The Bells of Bow

by Gilda O'Neill

  ‘Yer can’t tar ’em all with the same brush, Alice,’ Georgie said from the next table where he was sitting with Maudie. He was remembering the scared young boy in the bombed corner shop with the half-eaten apple. ‘Some kids don’t come from streets like this one where they’ve got a chance to go to someone for help if they need it. Some poor little sods have to get by whatever way they can. They don’t have a choice if they’re hungry.’

  Alice sneered at his stupidity. ‘Don’t give me that.’

  ‘He’s right,’ said Maudie.

  ‘Who asked you?’ Alice demanded.

  Maudie continued, determined to have her say. ‘It is special round here, the way people stick together. And we should be proud of it. Proud of what we manage to do for each other. If you ever get the chance, you should speak to the vicar about why he lives here. He’ll make you really think.’

  ‘Vicar!’ spluttered Alice. ‘Yer wanna sort out getting your roof tiles out of my flaming garden instead of wasting yer time round the church Bible bashing.’

  Maudie put her cup down gently on its saucer, waited a calming moment before she spoke and then said, ‘I’ve been to see the person at the council office, and she’s promised to send someone round to come and inspect the damage on the roof from the incendiaries. And I’m sure they’ll do something about the tiles. But they say, rightly, that leaks and shattered tiles aren’t exactly dangerous and that I’ll have to wait, just as you will, along with thousands and thousands of other Londoners.’

  Alice looked round the room, her eyebrows raised halfway up her forehead. ‘I thought you was gonna sort them tiles out.’

  ‘I’ll have a word with someone I know down at the station whose sister works at the council, if yer like. See when they think they’ll be able to come to fix it.’

  Maudie smiled at George. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Till then we’ll have to muck in and see what we can do for ourselves. I’ll help yer clear up and I’ll nail a bit of lino or tarpaulin over the damage.’ Georgie raised his pint to Maudie. ‘We’ll muddle through, girl, don’t you worry yerself.’

  Alice narrowed her eyes. ‘You two have got very friendly,’ she said accusingly.

  Babs had just arrived at Alice’s table with a tray to clear away the dirty crockery. She winked across at her dad. ‘That all yer got to say, Alice?’ she asked, picking up the empty cups and plates. ‘I thought yer’d have managed something a bit more spiteful or gossipy than that. Must be losing yer touch.’

  Maud pressed her lips together trying to stop herself from turning on Alice. When she had got herself under control, she said to Georgie, ‘I’ve got a few veg that you and the girls might like, and one or two eggs. By way of saying thank you.’

  Alice wasn’t best pleased that she hadn’t got the response she had hoped for – she had expected at least a denial about their friendship, which she could then make something of. She had to find something else to be nasty about. ‘Sounds like yer’ve got yerself a right little barnyard,’ she snapped.

  ‘There’s not much room but I do what I can,’ Maudie answered coolly. ‘If I had a bit more space I could do a lot more.’ She turned and smiled at Georgie. ‘I’d even put a few rosebushes back in.’

  ‘Rosebushes!’ Now that was something that Alice could make something of. ‘What’s the good of rosebushes? If we had bigger back yards we could have had proper Anderson shelters and we wouldn’t be sitting here now at a funeral. Mind you,’ she said, looking over to where Liz still sat with Rita in the corner, ‘don’t suppose that one’d have gone into no Anderson shelter. Funny cow.’

  Babs had to stop herself hitting Alice over the head with her tray.

  Nobby finished his drink and looked thoughtfully at Maud. ‘Hens yer’ve got, eh?’ He spoke as though his wife hadn’t even mentioned Anderson shelters or funerals. ‘I’ve thought about getting meself a few hens. I wonder if there’s any decent timbers left up at the Jenners’s place. What d’yer think, Ted? Any wood left on the debris up there?’

  Babs slammed the tray down on the table. ‘I don’t know what to say. I really don’t.’

  Alice looked around for someone to explain Babs’s behaviour to her. But when she saw that everyone was glaring at her and Nobby instead, she protested loudly, ‘What? What’s up? He only wants a bit of wood. Gawd help us, whatever me or Nobby says is wrong.’ Then she turned and fixed her scowl on Maudie and said pointedly, ‘I dunno what’s the matter with people round here lately.’

