Rue End Street

by Sue Reid Sexton

  ‘I don’t care,’ she said. ‘Let me out. Now. Out-my-way!’

  She grasped my face, her knee scudded into my stomach, then an elbow slammed into my ribs. If I’d eaten anything since Mrs Strachan’s I’d have sicked it right up. She scrabbled for the rope but I had tucked it out of harm’s way along the canvas behind me.

  ‘Let me out! I can’t breathe!’ she growled.

  ‘Stop it, Ella! We can’t get out here.’

  Full panic set in. She scratched at the canvas as if she could dig her way out. ‘Give me it!’ she grunted and threw herself against the canvas. A hand thwacked across my face, then a deluge of blows rained down as if there were three furious Ellas towering over me.

  Another bang and we were moving again and mercifully Ella was thrown off me and landed full force against the paper, dropping immediately onto my bent knees. I whacked her until my knuckles hit the paper several times. She had me by my coat, her breath hot on my face. Another jolt of the train and her forehead crashed into mine, then she whimpered back onto her side, while I fell back to mine.

  We both breathed heavily.

  ‘Don’t be so bloody stupid,’ I spat. ‘There’s one more stop and if you so much as move I’ll...’ I kicked her so she’d know I meant it.

  The train lurched to one side then back again and we grabbed each other for safety. I pushed against a bale to keep my place and neither of us spoke.

  It was miles to the next stop. We braced ourselves and listened to horses’ hooves hitting the gravel, approaching then stopping short, then the wagon shook a little and shook again. No footsteps, horse or man, came near us.

  ‘It’s the next one,’ I whispered. ‘Right now we’re safe. You should save being scared for later when we have to get off. We’ve been round enough bends to know the tarpaulin’s not going to come undone. Just hang on and get your grit ready.’

  ‘My what?’ she hissed.

  ‘Your grit,’ I said. ‘Bravery, courage. You just have to get your nerve up ready to jump when we get there. It’s the next one. I’ll get the rope ready so we can jump ’cause we won’t have long.’

  ‘I don’t have any of that,’ she said, ‘that grit stuff.’

  ‘Yes, you do,’ I said. ‘It’s in your boots. You just need to pull it up.’

  ‘I’m not wearing boots,’ she said. ‘Neither are you.’

  I sighed. ‘No, but you know what I mean. Being scared will only make you... scareder.’

  I reached behind me for the rope and carefully brought it forward.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she said.

  ‘Getting the rope ready,’ I said. ‘I told you.’

  She leapt up and somehow found the stupid rope in my hand and pulled. The tarpaulin shook free just as the train pitched forward again and we were off. She crashed against the bales and bounced onto my knees again.

  ‘You stupid idiot!’ I shouted.

  The tarpaulin flapped, gently at first but then, as we built up speed, it cracked like a whip. Outside, darkness had fallen. We felt the rush of cold air into our little compartment, which soon bit like a dog. I could see beneath us the silver line of some neighbouring tracks flickering and every so often a blue flash shone out from under us as metal hit metal.

  The bale above us had loosened and shoogled from side to side. Ella squealed with every bump, then we turned a long but tight bend and the force shunted me closer to the edge.

  At last the train slowed again.

  ‘Get ready!’ I said. ‘This is where you’ve got to be brave.’ I waited until we came crunching to a stop. ‘Now!’ I shouted, not caring who heard us.

  I slid one leg over the side and shifted the rest of me towards it until suddenly I was on the ground with chunks of stone in my shoulder, completely winded.

  ‘Lenny!’ she screamed. ‘Don’t leave me. I’m stuck! I can’t get out! Come back!’

  I couldn’t breathe or see her. I picked myself up and leant on the wagon. She wasn’t stuck, only scared. She grasped my hand and started to edge out. But then the train bumped forwards an inch and I panicked, leant back and heaved with all my might. She came flying through and landed on top of me with her knees crashing hard on the gravel.

  She got to her feet, squawking and squealing that she’d never walk again, so I grabbed her hand and tugged her away from the train across several other tracks. You never saw so many railway lines, a million of them like snakes side by side glinting in the moonlight. We heard and saw no-one and no-one came running, even with Ella screeching like a banshee.

