‘You don’t,’ he said. ‘You think of Joan and Baby and being a warden. Everybody else but us.’ He knew he was being unfair to her but rage was carrying him along like a torrent. ‘We count too. You and me. Or don’t you care that I love you?’
Her voice was so small it was almost a whisper. ‘You know I do.’
‘Then show it. Come away with me now. Stay with me until I go to France. It might be the last chance we have to be together. We might be killed, either of us. You might be bombed. I could be killed in France. We’re in the middle of a war, for Christ’s sake. Stop being so bloody noble and think of yourself for a change.’
He was pacing the room in his agitation, fists clenched, scowling.
‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘Besides …’
‘Besides what?’
‘Nothing,’ she said withdrawing at once. ‘I’ve got responsibilities, that’s all’.
‘What responsibilities? The kids are in the country. You can’t say you’ve got to look after them.’
‘There’s Joan. I promised Sid I’d look after Joan.’
‘Joan’s a grown woman. She can look after herself.’
‘Well maybe she can, but Baby …’
‘Bloody Baby,’ he said exasperated beyond endurance. ‘I suppose you’ve promised to look after her too.’
‘Yes,’ she admitted huskily. ‘I promised Mum.’
His fury was making him look so handsome, that dark hair bristling and his shoulders so square and his eyes as blue as the sea that day in Brighton.
‘Seems to me,’ he said bitterly, ‘I’m the only person alive you ain’t promised anything to. But then I don’t count.’
‘You do.’
‘Then come away with me.’
They were standing toe to toe like boxers, and he was panting with fury. ‘This has gone on too bloody long,’ he said. ‘Now you got to make your mind up one way or the other. Either you say you’ll come with me now or by God I’ll walk out straight back to Merston and I’ll go off to France and I’ll never see you again and that’ll be the end of it.’
Her lips were so pale they were almost white. ‘You don’t mean it,’ she said.
He didn’t mean it, but he’d boxed himself into a corner. Now it was a matter of pride to stand by what he’d said. ‘Yes,’ he told her. ‘I do. So make your choice.’
‘I ain’t got a choice,’ she said, husky with unshed tears.
‘You have,’ he insisted, ‘but you’re such a bloody fool you’re making the wrong one. You should choose me. I love you. I thought you loved me.’
‘I can’t leave the Post. Not now.’
‘And that bloody Baby.’
‘Oh please don’t let’s quarrel,’ she begged.
‘That bloody sodding Baby!’ he said, and he turned on his heel and pounded out of the room and up the stairs, his rage too extreme to be contained any longer.
Baby was lying comfortably against a mound of pillows listening to the wireless and eating a bar of chocolate.
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘You can’t come in here. I’m in bed.’
‘Get up,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing the matter with you.’
‘I’ve got nerves,’ she said pulling the bedclothes up under her chin. ‘My nerves are dreadful. I been through a tragedy.’
‘Tragedy my eye,’ he said. ‘You been jilted, that’s all. And that’s not a tragedy. A tragedy’s being burnt alive in a tank, or shot out the sky. A tragedy’s innocent kids blown to bits, unarmed refugees machine-gunned. Don’t talk to me about tragedy. You don’t know the half of it.’
‘I’ve got nerves,’ she tried again.
‘You’ve got five seconds,’ he said. ‘That’s what you’ve got. Five seconds and if you’re not out that bed and getting dressed I shall take all the bedclothes and throw them out the window. You’ve played this game quite long enough. Now it’s over. Five seconds.’
How magnificent he is, she thought, seeing him with the new vision of excited outrage. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘But you’ll have to leave the room. I can’t very well dress in front of you, can I.’
‘Up!’ he said, reaching for the quilt. ‘Out!’
She got out of bed at once, and stood before him shivering in her nightgown.
‘Now get dressed,’ he said, ‘and go downstairs and help your sister. There’s nothing the matter with you. See?’
And he was gone, banging the door behind him.
The outburst had calmed him. He walked down the stairs feeling much more reasonable. Now he could talk to Peggy properly without anger getting in the way.
