All Fall Down Read online

  ‘Do you want to roll back the carpet and dance?’ He stood up. ‘Ain’t that what he says on the wireless?’

  ‘I don’t mind.’ She stood hesitating by the sofa.

  ‘Let’s dance then.’ He went and took hold of her. ‘Never mind the carpet, eh?’ Once he had an arm around her waist and she rested her hand lightly on his shoulder, he seemed to calm down. ‘You know what I thought you was about to say?’

  She listened above the soaring note of the’ clarinets. ‘No, when?’

  ‘I thought you was about to give me my marching orders.’

  ‘What, when I said we could listen to some music?’

  ‘Yep. I’m glad you didn’t, though.’ He was more like his old self, chirpy and confident, as he swung her round and they neatly sidestepped a big armchair.

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘Sure?’ His grip round her waist tightened.

  ‘Sure I’m sure.’ She was blushing and laughing at him.

  ‘Sure you’re sure you’re sure?’

  ‘Tommy O’Hagan!’

  ‘Edie Morell.’ He murmured her name.

  This time she kissed him.

  Her bedroom led off from the living room. As the record finished and the needle ground its way towards the middle in a mush of static sound, they steered through the open door. Tommy hugged her to him and leaned on the door to close it. Together they almost overbalanced.

  ‘Oops.’ Upright and separate, she held him at arm’s length, running her fingertips down his cheek. ‘What about you? You ain’t gonna regret this?’

  For answer he closed the gap between them. ‘You’re my perfect girl, you know that?’ Her smile glowed back at him. ‘You’re beautiful, but it ain’t that.’

  Edie put her arms around his neck. ‘Don’t go making me bigheaded, Tommy.’

  ‘Ain’t nobody told you you’re beautiful lately?’

  ‘Oh, yes, I walk down the street and everyone and his aunt stops me to tell me that. What do you think I am?’ She began to tease him back.

  ‘Perfect.’ He ran his hands over her back, enjoying the suppleness of her body as she rested her weight against his arms. ‘Anyhow, like I said, being nice looking ain’t it. Nice looking girls come ten a penny.’

  ‘What then?’ She kissed him and pulled his tie loose, unfastening the top shirt button.

  He studied her face. ‘You mean what you say. You don’t play games.’

  These sudden shifts of mood took her by surprise. She saw a backlog of mistrust and bitter experience behind his serious words.

  And then neither wanted to hesitate any longer. Tommy slid onto the bed with her, following his desire, amazed by how much she wanted him. Soon she lay without clothes, hair like gold spun out on the pillow, gazing up at him. He touched her shoulder where there was still a faint bruise, then kissed it and stroked her, felt her hands along his back, pulling him towards her. She sank under his weight, then she arched her back as he ran his hands over her breasts, both quickly aroused, seeking and giving pleasure.

  ‘See?’ he said afterwards. ‘I said you were my perfect girl.’ All energy spent, he lay on his front, face turned towards her as she lay on her back.

  She gazed at the ceiling. ‘You’re not so bad yourself.’

  ‘Do you love me?’

  ‘Now you want me to make you bigheaded.’ She turned on to her side, her face close to his, noses touching. ‘Yes I do. I love you.’

  ‘Good.’ He closed his eyes. ‘It’s a bleeding good job you said that, Edie. I’d’ve gone home and slit my throat if you’d said no.’

  ‘It’s not as bad as that, surely?’ She whispered softly, her mouth covering his face in kisses.

  ‘It ain’t, because you said yes you do.’ Through half closed eyes he saw the blur of her features, smelt her skin, reached across and touched her hair.

  ‘But where does it leave us?’ she wanted to know.

  ‘On top of the world. That’s where I am right this minute.’

  ‘And me.’

  They embraced. Tomorrow they would try to work things out, plan and negotiate and see what could be done. Tonight they were oblivious in each other’s arms.

  Chapter Eight

  Sadie, Jess and Grace set off for Rendal at dawn. Jess had used up all her petrol ration for the month ahead to drive them on the two-hour journey out of the city along a sequence of ever narrower and bumpier country roads. Wartime restrictions meant there were no signposts to help them find their way, and it was only by Grace’s careful study of a road map that they wound their way eastwards into the Pennines, towards the Lancashire-Yorkshire border.

