Angel of the North (6 page)

‘They might as well, for what use the public shelters are,’ Marie said bitterly. ‘A whole lot of people were killed in the shelter on Ellis Street a few nights ago. My mother
hadn’t quite got there, so she escaped, but her injuries are terrible. My dad went into the shelter, and we haven’t seen hide nor hair of him since. I’m praying he’ll turn
up, but there’s not much hope. It took a direct hit from a one-ton bomb. The whole street was completely flattened. They reckon about fifty people were killed, and there were scores badly
injured.’

‘How awful. We’ve had no tragedies like that so far in my family, but you hear of such horrible things happening, you wonder how long you can get away with it. And even if nothing
terrible happens, it’s so disruptive to business. We had to evacuate the office six times in one day not long ago. And this new air-raid insurance the government’s making people get!
Forcing you, whether you want to have it or not. In one way, you feel safer having it, but then it’s another expense on top of everything else. They always seem to be dreaming up some new way
of getting money off us, as if they didn’t take enough already. And then the cost of this trip every week! And it’s a lot dearer if there isn’t an excursion running.’

‘Why do you do it,’ Marie asked, ‘if you know he’s safe, and in good hands?’

‘I don’t want him to think we’ve forgotten him. And I don’t want him to end up thinking more about them than he does about me.’

‘I’m sure he won’t,’ Marie said, and wondered fleetingly if there were any danger of Pam and Alfie forgetting their own parents. From what her mother had said about the
tears Pam had shed when they were evacuated, there was certainly none in her case. Alfie had taken it all in his stride, but his loyalty lay with his own family, Marie was sure of it. There might
be some danger of their new families getting too attached to them, though. They were both attractive children and although he was a scamp, Alfie had some very winning ways.

The other woman frowned. ‘I’m not. They spoil him rotten.’

‘Why not go to Sleaford and stay with him then? Quite a few women have evacuated with their children.’

‘I’ve thought about it, but it’s not so easy for a grown woman to live in someone else’s home, is it? And then, I’ve got to think of my husband. There are far too
many easy women about.’

‘Don’t you trust him?’

‘I don’t trust
them!
Especially the young ones whose husbands are away in the Forces. Some of them, well, if their own man isn’t there to give them what they want,
they’ve no scruples about getting it from someone else’s, have they?’

‘I suppose,’ said Marie, finding it hard to believe that any woman whose husband was fighting for his country would do such a foul thing.

‘How old are your children?’

‘I’m not married. I’m going to give my brother and sister the bad news about my mam and dad. They’re in Bourne, at different addresses. I hope they’re not very far
apart. I hope I can manage to spend a bit of time with them before I have to get the bus back.’

‘How awful. I don’t envy you a bit.’

‘I’m dreading it, especially telling my sister. And I’m dreading having to leave her afterwards, to get back to Hull. But I work at the hospital. I’m on an early shift
tomorrow, and I can’t miss it, we’re so short staffed.’

‘No, I suppose the hospitals are packed. Here we are!’ the woman said, as the ferry slowed for the approach to New Holland pier, where the coaches were waiting.

How different from the bombed streets of Hull, Marie thought, as the coach travelled through the quiet countryside south of Lincoln and dropped her on the edge of Bourne. Some
people lived charmed lives; they escaped everything.

She was amazed at the size of the house where Pam was staying, all gable ends and creepers up the walls, and a front garden full of spring flowers with neat, pruned roses just coming into bud.
The sight of it made her glad she’d dressed carefully. She’d thought long and hard before taking her last remaining pair of block-heeled nylons out of their Cellophane packet, but had
finally put them on with her smart new navy costume. It was a good decision: this was no place for the slacks and old checked jacket she’d have been far more comfortable wearing.

A plump lady in late middle age, with grey hair and rosy cheeks, answered the door and gave a restrained smile as she extended her hand in welcome. Marie shook it.

‘You must be tired after your journey. Hungry, too, I shouldn’t wonder. I’m Morag Stewart.’

Marie followed her into the largest drawing room she’d ever seen. A grand piano stood in one corner, with a fringed silk shawl draped over it. Morag led her to a leather wing-backed chair
by the bow window.

‘Sit here while I find Pamela, and then I’ll leave you together for a while.’

Pamela. She was just ‘our Pam’ at home. After about five minutes, Pamela appeared alone, dressed in unfamiliar clothes, looking every inch a child of the
upper-middle classes. Marie got up and threw her arms round her, clasping her tightly. Pam’s response was more restrained.

