by Milly Adams
He was afeared he would have to use words that would hurt their hearts and he didn’t care to hurt anyone, except his da, for he was the very devil.
Chapter 21
Mid March 1945 – the shadows deepen around Joe and his mother
Leon sat at his desk and took a newspaper off the top of the stack of ten that Cheryl had brought in. She’d taken over from Shirley after that silly cow had been hit by a V2 while standing on a street corner. He laughed. Bit ripe, really. She’d started by earnin’ a living on a street corner, and waiting to cross the ruddy road she’d copped it. Mark you, the bleedin’ Allies should have taken out the launch sites more than they had.
Cheryl had stuck her head round the door this morning, like the mouse she was, all brown hair, brown eyes, and twitchy. He’d looked up and shouted, ‘Boo.’ She’d disappeared. He’d laughed then heard Dougie call her back. ‘You’ll ’ave to toughen up,’ Dougie had said. ‘It’s the boss’s way.’
Dougie had opened the door, and she’d almost tiptoed in with the newspapers. ‘I been through ’em, Mr Harkness. These are the ones I think might be about your boy, given the surnames your investigator found for you. I’ve been reading the local newspapers from all the areas around Woking, Sherborne and London for that Sylvia Simpson too, and Buckby and Tyseley. Only might, mind. He’s still checking the schools around and about.’
Darting across the room to place the local papers on his desk, she’d knocked his ashtray. She’d squeaked in alarm. His cigar ash had fallen, which was a ruddy nuisance because he liked a bit of ash on the end of his Cuban.
He’d growled, ‘Bugger off.’ She had.
He shook out the local newspaper from somewhere in Guildford, and settled back, reading the piece on page two she’d circled with a pencil which were the same colour as the type. She should o’ done it in red. Do he have to think of everything himself? It weren’t as if he had naught else to do. There was an army to raise to finish off Mario’s base near Limehouse, and black market goods to find for the extra clubs he were supplying …
He scrunched up the paper. What did a farm boy have to do wi’ him? This was a lad who’d saved his da from death. Didn’t the mouse have eyes? Cos the da and t’boy looked like two peas in a pod, for heaven’s sake, so how could t’lad called Holmes be a Harkness?
He checked the clock. The men would be here in a minute, but he had to work his way through these, just in case. All right, there were nothing yet from the snouts. He scanned the next, a local rag from the Dorset coast. Something about the pier, and a boy called Tom Simpson found there, dead. Didn’t look like nothin’ but a drowned fish, and what was he doing on t’pier if he had drowned? Didn’t make sense. He found himself reading, and no one, not even the coppers, could make sense of it neither, except his hair were red. Well, his boy’s weren’t.
Dougie knocked at the door just as Leon scrunched up that newspaper too, throwing it to the floor. ‘Got the boys ’ere, boss.’
‘Let ’em in.’
Leon didn’t get up. He reached for his cigar, which had built up a head of ash again, and watched as Sammy, Molt and Freddy came in. He could tell they were carrying, but he had his revolver on the shelf, and Dougie was on alert. You couldn’t trust no one these days. Well, when could you?
Molt began. ‘We got a bloke into Mario’s. The eyetie’s got to take one or two non-Italians cos the bank job cost him a few to clink. Some ain’t come back from internment cos they’re fascist to the core.’
Leon stared at him. ‘I don’t be needin’ an ’istory lesson, I need to know how many you got on the inside o’his outfit, that be what I bleedin’ need.’ He was banging the table. He turned to check his fish. They didn’t like vibrations.
‘Now yer done made me upset me fishes, so get on wi’it.’
The men shuffled and he could see they were watching his hands, waiting for him to go for his gun. Even then no one would move, because they’d hope the bullet wasn’t going to be for them. As he looked at them, Leon realised that being here, in the office, was like being steerer of a damn great motor, with a string of butties tied up behind on short tows, waiting for him to take ’em where he wanted them to go. Or maybe sink them.
He laughed, they laughed, but they didn’t know at what.
‘Freddy, ’ow many men you got now who can fight and take orders, and keep their mouths shut? We got to make a move before t’end of March.’
