Rue End Street

by Sue Reid Sexton

  Chapter 17

  Having nothing to carry they were soon well ahead of me and I had trouble keeping up. We turned along Dumbarton Road then past the town hall, Hall Street baths and the Library going west. I knew it was west because my dad used to always say he was going west when we came out of the baths then stagger about as if he was dying. Then we’d go under the underpass under the canal and back home to our old house for soup or sausages. But this time we passed by the underpass and kept going quite a way before turning right and left and right again.

  The street was full of children and smelled of onions cooking, sausages and soup all mixed up with coal fires. A girl was beating a rug against a wall making the dust fly and I recognised a boy from our old street and a girl from school. They circled round and stared.

  ‘Who’s that then?’ said one.

  Mavis clung to me. I hung onto my bundle and we edged along the street. A breeze lifted our hair and smelled of cludgies.

  ‘This is Lenny Gillespie,’ Rosie announced. ‘She’s our big sister. I told you I had a big sister, didn’t I? She knows all twenty-nine verses of ‘The Quarter Master’s Store’.’ This started an argument about how many verses there were in ‘The Quarter Master’s Store’ but I couldn’t join in because my mouth turned to jelly again.

  We turned in at number forty-three. We were on the ground floor, the best place to be when the bombs dropped, although it didn’t make any difference in our old close which was burnt out from top to bottom. Instead of breenging in like it was our own house, Mavis stood and knocked and when there was no reply, knocked again. With a glance at me she opened the door.

  The hallway was completely dark but she pushed open another door and a blaze of sunshine burst through.

  ‘This is our room,’ she said.

  It wasn’t a big room, our room. There was a high bed in one corner with our blanket over it, and only one chair, my mum’s wheelchair. No coal scuttle was by the fire, only a box that said ‘Brasso’ on it with some bits of wood, some old papers, a few chunks of coal and a little shovel. The big tall window stretched almost to the ceiling. In one corner there was a small pile of clothes, our clothes, neatly folded and stacked. I dropped my bundle on the floor beside it.

  It was a lovely room, not Carbeth, but bright and friendly all the same.

  ‘Mrs MacIntosh lives in the kitchen,’ said Mavis. ‘She has that all to herself and we only get in there in the morning and at night to make dinner.’

  ‘Is she nice?’

  ‘Yeah. So are the Weavers.’

  ‘Who are the Weavers?’

  ‘They live here too in the other room,’ she said. ‘Where’s Dad? Why didn’t you tell me that was him in the photo?’

  I undid the knot on the bundle and everything flopped down. A quick glance round the room and I didn’t see the blue leather bag. I got up on the bed, dangled my legs off it and slumped down like a sack of potatoes. It had been a long walk. The room smelled of old onions cooked the day before. Up on the mantelpiece I noticed a book, Mr Tait’s Bible, and caught my breath.

  ‘Quick, Lenny,’ said Mavis, ‘tell me before Rosie comes in. Where’s Dad?’

  She stood facing me, legs apart, and leant on my knees. I ran my fingers through her hair and told her about the postcard, not a lot.

  ‘Don’t talk to anyone about this,’ I said. ‘Not even Rosie and her big mouth.’

  ‘I want to come too,’ she said.

  ‘You can’t, Mavis. I don’t know where I’m going. I need to speak to Mum first. This place is alright. You’ll be safe here.’

  But she leant her head forward into my lap and began to cry. ‘Please,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll be back, I promise,’ I whispered and I pulled her up onto the bed beside me and we lay down and cried together.

  ‘I miss Mr Tait,’ I whispered, glancing at the mantelpiece.

  ‘Me too,’ she said. ‘But I miss you most.’

  And then, not surprisingly after walking so far and all that carrying, we fell asleep.

  But not long after that there was a loud knock at the front door and Rosie came barging in with a crowd of other people. They stood round the bed and sang:

  ‘It’s raining, it’s pouring, the old man is snoring. He bumped his head on the back of the bed and couldn’t get up in the morning!’

  ‘Get out!’ I screamed at the top of my lungs. ‘Get out or I’ll knock you all flat!’

  There was a tiny silence then they laughed and a girl with a dark fringe like mine stepped forward.

  ‘Who are you then?’ she said. ‘The Queen of Sheba?’ Everyone laughed again as if no-one had ever said anything so funny. She did a little jump, waving her dark red polka-dotty skirt about as she did, then they all stared at me.

