The Wayward Wife

by Jessica Stirling

  Danny had tried not to look at the twisted girders and buried carriages piled up beside the train, at fires still burning by the main entrance and the bodies of travellers, whose journeys had come to an abrupt end, laid out on a stretch of platform by the postal clearing offices like so many damaged parcels.

  He ran for the one exit that showed daylight, and, darting among the ambulances and fire tenders that cluttered the side street, headed for the Edgware Road in the hope of finding a bus to carry him east into Shadwell.

  ‘You took your bleedin’ time,’ Breda said. ‘You’d think there was a war on or somethin’.’ She rested her head on his chest and let the tears flow, while Danny, looking over her shoulder, scanned the steps for Susan.

  ‘She’s down below,’ Breda said, at length, ‘helpin’ sort out blankets. Billy’s in the Princess an’ somebody’s got to collect ’im an’ bring ’im back ’ere. That’s you, Danny. That’s your job.’

  ‘Whoa!’ Danny said. ‘That’s not something I should be doin’, Breda. The wee guy’ll expect you to be there.’

  ‘I got other things to do.’

  ‘Funeral arrangements, you mean?’

  She thumped his chest with the back of a bandaged fist and told him why there would be no funeral for Ronnie Hooper, why they were all here in Pound Lane and why he was the one she’d chosen to break the bad news to her son. ‘’Cause I can’t do it without cryin’ an’ I don’t want Billy to see me cry.’

  ‘What about Nora?’

  ‘Nora’s not up to it an’ the old man’s got a busted foot. He can’t walk ten yards without sittin’ down.’

  ‘What happened to your hands?’

  ‘Never mind my bleedin’ ’ands. I’m askin’ you to do this for me, Danny. If you won’t do it for me,’ she paused and, with a stifled sob, added, ‘do it for Ronnie.’

  ‘That’s blackmail, Breda,’ Danny said.

  ‘It certainly is,’ said Breda.

  Susan hated the airless crypt, the smell of unwashed bodies, the chatter of unruly children, snivelling women and screaming infants and, most of all, the priests and nuns whose optimism was so patently forced.

  Fatigue had much to do with her foul mood. She had slept badly, waking with every muffled thud, every rattle, every exaggerated cry with which the women around her dramatised their fear and drew attention to themselves.

  She was better dressed than most of them and better spoken too but, leery of seeming haughty, smiled and nodded and, when required, pitched in by conducting some wretched child to the lavatory, or collecting greasy plates and carrying them into the vestibule where a nun and a young boy were washing them in a tin bath, all the while seething with impatience to be back in Portland Place or Rothwell Gardens or in bed with Robert in his room in the Lansdowne.

  She climbed the steep stone staircase that led up from the crypt, the damp-wool smell of blankets clinging to her clothes.

  The sky was free of aircraft, though a barrage balloon, soggy in the soft morning light, drifted like a cloud over the rooftops. She stared up at the balloon for a moment, then, stepping into Pound Lane, found herself face to face with her husband.

  He was seated on the steps with her father, Nora and Breda calmly sipping tea and eating a potato cake. He didn’t rise to greet her and she resented his lack of response. After all, she was his wife and had just lost her brother and he had no right to ignore the conventions of mourning.

  She stood before him, looking down.

  ‘I take it,’ she said, ‘you know what happened to Ron?’

  ‘Aye, Breda told me.’

  ‘It seems we’re to be denied a proper funeral.’

  ‘That’s how it looks.’

  ‘Obviously you got my message. I wasn’t sure you’d be able to leave Wood Norton but I thought you ought to be informed. I mean, I thought you’d want to know.’

  ‘’Course ’e wanted to know,’ Breda said. ‘He’s come up to ’elp us through it. Ha’n’t you, Danny?’

  Susan ignored her. ‘Are you staying at the flat?’

  ‘I haven’t thought about it. I’ve only just got here.’

  ‘If you do go to the flat,’ Susan said, ‘will you pick up some things for me and leave them at the House?’

  ‘What ’ouse?’ her father said. ‘You got a ’ouse now?’

  ‘She means the BBC, Matt,’ Danny said, then, to Susan, ‘Even if we don’t have any more raids, I doubt if I’ll be able to make it to Rothwell Gardens. I’ve too many things to do here.’