  We arrived at some rough ground where a row of giant pipes stood sentry. Beyond that was a road. Moonlight slid off puddles while behind us our goods train roared and chuntered off again.

  Chapter 34

  Eventually Ella shut up about her knees. I mean, what were a few more scrapes in the circumstances? The last thing my dad said was: ‘Get a passenger train at Abercorn for the ferry.’ I knew what the ferry was because I’d seen it from the other side. It was the Renfrew Ferry, but I’d never heard of Abercorn. You’d think finding a railway station would be easy, especially next to railway tracks, but all the station names had been taken down and it was dark. Thick clouds kept sliding across the moon.

  ‘Where are we?’ Ella whined. ‘I don’t like the dark. Maybe we should just hand ourselves in. There could be anybody out here. There could be, couldn’t there?’

  ‘Quiet, Ella,’ I said. ‘Stop being such a scaredy-cat. My dad said it’s okay, so it’s okay.’ I took a firm grip of her elbow and wished that were true. I couldn’t see the ground, but I was on my way home so I didn’t care. ‘This way,’ I said, as if it was obvious. ‘Head for the light. We can ask the way from there.’

  A slither of light flickered round a window. Thank goodness for lax citizens and absent ARP wardens. Ella dug her fingers into my arm and we edged our way towards it until suddenly it disappeared. I pulled my coat tight and stuffed my scarf tight inside it. The wind was cutting. My stomach groaned and I realised I was starving hungry.

  A shadow came towards us, boots clicking on the tarmac.

  ‘Oh no!’ breathed Ella, and we clung to each other. Waited and listened. The footsteps were uneven and slow and as they approached we heard breathing. Then the clouds pulled back from the moon and the long white face of an old man appeared. Ella squealed and I poked her ribs to shut her up.

  I was just about to ask him where the station was when I saw the station behind him, its roof lit up like glass.

  ‘Station’s that way,’ he said throwing his thumb over his shoulder.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  ‘Last train’s in five minutes.’

  We hurried before the moonlight went, Ella whooping into the night sky in excitement. I bought us both tickets and we waited on the dark platform and argued about who was the biggest fearty, though to be honest I didn’t care. The moon stayed out until the train came in and we climbed aboard, sank gratefully into the cosy velvet seats and Ella laughed her head off as if she’d won a watch. But the journey was short and too soon we were out again by the river.

  All we had to do was cross it and walk home. The ferry terminal was a squat building by the slipway. As I stepped up to the pay desk, a surge of happiness lifted through me and a smile crept over my face.

  ‘Pass,’ said the lady.

  ‘Pass?’ I said, faltering.

  ‘You need passes, both of you, or you can’t get

  ‘We don’t have passes,’ I said.

  She checked her fingernails, which were long and dirty, before going on. ‘Well, you need them. You should be in bed anyway. Children out at this time, and look at the state of you. Next!’

  I now plummeted to the depths of misery and stood uncomprehending at the desk with my mouth hanging open. The ferry engines rumbled into life and a whoosh of cold air grabbed me by the ankles.

  Ella brushed me out the way.

  ‘We had passes,’ she said, ‘but we lost them, and I’ve got m
y granny’s medicine and she’ll die without it. We’ve also been in a terrible accident and need to get home before our mothers think we’ve been killed.’

  ‘Top of the class for inventiveness,’ said the pay lady. ‘Now get lost.’

  ‘We’ll pay you extra,’ said Ella, so business-like all of a sudden. ‘Please.’

  ‘No, dear,’ said the lady, softening. She leant forward so we could see the wrinkles round her eyes and gave us a brisk smile. ‘I’d love to but I can’t. Off you go. Who’s next?’

  We had to move away so a tall lady in a long flowing overcoat could get her ticket and then some other lucky people. They passed back again, down the slipway and up the ramp into the boat. One after the other they went, dark shadows moving in the dark, the moon no longer lighting us.

  ‘It’s not fair,’ said Ella. ‘What are we going to do now? Swim? I mean there has to be a way.’

  Swim. For a moment this seemed possible. It wasn’t that far and my dad taught me years ago. But good sense returned with one glance at the inky black Clyde and I stood there feeling ragged and felt myself tremble.