  ‘This is our room,’ I said, getting up on my haunches. ‘Get out before I make you.’

  Light flashed in her eyes. Perhaps it was only the sun through the window, which seemed especially brilliant, but I thought I saw red in them.

  ‘This is my gran’s house,’ she said. ‘I’ll do what I like.’ She moved away from the rest and did a quick highland fling, whistling as she whirled on the hearthrug.

  ‘This is my mum’s room,’ I said, standing upright on the bed.

  ‘Lenny... ,’ said Mavis.

  ‘Lenny, don’t,’ said Rosie, who had pushed to the front.

  ‘Don’t?’ I said. ‘I’ll don’t you! I’ll don’t you all! Get out now! Get out, the whole lot of you! Scumbags!’

  Three little boys scuttled off, but not the girl doing the jig: she froze, one arm over her head and the other curved under like a monkey. I thought of that stupid teapot song. ‘I’m a little teapot, short and stout.’

  ‘Make me, then,’ she said, and grinned.

  Two girls hurried out of the room. As I sailed the air towards her I heard ‘FIGHT!’ yelled out the front close and when I landed we fell together onto my bundle. She banged her head on the hearth stone and her face contorted like a witch’s and came swiftly towards me. Her forehead landed hard on the bridge of my nose. A pain shot across my face. I’d never been in a proper fight before, not since I was wee in Clydebank. I didn’t know what to do. But pain made me move. We flung fists and slaps and feet and knees, pulled hair and scratched, and soon we rolled onto other people’s feet and they squealed and scrambled back.

  ‘Fight!’ they shouted. ‘Go, Ella!’

  It was to the death, like we were drowning, and the blows rained down in torrents, first me on her and then her on me. She had me pinned, sitting across my chest as if I was Senga’s dad’s horse, but I thudded my knee in her back sharp and she fell whumph across my chest, so I grabbed her hair and pulled till my hands were full of rats tails.

  Everyone shouted. ‘Get her Ella! Give her back!’

  Mavis screamed, ‘Lenny! Lenny! Lenny!’ and bounced on the bed.

  And Rosie shouted, ‘Go on Lenny!’

  Halfway to standing, the girl grabbed my dress, the pale green one with the yellow flowers, and it ripped at the hem so that I stopped long enough to see what she had done and open my mouth to shout but she slapped me hard across the cheek. Someone cheered so they all cheered and she slapped me again. Coming to, I thwacked the third slap out of the way and followed it with a few slaps of my own. Blood trickled down her forehead from a gash. I wiped the blood from my own nose with the back of my hand and reached back to swing at her the way I’d learnt from my ‘Commando Tricks for Nazis’. She reached back too. In the pause before we let fly she cracked a smile, her eyes gleaming at me, and dropped her fist.

  ‘Shake,’ she said, holding out her hand. I screwed up my eyes and peered at her. Was she having a laugh?

  ‘Go on then, slow-coach, I haven’t got all day,’ she said.

  I dropped my punch and gave her my hand and she shook it, then yanked it towards her pulling me off kilter. I flew past her onto the floor, my hands skiting across the rough wooden boards, and I landed with my bloodied nose on a
white bed-sheet in my mum’s neat and clean pile.

  A cheer went up, then a shriek from Mavis, then the countdown: ‘Ten, nine, eight...’

  I rolled over and brushed off the blood running down my lip and stood to face her. Again she smiled and held out her hand. I glared at it and slapped it away so hard mine stung like a wasp.

  But then I saw the little coal shovel soar over Ella’s head and draw back above Mavis who was standing behind her taking aim to land the thing as hard as she could on Ella’s crown. Much as I hated this Ella, I didn’t want her actually killed. Quick as a flash I shoved her over and caught the shovel on my own temple instead.

  Suddenly everyone withdrew as if the air had been sucked out of the room, and when Ella and I staggered to our feet we found a large Mrs MacIntosh livid in the doorway behind us.

  ‘Look what she did to me, Gran,’ wailed Ella, pointing at her head, her face a mask of misery, streaked with red.

