All Fall Down

by Jenny Oldfield

  Bill had no interest in what made her cry. Satisfied, he slumped to one side. Now she needed to judge things and make sure that he was oblivious of her before easing herself from the sofa onto the floor, helpless and undignified, scrambling to rescue her clothes. Once in the bathroom, she locked herself in, ran the water, hung over the sink and retched, feeling her hot skin turn cold and clammy. She rinsed her face, steadied herself and sobbed again. Her whole body shook, her hair was dark with perspiration. In the mirror she saw that her face was blotched, her features blurred.

  ‘Edie!’ Hours later he roused himself and came to rattle the door handle.

  ‘I’ll be out in a sec.’

  ‘What the bleeding hell you up to?’

  ‘I’m washing my hair.’

  ‘Is there a clean shirt for me in the airing-cupboard?’

  ‘I’ll bring one out.’

  ‘Get your skates on. I want to go down the Duke.’

  ‘It’s too late. They’re closed.’

  ‘So?’ Servicemen could often obtain after hours drinks from a friendly landlord.

  She wrapped a towel round her head, put on her dressing gown and opened the door. He stood there without his shirt, braces unhitched. ‘You go by yourself, Bill. I don’t feel like it.’

  ‘I don’t want to go by myself. I want you to come with me.’

  She sighed.

  ‘No use saying you’re too tired. It ain’t every night I get home on leave, is it? Come on, chop-chop, find something to wear. I want to catch up on what’s been going on round here while I’ve been away. I already seen Dorothy O’Hagan on my way down here. She was a sight for sore eyes, as usual.’ He talked on, trailing after her for his shirt, demanding hot water for a shave.

  Edie was on tenterhooks lest he find something belonging to Tommy. Never in her worst nightmare had she imagined this. She still trembled and felt sick as she dried her hair by the fire and put on her make-up.

  ‘About bleeding time.’ Bill was back in uniform, standing by the door.

  She buttoned her coat over a dark red dress.

  He looked on in sarcastic amusement. ‘I’d like to know what’s been eating you tonight.’

  ‘Nothing’s eating me.’ She brushed it off, having given up all hope of being able to confront him. Reluctantly she followed him downstairs. Then, when the air-raid siren started and the white beams of searchlights swung skywards, she nearly cried with relief. The street was suddenly full of families, elderly couples, women carrying blankets and thermos flasks, all heading for Nelson Gardens.

  Bill swore heavily. ‘Take no notice.’ He scanned the dark sky, listened for aircraft. ‘False alarm.’ He wondered that there wasn’t more urgency; no one ran or shouted.

  ‘I don’t think so.’ Edie stopped in the middle of the street. ‘Listen.’

  In the distance there was a thud followed by a burst of yellow light on the skyline. Another thud. The siren wailed on.

  ‘It’s across the river,’ she told him. ‘But there’s more coming over, listen!’

  Nearer this time, an engine droned, then another. There was the whistle of a bomb as it hurtled overhead. It missed them by perhaps a mile.

  ‘Bleeding marvellous.’ Bill turned to join the band of Londoners heading for shelter. ‘I come home to get away from it all and look what happens.’

  They shuffled along, Edie counting her blessings. They might get blown sky-high by the Germans, but at least she wouldn’t have to face going into the Duke, and all the curious, knowing looks, and a shocked Tommy propping up the bar, realizing in a split second that she’d betrayed him.

  She couldn’t have taken that. Silently she traipsed after her husband between the sandbagged walls at the entrance to the shelter. They and several hundred refugees from the reality of the people’s war.

  ‘Nothing but the best,’ Ronnie told Meggie as he guided her through the couples dancing on the spectacular floor of the Paramount.

  The dance hall was an escape from the drab, monochrome streets. The corsage of deep purple silk orchids which Ronnie had bought her matched the lilac satin of her ruched and fitted dress. Gilt wall mirrors reflected showers of coloured lights cast by many-sided silver globes hanging from the ceiling. Everywhere there was a bright, larger-than-life feel.

  All this and the music. Violins soared through romantic waltzes, the brass section took over for swing sessions in seamless arrangements under the baton of a smart conductor in white dinner jacket, maroon cummerbund and matching suave dickie-bow tie.

