Eve of the Isle (2 page)

‘Lordy, just look at the state of you! Get yerselves in!' commanded Peg, clad in her ancient fisherman's cape and rope threaded hood. Hoisting a lamp above their heads, she peered closely at their wet faces. ‘I've been marching up and down the isle for the past three hours looking for you. A palace guard ain't had as much exercise as I've had t'night.'

‘Sorry Peg, but the river's up,' Eve gasped as they hurried towards the cottage. ‘I'm surprised it ain't followed us home.'

Peg put her shoulder to the wooden front door. ‘I'd send it back with a slap if it did!' She pushed them inside.

Albert clung to her in the dim passage. ‘Old Father Thames was gonna gobble us up.'

She cackled loudly. ‘He'd spit you out, chic. The likes of you is too small to fill his plate.'

Samuel looked hopeful at the mention of food.

‘What's to eat, Peg?'

‘First, get them wet clothes off, lads. The stove won't light as the coke got rained on in the yard. But I put a nice bread and cheese supper upstairs for you.'

Eve began to strip off the boys' wet clothes, leaving them in only their pants and vests.

They couldn't wait to find their food.

‘Go on you two, get up them stairs and under the
bedclothes to warm yourselves.' Peg's bush of frizzy grey hair sprang forth as she removed her hood and two gnarled brown fingers cuffed a drip from her long, crooked nose.

The boys ran up the stairs and Peg nodded to Eve. ‘Go on, you too, my girl. Hope to Gawd yer don't get pneumonia. I knew you should have stayed with me t'night. Me rheumatics were playing me up terrible.'

Eve accepted the gentle rebuke for she knew it was warranted. It had been foolhardy to take the boys with her, but she had only meant to walk as far as Aldgate. A shower of rain was nothing to a flower-seller. It was her streak of stubborn determination that made her blind to the dangers and in losing her basket and nearly drowning her children she had paid a heavy price for not listening.

At the top of the stairs, Eve stood in the glow of the two Tilley lamps that Peg had lit, listening to the beat of the rain on the leaking roof. She could hear but not see the many drips that bounced mysteriously from the worm-eaten architraves to the bare boards below.

‘Hurry up, you two and into bed,' she called as she passed the first room to her left, and entered the second.

‘Jimmy ain't home, I tried his door,' said Samuel, his teeth chattering as he hurried to pull on the cut downs, second-hand men's combinations, he wore as pyjamas.

‘He might be sheltering from the storm. Them deliveries he makes for the paint factory take him all over the city.' Eve knew how fond the boys were of
Jimmy. He was a brother to them, with no family of his own, a waif from the streets. He regarded Peg as dearly as he would a mother for without her and the shelter and love she had given him over the years, he would, he maintained, have come to no good.

‘I'm going to buy meself a bicycle like Jimmy's one day,' Samuel grinned as he rolled back the warm woollen sleeves that overlapped his arms. ‘Ride it all the way up to the North Pole and back again.'

‘You'll need a stronger pair of legs first, my lad,' Eve smiled. ‘And a smart bicycle like Jimmy's, needs saving up for.'

‘It's cold at the North Pole,' commented Albert dourly, securing the baggy cloth at his waist with a large button and frowning at his brother. ‘Wish I could sit by the stove. It's freezing in here.'

‘You heard Peg, son,' replied his mother. ‘The stove's out.'

‘I bet it'll be hot still, though.'

She patted his round bottom. ‘You'll be just as warm in bed.'

Eve tucked her sons beneath the worn and welldarned bedclothes draped over the two small horsehair mattresses positioned side by side on the floor. A long chintz curtain divided the room. In the second space was Eve's own brass bed. Its austerity was softened by a blanket embroidered with rainbow coloured silks. Next to this was a chest on which stood a white china jug and bowl. Four shelves overhead were filled with bottles;
Eve's own homemade remedies for ills and agues. A black framed photograph of Eve's parents, a tall young man and dark haired girl, hung on the wall, illuminated in the lamp's light.

‘Peg said I ain't gonna die from being gobbled up,' Albert chattered, drawing his eiderdown up to his nose. ‘I'm gonna die from nomonia instead. I just 'ope that sort of dying ain't as horrible as it would've been drownin'.'

