This book is a work of fiction originally inspired by my mother, Laura Gladys White, as she was before she married my father, Eric Haley. Gladys appeared in my second novel, Land Fit For Heroes, as an obstreperous six-year-old. In this book, she is an argumentative and opinionated fourteen-year-old, struggling to cope with the loss of her father and a family who don’t talk about things. The real Gladys was all these things, but she was also tough, brave and compassionate. I hope that comes across in the story.
Bert is a fictional character who first appeared in Plagued and popped up again in Land Fit For Heroes and Seventh Daughter. In this book, I gave him his own voice. He insisted on explaining the trials of living with Hetty and his daughter Maisie and his Romani heritage. This led me along some interesting paths, too many to mention individually, but www.newforestromanygypsytraveller.co.uk, www.travellerstimes.org.uk, and Glenda Bailey-Mershon and her book Eve’s Garden were a great help, as were several dictionaries of English Romani words. I hope that I have done the Romani people justice, and I apologise for any errors.
Arthur is another fictional character who first appeared in Land Fit For Heroes as the handsome, narcissistic villain everyone loves to hate. In this book, he gave me an insight into what made him that way and I gave him a chance to redeem himself. He didn’t take it, but maybe he learned a lesson or two.
The story of the gold robbery is based on an actual event, The Croydon Aerodrome robbery of 6 March 1935 during which £21,000 worth of gold bullion, sovereigns and American Eagles were stolen. Much of the information I gleaned about the robbery and the trial came from www.historiccroydonairport.org.uk. Those involved inspired the characters of Swanland, Mazzarda, O’Brien, Little Harry and the Sabini gang. The Pritchard family is fictional, but H Shores Criminality and Englishness in the aftermath: The racecourse wars of the 1920s helped me build a picture of gangs of the time. The stolen gold was never recovered.
The British Union of Fascists never had a large following in Southampton. Although they had headquarters on The Avenue, there were no major clashes between them and the Jewish community. Had there been, they’d have centred on East Street and Canal Walk, where businesses included Emanuel’s jewellers, watchmakers, and pawnbrokers, and the Marks and Spencer’s Penny Bazaar. The Emanuels were a prominent Southampton family, but Old Man Emanuel and his mastiff are figments of my imagination, as is Yaffie Goldstrom. Daniel Tilles’ thesis, ‘Jewish Decay against British Revolution’: The British Union of Fascists’ Antisemitism and Jewish Responses to it, and British Fascism in the 1930s in Life and Literature, by Jennifer M Janes, were invaluable.
My maternal great-aunt and uncle inspired Winnie and Percy. I never met either, and the characters I created around a few facts gleaned on Ancestry.com are fictional. In A Dish Best Served Cold, Winnie redeems herself and asks Percy for forgiveness. Whether he listens is a story for another day.
This book exists thanks to encouragement from wonderful readers who took the time to contact me or leave reviews of my first three novels. You will never understand how much your kind words mean. Thanks, too, to Aleks Kruz and Hayley Yates of Hangar47, who provided the technical know-how. Last, but definitely not least, I have to thank my long-suffering husband, Dave Keates, for his patience in listening to the story, believing in me, and giving his feedback and suggestions.
This book owes a great deal to my mother, Gladys, and my attempts to understand what made her the woman she was. I hope she would be proud and not angry. It is a tale of grief, lost innocence, and the uncertain years between the wars. As war clouds gathered, some helped each other, while others helped themselves
Copyright © 2022 Marie Keates
All rights reserved. ISBN: 979-8-3667-6402-5
1 – Tuesday 8 January 1935
Bert sat on the old quay wall and watched the gulls wrangling amongst themselves. The chill of the rugged stone seeped through his trousers, but his thick fisherman’s jumper kept the rest of him warm. The sun had risen now, but the sharp frost would cling to the shadows for a while yet. He lit a cigarette, lifted his face to the brightening sky, and let out a long sigh.
