Second Violin

by Lawton, John

  Billy said, ‘How you manage to look so good at this time of day after a night like the last I just do not know.’

  ‘Youth and clean living, Dad.’

  Danny turned to his father and smiled.

  ‘You see you do keep it clean.’

  ‘Dad! Me mum’s only in the kitchen, in’t she?’

  ‘Your mother is a woman of the world. She knows the facts of life a damn sight better’n you do. All I’m saying is if you go with a woman, go with a clean one. I know you – as soon as you get in with a bunch of lads, you’ll want to prove yourself . . . just don’t come back poxy. Ask the M.O. for some you-know-whats before you do anything daft.’

  Judy came in with a steaming kettle to top up the teapot – she whistled louder than the kettle. Both men turned to look at her.

  ‘Well, Bill. You always told me to whistle when men talk dirty and pretend I can’t hear them. All the same, Danny, your dad’s right. You’ll like as not do what everybody else does just to be like ’em. Don’t catch nothing you don’t have to.’

  ‘Leave it out, Mum. I know what I’m doing.’

  Billy said, ‘Just a bit of advice, son. Not often yer Ma agrees with me.’

  Danny slipped his jacket off the back of a chair, and stuck his arms in the sleeves.

  ‘Anything else the two of you think I should know?’

  Judy ducked back into the kitchen, Billy thought about his answer, slurped at his tea.

  ‘Not really . . . But . . .’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘If you conquerin’ heroes get as far as Warsaw you could look for a pawnbrokers in St Francis Street. Your zayde pawned his pocket watch there in 1895. I’d quite like it back.’

  Only Judy’s laughter from the kitchen told Danny it was a joke. She stuck her head round the door, saw her son looking baffled, said, ‘Danny, you’re such a dummy – you never know when he’s pullin’ yer leg.’

  ‘Are you, Dad?’

  ‘Well, son. Your zayde did pawn his watch. But no . . . I don’t expect you to get it back. I lost the ticket years ago.’

  ‘I don’t follow you, Dad. Some bloke’s dads would be encouraging and things. You . . . you play pop for three weeks and now suddenly it’s a joke. I don’t get it, Dad. I don’t get you.’

  ‘What do you want? A send-off?’

  ‘I dunno.’

  ‘Ignore your dad, Danny,’ said Judy. ‘You’ll get your send-off. Lena’s getting up . . . Joe and Manny’ll be back from their walk round the green any minute.’

  Five minutes later they were all stood in the street in the bright morning light. Danny with his brand new cardboard suitcase, his brand new trilby, and his hand-me-down macintosh rolled over one arm. His sister in her dressing gown, his mother holding in tears. Hugs and kisses.

  Of the men only Schuster embarrassed him with an embrace. Hummel shook hands and smiled at him silently. His father stood with his hands in his pockets, expression flickering between his scowl and his smile.

  Judy said, ‘Remember to write, lazybones.’

  ‘O’course.’

  ‘Yeah. Just like you did at scout camp.’

  ‘Dad?’

  Danny looked at his father. Heard his mother’s tears burst forth, saw his father whip out a handkerchief and pass it to her without even looking at her.

  ‘You do what your mother says, son. You write to her.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘I’ll miss you, son. I really will.’

  Danny hugged Judy one last time, straightened the brim of his hat, the way he’d seen film stars do, picked up his suitcase and walked off to war – up White Horse Lane towards the Mile End Road, just as a Riley Kestrel came down the lane in the opposite direction.

  The car pulled up by the Jacks’ house and two men got out. A tall walrus of a man of fifty-odd, and a short, dark, vaguely foreign-looking man half his age.

  Billy flipped out his pocket watch, checked the time, swung it by the silver chain and flipped it back. A flash little display just for their benefit.

  ‘Well, well, well, coppers at this time in the morning. What have I done to deserve a visit from you two?’

  Stilton said, ‘I’m glad to find you all here. Perhaps we could all have a word inside?’

  Judy Jacks’ tears dried at once, like the turning of a tap. She thrust the handkerchief back at Billy and disappeared into the house.

  ‘All you say? All of who?’

  ‘An assumption, Billy, that these two gentlemen are Mr Schuster and Mr Hummel?’

