Gunner Girls and Fighter Boys (11 page)

‘Hello, Mrs Harris, how are you?’ May asked. Looking up, the woman dropped the scrubbing brush into the tin bucket, sitting back on her haunches. May could tell that she’d been crying.

‘Not too bad, love. We’ve got the funeral next week – did Em tell you?’

May nodded. ‘Mum’s offered to help with the wake. She’s saving our sugar and butter rations to make fairy cakes.’

‘Thank her for me, love. People have been so kind.’ Emmy’s mother wiped wet hands on her apron.

‘Your nan’s lent us the money for the funeral, you know.’

May didn’t know how her grandmother had become the local moneylender, but as bank accounts were a rarity for the residents of Dix’s Place, anyone in need of a loan for a wedding or funeral, new furniture or a new suit would go to ‘Granny Byron’s’ for help. Everyone called her Granny Byron, not just May.

‘I’m on me way to see her now.’

Emmy added, ‘She’s getting her fortune told. Wants to know if she should join the ATS.’

‘Well, I can tell you that for nothink –
neither
of you are old enough. You’ve had no experience of life!’

May looked at Emmy, who raised her eyes. ‘We’re not kids, Mum!’

‘Well, it’s not safe. They can send you overseas, you know, and I don’t want to lose any more of me family.’

May knew that Emmy was involved in a similar struggle to her own, and she seemed to be having just as little success.

May left them still arguing on the doorstep, and walked to her grandmother’s ground-floor flat at the end of the block. It had never been her favourite place. Usually she had to pick her way round a line of women sitting on chairs in the passage, waiting to have their fortunes told. Granny Byron was of Romany descent, and as well as being the local moneylender, she would make an extra few bob telling people’s fortunes, reading their palms or the tea leaves. May had always hated running the gauntlet of these strangers whenever she visited her grandmother, and found herself hoping she’d find her alone today. Granny Byron answered her knock with a look of surprise.

‘May! I wasn’t expecting you! Thought you was a customer. Come in, darlin’.’

Her grandmother was a striking woman. May wasn’t sure of her age, but she always seemed ancient, a relic from the previous century. Her grey-flecked, raven hair was pulled back into a tight bun, with old-fashioned ringlets at the temples, and from her ears dangled golden-hooped earrings. May had heard she was a handsome woman when young, but now her leathery face had been tanned by years of standing out in all weathers at her stall in the Old Clo’ market. The tanning effect had been augmented by her constant use of tobacco and snuff, so that now her cheeks creased like a walnut whenever she smiled. But her eyes, her most striking feature, black as deep pools, seemed to see everything. The story was that she’d been born in a horse-drawn caravan. Sometimes May wondered how they could be of the same blood. May was as fair as her grandmother was dark, and whereas May was firmly attached to her home – with her roots deep as the trees that lined Bermondsey’s streets – Granny Byron had moved house countless times, seemingly unable to settle. May’s mother was of the opinion that May must surely take after her father’s side of the family, generations of whom had lived in the same riverside area of Bermondsey.

‘Are you expecting someone, Nan?’ May asked, kissing her grandmother and bending down to pet her grandmother’s little dog, Troubles, who stood on two legs until May took his paws.

‘Hello, Troubles! And what kind have you been in lately?’ she asked, as the little dog yapped a strong denial.

She followed her grandmother into the small kitchen, dominated by a gleaming black-leaded range.

‘I was expecting Mrs Green, from over the way, wants to know if her Tom’s all right – she ain’t heard nothing in months. But I’ve always got time for you, love. Cup o’ rosie?’

May nodded. ‘Nan, I wanted to talk to you about something.’

‘Your mother told me.’

‘I haven’t said what it is yet!’

‘No need. It’s ever since Jack. I know what’s going on. You’re scared witless of going in the bleedin’ army. But someone threatens you and your’n, and the worm turns. That’s the only thing’d get
you
out of Bermondsey.’ Her grandmother turned her dark, fathomless eyes on her. ‘I know you better ’an you know yourself.’

May felt uncomfortable and looked away quickly. ‘And how would you know all that? Don’t tell me… you’ve
seen
it in the leaves!’

‘Do you want my advice or not, you cheeky cow?’

‘Sorry, Nan. You’re right. I’m frightened to go and I’m frightened to stay.’ She slumped back in her chair. ‘Oh, I’ll never cope away from home. I’m all up the wall.’

