Last Rights

by Barbara Nadel

  ‘Frank!’

  I’d walked in and half-way up the stairs without even noticing. Nan, above me on the landing, burning candle in her hand, looked like something out of that Bela Lugosi picture.

  ‘Nan!’ I put a hand on my chest. ‘Give me a turn!’

  ‘Where have you been?’ she said. Her face, lit from beneath by the candle, looked even darker and more lined than it usually does.

  ‘I went down to Canning Town, to Albert Cox,’ I said. It was partly true. ‘Why? What’s the matter?’

  ‘Mum’s been took bad.’ Nan leaned forward and lowered her voice: ‘Dr O’Grady’s in with her.’

  ‘Oh.’

  The Duchess always has pain, but from time to time it gets very bad. Then she can’t eat or sleep. All she does is push her rosary beads through her crippled fingers, every ‘Hail Mary’ a dart of pain. There isn’t anything anyone can do, including Dr O’Grady.

  ‘I’ve given her quinine,’ he said, when he finally came out into the parlour. ‘The stairs are a problem, Frank.’

  ‘I know.’ Every time there’s a raid she has to get down them to the shelter. Sometimes hours in there, cramped up, the damp earth all round, and then out again, up the stairs back into her cold bedroom. I wish she’d have a fire in there sometimes, like she used to, but she’s too worried now, like everyone else, about the coal running out.

  Nan asked Dr O’Grady whether he wanted a cup of tea. He said he’d like that and so, while I paid him for his visit, she went off to make it.

  ‘So how are things, then, Frank?’ Dr O’Grady asked, as he lit up his pipe. I can’t remember a time when he wasn’t our doctor. Always straight round when Dad was taken bad with what he called his Indian fever. Malaria – horrible disease – but Dad, God bless him, always said it was a small price to pay for meeting the Duchess, the love of his life. It was the malaria that eventually killed the old man.

  ‘Can’t complain, Doctor,’ I said. ‘At least, no more nor less than anyone else. A fellow rarely gets bored in my line of work.’

  Dr O’Grady laughed. Although he’s old now, he’s never lost his sense of humour. You need that in his business just like you need it in mine. Sometimes it’s the only way to get through the day. Not that I was too full of it myself on this occasion. The Duchess was bad, Nan was showing the strain of it and my head was still full of Kevin Dooley and what, for me, was building up into something of a mystery.

  Once Nan had been with the tea and gone, I asked him about what I had downstairs. Maybe as Aggie had suggested, when she’d first seen Kevin’s body, the doctor was the best person to ask about it. Dr O’Grady readily agreed to ‘give him a look’.

  ‘He’s starting to get a little bit ripe, if you don’t mind my saying so, Frank,’ the doctor said, as he lifted the lid of the shell and, wrinkling his nose a little, looked inside.

  ‘Yes. Sorry, Doctor.’

  In the normal course of events, when somebody dies I’ll go out to the house with a shell, a flimsy wooden coffin, and measure up the deceased for a proper box. On the day of the funeral my lads will slip the shell into the coffin and seal up. But Kevin Dooley was, as I explained now to the doctor, strictly Cox’s so I’d just put him in a shell for transportation.

  ‘So what is it you want me to look at, Frank?’ the doctor said.

  I pulled the deceased’s clothes aside and showed him the small raised pimple just below the ribs. ‘Do you think this could be a stab wound, Doctor?’ I said. ‘From something long and thin, like a pin or whatever.’

  Dr O’Grady looked down at the body for some time before he turned his gaze, squinting, to me. ‘By a pin, Frank, what do you—’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Maybe a ladies’ hatpin or . . .’

  ‘Oh, well, now, there was a case many, many years ago,’ Dr O’Grady said. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully as he continued, ‘Not round here, but in London somewhere. Woman, prostitute, I think, stabbed a man with a hatpin, killed him.’

  This sounded like the crime Hannah had spoken about. Obviously quite a famous case. Not that it had had any effect on me. But, then, maybe if it had happened in the last lot or near it, the whole thing had simply passed me by.

  ‘What happened?’

  Dr O’Grady shook his head. ‘I can’t remember. Murder or manslaughter? No, it’s gone. I don’t know. I’ve a feeling the woman hanged but . . .’

