London Pride (65 page)

‘I shall be home in the New Year,' he wrote to Peggy that Christmas. ‘It's very cold here, real brass monkey weather, so I'll come to you this time. I've got such a lot to tell you.'

It wasn't a successful leave despite all their new-found optimism.

For a start all three Furnivall sisters had heavy head colds. Peggy was red-nosed and shivery for most of his ten precious days, and to make matters worse when he went to visit his mother he found that she'd had bronchitis and wasn't at all well either.

‘I ought to get back to work,' she told him anxiously. ‘I been off nearly a fortnight.'

He understood her anxiety at once. ‘Is it the rent?'

‘Well yes,' she admitted. There was no point in pretending. Not to Jim. ‘My wages take care of it as a general rule, you see.'

He did see. ‘I'll take care of it this time,' he said. ‘If you promise to stay indoors until you're quite well and you don't let the old man get his paws on it.'

‘You're a dear boy,' his mother said gratefully. ‘It's two weeks. I hide it in the teapot. He don't think a' looking there.'

So two weeks' rent was hidden in the teapot, and then he went out with her ration books and bought a week's rations to keep her going.

‘I've spent my entire leave visiting the sick,' he said to Lily, grinning at her in mock complaint.

‘Better luck next time,' she said without very much sympathy. ‘At least you get leave. My poor Arthur's still stuck in that awful Africa.'

Two days later a local tragedy made him ashamed to have been complaining. It was a shock to everyone in South London, an awful reminder that the war was still being fought on their own doorsteps and certainly wasn't over, not by a long way.

At lunch time on 20 January, when the barrage balloons were down for repair, a lone Focke Wulf roared up Sangley Road in Catford with nothing to prevent it, machine gunning the people below it.

Fourteen people were injured and six killed, including a young mother and her eleven-week-old son. Then as if that weren't bad enough, the plane circled and flew on a bombing run over Sandhurst Road. The pilot had one 1,000 pound bomb and he dropped it on the local school.

It was a direct hit, straight through the side of the building into the dining hall on the ground floor, where the children were gathered for their midday meal. It was fused to explode in just under one minute so as to give the pilot time to get clear, and that short pause was enough to allow about thirty children to scramble through the ground floor windows and run for their lives across the playground. But the kids in the hall had no escape.

Six teachers and thirty-eight children were killed and more than sixty others were seriously injured. The grief and carnage at the site were so terrible that for once reporting restrictions were lifted so that everybody could know the full extent of the tragedy.

‘This wicked, wicked war,' John Cooper said when he read the news.

And Peggy cried at the thought of all those young lives gone. ‘Oh Jim,' she wept. ‘How many more kids have got to be killed? How much longer is this going on?'

But at least, as he told her through her tears, there was hope now that the terrible business could be ended. ‘We are getting there. Believe me.'

‘But so slowly,' she said.

At the beginning of February the German Sixth Army surrendered to the defenders of Stalingrad and the long dreadful siege was over. In March Rommel left Africa in disgrace, with the Allied armies there completely victorious. Despite bombs and grief and unnecessary deaths there
was
light at the end of this war-black tunnel. The residents of Paradise Row had a ding-dong to celebrate.

And as always Winston Churchill put the general optimistic feeling into memorable words.

‘This is not the end,' he said. ‘It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.'

Now there was a scent of victory in the air. Everyone was looking forward to the day when the Allied armies would invade Europe and begin to drive the Germans out of all the countries they'd occupied and back behind their own frontiers again. The newspapers were constantly talking about it. ‘Second Front' they shouted. ‘Stalin urges Second Front now.' ‘Preparations for Second Front steam ahead.' ‘Is this the year of the Second Front?'

And it certainly looked as though it would be for London was full of troops, gathering for the invasion, British, American, Canadian, Australian, Free French, Poles. Mr Allnutt said it was a regular League of Nations.

