A Stepney Girl's Christmas E-Book

Jean Fullerton

• Herausgeber: Corvus
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Serie: The Stepney Girls
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 157

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

A heart-warming and atmospheric Christmas novella set in the heart of wartime London, from the Queen of East End sagas Jean Fullerton It's December 1940 and East London is expecting snow. But after months of nightly visits from the Luftwaffe, it will take more than a white Christmas to turn the bombed streets of Stepney festive. Young Eleanor Jolly, newly widowed after her husband stopped a German bullet on Dunkirk beach, is trying to pull through for the sake of her baby James. Her mother-in-law - the deceptively-named Ruby Jolly - isn't helping. Klaus Wagner is the loneliest German in London. Having narrowly escaped imprisonment by the Gestapo for his work on an anti-fascist newspaper, he signs up for the British armed forces, hoping to save his beloved country from Nazi rule. But the holiday season is making him homesick for the family and friends he left behind. However, Prue and Fliss Carmichael have a plan to boost morale: a surprise Christmas pantomime. When Ella comes on board, she wasn't expecting to find a German dissenter roped into the cast. Especially not an undeniably handsome German dissenter, with cornflower eyes and a mischievous smile. Will the Stepney girls rally in time for Christmas and put on a show to rival the air raid sirens? And will Klaus and Ella manage to find a way to each other's hearts before the New Year? PRAISE FOR JEAN FULLERTON AND A STEPNEY GIRL'S SECRET: 'Enthralling' DILLY COURT 'Heart-warming' ROSIE GOODWIN 'A page-turning read' ELAINE EVEREST

Leseprobe

A STEPNEY GIRL’S CHRISTMAS

Jean Fullerton is the author of nineteen historical novels and a memoir, A Child of the East End. She is a qualified District and Queen's nurse who has spent most of her working life in the East End of London, first as a Sister in charge of a team, and then as a District Nurse tutor. She is also a qualified teacher and spent twelve years lecturing on community nursing studies at a London university. She now writes full time.

Find out more at www.jeanfullerton.com

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Non-fiction

A Child of the East End

A STEPNEY GIRL’S CHRISTMAS

JEAN FULLERTON

First published in ebook in Great Britain in 2023 by Corvus, an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.

Copyright © Jean Fullerton, 2023

The moral right of Jean Fullerton to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities, is entirely coincidental.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

E-book ISBN: 978 1 83895 764 3

Corvus

An imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd

Ormond House

26–27 Boswell Street

London

WC1N 3JZ

www.atlantic-books.co.uk

Chapter One

With the cream-coloured hearth tiles biting into her knees, Eleanor Jolly, Ella to her friends, leaned forward and brushed the soot that had fallen down the chimney overnight on to the hand shovel and threw it back into the empty grate.

It was the last Friday in November, just after five in the morning and just over three weeks before Christmas Day. After his early-morning bottle, her six-month-old son James was asleep in the pram tucked in the corner, so Ella was doing what she had done every morning since the day she got married back in February: lighting the ancient black-lead range in her mother-in-law’s kitchen.

Returning the fire utensils to the battered tin at the side of the stove, Ella breathed over her hands then rubbed them together vigorously to restore the circulation. A sheen of ice had sparkled on the pavement puddles as she’d made her way home from the shelter an hour earlier. She’d even caught the faint whiff of snow in the air, although this could have been wishful thinking. After three months of nightly visits from the Luftwaffe, even a blanket of Christmas snow wouldn’t turn the bombed and burnt-out streets of Stepney festive.

Turning her attention back to the task at hand, Ella grabbed a couple of sheets of last week’s Daily Mirror and scrunched them up. Placing them evenly in the stove’s firebox, she added the handful of kindling she’d carried in with the coal scuttle in the back yard. Rummaging in the pocket of her wraparound apron that was probably older than she was, Ella pulled out a box of matches. Lighting one, she thrust it into the crumpled paper. It flared in an instant. Ella added a couple of small nuggets of coal then, after a moment, a couple of larger ones. Satisfied that the fire was established, she shut the cast-iron door.

Rocking on to the balls of her feet, she stood up as the cellar door handle rattled, warning of her mother-in-law’s imminent arrival.

