‘Your Mum talked too much, if you ask me,’ the next man in the queue growled. ‘I’ll ’ave one of your sandwiches missus, and be glad to get it. An’ a cuppa char – ta, ever so – ’
Eggs, she thought as she set to work to make another pile of fish paste sandwiches, spreading the thin pink mess as carefully as she could at high speed. Egg sandwiches – what a delight it would be to give them to these exhausted hungry people when they came in. She could get a big griddle from home and have it ready on the stove; it wouldn’t take that long to fry eggs and put them into prepared bread and butter – well, margarine – and so give people the extra nourishment and pleasure they needed, doing the sort of dreadful jobs they had to do. And the figure of Bernie standing there in Jessie’s preparation kitchens and murmuring about eggs and butter and sugar rose in her mind and with it a sense of desolation. Was there to be no end to the bad effects that man could have on her, no end to his intrusiveness? Now he was tempting her to start to shop on the black market, and that was dreadful.
‘What’s so dreadful?’ A corner of her mind became a whisper so intense it was as though she could actually feel a hot breath on her cheek. ‘What’s so dreadful? You wouldn’t be taking it for yourself, would you? That would be dreadful, like the hateful Mrs Crighton pretending to be so virtuous while steadily stealing sugar from the stores. This would be for the people here and no one else. To make them a sustaining sandwich – that wouldn’t be such a crime, would it? Better the stuff comes here to you and the people who deserve it than goes off to the West End and the fancy clubs and caffs to fill rich men’s stomachs, rich men who were well out of reach of the bombing – ’
Her mind was still whirling with it all when the midnight shift turned up as they always did, in a tight cluster, having dodged their way through the raids to get there. They were close neighbours who lived at the other end of Mulberry Street, only a couple of hundred yards from the canteen, but it still took courage to venture out of their home shelter to get here, protected though this cellar was, and especially brave of Agnes Clewitt who was so typical a little spinster that Poppy sometimes thought she’d been invented rather than born like other people. But here they were and Joyce Jasper, the largest and noisiest of them, waved to her vigorously as they came in pulling off their coats and hats, for they always dressed as though they were to brave a blizzard even on the hottest of summer evenings.
‘I ’eard about that Madam Crighton leavin’ you in the lurch,’ she bawled cheerfully as she pulled on a large flowered apron. ‘Maria, she popped in an’ told me on ’er way ’ome. Old cow! I ’ope she gets a direct ’it, that I do. Not that she’s likely to get that, tucked up in bloody Bayswater like she is.’
Poppy, who also was safe from bombs tucked away in her old home in Holland Park which had suffered not a single raid, was uneasy at that.
‘That’s a bit much, Joyce,’ she said, trying not to sound too reproving. After all they were volunteers, and she needed them badly. She couldn’t be schoolmarmish with them. Too risky. ‘She’s not a nice woman, I know, but all the same – ’
‘That one, a direct ’it?’ Rose, a plump little woman who bustled about the place like a demented bee, gave a little snort. ‘Some fine ’opes! She’d frighten any bleedin’ bomb into goin’ straight back up where it come from.’
At which they all laughed and got to work, clearing tables and washing up, stacking up the clean plates, and peeling potatoes ready to make another pot of mince. It was dull fare, but they made it as savoury as they could, with some of the herbs and spices Poppy had brought from her jealously hoarded home stores, and the men and women who used the canteen seemed to enjoy it.
‘I’ll try to get some more meat tomorrow,’ Poppy promised as Rose tipped the last few pounds of pallid minced beef into the pot with some onions and carrots and sent savoury smells drifting through the air. ‘My aunt maybe has some – ’
‘See what else she’s got while you’re at it,’ Joyce called jovially from the washing-up sink. ‘Bit o’ butter and some sugar instead of this lousy saccharin stuff. Curls your teeth, that does –’ And Poppy managed a mechanical smile and escaped then into the roaring, burning, shrieking night outside.
This was the worst part of the journey home, always was. She had to get herself to Aldgate East Station to pick up the night bus that was going west. There were no more trains, of course; they stopped around ten thirty by which time the tube stations were jammed with sleeping shelterers. The authorities had tried to keep them out but had had to give up the unequal struggle, because several hundred determined Londoners clutching rugs and bottles of water and packets of sandwiches and storming each and every station were not easy to stop; and Poppy applauded them. There had been far too little shelter accommodation provided when all this started, and when shelters were destroyed what were people supposed to do? The Tube was a perfect answer to the people, if not to the authorities.
No, there would be no train but with luck the bus would be there, and she would use the ten minutes or so it took her to hurry through the streets to the station, while bombs were dropping not far away and she could hear the uneven drone of the enemy planes overhead, to pray wordlessly for the bus to be there.
Tonight in fact wasn’t too bad at all. There was a lull in the bombing and the bus was indeed there, ready and waiting to set off on its last journey of the night only ten minutes after she got there. Some nights it was a half hour wait or longer before it would go, so she felt fortunate tonight. Until again the words that Joyce had thrown at her so cheerfully rang in her ears.
