Canvey Island

by James Runcie

  Ivy came from the sweet shop with her daughter Linda. She was a girl so we couldn’t really play. Her mother had varicose veins that showed through her stockings. She brought a box of biscuits and a Victoria sponge. I had only ever seen her eat cake.

  The sounds the women made were never the same as Mum’s. They beat the eggs too slowly; they sifted the flour without singing to themselves. They lacked my mother’s way with batter, dough and pastry. I sat in my room reading the Eagle, wondering when people would stop pretending to be kind to me.

  When I did go out I went to look at the breaches in the sea wall and tried to work out how and why the flood had happened. I wanted to check if anyone could have done anything to stop it. I looked at the water surging up and hitting the cliff.

  In the beach café a woman was selling sprats, crayfish tails and rollmops on the cheap. She gave me a cup of Bovril and I sat on a bit of sea wall even though it was cold and wet. She told me to look out at the rocks. If they shone, or stood up in the water, it was a sure sign of another easterly gale.

  I watched a relay of soldiers pass sandbags down the line like they were barrels of beer. One of them was singing ‘Gilly Gilly Ossenfeffer Katzenellen Bogen by the Sea’. The other men joined in as they worked. I couldn’t understand why they were singing a children’s song:

  In a tiny house

  IN A TINY HOUSE

  By a tiny stream

  BY A TINY STREAM

  Where a lovely lass

  WHERE A LOVELY LASS

  Had a lovely dream

  HAD A LOVELY DREAM.

  When I closed my eyes the gulls overhead were birds of prey and the strands of seaweed were poisonous snakes wanting to sting or strangle me. A coil of abandoned rope on the beach had become a hangman’s noose. And then, at the end of the dream, I could see a high wall of sea unfurling towards me, held at breaking point, as if it was waiting for me to realise that I could do nothing to escape it.

  Violet

  That Christmas Martin helped me with the mistletoe and the decorations while my husband sang songs to himself. Sometimes George would utter phrases that no one quite picked up. I know what’s right, all right … you put your right leg in, that’s what you do … oh hokey cokey … all present and correct … I wouldn’t quite say that, my dear … where are the ratings?

  He had been on the Arctic convoy taking gunpowder out to the Russians at Murmansk. Convoy PQ13. He was the gunnery officer. They gave him ten pound extra: danger money, they called it. The Germans hit them first with a torpedo and then again from the air. The ship caught fire. Everyone said he must be dead.

  ‘He’s not quite the same,’ they said to me when they brought him back. Well, that was a bit of an understatement. He was completely harpic.

  I never could get used to it. He looked so different with his hair prematurely grey and those sunken stubbly cheeks. Before the war George had smooth flesh and he’d been proud of his shaving, you never saw any five o’clock shadow on him, but now his skin had gone thin and bluish and hairy. And then when you did try and engage him in a bit of conversation he had such a distant expression you felt almost stupid, as if you’d made a mistake and were talking to the wrong person.

  I wanted to tell those Navy boys: ‘Look. This isn’t my husband. This isn’t the man I thought was dead, the man I married and loved. This is someone pretending to be him, someone who’s horrible, someone who thinks I’ll be fooled.’

  But I could see that it was George even if I didn’t want to admit it. When he smiled or laughed, I almost thought he might get better and come out of it, but he always sank back. And his nerves kept changing. One day he couldn’t concentrate on anything and the next he’d be obsessed with tiny details, washing his hands, wanting to be clean, hating any sign of mud or dirt.

  On Christmas Eve Len sang sea shanties on the squeeze-box as I wrapped up presents for the stocking at the bottom of Martin’s bed: a little wooden boat, Fry’s Five Boys chocolate, a tin whistle, a cardboard kaleidoscope and a tangerine covered in foil at the toe. George hummed out of tune, staring into the distance, remembering the shanties called by line and shout, haul and stamp:

  Here’s to the grog, boys, the jolly, jolly grog

  Here’s to the rum and tobacco

  I’ve a-spent all my tin with the lassies drinking gin

  And to cross the briny ocean I must wander.

