Unwrapping another Christmas tree decoration, Kate wondered what the circumstances of her own confinement would be. Whenever an air raid caught her out at home, and not at the canteen, she sat it out in the Anderson shelter with Hector, the loneliness of such hours exacerbated by the knowledge that no-one else in Magnolia Square was enduring the aerial bombardment in such isolation.
In their Morrison shelter, Miss Helliwell and her sister had each other for company. Leah Singer and Christina Frank and Billy and Beryl and Bonzo, all crammed communally in the Jennings’ Anderson shelter. Hettie had begun accompanying Miriam to the public shelter at the bottom of Magnolia Hill, where a rowdy crush and a sing-song were guaranteed comforters through the agonizing hours until the all-clear siren sounded. Charlie Robson remained in his own bed during the nights when raids were bad.
‘I’m as safe there as anywhere, petal,’ he had said fatalistically to Kate. ‘If a bomb ’as your number on it, it’ll find you wherever you are. And if one of the buggers ’as my number on it I might as well die in the comfort of my own bed as in a perishin’ cold Anderson shelter or crammed next to Miriam and ’ettie and their perishin’ knittin’ needles.’
If she hadn’t been pregnant and had the baby’s safety to think of, Kate might have emulated him. When she was at the canteen, and when the raids were at their height, she had used a public shelter along with the canteen’s other voluntary workers. Now, however, she no longer made the difficult trip into Deptford.
Ever since her surname had become public knowledge at the canteen she had been made to feel unwelcome. The cratered streets she had to negotiate to reach Deptford had also begun to deter her. Ordinarily she wouldn’t have given them a thought, but she was now nearly seven months pregnant and she didn’t want to risk a heavy fall and a miscarriage.
She adjusted the decorations on the Christmas tree, surveying them critically, wondering if she was foolish in not ending the loneliness of the hours spent in the Anderson shelter by joining other local people in the public shelter.
A small, glittering, silver bell was making the decorations on the left side of the tree unequal to those on the right-hand side and she hung it more centrally. If she went into the public shelter she risked meeting with the same kind of abuse she had suffered in Mr Nibbs’ shop. Miriam and Hettie certainly wouldn’t make her welcome and, as she had already painfully discovered, it was possible to be far more lonely in a hostile crowd than on her own.
‘I’ll stick to the Anderson, Hector,’ she said as she draped tinsel over the tree. ‘And I’ll keep my fingers crossed that the baby doesn’t decide to make its arrival when there’s a raid on!’
On Christmas Eve, returning from a visit to her new grocer in Lewisham, Kate saw Carrie and Christina ahead of her. They were obviously deep in conversation and occasionally Kate heard the faint, familiar sound of Carrie’s infectious laughter.
A pang, almost of physical pain, knifed through her. Though Carrie was no doubt still worrying frantically about Danny’s whereabouts and welfare, she had family and friends to comfort her and offer a companionship that took her mind, however intermittently and temporarily, off her anxieties.
Her own footsteps slowed. She had had to queue a long time at the grocer’s for her weekly rations and an even longer period of time at the butcher’s. Her back ached and the baby in her womb felt as heavy as lead. It was bitterly cold and as she hadn’t enough clothing coupons to buy a new winter coat, one that would wrap over the lump that was the baby, she had had to keep moving the buttons on her existing coat. In the early months of her pregnancy this ploy had been satisfactory, but was so no longer. A heavy, knee-length, hand-knitted scarf filled in the gap where her coat no longer met and fastened, but it wasn’t an ideal solution and she was not only tired, but cold.
The distance between herself and Carrie and Christina lengthened. They turned off Lewisham High Street into Magnolia Hill, companionably arm in arm, and Kate’s footsteps became even slower. Christmas Eve. Even though last Christmas had been the first Christmas of the war, it had been heaven in comparison. Last Christmas her father had been at home. Last Christmas Toby had been alive. It began to sleet and within minutes she could feel the damp seeping through her headscarf. Hector looked up at her miserably, not understanding why she didn’t stride out vigorously for the shelter of home, or even break into a sensible run.
