The Bells of Bow

by Gilda O'Neill

  Babs nodded. ‘I’ll bet.’

  ‘But I wouldn’t leave the station till all these little ones had got sorted out. There was a bunch of ’em, tiny little nippers some of ’em were, standing around waiting to be chosen. Like dockers waiting on the stones to be called for work, they was, poor little devils. Terrible it was. I could have cried for ’em. They stood there, all scared without their mums, with little labels on their coats, and little brown paper parcels with their bits and pieces. And these old girls come and looked ‘em over like they was cattle or something. Should have seen ’em, the old bags. Like bloody schoolteachers they looked. One or two of the kids was really sad to see. Yer can imagine, them – what had the scabby knees and runny noses, yer know what I mean?’

  Babs nodded over the rim of her cup.

  ‘They got left till last, of course. None of the old cows wanted to take them home. Poor little sods.’ She shook her head at the thought of it. ‘But it was funny, yer know. Our Len, he loved it down there. I don’t think he was all that keen to come home.’

  ‘He’s always been a bit different to the others, ain’t he though, Blanche? How he likes animals and reading books and that.’

  ‘Yer right there. He really got on at the little school down there. Loved it, he did. Mind you, he ain’t best pleased that the schools are open up here, he was positive they’d still be shut. He hates going to Olga Street.’

  ‘Can’t blame him for that.’ Babs ran her fingers through her hair and was surprised to find that it was bone dry. ‘But I bet your Mary’s delighted, ain’t she, being back near her Micky?’

  ‘You ain’t kidding. Straight round his she went, didn’t even take her coat off, just kissed her dad and legged it.’

  ‘She wants to be careful in the blackout, there’s been so many accidents on the roads.’

  ‘Call this a blackout? Yer wanna see it down there. Can’t see yer hand in front of yer face, yer can’t. She’ll be all right.’ Blanche smiled wistfully. ‘Yer forgetting how grown up she is, Babs. She’s left school now, yer know.’ Blanche drained her cup. ‘Now, there is something yer don’t know. She’s only gonna start in the bloody munitions with that stupid sister o’ mine Ruby. As if she ain’t caused us enough aggravation already, sending us down to that hole. She has to bloody interfere. I could have killed her when she kept going on in all her letters about how much Mary could earn at the factory with her.’

  Babs poured more tea into Blanche’s cup. ‘Mary could have earned herself a fair bit at Styleways and all. What with the piecework we’re doing, we’re earning a fortune compared to our usual money.’

  ‘So something good’s coming out of all this war lark then?’

  ‘I suppose there’s always a good side to everything.’ Blanche’s eyes opened wide and she snorted. ‘I can’t see nothing good about being bloody evacuated.’

  By the time Blanche had launched into another round of stories about the horrors of rural living, Babs had topped their cups up for the third time. ‘It really was that bad then?’

  ‘Well, I suppose I’m exaggerating a bit but, be truthful, Babs, what was the point of being stuck down there when it’s as safe as houses up here? All them rumours about gas attacks and fire bombs – what a load of old rubbish that all turned out to be. Yer dad was right, after all.’

  ‘And I don’t suppose your Archie being stuck up here in London had nothing to do with yer wanting to come home?’

  Blanche laughed. ‘I’m the one who’s meant to be able to read you like a book, not the other way round.’

  ‘I have me moments.’

  Blanche leaned back in her chair and folded her arms. ‘I think it was being away from Archie over Christmas that was the last straw. Even though he got down for a couple of days afterwards, it still didn’t feel right.’ Blanche reached across and chucked Babs under the chin. ‘I hope yer lucky enough to find someone as decent as my Archie to settle down with, Babs. Yer won’t go far wrong if yer do.’

  Babs said nothing.

  ‘I imagined you lot, all in the Drum having a right old knees-up over Christmas, while we was singing bleed’n carols with the old couple what owned the house. Parsnip wine they give us.’ Blanche pulled a face and shuddered. ‘Bloody horrible, it was. They did their best for us, but they were a funny couple.’ She bit her lip, trying to stop herself laughing. ‘Honest, Babs, I couldn’t even understand half of what they said.’

  Babs joined in her laughter. ‘You’d have all been talking like swede bashers if yer’d been there much longer.’

