The Silent War (18 page)

‘Age has got nothing to do with it!’ Sunday’s voice was now raised. ‘If you’re having an affair, I have the right to know about it!’

‘Sunday!’ Madge was horrified. ‘How can you say such a thing – to your own mother!’ She turned and walked back into the parlour.

Sunday followed her. ‘Are you going to marry him?’ she called. ‘Tell me, Mum. I want to know.’

Madge stopped by the table, and leaned on it to keep her balance. Then turning to look back at Sunday, she said, ‘Stan and I are friends, Sunday. Just friends. We meet at Bible readings on Tuesday evenings, and he comes here for tea on Wednesday afternoons.’

Sunday was about to interrupt, but Madge raised her hand to stop her.

‘You’re young, Sunday,’ said Madge, establishing eye contact with her daughter. ‘Despite the terrible thing that’s happened to you, you’re young. You still have your life ahead of you, and it can be a good one if only you’ll give yourself the chance.’ She sat down at the table. It was clearly difficult for her to talk, but she knew she had no alternative. ‘Stan’s my companion. I haven’t had anyone like him to talk to since your dad died.’

‘You have Aunt Louie.’

Madge shook her head. ‘I love your auntie, but it’s not the same. Stan’s different. He’s strong. He gives me confidence. And he makes me laugh.’ Her face broke into the faintest smile. ‘It’s been a long time since I laughed, Sunday.’

There was a moment’s silence between them, which was only broken by the ticking of a small alarm clock on the mantelpiece. During that silence, Sunday was suddenly consumed with guilt. For the first time in her life she was jealous of her mother. She didn’t know how or why, only that the blood was rushing through her veins and sending totally illogical thoughts to her brain.

‘Just tell me something, Mum,’ said Sunday, her voice barely audible. ‘Do you love Stan Billings?’

Madge restored eye contact with Sunday again. ‘If it’s love for two old people to enjoy being in each other’s company, then yes, I love Stan. And he loves me.’

Sunday hesitated a moment. Then, quite impetuously, she rushed across to her mum, threw her arms around her, leaned down, and kissed her on the top of her head.

In Madge’s bedroom, her sister Louie had her ear pinned against the door.

She had clearly heard more than she had bargained for.

Overnight there had been almost an inch of snowfall. But by mid-morning a weak sun had succeeded in breaking through the heavy grey cloud, and soon turned the snow to a dirty black slush. People shuffled along the Holloway Road, doing their best to keep their balance on the slippery pavements, and there were very few cars or trucks around to brave the perilous road conditions.

Sunday, who was now used to getting up at the crack of dawn, was out of the flat early, so that by the time she reached the pile of snow-covered debris that was once Briggs Bagwash, it was still hard and crunchy underfoot. This was the first time she had been back to the place since she and Ernie Mancroft had been pulled out of the wreckage, and as she looked at the scene now before her, she felt cold and numb. It was impossible for her to imagine in which part of this wide, open space on Holloway Road she had once worked, scrubbing at one of the three huge washing tubs, or pushing wet clothes through the mangle. A few months before, this place and all her ‘Baggie’ mates she had worked with, had been such an important part of her life. Now all that was left were memories – memories of steam rising up from the washing tubs; of Ma Briggs with hands on hips and fag dangling from her lips, watching over her ‘Baggies’ with eyes of steel; of the ‘Baggies’ themselves, slaving away in the heat of the day, scrubbing, mangling, laughing and giggling with each other about their boyfriends, and telling coarse jokes that would have raised eyebrows even amongst the most broadminded of male customers at the local boozer. But most of all, she could see Pearl. Her
own,
dear, precious Pearl, with those large emerald eyes glistening through the steam, and a chubby smile that was unequalled anywhere. It was unbearable. Sunday could see them all so vividly, as though nothing had changed. Except that it
had
changed, for she would never see any of them again.

After a moment, she carefully climbed up on to the first pile of debris she came to. Just behind her, huge thick icicles had claimed their place, hanging stoically like giant teeth from the window ledge of what was once a high inside wall. In the hope of finding some small remnant from her past, she stooped down and used her hand to clear away an obstinate layer of snow. But there was nothing, just a heap of frozen earth, bits of parched wall laths, chunks of timber and stone, and fragments of bright red chimney pots. It was a depressing sight, and if it hadn’t been for the intense cold, she would have burst into tears right there and then. But just as she was about to turn away, her hand touched something that felt vaguely familiar. The top edge of it was still buried quite deep below the surface, so Sunday had to persevere. Eventually, however, her fingers frozen to the bone, she managed to recover the object. It was a scrubbing brush.