  ‘Oh my good God, look at the blood!’ breathed Mrs MacIntosh, her eyes large and glaring at me. Then she swung on Ella. ‘You! What on earth have you been up to? Look at the state of this girl. What’ll your mother say?’ She poked a finger three times into Ella’s chest while Ella backed off into the corner. ‘You and your old tricks! I thought you’d learnt. You’re old enough. It’s about time you grew up and stopped causing all this grief.’ She turned back to me, large and heavy. ‘And who are you anyway?’

  Her breath was warm and damp on my face and tasted of rotten potatoes.

  ‘L... Lenny,’ I said.

  ‘Lenny, is it? I’ve heard about you.’

  Mrs MacIntosh was as wrinkly as an old prune but she took us into her kitchen and sat us on her smelly brown box bed, one at each end. She gave us a cloth each to dab at our wounds then made us take turns at the sink to wash them properly ourselves. It was clear she had no sympathy for either of us. She leant on the draining board, towering colossal over us, and directed proceedings as I washed first and then Ella.

  ‘You’re a disgrace to humanity,’ said Mrs MacIntosh.

  She put gentian violet on us that made us look as idiotic as we were and stung like billy-o. There would be no hiding it from my mum or anybody else. My nose had swollen up and gone a funny orange colour and an inch-long gash pulsed just above my left eye. Plus various bruises appeared the length of me over the rest of the day, not to mention a couple of giant splinters in my right hand from the floorboards.

  Rosie had gone straight back outside with the others but Mavis clung guiltily to my side with her thumb in her mouth.

  ‘What happened, Mavis?’ said Mrs MacIntosh, dabbing my cheek with purple. ‘Did you see? Who started it?’

  But Mavis was too scared to say anything and hung about like one of those hovering bees you only get in the countryside.

  ‘I don’t know what you thought you were doing,’ Mrs MacIntosh went on. ‘You with your mother all on her own trying to make a living. She needs you to be grown up and help. You’re old enough! How old are you?’

  Luckily she didn’t wait for an answer because that jelly freeze thing was happening again. ‘And you, young Ella, you’re definitely old enough. It’s high time your dad came home and gave you a proper leathering. That’d sort you out.’ She carried on like this as she worked, and once she’d finished she gave us all a cup of water and a quarter of bread with dripping. But she never asked Ella or me what had happened, not in the way you have to answer. I mean, it wasn’t me. I’d have told her that if she’d asked me directly. But neither of us dared say a word.

  ‘Ella, get home to your mother and help her with the tea.’

  Ella put her cup on the sink and went to leave. Mrs MacIntosh was busy kennelling the fire so as she passed us Ella slapped me and Mavis on the head before darting out the door. I had more sense than to react.

  ‘How old did you say you were?’ said Mrs MacIntosh.

  ‘T... twelve,’ I said.

  Mrs MacIntosh stood up straight and looked me in the face.

  ‘T... t... twelve,’ I said.

  She had watery grey eyes the same colour as her hair which was mostly stuffed in a hair net.

  ‘Well, you’d better go and sort the mess you made in the room before your mum gets here.’

  The beautiful room was transformed. There were spots of blood on the hearth and our belongings were thrown all over the floor and the bed. Even the papers for the fire were disturbed. THE LEG THAT WOULDN’T HEAL IS WELL AGAIN! declared one sheet, not Italy this time but an ad for ointment. I scrumpled it up and put it in the grate. The neat clothes pile in the corner had been knocked over so I tidied it and added another pile beside it of my own. Mavis tried to help.

  ‘Leave it,’ I snapped. ‘I’ll do it. You’re making it worse.’ I took my workaday dress from her and folded it properly, trembling, and put it in the pile. She backed against the wall.

  Outside, distant in the street, I could hear ‘Charlie Chaplin went to France to teach the ladies how to dance’. I was sore all over and I was fizzing, fuming, furious and ashamed, and scared of what my mum might say or do. But I was more scared of myself, and the possibility of exploding like that again, all those bombs going off inside me, and of the fact that Ella would make sure it happened again and I’d be helpless in the face of her and her army.

  Mavis slipped from the room as if I wouldn’t notice. A triangle of broken mirror sat on the mantelpiece beside Mr Tait’s Bible, the only things undisturbed by the fight. I laid my hand on the Bible and felt my shame all over again, then took the mirror down. I was a strange combination of glowing apple-red cheeks and blue shadows beneath my eyes, red wounds still spilling and bright gentian violet. How could I look for my dad with a face like that? I went to the window to shake my head at myself.