  Meggie was in seventh heaven. She was in love for the first and last time. No one but Ronnie would capture her heart. They could say what they liked; that romance soon wore out, that passionate words must be matched by a lifetime’s steady deeds, but they couldn’t spoil the way she felt and acted now. During the heavy beat of the drums and the roar of saxophones, she slid closer to him and almost swooned.

  ‘Who taught you to tango?’ He considered himself a good dancer, he knew the moves and led, but Meggie never put a foot wrong either. ‘If you tell me you’ve been practising with Eddie Greenwood I might get jealous!’

  Tiny lights swirled and swept across the walls and floor. He steered her clear of a jam of other couples with a neat side-step. ‘No one taught me. And I ain’t been practising,’ she beamed.

  ‘It must come natural then.’

  ‘Runs in the family.’ She told him about her Aunt Hettie’s days in the music hall.

  ‘She don’t look like a dancer,’ he confessed. ‘Even though I did take to her. Ain’t she a bit stick-in-the-mud?’

  ‘No she ain’t.’ Meggie loved her aunts dearly; kind Hettie, stem Frances, her stylish Aunt Jess in Manchester.

  ‘And your ma. I don’t think she took to me though.’ They danced through to the end of the number, clapped and waited to begin again.

  Meggie pouted. ‘Don’t say that. She takes her time getting used to the idea of us walking out together, that’s all.’

  ‘Is that what you call it?’ He grinned.

  ‘It’s what she calls it.’ Meggie blushed as the band struck up a foxtrot and they took up position.

  ‘Well, I got the feeling that she don’t trust me.’ Once more, earlier that evening, Sadie had greeted him with downcast eyes. The boys had run to the door at the sound of his knock, friendly as you like, and Walter had opened it with a genial smile, but Meggie’s mother had kept quiet and carried on with her sewing work.

  He’d been struck by her and Meggie’s similarity, but it was an eerie sameness; Meggie vivacious where Sadie was subdued, laughing and excitable as opposed to sober and wary. Their faces had the same oval shape, dark brown eyes, wide, full lips. But whereas Meggie’s eyes sparkled, he thought he read indifference, even dislike in her mother’s.

  ‘You can’t do right for doing wrong with Ma these days. No one can.’ Last night Meggie had expected her mother to let her into the house with at least a smile, despite the late hour. After all, she’d been dead set against her staying out all night. But no; she’d greeted her in silence, listened doubtfully to her explanation that Gertie had gone cold on her, offered no sympathy.

  ‘Ain’t you glad?’ Meggie had cried, exasperated.

  ‘I’d like to know what she’s up to,’ came the reply, brows knotted in disapproval. ‘What time does she call this to turn you out into the street?’

  Ronnie and Meggie might both puzzle about why their mothers seemed to have set their faces against their romance, but neither felt prepared to kowtow. Ronnie had actually stood up to his mother that teatime, when she began to complain that she’d scarcely clapped eyes on him during the whole of his leave. She wished he’d take back his word and not take Meggie dancing. It was the least he could do when he saw how hard it was for her to keep things running by herself. When he turned her down, she called him selfish.

  ‘And you’re a spoilsport, Ma. I don’t know what’s got into you.’ She’d never objected to him having girlfriends in the past. ‘I tho
ught you liked Meggie?’

  Gertie had made a sour face. ‘She wants too much of her own way, that one.’

  He said that was the pot calling the kettle black. ‘Anyhow, Meggie goes out of her way to help around here. She don’t know why you’ve gone off her. She’s upset.’

  ‘Aah diddums!’

  ‘Be like that!’ He’d ground his fag-end into the floor and headed off, hands thrust deep into his pockets. If she didn’t like it she knew where to stick it. What did she think, that he would stay tied to her apron strings all his life?

  In this spirit of rebellion to match Meggie’s own, they met up and danced the night away. Maybe the tiffs at home, maybe the war hanging over everyone made them the more intense, so that tonight seemed special, perhaps never to be repeated if Hitler had his way and wiped out the whole British Navy or smashed London to smithereens. They held each other close, like all the couples whirling under the spinning lights in their shiny dresses and dark uniforms.

  When the band leader put down his baton at eleven o’clock on the dot, turned and said, ‘That’s your lot,’ it seemed like the end of a dream.

