Rue End Street

by Sue Reid Sexton

  But Mr Tait wasn’t there to rescue me. It was down to me, so I asked him silently what to do, but there was no answer.

  Mrs Brindle stood up and something heavy in her long apron clunked against my knee. The tables were cleared into another room and pulled against a wall. Mattresses appeared from nowhere. Mrs Brindle sat me and my chair by a barrel stove in the corner and directed proceedings in shrill decisive bursts. I held my hands to the heat and positively squirmed with pleasure. Then she brought a bowl of warm water and sat down with a vague smile opposite me to clean my face.

  The door upstairs sounded just as she began. Mrs Brindle leant into the bottom of her apron, pulled out a gigantic key and headed up the stairs, stopping midway to turn back and pierce me with her eyes. I moved swiftly and smoothly out of the chair, grabbed my coat and, glancing back once at Brother Andrew, tiptoed up the stairs. The cool air from outside swept over me. The front door was open and I heard Mrs Brindle and a lady.

  ‘She’s looking for her dad,’ said the lady.

  ‘What does any of this have to do with you?’ said Mrs Brindle sharply.

  ‘I was helping her, but I got a bit of business,’ said the lady.

  ‘I’m sure you got a bit of business. You should repent, Rita, before you’re killed in a bombing raid and go straight to hell.’

  There was a pause before Rita went on. ‘We’re all trying to survive, Mrs Brindle. I got a customer and when I came out she was gone. I wasn’t away long. I’m guessing your friend the minister got her.’

  ‘Rescued her, and just in time, by the sound of it.’

  ‘What if she wasn’t lost? What if she is just looking for her dad?’

  From the top step I could see the gap in the door and guessed who was beyond it.

  ‘Probably a different child anyway. Goodbye, Rita,’ said Mrs Brindle.

  The door boomed shut. I launched myself towards it. ‘I’m here!’ I yelled. ‘Get me out!’

  But the scrape of the key told me all was lost so I ran back downstairs and threw myself onto the chair as quick as a flash.

  ‘Wash then bed,’ said Mrs Brindle with a glare.

  The long white apron swung with the means of my salvation. Brother Andrew stared at me from a mattress, pointed first to me, then to himself and then up the stairs, then abruptly closed his eyes.

  ‘What are you waiting for?’ said Mrs Brindle in a voice like a machine gun. ‘Ungrateful besom.’

  I put my coat back over the chair and dabbed at my face with a cloth that was floating in the water. Mrs Brindle stood over me then handed me a tiny towel. I followed her to a bench beside a large wooden rocking chair. She handed me a blanket and pointed at the bench, then set a single candle high up on a shelf and turned off the electric light. She pulled a thick woollen shawl around herself in the rocking chair. Unbelievably, I fell straight to sleep, deep impenetrable sleep, so exhausted I was.

  It seemed no time had passed when I was startled by Brother Andrew. ‘Wake up!’ he whispered urgently in my ear. Mrs Brindle responded with a loud snore. Andrew put a finger to his lips and showed me a giant key. The bench creaked under me in complaint. We stole up the stairs taking the candle with us and had just made it to the door when a great boom-boomboom sounded on it.

  ‘Mrs Brindle!’ came the unmistakable voice of the minister. ‘Your light is showing. How many times must I tell you?’ The snoring stopped.

  I held the candle for Andrew until we’d found the keyhole. He put the key in the lock then looked at me and held up three fingers, one after the other. Downstairs, James began to bawl. Mrs Brindle’s footsteps beat the stairs.

  ‘One, two three, go, okay?’ said Andrew. I nodded.

  ‘Come on woman, what’s keeping you?’ bellowed the minister through the door.

  ‘What do you think you’re playing at?’ said Mrs Brindle arriving at the top of the stairs.

  Andrew dropped the candle, which went out instantly, and said his, ‘One-two-three-GO!’ The key ground in the lock, the door creaked open. ‘Run!’ he yelled. ‘Go on.’

  The colossal minister filled the door. I crouched low and scooted past and, thinking I was safe, turned for Andrew, but instead found the minister. Mrs Brindle shouted, Andrew screamed and then a roar from the docks shook the ground underneath us.

  The minister had me by the shoulder.

