The Londoners (32 page)

The woman was already yards away, heading towards Lewisham, her cuban-heeled shoes click-clacking on the pavement.

Kate resisted the urge to hurry after the woman and seize hold of her and try to hammer some reason into her head. She knew from past experience she would be wasting her time and Hector was
miserably wet, his tail hanging unhappily between his legs. ‘Come on, Hector,’ she said as the baby gave her a hefty kick, ‘let’s get home and get dry and, as it’s
Christmas, I’ll put a decent amount of coal on the fire and leave worrying about running out of it until another day.’

She had just turned into the Square when she first became aware of the sailor. Living so near to the river and the docks and Greenwich Naval College, the sight of both Royal Navy officers and
sailors and Merchant Seamen, often with kit-bags over their shoulder as this seaman had, was a common sight. What wasn’t quite so common was seeing one injured and the young man now walking
up the Jennings’ pathway was doing so with the aid of a crutch. Even less common, at least in Magnolia Square, was a sailor who was black.

Carrie and Christina had long since disappeared into the house and Kate’s first reaction, on seeing the young man knock at the Jennings’ front door, was to hope fiercely that it
wouldn’t be Carrie who opened the door to him. She was too near to the Jennings’ house now for the person who opened the door to be able to pretend that they hadn’t seen her. And
to be cut by Carrie, on Christmas Eve, would be a hurt too deep to be even imagined.

With blessed relief she saw Miriam’s ample figure open the door. She also saw the expression of startled surprise on her face. Whoever the Jennings’ visitor was, he quite obviously
wasn’t expected.

‘No, I haven’t!’ she heard Miriam say, indignation in her voice. ‘I don’t know who gave you your information, but they were wrong.’

Even before the young man had turned, doing so awkwardly as he balanced his kit-bag on one shoulder with one hand and manipulated his crutch with the other, the Jennings’ front door was
slammed shut.

He reached the bottom of the short, sleet-covered pathway, just as Kate was passing the gate.

‘Excuse me,’ he said in a voice so rich and dark that Kate found herself wondering what his singing voice would be like. ‘My billeting officer told me Mrs Jennings took in
lodgers but it appears he was misinformed. You don’t know of anyone around here who does take in lodgers, do you?’

Despite his need of a crutch, the misery of the weather and his obvious homelessness, there was nothing remotely dejected about him. He had a jaunty manner and the smile lines running from nose
to mouth indicated he was a young man who laughed easily and often. He wasn’t laughing now though. Despite his lack of dejection a slightly concerned frown had begun to crease his brow.
Considering that it was already late afternoon on Christmas Eve, it was a concern Kate could well understand.

Regretfully she shook her head. ‘No. There are rumours that all householders will soon be answerable to civil billeting officers and everyone in Magnolia Square has been notified that if
they have spare rooms they will be expected to offer accommodation to families bombed-out of their homes, but the scheme isn’t up and running yet, at least not in this area, and I don’t
know of anyone who takes in boarders. I’m sorry.’

He shrugged philosophically. ‘Not to worry. I’ll find somewhere. It would be nice if this sleet turned to proper snow, wouldn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ she said, his cheery good humour making her forget how low-spirited she had been feeling. A thought occurred to her and she said, ‘I think Mrs Collins took lodgers in at
one time. She and her husband live on the other side of Magnolia Square at number thirty-six.’

He shot her a wide grin, his teeth brilliantly white against his dark skin. ‘Thanks,’ he said, shifting his kit-bag a little more comfortably on his shoulder. ‘I’ll give
her a try. Cheerio.’

‘Cheerio.’

As he set off towards the far side of the Square, Kate shrugged off the unhappy encounter of a few moments ago. Not everyone was viciously unpleasant. Even if the young man, whose innate good
humour had so raised her spirits, had known of her father’s nationality, she doubted if his reaction would have been one of jingoistic prejudice.

‘Merry Christmas!’ he called after her as an afterthought, over his shoulder.