  Mavis was crouched alone in the back court poking at a puddle with a stick. The skirt of her dress dragged in the dirt and she leant her elbow on her knee. My Mavis. There were other people out there, ignoring her at the puddle, and every so often she wiped the bottom of her nose with her hand. Little Mavis. Then she put her thumbs in her ears and her fingers over her head and rocked herself back and forwards. I held my breath, fuming and scared, scared of what my mum would say and scared of Mavis being so miserable, scared of what I’d done.

  None of this would have happened if Mr Tait just hadn’t gone and died like that. I kicked the panelling beneath the window so my foot hurt. How could he? And he must have known. Why didn’t he warn me? Why didn’t he tell me what to do? Why didn’t he tell me about my dad? Somehow, the more I thought about Mr Tait the clearer it became that it was me who started the fight, and I knew that because every time I glanced at Mr Tait’s Bible I was ashamed.

  I gathered up the bloodied clothes and went through to Mrs MacIntosh. Mrs MacIntosh was not slow when she saw an able body.

  ‘There’s a wash-house out the back,’ she said. ‘You’ll need some elbow-grease for that lot.’ She gave me a scrubbing brush and some salt and a tiny piece of soap. ‘Don’t waste it! And seeing as you’re here, Lenny, you can see to the supper. Your time is between five and six this week and it’s nearly that time now. After that you need to skidaddle for the next hour while the Weavers make theirs. Cooking, eating and washing up, all done by six. Got it?’

  I nodded. ‘Wh... when is my mum coming back?’

  ‘Well now, she’s working until five, so she’ll miss part of her dinner hour here. You’d better get started I suppose. Then she’s joining me at the choral at seven. I suppose she’ll be back in between times. If not I’ll see her there. So you better get on with it.’

  Right. I got that. Get on with it. Thanks.

  ‘There’s a box under your bed.’

  What did she mean? I ran back through, excited at what I might find, but the box had a handful of tatties and not much else, no secret letters or photos. I took the tatties to the sink and scrubbed them and put them in a pot. Then I went out the back and found Mavis and even though I was tired and had to
make our dinner I took her through a little hole I found in the back wall and into a lane and we sat there for ages, just the two of us, not even Rosie, and I told her all the stories I could remember about our dad, especially the one about going up in the Kilpatrick Hills behind Clydebank with him for picnics, just him and me. I told her everything I knew all over again about where he might be and I told her about the milking and the café lady and George getting my penny for me and the newspapers in his hut. I made her laugh over Willie pretending about the noises upstairs and the chicken feathers that went everywhere.

  ‘Lenny’s hennys,’ she said.

  ‘Mavis’s schmavises,’ I said, which is what my dad used to say, but she didn’t remember. She really didn’t know much about anything.

  Chapter 18

  I was thoroughly ashamed of myself. I had to make amends. Not to Ella, obviously, but to someone. Mavis, maybe, for scaring her and being a bad example, to my mum for not being there when I was needed, to Mr Tait for letting him down in so many ways I couldn’t bear to think of them, and for being annoyed with him. I didn’t want to be annoyed with Mr Tait. It just kept happening. But as he himself pointed out, sometimes it’s hard to know the difference between good and bad. I was certainly having trouble with knowing right from wrong.

  I brought Mavis in so we could rescue the tatties but Mrs MacIntosh had already saved them. We had made a pact not to talk about our dad to anyone else, not even Rosie, and I knew she would stick to it.

  But I still had to find him because first of all he was our dad, and because secondly some people didn’t have a dad any more and other people had never had one to start off with, like Betty, a girl in my class at Craigton. Then there are people who didn’t want the dad they’d got, like Senga my back-to-front friend whose dad was angry all the time and hit her even when she hadn’t done anything wrong. Lots of dads were being killed in the war too. I knew plenty of people like that and some of them made do with someone else for a dad, like us with Mr Tait. Lots of the dads were away for one reason or another and the ones who were there worked seven days a week so they might as well have been in Timbuktu for all the difference it made. Some people didn’t miss their dad’s, but I missed mine. Or I used to when he first went. I missed him loads then. Then I had Mr Tait instead and it wasn’t as bad, but then he died and I was left with an ache I couldn’t even describe.