All Fall Down

by Jenny Oldfield

  ‘Oh.’ She began to sob in earnest. ‘What am I gonna do, Tommy? What am I gonna do?’

  Sadie had bought Bertie some new Wellington boots from Woolworths, packed them in a neat parcel and sent them off to Lancashire. ‘Give your old ones to Geoff,’ she instructed in her letter, ‘and have Mrs Whittaker hand on Geoff’s old ones to a small child who needs them. I’ve written your name in big letters inside the top rims so you can see at a glance they belong to you.’ Bertie’s possessions had a mysterious way of disappearing, apparently. She waited several weeks for a reply, fretting all the while that the parcel had been lost in the post, that Bertie must be ill, or that he’d already forgotten all about his real family in Southwark.

  At last the long-awaited letter came, crumpled and smudged.

  ‘Looks as if the dog got hold of that,’ Walter commented as he separated it from the rest of the morning’s mail and handed it over to Sadie.

  Eagerly she tore it open, but she hardly got beyond the first sentence before she let it drop in dismay.

  ‘What’s wrong? What’s he say?’ Walter looked up from his pile of bills.

  ‘Geoff’s poorly.’

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’

  ‘They can’t make it out. Bertie says there’s something wrong with his tummy. He ain’t eating properly.’

  ‘Not eating? He eats like a horse, don’t he?’

  She nodded. ‘It ain’t like him, certainly. Hold on.’ She read the letter. ‘He says he wrote this in bed. Geoff’s poorly and he has to stay off school to look after him. They still have to earn their keep, though, running errands for Mr Whittaker.’

  ‘Earn their keep? Whittaker gets plenty from the government to cover the cost of the billet.’ Walter was slower to take alarm, but he was beginning not to like the sound of it. ‘Why’s he writing his letter in bed, does he say?’

  ‘He don’t. Hang on.’ Sadie’s hand shook. ‘He wants to know why we haven’t written since February.’

  ‘Since when?’

  ‘Since February, only he spelt it wrong.’ She held up her hand. ‘Listen. He hopes we haven’t forgotten about him and Geoff.’ Her heart was squeezed tight, she had to hand over the letter for Walter to finish.

  He scanned it. ‘Oh, this ain’t right, Sadie. He’s writing in secret because Mrs Whittaker said not to let us know poor Geoff’s ill. She thinks we’ll only worry.’

  ‘Too right we will.’ Sadie stood up, ready to go for her hat and coat then and there. ‘That settles it.’ Her mind flew over the things she would have to arrange; leave of absence from the factory, train tickets, an explanation for Annie so that she could keep an eye on Walter and Meggie.

  ‘What you up to now?’

  ‘I’m gonna bring them back home, no messing.’

  ‘Wait. We aren’t one hundred per cent sure yet, are we?’ He couldn’t help thinking of the toll on everyone’s nerves; the day-in, day-out worrying about what Hitler was up to. In Walter’s opinion it was a matter of when, not if, he would strike.

  ‘Sure of what?’

  ‘Sure it’s the right thing.’

  She frowned with the effort of giving him a hearing. ‘I know one thing, Walt, it ain’t right where they are now.’

  She’d spent the winter in an agony of doubt, veering between hoping for the best; trusting human nature and the will of God and fearing the worst: that the Whittakers were the sort who might exploit evacuees, and what this might entail for her two boys. She also had the evidence before her eyes of other mothers, worried sick about their absent children, taking all means to get them back home, travelling by bus or by truck, even hitching a ride into the country to fetch them.

  ‘I don’t think it’s safe to have them back,’ Walter insisted quieuy.

  ‘Oh,’ she cried, ‘says you! What about the others who think it is perfectly safe? Why do you think we’ve got shelters and sandbags and sirens and klaxons? So we don’t all get blown to bits, that’s why!’

  ‘But if Jerry does start in on us—’

  ‘If, if, if! It’s been “if” for more than six months, and nothing but false alarms and rumours.’ She argued as if her life depended on it.

  Upstairs in her room, Meggie heard the raised voices and came down.

  Walter tried to think straight. It was true, many families had taken the risk of being back together. He’d also heard some horror stories of children being abominably, treated in their billets; worked to the bone, half starved even beaten. Now the letter from Bertie made it likely that their own sons had been far from kindly received.

  ‘He ain’t mentioned his new Wellingtons,’ Sadie said with a choking sob. ‘What happened to that parcel, Walter?’

