November 1919
‘Shut up making that racket, fer Gawd’s sake, you’re not a kid any more.’
Robert Wild glowered at his younger brother, who was cuffing tears and snot from his face, then snapped defiant eyes to a couple hovering close by. They were frowning in censure rather than sympathy as Stephen carried on sobbing his heart out. The bigger boy stared back belligerently until the woman gripped her companion’s elbow, urging him to hurry on.
Yanking at his brother’s arm, Robert steered him into the grimy corridor of the Duke of Edinburgh pub. From beyond the closed door of the saloon bar they could hear their kith and kin, voices raised in revelry; it served only to increase Stephen’s misery.
‘They ain’t bothered she’s dead, are they?’ he hiccupped. ‘Just us, ain’t it, who’s real upset?’
‘’Course they’re bothered,’ Robert muttered. ‘Only it won’t be till they’ve sobered up that they’ll remember it.’ From his superior height he cast a look at the top of his brother’s wiry dark curls, glistening with droplets from the November night air. ‘Want a drink?’ he asked in an attempt to cheer Stephen up. ‘I mean a proper drink, not another sup of shandy.’
Stephen shook his head then let his chin drop towards his chest. He stuffed his icy fingers into his pockets to warm them.
‘I’m gettin’ one,’ Robert stated confidently. The door to the saloon bar was within arm’s reach, but he stayed where he was. Much as he would have liked to enter and buy himself an ale, he wasn’t old enough to be served; besides, he had no money. It would have been easy enough to cadge one off somebody, but right now he couldn’t stir up the cheek to do it. Hearing his name called, he raised a lethargic hand in greeting as two young women emerged from the twilight, huddled in their coats. Alice and Bethany Keiver were their cousins, and their friends.
‘Had enough in there with that rowdy lot?’ Alice asked gently, putting an arm about Stevie’s slumped shoulders. She offered no more words of sympathy; she and her sisters had given the boys enough support earlier that day. Having only recently lost people they loved to the Great War, the Keivers knew that pity, however well meant, should have its limits. But Alice’s voice throbbed with emotion when she suggested, ‘Why don’t you both come up the station with us and see Sophy off?’ She cocked her head, waiting for an answer. ‘We’re going to fetch little Luce and let her come with us. It’s way past her bedtime.’ She grinned, thinking how excited her seven-year-old sister would be about going out with the grown-ups so late at night. ‘Come on,’ Alice urged, ‘Sophy’s catching her train in about half an hour.’
Sophy, the eldest of the Keiver girls, was in service in Essex. She’d travelled down yesterday, but her employer was not prepared to give her more than a day’s leave to see her Aunt Fran laid to rest, so she had promised to return within hours of the funeral.
‘Yeah, it’ll give you both something to do. Take your minds off things. We can get some chips on the way back,’ Bethany encouraged. ‘You hungry, Stevie?’ she asked brightly.
He shook his head, snorting back a sob.
‘We’re all right,’ Robert said gruffly. ‘Goin’ off home soon in any case.’ This was a lie. Neither he nor Stevie wanted to return to the dank, depressing room in Campbell Road where they lived. Better to loiter on the corner of Fonthill Road, breathing in air so cold it glassed their throats, than return to a place where their mum’s whispering presence seemed to melt into every shadow.
‘Best be off then,’ Alice murmured and the two sisters walked on arm in arm in the direction of Campbell Road, heads down against the drifting mist.
Stephen raised his bloodshot eyes to Robert’s face. ‘What we gonna do now Mum’s gone?’ he croaked.
‘Same as we did before,’ Robert returned. ‘No, that ain’t right,’ he corrected himself with a bleak smile. ‘I’ll be doin’ the same as before, but you won’t.’ His tone grew bitterly ironic. ‘Come Monday morning, you’ll be out o’ school and knockin’ yer guts out down the market, same as me. I was thirteen when I started work, so it ain’t gonna kill you, doin’ the same. We’re going to need every penny we can get to pay the rent and get fed now Mum’s not around, so you’ve gotta do your bit.’
‘But I ain’t thirteen,’ Stevie whimpered.
‘Soon will be. You’re close enough.’
At this, Stevie’s fragile composure crumbled and he started sobbing again, head hanging between his hunched shoulders.
‘Bawlin’ ain’t gonna help,’ Robert said quietly. He’d learned young to control his tears. His lash-happy father had taught him that all crying got you was something else to howl about.
The saloon door suddenly swung outward and Robert dodged nimbly aside to avoid a blow from its iron handle.
‘Wondered where the pair of you had got to. What you doing out here all on yer own?’ Tilly Keiver asked in her whiskey-grizzled voice. ‘Come back inside. It’s bleedin’ freezin’ by this doorway.’ She tilted her head to examine her youngest nephew’s blotchy face. ‘Come on, Stevie, mate,’ she encouraged him, putting a red-raw hand on one of his shoulders. Through the rough fabric of his coat she gave his thin frame a squeeze. ‘Yer mum’s watchin’ over you, y’know. She wouldn’t want you so upset on her account.’ Tilly’s voice had thickened with emotion and she blinked as heat blurred her eyes. She’d been very close to her sister and had been distraught when the Spanish flu had finally overcome her. Fran had put up a fight for almost a month, but it had come as no surprise when she’d grown too weak to battle on. In a way it had been a blessing to see her suffering at an end.
Putting her lips close to Robert’s ear, she whispered conspiratorially, ‘Let’s get the two of yers a little summat to warm the cockles, shall we?’
Robert recoiled slightly as her alcoholic breath wafted across his face. But he smiled. He could do with a bevy, all right. Despite being a good height and well built for his fourteen years, the publicans around the Islington area knew him and his family well; they knew how old he was and would only serve him on the sly now and again when they were feeling friendly. When he could afford it, Robert frequented hostelries further afield.
‘Get yerselves sat down by the window, outta sight.’ Tilly pointed to a bench and the two brothers slid obediently on to its smooth shiny surface and watched their aunt disappear into the thick atmosphere. The pub was packed with mourners, yet few had bothered to turn to acknowledge them this time. The wake had been going on for hours and most people were too far gone to remember the poor orphan lads they’d consoled at the cemetery that afternoon, then later when they’d all first filed soberly into the saloon bar. Robert had known what was behind their crooning voices and sad smiles as he received hugs and handshakes from one and all.
Poor sods, they’d all been thinking, they’re orphans, even if they are almost grown and one of them already out earning. Stevie’s going to be a burden on Rob if he don’t toughen up. What a family! Their old man was a wrong ’un and did them all a turn by going missing during the war. But now Fran Wild’s kids have got no mum, no money, and no nothing … except one another.
As they’d offered up their pity, and their silent prayers that such bad luck might pass their own kids by, Robert had stared into their eyes, and known exactly what was going through their minds. He’d made himself a promise: by the time he was twenty, they’d be looking at him in a different light. And if there was an afterlife, and his mum was watching over him and Stevie, for the first time in her miserable existence she’d be feeling happy and proud. He’d make sure of that.