by Juliet West
He looked up to the heavens, but all he could see were the shadowy ridges of Charmouth cliffs. On the cliff ledge, a young seagull cried.
10
Boxing Day afternoon and this house is like the grave. Mum sits in the armchair, looking at Jen’s Pictorial. Alec is bad with his chest and Jen is fussing around him upstairs. All we hear is cough, cough, cough, pathetic and weak. Jen is up there every hour to burn his asthma powders. The house stinks of Potter’s Powders, but they don’t seem to help one bit.
I wish we had a piano. Dor and her crowd will be having a fine time in Poplar: the whole family crammed into their parlour; Mrs Flynn battering the piano keys; the room pulsing with their laughter; a bowl of hot punch on the table. Then Dor standing on a chair for her party piece: ‘The Boy I Love Is Up in the Gallery’, sung saucy as you like, in the style of Marie Lloyd. She’ll belt it out chirpier than ever now she has Daniel.
We were almost cheerful yesterday. Alec had made a hobby horse for Teddy from a mop and an old wine box. Teddy was cock-a-hoop: he tumbled around the house with it, shouting, ‘Giddy-up,’ and getting under our feet until we had to send him out into the yard. Alice looked at the pinafore dress Mum had made and tried to smile. I know she was hoping for a little velvet coat like her friend Violet’s, though I’d told her we couldn’t afford the brass buttons, let alone the fabric. She soon dirtied the dress outside, chasing after Teddy and begging for a turn on the horse. All the children were out in the street and in the yards and the alleyways, screeching and singing, stirring up the pails of plucked feathers so that the air was speckled with down.
‘To Dad and George,’ said Alec, as we sat at the table for Christmas dinner. ‘May they both come home soon.’
We raised our glasses, trying to smile for the children’s sake. The gravy was too thick – it slithered from the jug in clots – and I felt sick to think of my dad lying in a faraway asylum I’d never even visited. Mum had only been to Colney Hatch twice herself; she came home both times with a false smile and her fists clenched knuckle-white around the handle of her basket. ‘He’s still settling in,’ she’d said. ‘Don’t go along just yet . . . Wait until the weather’s better.’
As I chewed the chicken, I thought of George with his tin of Maconochie’s, joking with the lads in the Greek sunshine. Perhaps that was why I didn’t miss him too bad, knowing he was getting on all right. If he was still in France, I might have felt different. I wished he’d made more effort for the kids at Christmas. The card he promised never did turn up. Alice asked after the postman every day, on and on, so that in the end I bought a card myself, copied his squashed-up handwriting and told her it was from Daddy. It stands on the shelf now, next to the other cards – one from Mum’s sister in Lincoln and the rest from Alec’s most grateful clients. They like to keep on the right side of him, especially at Christmas.
‘There’s a fog coming,’ says Mum. She has her back to the window, but you can sense fog without looking: a weight in the draught. ‘Time those children came inside. We don’t want Teddy getting a chest. It’s enough with Alec.’ She raises her eyes to the bedroom above.
I stand at the window and scan the street for the kids, squinting through the twilit fog. My head spins for a moment so that I have to steady myself against the window frame. I’ve drunk my share of Boxing Day sherry – probably Jen’s share too. There’s no sign of Alice and Teddy, hard as I look. Something pale and light clatters onto the cobbles: the remains of a chicken carcass. A crow swoops down, snatches it back in its scaly claws, rises sideways, off-balanced but determined to keep hold.
‘I’ll nip out and call them,’ I tell Mum, tying my shawl tight and hurrying into the hall. The front door is swollen into the frame; it takes three attempts to pull it open and then I’m running down Sabbarton Street towards the creek, shouting the children’s names.
Mrs Hillier opens her front door, holding a lamp.
‘Everything all right, duck?’
‘The children, have you seen them?’
‘They was at my window earlier, making faces at the canary.’
Mrs Hillier’s gentleman friend appears behind her, tucking in his shirt.
‘Little beggars,’ he says. ‘I’ll ’elp you look. What’s their names again?’
‘Alice and Teddy.’
He shoulders past us into the street and hollers their names.
A reply comes sing-songing from the other end of Sabbarton Street, up near the main road.
