by Irene Carr
As the Ford wound through the streets of London she thought about them, and Annie and Beatrice. Katy had shut up the flat and the office and put the key in its hiding place between door and step. She had padlocked the gates of the yard and given the key to Annie to keep. Beatrice had cried when Katy had left, Annie had sniffed and wiped her eyes and Katy herself had done her weeping in the train carrying her south. She wrote once a week at least and sent money for Beatrice’s keep. Katy still had some money in the bank, what was left of her share of the profits when the firm ceased trading. Matt’s share — and some of Katy’s — had gone to Fleur. But that little sum of money, now in a bank in London, was sometimes increased by a few shillings, but never drawn. That was Katy’s last, fragile bulwark against penury. The money sent to Beatrice came out of Katy’s pay of forty-five shillings a week.
Katy braked the Ford at the doors of the hospital in Hampstead just before dawn. She was aware of her hunger again. Was Louise going hungry at this moment? The stretcher bearers were waiting for them and came hurrying out. Katy went round to the rear of the Ford and found Sybil still inside, holding the hand of the seriously wounded man. She held on to it awkwardly as his stretcher was eased out of the ambulance by the bearers, biting her lip. Katy saw him in the first grey light, his face drawn and ashen, eyes closed. She could just make out the label tied to him: ‘MGW’ — Multiple Gunshot Wounds. She knew now that was probably due to a machinegun. Another nurse came hurrying down the hospital steps to take charge of him from Sybil. She gripped his hand instead and Sybil leaned back against the side of the Ford, tears on her cheeks. Katy wrapped her arms around the girl, comforting.
The last of the stretchers had been carried into the hospital. Katy and Sybil climbed into the front of the Ford and Katy drove them back into London as the day grew. She stopped outside a building that had once been a theatre — there were billboards with faded posters each side of the entrance — but now a sign above the door said it was a canteen.
Sybil, dozing in her seat, woke and asked blearily, ‘What have we stopped for?’
‘Breakfast, I hope,’ Katy told her. ‘I found this place a few nights ago. Come on.’
They got down and entered the building. The stage was lit and the canteen was set up there like a cafe. The floor between door and canteen, where once there had been rows of seats, lay in darkness and was covered by sleeping soldiers. Katy and Sybil picked their way through them and were served with poached egg on toast and strong tea by a girl no older than Sybil. As they ate, seated at a trestle table, the sleeping men were behind them and out of sight. But with the little meal over they rose and turned to leave. The soldiers still lay in their ragged rows, unmoving, and Sybil shivered arid whispered, ‘They look like corpses.’
Katy nodded agreement, and now the awful thought came: Did Matt lie thus, dead on some distant field? She tried to banish the picture from her mind but failed. She crawled into her narrow bed in the hostel but lay awake for a long time despite her weariness. When she finally slept it was to dream of Matt lying dead, Louise crying for bread and her father, Howard Ross, laughing madly.
*
Ivor Spargo sidled into the public house on Newcastle’s dockside. He paused just inside the door, eyes flicking over the crowd of drinkers. When he saw no police, military or civil, he moved in further, bought a pint of beer and sat down at a small round table with a marble top. The old suit he wore, with a scarf knotted around his neck, was in tune with the workmen and seamen around him. He had not shaved for over a month but he had trimmed the resultant beard. The former thin moustache was now a ragged, drooping walrus.
He sat at the table for a half-hour before the man he waited for came in. He looked more prosperous than the others, with a collar and tie, and smiled about him. Ivor waited until the newcomer had bought a drink and settled at a table, then crossed the room to join him. Ivor said, ‘Any luck, Mac?’
The other man was a steward on a merchant ship, with a profitable sideline in smuggling contraband — or people. He shrugged, then said in a thick Glaswegian accent, ‘It depends. I’ve found a berth for you.’
Ivor said eagerly, ‘Well done!’
‘He wants fifty quid.’ Mac sipped at his beer. ‘Fifty—’ Ivor gaped at him. ‘I can’t pay that! I can’t pay half that!’ I’ve already given you five quid!’
