The Londoners

by Margaret Pemberton

  ‘I’m glad you’ve got the little fella back home with you,’ Nellie Miller said to her as Kate bandaged her legs, ‘but you don’t want to be too complacent. A man like old ’arvey won’t take kindly to being bested. What you need is a solicitor . . .’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ Kate said with feeling. ‘I went to a solicitor when I was trying to get Matthew back legally and he was stupefyingly unhelpful.’

  ‘That’s because he was a man,’ Nellie said dismissively. ‘What you need is a lady solicitor and I know just where to find one.’ She lifted a bandaged leg out of the way with both hands and submitted the other leg for treatment. ‘This will probably come as a surprise to you, and it came as a surprise to my brother as well, but his eldest girl, Ruby, is a qualified solicitor. Gawd knows where she got the learnin’ from, but she’s sharp as a razor and if anyone can take on old ’arvey, she can.’

  ‘Mr Harvey doesn’t have any legal rights whatsoever where Matthew is concerned,’ Ruby Miller said breezily, a cigarette crammed into the corner of a carmine-red mouth. ‘And in case he thinks he can make a fight of it, in my letter of warning to him I shall point out that he is both a liar and a thief and that he runs the risk of these regrettable qualities coming to public notice.’

  ‘A thief?’ Kate said, startled. ‘I’m not sure that . . .’

  ‘He stole your child from you,’ Ruby said flatly. ‘Pillars of the community do not resort to baby-thieving. Nor can they afford to be branded liars and I shall inform him that I am quite prepared to testify against him on both counts. Now to practicalities, I don’t suppose you’re adverse to Matthew visiting him as long as you can be sure he won’t try and pull another fast one on you, are you? It would be daft not to when that little nipper of yours could stand to inherit a tidy sum.’

  ‘If I do agree to Matthew occasionally visiting him, it’s not because of mercenary reasons, it’s because I know that it is what his father would have wanted,’ Kate said, feeling breathless by the speed at which events were now beginning to move.

  Ruby grinned and took the cigarette from her mouth. ‘I believe you, thousands wouldn’t. And I can promise you that from now on Mr Joss Harvey will mind his manners where you and Matthew are concerned because if he doesn’t, he’s going to find himself languishing in a prison cell at His Majesty’s leisure. Would you like a glass of Jack Daniels? I have an American serviceman client who keeps me well supplied.’

  ‘So now your worry is whether Leon was one of the survivors picked up by the Germans when The Maiden sank,’ Carrie said, her thoughts not only on Leon but Danny.

  It was now nearly two years since he had been taken prisoner and though she was able to make contact with him by letters and parcels sent via the Red Cross, the two years felt like twelve.

  ‘I know he was one of the survivors,’ Kate said fiercely, rolling out pastry for jam-tarts. ‘He survived when his ship was sunk off Norway and he’ll have survived when The Maiden went down. If he was dead I would know. I would be able to feel it, in my heart. And he isn’t dead, Carrie. He said he would come back to me and one day he will.’

  All through the summer she waited for confirmation from the Navy that Leon had been picked up from the sea alive. None came. As the baby within her womb began to move and to kick vigorously she lay awake night after night wondering if, before The Maiden had been sunk, he had received her letter telling him that she was pregnant.

  In August, when the war news seemed to reach an all time low with twenty-nine merchant ships sunk in the Arctic, two thousand Allied prisoners being taken after the failure of a major commando raid on the French port of Dieppe and the Germans launching a new offensive in North Africa, Miriam said to her bleakly, ‘Doesn’t look too good, does it? Remember ’ow we thought it would be all over by Christmas when it first began? We were livin’ in a fool’s bloomin’ paradise, weren’t we?’

  ‘It just seemed simpler in 1939,’ Kate said gently, not wanting to encourage Miriam’s doom and gloom.

  Miriam sighed. ‘Too right, it did. Who’d ’ave thought then we’d ’ave ended up fighting in North Africa and the Far East? I know I didn’t.’

  She sighed again, this time far more heavily. ‘And I never thought when your dad was taken away that it’d be for years and years, Kate. I’ve never ’ad the bottle to say so before but I’m sorry for what ’appened that day, for watchin’ and being pleased about it. Albert’s felt bad about it for a long time. I don’t know what got into us. It was a bit like ’avin’ a fever. Neither of us were really thinkin’ straight. All we wanted to do was to ’it back at old ’itler and the only German to ’and was your dad. Silly, really.’

