V for Victory Page 3

  ‘Well, he can still propose to you if you don’t drink alcohol, can’t he?’

  Sheila threw her an incredulous look. ‘You don’t understand what it’s like there, it’s not a pub, you don’t sit in the corner with a glass of shandy – it’s … it’s … it’s like a dream …’ She waved her hands, trying to convey the fabulous extravagance of the American Servicemen’s Club, as if Vee might somehow have missed all the gossip about the whisky cocktails in half-pint glasses, the plates of pink-and-white ice-cream, the hot doughnuts dusted with actual sugar, cigarettes full of tobacco instead of shredded string, the dustbins outside bursting with half-eaten steaks.

  ‘I can’t drink lemonade, like an old lady, he’d think I’d gone crazy. You just don’t understand,’ said Sheila again, and there was both dismissal and condescension in her tone, as if addressing a village crone who’d never been further than the duck-pond. She blew her nose and picked up her compact. ‘Maybe if I just have the one, I’ll get away with it …’ she said.

  Vee, tight-lipped, returned to the dining room, where Noel was stacking plates.

  ‘I remember that I once took a young lady mushroom-picking,’ said Mr Reddish, back on his favourite topic. ‘It was very early morning, and the grass was thick with dew, and before we’d walked ten yards she gave a little scream and said that it was ruining her shoes, and that she wouldn’t go a step further unless I gave her a piggy-back. Well, you won’t believe me when I tell you that I carried her nearly a mile. I was sweating like a Trojan, up hill and down dale, and when we finally reached the field I set her down and she thanked me very nicely, I must say.’ He leaned back with the air of someone who’d just held an audience spellbound; none of his stories had any point to them.

  ‘My uncle died of a rupture after carrying a pig across a field,’ said Miss Zawadska. ‘Excuse me, I need to go to work. Could you save dessert for me?’ She rose, and there was the usual reverent pause as everyone watched her move across the room – beauty incarnate, a nipped waist and a full bosom, a face like a cameo, hair the colour of heavy cream; ‘the Madonna of the Vale’, as Mr Reddish called her, his tone wavering between sentiment and senile lust. Vee followed her out with a tray of dishes, and caught up as Miss Zawadska paused beside the hall mirror and adjusted a hair-grip.

  ‘You picked up your Red Cross letter from the hall table?’ asked Vee.

  ‘Thank you, yes.’

  ‘Won’t be too long now, maybe,’ said Vee. ‘Before he’s back, I mean.’

  Miss Zawadska’s fiancé was a prisoner-of-war, captured just after D-Day; the photograph beside her bed was of someone as preposterously good-looking as herself.

  ‘I am not impatient,’ said Miss Zawadska.

  ‘No?’

  ‘He is safe now and we have our whole lives ahead.’ She smiled placidly, and Vee shifted the tray to get past and glimpsed her own reflection in the mirror, looking like the ‘before’ illustration in an advertisement for nerve tonic. She had never in her adult life looked forward to the future; there had always been something up ahead to be dreaded or dodged. The end of the war might mean less chance of sudden death, but there’d also likely be more housing available and fewer lodgers, and there was barely enough money for the bills as it was. Noel, as usual, was unable to see any difficulties. ‘I’m the sole beneficiary of Mattie’s will, and you’re my guardian. All we have to do is actually go to the solicitor and sign a few papers, and then you’d have access to the money.’

  ‘But what if he asked me questions?’

  ‘What sort of questions?’

  ‘About Margery Overs.’

  ‘He never met Margery Overs, so if I say that’s who you are, and you say that’s who you are, then why on earth would he think that you were someone else? She’s hardly going to burst in and declare that you’re an imposter.’

  ‘Poor soul,’ said Vee, automatically. She had met the real Margery Overs once, only hours before her death in a raid – had sat in her armchair and drunk her tea and now was unable to banish a vision of the large, nervous woman peering at her over the edge of a cloud, shocked and reproachful. ‘It’s having to swear. It’s having to put my signature. It wouldn’t just be me saying it any more, it’d be official, it’d be … you know …’

  ‘Fraud,’ said Noel, baldly.

