He opened his eyes as a ragged cheering began somewhere further along the street, and stared out. It was quite dark now, for it was nine o’clock. The sun had set over an hour before, leaving the sky a rich indigo, and the lights of the shops and the street lamps glittered softly in the chill air. A group of men were cheering and a bus was coming towards them with the conductor hanging on the outside rail of the staircase, halfway up, and waving his cap and shouting even more loudly.
‘What’s the matter with him?’ he called up to his cabbie. ‘Drunk, d’you reckon?’ But then the bus passed him and they could hear what the driver was shouting.
‘Relieved, relieved!’ he bawled and the men on the pavement came abreast and they were shouting it too. ‘Relieved, relieved, Mafeking relieved!’
‘Stow the flippin’ bleedin’ crows!’ the cabbie cried and whipped his startled horse into a trot. ‘They must ha’ heard something down the newspaper offices – come on.’ And come on they did, careering along the Strand and into Fleet Street, together, it seemed, with every other vehicle on the road, at a breakneck pace.
It really was amazing; when they reached the Daily Express office, halfway down, there were already people on the buses waving Union Jacks, and someone had put up a string of them across a building on the other side of the street. Outside the newspaper office there was even more of a crowd, pushing and shouting and cheering and hats were being thrown in the air.
‘Is it true?’ the cabbie bawled down over Lizah’s head and someone in the mob raised a flushed face and bawled back, ‘True as you’re asking, squire, true as heaven! Baden-Powell’s done it, God bless him. He’s done it! He’s got ’em safe too – ain’t it a marvel?’
‘A bleedin’ marvel!’ shouted the cabbie and Lizah, fumbling for the catch of the apron so that he could free himself, echoed it. A bleedin’ marvel. It had been bad enough lifting the sieges at Ladysmith and Kimberley; this one had looked to be set for ever. He and the rest of the wounded men had sat in their convalescent home and waited for this news as eagerly as anyone here, and the knowledge that at last that ramshackle town of corrugated roofs and meagre buildings was free – and fed – again was well worth celebrating.
He pushed into the crowd, leading with his good shoulder, and when someone saw his sunbrowned face and empty sleeve, he slapped him on the back, and then others and still more joined in until he was aching with it. And then a young man in a natty suit bent to grab him round the middle and another took his legs and they heaved him high and perched him on their shoulders to carry him triumphantly away back towards the Strand, and he let it happen, laughing and cheering with the best of them; not noticing or caring that his first friend, the cabbie, was shouting after him and waving his battered bag in the air. He had forgotten the cabbie, forgotten the bag, forgotten everything in the infectious fever of excitement that filled everyone about him.
He was never quite to remember the details of the next few hours. All round him London burst into human flames; shrieking, weeping, laughing people waved and shouted and threw hats about. Flags and portraits of the Queen appeared as if by magic and flowered everywhere. Men carrying black bottles of beer and porter offered a swig to anyone who wanted one and girls with their bonnets askew and their hair tumbling down their backs kissed as indiscriminately as bees in a clover patch, and by no means all of them were ladies of the night; even respectable people seemed to have caught the hysteria and were as out of their minds with it as as any of the usual denizens of London’s night-time streets.
Wherever Lizah went he was fêted. No sooner had one group of men tired under his weight and set him down but another took him up, and everywhere he was hailed as a hero. If he had been in uniform and covered in bandages his status could not have been more obvious and there were so few like him around that he was treated with as much adoration and respect as if he had been the victorious Baden-Powell himself. He rode in state in a human convoy all along the Strand and into Trafalgar Square, and all the way people threw him kisses and girls tossed flowers and several, much to his delight, passed up bottles. By the time he got to the Square his vision was dazzled and his head was spinning with all he had swallowed as well as the general excitement and he let someone perch him high on the neck of one of the lions at the foot of Nelson’s Column and sat there happily, a bottle of beer in his hand, and alternately drank from it and waved with it as the crowds eddied and milled about beneath him.
