The Safest Place in London

by Maggie Joel

  She led him along a short passage into a surprisingly large room at the rear of the house, part kitchen, part sitting room, where a wood fire roared in a massive stone hearth and an equally massive range gently smoked. Rough, handmade furniture, worn smooth from years of usage, filled the space, the stone-flagged floor covered haphazardly with homemade rugs. A rickety wooden staircase in the corner of the room led to a loft that he had not seen from the outside. It was warm, almost too warm, yet Diana stood, hugging her winter coat about her, the collar turned up. Her fingers when she had squeezed his hands a moment earlier had been frozen. If he touched her face that would be frozen too. She looked at him with that same bright, brittle smile, then turned about in a circle like a tour guide, offering him the house, the contents of the rooms.

  ‘This is us. It’s quite cosy, as you see. But you must be cold. Here, sit by the fire. There’s water boiling. I shall make us a nice cup of tea.’ And she went to the range and began to make the tea.

  Gerald stood in the middle of the room. The crackle of the fire, the warmth of the room, the comforting sound of the firewood splitting and falling and crackling was like a dreamed-of image of England, of home, but he was cold to his bones.

  ‘Where’s Abigail?’

  She did not reply and the sudden hiss of the kettle rattling on the hob rising rapidly to a shrill shriek took up all her concentration and perhaps she had not heard him. He watched as she busied herself with the teapot and the cups and saucers, retrieving from the scullery a milk jug covered with a muslin cloth—real milk, he noticed, here in the country.

  He placed his kitbag on the floor and slowly pulled out one of the wooden chairs at the kitchen table, sat down on it, aware as he did so that his movements were measured, almost deliberate. He felt as though he was watching himself from far away.

  ‘Here we are!’ she said, coming over with a tray with the tea things on. ‘Real milk!’ she said, sitting down. ‘No sugar, of course. I haven’t had time yet to register with any of the local shops. I brought the tea with me. I didn’t know what they would have up here in the north.’ As though they were in some wild and uncharted land and not twelve miles from Leeds.

  She lifted the lid of the teapot and peered inside. He had forgotten that, how she always lifted the lid and peered at the tea before pouring it. Satisfied, she poured some into his cup and handed it to him, and that was something else she always did, handed the cup and saucer rather than slide it across the table, and he had always imagined that someone must once have told her that it was vulgar to slide it. It wasn’t vulgar so far as he was aware but she apparently firmly believed it.

  There were signs of her recent arrival: an empty packing case on the floor, books piled on the dresser as there appeared to be no bookcase, a pair of shoes still wrapped in tissue paper over by the steps. But how had she got here and got all her things here? Who had helped her? The farmer, Inghamthorpe? Or had she managed somehow on her own? And how had she found this cottage? And why? Why was she here?

  And where was Abigail?

  ‘When did you get back?’ Diana enquired, as though she had gone out to the shops and come home to find him returned early from a day at the office.

  ‘A day or so ago. They flew us back in a de Havilland, over Portugal.’ He supposed that that was not careless talk, that he could hardly be censured for telling her that. ‘I only got the news I was coming home the night before. There was no time to write. I tried to ring from Exeter but there were no lines.’

  He felt as though he were explaining himself, as though he needed to explain his presence to her, when surely it should be the other way around?

  ‘No, the telephone is somewhat hit and miss. How did you track me down? Did Mrs Probart tell you where I was?’

  ‘Yes and—I was a little confused. To get home and find you not there . . .’

  He heard himself say that but it sounded absurd, even to his own ears. I was a little confused! They were like strangers. He thought about the men in his unit, many of whom went home on leave and met and married some utterly unsuitable girl about whom they knew absolutely nothing and when they returned home a year, two years later, found they had nothing in common with the girl and the marriage had all been a ghastly mistake. But that hardly applied here—he and Diana had been married ten years before he had left for the war. And yet she was nervous, making small talk, avoiding meeting his eyes, fiddling with the teapot, starting at every sound. For the first time he wondered if there had been another man. The thought crept in, skirting just out of reach, and the air around him dropped a degree or two.