Freddy looked Leon in the eye, and slapped down a list. ‘This lot so far. How much money you got, boss? That’s the answer I got for yer. I’ve some who’ll do it for more’n we’re paying. We need ten more, at least, and the coppers needs more bunce, cos they has to get to a bloke on Mario’s beat.’
‘You’ll ’ave yer money for another ten, plus the copper. Give the ones we’ve got more, an’ all, or they’ll be mithering and I ’aven’t time for buggering about.’ He turned to Sammy, slapping his hand on the pile of newspapers. ‘What you got fer me on the boy?’
‘I’m working tight with the investigator, as you said, boss, easier now he’s come up with names of them girls’ families. We’ve checked out the boaters, the boaters’ pubs too and all stops in between for ’im, though as you said, that’d be too bloody obvious. We’ve asked around Tyseley, and Buckby, but no one knows naught. I think they’ve all got straw between their ears I do cos they all talk so stupid, and we’re not asking, we just listen. We’ve got snouts looking at schools too, and hospitals, evacuation registers cos so many ’as left t’south for other parts. And Cheryl the Mouse of course, looking through those papers, glad to be off her back, or her feet for a while. I got ears everywhere, eyes everywhere. We’ll get there, boss.’
Leon nodded. ‘When us know where t’little tyke be hiding we’ll plan it careful, just like we’ll plan t’Mario snatch. Get the boy. Bring ’im ’ere. I’ll up the coppers’ bunce so they won’t say a word when we get ’im here. Now get out, get on with things, and leave me to work me way through this lot.’
The men trooped out. Leon picked up the next newspaper, from Dorset again, and flicked through it. There was nothing ringed, silly cow. What was Cheryl playing at? He was about to scrunch it up, then saw an advertisement about a couple of blokes wanting work. He laid the newspaper on the table, and saw they were bookkeepers. Well, he had Tony who was scared stiff, so ’e’d probably sniffed what’d happened to Manny so he’d behave himself. But …
He saw it then, a piece about a competition winner ringed in pale pencil, silly stupid cow, and the story was about a narrowboat and three women, and it were by Joe Clement. Leon bit down on his cigar; it broke and fell on to the paper. He swept it off, leapt to his feet and almost ran to the door, yanking it open. Dougie was leaning against the wall reading The Sketch. ‘Get Freddy back in ’ere, at t’double,’ Leon ordered.
It took Freddy a minute to arrive, sweating and panting. ‘Sorry boss, we were just off out to round up—’
‘Don’t want ter ’ear it.’ He waved the newspaper at him. ‘This be my boy, so you and me needs to sit down and work out a plan. It got to be right, and it got to be quick. So lots of checking, then get someone inside the place. Maybe a gardener. Report back to me, first thing tomorrer. I need to know all about this school, this boy, where ’e be, and a photo. Get someone down there with a camera. Got it?’
Freddy rushed off. Leon sat down and read through the rest of the newspaper, getting a feel for the place, knowing it were his boy, one that could read and write, one that could help his business, and then he wouldn’t need a Tony any more. It could just be kept in the family. Yes, it were Joe, got to be. How else could he talk about the cut like this lad did, and be named Joe, and this Clement bollocks would be stopped. It would all be stopped, because it were going to be Harkness and Son, and they’d spread out their net as wide as they liked, and his army would get bigger, and everyone would fear the family, so they would. That’d show the cut, who thought they’d chucked him out with the rubbish.
Sylvia hung out their washing on the line strung over Horizon’s empty hold. They were abreast, heading for Limehouse Basin, determined to get in and out as quickly as possible. There’d been a bad V2 rocket explosion in West Hampstead to spur them on, and the rockets were still hitting England and Belgium.
‘Perhaps we’ll be beyond range soon. Surely they’ll move the sites as they retreat,’ she called down to Verity.
Verity looked up from the bottom of the butty’s hold. She’d drawn the short straw and was aligning the hold boards over the bilges before another load was plonked on top of them. ‘I’m not a mind reader, sweet Sylv, so explain what’s running through that active mind of yours.’
Sylvia did, just as Verity swore as the boards trapped her fingers. ‘Damn, another black nail. So, who will get the damned rockets then, I wonder. France? Or will the Allies get across the Rhine in force, and run ’em to ground – or maybe our bombers’ll wipe more sites out?’