Would it be so reprehensible to get supplies from Jessie that had originated with Bernie? He’d offered to give them to her, in addition to rent. Well, if she took it as food for the canteen, instead of paying for it for herself, wouldn’t that wipe out the sin? And there was no doubt her people here needed it more than his horrible customers possibly could, whoever they might be.
She sat in a corner seat and leaned her head against the window of the bus, feeling the curled edges of the sticky paper which criss-crossed the panes and which were there to prevent shattered glass from flying about dangerously, and didn’t care whether it caught her hair or not. She was too tired to do anything but rest and maybe fall asleep. She always woke up when the bus got to Piccadilly Circus, where she could pick up another bus, or even sometimes a taxi, to Holland Park. With luck she’d grab half an hour now, and then another – she worked it out; bed at one thirty, up at seven thirty meant another five hours or so – so it wouldn’t be too bad –
But she couldn’t sleep even though she usually did, and after a while sat up and stared unseeingly through the bus window and the impenetrable darkness outside, remembering the days when cheerful street lights and shop fronts had winked back at travellers, and buses themselves had been moving beacons in a dark world. Now with their pallid blue lamps inside and headlights reduced to a faint yellow cross outside, it wasn’t even possible to read and so divert yourself that way. All you could do was think your own gloomy thoughts and try to see some sense in a world gone crazy.
A world gone crazy, she thought then, and tried to remember how it had been before all this started. Lee, lovely solemn sensible little Lee, at her good girls’ school and working hard, and outrageous bouncing Joshy, not working at all and causing all sorts of fusses at his infants’ school. Her lips curved as she remembered the way on his first day there he discovered that it made the whole school laugh if he stood in the playground and filled his new cap with water from the drinking fountain and then put it on, so that the water cascaded all down his face, and had gone on and on doing it to mounting juvenile applause until the teacher had realized what was going on and rescued the sodden child and sent him home to his mother in someone else’s cast-offs, at least two sizes too big for him, and looking as though butter wouldn’t melt in his wicked little mouth. Such happy days, she thought. There they’d all been, she and the children and dear, dear David who was so safe and re
liable and so perfect a husband, even if he wasn’t as exciting as her first husband Bobby had been, and even if he didn’t arouse in her the same sort of passion she had felt so long ago – don’t think about that, Poppy, she adjured herself then. Think of the good old days, the happy days, the days last year, last century, indeed, when all this wasn’t happening.
She must have fallen asleep eventually, because the conductor was shaking her shoulder and urging her to get off, and she staggered blearily out onto the street and again had a moment of good fortune, for there was a taxi with his flag up and she seized on him gratefully, ignoring the expense, and sent him on his way to Norland Square. And managed to sleep again, as the cab went rattling along the Bayswater Road.
But then she was there, in the dear familiar square, and she padded wearily up the front steps and reached into her bag for her keys, scrabbling deep among all the detritus there; and then froze.
There had been movement in the area below round by the dustbins and the potted ivies that grew up the wall to reach the railings, and she peered down, her heart thumping sickeningly loudly in her ears. There had been so many tales of the looters and robbers who, driven out of the East End by the bombing, were coming west to steal from luckier householders. David had told her that it was a very real risk, even though such incidents were never reported in the Press.
‘Bad for morale,’ he had explained. ‘The last thing the government needs is a class war, but it’s happening all the same. People are angry in the East End at the way the well-off seem to be better off even as regards the raids – so watch out, darling. Be careful – ’
Now she stood there icily still, staring down at the area; and then her courage returned, and moving stealthily, she set her key in the lock. She could get in fast and if there was someone in there, could call the police.
But she stopped then, angry with herself, with the man, if that was who it was in the area below, and most of all with the world gone mad around her, and pushing all caution aside, she leaned over the railings without stopping to think and called, ‘Who is it? Who’s down there?’
There was another rustle and then a clang as a dustbin lid went flying, and she caught her breath, furious now.
‘Whoever you are, come out. I have a truncheon here and I shall use it!’ And her hand curled round her small handbag and somewhere in the back of her mind she registered amusement at her own silliness. ‘Do you hear me? Out here with you!’
There was yet another clatter and then a movement and she strained her eyes to see; and then she did see. A round white face with a pair of dark eyes staring up at her with a mixture of expressions in them; trepidation and hope and cheekiness and sheer cold terror.
And she caught her breath and stared back and her aching knee and her thumping headache and her general fatigue all melded together to make her hugely, furiously angry. And without stopping to think she shouted, ‘Joshy? Oh, Joshy, you naughty child! What are you doing here again? You know you’re supposed to be in Norfolk! Joshy, honestly, I could kill you!’
7
He was very subdued as she took him upstairs, dropping her coat and bag in the hall first, and into the bathroom. He was filthy and despite the warm evening shivering with cold, and a hot bath was an obvious must; and she ran the bath and helped him undress and then, after adding a handful of her own special and almost unobtainable bath salts as a sort of gesture of partial forgiveness, lifted him into the scented silkiness. He lay there wreathed in steam, the dirt floating off him and his expression smoothing out a little as he relaxed, but still quiet and watchful, answering her questions at first with just monosyllables and delivering those in a low voice, very unlike his usual clear treble.
