LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER THREE

      ‘For goodness’ sake, Jennifer! Can’t you clean this place up, once in a while?’

      ‘Why?’ Jennifer Finch was in the process of rinsing out her stockings and underwear. Turning from the sink she sent her sister a sullen look while listlessly dunking the smalls in a metal bowl. ‘This dump won’t look no better without the dust, you know.’ Lethargically, she glanced about.

      ‘It’s not a bit of dust that’s the problem, Jen, is it?’ Kathy retorted.

      Jennifer had a couple of ground-floor rooms in a converted house just off Mare Street in Bethnal Green. The upstairs was unoccupied as the landlord had refused to mend the leaking roof and make it close to habitable. On arrival today, Kathy had found her sister’s flat in a state, as usual. Jennifer was always promising to have a spring clean, but never did. The only place that ever seemed slightly tidier was Jennifer’s bedroom, and Kathy reckoned that was to impress her scummy punters.

      Jennifer’s sitting room had once been separated from the kitchenette by a partition wall. The landlord had knocked it down to a low level so now a few old cupboards, a small cooker and a butler sink with wooden draining board were on view.

      The faded wallpaper had come unstuck where rain had penetrated through the ceiling and bay window, and now drooped, exposing cracked plaster beneath. The furniture wasn’t ancient but Jennifer didn’t take care of it and in the year since she’d moved in the upholstery had become stained. The square oak dining table was covered in odds and ends, and there was crockery on the floor. On top of a small radiogram was a smeary glass standing in an overflowing ashtray. The air inside the flat was heavy with the mingled odours of tobacco smoke and mildew. Jennifer rarely opened the windows in case Dot Pearson, who lived next door, was snooping on her, so there was a perpetual unpleasant fug clinging to everything.

      Kathy shrugged out of her coat and, rather than lay it on the dirty sofa, hung it over a fiddle-back chair. She picked up the stack of dirty plates from the rug. The top one had remnants of newspaper and a fish supper stuck to it. She plonked the crockery on the draining board. Her sister ignored the angry crash and continued wringing out her washing.

      ‘I’ve told you before, you’ll end up with food poisoning, you daft ha’p’orth, if you don’t keep things clean.’

      ‘Good … hope I get raging bellyache and die. It’ll save me sticking me head in the gas oven,’ Jenny snarled.

      Kathy grabbed Jennifer’s arm, spinning her round. ‘Don’t talk stupid.’ She stepped back as she smelled the alcohol on her sister’s breath. Immediately, her eyes slewed to the tumbler balanced on top of the radiogram. ‘You’ve been boozing again.’ She sounded more upset than angry, and Jennifer had the grace to blush.

      ‘So what if I have?’

      ‘You promised you’d lay off it.’ Kathy swooped on the dirty glass and gave it a sniff, recognising whisky.

      ‘Did I now?’ Jennifer narrowed her crusty eyelids. ‘Well, if you had my fuckin’ life you’d need a drink ’n’ all.’ She grabbed up the bowl and went outside to peg the washing on the line in the misty backyard. When the few scraps of cotton and silk were hanging limp in the still March air, she turned back to her sister. ‘Oh, just leave it. I’ll do it when you’ve gone.’ Jennifer seemed irked that Kathy had begun washing up the plates in the stained butler sink.

      ‘Have you been bathing your eyelids with warm salt water, like I said?’

      ‘If I remember, I do it.’ Jennifer still sounded irritated.

      Kathy raised her eyes heavenward at her sister’s attitude.

      ‘You said you’d bring me some stuff over to clear it up.’ Jennifer came in, shutting the back door. She was constantly conscious of eavesdroppers the other side of the fence. She was sure Dot Pearson and her cronies thought they were better than she was. Jennifer grudgingly admitted to herself that on the whole they were better than she was, but she didn’t want anybody rubbing it in.

      Kathy pulled a small brown bottle and a pack of lint from her bag. Having unscrewed the top, she upended the antiseptic onto a scrap of lint then wiped it over her sister’s closed eyelashes. She handed over the jollop. ‘Do it morning and evening till it clears up. And boil your flannels and towels and your bed linen or the infection won’t go.’ Kathy rubbed together her hands under the icy running tap and flicked them dry rather than risk using the length of frayed greyish cotton hanging on a hook. She knew she was wasting her breath with Jennifer. Her twin regularly promised to alter her way of life, but nothing changed.

      Filthy sheets remained on the bed for months on end before seeing the inside of the copper situated outside in the ramshackle washhouse. Considering her twin’s profession, Kathy felt sick, knowing Jennifer slept on the detritus shed by strangers’ bodies …

      ‘Seen anything of Mum and Dad?’ Jennifer asked.

      ‘I haven’t been over to Islington for weeks.’

      Despite Jennifer having been banished from darkening Eddie and Winnie Finch’s doorstep many years ago, she still asked after her family with poignant regularity.

      ‘Wonder how Tom’s doing?’ Jenny mentioned their younger brother.

      ‘Last time I spoke to Mum, she was on the warpath with him ’cos he’s good pals with the lads who live round in Campbell Road.’

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