Bless ’Em All Page 16

  Despite his discomfort, Maurice’s brain registered that this was an extraordinary sight. It put his loss into some perspective. He had lost his business, but these people had lost their homes and everything they possessed.

  But where were they going? The woman in the front had settled into a profound sulk. The short gritty man at the wheel was clearly being driven by some inner force. He was clearly unbalanced, suffering from some delusion. He seemed to have control over the woman. The drive was taking them into the East End of London, to the Docks, where the worst of the bombing had taken place. In Mile End Road most of the shops were closed, although a street-market of a sort seemed to be doing a sluggish trade. There were groups of Jews, with long beards and tall hats, carrying cloth bags. They seemed more resigned than frightened, as though they always knew that their life in London was too good to be true, that they always knew the roof would fall in some day.

  Then they ran out of people. There were just piles of bricks everywhere, warehouses gutted by fire, the road strewn with broken glass glistening in puddles, the sound of running water and the smell of gas.

  Close to the river the van stopped and the stocky little man got out and opened the back door, indicating that Maurice should get out, too. Maurice got out. There was a foul smell from the river. He looked around at the scene of destruction. He had never realized it was as bad as this. This was like no man’s land between opposing trenches. Just mud and bricks, a few hardy weeds and seagulls diligently scavenging.

  The driver faced him, glaring at him. The angry man assumed a boxer’s stance, managing to look heroic and ridiculous at the same time.

  ‘Come on,’ he snarled. ‘If you want a fight …’

  ‘Fight?’ Maurice said bewildered. ‘I don’t know you. Why should we fight?’

  The man looked impatient to be getting on with it. ‘But you know my wife.’

  ‘Hardly. I met her once. I went to find Betty. They were there together the one time I went.’ The man hesitated. A flicker of uncertainty showed in his eyes. The woman had got out of the van and was looking at the man with contempt. There was a clatter as a rusty sheet of corrugated iron was lifted by a breeze, flew briefly and then crashed to the ground.

  ‘Someone has been knocking her about,’ the man said doggedly.

  Maurice felt emboldened by the man’s hesitation. ‘I went there with my brother. I met Betty. She was there with your wife.’

  ‘Betty?’ the man said. ‘Betty May?’ It then dawned on Tim that it was he who had suggested that Betty went with Bunty, and that snotty young Stephen had cut up rough about it and Betty had never been out with Bunty since. He dropped his hands and looked vacant. He had made a stand, but it was the wrong time and the wrong place and the wrong man. It had all gone wrong. He looked defeated and lost. Bunty came over and put her arms around him. He let out a heart-wrenching sigh and began to sob.

  Maurice felt relieved but angry. It was obviously a case of mistaken identity, but he had a pretty good idea of the real culprit. Bernard went with the brassy woman, and he knew that Bernard had a vicious streak. It occurred to him that he could put the madman on the track of Bernard, but there was no telling what might happen. This little bull of a man could find himself up for murder. No, he was lucky to get away without serious damage.

  ‘I just wanted to ask your wife –’

  ‘She can’t hear you. She can’t hear, can’t speak.’ It was torn out of him like a confession.

  Maurice tried another tack. ‘Why did you bring me down here?’

  The man mumbled. ‘Nobody down here any more. They’ve all gone.’

  Maurice started to tremble. This demented, half-crazy little runt had brought him to a place where he knew he wouldn’t be seen. Had it been his intention to murder Maurice and leave him here to be found, another victim of the bombing?

  Suddenly the man regained control of himself. He shook off his wife and went back to the van. He got in, and the brassy wife got in beside him. Maurice went forward, but the man started the engine and drove off. Maurice watched the van as it crackled over the uneven surface. He was still trembling but relieved.

  Rosa Tcherny opened the door. Charlie was standing there, looking foolish in his Army uniform. He smiled uncertainly. He looked unkempt, unshaven, as though he had left somewhere in a hurry.

