Chick’s face split in a wide grin. ‘Maven. A connoisseur, ducky. One who knows all there is to know on a subject. Here’s me, a good Toronto Catholic, and I know more Yiddish than you do, and you’re part Jewish!’
‘Not difficult to know more than I do,’ Robin said and felt a sudden pang as she always did when the subject came up. ‘I know damn all about it. No one ever taught me – ’
‘So what?’ Lily said comfortably and led them towards the back of the shop. ‘You got enough on your mind, ain’t you? Listen, your auntie’s in the kitchen. See yourself through, eh? And you want to eat? I can get a plate or two ready here for you both or you can talk to your auntie and she’ll have maybe hot – ’
‘Both!’ Chick said greedily and followed Robin through the little room at the back of the shop and out of the big doors at the back which led to the preparation kitchens that spread to the other side of the establishment.
Here was bustle of a high order and the two girls stood hovering in the doorway for a moment, watching. There were long metal preparation tables and huge ovens and cooking hobs and sinks and, everywhere where they could be put, long shelves crammed with pots and pans of all sorts and sizes. Standing at each of the preparation tables were women, all of them clearly well over fifty, wrapped in voluminous overalls and with their hair tied back in cotton scarves, chopping vegetables, mixing salads and cakes and beating eggs. In the middle of them stood a woman who was not wearing an overall, even though her dress, of rich crimson silk, was clearly an expensive one, who was rolling pastry with lusty thumping strokes, and pulling at it with big capable hands.
‘There, you see? That’s how I like to see my strudel dough – so thin you could read the newspaper through it. None of your heavy great slabs for Jessie’s, and don’t you forget it, dolly, don’t you ever forget it –’ And the woman beside her muttered, but reached for the rolling pin and took over the pulling and thumping of the pastry under the other’s very watchful eye.
Looking at her, Robin experienced the wash of feeling that Jessie always created in her; she looked so comfortable, so sure, so reliable in a hard world, with her great size, and her magnificent bust pushing so imperiously against the silk of her dress. She looked older now, of course she did, for her hair, once so vigorous and thick and exuberant, was whiter and much less pleased with itself, and the vast bulk that had always distinguished her seemed to have collapsed in on itself a little. But there was still a great energy in her and she displayed it to the full as she lifted her head and caught sight of the two girls in the doorway.
‘Boobala!’ she shrieked. ‘It’s my boobala! Come here, you dolly, you – come and give me a hug. Have you eaten? Of course you haven’t eaten – listen, what’ll you have? Fish? I got a bissel the best fried plaice you ever tasted – or there’s some chicken, gedampt just the way you like it, and I got some oil, I could make you some chips. Oh dolly, it’s good to see you!’ And she folded Robin in a huge rosewater and frying-oil and fish-scented grasp, burying her head in that ample bosom and squeezing her till her ribs seemed to crack.
And Robin, who had once found those hugs a bit overwhelming, gave her back as good as she got, and hugged her with all the fervour she had in her. Never mind air raids and the hateful Staff Nurse Puncheon and aching feet and sleeplessness; this was what living was all about.
3
‘Sugar,’ said Mrs Crighton in loud patrician tones. ‘I must have sugar. You can’t run a canteen without sugar, now can you? Be reasonable, Mrs Deveen!’
‘I’m trying to be,’ Poppy said, controlling her anger as best she could. This woman made more fuss than all the rest of the volunteers put together; the sooner she could be shifted somewhere else the better for all of them. If she had to find another canteen somewhere for her, she’d do it, damned if she wouldn’t. ‘I’m afraid it’s you who is being a little less than reasonable. I simply can’t get any more. They’re having enough trouble with supplies for people to get their ration as it is. I’ve managed to get some saccharin, however, and – ’
‘Saccharin?’ Mrs Crighton actually snorted. ‘What good is that? It won’t give these poor creatures any nutrients, will it?’ And she rolled the word round her tongue with relish. ‘Nutrients are what it’s all about, surely?’
