Grant looked down at her, surprised at the sudden show of concern for her brother; it was in stark contrast to her usual laughing apathy. He saw tears on her cheek and it suddenly dawned on him that it was all a front to cover up the real love she felt for her brother. He felt a twinge of jealousy. Which he forgot the instant she put her arm around his waist and leant her head on his shoulder.
* * *
Able Seaman Wilson and his wife sat in the snug of the ‘Pig and Whistle”, in the centre of Silvertown. They were having a quiet drink and watching some of the regulars playing darts. He still wore the new suit and she still had the flower in her hair.
“So is it one or two days we’ve got left, Luv?”
“Two ain’t it. It’ll be like our ‘oneymoon, what made yer ask. Fed up with me already, counting the days are you?”
“No!” she said, digging him in the ribs with her elbow. “You are terrible, ‘onest, you twist every little thing round.”
“That’s what the actress said to the vicar.”
“See what I mean?” She laughed out loud, startling a pensioner at his darts causing him to miss the board altogether.
“‘Ear do yer bloody well mind… this is the finals, a bit of quiet, if you please!” He turned back to the board, “No respect youngsters nowadays,” he mumbled to the rest of the team as he lined himself up for the throw.
“Well, sorry, I’m sure,” said Mrs Wilson stifling another chuckle and digging her husband in the ribs again.
“ ‘Ear pack it in. You’ll ‘ave me black and blue in a minute and you know they’re colours what don’t go with me ‘air.”
“Blimey, what you talking about, you ain’t got no ‘air.”
“Yeah, well,” said Wilson, stroking a hand over his pudding-basin haircut, “That’s the bloody coxs’n again ain’t it? Took me station card off me and told me I wouldn’t be getting any leave until I’d me ‘air cut. I’d to run around like a blue-arsed fly to find the bloody ship’s barber before he disappeared on his leave. Cost me ‘alf me tot and all.”
“ ‘Ear, he did that to you last leave and all, you remember, missed your train that time. I reckon he’s got it in for you.” She rapped her knuckles on the table, “You oughta complain.”
“Fat lot of good that’ll do; 'e’ll ‘ave me getting it cut twice next time!”
“Why don’t yer come out of it, after the war’s over, Luv…ain’t you ‘ad enough of it, you been in it since you were a boy.”
“After the war! I ‘opes I’m out afore then, the way the wars going, if I’m into the finish… I’ll be as old as that silly old bastard,” he nodded his shaven head in the direction of the darts team.
“Do yer reckon we’ll win in the end though, Luv?” asked Mrs Wilson, suddenly serious.
Wilson took a long pull at his ale before replying, “Only if they put me in charge, Luv.”
* * *
Hampshire
Grant crouched down by the rear wheel of the sit-up-up-and-beg bicycle.
“Bad?” asked Charlotte.
He rubbed his nose, leaving a smudge of road grim, “How old did you say these bikes were?”
“Oh, I don’t know, donkey’s years I suppose, I remember them in the garage when we still had a nanny, she used to use one, this one I think, to go into the village.”
“Well, they are old…but the tyres aren’t that bad, they’re not perished or anything. Strange getting a puncture out of the blue this is a pretty decent road.” He looked up at her, “That’s interesting what you were saying about your nanny. Surely when you were that sort of age the wheel hadn’t been invented, had they?”
She cuffed his ear. “There’s nothing else for it,” she said resolutely, “we’ll just have to push them home.”
“What do you mean ‘we’!… Mine’s perfectly alright.” It earned him another cuff.
The country lane stretched endlessly, and unnoticed, as they walked, glorying in each other’s company; sometimes chatting and joking, sometimes in companionable silence.
He had forgotten the old thatched inn at the crossroads. They had passed it on the way out. By the time they reached its rose covered door they were both tired and ready for a drink; but it was still closed.
An old man sat on a chestnut bench beside the door, puffing on the end of a broken clay pipe, a scruffy dog lay at his side. “Ain’t open yet,” he said, revealing teeth like marinated dog-ends.
