London Pride

by Beryl Kingston

  ‘They won’t eat much, Father,’ she promised. ‘I’ll see to that. If you get us two girls they can earn their keep and help with the sewing.’

  She wasn’t too pleased to see that one of her proposed little girls was a five-year-old boy.

  ‘Land sakes,’ she said, setting aside the pink satin, ‘What’ve you gone and brought us a boy for, Father? Boys are nothing but trouble. You’ll have to get him changed.’

  ‘I don’t want to be changed,’ Norman said, hanging on to Yve for dear life.

  Mrs Ray swept across the room and whacked him round the ear. ‘You speak when you’re spoken to,’ she said. ‘Nobody asked you.’

  Norman began to cry and Yvonne made faces at him to stop and shook his hand where it was hidden in the folds of her coat, because these two ugly grown-ups were cross enough without making them worse.

  ‘Stop snivelling,’ Mrs Ray ordered. ‘Now you’re here I suppose I’d better show you where you’re to sleep. But don’t go making yourselves too much at home, that’s all.’

  The room she showed them into was a small back bedroom furnished with a small square of carpet grown grey with age, a chipped jug and wash basin, a chamber pot and an iron bedstead on which was a very stained mattress, two pillows without pillow cases and a folded pile of dark brown blankets. There were no curtains at the window and the gaslight didn’t look as though it had been lit for ages.

  ‘Bedtime is six o’clock,’ Mrs Ray said patting one of the stains on the mattress ticking. ‘I shall serve supper at five sharp, not a minute before or after. If you’re not back by five sharp, I shall clear the table and you’ll have to go without. Breakfast at seven, this room to be cleared by eight, supper at five. You can go where you please between times just so long as you understand you’re not to hang around the house. Church on Sundays of course. We’ve got to keep in with the church in our line of business. Is that clear?’

  The two children stood stupefied before her. Neither of them had understood a word she was saying but they didn’t admit it, because one whacking was enough.

  ‘Yes, Miss,’ Yvonne said, squeezing Norman’s hand to encourage him to say yes too.

  ‘Off you go then,’ Mrs Ray said, pushing them towards the stairs. ‘Back at five.’

  So they wandered out of the house and into the lane as that was what she seemed to want them to do. It was a lovely summer’s afternoon. The sky was blue and there were birds singing in all the trees.

  ‘I’m ever so thirsty,’ Norman said.

  ‘There’s a tap over there,’ Yvonne noticed. ‘In amongst those funny looking trees. Look Norm, they’re growing apples. There’s little apples all over those trees.’

  So they climbed through the hedge and drank at the tap and picked one or two of the biggest apples from the trees. But they were very sour and hard to chew, and after a while they gave up trying to eat them.

  ‘If we sleep in that room where are we s’posed to hang our clothes?’ Norman asked. Mum had been most particular that they should hang up their clothes when they arrived.

  ‘We’ll keep ’em in the cases,’ Yvonne decided. ‘We might not be here very long.’ And she offered up a silent prayer to her Maker. Please God don’t let us be here very long. ‘Least we can sleep together. That’s good, ain’t it?’

  ‘How are we going to know when to go back for supper?’ Norman worried again.

  ‘We’ll sit up here and watch the house,’ Yve said sensibly. ‘Perhaps she’ll look out for us, like Mum does.’

  But as they discovered later, there was a clock somewhere that struck the hours, so they were able to walk past that horrible urn full of flowers and into the back door on the very stroke of five.

  Supper was sardines with bread and margarine which neither of them enjoyed at all. Mrs Ray stood guard over them as they ate, and immediately their plates were empty she sent them out to the lavvy and marched them into the front parlour. There was a pile of pink satin on the table and a box full of cheap cotton wool beside it.

  ‘That’s your sewing,’ she said to Yvonne. ‘I’ve pinned the seams together. All you’ve got to do is sew them up. Neat stitches if you please. And you,’ turning to Norman, ‘you can stuff the finished ones. Not too full. There’s no need for extravagance.’

  The two children worked for more than an hour while Mrs Ray sat on the opposite side of the table and cut out more shapes from a roll of blue satin she took from the cupboard. Nobody spoke and there was no sound in the room except the click of her scissors, the tick of the clock and the rasp of the cotton thread as Yvonne pulled it gingerly through the satin, trying hard not to buckle the cloth or mark it with her fingers.