It must have been close on midnight when the more exciting beer effects began to wear off. He had suddenly become very dozy despite the noise and the lights and he leaned forwards on the neck of the lion and fell asleep; but not before thinking muzzily that this was the nearest he’d ever got to a lion in all his life, in spite of having spent damn near half a year in their own horrible country; and there he lay as hour after hour the din went on.
It began to lessen at about half-past four in the morning. He woke suddenly, stiff and very cold, and managed to drag himself upright with an effort to peer blearily down into the Square below him. It was littered with people as weary as he was; couples clutching each other lay snoring against the plinths of the lions and round Nelson’s Column and those who couldn’t find such protection lay out in the middle of the Square on the paving stones. The fountains had long since given up trying to work, or someone had turned them off, and in the empty basin, which had been swept clear of water by splashing revellers, some people lay with their heads propped up on the parapet while a few were moving desultorily about making their way out of the Square towards home.
Home, Lizah thought, still bleary. Home, I was going home. And he managed to reach in his pocket with his cold hand to fumble out his watch. And blinked when he managed to see what the time was.
There was no traffic anywhere about and he longed suddenly for his friendly cab driver, and then remembered his bag which contained what little he possessed – a change of socks and underwear, a clean shirt, his razor and little else – and cursed, and then fumbled in his pocket, twisting awkwardly to reach it, seeking for his wallet.
He should, he told himself bitterly, as he slid down the side of the lion with what care he could, he should have guessed it. Even bloody heroes are worth robbing. No money, no gear, and no one to help him; and again he found himself weeping and hated his own weakness.
Above his head the sky was beginning to lighten and he lifted his chin and sniffed the air, trying to recognize the change in it that he had learned about in his days in the veldt, but this wasn’t Natal and all he could smell was oil and dirt and spewed-up beer and he spat to rid his mouth of the foul taste that had been left in it and began to trudge eastwards out of the Square, up to the Strand and on towards home.
Ahead of him the sky went on lightening slowly as he picked his way over the detritus of the night. Torn paper, empty bottles, muddied flags and battered portraits of the Queen filled the gutters, and everywhere there was unpleasant evidence of just how unbridled Londoners had been last night, and he marvelled as he remembered it. And then felt depression settle over him again as fog settles on the city on a cold night; thick and stifling. He was penniless, and his only skill had been rendered useless by the loss of his arm. He was thin, and hungry, and had nothing in the world to look forward to – except going home to his mother. And for a moment there was a rent in the thick gloom that enveloped him as he conjured up an image of the bright kitchen and the warm fire and his mother in her chair beside it. She’d look after him, give him some food and a soft bed and the courage to sort something out. Of course she would. And he pulled up his collar awkwardly with his one hand and then, pushing it into his pocket, set out to trudge the miles home.
38
‘You should have let me know,’ Lizah said again, and he knew he sounded sulky and childish and didn’t care. ‘I had a right to know.’
‘Well, of course you did,’ Jessie said. ‘But put yourself in my shoes. There you was, wounded – Momma had had this letter all the way from Sou
th Africa saying you was wounded and she’d shown it to me to read to her, and I didn’t know how bad you were! I wrote and asked, but you never answered, and for all I knew you could have been dead yourself. Only no one wrote and said you were, so I thought, well, he’s alive at any rate. But you never wrote so when it happened I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to go sending you nasty letters if you was badly ill yourself, now did I? Believe me, bad news keeps well enough. It gets no worse and no better for waiting.’
‘You should have let me know,’ he said again and drank his cup of tea to the dregs and then held it out for a refill. ‘Even if I never wrote to you, I’m no hand at letters, anyway, and I was all right. There wasn’t much to say, so I thought – when I get home, then I can explain it all. I can’t be doing with letters. But this – it was wicked of you not to let me know.’