“Half hour, I reckon,” he said, looking up at a watery sun and answering the unasked question. “Do a nice bit of cheese,” he added, as an afterthought.
“I was just going to ask you if they had food,” said Grant.
“I know,” replied the old man, banging his pipe out on an upturned boot.
“How did you know what I was going to say?”
“We, all like to think we’re different, don’t we ay? But there’s nothing new under the sun,” he said, pointing at it with his pipe as if he thought Grant too young to know where it was.
Charlotte petted the dog.
“Good dog that,” the old man said, knocking out his pipe, “catch a rabbit in his seat.”
* * *
Nuneaton
Goddard found himself wandering in the direction of the cattle market; the harsh aromas on the west wind reminded him it was market day. He waited at the corner while an army convoy passed by, heading south, nose to tail at least as far as the distant bend in the road. He sighed; quite a few people were waiting, on both sides of the road. They were already looking impatient. It was a long convoy.
“They can’t stop for you, you know, they’re not allowed,” said a voice at his side.
He looked down; a pretty girl of about his own age looked back up at him.
“They’re not allowed to get separated.” she added.
“It's like that in the Army,” he said, “they’re not allowed out on their own.”
She laughed, looking up at the young sailor, “You’re Peter Goddard ain’t you?”
“That’s right…I don’t know you, do I?”
“You don’t remember?…Jennifer Mott… I was in Miss Irving’s class when you was in Mr Hardy’s.”
“Blimey! You’ve got a good memory; I can only just about remember what happened yesterday.”
“Oh, all the girl’s at school remember you!”
“Really!” he said, surprised and visibly pleased, he never knew he had a reputation with the girls.
“Yes… you always had a dirty neck”.
* * *
Silvertown
Able Seaman Wilson bit into his bread and dripping, “Nice bit of dripping Luv, where you get it from?”
She stopped pummelling at the dolly tub, “From mum…she had a bit of brisket… saved up her coupons… here you save me some of that…I ain’t had any yet.”
“I’ve saved you the nice brown stuff at the bottom of the bowl.”
“You better not have …you’re pulling my leg…you know I ‘ate that bit.”
“You ‘haven’t ‘ate’ it… it’s still here,” he called in his officer’s voice.
She appeared at the back door, arms full of wet washing. “If you don’t stop taking the mick I’ll give you such a cuff.”
She went out again and shortly he heard the big wooden rollers of the mangle begin to turn, the metal cogs grinding like giant’s teeth.
“Oh blast the sodding thing!” she suddenly yelled.
“What’s up?”
“It’s jammed again.”
He popped his head around the door jam and peering into the whitewashed back yard. “Let’s ‘ave a gander.”
“Look it’s this adjuster thing-a-me-jig on the top.” Wilson looked at the ancient contraption with a seaman’s distaste for all things mechanical. “Blimey you need an engineer’s ticket to work this lot, do you understand it?”
“A bit,” she said.
Wilson was genuinely impressed, ‘‘Blige me, I reckon I could g
et you a job as a Chief Stoker, no trouble.”
* * *
Rotherhithe
Wyatt’s sister, Susan, walked into the corner shop in the Lower Road, before the bell had stopped ringing the familiar smell of spices and dried fruit had assailed her nostrils. She hated that smell, burying her stubby nose in the sleeve of her mackintosh.
‘Old Drew’, behind the counter, handed over the usual loaf of freshly baked bread and she got out as fast as she could. The bread was nice and warm. Using her front teeth she nibbled the tiniest hole in the crusty underside.
She hated shopping for her mum. There was that time with the eels when her mum was busy…she scooped another bit from the doughy inside of the loaf…It was the first time she realised her mum bought eels from the fish shop while they were still alive. She could feel them now, sliding wetly around inside the damp newspaper… horrible! She shuddered; on the way back one of them had gotten free, squirming and slithering around in the gutter, it was like a wet snake! She had somehow plucked up the courage to put it back in the paper with her bare hands. Ugh! She squirmed now at the thought of it and wiped her hands on her Mac. Just one more mouthful, mum wouldn’t notice through that finger- size hole in the crust.
