by Guy Sheppard
‘About the décor…’
‘I haven’t finished. It occupies a peaceful backstreet location much in demand by bombed-out people such as yourself.’
‘Is that drains I can smell?’
Tia kicked aside a tin bath with the 4-inch heel of her black suede and snakeskin shoe.
‘All houses of character have their peculiarities, Mrs Wheeler. This way, if you please. In here we have the impressive parlour.’
Are you serious, thought Bella? It was not big enough to swing a cat.
Three’s a crowd, definitely.
‘I know you’ll like it,’ said Tia, retouching her lipstick in a mirror over the fireplace.
Jo sniffed again more loudly.
‘I was hoping for something a little larger.’
‘So cosy, isn’t it?’
Say what she had to, but the house had no electricity, no ‘Wizard in the Wall’. She should have known as much when she passed the grubby little gas lamp in the hall.
It was not so good.
It was not so bad.
A buff wicker chair, upholstered in flowery cretonne, was the parlour’s only furniture. Its reversible cushion lay loose on the filthy, threadbare carpet.
‘I’m just not sure that I can live somewhere quite so – how can I say – tired.’
‘You don’t know anything yet, Mrs Wheeler. You’ll soon transform it into a modestly chic abode.’
‘Modest is right.’
‘Perfect for a downsizer like you.’
‘Shouldn’t someone – you know – give a place like this a bit of a spring clean before letting it to anyone new?’
Tia’s eyes widened. She rose, teetered and subsided momentarily on her peep-toes. Her look bore down sternly on both her and Bella.
‘Time is money, Mrs Wheeler. Boreman Properties manage a great many dwellings. We can’t possibly afford to run after all our clients and do their housework for them. Besides, there’s a war on.’
They headed for what Jo hoped might be the kitchen.
‘I see something has gnawed holes in the skirting boards.’
Tia buried her nose in her fox fur.
‘What’s a few mice?’
‘Could be something else.’
Bella was of that opinion, too, as she eyed suspicious gaps in the wainscoting. Her nose led her on a trail of black, lozenge-shaped droppings. Either the mice round here were enormous or…
‘Moving on,’ said Tia, with a click of her heels. ‘A house like this always has such a lovely lived-in atmosphere, don’t you think?’
Jo kept away from peeling plaster and bare brick.
‘I can smell that smell again.’
‘Nothing a little bit of tender loving care can’t fix, Mrs Wheeler.’
‘That’s what you said last time.’
‘I wasn’t lying.’
‘Admit it, it’s a bit of a ruin.’
‘You said it yourself, how many other landlords in Gloucester will let you keep a dog in their property?’
‘That much I admit.’
So now it was her fault, thought Bella and slunk off.
‘Welcome to your very own urban retreat,’ said Tia proudly. ‘Here we have the dining room/kitchen/breakfast room/living space.’
Jo stared at the tiny back room off which led an even tinier scullery.
‘….’
‘Handy, isn’t it. Bespoke solutions make the most of the smallest places.’
She stopped at a gas-heated copper and gave its tank a tap. It held water all right. Nearby lay a washboard and mangle. At least she’d have somewhere to boil and dry dirty towels and nappies. There was even a fold-up wooden clothes horse on which to air her bras, girdles and slips. Well, everyone had to start somewhere.
She opened a cabinet complete with flour box and scoop.
‘Does the cooker work, at all?’
Tia stared at her very hard before her voice came back as a growl.
‘How should I know?’
‘Just curious. The hotplate looks a little black to say the least.’
Tia wrinkled her nose and opened the cooker’s fall-down door very cautiously. Then she quickly let go of it again with a bang.
‘You might want to replace it.’
‘I will.’
‘Moving on. Note the spacious garden.’
‘Is that a water closet I can see in a corner?’ said Jo as they entered a small brick yard bounded by crumbling walls that were overgrown with ivy.
‘Consider it your very own private privy. No sharing with neighbours…’
‘It has a cistern, at least.’
