Rue End Street

by Sue Reid Sexton

  ‘I thought you were in a hurry,’ she shouted back as the road curved out of sight.

  ‘Coming,’ I said, the urgency having seeped right out of me. The man on the train was watching me. He had stripy arms, not his shirt but the arms themselves, white and red like scars, but blue and green too. He had stopped to watch me and I couldn’t help doing the same. Could it be him?

  ‘Oi!’ he shouted, though the wind took his voice. ‘No minors allowed. Come out of there!’

  So I made a show of moving then hid behind a stack of tree trunks and peered out, but he’d disappeared. I needed to think about Mr Tait again anyway, you see, because even though I’d gathered up all my strength on the hillside, I seemed to have lost it all again already. ‘Oh, Mr Tait, I can’t,’ I whispered.

  I missed him so much. Nothing made sense, and it hurt that, really, there was only me. Me imagining what Mr Tait would say. I felt my mouth quiver and pulled it down tight and tucked my hands into my arm pits. My heart beat hard in my chest and I closed my eyes the better to think.

  This is what he’d say: ‘Save your sadness for later. Where’s your grit, Lenny? That’s what you need right now, grit and bravery, and you have plenty of that. You have to gather up all your strength from the bottom of your boots and go and do what needs done. You’d better get on with it too before Ella finds him first.’

  He was wrong about the boots. I’ve never had boots, only shoes. He always said boots. But he was right about everything else.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Tait,’ I whispered, and I opened my eyes.

  There was a man standing in front of me. I squealed and staggered back against the logs.

  ‘No children,’ he said. It was the man from the paper train. ‘It’s dangerous, chemicals and stuff. Where’s your friend?’

  And then we stared at each other and all the courage and bravery and cleverness and sense drained right back down into my shoes again and I completely forgot to breathe. His arms were stained with dyes and burnt with chemicals and heat so that they were blistered and sore-looking. His hands were the same but leathery, even rougher than before. He held them out to me and when I shifted away from him he put them to his lips as if he was praying, like George before I gave him the money. My eyes suddenly burned and two huge tears escaped down my cheeks. My throat tightened and my head felt suddenly roasting hot. As if to help, the wind tugged at my tammy and I had to grab it to stop it blowing away. Then he put one of his hands on his head and the other on his heart and I saw the skin on his neck was like the chicken I plucked with Willie, which is not how it was before he went away. It made my legs tremble to see it that way and I thought for a minute I might fall over and not be able to stop myself. There was dye on his face too and the hair seemed to have gone from his forehead so that the hand on his head was actually on the skin and not the hair. It was like someone had thrown a bag of flour over him, the way what hair there was had turned grey and straggly, the same colour as his shirt.

  I put out my hand and he took it and I added my other and the hat and he added his other too and we held on tight as if we were drowning in the sea and stared at each other. We were both trembling and squeezing our hands and the tears flowed down my face like rivers. He had no bunnet. He always had a bunnet. Everyone had a bunnet. Why didn’t someone give my dad a bunnet? He drooped, the skin around his eyes hanging loose like an old dog’s and red as if he’d been crying. And then I saw them glisten and felt my face crumple.

  ‘Lenny?’ he said, and at that exact same moment someone else shouted too.

  ‘Lenny!’ yelled a man. ‘Where are you, man? I’m ready with another load here.’

  ‘Coming!’ my dad called back, letting go with one hand. ‘Lenny, what are you doing here?’ Our fingers were twisted together, locked so it felt like I’d never move them. ‘How did you find me? Is your mother with you?’ He looked up and down the lane between the mountains of paper. ‘Where’s Mavis? I can’t believe this!’

  His beautiful voice, like water when you’re thirsty.

  He smiled but his mouth trembled and I knew mine was quivering too.

  ‘No,’ I managed. ‘No-one’s with me.’ He glanced where Ella had disappeared. ‘That’s a friend. Mum’s only got one leg now.’

  ‘Yeah, of course, yeah.’

  He put his hand out to touch my face but I flinched and he stopped and caught his breath.

  ‘Because of the bombing,’ I said, ‘so she couldn’t come. And she’s working.’ I wiped my face quickly with my hat.

