It was the last thing in the world she would have wanted to do. She still had nightmares about Toby’s death; envisaging him trapped in the burning cockpit of his plane, and the mere prospect of watching other pilots die in such a hideous fashion made her blood run cold with horror.
As she neared the Heath she saw, in the sky to the south where Biggin Hill aerodrome was located, the tell-tale circular vapour trails that indicated a close-fought battle had recently taken place. Not for the first time she wondered if Lance Merton was still alive or if he, too, had ‘bought’ it, like Toby and Toby’s friend and Hector’s initial owner, Rory.
Her gas mask canister bumped uncomfortably against her thigh as she stepped on to the daisy-starred grass of the Heath. In retrospect she now felt she had behaved incredibly stupidly where Lance Merton was concerned. If she had invited him into the house for a cup of tea he would, no doubt, have talked to her about Toby and she desperately wanted the comfort of being able to talk with someone about Toby. There was no-one with whom she could do so. Carrie had barely known him. Miss Godfrey had known him only well enough to exchange an occasional friendly greeting with him. And any hopes that the baby she was expecting would forge a bond between herself and Joss Harvey had been crushed into total annihilation.
She felt a shudder run down her spine as, for the first time since leaving the boardroom, she allowed herself to think back on what had been said between them. Joss Harvey had behaved despicably. As she reflected on his coarseness and crassness, the numbness that had enveloped her began to ebb and a positive sensation, almost buoyant, began to replace it.
Without intending to do so, he had simplified her future and her baby’s future. She now had no need to take him into account in any way whatsoever.
‘It’s just going to be the two of us . . . and Dad,’ she said, passing her hand once again across her stomach. ‘And we’re going to manage perfectly, just as Carrie and Rose manage with Danny never at home now.’
‘I don’t think you’re being very practical,’ Carrie said frankly as she swept up the rubbish that had accumulated around her market stall. ‘Joss Harvey isn’t just anyone, Kate. He’s rich. Filthy rich. His acknowledging the baby could transform the baby’s life.’
‘I don’t want Joss Harvey’s money, thank you very much,’ Kate said tartly, shifting her basket of shopping from one hand to the other, Hector sitting patiently on the pavement by her feet. ‘And I’m surprised at you even thinking that I would do.’
‘Not even to help rear the baby?’ Carrie asked, pausing in her task and leaning on the handle of her sweeping-brush. ‘Having an illegitimate kid isn’t a doddle at the best of times, Kate. Having one in the middle of a war, when your mum isn’t alive to give you moral support and your dad is in an internment camp, is going to be a bloomin’ nightmare.’
‘I have a home,’ Kate said stubbornly. ‘And I can make use of it. I can take lodgers in. Lots of women in the Auxiliary Territorial Service have been drafted into the munitions factories in Woolwich and they must all be in need of decent lodgings.’
Carrie regarded her exasperatedly, her hands raw from handling boxes and sacks of produce, her fingernails grimy. ‘That’d be all well and good if it was a necessity, Kate. But it isn’t a necessity. Or it shouldn’t be.’ She pushed a wing of hair away from her face, leaving a dirt smudge on her forehead as she did so. ‘Toby was Joss Harvey’s only family. If he had lived he would have been his grandfather’s only heir. Now that he’s dead, all that Joss Harvey possesses should go, eventually, to Toby’s child. And if Joss Harvey could be made to believe that the baby you are carrying is Toby’s child, that is exactly what would happen.’
‘Nothing on earth will ever convince Joss Harvey that my baby is Toby’s.’ Kate’s jaw was set stubbornly, her eyes fierce. ‘And he’s such a nasty, offensive man that I don’t want him to acknowledge my baby. I don’t want him to have anything to do with my baby.’
Carrie shook her head despairingly, recognizing the note of mulish determination that had entered Kate’s voice and knowing that nothing on earth would now shift her in her opinion. It had been the same when they had been children. Though she was the quicker-tempered of the two of them, it was Kate who, when her anger was roused or her mind made up about anything, was quietly and utterly implacable.
‘I still think you’re making a mistake,’ she said, returning to her task and sweeping discarded cabbage leaves into the gutter. ‘And what’s more, when the baby grows up, he or she might very well think so as well!’
