All Fall Down (41 page)

‘Don't you come near me!' She shrank back. The jolting shock of revelation ran through her again and again.

‘I'm sorry. What could I do?' Gertie forced herself to cope, since Meggie had gone to pieces. Any minute now, there would be Ronnie to deal with too. ‘Do you think I wanted to do this to my own flesh and blood?' To tell him that she'd lived a lie with him, that Sam wasn't his pa. It would shatter his world. ‘You gotta pull yourself together, girl. Or let me go and get some help.'

Meggie shook her head. ‘I want to tell him myself.' With an effort she stood upright. She wouldn't let Gertie shunt her out of the way. Ronnie didn't have a clue what he was riding into, sitting there in that compartment, or hanging out of the window looking for her as the train reached the station.

A public announcement heralded the arrival at last of the late Southampton train. Gertie's mouth was dry. Meggie's suddenly renewed strength of mind alarmed her. The idea had been for Gertie herself to tackle Ronnie; she would be able to explain away Meggie's absence as proof that the girl didn't care, that the original goodbye letter was genuine. She still had a small hope that she could save him from the truth. ‘Tell him what?' she insisted.

Meggie pushed herself clear of the wall. She directed a look of pure hatred at Gertie. ‘Don't worry, I'll save your bacon.'

‘You won't tell him about Richie?'

She scorned to answer. ‘Ronnie means the world to me,' she said
instead. The train crawled into the station spouting steam, screeching to a halt.

‘To me too.' Gertie choked.

They stood watching the doors fly open. Servicemen alighted in a steady stream. Blue, khaki, grey uniforms crowded onto the platform. Girls picked out their own sailor, soldier or pilot. There were tearful reunions, smiling faces, linked arms and an ebbing away from the platform, until only half a dozen couples remained, lingering over their greetings. Solitary stragglers jumped down from the carriages with no one to meet them. Meggie and Gertie studied each one, and moving out of the shadows began to run the length of the train, looking into empty compartments.

‘Where is he?' Gertie grew desperate. ‘He ain't on the train.' She ran to find a guard; someone who could give them information. ‘Is there another Southampton train on its way?' She yelled the question above the shunting hiss of another engine on a nearby platform.

The man shook his head. ‘That's your lot. Next one's not due till tomorrow.'

Gertie's hands dropped to her side. She turned to look for Meggie. But the platform was empty. The carriage doors hung open, the big clock ticked. Ronnie wasn't on the train, and Meggie had disappeared.

Slowly she turned and walked up the long slope towards the main terminal building. She realized for the first time the full impact of what she had done.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Meggie strode all the way up Birdcage Walk, through Parliament Square to Victoria Embankment. She was aware of walking quickly, apparently purposefully, past all the grand buildings, though in fact her mind was blank. She had no idea where she was heading.

Don't touch me. Leave me alone
. These phrases recurred. If it meant walking onto one of the bridges and jumping straight into the grey old Thames, she would achieve this desire for isolation. If anyone were to come near her, she would scream her revulsion. Passers-by paid her no attention, however. Buses roared past, the wide road streamed with traffic. She was one small, anonymous figure in the swell of humanity, beneath the advertising hoardings, the autumn trees, the great dark arches of Hungerford Bridge.

What was she doing here? Meggie stared up at them, perplexed. Had she meant to come? She thought not, though there might have been some reason why she should want to find Richie Palmer again. Could it have been that she'd wanted to check Gertie's story? She tried to concentrate.

‘Watch where you're going, mate!' An oldish man on a bicycle, balancing a load of firewood on the crossbar, swerved as she strayed into the road. He turned his head to watch her stumble back onto the pavement. Something must have told him to get off and go to her aid. She could have been drunk, but he didn't think so. ‘Here, help me get her seen to,' he called out, as Meggie swayed and collapsed in the gutter. No one answered his plea. The girl had fainted, and he was lumbered.

Worse, a siren started up. Just what he needed. For a moment, the man thought he might leave Meggie to recover unaided. Then
he noticed the down-and-outs trickling into the Hungerford Club for the duration. He helped her struggle to her feet. ‘In here,' he suggested. ‘I'll get someone to take a look at you.'

