‘Well, she ain’t welcome in the air-raid shelter no more, I’ll tell you that for nothing!’
Bessie sat like a mother hen at her kitchen table, with little Anita at her feet on the bare floorboards, babbling away to herself, and baby John snoozing in her arms, as she shared the news of Vera’s disgrace. Anita picked up a big brass button from the box Bessie had given her to play with and held it between her chubby little fingers. ‘Button!’
Bessie always made such a fuss of the kids when Annie brought them round to Soapsud Island for a visit.
‘Ooh, that’s a lovely one, chicken, yes!’ said Bessie, taking the button from her. ‘Can you find me another?’ She lowered her voice and turned to Annie. ‘I told you that Vera had been on the rob and it was going to catch up with her. Well, now it has. That good-for-nothing Herbie’s due up in front of the beak and she’s lucky she’s not going with him.
‘And she got chucked out of her rooms in Stirling Road an’ all. Lady downstairs said there were so many men in uniform going up and down the staircase it was like an escalator at Piccadilly Circus. And some of them were Americans too!’ Vera had got herself rooms near her mother’s so that she could have some space but still be on hand to help and now even that had gone terribly wrong. Annie’s heart sank.
American soldiers had been causing quite a stir around town and a whole bunch of them were stationed up the road at Park Royal. Elsie had been out dancing with a few at the Hammersmith Palais on Saturday afternoons and had come back with some fancy new dance steps and a pair of nylons. Mum seemed pleased because it meant Elsie would stop pinching her gravy browning, which she’d been slapping on her legs because she’d run out of clothing coupons for new stockings.
The Yanks were always flush with luxuries and very generous too, so it was no surprise that Vera had been entertaining half the US army, but it didn’t seem fair to judge her too harshly because of it. The filching of food from the ARP canteen was another matter, of course. That was unforgivable when so many people were struggling to get by on rations.
Annie had tried to warn Vera that the ARP supervisors were watching her and told her that if she was stealing anything, she should stop, but Vera had just shrugged her shoulders, taken a drag of her ciggie and said, ‘Don’t know what you are talking about there, Annie.’
The final straw came last week, when three tins of corned beef had gone missing the night she was washing up in the canteen and although she swore blind that she’d had nothing to do with it, the chief warden had given Vera her marching orders.
A few days later, Herbie had an unscheduled visit from the boys in blue, who had uncovered his stash of black-market goods, including his petrol tank hidden behind the garden wall. He was due up in court for profiteering. There was no proof that Vera had been involved but that didn’t matter to Bessie or any of the Soapsud Island women. She’d been seen often enough in his company for people to talk.
Now it seemed the world was out to get Vera and all the hatred and suspicion people had been harbouring for the last few years came pouring out. Her landlady didn’t want to be tarred with the same brush, so she’d taken it as an excuse to get shot of her.
‘So, where is she going to live?’ said Annie.
‘Can’t say I care two figs to be honest,’ said Bessie sniffily. ‘But I heard she’s got herself a job behind the bar in The Gladstone. That’s her natural habitat if you ask me. She’ll find it makes her line of work a bit easier, I dare say.’
Annie knew that what Bessie was saying was true, but it didn’t make hearing her friend being talked about in that way any more palatable and Annie certainly wasn’t going to join in.
‘Well, I’d better be getting back,’ said Annie, giving her a tight little smile.
‘Do you have to go so soon?’ said Bessie, her face falling. ‘It’s just, you know I love seeing the little ones.’ She gave John a hug.
Bessie didn’t have any other family, so Annie relented and stayed a while longer. As she sipped her scalding hot tea, she had the germ of an idea to bring Vera and Bessie closer together again, to heal the rift. ‘I’m thinking of going up to the open-air concert at Springfield Park tomorrow. Why don’t you come with us?’ Music in the park was just one way the council tried to keep people’s spirits up.
Bessie beamed at her. ‘I’d love to. It’ll do me good to get out and about.’ She put her hand inside the pocket of her apron. ‘I almost forgot, you’d better take these.’ She pulled out a pair of knitted bootees in blue wool. ‘I made them for the baby.’
