Rue End Street

by Sue Reid Sexton

  Miss Read was in her garden beside the school, clipping away at a bush with a pair of something snippy when I sneaked along the path that goes up and over the hill. She was singing ‘Mairzy Dotes’ under her breath and I thought she hadn’t seen me.

  ‘Leonora,’ she called, which is my Sunday name, after my dad, Leonard.

  It was rude of me but I kept going because I didn’t want to explain what I was doing and why I hadn’t been at school. When I arrived panting at the big beech tree at the top of the hill I swung the bundle onto a dry patch of ground underneath it, sat down and scanned the horizon. Two women came up the hill behind me. Neither of them was Miss Read, so I pretended there was something interesting happening in the other direction.

  ‘Morning,’ said a voice I didn’t recognise.

  ‘Good morning,’ I said, and they passed on by.

  There was no-one else on the path so I spread Mr Tulloch’s map over the bundle and had a look, tracing Carbeth to Clydebank with my finger then Helensburgh, Greenock over the water, Port Glasgow, Paisley and Govan on the other side, and then Glasgow where the riverbanks met. Then someone popped over the hill from Clydebank so I folded it quick and hid it in the bundle. Maps were strictly not allowed in case they fell into enemy hands.

  Once I’d recovered from the struggle up the hill I set off along the path again, stopping every so often to shift the bundle from one shoulder to the other.

  I was coming through a little thicket of trees, thinking that the weather would be turning wintry soon and the leaves would be gone and perhaps this wasn’t the best time to be setting off on a great journey, when I saw two small people wandering along arm in arm discussing something with great seriousness. One had blue eyes and the other brown and they both had the same dark bobbed haircut that I had. I dropped the bundle and waited for them to see me. Mavis was the first to look up, Rosie being too busy enjoying the sound of her own voice.

  Mavis’s little face cracked into a smile and she let go of Rosie and ran to me but in the short distance between us her smile faltered and fell and finally crumpled into a silent wail, then she slammed against me, hugged me hard, held on and howled.

  ‘Lenny!’ said Rosie, ignoring Mavis’s cry. ‘We were coming to get you. Your mum’s having kittens because there’s no-one to look after us, so we said we’d stay in the house ourselves all day today and never go out so that we could come back over to Carbeth without her knowing and stay with you.’

  ‘What?’ I said. ‘You should do what she tells you.’ This was a tiny bit pots and kettles.

  ‘You wouldn’t believe the boys in our school, by the way,’ she went on, ‘and guess who’s the head teacher?’

  ‘Miss Weatherbeaten!’ wailed Mavis.

  ‘Miss Weatherbeaten?’ I said. ‘That’s terrible. They can’t let her teach. She’s a...’ I didn’t know what she was. ‘She’s a lunatic,’ I said at last.

  They both stared up at me, maybe imagining what Miss Weatherbeaten might look like now her madness was full-blown and obvious.

  ‘But we’re not going back to Carbeth just yet,’ I said. ‘And you two have to stay with Mum for a few days while... while I sort something out.’

  ‘Sort what out?’ said Rosie.

  ‘You’re going to find Dad, aren’t you?’ said Mavis.

  ‘Well, yes,’ I said. ‘How did you know?’

  But Mavis only gazed up at me in that way only she knows how and slowly the thumb went back in.

  ‘Was that who the photo was?’ said Rosie. ‘I knew it. I said so to Mavis. I said, Mavis that’s your dad. Don’t you remember your dad? And then I thought, I don’t remember my dad either.’ She looked away over at the hill I had just come down and pulled at her ear, with her eyebrows all squeezed up in the middle.

  ‘I’d forgotten my dad’s face too,’ I said. ‘And you were only wee when he...’

  ‘I wasn’t that wee,’ Rosie interrupted, and off she went about how big she was at the time of the bombing and how she’d found her own way back from Clydebank to the flat rock where Mr Tulloch’s brother found her. Rosie was like a homing pigeon, with me being home.

  ‘Right, Squadron,’ I said. ‘About turn. We’re not going to Carbeth today. We have an important mission elsewhere. I have an important mission and I need absolute obedience in the ranks.’

  Rosie shut up for a minute and eyed me in a way similar to George. Mavis swatted the tears from her eyes and listened.