‘No it isn’t,’ Poppy snapped, her patience at last exhausted. ‘It’s about providing a few minutes to sit down and rest with a cup of tea and a sandwich or two before they have to go back and work again. They understand that even if you don’t. And I really must say’ – and here her control totally slipped and she let her anger show, well aware of her self-indulgence – ‘I really can’t understand how so much gets used when I’m not here. You’d almost think some people were taking it home with them.’
Mrs Crighton looked at her with a face of stone and then, very magisterially, took off her frilled apron.
‘That does it. I shall leave now and I shall not return. If you can do no better when your errors of management are pointed out to you by an experienced person than hurl insults and accusations, then it is better that I take my valuable services where they will be appreciated. You will have to find someone else to handle tonight’s shift; I shall not be here. Good afternoon, Mrs Deveen!’ And she went stumping out of the canteen as a few weary firefighters and air raid wardens crouched over their tea and tired buns watched her with dispirited eyes.
‘Good riddance to that one.’ Maria, the tall and rather thin helper from the other end of the Whitechapel Road sounded deeply satisfied. ‘Rotten old bat – and I reckon you was right, Mrs D. She’s been ’elping herself to more sugar than anyone’s got any right to. A little bit’s fair enough, but not ’ole packets, like!’ And she mopped the counter with a vicious sweep of her dishcloth that wiped the haughty Mrs Crighton out of existence, and looked smug.
Poppy sighed. She knew they all took some of the supplies as their perks; and she couldn’t blame them. The rations were getting less and less and so much had disappeared from the shops that feeding the weary families that still remained in the East End was a major problem for a housewife, especially if she was working as well and so had no time to queue at the shops. Perhaps she shouldn’t have been so tough on Mrs Crighton; a pair of hands was a pair of hands, after all, and for a moment she considered going after her and asking her to come back.
‘If you only knew what she’s been like, when you’re not ’ere!’ Maria went on. ‘You’d think she was a duchess, honest you would. I mean, you muck in with the rest of us, you do, but not Madam ’Igh and Mighty Crighton. Oh, no, not ’er! Sits there and says she’s supervisin’ and makes a bleedin’ pest of ’erself. Listen, Mrs D, I can stay on if you like, for a bit, till five maybe, but I got to get ’ome then. My old man, with ’is back an’ all, ’e can’t get me old Mum down to the shelter, and there’s the kids to think of an’ all – can you manage on your own tonight? There ain’t no one else to ’old the fort, that’s the thing. Mrs Barnes got ’erself bombed out yesterday and she’s been sent off to ’Igh Wycombe or some such place and Mrs Knott, she’s ’ad to go and take care of ’er sister’s kids on account their mum’s gone into the ’ospital for her sixth and ’aving a bad time of it.’
Poppy stood there in the canteen she had worked so hard to set up and run in the cellar of the abandoned dress factory in Plumber’s Row, and wondered how much longer she could go on. It was almost an academic exercise, as though she weren’t thinking about herself at all, but about some other person who was Poppy Deveen and who was trying so hard to keep her life together in the middle of the hell the world had become. The children away – and she ached with the misery of missing them, her serious, sensible Lee and little Josh, who always seemed to be so cocky and self contained, but who was (as who could know better than Poppy?) so often frightened inside – and David, in whom all her security and peace rested, away again on impossible trains and so tired that she could have wept for him, and no phone call from Robin this morning and God knows what had
happened to her, and now Mrs Crighton –
But she didn’t weep and stopped the academic thinking, because it was a waste of time and she had work to do, and said as briskly as she could, ‘That’s very good of you, Maria, I do appreciate it. I’ll be back by five, I promise. And if you can find any of your friends and neighbours who’d be interested in helping out, do tell them. I really don’t think I can recruit people from the West End any more.’
‘I’ll say not,’ Maria said sturdily. ‘Toffee-nosed bitches like that. ’Oo needs ’em?’
