London Pride (34 page)

‘They're refugees,' he said. ‘Jews. They're on the run
from Germany. All Jews would run from Germany if they could. It's that man Hitler. He says Jews are to blame.'

‘What for?' Flossie asked.

‘What for? For everything. For the unemployed, for firms that go broke, for people being hungry, for everything. It's a bad time to be Jewish in Germany. So many Germans full of hatred. You wouldn't
believe
half the stories I hear. Jews not allowed in school, Jews not allowed to marry, Jews being spat at in the streets, Jews being beaten up by the Brownshirts, and worse to come, they say. There are laws on the way, Mrs Geary, that will let that awful Hitler put a man in prison simply for being a Jew.'

‘Good God,' Mrs Geary said. ‘He couldn't do that.'

‘He could. He will. It's an old, old story, Mrs Geary. Jews are always the ones to be blamed when things go wrong.'

‘I've seen it in the papers,' Flossie said. There was a little paragraph about a Jewish shop being daubed with paint, but she hadn't paid much attention to it, and she'd never imagined that Jews would turn up in Paradise Row as a result. ‘No one'll say anything,' she promised Mr Grunewald. ‘If the rent man asks, they're friends come visiting.'

‘They only stay two, three nights,' Mr Grunewald said again. ‘Just till my cousin in Manchester can find them somewhere.'

‘Whatcher think a' that?' Mrs Geary asked as she hobbled back to number six.

‘Sounds a bit far-fetched,' Flossie said, ‘putting people in prison for being Jews, but then again, they'd hardly come all this way for nothing, so there must be
something
in it.'

That was the general opinion in Paradise Row, except for Cyril Brown who said Jews were all the same the world over, as far as he could see, damn liars every one, and they'd be fools to believe a word of it. ‘Hitler's a fine bloke,' he said. ‘He's got the right idea.'

The
Daily Mail
agreed with him. Or did he agree with the
Daily Mail
? The newspaper was full of praise for the German Chancellor. Hitler, it said, knew exactly how to
cope with unemployment. He had embarked on an ambitious programme of state construction, most of it admittedly geared towards war, but beneficial for all that, building armaments' factories and a network of
autobahns
and improving the railway system so that men and arms could be carried anywhere he wished. Jews and other undesirables were being cleared away and their homes and jobs given to local Germans, and any young men still without jobs were being drafted into an ‘army of labour' which would be used in a great national ‘battle for work'. Everybody, the newspaper claimed, everybody had to admit that the new Chancellor had done a lot of good. When he came to power there had been four million unemployed in Germany. Now the figure was down to just over two million and it was still falling.

‘Bloody fools,' Mr Cooper said, throwing the paper onto the floor in his anger. ‘Can't they see what he's really doing? We shall have another war if we don't look out, and then God help us. He ought to be stopped.'

But nobody seemed to know how to stop him and as there were plenty of industrialists in England and elsewhere who certainly didn't want to, and what's more, were prepared to put their hands in their pockets to support him, nothing was done. Mr Grunewald continued to open his door to refugees who arrived in ones and twos all through the summer and the autumn and well into the New Year of 1935. Mr Brown continued to grumble about it but he didn't say anything to the rent collector. Flossie and Baby went to the pictures every week with Mrs Roderick. Peggy went on helping her sister and enjoying the company of Yvonne and baby Norman. Jim went on servicing cars and finding it more and more boring with every day that passed. And from time to time he and Peggy went to the pictures and didn't hold hands.

In short, like the rest of the English that year, they all continued in their age-old tradition of muddling through, enduring what had to be endured, and enjoying such trivial and happy events as they could. On 6 May, while Herr Hitler was planning a spectacular Olympic Games that was to be held in Berlin in a year's time, London was celebrating the Silver Jubilee of Their Majesties King
George V and Queen Mary.

