All Fall Down Read online

  ‘And sit around like you with a face, as long as a wet weekend?’

  ‘Better than getting yourselves chucked out.’

  ‘You won’t chuck us out, will you, George?’ Tommy offered the landlord, who was doubling as warden in his tin hat and official armband, one of his own cigarettes, a Churchmans.

  ‘Try me.’ George grinned at Jimmie. ‘How do you fancy joining Walter on fire-watch up-there?’

  ‘Righto!’ Jimmie would have been off like a shot if George hadn’t restrained him.

  Hettie raised a warning eyebrow and glanced at a worried-looking Sadie. They’d managed to get Bertie, Geoff and Meggie down the shelter without too much fuss, thanks in part to poor Ernie, who had it clearly in his head what to do if the siren went off. He was to find the boys at number 32 and march them promptly to Nelson Gardens. Though simple-minded, Ernie could be relied on to look after the boys, while Sadie and Meggie gathered clothes and blankets, turned off the gas inside the house and followed. It left Walter free to carry out his fire-watching duties and mop up stragglers or strangers caught off home turf. This was the theory and it had gone like clockwork on this fateful September midday. Still, Sadie looked worn down with anxiety.

  ‘He’ll be all right, you’ll see.’ Hettie went and sat with her. ‘Your Walter’s like a cat with nine lives.’

  Sadie shivered. ‘I don’t know, Ett. It makes you feel like putting your head in the gas oven.’

  ‘And what good would that do?’

  ‘Save Hitler a job, that’s all.’ Annie sat nearby, green felt hat pinned firmly to her head, black jacket, bought as mourning wear for her husband, Duke, ten years before, buttoned tight under her chin. She sniffed and straightened her already straight back. ‘In the last war they used to say Arthur Ogden kept an old sword on the mantelpiece, just in case. He was going to slash any Jerry that came in.’ Arthur, like Duke, was long gone, though his wife, Dolly, still soldiered on. ‘Ain’t that right?’ Annie called across to her.

  ‘Not a word of truth in it.’ Dolly gave a hearty laugh. ‘God rest his soul, he spent the whole time propping up the bar at your place, Annie, telling everyone what a hero he was.’

  There was a decent pause in his memory, then George answered the ring on the telephone on his table. When he came off, it was to announce the all-clear. ‘False alarm,’ he told them. ‘You can all go home.’

  ‘About bleeding time.’ They shuffled into the daylight, relieved and grumbling, threatening to bring their crosswords, their knitting, the latest Dashiell Hammett thriller next time.

  ‘Let’s hope there won’t be one,’ someone said without conviction.

  ‘This Hitler, he was a painter and decorator wasn’t he?’ mused her neighbour, a heavy woman in a flowered overall. ‘So’s my old man . . . They’re all the same . . .’ Hitler, husband – what could you expect?

  Hettie watched the frown ease from Sadie’s face. She squeezed her hand. ‘Ernie’s got those boys of yours licked into shape.’

  They watched as their brother, a kind of gentle giant with his stiff, forward-sloping, wide-legged walk, marched Bertie and Geoff into the fresh air. They went like lambs.

  ‘Come on, Ma.’ Meggie swished by in a flurry of forget-me-not blue, slim waist shown off by a wide white belt, slim legs and ankles seen to advantage in her soft white leather sandals. ‘Else they’ll shut the door and forget all about us.’ She, Jimmie and Bobby went out into the autumn sunshine.

  Sadie, Hettie and Annie followed more slowly. The world was the same; Nelson Gardens, Union Street, Duke Street with the new W. H. Smiths, Woolworths and Co-op. Yet it was all changed. The barrage balloons drifted overhead. A poster on a billboard told them they could be sure of Shell, next to one showing a horrible gas mask with the slogan, ‘Hitler Will Send No Warning.’ Three Nuns was a tobacco of curious cut, and the government drummed home their message in a picture of a smiling girl with a ribbon in her hair and a younger, gap-toothed brother, ‘Mothers, Send Them out of London – Give them a chance of greater safety and health.’

  Sadie stopped short beneath this poster, outside Tommy O’Hagan’s smart shop selling wallpaper and household paints. The smiling girl troubled her.