Mac pointed out, ‘That was for me finding you a berth. I’ve done that.’
‘You —! Ivor stifled the imprecation; he dared not antagonise Mac because the Scot could be his salvation. With Mac’s cold eye on him he pleaded, ‘Where am I going to get fifty quid?’
Mac shrugged, ‘That’s none of my business. But if you want a passage, unofficial-like, on a ship to Holland, that’s what it will cost ye.’
Ivor stared ahead of him, fuming inside — and frightened too. He was no stranger to fear now. He had run from home to avoid conscription into the Army and now knew he would be hunted as a deserter. He believed his only hope was to escape to neutral Holland and hide himself there. He could not go home for money because he would not find any there. He knew who to blame for that . . .
He saw the man walk in off the street, thought he was familiar — and then remembered. This man was tall, blond and well-dressed in a good suit. He carried a Homburg hat and kid gloves in one hand, leaned on the bar and called for a whisky. Ivor stood up and Mac asked, ‘What about it, then?’
Ivor glanced at him and asked, ‘Who’s that just come in?’ Mac warned, ‘You keep clear of him if you don’t want to be cut up.’ He went on to answer Ivor’s questions.
At the end Ivor grinned at him, ‘I know where to get the money. How long have I got?’
‘How the hell should I know?’ Mac told him curtly. ‘This isn’t bloody P and O. There are convoys running across to Holland all the time but you never know whether some feller will slip you aboard on the quiet. You just get the money and I’ll fix the rest.’
Ivor made for the door. The blond man still leaned on the bar and sipped at his whisky. Ivor whispered to himself, ‘And I’ll pay you off as well.’
When Annie Scanlon answered the knock on her door an hour or two later she did not recognise Ivor Spargo. She had heard about him from Katy but never met him. She eyed the bearded, moustachioed stranger in his shabby, old clothes and asked, ‘Aye?’
Ivor smiled, ‘I saw the notice on the gate of the yard. It said Mrs Scanlon had the keys and gave this address.’
Annie repeated cautiously, ‘Aye? What do you want with them?’
Ivor shook his head, ‘I don’t. I was looking for Katy Merrick. I’m a friend of hers, of the family, like — Freddie Tait. My ship has docked here and I thought it would be a chance to see her again after all these years.’
‘Freddie Tait?’ Annie frowned. ‘She never mentioned that name to me.’
Ivor shrugged carelessly, ‘That’s not surprising. I’ve not seen her in years. I only got the address of the yard from her father before the war — Barney, that is. Though he wasn’t good to her as I remember.’
That was a name Annie recognised, and now she recalled the North Country demands of hospitality and opened the door wide. ‘You’d better come in and have a cup o’ tea.’ She sat Ivor down in an armchair by the fire and put the kettle on the glowing coals to boil. ‘Won’t be long.’ Then she warned Ivor, ‘I can’t give you her address without asking her, but I’ll write to her and tell her how she can get in touch with you. How about that?’
Ivor said enthusiastically, ‘That’ll be fine, Missus. Very kind o’ you.’ And thought, Bloody suspicious old cow!
Annie beamed at him, ‘Right y’are, then. I’ll make us both a cup o’ tea in a minute. I’ve just got to see to the dinner.’ And as she went out to the scullery, where she prepared her vegetables: ‘I’ve got a bairn coming in to be fed in half-an-hour . . She disappeared from his sight but chattered on. Ivor did not listen. He had spotted the sheaf of envelopes behind the clock on the mantelpiece. With one eye on t
he door to the scullery he stood up and plucked out the letters. He did not recognise the hand but did not need to, nor did he need to look into the envelopes. Katy had written her name, and the address of the hostel where she was living, on the back of each envelope, as was common at the time. He read it, then stuffed the letters back in their place and was in his seat when Annie returned.
She made the tea and as they drank it Ivor gave her a fictional address for Katy to write to, and an equally fictitious account of his doings since the start of the war. But he left as soon as he could, refusing Annie’s offer of: ‘I can give you a bite o’ dinner.’