‘Wouldn’t ’ang ’round ’ere if I was you, mate.’

Sunday didn’t hear the voice talking to her, for it was coming from behind. But the moment she felt a hand on her shoulder, she turned around.

‘The coppers say the ’ole place could cave in any minute.’

Standing behind her was a snotty-nosed kid no more than eight or nine years old. With him was another boy a bit younger. They were each holding an aluminium pail containing ack-ack shrapnel.

‘Me and my bruvver used ter come up ’ere all the time,’ sniffed the first boy, wiping his runny nose on his sleeve. ‘Dug up all sorts er fings we could sell.’

‘We found a gold bracelet just over there,’ said the
younger
boy, pointing to a further heap of debris. ‘Mum made us give it in ter the coppers.’

‘We don’t come no more, do we?’ asked the older boy, as he turned to his brother. ‘It’s too dangerous.’

The younger boy nodded in agreement. Then he turned to Sunday. ‘A “doodlebug” come down ’ere, yer know,’ he said dramatically. ‘A load er gels got killed.’

The two boys turned and disappeared as silently as they had arrived.

Some time later that morning, Sunday went up to the Highgate Cemetery, and found her way to Pearl’s grave. When she got there, a small family group were putting some chrysanthemums into a glass vase, so she kept out of sight until they had gone.

The huge chunks of earth were still in the process of settling, which meant that there was not yet any headstone. Sunday had to shield her eyes with one hand, for she was dazzled by the sun now reflected on the carpet of snow covering all the surrounding graves.

When she reached the foot of Pearl’s mound of earth, she stood in contemplation for a moment or so. It was a strange experience not to be able to hear the sound of distant traffic rolling down Archway Road, or the seagulls that paid frequent visits from the Leg of Mutton Pond up at Hampstead. But at least, in her mind, she could still hear Pearl’s tiny voice that night, outside the pub after going to see
Henry Hall’s Guest Night
: ‘You’re the best friend a gel could ever ’ave, Sun. An’ that’s the ’onest troof.’

Sunday closed her eyes for a moment, and just stood there in the biting cold, ears covered by her headscarf, and her face exposed to the bright winter sun. When she opened her eyes again, the first thing she saw was the small glass vase containing the bunch of different coloured chrysanthemums, which was wedged into the hard earth to form a bright contrast with the stark white snow. She didn’t know whether to cry, or to say
something
to Pearl. But it didn’t make sense. Nothing made any sense. Pearl had gone and she would never come back.

She crouched down at the side of the grave, and with both hands started to scrape away a small hole in the middle of the earth. When she was satisfied that it was the right depth, she put her hand into her coat pocket, and took out the scrubbing brush which she had retrieved from the debris of Briggs Bagwash.

Without ceremony, Sunday placed the brush into the hole she had just dug, covered it up, and quietly went home.

Alf Butler dozed in his favourite armchair by the fire, his legs tucked up in a blanket which his wife, Bess, had covered over him just before Sunday arrived. All his life, Alf had been a frail sort of man, full of ailments from lumbago and rheumatism, to the flu and cataract problems. But just a year before, his health suddenly deteriorated when he collapsed with a stroke. This meant that he had had to give up his job as a door attendant at the Savoy Cinema across the road, which had deeply distressed him. But in the sixteen years that he had been married to Bess, he had been a good husband, despite the fact that he was over twenty years older than her. Now in his early sixties, he had resigned himself to a sedentary life, pottering around the flat doing odd jobs, and reluctantly leaving Bess to be the breadwinner. How she really earned her living, however, was quite another matter, for, as all her neighbours in ‘the Buildings’ knew, it had always been far removed from the hotel receptionist job she told Alf she went to most nights of the week.

‘’E’s ’ad a slight stroke,’ Bess mouthed.

She wanted to avoid waking Alf, so it was useful only having to move her tongue and lips to talk to Sunday.

‘Gone numb down one side of ’is face. Luckily, it ’asn’t really affected ’im anywhere else. Poor old boy.’ She kissed him gently on the forehead. ‘Always in the wars.’

