Part 7 (2/2)

'Shut up going on about it,' Jennifer whined, wiping her dirty mouth with the backs of her fingers. 'Feel dreadful, I do, Kath ...' she whimpered, stumbling away from the sink to collapse onto the sofa. Drawing her knees to her chest she hugged them, rocking to and fro.

Kathy looked about at the state of her sister's home. Not that it was any worse than when she'd last visited. The living room was pretty much exactly the same: dirty plates with odd bits of food stuck to them were abandoned on the floor and a tumbler was balanced inside an overflowing ashtray. Without taking a sniff inside the gla.s.s Kathy knew it would most certainly reek of whisky.

'Has Bill been over here lately?'

Jenny nodded her head into supporting palms. 'Went home this morning, he did, when I started throwing up.'

'Has he got the bellyache as well? Have the two of you eaten something bad, d'you reckon?'

'He's got cast-iron guts,' Jenny mumbled bitterly into her hands. 'He never gets the s.h.i.+ts, the lucky thing.' Bill had cleared off as soon as he realised she was feeling poorly. He'd not even offered to go the chemist and buy her some stomach powders. The tight fist begrudged laying out for them. 'Messed meself in bed, I did, Kath.' Jennifer raised her bleary eyes to her sister. 'Couldn't get to the lavvie quick enough. Bill weren't happy ...' Her voice tailed off into embarra.s.sed quiet.

'Not surprised he's gone then,' Kathy finally said.

'Got anything to give me for it, have you, Kath?'

'Yeah ... a bar of carbolic and a kick up the backside.' Kathy stared grimly at her sister, feeling little sympathy for Jennifer's plight. In fact she was surprised her sister didn't come down with sickness and diarrhoea more often. It was several months since Jennifer had last had an upset stomach, and it hadn't been as chronic as this bout. Kathy sensed her irritation mounting and knew for two pins she might box her sister's ears in the hope it might knock some sense into her. To calm herself down she left the room, heading off to inspect the mess elsewhere.

'Ain't you got no medicine with you?' Jenny's mournful cry went unanswered by Kathy as she opened the door to her sister's bedroom. 'Got any laudanum, have you?' met Kathy's ears as she reluctantly entered, to be met by the sight of tatty, stained sheets. A musky fug of stale male sweat and faeces made her gag then hold her breath. But she was grateful to see that a brown stain was all that remained of her sister's accident. Gingerly, Kathy ripped the bedding free by handling just the very edges of the sheets, manoeuvring them together with her feet before kicking the ball towards the door. It was her afternoon off and if she'd known the task in front of her when she reached Jennifer's she'd have brought a rubber ap.r.o.n and gloves.

'I'll put the sheets in the copper out the back for you, and do the was.h.i.+ng up, but that's all the clearing up I'm going to do. The rest can wait till you're feeling better.' Kathy came back into the living room, still rolling the linen in front of her with the soles of her shoes. 'You can peg this lot out later. It's a nice afternoon and should dry. If you want it ironed you can do that yourself too.' She gazed at Jennifer but her sister had buried her head in a cus.h.i.+on, making Kathy sure she wasn't heeding a word she said.

'If being sick like this won't teach you a lesson, then G.o.d knows what will. I give up.' Kathy sounded defeated.

With one eye flickering open, Jennifer watched her sister as she approached the back door, hoofing the dirty sheets in front of her. 'Seen anything of Mum?' she moaned, clutching her belly with both hands as a griping pain knotted her insides. Whenever she felt ill or anxious about something she instinctively craved her mother's comfort, despite the unlikelihood of getting it. She'd not spoken to Winifred in over five years.

'Saw all of them last week,' Kathy called from the back step. She lifted the dirty linen on her shoe and let it drop onto the concrete. She knew that once she reached the washhouse just yards away she'd use the wooden tongs to drag the filthy cotton into the tub.

Having got the copper filled and alight, Kathy fed the was.h.i.+ng in, plunging it down into the steamy interior, adding more soda crystals and Sunlight soap shavings and mixing it to a froth. She gathered up the dirty towels that she found lying about indoors and dunked those in too. Suddenly bursting with zeal she carried on hunting, unearthing dirty underwear from under Jennifer's bed. Soon every piece of grimy cotton she could find even men's pants had been jammed in and there was barely room for her to agitate the suds with the wooden tongs.

Finally, Kathy came inside, blowing wispy tendrils of hair from her perspiring brow, and rummaged in the cupboard under the sink for the carbolic soap. It was still where she'd put it weeks ago, untouched in its wrapper.

Kathy washed her hands thoroughly and clattered the bar of carbolic down onto the draining board. 'When I go off home later, boil up some water and give yourself a scrub down with that. Are you listening, Jennifer?' Her sister appeared very still as though asleep.

'It stinks,' Jennifer suddenly piped up. 'Bill reckons it reminds him of hospitals. He was in hospital once and he hated it.'

'Well, if he gets a bad infection he might have a spell back inside one. And so might you!' Kathy snapped.

'If you bring me in a nice bar of Pears soap, I'll use that 'cos it smells nicer.'

Kathy picked up the bar of blue marbled soap and threw it into the sink in a fit of frustration.

'What did Mum say? Did she ask about me?' Jennifer sounded peevish.