‘Did you leave a note to tell them you were coming home? Does Mr Gosling know?’
‘No,’ he said and didn’t look at her, bending his head to watch his hands as he rubbed soap into them.
‘Then they’ll be worried.’
‘P’raps.’
‘Oh, Joshy, you are – what time did you leave?’
‘Tea-time, I think.’
‘Did you have any tea?’
‘No.’
‘Are you hungry?’
‘No.’
‘You’re fibbing – you’re starving! You always are!’
His eyes flicked up then and she caught a glimpse of their darkness and almost melted, he looked so very anxious, and impulsively she leaned forwards and kissed him.
‘Oh, Joshy, you truly are a wretch!’ she said fondly. ‘What am I to do with you? Give you some hot anchovy toast, I suppose, and a big cup of Horlicks – ’
His eyes glinted again, this time with cautious pleasure. ‘Yes, please, Mummy,’ he said and then looked away, still seeming fearful, and she was filled with even more compunction.
He was only nine after all, a small boy, albeit a resourceful and brave one. It wasn’t easy to find the right train and get yourself on it – and off it – without a ticket and then to cross London from Liverpool Street station, in the middle of the raids, to go to Holland Park: and she had a sudden vision of him being caught in a raid and at once her resolve was hardened. To see this small and so precious pink and slippery little body crushed under the rubble of bombed buildings, to see these soft downy cheeks scarred with burns – it was a dreadful prospect. And she got to her feet and said crisply. ‘Well, we’d better get on with it. Out you come, and then I’ll make you some supper – ’
He lifted his chin and said in a small voice. ‘Please, Mummy, can I have a bubble?’
She stopped then and looked down at him, and after a moment he held out the soap to her and she sighed and sat on the edge of the bath. It had been such a ritual part of bath time all through the toddler and small boy years; how could she refuse him now?
She took the soap and made a rich lather on both hands and then, holding her forefingers and thumbs close together opened them slowly and gently until a triangular film of bubble, glistening, irridescent, trembling with promise, hung there between them, and she held out her hands and Joshy blew gently on it. The film bulged and swelled and then rounded to become a bubble that drifted away from her hands and went floating through the steam that rose from the bath to hang above them for a moment, bouncing gently in the movement of the air, and they both watched it, holding their breath.
And then it floated away and touched the tiled wall of the bathroom and disappeared and Joshy sighed and Poppy got to her feet and said prosaically, ‘There you are, then. Now, out you get and dry yourself very carefully. There are pyjamas on the heater and you can put on Lee’s old dressing gown from the airing cupboard. I’ll make your supper – ’
As she sliced bread and toasted it, and then spread it with his favourite mixture of Gentleman’s Relish and butter – using some of their precious and dwindling stores – and then watched the milk for the Horlicks bubble up the sides of the enamelled pan on the cooker, she brooded over what to do.
He had to go back, of course. There was no question of that. London was a lethal place now. He had to be safe. She couldn’t go on if anything happened to her precious children and she hardened her jaw as she saw again that glimpse of dark eyes staring up at her from the area and the fragment of a moment when she had wanted to celebrate his return and reach out and hold him and vow never to let him out of her sight again. But she couldn’t do that. It would be too wickedly selfish. He had to go back; there was no other way.
He appeared at the head of the stairs down to the kitchen, wrapped in the pink fluffy dressing gown that had been Lee’s, and which was still too big for him. His dark hair was tousled and his face glowed pinkly from his bath and once again her bones seemed to dissolve in her as she looked at him. All she wanted to do was take him up in her arms and hug and hold him and never let him go.
But she had to be a good mother, a sensible mother, a protective mother and she nodded at him and said crisply, ‘Here you are, Joshy. Supper. Come and sit down now and eat it all up. And then b
ed. We’ll talk tomorrow about getting you back to the farm.’
He came down the stairs a little clumsily and she saw that he had put on a pair of his sister’s slippers, too; rather large fluffy ones with pink pompoms on the toes and he was finding them very awkward, and she watched his slow progress down the stairs and saw in his shadow the rumbustious toddler he had been, rushing around the house like a small and very excitable engine, and sliding on his belly down stairs because walking was too slow for him, and behind that image the baby who had lain in his pram in the sunshine of the garden making scribble noises at the birds which chattered in the trees above him. And she took hold of the edge of the table with both hands and held on. I mustn’t make it too nice for him to be at home, she told herself, I mustn’t. I must make him understand how important it is he goes back, I must be firm, I must be firm, I must –
He reached the table and pushed the scrubbed wooden chair a little nearer and sat down, and pushed up the sleeves of the gown which had fallen over his hands again, and reached for his supper. Poppy, who had made some tea for herself, sat and watched him as he ate, clearly very hungrily indeed, and said nothing as she thought about the next stage.
He couldn’t be sent back alone. The fact that he had managed somehow to get himself on the train and off it at Liverpool Street without any money didn’t mean she would be justified in sending him back alone, albeit with a ticket; and then she couldn’t help it, and had to ask him.
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