  ‘But why have you come up here, Diana?’ He saw her start as though he had banged the table. ‘And why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘But I did. I wrote to you as soon as I arranged it—though I see now that you didn’t get the letter before you set off. And I left my details with Mrs Probart, just in case. But really, I had no reason to expect you back, you gave no indication . . .’

  As I said ‘I only found out I was going the night before. Someone got sick and there was a spot on the aircraft. You sound almost as if you wish I hadn’t come home.’ And he laughed, though the laugh was like a heavy object falling.

  ‘Darling, that’s absurd! How silly you are.’ She reached across and touched his arm.

  The touch made him recoil. He did not believe her.

  ‘You still haven’t told me why you’ve come all the way up here.’

  ‘I’d have thought it was obvious, darling. It’s safe here. There are no bombs. No air raids.’

  ‘But there were no air raids at home! In London, yes, but not in Bucks, surely?’

  She stood up, cradling her cup in her hand though she had not touched the tea. ‘I was in London and I got caught in a raid. It was all rather beastly. I’m afraid I rather lost my nerve a bit after that.’ She sat down again, made herself look at him. ‘Darling, it’s awful to have to admit it after what you must have endured, and I know other people have to put up with it night after night, but I couldn’t do it. I just—the truth is, after that I no longer felt safe. Even in our home. It felt too close to London. And so I looked in the newspaper and I saw an advertisement and I wrote to Mr Inghamthorpe and here we are. I know it is cowardly of me, but surely you can understand?’

  And this, finally, did sound like the truth, for Gerald could see how very frightened she was, had been in fact since she had opened the door to him. She had been caught in a raid. Well, tougher soldiers than her had lost their nerve after a night of shelling; Lord knows he had lost it himself, on occasion, though he had got adept at hiding the fact. She did not need to hide it, not from him. Of course he understood! And he felt an enormous relief overcome him and he leaned over the table and grasped both her hands in his.

  ‘Diana, I do understand, of course I do. And there is no shame in it, none whatsoever. A lot of people have left London, I do realise that. Your safety is the most important thing, and if you feel safer up here then so be it.’

  This ought to have reassured her and yet the smile she gave him was the smile he had seen on the faces of young men the night before battle, the smile on the faces of the young sappers stepping into a minefield with only a bayonet and some marker flags. So he got up and came around the table and kneeled on the floor before her, still holding her hands and searching her face.

  ‘It really is alright, Diana, I promise. The war won’t go on too much longer, and in the meantime you and Abigail will stay up here where it’s safe and I’ll stay with you as long as I can, and when I go away I shall sleep sounder knowing you are both safe.’

  He reached up and touched her cheek, seeing all over again the girl from Pinner, anxious and out of her depth, whom he had met at a tennis party in Ruislip so many years before. He had fallen for that girl, had wanted to shield her from the world so that she never needed to feel anxious or out of her depth again, but he had failed. Failed her by his absence, failed her by his inability to grasp her fears. Gently he pull
ed her to her feet and enfolded her in his arms. He had failed her but, if he could, he would make it up to her.

  But she was quite rigid in his arms. Neither of them spoke and, after a long moment, and finding the embrace somehow awkward, he let her go.

  ‘But where is Abigail? I want to see her.’

  Diana spun away from him then, wrenching herself free and colliding with the edge of the table. She steadied herself and reached for the teapot. ‘She’s upstairs. But, darling, she’s sleeping. Don’t disturb her. We must have more tea. Can’t waste it, can we?’ And she waved the teapot at him with that same frantic smile.

  ‘But I don’t care if she’s asleep! It’s not every day her daddy comes home from the war, is it?’

  He started towards the little stepladder up to the loft but Diana darted forward and snatched at him, pulling him back.

  ‘Please, Gerald, don’t let’s disturb her. She was so tired, so dreadfully tired. Please let her sleep. You’ve no idea what an ordeal it’s been—first the dreadful raid and then the journey up here.’

