The Wayward Wife

by Jessica Stirling

  26

  In less harried times the London Fire Service would have done a better job of honouring the three auxiliaries who were killed in the line of duty on the night of 9 September. There would have been a parade in dress uniform, a laying out of flag-draped coffins in one of the local churches and a watch, however brief, kept by four colleagues while friends, relatives and off-duty firemen filed past to pay their last respects.

  Helmets, webbing and axes would have graced the tops of the coffins and wreaths the base and someone as high up as a Divisional Commander would have delivered a eulogy praising the firemen’s courage and dedication before the coffins were taken off in government-subsidised vehicles for committal.

  Five sporadic daylight raids followed by another savage ‘all-nighter’ had wreaked too much havoc to permit the luxury of official mourning but it was lack of foresight, rather than indifference, that really put the kibosh on any sort of ceremony. No one in the Home Office or the Ministry of Defence, let alone the London Fire Service, quite knew what to do when there was nothing left to fill a coffin but a few shards of bone and scraps of flesh, not enough to gather up and carry to the mortuary for a coroner’s assistant to piece together like a jigsaw puzzle.

  If there had been no eye-witnesses cynical anti-war protesters might have put it about that the three auxiliaries weren’t dead at all but had simply done a bunk and would pop up again, all smiles, when the war was over. Breda wasn’t daft enough to subscribe to that calumny and if anyone had dared suggest it within earshot of Matt, never mind Danny, they’d have wound up on the floor with two black eyes and a bloody nose.

  It was left to Clary Knotts to seek Breda out, several days later, and answer her question: ‘Did ’e suffer?’

  ‘Over in a flash, Mrs Hooper,’ Clary told her. ‘They never knew what ’it them. We thought it was a landmine at first. Twelve, fifteen feet long, a black tube with a fin on the end. Torpedo, they tell me, naval torpedo, first one we’d seen. If it hadn’t fallen right outside the school where folk were sheltered we’d ’ave left it for the bomb squad. Ronnie wouldn’t wear it, though. He sent me inside to keep folk away from the doors and windows while Jim, Eric and ’im dragged the thing away. Got it clear out the gate before it went up. Big, big explosion. Knocked over a fire tender an’ two motorcars an’ left a crater a mile deep. Broke all the glass in the school, every single pane, but nobody inside was killed. Ron was a hero. You should be proud of ’im, Mrs Hooper. Real proud of ’im.’

  ‘Oh, but I am,’ said Breda. ‘Believe me, I am.’

  Susan’s first thought when she received the call from Breda was not that she would never see her brother again but that she didn’t have a black dress to wear to the funeral.

  Making the call from a public phone box, and presumably short of change, Breda had been curt to the point of rudeness. She hadn’t said a word about how Ron had died or when he would be buried and seemed more concerned with extracting a promise that she would let Danny know as soon as possible.

  Susan replaced the receiver of the telephone on Basil’s desk and, with a little tut of annoyance, said, ‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask for time off.’

  ‘What?’ Basil said. ‘Now?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Susan. ‘My brother’s been killed, apparently.’

  ‘Apparently?’ Basil said. ‘Has he or hasn’t he?’

  ‘No,’ Susan said, ‘I don’t think there’s any doubt.’

  ‘Good God!’ said Basil, rising. ‘You poor girl.’

  He came around the desk and took her, unresisting, into his arms. ‘Bomb, was it?’

  ‘What?’ said Susan. ‘I’ve no idea. I think I’ve something at home that might do at a pinch.’

  Basil pulled away. ‘Susan, take hold of yourself.’

  ‘What?’ Susan said again. ‘You don’t know what it’s like with us, do you? It’s important to keep up appearances. I really should have my hair done too. I don’t want to turn up looking like a scarecrow.’

  He moved her as if she were a puppet, jerking her towards the chair behind his desk and easing her into it. He leaned into the desk and spoke softly.

  ‘Who called you?’

  ‘Breda, Ron’s wife. Why she called me I really can’t imagine. What does she expect me to do? I can’t bring Ronnie back. Call Danny, call Danny, that’s all she could say. Does she think I’m operating a switchboard here? Still, I suppose I’d better show my face or I’ll never hear the end of it.’ She looked up at Basil, frowning. ‘Can you spare me for a couple of hours?’

