Tuppence to Tooley Street by Harry Bowling Read Free Book Online Page A

bruv. We wouldn’t wake yer. Mum’s gone shoppin’ an’ Dad’s gone fer the paper.’ Connie poured the boiling water into the teapot. ‘Did yer sleep well?’
    ‘Like a log,’ Danny lied.
    ‘Want some brekkie? We’ve got bacon an’ eggs, or eggs an’ bacon?’
    ‘Go on, finish what yer doin’,’ Danny answered. ‘I’ll get meself somefink.’
    Connie grinned. ‘Get in the front room, bruv. I’ll call yer when it’s ready. Mum said we’ve gotta make a fuss o’ yer fer a couple o’ days, then yer can fend fer yerself, okay?’
    Danny smiled as he went to the sink and splashed cold water over his face. Connie handed him the towel and watched closely as he dried his face. ‘You look pale. D’yer feel all right?’
    Danny threw the towel over the back of the chair. ‘Tell yer the trufe, I was fast asleep an’ I ’eard this screamin’. I thought yer got yer fingers caught in the mangle. Then I realised it was only you singin’.’
    Connie laughed, her white teeth flashing. ‘Don’t be lippy,’ she said, tossing her pretty head in the air. ‘Now get in the uvver room out o’ me way while I do yer breakfast.’

    The Globe was full of the usual Saturday morning crowd. The public bar buzzed with conversation as dockers and stevedores from the backstreets piled in for their ‘constitutional’. Becky Elliot, the buxom barmaid, and the ‘Missus’, Harriet Kirkland, busied themselves behind the bar, while in the more sedate saloon Eddie the guv’nor leant on the counter listening to Biff Bowden, the proud owner of Shady Lady. Eddie was a slight man in his mid-fifties, with a clipped moustache and heavily tattoed arms. His sandy hair was well brushed and kept in place with brilliantine. He was a straight-backed character who prided himself on the cleanliness of his pub, a fetish that had stayed with him since his time as a drill sergeant in the Queen’s. Biff was a regular to the pub, a robust character in his late forties with a hearty laugh. His moonface remained impassive when he was sober, but when inebriated Biff’s features became excessively animated, contorting his face into outlandish expressions.
    Biff remained poker-faced as he raved about the exploits of Shady Lady.
    ‘I tell yer, Eddie, that dog clocked the fastest time it’s ever done on Monday. It’ll walk its next race, you mark my words.’
    ‘Well if I’m gonna stick a few bob on it I’ll want it ter run, not walk,’ Eddie said pointedly, winking at the group who stood to one side of the counter.
    The owner of Shady Lady was not easily put off. Biff was knowledgeable about nearly every money-making scheme that had been devised in the area–he had been the creator of most of them. Biff could spin a good tale and get backing for his ventures–and he was versatile. He had been known to sell patent medicines in the street markets, and he had once peddled a hair restorer which was guaranteed to produce a mop of curly hair. He also marketed a certain ‘tonic’ that was supposed to have wondrous powers, especially where there was a flagging sexual desire. Biff Bowden always produced evidence to support his claims: in Petticoat Lane he had a hulking bystander who swore he was once at death’s door and the medicine had saved him; in the lesser markets a curly-haired individual testified that he was once bald; another said he had rekindled the burning passions of youth, and that at sixty-plus he was still adding to his brood. At one market in North London, a woman had rushed up to Biff Bowden’s fellow conspirator and said that if he was still producing children, they were certainly not hers, and she had chased her startled spouse from the market. Biff had quietened the alarm by saying that the tonic must have made the man over-sexed, and he was sold out in no time at all.
    If Biff had a weakness, it was his inability to pick a winner. Most of his hard-earned money was lost at the dog tracks. It had seemed to him that the