Vinnie's War

by David McRobbie

Mr Rosen frowned. ‘M-mm, don’t know about that, son. Folk from around here might not take to Beethoven and Schubert.’

  ‘Then I’ll play other things. They can ask me. I play anything. If You Knew Susie, I play that too.’

  Vinnie remained worried. Mr Rosen noticed his glum look. ‘Why the long face, Vinnie?’

  ‘Aunty Vera’s sending the welfare after me.’

  Mrs Rosen brushed this aside. ‘There’s a war coming, Vinnie. The welfare’s got enough to be thinking about. Besides, you have a home here. That’s what we’ll tell them.’

  Vinnie cheered up and looked around the kitchen. It was good to belong.

  ***

  Starting that very night, Isaac’s mellow notes from the old upright piano floated out into the street. People were attracted to the pub because it was bright there, and cheerful. As time passed, Vinnie noticed more and more customers in military uniform; strange faces with different accents from all over Britain, every man and woman keen to share an hour or two in friendly company. Isaac’s music made the pub a welcoming place.

  Customers could join in the singing, or just listen to this young chap playing any tune they could name. Someone only had to whistle or hum a few bars and Isaac would feel out the notes, then play the song – just like that, with half a smile on his face, his fingers flying over the keys. At other times he played his own music, and the whole pub fell quiet. His audience might not be able to tell the name of these pieces, but they knew what the music was doing to them.

  Mrs Rosen would whisper to her husband, ‘The boy’s too good for that piano. We should get him a better one.’

  ‘Or get him on the BBC,’ Mr Rosen would respond. ‘He should be heard.’

  Then came September the third of that year, 1939, and the war began. Two years earlier the world had seen what Adolf Hitler’s bombs did in the Spanish city of Guernica. Fearing this, many parents sent their children away to the safety of the country. But Vinnie and Isaac decided to stay in London, and Mr and Mrs Rosen respected their choice.

  ***

  As the two of them lay each night in their beds in Aaron’s old room upstairs Isaac was at first quiet, but late one night soon after the war had begun he started to speak about his life in Germany. ‘I was studying music,’ he began, ‘but everywhere in the country the Nazis make life difficult for us Jews.’

  ‘You mean, like bullying?’ Vinnie asked.

  ‘A stronger word is Verfolgung,’ Isaac said. ‘Persecution. We are not allowed to work, to run a business or attend school or university. We have to wear a yellow cloth badge saying Jude, which is Jew. As if we are infectious. A disease.’

  ‘So you left home?’

  ‘That was not an easy thing.’ There was a long silence; then Isaac continued: ‘To smuggle me out of the country, my father paid a huge bribe. Sold possessions for a small price. Then he and Mutti – that is my mother – they said farewell to me and promised to come later. But…’ He sighed.

  Vinnie knew that Isaac hadn’t heard anything from Germany. They lay quietly for a while, each with their own thoughts. At last, desperate for something to say, Vinnie asked, ‘Did you have a piano at home, Isaac?’

  ‘Oh, yes, a large one. A grand piano. A Broadwood, it was. I expect some Nazi has it now, along with the other things my parents owned.’

  ‘They take anything they fancy? Just like that?’

  ‘It’s what they do.’

  ‘You’ve got nothing left, then?’

  ‘Only some clothes, and this,’ Isaac responded. Vinnie couldn’t see anything in the darkness, but he heard the sad notes of a harmonica. Isaac played gently for a minute or two, then stopped and said, ‘I’m tired now, Vinnie. So let’s sleep, eh? And what shall we dream about?’

  It was a game they’d invented – to tell each other their favourite dream. Isaac’s was to have things the way they used to be: family, home, country and piano. Vinnie dreamed of having a place where he belonged forever. He had found a home in the pub, but like other things in his life, he feared it could be ripped away from him; another unkind trick. Over time, though, inspired by hearing Isaac play, Vinnie’s dream had slowly changed. If he had music, then that would always be with him. He’d seen the effect as Isaac tried out a new tune: when he got it right, and the pub customers approved, Isaac’s confidence grew; then he would smile. It was the only time he showed any joy. Isaac and music belonged together. One was made for the other.

