Small Change 03: Half A Crown

by Jo Walton

  They’d given me back my shoes for the trip, but no stockings, so the wind hit my legs hard. The daylight—quite ordinary April afternoon daylight, sun filtered through clouds—seemed terribly bright. I stood there blinking for a moment. We were outside the Russell Hotel, where I’d once been taken for tea years before with Elizabeth Mitchell and her grandmother. The road was full of cars and flashing lights and Watchmen and rifles, all pointed in my general direction. I felt like a grouse on the Twelfth, and it was only then I realized that they weren’t attacking me, they were here for me, to rescue me. I recognized Sergeant Richards, a great giant of a man, and several of the others. One of them winked at me. I couldn’t believe it.

  I should have known Uncle Carmichael would have been able to come for me, I thought, feeling terribly guilty that it was too late. Bannister exchanged some conversation with Sergeant Richards, and then the bobby holding my arm let me go, and a Watchman put his jacket around my shoulders, and took my elbow, quite gently, and just like that I was walking away, out of that ring of guns and eyes towards an ordinary black Bentley with Uncle Carmichael in it.

  “Uncle Carmichael,” I said. I was feeling quite stunned. It was all so abrupt. I got into the backseat beside him. My hands were still cuffed behind my back, so it was hard to get in properly. The jacket slipped down off my shoulder.

  “I’m so glad you’re safe,” he said. One of the Watchmen passed him something, and the other got into the car. I started to cry, and Uncle Carmichael put his arm around me and just held me.

  I didn’t think at all about what Penn-Barkis and Bannister had said about the beastliness and all of that. I just cared that he was my beloved uncle and he had come for me. “Make sure we’re not being followed, and then make for Ambrose Gardens,” he said to the driver.

  “Yes, sir,” the driver said. “Is this Inner Watch business?”

  “As soon as you’re sure we’re not being followed it is. If Sergeant Richards asks, I gave you directions and you took us to somewhere behind Claridge’s. Thank you, Collins, that was very well done.”

  “Nothing, sir,” Collins said. “Can’t have them snatching Miss Royston like that.” Yet as far as I knew, I’d never seen him before.

  “Where are we going?” I asked, through my sobs. “And what’s the Inner Watch?”

  “Sorry, sir,” Collins said.

  “The Inner Watch is an organization within the Watch that helps innocent people who might otherwise be in trouble,” Uncle Carmichael said. I couldn’t see him, because I was tucked up under his arm, but I could feel him tensing as he spoke. “Did you know about it before?”

  “No,” I said. “You mean they were right? You really are doing something seditious and criminal?”

  “I suppose so,” Uncle Carmichael said, tightly.

  I didn’t know what to think. I’d only half believed it about Mrs. Talbot. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked. I pulled away from him and sat up.

  “So you couldn’t tell them,” he said. “The less you know the safer you are. This should never have touched you.”

  “Why do you do it?” I asked. I couldn’t believe he had put me at risk this way.

  “You’re not the only innocent girl ever to be swept up by the system,” Collins said, looking at me in his mirror. “Your uncle rescues a lot of people who never know who to thank. You shouldn’t be accusing him, miss.”

  “Thank you,” I said, stiffly. “Where are we going?”

  “We’re taking you somewhere safe, where you’ll be passed along to another safe place, where you’ll have to stay for a few days until it’s all right for you to come out again. You’ll be in some of our Inner Watch safe houses,” Uncle Carmichael said.

  “I’m being presented on Tuesday night,” I said, absurdly.

  Uncle Carmichael laughed. “Don’t worry about that now,” he said. “Do you have a cuff key, Collins? She’ll look funny being presented to the Queen with the handcuffs as accessories.”

  Collins snorted, and the next time we stopped at a red light he handed back a key on a chain, which Uncle Carmichael used to undo the handcuffs. I rubbed my arms, where they were sore from the cuffs, and my chest where it had bashed into the van. This made me realize I was still wearing the paper dress and Collins’s Watchman’s jacket. “I need some proper clothes,” I said.