So much, thought Poppy wearily, for the Dunkirk spirit and all of us pulling together to win the war and all the rest of it. It was just the same as it had been last time, with middle – and upper-class people working in canteens and behaving as though they were doing a huge favour to the exhausted ordinary soldiers who were going through hell to protect them, and the resentment that had caused in the rank and file, and she closed her eyes and looked back almost twenty-five years to the eager girl she had been in her FANY’s uniform and her determination to help win the War to End All Wars, driving her ambulance around France – and opened them again to look at today’s reality.
It had all seemed rather unimportant at first, a very flat anticlimax to all the worry. Once Chamberlain had made his announcement of war and that first siren warning of a raid had turned out to be a false alarm, nothing much had happened. All those months of the Phoney War when the children had come back to London from being evacuated and David had spent his time as usual in his Fleet Street office and Robin at the London Hospital had seemed so happy and useful, though it was a pity she had to work so hard; Poppy had thought with deliberate optimism that it would be all right this time, a sensible war, over by Christmas. But she had known in her heart that it wasn’t to be that way, and when the bad times came and the Germans went pushing through Holland and Belgium, and Poland had fallen and then eventually Dunkirk had happened to waken everyone up to what it was to be like, and the fear of invasion had gripped even the most optimistic, she had rallied fast and got herself as organized as she could. The children had to be sent off to Norfolk again, with the usual fussing and flailing from Joshy but Lee’s calm acceptance to sweeten the wretched business, and they had checked the strength of the shelter in the back garden at Norland Square and started to persuade Goosey to go with the children to Norfolk. Not that anyone had for a moment expected she would; for Goosey, dearly as she loved the children, the place she had to be was Norland Square. Hadn’t she lived there for more than forty years? It would take more than a nasty little jumped-up Hun like that creature with the silly moustache to get her out of it, she had said firmly – and that had been that.
Her mother had been no better; Poppy had gone to Mildred’s house in Leinster Terrace and begged her to go to the country, in case of bombing, but she had refused to hear of it.
‘I am seventy-four, Poppy, and therefore living on extra time. If it is meant for me to die in an air raid, then so be it. I can’t leave here – Queenie would never go and how could I leave her? I have my own responsibilities as you have yours. I’ll take care of myself, be assured. You have enough to do.’ And she had rung for Queenie to make more tea, and flatly refused to discuss the matter further.
Poppy had worried about Jessie too, for she wasn’t nearly as young as she pretended to be. Seventy-five, Poppy had told her very directly, isn’t exactly a youngster. And Jessie had laughed and pooh-poohed her and pointed out that the business had to be kept going and that it was work of great wartime importance, at that.
‘Where’ll the poor things go when they’re home from the trenches on leave?’ she asked. ‘They’ve got to have somewhere to enjoy themselves. So Poppy’s and Jessie’s have got to keep going. I’ll supply a canteen too, if you set one up. There – will that make you feel better? Then you’ll know I can’t just go off to the country like some baby in arms – any more than your Mama will – I’m as stubborn as she is, and a lot more useful – ’
And Poppy had thrown up her hands and stopped arguing. This war was not going to be at all like the last one, with its trenches and regular troopships over the channel; she knew that, but why try to explain to Jessie? What good would it do?
So she had set up the canteen and settled to dogged work at the two restaurants, struggling to get food supplies for them, somehow managing to keep going and to look after Goosey and David when he was home; which was less and less often these busy days, for his paper sent him all over the place to report what was happening. He even had to go to France to join the BEF in the early days, but glory be, had been sent home again before the retreat had turned into the danger of Dunkirk’s beaches – and she shuddered now at the memory of those dreadful days in June.
And then the raids had begun; and Poppy looked around at the few people using her canteen at this time of day, and could have wept for them. Arthur Brook, the warden from the post on the corner of Stepney Way, was sitting half asleep in the corner over a cooling cup of Bovril, his face greyish white with fatigue and the inevitable layers of dust from the piles of rubble, with beside him the lanky shape of his son Freddy, a sickly youth who’d been turned down for the army because of his health and now worked seventeen hours a day helping the rescue teams. He’d have been better off in the army, Poppy thought with compunction, looking at the boy’s sleeping face with its lax lower jaw that revealed his apologies for teeth. He’d have had an easier time with them. The other people in the canteen were in no better shape; exhaustion hung around all of them like a veil that blurred their shapes and their features and Poppy thought – I’ve got to keep going. This is just about the only place they get any time to call their own, between raids.