  He seemed surprised. ‘Working? I heard she had a new man, that Mr Tait who used to bother her at Singer’s, and you’re all happy.’

  ‘Who told you that?’ I said.

  ‘She did,’ he said.

  ‘She did? How?’ I shook my head. That didn’t make sense. How could she have? ‘But it’s not true. Mr Tait looked after us. He’s our friend, my friend. Was.’

  ‘Was?’

  There was so much to explain but I didn’t want to tell him anything, not about Mr Tait. I wanted to keep it all to myself, the precious truth. I loosened my grip and took my hand back. Then I turned my hat round a few times ready to go on my head. The wind kept flicking my hair in my eyes.

  ‘Mr Tait died,’ I told him, not wanting to, batting my hair away. ‘Last month.’ I bit my lip to stop myself crying again before I went on, and tried to gulp that sadness back for later, and watched the ground. ‘He was very good to us. We were happy. It was him who told me you weren’t missing presumed dead.’

  ‘Good old Mr Tait,’ he said, but not in a way he meant it, as if he didn’t think Mr Tait was to be trusted. But seeing my frown, he added, ‘for taking such good care of you.’

  ‘Well... he did and... . ’ What I wanted to say was and you didn’t but I was too scared. It seemed all wrong. Not fair. But still true.

  ‘I could do with a bit of looking after myself,’ he said. ‘I’m not very good at this job.’ He let out a single laugh, like a donkey, and turned his arms over so I could see the wounds on the inside. ‘I’ve only been here a couple of months. I was better at the last job.’

  ‘Oh no!’ I whispered. It looked so sore. I also nearly said, Well, you should have behaved then and you’d still be there, but I couldn’t.

  ‘Come here, Lenny,’ said Lenny my dad. ‘Let me see you. You’ve grown.’

  ‘Well, what did you expect me to do?’ I said, staying firmly where I was as if I was rooted there, stiff like a tree. ‘I couldn’t sit around waiting for you to come back so I could grow.’ This was the kind of tone I always took with my dad, ‘a bit of banter’ as we called it in Clydebank. But it wasn’t right. It was too close to the truth.

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘I suppose not.’

  We looked at each other for a second, then both glanced away.

  ‘Did you put on the gentian so we’d have matching faces?’ he said, turning back.

  ‘Yeah, and so you’d be the only person who’d recognise me.’

  He let out two donkey honks at that and I laughed a bit too, but I didn’t want to laugh. This wasn’t funny. It was upside down.

  ‘Well, you are a bit long and gangly compared to last time I saw you,’ he said.

  ‘Gangly?’ I said. ‘I’m not gangly.’ He stared at me. I was skinny and tired. ‘I haven’t eaten properly for a fortnight, longer.’ This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, rubbing his forehead. ‘You’re not gangly. You’re like your mum, just younger. You’re going to be a beaut.’

  I felt my eyes narrow like George’s, and like Rosie’s when she was furious. I was thinking about Jeannie. We fell silent a minute. Then I remembered the row there had been last time I saw him and how my gran had insisted we go to Rothesay without him because it was all bought and paid for. He’d been arrested by the time we came back.

  We looked at each other.

  ‘I’m not the best dad in the world,’ he said, in a quiet voice.

  ‘
You’re still my dad,’ I said, softening. ‘I had to find you. Mum won’t even talk about you. I thought you were dead. Mum let me think you were dead.’

  ‘Lenny!’ shouted the other man. ‘What the hell are you doing, man? That’s a mighty long leak you’re taking.’

  ‘Coming, I told you!’ he shouted. ‘I was better at the milking,’ he said, turning back. ‘I’m all burnt to buggery now, me.’

  ‘Why didn’t you come to Rothesay with us?’ I said. Questions I hadn’t thought of until then began flooding my mind. Time was running out. ‘You wouldn’t have been arrested if you’d come to Rothesay with us.’ My heart was in my throat. This other man might take my dad away and I wouldn’t get to ask him anything ever again. This might be the only time I ever had with him.

  ‘Yes, I would,’ he said. ‘They’d have got me sooner or later.’

  ‘Why didn’t you come? What was the row about?’ I stuck my hat back on my head and pulled it right down around my ears.