  On Christmas morning, Len gave his son an orange kite he’d got from the Army Surplus that was also a kind of radio receiver. George and I had bought a set of Meccano because Martin was always making things.

  Meccano is the key to a happy boyhood, it said on the box. Martin made models of bridges and dams and tested them in the bathroom, stopping the water reaching one side of the basin and watching it rise and tip over.

  Len gave me a bottle of Shalimar. ‘Give us a cuddle, love,’ I said.

  He told me not to be silly, which made him a bit of a spoilsport because I’m sure nobody would have minded. George wasn’t in a position to care much about anything and the boy was busy with his Meccano.

  Len read out the quiz from the paper: ‘What did my true love send on the first day of Christmas, what did the third little pig have to eat, what did the girls do when Georgie Porgie kissed them and with what was the ship a-sailing laden? Come on, Martin, don’t sulk.’

  ‘I feel sick.’

  ‘Well, best get it over with then,’ I said. I never did like a sickly child.

  At the end of the meal, I fetched the cherry brandy. Len was resting his fingers on the edge of the table; he was always eager for the next thing. Then he leant back and belched.

  ‘Pardonnez moi!’ he said, thinking it the funniest thing he had ever done.

  I poured the brandy and Len got out a cigar but as soon as he started to light it George turned his face away and put his head in his hands, hiding from the flame.

  ‘I should have realised …’ Len said. ‘Stupid of me. Stupid.’

  ‘Never mind,’ I said, but he was right. It was a bit silly because we all knew how George was about fire.

  Len banged on the table. ‘Come on then, let’s have another song.’

  Windy old weather, boys, stormy old weather

  When the wind blows we’ll all go together …

  Martin had given George a box of coloured pencils for Christmas and he started to examine them. He took each one out in turn, studying the colours. Then he separated three from the rest: Chinese white, poppy red, navy blue. England expects. He stretched out his arm, waved it up and down, and snapped his fingers.

  ‘He wants paper,’ I said.

  Martin fetched a pad and watched his uncle draw, shading the sky and then the sea. When he had finished, George took a black pencil and started to make small dark marks at the bottom of the page, first horizontal, then vertical, stick men and crosses piled on top of each other, hatch-marked bodies that almost ripped through the paper, lying at the bottom of the ocean.

  ‘That’s nice, dear,’ I said. ‘That’s nice.’

  Then he started to shake. What a way to spend Christmas.

  I went over and found some music on the wireless. It was playing ‘Someone to Watch Over Me’, which only made it worse because that had been one of our favourites.

  George sat in his chair by the two-bar fire and rocked slowly, weeping for the man he once was, and for me, I think, for the love that he had lost, and for the future of his life.

  Martin

  On my eleventh birthday, Dad said he wasn’t going to go out fishing but gave me a model boat and said he would bake me a cake.

  He rolled up his sleeves and set out the tools and utensils he needed on the kitchen table: the mixing bowl, the scales, the sieve and a cup to check and separate the eggs. I think he wanted to show me that he could be as good as Mum. He drew the line at wearing an apron and he had a bottle of brandy by his side to ‘make it special’, but apart from that there would be little difference between the two of them.

>   ‘I’ve never made a cake before but it can’t be that hard,’ he said. ‘Who needs women, eh?’

  He began to whisk up the egg whites while I stirred the yolks into chocolate melting in a glass bowl balanced over a saucepan. The steam escaped round the sides and scorched my hands.

  Dad took a swig of the brandy, set out two tins and then began to beat the butter and sugar in a Pyrex mixing bowl.

  ‘Pass me the oven gloves.’

  He took the chocolate mixture from the stove and folded it into the egg whites. Then he added this to the butter and sugar and sifted in the flour so that there were three bowls smeared with chocolate and two tins waiting.

  ‘Is the oven on?’ he asked. I hadn’t lit the gas and I was worried he was going to be angry with me.

  ‘Never mind.’ Dad struck a match and turned the oven up high. ‘There we go. Now we can do the icing.’