  ‘What things?’ said Susan.

  Danny got up slowly, wearily. Only then did she realise that what she had taken to be hostility was probably nothing more than exhaustion. She felt a wave of pity rise up in her, though whether it was pity for Danny or for herself she could not at that moment be sure.

  He took her arm and walked her away from the steps.

  ‘For God’s sake, Susan, go easy,’ he said. ‘Aye, you’ve lost a brother but Breda’s lost everythin’. No house, no husband, her boy lyin’ sick in the Princess; a kid without a father. Nora’s in a state of shock an’ your father’s useless. Who else do you think Breda’s goin’ tae turn to? I’m about all she’s got, poor bitch.’

  ‘What about—’ Susan began.

  ‘You?’ Danny said. ‘Losing Ronnie hurts – I’m damned sure it does – but you’ve got as much as anybody to hang on to an’ a damned sight more than most.’

  ‘And you, what about you?’

  ‘I’ve still got a job an’ a place to—’

  ‘No. I mean, do I still have you?’

  She saw his eyes widen and he did not answer at once. ‘No, Susan,’ he said at length, ‘you don’t have me.’

  ‘Didn’t you get my letter?’

  ‘What letter?’

  ‘I sent you a letter.’

  ‘Sayin’ what?’

  ‘Just that I loved you and always will.’

  ‘I don’t have time for this right now,’ Danny said. ‘Breda needs me to fetch Billy from the hospital.’

  ‘Why doesn’t she do it herself?’

  ‘Because she’s scared he’ll ask her where Ron is. Besides, she’ll have to get down to Pitt Street to see if she can find anything worth salvaging. Clothes, shoes, any food that hasn’t been eaten by the rats. Wee bits of stuff she might want to keep.’

  ‘Mementoes, you mean?’

  ‘Aye, that’s what I mean,’ Danny said. ‘Look, there’s no point in you hangin’ round here, Susan. They’ll have shelter in the church for as long as they need it. I’ll see them settled before I go back to Evesham. Go on, you’ve an important job to do.’

  ‘Actually,’ she said, ‘I have.’

  ‘If you’ve any spare cash in your purse,’ Danny said, ‘you might want to slip your old man a few bob. With that foot he won’t be workin’ again for a while an’ God knows when they’ll dole out compensation.’

  ‘You think of everything, Danny, don’t you?’

  ‘Go on,’ he said. ‘Do it, an’ scarper.’

  It wasn’t habit or an echo of the affection she had once felt for him but rather a gesture of gratitude for being the sort of man he was. She tweaked the belt of his raincoat, brought him to her and kissed him on the lips.

  ‘If you do happen to drop by the flat …’ she began.

  ‘No chance, Susan,’ he said. ‘Not a hope in hell. Now make your excuses, say your goodbyes an’ get out of here,’ which, rather promptly, she did.

  It was one of those weird things but her back hurt worse than her hands. Every time she stepped over rubble or picked her way through broken glass she felt as if her spine would snap. She’d read somewhere – probably in the Daily Mail – that pain in the body could be a defence against painful thoughts but she reckoned her backache had more to do with sleeping on a stone floor than her brain playing tricks on her.

  As soon as Danny had appeared in Pound Lane she’d begun to feel a bit like her old self again. After all, she’d known Danny longer than
she’d known Ron and Danny had never let her down. Ron had never let her down either, come to think of it, though she’d been mad at him for trotting off to Spain and hadn’t been too kindly disposed towards him for knocking her up, though, to be fair, he had agreed to marry her without anyone putting a gun to his head.

  Pitt Street didn’t look like Pitt Street any more. There were new views, new vistas and when she clambered, wincing, on to the mountain of rubble, all that was left of her home, the first thing she noticed was that you could see the tops of the trees in the park that you’d never been able to see before.

  She watched a troop of small boys leaping about like goats on the remains of a house on the far side of the street, an old woman hauling a battered pram laden with bits and pieces of furniture down a cleared stretch of pavement and two men, one young and one not, digging with spades in a tiny patch of garden and, even as she watched, triumphantly uprooting a couple of onions and the ragged remnant of a leek.