  ‘I’m in charge of this battalion,’ I said, ‘and foot soldiers must do as they’re told otherwise the enemy will take over.’

  ‘The Germans?’ said Mavis in a shaky voice.

  ‘No, silly,’ I said, seeing her fear. ‘The Germans aren’t coming any more. Mr Tait said so.’

  ‘Mr Tait’s dead,’ she said.

  ‘I know,’ I said, feeling less and less like the sergeant major who must be obeyed. ‘He told me at the swimming pool in the summer.’ They glanced at each other. ‘It’s all over the papers,’ I said. ‘Haven’t you heard? But the thing is, I have to find Dad, so you have to stay with Mum and do what she says.’

  ‘I thought your dad was dead,’ said Rosie.

  And Mavis and I both said: ‘So did I.’

  ‘I knew he wasn’t dead really,’ I went on. This wasn’t entirely true. ‘Well, he might be, but I’m going to find out.’

  Mavis, whose thumb had fallen out of her gaping mouth, frowned and squeezed her mouth shut and put her damp hand in mine.

  ‘Mine is,’ said Rosie, as if this was something to be proud of. ‘Mr Tait said so, but I don’t want to go to Clydebank and that school and your mum is...’ She broke off.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘She’s cross all the time and goes out,’ said Mavis.

  ‘She’s working,’ I said. ‘She’s tired. She has her leg.’

  ‘Sometimes she goes out with lipstick on,’ said Rosie.

  Mr Tait would not have approved. I knew more about what this meant than I used to. It meant she didn’t believe my dad was coming back. It probably meant she still wanted to go to America, which is what she used to want. It meant dancing, maybe with a man who wasn’t my dad, though she wasn’t that good with only one foot. Whatever it meant, it certainly wasn’t good.

  I needed to get the squadron moving again but Mavis had stuck her thumb back in and Rosie said she wasn’t going anywhere if it wasn’t Carbeth, and she thrust her chin forwards which she only did when she really meant business.

  ‘We’re not going back to Miss Weatherbeaten!’ she shouted.

  ‘You’re going to have to for a few days,’ I said. ‘There’s nothing else for it. You can manage a couple of days.’

  ‘No!’ she said. ‘It’s alright for you. You’re not going to be there.’

  ‘You have to go back to Mum,’ I said. ‘I’m only twelve.’

  ‘I don’t want to! I don’t have to!’ shouted Rosie.

  ‘Yes you do!’ I shouted back.

  Mavis took her thumb out every so often to say, ‘Stop it, stop shouting.’

  But Rosie was off and loud, pausing only briefly for air and to tweak at her ear.

  ‘Attennnnshun!’ I said.

  But she kept on.

  ‘I’m not going back to Carbeth!’ I shouted over the top of her. ‘And you’ll get court-martialled if you’re not careful!’ I picked up the bundle and swung it onto my back. ‘Get in line. We’re going to Clydebank. One two one two. Except you, Private Tomlin,’ I said, changing my mind. Tomlin is Rosie’s surname. ‘You have to stay here.’ This was a trick.

  Mavis came trotting after me, the long grass whispering round our legs. We trudged on in silence with the birds rushing between the little birch trees and me with my breathing heavy under the bundle.

  ‘I’m not coming!’ Rosie shouted. ‘You can’t make me!’ Her voice became small amongst the trees until she stopped.

  ‘I don’t want Rosie to be court-martialled,’ said Mavis.

  ‘Shoosh, Pr
ivate Gillespie,’ I said.

  After a few minutes we slowed down.

  ‘I don’t want to leave her,’ said Mavis, still worried. ‘What if a bad man comes?’

  ‘We’re not leaving her,’ I said, and sure enough soon we heard twigs crackling underfoot behind us. ‘Don’t turn round,’ I whispered. The footsteps grew closer. I couldn’t go fast with the bundle anyway. ‘The animals went in two by two, hurrah, hurrah,’ I sang but not loud, having hardly any breath. Mavis joined in and then Rosie did too when we got to the animals going in three by three, the wasp, the ant and the bumble bee, and we all pretended nothing had happened, for to get back to Clydebank.

  The trick was if you told Rosie to stay where she was, she always followed you. It worked every time.

