Small Island (31 page)

‘I just need to know you’re alive,’ he’d say.

‘Oh, yes,’ I’d tell him. ‘Very much so.’

‘You say you lost all your clothes in the fire,’ I said now, ‘and your coupons.’

‘Miss, what I’m standing up in is all I’ve got, is what I’m telling you.’ And that was no more than tatty rags. The man’s son was wrapped in a blanket with no shoes on. ‘My boy here was in bed. I was making a quick cup of tea. I only had time to grab him when I see the thing falling out the sky. Then suddenly nothing and we’re on fire. My neighbours are screaming, I can hear them through the wall. I get him out. My wife, she was in the shelter – well, she’s in the hospital now. Dunno what happened to next door.’

‘There’s clothes in the other classroom. You could go in and get something for your son and—’

‘We tried that, miss. One of your colleagues pointed it out to us when we came in. But there weren’t any trousers left, well, not to fit ’im, and my boy really don’t wanna wear a dress.’

‘Okay,’ I said, looking for advice in my little book. ‘To replace your clothing coupons you’ll need to get the form CRSC1 from the administrative centre. That’s CRSC1. Fill it in, then forward it by post, to the Customs and Excise office at the Board of Trade in Westminster. That’s in . . . SW one.’

‘Right – is that it, then?’ he asked.

And I had to tell him, ‘Yes, I’m afraid it is.’

‘Well, I suppose we could have another go in the classroom next door.’

There were just not enough bunks. People were having to sleep on the floor.

‘But my house has gone. Surely there is some compensation I can have now so I can find another property?’

‘Well, madam, you could try writing to the Assistance Board or send to the War Damage Commission for a form C1 but they don’t usually pay out until after the war.’

‘Usually! What are you talking about? How many wars have we had where this has happened? And please, miss, don’t get me wrong but what exactly will they do with my claim if, God forbid, we don’t win?’

Sometimes the food ran out and all we had to offer anyone was a blinking cup of tea.

‘Have you no other relatives that could take you in?’ I couldn’t stop this woman crying and why should she? Her husband, her mum, her dad had all been killed at the mouth of a shelter. She was at least eight months pregnant. Her only reply was a very slight shake of the head.

‘Tell you what, I could get you evacuated if you like?’

‘The road to hell,’ my mother would tell Father, after he’d given another miner something she thought he shouldn’t, ‘is paved with good intentions.’ He’d shrug. The only paving left in London was that sort. And me at my desk diligently deferring to my pamphlet for Loss or Damage Services was laying every last blinking stone to hell and back. My job was no more than to send the still shaking and stunned round London – once, twice, three times – to answer more questions, fill in more forms so they might get back some of what, through no fault of theirs, had just been rudely taken from them.

Mrs Palmer insisted I call her Dora. She’d been bombed out round Hammersmith way, with her husband, three sons and a very manky cat. ‘I just looked at the house and there it was, gone.’ Returning from the billeting officer she skipped towards me fresh as a girl. ‘They’ve found us a lovely place, Queenie. I can hardly believe it. Guess where it is? Go on – you’ll never. Connaught Street. Can you imagine? My husband’s always wanted to live somewhere posh like Connaught Street. It was like a dream for him. And here we are being offered a flat in a house down there. Ordinary people like us. It’ll take his mind off losing his foot. So, I’ve been sent back to you to see about getting some furniture.’

‘What happened to all yours?’ I asked her.

‘Oh, it was all lost, Queenie – every last stick.’

‘Did you make a claim for it at the time?’

‘No, I don’t think so. My husband sees to things like that and he was in the hospital until couple of days ago.’

‘So you haven’t filled out a PC54?’

‘I think I can safely say no. But I can do it now if it would help.’

‘When was your furniture damaged, Mrs Palmer?’

‘Please call me Dora – you make me feel so old. Now, let’s see, it’ll be about two months now. ’Cause Jack was in the hospital six, seven weeks. Me and the boys were at my sister’s until that took a hit. Been here a week or so. Yeah, about two months.’

‘Oh,’ I said. My little book was telling me that with the PC54, the claim had to be forwarded to the District Valuer within thirty days of the damage or loss occurring.

‘Is there a problem, Queenie?’ she asked. My head became such a weight that I could not lift it to look her in the eye with that news. ‘Is it something Jack will have to do?’