  ‘What row?’

  ‘Before we went. You sent me and Mavis next door so you and Mum could talk. I heard it through the wall but I can’t remember what it was about.’

  ‘It was probably money, I don’t know. We were always arguing about something. It doesn’t matter.’

  That was when my strength came back to me, flooding up from my pretend boots. I drew in as big a lungful of fresh air as I could manage and then blew it all out again.

  ‘Dad,’ I said, in a voice that meant business. ‘It does matter. That was the last time I saw you. It was the last argument you had with Mum. I don’t believe you can’t remember. And I’ve had enough of grown-ups lying or not telling me the truth. I’m twelve years old. I can milk cows, for heavens sake.’

  ‘Really?’ he said. ‘That was my last job. Did you like it?’

  ‘What? Yes, I liked it. Don’t you think that makes me pretty able? And I can scrub and clean and cook, and look after Mavis and Rosie when Mum’s working, which looks like being all the time from now on. I’m nearly a grown-up myself.’

  ‘Who’s Rosie? Did your mum and Mr Tait have a baby?’

  I gasped. ‘Eh? No!’ I said, glaring at him. He really had no idea. ‘No, not at all. We adopted her, even though we don’t have two brass farthings to rub together. And see this?’ I stuck my hand in my pocket, pulled out the rest of my money and showed it to him. ‘I earned this. I had to. So I could come and find you.’

  He reached out for my hand, a flurry of paper leaves floated between us and I whipped my hand away.

  ‘When you’re bigger you’ll understand all this, Lenny,’ he said. ‘Your mum’ll explain and you’ll see we were just doing our best.’

  ‘Dad, I saw people dying in Clydebank,’ I said. ‘I saw Mum’s leg when it was cut off.’ I paused for a minute. My chest was heaving while all those horrible things came back to me. ‘Mavis saw stuff too in the bombing. We lost her for two weeks and she’s never been the same since. Don’t tell me I’m not old enough. Don’t tell me I can’t understand, like I’m an idiot or something. Tell me what really happened. Give me the truth.’

  He rubbed his forehead and eyed me from beneath his hand, then pulled the top of his ear. ‘You’d just be better hearing it from your mum, you know,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘She’ll tell you what you need to know. She knows better what to say.’

  I shook my head, exasperated. ‘Dad! Why can’t you just tell me what happened before Rothesay?’

  He put his hand to his mouth and blinked at me, and blinked again.

  ‘Alright then,’ I said. ‘If you won’t tell me, I have things to tell you. I went to Helensburgh.’

  He sucked his lips in at that and held his head in his hand.

  ‘I met Rocco.’ I suddenly realised I was trembling again, this time with rage.

  He looked up and smiled. ‘Rocco? Good man!’

  ‘Yeah, Rocco was worried about me going looking for you on my own. He wanted to come with me but the farmer wouldn’t let him. Not even Rocco had the guts to tell me. No. Not even Rocco, even though I think he wanted to. And then I found Jeannie.’ I looked over at my dad who had dipped his head again so I saw dust and filth and scars on the top of his head. I even had time to notice a tiny spider up there. ‘And Bobby.’

  His head fell lower again and then bounced. He patted his chest with his palm then waved both hands in little circles as if to conjure up a reason for it all, and I saw that beneath the grime and the dye and the scars, his hands were the same beautiful sensitive hands that had held my own hands, the same ones he’d stroked my face with when I was wee but which had grown ugly and sore with work.

  ‘He’s so... so like Mavis,’ I said, trying not to cry again but not managing. ‘How could you leave us and make a whole new... ? Why did you do that? How could you do that? How?’ My throat closed up completely and I couldn’t say another word.

  I heard Ella tramping towards us on the muddy path but couldn’t contain my sobs.

  ‘Who’s that?’ said Ella. ‘Is that him?’

  I quickly wiped my eyes with my fingers. She had a man in a boiler suit with her. He was almost as ragged as my dad. I put a hand up to her but couldn’t speak.

  ‘There you are,’ said the man to my dad. ‘We need to get this load done, Lenny. It’ll be dark soon.’

  My dad didn’t answer him. I glanced up at my dad and got a hold of myself so I could go on.

