‘If you don’t do your schoolwork you’ll never get on …’ Archie muttered and put his hand through the letterbox to fish out the key on a string.
‘I’m going to be a famous model and wear lovely clothes when I leave school. I don’t need sums to look pretty.’ She kicked at the scarred front door, with its peeling green paint. ‘I hate comin’ back to an empty house.’
With her pale-blonde hair and her blue eyes, June took after their mother. She looked so sweet that butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, but she could be a real pain as far as Archie was concerned. He would’ve liked to let her go with her friend so that he could have some peace, but there was no chance of that, because Mum would create if June wasn’t home when she got back.
‘Mum said she would be home earlier tonight,’ Archie lied, trying not to notice that there was a faint smell of drains in the kitchen again. Mum had poured loads of strong disinfectant down the sink but the stink always came back. ‘Maybe she’ll let us listen to Dick Barton on the radio—’
‘I don’t like Dick Barton,’ June said and flung herself down on the lumpy old settee. ‘I don’t like Journey into Space either. It frightens me when you listen to that, Archie …’
‘What do you want to do then?’
‘I want a comic. Can I have School Friend?’ She sprang up eagerly.
Archie fingered the change from the loaf and sighed. Sometimes his mother would let them spend a few pennies on comics. He would have liked one about Rock ’n’ Roll, because he was a big fan of Bill Haley & the Comets, and he was saving up because he wanted to go and see James Dean in East of Eden. He’d seen it once already, but he admired the rebellious American teenager who drove fast motorbikes, even though Archie wasn’t old enough to see his films really; his friend down the local flea pit let him in with a wink and a nudge sometimes. However, June wouldn’t stop moaning unless she had her own way. She would create all night and he would never get his homework done.
He gave her a florin. ‘Here, go and get it from the corner shop but come straight back. If you run off, I’ll come after you and you’ll be sorry!’
June stuck her tongue out, grabbed the money and ran.
Archie saved most of what his mother let him keep from the odd jobs he did on Saturdays and in the evenings in summer. He’d dodged school for a while to find work down on the Docks, but the inspector had come after his mother and threatened to fine her if he didn’t go regularly, so he’d had to give that up, which annoyed him, because he desperately wanted a gramophone. He listened to the popular songs on the radio, but it wasn’t the same as having your own records. Some of his friends at school had record players and they bought the latest hits with their birthday money. Archie usually had clothes for his birthday from the nearly-new shop down near Petticoat Lane. His mother didn’t buy from the market stalls, because she said a lot of the stuff was worn out.
‘Some people buy new clothes and then sell the ones their kids have grown out of,’ Sandra had told Archie when she’d bought him his first pair of long trousers the previous Christmas. ‘These have hardly been worn, love. I wanted to buy new, but I just couldn’t manage it – even with the money you earned from delivering papers.’
‘They’re all right, Mum,’ Archie had smiled at her. ‘At least they’re long trousers and people won’t think I’m still a kid.’
‘I’m going to save up for some new ones for your birthday next year,’ she’d promised. ‘I did knit you a new jumper …’
‘It’s great,’ Archie said, because the stripes were his school colours, which meant he could probably get away with wearing it there. The uniform was supposed to be grey trousers and a navy pullover or blazer and a white shirt. Archie’s shirts were frayed at the cuffs but he pulled them up inside his sweater and hoped that no one noticed.
He was still investigating the contents of the pantry when his sister returned clutching her comic and a tube of wine gums.
‘Hey, I said you could have a comic, not spend all of it,’ Archie said.
‘I’m hungry,’ June said as she dragged her coat off and flopped down on the old sofa.
‘What do you want – fried bacon and egg, or would you prefer scrambled eggs on toast?’
‘Can I have bacon and egg with toast … in the middle like a sandwich, and I’d like some brown sauce.’
‘What did your last servant die of?’ Archie demanded. ‘Set the table while I get it ready then … and I’m having some cocoa with mine …’
Archie looked at the clock. It was already half past eight in the evening and his mother still hadn’t got back from work. June had gone up to bed and taken her comic to read on the promise that Mum would bring her some more cocoa when she came home.
Having finished the homework he’d been given, Archie eyed the dirty plates, cups and saucepans he’d used to cook their tea. He hated washing up and Mum seldom expected him to do it, but he knew she was going to be really tired when she got in, and he felt guilty. Sighing, he filled a kettle with water and set it on the range to boil; Mum always said you should pour boiling water over the soda and then add the cold, because it got the grease off better. He wished she would buy some of the washing-up powder that made things easier, but she said soda had always been good enough for her. It was because she couldn’t afford newfangled things like washing powder, but it didn’t help him when he was stuck with a chore that he hated.
He remembered the old days when his father was alive. They hadn’t been rich but there had been money for new clothes, good food, trips to the zoo or a Disney film, and birthday presents that weren’t second-hand. He remembered his dad coming home with fish and chips wrapped in newspaper on Saturday lunchtime. Normally, he’d have sweets in his pockets for Archie and June and he’d given them threepence pocket money a week that they could save in their moneyboxes for whatever they wanted. Archie missed those things, but most of all he missed the way his dad smiled and swung him round or tossed him in the air, the games of football they’d played in the park, and the feeling of love in the house. His mother still loved them both, Archie knew that, but she was so tired all the time and so seldom around.
He listened to Dick Barton and then switched the radio off because it was music he didn’t like much. Sometimes, he listened to country music but mostly he liked Rock ’n’ Roll, because it was exciting. It made him realise that he was a teenager, and teenagers were different these days. The old dark days after the war had begun to change and life was easier, even here in the East End, though Archie’s family couldn’t afford to do all the things that other families did – those that had both a mother and father working were better off these days. The newspapers talked about a time of new prosperity and opportunities for everyone, and even here in the scruffy East End things were improving in some places. One of his best friends, Jamie Rawlings, had told him only that morning that his dad was getting a car soon.
‘We’ll be going to the sea on Sundays in the summer,’ he’d told Archie. ‘I’ll ask Dad if he’ll let you come with us. I’m sure he will, because he likes you – he says you’ve got a raw deal …’
Archie hadn’t liked the idea that his friends pitied him. His mother did what she could for him and June, and he wouldn’t have changed her for the world. He just wished things could be as they were when his dad was alive.
Glancing at the clock again, Archie saw it was half past nine; it wasn’t like Mum to be this late. He hoped she hadn’t had an accident! A cold shiver went right through him as he remembered the terrible day his father had been killed. Mum had cried for days and so had he. June had wept too, but she hadn’t really understood, and she didn’t remember Dad the way Archie did.
Sighing,