Orphan of Angel Street (24 page)

The spring of 1918 had passed into summer with its own slow, tragic rhythm. Any shred of glory there had been at the beginning of the War was gone and it was now a long, heartbreaking struggle.

‘What’s the point of all this?’ Mercy complained to one of the other girls in the factory. ‘Here we are turning out all these grenades day after day just so’s it’ll all go on and on. The whole thing’s just a waste of everybody’s life.’

The other girl stared back at her, worried. ‘Ooh, you’d better not go talking like that, Mercy. No good, that ain’t. You’ll get us all into trouble.’

But Mercy found herself thinking: everything’s lost. I’m lost.

Johnny was in hospital in London for a time, then they sent him to Birmingham.

‘Mercy—’ Elsie’s eyes were watery, like those of an old woman. ‘Will yer go – with Alf. Just this time, and tell me . . .?’

Mercy nodded, heavy-hearted. She knew Elsie couldn’t stand any more, was afraid Johnny might be in the same state as Tom.

She and Alf travelled to Dudley Road together, to the Poor Law Infirmary which had also been turned over to nursing war casualties. Alf had no jokes now, to speed them along. He seemed lost too, cut loose from the moorings of his own life.

As the two of them walked the long, scruffy corridors to Johnny’s ward, Mercy found she was praying, her lips actually moving. ‘Please, please don’t let it be bad, not like Tom—’ When they reached the door her legs were shaking so much she could barely stand.

Tears of relief poured down her face when they spotted Johnny sitting up, his hair a fraction longer than the last time they saw him, his eyes immediately registering who they were. As she and Alf walked along to him, there came a low whistle from a couple of beds away.

‘Hey, mate,’ a voice called. ‘Yer a lucky fella!’

Blushing, Mercy realized the lad was talking about her. She gave him a half smile.

‘’Allo, son.’

‘Awright, Dad?’ Johnny said. He smiled as Mercy said hello as well.

They moved to the side of his bed, conscious of being watched. The long Nightingale ward was packed with rows of beds down both sides, each one occupied by a young man, many of them with dressings and bandages, but the atmosphere was completely different from Highbury. These men had ‘caught a Blighty’ while fighting and were now fortunately ‘out of it’ for the forseeable future, more a cause for celebration than anything.

‘What happened to you?’ Alf asked. Mercy saw his hands were shaking.

The lower part of Johnny’s body was hidden by a tent of bedclothes, the covers raised away from contact with his legs by a wire frame.

‘Bloke bayoneted me by mistake.’ Johnny suddenly let out a gleeful chuckle. ‘Before we’d even got started. Stuck it right deep in the back of my leg, ’e did. Reckon ’e saved my life.’

‘Thank goodness you’re awright.’ Mercy was shaking. ‘Your mom’ll be in – only she just couldn’t . . .’

Johnny understood, she could see. She watched him, her embarrassment and anger over what had happened between them almost forgotten now. None of that seemed important, not compared with life and death.

*

Just when life seemed set on a downward spiral into despair, the course of the War changed. Through August and September the headlines were full of uplifting Allied progress, of victories at Amiens, and, at the end of September, against the previously impregnable Hindenburg Line south of Cambrai.

During those weeks Mercy visited Johnny as often as she could, at first out of a sense of obligation and later because, hard as she found him to be with, she could see the acute loneliness in his eyes. She kept her visits brief. She took anything she could get hold of in the way of flowers or fruit. He was always civil enough to her, if distant, and seemed pleased to see her. He was less harsh now he knew he would be home for some time. His mates on the ward interpreted her presence as part of a devoted courtship, and he hadn’t apparently contradicted them.

So much of what war had left behind in all these young men was hidden to Mercy, until one day in October when she was visiting Johnny. It was chilly with a cold wind blowing, and Mercy’s head was pounding as she walked into the hospital. When she had almost reached the ward she found lights dancing in front of her eyes and knew that if she didn’t stop she was going to faint. She leant against the wall and bent over, holding her hat on, until the blood roared in her ears and her vision returned to normal.

‘You all right, miss?’ a voice said.

Mercy righted herself groggily to see one of the nurses eyeing her anxiously.

‘’Er, yes. Thanks. Just come over a bit faint for a moment.’

‘Oh – I know you, don’t I?’ the young woman said. She was blue-eyed and kind. ‘You’ve come to see Mr er . . .’

‘Pepper.’