‘…in your very own garden.’
‘We’re standing on cobblestones.’
‘It’s the perfect place for stargazing on a clear night. Take a tip from me, Mrs Wheeler: always buy medicated toilet paper. It’s hard and shiny and doesn’t go damp in the frost.’
‘This is where that foul smell is coming from, isn’t it?’
Tia turned on her heels.
‘An ideal space for your dog. Think of that. And in that corner is your very own Anderson shelter.’
Bella looked mournful. If it were left to her, she’d get straight to the point – she couldn’t help but wonder where a dog was to dig if this was her garden. As for the prefabricated air raid shelter buried in the ground, she was pretty sure it had rats.
‘I could have tubs of flowers, I suppose,’ said Jo. ‘I could win the best-planted shelter award for the neighbourhood.’
In actual fact, everyone she knew had already abandoned their garden shelters for the filthy, damp holes in the ground they really were. Nowadays people favoured sheltering from bombs indoors – they were taking refuge like animals in reinforced cages that doubled up as dining tables by day in case the roof fell in. More fool them. It was a sure way of burning to death if your home caught fire.
‘Please, this way, Mrs Wheeler and I’ll show you the rest of the house.’
‘Bella, come.’
‘Do mind the stairs. As you can see, there’s no carpet.’
They trod steep, narrow treads whose wood had worn black and slippery over the years.
‘Please observe the compact linen cupboard on your way past, Mrs Wheeler. So handy.’
‘How about a bathroom?’
‘You saw the tub. A wash by the fire in the parlour is so much cosier.’
‘Headroom’s a bit on the low side,’ said Jo, ducking a sagging ceiling. She was already trying to work out how many pans and kettles it was going to take to fill that tin bath she’d seen earlier. Where she’d grown up, she’d once had maids to do all that for her. In recent years, newly installed gas heaters had heated water in more than one bathroom.
‘Here we have a lovely bedroom with calming city views,’ said Tia, opening blackout curtains to let in some light through a grubby window.
Jo blinked at the sight of a vast stadium. It was, Tia pointed out happily, Kingsholm’s Gloucester Rugby Ground.
‘Just think, Mrs Wheeler. You’ll be able to soak up the atmosphere of the game from the comfort of your own home. There have already been fundraising matches for the armed forces held in the Odsal Stadium in Bradford. Who knows, it might happen here, too.’
‘And if I don’t like rugby?’
‘Don’t worry, with the war on there hasn’t been much activity lately.’
It was true, teams such as The Worcester Warriors were taking a break for the duration of the war, but Hereford Rugby Club were continuing to play as many games as possible. Who knew if she would have to listen to the sound of men’s animal screams any time soon? Already “We are the Gloster boys, G-L-O-U-C-E-S-T-E-R – GLOUCESTER” rang in her ears as fans roared their traditional song.
She was all in favour of men playing their silly games.
That’s not what she feared.
She feared hearing screams inside her own home.
Would thicker blackout curtains at the windows shut out the noise, because she didn’t sleep too well at night?
No, probably not.
‘Is there anything else I need to know?’
Tia refolded her fox fur scarf at her throat, then led the way back downstairs.
‘You have here an immensely popular place to live.’
‘That’s what worries me.’
She was still thinking of possible cries from the stadium. She might be half deaf in one ear, but one scream could soon recall others never to be forgotten.
‘Think of it as a unique opportunity to restore this lovely little house to its former glory.’
‘It doesn’t look good.’
‘Do you want it or not?’
‘I do wonder.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘If you could just reduce the rent a little to reflect the condition?’
With half a smile Tia locked the front door behind them after a wrench and a bang. Her 4-inch wedge heels clomped about on the short garden path back to the pavement.
‘Must dash, Mrs Wheeler. I’m late for my next appointment. Who doesn’t want to rent Boreman Properties’ characterful lettings?’
‘Sorry to ask?’
