Blitz Next Door (2 page)

I’ve definitely just heard voices though
.

Pete was half way downstairs, all set to check if there was a house through the wall or not, but he didn’t make it to the front door. That’s because his dad was struggling through it. He had work folders bundled under one arm, a laptop and a packet of nappies under the other and about a dozen bags of shopping drooping from both hands.

“Emergency! Man multitasking,” Dad called to Pete as a shopping bag burst open sending fruit rolling all over the floor. Pete just managed to grab Dad’s laptop before it followed.

“Cheers, pal.” Dad dumped the rest of his load and eased his back. “And welcome to Clydebank. What a big snoring sack of spuds you were last night when I carried you in. Jenny going like a tortured banshee and you didn’t cheep.”

“There’s another banshee next—” Pete started to say, following Dad into the kitchen, rescuing grapes and apples on the way, but Dad silenced him, index finger to his lips. He was nodding towards the furthest corner of the kitchen. Mum was slumped in a deckchair, Jenny in her arms. Both snoring.

Mum looks
… Pete’s tummy tightened.
Not herself, anyway
. Even asleep. He stared at Mum, her mouth slack and down-turned, hand cradling Jenny’s head.
He noticed Dad was staring too, his lips working as if he wanted to say something to Pete and was looking for the words. But then he seemed to change his mind. Ruffled Pete’s hair instead.

“So, what d’you think of El Rancho? Good once we get our own stuff in, eh? Smeaton it up a bit.”

“Bigger than the flat anyway.” Pete shrugged, still looking at the deckchair. “Mum says I can have the big room at the back. Just hope
she
doesn’t cry all the time.”

“She won’t.” Dad was trying to pour cornflakes into a bowl for Pete without making any noise. “Bit of colic, that’s all. Can’t last for ever.” Dad dragged his hands down his cheeks, then dropped his head to his chest. “So I’m told.”

“Not Jenny.” Pete pointed his spoon at the wall. “Some girl. Crying about going away somewhere. Through the wall.”

“What girl?” Dad’s splutter made Jenny twitch in Mum’s arms.

“Hope she does go away. Do my nut in having that through the wall: wah-wah-wah…”

“You’re havering, son. Be the change of air.” Dad ruffled Pete’s hair again. “There’s no one through any wall. Least not any more.”

“Huh?” Pete forgot to whisper.

“Shhh.” Dad jabbed a finger towards Jenny. She was stirring.

“We
used
to be semi-detached, Pete.” Dad’s mobile phone buzzed. He patted his pockets for it. “But now we’re
detached
.” Dad pushed the tip of his nose up to look la-di-da.

“But I heard somebody—”

“Impossible.” Dad was texting. “Show you what I mean later,” he said without looking up, “but that’s Big Boss Milligan on his way. Better get the kettle on. If I can find it.” Dad was rummaging in a box marked ‘kitchen essentials’.

“But Dad, I heard—”

“Maybe Mum had the radio on or something.” Dad laid his hand on Pete’s head and gave his scalp a squeeze:
Leave
it
, the gesture said. “Now have I a treat for you, pal?”

Dad held a white paper bag to Pete’s nose. “Scottish morning rolls. And, see, if I could get this gas going, we’d have them with bacon and square sausage. If we’d bacon. Or sausage.”

Pete usually laughed at Dad’s daft jokes, even when they were crummy. But not this time.

You’re wrong about the radio
, he was thinking.
Stuff like that hasn’t arrived yet
.

Dad wasn’t up for any more chat on the matter. Especially after Pete knocked a mug of coffee over his plans for the shopping centre. It was an accident, but Dad lost the rag.

“Trying to lose me my job before I start, Pete?” he exploded, setting Jenny off. This meant she was crying so hard when the doorbell rang, Pete didn’t even hear it. No one did.

It was only a voice booming, “Anyone home?” through the letterbox that sent Pete dashing out to the hall.

“Jamie Milligan. Steve about? Don’t worry; know my way.”

The visitor swept past without waiting to be invited in, leaving Pete’s hand recovering from a handshake so bone-crushing he had to rub his numbed fingers back to life.

“I’m guessing the troops are in here,” Mr Milligan bellowed over his shoulder to Pete. “Or should I say, happy families?”

By the time Pete had caught up with the new arrival, Mr Milligan was plucking the flowery handkerchief that matched his flowery tie from his breast pocket and waving it under Dad’s nose. Pete didn’t know what was more shocking: Dad topless and on his knees, trying to mop up a brown lake of coffee with
his T-shirt, or Mr Milligan’s hair. He wore it quiffed up on the top of his head.
Like Elvis Presley gone grey as London Papa
, Pete was thinking.
Amazing
.

“So this is what you bally think of my designs, Steve?” Big Boss Milligan’s voice was stern, but when he caught Pete’s eye, he winked.

“Jamie, this isn’t as bad as it looks,” Dad said, although the harder he dabbed at the plans the more new holes appeared in the paper. Pete felt terrible. Poor Dad looked like a naughty schoolboy caught red-handed by the headmaster for something he didn’t even do.