Mindful that she would need enough water for a pot of tea and her in-laws’ morning ablutions, Ella took the kettle from the top of the stove. She put it under tap just as the door burst open. With her greasy, grey hair hanging in rats’ tails around her face, a cigarette dangling from her lips and her well-worn slippers scuffing the lino, Ruby Jolly, Ella’s mother-in-law, lumbered in.

Just shy of her fifty-second birthday, Ruby Jolly described herself as big boned; in truth, being four foot ten and weighing in at twelve stone, she gave the appearance of being as wide as she was tall. With forearms that would be the envy of any wrestler and a temper like a firework, Ruby ruled her husband and the costermongers who traded in the Waste Market, where the Jollys had their fruit and veg stall, in much the same way that a lion tamer commanded their beasts.

‘Is that water ’ot yet?’ she asked, the front of her stained dressing gown flapping open to reveal her crumpled flannelette nightdress and unstockinged bloated white calves.

‘Almost,’ said Ella, setting the kettle back on top of the stove.

‘Well, I ’ope it is because my Ernie’s expecting us on the stall in an hour,’ said Ruby, lowering herself on to one of the kitchen chairs.

Ruby was often heard to remark that she and her husband Ernest had never had a cross word in over thirty years of married life. Ella could believe it.

Except for Sunday, Ernie rose every morning at three o’clock and went to Spitalfields to fetch crates of fruit and veg for the stall. Ruby and her sister Pearl took over at six, after which Ernie came home and went to bed, getting up just as the Little Star public house around the corner opened for lunchtime drinkers. Having drunk solidly for two and a half hours, Ella’s father-in-law would return home to spend the afternoon snoring in the armchair. Ruby and Pearl trudged through the front door at about six thirty, by which time Ernie was on his way back to the pub. After wolfing down their supper, Ruby and Pearl put their hats and coats back on and followed him to the Little Star. They sat in a quiet place in the corner while Ernie propped up the bar until nine, when he returned to the house for a few hours’ sleep. Clearly the success of their marriage was due less to compatibility and more to the fact that they barely saw each other.

Lifting the lid from the saucepan of porridge she’d left soaking before she went to St Winifred’s shelter the night before, Ella gave it a stir then rested the sticky spoon in one of the bowls near by.

Ruby’s bloodshot eyes flickered on to the copy of A Christmas Carol Ella had borrowed from Bancroft Library the day before.

‘I suppose you’ll be sitting around here all day reading while me and Pearl are grafting on the stall,’ said her mother-in-law, as cigarette ash fluttered down on to the skirt of her nightdress.

‘No, I’ll be helping roll bandages and stitching slings for the Red Cross in the church hall this morning and then I’ll pick up tonight’s meat from the butcher’s and make supper,’ Ella replied, spooning tea into the brown earthenware pot.

The kettle started to whistle so Ella removed it from the heat and poured water over the leaves. Popping the knitted cosy over the pot, she took down three mugs. As she poured in the milk, her son gave a little cry.

Leaving the tea to brew, Ella went over to the deep-bodied pram where six-month-old James had wriggled himself up and had his head wedged into the corner of the Silver Cross’s body work.

Reaching in, she lifted out the sleeping baby.

‘Well, young man,’ she said, smoothing a tuft of dark brown hair very like her own. ‘You’ve got yourself into a right pickle, haven’t you?’

Rubbing his eyes with his little fist, her son yawned by way of reply.

‘’Ow many times do I ’ave to tell you to leave ’im be?’

Ella looked over the top of her son’s head at her mother-in-law, who was rolling one of her pendulous breasts back and forth as she scratched beneath it.

‘James has got ’imself wedged,’ Ella replied.

Ruby’s lips pulled tightly together. ‘You’ll spoil him if you keep picking ’im up.’

‘I think he’s still got some wind,’ said Ella, studying her son’s delicate, dark eyelashes and the soft curve of his cheek.

‘Perhaps if you’d weaned him off the tit sooner – as I told you to – he wouldn’t have,’ her mother-in-law said. ‘I had my Barry on a bottle by three months and he never had no wind. But what do I know? I only raised a strapping six-foot son that any woman would be glad to have called their own.’

Strictly speaking, ‘her’ Barry was actually Ella’s Barry and she had the certificate signed by St Winifred’s rector to prove it, but she didn’t argue the point.

It was traditional for newly married couples to move in with the bride's parents, but given she was all alone in the world, and with an expanding waistline by the time they hastily tied the knot, Ella was in no position to argue when Ruby insisted the newly-weds were to move in with her.

