Wedding Bells on the Home Front

by Annie Clarke

  ‘Tyre bliddy burst – I can’t hold her. Hang on, pets. Hang on.’

  Above the shouts and screams a horn sounded, just once. Bert shouted, ‘Oh bliddy hell, no. Hang on, hang on.’ There was a screeching, the bus was twisting, it almost rose at the front, then there was a thud, and finally a crash. The bus seemed to tip again, then sank back. Women were thrown over the seats in front and those who had been standing went down like skittles. Sarah and Fran landed face down in the aisle, a weight on top of them, squashing Fran’s ribs. There was silence for a moment, and then the sound of a horn again, one which went on and on. Fran lifted her head. Bert was slumped over the steering wheel.

  Mrs Oborne rose from the aisle, scrabbling up on all fours, her headscarf askew. She started to stagger along to Bert, clambering over the other passengers. Maisie was slumped over the seat in front, but trying to stand. Her face was pale, her nose pumping blood.

  Someone was crying. Fran tried to push herself up from the floor, watching Sarah trying to do the same next to her, but there was still something too heavy stopping them. Fran craned round, feeling sick. Something wet ran into her mouth, and she tasted blood. Viola lay on top of them. Still there was the sound of a horn. Why didn’t it stop?

  ‘Get him off the bliddy horn, Tilly,’ Fran yelled. ‘I’m on my way to help.’

  ‘There’s a car an’ all,’ Tilly replied. ‘’Tis on the verge, smashed into a tree, crumpled and smoking. Bert’s hurt. Someone help me, please. And someone else get to the car. Oh God.’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Earlier that morning

  Waiting in the study, Ralph watched the clock hands tick slowly round. His father had telephoned the mine to excuse Ralph from the fore shift, explaining that he needed to sort out some business with his son. He also confirmed that Ralph would be there for the fore shift tomorrow, on the coal sorting screens until he was completely recovered from his illness.

  Ralph stared out of the window, paced to the desk and back to the window, wondering if Professor Smythe was on his way. Well, of course he was, but would he be here at twelve as he had said? Did it matter? He pressed his head against the cool pane. Nothing mattered, as long as he came. They had discussed little on the telephone for Smythe had deflected Ralph firmly. ‘Best to meet for a chat. Copperfield’s such a good book for a thesis,’ Smythe had said, his voice sharp and no-nonsense.

  Ralph looked towards the top of the drive and, as though by an act of sheer will, Smythe came sweeping round towards the house – or was it Smythe? It wasn’t his car. The Bentley crossed in front of the house, the gravel flicking from the wheels, stopping so suddenly it skidded. The passenger door opened and out Smythe slid, smoothly, crisply, which gave further lie to the doddery old fool act. He pulled his coat around him as it billowed up in the wind. Ralph glanced again at the clock on the mantelpiece. Midday. So, on time, absolutely on the dot.

  Smythe’s driver slammed his own door shut and sauntered round the front of the car, wearing a tweed coat, his matching tweed cap set at an angle. Together they headed up the two steps to the front door. Ralph hurried across the hall to let them in, glad that the children were at school. They’d be back for lunch at two. Later than usual because it was the nature ramble, or some such. Ralph’s parents were elsewhere, on a shopping spree. They were due back at the same time as the children.

  The school had to be mornings or afternoons only, such was the volume of children now that there were so many evacuees in the vicinity. This month it was mornings for the incomers, while the village children had the aft shift, or so Abraham had informed him. That would never have been the term before the war, but now everything seemed to be a shift.

  Ralph opened the door before the bell rang. Smythe nodded, whipped off his hat, slapped it against his leg, and entered, waving one hand behind him. ‘Yeland, this is Ralph Massingham, who is a bit of a toerag but has the potential to be “other”, or so we all hope.’

  Yeland merely smiled, removed his cap and carefully put it in his coat pocket. He held out his hand. Ralph shook it.

  ‘Pleasure to meet you.’

  Yeland nodded. ‘Let’s see if I can return the favour when our little chat is over, eh?’

  Smythe headed for the study. ‘I gather your father is elsewhere, with the enchanting Mrs Massingham. So, we have the stage to ourselves?’