  ‘The devil will not get you,’ he growled at me.

  There was the tiniest pause of peculiarly complete silence.

  Then all the bombs inside me went off at once.

  ‘NO!’ I yelled.

  I can only tell you I made contact with his jaw because the rest of it’s a blur, but my fight with Ella pales in comparison. My fist cracked against his face and a pain shot up my arm, but that’s all I remember. And his yelp of shock. And my own cries as soon as the darkness fell. The moment I was free of him I stumbled into the night streets waving my arms until they hit a wall, and the rest of me soon after, then slid quickly along it until it ran out and I turned a corner.

  The devil was not going to have me.

  ‘Lord save me!’ wailed the minister somewhere far behind. I heard him moan in agony, then Mrs Brindle shouting for Andrew, then there was quiet except for my own extremely heavy breathing.

  Chapter 25

  As if I’d been infected by the minister’s religious excitement, I started muttering ‘oh God, oh God’ over and over, and shivered as though I was freezing cold, which I definitely wasn’t, thanks to my exertions. But then suddenly I was. And then, immediately afterwards, I wasn’t again. My whole body didn’t seem to know what it was doing.

  The boom of the church door shutting rang out through the night. I listened for footsteps behind me and dragged my shoulder along the wall, walking my hands across the surface as fast as I was able until I heard a whistle. It was too cheerful to be the minister, but I flattened myself against the wall anyway and hoped I wouldn’t be seen.

  ‘Andrew?’ I whispered.

  ‘Evening!’ said a cheery voice. I made out a soldier’s uniform, the whistle started up again, the footsteps passed and fell in time with the whistle and then faded down the road.

  A thunderous groan sounded from the shipyards and sent shudders up the wall and through my back. Don’t panic, I told myself as I sank to a crouch and willed my heart to stop thumping so I could think something sensible and get my bearings.

  The air was suddenly full of roaring engines and the bang of riveters, and their noise seemed to rise and rise. These were the reassuring sounds of my life in Clydebank: shipyards and docks, factories and motors, men shouting instructions, not threatening but business-like, containers landing on the quayside with supplies for hungry Britain, goods trains whistling their approach, thundering their departure. All strangely comforting, and they worked through the night because of the war.

  So I stayed on my hunkers for ages until my heart slowed. A motor car crept past, honking a warning. A street sign flashed: Rue End Street, exactly where I shouldn’t be. The last train was gone and I’d never find Mrs Strachan in the dark. What on earth to do?

  My neck and mouth were tender, my arm hurt and my hands were ragged from the walls. In fact most of me hurt in one way or another, and when I tried to stand, I found my legs had gone so entirely to sleep that pains began to shoot up my legs as the blood rushed back in.

  People approached, shadows in the blackout.

  ‘Can’t see a damn thing here,’ said a man.

  ‘Excuse you, mate. Watch where you’re putting your feet, bloody great clod-hoppers you’ve got, if you don’t mind my saying so.’

  ‘Ouch, that’s a wall! I’m sure that never used to be there.’

  It was such a relief to hear someone giggling I almost joined in. They passed without seeing me.

  Their laughter rang against the walls, a metal shaft squealed through a stirrup and light flared from a doorway allowing their silhouettes to slip through. The door clanged shut, leaving me in darkness but with
a better idea of where I was.

  There were no more train whistles up the hill, only the trundle of goods trains beyond the shipyard door and a tram which came humming round a corner and cut straight across the road a little further on, dinging its bell. I waited until it had passed then sneaked over the road and into a shop doorway. I needed a place to spend the night, somewhere I could be safe. I was utterly dog-tired, but scared to sleep in case anything happened. The doorway was smelly, like old cabbage and cludgies, but deep enough to hide in and be safe from the weather and any prying eyes. I crouched down, pulled my hat over my ears and held my nose until I couldn’t any more.

  But then I heard a voice I knew.

  ‘You’ll have to take me to the doctor, Mrs Brindle. The little devil’s broken my jaw.’

  ‘Are you sure it was the girl who hit you? Not Brother Andrew?’ said Mrs Brindle.

  ‘As God’s my witness,’ replied the minister. ‘There’s nothing so shocking as a child full of the devil.’

