Bless ’Em All Read online

  PRAISE FOR BLESS ’EM ALL

  ‘A blast of a read. A journalist with four novels, many children’s stories, TV programmes and radio monologues under his belt, Allen Saddler’s experience and talent as a writer is clear in this latest release. His style is intriguing, humorous and easy to read. But what really makes Bless ’Em All a compulsive page-turner is its sense of realism. Having spent the war years in London himself, Saddler seems to invest some personal experiences within his fictionalized tale. A tiny bit Desperate Housewives, a tad Eastenders and a pinch Midsomer Murders, Bless ’Em All is a superior version of a soap opera. This engaging novel will suit anyone who is just a little bit nosey.’ – Big Issue

  ‘This riotous wartime tale of prostitution, romance murder and the old-fashioned business of selling books comes from a Devon author with excellent credentials in journalism and writing for radio and television. In a portrait of a cross-section of London society during the Blitz, Saddler reveals that they were not heroic in the convential sense and that most of them regarded the bombing as an intrusion, a nuisance to be endured.

  With its wealth of quirky characters, this highly entertaining novel exposes the misplaced optimism, naked opportunism and matrimonial misdemeanours in a comic tour de force of considerable verve, perceptiveness and period authority.’ – Western Morning News

  BLESS ’EM ALL

  Bless ’Em All is a Carveresque portrait of a cross-section of London society during the Blitz. Centered around Green’s, a London wholesaler/booksellers, Allen Saddler masterfully introduces us to an eclectic and compelling cast of characters: Maurice Green is a book wholesaler, conscientous and hardworking, with a reputation to uphold. Bernard Green is his brother; sleazy and disreputable, his part of the business takes in the ‘Leicester Square run’ selling under-the-counter copies of D.H. Lawrence and photographic ‘art’ to places in Soho. At an ‘inadvertent’ outing to an illicit speakeasy, the pair meet Bunty and Betty, the former a blonde bombshell who also happens to be deaf and dumb, the latter a young housewife so naive that Maurice ends up giving her a job out of pity. Tim is Bunty’s husband. Short, stumpy and surly, Tim works for the Water Board and appears to have no idea about Bunty’s outings with men in smart cars and tailormade suits. Jimmy answered an advert that read ‘Smart Boy Wanted’ and works at Green’s, collecting and delivering books from the publishing houses on Paternoster Row and Warwick Square, all in the shadow of St Pauls and all doomed … These characters and many more are thrown together into a riotous wartime tale of prostitution, romance, murder and good old-fashioned bookselling.

  ALLEN SADDLER was a writer and journalist. He was the author of four novels, nine children’s books and eight plays. He wrote a sitcom for BBC2 and more than two dozen plays and monologues for BBC Radio Four. He reviewed drama for the Guardian, Independent, The Stage and many theatre publications. He wrote features for the Guardian, Independent, Daily Telegraph, Sunday Times, Observer, Time Out, the Big Issue, the Oldie and a number of others. He lived in Totnes, Devon, until his death in 2012.

  For Doris, with love and thanks

  1

  MRS Melrose’s eyes provided a running commentary on what she was thinking – or maybe what she thought you were thinking. You couldn’t help reacting to this signposted information, especially when the eyes were signalling that your desires had been registered and approved. Mrs Melrose, Bunty, was totally deaf and dumb and presented herself as a dumb blonde straight out of Busby Berkeley, but she was always ahead of you. Mrs Melrose had accepted her role as a glamour stereotype. She always managed to give the impression that she was lying around in a harem waiting to be ravished and was looking forward to the experience.

  As well as the outrageous eyes there was the mouth: bright red and shiny, the mouth made exaggerated movements like a silent film star speeded up, registering anger, joy, ecstasy, fear. But, however much the mouth moved, however carefully each vowel was given its due, each consonant a spitting excess, no sound emerged. It was a graphic performance and conveyed such nuances of feelings that you might have wondered whether words and speech were strictly necessary.

  Bunty was married to Tim. Tim worked for the water board. It was Tim’s job to traverse the district on an official bicycle with a turnkey fixed on the bars to switch off the water when any leaks were reported and back on when the leaks were repaired.