  ‘Yes.’ Even the word was frightening. It made her nervous about giving out any personal information at all, however minor, in case she made a slip-up; the lodgers knew she was a widow, for instance, but not that she had a grown-up son, and when Mr Reddish had once enquired about Noel’s parentage she’d shrieked, ‘Oh, we don’t talk about that,’ even though the truth was that she had no idea, and neither had he, apart from the fact that he’d been born on the wrong side of the blanket.

  The front door closed on Miss Zawadska, and Vee slid the dishes into the sink, and took the apple charlotte from the oven. Back in the dining room, they were talking about church roofs, the conversation all staves and corbels.

  ‘I’d like to learn more about architecture,’ said Noel. ‘I think it would be rather interesting to be an architectural historian.’

  ‘That’s a real job, is it?’ asked Vee.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Is it advertised? “Architectural historian wanted, usual rates apply”?’

  ‘I don’t know. Does it matter?’

  ‘Of course it matters. What are you going to eat when you grow up? Bricks?’

  She caught Dr Parry-Jones’s eye and found herself reddening, again, and hoped it wasn’t the change – she’d heard it could start at forty, and she was nearly forty-one now. ‘We all have to earn a living,’ she said.

  ‘But we all also need to expand our minds,’ said Dr Parry-Jones, with mild reproof.

  So there we have it, thought Vee, sneaking a bit of extra crust on to Noel’s plate – there we have it, the criteria for the next lodger: No pets, laundry extra, and knowledge of flying buttresses an advantage.

  ‘The pudding’s tip-top, Noel,’ said Mr Reddish.

  Wardens’ Post 9 was a Nissen hut, sunk into the corner of Deddington Square Gardens and covered with a skin of concrete and a foot of earth. It had been built in 1938 and was now as well camouflaged as a commando’s hat, the top thick with brambles and wild raspberries. The sloping path that led to the entrance always made Winnie feel like Peter Rabbit entering his burrow.

  ‘Hi ho!’ she called before opening the door, just in case one of the other wardens was engaged in scratching his privates, or peeing into a bucket in the corner. In the event, only Addy was there, perusing the Sporting Life through half-moon spectacles. He had long silver hair, and the dreaming air of a Cambridge don, and had almost certainly been a burglar before the war.

  ‘Hi ho, Shorty,’ he responded, not looking up but marking something on the paper with a stub of pencil. ‘Nothing doing?’

  ‘No, all quiet.’

  ‘You know what Smiler says: one of them rockets could be a mile above our heads as we speak, just waiting to smash us like a bleeding hammer.’

  ‘Thanks, Addy.’

  ‘You’re welcome. Cup of tea? There’s still a mouthful in the pot. Fenton’s girl turned up and says he’s seedy, won’t be in tonight.’

  ‘Smiler’s coming in though, isn’t he?’ asked Winnie, pouring herself half a mug of treacle. ‘And Basset?’

  ‘Basset’s swapped with Polesworth.’

  ‘All right.’ It wasn’t much of a swap; Basset was worth ten of Polesworth, the latter a cerebral liability from the Classics department at King’s, who pondered every decision (however trivial) as if it were a chess move. Four years before, during the night Blitz, there’d been twenty volunteer wardens and eleven full-timers at the post, but the long lull before the advent of the doodlebugs had pared down the roster, and now only Winnie, as Post Warden, and Smiler, as deputy, were on the council pay-roll, with a shifting band of part-timers helping out as the fancy took them. ‘You can’t hardly call us Air Rai
d Precautions Wardens no more,’ as Smiler had remarked. ‘We’re Mopper-Uppers. You can’t take no precautions against a thunderbolt.’

  Addy laid down the paper and yawned; the small electric fire in the corner had built up a nice fug. ‘You heard from that husband of yours, Shorty?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. Got a letter on Monday.’

  ‘What’s he up to, then?’

  ‘Oh, not much. The camp crosses out half of what he writes and the censor on this side cuts the rest.’

  ‘Sends you his love?’

  ‘None of your business.’

  Addy smiled.

  ‘I tell you what, though, I just had something quite funny happen,’ said Winnie, glad to change the subject. She took out her notebook and looked at the address that the boy had written in a neat italic script. ‘I met a kid poking around St Aethelstan’s, and I said I’d drop him a line when the chap from the University decides what to do with the Green Man carving. And when I looked at the address, I realized that it’s somewhere I know – it’s in Hampstead – and I don’t only know the road, I know the actual house. It was owned by a suffragette called Miss Matilda Simpkin, and she ran a girls’ club – my sister and I were both in it.’