‘And you was wicked to go off and enlist and only leave me a letter. For one who says he can’t be doing with ‘em, you use ‘em well enough when it suits you!’ Jessie retorted, and poured the tea and then got up heavily to go to the fire and refill the pot from the kettle which sat on the range, softly chattering to itself. ‘You sent us running down to Southampton like crazy things to get you back and the poor little boobalah got so ill after that and – and what about Momma? Did you think about her when you took off like some crazy thing? She did nothing but cry and cry for weeks –’
‘And if I’d told you, what then? You’d have said don’t go, wailed and carried on and made a great megillah and tried to stop me –’
‘And maybe we’d have done just that and you wouldn’t be sitting there a bleedin’ cripple with only one arm –’ she shouted back and then caught her breath and sat down with a little thud. ‘Oh, Gawd, I’m sorry, Lizah. I should have bitten my tongue out before I said such a thing, God forgive me –’
‘It’s all right,’ he said dully, and put down his cup again. Somehow it wasn’t so important any more to slake his thirst. ‘I suppose you’re right at that –’
They sat in silence for a while as he stared down at his hand on the table. A square hand with stubby fingers and a dusting of dark hair between the knuckles, the nails rather chipped and dirty, and as he stared he tried to remember what it felt like to have two such hands; and closed his eyes to shut out the pain of not being able to remember at all. It was as though he had always been what he now was, little more than half a man.
‘So, tell me what happened,’ he said at length. ‘Was it my fault? Was she pining for me or anything like that?’
‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘Never think that. Not Momma. You’ve forgotten – there was three of her children died, and she didn’t pine away then, did she?’
‘No,’ he said and looked at her appealingly. ‘No. But all the same – you’re sure it wasn’t because I was away?’
‘Don’t be so full of yourself,’ she said sharply and leaned over to pat his hand to take the sting from her voice. It was dreadful to see him looking so drawn and anxious. ‘She got the pneumonia, for Gawd’s sake. It was a bad winter. How can that be your fault?’
I dunno,’ he mumbled. ‘You ‘ear of people don’t want to live no more because they lose someone –’
‘Stubbornness, that was what it was. She’d been ill – all bronchial – three days and never let on to anybody, not to me, not the people downstairs, not the next doors, no one. I was away in Southend with Nate and his sister, and of course I went to see her as soon as I got back, and there she was, looking – well – believe me, / blamed myself. I thought, if I hadn’t gone away – but it’s silly to think that way. I ain’t God no more than you are. If Momma had called Mrs Levy upstairs or the people next door, who knows how it would have turned out? As it is, four days more it was, and she died peaceful and easy. Please God by me, Lizah, I tell you. No lingering, no pain and tuckah, she was seventy-five already! Not a bad age, rest her dear soul.’
‘It don’t sound so old no more. It did when I was younger; it sounded like for always. But now –’ He shook his head. ‘Now it seems she was no age.’ And suddenly he bent his head and let the tears run down his cheeks, making no effort to dry them.
‘Oh, Lizah –’ Jessie was on her feet at once and came and crouched beside him, mopping his face with her handkerchief and then pulling his head down to let it rest on her shoulder so that he could cry more easily. And there she stayed, rocking him gently as the sound of his weeping filled the dark little kitchen and echoed back from the bare walls, for the room was half stripped of furniture and packing cases filled with china and glass lay scattered around.
He lifted his head at last and sniffed lusciously and took the handkerchief from her and rubbed his damp red face.
‘Sorry,’ he said huskily.
‘God forbid you should apologize for crying for your mother,’ she said piously. ‘Listen, dolly, let me get you something to eat, eh? And you look like you need some sleep. I’ll fix a bed for you, and you can have a little shloof and feel better for it. And then after, we’ll go down to Plashet Grove, you can see where Momma is –’
He shook his head vigorously. ‘I’m not going down to no cemetery. Wherever she is, she ain’t there. Listen, just give me time. I’ll get over it. It was just so – I mean, getting there to the house and there’s a stranger there. I never had such a shock. I knock on the door and they come and it’s strangers! I thought I’d gone mad, seeing this man open the door, thought I’d come to the wrong house.’ He shook his head again, but in reproof this time. ‘You should have told me.’
