by Annie Groves
‘Where did Olive find a sack of chicks?’ Sally asked, amazed at the swift, bright yellow movements of such a tiny bird.
‘I found them,’ Barney said, his words low. ‘I got them for helping a woman who …’
‘The truth, Barney.’ Sally brooked no argument as she was not in the mood for his stories.
‘I was asked to keep them safe for someone,’ Barney said, looking very contrite as he placed the chick in the sack and shuffled from one foot to the other, his face under the grime of the day growing quite red and not due to the fire in the grate.
‘Who asked you to look after them – and why?’ Sally was feeling quite suspicious as Barney had been a good boy lately, especially since that time he had protected Nancy Black’s grandson, when everyone at number 13 considered him a little hero. But now it looked like he was up to his old tricks again.
‘You know what Sergeant Dawson said last time, don’t you, Barney?’ Sally said in a stern voice. She liked the boy and thought he’d had a rough time of it, but what kid hadn’t in these uncertain times? He also had to understand that there was a certain standard of behaviour that was expected of him and he must stick to it. He couldn’t carry on behaving like a delinquent and get away with it.
Just then, much to Sally’s wide-eyed surprise, Barney burst into tears. That’s when Sally realised thatBarney probably didn’t understand what he was getting himself into.
‘I told them I didn’t want nuffink to do with their dodges, but they said I’d be in fer it if I didn’t do as they said,’ Barney managed after a few moments, when he was able to pull himself together enough to speak coherently again.
‘Who said this, Barney?’ Sally was suddenly fearful of the mess the child had become involved with. ‘Tell me the truth, Barney, and we can sort it out.’ She gently eased the information from him bit by bit. He admitted he had been waylaid on his way home from school by the dockside boys he had been friendly with before the war, the ones who gave him the shiner near Chancery Lane.
‘They said that if I didn’t look after their booty, I was going to get another good hiding.’
‘Oh, did they now?’ Sally said, determined to get every last drop of information from him. And just as the last piece of the jigsaw was completed Olive returned home with Agnes following behind her. It wasn’t long before the front room was a hive of chatter.
During the animated exchange there was a knock on the front door and Olive, who was still wearing the WVS coat she’d put on to go to Mr Whittaker’s, was undoing her buttons with one hand and turning out the hall light before answering the front door with the other. She was surprised to see Archie, tapping the rim of his fire-watcher’s tin hat, and looking very worried indeed.
‘Come in, come in, he’s here,’ Olive smiled, ever glad to see his reassuring presence, but her words didn’t seem to make him any more relaxed and then to her horror she discovered why.
‘Olive, I know you’ve been popping in to see my wife and run errands for her when she is unwell, but is Mrs Dawson here now?’
Fixing the blackout curtain into place, she switched on the light, and noticed Archie looked like he’d just seen a bad accident as she ushered him into the hallway.
‘No, I haven’t seen her at all today, but Barney’s here.’ Olive’s brow creased in bewilderment as Archie moved forward, passing her in haste as he headed to the front room where everyone was gathered.
‘I tried to get in earlier after school,’ Barney explained, as he edged closer to the fire after coming in from the Anderson shelter at the bottom of the garden, ‘but the door was locked and I couldn’t get any answer.’ Olive noticed that he didn’t mention the chicks.
‘This is not right!’ Archie said, passing Olive at speed. Quickly she followed him as he flung open the front door and tore up the street towards number 1. No wonder Barney had gone to his old haunts if he couldn’t get into his own home, Olive thought, and her heart skipped a beat when she realised that he could still be walking the cold dark streets now if she hadn’t met up with him earlier that evening.
In moments Archie had disappeared into the dense blanket of fog. Olive knew there had been talk of Mrs Dawson going to live in the countryside for the duration of the war. Or rather, Nancy Black had told her that, as her nerves were very fragile, Mrs Dawson and Barney would be better off out of the bomb-damaged capital. But Archie wouldn’t hear of it according to Nancy; instead he’d said he wasn’t eager to fill the mouths of some of Article Row’s residents. Archie’s disparaging remark was most surely aimed at Nancy, Olive knew, as her next-door neighbour had only recently been heard to say how relaxed Archie had seemed when his wife was in hospital and not at all worried at her slow progress.