  ‘Right.’ He nodded as if this tipped the balance. ‘Pack your bag.’

  Sadie gasped with relief. ‘I can go and fetch them?’

  In the doorway, Meggie stood hugging her dressing gown to her chest. She knew this would put her own increasingly desperate search for her father well down the list of Sadie’s priorities. However, she could hardly object.

  ‘Meggie, fetch the brown suitcase from the attic, then run up to the Duke and ask your gran to come down, quick as you can. You can tell her I’m going to fetch the boys back home.’ It was as if the weight of the world had lifted from Sadie’s shoulders. ‘Oh, Walter, I’m sure this is the best thing. It feels right. I want the boys with us, whatever happens.’

  Meggie went on her errand, while Walter followed Sadie round their bedroom as she began to pack. ‘Do you want me to come?’

  She straightened up in the midst of folding a navy blue and white spotted blouse. ‘If you want.’

  ‘I want what you want. And what’s best for the boys. And Meggie.’ He left the choice to her.

  ‘Then I think I should go. You stay and take care of things here. I have this idea to go on the train to Manchester, to Jess’s house. She’ll put me up for the night and, if all goes well, she’ll be able to drive me over to the boys in Rendal, collect them with me, and drive us back to her place. That way we won’t need to rely on buses.’ She continued packing her things.

  ‘Shall I ring Jess from the depot to tell her?’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘And shall you warn the Whittakers?’

  She paused again, resting a half-folded skirt over one arm. ‘I don’t think so, do you?’

  He agreed. ‘We don’t want to give them a chance to go covering things up before you get there.’

  ‘And it’ll be a surprise for Bertie and Geoff. We’ll arrive there out of the blue and straighten everything out for them. Before they know it, we’ll have them safe back home.’ Now that she had a plan she grew methodical, asking Walter to check the times of the Manchester trains, leaving instructions with Annie on what meals to prepare while she was away. It was Friday; she expected to get to Jess by evening. In the morning they would set off for Rendal; by tomorrow afternoon she would see her beloved boys.

  ‘Is Your Journey Really Necessary?’ Rob Parsons scowled at the poster as his taxicab stood idling outside the Windmill Theatre, waiting for Dorothy O’Hagan and her cronies to emerge. Sleek young men with slicked-back hairdos and wide flannel trousers strolled by, their arms around girls’ slim waists, parading their night’s conquests. As for the girls, they seemed wickedly available in their short skirts and sleeveless tops, while Rob, by virtue of his age and job, was relegated to the role of mere spectator.

  ‘C’mon!’ He tapped the steering wheel, looking out for familiar faces; a fellow taxi driver, or even Bobby, Jimmie O’Hagan and Meggie who were out making a night of it, while Sadie travelled north to fetch the boys. But the streets were crowded and dim and he spotted no one he knew. He wanted to be home and in bed. In his resentment he was angered by the notion that none of these good-timers even seemed to be aware that there was a war on.

  At last Dorothy, Lorna Bennett and two other women in their early twenties teetered out of the theatre and headed tipsily for the cab. What did they
think they looked like, he wondered, as Loma missed her footing and had to be helped up. Dorothy piled into the back of the taxi after her, showing practically everything – stocking-tops, suspenders, the lot – while the other two young ones giggled and smirked at a couple of passing sailors.

  ‘Home, James!’ Lorna waved him on.

  The two sailors stopped to leer.

  ‘No, wait. Want a lift?’ The girl in the wrap-around red dress held the door open.

  ‘Don’t you just love them tiddly suits?’ her flame-haired friend cooed. ‘All that gold braid.’

  ‘Don’t just stand there, hop in!’

  But the sailors felt themselves outnumbered. ‘Sorry girls, some other time.’ They winked at Rob, implying that he had his hands full, then strolled on.

  ‘Aah!’ They leaned out of the window as the cab left the kerb. ‘Ta-ta, boys, you don’t know what you’re missing!’

  As they settled into their seats, pulling the window shut, Rob could smell their heavy perfume infiltrating the glass partition. In his overhead mirror, he saw the back of Lorna’s head, and the pale blotch of Dorothy’s face caught off-guard, mouth set in a hard red line, eyes narrowed and shadowy behind a furl of blue smoke.

