The Girl from Cotton Lane by Harry Bowling Page B

fallen at her home. She had, but it had happened the previous afternoon, and Jack had gone with her to Rotherhithe Infirmary where she had been admitted with a broken hip.
     

Chapter Six
     
    In the early months of 1920 the little dining rooms in Cotton Lane prospered. The docks were experiencing a boom in trade and all day long a steady stream of customers came and went. Carrie and Fred worked hard all day, aided by the vociferous Bessie Chandler, whose tales about the trials and tribulations of her friends in the buildings where she lived became painful ongoing sagas. Fred suffered the most, for Bessie worked at his elbow most of the day. She was very efficient though, and as she went on endlessly about her neighbours she seemed to race through her chores with increasing speed. The pastry took a terrible pounding at times, and Bessie kneaded the dough with a vengeance as she talked of Kate Kerrigan, one of her sworn enemies. Fred would listen patiently until he could stand no more and then depart to the small back yard, where he sat on an upturned tea-chest and vowed that one day he would forget how efficient his kitchen hand was and just do away with her.
     
    Carrie worked unceasingly behind the counter, rushing off upstairs often during the afternoons to tend to Rachel once Annie McCafferty had left. At such times Fred Bradley got some respite from Bessie’s ever-wagging tongue. His assistant took over behind the counter and proceeded to inflict the continuing stories of her friends and enemies in the buildings on the dockers and carmen. They took little notice of her, though; the rough, bawdy crowd were more interested in the fortunes of their local football teams, Millwall and West Ham. When Carrie was serving she often became involved in their conversations at the counter. The young woman made a point of following the respective teams’ results and their positions in the league tables and she held her own in the sporting discussions and arguments. Bessie knew nothing about football, and her constant harping on one subject caused her to become somewhat of an object of ridicule. The buxom, ginger-haired woman also had a shady past, and it did little to help the poor woman’s image when it was resurrected by two regular carmen.
     
    Sharkey Morris and Soapy Symonds had both worked at the Galloway transport firm in Page Street for a number of years. Both had left after arguments with the firm’s owner and they now worked for Tommy Hatcher in Long Lane. They liked and respected Carrie’s father, who had been their foreman at Galloway’s, and it was Sharkey who had told Carrie about Fred wanting a serving-girl for the cafe. He had promised William Tanner he would keep his eye on his daughter and make sure that she was treated right and that none of the customers took advantage of her. Soapy Symonds also minded Carrie’s welfare as far as he could, and both men were favourites of the pretty young girl who had now become the joint owner of Bradley’s Dining Rooms.
     
    Sharkey and Soapy were both in their fifties. Sharkey was tall and gangling with broad shoulders and a wicked sense of humour, while Soapy was smaller in stature, stooping and with hawklike features. They often came into the dining rooms together and one day they were trying not to listen as Bessie was going on at length about her friend Elsie Dobson.
     
    ‘’Ark at Bessie Bubbles goin’ orf again,’ Soapy groaned to Sharkey.
     
    ‘Who?’ one of the carmen sitting with the two asked.
     
    ‘Bessie Bubbles. That’s what she was known as when she was on the game,’ Soapy informed him.
     
    ‘Bessie on the game? I don’t believe it,’ the carman said incredulously.
     
    ‘’S’ right. She was a Lisle Street whore,’ Soapy said unkindly. ‘She was found out by a couple o’ the local lads who went over Charin’ Cross fer a good time. It’s a long story but it’s true, sure as I sit ’ere. She used ter wear a blond curly wig. All the