As the Crow Flies Read online

  “Always a problem, a mixed marriage,” Granpa would tell me. It was years before I worked out that he wasn’t talking about the cream buns.

  The day I left school I told Granpa he could lie in while I went off to Covent Garden to fill up the barrow, but he wouldn’t hear of it. When we got to the market, for the first time he allowed me to bargain with the dealers. I quickly found one who agreed to supply me with a dozen apples for threepence as long as I could guarantee the same order every day for the next month. As Granpa Charlie and I always had an apple for breakfast, the arrangement sorted out our own needs and also gave me the chance to sample what we were selling to the customers.

  From that moment on, every day was a Saturday and between us we could sometimes manage to put the profits up by as much as fourteen shillings a week.

  After that, I was put on a weekly wage of five shillings—a veritable fortune. Four of them I kept locked in a tin box under Granpa’s bed until I had saved up my first guinea: a man what’s got a guinea got security, Mr. Salmon once told me as he stood outside his shop, thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, displaying a shiny gold watch and chain.

  In the evenings, after Granpa had come home for supper and the old man had gone off to the pub I soon became bored just sitting around listening to what my sisters had been up to all day; so I joined the Whitechapel Boys’ Club. Table tennis Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, boxing Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. I never did get the hang of table tennis, but I became quite a useful bantamweight and once even represented the club against Bethnal Green.

  Unlike my old man I didn’t go much on pubs, the dogs or cribbage but I still went on supporting West Ham most Saturday afternoons. I even made the occasional trip into the West End of an evening to see the latest music hall star.

  When Granpa asked me what I wanted for my fifteenth birthday I replied without a moment’s hesitation, “My own barrow,” and added that I’d nearly saved enough to get one. He just laughed and told me that his old one was good enough for whenever the time came for me to take over. In any case, he warned me, it’s what a rich man calls an asset and, he added for good measure, never invest in something new, especially when there’s a war on.

  Although Mr. Salmon had already told me that we had declared war against the Germans almost a year before—none of us having heard of Archduke Franz Ferdinand—we only found out how serious it was when a lot of young lads who had worked in the market began to disappear off to “the front” to be replaced by their younger brothers—and sometimes even sisters. On a Saturday morning there were often more lads down the East End dressed in khaki than in civvies.

  My only other memory of that period was of Schultz’s, the sausage maker—a Saturday night treat for us, especially when he gave us a toothless grin and slipped an extra sausage in free. Lately he had always seemed to start the day with a broken windowpane, and then suddenly one morning the front of his shop was boarded up and we never saw Mr. Schultz again. “Internment,” my granpa whispered mysteriously.

  My old man occasionally joined us on a Saturday morning, but only to get some cash off Granpa so that he could go to the Black Bull and spend it all with his mate Bert Shorrocks.

  Week after week Granpa would fork out a bob, sometimes even a florin, which we both knew he couldn’t afford. And what really annoyed me was that he never drank and certainly didn’t go a bundle on gambling. That didn’t stop my old man pocketing the money, touching his cap and then heading off towards the Black Bull.

  This routine went on week after week and might never have changed, until one Saturday morning a toffee-nosed lady who I had noticed standing on the corner for the past week, wearing a long black dress and carrying a parasol, strode over to our barrow, stopped and placed a white feather in Dad’s lapel.

  I’ve never seen him go so mad, far worse than the usual Saturday night when he had lost all his money gambling and came home so drunk that we all had to hide under the bed. He raised his clenched fist to the lady but she didn’t flinch and even called him “coward” to his face. He screamed back at her some choice words that he usually saved for the rent collector. He then grabbed all her feathers and threw them in the gutter before storming off in the direction of the Black Bull. What’s more, he didn’t come home at midday, when Sal served us up a dinner of fish and chips. I never complained as I went off to watch West Ham that afternoon, having scoffed his portion of chips. He still wasn’t back when I returned that night, and when I woke the next morning his side of the bed hadn’t been slept in. When Granpa brought us all home from midday mass there was still no sign of Dad, so I had a second night with the double bed all to myself.

