The Night Raid

by Clare Harvey

  ‘I’ve not had one of these for years,’ Zelah said, leaning on the windowsill and shutting her eyes.

  Zelah

  ‘Miss West gave me a humbug,’ Zelah says, pulling on Mother’s hand to get her attention. The street is steep and it’s a long climb home from school to the top end where their room is, above Radipole’s Butcher’s, and underneath Madame DuBois’ Dancing Studio for Girls.

  ‘What did you get sweets for? Had you been a very good class today?’

  ‘No, just me,’ Zelah says, pausing by where Lang ford Alley turns off to look at the dead rat in the gutter. She looks at it every day. At first it still had fur on, and looked quite nice, apart from the slithery-worm tail, but then the eyes went sticky and sunken, and flies clustered. Then maggots came, and stuff like black treacle oozed out underneath. After a while there was no fur or flesh left. Now there are just bones.

  ‘Come on, Zelah,’ Mother says, pulling her away from the tiny skeleton by the wall. Zelah plods on up the hill beside her mother. The cobbles feel very bumpy because her shoe leather has worn through and mother has had to put cardboard inside to cover up the holes, but the cardboard is giving way because it was raining at playtime, and now she can feel the smooth pebbles underfoot as she walks.

  ‘Miss West said it’s because I’m a poor, unfortunate girl,’ Zelah says, looking up at the long, grey-brown road and wishing home wasn’t so far away. She is hungry, the humbug just a sweet echo of taste on the back of her tongue. She hopes it is toast and dripping for supper.

  ‘A what?’ Mother stops, loosening her grip on Zelah’s hand. A door bangs open next to them and a man staggers out. The air smells smoke-sickly-sweet behind the open door. The man sways over to the wall and leans against it, resting his head against his arm.

  ‘A poor, unfortunate girl,’ Zelah says, pleased that she has remembered the long word: unfortunate – so difficult to say without getting your tongue tangled.

  The man’s body starts to jerk and heave. Sick splatters from his mouth onto the cobbles. It is orange-coloured. The smell is horrid, but watching the man is interesting, even better than the dead rat.

  Mother tightens her grip again, tugs her across the street, away from the sick man. ‘Don’t stare, Zelah,’ Mother hisses and Zelah obediently looks ahead and trudges on. It is like climbing a mountain, this going-home business, she thinks. Seagulls swoop and scream overhead.

  Zelah felt a nudge in her ribs. ‘Wake up, Little Miss Head-in-the-clouds, the bus is here.’

  They banged out of the room, and into the corridor, meeting Dame Laura at the bottom of the stairs. ‘Are we sitting for you today, ma’am?’ Vi said and Laura replied, ‘Yes please, if it wouldn’t be too much bother.’ Just as the three of them were pushing out through the entrance with the others, Matron called out from her office, saying she had a letter for Zelah that had come second post, and held out an envelope. Zelah took it but didn’t open it straight away because the bus was waiting, engine running, and they were last on as it was.

  There were two seats left, so of course Dame Laura had one, and Zelah insisted that Vi take the other. Vi didn’t argue, but slumped down, looking exhausted already, even though it would be a full thirteen hours until she could get some sleep. Zelah hung on to the pole, struggling to keep upright as the bus veered off, holding the envelope in her free hand. It would be the birth certificate. She’d been expecting it for days. All she needed was the names of her parents and her place of birth, for the marriage licence. She could drop the envelope off in George’s office at the first break.

  The girl in the yellow headscarf two seats back was coughing uncontrollably and Zelah made a mental note to take her to one side and have her sent back to the hostel, and to have her signed off until Doctor Gibbs had taken a look at her. The last thing they needed was TB riddling the workforce.

  The bus had stopped at the level crossing and Zelah had time to open the envelope, carefully lifting the gummed flap, not wanting to tear it. Inside was the cream sheet of paper with the lipstick-red lines: Certified Copy of an Entry of Birth, it said. The red lines contained boxes. Where and when born was filled with curly black writing: Born in Zelah on 18th September 1917. The paper shook in her hand as the barrier lifted and the bus juddered over the train tracks. What was the second box? She squinted down. She could still taste the sweet-mint humbug on her tongue:

  ‘Miss West says it’s not my fault I don’t have a daddy,’ Zelah carries on, panting a little because the hill is so steep that it’s hard to walk and talk. And Mother suddenly lets go of her hand. Zelah feels cut adrift, watches Mother’s yellow skirt swish-swish as she walks on ahead.