  ‘Yeah, they are. They work for me. And they got jobs to go to.We all got jobs to go to.’

  ‘It won’t take long.’

  Billy led off into the house.

  In the dining room, he stuck his hands back in his pockets, stood mid-carpet with enough proprietorial swagger to let them know that coppers or no coppers they were on his turf. Schuster and Hummel sat at the dining table, fading paler as Billy waxed redder, anticipating what he couldn’t.

  ‘Right, Walter, woss all this about?’

  ‘If you could just confirm your identities to me...’

  ‘Identities? Bleedin’ ’ell. I known you most of my life. And you might not have known their names but Joe and Manny here made that suit you’re wearing last winter . . . on which I gave you a sweet little discount . . . or have you forgotten that . . .?’

  Troy wished the floor would open up and swallow him. He wouldn’t even mind if the floor chewed first, it would be preferable to what he faced now.

  While Jacks ranted at Walter, Judy leaned against the door jamb, half in, half out of her kitchen, lit up a fag, exhaled a deep cloud and stared at Troy through the haze of smoke.

  It had the desired effect. He was squirming inside if not out.

  In 1936, a young copper on his first beat, he had been patrolling Whitechapel Market, right outside the Underground station, and had apprehended a petty thief named Moses Kettleman – better known by his street moniker of Mott Kettle. Mott had a thing – Troy could come up with no more accurate word – about women’s underwear. He had been pilfering it from the open stalls on the market for some time. It had been a joke that had worn thin almost at once, and the stallholders wanted something done. None of them would name Mott and, even though Troy knew damn well who it was, the chances of catching him at it were slim. The uniform was as loud as a siren.

  Troy got lucky, or Mott grew bold and thought it might be fun to try and outrun a copper. One Saturday morning, knowing Troy was only yards away, he had snatched a pair of knickers off a stall and walked off. It all but screamed ‘catch me if you can’. Troy followed, and by the time they reached the Blind Beggar Mott was running, and Troy had chased him all the way past the Odeon in the Mile End Road to bring him down with a rugby tackle opposite Stepney Green. He had landed badly, all but knocked himself senseless, lost his helmet and had blood running into one eye from a cut on his head. Mott had shrugged him off, got up again and ran straight into the fist of George Bonham, who laid him out cold. Troy had staggered to his feet to find he had an audience of cackling Stepney housewives, laughing fit to bust their corsets.

  ‘Freddie Troy, Freddie Troy . . . Bigfoot Bonham’s little boy!’

  Troy might have blushed. Under the film of blood who would have known? And a voice in his head said, ‘All this for a knicker thief?’

  Suddenly an arm was thrust under his.

  A voice telling the crowd, ‘You should be ashamed of yourselves! Supposin’ they was your knickers.’

  Which only produced more laughter.

  Bonham hoisted Mott to his feet, slapped him into consciousness and said simply, ‘Nicked!’

  Judy Jacks took out her handkerchief, spat on it and mopped at the cut on Troy’s head.

  ‘It needs more than that. I only live round the corner, you come home with me.’

  Troy looked silently at Bonham.

  ‘You go ahead, young Fred. I’ll get Mott booked and chalked down to you.’

&n
bsp; Judy had picked up his helmet with one hand and steered Troy into White Horse Lane with the other. He found himself standing in front of her kitchen sink, his tunic being unbuttoned, his braces dangling like a toddler’s reins, his shirt peeled from him.

  ‘You’re still groggy, ain’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you know who I am?’

  ‘Mrs . . . Jacks.’

  ‘S’right . . . Judy. Call me Judy.’

  She washed the wound, told him it didn’t need stitches and was far enough into his hair not to leave a visible scar. She wiped the blood from his face, ran the flannel down his chest.

  ‘Lot o’blood for such a bit of a cut. But it’s stopped now. You’ll be fine.’

  Troy blinked, vision cleared . . . found himself eye to eye with a small, blonde woman about ten years older than he was himself. Her fingertips pressing a wet flannel to his right nipple. Not an organ he had ever thought of as erogenous. Until now.

  ‘Be a shame to get scarred, wunnit? Cos you’re pretty, you are.’

