Bless ’Em All Read online

  ‘You going out tomorrow, Bet?’

  ‘You know I am. I’m going to Green’s. My first day.’

  ‘Ah yes. I’d forgotten. Well, good luck.’

  The truth was that Stephen was preoccupied with another matter. He had been for his Army medical, and they had found that he had a weak chest. He hadn’t known whether to jump for joy or start praying. The last thing he wanted to do was go into the Army, but, on the other hand, he didn’t want to go into a TB hospital either. He didn’t feel anything yet, but it seemed that it was inevitable that he would start spitting up blood one day and that would be that. His father had died of consumption, and Stephen remembered the skeletal figure racked with coughs. The worst thing about it was that there didn’t seem to be any cure. The Army had rejected him, and he knew that they didn’t do that lightly. He didn’t want to say anything to Betty: time enough for her to worry when the symptoms became obvious. And yet the discovery that he would still be available would open up new vistas in his career. People in the shop were being called up all the time. They put a brave face on it, with leaving parties and kissing all the girls, but you could see that they were scared to death.

  He put his arm around his young wife. He enjoyed being with her. She was a smashing looker, but it was clear that she wouldn’t get far in an intelligence test. There was no doubt about it, Betty was a bit dim. Look at the way that Bunty bitch had led her on – anyone with half an eye could see that Bunty, dressed to kill a whole regiment, didn’t spend her afternoons at a vicarage tea party – and now this man, Maurice, what was going on there? Surely Betty’s potential as an assistant in a firm that dealt with books was nil, and yet this man was paying her fifty bob a week, just for meeting him up to now. It had made a deal of difference to them, but where was it leading? Betty was an innocent abroad. London was full of spivs, crooks, soldiers on the run, prostitutes and their ponces. She didn’t know what went on. She floated on a cloud above the sordid reality of wartime life. She was all right with him – he could have sex with her any time he wanted – but there was something missing. It was as though she was submitting to him because he was her husband, and so he was entitled. There was no feeling that she was joining in. God knows what would have happened to her if he had been called up.

  ‘Do you love me?’ he said.

  ‘Of course,’ said his wife primly, as though her loyalty or honesty was being questioned.

  ‘I may be made a buyer soon,’ he said. She smiled, but he could see that it meant nothing to her.

  ‘What was that Tim chap saying to you?’

  ‘When?’ Her eyes registered surprise.

  ‘When we went down, to the basement.’

  She frowned and looked worried. ‘I didn’t want to tell him, but he kept on so.’

  ‘Tell him what?’

  ‘Where Bunty goes. In the afternoons. You know …’

  ‘You mean he didn’t know?’ Stephen shrugged. It wasn’t his business. He started undoing the buttons on his wife’s dressing-gown.

  ‘Would you like children?’ he said.

  She looked at him with a serious face, like a child, solemnly trying to learn to read or cope with some problem outside its limited experience. ‘Is that what you want?’

  ‘Well,’ he said. ‘It’s best while you’re young.’

  ‘But why? Why have you brought it up today? Just when I’m about to start a new job.’

  He laughed. ‘Betty, my love. This man isn’t going to give you a job. I don’t know what his motive is, but it’s not to offer you regular employment. You’re not qualified.’

  She refastened the buttons that he had undone. ‘You don’t know anything of the sort. Maurice is a gentleman. He wouldn’t lead me on like that.’

  In Stephen’s experience, so-called ‘gentlemen’ were the most likely to be leading girls on. He had barged into the manager’s office one day and found one of the young shop girls lying on the desk looking guilty. And this was a public-school man.

  ‘Well, you just watch it,’ he said. ‘That’s all.’

  Stephen need not have worried. Circumstances were conspiring to protect Betty from her gentlemanly predator at least for the next day – but these same circumstances were also to release forces in Maurice that had been kept comfortably below the surface for at least a couple of decades.

  The next morning Maurice set out at the usual time. There had been some heavy bombing overnight, and Fleet Street and Ludgate Circus were jammed with traffic, while newspaper vans skirted in and out and up on to the pavement in an effort to make their deliveries.

