Lizzie of Langley Street Read Free Page A

the table, his breakfast uneaten. ‘They treat
this house like a bloody lodgings. I tell you, I’ve had enough of it. If they can’t abide by the rules they can clear out. Idle good for nothing layabouts—’
    ‘I’ll get yer coat and scarf, Pa,’ Lizzie said quickly, catching her mother’s look of dismay.
    ‘And wrap up warm,’ Kate called after her. ‘I don’t want you both coming down with pneumonia. And who knows, if the weather holds, you might have a good day and we can
settle the rent with old Symons.’
    A remark that didn’t make Tom Allen any the happier as, swathed in coats, scarves and mittens, they left the house and Lizzie began the long push from Cubitt Town to Poplar. It was a
sombre beginning to the day, but Lizzie knew their spirits would lift when they saw their friends. For her, one in particular: Danny Flowers.
    The Isle of Dogs was still asleep as she pushed her father through the empty streets of Cubitt Town. Only Island Gardens, the park where she brought her sisters to play, was alive with birdsong.
Soon they had reached the Mudchute, years ago a mountainous health hazard of rotting silt. Now the islanders grew vegetables there. It was barricaded with wooden fences so the kids wouldn’t
get in.
    Lizzie was proud of the island’s ancient roots. She had learned at school that the Isle of Dogs had first been recorded on the maps in the sixteenth century. Over time, the rough horseshoe
of land, surrounded on three sides by water, had become the centre of the capital’s trade and industry.
    Glancing seaward she spotted a tall ship’s mast over the roofs of the tatty cottages. Hooters echoed, oil and tar blew in on the wind, another day of sea trading had begun. Her grandfather
and great-grandfather had sailed on the big, ocean going vessels, the
Triton
and the
Oceanides.
    It had been nothing, once, to see the bowsprit of a ship leaning over a backyard. Children had swung from the long poles, pretending to be pirates, and up above them the main masts had seemed to
pierce the sky. Lizzie could remember her brothers playing along the wharves. She could see them now, scavenging under the furnaces of the factories, black with ash. Bert had a deep voice even as a
boy. He’d often sung sea shanties with the sailors and Vinnie had dug in the silt, convinced he’d find treasure.
    The war had seemed a long way away then.
    Her father huddled down under his scarves. His jaw jutted out against the wind, and she pushed on, her efforts keeping her warm as the November day dawned, bright and clear. Horses and carts
trotted by, women whitened their doorsteps.
    ‘A Good Pull-Up at Carmen’, announced a notice over one door. Lizzie waved at the owner, standing outside his café fastening his apron. The Carmen was no more than a shack,
with a corrugated roof and a flap that came down over the front, but the smell of cheesecake was tantalizing. She’d never tasted the pastries covered in thick coconut, but they were always
lined up on trays inside. The aroma of hot dough and coconut made her mouth water.
    On they went, her load heavier now. Some of the girls from the pickle factory said hello. They all looked and smelled the same. Their hair was hidden under white caps and they walked noisily on
their clogs. Their white coats were stained with yellow from the onions and they stank of vinegar.
    Lizzie had always feared having to work at the pickle factory. Then one day her mother had remarked, ‘It’s better than the sacking factory. The dust fills up your lungs and chokes
you to death. Listen to the women coughing and you know they work with sack.’ After that, the pickle factory seemed like heaven.
    As they skirted the docks a small band of men huddled on the stones. ‘There must be a skin boat in. Poor sods,’ her father sighed. These were older men, casual labour, waiting for
work. No man in his right mind would work with animal skins from abroad, her father had once commented. The