  “They’ll have something where you’re going,” Uncle Carmichael said.

  “It might be better if she put your coat on, sir,” Collins suggested. “It’s long and it’ll cover her up. Nobody would pay any attention to a girl in a macintosh, and what she’s wearing is very conspicuous, even if she’s only on the street for a minute.”

  Uncle Carmichael took off his coat and handed it to me. I put it on. It was much too big in the shoulders, of course, and I’d never normally wear a beige coat, but the height was just right to be fashionable. I buttoned it up and belted it around my waist.

  “Why did they arrest me now?” I asked.

  “There really is a plot against the government, by the Duke of Windsor, and British Power is part of it. They thought you being at the riot was suspicious, since apparently Sir Alan is a part of it.”

  “They asked me a lot of questions about Sir Alan,” I confirmed. “And I think he is involved. He was hoping you could help him.”

  “He can keep hoping,” Uncle Carmichael said. “What possessed you to get engaged to him?”

  “I didn’t,” I said. “It was all a mistake. A misunderstanding. I never said I’d marry him.”

  “Thank goodness for that. He’s a cad, and I refuse permission.”

  I wasn’t sure whether he could refuse permission for me to marry, but it didn’t seem like a good time to have that argument, as I didn’t want to marry Sir Alan anyway. “So they were afraid he was involved with British Power, and I was, and therefore you were?”

  “That’s about it. But also, Penn-Barkis took you to see what I’d do, Elvira, and I wasn’t prepared to put up with it. When he sees that I won’t, especially as he must know by now that I have nothing to do with British Power, then it’ll all be all right again. If not, well, if not then you and I will have to get out of the country. But if it comes to that, I have plans, don’t worry.”

  “There’s nobody following us now, sir,” Collins said. “If I go round the block to Ambrose Street, I can drop you at the curb.”

  Uncle Carmichael looked at me. “We’re going to drop you at a clothes shop. Ask to speak to Mr. Ambrose. When they say there is no Mr. Ambrose, say you want to buy some green flannel pajamas. They’ll take you through to the back, give you some clothes, and someone will take you on to a house where you can stay until it’s safe for me to collect you. Stay there, Elvira, or wherever they send you on, because otherwise I won’t be able to find you.”

  “Yes,” I said. I was still bewildered. The car drew to a halt, and Uncle Carmichael leaned over and opened the door for me.

  “Go safely,” he said, and kissed the top of my head. “I’ll see you soon. Here, you’d better have these, but don’t use them.”

  I took a packet from him, and pushed it into my pocket. “Goodbye,” I said, getting out. “And thank you, and thank you too, Mr. Collins.”

  The clothes shop was in front of me. It was called Ambrose Clothes and Stores. The slogan across the window was GOOD QUALITY CLOTHES IN QUANTITY. There was yellow cellophane in the windows, to protect the clothes inside, and I saw school blazers and summer dresses on display. It looked like the kind of place where a respectable but impoverished mother of a large family would shop. I went in. There was a counter across the room, dressmaker dummies displaying summer cotton dresses, racks of patterns, and bales of cloth. There was a young woman behind the counter, and another older woman attending to a customer—she had two different sprigged cottons spread out before her and was clearly debating their merits.

  “Can I speak to Mr. Ambrose?” I asked the young attendant. Without conscious decision, it had come out in my Cockney v
oice, which felt more natural for this shop.

  “Mum!” the young woman said. “Someone asking for Mr. Ambrose.”

  “I’ll deal with this,” her mother said. “You help Mrs. Tenant with the cottons, Flo.” The two of them changed places. “Now, there’s no Mr. Ambrose here, miss,” she said to me, giving me a penetrating look. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

  “I want some green flannel pajamas,” I said, feeling absurd, like the time I’d had to play Celia in the school play and I felt as if people would laugh at all my lines except the funny ones.

