‘Not round here they’re not.’
‘Tommy is.’ Dorothy couldn’t resist a sly dig at her ex, who had just walked in. He was picking himself up in a slow way after losing the shop, working from his newspaper stall by the cathedral. ‘He’s making money hand over fist.’
‘Ha ha.’ Tommy ordered a drink before he went upstairs to visit Edie. He knew that Dorothy took an interest in his income, noticing that she had less to spend on her new outfits and make-up since the shop had gone up in smoke. Well, that was up to Charlie now.
‘Seriously.’ How else did he ride the shortages, unless he still had his fingers in the black market? In her opinion leopards never changed their spots.
He shrugged and joined in the war talk with Charlie. Tommy had no illusions either; it was a bad business when you heard that pilots in Bomber Command had only a one in three chance of coming through a tour of duty alive.
‘I don’t care what they say,’ Dolly insisted. ‘I ain’t never been one to give in and I ain’t about to start now.’
The debate spread through the pub; the pros and cons of patriotism, talk which might have shocked the government into realizing how out of touch they were with the hearts and minds of the people. On balance, however, opinion went with continuing to muddle through, for what was the alternative? These days, people were not so much pro-Churchill as anti-Hitler, that despised caricature of the Low cartoons.
When it came to it, the ordinary man and woman’s individual concerns far outweighed any general problems. For instance, all the time Tommy spent jousting with Dorothy and chewing things over with Charlie was time taken away from being with Edie. At her side was where he longed to be. Yet he knew that he shouldn’t crowd her during these weeks when she was recovering from her injuries and Morell’s horrific death. She was still staying at the Duke, laid up more with mental than physical scars. Whenever he visited, she was pleased to see him, but her stamina was poor. She tired easily. Her face, which still bore traces of bruises and fading scars, would turn pale, and he would soon leave, going back to rebuilding his own life, working hard, drinking a little too much, waiting.
He was hanging on at the bar, wondering whether to go up, when Hettie came down to fetch him.
‘She knows you’re here, Tommy. She’d like to see you.’
He finished his drink. ‘How is she?’
‘The same. A bit brighter maybe.’
Tommy went up and knocked at the living room door. There was a balance to be struck between being gentle and robust. Too much sympathy seemed to weaken Edie’s resolution to stay cheerful; too little made him appear unfeeling. In truth, he wanted to lock her in his arms and spend the rest of his life looking after her.
Edie smiled as he went in. She was dressed in a warm cardigan that disguised how thin she’d become. A magazine lay open but unread on her lap.
He stooped to kiss her cheek. ‘You’ll never guess what I went and did earlier today.’
‘No, I won’t.’ Her expression said that she wouldn’t put anything past him. ‘So I won’t even try.’
‘I signed up with the Home Guard.’
‘Tommy, you never!’ She tried to imagine him making himself useful in Dad’s Army.
‘I’m meant to shoot enemy parachutists and control the traffic . . . it ain’t that funny.’ He pretended to look disgruntled. ‘A man has to do his bit.’
‘Better late than never.’
‘Watch it.’ He settled in a chair opposite, leaning forward. ‘How have you been?’
‘Fine.’ Her answer didn’t correspond with the faded look in her eye, or with Hettie’s bulletins.
‘Have you been eating?’
‘Yes, don’t keep on.’
With her sitting there, offering the evidence of his own eyes, he couldn’t keep up the cheerful pretence. ‘Edie, I can’t help it. I wish I could do something. Tell me what.’
The tears that were always near to the surface came and pricked her eyelids. ‘There ain’t nothing you can do. I have to do it myself.’ When the bad dreams stopped flooding the night, when she could get rid of the last pictures of Bill burning to death in a fire she seemed to have set alight, and which, try as she might, she could not put out.
‘What is it?’ He reached to touch her hand.
‘I can’t explain.’ It was an aching that she couldn’t point to, a bruise under her heart.
‘You don’t still blame yourself?’ If anyone, it was him. He was the one who had let her go home from the park alone. He was the one who had pushed Morell to the limit.
‘I wish I could undo it all,’ she cried. ‘Get back to where I was before.’