‘I tried to get inside the house but my key won’t work.’ Archie’s usual calm features were pale. ‘I think she’s locked herself in because of all the bombings and the disruption, either that or the front-door frame may be in need of attention, but it seemed fine this morning.’ He sounded really worried now. ‘I thought she may have wandered down to your house for a little assistance … She wouldn’t have left the lad to roam the streets … She dotes on him …’
It only took two hefty kicks of Archie’s boot to separate the front door from its frame. It hit the wall with such a thud that the occasional table which had been wedged behind it splintered under the force.
Archie swiftly disappeared to the back of the house and into the kitchen where Mrs Dawson would usually be making his supper at this time of night, whilst Olive stood at the front door not wanting to intrude. She hadn’t seen Mrs Dawson for a little while; she had popped in a few times, but now she realised she should have done more. She should have invited Mrs Dawson into her own house for a cup of tea and a chat, made friends with her and kept her spirits up. After all, it couldn’t be easy losing your own child; maybe she would have liked to talk to another mother?
A small shiver of dread ran down Olive’s back and guilty thoughts filled her head. If she hadn’t been so busy with other things she knew she could have made more of an effort to help out poor Mrs Dawson. However, her self-admonishment was cut short when Archie came rushing back down the long hallway from the kitchen.
‘Go for help!’ he called as he lifted his forearm to his face and headed towards the kitchen. As he did so Olive caught a whiff of the overpowering gas smell and, taking her handkerchief from her sleeve, she covered her nose and mouth.
‘Oh my word!’ she exclaimed, knocked almost sideways by the pungent odour. Fearing that Archie, too, would be overcome by the noxious vapours she hurried into the front room and quickly threw open the windows. Then frantically she hurried back into the hallway and informed Archie that his wife wasn’t in there either.
‘There must be a leak?’ she said as Archie began to open all the other windows and doors to let the damp air come in to blow away the poisonous miasma. A few moments later she heard an anguished cry and a scramble of footsteps, ‘Olive, quickly, go and get Sally!’
Olive’s heart was beating so fast she could feel it in her throat as she made her way down the street and back to her own house, all the while praying – even though she didn’t know what she was praying for.
‘It was too late for Mrs Dawson by the time I got to her,’ Sally said later as they huddled around Olive’s hearth, and although there was a cheery fire in the grate everybody felt suddenly cold. ‘The noxious gas fumes had already done their work. I reckon she’d been dead for some hours judging by the degree of rigor mortis.’
The chicks were forgotten for the time being. As was the letter addressed to Agnes. It had been sitting on the hall table all day, with the sender’s address on the back of the envelope, Carlton, Mending and Carlton, Solicitors, visible for all to see.
Olive couldn’t rid herself of the gnawing guilt that prompted her to question if there was more she could have or should have done for Mrs Dawson.
‘But, Olive, there was nothing else you could have done,’ Sally sai
d as she gave baby Alice her breakfast before dropping the little girl off at the child-minder and going on to work at the hospital. ‘How were you to know number 1 had a gas leak?’
That was the story Archie had begged her to offer if she was asked how Mrs Dawson died. Everybody was in bed by the time he got back from the hospital and, as Olive had arranged for a new lock to replace the one that had been broken when he’d had to kick in the front door, he could not use his old key. She’d left a note and he called round, looking shattered, in the early hours of the morning.
‘I am so sorry to disturb you, Olive,’ Archie had said when she ushered him into the now-freezing kitchen. Lighting the gas on top of the stove to get a modicum of heat in the place, she pulled her woollen dressing gown securely under her chin.
