The Safest Place in London

by Maggie Joel

  ‘What if you explained it to them?’ she found herself saying. ‘If you told them we was starving, that you took one or two things. Maybe it wouldn’t be that bad. Maybe it would be only a short stretch.’

  ‘I can’t go to prison.’

  And that was that. Besides, he was a deserter, too, now. There was no explaining it, there was no good outcome. She nodded, accepting what he said, allowing the hopelessness to swallow them up.

  ‘Joe, what we gonna do?’

  But instead of answering her question he shook his head in wonder. ‘You wouldn’t believe what it’s like up there in the street. Lucky for me, I s’pose, hardly any folk about up there, but you wouldn’t believe it. It’s like the world’s ended.’

  Nancy made no reply. The world had ended and she didn’t need to go up to the street to see it. They fell into another silence, which Joe finally broke. ‘I’ll go to Ireland,’ he said, turning to her. ‘If I can.’

  Nancy looked away. She had had him to herself for such a short time, three months, which was longer than most women got with their husbands in wartime—longer than her own mother had got with her father—but still the unfairness of it took her breath away. She had got used to him lying beside her in the bed; she had got used to them curled up against each other on those dark winter mornings with the ice on the windows and their breath hanging in the air like a moment in time caught forever. She remembered how, on Christmas Day, he had sat cutting shapes out of a folded newspaper and turned them, magically, into hats, and how Emily had shrieked with laughter and how, later that evening, the electricity had gone out and the look on his face when she had immediately grabbed the torch and gone off to check the mains switchboard—as though she hadn’t learned how to cope while he was away, learned how to be the man! And some men might have resented that but when she returned, knocking the dirt from her shoes and the dust from her hair, it was to find him and Emily playing tiddlywinks together on the floor by candlelight. She couldn’t think of a time when she had loved him more than at that moment.

  Except perhaps than at this moment.

  ‘Ireland?’ repeated Nancy bleakly. ‘But—how?’

  Joe shook his head. ‘Don’t know. I can get to Liverpool at least. Harry will help me. He’ll know a bloke who’ll get me some papers. Once I get to Liverpool I’ll be alright. I’ll get on a boat, I’ll be safe.’ Nancy listened but his words seemed without meaning, insubstantial, like raindrops on glass. Harry was the elder brother who had been bad-tempered at the wedding and Joe saw him infrequently. She had never known him turn to Harry for help.

  ‘But Ireland . . .?’

  Joe reached out, not looking at her, his hand covering hers, his fingers curling tightly around her fingers. They stayed like that for a time and Nancy thought, Ireland–Ireland–Ireland.

  ‘When will you go?’

  ‘Soon. Before dawn anyway. While the raid’s still on. Safer then.’

  ‘Don’t go back to the house, Joe, promise me you won’t!’

  ‘I won’t go near the place, don’t worry about that.’ He turned to look at her again. ‘But you have to get rid of anything that’s left over—the scotch, the shoes, stockings, all of it. Toss it—toss the lot, or you’ll be done for receiving. Promise me you’ll do it soon as you get home tomorrow morning!’

  ‘I promise, Joe.’

  He nodded slowly, taking a long, deep breath, and they fell silent again. They had made the best plans they could for the time being. There was nothing left to arrange.

  He would be safe in Ireland, thought Nancy, if he made it there. But what then? He could never return. The war might end but Joe could never return. If he did, he would be arrested.

  ‘I’ll send word,’ he said. ‘You can come over later, when it’s safe. You can join me.’

  Nancy tried to imagine the two of them, her and Emily, on the boat with a small suitcase, arriving in Dublin (did the boat go to Dublin or somewhere else? She did not know) and him standing at the quayside in an Irish suit and an Irish hat, smiling and waving. She did not know what an Irish suit or hat looked like, or if Irish men wore suits at all. And meanwhile, it was after two in the morning and soon he would be leaving. She smiled and thought, But I cannot bear it.

  The night wore on and the air raid that did not let up outside seemed less real to her than ever before. She wanted it to go on forever.