  Kate thought of the pain Miriam and Albert’s action had occasioned herself and her father. It was a pain she doubted if Miriam would ever be able to understand.

  ‘Yes,’ she said quietly, refusing to demean herself by holding grudges, ‘silly, really. Has Christina told you her news about Jack? Has she told you that in his last letter he asked her to marry him and that she’s written back saying she will?’

  At the end of September she again went into labour. This time, instead of Leon delivering the baby, Doctor Roberts delivered it. She had never missed Leon more.

  ‘It just wasn’t the same,’ she said to Ruth who now, with a living-in job at Blackheath Village, was a regular visitor to Magnolia Square. ‘And when Doctor Roberts saw how olive-skinned Luke was he said he had jaundice and it took me ages to persuade him that he was perfectly healthy and that he was always going to be this colour!’

  Christmas she spent with Harriet at Ellen’s house in Greenwich. With Ellen’s three dogs and half a dozen stray cats plus Hector, Daisy, Matthew and Luke, it was the noisiest, most boisterous Christmas any of them had ever had.

  ‘And the happiest,’ Ellen said to her, cuddling Matthew on her knee. ‘What a lot your father has to look forward to when he eventually comes home, Kate. Two beautiful grandsons and a little step-granddaughter.’

  ‘Of course Daisy isn’t Dad’s step-granddaughter,’ Kate said that evening to Harriet. ‘Legally, I have no claim to her at all. What do you think I should do to ensure that no-one ever takes her away from me? Do you think I’ll be allowed to adopt her?’

  ‘Ask Ruby Miller,’ Harriet said sagely. ‘If she’s managed to keep an ogre like Joss Harvey at bay, she’ll be able to arrange an adoption. Do you think this cardigan I’m knitting for Daisy is going to be big enough? She’s growing so fast I can hardly keep up with her.’

  All through 1943 life continued as near normal as rationing and the absence of menfolk allowed and though there were still air raids they were nothing like the number or the intensity that had characterized the Blitz.

  In September, as she pushed Luke’s pram across the Heath, Matthew toddling along beside her and Daisy running ahead with Hector, Charlie called out to her, ‘’Ave you ’eard the good news, petal? Italy’s surrendered! It looks like young Danny will soon be on his way ’ome!’

  Charlie’s hopes were unfounded. In October Italy declared herself to be at war with her former ally, and as Italians and Germans fought and as British and American troops attempted to fight their way towards Rome, Italy was plunged into chaos.

  By Christmas there had still been no news of Danny and Kate still hadn’t received news confirming that Leon had survived the sinking of his ship and been taken prisoner. Both she and Carrie lived on hope.

  ‘And so you should, dears,’ Emily Helliwell said to them. She and Esther had been living with Nellie Miller ever since their home had been bombed and she was busy brushing snow from Nellie’s pathway. ‘Both your young men are going to come home. My spirit guide has told me so and Moshambo never lies.’

  ‘What I’ve never understood,’ Carrie said as she and Kate continued walking up Magnolia Hill, ‘is why Miss Helliwell never knew her house was going to be bombed.’

  ‘Perhaps she never thinks to ask Moshambo about her own future,’ Kate said, not wanting to think that Mis
s Helliwell might be fallible. ‘What is he anyway? A Red Indian chief?’

  ‘A Zulu warrior,’ Carrie said, a chuckle of laughter in her voice. ‘I wonder if he appears before her half-naked like those pictures of Zulus in the National Geographic. If he does it’s no wonder she calls him up from the spirit world so bloomin’ often!’

  In May, as fighting in Italy between the Allies and the Germans intensified and as rumours grew that the long awaited invasion of Europe by the Allies was imminent, Christina rushed into Kate’s house, her eyes shining. ‘Jack has a twelve-hour leave,’ she announced in a voice that still held a trace of a German accent, ‘and he wants us to celebrate it by getting married!’

  ‘If anyone had told me six years ago, when she spat at my father at the church fête, that Christina Frank would one day ask me to be one of her bridesmaids I would have thought they were stark, staring mad,’ Kate said as Carrie knelt at her feet, pinning the hem of the dress that was to be her bridesmaid dress. ‘Is your gran very upset that it’s going to be another St Mark’s Church wedding? She must surely have hoped that Christina’s wedding would be Jewish.’