  Maudie got up and went and stood right beside Alice. She bent down and said quietly, ‘There’s nothing wrong with people round here, Alice, nothing at all. Well, not with most of them. In fact, you’d go a long way to meet anyone like your neighbours. Anyone half as decent. You’d do yerself a favour if you remembered that.’ Then she calmly turned round and went back to sit with Georgie at the next table.

  Alice puffed the air from her cheeks and shook her head. ‘Well! Hark at the church-goer. You can see she’s been mixing with the Bells.’

  18

  It had been two weeks since they’d buried the Jenners’s grandmother and Liz’s baby but the funeral was still very much on Blanche’s mind as she sat working at her machine in Style ways talking to Babs about her son.

  ‘When I saw, close to, like, what happened to the Jenners, it made me realise that I had no right to stop young Len from going back to Cornwall.’

  ‘You still don’t fancy going back though?’ Babs said. She sounded vague, distant.

  ‘No. Aw, don’t get me wrong, I miss Len, same as I miss my Archie. But they’re both doing what they really – want and yer shouldn’t stop them yer love from doing that, should yer? ’Cos that ain’t loving ’em, that’s owning em.

  Babs didn’t say anything.

  ‘Yer know, I’ll never get over Len’s little face as he held that dead rabbit in his arms.’ Blanche doubled over the waistband of the pair of trousers she was making and pushed them under the needle. ‘Kids. I don’t know, who’d have ’em, eh? Don’t get me wrong, I love my kids, too much sometimes, but they’re such a worry, Babs. And a bind. See, they always have to come first. But you younger girls, things are different for you. Way things are nowadays, girls can take all these chances that’re coming up and who can blame ’em? Take my little sister Ruby. I always felt she was a bloody waste of space how she carried on, a right useless lump, but now she’s gone and got herself a right good supervisor’s job at her factory, if yer don’t mind. Earning nearly as much as her Davey. But that’s the war for yer though, innit. She couldn’t have done that before, I don’t reckon, do you?’

  Again, Babs didn’t reply.

  Blanche stopped her machine, turned to Lou and mouthed, ‘Bloody miles away. D’you know what’s up with her?’

  Lou turned down the corners of her mouth and shook her head.

  Blanche turned back to Babs. ‘I can’t stand all this. I’ve gotta come right out and ask yer. What’s the matter with you, Babs? You ain’t hardly said a word all day, and that must be the twentieth time yer’ve looked at that clock in the last five minutes.’

  Babs shrugged. ‘I wanna get away dead on five, that’s all. I wanna get home.’

  ‘So that’s it. Yer hoping Evie’ll be there when yer get in.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘It’s only been a couple of days. She’ll be fine. And it ain’t as if she ain’t pulled strokes like this before, is it? You’ll see, she’ll have been off somewhere being wined and dined by that toerag of an Albie Denham and she’ll come home with her arms full of parcels and about ten new hats to show off.’

  Babs kept her eyes fixed on her machine. She swore angrily at herself as she let the row of stitching go zigzagging off the seam.

  Until then, Ginny had just been listening and watching what was going on, but now she bent her head low and whispered something to Joan. Joan shook her head, but Ginny wouldn’t be refused. She poked Joan spitefully in the arm, urging her to do as she was told.

&nb
sp; Joan didn’t look very happy as she said to Babs, ‘Not seen your Evie about, Babs. Still sick, is she?’

  Babs ignored her.

  But Blanche didn’t. ‘I’ve told yer before, Joan,’ Blanche said, switching her machine back on, ‘yer’ve gotta start thinking before yer speak. And yer’ve gotta stop letting other people make yer do their dirty work for ‘em’.

  Joan blushed and got on with working her way through the pile of trouser pockets she was making up.

  Ginny tapped Joan on the shoulder. ‘I’ll go to the Ladies with yer,’ she said.

  ‘But I don’t wanna—’

  ‘I said I’ll go with yer,’ Ginny said, jerking her head towards the door.

  When they came back a couple of minutes later, Ginny returned to her seat but Joan stopped by Babs’s chair and said, ‘If yer sister’s missing, Babs, I bet yer really worried, ain’t yer? Fretting that she’s been killed in a raid or trapped somewhere like the young warehouse lad was. Must be rotten for yer.’

  The silence in the workroom was brief but very uneasy as everyone sat waiting for Babs to erupt. But she said nothing.