  Feeling as though they were ducklings paddling in the wake of a bossy mother, Ralph nodded as he and Yeland followed Smythe. The professor strode to Ralph’s father’s desk and sat in his chair. Ralph closed the study door behind him, his mind racing. Who was Yeland? Into the silence he said, ‘May I take your coats, gentlemen, or fetch you a cup of tea? Fresh leaves today as it’s Monday.’

  Smythe looked at him. ‘No need for pleasantries. We have things to discuss, final decisions to make.’ He gestured to one of the two chairs that Yeland was busy placing before the desk. ‘Sit.’

  Ralph obeyed the order. Yeland did not, leaving the second chair empty. Instead, he strolled to the window and, as Ralph had done earlier, rested his head against the cold glass.

  Into the silence Smythe said, ‘So, Ralph, you have been complicit in two acts of sabotage in this grubby war – that’s all, as far as we know.’

  Suddenly, Yeland’s voice came from behind Ralph. ‘Yes, as far as we know. Tell us how you communicate.’

  On the telephone the previous evening, Ralph had thought about telling Smythe of his days as a Fascist, but the professor had cut him short. Suddenly, Ralph thought of Smythe tapping the Massinghams’ telephone in order to understand exactly what Ralph was up to; perhaps if Smythe could do it, so could someone else?

  Ralph looked at Smythe, then behind at Yeland, but the man was no longer there. He was now standing by the bookcase. If this was meant to unsettle him, it was bloody well working. Ralph started by explaining that he had been a fool, had tried the Communist meetings and the Fascist ones.

  Yeland was behind him again. ‘We know all of that. Tell us how you communicate. That is what we have asked for, so that is what you will deliver. Anything and everything about it, no matter how trivial.’

  Smythe sat quite still, his face expressionless.

  Ralph began again. ‘I have to telephone Tim Swinton at his home as though we are friends. I say, “I will speak to you another time, when you are less busy.” This warns him to go to a particular call box. There is a different one for each day of the week. My calling time is nine o’clock in the evening.’

  Smythe was writing it down in a leather-covered notepad. Ralph could hear the scratching of his fountain pen. The professor looked up. ‘Carry on.’

  ‘If he needs to phone me, he merely telephones here, or sometimes catches me as I’m passing the public phone box in Main Street, as he did yesterday evening, wanting me back on the job, eyes and ears on alert. His ability to catch me like this makes me feel as if someone is watching me. Someone who then contacts Swinton, no doubt using the same call box a few minutes ahead of me.’ He told them of yesterday’s call in detail, the shadow he had seen disappearing down the lane, and the old woman who appeared.

  Smythe looked over Ralph’s head and nodded at Yeland. ‘Tell us about how you came to be up in the north again.’

  Ralph explained that he had been instructed to return from university to work in the pit and halt production as and when he could.

  Yeland gripped his shoulder. ‘On to Bell Seam.’ His grip tightened, digging in so hard it was only just this side of pain.

  ‘I rang him. I received instructions to block Bell Seam to prevent it being reopened just in case the safety survey deemed it possible. The survey was scheduled for the night shift. To facilitate my act of sabotage there was a long length of fuse and a stick of dynamite left in the right-hand corner of the bike store. These were to be secreted under my shirt once I’d arrived early for the foreshift and I was to set the dynamite in place behind a prop marked with a “V”.’

  ‘Marked how?’ Smythe snappe
d.

  ‘A chisel, I expect. It was gouged.’

  Smythe nodded. Ralph was cold and wished he’d lit the fire. No wonder the two men had kept their coats on. Yeland released his grip and began pacing to the window. Ralph didn’t turn, but could see him out of the corner of his eye.

  ‘Where was it gouged?’ Yeland asked, his breath steaming up the glass.

  ‘I was told it would be two feet from the ground. I just went along the seam, feeling the props at that height. I could have used my lamp, but I didn’t want to be discovered. It was about eighty feet into the seam.’

  Yeland turned and sat on the seat next to Ralph. He took a silver cigarette case from his breast pocket, offered it to Smythe and then Ralph. Both shook their heads, Ralph because his hands were shaking.