  ‘Pretty?’

  ‘Yeah. You might be handsome one day. Right now you’re pretty.

  ‘How old are you? Eighteen?’

  ‘Twenty-one.’

  ‘Key of the door. All grown up.’

  ‘And chasing knicker thieves for a living.’

  ‘Yeah, well . . . that’s why you got laughed at . . . sort of.’

  ‘Because I chased a knicker thief?’

  ‘Not exactly . . . you got ’em all puzzled. Ever since you got here. It’s more why a toff like you would be walking the beat in Stepney . . . knickers or no knickers.’

  Troy said nothing.

  Her fingers let the flannel fall and moved to his left nipple.

  ‘But . . . you ain’t half pretty.’

  ‘I’ll have to get used to that word,’ he said lamely.

  ‘Yeah,’ Judy said. ‘You do that.’

  Then she flipped the buttons on his flies, let his trousers slip to the floor, pressed her lips to his and cupped his balls with her free hand.

  They fucked on the kitchen table. Over in an instant as Troy came.

  He paused in a kind of mental limbo, mostly naked on top of a woman mostly clothed, not knowing the protocol for prising himself off a woman drenched with his own semen, whilst still on duty. But Judy said, ‘Am I your first? You should’ve said.’

  Troy woke from reverie to find Stilton and the three men all seated at the table.

  ‘Is that what this adds up to? You and young Troy here have come to tell us we’re nicked?’

  ‘Not nicked, Billy. That’s not the word. It’s interned. It’s a temporary measure. Safety of the realm, that sort of thing.’

  ‘And you think we’re threats to the safety of the realm? Me who’s lived here all me life . . . about as cockney as they come, me an’ an old man in his seventies and a bloke so skinny you could play a tune on his ribs? What do you think we are . . . the Tailors’ Own Fifth Column?’

  ‘Billy . . .’

  ‘I been Chairman of the Chamber Commerce twice! I was General Secretary of the East London branch of the Tailors’ Guild from 1934 to 1936! Who do you think I am?’

  Troy had gone back to the house in White Horse Lane on two further occasions. The first had begun with a ‘nice cup of tea’, but they had tumbled. The second they hadn’t even bothered with the tea.

  After the last time, Judy had said, ‘You’re still comin’ too quick.’

  And Troy had said, ‘I can’t do this any more.’

  She never spoke to him again. He’d passed her many times in the street in the days before he transferred to the Yard, but she never spoke. One day in the autumn of 1938 he thought she might have smiled at him and the hatchet might be buried, but afterwards concluded he was mistaken, or worse, self-deluding . . . for the blade of that hatchet now gleamed in her ice-blue eyes.

  First he had come to cuckold Billy Jacks, now he had come to lock him up. He had no idea what Judy might be thinking – for all he knew she might be on the brink of dancing for joy and celebrating her freedom from grumpy old Billy with another pretty young boy.

  ‘Suit you, does it, young Fred?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Jacks . . . I don’t . . .’

  ‘The Yard. Everybody on the manor knows the Yard spotted you for a bit of a whiz-kid.’

  ‘It suits me well, thank you.’

  ‘Liked Stepney while you was ’ere, did you?’

  ‘Very much. Stepney was good to me,’ Troy said truthfully.

  ‘And this is how you pay us back?’

  Troy said nothing.

  Billy was ranting.

  ‘I am not bleedin’ German. My old man was a Polack. From Danzig . . . in Poland!’

  ‘Billy, it’s here in black and white . . . born April 4th, 1898, Danzig.’

  ‘S’right! Poland!’

  ‘Danzig was in East Prussia then. Germany.’

  ‘So . . . don’t make me a Kraut, does it?’

  Stilton paused, drew breath, said as gently as he could, ‘Yes, Billy . . . It does.’

  Judy took her eyes off Troy.

  ‘What? What are you sayin’, Walter Stilton? That Billy’s not British?’

  ‘He’s not, Judy.’

  ‘But he’s married to me. Whitechapel Registry Office, 1920.’

  ‘Doesn’t make him British. Billy stated at his hearing last year . . .’

  ‘Hearing? What bloody hearing?’

  Nobody spoke.