‘They’re beautiful, Bessie,’ said Annie. ‘You shouldn’t have.’
‘I unpicked one of my old shawls. I don’t have much need for it, so thought it would be more use for the baby than me.’
That was the Bessie who Annie knew and loved, the woman who would give the clothes off her own back to help, not the bitter gossip who seemed to love spreading the dirt about Vera, who she’d once counted as a friend.
As Annie pushed the pram up Acton Lane, with John tucked up inside and Anita sitting on the front with her legs dangling between the handles, she could only wonder about how much this war had changed their community and whether things could ever be the same again.
The days when it wasn’t respectable for a woman to go into a public house on her own had passed since the war began. Some of the older folk might raise an eyebrow, but pubs were doing a roaring trade, with single girls nipping in after their factory shifts. More people than ever took solace in a drink and the inevitable knees-up that the end of the night would bring, and many drinkers even ignored the air-raid sirens and stayed put. Most would move away from the windows because of the risk of flying glass from a bomb blast but they showed determination to enjoy their free time and many saw it as a way of sticking two fingers up to Hitler.
Annie dropped the children round to her mum’s and headed back down Acton Lane towards The Gladstone pub on Park Road. It had a bit of a reputation as a rough place, a real spit-and-sawdust establishment, but Annie had grown up round these parts so that didn’t put her off.
A couple of old geezers glanced up as she pushed open the door and walked in. The air was redolent with the stench of stale tobacco and the floorboards nearest to the bar were sticky from pints of beer being sloshed about. Vera was hard at work, her dirty blonde curls shaking as she polished glasses with a tea towel that had seen better days.
Annie stepped over a little heap of sawdust full of cigarette ends and waved at Vera, who greeted her, dead-eyed. ‘Hello, Annie, come to gloat?’
‘That’s no way to treat a friend,’ Annie chided. ‘I’ve come to see how you are getting on.’
Vera shrugged her shoulders. ‘I didn’t mean to be off-hand, it’s just I don’t have many people who want to pass the time of day with me any more.’
‘Well, I was wondering if you might like to come to the concert tomorrow up at Springfield Park, with me and the kids?’
‘Sounds nice,’ said Vera. ‘Fancy a drink?’
Annie didn’t have time to respond because Vera was already pouring a couple of large sherries.
‘Won’t the landlord mind?’
‘Nah, he’s permanently pickled and, in any case, he knows I’m a good worker, so I’m allowed to have a few bevvies on the house,’ she said, giving Annie a little wink.
Annie took the glass and had a teeny sip, out of politeness more than anything else.
Vera leaned forward and smiled, flashing her yellowing teeth. ‘I know you tried to warn me to watch my back at the ARP, but I swear I never nicked anything that night. Don’t matter now in any case. They’ll have to manage without me, won’t they?’
‘Well, it’s their loss,’ said Annie. ‘Harry says you were good at your job. Where are you staying these days?’
‘Have you been listening to gossip about me, Annie?’ said Vera, her eyes narrowing to slits.
‘No, I just heard you weren’t round at Stirling Road when I went looking for you,’ Annie lied.
Vera paused for a moment and took a large slug of her drink before wiping her mouth on her blouse sleeve and continuing: ‘Got a room up the road from an old couple. They don’t seem to mind me ’cos I’m helping with the rent so that’s all they care about.’ She itched a row of bites up her arm as she spoke. ‘Bed bugs are troubling me something rotten, though. I expect the fresh air tomorrow’ll do me good.’
As Annie was leaving Vera shouted out across the bar, ‘And I bet there’ll be some handsome GIs there too, won’t there?’
She was the same old Vera all right.
Hundreds of people flocked to Springfield Park for the concert on a bright and sunny early summer’s afternoon when the blossom was still on the trees. If it hadn’t been for the absence of so many of the menfolk between the ages of eighteen and forty, it would have been like any other show before the war.
