Rue End Street

by Sue Reid Sexton

  ‘Here’s George coming,’ she said.

  I had thought George was her husband, but of course I was wrong, again. It took me a moment to realise it was my George, Bad George of Carbeth, originally from Clydebank, who I had inadvertently knocked into the canal the night of the bombing. He perched on the doorstep and dripped from the top of Mr Tait’s hat, from the sleeves of his own jacket and from the cuffs of his working trousers, as if he’d fallen in again.

  ‘There you are,’ he said, and he put his two hands on his head as if his hat had been about to fly off and let out a huge sigh. ‘At last! Thank God for that.’

  ‘Why are you here?’ I said. ‘I don’t understand.’ The tears started. ‘I want to go home. Where are Mavis and Rosie? I don’t understand.’

  Rita put her arms out and I let myself be wrapped in them.

  ‘I’ve been looking all over the shop for you,’ said George.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I wailed. ‘Where’s Mavis? How did you find me?’

  ‘Jeez, Lenny, you’re a mess. Why did you have to go traipsing about the countryside? And no, I didn’t bring Mavis. Why would I bring Mavis? That would have been crazy.’

  I didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed. She was safe at home, so was Rosie. ‘But I heard her,’ I said. ‘I don’t know. I thought I heard them. I was looking for my dad. I want to go home now. I want to go to Carbeth. I don’t want to find my dad now, not any more.’

  ‘Why didn’t you just ask your mum about him like I did?’

  Perhaps it was the red scarf catching the light from Rita’s torch, which seemed to be swinging about, up and down the close sides and sliding across the floor, but suddenly I saw red everywhere, as if it was raining red in the close. I broke from Rita.

  ‘What exactly did my mum tell you?’ I said, shaking the rats’ tails out of my face.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said, shifting his weight against the doorway, ‘except he might be in Helensburgh. Don’t be angry. I came all the way here to find you. Mr Tait told me to keep an eye on you, didn’t he? You know he did.’

  That’s when I fell to pieces, or at least fell down. I had this strange hot cold feeling up my back and neck and into the top of my brain. George and Rita disappeared into the darkness and the ground came up and struck me on the head. When I came to, George had gone and I was sitting on the bottom step of the close stairs leaning on Rita. Some light was escaping from the window over the road. The rain was vertical, the kind you know will last forever.

  ‘There you are,’ she said. ‘Poor baby. George has gone to get you tea from the mission.’ She stroked at her red scarf which was wrapped around my shoulders. Her lips were red again too. ‘Shouldn’t be long.’

  ‘What happened?’ I shivered. I was cold, so cold, and heavy.

  ‘You passed out completely. Went down like a ton of bricks. When did you last eat?’

  ‘I had soup and a sausage with Mrs Brindle,’ I said. I wiped my tears with my fingers and felt new hot ones form.

  ‘He’ll be here soon.’

  George came with tea and fish paste sandwiches.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, with a sniff. ‘Thank you, George.’ Words I never thought I’d say to him. I started on the sandwiches, but it was hard because my nose kept running and a lump had formed in my throat.

  ‘Right,’ said Rita, propping me against the wall so she could stand. ‘That’s me away. You stay out of trouble, young lady, and go home safely with your brother, George. You can come back another day for your dad.’

  ‘He’s not my brother,’ I said between sniffs.

  ‘No?’ she said. ‘Who is he then?’ She unwound her scarf from my shoulders.

  ‘He’s George,’ I said stupidly, nibbling a sandwich.

  ‘We’re old friends,’ said George, laughing. He looked down at me and smiled.

  ‘Enemies actually,’ I said with a sob.

  ‘Well, he seems like a good sort of enemy to me,’ said Rita. ‘He’s probably lost his job because of you.’

  ‘Oh no! Has he?’ I said. I put the sandwich down on my knee and wiped both eyes at the same time.

  ‘Maybe,’ said George. ‘But it doesn’t matter.’ He crouched in front of me. ‘Mr Tait told me to look after you and that comes first.’ He squeezed my shoulder.

  ‘Oh no!’ I wailed. ‘I don’t need looking after,’ I said weakly, and made a show of trying to shrug him off.

