Pride of Walworth Read online

  ‘Chrissie Dumpling tied us all up in knots,’ said Nick. ‘We had to let her play. In goal.’

  ‘Oh, me head,’ gasped Alice, ‘Chrissie playing in goal, Ma, did you ’ear that?’

  ‘Oh, don’t,’ begged Amy.

  ‘Never mind young Chrissie,’ said Ma, ‘I won’t ’ave Nick bein’ vulgar.’

  ‘Listen, Ma,’ said Nick, ‘when everyone knows Dumpling’s playing in goal, the whole team could have an accident.’

  ‘Oh, ’elp,’ cried Fanny, and her hysterics got the better of her. She jumped to her feet, rushed out of the kitchen and up the stairs.

  ‘Hope she gets there too late,’ said Nick.

  ‘She’d better not,’ said Ma, ‘or I’ll clip someone’s ear. I don’t know what you two girls are laughin’ like that for.’

  ‘But, Ma, Chrissie Dumpling playing in goal, I ask you,’ said Amy amid splutters.

  ‘Well, I did tell ’er it’s not natural,’ said Ma.

  ‘Nick, couldn’t you play with just ten of you?’ asked Alice, a supporter of the Rovers along with Fanny.

  ‘What, without a ball?’ said Nick. ‘She wasn’t going to let us use it unless we included her. I thought the best bet was to put her in goal before she started to talk about playing centre forward.’ Alice fell about again, all over her chair, and Amy sounded as if she was drowning in gurgles. ‘It’s not that funny,’ said Nick.

  ‘Well, I’m not goin’ to miss it,’ said Alice.

  ‘Here, you’re not coming to watch, are you?’ asked Nick. Alice and Fanny attended every game, being quite keen football fans. Fanny always looked after the little job of supplying slices of lemon to the team at half-time. ‘I don’t want you and Fanny racketing about having hysterics on the touchline.’

  ‘Well, hard luck, ducky, Fanny and I aren’t goin’ to miss watching Chrissie perform in goal,’ said Alice.

  ‘I’m goin’ to come and watch as well this time,’ said Amy.

  ‘Now look here—’

  ‘All right, give us a tanner and I’ll stay away,’ said Amy.

  ‘That’s blackmail,’ said Nick.

  ‘We don’t want none of that, Amy,’ said Ma, ‘it’ll upset your Pa.’

  ‘No, it won’t,’ said Amy, ‘he likes us to use our talents, ’e’s always sayin’ so. Still, all right, I won’t ask Nick to pay me for stayin’ away, I’ll come and watch.’

  ‘Watch what?’ asked Fanny, reappearing.

  ‘The football match, with Chrissie in goal,’ said Amy.

  ‘Oh, crikey,’ gasped Fanny, ‘don’t start that again.’

  ‘Got dry ones on now, have you?’ asked Nick.

  ‘Honest, who’d have a brother?’ said Amy.

  ‘Oh, if you do ’ave one,’ said Alice, ‘you just ’ave to try and believe there’s some people worse off.’

  ‘Can’t think where,’ said Amy.

  ‘Nick, is Chrissie goin’ to wear Charlie Cope’s goalkeepin’ jersey?’ asked Fanny the terror.

  Nick decided not to answer that. He knew the girls were picturing what Dumpling would look like in the goalkeeping jersey. It was bright yellow. He decided to put the kettle on and make some tea. Ma would share it with him. He took the kettle off the range hob and put it on a gas ring in the scullery. The girls watched him.

  ‘Nick?’ called Alice.

  ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘Good,’ said Alice. ‘Nick, is Chrissie goin’ to wear the goalkeepin’ jersey?’

  Nick decided not to answer again. But Ma called, ‘Nick, Alice is talkin’ to you.’

  ‘Well, good old Alice,’ said Nick, ‘if there’s one thing that bucks me up more than Sunday crumpets, it’s having Alice talking to me. Wally Rogers at the office has two sisters who never talk to him at all. Well, what’s the use? He’s got ears like blotting paper, poor bloke, but all the same—’

  ‘Nick?’ called Amy.

  ‘Is that Amy talking to me now, Ma?’

  ‘What’re you actin’ daft for?’ asked Ma, who plainly couldn’t see what all the fuss was about, even if she did think it wasn’t natural for Dumpling to be in a football team.

  ‘It’s not daft waiting for the kettle to boil,’ said Nick.

  ‘Well, while you’re waitin’,’ said Amy, ‘could you tell us if Chrissie’s goin’ to wear Charlie Cope’s goalkeepin’ jersey on Saturday?’

  ‘No, her dad’s nightshirt,’ said Nick.