  Blanche grimaced. ‘Some hopes. Come on, Babs, make me wild, tell me what a good time you all had at Christmas.’

  ‘Seems a long time ago now.’ She paused then raised her eyebrows. ‘Evie enjoyed herself all right. Got herself a fox fur. And not just a jacket neither. A proper full-length job.’

  Blanche’s mouth dropped open. ‘What bank did she turn over?’ She paused. ‘Here, she ain’t still with that Albie Denham, is she? When yer never mentioned him in yer letters I thought he’d moved on to drive the next poor cow barmy.’

  ‘She’s still with him.’ Babs nodded towards the chickens. ‘I presume that’s where they come from.’

  ‘I meant to ask yer about them.’ Blanche’s attempt at a smile couldn’t disguise her concern. She took Babs’s hand. ‘Why didn’t yer write and tell me? I bet yer’ve been bottling it all up. I know you.’

  Babs looked down at Blanche’s big, work-worn hand covering her own much smaller and softer one. ‘I was trying to take yer advice, Blanche, leave her to it and get on with me own life.’ She shrugged. ‘And Evie ain’t daft.’

  ‘No, course she ain’t, and neither are you, but …’ Blanche shook her head. ‘Albie Denham.’

  ‘Yeah, Albie Denham. I’ve tried, Blanche, I really have, but I can’t help fretting about her being with him. I don’t like him, I really don’t. And it’s getting worse. I know I was jealous at first, about him taking her away from me and that, but I got over that part of it.’ Babs lifted her chin and tried to smile but she was too close to tears. ‘You always was good at giving advice, Blanche, but it ain’t always easy for me to take it. I did me best.’

  ‘I don’t blame yer being worried, darling, but yer mustn’t get yerself all worked up. And like yer said, Evie ain’t daft.’ Blanche stood up and busied herself at the sink, refilling the kettle. Before she turned round to Babs, she fixed a tight smile on her face. ‘Don’t let’s get all humpy,’ she said over her shoulder as she set the kettle down on the stove. ‘I could’ve stayed down in the bleed’n sticks if that was what I wanted. Come on, give us all the gossip about who’s doing what to who. I’ve missed that nearly as much as I’ve missed me pie ’n’ mash.’

  Babs managed a smile this time. ‘Well, there’s plenty what ain’t changed, yer’ll be glad to hear. Alice is exactly the same.’ Babs stood up, stuck her fists into her waist and screwed up her face. ‘“My girl wouldn’t have let her Micky be evacuated to no strangers if he’d still been at school,”’ she whined in a creditable impersonation of Alice Clarke. ‘“And so long as people like Frankie Morgan do their duty proper, that Hitler’ll never get through.”’ Babs took the cups and rinsed them under the single cold tap. ‘Can you imagine, Frankie Morgan fighting the Germans? He must be ninety if he’s a day.’

  Blanche laughed. ‘Well, us lot are back now, that’ll give her something else to go on about.’

  Babs wiped the cups dry and put them back on the table. ‘Yer don’t know how good it is to see yer back, Blanche. And I know Minnie and Clara’ll both be right pleased to see the kids around again. They asked after yer all the time.’

  Blanche was about to answer but she was cut short by someone knocking at the door.

  Babs looked up at the clock. ‘Bloody hell.’ She ran out into the passage and let Lou in.

  ‘New fashion?’ she said, looking Babs up and down. ‘It would never have occurred to me to go out in me slip and drawers.’

 
‘I’m sorry, Lou, I didn’t realise the time had gone so fast.’

  ‘That’s all right. They can wait.’

  Babs guided Lou into the kitchen. ‘Look who’s here,’ she said, going over to Blanche and kissing her on the cheek.

  A broad smile spread over Lou’s chubby face. ‘Hello, Blanche, good to see yer. How yer doing?’

  ‘All right, now I’m home.’

  ‘Ain’t just a holiday then?’

  Blanche shook her head emphatically. ‘Definitely not. I’m home for good. Wouldn’t worry if I never saw another bloody sheep in me whole life.’

  ‘Yer don’t mind if I just do me face, do yer?’ asked Babs, setting up a little hand mirror against the teapot and taking out lipstick, rouge and mascara from her handbag.