And she nodded quietly at Maria and said, ‘I’m going over to Cable Street, to my aunt’s. You’ve got the phone number? Great – I’ll try to see if she can spare some sugar from her supplies, but I know she’s badly off too. Take care of what there is for me, Maria, I can’t manage any more wastage – ’
Maria nodded and let her eyes slide away from Poppy’s direct gaze, but that didn’t matter, Poppy told herself. She’d got the message and she’d act on it.
The walk to Jessie’s was, as always, a dispiriting experience. The smell alone was enough to plunge a person into despondency. Old buildings don’t break up kindly, she thought, as she picked her way carefully along Coke Street, making for Backchurch Lane on the other side of Commercial Road. They die as noisily as they can, and leave a dreadful smell behind. And then there was the gas and the cracked sewers and sometimes she even thought she caught a whiff of the sickly sweetish smell of dead bodies, so familiar to her from the last war, but she refused to even consider that. The rescue teams were incredible; they got out every last dead body as well as the living survivors. She had to believe that, they all did. And then she remembered the awful day when the branch of Woolworth’s in Commercial Road had suffered a direct hit when the shop had been full of people and they hadn’t attempted to clear the site. They’d just sealed it off and left it to Nature to deal with the results –
She shook herself mentally and stepped out faster, reaching the end of Backchurch Lane at last and looking across Cable Street to her aunt’s small shop and kitchens, the place where the whole business had begun, and she stopped for a moment and let herself remember. All those long hard years of looking after Robin and then David and the babies as the business had grown and blossomed even through the long depression years, until she had thought that at last there was no more need ever to worry again. They’d always be able to make a good living. Better than that even, maybe a lot of money, opening a fourth and then a fifth restaurant – and again she gave herself that mental shake and crossed the road. This was September 1940, not Happy-Ever-After-Time. When the war was over it would be different perhaps, but right now there was work to do. A lot of it.
She nodded cheerfully at Lily Harvey as she went through the shop, and Lily, who was serving a customer, waved to her to wait so that s
he could tell her something, but Poppy just smiled at her and went on; Lily always had something special to say. Whatever it was, it could wait, and she couldn’t. There was a lot to do between now and getting back to the canteen before five o’clock to send Maria heading home to Shadwell and to prepare for the German planes to start their usual evening visitation.
It wasn’t until she got into the kitchen and saw the three of them that she realized just how anxious she’d been. Robin was sitting perched on a high stool at one of the preparation tables, a plate of casseroled chicken in front of her, into which she was digging with great relish. Beside her, her friend Chick was equally occupied, while Jessie sat facing them both, her chin propped on her plump hands as she beamed with satisfaction, watching her food being appreciated.
‘Robin!’ Poppy cried. ‘You didn’t call me this morning! What happened?’
Robin looked up guiltily and managed a smile, though her mouth was full. ‘Oh, darling, I’m so sorry! I was so dead to the world, I simply couldn’t bear to wait for a phone and there was only one working. Some of the lines are down. I’m sorry, darling, truly I am – but I’m fine – ’
‘I’ve been frantic,’ Poppy said, more sharply than she meant to. ‘It really is a bit selfish of you, you know. It wouldn’t have hurt to hold on for a little longer to let me know you were all right – ’
A slightly mulish expression moved across Robin’s face and Poppy thought: oh damn, damn, damn, I’ve done it again. Why can’t I keep my stupid mouth shut? And she thought confusedly about how it had been with her own mother all those years ago and how long it had taken them to become, if not close, at least friendly towards each other, and somewhere deep inside she hurt. Was it to be like that with her beloved Robin and she? It couldn’t be. I can’t be like Mildred, I can’t. It won’t be the same for us –
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