‘Sorry, Hector,’ she said, reading his thoughts and transferring her wicker shopping-basket from one hand to the other, ‘but I don’t want to catch Carrie and Christina up and don’t think I could, even if I tried. I’m tired and my back aches.’
With the wind blowing the sleet stingingly against her face, she turned the corner into Magnolia Hill. A middle-aged woman she knew only by sight nearly walked into her, coming from the other direction. Taken by surprise, Kate smiled apologetically as she side-stepped her bulk out of the woman’s way. ‘Sorry,’ she said to her. ‘It’s miserable weather isn’t it?’ and then, remembering that it was Christmas Eve, she added, ‘Merry Christmas.’
The woman paused for a moment before walking on, staring at Kate hard. No answering smile touched her mouth. ‘I don’t speak to Krauts,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘And I hope you have a piss-miserable Christmas!’
Shock, as fresh as if the insult had been the very first she had received, almost robbed Kate of breath. She had been born in Magnolia Square. Her mother, and her mother’s parents, and her mother’s grandparents and goodness knew how many other generations on her mother’s side of her family, had all been born and bred in South London. How could her neighbours be so unreasonable as to treat her as though she were a German-born, German spy? She’d never even been to Germany. She didn’t know a word of the language apart from the words of endearment her father sometimes used when speaking to her.
The woman was already yards away, heading towards Lewisham, her cuban-heeled shoes click-clacking on the pavement.
Kate resisted the urge to hurry after the woman and seize hold of her and try to hammer some reason into her head. She knew from past experience she would be wasting her time and Hector was miserably wet, his tail hanging unhappily between his legs. ‘Come on, Hector,’ she said as the baby gave her a hefty kick, ‘let’s get home and get dry and, as it’s Christmas, I’ll put a decent amount of coal on the fire and leave worrying about running out of it until another day.’
She had just turned into the Square when she first became aware of the sailor. Living so near to the river and the docks and Greenwich Naval College, the sight of both Royal Navy officers and sailors and Merchant Seamen, often with kit-bags over their shoulder as this seaman had, was a common sight. What wasn’t quite so common was seeing one injured and the young man now walking up the Jennings’ pathway was doing so with the aid of a crutch. Even less common, at least in Magnolia Square, was a sailor who was black.
Carrie and Christina had long since disappeared into the house and Kate’s first reaction, on seeing the young man knock at the Jennings’ front door, was to hope fiercely that it wouldn’t be Carrie who opened the door to him. She was too near to the Jennings’ house now for the person who opened the door to be able to pretend that they hadn’t seen her. And to be cut by Carrie, on Christmas Eve, would be a hurt too deep to be even imagined.
With blessed relief she saw Miriam’s ample figure open the door. She also saw the expression of startled surprise on her face. Whoever the Jennings’ visitor was, he quite obviously wasn’t expected.
‘No, I haven’t!’ she heard Miriam say, indignation in her voice. ‘I don’t know who gave you your information, but they were wrong.’
Even before the young man had turned, doing so awkwardly as he balanced his kit-bag on one shoulder with one hand and manipulated his crutch with the other, the Jennings’ front door was slammed shut.
He reached the bottom of the short, sleet-covered pathway, just as Kate was passing the gate.
‘Excuse me,’ he said in a voice so rich and d
ark that Kate found herself wondering what his singing voice would be like. ‘My billeting officer told me Mrs Jennings took in lodgers but it appears he was misinformed. You don’t know of anyone around here who does take in lodgers, do you?’
Despite his need of a crutch, the misery of the weather and his obvious homelessness, there was nothing remotely dejected about him. He had a jaunty manner and the smile lines running from nose to mouth indicated he was a young man who laughed easily and often. He wasn’t laughing now though. Despite his lack of dejection a slightly concerned frown had begun to crease his brow. Considering that it was already late afternoon on Christmas Eve, it was a concern Kate could well understand.