  He turned into the street and saw Miss Tcherny on the corner looking shocked.

  ‘Good morning,’ he said briskly.

  She just looked at him and did not reply.

  ‘Good morning,’ he said again, thinking she may not have heard him. There was a lot of bustle going on. There was a fire engine at the corner of the street and a few ARP wardens stamping about.

  His second greeting brought forth a sort of horrified glance, and she turned away. Perhaps something had happened during the night? Maybe she’d heard some bad news, about a relative or something? He turned the corner. The street seemed full of activity. There was a fire engine half-way down with its ladder extended. A fireman was at the top holding a hose that was spurting water. My God, there must have been some damage in the street. Why? It was a street full of warehouses, clothing firms and a wine importer, some offices, but nothing of any importance to the war effort or threat to an enemy. There were great clumps of masonry in the middle of the road and bricks and stray files flapping about. There was water running swiftly in the gutters and smoke and dust, great clouds of it, swirling about, so thick that he could only see half-way along the street. He picked his way carefully, sometimes stumbling when he found a hole in the pavement that he could not see. He began to tick off the premises. There was Zack’s, the theatrical-costume business, and there was the coffee importers and the curious tiny place that dealt in antique jewellery. There was a fire still burning somewhere. He could feel the heat of it. These incendiary bombs caused as much damage as the high explosives.

  Then he was suddenly filled with a deep feeling of dread. Involuntarily he quickened his step, slipping sometimes on the wet pavement, kicking the occasional brick, until he was running headlong, hardly seeing where he was going. Before he got there he knew what he was going to see. The old Victorian façade of Green’s was no longer there. Where on Friday there had been three storeys of books, painstakingly gathered, all catalogued and preserved against dust and damage, there was now just a big hole. His empire had vanished. He staggered and fell to his knees with the shock of it. He stretched out and found a book, wet and mushy and covered in dust. He wiped the mess off with his hand so that he could see the jacket: The Health, Wealth and Happiness of Mankind. Why had it come to this? A whole civilization, a history, a record of man’s existence and achievements, the process of thought, of logic, of reason, of manners, of life itself, all now a charred bonfire. Could it ever be reassembled? Where? He could hear someone sobbing. Deep sobs, full of anguish and emotion. It was him.

  ‘Come on, sir,’ someone was saying. It was a policeman. ‘I shouldn’t go down there. It isn’t safe. Come back up here, will you?’

  He turned, uncomprehending. ‘This is my place,’ he cried. ‘I work here.’

  ‘Not today I shouldn’t think,’ said the policeman. ‘There’s a van over there. You can get a nice cup of tea.’

  Tea? For God’s sake, who wanted tea?

  The policeman was beginning to get official. ‘I shall have to ask you to clear this site. There’s stuff still coming down from them roofs. Come on, sir. We don’t want another casualty, do we?’

  ‘You don’t understand. This is my business.’

  ‘I know. I know. Must be a shock and all that. But don’t forget you’re still alive. There’s a lot in London who weren’t so lucky last night.’

  He wished it had been him.
What was there to live for now? No business, thousands of books destroyed: his life’s work wiped out in one night of pointless carnage.

  12

  JIMMY arrived on his bike with a smile on his face. He had ridden practically all the way without holding on to the handlebars. It was a sort of dare and a celebration. It had been tricky around the hosepipes, and the tramlines were always a hazard. When he got over Blackfriars Bridge the whole place seemed to be alive with people. People walking, stepping carefully over all the obstructions, staring in surprise and amazement, walking quickly, looking worried. Maybe the Tubes were closed. His dad had said that there had been a bad night with the bombing. His mum and dad, after he got in on Saturday, had stayed downstairs all night, with him sleeping on the sofa with a soppy grin on his face. He couldn’t stop smiling. It was how he felt.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ his mum enquired, more than once. He knew what was the matter. He’d got a girl, a nice one at that, a looker who kissed him as though she meant it. It had transformed his whole existence. He wasn’t just a scruffy book collector, carrying his job on his back; he was someone who lived it up, had a romance going, meant something to somebody else.