* * *
Rotherhithe
“‘Ear my girl! What’s a matter with this bread?” said Mrs Wyatt, holding up the loaf.
“It was like that when I bought it mum…honest,” lied Susan.
“You telling me old Drew sold you it like this?” her mum held up the evidence one finger pointing at the hole in its bottom.
“Yes, mum… honest.”
Her mum squinted disbelievingly over the top of her thick glasses and was that an evil smile playing with the corner of her lips?
“Well you just take this back to Mr Bloody Drew and tell him, from me, he’s got mice and didn’t oughta be selling his customers bread what’s in this state.
“Oh!…Do I have to mum?…Couldn’t you take it?… You’d be much better at it than me.”
Her mum thrust the loaf at her and pushed her towards the front door. “Get on with it, my girl!”
The door closed reluctantly slowly behind the dejected girl. “That’ll teach the little cow to lie,” she whispered to her son.
“That bread ain’t as good as I remember it, mum, how’s that?”
“Different baker; we had to change to old Drew when they took Mr Fricke away.”
“What yer mean, took him away?…What the coppers?”
“ Yeah… he was interned, like the rest of ‘em…taken away to some camp in Surrey, so they say. Shame, really, he was such a nice man.”
“Made nice bread and all, what they intern him for? He’s been here for as long as I can remember.”
“Still an Austrian though, ain’t he?…he’s been ‘ere since the Great War. He was a prisoner up at the ‘Big House’, when it were a prisoner of war camp. He never went home after the War, stayed on and married Ethel May. She’s dead now, you wouldn’t remember her. She used to play the piano at the ‘flea pit’, before you was born’… ‘Ere, there’s an idea, why don’t you go to the ‘flicks’ tonight, do you good to get out for a while, might meet a nice girl!”
“Thought it was closed… It was the last time I was home.”
“They’ve opened it again, but it closes early on account of the blackout.”
“I don’t know…” said Wyatt, screwing his face up, “I was thinking of listening to the wireless for a bit and having an early night.”
“Early night at your age, indeed! I’ve never heard such a thing!”
“Mum, early nights is all I’ve been dreaming of for yonks.”
* * *
Magistrate’s Court, Central London
“You are a disgrace to the uniform you wear.” the magistrate was saying his voice falsetto with indignation. “If it wasn’t for the fact that your comrades would have to do your duties, as well as their own, in your absence, I would give you a much longer custodial sentence. As it is you will jolly well spend the remainder of your leave in police cells. I therefore sentence you Patrick Benjamin O’Neill to …to.”
“Three days,” whispered the clerk of the court.
“Three days,” piped the magistrate, “and I hope you’ll use the time to contemplate the errors of your ways…after all there is a war on you know!”
* * *
Hampshire
They sat in comfortable armchairs in front of the inn’s roaring log fire, feet outstretched, drinks in hand. Alongside the dancing flames their shoes lay in an untidy, steaming heap.
The room was empty apart from the old man and his dog. He sat by the sash window that served as a bar, through it, the owner could be seen moving backwards and forwards busy preparing their lunch.
If Grant could have frozen that moment in time he would have, He took a long and leisurely sip at the pint of cider. He was pleasantly tired, the kind of tiredness that only came with physical exertion and alcohol. He hadn’t felt like this in a very long while. He observed, with almost scientific interest, the glow as the alcohol spread around his body, numbing the ache in his legs and neck. What was it he’d overheard O’Neill say once? ‘Booze was God’s way of showing he still loves us’…something like that anyway.
“What did you say?” asked Charlotte, she too sounded tired.
He realised he had spoken out aloud. “Oh, nothing I was only thinking of something someone had said.”
“What was it?”
“It was nothing much.”
“Well, I want to know everything anyone has ever said to you.”
“That’ll take a lifetime.”
“I know,” she said.
* * *
Nuneaton
Mrs Goddard removed her carpet slippers, the ones she seemed to live in, and shuffled one foot into a scuffed garden clog. Crossing to the back door she picked up the garden fork.
