The Bells of Bow by Gilda O'Neill Page A

lint, yer know I could get any girl I wanted. Can’t resist me, can they?’
    ‘Hark at you,’ Queenie said rolling her eyes. ‘Yer sound just like that bloody father of your’n. I dunno. Men!’
    The cackling of sudden laughter coming from behind him made Albie start. He twisted round in his armchair to see one of Queenie’s many customers, an elderly woman in a baggy, navy blue serge coat and a headscarf, grinning at him from the corner of the room.
    ‘Yer right there, Queenie,’ the old woman cackled, exposing her stained and broken teeth. ‘They’re all the same, men, the bloody lot of ’em. Least they are in the dark with their trousers down!’

3
    ‘D’yer think Dad heard us coming in last night, Eve?’
    ‘Bloody hell, I hope not,’ Evie glanced sideways at Babs and pulled a face. ‘Anyway, it was hardly last night, was it? This morning, more like.’ She carelessly dropped the dirty plates from their Sunday dinner onto the draining board and stretched luxuriously, lifting her arms high above her head. ‘Can’t be helped, Babs, but yer gonna have to do the washing up all by yerself ’cos I’ve gotta get ready. I’m seeing Albie tonight, so I wanna look me best, don’t I?’
    Babs silently carried on with what she was doing. First, she covered her dress with the cross-over apron that she took from the nail behind the kitchen door, then she lifted the kettle from the stove and poured boiling water into the enamel basin which stood in the big butler sink, threw in a handful of soda, and topped up the basin from the single brass cold-water tap. She slipped the plates and cutlery into the bowl and began scrubbing them clean. Evie made no effort to help her.
    ‘So when was all this decided then?’ Babs asked over her shoulder. ‘I didn’t hear no one say nothing about going out with him while we was in the car last night, apart from the stuff you told me about him asking yer to go flapping.’
    ‘You was too busy with that Chas,’ Eve said, shoving Babs in the back so that she slopped water onto the kitchen floor. ‘Saucy cow. Yer was making a right meal of it, weren’t yet? All over him.’
    ‘Don’t tell lies, Evie. Yer know it wasn’t like that. And yer can stop yer joking around and all. I’m just about fed up with you always getting out of doing everything.’
    ‘You ain’t gonna start, are yer?’ Evie levered herself onto the scrubbed kitchen table and swung her legs restlessly backwards and forwards. She hesitated for a moment then said, ‘Tell yer what, I’ll put the kettle on and we can have a cup o’ tea before I take meself upstairs to get ready. How about that?’
    ‘All right,’ sighed Babs. ‘At least yer’ll be doing
something
.’ She wiped her cheek with the back of her wet and greasy hand. ‘And yer can take one through to Dad while yer at it. Before he closes his eyes for his afternoon kip.’
    Eve reached across Babs to fill the kettle from the tap and then set it back on the gas stove.
    ‘Yer still never said when he asked yer.’ Babs leaned sideways out of Evie’s way so she could reach the cups and saucers stacked on the single shelf that ran along the wall above the sink.
    Evie took an envelope from her dress pocket. ‘It’s a letter,’ she explained, holding it out to her sister.
    Babs didn’t take it from her. ‘Me sister’s a genius and she’s got a boy friend what can write,’ she sniped sarcastically.
    ‘All right, clever clogs,’ Eve sneered back at her. ‘So that means yer won’t be wanting to share the fiver that he put in the letter, does it? Shame, ’cos he said we should both get ourselves a little treat, and all.’
    ‘A fiver?’ Babs almost dropped the plate she was washing. ‘Evie, has that peroxide sent you completely out of that head o’ your’n? What on earth’s possessed yer to take money off the likes of Albie Denham?’
    ‘Aw, leave off, Miss High and Mighty. Why shouldn’t I take it?’
    Babs’s voice rose with