‘Thass amazing,’ she said as she read.
Sis grinned at her again. ‘What is?’
‘They want to change the world. They say we ought to do away with “extreme inequality in wealth and possessions”. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? And they want every child to have – what is it? – “equal opportunities for the development of his peculiar capacities”.’
‘Quite right,’ Sis said. ‘At the moment the only kids who get to grammar school are the bright ones who win scholarships and the ones with rich parents who can afford the fees, whether they’re bright or not. That’s unfair and wasteful.’
The implication of what she was saying made Barbara feel as though her head were swelling. ‘So what they’re saying is, if you win a place at the grammar school, they think you ought to take it?’
‘’Course. That’s obvious.’
‘I won a place an’ didn’t take it,’ Barbara confessed. ‘Pa wouldn’t let me. He said he couldn’t afford it.’
‘That don’t surprise me,’ Sis said, with sympathy. ‘I knew you’d got a good head on your shoulders. So there you are, you can see what a waste it was.’
‘Yes.’
‘So what we got to do is win this election an’ see it never happens again.’
‘How would you do that? I mean, if they can’t afford it, they can’t an’ thass all there is to that.’
‘See that they earn a good wage for a start. Then they’d be more able to afford it. That’s one way. An’ if the kid wins a scholarship, it should win a grant at the same time.’
That seemed a wonderful idea to Barbara. ‘If there’d been a grant when I was eleven I could have gone,’ she said. ‘But wouldn’t that cost a lot of money?’
‘Waste costs a lot of money,’ Sis told her. ‘You leave a house without repairs and in the end it turns into a slum and you have to pull it down and build a new one. Which is another thing we got to do.’
‘What? Rebuild the slums?’
‘Pull ’em all down, the whole damn kit and caboodle, and start afresh. We got a head start in the East End, thanks to Hitler. One bomb on a terrace in that neck a’ the woods an’ they all fell down like a pack of cards. Jerry-built you see, nasty bug-ridden hovels. Not fit for human habitation. People live in some terrible places in this country, more shame to us. Houses with no running water, dirty little earth closets out the back, bugs in the wallpaper, black beetles. Nobody should have to live like that.’
‘No,’ Barbara agreed, remembering the North End. ‘Slums should be pulled down.’ And she thought what a difference it would have made to her life if she’d grown up in a place like Childeric Road.
‘Decent home,’ Sis said. ‘That’s the basis of a decent life. An’ I know what I’m talking about. I’ve lived in some pretty crummy places in my time.’
That was a surprise. ‘Have you?’
‘Very crummy some of ’em, specially when I was a kid. We was always hard up in them days. Used to go hopping to make a bit extra. Steve used to come with us. Picking hops all day an’ off to the pub to drink ’em in the evening. An’ then back to talk politics round the camp fire till we couldn’t keep our eyes open.’
‘Did Steve talk politics?’
‘Not in those days, no,’ Sis said. ‘He was too little. Used to listen though. All ears he was. I reckon it was the making of him. He knew what sort a’ world he wanted by the time he was fourteen, I can tell you that. Very idealistic, your Steve. When the Beveridge Report came out he bought a copy on the day it was published.’
‘An’ I always thought politics was just about money and taxes and that sort of thing!’
‘Depends on your politics,’ Sis laughed. ‘Ours is about ideas. You should read the Report.’
‘Yes,’ Barbara said thoughtfully. ‘P’rhaps I should, if he bought it the day …’ But before she could say anything else, there was a long dull explosion.
It sounded a long way away but it went on for much longer than anything they’d heard in the last few months, and that puzzled them. When the last reverberation had faded, they got up, switched off the light and opened the curtains to see if they could see where it had been. There was a faint glow on the horizon.
‘Something’s gone up,’ Sis said. ‘Ain’t a buzzbomb though. That I do know. Unless they’re makin’ ’em twice the size.’
‘We’ll hear about it tomorrow,’ Barbara said, as they left the window and went back to their sorting.