In spite of her daze, Meggie recognised the number 176 above the door. She seemed terrified of the place, and shook herself free. ‘I'll be all right, ta.'

‘There's a raid on, can't you hear?' He began to wonder if he could get home, or if he would have to shelter too. He tried to brush the mud splashes from the girl's white coat.

‘Don't.' She stepped away, almost fell.

‘Here, I'll get a cab.' What a state, he thought. He hailed a taxi and rattled off an instruction to the driver. ‘She ain't well. How far are you going?'

‘Waterloo, if I can make it.' The driver flicked a cigarette butt onto the road. ‘Does she want a ride or not?'

The man waited for Meggie to nod. He picked up the bag she'd dropped in the gutter and bundled her into the taxi. The road and pavement were by now almost empty. He grabbed his bike with its load of wood, then waved the driver on. ‘She ain't with it, mate, but I think she'll soon come round.'

‘How do you know she's got the price of a cab on her?' But he relented when he looked in his mirror and saw Meggie's frightened white face. ‘All right, all right, call it my good deed for the day.' He drove off at breakneck speed as the siren wailed in broad daylight.

‘Cor, stone me, if she don't go and faint on me again!' he told his fellow drivers in the shelter at Waterloo. ‘I'm out of the cab, rifling through her things to find out who the hell she is, when this copper comes up. What a bleeding farce. We find a whole bunch of letters tied up in a ribbon in her bag. She's a Meggie Davidson of Paradise Court. I hand her over to the copper like a hot potato. Let him deal with it.' He sipped his tea and said it was the last time he was playing good Samaritan.

It was a police car that had rolled up at the Duke with Meggie in the back. George was locking up, making sure that everyone was clear before the raid got underway. The policeman stopped to
ask for the Davidson's house. It was all right, George said, he was family. The girl's mother had already taken shelter in the cellar of the pub. He helped Meggie out of the car.

When she saw who it was, Hettie came rushing through the bar. Meggie stumbled into her arms. She clung to her aunt in a state of shock.

‘Hush there, everything's all right.' Hettie held her tight. ‘Your ma and grandma are here, we'll look after you. Come downstairs. Listen, darling, if it's Ronnie you're worried about, there's no need. We got a telephone message. He said to tell you he's fine. His leave got cancelled right at the last minute. That's why he wasn't on the train.'

Meggie stared at her, expressionless.

‘There, there, he knew you'd be upset. He says not to worry, he'll put in for leave again just as soon as he can. He promises to write you lots of letters. He says you gotta write too.' Gently she led Meggie down to the shelter. ‘Oh, and he says to tell you he loves you, and something about the stars. What was it?'

The cellar door opened. Sadie, who had been worried stiff and had telephoned the Bell to see if Meggie was there, took one look at her and clasped her in her arms.

Tommy couldn't wait to feel solid pavement under his feet again. His excursion into the country had left him shaken. ‘I ain't no local yokel,' he confided to Charlie Ogden one night soon after his return. The two men got on well, considering. He lifted a pint of Annie's best bitter and took a sip. ‘I don't know how them Land Army girls stick it, and all for twenty-eight bob a week.'

‘How's Edie?'

‘A1 ta.'

‘When's she coming home?'

‘Don't ask me, mate.'

Charlie decided to mind his own business. ‘How's Dad's Army treating you?'

‘It's a bleeding shambles,' Tommy admitted. ‘I'm a civilian
volunteer despatch rider, except I ain't got a bleeding bike, have I?'

‘They call it doing your bit.'

The desultory conversation drifted, until Dorothy came into the pub to collect Charlie on the way to the cinema. ‘What's up, Tommy? You got a face like a wet weekend.' She had a glint in her eye as she got Charlie to order her a drink. ‘How's Edie getting along?'

‘I already asked him.' Charlie pushed the glass towards her with a meaningful look.