  ‘Um, actually you do. George, make sure you do it,’ said Rita. ‘And get her home.’

  She moved to leave but I held on to her coat.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Don’t go, please.’

  ‘Listen love, I’ve got to go,’ she said, catching my sandwich as it fell. ‘I’ve missed half a night’s work already.’

  Then she wiped my cheek and kissed my head, gave me a hug that didn’t smell good, got up and left.

  I watched her disappear into the darkness and suddenly felt colder than ever.

  But she came back.

  ‘You’d better have this,’ she said. ‘Sorry, but nobody knew him.’ She handed me the little photograph of my dad.

  ‘Oh my goodness!’ I said. ‘Thank you!’ It had a corner missing and the stripes of a boot on the back of it. I pressed him against my lips for a second, then wailed, ‘I don’t know what to do!’

  George shifted over onto the step beside me where Rita had been. He put an arm round me and waited for me to stop shaking. When I looked again, Rita was gone.

  Chapter 26

  While I ate the fish paste sandwiches, George told me how he’d got there.

  Mavis told Rosie where I’d gone, silly billy, so Rosie said to Mrs MacIntosh in the kitchen that I’d gone to find my dad. When my mum came home, Mrs MacIntosh told my mum and she went to find George at the workers’ hostel he was in. George was having his dinner but he promised my mum he’d find me no matter what. And then she went home happy. So he says. I doubt it. She must have been worried sick. Anyway then he went to work.

  ‘I thought your job was at John Brown’s,’ I said.

  ‘It is,’ he said. ‘But some nights I’m a river patrol cadet too. Mr Tait got me started. The captain’s a friend of his.’

  ‘River patrol? What’s that?’ I said. He had given me his wet cap to wear, which was really Mr Tait’s, because mine was sodden and we were walking back towards the dock with the teacup he’d brought my tea in.

  ‘We go up and down the river checking for Germans and strange goings on. We only go as far as Bowling usually but I got them to pass me on to the crew for the next bit of the river and they dropped me at the pier at Craigendoran.’

  At Craigendoran he heard there had been a stowaway and what she’d looked like and how the whole afternoon’s schedule had been messed up because of her.

  ‘And I thought, that’s my Lenny!’ he said.

  And I said, ‘I’m not your Lenny. I’m not anybody’s Lenny.’ Except Mavis, Mum and Rosie’s. And Mr Tait’s, of course, even if he did get George an exciting job on the river.

  ‘That’s not what I meant,’ said George, with a sigh. ‘Anyway, the patrol boat took me to Greenock, to here. Exactly here,’ he said, pointing at a gap between ships at the pier side where we’d just arrived.

  So George asked questions and generally followed his nose and, like me, wound up on Rue End Street in Rita’s bar, the Lomond Bar. He asked there if anyone had seen a girl of twelve with dark hair and purple gentian violet all over her face and they said yes.

  George then tried to order a drink at the bar to celebrate but the barman said it wasn’t a nursery.

  ‘Cheeky bastard!’ said George. ‘There’s a war on, doesn’t he know? Things are different now. I’m a man, working and everything.’

  I bit my lip. He had, after all, rescued me, so for the time being it seemed only fair to give him peace.

  Then Rita had appeared and told him about the photograph and the whole pub was in an uproar trying to find the photo of my dad. Somebody’
s pint got knocked over and another man’s went missing and there was nearly a fight. George told me Rita felt guilty that she hadn’t brought it straight back so she offered to help look for me. Then they bumped into the minister in the blackout, literally.

  I began to shake just thinking about the minister.

  ‘Any luck tonight?’ Rita had said.

  ‘There is no such thing as luck,’ replied the reverend, ‘only God’s will.’

  ‘And?’ said Rita.

  God had indeed brought the minister a lost soul.

  ‘How lost?’ said Rita.

  The minister told them and offered to save Rita’s soul too.

  ‘My soul is safe, thank you, Reverend,’ said Rita, and they watched him disappear into the dark heart of the Rue End.

  So George had also been there when Rita called in at the church.

  George and I stumbled along the shadowy quayside where a line of ships lay in darkness and there were plenty of things to trip over. He had me by the arm and was steering me along. Ordinarily I’d have told him to get off but for once he seemed to know what he was doing and I was too tired to argue.