This frightened him. ‘Before we got together?’
‘Before it all went wrong, Tommy.’ The tears streamed down. ‘I would do it different.’
‘How?’ He wanted to know if this was rejection. Did she wish him out of her life?
Looking up through her tears she saw how she was hurting him. She rose to stop him from turning away, stumbling as she went to him, glad to be held in his arms. ‘I don’t mean you and me. That would be wishing my whole life away.’
Thank God. He stood holding her. Whatever else, she didn’t want to lose him.
‘But I wish I’d been brave enough.’
Tommy rocked her gently. ‘To tell Bill right at the start? What chance did you get? It ain’t your fault, Edie.’
Eventually the crying stopped. She kept her face hidden against his shoulder. ‘Don’t look at me.’
‘You’re breaking my heart, Edie Morell, I mean that.’ Having to let go of her and walk away.
‘I don’t mean to.’ She took out a handkerchief and began to pull herself together. ‘I feel better now.’ She eased away.
‘You don’t look it.’
‘I do though. I’ve been thinking, Tommy . . .’
He took a short, wary step back.
‘I am getting stronger. Hettie and Annie look after me; they spoil me to death. But I can’t stay here forever.’
Here came another crunch then. He knew what he wanted her to say; that they could move back into the flat together. But he knew just as well that this wasn’t what she had in mind.
‘I want to go away for a little while.’
‘From Duke Street?’
‘Right away.’
‘Where to?’ For how long? Who with? Doubtful questions peppered his brain.
‘I don’t know yet. Out of London. As soon as I can get back on my feet. I haven’t made any plans, but I feel that’s what I want to do.’ There were ways of making herself useful somewhere else; they were always asking for women for the munitions factories in the Midlands, or for the Land Army; twenty-eight shillings a week and already 90,000 strong.
‘Want to, or ought to?’
‘Both.’ She twisted her handkerchief into a tight knot. ‘Does it seem like I’m running away?’
‘No.’ He acknowledged her reasons. She needed space. ‘No, it’s the right thing for you, ain’t it?’ Ninety per cent of him wanted to yell at her for doing this; for making him miss her every second she would be away, for leaving him in doubt. Ten per cent said he had to let her go. Fear and trust, in those proportions. God knew, the small voice had to fight hard to get through.
But Edie loved him more, if that were possible. Later she told Annie her plan. She intended to get better as soon as possible now, to put the past behind her and give herself a new start. She began to check the War Office adverts in the newspapers, to eat properly and put on weight.
She would need her strength, Annie told her. ‘You ain’t no good to man nor beast looking the way you do now.’
‘I’m tougher than you think.’ A week after her talk with Tommy, Edie had insisted on helping behind the bar. Regulars made a point of saying how glad they were to see her back.
‘That’s the spirit.’ Annie had great faith in her own sex. It wasn’t brawn that mattered, but will-power. Edie had been through it all right, and Annie sympat
hized. She knew about violent husbands. Without wanting to rake up the past, she let Edie know that they had that experience in common, before she’d had the good fortune to marry Duke Parsons. ‘You do whatever it is you need to do. You rushed into things once already. Now do it in your own time, at your own pace. I did when I married Duke. It was the best way.’
‘But will Tommy understand? Will he wait?’
Annie said she wasn’t a fortune teller. ‘But it don’t alter the facts. We’ll keep an eye on Tommy here while you’re away. Write to him if it makes you feel better. But put yourself first for a change.’
During the war, a small envelope could change lives. A hand-delivered telegram was brought to Jess and Maurice’s house to inform them that their son had given his life in the skies over Dover on only his fourth operation in active service. They tried to see the glory; felt only the loss.
Mo was one young man among the thousands of aircrew whose names would join the list of warriors on war memorials and church walls throughout the land. Sadie travelled to Manchester to be with Jess, then the sisters went to Coniston at Maurice’s insistence. A few days with Grace, Bertie and Geoff might help heal the wound.