‘And so Dad’s out looking for a new cart,’ Carrie said a little while later as they turned off Lewisham High Street into Magnolia Hill. ‘If it wasn’t for petrol rationing I think he’d have retired Nobby and looked around for a second-hand van. Nobby must be seventeen now and that’s getting on a bit for a horse. As it is, he’s going to have to make do with whatever he can find. If he’s repaired the old cart once, he’s repaired it a hundred times and it simply fell apart yesterday morning in the Old Kent Road. Apparently there were potatoes and carrots and caulies everywhere and Dad swears he recognized Miss Helliwell scarpering off with a cabbage under her coat.’
Knowing that Carrie was trying to amuse her, Kate smiled, but it was a smile without any real warmth and she didn’t pursue the subject of either Albert Jennings’ search for a cart or Miss Helliwell’s speedy appropriation of one of his accidentally spilled cabbages. Ever since the day her father had been arrested and interned, the neighbours who had stood by, watching with tacit approval, had not spoken to her, nor she to them.
Where Miss Helliwell was concerned, Kate felt bleakly regretful. The anguished expression on Miss Helliwell’s face, whenever their paths crossed, spoke volumes and Kate was sure that Miss Helliwell was deeply bewildered by the scene that had taken place that morning and the division that had since sprung up between them.
As Hector padded obediently at her heels and Carrie chattered about Rose, she thought back to the long-ago evening when Miss Helliwell had read her palm. Much of what Miss Helliwell had forecast had come true. After the heartache she had experienced when Jerry Robson had been killed, she had found true love and great happiness with Toby.
She thought of the baby growing in her womb and remembered Miss Helliwell telling her that it was a love from which nothing but good would come. She also remembered Miss Helliwell’s reluctance to spell out her future to her in detail and knowing now how her palm must have revealed Toby’s tragic, early death, she understood that reluctance all too well.
Carrie broke in on her thoughts abruptly.
‘What’s that outside my house?’ she asked in sudden alarm as they entered the Square. ‘It looks like a hearse!’
For one stunned moment both of them came to a halt, staring at the unmistakably majestic, horse-drawn funeral hearse standing directly outside Carrie’s home and then, her face drained of colour, Carrie broke into a run.
Slightly hampered by her heavy shopping-basket, Kate ran in her wake, Hector, delighted by the unexpected change of pace, bounding delightedly by her side.
By the time they raced up to the hearse a group of interested spectators had already collected around it. Hettie Collins, her black hat for once looking remarkably appropriate, was saying in a loud voice: ‘But why isn’t the horse wearing purple funeral plumes? He should be doing. It’s only proper.’
‘Where’s Mum?’ Carrie gasped, pushing her way through the small crowd. ‘Where’s Dad? What’s happened? Who’s died?’
Mavis was nearest to the hearse, resplendent in a shiny, tight rayon skirt and teeteringly high wedged-heel shoes. ‘No-one yet,’ she said with remarkable placidity, ‘but stick around. A murder’s likely any minute.’
‘But who . . .’ Carrie began agitatedly.
Mavis grinned, enjoying herself hugely. ‘Dad. If Mum doesn’t kill him over this, ’e’s safe for life.’
Before Carrie could demand an explanation her front door burst open and her father nearly fel
l on the pathway in his haste to be out of the house, a frying-pan and a saucepan raining down around him.
‘Clear off down The Swan, you great silly bugger!’ Miriam shrieked from behind him, handicapped by having nothing else near at hand to throw in the general direction of his head. ‘If you think I’m ridin’ up the Old Kent Road in a bloomin’ ’earse every mornin’ you’ve got another bloody think comin’!’
‘This,’ Mavis said to a vastly relieved Carrie and indicating the hearse behind her, ‘is Dad’s new cart. He says he’ll be able to get twice as much fruit and veg in it than he could in a normal horse and cart and he also thinks it’s got style. Mum,’ she added unnecessarily as Miriam hurled a further torrent of abuse after Albert, her arms folded across her heaving chest and every metal curler in her hair bristling with indignation, ‘doesn’t agree with him.’
