The Way Ahead (10 page)

‘What about Freddy?’ asked Boots.

‘Oh, lor’, he’s in that awful Burma,’ said Mrs Brown, ‘and goodness knows when he’ll get home, but Cassie’s bearing up remarkable. Jim and me hope you and all the Army can get the war finished quick, Mr Adams, or it’ll wear everyone out and make them white cliffs of Dover fall in the sea.’

People passed by, traffic buzzed, trams clanged, and all that together with the beaming air of this cheerful cockney woman brought back to Boots the atmosphere of the Walworth of his former years. It was part of him, Walworth, its cockneys and its bustling heart, and war hadn’t changed the place, although it had knocked it about a bit.

‘Give our regards to Jim and Cassie,’ he said.

‘Yes, I will, Mr Adams,’ said Mrs Brown. ‘Might I ask if you’re on leave?’

‘For a week,’ said Boots, who’d been asked to
stand
by and await orders from the War Office.

‘Well, I’m sure all our soldiers are deserving,’ said Mrs Brown.

‘Goodbye now,’ smiled Polly.

‘Goodbye, lady,’ said James.

‘Goodbye,’ said Gemma.

‘I said it first this time,’ crowed James.

‘Goodbye, Bessie,’ said Boots, and drove off. Mrs Brown waved to them, then went plumply and happily on her way. My, she thought, those two with twins and all. Such a nice couple, and like Mrs Maisie Finch had said to her, after Boots lost poor Emily, he wasn’t going to remain a widower for the rest of his life. He wasn’t cut out for that. But fancy him marrying Polly Simms, that upper class lady whose father was a lord or something. Mind, Freddy had always liked her, saying she was a genuine sport who’d won medals as an ambulance driver in that other war. And imagine her and Boots having twins, that must have been a lovely surprise for people their ages.

Mrs Bessie Brown hummed a song as she went on her way to the house that had known Chinese Lady and her family for many years. What a happy thing it was not to have to worry about them Germans dropping their bombs at night.

‘My, you angels,’ said Chinese Lady.

‘You pets,’ said Susie.

‘Daddy’s with us,’ said Gemma.

‘He come home the other day,’ said James.

‘He kissed Mummy,’ said Gemma.

‘We saw him,’ said James.

‘Who’s got big eyes, then?’ asked Boots.

‘Gemma,’ said James, and Gemma giggled.

‘Come on, you sweeties, Daniel’s not home yet, but you can come and meet Paula and Phoebe,’ said Susie.

‘Susie, should we put all four together?’ smiled Polly.

‘Oh, I think their grandpa’s got everything insured against breakages,’ said Susie.

Chinese Lady smiled. This was her world, family members and children. Four children. Sometimes, the war made a woman despair. Then children appeared, children who were going to know peace, she hoped, although she didn’t trust what Stalin and his Bolsheviks might get up to after Hitler had been beaten. Something ought to be done to make sure peace was peaceful, especially as her grandchildren looked like they weren’t going to know the kind of poverty their parents had. Well, except Polly, of course.

When Sammy and Daniel arrived from their work within minutes of each other, they joined forces to go into immediate chase of Gemma, James, Paula and Phoebe. The house resounded to shrieks, yells, squeals and laughter upstairs and down.

‘That Sammy,’ said Chinese Lady.

‘Can’t help laughing, though,’ said Susie.

‘That’s the fun of it,’ said Polly.

‘Kids?’ said Susie.

‘Including Sammy and Daniel,’ said Polly.

When Mr Finch arrived, Boots and Polly had a private word with him in his study. Boots gave him, in confidence, the story of Corporal Hans Thurber.

‘Yes, I’ve heard, Boots old chap,’ said Mr Finch, ‘it’s circulating in my department.’ His department was Intelligence. Not that Chinese Lady knew. ‘But only this afternoon did I hear your name mentioned.’

‘What’s your opinion, Edwin?’ asked Boots.

‘It’s no secret that Hitler has been looking for a solution to what he calls his Jewish problem since he became Germany’s leader,’ said Mr Finch. ‘Has he found one in the form of physical elimination?’ He sighed. ‘What gets into the German people that they make a fetish of obedience to a figurehead? This time their obedience seems to be an act of sheer criminality. Thousands and thousands of Jews, Polly, including women and children, what does their ghastly elimination do to you?’

‘Horrifies me,’ said Polly, ‘but Boots and I are still asking ourselves if thousands and thousands count as believable.’

‘There’ll be an investigation if Allied Security Services can put together a team capable of entering Poland and coming out alive,’ said Mr Finch.

