All Fall Down (10 page)

‘Better not.'

‘Still, it don't mean to say he's got any right to bash you about.'

She sighed. ‘Forget it. Don't tell no one, will you?'

‘Has he gone back to his ship?'

‘Yes. Last night. Took the Glasgow train, the sleeper.'

There was a long pause. ‘Good riddance.' Tommy paced the floor on the far side of the desk from Edie. ‘It looks like I ruined your weekend good and proper.'

‘Not you. If it hadn't been the nylons it would've been something else.'

Tommy stopped. ‘He done it before?'

She looked at him without answering directly. ‘Men like Bill get jealous. There don't have to be a reason.'

‘And do you have to put up with it?'

Tommy's anger rose as he realized the sort of life she led. In his book, though the East End streets were tough and family life often hard – wives scraping by, husbands resenting the fact that their hard-earned wages were all spoken for in food, rent and clothing – still a man should never hit a woman whatever the provocation. And in Edie's case, he couldn't see why Bill shouldn't just count his blessings and take the best possible care of her.

‘I'm married to him, ain't I? For better, or worse.'

‘Not if he knocks you about, for God's sake!'

For her part Edie didn't want this question opened up. Once married, always married; it was simplest. And so far she'd never been tempted.

‘I could ask you the same thing: why do you stay married? You ain't happy.'

‘Happy's one thing. Bruises all over is another. Where else did he catch you.'

‘Nowhere much. Apart from my arm, where he grabbed it.'

‘The truth, Edie. Door's locked. Ain't no one coming in if you want to tell me all about it.'

She half smiled. ‘Here's me trying to be brave, chin up. I ain't used to sympathy.'

‘So why not tell me?' He sat at a safe distance.

‘What's to tell? We got home from the Duke on Saturday night. You saw what he was like, pretending to be all chummy with you over the nylons but course when we get back he wants to know what I've done to deserve them, looking at me all snidey, with this smile on his face.'

‘Did you tell him I get them for all the girls in the shop whenever I lay my hands on a consignment coming off the dock?' He lit a cigarette to steady his nerves, blaming his own carelessness for part of it.

She nodded. ‘But he don't want to know. By this time he's worked himself up, swearing and shouting. I have to lock myself in the bathroom, but that makes him worse. I'm inside, and he's outside on the landing, livid with me.' She dosed her eyes. ‘Next thing, he's put his fist through the glass panel in the door.'

‘Bastard.' Tommy stood up.

Edie went to calm him. ‘See, what good's it do to tell you?'

‘No, go on. I want to know.' He held her gently by the shoulders. ‘Tell me the rest.'

‘Broken glass. That's what sticks in my mind. The glass smashing and flying through the air. I don't take it lying down, though. He's managed to unlock the door and I'm trapped in a corner, but I stand up to him. He can do what he likes, but I won't show him I'm scared. I won't give him the satisfaction.'

Tommy wrapped her in his arms and held her.

‘Anyhow, I know it'll stop. He never takes it too far. I just get knocked about a bit, then he stops, no real damage.'

‘Next off, you'll be saying how lucky you are to have such an understanding bloke!' The feeling of holding, her close nearly drove him mad. He had to make a feeble joke to steady himself.

‘Oh.' She began to sob in earnest. ‘What am I gonna do, Tommy? What am I gonna do?'

Sadie had bought Bertie some new Wellington boots from Woolworths, packed them in a neat parcel and sent them off to Lancashire. ‘Give your old ones to Geoff,' she instructed in her
letter, ‘and have Mrs Whittaker hand on Geoff's old ones to a small child who needs them. I've written your name in big letters inside the top rims so you can see at a glance they belong to you.' Bertie's possessions had a mysterious way of disappearing, apparently. She waited several weeks for a reply, fretting all the while that the parcel had been lost in the post, that Bertie must be ill, or that he'd already forgotten all about his real family in Southwark.

At last the long-awaited letter came, crumpled and smudged.

‘Looks as if the dog got hold of that,' Walter commented as he separated it from the rest of the morning's mail and handed it over to Sadie.

Eagerly she tore it open, but she hardly got beyond the first sentence before she let it drop in dismay.

‘What's wrong? What's he say?' Walter looked up from his pile of bills.