  Lights dimmed, coats went on, dark streets beckoned.

  ‘Race you,’ Ronnie offered, running ahead through a drizzle of wet snow that melted the moment it landed. Meggie shrieked as he dragged her along. ‘Come on, slow coach!’

  Ignoring onlookers, not wanting to be beaten, she kicked off her shoes. As he stooped to pick them up, she ran ahead laughing; hair flying, dodging pillar boxes and fire hydrants until she came to the end of the street and Ronnie caught her in a breathless kiss.

  ‘Put your shoes on, Cinders,’ he said gently, dropping them to the pavement, ‘before you catch your death.’

  She looked down ruefully at her ruined nylons. ‘I’d better not let Ma see these.’

  ‘Never mind, I’ll bring you some more.’ Putting an arm round her shoulder, they walked on. ‘You’re round the twist, you know that?’

  ‘It was your idea. You said “race you”.’ She turned her face up to the falling snow. ‘When will you bring me some more stockings, Ronnie?’

  ‘Next time.’

  ‘When will that be?’

  ‘When they let me out.’

  ‘You’ll come back?’ Her voice floated upwards.

  He stopped and drew her in. ‘I said I would. Anyhow, try and stop me.’

  They kissed and walked slowly on. ‘I think I’ll remember every single minute of tonight.’

  ‘You better had.’ His own voice cracked, he clutched her hand, dreading the rum into Duke Street which came all too soon. This was the moment when they must part.

  ‘You take care of yourself, you hear.’ She forced herself to think for a second of his life as a Navy man; the great iron destroyers, the cold, cruel sea.

  ‘Don’t you worry about me, just so long as you write.’

  ‘Every day. And when I’m not writing I’ll be thinking of you.’

  ‘Me too. Where will you sit and write your letters? So I can picture it.’

  ‘In the shelter at Gran’s, or at home in bed.’

  He nodded. ‘I’ll think of that. No, on second thoughts . . .’

  She smiled. ‘It’s only a narrow little bed, Ronnie. There ain’t room for two.’

  ‘Wait, Meggie. Wait for me?’

  She swore from the bottom of her heart. They came to Paradise Court.

  He kissed her again and again, felt her cling to him. ‘Go in,’ he whispered.

  ‘You come in with me. It looks like they’re all in bed asleep.’

  He shook his head sadly. ‘Next time. That’s a promise.’

  She sighed.

  ‘Go in,’ he begged. Her hair was dusted with snow. Flakes landed on her pale skin and melted.

  One last kiss and he was gone.

  Ronnie was halfway up Duke Street, heading for the railway arches when the siren started up. He passed another Royal Navy man, arguing in the street with a woman he took to be his wife. She wanted to head for shelter, the surly man preferred to ignore the warning.

  ‘False alarm,’ he said, swaying back and forth, probably drunk.

  She made him listen for planes. A bomb went off on their side of the river and convinced him.

  Ronnie too considered taking cover. He thought of the odds against a bomb with his name written on it falling, and decided to risk going on. Bombs dropped on houses, offices, factories, not on him. If a plane flew too close and low, that was when he would look for shelter. Like many young men used to the dangers of active service, he made the mistake of thinking that the Blitz was a homely, third division affair to be taken fairly lightly.

  This time he was lucky; no wall of flame, no tumbling masonry, no crushed and burning bodies disillusioned him. As he crossed the river, he left behind the area of London chosen as the night’s target; the Bankside docks and power station half a mile to the north of Meggie’s house.

  It was late for the alarm to sound; past midnight. Most people had reckoned it was safe to risk a night in their own beds for a change. Now they had to get up, struggle into clothes, make for the shelters bleary-eyed and grumbling. They did it automatically, children asleep in parents’ arms, trudging through the wet snow.

  ‘Come and shelter with us, Tommy!’ Hettie tried to hustle him into the cellar at the Duke.

  He’d hung on long after closing time, alone in the bar. No news from Edie, and no news was bad news in this case.

  ‘No ta, I’ll head for Nelson Gardens.’ He could see Annie taking candles down, ready for an all-night stay. ‘Edie comes to you in a raid, don’t she?’

