Angel of the North (17 page)

When it was over and the officials were moving off, Mrs Harding stood holding her wreath with its simple little message: ‘God love my Nancy’. She scanned the line of mounds in total
bewilderment. ‘Where am I supposed to lay this?’ she asked. ‘I don’t even know where she is.’

‘Wherever she is, it’s not here,’ an airman beside them told her. ‘The remains might be here, but that’s all. The people are gone.’

‘Let’s find a grave that’s got no flowers, Mrs Harding,’ Marie said. ‘We’ll put ours on that one.’

‘I never thought to see my own daughter buried before me, and like this – not even a coffin with her name on it.’

George surveyed the graves, awestruck. ‘Four hundred people. Four hundred people dead, and thirty-six not identified,’ he said. ‘In two nights. It’s cruel. Poor Nancy,
our poor lass. Takes some believing, doesn’t it?’

‘My poor bairn. You spend years bringing them up, and it’s all destroyed, your whole life’s work, all your hopes for them gone in one night. Poor little lass. She never did any
harm to anyone. I had my differences with her dad, but I’m glad he’s been spared this; she was the apple of his eye. Lucky for him he died before he saw this day.’

‘What was that bloody idiot bishop on about?’ George demanded when they were back in Duesbury Street with Nancy’s friends and relations, all sharing a modest
cup of tea and a piece of funeral cake. ‘The loss we have suffered will be a gain to the whole world! How does he make that out? What’s the whole world got to gain by people who never
did any harm being killed in air raids?’

‘Nothing that I can see, but they’ve got to say something, I suppose,’ one of the neighbours said.

‘Everybody liked Nancy, poor lass,’ one of her old school friends said, not much to the point.

‘I can’t stand these parsons, and the claptrap they spout,’ George said.

One of the uncles nodded agreement. ‘Weddings, christenings and funerals. That’s always been enough church for our family, hasn’t it, Betty?’

Mrs Harding nodded. ‘That’s about as often as we ever went. And after having a baby. You went then, to get churched.’

George’s mouth was turned down in an expression of utter disgust. ‘And the mayor and corporation, dressed up like Christmas trees. They make it look like a bloody pantomime. Then at
the end, he says we should dedicate ourselves with “smiles, and gladness and hope”? People have lost husbands, wives, children, mothers, fathers, fiancées, everything they lived
for, their lives completely buggered. Thirty-six people couldn’t even be identified, and he wants people going about with “smiles, and gladness and hope”! It’s obvious to me
he’s never lost anybody he cares about, or he’d know better than to say a stupid thing like that. I hope he gets a good dose of what we’re suffering. See how he feels about smiles
and gladness then.’

‘You should never wish ill on people,’ an auntie said. ‘It only comes back on you.’

‘How am I wishing him ill?’ George demanded. ‘I’m just wishing him a good reason for plenty of the smiles and gladness he’s talking about. Maybe his wife or his
kids will cop it, to be a gain to the whole world. That should give him enough to smile about. If they all go, he can laugh his socks off.’

‘There’s no point being bitter,’ the aunt commented.

‘Oh, right. I won’t, then.’ George said, staring into his teacup. ‘Nancy’s dead, and the happy years we should have had together have gone for a Burton, but
I’ll just swallow this down, the cup that cheers, and then I’ll be as right as rain, smiling and glad enough to please the bishop.’ He lapsed into silence, not far, Marie
suspected, from tears.

After an awkward pause the conversation resumed with reminiscences of Nancy at various stages of her life. One of the cousins asked to see the photograph album, and Mrs Harding dragged it out of
the sideboard, to be passed round the little groups of people, all asking each other – ‘Do you remember when . . .?’ about the half-forgotten times the snaps brought back to mind.
Marie thought of all the people buried in that awful mass grave, and imagined hundreds of similar funeral teas held in similar houses to this, and thousands of mourners poring over photos of people
who smiled into the cameras with the sun at their backs, mercifully unsuspecting of the brutal and untimely end awaiting them.

Nancy’s mother seemed comforted by all the reminiscing. ‘It’s nice to think she was so well liked,’ she said, reverently stroking the album.

‘You’ve got no lodgers at the moment, then, Mrs Harding?’ someone asked when the album was back in the cupboard.

‘I have, but I told them to make themselves scarce for the evening. This is a private family do; I don’t want any strangers about.’