  He explained how he had set everything in place and run out the length of fuse, knowing that after he’d worked at the face he would return to the main seam, bringing a tub of coal to hitch to the horse train. It was then that he would return to Bell Seam and light the fuse. His pretext would be that he was doing his ‘business’.

  ‘Business?’ queried Yeland.

  ‘A … a number two.’

  Yeland blinked. ‘A what?’

  ‘A bowel movement.’ Ralph knew he had gone scarlet.

  Smythe waved Yeland along. ‘Don’t be obtuse, Yeland. Have some compassion.’

  Yeland stared at the tip of his cigarette. ‘Continue.’

  Ralph did, explaining he had done as ordered, without realising there were surveyors further down the seam. He himself had made it out before the whole lot came down.

  Smythe leaned forward. ‘Let us be clear on this. One stick of dynamite, eighty feet in. Only one stick, not two? Not another charge further in?’

  Ralph was confused. ‘No, I did exactly as I had been told. I ran the fuse wire along the base of the wall, slipping it round, or behind the props if I could. I killed two good men.’

  Smythe and Yeland were nodding. ‘And the aftermath. Anything at all?’

  ‘I telephoned Swinton. He was unmoved by the deaths, beyond, of course, that they made me a murderer. This he added to my list of reportable sins, should I decide to back out. If I did so, Tim made it clear, as he had from the start, he would hurt my parents.’

  Smythe merely nodded. ‘What else, however trivial?’

  Ralph tried to think. How trivial was trivial? He went back over that dreadful day, that week. Then he remembered that Mr Swinton had called into the church later, wanting to speak to the vicar because he’d heard someone say they’d seen his son on that very day, on his motorbike, and the lad hadn’t been to see his father, who had no idea where he was living or anything about him. Ralph told them this, adding, ‘Lord, do you think Mr Swinton suspects Tim? Tim was jealous, you see, of Davey and Stan because they bested him in the Massingham scholarship. It was their fathers who died, or rather, I killed.’

  He stared at Smythe, who was still writing. Yeland said, ‘Maybe, maybe not, but carry on.’

  ‘With the break-in,’ snapped Smythe.

  Ralph told them how he’d learned about the fence being down from Amelia, who worked in the office. She was a silly girl, gossiped too much, let things slip. They had been out together a few times, as Tim had urged him to get to know the Factory girls, especially those who would drink too much and give away information. He addressed Yeland now, who was still sitting beside him and was on to a second cigarette.

  ‘The fence was blown down in the storm, a storm which raged for a few days. It was a gift for me, because I carried out the task knowing I could make it fail, but it would appear to Tim I’d tried. I got into the grounds, but a dog and guard intercepted me. I retreated in the storm. I cut myself on the fence. It went septic, and I was out of commission, thank God. I was pleased because I wanted to die. The trouble was the co-op wouldn’t let me.’

  Now Smythe smiled and it was one that reached his eyes.

  They took him back over both incidents, and the timing of Tim’s post-wedding-tea phone call to the box. Then there was silence, the only sound the ticking clock. Ralph saw that it was two. The children would be home any minute, brought back by Farmer Thompkins.

  Both men rose. Yeland shook his hand. ‘That’ll do, for now at least. We have further investigations to make, of course. We will be reviewing the original investigative report on the Bell Seam incident, and initiating our own. There is already an investigation launched into the break-in. So, if you need to rectify anything that might be construed as misleading …’

  ‘It’s what happened,’ Ralph insisted.

  Smythe came around the desk and headed for the door. ‘Show us out then, Ralph.’

  He did so, opening the front door and accompanying them to the car. Yeland opened the driver’s door, leaving Smythe and Ralph together. Smythe pressed a piece of paper into his hand. ‘Phone numbers – learn them, destroy the paper. Call regarding anything of interest, however trivial it may seem. Anything whatsoever to do with Tim Swinton, the pit, the Factory. Gently, for eyes will be upon you. And not just ours. You remain a good little member of the cell. Call from a telephone box. Clear?’

  Ralph nodded. ‘I asked Tim a question about who else would be interested if he wasn’t. He didn’t like it.’

  ‘Don’t do that again,’ said Smythe. ‘Just listen and see what mistakes he makes. If you are rumbled, rest assured your parents and this tidy sum of children will be safe. Tim is not the only one capable of having eyes everywhere.’ He opened the passenger door, slamming it shut after him. Yeland revved the engine, turning in a tight circle, and off they drove, with no acknowledgement, just the crunching of gravel beneath the wheels.