‘I wouldn’t want to tangle with your mam when she’s in a takin’,’ said Charlie Robson to Mavis, wisely keeping his voice low so that Miriam shouldn’t overhear him, ‘but your dad’s got a point. Not only will he be able to cram more in the ’earse than an ordinary ’orsecart, but all the other traffic on the road will give way to ’im. They always do for funeral ’earses. It’s traditional.’
‘Charlie’s right,’ Daniel Collins said, admiration in his voice for Charlie’s unusual show of perception and for Albert’s imaginative astuteness. ‘Even army vehicles give way for a hearse. Albert will be up and back from Covent Garden every morning quicker than it takes to spit.’
‘I ’eard that, Daniel Collins!’ Miriam said furiously, rounding on him so suddenly that one of her metal hair curlers went flying into the street. ‘And if you think ’avin’ a ’earse is such a good idea I’ll tell Albert to stick it outside your ’ouse and then we’ll see how you like it!’
‘I fink we’d better go dahn The Swan, Daniel,’ Charlie said nervously. ‘I fink things are gettin’ a bit ’ot ’ere.’
‘I think I’ll come with you,’ Mavis said, rightly judging that most of the fun was now over and that her father would be in need of all the family support he could get. ‘Are you comin’ with us, Carrie?’
‘No. I haven’t even stepped inside the house yet and I’ve Rose to bath and put to bed.’
Ever since Ted had marched away to training camp Mavis had taken to calling in for a drink at The Swan more and more often and it was a habit Carrie strongly disapproved of.
She said now, impatience replacing relief in her voice, ‘Shouldn’t you be making Billy and Beryl’s supper? Where are they? Or don’t you know?’
‘They’ve taken Bonzo up the ’eath,’ Mavis said, well aware of Carrie’s disapproval and totally uncaring of it. ‘Billy will be racin’ down the banks of the gravel pit near Black’eath Village, crankin’ his arms and screechin’ at the top of his voice and pretendin’ to be a Stuka dive-bomber and Beryl and Bonzo will be the poor little sods dived upon. When they come ’ome they’ll know where I am and come down for me and I’ll give them some money for some chips. OK?’
‘Not with me,’ Carrie said shortly. ‘And it wouldn’t be OK with Ted, either.’
‘What Ted doesn’t know ’e can’t grieve over,’ Mavis said philosophically, ‘and I’m not carryin’ on this argument any longer. Mum’s given enough of a free show for one day without you and me givin’ another.’
It was a statement Carrie couldn’t disagree with and as Mavis began to saunter off towards Magnolia Hill and The Swan, accompanied by Charlie and Daniel, she turned to Kate, saying wearily, ‘I’ll pop up and see you later. After I’ve bathed Rose.’
Kate nodded and, as she walked away from the cluster of neighbours still gathered around the Jennings’ gateway, she heard Hettie saying insistently, ‘I don’t care what anyone says. If that horse is pulling a hearse it should have purple plumes on its head!’
‘I’ve never been so shocked by anything in my life,’ Miss Pierce said to her half an hour later as she sat at Kate’s kitchen table after popping in on her from Miss Godfrey’s. ‘When Mr Muff told me you had been dismissed I thought he’d taken leave of his senses. “She can’t have been dismissed,” I said to him. “I’m the Personnel Officer. No-one is dismissed without my being informed of the decision beforehand.” Then he told me of your interview with Mr Harvey.’
Kate had made her a cup of tea and her fingers tightened on the handle of her teacup. ‘I realized then that the gossip flying around the offices had come to Mr Harvey’s ears and that, disbelieving it, he had dismissed you.’
Her pleasant, plain face was deeply concerned. ‘Harriet thinks I should request an interview with Mr Harvey and that I should tell him that I know, beyond any shadow of doubt, that the gossip about yourself and his grandson is true and that . . .’
‘No!’ Kate pushed her chair away from the table and stood up so suddenly that tea slopped into her cup’s saucer. ‘Mr Harvey wasn’t only abusive to me because he thought I was lying about my relationship with Toby, he was also abusive to me because of my German blood. He’s a horrid, hideous old man and I don’t want to have anything to do with him ever again!’
Miss Pierce regarded her with an appalled expression. ‘But don’t you think . . .’ she began. It was a sentence that remained unfinished. A sound neither of them had ever heard before impinged on their consciousness. It was a dull, heavy roar. A roar that was becoming ever louder.