  ‘She’s no right to say such things!’ Mother says, stopping, turning back. Her face looks very small, like a pinched-off piece of pastry dough. Mother is angry, Zelah thinks. Was it wrong to accept the humbug? Zelah runs to catch up with her mother, who has turned and started to walk again. Zelah’s legs pump fast and the breath squeezes from her, but she manages to catch up with Mother at last and reaches for her hand. Mother grabs it very tight, so tight her fingers hurt, but doesn’t turn her head to look at Zelah. ‘That woman has no right!’ she repeats, and Zelah still doesn’t understand why Miss West’s humbug has made Mother so very angry.

  Zelah thinks about how it’s all happened:

  ‘Miss Quiss

  Look at this

  A pocket full of liquorice

  You may have some, if you wish

  But every stick will cost a kiss!’

  That’s what Tommy Norman sang to her at playtime, when it started to rain and they went under the big tree for shelter. She looked in his pocket but there was nothing in there but some dirty old twigs and he laughed in her face hah-hah-hah, like that, with his missing front teeth and his fishy breath and said he didn’t want to kiss her anyway because she was a bastard.

  And Zelah asked Miss West what a ‘bastard’ was? Miss West’s eyes went large and blue, like marbles in a puddle of rainwater, and she said that it was a very, very bad word that some rude people used when your mummy didn’t have a wedding ring and that Zelah must never, ever repeat the word to anyone.

  That’s when she called her a ‘poor, unfortunate girl’ and stroked her cheek, and gave her a humbug.

  Zelah’s hand was slick with sweat on the pole. It was hard to hold on as the bus swung its way towards the factory. She stared down at the fluttering sheet in her hand, willing it to be different. There must be a mistake. Mother had never said – no, Mother had never said anything, she realised, forcing herself to remember:

  Zelah knows she mustn’t say that word again, because Miss West said not to, and Miss West is a teacher and you have to do what teachers say. Zelah feels Mother’s hand gripping hers, pulling her homewards, and she thinks that Miss West and Tommy Norman must be right, though, because there’s no metal ring digging in as her mother grasps Zelah’s hand in hers.

  ‘Why don’t you have a gold ring like the other mothers?’ Zelah says. But Mother doesn’t answer, just pulls her harder up the hill, so that in the end they are running. And when they get home, Mother locks herself in the privy in the back yard. Zelah waits, sitting on the cold stone on the back steps for what feels like forever, watching the black cloud coming in from the sea and the rain haze down like a chiffon scarf underneath it, hoping that Mother will come out of the privy and unlock the door to their room before the rain makes it up the hill.

  The next time the bus stopped at a junction, Zelah folded up the copy birth certificate and shoved it out of sight in a pocket. Something large and hard was lodged at the base of her throat, like a stone was stuck and she couldn’t swallow it down. She twisted off the ring on her left hand.

  As they hurried off the bus it was Dame Laura who seemed to notice, tapping her on the arm, asking her if she was quite all right, looking at her with those clever-parrot eyes of hers. But Zelah lifted up her mouth at the corners and said that she was fine. Because how could she say that b-wor
d out loud? I’m a bastard. He won’t marry me, now. I’m from bad blood.

  I’m a bloody bastard and I will never marry because of it.

  George

  He was inching the Austin through a gaggle of workers when he saw her getting off the bus – a shade taller than the other girls, bare-headed, black hair, twist of dark red coat. It was like falling and being winded, the realisation: that’s her – Zelah – my future wife.

  The day shifters were heading home and the night shift arriving, the factory entrance a heaving mass, bodies eddying like a turning tide. He edged into his space, twisted off the ignition, grabbed his briefcase and pushed himself out of the car, snagging the edge of his trench coat in the door in his haste to escape.