‘That’s it. He’s doing well. One of the lucky ones, I’d say. ’Course, it’s not healing quite as fast as it might because of him forever trying to get out of bed, but there we are – same for a lot of them.’

Mercy was puzzled. Perhaps the nurse had mistaken him for someone else. Johnny always sat quite still in bed whenever she saw him. ‘What d’you mean?’

‘Oh – the nights . . .’ The nurse rolled her eyes tactlessly to the ceiling. ‘Completely different place. You wouldn’t recognize it here at night. Dreams, you see – nearly all of them. It’s like a madhouse with them jumping about. Wouldn’t think so to see them all joking and card sharping now, would you?’

After this conversation Mercy went to Johnny’s side feeling a new tenderness for him. She sat by his bed, still feeling groggy and shaky but trying not to let it show. They talked about the family, how Rosalie was, and then Mercy said, ‘Johnny – d’you have bad dreams of a night?’

‘No.’ He frowned. ‘Why?’

‘Oh.’ She was confused. ‘Just summat the nurse said. It doesn’t matter.’

There was always a tantalizing feeling that he was holding back a huge reservoir of thought and feeling, and Mercy, still nervous of him, was not sure whether to press him to talk.

Mostly they avoided mention of Tom. His state was a subject too painful for both of them. But that day Mercy told Johnny that Elsie had taken down her little shrine to Frank.

‘She said she’s got to think about the living,’ Mercy said. ‘Mabel says she thinks she’s done ’er grieving that way and . . . Johnny, you listening?’ She was finding it hard enough to concentrate herself today. The ward seemed stiflingly hot and her head was thumping.

Johnny was staring ahead of him. His hair had grown a lot in the past two months and now almost covered his ears. It made his face look softer, less gaunt than before.

‘D’you hear what I said?’ Mercy repeated.

‘I can’t go back there.’

‘They say the War’s nearly over,’ she assured him. ‘You won’t be in any state to go back for months yet—’

‘No!’ he said fiercely. ‘To Mom. Home. Or what’s left of it. I can’t go back there and live with ’em. Tom sat there all day. It’s no good for you either, Mercy. You ought to get out. Get away.’

She tried to joke with him, though she was having to concentrate harder and harder to talk at all. She was burning hot and the walls seemed to be rippling strangely. ‘Oh yes – where d’you think I’m going to go, Johnny, little orphan girl? All alone in the world, me.’

‘You’d find your way.’ He looked at her with sudden intensity. ‘Clever girl like you. It’s not that difficult. But—’ – he shook his head – ‘as for going ’ome – I feel as if I’ve lived years longer than them already. And walking back in there . . . It’s like living in a grave. I’m getting out. Soon as I can walk.’

It took her two buses to get home and as she went, Johnny’s words hammered in her mind. Her cheeks and forehead were feverishly hot, her legs unsteady, and as she waited at the first stop on Dudley Road, she longed just to lie down, curl up and not have to move for a very long time. When the bus came it felt horrifyingly hot and stuffy and she had to go upstairs to find a seat. Her throat was very sore, she was dizzy, and sickened by the stench of cigarettes and stale old clothes.

‘Get out while you can,’ Johnny’s voice boomed in her head, riding on the hard throb of her blood.

By the time she had crossed town, caught the second bus to the Moseley Road and was walking home, she was shivering violently and her hands and feet felt like thick chunks of ice, while her head was still overheated and felt heavy enough to snap her neck.

‘I feel ever so bad,’ she said as she got to number two and almost fell through the door. George let out a shriek at the sight of her from his perch and she thought it might split her head.

‘Oh ah, well feel bad when yer’ve given me a hand,’ Mabel said, disgruntled.

‘I can’t.’ Mercy sat leaning her head against the back of the settle. Now she’d sat down she felt she’d never be able to get up. ‘I just can’t.’ She was swaying, floating.

Susan wheeled herself over and peered at her. ‘She looks bad, Mom. Like you said about Mrs Ripley. I reckon it’s that influenza.’

‘Oh well, that’s marvellous bringing it in ’ere,’ Mabel grumbled unreasonably. ‘Best get yerself to bed then – you ain’t going to be any use down ’ere, are yer?’

‘I can’t.’ Mercy slumped to one side, her body on fire. ‘Can’t.’