Kathy came over, drying her hands on a clean hanky dug from her pocket. She knew it was pointless getting in a temper over her sister. Jennifer was Jennifer and had been lost to reason since the age of fourteen, when she first started taking an interest in boys ... and had caught the eye of Bill Black.

'No, Mum didn't say a word about you; but I did. I told her I had seen you recently.'

Jenny perked up, lifting her head away from the upholstery. 'Yeah? What did she say to that?'

Kathy perched on the armchair opposite the sofa. 'She wasn't happy I'd mentioned your name at all,' she said with brutal honesty. 'Dad went out soon after I arrived so he didn't hear what we talked about,' she added, antic.i.p.ating Jenny's next enquiry.

Jenny's head sagged back onto its support. 'How's Tom?'

'Driving Mum mad. I can understand why. He's knocking about with Davy Wright and that one's turned into a right tyke.' Kathy half smiled. 'He made a pa.s.s at me.'

Hearing about it drew a weak giggle from her sister. 'Cheeky little beggar.'

'He's that, all right ...' Kathy paused. 'I went round to the Bunk to find Tom just to have a chat with him before I set off home. I saw Matilda Keiver and she asked after you ... sends her best.'

Jenny smiled on hearing the news.

'Still the same old Matilda, she is, in the same old house. Beattie Evans was out and about too. She's a kind soul. She'd been feeding Tom and Davy up with bread and jam. Then I walked back to Mum's with Tom and when she found out he'd filled himself up at Beattie's, she went bonkers. You know how she hates waste. She'd done Tom a bit of steamed fish and mash for his tea and he told her he didn't want to eat it ...'

Jennifer went pale and her cheeks ballooned at the description of food she particularly disliked.

'Oh, no!' Kathy wailed. 'Hold on, Jenny, till I fetch the bowl.' Kathy leaped up, racing to the sink, groaning when she heard the sound of Jennifer vomiting behind her. She knew which of them would be clearing that up.

David Goldstein was accustomed to being sworn at because of his job. He was also used to getting abuse because of his faith, even though he was not Orthodox and considered himself no different from any other Englishman. This afternoon he risked getting it from both barrels.

He linked arms with his colleagues as the protestors surged forward. Feeling a dig in the ribs from a fist, he tried to turn but the close formation of the police line prevented him seeing much over his shoulder.

'Hold on tight, Goldie,' David heard his sergeant order as a wave of anti-Fascists rushed at them in the hope of breaking their chain and scattering them.

A well-aimed blow to the backs of David's knees sent him staggering but he quickly recovered as he saw a snarling man taking a kick at his head. He drew his truncheon to protect himself but the would-be a.s.sailant had darted away, losing himself in the crowd. 'Commie b.a.s.t.a.r.d,' David muttered, dusting himself down and rus.h.i.+ng to rejoin his colleagues and help man the barricades.

'Wish Mosley'd hurry up and get this over with,' Sergeant Booth grumbled. 'I'm ready for home 'n' me tea. Let 'em have a free-for-all if they want it, I say.'

'All these shops will get their fronts kicked in if we disappear.'

'Nah, Jews own most of 'em round here. They'll look after their own ... always do.' Sergeant Booth suddenly seemed sheepish. 'Sorry, Goldie ... forgot ... no offence ...'

It had slipped Booth's mind that his colleague was Jewish. It was an easy oversight: David Goldstein had light brown hair and hazel eyes. He didn't look a typical schmock, in Percy Booth's estimation. Privately, Booth believed that was why Goldie had been offered the job at the Met. He reckoned if David Goldstein had been swarthy with a hooked nose he'd never have got his feet under the front counter at the local cop shop. But Goldie was a pleasant character, good at his job, Booth had to give him that. Nevertheless, the sergeant still found it surprising that the lad had turned down a cushy number in the family firm in favour of doing this. In Booth's opinion n.o.body in his right mind would give up sitting on his a.r.s.e all day in favour of being punched and spat at by a mob on a regular basis.

'No offence taken ...' David finally said through his teeth. Since the Fascist rallies had started a few years ago most of the violence arose out of the antagonism between the protesters and the police. A meeting at Olympia had descended into chaos when Mosley's black-s.h.i.+rted stewards had brutally dealt with hecklers in the hall. The police had been accused of not doing enough to intervene. Privately, David had to agree with that; he'd seen first-hand what had gone on. But he'd followed orders, the same as the rest that day.

'Come on, Mosley, get on your way, for Chrissake,' Sergeant Booth muttered impatiently, aiming a backward kick at a lanky fellow deliberately elbowing him in the neck.

Sir Oswald was standing in his armoured car, addressing his supporters, one arm outstretched in a rigid salute. A roar went up as the followers realised the rally was coming to an end. Mosley suddenly dropped down into his vehicle and it slowly moved off.

'Right, get ready for a final surge, Goldie ...' Sergeant Booth had rightly antic.i.p.ated the crowd venting their anger one final time. The Union flags and Fascist colours were being waved frantically with the intention of inciting a reaction from the protestors. 'Just one last charge, son, and we'll be heading home for tea.' Sergeant Booth sounded jolly.

'Not before time,' David muttered, untangling his foot from a discarded flag on the ground. He felt his helmet go flying and, although he didn't know it, his thoughts fell in line with those of his sergeant: he wondered what on earth he was doing putting up with this s.h.i.+t when his parents wanted to give him a generous salary and a nice desk job.

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