  ‘I suspect it might take longer than a couple of hours, Susan. In any case, I can’t let you go in this state.’ Basil paused. ‘Will I send for Vivian to accompany you?’

  ‘Vivian has better things to do with her time, I’m sure.’

  ‘Bob, then? I’ll call the Lansdowne, shall I?’

  ‘You’re right, of course.’ Susan said. ‘A couple of hours isn’t going to do it. There’ll be things to do, arrangements to make. They’ll be running around like headless chickens without Ronnie. Ronnie always took care of things.’ She looked up. ‘Bob? No, no, not Bob. That wouldn’t be fair to anyone.’

  ‘Tell you what,’ Basil said gently, ‘why don’t I try to contact your husband? I’m sure our operator will have a number where, with a bit of prodding, I can reach him.’

  ‘Danny? Yes,’ said Susan, sitting up a little, ‘why don’t you phone Danny? He’ll know what to do for the best.’

  She arrived in Pitt Street by taxi-cab during a lull in the late afternoon sorties. All down the road people were queuing for shelters, arms full of food, rugs, babies and blankets. The mouths of the Tube stations were mobbed not with passengers coming home from work but with families seeking a safe place in which to spend the night.

  There were no signs of fresh damage east of Aldgate but the cabby, a garrulous type made more talkative by nerves, informed her that a single raider had zoomed over London and dropped a few incendiaries before vanishing off to the west but that the guns had been flashing all afternoon south of the river and another big night attack was on the cards sure as eggs.

  ‘Got somewhere safe to go, miss?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Susan brightly, and tipped him well.

  The fact was that she didn’t have anywhere to go, safe or otherwise. It didn’t take her long to discover that No. 12 Pitt Street was no more than a pile of rubble and Stratton’s Dining Rooms a shell. In an hour or so dusk would settle over London, blackout restrictions would come into force and the only people left in the streets would be fire-spotters, wardens, Civil Defence volunteers and policemen.

  Loitering by the ruined front of Stratton’s, she wondered not only where she might find her family but just how many of her family were left alive. Not knowing what else to do, she set off in the direction of Oxmoor Road driven by a notion that even if Ronnie wasn’t there at least his body might be.

  A number of men, mostly dockers, had gathered outside the Crown which, at one time, had been Ronnie’s favourite pub. It was after five o’clock and habit as much as thirst had drawn them there, though the Crown’s snug interior was snug no more. Evan Hobbs, the publican, was passing out bottled beer from a trestle table in the doorway while his lad washed glasses in a tub on the pavement.

  Susan had been gone from Shadwell for so long that she barely recognised her old schoolmates and the brothers of girls that Ronnie had courted. She was on the point of enquiring if any of them knew what had happened to Ronnie when someone called out, ‘By gum, it’s Susie ’Ooper. You’re in trouble now, Matt,’ and her father, clutching a stick in one hand and a beer glass in the other, hobbled out of the throng.

  His trousers, jacket and shirt were filthy and he wore only one shoe. The binding on the other foot, the left, was, by contrast, brilliantly clean; a stubby, white boot that he swung inexpertly before him while trying to balance his weight on the stick and, at the same time, preserve the beer in his glass.

  ‘Susi
e,’ he said, ‘what you doing ’ere?’

  He doesn’t know, she thought: Oh, God, he doesn’t know and now I have to tell him. Then she noticed the men sidling away and heard Evan Hobbs call out, ‘Stow it, Jackie,’ and someone else called out, ‘Sorry, kid. Real sorry.’ She took her father’s arm to steady him and at last began to cry.

  It was typical of her father to finish his beer and place the glass neatly on the trestle before he gave himself up and, leaning into her, wept too. At length, she fished in her handbag, found a hanky and gave it to him. He wiped his mouth with it and then, loudly, blew his nose.

  ‘Best get ’im home, love,’ Evan Hobbs advised.

  ‘Yes, thank you, I will,’ she said and to save further embarrassment all round, led her father some way down the street before she put the question. ‘Where are we going, Dad?’

  ‘St Vee’s,’ he told her. ‘She said she’d be at St Vee’s.’

  ‘Who? Breda?’

  ‘Nora. Breda’s with ’er, I expect.’

  ‘What about Billy?’

  ‘Hospital.’