The denizens of Paradise Row had a lovely time. They draped their houses with bunting and hung balloons on the streetlamps and a banner reading ‘God Bless Our King and Queen' on the woodyard fence, and while the royals were in St Paul's giving thanks for a long reign, they dragged their tables and chairs out into the street and held a riotous street party. Mr Cooper played the piano and everybody sang and Mr Brown played his mouth organ and nobody listened, old Mr Allnutt ran up and down fixing wobbly table-legs with wedges of wood that fell out of place the minute his back was turned, all the women wore paper hats above their aprons, and Mrs Roderick made a creation called a charlotte russe which was much admired and tasted of strawberry blancmange with an aftertaste of tinned salmon.

But no matter how much they enjoyed themselves, they knew it was only an interlude. Later that month the
Daily Herald
broke the news that Hitler had started to draft his young men into a real army. Apparently he had announced quite openly that he had already conscripted half a million men and intended to conscript more, and what was worse, he now admitted that he was forming an air force too. It was a direct violation of the Treaty of Versailles and the most alarming news to come out of Germany to date. Now and rather late, the British Government began to respond. They started up a recruiting campaign to encourage more young men to join the Royal Air Force, asking particularly for technicians to service the new planes in their expanding force.

And one of the young men they encouraged was Jim Boxall.

He saw the advertisement in a copy of a local paper that had been left on the passenger seat of a Bentley he was cleaning and servicing. When the job was done he sat on the low garage wall in the sunshine for ten minutes' rest and a fag, and while he was smoking he read the paper through. And there was the advertisement. He was tempted by it, he had to admit it, for although the pay wasn't very good the prospects were. Two shillings a day was about the same as he was earning at the garage but
the promise of ‘modern technical training' after more than a year in the wilderness of untrained labour was a very strong incentive indeed. He tore the advertisement out of the paper and put it in his pocket. If things got any worse, there was always the RAF.

Things got worse two weeks later.

‘You got the armbands?' Megan giggled. ‘Give 'em here. Quick, quick.'

‘Hold on a tick,' Peggy said, giggling too. ‘Your hair's coming unstuck.'

The two girls had met outside the side entrance to Madame Aimee's and they were preparing the first lark-about of the morning. They'd both painted black moustaches on their upper lips with eyebrow pencil and they'd made their fringes wet and plastered them across their foreheads in two hideous cowlicks, and now as a finishing touch they were pinning on their armbands. They'd made two out of red wrapping paper with Nazi swastikas stuck to them drawn in black ink on two circles of white cardboard. All jolly authentic. It was going to be a lark and a half.

‘Come on, Adolf!' Megan said, peering through the glass of the door. ‘They're all there.'

They could see Mr MacFarlane and the other girls already in the shop polishing the counters and uncovering the goods.

‘Forvart!' Peggy instructed and the two of them giggled through the door and goose-stepped into the shop, giving the Hitler salute all the way and shouting ‘
Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil
!'

They were an instant, squealing success.

‘Och you bad, bad girls,' Mr MacFarlane said, pretending to scold, but the hoots of laughter all round him were
making him smile too much for anyone to take him seriously.

Megan and Peggy sent young Susie to keep a look out for Madame Aimee at the foot of the stairs, and then they broke into the song and dance routine they'd been practising the previous evening.

‘Whistle while you work,' they chirruped, singing the chorus to the seven dwarfs song from Walt Disney's new film.

‘Adolf Hitler is a twerp

He's quite barmy, so's his army

Whistle while you work.'

The catchy tune soon had all the other assistants singing along, Mr MacFarlane clapped in time to the rhythm and the two youngest girls began to dance round the counters. They were making such a noise that they almost missed Susie's warning whistle. In fact they were only just back behind the counters in time before Madame Aimee appeared at the top of the stairs, fierce of face and spine. Megan and Peggy were still cowlicked and moustachioed so they had to kneel on the carpet and pretend to be picking up pins to keep their faces hidden.

‘Mr MacFarlane,' Madame Aimee said icily, ‘a word if you please.' And she led the poor man into her sanctum, her skirts swishing disapproval. It was, as the two girls told one another afterwards, absolutely priceless, it really was. Even though they felt a bit sorry for poor old Mr Mac being nagged behind the frosted glass. ‘It will not do George. You shouldn't encourage them. They're unruly enough without you making them worse.'