  “’E’s probably spent another night in jail,” said Granpa on Monday morning as I pushed our barrow down the middle of the road, trying to avoid the horse shit from the buses that were dragged backwards and forwards, to and from the City along the Metropolitan Line.

  As we passed Number 110, I spotted Mrs. Shorrocks staring at me out of the window, sporting her usual black eye and a mass of different colored bruises which she collected from Bert most Saturday nights.

  “You can go and bail ’im out round noon,” said Granpa. “’E should have sobered up by then.”

  I scowled at the thought of having to fork out the half-crown to cover his fine, which simply meant another day’s profits down the drain.

  A few minutes after twelve o’clock I reported to the police station. The duty sergeant told me that Bert Shorrocks was still in the cells and due up in front of the beak that afternoon, but they hadn’t set eyes on my old man the whole weekend.

  “Like a bad penny, you can be sure ’e’ll turn up again,” said Granpa with a chuckle.

  But it was to be over a month before Dad “turned up” again. When I first saw him I couldn’t believe my eyes—he was dressed from head to toe in khaki. You see, he had signed up with the second battalion of the Royal Fusiliers. He told us that he expected to be posted to the front at some time in the next few weeks but he would still be home by Christmas; an officer had told him that the bloody Huns would have been sent packing long before then.

  Granpa shook his head and frowned, but I was so proud of my dad that for the rest of the day I just strutted around the market by his side. Even the lady who stood on the corner handing out white feathers gave him an approving nod. I scowled at her and promised Dad that if the Germans hadn’t been sent packing by Christmas—I would leave the market and join up myself to help him finish off the job. I even went with him to the Black Bull that night, determined to spend my weekly wages on whatever he wanted. But no one would let him buy a drink so I ended up not spending a ha’penny. The next morning he had left us to rejoin his regiment, even before Granpa and I started out for the market.

  The old man never wrote because he couldn’t write, but everyone in the East End knew that if you didn’t get one of those brown envelopes pushed under your door the member of your family who was away at the war must still be alive.

  From time to time Mr. Salmon used to read to me from his morning paper, but as he could never find a mention of the Royal Fusiliers I didn’t discover what the old man was up to. I only prayed that he wasn’t at someplace called Ypres where, the paper warned us, casualties were heavy.

  Christmas Day was fairly quiet for the family that year on account of the fact that the old man hadn’t returned from the front as the officer had promised.

  Sal, who was working shifts in a cafe on the Commercial Road, went back to work on Boxing Day, and Grace remained on duty at the London Hospital throughout the so-called holiday, while Kitty mooched around checking on everyone else’s presents before going back to bed. Kitty never seemed to be able to hold down a job for more than a week at a time, but somehow, she was still better dressed than any of us. I suppose it must have been because a string of boyfriends seemed quite willing to spend their last penny on her before going off to the front. I couldn’t imagine what she expected to tell them if they all came back on
the same day.

  Now and then, Kitty would volunteer to do a couple of hours’ work on the barrow, but once she had eaten her way through the day’s profits she would soon disappear. “Couldn’t describe that one as an asset,” Granpa used to say. Still, I didn’t complain. I was sixteen without a care in the world and my only thoughts at that time were on how soon I could get hold of my own barrow.

  Mr. Salmon told me that he’d heard the best barrows were being sold off in the Old Kent Road, on account of the fact that so many young lads were heeding Kitchener’s cry and joining up to fight for King and country. He felt sure there wouldn’t be a better time to make what he called a good metsieh. I thanked the baker and begged him not to let Granpa know what I was about, as I wanted to close the “metsieh” before he found out.

  The following Saturday morning I asked Granpa for a couple of hours off.

  “Found yourself a girl, ’ave you? Because I only ’ope it’s not the boozer.”

  “Neither,” I told him with a grin. “But you’ll be the first to find out, Granpa. I promise you.” I touched my cap and strolled off in the direction of the Old Kent Road.