Ignoring her now, Ella laid her son’s head on her shoulder and hummed as she rocked him back and forth.

‘Santa Claus is coming to town …’ she sang at the end of the festive ditty.

‘Christmas!’ tutted Ruby. ‘Load of old cobblers.’

‘Well, not for James,’ said Ella, pressing her lips on her son’s forehead again. ‘I thought perhaps I’d put a few Christmas decorations up this afternoon. I know it’s a bit early but—’

‘Don’t bother,’ cut in her mother-in-law.

‘But it’s Christmas,’ persisted Ella. ‘I know you can’t get a tree for love nor money, but surely a few paper chains and a bit of tinsel wouldn’t hurt. And if we put our Christmas cards up on the mantelshelf, that would jolly the place—’

‘I’ll tell you where you can stick your Christmas cards,’ cut in Ruby. ‘The ruddy stove, that’s where.’

‘Well, everyone else is,’ said Ella. ‘And I thought it would be nice, that’s all. Especially for James, as it’s his first Christmas. I know he’s too young to understand but I thought I’d—’

Ruby thumped a beefy fist on the table. ‘This is my ’ouse and I say no.’

‘What’s all the noise?’ asked Pearl Tugman, Ruby’s unmarried sister, as she lumbered though the door.

Although two years Ruby’s junior, with the same bovine features and physique as her sister you’d be forgiven for thinking Pearl was her twin. Having never managed to find a man brave enough to take her on, Pearl had moved in with her sister some twenty years ago. Ella, who had shared a small terraced house with Pearl for the past nine months, thought mankind had had a lucky escape.

‘I was beginning to think you’d died in your sleep, Pearl,’ said Ruby, as her sister wedged her considerable rear into one of the captain-style chairs.

‘It’s that bloody sausage I ’ad off Mosher’s stall last night. Had me awake half the night with ’eart burn,’ her sister complained, taking a pack of ten Senior Service from her grimy dressing gown. ‘A mug of tea might ’elp settle it,’ she added, looking meaningfully at Ella.

‘What’s all the ’ollering about, anyway?’ asked Pearl.

‘Silly cow here,’ said Ruby nodding her head at Ella, who was balancing her son in one arm and pouring their tea with the other hand, ‘wants to put up Christmas cards and decorations.’

‘Christmas cards and decorations!’ Pearl snorted. ‘Bloody waste of money.’

Placing a hot drink in front of each woman, Ella returned to soothing her son, who had woken with a start when his grandmother slammed the table.

‘Ain’t that wa’er hot yet?’ asked Ruby, spooning several heaped spoonfuls of sugar into her tea.

Ella put her hand a few inches from the reservoir above the range’s firebox. ‘Nearly.’

‘Well, it would be by now if you didn’t flit off down to that fecking church shelter every night,’ said Pearl.

‘I don’t know why you have to go and spend the night down in the crypt with a bunch of strangers,’ added Ruby. ‘Not when there’s a bloody Anderson shelter in our own yard.’

‘There’s plenty of room,’ agreed Pearl, letting out a low fart.

Ella smiled at her mother-in-law. ‘Thanks, but I wouldn’t want James keeping you awake, not with you having to be on the stall at six.’

From beneath her unkempt eyebrows, Pearl’s eyes slid from Ella on to the baby in her arms.

‘What’s a matter with ’im anyway?’ she said, taking a cigarette out and offering one to her sister.

‘He’s got wind,’ Ella replied.

‘Wind!’ Scoffed Pearl, blowing a stream of cigarette smoke upwards, adding another layer of nicotine to the tobacco-stained ceiling above. ‘I don’t recall your Barry having “wind”, do you, Ruby?’

‘No, he didn’t,’ her sister replied, taking a long drag on her cigarette. ‘Cos I didn’t spend ’alf the day jigging him about, that’s why.’

Studying the baby in Ella’s arms, a sentimental expression slid across Pearl’s mannish features.

‘Mind you,’ she continued, flicking ash on to the worn floorboards, ‘that kiddie has the face off of ’is father, and no mistake.’

‘’E does, doesn’t he?’ Ruby’s billiard-ball chin started to wobble.

‘When I look at ’im in that pram,’ said Pearl, ‘it’s like seeing your Barry all over again.’