The next day the rumours were contradictory. Some people said it was a gas main, others an accident at a munitions factory, others a house struck by lightning. It wasn’t until late afternoon that any real news came through and then it was alarming. Whatever it had been, it had happened in Chiswick and had done tremendous damage. ‘Knocked down half a street,’ the clippies told one another. ‘Terrible casualties. Ever so many killed.’
‘Then that’s no gas main,’ Heather said trenchantly, when Sis called in at the butcher’s on her way home. ‘Don’t give me that. It’ll be another bomb. You mark my words. An’ if there’s one, there’ll be more of them.’
Sis made a grimace because it sounded all too likely.
‘How you getting on with Barbara?’ Heather said, very casually.
‘OK,’ Sis said. ‘She ain’t a bad kid.’
But Heather had closed her face. ‘Handsome is as handsome does,’ she said. ‘I reserve judgment on that one.’
But she was proved right about the rockets. The next morning they were woken just after dawn by another thunderous crash and during the day there were three more. There were no official statements, but everybody knew that London was under a new bombardment. News of the explosions passed swiftly along the tram grapevines. This was a bomb that arrived without warning. Some said it travelled so fast you heard it coming, with a ‘sort of swishing noise’ after it had exploded. And it was huge. Every explosion caused immense damage and the blast was felt for miles around.
There was still no official explanation. But a few days later there was an explosion in Dairsee Road and three days after that another in Lewisham and by then local knowledge of what was happening left no one in any doubt that these were rockets of some kind. One man had seen one of them, ‘like a telegraph pole flying horizontally at about 6,000 feet. It was a brownish colour,’ he told the local paper, ‘and flying much faster than a buzzbomb. It left a trail of brown oily smoke.’
‘Ain’t we had enough?’ Barbara’s passengers asked one another as they climbed aboard her tram the next morning. ‘First the Blitz an’ then the buzzbombs an’ now this. They really got it in fer us!’
‘They’re evacuating the kiddies again,’ another said.
Hazel and Joyce said they’d rather stay where they were. Joyce was only going to be at school another term and then she’d be out at work. ‘Like our Betty says,’ she told her parents, ‘if it’s got your number on it, it’ll get you wherever you are. Ain’t that right, our Betty?’
Betty was more interested in her new perm which hadn’t taken properly. ‘I shall look a sight Sat’day,’ she complained. ‘She ain’t half made a mess of it. Lionel’ll think I’m a freak.’
Joyce persisted. ‘But ain’t that right, our Betty?’
‘What?’
‘If it’s got your number on it it’ll get you.’
‘Oh that. Yeh! No point worrying about it. It’s not as if you can get out the way. You can’t, can you. Not if you can’t hear it coming. Best thing’s just to get on with your life an’ forget about it.’
Chapter Twenty
The official report on Hitler’s new secret weapon made chilling reading when it was finally given.
Britain’s front line at home is under fire again – from a stratosphere rocket that is dropping on us from 60 to 70 miles up in the air, a rocket that travels faster than sound and flashes across the sky like a comet trailing fire. Weighing about 12 tons, it carries a ton of high explosive, has a range of 210 to 250 miles, travelling at speeds of up
to 4,000 mph, and is probably being launched from sites in Holland.
‘An’ there’s no defence against it,’ Phossie Fernaway added sourly, when he’d read the paper and passed it to Victor. ‘Which they’ve conveniently forgot to say. We’re just bloody sitting targets.’
‘I’m off out of it, if thass the case,’ Victor said, propping the newspaper against his newly acquired pot of marmalade. ‘I shall go down Essex way an’ milk a few farmers.’
‘For the Skibbereen?’
‘Nope,’ Victor said easily. ‘On my own account. I’ve made some good contacts. He ain’t the onny cock a’ the walk. And there’s a brickworks I want to see. There’ll be some very good pickings from the brickworks with all the bomb damage there’ll be.’
‘You wanna watch it,’ Phossie warned, spreading butter on his toast. ‘If he finds out …’
‘He won’t. You worry too much.’
‘Anyway, I thought you was courting,’ Phossie said. ‘What about this girl of yours?’