‘Geoff's poorly.'

‘What's wrong with him?'

‘They can't make it out. Bertie says there's something wrong with his tummy. He ain't eating properly.'

‘Not eating? He eats like a horse, don't he?'

She nodded. ‘It ain't like him, certainly. Hold on.' She read the letter. ‘He says he wrote this in bed. Geoff's poorly and he has to stay off school to look after him. They still have to earn their keep, though, running errands for Mr Whittaker.'

‘Earn their keep? Whittaker gets plenty from the government to cover the cost of the billet.' Walter was slower to take alarm, but he was beginning not to like the sound of it. ‘Why's he writing his letter in bed, does he say?'

‘He don't. Hang on.' Sadie's hand shook. ‘He wants to know why we haven't written since February.'

‘Since when?'

‘Since February, only he spelt it wrong.' She held up her hand. ‘Listen. He hopes we haven't forgotten about him and Geoff.' Her heart was squeezed tight, she had to hand over the letter for Walter to finish.

He scanned it. ‘Oh, this ain't right, Sadie. He's writing in secret
because Mrs Whittaker said not to let us know poor Geoff's ill. She thinks we'll only worry.'

‘Too right we will.' Sadie stood up, ready to go for her hat and coat then and there. ‘That settles it.' Her mind flew over the things she would have to arrange; leave of absence from the factory, train tickets, an explanation for Annie so that she could keep an eye on Walter and Meggie.

‘What you up to now?'

‘I'm gonna bring them back home, no messing.'

‘Wait. We aren't one hundred per cent sure yet, are we?' He couldn't help thinking of the toll on everyone's nerves; the day-in, day-out worrying about what Hitler was up to. In Walter's opinion it was a matter of when, not if, he would strike.

‘Sure of what?'

‘Sure it's the right thing.'

She frowned with the effort of giving him a hearing. ‘I know one thing, Walt, it ain't right where they are now.'

She'd spent the winter in an agony of doubt, veering between hoping for the best; trusting human nature and the will of God and fearing the worst: that the Whittakers were the sort who might exploit evacuees, and what this might entail for her two boys. She also had the evidence before her eyes of other mothers, worried sick about their absent children, taking all means to get them back home, travelling by bus or by truck, even hitching a ride into the country to fetch them.

‘I don't think it's safe to have them back,' Walter insisted quieuy.

‘Oh,' she cried, ‘says you! What about the others who think it is perfectly safe? Why do you think we've got shelters and sandbags and sirens and klaxons? So we don't all get blown to bits, that's why!'

‘But if Jerry does start in on us—'

‘If, if, if! It's been “if” for more than six months, and nothing but false alarms and rumours.' She argued as if her life depended on it.

Upstairs in her room, Meggie heard the raised voices and came down.

Walter tried to think straight. It was true, many families had taken the risk of being back together. He'd also heard some horror stories of children being abominably, treated in their billets; worked to the bone, half starved even beaten. Now the letter from Bertie made it likely that their own sons had been far from kindly received.

‘He ain't mentioned his new Wellingtons,' Sadie said with a choking sob. ‘What happened to that parcel, Walter?'

‘Right.' He nodded as if this tipped the balance. ‘Pack your bag.'

Sadie gasped with relief. ‘I can go and fetch them?'

In the doorway, Meggie stood hugging her dressing gown to her chest. She knew this would put her own increasingly desperate search for her father well down the list of Sadie's priorities. However, she could hardly object.

‘Meggie, fetch the brown suitcase from the attic, then run up to the Duke and ask your gran to come down, quick as you can. You can tell her I'm going to fetch the boys back home.' It was as if the weight of the world had lifted from Sadie's shoulders. ‘Oh, Walter, I'm sure this is the best thing. It feels right. I want the boys with us, whatever happens.'

Meggie went on her errand, while Walter followed Sadie round their bedroom as she began to pack. ‘Do you want me to come?'

She straightened up in the midst of folding a navy blue and white spotted blouse. ‘If you want.'

‘I want what you want. And what's best for the boys. And Meggie.' He left the choice to her.