They had to look after her downstairs. Mabel wasn’t prepared to get her upstairs, Susan couldn’t help and Elsie insisted that they had the thin old mattress off Cathleen’s bed. Mercy was sweating and shivering, burning up with fever, her head pounding and limbs hurting. She had terrifying, shapeless dreams and often cried out in her sleep, too ill even when awake to know how worried they were about her.

She was aware of different impressions of the room: light or dark, the sharp smell of slack as Mabel stoked the fire with their meagre supplies, cooking smells, voices. In the daytime the fever let up a little and her head was clearer but she was so weak she could barely move. The mattress felt punishingly hard under her. Come the evening, the fever raged through her again. Susan laid wet rags on her head and body.

‘Can I have water?’ Mercy kept begging her. ‘More water?’ Often she didn’t know where she was. Her head felt as if it might burst.

‘We should get the doctor, Mom,’ Susan begged.

‘There’s nowt ’e can do. When ’e saw Josie Ripley with it ’e just said to keep ’er comfortable, plenty of water . . .’ But even Mabel was getting worried. ‘She do look bad though . . .’

One evening Mercy half opened her eyes, aware of Susan sitting close by.

‘I’m dying,’ she whispered.

‘No—’ Susan’s voice rose in panic. ‘No, Mercy, you’re not – you just feel bad but you’ll get better!’

Mercy fell back into her half-sleeping state, her mind full of odd, buckled images.

When she was alert to what was going on around her she almost always opened her eyes to see Susan beside her, her sweet face, dark hair swept back, fastened now in a bun rather similar to Mabel’s. Susan’s eyes watched every twitch Mercy made, every shallow breath she took with a caressing devotion. Mercy saw the love in her eyes, felt it wrap round her, holding her.

‘She’s getting ever so thin,’ she heard Susan say anxiously one night, speaking into a silence which had been punctuated only by the little popping sounds from the gas mantle. ‘Look at ’er wrist – like a matchstick. She’s wasting away.’

Mercy didn’t hear Mabel’s reply. But as Susan sat leaning over her, holding and stroking her hand, the one thing she knew was that she was being cared for. She tried to find the strength to squeeze Susan’s hand.

‘Thank you,’ she murmured, before sliding into sleep.

As the fever died in her and she began to recover, Susan brought her thin broth.

‘Try, Mercy,’ she begged. ‘It’ll ’elp get yer strength back.’

Mercy attempted to find the energy and will to make her arms push her body up from the mattress. In the end Mabel had to support her as Susan put the spoonful of salty broth into her mouth.

‘Johnny’s just come home,’ Susan said to her. ‘Bet you didn’t know that, did yer? ’E’s on crutches and that, but they say ‘e’ll be right as rain in a few weeks. Seems awright in ’imself. There’s ever such a lot of others down with this influenza now though, all along the street. There’s people out there with hankies pressed up to their noses in fear of catching it.’

Mercy looked up at her. She hadn’t the energy to reply. She felt very strange and light, purged in some way, as if she were floating. Johnny, all the Peppers, seemed miles away, like strangers.

Johnny came in to see her. His leg was bandaged but he’d managed to get his trousers on over the top, so that except for the crutches and the stiff way he was holding his leg, there wasn’t much left to see.

‘You feeling better?’

‘I’ll soon be up and about,’ Mercy whispered bravely. ‘Feel as if I’ve been hit by a tram.’ She looked him in the eyes. ‘You’re home then?’

Johnny looked down, tapping the foot of his good leg on the floor. ‘Ah. For now.’

As Mercy recovered, moving slowly about the house, Susan started to complain of her head hurting and shivering, and soon she was in Mercy’s place on the mattress.

‘Getting like the Peppers, we are,’ Mabel grumbled, still fit as a flea herself. ‘Beds downstairs.’

Now Mercy was having to take a turn nursing Susan, although she was still only just strong enough to move. If she didn’t go back to work soon there’d be no money for food, but she barely had the strength as yet to get across the yard. She often lay exhausted on the settle beside Susan in the dying light from the fire, not having the energy to go to bed upstairs. Seeing the frightening severity of Susan’s illness she knew just how sick she’d been herself.

When she thought Susan could hear she talked to her, tried to find things to cheer her.

‘When you get better, when the War’s all over, we’ll go somewhere,’ she promised her. ‘I’ll go out and earn some more money and you’ll be able to do your sewing again, and we’ll go somewhere. We’ll go to the sea, shall we? Wouldn’t you like to see the sea, Susan?’

She waited, listening for a murmur in reply, but nothing came except Susan’s quick, feverish breaths.