‘Planes!’ Miss Pierce said, pushing her chair away from the table and rising unsteadily to her feet. ‘Hundreds of them! Are they ours or are they German?’
It was still daylight and Kate rushed towards the back door, flinging it open. Eastwards, over the Thames, the sky was dark with approaching bombers.
‘They’re German!’ she shouted to Miss Pierce as air raid sirens screamed into life. ‘Run into the shelter! I’ll be with you the minute I’ve got Hector!’
From where she was standing she could see Mr Nibbs sprinting down the length of his garden towards his Anderson shelter, his braces down and his trouser flies open, indicating that the Germans had caught him at a very inconvenient moment. Dimly, over the cacophony of wailing sirens and the increasingly deafening roar of the fast-approaching planes, Charlie could be heard shouting frantically for Queenie.
‘Harriet!’ Miss Pierce said urgently. ‘What about Harriet? We can’t leave her on her own at a moment like this!’
Hector had already bolted to Kate’s side, terrified by the din. Kate grabbed hold of his collar and thrust him towards Miss Pierce. ‘Take Hector and get into the shelter!’ she shouted at her. ‘I’ll go for Miss Godfrey!’
As she wrenched the door open, she saw Bob Giles on the far side of the square, sprinting hell for leather towards the vicarage.
Over nearby Woolwich and the Arsenal and ammunition factories, bombs were already falling. Knowing that at any second similar deathly cargoes would be plummeting down over Lewisham, Catford and Blackheath, she hurtled up Miss Godfrey’s path and steps, praying to God that the front door would be off the latch. For the first time in her life she burst into Miss Godfrey’s home without knocking.
‘Miss Godfrey! Miss Godfrey!’ she shouted, racing through the house towards the kitchen. ‘Miss Pierce is already in my garden shelter! Come on! There isn’t a second to lose!’
Miss Godfrey strode to meet her, tweed-suited as always. A tin hat emblazoned with the letter ‘A’ for ambulance was strapped firmly beneath her chin. Her gas mask canister was over her shoulder and her arms were full of blankets.
‘Go back and join Miss Pierce immediately, Katherine,’ she said authoritatively. ‘As a voluntary ambulance driver it is my duty to report immediately to my ARP Centre.’
Kate stared at her aghast and then, knowing instantly that it would be useless to argue with her, she spun on her heel and, with Miss Godfrey close behind her, ran towards the still open door.
The thunder of aircraft and the force of exploding bombs blasted their eardrums. The sky above Woolwich and all points east along the Tham
es was an inferno of flames and billowing smoke.
For one brief instant Miss Godfrey halted, barely able to comprehend the sight that met her eyes. ‘Dear God in heaven!’ she whispered. ‘They’re razing the East End to the ground!’
Kate couldn’t hear her, but she could read her lips. She thought of the crowded tenements in Poplar and Canning Town and East Ham and knew that at last, after the long period of the ‘Phoney War’ when Hitler’s attention had been focussed upon the Netherlands and Belgium and France and the previous few weeks, when the war had been fought out between RAF and Luftwaffe fighter pilots, what everyone had always dreaded was finally happening. The war had come to London and people were being crushed and blasted and burnt to death in their homes.
The bulk of the bombers were nearly directly overhead and as Miss Godfrey began to sprint out of the Square in the direction of the ARP Centre only three other figures were visible. One of them was Daniel Collins in his Auxiliary Fire Service uniform, quite clearly as courageously intent on the same destination as Miss Godfrey. The other two were Billy and Beryl.
Billy was staring up at the planes in rapt wonderment. Beryl, a hair-ribbon adrift and hanging loosely down over her right ear, was standing beside him, her hand trustingly in his.
Bombs were beginning to fall much nearer now. Shrapnel was dancing down the far pavement and as Kate raced across to them she was aware of a great feeling of suction and compression pulling and pushing her.
‘Come with me!’ she shouted to Billy, seizing hold of Beryl and tucking her bodily beneath one arm as acrid smoke billowed around them, almost robbing her of breath. ‘For the love of God, Billy! RUN!’
Billy didn’t want to run. He wanted to watch the bombers and the massive explosions destroying the docks, and the fires in Woolwich leaping hundreds of feet high.
The Londoners Page 20
