The Londoners

by Margaret Pemberton

  ‘It was a gas explosion,’ Mr Nibbs said authoritatively that evening in The Swan. No-one disputed with him. It had certainly been unlike any previous explosion and as there had been no planes in the air, if it hadn’t been a doodle-bug, what else could it have been but a gas explosion?

  They were soon to find out. ‘Rockets?’ Hettie said disbelievingly to Daniel. ‘What do you mean, rockets? You’ve been listening to too many science-fiction programmes on the radio, Daniel. It’s turned your head.’

  ‘They must be bloody rockets,’ Daniel said to Nibbo. ‘Nothing else could arrive from out of nowhere and cause such destruction. I was down New Cross this afternoon and a whole street has been demolished by one of the bloody things. Not just one or two houses, Nibbo. A whole street! There’s no fighting back against such weapons. Unless the RAF find where they’re being launched from there’s going to be nothing left of London.’

  Thousands of Londoners were in agreement with him. Evacuation began again on a massive scale. In November, after countless ‘gas explosions’ in south-west and south-east London, a public statement was issued confirming what had already become general knowledge. After surviving the Blitz and the flying bombs, London was now under rocket attack.

  Christmas was grim, with many Londoners being reluctant to spend too much time out of deep shelter.

  ‘Not that we ’ave any deep shelters in Black’eath and Lewisham,’ Miriam said savagely, worn down by five and a half years of tension and hardship. ‘It’s all right for those who live near tube stations but what about the rest of us? Andersons and Morrisons and public shelters are no protection against bloody rockets!’

  January was even worse, with deep snow and freezing weather conditions adding to the misery.

  ‘But it’s goin’ to get better, petal,’ Charlie said reassuringly as he walked with Kate across the snowbound Heath. ‘The Germans are on the run now and once the RAF bomb the rocket launching bases we’ll be ’ome and dry.’

  By February Charlie’s spirit of optimism was widespread. By March his prediction had come to fruition. The Allied armies crossed the Rhine and everyone knew they were living through the final days of the war.

  In April, when the front gardens in Magnolia Square were drowned in a haze of blue Muscari and violet Aubrietia and purple pansies, Kate received her most joyous news for a long, long time.

  ‘My dad’s coming home!’ she said to Carrie, her face radiant. ‘He’s going to see the children for the first time! Isn’t that wonderful news? Isn’t it absolutely marvellous?’

  The day her father walked once again into Magnolia Square was one of the happiest of her life. He was a little thinner in the face than he had been, but other than that he looked no different to when he had been taken away.

  ‘Oh Dad! Dad!’ she cried, throwing her arms around him, tears of happiness streaming down her face. ‘It’s so good to have you back home!’

  ‘It’s good to be back, Liebling,’ Carl said huskily, his eyes behind his glasses overly bright. ‘And now are you going to introduce me to my grandchildren? And to little Daisy?’

  The next morning there was a rather hesitant knock on the front door. When Carl opened it he found Albert on the doorstep.

  ‘Our Carrie told us you were home,’ he said awkwardly. ‘Me and Miriam just wanted to say we were pleased.’

  ‘Thank you, Albert,’ Carl said gravely. He had had plenty of time to consider how he would react in such a situation and, like his daughter, he had decided that nothing would be achieved by holding grudges.

  At his civil response Albert visibly relaxed. ‘Perhaps you’d like to come down The Swan for a pint tonight? Nibbo and Daniel’ll be there. What’s past is past, isn’t it? All water under the bridge. We might even get a cricket team together again now this bloody war is on its last legs.’

  Over the next few days and weeks Albert’s statement that the war was on its last legs was amply verified. The Allies stormed into Berlin. Hitler committed suicide. Carrie received news that Danny was on his way home to her. Christina received news that Jack had been mentioned in despatches.

  ‘It’s all over bar the shouting, Liebling,’ her father said to her as he sat in his armchair, Matthew on his knee. ‘Prisoners are being released the length and breadth of Europe. You’ll soon know if Leon is alive. The waiting is nearly at an end now.’

  ‘It’s over!’ Mavis screamed on 7 May, rushing out of the house into the street, the voice of a radio newscaster clearly audible on her radio. ‘The Jerries have surrendered! It’s over! It’s over! It’s over!’

  On all sides of Magnolia Square windows slammed up and doors flew open.