  ‘Yes, Reverend, but I do believe there’s very little can be done for a sore jaw, and the poor doctor’s so busy with the men.’

  ‘Are you a doctor now yourself, Mrs Brindle, that you know so much? May God forgive your immodesty.’

  I crouched as still as still, hoping they wouldn’t look my way, but Mrs Brindle had a small torch with her.

  ‘Take the paper off that torch Mrs Brindle,’ said the reverend, ‘so we can see what we’re doing here. I’ve already been caused enough harm tonight.’

  ‘Well, Reverend, I don’t think that would be wise. Mr Jackson the ARP is very strict and...’

  ‘Mrs Brindle, have you forgotten you are doing God’s work?’ he said. ‘Give me God’s torch immediately.’

  There was that Miss Weatherbeaten word again: immediately. I wondered if the minister and Miss Weatherbeaten were related.

  The paper was for the blackout, to dim the torch. Everyone had to do it. I heard it scrunch and held my breath, but the beam went the other way. They were on a corner, a few feet away, but not facing me. I was dizzy trying not to breathe before they’d gone far enough not to hear me.

  The rain was hanging in the air. I saw it in the shaded lights of a tram which tinkled towards me out of the darkness then faded into the night. I pushed back into the doorway and drew my coat around me. An old newspaper had been blown into the corner, not too damp. I could just make out GIRLS SET TOWN A PROBLEM. It should have been the other way round: TOWN SETS GIRL MANY PROBLEMS. I pulled the paper over my head and leant into the corner of the doorway. Stupid, that’s what I was, for not listening to Mr Tulloch. Really it was all my own fault.

  But sleep was impossible. It was noisy and I was too cold, too wet and too sore and my head was buzzing like a motor car, wondering how I’d got into such a mess. The docks went clatter-bang and the newspaper fell into the puddle beside me. Men were shouting, then their voices faded. A motor started, thrumming the air. Footsteps sounded on the road. The glow of a cigarette moved through the wet night then vanished. Someone muttered curses. Then, in a sudden burst, hurried footsteps drummed out and a man rushed past, then another, until suddenly one long scream rent the air and someone else yelled ‘There they go! Over here!’ and hundreds of pairs of feet thundered by. A lady suddenly appeared in my doorway, sheltering but not from the rain, gasping as if she’d been running. She didn’t see me. A motor car shooshed on the road slower than you’d walk, its dimmed beam picking out the lady’s legs, and a doorway opposite where two people huddled. Then darkness fell again and the lady left.

  I ached for home, for my family, and was woozy with exhaustion. In my drowsiness I heard someone call my name. I tried to stand, but my legs were dead with sleep again and I my head light and dizzy. I gave my legs a shake and peered out and heard it again, my name, but from a different direction, which scared me awake: I was losing my senses. The next time it was high, quite shrill, and I realised it wasn’t inside my head at all. I considered the ridiculous possibility that Mavis and Rosie had tracked me down all the way to Greenock.

  ‘Mavis?’ I said, willing my eyes to see, my ears to hear. ‘Hello? Rosie? Are you there?’

  The street was not empty, but I could only make out shadows of movement. No-one came to me or called again and I couldn’t shout for fear of the minister. Perhaps I had imagined it, after all, just a cruel trick of my brain. Oh, how I needed Mr Tait. I stumbled back into the doorway and blinked and I thought I’d die of misery instead of cold. I was just about to risk it and shout when the minister and Mrs Brindle came by with their torch.

  ‘What kind of doctor is he?’ said the minister in tones of amazement. ‘A man has his jaw broken and he’s sent home by the doctor’s wife? Without even talking to the doctor? There will be words. I shall write to the... . ’ But I didn’t catch who he’d write to because they were passing right in front of me and Mrs Brindle had me in her beady eye. I saw both her beady eyes in fact, which were glinting under her hat, but only for a split second, during which my heart practically leapt up through my throat and out my mouth. Luckily the minister was oblivious.

  ‘Silly child,’ she said and continued up the street. ‘That’s one little lost lamb we can forget about.’

  I did an inward somersault for joy and whispered a secret thanks, but kept very quiet and extremely still.

  ‘The devil will look after his own,’ replied the minister before vanishing into the night.

