by Maggie Ford
‘There’s three or four from this turning ’as died of it,’ she had regaled, an eager spreader of bad tidings. ‘It’s an epedemick. ’Undreds dying on the Continent, the papers say. That’s where it’s comin’ from – the Continent. It’s a killer. Even reached the United States of America, killin’ people off there too.’
Letty, propped up on pillows reading the accounts, realised how virulent it was and thanked her lucky stars that she had recovered. But she had a strong constitution, she knew that. She wouldn’t have survived the things she had if she hadn’t been strong.
Still abysmally weak, she rested her head back on the pillows, letting the newspaper she’d been trying to read fall on to the pink counterpane, too heavy for her exhausted muscles to support, and watched Ada Hall bustling around her bedroom armed with polish rag and feather duster, picking up ornaments, her personal little treasures, to dust them one by one, putting them back none too gently.
‘Best place for yer,’ she said, making another circuit of the room. ‘It’s ’orrible out. Cold. Enough to freeze the cannon balls off a brass monkey. Bet it’s a picture where your sisters live, though. Nice an’ white. ’Ere, it’s just slush. Yer wouldn’t credit the mess. Me boots is soaked through just coming down the road. No, love, yer in the best place.’
She gave Letty’s dressing table another quick flick. ‘My place’s freezin’. Windows let in all the draughts. ’Ate that flat I do. All the noise in the bar downstairs. Keeps me awake at night. Smells of beer and tobaccer. Stinks it do. Gets inter yer mats an’ yer curtains an’ all yer clothes.’
Letty could have laughed had she felt stronger. Ada Hall worrying about her clothes smelling of beer – clothes that looked as though a good wash would have gone some way to help!
Ada gazed around the room that Letty had made very cosy over the years, a small fire burning in the little black-leaded grate, and picked up one of Letty’s china ornaments to study it.
‘I enjoy comin’ here. Nice and warm. Wish my place was as warm. Still, while I can make meself useful ’ere, I ain’t there, am I?’
Ada was still making herself useful weeks after Letty was up and about, back in the shop.
‘She don’t need to,’ Letty assured Dad after another fortnight of her coming in ‘to do for them’ as she put it. ‘I’m all right now.’
His amiability surprised her. ‘Yer need a bit of ’elp still,’ he said, the way she remembered as a child. ‘And I ain’t as young as I was.’
‘But I feel better,’ she insisted, keeping her voice down from the off key humming and the energetic clash of washing up in the kitchen. ‘We don’t’ want to bother her more than we need to.’
Truth was, to her mind Ada Hall was being allowed too much access; would come into the shop and straight upstairs with a cheery ‘mornin’ love!’ Not so much as, was it all right to go up?
‘She’s been good, I know, but really, we don’t need her here every hour of the day.’
Dad’s expression darkened faintly. ‘She’s been a good ’elp ter me. It’s the least we can do after what she’s done fer us – to let ’er come ’ere. She’s very lonely. Besides she’s company for me.’
There was a time, Letty thought dolefully, giving up and going down to open the shop for the afternoon, when he’d considered her company – at the expense of her own freedom. But she should, she supposed, be thankful that he had cheered since Ada had parked herself on them and become more talkative. Thankful too that his bronchitis was magically miles better. He’d become a different man with Ada now popping in most evenings as well as during the day as the weeks wore on into spring.
Thankful or not, she couldn’t like Ada. Tolerate her, yes, but like her, no. Not when she would sit opposite Dad in the armchair, as if it were her right, Letty confined to the sofa – comfortable enough, but it was the principle of the thing that mattered. She noted too that Ada had begun sprucing herself as well, as she’d done once before, a few years back. Then it had come to nothing and she’d slipped back into her old ways. This time, there seemed to be more determination.
The scruffy hair had become tidier, her clothes smarter. She was changing her apron more often and those puffy cheeks with their broken veins were ruddy from more vigorous applications of soap and flannel than Letty suspected she had ever used before. Letty, remembering Mum with her smooth downy face, always neat, even when down on hands and knees scrubbing lino, resented Ada Hall’s intrusion into her mother’s domain – a role Letty herself amply filled as far as she was concerned.