For the first time in a long time her generously full mouth broke into a wide smile. ‘Merry Christmas!’ she called back, barely aware now of the cold and damp.

As she continued on her way up her own side of Magnolia Square she reflected that if her father had been at home, she would have had no hesitation at all in suggesting to the young sailor that
he board with them. Under her present circumstances, however, such a suggestion was impossible. Her illegitimate pregnancy had already ensured that her moral reputation was next to non-existent. If
she took in a sailor it would be reduced to zero and she would find herself regarded as the local whore.

Yet again she shifted her shopping-basket from one hand to the other. She had long given up worrying what her neighbours and former friends thought of her, but she couldn’t be so cavalier
where the coming baby was concerned. Her child would have enough coarse and cruel remarks to contend with without being burdened with even more.

She was still several yards or so from her gate when Leah Singer and Miss Helliwell turned the top corner of the Square. As they approached her Kate could clearly hear their remarks.

‘I told him, if he thought someone in Magnolia Square took in lodgers he should speak with his billeting officer and get a proper address,’ Miss Helliwell was saying in the same tone
of indignation that had been in Miriam’s voice a little while earlier. ‘Though how a billeting officer could be so insensitive as to give a Magnolia Square address to a black man, I
really don’t know. There must be plenty of his own kind down near the docks. Why doesn’t he try there?’

‘He’ll have to,’ Leah responded dryly. ‘Can you imagine what husbands away fighting would say if they knew a black man had taken up board and lodging in their homes?
There’d be a right old
shemozzle.
’

Both of them had become aware of her; neither of them greeted her.

‘He didn’t speak like a black man,’ Miss Helliwell was saying reflectively as Kate opened her gate and they passed within feet of her. ‘He spoke quite good English. In
fact he sounded very like Sir Richard Grenville.’

‘And who is he?’ Leah said, keeping her head carefully averted from Kate.

Kate thought of all the happy times she had spent in the Jennings’ home; of Leah barrelling to the front door to meet and greet her, her hands and arms dusted with flour; of the oven-warm
bagels and blintzes she had pressed on her; the way Leah had always affectionately bantered and teased her.

‘He was one of England’s most illustrious naval commanders,’ Miss Helliwell said, her voice warming with enthusiasm as it always did when the conversation veered round to her
contact with the dear departed. ‘He was captain of
The Revenge
which, when England was at war with Spain, fought alone against the Spanish fleet. Tennyson wrote a beautiful poem
about it. I contacted him in order to ask him if he had any advice for dear Mr Churchill.’

What Leah’s reaction was Kate didn’t hear. She was already climbing the steps that led towards her front door, her fleeting feeling of good cheer entirely dissipated.

The young sailor they were so sure would never find board and lodgings in Magnolia Square had been recently injured. It was an injury he had almost certainly received whilst on active service
and yet Leah and Miss Helliwell were speaking of him as though he were not a member of Britain’s armed forces, but an outsider. He was being shamefully ostracized, just as she was being
ostracized.

When she reached the top step she turned and, much to Hector’s impatience, instead of unlocking the door and stepping into the comparative warmth beyond, looked out across the Square.

Dark was falling rapidly but she could still see Leah and Miss Helliwell, talking nineteen to the dozen. She could also see the sailor. He was walking back down Hettie’s front path towards
the gate and she knew instinctively by the set of his shoulders that he had met with the same kind of refusal from Hettie as he had from Miriam.

As she watched he closed the gate behind him with difficulty, hampered by his kit-bag and crutch, and then he set off towards the bottom end of the Square and Magnolia Hill.

Hector whined and pawed at her coat.

‘Just a minute, Hector,’ she said, putting her shopping-basket down on the sleet-covered ground.

From the direction of the church she could hear the choir singing carols and knew that they would be doing so with tin hats and gas canisters within hands’ reach, ready for a quick dash to
the public shelter if an air raid siren should sound.

