The Bells of Bow Read Online Free PDF Page B

enthusiastic determination to have another kiss.
    ‘We really had better be going,’ croaked Babs hoarsely when she’d finally manage to extricate herself from his grip. ‘Come on, Evie.’
    The girls stood on the pavement outside the Earl of Aberdeen, watching the Riley draw away in the early morning light.
    Evie blew a kiss in the direction of the departing car. ‘What a feller,’ she sighed and, taking her sister’s arm, began to walk along Grove Road, back to Darnfield Street. ‘And you was getting on all right with that Chas and all,’ she added with a sideways glance at Babs.
    ‘Huh!’ sniffed Babs. ‘What a cheek. Thinks he’s God’s gift, that one.’
    ‘Good-looking.’
    ‘Yeah, I suppose so,’ Babs agreed grudgingly. ‘Ain’t a bad kisser neither, but he’s a right cloth head. He ain’t got a thing between his ears.’
    Evie widened her eyes in mock disapproval. ‘Do what? Well, that’s a new one on me. I’ve never seen a bloke what
did
have a thing between his ears.’
    ‘Dirty mare!’ laughed Babs.
    As they turned into Darnfield Street, the twins were shaking with laughter.
    ‘Ssshhh,’ gasped Babs, trying desperately to control herself. ‘Yer’ll wake everyone up.’ She jerked her head in the direction of number five, the Clarkes’s house. ‘The old curtain twitcher’s at it.’
    ‘Good,’ Evie shouted. ‘Let ’em all wake up. I don’t care. I want everyone to know I’m happy.’
    By the time they’d reached their front door, Babs no longer had any trouble with sounding serious. She was in deadly earnest as she warned her sister, ‘Be careful, Evie, we’ve had a laugh but he’s still Albie Denham, yer know.’
    ‘Yeah, I know,’ Evie answered her wearily as she rooted round in her handbag for the latch key.
    ‘You ain’t thinking of seeing him again, are yer?’
    ‘Matter o’ fact I am,’ she said, echoing one of Albie’s phrases. She turned her bag towards the dim glow of the street light. ‘When you was busy with old Charlie boy in the back seat, Albie asked me to go flapping with him.’
    ‘Flapping?’
    ‘Yeah, yer know,’ Evie said, with a satisfied grin as she at last produced the door key from the messy depths of her bag. ‘Dog racing, over the Hackney Marshes.’
    ‘I do know, Evie. And
you
know it ain’t legal, don’t yer?’
    ‘Course I know.’
    ‘So. Are yer going?’
    ‘Yer kidding, ain’t yer? Him and Chas was going over there right now. I told him. I said, what, on a Sunday morning? I have to have me lay-in of a Sunday. I like to get me beauty sleep.’
    ‘Yeah, yer need it and all, you ugly cow.’ Babs’s tone sounded light and easy, but her expression was worried, strained even.
    ‘Talking about yerself again?’ Evie cracked back, elbowing Babs out of the way so she could open the door.
    ‘No, I was talking about
you
. I said ugly cow, not gorgeous creature. You ain’t gone mutton as well as stupid have yer?’ Babs still spoke with a straight face, but as soon as Evie turned to look at her, it was hopeless and the pair of them were almost helpless with laughter as they tried to push one another out of the way, fighting to be the first to get inside the narrow doorway of number six. Evie got inside first and, like a stubborn cork being released from a bottle, Babs went tumbling in after her along the passage. When she’d managed to steady herself, she turned round to shut the street door, but Evie reached out and stopped her.
    ‘Hold up, Babs,’ she said, slipping past her sister. ‘If Dad ain’t awake after all that, nothing’ll wake him.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘You listen.’ Evie stepped outside onto the pavement, put her hands either side of her mouth to concentrate the sound, and called out loudly across the street, ‘Oi, Alice. Yer wanna get Nobby to get his cloth and pail out for yer. Yer dunno what yer might be missing with all that muck on yer windows.’ Then, with a haughty flick of her blonde hair and a wink at