  ‘Gran’s kept her thoughts to herself this time,’ Carrie said dryly. ‘I think she’s just grateful that Christina is marrying and settling down here, in Magnolia Square, not moving on to America as so many other Jewish refugees are. Anyway, ’ow the heck could it be a Jewish wedding with Jack Robson as the bridegroom?’ she asked, putting a final pin into the hem. ‘It’s a miracle it’s even going to be a church wedding. I don’t suppose for one moment Jack Robson was ever christened. I can’t quite see Charlie seeing to such niceties, can you?’

  Kate giggled and stepped away from Carrie so that she could see her reflection in her dressing-table mirror. ‘What do you think?’ she asked, regarding herself critically. ‘Do you think everyone will know it’s a dress that’s been in my wardrobe since before the war?’

  Carrie regarded the ice-coloured blue dress enviously. ‘No,’ she said, wishing that she could make the same kind of alterations to some of her pre-war clothes. ‘How you’ve stayed so sylph-like after two babies beats me. None of my old clothes will go anywhere near me. I’m going to have to make do with a dress made out of black-market parachute silk!’

  On the day of the wedding all Magnolia Park was out in full force. Albert purloined a trap from somewhere so that, with Nobby in the shafts, Christina would have a proper carriage to transport her the few yards to the church.

  ‘He wasn’t going to,’ Carrie said, her green cat-eyes alight with laughter. ‘He was going to use the hearse but Mum nearly flailed him alive when she found out. Poor Christina didn’t want a carriage at all. She wanted to walk, but Mum wouldn’t have that, either. God knows where the trap came from. Its owner probably doesn’t know it’s missing yet.’

  Beryl, Jenny, Rose and Daisy were bridesmaids. Where Kate’s gleamingly gold chignon was decorated with a single lush white rose, the children all wore circlets of pink rosebuds. Carrie was Matron of Honour, buxomly splendid in pearl-grey parachute silk. Christina was ethereal in the wedding-gown that had once been Carrie’s, her long veil held in place by a cluster of gardenias.

  It was the groom, however, who attracted the most attention. Tall and broad and dark, he had left Magnolia Square a likeable rogue and returned a war hero.

  ‘Doesn’t he look handsome!’ an admiring Hettie said to Miriam. ‘There always was an attractive swagger about those Robson boys. Jerry Robson had it in spades. There was a time once when I thought Jerry and . . .’

  Miriam never did find out what Hettie had once thought. The bride had reached her place at the bridegroom’s side and the entire congregation was rising to its feet to sing, ‘O Perfect Love’.

  Twenty minutes later, as the bridal party turned away from the altar to make its way back down the aisle, Kate’s eyebrows rose high. The bridegroom’s father, Charlie Robson, was standing in the front right-hand pew, and he was not standing there alone. Harriet was next to him resplendent in a navy blue suit, the collar edged in white, a broad-brimmed navy blue hat shading her eyes. It was the first time Kate had ever seen her in a suit that wasn’t made of serviceable tweed and she looked stunningly elegant. It wasn’t her elderly friend’s elegance that had taken her by surprise, though. It was the way her gloved hand was quite openly resting in Charlie’s mammoth paw.

  ‘Did you see?’ she asked Carrie the minute they entered the church hall for the reception. ‘They were definitely holding hands! In front of all of Magnolia Square!’

  ‘I don’t know why you’re so surprised,’ Carrie said, her parachute silk rustling and crackling with every move she made. ‘They’ve been friends for yonks now. And Charlie looks quite personable when he’s had a shave and his shirt is buttoned and he’s wearing a tie and a jacket.’

  ‘Charlie looks alien in a tie and jacket,’ Kate said, unable to get over the wonderment of it. ‘I wonder where on earth they came from? Do you think Harriet bought them for him? Do you think there’s going to be another wedding very soon?’

  Overhearing them, Nellie Miller, stately in royal purple, said dryly, ‘Yes, but not the one you have in mind, dear.’

  Carrie was immediately all interest. ‘Come on then, Nellie,’ she said, eager for a bit of titillating gossip, ‘spill the beans. Who is it going to be? You and Clark Gable? Miss Helliwell and Nibbo? My gran and General Montgomery?’

