by Juliet West
Nettie is sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of tea when I get to the cafe on Monday morning. A pile of carrots is criss-crossed in front of her, and a scrubbing brush floats in a bowl of water. She smiles and asks if there is any news.
I look around for Mrs Stephens, but there’s no sign. Nettie points towards the storeroom. ‘Unpacking an order,’ she says.
‘The pills still haven’t worked, if that’s what you mean,’ I whisper.
‘You heard from your George?’
‘Not since Christmas.’
‘What you gonna do?’
Mrs Stephens bustles in. ‘Morning, Hannah!’ she says. ‘You’re looking well, dear. A bit of colour in your cheeks for a change.’
‘I think it’s just chapped skin, Mrs Loxwood. All this cold weather.’
‘And you don’t seem so skinny, thank goodness. There’s the rest of us, fading away on these blessed rations.’
‘Too much custard at Christmas, Mrs Stephens. I’ll be watching my weight before you know it.’
‘Don’t go doing that. Nothing wrong with a few womanly curves.’ She pats her hips and turns back towards the storeroom. I don’t think she knows yet. If she had guessed, she wouldn’t chat so casually about womanly curves. She would be watching, silently, until she was sure. And then she would take me to one side.
Nettie raises her eyebrows, but I don’t want to talk anymore. It would have been better if I’d never confided in her. It’s not as if the pills worked anyway. She’s forever asking questions – have I run into the father again? Is he married too? – and I know she’s dying to hear the full story. I stick to my lie about an old flame, someone from school I happened to bump into.
Daniel comes in at lunchtime. He sits down and Nettie rushes over to serve him as usual. I let her get on with it, the batting eyelashes and the little-girl laugh, trying to get him to put down his book and take notice of her. I haven’t any need to feel jealous. It’s enough for Daniel and me to be in the same room together. There is a comfort in it, a promise.
When Daniel leaves, Nettie says goodbye with a soppy wide smile. She thinks she looks like a film star, but the truth is, her mouth is crooked when she smiles, and you can see a gap at the back where she’s had a bad tooth pulled out.
When Daniel is out of view, Nettie turns to me with a cheeky look. ‘What I wouldn’t give . . .’ She winks and disappears out into the kitchen.
I clear his table, but today I can’t catch the scent of him, the metal and the peppermint that sometimes lingers. I take the bowl and plate through to the kitchen. Nettie’s not there, but I can hear her voice shrill and startled out the back. ‘What you doing?’ she says, and next thing she’s rushing into the kitchen with her mouth hanging open.
‘I just saw Mr Blake putting something into your coat. A piece of paper.’
‘Shh.’
‘That’s just what he said. Put his fingers to his lips like I was a stupid child and dashed out the door . . .’ It dawns on her then why Mr Blake might be passing me a note. She looks down at my belly. ‘It’s him!’
‘It’s him, yes.’ The bell on the cafe door rings. ‘I’ll see to the customer. We can have a walk later if you like. I’ll explain.’
‘If you’re sure,’ she says, and her little-girl voice turns icy. ‘Don’t feel obliged.’
Damn, is all I can think as I take down the customer’s lunch order. It was always a risk, Daniel creeping up the side of the cafe like that, opening the back door, just so he could leave me a message. He had a plan in place if anyone should see him. I was chasing a rat off, Mrs Stephens, he was going to say. Horrible big brute, disappeared under your door.
A great wave of tiredness washes over me. What does it matter if Nettie knows about Daniel? Soon Mrs Stephens will know too and I’ll be sent packing. This is the journey I am taking now. The future is rushing to meet me, fast as a spring tide.
Nettie is angry, says I should have told her the whole story and she feels a proper fool being lied to like that. We loop round the side streets near Glengall Road: Launch Street, Galbraith Street, past the library on Strattondale Street and then up Galbraith again.
I tell her I’m sorry and she seems to soften.
‘So what are you going to do? You’ll have the baby adopted?’
Adopted by the workhouse, she means. Who else would take it?