‘Come and sit down,’ Marie said, releasing her and drawing her towards a chair. ‘I’ve got something to tell you.’

Pamela sat with her hands folded, bewildered, but quite composed.

‘Our mam’s in hospital. She was caught in an air raid and badly hurt. She was unconscious for a day or two, and she’s still very, very poorly, and . . .’ Marie blurted it
all out like a dam bursting, and ended by dissolving into tears. Pam stood beside her chair, patting her shoulder and murmuring words of comfort, while Marie mopped her floods of tears with her
embroidered handkerchief, conscious while she did it that this was the exact opposite of the scene she had imagined.

‘What about Dad?’ Pam asked, when Marie’s sobs had abated.

‘He’s dead, Pam! He must be, short of a miracle. He went into the shelter on Ellis Street, and it got a direct hit. Everybody inside it was killed, and some of the bodies
they’ve found couldn’t be identified. He hasn’t been seen since. I can’t see how he can have escaped, Pam.’ Marie delivered the last with a strangled sob, her tears
flowing copiously again.

Amazingly cool and collected, Pam said: ‘I’ll go and get you some clean handkerchiefs, and I’ll ask Aunt Morag to bring the coffee in.’

A little later, with her make-up ruined and face blotchy, but with some of her self-possession restored, Marie sat by the bay window with Pam and Mr and Mrs Stewart, looking out at the beautiful
spring flowers. The coffee was all milk, she noticed, and the scones thickly buttered. There seemed to be no shortage of anything here, and nobody mentioned coupons. The fertile fields of
Lincolnshire evidently didn’t stint the people who lived beside them.

After a string of platitudes followed by a long silence, Mr Stewart said: ‘Why don’t you play your sister something on the piano, Pamela? I’m sure she’d like to hear
you.’

Pamela turned towards him, and with absolute assurance said: ‘I won’t if you don’t mind, Uncle Alec. I think I’ll go to my room now.’

He gave her hand a squeeze. ‘All right, dear. We realize how terribly upsetting this is for you.’

Marie watched her sister’s retreating back and thought: we’ve lost her. At the door Pam turned, and Marie was struck by her fair hair, long and loose, and falling in waves to her
shoulders, how like a pale rose petal her skin was, and how perfect her features, her blue eyes and lithe little figure, just beginning to take on a woman’s shape. Funny how she’d
barely noticed these things when Pam was at home.

‘Do you realize,’ Pam said, ‘that if we hadn’t been evacuated, Alfie and I would have been in that shelter with Dad?’

Alfie and I. It would have been ‘me and our Alfie’ two short months ago. Pamela hadn’t forgotten her grammar in her grief, and she hadn’t been slow to
realize that she might also have been killed, had she stayed in Hull. Marie finished her coffee and took leave of the Stewarts, and then walked rapidly towards the address she’d been given
for Alfie. Pam –
Pamela
– was evidently so well settled in her new home with her new, doting auntie and uncle that except for her Hull accent – already far less
pronounced – no one would guess she’d ever lived anywhere else, or known any other background. She’d always been their mother’s pet, and now she was the pet of a couple of
retired teachers with no children of their own, who gave her music lessons and sent her to dancing classes, and generally treated her like a princess. They were friendly with other teachers and
lecturers, the sort of people who have friends round for musical soirées on the piano and the violin. The cultured sort, devoted to music, literature and painting, and everything that makes
life civilized. Even the Elsworths looked like barbarians beside them. Marie had left the Stewarts’ house feeling that if Pam hadn’t already forgotten them all she probably intended to.
And what a beautiful new knitted jumper she’d had on, in blue Robin Pearl with a lacy feather stitch. Marie recognised the pattern; she’d seen one of the nurses on nights knitting a
similar one. Pam seemed to belong more to the Stewarts than to her own family now. And since she was taking it upon herself to provide Pamela with clothing perhaps Auntie Morag had better start
knitting her something in black, Marie thought, grimly.

An overfed and malevolent-looking grey cat sat in the front window of a modest little end terrace house on Hereward Street, staring at Marie as she raised her hand to knock on
the green gloss-painted front door. It was opened before her knuckles made contact with the wood by a tall, sour-looking woman, her dark, greying hair tied severely back.

‘Go round the back, will you?’

Marie went round the back. No creepers here, all was unrelieved brick and concrete. At the back, mangle, mop bucket and zinc washtub took the place of roses and spring bulbs.

