by Ellie Dean
‘Like I’ve been run over by a bus,’ Julie groaned as she struggled to sit up. ‘I ache in places I never knew I had.’ She drew the rough blanket to her chin, shivering in the cold that had iced the inside of the windows and whistled under the door. ‘I’m sorry you got lumbered with extra work yesterday,’ she said, taking her friend’s hand.
‘You’d’ve done the same for me,’ Lily replied lightly. Her wide blue eyes regarded Julie with sympathy. ‘I hear Franny ’ad a little boy,’ she said. ‘That must be some consolation, I suppose.’
Julie drew up her knees and sank her chin onto them. ‘He’s beautiful, Lil,’ she sighed. ‘So tiny and sweet, but with such a strong will to live. You should see him feed.’
Lily frowned. ‘I’m sure ’e’s all those things, Julie, but you gotta remember he ain’t yours. Don’t go falling in love wiv ’im. It’ll only make it harder when you ’ave to give ’im up.’
‘I’m not giving him up,’ Julie replied firmly. ‘I promised Franny to keep him until Bill comes home.’
Lily gripped her hands. ‘Julie, you ain’t thinking straight, gel. What if Bill gets killed? What if he decides he don’t want the baby after all? You’ll be stuck good and proper.’
‘I can’t afford to think like that,’ retorted Julie stubbornly.
‘I think you ’ave to,’ Lily murmured. She inched up the bed and put her arm round Julie’s shoulders. ‘I don’t want to be unkind, Jules,’ she said softly, ‘but you ain’t thought this through proper. What about your job – how would you support yerself and the sprog, and where would you live?’
‘I’d manage somehow,’ Julie muttered, ‘and then there’s me sister down in Cliffehaven, she might take us in. We’d be safer there, away from the Blitz anyway.’
‘What about your job ’ere, and all yer mates? Then there’s Stan. I thought you was getting married? Are you willing to turn your back on all of us?’
Julie didn’t really want to leave her work here in London, and she certainly didn’t want to leave Stan and all her friends. She regarded Lily for a moment and, as her thoughts swirled, an idea began to form. She grasped Lily’s hand. ‘If Stan and I get married straight away, then we could look after William together. We could find a cheap place to rent and I could work part-time.’
Lily eyed her solemnly. ‘That sounds good in theory, but before you get too excited, don’t you think you ought to talk it over with Stan?’
‘I’ll do it today,’ said Julie, throwing back the bedclothes. ‘We weren’t supposed to meet up till Wednesday, but he comes off night duty at two. I can catch up with him at his lodgings.’
Lily stilled her as she reached for her dressing gown. ‘Mind how you go, Jules. Men can be funny about this sort of thing. They don’t like bein’ rushed into making decisions and such, and Stan might not want—’
‘Stan won’t let me down,’ Julie interrupted, invigorated by the certainty that she’d found the answer to her problems.
‘If you’re sure,’ murmured Lily, but she still looked doubtful.
Julie gave her a hug and rushed out to use the bathroom. The day no longer stretched before her in an endless cloud of sorrow and anxiety.
Julie had left the hostel after breakfast, dressed in her smartest woollen dress and shoes, a soft beret covering her hair, the regulation overcoat keeping her warm against the blustery day. She’d visited William for an hour, had changed and fed him and given him a cuddle as he fell asleep, then stood and watched him for a long while before quietly leaving the ward.
Cycling towards Stepney, she breathed in the clean fresh air that had come in with the wind off the Thames, and felt the sting of its chill on her face and in her heart. She dreaded returning to the street where she’d lived all her life, but knew she must, for there might be some remnants of the lives they’d lived there amid the rubble.
She stopped for a moment in front of St Paul’s. The doors were open and somehow they seemed to beckon her. She rested the bicycle against the wall and hesitantly went inside. Her family were not Catholics and regarded churches as useful only for christenings, weddings and funerals, and, at a pinch, the occasional midnight mass at Christmas. She therefore felt a bit of an interloper as she slowly walked past the stone bowl with its holy water and down the aisle.