  ‘You got a sister?’

  ‘A twin, actually.’

  ‘Get away – I never knew that! Two Shorties!’

  ‘She’s four inches taller than me. The club was called the Amazons – we used to throw javelins and run around Hampstead Heath with feathers in our hair.’

  Addy let out a silent whistle, and turned the page. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘There’s a runner in tomorrow’s 4.30 called Feathered Friend – might be worth a punt. What do you say? It’s got the usual number of legs.’

  ‘All right, then. Sixpence each way.’

  She was digging into her pocket for a coin when there was a knock at the door. A soldier was standing outside, pack on back, his head in beaky profile as he scanned the ruined terrace to the east of the square; he was very young and deeply tanned, the colour ending abruptly halfway up his forehead.

  ‘I’m looking for the Shaws,’ he said, his voice hoarse. ‘Eileen and Horace Shaw. And the kids.’

  ‘Sidney! It is Sidney, isn’t it?’

  He turned to face her. ‘I know you,’ he said. ‘You was warden here before I left.’

  He’d shot up, and broadened, in the years since she’d last seen him; all the Shaw boys were built like tanks, but beneath the sunburn, he looked exhausted.

  ‘Where are they?’ he said. ‘I went to the house and no one answered and there’s no bloody windows in the place – where have they gone? I bin travelling three weeks to get here and they’re not bloody here.’ He was close to tears, she realized.

  ‘They didn’t leave us an address,’ said Winnie. ‘I’m ever so sorry. There was a rocket bomb in Falcon Road a fortnight ago and it took the roofs off that side of the square. They’ve patched it up, but most people have left.’

  ‘I bin in Egypt,’ he said. ‘I won a leave lottery, and now they’re not even here and I’ve only got a week.’

  ‘Can I get you a cup of tea?’

  ‘No, I got no time.’ He turned and walked back up the path, and she ran to catch him up.

  ‘The Town Hall might have a record, but Mrs Aitcheson’s still at number 19. Let’s go and ask her,’ she said. ‘There’s not much she doesn’t know. Do you remember what the kids always called her?’

  ‘Mrs Jungle Drums.’

  ‘She hasn’t changed.’

  He nodded, too tired even to smile, and Winnie led the way.

  Even before the war, the square had been shabby – a mere mile from Bloomsbury, but lacking both poets and stucco, with absentee landlords dragging their feet over repairs, and broken downpipes flaring green slime across the brickwork. It had always been full of people, though, three or four families sharing each front door; now it was three-quarters empty, boards across half the windows, and tarpaulins stretched over the exposed rafters.

  Mrs Aitcheson had refused to move. She had been born in the square, married round the corner and widowed in the Great War, and was now living in her basement kitchen, her bed covered with a sheet of plywood during the day, her ear still glued to the ground.

  ‘They’ve all gone to your mum’s brother-in-law in Watford,’ she said, instantly, to Sidney. ‘The one who’s a council officer with a motor-car. But have a bite before you go. Give us the news. How long since they’ve seen you?’

  Sidney eased his pack to the floor, but didn’t sit. ‘Two and a half years,’ he said, accepting a slice of bread-and-marge. ‘But Victor’s not been back in three.’

  ‘Where’s he?’ asked Winnie.

  ‘Ceylon, last we heard.’

  ‘And the others?’

  ‘Walter’s in Greece, maybe. Frank’s in Burma, they’ve not heard from him in a while.’ He sunk a mug of tea in one long draught. ‘I’m going. Thanks, Mrs Aitcheson.’ He clumped away up the area steps, still eating his bread-and-marge. His father had cut a map of the world out of the Daily Sketch and kept it folded in his wallet, in case anyone asked about his boys.

  ‘It’s freezing in here, Mrs A,’ said Winnie.

  ‘I never feel it, dear. I wear my Arthur’s great-coat and I’m cosy as a kitten. Born hot-blooded, he always said.’ She gave a chirrup of laughter. ‘Mind you, Sidney’s going to get a shock when he sees his sister. Eight months gone, no wedding ring, and I hear that the father’s as black as the sole of your boot. Got tired of waiting for her fiancé to get back from his ship, I expect. How long since you’ve seen your hubby, dear?’