‘Daniel wants the child. He has a notion we can face it out.’ We’re on Manchester Road now, coming up to the swing bridge. I shake my head. ‘I had an aunt who threw herself into the lock. They fished her out just here.’ I stretch out my hand and run it along the filthy bricks of the dock wall. ‘I found out recently that she jumped in. Always thought she’d fallen. Happens all the time, don’t it? Funny how things get hushed up. Have you ever seen a drowned body?’
‘Don’t, Hannah. You’re giving me creeps.’
‘The skin swells up; eyes pop out like a fish. Peculiar colour, your hands go. Sort of dark purple, like rotten cherries.’
We’re on the bridge and my heart is beating so hard I can feel it thick in my throat. How long did it take Auntie Bea to drown? Did she welcome the water as it filled her lungs, or did she wish, after all, that she had learned to swim?
Nettie pats me on the arm. It’s a sort of dismissal. She’s heard enough.
‘Can’t miss my bus,’ she says. ‘Good luck with it all. I’ll see you Wednesday.’
I wave and smile, try to look normal, but in my head a voice is shrieking.
I dig my thumbnail into the side of the pencil, squeeze my eyes shut to try and think of some words, but I can’t get further than ‘Dear George’. I know I can’t confess. It would be downright cruel for him to learn the truth while he is out there in Alexandria or Jerusalem or wherever he is now. Imagine. He rips open the letter in his grubby tent; he’s looking forward to our news. He holds the letter in his hands and reads that I am in love with another man, that I am having this man’s baby, that I don’t love him, and I realize now that I never have. Oh, and just to finish, I am setting up home with my lover, and I’m taking our two children. That’s all for now, George. Take care of yourself . . .
What if George should be killed the next day, knowing that I had betrayed him?
No, better to wait. Wait and see.
I scribble out the usual:
We are fine here, apart from a fall of snow last Friday. Sugar is rationed now, and they’re bringing in tickets for meat and butter. Can you believe Mum queued four hours for a pound of mince last week? Teddy’s chest has been good this winter; perhaps he’s grown out of his weakness. Alice is still keen on her knitting and sewing. Did you ever wear those funny socks?
I read through the letter and I’m surprised at how light-hearted it sounds. Hard to think of myself as a good liar, but I suppose that’s what I am now. I fold the notepaper in half, run my nail along the edge of the fold. A sharp pain jags in my wrist, deep under the scar from the Silvertown explosion.
Part Three
Leman Street Police Station
22nd day of July 1918
Statement of Annette Wilton
Waitress
About January this year, I am not certain of the date, Mrs Loxwood told me that she had been about with Blake and that she was in trouble by him. In March I met her outside the Black Lion public house, Whitechapel, and she asked me to help her during her confinement. I at first told her that I didn’t think I could do so. She then said: ‘I haven’t got a friend in the world.’ I then promised her that I would. She asked me not to say anything about it at the cafe.
29
February 1918
The tram is busy, but there is very little chatter. Each passenger concentrates on ignoring the soldier, who mutters to himself and pulls again and again at the cuffs of his greatcoat, examining the seams and blowing on them as if he is trying to get a fire going.
When we boarded the tram at Limehouse there was a woman I recognized, but she left at Stepney and now we’re a
lone with strangers. Daniel takes my hand and the touch of his skin strikes some warmth in me, a sense of calm. There is something simple and complete about this feeling: taking a tram with Daniel, past unfamiliar shops on Whitechapel Road: Italo’s Eel & Pie House; Paikin & Co., watchmakers; Lissack Pianofortes; Joseph Mauerberger & Son, draper. Outside the draper’s is a trestle table piled with offcuts, and a woman is picking through them. She holds a piece of flowery fabric up to the weak sunlight. Suddenly the warmth leaves my body and I feel a chill of envy for this woman with her neat waist and nothing more to do on a Thursday lunchtime than choose a piece of fancy cloth to pretty up a sofa cushion.
The tram stops next to a Salvation Army shelter.
‘This is us,’ says Daniel.
He gets off first, holds out his arm as I step down. On the pavement, I gulp a breath of the Whitechapel air – damp February air, but there is a spiciness to it, richer and more complicated than the factory fumes that blow across Canning Town.