‘I don’t blame you; neither would I,’ one of the neighbours said. ‘You’re too soft on them, Betty, you let them have the run of the place. You ought to be like the
landladies at Blackpool, chuck the boarders out at ten, and don’t let them back in before five.’

‘I can’t do that. They’re theatricals.’

‘I’m going to have to do something to earn a few bob myself before long, now I’ve had to give up the hospital,’ Marie mused. ‘I’ve been thinking I could maybe
fit a couple of lodgers in the middle bedroom, but I’m a bit dubious. I mean, you never know what type of person you might be letting into your house, do you?’

‘If you don’t like the look of them, you don’t take them in. It’s all right if you’re careful, though the ones you’d want, the ones you’d pick yourself,
the real charmers – they’re the ones you’ve got to watch, sometimes. That last pair I had – “Ah, you’re looking blooming today, Mrs Harding,” ’ she
said, mimicking a charming Home Counties accent. ‘ “If you weren’t wearing a wedding ring, I wouldn’t know which was the mother and which was the daughter!” one of
them keeps telling me. And he seemed so genuine I fell for it, as if I were fifteen instead of nearly fifty. I gave him the best of everything, and now the bugger’s run off without paying his
rent. It serves me right, for being a silly old woman.’

‘You’re not silly, and you’re not old either,’ Marie said, gazing into Mrs Harding’s pretty face, so like Nancy’s except for the crow’s feet around her
eyes, and the white hairs almost imperceptible amongst the blond.

‘What a rotten trick,’ George said, ‘He ought to be birched. I can’t stand con men.’

‘Con men and parsons, then,’ observed the uncle.

‘Much of a muchness, if you ask me,’ George said.

‘Six months, with hard labour – that’s what I’d give him – after I’d made him pay his dues,’ a cousin said, grimly.

‘Not arf!’

‘I’ll string him from a bloody lamp post, if he ever shows his face in Hull again,’ Mrs Harding’s brother promised, and a couple of the other men offered to help him.

‘If you take any actors for lodgers, Marie, make sure you get the money off them well before the end of the run,’ Mrs Harding said, when the outrage died away. ‘Either that, or
get hold of something of theirs as security.’

‘Yes, well, I don’t know how my mother will take to the idea – she’s not well at the moment, as you know – but we’ll have to do something to bring a bit of
money in before long,’ Marie said, making her mother the excuse. In reality she had no relish for the idea of taking strangers in. It would be the very last resort, but she wasn’t going
to say that to Mrs Harding.

‘Marie, that window’s all over smears! You never seem to be able to clean a window without leaving smears!’

Her mother’s plaintive cry brought Marie back into the front room with the bucket of vinegar and water. She stood it in front of the window and wrung out the wash-leather.
‘Where?’

Her mother pointed. ‘Can’t you see? There! And there!’

Marie went over the window again, wishing that the nets were ready to hang up to hide any smears she might leave after this second attempt, but they were in the kitchen, waiting to be washed and
put out to dry. She shouted loud enough for her mother to hear: ‘There, it’s done again. Will that satisfy you?’

Her mother looked petulant. ‘If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right. And there’s no need to shout at me. I’m not as deaf as all that.’

There seemed to be no escape for Marie from the drudgery and privation and strain of looking after the house, and the cantankerous invalid her mother had become, on top of the constant dread of
air raids or of struggling with their horrible consequences. For the first couple of years of the war the raids had been few and relatively mild, and day-to-day contact with people at the hospital
had provided interest. She had a vital job of work to do and it had even been uplifting, the feeling that they were all in it together, working for a greater good. Her job, and regular outings to
dances and the pictures with Margaret and Nancy or her current admirer, had added a sparkle to her life. Meeting Charles again put the icing on her cake. Her future had been settled, and it looked
rosy. Sirens and bombs might scare her for the moment, but they couldn’t squash her zest for life. She had leaped out of bed every morning with an unquenchable optimism and absolute faith
that they would all come through unscathed.

Margaret’s death had shown her how misplaced such blind faith was, and her father’s death and her mother’s devastating injury drove the lesson home. Now Nancy was dead, as
well. For Marie, the companionship of her friends and the cheering visits to dance halls and the pictures were over, and with Charles away with the army all the joy had leached out of her life. For
her mother’s benefit, Marie kept up a façade of determined cheerfulness, but faith and optimism were at a low ebb.