  He eased the cake mixture into the tins and placed them in the oven. He took out a pan, poured in some milk and then crumbled cocoa powder and chocolate squares into the mix. He had forgotten to add the brandy so he poured it into the icing, saying: ‘You won’t be able to tell the difference.’

  Dad was using every bowl and utensil in the house. Already the smell of scorched flour filled the kitchen. I didn’t like to point out that we had forgotten to line the cake tins – or even grease them.

  Within twenty minutes, he was standing at the table with an upside-down cake tin trying to lever out its contents.

  ‘This bloody thing. It’s stuck or something.’

  I opened the kitchen drawer. ‘You cut round it with a knife.’

  ‘It says in your mother’s book, “Wait until cool and turn out on to a rack.” Well, I have waited and it won’t turn out. Give me that.’

  He took the knife and shaped round the edge. Half of the cake slewed out, its burnt sides and base remaining stuck to the tin.

  ‘Oh bugger it, never mind.’

  He took another slug of brandy and smeared the sponge with raspberry jam. Then he cut round the cake from the second tin, placed it on top of the jam centre and began to plaster over the icing.

  ‘This’ll cover it all up,’ he promised, ‘then we need a candle.’

  ‘It’s all right, Dad.’

  ‘We’ve got to have a candle.’ He rummaged in the drawer and found the stump of an old night-light. This he wedged into the centre of the cake. He then took out a box of matches, lit the candle and poured himself another brandy.

  ‘Cheers, son. Happy birthday.’

  I looked at the uneven mass of chocolate in front of us. ‘Don’t you like it?’

  ‘It’s great, Dad.’

  I remembered my mother trimming candles before re-lighting them, placing them carefully in blue plastic holders, one for each year.

  Dad began to sing ‘Happy Birthday’. He started quietly, like he was embarrassed, but then got louder and louder as he neared the end.

  When he had finished, I blew out the candle. ‘Now make a wish,’ said Dad.

  I thought of Mum.

  ‘One that might actually come true. Not the impossible.’

  I picked up my knife and began to cut away at the lumpy mixture. The cloyed icing had caught on the burnt crust and the centre was damp and undercooked. I cut two slices and handed my father his portion. Then I tried to find some clean teaspoons as I knew Mum would have wanted.

  ‘It’s all right, son, we’ll use our fingers. No one can see us.’

  We ate in silence, my father drinking brandy, me with my milk. I tried to slosh it round my mouth to take the taste away. I realised I should say something, be grateful, Mum would have liked that, but when I looked up I saw that Dad had begun to cry.

  ‘I can’t bloody do it,’ he said, pouring the brandy. ‘I can’t bloody do anything without her.’

  ‘It’s all right, Dad …’

  I didn’t know if he was talking about my mother or Auntie Vi.

  ‘No,’ he went on. ‘It’s no bloody good. Nothing is.’

  He was rocking backwards and forwards like Uncle George. I tried to think what Mum would have done. I got up and put my arm round his shoulder and he folded into me and started crying like he couldn’t hide it any more.

  ‘It’s all right, Dad … it’s all right.’

  Violet

  Of course word got round about the cake and the other lady helpers returned: Ivy from the sweet shop with the varicose veins and the thin daughter no one quite knew what to say to; Doris the butcher’s wife with the ghastly wart on her chin that she’d never done anything about; and Gladys who’d been let down by some fickle man from the bingo. What a pantomime Len said that was.

  They came because it was all a bit too much for me on my own. One man was fine, even if he was doolally, but looking after another was more than I could handle. The other thing was that I had been offered a position as an Avon lady. I had needed some freedom and so I thought I might as well earn a bit of money promoting the delights of Meadow Morn talc and Moonlight Dream cake mascara; tat, in all honesty, but the ladies loved it.

  Len liked the way my eye shadow matched the pale-blue uniform and I still came over as often as I could. Besides, the other women were as much as he could stand.

  ‘I like to keep you cheery, Len,’ I said, ‘I like to keep you sweet.’

  ‘Aren’t I sweet enough already?’