‘You’re half an hour late. You’d better come in.’

‘Sorry. You must be Mrs Morton,’ Marie said, stepping into a beautifully clean but cheerless kitchen. There was no fire in the grate, but Marie noted the Calvinist motto worked in
cross-stitch prominent over the mantelpiece: ‘Thou God seest me.’ Very cheering. Marie had a feeling that Mrs Morton’s god might be the spiritual equivalent of the boss of the
Gestapo.

Mrs Morton looked aggrieved. ‘You’re late,’ she repeated. ‘It would have been a bad job if I’d had to go out, wouldn’t it?’

‘I’m sorry. I had a bit of trouble finding you,’ said Marie.

‘Can’t think why. It’s easy enough. There aren’t that many streets in Bourne. Not like Hull.’

Alfie was sitting unnaturally still on an old chaise longue under the window, beside an older boy. He was scrubbed to a shine but he looked pale, and skinnier than when Marie had last seen him.
She was struck by the dark circles under his eyes.

‘Hello, Alfie,’ she said.

‘Hello, Marie.’

‘He’s clean, for once. It’s nearly killed him, having to sit there for half a day and keep clean. He’s forever bringing mud into the house on his boots, and getting his
clothes dirty, aren’t you, Alfred? This is my son, Ernest,’ Mrs Morton said, nodding towards the older boy.

‘Hello, Ernest.’

‘Hello, Marie.’

Marie didn’t like the uninvited familiarity from a youngster. ‘Don’t you like to go out with your friends, Ernest?’ she asked.

Ernest assumed a virtuous expression. ‘Not when we’ve got visitors, Marie.’

‘I’ll boil the kettle again, then. Stop picking your nose, Alfie,’ Mrs Morton said, and then directed her accusing gaze at Marie. ‘If there’s one thing I
can’t abide, it’s having to stand in my own kitchen, watching him picking his nose.’

‘And he wets the bed,’ Ernest sniggered.

The picking stopped. Alfie looked browbeaten.

‘Be quiet, Ernest. Don’t embarrass the poor lad in front of his sister,’ Mrs Morton said, and in an undertone to Marie she added, with a sniff: ‘Makes no end of washing,
though, and him eleven years old! But we’ve all got to make sacrifices in wartime, I suppose, and I won’t have it said I’ve done less than anybody else.’

‘Very good of you, I’m sure,’ said Marie, far from enchanted to be on the receiving end of such goodness – even if only second-hand.

‘And he roams about till all hours at night, till I’m worried sick and Ernie has to go out looking for him. I want you to give him a good talking-to about that.’

‘I will,’ Marie said.

Ernie sat there looking smug and long-suffering, reinforcing her aversion to him. He reminded her of a sly kid she’d gone to school with, whose chief pleasure lay in inciting other
children into mischief, then sitting back to enjoy the show when they got caught and punished. ‘Are you eating properly, Alfie?’ she asked.

He shot a wary glance in Mrs Morton’s direction before saying: ‘Yes.’

That sniff again. ‘He certainly is. He eats us out of house and home.’

‘Oh dear,’ Marie said.

It was apparent that Mrs Morton was not going to leave her alone with Alfie so that she could tell him the awful news in private, and she would have to tell him before she left to get the bus
back. Marie took a deep breath. ‘Well, Alfie, I’d better tell you why I’ve come . . .’ Marie’s dam of pent-up misery had burst at the Stewarts’, and now she
managed to tell her brother about the disaster without a tear.

He howled. Marie handed him a couple of the handkerchiefs Pam had given her.

‘Oh dear,’ Mrs Morton said, with great politeness but no discernible sympathy, ‘oh dear. That
is
unfortunate.’

‘Never mind about the tea,’ Marie said, in a manner decided enough to deter opposition. ‘I’ll take him outside for a few minutes.’ She ushered Alfie to the door,
with Mrs Morton so close behind that for a moment Marie thought she was going to follow them out into the street.

‘I’m coming home with you,’ Alfie said, as soon as they were out of earshot.

‘It’s impossible, Alfie. Mum’s in hospital, and it’ll take her a long time to get better. And I have to work. There’s no one to look after you. And the air raids
are terrible. A lot of people have been killed in Hull. If you’d been there the other night,’ she said, repeating Pam’s instant realization, ‘you’d have been in the
shelter with Dad. You’d have been killed as well.’