  ‘And about bloody time!’ Miriam shouted, running out of her house in hair curlers and pinafore and beginning to dance a knees-up in her front garden.

  Hettie Collins rushed across the Square to join her.

  Miss Helliwell began to hang a Union Jack from her bedroom window.

  Nibbo stood on his front doorstep, his braces hanging down, tears streaming down his cheeks.

  Miss Godfrey stood holding on to the wrought-iron scrollwork of her front gate, saying, ‘Thank God! Oh, thank God!’

  Daniel Collins sent his Auxiliary Firemen’s helmet skimming across St Mark’s Church’s grassy island.

  Albert fisted the air, shouting, ‘Three cheers for Winnie! Three cheers for Mr Churchill! If it hadn’t been for him this day would have never dawned!’

  Leah Singer seized hold of Bob Giles and, much to the vicar’s surprise, began dancing a jig with him.

  Charlie emerged with three pots of paint he’d been saving for the occasion and lustily singing ‘There’ll Always Be an England’ began liberally painting his front door red, white and blue.

  Nellie Miller lumbered into her garden and bellowed, ‘What about a party then? What about the biggest bloomin’ party Magnolia Square has ever known!’

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  It was unanimously decided to hold the party the following Saturday.

  ‘After all, we don’t want to miss out on the fun of the celebrations tomorrow, up town, when Churchill announces the end of hostilities officially, do we?’ Carrie said sensibly. ‘And by Saturday, Danny might be home and Kate might have news of Leon.’

  Carl said he didn’t feel up to celebrating up town and that he would look after Daisy and Matthew and Luke. Miriam said she was going to do her celebrating in The Swan and that she’d keep an eye on Rose. Mavis said Beryl and Billy were big enough and daft enough to look after themselves and what the ’eck were they waiting for, why didn’t they go up town now.

  The trains into Charing Cross were so packed they had to stand up all the way. It wasn’t the slightest hardship. Total strangers were greeting and kissing each other like long-lost friends. A rousing chorus of ‘Pack up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit-Bag’ was lustily sung by everyone all the way from Blackheath to Lewisham and ‘Two Lovely Black Eyes’ all the way from Lewisham to New Cross.

  ‘’Ow about “The White Cliffs of Dover”?’ someone shouted as the train began to steam out of New Cross. Carrie didn’t need a second prompting. Arm in arm with a soldier she’d never set eyes on before, she launched into her favourite song, singing it in a full-throated contralto all the way into Charing Cross station.

  ‘Where to first?’ Christina asked as they spilled out of the station into the thronged cobbled forecourt.

  ‘Trafalgar Square,’ Mavis answered promptly, her arm around Kate’s waist. ‘Do you think that airman will give me ’is ’at to wear?’

  The airman did give her his hat to wear. Christina bought a bunch of penny Union Jacks. Carrie was kissed by a sailor. Kate was dragged laughingly into a conga line.

  In Trafalgar Square the crowds were so vast they could barely move. ‘I’m going to ask those soldiers to give us a hoist on to one of the lions!’ Mavis yelled, and before Christina or Kate could protest they found themselves swept off their feet into big, beefy arms and then manhandled up onto
the back of one of the giant bronze lions.

  High above the heads of the rest of the crowd, they waved their flags and joined lustily in the communal singing. ‘There’s a sailor on Nelson’s Column doing a strip!’ Mavis shouted.

  ‘Roll out the Barrel!’ the joyous crowd surging below them sang.

  ‘Give us a kiss, love!’ a soldier demanded of Kate and, before she could assent or refuse, clambered up on to the lion, kissing her with commendable thoroughness.

  ‘Oh, you beautiful doll, you great big beautiful doll,’ a posse of GI’s chorused as Mavis provocatively lifted her skirt and showed a mesmerizing amount of leg.

  ‘They’re burning an effigy of Hitler near the fountain!’ someone hollered over the din.

  The bells of St Margaret’s, Westminster, pealed triumphantly. Motorbus horns blared. The Americans blasted into a raucous rendering of ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic.’

  ‘Let’s try and make our way towards the Palace!’ Christina shouted, her sleek dark hair tumbling over her shoulders nearly as hoydenishly as Carrie’s. ‘I want to see the King and Queen!’