Daniel laces his fingers into mine. It’s strange to be so free with each other. The soldier in his greatcoat shuffles past, still fussing at his cuff, and turns into the Salvation Army.
With his free hand Daniel pulls a piece of paper from the breast pocket of his jacket and shakes out the folds.
‘“Mr Specterman,”’ he reads. ‘“Number 9 Union Buildings, Adler Street. Look for St Mary’s Church on Whitechapel High Street – big clock on the side. Adler Street is next to St Mary’s.”’
The church is only a hundred yards ahead, its huge steeple rising from a square brick tower. We walk towards it, weaving through the crowded pavements, past a saddler’s and a toolshop, the sharp sound of metal spinning against metal. There are smells I don’t recognize here, cooking smells drifting from the alleys, heavy aromas of onion, over-ripe fruit and . . . nutmeg, could it be? My mouth waters and I realize that I am hungry.
We turn into Adler Street and the first thing I see is another church – ST BONIFACE ROMAN CATHOLIC, the sign says, and then some writing in a foreign language. Daniel is looking too. ‘A German church,’ he says. We stand in front of the sign, and I know we are thinking the same thing. If that church was in Poplar, it would’ve been smashed and boarded up by now.
‘Are there lots of Germans here?’
‘All sorts in Whitechapel, ain’t there? People are more accepting.’
‘Just as well.’
He smiles and clutches my hand tighter. ‘Anyway, this is it . . . Union Buildings.’
The block is directly opposite the German church. On the ground floor of Union Buildings are four little shops, their windows dusty except for a bootmaker’s, which has a display of children’s shoes and a higher shelf stacked with workmen’s boots. On one side of the building is a stairwell and a small carved sign screwed to the wall saying, OFFICE, NUMBER 9, 3RD FLOOR.
‘How many floors d’you think there are, Daniel?’ I gaze up. Washing flaps from the balconies. One filthy sheet looks as if it must have been hanging for weeks.
‘Five?’
‘And the rooms will be in this block?’
‘The agent weren’t too clear on the details.’
We climb up to the first floor, Daniel in front of me because there isn’t enough room to walk side by side. The narrow staircase spirals round, then runs straight for a few steps before spiralling again onto a narrow stone landing. There are three doors on the landing. Behind one of them a woman shouts. ‘And if that weren’t cheek enough, she wanted ten sets a bedclothes fetched to the laundry! I coulda frottled ’er.’
At the second passageway, I pause for a rest. My legs ache and I’m stupidly breathless. I lean against the wall. The iron balcony looks wobbly, rust bubbling through the black paint. Daniel has already gone on ahead. He hasn’t noticed I’ve stopped.
‘Hannah?’ he calls down from the third floor.
‘Coming. Just needed a breather.’
He rushes down the stairs and takes my hands. ‘It’s too much for you, ain’t it?’
‘Don’t be daft. I’m jittery, that’s all.’
I follow him up to the third flight and he kisses my hand before knocking on the door to number nine. I smile up at him, try not to look nervous.
‘He-llo!’
‘Hello?’ says Daniel. We both hesitate, unsure whether to walk in or wait for the door to be opened.
‘Come!’ says the voice.
Daniel turns the handle and we step inside. A man looks up from behind a desk. The windowless room is small and sparsely furnished. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dim light. On the desk are two shallow boxes containing piles of papers, and a wooden bowl filled with pears. Behind the desk, there are several shelves lined with more boxes, each marked with indecipherable words. A gas lamp is burning, casting shadows onto the man’s lined face.
‘Mr Specterman?’ says Daniel.
‘I am. And you would be?’
‘Mr Blake. We’re looking for rooms. Two rooms ideally, with a kitchen. We have two children and . . .’ Daniel gestures towards me. I make a show of cradling my stomach, though it embarrasses me to act so forward.
‘Another on the way! Mazel tov! ’ He jumps up from his chair and shakes Daniel’s hand so hard that the glasses fall off his nose and clatter onto the desk. ‘You’ve chosen the right day to come. Perfect day. Number twelve has just been vacated. I will show you now, if you have time?’
