‘Ralph!’ said his mother. ‘He’s talking to you.’
The policeman, a big man, was sitting on the flimsiest chair. He had shifted around, to face Ralph. He held his pencil like a schoolboy. ‘This must be a big shock for you, young lad,’ he said.
Ralph nodded. His mother was still wearing her dark-green dress. It was only now that Ralph noticed a darker stain on her lap, where she had cradled Mr Turk’s head. It had taken the butcher some time to die.
‘We’ll take it slowly,’ said the policeman. ‘I want you to think very carefully.’ Could I wear my jet with this? Would it look as if I were going to a funeral?
‘You must have seen something!’ blurted out his mother. ‘You were right beside us.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Turk,’ said the policeman. ‘Let me ask the boy.’ He turned back to Ralph. ‘Now, let’s get this straight. You and Mr …’ He peered at his notebook.
‘Mr Flyte,’ said Ralph.
‘Who is, I believe … er, blind, am I right?’
Ralph nodded. Alwyne sat beneath the cabinet of boxing trophies. He could barely be seen through the cigarette smoke. Mrs O’Malley, holding her shawl against her mouth, coughed discreetly.
‘You were making your way home from the public house at the time of the incident, I believe,’ said the policeman. ‘Can you tell us what happened?’
‘We were walking up the street,’ said Ralph. ‘The fog was very thick. You couldn’t even see the houses.’
‘And did you pass anybody? Did you see anything suspicious?’
Ralph shook his head. ‘There was nobody about. Just us.’
The policeman wrote it down, slowly. ‘If people had been looking out of their windows, would they have been able to see anything?’
‘No. The fog was too thick.’
The grandfather clock struck. They all jumped. It chimed three times and was silent.
‘Now, somebody shot Mr Turk,’ said the policeman. ‘That’s quite clear. From close range too. Did you see that person?’
Ralph didn’t reply. They were all looking at him.
‘You must have seen him!’ said his mother.
‘Please, Mrs Turk –’ said the policeman.
‘There was somebody!’ she cried. ‘I saw somebody moving, but I couldn’t see who it was.’
‘Please. Let the boy think.’
Ralph was thinking, fast. His paralysis had lifted. It was obvious he had seen somebody. It would look very curious if he denied it. They would think he was hiding something. But if he said he saw the person he would have to admit it was Archie, and then Archie would go to prison. He would be hanged. Even if he didn’t say it was Archie, people would put two and two together. Archie had been sacked that morning; there had probably been a row in the shop. He would be the obvious suspect – out for revenge, his wits shattered by the war. It all made sense. Indeed, so it should, seeing as that’s what had happened.
‘Ralph,’ said the other policeman. ‘You saw someone, didn’t you?’
Ralph nodded.
‘Did you recognise them?’ The second policeman had pale, penetrating eyes. ‘Come along, lad. There’s no point in protecting anybody, we’ll find out soon enough.’
‘I saw somebody but I don’t know who it was,’ said Ralph.
‘Can you give us a description?’
Ralph’s head span. What could he say?
‘Not really,’ he muttered.
He tried to gather his wits. Archie would be caught; they were bound to ask questions and then he would be caught and hanged. For doing the very thing Ralph had been dreaming of doing but hadn’t the guts to do himself.
Ralph knew that he sounded unconvincing. The policemen exchanged glances. The one with the pale eyes cleared his throat. He was just about to speak when Alwyne leaned forward and stubbed out his cigarette.
‘I saw who did it,’ he said.
The lodgers froze.
‘What did you say?’ someone whispered.
‘I saw who shot him,’ said Alwyne.
There was a silence. A silence so profound that the grandfather clock could be heard ticking in the next room. Fearfully, one by one, the lodgers stole a look at Alwyne. His face was empty of expression.
Ralph’s mother was the first to speak. ‘But you’re blind,’ she said.
Alwyne shook his head and took off his spectacles.
Mrs O’Malley made a whimpering sound. Mrs Spooner grabbed Lettie, as if she had seen a rat.
Alwyne took no notice. He addressed the policemen. ‘I saw the man quite clearly. He was a stout gentleman of middle age, in a frock coat, wearing a top hat.’