The civilian population of London went on enduring things in their usual dogged way. There were very few of them now whose homes hadn't been damaged to a greater or lesser degree and rations were shorter than ever but at least the raids were over and it was possible to get a good night's sleep. In six Paradise Row the kids still slept in the Morrison shelter every night because they said they liked it, and Mrs Geary stayed in the front parlour because she said the stairs were beyond her, but except when Jim was home on leave, Joan and Peggy and Baby slept upstairs, all in the same room, like old times. The RAF and the American Army Air Force had virtual command of the air now and German planes were rarely seen, except for the occasional loner attempting a reconnaissance flight. So there was very little danger. It was just a matter of waiting.

In June Jim's squadron returned to Sussex, and the four friends spent a long leave together in Vine Cottage being entertained by little Winnie who was a year old and crawling into everything. Froggy had been posted to a new station over in the east of the county, but he'd bought himself a little Morris so that he could get home as often as possible.

‘It's ever so busy here,' Megan said to Peggy. ‘They're changing everything ready for the war in Europe. Jim says they won't start until they're good and ready. But I hope it's soon. Everyone is so keyed up about it.'

It started on 10 July with a sea-borne landing, not in Normandy as Joan and Peggy were secretly hoping, but in Sicily, and once again Arthur was part of the invading army.

Now there was another campaign to follow and another reason for Lily to worry. Yvonne and Norman pinned a large map of Italy on the kitchen wall and plotted the progress of the Allied army day by day. And young Percy came in sometimes to see what they'd done, because his Daddy was one of the soldiers at the front.

‘Do you think he'll bring me back a bit of a tank when he comes home?' he asked Yvonne.

‘I ‘spect so,' Yvonne said. ‘Write an' tell him you want a bit.'

‘I don't think I could write all that much,' Percy said. ‘How do you write “tank”? Is it like “cat”?'

‘No,' Norman said. ‘It's got an A in it though.'

That wasn't much comfort to the anxious scribe.

‘Draw him an aeroplane,' Yvonne suggested, ‘an' I'll write what you want underneath. I'll show you how to do a Flying Fortress.' The big American bombers had just arrived and she was most impressed by them.

‘Never mind flying fortresses,' Joan said, ‘it's time for your tea.'

‘Aunty Peggy's not back yet,' Norman pointed out in his solemn way. ‘We can't start our tea without Aunty Peggy.'

They couldn't go to bed without Aunty Peggy either.

‘Where's she gone?' Yvonne asked.

‘She's gone out with Uncle Jim,' Joan explained.

‘They've gone dancing. You'll see her in the morning.'

‘We'd better,' Norman growled. ‘She's to come straight in here. You tell her.'

‘Lie down and go to sleep and then I will,' Joan promised. ‘You got your torches and yer whistle, aintcher?'

‘Course,' Yvonne said, settling onto her pillow.

Neither of them noticed that Baby was out of the house too. But then Baby didn't kiss them goodnight and read them stories. And Baby had left the house very early that evening while they were having their tea, because she was going to the Lyceum in the Strand.

Of all the dance halls in London, the Lyceum was decidedly Baby's favourite. She went there as often as she could afford it and particularly on a Saturday night, when it was packed with GIs and very loud and lively. The bands were American too, big bands like Glen Miller's, in smart uniforms, with brass players who all stood up to blaze away and drummers who threw themselves about in the most exciting way with sweat flicking off their foreheads like rain and with their hands moving so fast you could only see a blur. And as if that wasn't exciting enough the GIs were such smashing dancers, especially when they did the jitterbug, jumping and stamping and twirling you with one hand, round and round, or lifting you bodily, legs flying, to swing you over their hips or toss you from one hip to the other. It was the most exhilarating thing she'd ever experienced.

The Lyceum was such a civilized place. It had been built as a theatre before they turned it into a dance hall. So at the end of the dance floor there was a slope where the orchestra pit had been and there was still a stage where the band played and a circle and boxes where you could sit and look down on the dancers instead of standing by the wall where everybody could see when you hadn't got a partner. Not that Baby often found herself in that position, for she was a good dancer with a marked sense of rhythm, light on her feet and quite prepared to be reckless,
renowned as one of the Brits who knew how to ‘cut a rug'.