‘Yoo-hoo!’
For all the world it sounds like Dor, but the fog is so thick now we can’t see more than two yards ahead. Then I make out the shape of her, sauntering along with a small box under her arm.
‘Thought I’d wander up and wish you a happy Christmas,’ she says. ‘Got something for the kids.’ She stops and touches my arm. ‘What is it, Han?’
‘They’re not here.’
‘I saw ’em not ten minutes ago,’ says Mrs Hillier. ‘They can’t be far away.’
We split up. Mrs Hillier and her friend head towards the main road; me and Dor knock on the neighbours. ‘Not here. Sorry, love, not here.’
We call and we call, but still there’s no answer.
Sabbarton Street is a dead end; beyond it stretches the railway lines and the creek. There’s a gap in the barbed-wire fence leading through to the sidings. A fragment of torn material is caught on the wire. Dor crouches down and eyes up the opening.
‘Do you think they would?’ she asks. She tears loose the fabric and hands it to me.
It’s just a scrap of brown wool. Could be from Alice’s coat. Could be from any nipper’s coat.
‘I’ll kill ’em.’ My throat is closing with panic. ‘They know to stay by the house. Time and again we’ve said it.’
‘They’ve got lost, that’s all. This fog. Can’t see a thing, not now it’s dark.’
I’ll have to go through the fence, can’t expect Dor to do it.
‘Will you wait here?’
‘Don’t lose your way, Han. I’ll keep calling and you answer.’
When I crawl through, my shawl catches on the wire. Dor unpicks it. I straighten up and inch forwards, boots kicking through rotting newspaper and piles of stinking rubbish.
‘Alice! Teddy!’
The smell of wet metal, the taste of soot: I must be close to the railway line now. If they were here, they would answer, wouldn’t they? They wouldn’t dare to hide. The ground ahead of me shifts and squeaks: a wave of rats cascading towards the creek, their backs shining like ripples of grey water.
Dread paralyses me. It’s my fault. I should have called them in sooner. I wasn’t watching them. If any harm comes to them, Christ, I’ll never forgive myself.
If only I was like Dor. No children to love. No children to lose.
11
Thirteen, was he, or fourteen when Lady Tolland judged he was strong enough to handle the lawnmower? She had sent a note via Aunt Winch, asking him to call the following Sunday. He had walked the four miles, skirting the boundary of Greenwich Park, the observatory majestic on the hill, sparrows calling from neat box hedges.
Royal Grove was on the west side of the park, a quiet road lined with tall Georgian terraces. Lady Tolland’s house stood at the end of a terrace, closed in by sharp black railings, the sash windows half obscured by a rampant wisteria. He pulled on the bell, stood up straight when Lady Tolland herself opened the door.
‘Let yourself in through the side gate,’ she said, glancing at his dusty boots. ‘I’ll meet you in the back garden.’
The side passageway opened into a long walled garden, so long he couldn’t see where it ended. There were flowerbeds, a vegetable patch and a great deal of grass, which was overgrown and dotted with dandelions, glaring a sickly yellow in the mid-morning sun. In the shade of the house was a terrace where a stone bench was pushed up close to a small iron table. Moss and lichen crept up from the claw feet of the bench.
He surveyed the garden and decided to station hi
mself by a brick shed midway down, close to the vegetable patch. He watched a robin sing from the branch of a tree. In a nearby church, an organ began to play the opening bars of a hymn: ‘There Is a Land of Pure Delight’. He couldn’t remember the words, but he hummed the tune, aware of the vibrations low and strange in his throat. His voice was breaking. The robin stopped singing and stared down with a mocking black eye.
It must have been September because the autumn raspberries were ripening. Large white flowers were twined round the raspberry canes and he thought how colourful they looked in the sunshine, the white flowers against the red berries. It was only later that he learned the identity of the flowers: bindweed, enemy of Lady Tolland’s garden, to be destroyed at all costs.
After several minutes Lady Tolland appeared through the door of the glazed lean-to at the side of the house. There was no maid, and to his astonishment she carried a tray. She walked over to the terrace, placed the tray on the iron table and beckoned him over.
