All Fall Down (9 page)

That made him happy, thinking he couldn't be spared at the pub. He would queue with the ration book, to save Annie or Hettie the trouble. He would wash glasses and clean floors. He knew where he was at the Duke.

‘Righto, Ern? You dive down the cellar from now on, no messing.' They were making a good job of damp-proofing the arch where they stored the barrels of bitter and mild on the long wooden gantries. Now if the water mains burst up above, or if they had to stay down for any length of time, they would be dry and safe.

Ernie stood up straight and stepped back to look at their handiwork.

‘Here, take this and hammer down the bit above the door.' Walter handed him the tool. ‘Nice and straight now, Ern, that's perfect.' He winked at Annie. ‘What do you think?'

‘I think poor little Hitler don't know what he's up against.' She winked back. ‘Fancy him thinking that dropping a couple of bombs on our heads will be the end of us!'

It wasn't long before Meggie and Sadie decided it was safer to go out looking for the tramp from Tottenham Court Road during daylight hours. This became easier as spring took hold and evenings
lengthened, the light sky opening up possibilities. They took to catching the tube, walking the length of Tottenham Court Road, on to Charing Cross and into Trafalgar Square, sometimes forgetting, if only for a moment, the tawdry task that faced them. Nelson's lions sat huge and powerful at the base of the towering column. Red buses circled beneath a comforting array of adverts for Bovril, Capstan and Hovis.

One Sunday morning in late April, footsore after a slog around the Sally Army hostels and along the Strand, they sat for a while in the pale sunshine beside the fountains in the square.

‘I bet them pigeons don't know there's a war on,' Sadie sighed, easing her feet out of her shoes. Gone were the days when she would have flung caution to the winds and dipped them, hot and aching, into the refreshing fountain. Once she would have, before she met Richie and fell pregnant with Meggie.

The roar of a passing wagon full of soldiers peering out from under the khaki canopy made the flock of birds rise in a clatter of wings. They swept skywards and circled, settling on the column and on the nearby gallery.

‘Don't you wonder what it's all for?' Meggie felt her life was stalled; the false alarms, the drab, endless queues, the blackout were all stealing her youth.

Sadie misunderstood. ‘You mean, you're tired of looking?' For her part, she would give up the search the moment Meggie gave the signal.

‘No, I mean the fighting. Aren't you sick of it?'

‘No, I ain't.' Sadie went tight-lipped. ‘And you shouldn't talk that way neither. You could get yourself locked up if you're not careful.'

Meggie laughed. In spite of everything she managed to look radiant in the morning sun. Her wavy dark brown hair glowed. It fell down her back in bright disarray now that she'd taken off her beret and teased it free in the breeze. ‘No, but when you think of it, if the war goes-on much longer, it'll be Bobby and Jimmy in the thick of it. What then?'

Sadie trailed a hand in the clear water. ‘Don't.' She shuddered.
She didn't want to think. Part of the reason she'd agreed to tramp the streets looking for Richie was to keep her mind off such things. If she was practical, helping Meggie or handling the cold steel of the shells on the assembly line, she could numb her mind, cut out the pictures of little Bertie and Geoff stranded in a strange county. Only at night, in her dreams, she would see their faces staring out at her from between sides of bloody beef. She heard the butcher's cleaver and woke up wet with irrational tears and sweat.

‘Ready?' Meggie seemed to tune into her thoughts. She stood up and held out her hand. ‘Don't take no notice of me. They say things are going our way. The Jerries haven't managed to drop their bombs on us yet, have they?' Sliding her mother's arm through her own, they walked on.

Little by little, Meggie was convinced they were getting somewhere after all the weeks of searching. It was like the needle in the haystack, but they'd picked up the trail at Hettie's old mission in Bear Lane, where Richie Palmer had actually been seen some years earlier. By then he'd hit rock bottom and Meggie had had to face the fact that her father had gone wrong on women and booze, scrounging off the first to pay for the second. The Salvation Army had him down as homeless and awkward, never grateful for shelter and often abusing the charity on offer. By the end of the twenties he'd dropped out of sight again and, as the Depression swelled the ranks of those who fell on the Army for support, there was no further mention of a Richie Palmer on their books.