  ‘What?’ demanded Ma, ignoring the fact that her daughters were falling about again. ‘What was that you said?’

  ‘I said Dumpling’s going to wear her dad’s nightshirt to keep goal in!’ bawled Nick. His sisters shrieked. The kettle boiled, he made the tea and brought the pot to the table. Ma spoke her mind.

  ‘Now you listen to me,’ she said, ‘I’m not ’aving you take young Chrissie up to Brockwell Park in her dad’s nightshirt.’

  ‘Well, if I make her stay at home, Ma, she won’t lend us her football,’ said Nick.

  ‘You’re not goin’ to ’ave her play football in her dad’s nightshirt, d’you ’ear me, my lad?’ said Ma.

  ‘All right,’ said Nick, ‘just in her winter vest and her football shorts.’ It was Amy’s turn to shriek and to rush upstairs. ‘Now Amy’s got laundry problems,’ said Nick.

  ‘You shouldn’t get them all ’ysterical,’ said Ma, ‘just remember they’re young girls and what ’ysterics do to them.’

  ‘Tell you what,’ said Nick, pouring tea for himself and Ma, ‘if we manage to beat the Manor Place scruffs on Saturday, I’ll treat all of you to the Clark Gable film at the Prince’s Cinema in Kennington in the evening. How about that?’

  ‘It’ll be a chance for me to wear me best Saturday evening ’at,’ said Ma.

  ‘Lovaduck, Clark Gable, swoony,’ said Fanny.

  ‘Lovaduck, Chrissie in a goalkeepin’ jersey,’ said Alice.

  ‘A bright yellow one too,’ said Nick, and that nearly did for Alice, even though she was all of seventeen.

  Chapter Three

  THE NEXT EVENING, Nick answered the door to Frankie Hughes, the team’s left back. He was eighteen, worked in a factory and had an Adam’s apple like a gobstopper. He’d come, he said, to ask Amy if she’d like to go for a walk on Sunday afternoon.

  ‘You sure?’ said Nick.

  ‘What d’yer mean, am I sure?’ said Frankie.

  ‘Are you sure you know what you’re doing, I mean,’ said Nick. ‘Amy’s only just out of her cradle.’

  ‘Get you,’ said Frankie, ‘she’s been walkin’ about for years, ain’t she? And she’s been growin’ up a treat lately.’

  ‘All right, it’s your funeral,’ said Nick, and called Amy, to whom Frankie made his request.

  ‘Beg yer pardon?’ said Amy.

  ‘To tell yer no porkie, Amy, I’m startin’ to fancy yer,’ said Frankie. ‘I used to fancy Alice a bit, yer know, but I’m pleased to inform yer I’ve transferred me affections to you, like. You don’t tell a bloke to push off like Alice does.’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ said Amy, putting on a bit of Pa’s style. Fourteen in a few months, she was beginning to feel her feet. ‘I happen to have told nearly every boy in Walworth to push off in recent times on account of their sauce. What d’you mean by coming round here and telling me you fancy me with my brother Nick listening?’

  ‘Don’t mind me,’ said Nick.

  ‘Look,’ said Frankie, ‘I’m only askin’ if you’d like to come for a walk on Sunday.’

  ‘I suppose you know I’m still at school?’ said Amy, sounding as posh as Pa could. ‘If my carin’ mother knew you were on our doorstep saying you fancy me, she’d come forth and give you a piece of her mind. I don’t go out with any boys yet, and besides, I’m choosy. Well, I have to be, I’m a sailor’s daughter.’

  ‘Well, I’m the Rovers’ left back, yer know,’ said Frankie, Adam’s apple working overtime. ‘I ain’t somebody’s nobody.’

  ‘Yes, but you’re not anybody’s somebody, either,’ sa
id Amy.

  ‘Browning Rovers count for a lot round ’ere,’ said Frankie, ‘and probably more than a sailor’s daughter. Mind, I say that kindly.’

  ‘Just as well,’ said Amy, ‘or me mum would set about you. Anyway, football’s boring, and only scruffy blokes play it.’

  ‘Borin’?’ Frankie couldn’t believe his ears. ‘Turn it up, Amy. Also, I ain’t scruffy.’

  ‘You will be if me mum sets about you,’ said Amy. Actually, Frankie didn’t stand a chance, not with his thin neck and his galloping gobstopper. Nick conceded he was a good left back, but that didn’t count with Amy.

  ‘You ain’t sayin’ Nick’s scruffy, are yer, Amy?’ said Frankie.

  ‘No, he’s just boring,’ said Amy.

  ‘Don’t mind me,’ said Nick again, ‘treat me as if I’m not here.’