‘You're not about to die of anything.' Eve hid a rueful smile at her son's unintended humour. ‘Unless it's the complaints-ague. And even then, it won't kill you, though you could be in mortal danger of getting jaw-ache.'

Samuel burst into laughter. Eve began to laugh too, and Albert finally joined in, pleased to be the centre of attention.

‘Can we eat our suppers now?' Both boys eyed the two enamel plates overflowing with bread and cheese.

‘Yes, but chew slowly and don't get crumbs in your beds.'

As they ate, Eve untied the tassel of the curtain, drawing it across the width of the room affording her a modicum of privacy. She was soaked to the skin and beginning to shiver uncontrollably. The noise of the rain on the roof was loud and threatening. How long would the storm last?

Taking a set of clean smalls from the bottom drawer of the chest, a warm jumper and skirt, she dried herself and dressed quickly. Her boots were ruined and wouldn't
be wearable for days. Slipping her feet into her only other pair, ones that were held together by a length of coarse string, she was suddenly filled with exhaustion. From early light this morning she had been collecting and preparing the winter flowers she bought from market. The early snowdrops sold well at the picture houses and theatres alike. But she had lost all her stock tonight! It was a calamity and she cringed to think of the loss.

As she sat wearily on her bed, her eyes closed and Raj's dear face came to mind; her sailor husband who had lived here with her for three short years before his death. Somehow they had always made ends meet. Those years had been the happiest of her life.

‘Mum, I've finished me supper!'

‘So've I.'

Her sons' voices brought her back to reality. Drawing back the curtain, she turned down the lamp, leaving a soft glow in the room.

‘Tell us a story. A river one,' said Albert, as she placed the plates to one side and sat on his mattress. ‘About Old Father Thames and the Stink.'

Eve chuckled. ‘After tonight I don't think I'll tell you them stories again.'

‘I was only joking,' yawned Albert. ‘I wasn't really afraid. There ain't no monster is there?'

‘Not if you don't tempt him,' said Eve warningly. ‘But if you play on the barges and fall in, you'll soon find out what Old Father Thames looks like.'

‘Samuel makes me do it.' Albert peeped accusingly at his brother from behind the sheet.

‘We only watch the other boys,' Samuel said hurriedly. ‘We don't jump the barges.'

‘I should hope not,' said Eve firmly. ‘You know what happened to Tommy Higgins.'

Some years ago there had been a river fatality in Isle Street. Maude Higgins' youngest son of fifteen had missed his footing whilst thieving from one of the barges. His body was swept away by the current and gruesomely retrieved weeks later. The Higgins' six sons were rough diamonds, but they were salt of the earth and the loss of their brother had affected them deeply.

Eve indicated the bucket. ‘Do you want a wee?'

‘No, we done one whilst you was changing,' giggled Samuel. ‘The bucket's half full already from the leak in the roof.'

‘It came down on me head as I was doing one,' chuckled Albert.

They all laughed and when Eve had kissed them both, she made the sign of the cross, saying one Our Father and One Hail Mary as was their usual nighttime prayer. ‘Goodnight and God Bless,' she ended, ‘see you in the morning, by God's good grace, Amen.'

‘Amen,' replied the boys sleepily.

Tiptoeing to her small space, she took a tartan shawl from the chest. Though old and worn from its many flower-selling days, the shawl had been her mother's and gave Eve great comfort. Pinning up her long hair,
she glanced in the small mirror nailed on the wall. Her large amber eyes were heavy with tiredness, shielded by the flutter of her thick brown lashes. She knew from the photograph that her dark hair and delicate bone structure were inherited from her mother. Peg always maintained that if Sarah Flynn had survived the flu epidemic of 1918, she would have preserved her Irish good looks to this day, despite the hard work and worry that had had turned her hair prematurely grey. It was down to Sarah, she insisted, that Eve was possessed of the timeless beauty of her forefathers.