‘I think an investigation would help Hans Thurber to rest in peace,’ said Boots.

‘I’m sure it would, Boots old love,’ said Polly, ‘even if I never met him.’

From the hall, a bump and a yell were heard. Someone knocked on the study door and opened it. Elfin-faced Phoebe put her head in.

‘Please, Daddy’s fell down the stairs,’ she said.

‘Phoebe little poppet, is he hurt?’ asked Boots.

‘Oh, no, but he’s saying awful swear words and Gemma and James is listening. And Paula.’

‘What awful words?’ asked Mr Finch, the philosophical one.

‘Oh, crikey, Grandpa, I fink he’s saying—’

‘Stop!’ said Polly, and Phoebe gulped. Polly went out into the hall. Sammy was lying at the bottom of the stairs. Paula, Gemma and James were looking at him. Daniel, also present, wore a grin. ‘Sammy Adams, are you swearing in front of the children?’

‘Me, Polly? Me?’ Sammy looked innocent and hurt. ‘Yours truly, when all I’ve been doing is having a game with the kids?’

‘Crikey, Daddy,’ said Paula, ‘you did say—’

‘Stop!’ said Polly again. Elegance combined with experience as a teacher combined with a touch of aristocratic verve made her quite awesome to the children, even her own. Her own gaped. Boots and Mr Finch joined her. ‘Sammy Adams?’ she said.

‘Never said a word,’ declared Sammy.

Paula chanced her arm in favour of her playful dad.

‘Oh, it wasn’t much, Aunt Polly,’ she said, ‘just “Oh, bleedin’ hell”. Well, he did fall with an awful bump.’

Silence. Polly put a hand to her mouth. Boots looked at the ceiling. Mr Finch coughed. Daniel’s grin spread. Phoebe hid behind Boots.

Susie, appearing, said, ‘What’s happened? Sammy, what’re you lying on the floor for?’

‘Bruised
derrière
, and that’s no lie,’ said Sammy. ‘Oh, dear goodness, me pain, what a blessed nuisance,’ he said.

Polly let go and shrieked with laughter.

A small hand stole into Boots’s hand. He looked
down
and saw Phoebe gazing up at him like a child not sure if laughter was right. He smiled, winked and lightly squeezed her fingers. Phoebe’s return smile preceded a little giggle.

Great God, he thought, how many young girls of her age and her sweetness, but of the Jewish faith, might have perished in the death camps?

And what of the family’s ever-faithful Jewish friend, Rachel Goodman, and her girls, what if they had been citizens of Poland or Germany?

Saturday, 1 May

DURING THE MORNING
, the merry month had forgotten it was the herald of summer by delivering some overlooked April showers on London. It repented at midday, however, and bestowed sunshine and warm breezes. In Hyde Park, a quite beautiful girl with raven hair and velvety brown eyes, was watching people enter by Speakers Corner. They had come, many of them, including Americans and home-grown ladies, for a lunchtime stroll or a prearranged ‘howjerdo’. A ‘howjerdo’ was the term some cockneys used in this context for a shady meeting between an American serviceman who might have a wife back home, and an English lady who might have a husband serving abroad. The proliferation of uniformed men and women, particularly the ubiquitous and freedom-loving American GIs, was a sign that London was the Allied headquarters of European endeavours. The capital showed in its flags, its barrage balloons and its sandbag-bolstered buildings, the trappings of a
nation
still applying aching muscle to the necessity of defeating Nazi Germany’s monstrous regime. The girl, intent on her watching brief, did not have her mind on the war at the moment, and was startled when the circumstances of war introduced a voice that crept up behind her.

‘Looking for me, honey?’

She turned. A fine figure of American military manhood smiled at her. She recovered her cool and said, ‘Well, no, I’m not.’

‘Not my lucky day?’ he said.

‘I’m sure you’re very nice,’ she said, ‘but I’ve a date.’

‘With one of us?’

‘No, one of ours,’ she said.

‘How about if I stick around in case he doesn’t show up?’ suggested the GI hopefully.

‘Oh, he’ll be here,’ she said, glancing over her shoulder. She saw him then, a young man in RAF uniform. Her eyes grew warm and bright. Impulsively, she ran. The young aircraftman opened his arms to her, and people smiled as he embraced her and kissed her.

‘Got you,’ he said.

‘Edward, oh, my life, I’m so happy to see you,’ said Leah Goodman, younger daughter of Mrs Rachel Goodman, a widow.

‘Mutual,’ said Edward Somers, younger son of Lizzy and Ned Somers. ‘But let’s see, who are you?’

