Pure as the Lily (21 page)

bailed me out last week. Or, I tell you what.” He turned to Betty now.

“Slip over the passage and ask Mrs. Briggs. She’s a kind woman is Mrs. Briggs, she was in court this morning.”

He was getting pleasure out of this bit of tormenting. He hadn’t often the chance to get any pleasure out of either of them, but when Betty’s hand reached out suddenly and grabbed the knife from a tray of cutlery and crockery that she had just washed up, he said, a grimness in his tone now, “I wouldn’t if I were you, Betty, because once you’ve been in court, it’s funny you lose your fear of it, you don’t mind going back.”

On this he turned from them both, walked into the passage, put on his coat, and went out of the house again, leaving them gaping at each other. But only for a minute.

Alice sat down as if her legs were weak; but there was no weakness in her voice as she said quickly,

“Go on. Go on, get the paper.”

Betty did not need to be told twice. Within minutes she was out in the dark, groping her way towards the newspaper shop. In the dim light of the shop, she scanned the headlines ; then she doubled the paper up and scurried as quickly as the black-out allowed back to the house.

She went straight into the room, slapped the paper on the table and started fucking the pages, with Alice standing by her side now. They went right through it, but couldn’t find what they were looking for.

More slowly, they started at the beginning again and there it was, in the corner, at the bottom of a page, school

TEACHER FINED FOR CAUSING A DISTURBANCE IN THE MARKET PI-ACE.

In the Shields Magistrates’ Court today James Arthur Walton, of 25 Haydon Terrace, Jarrow, was fined five pounds and bound over for twelve months to keep the peace. James Walton had pleaded not guilty to knocking a policeman’s helmet off and tripping him up, but guilty to creating a disturbance by leading a number of people in

singing and dancing around the Market Place, thus causing the traffic to be brought to a halt. Private Rene Wills—den and Corporal Millicent Bailey spoke in his defence, saying it had started innocently with them all singing carols together.

Police Constable Tatting, in giving evidence, said that the accused had been drinking heavily and a quarter bottle of whisky was found on his person when he was taken into custody.

They sat down weakly, they were stunned, utterly stunned. Then Betty began to cry, and her voice and manner took on the girlish role that had once been habitual with her.

“The disgrace! the disgrace! I’ll never be able to show my face at work again. I would have known about it if I had been in this week; if I hadn’t had this cold I would have known about it. And he said that her, that overflowing bleached, blousy... she was there in the court. Oh Mam!” Alice wasn’t crying; her eyes were as dry as her voice when she said, “Something’s got to be done, and something drastic. You can’t manage him. I’ve got to say it, Betty, you can’t manage him. He needs a firm hand, he’s his father all over again. I can see it in him every day.

Oh’—she closed her eyes as she dropped her head back on her shoulders ‘why was I cursed with him!

With a man like him, and then an ungrateful pair, what have I done to be served so! “ Then bringing her head forward with a snap she leant towards Betty.

“Well, there’s one thing you can do for a start, you can put your foot down with that one across the passage.”

Betty dried her eyes and nodded emphatically back at Alice, saying, “An’ I will. By God! I will.” The Head said to Jimmy: “This is not quite the thing we expect from our masters, Mr. Walton,” and Jimmy replied, “No, sir, I’m aware of that.”

“There’ll be questions from the board, you know that, don’t you?” Yes, sir. “

“Apart from your own reputation it gives the school a bad name, and leaves a bad impression on the boys....”

As for the common room well, the common room was divided, some for and some against him. But not so the school. For a couple of days Lanky Walton’s prestige almost equalled that of the honoured dead of the Battle of Britain and those men of the Tyne, captains and A. B. “s alike, who had died a hero’s death in convoys.

But, as all such episodes, the one in the Market Place should have died a natural death, remembered only as the day Lanky Walton led the Salvation Army. And if it hadn’t been for Albert Briggs throwing a party, it would have. But before the second incident recalled the first vividly to mind again something happened that left an indelible mark on Jimmy and almost broke Mary’s heart. It was early in the New Year and things had been quiet for a number of nights. Although the air-raid siren had gone twice within the past week each time it had proved to be a false alarm. On this particular night the siren moaned out its warning at quarter past seven. Jimmy had just come on duty in the back room of the Nonconformist Chapel.