‘What would happen to him then?' Meggie had asked in trepidation. She knew of tramps who starved or froze to death, who sank too low ever to resurface on the respectable streets.

The Sally Army sergeant remembered Hettie. He saw the Parsons spirit in the niece, and the same spark in her dark brown eyes. He would have been glad to help.

‘Who knows? Maybe he moved out into the country, to the hop fields. How old was he?'

Meggie turned to her mother.

‘In 1930? He'd be over thirty-five.'

‘Then it's not likely he'd get work. Men like this tend to wear out quick. But you could still try the docks.'

So they'd gone on from the mission to the warehouses and wharves, where drifters clung to the riverside in their rags and filth like flotsam washed up on the tide. They muttered and swore at the two women, or ranted out loud to an invisible audience. Occasionally there was a word or two of sense. One tramp recalled an ex-mechanic who hung out when he could in the pubs around The Elephant. The Grown was his regular. No, he wasn't sure where it was, only that it was this side of the river, and come to think of it, the mechanic's name was Fynn, he was Irish, and definitely not the man they were after. Meggie's hopes were dashed.

All along the south bank Meggie and Sadie had dropped Richie's name. The walls of the half-empty warehouses towered over the mean streets, young sailors spilled ashore on leave, dashing in uniform, kit-bags stuffed with cigarettes, chocolate and rum. Their high spirits made it impossible for the two women to continue their search and they often went home disheartened.

Still, they usually managed to leave word in the pubs and eating-houses; if anyone knew anything of Richie Palmer, one time of Paradise Court, Southwark, would they please telephone the Duke of Wellington public house on Duke Street?

Meggie and Sadie's brief rest by the fountain took place on the same weekend Bill Morell finally got his shore leave.

Edie. had been quiet all week, bunding up to it, and Tommy had kept his distance. He only picked up the news through Lorna, who invited Edie out on the town with herself and Dorothy. He heard the subdued reply, ‘Bill's got his leave through at long last. He'll want me at home.'

Tommy had paid the wages that Friday and ran the shop pretty well single-handed on the Saturday; easy enough since no one's mind was on home decorating these days. He swung through the double doors of the pub that evening determined to get blotto. He grimaced at the advert above the doorway; ‘Come to the pub tonight and talk things over. Beer is Best!'

‘What's it to be, Tommy?' George Mann stood ready with a sparkling, empty glass.

‘The usual and ten Woodbines.'

He slapped the money on the bar and was halfway down his pint of bitter, head tilted back, feeling the froth swim against his lips, when he caught sight of Edie sitting across a table from her husband. Tommy only knew Bill Morell by sight; an upright, beefy sort who used to work out at the gym before he joined up and began his training down at Hayling Island. Now, by all accounts, he was a petty officer on a DBMS gunner, plying the Med. He certainly looked the business in his naval jacket with the braid and buttons, the blancoed cap. Unreasonably, Tommy caught himself disliking the square set of the man's shoulders, the bristling, bull-like neck. He had his back to Tommy and Edie caught her employer's eye over her husband's shoulder. She gave him a brief smile.

Straight away Bill turned and beckoned him across. ‘What'll you have?'

Tommy raised his glass. ‘I'm OK, ta.'

‘No, what'll you have?' The sailor swaggered over. ‘From what I hear, I owe you one.' He insisted on filling Tommy's glass and taking him to their table. ‘Edie's been telling me what you can get hold of under the counter.' He winked. ‘Keep the girls happy, eh?'

Tommy shifted uncomfortably on his stool.

‘First thing I noticed when I got home. Two brand new pairs of nylons in her drawer. You can't get them for love nor money unless you're in the know.' He pulled a flat bottle of rum from his inside pocket and offered it to Tommy. ‘Here, one good rum deserves another.'

Tommy pulled hard at the bottle. He avoided looking at Edie and soon got Bill talking about the action he'd seen.

‘I take it you don't mean the “Up Spirits” kind of action?'

He shook his head.

‘It's heating up in the Med if you must know.' Bill didn't mind blowing his own trumpet. Once the rum had loosened his tongue he spouted for all he was worth about his last merchant ship which
was carrying aviation fuel to Malta. ‘Right in the Eyetie line of fire.'