  His mother had looked at him suspiciously that night when he came back from the pictures. ‘Had a good time?’ she said, as if she suspected something.

  ‘Not bad,’ he said. Nobody in Jimmy’s family ever said that something was good. They always tempered every opinion by negative downgrading. ‘Not bad’ really meant good. If they weren’t sure they would say ‘not too bad’; ‘not half bad’ meant that whatever it was, it was superb. But he didn’t want to give everything away, so he stuck to ‘not bad’.

  But the fact was that the day out with Helen had been great and he was looking forward to many more. More pictures – not Norma Shearer though – more kisses, walks in the park, days out somewhere; pity that Brighton and all the seaside towns were fenced off. He could always see her at Hodder’s as he went in there most days for bibles and prayer books, stuff from EUP, as well as bits of fiction.

  On the Sunday Jimmy’s dad had been to Club Row, where you could buy dogs in the street. You could also buy cage birds, and Jimmy’s dad, already missing his hobby, had gone there to buy a pair of breeding canaries. He wasn’t intending to start the aviary up again, just to have a pair in a cage in the house. He came back and solemnly displayed the cage in which there were two bewildered-looking birds that had some yellow colouring but were mostly brown. They turned out to be sparrows that had been doused in a yellow dye. Jimmy’s mum said they had put mustard powder in to make it stick. His dad let them out and they flew away, sprinkling yellow dust as they went.

  On Monday, when Jimmy got to the street he found it was cordoned off. There were barriers, so he went around the back of St Paul’s to get in through to Paternoster Row. There were great piles of bricks and dust everywhere and the sullen, smoking remnants of fires. The whole area smelt charred and foul. He got under the barrier, as there was no one there to stop him, and walked down Paternoster Row. Where was Longman’s? Where was Nelson’s? Where was SPCK? Harrap’s? He wheeled his bicycle nearer into Warwick Square. Surely that battered building wasn’t OUP? Warwick Square looked like a pond with bits of stationery floating in it, like paper boats that had come apart. You could paddle in it. Where was Stanley’s and, more importantly, where was Hodder’s? He sighed with relief when he saw that Hodder’s was still standing. It looked badly knocked about, with broken windows and scars on the brickwork, but, substantially, the building itself was still standing. But it was deserted. He peered in one of the windows. The whole placed seemed to be under water. The door of the trade counter was hanging wonkily, as though someone had tried to wrench it off its hinges.

  He looked around him. This place was done for. No business would take place here today or for a long time after. He was bewildered. This was his world. The landmarks with which he had got so familiar. What would happen to all those books? What would happen to all the people that worked in these places? What would happen to Helen? Just as he’s got something good going, along comes bloody Hitler and buggers it all up.

  Then he caught site of the yawning gap that was Green’s. The other buildings had been knocked about – not that there wasn’t plenty of damage, the whole area was shattered – but you could recognize the buildings. But Green’s simply was not there. It was just a big hole, piled with shattered bricks and masonry, broken slates, glass and sodden books and paper. He propped his bike against a wall and stood there, mouth open, trying to take it in. What was he supposed to do? Would he get his money on Friday? Where was old Maurice? He was supposed to be in charge, wasn’t he? Was he still working there? Would they start up somewhere else? But all those books. Hundreds, no, thousands, maybe a million. How could old Maurice get them all together again? Must have taken years to get in all that lot. Some of them must be out of print by now. Where would the letters go? There was no letterbox, no door, no building, no Green’s.

  It was the overwhelming magnitude of what had happened that was a shock. And why did anyone think it was going to help the Germans to win the war? It was like some giant wind had come along and simply blown Green’s away. Where was the rest of it? Three floors of books simply gone. Just a pile of old bricks, chimney stacks and shattered concrete, with red steel girders pointing at the sky, as if they were set to shoot up and do battle with the enemy in the doom-laden clouds. There was nobody about, no firemen, no ARP, no policemen. They must have given up on Green’s and turned their attention elsewhere.

