment you stop paying your way. I ain’t going to argue with that. You were lucky we had you back home when Nick kicked you out, considering what you done.’

‘Don’t care if Emo does sack me,’ Blanche said. ‘Don’t care if Mum throws me out neither. It’s me husband’s job to keep me. So I’m gonna make sure that’s what Nick does,’ she muttered defiantly beneath her breath as she followed her father to the door of the pub.

Once he’d got in his car Nick pulled a packet of Weights from his pocket and lit one. While dragging deeply on the cigarette he made a mental note to see his lawyer about starting divorce proceedings. He drove off round the corner and noticed Joyce Groves standing at a bus stop. Her brother had disappeared. She stepped closer to the kerb as she spotted Nick’s Alvis approaching so he couldn’t miss her.

Nick drove on and didn’t bother looking in his rear-view mirror to see how she took that. He’d seen her about for a while and fancied her enough to give her reason to think he’d do something about it. But this afternoon he’d lost the urge for a woman following his talk with Blanche. He knew he could be a hard-nosed bastard when dealing with business matters, and just wished he could find the same attitude when dealing with his estranged wife. He wasn’t sure why he felt lethargic about the divorce process. It wasn’t as though he couldn’t find the money for the lawyer. He liked his father-in-law but not enough to want to keep hearing Tony call him ‘son’, and as for that dragon Tony was married to, he’d happily never clap eyes on Gladys again.

In his mind Nick cancelled the meeting with his lawyer. What did it matter if he remained married to the silly cow? He’d already made up his mind he wasn’t ever taking on a wife again, and at least the women he slept with knew not to expect too much of him while Blanche was hanging about in the background …

CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_771c4fba-6bc4-5ffd-91ea-336326b2dca4)

‘For goodness’ sake, Jennifer! Can’t you clean this place up, once in a while?’

‘Why?’ Jennifer Finch was in the process of rinsing out her stockings and underwear. Turning from the sink she sent her sister a sullen look while listlessly dunking the smalls in a metal bowl. ‘This dump won’t look no better without the dust, you know.’ Lethargically, she glanced about.

‘It’s not a bit of dust that’s the problem, Jen, is it?’ Kathy retorted.

Jennifer had a couple of ground-floor rooms in a converted house just off Mare Street in Bethnal Green. The upstairs was unoccupied as the landlord had refused to mend the leaking roof and make it close to habitable. On arrival today, Kathy had found her sister’s flat in a state, as usual. Jennifer was always promising to have a spring clean, but never did. The only place that ever seemed slightly tidier was Jennifer’s bedroom, and Kathy reckoned that was to impress her scummy punters.

Jennifer’s sitting room had once been separated from the kitchenette by a partition wall. The landlord had knocked it down to a low level so now a few old cupboards, a small cooker and a butler sink with wooden draining board were on view.

The faded wallpaper had come unstuck where rain had penetrated through the ceiling and bay window, and now drooped, exposing cracked plaster beneath. The furniture wasn’t ancient but Jennifer didn’t take care of it and in the year since she’d moved in the upholstery had become stained. The square oak dining table was covered in odds and ends, and there was crockery on the floor. On top of a small radiogram was a smeary glass standing in an overflowing ashtray. The air inside the flat was heavy with the mingled odours of tobacco smoke and mildew. Jennifer rarely opened the windows in case Dot Pearson, who lived next door, was snooping on her, so there was a perpetual unpleasant fug clinging to everything.

Kathy shrugged out of her coat and, rather than lay it on the dirty sofa, hung it over a fiddle-back chair. She picked up the stack of dirty plates from the rug. The top one had remnants of newspaper and a fish supper stuck to it. She plonked the crockery on the draining board. Her sister ignored the angry crash and continued wringing out her washing.

‘I’ve told you before, you’ll end up with food poisoning, you daft ha’p’orth, if you don’t keep things clean.’

‘Good … hope I get raging bellyache and die. It’ll save me sticking me head in the gas oven,’ Jenny snarled.

Kathy grabbed Jennifer’s arm, spinning her round. ‘Don’t talk stupid.’ She stepped back as she smelled the alcohol on her sister’s breath. Immediately, her eyes slewed to the tumbler balanced on top of the radiogram. ‘You’ve been boozing again.’ She sounded more upset than angry, and Jennifer had the grace to blush.

‘So what if I have?’

‘You promised you’d lay off it.’ Kathy swooped on the dirty glass and gave it a sniff, recognising whisky.