  You could see that Tim had a problem. He was a short, stumpy man, naturally surly, and married to this delicious confection, a creamy French sponge smelling of Turkish delight, a man magnet, a woman who was not only expecting trouble but inviting it. Tim had the job of fighting off the entire male population of London. If he shouted at her she couldn’t hear. Her eyes would turn tragic. Her mouth would frame ‘Sorry?’, although it was clear that she didn’t know why or for what she was apologizing, and Tim, realizing it was hopeless, would allow himself to be folded into her capacious breasts and comforted like a baby.

  ‘That jumper is too tight,’ Tim would mumble and point, and Bunty, thinking he was paying her a compliment, would turn and preen in profile, smiling knowingly.

  Most afternoons, when Tim Melrose was riding around his patch, turning water on or off, Bunty Melrose was getting herself ready for a public appearance. Smart-looking men in handmade suits would arrive in smart cars and sound a horn for Bunty, who, knowing that she wouldn’t hear the signal, would be watching from the second-floor window. Bunty would come down, looking as though she was off for an audition for 42nd Street, and climb into the car, the eyes working with flirtatious zeal, sitting beside the driver with an air of entitlement.

  ‘She’s off again,’ said Mrs Bennet with some resentment mixed with admiration and envy. ‘There’ll be trouble when he finds out.’

  It had always been a mystery how Bunty managed to be so well dressed and fashionable. Turnkey was an official job, and Tim had a tunic and peaked cap to prove it, but it wasn’t in the fur-coat league. Bunty had bottles of perfume that didn’t smell like they were from Boots the Chemist and an endless supply of bright-red lipstick and hair dye. Where did she go on these afternoon jaunts?

  You had to admit that Bunty was a jolly good sort. Generous, outgoing, always fizzing off like champagne. Mrs Bennet, who tended to see the worst in everyone, warmed to Bunty.

  ‘She’s playing a dangerous game,’ she said.

  But was she? Surely Tim knew that his wages didn’t stretch to the sort of black skirts and creamy blouses she wore. His glamorous wife had drawers of silk stockings and lacy underwear; she was at the hairdressers twice a week; she had so many shoes that she was able to share some with Mrs Bennet and other residents of the building, including young Mrs May, not long married, who blushed at the sight of silk stockings.

  South London was full of such houses. Built at the time of Victorian prosperity, and occupied at the time by wealthy City businessmen who travelled to town by the Southern Railway, leaving their wives at home to cope with umpteen children, to bully the maid and send tradesmen around to the back. The houses were built three storeys high, with rough stairs leading down to a basement. They were a scaled-down version of the grand town house. The ground floor contained the living-room, with the kitchen at the back; the second floor the bedrooms and the top tiny attic rooms for the live-in maid. The basement might be let to an odd-job man at a concessionary rate but included the proviso that he do all the odd jobs around the house when required.

  The prosperous citizens had always regarded their stay in one of the houses as temporary. There would always be the chance of a rise to a higher level, a promotion from office to board. Now rundown and in disrepair, these houses had acquired a seedy sheen. None of the houses was occupied by a single family any longer; all were divided up into flats and floo
rs, with disputed landings, sometimes with up to a dozen people living in the various sections.

  Number seventy-seven was in the middle of a terrace. The owner-landlord was never seen, all the rents were collected by an agency. Occasionally, when a tenant got hopelessly behind, a small market barrow would be piled high with all somebody owned and wheeled away, with the owner following, as though owner and effects were on their way to the crematorium.

  Bunty and Tim had the middle flat. It was favoured because the bathroom and toilet were on the same level. The other residents had to endure the inconvenience of banging on the door of the toilet or bathroom when Bunty was inside, knowing that she couldn’t hear. The only way to obtain relief was by poking a piece of paper under the door. Of course there was always the chance of seeing Bunty in her open dressing-gown scuttling away to the bedroom.