Not that Ada wasn’t hardworking – she busied herself with might and main, scrubbing lino and washing pots with the energy of a charity organiser, polishing fierce enough to break every last piece of Dad’s precious porcelain, all but elbowing Letty aside to get at the weekly wash like a starving dog going after a bowl of scraps.
‘I’ll do yer ironin’. You just put yer feet up, workin’ in that shop all day.’ Shirts and vests tugged from her, fit to tear, she’d set to work, happy as a sandboy.
‘I’ll just have to start paying you something,’ Letty suggested as Ada left one evening. It was April and no sign of her relinquishing her virtually self-appointed job, Letty’s offer was made in the same vein as saying ‘More tea?’ to someone who’d outstayed her welcome.
Ada looked as though she’d been struck. ‘No need for that, love. The least I can do fer yer dad. Bin good ter me, ’e ’as.’
‘But you should have some sort of wages.’
‘No, thank you. Only too glad ter do it. Yer dad takin’ me fer a drink some evenin’s in the week is compensation enough – me an’ ’im get on ever so well together. I wouldn’t dream of takin’ yer money.’
It wasn’t only in the week he took her down the Knave, often weekends too. True they weren’t out till all hours. Shorter opening times imposed by the Defence of the Realm Act to conserve dwindling stocks of hops, the beer weak and the prices high, ensured their return by eleven o’clock. But left to her own devices, feeling as if she were being thrust aside by him, Letty couldn’t help recalling the fuss Dad would kick up when she and David had dared to go out.
‘Thank God I’ve got you to come and see,’ she said as she settled herself on Billy’s sofa one Friday evening in mid May.
Almost as an act of defiance she’d made a point of going along to see him when Dad went out, her visits seen by Billy’s parents as a chance for them to pop out for a much needed break.
Billy smiled, that difficult smile that pulled at her heartstrings. He sat by the window taking advantage of the warmer May sunshine that might relieve the chronic congestion on his chest.
‘Glad I’m some good,’ he said wryly, and embarrassed, she hurriedly tried to rectify it.
‘What I meant was …’ she began. But he only laughed, a sound that caught in his throat, throwing him forward in a fit of coughing while she watched helpless until he finally sank back, exhausted and fighting for breath.
She had thought that by now there would have been some improvement. At least, she consoled herself, he was out of the war – wouldn’t be blown off the face of the earth as David had been.
The war dragging on, America coming into it in April hadn’t made the difference people had anticipated. Men were still dying by their thousands in France with hardly any ground given by either side. In Turkey too they still died.
Letty thought often of David, knew the emptiness of those women who went about in black, faces bleak. Everywhere one saw window blinds drawn in mourning; the bluff envelope something to dread, the telegraph boy on his red Post Office bike no longer a cheeky lad who’d once held out his hand for a tip.
Conscription, long ago became compulsory, was being stepped up. All sorts of men were being taken, being trained to fight and die; so long as he had all his senses and could stand up, a man was fit for the front.
In June, Albert went. By July he was in France. Vinny, whom Letty could have sworn would cope, unlike Lucy, went completely to piec
es.
‘How I’m going to manage?’ she pleaded, throwing herself into Dad’s arms when Lucy brought her over on the tram that Sunday morning, Vinny saying she needed Dad, couldn’t face being on her own that first day. ‘If something was to happen to him …’
‘Nothing’s goin’ ter ’appen to ’im,’ Dad said inadequately as he patted her shoulder.
‘I’ve the boys to cope with, and me all on my own.’
‘You’re not all on your own,’ Letty told her. ‘You’ve still got them for company.’
More than I ever had, came the thought, bitter and empty.
‘I can’t believe he’s not at home any more,’ Vinny wailed. ‘All night I kept dreaming he was there beside me, and when I realised he wasn’t … It’s like having his ghost around. But I want him!’
Letty empathised with her. She sat by the open window reliving her own memories. The sounds of Sunday morning’s market floating upward; David shouldering his way through that crowd, his tall lean figure, his bearing so upright, so noble – a man from another world to that seething below her.