The church was hushed, the sunlight pouring through the stained-glass windows in rainbows of colour. The smell of incense was strong, and candles flickered on the altar and sparked in the brass candlesticks. Above the altar was a figure of Christ on the Cross, and the ancient stone walls were hung with paintings of His journey to Calvary.
Julie quietly tiptoed to a nearby pew and sat down. There were several people kneeling in prayer, their mouths moving silently as they threaded rosary beads through their fingers. She felt the tranquillity enfold her, and the gentle ghosts of generations of believers soothed her as she sat in this ancient place and tried to make sense of it all. She didn’t pray, she didn’t really know how, but she closed her eyes and remembered those she’d lost, and found a modicum of comfort.
She left the church feeling a little more confident about things, and was about to cycle away when Father O’Neil came hurrying along the path, his soutane billowing around his ankles.
He held out both his hands to her and smiled. ‘Julie, ’tis a pleasure to see you in my church,’ he said by way of greeting.
‘I was just passing and thought I’d look in,’ she replied, easing her hands away. She didn’t want him to get the idea she’d taken up religion.
He nodded, the silver in his hair glinting in the sunlight. ‘I’ve spoken to Mr Simms the undertaker,’ he said solemnly, ‘and I’m sorry, but it won’t be possible to view your parents. Their injuries were . . .’
‘It’s all right,’ she hurried to assure him. ‘I wasn’t going there anyway. I prefer to remember them as they were.’ She shot him a tremulous smile. ‘Now, if you don’t mind, I have to be off.’
‘God go with you, Julie,’ he called after her.
She cycled away and within moments had reached the end of what she assumed had once been her street. It was unrecognisable, disorientating and confusing, for there was no pub or factory, no corner shop – nothing to mark where her home had been. It was a wasteland of still-smouldering destruction.
She climbed off the bicycle and wheeled it over and around the broken roof slates, the shattered window frames and crumbled bricks. Part of a wall rose out of the debris, and Julie recognised the curtain that flapped through what remained of the window. It was Ma Foster’s house, and she could see the mangle that Ivy had hit her head on, standing where the scullery should have been.
Turning, she regarded what remained of her own home. The step her mother had scrubbed so assiduously every morning was buried beneath bricks, mortar and twisted lead pipes, but the black range had survived to stand ponderously in the middle of the carnage, her father’s favourite chair perched on top of it. She laid her bicycle down and carefully made her way through the wreckage of broken glass and splintered wood.
She cleared a space and heaved the chair from the range. It was filthy, but still in one piece, so she wrapped her coat around her and sat down. She could almost hear her father laughing at the absurdity of what she was doing, and it made her smile as she regarded the damage through her blinding tears.
The old clock was in a million pieces, the precious wireless crushed beneath a heavy beam, the sink ripped from its moorings to be flung into the middle of the backyard. Her mum’s collection of framed photographs had been scattered amongst the debris, the glass gone, the photographs ruined by water, the frames strangely intact.
Julie carefully gathered them, taking the photographs one by one, even the most damaged, and putting them safely in her handbag. She stood in the centre of the devastation, unable to accept that this had once been the very heart of her home. She was about to leave when a gust of wind made something flutter. On closer inspection she saw it was a piece of sodden, dirt-stained cloth, and her heart ac
hed as she recognised it – for it was her mother’s best dress.
Julie sniffed back her tears and scrambled over the mess to reach it. The dress had been caught on a nail in a fallen rafter, and she worked at it painstakingly to release it. Finally she stood in the ruins, the dress clutched tightly in her fist. Apart from her father’s chair, and the water-damaged photographs, it seemed to be the only tangible reminder of her parents and the home they’d so lovingly made for their children.
‘Thank you,’ she whispered to them in the silence. ‘Know that I’ll always love you.’
It was almost three o’clock by the time Julie left Stepney, for after she’d said her goodbyes to her home, she’d gone to the undertaker and made the arrangements for the funerals. Franny would be buried with her parents in the local cemetery. Finding a little corner café that had escaped the carnage, she had bought a restoring cup of tea, then had gone back to the church hall to try and find out what had happened to poor little Ivy.
A small army of women had been helping the two young priests scrub and clean the mess from the hall, and they assured her that Father O’Neil had arranged for Ivy to go and live with her aunt’s sister-in-law, who lived out Rainham way. Glad that Ivy had found a home, Julie had thanked them and headed for Poplar, where Stan had lodgings.