  She looked down at broken bricks and cracked timbers, shredded wallpaper and chunks of plaster. Beneath it, buried deep, were her stove, her sink, her chairs and carpets, her precious tins of fruit and crushed, no doubt, into matchwood the dresser in which she’d kept her rent book, ration books, identity cards and a few trinkets that Ron had given her over the years.

  The corner of a quilt stuck out of the rubbish like a rabbit’s ear but she wasn’t tempted to unearth it. She had an irrational fear of disturbing the heap, as if Billy and her mother were still down there cowering under the big creaking beam and sucking air from the pipe that Ron had installed.

  She shaded her eyes and looked out over the debris that spilled across the back yard to the stump of the wall that bordered the lane.

  Brown sludge, disgorged from the sewer, marked the patch on which the outhouse had stood. It was coated with black flies that rose in a cloud as Breda approached. She had a queasy feeling that the cashbox might have been blown to pieces, then, to her relief, she spotted it up-ended on a ramp of crushed bricks.

  Gritting her teeth, she hunkered down and drew the box towards her. She knew as soon as she turned it over that she had arrived too late.

  ‘Bastards!’ she screamed. ‘Bleedin’ thieving bastards!’ and hurled the empty cashbox into the lane.

  The boy was dressed in short trousers, short stockings and what looked like a borrowed pullover. He slumped on a bench in a cloakroom just off the main hall where he and three other youngsters had been put to await collection like, Danny thought, the corpses on Paddington railway station, except that this lot were mercifully live.

  ‘Billy?’ he said quietly.

  Billy lifted his chin from his chest as if his bandaged head weighed a ton. Clutching a bedraggled doll, a little girl on the bench by his side sat bolt upright and enquired, ‘Are you my Uncle Johnny?’

  ‘Sorry,’ Danny said. ‘I’m not. He’ll be here soon, I’m sure.’

  ‘I wish he’d come. Oh, I do wish he’d come,’ the little girl said anxiously and went back to cuddling her doll.

  Danny gave Billy his hand and helped him slide down from the bench just as a nurse in a dark blue uniform called out, ‘Hooper, William Hooper.’ Billy squinted up at Danny as if he wasn’t quite sure if that was still his name.

  Danny said, ‘Aye, we’re here. Is he ready to go?’

  ‘Are you his father?’

  ‘No, his uncle,’ Danny said, to keep things simple.

  The nurse peered down at Billy.

  ‘William, do you know this man?’

  ‘Yus.’

  ‘Is he your uncle?’

  ‘Yus.’

  ‘Tell me his name?’

  ‘Danny.’

  Still holding Billy by the hand, Danny dug out his wallet and showed the nurse both his identity card and his BBC pass.

  ‘Cahill?’ she said.

  ‘I’m his mother’s brother.’

  Billy did not contradict him.

  ‘Very well,’ the nurse said. She produced a small bottle of tablets from her pocket and dropped it into Danny’s hand. ‘Two per day, no more. He’ll need to have his stitches removed in a week or ten days. When the wound begins to draw it may well be painful. Bring him here, or to your own doctor if you prefer it, or’ – she paused – ‘if necessary to a First Aid post with a qualified nurse in attendance. Do you understand?’

  ‘I do,’ said Danny. ‘Thank you.’

  They went through the hall and out of the big door and through a tunnel of sandbags on to the steps and down the steps into the sunlight.

  Billy held on to his hand and said nothing until they passed out of the shadow of the hospital building.

  Then he asked, ‘Where’s Mummy?’

  ‘She’s got a lot to do,’ Danny said. ‘She sent me instead.’

  ‘Is she gettin’ supper ready?’

  ‘No,’ Danny said. ‘The bomb – I’m sure you haven’t forgotten the bomb.’

  ‘It blew the house up.’

  ‘It did, so we’re all stayin’ in St Veronica’s Church till we can find somewhere else to live.’

  Danny held his breath. He knew what was coming next.

  ‘Where’s Daddy?’

  ‘Dad’s had to go away for a while.’

  ‘Overseas?’ Billy said, though Danny doubted if he knew what the word meant. ‘To fight the Germans?’

  ‘That’s it, Billy, to fight the Germans.’

  ‘With a rifle?’