  ‘We’ll die of cold if we have to stay here all night,’ I muttered. ‘Anything could happen. Oh God! I just want to go home.’ My whole body seemed to ache with longing for my mum, Mavis and Rosie. ‘I just want home.’

  A bell rang on the ferry just as the tall lady in the overcoat passed us. She was fiddling with a large handbag, trying to find something in it. Ella went over.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said, all polite. ‘I wonder if you could help us? We’re stuck on the wrong side of the river without any passes and our...’

  ‘Your granny’s going to die without the medicine,’ the lady interrupted with a laugh. ‘And you’ve been in a terrible accident.’ She laughed again and the bell on the ferry tinkled.

  ‘Um, yes,’ said Ella. ‘That’s about it.’

  ‘Not very good at lying are you?’ said the lady.

  ‘We just want to go home,’ I said. ‘We live in Clydebank and our mums will be worried sick. Please.’

  The bell tinkled again and a man there called over. ‘Mrs Buchannan, if you could?’

  He meant if she could just hurry up and get on board, but I was thinking something similar. If she could just help us... .

  ‘Good evening, Mr Bennett,’ she called to him. ‘I’ve brought my nieces. They’ve been in a motor vehicle accident and I’m taking them to my son, the doctor. I see his car is waiting on the other side as usual. Always a man for promptness.’ Two headlights flashed across the water, right on cue. ‘I just need to get their tickets.’

  ‘Right you are, Mrs Buchanan,’ said the ferryman, ‘but never mind the tickets. We’re already late.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Bennett. Come along girls,’ said Mrs Buchanan. She went up the gangplank and we followed. What a surprise. I thanked God inwardly, thinking how he must exist after all but was playing rather cruel games on us.

  ‘Thank you,’ we muttered to Mr Bennett as we passed, avoiding his eye.

  Mrs Buchannan perched herself on a bench and invited us to follow, so we did. ‘Now, what happened to you?’

  So Ella, like a complete fool, told her.

  I didn’t want to hear our story. I was there after all and was glad of a few minutes without Ella, and anyway I’d noticed a soldier standing by himself near the front. He was staring out at the opposite bank, but from behind he looked just like my dad, my old dad when he first came home on leave, before everything went wrong. As the ferry crossed that little stretch of water from one bank to the other I had a terrible horrible thought. At first it was too awful to bear and I pretended I hadn’t thought it, but it seemed so true I knew I couldn’t avoid it. This is what it was:

  I had remembered my dad’s instructions almost word for word. He told me what to do and where to go with absolute simplicity and straightforwardness and in such a way that even I, who had forgotten all the other important instructions in the previous couple of days, even I could remember them. But I knew my dad wasn’t particularly clever at giving instructions. That wasn’t it. He knew what to tell me because he’d made exactly the same journey himself.

  He’d probably done it more than once, maybe even several times, and if he was able to sneak off like that without being seen or caught, why hadn’t he come and found me and Mavis and my mum?

  The ferry bumped up on the other side and I watched the soldier hurry off the boat, up the slipway and into the darkness as if he really did have his granny’s medicine and she really was going to die without it if he didn’t get there soon. Or as if there was someone he really loved who he just couldn’t wait to be with.

  All the other passengers flooded past me. Their feet rang out on the ramp and clattered up the slipway. Mrs Buchanan and Ella were last off, gossiping away as if they were old bosom buddies.

  ‘Come on, Lenny,’ Ella barked cheerfully, striding on ahead and clanking down onto the concrete.

  Shards of light were escaping from holes in a nearby factory wall. I saw Ella and Mrs Buchanan beside a motor car talking to the driver. Behind me the ferry engines rumbled and cut out and an odd silence fell, heavy like the darkness, like my heart. The ferrymen were busy with the boat, calling to each other about the cold or the day’s work. Whatever it was I didn’t notice or care.

  ‘Come on, Lenny, we’re going in a real motor car, get a shift on, quick!’ Ella’s shins were dark with blood from her fall. Her polka-dotty skirt was torn on one side and her face was sprinkled with indistinct dark patches, like a brindled cat, but she smiled and showed her knees to the doctor and Mrs Buchanan, and the doctor insisted on the importance of cleaning wounds.