Seething? It no longer seethed, becoming quiet with hardly any men in the crowd but for those pitiful sights, men invalided home – going about on crutches, with a leg missing; others with an empty sleeve pinned across the chest. So many of them. And that wasn’t counting all those confined to their homes with nothing more to be done for them in hospital, both legs gone, blinded, or gassed like Billy. A lot of stalls missing, or manned by those too old to fight or women taking their men’s places.
‘Four boys to cope with single-handed,’ Vinny was lamenting. Letty brought her attention back to her.
Poor Vinny had believed Albert would never be taken from her. It was hard for people like her who hadn’t prepared themselves for the rotten deal life could throw at you. And her life had always been so easy.
Letty was sorry for her, dreadfully sorry, and annoyed with herself for an insidious hope that crept into her sympathy that Vinny might find Christopher too much of a handful now, what with her other three. Might decide to hand him back. Was it too much to hope for – that one day he might be hers again. Not yet three years old – not old enough to pine for long for the person he had called Mother. He would adjust, wouldn’t he, to a new mother? In time he’d remember nothing of Vinny as his mother. As for the circumstances of his birth, those could be explained later. She’d tell him of their love, hers and his father’s, the circumstances of David’s death. Later in life he would understand.
Letty sipped her tea, gazed speculatively out of the window, gave herself up to her thoughts; sorrow for Vinny melting in a welter of hope.
‘If anything was to happen to Albert,’ Vinny was saying, a tremor in her voice, ‘I don’t know what I’d do.’
‘Thank God Jack’s safe.’ Lucy put her empty cup back on the table. ‘He won’t be sent to the fighting. What he’s doing is too valuable. I don’t really know what it is, mind. He’s not allowed to say. But it’s something very important. Decoding or something. He did drop a hint once. At least he won’t be in the same danger as your Albert, thank God.’
A hollow look had come into Vinny’s eyes. Letty would dearly have loved to have warned Lucy that anyone could be posted, no matter how valued, but decided to leave indiscretion to Lucy who did it so well. Bad enough to have Vinny on the edge of tears without Lucy as well.
Dad, however, wasn’t so circumspect. ‘Want ter be careful about crowin’ too soon,’ he said, knocking out his pipe against the empty fire grate. ‘No one’s indispensable, never ’as bin.’
It was Lucy’s turn to look hollow-eyed.
‘That’s a cruel thing to say,’ she burst out, tears threatening. ‘Anyone’d think you wanted to see Jack in the thick of it.’
‘No, he doesn’t,’ Letty appeased automatically.
Her mind was more on Christopher playing on the floor with a few spoons she’d let him have, making them into trains to push at each other. Every time the spoons clashed together he laughed, a giddy chuckle. She remembered David’s had been like that, a low, private chuckle, as though what amused him was for his own personal pleasure. How she had loved that laugh. Her heart broke into silent tears, needing so much to hear the sound again from him.
‘Yes he does,’ her sister’s peevish voice broke in, Lucy fishing agitatedly in her crocheted Dorothy bag for a handkerchief. ‘How do you think I feel when Albert’s already there, liable to be killed or wounded …’
‘Lucy!’
At Vinny’s ragged intake of breath, Letty broke free of her own thoughts, turned a warning glare on Lucy. ‘Perhaps we ought to change the subject.’
‘But it’s true. Men are being killed …’
‘For God’s sake! This isn’t the time!’ Letty’s voice had grown high, as much for the feeling of desolation her sister had conjured up in herself as for Vinny. ‘Why can’t you think before you say things?’
‘I do think. I always do.’
Lucy’s handkerchief was out, being frantically dug into the corners of her eyes. ‘I’ve put myself out coming over here with Vinny, not to be ticked off by you. You’re jealous because I’ve got Jack and you got no one. You’re just a frustrated, sour old maid. Anyone’d think I wasn’t sorry for Vinny. And what about her? When Jack went to France and your Albert was here at home, you crowed then, didn’t you?’
She was on her feet, thoughts already on gathering up her coat from the hall.