Then there were Edie’s letters to Tommy through the autumn of 1941. She landed up in a converted manor house in Somerset, working, to start with, in the apple orchards and helping with livestock as part of the Women’s Land Army. The hostel looked posh from the outside, but was basic within. Edie had to share a room with five others, the bunks were hard, the food plain. She learned to drive a truck in which she dropped off other Land Army girls at surrounding farms. Her uniform consisted of fawn corduroy britches, knitted stockings, a green pullover and a brown velour hat. They worked alongside prisoners of war, mucking out cow barns and collecting eggs. Was this the Edie who’d worked with him in the basement office? Tommy wondered. He couldn’t make out exactly how she felt about her new life, though she came across in her letters as being fit and well. Tommy tried to be glad, even though he resented what she was putting him through.
Finally, there was the letter that Gertie said Meggie must write. Her judgment that the offer she’d made over Richie Palmer would eat into the girl’s consciousness proved correct; now that Meggie was within arm’s length of discovering her long-lost father, the desire to see him grew daily. True, it was a slow, uneven progress. First of all, Meggie had to get over the latest separation from Ronnie; the clinging on the station platform, the undying promises. No doubt their first exchange of letters had been passionate and tender.
But Meggie had returned to the Bell on the Tuesday evening after his departure. She’d wheedled and implored Gertie to tell her all she knew without delivering the promise that she would give Ronnie up as fair exchange. This had gone on over several weeks, with no weakening on Gertie’s part. Then the visits had dropped off; possibly another lovelorn letter from Ronnie had fallen onto the mat in Paradise Court. Gertie’s patience was put to the test.
At the end of September, Meggie showed up again.
‘Long time, no see.’ Gertie stood behind the bar, expressing no surprise or relief.
Meggie felt a flash of hatred. ‘You win.’ This was all she could trust herself to say.
It was the pull of the past that Gertie had banked on. ‘You’ll give Ronnie up?’
‘I said, you win.’ Meggie stood buttoned up in her white mackintosh, a red scarf around her neck. She couldn’t bring herself to say the words. ‘When can I see my pa?’
‘Hold on.’ Gertie placed the towels over the pumps. It was mid-afternoon, a Saturday. After she’d gone and bolted the doors, she sat Meggie down at a table. ‘How do I know you’ll keep your word?’
‘I’m giving you my promise.’ Everything turned to ashes, even the words in her mouth. Meggie sat stiff and upright. The notion of sacrifice had meant nothing until now.
‘That ain’t good enough,’ Gertie said calmly. ‘You have to write to Ronnie first. Tell him it’s all over between you.’
Hot tears trickled from Meggie’s eyes. Blackmail pure and simple.
‘I’ll fetch a pen and paper.’ Gertie left her sitting there. In any other circumstance she would have relented at the sight of the girl marooned in the empty bar, trying to hold her head up, pressing her hand to her mouth and staring into space. ‘Here. Tell him you don’t want to see him no more. Say you’ve met someone else.’ She put the paper flat on the table, laid the pen across it.
As Meggie wrote, it was as if she stepped outside her own life and she was someone else signing herself Meggie; telling Ronnie that she’d been hasty in making him so many promises, that she’d since listened to advice and decided it was too early to commit herself. It was best, she thought, if they decided to call it a day. She hoped he wouldn’t be too disappointed, that he would come to see it her way. No matter how much Gertie urged it, Meggie refused to write that she’d found someone else.
Gertie took the letter and told her to address an envelope. It had to be done on the spot. As soon as Ronnie received this, that would be it. No matter how much he thought he loved the girl, his pride would kick into action. His mother judged that he wouldn’t come begging once he’d been jilted.
Gertie collected her coat and sealed the envelope herself. ‘We’ll post it on the way.’
‘Why, where are we going?’ Meggie ran to catch her out in the windswept court.
‘I thought you wanted to see Richie Palmer?’
Meggie felt another jolt, a thud against her chest. She clutched her coat around her.
‘Come on then.’ Gertie slid Meggie’s letter into the postbox on the corner of Charing Cross Road. It was over. You shall see your father! The fairytale princess was in tears again. ‘Let’s get it over and done with.’