She nodded to Sunday, who followed her into the kitchen.

‘’E ought ter be in a nursin’ ’ome or somefin’,’ Bess said, as she quietly closed the door behind Sunday. ‘But I fink it’d kill ’im off in a coupla weeks. ’E relies on me, Sun – that’s the sad part. Sits at that window night an’ day, waitin’ for me ter come ’ome.’ She moved to the kitchen table, pulled back a chair for Sunday to sit down on, then sat down opposite her. ‘Mind you, I rely on ’im too, yer know. Oh yes. ’E’s a stupid ole sod, but I’m a lucky woman to ’ave a man to love me like ’e does.’

Sunday crossed her arms and leaned them on the table. ‘Do you love him too, Bess?’ she asked.

Bess took out her packet of fags and lighter from her dress pocket and put them on the table in front of her. ‘I don’t know what love means any more,’ she said. ‘Every night of the week some Yankee boy or uvver tells me ’e loves me. Until ’e finishes wiv me after an ’our or so.’ She flicked open the fag packet. ‘It’s not like that wiv Alf though. I love ’
im
in quite a different way.’

She took a fag out of the packet, and then pushed it across to her friend. Sunday shook her head, and passed it back again.

Bess was surprised. ‘Wot? Given it up already?’

Sunday shrugged her shoulders. She had only started to smoke in the first place because all the other ‘Baggies’ seemed to do it, and because it seemed glamorous and sexy to be seen by a feller with a fag drooping out of sticky red lips, just like a film star. But ever since she lost her hearing, smoking just didn’t matter to her any more.

Bess lit herself a fag, and for the next half-hour or so, she sat there listening to how Sunday had been coping with her new life in the country. Bess hung on every word Sunday said, for before the girl had joined up in the Women’s Land Army, she had made no secret of the fact that, in her opinion, getting away from the stifling atmosphere of living with two elderly women was Sunday’s only hope of survival.

Sunday loved her little chats with Bess. For some reason, she felt totally at ease with this larger-than-life character who didn’t care a damn what anyone thought of her. Most odd, however, was the fact that the two of them spoke about sex quite openly. Bess told Sunday everything about her exploits with her GI customers in the West End, and in turn Sunday confided in her about all her most intimate physical problems. In that sense, despite her free and easy ways, Bess was more of a mum than Sunday’s own mum, for Madge had always shied away from discussing any ‘worldly’ matters with her daughter. However, Bess suddenly mentioned one particular matter that caught Sunday completely off guard.

‘So tell me about this Ernie Mancroft.’

Sunday was startled. ’What about him?’

‘Who is ’e?’

Sunday moved about restlessly on her chair. ‘He used to work at the Bagwash. He and I – we were dug out together.’

‘’Ad a bit of a ding-dong, ’ave yer?’

For the first time ever, Sunday took umbrage at one of Bess’s remarks. ‘No, Bess! Don’t say things like that. You make it sound like we’re friends. Don’t ever say that again. I hate Ernie Mancroft.’

Bess looked both surprised and curious. But she had retained a lungful of smoke for longer than she had anticipated, and it made her cough. ‘Don’t foller yer, Sun. It don’t make sense.’

‘What do you mean?’

Bess got up from the table, stubbed her fag out in the sink, and threw the stub into the waste bin below. Then she returned to the table, but remained standing. ‘From what I ’ear, ’e’s been ’anging round your place quite a lot since yer left. Yer Aunt Louie’s been seein’ quite a bit of ’im. Accordin’ to ’er, this bloke says you an’ ’im – are a couple.’

Sunday’s lips went dry.

‘As far as I can make out, Louie gave ’im yer address
in
the country.’ She pulled another fag out of the packet and placed it between her lips. But she didn’t light up. ‘Sounds ter me like ’e’s got the ’ots for yer, mate, ’cos ’e’s coming out to Essex to look yer up.’

All the colour drained from Sunday’s face.

The journey back to Ridgewell took Sunday twice as long as when she had originally set out. There had been such heavy falls of snow that not only was the train from London running late, but the poor old driver of the village bus had to get out several times to clear the road with a shovel. But for Sunday, it was a magical sight. This was the first time she had ever seen the countryside completely covered in snow, and in some places, where the wind had blown drifts against the bordering hedgerows, the entire landscape looked just like one massive white blanket.