  ‘So what do you think, Doctor? About this bloke and . . .’

  ‘I think he might possibly have been stabbed by something like a hatpin, yes,’ he said, ‘but I’d have to do a post-mortem examination to be sure, and as a family doctor I’m no expert.’ He looked up at me, frowning. ‘Frank, besides this mark, do you have any reason to suppose that this man might have been stabbed?’

  I told him about the night of the bare-knuckle fight and of my strange and frightening encounter with an apparently wounded Kevin Dooley. I also told him what Aggie had said about the girls down Rathbone and how they might sometimes protect themselves.

  ‘Well, I, personally, have never come across any of these so-called victims,’ Dr O’Grady said. But then he added, with a smile, ‘However, that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Most men around here, Frank, as I’m sure you’ll agree, come to me only when all earthly hope is lost. A little stabbing, unless it involves a vital organ, is something of an occupational hazard.’

  ‘Yes.’ We both looked down at the corpse for a moment. ‘So, Doctor, what do you think I should do?’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t do anything alone, Frank,’ he said. ‘Maybe speak to Albert Cox when he comes to collect him. But as for a post-mortem . . .’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Without his family’s involvement you’d be hard pressed to get a coroner to take it on and I don’t suppose the police would be very interested, not if their doctor has already ascertained the cause of death. I assume he was seen by Marcus Cockburn?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Why?’ There’d been something in Dr O’Grady’s tone that suggested to me he didn’t entirely like or trust Dr Cockburn. But I’d heard more than a few stories involving the police doctor and heavy drinking sessions.

  Dr O’Grady, however, didn’t take that particular bait and went back to the subject of Kevin: ‘Some people don’t hold it together as well as others during raids,’ he said. ‘He could have been raving when he talked about being stabbed.’

  He could’ve been. Yes.

  Dr O’Grady replaced the lid of the shell and took out his pipe again. ‘But I can see that you’re worried, Frank,’ he said, ‘and maybe with good reason. Perhaps this poor chap has been done to death by some woman he was seeing. But unless you or Albert Cox want to take him up to the London then I can’t see how you can go any further with it. And, anyway, even if you do go to the hospital with him, you won’t find anyone who will take any interest. He’s dead.’

  He was right, of course. Not even the London Hospital was taking anything other than the most seriously ill now and even then people only stayed there for as long as they couldn’t be moved. It wasn’t safe. Not that any of this helped me at all with Kevin Dooley, who might or might not have been murdered.

  Albert Cox turned up at near on six. He’s a lot shorter and fairer than I am, but we’re of an age, Albert and I, so we have an understanding between us as well as professional respect. Cox’s undertakers haven’t been going for as long as our firm. But they know what they’re doing and they’re a decent lot of lads.

  ‘I’ll take him round to the old girl’s in the morning,’ Albert said, after we’d loaded Kevin Dooley’s remains into the back of his hearse. ‘With any luck the place’ll take a direct hit and I won’t have to bother with Kevin or his bleedin’ mother.’

  I pointed out that this was hardly fair on Kevin’s children, which Albert did agree to, but he was unrepentant with regard to the man and his mother. ‘Go to any pub in Canning Town, ask for Dooley and you’ll see what I mean,’ Albert said. ‘Been slung out of every one.’

>   ‘What for?’

  Albert coughed, then lit up a fag. The mist was thick from the river that evening. ‘Scrapping,’ he said. ‘Kevin Dooley was a scrapper. Man, woman or child – he didn’t care. Give one of my lads a black eye couple of years back in the Chandelier. The mother’s no better and his brothers are animals.’

  In view of what Albert’s opinions seemed to be about the Dooleys it didn’t seem worth launching into my story about Kevin and his stab wound. He wouldn’t, I felt, have had a great deal of interest in what might or might not have occurred on that mad, bomb-soaked night down in East Ham. Maybe I would just leave it alone, like Dr O’Grady had said. But I did tell Albert about the man’s wife.

  ‘Poor girl,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Sometimes I’d see her, she could hardly open her eyes for the swelling.’

  ‘He beat her up?’