  “You’d better come through to the back,” she said, and opened a flap in the counter and ushered me through, behind the bales of cloth and through a solid door, which she shut behind us, into another room. It was piled up with boxes and boxes, all brown, and all written on in neat black handwriting. “What are they thinking, no warning, and on Erev Pesach,” she said. “What do you need, love?”

  “I need somewhere to stay for a few days, until it’s safe, and if you don’t mind, some clothes, because I only have this coat.” I opened it and showed her the prison dress underneath.

  She tutted, and immediately started fumbling around in the boxes. “You’d be about a thirty-four?” she asked.

  “Thirty-six-C,” I said, embarrassed, but she must not have meant bra size because she pulled out a navy blue polyester dress, some knickers, and after some more fumbling a cream woolly sweater. “And a bra, I haven’t forgotten,” she said.

  She opened another box and whistled to herself. “Here you are, I hope beige is all right,” she said. “Now put those on, and I’ll pop round with you to Paula’s. You’ll be safe enough there, and she doesn’t have anyone there at the moment.”

  “Do you help a lot of people?” I asked, pulling off the prison dress, which tore, and putting on the bra and knickers as fast as I could.

  “Sometimes we might go a week or two without anyone, other times ten people in a week,” she said. “They give us money; don’t worry about paying for those clothes.” I started, and missed the hooks on the bra, because I hadn’t even thought about it. I had no money, as of course they hadn’t given me my bag back. “They got you out of prison, did they?” she asked, picking up the dress and crumpling it into a ball. “I’ll burn this.”

  “They were taking me to Finsbury,” I said.

  “Don’t tell me anything, what I don’t know I can’t tell,” she said. “We’ve been doing this nearly ten years now, and never any trouble.”

  I pulled the navy dress on. It wasn’t long enough, and it felt cheap and scratchy. I was cold, so I put the sweater on over it—it wasn’t wool—and then Uncle Carmichael’s coat over that. She handed me another two pairs of knickers, which I stuffed into the coat pocket. Then she gave me a hairbrush, which I used right away. “Is that your natural color?” she asked.

  “What, my hair?” I asked. “Yes, it is.”

  “You should try lightening it up with some highlights, if you get the chance,” she said. “Looks less Jewish, like, and you’ve got the skin for it.”

  “I’m not Jewish,” I protested.

  “What are you here for, then?” she said, skeptical. “Have you been passing? Well, you needn’t try that on me.”

  I didn’t argue, but put the hairbrush in the pocket of Uncle Carmichael’s coat, along with the packet he had given me. I glanced at it, and saw it was my identity card and papers.

  The woman led the way out of the back of the shop and down the road to the corner, where we waited at a bus stop. We got onto the bus, and she paid both fares. After a long ride through parts of London I didn’t know at all, we got off at another corner. In one way this was all terribly tedious and I couldn’t wait for it to be over so I could sleep, but in another way it was all marvelous that London was so big and so full of people and red double-decker buses and houses, and I wanted to hug all of it for being there and normal and not a little cold room with someone asking me questions.

  I trudged with her up another long street. The houses were all built in terraces of red brick, sharing walls with one another. They had little square gardens outside, some of which grew a few brave flowers. She didn’t talk at all while we were walking, and I didn’t feel I could start a conversation. I was getting more and more tired as we went. The little squares of grass in the gardens started to look as if they’d make comfortable beds. At last she stopped, opened a gate, took two steps up the garden path, and knocked on a door. She used an odd knock; two raps and then two more.

  The door was opened by an elderly woman in a pink dress. “Oh, Mrs. Berman,” the shop woman said. “Is Paula here?”

  “Where else would she be?” Mrs. Berman replied, and then bellowed down the passage, “Paula!”