Dozens of little heads were bobbing about in front of the Punch and Judy show, which was festooned with Union Jack bunting. Mum and Ivy sat with the children, who were mesmerized by it all. They’d been promised a magician and a clown later on too, which was a real treat.
Esther had organized some stalls to raise more money for the war effort and people were chucking balls at tin cans which had been painted to look like Hitler, for a penny a shot. Three in a row got you a ha’penny back. Her boy Leonard and some of his friends had glued a few cans to the posts, of course, but nobody minded really. It was all a bit of fun.
Music seemed to make life more bearable for everyone and people were already tapping their feet to the pianist up on the bandstand, who was tickling the ivories for all she was worth.
Strolling among the crowds, standing a head taller than most of the Londoners, were a whole bunch of American GIs in their sand-coloured uniforms. They cut a swathe through the girls and appeared to be towing half the snotty-nosed urchins from Stirling Road in their wake, who were badgering them, ‘Got any gum, chum?’
Annie had spent ages helping Elsie get her hair just right, carefully rolling up the sides and pinning it, and sorting out a bit of lift at the front too, just like Vera Lynn. She had also reworked an old blouse for Elsie, creating the fashionable leg-of-mutton puffed shoulders that she was after, and Elsie had nipped in her waist with a belt to set off her best printed cotton skirt, which had already seen a few summers but still looked pretty.
‘I bet Joan’s got something new to wear,’ Elsie had confided. ‘I don’t know how she does it on the ration.’
‘Oh, don’t be daft,’ said Annie. ‘You’ll both look lovely.’
But Joan had pulled out all the stops. Her honey-blonde hair was pinned behind one ear, with the rest falling in loose waves, so that she appeared to be coyly peeking out from a shimmering golden curtain. Her cotton dress was covered with little roses, with a belt made from the same material showing off her impossibly tiny waist. She’d always been tall and slim, but the war work seemed to have honed her figure so when she sashayed across the park to greet them, she looked like a film star.
Elsie’s face fell for a moment, but she wasn’t downhearted for long, because the Pioneer Corps Orchestra struck up a tune and a very handsome American soldier asked her to dance. As Elsie trotted off, Annie spied Bessie trudging across the park; she was a martyr to her varicose veins from all the years of standing on the cold, wet floors in the laundries of Soapsud Island.
Annie waved and pointed to a couple of empty deckchairs near the bandstand and Bessie gratefully sank into one, like a deflating balloon. ‘Ooh, that walk up Acton Lane nearly did for me but I’m glad I made it. Is Harry coming along? Haven’t seen him in ages.’
‘No, he’s on a shift today,’ said Annie. Harry hadn’t shown the least bit of interest in having any fun with her or the children, but she didn’t want to dwell on it.
‘How’s he taking the fact that you’re a working woman, then?’
Annie hesitated for a moment.
‘Come on,’ said Bessie. ‘You can tell me; a problem shared and all that . . .’
‘I can’t say he’s happy about it but it’s giving us extra money and we might be able to think about getting a bigger flat so that the children can have their own room. Might give us a bit more peace and quiet, which would be nice,’ said Annie. That was about as far as she would go in telling Bessie that there were any problems between her and her man. Bessie got the message, because she nodded sagely.
‘Well, he should look on the bright side, then, shouldn’t he?’ said a voice from over her shoulder.
Annie turned around to find Vera smiling down at her. ‘Mind if I join you two?’
Bessie’s face set like stone. ‘I was just leaving.’
‘Wait!’ said Annie. ‘Don’t go. Why don’t you stay and chat with me and Vera for a while?’
‘Can’t say I like the company in the park any more,’ said Bessie, sticking her nose in the air and pulling her cardigan around her ample bosom. ‘I’ll see you with the children another time, Annie.’
‘Oh, suit yourself!’ said Vera, folding her arms and glaring at Bessie.
Bessie heaved herself back out of the deckchair and shuffled off across the park before Annie could stop her.