‘Me,’ said Leah, and looked up at him, searching for a sign that he was as thrilled to see her as she was to see him. Edward, soon to be twenty, was tall, thin, earnest and matriculated. He was saved from being
called
a bookworm by his sense of humour. Like some of his relatives, he had the fine grey eyes inherited from his maternal grandfather, Corporal Daniel Adams, who had lost his life when soldiering against the Pathans on the North-West Frontier a few years before the outbreak of the ’14–18 war. In three weeks’ time Edward was due to begin a pilot’s training course, which he hoped would enable him to emulate his sister Annabelle’s husband, Nick Harrison, promoted some time ago from sergeant-pilot to pilot officer. Nick had incurred serious injuries following a dogfight over Malta, when he was forced to crash-land his crippled plane. Fully recovered, however, he was back on active service. Edward wondered how long it would take to join him.

‘What’s up?’ he asked, aware of Leah’s searching look. People ebbed and flowed around them, and the hopeful GI, disappointed, went on his way. ‘Have I come out in a rash?’

‘No, I’m just making sure it’s really you,’ said Leah, close to eighteen. She was home after spending years as an evacuee at a boarding school in Wiltshire. It was in Wiltshire that she and Edward had come to know each other, to like each other, and to gradually acquire deeper feelings than mere liking. Leah had to ask herself if she was in love and if she ought to be, since she was Jewish and he was Church of England. He had phoned her at her Brixton home last night to say that today he could stop off in London for the afternoon by breaking his journey from Tangmere in Kent to Cranwell in Lincs, where he was to attend lectures. Could Leah
meet
him in Hyde Park, say? Leah said yes, not half. So here they were, with the green of the park in front of them. ‘Well, I haven’t seen you for months,’ said Leah, ‘not since your week’s leave in February.’

‘That’s a coincidence, I haven’t seen you since then, either,’ said Edward.

‘That’s not a coincidence, that’s a joke,’ said Leah.

‘No joke considering what I’ve been missing, you angel,’ said Edward.

‘Me, I’m an angel?’ said Leah, laughing. ‘Becky doesn’t think so.’ Becky was Rebecca, her sister, now studying law at university. ‘Never mind, if you do, I won’t argue. One can overdo modesty, can’t one?’

Eyes met and held. Each felt oblivious of others. Edward frankly thought this Jewish girl stunning. Leah thought her pulse was jumping about.

‘Let’s walk and talk,’ said Edward, and she slipped her arm around his. They began to stroll amid the bright colours of the park, where shop girls, free for the lunch hour, were sitting with their GIs, or sauntering with them, or standing close to them. ‘What’s your daily grind, Leah?’

‘I’m working for your Uncle Sammy until I’m old enough to volunteer for the WAAF, I told you so,’ said Leah. ‘And didn’t he let me finish early this morning so’s I could meet you?’

‘Good old Uncle Sammy,’ said Edward, whose time so far in the RAF had been mainly concerned with wireless telegraphy. Useful enough, but not very exciting for a bloke who had finally decided he wanted to climb high into the clouds. ‘Remind
me
what kind of work you’re doing for him.’

‘Oh, typing, taking turns to answer the switchboard, making tea, stamping letters, posting them and filing the copies,’ said Leah. Sammy Adams liked girls of all work in the general office. ‘Your Uncle Sammy has lots of labour problems. Girls keep going off to volunteer for more exciting war work, and even his senior bookkeeper has gone off to live in the country and take a job with a firm of accountants in Leamington. Mama, who’s general manager, found someone to take his place. He’s a bit of an old buffer who’s come out of retirement, but your Uncle Sammy is now saying out of a museum, more like. Well, you know how he prefers people who fizz a bit.’

‘Uncle Sammy’s the number one family fizzer,’ said Edward. ‘Uncle Boots is the family fixer during a crisis, and Uncle Tommy is the honest family stalwart. Anyway, I’m tickled that you’re working for the firm along with your mother. It keeps you away from all these American GIs.’ Perhaps he shouldn’t have said that, for almost at once a couple of husky specimens materialized. One addressed Edward breezily, while casting an admiring eye at the ravishing young beauty beside him.

‘Say, old buddy, we’d sure like to meet your sister.’

‘That wouldn’t do you much good,’ said Edward, ‘I’ve got two sisters and they’re both happily married.’

‘This heah young lady ain’t yo’ sister?’ enquired the second GI.

‘Hand on my heart, I can say she’s not,’ said
Edward
. ‘She’s the young lady I’m proposing to marry.’

Leah gulped.

‘Well, old buddy,’ said the first GI, ‘you’re a lucky old buddy.’