  ‘The trouble with you, Carrie Collins, is that you’re a cheeky hussy,’ Nellie said with affection. ‘And why the ’ell you need me to point out somethin’ that’s so flamingly obvious, I don’t know. It’s right in front of your eyes if you would but look,’ and with a knowing nod of her head she indicated the couple standing a few yards behind Kate.

  Both Kate and Carrie turned their heads. Ruth Fairbairn and Bob Giles were deep in conversation, oblivious of the wedding guests thronging around them.

  Carrie’s eyes widened with astonishment. ‘Well, I’ll be blowed,’ she said expressively, ‘especially when you consider where they met!’ She began to giggle. ‘I must go and tell my mum. She’s going to be tickled to death!’

  Within weeks of the wedding there was exhilaration as first Rome was liberated by the Allies and then the long awaited invasion of Europe finally took place.

  ‘They’ve landed in Normandy!’ Mavis announced as she breezed into The Swan. ‘No wonder Jack had to bugger off so quickly after the wedding. You can bet he was one of the first ashore and I know my Ted will be there.’

  ‘Are things all right between you and Ted now?’ Kate asked her as they walked up Magnolia Hill together after shopping in Lewisham market.

  ‘They’ve been all right ever since that fella of yours saved Billy from killing ’imself and Gawd knows how many others in that bloomin’ lorry,’ Mavis said, shifting her heavy basket of shopping from one hand to the other. ‘Ted said ’e realized then what it would be like to lose Billy and ’e said that if ’e was to divorce me, ’e’d be losing Billy voluntarily.’

  She shot Kate a wide, irrepressible smile. ‘Course, that ain’t the real reason ’e’s started behaving like a man with some sense. The real reason is ’e realized what an idiot ’e’d been, but ’e’s too much pride to admit to it.’

  With her free hand she tucked a stray wisp of peroxided blonde hair back into her upswept Betty Grable hairstyle.

  ‘Christina ’elped, of course,’ she said as they neared her front garden, a front garden Billy had vandalized so that it looked little different from a bomb site. ‘She told ’im Jack was in love with ’er and that they were goin’ to get married and that if there’d been any funny business between the two of us she’d ’ave been the first to be up in arms about it.’

  ‘I’m glad Ted realized how wrong he’d been,’ Kate said as they turned into the Square.

  Mavis chuckled. ‘Now, who says ’e ’ad it wrong?’ she said, pausing at her open gateway before walking up her littered pathway. ‘And what makes you think I’d be so daft
as to let Christina know my business? Credit me with some sense, Kate.’

  As Kate’s eyes widened Mavis gave her a knowing wink. ‘Cheerio,’ she said, her grin nearly splitting her face. ‘Life ain’t ’alf interestin’, ain’t it?’

  July saw a return of the hideous days of the Blitz. This time it wasn’t bombs dropped from wave after wave of enemy aircraft that decimated the city; this time it was something even more terrifying.

  ‘Flying bombs,’ Mr Nibbs said to her, grim-faced. ‘Pilotless planes designed to explode on impact. We’re in for a heck of a time until the RAF can find the bases they’re being launched from and destroy them.’

  ‘Nibbo wasn’t exaggerating, was he?’ Carrie said to Kate as they sat in the public shelter surrounded by their neighbours. ‘What I hate about doodle-bugs is that you often get no warning. At least during the Blitz the sirens always went off in plenty of time and we heard the planes coming.’

  ‘I don’t see why the sirens can’t always go off in plenty of time for doodle-bugs,’ her mother said peevishly, busy peeling an apple.

  ‘They’re too small and fast for radar to detect them,’ Kate said, lifting Matthew into a more comfortable position on her knee. ‘That means there’s often no air raid warning or when the warning is sounded it’s sounded too late for people to be able to find shelter.’

  ‘Well, they should do something about it,’ Miriam said unreasonably, handing a slice of apple to Rose and Daisy. ‘At least in the Blitz you knew where you were. With these bloomin’ things, no-one knows where they are. One minute you’re doing the housework, the next you could be dead.’

  In September came even worse horrors. ‘I don’t know what the ’ell’s ’appenin’, petal,’ Charlie said to Kate as he stopped for a chat at her front gate, ‘but I do know that explosion we ’eard this arternoon wasn’t caused by a doodle-bug.’