  ‘Thanks for the memory,’ the two youngest girls sang. ‘Da – di-di-di-di – dee . . . Oh, thanks for the memory . . .’ The motion of the cab as it swerved around a corner onto Shaftesbury Avenue sent them off-key and into another fit of giggles.

  Bed, Rob thought. A whisky from the corner cupboard, and bed. Oblivion. Already he was half asleep. The street was dark, his lamps hooded. Only the road immediately in front of his wheels was visible, though shapes of pedestrians might loom out from the pavement and he would jolt upright, his attention sharpened for a few seconds before it lapsed again.

  ‘Thanks for the memory, Ba-bu-bu-bu-bu – boom.’

  Rob found his way without having to think, along the Embankment in its dull wartime guise of blacked-out Ministry buildings, shadowy archways and the black mass of the river shifting silently under Waterloo Bridge.

  Suddenly he slammed on his brakes. The women in the back lurched and squealed, the cab slewed sideways.

  ‘Bleeding idiot!’ Rob fought for control. The road was greasy, he wouldn’t be able to stop. A man was there, caught in his headlights. Someone else tried to grab him and pull him out of the way. Just in time, the swaying figure veered sideways, forearm up to shield him from the impact, torn coat flying open in the wind.

  ‘Christ!’ Rob’s wheels locked and squealed. For a second he thought he must have hit him. The women were deadly quiet. As they skidded to a halt and the engine cut out, he swung open his door and stepped out. A second tramp was hauling the inert body of the first clear of the road. ‘Did I catch him?’

  ‘Just clipped him, I think.’ His job done, the rescuer wanted to shuffle out of the limelight.

  ‘Is he dead?’ Lorna recovered first and came to stand by Rob.

  ‘Dead drunk more like.’ Getting over the shock, Rob was more annoyed than anything. ‘Leave him be.’ Lorna was trying to turn the unconscious tramp face-up and loosen his filthy woollen scarf. Rob turned to get some sense out of his companion. ‘Where does he live?’

  A shrug, a noncommittal shrug.

  ‘Nowhere.’ Rob’s hands were deep in his jacket pocket. ‘Marvellous, ain’t it?’ He was all for leaving him where he was, there on the pavement.

  But the two young girls in his cab had turned into would-be Florence Nightingales, along with Loma. They piled out onto the pavement. ‘Poor old thing, look at the state of him. Ain’t there nowhere we can take him?’ they appealed to the hero of the moment. Meanwhile Rob looked on, while Loma tried to right the victim and Dorothy sat scornfully by, her lip curled, a fresh cigarette between her fingers.

  ‘Dunno. You can leave him there if you want.’

  ‘But you know him, don’t you? There must be somewhere we can drop him off.’

  ‘Me? No, I was just passing.’ Perhaps it struck the second tramp there was something in this new role of hero, however, for he stopped making as if to wander off into the night and thought again. ‘I don’t really, what you might call, know him. Not by name or nothing.’

  By now the inert victim was stirring. Lorna succeeded in tipping him onto his back. His cap fell forward over his face.

  ‘Mind you, I do know there’s someone in Bernhardt Court what keeps an eye on him if he’s in a real bad way.’

  ‘Who?’ The girl in the red dress seized on this.

  Rob turned impatiently and walked back to the cab.

  ‘Someone in a pub up there.’ Their informant struggled to remember. ‘No, it’s gone. But it’s definitely Bernhardt Court, a pub somewhere there.’

  ‘Let’s take him up there. We can’t leave him in this, state.’

  ‘Who’s paying?’ Rob wanted to know.

  Dorothy met his gaze. ‘Don’t look at me. I’m like you, I want my bed.’

  The girls wailed in protest, then turned to the coherent vagrant. ‘You could take him!’

  ‘Not me. I ain’t got two brass farthings.’

  But there was no stopping them in their mission of mercy. The flame-haired girl hailed another cab, then Red Dress opened her purse. ‘Here’s two bob.’ She handed a florin to the tramp. ‘We’ll put him in this taxi and you make sure he gets up to Bernhardt Court, OK?’

  He took it with a stupefied look. Dorothy raised an eyebrow at Rob.

  ‘Here, give us a hand.’ Lorna gave up the unequal struggle to get the semi-conscious man to his feet. The new cabbie leaned out, obviously wondering what he’d got himself into.