Another wave of tiredness crept over her as the noise of the rain on the roof seemed to increase. She turned and trod softly over to gaze at her sleeping children. Two little boys, both beautiful in their own way. A hard life awaited them. No amount of wishing otherwise could change the fact. But she had built up many contacts over the years and preserved a good reputation. The watercress would always sell well. The posies and buttonholes too, if you knew how to present them. These gifts from the earth were bread and butter to them. At least Albert and Samuel would inherit the knowledge.

Once more she leaned to kiss them lightly, then pulling her shawl round her, made her way downstairs.

In the kitchen, she found Peg cursing loudly. A pool of dirty brown water funnelled up through the kitchen duckboards making little whirlpools and sucking noises.

‘Isn't there something we can do?' Eve stood still,
her eyes wide with concern.

Peg turned round slowly, a look of resignation on her lined, worn face. She snatched the dog end from her lips and cast it into the muddy puddle. ‘Watch this,' she croaked.

Eve waited as the bobbing article made its way with speed to the feet of the stove. It swirled there and Eve held her breath, praying the level would drop. But then the dog end was sucked down between the two submerged clawed black feet of the stove.

‘It's risin',' said Peg. ‘And fast.'

‘The stream must be blocked.'

The enormity of the problem suddenly struck Eve. Once the kitchen and scullery were flooded, what would happen? Would it flow over the kitchen step?

Peg muttered under her breath, shaking her head. ‘This is different, girl. We ain't had nothing like this 'afore.'

Eve nodded in agreement. It was true, the stream had never raised the duckboards to make a lake of its own. Then Peg gave a hoarse gasp. Lifting a shaking finger she pointed along the passage.

Eve blinked and blinked again. It couldn't be! A glistening tongue was creeping slowly but surely under the front door and moving towards them.

Chapter Two

S
oon the water was running over the cracked linoleum and up to the stairs.

‘We need to build a barricade,' said Eve, knowing as she spoke it was a ridiculous idea. The force outside the door was building, even the hinges were creaking.

‘It'd have to be a big one,' sighed Peg, shaking her head. ‘No, there's only one thing we can do and that's to take shelter upstairs.'

Eve knew it was the only answer, even though she didn't want to accept the fact.

‘Come on,' said Peg, clutching Eve's arm. ‘We've got to work fast. We'll take the stuff what's movable from me room up to safety. You get the food from the larder. Put it in the wicker basket hanging on the door. We don't know how long this is going to last.'

Whilst Peg began to collect her things together, Eve returned to the kitchen. The water level had risen to ankle depth. She undid the string round her boots and removed them then, gritting her teeth against the cold, waded barefoot to the larder. Placing the cheese, bread
and dripping she found there in the wicker basket, she hitched up her skirt and returned to the passage.

‘I took all me papers and bedclothes upstairs,' said Peg breathlessly. ‘This here is me clothes. The furniture will have to look after itself. There ain't much anyway. Just a few nice ornaments and I put them on the mantel.' Peg paused, then said regretfully, ‘I don't like to say it, ducks, but them little cress seedlings of yours will already be under water.'

Eve shrugged. ‘There's nothing to be done about that.' Her small patch of cress by the stream would be lost to the main thrust of water from the docks.

‘I'm sorry for you,' said Peg heavily. ‘You've brought that little piece of land into life over the past few years.'

‘I'm not going to think about that now, Peg. We need to save all we can in the house. Don't know how deep it's going to get.'

Peg went back to her room and Eve took the food upstairs relived to find the boys still fast asleep. The creaks and gurgles of the cottage hadn't woken them.

‘Blimey, look at your feet girl, they're turning blue,' Peg said when Eve returned to help her.

Until that moment Eve hadn't felt her feet; the cold water had numbed them.

‘I took me boots off. They're me only dry pair.'

‘Well, bloody well put them on then again. You won't be no use to God nor man if your feet are frozen off.'

When Eve had put on her boots she lifted the two hooded capes from the nail on the wall.

‘Yeah, better take them,' nodded Peg. ‘If the roof falls in we might need 'em.' Despite the severity of the situation, she gave a chuckle. ‘Run them upstairs then come and help me with the mattress. I've cleared a space on top of the sideboard where it could balance.'

Eve was soon helping Peg to lift the sagging mattress on top of the wooden cabinet. It took them several attempts but finally it was in place.

‘It'd have to come waist high to reach this.'