‘Och, my dear, girrls will be girrls. We all need a wee bit of fun from time to time. There's no harm in being cheerful.'

‘If they wish to be cheerful they may do it in their own time, not the firm's. What if a customer were to see such capers?'

‘With rrespect, my love,' Mr MacFarlane tried, ‘the doors are not yet open this morn … '

‘High time they were,' his love informed him, ‘and let me tell you, if Miss Furnivall and Miss Griffiths are not in
a fit state to serve then I shall dock their pay. Ten minutes for every minute lost.'

But thanks to the liberal application of Peggy's cold cream and a quick flick of Megan's hair brush. Miss Furnivall and Miss Griffiths were demure behind their counters and ready for anything, even Madame Aimee. Which made the joke better than ever.

That evening the two friends went to the pictures, reliving their song and dance act all the way to the cinema. And all the way home. And outside the Earl Grey there was Jim Boxall glumly sipping ale with a group of men who used to work at Warrenders, so they told him all about it too.

‘We've had a day an' a half, ain't we, Peg,' Megan chortled. ‘Start with a laugh an' you never look back. That's what I say.'

‘Hitler's no laughing matter,' Jim tried to tell her. The things that were going on in Germany were far beyond a joke now.

But she thumped him in the chest and laughed at him. ‘Oh get on with you, you old kill-joy!' she teased.

There was just enough truth in the taunt to sting him. He'd had a dreadful day at the garage with two belligerent customers and a difficult wheel change, and now he had so little money in his pocket he couldn't even offer them a drink.

‘He's a murderer,' he insisted. ‘Not a comedian. He has people shot when they don't agree with him. Or put in prison. Jews get beaten up in streets just for being Jewish, didn't you know that? I can't see anything funny about him at all.'

‘Oh-er!' Megan teased. ‘Who's your friend, Peg?'

Peggy was still charged with the bubbling gaiety of the day. The last thing she wanted was to stand on the corner and talk politics, even to cheer Jim Boxall. ‘Come on, Megan,' she said. ‘I'll walk you to your door.' And they went giggling off along the street.

‘Night night,' he called, as they swung away.

‘Night night, Jim,' she called back, and she darted one glance at him over her shoulder before distance and darkness smudged her features.

After she'd turned the corner into Randall Place he wished he could have tried to enjoy their joke a bit more and cursed himself for being such a serious fool. ‘Time I was off,' he said to his mates. There was no point in hanging around waiting for her to come back. He'd only make a fool of himself if he tried to talk to her again that night.

He walked dismally along the street to the door of number five. But as he fished his key through the letterbox, he heard a rumpus going on in the kitchen that put all other thoughts out of his mind.

His father's feet were stamping along the hall towards him as he opened the door.

‘What sort ‘a time d'you call this?' the old man yelled, breathing drunkenly. ‘Oh it's you.'

‘Who did you think it was?'

‘That bloody girl.'

Lily or Pearl? Jim wondered as he walked through into the kitchen. But Pearl was sitting fearfully beside the stove, holding up a skein of wool in both hands for her mother to wind into a ball.

‘She'll be home presently,' Mrs Boxall tried to placate. ‘She's out with Arthur Walters,' she explained to Jim. ‘You know Arthur Walters.'

‘Oh well, that's all right then,' Jim said, more for his father's benefit than in answer to his mother. ‘She won't come to any harm there. Nice bloke.' Arthur Walters was the accounts clerk at the shop where Lily worked and he'd been escorting her to the pictures for several months now. A quiet, kind, conscientious young man.

‘I won't have it,' Mr Boxall grumbled. ‘Coming home all hours. I won't have it.'

‘Why don't you go on up to bed and let me see to her?' Mrs Boxall said.

But Mr Boxall settled himself massively in his chair. ‘I'll see to her,' he threatened.

It was really rather nerve-racking waiting for the key. When they heard it they all jumped up, but Mr Boxall was on his feet and along the hall before any of them could intervene. They followed him, crowding into the hall as he yelled abuse at Lily. ‘You dirty little trollop, what sort a'
time d'you call this?'