  ‘Fancy living here.’ Sadie stared out at the bleak moorland hills. Even in spring they looked gloomy. Jess had tried to keep her amused with a famous local legend about witches being burned on a nearby summit; one of the last such occasions in England.

  ‘It’s only a story,’ she reassured her.

  ‘It ain’t true, then?’

  ‘Who knows? But it was a long time ago in any case.’ She stopped to ask directions from an old man pushing a bike up the hill. He told them that Rendal was the next village coming up.

  ‘You can’t miss it. You come to the Methodist chapel just past Slingsby Farm, then you’re in Rendal. Just one row of houses, mind. Don’t blink, or you’ll pass straight through it.’ He could see they were city types from the way they dressed, but his curiosity was mainly directed at Jess’s smart new car. He leaned on his bike, watching enviously as it disappeared round the bend.

  ‘Nearly there, Auntie Sadie.’ Grace bent forward, resting her folded arms along the back of the passenger seat. ‘One thing, they’ll never be expecting you, especially at this time of day.’

  ‘Shall we come in with you?’ Jess had spotted a chapel on the left and slowed down. The village was in a narrow valley, with a river running through it and only one single-track road. Grey houses built of local stone lined the street, with little front gardens and dogs yapping at their wrought-iron gates. These gave way to a row of shops; a bakery, a post office, a butchers. She drew to a halt at the roadside, fifty yards from the door.

  ‘Is it all right if I go ahead by myself?’ Sadie hesitated, but going alone was the best way to keep her mind concentrated on the sole object of her visit.

  ‘We’ll wait right here.’ Jess pulled off her white kid gloves and folded them flat in the glove compartment. ‘If you’re not out in half an hour we’ll come looking for you. And if you need a hand sooner than that, give us a shout.’

  Almost mechanically Sadie nodded and stepped from the car. Jess’s heart went out to the tall, straight figure clutching her handbag firmly under one arm, head up, making for the butcher’s door.

  ‘Mr Whittaker?’ The bell jangled. Sadie’s mouth was dry. She stood on the sawdust-strewn floor, looking across a marble counter at a bald man with a pink, round, hairless face, wearing a blue striped apron over a starched white coat.

  He knew straight away that she wasn’t a customer. Only locals got their meat from him and, since rationing, every ounce, every scrap was spoken for. He didn’t answer, but put down the skewer he was using to truss up a piece of brisket, then wiped his hands on his apron.

  ‘I’m Sadie Davidson.’

  There was no click of realization in his eyes. Slowly he wiped his hands across his stomach, looking warily at her.

  She quaked. Was this a bad mistake? What sort of man was this? Had she got the wrong end of the stick from Bertie’s grubby letter?

  ‘I’m Bertie and Geoff’s ma.’

  ‘Ah!’ He saw the resemblance between her and the younger boy particularly. ‘Mrs Davidson, you’ll be a sight for sore eyes. Do they know you’re coming?’

  She shook her head. ‘It was a last minute thing and I wanted it to be a surprise. My sister drove me in her car from Manchester?’

  ‘Did she now? Hang on here a tick.’ He untied his apron and hung it from an empty meat hook. ‘Let me go and tell Mrs Whittaker. You caugh
t us a bit on the hop, you know.’

  She mumbled her apologies as he went out. So far, so good. She stood and waited in the empty shop, fascinated by a slow trickle of blood from a pig’s snout onto the sawdust, its bare, smooth pink skin, the bristle inside its ears. In the background she heard a door slam, through the window she could see Jess’s shiny black car.

  Another door opened and a woman came from the house part of the building through into the shop. She was small and thick-set, with carefully waved, short grey hair, older than Sadie had imagined and dressed in a navy blue ribbed cardigan over a blue floral print dress. She wore an old fashioned cameo brooch at the neck, and several gold rings on her left hand. ‘I’m Nancy Whittaker.’

  ‘Sadie Davidson.’ They shook hands. ‘I’m sorry to drop in on you like this, only I ain’t got much time. I’m due back at work on Monday.’

  Nancy Whittaker seemed to be sizing her up; her voice, her dress, her intentions. ‘I suppose Gordon didn’t tell you?’

  The woman’s face was impassive. Sadie in turn tried to read the situation. ‘Tell me what?’

  ‘The boys aren’t here.’

  ‘Not here?’ Dazed, she looked round the shop as if she might find them hiding between the carcasses, as in her dream.

  ‘Not at the moment, no.’

