Page 20

BEFORE

April 1976

Sally

Doddington Estate, Battersea Park Road, London

‘It’s nothing fancy, but it’ll fill ya up all the same,’ Elsie said, placing a bowl of steaming hot vegetable soup before Sally. ‘Go on. Dig in, and don’t be shy.’

Sally didn’t wait to be told twice. She blew on her spoon, but was too impatient to let the liquid cool down. It was too hot, but so good.

‘Best soup I’ve had,’ Sally gushed as she dived in for a second spoonful.

‘Not sure that’s true, but when you’re Hank Marvin everything tastes good.’

Elsie buttered two slices of bread with margarine, opened a tin of spam and cut a thick slice off, placing it between the bread. ‘Here. Have this too. And slow down, treacle. There’s no rush.’

‘Did you make this?’ Sally asked.

Elsie nodded. ‘If you go down to the Co-op in the evenings, they reduce all the fresh produce to half price. I grab whatever vegetables they have, throw them in a pot with a stock cube, and Bob’s your uncle. That’s dinner for a couple of days.’

‘I’ll try that too. Thanks for the tip,’ Sally said.

She felt nostalgia hit her as she remembered hundreds of bowls of soup eaten in the dining room at the orphanage. She’d not appreciated the hot meals she’d always had in front of her back then.

‘Do you miss Sunshine House?’ Sally asked. She wanted to ask her friend so many questions, but, more than anything, Sally needed to know why Elsie had disappeared from her life. For now, though, she decided to stick with the easy ones.

Elsie cut her sandwich in half and dunked a piece into her soup. Her brow furrowed for a moment. ‘I never thought I’d say this, but I missed the food. And I missed you, Sally.’

Sally reached down and pinched her thigh. She felt like she was dreaming, sitting here with Elsie again. Elsie cocked her head to one side as if waiting for a difficult question. But Sally couldn’t find the words, and the moment passed.

‘How you coping out here?’ Elsie asked, nodding towards the world outside their flats.

‘It’s not what I thought it would be like when I left the home.’ Sally admitted.

‘Never is. Bet you thought you’d be the bee’s knees, living it large in the big bad world. But instead, you’re skulking around bins, looking for scraps.’ Elsie said, not unkindly.

‘I’ve almost run out of money.’ Sally admitted in a small voice, realising there was little point in bravado.

Elsie nodded in sympathy. ‘I remember that feeling. It took me less than a week to run out of cash when I arrived here. You’re barking up the wrong tree if you think I can help you with that. I barely have enough to make ends meet myself,’ Elsie said. ‘But I won’t see you hungry. I promise you that.’

Sally quickly raised her hands. ‘You’ve done more than enough with this. I’m not begging, I swear. I want to work, but nobody wants me. I thought I had a shot in a hardware shop earlier today in Wandsworth – until they asked me my address.’

Elsie rolled her eyes. ‘Nobody wants the residents of the Battersea slums.’

‘I’ve been to the dole office and filled out an application for unemployment benefit. But it will be a couple of weeks before it comes through. I don’t know what to do.’ Sally whispered. ‘Should I call Mrs Burton?’

Elsie snorted, ‘There’s no point doing that, Treacle. Once she dropped you here, that’s her job done. Now the rest is up to you.’ She looked Sally up and down. ‘Have you ever thought about cleaning?’

‘We all had jobs in the orphanage. I know how to mop a floor.’

‘I’m not promising anything, but I’ll see if I can get you a few shifts with my cleaning crew. One of the girls is pregnant and went into labour last night. With a bit of luck, they won’t have replaced her yet. Fair warning: money is a pittance. And it’s back-breaking, all-night work.’

Sally felt her heart flutter as hope danced its way around her. ‘I don’t mind that. I’ll happily do it.’ She placed her spoon in the empty bowl and licked her lips. ‘That’s the first time I’ve felt full in weeks.’

Elsie smiled. ‘I’m glad of that. And I promise you won’t be hungry at least, not with me around.’

Sally smiled shyly and found the courage to ask, ‘Elsie, why did you stop writing?’

Elsie sighed and looked out of the flat window, avoiding eye contact. ‘It’s a long and sorry story that maybe I’ll tell you one day. I suppose the easiest way to explain it is that things got dark for me for a while. And you’re a pure bright white light, Sally. Always have been. I had to step back, so I didn’t spread my darkness to you. But I never stopped thinking about you. And I’m happy to see you today. Truly.’

Sally’s eyes glistened, thinking about the possible hardships her friend had encountered without her. She reached over and squeezed her friend’s hand, and for a moment they sat there, looking at each other happily.

‘Right, you need to get some rest. Me too. Then meet me here at six this evening. I’ll have something ready for us both before I bring you to meet my gaffer. Cyril’s all right, as it goes.’

A few hours later, after a supper of Fray Bentos steak-and-kidney pie in a tin, served with a large scoop of Smash potato, Sally and Elsie walked into a tall office block. A stocky man operated a floor cleaner, moving it slowly in circular movements over the marbled floor. He nodded a hello at Elsie, who waved back. Sally’s eyes took in the plush building. She’d never been anywhere like this before. As she passed the glossy receptionist’s desk, Sally glanced at Elsie, her heart sinking a little. Elsie had always dreamed of taking her secretarial exams once she’d left school.