Vera sat down, muttering, ‘Miserable old cow,’ but she’d barely exchanged two words with Annie before she was off again, like a rat up a drainpipe, in pursuit of a skinny-looking GI who was standing a bit forlornly watching his comrades manhandling Elsie, Joan and every good-looking girl in the borough around the grass in time to the music, in a blur of beige uniforms and swirling skirts. The soldier clapped eyes on Vera and pulled out a smoke from the packet in his top pocket. Vera leaned in close as he lit it for her and the pair of them strolled off arm in arm and that was that.
Annie was just about to get up and go back to the Punch and Judy show, where the children were screeching ‘Oh no he doesn’t’ at the top of their voices, when her boss, Dennis, appeared in front of her, grinning from ear to ear.
‘I hate to see you looking so lonely,’ he said, offering her his hand. ‘Care to dance?’
‘Where’s Mrs Pritchard?’ said Annie, glancing around.
‘She died before the war,’ said Dennis, smiling resolutely. Even when talking about the loss of his wife, his chirpiness was relentless. He laughed. ‘Looking on the bright side, I get to dance with you without her interfering.’
Before she knew what was happening, Dennis was leading her up to join the waltz. Planting one hand around her waist, they began to dance, with Dennis spinning her enthusiastically, forwards and backwards, until she felt quite dizzy. His arms were rigid and strong, and she kept bumping into his knees, but he carried on regardless, flashing a rictus grin. ‘Having fun?’
Dennis was leaning in close, so that his bushy eyebrows almost tickled her cheek, when Annie caught sight of Harry by the bandstand, watching her with a look of disbelief on his face.
‘I’m sorry!’ she cried, freeing herself from Dennis’s grasp. ‘I’ve got to go!’ Annie pushed her way frantically through the crowd of dancers but by the time she reached the bandstand, Harry was nowhere to be seen.
Harry didn’t pop round to Grove Road that tea time before his ARP shift and Annie sank into a misery as she plunged her hands into the suds in the sink to wash up. She couldn’t tell anyone what was wrong, she was just too ashamed. What on earth had she been thinking, dancing with Dennis like that? She hadn’t really wanted to and the look on Harry’s face had said it all.
Elsie, meanwhile, was giddy with happiness, still twirling around the scullery, stopping only to blow the most ginormous pink bubble with her American gum.
‘For the love of God, girl,’ said Bill, nearly jumping out of his chair as she popped it. ‘You are like a cow chewing the cud. Spit that out, will you?’
‘Oh, spoilsport,’ said Elsie, dodging a swipe from the back of his hand. ‘Josh gave it to me and we’re going dancing at the Hammersmith Palais next week!’
Bill rolled his eyes and Mum tutted at him. ‘Oh, leave her be, it’s nice that she’s got a fella. Where’s he from, Elsie?’
‘Ohio,’ she said. ‘He’s going to bring some photos of his farm to show me.’
Bill flicked open the Evening News and grumbled, ‘Oh, I bet he is.’
The familiar wail of the air-raid siren cut through the evening air and normal household life came to an abrupt halt; gripes were forgotten as Annie and Mum ran upstairs to grab the kids and bring them down to the Anderson shelter. It was only just getting dark, because of double British Summer Time, but there was a chill in the air, and Annie wrapped John in a shawl to keep him snug in the top bunk next to Anita, who was still half asleep.
Elsie brought a candle in on a dish and covered it with a flower pot and they all settled down to wait for the all-clear, as they had done so many times before. Before long the barrage of the ack-acks over at Gunnersbury started up, making deafening cracks and bangs, and then there was an almighty explosion. Annie stifled a scream as the whole ground shook and the children woke up, crying in fear. The picture of the King was dislodged from its nail and Bill only just caught it before it fell on the floor.
Mum started praying quietly: ‘The Lord is my shepherd, he makes me lie down in green pastures . . .’ and the sickening thud of bombs dropping nearby went on for what seemed like an eternity.
Elsie started to cry and squeezed Annie’s hand. ‘Please don’t land here, please not here . . .’
They sat there by the dim light of their candle, more terrified than they’d ever been, dreading what they’d find when the all-clear sounded. Annie’s mouth had gone dry and her heart was pounding as she thought about Harry. Mum caught the look in her eye and leaned over to her. ‘He’ll be fine, you’ll see.’