‘For furniture, Dora,’ I began hesitantly, ‘you should have put in the claim within thirty days of the loss.’

Clear as a silent-movie star, her face ran through an assortment of expressions – roughly corresponding to a baffled how, what and when. Then her eyebrows rose briefly to spring apart with understanding before sinking back down to a confused anxiety, while she said a quiet ‘But . . .’

Bernard was so furious with me that the vein on his temple that used to annoy me when he ate was standing up pumping like it had a heart of its own. ‘Queenie, for the last time, it is not our furniture to give away. It belongs to my father.’ I’d arrived at the house with a van and two men, who prudently kept their eyes down as they passed carrying a table and another chair.

‘I’m not giving it away – I’m lending it.’

‘It’s still not ours – even to loan.’

‘It’s doing nothing upstairs, just sitting in those rooms covered in newspaper. It’s just a couple of beds, a table and four chairs. We’ll not miss them before they’re back.’

‘Where are they going? Who are you giving them too?’

‘Mrs Palmer – Dora and her family.’

‘Who on earth are they?’

‘They’re from the rest centre.’

‘Absolutely not, Queenie! We don’t know these people. How can you be sure you’ll get the furniture back?’

‘I know I will. I promise I will.’

‘Are these people our sort?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Queenie, for God’s sake, have some sense. You can’t help everyone. Isn’t it enough that you work all hours at that place? Look at you – you’re tired. You look awful.’

‘Thanks, Bernard.’

‘I’m just thinking of you.’

‘They’re just borrowing the furniture until I can get them some. Otherwise they’ve got a requisitioned flat with nothing in it. Nothing at all.’

‘That’s not our problem.’

‘Oh, no, sorry, that’s where you’re wrong. Bernard, there is a war on.’

‘I’m very well aware of that.’

‘Oh, yeah? Well, let me tell you something, let me give you a fact – there’s thousands of people having much more of a war than you are.’ And as soon as I’d said it I wished I hadn’t. He reeled from me as sure as if I’d spat in his face. Swallowing hard to guzzle up those words he nodded at me – just a little – then turned to walk into the gloom inside.

Dora found it hard to stop thanking me. ‘I don’t know what we’d have done, you’ve been such a help, Queenie, you really have . . .’ Out on her precious Connaught Street she didn’t appear to want to stop waving goodbye. I was quite a way down the road and could still hear her calling, ‘How can we ever thank you enough? Don’t be a stranger. Come any time.’

‘’Bye, then,’ I was saying when I noticed a woman running after me down the street. Well dressed with delicate heels that clopped on the pavement like a thoroughbred.

‘You there, you there,’ she called. ‘Are you responsible for this?’ I stopped for a moment until she said, ‘I want to know on whose authority those people have been put into that property.’ I began walking again, fast, as she chased after me saying, ‘I want to know the name of your superior. I want to make a complaint. I’m not happy to have those people living here. This is a respectable street. Those kind of people do not belong here. Let me tell you, there will be a great deal of trouble if they stay because I am not happy about it, not happy about it at all.’

Twenty-eight

Queenie

It was my fault that Bernard volunteered for the RAF before waiting to be asked. Men not in uniform began to look out of place in streets rolling in blue and khaki. With us having to import Yanks and him still wearing what he liked, he was self conscious, apologetic, even. But it wasn’t that – it was all that catastrophe that dodged in behind me every time I came home from the rest centre. And when he tried to turn away he’d look straight into another war – scarred into the face of his own father. He had to join up. And the RAF wanted him. A skinny bank clerk who always blew on his tea before he drank it. A man who had trouble finding enough rage to scare next-door’s cat out of our shelter. And it wasn’t just that the military could see his wiry frame fitting into any desk space no matter how small: Bernard was to become part of their fighting machine – they were sending him overseas. Mr Todd slapped his back, saying, ‘Good show, Bernard, good man.’ People who would never before pass the time of day with me asked after my husband. And when I talked about him I plumped almost as proud as Auntie Dorothy with Montgomery. I swear his shoulders got broader, his hands more manly with every leave. Even the back of his neck looked fearless with the collar of his RAF blues pressing against it. I was almost jealous now someone else wanted him. He’s my husband, where are you sending him? Training in Skegness and Blackpool, he was home more often than he used to be. But overseas! Where overseas? How far? We live on an island, for God’s sake, everywhere is blinking overseas.

