Paper Money by Ken Follett

at it—solid copper bottom, if you’ll pardon the word, and it’s my last one; I’ve made my profit on the rest, so you can have it for two quid, half what I paid for it, just because you made an old man’s heart beat faster, and take it quick afore I change my mind.”
    Tony had been shocked by the speed at which the old man changed after the one lung went. His hair turned white, the cheeks sank between the bones, and the fine voice went high and whining. The stall was rightfully Tony’s, but by then he had his own sources of income, so he had let it go to young Harry, his dumb brother, who had married a beautiful Whitechapel girl with the patience to learn how to talk with her hands. It took guts for a dumb man to run a market stall, writing on a blackboard when he needed to speak to the customers, and keeping in his pocket a plain postcard bearing the word THANKS in capital letters to flash when a sale was made. But he ran it well and Tony lent him the money to move into a proper shop and hire a manager, and he made a success of that, too. Guts—they ran in the family.
    The kitchen knife was sharp enough. He tested it and cut his thumb. Holding it to his lips, he went into the kitchen.
    His mother was there. Lillian Cox was short and a little overweight—her son had inherited the tendency to plumpness without the shortness—and she had much more energy than the average sixty-three-year-old. She said: “I’m doing you a bit of fried bread.”
    “Lovely.” He put the knife down and found a bandage. “Take care with that knife—I done it a bit too sharp.”
    She fussed over his cut, then, making him hold it under the cold tap and count to one hundred, then putting on antiseptic cream, and gauze, and finally a roll of bandage held with a safety pin. He stood still and let her do what she wished.
    She said: “Ah, but you’re a good boy to sharpen the knives for me. Where you been so early, anyhow?”
    “Took the dog up the park. And I had to ring someone up.”
    She made a disgusted noise. “I don’t know what’s wrong with the phone in the parlor, I’m sure.”
    He leaned over the cooker to sniff the frying bacon. “You know how it is, Mum. The Old Bill listen to that one.”
    She put a teapot in his hand. “Go in there and pour the tea out, then.”
    He took the pot into the living room and put it down on a mat. The square table was laid with an embroidered cloth, cutlery for two, salt and pepper and sauce bottles.
    Tony sat nearest the fireplace, where the old man used to sit. From there he reached into the sideboard and took out two cups and two saucers. He pictured the old man again, overseeing mealtimes with the back of his hand and a good deal of rhyming slang. “Get your chalks off the Cain,” he would bark if they put their arms on the table. The only thing Tony held against him was the way he treated Mum. Being so handsome and that, he had a few women on the side, and at times he would spend his money buying them gin instead of bringing it home. Those times, Tony and his brother would go up the Smithfield market, stealing scraps from under the tables to sell to the soap factory for a few coppers. And he never went in the Army—but then, a lot of wise boys went on the trot in wartime.
    “What are you going to do—go back to sleep, or pour that tea out?” Lillian put a plate in front of Tony and sat down opposite him. “Never mind, I’ll do it now.”
    Tony picked up his cutlery, holding his knife like a pencil, and began to eat. There were sausages, two fried eggs, a mess of canned tomatoes, and several slices of fried bread. He took a mouthful before reaching for the brown sauce. He was hungry after his morning’s exertions.
    His mother passed him his tea. She said: “I don’t know. We was never afraid to use the phone when your father was alive, God rest his soul. He was careful to stay out of the way of the Old Bill.”
    Tony thought they had had no phone in his father’s day, but