‘She’s patient,’ Vic told him. He’d made a good impression with those sheepskin coats and he didn’t want to waste it, but a courtship was one thing, profit and self-preservation another. ‘I hain’t stayin’ here to be blown to pieces by blazing comets. Sod that for a game of soldiers. I’ll come back now an’ then to sell the goods an’ see if the Skibbereen’s got a job for us.’ He was doing the odd job on his own but he still needed the Skibbereen if he was to live in any style. I can see her then. ‘I mean to say, it’ll only be for a little while. It can’t go on for ever.’
‘I bloody hope not!’ Phossie said, as another explosion rattled the windows. ‘I’m not cut out fer this sort a’ life, am I.’
But cut out for it or not, most Londoners had to accept it. As the weeks and the explosions passed, they settled into a weary resignation, living stoically, one day at a time. Food was in shorter supply than ever, there was always dust in the air, always fear just around the corner. Sis grew angry, Mabel and Heather jittery, Bob and Sid worried quietly, Hazel and Joyce were more quarrelsome. Only Betty and Barbara stayed resolutely themselves. If your number’s on it …
‘We ain’t seen Vic for quite a while,’ Betty observed. ‘D’you reckon he’ll turn up to the dance Sat’day?’ She and the others had invited Barbara in for a cup of Camp coffee after their cold walk home from the pictures. Now they were sitting round the kitchen table warming their hands on their nice full mugs and gossiping, except for Joyce who was standing in front of the fireplace, putting her hair in curlers for the night.
‘Shouldn’t think so,’ Barbara said. It didn’t worry her whether he joined them or not. She was grateful for the coat but that was as far as it went.
‘I’m going shopping, Sat’day morning,’ Joyce announced from the mirror. ‘It’s only a month till Christmas.’
‘No it ain’t,’ Hazel scoffed. ‘It’s weeks yet.’
‘That’s all you know,’ Joyce said. ‘It’s a month exactly. 25th of November. N’yer!’
‘Why must you two argue all the time?’ their mother said, putting her mug down with a sigh. ‘It don’t matter what day it is. If you want to go shopping, go. Only don’t keep fightin’ one another in my kitchen.’
‘You can come in to Woolworths an’ have a cuppa with me an’ Lionel,’ Betty said, ‘if you don’t fight. What about you, Bar?’
‘I’m at work.’
‘What time’s your dinner hour?’
‘Half past twelve.’
‘Come across then,’ Betty instructed. ‘We’ll wait for you, won’t we kids. It’ll be a laugh.’
So their Saturday was arranged.
It was a horrible day, cold and grey and dispiriting. It had been snowing in the night, so they woke to icy roads and pavements dusted white. Sis and Barbara wore thick jerseys under their uniform jackets, looked out their fingerless gloves and their thickest woollen socks and wound scarves round their necks, on the principle that it didn’t matter what they looked like so long as they were warm. And Betty went to work in her new sheepskin coat.
The depot was freezing cold so the trams started sluggishly and, because the points were frozen, every journey took longer than it should have done. By midday all services were running late.
The Saturday shoppers grumbled as they pushed their way aboard, bulky as bolsters in their extra clothes. ‘We got enough to contend with without snow an’ you lot late all the time.’
‘I’m glad it’s dinner time,’ Barbara said to Mr Tinker, as they turned into the depot after their last run of the morning.
‘Snow’s gone,’ Mr Tinker said. ‘That’s one good thing.’ The white fall of the early morning hadn’t settled, cold though it was. ‘I’m for a cup a’ char. You coming?’
But Barbara didn’t get a chance to answer. At that moment there was a sudden roaring, rushing noise and a flash of light so bright and blinding that it hurt her eyes. For a second she stood where she was, leaning against the side of the tram for support as the ground rose and fell under her feet as though it was no longer solid. The roaring noise was so loud it felt as though it was pummelling her eardrums and there seemed to be less air, for she was fighting for breath. She knew it was a rocket but she was too frightened to scream or to move. It was as if her mind had been blown away.
It wasn’t until the noise had faded, that she came back to her senses and looked around her. The depot was full of whey-faced people all looking at one another but Mr Tinker was lying beside the tram, groaning. He must have fallen and she hadn’t noticed. He had a long cut on the side of his face which was bleeding profusely and he was totally confused.