  What was he supposed to do? Hang about and see if old Maurice turned up? And where were Miss Tcherny and Harry the packer? Had they turned up, taken one look and gone back home? How was he to contact anyone? And what about Helen? Was she around somewhere? How would he get in touch with her again? He knew where she lived. That was it. He would have to go to her home. Having sorted that out he felt a bit better.

  He retraced his steps, picking his way through the rubble. He was surprised to find that the ABC was open. People were sitting, drinking tea and eating toast, in a dazed, abstracted way. Nobody was speaking. The shock seemed to have stunned everyone into silence.

  Who was going to clear all this mess up? The roads needed to be cleared. There were some places untouched, still standing, although their next-door neighbours were missing. Should he go to the Labour Exchange and see about another job? Would they give him one if he were still supposed to be working for Green’s? Of course, if Green’s carried on paying him he wouldn’t mind hanging on while they got things straight. Green’s knew where he lived – but wait a minute, all the records, including his address, could have been destroyed. It was a right old pickle and no mistake.

  Suddenly he saw Miss Tcherny. God, she was looking fed up. She saw him but gave no sign of recognition. It seemed that everybody was immersed in his or her own private world. He sat down opposite her.

  ‘What’s going to happen, miss?’

  She just looked at him. He had always liked Miss Tcherny, with her tight jumpers and dark eyes that sometimes seemed to be saying something without her speaking. Now those eyes were dull.

  ‘What’s going to –’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she interrupted crossly. ‘What makes you think I know anything? I saw Mr Maurice and then he disappeared.’

  ‘It’s all gone,’ he said, wonderingly.

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘I’ve seen it.’

  For some reason he couldn’t understand, tears started in his eyes.

  ‘Oh for God’s sake,’ said Miss Tcherny. ‘Don’t start that.’ But even as she said it there was a catch in her voice and she, too, found tears welling up.

  ‘I don’t understand it,’ said Jimmy. ‘Green’s wasn’t doing no harm.’

  Suddenly both of them felt a shiver of fear, a sense of desolation. Churchill’s voice was on the shop radio. Somebody turned it up. So he was all right, then. Probably in an underground bunker two miles under the e
arth. ‘We can take it,’ he was saying. He had no bloody idea.

  They came out of the teashop and stood on the pavement, lost, not knowing what to do, where to go.

  ‘What are you going to do, miss?’ Jimmy asked.

  Miss Tcherny replied, in a small, frightened voice, ‘I think I’ll go home.’

  And then they saw Maurice, across the road. He looked terrible. He had mud on his suit and his face. He looked like a man who had just discovered that his worst nightmare was real.

  They didn’t know whether he had seen them. He was looking at them, and yet he made no sign of recognition. Miss Tcherny went towards him, but he turned his back to her. From across the road Jimmy saw that Miss Tcherny had spoken to him and he had reeled around as though he had just heard a voice from his past. Miss Tcherny took his arm and brought him over the road.

  They went back into the teashop. There were no waitresses. Jimmy went to the counter. Old Maurice was staring around as though he suspected that there was a plot to assassinate him. Jimmy got a pot of tea and brought it over. He didn’t have the heart to ask for the tuppence. Miss Tcherny was holding old Maurice’s hand while he blinked and kept twisting his head around. It must be his nerves, Jimmy thought. Must have been a shock for the poor old bugger. Maurice’s face was white and his eyes were creepy. He looked like some crook at the end of an American gangster film who knows he is going to be found out and sent to the electric chair.

  In fact, Maurice was only one of a tribe of walking zombies who roamed around like ships without rudders, people whose lives had taken a sudden turn, for whom life would never be the same again. This was a day they would look back on. When they were forced to find a new path to success, to survival.

  Jimmy, waiting for Maurice to say something about what was going to happen, realized that Maurice was as lost as he was.

  ‘Come on,’ said Miss Tcherny, ‘I’ll see you to the station.’ And old Maurice got up, like he was sleep-walking, and went out with Miss Tcherny. Jimmy followed, not knowing what else to do.