‘Don’t give it another thought,’ Olive had said, handing him a hot cup of sweetened tea as Archie sat at the kitchen table and told her everything. He confessed to Olive how his wife had saved the sleeping tablets she had been given in hospital and fooled everybody into thinking she was well again, then, to make sure she did a thorough job and there would be no chance of revival she’d turned on the gas tap and put her head in the oven, never to wake again. Tears were rolling down both their faces when Archie finished speaking, and for a long time they said nothing.
Eventually, his tea stone-cold, Archie scraped back his chair and got up from the table saying in a low, almost angry voice, ‘How could she do it, Olive? How could she put the boy through this again? Not a thought for anybody else …’
‘Oh, Archie.’ Olive’s voice was a mixture of pain and pity. ‘The poor woman must have been desperate. The war has taken its toll on everybody.’ Nobody was immune to the misery, the shortages, the rationing or the fractured families.
‘Nothing will be the same after this,’ Archie said, seemingly a broken man as he walked down the hallway towards the front door.
‘What will you do now?’ Olive asked. ‘You need to get some sleep.’ Her heart went out to him for the utter misery he was suffering now. If there was anything she could do …
‘I have to sort things out, there is a lot to see to and questions will need to be answered.’
‘Don’t worry about the boy. I’ll look after Barney for as long as you need me to.’ Olive’s voice was hushed, so as not to wake anybody as she followed him down the hallway.
‘I’d be grateful if you let people know,’ Archie said, looking in the direction of Nancy’s house, ‘that Mrs Dawson’s death was an accident. A tragic accident.’
‘Of course, and whilst you are busy making the necessary arrangements I will make sure you are not inconvenienced. If there is anything you need just let me know.’
‘I don’t know what I’d do without you, Olive,’ Archie said as he opened the door.
‘Don’t give it another thought,’ Olive said, patting his hand and feeling so utterly wretched for him. ‘If we can’t pull together at a time like this what can we do?’
‘I’ll be at the station …’ Archie said before replacing his helmet and, head bent against the cold wind, he disappeared up the street.
Only a Mother Knows
EIGHTEEN
A lot had happened over the last few months, Agnes thought. Tilly had joined up and Dulcie had moved into a swanky flat above David’s chambers, and the house was usually a quieter place for that, she thought as her hand shot out and silenced the ringing alarm so as not to wake anybody else up at such an early hour.
There was no more frantic rushing around to get ready for dances, nor demands for hot water to bathe in on Saturday nights. Agnes smiled at the thought as she clambered out of bed and, shivering in the December chill, reached under her pillow for her woollen dressing gown, recalling the time when Olive, Sally and herself had been invited to go and see Dulcie’s new home after they all attended Mrs Dawson’s funeral.
They had been speechless when Dulcie gave them a guided tour of the flat, and their jaws dropped at the expensive high-class furniture that graced the spacious rooms. No utility here, as the ‘standard emergency furniture’ was commonly known, thought Agnes. Not for Dulcie the plain, simple plywood tables, chairs and cabinets that had been brought in as the furniture situation had been made worse when the government had cut the already small timber quota.
Dulcie obviously didn’t have to worry about the Board of Trade’s decision that a young bride should choose from the new utility range of household goods they decreed were needed to fully furnish the new home. No, thought Agnes with a sigh, Dulcie’s home was plush and expensively furnished and a long way from anything she and Ted would ever be able to afford, and although she wasn’t jealous of Dulcie’s triumph, it would be nice to think that she and Ted might have a nice home one day, even if it wasn’t up to her friend’s standard.
Agnes had to admit that Dulcie had been kindliness itself, the perfect hostess. Wincing as she slipped her foot into a freezing slipper she dreamed of the day when she and Ted could entertain visitors in their own home, which would be years away she knew, given that Ted’s two sisters were not old enough to go out and support themselves and his mum, like Ted did. But for now she would continue to dream. A family of her own was a long way off so there was no use torturing herself over it; anyway, she had Alice to spoil and care for.