But the room was empty. There was only a note propped whitely against the clock. ‘Had to go,’ it said. ‘On duty. Love Peggy.’
‘Bloody sodding duty!’ he said, and stormed out of the house.
Upstairs in the bedroom Baby heard the door bang and clutched her hands to her bosom. How amazing that old Jim should turn out to be so handsome and attractive. Why, he was just like Rhett Butler. I’ll get dressed, she decided, and tidy this room up a bit. If he comes back tomorrow I must look my best for him. She drifted across to her mirror and sat before it contemplating her reflection. I’ve let myself go, she thought. Her roots were really quite black. First thing tomorrow when it was light she’d touch them up. There was enough peroxide in the cupboard. Oh he was just like Rhett Butler.
CHAPTER 40
It was a hideous night. To have started it by quarrelling with Jim was so awful that Peggy couldn’t bear to think about it. She was still shaky when she reached the Post and still trying to understand how on earth it could have happened. He couldn’t have meant what he said. They hadn’t broken up. They couldn’t have. Not after all this time. And yet he’d said it. He’d looked as if he meant it. Oh God, she thought, if he really meant it what am I going to do? It was just as well Mr MacFarlane had changed shifts and wasn’t on duty with her. She’d have hated him to see the state she was in.
She made herself a cup of strong tea and smoked two cigarettes to calm herself and then the others arrived and she had work to do and that helped her recover. And not long after that they heard their first Vls, and within the hour they were called out to their first incident, and the first led straight to the second, for the two local doodlebugs that night fell within two hundred yards and a quarter of an hour of one another.
The first demolished a line of lock-up shops, all empty except for the last one where the rescue team discovered a tramp pinned by the legs under a huge chunk of fallen wall. Peggy sat by his head and talked to him while they dug him out. He was fully conscious and said he couldn’t feel any pain but it took a very long time to lift the wall and the minute he was free he went pallid with shock, groaned into unconsciousness and was dead before the ambulance team could ease him onto the stretcher.
And then as if that weren’t bad enough they heard the next doodle-bug approaching, looked up to see its fiery tail a few hundred feet above them just as the engine cut out, and only just had time to fling themselves to the ground before the explosion lifted them into the air, broken bricks and all.
This time the target was a four storey tenement and the rescue was long, difficult and terrible. It took both rescue teams and all the equipment they could muster. Six people had been killed outright and they took another fifteen from the wreckage, some of them horribly injured.
By the time the last body had been removed the sky was pale green, they could hear the first trams running in the High Street, and there was enough daylight to reveal the full, ugly extent of the damage. Peggy was torn with pity and so tired that her bones ached.
Even a cup of strong sweet tea back at the Post didn’t revive her, and when Mr MacFarlane came on duty, fifteen minutes early as usual, he took one look at her face and ordered her home at once.
‘My dear girrl,’ he said, when she protested that she hadn’t finished her stint. ‘You go strraight back this minute. I’ll not tek no for an answer, the state of ye.’
So she stumbled home.
Lily was on the doorstep waiting for Joan to come to work, with Percy standing patiently beside her.
‘You look all in,’ she said as Peggy walked towards her. ‘What a night, eh? We heard ’em come down. Did you go to both of ’em?’
Peggy nodded. ‘There you are, Joan,’ Lily called into the house. ‘She was there. What did I tell you?’
Joan emerged from the kitchen, her hair tied up in her workaday scarf. ‘Lo, Peg,’ she said. ‘I’d get to bed if I was you. You look rotten.’
‘I’ll wait till Baby’s gone,’ Peggy said. There was no point in trying to sleep with Baby crashing about the bedroom.
‘She’s doing her roots,’ Joan said grimacing. ‘And our Mrs Geary’s been out all night. Went off to see the Allnutts and Mr Cooper just after the nine o’clock news and never came home.’
‘Dirty old stop-out,’ Lily laughed. ‘Come on then, Joan. You ready? If we don’t look sharp I shan’t have time to get my Percy to the flats.’ Now that the school holidays had begun her Mum looked after Percy during the day.