He left with no more ceremony than if he was going to the bank. I wanted to hug him, whisper into his ear to be sure to tell me what he was doing, to show me what he was seeing in all those foreign places. But he stiffened like a plank of best mahogany, then bent to kiss my cheek. Watching him walking down our road – his forage cap sitting at an angle on his head, his kit-bag lolling like a corpse over his shoulder – I thought, He is so thin that any enemy soldier would have to have a ruddy good aim to hit him. It was a strange thought, not one I’d have shared with anyone, but funnily enough I found it comforting. The pity of it was he wouldn’t have known that I was watching him through the window, let alone that I was worrying. And when he was finally out of view, the road screamed with emptiness. I couldn’t help what came to my mind next – it just sneaked up behind me to sigh over my shoulder: he’ll not be able to post it home so you’ll never get pregnant now, Queenie.

Early Bird, my teacher at Bolsbrooke Elementary School, taught us all in English grammar that an apostrophe is a mark to show where something is missing. And that was how I’d always seen Bernard’s father, Arthur: a human apostrophe. He was there but only to show us that something precious had gone astray. When Bernard said he was being posted overseas I asked him who was going to look after his father now. A bewildered expression was all I got to tell me that I was.

Arthur never spoke. He shook his head, he nodded, he grunted, he sighed, he even tutted. But no word came through his lips – not even his sneeze would accidentally say, ‘A tissue.’ But gradually I came to notice his eyebrows. Two dark, thick, bushy lines roving over his forehead. I forgot about waiting for his lips to move and started reading those hairy brows instead. They were more expressive than Bernard’s mouth had ever been. Two upward flicks and he was asking if I’d like a cup of tea. One up one down, and he wanted to know if I was sure.

And it didn’t take me long to appreciate that Arthur was a magician. Out in the garden all day he could pull carrots, cabbages, potatoes, turnips, swedes, parsnips out of rubble and stone. One day I came home to find him holding up an onion for me. Big as a ball, a perfect specimen, its skin golden brown and crackling. He laughed when I asked, ‘Where in heaven’s name did you get that?’ Then slowly he revealed another one in his other hand. What wonderful things – I could have gone into the street and sold them for twenty guineas each. No one had seen an onion for months. But Arthur had two. And it was him that lovingly cooked me the sausage and mash with onion gravy.

He would queue for hours for food. Lines and lines and lines of women and then Arthur – this ageing gentleman trussed up in his gaberdine with his little cloth bag – standing still and silent as a monument to patience. They’d let him in the queue in front of them sometimes, the women: they felt sorry for him just like I once did. He looked broken, trembling at the slightest noise, his face changing from plain-day to wild and hunted at the drop of a pin. But he wasn’t. Without Bernard fussing about him, pulling, coaxing, he began to unfurl as sure as a flower that finally feels the sun when the tree is gone. And in the evenings the rotten beggar always beat me at Monopoly. His metal boot silently hoarding the board until the only course of action left to me was to declare war, sound a siren, then bomb all his blinking hotels and houses to bits.

‘None of your rubbish.’ That was how Franny, who worked with me at the rest centre, described them. ‘Flyers. 103 Squadron. Lancasters. God’s honest truth. Go on, Queenie, they deserve a bit of home comfort.’ Three officers on leave for a couple of days in London before going back on active duty at their airbase in Lincolnshire. ‘It’s a favour to me, really. And to my sister, who’s very keen on Kip. Go on. Just for a couple of days. I know you’ve got the room.’

If Bernard had still been there it would have been a stony no, bomber crew or no bomber crew. Arthur was so amazed that I asked his permission, his face went blank as white bread. Then one ponderous eyebrow lifted before he nodded, yes.

The tea was too weak – both officers looked down at their cups distrusting, not wanting to swallow what they had in their mouths. They were the last leaves we had left and, in all honesty, I had used them before. I hoped this third officer was going to turn up before the pot got cold otherwise I’d have nothing to give him except some boiled-up dandelion leaves, which Arthur, and only Arthur, thought a refreshing alternative drink. The redheaded officer had skin so pale it looked to be dusted with flour. Still a boy, he giggled nervously before and after anything he said. He introduced himself as Walter but said everyone called him Ginger. I didn’t ask why. But I did ask the other one why everyone called him Kip.