  He needed to catch her before the shift started. There were things to discuss, but more than that, he wanted to touch her, hold her, remind himself that she was real: Zelah Fitzlord, his fiancée, his future wife. But by the time he’d wrenched his coat free and locked the car door she was already hidden in the crush. Dammit. His eyes scanned the crowds. There – over there – almost at the factory steps already.

  ‘Zelah!’ There were acres of bodies between them, the workers shifting and twitter-chattering like roosting starlings as he shoved his way through.

  Her foot was already on the bottom step. ‘Zelah!’ He saw her turn and her mouth fall open, as if it were a shock to see him there. ‘Zelah, darling.’ He leant over to kiss her but she flinched and pulled away. ‘Zelah?’

  Crowds swirled round them, a rush of black-brown-grey as he stepped towards her again. She couldn’t possibly be shy. It’s not as if their relationship was a secret any longer. They were engaged, and the whole night shift knew it. By this time next week they’d probably be man and wife, for goodness’ sake.

  ‘Darling?’ But again she pulled away from his embrace, frowning and biting her lip. ‘What on earth’s the matter?’

  What had happened? Had someone hurt her?

  She was pushing her hair off her face as he spoke and he should have noticed then, but didn’t – the missing spot on her left hand where the engagement ring should have been.

  ‘I’m sorry, George,’ she said. Some homebound worker nudged into her from behind and she stumbled forwards into him. He grasped her arm to stop her falling, but as soon as she’d found her footing she shook herself free and took something from her coat pocket: a piece of cream paper, folded up small. ‘I can’t marry you, George. I’m so very sorry.’ She thrust the paper at him.

  ‘What the hell are you saying?’ Confusion engulfing like fumes.

  ‘Open it and you’ll understand,’ she said.

  He unfolded the paper. Her engagement ring was wrapped up inside her copy birth certificate, he could see that. But why? The gold circlet with the fire opal lay on top of the curly black writing. His eyes darted over the red lines and the black words, but none of it made sense.

  ‘Look – here.’ Her fingertip pointed into one of the red-lined text boxes. Where she pointed, in box number four, which listed the name and surname of father, there was nothing but a slashed line. And then again, further on, in box six, under rank or profession of father, there was just a line. And that’s where the engagement ring lay, balanced on top of the copy birth certificate on his palm.

  ‘I don’t have a father. There’s bad blood and shame in my family, and you won’t be wanting it in yours. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’

  He opened his mouth to reply, but as he did so he, too, was shunted from behind, one of the night-shift workers rushing to clock on. The ring and paper slipped from his palm and landed down amongst the chaos of tramping feet. He leant over and managed to scrabble-grab the ring, but the birth certificate was trampled underfoot, a muddy clog-print across the crumpled paper. ‘Now listen here,’ he began, straightening up, shaking the grit off the paper.

  But all he could see was the sea of bobbing heads, and the factory doors gaping open and swallowing, like Jonah’s whale.

  ‘Zelah!’

  She’d gone – he’d lost her.

  Laura

  All you have to do is finish the damn thing and go back to Malvern, Laura told herself, nodding her thanks at the portly man who held the factory door open for her. Once inside, the switch from the dreary outdoors to the stark electric lights made her eyes ache. Overlaid above the twitter of voices and the chug-grind of machinery, Gracie Fields’ voice whined with irritating cheer through the loudspeakers: ‘I’m the girl that makes the thing, that drills the hole that holds the ring, that drives the rod that turns the knob, that works the thing-ummy bob . . .’ Dear Lord, she’d have that awful song as an earworm all day now, Laura thought. She waited in the bottleneck of bodies as the factory girls tapped their cards into the clocking-on machine. Looking at them, she realised she’d forgotten to put Harold’s postcard in the post. Never mind, it could wait. She’d found a picture of the lions on the Town Hall steps, scrawled a lot of nothingness on the reverse, lies about how well the painting was coming along, something about how all being well she’d be home by May Day.

  May Day. M’aidez. Wasn’t that the call sinking ships put out when they were in trouble? Am I a sinking ship, Laura wondered, letting herself be carried along with the swell of young bodies towards the shop floor.