‘Look after yourselves,’ Peggy said, giving her automatic warning, tired and miserable though she was.
‘And you,’ Joan said, and the two women walked away along the street with Percy small and trusting between them.
The kitchen was quiet and peaceful after the struggles of the night. I’ll just sit down for a few minutes, Peggy thought, and then I’ll boil up a kettle and have a bit of a wash and by that time Baby will’ve gone and I can get to bed. I’ll think about the row later when I’ve got more energy to face it.
It was bliss to take off her tin hat and hang up her tunic and sit down quietly on her own in the chair beside the window. Or not entirely on her own, because Tom came sidling out of the kitchen to leap up on her lap the minute she’d settled and Polly was biting his toes in his cage in the cupboard under the stairs. The cupboard door was wide open, presumably to give the poor thing some air. But it was being quiet for once and the cat was soothing company across her knees.
‘I’ll give you some milk presently,’ she said to him, stroking his soft fur as she closed her eyes. She could hear the clock ticking and Baby humming to herself in the room above her head, and there was a strong smell of honeysuckle drifting through the window. Leslie’s honeysuckle that he’d trained over the fence. Oh the lovely easy peace of it.
She heard the doodle-bug when it was still a long way away, that hateful rattling engine clear above the sound of the trams and the distant chuff of a train. ‘Baby!’ she called. ‘There’s one coming.’
‘Be down in a minute,’ Baby called back. ‘I’m nearly finished.’
‘Leave it,’ Peggy called as the doodle-bug got closer. ‘Do it later. It’s coming our way.’ The noise was very loud now and getting louder.
‘Two more bits,’ Baby called. ‘I can’t leave it half done. I shall look a freak.’
And the engine cut out.
Peggy just had time to grab the cat and fling herself into the shelter. She was pulling the wire mesh behind her, hitting her foot in her haste, when there was a roar that filled her ears and blotted out the room and lasted for ever and ever. The floor was heaving like a surf wave under her straddled legs and there was a pulsing darkness all round her and the air was so full of dust that she had to struggle for breath. Her mouth was full of it and there were bits of grit on her tongue. She hung on to the mattress with both hands to steady herself, but it was no good, she was toppling sideways as though she was being pushed by some powerful invisible force. And as she fell she turned her head towards the mesh and saw bricks and chunks of plaster falling towards her, hurtling and tumbling in appalling slow motion, growing bigger and bigger the nearer they fell. Buried alive, she thought, and the terror of it pulled her down into darkness, still choking and struggling.
When she came to, the darkness was total and so was the silence, and for a few bewildered seconds she thought she was in the Tower. The Salt Tower, wasn’t it? Yes it must be because it’s so dark. The Salt Tower, and there’s a ghost on the stairs and the Bullough twins have run off with the torch.
She was so afraid of the ghost. It was there waiting for her. Waiting to push her in the back as she ran down the stairs. Oh if only Dad was in here! It would be all right if Dad was with her.
There was water dripping somewhere. A tap dripping. She could hear it quite clearly and it puzzled her because she couldn’t understand why there should be water dripping in the Tower. And a smell of gas too. No, not Dad, she thought. Dad’s dead. He’s been dead ages. It was Jim she wanted. Dear, dear Jim. Her own dear dependable Jim. And then she remembered that she wasn’t going to see him again and she yearned for him with a terrible aching sensation in her belly that was stronger than her fear.
And at that moment, with a palpable jerk in her brain, like a jigsaw piece clicking into position, she knew where she was and why she was afraid. I’ve been bombed, she thought. I’m in the shelter under the house. I’ve been buried alive. Buried alive, dear God! And the horror returned again in that dreadful darkness, making her shake. Buried alive like the anchorite in Tillingbourne all that time ago, when Grandpa Potter was so cruel. And she remembered that the anchorite had dug herself out with her bare hands, and wondered whether it would be possible to dig her way out of this. But there was no strength in her arms. She couldn’t even raise one hand from the floor. And that made her feel more afraid than ever.