“It was my fault,” Pete said.

“And there’s no harm done.” Mr Milligan stopped Dad by rapping him on the shoulder with the long cardboard tube he was carrying.

“New set of plans altogether here. The bally council playing last-minute silly beggars, moving goalposts. We’ll actually need to get on site. ASAP. After I meet the family, of course. You must be Jo, the Boss,” said Mr Milligan to Mum before greeting her with a stiff salute and a heel-click. Mum looked confused. Ever since he’d swept into the kitchen she’d been trying – and failing – to lever herself out of the deckchair while Jenny squirmed and squalled in her arms. There was a big blob of baby sick on Mum’s shoulder, Pete noticed, as Mr Milligan, immaculate in his pin-striped suit, offered Mum his hand and heaved her to her feet.

“And who’s this wee chookie-charmer then?” When Mr Milligan chucked Jenny under the chin she let up her racket just long enough to glower at him.

“Jenny. Careful. She bites.” Dad was on his feet now.
Back
to his cheery self
.
Phew
. Pete let himself relax.

“And this is the coffee-spiller.” Dad had Pete by the scruff of his neck and gave him a playful shake.

“Pete,” Pete said, sticking to a nod in case Mr Milligan expected another handshake.

“We’ve met.” He winked at Pete again, adding, “Welcome to Clydebank everyone. Happy with the house so far?” Mr Milligan was really asking Mum.

“It’s very—” she began, just as Jenny burped a milky fountain of sick all down herself and Mum’s shirt.

“Well, we know what Miss Chookie thinks anyway,” Mr Milligan chuckled. He opened the kitchen door to let Mum bustle Jenny out of the kitchen, holding her at arm’s length.

“You happy?” Mr Milligan was looking at Pete.

“Listen, Jamie. We’re all happy. A job with a house?” Dad answered before Pete had the chance. “I’ll just make myself decent.” He flung his coffee-soaked T-shirt at Pete as he headed through the open door.

Mr Milligan was still looking at Pete.

“Did you get the room upstairs?” He pointed to the kitchen ceiling. Pete nodded.

“Bally good choice. Make as much noise as you like and they can’t hear you.” Mr Milligan leaned towards Pete and tapped his nose. “You probably won’t hear Princess Chookie creating either.” He gave Pete another of his winks as he turned to leave the kitchen.

“I hear someone else, though,” Pete said.

Mr Milligan didn’t turn round, but he stopped.

“A girl.”

Now Mr Milligan turned. He nodded at Pete and kept nodding, one hand running through his hair,
even when the mobile in his hand rang and rang. His eyes held Pete’s, hardly blinking, though his gaze seemed far away. Only when a pager at Mr Milligan’s waistband peeped did he break eye contact to read the message it had delivered.

And then he was all action again, striding for the door. The booming voice back.

“Need to get your dad to meet me on site. Bally foreman’s out to ruin my day.”

Mr Milligan was just about to close the front door behind him when he hesitated, swung round and tapped Pete’s shoulder with his phone.

“Wait till my mother hears Beth’s back,” he whispered, as though he and Pete shared a secret.

“Look out: tiger!”

Dad clamped his hands on to Pete’s shoulders. Dug his fingers in. Growled. Pete yelped.

They were in the garden, forcing a path through the wildness of it. The grass was well over Pete’s knees, many of the plants climbing even higher, catching his face, wrapping round his hands.

“Great size, eh? And it’ll look heaps better once Jamie sends round his fella with a mower.”

Dad pulled back a trailing rose bush so Pete could pass. “Seems a decent enough guy so far, El Honcho, eh?”

Pete didn’t know what to make of Dad’s new boss yet so he just shrugged. “He’s old. Mad hair.”

He didn’t know why Dad had suggested he and Pete take a walk in the garden either. Pete had been helping Mum build the cot they’d brought from London in the car, singing ‘Incy Wincy Spider’ to keep Jenny gurgling. Then Dad had arrived home from his first site meeting and summoned him. Neither Mum nor Jenny were happy about that. Now Dad and Pete were at the row of shrubs at the bottom of the garden, well clear of Jenny’s vocal chords.

“OK.” Dad had Pete by the shoulders again, though this time his hands swivelled him round to face the
back of the house. “Just to knock this on the head:
there’s
why you didn’t hear any next-door neighbours,” he said.

And Pete could only gasp. Because Dad was right.

Pete was looking at one half of what – once upon a time – must have been two semi-detached houses joined together. But only one side remained.
Ours
. Pete could only work out where the adjoining building had once stood from the ragged brickwork that brought his house to an abrupt end. Now, in the space where two floors of rooms should have been, a thick steel prop shored up Pete’s new home.

“Something else, eh?” said Dad. “And wait till you see this.” He was beckoning Pete towards the no-longer-there house. As Pete approached it, the garden before him started to slope downhill. By the time he reached the bottom of the steel prop, his head was below ground level.