  Mrs Buchanan got into the front seat beside her son. Ella and I got in the back. This should have been fantastically exciting. I’d never been in a real motor car, only a bus. Ella ran her hands over the leather of the seats, drew faces in the mist on the window and then jammed herself between the front seats and watched out the front window. The moon slipped out of the clouds and dark figures flitted past in the dimmed headlights of the car: the soldier like my dad, a gang of boys, lingerers in a pub door, an old man in a torn shirt staggering down the pavement, a woman with a basket of washing who weaved her way past him while a young couple applauded. Dark walls with darker close mouths passed rhythmically with the speed of the car, then baffle walls flashed too close for comfort and I leant back in the seat, closed my eyes and fought back the tears.

  They left us on the main road. I thanked them for their help and made some effort to smile, glad of the night to hide in.

  ‘Wait ’til I tell... ,’ said Ella, and she listed all the people she was going to annoy with endless stories of our journey, most of whom I’d never heard of. If I could have shut my ears I would have. ‘What’s the matter?’ she went on. ‘Aren’t you glad we’re nearly home? Aren’t you pleased you found your dad?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, not wanting to talk.

  ‘Mine’s missing presumed dead,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah, you said.’

  ‘That means he’s dead but they couldn’t find his body to prove it because he was blown to smithereens,’ she said.

  This was something I hadn’t known, and I supposed it must be true, what ‘missing presumed dead’ actually meant, but how could she just say it like that? Didn’t she care? I tried not to think of what happened to her dad. I knew about those things. I didn’t want to know.

  ‘That’s... that’s terrible,’ I said, keeping my voice steady.

  She didn’t say another word.

  In the end, my dad hadn’t been missing presumed dead. Only missing, but not missing me.

  We walked in silence while the old familiar sounds of the shipyards rumbled and banged in the distance. Swiftly we went, because of the cold and we hadn’t eaten since the morning and because I had a million questions for my mum. I couldn’t wait to see Mavis and Rosie again. I just wanted home, and the more I thought how much I wanted my family the qu
icker my steps became and the harder it was to swallow back my tears. We reached the end of the street and suddenly Ella grabbed my arm.

  ‘I live up there,’ she said, pointing up the hill. ‘My mum’s going to kill me. Friends?’ She held out her hand to shake, which seemed oddly formal and something only men did, but when I reached out to take it she withdrew hers and whacked mine so hard it stung.

  ‘Got yah!’ she called and she ran up the street. ‘See yah!’

  ‘I hope you find a baffle wall,’ I yelled, and by the sound of it she found one soon after.

  The moon stayed with me all the way to number forty-three. I banged on the door and let myself in without waiting.

  Chapter 35

  Beyond the darkened hallway, behind a door, I could hear my mum singing, ‘When I Grow Too Old To Dream’. She only sang when she was happy. Even for sad songs like this one she had to be happy, which she hadn’t been for ages because of Mr Tait being ill and dying. But I couldn’t hang about.

  As soon as I opened the door the singing stopped and it seemed like everyone screamed all at once. Everyone except me that is because I was choked with sobs of relief. They were all in bed, Mavis and Rosie on either side of my mum who was sat up between them with a cup of tea cradled in her hands. Mavis and Rosie leapt up spilling the tea the length of the bed and swaddled me in hugs. I surrendered. I think otherwise I’d have collapsed in a shivering heap on the floor. Mum manoeuvred herself over the edge of the bed and held all three of us in one tight little bundle.

  ‘I found him,’ I said, as soon as I could get the words out. ‘He’s alive. You know that. But he’s not coming back.’ And then I cried because even though I didn’t understand everything that had happened between my mum and dad, or to my dad since he was taken away, I knew he wasn’t coming back, but I’d never actually said it, not even to myself.

  My mum took my face in her hands and put her own face close to mine and kissed my cheek then leant her own cheek against mine. She switched on the electric light and blew out the candle on the mantelpiece. Rosie ran circles round the room and Mavis clung tight around me, and I held on to her. A little fire glowed in the grate, fading after the day, and a basin of water sat ready on the floor beside it for the morning.