  ‘Four years, ten months,’ said Winnie.

  ‘But you’re a good girl – you’re the faithful type, I can tell.’

  Was that a compliment? It made Winnie feel like the baggier sort of fireside hound, resting its chin on the owner’s leg. Glamorous, svelte women – women like her twin, Avril – were never labelled ‘the faithful type’.

  ‘Can I get you anything, Mrs Aitcheson?’ she asked. ‘Do you want me to put up the blackouts?’

  ‘I heard we don’t have to do that any more.’

  ‘You heard right – just ordinary curtains. But I thought, maybe, for warmth.’

  ‘Go on, then, dear. Did you hear about the barman at the Star and Garter? The one with the missing fingers?’

  ‘Gibson? What about him?’

  ‘He’s been summonsed. They found a big pile of brand-new gentlemen’s coats in the tap room that he said he was just minding for someone.’

  ‘Well, maybe he was.’ Winnie liked Gibson. He was a part-time fireman, and had the sort of cheerful face that it was good to see above a pile of smoking rubble; he’d lost the fingers to an incendiary in ’41, and still turned out for the AFS, and, frankly, it would take more than a few swiped coats to lower her opinion of him. She let Mrs Aitcheson rattle poisonously on while she finished the blackouts.

  Outside, twilight was dropping like a shutter and you could almost hear the crackle of the frost forming. She checked on the surface shelter in Bedale Road, and helped the steward to carry out the chemical toilet and tip the contents into a nearby crater, and then she returned to the Post, and briefed Smiler on the minimal events of the last twenty-four hours.

  ‘Off you hop then, Shorty,’ he said, lighting fags for them both. ‘See you tomorrow evening, if we’re not both dead.’

  Her flat was half a mile away, past what remained of Falcon Road. Winnie flashed her torch across the ruins and a pair of cats stared back at her, their eyes like a switchboard signal, four green lights in a row. It still felt odd to be able to use an unshuttered bulb, or to see the glimmer of half-lit streetlamps. The night the rocket had landed, an American truck carrying a searchlight had arrived and bathed the whole area in brilliant white light, and an old man pulled from the wreckage had thought he’d reached heaven, and had asked for his long-dead wife. ‘Typical of the Yanks,’ Smiler had said, afterwards. ‘They all think they’re God.’
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br />   As she opened the front door, Winnie could hear dance music seeping from the ground-floor flat, the volume not quite loud enough to cover the sound of the baby crying. The post had been shuffled into neat piles on the hall table, and Winnie took her own bundle and started upstairs, passing Mr Veale halfway, as he left for his night shift at the Cossor Works. He nodded politely, but said nothing. It was not a friendly house – no one had been there long; no shared triumph or disaster had bonded them.

  Inside her rooms, Winnie closed the curtains and switched on the light, and wrapped herself in a blanket crocheted by her grandmother. There was a letter postmarked Salisbury at the top of the pile; her father’s firm had moved to Wiltshire at the start of the war and her mother sent her a weekly chronicle of provincial life which varied so little from letter to letter that Winnie played a type of Housey Housey when reading them, taking a sip of beer or eating a monkey-nut whenever she saw the words ‘evacuee’ or ‘vicar’ or ‘soup’.

  During Winnie’s visits, her mother treated her like an invalid, speaking in hushed tones to callers (‘the things she’s seen’) and draping a blanket over her daughter’s legs whenever she sat down, but the funny thing was that none of her parents’ friends or acquaintances seemed to have the slightest interest in what was happening in London. ‘Yes, I heard on the news there’d been trouble,’ they’d say, vaguely, before switching to the topic of the cheese ration or the sex-crazed land-girls who scandalized Chippenham on a Saturday night. It didn’t help that the BBC’s stock phrase was ‘Rockets have fallen in the south of England’, a deliberate obfuscation which sounded as if Jerry were idly scattering V-2s from Broadstairs to Worcester, with the capital just catching the odd one.

  Winnie got the impression that the provinces thought London was clinging to the limelight, exaggerating its suffering, but perhaps the truth was that after five years, everyone was simply bored of bomb stories. Everyone was bored of everything, really; it had all been going on for far too long.