  ‘No, you carry on,’ Blanche said. ‘Wouldn’t want yer going out without a bit of colour in yer cheeks.’

  Lou perched on the edge of the table next to Babs. ‘I’m glad yer back, Blanche.’ She hesitated, watching Babs stroke her lashes with the sticky mascara. ‘I’m glad for Babs’s sake.’

  Babs didn’t shift her gaze from the mirror. ‘Don’t go getting all dramatic on me, Lou. Cheer up, everything’s fine.’

  Lou swallowed. She glanced sideways at Blanche. ‘I ain’t so sure about that, Babs.’

  Babs put down her mascara brush and looked at Lou. ‘What yer talking about?’

  Lou looked away as though she couldn’t face her friend. ‘I don’t wanna worry yer,’ she said quietly, ‘But I don’t think that everything is fine.’ She glanced at Blanche. ‘I didn’t say nothing before but I reckon I can tell yer now Blanche’s back with yer.’

  Lou took a deep breath before the words came tumbling out. ‘If half the stories are true that our Bob’s been telling me about Albie, Babs, then things definitely ain’t fine. Evie wants to watch her step. I think she’s getting in well over her head.’

  9

  With the coming of spring, the weather in 1940 took a definite turn for the better, but even that did nothing to lift Babs’s spirits. Her doubts and worries about Evie seeing Albie Denham, confirmed so worryingly by Lou, had now deepened into a real fear for her twin. No matter how she tried to get through to her, she couldn’t. Evie was totally obsessed with Albie, refusing to listen to a single question about what he was up to and how he seemed to be growing richer by the day. And Georgie didn’t help matters; if anything, he was drinking even more than usual. So what with Evie being out every night with Albie and Georgie being either in the pub or sleeping off his latest binge, Babs was just about fed up with the situation. It helped having Blanche back home, but Babs couldn’t keep running to her; she had worries of her own, and not only about her children.

  Blanche was having to face the increasing possibility that Archie, even though he was over thirty, might be called up. People had been keen for something to actually happen in the war, and now it had, with a vengeance. The so-called Phoney War was over. On 9 April, Hitler’s forces had invaded Norway, and British military help had failed miserably. It definitely wasn’t what the British public had wanted or expected to hear when they called for action; they were stunned by the defeat of Norway.

  And then on Friday, 10 May – ironically another beautiful spring day – a further crisis loomed to reduce the spirits. Germany invaded Belgium and Holland; the Germans were moving inexorably through the battered towns and villages towards the Channel and Britain itself. There was a feeling of disbelief, even panic in the air that perhaps the stories and rumours from the early days of the war about a German invasion weren’t just cowardly, defeatist talk after all. Chamberlain was blamed from all quarters for his weak leadership, and at six o’clock that evening, Winston Churchill replaced him as Prime Minister and became leader of the new coalition government.

  For a while at least, people once again had a focus for their feelings of patriotism, even if it was only Churchill’s big, triumphant cigar and his rakish siren suit.

  Two weeks after Churchill became Prime Minister, on the evening of Saturday, 25 May, Darnfield Street was witness to the increasingly unusual spectacle of Evie and Babs Bell walking along arm in arm towards the Drum.

  They might have looked a blooming picture of family happiness, the two lovely girls strolling along in the late spring sunshine, but Evie for one wasn’t in a very good mood. ‘I’m warning yer, Babs,’ she sniped, ‘if Dad turns up drunk and starts, or if he comes over all sentimental, I’m straight out of that pub, right? I really mean it. I ain’t having him show me up in front of Albie.’

  Babs had to bite her tongue. Instead of saying what she really felt, she smiled and said, ‘Don’t worry, Eve, Dad won’t start. Not tonight, he won’t. Not with Nellie specially inviting us in for a drink like this.’ She cuddled closer to her twin. ‘Don’t let’s be miserable, eh? Not today. Try and enjoy yerself. For me.’

  ‘I mean it,’ Eve repeated.

  Babs flinched, her sister sounded so hard. ‘He’s probably forgotten it’s our birthday anyway,’ she said quietly.

