The Boy with the Latch Key. Cathy Sharp

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      ‘I know that boy will never amount to anything,’ Rose grumbled at her. ‘I’ve told you, Mary Ellen, you could do a lot better.’

      ‘I love Billy,’ Mary Ellen said and looked rebellious. ‘You made me leave school and go to work as a seamstress and I did as you asked, but I’m not giving Billy up, whatever you say. He’s my friend and one day we’ll get married.’

      ‘And end up back in some grotty little terrace slum house?’ Rose was scornful. ‘Remember what happened to his brother …’

      ‘I’m not likely to forget, and nor is Billy,’ Mary Ellen retorted. Arthur Baggins was currently in prison serving the first of twenty years’ hard labour for armed robbery. He’d been released from prison six months previously, fallen in with a gang of rough types and ended up back in jail before he’d had time to catch his breath. ‘You’re wrong to think Billy is like his father or his brother. He works hard and he will get on, I know he will. He’s not going to be just a mechanic forever. One day he’ll drive the coaches as well and maybe he’ll own a garage …’

      ‘If ifs and ands were pots and pans, there’d be no need for tinker mans,’ Rose chanted, feeling irritated by Mary Ellen’s blind faith in the boy she’d befriended years ago. ‘If he ever amounts to anything I’ll go to China and back.’

      ‘Be careful, I might keep you to that,’ Mary Ellen laughed and swung her long brown hair back as she picked up her purse and slipped the loop over her wrist. She was dressed in a grey felt full skirt with several layers of net petticoats underneath, the waist nipped in tight with a wide red belt. Her flat shoes were red, and matched her jacket, and she had a red hairband holding her hair back from her face. Her hair wasn’t permed but had a natural bend and she had it cut every three months at the hairdresser near the market. Her lipstick was pale peach and she had a dusting of powder on her nose and cheeks, but didn’t wear a foundation. Because her complexion was so clear, Mary Ellen hardly needed make-up at all, as Rose was always telling her, but she couldn’t stop her because at seventeen she was old enough to know her own mind in most things. ‘I shan’t be later than half past ten.’ She popped a kiss on Rose’s cheek and picked up her scarf, going towards the door.

      One good thing about Mary Ellen’s job was that she got a decent discount on all she bought from the factory. Of course she was capable of making her own clothes, and quite often made up a skirt or a shift dress in a night for Rose. There were sometimes offcuts of material left over at the factory, not enough to make a whole garment, but with a bit of skill Mary Ellen turned them into rather fetching and original outfits. Sam, her boss at the factory, had told her she could have these scraps of material cheap, sometimes for nothing, but offcuts were popular with all the seamstresses so Mary Ellen had to take her turn with the others. It meant she had several pretty dresses and skirts to wear, and she’d made sure Rose benefitted too.

      ‘I’ll give you something for them,’ Rose had offered when Mary Ellen made her a summer skirt and matching bolero jacket, but she refused, saying that Rose had done plenty for her. Her generosity made Rose feel uneasy at times, because she’d always treated Mary Ellen as a duty. For years she’d begrudged the time she’d had to give up to visit her sister and she hadn’t bothered about finding a place to rent where she could have her sister to live with her until it suited her. When the new high-rise flats went up, Rose had known they were for her. Situated a short bus ride from the hospital, where she was now Sister O’Hanran, at reasonable rent and with three bedrooms, it was perfect for them. Although, if she could’ve got a smaller flat she would have taken that; they didn’t need the extra room and Mary Ellen had plagued her to let Billy have it for weeks, until she’d finally given up.

      ‘I shall be out myself this evening,’ Rose said, capitulating, because she couldn’t forbid Mary Ellen to go to the club when she herself was meeting some friends from work – and one friend in particular. ‘I’ll be home by eleven, so make sure you’re back by then or there will be trouble.’

      ‘’Course, Rose,’ Mary Ellen’s eyes twinkled with laughter, and Rose was struck by how pretty she looked. For years she’d thought of her as a kid, but she was very definitely a young woman with thoughts and ideas of her own now. ‘I shan’t do anything you wouldn’t …’

      She danced off laughing and Rose frowned as she returned to the bedroom to continue dressing. As she fetched the new dress her sister had recently made for her, Rose was feeling excited. Mike Bonner was the registrar for one of the senior consultants at the London Hospital. Rose had admired him from afar for some time now, but although he always smiled when he came to her ward, she hadn’t thought he was interested. This evening he’d asked her to be one of the crowd he’d invited to share his birthday celebrations at a rather smart restaurant that had just opened up West. She would have to catch a bus to get there and that meant coming home alone late at night, which she wasn’t keen on, but it would be worth it if Mike Bonner finally noticed her …

      ‘Ellie, you look gorgeous,’ Billy said and kissed Mary Ellen softly on the lips as they met at the bus stop. He’d waited outside the youth club for her bus to arrive and it was still chilly in the evenings yet, even though it was April. ‘And you smell delicious – I could eat every bit of you.’

      Mary Ellen smiled and touched his hair. Thankfully, Billy didn’t smother his hair with Brylcreem, as some men did, but allowed it to spring up in the same unruly style it always had. The colour was still a riotous red and she was glad, because she didn’t want him to be any other way than the way he was. Without Billy, Mary Ellen knew she would never have made it through the dark days after Rose abandoned her in the orphanage eight years previously.

      ‘Have you found anywhere to live yet?’ Mary Ellen asked as they joined the queue for the Rock ’n’ Roll club, which was held in St Mary’s church hall and supervised by the man who ran the youth club. The youth club had been started three years earlier by Father Joe, the Catholic priest who had organised so many events for St Saviour’s Orphanage and other kids. After he’d left London to go and work in a mission in Africa for two years, another clergyman had come to take over. He told the kids to call him Peter, and he was an Anglican curate in his first post in Spitalfields. Peter Simmons was involved with many activities for children, and popular with the teenagers who visited the club, because of his easy-going nature. He was keen on rugby and rowing and a member of the same athletics club that Billy frequented at least twice a week and together they’d organised a football team for the local kids, both those from St Saviour’s and any other kids who loved to play. There was no shortage of volunteers, because belonging to a club that played matches was better than kicking a ball about the streets.

      ‘I went to see a couple of rooms near Assembly Lane yesterday evening,’ Billy said, looking rueful. ‘They were awful and the whole place stank of old cabbage. You would’ve hated it, love. I’m still looking …’

      ‘I know you are,’ Mary Ellen said and squeezed his hand. ‘I got a rise today – another five bob a week. If we were married we might get a flat somewhere, because with my money we could afford it.’

      ‘Rose would never let you, not unless I could prove I can keep you, Mary Ellen. You know what she thinks of me … a waster like my brother.’

      ‘You’re nothing like Arthur,’ Mary Ellen fired up. ‘I’ve told her so many times but she doesn’t listen. She thinks I’m still a kid but I’m not … I’ll be eighteen this Sep-tember and you’ll soon be nineteen; neither of us is a kid now.’

      ‘No, you’re a real woman, my woman,’ Billy said and slid his arm about her waist, ‘but unfortunately, Rose can stop us gettin’ married until you’re twenty-one. It ain’t fair, because we can drive at seventeen, fight for our country and drink in the pub at eighteen СКАЧАТЬ