  ‘Where d’you think you’re going?’ said a voice. A face flashed in the beam of a torch, then vanished, a soldier. The light stole swiftly across our own two faces and died again.

  ‘I found a fugitive,’ said George. ‘She stowed away on the Lucy Ashton this afternoon.’

  ‘George!’ I complained, but he squeezed my arm so it hurt.

  ‘Aye, right! That’s only a girl,’ said the man.

  ‘You mean you didn’t hear the story? I’m taking her back to the ship,’ said George.

  ‘Yeah I did, but the Lucy Ashton went ages ago,’ said the man, ‘and no thanks to her.’

  ‘The police, I mean, at the station on Princes Pier,’ said George, and he pinched me.

  ‘Ow! No you’re not!’ I said, right on cue and yanked at his grip on my arm.

  ‘Hmm,’ said the man. ‘Alright, on your way, then, get a move on.’

  So on our way we went and after a couple of steps George loosened his grip.

  ‘You didn’t have to hang on so tight,’ I said, shrugging him off. ‘It’s not like I don’t have enough bruises already.’

  ‘You’re not supposed to be here at all,’ he hissed back and let go of me. Then he went on ahead and I fell head over heels on a pile of rope.

  George came to a halt and laughed like he’d never stop. I was so tired I stayed there on the ropes and rubbed all my sore bits and wanted to die or at least sleep. But when I didn’t get up or shout or laugh, he fell silent.

  ‘You alright?’ he said. ‘Lenny? Where are you?’

  I sank down into the ropes but they creaked and gave me away.

  ‘I’m going over there to the mission to give this cup back,’ he said somewhere in the dark. ‘Just watch out for the rats.’

  ‘Wait! I’m coming with you!’ I said and hurried after him.

  Then we were at a door. He pushed it open without waiting and suddenly we were in a warm bright place with steam billowing out of a huge shiny boiler on a counter. A lady was behind it and the rest of the big low-ceilinged room was full of tables with people sitting at them having tea and sandwiches and soup and smoking. There was a steady murmur of voices.

  ‘Here’s your cup back,’ said George, landing it on the counter.

  ‘So this is her?’ said the WVS lady, raising an eyebrow. She leant across the counter at me and I noticed a crumb on her top lip. ‘Bit of a mess, aren’t you darling? What happened to you?’

  ‘She got pulled in by a minister up on the Rue End,’ said George, and he started explaining everything all over again.

  I looked about the room and wondered if my dad had ever been there, or if he was there right then. It was mostly men in working clothes and a few in uniforms.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I said, interrupting George and his long showy-off explanation. ‘Have you ever seen this man?’ I held up the photo for the lady to see but kept a firm grip on the corner so she couldn’t take it away.

  ‘What on earth did you do to your hand?’ she exclaimed. ‘Let me see.’ She looked it over, completely ignoring the photo. ‘And the other one.’

  ‘I had a fight with a few walls,’ I said, with a sniff, as if to say, ‘Haven’t we all?’ Everyone bumped into things all the time in the blackout. Some people even got killed bumping into cars, or rather cars bumping into them.

  ‘Dearie me!’ said the lady, rubbing her nose and knocking the crumb off her lip in the process. ‘And what about your face?’

  ‘She had a fight with a girl instead of a wall,’ said George.

  ‘Oh,’ said the lady. ‘Well, that’s not so good. Fighting’s not very ladylike you know.’

  Yes, I did know that, I wanted to say, and also, but you would not believe what’s been happening.

  She put a giant lid on a pot on the stove beside her, leant across the counter and took my hand in hers. ‘Ouch!’ she said. ‘Come round to the sink.’ And without letting go of me she led me along the counter and in behind to a big china sink.

  ‘So have you seen my dad?’ I said.

  ‘Yes, probably,’ she said. ‘I’ve seen everyone else’s dad.’

  She looked down at me and we both burst out laughing. I stopped when she turned on the tap and stuck my hand underneath it. She scrubbed off the blood and dirt that the rain hadn’t removed as if she was cleaning carrots. It hurt like nobody’s business. Then she took a dish towel and wrapped it round them so they were tied together and told me to go and sit with my big brother (‘He’s not my brother!’) and she’d bring me soup and I could think about how I was going to get home.