  He stared at her. ‘You had Abigail with you when you were caught in the raid?’

  ‘Yes.’ Her eyes slid away from him. ‘I—we went up to London, just that once. For a pantomime. Just that one time. The raids seemed so infrequent. I took her with me. To a pantomime. And she enjoyed it so much! She laughed and laughed! Oh, you should have seen her!’

  So that was it. She blamed herself for taking Abigail to London, for getting them both caught in the raid. Gerald took a slow breath. ‘Then I am glad you took her with you,’ he declared, taking both her hands again. ‘She deserves to laugh and so do you. And there was no harm done, was there? I mean, here you both are.’

  But she ignored this. ‘We must have more tea!’ she said, pulling his hand.

  And now he was irritated. Why this damned obsession with the tea?

  ‘Later. Diana, I want to see her, even if she is still sleeping.’

  And before she could stop him he went to the stepladder, climbing nimbly, half expecting her to call out, to make a grab for him, but she did neither and he found himself on the upper floor. Really it was just the loft, a single open space with a tiny window at one end, the roof sloping away on either side and even at its apex too low for him to stand upright. There was a bed in the centre and a smaller child’s bed, hardly bigger than a cot, over by the window where his child slept. He felt a profound relief come over him and some part of him that had been wound very tightly slowly released. He moved softly over to the sleeping figure and in the fading winter daylight he gazed down at her beautiful fair curls.

  Her beautiful fair curls.

  Something clenched inside him. A pulse beat in his head. He went to the bed. He stood over her. Her beautiful fair curls. His little girl had fine dark hair. His little girl had a snub nose and her mother’s chin. He had three years of photographs to prove it.

  He did not know what it meant.

  ‘Abigail!’ His voice sounded unnaturally loud, like a shout on a morning that has been made silent by snow.

  ‘Gerald, please!’ Diana called to him, and he heard her coming up the steps, could not mistake the breathless panic in her voice that had been present, he realised, since she had opened the front door to him.

  The sleeping figure in the bed stirred, murmured, half turned, the hair fell away from her face. Gerald shook his head violently, trying to dispel this image, trying to make some order out of the confusion, but the image remained and his thoughts could find no order. He yanked the bedclothes back, grabbed the child’s thin little arms and pulled her up. The child’s face was very pale, its features were alien to him, a small mouth, a straight nose, full lips, a high forehead—there was nothing of himself, nothing of his wife here. As he held her, the child’s head lolled like a rag doll’s and her eyes flickered and rolled back in her head.

  ‘What’s wrong with her?’

  ‘I gave her a bromide to help her sleep. Poor little mite, she was so tired and distressed. You’ve no idea what she’s been like—’

  ‘But it’s not her!’ Gerald turned and stared at his wife, wildly searching her face. ‘Diana, it’s not Abigail!’

  But she stared dumbly at him.

  Gerald let go of the child and lurched towards his wife, taking both her arms, staring into her face.

  ‘Diana! It’s not her!’

  ‘Of course it is,’ she said simply, and her words were so calm, so quiet, but the ground had become a shifting sand dune beneath his feet.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  It was Harry who opened the door to Joe’s knock, his fingers curling around the doorframe, grey in the grey dawn, and something glinted in the meagre light: the blade of a knife. Anyone arriving at the house at this hour could not have good intentions and Harry was prepared. A hand shot out and grabbed Joe by his coat collar and pulled him inside. A glance up and down the street, the door hastily shut behind them. The knife was gone, stowed in some hidden pocket ready for the next person.

  ‘I told you not to come here.’

  Harry was a slight man, hair cut short like a squaddie’s and sprinkled with flecks of grey, a chin permanently darkened by stubble and unblinking pale grey eyes that rarely twinkled with laughter, quick movements and a quicker mind always four or five steps ahead of the man he was dealing with. How different might things be if it was Sammy opening the door on this frozen January dawn, but their older brother was doing a five-year stretch at Wandsworth Prison so it was Harry who peered at Joe in the half-light, his face displaying that habitual expression of watchful wariness, and when he saw it was his younger brother at the door the expression did not change.