‘What's the matter? She found a nice-looking Yank to take her along to the local hop?' This was more light entertainment for Dorothy. She was long past regretting the breakdown of her marriage, and although passion wasn't a large ingredient in her new relationship with Charlie, there was at least a sound understanding between them. Warts and all, she told her women friends. She had to take Charlie's gloomy fits in her stride, while his feelings for her had strengthened since his near-miss and long hospital stay. Behind the lipstick and the nail polish didn't exactly beat a heart of pure gold, but at least he knew where he was with Dorothy. ‘I hear you paid Edie a visit. Is she up to her elbows in cow-muck, or what?'

‘She drives a bleeding truck.' Tommy regretted giving even this much away.

‘Oh God, what does she look like? Does she have to wear them nasty fawn britches like in the advert? And don't say you never noticed.' Dorothy gauged the impact of her teasing. “You ain't been ditched for a turniphead, have you?' Why else would Edie be stopping away from home for so long?

‘What if she happens to like it there, not having bombs dropped on her head every five minutes?' Charlie suggested.

‘Well, I never thought of that. Maybe I should give it a go.' Dorothy sat on her stool, perky as anything.

Even Tommy smiled. ‘You in a pair of dungarees? I don't think so.'

‘Come on, if we're going. The picture starts at seven.' Charlie checked his watch. He helped Dorothy on with her coat and left
the bar to Tommy and a couple of other customers installed at a corner table.

After they'd gone, Annie worked her way across, wiping the bar top as she came. She thought she knew what was eating Tommy. ‘Cheer up, it might never happen.'

He shrugged.

‘There again, maybe it already has. How long have you been coming in here, Tommy?' She put away her cloth and drew up a stool across the bar from him, an unusual move for the ever-active landlady. ‘I make you much of an age with our Ernie. He'd have been forty-four this year.'

‘Don't rub it in.' He felt every day of his forty-one years.

‘Ernie was never more than a boy to me, of course. Not just because of how he was. Forty don't seem any age when you get to seventy-odd.' She took her time. There was something specific she wanted to say. ‘You got half your life ahead of you.' Another pause. ‘How's business?'

‘Picking up,' he admitted. He'd moved in on two more vacant newspaper stands, started employing Jimmie and Bobby on a full time basis.

‘I knew you'd soon be back on your feet.'

‘It ain't hard, Annie. Not with half the work force away fighting a war, remember.'

‘Still, it takes guts to pull yourself back from the brink.' He sipped at his beer. ‘Spit it out. I know you: you're gonna give me the benefit of your advice, whether I like it or not.'

Annie sniffed. ‘You always was a cheeky monkey, Tommy O'Hagan.' Still, it gave her the way in. ‘Edie's making you wait, ain't she?'

He raised an eyebrow. ‘Who told you?'

‘No one. I worked it out for myself. As a matter of fact, it was me who told her to take her time.' She braved the impatient rap of Tommy's glass on the bar. ‘No, listen. I said don't jump in until you're ready. Think about it. If she'd leaned on you straight after Bill went and did himself in, where would she be now?'

‘Here with me, that's where!'

‘Yes, and leaning on you for the rest of her life. That ain't Edie. It's Dorothy more like. Some women need to lean, see?'

Tommy hadn't seen his ex-wife in this light before. ‘Funny, I always thought she was the boss.'

Annie shook her head. ‘Dorothy's a leaner, believe me. I ain't running her down, don't dunk that. Some men like to be leaned on, like Charlie for instance.'

‘Where's this getting us?' He was still irritated by the idea of Annie having stuck her oar in.

‘Round to Edie, that's where. You say she's coping out in the sticks?'

‘More than that. I'd say she's bleeding well enjoying it.' Tinkering with engines, talking to her POW. ‘She only goes and tells me she don't want to come back to Duke Street!'

Even Annie was taken aback. ‘What, never?'

‘Not ever. She wants to give up the flat.'

‘Has she chucked you?'

‘She might just as well.'

‘But she ain't?' Annie got this straight. She could hear more customers gathering on the pavement outside. ‘What's she saying, Tommy? Is she gonna stay out in Somerset?'

‘She don't bleeding well know.' They'd talked it over at the hotel, and left it that Edie needed more time to think. ‘On the one hand she says she wants to marry me. On the other, she don't want to come home.'

Annie took a deep breath and eased herself off the stool. She took up her post behind the pumps. ‘Well, there's only one thing for it, Tommy . . .'