‘It wasn’t meant to be like this, I know,’ Elsie said, reading Sally’s mind, ‘but no point dwelling on that.’

Elsie moved through double grey doors and then took a right into a long corridor. They passed a men’s and a ladies’ toilets, then Elsie opened another door, that led into a small room with lockers on one wall and cupboards and shelves filled with cleaning products on the other. Three women were putting on light-grey overalls over their clothes. They glanced at Sally with interest as they said hello to Elsie.

‘Where’s the gaffer?’ Elsie asked.

‘Ask, and he shall appear,’ a small round man replied as he walked into the room. He removed his glasses and began cleaning them with the edge of his shirt, which had come untucked from his brown trousers.

‘Hey, Cyril,’ Elsie said, moving closer. ‘Have you got a replacement yet for Mary?’

‘The agency is to send someone over next week,’ Cyril said, looking over Elsie’s shoulder at Sally, who nervously bit her lip as he took her in.

‘I’ve saved them the bother. Sally is here, ready to start now.’

‘That’s not how this works, Elsie,’ Cyril said, putting his glasses back on, pulling a packet of Embassy cigarettes from his shirt pocket, and tapping one out.

‘I know. But she’s a tough one – a hard worker – and ready to do a shift on trial. If you like what she does, you pay her. If you don’t, she’ll go home, no questions asked.’

‘Can’t say fairer than that gaffer,’ one of the women called out as she filled a steel mop bucket with water.

Cyril moved closer to Sally and walked around her, inspecting her like a piece of meat in a market. ‘Scrawny. I’ve seen more fat on a stray cat.’

‘I’m strong, sir,’ Sally said. She guessed the man would like to be addressed formally, and she was right. His gratified expression suggested that he liked the respect.

‘You can start with the toilets. Mind you, I want to eat my dinner off the floors,’ Cyril told Sally.

‘Thank you, sir,’ she quickly said, half curtseying to him, making him laugh out loud.

Elsie sorted her out with an overall, and they both buttoned their uniforms over their clothes. Then, with her own bucket, mop and a plastic basket of cleaning products, Elsie ushered her into the men’s toilet and left her there.

The smell hit her first of all. The stench of urine made her gag. But she didn’t have time for that. She had a job to do. One hour later, she had bleached and scrubbed every cubicle and urinal and washed down the sinks, skirtings and mirrors before mopping the tiled floor. Cyril poked his head in several times, but didn’t say a word to her. She wasn’t sure if that was a good or a bad sign. Once Sally determined she couldn’t do any more, she moved to the ladies’ toilet and did the same again. She had a moment of satisfaction when she’d completed the second room, which was dashed when Elsie told her that she had to repeat the same thing on every floor of the office block. Twenty floors in total.

At the end of her shift, a little after four thirty in the morning, she returned to the cleaning room. There, she found Elsie sitting on a bench, rubbing her feet, beside the other three cleaning ladies – Carys, Sandra and Noreen – who’d introduced themselves at their tea break at midnight.

‘You look done in, treacle,’ Elsie said in sympathy, taking in Sally’s flushed and sweating face.

Sally’s shoulders ached as muscles that had never been used before complained. ‘I’m okay.’

Cyril walked in, a cigarette dangling from his lips, and walked over to Sally. ‘We’ll make a charwoman of you yet. You did well tonight.’

Sally’s pains disappeared at that compliment. ‘Do I get the job?’

Cyril regarded her for a moment. ‘What age are you?’

‘Eighteen.’

He shook his head with a deep sigh. ‘I’ve a daughter a year younger than you.’ He looked over to Elsie and back again to Sally. ‘Five nights a week, Monday to Friday. Seven thirty p.m. on the button. If you’re late, you get one strike. Two strikes, you’re out. Eight pounds per shift. You can start Monday.’

‘Thank you,’ Sally said, relief making her shoulders sag.

Cyril reached into his jacket’s inside pocket, pulled out four envelopes, and then handed one to Elsie, Carys, Sandra and Noreen. ‘Right, let’s lock up and get out of here. Thank Christ it’s the weekend.’

Elsie stood up and placed her hands on her hips as she regarded Cyril. ‘Aren’t you forgetting something? Sally worked hard tonight. So she’ll need paying. Cash.’

‘Don’t push it, Elsie.’ His voice hardened in warning. ‘Like the rest of them, you’re a charlady, not a gaffer. You don’t tell me what to do.’

Carys, Sandra and Noreen busied themselves at the lockers, pulling on their coats, then walking out with their heads down. Sally got it. They didn’t want to get involved in any trouble. And she didn’t want Elsie to get into strife either, not on her behalf.

‘It’s fine,’ Sally whispered to her.

Elsie ignored her and moved closer to Cyril. ‘I mean no disrespect, but you’d want your daughter to be treated fairly, wouldn’t you?’ Her voice softened. ‘Please, gaffer. It’s the weekend, and she hasn’t a bob to her name.’

Cyril sighed and pulled a five-pound note from his wallet. ‘This is all you’re getting. So don’t ask for a penny more. Don’t make me regret being this generous.’

Elsie’s response was to rush over to Cyril and kiss him loudly on his cheek.

‘Get off me, woman,’ he complained, but a big smile broke out over his face.

As they walked the two miles home, arm in arm, while Sally was exhausted, she could not stop grinning. She’d found a job, had enough money to buy some groceries and, more important than anything else, she had found her best friend again.