  ‘Soon as I get there,’ Joe said, as though they had been speaking all this time and not sitting in a dreadful silence, ‘I’ll send word. I’ll get work and you and Em will come over.’ He smiled and she knew he was picturing it, right now, in his head.

  But it was no good.

  ‘Joe, we live here. This is our home. What we gonna do in Ireland?’ She hated that she had said it out loud when she had wanted so much to keep the thought to herself, and she saw the determination slip for a moment from his face. He squeezed her hand though he made no attempt to answer her question.

  But what would they do in Ireland? This was her home and it made no difference that her mother was from a Northumberland coalmining town that Nancy had never set foot in, that her father had deserted her before her birth. What mattered was that she had been born in the upstairs room of a boarding house in Shoreditch and London was in her blood: Stepney and Shoreditch, Mile End and Poplar, Spitalfields, Aldgate and Bethnal Green, Whitechapel Road and Commercial Road and Brick Lane and Cable Street and Vallance Road, Victoria Park in the east and Bishopsgate in the west—these places were the perimeter of her world.

  ‘Once we’re there, we can go anywhere,’ Joe said, turning to her, looking into her eyes, pleading with her to see what he saw, for he had seen the world from the deck of a ship and it held no fears for him. ‘We could go to America.’

  And it was a measure of the love she felt for him at this moment that she returned his look and said, ‘Alright.’

  So that was it: they would go to America.

  After that they spoke no more. The bombing did not let up and it was like the early days of the Blitz, back in ’40 and ’41, but Nancy found it no longer mattered what happened to the city above for she had already left it.

  ‘It’s time,’ Joe said.

  Nancy watched in a sort of fog as Joe scanned the sea of bodies, scanned the entrance to the platform, scanned every face. Then he turned back to her and held her tightly for a minute, he touched his hand to Emily’s cheek, and he was gone. She did not watch him go, she would not look. It was worse than seeing him go off to the war, worse than seeing him return to his ship, worse than knowing he might end up dead at the bottom of the sea, blown up, captured, drowned; it was worse than all this.

  I cannot bear it, she thought, but I will bear it and Joe will send for us and we will go to America.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ‘I’d almost given you up,’ Lance said, ushering Diana inside.

  ‘I know. There was a bomb on the line at Neasden.’

  ‘Oh, bad luck,’ he said, as though she had lost a button from her coat or left her umbrella on the train. ‘Well, you’re here now. I was just about to go out, actually, so you timed it well.’

  Only in wartime could almost four hours late be described as timing it well.

  Lance was in the same light grey, wide-lapelled suit as before, a crisp white shirt, open at the neck. But the tan had faded and there was no sign of the silk scarf. His hair, as black as before, was swept back from his face and ruffled as though he had run his fingers through it. It needed a cut, was too long, somehow, for England in the winter, though Diana had a sense he was unaware of this. The soft felt hat lay before him on the desk of the small office. For it was a small office. She had not known what to expect—his flat, perhaps, or a room in a lodging house. But this was an office-cum-storeroom with boxes of all shapes and sizes lining three of the four walls from floor to ceiling. A small gas heater and a battered filing cabinet, two folding chairs and a packet of sandwiches, half eaten, on the desk completed the picture. Lance swept the hat
and the sandwiches to one side and pulled out one of the chairs for her, removing yesterday’s newspaper which lay open on it.

  ‘Sit, sit,’ he said, indicating she should take the seat. ‘Cuppa?’

  He located a kettle and two cracked white porcelain cups minus their saucers and disappeared through a doorway at the rear of the office into a second room from where, a moment later, she heard the sound of a tap being turned on and a match being struck. He returned a moment later and pulled out the other chair and sat down, regarding her exactly as he had in the cafe. But now the tension between them was of a different nature—they were no longer strangers linked by a young man’s death. Now they were co-conspirators. The rules had changed subtly. Not subtly, for Diana felt like someone standing on a precipice about to jump.

  The kettle began to whistle softly.