The policeman, his mouth open, stared at Alwyne.
‘Go on, write it down,’ said Alwyne.
The policeman rallied, and started writing in his notebook. Alwyne’s eyes flickered to Ralph, then away again.
‘Did you recognise him, sir?’ asked the policeman.
Alwyne shook his head. ‘Didn’t get a good look at his face.’ He shrugged. ‘To be perfectly honest, I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner.’
‘What do you mean by that, sir?’
‘Mr Turk had a lot of enemies,’ said Alwyne. ‘Oh yes, plenty of people with a grudge against him. He’d been engaged in some very dubious activities.’
Ralph’s mother stared at him. ‘What activities?’
The others weren’t interested. They were still staring at Alwyne.
‘Did he say he wasn’t blind?’ whispered Mrs O’Malley.
‘I knew it all the time,’ said Lettie, detaching herself from her mother’s grasp.
Alwyne sat there impassively. Only Ralph noticed the beads of sweat on his forehead.
Mrs Spooner summoned up her courage and looked directly at Alwyne. ‘Excuse me, but why did you pretend you were blind?’
‘Dear lady, can’t you guess?’
‘Why?’
‘So I wasn’t called up.’
Mrs Spooner stared at him. ‘You did it to avoid going to war?’
Alwyne nodded. ‘Strangely enough, I didn’t care to be blown to pieces.’
Ralph sat there in a turmoil. The man had saved Archie! What on earth had made him do it? He longed to say something to Alwyne – to thank him, to apologise, to say anything, but he couldn’t with all the people there. He tried to meet Alwyne’s eye but the fellow had dropped his gaze and was looking at the dog, his eyebrows raised conspiratorially, as if Brutus had been in on the secret all the time. His composure didn’t fool Ralph, however, who saw that Alwyne was now sweating heavily.
The policeman said: ‘You realise that evading conscription is a criminal offence?’
Alwyne nodded.
For a moment nobody knew what to do. Events had taken such a startling turn that it had caught them on the hop. The policemen caught each other’s eye. Finally one of them turned to Alwyne.
‘We’ll have to ask you to come down to the station, sir.’
The two policemen stood up. Alwyne, too, got to his feet. He picked up his overcoat and stood there for a moment inspecting it on his arm, as if searching for stains. Ralph willed him to look up.
The policeman put away his notebook and turned to Ralph’s mother. ‘That’ll be all for now, Mrs Turk. I wish you every sympathy in your loss.’
‘What are you going to do with him?’ she asked.
‘We’ll be back in the morning,’ said the policeman. ‘In the meantime, I suggest you all try to get some sleep.’
They moved to the door. Alwyne turned to Ralph’s mother. ‘I’m truly sorry,’ he said. Then he touched Ralph on the shoulder, glanced at him, and was gone.
All that remained were his spectacles, lying on the arm of the chair.
*
Ralph never saw Alwyne again. A few days later a man arrived and removed his belongings, which were already packed up. He gave Ralph a note.
Dear Ralph, look after your mother. If you ever see Winnie again, please tell her I’m sorry. All best wishe
s, dear boy, Alwyne.
Chapter Sixteen
‘My love!’ one moaned. Love-languid seemed his mood,
Till, slowly lowered, his whole face kissed the mud.
And the bayonets’ long teeth grinned;
Rabbles of shells hooted and groaned;
And the Gas hissed.
Wilfred Owen
Ralph and his mother sat in the parlour. Papers were strewn over the tablecloth. Flossie lay sleeping on Mr Turk’s bank statements.
The accountant, Mr Postlethwaite, had long since gone. In the grate, the coals shifted and settled. Ralph’s mother raised her head and gazed at her son.
‘I used to sit here,’ she said. ‘I used to sit here and worry myself sick, you’d no idea.’
‘Yes I did,’ said Ralph.
She reached out and stroked his finger. ‘My only boy,’ she said.
Her face was parchment pale above the black dress. She hadn’t worn mourning for Ralph’s father, it was considered bad for morale. The war was over now, however, and sorrow could be acknowledged.