  When the girls stepped inside the Drum, they couldn’t believe it; it was as though all the street was in the pub waiting for them. Jim and Nellie had obviously turned a blind eye to young Mary and Terry Simpkins slipping in with Blanche and Archie because there they were sitting at a corner table with Alice and Nobby’s grandson Micky. Alice and Nobby themselves had a central table with a good all-round view, which they shared with Ethel and Frankie Morgan – who was sitting there complete with his tin helmet and armband. Rita and Bert had popped across from the baker’s and were standing at the bar, and even Miss Peters was sitting there sipping a sherry with her next door neighbours, Minnie and Clara. The only people from the street who were not there were the Jenners, although nobody really expected them to be in the pub, and Georgie was still on the missing list, not having been seen or heard of by anyone since lunchtime.

  ‘Here y’are, girls, over here.’ Lou was calling to them from the far end of the bar. ‘I’ve had these lined up waiting for you two for nearly half an hour.’

  The twins went and stood either side of her as she slid a port and lemon in front of each of them.

  ‘Thank gawd yer here at last,’ Lou said, raising her glass before she sipped gratefully at it. ‘Nellie and Jim asked all the street in for a birthday drink for yer and they thought the guests of honour wasn’t gonna show.’

  Evie and Babs frowned at each other. ‘Did you know?’ they asked each other. They both shook their heads.

  ‘And all these old moaners in here,’ Lou carried on, with a general wave round the bar, ‘they’ve been driving me flaming barmy. It’s as bad as being at home with me dad. Honest, if I’d have heard another word about fifth columnists, Holland capitulating or that bleed’n Mosley geezer, I swear I’d … I dunno, but I would have.’

  ‘Ain’t stopped yer talking though, Lou,’ grinned Evie.

  ‘Shut up, Eve,’ Babs giggled then turned her back to the bar and raised her glass to the neighbours. ‘Sorry we’re late, everyone. We didn’t know yer was all expecting us.’

  ‘We’d have been in before,’ Evie added, ‘but we’ve been waiting for Dad. It’s really nice to see yer all here. Cheers.’

  Calls of ‘Happy birthday, girls’ echoed round the pub and glasses were raised.

  The twins turned back to the bar. ‘Ta, Nell,’ they both said. ‘It’s right good of yer, thinking of doing this for us.’

  ‘There’s a bite to eat later and all,’ said Nellie with an affectionate smile. ‘I thought everyone could do with a bit of a celebration, what with all the bad news lately, and today seemed just the day to do it.’

  Lou whispered to Babs out of the side of her mouth, ‘If she starts on about the war …’ But she needn’t have worried. Nellie wasn’t about to give a speech about the enemy or troop movements, she was much more interested in the twins enjoying themselves.

  ‘I’ve done a few sandwiches and I got in a couple o’ bowls of eels and Rita’s made
yer a smashing cake. Nice little spread, it is.’

  ‘Aw Nellie, what can we say?’ Evie turned to her sister. ‘You say something, Babs.’

  ‘Yer always so good to us, Nell. What can we say?’

  ‘That’s all the reward I could ask for,’ said Nellie. She sounded choked. ‘Your two beautiful, dimpled faces smiling at me.’ Nellie never tried to hide her fondness for the twins; she had spent many wakeful nights thinking what it would have been like if she and Jim had been fortunate enough to have had children like them; or even one child would have been a dream come true. But it was never to be. She looked along the bar to where her husband was sharing a joke with Bert. If things had turned out how she had always hoped they would, he’d have been a good dad, she thought to herself. He was a kind, decent man, better than that Ringer had turned out to be. He was such a lucky bugger having the girls but he was too stupid lately to realise it. Life wasn’t fair, she’d learnt that years ago.

  She took a gulp of her lemonade. ‘Dad not around then, girls?’ she asked.

  Evie shook her head. ‘No. He cleared off somewhere hours ago.’

  ‘He’ll be along soon,’ Nellie said with more sincerity than she felt. ‘He wouldn’t miss his girls’ birthday now, would he?’

  Frankie Morgan came up to the bar and pushed in between Lou and Eve. ‘Pint and half of bitter shandy, please, Nell.’ He leaned his scrawny arms on the polished counter. ‘Hear the wireless?’ he asked no one in particular.