  Soon we were at the top of Kilbowie Road which would lead us all the way into Clydebank. From there we could see the mess where our house used to be and when we got over the brow of the hill we saw Singer’s and John Brown’s with their towers and scaffolding sticking up through their own smoke. But I knew that if our house had still been there, from our window on the second floor we’d have seen all the way down the river where it opens into the sea, maybe all the way to Helensburgh.

  Somewhere distant there was the rumble of something mighty being moved. A motor car puttered up the hill towards us then turned off, and a rag and bone man came by on a cart with his old horse’s hooves loud on the road. For a second I considered tossing my bundle on the back but thought better of it. I’d need it later. We continued over the hump of the hill. I didn’t like coming to Clydebank and seeing the rubble still there from the bombing and the hole in the field where a bomb missed the buildings, and it was so much smokier and darker than Carbeth which was full of brown leaves and green grass. We passed Mr Tait’s old street and I remembered how much nicer Mr Tait was once I got to know him from what I thought when we first met.

  Another motor car came roaring past us giving us such a fright I dropped my bundle and we all landed in a heap on top of it. I remembered what Mr Tait had said about getting frights, that you just had to wait and the fright would pass and your heart would stop beating the way it did and everything would be alright. But before I’d had a chance to make myself wait and be calm and not panic, Rosie had burst into hoots of laughter and was rolling joyfully on the ground on the other side of the bundle with Mavis spread across her, also giggling, neither of them the worse for wear. So I had to join in.

  ‘Little Miss Puddle, all in a muddle,’ I began. And then another car went past and a lorry and we all screamed with stupid laughter again.

  Until suddenly I felt idiotic for behaving like that with Mr Tait dead and my dad missing and my mum with only one leg and not being able to live in Carbeth any more, and I was twelve after all, nearly thirteen, and too old for such silliness.

  ‘Squad!’ I said as I bounced to my feet. ‘This is indecorious!’ This was something Mr Duncan said once and has something to do being daft. ‘Last one up’s a turnip lantern!’ I said.

  ‘What’s a turnip lantern?’ they said together and went into further fits. There had been no turnip lanterns since the war began.

  ‘I’ll tell you when this war’s over,’ I said, feeling vastly superior in my knowledge of the war’s progress now that I had read lots of papers, although mostly only headlines.

  But because there was still so much rubble along the roadsides, the sight of which filled me with horrible memories, I was glad Mavis and Rosie were with me and silly. We made our way down Kilbowie Hill but didn’t turn along Second Avenue towards our old house. But we did pass the beautiful La Scala picture house standing by itself amongst the wreckage made by the bombs. Memories flooded back. I sheltered there in the bombing, and looked for Mavis and my mum in the foyer which was dark because the lights went. There were so many people, living and dead, and for a second all this came rushing through my mind. I took Rosie’s hand thinking she might need comfort because she had been there too.

  ‘I spy with my little eye,’ she said, ‘something beginning with... G.’

  ‘Grunter,’ shrieked Mavis. ‘Ground. God.’

  The pair of them fell about laughing again.

  I put my bundle down on a block of sandstone and tried to catch my breath. That old familiar sick feeling came back and I paused a moment with Mavis now tugging on my sleeve and thought I smelled all those stinks the bombs made, the singeing, cloying stench that stuck to everything.

  ‘Giant,’ said Mavis, hanging on my arm. ‘Good.’ Then after a moment’s thought she added at the top of her voice and with no warning at all ‘Glory Glory hallelujah!’ and it made me jump all over again.

  ‘Stop it!’ I shouted. ‘Shut up!’

  The laughter stopped.

  ‘You always make so much noise,’ I growled. ‘I can’t think properly with you screaming.’

  After a moment Rosie did a little dance around me: ‘Lenny’s in a ragie, put her in a cagie.’

  Mavis let go of my arm and stood rigid beside me, but Rosie went on.

  ‘Silence in the gallery, silence in the street! The biggest monkey in the house is just about to speak.’

  ‘Quiet or I’ll make you quiet!’ I shouted.

  Finally she was.

  ‘That’s a terrible way to behave,’ said a lady passing. ‘What a noise to make. I don’t think your mother’ll be happy when I tell her.’

  I put my head down and shook with fury. None of us spoke until we heard the lady’s feet retreating.

  ‘Who was that old nosey parker?’ I said.