  ‘Can I come in?’ he said.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Rosa asked. He had only been away a few days. Had they found him too inept for service? Discovered some fatal medical flaw?

  He came in nervously. ‘I couldn’t go home,’ he said. ‘They’ll go there first. I was wondering’, he said hesitantly, ‘if there were any clothes?’

  ‘Clothes?’ she said. ‘What sort of clothes?’

  ‘Oh, any old clothes,’ he said. ‘Doesn’t matter much.’

  ‘But what for?’ she said.

  ‘I can’t go anywhere like this.’ He pulled at his tunic top.

  Rosa was getting impatient. ‘But what have you come for? Why are you here?’

  He shuffled his feet and looked down at them. ‘I couldn’t stand it,’ he said, in a low voice. ‘You’ve no idea. Shouting. All the time. Ordering you about. Horrible people. All mad.’ Tears started in his eyes and ran down his face, making white streaks.

  ‘For God’s sake,’ said Rosa. ‘I’ve just lost my job.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ll go. If you’ve just got some clothes. Anything of your father’s that he don’t wear any more.’

  She looked at him and sensed his distress. He wasn’t very bright, and he’d been thrown into something he didn’t understand.

  ‘But what are you going to do? You can’t go running around in old clothes, can you? Where are you going to go?’ Charlie sat down on a chair in the hall. He looked hopeless and helpless. ‘You’ll have to go back,’ Rosa said.

  ‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘You don’t know what it’s like.’

  ‘But you’re a deserter.’

  ‘I can’t help it.’ He wrung his hands in desperation. ‘I don’t fit in with it.’

  ‘The place where I work has been burnt down,’ she said.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘What a mess. What a mess. Why don’t they leave people alone?’

  Rosa made a sudden decision. ‘Stay there. I’ll see what I can find.’

  The telephone rang. She ran to silence it, feeling, irrationally, that someone was listening in to the fraught scene.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Is that Miss, er, Tcherny?’

  ‘Who is it?’ she answered cautiously.

  ‘It’s Mr Green. Bernard Green.’ Maurice’s brother. The dark horse.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I suppose you know that we’re out of business,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I went there today. I’m really sorry. It was a good firm, and I liked working there.’

  ‘I know. Can’t be helped. Bloody Germans. Look, I’m thinking of starting up on my own. I was wondering if you’d be interested in working for me?’

  Charlie had stood up. He was clearly apprehensive about this call. She nodded to him and smiled and shook her head. He sat down again.

  ‘Can we meet?’ Bernard was saying. ‘I’ll give you an address. It’s in Ealing. You know Ealing Broadway?’

  ‘I’ve heard of it. It’s a long way.’

  ‘I know. I’ll pay your fares. Can we at least talk about it?’

  ‘I’m rather busy just now.’

  ‘I’ll give you my number. Ring me back when you can.’

  She wrote the number down. ‘All right. I’ll ring you back.’

  Rosa went upstairs. Her father had a wardrobe of clothes, some that he never wore. She took an armful downstairs.

  ‘Thank you,’ Charlie said earnestly. ‘I’ll never forget this.’ He tore off his tunic. He had on a rough woollen vest, cream with blue streaks in it, like Gorgonzola cheese. He put on one of her father’s shirts. The sleeves were too long. He rolled the
m up. The trousers were all right, but the jacket was too long as well and he was forced to turn up the sleeves inside. Shoes were a problem. They were all too big. When he was finally assembled Rosa thought he looked like a Guy Fawkes.

  ‘Have you got any money?’

  ‘A bit,’ he said. ‘Not much.’ She gave him a ten-shilling note. ‘I’ll pay you back,’ he said.

  Rosa did not have any special feelings about Charlie, just an ordinary human regard for someone in distress.

  ‘Where are you going now?’

  ‘I’m going home. When it’s dark. Get my own clothes.’

  And then what? Rosa thought. Hide out until the war ends? Would his parents look after him, give him scraps from their rations, or persuade him to give himself up? Anyway, it wasn’t her business. She had to find another job. He hadn’t any claim on her, despite their frantic union of a few nights ago.