He had left home earlier than usual because Hetty was in a lather over someone breaking Yaffi Goldstrom’s window. It was likely to be kids mucking around, but she was insufferable when she got riled. Frank had made things worse by blaming the fascists, and Sam was in a state because he imagined he’d seen Arthur Fisk. Then there was Percy. He was bound to be melancholy today, and a moody Percy was heavy going. All this was without Maisie’s dramas. She was her mother’s daughter, sixteen going on twenty-five, and more mouth than a cow’s got udder. It was as if he was in the eye of a storm, and he didn’t like it.
The world was full of problems. There was no need to go searching for things to worry over. For a start, there were the poor sods on the dole. Every day, men in tattered rags sloped down to his wharf to ask if he had any jobs. The poor buggers were afraid to meet his eye. He hated to turn them away, but what else could he do? Millions of men were unemployed. He couldn’t find work for all of them. The only growth industries nowadays were pawnshops, moneylenders and undertakers.
Bert stared at the line of gulls on the rickety old pontoon and the blue hull of his sailboat, Sybil. Frank may not have been far off the mark about Yaffi Goldstrom’s window. Mosley and his Blackshirts made Bert nervous. They talked a good talk, but something rotten lurked beneath their words. Their contempt for the Jews was part of it. If the fascists hated the Jews, it stood to reason they despised the Romani too, and he and Frank had Romani blood. Mosley was too fond of that nasty little Chancellor, come Führer in Germany with his Nazi party, and the other bugger in Italy, invading Corfu and stirring up trouble with the Germans. Bert didn’t trust him as far as he could throw him.
How had Hitler hoodwinked the German government so easily? It was a mystery. Everyone could see he was a warmonger, burning books and sending storm troopers to smash up shops and arrest Jews. Why had no one questioned the ‘Night of the Long Knives’ or noticed what he was? The press called it a ‘purge of dangerous thugs,’ but it was murder, pure and simple. Building a few roads didn’t make it better. And the rumours of Hitler secretly manufacturing arms — despite the Treaty of Versailles — horrified Bert.
Whenever he thought of it, it put the wind up him. He was forty-two and had one foot with no toes. His hair was grey now, not black. There’d be no more being sent off to war for him, but what of all the other young men, his lad George, Tom and Harry’s boys, Frank’s Stanley and young Sam? After the things they’d suffered last time, another war was unthinkable
Bert was still staring at the river and scowling when Sam sat beside him, put two steaming mugs of tea on the wall and sighed loudly.
‘I swear it was Fisk I saw the other day.’ Sam lit a cigarette and blew out a cloud of blue smoke. ‘He was working on that new Guildhall.’
‘It’s been four years since you last saw him, Sam. How would you recognise him?’ It was a question Bert had asked a dozen times, to no avail.
‘I just did. I’d know the bugger anywhere.’
Sam took off his glasses, wiped them on the lining of his jacket, then put them on again. Bert watched him. Without spectacles, Sam looked naked, and each of his grey eyes gazed in a different direction. When he put them back on, his squint was barely noticeable. The glasses cleaning was a sure sign he was rattled, as was the nervous way he ran his hand through his ginger hair.
‘Why would he come back here?’ Bert asked.
It was nonsense. If Fisk had any sense, he’d have stayed away. He was a wily devil, so Bert didn’t believe he’d returned.
‘Well, I came back, didn’t I? He’s got a ma too, and sisters.’ Sam’s hand went from his hair to his little goatee beard. He’d be pulling at those jug ears of his next at this rate.
‘But you saved him from hanging, Sam. Even if you did see Fisk, he has no reason to come after you.’
‘It’s Percy I’m worried about, not me. He put Arthur’s neck in the noose. It was Percy who told the police what Arthur was up to and got him sent down for seven years. Arthur ain’t the forgiving kind. If he is back, it can only mean trouble.’
‘He’s been out for, what, two years now? If he was going to do something, he’d have done it already, Sam. I’m sure you’re worrying over nothing.’
‘Well, I wish I was.’
