The Nightingale Girls - By Donna Douglas Page 0,174

tackle him.

He was trying to make up his mind whether to treat himself to some jellied eels when the fist came out of nowhere, knocking him flat on his back. Alf felt the trickle of blood from his nose as he lay winded on the cobbles, gasping for breath. Suddenly he knew he’d been a fool to flash the cash around the pub. Now his luck had run out.

He groped in his pocket for his wallet, pulled it out and tossed it across towards the shadows.

‘Here’s my money,’ he stammered. ‘Take it. Whatever you want.’

‘I don’t want your money.’

A moment later a figure stepped out of the shadows into the greenish lamplight, and Alf found himself squinting up in confusion at the familiar face towering over him.

‘Hello, Alf,’ said Nick Riley. ‘I’d like a little chat, if you’ve got a minute?’

The news that Alf Doyle had done a runner spread around Griffin Street like wildfire. And it wasn’t long before rumours started to fly. Some people reckoned he had a woman on the Isle of Dogs, others claimed he’d done a bunk up north to escape big gambling debts. The only thing they could agree on was that Alf Doyle had been a quiet one, and that the quiet ones were the worst.

Through it all, Rose Doyle maintained a dignified silence. She went on working every day, taking in mending, cleaning her house and looking after her children, always ready with a kind word and a smile for the neighbours, even though she knew they were gossiping behind her back. But in private Dora could see she was devastated.

‘I don’t understand it,’ she would say over and over again. ‘I thought we were so happy? Why would he just walk out like that?’

Sometimes she would convince herself that something dreadful had happened to him. ‘My Alf wouldn’t just up sticks and leave his family. No one’s seen him at work, either. Something’s happened to him, I know it has. He could be lying murdered somewhere. Or else he’s topped himself.’

‘People don’t pack up their bags if they’re planning to do themselves in, Rose,’ Nanna Winnie pointed out. ‘Face it, girl, none of us knew Alf as well as we thought we did.’

Josie and Dora exchanged looks but said nothing. They couldn’t understand it either, although Dora knew her sister was as grateful as she was for his mysterious disappearance.

‘Do you think he’ll come back?’ Josie asked her fearfully, just after he vanished.

‘I don’t know, Jose. I wish I did.’

‘Why did he go, I wonder?’

Dora shrugged. ‘Maybe he realised what he’d done and decided he couldn’t live with himself?’ Although that didn’t seem very likely from the way he’d treated her.

‘Well, I hope he’s dead,’ Josie said with feeling. ‘I hope he’s lying at the bottom of the Thames.’

‘Shh, don’t let Mum hear you talk like that,’ Dora warned. She felt desperately sorry for her mother. No matter how badly Alf had treated them, she hated to see Rose Doyle suffer. It was so cruel of Alf just to walk out on her.

She felt even worse when she heard the neighbours gossiping.

‘Well, who’d have thought it?’ Lettie Pike could barely contain her glee. ‘Looks like the Doyles have come down in the world. Poor Rose, how’s she going to cope with no man to keep her?’

‘Same way you manage, I dare say,’ Nanna Winnie had replied sharply. ‘I don’t see your Len putting himself out to keep you. Why else do you have to go out scrubbing hospital floors?’

The only one who showed her mother any sympathy was June Riley. ‘I know what it’s like to have your husband run off,’ she reminded them. ‘My Reg did the very same thing, remember? Went off without a by-your-leave, he did.’

Dora thought about Reg Riley, disappearing off in the night. It was just like Alf, in a way. Except everyone knew Nick was the one who’d driven him out.

It made her wonder if Nick had had anything to do with Alf’s disappearance. But why would he? It wasn’t as if Alf had done anything to Nick. Not like his bullying father.

But all the same, the idea unsettled her.

‘You don’t know where Alf went, do you?’ she asked him one evening as he sat in the back yard, smoking a cigarette.

He stared back at her, his blue eyes unreadable. ‘Why should I?’

‘No reason.’ She was silly for even thinking it, she decided.

Before he could say any more, Ruby came out into the yard, dressed