  ‘Billy!’

  ‘I got sent for. A tribunal, they called it. I didn’t think it much mattered so I didn’t tell you. They said I was an alien, but not much of one. So I didn’t think it mattered. I told ’em I’d got a War Office contract to make uniforms and they said I was just the sort of bloke Britain needed. Patted me on the back and told me to stay away from the seaside. That’s why we didn’t go to Canvey Island for Whit Week.’

  ‘But you’re British, you’re English. You told me that when we got married.’

  ‘No, love. I didn’t. You just assumed it. And that’s because I just assumed it. It turns out I never did the paperwork to get British.’

  ‘But your old man fought in the last war. Dammit, Walter, he fought alongside o’you. Don’t that make him British?’

  ‘I’m afraid it doesn’t.’

  ‘My son, my Danny, just gone off to enlist in the REME . . . don’t that make us British? My little girl, Sallie . . . she’s been evacuated to Wales along with the rest of the kids in the street . . . don’t that make us British?’

  Judy snatched the portrait of Billy and his father off the mantelpiece.

  ‘Look at this . . . just look!’

  Only Troy did.

  Hummel and Schuster looked at the tablecloth, Jacks and Stilton looked at each other. A few moments passed. Judy seemed suddenly weary and tearful, put the photograph back, went into her kitchen and closed the door.

  ‘What now?’ Billy said softly.

  ‘We’re trying not to muck people about. We’re trying to be decent about summat that’s frankly indecent. But we’ve orders to follow. Some days we’ve just had to knock on the door and tell some poor bugger to grab his things and come with us. There’s plenty round here not had so much as an excuse me. It’s because we know you – it’s because I’ve known you since you were a nipper – that this is different.’

  ‘How different?’

  ‘Pack a case and be ready. It won’t be long. We can leave you to the end of the list. But chances are I can only let you know the night before, maybe not even that.’

  ‘And these two?’

  ‘Joe’d better be as prepared as you. He’ll go at the same time. Manny’s over seventy. We won’t be coming for him.’

  Stilton turned to Schuster, ‘All you have to do is avoid restricted areas. And all that means is no trips to the seaside.’

  Schuster nodded.

  ‘Pity,’ he said. ‘I always wanted to see Canvey Island.’r />
  ‘You better not,’ Billy said. ‘Sounds like you’ll be running the business. So, Joe . . . it’ll be you and me for the skylark, eh?’

  ‘Ja’ Hummel replied, not understanding anything but the bare fact of his impending internment. ‘De skylark.’

  As they walked back to the car, Troy heard Judy call his name.

  He turned, she walked up to him, reddened in the face, but dry-eyed now. He’d always loved Judy’s eyes – even when they had glared at him with contempt, he had loved Judy’s eyes.

  ‘Do you know where they’ll take him?’

  ‘Not for certain. There are camps all over the country. Race courses, mills, anything that could be commandeered. But the odds are he’ll end up on the Isle of Man. Most do.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘The duration?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Judy turned away from him, walked back to the house.

  Troy said, ‘Judy, I didn’t ask for this assignment.’

  But he was not even sure she’d heard him.

  He got back into the car, sat next to Stilton, feeling faithless.

  ‘Do I detect a hint of history between you and Mrs Jacks, young Fred?’

  Troy said nothing.

  § 96

  Not knowing how long he might be gone, Billy thought it a good idea that certain of his company papers be burnt. If his wife was right about this Blitz thing, nobody would ever know and the next time the taxman came knocking he could just blame Hitler.

  He and his daughter Lena sat by the hearth at midnight and fed papers into the fire.

  ‘Nice,’ Lena said. ‘Some of these summer evenings you can start to feel a bit of a chill.’

  ‘Sure,’ Billy said, non-commital.

  ‘Mum’s takin’ it better than I thought she would.’

  ‘Yeah, well. She’s got Danny to think about, ain’t she.’

  ‘He’ll be OK. You can call him stupid if you like, but he volunteered for the REME, didn’t he? If he’d waited for the call-up, what choice would he have had? Electrical Engineers won’t be sloggin’ it out in France will they? More likely some cushy little billet in the West Country guarding army surplus radios.’