‘I really don’t know what I’ve said to upset everyone. It’s best if I go home, and not come back here again for ages! Then you’ll …’
‘Oh, sit down!’ Letty said angrily. ‘Don’t be so bloody stupid!’
Lucy’s reference to her present plight had hurt more than she could ever imagine, but what was the point of causing even more of a row?
‘What Vinny needs most at a time like this is a bit of comforting,’ she said as evenly as she could. ‘Just try not to upset her.’
‘As if I would,’ Lucy said, petulant, dabbing her eyes.
But she sat down, moody still but somewhat less ready to rush off in a huff, especially as Vinny showed no signs of wanting her to leave.
August was fine and sunny, so different from last year when rain had gone on right into the autumn and through the winter with hardly a break.
‘It must be helping them in France,’ she remarked to Bill. ‘This lovely weather.’
It was Sunday afternoon. Dad had taken Ada Hall off for a wander around Bethnal Green Gardens finishing with a drink in the Salmon and Ball – that’s if it was open, which it might not be with Government restrictions on opening hours. They hadn’t asked her to go with them. She hadn’t expected them to and probably wouldn’t have wanted to go with them anyway, but she had felt left out and wandered down to see Billy. Well, it was something to do.
Nice to be welcomed by his mum and dad even though they had company – Billy’s two married sisters and his sister-in-law, their husbands off in the armed forces. Nice, Billy’s home, full of love, smelled cosy with a sense of caring. So much nicer than her flat; for all she had striven to make it cosy and comfortable, it felt lonely and unloved.
She sat now on the sofa, fanning herself with a copy of News of the World glancing from time to time at the headline: ALLIED ADVANCE ON A FORTY MILE FRONT – HUN ARMY FLYING.
It brought a twinge of hope, but there had been so many false hopes in the past.
‘I ’ope we get somewhere this time,’ she said, slipping easily into cockney as she always did with Billy. ‘God knows when it’ll end – ’alf way through 1918 and still draggin’ on. If we get pushed back again like in March … It gets you down, don’t it, all this?’
Billy’s parents nodded agreement, but he merely gave her a crooked grin.
‘That’s it, Let,’ he said whimsically. ‘Be a Job’s comforter, why don’tcher? Cheer us all up.’
Letty fanned herself vigorously, allowed herself a wry smile.
‘I’m sor
ry. P’raps I’m feeling a bit down today. I don’t know.’
But her mood had lifted a bit. A real tonic was Billy – a natural bouncer back. Made her ashamed of herself bemoaning her lot when she had her health and strength and he had … She saw the effort he had in breathing sometimes, the gas still in his lungs, but never a word of complaint.
He was somewhat improved these days, she thought with a lightening of her spirits, the dry weather good for his chest. Didn’t look so thin as when he first came home, although the old broadness of chest was gone for good, she knew that.
He’d never mentioned his own experiences at the front, and Letty knew better than to ask, sensing that even his family had kept off the subject. What Billy truly felt about his war injury, he never let on to anyone.
Lifting the earpiece at the telephone’s urgent tinkle, Letty heard an unfamiliar voice, well-spoken but somewhat agitated.
‘It that Mrs Worth’s sister?’
‘Yes,’ she said. Alarm sharpened her tone. Something was wrong. It had to be Christopher – something was wrong with him.
‘Thank goodness I’ve got you.’ The voice sounded full of relief. ‘I’m Mrs Worth’s next-door neighbour. I thought I ought to ring you. She has had a telegram. She’s in a terrible state.’
Lucy felt a shock wave pass through her, directing the fear she’d had for her son on to a completely different path. Albert! Dear God, no!
‘Is it her husband?’ she heard herself asking.
‘Yes, I’m afraid so. Killed in action, it said.’
The voice blurred behind a roaring in her ears. For an instant the floor of the shop began to sway, her knees to lose their strength, but there was no chair handy, only a small battered bureau beside her.
Hardly aware of all the woman was saying, Letty realised all at once that she was being asked a question. ‘… can you possibly come over? She needs someone, her family …’
Again the voice receded on a second shock wave, but now she was in control, said, ‘Yes … yes, of course. I’ll come.’