The damage was almost as bad here, the skeletons of blasted buildings rising above vast craters filled with rubble. The enemy raid at the end of January had seen whole streets go up in flames, and the houses that had withstood that and the subsequent bombings were blackened from the smoke of hundreds of fires. Most windows were boarded over, and the roofs had been made weatherproof with tarpaulins and sheets of corrugated iron.
The door to Stan’s lodgings was to the side of a tobacconist’s shop. The narrow street ended in a low wall that kept the Thames at bay, and, as Julie leaned her bike against a handy lamp post, she could see a huge merchant ship slowly making its way towards the East India Docks. The pungent smell of the muddy river was strong, the gulls wheeling and screeching overhead as they squabbled over the rubbish in the gutters. The ship gave an ear-splitting blast from its funnel, which was answered by several more. Julie was glad she didn’t have to live here.
Her sharp rap of the knocker was finally answered by the sound of a sash window being drawn up overhead. ‘Bugger off! I’m trying to bloody sleep.’
Julie stepped back into the road and looked up into his furious face. ‘It’s me, Stan,’ she called back. ‘I need to talk to you.’
He didn’t look too happy about it as he slammed the window shut, and she wondered fearfully if he was just going to leave her there on the doorstep. A few minutes passed, and she was about to leave when she heard him thudding down the stairs. Her heart was pounding and her mouth was dry. Perhaps this had been a mistake?
The door was wrenched open and he stood there barefooted, in a pair of trousers hastily pulled over his pyjamas, and an unbuttoned shirt which revealed a muscular, hairy chest. He was tousle-haired, unshaven and clearly not in the best of moods.
‘I’ve been on shift all night and only just managed to get to sleep,’ he said gruffly. ‘I ’ope it’s important, Julie.’
She’d never seen him this unkempt and rough-looking before and she hesitated before answering, trying to quell her nervousness. ‘It is rather,’ she replied breathlessly as she took a step back. ‘But I can see you’re exhausted, so I’ll leave it until later.’
He opened the door wider and jerked his head towards the stairs. ‘Well, you’re ’ere now,’ he said ungraciously, ‘and I’m awake. You’d better come in.’
It was hardly the welcome she’d expected and, after a momentary hesitation, she stepped into the narrow hall. It smelled of damp and dirt, a thousand greasy meals, and something sharp and cloying which seemed to lodge in her throat.
As he closed the door they were plunged into darkness. ‘The gas is off,’ he explained sourly. ‘Mind your step.’
Feeling more uncertain by the minute, she followed him up the bare stairs to a landing which had four doors leading off it. The strange smell was even worse up here and impossible to ignore. ‘What is that pong?’ she asked, wrinkling her nose.
‘A couple of Indian seamen moved in the other day – it’s their curry,’ he muttered, running his fingers through his hair. ‘It tastes all right, but give me jellied eels any day.’ He paused as he reached for the door-handle. ‘Look, Julie,’ he said awkwardly, ‘you’ll ’ave to ignore the mess. I wasn’t expecting visitors.’
‘I’ve probably seen far worse on my rounds,’ she replied with a lightness she didn’t feel. ‘Can we go in and open a window? That smell is turning me stomach.’
He opened the door and hurried towards the window as she followed him. She took in the rumpled, grubby bed, the pile of discarded dirty clothes in the corner, the plates of half-eaten meals and empty beer bottles that littered every flat surface. It was a small, musty room with a single bed, a wardrobe and a chest of drawers, but every inch of the uncarpeted floor was covered in discarded newspapers and what looked suspiciously like pornographic magazines.
She looked away quickly, but Stan must have noticed, because he hastily gathered them up and shoved them in a drawer. He also realised his shirt was flapping open and buttoned it quickly before pulling the unwashed bedclothes straight. ‘Sorry there ain’t nowhere else to sit,’ he muttered, ‘but there ain’t room to swing a cat in here.’
Julie was shocked by the state of the room and the slovenly way Stan seemed to be living. No wonder he’d never invited her in for a cuppa – not that she’d have come, she wasn’t that kind of girl. She perched on the very edge of the insanitary bed, her knees and ankles tightly together, the gas-mask box held determinedly on her lap like a barrier between them.