  Bert Penrose felt for his cock with a sense of relief. That was all right, then. It had tweaked now and again as he watched the nurses bending over, making the bed of the chap opposite. Blimey. He’d lost a leg. He thought it might have been something serious. It wasn’t too bad in this place. No stinking dish-washing. When he got stronger he would be mistaken for a wounded soldier. Get bought pints in pubs. Might get a sitting-down job. And in the meantime he was in this place surrounded by all these young bits of crackling. They had these funny uniforms, white and blue. Some were a bit severe, but some were softer, only pretending to be severe. They bent over him, took his temperature, held his wrist and washed him all over while he lay there, enjoying it. He knew he wasn’t quite right in the head yet. He was quite muddled. He could swear that he was just walking home from somewhere when he was suddenly in the front line and a big tank was coming towards him. There were flashes and some heavy drumming and horses, and Edie shouted, ‘Don’t you dare’, and that Bunty bit upstairs had undone his braces, and he was squealing with delight. It was a big party, and Mrs Bennet came up to complain about the noise, and it was dark and sweaty down here, and what was that knocking, and somebody lost shouting ‘Hello’, and what would he do with only one leg to stand on? He might as well have been in the Army. At least he would have got a medal.

  14

  BETTY May couldn’t help it. She was down in the dumps. The business with Maurice rankled. Surely he ought to have been more straight with her. If he didn’t want to give her a job he should have said so. Stephen had been quite sweet about it. ‘A man like that isn’t worth bothering about. He was just playing you along.’

  But why? What did Maurice get out of it? After all, they only talked. If he had wanted something more he would have said so, wouldn’t he? In any case, he knew she was a married woman and would have been off at the sign of any indelicate suggestion. And yet that sort of thing had never arisen. Stephen thought that Maurice just hadn’t got the nerve, but had their meetings continued he would have got around to it in the end.

  Now there were no meetings to look forward to she was so bored she could scream. The little trysts with Maurice, the harmless half-hours in which she learnt something new every time, had given her life some purpose. She was still puzzled. Above all, Maurice was a gentleman. Leaving her waiting just wasn’t like him. Of course, something could have gone wrong. He could have collapsed in the street. He could have been blown up in one of the bombing raids – although he said he lived out of town. She had rung Green’s several times, but the line was dead. Had the firm gone bankrupt? Was Maurice mixed up in some swindle and had to go into hiding? No. That was too fanciful.

  And then, suddenly, her scarcely used brain lurched into action. She could go there, find the address in the telephone book and just present herself. See what he had to say for himself. In a fit of excitement she rushed down the stairs to get to the nearest telephone box. In the street she saw Edie coming up from the basement. Edie looked awful. Her face was set, but her eyes showed signs of strain.

  ‘Hello,’ Betty said brightly.

  Edie stared at her. It was a somewhat hostile stare, maybe not for Betty but for the world at large. ‘Bert’s had it,’ she said, and before Betty could ask for some elaboration she went on in a dry monotonous fashion, in a voice drained of emotion, ‘The other night, as he was coming home from work.’

  Betty was shocked. She knew that people were getting hurt in the raids, but she didn’t think it would be anyone she knew. ‘Is he all right?’ she said, and then seeing this might be a tactless question, she added wildly, ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Epsom,’ said Edie. ‘They took him to hospital there.’

  Ah. At least he wasn’t dead. ‘Will he be all right?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Edie dully. ‘He hasn’t properly come round yet. One of this legs has gone.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Betty. She didn’t have any feelings about Bert Penrose. He had a way of looking at you that made you feel that you had promised him something and had somehow let him down. You couldn’t put your finger on it, but Bert had the capacity to embarrass her without saying a word. Even so, she didn’t wish him harm, and it was clear that poor Edie was in a state of shock.

  They walked along together. Edie took short, determined steps.