‘No, thanks. I’ve got a train to catch. But give Katy my best and tell her I’d love to hear from her after all these years.’ He made his escape and got a bus out to the Great North Road. He dared not take a train because there were Military Police on all the main line railway stations. However, he was lucky and just north of Durham he was picked up by a lorry travelling south. That was the first of a succession of lifts. He spent some time sitting at the roadside and that night he stayed in the house of an old woman who did bed and breakfast. He arrived in London close to midnight of the following day.
And at that same time Annie answered another heavy knock at her front door and Matt Ballard said, ‘Hello, Annie. I’m looking for Katy.’
Chapter Twenty-Two
MONKWEARMOUTH AND LONDON. FEBRUARY 1918.
Matt was very brown, thinner in the face and harder. His khaki uniform was worn but fitted him as if he had been poured into it, the knack of the veteran soldier. Annie exclaimed, ‘There’s a surprise! You’re home on leave?’
He said grimly, ‘Aye. I’ve got just one week before I go to France. It’s my first home leave since December 1914, but it seems they are short of Service Corps non-coms out there.’ But then he seemed to dismiss that as of no importance. Annie could sense the pent up anger when he said, What the hell is going on? I sent a telegram to Fleur, telling her I was coming home. She didn’t meet me at the station and when I got to the house the maid there told me “Madam” was out at some dance and she didn’t know where. I came to the yard and it’s locked and there’s a notice saying the key is with you. Where’s Katy?’
‘In London. She wrote to you.’ Then Annie remembered there was a blackout and she was standing with the door wide open, casting light into the street. ‘But come in, come in!’ And when she had sat him in the chair used by Ivor she asked, ‘Didn’t you get her letter? She wrote to you, telling you all that had happened.’
Matt shook his head. ‘I got no letter.’ He thought a moment, then: ‘I think the only address she had was the one I sent when I first went abroad. I’ve moved about a lot since then: Egypt, then Gallipoli, East Africa, Mesopotamia, back to Egypt. That letter could be anywhere.’ But in fact it lay on the seabed in the Mediterranean, inside the ship which had carried it, torpedoed by a U-boat.
Annie handed him a cup of tea. ‘Can I get you something to eat? A sandwich, or I could fry—’
Matt waved away the offer. ‘No, but thanks for the tea. I’m not hungry.’ He looked at her and asked, ‘So what happened, Annie? I went away thinking that if anyone could keep that business going it was Katy.’
‘And you were right!’ Annie insisted. She sat down opposite him. ‘Now, I don’t know all the ins and outs, mind, but . . .’ And she told him how the petrol restrictions had cut down the time the single lorry could work, how Katy could only get a boy to help her and he had gone into the Navy, and then the crash.
When she had finished, Matt sat in silence for a while, but then said reluctantly, ‘I would have thought there would have been some capital left to tide the business over.’
Annie stiffened in her chair. ‘Katy wasn’t dipping her fingers in the till, I’ll swear to that.’
Matt shook his head. ‘That’s not what I was thinking, but there’s something that doesn’t add up.’
Annie said, ‘Well, I told you I didn’t know everything. But the final accounts and the books are still in the office. Do you want the key to the gate?’
‘Yes. I’ll go there tomorrow. Do you have an address for Katy?’ Matt stood up.
Annie gave him Katy’s address and the key to the yard then saw him to the door. Just before she let him out she said, ‘I had another friend of hers come here today looking for her: Freddie Tait.’
Matt said absently, his thoughts elsewhere, ‘I don’t recall the name.’ He was facing up to the knowledge that the business built up by Katy and himself was no more.
Annie explained, ‘He knew her — and her father — in Wallsend. I’ve got his address and I’m sending it to her.’ Then she added, ‘Not that he stands much chance with her. He didn’t look Katy’s type at all.’ Then reprovingly, ‘Pity you married that Fleur. I always thought—’
Matt broke in on her: ‘But I did. Good night, Annie.’
Annie’s lips tightened at the snub but she remembered where he had come from and what he was going back to: the killing ground of Flanders. So she said, ‘Good night, bonny lad. Come and see me again.’