  Vinnie could belong, too. This night he said shyly, ‘Isaac, my dream is to play the way you do.’

  ‘The harmonica? I have two of them. You can have one, Vinnie.’

  ‘Thanks, Isaac, but I really mean the piano. I want to play the piano.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll teach you,’ Isaac offered, as if it was the simplest thing in the world. ‘We start tomorrow. Now, let’s dream.’

  ***

  The next morning Isaac and Vinnie rose at five o’clock, because at other times the pub was busy. When Vinnie lifted the lid on the old piano, Isaac commented, ‘That was the easy part. Now comes the hard work.’

  The lesson was no more than finding where the notes were, and playing a simple scale. On that first morning, they went for an hour and Vinnie’s wrists ached. He was disappointed not to ripple his fingers over the keys and make the music pour out, the way Isaac did. But after a week, Vinnie realised music was not going to come easily. Nor could he give up – especially since Isaac gained such pleasure and purpose from their lessons.

  Winter approached and the mornings grew colder, so they wrapped blankets around them-selves, then played the piano. At Christmas, the war news from Europe continued to be bad; it seemed there would be no stopping Hitler. Since London remained peaceful, parents who’d evacuated their children in September 1939 began bringing them home again. The city was safe, they thought.

  Most young students of music had one lesson a week; Vinnie had a session every morning. Mr and Mrs Rosen approved so much of Isaac’s daily teaching that they had the piano tuned. At times when the pub was quiet, Mrs Rosen would say, ‘Vinnie, do your practice.’

  He also picked out tunes on the harmonica Isaac had given him. Vinnie found he could play as he swung beer crates in the yard or did other tasks that only needed one hand.

  ***

  In late August 1940, Vinnie gave his first public piano recital.

  It was Saturday night, and the pub was full of army, navy and air-force men and women. Isaac played and the customers sang. As Vinnie collected an empty glass from a nearby table, Isaac rose from the piano stool and said with a wink, ‘Vinnie, how about you play?’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Come on, you can do Bless ’em All.’

  So Vinnie sat and started to play and the customers began to sing with him. With this support, his confidence grew. He gave them ‘Kiss Me Goodnight, Sergeant Major’, followed by ‘Daisy, Daisy’. The customers applauded and an air-force sergeant gave him a shilling. Vinnie would always remember that magical night.

  ***

  And he’d never forget another date: Saturday 7th September, 1940. Mr Rosen asked him to deliver a message to an office in the West End that morning. Vinnie had to go on a tram, then a bus to Trafalgar Square. He found the office nearby and waited for the reply to Mr Rosen’s message, then set off back to the pub.

  He was only two streets away when the air-raid siren sounded – a mournful, tuneless wail that rose in pitch only to drop again, then rise once more. Vinnie had heard it often enough, but that had been during drills to get people used to them. He hurried on, hoping to reach the pub before anything happened. Then he heard the German bombers almost directly overhead. Their engines made a strange sound – a rising and falling note, not like the British planes. He could see the pub, where Mr Rosen would be inside waiting for his reply.

  ‘Hey, you
!’ An air-raid warden in a steel helmet with ‘ARP’ on the front waved an angry arm. ‘Bloody young fool! Get into the shelter!’

  ‘I’m just going there, to the pub.’ Vinnie pointed.

  ‘Take shelter. Right now!’

  Vinnie turned, then sprinted away from the pub and found the air-raid shelter. It was a squat, flat-roofed structure, built of bricks. Inside it was crowded with anxious people and the air was already heavy with fear. Some people cried; one man had bitten his bottom lip so hard the blood flowed. There were no seats left, so Vinnie sat cross-legged on the concrete floor between an old man and a young woman who hugged herself and muttered prayers. Overhead, the German bombers continued to drone.

  ‘Hear that?’ the old man asked no one in particular. ‘That’s them. The Jerries.’ He kept time with the sound of the planes: ‘Voom-ah, voom-ah, voom-ah.’

  ‘Will you shut up!’ the young woman yelled. ‘We can hear them and don’t need your racket.’

  ‘All right, keep your hair on.’ The old man folded his arms in a sulky way.