  ‘Hospital?’

  ‘He’s all right. Stitches in ’is head. Gets out tomorrow.’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘Tripped on the dock. Broke my foot.’

  ‘I’m surprised you managed to get this far,’ Susan said.

  ‘Somebody ’ad to do it.’

  ‘Had to do what?’

  ‘Fetch Ron’s body.’

  ‘Oh, Daddy,’ Susan said, ‘you should have waited for me.’

  ‘Don’t matter. There is no body. Blown to bits, our Ron. We’ll need to register it, o’ course, soon as the Fire Service cough up a certificate. Might be some money comin’ Breda’s way. You never know with them things. Nora’ll say prayers for ’is soul an’ light candles but that ain’t the same as a decent burial, is it?’ her father said and began, once more, to cry.

  He had always worked best at night, pumping out his copy for the Union Post into the wee small hours. But Susan, the BBC and now, it seemed, the blasted Luftwaffe had so messed up his routine that he found himself cheating on the thing he did best, which was, basically, writing good, tight, punchy prose.

  He hadn’t realised just how sloppy his style had become until he sat down to do justice to the account of his wild ride from Dover for the Post and his foray into the blitzed areas of the East End for Speaking Up. He was, thank God, still enough of a craftsman to make the switch from print to broadcast script without too much sweat but had, none the less, been relieved when Basil had given him not one but two thumbs up and cleared fifteen minutes of the Tuesday schedule for his version, with quotes, of London under the cosh.

  To celebrate he had slept all afternoon and, with Susan stuck in Portland Place, had allowed Pete Slocum to lure him out to dine at the Mayfair.

  There, raid or no raid, some of the old Paris gang had gathered, dinner continued to be served and Jack Jackson’s band played ‘These Foolish Things’ so slow and sentimental that it should have been banned by the Lord Chamberlain.

  Tina, the girl he was dancing with – one of Slocum’s young honeys – had whispered things in his ear that no decent young woman should know let alone suggest to an able-bodied stranger. Suddenly it was fun again and as they dashed back to the Lansdowne through London’s dark streets the tedium of waiting for war to come lifted and they were no longer bored spectators but excited participants, ducking bombs and shrapnel right here in old London town.

  Tina, the blonde honey, young, slim-hipped and as sinuous as a snake, would have gone to bed with him at the drop of a hat.

  God knows, he was so high he was almost tempted to take her up on it. But he owed Susan something, he supposed, and went off to his room with nothing hotter than a jug of black coffee and, locking the door, pulled up the typewriter, lit a cigarette, and went to work on a tailpiece for Tuesday’s programme.

  ‘So she lost a brother,’ Pete Slocum said. ‘In a shooting war everyone loses someone sooner or later. You never met the guy, did you?’

  ‘Never did,’ Bob said. ‘Kind of wish I had now.’

  ‘Surely you aren’t thinking of gatecrashing the funeral?’ Slocum said. ‘Though you could probably cobble up a moist thousand words out of it, given that the guy was a fireman.’

  ‘Susan doesn’t want me there. She made that clear.’

  ‘Of course she don’t want you there,’ Slocum said. ‘It’ll be a big family do with buckets of tears and fond memories. You’re not part of it. If anyone climbs into bed with your sweetheart tonight, it’ll be her husband. Anyhow, you don’t care for her enough to give it up, do you?’

  ‘Give what up?’

  ‘Your career.’

  ‘What’s Susan got to do with my career?’ Bob said.

  ‘London will be burned out soon and there’ll be nothing left to write about and we’ll all move on.’

  ‘Do you really think we’ll be pulled out?’

  ‘Sure of it. It’s the way of all wars, the beauty of all wars,’ Slocum said. ‘Your Miss Hooper isn’t like you and me. She’s no vagrant, no pilgrim on life’s highway taking it all as it comes. She’s enjoyed a wartime fling but reality has bitten her on the butt and she’s no longer interested in some he-man who makes her feel like Gloria Swanson every time he rips her panties off.’

  ‘Baloney!’ Bob said. ‘You don’t know what you’re—’

  ‘Right now,’ Slocum went on relentlessly, ‘she needs – let’s call it, in quote marks, sympathy and understanding. You might deliver good sex, Gaines, but with her brother lying dead on a slab in the morgue the woman isn’t interested in counting orgasms. She’ll probably convince herself she’s to blame for whatever happened and when she gets tired of blaming herself she’ll get around to blaming you. Believe me, man, the last thing you want in your bed is a guilt-ridden dame.’