“Bit late for gardening, mum, ain’t it? It’s getting dark.” said Goddard.
“Feeding the chickens, son,”
“What’s with the fork? What’re feeding ‘em, sides of beef?”
“No, you’re daft as a brush you are, the fork’s to keep that bloody cockerel away from me.”
“What’s fancies yer, does 'e?”
“Don’t you be crude, you know I don’t like it. Sailor or not, you’re not too young for me to wash your mouth out with soap, like I used to… you remember?”
“I remember mum,” said Goddard, almost tasting the soap as he spoke.
His mum was half way out of the door, a determined look on her face. “He’s a blighter that bird. I can’t wait for Christmas to come so he gets the chop.”
“That ain’t like you mum,” he called, rising from his chair.
“Well… that’s as maybe… all I know is that he’s a right bugger. Every time I go in the hut he gets behind me… and then he jumps. Yer Dad’s right, he’s always say’s the brighter the colour the fiercer the bird and they don’t come any brighter or fiercer than that there Rhode Island Red, I’m here to tell yer. He ain’t managed to knock me down yet, but it ain’t for the want of trying.”
Wyatt wandered out after her, cup of tea in hand. Leaning on the door jam, he watched her make her way down the long garden with her a brimming pail of peelings and meal. The sun was setting behind the Chestnut tree, as she past the row of vegetables. She spoke to his dad, who was bent double, weeding rows of tiny greens. He looked up and said something, his mum laughed. The wire compound, where they kept the chickens, included the big tree. Goddard could see the birds flapping down from it as they saw her nearing the gate.
The neighbours donated their left-overs and , once a year at Christmas, they each got a chicken in return. His mum had been telling him how well it was all going. It had put a stop to the neighbours moaning about the noise the cockerels made. It all sounded a bit illegal to Goddard, bit of a black market really, what with rationing and that.
Her back was towards him, but he could she was having trouble with the bent hook on the gate. She put down her pail and swung the rickety wire gate back wide, lifting it over his Dad’s pile of weeds. It was just then that the Rhode Island Red struck. Flying at her in a flurry of feathers and talons. She screamed and made to close the gate, but it stuck fast on the pile of weeds. She dropped the pail and the fork and ran screaming back down the path amid a fluff of feathers and foul oaths.
Seeming inspired by all her swearing she was a good two feet in front of the cockerel by the time she reached the cement post, the one that held up the washing line. The cockerel chose that moment to launch his attack; he flew at her head down and neck outstretched.
But…he was on unfamiliar territory, and hadn’t seen the post. Goddard’s mum dodged aside and the bird hit the post head on. He fell pole-axed and unmoving.
Goddard’s mum didn’t stop, she was still swearing when she reached her back door.
Her eldest was leaning on the doorframe, holding a long bar of Sunlight soap in one hand and her best scrubbing brush in the other.
“Open wide mum,” he said smiling.
* * *
Hampshire
The remains of their lunch lay before them; a pleasing debris of cheese rind and tomato pips, the amber liquid in their refilled glasses catching the light from the fire.
The innkeeper appeared at his side smelling faintly of pickled onions,
“I hope you enjoyed your meal, me dears,” he said before he began to clear the table.
“It was excellent, thank you very much.”
“Thank you, sir,” said the man, as he turned to leave, “Oh! I almost forgot. Your room’s ready, sir.”
“Room? …What room?” he asked, bemused.
“Your wife said…” began the innkeeper.
“Oh! You’ve spoilt my surprise!”
“Oh! I am terrible sorry, Mrs…I didn’t mean…”
“That’s all right, what’s done is done,” said Charlotte magnanimously, waving a trivializing hand. The innkeeper backing away, withdrew, a trifle red in the face.
She glanced at Grant across the fire’s glow, its light reflected on the room key hanging in one hand. “It took careful planning you know,” she said. In her other hand she held up a penknife and shrugged at the stunned silence coming from Grant. “True, I underestimated, miscalculated the distance back to this inn, but…”