  In the basement, below ground level, were the Penroses. Bert Penrose, a wiry music-hall figure with Charlie Chaplin moustache and rakish bowler, did something mysterious in the West End. He carried an air of a daring man about town, and he would burst into a suggestive dance without warning, the climax always involving two fingers poked into the air in a triumphant gesture of lewd glee. Bert was a comic figure with slipping false teeth but thought he was irresistible to women. Bert’s confidence was beyond all logic and reason. His wife, Edie, was plain and resigned. She regarded her husband’s daring pursuit of the blonde Bunty as inevitable. The fact that Bunty was stone deaf released Bert’s tongue:

  ‘Lovely bit of crackling, aren’t you? Yes, I could slip you a length. Any time you like …’ and Bert would lick his lips as though he was savouring a succulent piece of fillet steak. Bunty, without hearing the words but getting the gist of the sly smile that accompanied them, would smile uneasily and look anxiously around for the protection of her husband, who was never there at the time.

  If you could have taken a side view of number seventy-seven, opened out like a dolls’ house, you would have seen four levels of seething activity. There was young Mrs May on the top floor, with the one tiny maid’s room, which was half filled by a bed, and an even smaller kitchen. Mrs May spent most of the day lying on the bed, daydreaming. Mr May – Stephen, never Steve – worked in a local department store. He always looked immaculate in shirts lovingly ironed by Mrs May, drifting on a cloud of romantic love as seen in the latest release in the cinema. Stephen got cast in all the romantic leads, ancient and modern. Mr May was often out late. He said that various departmental managers invited him for drinks, and that he had to go as to refuse would seal his fate in his present position. It might even endanger it. Mrs May wanted him to get on, didn’t she? There had to be sacrifices at this early stage.

  The middle was Bunty and Tim, and the ground floor was Mrs Bennet, a widow, who hardly ever went out. In some mysterious way Mrs Bennet seemed to have control over the building and its occupants. She was the tenant who had been there longest and seemed to have a special relationship with the agency that collected the rents. If any of the tenants needed a repair to a blocked sink or a stuck window, Mrs Bennet would take the matter in hand, and in due course, which was usually a month, a repair would be effected.

  From time to time Bunty’s mother would call. She was stony-faced, but her eyes had a twinkle, especially when relishing the exploits of her daughter, which Bunty explained with expressive hand gestures and facial contortions. Bunty read her mother’s reactions through her expressions. Bunty had never learnt to lip-read. She didn’t need to.

  The inevitable slip-up occurred one afternoon when Tim spun around the corner on his bike and saw Bunty getting out of a smart car and entering the house. Tim parked his bike and went up the stairs carrying his turnkey in his hand. There was shouting and scuffling, and Mrs Bennet, knowing that Bunty could not scream out if she was hurt, went up to see fair play. There was Tim, red-flushed with rage, and Bunty flashing frightened eyes, with the heavy indentation of the turnkey on a cushion beside her.

  Mrs Bennet fumbled in her handbag for a small bottle of smelling salts.

  ‘You’ll have to stop this. This is a respectable house.’

  ‘You don’t know what she’s been doing,’ he shouted.

  ‘Don’t you shout at me,’ said Mrs Bennet, puffing herself up into a formidable figure. ‘I don’t care what she’s done. Poor thing, she doesn’t know what you’re saying.’

  ‘She knows.’

  The fact was that Tim did know what Bunty was up to and hoped that he wouldn’t have to deal with the situation, but, having seen what he saw, felt that he had to register his disapproval. Bunty picked up the telephone and dialled her mother’s number. The mother knew that if the telephone rang and, on answering, she could only hear stifled gulps, Bunty was in trouble.

  By the time parental support had arrived Tim had calmed down.

  ‘What do you expect her to do? Sit here on her own all day? She’s entitled to a bit of life.’

  ‘Where does she go then? Drinking clubs with dirty old men?’

  ‘They appreciate her more than you do.’

  ‘She’s a dirty cow.’

  Bunty’s mother smiled. She couldn’t help it. Bunty’s face, just behind Tim’s indignant features, was registering mock indignation. Bunty wasn’t taking any of this seriously. It was just a game. Tim would have to take her as he found her.

  Mrs May’s troubled young face appeared at the door.

  ‘Is everything all right?’