‘Well, love, I don’t want to contradict your mother, but it’s my opinion you’ll never be able to live with yourself if you don’t go, whatever your reasons might be.’

‘Really?’ May hadn’t seen this coming. ‘Well, can you see if I’ll be all right if I
do
go?’

Granny Byron nodded. ‘Let’s get the kittle on.’ She went to boil water on the range; when the tea was brewed, so strong it was black, and they’d drunk it down, she took May’s cup, swirling the dregs around.

‘Ahh,’ she said, peering at the tea leaves. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve not got a bit of the Romany in you. Whether you know it or not, I reckon you can survive anywhere, sweetheart. You’ve just got to believe in yourself.’

May couldn’t credit that she’d inherited any gypsy blood at all. But she was grateful for the encouragement and listened intently as her grandmother went on.

‘And there’s always this to consider: if you stay here, you could just as easily get bombed out, then you won’t have no home to go to anyway, will you? You might as well do what you can to protect it.’ Granny Byron sniffed.

‘I suppose you’re right. But what about the future – can you see where I’ll be in a year or two’s time, Nan?’

Her grandmother sat back and picked up her old snuffbox, sniffing up a pinch and sneezing loudly. It was an outdated habit, which May hated, along with the old clay pipe that she insisted on smoking, and the peculiarly old-fashioned way she pronounced certain words. May had spent her childhood correcting ‘kittle’ to ‘kettle’ to no avail.

‘Ugh, Nan, when you givin’ up that habit, it’s disgusting!’ she complained.

Granny Byron frowned. ‘I can’t do a reading without me snuff. What I see, darlin’, is this: a place with a
lot
of rain, pissin’ it down… and you’ll cross water, and I see fire, plenty of fire in the sky, and yes, love… there you are dressed in brown. And I see a feller… no, two, both in blue uniform.’

‘Two fellers? Navy or RAF? Am I going to marry one?’ May interrupted. But her grandmother frowned. She would only give a reading, never interpretations.

‘I couldn’t say, but here’s your heart… ahhh.’ The old woman held the cup at an angle to catch the light, then hesitated. ‘Well, that’s no surprise. It’s all hidden.’

Her grandmother looked into her eyes, as if searching them for what she could not find in the leaves, then she nodded. ‘But that only means it’s hidden from yourself, love. One day, you’ll see it plain.’

May found all of it infuriatingly vague. What was the use of pointing out to her the things she couldn’t see. It was all a load of old codswallop and she didn’t know why she’d bothered coming. But she had one more question that she couldn’t resist asking.

‘If I do go away, will I be coming home again?’ she asked, hands clenched tight beneath the table.

Her grandmother put down the cup. ‘Only if you want to, love.’

The reading was over and May wasn’t at all convinced she’d been told everything that was written in the leaves. For whenever Granny Byron saw bad things in the future, the only one she would reveal them to was Troubles. May had once asked her why she’d given the sweet little dog such an unfortunate name.

‘Because I tells
him
all the troubles
they’ve
got coming, when I dursn’t tell them! And then I tells him me own, ’cause no other bastard’s interested. And d’ye know what? That little dog don’t get a bit downhearted! No. He’s the only one fit to hear ’em.’

Perhaps seeing her disappointment, Granny Byron took hold of her hand.

‘Listen here, gel. You can do more than you think. You’ve just got to toughen up a bit, be more like your old nan!’

Her grandmother had certainly had a hard life, with her husband, whose parents had had delusions of grandeur and had given him the unusual first name of Lord, missing in prison on and off for most of her married life. She had brought up her children largely alone, which is what she was at the moment. Lord’s latest crime had been for petty theft, but he’d been given twice the normal sentence.

‘Have you heard when Grandad’s getting out?’ May asked.

‘Cocky old sod, done himself, didn’t he? Got an extra six months.’

‘What happened?’

‘Well, the judge says to him, “What’s your name?” And your granddad says, all very polite, “Lord Byron, your honour.” “Oh,
Lord
Byron!” says the judge. “Is that by name or by title?” “Please yer fuckin’ self,” he says! “Please yer fuckin’ self” – to the beak! Bang goes the gavel. “Take him down! Six months extra for contempt.”’

Shaking her head, her grandmother set the golden earrings swinging and May had to laugh at her incorrigible old tea leaf of a grandfather.