Sylvia hunkered down by the store and called, ‘I wonder if Polly ever thinks of her old friend Reginald in his bomber. They’ve lost so many, and the Americans too. And then there’s the war with Japan …
Polly yelled from Marigold’s counter, ‘I have ears, I can hear, and yes, of course I think of Reggie, and of them all, but if I hold on to the thought I get so bunged up with worry I feel sick. So I just think about it ending, and then we can all begin again. Can you imagine eating an orange?’
Sylvia and Verity exchanged a glance. Polly was engaging in what they were all becoming experts in: diversion. Verity hauled herself out of the hold and leapt on to the cabin roof, Sylvia following, with the surplus pegs stuffed into her pockets. They reached the counter to find that Polly was reading the letter from Howard House yet again. It had arrived that morning. Bob from the office had run along the lay-by as they were about to cast off, waving it. ‘Says it’s urgent,’ he yelled.
Now, Sylvia leaned back on Marigold’s cabin, crossed her arms, and asked, ‘What do you think, Pol? Any different from the last two times you read it?’
Polly was pulling at her lip. Sylvia murmured, ‘That’s not a pretty look.’
Polly stuck out her tongue. ‘Neither’s that,’ Verity said, now sitting up on the roof next to Pup who no longer needed to be chained, knowing better than to launch herself off the boat after doing just that when they finally got away this morning. They’d had to fish her out with the boat shaft and sluice her off with water before she was allowed into either cabin. She was still sulking.
Polly said, ‘No, just the same. I repeat that Mum has copied what Joe has written and wants to know what we think.’
Sylvia said, ‘Yes, we know. We listened the first two times.’
‘Well,’ snapped Polly, ‘one more time for luck.’ She began:
‘Dear Ma, I is glad that I have heard that you is alive. Course I am. I is surprised, cos you seem to have been a long time dead—’
Verity interrupted as she rolled two cigarettes. ‘I’m still not sure about that bit.’
Sylvia answered, ‘It sounds a bit raw, I know, but as I said the first time it’s how he feels. I think that Maudie will recognise the simplicity of it as being from her boater son and know he hasn’t changed, or not much.’
Polly was steering off centre as Timmo’s Venus and butty hove into sight heading back from Limehouse, fully loaded.
Sylvia muttered, ‘Who better to ask. Let’s flag him down.’
Polly grabbed the hunting horn and gave three blasts and they heard one in answer. Verity muttered, searching the sky, ‘I don’t want to stop for long.’
Sylvia was on the roof now, waving to him, calling, ‘Don’t moor, just slow right down. We need to ask you something.’
They heard his hail in reply: ‘’Ow do, right you is.’
Both pairs slowed, checking behind, but there were no other boats to hold up.
Timmo eased Venus along so that his stern counter was on a level with Marigold’s. Both pairs wallowed to a stop. ‘Bet would be proud at our skills,’ Verity murmured.
Sylvia laughed at her. ‘Don’t be daft, she’d give us a kick up the bum for cluttering up the cut.’
Timmo called, ‘Is yer all right, yer girls?’ There was a brightness in him, a bracing of his shoulders, as though the grief over Thomo’s death had been replaced by a certain joy.
‘We hope so,’ shouted Polly over the idling motor. ‘Don’t want to stop you for too long, but Mum has sent me a copy of Joe’s first letter to his mother. Do you think it’s all right?’
She read the first two lines, and then continued:
But though I is surprised, I is glad too, and glad too that you is with Granfer and Auntie Lettie. They is family, like Saul. But I is with family too, cos they have become so. You would like them, Ma. They is comfort, just as Granfer and Auntie Lettie is to you. As I is writing this, I feel my heart becoming full that you is here, in the world again, and I would like that we should meet, but I am vexed because I have happiness here, and you have happiness there, so I is not sure how we put the two together to make us Ma and son again.
I will write again, cos I is so pleased you is in the world.
Your son, Joe
For a few seconds there was silence, except for the sounds of the cut, and the bank with its warehouses, bridges, and comings and goings; on a level with them a man sat fishing. For what? wondered Sylvia. He was staring at them, probably wondering what they were doing, just stopped, and talking here where the V2s could get them. Well, she thought, I could say the same about him, but he probably lives in London, so where is safe?