With Hector barking protestingly behind her, she retraced her steps to her front gate and leaned over it, staring down the Park, straining her eyes in the deepening darkness, wondering what
course of action to take. It was Christmas Eve. The young sailor was obviously far from home and just as obviously had only recently been discharged from hospital. Whatever his injury, it was a
pretty safe bet that he had sustained it under enemy fire. And because of his skin colour he was being treated as a social outcast.

‘I’m going to let you in the house,’ she said to the sleet-soaked Hector as she turned around and walked back up the steps to the front door, ‘but I’m not coming in
with you. Not just yet.’

She turned the key in the latch and as Hector bounded gratefully towards the kitchen and his snug blanket-lined box she lifted her shopping-basket inside the hall. Then she stepped outside
again, closing the door behind her, and as the church choir launched into ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem
’
she began to hurriedly retrace her footsteps towards Magnolia Hill.

Ahead of her, in the deepening gloom, she could see the distinctive white of his kit-bag as it bobbed on his shoulder. When he reached the bottom end of Magnolia Hill and The
Swan he hesitated for a moment and then entered the saloon-bar. Minutes later Kate followed him.

Despite her father having once been a regular visitor to The Swan she had only stepped over the threshold a couple of times before, usually when it was a Sunday and her father had become so
engrossed in Cricket Club matters or a game of darts that he had forgotten the time and the roast dinner awaiting him at home. Then she had had to walk down to The Swan to break the news to him
that if he didn’t return home soon his dinner would be ruined.

A dozen pair of masculine eyes turned in her direction in disbelief. Albert, resplendent in his cobbled-together Home Guard uniform, was sitting at a table with Daniel Collins. Both men had pint
glasses of beer in their hands. At the sight of Kate, Albert was so startled that he slopped a good measure of the precious substance on to the coarse cloth of his trousers.

Nibbo, who only ever fraternized with his costermonger rival when, as an Air Raid Warden, his duties demanded he do so, was standing at the bar with Charlie. ‘What the bloody hell . .
.’ he began in stunned disbelief.

‘What are you doing in ’ere, petal?’ Charlie asked, before Nibbo became blatantly abusive. ‘You’ve taken the wrong door, though it’s a mistake anyone could
make in this perishin’ black-out.’

The sailor was also standing at the bar and was also regarding her with surprise. Considering the advanced state of her pregnancy, Kate didn’t blame him. She hardly cut the figure of a
young woman out on her own, hoping to pick up some masculine company and have a good time.

‘It’s all right, Charlie,’ she said, walking towards the bar. ‘I haven’t made a mistake.’

Once at the beer-stained bar she turned towards the bemused sailor. ‘I take it Mrs Collins wasn’t able to offer you accommodation?’ she asked, as The Swan’s landlord said
loudly and unnecessarily, ‘I don’t serve ladies in here!’

‘No.’ In the light of the pub she saw that he wasn’t as black as she had first thought. His good-natured face was more dusky chocolate-brown than ebony.

‘You can board with me,’ she said, seeing no sense in not coming to the point straight away.

On the other side of her, the pint glass in Nibbo’s hand clattered down heavily onto the bar. Uncharitably she hoped half its contents had been spilled.

‘You’re a landlady?’ the sailor asked, his eyebrows rising in surprise. ‘I hadn’t realized. I thought you said . . .’

‘She ain’t a landlady,’ Charlie interrupted, perturbed. ‘She’s a respectable young lady who doesn’t want to be doin’ with sailors.’

‘It’s all right, Charlie,’ Kate said again, grateful for his concern but having no need of it. ‘I’ve got plenty of spare rooms at home and if I don’t fill
them soon, the council billeting officer will fill them for me.’

Returning her attention to the sailor, she said again, ‘If you want a room, I have one.’

‘’Ang on a minute, petal,’ Charlie’s craggy face was still profoundly unhappy. ‘It ain’t as if your Dad’s still at ’ome . . .’