  ‘As a rule. But there’s no telling what she’ll do tonight.’

  ‘I’ll make myself scarce just in case.’ He paid for and pocketed a half-bottle of whisky.

  ‘Listen, she knows what she’s putting you through, so don’t blame her too much.’ Hettie saw that Tommy was in a black mood over Bill Morell’s return. ‘Keep a cool head and make straight for the Gardens, you hear? Hear what she has to say tomorrow.’

  He nodded without conviction. ‘It’s a bleeding mess, ain’t it?’ Edie evidently hadn’t broken the news to Morell. He should have stayed put at the flat, not listened to Jimmie. Poor Edie shouldn’t have had to face up to Bill alone. ‘It’s my own bleeding fault,’ he said bitterly.

  Bombs thudded down some way off, but the explosions only penetrated the blacked-out windows with a dull glare of yellow light.

  ‘Go on!’ Hettie was frightened that he would leave it too late. ‘Or I’ll get George and Walter to drag you kicking and screaming in with us.’

  He went, hardly caring, but wanting to leave the coast clear for Edie. Outside it was cold and wet, a miserable snow was falling. He headed for Nelson Gardens in an angry haze, just because it was somewhere to go.

  Dolly and Dorothy were there ahead of him, he noticed, already filing through the narrow entrance. It looked like another bad night; the sky already glowed with fires in all directions. Tomorrow they would emerge with grim resignation; perhaps this time it would be their house, their windows blown out by a firestorm, their brother, kid sister or father killed.

  Tommy lapsed into lethargy as he stood waiting his turn, not caring now one way or the other, convinced that Edie had come face to face with her husband and changed her mind. He could see it for himself; the way her mind would work. There Bill Morell was, serving his country, relying on her being there for him. This was what kept many men going in the face of danger; the idea that they had someone waiting at home. No, she wasn’t cruel or hard enough to do it. She would take pity on him, whatever he might have put her through in the past; his idle selfishness; his violence. A woman like Edie went to the altar and made her vows for life. For better, for worse.

  A bomb fell two or three streets away. It whistled overhead. The crowd shoved from behind and Tommy was part of the bottleneck that was propelled through the entrance into the dank and dreary shelter.

  He didn’t
bother to join the scramble for makeshift bunks. All he wanted was a corner where he could prop himself against the corrugated-iron sheeting and console himself with his bottle of whisky. He found one and pulled his jacket collar high around his neck, heard Dolly’s voice nearby, organizing this and that. Someone stumbled against him, half-asleep. He shifted position and turned to face a different way.

  The place was jam-packed with bodies stretched out under blankets and eiderdowns, legs crooked, arms flung wide of the covers. Kids, it seemed, slept as soon as their heads hit the ground. Some couples didn’t mind that their love-making commanded an audience. Tommy grimaced, uncorked the bottle and drank.

  His gaze rested finally on a man’s broad back. He was in uniform, with a Navy greatcoat, seated at a table in the tiny canteen. Beyond him was Edie, who hadn’t noticed Tommy come in, apparently. She sat white-faced opposite to Bill Morell, not in fact seeing anything of what went on around her. Her husband hunched over the table; like Tommy he’d seen fit to bring a bottle.

  Tommy took in the scene. Edie had changed into a different outfit since he’d left her at the flat, and her hair was newly washed. Morell ignored her and at the same time claimed her; you could tell by something in his posture and her retreating into herself, not daring to raise her eyes from the table. It made him want to jump up and grab the man by the throat.

  But he didn’t make a move. He stayed put amongst the sleeping bodies in the shadows, drinking steadily. Even when Morell slumped forward to sleep the night away in fits and starts and Edie sat it out wide awake, he kept to his corner unnoticed.

  He was the last to leave on the all-clear next morning, for where would he go to avoid Edie, not to hear her voice pleading with him to try and understand, telling him that it was all over between them?

  Chapter Sixteen

  ‘Tommy!’ Edie intercepted him on the stairs to her office. All week he’d turned his back on her. Bill had come and gone without her breaking the news about Tommy, and she’d been unable to find him to talk things through since. He hadn’t been near the flat since Monday night and hardly came into work, at least when she was there. He looked grey and unkempt, unlike himself. ‘You and me gotta talk.’