  ‘With a rifle,’ Danny confirmed. ‘Hey, you look a wee bit wobbly on those pins. Would a piggyback be out of order?’

  He put his hands on his knees, let the boy climb on to his back and secured Billy’s arms about his neck.

  ‘Okay up there?’

  ‘Okay,’ Billy said and, resting his bandaged head against Danny’s ear, appeared happy enough to ride on Danny’s shoulders for the long walk back to Pound Lane.

  She salved her conscience by giving her father two pounds which left her with just three shillings in her purse. She had an emergency fiver hidden in a box on top of the wardrobe in the bedroom of the flat and an urgent need to wash away all trace of Shadwell and change her clothes before she hurried back to Portland Place to help Basil put the finishing touches to the evening’s broadcast.

  There had been no daylight raids so far.

  Even so, Susan scanned the sky anxiously as she made her way, more in hope than expectation, to the Tube. To her surprise, the trains were running fairly normally and carried her as far as Sloane Square, not too far from Rothwell Gardens.

  Slender columns of smoke rising above the rooftops confirmed rumours of damage to the West End but Susan had too much on her mind to pay heed to them. Still absorbed in her thoughts, she rounded the corner at the bottom end of the Gardens and, as if autumn had arrived overnight, suddenly found herself walking through a shoal of fallen leaves.

  Looking up, she saw that many of the garden’s old oaks had been scalped. Huge branches flattened the palings and a massive crater spewed chunks of pavement and sods of earth across the grass. Two vans and a lorry were parked at the end of the road and a bollard, guarded by a police constable, barred entry.

  ‘No access, miss,’ the policeman told her. ‘Best go round the other way.’

  ‘I live here,’ Susan said.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘There. In the flats.’

  ‘Not now you don’t,’ the policeman said.

  He pointed up at the block of flats, the gable of which had been ripped open from top to bottom.

  ‘Relatives, miss? Any family or friends in there?’

  ‘No. None. How many – I mean …’

  ‘Nine,’ the policeman said. ‘They’ve been took off.’

  ‘Taken off where?’

  ‘The mortuary.’

  ‘Oh, you mean they’re dead.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the policeman patiently. ‘The injured have gone to hospital. Happened about ten last night. Lucky you wasn’t in residence.’

 
‘Are you telling me I can’t get in?’ Susan said.

  ‘In?’

  ‘To my flat. I’ve a few oddments I’d like to pick up.’

  The policeman blew out his cheeks and shook his head. ‘Even the rescue and repair chaps won’t risk going in there right now. It took the firemen all their time to get the injured out.’ He paused. ‘Are you feeling all right, miss?’

  ‘I’m perfectly fine, thank you,’ Susan said. ‘I just want my things. I work for the BBC.’

  ‘I don’t care if you work for Mr Churchill. The salvage boys will decide what’s to be done then you might ’ave a chance of collecting what’s yours. Right now it’s more than my job’s worth to let you near the place.’

  ‘Yes,’ Susan said. ‘Yes, I understand.’

  The galling thing was that she could see into the living room and beyond it the bedroom, could even make out the bed sloping away into shadow, as if the tangled wreckage of the home she’d shared with Danny was a mirror of her marriage.

  ‘Come back a bit later,’ the policeman told her. ‘We might know what’s going on by then.’

  ‘Yes, later. I’ll come back later,’ Susan said and, turning on her heel, walked away swiftly.

  28

  The Prime Minister had broadcast to the nation at six o’clock. His grim warning that an invasion might be imminent within the week had overshadowed Bob Gaines’s lengthy contribution to Speaking Up, and Bob was not pleased about it.

  ‘Did you expect the phones to ring off the hook and crowds to gather outside chanting “author, author”?’ Basil said. ‘Come along, Robert, you know better than that. I have no doubt whatsoever that your excellent piece – excellent it was too – will be noted in quarters and we’ll have quite a postbag to cope with in a day or two.’

  ‘Stop buttering me up, Baz,’ Bob said. ‘I don’t need you to tell me how good I am.’

  ‘Given that we finished in the middle of an air raid,’ Basil went on, ‘I think we were fortunate to get the blessed programme out at all. By the by, chaps, thank you for standing by your posts. Many a midshipman would have fled the quarterdeck.’