  ‘I’d rather be bombed in my own home any day than live that awful country life,’ Annie said, chin up, eyes glittering. Then she relented. ‘Mind, it’s not the same for everyone, I grant you that.’ She would sorely miss her step-grandchildren, but she would back any decision Sadie made, or Amy, for that matter. ‘I’m only saying I went to Hove last Whit and I couldn’t get home quick enough.’

  Hettie smiled. ‘Talk to Walter,’ she said to Sadie. ‘Between you, you’ll decide what’s best.’

  Throughout that day, with the wireless playing solemn music, East Enders made their final preparations for war.

  At The Duke, George Mann took timber and nails and made blackout frames for all the pub windows according to instructions issued by the government. He made do with brown paper pinned across the frames until they could buy up a job lot of black calico from Amy’s haberdashery stall. There’d been a run on any kind of heavy material the week before. In a surge of public spiritedness Hettie posted up First Aid Briefs on the inside doors of both public and lounge bars. She read one out to Ernie, who was busy with mop and bucket on the front step.

  ‘Got that, Ern?’

  ‘Tell me it again.’ Methodical with his mop, he went into every nook and cranny.

  ‘It says to read the instructions carefully several times and to carry a copy in your pocket or bag.’ There’d be no point in this as far as Ernie was concerned. She wanted to get it into his head and make it stick. ‘You have to keep calm if you find anyone injured after one of these air raids. You’ve to carry clean handkerchiefs. It says to be prepared to see severe wounds.’ She paused as Ernie’s mop stopped short. He hated the sight of blood; always had, ever since Daisy O’Hagan’s terrible murder years before. His mind would go blank and he would shut out the reality. This was one of Hettie’s main worries about how the family would cope in the months to come; what if Ernie got caught in an air raid and panicked? ‘Never you mind,’ she said gently. ‘You just get yourself to Nelson Gardens quick as you can.’

  Ernie’s mop began to move to and fro over the patterned tiles in the hallway. ‘To the shelter with Bertie and Geoff,’ he reminded himself.

  ‘If they’re still in the Court, yes. You fetch them and make sure they’re safe.’

  ‘Why, where else will they be?’ He tried to cover the alarm in his voice.

  ‘We don’t know yet, Ern. Sadie and Walter might send them to the country.’

  He took this in as Annie came downstairs and eyed the first aid instructions. ‘Bleeding morbid!’ she said through clenched teeth, though she herself had just spent half an hour packing away valuables in a tin chest that she could be sure wouldn’t burn in a fire, should the worst come to the worst. On the top she’d laid a photograph of Duke in a silver frame and she’d promised his fading image that she’d do her best to keep the old place going, through thick and thin, to keep the family together and not let anyone go under; not Sadie who was filled with dread for the kiddies, nor poor Ernie, nor Rob, nor Hettie, nor Frances down in Walworth, nor Jess up in Manchester with Maurice, Grace and little Mo.

  Chapter Two

  ‘The worst of it is, we don’t know where they’d get sent.’

  Later that evening, Walter tried to come to terms with the idea of evacuating the boys to safety. Bertie and Geoff were already in bed, while Meggie sat at the table with her books, Sadie walked restlessly from window to fireplace and back again.

  ‘Right. We just pack them off at Paddington. They could end up anywhere.’ Wearing a label; Robert Davidson, 9 years, 32 Paradise Court, Southwark. Geoffrey Davidson, 7 years. Ditto. ‘They might not even get the same billet.’

  ‘No, but Meggie could go and keep an eye on things.’

  She heard her name mentioned, looked up sharply, but kept quiet
.

  ‘Yes, and she could be in Kent, and they could be in Cornwall for all we know.’

  ‘They say it’s for the best.’ Walter fell silent.

  The picture of their two boys, joining hundreds of thousands of other children in the exodus from London frightened them beyond words. Thousands of buses and trains crawling out of the capital to unknown destinations. Strange faces to greet them, strange bedrooms to sleep in. And what if they should never see them again?

  ‘Maybe just for the time being?’ Meggie suggested a way out. ‘It doesn’t have to be for long, just until we see how things work out here.’ She knew of other families, friends at the post office, who’d waved their kids a cheerful farewell over these last few days. By all accounts, the young ones went off in high spirits, treating the whole thing as an adventure. ‘Or maybe you could go with them, Ma?’