  Just then came: crump, CRUMP, CRUMP! Three bombs in quick succession, coming frighteningly close. With each explosion, the ground shook. Dust and chips fell from the ceiling. Everyone in the shelter gasped at the same time. Vinnie held his breath, waiting for the fourth bomb, but it didn’t come. The lights faltered, then went bright again. The aircraft moved on, fading into silence.

  The young woman said, ‘Maybe they’ve gone. Do you think?’ In answer came a fresh wave of bombers, droning closer, then once more: crump, CRUMP, CRUMP!

  ‘That’s the docks copping it,’ the old man whispered, and this time no one told him to shut up. Someone sobbed. Everyone waited for that fourth bomb, but it didn’t come – at least not on the shelter.

  They stayed like that through the long night, silent at first, then gradually opening up and talk-ing to each other. Neighbour found neighbour and gained comfort. Vinnie wished he’d brought his harmonica; then he could have given them a tune, the way Isaac did in the pub. After an age, the ‘all clear’ siren sounded, a welcome, long continuous note that seemed more cheerful because of what it meant. People in the shelter rose stiffly and stumbled outside, dazed and disbelieving, not understanding what had happened.

  Where there had been tall buildings, there was a broken landscape. Vinnie could now see all the way to the cranes and the masts of ships in the docks. There was a dust haze everywhere, fires and smoke, bricks spilled over the streets, scattered roof slates and splintered timber jutting out at crazy angles.

  The pub, when Vinnie found the place, was gone, smashed to a jumble of masonry. People could only gaze at the wreckage all around them. Vinnie recognised a pub customer, a man who worked in the docks.

  ‘Vic, have you seen Isaac?’ he asked. ‘Or Mr and Mrs Rosen?’

  ‘No mate.’ Vic shook his head. ‘But that was one bloody good pub.’

  ***

  Vinnie watched rescue workers ease their way through the rubble, tossing bricks aside. Then came the bodies: one by one they were brought out, as if in slow motion. Each was covered with a grey blanket and gently carried away on a stretcher. By now, every rescuer’s face was a mask of dust, but many of them had pink tear-marks running down their cheeks. Vinnie’s face was powdered, too, and if he had a mirror, he’d have seen those same sorrowful lines. But in such a bombardment, neither mirror nor human being could remain unbroken.

  He counted six bodies from the pub. Then the rescue workers packed up and headed off to another scene of destruction.

  Vinnie kicked something at his feet. His har-monica. Somehow it had been blown out of the upstairs bedroom, to land here.

  It was all there was left of his life in the pub; of his time of belonging with Mr and Mrs Rosen and Isaac. Vinnie wiped off the dust and was about to blow into it to see if it had survived the air raid when a voice shouted, ‘Stop right there, boy!’

  Vinnie froze. He faced a burly man in a dark-blue siren suit and a steel helmet with the word ‘police’ stencilled on the front.

  ‘Looting, are you?’ the policeman demanded. ‘Looting’s a serious offence in wartime. Stealing from dead people, that’s what it is.’ His face grew red with anger. ‘Scum of the earth, are looters. Scum of the earth!’

  It was a little thing, the harmonica, and definitely Vinnie’s legal property. No question. If he’d picked up Isaac’s harmonica, then that could be looting. Vinnie tried to explain the difference, but the policeman would have none of it. It seemed he was angry about the German bombing and wanted to take it out on someone, anyone.

  ‘Just you wait here, boy.’ The policeman didn’t hide his disgust. ‘We caught another two of your lot, and you’re all in trouble.’ A black police van came slowly towards the corner where the pub had stood, the driver steering carefully around the rubble in the road. Vinnie’s policeman called to the van driver: ‘Got another one here. Caught red-handed.’

  ‘Look, I’m not a looter.’ Vinnie showed the har-monica. ‘This is mine. Honest. I lived in the pub, worked there.’

  ‘Prove it,’ the policeman demanded.

  Desperately, Vinnie looked around for a pub customer who’d recognise him as belonging to this place, but there was no one. The driver of the van was already out, opening the back door, ready to transport another offender to the police station. Then Vinnie remembered Mr Rosen’s message. He said, ‘Yesterday I went up the West End, with a letter from Mr Rosen. Here’s the answer.’

