The Street. Kay Brellend
Читать онлайн книгу.
There was only a drop that’d gone sour and Dad put it in his tea before he went off to work.’ She gently shook her mother by the arm to rouse her.
Alice knew her mother was conscious but choosing to ignore her pleas, so now she must wait. In a very short while Tilly would sink so deeply into sleep that she’d hear and feel nothing. Alice gently placed little Lucy on the bed a safe distance from her mother’s twitching, and started to tidy the room. She must loiter until she heard her mother snore.
She picked up Tilly’s best coat from the floor, shook it, and draped it across the end of the bed. The small-back stick chair had been made even more rickety by rough treatment; nevertheless Alice moved it to neatly join the three still pushed under the table. The precious boots were collected and placed together out of sight beneath the bed. A rumbling sound drew her back, on tiptoe, to her mother.
‘Mum?’ she tested quietly. There was no response. Even when baby Lucy let out a wail Tilly stirred only to suck in another ragged breath. Alice tested her mother’s consciousness again, this time with more volume to her voice. Tilly snored on.
Quickly Alice’s nimble fingers unbuttoned her mother’s blouse. Deftly she positioned the baby close to a plump breast to nurse. Alice froze stock still, her fingers covering the baby’s mouth to stifle her whimpers. One of her mother’s hands had fluttered up as though she might swipe them both away, but after a moment, hovering, it fell back to the mattress.
Little Lucy’s face had become crumpled and crimson as though she sensed imminent comfort slipping away. But Alice was sure now that her mother was sufficiently stupefied. With furtive care she guided the baby close then snatched away her fingers, allowing the baby to latch on and feed.
Slowly Alice sank to her knees by the bed, feeling quite weak and exhausted. She guessed it must be past midnight. She began to gently move straggly hair away from her mother’s bloated face and when done with that she ran loving fingers over the fleece covering her little sister’s bony head. The gentle hum created by her mother’s rumbling breathing and her sister’s enthusiastic suckling made her drowsy and her lids fell a few times. She forced herself back to wakefulness before her forehead touched the mattress. Feeling chilled, she crept to the end of the bed and put on her mother’s coat. It pooled on the floor about her and she used the material to cushion her bony behind as she sat on the rough boards and looked about for something to do whilst she waited for her sister to finish her feed.
Drawing one of the boots from under the bed, she slowly turned it to inspect its fine quality. The laces had been tightened into small, hard knots by her mother’s clumsiness. Patiently she picked at them until they loosened. Smiling at the bows she had tied, she began to pull the leather at the heels until the ridges started to disappear. Satisfied with her handiwork, she slipped it onto her skinny foot and extended her leg to admire the boot, waggling it this way and that to inspect it from different angles. One day she’d buy herself such things . . . better things, she promised herself.
They were good boots. Quality. Billy the Totter had said he’d got them from a woman over Tufnell Park way. Alice knew a lot of women hereabouts charred for posh ladies over there in the better district of North London. But he’d said that they weren’t even that lady’s property. She’d got them off her sister who lived in Mayfair in one of the houses with pillars out front and servants out back. Alice reverently smoothed the soft leather with her fingertips.
Barely were the boots neatly back in position beneath the bed when she suddenly shot up to a crouching position. A loud thud from the floor below had curtailed her yawning and startled her into wakefulness. Her eyes darted to the bed but nobody was stirring.
The tenement house in which they had rooms was never peaceful. Day or night people came and went and constant noise was only a minor inconvenience to an existence in what was known as Campbell Bunk. In the rooms below lived her aunt Fran and her husband Jimmy. Alice had been partially aware of the ebb and flow of an argument issuing from those rooms the whole time she had waited for her mother to come home. But now it seemed the ruckus was about to turn nasty.
Aunt Fran and Uncle Jimmy were always at it and, judging by the increased din, their disagreement was about to take its usual turn and become violent. Even knowing it, Alice again jumped in her skin at the unmistakeable clatter of a missile striking a wall. Screamed abuse from her aunt immediately followed. Alice shot across the splintery floorboards on her bony knees to stare unblinking at her mother’s sagging face. But Tilly remained oblivious to her warring relatives, and her soft snores continued unabated.
The noise below had worsened and Alice was relieved to see that little Lucy had finished feeding and was also sleeping quite soundly, undisturbed by her aunt and uncle fighting close by. Alice remembered that she’d witnessed her aunt Fran pull a knife from a drawer in the table and rush at her uncle Jimmy. She remembered too that her dad had had his hand cut when he took it off her.
Nervously Alice shifted the baby aside, keen now to get herself and little Lucy to bed. She pulled her mother’s gaping bodice together and painstakingly refastened the buttons. Then the stiff, worn blanket was properly pulled over her so it might be of some small benefit against the cold March night. Alice opened out her mother’s coat to act as an extra blanket and spread that on top. Finally she did as her mother had told her over an hour ago and went into the back room.
‘Is Mum home? Heard something like a row goin’ on.’
‘Yeah, she’s back.’
‘Been boozin’, I s’pose, has she?’ the sleepy voice enquired from the murky shadows.
Alice looked towards the double mattress she shared with her sisters. It was the elder who had spoken. Sophy was almost a year and a half older than her. Bethany was just over three years younger. The sleeping infant in her arms was almost seven months old.
‘’Ere . . . make room,’ Alice grumbled and gave Sophy a nudge so she would shift over.
The elder girl squeaked indignantly. ‘Oi, get yer elbow out me face, will you.’ She, in turn, gave Bethany a little shove and the girl rolled over, still asleep, with a thumb trapped in her mouth.
‘What’s all the row about, anyhow?’
‘It’s Aunt Fran and Uncle Jimmy. They’re at it again.’
‘S’pose he’s been up the corner gambling and she’s found out . . .’
‘S’pose,’ Alice agreed and, having undressed to her under-garments, got beneath the covers. She immediately huddled close to Sophy for warmth and pulled one of the old ragged coats that served as makeshift blankets up to her chin. Carefully she drew baby Lucy into the protective nest of her arms.
‘Is Dad back?’
‘No,’ Alice replied. ‘He won’t be back for a long time yet.’
Their father had found himself a few days’ work at the market and would help overnight setting up the stalls for the following day. If he was lucky, he might stay on and take half-profits for helping old Mr Cooke sell his fruit and vegetables. Of course, if trade looked to be slow and pickings were hard, their dad would be sent home before ten o’clock with very little in his pocket for his night’s work.
‘Dad’ll go mad at her if she’s spent his bacca money on booze.’
‘I know,’ Alice whispered into the dark.
‘How old do you think we’ll be before we get out of this dump? Really old, I suppose. Might even be sixteen. Four-eyes Foster was sixteen before she got enough saved up to get a room in Playford.’
Alice laughed soundlessly. She knew bespectacled Annie Foster, of course. For as long as Alice could remember Annie had lived just a few doors away in Campbell Road. On Annie’s sixteenth birthday she’d finally dodged her step-father’s fists by running away from home. ‘That’s just round the corner!’ she derisively pointed out whilst frowning at the shadows on the ceiling. In her estimation, scarpering to Playford Road was hardly escaping. ‘When I go I’m going a real long way . . . a real long way. I’m makin’ a move