Angel of the North

by Annie Wilkinson

  ‘Oh, that’s good of ’em!’ Ellen’s husband, Jack, exclaimed. ‘And when might they manage to find the time, do they think? Do they need a squib up their arses? They’ll get one if they don’t sharpen up.’

  ‘He’ll be trying to make his way home. Bet you,’ said Alfred. ‘Bet you anything you like.’

  ‘He’ll turn up, I’m sure. Leave it at least a week before you start worrying, Marie,’ George soothed her. ‘He’s probably hiding out with some school friend or other in Bourne. You know what lads are like, always up to some prank. He’ll be somewhere. He’ll be all right. Don’t fret.’

  ‘That’s the kettle,’ Marie said, and took refuge in the kitchen.

  Ellen followed her. ‘My old neighbour’s just flitted down to Lincoln. We’ve known each other years, and I was sorry to lose her. Her new husband’s in the police there. As soon as we get back, I’ll write to her, and see if he can get things moving.’

  Marie stood sloshing milk into china cups, feeling her nerves beginning to crack. She paused. ‘Thanks, Aunt Ellen. I know it sounds far-fetched, and I’m probably imagining things, but I’ve got a real bad feeling about the people our Alfie’s been staying with. I wouldn’t trust them as far as I could spit; the story they’re telling just doesn’t add up. When I looked at my dad’s coffin in the church, I really wondered whether they’ve seen our Alfie off to the same place. You know, the next world.’

  ‘You don’t really think that, do you? I mean, not really.’

  ‘I’m beginning to wonder. Will you take some of this food in? I’ll bring the tea.’

  ‘I’ll write to my friend in Lincoln the minute I get home,’ Ellen promised.

  ‘Keep your eye on the time, Harry,’ Aunt Lucy said, draining her cup. ‘We don’t want to miss the last bus back to Anlaby.’

  ‘You could keep your own eye on the time if you wanted to. Why do you always leave everything to me?’

  ‘I don’t leave everything to you.’

  ‘Don’t worry about the bus,’ said Marie. ‘There’s plenty of beds here. I’m the only one left, now.’

  ‘I don’t know as I’d want to stay here, and risk being caught in an air raid,’ Aunt Lucy said. ‘What a to-do. Your dad dead, your mother in hospital, and now Alfie missing. I never heard of a family having such bad luck.’

  ‘You hear of plenty of them round here. We get them at the hospital all the time.’

  ‘He was a wonderful feller, your dad,’ Aunt Edie said. ‘He could turn his hand to anything. Any mortal thing. My husband thought the world of him. He used to say he was the best little bloke in the world.’

  Uncle Alfred swallowed a mouthful of tea. ‘He used to be a dab hand at wine making. Some o’ them parties him and your mam used to have . . . I don’t suppose there’s any handy?’

  ‘What – parties?’

  ‘Wine, you daft ha’porth.’

  Marie rolled her eyes and tilted her chin in the direction of her neighbours in the dining room. ‘Not enough to go round,’ she said.

  ‘Meaning there will be enough when the company thins out a bit?’

  ‘If it thins out enough before you have to go for the bus, there will.’

  All the coats had gone from the double bed with the exception of Alfred and Dot’s. Having opted to risk an air raid rather than curtail the wine-tasting they went tipsily up the stairs, to sleep in the front bedroom. A couple of minutes later Marie heard a blood-curdling shriek, and dashed out of the kitchen in time to see Auntie Dot come tumbling down the stairs, white as a sheet and suddenly sober.

  ‘Oh dear,’ she said, clutching at her heart as she fell into Marie’s arms. ‘Oh dear me! There’s something there.’

  ‘Something where?’

  ‘Little bedroom,’ Auntie Dot shuddered. ‘I didn’t like to go poking about in your mother’s wardrobe so I went to lay our clothes on the bed in there, and something moved . . . ugh, ugh, ugh!’ She shook herself from head to foot.

  ‘Well, I’ll be . . .’ she heard Uncle Alfred exclaim. With no trace of horror in his voice he called, ‘Marie, come up here.’

  She found him in the smallest bedroom. There in the bed, filthy, fully dressed, and sound asleep with a half-eaten baked ham sandwich in his grimy hand, lay Alfie.

  Uncle Alfred began to laugh. Alfie didn’t stir.