  I crossed the Thames at Tower Bridge and walked farther south than I had ever been before, and when I arrived at the rival market I couldn’t believe my eyes. I’d never seen so many barrows. Lined up in rows, they were. Long ones, short ones, stubby ones, in all the colors of the rainbow and some of them displaying names that went back generations in the East End. I spent over an hour checking out all those that were for sale but the only one I kept coming back to had displayed in blue and gold down its sides, “The biggest barrow in the world.”

  The woman who was selling the magnificent object told me that it was only a month old and her old man, who had been killed by the Huns, had paid three quid for it: she wasn’t going to let it go for anything less.

  I explained to her that I only had a couple of quid to my name, but I’d be willing to pay off the rest before six months were up.

  “We could all be dead in six months,” she replied, shaking her head with an air of someone who’d heard those sorts of stories before.

  “Then I’ll let you ’ave two quid and sixpence, with my granpa’s barrow thrown in,” I said without thinking.

  “Who’s your granpa?”

  “Charlie Trumper,” I told her with pride, though if the truth be known I hadn’t expected her to have heard of him.

  “Charlie Trumper’s your granpa?”

  “What of it?” I said defiantly.

  “Then two quid and sixpence will do just fine for now, young ’un,” she said. “And see you pay the rest back before Christmas.”

  That was the first time I discovered what the word “reputation” meant. I handed over my life’s savings and promised that I would give her the other nineteen and six before the year was up.

  We shook hands on the deal and I grabbed the handles and began to push my first cock sparrow back over the bridge towards the Whitechapel Road. When Sal and Kitty first set eyes on my prize, they couldn’t stop jumping up and down with excitement and even helped me to paint down one side, “Charlie Trumper, the honest trader, founded in 1823.” I felt confident that Granpa would be proud of me.

  Once we had finished our efforts and long before the paint was dry, I wheeled the barrow triumphantly off towards the market. By the time I was in sight of Granpa’s pitch my grin already stretched from ear to ear.

  The crowd around the old fellow’s barrow seemed larger than usual for a Saturday morning and I couldn’t work out why there was such a hush the moment I showed up. “There’s young Charlie,” shouted a voice and several faces turned to stare at me. Sensing trouble, I let go of the handles of my new barrow and ran into the crowd. They quickly stood aside, making a path for me. When I had reached the front, the first thing I saw was Granpa lying on the pavement, his head propped up on a box of apples and his face as white as a sheet.

  I ran to his side and fell on my knees. “It’s Charlie, Granpa, it’s me, I’m ’ere,” I cried. “What do you want me to do? Just tell me what and I’ll do it.”

  His tired eyelids blinked slowly. “Listen to me careful, lad,” he said, between gasps for breath. “The barrow now belongs to you, so never let it or the pitch out of your sight for more than a few hours at a time.”

  “But it’s your barrow and your pitch, Granpa. ’Ow will you work without a barrow and a pitch?” I asked. But he was no longer listening.

  Until that moment I never realized anyone I knew could die.

  CHAPTER

  2

  Granpa Charlie’s funeral was held on a cloudless morning in early February at the church of St. Mary’s and St. Michael’s on Jubilee Street. Once the choir had filed into their places there was standing room only, and even Mr. Salmon, wearing a long black coat and deep-brimmed black hat, was among those who were to be found huddled at the back.

  When Charlie wheeled the brand-new barrow on to his granpa’s pitch the following morning, Mr. Dunkley came out of the fish and chip shop to admire the new acquisition.

  “It can carry almost twice as much as my granpa’s old barrow,” Charlie told him. “What’s more, I only owe nineteen and six on it.” But by the end of the week Charlie had discovered that his barrow was still half-full of stale food that nobody wanted. Even Sal and Kitty turned up their noses when he offered them such delicacies as black bananas and bruised peaches. It took several weeks before the new trader was able to work out roughly the quantities he needed each morning to satisfy his customers’ needs, and still longer to realize that those needs would vary from day to day.