‘Tea and shortbread,’ she said, settling herself on the bench. It was chilly in the shade and Lady Tolland pulled her woollen wrap tighter around her pudgy shoulders. ‘Sit down, sit down,’ she said, patting the space next to her. ‘Do help yourself.’
Picking up one triangle of shortbread, he sat on the edge of the bench, the stone pressing cold through the worn seat of his breeches. He took a small bite and chewed. The shortbread felt dry and awkward in his mouth. It didn’t seem right to eat while she sat watching.
‘Do you still like to read?’
He swallowed, wiped his mouth with his free hand. ‘Very much, ma’am.’
‘But your aunt tells me that you have left school.’
‘Got a job up Billingsgate. Porter’s boy.’
‘Hard work, I imagine.’
‘I don’t mind it. I’m strong for me age.’
‘Such a tall boy, aren’t you?’
‘People says so. Me mum was little, so it must’ve been me dad, but I . . .’
‘You never met him?’
‘No, ma’am.’ His voice cracked down to a baritone and the suddenness of it surprised them both. It had been happening for a few weeks now; the porters at the market were having a field day, mimicking his up-and-down voice whenever he finished speaking.
The silence was broken by the church organ, the comfortless minor keys of another hymn, one that he didn’t recognize. Lady Tolland stood and wandered over to a bed of rose bushes. She sliced through the stem of a dead bloom with her thumbnail, then looked around the garden, shaking her head.
‘It’s getting a little out of hand, as you can see. I’ve had to let my man go. Funds are not . . . forthcoming. And so I was wondering whether you might be able to help. Just a few hours on a Sunday morning. I think you are more than capable of operating the lawnmower.’
He nodded. He liked the idea of the lawnmower, and Aunt Winch would be pleased with an extra shilling or two.
Lady Tolland picked up the plate and offered him another piece of shortbread. ‘I can’t pay you, I’m afraid,’ she said, ‘but in return for gardening, you may borrow my books. I don’t have a large library, not so grand as my sister’s in Dorset . . .’ She looked at his boots again. ‘You may as well come and see.’
They went into the lean-to, where pots of spiky plants were arranged along a wooden bench. A watering can lay on its side in the butler sink, and a spider had spun a web from the spout up to the bottom of the brass tap.
Lady Tolland stopped at the inner door and gestured towards his feet. ‘If you wouldn’t mind . . .’ she said.
He stared down at his boots, puzzled. Then he realized: Lady Tolland would have carpets, posh patterned ones, not the oilcloth mats that lined Aunt Winch’s floors. He bent to untie his laces.
12
I haven’t let the children outside since Boxing Day. Wandering off like that, I still feel sick to think of it. It was Mrs Hillier who found them; they were following a ginger kitten up the Hallsville Road, then lost their way in the fog. I should have knocked their heads together, but instead I sobbed and pulled them close. It overwhelmed me, the fact that I’d failed in my duty, let down George.
I check on the children in the bedroom one last time before going downstairs to meet Dor. They’re fast asleep. ‘Won’t be long,’ I whisper.
Dor is standing in the scullery, looking impatient. She’s wearing her new black boots with a heel and red satin ribbons for laces. They’re too small and they kill her toes, but they were the last pair in the sale at Baker’s. She’ll be cursing all the way to the Steamship.
I finish tying the laces on my boots and push a couple of extra pins in my hair. The ringlets hang down, tickling my neck. I’d rather pin the ringlets into my bun, but Dor spent so long with the curling irons I haven’t the heart. Truth is, I’d rather not go out at all.
Alec appears in the doorway. He whistles softly, under his breath so Jen won’t hear. I grab my coat from the back of the door and button it up.
‘Look at you two. New Year party, is it?’
‘That’s right,’ says Dor. She puts her arm around my shoulders. ‘Don’t worry – I’ll take care of her.’
‘That’s a comfort, I’m sure,’ he says.
‘You celebrating, Alec?’ asks Dor.
‘Not ’specially. An early night with my good wife.’ He winks and then coughs, his chest whining with every breath.