  Would Lance expect more from her than just payment in money? If he did, would she oblige? She did not know. The rules were unclear to her. He had guessed so easily at the loneliness inside her. The room was horribly cramped and sordid and his hat and sandwiches were on the desk. He had swept them aside and, if he did expect more than just money, perhaps it was here on the desk that they would do it.

  ‘Milk? No sugar, I’m afraid. Come to think of it, no milk either. Black tea okay?’

  ‘Fine. Thanks.’

  He handed her a cup, took a mouthful of his own tea, placed it on the desk and leaned forward.

  ‘So, Diana, tell me. What do you want? I have pretty much anything you can name: tinned sardines, tinned pears, tinned peaches, condensed milk, powdered milk, cigarettes, spirits, soap, American chocolate, Brazilian coffee and as much Spam as you can carry. Nothing perishable, of course, but other than that, sky’s the limit. What’s it to be? I’ve even got a couple of US Air Force parachutes back there—’ he indicated the back room with a jerk of his head ‘—don’t ask how! So if you feel like running up your own pair of under-things on the Singer, be my guest.’

  Diana’s head was spinning. The cornucopia of goods he had just reeled off was making her feel a little faint. Were they here, in this room? She could smell them, surely; yes, she could smell each item. Her mouth went dry. The room, Lance, faded from her vision and she saw, with frightening clarity, herself pushing a bowl of tinned peaches towards Abigail, pouring the condensed milk over, Abigail’s eyes wide and bright as searchlights, her delighted, astonished squeal as she tasted the peaches, the condensed milk for the very first time.

  ‘Doesn’t the US Air Force need its parachutes?’ she replied faintly.

  ‘Not these ones!’ He laughed. ‘Bloody great tear in them.’ Then he became serious. ‘Diana, if you’re worried about where this lot came from, you should be. It’s contraband. Black market. Don’t delude yourself. Everything I have here is purloined and someone, somewhere is going to go without so that you and your little girl can have it.’ He paused and gave an expressive shrug. ‘If you don’t want it, well, that’s okay. I won’t think less of you. I might even think more of you. But if you do want it, don’t kid yourself.’ He took another sip of his tea. ‘And so we’re clear, if you get caught with this lot on you, you’re on your own. This office shuts down and disappears on a regular basis. It has to. I wouldn’t have survived this long otherwise. You get caught, you’re on your own, and we’re not talking a minor motoring offence. This is serious. You understand?’

  ‘Of course. I am not a child. I understand the risks.’ She spoke quickly because his words terrified her. And her reply terrified her more. ‘How much does it cost?’

  ‘Tell me what you want and I’ll tot it up.’

  So she wrote down her order and he did some arithmetic and she pulled out her purse and handed over a large number of notes then waited as he packed the various articles into a bag for her and handed them over. At the last minute he silently placed an extra tin of condensed milk into her package with a wink and she remembered that he was her dead brother’s school friend, that Lance had waited outside the church at John’s funeral to shake her parents’ hands, and the dismay that she had been keeping in check swelled inside her. She left as soon as she could, not meeting his eyes, and vowing that, should she make it home, she would never, never return.

  But she had returned—of course she had—on four separate occasions, each time lying to Mrs Probart about further hospital tests, the hint of a minor surgery that might be required, and Mrs Probart, in her kindness, her concern, had popped over every few days to see how she was faring, patting her hand, bringing vegetables from her own garden because the vegetables grew in Mrs Probart’s garden where none grew at The Larches and Diana, dismayed by her neighbour’s generosity, tried in vain to refuse them.

  And Abigail grew sleek and plump and her cheeks were rosy and her appetite grew and she became used to the sweet and sugary things that now routinely came her way. And she whined and sulked and threw her bowl and took off her shoes and threw them at her mother when the sweet and sugary things ran out and the cupboard became bare again. And so Diana returned, making the journey into London and persuading herself it was just a social call, that she was visiting an old friend of the family. And Lance played along. They talked and drank tea and the transaction at the conclusion of the call was handled swiftly and discreetly. His office remained at Liverpool Street and she told herself this was a good sign, for it suggested the danger was minimal, but his words to her that first time haunted her: If you get caught with this lot on you, you’re on your own.