  She thought of Zelah Fitzlord’s dark, angular features, and the coincidence of her age and birthplace. She almost lost her footing as she was jostled from behind. Someone said ‘Sorry, ma’am’ and Laura muttered ‘Not at all, no harm done, dear’, without even turning her head to see which of the bustling youngsters it was.

  Am I really adding two and two together and making five? she thought. Why would the girl’s mother have kept a postcard of Sennen Cove if there weren’t some kind of emotional tie to the place? Zelah was twenty-five; she was born in September 1917, which meant she would have been conceived . . . Oh dear Lord, Laura, stop thinking about it, just finish the damned picture and go home to your husband.

  There was so little left to do. The background was fine, and Violet’s face was almost complete, but too bland – it lacked something. And then there was Zelah. She could not seem to get Zelah’s face right at all. And every time she tried, the more closely she looked – it didn’t bear thinking about, and yet she couldn’t help herself. She needed time to compose herself. She paused, shoved and nudged from behind. Just a few moments in the ladies’ loos to give herself a good talking to before getting back to work. Not procrastination, merely a question of steeling herself, she thought, heading right, across the flow of workers, towards the bathroom door.

  ‘Dame Laura, glad I caught you!’ It was Violet, tugging at her sleeve. ‘Can we talk?’

  ‘Yes, of course, dear. It will be quieter in here, if a little insalubrious,’ Laura said, opening the bathroom door and ushering Violet inside.

  ‘I just wondered how long you think it will be until the painting’s ready?’ Violet said.

  Gracie Fields became mercifully quiet as the door clicked shut behind them.

  ‘Hard to say, dear.’

  ‘Only it’s been a while now, and you did say . . .’

  ‘One can’t force these things,’ Laura interrupted, taking in the surroundings: liver-spotted mirror, cold white porcelain, dank smell – not quite the same as the ‘throne room’ upstairs. ‘The portrait has to have integrity – it’s hard to explain.’

  ‘You mean you don’t want it to look fake?’

  ‘I suppose so. A Laura Knight painting is a Laura Knight painting. It has to be done properly. I don’t want to turn into a pale imitation of myself, just bashing things out, knowing they’ll sell because I put my signature on the bottom. And this one’s not right, not yet. It lacks – it lacks honesty.’

  ‘It looks pretty good to me.’

  ‘That’s just it, dear. Pretty good isn’t good enough, nowhere near. When people look at a portrait they need to feel as if they really know the subject: her secrets, dreams and history.’

  ‘
Is that all? ’Cos I’ll tell you everything about me if it’ll make you hurry up – if it makes the painting finish quicker.’

  ‘Does it bore you terribly, sitting for me, Violet?’ Laura put her hands on her hips. The girl’s face was a sullen mask and Laura was suddenly irritated with the little chit. Violet Smith didn’t care about truth or beauty. All she cared about was cash. The impertinence of it. Did she not realise that her face would in all likelihood grace the walls of the National Gallery? Most girls would give their eye teeth to have their portrait painted by Dame Laura Knight, no matter how long it took. Laura opened her mouth to say the same when there was a shuffle of feet, and the sound of a flushing toilet. Laura hadn’t realised there was someone else in there with them.

  An elderly woman appeared from a cubicle and stood in front of the sink. She still had her curlers in. Without bothering to wash her hands, she took a large mustard-coloured scarf from her overall pocket and began to wrap it round her hair, making faint snuffle-grunts as she reached to fasten it at the front.

  ‘D’you need help, sweetheart?’ Violet said. The woman replied that she wouldn’t mind, only she’d bashed her shoulder on the reamer yesterday and it was giving her merry hell but she couldn’t afford to take a day off on account of her granddaughter needing new shoes for school. ‘There you go,’ Vi said, deft fingers folding the fabric and pinning it to cover the curlers. The woman said thank you and waddled out, a slice of white noise as the door opened and closed as she went through. That woman is probably older than I am, Laura thought, and coming to work even though she’s hurt and in pain, because she needs the money. Laura thought of Harold, the doctor’s bill, the hotel bill, and the repairs on their London home. It all needed paying for – it all came down to money in the end. Hard cash trumped truth and beauty every time.