She lay in the terrible darkness breathing in dust and dirt as her heart juddered like a broken engine and her legs began to shake. I’m going into shock she thought, recognizing the signs as her mouth trembled and her belly shook. And she knew there were things you had to do when people went into shock but she couldn’t remember what they were. Not that she could have done any of them even if she had remembered, trapped in the darkness. Still at least I’m alive, she told herself, trying to be sensible. I ain’t been killed. Now what have I got to do? What do you have to do when you’ve been bombed? She ought to know that. And she tried to push her brain to remember. But her brain was stuck fast in fear and wouldn’t function, no matter how hard she tried.
Please God help me, she prayed frantically. Please God. I can’t bear this. And the old prayer from Tillingbourne came automatically into her mind. Give me the strength to endure what has to be endured.
There was a movement beside her in the darkness and a faint rasping sound like panting. She put out her hand instinctively towards the sound and touched fur. Tom, she thought. And alive too, for the fur was warm. Then she remembered the torches and the whistle and knew that they were kept under the pillow and felt about in the darkness to find them, relieved to discover that she could move her right hand even if the left one was still heavy and useless. There were sharp pieces of brick under her fingers, rubbish of all kinds littering the bed clothes. Mind out in case there’s glass. Fumbling to right and left she felt the edge of the pillow and, pushing her fingers underneath it, found a torch. And it was working. Thank God.
In the little beam of light she could see debris all round her. There was a lot of dust and several pieces of plaster and brick that were much too big to have been blown through the mesh, so there must be a hole in the shelter somewhere. She played the torch over the roof above her head and saw that it was crushed down and sloping sideways and had been gashed open at one end. And she realized that she was lucky to be alive and wondered whether she’d been hurt and hadn’t noticed yet. Lots of injured people didn’t feel the pain of their injuries until quite a long time after the incident, as she knew better than most. But no, her arms and legs were intact and so were her hands and feet, although her shirt was torn and she could feel dampness on one shoulder and there was a smell of blood coming from somewhere. But then the smell of blood was always strong after a direct hit. You smelt it everywhere.
Tom’s eyes glinted in the darkness, red as rubies, and she put the torch down so that she could see him without alarming him,
and reached out her fingers to stroke him. There was dark blood streaked across the fur on his back, so that could be what she was smelling, but his limbs were all intact too, and after a few minutes he crawled towards her, crouched on his belly, and crept into her lap.
It was a great comfort to feel him there. ‘You’re all right, Tom,’ she said and was horrified by how croaky her voice sounded. She realized that her mouth was still full of dust and grit and she tried to spit it out without frightening the poor cat. ‘They’ll get us out soon,’ she said to comfort them both.
Then she remembered that Baby had been upstairs doing her hair.
‘Baby!’ she croaked. ‘You all right? Baby? Say if you are.’
But there was no answering call and no sign of any movement among the debris even though she scanned it several times with her torch. And after all that effort she didn’t have the energy to call again for quite a long time.
She must have hidden away somewhere, she comforted herself. If I’ve survived, and old Tom, then she’ll probably have got through as well. But she wished she’d answer. ‘Baby! Baby! Where are you?’
Then she must have fainted away or fallen asleep for the next thing she was aware of was a loud scraping noise and a choking sensation, the air gritty with dust, and total darkness again. Had she turned out the torch? And where was it? But she hadn’t got the energy to search. She knew she ought to shout for help, but she hadn’t got the energy for that either. She felt ill and weak.
Am I dying? she wondered. Is this what it feels like when you’re dying? Oh Jim, she thought as tears oozed out of her eyes, please come and get me out. She wanted to be in his arms, held tight and safe. But they’d had a row, hadn’t they? He’d said she was to choose. She remembered that. And she’d chosen to go on looking after Joan and Baby. How could she have been so silly? Where was Joan? she wondered. She couldn’t remember. Had she gone to work? I ought to call to Baby again she thought, but she couldn’t make her voice work. She could only think of Jim and that awful row. Choose between us, he’d said. Come away with me, he’d said. Now. She remembered it clearly. And he’d been right. She should have chosen him. She should have gone away with him there and then. Oh how much she wished she had.
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