  ‘What are you laughing at?’ Auntie Dot called.

  ‘Come and see, Dottie.’

  Marie greeted her with a broad smile. ‘There’s your “something”.’

  ‘Oh, my goodness! Well, thank heaven for that.’

  ‘He’ll cop it tomorrow, the little so-and-so. I’ll skin him for what he’s put me through,’ Marie said, and went downstairs with a lighter heart to finish tidying up and lock the doors.

  So ended the day she buried her father. He was gone, and all the talk about ‘just like old times’ only served to underline the fact that the old times were gone with him. Nothing would ever be the same. There would be no more of his practical jokes on New Year’s Eve, no more of his allotment veg, his potted meats and pressed tongues, no more rabbit stew, no more home-made wine, no more Dad. The last he’d used to cobble their boots and shoes on stood propping the dining-room door open. The Great War had taken his leg and ruined his lungs, this second war had taken his life, and now her father’s troubles were over.

  But Alfie was home and safe, and Marie could feel nothing but overwhelming relief.

  ‘I never touched her cat,’ Alfie told them the following morning, as they breakfasted on toast and jam, and weak tea. ‘I never laid a finger on it. It was Ernie tied that tin can to its tail, and he was laughing when it was jumping round the yard, going mad trying to shake it off. He thought it was real funny, then as soon as he sees his mother coming back from the shops, he stops laughing, and he says: “You’re in trouble, boy, for doing that to our Smoky,” loud enough so she could hear him and she’d think it was me. So I says I never touched your cat, it was you that did it, loud enough so she heard that as well. Then he says: “Don’t lie. You’ll never get to Heaven if you tell lies.” So I told him: “You’ll never get to Heaven at all, you rotten lying swine.”

  ‘So then she takes the shopping in and shouts us both into the house, and when we get in there she tells Ernie to get a stick from the yard, and beat me with it. So he did, real hard, and they both start laughing their heads off while I’m struggling and trying to get away. Then she gets hold of one of my ears, nipping it to keep me still.’

  ‘He’s not fibbing,’ Uncle Alfred said, pointing to big blue bruises on the top parts of Alfie’s left ear.

  ‘She ought to be reported,’ Auntie Dot said. ‘You ought to report her to the police, Marie.’

  Marie nodded, looking at Alfie. ‘Then what happened?’

  ‘I told them, “I’m telling on you!” so Ernie says: “Who’re you going to tell? Your dad’s dead, you moron! You going to tell your mother? She’s in hospital, she i’n’t going to help you.”

  ‘So I said I was telling on them both. “As soon as I get in that school, I’m telling the teacher and all the other kids, and I’m showing them what you’ve done. And I’m telling our Marie,” I said. Then she says: “You get upstairs to bed, you nasty little guttersnipe. You won’t be telling anybody anything, and nobody will believe you if you do.” ’

  ‘Let’s have a look where Ernie hit you,’ Marie said.

  Alfie took off his shirt. There were small round fingermark bruises on his upper arms, and larger bruises all over him.

  ‘Then they shut me in the bedroom and bolted the door so I couldn’t get out and they kept me there for two days,’ he went on. ‘Then I thought I aren’t sticking this a minute longer, I’m getting out of here if it kills me.’

  ‘How did you get out?’ Uncle Alfred asked.

  ‘There were some horrible old women’s stockings and two scarves in one of the drawers, so I tied them together to make a rope and tied it round the bedstead and let it out of the window and clim
bed out. It wasn’t long enough, and I had to drop the rest of the way into the yard.’

  ‘And he did come looking for you, I suppose.’ Marie said, drily.

  Alfie nodded. ‘I picked a willow stick up by the Wellhead as soon as I saw him, a real whippy one. And I let him get real close, and then I thought: right, you’ve asked for this; it’s your turn to get some stick, now. So I got my head down and jumped up and chinned him, then before he could get up I gave it him, tit for tat.’ Alfie snorted with laughter, and added, ‘I told him: “It’s your turn now, you moron!” I don’t think he knew what was happening.’

  ‘But how did you get back home?’ Auntie Dot asked. ‘You can’t have walked it.’