‘Then I think I should go. You stay and take care of things here. I have this idea to go on the train to Manchester, to Jess's house. She'll put me up for the night and, if all goes well, she'll be able to drive me over to the boys in Rendal, collect them with me, and drive us back to her place. That way we won't need to rely on buses.' She continued packing her things.

‘Shall I ring Jess from the depot to tell her?'

‘Please.'

‘And shall you warn the Whittakers?'

She paused again, resting a half-folded skirt over one arm. ‘I don't think so, do you?'

He agreed. ‘We don't want to give them a chance to go covering things up before you get there.'

‘And it'll be a surprise for Bertie and Geoff. We'll arrive there out of the blue and straighten everything out for them. Before they know it, we'll have them safe back home.' Now that she had a plan she grew methodical, asking Walter to check the times of the Manchester trains, leaving instructions with Annie on what meals to prepare while she was away. It was Friday; she expected to get to Jess by evening. In the morning they would set off for Rendal; by tomorrow afternoon she would see her beloved boys.

‘Is Your Journey Really Necessary?' Rob Parsons scowled at the poster as his taxicab stood idling outside the Windmill Theatre, waiting for Dorothy O'Hagan and her cronies to emerge. Sleek young men with slicked-back hairdos and wide flannel trousers strolled by, their arms around girls' slim waists, parading their night's conquests. As for the girls, they seemed wickedly available in their short skirts and sleeveless tops, while Rob, by virtue of his age and job, was relegated to the role of mere spectator.

‘C'mon!' He tapped the steering wheel, looking out for familiar faces; a fellow taxi driver, or even Bobby, Jimmie O'Hagan and Meggie who were out making a night of it, while Sadie travelled north to fetch the boys. But the streets were crowded and dim and he spotted no one he knew. He wanted to be home and in bed. In his resentment he was angered by the notion that none of these good-timers even seemed to be aware that there was a war on.

At last Dorothy, Lorna Bennett and two other women in their early twenties teetered out of the theatre and headed tipsily for the cab. What did they think they looked like, he wondered, as Loma missed her footing and had to be helped up. Dorothy piled into the back of the taxi after her, showing practically everything – stocking-tops, suspenders, the lot – while the other two young ones giggled and smirked at a couple of passing sailors.

‘Home, James!' Lorna waved him on.

The two sailors stopped to leer.

‘No, wait. Want a lift?' The girl in the wrap-around red dress held the door open.

‘Don't you just love them tiddly suits?' her flame-haired friend cooed. ‘All that gold braid.'

‘Don't just stand there, hop in!'

But the sailors felt themselves outnumbered. ‘Sorry girls, some other time.' They winked at Rob, implying that he had his hands full, then strolled on.

‘Aah!' They leaned out of the window as the cab left the kerb. ‘Ta-ta, boys, you don't know what you're missing!'

As they settled into their seats, pulling the window shut, Rob could smell their heavy perfume infiltrating the glass partition. In his overhead mirror, he saw the back of Lorna's head, and the pale blotch of Dorothy's face caught off-guard, mouth set in a hard red line, eyes narrowed and shadowy behind a furl of blue smoke.

‘Thanks for the memory,' the two youngest girls sang. ‘Da – di-di-di-di – dee . . . Oh, thanks for the memory . . .' The motion of the cab as it swerved around a corner onto Shaftesbury Avenue sent them off-key and into another fit of giggles.

Bed, Rob thought. A whisky from the corner cupboard, and bed. Oblivion. Already he was half asleep. The street was dark, his lamps hooded. Only the road immediately in front of his wheels was visible, though shapes of pedestrians might loom out from the pavement and he would jolt upright, his attention sharpened for a few seconds before it lapsed again.

‘Thanks for the memory, Ba-bu-bu-bu-bu – boom.'

Rob found his way without having to think, along the Embankment in its dull wartime guise of blacked-out Ministry buildings, shadowy archways and the black mass of the river shifting silently under Waterloo Bridge.

Suddenly he slammed on his brakes. The women in the back lurched and squealed, the cab slewed sideways.

‘Bleeding idiot!' Rob fought for control. The road was greasy, he wouldn't be able to stop. A man was there, caught in his headlights. Someone else tried to grab him and pull him out of the
way. Just in time, the swaying figure veered sideways, forearm up to shield him from the impact, torn coat flying open in the wind.