‘We’re rich,’ she said in a flat voice. ‘We can do anything, we can do whatever we please. We can go anywhere.’ She paused. ‘The further away the better.’ She lowered her head and scratched at a scab of food on the tablecloth. ‘Not that there’s anything irregular, of course. Mr Postlethwaite made that quite clear. But it might be advisable.’
Ralph looked at her lowered head. ‘We can’t keep it all,’ he said.
He expected his mother to snap back, but she remained silent.
‘You know we can’t,’ he said.
‘And why not?’
‘It wouldn’t be right.’
She looked up. ‘Since when has right got to do with anything?’
‘Since all sorts of things,’ said Ralph. Emboldened, he met his mother’s eyes. She sat there, fiddling with the loops of jet around her throat. He took a breath and said: ‘I think you should listen to me, for once.’
Chapter Seventeen
We gentle-nurtured, timid sex did not want the war. It is no pleasure to us to have our homes made desolate and the apple of our eye taken away. We would sooner our loveable, promising, rollicking boy stayed at school. We would have much preferred to have gone on in a light-hearted way with our amusements and our hobbies. But the bugle-call came, and we have hung up the tennis racquet, we’ve fetched our laddie from school, we’ve put his cap away, and we’ve glanced lovingly over his last report which said ‘Excellent’ – we’ve wrapped them all in a Union Jack and locked them up, to be taken out only after the war to be looked at … We are proud of our men, and they in turn are proud of us … Women are created for the purpose of giving life, and men to take it.
Yours etc, ‘A Little Mother’.
The Morning Post
Elsie’s funeral took place at the end of March. Winnie travelled to London to pay her last respects to her friend, who had turned as yellow as a canary and died in the process. It was a damp, raw day. Winnie kept her baby bundled up in a shawl, warm against her chest.
The funeral was in Kennington. After it was over, she took the tram to Southwark and made her way to Palmerston Road. She hadn’t been back since the day she had fled, the previous summer. Curiosity drew her to it. Her fear had long since gone; having a baby had made it disappear. Nobody had told her how becoming a mother would change everything. Anxieties flew away, like a flock of starlings, and landed somewhere else; around her child, the only creature that mattered in the world, the hot, beating heart of her worries and her love.
Winnie entered the railway tunnel. The brickwork rumbled as a train passed overhead. She had forgotten how dank it was; drips falling from the ceiling, slime gleaming on the walls. The chalk-marks of Archie’s goalpost had disappeared.
She emerged into the daylight. The side of the house loomed up, plastered with posters. ‘Our Miss Gibbs’ was playing at the Duke of York’s. She would walk past, on the other side of the street, and see if she could glimpse a sign of life. Maybe Ralph would come out, to walk the dog. She missed him very much. He was such a sensitive boy; she worried about him. How had he been keeping? In her head, circumstances stayed the same as she had left them but she knew things would have changed. Ralph would be working in Mr Turk’s shop by now. There would be a new maid in residence; how had she been coping with the lodgers’ rooms? Could she support Mrs Turk through her emotional ups and downs? Did Mrs Turk like her better?
Winnie’s heart beat faster. What if Alwyne came out of the front door? In her imagination she walked up to him, with a pitying smile, and showed him his child. No word of blame would pass her lips. The poor man had been unhinged by the war, and by now she had forgiven him. In fact, she felt sorry for him. She would tell him this; she had prepared a little speech. She would tell him that she had a baby, and this was all that mattered. The poor man had no inkling of how it felt. He wouldn’t see his daughter growing up.
Besides, he had been replaced by her dead fiancé. In the end, it had been surprisingly easy. As her time approached Winnie had simply told people that her baby’s father had been killed in action. He was called Harold. Everyone in the village had believed in Harold and as time passed she had started to believe in him herself. Even her father seemed to think that in some funny way she had been doing her duty. War, it seemed, had its advantages. The world forgave a girl who had anticipated her marriage vows and given herself to a man who was leaving for the Front.