‘What is it?’ he asked, dabbling his fingers in the blood. ‘What have I done?’
But all Barbara could think about at that moment was that it was a rocket, that it must have gone off close by, that Sis was in the station, that the kids were out shopping and Betty was in Woolworths, and that she had to go and find them. Mr Threlfall was walking towards her, pale but in command. He would deal with Mr Tinker. She had to go out and help at the incident. She found her energy again and ran into the road.
What she saw there was so dreadful that for a few seconds she was too stunned to take it in. The air was thick with dust, clouds of it, thick and brown and swirling like something in a nightmare, and through it she could hear people crying for help and groaning in extremes of pain, and a child screaming, ‘Mummy! Mummy! Mummy!’ over and over again. It took time for her eyes to adjust to the lack of light and then she realised that there were things falling out of the sky, tumbling and turning in the air and thudding down onto dirty pavements and a littered road – bricks and bits of concrete, torn rags, half a chair, lumps of flesh. At first she thought they were joints of meat and that a butcher’s had been hit, but then, with a shock of such horror it brought the gall into her throat, she realised that they were bits of arms and legs, torn and bloody, but hideously recognisable. And as she watched, a small white hand fell before her eyes and landed at her feet, a baby’s small white hand, curved and tender and still in its woolly sleeve. Oh dear God! A baby’s hand!
The screams and cries were still going on, and now there were other sounds too, feet running and voices calling, ‘Derek! Where are you?’ ‘Joan! Joan! Joan!’ And a man ran past her, heading towards the station.
‘Where is it?’ she called to him.
‘Woolworths,’ he called back, his face fraught. ‘I can’t stop. My old lady’s there.’
No, she thought, it can’t be Woolworths. It mustn’t be. Betty’s in Woolworths and the kids. We’re going to meet there for our dinner. And she ran towards it, dodging the horrors, her heart beating so painfully it felt as though her chest was going to split.
The dust-cloud was rising ominously right over the corner of Goodwood and New Cross roads and as she got nearer she could see that the traffic had stopped and that both roads were full of bodies, some crawling and crying, some lying still and silent in pools of blood, some running about in a
terrible aimless terror, all of them covered in brick dust and with slivers of glass stuck in their clothes and hands and faces. There was blood everywhere, smeared against the kerb and over the tramlines, puddling the road, streaked across torn clothing, gushing from wounds. It was as if there’d been a battle, as if someone had turned a machine gun on the street.
Such an excess of horror seemed to have turned off her emotions. She noted that there was a burnt-out bus in the road. It had been crushed by the blast as though someone had squashed it together like a concertina, its red paint burnt back to the bare metal, and it was full of passengers, all of them dead where they sat and looking more like statues than people because they were smothered in dust. And she hardly felt anything for them at all. She looked across at the Town Hall, broken glass crunching under her feet, and saw that there were bodies spread-eagled across the steps, but she felt nothing for them either and she couldn’t stop to help them. She had to get into Woolworths and get Betty out. And the kids. That was all that was important. She had to get into Woolworths.
But when she reached the corner she saw with a renewed shock of total stomach-churning terror that there was nothing left to get into. Nothing at all. Just a vast crater ringed by enormous piles of bricks and rubble that spilled out over both roads. She could see right through the dust to the houses in the street behind and the looming shape of Childeric School, huge and stranded like a beached ship. But even though the familiar smell of a bombing was filling her nostrils and she could hear people screaming underneath the wreckage, she couldn’t, wouldn’t believe it. ‘Oh please!’ she said. ‘Please don’t let this be happening. Please don’t let them be dead.’
There were men and women rushing past her, clawing at the rubble, hurling chunks of masonry aside. Yes, she thought, get them out! Quick! And she joined the scrabble, pulling at the nearest pile of brick and concrete, frantic with grief and shock. There was a fire blazing in the crater and she knew it was right over where the cafe had been and that she would have been there herself if the tram hadn’t run late. But that was nothing to the terrible need to find Betty and the kids and to get them out alive.
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