Tia walked over to her shiny red SS Jaguar 100. Before she opened the car’s low-slung door she turned her head and her hard blue eyes stared straight at her.
‘Maybe you weren’t listening.’
‘Okay, I’ll take it,’ said Jo, ‘but only because it’s not more than ten minutes’ walk to the cathedral at night for my fire watch duties.’
‘Good for you, Mrs Wheeler. You won’t regret it. I take it your husband died fighting?’
‘Like to think so.’
‘You’ll be reclusive but not remote,’ said Tia and promptly shut herself in the open-topped roadster. ‘You’ll be homely but not…’
‘I get it. I really do.’
Jo stroked her as yet not very swollen belly. She had no more words to account for the chill that had just run down her spine. It was a sensation of panic – once alone in the house she would have to confront who she was, start over on her limited budget. No more lies. She would finally face up to the fact that there was no doctor to stand between her and the everyday business of coping alone, ever since she had been discharged from the burns hospital, not to mention her short stay in the mental asylum after she’d threatened to shoot… Well, never mind. Each time the air raid sirens went off, her head felt on fire as though she were back in Bristol amidst the bomb blasts, shrapnel and falling rafters. Already she felt a familiar shadow stalk, mock and get ready to test her – she felt as if she were dealing with the Devil himself again, but the car’s two-and-a-half litre engine suddenly roared into action to distract her.
‘Rent is in advance,’ shouted Tia above the deafening blast of all six cylinders. ‘No buts. Do I make myself clear?’
‘That won’t be a problem.’
‘Glad to hear it. I’m sure you and your bow-legged, scrawny, flea-bitten dog will be very happy together.’
Bella watched Tia race away a trifle coldly, then she entered her new abode hard on the heels of her mistress. She did so in a mood of dumb disappointment. Even your average bow-legged, scrawny, flea-bitten pet had her standards.
TWELVE
Overripe fruit – that’s what it most reminded him of, thought Thibaut, wrinkling his nose still harder. That strange perfume pursued him everywhere he went in the muggy factory. He could only think that it had something to do with the open gutter that drained the workshop floor. There, cyanide met acid and turned the water blue. The fumes were worse than the dirt and noise; they ate at his nostrils and left them red and sore.
Of one thing he was quite certain: the rotten air he breathed was daily more obnoxious and disgusting.
He sat on his stool at his bench and picked up a pair of red snips. This was monotonous work. As he cut a length of 22-gauge soft copper wire, the stamping press went thump, thump, thump without a break at the far end of the workshop. Each heavy, percussive thud banged like a drum in his head. The vibrations ran through the concrete floor and into his feet to give him pins and needles.
He had not yet spoken much to the boy who worked the press, but he knew his name. It was Adrian, a deserter from the British Army. Since he scarcely considered himself a soldier any more, he bore the youth no great grudge. There had to be thousands of Adrians who had run away from the fighting because they couldn’t bear the carnage any longer.
Thump. Thump. Thump. The press was a huge hammer: it came crashing down to spit out shapes from a long strip of metal that was continuously fed through its jaws. It was what he imagined war did to people. Each sliver of brass passed through a forming tool which bent it into shape to make the next brooch, badge or button. Actually, it was no use trying to talk to Adrian, since he was already deaf, such was the effect of the stamping press on his unprotected ears.
At that moment Nora shot him a smile. This was the second time today that she had risked looking at him this way. But Thibaut recognised in her blood-shot, tired eyes something of which he daily recognized in himself – the increasingly ghastly glaze of never-ending worry. Of course, any meaningful conversation was difficult in the din. Besides, it was forbidden.
That didn’t stop her trying.
‘Where did you say you’re from again?’
‘I was born in a small place called Blesle in south-central France. It’s a pretty little place up one end of a picturesque valley with a circular Romanesque church. I was training to be a policeman with the local gendarmerie until I had to join the army. When the Germans invaded I managed to escape capture at Dunkirk. I consider myself lucky, luckier than Raoul, for instance – he saw his brother drown before his very eyes.’