  ‘Well, somebody must’ve,’ Albert said. ‘Always in the family way, always with a black eye, that one. It was either Kevin or his mother, probably Kevin. I think the old girl got her fun making a dog’s life for poor young Velma.’

  Velma, it turned out, was the one Vi Dooley had called the ‘basket’, the one who was from the younger woman’s previous marriage. She was, Albert reckoned, about fifteen. Not only had Velma had to clean up after her step-father and his mother, she’d had a lot to do with her nine half-brothers and -sisters too.

  According to Albert, having a lot of kiddies was important to Kevin. ‘Used to boast about what a man he was in any pub that’d have him,’ he said, as he locked up the back of the hearse and climbed into the cab. ‘Bleedin’ idiot.’

  ‘Albert, you don’t think anyone could’ve killed Dooley, do you?’ I blurted, unable to keep it from him any longer.

  ‘What do you mean? If he hadn’t died from the blast?’ Albert replied. ‘I can’t think of many who’d want him to carry on living, to be honest – apart from his mother and brothers, of course.’ He laughed. ‘Why, Frank?’

  I had to tell him and so, with the exception of Hannah’s comments, I told Albert about what I’d witnessed at East Ham, who’d said what and what I might have found on the body. But strangely to me, I must admit, he just shrugged, his eyes blank with what looked like disregard. ‘So someone might have knocked him off? Probably with good reason.’

  ‘But, Albert,’ I said, ‘if he’s been murdered, whatever he was like in life, then . . .’

  ‘Marcus Cockburn said he died from the blast.’

  ‘Yes, but . . .’

  Albert peered up at me hard. ‘Leave it, Frank,’ he said. ‘Do as you’re told and just get on with your life.’

  It was almost word for word what one of our old sergeant majors had said to me when I’d questioned why a certain young man, a supposed coward, was to be executed by, among others, me. My next words to poor old Albert were therefore bitter and furious. ‘What? Like we did in the first lot, Albert?’ I said. ‘When we were asked to shoot little kids who were a bit frightened? Their families never ever told the truth about their sons? Living a lie? It matters how people die, it matters that those who killed them suffer – like I do, like all of us suffer who went out there into the mud and the blood and killed people.’

  Albert put his hand wearily to his forehead and said, ‘I know. Look, Frank, I’m sorry.’

  ‘Yes . . .’

  ‘But, quite honestly, from what you’ve told me there’s nothing we can do,’ he said. ‘Cockburn’s made his decision. All the rest, what you’ve said, is just people’s stories and opinions. The toff doctor has spoken so the working class have to shut up.’ He sighed and then he smiled. ‘Anyway, I’d better get him over to my shop before Jerry turns up.’

  I felt my whole body turn to stone. I couldn’t remember when I’d had an unbroken night’s sleep. Suddenly, coming on top of my anger and frustration, the thought of another raid made me panic. ‘You think he will? In this mist?’

  ‘Just because Hitler couldn’t get many of them out of their pits last night don’t mean he won’t shift himself to put on a good show tonight,’ Albert said. And then, wearily, he added, ‘Who knows what Jerry’s thinking, eh, Frank? Certainly not the bleedin’ Government. Bastards!’

  It was more of a twitch than an act of conscious movement that made me look first over my shoulder and then back at Albert once again.

  ‘Be careful!’ I said. ‘We don’t know who might be listening!’

  ‘Couldn’t care less,’ Albert said defiantly. ‘I don’t think it’s treason to call those who can’t seem to protect us or even care a bunch of bastards. Do you?’

  ‘No, but—’

  ‘They can put me in the nick if they like,’ Albert said. ‘What you said about the deserters in the first lot was right, Frank. And I tell you, it’s still them and us today. War or no war, the rich against the poor. I mean, all them poor Jews they interned – Harry Rabin, poor old Davy Klarfeld. Yeah, right bleedin’ Nazis they are!’ And then with one finger up at my face to emphasise his point, Albert said, ‘This is what all wars are, Frank, and that’s a class war just like the last lot!’