Matt went back to his house and told the sleepy maid to go to bed. He sat up, waiting for his wife to return. Fleur came back in the early hours of the morning. She was alone in the motor taxi which set her down outside the house, and modestly attired in a high-collared, dull grey dress. Matt opened the door to her and she greeted
him brightly, ‘Hello, darling! Sorry I couldn’t come to meet you but this dance was arranged absolutely weeks ago and you can’t disappoint people, can you? And really I was working — it was for a war charity, you know — that’s why I wore this dreary old thing.’ She flapped the skirt of the grey dress. ‘I’m saving my best clothes because I don’t know when I’ll get any more, the price of things these days.’ In fact she had changed in Dawkins’ room at the Palace Hotel before she came home.
Matt answered, ‘You disappointed me.’
Fleur’s smile vanished and she pouted as she pulled off her silk gloves then turned for him to catch her coat as she slipped it from her shoulders. ‘I hope you aren’t going to sulk. It won’t make this war any better for you if I stay home all miserable. I can only go out on these charity dos because I don’t need an escort; there are a lot of women like myself whose husbands are away and we stick together.’ Then she added darkly, ‘Mind, there are some . .
She left it there, suggestively, and went on, ‘I’m not that sort but I need to have a little pleasure. It’s very scarce these days. Like money. I hate to talk about it but I must. That Merrick woman simply refused at first to increase my allowance. I soon showed her the error of her ways!’
Matt demanded, incredulous, ‘She increased it?’
‘Of course she did!’ Fleur tossed her head. ‘But then she had the insolence to write to me — I got the letter from her months ago — saying it would stop in March! I wrote back, of course, and told her I would see a lawyer if she interfered like that.’ Fleur smirked with triumph for a moment. ‘And my allowance has been paid without any bother.’ Now she pouted again. ‘But I went to see the manager at the bank and he said the business had shut down and my allowance would finish at the end of the month. I wrote to you, of course, because that’s absolute nonsense and I suppose that’s why you’re here. You must do something about it, darling, transfer some cash into the account or something.’ Fleur gave him a quick smile, gone as soon as it appeared, and got no reply. This was not the old adoring Matt. He watched her coldly, his face set. She chattered on uneasily, ‘I can’t understand why you left the handling of the money to her. It’s so humiliating for me to have to go to her for every penny. If you’d left the firm’s money in my hands I could have given her what she actually needed and kept a tighter hand on the purse strings. I know you think she’s marvellous.’ That was accompanied by a sneer. She went on, ‘But I believe she’s not to be trusted.’
Matt had listened with bewilderment and rising anger. Now he broke in: ‘I didn’t get your letter abo
ut the allowance because I’ve been in a transit camp or on a troopship for the past six weeks. They didn’t fetch me home to sort out your financial affairs but because they want me in France at the double. And you’ve been talking bloody rubbish!’
Fleur stared at him open-mouthed. ‘Oh! How can you speak to me like that!’
‘I’ll go down to the office tomorrow and find out what’s been going on.’ Then, as Fleur gaped at him, he went on, ‘Katy Merrick couldn’t increase your allowance without my permission and you didn’t ask for it. You didn’t write to me about anything.’ Matt threw her coat onto the hallstand. ‘The capital left in the firm’s account was for the firm. Katy was supposed to use it for the firm. You say she gave you more money?’
‘Of course she did! I had to have it! But she made me practically beg for it!’ She flounced past him and began to climb the stairs. Her boldness was an act. She was frightened, knew Matt was in a towering rage and his silence now only made it worse. She wanted to sleep alone and tried to summon up the courage to say so. It was not needed.
Matt said, ‘I’ll sleep in the spare room.’
Fleur tossed her head, ‘Suit yourself.’
It did suit him. His desire for her was dead.
The next day he opened the gates of the yard with the key given to him by Annie. There was one letter in the post-box and he recognised Fleur’s writing. It was her letter to Katy, threatening legal action if her allowance from the firm was not continued. He read it and winced at the abuse it contained, then crumpled it into a ball.