  Joan sighed with relief, kept her gaze fixed straight ahead and went to get on with her work.

  The moment the clock touched five, Babs grabbed her bag and coat and ran from the workshop without waiting for Blanche or even saying goodnight.

  Getting home in the blackout was a nuisance at the best of times, but that evening Babs cursed and fumed as she struggled to get home in the pitch dark. All the usual hindrances, like crawling buses, dawdling pedestrians and unexpected piles of soaking wet sandbags just waiting to trip you up or bark your shins had apparently been multiplied by ten just to get in her way. And now her torch had packed up on her. By the time she turned into Darnfield Street from Grove Road, she had worked herself up into a foul temper and a raging headache.

  As she fiddled around trying to get her key in the lock of the street door, someone tapped her on the back. She turned furiously.

  ‘Yes?’ she yelled. ‘What?’

  ‘All right, Babs, it’s only me, Terry.’

  ‘Sorry, love, what d’yer want?’

  ‘I saw your twin just now, and—’

  ‘You saw Evie?’

  ‘How many twins yer got?’

  ‘Just the one, thank gawd.’

  ‘She had the right hump on her. I only asked her if she wanted me and me mates to take Flash out for a run for her. She hardly even managed to say hello.’

  Babs ruffled Terry’s hair. ‘She didn’t mean nothing, Terry. Yer know what she’s like, and she ain’t been very well. But I’m sorry. I’ll go in and tell her.’ Babs pushed open the door.

  ‘Well, she ain’t in there, she was going down to the canal.’

  Babs stood in the doorway and looked at Terry with incredulous surprise. ‘What, Evie was taking Flash for a walk?’

  ‘No, she never had the dog with her. That’s why I’m here. She said I’d have to see you when yer got in. About, you know, taking Flash out for a run.’

  Babs stumbled down the step in the darkness. ‘Lend us yer torch, Terry,’ she said, snatching it from him, and then started running down the street towards the canal.

  ‘I’ll go in and get Flash, shall I?’ Terry called after her.

  ‘In the kitchen. Lead’s on the hook,’ Babs’s voice shouted back from the darkness. ‘Slam the door shut behind yer.’

  Babs shone the faint beam of Terry’s torch cautiously in front of her as she edged her way along the narrow alley that led to the canal towpath.

  In the dark she could hear the rhythmic sound of someone throwing pebbles, one by one, into the black waters of the canal. She lifted the torch to shoulder height. It was Evie. She was standing there, tears running down her face, not bothering to wipe her eyes, just making a slow swipe of her tongue at a drop that slid from her nose towards her lips.

  ‘Eve?’

  ‘Remember how I used to make yer come down here when we was little, Babs?’ Evie’s voice was raw from crying. ‘Even though we both knew we mustn’t go near the water. We used to chuck in stones and watch the rings grow wider and wider until they disappeared.’

  ‘I remember,’ Babs said gently.

  ‘And how we tried to catch a fish by putting salt on its tail, like old Frankie kidded us yer could?’ A shuddering sigh passed through Evie’s whole body. ‘Things was so simple then. Dad catching us down here by the canal was as serious as things got.’

  Babs put her hand softly on her twin’s arm; she could feel the dampness on the fox fur from the drizzle that had started to fall. ‘Evie, what’s wrong? Tell me, please.’

  Evie pulled away from her sister’s touch. She sniffed loudly. ‘I’ve just heard that they’ve stopped selling silk stockings for the duration. And I’m heartbroken.’

  ‘Don’t be nasty, Eve.’

  ‘Well, don’t you be so stupid.’ Again there was the plopping sound from the water. ‘What d’yer think’s wrong with me?’

  ‘If that Albie’s hurt you, Eve …’

  Evie laughed contemptuously. ‘Aw, he’s hurt me all right.’ The effort of trying to control herself was too much for her; she broke down into chest-heaving sobs. ‘I’m pregnant, Babs. I’m bloody pregnant.’

  ‘Christ, Eve, what yer gonna do?’

  ‘Gonna drown meself, that’s what. What else can I do?’

  Now Babs was crying too. ‘Why d’you always have to be so flaming dramatic?’

  ‘Dramatic? Well, if you’re so clever, you tell me what you’d do.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be in this state in the first place.’ Babs felt like biting her tongue off. ‘I’m sorry, there was no need for that.’