Chapter Twenty-Two
‘This place is the Sally Army without the Bible thumping. They set it up last year, after the ARPs started turning the tramps out of the ordinary shelters. Too drunk and rowdy, I expect.’ Gertie picked her way along the dirty pavement that ran down the side of Charing Cross railway station. She led Meggie past the massive arches designed to support the Hungerford Bridge on its route across the river to Waterloo on the south bank.
Meggie shrank into herself. It wasn’t the raw wind, nor the rattle and roar of trains passing overhead. It was the shapes of men huddling in dank brick alcoves, or shuffling towards them, talking to nobody, or swearing at thin air. Yet she tried to keep her spirits up, for this longed-for meeting.
‘It’s run by officers from the last war, out of the goodness of their hearts, I suppose.’ Gertie knew her way around. She ignored the drunks and the madmen. ‘Don’t give them none of your change,’ she warned Meggie. ‘They’ll only spend it on meths.’
‘Is this where he lives?’ Meggie looked up and down the dark tunnel. Numbered arches led off to left and right, heavy traffic thundered along the main, cobbled route; trucks delivering to warehouses set up under the arches, buses loaded with grim-faced passengers.
‘If you can call it living.’ Gertie prepared Meggie for even more of a shock than she might expect. ‘He was in a bad way when he last came up the Court.’
‘When was that?’
‘Last time he was sober enough to find it.’ She glanced at Meggie. ‘A couple of weeks ago. Look, this ain’t the place where they live. It’s where they come if there’s an air raid, because no one else will have them. There are bunks for them to sleep on, and they can keep warm, that’s about it. I’ve brought you here to get news of him, see? With a bit of luck we’ll get enough sense out of someone to track him down in one of his usual haunts.’ A drunken man in filthy rags stepped from the pavement into the road. ‘Then again . . .’ Gertie frowned. She stopped outside arch number 176. ‘You’re sure you want to go ahead?’
Meggie nodded. There was no going back, not now the letter was in the post. She’d paid a terrible price to see this man.
‘Come in. Welcome to the Hungerford Club.’ Gertie walked ahead into the host
el for down-and-outs.
The Club reeked of institutions, disinfectant, boiled food and human odours scarcely kept at bay. An effort had been made, however. The high arched ceiling was painted cream, the tiered bunks, empty at present, were stacked with neatly folded grey blankets. Orderlies mopped out the urinals set apart from the dormitory area, others carried scrubbed metal urns from sink to tables in the canteen.
Soon a middle-aged man in a pin-striped suit approached. He introduced himself as Captain Wallace, made it clear that visitors were both unusual and unwelcome; especially smartly dressed women whose business was difficult to determine. His clipped ‘May I help?’ held undertones of ‘Let’s deal with this swiftly before it disrupts our routine.’
Gertie nodded back. She too wanted to be quick. We’re looking for a man named Richie Palmer. I know he comes here.’
‘As you see, he’s not here at present.’ The veteran officer made a sweeping gesture towards the row upon row of empty bunks.
‘But you know this man?’
‘Not by name. But there’s nothing unusual in that. The men who come here are drifters. We don’t keep a record of who they are. That’s not how we operate.’
‘Well, I’ve carted him along here myself often enough.’ Gertie grew impatient with the man’s stonewalling. ‘Or had him sent when the sirens went off. I should think you would know him.’
Meggie stood by, trying to control her growing sense of dismay. She pictured the types who inhabited the bunks; the noises, the rags, the despair.
‘Give me a description.’ Wallace realized that Gertie wouldn’t back down unless she got some information. However, in contrast, the girl was reluctant, almost overwhelmed. ‘Let me see if I can help,’ he said more kindly.
As Gertie ran through Palmer’s appearance; dark brown eyes, thick grey hair, over six feet tall, Meggie compared it with the Tottenham Court Road tramp who had first fired her imagination. Certain then that he was somehow familiar, that she knew him without knowing him, despite his hostility, she began to falter now. After all, there were many tall men with grey hair and brown eyes whose lives had crumbled during the Depression years, for whom the promise of houses and jobs from a grateful government after the First War had never materialized, and who slid into homelessness in the grip of memories too dreadful to be told. Meggie knew this for a fact, from Hettie’s work with the Salvation Army, from the evidence of her own eyes as she rode the tubes and buses.
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