The Silent War (27 page)

To Sunday’s surprise, one of the elderly guests at the party turned out to be Pearl’s grandmother. The old lady was a real character, a widow for over twenty years who had lived for the best part of her married life in a terraced house in Grovedale Road.

‘Pearl thought the world of you,’ said the old lady, who soon discovered the secret of speaking close and directly at Sunday, whilst clinging on to the girl’s arm. ‘She told me so just a couple er nights before she got killed down the Bagwash.’

‘I thought the world of her too,’ replied Sunday. ‘I miss her so much.’

The old lady smiled at her. Despite her age, she had young eyes, and in many ways they reminded Sunday of Pearl herself. ‘I want ter tell yer somefin’, dear,’ she said. ‘Can yer keep a little secret?’

Sunday nodded and allowed the old lady to pull her closer so that she could smell the pickled onion she had just been eating with her cheese sandwich.

‘The night she come ter see me, she told me she was gettin’ engaged. Not official like, she was too young fer that. But she said she was in love wiv this boy, and that ’e’d asked ’er ter marry ’im. D’yer know the boy I mean? ’Is name was Lennie Jackson.’

Sunday felt her stomach turn over. Of course she knew Lennie Jackson, and she suddenly felt consumed with guilt that she had ever wanted Lennie for herself.

‘Yes,’ she said, smiling weakly. ‘I used to know him.’

‘She never told her mum, yer see,’ said the old lady, trying to straighten her party hat which was already torn halfway through. ‘That’s the trouble wiv that daughter of mine. Too busy finkin’ of ’er own problems ter worry about ’er own kiff and kin. My dear lil’ Pearl.’ The old lady’s eyes were misting up, and she had to dab them with her handkerchief. ‘I was the only one she could talk to, the only one she could confide in.’ She looked straight at Sunday again. ‘’Cept you, of course, Sunday. In ’er eyes, you was always special. Like ’er own sister.’

The old lady took hold of Sunday’s hands, and squeezed them in a firm grip. Then Sunday threw her arms around her, and they hugged each other.

Behind them, Madge and her Salvation Army friends were leading the party-goers in a spirited rendering of ‘Nearer My God To Thee!’

But as for Sunday, still hugging the old lady, she felt closer to Pearl than she had done since they had last met.

Soon after Sunday had returned home to the flat, her mum and Aunt Louie had a blazing row. This was a new experience for Sunday, for she could never remember a time when her mum had even dared to answer her domineering elder sister back. The trouble started when Madge decided to bring Mr Billings back for a cup of tea and a Spam and pickle sandwich. Louie, in a sour mood after losing two shillings and threepence at her ladies’ card-playing afternoon, bitterly resented what she saw as an intrusion into the family’s privacy on a Boxing Day evening. However, Madge was having none of it, and temporarily putting to one side her Salvationist ideals about love and compassion, told Louie that if she, Madge,
wanted
to have a visitor in her own home, she certainly wouldn’t ask her sister first. Poor Mr Billings was most embarrassed by the whole incident, and offered to leave, but Madge practically ordered him to take no notice of ‘the slight misunderstanding’ between herself and her sister, and to stay right where he was. Although Sunday couldn’t take in everything that was going on, she thoroughly enjoyed the tough battle of wills between the two women. In fact, it cheered up her Boxing Day no end!

Early that evening, Sunday was able to slip away from home so that she could call on her old friend, Bess Butler. But when she eventually arrived at the corner flat on the third floor of ‘the Buildings’, it was Bess’s husband, Alf, who peered around the front door.

‘Come in!’ Alf said, his face brightening up the moment he recognised Sunday on the doorstep.

As soon as she entered the flat, Sunday smelt greens boiling in the kitchen. It was a pungent smell, sour and overpowering.

‘My Bessie got me a nice pig’s trotter up the Cally Market on Christmas Eve. Got a lot er meat on it. Not bad for a tanner, eh? I’m goin’ ter ’ave it wiv boiled potatoes an’ some nice spring greens.’

Sunday always found Alf such an affable old boy. In all the years she had known him, she had never heard him complain or criticise anyone. The only problem was, he had not really mastered the way of talking directly at her, and spent a lot of the time correcting himself with, ‘Oh, sorry, Sun. What I was sayin’ was . . .’ and then having to repeat everything he said.

