Ada does her crushed-slipper shuffle to the door.
‘Hello ducks, come in.’ She’s wearing her quilted ‘all-day’ housecoat that, in Ada’s case, could be described as ‘all week’.
‘No thanks, Mrs Holt, think I’ll get going straightaway.’
Wafting past her is one reason for staying outside. Our house has its own smell; the main ingredients are cabbage and cigarette smoke. Ada’s flat is a prime source. A second reason crouches behind her, glaring at me, tail twitching. Chris is a black-and-white tom that terrorizes other cats, most dogs and me. A real sour puss, his mouth is already open in full feline snarl. Only Ada is allowed to stroke him and even she waits until his mealtimes. Get within range and he slashes like Zorro at exposed skin, and he’s undeterred by gloved hands or trousered legs. His lair is by the fire, inside the fender on the scored brown tiles – an ingrate in the grate. Because Chris hasn’t been ‘seen to’, he adds a bitter edge to the distinctive smell of Ada’s flat and of Ada herself.
She calls his malevolent behaviour his ‘funny little ways’ and carries the livid lines of his affection on hands, wrists and legs. She deems most of them ‘he’s only playing’ scratches. But she has deeper wounds from his ‘you little bugger’ attacks, usually provoked by absent-minded attempts to brush cigarette ash off his back as he snoozes beside her.
Ada squints at me through smoke rising from the fag that clings to her bottom lip. ‘Just ten Weights and a tanner’s worth of whiting please, ducks.’ Her right eyebrow arrows up above her open eye and the left crouches around the one that’s closed. It makes her look as if she doubts everything she sees.
She takes a deep drag, which pulls her jaw to one side and gets her goitre on the move. The cigarette rises and falls like a railway signal but fails to dislodge the lengthening ash, which also resists the buffeting of her speech. Only when it’s longer than the unsmoked bit does Ada notice. She taps it into a cupped hand and goes inside to cast it vaguely towards the fireplace and provokes an acid spit from Chris. She returns with a string bag and, with a nicotine-stained index finger, stirs the money in her purse to find the right coins. ‘Here you are, ducks. Keep the change.’
Ada isn’t the nicest of old dears but she’s not tight, and errands to get fish for her devil cat always bring a bit of pocket money.
‘Oh, just a sec,’ she says with an irritated lift of her chin. ‘I think her ladyship upstairs wants you to get her something.’ She’s referring to Miss Rush, who lives on the first floor. Ada doesn’t her like because of what she claims are her posh, hoity-toity ways. But she dislikes her most because everyone else does like her.
Miss Rush opens the door just enough to frame her tiny body. She tucks a duster into a full-length floral pinny; I’ve caught her ‘mid clean’. She’s bright-eyed and her rosy cheeks seem out of place on her bony face, which is haloed by a perm of white hair. Miss Rush neither smokes nor, as far as anyone can tell, does she ever eat cabbage. The smell emerging from behind her is a blend of Mansion floor polish and Sunlight soap. Her passion for cleaning extends to polishing the lino outside on the landing; a practice that Ada thinks is showing off. Miss Rush’s home must be spotless but no one knows for sure because, unlike Ada, she never asks anyone in.
She has run out of Bournvita. ‘Very kind Billy and that’s for you,’ she says softly, and hands me a threepenny bit extra. Like Ada, she tips in advance. Mum encourages me to be especially polite to Miss Rush because she’s a ‘lady’. Whenever neighbours indulge in raucous behaviour or use bad language, Mum says, ‘What will Miss Rush think?’ But Miss Rush doesn’t seem to mind and she’s the only tenant who manages to stay on good terms with everyone. She isn’t all that genteel either because she reads the Daily Mirror and calls lunch ‘dinner’. She’s old, clean and speaks quietly. It doesn’t take much to be a lady in our street.
‘Won’t be long Miss Rush.’
Before closing the door, she nods towards the rope blocking off the stairs to the second floor and the empty top flat. ‘Terribly sad.’
Old man Fay died of TB and his flat is waiting to be fumigated before it can be re-let. He was ‘a right stinker,’ according to Ada, who could have run him a close second. Mr Fay rarely washed and he had a strong smell, even out in the street. He was also deeply religious and did weird things, like laying crosses made of two matchsticks on the pavement and asking people to mind where they walked.
Our landlord, Mr Duffield, found him lying naked in bed, eyes open, staring in terror along an outstretched arm to where his fingers curled around a large wooden crucifix. Scores of empty matchboxes were piled in the corner of his bedroom and matchstick crosses dotted the floor like tiny Christian land mines that had failed to protect him. When they took him away, the sooty outline of his body was stained on the bedclothes. Mr Duffield joked that, unlike the Turin Shroud, Mr Fay’s sheet bore only a rear impression.
It’s exciting to have known someone who has died and I’ve been embellishing Mr Fay’s death with tales of strange noises coming from his empty flat at night. When John hears these stories, he shakes his head but, like most of our friends he wants to believe that spooky things can happen in our street. For the little kids, Old Man Fay is becoming a bogie man.
Mum and Dad are desperate to move to a flat on the new estate by the Thames. However, they’re a long way down the waiting list. The home they want most of all is on the back of Shredded Wheat packets. The Swedish-style ‘dream house’ stands bathed in sunshine above a sloping lawn. By the garden gate, a man, his wife and a boy are waving while a younger girl crouches to pet a Scottie dog. They’re all smiling, even the dog. The house could be ours if we can come up with a winning description for a Nabisco breakfast. Mum has had several attempts, each one sent off with its three packet tops and a catchphrase. She thinks her latest try is a potential winner: ‘Shredded Wheat, your morning treat’. We’re not holding our breath.
If this one doesn’t win, Mum says it will be her last try and she’s already eyeing the matching kitchen cabinet, table and chairs that are up for grabs on the back of the Corn Flakes packet.
Dad is an even more committed competitor and he’s convinced that sooner or later he’ll predict eight draws on the Football Pools. When he does finally line up his ‘Os’ against the right games in the coupon’s little squares, he says we’ll all be on the pig’s back and able to buy the Swedish house outright – Scottie dog and all. Mum tells him to get away with his nonsense but pays secret attention when he checks the results in the Sunday paper.
Back in the street, I run into John who is bouncing a tennis ball on a cricket bat as he makes his way home.
‘Where you going?’
‘To get stuff for the old girls.’
‘Sharesy.’
‘Yeah.’
We share whatever is earned from running errands. It’s one of Dad’s rules that covers most things we do, even when there’s no real money at stake. We’ve never finished a game of Monopoly because as soon as one of us runs out of money, the other lends him enough to carry on.
Back Seat Dreams
‘Watcha Billy.’
‘Watcha Josie.’
Josie Costello is sitting on the ‘Big Step’, a foot-high terrace of black-and-white tiles that surrounds Plummer’s corner shop.
‘What are you doing?’
I hold up the string bag.
‘Been to get stuff for Ada Holt and Miss Rush.’
Josie sits a lot to ease the strain on her callipered leg – the result of what she calls her ‘brush with polio’, which she cheerily tells everyone is better than being swept away altogether.