Regretfully she shook her head. ‘No. There are rumours that all householders will soon be answerable to civil billeting officers and everyone in Magnolia Square has been notified that if they have spare rooms they will be expected to offer accommodation to families bombed-out of their homes, but the scheme isn’t up and running yet, at least not in this area, and I don’t know of anyone who takes in boarders. I’m sorry.’
He shrugged philosophically. ‘Not to worry. I’ll find somewhere. It would be nice if this sleet turned to proper snow, wouldn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ she said, his cheery good humour making her forget how low-spirited she had been feeling. A thought occurred to her and she said, ‘I think Mrs Collins took lodgers in at one time. She and her husband live on the other side of Magnolia Square at number thirty-six.’
He shot her a wide grin, his teeth brilliantly white against his dark skin. ‘Thanks,’ he said, shifting his kit-bag a little more comfortably on his shoulder. ‘I’ll give her a try. Cheerio.’
‘Cheerio.’
As he set off towards the far side of the Square, Kate shrugged off the unhappy encounter of a few moments ago. Not everyone was viciously unpleasant. Even if the young man, whose innate good humour had so raised her spirits, had known of her father’s nationality, she doubted if his reaction would have been one of jingoistic prejudice.
‘Merry Christmas!’ he called after her as an afterthought, over his shoulder.
For the first time in a long time her generously full mouth broke into a wide smile. ‘Merry Christmas!’ she called back, barely aware now of the cold and damp.
As she continued on her way up her own side of Magnolia Square she reflected that if her father had been at home, she would have had no hesitation at all in suggesting to the young sailor that he board with them. Under her present circumstances, however, such a suggestion was impossible. Her illegitimate pregnancy had already ensured that her moral reputation was next to non-existent. If she took in a sailor it would be reduced to zero and she would find herself regarded as the local whore.
Yet again she shifted her shopping-basket from one hand to the other. She had long given up worrying what her neighbours and former friends thought of her, but she couldn’t be so cavalier where the coming baby was concerned. Her child would have enough coarse and cruel remarks to contend with without being burdened with even more.
She was still several yards or so from her gate when Leah Singer and Miss Helliwell turned the top corner of the Square. As they approached her Kate could clearly hear their remarks.
‘I told him, if he thought someone in Magnolia Square took in lodgers he should speak with his billeting officer and get a proper address,’ Miss Helliwell was saying in the same tone of indignation that had been in Miriam’s voice a little while earlier. ‘Though how a billeting officer could be so insensitive as to give a Magnolia Square address to a black man, I really don’t know. There must be plenty of his own kind down near the docks. Why doesn’t he try there?’
‘He’ll have to,’ Leah responded dryly. ‘Can you imagine what husbands away fighting would say if they knew a black man had taken up board and lodging in their homes? There’d be a right old shemozzle.’
Both of them had become aware of her; neither of them greeted her.
‘He didn’t speak like a black man,’ Miss Helliwell was saying reflectively as Kate opened her gate and they passed within feet of her. ‘He spoke quite good English. In fact he sounded very like Sir Richard Grenville.’
‘And who is he?’ Leah said, keeping her head carefully averted from Kate.
Kate thought of all the happy times she had spent in the Jennings’ home; of Leah barrelling to the front door to meet and greet her, her hands and arms dusted with flour; of the oven-warm bagels and blintzes she had pressed on her; the way Leah had always affectionately bantered and teased her.
‘He was one of England’s most illustrious naval commanders,’ Miss Helliwell said, her voice warming with enthusiasm as it always did when the conversation veered round to her contact with the dear departed. ‘He was captain of The Revenge which, when England was at war with Spain, fought alone against the Spanish fleet. Tennyson wrote a beautiful poem about it. I contacted him in order to ask him if he had any advice for dear Mr Churchill.’
What Leah’s reaction was Kate didn’t hear. She was already climbing the steps that led towards her front door, her fleeting feeling of good cheer entirely dissipated.
The young sailor they were so sure would never find board and lodgings in Magnolia Square had been recently injured. It was an injury he had almost certainly received whilst on active service and yet Leah and Miss Helliwell were speaking of him as though he were not a member of Britain’s armed forces, but an outsider. He was being shamefully ostracized, just as she was being ostracized.