  ‘How long will they be?’

  ‘I can’t say for sure. Now, if you’d given us a bit of warning –’

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry.’ She trailed off. Nancy Whittaker was neither friendly nor hostile, only a bit put out that Sadie had dropped in out of the blue. ‘Where did you say they were?’

  ‘I didn’t. They go out to a farm on a Saturday. Fresh air does them good.’

  ‘And is it far, this farm?’

  ‘Slingsbys? It’s a bit out of the way, yes.’

  ‘I think we came past it on the way in.’ She began to feel that it was like getting blood out of a stone. If she’d been in Nancy Whittaker’s shoes, she would have moved heaven and earth to let the boys see their mother.

  Mrs Whittaker stepped in smartly with a suggestion. ‘I’ll tell you what; Gordon has to go up there on his delivery round. Why don’t you let him collect Bertie and Geoff? He can bring them down to see you.’

  This was better. Sadie curbed her impatience. ‘That’d be champion. When would it be?’

  ‘In about an hour.’

  The words brought a flush of excitement to her cheeks. ‘Oh that’s grand, Mrs Whittaker. I can hardly wait. It must mean Geoff’s feeling better, then, if he can go up to the farm for the day.’ She sensed the butcher’s wife stiffen. ‘I heard he’s been a bit off-colour. I expect it was nothing much.’

  The woman walked her to the door. ‘His stomach’s a bit delicate, that’s all. He has to watch what he eats.’

  This was news to Sadie. ‘There was nothing wrong with his appetite at home.’ She hovered on the step, more puzzled than alarmed. After all, she was very near to seeing them and satisfying herself one way or another.

  ‘Growing boys.’ Nancy Whittaker stood, head to one side. ‘Shoot up like sticks of celery, don’t they?’

  ‘I’ll go and tell my sister the latest.’ Distracted, Sadie walked away from the shop.

  ‘Well?’ Jess leaned out of the open window.

  ‘They’ll be here in a little while.’ She explained as she got in and sat with a sigh against the brown leather seat.

  ‘And she never asked you in?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not to see how they lived?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How did she seem?’

  ‘Ordinary. Old. She didn’t smile much.’

  ‘Well that ain’t a crime,’ Jess said. They watched customers come and go.

  ‘No, but she don’t look the sort to cope with two lively boys.’

  They sat for a while. ‘Odd that she never asked you in. It’s the least she could do.’

  From the back seat Grace noticed the high top of a delivery van edge down a narrow lane onto the main road. ‘There he is. Let’s follow him back to the farm.’

  Sadie considered it. ‘I said I’d wait here.’

  ‘But we don’t have to.’

  ‘They might think I’m too pushy.’

  ‘And so would anybody be, after not seeing their kids for six months. Come on.’ Jess made up her mind for Sadie and started the engine, but the van had turned in the wrong direction for Slingsby Farm and headed away from them towards the top of the valley.

  ‘What’s he up to?’ Sadie wondered if she’d got her wires crossed.

  ‘Never mind. Let’s drive to the farm anyhow.’ Grace grew impatient. ‘He’s too slow to catch cold.’

  ‘No.’ Jess’s eyes narrowed. ‘I think we should follow him.’ Without more ado, she set off after Whittaker’s van, which travelled at a fair speed, without stopping to drop off any deliveries. Instead, it braked abruptly outside a large wooden barn set back from the road at the far end of the village. They watched as the butcher jumped down and opened up the back of the van, taking a bulky sack from inside and carrying it over his shoulder to the open door of the barn. Above the door they could make out the peeling name board; ‘Calvert – Fertilizers.’

  ‘Why can’t he get a move on?’ Sadie whispered after five minutes had passed. ‘At this rate we’re never gonna get back to the farm.’

  ‘Wait.’ Jess held on to her wrist. Out of the dark barn came the butcher, minus his sack, but accompanied by two small, scrawny figures.

  ‘Oh!’ Sadie gave a cry. Her hand flew to her mouth.

  ‘Right!’ Jess turned swiftly to Sadie. ‘That’s them, ain’t it?’

  ‘But I thought they were at the farm—’ She was too shocked to see straight. The boys followed Whittaker to the van, feet dragging, heads bowed.

  ‘No, he’s got them working in that horrible place. It grinds bones for fertiliser.’ Jess jumped from the car, quickly followed by Grace. They ran to intercept the butcher, while Sadie sat petrified.

