‘She’s off to get the tea for him,’ said Peggy.
‘Who is?’ said big Paddy from halfway into his pillow.
‘Mrs Trott. I wonder if he knocks anything off her bill for that? I’m surprised his Gladys allows it.’
Paddy snorted with laughter. ‘He’s playing with fire, that one. If Gladys knew, she would chop his tackle off. Tell Maggie Trott to bring me one up next.’
‘Tell her yerself,’ said Peggy and, placing two fingers into her mouth, she sent out a piercing whistle to Eric. He didn’t look her way and she knew it was deliberate. She waved her hands furiously to attract his attention.
‘Wave your tits at him,’ said Paddy. ‘That’ll make him look up.’
Peggy ignored him. ‘I’ll just have to wait until he finishes gassing and gets closer; Maggie definitely saw me.’ Eric would take five minutes to drink the tea and he never dawdled for longer. ‘Look at that, he’s giving her a ciggie again. That must be their little arrangement, a ciggie for a cuppa,’ Peggy tutted. ‘I wonder who they are gassing about.’ In Peggy’s world, it was always who, not what.
Eric drank his tea and appeared to be in no hurry. ‘Get a move on, will you,’ she hissed. Peggy couldn’t see the look of dismay that crossed Eric’s face as he eventually took his leave of Mrs Trott and made his way along the street, depositing bottles of milk on each doorstep. He was getting closer and closer and, as he did so, his determination to keep his gaze fixed pointedly downwards, ignoring Peggy, became more obvious.
‘Eric!’ she hissed. ‘Eric, up here,’ as if he didn’t know.
The brass bed frame creaked behind her. ‘You’re wasting your time. That tight bastard won’t give you nowt,’ said Paddy, heaving himself up the bed and reaching down to pick up his cigarettes and matches from the floorboards. He stuffed a ticking pillow, brown with old sweat and Brylcreem, down behind his back and slapped on the cap which had been hanging on the bedpost above his head.
‘Me back’s killing me. I’ve hardly slept a wink,’ he said, doubting that there would be any sympathy from Peggy, but it was imperative he imparted the information. He was laying out his stall for the day. ‘Ouch, Jesus, I can hardly move.’ He lit his Woodbine and, flicking the match, dropped it onto the floor to join the pile of dead ones already there.
Peggy tried to attract Eric’s attention yet again; he was now only two doors away. ‘Eric!’ she hissed. ‘Feck, Annie O’Prey will be off to mass if he doesn’t hurry up and she’ll see me. I swear to God he’s walking slower than usual.’ The sound of clinking bottles landing on steps marked Eric’s progress until he was almost under the window. ‘Eric,’ Peggy hissed again, but he was stubbornly refusing to look up.
‘Tell him you’ll give him a quick leg-over in the wash house if he leaves us a couple,’ said Paddy, and then he began to chuckle. ‘No, don’t do that, I’ll have them all feeling sorry for me down the pub if you do for he’s bound to refuse; the man is known for his good sense, even if he is married to Gladys.’
Eric couldn’t have heard a word big Paddy was saying, and he knew it, which was just as well because Peggy’s expression revealed that she might be about to lose her temper. But before he could say another word, Eric finally looked up. Peggy, spurred on by need, pushed her head well out of the window, holding onto her breasts with one hand and pushing up the sash window further with the other.
‘Ah, you’re a good man, Eric.’ Her voice held an assumption that Eric noted in the tone of his response.
‘What do you want, Peggy? You’ll have the whole street out.’
Peggy tried a flirtatious giggle, but it had been a long time. ‘God love you,’ she said, ‘what do you think I’d be wanting from a good-looking milkman like yourself? Would you just leave us a couple, for the kids’ breakfast like, and I’ll pay you on Friday.’
‘Come on, Peggy,’ Eric said, ‘don’t put me in this position. You know you owe me for eight as it and Gladys hasn’t forgotten it.’ He looked exasperated. ‘Peggy, you’re putting me in a spot here.’ He was arguing with himself whilst Peggy, minus her teeth, grinned down at him. He knew if he gave her a pint of the steri, which had a flavour similar to evaporated milk, she would water it down and make it stretch to three pints and it would last her for two days. If she had any stale bread and a scraping of sugar, her kids would have pobs for breakfast. It was just the thought of the kids, hungry, that got to the man who was childless and felt the pain of it every day. Peggy’s kids were half as wide as any others, with eyes that looked permanently haunted and hungry. They were fed by the street, by women like Maggie Trott and the nuns. Eric knew he had a moral obligation to play his part and he lifted four pints of steri out of his basket.
‘You win,’ he said, ‘and don’t worry about paying – you have an angel on the street who has covered it for you, because I can’t just leave free milk, Peggy. Our Gladys, she
