As the Crow Flies Read Online Free PDF Page A

up to the West End on a Sunday morning just to
see for himself. Having ridden on a horse-drawn vehicle to Chelsea, he would
then walk slowly back east towards Mayfair, studying all the goods in the shop
windows on the way. He also noted how people dressed and admired the motor
vehicles that belched out turns but didn’t drop shit as they traveled down the
middle of the road. He even began to wonder just how much it cost to rent a shop
in Chelsea.
    On
the first Sunday in October 1917 Charlie took Sal up West with him to show her
the sights, he explained.
    Charlie
and his sister walked slowly from shop window to shop window, and he was unable
to hide his excitement at every new discovery he came across. Men’s clothes,
hats, shoes, women’s dresses, perfume, undergarments, even cakes and pastries
could hold his attention for minutes on end.
    “For
Gawd’s sake, let’s get ourselves back to Whitechapel where we belong,” said
Sal. “Because one thing’s for sure I’m never going to feel at ‘ome ‘ere.”
    “But
don’t you understand?” said Charlie. “One day I’m going to own a shop in
Chelsea.”
    “Don’t
talk daft,” said Sal. “Even Dan Salmon couldn’t ‘ave afforded one of these.”
    Charlie
didn’t bother to reply.
    When
it came to how long Charlie would take to master the baking trade, Becky’s
judgment proved accurate. Within a month he knew almost as much about oven
temperatures, controls, rising yeast and the correct mixture of flour to water
as either of the two assistants, and as they were dealing with the same
customers as Charlie was on his barrow, sales on both dropped only slightly
during the first quarter.
    Becky
turned out to be as good as her word, keeping the accounts in what she described
as “apple-pie order” and even opening a set of books for Trumper’s barrow. By
the end of their first three months as partners they declared a profit of four
pounds eleven shillings, despite having a gas oven refitted at Salmon’s and
allowing Charlie to buy his first second-hand suit.
    Sal
continued working as a waitress in a cafe on the Commercial Road, but Charlie
knew she couldn’t wait to find someone willing to marry her whatever physical
shape he was in just as long as I can sleep in a room of my own, she explained.
    Grace
never failed to send a letter on the first of every month, and somehow managed
to sound cheerful despite being surrounded by death. She’s just like her
mother, Father O’Malley would tell his parishioners. Kitty still came and went
as she pleased, borrowing money from both her sisters as well as Charlie, and
never paying them back. Just like her father, the priest told the same
parishioners.
    “Like
your new suit,” said Mrs. Smelley, when Charlie dropped off her weekly order
that Monday afternoon. He blushed, raised his cap and pretended not to hear the
compliment, as he dashed off to the baker’s shop.
    The
second quarter promised to show a further profit on both Charlie’s enterprises,
and he warned Becky that he had his eye on the butcher’s shop, since the owner’s
only boy had lost his life at Passchendaele. Becky cautioned him against
rushing into another venture before they had discovered what their profit
margins were like, and then only if the rather elderly assistants knew what
they were up to. “Because one thing’s for certain, Charlie Trumper,” she told
him as they sat down in the little room at the back of Salmon’s shop to check
the monthly accounts, “you don’t know the first thing about butchery. ‘Trumper,
the honest trader, founded in 1823’ still appeals to me,” she added. “‘Trumper,
the foolish bankrupt, folded in 1917’doesn’t.”
    Becky
also commented on the new suit, but not until she had finished checking a
lengthy column of figures. He was about to return the compliment by suggesting
that she might have lost a little weight when she leaned across and helped
herself to another jam tart.
    She
ran a sticky finger