  The policeman tore open the envelope and read the contents. He shook his head. Now he was sympathetic. ‘Well, you won’t be delivering it, will you, lad?’

  ‘No.’ Vinnie could barely comprehend the flat-tened ruins of the pub and the terrible way death had come, the speed of it. There were things he still had to say to people. Before he’d left to deliver Mr Rosen’s message, he’d been telling Isaac a story about his time with Aunty Vera and had said, in a casual way, ‘Tell you the rest when I get back.’ Now he was back, and there was no one to listen.

  ‘And that was your home, eh?’ The policeman sounded more kindly. ‘So hop in the van, son, and we’ll take you to a rest centre.’

  Vinnie wasn’t quick enough to say he had an uncle in Mile End or somewhere, and that he’d go there instead. He simply went where they put him. The only good thing was that they let him ride in the front of the police van. He’d have hated to travel with the scum of the earth.

  ***

  Rest centres had been set up as places where bombed-out people could stay until they gathered themselves and found somewhere else. The nearest one was at the town hall, not far from the pub. A harassed official took one look at Vinnie and said, ‘A homeless boy? No parents, eh? He can be evacuated. Let’s see, Euston Station. There’s a train at eleven.’ It was like he was ticking things off a list.

  And that was it. In Vinnie’s short journey to the town hall, he’d had time to collect his wits. He didn’t want to be evacuated anywhere. The only place to be was the pub, not that it would do any good. It was gone; they were gone. But he’d rather be there than anywhere else. He could stay around for a while, look at the destruction, take things in, think about his lost friends and remember them. Always that. There would be funerals, too; he wanted to be there and be close to them. Say goodbye. Shed some tears. Who cared who saw them fall? All of that had to be done; then he’d think about his own life. Vinnie said to the official, ‘Look, I know where Euston Station is. I can go there myself. Right?’

  ‘No, sonny, that won’t do. We’ve got a few other evacuees here. A bus will take the lot of you. Go and get yourself a sandwich and a cup of tea. Over there.’

  A long trestle table had been set up with a tea urn at one end and plates of sandwiches in the middle. Two Women’s Voluntary Service ladies in their grey uniforms handed out cups of tea. Dusty people took them in a dazed sort
of way. Some didn’t say thanks, or bother with sugar or milk. One or two didn’t even touch the tea, but just held the cup in their hand. With their lives changed forever, who could eat and drink?

  The town hall was filling up with people, but few of them spoke. Normally there’d be chatter and laughter in such a crowd, but not here. They just sat or stood around and looked blank. One woman nursed a large, grey cat and tried to feed him bits of sandwich. When Vinnie caught her eye, she whispered, ‘He’s all I’ve got. It’s just us two now.’

  ‘Make sure you hang on to him,’ he said, then wandered on. The wall behind the trestle table was covered in posters from the government. One of them showed an air-raid warden saying to a small boy, ‘Leave this to us, sonny – you ought to be out of London.’

  Vinnie thought, That’s what they’re doing. Treating me as a ‘sonny’ and sending me away from where I need to be.

  ***

  The next few hours passed in a blur; then Vinnie found himself trailing a bunch of other children along the tearful length of Platform Four.

  He’d been to a railway station only once before, and it hadn’t been Euston. One August before his mum died, they’d gone to Southend for a week at the seashore. That time, the station had been full of people going on holiday, bubbling with excitement. Not much of that here, Vinnie thought.

  The whole place was full of children of every age and size. Many were openly crying, carrying card-board gas-mask boxes and hugging small suitcases as if they were the most precious things they’d ever owned. Almost every boy or girl had a cardboard label tied to them with their name on it. A few children had come with their parents, which seemed to make things worse. Small boys and girls clung to their mothers. There were few fathers around. Even some porters and railway-station workers were stiff-jawed with the misery that was all around them.

  Vinnie knew that trains from Euston Station went to the north-west of Britain, but that was about all he knew. Walking along the line of carriages on Platform Four, he found an open door, took a deep breath and climbed aboard.