  So I had to wait and not call out for Mavis and Rosie and started walking the other way. After feeling my way along a wall, I found the great gap of a close mouth between two shops and decided to go in and hide. It was time to shout as loud as I could.

  ‘Mavis! Rosie!’ I called. ‘Mum!’ I hung in the shadows. ‘I’m here! It’s me!’ I shouted for ages but no-one came and after about five minutes a door suddenly opened upstairs in the close and someone yelled down at me.

  ‘They’re not bloody here! Go and shout in your own close!’ Then they mimicked me: ‘Mavis, Rosie, Mum!

  ... . Go home. Bloody young ’uns!’

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, wishing I could go home. ‘It’s just...’ But there was no point. The door slammed.

  I felt my way along the street and continued calling, but no-one answered and suddenly I couldn’t bear my own voice any more, or the silence that followed, and I came to the conclusion that I must have imagined them after all, which seemed so cruel, for my own brain to play tricks on me. I was suddenly utterly bereft and lost and plumped down on a doorstep and sobbed and shook, and then, just when I didn’t think things could get any worse, I remembered little Bobby and the blob of spit, and then the things I’d seen during the bombing and which I shouldn’t have looked at because I’d been told not to. These things used to haunt me like ghosts for weeks and months afterwards and make me jump, as if they’d come out of the dark and gone ‘boo!’ So all I could do on that doorstep was curl myself tight in a coalbunker door and cry and long for Mr Tait.

  I forgot about my dad completely: what did he matter? I felt like a bruise throbbing, hurting inside and out, and that nothing could ever make the hurt go away. Mr Tait couldn’t save me in that strange dark town bristling with things that weren’t there and scary people who were. This fact was like those walls I kept bumping into: solid, hard, cold and utterly immovable.

  I was so busy crying I didn’t hear the footsteps until they were already at the close. I scuttled backwards out of sight.

  ‘Lenny?’ she said. ‘Is that you?’

  I kept back, not understanding. I knew that voice but in my confusion couldn’t remember who it was.

  A torch clicked on then swooped in at me. The light made my eyes hurt and I held my arm as a shield.

  ‘Oh my God, look at you, you poor darling! It is you. You’re a bag of rags.’ She came towards me as I backed away along the floor. ‘It’s me, Rita, remember?’ she said. ‘Don’t be scared. Look.’ She threw the beam in her own face. ‘Outside the Lomond Bar? What happened? Wha
t did he do to you? Don’t worry, I won’t touch you.’

  I could barely see her through my tears. Suddenly she got up and shouted out the close door.

  ‘George! I found her! Over here. I’m in here. George? Where are you? Number... there’s no number on this.’

  I wiped my nose on my sleeve, both sleeves in fact, and got up on my knees and shook myself to stop trembling. Rita vanished as suddenly as she’d arrived, but reappeared almost immediately to tell me to stay where I was before disappearing into the night again, taking her torch with her.

  Had I imagined her too?

  I wasn’t used to crying like a baby. I didn’t want to. I had to stop. We all had to be strong. There was a war on after all, as everyone was forever saying. We couldn’t allow ourselves to go to pieces, my mum said so. Miss Read said so. The government said so. They couldn’t all be wrong. I tried.

  But Mr Tait never said that. He was always kind after the bombing, and he let me cry and listened when I was worried, and was quick with his big white handkerchiefs. I wobbled upright, straight and tall, wiped my nose and my eyes with the other side of my sleeves, and when Rita came back I tried hard to smile. She was a grown-up. She wouldn’t understand. But I couldn’t smile, no matter what, I couldn’t.

  ‘George’ll be here in a minute,’ she said. ‘What happened? How did you get out of the crypt? That was clever. You gave the old rev quite an eye too.’

  She unwound the scarf from her neck, handed it to me and indicated my face.

  ‘I thought it was his jaw,’ I said. I mopped my face, noticing the perfume on the scarf.

  ‘Maybe you got both,’ she said. ‘Well done. He’s a nasty piece of work.’ She glanced away and blew raspberries. ‘You can blow your nose on that thing too if you want.’

  This seemed rude and ungrateful but she insisted, so I blew and wiped and cleaned myself up, and finally she took a dry corner of the scarf and rubbed my hair with it and I stood straight and let her.