  ‘We didn’t even hear from you after the bombing,’ I said, trying to ignore Ella and the man. ‘We could have died for all you cared.’ The tears ran freely down my face and I swatted them away like flies.

  ‘I didn’t know where you were,’ said my dad with a sideways glance at the others. ‘This is my daughter, Mr Archer,’ he said. ‘Her name’s Lenny, like me, very like me.’

  ‘And what are you, Leonard or Leonardo?’ I said. ‘Are you Italian or British, and does that make me Italian too? And does it really matter? It didn’t matter enough to tell me.’

  The truth is I hadn’t really decided what I wanted to say to my dad because every time I’d tried to think something up, my mind had gone completely blank. Now it was all just tumbling out, one horrible complaint after another, and Ella and this man were standing there hearing it all too, and me weeping like the world would end. My head began to hurt. I rubbed it with my hands.

  ‘Oh my goodness!’ breathed Ella.

  ‘You’ve got five minutes, Lenny,’ said Mr Archer. ‘Make it quick. Come on, lassie, let’s leave them in peace. I said come on.’

  ‘You want me to stay, Lenny?’ said Ella.

  ‘No,’ I growled. ‘No thanks, sorry. No, it’s okay.’

  She wandered off, glancing back every two steps, not wanting to miss anything.

  My dad shifted from foot to foot. ‘He’s a good old boy, Mr Archer,’ he said, ‘but he’s a bloody pest.’

  ‘Why don’t you have a bunnet?’ I said. ‘You always wear a bunnet. Everyone wears a bunnet. If you’d had a bunnet you wouldn’t have burnt the top of your head and there wouldn’t be any blue dye up there.’

  ‘Where?’ he said, feeling with a finger.

  ‘Bend down,’ I said. ‘There and there and there.’ He winced. ‘And there’s lots of green on your ear.’ He obviously still had the habit of turning the top of his ear when he was thinking.

  I was standing close then and could smell him. He smelled like the pub the day before, whisky and men not washing. He smelled like the mill too, sharp and dangerous.

  ‘I dropped my bunnet in the boiler,’ he said, taking my hands, gently this time, in his own. ‘Boil that, I said. No, I didn’t really. It fell in all by itself. The one before that went in the water on the way from Helensburgh. I was in Helensburgh for a while.’

  ‘I know,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah.’ He seemed to find a lot to look at in our hands. I was looking too and you never saw so many ragged bits of dark leathery skin with splodges of bleached white on his, and cuts and scrapes on mine. Har
d-working hands, his, tougher than they’d ever been when he worked in John Brown’s. I ran my fingers over his palms. He let me hold them, trembling a little, strange. They were always busy, always showing you what he was saying, but he’d turned quiet. After a bit, still staring at our hands, he went on.

  ‘Lenny,’ he said, ‘I’d come back, but your mum wouldn’t have me now. Not after, you know...’

  I tried to speak but he stopped me.

  ‘I’d have stayed if they hadn’t arrested me. After that I just had to survive, you know? And now if I put a toe beyond that gate over there they’re going to send me to that prison across the way.’

  ‘What prison across what way?’ I said.

  He turned me round and showed me a dark building further round the hillside. It looked like just another factory to me.

  ‘That one,’ he said. ‘They walk me back to the bothy on a farm up the hill and lock me in at night. There are three of us. I think about you all the time.’

  ‘I know where there’s a job,’ I said. ‘The farmer in Carbeth. His wife’s having a baby and they have too many cows. You could...’

  ‘Lenny, Lenny,’ he said gently, and he tipped my chin up so we could look at each other. We stayed like that for ages. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said at last and looked away. Then he told me again how he could only work in the paper mill and sleep in the bothy and wait for the war to end. I stared at him, trying to decide if he was lying.

  ‘The Italians are our friends.’ I said, wiping my eyes. ‘Mr Tait said so. They’re on our side now. You’re on my side.’ This didn’t sound right. ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘I was always on your side,’ he said. ‘I have to go back to work now though.’

  Mr Archer was shouting for him again. Ella would arrive any minute. She was probably watching us from behind a bale, without even knowing she was behind a bale.