‘I’m afraid we’ll ’ave ter catch a tram,’ he said as if excusing himself.
‘That’s fine, I don’t go any other way,’ she told him, happy to lie.
It had been raining hard this morning and, though it had now stopped, the interior of the horse tram still smelled of damp clothing – wet umbrellas brushed against skirts and trousers and dripping forlornly on to the fluted boards.
Beside her, Ronnie was talking brightly about his recent promotion and wages rise and how he intended to get on in the world. She said nothing about the money coming from the exhibition of her paintings. Best he didn’t know just yet. It might turn him off and she dared to foster high hopes of resuming their friendship of so long ago, this time more seriously.
At the same time she couldn’t stop thinking of where they were going. Her tummy kept going over as she thought about it. Now it came to it, what could she find to say to her father? It was making her feel sick.
The sun was peeping through the parting clouds as they got off the tram. They turned in the direction Ronnie indicated, he now holding tightly to her arm. It felt wonderful.
Whitechapel was much like the rest of East London, with cheap shops, busy main roads, poorly clad shoppers absorbed in finding the cheapest food for the table. Whitechapel had its alleys, too, and it was into one of these off a dreary, run-down side street that Ronnie led her.
It was narrower even than Gales Gardens; the pockmarked nameplate on one wall read ‘Spectacle Alley’. Ronnie paused. He seemed embarrassed and anxious as if the state of the place was his fault.
‘I’m sorry about this,’ he said. ‘I ought to have warned yer.’
‘You did.’
‘But I should ’ave made it more plain – I mean, where they said yer dad is supposed ter be staying.’
Even Ronnie, where he was living and where she’d once lived, found this place disgusting.
Rubbish of all sorts littered the broken pavement, the walls being blackened by years of soot. There were two or three tiny, dingy shop fronts, signs dangling over brown-stained doorways advertising wares such as cigarettes, beer, Colman’s starch, matches, and above that windows set deep into the brickwork.
None seemed to be doing any trade and only two people passed them as she and Ronnie made their way down the alley, he consulting a piece of paper, the name on which he hadn’t let her read.
As they reached a sign saying ‘Good Beds – Single Men Only’, hanging from an ornate bracket over a black-painted door and window sill, Ronnie stopped.
He looked at Ellie, nibbling his lower lip. ‘This is the place. I’m sorry, I didn’t know. All I was given was the number.’
‘What is it?’ she asked, bewildered.
‘It’s… Well, it’s the place I told you about – a dosser.’ For a moment she was sure he’d got things wrong. She had been sure he’d been taking her to the wrong place ever since they’d got off the tram. In her mind she had seen her father living in moderate comfort at least.
He’d always been a gambler and, though not always lucky, he’d made money as well, a snappy dresser even though Mum had had to slave taking in work to try to make ends meet. True, he liked his drink: she and Mum had suffered the results of that, both of them in their separate ways; but the money he made gambling had adequately covered his spending on drink. Now Ronnie was saying he was living in a dosshouse, filthy and bug-ridden by the look of it, despite the sign grandly proclaiming ‘Good Beds’!
‘This can’t be right,’ she burst out. ‘They must have got it wrong, the people who gave this address.’
Ronnie looked at the piece of paper again. He seemed as devastated as she felt. ‘Perhaps we’d better go back home. Perhaps there is a mistake and this ain’t the right address.’
As they stood looking at the door, a man lurched out. On an impulse Ellie called to him. ‘Do you know of a Mr Albert Jay?’
The man paused, swaying a little, peered at her, then began pouring out a string of beery oaths, finally making some sense.
‘Ol’ Bert – ’im wot’s ill? Poor ol’ bugger ain’t long fer this world if yer asks me. Bloke wot runs this place wants ’im art – says ’e don’t keep no sick people wot ain’t even on the charity, and ’e don’t run ’is doss ’ouse on any charity neiver…’
His words faded away as he lurched off, while Ellie and Ronnie gazed after him, disappearing into the grog shop they’d just passed.
She looked at Ronnie, lifting her chin. ‘I’m going in anyway.’
‘You can’t,’ he cried. ‘It might not be the right Albert. And I’m not letting yer go in there. You could catch something.’
Without answering, Ellie pulled free of his arm and ran in through the half-open door. The smell of urine that met her almost knocked her back as she covered her mouth and nose with a navy-gloved hand.
The place was dim, the dirty windows giving hardly any light, but a thin shaft of weak sunshine, washed-out after the rain, coming through the doorway gave enough to distinguish a flight of bare, rickety stairs, a piece of candle burning low in its holder at the top.
As Ronnie followed her in, a door along a dark passage opened. ‘Yus, wha’ yer want?’ came a hoarse demand.
Ellie looked towards the voice, frightened by the sudden sound, but it was Ronnie who answered. ‘You’ve got a Mr Albert Jay staying here. I’ve just been told he’s ill. This is his daughter come to see him.’
From somewhere Ronnie suddenly became well spoken, perhaps to impress the owner of the uncouth voice or perhaps because he heard his own way of speaking being aped.
Maybe this was how he spoke at work, it being expected of him – only falling back into his slipshod ways when