Ned Prit—chard turned from the table, on which there were two telephones and a rough switchboard, and said, “Here we go, Jimmy!” and Jimmy, who had been about to take off his overcoat, replied, Well it’s about time; I’ve been wondering where they’ve been. “ Ned Pritchard turned from the table and called to the man who was going out of the door, saying, “Bill!

tell Arthur Pilby to stick around Bolton Street end, will you? That bloody lot around there won’t go in the shelters. But then, some of them would be hard put to get in, with the stuff they’ve got stuck inside.

But tell him to keep his weather-eye open.”

“Will do.”

“And you. Jimmy, you’d better stick around here until we know where they’re leaving their visiting cards.”

ifr^:

I’; ; i It wasn’t long before they heard where the visiting cards were being left, and as the dull thud reverberated through the hall Ned Pritchard said, “By! they’ve been quick, they must have slipped through. Where are the bloody antiaircraft lot? Asleep?” y; As they listened it was evident that the bloody antiaircraft lot weren’t asleep, the pop-pop-popping was continuous. There was another dull thud, nearer this time. Ned Pritchard got up from his seat and, putting on his steel helmet, said, “They’re getting cheeky.” Jimmy answered, “Yes, they want their faces slapped,” and they both looked at each other and grinned.

The next thud wasn’t so dull, and they threw themselves flat on the floor and rolled underneath the steel table as the building shook and the plaster came splattering down from the ceiling. When they raised their heads Ned Pritchard peered at Jimmy and remarked, “The bugger does want his face slappin’.”

“I’d better get out,” said Jimmy quickly, ‘and see what’s happening. “

,| “Aye,” said Ned; “somebody will have been unlucky with that one.” Outside, Jimmy called to dim figures who were running i| 1 ; up the street: “Where was it?” fe ;’ “

“Felton Street, I think,” a voice called back to him.

And it was Felton Street, or what had been Felton Street. The flames were illuminating the sky. Three children were pressed against a wall that was still standing; they were crying, but their crying was muted as if they were dreaming;

men were putting their shoulders to jammed doors while Jjr: flames burst from the windows above them; there were voices shouting, giving orders; there was the rattle of fire engines coming down from the other end of the road.

Jimmy shooed the children from the wall, then began tearing at a tangled mass of splintered timbers and bricks out |? of which a hand was sticking upwards as if in salutation. Two other men came and worked alongside him, and when

they got the woman out she was quite dead. She was wearing a pink pinny, and gripped in one hand a woman’s weekly magazine. The man next to Jimmy, who was dry-eyed but had tears in his voice, said,

“They won’t go into the bloody shelters, they think it’s over.” Jimmy said hoarsely, “The shelters!” When they scrambled over the smoking ruins there were already men unearthing the blocked entrance to the shelters, and as he feverishly began to help one of them said,

“They’ve got Wearside Row, they say it’s flat.”

Jimmy stopped in the act of lifting the frame of a door from the rubble and, grabbing the man by the arm, said, “Wearside Row? You’re sure?”

“Aye. Well, the warden’s just said.”

His grannie and gran da were in Wearside Row; they had moved there not two months ago when their house in Bing—ley Street was shattered.

Wearside Row! Oh my God, no!

He turned from the men and scrambled across the rubble and ran in and out of the fire hoses and the ordered chaos now filling the roadway, round corners, down back lanes and through alleyways until he came to Wearside Row, or where Wearside Row had been.

The eight little houses were now as flat as a toppled pack of cards, except the end one. That still had some walls remaining, and inside it a fire was blazing; it looked like a magic lantern. He stood with one hand on top of his tin hat and the other across his mouth until a man passing him said harshly, Don’t stand gaping there, lad, get a move on. “

Gulping, he clutched at the man.

“Everybody out?”

What do you mean, everybody out? If you mean dead out, aye, it hit the centre. The bloody bastards!

God! I wish one would come down on a parachute, just one. Christ! Oh aye, just one. You know somebody here? “ His voice had dropped.