  Sadie shook her head. ‘I’m needed here.’ She’d signed up for munitions work and, anyway, she wouldn’t leave Walter. ‘I can’t be in two places at once.’ She stopped by the window, looking out at an orange sky flecked with golden clouds and at the ominous, silent balloons. ‘Do you think they’ll actually do it?’ Her voice trembled. ‘Actually drop those bombs on innocent kiddies?’

  Walter joined her. In the past he’d always been the one to comfort and support. He wanted to be kind, but the truth stared him in the face. ‘Everyone says they will, Sadie. I don’t think we can risk it.’

  ‘We have to send them?’

  He nodded gently.

  ‘Oh, Walter, it’ll break my heart.’ Tears spilled down her cheeks. She covered her face.

  He put his arms around her.

  ‘Don’t, Ma.’ But Meggie wept too. ‘Don’t let them hear you cry.’

  ‘Did you hear the one about the girl in the train during the blackout?’ Tommy asked the gang at the bar. ‘It’s pitch dark and she’s sitting there with a crowd of RAF types and Tommies, all having a beer and a fag. All of a sudden out of nowhere comes the bird’s voice; “Excuse me, but kindly take your hand off my knee – not you . . . you!” ’

  The Duke was bursting at the seams with dockers, railway workers and tradesmen each determined to show that Adolf couldn’t keep a man away from his pint. Nevertheless, not one had ventured out minus his gas mask, already dubbed ‘nose-bag’, ‘dickey-bird’, or even ‘Hitler’. They slung them with careless bravado across their chests, the old men in white mufflers and collarless shirts, the younger in up-to-date trilbies and flashy silk ties. Tommy fell into the fashionable category in a double-breasted, brown pin-stripe suit and fawn hat with a snappy brim. After all, he had an image to keep up.

  ‘Where d’you hear that one, Tommy?’

  ‘On the bleeding wireless?’

  ‘ “Can I do you now, sir?” ’

  ‘ “I don’t mind if I do!” ’

  Smart responses clicked to and fro in the smoky atmosphere. Annie swiped glasses from the bar and wiped it clean, George served steadily.

  ‘I heard it from our Jimmie, if you must know.’ Tommy tapped the bar rail with his toe. He’d noticed a crowd of girls come in, among them a couple from his own shop. He picked out Edie Morell, in charge of wages and accounts. She was all dressed up, with her honey-blonde hair piled high on her head, her dress tight over the bodice, falling in a bright swirl of tropical flowers to her knees.

  ‘You don’t say,’ said Charlie Ogden. He was home for the weekend from his teaching job in Welwyn Garden City, and miserable as sin according to his mother, Dolly. He and his wife of ten years had just decided to split up, and he planned to move out of his nice semi-detached house back into Paradise Court to live with her.

  ‘Get it, Charlie? Course, it’s the poor old Tommy’s hand she shoves away, not the pilot’s. They don’t get a look-in with the RAF around.’ Tommy made room for the girls at the bar. Edie had recently palled up with her old school chums, since her husband, Bill, had enlisted, and they went about pretty much as they had in the good old days. Lorna Bennett in particular was regarded as fast, in her hip-hugging slacks and tight jumpers, with a striking dark pencil outline around her eyes and a bright crimson mouth. ‘What’s it to be, girls?’ He offered to buy them a round. ‘Something strong to steady your nerves?’

  Lorna and the two others made a great show of deciding what they wanted to drink, while Edie quietly accepted a pale ale.

  ‘Whisky for me, please.’ Lorna dug her friend with her elbow. ‘What’s up? He’s made of money, ain’t he?’

  ‘More money than sense, if you ask me.’ Annie came to give George a hand. She didn’t approve of these good-time girls. In her day the market women would come in for a drink after work, but their old men would be snug in another corner, not away fighting a war. She thought the young ones lacked respect.

  ‘Have one yourself, Annie.’ Tommy’s offer was guaranteed to shut her up. ‘You’re looking like a million dollars tonight, you know that?’

  She grunted. She kept to the style of her youth; long hair, now pure white and lifted into a bun, nice crisp blouse with pleats and tucks, navy-blue skirt of decent length. She would sometimes add bits of costume jewellery for a touch of colour, and she was always beautifully starched and ironed. ‘Flattery won’t get you nowhere with me, Tommy O’Hagan. That’ll be three shillings and threepence to you.’

  ‘Two and six to anyone else.’ Lorna took her drink and laughed.

