East End Angel. Kay Brellend
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Название: East End Angel
Автор: Kay Brellend
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Историческая литература
isbn: 9780007464203
isbn:
‘Things have changed, Mrs Potter, and people like Ivy Tiller mustn’t deliver babies unless they want to get into trouble.’
Kathy was used to coming up against resistance from women – and their husbands – who had been used to calling in local handywomen to care for them during labour. Rather than risk arrest, most of the unofficial midwives adhered to the ruling, if grudgingly. Kathy sympathised with those women: their livelihood had been bound up in their unofficial profession. Times were hard for everybody and jobs not easy to find.
Kathy listened to the strong heartbeat, amazed at how resilient these working-class wives were. Her own father had been a bully, yet, absurd as she knew it to be, Kathy considered him better than Charlie Potter because his brutality had been controlled. Potter didn’t give a damn about the consequences of beating his wife. He believed his criminal acquaintances protected him from trouble. Eddie Finch had not risked drawing attention to himself, or his career fencing stolen goods in Islington, with a charge of wife battering.
He’d floored Winifred with his punches but had refrained from following them up with a kicking while she sprawled defenceless. Like Ruby Potter, Kathy’s mother had no intention of allowing outsiders to know her business. Winifred Finch’s greatest terror had been giving the neighbours a reason to gossip about her, so she’d hide indoors until her bruises had healed rather than go out and face knowing looks.
Dwelling on her family prompted Kathy to glance at her watch. She’d told her sister, Jennifer, she might call in and see her later on, but time was short and she had a postnatal visit to make to a woman still confined to her bed in the Lolesworth tenements. Besides, after the disturbance with the Potters, Kathy didn’t think she could face going into Jennifer’s and bumping into the unsavoury characters she kept company with.
‘Baby seems fine, surprisingly enough,’ Kathy said, having concentrated for some time on the rhythmic thud in her ear. ‘There’s a nice strong heartbeat.’
‘Hear that, Pansy?’ Ruby turned to her daughter, standing by the side of the bed. ‘Your little sister is doing right as rain.’
Pansy wagged her small dark head.
‘You want a girl, do you?’ Kathy asked, picking up her bag in readiness to leave.
‘Don’t want no more men about the place, that’s fer sure,’ Ruby said. ‘Peter’s already getting his father’s swagger about him … he’s only eight ’n’ all.’
‘Will you come to the antenatal clinic next time for a checkup at the surgery? It’s on Wednesday afternoons at two o’clock.’
‘If I can,’ Ruby said, as she always did.
Kathy knew that she wouldn’t turn up. If the pregnant women in the dilapidated cottages around Fairclough Street would just attend the local clinic for a quick checkup, it would save her the job of home visits.
Kathy gave Pansy a wave as she went towards the door. Glancing over a shoulder, she saw that Ruby was, head in hands, sipping the weak cup of tea that had been left untouched on the table. She felt a surge of hatred for Charlie Potter and all his like. It was wasted passion. The women would never leave. As Ruby had pointed out, they had no choice but to stay with the brutes and take a bit of happiness where they could with other men.
‘What have you done to your hair?’
Blanche Raven turned her head, inspecting her new hairstyle in the hallway mirror. She was pleased with the permanent wave she’d had put in, even if her mother wasn’t, and she guessed from the tone of her voice that Gladys didn’t like it. But then her mother could find fault with anything, and sound sour when discussing the weather on a fine day.
‘Is Dad in?’ Blanche asked, ignoring her mother’s question. She was after a sub off her father, having just spent all her wages at the hairdresser’s. She knew asking her mother for a few bob would be a dead loss, even though Gladys was flush, having just got paid for her job as a machinist.
‘Your father’s gone out. I think he’s meeting Nick, ’cos he heard he might have a job for him, but of course, I don’t get told all of it.’
The mention of her estranged husband made Blanche prick up her ears. She’d only been in minutes but she buttoned her coat ready to leave the house again.
Gladys Scott eyed her daughter grimly. ‘Thinking of going chasing after Nick again, are you? Won’t do you no good, my girl. He still won’t take you back, and you know it.’
‘Oh, shut up, Mum,’ Blanche muttered, crashing the front door shut behind her. She hunched her shoulders against a sense of dejection and the bitter February wind. She feared her mother was right. Nick had given her the brush-off earlier in the week when she’d turned up at his place with seduction on her mind. She’d felt humiliated when he’d practically bundled her out of the door and told her to go home. He hadn’t even offered her a lift in his flash car and she’d had to catch the bus.
Hearing a bus wheezing to a stop at the corner of Bethnal Green Road, Blanche trotted towards it and managed to jump on just before it pulled off. She settled down on a seat next to a fat woman with a basket on her lap. The woman gave her a glare, even though she was taking up most of the seat with her porky backside.
When it reached her stop, Blanche got off the bus and walked briskly in the direction of the Grave Maurice pub. She was hoping that Nick would be in his local, as he usually was at dinnertime, and that her dad would be with him. Nick was more tolerant of her company when her father was around because the two men liked one another. If only she’d listened to her father’s advice rather than her mother’s, she’d never have let Nick Raven slip through her fingers.
Blanche dawdled outside, peering through the pub windows. She was itching to creep inside and see if Nick and her father were propping up the bar, but she had been brought up right – as her mother would term it – and knew it wasn’t nice for a young woman to enter such a rough house on her own. Besides, Nick didn’t like pushy women – he’d never got on with her mother – and wouldn’t appreciate Blanche marching in on him now if he was with pals. But Blanche didn’t fancy loitering outside freezing to death so she had a decision to make.
‘Who you after, then?’ A burly fellow had just emerged from the pub and seen her on tiptoe, trying to peer into the saloon bar over the frosted-glass pane. He gave Blanche an appreciative top-to-toe look. She was a pretty brunette, and her ample bust and curvy hips were undisguised by the heavy winter coat she wore. He thought she seemed familiar but couldn’t bring to mind where he’d met her before.
‘Me dad and me husband, Nick Raven,’ Blanche answered. She was always proud to let people know who she’d married. ‘I think they might be having a drink inside.’ Despite the fact he looked like a low-life navvy, Blanche preened beneath the fellow’s leer, unconsciously patting her crisp dark waves.
‘Yeah … they are in there.’ Charlie Potter gave her a grin. Now he knew why he’d not immediately recognised her. Blanche Raven had cut her long hair short and put on a bit of weight since the days when she’d been Wes Silver’s bit on the side. ‘Well, depending on which old man you’re after, could be you turned up just in time, luv. Nick’s got an admirer moving СКАЧАТЬ