‘’Fraid she’s gone off ter work,’ he said, disappointed that Sunday didn’t have the time to share the pig’s trotter with him. ‘Dunno wot I’d do wivout that gel,’ he added, adjusting the jet-black toupee that had never really fitted him. ‘Werks every night of the week, summer an’ winter, never any time off ter relax.’ For a moment he looked
downcast
, and shaking his head, said, ‘She shouldn’t ’ave ter do it, yer know. She shouldn’t ’ave ter spend ’er life supportin’ a useless old fart like me.’

Sunday felt deeply for him. She knew only too well how inferior Alf had always felt because he was so much older than Bess. ‘You mustn’t talk like that, Alf,’ she said, trying to reassure him. ‘Bess wouldn’t do it if she didn’t love you.’

Alf, trying not to be upset, took a deep breath. ‘Trouble is, my Bessie’s got an ’eart of gold. Night work at an ’otel ain’t easy werk, y’know – oh no. But she don’t care ’ow ’ard it is, as long as the money keeps comin’ in.’

Sunday lowered her eyes. She prayed Alf Butler would never know the truth about where that money really came from.

There was something unreal about Piccadilly Circus on Boxing Day evening. It was like a Jack-in-the-box that was straining to be let loose before its time. Lying at the heart of London’s West End, ‘the Dilly’ was clearly impatient to have its highly dazzling neon lights restored after such a long blackout, and although there had recently been some easing of restrictions, until there was no longer any danger of further enemy air-raids, a return to its full glory had to be delayed.

Sunday hadn’t been ‘up West’ for over a year, when she and Pearl had queued for nearly an hour outside the tiny Ritz Cinema in Leicester Square to see
Gone with the Wind
, which seemed to have been running at the same place all through the war. As she made her way up the steps from Piccadilly Circus Tube Station, there were hordes of people around, either queuing up for the evening film performance in front of the exotic façade of the London Pavilion, or just strolling along Coventry Street heading off in the direction of Lyons Corner House and all the cinemas in Leicester Square, and the posh West End theatres in and around Charing Cross Road. Winding her way in and out of the crowds,
Sunday
was practically engulfed by men in uniforms from Allied and Commonwealth countries, and as she brushed shoulder to shoulder with GIs who were kitted out in their superior-styled khaki uniforms and peaked caps, she thought of Gary, and the sinking feeling inside her stomach reminded her that she would never see him again.

By the time she reached the corner of Shaftesbury Avenue and Piccadilly Circus, Sunday was already keeping her eyes open for Bess Butler, for this was Rainbow Corner, the club for American servicemen, once the site of one of London’s most famous restaurants, Del Monico’s. As she expected, there were young girls and women of all ages hanging around the place, most of them on the make for a good dinner and a one-night stand. Earlier in the day, when she had made up her mind that the one person she was desperate to see was Bess, it depressed her to think of what she might find. She also knew that she was taking a chance by calling on Bess at such a time, for although Bess had often confided in Sunday about how she was earning her money, it was quite a different thing for her to make an appearance during her older friend’s ‘work hours’.

It was nearly nine o’clock when she passed the Rialto Cinema and the bombed-out entrance of what was once the fashionable Café de Paris. The winter cold was biting deep again, so she pulled the hood of her duffle coat over her head and pushed her hands deep into her pockets. In her search for Bess, she peered into every shop doorway, every back alley, and at the face of every woman who passed by. Realising that she herself was being paced by two servicemen from New Zealand, she took a sharp turn into Windmill Street, and after crossing over Shaftesbury Avenue, found herself in the seediest part of Soho.

Outside the Windmill Theatre, a long queue of servicemen had formed on the pavement, waiting to see the latest girlie revue. Sunday hurried past as quickly as possible. Not far away she approached a pub, which was
jammed
to suffocation, with a crowd of GIs overflowing on to the pavement outside. Watching them from a vantage position on the opposite side of the road were two white-helmeted US military policemen, so although Sunday couldn’t hear what the men outside the pub were saying, she was grateful that they were somewhat subdued. At that moment, she caught her first glimpse of Bess, who was with two or three other women, laughing and drinking with the GIs in the middle of the crowd. For several minutes, Sunday tried to catch Bess’s eye, but every time she did so, some of the GIs did their best to get her to join them.

‘Sunday!’

Bess finally noticed her, left the crowd, and hugged her.

‘Oh God, Sun!’ she said with incredulity. ‘I can’t believe it! I just can’t believe it! What yer doin’ ’ere, mate?’

When Sunday looked at her old friend, she was shocked to see how gaunt she had become. And despite the bitterly cold breeze, Bess was wearing only a flimsy above-the-knee party dress, with her hair piled on top of her head, and thick sticky make-up plastered all over her face.