  Not minding a bit, Tommy bantered for a minute or two before drawing up a stool alongside Edie. ‘What’s new?’ He leaned in close and offered her a light for her cigarette.

  ‘A war, that’s what’s new.’

  ‘Apart from that.’ He was determined to stay cheerful.

  ‘I had a letter from Bill yesterday. His ship’s off to Malta.’

  ‘But he’ll get home beforehand, I expect?’ Tommy knew that Bill often showed up on forty-eight-hour leave. He could always tell when it happened; Edie would come into work on a Monday quieter than usual. Apparently she missed him badly when he went back to barracks.

  ‘I don’t know that he will, not now.’

  ‘Still, chin up. You know what they say, it’ll all be over by Christmas.’

  ‘Yes, Christmas 1942,’ she said mournfully.

  ‘But life goes on, don’t it?’ It was all very well for him to say this, he realized. At forty he was well past the age of conscription and he could expect to go on pretty much as usual, not minding too much what he read in the newspapers, Hitler-this and Hitler that, sticking to Radio Luxembourg rather than the stuffy Home Service. He even expected to turn a fast penny because of the war, as you could when certain goods were in short supply and you were well in with the dockers and the market men. He felt sorry for Edie; her husband was of fighting age and, though they’d been married for five years, they had no children. She must be lonely in her Duke Street flat.

  ‘You’re right.’ She gave him a smile, then sighed as she stubbed out her cigarette. ‘I never used to smoke. I hate the smell it leaves behind, if you must know.’

  ‘You smell fine to me.’ She did; it was the scent she wore. It smelt of roses or something similar. A lot of things about Edie reminded him of sweet flowers. Even at work he found it hard to forget that she was a beautiful woman, with her clear, grey eyes, straight nose, soft skin.

  Edie blushed.

  ‘Here, Edie, it’s your shout,’ Lorna held up her empty glass from her table by the window. ‘We’ll have one more here, then what do you say we head up West to a dance hall?’

  She smiled at Tommy and stood up. ‘Thanks for the drink. See you tomorrow.’

  ‘Business as usual,’ he promised, narrowing his eyes as the smoke curled up from his own cigarette. ‘Don’t stop out too late, there’s a good girl.’ He overheard them discussing options; Joe Loss or Henry Hall, waltz or foxtrot, falling over themselves to be asked to dance by an RAF officer in a smart airforce-blue uniform.

  As for himself, old codger that he was, it was time for an early night. He left
the Duke, expecting to find only Jimmie at home above the shop. Dorothy was in the habit of going out to amuse herself at one of the more local hops, often only a pub room where the carpet was pulled back to make space for the dancers. There would be a gramophone in the corner, a jitterbug record or a soupy Bing Crosby number, and no shortage of couples crowding onto the bare boards.

  He walked along the street between the new electric lamps, past the usual cars parked at the kerbside, the Baby Austins and the Morris Minors. There was a milk bar now, on the corner opposite Henshaws, all glass and chromium steel, with pink neon lights.

  He caught his reflection in the window, a dapper figure with a lined and shadowed face. It was the harsh light, he told himself, flinging his cigarette stub into the gutter. It made him look mean. When he came to his own expanse of plate glass, tastefully laid out with paint and wallpaper, dotted and striped matching curtain fabric, parchment lamps for the living room, white enamel Strings for the bathroom, with its own brightly lit sign reading Ideal Home, he gave a cynical shrug. Turning the key in the lock of the private entrance, he slammed the door behind him and went upstairs.

  To his surprise he found no sign of his kid brother, but Dorothy sitting in a chair looking out-of-sorts. She was wearing a dressing-gown pulled tight across her chest, no make-up, and her blonde hair was scraped back from her face.

  ‘Where’s Jim?’ He dropped his hat on the sideboard.

  ‘How should I know?’

  By which she meant, why should I care? Many of their rows these days were to do with them taking in Jimmie after his mother, Mary, died six years earlier. Jimmie had been only eleven at the time. Before that, Dorothy’s gripes had been all about the money he spent on keeping his mother comfortable and happy in the old tenement down the Court. Since then, the objections over Jimmie poured out almost daily.

  ‘We need to keep an eye on him now there’s a war on. We don’t want him nicking off without telling us where.’

  ‘You’d better keep an eye on him, you mean.’ She took a cigarette from the pack on the arm of her chair and lit it with a fancy silver lighter.