The Steamship is packed and we can’t get a seat. I hang back while Dor goes to the bar. There’s an accordion player over by the fire, a crowd singing around him. Daisy is there – I’m sure it’s her – next to a man in a creased shirt who plays with the glass beads at her neck. No sign of Ada or the other girls.
Paper chains are draped around the walls and ceiling, the links cut from pages of a variety magazine. I can make out parts of sentences dangling above me. ‘A little bored gesture’, ‘her hair fine spun and of a wonderful pale gold colour’, ‘I am mesmerized by her smile.’
‘You’re away with the fairies, gel,’ says Dor, circling a glass in front of my face. ‘Here you go. I know you said lemonade, but there’s a drop of gin added.’
‘Dor—’
‘No, don’t thank me. Make the most of it while I’m flush. The overtime at that factory is unbelievable.’ She glances towards the door, swallowing half her drink. ‘Daniel hasn’t come in, has he? Oh, I know he probably won’t make it. He seemed a bit vague on Friday night.’
She waves across the room to Daisy, but instead of joining her, she spots some people who are leaving, lunges over and plants her drink on their table.
‘Bagsy this one,’ she says, beckoning me over.
Dor is in the mood for confiding, and there’s only one topic she wants to confide about. She talks fast but finishes each sentence slowly, savouring every word, as if the opportunity to speak about Daniel is almost as good as being with him.
‘Every time I look at him I . . . could . . . die. Honest to God. Oh, his eyelashes – did you ever see eyes like that, except on the picture screen? But he’s such a bleedin’ gent, Hannah. Hasn’t laid a finger on me. I tell you, I don’t know how much longer I can wait. Do you think I should ask myself back to his place?’
I taste my drink: more gin than lemon. ‘Not yet, Dor. You should be pleased he’s not like most men. It’ll be worth the wait, though, won’t it? Just imagine.’
She groans and then strikes her forehead with the palm of her hand. ‘Imagining’s the problem. But hark at me, selfish bloody ratbag. You’ve been on your own for months, no George for Christmas and all I’m talking about is myself. Do you miss him and, you know, miss it, Hannah?’ She elbows me, laughing. ‘Ada says she might take in lodgers and charge them payment in kind, if you get my drift. But it’s just one of her jokes, ain’t it?’
I’m not sure how to reply, but I’m spared the bother because a flare of light suddenly brightens the room. The paper chain has caught fire. The links blaze closer and closer towards the electric light in the cen
tre of the ceiling, cinders fizzling as they drop down onto the sand-scattered floor. A jug of water is thrown, and then another, and suddenly everyone is throwing drinks at the flaming paper chain until the fire hisses out and there’s an almighty bang as the bulb explodes.
The accordion player starts up ‘London’s Burning’ and soon the whole pub is cheering and singing in the half-darkness as the landlord brings out more candles.
‘Cheers,’ says Dor, and we chink glasses. She glances towards the door.
I creep in quiet as I can, but my coat sleeve catches a pan handle and sends it crashing onto the floor. I put the pan back on the side, stand for a moment in the scullery to listen for bed creaks or footsteps upstairs. Silence: the children haven’t woken. My feet are so cold I can scarcely feel them and I know I won’t sleep unless I can get halfway warm.
It’s dark in the parlour. Mum is lying on the mattress, but I’m certain she’ll still be awake. I tiptoe towards the armchair.
‘I was just dropping off, love,’ whispers Mum. ‘Do you have to make such a racket?’
‘Sorry. Have the children been all right?’
‘Not a peep. Busy at the Steamship?’
‘Packed.’ I open the range door and poke at the coals, chuck in an old tram ticket from my coat pocket. A flame rises.
There is silence for a moment, disapproval in the air.
‘I don’t like to think of you walking out at night. What would George make of it?’
‘He’d hate me to stay indoors moping. He was always saying I should get out more.’
‘Well, your dad wouldn’t approve, I know that much.’
‘Can I see him soon, Mum? Go with you to the hospital?’
She sighs. ‘He’s not himself, love. He . . . he might not know you.’
‘He knows you, don’t he?’
‘Can’t say he does.’ She sits up and takes a sip from the cup next to the mattress. ‘He’s always talking about Beatrice. Says she’s burning in hell.’