  Having gone through his ritual explosion Tim was prepared to simmer. ‘Sure. I lost my temper. You’ve no idea how hard it is to get through to her.’

  ‘She likes to get out,’ said Bunty’s mother.

  ‘Of course,’ said young Mrs May.

  ‘How would it be if, er … What’s your name?’

  ‘May. Mrs.’

  ‘How would it be if Mrs – here – went with her?’

  Young Mrs May blushed down as far as anyone could see. ‘Oh. I don’t know about that.’

  ‘It’s nothing. Just dancing, that’s all.’

  ‘I could ask my husband.’

  ‘That’s up to you. No harm in it. Anyway, you wouldn’t be involved. Just company for Bunty.’

  Tim, brooding in a corner, suddenly looked at Mrs May. ‘What your name?’

  ‘Mrs –’

  ‘No. Your name.’

  ‘Betty.’

  ‘Betty and Bunty. Bloody hell.’

  ‘Very nice,’ said Bunty’s mother. ‘Very appropriate.’

  The seed was sown. It burst open in the imagination of the young Mrs May and in the scheming mind of Mrs Melrose, who knew how to make it flower into reality. The next day Bunty and Betty were as close as rabbits. Bunty, with hand beckoning and beseeching eyes, brought Betty into the flat and brought out drawers of fine clothes, the sight of which made Betty May feel as though she had committed a mortal sin. There were brassières and camisoles, silk slips and knickers and silk stockings by the yard. With daring eyes and gestures Bunty indicated that Betty should try some on, and Betty, red-faced with embarrassment, took off her plain sweater and skirt and allowed the creamy silk to ripple against her flesh. Getting bolder, Betty tried on daring garments and felt transformed from Cinderella to film-star glory. These were not young girls playing at dressing up; these were grown women bringing about a transformation, a change that would have a permanent effect on the outlook and personality of the younger woman.

  ‘Dancing clubs,’ said Bunty’s mother. ‘Afternoons. You get taken and brought back.’

  Betty May felt a surge of excitement. ‘But what do you have to do?’

  ‘Just dance.’

  ‘With?’

  ‘With men who want to dance. You partner up.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Well, if they’re pleased with you they might give you a present.’

  Betty was puzzled. ‘Just for dancing with them?’

  ‘Yes. That’s all. It’s up to you what you do after.’

  Bunty’s m
other was getting impatient. Wouldn’t the stupid girl ever catch on? Did she want a map or something?

  ‘Look. Go along with Bunty. See if you like it.’

  ‘But does Bunty like it?’

  ‘She does,’ said Bunty’s mother firmly. ‘She certainly does.’

  That night Betty May thought about telling Stephen of the invitation, but somehow she didn’t get around to it. After all, there was no harm in dancing with a partner in a place that was designated for such a purpose. She didn’t know anything about the place yet. Wouldn’t it be better to try it out before bothering Stephen? She may not like the place and never go again. In which case it would be making a fuss about nothing.

  One afternoon Bunty dyed Betty’s brown mousy hair blonde. Lipstick and makeup were applied, and when the two women, side by side, looked into the mirror, they looked like sisters. The only difference was in the eyes: one pair was slow and knowing, the other bright and excited.

  Stephen was enchanted with his wife’s new hair. It aroused something embedded in his mind. Blondes were fast and willing. This new Betty was a temptation – and, what’s more, she wasn’t a film fantasy. She was available. She was his.

  When Betty and Bunty went out together it was watched with considerable interest by all the other occupants of the house. Bert was home, and he peered over the top of his dug-out with wonder and want. Mrs Bennet’s expression showed that Bunty had already taken the fatal step to perdition and was now encouraging Betty down the same primrose path. Betty was trembling. She didn’t know whether it was with excitement or fear. Dancing with someone didn’t seem a crime. She used to go a lot with Stephen when they first met. She became quite good at it and delighted at the feeling of being swept around on a cloud in waltz time. When she came out of the dance hall she always felt lighter and somehow happier. She knew it was all illusion, but that didn’t matter at the time.

  The granite-faced man who drove the car showed no sign or feeling. It was just a job. Pick up two women and deposit them as instructed.