When she reached the top step she turned and, much to Hector’s impatience, instead of unlocking the door and stepping into the comparative warmth beyond, looked out across the Square.
Dark was falling rapidly but she could still see Leah and Miss Helliwell, talking nineteen to the dozen. She could also see the sailor. He was walking back down Hettie’s front path towards the gate and she knew instinctively by the set of his shoulders that he had met with the same kind of refusal from Hettie as he had from Miriam.
As she watched he closed the gate behind him with difficulty, hampered by his kit-bag and crutch, and then he set off towards the bottom end of the Square and Magnolia Hill.
Hector whined and pawed at her coat.
‘Just a minute, Hector,’ she said, putting her shopping-basket down on the sleet-covered ground.
From the direction of the church she could hear the choir singing carols and knew that they would be doing so with tin hats and gas canisters within hands’ reach, ready for a quick dash to the public shelter if an air raid siren should sound.
With Hector barking protestingly behind her, she retraced her steps to her front gate and leaned over it, staring down the Park, straining her eyes in the deepening darkness, wondering what course of action to take. It was Christmas Eve. The young sailor was obviously far from home and just as obviously had only recently been discharged from hospital. Whatever his injury, it was a pretty safe bet that he had sustained it under enemy fire. And because of his skin colour he was being treated as a social outcast.
‘I’m going to let you in the house,’ she said to the sleet-soaked Hector as she turned around and walked back up the steps to the front door, ‘but I’m not coming in with you. Not just yet.’
She turned the key in the latch and as Hector bounded gratefully towards the kitchen and his snug blanket-lined box she lifted her shopping-basket inside the hall. Then she stepped outside again, closing the door behind her, and as the church choir launched into ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’ she began to hurriedly retrace her footsteps towards Magnolia Hill.
Chapter Fourteen
Ahead of her, in the deepening gloom, she could see the distinctive white of his kit-bag as it bobbed on his shoulder. When he reached the bottom end of Magnolia Hill and The Swan he hesitated for a moment and then entered the saloon-bar. Minutes later Kate followed him.
Despite her father having once been a regular visitor to The Swan she had only stepped over the threshold a couple of times befor
e, usually when it was a Sunday and her father had become so engrossed in Cricket Club matters or a game of darts that he had forgotten the time and the roast dinner awaiting him at home. Then she had had to walk down to The Swan to break the news to him that if he didn’t return home soon his dinner would be ruined.
A dozen pair of masculine eyes turned in her direction in disbelief. Albert, resplendent in his cobbled-together Home Guard uniform, was sitting at a table with Daniel Collins. Both men had pint glasses of beer in their hands. At the sight of Kate, Albert was so startled that he slopped a good measure of the precious substance on to the coarse cloth of his trousers.
Nibbo, who only ever fraternized with his costermonger rival when, as an Air Raid Warden, his duties demanded he do so, was standing at the bar with Charlie. ‘What the bloody hell . . .’ he began in stunned disbelief.
‘What are you doing in ’ere, petal?’ Charlie asked, before Nibbo became blatantly abusive. ‘You’ve taken the wrong door, though it’s a mistake anyone could make in this perishin’ black-out.’
The sailor was also standing at the bar and was also regarding her with surprise. Considering the advanced state of her pregnancy, Kate didn’t blame him. She hardly cut the figure of a young woman out on her own, hoping to pick up some masculine company and have a good time.
‘It’s all right, Charlie,’ she said, walking towards the bar. ‘I haven’t made a mistake.’
Once at the beer-stained bar she turned towards the bemused sailor. ‘I take it Mrs Collins wasn’t able to offer you accommodation?’ she asked, as The Swan’s landlord said loudly and unnecessarily, ‘I don’t serve ladies in here!’
‘No.’ In the light of the pub she saw that he wasn’t as black as she had first thought. His good-natured face was more dusky chocolate-brown than ebony.
‘You can board with me,’ she said, seeing no sense in not coming to the point straight away.
The Londoners Page 24