  ‘I heard that, young lady,’ said the nosey parker.

  We all looked at the ground again and waited. I thought I’d burst waiting but finally she was gone and we all breathed raspberries.

  ‘Right, let’s go,’ I said sternly.

  ‘George,’ said Mavis.

  ‘Yup. Your turn,’ said Rosie.

  ‘George? What are you doing here?’ I said.

  ‘Go jump in the canal,’ said George. ‘What d’you think I’m doing here?’ He had a pile of newspapers tied up with string that he dropped beside my bundle with a thud. I shoved my fingers under the knot at the top of my bundle where I’d tied the corners and swung it on my back.

  ‘Come on, you two. We don’t have to bother with this dunce.’ I might have been nicer to George because of the mess I’d left in his hut, but I could still smell the bombs even though they weren’t there. I really, really wanted to get away.

  ‘Hi, Lenny!’ It was a girl from my old school. She had fat pigtails that didn’t sit right and a fat nose and fat red lips. She hadn’t changed a bit. ‘Fancy seeing you here. Wanna come down the canal later?’ We used to chuck stones in together to see who could make the biggest plop. Really, Kilbowie Road was like Sauchiehall Street on a Saturday, which is THE big shopping street in Glasgow.

  I glanced at George. He had a hand on his hip and his cap in the other while he scratched his head.

  ‘Yes... no... maybe,’ I said.

  She laughed. ‘Which is it? Yes, no or maybe?’

  ‘Dunno,’ I said. ‘No. I’ve got to go somewhere.’

  ‘Where? Can I come?’

  ‘No, it’s secret. Top secret.’

  ‘She’s going to look for our dad,’ said Rosie.

  ‘Rosie! Shoosh!’ I said. ‘No, I’m not.

  ‘I thought your dad was dead,’ said the girl.

  ‘So did we,’ said Rosie and Mavis.

  ‘She your cousin then?’ said the girl.

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘and I’m not going to look for my dad. Don’t you lot ever listen?’ I glared at Rosie. I could see George sniggering out the corner of my eye.

  ‘Suit yourself,’ said the girl. ‘We’re staying with my granny in Old Kilpatrick now. What school you going to?’

  ‘Dunno,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t know much, do you?’

  Why didn’t she just go away? Why didn’t she take George with her? Why didn’t Mavis and Rosie do
as they were told?

  Mavis was dancing on and off the kerb, whispering something under her breath and not paying attention when a car went past and beeped its horn at her. She jumped and grabbed me. The car slowed, stopped, waited a second and went on again.

  ‘Whoopsadaisy!’ said the girl. ‘Better keep an eye on that little one. What’s her name again?’

  ‘Mavis. Which way were you going?’ I said, holding Mavis tighter than I needed to.

  ‘Suit yourself,’ she said. ‘See you later.’ Off she went.

  ‘Not if I see you first,’ I muttered.

  I was shaking now from head to toe. ‘What are you grinning at?’ I said to George. ‘Come ON, Mavis, Rosie. We need to get home.’

  George pulled a cigarette out of his top pocket and straightened it before sticking it in his mean little mouth.

  ‘Want one?’ he said.

  I said nothing.

  ‘Please yourself,’ he said and laughed like he was Mavis’s age. ‘Off to Carbeth, of course. Can’t wait. Just the business after a long week’s graft.’

  I was about to lose my dignity and call him for everything when I remembered the mess I’d left in his hut. ‘Well, I’m sure your hut’ll be warm after us stuffing the walls and all,’ I said, and grinned as wide a smile as I could manage.

  His own smile flickered and faded.

  ‘See ya!’ I said.

  ‘See ya, bad George,’ said Rosie.

  ‘See ya, Rotten Rosie,’ he replied, and then he and Rosie did something strange. They slapped their right hands together, then their left hands and then turned a circle and slapped both their own hands with each other, finishing with a thumbs up and a shake of the head.

  Mavis snorted but I could see she thought it was funny.

  I picked up my bundle and turned down the road in disgust, not caring if they followed.

  At last they came, grumbling and complaining but dancing to their own reels all the way to the bottom of Kilbowie Hill. I, for one, kept schtum. I had nothing whatsoever to say. Except of course I had lost the piece of paper with the address and needed them to take me there.