‘I tell you what. Why don’t you and me take a drive up there tomorrow and have a look, just to set your mind at rest? I’ll bring my car in the morning. If it is him, then we’ll think about what to do. In the meantime, keep your trap shut, especially around Percy. The last thing he needs is you worrying him over this, not today. You remember what today is, don’t you?’
‘Of course I do. I miss Lenny too, you know. He was a good bloke.’
Maybe fretting over Fisk was Sam’s way of dealing with what had happened. They all missed Lenny, but Sam had had a rougher life than most. Perhaps losing someone so close in such a horrible way had been harder on him?
Was it easier to imagine an old enemy reappearing and fuss over that than admit how much the spectre of death frightened him? It had been tough enough for the likes of him and Percy to watch, and they’d seen the battlefields of France. Sam might be pushing thirty, but he was still a nipper, and, most of his life, he’d had no one to lose.
2 – Tuesday 8 January 1935
Gladys opened her eyes and looked at the alarm clock on her bedside table. With the curtain closed, it was too dark to tell the time. Mum banging around downstairs in the kitchen had woken her. With a shiver, she pulled the blanket over her head. She’d been in the middle of such a lovely dream. Would she be able to return to it? She closed her eyes again and imagined herself sitting on Uncle Percy’s shoulders. His hair poked out under his cap in brown spikes the way it always did. She felt his brawny arms around her legs and the blistering sun beating down on them both. From this height, the crowd below was a peculiar mixture of hats and shoulders. The carnival floats had passed by now. People were drifting away. There was Mum, sitting on a shady bench at the far side of the park. Bobby, a flash of white hair, sped across the grass towards her. Gladys had no interest in them.
The men streaming through the dock gate grabbed her attention. Plumes of cigarette smoke rose above them here and there. They all looked the same in their shabby suits and flat caps, but she scanned each one until she saw him. He was far taller than anyone else, and with his hat in his hand, his hair was a beacon.
He used to say, ‘You never get away with a thing when you’re tall and blonde. And, even if don’t get caught, they always pick you out later.’
It was why he always stuck to the straight and narrow, unlike Uncle Percy, although, with his scar, he stood out as well. Up on his shoulders, she did too. The blonde head swivelled. He’d noticed her. She waved, and he waved back as he crossed the road. Soon he was close enough for her to see the fine stubble on his chin and clamber from Uncle Percy’s shoulders to his. She’d give anything to look into those blue eyes again or have his soft hair under her fingers.
‘If you get a move on, Uncle Percy will give you a lift.’ Mum poked her head around the bedroom door and drove the dream away. ‘He’s got an early job in Bevois Valley, and Frank’s picking him up in the lorry. He says they can drop you off on the way if you’re ready. There’s tea in the pot. Shake a leg.’
Sometimes Gladys wondered if there was any point in having an alarm clock. Mum always came and woke her before it rang. Like most things in their house, it had come from one of Uncle Percy’s jobs. He said furniture removal was like burglary except he got paid to take things out of rich people’s houses. ‘Their cast-offs are better than anything we could ever afford,’ he said. ‘You should see what they keep. It’d make you cry with envy.’
Mum never cried. Well, not usually anyway. Her eyes looked red this morning, but it was understandable. Today, of all days, a few tears were to be expected.
Gladys had a quick lick and a promise, brushed teeth and hair and then dashed to the kitchen. Bobby stuck his tongue out as he passed on his way to the door. Uncle Willy had got him an apprenticeship at the carriage works, so he caught the early train to Eastleigh every morning. Ronnie sat at the kitchen table, bleary-eyed with his dark hair sticking up like Uncle Percy’s but without the grey at the temples. He was seven, and school was nearby, so he could dawdle over breakfast.
Mum crossed from the range and plonked a plate of toast on the table.
‘Haven’t we got any jam?’ Gladys threw a sulky look at the butter dish and marmalade jar on the table next to the teapot. ‘You know I don’t like marmalade.’
‘Ronnie had the last of it.’ Mum pushed her hair out of her eyes and wiped her hands on her apron.