  Again, the sound of something hitting the water. Babs shone the torch downwards to watch. ‘D’yer wanna tell me where yer’ve been?’ she asked, shifting the torch to follow the path of the widening circles as they spread out and finally disappeared across the water.

  . ‘Why not?’ Evie said wearily. ‘Albie’s old girl went barmy. Reckoned how I was trying to trap her precious son.’

  Babs restrained herself from shouting out loud what she felt about Albie Denham and his rotten family.

  ‘So she sorted out this clinic for me to go to. To get rid of it. “Private nursing home”, Queenie called it. Yer ought to have seen it, Babs. It was a rat-infested, filthy hole. Honest, yer wouldn’t have let Flash stay there the night. One look of the place should have been enough – I should have had it away there and then. But I did as I was told and went in like a good little girl.’

  ‘I should have been with yer.’ Babs tried to take her hand

  ‘Don’t.’ Evie pulled away. ‘They stuck me in this room and I saw one of the so-called doctors. I said then, I wasn’t having none of it. The room, it was disgusting. And he had this filthy old suit on. I got me fur back on and said I was off, but he went outside and brought Albie in. They told me I was being emotional, and how it was only natural, and that if I spent the night there, got some rest, I’d see sense in the morning. They took me into this little ward with four beds. There was just one other woman in there, she was asleep. They told me to get into bed and then Albie buggered off with Chas on the piss somewhere. Said he needed a drink. He needed a drink.’

  ‘But you stayed?’

  ‘I stayed all right.’ She paused. ‘I sat on the edge of this lousy, rotten bed they give me. Too frightened to lay on the pillow ’cos of what I might have caught. The next morning they brought another woman in. Right state she was, like a right old whatsit. She was laughing, going on about how she was back in there again for her little holiday … Then the other girl woke up.’ Evie closed her eyes for a brief moment then carried on. ‘I tell yer what, Babs, I couldn’t get out o’ there quick enough. It weren’t the abortion or nothing what worried me, I’d do anything not to be having it, but yer know what a coward I am. I looked at the state of them two and the place and the beds and I knew I couldn’t let them butchers get their ha
nds on me. I couldn’t.’

  ‘Why didn’t yer, you know, use yer loaf a bit? Be careful and use something so’s yer didn’t get in this mess?’

  ‘Leave off, Babs. It’s a bit late to start thinking of that now, ain’t it?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m sorry. I’m upset, that’s all.’

  ‘You’re upset. That’s a good’un.’

  ‘Don’t let’s start rowing, Eve – aw shit, that’s all we need, the bloody air raid warning. Come on, shift yerself, the planes’ll be over soon.’

  ‘I’m not coming.’

  ‘Aw yes you are.’

  Evie sighed. She sounded sad and exhausted. ‘I just don’t care any more, Babs.’

  ‘Well, I bloody do. Christ, there’s the bloody guns started up now. We’ve gotta get to the shelter.’ She tried to grab Evie’s hand to pull her along, but her fist was tightly clenched round something.

  ‘Chuck them stones down and come on.’

  ‘They ain’t stones.’ Evie sounded oddly calm. ‘They’re the pearls what Albie give me for me birthday.’ She opened her hand and tossed the remaining milky pearls into the water. ‘It’s true, yer see, what they say. Pearls do bring tears.’

  Overhead, the searchlights had started trawling the night sky for enemy aircraft and the staccato clatter from the ack-ack defences in Victoria Park echoed eerily across the water as though it was coming from the canal itself.

  Babs took her twin’s hand in hers. ‘We’ve gotta go, Eve.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘D’yer wanna get me killed and all? ’Cos if you stay, then so am I.’

  ‘Not in the Drum then, Babs. I ain’t going in there. Not with everyone from the street.’

  ‘Don’t worry. We won’t see no one. Now, just start walking and we’ll go indoors.’

  Evie let her sister take her hand and Babs led her as fast as she could back through the alley and along Darnfield Street. By the time they had got indoors and into the kitchen, the siren had long since stopped and that evening’s episode of the Blitz was well under way.

  Babs made sure the blackout curtains were pulled and then she turned on the kitchen light. She could hardly believe how awful her sister looked. She pulled the wet fur coat off Evie’s shoulders and threw it down on the floor under the table.