  ‘Well, you’re boring about football,’ said Amy, ‘and so’s Chrissie Evans that everyone calls Dumpling. Blimey, fancy a girl likin’ football.’

  ‘She’s always liked it,’ said Frankie.

  ‘She’s playin’ in goal for you on Saturday,’ said Amy.

  ‘Eh?’ said Frankie, Adam’s apple suddenly paralysed.

  ‘Yes, Nick told ’er she could,’ said Amy, and left her brother to explain how that horrendous decision came about.

  Frankie had a fit on the doorstep.

  Saturday morning

  In a Kent quarry not far from Marsham Gaol, Pa Harrison, otherwise known as Knocker, was breaking stone with a sledgehammer in company with a number of his prison kind, the hard labour fraternity. The heavy work might have been dispiriting to Pa, he being a gentleman crook, but he was an eternal optimist and every tomorrow held its hopes. Hopes, for instance, of generous remission on account of good behaviour. Accordingly, he always swung his hammer or his pickaxe more cheerfully than the other men. Taking note of the working convicts were watchful warders, some on duty in the quarry and some patrolling round its lip. The October morning was an autumn gold, inducing Pa to make vigorous assaults on stone boulders.

  An elbow nudged him, and a whisper came out of the corner of someone’s mouth.

  ‘Message for yer, Knocker.’

  ‘I’m all ears, old chap,’ said Pa, and kept swinging.

  ‘Knocker, yer talk poncy. But Brains sends yer ’is regards.’

  ‘So he should.’

  ‘Wants yer to know ’e’s still keepin’ a kind eye on yer missus. Goin’ to give ’er a lodger at ten bob a week some time. ‘Opes you’ll ’ave an ’appy weekend.’

  ‘Much obliged,’ said Pa.

  ‘Hey, you, Johnstone!’ A warder was shouting. ‘Get on with your work! Harrison, down tools. The Governor wants to see you.’

  ‘Is it remission?’ asked Pa, when he was on his way with the warder.

  ‘Now if you’d asked me if it was Christmas, I could’ve told you it wasn’t,’ said the warder. ‘But as to remission, all I know is that it still ain’t Christmas.’

  ‘Never mind, Mr Blakey, you’re still a good sort,’ said Pa. ‘How’s your trouble-and-strife and the little ones, might I enquire?’

  The warder grinned.

  ‘Kind of you to ask, Knocker, but it still ain’t Christmas till you cough up information on the loot.’

  The corridor rang to the sound of clumping boots as Pa said, ‘Wish I knew, Mr Blakey, believe me, but as I informed the law, I dropped it on my way out of the hotel, didn’t I? That’s what comes of being in too much of a hurry, which was what the willing lady said to the sailor when he fell off the bed.’

  ‘Well, hard luck, sailor,’ said the warder. ‘Here we are now, Governor’s office. Show some respect, Knocker. Which means don’t try to lift ’is watch and chain.’

  The Governor, an austere and awesome character, viewed Pa from under lowered brows.

  ‘Harrison?’ he said.

  ‘Good morning, sir,’ said Pa, ‘pleasant weather we’re having outside.’

  ‘No lip, Harrison,’ said the warder.

  ‘I’m still wondering, Harrison,’ said the Governor, ‘when you’re going to be sensible enough to disclose the whereabouts of those jewels. Leniency in regard to your sentence is still on the cards in return for volunteered information.’

  Pa knew that. The law didn’t like law-breakers having a nest-egg to go home to, and he could earn generous remission if he pointed the authorities in the right direction. But if he did so, his life wouldn’t be worth living when he did get out. He was stuck with the hope that good behaviour would knock a few months off his five years.

  ‘Wish I could do some helpful volunteering, Governor,’ he said, ‘but I’m in the unfortunate position of the unlucky, due to dropping the case in my hurry to get out of the hotel, as previously stated at the time and also thereafter.’

  ‘Harrison, there are large numbers of idiots in this world, but I’m not one of them,’ said the Governor. ‘Like other representatives of the law, I ask myself why you didn’t pick the case up.’

  ‘Well, it hurts me to say so, sir, but the fact that I didn’t makes me one of the idiots,’ said Pa with credible gravity. ‘There it was, just behind me, and what did I do? I just kept going. It’s given me very painful recollections, but it’s taught me something I should have known, that I ought to have stuck to an honest way of life.’

  ‘Harrison,’ said the warder, ‘I told you to show the Governor respect. Telling ’im fairy stories is impudence.’