  ‘I’m going out to see him. He needs some clean socks,’ she said helplessly, realizing immediately that this was a useless remark in the circumstances.

  Betty felt inadequate to the situation. What did you say in such circumstances – ‘Wish him good luck. Tell him to get well soon’? When confronted by a real-life tragedy all commonplace phrases sounded trite. Finally, she settled on: ‘Tell him to have a good rest and that Stephen and me are thinking of him.’ She reached the telephone box. ‘I’ve got to make a call,’ she said. Edie grunted and marched on.

  Betty May turned up Green’s in the directory. Old Causeway? Where was that?

  Maybe if she got into the area someone would know. She boarded the Number 88 feeling that at least she was doing something positive. She knew that a bus from Trafalgar Square would take her to Fleet Street. The bus journey was a dreary affair. Nobody spoke any more; the passengers sat in grim rows, all immersed in their own private thoughts. There were no children to break the silence with inane questions or grizzling. There seemed to be few children in London now; most had been packed off to safer places, lost in meadows, seeing new sights, smelling new smells, but miserable just the same.

  One of the Fleet Street shops had a row of tin helmets used as hanging baskets for flowers. That was a brave gesture that almost made Betty smile. Of course, London would come through all this, be bright and gay and exciting again. She remembered the first time she came with Stephen, how vibrant the place was, how enormous it seemed. They had taken a long tram ride, must have been forty-five minutes, and she had asked, ‘Where is the country?’ because in any ordinary northern town there was a time when you ran out of houses and found fields, hills and rivers. But this London was vast. It never seemed to end. That was why it would always survive any attack. Not even the Germans could bomb all of it.

  Eventually, after asking a policeman, she found Old Cause-way. There were three- and four-storey buildings on both sides of the road, all in brown stone, going grey. She stared in at Salmon and Gluckstein, tobacconists, with its moving model of an old sea salt banging out his pipe on his wooden leg; the windows of Carnival Novelties were missing, and all the aids to wild gaiety were covered in a milky dust; the windows of the furrier’s had gone, too, and all the fur was grey but safe behind a steel mesh. There had been some damage here. But where was Green’s? Maurice had said it was near to St Paul’s, and she could still see the dome, looking down as though keeping fire-watch over the whole area. This is my city, it seemed to be saying, damage it and the wrath of God will be upon you.

  Towards the end of the street there were some buildings that had been hit. There were scars in the road like some giant beast had scratched the tarmac with long brutal nails. Demolition men were shovelling rubble into lorries, and she noticed so
me books mixed up with the stones and grime. Betty shivered. A shovel turned over another pile of books. Was that a title that Maurice had mentioned: Rabble Without Arms? And another: What Katy Did, a book she remembered from her schooldays. Poor Maurice.

  She turned to one of the workmen. ‘I’m looking for Green’s.’

  The workman took his cap off and wiped his sweaty face. ‘That’s it, love. What’s left of it.’

  She stood watching as the workmen lifted shovel after shovel of rubble and books on to the back of a lorry. It was all rubbish now. Thousands of books, millions of words, hours of work, of drudgery and inspiration, high thoughts and low thoughts, books wrought through pain and anger, good humour and bad humour, dashed off or painstakingly written with care and love, written for money or from some strong conviction, all mashed up with sand, burnt wood, brick dust and water. Before she had met Maurice she wouldn’t have experienced the full horror of it all. It was Maurice who had taught her the power of books. Maurice. Where was he? He must be heart-broken. But there was no one to ask.

  She hung about for a while. Maurice might be around here somewhere. She stared at people walking by, heads down. Scenes of devastation no longer made people curious; they were now an everyday part of London life. Then she retraced her steps. She knew that what she had seen represented a tragedy of the first order, and she now knew that Maurice had not casually let her down. God knows what he must be feeling. He was so proud of his old books. But it was the end of the Maurice saga. There would be no job, no future in the book trade. The gap in the row of buildings represented a gap in her life.