  Ralph sighed, exhausted, but relieved, oh, Lord above, so relieved. He could make amends or he could die trying and his parents and the children would be protected by these two men. He heard the tractor then, coming up the drive with the evacuees. He waited and saw his parents following.

  He realised he couldn’t bear to talk, to listen; he must absorb all that had been said, all that he had said. He spun round and ran to the roadster in the garage.

  Alfie was there. ‘Visitors, Ralph?’

  Ralph grinned. ‘Entertaining my father’s friends is quite a chore, and one was my professor. I was chatting about continuing my degree once the war ends. And about a few business affairs with my father prior to that.’

  Alfie shrugged. ‘Continuing your degree, eh? We’ll all be in our bath chairs by the time the war ends.’

  They both laughed and Ralph agreed. ‘Most likely, but now I’m making good my escape, just for half an hour – blow away some cobwebs, not to mention my hangover. How’s yours by the way?’

  Alfie grimaced. ‘Best ignored, for only time will tell whether I’ll live or not.’

  Ralph was still laughing as he backed out the roadster, letting his father drive through the arch before waving and then lowering his window. ‘Just taking her for a spin. Smythe came, with a friend. Sorry they missed you. I will report on my return.’

  Farmer Thompkins was taking the children along the other side of the house where he could turn in the stable yard, now so sadly empty of horses. As Ralph drove off, he wondered if a pony would be a good idea for the children. He could teach them to ride, since Stan, Sid and Norm left him standing where football was concerned – but only because his own game had been rugby.

  He reached the bottom of the drive, turned left and headed out of Massingham, driving between hedges and drystone walls, whistling, feeling the tension peeling away from him, because he wasn’t trapped, wasn’t powerless. He was on the way to doing his bit. Yes, he could die, but so what? At least his guilt would be at an end.

  As he drove round Hanging Tree corner, he thought of Fran and her guilt. Should he have spoken to her as he had? Would she wonder where his thoughts had come from? He drove on and on, and perhaps that’s all he could do. Just go on, as he had advised Fran.

  He didn’t drive fast, for there cou
ld be a pheasant on the road, or deer; besides, what was the point? He was in no hurry. He had a day off, for heaven’s sake. He rounded a bend, but—What the hell—He braked and skidded as the back of a bus slewed towards him, blocking him; huge, dark, it took the sun away. It was tilting, coming straight towards him. He pressed down hard on the horn. It was the Factory bus. Women on board. Fran, Sarah—Closer, closer. He spun the wheel. He mustn’t—No, don’t hit it. No, not them. Mustn’t hurt them. He spun the wheel. He was broadside on, but the bus kept coming, so he drove for the ditch, hard and fast, leaving the road clear for the spin of the bus. He saw the grassy verge, the wall, the tree, but what could he do? He roared forward, out of their way, into the tree. He felt the pain, the steering wheel against his chest, the agony of his leg; he tasted his own blood, then nothing as his head crashed through the windscreen.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Fran shouted over the groans: ‘Viola, shift your arse, lass, we need to get up. Go on, Viola. Beth, give her a hand. Let’s get her on the back seat, lay her out.’

  ‘I’m not bliddy dead, I divint need laying out.’ Viola’s voice sounded weak.

  ‘Then get off us,’ grunted Sarah. ‘We’re not a mattress. We’ve got to get up, lass. See if you can first, eh?’

  Beth listened but couldn’t smile. Her lips were split, and she was hanging over the seat in front like a rag doll. Her head hurt, but the bridge of her nose was worse. She murmured to herself, ‘Get up, get up, you great dollop.’

  She braced herself, putting a hand on the window. It slipped in some blood. The side of her face throbbed and now she remembered slamming into the glass. She looked down at Mrs Seaton, half on a seat, half kneeling on the floor. Their eyes met. Mrs Seaton said, ‘I’m not a big dollop, I’ll have you know,’ and they both tried to smile. This time Beth heaved herself upright, reached down and pulled up Mrs Seaton, who sagged onto her seat. Beth then moved along to Viola.