  Her dreams were filled with policemen. When she saw one for real in the course of her day—the local bobby on his bicycle, the constable standing on the village green taking down notes following some motoring accident or talking to the landlord of the pub about some licensing issue—the blood drained from her face and she turned and walked in the other direction, even on the days she walked with Abigail to watch the ducks carrying nothing more incriminating than an umbrella and a raincoat.

  Christmas had come and gone and so too the worst of January before Diana had returned for one final visit, and this time she had brought Abigail with her. She had done this because she could no longer bring herself to lie to Mrs Probart, and because she now understood that payment for the goods was purely monetary, that nothing else was expected of her. Besides, somehow it did not seem quite so furtive, so underhand, going in to London, going to visit Lance, when she had her child with her.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Abigail had demanded that morning, unconvinced by a journey that did not involve the park or food or toys.

  ‘We’re going to pay a visit to your Uncle Lance. He can’t wait to meet you. If you’re very, very good, he might give you something.’

  ‘What? What will he give me?’ Abigail wanted to know, accepting the fact of a hitherto-unknown Uncle Lance without a second thought.

  It was Diana’s fifth trip. This will be the last, she told herself.

  The day was bitterly cold. A raid in London the previous night, the first in months, had disrupted the trains and consequently they had arrived at Lance’s office much later than usual and she had said nothing to him about bringing her child. She had hesitated outside the old warehouse, suddenly uncertain, with Abigail pulling impatiently on her hand and grizzling with exhaustion after the long, long journey. But Lance had been charming, had taken to Abigail at once, the way some men do with small children, finding things for her to play with, dandling her on his knee and teasing her, laughing indulgently when she showed off and not minding too much when she got overly tired and became petulant and bad-tempered. But when Diana had taken Abigail to the lavatory in preparation for the long homeward journey, waiting outside the tiny cubicle to check she was managing alright, Lance had come in and taken her arm and pulled her outside.

  ‘That was a mistake, Diana, bringing your little girl. How exactly are you going to ensure she says nothing? What is she going to say when the nice policeman sits her down and asks her where all this lovely food comes from?’

  He s
poke in a low tone, quite pleasantly, but she could see the fury in his eyes and she was shocked by it, feeling her face grow hot.

  ‘I’m sorry, I—I didn’t think.’

  ‘No, you didn’t. You shouldn’t have brought her here. You shouldn’t have told her my name. It was stupid.’

  Abigail had emerged then, pulling at her dress, her shoes damp where she had stepped in a puddle or had a little accident, and Diana busied herself helping Abigail to wash her hands at the cracked and stained basin in the corner.

  When they returned to his office Lance was sweeping piles of papers into a box. She saw other boxes hastily sealed and stacked haphazardly on top of each other. This office shuts down and disappears on a regular basis, Lance had said. He offered to see them out but it was perfunctory—he clearly wanted them gone—and Diana said no, thank you, they could manage. They had left in a hurry down the long, winding staircase, the small travelling case, heavy now with its illicit cargo, banging against Diana’s legs and Abigail trying valiantly to keep up.

  It was stupid, Diana realised, fighting back sudden, ridiculous tears as they reached the ground floor at last. We won’t come back, she resolved. We won’t return here and I shan’t see Lance again, or not for a long time. And Abigail would say nothing. Abigail would forget quickly where they had been and why. She would forget there had ever been a man called Uncle Lance. Children did forget things very quickly—she knew that even if Lance, who had no children of his own, did not.

  They had arrived at Lance’s office much later than usual because of the train disruption and they emerged now into the evening blackout, and in her anxiety to get home Diana had boarded the wrong bus. And now here they were, in the East End of London, caught in their first ever real air raid. If she was asked, she would say they had gone to a pantomime up west and got on the wrong bus. It was half true. But no one had asked, and in the meantime her fingers ached where she was clutching the handle of her case so tightly.