Wisely she bit her tongue and stood up and went to one of the packing cases and began to riffle through its contents, collecting bedlinen. He watched her for a moment and then frowned and rubbed his red-rimmed eyes.
‘Listen, what’s going on here? What’s happened?’ He looked round the room as though he were seeing it for the first time, even though he had been sitting there for over an hour. ‘What’s happening? You having the place papered or something, or what?’
She straightened her back and stood there with the little bundle of sheets and blankets across her arm and looked at him and then bit her lip.
‘I’m going away, Lizah,’ she said and then couldn’t look at him any more and shifted her gaze so that she was staring out of the window, now looking sadly naked without its swathe of red curtains.
‘Going away? How do you mean, going away?’ He frowned then, sharply, and shook his head as if to clear it. ‘I don’t understand – and there was something else you said before that I didn’t understand and you got to explain – but what do you mean, going away?’
‘What I said.’ She seemed irritable now and began to bustle, setting the sheets and blankets on the table and then returning to the packing case to fiddle with its contents, folding and refolding towels busily, so that she did not have to look at him. ‘Away. A.W.A.Y.’
‘I can spell,’ he growled. ‘You don’t have to give me lip. Just tell me what the hell you’re on about –’
She whirled then, dropping the carefully folded linen. ‘Listen, Lizah. I ain’t a kid no more, all right? I’m past thirty, getting on, you know? It’s time I settled. I tried to make a life without Barney, God rest his wicked soul, but what sort of life is it with no one to work for, to care about, eh? I thought maybe the little one – but Millie –’ She shook her head. ‘Well, that wasn’t meant neither, so I thought, all right, I’ll marry Nate Braham. He wants me, he’s a real mensch, got lots of blood in him, know what I mean? I’ll have my own kids, maybe. It’s time – and he wants us to go to America so there it is – I’m also a person, you know that? I’ve got a life to live, an’ all. So I’m going to live it.’
He was staring at her, his mouth half open and his face blank.
‘And what about me? Where am I to live? And – what was it you said? Millie? That was what you said before I wanted to ask about – who was ill? What happened when you went to Southampton? What was it you said about being ill?’
She
sat down and rested her elbows on the table and stared at him from between her hands on which she had propped her chin and he stared back and thought for a moment – she’s got thinner. A lot thinner. She has got a man, at that, she must have – and blinked, trying to clear his head which was muzzy still with last night’s beer and excitement and with lack of sleep and general upheaval. There was just too much going on, too much to take in altogether.
‘Listen,’ Jessie said and her voice was harsh. ‘And listen good. I ain’t going to go on about this. I can’t – it’s just that – well, Millie went down to Southampton with me to find you, to stop you going to South Africa. You left this letter, so I got upset – so Millie came with me. And we took the boobalah –’ Her voice seemed to crack a little. ‘I tell you, that child, Lizah! She’s – you can’t know how much I love that kid. She’s the cleverest, the sweetest, the – well, we went. And the little one got the measles and was so ill we was terrified. Terrified. But God se dank, she came through all right. But Millie – she was never the same after. Always a hard one, your Millie. Got ideas in her head she never talks about, got these notions about what’s the good way for a kid to be and the bad way – she’s not wrong, of course. She’s got her rights, she’s a mother, she’s got her rights – but she kept me away, see? No one could love that child more’n I do, but Millie – well, let it be. She’s got her own notions. So she took Poppy away –’
‘What do you mean took her away?’
‘What I say. She sent me a letter. Didn’t even have the decency to come and see me, say it to my face, let me even say goodbye properly. Sent me this letter, she’s sold the business, she’s going away. I shouldn’t try to find them on account I won’t be able, she’s gone so far. Here, I can show you the letter –’ And she got to her feet and went heavily across to the dresser and began to fumble in the big cooking pot that stood on the main shelf.
Jubilee (Book 1 of The Poppy Chronicles) Page 41