  ‘Oh, you’re always so sweet,’ I said. ‘Especially when you’ve been naughty.’

  ‘Me? Naughty? I’m a good boy, I am.’

  He always perked up when he saw me. And he liked my cooking. When I put the food on the table Len did his Sid Field impersonation: ‘What a performance.’ Then, after a few beers, he’d sing the ‘Tennessee Wig Walk’, doing all the movements as well until Martin ruined it by saying: ‘You never did that with Mum.’

  The boy wasn’t so keen on the food, of course. Perhaps it was a bit too adult for him, but I always said that it was never too early to cultivate taste, whether it was a braised pigeon or a kipper soufflé. Whenever he left any scraps on his plate, I would scold him: ‘Aren’t you going to eat that?’

  And Len would add: ‘You’re all bones, boy. If you were any skinnier people would see right through you.’

  In the evenings, we liked to get him to bed early. I checked that he had flannelled his face and hands, but he wasn’t that keen on me singing and reading to him so I got off lightly. Some nights Len and I would go dancing for a bit of a foxtrot or quickstep and it was like old times. Martin was old enough to be left but he stayed awake until we came home. I think he was checking up on us.

  People were starting to talk, of course, but I couldn’t see how it was any of their business. It really wasn’t.

  George

  Where did Vi get to, day in, day out? that’s what I wanted to know. She was never there when I needed her and we didn’t go out dancing even though I told her I was ready. I had to waltz on my own in front of the mirror, imagining a girl was in my arms and it was before the war when we had all the time in the world. Perhaps I should have waited and married her younger sister like I’d always hoped. Then we wouldn’t be in this mess. And where had Lily gone? that’s what I wanted to know.

  I was taken out for walks like I was a dog and every time I came back I wanted to go out again. Even if it was in the rain. I wanted the wind on my face like I was on deck. I didn’t want to be alone by the gas fire, staring at the picture of a man in uniform who looked a bit like me.

  I made models out of matchsticks and walked up and down to get a bit of exercise but it was like being in solitary. And by the evening, I wanted to dance.

  But Vi never came back until it was bedtime. She said, ‘I think that’s enough for one day, George,’ even though I wasn’t tired and didn’t want her cocoa.

  Then she went out again. She never told me where.

  She knew I was the best dancer. Everyone said so. Held myself tall. Never needed to look at my feet. Knew how to glide.

>   I was still handsome when she shaved me properly. Oh yes. Always one for the ladies, me. Got to keep the face nice and smooth even if I do have the twitch. That doesn’t matter. I can calm that down if I need to. Have to concentrate. Shoulders back, eyes forward, back straight. I can do that. On parade.

  I wasn’t too sure about her uniform. Pale blue. Not much good for nursing. And she was always wearing too much lipstick if you ask me. It was as if she was wanting to attract other men even though she had someone perfectly good at home.

  I had been a good catch but now it was like she’d thrown me back in the sea. Down, down to the bottom with the others.

  She wasn’t as frisky as she used to be either. That was another thing that had changed. Didn’t get my oats when I wanted them. If she didn’t watch it I’d have to find someone else.

  I put the radio on. Children’s Favourites with Uncle Mac.

  Pity we never had any kiddies.

  Too late now.

  You’re a pink toothbrush; I’m a blue toothbrush

  Have we met somewhere before?

  You’re a pink toothbrush

  And I think toothbrush

  That we met by the bathroom door.

  All right for them.

  I should find someone to talk to. A lady friend. Bit of comfort since Vi was away so often. Either that or take action. Couldn’t go on like it was: stuck dancing round the house on my own. That wouldn’t do at all.

  Martin

  Dad and Auntie Vi took Ade and me to the fair but the two of them acted like teenage sweethearts, buying candyfloss and going down the Cresta Run, bashing into us on the dodgems and laughing so much that anyone would think it was us taking them instead of the other way round. I won a goldfish on the darts but it died almost as soon as we got back home.

  ‘I don’t know what’s the matter with it,’ said Auntie Vi, ‘I was just looking at it and it turned over and floated up to the surface.’