  But at last the clock struck seven.

  ‘That’s enough for one evening,’ Mrs Ray said, removing the cloth from Yvonne’s hands and putting the lid on the box of cotton wool. ‘Bed.’

  And with that she marched them upstairs to the attic. It was already growing dark and the room smelt damp and unwelcoming.

  Neither of them got much sleep, for by then they were so homesick that they spent most of the night in tears.

  ‘I don’t want to stay here, Yvey,’ Norman whispered over and over again. ‘I want to go home.’

  ‘So do I,’ Yvonne said, crying with him. She’d been brave all day and now she simply couldn’t go on being brave any longer. ‘Oh so do I.’

  Back in Deptford Joan had spent a wakeful night too, wondering where they were and how they were and missing them with a perpetual yearning ache in her belly that no thoughts could ease. At daybreak she gave up trying to sleep and got up to begin her first day without them. Perhaps a good scrub round would make her feel better. Housework was usually a cure for most of her miseries. But it was no help to her that Saturday. By mid-morning her two rooms were spotless and she was still full of anxious energy. That afternoon she washed the curtains and cleaned the windows and turned out the kitchen cupboards, lining them all with fresh newspaper. But the misery remained and next morning when she’d washed up her solitary cup and saucer there was nothing left for her to do. She put on her hat and coat and took a tram to Greenwich.

  Paradise Row wasn’t itself either, although it took her a little while to work out what was different about it. She was used to the street shelter now, large though it was, a great flat-roofed ugly brick-built box blocking the middle of the roadway, and she’d grown accustomed to the sight of black curtains edging the windows, because there was black-out everywhere. No, what was new that morning was the emptiness of the street and the awful silence. And that was because there were no kids about.

  ‘Come on in, lovey,’ Mum said as she opened the door. ‘Did they go off all right?’

  ‘Bloody war!’ Joan said, breaking down as soon as the door was closed behind her. ‘I don’t see why we got to have our kids sent away from us just for a pack a’ bloody foreigners. We should keep out of it. Bloody war!’

  ‘You have a good cuss,’ Mrs Geary advised, hobbling down the stairs towards her. ‘Do you a power a’ good. No good keeping it in.’

  The parrot was cussing fluently above their heads. Now and at last it was possible to give full vent to her feelings and to swear and cry for as long as she needed to.

  ‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ Baby offered when the worst was over. ‘Nice cup a’ tea.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Mum said walking Joan into the kitchen. ‘Nice cup a’ tea, an’ then you can stay to dinner, eh. They’ll be all right, you’ll see. I’ll bet they’re having the time a’ their lives in the country. Think how you used to enjoy it at Tillingbourne when you was little.’

  Peggy had a sudden seering recollection of the slaughter of the pig, but she shrugged it away quickly. This was no time for such thoughts. ‘I’d better put on some more potatoes,’ she said smiling at her sister. ‘I’m on duty at two o’clock.’

  ‘On a Sunday?’ Joan said.

  ‘It’s being full-time,’ Mum explained, basting the joint. ‘She has to work all sor
ts of hours now.’

  ‘I’m sorry I swore,’ Joan said. ‘It’s just I miss them so. It’s so quiet.’

  ‘The O’Donavans went yesterday afternoon,’ Baby said, as if that explained the lack of noise.

  ‘What, evacuated?’ Joan asked.

  ‘Back to Ireland,’ Mrs Geary told her. ‘All the lot of ’em. Sold up every mortal thing they possessed so she was telling me, an’ even then they only just scraped up the fares. God knows how they’ll make out now!’

  ‘So how many kids have we got left in the street now?’ Joan asked.

  ‘Only Percy,’ Peggy told her. ‘Lily could’ve gone with him only she wouldn’t leave Arthur. She said she couldn’t bear for them all to be split up.’

  ‘I know how she feels,’ Joan said.

  ‘Mr Chamberlain’s speaking at eleven o’clock don’t forget,’ Mrs Geary said quickly, changing the subject before Joan could get upset again.

  ‘Put the wireless on,’ Flossie said to Baby, who was standing near the sideboard where the radio stood.