  ‘I slept in the waiting room in the train station, and the next morning, I just got on the train with some other people, and stayed on it, and when I saw the ticket collector I locked myself in the lav, then I got off and walked a bit, and then I got a lift on a lorry that was going to New Holland. Then I got on the ferry, and told the man what had happened, and showed him my bruises, and he brought me over for nothing. I got on a bus on Corporation Pier, and when the conductor came, I told him the same.’

  ‘Did you call Mrs Morton any names?’ Marie asked.

  Alfie nodded again. ‘I called her a nasty old witch, and she is. And I’m never going back there.’

  ‘Obviously not. They wouldn’t have you, for one thing, even if I wanted to send you, which I don’t. But what do you think I’m going to do with you? How am I going to go to work, with you to look after? Answer me that,’ Marie said, directing her question at Alfie, but hoping his godfather and namesake would take the hint and step into the breach.

  Uncle Alfred didn’t fail her. ‘He can come and live with us on the smallholding, can’t he, Dot? There’s loads of room now our three have flown the coop. It’s not far out of Hull, but it’s a lot safer than where you are.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know,’ Auntie Dot wavered. ‘I think I’m a bit too old to be taking any youngsters on.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ Alfie cut in. ‘I’m staying here. Don’t worry about me, I can look after myself.’

  ‘You change your mind, and you can come and stay with us,’ Uncle Alf told him before they left to catch the bus to Dunswell.’

  Marie stood at the gate with Alfie, and watched them go.

  ‘Where’s my dad buried?’ Alfie demanded, when they were out of sight. ‘I want to see his grave.’

  Marie took care not to let it show, but she was proud of her baby brother. Alfie had guts and initiative. He’d proved it by thrashing Ernest, and by finding his own way home. I can look after myself, he’d told her, and she thought he probably could. So now she’d better telephone the police in Bourne and tell them to call off the search for Alfie – not that they’d been looking very hard.

  It would have been the perfect solution if she could have sent him to Dunswell, but Auntie Dot had brought her own children up, and obviously wasn’t keen on taking on any more. So Marie decided to give him a fair chance to prove himself before she tried any more experiments with evacuation.

  ‘I’m sorry you missed the funeral, Alfie. I sent the money for your fare, and Pam and Mr Stewart took it down to Mrs Morton’s for you on Tuesday afternoon, and again on Wednesday,’ she told him, as they stood beside the freshly dug earth of their father’s grave later that morning.

  He looked swiftly up at her. ‘I never heard her. They had me locked up in the back bedroom. Why didn’t she come to Dad’s funeral herself?’

  ‘She didn’t want to.’

  Alfie looked down at the grave again. ‘Poor old Dad.’ His voice was full of compassion, but there were no tears this time.

  ‘Well, it’s like she said, he wouldn’t know whether she was there or not. He wouldn’t know anything about it, would he?’

  ‘If he’s in heaven, he knows everything. But because she’s with posh folk, our Pam thinks she’s posh an’ all. We’re not good enough for her now. I’m not, anyway. She didn’t want to be seen with me, in Bourne.’

  ‘She’ll have to forget about being posh before very long. Mam will be coming home soon, and I’ll need our Pam to come and look after her while I’m at work.’

  ‘I’ll look after her.’

  ‘You can’t. You’ll have to go to school, and there might be things to do that Mam wouldn’t like to have a boy doing. But I’ve been thinking, Alfie. I’ll give you a week’s trial. If you shape up, you can stay at home. If not, you’ll have to go to Uncle Alfred’s, or be evacuated again.’

  ‘I’m not going back to Mrs Morton.’

  ‘Do what I tell you, then. For a start, you’ll have to get up and get yourself off to school every day, and behave yourself when you get there. And make sure you do get there – no twagging. Aunt Edie hardly ever goes out, so I’ll ask her to keep a key for you, so you can let yourself in when you come home.’ A thought suddenly struck her. ‘By the way, how did you get in the house? I was sure I’d locked that door before I went to the funeral.’

  ‘Got the spare set of keys out of the outside lav.’

  ‘Oh, yes! I’d forgotten they were there. All right then, you’ve told me you can look after yourself, and you’ll have to. You had plenty of complaints about Mrs Morton and Ernie, and they had a few about you as well. The main one was you roaming the streets till all hours at night. Well, here, you’re undressed and in bed for eight o’clock, and make sure you lock the door and take the key out of it, and close all the blackout curtains before you go. Any trouble, and I’ll be packing you off again, so be warned. And if there’s an air raid, you get down to the shelter.’