  ‘Hasn’t it occurred to you yet that I might love her?’

  ‘Do you?’

  Bob did not answer.

  ‘What’s up? Cat got your tongue?’ Pete Slocum said. ‘Or have you just figured your sweetheart has got you by the short hairs. She’s free to choose between you and the husband. My guess is it won’t be you. You’ve done your bit, served your purpose, but now she’s scared and hurting and wants it back the way it was before. And that means bye-bye Bob.’

  ‘I owe her—’

  ‘You owe her nothing,’ Pete Slocum said. ‘She’s the one who led you on. She didn’t even tell you she had a husband until she had you hooked. She was a lay, Bob, an easy lay, that’s all.’

  ‘Hell, Pete, she’s just lost her brother.’

  ‘And you feel sorry for her?’

  ‘Of course, I do.’ Bob hesitated. ‘But …’

  ‘But what?’ Pete Slocum said.

  ‘I’m beginning to think you’re right.’

  27

  Father Joseph O’Mara, known to all and sundry as Father Joe, not only came from Limerick but before he’d joined the priesthood had been ten years a Boy Scout. He was thus able to engage Nora in conversation about the beauty of the Shannon estuary, which he regarded as just next door to heaven, while at the same time building a fire out of scrap wood and rigging up a grid on which to balance not one but three frying-pans, two kettles and a little saucepan to warm milk for babies.

  With the sleeves of his surplice rolled up and fastened by what looked suspiciously like a pair of lady’s garters, Father Joe cheerfully cooked sausages, bacon and, speciality of the house, savoury potato cakes that melted in your hand before they even reached your mouth. Meanwhile his team of youthful helpers, who didn’t have to try too hard to look pitiful, scuttled round the markets and purchased such comestibles as they couldn’t scrounge for free.

  While the feeding of the not quite five thousand was taking place on the steps of St Veronica’s, the Borough Council ferried in a load of timber and a couple of carpenters to line the ancient walls with bunks to provide rest as well as shelter for upward of
seventy souls; all of which activity made it plain that the crypt of St Veronica’s was destined to become a home for the homeless, Breda, Billy, Nora and Matt among them, for some time to come.

  Father Joe was not alone in dispensing succour to a flock that included Jews as well as Catholics and a few diehard Protestant agnostics like Matt Hooper. Four nuns had popped up out of nowhere accompanied by a venerable priest, Father Grogan, who, name notwithstanding, was frightfully English and frightfully posh. It was he who heard confessions, he who, at Nora Romano’s request, held a special Mass for the soul of her son-in-law and who, kneeling on the flagstones by her side, offered Breda comfort when a great storm of grief overwhelmed her.

  Utterly exhausted, Breda had slept through Monday night’s air raid curled up on a mattress in a corner of the crypt with Nora on one side, Matt on the other and her sister-in-law, Susan, stretched out beside her.

  Now, seated on the steps of St Vee’s in hazy morning sunlight, a mug of tea clamped in her bandaged hands, she was waiting impatiently for Danny to show up and her life as a widow to begin.

  Fifteen hours it had taken him to travel from Evesham to London; fifteen hours of what, under other circumstances, he would have regarded as hell.

  Three trains, two short bus rides, several interminable hours in a temporary shelter under a railway bridge not more than ten miles from Paddington while drivers, guards, repair workers and one harassed station master waited for instructions from some mysterious source up-line and what seemed like half a battalion of Scots Guards, on the move from somewhere to somewhere else, had foamed and snorted and threatened mutiny if something wasn’t done to sort things out.

  Huddled up in a raincoat that Griff had loaned him, Danny had kept himself to himself. He had four pounds and fifteen shillings in his pocket; four pounds and fifteen shillings that Mr Harrison had grudgingly doled out when it became obvious that, short of clapping him in irons, Mr Cahill would not be deterred from abandoning his post and taking three days’ leave to travel up to London to comfort his wife.

  London had been badly hit in Monday night’s raid. Even the soldiers had been subdued when the train had limped alongside the one and only platform in Paddington station that hadn’t been damaged.