  So they had light music while they drank their tea and washed the cups and saucers and set about peeling the vegetables. And by the time the announcer introduced the Prime Minister just before eleven fifteen they were all feeling much easier and happier. Big Ben struck the quarter and the weary reedy voice of their leader spoke to them across the air waves.

  ‘I am speaking to you from the Cabinet Room at 10 Downing Street,’ he said. ‘This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final note stating that unless we heard from them by eleven o’clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received and that consequently this country is at war with Germany.’

  ‘Oh God!’ Baby said. ‘Just when I’ve had my hair permed.’

  ‘Well that’s it I suppose,’ Mrs Geary said. ‘We can’t say we didn’t know it was coming.’

  ‘Now what?’ Joan said to Peggy. ‘What happens next?’

  What happened next was a series of public announcements. The blowing of whistles and the blaring of horns were now forbidden ‘as these could be confused with air raid warnings’, theatres and cinemas were to be closed down ‘to minimize the chances of a large crowd being killed by a single bomb’.

  ‘Oh lovely!’ Mrs Geary said.

  ‘Now,’ the wireless went on, ‘an announcement about food.’

  But the announcement didn’t come. There was a long silence in which they could hear papers being shuffled about and somebody whispering. Then the National Anthem began to play. It hadn’t got further than ‘God save our gracious king’, when the air raid sirens began to wail, rising from a low growling note into an anguished howl and then descending and rising again, and again, and again.

  ‘Oh my dear good God,’ Flossie said, jumping up. ‘They’re here already. Quick! What shall we do? Oh my God, whatever shall we do?’

  Peggy put on her tin hat and assumed command. ‘Take your coats,’ she said, trying to sound calm even though she didn’t feel it. ‘Go straight to the shelter,’ She was half-way to the door.

  ‘Quick!’

  ‘What about Polly?’ Mrs Geary said. ‘I can’t leave Polly.’

  ‘I’ll bring him if there’s time,’ Peggy promised.

  And to everyone’s surprise, she did, but only after she’d shepherded all the inhabitants of the street into their damp brick fastness in the middle of the road. Mr and Mrs Grunewald came under protest and Nonnie Brown refused to enter at all unless she could bring her gin bottle with her, and John Cooper had to be carried bodily into the shelter by Mr Allnutt and Mr Brown because his wheelchair was too wide to push through the entrance.

  It was dark, dank and smelly inside, and the slatted seats were damp to the touch.

  ‘We shall all be killed!’ Flossie moaned over and over again. ‘I can feel it in my bones. My nerves’ll never stand this you know. I shall be a nervous wreck.’

  Leslie was weeping.

  ‘Oh do shut up,’ Ernest said, frowning at him. ‘You make matters worse with all that boohoo.’

  ‘Shut up yourself,’ Leslie said. ‘You don’t know how I feel.’

  ‘Try some gin, darling,’ Nonnie Brown said drunkenly, waving the bottle at him.

  ‘Let’s have a song,’ Peggy suggested, trying to remember the advice she’d been given in all those ARP lectures.

  ‘Song?’ Leslie said. ‘You must be joking!’

  ‘Bloody, bloody, bloody bugger!’ the parrot squawked. ‘Aark! Sod that! Aark! Aark!’

  ‘Oh Christ,’ John Cooper said to Mrs Geary, almost laughing, ‘that bloody bird of yours!’ and then they all began to laugh, in peals of hysterical guffaws that were almost sobs. Even young Percy joined in, clinging round his mother’s neck but giggling weakly. And the parrot shrieked at them all above the din.

  They were making so much noise that at first they missed the rising note of the all clear.

  ‘Blimey!’ Mr Allnutt said. ‘Twenty minutes. That was quick.’

  They stumbled out into the summer sunshine. There was no sign of an air raid anywhere as far as they could see, no dead bodies, no bombed buildings, no smoke, only a strong smell of burning potatoes.

  Leslie gave a shriek and rushed into number five. ‘Now look what you’ve made me do,’ he yelled to Ernest. ‘Dinner’ll be ruined I hope you realize.’

  ‘Oh yes, of course. It’s always my fault,’ Ernest said following him. ‘Everything’s always my fault. I started this war I don’t think.’