  ‘I won’t cause any trouble, Marie. I’ll help. You’ll wonder how you ever managed without me.’

  ‘I doubt that,’ she smiled. ‘Now get your coat. We’re going up to Mr and Mrs Elsworth’s. I’ll ask him if he minds taking us up to Beverley Westwood. Mam will be glad to see you, anyway.’

  Her mother would be more than glad to see Alfie, Marie thought. Thank God she’d been spared the task of telling her that he was missing.

  ‘Good Heavens,’ Mr Elsworth exclaimed. ‘How did you get here?’

  Alfie took the question literally, and treated him to a blow-by-blow account of the whole escapade.

  Danny hung on his every word, his eyes round with admiration. ‘Good for you, Alfie! I’m glad you gave that stinker a good thrashing. That’s just what I should have done.’

  Alfie grinned, basking in glory and not shy of giving himself even more credit. ‘One of the other lads at the school tried to get back to Hull before, but the police picked him up and billeted him with a different family. Well, I wasn’t going to let them collar me. No fear.’

  To Marie’s surprise, Mrs Elsworth’s smile stretched from ear to ear. She seemed unable to take her eyes off Alfie. ‘Oh, no fear! No, indeed!’ she laughed.

  ‘Sounds like something out of the Boy’s Own Paper,’ Mr Elsworth said. ‘It shows initiative, anyway, Alfie. It’s a pity you’re not old enough to help us at the ARP post. We’re going to need runners, if Jerry puts the telephone lines out of action.’

  ‘I’ll be a runner,’ Alfie volunteered. ‘I don’t mind.’

  ‘You’re too young. It’s dangerous work. It must be quite a relief to your sister to have you back safe, and she’ll want to keep you safe. So will your mother.’

  ‘I’ll volunteer then,’ Danny said. ‘I’m fifteen. I can do it as well as anyone else.’

  ‘You’ll do no such thing,’ Mrs Elsworth told him. ‘Most of the runners are eighteen, from what I hear.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter. I can do it.’

  ‘No,’ she insisted, dismissing the subject. ‘Have you told the people in Bourne that Alfie’s here, Marie? They must have been quite worried, as well.’

  ‘No, I haven’t.’ Marie had been reluctant to mention it, in case the Elsworths thought she was angling to use their telephone again.

  ‘I’d let you phone now, bu
t I’m waiting for Charles to ring. He said he would if he got the opportunity, sometime between now and bedtime.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Marie. After all, none of the people in Bourne had shown all that much concern about Alfie, not even Pam. They could wait, especially the Mortons.

  The phone rang. Mr Elsworth lifted the receiver, and mouthed, ‘Charles!’ He exchanged a few words, and then said, ‘Guess who I’ve got with me. Marie – yes. And Alfie. I’ll put her on.’ He handed Marie the receiver.

  ‘Alfie got to the funeral in the end, then. Did Pam come?’ Charles said.

  The sound of his deep voice made her spine tingle. ‘No. Says she’s frightened to come to Hull, because of the raids. She’s got a point.’

  ‘It would have been better if they’d both stayed away. A funeral’s no place for a kid. But I’m sorry I couldn’t be there, old thing. Was it awful?’

  ‘Yes, but Alfie didn’t get here in time for the funeral. He came later, under his own steam.’

  ‘What, you mean he absconded? Went absent without leave?’

  ‘You could put it like that.’

  ‘You’ll send him straight back, of course.’

  ‘No. I’m going to give him a week’s trial.’

  There was a long pause, and Marie imagined Charles counting to ten on the other end of the line. ‘You’ll regret it,’ he said, at last.

  ‘No I won’t. If he doesn’t shape up, he’ll have to go and live with Uncle Alfred in Dunswell. He’s offered to have him. He’s not going back to Bourne, or if he does, they’ll have to find him another billet. He’s not going back to those bloody Mortons.’

  Another long pause followed that. ‘You’re going to be lumbered; I know it. How do you think you’re going to manage to work?’

  ‘He’s old enough to look after himself.’

  Charles sighed heavily, obviously trying to keep his patience. ‘We’ve discussed this before, no point going over it all again. I wish I were there, though. I’d make you see sense. Any news of your mother?’