Timmo said eventually, ‘’Tis an honest lot of words and thoughts. His ma will see the sense in them, and the caring. ’Tis as you said, girls, ’tis a waiting love. That’s all. And in the waiting, things will happen and all will be well, or not.’
He saluted, then said, as an afterthought, ‘And I will be in Maudie’s world, to hold her heart together should it crack, and ’t’will be the same for Granfer and Lettie. ’Tis what it is, my girls.’
Pete called from the cabin. Timmo began to head away, while the girls continued towards Limehouse Basin. ‘Oranges,’ muttered Verity. ‘Now there’s a thought.’
At Howard House that evening, the telephone went. It was the girls telephoning from Sid’s pub at Alperton.
Henry answered, as Rogers was out checking the patrols, and Thomas didn’t like phones and couldn’t quite get the hang of the fact that you only paid if you made the call. ‘Howard House?’
‘Father, it’s me.’
Henry smiled. ‘Good evening, Me.’ He heard her laugh and it warmed him. He asked, ‘Did you receive Joyce’s letter, darling? What did you think?’
Henry listened as Verity explained that they had shared it with Timmo as they passed on the cut. He looked as though he’d picked up wood from Limehouse, because they’d noticed some had pierced his tarpaulin as he motored on. Henry tried not to rush her. ‘Well, I expect he’ll do a repair job. What was that? Oranges? Oh Lord—’ He heard Pamela hiss, ‘Oh, darling Henry, do get on.’
He pressed his hand over his ear and waved her to silence. Verity was now saying there had been a bloke fishing on the bank, but for what? she asked. Henry drew on all his patience, and it was the least he could do while his daughter was a sitting duck within range of the bastard rockets, and he was here, safe. She gave him no time to answer but rattled on.
‘Timmo said that the letter was the truth, and that it was something that Maudie would understand, and that she knew it was to be, in Timmo’s words, a waiting love. He also said that if the words were to cause Maudie’s heart to crack, he, Granfer and Lettie would be there to hold her heart together, and he to hold all their hearts together.’ On the last word Verity’s voice cracked a little itself.
Henry swallowed; there was such simplicity, but also poetry, in the words. He heard Sylvia calling, ‘Come on, Ver, stop waffling on, you’re needed at the dartboard.’
That’s my girls.
He smiled to himself, but said, ‘Bless you. I’ll tell the others and we will send the letter.’
Verity said quietly, ‘Father, will you all be all right if Joe decides to live in Buckby with Maudie?’
There was a long pause. She repeated, ‘Father, did you—’
He answered now, ‘Of course we’ll be fine. We all have one another. What is it you three girls say? All for one and one for all, and perhaps he would visit …’ He stopped. ‘Or we could …’ Again he stopped, then he grew brisk. ‘But one step at a time, eh? The thing we need to remember is that Joe’s needs come first. Must go, darling. Stay safe.’ He replaced the receiver, rubbed his forehead. Yes indeed, that’s what they must all remember.
Chapter 22
End of March 1945, on the cut
Marigold and Horizon had pulled in at Alperton as they had done so often. It was evening, and the girls sat for a moment, while Verity ‘put her face on, darlings’. Sylvia was laughing. ‘Why do people call it that? It’s as though it’s a mask to hide behind.’
Verity sniffed as she puffed up her hair and checked in the mirror. ‘Perhaps it is, darling, who knows. I just think that if we’re to meet Solly, Rachel and Jacob at the club in Jermyn Street I should at least have a vestige of make-up, given that so many of my old set are bound to be there, in their ship-shape togs.’
Sylvia watched her from the side-bed. ‘Of course, sorry, Ver, I didn’t mean to sound carping, I was just pondering aloud.’
Verity gestured her over to the cross-bed. ‘You didn’t. It just made me think. Put on a bit of Passion lippy, darling, and as we’re meeting Steve as well, it won’t be wasted.’
Polly snorted from the side-bed.
Sylvia dabbed a little on, ran her finger over her lips to eke it out, then threw the lipstick to Polly, who dabbed on a bit. Verity slipped the rouge and lipstick into her make-up bag, and snapped it shut. Polly put the mirror they’d been using into her handbag, saying, ‘I still feel we should have bought Rachel a birthday present.’