But sometimes a peculiar sadness would catch her out just when she was enjoying herself most and she would stand by the side of the dance floor lost in thoughts she couldn't control, remembering Mum and how happy she'd been as a kid, envying the courting couples smooching on the dance floor, wishing she could be loved by someone too, anyone would do.

That night she drifted into sad thoughts almost as soon as she arrived beside the dance floor. The lights were lowered and they were playing ‘We'll meet again' and everybody was singing the words which were horribly sad when you knew you wouldn't meet again. And a voice spoke at her shoulder.

‘Would you care to dance with a guy with two left feet?'

‘What?' she said, turning.

He was a very ordinary-looking American with one of those bland faces they had, all round and snub nosed, and he was wearing a pair of their peculiar specs which didn't do much for him, but he repeated his request with such a funny earnest expression on his face that she said ‘Yes' and allowed him to lead her onto the floor.

He couldn't dance for toffee nuts and she told him so when the music stopped playing.

It didn't upset him or put him off in the least. ‘Gee!' he said. ‘If that ain't the cutest thing! Can't dance for toffee nuts.'

‘Well no more you can,' she said.

And that made him laugh too. ‘Would you like a drink?' he offered. ‘Or some candy? For a peace offering.'

‘Yes,' she said. ‘I'm starving hungry.'

‘We'll get a pass out,' he said, ‘and I'll feed you.'

So they got two tickets to let them in and out of the dance hall and he took her off to Doughnut Dugout and fed her.

Despite his two left feet and his unpromising appearance he was good company and she stayed with him most of the evening. His name was Gary Svenson, Sergeant Gary Svenson, and he came from Wisconsin.

‘So what you doing over here?' she asked, because GIs
always liked to tell you what they were doing.

He was with the US Amphibious Unit in Deptford.

‘Fancy that,' she said. ‘I live in Greenwich.'

His eyes lit up at that so she decided to change the subject. ‘And what's an Amphibian Unit when it's at home? I thought amphibians was frogs.'

‘Landing craft,' he explained. ‘For beach landings. Let's dance.'

‘Yes,' she said. ‘Let's cut a rug.'

They cut several rugs that evening and at the end of the dance she allowed him to escort her home, and was delighted because he was such a gentleman. He took her right to her door and didn't even try to kiss her. Imagine that. All he said was ‘Same time next week?' So she agreed.

From then on they went dancing every week. And after four or five weeks he asked her to the ‘movies' and they sat in the back row and he didn't even try his luck then. She was most impressed and liked him more than ever. If it was a courtship it was an amazingly delicate one, and made a nice change from all those other Yanks she'd had to fight off in dark alleys.

One night at the end of June he surprised her by suddenly asking a question she wasn't expecting.

‘You go off into a dream sometimes, honey,' he said. ‘Where do you go?'

‘I don't,' she said.

But he persisted in that funny quiet way of his. ‘Sure you do,' he said. ‘We all do. You were off in a dream when I first saw you. Standing in the dance hall.'

She remembered as he spoke. ‘Oh yes. I was.'

‘So what was the dream?'

‘I was thinking about my mum,' she said. ‘She was killed in an air raid. That's what I was thinking about.' And it's something you'll never understand, she was thinking quite crossly. You ain't been bombed. But his next words were an even bigger surprise.

‘I reckoned that was what it was,' he said. ‘You had the feeling about you, honey. A sort of aura.'

It was as if he knew what she'd been feeling that night and her face was full of inquiry as she turned to look at him.

‘I lost my best buddy in Africa,' he answered her. ‘Blown up. Right in front of me. I know precisely what you were feeling.'

‘Oh Gary!' She kissed his cheek, instinctively and gently, like Mum used to do to her when she was little and sad.

As he moved his head equally gently and met her lips in a kiss full on the mouth, a lover's kiss, tender and unalarming, but a lover's kiss for all that.