‘You did what you could.’
Thibaut shook his head wearily. Ever since Marshal Philippe Petain had moved the French capital from Paris to Vichy, he’d felt totally ashamed. If she really wanted to know, a “Free Zone” had been established in the southern part of the country free of German troops in some sort of accommodation with Hitler. Now that Allied troops had made big gains in North Africa, though, the Germans had occupied the whole of France anyway and French policemen were being ordered to round up Jews. Women had lost hard won rights. The Catholic Church was not being much help. This was scarcely the France he had known and loved, so much so that he wondered if it was even worth fighting for? But he didn’t tell her all that, he didn’t want to scare her.
‘How did you end up working here?’ asked Nora.
‘I was begging outside Gloucester Cathedral when someone came over and said he could find me a job.’
‘Me, too.’
‘What made him choose you?’
‘He just did.’
‘Haven’t you noticed? Almost everyone here is an ex-soldier or a homeless person seriously down on their luck.’
‘Yeah,’ said Nora, ‘we all have one thing in common.’
‘You think?’
‘No one will miss us when we’re gone.’
‘I was so happy not to die on that French beach but now….’
Nora had a story, too.
‘I left Ireland after falling on hard times and ended up living on the streets. Work here and all would be well, I was told. It was either that or become a prostitute with my shameful past. I had an ID Card and Ration Card, but Devaney took them from me and won’t give them back. One worker threatened to report this place to the police, but we haven’t seen him since. I’ve had enough. I don’t know what to do. Will you help me?’
‘Watch out, here comes the foreman now.’
They both busily resumed sorting jewellery for wiring onto copper jigs for electro-plating. It paid to be diligent, Thibaut realised. Kevin Devaney was a heavily built bully with an ugly face rendered still uglier by his broken nose. He was also a drinker who liked to down a few pints every luncht
ime and, as a result, he had an uncertain temper. Today his shirt hung loose from his trousers and his flies were undone. His wild, staring eyes seemed to swim in his face.
‘All of you – get on with your work. What do you think this is, a holiday camp?’
A soldering iron weighed threateningly in Nora’s deft fingers. With a cloud of stinging smoke, she melted flux on metal to solder a red heart to a ring.
‘I said fucking get on with it. You know how the boss likes his orders to go out on time. You know what happens when they don’t.’
Everyone redoubled their efforts to work faster as the foreman walked along the wet, slippery duckboard that covered the gangway. His heavy boots creaked on the wooden planks, his steel-capped toes got ready to kick someone.
Next minute Thibaut left his bench and crossed the workshop with his jig of fifty brass earrings in order to degrease them prior to plating. They jingled on their long copper wires like little Christmas bells. Instead of making soldiers’ buttons as per army contract, a lot of valuable metal was being redirected into these gewgaws for private gain? But what could he do about it? What could he say?
Mary, also busily wiring jewellery onto jigs, had warned him not to breathe the foggy clouds that issued from the heated tank before him. Pale-faced Bridget said the same – the white mist into which he was about to dip his hands was something dangerous called trichloroethane.
‘Take my advice,’ she hissed in his ear. ‘Don’t lean in too close.’
‘Is it poisonous?’
‘The fumes give you a lift which can be addictive.’
It explained why, every morning, Devaney stood over that particular tank and took a deep breath. He liked the analgesic rush that went to his head.
‘What about the foreman?’ asked Thibaut.
Bridget smirked.
‘Who cares if he dies?’
But avoiding the fumes wasn’t so easy. The ghostly white vapour tingled in his nose, scorched his throat and set fire to his lungs. At ten o’clock break, he ventured outside into the walled area at the back of the factory to smoke a cigarette with everyone else. Adrian, Raoul and Nigel all huddled together at one end of the enclosed space that was stacked high with leaky drums of used toxic waste. It occurred to him that while the factory gates were kept locked, he could climb these metal drums and hop over the wall? Beyond it lay a vast river and forest. More than that, he couldn’t say.