  ‘Well really,’ Mrs Roderick said with icy disapproval, ‘What a way to go on. Here we all are in danger of our lives and they carry on like that. I don’t know what the world’s coming to. I’m glad some of us manage to control ourselves.’

  The Furnivalls walked back into their house at Mrs Geary’s pace.

  ‘I wonder where they went,’ Mrs Geary said. ‘Must’a gone somewhere. That stands ter reason and they ain’t come here.’

  ‘Thank God for that,’ Flossie said. ‘We don’t want ’em. My nerves couldn’t stand it.’

  ‘Now what?’ Baby asked.

  ‘Dinner first, while it’s hot,’ Mrs Geary said. ‘Then I suppose we shall all have to wait and see.’

  As she followed her family back into the house, Peggy was secretly rather pleased by the way she’d acted. It was true that they hadn’t been in any real danger, but none of them had known that at the time. She’d done all the right things in the right order, despite her fear, and nobody had panicked. It was quite a feather in her cap. She didn’t say anything about it, of course, because she didn’t want to brag, but it was rewarding just the same.

  ‘I shall have to get a job,’ Joan said to her as they were eating dinner. ‘I can’t stand this waiting about, and if we’re going to have air raids it’ll give me something to think about.’

  She started work at a local munitions factory the following morning. But they all had a lot of waiting about to do before any munitions were to be used in action.

  CHAPTER 23

  After such a dramatic start to the war the days that followed were rather a come-down. Instead of the much dreaded, long expected bombing, nothing happened. In fact if it hadn’t been for the newspapers nobody would have known there was a war on and soon even the newspapers were calling it a phoney war. Hitler’s invasion of Poland continued unchecked and there was a ship sunk somewhere out in the Atlantic, but it was all too far away to disturb the residents of Paradise Row.

  However as the weeks passed they began to learn what it was going to mean to live in a ‘state of emergency’. They were told to carry gasmasks with them everywhere they went, they were issued with numbers and identity cards, which didn’t please Mr Brown at all, and ration books which John Cooper said was a damn good idea, because at least they’d all have fair shares if food was rationed, and they had to accept the new chore of ‘doing the black-out�
�� every dusk and dawn, and the new hazard of trying to travel about in total darkness.

  Old Mr Allnutt went out to post a letter on the third dark night and got knocked off his feet by a passing cyclist he hadn’t seen. He came home with a ripped jacket, a grazed face and a chipped tooth, which he endured stoically, but after that he said he’d had enough of the blackout to last a lifetime and he’d stay indoors of an evening now until the war was over. The ding-dong was cancelled ‘for the time being’ which made their lives extremely dull. And they grew so accustomed to the flood of Government leaflets that were posted through their letterboxes that most went straight into the nearest drawer unread.

  ‘ ’Nother one a’ them “Don’t do this, don’t do that’s” ’ Mrs Geary would say when she saw a buff paper lying on the doormat. ‘Bloody cheek. Who do they think they are?’

  Peggy felt rather differently about all this information because it was issued by the Civil Defence and she knew how useful it could be. So she kept all their leaflets in a neat bundle in a shoe-box in her bedroom, just in case. And that meant that she was the person the neighbours referred to when they wanted to know what was being planned.

  ‘Ask our Peggy,’ Flossie would say proudly. ‘She’s our warden you know.’ She’d quite forgotten how vehemently she’d opposed the ARP in the first place. Now she was all for it.

  As the uneventful regimented days passed into uneventful regimented weeks and months, Peggy became steadily more useful. Without air raids to justify it, the black-out was a constant source of irritation and friction. The call ‘You’re showing a light!’ was usually followed by a row and as the months passed the Wardens grew more and more unpopular. But Peggy seemed to be able to coax her neighbours into good behaviour without shouting at them, so it was Peggy who was sent to persuade the recalcitrant citizen.

  She was issued with a uniform now that she was a full time member of the ARP and that pleased her too, for it was smart and businesslike, a dark blue battledress with ‘warden’ on the shoulder in gold lettering and the letters CD beneath a crown on the left breast pocket, and dark blue trousers which were warm and practical especially on night duty, even if they did scandalize Mrs Roderick. Besides, being in uniform made her feel closer to Jim, who wrote to her every other day and came home to see her whenever he had leave. In fact, taken all in all, her life was remarkably happy despite the war.