  I’d hated the stupid upper-class officers in the first lot just as much as Albert hates the Government. But for some reason I’ve never been able to find it within me to feel quite so political about it. For me justice, for want of another word, is more personal, as in my concern over Kevin Dooley and what might have happened to him. Also, I know it’s because I’m afraid of what people might think: I’m scared, like a lot of people, of being branded a Communist. After all, we might be at war with the Nazis, but that doesn’t mean Churchill and the rest of them are going to let the country go like Russia.

  When I did eventually speak I just said, ‘Yes,’ in that vague way people are used to getting from me sometimes.

  But then Albert fired up his engine and I waved him on his way, my hand making vague patterns in the dim, blacked-out mist. As the car disappeared through the gate, Albert called, ‘Here, Frank, let me have a look at Dooley myself and I’ll speak to you tomorrow.’ I felt he was humouring me, but I thanked him anyway. After all, he didn’t have to do anything about it.

  Although it was chilly, I didn’t want to go inside immediately so I stood out for a bit, looking up at the grey, mist-streaked sky above. If the Luftwaffe came tonight I knew I’d have to carry the Duchess down to the shelter before I set off on my usual terrified travels. Somehow I’d have to keep my nerve for just enough time to make her safe. Then the picture show in my head could do what it liked. Faces half eaten by rats, the scream that Georgie Pepper let out as he sank into the mud, the scream that’s always just about to start again . . .

  You have to be careful what you say these days but, like Albert Cox, if quietly, most people wonder what’s going on. Every night without exception we’ve been pounded. Those who’ve been bombed out just wander more often than not – a lot of them looking not unlike me. The dead out and about, looking for something to feed to their kids. I’ve even heard that some have gone up into Epping Forest, sleeping out on the ground like gypsies. I know they can get help from the assistance people, with money and billets and what-have-you, but I don’t think the authorities understand that it takes so much time. People have to get over the shock of losing everything for a start-off. More often than not they’re hurt, sometimes in their minds where it doesn’t show. I can see it in their faces: it’s like looking in a mirror sometimes.

  I went inside soon afterwards and told Doris that she could go home. Now that Albert had picked up Kevin Dooley there wasn’t anything left to do except shut up shop and wait for the sirens. No one really wanted to believe that anything untoward could have happened to Kevin so I felt disquieted and quite alone as I started to lock up. It all felt, even through doubts that I had myself, very wrong. I was just about to go up the stairs to the flat when I heard the knocking on the front door.

  Chapter Five

  Her Christian name was Pearl. She said I should use it rather than keep calling her Mrs Dooley.
She and the girl, Velma, who was a skinny creature anyway, looked as if they hadn’t eaten that day.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Mr Hancock,’ she said, as I took them both up to the kitchen, ‘but I didn’t know where else to go.’

  ‘It’s all right.’

  ‘You were so kind this morning when I come for my Kevin and . . .’ She started to cry. ‘No one else has had so much as a good word . . .’

  Velma put her arm round her mother’s shoulders as they followed me into the kitchen. Nan was washing a couple of spuds at the sink when we arrived.

  ‘Who’re they?’ she said, when she saw the pale, distressed blonde and her hollow-eyed daughter.

  I told her Pearl was a customer. ‘In a bit of a state,’ I said. ‘Put the kettle on, will you, Nan?’

  She did, if grudgingly. Some people happily share short rations, but not Nan, and as soon as the tea was made she went off up to the Duchess without another word.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Pearl said, as she watched her go. ‘I never wanted to make trouble for you. Your wife . . .’

  ‘She’s my sister,’ I said, with a smile. ‘You just drink your tea.’ And then I watched as she and her daughter both drank it down, scalding, almost in one gulp.

  ‘Mother-in-law chucked us out,’ Pearl said, once she’d finished. ‘Soon as I got back from here.’ I noticed that with some tea inside her the colour of her face had improved.

  Her daughter scowled. ‘Old cow!’ she said. ‘I hate her!’

  ‘Velma!’

  ‘Well, it’s true, I do hate her. She’s took everything!’

  ‘The later it got the more scared I was,’ Pearl said. ‘I know that me and Velma could go to one of them public shelters, but I can’t really think straight at the moment, Mr Hancock, and so—’

  ‘The old cow took our coupons,’ Velma said bitterly. ‘Said she needed them to feed all the kiddies.’

  ‘Your brothers and sisters?’