‘But you made it?'

‘We did. Chaps beside us weren't so lucky. You should've seen the action stations; klaxons, men running for the lifeboats, straight into this sheet of flame. Blew up like a matchbox right in their faces. Down she goes, stem first, bodies everywhere. We have to drop the scrambling nets down our side. Up they come, only a couple of dozen of them. Name and number we yell as we heave them on deck. Some poor buggers couldn't even remember. You could see them in the water everywhere, burned to blazes. We had to leave them to it.'

Edie's eyes closed during this robust account. Bill's ship had eventually managed to dock in Malta with the score of survivors from her sister ship. They'd all lived in caves until repairs were finished.

‘No kidding, in holes in the rock, like a bleeding rabbit warren. Mind you, it's the safest place, what with Rommel's Heinkels buzzing round day and night.' Bill enjoyed the impact of his story; all neighbouring eyes and ears were glued to him. No one felt inclined to steal his glory.

‘Where to next?' Tommy put in.

‘Training ship, Inverary.'

‘Bit of peace and quiet?'

‘Who knows? Jerry's up there with his U-boats, so they say.' Without looking at Edie he got to his feet and scraped his stool back from the table. He was tall; over six foot, and aggressively handsome. He made a great show of shaking Tommy's hand. ‘Thanks for keeping an eye on things on the Home Front.'

Tommy couldn't read what was going on. Was he being got at? He felt Edie stand reluctantly to button her jacket. The buzz of conversation and criss-crossing of customers to and from the bar swallowed her and Bill as they headed for the door. He spotted Dorothy sitting alone on a bar stool, taking in all that had gone on. Soon she swung off the stool and headed towards him.

‘You seen Lorna anywhere?' she snapped, demanding a cigarette
and a light. ‘She said she'd be here.' It was clear that Dorothy had taken pleasure in seeing Tommy fail to measure up against the strapping sailor. He'd never been what you'd call well-built, and at under five-ten he'd looked weedy by comparison. ‘It's all right for some,' she ruminated behind a cloud of blue smoke, watching the door swing shut.

‘Meaning?' He knew very well what she meant. Bill Morell had all the requisite features of the perfect husband.

‘Nothing. Here's Lorna, about bleeding time.' She sloped off, coat slung around her shoulders, and before long the two of them had set off on their West End trawl.

Dorothy came home in the early hours, alone and three-quarters drunk. She woke him to pour scorn over him for what she called his fling with that tart, Edie Morell.

Tommy felt a blank wall of anger rise up between them.

‘Ain't no use denying it. Lorna says she caught you at it. Well, I'd just watch it if I was you. That husband of hers is a big boy; I wouldn't want to be in your shoes when he finds out.'

Next Monday, in the office, Edie was reaching for some catalogues on bathroom fittings from a high shelf. Her sleeve fell back. She had a row of blue-black bruises from elbow to shoulder. When she caught Tommy's eye and the look on his face, she burst into tears.

Chapter Six

Tommy locked the office door. He watched Edie struggle to master her tears, his own emotions in turmoil. He was sure of one thing though, Bill Morell was the guilty party as far as those bruises were concerned.

‘Sorry.' She shook her head.

‘Don't be.'

‘It's just that things have been getting me down. It ain't like me.' She regained control with a sharp intake of breath. ‘Sorry.'

‘Edie—'

‘No, it ain't what you think.' Pressing her lips tightly together, she put the catalogue flat on the desk and began to thumb through it.

‘No need to pretend,' he said gently. The sight of her tears had beaten down his own defences.

Her head went down again and she hid her face. ‘Don't be nice to me, Tommy, I can't bear it.'

‘I'll knock his block off for you if you like,' he said, matter-of-fact. ‘And don't tell me you walked into no bleeding lamp-post to get them bruises, all right?'

She nodded. ‘We had a bit of a tiff, that's all.'

‘About them pairs of nylons?'

‘He's bound to feel a bit jealous, ain't he? Him being away at sea.'

Tommy imagined the scene at the Morells' flat; Bill taking the stupid stockings out of the drawer and tearing them up out of spite, rounding on Edie and blaming her for taking presents off another man.

‘Better not give you any more then.'