  It was a Saturday morning, after Charlie had collected his produce from the market and was on his way back to Whitechapel, that he heard the raucous cry.

  “British troops slain on the Somme,” shouted out the boy who stood on the corner of Covent Garden waving a paper high above his head.

  Charlie parted with a halfpenny in exchange for the Daily Chronicle, then sat on the pavement and started to read, picking out the words he recognized. He learned of the death of thousands of British troops who had been involved in a combined operation with the French against Kaiser Bill’s army. The ill-fated exchange had ended in disaster. General Haig had predicted an advance of four thousand yards a day, but it had ended in retreat. The cry of “We’ll all be home for Christmas” now seemed an idle boast.

  Charlie threw the paper in the gutter. No German would kill his dad, of that he felt certain, though lately he had begun to feel guilty about his own war efforts since Grace had signed up for a spell in the hospital tents, a mere half mile behind the front line.

  Although Grace wrote to Charlie every month, she was unable to supply any news on the whereabouts of their father. “There are half a million soldiers out here,” she explained, “and cold, wet and hungry they all look alike.” Sal continued her job as a waitress in the Commercial Road and spent all her spare time looking for a husband, while Kitty had no trouble in finding any number of men who were happy to satisfy her every need. In fact, Kitty was the only one of the three who had enough time off during the day to help out on the barrow, but as she never got up until the sun rose and slipped away long before it had set, she still wasn’t what Granpa would have called an asset.

  It was to be weeks before young Charlie would stop turning his head to ask: “’Ow many, Granpa?” “’Ow much, Granpa?” “Is Mrs. Ruggles good for credit, Granpa?” And only after he had paid back every penny of his debt on the new barrow and been left with hardly any spare cash to talk of did he begin to realize just how good a costermonger the old fellow must have been.

  For the first few months they earned only a few pennies a week between them and Sal became convinced they would all end up in the workhouse if they kept failing to cough up the rent. She begged Charlie to sell Granpa’s old barrow to raise another pound, but Charlie’s reply was always the same—“Never”—before he added that he would rather starve and leave the relic to rot
in the backyard than let another hand wheel it away.

  By autumn 1916 business began to look up, and the biggest barrow in the world even returned enough of a profit to allow Sal to buy a second-hand dress, Kitty a pair of shoes and Charlie a third-hand suit.

  Although Charlie was still thin—now a flyweight—and not all that tall, once his seventeenth birthday had come and gone he noticed that the ladies on the corner of the Whitechapel Road, who were still placing white feathers on anyone wearing civilian clothes who looked as if he might be between the ages of eighteen and forty, were beginning to eye him like impatient vultures.

  Charlie wasn’t frightened of any Germans, but he still hoped that the war might come to an end quickly and that his father would return to Whitechapel and his routine of working at the docks during the day and drinking in the Black Bull at night. But with no letters and only restricted news in the paper, even Mr. Salmon couldn’t tell him what was really happening at the front.

  As the months passed, Charlie became more and more aware of his customers’ needs and in turn they were discovering that his barrow was now offering better value for money than many of its rivals. Even Charlie felt things were on the up when Mrs. Smelley’s smiling face appeared, to buy more potatoes for her boardinghouse in one morning than he would normally have hoped to sell a regular customer in a month.

  “I could deliver your order, Mrs. Smelley, you know,” he said, raising his cap. “Direct to your boarding’ ouse every Monday mornin’.”

  “No, thank you, Charlie,” she replied. “I always like to see what I’m buyin’.”

  “Give me a chance to prove myself, Mrs. Smelley, and then you wouldn’t ’ave to come out in all weathers, when you suddenly discover you’ve taken more bookin’s than you expected.”

  She stared directly at him. “Well, I’ll give it a go for a couple of weeks,” she said. “But if you ever let me down, Charlie Trumper—”

  “You’ve got yourself a deal,” said Charlie with a grin, and from that day Mrs. Smelley was never seen shopping for fruit or vegetables in the market again.