‘Bought it special for ’im, I did. I shelled out four guineas, but worth every penny – nothing was too good for that little saint of mine,’ Ruby said, her watery gaze running over the dark olive Silver Cross coach-built pram. ‘It fair breaks my heart in two thinking ’ow …’ Pulling a none-too-clean handkerchief from her sleeve, Ruby dabbed her eyes. ‘I thought my birthing days were over and then my Barry came along.’

‘’E was your little miracle,’ Pearl chipped in, slurping her tea.

Ruby blew her nose noisily. ‘He was so tall and handsome. Always had a twinkle in his eye. Always first up to give us a song at the Little Star.’

‘And he was always good to you, Ruby,’ added Pearl.

Wiping her eyes again, Ruby nodded. ‘He was the best of sons and I defy anyone to say different, but now ...’ An ugly expression replaced her sorrowful one. ‘I hate ’em, I do. The Germans.’

‘Poxy scum,’ said Pearl, flicking more ash on o the kitchen floor.

Fury contorted Ruby’s heavy face. ‘I tell you, if I ’ad one ’ere now I’d kill ’im with my bare hands, I would.’ Reaching out, her chubby fingers ingrained with dirt, she formed a circle with her hands.

Ella studied her mother-in-law squeezing the life out of her imaginary foe as her infant son slept peacefully on her shoulder.

A sizzle of steam escaped from the lid on top of the range’s water tank. Ella placed her hand near it again. ‘The water’s ready.’

‘About bloody time,’ grumbled Pearl, heaving her bulk into an upright position.

‘You can make a start on the front room until we’re ready for breakfast,’ said Ruby, as her sister filled the two-pint enamel jug and took it to the sink. ‘And me and Pearl will want another cup before we go.’

Supporting James’s head with her hand, Ella laid the sleeping baby in his pram, then put the half-filled kettle back on the heat.

Leaving the two sisters scrubbing their faces and armpits with a holey pair of Ernie’s old underpants, Ella wheeled the pram out of the kitchen and into the front room.

Like Pearl’s dentures, the front room was only used on Sundays, Christmas Day and Easter Sunday, but with just over three weeks until the country celebrated the birth of the Christ Child, Ella was happy enough to start getting the room in order. However, as she entered she caught sight of the Richardsons’ house across the street. In spite of the rationing and shortages, May Richardson had stuck tissue-paper stars across the top of the front window, pasted cottonwool snow along the bottom with cut-out red-breasted robins hopping on it; she’d even added a silhouette Father Christmas, complete with sleigh and reindeer, galloping across the sky.

Turning away, Ella gazed around the room. In every other house in the street, this room was the place where family and friends gathered and children played, but with its dull peeling wallpaper, cold leather chairs and faded hearth rug, you could have found more family feeling in a vault than in the Jollys’ cold, dark parlour.

Telling herself that Christmas was supposed to be a happy time of the year, Ella sighed deeply. She parked James in the alcove next to the chimney and returned to the hallway to collect the bucket with her cleaning equipment from the cupboard under the stairs.

Deciding to clean the ashes from the fire grate first, Ella walked across to the fireplace. However, as she reached it, the eight-by-twelve photograph mounted in a silver frame sitting on the middle of the mantelshelf caught her attention.

It was a colourised studio image of her husband, Barry Jolly, dressed in his army uniform, smiling happily out at the world.

Just a shade under six foot tall and with shoulders to match, his mother and her sister were right: he was certainly tall and handsome. He’d been singing his heart out on the small stage at the Ship on Stepney Green when she’d first laid eyes on him and the breath had stilled in her lungs. Love at first sight, that’s what he’d called it. Perhaps it was. Not that it mattered any more, because after stopping a German bullet on Dunkirk beach, the only singing Barry was doing now was with the angels above.

Reaching up, Ella took the picture down from the mantelshelf. She gazed at it for a moment then she spat on the image.

_________________

Klaus Wagner bent his elbow and glanced at his wristwatch.

The young redhead wearing a khaki ATS uniform sitting at the desk in front of him stopped typing and looked up. Giving him a sympathetic smile, she returned the carriage with a sweep of her hand, knocking one of the handful of Christmas cards on her desk on to the floor in the process. Picking it up and repositioning it somewhere safer, she then resumed pounding her keyboard.