Like Gladys, Mum had freckles and thick hair, wavy and coppery-brown. There, the similarity ended. Mum was fat, with big saggy breasts and the same round hips as Grandma and Auntie Maria. Gladys took after Dad, tall, flat-chested and gangly with clodhopping feet. The kids at school had called her Olive Oyl. Thank goodness those days were behind her.
‘I suppose he’s had all the tea too?’ Gladys folded her arms across her chest and scowled at Ronnie.
He gave her a self-satisfied grin, crossed his eyes and gurned. She tried to kick him under the table, but he moved his legs away. The little bugger always got the best of everything. He was Mum’s favourite.
‘Stop wrangling with your brother like a bloody five-year-old,’ Mum said. ‘There’d have been jam too if you hadn’t spent so long faffing about.’
‘Excuse me for wanting to have a wash before I go to work,’ Gladys muttered, safe in the knowledge that Mum was heading for the privy outside the back door and wouldn’t hear.
‘Come on, Glad, don’t get in a strop with her, not today, of all days.’ Uncle Percy lit a cigarette and gave her a sad smile through the smoke. ‘You do know what day it is, don’t you?’
‘Of course I do. She’s not the only one who misses him.’ She poured tea into her cup and stuck out her bottom lip.
‘No, but she misses him more than the rest of us put together and don’t you ever forget it.’ He shot her a stern stare.
The scar running down the side of his face and his thickset neck and jaw scared people, but she knew he was all bark and no bite. Mum said he was too soft. He’d let Auntie Winnie have too much of her own way, and she’d taken advantage. That was why he lived with them, and no one mentioned Auntie Winnie now. If only Mum was soft, too. She would clip Gladys around the ear without a thought, even now, when she was fourteen and bringing money into the house.
‘Come on, Glad.’ Uncle Percy broke into her thoughts. ‘Stop daydreaming and get some toast inside you because Frank will be here in a minute.’
*
At least the laundry was warm. When Mr Clanford put Gladys on collars, she smiled to herself. It was peaceful work, with nothing to think about except pressing and shaping. Plus, there was always the prospect of a chat when the lads in the vans dropped off new laundry. Sometimes, local customers came to the door with light loads, like the butcher’s lads, who claimed to be cousins but looked nothing alike. Harold, the shorter, darker one, had a terrible crush on Clara. Whenever he brought in the aprons, he invited her to the pictures. She always said no because she already had a boyfriend. It was a shame because Gladys wouldn’t have minded joining them. Harold was too short for her, but Eric, the taller one with the curly hair, was perfect. Mum thought she was too young to think about boys, although Eric was hardly a boy. He was at least twenty. Gladys liked his chubby face and the gap between his front teeth when he smiled. He smiled all the time, but he didn’t pay her much attention. If Eric ever invited her out, she’d jump at the chance. Mum would have a fit, but what Mum didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.
Gladys thought she was in for a quiet day, starching collars and daydreaming about Dad. Then, the van brought a load of uniforms from one of the big ships, and Mr Clanford moved Clara to collars. Clara was an odd one. For a start, she refused to cut her long, curly hair. Instead, she wore it in an assortment of old-fashioned buns and plaits. It was halfway between ginger and blonde, and she called it her crowning glory. She was eighteen, but you wouldn’t know it to talk to her. The other girls said she was gormless and laughed behind her back. Gladys felt sorry for her and tried to be kind. Today she went on about her boyfriend so much Gladys wanted to strangle her.
Clara said he was terribly handsome, with blue eyes, dark hair and a pencil moustache, just like Clark Gable. He dressed in the latest style, and he had a car. His name was Arthur. He took her to the picture house and drove her around in his car. Apparently, that wasn’t all he did to her.
‘Of course, I haven’t actually let him — you know,’ Clara said. ‘I’m saving myself until I’m married.’
‘I should think so too.’
‘Arthur says he’s done it lots of times, and he knows how not to get a girl into trouble. He’s nearly thirty, but he says he’s never found the right girl until now. He told me no one waits until they’re married any more because doing it doesn’t have to mean babies.’