  ‘I been on the run,’ said Joe. ‘The cops was waiting for me at the docks. It weren’t just some random security check—they was waiting for me.’

  These words sounded to Joe like words spoken by another man living another life, not his words, not his life. He needed to explain the last eight days, his flight, the line of ambulances outside the hospital. But Harry had taken over the whole of the tenement house in Yalta Street where his father and mother had once lived in two rooms, and he had taken over the two terraces on each side, and he had taken over Myra, too, who had once been Sammy’s girl, installing her in one house and using the other as a place of work. Harry wouldn’t care about the line of ambulances. He wouldn’t care about the dead little girl.

  ‘And you come here?’

  Harry grabbed him by the collar in the darkened hallway and slammed him against the wall. He had done this often when they were younger and Joe, even now he was older, bigger, stronger, had never fought back. He did not fight back now.

  ‘I had nowhere else to go.’

  ‘There’s always somewhere else to go. If you don’t have some place set up where you can hide out then you’re a bloody fool.’

  ‘I ain’t like you,’ Joe said. ‘I don’t need places to hide out.’

  He was not like Harry. Harry was the ten-year-old boy standing on a corner, hands thrust deep in pockets, watching everyone and everything as though there was money to be made by it, as though the thing he could pull from his pocket might make his fortune or bring down his enemies. When the war had come Harry was ready. As the first ration books had flown off the government printing presses, as they had made their way by armoured lorry to the new Food Offices around the country, Harry had found a printer in Limehouse and soon the presses were running through the night spitting out fake ration books, then forged identity cards, and later, when clothes became rationed, fake clothing coupons too. As the war had progressed and it was simpler to go straight to the source, robbing the ration books directly from the Food Offices, he bought the stolen books for two quid each and sold them on for three. Lately he had turned his attention to the American and Canadian airbases that had sprung up and were stuffed to bursting with cigars, oranges, peanut butter, chocolate, coffee, fruit juice—and silk too, if you had no qualms about taking some poor sod’s parachute,
which Harry did not. It was a profitable time, war. As his older brother sewed mailbags and his younger brother shovelled coal in a stinking ship’s engine room, Harry Levin had done very nicely. But with the war into its fifth year, with the government bringing in new laws and ever more severe penalties, the risk-free undetectable crimes of three, four years ago were a thing of the past. Harry was jumpy—Joe could see it, feel it, but he couldn’t share it.

  ‘I ain’t like you, Harry,’ he said again. ‘I’m a sailor. A husband. A dad.’

  Harry snorted. ‘You gave all that away when you agreed to work for me—and what the hell happened to your head?’

  Joe put a hand up to his head, touching the bandage. He had forgotten. He suddenly felt unwell. ‘I got hit by something.’

  Harry made no reply, studying Joe as though seeking some family resemblance, some hint they were related. He let go of Joe’s collar and stalked off into the kitchen.

  For a moment Joe didn’t move. He had come home on leave in October and gone to work at the docks. He had returned home with tins of peaches in syrup, with a can of Carnation milk, and they had fallen on him, his wife and kids. And Nancy had assumed that was the extent of it, one or two items pilfered when the Docks Police weren’t looking, a couple of cans hidden in his lunchbox, no harm done, everyone was doing it. And it had suited him that she think this. She didn’t need to know her brother-in-law was at the centre of a full-scale operation that involved bribes to dockyard guards and a corrupt superintendent, holes cut into the wire of the perimeter fence, guard dogs doped and drivers waiting in stolen vans to cart the stuff away to receivers spread all across London; an operation that involved whole crates of sugar, tea, tinned goods—anything, really, that had made it across in the convoys and could be shifted through a hole in a fence and in the back of a lorry. Harry had required a man on the inside, someone he could trust. Who better than his own brother? So Joe had gone to work at the dockyard, Joe had become Harry’s man on the inside.