Stan seemed to have recovered from his initial embarrassment, for he eyed her with his familiar cheeky smile as he rolled a cigarette. ‘You look right prim and proper sitting there, gel. What’s the matter? Frightened I’ll try and ’ave me wicked way?’ He chuckled as he stuck the cigarette in his mouth and reached for a box of matches. ‘Don’t worry, gel. I’m too tired for all that.’
Julie could feel her heart hammering against her ribs. This wasn’t the Stan she knew at all. She shouldn’t have come – should have waited until Wednesday evening as they’d planned.
He shivered and closed the window, disregarding her obvious discomfort. He rested his behind on the sill and smoked his cigarette, his dark gaze pinned on her through the drift of smoke. ‘So what’s so urgent it couldn’t wait until I’d caught up on me kip?’
Julie licked her dry lips. The doubts were growing by the minute, but she’d come for a purpose and couldn’t fail now. She tightened her grip on the gas-mask box and kept her gaze fixed to the tiny chip of diamond in her engagement ring as she told him about the events of the past twenty-four hours.
‘I’m sorry to ’ear about that, love,’ he said softly. ‘They was lovely people. Made me feel right at home, they did.’ He finished his cigarette and dropped the butt in an empty beer bottle as another ship gave a deafening blast, which reverberated right through the house. He didn’t seem to even notice as he carried on talking. ‘I only met Franny a coupl’a times, but she seemed like a nice, quiet little thing. Shame about ’er and the baby.’
‘The baby – William – is alive and being looked after at the hospital,’ she said quickly. ‘He’s a little premature, so he’ll stay there for a few weeks until he’s gained some weight.’ She hesitated, then plunged on and told him about her promise to Fanny and the difficulties she would have trying to care for the child on her own.
He narrowed his eyes and watched her with all the concentration of a feral cat stalking a bird. ‘Well, you can’t, can you? It wouldn’t be proper.’
‘But I must,’ she said urgently. ‘I promised.’
Stan’s gaze remained steady through the narrowed lids. ‘She won’t know if you break your promise,’ he said flatly. ‘And w
ith yer parents gone, it will be impossible. You should foster the kid out, and if its dad don’t turn up, then ’e can be adopted.’
Julie stared at him. He hadn’t listened to a word she’d said – had absolutely no idea of how much that promise to her dead sister meant to her. ‘I’m not breaking that promise, Stan,’ she said, her voice edgy with emotion.
‘Don’t be bloody silly,’ he snapped. ‘You ain’t got nothing but your job and a place at that ’ostel.’ He began to pace back and forth in front of the grimy window, animated by his impatience with her. ‘If you take this kid on you’ll be out on yer ear and no chance to earn, not even somewhere to live. Then what you gunna do? Take in bleedin’ washing?’
‘I thought I might work part-time and pay someone to look after him.’
He gave a harsh cough of humourless laughter. ‘And what sort of work would that be, Julie?’ he asked as he turned back to her. ‘Single girls with a kid in tow ain’t respectable, and you won’t be allowed to nurse once word gets out.’
Julie bit her lip, the ready tears blinding her as she watched him resume his pacing. This was far harder than she could ever have imagined. ‘I was . . . I thought . . . That’s to say I hoped . . .’ Her voice faded as her courage deserted her.
His gaze was intense as he came to a sudden standstill. ‘What? Come on, Julie, spit it out.’
‘I thought that as we’re engaged, we could get married a bit earlier than we planned,’ she said softly, not daring to look at him. ‘Perhaps find somewhere cheap to live and look after William until Bill gets back.’ She glanced up at him but couldn’t see his expression as his back was to the light. ‘As a married woman I could still work,’ she rushed on, ‘and it can often be cheaper for two to share food and bills, and once you pass your sergeant’s exam we could . . .’
The words stuck in her throat as Stan took a step towards her, his face ashen, his eyes glittering dangerously. ‘You’ve got it all worked out, ’aven’t you?’ he growled.
She was incapable of replying, hypnotised by those eyes which seemed to bore right through her and pin her to the bed.