  ‘Hand on my heart, Mr Blakey—’

  ‘Harrison, spare us an oratorio without music,’ said the Governor. With a slight twitching of his lips he changed the subject and asked Pa if he was literate enough to spend one day a week, perhaps two, working in the prison library. The books available in the library were for the benefit of prisoners who had good behavioural records. Pa said he’d read every Dickens’ novel twice. Actually, he’d just skipped through Pickwick Papers once. He preferred Edgar Wallace, but thought he’d keep quiet about that.

  ‘Twice? Is that so?’ asked the Governor.

  ‘Pleasure, I’m sure, Governor,’ said Pa.

  ‘What did you think of Bleak House?’

  ‘Educating, Governor, couldn’t put it down,’ said Pa. ‘You could say I owe most of my intellectual learning to Dickens.’

  The Governor’s lips twitched again. The warder grinned.

  ‘A pity, Harrison, that your intellectual learning led you to crime,’ said the Governor.

  ‘Might I be permitted, Governor, to point out I was known for my honesty before sore temptation downed me?’ said Pa, doing what he could to look ashamed of himself.

  ‘It’s not something I knew,’ said the Governor. ‘However, since you’ve been a model prisoner and have read all Dickens’ novels twice, we’ll arrange for you to work in the library. One day a week to begin with.’

  ‘I’m touched, Governor,’ said Pa, ‘and warmly appreciative.’

  ‘So, I dare say, are the Marines,’ said the Governor.

  * * *

  In the back room behind his office in Hackney, Mister Horsemouth smiled at a weedy-looking man known as Tosh Fingers. It wasn’t, however, precisely the kind of smile Tosh liked. It held the threat of a sack of bricks accidentally dropping on his loaf of bread if anything went wrong. Mister Horsemouth was still sore about Knocker Harrison being incorrectly informed that a certain female hotel guest was absent from her suite on the occasion when he was being given the chance to elevate himself to the role of a cracksman. Mister Horsemouth failed to see that it had just been bad luck caused by Tosh’s need to go for a quick Jimmy Riddle. The perishing female had got back to the hotel while he was in the public convenience. He’d only been away two minutes, and Knocker had arrived on schedule ten minutes later.

  ‘So, the gee-gees are at the post, are they?’ said Mister Horsemouth.

  ‘Ready for the off, guv,’ said Tosh.

  ‘Good, very good,’ said Mister Horsemouth. ‘If I can believe it.’

  ‘Course you can, gu
v, course you can,’ said Tosh.

  ‘The first of six jobs to be pulled. No more, no less.’

  ‘Right, guv. And I got yer full team lined up. All clean, no records, and the rozzers ain’t even got their dabs.’

  ‘Two for tonight’s job,’ said Mister Horsemouth through his large moustache, ‘plus one to keep his peepers skinned.’

  ‘All arranged, guv, all arranged, and nobody’s got a record.’

  ‘Names for tonight’s job?’

  ‘Flash Ferdy—’

  ‘George Simmonds.’

  ‘As ever was, guv. Also, Bone Idle.’

  ‘Alfred Bone.’

  ‘You got it, guv, same bloke. Ain’t exactly idle, though. Then there’s me, with me on-the-job peepers.’

  ‘They’d better be on the job, you runt. Or else.’

  ‘Now would I let yer down, guv, you that pays me rent and keeps me in meat, veg and kippers?’

  ‘You let me down once,’ said Mister Horsemouth.

  ‘Desp’rate call of nature, guv, and a bit of bad luck. Gawd, yer nearly broke me leg for it, which ’urt me feelings as well as me leg, considerin’ I didn’t fail to ’and yer the loot – ’ere, watch it, guv.’ Tosh just managed to slip a heavy-handed swipe from his boss.

  ‘Don’t give me any bleedin’ lip,’ said Mister Horsemouth.

  ‘Not me, guv, not me. Is the job on?’

  ‘It’s on,’ said Mister Horsemouth. ‘Just keep it clean. No damage, no fingerprints.’

  ‘I got yer, guv,’ said Tosh.

  The offices of Adams Enterprises Ltd, a little way up Denmark Hill from Camberwell Green, closed at twelve-thirty on Saturdays. Robert Adams, the general manager, known as Boots to his family and friends, was still at his desk at twelve-forty. Everyone else had gone. He turned as the door to his office opened, and in glided an elegant woman in a brown coat with a fur collar, and a fur-trimmed hat.

  ‘Hello, old sport, wondered if you were still here,’ said Polly Simms, eternally vivacious. She was a few months younger than Boots, who was thirty-seven. He wore his years in easy fashion. She wore hers as if several of them had never happened. ‘Were you waiting for me?’

  ‘Why, did we have an appointment here, then?’ asked Boots.