She was glad that Sally had settled down with Alice, and she was happy that the two girls were a proper little family now, especially since George had joined the Royal Navy and Sally was so busy with work at the hospital and looking after Alice she didn’t have much time to worry about him, or at least she gave that impression. Furthermore, Agnes thought, wasn’t it lovely that Sally and Callum were now friends again.
Agnes pondered on how much her life had changed over the last few years as she straightened the sheets and blankets, a habit she had gained from her time in the orphanage and had never forgotten. Olive always told her to leave the bed-making as she would do it along with the rest of them, but Agnes didn’t like to put her out, her landlady had enough to do.
However, she felt that Sally hurried home from work with a new purpose in her life these days. She’d even and admitted to her and Olive that she was ever so glad she hadn’t put Alice in an orphanage as she’d originally wanted to. Agnes clearly recalled the time when Alice was first brought here last year by Callum, just before her first birthday. Smiling, she realised that she had fallen in love with the child the moment she saw her and, being an orphan herself, she knew exactly how lost and afraid Alice felt.
Creeping along the landing now, Agnes heard a small mewling sound when she neared Olive’s bedroom door and, gently pushing it open a fraction, she saw that Alice had kicked her blankets off and was huddled in the corner of the borrowed cot.
Agnes’s heart immediately went out to the small girl as memories of the little ones who had been in her care at the orphanage sprang to mind. Tiptoeing to the cot she tucked the woollen blankets around the little body, and watched as Alice relaxed into its warmth.
Letting her thoughts wander as she descended the stairs as quietly as she could, Agnes recalled Callum promising to come back and see baby Alice soon. However that had been nearly a year ago; his ship was somewhere in the Atlantic now and she realised he wouldn’t see her any time soon. When he finally did get back on dry land she was sure he would be thrilled at the progress the child had made since she had lived in this house with all her new aunts.
Busying herself, Agnes put the kettle onto the gas stove before going into the sitting room to light the fire ready for the others getting up. The place would not only be a bit warmer, it would mean one less thing for Olive to do, as she would be busy enough with Alice and young Barney to look after.
Agnes knew Olive was thrilled when Tilly wrote and told her the news that she might be moving back to London, but the information had to be kept under everybody’s hat. The only cloud was that she would not be moving back home, she would be staying near the sweetshop – the name Tilly had given White
hall. Meanwhile she had learned to drive a lorry as well as fix one.
After toasting a slice of bread and covering it with a scrape of margarine and downing a hot cup of weak, sugarless tea Agnes was ready for work. It was still dark outside and she noted that once she would have felt apprehensive about going outdoors at such a time, but not any more; she had got over her feelings of fear when she found Nancy’s grandson that Sunday in the subterranean tunnel and realised that she was an adult now. And adults should be afraid of nothing.
As she headed for the front door she heard a voice from the top of the stairs.
‘Agnes,’ Olive whispered so as not to wake baby Alice, ‘in all the mayhem I forgot to tell you, there’s a letter for you – it’s been there a couple of days, sorry.’
‘Righto,’ Agnes whispered back, picking up the envelope lying on the three-legged table in the hallway. Turning it over, she read: Carlton, Mending and Carlton, Solicitors. A tingle zinged up the middle of her ribcage as Agnes let the name sink in. What a solicitor would want with her she didn’t know. Suddenly afraid, she slipped the letter in her pocket; she would open it later.
Carlton, Mending and Carlton. Agnes silently mouthed the name of the solicitors who had contacted her to ask if she would attend their office in the strictest confidence. The letter went on to say that they had information which would be to her advantage and so would also like to see some form of identification. Agnes knew she only had her identity card and hoped that it would be enough. But why must she keep it a secret and tell nobody?
Watching the wooden escalator bringing people up from the lower line, Agnes’s eyes eagerly awaited sight of Ted, who’d said he would meet her here after work, but there was still no sign of him moments after everybody else had gone their own way. She distinctly remembered him asking her to meet him ‘up top’, as he called Chancery Lane, when they were on the same shift, and she was always there first as she was so eager to see him.