  She saw Whittaker stop, turn his back and heave the boys up into the back of the van. He had the door slammed shut before Jess and Grace could get to them. Slowly Sadie got out of the car.

  ‘Look here,’ Jess began to remonstrate. Whittaker turned, hands on hips. ‘Just open up that van for me, please.’ She was imperious, lording it over him to put him off his stride. ‘We’ve come for these boys, so open the door.’

  He was slow to react, but once he did, it was to stand in front of the door handle to prevent Grace from opening it. ‘Don’t you lay a finger on that,’ he warned. ‘I’ll have the bobbies on you if you do.’

  Grace dodged around the side of the van while her mother tackled the man.

  ‘And I’ll have the police on to you if we find you’ve been mistreating those boys. You told their mother a lie. You said they were up on a farm getting some fresh air, not working in a stinking bone factory.’

  ‘Helping out,’ he insisted, not in the least shamefaced. ‘Not what you’d call really working—’

  Sadie began to run. She flung herself at him, beating her fists against his chest. ‘Where are they? Let me see them. What have you done?’ She was beside herself with anger and guilt.

  But clear-thinking Grace had already wrenched open the driver’s door and clambered up. In the back of the van she made out Bertie and Geoff cowering on a pile of old sacks. ‘This way, that’s right! Climb over the seat, quick as you can.’ She held out her arms to help them. Bertie scrambled towards her, then Geoff. When she lifted him to the ground he was light as a feather. ‘Here they are!’ She called to the others. Two men, sleeves rolled up, waistcoats hanging open, had come out of the barn to see what the racket was.

  Jess pulled Sadie off Whittaker, who began to shrug and laugh it off when he saw the onlookers. ‘Leave him. Grace has got them out safe. Come this way.’

  ‘A lot of fuss about nothing.’ Whittaker pulled his shirt straight and tucked it in at the waist. ‘All she has to do is come knocking ni
cely at my door like any normal woman, instead of running at me like a raving lunatic.’ He went into a huddle of self-justification with the two men.

  But Sadie knew only one thing. There were Bertie and Geoff standing hand in hand with their cousin Grace. They were thin, white-faced, grimy, their eyes big as saucers beneath untidy mops of matted hair. They looked like wild boys fed on berries and nuts, but they cried out with joy when they saw her and flung themselves around her neck. Soon she was on her knees, crying, hugging them, holding their little bodies to her, wiping their smudged faces with the hem of her dress.

  Up the West End on a sunny Saturday morning, Meggie found it hard to believe that there was a war on. True, the windows were all taped up, and posters everywhere pressed you to do your bit, but the spirit of Londoners wasn’t in the least crushed by daily warnings and deprivations. On the contrary, life went on in a whirl of music wafting across the airwaves, with new heroes and heroines on the silver screen to show them how to dress, dance, fall in love and be brave.

  She walked up Shaftesbury Avenue, past box offices advertising ‘Performance Tonight As Usual’, cheek by jowl with warnings to ‘Wear Your Gas Mask EVERYWHERE.’ Instead of clouds in the blue sky, there were silver barrage balloons, but Tommy Handley’s ITMA popped up all over the place to take her mind off what they were doing there, and Arthur Askey’s cheerful playmates set up rousing choruses of ‘Run, Adolf, Run’ through open windows and doorways.

  Meggie felt cheated by the glitz and glamour of theatre-land, knowing full well that her errand probably had no happy ending, that in taking up the latest clues dropped by her Uncle Rob, all she was likely to see at the end of the day was a helpless old drunk. No celebrations. No grand reunions.

  Still, she was dogged. She’d set out in the middle of the morning, saying she was going to scour the shops for a pair of fashionable summer shoes. Walter had waved her off without a second thought and, at the pub, Annie had warned her to find herself a decent pair. ‘Not them peep-toed platform things that you fall off and break your ankle on.’ Her gran had a thing about shoes being sensible. Meggie had said she would do her best and hurried off.

  Her real mission took her away from the empty shops and into the thick of theatreland, where her pace slowed and she allowed herself to gaze starry-eyed like any young woman at the huge photographs of Lupino Lane in Me And My Girl and, with envy, at the diamante bodices, ostrich feathers and long legs of the Windmill girls. Down every side street, round every turning there was a new distraction; a smell of food, a queue at a box office, a pub opening its doors.