  George said the patrol boat would be back about half one in the morning. A big old clock the size of the moon said it was half past midnight, so there was no rush.

  I told him I wasn’t going.

  ‘Not going?’ he said, and the soldiers at the next table turned to look.

  ‘I’ve nearly found my dad,’ I said.

  ‘No, you haven’t!’

  ‘Yes, I have,’ I said.

  The room went quiet.

  ‘No, Lenny, you haven’t. You haven’t a clue where he is.’ He tapped the salt cellar three times on the table.

  ‘Yes, I do. I know where to look, anyway,’ I said. ‘And I know where not to go.’

  The lady brought the soup. ‘No squabbling, children,’ she said. This cheered me up, George being called a child.

  George scowled, sat up in his chair and threw an arm over the back. Then, without looking, he lifted the mug of tea she had brought him and took a drink. I could tell by the colour of his face and the way he sucked air, he had burnt his tongue. Then he turned slowly towards me and his eyes had gone small in the way that always scared me.

  ‘I didn’t have to come here,’ he said, under his breath so nobody could hear. ‘I didn’t have to chase around all over bloody Greenock in the bloody rain for an ungrateful little runt like you. I could have stayed at home in bed.’

  ‘I thought you were working on the patrol thing, on the river,’ I hissed back. ‘You’re skiving from work.’

  ‘I’m not. This isn’t my night. I just hitched a lift. I’m working in John Brown’s at eight in the morning.’

  ‘You still didn’t need to come.’ I didn’t feel good saying this and it wasn’t how I felt either. I was so pleased he was there I could almost have hugged him, if he hadn’t been George. But he was George and I had to remind myself how insanely nasty he was capable of being.

  ‘You’d still be in that close if it wasn’t for me,’ he said. ‘You can’t look after yourself even for a day. Pah! I should never have said yes to Mr Tait. I should have said, there’s no stopping that one, no looking after a nutcase like that.’ He drew in a great sniff, crossed his legs and turned away from me.

  I took a spoonful of soup and felt the flavour spread round my mouth. It was such a delicious feeling, so much better than M
rs Brindle’s, that I had to close my eyes and follow the sensation as it moved down my throat and into my stomach. I went back for another mouthful.

  ‘You’re coming with me whether you like it or not,’ he said. His eyes were so narrow I could hardly see the glint in them.

  I went back to my soup and thought about my friend Mr Tulloch who always said I should have a plan. The trouble is my plans so often go astray.

  Exhausted though I was, scared and sore though I was, I knew it just didn’t make sense to go home. Home was a long way away, all the way back to Clydebank and over the hill to Carbeth, and anyway, I knew it wasn’t home any more, even though it felt like it. Mum and Mavis and Rosie were my home, but George could take a message to them and I could stay and find my dad. Surely they’d understand that? George must understand, didn’t he? I’d only have to come back again anyway and I could stay and help the mission ladies and maybe they’d let me have a little sleep in the corner for my trouble. Nobody would mind.

  I yawned. The soup seemed to be that kind of soup, the kind that made you sleepy.

  ‘Come on, let’s go,’ he said as soon as I’d put down my spoon.

  ‘George,’ I said. ‘Thank you for coming here for me.’

  His eyebrows slid down.

  ‘No, really,’ I said. ‘Really honestly. If you and Rita hadn’t rescued me I’d still be in that close, frozen to death or maybe the minister would have found me again.’

  He looked at me sideways.

  ‘And, um, I made a friend on my way there.’

  He nodded in that here-it-comes way.

  ‘You’re coming home,’ he said, and stood up.

  ‘I’m not,’ I said, and I stood up too.

  We glared at each other. The soldiers at the next table stopped talking again to look.

  ‘Why don’t you ever do what you’re supposed to do?’ he growled.

  ‘Did you know my dad was in Helensburgh?’ I said.

  ‘Not until today,’ he said.

  ‘Did you know about Bobby?’ I said, lowering my voice.

  ‘Bobby?’

  ‘My wee brother,’ I said, even quieter. This was the strangest thing I’d said in a while and it shut me up for all of ten seconds while I fiddled with my fingers.