We climb one more flight to the fourth floor. When we reach the landing, I glance over the balcony. We’re so high now, level with the bell tower of the German church. Beyond the church are rows and rows of terraces, lining the cramped roads behind Whitechapel High Street. I look down at the houses, squinting into the sunlight, and I wonder if this is where the woman outside the draper’s lives. She’ll be unpacking her shopping at this moment, holding up the offcut to see if it matches her curtains.
This landing is identical to the lower floors. There are three doors – number eleven in the centre, facing the balcony, numbers ten and twelve on opposite sides, facing each other.
Mr Specterman takes a single key from a pocket inside his jacket. He opens the door and stands back. ‘After you, Mrs Blake.’
The front door leads straight into a small, dark kitchen. On the back wall, there is an enamelled sink with one tap, a geyser and a gas oven, the ceiling blackened above it. There is just room for a tiny table and four chairs.
I risk a deep breath through my nose and to my surprise the smell isn’t bad at all. There is the scent of onion and nutmeg again.
Mr Specterman taps his fingernails on a metal box high on the wall by the front door. ‘Penny-in-the-slot meter,’ he says. ‘This provides all your gas. Light and cooking. Hot water.’
‘How much do you get for a penny?’ I ask.
‘A day or two. Depends how often you cook. Summer is coming, eh?’
Daniel walks over to the sink and pulls back the thin curtain that hangs across the cupboard below it. Tiny flashes of light shimmer in the crevices. Silverfish.
Mr Specterman ushers us through the door to the left of the kitchen. In this room, there is one lace-curtained window, a fireplace with a mantelpiece over, three candlesticks of different sizes on the mantel shelf. A two-seater sofa is covered in a dark purple fabric, the cushions dimpled where the springs have gone. The wallpaper is patterned with bunches of pink hyacinths. It’s torn in places, but I’ve seen worse. ‘This is the living room-cum-second bedroom,’ says Mr Specterman. ‘Very cosy in the winter. And now, please . . .’ We follow him back through the kitchen and he stands at the double oak doors that must lead into the main bedroom. He opens the two doors with a flourish and stands back, beaming.
This bedroom is large and bright, with a window straight ahead, looking out onto the German church. There is a circular table of polished mahogany, a chest of drawers and an iron bedstead. In one corner is a carved mahogany chair, the seat upholstered in red velvet. A cupboard is nailed lopsidedly to the wall over the bedstead
. That would have to come down.
‘Very spacious, eh? The furniture is available to rent also,’ says Mr Specterman. ‘Top quality. Bring your own mattress.’
Daniel nods and I can feel myself blushing.
‘And the rent?’ asks Daniel.
‘Ten shillings a week, with the furniture.’
‘If we can have a moment to talk it over . . . ?’ says Daniel.
‘Certainly you may.’ He adjusts his spectacles and smiles. ‘Come and find me in my office as soon as you’re ready.’
I stand at the bedroom window while Daniel paces around, tapping walls, rattling things. Beyond Whitechapel, beyond Stepney, lie Poplar and Canning Town. I cannot see the Thames from here, the creek. There are no bridges to cross. This is our only choice, isn’t it, a new start where no one will know our business? But the fact is, this could be a foreign land.
‘Will it suit, Hannah?’ He’s standing next to me now, and his arm is around my shoulder.
‘It’s very high up, ain’t it? We’d cop it if a bomb dropped.’ There was another raid only a few days ago, thirty-odd killed. The Germans’ aeroplanes are bigger now; deafening giants with scores of bombs on board.
‘We can shelter in the Tube station. Aldgate East is only two minutes away.’
‘And the gas oven. I ain’t used to gas . . .’
‘You’ll soon catch on. It will do, won’t it? For now, anyway. Till we get ourselves straight.’
I lower my voice. ‘We don’t know that he’ll have us yet.’
‘He’s very understanding, the agent said. Won’t ask too many questions. Look, I know it ain’t much, but it’s the best we can manage right now.’
Daniel pulls me close, puts his hand on my swollen belly and then kisses me. For all the fear there is excitement too. I can’t stop the ache, the need to have him near. He strokes the nape of my neck. ‘We better go down,’ he whispers, ‘or I might not be accountable for my actions.’