‘I’m sorry, Bess,’ Sunday said. ‘I’m going back to the country the day after tomorrow. I just had to see you.’

Bess hugged her again. ‘I’ll just get my coat,’ she said, not forgetting to speak directly at Sunday. ‘Let’s get away from this lot.’

It was fairly deserted along the Victoria Embankment down by the River Thames. The only people around were the ‘regulars’, the tramps who slept out rough in all weathers. Although it wasn’t even ten o’clock, most of them had already taken up residence on any spare bench that was still unoccupied, and the rest of them stretched out either on the open pavement, or beneath the railway bridge at Charing Cross. Sometimes there was a fight
amongst
them, usually when a kind passer-by had offered one of them a penny for a cup of tea or the remains of a half-eaten sandwich. Others, who occasionally roamed the streets at night, had often been victims of the air-raids, dying on the pavement where they lay, buried beneath the debris of a bombed building.

‘I love walkin’ down ’ere,’ said Bess, ‘especially at night. It’s always so – cut off from everythin’. No hassle, no bobbies ter move yer on. I love the peace.’ She turned to Sunday, who was warming her hands on the mug of tea Bess had just bought her at the all-night refreshment stall. ‘Actually, I’ve scored down ’ere a coupla times. I even ’ad this official. Come from the LCC over there at County ’All. Randy old sod ’e was. Still, ’e paid well.’

Sunday was just able to make out what Bess was saying, for they were standing directly beneath a rather dim lamplight on an open parapet overlooking the river. Just being in Bess’s company again cheered Sunday up no end, for she was the one person to whom she could pour her heart out. And that is exactly what she did, recounting everything that had happened to her since she arrived out at Ridgewell, and how wonderful it was that, after meeting Gary, her life had taken on such a new meaning, only for her to be devastated again by his being lost in action.

‘Yer know somefin’, Sun,’ Bess said, after peering down into the fast-flowing river beneath them. ‘All me life I’ve tried ter keep on the move – just like that river down there. Stand still an’ I’m finished.’

A small group of customers were now crowded around the refreshment stall behind them, including two black GIs.

‘It ’as ter be the same wiv you, Sun,’ Bess continued, balancing her mug on the parapet wall whilst she searched around in her coat pocket for her fags. ‘Yer can’t keep still, mate. Yer can’t just go under ’cos somefin’s changed. ’Specially someone your age.’ She took out her fags and offered one to Sunday.

Sunday shook her head and sipped her tea.

Bess lit a fag, then retrieved her mug of tea, the rim of which was heavily smeared with lipstick. ‘I look at it this way. We all ’ave ter make somefin’ of ourselves even if fings don’t go the way we want ’em to. Take me fer instance. When Alf ’ad ter give up ’is job ’cos of ’is stroke, I couldn’t just sit down an’ say, “Ooh, ’ow terrible. That means we’re goin’ ter starve.’” She shook her head, pulled deeply on her fag, and released a funnel of smoke which curled up into the dark night sky. ‘Fact is, Sun, I just ’ad ter get up an’ do somefin’, din’t I? That’s ’ow I got on the game.’

‘But surely you could have done something else?’ asked Sunday. ‘Isn’t it too big a price to pay – what you’re doing?’

‘I needed money, Sun – lots of it. When the ’ospital told me Alf ’ad only got a year ter live, I decided there an’ then that ’e’d ’ave the best bloody year of ’is life.’

Sunday lowered her mug. She was stunned. ‘Alf? Going to die?’

‘It’s over a year since they told me. ’E’s already livin’ on borrowed time.’

Bess was aware that one of the two black GIs was eyeing her over the sausage roll he was eating. Without making it too obvious, she responded with a grin.

‘I know yer may fink I’m bonkers doin’ all this for an old geezer nearly twenty years older than me. But the fact is, Alf loves me. An’ I love ’im. When ’e took me on all those years ago, I was nuffin’ – absolutely nuffin’.’ Before she continued, Bess lowered her eyes and stared aimlessly into her mug. ‘Yer see, I’ve made a lot er mistakes in my life, Sun, stupid mistakes.’ Then her eyes flicked up pointedly to look directly into Sunday’s eyes. ‘I couldn’t’ve got through it all wivout Alf – oh no. That stupid old sod! ’E give me everythin’.’

Although Sunday was not quite sure what Bess was trying to say to her, she felt a strange closeness to this warm-hearted woman.