  In the end Rob saw it as the quickest way out of the difficulty. ‘Get in,’ he barked at the bemused hero, indicating the back of the new taxi. Then he turned to help the girls. They got the tramp upright, leaning against Rob’s chest. Loma pulled the cap back from the grime-lined, sagging, ruined face. A blast of stinking breath hit Rob full force. He staggered. By the time they’d got him safely stowed, Rob was white and breathing hard.

  A door slammed and the second cab set off with the tramps inside, back over the river onto the Embankment. Once out of sight, the hero rapped hard on the cabby’s partition. ‘This’ll do!’

  The cab stopped and disgorged its cargo. The drunken victim fell flat on the pavement. The other tossed the cabbie a couple of coppers and went on his way, his florin intact.

  Sick to his stomach, Rob dropped his own passengers one by one along Duke Street, then made his way to Walter’s house. He had to tell someone what had just taken place or he would choke on it. The downstairs light was still on at number 32.

  ‘Walt?’ He knocked quietly on the door and spoke through the letter-box. ‘It’s me, Rob.’

  Walter was late going to bed; he hated the house without Sadie in it, especially the empty bedroom. Meggie had recently come home and was upstairs in her own bed. ‘Rob, you look done in.’ He held the door and let him in. ‘Here.’ He went straight to the front room and pulled out the whisky bottle for him. ‘Have a swig. Tell me what’s going on for God’s sake.’

  Rob gulped the drink. ‘Christ Almighty, Walt, you ain’t gonna believe what I just did.’

  ‘Has there been an accident?’ Walter feared the worst. Rob was white as a sheet, breathing fast, the sweat standing out on his forehead. ‘You ain’t gone and knocked some poor blighter over?’

  ‘I wish I bleeding well had!’ He was in agony. He clenched his teeth as the whisky hit the back of his throat. Then he took another gulp. ‘I wish I’d bleeding killed him!’

  ‘Who? What is this? Come on, Rob, spit it out.’ They had both raised their voices, Walter had to restrain Rob from crashing furniture about the place.

  ‘I didn’t run him over, did I? I wish I had.’ He imagined the satisfaction he would have had. ‘Bleeding fool stepped right in front of me, drunk as a lord. I slammed on the brakes, bleeding well missed him!’

  ‘Who? Who?’ Walter shook him b
y the shoulder.

  ‘Richie Palmer, that’s who. I just gone and saved his life.’

  Chapter Seven

  ‘You cast-iron, copper-bottom certain?’

  ‘I’d know him a mile off.’ Rob gave Walter the whole story, blow by blow. ‘The girls get this idea to send him up Shaftesbury Avenue in another cab, to Bernhardt Court, so I’m lending a hand to get him back on his feet and that’s when I get a look at him, close as this.’ Rob held the flat of his hand against his nose. ‘The man’s a wreck, but I still know him and, what’s more, he knows me.’

  Walter took this in. ‘Give me that,’ he said, grabbing the whisky bottle from Rob and taking a drink. ‘You all right?’

  ‘Tip-top.’

  ‘It’s a good job Sadie ain’t here to hear this.’

  Rob felt the tension begin to fade. ‘Would you believe it. He was there, right there under the wheels, as near as dammit.’

  Walter recognized how he must feel. Even he felt a pang of regret. ‘I suppose he was bound to turn up sooner or later.’ He didn’t relish the idea of what Sadie and Meggie would want to do next, if they did get to hear.

  ‘But I had him, Walt, honest to God.’

  ‘Shh, keep your voice down. I reckon it’s for the best.’

  ‘Not likely. If I’d finished him off there and then, that would’ve been it. A score settled, an end to your problems.’ Knowing Walter as he did, Rob guessed that he would in the end want to go and blab to Sadie. Now he regretted following this urge to tell him all about it. This way, the whole thing would be sure to end in tears. He sat down to try and talk sense into his over-scrupulous partner. ‘Now look, Walt . . .’

  ‘I know what you’re gonna say next, Rob.’ Walter rocked back on his chair, rolling the newspaper he’d been reading into a thin column and tapping it against his knee.

  ‘Will you have to bring this up with Sadie?’

  ‘Who said I would?’

  ‘No, but you will, though.’ Once more Rob swiped the bottle from the table and took a long drink. ‘Let’s get this straight. I nearly run over the geezer what tried to do me in in the first place by cutting them brake rods, only he gets you by mistake. Then he ditches my sister, your missus, and the kid.’