Jimmy shook off the faintness that was overwhelming him.

“Num-number-s’seven. My grannie and gran da

iz The man looked towards the smoking rubble and the men tearing at it.

Number 7 had been one from this end. He now turned and said, “Come on lad, we’ll see.” It took them two hours before they saw, and then the sight made him vomit. He turned his back and staggered across the road and leant against the standing wall and retched his heart out. It was near ten o’clock when, with dragging steps, he made his way to Cornice Street. He didn’t know whether or not Mary had been informed but he’d have to go to her.

He heard her before he saw her. The deep heart-wringing moans came to him as he lifted one weary step after the other up the stairs. When he opened the door he saw her sitting on the couch with Annie by her side. She was rocking the child backwards and forwards as she cried, with that dreadful moaning sound. Opposite her, Cousin Annie was sitting with her arms folded tight about herself; tears were running down her cheeks. Teresa was standing at the table pouring out cups of tea; tears were streaming down her face too; and Mrs. McArthur, her face awash, was standing at the head of the couch, saying, You must give over, lass, you I? must give over. “

t’j , When he entered the room they all turned and looked at j;j|j| | j I him. He went slowly up to Mary and lowered himself beside her and said, “you know?”

She made one deep abeyance with her head, then moaned, “Oh! Jimmy, Jimmy. He was such a good man. There’ll never be another like him, never.... And David. David loved the shop.... Both of them.

Oh my God! Why? Why? Why Jimmy?”

When his mouth fell into a deep gape and he put his hand across it and slowly turned his head away from her she came to herself for a moment “What is it? Where’ve you been? What is it, I ask you? You’re all muck.”

He was going to be sick again. As he rushed from the room she followed him, pushing Annie’s clinging hands away from her.

In the kitchen she grabbed his arm as he bent over the sink.

“What is it? Who? Who else?”

He didn’t answer, he couldn’t, he kept vomiting. He didn’t know where it was all coming from. When at last he straightened up and wiped his mouth, he looked at her and his head wagged several times before he could bring the words out:

“Gran and Granda.”

“No!” She backed from him. ‘no I’ Her voice was high, bordering on a scream, thrusting oS the knowledge.

“No! Four of them! The ... the only good ones, four of them. no, jimmy’ No!” She was tearing at her hair when she rushed past him, and he ran after her and caught her in his arms and held her tightly to him, and they rocked back and forward as if they were grappling in battle.

they could bury Ben and David whole for, strangely, there’d been hardly a scratch on them. It had been the blast that had done it; it had blown through the shop taking the young manager, three customers, Ben and David with it. Two of the customers had survived and were in hospital.

There were a lot of burials going on in the cemetery; a great number of people were about, black-clothed, stooped people, all with heads down, looking towards the earth.

They buried Mary and Peter Walton in a mass grave with the remnants of fourteen other people. They buried Ben and his son together, the smaller coffin on top, and as Mary watched them go she thought she would go mad; she couldn’t bear this.

“Ben, Ben, come back.” The words kept whirling in her mind: “Ben, Ben, come back.” She knew it was silly, stupid, childish to keep on, for Ben would never come back, nor David. She had loved David as if he’d been her own. He had looked upon her as a mother; he had callii^y her mam; he had never, not once, asked after his own mother; and he had looked like Ben. David had promised to be good-looking, handsome.

Ben had been handsome, even with the scar disfiguring one side of him he had been handsome. In the darkness of the night when he would hold her close and whisper, “I love you, Mary. There’s not a cell in me body that doesn’t love you, adore you. To me you’re the most beautiful thing in the world. Do you know that?” she would think, And you are beautiful an’ all, Ben. Right through you are beautiful. But she never told him, not in words she didn’t.

Ben liked to talk in the dark. During the day his affection would take the form of a slap on the buttocks, the sudden holding of her face in his hands and looking deep into her eyes: except that one time when he had got passionate on the landing. But in the night his loving was something that a woman dreams of; in the night she knew she was lucky.

If only she hadn’t felt responsible for his face, and responsible for her da going to gaol, she would have been happier than any woman in the world.