Her mum always had such a way of calming her. It sounded as if the world outside was ending but Mum gave her courage.
It was well past midnight by the time they were able to leave the air-raid shelter, and Annie ran down to the end of Grove Road to see what had happened. A thick, black pall of smoke was rising over Acton Lane and people were rushing up and down the High Street bringing news of the bombing.
She stopped a firewatcher, his face black with soot, who told her, ‘Park Road North’s badly hit. The Gladstone pub’s gone, the dairy’s flattened and half the street with it. Best get yourself home and count yourself lucky.’
Annie didn’t sleep a wink that night and got up at first light to head down to Soapsud Island to see what she could do to help. Water jetted up in the air from broken pipes and the acrid smell of burning caught in the back of her throat as she turned into Park Road North. The dairy that used to stand on the corner of the street had been razed to the ground and all the shops along Park Road had been reduced to a pile of rubble, along with the pub where she’d had a drink with Vera only a few days ago.
The row of terraced houses opposite now had a gaping hole in the middle of it, as if a giant had come and stepped on people’s homes, reducing them to chunks of plaster and matchsticks. Air-raid wardens were digging through the rubble with their bare hands, shouting, ‘Is anybody there?’ but there was no reply, only an eerie silence.
The whole neighbourhood was struck dumb with shock. Women stood around in little clumps, dressed in their housecoats and curlers, huddling together for comfort, and Bessie was among them, beside Vera’s mum, Mrs O’Reilly, who had a small child clinging to her arm.
When the last stretcher was carried out, Annie knew it was Vera. A blanket had been thrown over her, half covering her face and reaching just to her thighs, but the headful of dirty blonde curls and mottled legs spotted with rows of blackening bed-bug bites confirmed the worst.
Mrs O’Reilly let out a sickening wail and sank to her knees as Bessie cried, ‘Oh my Gawd, Vera!’
The housewives’ murmurs filled Annie’s ears. ‘She weren’t using the shelters no more, you know?’, ‘Poor soul, that Vera’, ‘What a way to go, she deserved better.’
Bessie took off her shawl and struggled down onto the ground to kneel beside Vera’s body. With shaking fingers, she adjusted the hem of Vera’s nightie, pulling it downwards for decency’s sake, before gently placing her shawl over Vera’s naked legs and tucking it in under her feet, as if she were trying to keep her warm. Mrs O’Reilly had to be held back by the ARP to stop her from hurling herself onto the battered remains of her daughter.
‘Bloody German swines, they’ve killed her!’ said an old man, shaking his fist at the rubble.
‘They’ll never win!’ said one of the housewives, as the assembled crowd nodded in agreement. ‘Rule Britannia!’
Annie went over to Bessie and helped her up.
‘We’ve all killed her, haven’t we?’ said Bessie, her shoulders sagging as she turned to go back to her flat, the cat and her life in Stirling Road.
Annie was lying in the dark, pretending to be asleep, when Harry finally came home and got into bed that night.
She felt his arms slip around her waist and he pulled her close. ‘I won’t lose you, Annie.’
Annie rolled over and felt his lips brush hers and they clung to each other for a moment.
‘I’m sorry about the dance,’ she began. ‘It meant nothing to me.’
‘I’ve been a fool to neglect you,’ he said. ‘The war is no excuse. It’s just easier to shut things out, the memories, what I’ve done. There are things a woman shouldn’t have to hear, but please understand that I can’t bear to lose you, Annie. You’re the love of my life.’
She ran a finger down his cheek and kissed his face, which was wet with tears.
‘Vera died,’ she whispered. ‘She was killed in that blast. I saw her brought out of the rubble on a stretcher. So, talk to me, Harry, please. I can’t change the past, but we’ve all suffered terrible losses in this war. I’m here for you, but you’ve got to tell me what happened to you.’
In the black of the night, she felt his shoulders start to shake.
‘I’ll try, Annie, but God knows, I want to forget most of it.’