‘Sounds as if he wants all the benefits without the wedding, to me.’ Gladys had overheard Mum say something similar, although the mechanics of these ‘benefits’ were hazy.
‘If I were you, I’d keep my hand on my ha’penny until he puts a ring on your finger. Otherwise, he might decide you’re another of those girls who isn’t right once he’s got what he wants.’
At least that shut her up, and Gladys could return to trying to remember her dream.
3 – Tuesday 8 January 1935
Clara was outside the laundry with the tall, skinny girl — the one with hair the colour of a new penny. They were so deep in conversation that they hadn’t noticed Arthur pull up in his car. He put his elbow on the windowsill, stroked his moustache and watched them. With those loose, shoulder-length curls, the skinny girl reminded him of Fay Wray. He imagined picking her up and carrying her off. King Kong was one of his favourite films. Clara would look so much better if she cut her hair. Today, she looked like a bloody Victorian woman with that stupid bun. The way she talked about saving herself until she was married, she might as well be. Still, she had lovely tits, which was more than could be said for the Fay Wray look-alike. From what Clara said, she was a feisty one, like the little tart Roy had been sniffing around at the Pier. At least Clara was biddable and didn’t ask too many questions. Still, if she didn’t let him have his way soon, he’d cut his losses and find someone more willing in the sex department. The world was full of pretty girls ripe for the plucking.
He stuck his fingers into his mouth and whistled. Clara turned and smiled at him, then ran to the car. Her coat flapped open as she ran and revealed a green dress with buttons down the front — all the better to gain access to those glorious tits of hers. She got in the car, all stupid giggles as usual, and gave him a peck on the cheek. He flashed a smile but said nothing. His mind was on the pub. Once he got a few drinks inside her, he reckoned he could wear her down. The rubbers were in his pocket, ready for the occasion. She rabbited on about him looking like Clark Gable, but he didn’t pay her much attention. Most of the time, she talked rubbish, but he liked the Clark Gable comparison. Maybe it was the moustache.
He put the car into gear, preparing to pull away from the kerb, but another car came towards him. It stopped outside the laundry a few yards up the road. Arthur scowled when he saw Fay Wray walk to it. It was a dark green Morris Eight, a newer car than his battered black Austen Seven. The idea of her having a boyfriend with a better car annoyed him. He glared at the Morris, and then his heart missed a beat when he caught sight of the driver through the windscreen. With that scar on his cheek, he was unmistakable, even if his hair was grey at the temples now. Percy bloody Barfoot. Arthur curled his lip. What was Percy doing, picking up a young slip of a girl like Fay Wray? He must be almost forty, and she couldn’t be more than twenty.
‘Looks like your friend has got a sugar daddy?’ He put his foot down, moved onto the road and set off towards town. Percy recognising him was the last thing he needed.
‘Gladys?’ Clara wrinkled her nose. ‘That’s her uncle. He often picks her up from work. He doesn’t like her walking home after dark. Anyway, where are we going tonight?’
‘I thought the flicks.’
Suddenly, watching a film appealed far more than the pub. It would give him time to think without Clara rabbiting in his ear. Seeing Percy reminded him why he hadn’t wanted to leave London. At first, Oliver’s plans to expand his operation had sounded interesting. It was flattering to be asked to join Oliver’s brother Roy in the enterprise. Then he learned the south coast meant Southampton. It was the one place he didn’t want to be, but no one dared argue with Oliver if they enjoyed breathing. Roy was happy enough. He said he’d rather be a big fish in a little pond, and they were the best team for it. Arthur knew the town, and Roy knew the business. It was easy for Roy to say. He wasn’t stepping back into a past he’d sooner forget.
Arthur had been safe and anonymous in London amid the hustle and bustle. There was money to be made and fun whichever way you turned. He missed the excitement of roaming around the East End at night, bothering the Yids and lining his pockets. The one saving grace here was the possibility of settling old scores. Now Percy, the cause of all his troubles, had been handed to him on a plate. He just had to keep his head down and work out a plan of action.
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