  As young men they had never seen before and would never see again helped them slither down from the lion and as they battled out of the Square and towards the Mall, Kate felt as if the entire world was intent on seeing King George and Queen Elizabeth.

  ‘Long live the cause of freedom!’ someone shouted. ‘Long live Winnie! God Save the King!’

  ‘And so you saw the King and Queen and Mr Churchill,’ her father said to her late that night as he made her a cup of milky cocoa. ‘That must have been quite a sight.’

  ‘It was unforgettable,’ Kate said, remembering the scene on the Palace balcony as the Prime Minister, flanked by King George and Queen Elizabeth, had stepped forward to acknowledge the frantic cheering of a crowd so vast it seemed to stretch into infinity. ‘Everyone was blowing whistles and throwing confetti and the Princesses came out onto the balcony and then, later on, there were fireworks.’

  ‘And you came home and left Carrie and Christina and Mavis enjoying the fun?’ her father asked, his voice gently querying.

  She nodded, her eyes dark with the anxiety she could no longer hide. ‘Everyone was so happy – wild with joy, and I just couldn’t bear it any longer. All I could think of was Leon. It’s been three years, Dad. Three years without any word from the Navy or the Red Cross . . .’ her voice broke and she began to weep, the rigid self-control she had exercised for so long deserting her.

  ‘I’ve been so certain he was taken prisoner,’ she said, burying her head against his chest as he put an arm comfortingly around her shoulder, ‘but if he had been, surely he would have managed to get word to me by now? Surely by now I would know if he was on his way home to me?’

  ‘If you were his wife and legal next of kin, perhaps you would have heard,’ her father said gently. ‘But you’re not his wife and that may be one explanation why the authorities, despite their promises to the contrary, have failed to contact you. Another thing to take into account is that if Leon was taken prisoner, then he was taken prisoner by German forces operating in Arctic waters and he might very well have been despatched to a prison camp in a part of Russia occupied by them. If he has been, then it’s not surprising there has been no news. You’ve been strong for so long, Liebling, and you’re just going to have to be strong for a little longer.’

  ‘But what if it isn’t just for a little longer, Dad?’ Her voice cracked with pain. ‘What if Leon doesn’t come home? What if I’m going to have to live without him for the rest of my life?’

  There was no reply he could give her and he didn’t attempt one. The next few weeks would bring the answer to her question and when it came, however difficult it might be, he knew that from somewhere she would find the strength to live with it.

  On Wednesday, totally unannounced, Danny Collins marched into Magnolia Square, his hair glinting red in the summer sunlight.

  ‘It’s Danny!’ Billy yelled, slithering down from his perch high in Miss Godfrey’s magnolia tree. ‘Someone run and tell ’is Mum and Dad! Someone run and tell our Carrie!’

  By the time Danny reached the bottom end of the Square he was like the Pied Piper, with Billy leading the way in front of him, banging two hastily purloined dustbin lids together, Beryl skipping at his side, her hand held in his, Daisy and Jenny and Matthew trooping behind him not knowing who he was but knowing he must be someone special, Charlie loping in their wake, Queenie at his heels, and Nibbo trying to catch up with the procession, eager to be one of the first of Danny’s neighbours to welcome him back home.

  A dark-haired figure walking into the Square from Magnolia Hill stood suddenly stock still. She had been carrying two bags of shopping and as realization dawned and her eyes widened she dropped both bags abruptly onto the pavement, uncaring of the eggs that broke and the fruit that bruised.

  ‘Danny!’ she shrieked. ‘Oh my good God! Danny!’

  No-one had ever seen Carrie run so fast. She streaked past her gate and past Mavis’s gate, her mass of dark hair tumbling around a face radiant with joy.

  Daniel, who had been trimming his garden hedge, dropped his shears.

  ‘It’s our Danny!’ he said disbelievingly and then, raising his voice, ‘Hettie! Hettie! Come quick! Danny’s home. Our boy’s come home!’

  ‘It was lovely to see them both,’ Hettie said later to Miriam, dabbing her eyes dry with the corner of her pinafore. ‘He just swept her off her feet and it was as if he’d never been away.’

  ‘Well, let’s ’ope Kate’s fella comes ’ome soon and sweeps ’er off ’er feet,’ Miriam said, not wanting to think of anyone grieving when their two families were so happy. ‘It’d be a sin and shame for ’er to ’ave to bring up three kiddies on ’er own, especially when one of ’em’s an orphan she took in out of the kindness of ’er ’eart.’