And she wasn’t alone; several of the Swaffley girls had found themselves in the same predicament. One or two had bought themselves a wedding ring but that fooled nobody. Morals had been relaxed in these special circumstances and the odd thing was that Harold had become as real to Winnie as if he had really existed. It was Alwyne who had become irrelevant. That’s what she would tell the man if he walked out of the door.
Actually, she would scarper.
Winnie had been standing for some time on the pavement opposite the house. Only now did it sink in that the building was empty. The shutters were closed. The parlour window pane was cracked. Nobody was home. In fact, it appeared as if nobody had been at home for some time. The house looked as neglected as Lord Elbourne’s had been. Winnie, familiar with every inch, could almost feel the damp rising, the rot setting in.
Where was everybody? What had happened? Winnie hurried off. She cut down Mercer Street and emerged into the Southwark High Road. And there she met her second shock.
The butcher’s shop was still there, but its sign had gone. TURK QUALITY BUTCHERS had been replaced by red gilt lettering: BROWN AND SONS. TOP-CLASS MEAT AND POULTRY. Winnie peered through the window. She recognised some of the men but none of them was Mr Turk, or indeed Ralph.
She went into the greengrocer’s shop next door. To her relief Mr Bunting was still there, his neck still swollen with the goitre. He was cutting the outer leaves off a cabbage.
He nodded to her as if she had never been away. Nor did he notice the baby in her shawl. Perhaps he thought it was shopping.
‘Where’s Mr Turk gone?’ Winnie asked.
‘You not heard?’ He paused, knife in mid-air.
Winnie shook her head.
‘Dead, isn’t he.’
‘Dead?’
‘Shot dead. Never found the man who did it.’ He threw the cabbage on a heap. A customer appeared and he turned away to serve her.
Winnie’s head reeled. She made her way out of the shop. How could Mr Turk be dead? Why would anyone do such a thing?
What had happened to Mrs Turk and Ralph? In a daze, she walked back to Palmerston Road. The house looked sinister now; it looked like a crime scene, like a place in which she had never lived. She averted her eyes. Hurrying past, she knocked on the door of number 39. Mrs Baines would know what had happened. She and Mrs Turk had always been on cordial terms.
An unknown man opened the door. He rubbed his eyes, as if he had been woken from sleep.
‘Can I speak to Mrs Baines?’ asked Winnie.
>
He shook his head. ‘Passed away.’
Winnie asked when it had happened. The man spoke with enthusiasm.
‘December. Caught the influenza. Went through the house like wildfire, six of ’em dead by morning.’
He was new to the area and knew nothing about number 45.
Clutching her baby, Winnie walked away. Perhaps they had all died of the flu, Mrs Turk and Ralph and the lodgers; perhaps it had ripped through their house like wildfire too. Murder, influenza … London seemed a more dangerous place than it had ever been in wartime.
Dusk was falling. Winnie walked towards the railway station. Suddenly she wanted to be home, safe in the stable yard. Things had improved there in the past three months. Lord Elbourne’s house had been sold; the new owners were turning it into a boarding-school and had promised to keep on her father. He had taken the pledge and was learning motor car mechanics. The stables were to be converted into garages. And the two horses, who had been through four years of battle, who had seen things Winnie could never start to imagine, had been put out to grass.
Mr Turk, murdered. Who would do such a thing?
A dog padded up, wagging its tail.
‘Brutus!’ said Winnie, with surprise. ‘What are you doing here?’
He looked older; she noticed grey hairs around his muzzle. Then she saw Lettie. The little girl was waiting outside the pub. Some things, at least, hadn’t changed. Her matted pigtails hung down over her pinafore.
‘Lettie, love!’ Winnie kissed her. ‘I’m that glad to see you. Where is everybody?’
‘Gone.’
‘They’re not dead?’
Lettie shook her head. ‘When Mr Turk was shot, Mrs Turk and Ralph went away.’
‘Where did they go?’
‘They gave us some money,’ said Lettie. ‘We’ve got lodgings in Mercer Street, I’ve got a bedroom all to myself.’ She jerked her head at the frosted glass. ‘My daddy’s ever so pleased because he can spend it all in there. Mrs O’Malley took the cat. She’s gone to live in Whitstable.’
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