‘You make sure you don’t end up with a wrong ’un like him, May, that’s all I say.’

‘Well, there’s no one ever been interested in me, Nan, so I don’t think there’s much chance of that.’

‘Don’t you be so sure.’ She tapped May’s heart with a gnarled finger. ‘I’ve seen
two
in the leaves!’

Just then there was a knock on the door and it was Mrs Green, come to find out if her husband were dead or alive. May hoped the woman would get more concrete proof than she had, for she wasn’t sure whether her grandmother’s words had helped her at all. As she left Dix’s Place, she felt as if she were walking forward into the night without a compass or a star to guide her.

February 1941

That painful first Christmas without Jack had passed, but the bitterly cold weather persisted into early 1941. It wasn’t until February that Peggy discovered George had lied to her about the hideous Bakelite clock. It turned out it wasn’t unique at all. She discovered this when there came a knock on the door at about eight o’clock. She wasn’t expecting any of her family and George was out. Much of her husband’s business was conducted at night, in the pub, or in warehouses and barges down by the river. The comings and goings of contraband were best executed in the dark and the blackout helped rather than hindered George’s business. Often he would come home in the early hours of the morning smelling of river fog and she knew he’d been helping to unload a boat full of cigarettes or whiskey. He always paid for it the next day, with a cough that had him doubled over, gasping for breath, but she’d given up asking him to leave the river work to others.

She inched aside the blackout curtain that screened the front door. She was always so careful, but perhaps she was showing a light. The air-raid warden, Stan, who lived on the top landing, was a stickler for picking up every last chink. She opened the door a crack, letting a yellow curl of fog creep in. It was an opaque night; she hoped the weather had dissuaded the German bombers and she was glad not to be spending the night in the public shelter down in the courtyard. The sight of a policeman standing at her door could mean only one thing. She shivered. There’d been no air-raid warning, but sometimes a lone plane got through without being detected.

‘Who’s been hit?’ she asked.

‘Can I come in, Mrs Flint? It’s about your husband.’

Panic seized her and without thinking she flung aside the blackout curtain. As the policeman stepped inside, she heard Stan shout from the courtyard, ‘Put that light out!’

She was trembling from head to foot as the policeman quickly ducked through into the passage. Peggy felt for the wall, her legs buckling as the policeman caught her elbow. But she pulled herself up and led him into her living room. He sat in one of her brown leather armchairs, his helmet balanced on his knee as he looked around.

‘You’ve got a very nice home, Mrs Flint.’ He smiled. He was only young, certainly younger than herself. As she perched on the edge of the chair opposite she saw him glance up at the mantlepiece.

‘I’m afraid your husband won’t be coming home tonight.’

‘Oh no, I knew it, what’s happened to him?’ She stared at the constable, without seeing him. Instead a vision of George, broken and bloody beneath a ton of rubble, played like a newsreel to the pounding of her own heart.

‘Don’t worry, Mrs Flint. He’s not hurt.’

‘Oh thank God.’ She let out the breath she’d been holding. ‘I know there’s been no raid, but you hear of so many accidents in the blackout.’

‘He’s not hurt, but I’m sorry to tell you he is in bad trouble. He’s been arrested and we’re holding him overnight at Tower Bridge Police Station.’

She’d always known George’s luck would run out, but somehow the war had deflected her attention. Surrounded by so many dangers, as they all were, just going about their daily lives, George’s occupational hazards had somehow been obscured. She’d felt that the police ought to be looking the other way, up at the night sky or searching out fifth columnists, rather than poking around in George Flint’s lock-up.

‘What’s he done?’ she asked.

‘He was caught transferring stolen goods into a van from a lock-up near Bermondsey Wall. The items came from a warehouse in Shoreditch, we believe.’

The constable looked over at the mantlepiece again. ‘Clocks, hundreds of them. Matter of fact, they’re not unlike the one you’ve got up there, Mrs Flint,’ he said, pointing to the cream Bakelite monstrosity, with the nude woman on its pedestal.

*

After the policeman had left and she was on her own, Peggy put her old clock back on the mantlepiece. The young constable had taken the other one away. She sat down, listening to the seconds ticking, trying on her solitary state as though it were a new dress. She feared for George, imagining him in a damp prison cell, and yet she knew him – after a week, he’d probably be controlling the supply of prison blankets. He would be all right. But would she? As if to answer her question, the keening of the air-raid sirens drew her attention back to the war.