‘Did I now?’ Jennifer narrowed her crusty eyelids. ‘Well, if you had my fuckin’ life you’d need a drink ’n’ all.’ She grabbed up the bowl and went outside to peg the washing on the line in the misty backyard. When the few scraps of cotton and silk were hanging limp in the still March air, she turned back to her sister. ‘Oh, just leave it. I’ll do it when you’ve gone.’ Jennifer seemed irked that Kathy had begun washing up the plates in the stained butler sink.

‘Have you been bathing your eyelids with warm salt water, like I said?’

‘If I remember, I do it.’ Jennifer still sounded irritated.

Kathy raised her eyes heavenward at her sister’s attitude.

‘You said you’d bring me some stuff over to clear it up.’ Jennifer came in, shutting the back door. She was constantly conscious of eavesdroppers the other side of the fence. She was sure Dot Pearson and her cronies thought they were better than she was. Jennifer grudgingly admitted to herself that on the whole they were better than she was, but she didn’t want anybody rubbing it in.

Kathy pulled a small brown bottle and a pack of lint from her bag. Having unscrewed the top, she upended the antiseptic onto a scrap of lint then wiped it over her sister’s closed eyelashes. She handed over the jollop. ‘Do it morning and evening till it clears up. And boil your flannels and towels and your bed linen or the infection won’t go.’ Kathy rubbed together her hands under the icy running tap and flicked them dry rather than risk using the length of frayed greyish cotton hanging on a hook. She knew she was wasting her breath with Jennifer. Her twin regularly promised to alter her way of life, but nothing changed.

Filthy sheets remained on the bed for months on end before seeing the inside of the copper situated outside in the ramshackle washhouse. Considering her twin’s profession, Kathy felt sick, knowing Jennifer slept on the detritus shed by strangers’ bodies …

‘Seen anything of Mum and Dad?’ Jennifer asked.

‘I haven’t been over to Islington for weeks.’

Despite Jennifer having been banished from darkening Eddie and Winnie Finch’s doorstep many years ago, she still asked after her family with poignant regularity.

‘Wonder how Tom’s doing?’ Jenny mentioned their younger brother.

‘Last time I spoke to Mum, she was on the warpath with him ’cos he’s good pals with the lads who live round in Campbell Road.’

‘Perhaps I won’t be the only bleedin’ disgrace in the family after all.’ Jenny’s giggle held a hint of malice.

‘It’s not a joke, Jen, is it, if he gets himself in bad trouble? Tom’s got to find a job soon and he won’t have any luck if he keeps larking about. Work’s hard to come by.’

‘Oh, pipe down, Miss Goody Two-Shoes.’ Jennifer’s complaint was tinged with amusement. Hearing about their brother’s bad behaviour seemed to have brightened her mood.

‘Did Mum mention me at all when you last saw her?’ she asked hopefully.

‘She never does, you know that.’ Kathy knew her brusque reply had hurt her sister but Jennifer seemed unwilling to change her seedy life in an attempt to win back her parents’ trust.

‘Don’t want no tea, do you, Kath? ’Spect you’ve got to be off.’

‘Trying to get rid of me already?’ Kathy raised her eyebrows. Jennifer didn’t look in a fit state to be receiving punters and that was the usual reason she’d tell her to go. Even dockers might expect a brass to make some effort with her appearance. Jennifer’s fair hair was matted and the old dress and cardigan she had on didn’t look as though they’d seen an iron in a long while. Kathy reckoned her sister hadn’t washed, or combed her hair, since she’d climbed out of bed. In fact, she looked as though she could do with a hot bath and Kathy told her so.

‘Better get meself tidied up.’ Jennifer tried to separate the tangles in her hair with her fingers. ‘Bill’s coming over this afternoon.’

‘Well, in that case, I am going.’ Kathy hated Bill Black and had done so since he had corrupted her sister when she was just fifteen and set her on the road to ruin.

‘Got any money before you go?’ Jennifer wheedled as Kathy picked up her coat. ‘I could do with getting a bit of grub in …’

‘If I thought you’d buy food with it, I’d lend you a couple of shillings.’ Kathy gave her twin a challenging stare. ‘But you’ll spend it on fags or booze or drugs, won’t you?’

‘I won’t, I swear. I’ll buy meself some chips and a loaf of bread.’ Jennifer blinked her diseased eyelids, giving her sister a winning smile.