And Pete was standing in a crater. Rubbly. Overgrown. Sprouting bluebells and dandelions.

“What happened?” Pete asked as Dad clambered down beside him.

“Casualty of Herr Hitler, according to Milligan. Direct hit.”

Dad’s voice echoed through the crater and bounced off what would once have been the internal walls of a home. When Pete looked up he could still count the ex-rooms of the ex-house, their boundaries etched into the bare brickwork. There was the front sitting room. Pete could see the outline of where the fireplace and mantelpiece would have sat, the chimney now exposed. The kitchen must have been
there, symmetrical to the one Mum was sitting in right now, feeding a wriggling Jenny. Pete could even trace the ascending pattern of the staircase, one or two of the original wooden treads still jutting from the brickwork. He identified the bathroom from random cracked tiles surviving on a section of wall, and next to it – Pete gulped – scraps of wallpaper had survived too. Rosebuds. Girly.

“Were the people who lived in this house in it when it was…?” Pete’s question ricocheted around the vacant space.

Dad was already out of the crater.

“Knew you’d ask me that.” He held his hand down for Pete to grab. Pete stayed put. “I hope
not
, pal, eh?”

I mean, could they have been…?
Pete didn’t even want to finish what he was thinking. “And is
our
house even safe?” he asked instead.

“Safe as houses, let out by a top-notch architect like Milligan. Did I not tell you?” Dad was on the move again, striding through the grass to the far end of the garden.

“What?” Pete’s voice echoed off the bare brick of the crater.

“Sure I told you. Our house used to be his house. And I doubt he’d have let his old mother live in a dangerous building on her own once he flew the coop. Chop chop…” Dad called over his shoulder. “One more thing to show you.”

Scrambling out of the crater was harder than it looked. When Pete caught up, Dad was already pushing at the door of the ramshackle outhouse Pete had spotted from his window. The corrugated iron
frame gave a long rusty complaint as Dad eased it just wide enough for Pete to follow him inside. The roof, also corrugated, seemed intact, although rust had nibbled into it too. This allowed chinks of sunlight to enter, sparkling the floor and letting Pete see enough to decide that the building was about the size of three of his London papa’s allotment huts stuck end to end. The space seemed empty save for two rows of slatted wooden benches running the length of the walls on either side.

“Know what this is?” Dad gave the roof a rap with his knuckles, sending a shower of rust flakes swirling down on both their heads.

Before Pete could suggest,
My den?
Dad was smacking the wall. “Air-raid shelter. Amazing it’s survived. All the folk from there, both sides –” Dad was pointing back towards their house, “– they’d’ve sheltered in here till the all-clear sounded. Milligan was one of them. Can’t have been much older than Jenny. Speaking of which –” Dad was already halfway through the shelter door, “– Jenny duty calls. Big boy like me can’t hide in your new den for ever.”

Dad was grinning at Pete.

Pete grinned back.

“Not many lads nowadays have a personal Anderson shelter, eh?” Dad said as he left Pete and pushed a path back through the garden. “Told you life would be braw up here.”

Pete caught up with him, pointed at the ruined site.

“Dad, d’you think the people on the other side of us would’ve been in my shelter when their house was bombed?”

“That’s what it was built for.”

“And how come I heard a girl crying?” Pete tugged Dad’s arm.

“Pete.” Dad rubbed his hand over his mouth. He exhaled a long sigh. “I showed you the crater and the ruin. There’s no girl crying. Except our girl.”

Pete could hear Jenny too. The drill-shrill pitch of her rage.

“But, Dad, I heard—”

“Son, if you don’t believe me, ask Milligan. He’s dropping by with the low-down on schools round here for you to start after Easter.” Dad chuckled as he went through the back door. “Be thinking you’re a currant short of a fruit scone, though.”

Great
. Peter groaned. In the excitement of moving he’d forgotten he’d need to start a new school. Him with his London accent. Without Simon and Alfie. His best pals for years.

Pete never even got the chance to say goodbye properly. Dad’s new job and the move all happened so fast. One minute it was the start of a normal school day, the next Pete was in the car, passing the park where he and Simon and Alfie used to play footy, the swimming pool, the old-fashioned café where they drank Shirley Temples, the cinema…

On the motorway up north, Dad had tilted his rear-view mirror to catch Pete’s eye.

“Cheer up, champ,” he said. “Your pals’ll come and stay in the summer. Only a couple of months away.”

But Pete knew that wouldn’t happen. Clydebank was far too far from London.

And
we’d have so much fun in this den, and out here
, he was thinking.
Alone in the garden
.

Just then, out the corner of his eye, Pete caught a movement on the edge of the bomb crater. He had to dodge about on his tiptoes, peering over and though the tall grasses to see better. But there! A glimpse of blue, same colour as the bluebells nodding about his feet. Someone was facing him. Looking towards him. Pete could swear it, though he was sensing it more than seeing anything. And when he thrashed his way a little closer to where the figure he thought he’d seen had stood, there was no one.