The wireless was her sole remaining pleasure and saver of sanity, and she played it all day long. She was standing in the kitchen with her hands in the sink, squeezing suds through the net
curtains, half listening to
Forces Favourites
, broadcasting requests from servicemen. She was singing along to some of the music when her heart turned over at the sound of a familiar,
cheerful voice.

‘Hello, Marie! This is Charles!’

Her hands became still. As she listened intently to the words she felt that Charles was almost in the room beside her.

‘You accused me of not being romantic, but just now I’m as romantic as anyone you can name, from my East Yorks cap to my size ten army boots,’ he said. ‘I’m sending
you all my love, so keep it safe, all right? You’re always in my thoughts, and I can’t wait to see you again. I hope you’ll like the song. I mean every word.’

A male vocalist started singing ‘It Had to Be You’. She would have given everything to have Charles there in reality, to take her in his arms and listen, while she poured out every
fond thought in her mind. ‘For all your faults, I love you still,’ the singer crooned. Tears welled into her eyes and rolled down her cheeks at the tenderness of it, for their hopes of
a future together, and the sadness of separation. His next leave was probably a long way off, but that he was alive and she would see him, and hold him in her arms, and love him were the sweetest
feelings of that bitter-sweet moment. The bitterness came with the thought of poor George and also Margaret’s husband, Terry, so that the programme, intended as a morale-booster, filled her
with a sorrow so overwhelming she opened the back door and sat on the kitchen step well out of sight and hearing of her mother, with her heart bursting and eyes streaming.

Alfie came crashing through the door of the yard with his bike, home from school. He leaned it against the wall, then crouched down beside her and put a comforting hand on her shoulder,
round-eyed with concern. ‘What’s up, Marie? What’s up? Is it Nancy?’

She dabbed her eyes on her frilly apron, her voice thick. ‘It’s everything.’

‘You’ll be all right, don’t worry. Anyway, she might be all right. One of the assistants at the Co-op when I went for my sweet ration said she doesn’t think Nancy’s
dead. She says she could have sworn she saw Nancy in the station before the hospital got bombed, getting on a train.’

Marie shook her head. ‘She’d got nothing to get on any trains for,’ she said, ‘and even if she had, she’d never have gone without a word to any of us. Your
assistant must have seen somebody who looked like her, that’s all.’

‘No, I don’t suppose she would,’ Alfie said, after a moment’s consideration. ‘Oh, well, we’re alive, and we’ve got to soldier on, till we beat old
No-balls
.
So come on, buck up.’

She laughed through her tears at this child who was sometimes so like a man. ‘I’ll be all right in a minute, Alfie. I’m in a funny mood, that’s all. Don’t tell Mam.
I’ll pull myself together, then we’ll have a cup of tea and a lump of vinegar cake, all right?’

‘Right-o. And what about a game of battleships?’

‘Maybe.’ She heaved herself up and put the kettle on, then rinsed the curtains and pegged them out before making a pot of weak tea, sparing the rations.

‘Have you been crying?’ her mother asked when she took it through to the front room. ‘You haven’t been crying just because I told you the windows were smeared, have
you?’

‘No, Mam,’ Marie said, delving into the sideboard drawer for writing materials. ‘I’m going to write to Charles.’

‘Pass me a couple of sheets of paper, will you? I’ll write to our Pam while you’re doing that. You should write as well, and so should you, Alfie.’

‘What for?’ he demanded. ‘She never writes to me.’

‘She would if you wrote to her.’

‘No, she wouldn’t. She thinks I’m not good enough for her, now.’

Marie handed him a sheet of paper and said, softly: ‘Just write, will you? Not to upset your mam. Just put: “Write to your mother, will you, Pam? She looks for a letter every
day.” You don’t have to say anything else, if you don’t want to.’

Alfie glanced at his mother, and sat down, seeming more than happy to send this reproach to his sister. Marie started a long letter to Charles telling him all the news, ending with things she
would never have said on the phone at his parents’ house.

She sealed it, feeling much better. A good cry and an hour’s peace and quiet had made her ready to look on the bright side again. If her mother was well enough to be constantly picking and
fault finding she might soon be well enough to be left while Marie went back to nursing, and work a lot more rewarding than cleaning windows to her mother’s exacting standards.