  Paula Berman was a pretty middle-aged woman with brown curly hair and a pleasant smile. She looked quite athletic, as if she could run a mile or swim fifty laps without breaking into a sweat. I felt relieved to see her somehow, as if she’d be able to organize everything now. “I’m sorry to bother you, and today of all days, but this little one needs a place for a day or two,” the shop woman said.

  “It’s Pesach,” Mrs. Berman said.

  “All the more reason to take her in, Mother. Dan and Becky will just have to go home to sleep, that’s all, and we can squeeze another one in around the table.” She spoke cheerfully, and smiled at me. “Now I’d love to have you come in properly, but that won’t do, so you’ll have to come around the back and up inside. I’m sorry to do this when you’re so tired.”

  “I’m all right,” I said, though I was ready to drop.

  “Pesach kasher v’sameach,” Mrs. Berman said, or something like that, and the shop woman echoed her. We left, calling good-byes, for the benefit of the neighbors, and walked around the block and down an alley that ran behind the row of houses. Each house had a back garden and many of them had sheds. The shop woman took me to one of the sheds, and looked both ways to make sure nobody was watching. Then she stepped inside, and beckoned me to follow. Once inside, she took a spade off the wall, and pulled the hook where the spade had hung, which opened a trapdoor.

  “You go down those steps, and along the passage, and you’ll come up in Paula Berman’s kitchen,” she said. “Mazel tov!”

  There was a huge cobweb across the steps, which I gingerly edged around. The shop woman closed the trapdoor, and at once a little light came on. The passage was stone-flagged but the walls were earth. It bent to the right, and then there was another turn and another flight of stairs. Paula Berman was standing on them, with light pouring down behind her. “We never get around to cleaning in here,” she said. “Maybe I should sweep it out now. Apart from this, everything was done yesterday.”

  “That’s all right,” I said. “It’s very kind of you to have me.”

  “Our pleasure, my dear,” she said. “It’s a good day for taking in strays. Now are you hungry? Tired?”

  “Both,” I said, following her up the stairs and into the back kitchen.

  Now whatever you may have heard, it isn’t true that Jews are dirty. Apart from the passageway, I didn’t see as much as a speck of dust or dirt anywhere in Paula’s house; in fact it was spectacularly and notably clean. Even the oven was spotless. “We’re going to be eating late, of course,” she said, leading me out into the proper kitchen. “It’s five o’clock. There’s two hours until sunset. Would you like something to keep you going, and then a nap?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Thank you.” I sat down at the kitchen table—the kind of table that’s called a “scrubbed” table, and this one was scrubbed to within an inch of its life. A fat servant with a thick accent brought us a pot of tea—I declined milk and sugar—and after a moment a plate of new potatoes, cooked with mint. I’d never eaten anything so delicious in my life, and I said so. Paula sat down with me and drank tea, which was good, too, stronger than I like, but very good. While I was eating, Mrs. Berman came in and started fussing away at things, setting time
rs on the stove, and then just when I was finishing, two children erupted into the kitchen, a girl and a boy of about eight and six.

  “These are my children, Ben and Debbie,” Paula said. “Children, this is our cousin Hava.”

  I looked at Paula and raised my eyebrows as the children shook hands with me and went dashing off out of the room. Mrs. Berman followed after them. “Hava?” I asked. It had a long A, in fact it sounded just like “harbor” except with a V.

  “I should have told you,” she said. “I haven’t asked your name, though you know mine. I always call all our visitors my cousin Hava, or my cousin Michael, that way if the children babble in school it doesn’t sound like anything. I hope you don’t mind the name.”

  “It’s very pretty,” I said. “I haven’t heard it before, is it a Jewish name?”

  She looked at me with her head a little on one side. “Are you not Jewish?” she asked.

  “No, I’m not,” I said.

  The servant sniffed. Paula laughed. “Well, I think we won’t mention that to my mother-in-law. She’s a little old-fashioned. It doesn’t make any difference to me. We help anyone who needs help. We’ve had people who weren’t Jews before, occasionally, but they’ve always been men.”