  On Saturday morning the weather was glorious. Daniel and Bob Giles hauled trestle tables out of the church hall and set them in a long continuous line down the grass outside the church. Miss Godfrey and Miss Helliwell fixed white sheets of paper to them with drawing-pins to serve as tablecloths. Nibbo was in and out of every house gathering up every wooden chair he could find. Danny and the landlord of The Swan rolled a great barrel of beer out of The Swan’s cellars and up Magnolia Hill, placing it strategically outside the rose-covered ruins of what had once been the Misses Helliwells’ home.

  ‘Do you think fifteen of these are going to be enough?’ Hettie asked the world at large as she ferried a bowl of quivering multi-coloured jelly from her kitchen to the paper-covered tables, a Union Jack jauntily pinned to her hat.

  ‘They’ll do for me, Hettie,’ Nibbo said, depositing his latest haul of chairs beside the top table, ‘but I don’t know what everyone else is going to have!’

  Charlie was trundling Hettie and Albert’s piano down their garden path. ‘Whereabouts do you fink this should go?’ he queried. ‘It ain’t ’alf ’eavy. Do you think I should just leave it ’ere, near the gate?’

  ‘I need some more teapots!’ Nellie Miller bellowed. ‘An urn’s all right if everyone’s filing up to it, but for a do like this I need teapots!’

  Leah put a huge plate of almond whirls next to one of Hettie’s mammoth bowls of jelly. ‘I’m doing some chicken, gedempte, just the way Carrie and Danny like it,’ she said to Hettie. ‘And some blintzes with cream cheese and jam. And bagels.’

  Mavis plonked a bottle of lemonade, a bottle of cream soda and a bottle of raspberry fizz down on one of the tables. ‘That’s our Billy seen to,’ she said, crimson-painted nails flashing as she dusted her hands together. ‘Now why the ’ell couldn’t someone have had the sense to invite some Americans? Gawd knows what they might have brought with ’em. They might even have brought some blueberry pie!’

  Kate put a huge plateful of bread and butter next to Leah’s almond whirls. She had barely slept the night before. For hour after hour she had lain awake thinking of Leon. Had she been foolishly
stubborn in clinging so long to the belief that he had survived the sinking of his ship? Ever since they had been children Carrie had told her she was as stubborn as a mule. Had her stubbornness, this time, led her into living in a fool’s paradise? Had she been wrong in believing that Leon was still alive? Was he dead, and had he been dead for three long years?

  ‘Let’s ’ave some balloons tied to the backs of the chairs and the trees,’ Nellie ordered, looking remarkably like Henry VIII as she stood full square on the grass, her hands on her massive hips and her swollen legs straddled. ‘And what about a bit o’ bunting? We must ’ave a bit o’ bunting.’

  Emily Helliwell was wheeling Esther out of Nellie’s garden and Kate went to help her negotiate the clumsy wheelchair down the kerb and into the road.

  ‘Thank you, my dear,’ Esther said sunnily. ‘Isn’t it a beautiful day? It reminds me of our celebrations for the Relief of Mafeking.’

  Kate smiled in response but her heart was aching. How would she get through life without Leon as her lover and her friend? How would she survive if she never saw his crinkly dark hair and dusky face and sunny smile ever again?

  ‘Oh, Leon!’ she whispered passionately beneath her breath. ‘I need you! Come home! Oh, please, please come home!’

  ‘It’s about time this party got under way,’ Albert said, putting boxes of drinking straws at strategic intervals down the length of the tables. ‘Let’s get the kids sat down before Billy Lomax scavenges all the fairy-cakes. Play a tune on the Joanna, Hettie. What about “Knees Up Mother Brown” for starters?’

  Kate stood near the top trestle table, the only one not singing lustily. Ellen Pierce had come over to Magnolia Square for the day to join in the celebrations. She visited often and Kate knew that Ellen came not only to see her, but to see Carl. There were going to be wedding bells there soon, perhaps even sooner than for Bob Giles and Ruth Fairbairn.

  Carrie and Danny were standing with their arms around each other’s waist, little Rose clinging on to Danny’s hand as though she was never, ever, going to let him go.